button straining nylon overall

 

One of numerous vehicles throughout the GM area to receive an overall advert for GMPTE's Every Bus Saver ticket - on this occasion with pink and grey as the base colours.

 

A Bee Line Dodge and GM Fleetline follow behind.

 

Manchester, Portland Street, 26/04/1991.

The overall design of Lewis B. Puller is based on the hull of the civilian Alaska-class oil tanker and is the Navy's first Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) variant of the Mobile Landing Platforms. The Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) AFSB variant is optimized to support a variety of maritime-based missions with an added flight deck, berthing, fuel storage, equipment storage, and repair spaces. Lewis B. Puller includes support facilities for its mine-sweeping, special operations, and other expeditionary missions. An accommodation barge will also be carried to support up to 298 additional mission-related personnel, including special-operations teams.

 

Aviation facilities include a flight deck with landing spots for two heavy-lift transport CH-53 helicopters, as well as additional deck space for two more CH-53s. Lewis B. Puller will also have a helicopter hangar, an ordnance storage magazine, underway replenishment facilities, and deck space for mission-related equipment storage, including up to four Mk 105 minesweeping hydrofoil sleds.

Seen entering the station with an Ormskirk-Preston service

Overall I'm really satisfied with Snow White! I think she's so beautiful, her eyes and lips are fantastic! Her brows are a little thicker than I like, but I can deal. I love the hair! It seems more true to the film than sort of the longer 'page boy' cut the classic doll has. I love how her dress has hints of the 16th Century, but also a 30s floral print. While I love the cape, I am disappointed that it isn't removable, and I'd kind of like some sort of lace trim on the collar. Nothing over the top, just a small little trim. I am disappointed that she doesn't have accurate shoes, despite being shown wearing them in the artwork, but I guess DS feels you must be a Snow Queen to get original shoes and not Princess Snow.

Swishy nylon overall

 

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Development studies at Grumman for jet-powered fighter aircraft began near the end of World War II as the first jet engines emerged. In a competition for a jet-powered night fighter for the United States Navy, on 3 April 1946 the Douglas F3D Skyknight was selected over Grumman's G-75, a two-seater powered by four Westinghouse J30s. The Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) also issued a contract to Grumman for two G-75 prototype aircraft on 11 April 1946, in case the Skyknight ran into problems.

However, Grumman soon realized that the G-75 was a dead end. But the company had been working on a completely different day fighter, the G-79, which offered a higher potential. In order to keep Grumman in the US Navy’s procurement loop, BuAer, in a bureaucratic maneuver, did not cancel the G-75 contract, but changed the wording to include prototypes of the entirely different G-79, too.

 

The G-79 project comprised a total of four different layouts and engine arrangements for a single seat fighter aircraft. G-79A and B were traditional tail sitters, but both featured mixed propulsion for an enhanced performance: G-79A was powered by an R-2800 radial engine and a Rolls Royce Derwent VI jet booster in the tail, fed by a pair of dorsal air intakes behind the cockpit. The G-79B was a similar aircraft, but its primary engine was a General Electric TG-100 turboprop in a more slender nose section. Even though both designs were big aircraft, initial calculations indicated a performance that would be superior to the Grumman F8F Bearcat, which had been designed as a thoroughbred interceptor.

 

The other two designs were pure jet fighters, both with a tricycle landing gear. G-79C had a layout reminiscent of the Gloster Meteor and was powered by two Derwent VI engines in bulky wing nacelles, and G-79D was finally an overall smaller and lighter aircraft, similar in its outlines to the early Vought F6U Pirate, and powered by a single Nene in the rear fuselage, fed by air intakes in the wing roots.

 

Since the operation of jet-powered aircraft from carriers was terra incognita for the US Navy, and early turbojets thirsty and slow to react to throttle input, BuAer decided to develop two of Grumman's G-79 designs into prototypes for real life evaluation: one of the conservative designs, as a kind of safe route, and one of the more modern jets.

From the mixed propulsion designs, the turboprop-powered G-79B was chosen (becoming the XF9F-1 'JetCat'), since it was expected to offer a higher performance and development potential than the radial-powered 'A'. From the pure jet designs the G-79D was chosen, because of its simplicity and compact size, and designated XF9F-2 'Panther'.

 

The first JetCat prototype made its maiden flight on 26 October 1947, but it was only a short airfield circuit since the TG-100 turpoprop failed to deliver full power and the jet booster had not been installed yet. The prototype Panther, piloted by test pilot Corky Meyer, first flew on 21 November 1947 without major problems.

 

In the wake of the two aircrafts' test program, several modifications and improvements were made. This included an equal armament of four 20mm guns (mounted in the outer, foldable wings on the JetCat and, respectively, in the Panther’s nose). Furthermore, both aircraft were soon armed with underwing HVAR air-to-ground rockets and bombs, and the JetCat even received an underfuselage pylon for the potential carriage of an airborne torpedo. Since there was insufficient space within the foldable wings and the fuselage in both aircraft for the thirsty jet’s fuel, permanently mounted wingtip fuel tanks were added on both aircraft, which incidentally improved the fighters' rate of roll. Both F9F types were cleared for flight from aircraft carriers in September 1949.

 

The F9F-1 was soon re-engined with an Allison T38 turboprop, which was much more reliable than the TF-100 (in the meantime re-designated XT31) and delivered a slightly higher power output. Another change was made for the booster: the bulky Derwent VI engine from the prototype stage was replaced by a much more compact Westinghouse J34 turbojet, which not only delivered slightly more thrust, it also used up much less internal space which was used for radio and navigation equipment, a life raft and a relocated oil tank. Due to a resulting CG shift towards the nose, the fuselage fuel cell layout had to be revised. As a consequence, the cockpit was moved 3’ backwards, slightly impairing the pilot’s field of view, but it was still superior to the contemporary Vought F4U.

 

Despite the engine improvements, though, the F9F-1 attained markedly less top speed than the F9F-2. On the other side, it had a better rate of climb and slow speed handling characteristics, could carry more ordnance and offered a considerably bigger range and extended loiter time. The F9F-2 was more agile, though, and more of the nimble dogfighter the US Navy was originally looking for. Its simplicity with just a single engine was appealing, too.

 

The Panther was eventually favored as the USN's first operational jet day fighter and put into production, but the F9F-1 showed much potential as a fast fighter bomber. Through pressure from the USMC, who was looking for a replacement for its F7F heavy Tigercat fighters, a production order for 50 JetCats was eventually placed, later augmented to 82 aircraft because the US Navy also recognized the type’s potential as a fast, ship-borne multi-role fighter. Further interest came in 1949 from Australia, when the country’s government was looking for a - possibly locally-built in license - replacement for the outdated Mustang Mk 23 and De Havilland Vampire then operated by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Both Grumman designs were potential contenders, rivalling with the domestic CAC CA-23 fighter development.

 

The Grumman Panther became the most widely used U.S. Navy jet fighter of the Korean War, flying 78,000 sorties and scoring the first air-to-air kill by the U.S. Navy in the war, the downing of a North Korean Yakovlev Yak-9 fighter. Being rugged aircraft, F9F-2s, -3s and -5s were able to sustain operations, even in the face of intense anti-aircraft fire. The pilots also appreciated the Panther’s air conditioned cockpit, which was a welcome change from the humid environment of piston-powered aircraft.

 

The F9F-1 did fare less glamorous. Compared with the prototypes, the T38 turboprop's power output could be enhanced on service aircraft, but not on a significant level. The aircraft's original, rather sluggish response to throttle input and its low-speed handling were improved through an eight-blade contraprop, which, as a side benefit, countered torque problems during starts and landings on carriers.

The JetCat’s mixed powerplant installation remained capricious, though, and the second engine and its fuel meant a permanent weight penalty. The aircraft's complexity turned out to be a real weak point during the type's deployment to front line airfields in the Korean War, overall readiness was – compared with conservative types like the F4U and also the F9F-2, low. Despite the turboprop improvements, the jet booster remained necessary for carrier starts and vital in order to take on the MiG-15 or post-war piston engine types of Soviet origin like the Lavochkin La-9 and -11 or the Yakowlev Yak-9.

 

Frequent encounters with these opponents over Korea confirmed that the F9F-1 was not a “naturally born” dogfighter, but rather fell into the escort fighter or attack aircraft class. In order to broaden the type's duty spectrum, a small number of USMC and USN F9F-1s was modified in field workshops with an APS-6 type radar equipment from F4U-4N night fighters. Similar to the Corsair, the radar dish was carried in a streamlined pod under the outer starboard wing. The guns received flame dampers, and these converted machines, re-designated F9F-1N, were used with mild success as night and all-weather fighters.

 

However, the JetCat remained unpopular among its flight and ground crews and, after its less-than-satisfactory performance against MiGs, quickly retired. After the end of the Korean War in July 1953, all machines were grounded and by 1954 all had been scrapped. However, the turboprop-powered fighter bomber lived on with the USMC, which ordered the Vought A3U SeaScorpion as successor.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 40 ft 5 in (12,31 m)

Wingspan: 43 ft 5 in (13,25 m)

Height: 15 ft 6 3/4 in (4,75 m)

Wing area: 250 ft² (23 m²)

Empty weight: 12,979 lb (5,887 kg)

Gross weight: 24,650 lb (11,181 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Allison T38E turboprop, rated at 2,500 shp (1,863 kW) plus 600 lbf (2.7 kN) residual thrust

1× Westinghouse J34-WE-13 turbojet booster with 3,000 lbf (13.35 kN)

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 507 mph (441 kn; 816 km/h) at 30,000 ft (9,100 m)

497 mph (432 kn, 800 km/h) at sea level

Cruise speed: 275 mph (443 km/h; 239 kn) at 30,000 ft (9,100 m)

Stall speed: 74 mph (119 km/h; 64 kn) with flaps

Range: 2,500 mi (2,172 nmi; 4,023 km)

Service ceiling: 47,000 ft (14,000 m)

Rate of climb: 5,300 ft/min (27 m/s)

Wing loading: 71 lb/ft² (350 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.42

Armament:

4× 20 mm (0.79 in) AN/M3 cannon in the outer, foldable wings with 220 RPG

Underwing hardpoints and provisions to carry combinations of up to 6× 5 " (127 mm) HVAR

missiles and/or bombs on underwing hardpoints, for a total ordnance of 3,000 lb (1,362 kg)

  

The kit and its assembly:

This is another submission to the Cold War GB at whatifmodelers in early 2018, and rather a spontaneous idea. It was actually spawned after I finished my fictional Gudkov Gu-1 mixed propulsion fighter - while building (using the engine front from an F6F Hellcat) I had the impression that it could also have ended up as a post-war USN fighter design.

 

A couple of days later, while browsing literature for inspiration, I came across Grumman's G-79 series of designs that eventually led to the F9F Panther - and I was amazed that the 'A' design almost looked like my kitbashed Soviet fighter!

 

So I considered a repeated build of a P-47D/Supermarine Attacker kitbash, just in American colors. But with the F9F relationship, I planned the integration of Panther parts, so that the new creation would look different from the Gu-1, but also show some (more) similarity to the Panther.

 

The plan appeared feasible. Again, the aircraft's core is an Academy P-47D, with its outer wings cut off. Cockpit and landing gear were retained. However, instead of Supermarine Attacker wings from a Novo kit, I attached F9F-2 wings from a Hasegawa kit. Shape-wise this worked fine, but the Panther wings are much thinner than the Thunderbolt’s, so that I had to integrate spacers inside of the intersections which deepen the Hasegawa parts. Not perfect, but since the type would feature folding wings, the difference and improvisation is not too obvious.

 

On the fuselage, the Thunderbolt’s air outlets on its flanks were faired over and most of the tail section cut away. In the lower part of the tail, a jet pipe (from a Heller F-84G) was added and blended with PSR into the Thunderbolt fuselage, similar to the Gu-1. A completely new fin was scratched from an outer wing section from a Heinkel He 189, in an attempt to copy the G-79B's shape according to the drawing I used as benchmark for the build. I also used the F9F's stabilizers. With clipped tips they match well in size and shape, and add to the intended Grumman family look. The original tail wheel well was retained, but the tail wheel was placed as far back as possible and replaced by the twin wheel from a Hasegawa F5U. The Panther’s OOB tail hook was integrated under the jet pipe, too.

 

The front section is completely different and new, and my choice fell on the turboprop-powered G-79B because I did not want to copy the Gu-1 with its radial engine. However, the new turboprop nose was not less complicated to build. Its basis is a 1:100 engine and contraprop from a VEB Plasticart Tu-20/95 bomber, a frequent ingredient in my builds because it works so well in 1:72 scale. This slender core was attached to the Thunderbolt's fuselage, and around this basis a new cowling was built up with 2C putty, once more in an attempt to mimic the original G-79B design as good as possible.

 

In order to blend the new engine with the fuselage and come close to the G-79B’s vaguely triangular fuselage diameter, the P-47's deep belly was cut away, faired over with styrene sheet, and everything blended into each other with more PSR work. As a final step, two exhaust pipes were mounted to the lower fuselage in front of the wings’ leading edge.

 

The air intakes for the jet booster are actually segments from a Sopwith Triplane fuselage (Revell) – an unlikely source, but the shape of the parts was just perfect. More PSR was necessary to blend them into the aircraft’s flanks, though.

  

Painting and markings:

As per usual, I'd rather go with conservative markings on a fictional aircraft. Matching the Korean War era, the aircraft became all-over FS 35042 (Modelmaster). A black ink wash emphasized the partly re-engraved panel lines, and some post shading highlighted panels.

 

The wings’ leading edges and the turboprop’s intake were painted with aluminum, similar edges on fin and stabilizers were created with silver decal material. The interior of cockpit and landing gear was painted with green chromate primer.

 

The markings were puzzled together. “Stars and Bars” and VF-53 markings were taken from a Hobby Boss F4U-4 kit. The blue fin tip is the marking for the 3rd squadron, so that the “307” tactical code is plausible, too (the latter comes from a Hobby Boss F9F-2). In order to keep things subtle and more business-like (after all, the aircraft is supposed to be operated during the ongoing Korean War), I did not carry the bright squadron color to any other position like the spinner or the wing tips.

 

After some final detail work and gun and exhaust soot stains, the kit was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish (Italeri). Matt acrylic varnish was used for weathering effects, so that the aircraft would not look too clean and shiny.

  

While it is not a prefect recreation of the Grumman G-79B, I am quite happy with the result. The differences between the model and the original design sketch can be explained through serial production adaptations, and overall the whole thing looks pretty conclusive. In fact, the model appears from certain angles like a naval P-51 on steroids, even though the G-79B was a much bigger aircraft than the Mustang.

Babette Photoshoot

Rijswijk, Netherlands

(May 18th, 2019)

Margolies, John,, photographer.

 

Knapp's Department Store, overall corner view, Washington Street, Lansing, Michigan

 

1980.

 

1 photograph : color transparency ; 35 mm (slide format).

 

Notes:

Title, date and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.

Margolies categories: Assorted Main Street buildings & storefronts; Main Street.

Please use digital image: original slide is kept in cold storage for preservation.

Credit line: John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Purchase; John Margolies 2007 (DLC/PP-2007:125).

Forms part of: John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008).

 

Subjects:

Department stores--1980.

United States--Michigan--Lansing.

 

Format: Slides--1980.--Color

 

Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication. For more information, see "John Margolies Roadside America Photograph Archive - Rights and Restrictions Information" www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/723_marg.html

 

Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

 

Part Of: Margolies, John John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (DLC) 2010650110

 

General information about the John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.mrg

 

Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/mrg.00358

 

Call Number: LC-MA05- 358

  

Overall this ended up being a disappointing day with the camera, as the light was just so flat most of the day. Not to mention I felt like this scene called for a 85mm, but I didn't bring it - the closest I had with me was 135mm. Add on top of that the tourist circus that is Greenwich; I nearly left entirely empty handed.

 

Having made the journey and remembering "Enjoy This Grey And Pleasant Land" from earlier this year, I threw on the 135L and a 10-stop filter and took a few exposures. One of them was this three minute exposure as the setting sun broke through the clouds onto the towers on the Isle of Dogs with the menacing storms behind. It's not what I envisioned or what I came for, but at least I didn't walk away without anything. Lesson learned.

 

5D II + 135L + BW ND110 + Hoya CPL

 

Crappy photos here: Instagram

.

Abandoned Street Dogs, Jungle.

Wildlife Photography,Thailand.

Nikon D300 DX Camera.

Nikkor 17-55 2.8 Lens..

 

.

 

Back Story.......................

.

Yesterday started at 4:30AM, making an early run to the morning market picking up much needed supply's.

Rained all night and continued non-stop throughout the day.And still raining today.

Finally around 11AM everything was ready and I took off for the monkey temple to feed the dogs. As mentioned it was raining so the trip out and back was wet !

Upon my arrival at the temple my gut feelings said something is not quite right here. When ever this happens for the most part I'm right !

Mass amount of monkeys were in the road and wandering through the trees and bushes that surround the decaying building Baby-san and Mr Brown live in. If you recall in the past this same sight never turned out to be good.

Dismounted, shook off the rain while stashing the poncho, tied the helmet securely in the basket and headed into the courtyard.Baby-san was not there to greet me, not a good sign at all with monkeys up on the walls closely watching me.The big clear plastic bag full of food was their target and some already started making their move towards me.

When coming in I could already see many monkeys eating sticks, grass and pieces of plastic which told me due to the rain no tourists had been here to feed them.

Started up the first flight of stairs which had a dozen monkeys sitting on the railing. Some scampered past as others showed their fangs in an attempt to grab the bag of food.All the camera stuff was still secured in the Think Tank Belt so that freed up my right hand, left hand had a tight grip on the food bag, holding it under my arm like a football. First monkey to lunge at me from the rail caught a right hook under his jaw and ran off screaming.

I reached the landing between 2nd and 3rd floors to be met by 3 or 4 more hungry and aggressive monkeys after the bag. Spun around grabbing a broom which was leaning against the wall and went to work driving the monkeys back down the stairs.

With the broom in hand I proceeded to head up the stairs to the 3rd floor where Baby-san's head quarters is located, as you all know.

Problem being another bunch of monkeys were waiting at the top so I just increasing my speed and charged swinging the broom scattering said monkeys like bowling pins....;-)

.

Now the real problem starts.. No Baby-san and the place is torn to pieces by the monkeys. Monkeys are running in and out trying to grab at me but the broom kept them at some distance for the short time.No need to stay in here so I went up to the 4th floor and started whistling and calling for Baby-san. Monkeys followed me up but soon figured out I had them trapped and the only way down was over the edge, which a couple monkey did do !.

Fought my way back down to the 3rd floor and went out to the edge still calling Baby-san with the bag tucked under my arm, no way was the bag leaving my possession !..

30 minutes later Babay-san came shooting up the stairs and nearly landed in my lap she was so excited and relieved to see me.I was relieved to see her as well.

Number of monkeys had now increased 10 fold ! So Baby and I fought our way back into her room with monkeys all around us. Figured I could at least give Baby her milk. Bent down on one knee with Baby stuck to my leg like glue. I took out my knife and started to poke a hole in the small milk carton. At the same time a rather large monkey jumped in, fangs flashing trying to bite my arm in an effort to steal the milk carton.

I don't remember even taking the time to think as my right hand slashed out squarely hitting his fangs with the blade.Monkey jumped back and then once more attacked. Baby-san had had enough and took off after him as he did a fast retreat.

Tucked the bag between my legs and with my left hand scooped up a hand full of broken cement and sand throwing out a spray hitting the monkeys behind us. They ran for cover !

Now they're getting the idea and keeping more distance between myself and Baby-san as she continues to chase them off. Piled up a small mound of small broken pieces of cement and rocks next to Baby's food bowel then laid out her f breakfast, which she devoured very quick.As monkeys darted in and out they were met with a flying piece of cement that would explode when hitting a wall sending a fine spray of shrapnel adding to the overall effect. In time said primates figured out the food was gone and it was just to dangerous to attempt any more aggressive attacks on us. Both Baby and I went outside and continued chasing the remainder of the monkeys over the wall and back into the jungle.

At that point Mr Brown showed up and Baby-san ran to tell him all the news plus inform him the food is all in her stomach now.Both dogs curled up in a dry semi secure spot and I took off back into the rain.

Arriving home soaking wet and fatigued from the battle I took a shower and collapsed into bed for a much needed rest... Tomorrow it starts all over again ......;-)

 

Thank You.

Jon&Crew.

 

Please help with your donations here.

www.gofundme.com/saving-thai-temple-dogs.

  

Please,

No Political Statements, Awards, Invites,

Large Logos or Copy/Pastes.

© All rights reserved.

  

.

This is my first year posting a collage of my MOCs from the past year. It’s also the first full year I’ve had access to my Lego collection since 2011, so I was able to build throughout the whole year. I included a teaser of a space base that I built for my local LUG’s annual display. The MOC will be polished and posted by June 2025. My favorite builds were the Crescent Moon and Enchanted Pueblo. I also liked the owl for how the photo turned out. I’m overall satisfied with my pace of building, which is what I expect to continue into the foreseeable future.

 

My goal for 2025 is to be more mindful about what I build and imagine the impact and aftermath of the creation before I start building. Because I keep the vast majority of my MOCs intact for the past 20 years, storage is an issue. I need to plan MOCs that I’d be happy to hold on to after they’re finished. My Chinese park was a MOC I built for nostalgia and to demonstrate a concept of moving swan boats, but the overall build ended up being bulky, expensive, and not as impactful. The space base also faces this problem. When large creations are taken apart, there will be bulk elements that promote repetitive use in the future, which is a reason I don’t like to dismantle MOCs. I’m curious to hear what people do with their builds.

 

Overall I’m happy to be able to build regularly. The past decade taught me how much I miss building, and I’m glad to be back doing what I love.

 

MO: 9469778

MMSI: 538005564

Call Sign: V7FB6

Flag: Marshall Is [MH]

AIS Vessel Type: Cargo

Gross Tonnage: 13816

Deadweight: 19592 t

Length Overall x Breadth Extreme: 147.94m × 23.57m

Year Built: 2011

Status: Active

 

Read more at www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:714603/...

I took this image not sot much for its beauty or strong shapes etc but rather, I have never seen a sea wall made from huge volcanic rock boulders that was constructed as if by a stone mason making a drystone wall. The overall level and smooth contours of this sea wall amazed me given what it was made of and generally how they are made. The contractor that built this obviously knows what they are doing and take pride in their work - I like that!

Labels can be misleading and even hurtful.

Once referred to as 'that asparagus kid', Asperger's Syndrome was retired from DSM in 2013. Now rolled into overall Autism Spectrum Disorder.

 

But I still enjoy asparagus 😁

We've got double stack and "cans" over on the other side, two main tracks empty, and on this side is another "service" track - I think that's how it is called. This is in Ayer but I am across the tracks from where I usually stand because if I was over there I wouldn't be able to see all this.

Overall 7.5/10

 

FOursquare

foursquare.com/v/%E4%BA%AC%E6%A5%B5%E3%81%8B%E3%81%AD%E3%...

BG RUBY (IMO: 9436202) is a Container Ship and is sailing under the flag of Portugal. Her length overall (LOA) is 140.59 meters and her width is 22.01 meters.

Simien Mountains National Park is one of the national parks of Ethiopia. Located in the Semien (North) Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, its territory covers the Simien Mountains and includes Ras Dashan, the highest point in Ethiopia. It is home to a number of endangered species, including the Ethiopian wolf and the walia ibex, a wild goat found nowhere else in the world. The gelada baboon and the caracal, a cat, also occur within the Simien Mountains. More than 50 species of birds inhabit the park, including the impressive bearded vulture, or lammergeier, with its 10-foot (3m) wingspan.

 

The park is crossed by an unpaved road which runs from Debarq, where the administrative headquarters of the park is located, east through a number of villages to the Buahit Pass, where the road turns south to end at Mekane Berhan, 10 kilometers beyond the park boundary.

 

The Semiens are remarkable as being one of the few spots in Africa where snow regularly falls. First mentioned in the Monumentum Adulitanum of the 4th century AD (which described them as "inaccessible mountains covered with snow" and where soldiers walked up to their knees in snow), the presence of snow was undeniably witnessed by the 17th century Jesuit priest Jerónimo Lobo. Although the later traveler James Bruce claims that he had never witnessed snow in the Semien Mountains, the 19th century explorer Henry Salt not only recorded that he saw snow there (on 9 April 1814), but explained the reason for Bruce's failure to see snow in these mountains – Bruce had ventured no further than the foothills into the Semiens.

 

Despite their ruggedness and altitude, the mountains are dotted with villages linked by tracks. Historically they were inhabited by Ethiopian Jews (the Beta Israel), who after repeated attacks by the zealous Christian Emperors in the 15th century withdrew from the province of Dembiya into the more defensible Semien mountains.

 

-----

 

Six days of hiking in the area of Simien mountains, Ethiopia, was an unforgettable experience - I have enjoyed plenty of trekking trips in the past, however this one has been the most versatile and diverse of them all.

 

The plateau lies at the altitude of around 4000m, and the views from the escarpment are incomparable. Grand Canyon is awesome, but this place adds African moods and vibe into the overall picture. Unique, spectacular, unexpected, unknown. Definitely worth visiting.

 

This is a shot taken during our second day in the area - we hiked from Sankaber camp to a camp called Geech, from which we made a short trip to a viewpoint called Kadavit where we enjoyed a truly magical sunset.

Arches National Park is a national park in eastern Utah, United States. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, 4 miles (6 km) north of Moab, Utah. More than 2,000 natural sandstone arches are located in the park, including the well-known Delicate Arch, as well as a variety of unique geological resources and formations. The park contains the highest density of natural arches in the world.

 

The park consists of 310.31 square kilometres (76,680 acres; 119.81 sq mi; 31,031 ha) of high desert located on the Colorado Plateau. The highest elevation in the park is 5,653 feet (1,723 m) at Elephant Butte, and the lowest elevation is 4,085 feet (1,245 m) at the visitor center. The park receives an average of less than 10 inches (250 mm) of rain annually.

 

Administered by the National Park Service, the area was originally named a national monument on April 12, 1929, and was re designated as a national park on November 12, 1971. The park received more than 1.6 million visitors in 2018.

 

As stated in the foundation document in U.S. National Park Service website:

 

The purpose of Arches National Park is to protect extraordinary examples of geologic features including arches, natural bridges, windows, spires, and balanced rocks, as well as other features of geologic, historic, and scientific interest, and to provide opportunities to experience these resources and their associated values in their majestic natural settings.

 

The national park lies above an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area. This salt bed is thousands of feet thick in places and was deposited in the Paradox Basin of the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago (Mya) when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic (about 200 Mya), desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited. An additional sequence of stream laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone (about 140 Mya), was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet (1,500 m) of younger sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale. The arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation.

 

The weight of this cover caused the salt bed below it to liquefy and thrust up layers of rock into salt domes. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual "salt anticlines" or linear regions of uplift. Faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge. The result of one such 2,500-foot (760 m) displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center.

 

As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the younger rock layers from the surface. Except for isolated remnants, the major formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form, and the buff-colored Navajo Sandstone. These are visible in layer-cake fashion throughout most of the park. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches.

 

Although the park's terrain may appear rugged and durable, it is extremely fragile. More than 1 million visitors each year threaten the fragile high-desert ecosystem. The problem lies within the soil's crust, which is composed of cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, and lichens that grow in the dusty parts of the park. Factors that make Arches National Park sensitive to visitor damage include being a semiarid region, the scarce, unpredictable rainfall, lack of deep freezing, and lack of plant litter, which results in soils that have both a low resistance to and slow recovery from, compressional forces such as foot traffic. Methods of indicating effects on the soil are cytophobic soil crust index, measuring of water infiltration, and t-tests that are used to compare the values from the undisturbed and disturbed areas.

 

Geological processes that occurred over 300 million years ago caused a salt bed to be deposited, which today lies beneath the landscape of Arches National Park.[ Over time, the salt bed was covered with sediments that eventually compressed into rock layers that have since been named Entrada Standstone. Rock layers surrounding the edge of the salt bed continued to erode and shift into vertical sandstone walls called fins. Sand collected between vertical walls of the fins, then slightly acidic rain combined with carbon dioxide in the air allowed for the chemical formation of carbonic acid within the trapped sand. Over time, the carbonic acid dissolved the calcium carbonate that held the sandstone together. Many of the rock formations have weaker layers of rock on bottom that are holding stronger layers on top. The weaker layers would dissolve first, creating openings in the rock. Gravity caused pieces of the stronger rock layer to fall piece by piece into an arch shape. Arches form within rock fins at points of intense fracturing localization, or weak points in the rock's formation, caused by horizontal and vertical discontinuities. Lastly, water, wind, and time continued this erosion process and ultimately created the arches of Arches National Park. All of the arches in the park are made of Entrada Sandstone, however, there are slight differences in how each arch was developed. This allows the Entrada Sandstone to be categories into 3 groups including Slick rock members, Dewey rock members, and Moab members. Vertical arches can be developed from Slick rock members, a combination of Slick rock members and Moab members, or Slick rock members resting above Dewey rock members. Horizontal arches (also called potholes) are formed when a vertical pothole formation meets a horizontal cave, causing a union into a long arch structure. The erosion process within Arches National Park will continue as time continues to pass. Continued erosion combined with vertical and horizontal stress will eventually cause arches to collapse, but still, new arches will continue to form for thousands of years.

 

Humans have occupied the region since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Fremont people and Ancestral Puebloans lived in the area until about 700 years ago. Spanish missionaries encountered Ute and Paiute tribes in the area when they first came through in 1775, but the first European-Americans to attempt settlement in the area were the Mormon Elk Mountain Mission in 1855, who soon abandoned the area. Ranchers, farmers, and prospectors later settled Moab in the neighboring Riverine Valley in the late 1870s. Word of the beauty of the surrounding rock formations spread beyond the settlement as a possible tourist destination.

 

The Arches area was first brought to the attention of the National Park Service by Frank A. Wadleigh, passenger traffic manager of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Wadleigh, accompanied by railroad photographer George L. Beam, visited the area in September 1923 at the invitation of Alexander Ringhoffer, a Hungarian-born prospector living in Salt Valley. Ringhoffer had written to the railroad to interest them in the tourist potential of a scenic area he had discovered the previous year with his two sons and a son-in-law, which he called the Devils Garden (known today as the Klondike Bluffs). Wadleigh was impressed by what Ringhoffer showed him, and suggested to Park Service director Stephen T. Mather that the area be made a national monument.

 

The following year, additional support for the monument idea came from Laurence Gould, a University of Michigan graduate student (and future polar explorer) studying the geology of the nearby La Sal Mountains, who was shown the scenic area by local physician Dr. J. W. "Doc" Williams.

 

A succession of government investigators examined the area, in part due to confusion as to the precise location. In the process, the name Devils Garden was transposed to an area on the opposite side of Salt Valley that includes Landscape Arch, the longest arch in the park. Ringhoffer's original discovery was omitted, while another area nearby, known locally as the Windows, was included. Designation of the area as a national monument was supported by the Park Service in 1926 but was resisted by President Calvin Coolidge's Interior Secretary, Hubert Work. Finally, in April 1929, shortly after his inauguration, President Herbert Hoover signed a presidential proclamation creating the Arches National Monument, consisting of two comparatively small, disconnected sections. The purpose of the reservation under the 1906 Antiquities Act was to protect the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and other sandstone formations for their scientific and educational value. The name Arches was suggested by Frank Pinkely, superintendent of the Park Service's southwestern national monuments, following a visit to the Windows section in 1925.

 

In late 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a proclamation that enlarged the Arches to protect additional scenic features and permit the development of facilities to promote tourism. A small adjustment was made by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 to accommodate a new road alignment.

 

In early 1969, just before leaving office, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation substantially enlarging the Arches. Two years later, President Richard Nixon signed legislation enacted by Congress, which significantly reduced the total area enclosed, but changed its status. Arches National Park was formally dedicated in May 1972.

 

In 1980, vandals attempted to use an abrasive kitchen cleanser to deface ancient petroglyphs in the park, prompting park officials to recruit physicist John F. Asmus, who specialized in using lasers to restore works of art, to use his technology to repair the damage. Asmus "zapped the panel with intense light pulses and succeeded in removing most of the cleanser".

 

Climbing Balanced Rock or any named or unnamed arch in Arches National Park with an opening larger than 3 ft (0.9 m) is banned by park regulations. Climbing on other features in the park is allowed but regulated; in addition, slacklining and BASE jumping are banned parkwide.

 

Climbing on named arches within the park had long been banned by park regulations, but following Dean Potter's successful free climb on Delicate Arch in May 2006, the wording of the regulations was deemed unenforceable by the park attorney. In response, the park revised its regulations later that month, eventually imposing the current ban on arch climbing in 2014.

 

Approved recreational activities include auto touring, hiking, bicycling, camping at the Devils Garden campground, backpacking, canyoneering, and rock climbing, with permits required for the last three activities. Guided commercial tours and ranger programs are also available.

 

Astronomy is also popular in the park due to its dark skies, despite the increasing light pollution from towns such as Moab.

 

Delicate Arch is the subject of the third 2014 quarter of the U.S. Mint's America the Beautiful Quarters program commemorating national parks and historic sites. The Arches quarter had the highest production of the five 2014 national park quarters, with more than 465 million minted.

 

American writer Edward Abbey was a park ranger at Arches National Monument in 1956 and 1957, where he kept journals that became his book Desert Solitaire. The success of Abbey's book, as well as interest in adventure travel, has drawn many hikers, mountain bikers, and off-pavement driving enthusiasts to the area. Permitted activities within the park include camping, hiking along designated trails, backpacking, canyoneering, rock climbing, bicycling, and driving along existing roads, both paved and unpaved. The Hayduke Trail, an 812 mi (1,307 km) backpacking route named after one of Edward Abbey's characters, begins in the park.

 

An abundance of wildlife occurs in Arches National Park, including spadefoot toads, antelope squirrels, scrub jays, peregrine falcons, many kinds of sparrows, red foxes, desert bighorn sheep, kangaroo rats, mule deers, cougars, midget faded rattlesnakes, yucca moths, western rattlesnakes, and collared lizards.

 

A number of plant species are common in the park, including prickly pear cactus, Indian ricegrass, bunch grasses, cheatgrass, moss, liverworts, Utah juniper, Mormon tea, blackbrush, cliffrose, four-winged saltbrush, pinyon pine, evening primrose, sand verbena, yucca, and sacred datura.

 

Biological soil crust consisting of cyanobacteria, lichen, mosses, green algae, and microfungi is found throughout southeastern Utah. The fibrous growths help keep soil particles together, creating a layer that is more resistant to erosion. The living soil layer readily absorbs and stores water, allowing more complex forms of plant life to grow in places with low precipitation levels.

 

Among the notable features of the park are the following:

Balanced Rock – a large balancing rock, the size of three school buses

Courthouse Towers – a collection of tall stone columns

Dark Angel – a free-standing 150 ft-tall (46 m) sandstone pillar at the end of the Devils Garden Trail

Delicate Arch – a lone-standing arch that has become a symbol of Utah and the most recognized arch in the park

Devils Garden – many arches and columns scattered along a ridge

Double Arch – two arches that share a common end

Fiery Furnace – an area of maze-like narrow passages and tall rock columns (see biblical reference, Book of Daniel, chapter 3)

Landscape Arch – a very thin and long arch in the Devils Garden with a span of 290 ft (88 m) (the longest arch in the park)

Petrified Dunes – petrified remnants of dunes blown from the ancient lakes that covered the area

The Phallus – a rock spire that resembles a phallus

Wall Arch – located along the popular Devils Garden Trail; collapsed sometime on August 4/5, 2008

The Three Gossips –a mid-sized sandstone tower located in the Courthouse Towers area.

 

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

 

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

 

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.

 

Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.

 

The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.

 

Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.

 

The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:

 

use of the bow and arrow while hunting,

building pithouse shelters,

growing maize and probably beans and squash,

building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,

creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,

producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.

 

The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.

 

These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.

 

In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.

 

In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.

 

Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.

 

At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.

 

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.

 

A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.

 

Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.

 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.

 

Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.

 

Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.

 

Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.

 

The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.

 

Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.

 

Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.

 

In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.

 

The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.

 

Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.

 

After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.

 

As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.

 

Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.

 

Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.

 

Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.

 

Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.

 

On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.

 

Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century

During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

 

The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.

 

Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:

 

William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859

Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866

3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868

A Black man in Uintah, 1869

Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873

Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874

Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880

William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883

John Murphy in Park City, 1883

George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884

Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886

Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925

Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).

 

Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.

 

Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.

 

During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.

 

In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.

 

Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.

 

Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.

 

As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.

 

One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.

 

It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.

💢TOTSIPOP! Furever Baby Furry Avatar Grey Wolf + TOT Baby Clothing White Denim Overall Set💢

❣ Totsipop

✅Totsipop_Baby

Taxi :: 📌 maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Desicalm/45/102/986

Marketplace 🔖📦 marketplace.secondlife.com/p/TOTSIPOP-TOT-Baby-Clothing-W...

Two Men encounter a strange flying craft

So I knew I had to have a reboot Deuce doll once I saw he was beefier since I disliked the older MH boy bodies with their gangly limbs and raw chicken fillet boobs.

 

I also hoped it would be a decent substitute for the EAH boy bodies since theyre kind of hard to find and I love them for Hybrids.

 

Anyway, Deuce is definitely beefier in the chest and limbs which is great cuz he feels more sturdy and less delicate. Most notably his thighs are thicker and so is his chest.

 

It’s definitely similar to the EAH boy body but I feel like it’s a bit *too* stylised while the EAH body is more realistic to work with smaller scaled heads. The neck is definitely thinner than the EAH neck too, and I’m not a huge fan of the new MH knees still being too high up on the leg.

 

But you CAN sort of fit the EAH body into Deuce’s clothes but it’s super tight and the pants don’t close in the back. The old MH clothes simply don’t fit, asides from shoes.

 

Posing wise, Deuce is stiffer and more secure feeling than his old body and articulation is roughly the same, but you definitely need to get used to how his body feels before casually posing it.

 

But the worse thing, tbh, is the fact his hips barely splay open, much like the Fashionista Ken bodies. If you work at it gently, you could get him to spread his legs apart but it’s definitely a Task™ rather than casually doing it.

 

But honestly, overall, this body is a huge improvement aesthetically and functionally over the old MH body.

 

And the good news is, the heads from old and new MH do switch flawlessly with no mods in case you wanna do a custom or whatever.

 

IMO: 9227326

Name: MSC VIDISHA R.

Vessel Type - Generic: Cargo

Vessel Type - Detailed: Container Ship

Status: Active

MMSI: 636016437

Call Sign: A8IY4

Flag: Liberia [LR]

Gross Tonnage: 45803

Summer DWT: 53462 t

Length Overall x Breadth Extreme: 281.03 x 32.2 m

Year Built: 2002

Home Port: MONROVIA

MPMG 171200Z 26003KT 200V300 9999 FEW018 SCT090 25/24 Q1009 NOSIG

multimedia.panama-canal.com/Webcams/miraflores.html

Two years ago I built an Adventurers set I really like and I decided it was time to do another one. This time I recreated the Amazon Ancient Ruins from the Jungle subtheme.

 

Since the original set's base is just one piece, I wanted to make the base for my model quite simpel. Since the base is green and the temple makes use of all three primary colors, the result is very colourful.

 

In the back of the temple, the skeleton on a chain can be moved up and down, just like in the original set.

 

Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I hope you enjoy it too!

Nylon overall

This is a painting by Henry Utoaluga.

  

(POEM HOLDING TANK)

 

CAMERA

 

This little machine gives the daily

Heaviness some levity. Captures

Moments so perfectly. Images –

Cherish them but beware of them,

They’re just one small part of a

Much bigger picture, one moment

In a much bigger story. Regardless

Of whether the overall story is going

Hopelessly or otherwise, smile for

My lens like it’s going to end happily.

 

FORMING

 

Clouds hide the stars tonight. No rain,

Not yet, no wind, just a stillness that

Amplifies any calm or disquiet you came

Here with. In emptiness like this, the

Mind tries to fill in the blanks. So maybe

It’s my imagination, but I think there’s

Something forming in the void. It won’t

Reveal itself, not yet, but I just feel it.

Can’t attach good or bad associations

To it, just have to wait and see. So will

My dread be justified, or will it surprise

Me when out pops something good?

Could be music trying to define itself from

Noise, or meaning seeking to make itself

Clear through chaos. Life itself, they say,

Formed through particles, through like

Minded molecules that just needed time

To cluster around a center before they

Could figure out how they fit together.

If that can happen in a darkness longer

And far more uncertain than ours, then

We have no reason to fear whatever

Might be forming in the void.

 

WHAT THEY WHISPER ABOUT CHOCOLATE

 

The depression I didn’t realize I’d been

Carrying around for months suddenly

Vanished after one small cup of my

Friend’s koko samoa. Maybe the old

Family recipe just has a kick to it, but

Suddenly my senses remembered their

Capacity for optimism . Optimism does

Not have to mean being unrealistic, it’s

More of an attitude that even if things

Don’t go your way, you needn’t feed

Your pessimism till you’ve grown fat

On despair without even trying. As far

As mood improvements go, that was

Pretty significant for me. So of course

My first thought was to seek an increased

Koko dose, but rather than court certain

Chocolate addiction, I’d rather adopt a

Chocolate philosophy, i.e. remember the

Sweet regardless of how sour things get.

What’s whispered about the seemingly

Innocent chocolate might not be merely

Old wives’ tales - cook it up right and it’s

Really more like a medicine.

 

MENEHUNE

 

The day shift begins before morning

Hoping to make the world right again

In time for another day. So goes the

Myth of the little men who always put

Everything back together so well that

We can’t even tell what a horrendous

Mess was made during the night. If

That reality ever came to light there’d

Be laws to lock up everyone under 30

Between dusk and daybreak. Daybreak

Is a misnomer – what gets broken each

Night? Hearts, wills, confidences, bonds,

Promises, plans, marriages, friendships,

Partnerships, battleships, faith – you

Name it. If someone wasn't repairing as

Much of the damage as they can, then

There'd be no point in any of us getting

Out of bed. Damaging, nasty, careless,

Heartless - don't you ever wonder why

Our whole world doesn't just stop? It's

Little men laboring at their repairs to

Make sure we're back together just as

Fast as we all fall apart. It's not just for

This endless work that each of these

Little men truly deserves a medal, it's

Also for knowing the truth but never

Giving up on us.

 

PROVE

 

I can’t prove clouds don’t have emotions

When they drop rain, can’t prove roaches

Mean to be rude, can’t prove fish deny the

Existence of nets, can’t prove the desert lets

Its winds whip its sands from malice. Can’t

Prove if barking is ever justified or just an

Indulgence, nor whether a breeze means to

Be nice on purpose or is just being itself. So

Much I can’t prove, no wonder I anticipate

Skepticism. There’s really no right or wrong,

True or false, or good or bad, is there? It just

Depends on the circumstances. There’s only

What’s agreed upon or not. If only we could

Agree on something, anything, who knows

What else might fall into place? But if you

Want proof, you’ll have to ask a scientist. As

For me, I’d only say, I see it like this, do you?

 

POLAR BEAR

 

Life on the ice isn't as cold when you

Don't waste your warmth. I should

Know, I'm a Polar Bear. It isn't so

Empty if you see a different kind of

Fullness. You say it's barren but I'm

Not starving. Not to brag but you need

To know where to look to sustain

Your life on the ice. My only worry is

This rumbling that shakes the cold

Ground. The volcano has to either

Melt its way through or take it's fire

Somewhere else. Isn't this earth a

Contradiction? So warm deep within,

With a surface so cold. Just like some

People we know? I don't blame them.

After all, you just survive wherever you

Find yourself. I should know, because

I'm a Polar Bear.

 

WIL – BUR

 

Truth can be like a horse that

Will take you places you could

Never imagine going. Provided,

Of course, that you don’t find

Yourself flat on your ass every

Time it throws you for a loop.

 

ESSENCE

 

Eternal – not subject to our changing

Human moods, nor the evolution of

Our flesh. Has always been there and

Always will be. Temorary – our roles

And our hour upon the stage. In the

Midst of grand illusions, you might

Catch a glimpse of the truth. In the

End it’s all just so much drama, but

The essence of the story lasts long

After lights have dimmed. We may

Change over and over, looking for a

Foothold in this soap opera life, but

The essence never changes, never

Needs to, and any time you like, you

Can return to it. Be true to the

Essence and it will be true to you

 

LOVE AND WAR

 

Heart is both weapon and defense when

You enter this fray. Know your weapon

Well, use it wisely. The only thing worse

Than receiving the wound that’s hardest

To heal is knowing you’ve given it. At least

Those wounded in war still long to fight

Another day, but woe to those wounded

In love who no longer care whether they

Continue or simply cease.

 

FORMULAS

 

Would you love me if I was always on TV?

Would you love me if I played rugby? Would

You love me if I had the money to buy you

An elephant? Would you love me if I had

Big muscles? A King Dong like King Kong?

Would you love me if I needed love to get

Off drugs? Would you live me if everyone

Else did? If no one else did? Would you

Love me if I spanked your bare butt with a

Belt for being bad, like your daddy did? If I

Punished you for being bad? If I forgave

You for being bad? How ‘bout if I was the

Baddest badass in the history of badness?

How ‘bout if I said you were sacred to me?

Is it fair I have to figure through so many

Formulas for yours when all you have to

Do is be yourself?

 

PAPER

 

Papers rule my life, my whole being

Is just a series of papers. Thank you

Trees for turning into paper, Term

Paper, rolling paper, news paper, wall

Paper, paper plates, certificates of birth,

Death and divorce. Diplomas. Pages

And pages of unfinished poems. Hey

My blank page dear, it sure looked good

On paper. Paper tiger. Someone cut me

Out of the paper and said now you're

Printed material made flesh. When I die

Please wrap me in paper and offer me

On special at KS with the frozen fish.

Maybe the one I love will fry me for her

Sunday feast and finally our flesh will

Become one until she flushes me out

After wiping away my last traces with

Paper.

 

NOTES

 

You can never force a true harmony,

Only sing what you’d sing anyway,

Let someone else sing what they’d

Sing with or without you, and the

Notes either blend naturally or not.

Same old song since Adam and Eve,

But our notes make it new and the

Harmony makes it ours.

 

WATER

 

Water, fall from the sky. Life,

Rooted or otherwise, needs

What you bring. Water, go

Underground. Cool the Earth

And she’ll hide you away from

The jealous sun wanting to

Take you back no sooner than

You’re given. Water, make me

Clean. Get beneath the dirt,

Flow. Nothing is dirty by nature,

Only by design or neglect, and

Even the purest water joins as

A river to find the sea together..

 

CONVENTIONAL

 

If conventional would make you

Comfortable, then curse anything

Original in me. Out, unconventional,

Halu! Fee, fi, fo, fidual, I smell the

Blood of an individual. I stopped

Paying attention to convention long

Ago, much to my own detriment,

But now I want to repent. Please

Lord let me be average again. I want

To be normal. I want to be boring, to

Blend in, to not be noticed, except

By you. Let me be so well adjusted

And healthy in mind, body and

Haircut it’s sickening. Being myself

For better or worse has been bad for

My social standing, so Convention,

Please lock me in the cage of your

Protective embrace. Convention,

Take me to your ample breasts so

Like a typical faceless citizen I can

Suck to my heart’s content.

 

MONSTER

 

Last time I checked there wasn’t

A trail of dead bodies in my wake,

Nor broken hearts like bread crumbs

Leading back to a hidden lair in the

Forest of doomed love. So I’m at a

Loss as to what kind monster you

Think I am, and why. But all that

Frankenstein had to do to scare

Someone was just be himself.

 

BREAKFAST BIRDS

 

Birds in the morning flock to steal my dogs’

Breakfast, cause my canines are so occupied

Eating they don't notice the thievery. Eating

Is contagious - when one feeds, others want in

On the act. Like when love gives off its warm

Glow that others can’t help but find attractive

Too. When two feed, twice as many want in

On the act. Usually we see sharing as positive,

And want to let our friends in on our good thing.

But just because birds are remarkably consistent

In contributing their saxophone impressions and

Little hip hop moves every morning, is this from

Friendship or just a free breakfast?

 

PAINTER

 

Long before entering politics, Hitler

Wanted to be a painter. It’s true! I

Looked it up. As a very young man,

Hitler loved art, music, architecture,

And his country’s history. For awhile

He tried making a living by selling his

Watercolors on the streets of Vienna.

He wasn’t very successful, but one of

His watercolors has survived and you

Can see it online. That watercolor, to

Me, looks skillful enough, but twice the

University of Vienna rejected Hitler, said

His work lacked sufficient evidence of

Ability, crushing is aspiration to paint

Seriously. Instead he enlisted in the

Amy and the rest is history. 5.5 million

Killed. It would be unfair to blame the

University of Vienna (how could they

Have known), but still it's tempting to

Speculate on how differently history

Could have turned out had Hitler

Been able to stick to his painting.

 

RIFLE

 

I can see it clearly and I don’t

Like it, but clarity is the kind of

Dangerous gift you just have to

Learn how to handle. It’s like

When you’re given a rifle, you

Can use it to terrorize or to put

Food on the table.

 

CUT

 

First just a tiny one to remind me I’m

Not afraid of pain. Growing numb

Terrifies me more. Look, my body is

Liquid, it flows. Color small crimson

Hearts on m arm – your Valentine’s

Card. Cut deeper, somewhere no one

Will see the scars, my tattoos of your

Gain at my loss. Cut your name into

My skin – I’m your billboard dripping

Red. Cut open a window so this bird

Of prey eating me inside can fly into

The night.

 

BREAKFAST

 

Cereal and milk welcome the day

With a dip together. Toast opens

Itself to richness from butter, then

Feels a little tart from jam. Omelet

Anticipates a special sauce bringing

Out hidden nuances in its warm mix

Of flavors. Coffee takes in its two

Favorites, sugar for sweetness and

Cream to mellow its edge. I finish

Them all off. We’ll do it again

Tomorrow, promise.

 

MARAE

 

Everyone deserves a place of safety for their

Relationship to the eternal. Somewhere the

Spirits of that which you cherish most deeply

Are protected and can live and breathe. Here

I stand outside your marae. I call in greeting.

No answer comes from within. Without your

Welcome, I cannot enter. If you judge me as

Unworthy of your sacred ground or displeasing

To your spirits, I will call no more. I leave as I

Came, quietly, with respect. Inside, your spirits

Can hear me, and know my heart and mind. Is

It they who say deny me, or am I one you wish

To hide from them?

 

THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

 

When you return to the scene of the

Crime, is it to see if anything’s changed?

No, nothing’s changed – what’s good will

Always be good, and what’s bad is still

Bad. All that changes is our ability to

Tell one from the other.

 

TALIBAN

 

What they want is not genuine creativity

Or self expression. What they want is

Politically correct lies. We fight the

Taliban in Afghanistan? Too late! We

Already have them in our back yard.

 

MANNERS AND MORALS

 

I wish I could just make you feel good.

Many moons ago, when this all started,

That was sort of the point. Everything

Said and done since then may tend to

Obscure a related point, which is how

Ridiculously easily you could make me

Feel good if you wanted to. I was busy

Calling your manners and morals into

Question, so it may have slipped my

Mind to mention it. But yeah, in those

Few moments where it seemed like

There was something to be optimistic

About, nothing before or since has

Ever felt better. How could I get so

Preoccupied with manners and morals?

Maybe thinking my own had to adhere

To some high standard, but funny how

Little they matter now. In spite of the

Worst possible thoughts I could have

About you, if I thought you could still

Feel good about me then all I’d do is

Try and make you feel good.

 

PRICELESS

 

Like a diamond in a shop window I stop

And stare at, something personal makes

This more than just another glittering rock.

It feels like everything meant for me,

Everything I was meant for, so naturally

I start conjuring what the future should

Be, will be, already is. Fatally forgetting

This is not mine yet, as much as I firmly

Believe no one else will ever love it more.

How obscene to see something precious

As this subject to an exchange rate, to be

Lost or gained through trade. This could

Turn me criminal - stick ‘em up mister

And watch me walk away with what you

Only thought was yours. Is any price too

High for what’s priceless? What a tragedy

To see it fall into the hands of one who

Would treat it as worthless, just another

Glittering rock.

 

NAVIGATING

 

The word friendship evokes kind winds

And calm seas. It’s friend, someone you

Can be close to, plus ship, something

That travels great distances, certainly

Further than one could swim or paddle

A canoe. Sounds like you and a friend

Can make the voyage together. Sad,

Then, how so many friendships and

Fledgling loves lie shipwrecked on the

Rocky shores of mistrust and betrayal.

Sailing can be dangerous. It’s not clear

Who’s captain and neither of us have

The map, only a compass of the heart.

Stars might guides us or storms could

Throw us off course. Pirates try for a

Piece of us, sirens entice us towards

The rocks for spite and Moby Dick

Rams our ship for sport. The reward

For all the risks is arriving somewhere

We’d never reach alone, provided we

Survive navigating each other’s waters.

 

BOP TEMPLATE

 

Jazz rose up from the streets, coming

From somewhere I couldn’t see. This

City’s warm even in the middle of the

Night. So many working at night, in

Reverse of the natural order like bats

Or owls. Ask them if they’d take the

Day shift and they say that’s crazy.

The day is just so much play acting.

You can’t fake it at night, you know.

Night is the truth, where we came

From, where we’re going. Why do

You think a coyote needs moonlight

To sing the blues? Night is the truth,

Man. I nod and follow the streetlights,

Wondering if all those dreams of

Normal people don’t just float in the

Air this time of night, or if some find

Their way into the horns of a jazz

Band during the late set and get

Breathed back out as music .

 

BULLSHIT GLASSES

 

In the back of my mind there’s a

Voice saying, “You’re wasting your

Time. Trying to cast your pearls

Before a swine.” That brings out

The part of me that’s stubborn

As a mule (and maybe as stupid)

That says, “No! If she could just

Take off her Bullshit Glasses then

She would see it too. I know it!”

But of course the other side of

That coin is maybe I’m the one

Who can’t take off his own.

 

STRING THEORY

 

For better or worse, my poetry comes

Out most naturally when I’m in a highly-

Strung emotional state. This doesn’t

Mean I’m not a fairly reasonable human

Being the rest of the time. Still, I don’t

Recommend a highly-strung emotional

State no matter what it does for your

Poetry. For one thing, it won't work

Wonders on your general affability or

Outlook on life. For another, you have

To check constantly to ensure your

Highly-strung strings haven’t gone out

Of tune, and take caution not to strum

Them so passionately that one of them

Goes pwack and snaps.

 

(Note: The closest approximation to the sound of a snapping guitar

string is "pwack", although you won't find it in most dictionaries.)

 

BAD HISTORY MONTH

 

Do you think a deception

Is any less of a deception

Just because it involves a

Computer? It still becomes

Part of a bad history, one

More nail in the coffin of

Honesty and trust.

 

DISPOSABLE

 

Sacrificed again on the altar of your pride,

Only I don’t feel such a holy object. More like

A surrogate for your interests in an offshore

Account. Trying to petition the Gods offering

Breadcrumbs in hope of gold? He who receives

Your sacrifice, on high or down low as you

Decide, knows the difference between what’s

Truly valuable to you and what’s decidedly

Disposable. You’ll be rewarded accordingly

With blessings of the disposable variety.

 

BOXES

 

Sometimes people deserve the boxes

We put them in. Other times the boxes

We choose for them say more about us.

Careful not to mislabel. Nothing worse

Than putting a right thing in a wrong box

And shelving it somewhere you’d rather

Forget. Put me in a rubbish box and you

May find one day you’re searching the

Dump in vain for what you threw away.

 

POEMS

 

Poems are… Individual flowers from the

Mind’s garden, plus an occasional weed…

Escaping pus from a wound inside that

Won’t heal… Shards of debris from an

Emotional explosion equal to the creation

Of the universe… An SOS from a ghost ship…

Little eruptions of volcanoes undersea

Dreaming of being islands… Notes posted

For God on what you hope and pray is his

Refrigerator… Flying the flag of your true

Self to see who salutes… Something you

Sleepily clean up in the morning from

Your soul’s front porch… Proof positive

So-called sanity, when accepted without

Question, would happily render a death

Sentence on a deeper reality… Usually

Permanence’s enemy, change’s friend…

(Unless it’s the kind of open permanence

That provides poets sanctuary…) Written

In tears, sweat, blood, and other juices we

Can use to make poems in private... All this,

Plus. On and on, on and on, on and on.

  

JESTER

 

In medieval times, even a jester toasted by

The court could find himself separated from

His head for saying the wrong thing at the

Wrong moment. Nothing uplifts and nothing

Wounds as surely as humor. The jester’s lot

Was bringing merriment yet stopping short

Of heresy, which must have taken incredible

Insight and skill. He walked a tightrope: be

Funny or starve, but calculate the laughter

Carefully or be stabbed. Can you imagine

What stress the poor jester would come

Under, having to make light of even the

Darkest circumstances? And when a King

Or Queen revealed themselves as the true

Fool, it fell to the jester to save royal face by

Appearing an even bigger clown. I have no

Doubt more than a few monarchs treasured

Their jesters for this very reason. I’ve felt

Making someone else smile was a matter

Of life or death, worried terribly over my

Wording, sensed imminent doom when it

Seemed I’d gotten it wrong. A jester needs

A keen eye for tragedy, given how easily he

Could become one. No wonder even today

So many comics are also alcoholics.

 

JAGGER AT 70 a/k/a BLUNTLY ON YOUR BIRTHDAY

 

Yours will remain a most unlikely, most

Amazing tale – two teens (you and Keith)

Inspired to play the devil’s music and

Ending up feted as gods. Was your own

Mephistophelian trade 20 untouchable

Years followed by 30 in exile on main

Street? Did all your satanic majesty

Culminate in artistic bankruptcy amidst

More dough than Robert Johnson would

Have dared to dream of? Sorry I’m so

Blunt on your birthday, but being studied

(Not just a stud) comes with your cultural

Role, and your truest believers still can’t

Figure what happened after Tattoo You.

So what, Sir Mick, if you won’t likely be

Mentioned in history with the same awe

As Picasso or even Muddy? It’s only rock

And roll. Like our own Prometheus,

You’re still rolling - we find something

Oddly comforting in that, even if with

Each push your peaks just grow further

Distant. Meanwhile, naïve believers

Unwisely await miracles, like one more

Stones album worthy of your past to

Silence every told-you-so, to prove it’s

Never too late if you’re not too lazy.

 

(Note: Jagger and I share the same birth month - July - but I'm on the 9th and he's on the 26th so I'm a Cancer and he's a Leo.)

 

SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE

 

An obvious mystery, one’s person’s gold,

Another’s garbage. One man’s madonna,

Another’s whore. One woman’s devotion,

Another’s indifference. All personal, and

If you’re not careful, all subject to change

Without notice.

 

ALL IN TRADE

 

Our passions, hopes, time, attention

Exceptions, investments, generosity,

Resilience, forgiveness, willingness to

Risk, all in trade for that one thing we

Haven’t found yet. Your space, special

Places, faithfulness, kisses, intimacy,

Tendency to see the diamond but not

The blood behind it, all in trade for that

One thing you haven’t found yet. The

Devotion I’ve reserved for someone

Deserving, openness when I’m not

Inclined to close up, a skill I learned of

Nurturing, songs I learned from

Loneliness and joy, all in trade for that

That one thing I haven’t found yet, the

One perfect exchange that makes

Everything right, makes sense of the

Mysteries, makes the contradictions

Finally reveal the truths they hide.

 

DIFFERENCE

 

Despite all you disbelieve about yourself,

You could still make a difference if you

Wanted to. In case no one’s told you,

Your whole pose is one of indifference.

By all appearances, you don’t care, and

That impression will remain unless you

Try somehow to change it. Neither one

Can win when playing by two different

Sets of rules. Someday when all your

Shit has hit the fan, you’ll understand

How you can’t fight for someone while

You’re also fighting with them. Even if

The effort ends up seeming to not even

Make much difference, the truth will

Always be that you tried, not that you

Simply settled for the hand-outs of fate.

 

AD INFINITUM

 

You can find a new friend… And another…

And another… And another ad infinitum,

Till you eventually realize these aren’t

Really friends at all, only bargain hunters

Out to get what they want as easily and

As cheaply as they can. But maybe that’s

All you’re shopping for too. Careful how

You advertise – your brand name already

Has a reputation on the market, thanks

To all the free samples you’ve given. If

You think these friends of yours are truly

Friends, try putting them all in the same

Room together and see how friendly

They are face to face, among those who

They have something in common with.

Or better yet, invite them all to your

Wedding if you ever have one – I’m

Sure you’ll be proud to introduce them

All to your spouse.

 

MY WORLD

 

My thoughts have gotten so disjointed,

Like a planet coming apart. My center

Of gravity can’t hold it together. And so

My world goes flying off in a million

Different pieces. I was always trying to

Go in more than one direction at once,

But not like this. I feel the explosion, tear,

Rip, crack in my time-space continuum,

Violence of involuntary end. How there’s

Still a voice to say these words, I don’t

Know. I could already be a ghost. Feels

Like I’ve been away, and I have to admit

The familiar feels more comforting when

You know it won’t last forever, just for

A long time.

 

SUSPICIONS

 

Suspicions can be creative. Take information,

Make a story, then feel betrayed by your own

Imagination. My suspicions could fill novels,

Television shows, dramas that leave audiences

Traumatized by the tension. My suspicions

Always seem plausible enough to unnerve me,

So why not the public too? When all is said

And done, I really know nothing, so suspicions

Fill that void, channeling passions like a lost,

Warlike tribe wreaking havoc in anger at being

Denied their homeland, or so they believe.

This is how destruction, emotional or physical,

So easily follows when suspicions inform

Initiative and explode.

 

PROTECT

 

Protect your ego by justifying what you’ve

Done as right from your point of view. If

Someone has a different perspective, it’s

Just their problem. They don’t have to

Walk in your shoes. If you walk roughshod

Over someone else’s feelings, it’s just

Their problem. Maybe next time they’ll

Know better than to get in your path. Fine,

You protect your ego and I’ll protect mine.

 

ALMOST VEGETARIAN

 

They say Americans spend more on porn

Than they put into their pensions. Ok, so

Much for technology and progress, but if

We’re such sex experts why can’t we get

Our pigs to breed as fast as we eat them?

One more Sunday, no pig on the table at

Louise. Too expensive, I’m told. We have

A pork shortage, something must be done.

Encourage your pigs to be more romantic,

Get them drunk, read them the works of

Anne Rice, play them Marvin Gaye non-

Stop, tell them it’s Valentine’s Day, offer

Honeymoon specials, open more motels,

Tell them the Sexual Revolution happened

In the ‘70s and they’re behind the times.

Guilt trip them into getting it on, whatever

It takes, our plates are lonely. Meanwhile,

The pigs are thinking, why should we breed

Just to be eaten? We won’t contribute to

Your Butthead Buffet. We refuse. What if

The tables were turned and we consumed

All the unwanted fruit of your porn addictions?

The pigs have always wanted to say that,

They just had to find the language.

 

FREE ASSOCIATION IS ALIVE AND WELL

 

Fork tongue Nike, window spy whiskey,

Hooligan stadium, rabbit transit, card

Socket, pie face casino night, sliding scale,

Fall through the ice, trash dress muddy,

Front view frog, hard drug drive-thru, milk

Cowboy, shoulder tattoo map, treasure in

Every pack of Cracker Jacks, heron robs

National treasury, Hal open the pod bay

Doors, run away from home and join the

Circus, civil wars and domestic violence,

Homeland insecurity, Merrill Lynch Mob,

Liz Pharisee, every purchase with us a

Guaranteed betrayal of your faith, buy

Now cry later, crocodiles in Manhattan

Sewers, here pussy, bluebird paintbrush,

Able-bodied volunteers needed for

Beaver company, Frankenstein pop singer

Rejuvenates alternative music, cream shirt,

Scream soda, intravenous and Mars, let’s

Go out to the bald game, we interrupt this

Program just because we can, you got a

Problem with that?

 

WAR STORY

 

Caught in the crossfire of your

Good and bad selves, I’m just a

Casualty of battle. If Heaven’s

Own angels rebelled, small

Wonder we can’t resist the bad

Side of ourselves. A door more

Easily opened than closed. Like

Money changers in a holy temple,

What you first invited you must

Eventually fight or else surrender

To completely. In the end, good

Usually wins, but bad can make

A memorable stand. Entering

The crossfire means being shot

By both sides, since bullets don’t

Know friend from foe, and in self

Defense you’re advised to just

Keep firing and ask questions

Later. The best I can say is I

Survived, though I wish it all

Had meant more than just

A good war story.

 

SILVER

 

The Moon doesn’t hold anger or sadness

In spite of all it’s seen. Know why I shine?

Asks the Moon. Everyone’s troubles have

Rubbed against me since the dawn of time.

In appearance I’m not as constant as my

Cousin the Sun, but he burns like never

Ending passion while I rise, fall, and rise

Again in endless reflection. As I reflect all

I’ve seen, I use the troubles for fuel to

Provide you a light in the darkness. I’m a

Symbol. My cycle is renewal, while Mr. Sun

Might burn out one day if he’s not careful.

 

COUP

 

Do you envision a golden future where

Everyone’s forgotten the truth about

You? Most dictators do, but soon their

Own conscience makes them unable to

Settle comfortably into their newfound

Security. Subtly, they feel threatened

Not by what anyone’s done but by what

Everyone knows, not by what anyone’s

Said but by what they suspect you must

Be thinking. There’s no bigger threat to

A liar than those they can rely on to tell

The truth. No bigger threat to a cheater

Than those who play fair. No bigger

Threat to someone drunk on power

(Or just alcohol) than the sober. No

Bigger threat to the guilty than the

Innocent. Everyone must buy in or

Be edited out.

 

NEW AMUSEMENTS

 

Hey you Pharisees, if you show up

At my sacred mountain, be sure to

Take off your shoes. With faith you

Can walk on hot coals, but with

Attitude all you’ll find is your fancy

Footwear melted. Be respectful or

You'll regret it. Lightning will fry you

If you run amok at night. Try an orgy

In the forest, as if it's some disco

With trees, and you’ll fall into rivers

Hidden underground full of hungry

Fish who’ll love you. This ain’t no

Disneyland, and it did quite well

Without you before you walked

In acting like you own the place.

 

STOLEN BY THE SKY

 

Legend has it craters are the lovers and

Wives of mountains stolen by the sky.

Sheltering them from unsympathetic

Eyes, the moon hides craters within his

Glow. No stranger to separation’s pain,

The moon spends half his time shining

With undeniable brilliance and the other

Half hidden in cold darkness hoping his

Wounds heal in time for his next

Scheduled appearance. And when has

The moon ever kept us waiting? Some

Mothers soothe children to sleep telling

Stories of the craters on the moon. See

How some craters have already made

Room for mountains they still await.

Remember how others, long ago,

Embraced mountains so closely as to

Become one with them, until a black

Hole with a jealous heart, a cosmic

Storm, a hungry magnetic asteroid or

Heaven for reasons unknown reached

Down to snatch the mountains away.

See how easily these craters could catch

All manner of moon and star material to

Fill them again, but curiously, how most

Choose instead to remain empty.

 

CHILD

 

The older I get, the more I intuit

That it’s children, not adults, who

Have the right idea. Everything’s

Open, everything’s new, it’s all

One big possibility. Whoever came

Up with the bright idea that we

Have to carve ourselves in stone

When we hit 18 needs a lobotomy

From Dr. Ramone to re-connect

With their inner child. Is insight

That just closes us off really

Insight at all?

 

INDEX

 

I never figured clarity of expression

Could come across as so dramatic,

But if I stopped clocks the way I

Stop conversations, the digital age

Would be in for some major shit.

If I like you, I'll say look at it this

Way: no matter how different you

Are, you're still walking on the same

Flowers and stones and breathing

The same air as everyone else.

We're all an index of each other's

Possibilities.This is bad. This is

Good.

 

UP AGAINST THE WALL STREET IN YOU

 

The fates have granted me the grace of

Keeping the catastrophe quiet. Declaring

Bankruptcy’s a private matter, even if the

Currency’s only emotions. Feelings subject

To foreclosure. Liquidate these dreams,

They have amusement value. See the

Easily amused nod their approval. They

Can relate to being left holding the bag.

It’s nice they sympathize, and avert their

Eyes as I face an exile of uncertain length.

In exile, one at least has small freedoms.

Returning is not one of them. I can’t see

Anything bringing me back, once I’ve been

Tagged as unmanageable, too risky an

Investment, certain only to compromise

Your profits. In exile, one at least has small

Comforts, like appearing free while serving

A sentence of indefinite confinement inside.

Fools the easily amused, at least. But it’s all

Show, far from sweet, with the bitter taste

Of the incomplete.

 

SHAKESPEARE SHOE FITS

 

Strange name, Shakespeare. Evokes images

Of primitives trying to scare off progress, or

To pursue spear as a euphemism, civilized

Males reading Playboy. Seriously, it’s kind

Of comic, the name Shakespeare. A name

Like Deathspeare would be sexier, or

Bloodspeare more macho. But try picture

The enemy quaking in fear hearing

Shakespeare. Doesn’t quite fly. Sounds like

Braveheart shaking his sword, Robin Hood

Shaking his bow, Sir Lancelot shaking his

Lance a lot, the Three Musketeers shaking

Their rapiers or Bonnie and Clyde shaking

Their machine guns. Weapons must be

Scary, not shaken like a martini or a

Maraca. So with the name Shakespeare,

What would you do to be taken seriously?

We don’t know what really drove him, but

Wouldn’t he be having the last laugh if his

True reason for writing so relentlessly was

He was mad at being laughed at? So next

Time you’re angry, channel that negative

Energy into something creative. They might

Still hear your echo 400 years later.

 

DEFINITION

 

I’ve always been grateful for my place

In the world, but I never bothered to

Define it, for a statement as to what

I am would be a comparison to what

I am not, and my knowledge of what

I am not is at best surface level, so

Who am I to talk? Thank you for

Telling me who I am. I know you’re

Trying to be helpful, but why do I

Suspect you’re the one who really

Needs help? What makes you such

An authority? I want to be one too.

Does it take a degree? A badge? A

Gun? A certain tattoo? Or do you

Just pick a definition of yourself that

You like, wear it like wrapping paper

Around a gift to the world, and hope

This colorful sight inspires someone

Or other to sing happy birthday to

You because you appear to fit their

Definition of cake-deserving?

 

BRICKS

 

These poems are just so many bricks

In a fragile wall a cold stare could

Crumble or a warm smile could melt.

I wish I could change many things,

But the truth is I haven't a clue how

To change anything. Arguably I have

A clue how to write a poem, though

I can hear critics my disagreeing. At

The risk of sounding even more

Egotistical than usual, if this is what

I can do with their cynicism ringing

In my ears, think what I could do if

I could hear you singing my praises!

On a cold day in hell, you might scoff,

But who knows. If sincerity only gets

Me in trouble, then maybe it’s the

Utterly ridiculous that might make

You see things differently. If we

Can’t share a reality, we can always

Share an idea, as innocently as the

Public shares germs. Imagination:

Change in the dark, germinating. I

Just keep laying bricks, sometimes

High like a wall, other times low,

Down to earth, imagining a road.

 

THE UNDEAD

 

I know you don’t want it so I’m

Trying to destroy it but it won’t

Die. It just gets uglier each time

It crawls from the grave and says,

I come from you - send me six

Feet under, but isn’t it really a

Part of you you’re trying to bury?

I reply, you got that right – part

Of me I don’t want to see walking

Around, looking over my shoulder

In the mirror, in pictures, in stories.

A constant reminder of cursed love,

Of failure, and the other partner in

Your creation doesn’t want you

Either. Living things with limited

Insight are so challenged grasping

The concept of inconvenience.

 

SORTING ITSELF

 

Heavy rain, stay inside. Stay inside, look

Inside. Just as turbulent, even more so.

The storm outside is nothing. Nature is

Sorting itself, throwing air, water and

Light into a fray while the earth tries

To remember dryness and warmth,

Knows they’ll come again, but wishes

They’d put on some speed. I try to see

My troubles as my life sorting itself.

Hoping that, as with nature, in the end

A balance will be restored. As the storm

Clearly shows, a lot of conflict goes into

The making of a sunny day.

 

SYMBOLIC

 

Hey Sky, who you crying for all day

And all night? Freud said water

Symbolizes emotion. Sky wants to

Grow fat on emotion, hold it all in,

Gain substance like Earth, hoping

Earth might look up from its typical

Lazy passivity and actually take

Notice for a change. But alas, Sky

Can’t keep the weight on. Gets to

A certain size and it all comes flying

Off from gravity. Most Americans

Would be envious. And predictably,

Earth just callously says thanks for

The drink, call me sometime, ok?

Stevie Ray Vaughn sang “The Sky Is

Crying” with a lot of emotion, as is

Only fitting for this tale of yearning

Frustrated every time, no matter

How sincere or how determined.

 

WERE I SANTA CLAUS

 

The joy’s in the giving of gifts as much

As the receiving. And were I Santa Claus,

You wouldn’t have to wait till Christmas.

Were I the master gift builder, I’d make

Myself into one you’d want to unwrap,

A present you’d enjoy again and again,

Something you’d accept without the

Slightest hesitation, indulge in with no

Second thoughts, omit mentioning to

Your friends to avoid them becoming

Covetous, something you’d sighed for

Each time you saw it in the shop window.

In other words, I wish I were chocolate.

 

EXPERTS

 

I'm such an expert - I know

Exactly what you mean and

Exactly what you're thinking

Even before you do. You're

Such an expert - you know

Exactly what I mean and

Exactly what I'm thinking

Even before I do. Things

Can get complex, unclear.

Lucky we’re such experts.

 

OUR BEST

 

Maybe Las Vegas can make you rich

Beyond your wildest dreams, but how

Often does that happen? Please don't

Use our best as a gambling chip.

 

DESERVE

 

Bad guys in movies get

What they deserve. Why

Not nice guys in real life?

 

ROCKS

 

People ‘round here throw rocks so

Often you’d think they’d never sinned.

I wish Cupid could aim arrows on my

Behalf as accurately as my neighbors

Aim rocks at transgressing dogs, cats

Advertising a heat, birds soiling the

Clothesline, pigs digging up the roses,

And sometimes one another.

 

SPYING IN PERSPECTIVE

 

Our nation, born of rebellion, founded on the

Ideal of liberty or death. If leaders take the

Liberty of spying on their citizens, it must be

For our own good. Traitors walk among us,

Trying to establish a new dark ages. Humans

Are fallen by nature and foolish in notion, so

Thank the Lord we have so many laws for our

Own protection. Laws fill books that fill rooms

Which fill buildings. No wonder you can break

A law without even knowing. Laws, it seems,

Come and go these days like Vegas paychecks.

Do they still need probable cause to probe into

Our private business? Just some little bird that

Whispers nasty things? Words on my t-shirt

They don’t like seeing? A blip on their radar

Screen they think is me flying on a broom?

It changes so fast, I don’t bother keeping

Track. All I know is, in today’s USA, if you’re

A conservative wage slave you’re ok (for now),

But any deviation could place you under

Suspicion. Part of the standardization plan

For our own good. We’re a democracy, an

Equal partnership between people and our

Leaders . We should be as honest with them

As they are with us.

 

REMEMBER?

 

Remember when I tried reaching out to

You? At first you seemed pleased, but

Then you treated me like you wished I

Would just go away. So I did. Why do

You still wear that hurt look? Even

When I’ve done what you want, you’re

Not happy? Doesn’t seem likely. Must

Be it’s just someone else now who’s

Making you sad.

 

PEARLS

 

When our pearls have fallen in the

Pig sty, who will pull them out? All

The crap in the world can’t tarnish

Their true worth, only obscure it.

But who’ll be left with dirty hands?

Is saving something precious worth

Sorting through something ugly?

 

CONTINUED NEXT PHOTO OVER ("CYCLONE SCENE")

Finished third overall in the 'Mad Jack' for pre-war sports cars.

The joy of Le Tour de France in Yorkshire was the level of detail with which the community engaged with Le Tour. Everywhere you looked was something special.

Capable of speeds over 90 MPH, this hardsuit contains the user from any water, and has a MG on the shoulder for destruction.

View On Black

A few weeks ago I posted The Doors of Perception. I thought it was a good result overall but I wasn't entirely satisfied with it.

 

This is a shot from another angle and a bit darker. I wanted to emphasize the rays of light breaking through the pilings to better visualize the famous quote from Aldous Huxley:

 

''If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."

- Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception

 

PS CS3

Silver Efex Pro - Red filter

Added a slice of Selenium

 

Explore #47 March 11 2009

taking in the view

++++++ from Wikipedia ++++++

 

Taipei (/ˌtaɪˈpeɪ/), officially known as Taipei City, is the capital city and a special municipality of Taiwan (officially known as the Republic of China, "ROC"). Sitting at the northern tip of the island, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City. It is about 25 km (16 mi) southwest of the northern port city Keelung. Most of the city is located on the Taipei Basin, an ancient lakebed bounded by the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung and Xindian rivers, which join to form the Tamsui River along the city's western border.[5] Formerly known as Taipeh-fu during Qing era and Taihoku under Japanese rule, Taipei became the capital of the Taiwan Province as part of the Republic of China in 1945 and recently has been the capital[a] of the ROC since 1949, when the Kuomintang lost the mainland to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War.

 

The city proper is home to an estimated population of 2,704,810 in 2015,[6] forming the core part of the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area which includes the nearby cities of New Taipei and Keelung with a population of 7,047,559,[6][7] the 40th most-populous urban area in the world—roughly one-third of Taiwanese citizens live in the metro district. The name "Taipei" can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or the city proper.

 

Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center of Taiwan island, and one of the major hubs of Greater China. Considered to be a global city,[8] Taipei is part of a major high-tech industrial area.[9] Railways, high-speed rail, highways, airports, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by two airports – Taipei Songshan and Taiwan Taoyuan. Taipei is home to various world-famous architectural or cultural landmarks which include Taipei 101, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Dalongdong Baoan Temple, Hsing Tian Kong, Lungshan Temple of Manka, National Palace Museum, Presidential Office Building, Taipei Guest House, Ximending, and several night markets dispersing over the city. Its natural features such as Maokong, Yangmingshan, and hot springs are also well known to international visitors.

 

As the capital city, "Taipei" is sometimes used as a synecdoche for the Republic of China. Due to the ongoing controversy over the political status of Taiwan, the name Chinese Taipei is designated for official use when Taiwanese governmental representatives or national teams participate in some international organizations or international sporting events (which may require UN statehood) in order to avoid extensive political controversy by using other names.

 

Contents

 

1 History

1.1 First settlements

1.2 Empire of Japan

1.3 Republic of China

2 Geography

2.1 Climate

2.2 Air quality

2.3 Cityscape

3 Demographics

4 Economy

5 Culture

5.1 Tourism

5.1.1 Commemorative sites and museums

5.1.2 Taipei 101

5.1.3 Performing arts

5.1.4 Shopping and recreation

5.1.5 Temples

5.2 Festivals and events

5.3 Taipei in films

6 Romanization

7 Government

7.1 Garbage recycling

7.2 Administrative divisions

7.3 City planning

8 Transportation

8.1 Metro

8.2 Rail

8.3 Bus

8.4 Airports

8.5 Ticketing

9 Education

9.1 Chinese language program for foreigners

10 Sports

10.1 Major sporting events

10.2 Youth baseball

11 Media

11.1 Television

11.2 Newspapers

12 International relations

12.1 Twin towns and sister cities

12.2 Partner cities

12.3 Friendship cities

13 Gallery

14 See also

15 Notes

16 References

17 External links

 

History

Main article: History of Taipei

The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument and tourist attraction in Taipei.

 

Prior to the significant influx of Han Chinese immigrants, the region of Taipei Basin was mainly inhabited by the Ketagalan plains aborigines. The number of Han immigrants gradually increased in the early 18th century under Qing Dynasty rule after the government began permitting development in the area.[10] In 1875, the northern part of the island was incorporated into the new Taipeh Prefecture.

 

The Qing dynasty of China made Taipeh the temporary capital of Fujian-Taiwan Province in 1886 when Taiwan was separated from Fujian Province.[11][12] Taipeh was formally made the provincial capital in 1894.

 

Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the First Sino-Japanese War. Taiwan became a colony of Imperial Japan with Taihoku (formerly Taipeh) as its capital, in which the city was administered under Taihoku Prefecture. Taiwan's Japanese rulers embarked on an extensive program of advanced urban planning that featured extensive railroad links. A number of Taipei landmarks and cultural institutions date from this period.[13]

 

Following the Japanese surrender of 1945, control of Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China (ROC) (see Retrocession Day). After losing mainland China to the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War, the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) relocated the ROC government to Taiwan and declared Taipei the provisional capital of the ROC in December 1949.[14][15] In 1990 Taipei provided the backdrop for the Wild Lily student rallies that moved Taiwanese society from one-party rule to multi-party democracy. The city is today home to Taiwan's democratically elected national government.

First settlements

 

The region known as the Taipei Basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century.[16] Han Chinese mainly from Fujian Province of Qing dynasty China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709.[17][18]

 

In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade ports, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea export. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture and incorporated into the new Taipeh Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Qing dynasty.[13] Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangka, Dalongdong, and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (Chinese: 城內; pinyin: chéngnèi; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: siâⁿ-lāi), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 (still Qing era) until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Tamsui County of Taipeh Prefecture and the prefectural capital.

 

In 1885, work commenced to create an independent Taiwan Province, and Taipei City was temporarily made the provincial capital. Taipei officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894.[citation needed] All that remains from the Qing era is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate, and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang (KMT) and have lost much of their original character.[19]

Empire of Japan

The Taihoku Prefecture government building in the 1910s (now the Control Yuan)

 

As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese take-over, Taipei, called Taihoku in Japanese, was retained as the capital and emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government.[13] During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Building which was the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan.

 

During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture. It included Bangka, Twatutia, and Jōnai (城內) among other small settlements. The eastern village of Matsuyama (松山庄, modern-day Songshan District, Taipei) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Upon the Japanese defeat in the Pacific War and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in Taipei City.[20]

Republic of China

With President Chiang Kai-shek, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to a crowd during his visit to Taipei in June 1960.

 

In 1947 the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek declared island-wide martial law in Taiwan as a result of the February 28 Incident, which began with incidents in Taipei but led to an island-wide crackdown on the local population by forces loyal to Chiang. Two years later, on December 7, 1949, Chiang and the Kuomintang were forced to flee mainland China by the Communists near the end of the Chinese Civil War. The refugees declared Taipei to be the provisional capital of a continuing Republic of China, with the official capital at Nanjing (Nanking) even though that city was under Communist control.[14][15]

 

Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on December 30, 1966 by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special centrally administered municipality on July 1, 1967 and given the administrative status of a province.[18] In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold through absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.[18]

 

The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter[20] — its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s — Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung.

 

In 1990 Taipei's 16 districts were consolidated into the current 12 districts.[21] Mass democracy rallies that year in the plaza around Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall led to an island-wide transition to multi-party democracy, where legislators are chosen via regularly scheduled popular elections, during the presidency of Lee Teng-Hui.

Geography

The city of Taipei, as seen from Maokong.

 

Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan.[22] It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south and the Tamsui River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north,[5] where it reaches 1,120 metres (3,675 ft) at Qixing Mountain, the highest (inactive) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area of 271.7997 km2,[23] ranking sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan.

 

Two peaks, Qixing Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city.[24] Qixing Mountain is located on the Tatun Volcano Group and the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin, with its main peak at 1,120 metres (3,670 ft). Mt. Datun's main peak is 1,092 metres (3,583 ft). These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (菜公坑山). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond.

 

To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods.[24]

Climate

 

Taipei has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate[25][26][27] (Köppen: Cfa).[28] Summers are long-lasting, hot and humid, and accompanied by occasional heavy rainstorms and typhoons, while winters are short, generally warm and generally very foggy due to the northeasterly winds from the vast Siberian High being intensified by the pooling of this cooler air in the Taipei Basin. As in the rest of Northern Taiwan, daytime temperatures of Taipei can often peak above 26 degrees Celsius during a warm winter day, while they can dip below 26 degrees Celsius during a rainy summer's afternoon. Occasional cold fronts during the winter months can drop the daily temperature by 3 to 5 degrees Celsius, though temperatures rarely drop below 10 degrees Celsius.[29] Extreme temperatures ranged from −0.2 °C (31.6 °F) on February 13, 1901 to 39.3 °C (102.7 °F) on August 8, 2013, while snow has never been recorded in the city besides on mountains located within the city limit such as Mount Yangmingshan. Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October.

 

Air quality

 

When compared to other Asian cities, Taipei has "excellent" capabilities for managing air quality in the city.[31] Its rainy climate, location near the coast, and strong environmental regulations have prevented air pollution from becoming a substantial health issue, at least compared to cities in southeast Asia and industrial China. However, smog is extremely common and there is poor visibility throughout the city after rain-less days.

 

Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. There are higher levels of fine particulate matter and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the mornings because of less air movement; sunlight reduces some pollution.[32] Occasionally, dust storms from Mainland China can temporarily bring extremely poor air quality to the city.[33]

Cityscape

Taipei viewed from Tiger Mountain, with Taipei 101 on the left.

Demographics

 

Taipei City is home to 2,704,810 people (2015), while the metropolitan area has a population of 7,047,559 people.[6] The population of the city has been decreasing in recent years while the population of the adjacent New Taipei has been increasing. The population loss, while rapid in its early years, has been stabilized by new lower density development and campaigns designed to increase birthrate in the city. The population has begun to rise since 2010.[6][34][35]

 

Due to Taipei's geography and location in the Taipei Basin as well as differing times of economic development of its districts, Taipei's population is not evenly distributed. The districts of Daan, Songshan, and Datong are the most densely populated. These districts, along with adjacent communities such as Yonghe and Zhonghe contain some of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the world.[34]

 

In 2008, the crude birth rate stood at 7.88% while the mortality rate stood at 5.94%. A decreasing and rapidly aging population is an important issue for the city.[34] By the end of 2009, one in ten people in Taipei was over 65 years of age.[36] Residents who had obtained a college education or higher accounted for 43.48% of the population, and the literacy rate stood at 99.18%.[34]

 

Like the rest of Taiwan, Taipei is composed of four major ethnic groups: Hoklos, Mainlanders, Hakkas, and aborigines.[34] Although Hoklos and Mainlanders form the majority of the population of the city, in recent decades many Hakkas have moved into the city. The aboriginal population in the city stands at 12,862 (<0.5%), concentrated mostly in the suburban districts. Foreigners (mainly from Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines) numbered 52,426 at the end of 2008.[34]

 

Economy

 

As the center of Taiwan's largest conurbation, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components.[37] This is part of the so-called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$403 billion as of December 2012.[38]

 

Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. As of 2013, the nominal GDP per capita in Taipei city is lower than that in Hong Kong by a narrow margin according to The Economist(Nominal GDP per capita in HK is US$38181 in 2013 from IMF).[39] Furthermore, according to Financial times, GDP per capita based on Purchasing Power Parity(PPP) in Taipei in 2015 is 44173 USD, behind that in Singapore(US$48900 from IMF) and Hong Kong(US$56689 from IMF).[40]

 

Taipei and its environs have long been the foremost industrial area of Taiwan, consisting of industries of the secondary and tertiary sectors.[41] Most of the country's important factories producing textiles and apparel are located there; other industries include the manufacture of electronic products and components, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, precision equipment, and foods and beverages. Such companies include Shihlin Electric, CipherLab and Insyde Software. Shipbuilding, including yachts and other pleasure craft, is done in the port of Keelung northeast of the city.

 

Services, including those related to commerce, transportation, and banking, have become increasingly important. Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy[42][43] with international visitors totaling almost 3 million in 2008.[44] Taipei has many top tourist attractions and contributes a significant amount to the US$6.8 billion tourism industry in Taiwan.[45] National brands such as ASUS,[46] Chunghwa Telecom,[47] Mandarin Airlines,[48] Tatung,[49] and Uni Air,[50][51] D-Link [52] are headquartered in Taipei City.

Culture

Tourism

See also: List of tourist attractions in Taipei

 

Tourism is a major part of Taipei's economy. In 2013, over 6.3 million overseas visitors visited Taipei, making the city the 15th most visited globally.[53] The influx of visitors contributed $10.8 billion USD to the city's economy in 2013, the 9th highest in the world and the most of any city in the Chinese-speaking world.[54]

Commemorative sites and museums

The National Palace Museum

 

The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument, landmark and tourist attraction that was erected in memory of General Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China.[55] The structure stands at the east end of Memorial Hall Square, site of the National Concert Hall and National Theater and their adjacent parks as well as the memorial. The landmarks of Liberty Square stand within sight of Taiwan's Presidential Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District.

The National Taiwan Museum

 

The National Taiwan Museum sits nearby in what is now 228 Peace Memorial Park and has worn its present name since 1999. The museum is Taiwan's oldest, founded on October 24, 1908 by Taiwan's Japanese colonial government (1895-1945) as the Taiwan Governor's Museum. It was launched with a collection of 10,000 items to celebrate the opening of the island's North-South Railway.[56] In 1915 a new museum building opened its doors in what is now 228 Peace Memorial Park. This structure and the adjacent governor's office (now Presidential Office Building), served as the two most recognizable public buildings in Taiwan during its period of Japanese rule.[56]

Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines

 

The National Palace Museum is a vast art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War.[57][58] The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest collections of artifacts from ancient China.[58]

 

The Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines stands just 200 metres across the road from the National Palace Museum. The museum offers displays of art and historical items by Taiwanese aborigines along with a range of multimedia displays.

 

The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as the first museum in Taiwan dedicated to modern art. The museum is housed in a building designed for the purpose that takes inspiration from Japanese designs. Most art in the collection is by Taiwanese artists since 1940. Over 3,000 art works are organized into 13 groups.

 

The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101 in Xinyi District is named in honor of a founding father of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen. The hall, completed on May 16, 1972, originally featured exhibits that depicted revolutionary events in China at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Today it functions as multi-purpose social, educational, concert and cultural center for Taiwan's citizens.[59]

Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, aka "old city hall"

 

In 2001 a new museum opened as Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei. The museum is housed in a building that formerly housed Taipei City government offices.[60]

Night view of a fully lit Taipei 101

Taipei 101

 

Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004, a title it held for six years before relinquishing it to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 measures 509 m (1,670 ft) from ground to top, making it the first skyscraper in the world to break the half-kilometer mark in height. Built to withstand typhoon winds and earthquake tremors, its design incorporates many engineering innovations and has won numerous international awards. Taipei 101 remains one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world and holds LEED's certification as the world's largest "green" building. Its shopping mall and its indoor and outdoor observatories draw visitors from all over the world. Taipei 101's New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts.

Performing arts

Taiwan's National Concert Hall at night

 

The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host events by foreign and domestic performers. Other leading concert venues include Zhongshan Hall at Ximending and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101.

 

A new venue, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is under construction and slated to open in 2015.[61][62] The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market[63] and will house three theaters for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design, by Rem Koolhaas and OMA, was determined in 2009 in an international competition.[64] The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum.[65]

Shopping and recreation

Main article: Shopping in Taipei

 

Taipei is known for its many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening late afternoon and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods.

The busy streets of Ximending at night

 

Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall, a historic cinema, and the Red House Theater. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores.[66] The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens and has been called the "Harajuku" of Taipei.[67]

Eastern district at night

 

The newly developed Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of Taipei 101, a prime tourist attraction. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Breeze Center, Bellavita, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, ATT shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinemas (formerly known as Warner Village). The Xinyi district also serves as the center of Taipei's active nightlife, with several popular lounge bars and nightclubs concentrated in a relatively small area around the Neo19, ATT 4 FUN and Taipei 101 buildings. Lounge bars such as Barcode and nightclubs such as Spark and Myst are among the most-visited places here.

Eslite Bookstore in Xinyi District

 

The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street, the Guang Hua Digital Plaza, and the Core Pacific City. The Miramar Entertainment Park is known for its large Ferris wheel and IMAX theater.

 

Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park. Yangmingshan National Park (located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) north of the central city) is famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, and sulfur deposits. It is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary.

 

Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Tamsui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei.

Temples

Built in 1738, Longshan Temple is one of the oldest temples in the city.

Street corner shrine, Taipei 2013

 

Taipei is rich in beautiful, ornate temples housing Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese folk religion deities. The Longshan Temple, built in 1738 and located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen on older buildings in Taiwan.

 

Xinsheng South Road is known as the "Road to Heaven" due to its high concentration of temples, shrines, churches, and mosques.[68][69] Other famous temples include Baoan Temple located in historic Dalongdong, a national historical site, and Xiahai City God Temple, located in the old Dadaocheng community, constructed with architecture similar to temples in southern Fujian.[70] The Taipei Confucius Temple traces its history back to 1879 during the Qing Dynasty and also incorporates southern Fujian-style architecture.[71]

 

Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common and can be spotted on road sides, parks, and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen god for success in a restaurant business.[72]

New Year's Eve fireworks at Taipei 101

Festivals and events

 

Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei. In recent years some festivals, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, are increasingly hosted on a rotating basis by a number of cities around Taiwan.

 

When New Year's Eve arrives on the solar calendar, thousands of people converge on Taipei's Xinyi District for parades, outdoor concerts by popular artists, street shows, round-the clock nightlife. The high point is of course the countdown to midnight, when Taipei 101 assumes the role of the world's largest fireworks platform.

 

The Taipei Lantern Festival concludes the Lunar New Year holiday. The timing of the city's lantern exhibit coincides with the national festival in Pingxi, when thousands of fire lanterns are released into the sky.[73] The city's lantern exhibit rotates among different downtown locales from year to year, including Liberty Square, Taipei 101, and Zhongshan Hall in Ximending.

 

On Double Ten Day, patriotic celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Building. Other annual festivals include Ancestors Day (Tomb-Sweeping Day), the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Festival).[73]

 

Taipei regularly hosts its share of international events. The city recently hosted the 2009 Summer Deaflympics.[74] This event was followed by the Taipei International Flora Exposition, a garden festival hosted from November 2010 to April 2011. The Floral Expo was the first of its kind to take place in Taiwan and only the seventh hosted in Asia; the expo admitted 110,000 visitors on February 27, 2011.

Taipei in films

  

Romanization

  

The spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade–Giles romanization T'ai-pei.[75] The name could be also romanized as Táiběi according to Hanyu Pinyin and Tongyong Pinyin.[76][77]

Government

 

Taipei City is a special municipality which is directly under the Executive Yuan (Central Government) of ROC. The mayor of Taipei City had been an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994.[78] The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-pin who won the 2006 mayoral election on December 9, 2006.[79] Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of the Republic of China. The incumbent mayor, Ko Wen-je, was elected on November 29, 2014 and took office on December 25, 2014.[80]

 

Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition);[81] however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.[82]

 

Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations,[83][84] and public festivals.[85]

Garbage recycling

 

Taipei City is also famous for its effort in garbage recycling, which has become such a good international precedent that other countries have sent teams to study the recycling system. After the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) established a program in 1998 combining the efforts of communities, a financial resource named the Recycling Fund was made available to recycling companies and waste collectors. Manufacturers, vendors and importers of recyclable waste pay fees to the Fund, which uses the money to set firm prices for recyclables and subsidize local recycling efforts. Between 1998 and 2008, the recycling rate increased from 6 percent to 32 percent.[86] This improvement enabled the government of Taipei to demonstrate its recycling system to the world at the Shanghai World Expo 2010.

Administrative divisions

 

Taipei City is divided up into 12 administrative districts (區 qu).[87] Each district is further divided up into urban villages (里), which are further sub-divided up into neighborhoods (鄰).

Map District Population

(Jan. 2016) Area

(km2) Postal

code

 

Beitou 北投區 Běitóu Pei-t'ou Pak-tâu 257,922 56.8216 112

Da'an 大安區 Dà'ān Ta-an Tāi-an 312,909 11.3614 106

Datong 大同區 Dàtóng Ta-t'ung Tāi-tông 131,029 5.6815 103

Nangang 南港區 Nángǎng Nan-kang Lâm-káng 122,296 21.8424 115

Neihu 內湖區 Nèihú Nei-hu Lāi-ô͘ 287,726 31.5787 114

Shilin 士林區 Shìlín Shih-lin Sū-lîm 290,682 62.3682 111

Songshan 松山區 Sōngshān Sung-shan Siông-san 209,689 9.2878 105

Wanhua 萬華區 Wànhuá Wan-hua Báng-kah 194,314 8.8522 108

Wenshan 文山區 Wénshān Wen-shan Bûn-san 275,433 31.5090 116

Xinyi 信義區 Xìnyì Hsin-yi Sìn-gī 229,139 11.2077 110

Zhongshan 中山區 Zhōngshān Chung-shan Tiong-san 231,286 13.6821 104

Zhongzheng 中正區 Zhōngzhèng Chung-cheng Tiong-chèng 162,549 7.6071 100

 

City planning

 

The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles.[88] The city is built on a square grid configuration, however these blocks are huge by international standards with 500 m (1,640.42 ft) sides. The area in between these blocks are infilled with lanes and alleys, which provide access to quieter residential or mixed-use development. Other than a citywide 30 kilometres per hour (19 mph) speed limit, there is little uniform planning within this "hidden" area; therefore lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel with street, or conceptually, perpendicular to the lane) spill out from the main throughways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally.

 

Although development began in the western districts (still considered the cultural heart of the city) of the city due to trade, the eastern districts of the city have become the focus of recent development projects. Many of the western districts, already in decline, have become targets of new urban renewal initiatives.[88]

Transportation

Platform of Wende Station on the Taipei Metro system.

 

Public transport accounts for a substantial portion of different modes of transport in Taiwan, with Taipei residents having the highest utilization rate at 34.1%.[89] Private transport consists of motor scooters, private cars, and bicycles. Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. Respect for traffic laws, once scant, has improved with deployment of traffic cameras and increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses.

 

Taipei Station serves as the comprehensive hub for the subway, bus, conventional rail, and high-speed rail.[41] A contactless smartcard, known as EasyCard, can be used for all modes of public transit as well as several retail outlets. It contains credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken.[90] The EasyCard is read via proximity sensory panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse.

Metro

Main article: Taipei Metro

 

Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. There are currently five metro lines that are labelled in three ways: color, line number and depot station name. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the metro system are underway.

 

In 2017 a rapid transit line was opened to connect Taipei with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taoyuan City. The new line is part of the new Taoyuan Metro system.

Taipei Railway Station front

Rail

Main articles: Taiwan High Speed Rail and Taiwan Railway Administration

 

Beginning in 1983, surface rail lines in the city were moved underground as part of the Taipei Railway Underground Project.[91] The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of New Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, and Tainan before terminating at Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train.[92] The Taiwan Railway Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island.

Bus

 

An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation.[41] Riders of the city metro system are able to use the EasyCard for discounted fares on buses, and vice versa. Several major intercity bus terminals are located throughout the city, including the Taipei Bus Station and Taipei City Hall Bus Station.[93]

Taipei Songshan Airport

Airports

Main articles: Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei Songshan Airport

 

Most scheduled international flights are served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan City. Songshan Airport at the heart of the city in the Songshan District serves domestic flights and scheduled flights to Tokyo International Airport (also known as Haneda Airport), Gimpo International Airport in Seoul, and about 15 destinations in the People's Republic of China. Songshan Airport is accessible by the Taipei Metro Neihu Line; Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is accessible by the Taoyuan International Airport MRT system.

Ticketing

 

In 1994, with the rapid development of Taipei, a white paper for transport policies expressed the strong objective to "create a civilised transport system for the people of Taipei." In 1999, they chose Mitac consortium, which Thales-Transportation Systems is part of. Thales was then selected again in 2005 to deploy an upgrade of Taipei's public transport network with an end-to-end and fully contactless automatic fare collection solution that integrates 116 metro stations, 5,000 buses and 92 car parks.[citation needed]

Education

West Site of National Taiwan University Hospital

 

24 universities have campuses located in Taipei:

 

National Taiwan University (1928)

National Chengchi University (1927)

National Defense Medical Center (1902)

National Defense University (1906)

National Taipei University (1949)

National Taipei University of Business (1917)

National Taipei University of Education (1895)

National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Science (1947)

National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (1974)

National Taipei University of Technology (1912)

National Taiwan College of Performing Arts (1957)

National Taiwan Normal University (1946)

National Yang-Ming University (1975)

Taipei National University of the Arts (1982)

University of Taipei (2013)

  

Tamkang University (1950)

Soochow University (1900)

Chinese Culture University (1962)

Ming Chuan University (1957)

Shih Hsin University (1956)

Shih Chien University (1958)

Taipei Medical University (1960)

Tatung University (1956)

China University of Technology (1965)

 

National Taiwan University (NTU) was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including New Taipei) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The university governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.[94]

 

National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Originally a teacher training institution, NTNU has developed into a comprehensive international university with demanding entrance requirements. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from dozens of countries throughout the world. The main campus in Taipei's Da-An district, near MRT Guting Station, is known for its historic architecture and giving its name to the Shida Night Market, one of the most popular among the numerous night markets in Taipei.

Chinese language program for foreigners

 

Taiwan Mandarin Institute (TMI) (福爾摩莎)

International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) (國際華語研習所) of National Taiwan University

Mandarin Training Center (MTC) (國語教學中心) of National Taiwan Normal University

Taipei Language Institute (中華語文研習所)

 

Overall, I had a nice time at BrickCon. Unfortunately, I did not get to meet anyone there except for Julie at G.I. Brick, but maybe I will meet more next year. I was very close to meeting Crusader bricks. Since this is my first time attending a lego convention, I was a bit nervous. I didn't have a lot of time to look around, but I did get some pretty awesome stuff.

I also got my first OM. :D

 

Cheers,

-Vicky

:)

The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and is known for land speed records at the Bonneville Speedway. Access to the Flats is open to the public.

 

The Flats are about 12 miles (19 km) long and 5 miles (8 km) wide, with a crust almost 5 ft (1.5m) thick at the center and less than one inch (2.5 cm) towards the edges. It is estimated to hold 147 million tons of salt, approximately 90% of which is common table salt.

 

Geologist Grove Karl Gilbert named the area after Benjamin Bonneville, a U.S. Army officer who explored the Intermountain West in the 1830s. In 1907, Bill Rishel and two local businessmen tested the suitability of the salt for driving by taking a Pierce-Arrow onto its surface.

 

A railway line across the Flats was completed in 1910, marking the first permanent crossing. The first land speed record was set there in 1914 by Teddy Tetzlaff.

 

Entertainment filmed at the Flats include portions of Walking with Dinosaurs Special - The Ballad of Big Al, Knight Rider, Warlock, Independence Day (1996) and its sequel, SLC Punk, Cremaster 2 from Cremaster Cycle, The Brown Bunny, The World's Fastest Indian, Gerry, The Tree of Life, Top Gear and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Furthermore, the Pontiac Bonneville (former flagship sedan of the Pontiac motor division), the Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, and the Bonneville International media company are all named for the Flats.

 

The Bonneville Salt Flats hosts the annual US Flight Archery Championships. The goal of flight archery is to shoot arrows from bows at the greatest distance possible without regard to hitting a target, and so the vast flat plane of the flats serves as an ideal location to measure the linear distance traveled by arrows without geographic interference. Both the 1977 (archer Don Brown) and 1982 (archer Alan Webster) world records were set there; while the current world record, achieved in 1987 (archer Don Brown), was set at the salt flats near Smith Creek, Nevada.

 

The thickness of salt crust is a critical factor in racing use of the salt flats. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has undertaken multiple studies on the topic; while a 2007 study determined that there was little change in the crust's thickness from 1988 to 2003, more recent studies have shown a reduction in thickness, especially in the northwest area where racing occurs. The flats' overall area has contracted significantly over the past several decades. The cause or causes of this remain unclear, but many believe adjacent evaporative potash mining is the primary factor.

 

Collaboration between racing organizations, the potash mine, and the BLM led to a pilot program begun in 1998 to release excess brine onto the salt flats during winter. Plans to increase the volume of brine returned to the salt flats are hoped to halt loss of crust thickness, or possibly restore it where it has become too thin to sustain human use.

 

Motorcar racing has taken place at the salt flats since 1914. Racing takes place at part of the Bonneville Salt Flats known as the Bonneville Speedway. There are five major land speed events that take place at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Bonneville "Speed Week" takes place mid-August followed by "World of Speed" in September and the "World Finals" take place early October.

 

These three events welcome cars, trucks, and motorcycles. The "Bub Motorcycle Speed Trials" are for motorcycles only. World records are contested at the Mike Cook ShootOut in September. The Southern California Timing Association and the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association organizes and plans the multi-vehicle events, but all event promoters contribute to prepping and maintaining the salt. "Speed Week" events in August were canceled in 2015 and 2022, due to the poor condition of the salt in certain parts of the flats. The salt flats had been swamped by heavy rains earlier in the year, as usual, but this year the rains also triggered mudslides from surrounding mountains onto a section of the flats used for the land-speed racing courses.

 

Bonneville Speedway (also known as the Bonneville Salt Flats Race Track) is an area of the Bonneville Salt Flats northeast of Wendover, Utah, that is marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous land speed records. The Bonneville Salt Flats Race Track is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

The salt flats were first used for motor sports in 1912, but did not become truly popular until the 1930s when Ab Jenkins and Sir Malcolm Campbell competed to set land speed records.

 

A reduction of available racing surface and salt thickness has led to the cancellation of events at Bonneville, such as Speed Week in 2014 and 2015. Available racing surface is much reduced with just 2.5 miles (4.0 km) available instead of the 9-mile (14 km) courses traditionally used for Speed Week.

 

Historically, the speedway was marked out by the Utah Department of Transportation at the start of each summer. Originally, two tracks were prepared; a 10-mile (16 km) long straightaway for speed trials and an oval or circular track for distance runs, which was typically between 10 and 12 miles (16 and 19 km) long depending on the condition of the salt surface.

 

Since at least the 1990s, track preparations have been the responsibility of the event organizers. Days or weeks in advance, the track preparers identify an area best suited for their track layouts and begin grading the tracks. Surveyors are brought in to survey the timing trap distances. A day before racing begins, the track markers are added.

 

Originally, the straightaway was marked with a broad black line down its center. This was eventually changed to lines down either side, as the center line wore out too quickly. As the costs for painting the lines has gone up, organizations have switched to flags and cones as track markers. The last event to use black lines was Speed Week, August 2009.

 

The number of tracks and the timed sections for each track are set according to what is most beneficial for each event. Large public meets such as Speed Week run as many as four tracks with several timed miles, usually starting with the second mile and running to the fifth mile. Smaller meets that typically only run world record attempts will utilize a single track, with one timed mile and one timed kilometer in the middle of the track. Additional marks and cones indicate the end of the track and the position of timing equipment.

 

The annual Speed Week was cancelled in both 2014 and 2015, as were many land-speed racing events, due to deteriorating track conditions. Heavy rains caused a layer of mud from surrounding mountains to flow onto the flats, covering approximately 6 mi (9.7 km) of the track. Although another section of the flats would normally be used, nearby salt mining operations had reduced the size of the alternative track.

 

The depth of the salt crust at Bonneville has also been decreasing, possibly leaching into a saltwater aquifer. Measured at as much at 3 ft (0.91 m) in the 1940s and 50s, it has been reduced to just 2 in (0.051 m) in 2015.

 

Though recent studies have been made (since 1960), the causes of this deterioration are not clear, although the evidence points toward both local climatic changes and salt mining. Some strategies were devised to revert the decreasing salt surface, such as pumping back salt, though this had no effect.

 

In August, the Southern California Timing Association and Bonneville Nationals Inc. organize Speed Week, the largest meet of the year, which attracts several hundred drivers who compete to set highest speed in a range of categories. Bonneville Speed Week has been taking place since 1949.

 

In late August, the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials are held.

 

In September each year is the World of Speed, (similar to Speed Week) organized by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association. The USFRA also meet on the first Wednesday of each month throughout the summer.

 

In October, the Southern California Timing Association puts on World Finals, a scaled-down version of Speed Week. This event tends to have cooler weather and often drier salt that Speed Week the prior month. There are less spectators and it tends to draw serious racers, as this event is the last chance to break a land speed record and be in the SCTA record book for that year.

 

Each year, there are usually a few private meets that are not publicized scattered among the larger public meets.

 

Several motor-paced racing speed records have been attempted at Bonneville.

 

In 1985, American cyclist John Howard set a then world record of 244 km/h (152 mph).

 

On 15 October 1995, Dutch cyclist Fred Rompelberg achieved 268.831 km/h (167.044 mph), using a special bicycle behind a dragster with a large shield.

 

In 2016, Denise Mueller-Korenek claimed a women's bicycle land speed record at 147 mph (237 km/h). She was coached by Howard. It is not clear which authority was supervising the record attempt.

 

In 2018, Mueller-Korenek broke her own women's record and the men's record at a speed of 183.9 miles per hour (296.0 km/h).

 

In popular culture

In the 2003 film The Brown Bunny, Bud Clay races his motorcycle at the speedway.

In the 2005 film The World's Fastest Indian, Burt Munro and his highly modified Indian Scout motorcycle sets a world record.

In the 2015 series finale episode of Mad Men, Donald Draper drives a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS muscle car in the races at Bonneville Speedway.

 

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

 

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

 

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.

 

Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.

 

The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.

 

Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.

 

The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:

 

use of the bow and arrow while hunting,

building pithouse shelters,

growing maize and probably beans and squash,

building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,

creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,

producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.

 

The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.

 

These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.

 

In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.

 

In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.

 

Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.

 

At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.

 

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.

 

A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.

 

Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.

 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.

 

Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.

 

Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.

 

Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.

 

The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.

 

Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.

 

Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.

 

In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.

 

The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.

 

Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.

 

After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.

 

As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.

 

Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.

 

Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.

 

Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.

 

Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.

 

On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.

 

Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century

During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

 

The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.

 

Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:

 

William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859

Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866

3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868

A Black man in Uintah, 1869

Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873

Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874

Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880

William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883

John Murphy in Park City, 1883

George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884

Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886

Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925

Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).

 

Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.

 

Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.

 

During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.

 

In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.

 

Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.

 

Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.

 

As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.

 

One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.

 

It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.

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