 | » Unsubscribe / Delivery Options » Get Mobile Delivery |
December 22, 2008 | Afternoon Edition |
| Contact: Email Administrator, CBSNews.com, 524 W. 57th St., Room 514/1, New York, NY, 10019 ©MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. To unsubscribe or change your subscription options, click here. »Help »Advertise »Terms of Service »Privacy Policy |
The BridgeMaker |
| Posted: 22 Dec 2008 04:49 AM CST
The last days in December are for measuring. We measure this Christmas with the Christmases from our childhood. Our holiday traditions are honored and duplicated because we find comfort in the familiar. After the excitement of Christmas is over, we turn our attention to a broader unit of measurement - trying to measure the year. This is when we attempt to take an inventory of where we have been and how we have been changed along the way. 2008 was a time of change and growth for my family. Mary Beth earned her Master's degree and then unexpectedly lost her father a few weeks later; our oldest son, Brandon, graduated from college and went on to create a life on his terms; Caitlin changed from a restless teenager to a young woman with a determined focus and passion for life; Andrew, for the first time, acknowledged his fears; and our youngest, Emily, found her niche and is beginning to claim her individuality. I saw change, too. I'm beginning to realize my value and understand the power I have to be a person of choice. After 46 years, I'm ready to heal my wounds, once and for all, and acknowledge what they have cost me in the past. Through my writing, I'm finding my voice – one full of confidence and hope for the future. On Thursday, all six of us will be together again. It will be a time to celebrate our family traditions. No doubt we will reflect on the year and try to apply some unit of measurement to it. We will talk about the significance of what happened and how we can use the events to help us keep growing and continue learning how to become the people we are destined to become. When we sit down to dinner on Christmas day Mary Beth will look to me to lead our family in prayer. In an odd sort of way our family has been separated from one another this year. The issues we have confronted have been personal ones. Our energy, and our attention, has been focused inward and we have had little energy to share with others. But the best part of being a family is when we take the time for some self-care, the others understand all they have to do is to ask for some help and it will be given. Our children also understand no matter the issues Mary Beth and I are facing, their needs will always come before our own. When I look around the table I will see change. I will see five people who aren't settling for a life that is just good enough. Growth is hard work and it can be uncomfortable. However, Christmas Day will take us back to each other – back to the familiar and back to the comfortable, if only for a little while. For one more day we will laugh and share and remember the best way to measure a year is to measure it in love. This is my benediction for the year. It's a bridge to connect where we have been this past year to where we are going in the new one. It offers some sense, and promise, that no matter what happens in our lives we can always find value and purpose in the circumstance. May we continue to realize how precious life is and take the time to enjoy the gifts we receive every day. May we remember life is wonderful, even when it hurts. May we always keep in mind that life is for learning, growing and changing. May we keep our hearts open to love and find ways to share our hearts with those who will cherish it. May we find the inspiration to keep hope alive and our faith strong no matter what. May we remember that we do control our power; it's not for others to take – it's ours to give, but only to those we choose. May we give ourselves grace and compassion and continue to heal from shame. May we take the time to listen to our children and make the commitment that, no matter what happened to us when we were a child, it is now our responsibility to break the cycle; end the pain and give love unconditionally. May our wounds continue to heal as we keep them from hurting others. May we admit our weaknesses and acknowledge our temptations. May we continue to focus on what's important and know that true abundance is best measured by the love we share. May we reconnect with those we have neglected or taken for granted and may we be given the words that will bring healing. May we use this day, right now, to be happy, to enjoy all we have; may we offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us and tell those closest to us how much we love them.
Download Free Report: 30 True Things You Need to Know Now |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The BridgeMaker To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner |
Inbox too full?  Subscribe to the feed version of The BridgeMaker in a feed reader. | |
| If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: The BridgeMaker, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
*Report: Paterson to Chat With Rep. Israel About Senate Seat
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time23-22
NY Post: The Governor will meet with the Long Island Rep. to talk about his interest in the seat, considers him "certainly qualified for the job."
Plus: A Democratic congressman tells The Post he got a call from a Caroline Kennedy represenative seeking his endorsement, a move he called "pathetic."
*Bush to Visit Walter Reed Monday
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time24-22
The president will make a stop at the military hospital at 1 pm ET in Washington, D.C.
*Fundraiser Seeks Immunity in Blago Probe
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time25-22
Chicago Tribune: Raghuveer P. Nayak, a key figure in Blago's alleged scheme, has sought immunity from the Feds in return for his cooperation.
The political fundraiser is "Individual D" who prosecutors say was being squeezed for campaign cash in return for appointing Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
*Cheney Looks Back
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time26-22
In an interview with the Washington Times, the vice president discusses the auto bailout, the role of the VP and the administration's torture policy.
Also predicts what he thinks will be Bush's legacy: I myself am personally persuaded that this President and this administration will look very good 20 or 30 years down the road. [...]
*Obama Set to Release Blago Report Early This Week
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time27-22
Associated Press: A Democratic official says the President-elect will offer details about his transition staff's contact with the governor no later than Tuesday.
And/But: Politico on how disclosure laws might mean that some of Blagojevich's records remain under wraps.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Swampland
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time28-22
*Meanwhile, Back In Minnesota...
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time29-22
Franken's up by 251, and the canvassing board won't meet again until tomorrow.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Time.com Top Stories
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time30-22
1.Detroit's Fall Gives Power to Rival Dixie
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time31-22
2.Q&A: Merrill Lynch Strategists on the '09 Outlook for Stocks
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time32-22
3.After Mumbai, India's Hotels Brace for a Sharp Downturn
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time33-22
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Elephant-Donkey
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time34-22
Prostitution should be legal.
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time35-22
elephantdonkey/show/27281?xid=thepage_newsletter
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Candidate and Issue Guide
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time36-22
Obama
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time37-22
U.S. Economy
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time38-22
China
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time39-22
Wall Street
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time40-22
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In This Week's Issue
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time41-22
Table of Contents
*Why History Can't Wait
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time42-22
*People Who Mattered 2008
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time43-22
*The Year of Living Stupidly
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time44-22
*Fond Farewells
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time45-22
*The Interview
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time46-22
*The Long-Lost Negatives
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time47-22
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2008 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in
whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
TO UNSUBSCRIBE
You have received this e-mail because you are subscribed to
Weekly Updates from TIME Magazine. To unsubscribe, please
click here
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time48-22?T=BJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat&EMAIL=fpac.rangola@blogger.com
EMAIL OPT-OUTS
Click here for more information on how to opt-out of marketing
communications from us and our partners, or copy and paste this
link into your browser: http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time12-22
PRIVACY POLICY
Please read our Privacy Policy, or copy and paste this link into
your browser: http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time14-22
FOR FURTHER COMMUNICATION,
PLEASE CONTACT:
TIME Customer Service
3000 University Center Drive
Tampa, FL 33612-6408
----------------------------------------------------------------------
How To Advertise
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time15-22
Give the Gift of TIME
http://time.chtah.com/a/tBJT70hBW3XgQB7SaZ$$zuyzVat/time21-22
=================================
CBS NEWS Coverage of Breaking Space News
Posted: 11:05 AM, 12/22/08
By William Harwood
CBS News Space Consultant
Changes and additions:
12/21/08 (01:30 PM): Amid uncertainty, NASA prepares for Ares 1-X test flight
12/22/08 (10:45 AM): Station astronauts gear up for spacewalk
12/22/08 (11:05 AM): C-O-R-R-E-C-T-I-O-N (19th station EVA of 2008, not 20th)
=================================
11:05 AM, 12/22/08, Update: Station astronauts gear up for spacewalk
C-O-R-R-E-C-T-I-O-N
In the second graf of today's spacewalk preview story, I said this evening's EVA would be the 20th space station assembly/maintenance spacewalk of 2008. It is the 19th.
=================================
Quick-Launch Web Links:
CBS News STS-119 Status Reports:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html
CBS News STS-119 Quick-Look Page:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/currentglance.html
NASA ISS Expeditions Page:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/index.html
NASA Shuttle Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/index.html
NASA Station Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/index.html
Spaceflight Now: http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html
GoogleSatTrack: http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/tracking/
=================================
=================================
CBS NEWS Coverage of Breaking Space News
Posted: 10:45 AM, 12/22/08
By William Harwood
CBS News Space Consultant
Changes and additions:
12/04/08 (02:30 PM): NASA delays Mars Science Laboratory launch to 2011
12/04/08 (05:30 PM): STS-125/HST SM-04 retargeted for May 12 launch
12/21/08 (01:30 PM): Amid uncertainty, NASA prepares for Ares 1-X test flight
12/22/08 (10:45 AM): Station astronauts gear up for spacewalk
=================================
10:45 AM, 12/22/08, Update: Station astronauts gear up for spacewalk
Space station commander Mike Fincke and flight engineer Yury Lonchakov plan to carry out a six-hour 10-minute spacewalk Monday night to install an instrument to measure the electrical environment around the station; to install and remove space exposure experiments; and to conduct minor maintenance on the Russian segment of the lab complex. Flight engineer Sandy Magnus will monitor the excursion from inside the space station.
Floating in the Russian Pirs airlock module, Fincke and Lonchakov plan to begin the spacewalk around 7:10 p.m. EST. This will be the 119th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the 20th this year, the fifth for Fincke and the first for Lonchakov.
For identification, Lonchakov will be wearing a Russian suit with blue stripes and go by the radio call sign EV-1. Fincke's suit will have red markings and he will use the call sign EV-2.
After exiting the airlock, the spacewalkers will install a Langmuir probe on the compartment's hull, just to one side of the airlock hatch. The probe will measure electron density, temperature and the plasma potential around the station, part of an ongoing investigation to pin down what might have caused explosive bolts to malfunction during two recent Soyuz re-entries.
Fincke and Lonchakov then will mount two experiments on the Zvezda command module's hull. One, called EXPOSE-R, is a joint Russian-European Space Agency experiment to expose a variety of biological samples to the space environment for a full year. Among the samples are seeds, bacteria spores and fungi. The other experiment, called IMPULSE, will investigate ionospheric disturbances in the electrically charged plasma environment around the station.
The spacewalkers then will re-orient a space exposure "witness plate" that apparently was bumped out of its normal orientation earlier. They also plan to remove a Biorisk experiment canister, cut away some loose straps near the Pirs docking port and secure an insulation flap. If time is available, the spacewalkers will carry out photo documentation of the station's Russian segment, paying special attention to a navigation antenna on a docked Progress supply ship that failed to operate normally.
The Langmuir probe is part of an ongoing Russian investigation into what caused an explosive bolt on two recent Soyuz spacecraft to malfunction during re-entry, delaying separation of the modules making up the spacecraft and resulting in steep, off-course descents.
"Our Russian colleagues have spent an enormous amount of time, a very structured effort, to create a fault tree and then work off the fault tree to come to a most probable cause," Mike Suffredini, NASA space station program manager, told reporters in late September. "They have concluded the most probable cause to be related to the (electrically charged) plasma environment and the (difference in) potential between the plasma environment, the environment around space station, and the space station itself.
"The way the space station is wired together, there actually is a voltage, a delta voltage potential, between the environment around the ISS and the ISS itself and what happens over time is occasionally that potential tries to equalize. And when it tries to equalize, you get what essentially is a spark to the ISS. This is an environment we've been living in since we starting flying ISS, it's why (NASA has) what we refer to as the plasma contactor units that we operate during (spacewalks) to prevent that from occurring during EVAs."
The plasma contactor units use xenon gas to equalize electrical potential around the station. The xenon supply is limited and the PCUs are only operated during spacewalks to prevent any chance of arcing while astronauts are working outside. Testing showed no obvious threat to the station's systems when the PCUs were turned off.
"What our Russian colleagues have determined is because of the very specific configuration of the pyros ... on the Soyuz, where it's failed to separate each time, they've determined that there's been some arcing, if you will, or equalizing of voltage in this area," Suffredini said. "And this over time has caused the pyros to be ineffective."
The culprit apparently involves insulation on the Soyuz near the pyro in question that includes an ungrounded aluminized layer.
The huge U.S. solar arrays that provide most of the station's power affect the electrically charge plasma around the lab. The recent Soyuz problems occurred after a major change in the configuration of the arrays. Another major change is expected in February, when a fourth and final set of arrays is added to the starboard side of the station's main power truss.
While some NASA engineers are not convinced the evidence supporting the arcing theory is conclusive, "it's a plausible scenario," Suffredini said.
"The space station's this big, old, huge chunk of metal flying through a magnetic field," deputy program manager Kirk Shireman said last week. "So measuring the potential at one point doesn't necessary tell you what the potential is at another point. We can do that by calculations, but it's also good to get a measurement closer to where the environment is where these bolts were living. That's why the Russian community wanted to have this probe in place."
The Langmuir probe will be mounted on the Pirs module, just above a Soyuz docking port.
"There's an electron cloud, if you will, flowing around the station at all times," Shireman said. "And then the station itself generates electricity. The way the U.S. solar arrays are grounded, we actually put a charge on board the space station structure. In fact, we go to great pains to make sure that every piece of structure we've added to the ISS is grounded with very low resistance so the current can flow freely back and forth through not only the truss, but also through the pressurized modules.
"It's a phenomenon we've known about for decades," Shireman said. "On sunrise, there's a big rise in potential. And the potential I'm talking about is between the metal structure of the ISS and the surrounding electron cloud, if you will. And that changes over the orbit period. ... In darkness, it tends to be near zero. It tends to be highest right at sunrise, it comes down and then levels off to a standard level during most of the (daylight pass) and then goes to zero in the darkness. It also turns out that when you have a big metal bar and you run it through a magnetic field you get a current along that bar. So it's really the sum of those two effects that we have."
The potential is different along the station's solar power truss, which extends at right angles to either side of the lab's pressurized modules. Engineers initially predicted a peak voltage of around 140 volts. With the current electron density and plasma temperature in low-Earth orbit, Shireman said the actual potential is less than 40 volts. When the plasma contactors are turned on for spacewalks, it drops to less than 5 volts.
"We've designed the station so every metal part on the ISS would have the same potential with respect to the surrounding plasma," Shireman said. "But because we're this huge metal structure and we go through the magnetic field, the potential relative to the surrounding plasma is different along the truss. Along the pressurized section, it tends to be about the same."
Russian engineers are evaluating an explosive bolt that was removed from a Soyuz during a spacewalk in July and returned to Earth. Data from the Langmuir probe will be assessed and folded into the investigation.
=================================
Quick-Launch Web Links:
CBS News STS-119 Status Reports:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html
CBS News STS-119 Quick-Look Page:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/currentglance.html
NASA ISS Expeditions Page:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/index.html
NASA Shuttle Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/index.html
NASA Station Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/index.html
Spaceflight Now: http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html
GoogleSatTrack: http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/tracking/
=================================
