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1) Quotes – Abraham Lincoln
“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
“I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.”
“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”
What is a favorite quote of yours?
2) The World In Pictures – Thursday
a. Bilbao, Spain: Cloud formations during sunrise
b. Kinolawa, Japan Workers wearing protective suits prepare to dispose of culled chickens after a case of bird flu was confirmed (LA Times)
c. On Friday, a government report will recommend whether a raft of proposed uranium mines should be approved, which would jeopardize some of the canyon’s natural beauty and its flora and fauna
A million acres of land in the canyon was withdrawn from exploration in 2009 to allow time for an environmental assessment
Should mining be allowed in the Grand Canyon National Park? Even if this will reduce our dependents on foreign sources of these minerals?
3) Science
NASA STEREO Reveals the Entire Sun
1) Pictures of daily life in Pakistan & Afganhistan.
An Afghan refugee girl stands with others in an alley of a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad. (Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press)
From a slide show on the Boston Globes Big Picture Blog “Daily Life In Pakistani”
http://tinyurl.com/4omw56b
Pakistani children gather by a vendor on a bicycle selling balloons on the outskirts of Islamabad. (Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press
2) From a Los Angeles Times slide show of winners of the World Press Photo Awards.
http://tinyurl.com/4nshhvx
I could add a warning label, and then just link to the following picture. I won’t because this blog is about my world view, which I feel needs to include both the best and worst of what we humans do to each other.
An 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose and ears were cut off by her abusive husband, with Taliban approval, as punishment for running away. (By Jodi Bieber)
3) From NASA
This oddly colorful nebula is the supernova remnant IC 443 as seen by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. Also known as the Jellyfish Nebula, IC 443 is particularly interesting because it provides a look into how stellar explosions interact with their environment.
Like other living creatures, stars have a life cycle — they are born, mature and eventually die. The manner in which stars die depends on their mass. Stars with mass similar to the sun typically become planetary nebulae at the end of their lives, whereas stars with many times the sun’s mass explode as supernovae. IC 443 is the remains of a star that went supernova between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago. The blast from the supernova sent out shock waves that traveled through space, sweeping up and heating the surrounding gas and dust in the interstellar medium, and creating the supernova remnant seen in this image.
What is unusual about the IC 443 is that its shell-like form has two halves that have different radii, structures and emissions. The larger northeastern shell, seen here as the violet-colored semi-circle on the top left of the supernova remnant, is composed of sheet-like filaments that are emitting light from iron, neon, silicon and oxygen gas atoms, in addition to dust particles, all heated by theblast from the supernova. The smaller southern shell, seen here in a bright cyan color on the bottom half of the image, is constructed of denser clumps and knots primarily emitting light from hydrogen gas and heated dust. These clumps are part of a molecular cloud, which can be seen in this image as the greenish cloud cutting across IC 443 from the northwest to southeast. The color differences seen in this image represent different wavelengths of infrared emission.
The differences in color are also the result of differences in the energies of the shock waves hitting the interstellar medium. The northeastern shell was probably created by a fast shock wave (223,700 miles per hour), whereas the southern shell was probably created by a slow shock wave (67,100 miles per hour).
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
4) Words of Love
a) From a letter by John Keats to Fanny Brawne, written in 1819 -
http://tinyurl.com/6jo9acw
“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
b) Lullaby by W.H. Auden
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit’s carnal ecstasy.
Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.
1) Pictures – Nature
Nasa image, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft, shows virtually simultaneous solar eruptions on opposite sides of the sun (Guardian)
A stampede of wild ponies in Hexigten, Mongolia, is captured by 62-year-old photographer Li Gang, who spends winters trailing the horses in temperatures well below freezing (Guardian)
Volcanic lightning seen above Shinmoedake Volcano, Miyazaki, Japan (LA Times)
2) Memories?
A friend sent me this video. I would mention her name but I can’t remember it.
Pam Peterson
How do you keep your mind, and imagination, sharp?
3) Poetry
Excerpts from the works of Alan Ginsberg:
a. From “Howl”
Angelheaded hipsters burning for the the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
Who poverty and tatters and hollowed-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz
b. From “Footnote to Howl”
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!
c. From “Song”
The warm bodies shine together in the darkness
the hand moves to the center of the flesh
the skin trembles in happiness
and the soul comes joyful to the eye
The complete version of “Howl” contains many obscene words. The poem “Song” does not. Should high school students be allowed to read obscene literature? Pretending of course that you could keep them from doing it.
1) Earth from Space – From a Guardian slide show of pictures of the Earth taken by NASA and the European Space Agency - http://tinyurl.com/36n76rn
The ‘Island of the Seven Mountains’ (right top) or more precisely in Russian: ‘having seven hills’. This uninhabited volcanic island is also an important nesting area for maritime birds of the North Pacific. Situated on the far end of the Aleutians, Semisopochnoi Island is simultaneously the most easterly and westerly point of the United States of America. Roughly 1,275 miles west-south-west of Anchorage, Alaska, Semisopochnoi has no native land mammals, so it is a natural nesting area for sea birds. But bird populations were decimated after Arctic foxes were introduced to the island for fur farming in the 19th century. In 1997, the last fox was removed from the island to allow the birds a safe refuge again. Part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, the island now supports more than a million seabirds, particularly auklets, according to the National Audubon Society
Rural West Virginia. This image shows the unique conditions in which holes in clouds form. When aeroplanes, particularly propeller aircraft, pass through the clouds, they disturb the air. As the air expands, it cools, and the supercooled water droplets in the clouds freeze into ice. These ice crystals act as seeds for other water droplets to freeze on to. Over time, the water clouds around the disturbed area disappear and an ice cloud grows. The clouds created in this manner take two different forms: hole-punch clouds and canals. The even cloud blanket is pale blue and pink, the warmer tones of water clouds. In the hole-punch clouds, however, we see the iridescent blue signature of ice, surrounded by a halo of clear sky. A similar blue streak from a canal runs across the top left
2) From the Boston Globe’s Big Picture slide show of the effects of the devastating floods that have hit Queensland, Australia – http://tinyurl.com/36tzjoc
You could call this being up the creek with out a paddle:
A wallaby stands on a large round hay bale, trapped by rising flood waters outside the town of Dalby
Fairbairn Dam spilling into the Queensland town of Emerald
3) My favorite song about winter is The Fallow Way, written by Jimmy Webb, sung by Judy Collins. The only version I could find on YouTube is a home video below.
How do you rate the winter season? From a scale of 1 – you hate it, to 10 you love it.
What is a song, or poem, non-christmas, about winter that you enjoy?
The poetry in the voice:
The poetry in the words:
The Fallow Way
I will learn to love the fallow way
When winter draws the valley down
And stills the rivers in their storm
And freezes all the little brooks
Time when our steps slow to the song
Of falling flakes and crackling flames
When silver stars are high and still
Deep in the velvet of the sky
The crystal times, the silent times
I’ll learn to love their quietness
While deep beneath the glistening snow
The black earth dreams of violets
I’ll learn to love the fallow way
I’ll learn to love the fallow way
When all my colors fade to white
And flying birds fold back their wings
Upon my anxious wanderings
The sun has slanted all her rays
Across the vast and harvest plains
My mem’ries mingle in the dawn
I dream of joyful vagabonds
The crystal times the silent times
I’ll learn to love their quietness
While deep beneath the glistening snow
The black earth dreams of violets
I’ll learn to love the fallow way
No drummer comes across the plain
To tell of triumph or of pain
No word of far-off battle’s cry
To draw me out or draw me nigh
I’ll learn to love the fallow way
I’ll learn to love the fallow way
And gather in the patient fruits
And after autumn’s blaze and burn
I’ll know the feel of still, deep roots
That nothing seem to know or need
That crack the ice in frozen ponds
And slumbering in winter’s folds
Have dreams of green and blue and gold
I’ll learn to love the fallow way
And listen for the blossoming
Of my own heart once more in spring
As sure as time, as sure as snow
As sure as moonlight, wind and stars
The fallow time will fall away
The sun will bring an April day
And I will yield to Summer’s sway.
1) Images from NASA
The dark rippled dunes of Mars’ Proctor Crater likely formed more recently than the lighter rock forms they appear to cover, and are thought to slowly shift in response to pervasive winds. The dunes arise from a complex relationship between the sandy surface and high winds on Mars. Similar dunes were first seen in Proctor Crater by Mariner 9 more than 35 years ago. (NASA)
This mosaic of M31 merges 330 individual images taken by the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope aboard NASA’s Swift spacecraft. It is the highest-resolution image of the galaxy ever recorded in the ultraviolet. Also known as the Andromeda Galaxy, M31 is more than 220,000 light-years across and lies 2.5 million light-years away. On a clear, dark night, the galaxy is faintly visible as a misty patch to the naked eye.
2) The last few days my own ghost from Christmas past have been paying me a visit. My father, mother and sister all died at this time of the year. I was at each of their death beds. Not sleeping well, I have been filling my mind with their music instead.
Mary Black sings a song about the homeland of my father’s family:
Song of Ireland
My sister Lynn was a fan of Richard and Linda Thompson.
A Heart Needs A Home
What is a song(s) that you like from your ancestors homeland?
1) Faith in Pictures
a. From a Christian Science Monitor slide show
http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2010/gallery-potd/(photo)/2
Two Yemeni sisters dressed as angels, hold hands while walking in an alley of the old city, on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, in Sanaa, Yemen.
b. I found this picture on a Russian photo site. I couldn’t read the caption, but the photo speaks for itself. When you have nothing left there is always faith
2) Science
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found evidence of the youngest black hole known to exist in our cosmic neighborhood.
The most amazing thing to me is that we can actually observe an object 50 million light years from Earth, and that we can also date it’s appearance, to just 30 years ago. Every day our knowledge of the World, and Universe, we live in is growing exponentially. Compared to the body of knowledge our great-grandchildren will know we are still in kindergarten.
From NASA’s press release http://tinyurl.com/2ehclya
Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found evidence of the youngest black hole known to exist in our cosmic neighborhood. The 30-year-old black hole provides a unique opportunity to watch this type of object develop from infancy.
The black hole could help scientists better understand how massive stars explode, which ones leave behind black holes or neutron stars, and the number of black holes in our galaxy and others.
The 30-year-old object is a remnant of SN 1979C, a supernova in the galaxy M100 approximately 50 million light years from Earth. Data from Chandra, NASA’s Swift satellite, the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton and the German ROSAT observatory revealed a bright source of X-rays that has remained steady during observation from 1995 to 2007. This suggests the object is a black hole being fed either by material falling into it from the supernova or a binary companion.
“If our interpretation is correct, this is the nearest example where the birth of a black hole has been observed,” said Daniel Patnaude of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. who led the study.
3) Music – Jack Johnson - Rodeo Clowns
1) My favorite picture of the day is of an orthodox Jewish man, adorned with balloons, walking in the street of the conservative Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem.
From a hot air ballon Festival Leon, Mexico
Have you ever flown in a hot air balloon?
I never have. I would love the view, but with my fear of heights I would probably spend the time in the middle of the gondola, clutching a parachute.
2) My first stop every day is NASA’s image gallery. Today’s amazing image.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/index.html
“This composite image shows N49, the aftermath of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A new long observation from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals evidence for a bullet-shaped object being blown out of debris field left over from an exploded star.
In order to detect this bullet, researchers used Chandra to observe N49 for more than 30 hours. Using the new Chandra data, the age of N49 — as it appears in the image — is thought to be about 5,000 years and the energy of the explosion is estimated to be about twice that of an average supernova. These preliminary results suggest that the original explosion was caused by the collapse of a massive star.”
3) I wanted to post a new song, but couldn’t find any new releases that I liked, so I’ll post a poem about childhood, by my favorite poet Walt Whitman.
Heard any new songs you can recommend?
A Child Said What Is Grass by Walt Whitman
A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother’s laps,
And here you are the mother’s laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.
I want to make my next Bible study post about one of the psalms. I haven’t been able to decide which to pick so I will post it tomorrow, for you to go over on the weekend. In the meantime I’ll entertain you with a few videos. One funny, one stunning, one haunting and one full of passion.
1) The Irish comic Dave Allen tells the very funny story of his first day in Catholic School, when he was 4.
My favorite line is – “The Nun asked if I was going to be a good boy. Looked past her and saw some guy nailed to a cross. Bloody right I am going to be a good boy.”
2) This is an amazing video of the solar flares coming off the sun, taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
3) A beautiful melody played by Toumani Diabate, with the West African instrument, the Kora – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kora_(instrument)
4) A song off of Jennifer Knapp’s new album “Letting Go”.
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