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Amy Adams is recognized for her stunning red mane so some might be suprised to understand that her locks is naturally more of a blonde/strawberry blonde color. It was not up until Junebug that Amy Adams decided to keep to a much more sharper, stunning color that she tailored from the ...
Recognizing the absence of the female voice in American theatre, the DCPA Theatre Company established the Women's Voices Fund in 2005 to commission, develop and produce new plays by women. Now, 14 years later, the Fund has surpassed $1.6 million and enabled the Theatre Company to produce 30 plays by women (including 13 world premieres), commissioned 19 female playwrights and hired 23 female directors. The Hattitude tradition grew out of the Theatre Company’s presentation of Regina Taylor’s "Crowns" in 2005. Her musical play explored black history and identity, using an exquisite variety of hats to tell the shared history and rituals of African-American women, ranging in era from slavery to current fashion. This year's speakers included DCPA CEO Janice Sinden and "Last Night and the Night Before" Playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays. The emcee was Gloria Neal, and the entertainment included Neyla Pekarek, Abby Noble and Abby Lehrer. The lunch culminates each year in a runway walk where each table designates one representative, and prizes are awarded. For more information on the Women's Voices Fund, go to www.denvercenter.org/support-us/give-now/womens-voices-fund/. Photos by John Moore for the DCPA NewsCenter.
Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly amanita, is a basidiomycete of the genus Amanita. It is a large white-gilled, white-spotted, and usually red mushroom.
Despite its easily distinguishable features, A. muscaria is a fungus with several known variations, or subspecies. These subspecies are slightly different, some having yellow or white caps, but are all usually called fly agarics, most often recognizable by their notable white spots. Recent DNA fungi research, however, has shown that some mushrooms called 'fly agaric' are in fact unique species, such as A. persicina (the peach-colored fly agaric).
Native throughout the temperate and boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere, A. muscaria has been unintentionally introduced to many countries in the Southern Hemisphere, generally as a symbiont with pine and birch plantations, and is now a true cosmopolitan species. It associates with various deciduous and coniferous trees.
Although poisonous, death due to poisoning from A. muscaria ingestion is quite rare. Parboiling twice with water draining weakens its toxicity and breaks down the mushroom's psychoactive substances; it is eaten in parts of Europe, Asia, and North America. All A. muscaria varieties, but in particular A. muscaria var. muscaria, are noted for their hallucinogenic properties, with the main psychoactive constituents being muscimol and its neurotoxic precursor ibotenic acid. A local variety of the mushroom was used as an intoxicant and entheogen by the indigenous peoples of Siberia.
Arguably the most iconic toadstool species, the fly agaric is one of the most recognizable and widely encountered in popular culture, including in video games—for example, the frequent use of a recognizable A. muscaria in the Mario franchise (e.g. its Super Mushroom power-up)—and television—for example, the houses in The Smurfs franchise. There have been cases of children admitted to hospitals after consuming this poisonous mushroom; the children may have been attracted to it because of its pop-culture associations.
Taxonomy
The name of the mushroom in many European languages is thought to derive from its use as an insecticide when sprinkled in milk. This practice has been recorded from Germanic- and Slavic-speaking parts of Europe, as well as the Vosges region and pockets elsewhere in France, and Romania. Albertus Magnus was the first to record it in his work De vegetabilibus some time before 1256, commenting vocatur fungus muscarum, eo quod in lacte pulverizatus interficit muscas, "it is called the fly mushroom because it is powdered in milk to kill flies."
The 16th-century Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius traced the practice of sprinkling it into milk to Frankfurt in Germany, while Carl Linnaeus, the "father of taxonomy", reported it from Småland in southern Sweden, where he had lived as a child. He described it in volume two of his Species Plantarum in 1753, giving it the name Agaricus muscarius, the specific epithet deriving from Latin musca meaning "fly". It gained its current name in 1783, when placed in the genus Amanita by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, a name sanctioned in 1821 by the "father of mycology", Swedish naturalist Elias Magnus Fries. The starting date for all the mycota had been set by general agreement as January 1, 1821, the date of Fries's work, and so the full name was then Amanita muscaria (L.:Fr.) Hook. The 1987 edition of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature changed the rules on the starting date and primary work for names of fungi, and names can now be considered valid as far back as May 1, 1753, the date of publication of Linnaeus's work. Hence, Linnaeus and Lamarck are now taken as the namers of Amanita muscaria (L.) Lam..
The English mycologist John Ramsbottom reported that Amanita muscaria was used for getting rid of bugs in England and Sweden, and bug agaric was an old alternative name for the species. French mycologist Pierre Bulliard reported having tried without success to replicate its fly-killing properties in his work Histoire des plantes vénéneuses et suspectes de la France (1784), and proposed a new binomial name Agaricus pseudo-aurantiacus because of this. One compound isolated from the fungus is 1,3-diolein (1,3-di(cis-9-octadecenoyl)glycerol), which attracts insects. It has been hypothesised that the flies intentionally seek out the fly agaric for its intoxicating properties. An alternative derivation proposes that the term fly- refers not to insects as such but rather the delirium resulting from consumption of the fungus. This is based on the medieval belief that flies could enter a person's head and cause mental illness. Several regional names appear to be linked with this connotation, meaning the "mad" or "fool's" version of the highly regarded edible mushroom Amanita caesarea. Hence there is oriol foll "mad oriol" in Catalan, mujolo folo from Toulouse, concourlo fouolo from the Aveyron department in Southern France, ovolo matto from Trentino in Italy. A local dialect name in Fribourg in Switzerland is tsapi de diablhou, which translates as "Devil's hat".
Classification
Amanita muscaria is the type species of the genus. By extension, it is also the type species of Amanita subgenus Amanita, as well as section Amanita within this subgenus. Amanita subgenus Amanita includes all Amanita with inamyloid spores. Amanita section Amanita includes the species with patchy universal veil remnants, including a volva that is reduced to a series of concentric rings, and the veil remnants on the cap to a series of patches or warts. Most species in this group also have a bulbous base. Amanita section Amanita consists of A. muscaria and its close relatives, including A. pantherina (the panther cap), A. gemmata, A. farinosa, and A. xanthocephala. Modern fungal taxonomists have classified Amanita muscaria and its allies this way based on gross morphology and spore inamyloidy. Two recent molecular phylogenetic studies have confirmed this classification as natural.
Description
A large, conspicuous mushroom, Amanita muscaria is generally common and numerous where it grows, and is often found in groups with basidiocarps in all stages of development. Fly agaric fruiting bodies emerge from the soil looking like white eggs. After emerging from the ground, the cap is covered with numerous small white to yellow pyramid-shaped warts. These are remnants of the universal veil, a membrane that encloses the entire mushroom when it is still very young. Dissecting the mushroom at this stage reveals a characteristic yellowish layer of skin under the veil, which helps identification. As the fungus grows, the red colour appears through the broken veil and the warts become less prominent; they do not change in size, but are reduced relative to the expanding skin area. The cap changes from globose to hemispherical, and finally to plate-like and flat in mature specimens. Fully grown, the bright red cap is usually around 8–20 centimetres (3–8 inches) in diameter, although larger specimens have been found. The red colour may fade after rain and in older mushrooms.
The free gills are white, as is the spore print. The oval spores measure 9–13 by 6.5–9 μm; they do not turn blue with the application of iodine. The stipe is white, 5–20 cm (2–8 in) high by 1–2 cm (1⁄2–1 in) wide, and has the slightly brittle, fibrous texture typical of many large mushrooms. At the base is a bulb that bears universal veil remnants in the form of two to four distinct rings or ruffs. Between the basal universal veil remnants and gills are remnants of the partial veil (which covers the gills during development) in the form of a white ring. It can be quite wide and flaccid with age. There is generally no associated smell other than a mild earthiness.
Although very distinctive in appearance, the fly agaric has been mistaken for other yellow to red mushroom species in the Americas, such as Armillaria cf. mellea and the edible A. basii—a Mexican species similar to A. caesarea of Europe. Poison control centres in the U.S. and Canada have become aware that amarill (Spanish for 'yellow') is a common name for the A. caesarea-like species in Mexico. A. caesarea is distinguished by its entirely orange to red cap, which lacks the numerous white warty spots of the fly agaric (though these sometimes wash away during heavy rain). Furthermore, the stem, gills and ring of A. caesarea are bright yellow, not white. The volva is a distinct white bag, not broken into scales. In Australia, the introduced fly agaric may be confused with the native vermilion grisette (Amanita xanthocephala), which grows in association with eucalypts. The latter species generally lacks the white warts of A. muscaria and bears no ring. Additionally, immature button forms resemble puffballs.
Controversy
Amanita muscaria var. formosa is now a synonym for Amanita muscaria var. guessowii.
Amanita muscaria varies considerably in its morphology, and many authorities recognize several subspecies or varieties within the species. In The Agaricales in Modern Taxonomy, German mycologist Rolf Singer listed three subspecies, though without description: A. muscaria ssp. muscaria, A. muscaria ssp. americana, and A. muscaria ssp. flavivolvata.
However, a 2006 molecular phylogenetic study of different regional populations of A. muscaria by mycologist József Geml and colleagues found three distinct clades within this species representing, roughly, Eurasian, Eurasian "subalpine", and North American populations. Specimens belonging to all three clades have been found in Alaska; this has led to the hypothesis that this was the centre of diversification for this species. The study also looked at four named varieties of the species: var. alba, var. flavivolvata, var. formosa (including var. guessowii), and var. regalis from both areas. All four varieties were found within both the Eurasian and North American clades, evidence that these morphological forms are polymorphisms rather than distinct subspecies or varieties. Further molecular study by Geml and colleagues published in 2008 show that these three genetic groups, plus a fourth associated with oak–hickory–pine forest in the southeastern United States and two more on Santa Cruz Island in California, are delineated from each other enough genetically to be considered separate species. Thus A. muscaria as it stands currently is, evidently, a species complex. The complex also includes at least three other closely related taxa that are currently regarded as species: A. breckonii is a buff-capped mushroom associated with conifers from the Pacific Northwest, and the brown-capped A. gioiosa and A. heterochroma from the Mediterranean Basin and from Sardinia respectively. Both of these last two are found with Eucalyptus and Cistus trees, and it is unclear whether they are native or introduced from Australia.
Distribution and habitat
A. muscaria is a cosmopolitan mushroom, native to conifer and deciduous woodlands throughout the temperate and boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere, including higher elevations of warmer latitudes in regions such as Hindu Kush, the Mediterranean and also Central America. A recent molecular study proposes that it had an ancestral origin in the Siberian–Beringian region in the Tertiary period, before radiating outwards across Asia, Europe and North America. The season for fruiting varies in different climates: fruiting occurs in summer and autumn across most of North America, but later in autumn and early winter on the Pacific coast. This species is often found in similar locations to Boletus edulis, and may appear in fairy rings. Conveyed with pine seedlings, it has been widely transported into the southern hemisphere, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America, where it can be found in the Brazilian states of Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul.
Ectomycorrhizal, A. muscaria forms symbiotic relationships with many trees, including pine, oak, spruce, fir, birch, and cedar. Commonly seen under introduced trees, A. muscaria is the fungal equivalent of a weed in New Zealand, Tasmania and Victoria, forming new associations with southern beech (Nothofagus). The species is also invading a rainforest in Australia, where it may be displacing the native species. It appears to be spreading northwards, with recent reports placing it near Port Macquarie on the New South Wales north coast. It was recorded under silver birch (Betula pendula) in Manjimup, Western Australia in 2010. Although it has apparently not spread to eucalypts in Australia, it has been recorded associating with them in Portugal. Commonly found throughout the great Southern region of western Australia, it is regularly found growing on Pinus radiata.
Toxicity
a tall red mushroom with a few white spots on the cap
Mature. The white spots may wash off with heavy rainfall.
A. muscaria poisoning has occurred in young children and in people who ingested the mushrooms for a hallucinogenic experience, or who confused it with an edible species.
A. muscaria contains several biologically active agents, at least one of which, muscimol, is known to be psychoactive. Ibotenic acid, a neurotoxin, serves as a prodrug to muscimol, with a small amount likely converting to muscimol after ingestion. An active dose in adults is approximately 6 mg muscimol or 30 to 60 mg ibotenic acid; this is typically about the amount found in one cap of Amanita muscaria. The amount and ratio of chemical compounds per mushroom varies widely from region to region and season to season, which can further confuse the issue. Spring and summer mushrooms have been reported to contain up to 10 times more ibotenic acid and muscimol than autumn fruitings.
Deaths from A. muscaria have been reported in historical journal articles and newspaper reports, but with modern medical treatment, fatal poisoning from ingesting this mushroom is extremely rare. Many books list A. muscaria as deadly, but according to David Arora, this is an error that implies the mushroom is far more toxic than it is. Furthermore, The North American Mycological Association has stated that there were "no reliably documented cases of death from toxins in these mushrooms in the past 100 years".
The active constituents of this species are water-soluble, and boiling and then discarding the cooking water at least partly detoxifies A. muscaria. Drying may increase potency, as the process facilitates the conversion of ibotenic acid to the more potent muscimol. According to some sources, once detoxified, the mushroom becomes edible. Patrick Harding describes the Sami custom of processing the fly agaric through reindeer.
Pharmacology
Ibotenic acid, a prodrug to muscimol found in A. muscaria
Muscarine, discovered in 1869, was long thought to be the active hallucinogenic agent in A. muscaria. Muscarine binds with muscarinic acetylcholine receptors leading to the excitation of neurons bearing these receptors. The levels of muscarine in Amanita muscaria are minute when compared with other poisonous fungi such as Inosperma erubescens, the small white Clitocybe species C. dealbata and C. rivulosa. The level of muscarine in A. muscaria is too low to play a role in the symptoms of poisoning.
The major toxins involved in A. muscaria poisoning are muscimol (3-hydroxy-5-aminomethyl-1-isoxazole, an unsaturated cyclic hydroxamic acid) and the related amino acid ibotenic acid. Muscimol is the product of the decarboxylation (usually by drying) of ibotenic acid. Muscimol and ibotenic acid were discovered in the mid-20th century. Researchers in England, Japan, and Switzerland showed that the effects produced were due mainly to ibotenic acid and muscimol, not muscarine. These toxins are not distributed uniformly in the mushroom. Most are detected in the cap of the fruit, a moderate amount in the base, with the smallest amount in the stalk. Quite rapidly, between 20 and 90 minutes after ingestion, a substantial fraction of ibotenic acid is excreted unmetabolised in the urine of the consumer. Almost no muscimol is excreted when pure ibotenic acid is eaten, but muscimol is detectable in the urine after eating A. muscaria, which contains both ibotenic acid and muscimol.
Ibotenic acid and muscimol are structurally related to each other and to two major neurotransmitters of the central nervous system: glutamic acid and GABA respectively. Ibotenic acid and muscimol act like these neurotransmitters, muscimol being a potent GABAA agonist, while ibotenic acid is an agonist of NMDA glutamate receptors and certain metabotropic glutamate receptors which are involved in the control of neuronal activity. It is these interactions which are thought to cause the psychoactive effects found in intoxication.
Muscazone is another compound that has more recently been isolated from European specimens of the fly agaric. It is a product of the breakdown of ibotenic acid by ultra-violet radiation. Muscazone is of minor pharmacological activity compared with the other agents. Amanita muscaria and related species are known as effective bioaccumulators of vanadium; some species concentrate vanadium to levels of up to 400 times those typically found in plants. Vanadium is present in fruit-bodies as an organometallic compound called amavadine. The biological importance of the accumulation process is unknown.
Symptoms
Fly agarics are best known for the unpredictability of their effects. Depending on habitat and the amount ingested per body weight, effects can range from mild nausea and twitching to drowsiness, cholinergic crisis-like effects (low blood pressure, sweating and salivation), auditory and visual distortions, mood changes, euphoria, relaxation, ataxia, and loss of equilibrium (like with tetanus.)
In cases of serious poisoning the mushroom causes delirium, somewhat similar in effect to anticholinergic poisoning (such as that caused by Datura stramonium), characterised by bouts of marked agitation with confusion, hallucinations, and irritability followed by periods of central nervous system depression. Seizures and coma may also occur in severe poisonings. Symptoms typically appear after around 30 to 90 minutes and peak within three hours, but certain effects can last for several days. In the majority of cases recovery is complete within 12 to 24 hours. The effect is highly variable between individuals, with similar doses potentially causing quite different reactions. Some people suffering intoxication have exhibited headaches up to ten hours afterwards.[56] Retrograde amnesia and somnolence can result following recovery.
Treatment
Medical attention should be sought in cases of suspected poisoning. If the delay between ingestion and treatment is less than four hours, activated charcoal is given. Gastric lavage can be considered if the patient presents within one hour of ingestion. Inducing vomiting with syrup of ipecac is no longer recommended in any poisoning situation.
There is no antidote, and supportive care is the mainstay of further treatment for intoxication. Though sometimes referred to as a deliriant and while muscarine was first isolated from A. muscaria and as such is its namesake, muscimol does not have action, either as an agonist or antagonist, at the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor site, and therefore atropine or physostigmine as an antidote is not recommended. If a patient is delirious or agitated, this can usually be treated by reassurance and, if necessary, physical restraints. A benzodiazepine such as diazepam or lorazepam can be used to control combativeness, agitation, muscular overactivity, and seizures. Only small doses should be used, as they may worsen the respiratory depressant effects of muscimol. Recurrent vomiting is rare, but if present may lead to fluid and electrolyte imbalances; intravenous rehydration or electrolyte replacement may be required. Serious cases may develop loss of consciousness or coma, and may need intubation and artificial ventilation. Hemodialysis can remove the toxins, although this intervention is generally considered unnecessary. With modern medical treatment the prognosis is typically good following supportive treatment.
Uses
The wide range of psychoactive effects have been variously described as depressant, sedative-hypnotic, psychedelic, dissociative, or deliriant; paradoxical effects such as stimulation may occur however. Perceptual phenomena such as synesthesia, macropsia, and micropsia may occur; the latter two effects may occur either simultaneously or alternatingly, as part of Alice in Wonderland syndrome, collectively known as dysmetropsia, along with related distortions pelopsia and teleopsia. Some users report lucid dreaming under the influence of its hypnotic effects. Unlike Psilocybe cubensis, A. muscaria cannot be commercially cultivated, due to its mycorrhizal relationship with the roots of pine trees. However, following the outlawing of psilocybin mushrooms in the United Kingdom in 2006, the sale of the still legal A. muscaria began increasing.
Marija Gimbutas reported to R. Gordon Wasson that in remote areas of Lithuania, A. muscaria has been consumed at wedding feasts, in which mushrooms were mixed with vodka. She also reported that the Lithuanians used to export A. muscaria to the Sami in the Far North for use in shamanic rituals. The Lithuanian festivities are the only report that Wasson received of ingestion of fly agaric for religious use in Eastern Europe.
Siberia
A. muscaria was widely used as an entheogen by many of the indigenous peoples of Siberia. Its use was known among almost all of the Uralic-speaking peoples of western Siberia and the Paleosiberian-speaking peoples of the Russian Far East. There are only isolated reports of A. muscaria use among the Tungusic and Turkic peoples of central Siberia and it is believed that on the whole entheogenic use of A. muscaria was not practised by these peoples. In western Siberia, the use of A. muscaria was restricted to shamans, who used it as an alternative method of achieving a trance state. (Normally, Siberian shamans achieve trance by prolonged drumming and dancing.) In eastern Siberia, A. muscaria was used by both shamans and laypeople alike, and was used recreationally as well as religiously. In eastern Siberia, the shaman would take the mushrooms, and others would drink his urine. This urine, still containing psychoactive elements, may be more potent than the A. muscaria mushrooms with fewer negative effects such as sweating and twitching, suggesting that the initial user may act as a screening filter for other components in the mushroom.
The Koryak of eastern Siberia have a story about the fly agaric (wapaq) which enabled Big Raven to carry a whale to its home. In the story, the deity Vahiyinin ("Existence") spat onto earth, and his spittle became the wapaq, and his saliva becomes the warts. After experiencing the power of the wapaq, Raven was so exhilarated that he told it to grow forever on earth so his children, the people, could learn from it. Among the Koryaks, one report said that the poor would consume the urine of the wealthy, who could afford to buy the mushrooms. It was reported that the local reindeer would often follow an individual intoxicated by the muscimol mushroom, and if said individual were to urinate in snow the reindeer would become similarly intoxicated and the Koryak people's would use the drunken state of the reindeer to more easily rope and hunt them.
Other reports and theories
The Finnish historian T. I. Itkonen mentions that A. muscaria was once used among the Sámi peoples. Sorcerers in Inari would consume fly agarics with seven spots. In 1979, Said Gholam Mochtar and Hartmut Geerken published an article in which they claimed to have discovered a tradition of medicinal and recreational use of this mushroom among a Parachi-speaking group in Afghanistan. There are also unconfirmed reports of religious use of A. muscaria among two Subarctic Native American tribes. Ojibwa ethnobotanist Keewaydinoquay Peschel reported its use among her people, where it was known as miskwedo (an abbreviation of the name oshtimisk wajashkwedo (= "red-top mushroom"). This information was enthusiastically received by Wasson, although evidence from other sources was lacking. There is also one account of a Euro-American who claims to have been initiated into traditional Tlicho use of Amanita muscaria. The flying reindeer of Santa Claus, who is called Joulupukki in Finland, could symbolize the use of A. muscaria by Sámi shamans. However, Sámi scholars and the Sámi peoples themselves refute any connection between Santa Claus and Sámi history or culture.
"The story of Santa emerging from a Sámi shamanic tradition has a critical number of flaws," asserts Tim Frandy, assistant professor of Nordic Studies at the University of British Columbia and a member of the Sámi descendent community in North America. "The theory has been widely criticized by Sámi people as a stereotypical and problematic romanticized misreading of actual Sámi culture."
Vikings
The notion that Vikings used A. muscaria to produce their berserker rages was first suggested by the Swedish professor Samuel Ödmann in 1784. Ödmann based his theories on reports about the use of fly agaric among Siberian shamans. The notion has become widespread since the 19th century, but no contemporary sources mention this use or anything similar in their description of berserkers. Muscimol is generally a mild relaxant, but it can create a range of different reactions within a group of people. It is possible that it could make a person angry, or cause them to be "very jolly or sad, jump about, dance, sing or give way to great fright". Comparative analysis of symptoms have, however, since shown Hyoscyamus niger to be a better fit to the state that characterises the berserker rage.
Soma
See also: Botanical identity of Soma-Haoma
In 1968, R. Gordon Wasson proposed that A. muscaria was the soma talked about in the Rigveda of India, a claim which received widespread publicity and popular support at the time. He noted that descriptions of Soma omitted any description of roots, stems or seeds, which suggested a mushroom, and used the adjective hári "dazzling" or "flaming" which the author interprets as meaning red. One line described men urinating Soma; this recalled the practice of recycling urine in Siberia. Soma is mentioned as coming "from the mountains", which Wasson interpreted as the mushroom having been brought in with the Aryan migrants from the north. Indian scholars Santosh Kumar Dash and Sachinanda Padhy pointed out that both eating of mushrooms and drinking of urine were proscribed, using as a source the Manusmṛti. In 1971, Vedic scholar John Brough from Cambridge University rejected Wasson's theory and noted that the language was too vague to determine a description of Soma. In his 1976 survey, Hallucinogens and Culture, anthropologist Peter T. Furst evaluated the evidence for and against the identification of the fly agaric mushroom as the Vedic Soma, concluding cautiously in its favour. Kevin Feeney and Trent Austin compared the references in the Vedas with the filtering mechanisms in the preparation of Amanita muscaria and published findings supporting the proposal that fly-agaric mushrooms could be a likely candidate for the sacrament. Other proposed candidates include Psilocybe cubensis, Peganum harmala, and Ephedra.
Christianity
Philologist, archaeologist, and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar John Marco Allegro postulated that early Christian theology was derived from a fertility cult revolving around the entheogenic consumption of A. muscaria in his 1970 book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. This theory has found little support by scholars outside the field of ethnomycology. The book was widely criticized by academics and theologians, including Sir Godfrey Driver, emeritus Professor of Semitic Philology at Oxford University and Henry Chadwick, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. Christian author John C. King wrote a detailed rebuttal of Allegro's theory in the 1970 book A Christian View of the Mushroom Myth; he notes that neither fly agarics nor their host trees are found in the Middle East, even though cedars and pines are found there, and highlights the tenuous nature of the links between biblical and Sumerian names coined by Allegro. He concludes that if the theory were true, the use of the mushroom must have been "the best kept secret in the world" as it was so well concealed for two thousand years.
Fly trap
Amanita muscaria is traditionally used for catching flies possibly due to its content of ibotenic acid and muscimol, which lead to its common name "fly agaric". Recently, an analysis of nine different methods for preparing A. muscaria for catching flies in Slovenia have shown that the release of ibotenic acid and muscimol did not depend on the solvent (milk or water) and that thermal and mechanical processing led to faster extraction of ibotenic acid and muscimol.
Culinary
The toxins in A. muscaria are water-soluble: parboiling A. muscaria fruit bodies can detoxify them and render them edible, although consumption of the mushroom as a food has never been widespread. The consumption of detoxified A. muscaria has been practiced in some parts of Europe (notably by Russian settlers in Siberia) since at least the 19th century, and likely earlier. The German physician and naturalist Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff wrote the earliest published account on how to detoxify this mushroom in 1823. In the late 19th century, the French physician Félix Archimède Pouchet was a populariser and advocate of A. muscaria consumption, comparing it to manioc, an important food source in tropical South America that must also be detoxified before consumption.
Use of this mushroom as a food source also seems to have existed in North America. A classic description of this use of A. muscaria by an African-American mushroom seller in Washington, D.C., in the late 19th century is described by American botanist Frederick Vernon Coville. In this case, the mushroom, after parboiling, and soaking in vinegar, is made into a mushroom sauce for steak. It is also consumed as a food in parts of Japan. The most well-known current use as an edible mushroom is in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. There, it is primarily salted and pickled.
A 2008 paper by food historian William Rubel and mycologist David Arora gives a history of consumption of A. muscaria as a food and describes detoxification methods. They advocate that Amanita muscaria be described in field guides as an edible mushroom, though accompanied by a description on how to detoxify it. The authors state that the widespread descriptions in field guides of this mushroom as poisonous is a reflection of cultural bias, as several other popular edible species, notably morels, are also toxic unless properly cooked.
In culture
The red-and-white spotted toadstool is a common image in many aspects of popular culture. Garden ornaments and children's picture books depicting gnomes and fairies, such as the Smurfs, often show fly agarics used as seats, or homes. Fly agarics have been featured in paintings since the Renaissance, albeit in a subtle manner. For instance, in Hieronymus Bosch's painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, the mushroom can be seen on the left-hand panel of the work. In the Victorian era they became more visible, becoming the main topic of some fairy paintings. Two of the most famous uses of the mushroom are in the Mario franchise (specifically two of the Super Mushroom power-up items and the platforms in several stages which are based on a fly agaric), and the dancing mushroom sequence in the 1940 Disney film Fantasia.
An account of the journeys of Philip von Strahlenberg to Siberia and his descriptions of the use of the mukhomor there was published in English in 1736. The drinking of urine of those who had consumed the mushroom was commented on by Anglo-Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith in his widely read 1762 novel, Citizen of the World. The mushroom had been identified as the fly agaric by this time. Other authors recorded the distortions of the size of perceived objects while intoxicated by the fungus, including naturalist Mordecai Cubitt Cooke in his books The Seven Sisters of Sleep and A Plain and Easy Account of British Fungi. This observation is thought to have formed the basis of the effects of eating the mushroom in the 1865 popular story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A hallucinogenic "scarlet toadstool" from Lappland is featured as a plot element in Charles Kingsley's 1866 novel Hereward the Wake based on the medieval figure of the same name. Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow describes the fungus as a "relative of the poisonous Destroying angel" and presents a detailed description of a character preparing a cookie bake mixture from harvested Amanita muscaria. Fly agaric shamanism is also explored in the 2003 novel Thursbitch by Alan Garner.
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“pain and love have no borders,
even if we raise walls not to see the pain
and we put boundaries to not recognize love.”
(Enzo Bianchi)
“il dolore e l'amore non hanno frontiere,
anche se noi alziamo muri per non vedere il dolore
e mettiamo confini per non riconoscere l'amore.”
(Enzo Bianchi)
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Questo è un racconto fotografico, realizzato in due giornate nel maggio di quest'anno 2023, nel paese di Limina, in provincia di Messina (lo stesso Santo è celebrato nel paese di Calatabiano, in provincia di Catania, con una spettacolare corsa in discesa !), si realizzano così due tipiche feste religiose tradizionali siciliane che hanno in comune la devozione verso questo santo, San Filippo: egli viene raffigurato di colore “nero” poiché una leggenda lo vede protagonista di una lotta negli Inferi contro Lucifero, dalla cui lotta ne viene fuori ricoperto di fuliggine. San Filippo è un santo molto festeggiato non solo in Sicilia, ma lo è anche nel Salernitano, in Calabria (questi culti si realizzano seguendo il suo percorso fatto in vita) fino ad arrivare al suo culto nell’isola di Malta. La vicinanza con Taormina (paese nel quale abito e lavoro) dei paesi di Calatabiano e Limina, mi facilita certamente il compito di realizzare fotografie di queste feste tradizionali, compatibilmente coi miei turni lavorativi; in entrambi i paesi le feste si svolgono in due giornate; in quel di Limina durante la prima giornata il Santo viene portato in spalla da una chiesa posta in lieve periferia nel paese di Limina fino “al borgo Murazzo”, che dista circa 8 chilometri, sono così 8 Km che vengono percorsi correndo ininterrottamente (tranne una breve sosta di raccoglimento in località “Durbi”); poi ad otto giorni di distanza (la cosiddetta “ottava”) il Santo esce portato in spalla con una corsa “sfrenata-indiavolata” che inizia da un’altra chiesa nel centro di Limina, giungendo poi dopo una ripidissima e faticosissima salita in cima al “Monte Calvario”, poi ridiscende e girovaga tra i quartieri del paese, (ed oltre, fino alla contrada "Durbi", per poi ritornare in paese): non si tratta di un semplice girovagare, in momenti ben stabiliti, il Santo viene “fatto ballare” con uno sfrenato andirivieni su percorsi rettilinei alternato ad un movimento rotatorio vorticoso su se stesso: questa è una differenza sostanziale con la vara di Calatabiano (quest’ultima è pesantissima, circa 12 quintali, percorre un percorso impervio, molto ripido e scosceso in discesa, con “gradoni” in pietra molto alti in parte mancanti , questo è un antico percorso realizzato per giungere al castello Normanno), sicché in Calatabiano la “parodia” con gli esorcismi compiuti dal Santo Nero, consiste nella relativa velocità impressa al Santo durante il percorso, invece a Limina, la vara essendo più leggera, consente ai devoti andature rapide, rettilinee e vorticose, moviemnti anch’essi che rievocano i movimenti convulsi compiuti dagli indemoniati sottoposti agli esorcismi del Santo (un certo rischio di capovolgimento è insito in entrambe le vare). Nel paese di Calatabiano San Filippo acquista l’appellativo di “Siriaco”, cioè proveniente dalla Siria, mentre nel paese di Limina Egli acquista l’appellativo “d’Agira”, dal nome del paese, in provincia di Enna, dove egli morirà: è sempre lo stesso santo (cambia un pochino la fisionomia del volto), in entrambe le statue la mano destra è alzata ad inviare una benedizione, oppure ad effettuare un esorcismo, la mano sinistra stringe un libro (è il documento “apotropaico” che gli diede San Pietro, per consentirgli di vincere le forze del Male). Aggiungo qualche breve cenno sulla vita di questo santo, anche per cercare di capire come nasce il suo culto in Sicilia, come anche in altri paesi al di fuori dell'isola. Le fonti che parlano di San Filippo sono due, chiamate “le Cronache di Eusebio d’Agira” e “le Cronache di Atanasio”, queste cronache tra loro sono in buona parte discordanti, tranne le descrizioni sulle sue caratteristiche di sacerdote e di taumaturgo, sulle sue capacità di compiere esorcismi scacciando i demoni dagli impossessati. Egli nacque probabilmente in Tracia (regione sud-orientale della penisola balcanica nel 40 d.C. (?), all’epoca era una provincia romana, ai tempi d’Arcadio, imperatore romano d’Oriente, nato da padre siriano e da madre romana, nella sua infanzia fu educato ai principi del Cristianesimo che andava propagandosi anche in quelle terre. Egli giunge dalla Tracia a Roma, viene ordinato sacerdote da Pietro, ed è proprio da Lui che viene mandato in Sicilia (terra pagana sotto il dominio Romano), col compito di evangelizzare quei luoghi e compiere esorcismi; sbarca a Capo Faro a Messina iniziando fin da subito il suo mandato, poi percorre la fascia orientale della Sicilia dirigendosi a sud verso l’Etna (ecco che Limina e Calatabiano, interessati dal suo passaggio, grazie alle sue capacità di guaritore ed esorcista, gli divengono devote); giunge così al paese di Agira (Enna), dove lì muore dopo quarant’anni di Apostolato nell’isola.
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This is a photographic story, taken over two days in May of this year 2023, in the town of Limina, in the province of Messina (the Saint himself is celebrated in the town of Calatabiano, in the province of Catania, with a spectacular downhill race! ), two typical traditional Sicilian religious festivals are thus held which have in common the devotion towards this saint, San Filippo: he is depicted as "black" in color since a legend sees him as the protagonist of a fight in the Underworld against Lucifer, from whose fight he it comes out covered in soot. San Filippo is a much celebrated saint not only in Sicily, but also in the Salerno area, in Calabria (these cults are carried out following the path he followed in life) up to the cult of him on the island of Malta. The proximity of the towns of Calatabiano and Limina to Taormina (the town where I live and work) certainly facilitates the task of taking photographs of these traditional festivals, compatibly with my work shifts; in both countries the celebrations take place over two days; in Limina, during the first day, the Saint is carried on his shoulders from a church located on the outskirts of the town of Limina to "the village of Murazzo", which is about 8 kilometers away, thus 8 km which are covered by running continuously (except for one short rest stop in the “Durbi” area); then eight days later (the so-called "octave") the Saint comes out carried on his shoulder with a "wild-desperate" run that starts from another church in the center of Limina, arriving after a very steep and tiring climb to the top of the “mountain Calvario”, then descends again and wanders through the districts of the town (and beyond, up to the "Durbi" district, to then return to the town): it is not a simple wandering, at well-established moments, the Saint comes " made to dance" with an unbridled coming and going on straight paths alternating with a swirling rotary movement on itself: this is a substantial difference with the Calatabiano launch (the float is very heavy, around 12 quintals, and travels along an impervious, very steep and steep path downhill, with very high stone "steps" partly missing, this is an ancient route built to reach the Norman castle), so that in Calatabiano the "parody" with the exorcisms performed by the Black Saint consists in the relative speed given to the Saint during the journey, however, in Limina, the launch being lighter, allows the devotees rapid, straight and whirling gaits, movements which also recall the convulsive movements performed by the demoniacs subjected to the Saint's exorcisms (a certain risk of capsizing is inherent in both floats). In the town of Calatabiano San Filippo acquires the name of "Siriaco", that is, coming from Syria, while in the town of Limina he acquires the name "from Agira", from the name of the town, in the province of Enna (Sicily), where he died: it is always the same saint (the physiognomy of the face changes a little), in both statues the right hand is raised to send a blessing, or to carry out an exorcism, the left hand holds a book (it is the "apotropaic" document that gave Saint Peter, to allow him to defeat the forces of Evil). I add some brief information on the life of this saint, also to try to understand how the cult of him was born in Sicily, as well as in other countries outside the island. There are two sources that speak of Saint Philip, called "the Chronicles of Eusebius of Agira" and "the Chronicles of Athanasius", these chronicles are largely discordant with each other, except for the descriptions of his characteristics as a priest and a miracle worker, on his ability to perform exorcisms by expelling demons from those possessed. He was probably born in Thrace (south-eastern region of the Balkan peninsula in 40 AD (?), at the time it was a Roman province, at the time of Arcadius, Eastern Roman emperor, born to a Syrian father and a Roman mother, in In his childhood he was educated in the principles of Christianity which was also spreading in those lands. He came from Thrace to Rome, was ordained a priest by Peter, and it was by him that he was sent to Sicily (a pagan land under Roman rule), with the task to evangelize those places and carry out exorcisms; he lands at Capo Faro in Messina, starting his mandate immediately, then travels along the eastern strip of Sicily heading south towards Etna (here Limina and Calatabiano, affected by his passage, thanks to the his abilities as a healer and exorcist become devoted to him); he thus reaches the town of Agira (Enna), where he dies after forty years of apostolate on the island.
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Limina, S. Filippo torna a correre dopo due anni di pandemia. E’ la rievocazione dei miracoli
Limina. San Filippo d'Agira, il film della festa 2022
Festeggiamenti di San Filippo d’Agira - Limina 11 maggio parte 1
PROMO San Filippo D'Agira - Limina (ME) 2022
Festeggiamenti in onore di San Filippo d’Agira - Limina 21 maggio 2022 parte 2
Festeggiamenti in onore di San Filippo d’Agira - Limina 21 maggio 2022 parte 3
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The Other Son | Official US Trailer
The Other Son | "Joseph meets with his Rabbi" | Official Clip
Mehdi Dehbi in the Making of The Other Son
IL FIGLIO DELL' ALTRA - Clip 7
IL FIGLIO DELL' ALTRA - Clip 2
IL FIGLIO DELL' ALTRA - Clip 5
Il figlio dell'altra - Trailer
IL FIGLIO DELL' ALTRA - Clip 6
IL FIGLIO DELL' ALTRA - Clip 9
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IL FIGLIO DELL'ALTRA, trailer italiano, regia di Lorraine Lévy
You may recognize them? Yes I have shown a few photos of this school class. This is my favourite one. Hope you don't mind meeting them again.
I like them for the happiness they spread, for their unreflecting charm and for their generous acceptance of people they never ever met before... not caring about age or race. I also like to see boys and girls play together on equal terms. I believe this photo shows that exactly. And I love how all the ties go astray :-)
Photo was taken in southern Sri Lanka, on their school excursion to a folk museum, not far from Galle.
Photo of Beaver Creek captured via Minolta MD Zoom Rokkor-X 24-50mm F/4 lens. Olympic National Forest. Coast Range. Olympic Peninsula. Clallam County, Washington. Late December 2016.
Exposure Time: 1/6 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-100 * Aperture: F/11 * Bracketing: None * Color Temperature: 7100 K * Film Plug-In: Kodak Portra 160 VC
*Truly have a passion for unique landscape and thought provoking shots?? Please be sure to check out my partner Slick 406's work at: www.flickr.com/photos/156943980@N03
One of the most recognizable buildings in Texas is the Alamo in downtown San Antonio Texas. It is known worldwide by its characteristic shape. The Alamo began as the Mission San Antonio de Valero, a Spanish Mission, in the early 1700's, one of the first in Texas. The establishment of this mission played a crucial role in the settlement of San Antonio, Texas and the Southwest. "Mission San Antonio de Valero" has not always been at this location. The original mission was founded near the headwaters of San Pedro Creek in 1718. In 1719 the mission was relocated a short distance to the south of where it sits today. A 1724 storm destroyed structures at the new site, prompting Spanish officials to relocate the mission to its present spot. It was the mission compound constructed here at the 1724 location that later gained fame as the Alamo. While this is the third spot for Mission San Antonio de Valero, it is the only place the "Alamo" has ever been. The San Antonio de Valero Mission was built to provide local indigenous people, or Indians, with protection from hostile tribes and conversion to the Catholic faith, the state religion of Spain at that time. Accordingly, the first residents of San Antonio de Valero were members of Native American tribes like the Payaya, Sama, Pachaque and other Coahuiltecan Indian tribes. Spanish missionaries provided religious services and directed the work of those residing inside the Mission. Those residents who died in the mission were often buried in front of the Church, according to Spanish tradition. Consequently, the area in front of the Alamo Shrine represented with a patch of green grass, the Campo Santo, is considered hallowed burial ground.
It's difficult to pinpoint when the Valero mission was first called "Alamo." In 1803 a company of Spanish soldiers arrived in San Antonio de Valero or Bejar, now simply known as San Antonio. They were housed in and around the mission, which became known as the Presidio de Bejar. Over time the presidio/mission became know as The Alamo and its garrison as The Alamo Company presumably because of a row of Cottonwood Trees nearby the Mission. Alamo means cottonwood tree in Spanish.
San Antonio de Bexar had long been an important place in Texas. Not only was it home to a military garrison, it was a crossroads and center of commerce. By the early 1830s, the town's population had grown to nearly 2,500. With the outbreak of revolt in Coahuila y Tejas, San Antonio even resumed its old role as the capital of Texas. San Antonio experienced two sieges and battles during the Texas Revolution. The first, the Siege and Battle of Bexar, began in late October 1835 after the incident in Gonzales when angry colonists and Tejanos followed the retreating Alamo Company back to San Antonio in the early stage of the revolution. When the Texian siege of the town stalled, soldier and empresario Ben Milam rallied a force on December 5 that fought its way into the center of San Antonio. After a bloody five-day, house-to-house fight, the Texians took control of the town and Mexican General Martin Perfecto de Cos surrendered the town and the public property it held. Thus, the rebels gained control of San Antonio and the Alamo.
The second battle occurred when the Mexican forces marched north to squash the rebellion and take back San Antonio de Bexar. On February 23, 1836, the arrival of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's army outside San Antonio nearly caught the rebels by surprise. Undaunted, the Texians and Tejanos prepared to defend the Alamo together. Eventually the rebels retreated to the inside of the Alamo compound and the siege of the Alamo began. The defenders held out for 13 days against Santa Anna's army. William B. Travis, the commander of the Alamo sent forth couriers carrying pleas for help to communities in Texas. On the eighth day of the siege, a band of 32 volunteers from Gonzales arrived, bringing the number of defenders to nearly two hundred. Legend holds that with the possibility of additional help fading, Colonel Travis drew a line on the ground and asked any man willing to stay and fight to step over — all except one did.
As the defenders saw it, the Alamo was the key to the defense of Texas, and they were ready to give their lives rather than surrender their position to General Santa Anna. Among the Alamo's garrison were Jim Bowie, renowned knife fighter, and David Crockett, famed frontiersman and former congressman from Tennessee.
The final assault came before daybreak on the morning of March 6, 1836, as columns of Mexican soldiers emerged from the predawn darkness and headed for the Alamo's walls. Cannon and small arms fire from inside the Alamo beat back several attacks. Regrouping, the Mexicans scaled the walls and rushed into the compound.
Once inside, they turned a captured cannon on the Long Barrack and church, blasting open the barricaded doors. The desperate struggle continued until the defenders were overwhelmed. By sunrise, the battle had ended and Santa Anna entered the Alamo compound to survey the scene of his victory.
While the facts surrounding the siege of the Alamo continue to be debated, there is no doubt about what the battle has come to symbolize. People worldwide continue to remember the Alamo as a heroic struggle against impossible odds; a place where men made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom. For this reason, the Alamo remains hallowed ground and the Shrine of Texas Liberty.
The sign reading "Crockett' on the right hand side of the photograph is not on the Alamo but on the Historic Crockett Hotel. The landmark Hotel was built in 1909 and is reportedly haunted by past guests who died but never checked out. At this angle, the hotel, named for the famous frontiersman and Alamo defender Davy Crockett, is behind the right side of the Alamo Complex.
Recognizing the absence of the female voice in American theatre, the DCPA Theatre Company established the Women's Voices Fund in 2005 to commission, develop and produce new plays by women. Now, 14 years later, the Fund has surpassed $1.6 million and enabled the Theatre Company to produce 30 plays by women (including 13 world premieres), commissioned 19 female playwrights and hired 23 female directors. The Hattitude tradition grew out of the Theatre Company’s presentation of Regina Taylor’s "Crowns" in 2005. Her musical play explored black history and identity, using an exquisite variety of hats to tell the shared history and rituals of African-American women, ranging in era from slavery to current fashion. This year's speakers included DCPA CEO Janice Sinden and "Last Night and the Night Before" Playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays. The emcee was Gloria Neal, and the entertainment included Neyla Pekarek, Abby Noble and Abby Lehrer. The lunch culminates each year in a runway walk where each table designates one representative, and prizes are awarded. For more information on the Women's Voices Fund, go to www.denvercenter.org/support-us/give-now/womens-voices-fund/. Photos by Amanda Tipton for the DCPA NewsCenter.
There are at least 28 recognized subspecies of barn owl spread across every continent except Antarctica. Some sources claim as many as 46, but I suppose it depends on whether you are a "lumper" or a "splitter". The North American subspecies pranticola is the largest. In Central Oregon my experience has been that barn owls generally nest in their more natural habitat of caves and crevices in rimrock cliffs throughout the region, leaving hay barns and abandoned buildings to more aggressive great-horned owls and ravens. They do like to nest in hay bales, which unfortunately results in large numbers of chicks being killed or injured when the hay is moved mid-summer.
The High Street in Oxford, England, runs between Carfax, generally recognized as the centre of the city, and Magdalen Bridge to the east.
The street has been described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "one of the world's great streets". It forms a gentle curve and is the subject of many prints, paintings, photographs, etc. The vista looking west towards Carfax with University College on the left and The Queen's College on the right is an especially popular view. There are many historical buildings on the street, including Oxford University buildings and colleges. Locally the street is often known as The High.
To the north are (west to east): Lincoln College (main entrance on Turl Street, including All Saints Church (with the mighty spire near the centre of the picture), now Lincoln College's library.), Brasenose College (main entrance in Radcliffe Square), St Mary's (the University Church), All Souls College, The Queen's College, St Edmund Hall (main entrance in Queen's Lane) and Magdalen College (including Magdalen Tower).
To the south are (west to east): Oriel College, University College (including the Boyle-Hooke plaque outside the Shelley Memorial), the Examination Schools, the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, the Eastgate Hotel (at the original entrance to the city) and the Botanic Garden.
All Saints Church is now the library of Lincoln College. This former church is Grade I listed.
he original All Saints Church was founded in 1122 on this site.[2] However, on 8 March 1700, the spire of the church collapsed, destroying most of the building. There was an appeal for funds and the current building, seating 350, was completed in 1720. The building was designed by Henry Aldrich, the Dean of Christ Church. Nicholas Hawksmoor is thought to be responsible for the tower and spire. Four of the original bells survived the collapse. The repairs to the church were very expensive and donations were received from most of the Oxford colleges and also Queen Anne.
In 1896, when St Martin's Church at Carfax was demolished, All Saints became the official City Church, where the Mayor and Corporation were expected to worship. In 1946 a Union Jack which had been draped over the coffins of prisoners of war at Batu Lintang camp, Sarawak, Borneo was placed in the church together with two wooden memorial plaques; they were later moved to Dorchester Abbey. In 1971, All Saints Church was declared redundant and the City Church move to St Michael at the North Gate. All Saints was thus deconsecrated and offered to Lincoln College, located immediately to the north of the church. Since 1975, after conversion, the building has been Lincoln College's library.
The only major change to the interior of the church during its conversion into a library was the raising of the original floor by over four feet to provide space for the lower reading rooms. The upper reading room is known as the Cohen Room and has an elegant plastered ceiling. The decorations include the shields of the major donors who contributed to the cost of the conversion. The lower reading room is the science library and the senior library, holding older books. The science section is named after a former Lincoln College Fellow, Howard Florey (1898–1968), instrumental in the development of penicillin.
The Library still has a full peal of eight bells, which are regularly rung by the Oxford Society of Change Ringers, founded in 1734. They are also rung for special occasions, such as the election of a new Rector of the College.
The High Street is part of the A420 road which runs between Bristol and Oxford. It is a primary route between Swindon and Oxford.
Since the opening of the M4 motorway, the road is in two sections. The first section begins on Old Market Street near the centre of Bristol, it passes through Kingswood before leaving the city on the east side. From here it travels eastward over the southern part of the Cotswolds, to the north of Bath, to Chippenham in Wiltshire.
The second section starts at a junction with the A419 east of Swindon. It then travels under the Great Western Main Line at the twin-arch Acorn Bridge and by-passes Shrivenham (the road originally went through Shrivenham, but the by-pass was built in the mid-1980s) and Watchfield, then on towards Faringdon in the Vale of White Horse. A new[date missing] section by-passes Faringdon, just south of Folly Hill and crosses the A417.
The A420 then travels the corallian limestone ridge that forms the north-west boundary of the Vale of White Horse, passing Littleworth, Buckland and Longworth. A dual-carriageway section by-passes Southmoor and Kingston Bagpuize on its way to Oxford. Most of the road between Swindon and Oxford, apart from the dual carriageway sections and a short section around Faringdon, is limited to 50mph.
A further dual-carriageway section bypasses Cumnor Hill, to give a view of the "City of Dreaming Spires" that is Oxford from the west. It then passes the Oxford Ring Road, through the suburb of Botley and down the Botley Road. It crosses the River Thames on Osney Bridge and reaches here in central Oxford. Within Oxford, it is routed along Oxpens Road, then Thames Street, parts of St Aldate's then the High Street, which is closed to most motor traffic. The road then crosses Magdalen Bridge to St Clements and East Oxford and ascends the notoriously steep Headington Hill to the suburb of Headington before terminating at the Green Road roundabout, where it meets the A40 and the Oxford Ring Road.
Large vehicles such as lorries are advised by large signs at Oxford and Swindon not to take this route and use the alternative A34 and M4 route to Swindon. This is not enforced and the road is often heavily congested due to slow HGVs taking the shorter A420 route.
The road from Botley through Oxford to Headington was originally part of the A40. When the northern Oxford bypass was built in the 1930s, the A40 was rerouted along the bypass and the road through Oxford was renumbered A420.
Recognized as ‘One of the Top 14 Places in the World to See Spring Flowers’ by MSN.com in 2010, Dallas Blooms is the largest floral festival in the southwest with over 500,000 spring-blooming bulbs. Tulips, daffodils and hyacinths abound in the 66 acre garden with vibrant colors creating an amazing backdrop to the city of Dallas. March 5-April 10, 2011
There are few homes in Wellington today more readily recognizable than the gorgeous Italianate “painted lady” standing at 226 South Main Street. For nearly a century-and-a-half, the house gazed across the road at a bustling school campus. In 1867, the Union School had first been erected, and evolved over time into McCormick Middle School, which was sadly removed in 2016. By the mid-twentieth century, the once grand residence had fallen into a state of disrepair, and it is therefore fondly recalled by Wellington schoolchildren of that era as “the haunted house.”
The house may or may not be haunted, but its origins are somewhat mysterious, in the sense that they are obscured by the mists of time. The land on which 226 South Main stands is legally defined as block 1, lot 17. In 1852, early Wellington settler Loring Wadsworth first paid taxes on that lot. Wadsworth had been born in Becket, Massachusetts in 1800, emigrating to Ohio in 1821. In later life, he was one of the men charged in connection with the Oberlin-Wellington Slave Rescue of 1858, as he was believed to be an operator on the Underground Railroad. Wadsworth served twenty-one days in jail as a result, and was later elected mayor of Wellington, possibly in recognition of his principled actions. He served as mayor from April 1860 to April 1861, and died in 1862.
Wadsworth owned several lots adjacent to what is today 226 South Main. The 1857 Map of Lorain County, Ohio (which features a detailed inset of Wellington) shows that in that year, he owned block 1, lots 16, 17 and 90, with the family residence located on lot 16. The Greek Revival house that still stands today at 222 South Main is likely one of the older residences in town, erected by Wadsworth and his family as early as the 1830s.
Though Wadsworth died in 1862, his estate continued to be listed as the taxpayer of record on his former land holdings until well into the 1870s. This was not an uncommon practice; I have always assumed that it had something to do with settling the deceased’s estate, though in this instance, a much longer period of time passed than I have seen before. Whatever the financial or legal reasons, Loring Wadsworth was still listed on village tax rolls for block 1, lot 17 in 1871, when the value of the land suddenly jumped–after decades of remaining flat and unchanging–from $42 to $278. This strongly suggests that a house was first erected on the lot sometime in the period of 1870 to 1871.
Loring’s widow, Statira Kingsbury Wadsworth, died in 1871. Even then, the land and property formerly owned by her husband continued to appear in corporation tax records under his name. It was not until 1874–twelve years after Wadsworth died–that the property legally changed hands. In that year, block 1, lot 17, still valued at $278, passed into the ownership of Horace N. Wadsworth, William Gunn and local cheese dealer William D. Minor.
A real estate transfer published in the Oberlin Weekly News showed the sale of lot 17 was made by Benjamin Wadsworth to Horace Wadsworth and William Gunn for $667. Benjamin Wadsworth was the eldest son of Loring Wadsworth. By the end of the nineteenth century, he was known as “the largest landowner among the agriculturalists of Lorain County,” with over one thousand acres and a well-regarded sheep breeding operation. It has been suggested that Benjamin Wadsworth built 226 South Main as a “retirement home” for his own use. Wadsworth was forty-nine years old in 1870, the conjectured date of construction. Wellington tax records from the period show that he owned no property in the village; instead, he maintained a steady holding of 145 acres in lot 24, the southwestern corner of the township. The 1870 federal census shows Benjamin (49), his wife Maria (44), and children Elmer (18) and Jane (12) living in Huntington; in 1880, Benjamin (59) and Maria (54) were still in Huntington, living next door to Elmer and his wife, Mary, both aged 28. While Benjamin Wadsworth was somehow involved in the construction of the house on lot 17, he sold it soon after completion. The three men listed as taxpayers in the 1874 rolls were most likely conducting real estate transactions for profit, rather than purchasing the house for personal use.
In 1875, a small addition was put on the house, increasing its value slightly to $300. That same year, the property was sold again. From that point forward, the taxpayer of record was one Hattie McClaran. Harriet “Hattie” Lovett McClaran (ca. 1845-1889) was the wife of local physician Dr. Thomas M. McClaran. Harriet was born in Shreve, Ohio, approximately thirty miles southwest of Wellington. She and Thomas were married in Holmes County on March 20, 1866. Thomas had served as a private in the 4th Regiment, Co. E, Ohio Infantry of the Union Army. Wounded during his military service, he collected a disability pension later in life. After the war, Thomas decided to attend medical school, and graduated from the University of Wooster Medical Department in 1874. McClaran suffered from lifelong ill health and was frequently mentioned in the local newspapers as traveling to more beneficial climates, apparently without his family.
The 1880 federal census showed five adults and one child living together in the household: Thomas McClaran (37); Harriet McClaran (35); Lillian McClaran (11); servant Annie Spicer (24); and a young couple from Maine called Edward (24) and Lena (23) Everett. Edward was a druggist, perhaps boarding with the physician and his family during an apprenticeship, or while he attempted to establish his own business in the village. Maybe the McClarans found their quarters too cramped once they took in boarders. By 1881, they made major renovations to their home. The Wellington Enterprise commented on the ongoing work, and the tax-assessed value of the property skyrocketed from $300 to $1,890. This strongly suggests that the back wing of 226 South Main was added at that time.
The McClarans’ tenure in the residence did not end happily. They sold the property to John Britton Smith, owner and editor of the Enterprise, in June 1888. They then traveled to Springfield, Missouri, for a visit with their only child, a married daughter. By October, Hattie McClaran was back in Ohio and committed to the Newburgh State Hospital, an asylum in Cleveland. Dr. McClaran briefly returned as well, moving into the American House hotel during his wife’s committal. Tragically, Hattie died by suicide on a home visit with her sister in Wooster, in January 1889. She was buried in Wooster and Dr. McClaran soon returned to Missouri to live with his daughter. He died June 21, 1890 and is buried in Springfield National Cemetery. When he passed, the Enterprise printed a four-sentence remembrance which noted, “He and his faithful wife toiled here for a number of years and as a result of their labors secured a beautiful place to reside on South Main street, expecting to spend the balance of their days here”.
John Britton Smith occupied 226 South Main from 1888 until 1897. When the editor sold the Enterprise and left the village, the owner of the local boot and shoe shop, Hugh Comstock Harris, purchased the residence for himself and wife Ada Bacon Harris. The couple had no children, and when Hugh was elected to serve as Lorain County Treasurer, they also left Wellington, relocating to Elyria sometime after 1901.
As the twentieth century began, the house welcomed its second owner/editor of the Wellington Enterprise. Henry O. Fifield, recently arrived in the village, purchased the property sometime around 1902. Henry and his wife, Emma, lived with their widowed French Canadian daughter-in-law, Alice, and beloved granddaughter, Stella. Stella had been born in Canada and was a talented musician who went on to teach music herself. She was married in the house in 1920, and a front-page article in the Enterprise described the celebrations in great detail. The family home played a starring role: “The bride…advanced through the library to the living room. At the same time the groom…advanced to the living room from the front of the house. The bridal party…then gathered in a bower of evergreens and palms in the large bay window in the living room. This bower was a beautiful creation and the work of Miss Laura Tissot a friend of the bride. After the impressive ceremony, the bridal party was seated in the dining room…They and the guests were served sumptuously by Caterer Gunn of Oberlin”. Was Stella’s well-publicized nuptials the seed that blossomed into a popular story about 226 South Main being enlarged specifically to accommodate a bride descending the front curving staircase?
Henry Fifield lived to see his granddaughter engaged, but died nearly a year before the wedding. The Italianate at 226 South Main remained in the extended Fifield family for the first half of the century, belonging to Stella and her widowed mother, Alice, who later remarried and brought her second husband into the house.
By 1976, the year of America’s bicentennial celebrations, a young local couple who also happened to be deeply committed to preserving Wellington’s past decided that a grand old home that needed love (and a great deal of work!) was exactly where they wanted to spend their married life. Today, 226 South Main Street is haunted no more. Home for more than forty years to beloved residents Tim and Leslie Simonson, its vibrant wine-red color and flower-filled yard are often the backdrop for large gatherings of friends and family. The renovated carriage house at the rear of the property is well-known in the village as the Simonson Clock Shop.
Recognized as ‘One of the Top 14 Places in the World to See Spring Flowers’ by MSN.com in 2010, Dallas Blooms is the largest floral festival in the southwest with over 500,000 spring-blooming bulbs. Tulips, daffodils and hyacinths abound in the 66 acre garden with vibrant colors creating an amazing backdrop to the city of Dallas. March 5-April 10, 2011
recognize these beautiful eyes .......? and no its not an unshaven starc283 so don't even go there although I do have beautiful eyes...
Who is coming? The Apples asked. The Apples are a bit worrying.
Let me check. Bill answered. Oh it is Samsung! :o)
Bill is the game booth keeper in Lansdowne Carnival who took my picture with his cellphone.
Happy Sunday everyone!
"With street photography, the street became a stage and people became actors in a brief scene about which they knew nothing. Only the photographer recognizes the performance, and records it using a camera."
- Florian Heine in the book "Photography, The Ground-breaking Moments"
Tommy Trojan, officially known as the Trojan Shrine, is one of the most recognizable figures of school pride at the University of Southern California. The life-size bronze statue of a Trojan warrior sits in the center of campus and serves as a popular meeting spot, as well as a centerpiece for a number of campus events. It is the most popular unofficial mascot of the university.
The Trojan Shrine was sculpted by Roger Noble Burnham and based on a variety of USC football players, including Russ Saunders, Ernie Pinckert, Henry Becker, Larry Stevens and John Ward. The statue was unveiled during the University's 50th Jubilee in 1930. It cost $10,000 to build, after which a $1 surcharge was added onto the season football tickets in order to help offset this cost.
The original name suggested for the statue was The Spirit of Troy, but that name went to the school's marching band.
Tommy Trojan is located at the core of the campus and often serves as a meeting ground for students and visitors. Many people take pictures with the statue. The Shrine is surrounded by the Bovard Administration Building, Ronald Tutor Campus Center, and Alumni Park. Trousdale Parkway passes next to the statue. USC offers the Tommy Cam, which is a live image of the statue, with daily time-lapse videos. The statue is unique in that the figure is flexing every muscle in his body, a physically impossible feat. Inscribed on the base of the statue are the five attributes of the ideal Trojan: Faithful, Scholarly, Skillful, Courageous and Ambitious. On the reverse is a plaque bearing a quote by Virgil: "Here are provided seats of meditative joy, where shall rise again the destined reign of Troy."
USC's cross-town rival UCLA had vandalized Tommy Trojan (often by painting the statue in the UCLA colors of blue and gold) during the week of the annual USC-UCLA football game. To prevent this, university officials now cover the statue during that week to protect it from UCLA vandals. Students also gather for Save Tommy Nite on the night before the game against UCLA. In addition, members of the Trojan Knights maintain an all-night vigil around Tommy Trojan during the rivalry week to further deter would-be pranksters.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Trojan
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
The easily recognizable Boston skyline from the Cambridge side.
The JP Hancock and the Prudential .. and tried to duplicate them to get two of each !!
Was a cold and chilly night .. in 20's even with wind chill, and I was out taking pics .. but am happy with this, so was worth it.
a small technique I saw that I wanted to try .. and pretty interesting results .. feels like time-traveling :) View On Black
You can see more of my Boston Pics here
I recognize some of those megalomaniacal male tendencies you are describing, and why wouldn’t I (DUH!)? I know that ‘lost boy’ behaviour. It’s even attractive until one reaches a certain age, then it slopes off through unfortunate, and heads downhill rather swiftly towards downright tragedy. Applying the brakes at that stage is no party, let me tell you. Sometimes I feel as if I had been worn down up to the knees, a would-be demi-legged, own-trumpet-blowing, Falstaff, (if only those Jesuits had gotten hold of me) but then this isn’t about me. All these men searching for mammys, what can I say other than sorry about my gender, and thank Yahweh that I am a cis-gender homo (can I call myself that anymore?).
I think you can tell that I have arrived at the point that I am at, now, not at all sure what I am, or am not, permitted to call myself. I fear that I, at last, know what and who I am, but I am not at all sure if being that is acceptable in an evolving world. Luckily, we will all be dead soon enough. Now that’s something to really look forward to for the terminally bewildered. I like the idea of ‘A Death’ as the inflexion point of this ‘Comedy’ we are constructing. I have that funny death story to tell yet properly. That one where Jeffrey suddenly shot upright, screaming at his parents who were quibbling over what to watch on the TV. He screamed fiercely at them “I’m dying, I get to choose the video!”. It was gloriously well said. I do love the tyranny of the dying. I do love the abject tyranny of the victim (my specialty). Feck it, I will go the whole hog. I do love tyranny. I also love saying ‘Feck’, when everyone understands that you are insinuating another vowel in the place of that ‘e’. I love that feck is proper and Irish, a softening of that blow, liked a dropped ‘h’, that sort of softening and lilting.
He chose 'Singing in the Rain' and collapsed back into bed raving madly about having to make three different types of pies to prepare for some party or other in his head.
I did my job. I pressed the button and released more morphine, through the catheter in his chest, awash in the 'poor meeees'.
mea culpa, mea culpa,
mea máxima culpa.
Later, I made a drawing about his wonderful, life-affirming, self-assertion. I photographed myself beside it, the drawing that is, but discovered, whilst looking at it later, that I seemed to have disappeared.
I guess that's how things go. (Secretly, I love removing myself (with photoshop), but don't tell anyone).
John: A fine eulogy, full of life.
Ruin: I want to reply to this, a little later. I might even have to go into the third person, to get a little distance from the answer, and what it means. This will be an important part of 'the book'. I am putting this here as a sort of commitment.
Anyway, to start, another extended version of this 'story' begins under this photo (the title in parentheses below) below this. It starts with “I’m dying, I get to choose the video”, about halfway down. But I now want to write something a lot more personal, a lot more 'private' perhaps. So far I have been writing about what I call the 'Wild Geese', a recognised phenomenon in Irish history and culture. Now I want to talk about something a little more close to home. and that's the cuckoo gene. That born out of desperation taking up domicile in the 'nests' of other birds, that type of 'taking over'. I think of it slightly relative to that 'banquet idea' that excess, like a pheasant being stuffed with a quail, and the quail in turn being stuffed with a starling, or any smaller bird, that decadence. Anyway, I want to look at that goose initially stuffed with a cuckoo, that idea of the self as a desperate exploiter, but also looking at it as a survival strategy, a Darwinian ploy, even. I am still brewing it in my head, so it will stutteringly along.
‘On Universal Innocence and The Forgiveness of Freckles’.
But back to Geese and cuckoos.
‘The Rôti Sans Pareil Is 17 Birds Stuffed Inside Each Other and It Is Delicious’. So ran the headline.
"The recipe calls for a bustard stuffed with a turkey stuffed with a goose stuffed with a pheasant stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a duck stuffed with a guinea fowl stuffed with a teal stuffed with a woodcock stuffed with a partridge stuffed with a..."
There is a sort of madness there, manifesting, perhaps, one of the reasons we don't deserve to be here at all. Not that deserving has anything to do with it anyway.
Chickenman, Wild Geese, and now Cuckoo, this sounds like I am on a type of fowl trajectory. Here's to soaring, or swansonging, or attempting both, even!
John: The cuckoo was a popular metaphor in the 1950's, quite possibly in response to the aftermath of WWII and your revival gifts greater depth. One of the explorations of Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow was the impossibly undermined reconstruction of male identity, no matter what roots they sought to revive. The cuckoo, with its echo of cuckold, the returners from war rewarded with the ghost of doubt of paternity, puts all into those same murky depths of identity which artists equally embrace or flee. As ancient mythology evidences, we have always had a need to understand and belong. Post wars and natural disasters our need for the perceived solidity of information is greatly enhanced.. Technically, having a family formed of my partner's and her ex's three daughters, I am a cuckoo.
Apart from the actual people (greatly rewarding) I have also wondered if I was defying my sense of unbelonging by consciously electing to be the cuckoo, which, unlike artist, is I believe a choice.
Ruin: Yes, that would be true, that returning soldier thing. I would guess it has always been the case, have soldiers not been returning since time immemorial? I didn't make the connection between cuckoo and cuckold, a 'duh!' moment for me. Of course, it is there. I particularly like the cuckold personage. If I was going by the evidence of Reddit, or wherever, cuckolding seems to be enjoying a huge revival in the fetish world currently. I would guess it was all part and parcel of dealing with the diminished, and further diminishing, male, that area of 'twixt and 'tween being generated by an excess of hormone disruptors now in the environment (in plastics and whatever). But I have a whole theory about that relative to the possibility of the human animal evolving from sexual reproduction to bifurcatory splitting, that laboratory assisted dividing known as cloning, the copying of the self, whilst we are at that point of the Y chromosome being, apparently, at 3% of its former glory. Scientists tell us that it appears to be stable at 3%, but infinity is funny like that relative to stability.
The only place we would differ on here is that "unlike artist", which I am pretty sure we might partially agree on anyway. I don't see making art (or writing, even), any form of communication really, as a 'choice'. I see it both as an instinct and a compulsion, and for the most part a disruptive nuisance, an itch. I would have to fight very hard to resist it, that scratching called art making or communicating. I would have to go totally against my 'natural' self.
But this is something I will continue to work out until I no longer can, compulsively, this awful/wonderful itch. I like writing here, simply because it is immediate communication, and sometimes the feedback like yours is invaluable. There is this idea that writing needs to be done alone, like art, but I don't think that is necessarily 'true'. I think you have to work it out the best way you can, and there are no rules.
When I quote you, should I call you John Seven, or just John.? I have been calling you John, but thought I should ask. As in "John: A fine eulogy, full of life." Would you prefer John Seven?
John: Well, I don't know what went wrong with my sentence construction there, as I intended to state that artist is not a choice (nor a guarantee of quality). Now amended. Regarding my name - John used to be the skinhead universal form of address, as in "Y'want bovver Jon?"
It was also, in the the year I was born, the Mohamed, Muhammad, Muhamad, or Mohammad of its day, the most common male name in the world. In its many forms - Ian, Iain, Ifan, Sean, Shaun, Shane, Jens, Jean, Joan, Johan and so on.
I am happy with whatever you choose.
Ruin: I guessed we were on the same page relative to art, or writing, this 'fever' to communicate, is uncontrollable. It’s not a choice at all. But I feel the same about this cuckoo behaviour and this catfishing too. I see them both as survival manoeuvres, generated mostly out of desperation. Anyway, that's the point I will be starting from for this 'chapter'. I will be using the text generated here, and pulling it through the pronoun mangle, writing it in the third person, to get some distance, some overview.
Blimey, he realised, his behaviour had been stark raving cuckoo. He found it as difficult to think about as to write about this, but felt in the writing of it, that some liberation might be found there. The working out of it was going to have to be in the present, but there would be references and stories that harked back to his ‘Wild Goose’ history, his wandering, his running away. He knew too that he was going to have to stop playing with words, stop trying to entertain, this was not the way to go. By this he meant that “meself” as opposed to myself, that ‘cod Irish’, that “at all, at all”. That would naturally fall away anyway, as he moved away from childhood, as he learnt to speak, to communicate, even. His leaving Ireland was, in a way, his learning to talk. Before that period, he had been that oft-described stuttering, nervous, entity, floundering between church-generated guilt, and maintaining his secret, that abuse, that incest, that familial interference that could only serve to completely sunder him from family, and any semblance of security, of a feeling of belonging or of ever having been nurtured. It was nobody’s fault. Those who haven’t been nurtured have no idea how to nurture, and similarly those who have never been protected have no way of knowing how to proffer protection. Both his parents had, in their turn, being abandoned as children. It was all they knew. This was somehow part-and-parceled in with the history of that emerald island, that history of hundreds of years of abuse. That this abuse caused Irish literature to blossom, in that foreign tongue, English, is one of those creative offshoots of abuse, one of those ‘miracles’, as his mother used to say, describing anything good or beneficial, a silver-lining around those multi-generational deadening clouds.
He was angry, sad, and excited when he discovered that he had to leave to survive, that he had to give up everything, and everyone he had ever known, and set out alone for that pagan land, on the other side of the Irish Sea. Looking back, he liked that this cuckoo also described a sort of madness, other than the survival instinct it became somewhat renowned for, it also described that ‘stark raving’ idea, that there had always been this connection we humans make about this misunderstood creature, and its development of certain Darwinian characteristics generated by its struggle to survive.
Stealing somewhat from the title of the book by Mr. Foster Wallace (of the multiple footnotes on footnotes), he suspected that he had come to that point where he might, at last, ‘Consider the Cuckoo’.
John: This riffing on a thought, expanding out to discover surprises and similarities is a thing of wonder.
Ruin: It's a bit strange to be working it out in 'real time' here. I am literally working it through in my head as I write it. It becomes a self-justification, of sorts, I guess. I will tie it in, somehow, to the main theme. I am coming out of that chapter which has to do with childhood, and heading towards London, via a year in Liverpool, that age-old Irish route, through Aristophanes 'The Birds', from which the expression 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' comes, through Mr. Darwin, on the way towards New York, and 'Rack and Ruin'.
But yes, he was heading for ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’, only in as much as it was to be totally unfamiliar, there was the madness there of difference, a way of thinking that was foreign to everything he knew. The old rules just didn’t apply, but there were also new rules to learn.
On Universal Order
Or blessed lack thereof.
Dear Rack,
I suspect we have both had our moments with each other, compassionate and understanding, and the opposite. I have never felt particularly worthy, but that’s a universal, some dreadful leftover from a hideously insecure childhood, neglectful parents, absent alcoholic father and abusive uncle, all that palaver, that stuff of amateur melodrama, probably endemic, commonplace even, on that little emerald jewel called ‘home’. The thing is, or the pedestrian tragedy is, that you don’t really realise what you are carrying with you when you set off into the world alone, when you put on your walking shoes, you have no idea what your coping mechanisms are, how skew-whiff they might be relative to a world out there, a place that has most likely generated another type of abuse, a foreign variant, one which you have no experience of at all. It’s not unlike our beloved Omicron, another spiked battering ram, something that you might survive or not.
Yes, it’s the same old same old, those ‘Wild Geese’ setting off, full of youthful energy and dreams of conquest, already weighed down by their own undoing. Compassion was easy for me when we met. You had, apparently, fallen at the first hurdle, or so it seemed. I was very wrong about that. Wrecked Rack was phoenix-like. I didn’t know that then, though that constant re-igniting can work a certain ruin on the old cadaver. I notice a chemical smell in my urine, and I was wondering if you do too. We are now part chemical; a bit liked our beloved de Selby’s part bicycle, part human. We have been absorbing chemicals now for decades, and you even two decades more than I have. One cannot help but wonder how they have an effect on our very DNA, our day-to-day thoughts, our moods and our hopes, or despairs. But, butt, chicken butt, as I like to say, I have decided to make their influence positive. We are hybrid, a new man, and woman, a chemically enhanced super-breed of survivors.
How’s that for famous last words?
We are like no one else, though this is true of everyone. Now we have the added in-put of our screens, our hard-drives and external devices, all brain-enhancers and exploitable. These are our external memories, as that innate ability to remember slopes off, and it’s nothing less than a frigging ‘Universal Superhighway’. Nobody has had that before, though I would question as to whether this is a recurring phenomenon, forgotten but recurring, on an infinite ever-expanding loop (call me loopy). Heloise and Abelard could have done with a bit of that, but they managed anyway, so how can we not rape and pillage the universe with this magnificent, unimaginable, tool at our disposal? The only thing that holds us back is our massive insecurity, and our excuses. But the proffering of these to each other, the unashamed exposing of them, is the beginning of this Knausgaardian ‘struggle’, and we have been doing this for almost 30 years. We have the capacity to cross germinate, to percolate Sontag’s ‘Camp’ through Knausgaard’s, and the other tyrant’s, ‘Kampf’, that tragedy and camp comedy combined. I would like a little more of that ‘fun’ back, the laughing at the absurdity of it all combined with the realization of what we wrought, and how blindly reactive it was, and we were.
It would be wonderful to laugh, and scream, together again.
"But I wonder if you share my feeling that to write anything sufficiently accurate and engaging, and actually get it over all the hurdles of publication, and risk the ultimate disappointment of remaindering ... Oh, I could not do it now."
No, I have no intention of 'publishing', or even presenting what I am writing and thinking about, other than on Flickr. I find that I do things in 4-year traunches. The idea is just to sort out some of the mess I made, that cacophony of images I generated whilst trying to understand.
I am looking for where I didn't manage to communicate, although some of it ended up in museums (with appropriate puffing out of chest). A 4-year traunch/tranche is a challenge, a challenge because of age and the dragging of another 'fatal' disease along, with one, through a pandemic. Blissfully, science has intervened, yet again, somewhat offering respite, temporarily, from the Horsemen. I got that second Astra Zeneca yesterday, but am still jealous of those enjoying the intervention of the MRNA vaccines into the livestream of their DNA. If we are going to be so interfered with in that way, I want to be one of the first, on that cutting edge of the glorious new Science religion (that I love)! I would have loved to have been the Musk of death, that space pioneer and not the smell. Although, one appears to have missed that boat, along with many others, for now. But there is an acute awareness of their fetlocks and broomsticks, of those aforementioned Horsemen, that is, and their Woo and Woe.
Publishers, Bookshops, Museums and Galleries are over. Didn't you get the memo?
At the same time that remainder bin is essential. It is, more or less, where we all end up, the good and the bad, those who write with clarity and those who lick and salve their purple wounds in public.
You know that I love Purple, in a hate purple sort of way. Don't start me on Orange.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The formation of the Indonesian Air Force came eight months after the former Dutch East Indies unilaterally declared independence from the Netherlands. The Netherlands initially did not recognize this, and a War of Independence ensued, which lasted until 1949. The Indonesian Air Force (Indonesian: Tentara Nasional Indonesia Angkatan Udara (TNI-AU), literally "Indonesian National Military-Air Force") used some machines left behind by the Japanese occupiers, but these were not of decisive importance for the war. Incidentally, the national insignia used until 1949 was only the red "sun" painted white in the lower half.
The 1950s were marked by domestic operations. Contrary to the Independence Treaty, which envisaged a federal state, Indonesia quickly became a unitary state. This included the deployment in the Christian-dominated Republic of the South Moluccas, which had unilaterally renounced itself, as well as against Islamic (Darul Islam) and democratic (Permesta) movements. The latter was secretly supported by the CIA, and, in the course of this skirmish, an Indonesian Mustang managed to shoot down a B-26 Invader piloted by a CIA pilot.
The need to prop up to what became Operation Trikora in Netherlands New Guinea, and the rise of the Communist Party of Indonesia, drew Indonesia closer to the Eastern Bloc. Several Soviet-built aircraft began to arrive in the early 1960s including the MiG-15UTI from Czechoslovakia, MiG-17F/PF, MiG-19S and MiG-21F-13, in addition to Ilyushin Il-28, Mil Mi-4, Mil Mi-6, Antonov An-12 and Avia 14 also from Czechoslovakia. Indonesia also received Lavochkin La-11, and some Tupolev Tu-2 from China arrived, too. It was during this period that the Indonesian Air Force became the first Air Force in Southeast Asia which acquired the capability of strategic bombing by acquiring the new Tupolev Tu-16 in 1961. Around 25 Tu-16KS were delivered, complete with AS-1 air-surface missiles.
The Sixties also marked the last confrontation with the Dutch in Papua, before the Dutch, again under pressure of the United Nations, left in 1963. Indonesia made territorial claims to the young nation and the Konfrontasi ensued between 1963 and 1966. During this era a coup attempt led by the 30 September Movement in 1965 changed everything and a new anti-communist regime from the Army, led by Major General Suharto, took power. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Air Marshall Omar Dani was removed from his position and court-martialed for his purported involvement in the coup. Ties with the Eastern bloc countries were cut, and thus support and spare parts for the planes became short.
By August 1968, the situation was critical and in early 1970, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Suwoto Sukandar, said that the spare parts situation meant that only 15–20 percent of aircraft were airworthy. The result was a total re-orientation for the air force material’s procurement, and the considerable Indonesian MiG force already made its farewell flight with a flypast of Jakarta in 1970. The relatively new MiG-19s were sold to Pakistan. By October 1970, only one Tu-16 was still flying, but after an in-flight engine failure, it too was grounded. But despite the problems, the Air Force still served with distinction in fighting militant remnants of the CPI in Java's provinces, particularly in Central and East Java.
With Suharto's assumption of the presidency and the office of Commander in Chief in 1967, the focus shifted to fighting the communist PGRS/Paraku insurgency. The Air Force launched Operation Lightning Strike (Indonesian: Operasi Samber Kilat) to support ground troops eradicate Sarawak communists that were present in West Kalimantan and along Indonesia-Malaysia border by dropping troops to the target area, dropping logistical assistance, VIP transportation, medical evacuation and recon flights.
The period between 1970 and 1980 saw a rebirth of the TNI-AU. The Air Force began to be re-equipped by receiving refurbished former Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) CAC Sabres – an Australian re-design of the F-86 Sabre with a Rolls-Royce Avon engine – to replace the MiG-21s. Pakistan Air Force took over the responsibility to train Indonesian pilots in the Sabre and in logistical aspects of the Air Force. In 1973, the United States started to supply military assistance including T-33s trainers and UH-34D helicopters in exchange for four old MiG-21F-13s, which were shipped to the US for evaluation. Over the next three years, the US also supplied 16 North American Rockwell OV-10 Broncos counter-insurgency aircraft and F-5E/F Tiger II fighters, in exchange for which the Indonesian Air Force handed over the majority of its remaining airworthy MiG-21F-13s, which were used to form a US Air Force Aggressor squadron. In the late 1970s, Indonesia also purchased BAE Hawk Mk 53s trainers from the United Kingdom.
In 1974, after the Portuguese Carnation Revolution, the last major European colonial empire was dissolved. As a result, the until-then Portuguese part of the island of Timor declared itself the independent Republic of Timor-Leste in November 1975. After the defeat in Vietnam and with a view to establishing socialist states in the two large African former Portuguese colonies, the USA and Australia did not want to let another socialist statelet develop in the region. Thus, just a few days after the declaration of independence, the young republic was invaded, with the TNI-AU and the Army Air Force (TNI-AD) dropping parachutists over East Timor, and, as a result, a year-long guerrilla war began.
To combat the rebels and the civilians supporting them, the US supplied more close air support aircraft to the TNI-AU, namely more OV-10 Broncos as well as twenty-five AH-1G attack helicopters, the latter refurbished US Army material left over from the Vietnam War. Beyond the 70 mm “hydra” unguided missiles, which were carried in pods with either seven or nineteen rounds, Indonesia also received several XM35 armament subsystems with a XM195 20 mm cannon – a fixed gatling gun that was carried on the inner left weapon station and was combined with a conformal external ammunition supply. Those roundabout ten machines capable of carrying this weapon were recognizable by additional external armor plates on the cockpit’s left flank, because XM195’s gun blast could damage the airframe.
In the early 1980s, the Indonesian Air Force, needing modern strike aircraft, organized “Operation Alpha” to clandestinely acquire ex-Israeli Air Force A-4 Skyhawks. Air Force personnel were sent in secret by different routes and eventually Indonesia received 32 aircraft. To further boost and modernize its air force, Indonesia purchased in 1982 sixteen more Northrop F-5E/F Tiger II from the United States to replace their CAC Sabres under the Peace Komodo I and II procurement program, and the AH-1Gs (21 were still operational) received a MLU program and were upgraded, too. They received new Kaman K-747 composite material main rotor blades and passive countermeasures, like a diffusor for the hot engine efflux (making them less vulnerable to man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS), which had become a ubiquitous threat) and an improved armor protection for cockpit and the engine. Wire cutters were fitted, and a bigger, more effective oil cooler, too. Since it protruded from the lower fuselage, a unique armored fairing was devised and protected the cooler from arms of up to 23 mm caliber.
The Indonesian Cobras’ armament was improved, too: their original M28 chin turrets were replaced with the M97 system that comprises a three-barrel 20 mm gatling gun, which had more range and firepower against lightly armored targets than the AH-1G’s original 7.62 mm minigun and 40 mm grenade launchers. Since the Indonesian Cobras were still only operated in the daylight CAS role, they did not receive further sensors and avionics, e. g. the M65 TOW/Cobra anti-tank missile subsystem with a Telescopic Sight Unit (TSU) or a laser rangefinder, which had been introduced with the US Army’s AH-1Q in 1975. For the new M97, however a helmet-mounted sight was introduced, and the crews received night vision/low-light goggles, even though these were independent from the helm-mounted sight. After their modifications between 1982 and 1984, the TNI-AD Cobras were unofficially re-designated “AH-1G+”.
Even though the Cobras’ firepower and effectiveness were improved, the composite rotors soon turned out to be troublesome. The hot and humid climate in Indonesia weakened the bonding and eventually disrupted the material structure – a weakness that also appeared among retrofitted US Army AH-1s, but not as dramatically. As a result, wear and tear were considerably worse than on the former all-metal blades, even though the helicopters’ handling was better with the new rotors and overall weight was reduced. However, a spectacular and dramatic crash in 1985 showed the imminent risks of the composite blades: three of four AH-1G+s in a tight formation over Aceh in Western Indonesia crashed after a 24 kg rotor balance weight of one machine came loose in flight and hit a sister ship, fatally destroying its engine and the gearbox. Spinning out of control it collided with another Cobra in the same formation, and all three helicopters crashed, with all six crewmen killed. The TNI-AD’s AH-1G+s were immediately grounded, the ongoing rotor conversion was stopped and subsequently all already modified AH-1G+s had their original all-metal rotor blades re-installed – a measure that took almost a year to accomplish and lasted until early 1987.
After this troublesome phase, the TNI-AD’s Cobras were kept busy, with frequent deployments during the Aceh Insurgency and the East Timor conflict. They soldiered on into the new millennium, even though some machines were lost in accidents or through small arms ground fire, and less and less machines remained airworthy due to the airframes’ age. In 2003, only six AH-1G+ were still operational, and even these machines had reached the ultimate end of their useful service life after more than 30 years of frequent duty. They were in September of the same year replaced by Mil Mi-35P attack helicopters, directly procured from Russia, of which several batches were acquired throughout the following years.
General characteristics:
Crew: 2: one pilot, one co-pilot/gunner (CPG)
Length: 53 ft (16 m) including rotors
Fuselage length: 44 ft 5 in (13.5 m)
Main rotor diameter: 44 ft 0 in (13.4 m)
Main rotor area: 1,520 sq ft (141 m²)
Blade section: NACA 0009.3 mod
Width: 10 ft 4 in (3.15 m) stub wings
Height: 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m)
Empty weight: 5,810 lb (2,635 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 9,500 lb (4,309 kg)
Powerplant:
1× Lycoming T53-L-13 turboshaft, 1,400 shp (1,000 kW)
Performance:
Maximum speed: 149 kn (171 mph, 276 km/h)
Never exceed speed: 190 kn (220 mph, 350 km/h)
Range: 310 nmi (360 mi, 570 km)
Service ceiling: 11,400 ft (3,500 m)
Rate of climb: 1,230 ft/min (6.2 m/s)
Armament:
1× 20 mm (0.707 in) three-barreled M197 20 mm cannon in a chin turret with 750 rounds
4× hardpoints under the stub wings, primarily used for 2.75 in (70 mm) rockets mounted in
M158 seven-round or M200 nineteen-round launchers; alternatively, M14 12.7 mm machine
gun or M18 7.62 mm Minigun pods could be carried or a single XM35 armament subsystem with
a XM195 20 mm gatling cannon
The kit and its assembly:
This fictional Bell AH-1 Cobra is the result of a cross-bashing of two Fujimi kits of this helicopter, namely the AH-1S and the AH-1J kit. I had both in The Stash™ and recently came across the Iranian HESA-2091 ‘Tiztak’, an indigenous refurbished AH-1J with flat armor glazing. Since both Fujimi kits could theoretically be combined to build this exotic Cobra derivative, I decided to try this stunt – and it left me with enough surplus parts to build something like an early/standard AH-1G.
However, combining the parts from both kits turned out to be more challenging than expected. The biggest problem was to adapt the AH-1J’s standard glazing to the respective opening on the AH-1S hull: the clear part is bigger/longer than the later flat, armored glazing, so that the fuselage area at the canopy’s rear end had to be cut away. Fitting the clear part into this widened opening furthermore called for delicate PSR work to fill gaps and bridge the transition between parts that were never meant to be stuck together – but it worked, somehow.
To set the fictional AH-1G+ apart a bit further I made some cosmetic changes: the main rotor was modified to resemble Kaman composite blades (recognizable through the tapered blade tips) that were introduced with the AH-1S (and actually turned out to be not very durable!), and a “Sugar Scoop” thermal diffusor was scratched from a piece of styrene tube. I furthermore added a ventral blade antenna and a fairing for an enlarged oil cooler – it’s actually a H0 scale Euro pallet! The blade cutters were scratched from styrene sheet. The rest was primarily taken from the AH-1J kit, e. g. the simple/early nose tip, the ordnance and the M97 chin turret. The pilot figures came from the Fujimi kit, too.
Painting and markings:
Indonesia as fictional operator for this helicopter model was inspired by TNI-AD markings (the standard TNI-AU pentagon with an additional black star in the middle) that were left over on a TL Modellbau sheet with generic national markings. The Seventies/Eighties offered a suitable time frame for the Cobras’ procurement, and from this starting point anything developed quite naturally.
However, I did not want to paint the AH-1 in a simple all-olive drab livery, and found in the Indonesian C-130 Hercules a nice painting option: at some point in time these transporters received a unique three-tone camouflage that consists of a reddish chocolate brown, a bluish dark green and a greyish grass green, combined with very light grey undersides.
For the AH-1, the pattern was directly adopted from the C-130s’ fuselage and the colors approximated, since I doubt that the paints conform to FS standards. I used Humbrol 133 (Satin Brown), ModelMaster 2060 (RAF WWII Dark Green) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 80 (Grass Green) and Revell 45 (Helloliv). The light grey underside was omitted, for a wraparound scheme.
The cockpit interior became very dark grey (Revell 06, Anthracite), the rotor blades tar black (Revell 09), and a black anti-glare panel was placed in front of the windscreen. For some variety I painted the 19 round rocket launchers in olive drab while the 7 round launchers for the inner stations became very light grey, so that they’d be better visible.
The decals were improvised. The TNI-AD roundels and the small Indonesian fin flashes came from the aforementioned TL Modellbau sheet. The tactical codes on the nose and the taglines on the flank consist of single black letters. The serial number on the tail came from an Iranian F-4D Phantom II sheet from Model Scale, it matched the intended time frame well. The only original decals are the small red tail rotor warning arrows.
After a light black ink washing, some post-panel-shading and an overall treatment with graphite to emphasize the kit’s fine, raised panel lines, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and finally assembled.
Well, this “kitbashed” AH-1G with some mods is certainly not the best model of this helicopter type, but a good use of leftover parts from the “counter-bashed” project. Compatibility between the Fujimi AH-1S and AH-1J is limited, though, especially the canopy does not fit easily and calls for some delicate bodywork. However, with the garish paint scheme (which, as I found out after the kit had been finished, resembles a lot the livery of the illegal North Korean Hughes 500MD Defenders!) and the exotic TNI-AD markings, this Cobra really stands out und looks quite unusual.
Although it is well known that lemons are good for one's health, there are many benefits which are only now being recognized and taken advantage of. Because of its high level of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), for example, lemons have been known to help out against infections and skin diseases like scurvy; they may also be a potent weapon against cancer.
Among the less-well-known health benefits, however, are the following:
1. A remedy against heartburn?
Because of its high acidity, it may come as a surprise that lemons could possibly help out in the area of gastro-esophageal reflux disease. Lemons, however, appear to be good for the digestion, thus helping to relieve many of the symptoms that come with GERD, including indisgetion, bloating, and belching.
2. Relieving hiccups?
Drinking lemon juice may help to treat and help reduce the chances of succumbing to hiccups. The strong sourness of lemons is usually a strong medicine against the involuntary nerve spasms that constitute what we call "hiccups."
3. Dissolving gall, kidney, and pancreatic stones?
Some sources have suggested that lemons may be useful in the fight against stones that develop in the kidneys, gallbladder and the pancreas. Medicine may find this lithotripsy ability useful in the coming years, if this can be further confirmed through clinical studies. Because this remedy carries such low risk factors, however, it may be something people facing these problems may use on a trial basis, preferably by first contacting their physician.
4. Reduction of the phlegm your body produces?
Supposedly because of its natural antiseptic prowess, lemons (which contain, among other things, anti-microbial saponins) may help your body produce less phlegm, possibly by helping to strengthen your immune system.
5. Helping to fade burn scars?
Burns can greatly damage skin cells, often leaving ugly scars behind. By helping to cool and heal damaged skin, however, lemons may reduce the ugliness of said scars.
6. A weight reducer and diuretic?
Much of the weight gain some people experience comes in the form of water retention. Lemons (possibly consumed as lemon juice mixed with warm water and honey) may aid in the fight to keep water retention to a minimum, supposedly by helping the kidneys and the other fluid-management organs to work more efficiently.
7. Strengthening the heart?
Because of its high potassium content, lemons may help to keep the heart healthy and strong. Its cardiovascular benefits may also lie in its ability to keep high blood pressure low.
8. Used as a sedative?
Lemon juice is said to help against dizziness, stress, and depression, ostensibly by helping the body to stay calm and relaxed--especially when consumed in conjunction with other stress-reducing foods (e.g., green tea, honey, yogurt, etc.).
9. Remedy against respiratory problems?
Lemons may help (most probably because of their anti-inflammatory properties) people who suffer from breathing problems such as asthma.
10. An anti-aging supplement?
Lemons may help in the fight against premature aging, most probably because of their anti-oxidant capacity. They can help to prevent and remove wrinkles and blackheads, as well as to keep skin looking healthy, shiny and supple. Among other things, lemons are thought to be able to help the body restore pH balance.
Conclusion
Although for centuries lemons have been known to provide many health benefits, it's only relatively recently that we can to some extent understand why. Simply put, we did not have the technology to pinpoint some of the scientific reasons; what is more interesting, though, is the fact that there may be even more benefits we have yet to identify or discover.Source : Fred Fletcher To know more visit www.yogagurusuneelsingh.com Pic by Rohit Suri
Finally, I present the first African American male character of Jem, Mr. Anthony Julian! Intelligent movie director, mogul, dashing, rugged, educated, successful...is it any wonder why Shana fell in love with him?! Due to his profession, Anthony has many high-profiled connections in film, one in particular with recognized video producer, Vivien “Video” Montgomery. He also has close connections within the medium of music television, maintaining throughout the years a close-knit friendship with creative figurehead, Lindsey “Lin-Z” Pierce. Anthony first flashed his pearly white smile, in “Disaster”, at a party upon Danielle du Voisin's yacht where he stood in attendance with the best of the best in the entertainment business. After a formal introduction to Jem and the Holograms, courtesy of Lin-Z, it wasn't long before he set his sparkling brown eyes on Holograms drummer, Shana Elmsford, and the two have been together ever since, all thanks to Ms. Matchmaker herself, Jem! During his conversation with Shana, he learned that the Holograms were fairly new to the music scene and didn't have a budget or backup from a record company. While discussing the band's shortcomings, Shana dropped her head in despair, but Anthony held her chin ever so lightly and promised that he would take care of everything! Danielle suggested that the girls take her advice in shooting a music video for their radio hit, “Twilight in Paris”, in Paree! And Howard Sands also lent his hand to help, providing first class plane transportation for their trip. A few days later, with his suede Lancel luggage collection, Anthony pulled out of Starlight Mansion's driveway with Jem and the Holograms and arrived at the local airport where they finally departed for Champ de Mars. There was still time to enjoy the sights after they landed, so he accompanied the Pop stars on a spin through Saint Germain de Prés and Montmartre, then completed a photoshoot in the 1st Arrondissement, along with some shopping, in the Latin Quarter! The atmospheric temperature of the city had risen to unquenchable altitudes, as did Shana's while she walked hand in hand with her guy along the Seine River. Anthony also found it tough to breath as he couldn't control his heart from pounding for her, but he was running on a tight schedule and needed to prep his girl and her bandmates for work right away. Fans watched nearby as Anthony rehearsed the first scene with Shana and Jem—snappin', whistlin' and making the pink-haired Pop star giddy with laughter—then he planted her partway down the sidewalk and requested his cinematographer to cue the music and roll camera. All eyes were glued to Mr. Julian as he captured so eloquently the suffering between two lovelorn partners in search of affection, teamed with fresh fashions—Jem draped in her Thierry Mugler overcoat, and Rio fitted with a super fancy Armani slicker, drifting somberly through the town—and lyrics that serve as a protective covering for an everlasting love! After filming wrapped, Anthony asked the girls to shoot additional shots for publicity purposes, so they gathered together to pose. When out of the clear blue sky (literally), a large gargoyle came crashing down at Jem and the Holograms, but missed them by an inch, thanks to Rio who rushed over and saved the four of them from an untimely death! Like a shot, Anthony and Rio grabbed ahold of Shana and Jem in puzzlement as to what just happened! The only direction to look was upward at the top of the building, so they followed the flow of falling pebbles up to the roof where Zipper stood with eyes the size of two fifty-cent coins and marveled at his own sadistic behavior! His personal celebration was only temporary because Anthony and Rio surrounded the entranceway to the building, waiting and anticipating a 2 on 1 rumble with the demented jailbird. The fellas were certain he would surface, but Zipper performed a 60 meter dash out of sight before they could even think about moving in on him. Shana, Jem, Aja and Kimber were so pleased with their time spent in Paris, that they overlooked the accident, but it was reason enough for Anthony to keep close tabs on his lady, putting her safety first and remaining aware of her surroundings at all times! Rio with Jem as well.
Now, let's be very clear. Mr. Julian is one of the sweetest and most generous men to have ever walked planet earth, but he will not miss a chance to snap a spinal cord or shatter a jawbone if the mood calls for it, and Eric Raymond almost suffered BOTH, in “Starbright, Part One!” Jem and the Holograms had just arrived at Soundstage 20 and walked into an argument between the handsome director and Eric who altered the script to his liking without consulting him first. When told that he was wrong for what he did, Eric hollered out that, even though Anthony was the director, he was in charge of the picture. A while later, Anthony was witness to Pizzazz's grandstanding, when she cut him off in mid sentence and announced to the production staff that her father owned the studio. He was annoyed, but hesitated on laying down the law and continued rehearsing lines with Jem for awhile. Then Video Montgomery walked over and warned him of her cousin, Clash, who snuck inside the studio from backstage. Anthony never met her cousin a day in his life, so, out of respect for her, he chose to put aside his opinions and continued working. Minutes later, Shana, Aja and Kimber crowded around while Anthony and Jem as she carried on with rehearsal, and Shana really enjoyed watching her man in action! It wasn't long before the Misfits strolled in with Clash and tromped over to the group where she crashed her cymbals in Jem's ears, interrupting the new-famed actress from re-enacting her scenes. Tensions were running higher than before as Anthony hollered for Clash to get off his set! Then Pizzazz butted in and claimed that the uncivilized movie-wrecker was her close friend and that she wasn't going anywhere. So Anthony demanded that they both leave! With his gluttonous craving for confrontation, Eric made such a spectacle, when he rushed over and battled with the enterprising director, pointing his finger and spouting off about how Anthony was out of line, and that the Misfits were the co-stars of the film. Without omission, Anthony asserted that he had enough of his s**t, and told him to stop interfering with his profession! As Eric's ego grew, he also developed a set of b*lls and told Anthony to leave at which point the highly paid mogul said, “WITH PLEASURE!” Though he promised to never come within a mile radius of Eric, he still had many friends and colleagues who he left behind, and he respected Howard Sands and World Studios, so he decided to return to the production and reclaimed his position as head director, in “Starbright, Part Three!” His friend Lin-Z obtained full access backstage to gather interviews for her special report on the particulars of the movie, and he supported her by appearing for a short piece on Jem's bio. And, in honor of his return, he took part in the music video, “People Who Care”, alongside Shana, Rio, Banee, the production staff, and Jerrica who made a special appearance. In spite of all the trouble he endured on the production, the fight to achieve his goal carried him through for a bigger cause, and after concluding the music video shoot, Anthony called a wrap, and Starbright was born! Naturally, he rejected his invitation to the cast party as did Sean, Jeff, Jem and the Holograms, which would have made for sidesplitting entertainment by reason of Harvey Gabor who charged in with Howard Sands and lashed into Pizzazz real good about overspending, extensive budgets, and the difference between indulging her and landing in the poorhouse!
Anthony is always very supportive to Shana and her bandmates as was shown, in “Culture Clash”, when he lent his help to the girls by introducing them to conceptual artist, Fitzgerald Beck, and hired him to be the art director for their music video, “I Believe in Happy Endings.” Once again, the incomparable Video Montgomery signed on as video director and joined the girls for their journey to NYC. It appeared that Jem and the Holograms' trip was jinxed from the start because everything that could happen DID happen, such as a heavy downpour of multicolored paint, to a turbulent boat ride on the Atlantic that left them soaked, as well as a foot pursuit by the NYPD in search of stolen diamonds, from a crafty jewel smuggler named Maria Castello! Fitzgerald's vexatious conduct pushed Jem past her limits, but even so, she was still very grateful to Anthony for providing his musical and directorial expertise.
The bronzed beefcake really shined, in “Glitter 'n Gold”, while directing a music video for Jerrica's boy band, the Fifth Avenue Boys, at the local Mall. His colleague, Video Montgomery, was there and filmed the boys' daring stunt as they came riding down the escalator, singing and playing their guitars all while keeping eye contact with the camera lol! Shana, Aja, Kimber and Rio stood by to watch as he directed the three men to move, move, MOVE! He was all about Shana's wellbeing in one of my favorite 2-part eppies, “The Talent Search, Part One and Two”, when she was faced with the decision to begin a new and exciting career as principal designer for Liz Stratton or remain faithful to the Holograms as their star percussionist! During the car ride back from Liz's mansion, Shana expressed her doubts to her beau, and with his deep, soft baritone, Anthony advised her to think it through and do the right thing. Ultimately, his loving words were the assurance she needed to stay true to her heart and loyal to her sisters. Although he had business affairs to tend to, he made damn sure to kiss Shana goodbye as she departed with her girls for New Orleans to celebrate “Mardi Gras” as Rock music's favorite group of the year, and they were also selected by Mademoiselle Yvette to wear John Lafitte's ancient jewels during the festival! Their brief separation was difficult to bear, but he did his best by keeping her picture in his Ralph Lauren wallet to view whenever, wherever, and she placed his picture inside her mini golden heart locket that she kept around her neck for luck.
Anthony and his saucy sweetheart were dressed to impress, in “Hollywood Jem, Part Two”, on the night he accompanied her to the 60th Annual Academy Awards where they were hailed as the modern day “Billy Dee Williams & Diana Ross!” The two lovers prettified the red carpet with Jem and Rio, Kimber and Sean, and Jeff Wright who strolled in with Raya and Aja under both arms! This competent genius values his craft and it shows with each new film/music-video release. Anthony has gone on to win many awards for his work, most notably for “Twilight in Paris”, which earned him an MTV Video Vanguard Award, and was voted one of the most hauntingly romantic music videos ever created! He was also nominated for “Best Director” in the film Starbright, along with a zillion more accomplishments under his belt. Mr. Julian has traveled the world and collaborated with many musicians, cranking out one hit after the next, but he will forever credit his success to meeting Shana and working with Jem and the Holograms!
AJ was my third highly anticipated doll from the entire collection, so it boggled my mind when Integrity stalled with his arrival. Well, none of that matters now because he just got in today and I couldn't be more pleased! I am relieved to see that Integrity gave him A-toned skin and a decent head sculpt. And ooh, ooh, ooh...the dark lining around the outer areas of those damn hazel eyes makes his entire face stand out! Ant's hair looks real nice, too. The color, texture and flocked style around the sides brings life to the rooted hair on top. I couldn't wait to hook him up with a fresh cut, and now he's looking finer than ever! He is by far one of the most well-groomed male dolls in the entire collection! Just check out his finely trimmed mustache. The details on his outfit are truly where it's at. Ohhh, how I adore my gorgeously dressed, brown-skinned mannequin! Obviously, Ant is heavily dressed, but every piece has great importance and suits this boss to a T! He is without a doubt a snappy dresser who's modeling a jazzy, gray wool Benetton V-neck sweater over a suave, pink Armani turtleneck, and his broad shoulders are wrapped in a sharp, suede blue GQ jacket! Hollywood's leading director is also chillin' in a pair of fly, black and gray plaided Benetton trousers, and his feet sit nicely in a trendy pair of black, suede Giorgio Armani shoes! This well-to-do kahuna didn't mind dropping a few stacks for his extravagant Cartier wristwatch that he bought during his busy work schedule, when he was filming an award-winning movie overseas, either! And I mustn't forget his bullhorn and clapping board, both of which are necessary for his continuing success in Hollywood cinematography!
After years of giving his all to his career, Mr. High Society has nestled comfortably into his high-class lifestyle, alongside his fiancée, Shana Elmsford! Whether he's jetting around the world in a day, stepping out of luxurious limousines, or attending the latest Prince and the Revolution concert, you can bet that he's stepping out with Shana at the hip! The two lovebirds are often involved in big Hollywood premieres and enjoy their weekly, elegant, upscale dinners for two, sometimes triple-dating w/ Régine, Raya and their fiancés as well. A major society figure in Hollywood, Ant's position has granted him many confidants outside of his career and the luxury of hobnobbing with some of the biggest stars of the day, including Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Cyndi Lauper, John Forsyth, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Duran Duran, Wes Craven, Oprah Winfrey, David Bowie, Tina Turner, Sting, Mr. T, Steve Perry, Whitney Houston, Phil Collins, Mike Tyson, Lionel Richie, and Stevie Nicks, just to name a few! His keen sense of art and business has punctured through as a cognitive spoke on the ever-turning wheel of the “Me” decade of greed; the decade that proclaims: “The one with the most toys at the end wins!”...and goodness, are his toys plentiful! Starting with his fabulous movie studio, in Miami! Ant himself proclaimed it, “The most successful building in the filming industry!”, suggesting a familiarity with the luxury market beyond the Milky Way! Far be it from Ant to boast, though. Its lobby is filled with saw-toothed angles, gleaming brass, and a $20 million dollar indoor marble waterfall! And that's just for starters! Ant owns two mansions, one in the hills of California, and another in the Caribbean. The only French-made Super Puma jet helicopter in North America has the name “Juelzford” emblazoned across it, as well as worldly furnishings in his palatial, and a $30 million dollar yacht! His 1987 book, “The Art of Movies”, was a bestseller with sales tripling in the first week of publication. He occupies a $20 million dollar double-triplex penthouse with an eagle's eye view of Central Park, the very place where he has helped restore, and sometimes retreats to reminisce. His figures have doubled over the years, placing him on Forbes' list as one of the highest paid film directors of the Nineteen Eighties! Who says you can't have it all?!
Mr. Julian is the Golden Globe to my Jem collection—a title he deserves and owns! 🎬
Recognized as one of the Midwest's largest living history festivals, come share in the excitement at Galesburg Heritage Days in Galesburg, Illinois. . A family event, featuring both pre-1840 early American Colonial Frontier Rendezvous, and a thoroughly fielded Civil War Battle Reenactment/Encampment, along with dozens of unique period merchants...all within walking distance of each other.
Explore --> Jun 25, 2009 # 489
Carolina Kostner, Kaká, Gigi Buffon and all the animals deserve the best that life can offer.
They are Lagotto Romagnolo breed. This is one breed that needs human companionship. This breed has an innate affinity with children.
This is the only breed of dog that is officially recognized as specialized in truffle hunting.
*© All rights reserved *
RIP Gigi,
He was hit by a car on June 15th,2010
Syringa is a genus of 12 currently recognized species of flowering woody plants in the olive family or Oleaceae called lilacs. These lilacs are native to woodland and scrub from southeastern Europe to eastern Asia, and widely and commonly cultivated in temperate areas elsewhere.
The genus is most closely related to Ligustrum (privet), classified with it in Oleaceae tribus Oleeae subtribus Ligustrinae.
Lilacs are used as food plants by the larvae of some moth species, including lilac leaf mining moth, privet hawk moth, copper underwing, scalloped oak and Svensson's copper underwing.
Lilacs are small trees, ranging in size from 2 to 10 metres (6 ft 7 in to 32 ft 10 in) tall, with stems up to 20 to 30 centimetres (7.9 to 11.8 in) diameter. The leaves are opposite (occasionally in whorls of three) in arrangement, and their shape is simple and heart-shaped to broad lanceolate in most species, but pinnate in a few species (e.g. S. protolaciniata, S. pinnatifolia).
The flowers are produced in spring, each flower being 5 to 10 millimetres (0.20 to 0.39 in) in diameter with a four-lobed corolla, the corolla tube narrow, 5 to 20 millimetres (0.20 to 0.79 in) long; they are monoecious, with fertile stamens and stigma in each flower. The usual flower colour is a shade of purple (often a light purple or "lilac"), but white, pale yellow and pink, and even a dark burgundy color are also found.
The flowers grow in large panicles, and in several species have a strong fragrance. Flowering varies between mid spring to early summer, depending on the species. One particular cultivar, trademark Bloomerang, first blooms in spring and then again late summer through fall.
This straight on shot shows the recessed 1x plates that connect all the floating sections. They become invisible when it is viewed at a slight angle and are much stronger than transparent studs-on-top construction. Very swooshable!
I took this in 1974, at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival, held that year in Windsor, Ontario. Hoping someone can ID her.
Update A friend of mine saw this on facebook and recognized her. It's Norma Jean Bell.
A Story to Be Told is a book written by Robert I. Dougan and is the definitive record of the September 15, 1900, accident involving a headon collision between two trains on the E&N tracks near Ladysmith, BC.
Nathan Paul Dougan, was the telegrapher/station agent at the new town of Ladysmith, BC in September, 1900 at the time of the train wreck on the E&N two miles north of town which killed 4 people.
Nathan Dougan (father of Robert I. Dougan) was blamed for the accident and charged with manslaughter for which he was sentenced to nine (9) months imprisonment.
These photos are from a hike guided by T.W. Paterson and his associate, Doug McLeod, to find where and what remains from that accident.
Ladysmith Wreck Trailhead GPS Coordinates:
49°0' 41.55"N 123°50' 50.78"W
N.B. Other than using the GPS coordinates, finding this sawed-of windfall (left in frame) is the only indicator to find where the access to the wreck is located in the thick underbrush.
Ladysmith Train Wreck Site GPS:
N49°00.719', W123°50.841'
Ladybirds or Ladybugs, ( Coccinellidae ),
These brightly marked, oval or round, sometimes almost hemispherical beetles are immediately recognizable. Ladybirds are shiny and have a ground colour of black, red, yellow, or orange. The elytra have contrasting spots or regular markings in similar colours, The bright colouring and marking of adults warns predators of their poisonous or distasteful nature, Confusingly, many species have several colour forms. The head is nearly completely concealed from view by the pronotum, and has antennae with three to six segments, and a short, terminal club. The legs are short, and can be drawn tightly into grooves on the underside of the body. Most adults and larvae are highly predacious on soft-bodied insects. There are, however, some herbivorous species ( Epilachua ) that can be a pest on plants, such as beans and squashes. The adults of many species hibernate in sheltered mircohabitats and are often found in attics, and in cooler areas inside houses.
Adult Ladybirds show what is known as reflex bleeding if attacked, they can cause toxic body fluids to ooze out from the leg joints,.
Order - Coleoptera,
Family - Coccinellidae,
Species in Family - 5,000,
Size - 01 - 10mm,
Feeding - Larvae; predators, herbivores. Adults; predators, herbivores,
Impact - Beneficial as predators of pests,..
Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna ( Rosaceae ),
The smooth shoots of this deciduous species are often somewhat pendulous on old trees. The alternate leaves are oval to diamond-shaped in outline, with a broadly tapered base, They are deeply cut into three or five sharply toothed lobes and are glossy, dark green above and paler beneath. The fragrant white flowers have pink anthers and are borne in dense clusters, These are followed by bright red oval fruit up to 1,2cm wide, each containing a single stone. The Hawthorn is a variable and widely distributed species, often used for hadging,
Height - 10m, Spread 10m,
Bark - Orange - brown, cracked and scaly in old trees,
Flowering Time - Late spring,
Occurrence - Woods, scrub, and hedgerows, widely distrbuted throughout the Britih Isles,
Similar species - Midland Hawthorn,
Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.
The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.
Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.
Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".
Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.
In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city. but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).
Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.
Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.
As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.
As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.
Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.
Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.
On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.
The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned 1928). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.
During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.
In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.
The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.
Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.
The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.
Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.
By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942
In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.
Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.
The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.
Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter .
Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.
The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.
In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2022, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.
The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.
Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.
Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.
The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.
Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.
The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.
The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.
After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.
Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.
The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.
During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.
During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.
In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.
From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.
One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.
After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.
In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.
The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).
Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.
Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.
In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.
The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.
In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.
At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.
Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.
In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.
Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.
Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.
In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.
Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.
To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.
Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.
In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.
During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.
Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.
In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
One of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U.S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, and as of February 24, 2021, remains in effect. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.
Astronomers now recognize that today’s large galaxies, particularly elliptical ones, were formed from the merger of smaller galactic systems. The pair of interacting disk galaxies pictured here — known as NGC 3921 — is one of these mergers seen in its late stages.
Observations show that both of the galaxies involved were roughly the same mass and collided about 700 million years ago. You can see clearly in this image the disturbed morphology, tails and loops characteristic of a post-merger.
The clash of galaxies caused a rush of star formation, and previous Hubble observations showed over a thousand bright, young star clusters bursting to life at the heart of the galaxy pair.
For more information, visit: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1537a/
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt (geckzilla.com)
MOUNT BROMO is easily recognized as the entire top has been blown off and the crater inside constantly belches white sulfurous smoke. It sits inside the massive Tengger caldera. with a diameter of approximately 10km, surrounded by the Laut Pasir (Sea of Sand) of fine volcanic sand. The overall effect is unsettlingly unearthly, especially when compared to the lush green valleys all around the caldera.
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Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.
The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.
Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.
Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".
Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.
In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city. but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).
Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.
Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.
As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.
As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.
Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.
Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.
On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.
The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned 1928). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.
During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.
In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.
The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.
Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.
The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.
Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.
By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942
In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.
Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.
The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.
Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter .
Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.
The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.
In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2022, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.
The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.
Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.
Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.
The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.
Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.
The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.
The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.
After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.
Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.
The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.
During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.
During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.
In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.
From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.
One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.
After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.
In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.
The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).
Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.
Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.
In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.
The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.
In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.
At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.
Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.
In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.
Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.
Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.
In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.
Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.
To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.
Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.
In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.
During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.
Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.
In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
One of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U.S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, and as of February 24, 2021, remains in effect. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.
The Governor and Child Inc. Family Support and Education Director Michele Ostafy recognized the service and dedication of Delaware Choice AmeriCorps Fellows Maria Lopez-Carbajal and Brandon Jackson, who have worked with juvenile offenders within the Delaware Choice Program. The Delaware Choice Program is a comprehensive case management program for juvenile offenders.
Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 (146 years ago) after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.
The town went into decline in the subsequent decades and came to be described as a ghost town by 1915 (107 years ago). The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.
Also registered as a California Historical Landmark, the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly. Bodie State Historic Park is partly supported by the Bodie Foundation.
Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey. Bodey died in a blizzard the following November while making a supply trip to Monoville (near present-day Mono City), never getting to see the rise of the town that was named after him. According to area pioneer Judge J. G. McClinton, the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables".
Gold discovered at Bodie coincided with the discovery of silver at nearby Aurora (thought to be in California, later found to be Nevada), and the distant Comstock Lode beneath Virginia City, Nevada. But while these two towns boomed, interest in Bodie remained lackluster. By 1868 only two companies had built stamp mills at Bodie, and both had failed.
In 1876, the Standard Company discovered a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, which transformed Bodie from an isolated mining camp comprising a few prospectors and company employees to a Wild West boomtown. Rich discoveries in the adjacent Bodie Mine during 1878 attracted even more hopeful people. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 7,000–10,000 people and around 2,000 buildings. One legend says that in 1880, Bodie was California's second or third largest city. but the U.S. Census of that year disproves this. Over the years 1860-1941 Bodie's mines produced gold and silver valued at an estimated US$34 million (in 1986 dollars, or $85 million in 2021).
Bodie boomed from late 1877 through mid– to late 1880. The first newspaper, The Standard Pioneer Journal of Mono County, published its first edition on October 10, 1877. Starting as a weekly, it soon expanded publication to three times a week. It was also during this time that a telegraph line was built which connected Bodie with Bridgeport and Genoa, Nevada. California and Nevada newspapers predicted Bodie would become the next Comstock Lode. Men from both states were lured to Bodie by the prospect of another bonanza.
Gold bullion from the town's nine stamp mills was shipped to Carson City, Nevada, by way of Aurora, Wellington and Gardnerville. Most shipments were accompanied by armed guards. After the bullion reached Carson City, it was delivered to the mint there, or sent by rail to the mint in San Francisco.
As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including a Wells Fargo Bank, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, railroad, miners' and mechanics' union, several daily newspapers, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences.
As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestine, red light district on the north end of town. There is an unsubstantiated story of Rosa May, a prostitute who, in the style of Florence Nightingale, came to the aid of the town menfolk when a serious epidemic struck the town at the height of its boom. She is credited with giving life-saving care to many, but after she died, was buried outside the cemetery fence.
Bodie had a Chinatown, the main street of which ran at a right angle to Bodie's Main Street. At one point it had several hundred Chinese residents and a Taoist temple. Opium dens were plentiful in this area.
Bodie also had a cemetery on the outskirts of town and a nearby mortuary. It is the only building in the town built of red brick three courses thick, most likely for insulation to keep the air temperature steady during the cold winters and hot summers. The cemetery includes a Miners Union section, and a cenotaph erected to honor President James A. Garfield. The Bodie Boot Hill was located outside of the official city cemetery.
On Main Street stands the Miners Union Hall, which was the meeting place for labor unions. It also served as an entertainment center that hosted dances, concerts, plays, and school recitals. It now serves as a museum.
The first signs of decline appeared in 1880 and became obvious toward the end of the year. Promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona; and Utah lured men away from Bodie. The get-rich-quick, single miners who came to the town in the 1870s moved on to these other booms, and Bodie developed into a family-oriented community. In 1882 residents built the Methodist Church (which still stands) and the Roman Catholic Church (burned 1928). Despite the population decline, the mines were flourishing, and in 1881 Bodie's ore production was recorded at a high of $3.1 million. Also in 1881, a narrow-gauge railroad was built called the Bodie Railway & Lumber Company, bringing lumber, cordwood, and mine timbers to the mining district from Mono Mills south of Mono Lake.
During the early 1890s, Bodie enjoyed a short revival from technological advancements in the mines that continued to support the town. In 1890, the recently invented cyanide process promised to recover gold and silver from discarded mill tailings and from low-grade ore bodies that had been passed over. In 1892, the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant approximately 13 miles (20.9 km) away at Dynamo Pond. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower (97 kW) and 3,530 volts alternating current (AC) to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation marked the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.
In 1910, the population was recorded at 698 people, which were predominantly families who decided to stay in Bodie instead of moving on to other prosperous strikes.
The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last Bodie newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In a 1913 book titled California Tourist Guide and Handbook: Authentic Description of Routes of Travel and Points of Interest in California, the authors, Wells and Aubrey Drury, described Bodie as a "mining town, which is the center of a large mineral region". They referred to two hotels and a railroad operating there. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed.
Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain bought everything from the town lots to the mining claims, and reopened the Standard mill to former employees, which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped.
The last mine closed in 1942, due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all non-essential gold mines in the United States during World War II. Mining never resumed after the war.
Bodie was first described as a "ghost town" in 1915. In a time when auto travel was on the rise, many travelers reached Bodie via automobiles. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article in 1919 to dispute the "ghost town" label.
By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline and a severe fire in the business district in 1932, Bodie had permanent residents through nearly half of the 20th century. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942
In the 1940s, the threat of vandalism faced the ghost town. The Cain family, who owned much of the land, hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town's structures. Martin Gianettoni, one of the last three people living in Bodie in 1943, was a caretaker.
Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town.
The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 the state legislature authorized creation of Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained. Bodie has been named as California's official state gold rush ghost town.
Visitors arrive mainly via SR 270, which runs from US 395 near Bridgeport to the west; the last three miles of it is a dirt road. There is also a road to SR 167 near Mono Lake in the south, but this road is extremely rough, with more than 10 miles of dirt track in a bad state of repair. Due to heavy snowfall, the roads to Bodie are usually closed in winter .
Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. Only a small part of the town survived, with about 110 structures still standing, including one of many once operational gold mills. Visitors can walk the deserted streets of a town that once was a bustling area of activity. Interiors remain as they were left and stocked with goods. Littered throughout the park, one can find small shards of china dishes, square nails and an occasional bottle, but removing these items is against the rules of the park.
The California State Parks' ranger station is located in one of the original homes on Green Street.
In 2009 and again in 2010, Bodie was scheduled to be closed. The California state legislature worked out a budget compromise that enabled the state's Parks Closure Commission to keep it open. As of 2022, the park is still operating, now administered by the Bodie Foundation.
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.
The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.
Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.
Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.
The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.
Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.
The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.
The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.
After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.
Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.
The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.
During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.
During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.
In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.
From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.
One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.
After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.
In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.
The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).
Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.
Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.
In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.
The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.
In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.
At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.
Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.
In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.
Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.
Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.
In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.
Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.
To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.
Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.
In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.
During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.
Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.
In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
One of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U.S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U.S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, and as of February 24, 2021, remains in effect. A mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021.
Ringstaartmaki - Ring-tailed lemur
The ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) is a large strepsirrhine primate and the most recognized lemur due to its long, black and white ringed tail. It belongs to Lemuridae, one of five lemur families, and is the only member of the Lemur genus. Like all lemurs it is endemic to the island of Madagascar. Known locally in Malagasy as maky ([makʲ], spelled maki in French) or hira, it inhabits gallery forests to spiny scrub in the southern regions of the island. It is omnivorous and the most terrestrial of lemurs. The animal is diurnal, being active exclusively in daylight hours.
The ring-tailed lemur is highly social, living in groups of up to 30 individuals. It is also female dominant, a trait common among lemurs. To keep warm and reaffirm social bonds, groups will huddle together. The ring-tailed lemur will also sunbathe, sitting upright facing its underside, with its thinner white fur towards the sun. Like other lemurs, this species relies strongly on its sense of smell and marks its territory with scent glands. The males perform a unique scent marking behavior called spur marking and will participate in stink fights by impregnating their tail with their scent and wafting it at opponents.
As one of the most vocal primates, the ring-tailed lemur uses numerous vocalizations including group cohesion and alarm calls. Experiments have shown that the ring-tailed lemur, despite the lack of a large brain (relative to simiiform primates), can organize sequences, understand basic arithmetic operations and preferentially select tools based on functional qualities.
Despite reproducing readily in captivity and being the most populous lemur in zoos worldwide, numbering more than 2,000 individuals, the ring-tailed lemur is listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List due to habitat destruction.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring-tailed_lemur
Apenheul Primate Park is a zoo in Apeldoorn, Netherlands. It specializes in apes and monkeys. It opened in 1971 and was the first zoo in the world where monkeys could walk around freely in the forest and between the visitors. It started with just a few species, now it displays more than 30 different primates, among them bonobo, gorilla and orangutan.
In summer 2011, three adult male proboscis monkeys joined the collection from Singapore Zoo to commemorate the zoo's fortieth anniversary. Two remain in Apenheul and are the only living specimens outside Southeast Asia.
History
Apenheul Primate Park was conceptualised by photographer Wim Mager in the 1960s, when it was legal for private citizens to own monkeys. Mager, who himself had several monkeys as pets, believed both humans and primates would benefit from housing the animals in a more natural forest-like environment. He created the apen-heul (from apen meaning monkeys, and heul, an old Dutch word for a safe haven).
Apenheul Primate Park opened in 1971 as a small but revolutionary park housing wool-monkeys and other species. It is located in the nature park of Berg en Bos (Mountain and Wood) and proved popular with visitors and primatologists alike, leading to subsequent expansions. In 1976, gorillas were introduced to Apenheul Primate Park, with the first gorilla baby being born three years later. This was only the second healthy baby that had born in captivity in the Netherlands and the third in the entire world. The baby was raised by its own mother, which remains a rare event.
A major setback occurred in 1981 when the cabin in which Apenheul Primate Park began burned to the ground, killing 46 monkeys. The building was subsequently replaced.
Animals
Apenheul is home to about 70 species of animals, 35 of which are primates. The park houses lemurs from Madagascar, monkeys from Central and South America, and monkeys and apes from Asia and Africa. Primates include black-capped squirrel monkeys, yellow-breasted capuchins, black howler monkeys, Alaotra gentle lemurs, crowned sifakas, ring-tailed lemurs, red ruffed lemurs, black-and-white ruffed lemurs, red bellied lemurs, blue-eyed black lemurs, bonobos, Bornean orang-utans, eastern Javan langurs, proboscis monkeys, lion-tailed macaques, barbary macaques, western lowland gorillas, patas monkeys, golden lion tamarins, white-faced saki monkeys, northern white-cheeked gibbons, emperor tamarins, silvery marmosets, Goeldi's monkeys, red howler monkeys, grey-legged night monkeys, pygmy marmosets, white-throated capuchins, L'Hoest's monkeys, Colombian black spider monkeys, Hanuman langurs, pied tamarins, red titi monkeys, golden-headed lion tamarins and grey woolly monkeys.
Recognized for its nuthatch-like foraging technique, this warbler is on its way North. Seen at Corkscrew Swamp.
Appearance:
Adults easily recognized by rufous cap, black back, white scapular patches and white rump. Appears more compact and bigger headed than Red-backed and Lesser Grey Shrike. White spot at base of bill larger in female than in male. Immatures told from Red-backed Shrike by whitish scapulars, greyer upperparts, diffuse patch at base of primaries, pale rump and dark brown tail. Young birds may also be confused with Masked shrike, but note less contrasting primary patch, darker forehead, browner upperparts and wings, pale rump, shorter tail and deeper bill. Subspecies L. s. badius lacks primary patch. More skulking than many shrikes. Likes high viewpoints.
Sound:
Alarm call a dry, magpie-like "che-che-che-che-che", or a nasal, ascending oriole-like "weea". Territorial song loud and varied. Often repeats phrases and includes mimicry. Alternativ song a more continuous chattering with impressive mimicry similar to Red-backed and Lesser Grey Shrike, and difficult to separate from those.