The date stamp on the back of this postcard sent to my grandmother from a friend is May 5, 1944.OMG, I selected this as something different-looking in my box of old postcards and scanned it ready to post information that I intended to find Tuesday night. First thing that jumped for my attention at the university's official website? That SMU-Dallas was selected in February 2008 as the site for the George W. Bush Presidential Library, Museum, and Institute. I'm speechless. That tidbit of news escaped my radar this year. Anyone reading my blog may have surmised my attachment to the Democratic Party, but I haven't really expressed my eight-year-long loathing for the current president. And suddenly I'm not speechless at all.
I didn't think that there would be a president that I could detest more than I did Ronald Reagan, but W has managed to outdo Reagan in that regard for me. I still get all balled up inside when I think back on the Reagan years and how alien the country's values felt to me under his leadership. So, you can't imagine how strange it is for me to write the next line... I felt a softening in my heart with regard to Reagan after I recently posted the video of Jerry Orbach singing Try to Remember. The info at You Tube mentioned that his performance was at the White House but I didn't see that as pertinent to the crux of my post included with the video. A day or two after posting it I watched the video again and that time noticed Ronald and Nancy Reagan sitting in the front row to the right of the screen. The backs of their heads are visible for just an instant at the end of the song (2:14 in the 2:15 clip). The softening I mentioned feeling had nothing to do with his presidency or legacy, but for the song title in juxtaposition with the Alzheimer's that killed him. That was poignant for me.
Will there come a moment in the future when I might say that my heart goes out to George W. Bush? Hard for me to fathom such an instance, given my total lack of respect for the man (and that's putting it mildly). Notice the countdown widget I have on this blog in anticipation of the end of his final term. Getting down to 110 days and they can't dash away quickly enough for me. It scares me what additional history could transpire in these final days of his presidency that could be included in the George W. Bush Presidential Center, a three-part affair that ". . .will consist of the presidential library, containing documents and artifacts of the Bush Administration; a museum with permanent and traveling exhibits; and an independent public policy institute."
Southern Methodist University is undoubtedly a fine institution and offers much more than a future presidential center. This grabbed my attention and certainly impressed me: SMU physicists have been intricately involved in the international project at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Click here for the full page including a terrific video of Professor Olness conducting a tour of the CERN lab. The article says, "A large team from the Department of Physics in SMU's Dedman College is involved in the project, including last spring's installation of the 7,000-ton subatomic particle detector they helped build for the LHC."
Hmmmm....to study what made George W. Bush tick as well as a possible explanation of the origin of the universe. The future holds diverse interests at Southern Methodist University.
