Pilgrim Daughter by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
We searched for the ghost of fifteen-year-old Constance Hopkins in the bowels of the reconstructed ship "Mayflower II," rolling gently aside a pier in Plymouth harbor. Where volunteers dressed in period costume answered tourists' questions, Constance had once huddled, miserably cold and damp, as fierce storms buffeted the ship.
"According to the usuall manner," the old records relate, "many were afflicted with seasicknes." As the ship had only the crudest of conveniences and no sanitary facilities of any kind except the traditional bucket, the air in the narrow, crowded quarters below deck must have been nauseating at worst and at best simply staggering.
Constance and her younger brother were responsible to keep track of their three-year-old sister who was always scampering among the various families camped side by side in the hold's cargo compartments. It was all their mother could do, great with child, to brace herself as the "Mayflower" heaved in the heavy Atlantic storms. As Constance watched a tiny brother was born on the high seas, christened "Oceanus."
Since the "Mayflower" had left England nine weeks behind schedule, the New World's harsh weather threatened their very survival. The men went ashore in December to construct rude shelters; women and children spent the winter aboard ship anchored in the bay.
Winter took its toll. Journal entries feature the same melancholy theme week after week, for months on end:
"... Aboute noone, it began to raine ... at night, it did freeze & snow ... still the cold weather continued ... very wet and rainy, with the greatest gusts of wind ever we saw ... frost and foule weather hindered us much; this time of the yeare seldom could we worke half the week."
That winter more than half the heads of households perished. Aboard ship only five of eighteen wives lived through the ravages of scurvy, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. An entry for March 24th reads:
"Dies Elizabeth, the wife of Mr. Edward Winslow. N.B. This month thirteen of our number die. And in three months past dies halfe our company ... Of a hundred persons, scarce fifty remain, the living scarce able to bury the dead."
My daughter Annie, a descendent of Constance, tried to imagine the terrors of that winter for a young teenage girl. When not lying sick herself, she would doubtless be tending whimpering children, preparing food for their stricken mothers, and comforting the increasing number of orphans aboard the "Mayflower."
But spring finally came, and by the third week in March the weakened survivors rowed ashore in the longboat to take up residence in New Plimoth.
How could the Pilgrims talk about thanksgiving in the midst of life's most difficult trials? we wonder. Why not just curse God and die? They gave thanks for God's presence in their adversities because they knew that struggles did not have to make them bitter; struggles could make them better. These remaining Pilgrim daughters and sons, mothers and fathers, placed their trust in their God and laid the enduring foundations of a nation. Thanksgiving Day, 1621, did not just celebrate wild turkey and Indian corn; it celebrated the human spirit reaching out to God in gratitude for the blessings the Pilgrims still did possess.
"Yea, though they should lose their lives in this action," ancient documents say, "yet they might have comforte in the same ... All great & honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages."
No, the Pilgrims did not lack for courage.
Our family poked around in a windswept burying yard until we found the tombstone of Constance Hopkins Snow, age 72 years. And as my wife and daughter laid a bunch of hedge row wildflowers on her grave, we stood for a moment of silence, meditating on our brave and very personal link with that first Thanksgiving.
"According to the usuall manner," the old records relate, "many were afflicted with seasicknes." As the ship had only the crudest of conveniences and no sanitary facilities of any kind except the traditional bucket, the air in the narrow, crowded quarters below deck must have been nauseating at worst and at best simply staggering.
Constance and her younger brother were responsible to keep track of their three-year-old sister who was always scampering among the various families camped side by side in the hold's cargo compartments. It was all their mother could do, great with child, to brace herself as the "Mayflower" heaved in the heavy Atlantic storms. As Constance watched a tiny brother was born on the high seas, christened "Oceanus."
Since the "Mayflower" had left England nine weeks behind schedule, the New World's harsh weather threatened their very survival. The men went ashore in December to construct rude shelters; women and children spent the winter aboard ship anchored in the bay.
Winter took its toll. Journal entries feature the same melancholy theme week after week, for months on end:
"... Aboute noone, it began to raine ... at night, it did freeze & snow ... still the cold weather continued ... very wet and rainy, with the greatest gusts of wind ever we saw ... frost and foule weather hindered us much; this time of the yeare seldom could we worke half the week."
That winter more than half the heads of households perished. Aboard ship only five of eighteen wives lived through the ravages of scurvy, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. An entry for March 24th reads:
"Dies Elizabeth, the wife of Mr. Edward Winslow. N.B. This month thirteen of our number die. And in three months past dies halfe our company ... Of a hundred persons, scarce fifty remain, the living scarce able to bury the dead."
My daughter Annie, a descendent of Constance, tried to imagine the terrors of that winter for a young teenage girl. When not lying sick herself, she would doubtless be tending whimpering children, preparing food for their stricken mothers, and comforting the increasing number of orphans aboard the "Mayflower."
But spring finally came, and by the third week in March the weakened survivors rowed ashore in the longboat to take up residence in New Plimoth.
How could the Pilgrims talk about thanksgiving in the midst of life's most difficult trials? we wonder. Why not just curse God and die? They gave thanks for God's presence in their adversities because they knew that struggles did not have to make them bitter; struggles could make them better. These remaining Pilgrim daughters and sons, mothers and fathers, placed their trust in their God and laid the enduring foundations of a nation. Thanksgiving Day, 1621, did not just celebrate wild turkey and Indian corn; it celebrated the human spirit reaching out to God in gratitude for the blessings the Pilgrims still did possess.
"Yea, though they should lose their lives in this action," ancient documents say, "yet they might have comforte in the same ... All great & honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages."
No, the Pilgrims did not lack for courage.
Our family poked around in a windswept burying yard until we found the tombstone of Constance Hopkins Snow, age 72 years. And as my wife and daughter laid a bunch of hedge row wildflowers on her grave, we stood for a moment of silence, meditating on our brave and very personal link with that first Thanksgiving.
It came from outer space: Fireball streaks across Canadian Prairie, crashes
The Canadian Prairie is still buzzing about a giant fireball that roared across the sky last night and slammed into the earth with a bright flash.
Witnesses described the fireball as red, green, white or blue.
Aliens? Not so far, anyway. Just a meteor.
"It's a massive fireball; it's one of the brightest that we've seen in the area. And it almost certainly dropped meteorites," Dr. Christopher Herd, a University of Alberta earth and atmospheric sciences professor, told CBC News. "It looks somewhere around the Alberta-Saskatchewan border."
The Edmonton Sun reports that fragments may have landed in central Saskatchewan. Scientists have begun searching and reviewing footage from Web cams
See for yourself in this video from the dashboard camera of an Edmonton, Alberta, police car:
The fireball was spotted around 5:30 p.m. MT (7:30 p.m. ET) and was seen in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, western Ontario and even North Dakota.
"It seemed like fireworks or a missile coming down. The sky lit up greenish and yellow," said Shawn Mitchler, who was pumping gas in Radisson, about 40 miles northwest of Saskatoon. "My heart just started racing because I didn't know what it was."
Despite its size and the noise it made entering the atmosphere, the meteor was probably no bigger than a grapefruit, Edmonton space educator Randy Atwood told CTV Calgary. The meteor may have broken into small pieces before hitting the ground, or it may have burned up entirely before touching down.
"It was a beautiful show, and some people might have thought it was just over the hill, and that it was the size of a house," he said.
Here's what The Edmonton Sun reported last night, along with the The Vancouver Sun and the Calgary Herald.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/11/it-came-from-ou.html (you can see video at the link)Worst of financial crisis yet to come: IMF chief economist
The IMF's chief economist Olivier Blanchard, seen here in Ma...
The IMF's chief economist has warned that the global financial crisis is set to worsen and that the situation will not improve until 2010, a report said Saturday.
Olivier Blanchard also warned that the institution does not have the funds to solve every economic problem.
"The worst is yet to come," Blanchard said in an interview with the Finanz und Wirtschaft newspaper, adding that "a lot of time is needed before the situation becomes normal."
He said economic growth would not kick in until 2010 and it will take another year before the global financial situation became normal again.
The International Monetary Fund on Friday promised to help Latvia deal with its economic crisis after it assisted Iceland, Hungary, Ukraine, Serbia and Pakistan.
But Blanchard said the IMF was not able to solve all financial issues, in particular problems of liquidity.
Withdrawals of capital leading to problems of liquidity "can be so significant that the IMF alone cannot counter them," he said, adding that massive withdrawals of investments from emerging countries could represent "hundreds of billions of dollars.
"We do not have this money. We never had it," he said.
The IMF had spent a fifth of its 250 billion dollar (200 billion euro) fund in the last two weeks, Blanchard added.
He also urged central banks around the world to cut interest rates, after the Swiss National Bank made a surprise one percentage point rate cut Thursday.
The central banks "should lower interest rates to as close to zero as possible," he said.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081122230427.xqkurulg&show_article=1
The Mother of all Bailouts is continues and grows, will the stupid politicians ever realize that the answer to every question is not to print more money. Money can not fix all problems.
U.S. approves plan to help Citigroup weather losses
By Eric Dash
Published: November 23, 2008
U.S. government regulators approved a radical plan to stabilize Citigroup in an arrangement in which the government could soak up tens of billions of dollars in losses at the struggling bank, the government announced late Sunday night.
The complex plan calls for the government to back about $306 billion in loans and securities and directly invest about $20 billion in the company. The plan, emerging after a harrowing week in the financial markets, is the government's third effort in three months to contain the deepening economic crisis and may set the precedent for other multibillion-dollar financial rescues.
Citigroup executives presented a plan to U.S. government officials on Friday evening after a weeklong plunge in the company's share price threatened to engulf other big banks. In tense, round-the-clock negotiations that stretched until almost midnight on Sunday, it became clear that the crisis of confidence had to be defused now or the financial markets could plunge further.
Whether this latest rescue plan will help calm the markets is uncertain, given the stress in the financial system caused by losses at Citigroup and other banks. Each previous government effort initially seemed to reassure investors, leading to optimism that the banking system had steadied. But those hopes faded as the economic outlook worsened, raising worries that more bank loans were turning sour.
President-elect Barack Obama was also working over the weekend to shore up confidence in the rapidly faltering economy. Obama signaled that he would pursue a far more ambitious plan of spending and tax cuts than he had outlined during his campaign and planned to announce his economic team on Monday. Some Democrats in Congress, meantime, were calling for the government to spend as much as $700 billion to stimulate the economy over the next two years.
Multimedia
Obama's expected choice for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, played a crucial role in the negotiations on Friday but worked behind the scenes once news of his appointment was circulated. While the initial focus of government officials was to help the embattled company, they may also seek to draw up an industrywide plan that could help other banks.
Under the proposal, the government would shoulder losses at Citigroup if those losses exceeded certain levels.
The plan could herald another shift in the government's financial rescue. The Treasury Department first proposed buying troubled assets from banks but then reversed course and began injecting capital directly into financial institutions. Neither plan, however, restored investors' confidence for long.
"By intervening, they are giving the market some heart to temporarily stave off some fear — but you can only push that so much," said Charles Geisst, a financial historian and professor at Manhattan College.
Banking industry officials said the decision to support Citigroup, while necessary, could draw a firestorm of criticism from smaller institutions that were not big enough to be saved.
Under the agreement, Citigroup and regulators will back up to $306 billion of largely residential and commercial real estate loans and certain other assets, which will remain on the bank's balance sheet. Citigroup will shoulder losses on the first $29 billion of that portfolio.
Any remaining losses will be split between Citigroup and the government, with the bank absorbing 10 percent and the government absorbing 90 percent. The Treasury Department will use its bailout fund to assume up to $5 billion of losses. If necessary, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will bear the next $10 billion of losses. Beyond that, the Federal Reserve will guarantee any additional losses.
In exchange, Citigroup will issue $7 billion of preferred stock to government regulators. In addition, the government is buying $20 billion of preferred stock in Citigroup. The preferred shares will pay an 8 percent dividend and will slightly erode the value of shares held by investors.
Citigroup will also agree to certain executive compensation restrictions, which will be reviewed by regulators. It will also put in place the FDIC's loan modification plan, which is similar to one it recently announced.
The government said it was taking the step to bolster the economy while protecting taxpayers. "We will continue to use all of our resources to preserve the strength of our banking institutions and promote the process of repair and recovery and to manage risks," the regulators said in a joint statement Sunday.
Inside Citigroup's Park Avenue headquarters, the mood was tense. Through the weekend, Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary and an influential executive and director at Citigroup, held several discussions with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr.
Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's chief executive, spoke to regulators and lawmakers. Pandit also met with Citigroup's board on Saturday, and there was no indication that they would seek to replace him.
Once the nation's largest and mightiest financial company, Citigroup lost half its value in the stock market last week as the bank confronted a crisis of confidence. Although Citigroup executives maintain the bank is sound, investors worry that its finances are deteriorating. Citigroup has suffered staggering losses for a year now, and few analysts think the pain is over. Many investors worry that it needs more capital.
With more than $2 trillion in assets and operations in more than 100 countries, Citigroup is so large and interconnected that its troubles could spill over into other institutions. Citigroup is widely viewed, both in Washington and on Wall Street, as too big to be allowed to fail.
Citigroup executives reached out to the Federal Reserve and the Treasury last week as they sought to stabilize the company's stock. All major bank stocks have been battered in recent weeks, including those of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
Citigroup's shares have been hit particularly hard. A year ago they were trading at about $30; on Friday they closed at $3.77.
The plan under discussion is reminiscent of the one that Citigroup and the FDIC worked out in October with Citigroup's proposal to buy Wachovia. That deal fell through, however, when Wells Fargo swept in with a higher offer.
Under that plan, Citigroup agreed to bear a certain level of Wachovia's losses, with the U.S. government agency absorbing the rest. In exchange, Citigroup agreed to give the FDIC preferred stock.
It is also similar to an effort orchestrated by Swiss financial regulators for UBS, another big global bank. Last month, the Swiss central bank and UBS reached an agreement to transfer as much as $60 billion of troubled securities and other assets from UBS's balance sheet to a separate entity.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/24/business/24citibank.php
Not a bad thing, hopefully they will actually do some good books also
Random House to digitize thousands of books November 24, 2008 - 7:42am
NEW YORK (AP) - With e-book sales exploding in an otherwise sleepy market, Random House Inc. announced Monday that it was making thousands of additional books available in digital form, including novels by John Updike and Harlan Coben, as well as several volumes of the "Magic Treehouse" children's series.
Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement that "more people everyday are enjoying reading in the electronic format and Random House wants to extend our reach to them with more of our books."
The publisher already has more than 8,000 books in the electronic format and will have a digital library of nearly 15,000. The new round of e-books is expected to be completed within months; excerpts can be viewed online through the publisher's Insight browsing service.
Random House's vice president for digital operations, Matt Shatz, says e-book sales have increased by triple digit percentages in 2008, thanks in part to Amazon.com's Kindle reader, but he declined to offer specific number. E-books remain a tiny part of the overall market, widely estimated in the industry at 1 percent or less.
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On the Net: http://www.randomhouse.com/
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