Continued from previous message.

ball is now in the court of Amateur Astronomers Association. It must 
go and press the charges on the supposed thiefs. Otherwise, the 
Manhattan District Attorney's office may scrap the case for the club's 
lack of cooperation and forthcoming behavior. 
    A similar rumbling arose for the Great Eclipse Theft of November 
2003, again with confusing accounts. The police may have come onto 
additional evidence which, I suppose, the Association is evaluating. 
One intriguing prospect is that the two episodes may be linked, by 
motive or by persons involved. 
    With so scanty firm facts to go on, it's silly to speculate here. 
That's already being done all over the club. The main certainty is 
that the club so far hasn't acted proactively to compensate the Great 
Eclipse Theft victims in any sincere way. Some victims are getting 
sick and tired of the lawyer-fairy the club waves at them as excuse 
for its inertia. 
    In mid March, exact date wanting, I and several other Board 
members got hold of a flyer printed on phony AAA letterhead. This was 
at that time distributed not only within the club but to the general 
public. The heading does not at all resemble the real AAA one, but an 
outsider would have no way to catch that. Could this be a new, and 
glatt brazen, flaunt of the 'speak for the club' kick so hotly 
championed in summer 2003. 
    Campaigns for new Board members are up and running. NYSkies so far 
hasn't learned of potential candidates other than those whose current 
seats expire in May 2004. All of these are eligible for a new seat, 
and none as yet opted to step down. Nor does it know of any petition 
candidates. 

NYSkies 
 -----
    Astronomers are exploiting NYSkies as a quick, handy, friendly, 
and potent source of astronomy news relating to the City. And there is 
LOTS of astronomy stuff going on around New York! Since it revived on 
28 September 2001 (it was interrupted by World Trade Center) NYSkies 
became the definitive forum and public record for matters bearing on 
home astronomy in and around New York. 
    Granted, some of the banter relates particularly to the Amateur 
Astronomers Association. It's the major astronomy union in town and 
every home astronomer around here eventually runs up against it. It 
pays to listen to those discussions (rants? blusters? tirades?), even 
if you opt out of playing in them. At the least, you take into account 
the words of the senior members before joining the Association. Or you 
can let NYSkies dialog modulate your choice to renew AAA membership. 
    NYSkies is the soapbox the AAA Board and rank-&-file had to speak 
out on various Association problems. They turned to NYSkies simply 
because the AAA as yet does not have a good faith sincere forum for 
its own members within itself. 
    Joining NYSkies is easy. Send an empty email to this Yahoo maillist 
at 'nysky-subscribe{at}yahoogroups.com'. Its posts are sent to you in 
your email and you post to it by email. It's that simple! 
    Or you may go to 'groups.yahoo.com/group/nysky'. If you are 
already signed up with Yahoo, you go and sign in and then 'join' 
NYSkies. If not, you have to go thru a silly 'registration' that's a 
oneshot chore, valid for all groups you may eventually join. The files 


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