dual personalities

Tag: The moon

August 1, 2023

Nil sine Numine*

by chuckofish

Today we celebrate the day in 1876 when U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation admitting Colorado to the Union as the 38th state. Because the country had just celebrated its centennial a few weeks earlier, Colorado became known as the “Centennial State”.

Several months prior, in December 1875, leading Colorado citizens gathered to draft a state constitution, among them our great-great grandfather John Simpson Hough, who represented Bent County.

He received 240 votes in the sparsely populated county.

Delegates to the convention came from every district in the soon-to-be state. They met at the Odd Fellows Hall, upstairs from the First National Bank, on Blake Street in Denver. Modeled after the United States Constitution, Colorado’s Constitution set the terms and duties of state government officials, and outlined the manner by which a law could be introduced and passed. It established the State Supreme Court, as well as district and county courts. A program for the supervision and maintenance of a public school system was created.  A state tax system was developed, rules that regulate railroads and other corporations were adopted, and provisions created to amend that State’s constitution.

So join me tonight in a toast to the state of Colorado and to John S. Hough.

In science news, please note that the first of two full moons in August will reach its peak today, August 1, so be sure to check it out. And as an added bonus, both of the full moons this month are also supermoons!

And here’s a poem about the moon by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Have a good day! Read some history. Look up at the night sky.

The painting is “Moonlight Study” by Christian Friedrich Gille, 1831 .

*The motto of the state of Colorado: “Nothing without the Deity”

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November 13, 2013

The moon’s a balloon*

by chuckofish

The lunar phase on November 13, 2013 is Waxing Gibbous. The moon is growing bigger.

Take a look this afternoon. A waxing gibbous moon appears high in the east at sunset. It’s more than half-lighted, but less than full.

waxing_gibbous_featured

When I flew to New York last week, it was at sunset. We flew over the clouds in the dark. The lights of the cities twinkled below. Then I looked out the window and there was the big dipper (Ursa Major)!

BigDipper

The moon was a sliver then. What a beautiful world!

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Psalm 8 (KJV)

* e.e. cummings

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