Spirit

As the Mars rovers deal with advanced age, broken appendages and memory lapses, good news comes from Jet Propulsion Laboratory: the rover named Spirit had a little power boost, thanks to a Martian wind. Solar panels convert the Sun?s rays into power for the rovers. The more dust that covers the panels, the less power gets through. A Martian wind this month has blown away some of the dust that had accumulated on the panels, giving Spirit a very important uptick in electrical output.

Area residents are invited to celebrate the spirit of the American girl by attending the American Girl Fashion Shows on March 23 to 25 at Brookside Country Club in Pasadena. For invitations to this very special event call the Flintridge Guild at (818) 952-7978. All proceeds will benefit Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Bring your little girl so she can meet Nicky and Emily, the newest American Girl dolls. Have tea with Samantha and Felicity and other historic dolls. Enjoy the lively show when American girls come to life and through their stories show their own spirit.

Spirit phoned home. “She’s talking!” That was the reported response from the rover team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge as Mars Exploration Rover Spirit communicated via the Mars Oddyssey orbiter Thursday afternoon. The rover’s future had been in question as recently as Wednesday when John Callas, JPL project manager for Spirit and its twin rover Opportunity announced their was a power problem with the rover. Spirit had been in the middle of a strong regional Martian storm that resulted in dust covering the rover’s solar panels.

NASA officials and JPL scientists will make a final attempt Monday night to extricate the Mars rover Spirit, which got caught near the edge of what appears to be an ancient impact site six months ago. The vehicle has been “mobility impaired” since late April, when it’s hard metal wheels broke through a deceptively solid top layer of crust in an area of the planet named Troy and began to sink into a powdery fine mixture of...

La Crescenta Presbyterian Church is offering four Christmas Eve services this year. There will be three Family Candlelight services on Saturday, Dec. 23 at 5 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 24 at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Pastor Andy Wilson will deliver a short message "The Spirit of Christmas". "We decided to offer a Christmas Eve service on Dec. 23 for the first time this year because Dec. 24 is one of the busiest day of the year for folks," said Pastor Andy Wilson. The service on Dec. 23 will feature a combined children's chorus.

Turkey doings came a week early for seventh and eighth grade students at La Cañada High last Friday. A number of seventh and eighth graders participated in the school's annual Turkey Bowl under warm and clear conditions on the varsity football field. Two teams, School 1 and School 2, made up of seventh grade boys played in the morning game. A game between eighth grade teams, School 3 and School 4, followed just before noon. Cheerleading squads were on hand at both games to help pump up the crowd in the stands.

The past couple of weeks, I've been giving myself a doggone headache trying to intellectualize the phenomenology of "Christmas," and "Believing." It ain't easy; especially when you have to think. Quoting one of my Brownie Scouts from troop 889, "What the heck!" Enough is enough; I'm going back to the basics. You know, Vince Lombardi - the fundamentals. So, when the world becomes a bit too esoteric, I fondly remember Mrs. Venola, (Mrs. V). She just knew about things. I lived in her guest house in La Crescenta, but little did I know she was the Christmas Angel that we seek.

As Jews across the world celebrate the holiday of Passover this coming week, we once again focus on the birth of our people and our long, rich ? often tragic ? and remarkable history. In the March 1898 edition of Harper?s Magazine, Mark Twain published an essay titled ?Concerning the Jews.? He concluded the piece with the following paragraph: ?The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed.

They say you can blame acting a little crazy on a full moon. Maybe so, but I think it's time we gave the sun its crazy-making due as well. I was out for a run one morning last week. Already in the upper 80s, the temperature was rising fast. Jogging toward me was a latte-brown suntanned fellow about 60 years old. He was wearing a bright blue "do-rag" on his head and some Elton-John-looking, wrap-around sunglasses. He was in heaven, cruising along, sun on his shoulders, loving every rising degree of the heat.

Let's get this straight from the onset. Under the 1st Amendment, as it pertains to "Freedom of Religion," it is the constitutional right of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to build his mosque and Islamic center two blocks from ground zero. It's the letter of the law, and frankly, an open-and-shut case. But is it? By reading between the lines, we often find the story within the story. It's called the hidden agenda, the gray area. The law then becomes more elastic, requiring additional scrutiny.

A recent op-ed piece published in the New York Times states that American clergy are burning out as they try to meet their congregations' demands for more lighthearted messages. Is it possible for the clergy to tailor their sermons to congregations hungry for a comforting, entertaining message, or is there no room to do so without sacrificing the tenets of their faith? Do you find such challenges as you preach to your flock every Sunday?   So far, combining the serious religious stuff with the humorous has not been a problem for me. However, I must admit that when I decided to go into the ministry at age 60, a college friend had a hard time believing I was sincere!

A California federal judge struck down Proposition 8, the state's law that prohibits same-sex marriage, last week. What are your thoughts on this ruling?   Judge Walker needs to address our concern that his own sexual orientation clouded his judgment. Nonetheless, the will of the people is clear; marriage must not be redefined. Marriage is by definition a heterosexual prerogative, not simply any imaginative variation. If two men want to pretend one is the feminine counterpart, then let them pretend they have an actual marriage, and do so in the closet and away from thinking society.

Cal-Med gone, but not forgotten Awareness of my mortality is never more acute than when I hear of a loved one's death. And so it was last week when I phoned Cal-Med Pharmacy. "Today's our last day — we're closing," the pharmacist said matter-of-factly. No big deal. Businesses are born and die every day. Right? But this was Cal-Med, one of La Cañada's oldest businesses (as far as I know). How proud and nervous my dad was on Cal-Med's opening day in 1965.

Ah, the Sunday missal. It's that thick book you're supposed to read when you're attending services. The one little kids play with in the pews or use as a coloring book and end up ripping the feather-thin pages. The book that's never put away after each service, and ushers have to come by and clean up the mess. Yeah, that book. The one you can tell how many people are reading by the rustling of paper when the reading continues on the next page and everybody flips at the same time.

Those for and against a proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero butted heads during a passionate three-hour hearing of New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission last week, CNN reported. At issue is whether a more than century-old building should be preserved and made into a mosque and community center at the site where the Twin Towers once stood. What do you think? Is it appropriate to build an Islamic center and mosque on the site where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by Islamist hijackers on Sept.

Part 2 If you read me last week you will note that I am adventuring for the 29th year in the Far West, teaching college kids the history of Lewis and Clark and how to survive on the land. After all these years I am convinced that survival is the alchemy of skill, brute determination and endurance. We are on the Upper Missouri River in northern Montana canoeing in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark. Our 100-mile journey takes us through some of the most wild and remote country in America.

This is an exciting week. Summer is here. The New York Yankees will meet the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Tony Hayward, the chief executive of British Petroleum, might return from the Isle of Wight yacht race, where his $700,000 yacht placed fourth in its class in the regatta. A new principal, Karen Hurley, takes over the reins at Palm Crest Elementary School. The beginning of summer is traditionally a time of when many La Cañadans look for exciting things to do. In the spirit of summer energy, the following is my semiannual top 10 list of Southern California's greatest places, in and around the 91011.