Continued from previous message.

    The shows by the NYC Parks Department and Urban Park Rangers for 
Big Apple Aviation fell on bad luck due to the two big snowfalls we 
had. They forced a couple of them to be cancelled. 
    Hayden Planetarium opens in January 2004 a third series of Tuesday 
talks, This Just In, on current news of astronomy. Altho for January 
the Distinguished Authors and Frontiers in Astrophysics series on 
Mondays are recessed, they return in February. Hayden thereafter will 
set out FIVE astrotalks a month! 
    Science Industry Business Library has FIVE free lectures of 
interest to New York home astronomers. They are on Tuesday 6 January, 
Tues 13, Tue 27, Wed 28, and Thu 29; details are in the listings 
above. The ones on the 13th and 29th are specificly astronomy related. 
The others are more cultural and collateral science. 
    The Parks Department and Urban Park Rangers have a set of winter 
survival workshops around the City to help you deal with the cold and 
wind, like when stargazing. They're on January 3, 10, 17, 18, and 24. 

New York
 ------
    The first snow of the 2003-2004 winter arrived in predawn on 
December 2nd as a flurry leaving a thin covering on soil and grass. It 
sublimed in the morning sunlight. 
    We got our first major snowfall on December 5 and 6, with 30-40cm  
within the City. The storm cancelled many astroevents on these days 
and also on the 7th. Other events suffered depressed attendance. 
    A lesser snowfall came on December 14th, causing only minor 
disruptions to New York astronomy. 
    The legendary NYC subway token rolls into history on January 1st. 
Displaced from subway turnstiles by MetroCard in May 2003, they were 
still accepted as partial carfare on buses. They rang up as $1.50, to 
which 50 cents in coin was added to make up the full $2 fare.. 
    With the coming of 2004, buses no longer take the token, only 
coin and MetroCard. You can redeem your leftover tokens at the Transit 
Authority offices, 370 Jay St, Boro Hall BK. Call for an appointment 
at 718-243-3917. Or incorporate them into ornaments, fashion 
accessories, table toys. 
    The electric news is the unveiling of the compromise plan for the 
new World Trade Center on 18 December 2003. There will be one 
signature tower, Freedom Tower, and several 'short' towers on the 
campus. Fulton St and Greenwich St are restored thru the campus, 
dividing it into four unequal quarters. The Wedge of Light scheme is 
dead; the new deployment of structures makes the geometry all wrong. 
    Freedom Tower is in the northwest quadrant; The other towers are 
in the northeast and southeast quadrants. The southwest quadrant is 
left open for the WTC memorial, to occupy about 18,000 square meters. 
    Freedom Tower has 80ish floors of occupancy, 40 of open lattice to 
house, uh, windmills for part of the electric, and 27ish for the TV 
broadcast mast. Total height was 1,700-plus oldstyle foots, which 
someone recognized was close to 1776, the year of US independence. So 
the height was jimmied to be 1,776 oldstyle foots, or 541 meters. 

Astro Politics 
 ------------
    2003 was the diamond anniversary of Amateur Astronomers 
Association, the oldest astronomy club in New York City. So what? The 
club utterly ignored this meterstone in its history. Instead, the club 
prided itself on despotic achievements. These include:
  closing Board of Directors against dialog with the members 
  ignoring Telescope Workshop 
  defaming and accusing its landlord of tampering with club mail 
  rewriting Board minutes 
  absenting from North East Astronomy Forum 
  distorting scheduled dates for Recent Astronomy Seminar 
  billoxing its election of Board seatholders 
  supporting and rewarding unbecoming behavior against the members 
  retaliating against those who complain or challenge its management 
  abandoning Descriptive and Physical Astronomy classes 
  forfeiting American Urban Star Fest 
  wasting funds on Enjoy the Stars, astronomy teacher, and PO box 
  neglecting the victims of the 2003 November 8 eclipse theft
  avoiding honest debate with its members for bylaw reform. 
    The few Board members who wish for a handing back of the 
Association to its rank-&-file member are routinely intimidated 
against this goal. The reaction seems to be a form of civil 
disobedience among Board members. The grandest example was the 
sabotaging of Mike's scheme to publicize the thoughts and opinions of 
Board members for his removal of John Pazmino's seatship. He committed 
to do so in his message to the members in Eyepiece, September 2003. No 
Board member furnished comments worhty of Mike's distribution to the 
members. He was forced to tell at least one inquiring member to go and 
speak with the seatholders directly. 
   The other major instance was the scuttling of AAA role in American 
Urban Star Fest on 4 October 2003. Mike issued blunt 'commands' to his 
crew, then at the Observing Group meeting before the Fest. The team 
let him rant and then continued with the meeting. 
    O'Gara is now trying to block nonmember participation in AAA 
events, letting them be tarred as 'freeloaders'. The various activity 
chairs cheerfully allow nonmembers to attend, take part, contribute, 
and enhance the climate of the meetings. 

 Continued in next message.

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