Magazine Posts

I awaken, in the darkest of night,
my body, atremble .
I should arise, to write once more,
but I need the sleep,
of a newborn child,
loud, raucous, wailing away,
saying, "please feed me."

Pillars of light
from the full moon above,
pollenizes the night air,
with a new growth of love.

A "breaker boy" was a coal-mining worker whose job was to separate impurities from coal by hand in a coal breaker in the United States and also in the United Kingdom. Breaker boys were primarily children. The use of breaker boys began in the mid-1860s in the United States and the United Kingdom.  Although public disapproval of the employment of children as breaker boys existed by the mid-1880s, the practice did not end until the 1920s.

Lewis Wickes Hine - (1874-1940) was an American sociologist, photographer and humanist.  He used his camera as a tool for social reform. His photographs were instrumental in changing child labor laws in the United States.
Hine began photographing subjects in New York in 1903, including, immigrants at Ellis Island, and immigrants as they settled in America. In 1909, Hine took photographs of child labor practices for the National Child Labor Committee, At the end of World War I, Hine was sent abroad by the American Red Cross to photograph relief activities. After the war, he continued to photograph the workingman and industry, such as the construction of the Empire State Building in 1931. A collection of his industrial photographs were published in 1932 in the book "Men at Work".  Read more about Lewis Wickes Hine

Credit: National Archives

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It was bright and green and flashed as it moved quickly along the Milky Way. It left a trail that took 30 minutes to dissipate. Given the day, August 12, and the direction, away from Perseus, it was likely a small bit from the nucleus of Comet Swift-Tuttle plowing through the Earth's atmosphere -- and therefore part of the annual Perseids meteor shower. The astrophotographer captured the fireball as it shot across the sky in 2018 above a valley in Yichang, Hubei, China. The meteor's streak, also caught on video, ended near the direction of Mars on the lower left. Next week, the 2021 Perseids meteor shower will peak again. This year the Moon will set shortly after the Sun, leaving a night sky ideal for seeing lots of Perseids from dark and clear locations across planet Earth. Follow APOD in English on: Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter

Photo by Dandan Huang

Can we leave today,
after I water, of course.
I need more potting soil
to repot some small plants,
as the pots they are now in
are much to small.
I've discovered I'm not plant dumb
and have developed a "green thumb."

Stepping slowly
from my car,
with a cane
in my hand,
I marvelled
at the sight
of this,
my own
piece of land.
I stood
with admiration
of the sight
and grandeur
of the plot
which was
my command.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Have you heard about the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field? Either way, you've likely not heard about it like this -- Please click here or the image below to go to NASA's Picture of the day where you will be able to run your cursor over the featured image and listen! The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF) was created in 2003-2004 with the Hubble Space Telescope staring for a long time toward near-empty space so that distant, faint galaxies would become visible. One of the most famous images in astronomy, the HUDF is featured here in a vibrant way -- with sonified distances. Pointing to a galaxy will play a note that indicates its approximate redshift. Because redshifts shift light toward the red end of the spectrum of light, they are depicted here by a shift of tone toward the low end of the spectrum of sound. The further the galaxy, the greater its cosmological redshift (even if it appears blue), and the lower the tone that will be played. The average galaxy in the HUDF is about 10.6 billion light years away and sounds like an F#. What's the most distant galaxy you can find? Note: Sounds will only play on some browsers. This week at NASA: Hubble #DeepFieldWeek

What is your answer?
What do you say,
when your spouse says to thee,
"Is this our house?
Why are we here?"
Yes, we are home,
I said that to she.
The newest development,
in the Dementia Parade.
Another lost memory or more
for I can't keep up,
and no longer keep score.

He laughed, as he wrote,
it came deep from the throat.
His personal joke, was a note
written by him; memorized by rote.
Alone am I, stuck in life's boat,
look what happens, when you fail to vote.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Pluto is more colorful than we can see. Color data and high-resolution images of our Solar System's most famous dwarf planet, taken by the robotic New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby in 2015 July, have been digitally combined to give an enhanced-color view of this ancient world sporting an unexpectedly young surface. The featured enhanced color image is not only esthetically pretty but scientifically useful, making surface regions of differing chemical composition visually distinct. For example, the light-colored heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio on the lower right is clearly shown here to be divisible into two regions that are geologically different, with the leftmost lobe Sputnik Planitia also appearing unusually smooth. After Pluto, New Horizons continued on, shooting past asteroid Arrokoth in 2019 and has enough speed to escape our Solar System completely. Pluto-Related Images with Brief Explanations: APOD Pluto Search

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It was just last July. If you could see the stars of the Big Dipper, you could find Comet NEOWISE in your evening sky. After sunset denizens of the north could look for the naked-eye comet below the bowl of that famous celestial kitchen utensil and above the northwestern horizon. The comet looked like a fuzzy 'star' with a tail, though probably not so long a tail as in this memorable skyview recorded from the Czech Republic on July 23th, 2020, near the comet's closest approach to planet Earth. Photographs of C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) often did show the comet's broad dust tail and fainter but separate bluish ion tail extending farther than the eye could follow. Skygazers around the world were delighted to witness Comet NEOWISE, surprise visitor from the outer Solar System. Notable Comet NEOWISE Images 2020: July 31 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24

Photo by Petr Horalek