Mountain Views News          Saturday, March 30, 2013

6

AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Mountain Views-News Saturday, March 30, 2013 

“What’s Going On?” 

News and Views from Joan Schmidt

CONSIDERING EASTER

and what it means

 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]


KNOWLEDGE AND COMMITMENT: 

TWO PREREQUISITES AT ALL MONROVIA-
ARCADIA-DUARTE TOWN COUNCIL MEETINGS

 It’s still mindboggling to me that attendance isn’t greater at the Monrovia-
Arcadia-Duarte Town Council Meetings. Oh, if there has been a shooting in 
the area, or the threat of a marijuana dispensary, the meeting hall would be 
overflowing.

 But often there are only twenty or so residents. I cannot understand it. 
At EVERY meeting there is representation from the Sheriff’s Department. There’s always a patrol 
deputy/sergeant-this time it was April Nelson, who started many Neighborhood Watch programs. 
She had several copies of crime stats/trends to share and explain. Deputy Art Valenzuela was 
absent-a first for him- but he was in Washington DC at a Leadership Summit with area youth. Then 
Kevin Parris from Probation spoke of his Afterschool Enrichment Program, providing services for 
at-risk minors and their families, which includes the 45-member Teen Club, Mentors and Tutors 
from local colleges, Volunteer Skills for girls, a Pottery class for moms and daughters, parenting 
classes and the Gang Intervention Program. Whew! I get tired just listening to all that Probation 
Officer Paris does!

 The two great library ladies - Dina Malakoff from Live Oak and Joanna Gee from Duarte - brought 
flyers about library programs for ALL ages from preschool story hour to an adult book club! 

 Irving Montenegro gave an update on Pamela Park activities such as the Black History Celebration, 
Cheerleading Contest, Easter Egg Hunt and Youth Appreciation Day, June 7, 2013.

 Then it was time for TWO guest speakers. James N. Chon from Public Works explained the 
procedure for getting a street light in your area. Call Department of Public Works, Traffic and 
Lighting Division at (800) 618-7575 for details.

 There was also a presentation/update on the Peck Road Water Conservation Park - it will 
be AWESOME when complete. A few of the many highlights presented about this $650,000 park 
improvement project include a decorative entry with great new sign, more native tree planting, new 
restrooms, a 100-acre lake with fishing and a winding shaped path connecting to Whittier Narrows. 

 To learn more about this great project, please come to the Peck Water Conservation Park on 
Saturday, April 6, at 9:00 am. There is a great volunteer group, Amigos De Los Rios (Emerald 
Necklace Group) who welcome more volunteers to help with native plant landscape maintenance. 
The Peck Road Water Conservation Park is located at 5401 North Peck Road, Arcadia. (The entrance 
is small; for many years we drove past it and never realized the entry existed. If you travel south on 
Peck, start looking for it on the right after you pass Live Oak Avenue.)

 The next Monrovia-Arcadia-Duarte Town Council Meeting is Wednesday, April 17th, 7 pm at 
the KARE YOUTH LEAGUE, 5150 Farna, Arcadia. There will be special recognition of area youths 
who participated in the St. Baldrick fundraiser and Maria Jovel from Pamela Park’s Parent Project.

 
It is a time that millions of people the world over look forward to – the 
first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. What day 
is that, you ask? Easter, the day (and season) that Christians worldwide 
commemorate the trial, death, and resurrection from the death of Jesus.

 I grew up in a Catholic family, going to a Catholic school, and know 
well the Easter motif, beginning with the “giving something up” for 
Lent, Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey (in fulfillment of scriptures), and then 
turned over the tables of the vendors. He was still invited to speak in the Temple, but the Temple 
authorities considered him an upstart, someone who seemed to know “the Truth” in a way that they 
had forgotten, a man who didn’t have the Temple training and no formal training to become a Rabbi, 
and yet, there he was, attracting crowds, purporting to heal, innocent, seeming to know the answers 
to life’s deepest questions.

 His trial and death were almost predictable, as most societies do not like the rabble-rousers 
among them. Especially, the “leaders” do not like such persons, and they act quickly to dispose of 
them. Witness such other notables as Socrates, Pythagoras, Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln, Sitting 
Bull, Wovoka, \ Musashi, Malcolm X, Pope John Paul the first. I am not necessarily putting these 
individuals (and the hundreds more like them) on the par with Jesus, but it is clear that a down-ward 
looking society takes offense to anyone who looks to the heavens. 

 Every Easter I have enjoyed the inspiring messages that movie-makers have given us in their efforts 
to interpret the practical meaning of the Jesus message. I have particularly liked the over six-hour 
presentation of “Jesus of Nazareth” produced by Franco Zeffirelli, starring Robert Powell as Jesus. It 
is a rare presentation that brings the story alive, and takes it out of the pages of dry church reading. 
You cannot help but cry, and laugh, often when viewing this unique presentation. I have kept a Bible 
(Lamsa translation) handy when viewing this, to see how well Zeffirelli brought alive these ancient 
writings. You will likely agree that he did a great job. Actor Robert Powell said once in an interview 
that this role “changed my life.” Indeed.

 I have also enjoyed the movie version of the play “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Though full of deliberate 
anachronisms, it still manages to penetrate into the dynamics of what was going on in the people 
around Jesus. I do not consider this presentation in any way profane, and find it to be a valuable tool 
for understanding certain aspects of the Christian message.

 Though too many of us have gotten lost in the pre-Christian “Easter” symbolisms of eggs, bunnies, 
chocolate, etc., it is still worth fighting to realize that there is a real story here, about someone who 
worked hard, was ridiculed, laughed at, even killed, in order to help us to save ourselves.

 I have chosen to see the Easter story as a pattern that each of us should find and follow in our own 
lives. And are there other stories out there which show this pattern in the so-called secular world?

 Movie-makers have given us many such stories, but we don’t always see them for what they are. If 
we consider the themes of the Easter story – humble birth, hard work, trying to rise above mundanity, 
showing The Way to others, some sort of “death,” and rising up again – then there are some excellent 
movies that give us this tale.

 For example, you can’t go wrong with the classic “Whale Rider”. If you’ve not seen it, get it 
immediately. The grandfather of the traditional village is hoping for a grandson to carry on the ways. 
A girl is born, and grandpa figures he’ll have to wait some more. But the girl is “the one.” She persists 
in her path of learning the traditional ways. And when a test is given to the boys to see which one will 
become the new spiritual leader, the girl nearly dies, but passes the test. She is the one. You have to 
see it, and feel it, and experience that Saviorness can occur at any time, anywhere. Of course, there are 
certain requirements, but the chief among them is the willingness and desire to do the work required, 
and then doing that work.

 “Powder” is another good movie that somewhat depicts the elements of the Easter theme, though 
not precisely. It’s still worth watching to see how most of us treat our fellow man. 

 Even “It’s a Wonderful Life” with James Stewart – so often shown at Christmas – probably more 
accurately can be said to depict the Easter theme. Stewart worked hard to make life better for his 
fellow man, while living a humble life and not always getting the material things he would have liked. 
All the while Mr. Potter greedily plans to take over the town. And Stewart “dies” in the river, gets to see 
what his world would be without him, and he is then brought back to carry on. In this case, Stewart is 
not crucified in the end, but is recognized for his good deeds.

 Yes, some of you who will read your Encyclopedia today will learn about the pre-Christian roots of 
Easter. There is no denying that the Holy Day, as practiced generally today, has so-called pagan roots. 
So what? You can still observe this day and find the way to use the major themes for your personal 
upliftment, and for the upliftment of those around you.


LATEST NEWS FROM MARS: Panorama, Water Bearing Minerals!

 
Rising above the present location of 
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, higher than 
any mountain in the 48 contiguous states of 
the United States, Mount Sharp is featured 
in new imagery from the rover.

 A pair of mosaics assembled from dozens 
of telephoto images shows Mount Sharp in 
dramatic detail. This layered mound, also 
called Aeolis Mons, in the center of Gale 
Crater rises more than 3 miles above the 
crater-floor location of Curiosity. Lower 
slopes of Mount Sharp remain a destination 
for the mission, though the rover will first 
spend many more weeks around a location 
called “Yellowknife Bay,” where it has found 
evidence of a past environment favorable 
for microbial life.

 Using infrared-imaging capability of a 
camera on the rover and an instrument that 
shoots neutrons into the ground to probe 
for hydrogen, researchers have found more 
hydration of minerals near the clay-bearing 
rock here than at locations Curiosity visited 
earlier.

 The rover’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) 
can also serve as a mineral-detecting and 
hydration-detecting tool, reported Jim Bell 
of Arizona State University, Tempe. “Some 
iron-bearing rocks and minerals can be 
detected and mapped using the Mastcam’s 
near-infrared filters.”

 Ratios of brightness in different Mastcam 
near-infrared wavelengths can indicate the 
presence of some hydrated minerals. The 
technique was used to check rocks in the 
Yellowknife Bay area where Curiosity’s drill last month collected the first powder from the interior of a rock on Mars.

 “With Mastcam, we see elevated hydration signals in the narrow veins that cut many of the rocks in this area,” said Melissa Rice of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. “These bright veins 
contain hydrated minerals that are different from the clay minerals in the surrounding rock matrix.”

 The Russian-made Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on Curiosity detects hydrogen beneath the rover. At the rover’s very dry study area on Mars, the detected hydrogen is mainly in water 
molecules bound into minerals. “We definitely see signal variation along the traverse from the landing point to Yellowknife Bay,” said DAN Deputy Principal Investigator Maxim Litvak of the Space Research 
Institute, Moscow. “More water is detected at Yellowknife Bay than earlier on the route. Even within Yellowknife Bay, we see significant variation.”

 Findings from the Canadian-made Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on Curiosity’s arm indicate that the wet environmental processes that produced clay at Yellowknife Bay did so without much 
change in the overall mix of chemical elements present. The elemental composition of the outcrop Curiosity drilled into matches the composition of basalt. For example, it has basalt-like proportions of 
silicon, aluminum, magnesium and iron. Basalt is the most common rock type on Mars. It is igneous, but it is also thought to be the parent material for sedimentary rocks Curiosity has examined.

 “The elemental composition of rocks in Yellowknife Bay wasn’t changed much by mineral alteration,” said Curiosity science team member Mariek Schmidt of Brock University, Saint Catharines, Ontario, 
Canada.

 A dust coating on rocks had made the composition detected by APXS not quite a match for basalt until Curiosity used a brush to sweep the dust away. After that, APXS saw less sulfur.

 “By removing the dust, we’ve got a better reading that pushes the classification toward basaltic composition,” Schmidt said. The sedimentary rocks at Yellowknife Bay likely formed when original basaltic 
rocks were broken into fragments, transported, re-deposited as sedimentary particles, and altered by exposure to water.

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

This mosaic of images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows Mount Sharp in a white-balanced color adjustment 
that makes the sky look overly blue but shows the terrain as if under Earth-like lighting. Photo courtesy of JPL/NASA