It’s nice when something the government does makes me cry — in a good way. Zhenfu Ge, the 74 year old grandmother whose daughter died last year, walked out of an INS office with her green card yesterday. Ge’s daughter was also her green card sponsor and Ge was a few days away from completing the process when her daughter passed away from cancer. The law at the time provided no way for her to stay in the country and help her son-in-law with his two children. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Lynn Woolsey sponsored private relief legislation which was specific to her case, however Congress and the President went one better and signed into law an act (the Family Sponsor Immigration Act, H. R. 1892) that allows anyone with an approved pending green card application to change family sponsors if the original sponsor dies. The alternate sponsor does not have to be a blood relation. This act wasn’t expected to pass in the current climate of strict immigration policies. Ge can now continue to raise her grandchildren and also finally travel back to China to see her other three children for the first time in four years.

Dear Amazon.com,
I am enjoying your beta restaurant feature which shows scanned menus from restaurants in various areas. It is especially nice to be able to search for specific menu items and dishes and to be able to show friends the menu of a place before we decide to eat there. I have one recommendation. I would like to be able to add restaurants to my “wish list” so that I can remember places I want to eat at, or, perhaps allow someone special to surprise me with a visit to one of them. Thank you.
Yours in consumerism,
Lilly

Slashdot is taking questions for their “Ask Alton Brown” interview and the number of postings is healthy (797 as of this writing). I gave up going through and answering all the questions I knew the answers to. The world hates a know-it-all anyway, and geeks especially so. (The most popular recent /. topic is one that was covered closely here in the past: “Diamonds are they really worth the cost?” with 1543 comments. Ahh geek love.)

Atlantis’ plumbing cracks have been welded but now NASA has found a problem with the crawler transporters that shuttle the shuttles between the assembly building and the launch pads. Broken bearings in this 37 year old equipment probably should not come as a surprise. Eight spare bearings are ready to go, but they may have to gather parts from both transporters to create one working one. Atlantis may launch Sept. 28 or Oct. 3.

Bunny Archeologists?
Rabbits who have taken up residence on the remains of a 14th century manor house in England are digging up fragments of a medieval glass window. Sharp-eyed archeologists working nearby noticed what these house renovating bunnies were uncovering and they are hoping to gather up enough sections to piece together the window. The glass deteriorates quickly when it is exposed to air so they are working fast. Unlikely as it is, wouldn’t it be cute if the design had bunny rabbits in it?

There was a scary, but thankfully short, moment before our plane headed west to California on Sunday. We were waiting in line for takeoff when the pilot announced that all westbound flights had been grounded and he would let us know when he found out more. He never did tell us if he found out why, and our plane took off soon afterwards. The possibly related news items I have seen are the “super-heightened” alert for the Golden Gate Bridge over the weekend, the charter plane crash that killed Galen & Barbara Rowell (sad), and the emergency landing of a Boeing 777 at San Francisco. I could imagine that any of these would cause air traffic control to pause for a few minutes to take stock of the situation and decide whether to proceed with caution. I know that the worst crossed my mind and many others’ when we heard the pilot’s words and the relief felt when we took off didn’t stem merely from the knowledge that we would arrive on time.

Goodyear Walker, from the California State Lands Commission, sent an interesting tale in response to the recent Gold Double Eagle auction. The cargo of the ship “Brother Jonathan”, which sank in 1865 off the northern California coast, included a large number of gold coins, some of them uncirculated Double Eagles. In a case that was taken to the Supreme Court, the salvage company that found the wreck fought with California over the rights to it and its cargo. The settlement resulted in a split of the “treasure” with 20% going to the state. The state also agreed not to sell the coins for 15 years. Other items recovered from wreck have been catalogued, such as the contents of a crate which was opened in 2001. The gold coins sit in a safe deposit box under the control of the CSLC. I end this tale with a quote from Mr. Walker’s email: “I have this vision that after I retire the coins will remain in the safe deposit box, like the Ark in Indiana Jones, lost to bureaucracy forever…..”

I never know if I should be happy or sad when a subject I’ve decided to research is already handily written up on a trustworthy web page and no further work needs to be done. But, I suppose, it’s a timesaver at best, so I should be happy. So now I present, with no further wordsmithing from me: “Where do salad dressings get their names?” I’m guessing the people who live in Thousand Island know something I didn’t until today.

Overheard at a Wedding
In the northeastern part of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania there lies about 390 acres of old growth forest. A dispute or misunderstanding over cutting rights between two parties spared this swath of land from a clearcut. It was named the “Alan Seeger Natural Area” and contains hemlock, yellow birch and white pine, some over 500 years old. I was told that Alan Seeger was the first American to die in World War I, but I don’t know the possible caveats to that statement. He graduated from Harvard and moved to France, which he grew to love. He wanted to join the French Army, but was unable to, not being a citizen of France. So he did something that for the rest of us is merely an idle threat. He joined the French Foreign Legion and was killed on July 4, 1916.
He is famous for his poetry, particularly the poignant “Rendezvous with Death.” Pete Seeger is his nephew.

Another NY Times Notes from Music Camp is in, and this one concentrates on the man himself. Itzhak Perlman’s love for food (horrified by the steamed asparagus, legend has it, he made sure it was grilled with sea salt and olive oil from then on) and growth in conducting skills (he used to use a pencil to direct since he didn’t feel worthy of the baton) are discussed between accounts of his words of wisdom for students. He prompts students to critique their own playing and tries to bring out their individuality. Fellow instructor Patinka Kopec has worked with both Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman and shares that “Itzhak’s responses are always of an emotional nature, and Pinchas’s are always of an intellectual nature.” Combining and balancing the two is, perhaps, the ultimate method.