Einstein: Looking Beyond the Hair

There are few people in history who have had the ability to view the world in a different light; to see the workings of nature and humanity with imagination and wonder. Albert Einstein was one of those people. I know what you’re thinking: he’s the really smart guy who looks like he stuck his finger in a light socket, right? Yes, that’s the one. Sure he had scraggly white hair and an absent-minded brilliance that would put any modern day physicist to shame, but if you take the time to read about the life of Einstein you will learn that that he was actually a lot like you and I.

Einstein once said, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” It is this curiosity that allowed him to picture what it would be like to ride on a motorcycle at the speed of light, study the bending of starlight, and question the relationship between time and space. It was also this curiosity that compelled him to continue his experiments after failing his university entrance exam in 1895 and being turned down time after time while trying to find a job.

Positive Turnout at Saturday Vandenberg Air Force Base Protest

People from across California and Arizona gathered outside the front gate of Vandenberg Air Force Base on Saturday to observe Nuclear Abolition Day and to stand against ongoing tests of nuclear missiles and missile defense components.  At the corner of a busy highway, the demonstrators were visible to hundreds of passing cars.  Members of the NAPF were pleasantly surprised to witness the 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative gestures coming from drivers over the two hour period of the protest.

David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, spoke about the need for those working at the base to resist taking part in the Minuteman III missile tests because the tests are in violation of international law.  In 1996, the International Court of Justice ruled that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal.  Minuteman tests constitute a threat of use.  David also read three of his poems from his book Today Is Not a Good Day for War.  The poems focused on the theme of "silence."  He encouraged those in attendance at the protest to continue to speak out against the tests at Vandenberg, as well as militarism and nuclearism in general.