Temporary Mini-Moons

Every since elementary school, at least, most of us have understood that the earth has a moon — just one.  Old farts like me even remember when humans walked on that moon, that it was important that we had been there. But it seems we have to revise our knowledge of this singularity.

For the second time in a few years, astronomers have discovered a second — albeit tiny — moon;

“The mini-moon appears to have been orbiting our planet since it was first captured by Earth’s gravity three years ago. Early observations also suggest it is small enough to fit in just about any garage or shed, with an estimated diameter between 2 and 3.5 meters (about 6 – 11 feet).”

It is, in fact, a captured asteroid and its stay with us might be quite brief:

A “previous asteroid … did time as a mini-moon … which did just a few trips around our planet in 2006 and 2007 before being ejected back out into the solar system. [The current asteroid] may be ejected as well later this year.”

So now I don’t feel so short-changed when I read that Jupiter has 80 moons.

Night Music: Pet Sounds

Come Party With The BC EcoSocialists

BC’s newest and most exciting political party — the BC EcoSocialists (further left than the NDP and far greener than BC Greens) — are celebrating their founding with an All-Star  musical extravaganza and fundraiser at WISE Hall this Friday.

Geoff Berner’s fine klezmer band headlines a great local line up, the fun and games begin at 7:30pm, and a donation at the door of up to $20 would be a wonderful help.

“It’s going to be a wonderful celebration of independent music and most of all, the birth of this new party, which we see as part of a larger Ecosocalist movement that is sweeping the world. We hope you can make it down to be part of it. Because it’s going to be a heck of a good time!! And you can say you were there when it all started.”

Grandview 26th February 1920

Mr. & Mrs. James (“Paddy”) Doran operated Doran’s Fish & Chip shop at 1244 Commercial from 1920-1923.  They moved the shop to 1709 Commercial in 1924, changed its name to Grandview Fish & Chips, and operated until 1930. From 1931 until 1937, they were at 1906 Commercial, and, finally, under the name Paddy’s Fish & Chips at 1717 Commercial until August 1939.

 

Gibran’s The Prophet on Reason and Passion

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.

But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing;

And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.

Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.