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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – “October” is derived from the Latin word Oct which means eight. In the old Roman calendar it was the eighth month in the year.
When January and February were added, October became the 10th month, but retained its name.
October is the month for the appearance of the water constellations: Capricornus, Pisces, Pisces Austrinus, Aquarius and Cetus.
Capricornus is one of the constellations of the Zodiac. The name means horned goat or sea goat. It is half goat, half fish, and one of the oldest of constellations.
Pisces is another constellation of the Zodiac. It is Latin for the plural of Fish.
Pisces is associated with the Roman legend of Venus and Cupid. They transformed into fish tied together with rope to escape a monster.
Pisces Austrinus is Latin for “southern fish.” It contains the star Fomalhaut, the 18th brightest star in the sky.
Aquarius is another Zodiac constellation. Aquarius is known at the water bearer.
Cetus is a whale. Greek mythology has Cetus as a sea monster that was slain by Perseus as he saved the beautiful princess Andromeda.
We have referred to the zodiac in this month’s column. The zodiac divides the path the sun takes through the sky into 12 equal sections. One constellation is associated with each section.
The zodiac and its constellations figure prominently in astrology as well as astronomy.
John Zimmerman is a resident of Lake County and has been an amateur astronomer for over 50 years. For more information about Astronomy and local resources, visit his Web site at www.lakecountyskies.com .
LAKEPORT, Calif. – St. John's Episcopal Church in Lakeport is looking quite smart with new insulation, shingle siding and paint.
Many thanks to go to Sam Walters, Lucerne Roofing, Lakeport; Carl Turner, Turner Insulation, Kelseyville; Lyle Madeson, Madeson Painting and Decorating, Kelseyville; and carpenters Dan Critser and David Nylander, Kelseyville.
This stately Victorian building has been standing in the same place since 1898, when local Episcopalians and families from San Francisco purchased large parcels of land in Lakeport and other towns around the county.
Church ladies of the 1800s raised money to begin construction for a local building after initially traveling to Sunday services in Ukiah.
The Collier family original owned the Robin Hill area north of Lakeport. Through the Collier family roots in San Francisco, Mary Blackwood Collier commissioned brilliant young architect, Willis Polk, who a decade later was a chief re-builder of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire.
Miss Harry Floyd donated the property in north Lakeport at the corner of Clearlake Avenue and North Forbes Street.
The church, constructed of redwood, has certainly stood the test of time. But the cedar shingles were no match for the west sun, which brings heat and elements of Lake County weather. Now the west side is again ready to face the rigors of the western exposure.
St. John's Church has long been recognized as an outstanding structure of Lakeport and is open for community meetings, plays, concerts, and social events. It is also registered as a local Red Cross disaster shelter.
Although the property, with its historic building, is owned by the parish and held in trust for the Diocese of Northern California and The Episcopal Church, it is solely maintained by the generous support of local parishioners and friends of the parish with annual pledges and proceeds of the thrift shop, St. John's Basement Boutique.
To help fund this recent expense, resident artist Ray Farrow is painting recycled shingles for sale. Home-baked goods also will be sold during the upcoming December concert series to help defray project costs.
The church building became a Lake County point of historical interest by California Historical Resources Commission in 1989.
In 2012, it earned an Award of Recognition for restoration and preservation by the California Heritage Council, California Trust for Historic Preservation.
All are welcome at St. John’s Episcopal Church Sunday services at 10 a.m., 1190 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
For further information, please call parish priest Fr. Leo M. Joseph, O.S.F. at 707-349-6563 or see St. John’s Web site at www.saintjohnslakeport.org .
Anne Barquist is St. John’s senior warden and project manager.
SACRAMENTO – As advocates rally across the nation today to urge Congress to adopt comprehensive immigration reform, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. signed legislation to enhance school, workplace and civil protections for California’s hardworking immigrants.
“While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead,” said Gov. Brown. “I’m not waiting.”
Immigration reform advocates are rallying today in cities across the United States to call on the U.S. House of Representatives to give legal status to undocumented U.S. residents.
While gridlock continues in Washington, California continues to move forward on immigration reform.
On Thursday, Governor Brown signed AB 60, extending the legal right to drive on the state’s roadways to millions of Californians and in October 2011, Governor Brown signed AB 131, the California Dream Act.
The governor signed the following bills Saturday:
AB 4 by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) – Prohibits a law enforcement official from detaining an individual on the basis of a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold after that individual becomes eligible for release from custody, unless specified conditions are met.
AB 35 by Assemblymember Roger Hernández (D-West Covina) – Provides that immigration consultants, attorneys, notaries public, and organizations accredited by the United States Board of Immigration Appeals are the only individuals authorized to charge a fee for providing services associated with filing an application under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's deferred action program.
AB 524 by Assemblymember Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco) – Provides that a threat to report the immigration status or suspected immigration status of an individual or the individual's family may induce fear sufficient to constitute extortion.
AB 1024 by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) – Allows applicants, who are not lawfully present in the United States, to be admitted as an attorney at law.
AB 1159 by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) – Imposes various restrictions and obligations on persons who offer services related to comprehensive immigration reform.
SB 141 by Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) – Requires that the California Community Colleges and the California State University, and requests that the University of California, exempt a United States citizen who resides in a foreign country, and is in their first year as a matriculated student, from nonresident tuition if the student demonstrates financial need, has a parent or guardian who was deported or voluntarily departed from the U. S., lived in California immediately before moving abroad, and attended a secondary school in California for at least three years.
SB 150 by Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) – Authorizes a community college district to exempt pupils attending community colleges as a special part-time student from paying nonresident tuition.
SB 666 by Sen. Steinberg (D-Sacramento) – Provides for a suspension or revocation of an employer's business license for retaliation against employees and others on the basis of citizenship and immigration status, and establishes a civil penalty up to $10,000 per violation.
For full text of the bills, visit: http://leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html .
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected propylene, a chemical used to make food-storage containers, car bumpers and other consumer products, on Saturn's moon Titan.
This is the first definitive detection of the plastic ingredient on any moon or planet, other than Earth.
A small amount of propylene was identified in Titan's lower atmosphere by Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS). This instrument measures the infrared light, or heat radiation, emitted from Saturn and its moons in much the same way our hands feel the warmth of a fire.
Propylene is the first molecule to be discovered on Titan using CIRS. By isolating the same signal at various altitudes within the lower atmosphere, researchers identified the chemical with a high degree of confidence. Details are presented in a paper in the Sept. 30 edition of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“This chemical is all around us in everyday life, strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene,” said Conor Nixon, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and lead author of the paper. “That plastic container at the grocery store with the recycling code 5 on the bottom – that's polypropylene.”
CIRS can identify a particular gas glowing in the lower layers of the atmosphere from its unique thermal fingerprint. The challenge is to isolate this one signature from the signals of all other gases around it.
The detection of the chemical fills in a mysterious gap in Titan observations that dates back to NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft and the first-ever close flyby of this moon in 1980.
Voyager identified many of the gases in Titan's hazy brownish atmosphere as hydrocarbons, the chemicals that primarily make up petroleum and other fossil fuels on Earth.
On Titan, hydrocarbons form after sunlight breaks apart methane, the second-most plentiful gas in that atmosphere. The newly freed fragments can link up to form chains with two, three or more carbons. The family of chemicals with two carbons includes the flammable gas ethane. Propane, a common fuel for portable stoves, belongs to the three-carbon family.
Voyager detected all members of the one- and two-carbon families in Titan's atmosphere. From the three-carbon family, the spacecraft found propane, the heaviest member, and propyne, one of the lightest members. But the middle chemicals, one of which is propylene, were missing.
As researchers continued to discover more and more chemicals in Titan's atmosphere using ground- and space-based instruments, propylene was one that remained elusive. It was finally found as a result of more detailed analysis of the CIRS data.
“This measurement was very difficult to make because propylene's weak signature is crowded by related chemicals with much stronger signals,” said Michael Flasar, Goddard scientist and principal investigator for CIRS. “This success boosts our confidence that we will find still more chemicals long hidden in Titan's atmosphere.”
Cassini's mass spectrometer, a device that looks at the composition of Titan's atmosphere, had hinted earlier that propylene might be present in the upper atmosphere. However, a positive identification had not been made.
“I am always excited when scientists discover a molecule that has never been observed before in an atmosphere,” said Scott Edgington, Cassini's deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. “This new piece of the puzzle will provide an additional test of how well we understand the chemical zoo that makes up Titan's atmosphere.”
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The federal government shutdown is forcing a local nonprofit to reduce its services.
Lake Family Resource Center Executive Director Gloria Flaherty said the nonprofit was advised that payment systems for its Child Abuse Treatment Program, Domestic Violence Program and Rape Crisis Center would be suspended effective on Friday.
“Due to federal and state budget cuts and cuts due to the sequester, Lake Family Resource Center no longer has the capacity to maintain programs during this government shutdown,” said Flaherty.
She added, “It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the partisan politics that created this shutdown, but I will say that in my opinion, creating a situation where services for abused children and rape victims are compromised is the height of irresponsibility.”
The agency will continue domestic violence services using state funds and will continue emergency response and crisis counseling in the Rape Crisis Center and Child Abuse Treatment.
People may access emergency services through the agency’s 24-hour phone line at 888-485-7733.
If the shutdown continues for some weeks, it is anticipated funding for several other of the agency’s programs may also be compromised, Flaherty said.
“We are very grateful to the residents of Lake County for their consistent support of Lake Family Resource Center,” said Bill Cornelison, a center board members. “Without local support, the agency would not be in a position to provide as many services as it does.”
Donations to Lake Family Resource Center are tax-deductible.
Visit the Lake Family Resource Center Web site at http://www.lakefrc.org/ .
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Following a successful exhibit opening of the mother and daughter photo gallery at The Lake County Office of Education, The Big Read will sponsor a book launch and keynote speaker celebration on Saturday, Oct. 5, at the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake.
Beginning at 4 p.m., Big Read Program Director Robin Shrive will present host and speaker Bernie Butcher, hotel owner and historian, and follow with keynote speaker Cathy Kroll, professor of English at Sonoma State University.
Dr. Kroll will present her contemporary perspective on The Big Read novel selection “The Joy Luck Club” in a speech entitled, “Tiger Mothers, ‘Lean-In Mothers’ and Millennia’s – The Joy Luck Club’s Fierce Endurance.”
Guests will enjoy complimentary coffee and tea service. The event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to the LCOE Web site, www.lakecoe.org , and follow links to Educational Programs and The Big Read page and side bar. Space is limited.
The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, in association with Arts Midwest.
To obtain more information on Lake County Big Read events, visit the LCOE Web site, or the www.NEABigRead.org site. Follow the “communities” link to Lake County.
Upcoming events include a Chinese Film Series every Thursday at the Lower Lake Schoolhouse Museum, a Chine sis Plant Species Talk and Tea at Star Gardens in Middletown on Oct. 12, a Chinese cooking class presented by Chic le Chef caterers on Oct. 15, and a chess tournament for kids at Burns Valley School in Clearlake on Oct. 19.
In Upper Lake, a food and wine pairing will be presented by the Lake County Wine Studio on Oct. 19 as well as a Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre at the Tallman Hotel.
Friends of Boggs Mountain on Cobb encourages lovers of the outdoors and readers of all ages to participate in a Paths and Passages walk on Sunday, Oct. 20 at 9 a.m.
The Lake County Library, K-12 districts, and community colleges are all collaborators in this year’s Big Read.
Visit the Web sites or telephone specific partners for more information, or email Robin Shrive at