Not only have I had college-educated friends send me that Mars nonsense (one of them crowed that they beat me to the punch about reporting this amazing astronomical event), but even neighbors who know I am into astronomy have asked me about it as well.

My God, the real close passage of Mars was just two years ago, and already people have forgotten - if they even knew about the 2003 event in the first place. I know the local observatory I frequent had 300 visitors during the night Mars was supposed to be at its closest that August of two years ago.

Of course even then the media made people think that if they didn't see Mars that night, it was somehow going to zip off into the recesses of the Sol system, rather than just gradually move away. I was amazed at how one 4-year-old visitor knew more about Mars than most of the adults around him, including his parents. I suppose I should be grateful they brought him at all.

The kid even had a theory for why Mars was red - the lava from the volcanoes. Give him kudos for thinking, the adults around him probably didn't even know Mars has volcanoes. And pray his intellect survives our cookie-cutter education system.

So in sumation, yes, I am tired, shocked, annoyed, amazed, saddened and sickened at the continued level of ignorance from the masses about astronomy and apparently anything else that doesn't involve sports or Hollywood. You would think the Universe would be a fascinating place, but I guess not.

The question is, what can WE do to turn the tide of ignorance, even just a little bit? Are YOU doing what you can to make people aware of the Cosmos? I guarantee if they don't know the facts about Mars, they aren't going to give a fly fig about CAVs and VSEs and all that other jazz that is so passionately debated to death here. The public isn't going to support manned missions to other worlds from such ignorance, unless WE do something about it.