THOUGHTS FROM LAS VEGAS, N.M.

I watched a moving documentary on TV in my hotel room last night done by an Iraqi filmmaker. He filmed innocent Iraqi civilians being rushed into hospital after hospital after being wounded in the chaos that is ever present in their country. I saw one boy, six years old, having scrapnel taken out of his body without any sedatives to ease the pain. The screams of the boy, and the blood pouring out of his small body, shook me to my core.

I spoke last night at the World College in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The school has students from all over the world who come there for two years after high school before moving on to formal college. The school is primarily oriented toward teaching young people about global peace issues. After my talk two young men, one African and the other Asian, approached me and expressed their deep interest in space issues.

I've got the TV on right now as I write this blog entry and am watching Congressional hearings about the baseball steroid scandal. It's interesting to see these outraged politicians question former superstar Roger Clemens about his having lied about using steroids.

This hearing is so striking to me because we have heard over and over again that Congress can't do impeachment hearings of Bush-Cheney because they would "distract" Washington DC from doing more important business - like steroids. Let it be said that the Democrats are running these Congressional hearings.

Today I head further north to Taos where I will be for two days of speaking to community groups and a couple different high schools. From there I head into Southern Colorado to the town of Alamosa which everyone keeps telling me is the coldest spot in the U.S.