Distance learning.

You’ve got to be either out of your mind or out of this world to feel like what the first woman space tourist, Anousheh Ansari, felt when she saw Planet Earth from her space craft. http://spaceblog.xprize.org/: “… you see the ‘Whole’ not the ‘Parts’ … I wish the leaders of different nations could do the same and have a world vision first, before a specific vision for their country.” Also: “You cannot see any borders… you cannot tell where one country ends and another one starts… the only border you see is the border between land and water.” She paid “about $20 million for 10 days in space” apart from bearing a lot of discomfort to acquire this world view, buddy. http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/index.php?p=357 I guess us mere land lubbers better shut up and listen reverentially. As the old saying goes: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Distance, too. P.S.: Now that Ansari has blogged the gory details of personal hygiene in space, I can finally figure out why Buck Rogers wore the perenially pained expression he always did in the comic strip. Read “continually constipated” for "perennially pained”, in case you didn’t get the point.