Mountain Views News          Saturday, November 17, 2012

5

AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Mountain Views News Saturday, November 17, 2012

“What’s Going On?” 

News and Views from Joan Schmidt

DUARTE HONORS VETERANS -

ADOPTS TWO SPECIAL PROGRAMS

 On Veterans Day, Duarte honored all Veterans at Thorsen Park. Refreshments were provided 
by Monrovia’s Coffee Bean &Tea Leaf. There were three collages representing World War I, 
World War II and the Viet Nam War. A handout, “Elected Officials” provided contact info-
from President Obama down to Duarte City Officials and a pamphlet explaining “Project Get 
Back to Work Now” were available. Attending were Mayor Fasana, Mayor Pro Reilly, Council 
Members Margaret Finlay and Tzeitel Paras Caracci, City Manager Darrell George, School 
Board Members Ken Bell and Tom Reyes, Public Safety Director Brian Villalobos, Karen 
Herrera, Chamber Director Jim Kirchner and many more!

 After a warm welcome by Mayor Fasana , Chuck Keen from Monrovia Post # 44 offered the 
Invocation, followed by local veterans posting colors, a beautiful rendition of the “National 
Anthem” by Melida Smith, and the Pledge of Allegiance led by Earl Sweeney, Post #44. Guest speakers were Miguel 
Vallegos, Robert Finlay and Otto Schreiter, all Veterans of World War II. 

 Miguel’s granddaughter, Jessica Joanou, read his account which brought tears to everyone’s eyes. Miguel, serving 
under General King, was Filipino and captured by the Japanese. The horrors of the Prison Camp were unbelievable, 
but he survived. 

 Robert, father-in-law of Council Member Margaret Finlay gave an account of his career from enlisting to basic 
training at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and in England. He retold crossing the English Channel, going into France, and 
being a scout who had to jump into a foxhole for cover, where he found a dead German with no legs! When the 
Battle of the Bulge started, his company reached the outskirts, but they were sent back to England, because of their 
bad feet conditions. 

 Otto Shreider received Basic Training in 
southern Illinois at the Sixth Convalescent 
Hospital which was like a “MASH” unit, and 
described all places at which his training 
occurred. He also recalled “D Day” and the 
great amount of land crafts (3000), thousands 
of troops and 195,000 tons of bombs dropped. 
“We lost 10,000 the first day.” All three men’s 
accounts made all present realize how much we 
owe our Veterans.

 Assemblyman Portantino read the list of 
Duarteans followed by Melida’s “God Bless 
America”. Mayor Fasana unveiled the Veterans 
Memorial Plaque and the program ended with 
“Taps” by Joseph Reyes, Senior Airman, U.S. Air 
Force.

 Two special Duarte programs were noted. 
Military banners on Huntington Drive will 
represent active duty. When they return home, 
their banner will be presented to their family. 
City of Hope has donated the first thirty 
banners. If anyone wishes to help in this project, 
please contact City Hall. (626) 357-7931.

 Mayor Fasana also mentioned a wonderful program, “Back to Work within Ninety Days”. The City of Duarte 
and Duarte businesses will partner with the National Employment Council to offer a free six-week training program 
beginning on December 5, to help unemployed military veterans connect with employees and get back to work.

 “As a community, we see the National Employment Council’s “Get Back to Work” program as a truly meaningful 
way to thank our Veterans by providing them with the tools, guidance, and support needed to connect with 
employers and rejoin the workforce,” said Duarte Mayor John Fasana.

 On November 28 from 5p.m. to 7 p.m. a reception will be held at the Duarte Community Center where local 
businesses can learn about the program.

 The six-week training co-sponsored by Best Jobs Magazine will begin on Dec. 5, 9 a.m. to 12 noon at the Duarte 
Community Center, 1600 Huntington Drive. Next will be an online class on Dec. 12. The following four classes 
will be held from 9 a.m. to 12 noon at the Community Center on Dec. 19, Jan. 2, Jan., 9, and Jan. 16. Training will 
be provided by Farhad (Fred) Omidar (Omid), director of the National Employment Center.

 Program participants learn five steps to connect with employers in their field. Each step is accompanied with a 
guide to be used as a reference to speed up the job finding process. Upon completion, graduates are assisted with 
the job-matching process. Employers enrolled in the program and eager to interview the graduates have the option 
to hire qualified applicants directly from the program or try-out the graduates as interns. The program also assigns 
each applicant to a career coach until employment is realized by the applicant.

 The GET Back to Work Now service is free to both job seekers and employers. It is financed by private corporations 
and businesses committed in improving our communities.

 For more information about the program, contact Deputy City Manager, Karen Herrera at (626) 357-7931, ext. 
221, or Fred Omid at (949) 870-0201.

METROLINK BREAKS GROUND ON 
GLENDALE SAFETY CORRIDOR 

Pictured Above: Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, MTA Chairman 
and Metrolink Director 

 

LOS ANGELES COUNTY— Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, Chairman 
of the MTA and Metrolink Director, joined community leaders and 
residents at the groundbreaking of Metrolink’s new Glendale Corridor 
project which will improve four crossings in the cities of Glendale and Los 
Angeles. 

 “Our first priority is safety,” said Antonovich. “The 2008 Chatsworth tragedy 
and the 2005 Glendale crash strengthen our resolve to prevent these 
types of accidents from ever happening again. These improvements are part 
of a larger effort to upgrade our Metrolink system throughout southern 
California -- especially on the Antelope Valley line from Lancaster to Los 
Angeles Union Station.” 

The four highlighted projects along the "Glendale Corridor" are at Sonora 
and Grandview avenues in Glendale, along with crossings at Chevy Chase 
Drive and Broadway/Brazil Street, bordering the cities of Glendale and Los 
Angeles. 

The crossing upgrades include roadway widening, new automatic vehicle 
exit gates, sidewalks, handrails, automatic pedestrian gates and traffic signal 
advance preemption technology. 


Earl Sweeney


THE WORLD AROUND US


LOST IN SPACE WITHOUT A PARENT STAR

Astronomers have identified a body that is 
very probably a planet wandering through 
space without a parent star. This is the most 
exciting free-floating planet candidate so far 
and the closest such object to the Solar System 
at a distance of about 100 light-years. Its 
comparative proximity to us, and the absence 
of a bright star very close to it, has allowed the 
team to study its atmosphere in great detail. 
This object also gives astronomers a preview 
of the exoplanets that future instruments aim 
to image around stars other than the Sun.

Free-floating planets are planetary-mass 
objects that roam through space without 
any ties to a star. Possible examples of such 
objects have been found before, but without 
knowing their ages, it was not possible to 
know whether they were really planets or 
“brown dwarfs”—tiny stars that lack the bulk 
to trigger the reactions that make stars shine.

But astronomers have now discovered an 
object, labelled CFBDSIR2149, that seems 
to be part of a nearby stream of young 
stars known as the AB Doradus Moving 
Group. The researchers found the object 
in observations from the Canada-France-
Hawaii Telescope and harnessed the power of 
the European Southern Observatory’s Very 
Large Telescope to examine its properties.

The AB Doradus Moving Group is the closest 
such group to the Solar System. Its stars drift 
through space together and are thought to 
have formed at the same time. If the object 
is associated with this moving group—and 
hence is a very young object—it is possible to deduce much more about it, including its temperature, 
mass, and what its atmosphere is made of.

The link between the new object and the moving group is the vital clue that allows astronomers to find 
the age of the newly discovered object. This is the first isolated planetary mass object ever identified in 
a moving group, and the association with this group makes it the most interesting free-floating planet 
candidate identified so far.

“Looking for planets around their stars is akin to studying a firefly sitting one centimeter away from a 
distant, powerful car headlight,” says Philippe Delorme (Institut de planetologie et d’astrophysique de 
Grenoble, CNRS/Universite Joseph Fourier, France), lead author of the new study.

Free-floating objects like CFBDSIR2149 are thought to form either as normal planets that have been 
booted out of their home systems, or as lone objects like the smallest stars or brown dwarfs. In either 
case these objects are intriguing—either as planets without stars, or as the tiniest possible objects in a 
range spanning from the most massive stars to the smallest brown dwarfs.

“These objects are important, as they can either help us understand more about how planets may be 
ejected from planetary systems, or how very light objects can arise from the star formation process,” 
Delorme points out. “If this little object is a planet that has been ejected from its native system, it 
conjures up the striking image of orphaned worlds, drifting in the emptiness of space.”

************************************

Alone is like a scattered star

And galaxies of privacy

Have not an ounce of gravity

For one who knows what spaces are.

—Bob Eklund

*************************************

The poem is from the book, “First Star I See Tonight: An Exploration of Wonder,” by Robert L. Eklund. 
Copyright 2007 by Robert L. Eklund.

You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com.