His Only Crime Was... "Looking Up, For [Scientific] Truth... For Insight..."

But first, the joyful discovery -- of his younger days: later tonight, perhaps around midnight -- exactly four hundred and eight years ago, he saw the larger Jovian moons (then still unnamed, and unknown) for the first time. He realized that night, that they orbited Jupiter itself (and not the Earth, as the Catholic church then taught), meaning that. . . the church was wrong -- and Copernicus' (and his) theory of Heliocentrism (that Jupiter, and every other planet in our local system in fact orbited the Sun). . . was correct. A joyous discovery -- indeed.

Then, twenty-three and a half years later (news traveled very slowly -- to Pope Urban -- back then), his "Dialogue" was banned; and in an action not announced at the Inquisition trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future. . . and he was placed under a life sentence of house arrest. On a morning, exactly thirty two years away from the morning he first saw the Jovian moons, he died -- still under arrest.

And fittingly, tonight -- here are the Indigo Girls, from the early 1990s (full video after quotes):

. . . .Galileo's head was on the block
The crime was lookin' up -- for truth
And as the bombshells of my daily fears explode
I try to trace them to my youth
And then you had to bring up reincarnation
Over a couple of beers the other night
And now I'm serving time for mistakes
Made by another in another life time

How long 'til my soul gets it right?
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light
I call on the resting soul of Galileo king of night vision
King of insight

And then I think about my fear of motion
Which I never could explain
Some other fool across the ocean years ago
Must have crashed his little airplane
How long 'til my soul gets it right
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light

I call on the resting soul of Galileo
king of night vision
King of insight

I'm not making a joke
You know me I take everything so seriously
If we wait for the time 'til all souls get it right
Then at least I know there'll be no nuclear annihilation in my life time
I'm still not right

I offer thanks to those before me
That's all I've got to say
'Cause maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime
Now I have to pay

But then again it feels like some sort of inspiration
To let the next life off the hook
Or she'll say look what I had to overcome from my last life
I think I'll write a book

How long 'til my soul gets it right
Can any human being ever reach the highest light
Except for Galileo, God rest his soul
King of the night vision, king of insight
How long. . . . [repeat and fade away. . .]

His only crime was looking up, and out, for truth -- and the joy of discovery -- and then expressing it, as he saw it. Now you know.

Onward, to a chilly tomorrow -- with graceful snows falling here now. . . by the fire -- my youngest is in the high Rockies of Colorado, with his girlfriend -- visiting with my eldest, tonight -- by another warm fire. Apres ski. . . and congrats to those Saints and Titans. . . Smile.



नमस्ते