Today's Features

The Los Alamos Juvenile Justice Advisory Board (JJAB) Family Resource Specialists and Mesa Public Library children’s librarians will host a community playdate for children ages newborn to 5-years-old.

This drop-in event will be from 10:10 a.m.-1 p.m. Aug. 29 in the Youth Services rooms at Mesa Public Library, 2400 Central Avenue.

The community playdate is to kick-off two early childhood literacy programs – Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and 1000 Books Before Kindergarten.

In addition to offering the opportunity to sign up for the literacy programs, this event will also feature play, movement, music and art activities for the children, and social time for adults.

Snacks will be provided.

Other local agencies participating in the community playdate include: Family Strengths Network, First Born Program of Los Alamos, PEEC Nature Center, the Many Mothers’ Baby Boxes program. The event is free.

At sundown on July 31, Jews around the world observed Tisha B’av, the most somber of Jewish holidays. It commemorates the destruction of the two temples in Jerusalem, first by the Babylonians and then, almost seven centuries later, in A.D. 70, by the Romans.

Jews will remember these two historic calamities along with many others, including their slaughter during the First Crusade; the expulsions from England, France and Spain; and the Holocaust.The pattern of forced migration was set by the Babylonian conquest of 587-586 B.C., when the elite of Judah were marched to Babylon and the temple destroyed.

Like the story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, which happened several centuries earlier, the Babylonian exile dwells at the heart of Judaism. The trauma served as a crucible, forcing the Israelites to rethink their relationship to Yahweh, reassess their standing as a chosen people and rewrite their history.

Psalm 137, the subject of my most recent book, “Song of Exile,” is a 2,500-year-old Hebrew poem that deals with the exile that will be remembered on Tisha B’av. It has long served as an uplifting historical analogy for a variety of oppressed and subjugated groups, including African-Americans.

Origins of the psalm

Want to learn more about the Hubble Telescope and the Universe? Come to the Los Alamos Nature Center Planetarium for a presentation on one of NASA’s most ambitious experiments at 7 p.m. Sept. 15 . The full-dome planetarium film Exploding Universe will play at 2 p.m. Sept. 16 and 17.

On Sept. 15, the show will begin with a screening of NOVA: Invisible Universe Revealed, which will be followed by a talk by Dr. Rick Wallace. The film and presentation will share the astronomical significance of the Hubble Space Telescope findings, including cosmic expansion and supermassive black holes.

Exploding Universe, showing at 2 p.m. Sept. 16 and 17, uncovers cosmic events that shaped the Universe. This full-dome film explores a world where supernovas erupt, massive materials collide, and protons give birth to life as we know it. For more information about these and future planetarium shows, visit peecnature.org/planetarium. For tickets, call 662-0460.
 

In 1987 Ronald Reagan was in his last year as president of the United States, the Minnesota Twins won the World Series, and a gallon of gasoline cost 89 cents.

In August of that year, Timothy D. Stidham and his wife Tanya, moved with their four children to Los Alamos from Sherman, Texas. And so began what would be 30 years of service to the Los Alamos Church of Christ. Thirty years and counting.

The church will honor the Stidhams with a banquet at Fuller Lodge on Monday. Besides the meal, present and former church members will share memories and the Stidhams’ son Tony will present a commemorative slide show. In appreciation for their longtime service, the church is also sending the Stidhams on a Caribbean cruise.

Tim began at the church as youth minister and served in that capacity for five years. In 1992 he became pulpit minister and has worked in that capacity ever since. Tanya has served as women’s minister since 2000. Their second son Tony is currently youth minister for the church, a position he has held since August, 2011.

The couple met in Guam when their fathers were stationed there in the military. They have been married 43 years.