Which way the wind blows...

I’m not normally the sort of person who reads The American Spectator. I’m more the sort of person who gets a chuckle out of pieces such as Bill Maher’s paean to liberal elitism on Salon.com yesterday. But I'm also a faithful reader of Steve Salerno's SHAMblog, and I enjoyed Steve's book SHAM: How The Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. His commentary on The Secret, published on The American Spectator’s web site April 12, is worth reading for many reasons, including what surely rates as the Secret metaphor of the week (if not the year). Great job, Steve.

Even after reading Bill Maher's and Steve Salerno's respective laments on the state of the culture, however, I have to believe there is hope after all. And some of it, I am pleased to say, is coming from my neck of the woods. No, I’m not just talking about this blog, as much of a bright shining light as it may be. Although the "Cosmic" part of my moniker is ironic, truly cosmic things are afoot in this place I call home, almost making up for the fact that this is the same part of the planet that spawned John Gray, John Demartini, and Marianne Williamson (not to mention Dubya, sort of). Billionaire businessman and philanthropist George Mitchell hosted an elite gathering of cosmologists, including Stephen Hawking, at his ranch this week to debate some of the most important questions of the Universe. One topic they almost certainly did not discuss: Is the Law Of Attraction backed by quantum physics?

Mitchell became fascinated with cosmology about ten years ago, and has so far spent more than $60 million to make Texas a center for research in fundamental physics and astronomy. You can read the whole story here.

Call me overly optimistic, but this sort of gives me hope that the cultural wind sock will eventually start blowing in another direction.