And In Today’s Useless News

I just posted about how our self-appointed "environmental saviors" are jetting to Bali to decide how to limit average people lives. Then I saw this item:

In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

"The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won't need another miracle," said Liad Ortar, the campaign's cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site's environmental forum. "Global warming is a milestone in human evolution that requires us to rethink how we live our lives, and one of the main paradigms of that is religion and how it fits into the current situation."

Cofounder Tom Wegner, who heads the public relations firm Update Marketing Media, spread the campaign via mass e-mails and through social interaction Web sites like Facebook and Hook.co.il. He said no money had been invested in the campaign, but it had already raised awareness around the world and made people realize that they have to consider the environment this Hanukka.

Wegner said he did not consider the campaign anti-religious. The unlit candle could be the shamash, which is not required for the mitzva, he said. But he said he would encourage people who do not keep mitzvot not to light a hanukkia at all for environmental and educational reasons.

Here's a clue and an educational moment, Mr Wegner. Each of the completely burned candles emits 15 grams of carbon according to your own figures. One million such completely burned candles would produce 15 metric tons of carbon. If every one of those one million homes stopped burning that one candle completely - right now - and continued to do so for the next 6,666 years they would offset the carbon emitted by the people going to Bali.

Teaching moment: Learn some math, Mr. Wegner.

Happy Hanukkah. I lit these just for you.

(H/T Memeorandum)

UPDATE: Others suitably impressed: Daily Pundit: In fact, just because these jerks exist, I intend to burn as many damn candles as I can get into candlesticks, menorahs and so forth.

Moonbattery: Traditionally Hanukka involves Judaism. But this is quickly giving way to a different faith altogether.

The Anchoress: And in that hope, I’m going to go light a few candles at a local church that still uses real candles - although I guess pushing a few “electric candle” buttons will meet the case, as well - and I’m going to offer up an Advent prayer for religious tolerance and human forbearance throughout this vast, mysterious planet, which is greater than all the fuss, fury and conceits of humankind.

Ace: Instead, I'm going to do something that I never do. I'm going to burn the biggest damn Yule Log I can fit into my fireplace.

Brutally Honest: Someone ought to do a study and determine how many carbon credits are burned by people sending mass e-mails for idiotic purposes to spread fear and discontent because their religion demands they do so.

(Ed Note. That could be an enlightening calculation, couldn't it? How much carbon did the self-righteous Tom Wegner burn sending his marketing messages about his cult belief around everywhere. Want to bet it is a lot more than his campaign would save?)

Luxury For Them, Serfdom For You

15,000 politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, activists, journalists and other assorted celebrities, hangers-on and others have descended on Nusa Dua, Bali in Indonesia to discuss global warming.  

Over the course of the eleven-day meeting, these people will discuss how to limit carbon emissions. These same people will generate an estimated 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide in travel to and from the conference and lord knows how much energy and consumables while they are there. Many of those consumables will, of course, have to be shipped to Nusa Dua, adding substantially to the carbon footprint of the gargantuan meeting. They'll be staying in magnificent resorts and hotels like this, this, this and this.  

Now these people will be doubtlessly busy during the conference, but presumably not too busy to indulge in some of the local tourist attractions, nightlife and grand dining that the resort area is known for – in fact, exists for. Why, Pictures show that Nusa Dua is a veritable paradise, it is according to their tourism people and a magnet for the jet set from all over. 

Crystal clear water and stretches of white sandy beach of Nusa Dua makes Nusa Dua a perfect spot for luxurious resorts to which your exhausted bodies, after a Barong performance at Batubulan and a long climb of the steps of the Mother Temple Besakih, will want to rest. Some of the most sumptuous and luxurious hotels in the world find their home in Nusa Dua Bali. You can relax in the Thalasso spa of the Grand Mirage Resort after a day of surfing or diving. Or you can tee off into the sunset, while watching the gentle waves come from the blue sea and caress the banks surrounding the luscious greens. Tranquil swimming pools under the coconut trees seem to be one with the distant blue sea. Art galleries and numerous shops surround them.

So, while these functionaries plot out how to limit your lives, how to immensely increase the cost of your energy, how to redistribute your wealth on a global scale, they will not be doing so in anything less than plutocratic splendor that emperors of even a century ago could not have dreamed of.

But don’t worry. They are doing it for all the best reasons. Trust them. They'll wave from the limousines.  

UPDATE: Many thanks to ICECAP for the link, I'm honored. Also thanks to Fausta, PoliGazette and the Irish Spy for linking. Visitors, please do take a look around.

Toxic Waste

John Hawkins must have worn full Haz Mat protection for this job. He waded through the "best of" from the Koz Kidz and came up with the top (bottom?) ten things written at that site. It's as ugly as you'd expect. All of the words are from diarists writing at Kozville - not from commenters. Once the usual ration of obscenity is removed from those there isn't much left other than 'at', 'the' and 'as'. I won't even excerpt it, just send you over. He's performed bleeps on the usual dose of language that that charming group uses regularly.

John, check that your shots are up to date.

Medea Gets The Boot

Code Pink decided to try their usual antics in Pakistan. They discovered that people in other countries don't put up with antics the same way as they do here in the United States. They got arrested and deported, quick, fast and in a hurry.

Pakistan authorities today ordered the deportation of the leader of the feminist U.S. antiwar group Code Pink, who was in Lahore to join protests against the emergency rule imposed by President Pervez Musharraf, according to a spokeswoman for the group.

Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the group, said she was arrested at a student demonstration by agents of the Pakistan Inter-Service Intelligence and detained for about four hours before being released with orders to leave the country tomorrow morning. Pakistan officials told Ms. Benjamin that she was being deported for joining illegal protests.

"I'm OK — a little shaken up," Ms. Benjamin told The Washington Times by telephone from her hotel in Lahore. "They mistreated us."

Ms. Benjamin said she feared for her life as the agents held her at gunpoint in a car speeding through the city to the police station.

"I thought I was going to die in the car," she said. "They totally terrorized us."

Welcome to the rest of the world that doesn't follow your idea of the rules. One should point out that if they tried the usual antics in many other countries they wouldn't have been deported. In fact, they would never have left the country at all.

Notice she didn't try it in Burma.

Whining As Strategy

Whiny is such a bad look for Bill Clinton. Yet here he goes:

KEENE, N.H. - (AP) — Bill Clinton said Tuesday the public would benefit from more attention to the records of the presidential candidates — like his wife's — and less to daily skirmishes that "won't amount to a hill of beans."

The former president, known as a keen strategist himself, lamented that the campaign has become too much about the horse race at the expense of policy and experience.

"Sixty-seven percent of the coverage is pure politics," he said, citing a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "That stuff has a half-life of about 15 seconds. It won't matter tomorrow. It is very vulnerable to being slanted and rude. And it won't affect your life."

Clinton is, of course, well known for playing politics above all. Policy was always a secondary consideration. But this is meant to distract from other bad media news, of course. Like Hillary's slide in the polls among other things. Oh, and that pesky Federal indictment of Norman Hsu.

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Norman Hsu, a top Democratic fundraiser accused of cheating investors of at least $20 million and using some of the money to make illegal donations to political campaigns.

In the 15-count indictment returned in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the government accused the 56-year-old clothing-industry entrepreneur of duping investors nationwide with a massive Ponzi scheme.

Ed Morrisey is calling the whine party Clinton threw going on offense. It is, but it will not appear that way to a lot of people, I think Joe Gandelman has a good take on why this was an extraordinarily bad move by the Clinton campaign.

(1)It won’t win over any votes and will lose his wife votes. Most people who don’t like Hillary Clinton have other issues. It is not because she is getting a terrible press. In fact, for the first part of her campaign she had an almost adoring press. But candidates beware: the media doesn’t really DECIDE there is a narrative, it happens (sort of like..you know what). And the typical cycle is The Rising Candidate, The Now Top Candidate Stumbles, The Now Top Candidate Falls. And there is The Former Top Candidate Returns.

(2) It’ll lose her votes because it’s keeping the issue out there of the fact that during a Hillary Clinton’s Presidency Bill will be either lurking in the shadows or perhaps fighting some battles for her. Yes, many Americans do love Bill Clinton. But Bill Clinton is as much as piece of old baggage for her as he is a beautfil valise.

He has more reasons as well. The Clinton campaign does seem to be lurching around right now. Attacking a kindergarten paper supposedly written by Barack Obama made them look desperate. I think Bill whining is a really bad idea that will, indeed, cost votes. When a candidate has the high negatives Hillary has, she cannot afford to lose a single vote.

The Absurd Factor

Some 15,000 politicians, lobbyists, activists, journalists and some even more totally useless folks like Leonardo DiCaprio will be gathering to discuss climate change at a super luxury resort in Bali. The little clambake will cause an estimated 100,000 tons of carbon emissions. More than some nations produce in a year.

Around 15,000 politicians, civil servants, green and industry lobbyists and journalists will fly in for the summit, emitting the estimated equivalent of more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide - on a par with the annual emissions of the African state of Chad.

John Hay, spokesman for the UN conference organisers in Bali, said: "The Indonesian government will be announcing its offsetting deal on Wednesday. It will involve tree-planting but how exactly, where and when will be announced then. We at the UN climate secretariat are offsetting by buying emission reductions under the Clean Development Mechanism. Then it is up to the individual delegates and journalists. The responsibility lies with them."

The UK's delegation of three ministers and over 40 civil servants, including the treasury's former chief economist, Sir Nicholas Stern, will offset their flights using the Government's own, highly-rated fund which buys up emissions of industrial gases with global warming potential under an approved UN scheme.

The meeting, which runs from December 3 to December 14, aims to create a framework for a post-2012 climate change treaty that would replace the Kyoto protocol.

However, the surge in climate change's political importance is expected to boost the number of delegates travelling to the resort of Nusa Dua, a palm-lined promontory on Bali's south coast, from the 10,000 who had registered by Sunday to 15,000 at least.

Among those expected to attend, some by private jet, include Arnold Schwarznegger, Governor of California, Al Gore, the former US vice-president, and Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor. Peter Garrett, the former singer with the Midnight Oil rock band and now a member of Kevin Rudd's new Labor government in Australia, is expected to attend.

Chad has something like 9 million people. The 15,000 attendees will exceed the carbon emissions for all of those people put together. That's not all, either. The hotel accommodations for the British contingent alone cost about £330 per room per night. Others are paying even more. Anybody else seeing the absurdity here? Millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of tons of emissions. And they are talking about maybe planting a few trees like it is meaningful.

It has never been easier to rape the planet and scam up a great living. All you have to do is say you're fighting global warming and you can get away with literally anything.

(H/T to feeblemind in comments for the tip.)

UPDATE: NortonPete, another commenter, found this absolute gem from the Baltimore Sun. The blog post there is covering the vote tomorrow on a 'global warming' bill by the  U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. That is just a post. The gem here are the comments. They are almost uniformly very much against anything to do with the global warming cult - some are brilliantly written, virtually all are very much against the bill and the entire global warming racket.

Texas Down Under

Maynard went marauding in Lewisville, Texas, leading various bystanders and police on a merry chase before finally being recaptured. Yep, Maynard sure had folks hopping. How else would you capture a kangaroo?

LEWISVILLE, Texas - Lewisville police had to hop to it to catch a kangaroo that fled from a veterinarian's yard. Maynard the red kangaroo is now back at an animal hospital, after his frolicking chase videotaped by a patrol car's camera.

Police joined animal control officers Sunday after getting a call about a kangaroo dashing around a neighborhood. The animal was bouncing around as people scampered after the 3-foot-tall critter.

Maynard, who's being treated for a respiratory ailment, was finally cornered and caught.

The video of the mayhem caused by the marauding Maynard is hysterical. But the website for the television station is hopelessly crippled by it's overabundance of advertising pop-ups. I'm hoping I can get it off YouTube at some point. Meanwhile, there is a long history of kangaroos gone wild in Texas. Here's a 911 call from Plano. Of course, it could be worse, Texas could have V-8 kangaroos. (Kangaroo was not injured.)

Waldseemuller Map Mystery

The Waldseemuller map, an astonishingly accurate map of the world produced in 1507 will go on permanent display at the Library of Congress this month. What is puzzling about the map is that it shows details that were not discovered yet. Including the name 'America'.

Why did the mapmaker name the territory America and then change his mind later? How was he able to draw South America so accurately? Why did he put a huge ocean west of America years before European explorers discovered the Pacific?

"That's the kind of conundrum, the question, that is still out there," said John Hebert, chief of the geography and map division of the Library of Congress.

The 12 sheets that make up the map, purchased from German Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg for $10 million in 2003, were mounted on Monday in a huge 6-foot by 9.5-foot (1.85 meter by 2.95 meter) display case machined from a single block of aluminum.

The case will be flooded with inert argon gas to prevent deterioration when it goes on public display December 13.

Researchers are hopeful that putting the rarely shown map on permanent display for the first time since it was discovered in the Waldburg-Wolfegg castle archives in 1901 may stimulate interest in finding out more about the documents used to produce it.

There is a possibility that some older sources, since lost, gave the mapmakers added detail, of course. But the accuracy of certain details is uncanny:

"The actual shape of South America is correct," said Hebert. "The width of South America at certain key points is correct within 70 miles of accuracy."

Given what Europeans are believed to have known about the world at the time, it should not have been possible for the mapmakers to produce it, he said.

The map gives a reasonably correct depiction of the west coast of South America. But according to history, Vasco Nunez de Balboa did not reach the Pacific by land until 1513, and Ferdinand Magellan did not round the southern tip of the continent until 1520.

"So this is a rather compelling map to say, 'How did they come to that conclusion,"' Hebert said.

The mapmakers say they based it on the 1,300-year-old works of the Egyptian geographer Ptolemy as well as letters Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci wrote describing his voyages to the new world. But Hebert said there must have been something more.

"From the writings of Vespucci you couldn't have prepared the map," Hebert said. "There had to be something cartographic with it."

You can view a zoomable high definition image of the map here.

Backfires?

An article in Time Magazine wonders if the Clinton campaign has made a smart move by going negative this close to the Iowa caucuses. There is a real danger that the strategy might backfire, badly, for Hillary.

Then Clinton announced in an interview with CBS that she was sick of being a punching bag for Obama and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards and that she intended to fight back. "After you have been attacked as often as I have from several of my opponents, you cannot just absorb it. You have to respond," she said.

Since that declaration Clinton has done just that, attacking Obama's plans for health care, Social Security reform and diplomacy with Iran. She even went so far as to dig up a kindergarten essay of Obama's entitled "I Want to Be President" to accuse him of lying about not having a lifelong lust for the Oval Office. "So you decide which makes more sense: Entrust our country to someone who is ready on day one … or to put America in the hands of someone with little national or international experience, who started running for president the day he arrived in the U.S. Senate," Clinton said in Iowa Monday. But at a time when two new Iowa polls show Obama actually pulling into the lead and Clinton losing support among women, some political observers are wondering if Clinton will come to regret her newly assertive strategy. She already has the highest negative ratings in the race, and the shift in tactics comes only a month before the Iowa caucus — where voters are famous for their distaste of negative campaigning. Launching the attacks herself, rather than with via surrogates, only makes the move even riskier.

"The attack will backfire in two ways: it will reinforce the negative stereotype of Mrs. Clinton as a cold and calculating person who will do whatever it takes to win," said Stephen J. Wayne, a government professor at Georgetown University and author of The Road to the White House. "And two, it will make Mr. Obama seem to be the less shrill and more emotionally mature candidate."

Ouch. There is, of course, the absurdity of Clinton accusing Obama of starting to run for president from the day he entered the Senate. Everyone knew what Clinton was planning even before she was elected for the first time. I think that sort of ludicrous statement will have a big negative impact with voters. I have pointed out repeatedly that Clinton has a tin ear. She does not realize how utterly stupid some things sound when she blurts them out. My guess is that she took a lot of damage in Iowa with statements like that and with the revelations that she used plants to ask questions at campaign events.

Will getting beaten in Iowa be enough to damage the Clinton juggernaut? Hard to say, she has that massive machine of hers. But it could trigger a cascade of events that might be enough to stop her. It's going to be a long primary season, one way or the other.

Wesley Cook’s Cult

On December 9, 1981, a 25 - year - old Philadelphia police officer named Daniel Faulkner was working the Midnight shift when he pulled over a Volkswagen headed the wrong way on a one - way street (Locust Street) in Center City . The neighborhood was dicey at best and it was the middle of the night .   Think hookers and druggies, not priests and choirboys . The driver of the Volkswagen was a guy named William Cook .   William Cook got out of his car and resisted arrest by sucker - punching Officer Faulkner in the face .   Across the street, a taxi driver took interest . The taxi driver was William Cook’s brother, Wesley Cook . Wesley Cook was a wannabe journalist and sometime Blank Panther activist who had glorified violence toward police officers in some of his writings .   Wesley Cook was armed with a weapon he had lawfully purchased from a Philadelphia sporting goods store . Wesley Cook ran across Locust Street and yanked his gun from its shoulder holster .   He fired at Officer Faulkner point blank, the bullet finding its mark in his back . Wounded, as he fell to the ground, the young cop was nevertheless able to get off a shot of his own, and struck Wesley Cook in the stomach .   With that bullet, Danny told the world exactly who had shot him .   Wesley Cook then stood over the fallen officer and pumped one of his five shots into Faulkner’s brain .   The ballistics of the case all matched .   There were five eyewitnesses to the incident .   And Wesley Cook confessed to the crime when, in an odd twist of fate, both Officer Faulkner and his murderer were taken to Jefferson Hospital, just blocks from the shooting location . In the Emergency Room, Wesley Cook proclaimed, “I shot the motherfucker, and I hope the motherfucker dies . ”   Wesley Cook had a two - week trial for First Degree murder in Philadelphia, in 1982, in front of a jury that he personally helped select and which included people of color .   They deliberated for just under six hours and returned a conviction .   The same jury then deliberated another two hours before returning a sentence of death . 

Michael Smerconesh, Justice for Danny

The New York Post reports that Wesley Cook's cult is planning to protest an appearance on the Today show by Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Danny Faulkner.

December 3, 2007 — SUPPORTERS of cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal are threatening to storm the streets of Rockefeller Center Thursday morning to protest the "Today" show. The New York-based "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition" is infuriated that Maureen Faulker (sic) - the widow of Philadelphia police office Daniel Faulker (sic), whom Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering 25 years ago - is scheduled to appear on the show Thursday to promote her new book, "Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Pain, Loss and Injustice." The activists - who claim on their Web site to have demanded "equal time" but "as of yet have gotten no agreement to that" -will protest outside.

Maureen Faulkner was handed a life sentence on December 9, 1981 that cannot be appealed and cannot be reversed. Wesley Cook has stayed alive, the darling of the dilettante left for all these years. Michelle Malkin writes:

If you’re in the NYC area and can counter-protest, don’t miss the opportunity. The “journalists” and the “educators” and Hollyweirdos and international concern trolls and race hustlers have Mumia’s back. Who has Daniel Faulkner’s?

Remember Danny Faulkner. Forget Wesley Cook, regardless of what name he is repackaged under.

Reverse Coattail Effect?

The New York Times reports that many vulnerable Democrats in Congress are quite worried about the possibility of Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket in 2008. There is real fear that a 'reverse coattail' effect might exist. And yes, contrary to the conventional wisdom meme, there really are Democrats who are very vulnerable in 2008.

MANHATTAN, Kan. — Nancy Boyda, a Democrat who ran for Congress in this district last year, owed her upset victory partly to the popularity of the Democratic woman at the top of the ticket: Kathleen Sebelius, who won the governor’s seat. Now, with a tough re-election race at hand in 2008, Ms. Boyda faces the prospect that her electoral fate could be tied to another woman: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton is a long way from winning the Democratic presidential nomination, and over the last few weeks has struggled to hang on to the air of inevitability that she has been cultivating all year. But the possibility that she will be the nominee is already generating concern among some Democrats in Republican-leaning states and Congressional districts, who fear that sharing the ticket with her could subject them to attack as too liberal and out of step with the values of their constituents.

And few incumbent Democrats face a greater challenge next year than Ms. Boyda, whose district delivered almost 60 percent of its votes to President Bush in 2004.

Ms. Boyda, 52, is a former Republican who represents the state capital, Topeka, and a surrounding expanse of prairie and pasture interspersed with conservative small towns, military posts and this college community, home to Kansas State University. It was by appealing to conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans that she was able to defeat Jim Ryun, a five-term congressman, by 51 percent to 47 percent last year.

Boyda is attempting to put as much distance as possible between herself and the Democratic party. Others may not be able to. The real problems are deeper than who is at the top of the ticket. Harry Reid telegraphed yesterday that he was determined to see defeat in Iraq at all costs - that might be an even bigger blow to Democrats in largely Republican areas. If he continues to force the party to the left, he may be abandoning those vulnerable politicians to their fate. A Clinton-led ticket might then be the final nail.

Interesting times.

Relics

Brian Sobel has a piece in today's Opinion Journal about the rusting relics of the USS Arizona that were removed when the memorial was built. The twisted wreckage is very slowly being given to carefully vetted groups for display in various museums. Oddly enough, nobody even knows who to thank for preserving the wreckage when it was cut away from the rest of the ship.

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii–On Dec. 7, 1941, just after 8 a.m., a 1,760-pound armor-piercing bomb penetrated the decks of the USS Arizona, striking the forward magazine. The resulting explosion was volcanic as nearly a million pounds of gunpowder erupted into a fireball of death and destruction. The Arizona would sink in nine minutes, taking to the harbor floor 1,177 sailors and Marines. Just 337 crewmen aboard the Arizona survived the blast. The fire was so intense that it would burn for two days. By the end of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 21 U.S. ships had been sunk or damaged.

Sadly for the Arizona, after 229 bodies were recovered the Navy was forced to stop because of increasingly dangerous conditions. Not long after, a decision was made to leave the dreadnought where it lay and in the process create a lasting and powerful tribute to those who lost their lives and remain entombed in the ship. When the Arizona sank it also took well over a million gallons of fuel to the bottom. Now, at a rate of two quarts a day, tiny oil droplets, known as "black tears," rise to the surface every 20 seconds–and will continue to do so for decades to come.

Not all of the wreckage is at the memorial on Ford Island. "After the bombing, the USS Arizona had much of the superstructure and metal above the water line cut away and sent to the mainland, either for use on other ships or designated for scrap," explains Agnes Tauyan, deputy director in the public affairs office of the commander, Navy Region Hawaii. Still later, additional pieces of wreckage, several tons of the Arizona, were removed from the ship during the construction of the memorial and transported to a spot across the channel from Ford Island, where they have been ever since, holding a silent and lonely vigil against time and the elements.

Daniel Martinez, National Park Service historian who has worked at the Arizona Memorial since 1985 and is an expert on the bombing of Pearl Harbor, says, "Someone, and we don't know who, since documentation does not exist, realized the importance of this wreckage of the martyred ship and put it in a place where it would be preserved." The specific location of what Ms. Tauyan calls the "sacred relics" is a closely guarded secret. The Navy will acknowledge for the record only that sections of the Arizona are on Waipio Peninsula, strictly off limits to the public and safely guarded in a storage area on a military reservation, but it granted access for this article to further tell the story of the famed battleship and its continuing contribution today.

Sobel was permitted to visit the site - off limits to the public - where the relics are kept. The vetting process for groups wanting a section of the wreckage is very thorough, although one person apparently tried to sell a piece on eBay - the Navy got that piece back very quickly.

Our living memories of that sunny Sunday in 1941 are fading now as the number of survivors diminishes each year. Soon, these relics will be all that remain to remind us or that day. This is an appropriate time to remind people about the Pearl Harbor Survivors Project that is trying to capture as much of that living memory as it can while it is still with us.