In Boston, St. Patrick's Day is a legal holiday for Suffolk County. Schools are closed and public transportation is on a Sunday/Holiday schedule.
How can the town fathers of this quintessentially old Yankee city get away with designating a religious-oriented feast a holiday for all? I knew you'd ask. In the record books it's not referred as a celebration of St. Patty's at all. It's a local holiday called Evacuation Day. See, by a strange coincidence, March 16 happens to be the date on which, in 1177, the British troops were forced to retreat from Boston during the American Revolution. When the British comander saw that Gen. George Washington and his chief of artillery, Col. Knox, had managed to haul all of the available cannons heretofore located at Fort Tyconderoga, NY to the promontory known as Dorchester Heights and had the entire British garrison at their mercy, it was decided that discretion was the better part of valour and the Brits all boarded their ships in Boston Harbor and sailed away to occupy...New York instead!
Later on, when the Irish-Americans had become a political force to be reckoned with in Massachusetts' capital city, a reason to make St. Pat's an official celebration was readily at hand.
And so it goes.
Merry Andrew, Did I mention me Mother's maiden name is Howell??
In the sxith line of my previous post, I obviously meant to type 1777, not 1177. Don't believe Geo. Washington had been born yet in the 12th century.
So you're a son of the auld sod, Dan?
1177 - I was quite taken with that. I hoped we were heading in a 1066 and all that direction
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aktbird57 - You and your 300 friends have supported 2,712,468.1 square feet!
Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 154,566.1 square feet.
American Prairie habitat supported: 59,412.8 square feet.
Rainforest habitat supported: 2,498,489.2 square feet.
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1 Aktbird57 .. 62.269 acres
2 37.962 acres
when I was littleBeth and learning English, I had a famous catchphrase
"stone to you"
It was accompanied by
~~~~~~~~
nowadays, it's more likely to be (and is right now)
So glad you're not 'stoned' any more, Bethie.
Hugs right back atcha.
I'm having a vision.
Walter travels to Chicago. Walter travels to New York. Walter takes the train to Boston. Walter takes the train back to New York. M. Andre hops the train with Walter to New York and catches up with ehB and Noddy and Bernie and Lola and mac11 and Frankie and ...
no
Thanks for the history lesson, MA. Didn't know that. And nice vision, ehBeth. Why the face?
Merry Andrew,
thanks for the history lesson. I remember the Boston Tea Party, of course, but these facts I might never have heard - or I forgot about them.
I looked up Col.Knox.
Knox was born to Scots-Irish Immigrants
What does this mean?
Henry married your mom dash; ( from Wikipedia/English)
Wiki/German says: he married Lucy Flucker.
ehBeth, your vision deserves
Danon,
St.Patrick's Day here is is used to visit some of the Irish Pubs for beer. One even has a Limerick contest.
Now this might be an idea for Saturday's party.
ehBeth, that is the cutest applique!
Interesting info everyone!
sue...
= thwarting the evil eye {Irish Interpretation}
St Patty's Day is a both Christian and non Christian holiday, celebrated with gusto! The Irish celebrate five days - Dublin the Patty party capitol of the world.
NY's parade legendary, and if the celebration includes your trip ehB, please take photos!
Another side to the "Boston Tea Party" hehehehe
From Wiki P
"The first of many ships carrying the East India Company tea was the HMS Dartmouth arriving in late November 1765. A standoff ensued between the port authorities and the Sons of Liberty. Samuel Adams whipped up the growing crowd by demanding a series of protest meetings."
Samuel Adams was the local brewer of beer - - - a crowd must have easily gathered around him
Afterward the "Sons of Liberty" dressed as Native American Indians boarded the ships and began throwing the tea bundles overboard.
Sounds like lots of fun to me.......
sumac wrote: And nice vision, ehBeth. Why the face?
the original littleBeth face went with the stone she was threatening to throw when she wasn't happy. the face won't be needed if two charming gents hop off of that Boston - New York train in early June.
Worth reading. Antartica is acting weird.
Glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland Losing Ice
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 15, 2007; 2:04 PM
Some of the largest glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland are moving in unusual ways and are losing increased amounts of ice to the sea, researchers said today.
While the Greenland changes appear to be related to global warming, it remains unclear what is causing the glaciers, or ice streams, of frigid Antarctica to be losing ice to the ocean in recent years, the researchers said.
"In Greenland, we know there is melting associated with the ice loss, but in Antarctica we don't really know why it's happening," said Duncan Wingham, an author on the Science magazine review released today. "With so much of the world's ice captured in Antarctica, just the fact that we don't know why this is happening is a cause of some concern."
The Antarctic ice loss, which Wingham said is not caused by melting but rather the pushing of ice streams into the ocean by several glaciers in the west of the continent, has picked up speed in recent years. But Wingham said that because researchers have not had good measures of the depth of the Antarctic ice shelf until about 10 years ago, they don't know whether this is a natural variation or a result of changes created by human activity.
Complicating the situation for those studying Antarctica is the fact that some parts of the continent are gaining ice depth through snowfall while temperatures on the tip of the Antarctic peninsula are rising faster than almost anywhere else on the planet. The surprisingly fast-moving glaciers are largely on the West Antarctica Ice Sheet.
Wingham, of University College London, and his colleague Andrew Shepard of the University of Edinburgh said that satellite radar readings show that overall, the ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica amounts to about 10 percent of the 1/10 of an inch per year rise in the global sea level. The loss of Antarctic ice is estimated to be 25 billion metric tons a year, despite the growth of the ice sheet in East Antarctica.
Because such a large percentage of the world's ice is found in those two locations, scientists are carefully watching both for signs of increased melting and other ice loss. If that process starts in earnest, researchers say, it could result in a substantial, and highly disruptive, increase in sea levels worldwide.
In Greenland, glaciers appear to be moving more quickly to sea because of melting ice, which allows the sheet to slide more easily over the rock and dirt below. In Antarctica, the loss is believed to be associated with the breaking off into sea water of more ice deep under the ice sheet, or because of little understood internal dynamics that push the massive ice streams more vigorously.
Wingham said that he believed the final paper of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations sponsored group that last month concluded that it was more than 90 percent certain that the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities was causing the globe to warm significantly, will say much the same about the Antarctic. "I believe it will be along the lines of 'something is happening beneath the ice sheets, but we don't really know what it is yet.' "
In the same issue of Science, other researchers reported that air pollution from industrialized areas is collecting over the Arctic and creating what is called "Arctic haze." The pollution is made up of industrial and natural sources, in the form of aerosols, chemicals that can form into ozone, and black carbon, which is produced by incomplete burning of fossil fuels. The gradual warming of the large forests below the Arctic has resulted in an increase in forest fires, which in turn produce air pollutants that can increase warming further.
How cool is that?
They sound beautiful.
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aktbird57 - You and your 300 friends have supported 2,712,842.7 square feet!
Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 154,730.0 square feet.
American Prairie habitat supported: 59,412.8 square feet.
Rainforest habitat supported: 2,498,699.9 square feet.
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1 Aktbird57 .. 62.279 acres
2 37.962 acres
Immense ice deposits found at south pole of Mars By Will Dunham
Thu Mar 15, 3:00 PM ET
A spacecraft orbiting Mars has scanned huge deposits of water ice at its south pole so plentiful they would blanket the planet in 36 feet of water if they were liquid, scientists said on Thursday.
The scientists used a joint NASA-Italian Space Agency radar instrument on the European Space Agency Mars Express spacecraft to gauge the thickness and volume of ice deposits at the Martian south pole covering an area larger than Texas.
The deposits, up to 2.3 miles thick, are under a polar cap of white frozen carbon dioxide and water, and appear to be composed of at least 90 percent frozen water, with dust mixed in, according to findings published in the journal Science.
Scientists have known that water exists in frozen form at the Martian poles, but this research produced the most accurate measurements of just how much there is.
They are eager to learn about the history of water on Mars because water is fundamental to the question of whether the planet has ever harbored microbial or some other life. Liquid water is a necessity for life as we know it.
Characteristics like channels on the Martian surface strongly suggest the planet once was very wet, a contrast to its present arid, dusty condition.
Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who led the study, said the same techniques are being used to examine similar ice deposits at the Martian north pole.
Radar observations made in late 2005 and early 2006 provided the data on the south pole, and similar observations were taken of the north pole in the past several months, Plaut said.
Plaut, part of an international team of two dozen scientists, said a preliminary look at this data indicated the ice deposits in at the north pole are comparable to those at the south pole.
SEARCH FOR LIFE
"Life as we know it requires water and, in fact, at least transient liquid water for cells to survive and reproduce. So if we are expecting to find existing life on Mars we need to go to a location where water is available," Plaut said.
"So the polar regions are naturally a target because we certainly know that there's plenty of H2O there."
Some of the new information even hints at the possible existence of a thin layer of liquid water at the base of the deposits.
But while images taken by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft made public in December suggested the presence of a small amount of liquid water on the surface, researchers are baffled about the fate of most of the water. The polar deposits contain most of the known water on Mars.
Plaut said the amount of water in the Martian past may have been the equivalent of a global layer hundreds of meters deep, while the polar deposits represent a layer of perhaps tens of meters.
"We have this continuing question facing us in studies of Mars, which is: where did all the water go?" Plaut said.
"Even if you took the water in these two (polar) ice caps and added it all up, it's still not nearly enough to do all of the work that we've seen that the water has done across the surface of Mars in its history."
Plaut said it appears perhaps 10 percent of the water that once existed on Mars is now trapped in these polar deposits. Other water may exist below the planet's surface or perhaps some was lost into space through the atmosphere, Plaut said.
That's very interesting, sumac. Thanks
all clclclicked
