in defense of factual statements

Neil DeGrasse Tyson came to Greensboro last week to give a talk entitled, "Adventures in Science Literacy." He paced the stage wearing blue socks and wondered aloud when society decided to stop striving for progress. Brandon wore his "Carl Sagan Rules" T-shirt. I took pictures and remembered how, when I was in eighth grade, the thing I wanted most in the world was to be the next astronaut to walk on the moon.

My colleague John covered the event for the paper; his article was fantastic. A day after Neil left town, John's write-up of his talk was the third-most popular story on the front page of Reddit.

I find myself feeling weighed down by things lately. The public discourse is exhausting and nasty from every side, and it seems sometimes like nothing in the world is simple and objective. It was nice, for a night, to be reminded that actually, a lot of things are. You can start with science, but if that's too overwhelming, you can do what I do and just look up.