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It is estimated that there are more than 350 shapes of Italian pasta. Pictured here clockwise from top left are linguine, spaghetti, lasagna, penne, rotini and macaroni. Photo by Esther Oertel.

It was a splendid moment when I was first introduced to pasta made fresh at home. Though it was more than 30 years ago, I still remember the wonder of its taste and texture.

It happened on a random weeknight when a friend invited me to her apartment for dinner. I was looking forward to spending time with her, but had no idea that the delicate, hand-cut noodles she had made that afternoon would bring me such joy.

She and I haven’t been in touch for many years, but the memory of that meticulously and lovingly made meal still lingers.

My friend incorporated her amazing noodles into an Eastern European dish, beef stroganoff. Despite that wonderful memory, Asian or Italian dishes most often come to my mind when thinking of noodles.

That’s not surprising. Those two regions have made the most of the art of noodle-making, though nearly every country in the world has its own form of noodle.

There’s spaetzle in Germany, orzo in Greece, pierogi in Poland and couscous in the Middle East, to name just a few.

In Asia, noodles are broadly divided into three types: wheat noodles, rice noodles, and glass or cellophane noodles, and within these categories there are countless varieties.

Not surprisingly, China, where there are thousands of types of noodles, is the world’s largest consumer of them.

In Italy, noodles are referred to as pasta, which translates to “paste,” a reference to the dough used in making them.

There are an estimated 350 different pasta shapes in Italy and about four times as many names for them. Names can vary from place to place, and many regions have pasta shapes and names unique to them.

Endings such as -ini, -elli, -illi, -etti, -ine or -elle on Italian pasta names denote “little,” and if -oni or -one ends the name, it means “large.”

Sometimes these suffixes can be applied to the same form of pasta to delineate a size range, such as spaghettini (smallest), spaghetti (regular), or spaghettoni (largest).

Some pasta shapes are designed to hold the sauce in the best way possible, such as with ridges, as in rigatoni or penne.

Noodles have an ancient history and it’s difficult to know in exactly part of the world they originated. More specifically, was it in China or Italy?

There is evidence of early consumption of noodles in both regions, as well as in the Middle East, but not enough information exists to make a definitive declaration as to whether one region influenced another.

There have been some inaccurate stories about the introduction of pasta to Italy, perhaps the most common being that Venetian merchant, writer and explorer Marco Polo brought noodles to Italy from China via the Silk Road in the 13th century.

In actuality, the story is a 1929 marketing ploy by the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association.

The earliest written record of noodles is in a book that dates to the Han Dynasty in China in the third century B. C. It was about five centuries later that a written reference to them is found in the western part of the world.

In an exciting 2005 discovery, scientists unearthed 4000-year-old noodles at an archeological site in Lajia, China. The long yellow strands were preserved within a bowl that was encased under ten feet of mud.

This represents the earliest example of the noodle in history. Even so, it’s possible that noodles originated in two or more places unrelated to each other.

American food writer Jen Lin-Liu, who went on a six-month noodle fact-finding trip along the ancient Silk Road from China to Italy, said, “We aren’t sure if the noodle developed in the west separately, after it appeared in the east or if pasta, as we know it, even relates to the noodles that were first eaten in China. There could have been two different food traditions that developed side-by-side in opposite parts of the world.”

For now, it’s an unsolved mystery.

In Japan, noodles are incorporated into tea ceremonies, and noodle making there is considered a form of art.

Noodles became more important in Japan after World War II when food shortages were rampant. Dried foods such as noodles were sometimes the only available nourishment.

In China, noodles are a symbol of longevity and special ones are served to celebrate birthdays. The name for these “birthday noodles” is shoumain, which literally translates to “long-life noodles.” The longer the noodles, the bigger the wish for long life.

Such noodles are considered lucky when eaten during the Chinese New Year. They represent longevity and happiness.

In almost every Asian culture, noodles are associated with long-term well-being.

According to Peter Song, who excels at making hand-pulled noodles in Japan (he can make up to 500 bowls of noodles a day, far more than the 100 per day to be considered a master), the first step is to ensure that the flour and water are perfectly balanced. There are no exact measurements; it’s based on experience through touch. For example, the temperature of the room makes a difference. If cold, more water is needed; if warm, less.

Similarly, in Italy, experienced pasta makers, whether grandmas or chefs, use their sense of touch to discern when pasta dough is ready.

While the ingredients that go into noodle or pasta making are simple – just flour and liquid (water or egg) – the process is something that can take years to master.

I ran across a YouTube chef named Helen Rennie who rightly says that unless a beginning pasta maker has someone in the same room to teach them, trying to gauge the readiness of the dough by feel is difficult. If a culinary class isn’t in your future, I’d recommend her tutorials if you’d like to try your hand at making pasta at home.

Today’s recipe is for one of my favorite pasta dishes, pasta pomodoro. Pomodoro means tomato in Italian, and this dish is full of them, along with one of their favorite companions, basil.

The red and green of the dish compliment the season, and it could make a tasty, if unusual, addition to your Christmas table. I also love the way the colors in the dish mimic the Italian flag.

Though basil is a summer herb, it can be found year-round in stores, thanks to producers who utilize green houses.

Canned whole plum tomatoes may be substituted for fresh, if desired.

Enjoy!

From Italy: Pasta Pomodoro

This recipe serves two to four, depending on serving size.

Esther’s Tip: The basil leaves and garlic left after the oil is strained may be blended into a paste and used to flavor sauces and soups. If stored in a tightly covered container, it should last in the fridge about a week.

Ingredients:

8 fresh Italian plum (Roma) tomatoes
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 generous bunch fresh basil, leaves removed and slightly crushed (first reserve several leaves for later)
10 garlic cloves, peeled and slightly crushed
¼ teaspoon dried chili flakes
1 – 9-ounce package fresh fettuccini, linguine or angel hair pasta
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh parmesan to taste

Instructions:

Combine olive oil, garlic cloves, basil leaves (other than those reserved), and red pepper flakes in small saucepan. Simmer over low heat until flavors are infused into oil.

Prepare tomatoes by dipping in boiling water to loosen skins. Allow to cool, and then peel and seed them. Dice them and cook slowly in saucepan, mashing as they soften.

Strain infused oil into tomato sauce. Season as desired with salt and pepper.

Cook pasta in boiling salted water until al dente. (Be careful not to overcook.)

Drain (but don’t rinse) pasta and add to sauce. Toss pan or stir to combine.

Finely slice reserved basil leaves and add to pasta.

Grate parmesan into pasta and mix well.

Adjust seasonings as needed and enjoy!

Recipe by Esther Oertel.

Esther Oertel is a writer and passionate home cook from a family of chefs. She grew up in a restaurant, where she began creating recipes from a young age. She’s taught culinary classes in a variety of venues in Lake County and previously wrote “The Veggie Girl” column for Lake County News. Most recently she’s taught culinary classes at Sur La Table in Santa Rosa, Calif. She lives in Middletown, Calif.
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Image of a sloping hillside from the Mars Curiosity rover and an illustration of deuterated water molecules, called HDO instead of H2O because one of its hydrogen atoms has an extra neutrally charged particle. Infrared observations can study these particles that retrace the history of liquid water because the heavier molecules are more likely to remain even after liquid water has evaporated. SOFIA’s observations reveal this tracer of liquid water does not vary between Martian seasons, bringing scientists closer to understanding just how much liquid water Mars once had. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/SOFIA.

Mars may be a rocky planet, but it is not a hospitable world like Earth. It’s cold and dry with a thin atmosphere that has significantly less oxygen than Earth’s.

But Mars likely once had liquid water, a key ingredient for life. Studying the history of water can help uncover how the Red Planet lost water and how much water it once had.

“We already knew that Mars was once a wet place,” said Curtis DeWitt, scientist at the Universities Space Research Association’s SOFIA Science Center. “But only by studying how present-day water is lost can we understand just how much existed in the deep past.”

Some of this research can be conducted without leaving Earth using SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.

The world’s largest flying observatory can find molecules and atoms in deep space and on planets — like forensic analysis for astronomy — because it flies above 99% of Earth’s infrared-blocking water vapor.

To learn more about how Mars lost its water, and how modern-day water vapor might vary seasonally, SOFIA studied how water vapor evaporates differently during two Martian seasons.

Water is also known by its chemical name H2O because it’s made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. But with special instruments, scientists can detect two types: regular water, H2O, and deuterated water, HDO, which has an extra neutrally-charged particle called a neutron in one of the hydrogen atoms making it heavier.

Deuterated water evaporates less efficiently than regular water, so more of it remains as liquid water evaporates. Therefore, studying the ratio of deuterated water to regular water, which scientists call the D/H ratio, in existing water vapor can retrace the history of liquid water evaporation — even if it no longer flows. But it’s not clear if this ratio is affected by seasonal changes on the Red Planet.

Mars has ice caps at its poles. They are covered with carbon-dioxide ice and snow that expand and shrink with the Martian seasons.

As the planet’s Northern Hemisphere approaches its own Summer Solstice, the ice cap shrinks as temperatures warm — causing some of the ice to evaporate and expose water ice.

The southern ice cap, however, is covered with carbon-dioxide ice even during the summer. Scientists were not sure if these seasonal changes could affect the ratio of heavy water to regular water in the Martian atmosphere.

Previous measurements of the D/H water ratio used different instruments, resulting in slightly different measurements across Martian seasons and locations. Researchers on SOFIA used the same instrument, the Echelon-Cross- Echelle Spectrograph, or EXES, to get consistent measurements over two seasons and locations: summer in the planet’s Northern Hemisphere and summer in its Southern Hemisphere.

So far, after comparing observations between the two hemispheres, they have not found any seasonal variations in the water ratio on Mars between seasons and locations. This is helping scientists more accurately trace the history of water on Mars.

“If we can eliminate seasonal dependence as a factor in this ratio, then we're one step closer to getting an answer to how much water was originally present on Mars,” said DeWitt.

The results are published in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Further observations are underway to monitor different Martian seasons. Examining Mars’ history and geology is important as NASA moves forward with plans to send humans to the Moon, with the eventual goal of crewed missions to Mars.

SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is a Boeing 747SP jetliner modified to carry a 106-inch diameter telescope.

It is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley manages the SOFIA program, science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute at the University of Stuttgart.

The aircraft is maintained and operated from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center Building 703, in Palmdale, California.
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Dennis Fordham. Courtesy photo.

When a revocable living trust is established certain important powers – i.e., to amend or to revoke the trust – are usually reserved to the settlor (i.e., the person who established the trust).

Unless the trust expressly allows someone other than the settlor to exercise these powers then only the settlor – while alive and competent -- can exercise them.

The power to amend or to revoke a revocable trust are fundamental rights typically reserved to the settlor personally.

Amending a trust, however, encompasses a wide variety of changes. It could mean changing who acts as a successor trustee or it could mean changing the distribution (gifting) of assets when the settlor dies.

Some powers to amend the trust, such as the power to amend who acts as successor trustee, may be granted to persons other than the settlor(s) in the event that the settlor is incapacitated or deceased.

A power holder may be authorized to hire and replace successor trustees for trust administration. This is useful if the person named as successor trustee is not available or is not performing their duties properly.

In a joint trust between spouses, the settlors often allow each other to exercise their powers to amend and to revoke the trust if either spouse is incapacitated.

This is typically so when the trust leaves all assets to the surviving spouse at the death of the first settlor. That way the well spouse can make necessary changes to the trust provisions due to changed circumstances.

Sometimes, however, the well spouse may have to go to court to authorize changes.

In California, if the trust holds community property assets then the well spouse can petition the Superior Court to authorize a particular transaction.

For example, if the well spouse is trying to qualify the incapacitated spouse for long-term Medi-Cal, by transferring assets to the well spouse, the well spouse may ask the court to make all trust assets the well spouse’s own separate property.

Next, consider a trust with separate property assets belonging to an incapacitated settlor that allows the settlor’s conservator to exercise the settlor’s power to amend or to revoke the trust.

In California, exercising such powers would then entail a conservatorship of the incapacitated settlor’s estate and a petition by a conservator for substituted judgment. If, however, the trust makes such powers personal to the settlor only then even that approach is not available.

Sometimes a trust allows other persons to exercise the settlor’s authority. That is, the trust may say that the settlor’s agent under a power of attorney, the settlor’s spouse, or the conservator of the settlor’s estate can amend or revoke the trust.

For settlor’s agent to exercise the settlor’s powers to control the trust the power of attorney itself also needs to authorize the agent to exercise such powers.

For example, consider a trust that allows the settlor’s agent to direct the trustee to gift trust assets to certain family members (if the settlor is incompetent). The power of attorney itself must authorize the agent to instruct the trustee to make such gifts. If any gifting is to the agent then the power of attorney must waive the conflict of interest created by the agent authorizing a gift to himself.

What cannot be accomplished by a trust amendment once a trust becomes irrevocable, however, can sometimes be accomplished by a trust modification. In certain situations trust modifications may be accomplished by court petition.

More recently, under California’s new so-called “Decanting” law, certain trust modifications of an irrevocable trust may be done without court petition through other procedures. The types of modifications that can be made by Decanting depend on the type of powers granted to the trustee and how the trust is drafted.

Anyone confronting any of these issues should consult with a qualified attorney for guidance.

Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235.



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BERKELEY, Calif. – Climate skeptics have long raised doubts about the accuracy of computer models that predict global warming, but it turns out that most of the early climate models were spot-on, according to a look-back by climate scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA.

Of 17 climate models published between the early 1970s and the late 2000s, 14 were quite accurate in predicting the average global temperature in the years after publication, said Zeke Hausfather, a doctoral student in UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group and lead author of a new paper analyzing the models.

“The real message is that the warming we have experienced is pretty much exactly what climate models predicted it would be as much as 30 years ago,” he said. “This really gives us more confidence that today's models are getting things largely right as well.”

The results were published Dec. 4 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and will appear, with Hausfather as a contributing author, as part of the first chapter of the next climate assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due out in 2021.

Hausfather and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies evaluated the models based on how well they predicted the actual global mean temperature – Earth’s average temperature – based on the levels of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Greenhouse gases, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, are responsible for a rise of nearly 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in global mean temperatures since 1880, two-thirds of that since 1975.

The researchers examined both how well models projected future temperatures and how well they matched the relationship between warming and changes in levels of greenhouse gases after they were published.

This second approach accounts for the fact that climate modelers can’t necessarily predict future emissions, which are driven by human behavior rather than atmospheric physics.

“We did not focus on how well their crystal ball predicted future emissions of greenhouse gases, because that is a question for economists and energy modelers, not climate scientists,” Hausfather said. “It is impossible to know exactly what human emissions will be in the future. Physics we can understand, it is a deterministic system; future emissions depend on human systems, which are not necessarily deterministic.”

One of the iconic climate models, and one that first brought the issue of climate change to broad public attention, was published by James Hansen of NASA in 1988. However, his predictions for temperatures after 1988 were 50 percent higher than the actual global mean temperatures in those years.

That is in part because Hanson did not anticipate the Montreal Protocol, a treaty that went into effect in 1989 and which banned chlorofluorocarbons, which are potent greenhouse gases. His estimates of future methane emissions were also off, Hausfather said.

“If you account for these and look at the relationship in his model between temperature and radiative forcing, which is CO2 and other greenhouse gases, he gets it pretty much dead on,” he said. “So the physics of his model was right. The relationship between how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere and how much warming you get, was right. He just got the future emissions wrong.”

Most of the other models also accurately predicted the average temperature when they were given real-world greenhouse gas levels.

Climate models continue to improve, Hausfather said, as they incorporate more and more of the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, clouds, oceans and land. But it is too early to assess how well the current models predict future temperatures because the global mean temperature has a natural variation that can obscure the overall trend. It’s even too early to judge the IPCC’s fourth assessment, which was published in 2007.

Nevertheless, these models have been tested in other ways, including how well they would have predicted past climate variation: what’s called hindcasting.

“Climate models are a really important way for us to understand how the climate could change in the future, and now that we have taken a detailed look at how well past climate models have held up in terms of their projections, we are far more confident that our current generation of models are getting it right,” Hausfather said.

Hausfather’s coauthors are Henri Drake, who is with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography at Woods Hole and MIT, Tristan Abbott of MIT and Gavin Schmidt of NASA Goddard.

Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
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From left, Lakeport Police Officer Ryan Cooley and Lakeport Fire Protection District Firefighter Brandon Morin have completed federal terrorism response training in New Mexico. Courtesy photos.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Two local first responders have completed an educational course to help them respond to terrorist incidents.

Last week Lakeport Police Officer Ryan Cooley and Lakeport Fire Protection District Firefighter Brandon Morin successfully completed the Federal Incident Response to Terrorist Bombings Course, or IRTB, at New Mexico Tech Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center in Socorro, New Mexico.

This training was paid for under the United States Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency Homeland Security National Training Program Cooperative Agreement.

Officer Cooley and Firefighter Morin joined approximately 50 other law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency management personnel from throughout the United States in the IRTB course, which provides first responders with the knowledge and skills necessary to safely respond to terrorist incidents involving explosives.

The IRTB course focuses on first responder health and safety by addressing personal protection issues that arise when responding to terror incidents involving commercial and homemade explosives.

Additionally, the course includes information on the recognition of improvised explosive devices; terrorist organizations, both foreign and domestic; and lessons learned from past terrorist incidents. This information better prepares first responders to safely recognize and respond to terrorist bombing threats.

In addition to classroom training, Cooley and Morin spent considerable time on the bomb range where various small and large scale explosive devices were detonated to train students.

Cooley and Morin are now certified to conduct explosive response awareness safety training for other law enforcement, fire, emergency management and school staff.

Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen and Lakeport Fire Chief Rick Bergem both said that they were appreciative to have local public safety staff who can now coordinate and train others in safely responding to these types of incidents should they occur in our community.
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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has observed a magnetic explosion the likes of which have never been seen before.

In the scorching upper reaches of the Sun’s atmosphere, a prominence — a large loop of material launched by an eruption on the solar surface — started falling back to the surface of the Sun.

But before it could make it, the prominence ran into a snarl of magnetic field lines, sparking a magnetic explosion.

Scientists have previously seen the explosive snap and realignment of tangled magnetic field lines on the Sun — a process known as magnetic reconnection — but never one that had been triggered by a nearby eruption.

The observation, which confirms a decade-old theory, may help scientists understand a key mystery about the Sun’s atmosphere, better predict space weather, and may also lead to breakthroughs in the controlled fusion and lab plasma experiments.

“This was the first observation of an external driver of magnetic reconnection,” said Abhishek Srivastava, solar scientist at Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), in Varanasi, India. “This could be very useful for understanding other systems. For example, Earth’s and planetary magnetospheres, other magnetized plasma sources, including experiments at laboratory scales where plasma is highly diffusive and very hard to control.”

Previously a type of magnetic reconnection known as spontaneous reconnection has been seen, both on the Sun and around Earth.

But this new explosion-driven type — called forced reconnection — had never been seen directly, thought it was first theorized 15 years ago. The new observations have just been published in the Astrophysical Journal.

The previously-observed spontaneous reconnection requires a region with just the right conditions — such as having a thin sheet of ionized gas, or plasma, that only weakly conducts electric current — in order to occur.

The new type, forced reconnection, can happen in a wider range of places, such as in plasma that has even lower resistance to conducting an electric current.

However, it can only occur if there is some type of eruption to trigger it. The eruption squeezes the plasma and magnetic fields, causing them to reconnect.

While the Sun’s jumble of magnetic field lines are invisible, they nonetheless affect the material around them — a soup of ultra-hot charged particles known as plasma.

The scientists were able to study this plasma using observations from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, looking specifically at a wavelength of light showing particles heated 1-2 million kelvins (1.8-3.6 million F).

The observations allowed them to directly see the forced reconnection event for the first time in the solar corona — the Sun’s uppermost atmospheric layer. In a series of images taken over an hour, a prominence in the corona could be seen falling back into the photosphere. En route, the prominence ran into a snarl of magnetic field lines, causing them to reconnect in a distinct X shape.

Spontaneous reconnection offers one explanation for how hot the solar atmosphere is — mysteriously, the corona is millions of degrees hotter than lower atmospheric layers, a conundrum that has led solar scientists for decades to search for what mechanism is driving that heat.

The scientists looked at multiple ultraviolet wavelengths to calculate the temperature of the plasma during and following the reconnection event. The data showed that the prominence, which was fairly cool relative to the blistering corona, gained heat after the event.

This suggests forced reconnection might be one way the corona is heated locally. Spontaneous reconnection also can heat plasma, but forced reconnection seems to be a much more effective heater — raising the temperature of the plasma quicker, higher, and in a more controlled manner.

While a prominence was the driver behind this reconnection event, other solar eruptions like flares and coronal mass ejections, could also cause forced reconnection.

Since these eruptions drive space weather — the bursts of solar radiation that can damage satellites around Earth — understanding forced reconnection can help modelers better predict when disruptive high-energy charged particles might come speeding at Earth.

Understanding how magnetic reconnection can be forced in a controlled way may also help plasma physicists reproduce reconnection in the lab. This is ultimately useful in the field of laboratory plasma to control and stabilize them.

The scientists are continuing to look for more forced reconnection events. With more observations they can begin to understand the mechanics behind the reconnection and often it might happen.

“Our thought is that forced reconnection is everywhere,” Srivastava said. “But we have to continue to observe it, to quantify it, if we want to prove that.”

Mara Johnson-Groh works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
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In the United States, Hanukkah has gained much significance. Tercer Ojo Photography/Shutterstock.com

Hanukkah may be the best known Jewish holiday in the United States. But despite its popularity in the U.S., Hanukkah is ranked one of Judaism’s minor festivals, and nowhere else does it garner such attention. The holiday is mostly a domestic celebration, although special holiday prayers also expand synagogue worship.

So how did Hanukkah attain its special place in America?

Hanukkah’s back story

The word “Hanukkah” means dedication. It commemorates the rededicating of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C. when Jews – led by a band of brothers called the Maccabees – tossed out statues of Hellenic gods that had been placed there by King Antiochus IV when he conquered Judea. Antiochus aimed to plant Hellenic culture throughout his kingdom, and that included worshipping its gods.

Legend has it that during the dedication, as people prepared to light the Temple’s large oil lamps to signify the presence of God, only a tiny bit of holy oil could be found. Yet, that little bit of oil remained alight for eight days until more could be prepared. Thus, each Hanukkah evening, for eight nights, Jews light a candle, adding an additional one as the holiday progresses throughout the festival.

Hanukkah’s American story

Today, America is home to almost 7 million Jews. But Jews did not always find it easy to be Jewish in America. Until the late 19th century, America’s Jewish population was very small and grew to only as many as 250,000 in 1880. The basic goods of Jewish religious life – such as kosher meat and candles, Torah scrolls, and Jewish calendars – were often hard to find.

Until the late 19th century, basic goods of Jewish life were hard to find in the U.S. Zoltan Kluger

In those early days, major Jewish religious events took special planning and effort, and minor festivals like Hanukkah often slipped by unnoticed.

My own study of American Jewish history has recently focused on Hanukkah’s development.

It began with a simple holiday hymn written in 1840 by Penina Moise, a Jewish Sunday school teacher in Charleston, South Carolina. Her evangelical Christian neighbors worked hard to bring the local Jews into the Christian fold. They urged Jews to agree that only by becoming Christian could they attain God’s love and ultimately reach Heaven.

Moise, a famed poet, saw the holiday celebrating dedication to Judaism as an occasion to inspire Jewish dedication despite Christian challenges. Her congregation, Beth Elohim, publicized the hymn by including it in their hymnbook.

This English language hymn expressed a feeling common to many American Jews living as a tiny minority. “Great Arbiter of human fate whose glory ne'er decays,” Moise began the hymn, “To Thee alone we dedicate the song and soul of praise.”

It became a favorite among American Jews and could be heard in congregations around the country for another century.

Shortly after the Civil War, Cincinnati Rabbi Max Lilienthal learned about special Christmas events for children held in some local churches. To adapt them for children in his own congregation, he created a Hanukkah assembly where the holiday’s story was told, blessings and hymns were sung, candles were lighted and sweets were distributed to the children.

His friend, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, created a similar event for his own congregation. Wise and Lilienthal edited national Jewish magazines where they publicized these innovative Hanukkah assemblies, encouraging other congregations to establish their own.

Lilienthal and Wise also aimed to reform Judaism, streamlining it and emphasizing the rabbi’s role as teacher. Because they felt their changes would help Judaism survive in the modern age, they called themselves “Modern Maccabees.” Through their efforts, special Hanukkah events for children became standard in American synagogues.

20th-century expansion

By 1900, industrial America produced the abundance of goods exchanged each Dec. 25. Christmas’ domestic celebrations and gifts to children provided a shared religious experience to American Christians otherwise separated by denominational divisions. As a home celebration, it sidestepped the theological and institutional loyalties voiced in churches.

For the 2.3 million Jewish immigrants who entered the U.S. between 1881 and 1924, providing their children with gifts in December proved they were becoming American and obtaining a better life.

But by giving those gifts at Hanukkah, instead of adopting Christmas, they also expressed their own ideals of American religious freedom, as well as their own dedication to Judaism.

A Hanukkah religious service and party in 1940. Center for Jewish History, NYC

After World War II, many Jews relocated from urban centers. Suburban Jewish children often comprised small minorities in public schools and found themselves coerced to participate in Christmas assemblies. Teachers, administrators and peers often pressured them to sing Christian hymns and assert statements of Christian faith.

From the 1950s through the 1980s, as Jewish parents argued for their children’s right to freedom from religious coercion, they also embellished Hanukkah. Suburban synagogues expanded their Hanukkah programming.

As I detail in my book, Jewish families embellished domestic Hanukkah celebrations with decorations, nightly gifts and holiday parties to enhance Hanukkah’s impact. In suburbia, Hanukkah’s theme of dedication to Judaism shone with special meaning. Rabbinical associations, national Jewish clubs and advertisers of Hanukkah goods carried the ideas for expanded Hanukkah festivities nationwide.

In the 21st century, Hanukkah accomplishes many tasks. Amid Christmas, it reminds Jews of Jewish dedication. Its domestic celebration enhances Jewish family life. In its similarity to Christmas domestic gift-giving, Hanukkah makes Judaism attractive to children and – according to my college students – relatable to Jews’ Christian neighbors. In many interfaith families, this shared festivity furthers domestic tranquility.

In America, this minor festival has attained major significance.The Conversation

Dianne Ashton, Professor of Religion, Rowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Friday announced the terms of a settlement agreement reached with Sutter Health, the largest hospital system in Northern California which also includes Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport.

The settlement resolves allegations by the attorney general, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and Employers Benefit Trust, and class action plaintiffs, that Sutter’s anticompetitive practices led to higher health care costs for patients in Northern California compared to other places in the state.

As a result of the settlement, Sutter will pay $575 million in compensation and make significant changes in its operations and practices to restore competition in Northern California’s health care market.

There is no admission of wrongdoing on the part of Sutter Health, and no court has found that Sutter violated any laws, the company reported.

The Attorney General’s Office said the settlement constitutes one of the largest legal actions in the country attacking anticompetitive behavior in the health care sector and includes unprecedented levels of injunctive relief to restore competition in the market.

“When one health care provider can dominate the market, those who shoulder the cost of care — patients, employers, insurers — are the biggest losers,” said Attorney General Becerra. “Today’s settlement will be a game changer for restoring competition in our health care markets. Sutter has agreed to pay over half a billion dollars to compensate those who challenged its billing practices. It must operate with more transparency. It must stop practices that drive patients into more expensive health services and products. And it must operate under the watchful eye of a court-approved monitor selected by the Attorney General’s Office for at least 10 years.”

Becerra said the first-in-the-nation comprehensive settlement should send a clear message to the markets: “If you’re looking to consolidate for any reason other than efficiency that delivers better quality for a lower price, think again. The California Department of Justice is prepared to protect consumers and competition, especially when it comes to health care.”

Sutter Health Senior Vice President and General Counsel Flo Di Benedetto said the settlement “enables Sutter Health to maintain our integrated network and ability to provide patients with access to affordable, high-quality care.”

Di Benedetto added, “Together with the attorney general, the parties selected an experienced monitor who will oversee the agreement, which specifies parameters for contracting between Sutter Health and insurance companies going forward. There were no claims that Sutter’s contracting practices with insurance companies affected patient care or quality. In fact, Sutter’s quality of care is nationally recognized with the majority of our hospitals and care facilities outperforming state and national averages in nearly every measure of quality.”

Over the past decade, Sutter Health has invested nearly $10 billion in new technologies and state-of-the-art facilities to increase access to safe, high-quality care in the communities it serves, De Benedetto said. “

“We have rebuilt hospitals to withstand earthquakes, taken care of millions of Medicare and Medi-Cal patients, expanded services in rural communities and spread new life-saving technologies and best practices across our integrated network. As an organization, we will have to evaluate future capital investments based on the impact of the settlement,” Di Benedetto said.

“Sutter Health is committed to keeping our care connected so patients continue to receive affordable, high-quality, personalized and coordinated care. Despite the increasing cost of care and operating in high-wage markets, we remain focused on making health care more affordable for our patients,” Di Benedetto concluded.

This litigation against Sutter began in 2014 when the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and Employers Benefit Trust and numerous individual plaintiffs – later consolidated into a class action – filed a lawsuit challenging Sutter’s practices in rendering services and setting prices.

They sought compensation for what they alleged were unlawful, anticompetitive business practices, which caused them to pay more than necessary for health care services and products.

In March of 2018, Attorney General Becerra filed a similar lawsuit against Sutter on behalf of the people of California principally seeking injunctive relief to compel Sutter to correct its anticompetitive business practices moving forward. The separate lawsuits were combined by the court into one case.

In October, on the eve of trial, the parties reached an agreement to settle the lawsuits. The settlement must be approved by the court. The court has set a hearing on the settlement for Feb. 25.

Under the terms of the settlement, Sutter will be required to:

– Pay $575 million to compensate employers, unions, and others covered under the class action and to cover costs and fees associated with the legal efforts;
– Limit what it charges patients for out-of-network services, helping ensure that patients visiting an out-of-network hospital do not face outsized, surprise medical bills;
– Increase transparency by permitting insurers, employers and self-funded payers to provide plan members with access to pricing, quality, and cost information, which helps patients make better care decisions;
– Halt measures that deny patients access to lower-cost plans, thus allowing health insurers, employers and self-funded payers to offer and direct patients to more affordable health plan options for networks or products;
– Stop all-or-nothing contracting deals, thus allowing insurers, employers and self-funded payers to include some but not necessarily all of Sutter’s hospitals, clinics, or other commercial products in their plans’ network. Sutter must also make facilities such as their rural hospitals, the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, and Sutter hospitals in San Francisco available to insurers, employers, and self-funded payers as part of commercial health care benefit plans;
– Cease anticompetitive bundling of services and products which forced insurers, employers, and self-funded payers to purchase for their plan offerings more services or products from Sutter than were needed. Sutter must now offer a stand-alone price that must be lower than any bundled package price to give insurers, employers, and self-funded payers more choice;
– Cooperate with a court-approved compliance monitor to ensure that Sutter is following the terms of the settlement for at least 10 years. The monitor will receive and investigate complaints and may present evidence to the court; and
– Clearly set definitions on clinical integration and patient access considerations. The settlement makes clear that for Sutter to claim it has clinically integrated a system, it must meet strict standards beyond regional similarities or the mere sharing of an electronic health record, and must be integrating care in a manner that takes into consideration the quality of care to the patient population. This is important because clinical integration can be used to mask market consolidation efforts by hospital systems, when in fact there is no true integration of a patient’s care. For example, saying that hospitals are regionally close or that the hospitals are sharing electronic health records is not enough, there must be close coordination that will lead to less costly, higher quality care for local communities.

The Sutter network consists of some 24 acute care hospitals, 36 ambulatory surgery centers, and 16 cardiac and cancer centers. It also includes some 12,000 physicians and over 53,000 employees. In addition, Sutter negotiates contracts on behalf of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and many affiliated physician groups.

A number of studies have shown how overconsolidation drives up prices for consumers. For example, a University of California Berkeley report found that outpatient cardiology procedures in Southern California cost nearly $18,000 compared to almost $29,000 in Northern California.

For inpatient hospital procedures, the cost in Southern California is nearly $132,000 compared to more than $223,000 in Northern California, a more than $90,000 difference.

A 2016 study found that a cesarean delivery in Sacramento, where Sutter is based, cost more than $27,000, nearly double what it cost in Los Angeles or New York, making Northern California one of the most expensive places in the country to have a baby.
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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council has approved a plan to offer monetary incentives to increase the hiring pool for the police department.

The council approved the proposal at its Dec. 12 meeting.

The discussion begins at the 44:24 mark in the video above.

Police Chief Andrew White said the agency’s top priority has been recruitment and retention, but it has been a challenge.

“Quite simply, we can’t get our job done without having the human capital within the department to make that happen,” White said.

Over the past 18 months, the department has hired six officers and promoted two others. However, despite those efforts and creativity, White said the Clearlake Police Department is seeing the same thing that’s occurring elsewhere across the country – a reduction of the candidacy pool.

White said the department has 24.5 full-time equivalent police officer positions and currently has two vacancies, which are having an impact including overtime. He said that the agency’s exceptionally high call volume and efforts to reduce crime are negatively impacted by any vacancies.

Hiring bonuses have been used in other agencies, White said.

Locally, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office offers a $5,000 incentive and the Lakeport Police Department offers $6,000 in the form of academy training, he said.

His written report notes that, statewide, hiring bonuses go as high as $30,000.

White recommended a hiring bonus of $15,000 for new academy graduates and lateral police officers through the end of the fiscal year. City Manager Alan Flora would have to approve such offers.

In addition, White recommended that Flora be able to advance sick pay and vacation balances to qualified lateral candidates, which is another bonus other agencies offer.

White said he thinks the bonuses will increase the pool of candidates, explaining that training for an academy graduate can easily exceed $20,000. Once hired, they have another 16 weeks of training with a field training officer.

Besides those hiring bonuses, White sought approval for a $1,500 referral bonus for existing employees recommending officer candidates. It would not be applicable for anyone involved in the hiring process.

“We’re seeing an almost unprecedented time in terms of recruitment efforts,” said White.

While the department believes the incentives will be effective, it will take time to see if it will work, he said.

White said the funding for the incentive program will come out of salary savings in the police department’s budget for the current fiscal year.

Councilman Phil Harris asked what would happen if an officer doesn’t stay with the department for a reasonable amount of time.

White said the city manager would look at a two-year commitment window. If an officer only stayed for a year, the amount that would be owed the city would be reduced. However, White added that all of the details haven’t been worked out yet.

Harris said he favored the incentive proposal, and wanted to go further to offer down payment assistance for police officers to buy homes and stay in the community. Vice Mayor Dirk Slooten said he agreed with Harris’ suggestion.

Clearlake Police Sgt. Rodd Joseph told the council that he came to the agency 12 years ago from another Northern California department. He said he was fortunate to have the financial ability to move here, however, “A lot of people don’t,” with some living paycheck to paycheck and having to pay for their academy education.

“In my experience, I think this would be a great tool,” Joseph said.

Flora asked if the council wanted to take action then on the down payment assistance or have staff bring it back.

Harris said he wanted staff to bring it back, and he suggested $10,000 for down payment assistance.

The council agreed to bring back that part. Harris moved to approve the remainder of the proposal, for the hiring and referral bonuses, with Councilman Russ Perdock seconding and the council approving it 5-0.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has several new dogs – including Shiba Inus – waiting for homes this holiday week.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Australian Shepherd, bluetick coonhound, cattle dog, German Shepherd, pit bull, Rhodesian Ridgeback, Shiba Inu and treeing walker coonhound.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).

The male Labrador Retriever mix is in kennel No. 4, ID No. 13360. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male Labrador Retriever

The male Labrador Retriever mix has a short brown and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 4, ID No. 13360.

This female German Shepherd is in kennel No. 8, ID No. 13352. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Female German Shepherd

This female German Shepherd has a medium-length black and brown coat.

She’s in kennel No. 8, ID No. 13352.

This male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 10, ID No. 13345. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male pit bull terrier

This male pit bull terrier has a short blue and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 10, ID No. 13345.

This female Shiba Inu is in kennel No. 12a, ID No. 13362. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Female Shiba Inu

This female Shiba Inu has a medium-length black and tan coat.

She is in kennel No. 12a, ID No. 13362.

This male Shiba Inu is in kennel No. 12b, ID No. 13372. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male Shiba Inu

This male Shiba Inu has a medium-length tan coat.

He is in kennel No. 12b, ID No. 13372.

“Patsy” is a female treeing walker coonhound/bluetick coonhound mix in kennel No. 20, ID No. 13290. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Patsy’

“Patsy” is a female treeing walker coonhound/bluetick coonhound mix with a short tricolor coat.

She is in kennel No. 20, ID No. 13290.

“Max” is a male bluetick coonhound-treeing walker coonhound in kennel No. 25, ID No. 13289. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Max’

“Max” is a male bluetick coonhound-treeing walker coonhound with a short tricolor coat.

He is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 13289.

“Hazel” is a female cattle dog in kennel No. 27, ID No. 13255. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Hazel’

“Hazel” is a female cattle dog with a medium-length tricolor coat.

She has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 13255.

This male Australian Shepherd is in kennel No. 28, ID No. 13250. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male Australian Shepherd

This male Australian Shepherd has a long black and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 28, ID No. 13250.

“Daisey” is a female treeing walker coonhound/bluetick coonhound mix in kennel No. 29, ID No. 13291. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Daisey’

“Daisey” is a female treeing walker coonhound/bluetick coonhound mix with a short tricolor coat.

She is in kennel No. 29, ID No. 13291.

“Goofy” is a male Rhodesian Ridgeback in kennel No. 33, ID No. 13210. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Goofy’

“Goofy” is a young male Rhodesian Ridgeback with a short tan and black coat.

Shelter staff said this boy is great with other dogs, although he is high energy and would benefit from obedience training. He would love to go jogging everyday, he is very food motivated and willing to learn new things.

Goofy has been at the shelter since Nov. 5. He was originally taken from someone in Upper Lake and found on the highway in Clearlake. If anyone has any information on his owner please contact the shelter.

He’s in kennel No. 33, ID No. 13210.

Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.

Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm.

For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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The earliest biblical descriptions do not mention the presence of any barnyard animals, that are part of Nativity displays today. Oscar Llerena/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Around the Christmas season, it is common to see a display of the Nativity scene: a small manger with the baby Jesus and his family, shepherds, the three wise men believed to have visited Jesus after his birth and several barnyard animals.

One might ask, what are the origins of this tradition?

Biblical description

The earliest biblical descriptions, the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, written between A.D. 80 and 100, offer details of Jesus’ birth, including that he was born in Bethlehem during the reign of King Herod.

The Gospel of Luke says that when the shepherds went to Bethlehem, they “found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.” Matthew tells the story of the three wise men, or Magi, who “fell down” in worship and offered gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

But as my research on the relationship between the New Testament and the development of popular Christian traditions shows, the earliest biblical descriptions do not mention the presence of any animals. Animals first start to appear in religious texts around the seventh century.

A series of early Christian stories that informed popular religious devotion, including what’s known as the Infancy Gospel of Matthew, attempted to fill in the gap between Christ’s infancy and the beginning of his public ministry. This text was the first to mention the presence of animals at Jesus’ birth. It described how the “most blessed Mary went forth out of the cave and entering a stable, placed the child in the stall, and the ox and the ass adored Him.”

This description, subsequently cited in several medieval Christian texts, created the Christmas story popular today.

Start of Nativity scenes

But the Nativity scene now recreated in town squares and churches worldwide was originally conceived by St. Francis of Assisi.

Much of what scholars know about Francis comes from “Life of St. Francis,” written by the 13th-century theologian and philosopher St. Bonaventure.

Francis was born into a merchant family in the Umbrian town of Assisi, in modern-day Italy, around 1181. But Francis rejected his family wealth early in his life and cast off his garments in the public square.

In 1209, he founded the mendicant order of the Franciscans, a religious group that dedicated themselves to works of charity. Today, Franciscans minister by serving the material and spiritual needs of the poor and socially marginalized.

St. Francis of Assisi preparing the Christmas crib at Greccio. Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy

According to Bonaventure, Francis in 1223 sought permission from Pope Honorious III to do something “for the kindling of devotion” to the birth of Christ. As part of his preparations, Francis “made ready a manger, and bade hay, together with an ox and an ass,” in the small Italian town of Greccio.

One witness, among the crowd that gathered for this event, reported that Francis included a carved doll which cried tears of joy and “seemed to be awakened from sleep when the blessed Father Francis embraced Him in both arms.”

This miracle of the crying doll moved all who were present, Bonaventure writes. But Francis made another miracle happen, too: The hay that the child lay in healed sick animals and protected people from disease.

Nativity imagery in art

Adoration of the Magi. Fra Angelico

The Nativity story continued to expand within Christian devotional culture well after Francis’ death. In 1291, Pope Nicholas IV, the first Franciscan pope, ordered that a permanent Nativity scene be erected at Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Rome.

Nativity imagery dominated Renaissance art.

This first living Nativity scene – which was famously depicted by Italian Renaissance painter Giotto di Bondone in the Arena Chapel of Padua, Italy – ushered in a new tradition of staging the birth of Christ.

In the tondo, a circular painting of the Adoration of the Magi by 15th-century painters Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, not only are there sheep, a donkey, a cow and an ox, there is even a colorful peacock that peers over the top of the manger to catch a glimpse of Jesus.

Political turn of Nativity scenes

After the birth of Jesus, King Herod, feeling as though his power was threatened by Jesus, ordered the execution of all boys under two years old. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were forced to flee to Egypt.

In an acknowledgment that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were refugees themselves, in recent years, some churches have used their Nativity scenes as a form of political activism to comment on the need for immigrant justice. Specifically, these “protest nativities” have criticized President Donald Trump’s 2018 executive order on family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border.

For example, in 2018, a church in Dedham, Massachusetts, placed baby Jesus, representing immigrant children, in a cage. This year, at Claremont United Methodist Church in California, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus have all been placed in separate barbed-wire cages in their outdoor Nativity scene.

These displays, which call attention to the plight of immigrants and asylum seekers, bring the Christian tradition into the 21st century.The Conversation

Vanessa Corcoran, Adjunct Professor of History, Academic Counselor, Georgetown University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Local officials are reporting a finding of a harmful algal bloom in Blue Lakes.

Following recent rains, an algae bloom was noted in the southern edge of Blue Lakes on Dec. 12, the county of Lake reported.

Samples were collected and sent for testing. The laboratory has confirmed a low level of a toxin called anatoxin at 0.17 µg/l.

Anatoxin is a chemical produced by the algae that can cause severe nerve problems.

While such blooms are more common in warmer weather, the State Water Board said caution should be used throughout the year.

Caution signs have been posted in the affected area, in accordance with state recommendations responsive to detection of any level of anatoxin.

Lake County Public Health recommends the public take note of the bloom and the presence of the anatoxin.

Small children and pets are especially at risk; please keep children and dogs away from the material on the beach and avoid letting them swim or play in the water until this bloom subsides.

Under a caution advisory, fishing is allowed but our guidance is to throw away the guts (and liver) and clean and rinse the fillets with tap or bottled water before cooking. Shellfish should not be eaten under a caution advisory.

The Clear Lake cyanobacteria monitoring program run by the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians and Elem Indian Colony funded the analysis. Their program has been routinely collecting a water sample at the Upper Blue Lakes as part of their monitoring program.

Further testing will be performed in order to monitor ongoing risk. Public Health said this program has been highly beneficial to the health of the Lake County community.

For current cyanotoxin lab results, visit the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians cyanotoxin monitoring website at https://www.bvrancheria.com/clearlakecyanotoxins.

For more information and resources, visit the County’s cyanobacteria pages at http://www.lakecountyca.gov/cyanobacteria/ and http://www.lakecountyca.gov/cyanohealth/ .

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