Al Gore at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015.

By Al Gore in the NYT

This weekend marks two anniversaries that, for me, point a way forward through the accumulated wreckage of the past year.

The first is personal. Twenty years ago, I ended my presidential campaign after the Supreme Court abruptly decided the 2000 election. As the incumbent vice president, my duty then turned to presiding over the tallying of Electoral College votes in Congress to elect my opponent. This process will unfold again on Monday as the college’s electors ratify America’s choice of Joe Biden as the next president, ending a long and fraught campaign and reaffirming the continuity of our democracy.

The second anniversary is universal and hopeful. This weekend also marks the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Paris Agreement. One of President Trump’s first orders of business nearly four years ago was to pull the United States out of the accord, signed by 194 other nations to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases threatening the planet. With Mr. Trump heading for the exit, President-elect Biden plans to rejoin the agreement on his Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.

Now, with Mr. Biden about to take up residence in the White House, the United States has the chance to reclaim America’s leadership position in the world after four years in the back seat.

Mr. Biden’s challenges will be monumental. Most immediately, he assumes office in the midst of the chaos from the colossal failure to respond effectively to the coronavirus pandemic and the economic devastation that has resulted.

And though the pandemic fills our field of vision at the moment, it is only the most urgent of the multiple crises facing the country and planet, including 40 years of economic stagnation for middle-income families; hyper-inequality of incomes and wealth, with high levels of poverty; horrific structural racism; toxic partisanship; the impending collapse of nuclear arms control agreements; an epistemological crisis undermining the authority of knowledge; recklessly unprincipled behavior by social media companies; and, most dangerous of all, the climate crisis.

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Time for some to get the special Trump vaccine

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It was a Pun-demic

In case you missed the banter with Santa at the party – the more you groan, the better it is!

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Look who cheered us up at the party

Please send your party pics to Jim deMaine – thanks.

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First Hill Community News

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Let’s celebrate Black cooking

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Jupiter And Saturn Will Be Together Again For The Holidays

From NPR by Colin Dwyer. Thanks to Mike C. for finding this!

Saturn (center, left) and Jupiter (center, right) share a night sky earlier this year near Vantage, Wash. Already this past summer, the two planets were growing closer in the night sky.

If popular culture has taught us anything about the holidays, it’s that this is a season of reunions: a time when people conquer great distances and lengthy separations just to be together again. Usually, though, such stories involve cross-country trips — not the orbits of the two largest planets in our solar system.

This year is different.

On Dec. 21, Jupiter and Saturn — which are actually separated by more than 400 million miles — are expected to appear closer to each other in the night sky than they have for centuries. Seen at the right hour, whether by telescope or the naked eye, the gas giants will be separated by roughly a fifth of the diameter of the typical full moon. At this proximity, the planets will appear to touch or even form one large, brilliant star in the sky.

The spectacle is a curious effect of their orbits. Since Jupiter takes a little less than 12 years to circle the sun and Saturn takes more than 29, the planets appear to earthlings to meet roughly every 20 years, in what astronomers call a “great conjunction.” The last great conjunction occurred in May 2000, though its position in the sky at the time meant the average stargazer likely lost it in the glare of the sun.

But you’ll need to reach much further into the past to find the last instance such a conjunction was this close and this visible to stargazers. The Perth Observatory in Australia says that Jupiter and Saturn last approached this closely to each other in July 1623, but as with the conjunction in 2000, it was hard to spot.

“You’d have to go all the way back to just before dawn on March 4, 1226, to see a closer alignment between these objects visible in the night sky,” Patrick Hartigan, an astronomer at Rice University, explained in a statement last month.

There’s still another holiday connection at work here, beyond a simple coincidence of timing. Some astronomers, dating back to Johannes Kepler in the 17th century, have conjectured that the Star of Bethlehem that guided the three wise men to Jesus Christ’s birthplace in the Bible was a conjunction like the one set to appear later this month — although likely one involving different planets.

Saturn and Jupiter began appearing close to each other this past summer, but this spectacle of proximity will be clearest beginning in mid-December.

“Look for them low in the southwest in the hour after sunset. And on December 21st, the two giant planets will appear just a tenth of a degree apart — that’s about the thickness of a dime held at arm’s length!” NASA explained earlier this month. “This means the two planets and their moons will be visible in the same field of view through binoculars or a small telescope. In fact, Saturn will appear as close to Jupiter as some of Jupiter’s moons.”

After the winter solstice, the two planets will appear to begin moving apart again.

Now, this sentimental holiday reunion is no Hallmark movie; if you miss it this year, don’t expect to see it again next December. Astronomers say there won’t be another great conjunction this close until 2080.

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What is an American?

Ed note: As a nation we tend to be pretty hard on ourselves–perhaps our own worst enemy. Other nations may be hard on us also, but some individuals still marvel and look up to how we’ve managed to have such a pluralistic nation. Thanks to Donna D. for sending this along from her good friend.

Written by an Australian Dentist 

To Kill an American 

You probably missed this in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American; any American.   

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is. So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!) 

‘An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan. 

An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans. 

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in  Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses. 

An American is also free to believe in no religion…… For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.  

An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.   The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God-given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness. 

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return………

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan ..   

The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These, in fact, are the people who built America.

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It’s been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists. 

So you can try to kill an American if you must.. Hitler did. So did General Tojo , and Stalin , and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American. 

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Dealing with grief

Great program on grief including speakers like Maria Shriver and Atul Gawande. Click here to watch.

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It’s party time – Friday at 2 PM on Zoom and 370

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The Candy Bomber at age 98 reminds us of the importance of NATO

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The Candy Bomber story with Tom Brokaw

Thanks to Sybil-Ann for this dramatized but true story

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‘Tis the season

2020 Tree Lighting
Always there to help!

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These are your typical Christmas lights

Thanks to Donna D.

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Anatomy of a letdown – David Horsey

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Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” is alive and well in Amsterdam

Thanks to Linda W!

Rembrandt, Officers and Men of the Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Wilhelm van Ruytenburgh, known as the Night Watch, 1642, oil on canvas, 379.5 x 453.5 cm (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
Would it surprise you to find that the title that Rembrandt’s most famous painting is known by is actually incorrect?  The so-called Night Watch is not a night scene at all; it actually takes place during the day.  This title, which was not given by the artist, was first applied at the end of the eighteenth century.  By that time the painting had darkened considerably through the accumulation of many layers of dirt and varnish, giving the appearance that the event takes place at night.
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What’s your belief?

Thanks to Sally S.

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New Zealand leads the way

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T’was a month before Christmas 2020

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The view that is left (and other recent photos)

Supporting window washers at the new ski jump.
Convergence to the vanishing point (which just happened to be True North).
Lake Union is vanishing.
And, should anyone be interested in what I do the rest of the time, my presentation for the climate science meeting, just starting.
What explains why the US cannot match the success of other countries in controlling the pandemic? Most of the East Asian countries can be open for business, taking business away from the US. Could it be the contrarians in the red states?

Sigh. I grew up in Missouri and Kansas, and now they seem foreign, a place I would not enjoy visiting. We do not want a second American Civil War.

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Where are we now!

Thanks to Mary Jane F!

Notice what alcohol, toilet paper and sweatpants have in common!
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The Seattle Freeze – did you experience this?

Is it true? Are we unfriendly to newcomers in Seattle? There is a history of this over the past 100 years! I think that Skyline and other CCRCs have done well in bucking that trend. Check out Knute Berger’s video essay link below.

https://crosscut.com/culture/2020/12/mossbacks-northwest-true-history-seattle-freeze

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What’s life like now?

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One ringie dingie…..

Thanks Sybil-Ann!

Ed note: This brings to mind Lily Tomlin operating the switchboard!

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Zoomed lately?

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