Mountain Views News          Saturday, March 16, 2013

6

AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Mountain Views-News Saturday, March 16, 2013 

IN SEARCH OF THE REAL ST. PATRICK

 By Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges is the author of “How to Survive Anywhere,” “Self-Sufficient Home,” and other 
books. He leads self-sufficiency classes, and does a weekly podcast at Preparedness Radio 
Network. He can be reached at School of Self-reliance, Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041 or 
www.ChristopherNyerges.com]


ANTONOVICH VOTES “NO” ON 
STORMWATER TAX 

LOS ANGELES COUNTY – Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich cast the lone “no” vote on a 
motion by Supervisors Molina and Knabe to close the protest hearing and look into putting 
the tax measure on the ballot in 2014.

“Stormwater cleanup is the state’s responsibility and the legislature and Governor need to 
develop a statewide approach to solving this problem,” said Antonovich. “County residents, 
school districts, businesses and churches should not be burdened with higher taxes to support 
another state unfunded mandate.” 

 
Who was Saint Patrick? 
Really, who was he? Not the 
mythological story we tell to 
our children each March 17 in 
sing-song voices: “Saint Patrick 
wore a green suit, talked to 
leprechans (he was probably 
drunk at the time), and while 
trying to convert the pagans 
with a shamrock, he marched 
all the snakes out of Ireland.” 
Will the real Saint Patrick please 
stand up?

 His real name was Maewyn 
Succat, born around 385 A.D., 
somewhere in Scotland, or 
possibly somewhere else, as 
there is conflicting historical 
data on his exact date and place 
of birth. His baptismal name 
was Patricius. 

 Around age 16, he was sold 
into slavery in Ireland and 
worked for the next 6 years 
as a shepherd. Keep in mind 
that human slavery, as well as 
human sacrifice, was considered 
normal for those times.

 After his six years in slavery, 
he believed that an angel came 
to him in a dream, prompting 
him to escape and seek out his 
homeland. He actually walked 
about 200 miles to the coast, 
where his dream indicated a 
ship would also be waiting for 
him. He successfully escaped, 
and spent the next twenty 
years of his life as a monk in 
Marmoutier Abbey. There 
he again received a celestial 
visitation, this time calling him 
to return to the land where he’d 
been enslaved, though now 
with a mission as a priest and 
converter. 

 Patrick was called to Rome 
in 432, where Pope Celestine 
bequeathed the honour of 
Bishop upon him before he left 
on his mission.

 Patrick returned to Ireland not 
alone, but with 24 supporters 
and followers. They arrived in 
Ireland in the winter of 432. 
In the Spring, Patrick decided 
to confront the high King of 
Tara, the most powerful King 
in Ireland. Patrick knew that 
if he had the King’s support, 
he would be free to take his 
Christian message to the people 
of Ireland.

 Patrick and his followers 
were invited to Tara by the King 
of Laoghaire. It was there that 
he was said to have plucked a 
shamrock from the ground as 
he tried to explain to the Druids 
and the King that the shamrock 
had three leaves just like the 
idea of God’s three aspects - 
The Father, The Son and the 
Holy Ghost. This was called the 
Trinity. 

 Of course, triads and trinities 
were a common concept among 
the Druids. In fact, one could 
argue that the trinity (a term 
not found in the Bible) was a 
concept given to Christianity 
by the Druids, rather than 
the other way around. 
Nevertheless, King Laoghaire 
was very impressed and chose 
to accept Christianity. He also 
gave Patrick the freedom to 
spread Christianity throughout 
Ireland.

 When Patrick returned to 
Ireland, he treated the “pagans” 
with the respect implicit in his 
dream. Part of this respect was 
attempting to communicate 
with the Druids on their terms, 
which is why he used the 
shamrock as a teaching tool. 
He also blended the Christian 
cross with the circle to create 
what is now known as the 
Celtic cross. He used bonfires 
to celebrate Easter, a Holy Day 
that Christianity supplanted 
with the already-existing spring 
equinox commemoration. In 
fact, he incorporated many of 
the existing symbols and beliefs 
into his Christian teachings. 

 He spent his last 30 years 
in Ireland, baptizing the non-
Christian Irish, ordaining 
priests, and founding churches 
and monasteries. His persuasive 
powers must have been 
astounding, since Ireland 
fully converted to Christianity 
within 200 years and was 
the only country in Europe 
to Christianize peacefully. 
Patrick’s Christian conversion 
ended slavery, human sacrifice, 
and most intertribal warfare in 
Ireland.

 Patrick was also unique in 
that he equally valued the role 
of women in an age when the 
church ignored them. He always 
sided with the downtrodden 
and the excluded, whether they 
were slaves or the “pagan” Irish.

 According to Thomas 
Cahill, author of How the Irish 
Saved Civilization, Patrick’s 
influence extended far beyond 
his adopted land. Cahill’s book, 
which could just as well be 
titled How St. Patrick Saved 
Civilization, contends that 
Patrick’s conversion of Ireland 
allowed Western learning to 
survive the Dark Ages. Ireland 
pacified and churchified as 
the rest of Europe crumbled. 
Patrick’s monasteries copied 
and preserved classical texts. 
Later, Irish monks returned 
this knowledge to Europe by 
establishing monasteries in 
England, Germany, France, 
Switzerland, and Italy.

 When the lights went out 
all over Europe, a candle still 
burned in Ireland. That candle 
was lit by Patrick. 

 Veneration of Patrick 
gradually assumed the status 
of a local cult. He was not 
simply remembered in Saul 
and Downpatrick, he was 
worshipped. Indeed, homage 
to Patrick as Ireland’s saint was 
apparent in the eight century 
AD. At this time Patrick’s status 
as a national apostle was made 
independently of Rome. He was 
claimed locally as a saint before 
the practice of canonization was 
introduced by the Vatican. The 
high regard in which the Irish 
have held St Patrick is evidenced 
by the salutation, still common 
today, of “May God, Mary, and 
Patrick bless you”.

 Patrick was not Irish, had 
nothing to do with leprechauns, 
almost certainly was not a 
drunkard, and didn’t drive all 
the snakes out of Ireland. In 
fact, there were no native snakes 
in Ireland, though this story 
is believed to be an analogy 
for driving out the so-called 
“pagans,” or, at least, the pagan 
religions. 

 Patrick was one of the “greats” 
of history who nearly single-
handedly preserved the best of 
Western culture when much 
of Europe was devolving into 
chaos and ruin. He deserves far 
better than remembering him 
in the silly ways we do today, 
such as wearing green, pinching 
each other, and getting drunk. 
Rather, he deserves an accurate 
memory, and our emulation. 
Unfortunately, like all true 
Saviors of history, they are 
either killed off, or relegated to 
the closet of ridicule. 

 Perhaps it’s time for all of us to 
re-think how we commemorate 
this special man, and his vast 
contribution to world culture.

ANTONOVICH CALLS FOR EXPANSION OF 

LAURA’S LAW THROUGHOUT CALIFORNIA 

LOS ANGELES COUNTY – The Board of Supervisors approved a motion by Supervisor Michael D. 
Antonovich supporting the expansion of “Laura’s Law” which allows counties to provide court-ordered 
mental health treatment for those who refuse to obtain help. 

 “It is vital that life-saving programs are expanded throughout the state to help the mentally ill recover 
and live productive lives,” said Antonovich. 

 “Laura’s Law” reformed the “Lanterman-Petris-Short Law,” which had prohibited judges, families, and 
physicians from compelling the severely mentally ill to accept treatment. 

 A pilot program initiated by Antonovich in Los Angeles County has successfully stabilized and reintegrated 
participants back into the community with a 78% reduction in incarcerations and a 77% reduction 
in hospitalizations. These reductions significantly improved the lives of program participants and 
cut the costs to the community and taxpayers by almost 40%. 

 Laura’s Law is patterned after New York State’s Kendra’s Law, which has shown tremendous success 
after just five years. Data conclusively demonstrates that assisted outpatient treatment significantly 
reduces severe consequences for participants. 

ROTATING PUBLIC ART EXHIBITION PROGRAM, 
PHASE II - REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

The City of Pasadena is seeking proposals from artists, artist teams and galleries for the 
selection and commission of artworks for Phase II of the Rotating Public Art Exhibition 
Program. Selected sculptures will be installed for 24 months at eight highly-visible locations 
within the City. Two of the six loaned artworks may reflect sustainability, water, conservation, 
electrical, or recycling themes.

Launched in 2011, the Rotating Public Art Exhibition Program seeks to create an outdoor 
art gallery that enlivens the urban landscape and produces a dynamic visual experience for 
residents and visitors. The Program places existing loaned and newly commissioned site-
specific sculptures on public view in neighborhoods representing all City Council Districts. 
Exhibition sites are unsupervised and include traffic islands, medians and smaller, more 
intimate parcels. 

Artist honoraria are $3,000 for the loaned artworks and $5,000 for site-specific projects. 
Artworks must be available for installation by June 30, 2013.

The submittal deadline is 5:00 pm on April 22, 2013.


THE CLOSEST STAR SYSTEM FOUND SINCE 1916

 A pair of newly discovered stars is the third-closest star system to the Sun, according to a 
paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. The duo is the closest star system 
discovered since 1916. The discovery was made by Kevin Luhman, an associate professor of 
astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University and a researcher in Penn State’s Center 
for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds.

 Both stars in the new binary system are “brown dwarfs”—stars too low in mass to ever 
become hot enough to ignite hydrogen fusion. As a result, they are very cool and dim, 
resembling giant planets like Jupiter more than bright stars like the Sun.

 “The distance to this brown dwarf pair is 6.5 light years—so close that Earth’s television 
transmissions from 2006 are now arriving there,” Luhman said. “It will be an excellent hunting 
ground for planets because it is very close to Earth, which makes it a lot easier to see any 
planets orbiting either of the brown dwarfs.” Since this is the third-closest star system, in the 
distant future it might be one of the first destinations for manned expeditions outside our solar 
system, Luhman noted.

 The star system is named “WISE J104915.57-531906” because it was discovered in a map 
of the entire sky obtained by the NASA-funded Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) 
satellite. It is only slightly farther away than the second-closest star, Barnard’s star, which 
was discovered 6.0 light years from the Sun in 1916 by E.E. Barnard. The closest star system 
consists of Alpha Centauri, found to be a neighbor of the Sun in 1839 at 4.4 light years, and the 
fainter Proxima Centauri, discovered in 1917 at 4.2 light years.

 Edward (Ned) Wright, the principal investigator for the WISE satellite, said “One major goal 
when proposing WISE was to find the closest stars to the Sun. WISE 1049-5319 is by far the 
closest star found to date using the WISE data, and the close-up views of this binary system we 
can get with big telescopes like Gemini and the future James Webb Space Telescope will tell us 
a lot about the low mass stars known as brown dwarfs.” Wright is the David Saxon Presidential 
Chair in Physics and a professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA.

 Astronomers have long speculated about the possible presence of a distant, dim object 
orbiting the Sun, which is sometimes called Nemesis. However, Luhman has concluded, “We 
can rule out that the new brown dwarf system is such an object because it is moving across the 
sky much too fast to be in orbit around the Sun.”

 After noticing its rapid motion in the WISE images, Luhman went hunting for detections of 
the suspected nearby star in older sky surveys. He found that it indeed was detected in images 
spanning from 1978 to 1999 from the Digitized Sky Survey, the Two Micron All-Sky Survey, 
and the Deep Near Infrared Survey of the Southern Sky. “Based on how this star system 
was moving in the images from the WISE survey, I was able to extrapolate back in time to 
predict where it should have been located in the older surveys—and sure enough, it was there,” 
Luhman said.

 “It was a lot of detective work,” Luhman added. “There are billions of infrared points of light 
across the sky, and the mystery is which one—if if any of them—could be a star that is very 
close to our solar system.”

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


WISE J104915.57-531906 is at the center of the larger image, which was taken by the WISE 
satellite. It appeared to be a single object, but a sharper image from Gemini Observatory revealed 
that it was binary star system. Credit: NASA/JPL/Gemini Observatory/AURA/NSF