The film The Grapes of Wrath will be shown Friday, July 10, at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Library in downtown San Jose. The film will be accompanied by a presentation by Professor Susan Shillinglaw of SJSU’s Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies. The presentation is part of LaborFest, a month-long program of film, arts, lectures, and other events meant to “institutionalize the history and culture of working people” and the labor movement.

The 1940 film The Grapes of Wrath adapted John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel about the difficulties faced by an Oklahoma family migrating to California to find work. The book and film were important for making the public aware of farm labor conditions and the violence used to prevent unionization of farm labor. John Ford won the best director Oscar for this film, and it is widely considered one of the most important films of all time.

Other LaborFest events are taking place in San Francisco, with only one more event in the South Bay: a tour of farm labor conditions in the Watsonville area, starting at San Jose City College on July 26. See the LaborFest schedule for more details (including price) for this event and San Francisco events.

The Center for Steinbeck Studies, located at the MLK library, houses an archive of over 40,000 items (manuscripts, letters, books, etc.) by or related to Steinbeck, and also administers a fellowship program funding significant writing projects by new writers.

What: Film screening and lecture.

When: Friday, July 10, 4:00 PM.

Where: Martin Luther King, Jr., Library, 150 East San Fernando Street, San Jose.

Cost: free.

Martin Yan

The Bay Area’s most celebrated TV chef, Martin Yan, will be appearing at San Jose’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Main Library this weekend. Chef Yan has hosted several TV programs, but is most well-known for “Yan Can Cook”, which first aired in 1978. Yan has also written numerous cookbooks. Yan lives in the Bay Area, and owns the “Yan Can” restaurants in Santa Clara’s River Mark shopping center and Pleasant Hill.

At the library, Chef Yan will present a cooking demonstration and sign copies of his latest book, Martin Yan’s China, which will also be available for sale. If you’ve seen Yan’s television programs, you know that he is a terrifically entertaining presenter, and will give not only recipes for authentic Chinese food, but also explain the history and cultural signficance of the dishes he cooks.

When: Saturday, May 30, 2009. 2:00 PM.

Where: Caret Plaza, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Main Library, 150 E. San Fernando St., San Jose.

Cost: Free.

Dr. Patricia Burchat

This Wednesday, May 20 Physicist Patricia Burchat of Stanford University will give a non-technical, illustrated talk on The Dark Side of the Universe: Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

Okay, what the heck is this dark matter and energy stuff?  Good question.  Actually, it is a bit of a mystery to scientists.

Let us tackle Dark Matter. We live in an average galaxy called the Milky Way. The Milky Way contains about 100 billion stars.  Yeah, 100 billion stars is an average galaxy. Individual galaxies are concentrated into groups, called clusters of galaxies.  Clusters of galaxies are more than just galaxies; the space between galaxies in clusters is filled with hot gasses. These gasses are so hot that they are detected in X-rays and not visible light. Scientists checked out the distribution and temperature of the hot gasses to determine how much total matter there is in that part of space. They discovered that there is five times more material in clusters of galaxies from the galaxies themselves and the hot gasses. Most of the stuff in clusters of galaxies is invisible, scientists thus presume that most of the matter in the entire Universe is invisible. This invisible stuff is called Dark Matter.

Dark Energy is a different story that is not easily explained here. Let us just say that dark energy refers to the fact that some kind of stuff must fill the vast reaches of mostly empty space in the Universe in order to be able to make space accelerate in its expansion.

Dr. Patricia Burchat is Chair of the Physics Department at Stanford University.  She studies matter and antimatter created at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, also the bending of light by the gravity of massive clusters of galaxies far away.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick Theater.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, May 20
7:00 pm

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

650-949-7888

Dr. Margaret Race

Spend Earth Day April 22 learning about The Danger of Mingling Microbes!

Knowing that microbes can survive the harsh environment of space, ecologist Margaret Race stresses the importance of planetary protection. Her work focuses on the scientific, technical, legal and societal issues of ensuring that missions to Mars and other solar systems do not either unintentionally take terrestrial microbes along or return any microbes to Earth. Unintentionally taking microbes along on a mission could complicate test results in knowing if the microbes are actually from Mars or brought along from Earth.

Dr. Race will give a non-technical, illustrated behind-the-scenes view of “environmental management” planning for solar system missions, and explain the role of the Outer Space Treaty and other related national and international policies. She will also discuss the varied societal issues likely to arise from discoveries about life beyond the Earth.

Dr. Margaret Race is an ecologist at the SETI Institute who works with NASA and the international space community to develop, refine, and apply planetary protection policies to missions to the planets. She has also worked at both the Environmental Protection Agency and KQED Television.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick Theater.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, April 22
7:00 pm

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

Charles Darwin

A new NASA Ames Research Center lecture series on the Evolution of Science and Technology and its impacts on our society begin this Thursday, March 12 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

The first lecture given by Dr. James Strick, an Associate Professor at the Franklin and Marshall College, science historian and author, will cover Charles Darwin and his thoughts on the origins of life. He will also draw connections to modern origin of life research supported by NASA.

Dr. Strick has studied how scientists have attempted to define life and explain its origin. He has also examined the debate that has taken place among Darwin’s supporters. “We expect a story about the new evolutionary science to include much heated objection from religious quarters,” he said. “But a look at how divisive the issue was among the Darwinians themselves is an even more complex and enlightening story.”

Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts
500 Castro Street
Mountain View, 94041

Thursday, March 12
7:00 pm
Admission: Free

Hubble Ultra Deep Field - NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope has made it possible to look back to a time when the universe looked very different than it does today.

Steven Beckwith, currently the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies for the University of California’s ten campuses and former Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (which runs the Hubble), will give a somewhat non-technical, illustrated talk on The Dawn of Creation: The First Two Billion Years.

Billions of years ago galaxies looked much different than they do today. The Milky Way and other galaxies took shape slowly, building up from many pieces in the debris of the initial Big Bang explosion.

Topics like galaxy shapes, the expanding universe, gravity – is it the same now as it was billions of years ago, dark matter, and dark energy should get you tingly all over. No? Then Baryon Acoustic Oscillations may do the trick.

Note: The Ultra Deep Field contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick theatre.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, March 4
7:00 pm

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

This Wednesday, January 21, astronomer Anthony Colaprete of NASA’s Ames Research Center will give a non-technical, illustrated talk on Prospecting for Water on the Moon: The Upcoming LCROSS Mission.

Sometime this year NASA will purposely crash two spacecraft into a permanently shadowed crater in one of the Moon’s polar regions. Yes, purposely.

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission is to determine the presence or absence of water (ice and vapor), hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The LCROSS mission is going to do this by directly impacting one of the permanently-shadowed regions near the moon’s pole and creating a crater, throwing debris and potentially water ice and vapor above the lunar surface.

The two main components of the LCROSS mission are the Shepherding Spacecraft and the Centaur upper stage rocket. The Centaur rocket will impact the moon causing a cloud of lunar debris. The Shepherding Spacecraft, which has scientific instruments on-board including cameras, will take pictures of the Centaur’s descent and impact into the moon. Four minutes later, the Shepherding Spacecraft follows almost the exact same path as the rocket, descending down through the big plume and analyzing it with special instruments. The Shepherding Spacecraft will then crash into the moon. This impact may be seen using an amateur telescope.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick Theater.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, January 21
7:00 pm

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

650-949-7888

The Cassini spacecraft has just entered its fifth year exploring the planet Saturn, its rings, and its large family of moons, including Titan.

This Wednesday astronomer Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute will give a non-technical, illustrated talk on Saturn’s Restless Rings: Latest Results from the Cassini Mission.

The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft launched on October 15, 1997 began its 7-year journey to Saturn arriving on July 1, 2004.

The Cassini-Huygens program is an international cooperative effort involving NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian space agency, as well as several separate European academic and industrial contributors.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is the first to explore the Saturn system of rings and moons from orbit. The European Space Agency’s Huygens Probe landed on Titan in January 2005. Instruments on both spacecraft are providing scientists with vital data and the best views ever.

Cassini has been making numerous orbits of Saturn, flybys of Titan along with flybys of some of the other moons.

Saturn’s rings, believed to be made of pieces of shattered moons, comets and asteroids, are the most extensive and complex ring system in our solar system, extending hundreds of thousands of miles from the planet.

Dr. Mark Showalter, whose research focuses primarily on ring-moon systems, will share some of the pictures from Saturn and take a close-up look at the “lord of the rings.”

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick theatre.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, November 12
7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

650-949-7888

Jean Bartik with Linda O

Tonight, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View presented a conversation with Jean Jennings Bartik, one of the original programmers of ENIAC. Last night Bartik was named a Fellow of the Computer History Museum, along with Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe and Linux originator Linus Torvalds. Tonight’s program was presented in an interview format, hosted by Northern California Public Broadcasting (KQED & KTEH) chief content officer Linda O’Bryon.

ENIAC was “the first general-purpose electronic computer”, according to Wikipedia, although in truth it was built with one main project in mind: calculating firing tables for World War II artillery. In fact, Bartik was first hired to the job of “computer” herself, using a desktop calculator to compute shell trajectories at the rate of about one per week. When a position working on the secret ENIAC project opened up, she took it hoping to use her math skills for less repetitive jobs than the manual calculations she had been doing.

Bartik was responsible for converting ENIAC, which was originally programmed by physically turning switches and connecting wires between components, to a stored-program computer. Later she continued to work for ENIAC’s inventors at the Eckert & Mauchly Corporation, which she called a “technical Camelot”, and then at Remington-Rand which she described as a “job from hell”. Then, she left the field for 16 years to raise a family, but returned to work with minicomputers after her children were grown.

Bartik and the other five original ENIAC programmers received little attention when ENIAC was revealed to the public, with most honors going to the engineers who designed the electronic hardware. Only 30 years later did these pioneers start to gain notice as their story was uncovered by journalists interested in the important role women played in the early history of computers.

The presentation was an excellent opportunity to hear the reminiscences and observations of one of the world’s first computer programmers, who for most of a long career received little credit for her contributions to the earliest development of computing.

Yasmin Davidds wants your cell phone. The one you don’t use anymore. Because if they still work, thousands of battered women across the country can use them to keep in touch with emergency services while escaping an abusive relationship.

Bring your used (or dead) cell phone, batteries and accessories in any condition from any wireless service provider to San Jose State on Oct. 21, 6-9 p.m., and hear Yasmin deliver a powerful message to young Latino college students about domestic violence and assault.

Date: October 21, 2008 Time: 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Location: San Jose State University Student Union, Barrett Ballroom

The co-sponsoring Verizon HopeLine program:

• Distributed more than 60,000 phones with more than 180 million minutes of free wireless service to be used by victims of domestic violence
• Properly disposed of more than 1 million no-longer-used wireless phones in an environmentally sound way
• Kept more than 200 tons of electronic waste and batteries out of landfills

Verizon also offers a little-known service to everyone on their network: If you dial #HOPE (#4673) on a Verizon phone, operators will connect you with counselors in crisis intervention, safety planning, information and referrals to agencies in all 50 states. The call is toll and airtime free.

Go to mobilizingvoices.com for more information.