This morning, the whole family rose to watch the Shuttle land. Nearly needless to say, this isn’t something we normally do. Space exploration isn’t the typical breakfast table discussion, but this time, we all have opinions about the direction NASA should take and how best to allocate funding. And when the Shuttle touched down at last, I found to my surprise that my eyes were moist.

I don't think this is morbid. I think this is a reflection of how much space matters to some of us:

Amygdala points us to this brilliant short. Mr Farber adds, eloquently,

" This is us. This is who we are. This is what we must do. "

Now if we could just save the Hubble.

We’ve gone on the summer swing through the houses of the in-laws.

There are things you don’t expect to hear in Lancaster County, Pee-Ay – a red, red, red district. As we dashed through a supermarket (looking for ice cream sandwiches; a necessity of which we were short), the music blaring over the PA was “American Woman” followed by “War”.

Two guys watching a television in hopes that a ballgame will soon appear:

" Hey, that’s an ad for March of the Penguins. "

" What is a 'march of the penguins' ? "

" It’s that movie everyone is saying is about penguins. "

" Looks like truth in advertising then. "

I don’t care for the murderous and cruel, those who call down the locusts on their own people, those who build themselves a palace on piles of corpses. John Garang was unquestionably a brilliant man, smart, charismatic, a strong leader. But to what end? In all his years as a freedom fighter what did he give back to his people?

Early in my career, I asked a colleague with decades of professional experience in the Horn of Africa about John Garang: why a man with all his gifts, a man who could be a success anywhere and at anything, a man with all the choices in the world would choose unending war. My friend gestured expansively, sweeping his hand to include the dusty, rutted track; the dirty, fly-tormented children; the bent women scratching at a parched field; the young man hopping about on one leg, barefoot and without a crutch; the men old too soon lying drunk and passed out in the ditch . . .

“What? And give up all this?”

Garang liked to invite visitors – the aid workers and diplomats and military advisors – to his villa. Many people I know enjoyed a dinner with Garang and his wife. Garang never failed to turn on the charm at these parties. My colleagues always came away impressed with his “genuine” interest in the difficulties faced by humanitarian workers; his “real” concern for the plight of his people and their development; his “unfeigned” commitment to human rights and a better tomorrow for all Sudanese.

Most of them eventually got over their hangovers. I hope Sudan does too.

The last post at this blog was a hope for Sudan, quoting John Garang’s own hopes.

Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and, until recently, chief rebel against the government in Khartoum, died over the weekend in a helicopter crash. Sudan has been moving toward a peace between North and South and Garang had just been appointed Vice President as a part of the deal.

Whenever a leader passes from the scene, especially someone with the force of personality Garang had, it is tempting to assume that their initiatives will die along with them. In that case, the war might continue. But in this, the peace rests on two pillars that have little do with the personalities involved: first, the Sudanese are tired of war and especially this war between North and South; and second, they can’t begin pumping out all that oil until the war ends.

It is true that there are vested interests lined up in favor of the conflict, both in the North and in the South, but those lined up for an end to the conflict might this time be stronger.

Perhaps Sudan really will “never be the same again”.