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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Westgate, Iowa Herald Newspaper, circa 1907

“Westgate far-exceeds many towns as a good town to trade in due to our excellent local stores. The farm property as trebled in value. We are fortunate to have the great Chicago & Northwestern Railroad’s freight and mail service. Many towns are too close to the stockyards, wells are contaminated and the best homes in the City are offended by the nauseating odor. Not so in Westgate. We are the heart of Iowa’s best dairy district, with prime pastures, where the best stock and thoroughbreds can be produced. We have wonderful churches and our two-room school pays its teachers the highest wages. The creamery serves 150 milk producers. We take pride in our community and over half the property owners have cement sidewalks. Our farmers and stockmen flourish, as well as artisans and business men. Our fertile acres of prairie land and rich homes and magnificent farms. This is a religious community and we would be proud to introduce you to a group of our manly young men reared in the best homes or to their sisters, a splendid body of of young womanhood worthy of all praise and respect, brought up by their fathers and mothers, pure gold in sentiments that inspire right living. Stranger, you can bring your young people here with full assurance you will be taking them into good influences of a rare old Iowa community noted for its purity of home and social life and the thriftiness and honor of its people.”

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Song of the Open Road - Walt Whitman

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, and the world before me.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune --
I myself am good-fortune;
Strong and content, I travel the open road.

I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and the west are mine,
And the north and the south are mine.
All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women,
You have done such good to me,
I would do the same to you.

Whoever you are, come travel with me!
However sweet these laid-up
stores - however convenient
This dwelling, we cannot remain here;
However sheltered this port,
And however calm these
Waters, we must not anchor here;

Together! The inducements shall be greater;
We will sail pathless and wild seas;
We will go where winds blow,
Waves dash, and the Yankee
Clipper speeds by under full sail.

Forward! After the great Companions!
And to belong to them!
They too are on the road!
Onward! To that which is endless,
As it was beginningless,
To undergo much, tramps of
Days, rests of nights,

To see nothing anywhere but
What you may reach it and pass it.
To look up or down no road but it
Stretches and waits for you --
To know the universe itself as a road --
As many roads --
As roads for traveling souls.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

TO BE A MAN IS NOT TO BE

by Jack Marvin


My father said to me, "Be a man!"
be strong, be a leader, be brave,
work hard, earn your way, save money,
provide for others; be responsible;
don't show anger.

My mother said to me, "Be a man!"
be smarter, be good, be polite,
obey, compete, practice, be quiet,
be alone, be careful;
don't show sadness.

My teachers said to me, "Be a man!"
be punctual, be quiet, be like others,
study, pay attention, do your homework,
compete, lose, win, succeed, fail;
don't show ignorance.

My clergy said to me, "Be a man!"
be reverent, be humble, be proud,
judge, sit still, be superior,
turn the other cheek, stand up for Jesus;
don't show hatred.

My peers said to me, "Be a man!"
be one-of-the-guys, be cool, be tough,
make out and score, drink, smoke,
play ball, hang out, goof off;
don't show weakness.

My sergeant said to me, "Be a man!"
be a soldier, be strong, be brave,
be arrogant, stand straight, take orders,
be a killer, be willing to die;
don't show fear.

Father, mother, teacher, peer,
Clergy, sergeant, all that are dear,
I learned to be what you wanted of me
In order to gain acceptability.
To be a man became my goal;
I struggled and strove to create my role.
I lived to please; I lived to serve;
A covert victim of your every word.
Life, for me, became a trap
Ensnaring, confusing--a vicious map
For how to act outside of me
While filling with rage internally.

Then one night in the midst of pain
A voice whose name I could not name
Said to me,

"Be you!"

"You are a man and much, much more.
Though the ground may unharrowed
be,
In you are freedom and responsibility,
Will, worth, devil, saint,
Arrogance, humility, stout heart and
faint.
You are the gardener, the choice is
yours
Of what to grow from your abundant
stores.
IN you there is life to live creatively,
If you accept and nurture your
immensity."

Father, mother, teacher, peer,
Clergy, sergeant, all that are dear,
I am a man and much much more.
Though I did not know this before
To be just a man is lessening me;
To be a man is not to be.

Fathers Day Poem - Sandra's

In twenty-five years of Father’s Days
I have witnessed your becoming more fatherly, leaderly,
As you have grown into your place at the head of your clan.
One child you conceived; two you earned but no less worthy
Of your devotion, energy, compassion, and advice.

You have become the partner I always wanted
Who I trust to uphold the wellbeing of our children.
The toddlers pummel you with unrestrained vigor.
The emerging teens enter your space tentatively
with requests for engagement.
Our adult children count on your wise perspective.

The inexorable march of generations is upon you
As you incorporate the growth of our children
With your own quest for a meaningful life.
You study, search, feel, question, and most importantly express.
But your relevance is held in those who will follow.



HAPPY FATHER’S DAY
With love,
Your Babe

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Family Rules

If I open it, I'll close it.

If I turn it on, I'll turn it off.

If I unlock it, I'll lock it.

If I don't know, I'll find someone who does.

If I break it, I'll admit it.

If I can't fix, I'll get someone who can.

If I borrow it, I'll return it.

If I value it, I'll take care of it.

If I make a mess, I'll clean it up.

If I move it, I'll put it back.

If it isn't mine, I'll get permission to use it.

If I don't know how to operate it, I'll leave it alone.

If it ain't broke, I won't fix it.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

This in Itself is Enough - Poem

At first he was a neighbor, she a friend of a friend.

Interests intersecting, we crossed paths at times.

Gradually friendship grew between and among us,

As we shared food, fun, and activist concerns.


Privileged to be among the small band of their wedding guests,

We bought the champagne and toasted love and commitment.

Only months later we toasted another marriage of sorts ~

Our joint commitment to a sailboat dream come true.


Intimacy, conflict, communication skills, and good-will,

Different habits and approaches, common rituals, win-win solutions.

We divided the work, designated the weekends, sailed together, too.

Years later we separated as boat partners, remaining special friends.


Then Judy joined Sandra in her going for the gold

And “Better Together for Couples” was miraculously forged.

Mostly harmonious, occasionally clashing these two strong women

Walked their talk, led their team, and birthed another dream.


Singly and together, Nate and Sandra generously and enthusiastically

make this world a better place.

They apply their personal integrity, professional skills and willingness to serve

To their profound commitment to individuals’ and couples’ joy and fulfillment.

They ask important questions, make helpful connections, bring out valued wisdom.


We know and trust Sandra and Nate deeply, uniquely.

With no other friends have we shared so nakedly.

Together we four have recast many pasts, co-created many futures, and savored many

presents.

Consciously aging, steadfastly supporting, we remain co-celebrants of the richness of

Life.

Dayenu.


Judy Charlick

January 28, 2007

New Theory for Life's First Energy Source

Zoё Macintosh
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Sat Jun 12, 7:45 am ET

An obscure compound known as pyrophosphite could have been a source of energy that allowed the first life on Earth to form, scientists now say.

From the tiniest bacteria to the complex human body, all living beings require an energy-transportingmolecule called ATP to survive. Often likened to a "rechargeable battery," ATP stores chemical energy in a form that can be used by organic matter.

"You need enzymes to make ATP, and you need ATP to make enzymes," said researcher Terence Kee ofthe University of Leeds in England. "The question is: Where did energy come from before either of these two things existed? We think that the answer may lie in simple molecules, such as pyrophosphate, which is chemically very similar to ATP, but has the potential to transfer energy without enzymes."

Obscure but important

Prior theories for how life emerged from mere chemistry have considered that a similar but separatecompound known as pyrophosphate was the predecessor to the more complex yet more efficient ATP.

Phosphate has 4 oxygen atoms bound to a central phosphorus atom, and is present in all living cells. When two phosphates combine and lose a water molecule, they form pyrophosphate.

Pyrophosphite, on the other hand, is rarely encountered, chemist Robert Shapiro at New York University told Livescience. "Even in my Google search for it, I got the query: 'Don't you mean pyrophosphate?'"

The presence of "one or two thorny little problems" with its rival molecule [pyrophosphate] had left some unanswered questions, Kee said in a telephone interview.

The two main problems were that pyrophosphate didn't seem to be available in significant amounts in the geological mineral record, and it doesn't react well withoutcatalysts (which weren't around then), according to Kee.

On the other hand, Kee's team has found that pyrophosphite would be "relatively straightforward to prepare from minerals that are known to exist in iron meteorites." The routes to the production of this molecule are simpler than those proposed for pyrophosphate, Kee said.

Though similarly produced through dehydration, and similar in composition except that it has some oxygen atoms replaced by hydrogen, pyrophosphite is rare. Only three pyrophosphite minerals exist, compared with "many phosphate minerals," Kee said.

The chemical's obscurity on Earth is not a sign of its irrelevance. It's highly unstable in today's oxygen-rich environment (meaning it breaks down into othermolecules rapidly) but is a superior catalyst (jump-starter) for certain chemical reactions, Kee said, citing as-yet-unpublished evidence.

Lateral thinking

Kee called the altered theory "more a lateral thought process" than a "new concept."

"It is as little strange that pyrophosphite and its ability to act as a phosphorus-transfer agent have been known for some time but it has not been proposed previously as being of any pre-biotic significance," he said. "I suspect because noone had considered the need for it or that it may have been accessible pre-biotically."

Interestingly, machines that manufacture artificial DNA for experiments regularly use pyrophophite in their assembly process, Shapiro said.

The researchers detail their theory on pyrophosphate as life's first energy source in a recent issue of the journal Chemical Communications.
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Original Story: New Theory for Life's First Energy Source
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