Perihelion

At this time of the year, earth is at perihelion. Follow the link to find out what that means

HINT: it is not the reason for earth's seasons.

O God! who giv'st the winter's cold,
As well as summer's joyous rays,
Us warmly in Thy love enfold,
And keep us through life's wintry days.

--Samuel Longfellow
[the Unitarian minister, not his brother Henry Wadsworth Longfellow the poet],
"'Tis Winter Now" from Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.

Overcome evil with good

Christian Peacemaker Teams--committed to reducing violence by getting in the way.

What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war?

CPT photo: Jim Loney passes off a peace dove to a friend for release at a multi-faith walk for the release of Iraqi captives.

[found here: Missing in Iraq: Pictures Related to the Developing Crisis]

You must guard aginst further indulging in hateful thoughts and feelings--even repressed ones--and pray for good for those who hurt or oppose you. You see examples of what can happen to a soul who did not restrain feelings of hate and vengeance. Not a pretty sight, is it? Hatred and ill will are never pretty when fully unmasked. The pleasure you derive in them cannot be compared to the joy you will have when you put them away.
--Hal M. Helms, Echoes of Eternity: Listening to the Father, 1996

More Statue of Liberty Postage Stamps

Click image for larger view
Some of the most popular posts at Ghost Town Orange have been ones about the Statue of Liberty and postage stamps. For those new to Ghost Town Orange, here are a few posts that continue to attract visitors and may be worth a second look:

• The Statue of Liberty on Postage Stamps [May 2004]
• Even More Statue of Liberty Images [June 2004]
• New 'Old Bridge' at Mostar, Bosnia [July 2004]

The new rate change postage stamps will add another page to my collection. The stamps will be available in a variety of formats: coil, panes, and booklets. The most difficult to find on mail will be the lick-'em-stick-'em gummed ones. Self-adhesive stamps are understandably more popular.

The US Postal Service will probably issue the same design denominated '39 cents.' So I will be checking my mail after January 8 to see how many different varieties I can identify.

In other Ghost Town Orange news, Sitemeter statistics report that recent visitors have come from the following countries:

• 80% United States
• 3% United Kingdom
• 3% Germany
• 3% Canada
• 2% Netherlands
• 1% Taiwan
• 1% Islamic Republic of Iran
• 1% Ireland
• 1% Hungary
• 1% Greece
• 1% France
• 1% Switzerland
• 1% Bulgaria
• 1% Australia

I have started stamp albums for many of these countries: United States, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Greece, and France. It's only a matter of time until I add Hungary and Switzerland. My wife and sons have albums for Australia and the United Kingdom. Ghost Town Orange has not attracted many visitors from Latin America, but I collect several Latin American countries too. I'll probably never have a visitor from St. Pierre et Miquelon, but I collect stamps from there. My wife collects Israel, and one of my sons collects Arab Trucial States.

A little man in black, an officer of the Inquisition, who was sitting beside Pangloss, turned to him and politely said:

'It appears, Sir, that you do not believe in original sin; for if all is for the best, there can be no such thing as the fall of Man and eternal punishment.'

'I most humbly beg your Excellency's pardon,' replied Pangloss, still more politely, 'but I must point out that the fall of Man and eternal punishment enter, of Necessity, into the scheme of the best of all possible worlds.'

--Voltaire, Candide, or Optimism, 1759. [Translated by John Butt]

On this day

On 2 January 1905, astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine observed the seventh moon of Jupiter for the first time. It was called Jupiter VII until 1975; it has been re-named Elara.

Here are the 1905 journal articles reporting the discovery:

The first--Harvard College Observatory Bulletin, number 178, page 1:

27 February 1905
[Click image for larger view]

The next--Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, volume 17, pages 62-3:

30 March 1905
[Click image for larger view]

The last--Astronomische Nachrichten, volume 169, pages 43/4:

28 May 1905
[Click image for larger view]

Be content that you are not yet a saint, even though you realize that the only thing worth living for is sanctity.
--Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation, 1949

Resolution

Japanese New Year's Stamps for 2006
50 yen Akita dog postage stamp designed by Hoshiyama Ayaka
80 yen Sadowara clay doll 'dog' postage stamp designed by Kaifuchi Junko
I hereby resolve to update my blog frequently spend more time with my stamp collection in 2006.

A year ago, I purchased a nice lot of postally used stamps from Japan but I have not created an album for them yet. I print out pages from the CD-ROM disc I obtained from Stamp Albums Web. I'll be able to identify most of the stamps with the help of a used 1992 Scott catalog I recently found at a thrift store and the New Issues of Japan website for stamps after 1997. That may leave a big chunk of the 1990s a mystery unless I buy a more recent catalog.

Things to do at Ghost Town Orange:

• Summer vacation series needs to be continued for another 2 1/2 weeks worth of entries.
  
• Template needs to be tinkered with--why link to the NYT editorial writers who are behind the subscription wall?
  
• The archive needs to be tested for dead links, missing pictures, etc.
  

The soul in this body has two principal impediments.

First, it is drawn into many activities and much agitation, and its different activities weaken and obstruct each other, for it is very hard to apply the mind to different things at the same time.

Secondly, the soul is engaged in inferior activites much earlier, more attentively, and more often than in higher ones, not only because of the condition of its abysmal dwelling but also because of the corporeal service assigned to men for a time by God. . .

But whenever the actions of eating, accumulating, feeling, or imagining either entirely cease or are greatly reduced, then the vision of the mind will be correspondingly sharpened, so that whatever is observed by the mind is observed more clearly under the power of this light.

--Marsilio Ficino [1433-1499], from Meditations on the Soul: Selected Letters of Marsilio Ficino, translated by members of the Language Department of the School of Economic Science, London.

Echo Chamber

At times, I can do nothing better than 'borrow' from other blogs. Today, Ghost Town Orange is an echo chamber:

I'm just going to take this wholesale from a comment below, because I wholeheartedly (and broken heartedly) agree with it:

I wanted to post the following from something I read at DailyKos. The question was, "why did BushCo fumble this so badly?"

The answer from one tcorse:

They deny that we are a community, asserting that we are only a group of competing individuals. They deny that we are hurt or helped by being a member of a community, and thus owe nothing and can expect nothing from that community. They will not invest in the future of the community, in the infrastructure that benefits us all, because to do so would be to admit that we are not all self-made men, and that their own personal wealth is not strictly their own doing. To acknowledge such would place upon them an ethical obligation to share their good fortune, and this they are loath to do. They can not grasp that it is cheaper to prepare for disaster than clean up after, for to do so would be to recognize their own limitations, and to ask them to sacrifice today for a better, shared future for the community they deny exists.

Their incompetence is ideological. We can not expect better. They will not learn from this. Our only hope is to oust them, else this disaster will be repeated - again, and again, and again.

So now we have people being sent to get aid from churches as the ultimate "you're on your own" to the survivors. Now, good people will step up as communities, but, ironically, it signals the death of national community, the fate of the idea of "the common good."

There is nothing but sorrow...
--Diogenes

--rmj

source: Adventus [Read Adventus to learn about the sheer magnitude of the ongoing effort needed to care for refugees from the hurricane.]

God our security,
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988

What exactly has the so-called Department of Homeland Security been up to?

Virtually any terrorist attack with Weapons of Mass Destruction (TM) on a major American city would create thousands of refugees. Why in bloody hell has there been no planning for a refugee crisis? One thing we all know now for certain -- the Bush Administration had no plans to protect the American people in case of a terrorist attack. May every incompetent government official and clueless right-wing pundit rot in hell.

It's amazing that Mr. Bush feels no shame for the lousy job he has done.

God our security,
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988

Callous incompetence

Why city's defences were down by John Vidal and Duncan Campbell, UK Guardian. An excerpt:

Lloyd Dumas, professor of political economy and economics at the University of Texas at Dallas, criticised the government's failure to oversee a more efficient evacuation. "It's remarkable that with the massive restructuring of the federal government that took place with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, they don't have more well thought-out plans to evacuate a city like New Orleans," he said.

"An emphasis should be placed on plans that have multiple purposes, like evacuation plans for a city like New Orleans that can of course be useful in the event of a terrorist attack but also in the event of a natural disaster like this one ... There were plans during the cold war to evacuate major cities in a few days."

Professor Dumas added that not enough provision seemed to have been made for poor people. "There doesn't seem to have been much attention paid to people who didn't have private automobiles," he said. "I didn't hear anything about school buses or city buses being used to aim people out of town." He said that there appeared to be little forward planning to cater to those on low incomes who would be unable to return to their homes for up to two months but who would not have the money to pay for that time in a hotel. "The Department of Homeland Security says on its website that it deals with natural disasters," he said. "They don't seem to have done a very good job. There doesn't seem to have been any long-term planning."

God our security,
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988

Worst President of the United States -- ever

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

--President Bush

Why did anyone vote for this idiot?

God our security,
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988

Bush Administration plans for National Parks

NY Times opinion piece -- Destroying the National Parks:

Recently, a secret draft revision of the national park system's basic management policy document has been circulating within the Interior Department. It was prepared, without consultation within the National Park Service, by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary at Interior who once ran the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyo., was a Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and has no park service experience.

Within national park circles, this rewrite of park rules has been met with profound dismay, for it essentially undermines the protected status of the national parks. The document makes it perfectly clear that this rewrite was not prompted by a compelling change in the park system's circumstances. It was prompted by a change in political circumstances - the opportunity to craft a vision of the national parks that suits the Bush administration.

[snip - details of the changes and what's wrong with them]

It is clear by now that Mr. Bush has no real intention of living up to his campaign promise to fully finance the national parks. This document offers a vivid picture of the divide between the National Park Service, whose career employees remain committed to the fundamental purpose of leaving the parks unimpaired, and an Interior Department whose political appointees seem willing to alter them beyond recognition, partly in the service of commercial objectives.

LA Times-- Proposed revisions of National Park cause stir:

A series of proposed revisions of National Park policy has created furor among present and former park officials who believe the changes would weaken protections of natural resources and wildlife while allowing an increase in commercial activity, snowmobiles and off-road vehicles.

National Park Service employees warn that the changes, which were proposed by the Department of Interior and are now undergoing a park service review, would fundamentally alter the agency's primary mission.

The leaked draft can be found here: Coalition of Concerned NPS Retirees

God our security,
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988

It takes one to know one award

It angers me when a member of the pundit class calls ordinary people bad names. Intellectuals are supposed to be above name-calling and ad hominem attacks. Whenever one of these bilge-sodden pigs bladders calls ordinary people names, they get the 'it takes one to know one' prize at Ghost Town Orange.

Therefore, Christopher Hitchens has earned the nomiker Fruitbat and Nutbag:

So as well as being an hysterical paranoid ideologist, or at least being manipulated by people who are, who turned this into Camp Fruitbat and Nutbag, she has decided not to have the courage or maybe the cowardice of her conviction.
--Source: Mediamatters.org and MSNBC

Earlier winners of the Ghost Town Orange 'it takes one to know one' prize were:

• Arnold Schwarzeneggar= "Girly Man"
• Ann Coulter= "Hippie Chick Pie Wagon"

Bilge-sodden pigs bladders all.

God our security,
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988

Vacation Day 6

What We Did on Our Summer Vacation--A Ghost Town Orange Mini-series. [Click on photos for a larger view; e-mail me to request higher-resolution versions for printing...]

Saturday June 4, 2005: a travel day.
During the first part of the drive we were passed by a large number [it may have been more than 30] of BMW sports cars. Many of them bore Texas plates; they were eager to drive fast on curvy mountain roads.

Church signs:

• "Kind words make good echoes."
• Don't wait for the hearse to take you to church."
• Forbidden fruit creates many jams.
• God is like scotch tape:
  you can't see him, but you know he's there.

We had hoped to camp at Blanchard Springs Caverns Campground [US Forest Service] but it was completely full. So we drove a few more miles to another Forest Service Campground, Gunner Pool. This campground was originally a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, Camp Hedges. Company 743 was active from 1933-1942. At any one time, about 170 enrollees and 10 'overhead' employees lived at this camp. Over its period of operation, about 2200 men served at the camp. [Source: placque at the campground.]

• A list of CCC companies in Arkansas. [cccalumni.org]
• Arkansas State Parks: The Legacy of the CCC

Gunner Pool campground is near Sylamore Creek. Today's photos:

At Gunner Pool Campground, Arkansas
June 4, 2005 

Water source at Gunner Pool Campground, Arkansas
June 4, 2005 

Tadpole, Gunner Pool Campground, Arkansas

June 4, 2005 
Tune in tomorrow for Day 7: Rocks, church, and an unspoiled cave.

"Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
O Israel, and I will testify against you:
I am God, your God.
I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices
or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
and the creatures of the field are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
Sacrifice thank offerings to God,
fulfill your voews to the Most High,
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you will honor me."
--Psalm 50:7-15