View allAll Photos Tagged nonexistent
Doubtful Sound is a very large and naturally imposing fjord (despite its name) in Fiordland, in the far south west of New Zealand. It is located in the same region as the smaller but more famous and accessible Milford Sound.
Doubtful Sound was named 'Doubtful Harbour' in 1770 by Captain Cook, who did not enter the inlet as he was uncertain whether it was navigable under sail. It was later renamed Doubtful Sound by whalers and sealers.
A Spanish scientific expedition commanded by Alessandro Malaspina visited Doubtful Sound in February 1793 to conduct experiments measuring the force of gravity using a pendulum, a part of the effort to establish a new metric system. The officers of the expedition, which included Felipe Bauzá y Cañas, a cartographer, also made the first chart of the entrance and lower parts of the Sound, naming features of it. Today these form a unique cluster of the only Spanish names on the map of New Zealand: Febrero Point, Bauza Island and the Nee Islets, Pendulo Reach and Malaspina Reach.
There are three distinct arms to the sound, which is the site of several large waterfalls, notably Helena Falls at Deep Cove, and the Browne Falls which have a fall of over 600 metres. The steep hills are known for their hundreds of waterfalls during the rainy season.
Access to the sound is either by sea, or by the Wilmot Pass road from the Manapouri Power Station. Most areas of the sound itself are only accessible by sea however, as the road network in this area of New Zealand is sparse or nonexistent, as is the human population.
Charles John Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham, Governor-General of New Zealand (1957-1962) wrote about this part of Fiordland:
"There are just a few areas left in the world where no human has ever set foot. That one of them should be in a country so civilized and so advanced as New Zealand may seem incredible, unless one has visited the south-west corner of the South Island. Jagged razor backed mountains rear their heads into the sky. More than 200 days of rain a year ensure not a tree branch is left bare and brown, moss and epiphytes drape every nook. The forest is intensely green. This is big country... one day peaceful, a study in green and blue, the next melancholy and misty, with low cloud veiling the tops... an awesome place, with its granite precipices, its hanging valleys, its earthquake faults and its thundering cascades."
Doubtful Sound is unusual in that it contains two distinct layers of water that scarcely mix. The top few meters is fresh water, fed from the high inflows from the surrounding mountains, and stained brown with tannins from the forest. Below this is a layer of cold, heavy, saline water from the sea. The dark tannins in the fresh water layer makes it difficult for light to penetrate. Thus, many deep-sea species will grow in the comparatively shallow depths of the Sound.
This fiord is home to one of the southernmost population of bottlenose dolphins. The Doubtful Sound bottlenoses have formed a very insular sub-group of only about 70 individuals, with none having been observed to leave or enter the Sound during a multi-year monitoring regime. Their social grouping is thus extremely close, which is also partly attributed to the difficult and unusual features of their habitat, which is much colder than for other bottlenose groups and is also overlaid by the freshwater layer.
Other wildlife to be found in Doubtful Sound includes fur seals and penguins (Fiordland crested and blue), or even rare large whales (Southern Right Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale and some Giant Beaked Whales. Orca, the Killer Whales and Long-Finned Pilot Whales can be found also. The waters of Doubtful Sound are also home to an abundance of sea creatures, including many species of fish, starfish, sea anemones and corals. It is perhaps best known for its black coral trees which occur in unusually shallow water for what is normally a deep water species.
The catchment basin of Doubtful Sound is generally steep terrain that is heavily forested except for locations where surface rock exposures are extensive. Nothofagus trees are dominant in many locations. In the understory there are a wide variety of shrubs and ferns.
Doubtful Sound is a very large and naturally imposing fjord (despite its name) in Fiordland, in the far south west of New Zealand. It is located in the same region as the smaller but more famous and accessible Milford Sound.
Doubtful Sound was named 'Doubtful Harbour' in 1770 by Captain Cook, who did not enter the inlet as he was uncertain whether it was navigable under sail. It was later renamed Doubtful Sound by whalers and sealers.
A Spanish scientific expedition commanded by Alessandro Malaspina visited Doubtful Sound in February 1793 to conduct experiments measuring the force of gravity using a pendulum, a part of the effort to establish a new metric system. The officers of the expedition, which included Felipe Bauzá y Cañas, a cartographer, also made the first chart of the entrance and lower parts of the Sound, naming features of it. Today these form a unique cluster of the only Spanish names on the map of New Zealand: Febrero Point, Bauza Island and the Nee Islets, Pendulo Reach and Malaspina Reach.
There are three distinct arms to the sound, which is the site of several large waterfalls, notably Helena Falls at Deep Cove, and the Browne Falls which have a fall of over 600 metres. The steep hills are known for their hundreds of waterfalls during the rainy season.
Access to the sound is either by sea, or by the Wilmot Pass road from the Manapouri Power Station. Most areas of the sound itself are only accessible by sea however, as the road network in this area of New Zealand is sparse or nonexistent, as is the human population.
Charles John Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham, Governor-General of New Zealand (1957-1962) wrote about this part of Fiordland:
"There are just a few areas left in the world where no human has ever set foot. That one of them should be in a country so civilized and so advanced as New Zealand may seem incredible, unless one has visited the south-west corner of the South Island. Jagged razor backed mountains rear their heads into the sky. More than 200 days of rain a year ensure not a tree branch is left bare and brown, moss and epiphytes drape every nook. The forest is intensely green. This is big country... one day peaceful, a study in green and blue, the next melancholy and misty, with low cloud veiling the tops... an awesome place, with its granite precipices, its hanging valleys, its earthquake faults and its thundering cascades."
Doubtful Sound is unusual in that it contains two distinct layers of water that scarcely mix. The top few meters is fresh water, fed from the high inflows from the surrounding mountains, and stained brown with tannins from the forest. Below this is a layer of cold, heavy, saline water from the sea. The dark tannins in the fresh water layer makes it difficult for light to penetrate. Thus, many deep-sea species will grow in the comparatively shallow depths of the Sound.
This fiord is home to one of the southernmost population of bottlenose dolphins. The Doubtful Sound bottlenoses have formed a very insular sub-group of only about 70 individuals, with none having been observed to leave or enter the Sound during a multi-year monitoring regime. Their social grouping is thus extremely close, which is also partly attributed to the difficult and unusual features of their habitat, which is much colder than for other bottlenose groups and is also overlaid by the freshwater layer.
Other wildlife to be found in Doubtful Sound includes fur seals and penguins (Fiordland crested and blue), or even rare large whales (Southern Right Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale and some Giant Beaked Whales. Orca, the Killer Whales and Long-Finned Pilot Whales can be found also. The waters of Doubtful Sound are also home to an abundance of sea creatures, including many species of fish, starfish, sea anemones and corals. It is perhaps best known for its black coral trees which occur in unusually shallow water for what is normally a deep water species.
The catchment basin of Doubtful Sound is generally steep terrain that is heavily forested except for locations where surface rock exposures are extensive. Nothofagus trees are dominant in many locations. In the understory there are a wide variety of shrubs and ferns.
In this view, we see some things about the form of the skull that are not always apparent when we study photographs, illustrations or diagrams in books. For instance, note that the zygomatic bone joins to the temporal bone by a kind of high arched bridge. Muscles anchored at the temples, filling in the hollow called the temporal fossa, pass under this bridge to move the jaw. The masseter, the cheif jaw muscle visible at the side, going to the corner of the jaw is anchored to the zygomatic arch. Note also the large hole, the foramen magnum, through which the spinal cord passes, and its two thick round bumps at the front, the condyles, which show where the weight of the cranium tends to rest on the first vertebra. This is the pivot point for movements of the head, the spine runs to the middle of it, not up to the back.
This "budget skull" model I got to study the anatomy of the head originally came with some metal hardware, metal hooks to hold the top of the cranium, and springs from the coronoid process of the mandible to the temple area, but I like it just fine without them. I'm concentrating more on the cranium now anyway.
There are things I like about this, and at the price I paid I can't say I regret the purchase, but on the other hand, its hard to understand why just because something is cheap it doesn't need to have detailed accuracy. I get the distinct impression that skull models are mostly priced to squeeze as much blood out of medical students as possible.
This cost me less than $30, including shipping. Though I had to wait almost a full month for it. Maybe my mistake was ordering so close to Halloween? From what I've seen the next step up in price is to a $60, miniature model from Freedom of Teach. Which company seems to be partnering with the Gnommon workshop to sell some of their excellent miniature anatomy models. More accurate life size skulls seem to start at about $120, and hover in the $120 - $265 range. In this range we also find some of the lowest priced complete plastic skeletons. I was seriously considering looking to buy one at some time hoping that I could get a better skull out of it as well as all the rest of the bones until I noticed a complete skeleton in a local art supply store, not for sale, but as an ornament apparently, which had the exact same "budget skull" you see above.
Skulls with separate skull bones, such as separate frontal, maxillary, and zygomatic bones, are available for over $500.
When you think of the materials of which such things are made, and the method of construction, molded plastic, of which half of our world seems to be constructed these days, its hard to see what could be so difficult about making an accurate skull that would justify the prices. It has to come down to a judgment of what the market will bear, I guess, and with medical students of some kind being the most likely to purchase such a thing, and artists far less likely to buy, or care about accuracy, well, I guess they make good ones in smaller batches, and take a lot more care gluing the pieces together and cleaning the seams. But even realizing all that, I have a hard time understanding why the artist priced model isn't even symmetrical from the right to the left side. Why, when the jaw is off, are the condyles in front of the foramen magnum so uneven that it is difficult to get it to sit flat on anything, why it lacks any squamousal suture on the side of the head, when the coronal and lambdoidal sutures are so clearly visible. These defects tend to decrease my confidence in other features which I notice are different from a majority of illustrations and photographs of the skull that I am studying, and have made note of all my life. Such as the relatively weak to nonexistent supra-temporal line, the weakly defined temporal fossa, a coronoid process of the mandible far shorter than the condylar process, when most pictures I've looked at recently show them coming to more nearly the same height. And the very square seeming eye sockets and cheek bones which are so flat from the front.
Can I really do no better than this without compromising my rent money?
Starring Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson, Leslie Bradley, Mel Welles, and Ed Nelson. Directed by Roger Corman.
ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS is one of a handful of B films that Roger Corman did for Allied Artists when he wasn't churning 'em out for Nicholson and Arkoff at AIP. It also happens to be one of his most beloved 50s monster efforts. Frequent collaborator Charles Griffith concocted the script and strays from the abundant humor present in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, playing it straight this time (that is if you can accept a giant talking crab as serious). Griffith also appears in the film (he gets decapitated early on) and directed some underwater scenes.
A group of scientists find themselves marooned on a nuclear-affected atoll in the Pacific where they have come searching for members of a previous expedition. After doing some research, they learn that the other scientists were eaten by giant mutated land crabs, and that these creatures have also absorbed their minds. The menacing crustaceans begin to snack on this new set of guests, using telepathy (articulating with the voices of the person they just devoured) in order to summon their next victim.
Like all of the early Corman films, this was made on shoestring but was reportedly his highest grosser up until that time. It's a tight 60+ minute effort with very little time for chat, and the giant crabs don't look too bad at all in comparison with other 50s sleaze creatures. The film boasts a classic Corman stock ensemble: Richard Garland (PANIC IN YEAR ZERO) and Pamela Duncan (THE UNDEAD) are the heroic love interests, the vastly underrated Russell Johnson (still years away from "Gilligan's Island") is a life-saving technician, Mel Welles and Leslie Bradley are scientists with accents (you haven't lived until you've heard a giant crab speak with Welles' Mushnik persona, and Beach Dickerson and Ed Nelson are in there as well. Nelson also operated the crab and legend has it that Jack Nicholson did as well!
ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS has been released on DVD by Allied Artists Classics, a company whose legitimacy is still in question. Previously released on VHS, they utilize the same substandard transfer and it fairs no better on the digital format. The full frame black and white image is looks generations down in quality, with nonexistent black levels and video tape dropouts during the start of the show. The print source is in decent shape, but the overall appearance is dark and dingy. Sound quality is OK, if you can get past some hiss. This would be fine if this was an under-$10 budget release, but this baby retails for about $25! If you're willing to shell out the bucks, the quality is acceptable and this title is essential to any 50s monster movie buff's collection. Also included is the original trailer and a still gallery
A group of scientists travel to a remote island to study the effects of nuclear weapons tests, only to get stranded when their airplane explodes. The team soon discovers that the island has been taken over by crabs that have mutated into enormous, intelligent monsters. To add to their problems, the island is slowly sinking into the ocean. Will any of them manage to escape?
A sculpture of a swan that I made from LEGO bricks. This is actually a combination of two different species of swans. I grabbed various characteristics from the two of them, making a probably nonexistent species. It took maybe 40 hours to design and build.
The head and feet are recycled parts from my old bird old bird, made a 1.5 years before this one. The old one fell off of a shelf, and I didn't want to repair it, so I made a better version.
The wings of this sculpture ended up being too heavy to sustain their own weight (although they are pretty durable), but the cross support holds them firmly in place.
My son-in-law remembers traveling between Fairfield and Vacaville on weekends, about 25 years ago, to visit the grand parents, and seeing this "Castle". He had always wanted to go there. Well......early on, after the marriage to my daughter, we decided to hike to it. Walking and talking along is a great way to get to know someone. Without revealing the illegal access, as it's on private property, we found an easy way to end up here.
Here we see the remnants of of Cement City, this structure was probably the support for the limestone crushers (?). Cement City was important in the early 1900's, about 100 years ago, as it was built to mine an enormous limestone deposit (an entire hill), the remains of which I'm standing on. The limestone was crushed and then fired in an enormous kiln to create the major component of cement, ( along with gypsum and sand), and then easily and cheaply transported by rail to the more central bay area. (The formula for the production of Portland cement was worked out only in the late 1800's.) Limestone deposits are otherwise nonexistent anywhere in the area, so cement could only be brought to the Bay Area otherwise only by rail or ship from a long way off. The importance of Cement City was revealed especially after the '06 earthquake for the rebuilding effort.
Pictured holding a "Corporate Greed" sign during the Oct. 15, 2011 Occupy Augusta march is community activist Rev. Terence A. Dicks of Augusta, Georgia.
Rev. Dicks is the Southern Regional Organizer for the Progressive Democrats of America and its State of Georgia coordinator.
He also holds positions in the Richmond County Democratic Party.
OccupyAugusta did an impressive job on Sat., Oct. 15, 2011 as they marched on downtown Augusta protesting the evil greed that created the current economic crisis.
The bankers, Wall Street traders, insurance industry, politicians proved they cannot be trusted when left to their own devices when the Bush administration made oversight almost nonexistent.
And sure enough when the foxes were in charge of the hen-house it was a slaughter of American jobs, the evaporation of retirement funds, a flood of home foreclosures, sending the world economy into crisis.
See the photos at these links!
occupyaugusta.org/occupy/wp-content/lg-gallery/October%20...
occupyaugusta.org/occupy/gallery?file=October%2015%202011/
Occupy Augusta, GA: Occupy Wall Street Pages:
Occupy Augusta, GA on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/pages/OCCUPY-AUGUSTA/178325418914632
Occupy Augusta, GA on Twitter:
Occupy Augusta, GA on WordPress.org:
Occupy Augusta, GA on discussion page of WordPress.org (#OccupyAugusta ) in Solidarity with #OWS and #OccupyTogether:
occupyaugusta.org/discuss/index.php
Occupy Augusta, GA on MeetUp:
www.meetup.com/occupytogether/Augusta-GA/382952
Occupy Augusta, GA on Tumblr:
Occupy Wall Street Movement in other Georgia cities:
Check out this OccupyAugusta video by Jane Pietkivitch
She shot and edited video from the Occupy Augusta march on downtown on Saturday (10-15-11).
The OccupyAugusta movement is doing a fantastic job coordinating and the enthusiasm is no less that in New York
Visionary Poet of the Millennium
An Indian poet Prophet
Seshendra Sharma
October 20th, 1927 - May 30th, 2007
www.facebook.com/GunturuSeshendraSharma/
eBooks :http://kinige.com/author/Gunturu+Seshendra+Sharma
Rivers and poets
Are veins and arteries
Of a country.
Rivers flow like poems
For animals, for birds
And for human beings-
The dreams that rivers dream
Bear fruit in the fields
The dreams that poets dream
Bear fruit in the people-
* * * * * *
The sunshine of my thought fell on the word
And its long shadow fell upon the century
Sun was playing with the early morning flowers
Time was frightened at the sight of the martyr-
-Seshendra Sharma
"We are children of a century which has seen revolutions, awakenment of large masses of people over the earth and their emancipation from slavery and colonialism wresting equality from the hands of brute forces and forging links of brotherhood across mankind.
This century has seen peaks of human knowledge; unprecedented intercourse of peoples and
perhaps for the first time saw the world stand on the brink of the dilemma of one world or destruction.
It is a very inspiring century, its achievements are unique.
A poet who is not conscious of this context fails in his existence as poet."
-Seshendra Sharma
(From his introduction to his “Poet’s notebook "THE ARC OF BLOOD" )
* * * * * *
B.A: Andhra Christian College: Guntur: A.P: India
B.L : Madras University: Madras
Deputy Municipal Commissioner (37 Years)
Dept of Municipal Administration, Government of Andhra Pradesh
Parents: G.Subrahmanyam (Father) ,Ammayamma (Mother)
Siblings: Anasuya,Devasena (Sisters),Rajasekharam(Younger brother)
Wife: Mrs.Janaki Sharma
Children: Vasundhara , Revathi (Daughters),
Vanamaali ,Saatyaki (Sons)
Seshendra Sharma is one of the most outstanding minds of modern Asia. He is the foremost of the Telugu poets today who has turned poetry to the gigantic strides of human history and embellished literature with the thrills and triumphs of the 20th century. A revolutionary poet who spurned the pedestrian and pedantic poetry equally, a brilliant critic and a scholar of Sanskrit, this versatile poet has breathed a new vision of modernity to his vernacular.Such minds place Telugu on the world map of intellectualism. Readers conversant with names like Paul Valery, Gauguin, and Dag Hammarskjold will have to add the name of Seshendra Sharma the writer from India to that dynasty of intellectuals.
* * *
Seshendra Sharma better known as Seshendra isa colossus of Modern Indian poetry.
His literature is a unique blend of the best of poetry and poetics.
Diversity and depth of his literary interests and his works
are perhaps hitherto unknown in Indian literature.
From poetry to poetics, from Mantra Sastra to Marxist Politics his writings bear an unnerving pprint of his rare genius.
His scholarship and command over Sanskrit , English and Telugu Languages has facilitated his emergence as a towering personality of comparative literature in the 20th century world literature.
T.S.Eliot ,ArchbaldMacleish and Seshendra Sharma are trinity of world poetry and Poetics.
His sense of dedication to the genre of art he chooses to express himself and
the determination to reach the depths of subject he undertakes to explore
place him in the galaxy of world poets / world intellectuals.
Seshendra’seBooks :http://kinige.com/author/Gunturu+Seshendra+Sharma
Seshendra Sharma’s Writings Copyright © Saatyaki S/o Seshendra Sharma
Contact :saatyaki@gmail.com+919441070985+917702964402
------------------------
Seshendra Sharma : Scholar - Poet
Seshendra Sharma, a scholar - poet was born (October 20, 1927) into a Pujari ( Priests ) family in Nellore District in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India . Seshendra’s father and his grandfather were well versed in Sanskrit Literature, Vedas and scriptures. At home itself, thus from his childhood , Seshendra got the opportunity of learning and training in Sanskrit. This was further nurtured by the Village school of Thotapalligudur, where he spent best part of his childhood.
Seshendra’s father was a well-to-do person, a Munsif ( village officer ) of the village, possessing more than Ten Acres of agricultural Wet land and own house . Father’s desire to see his son flower into a top man turned a new leaf in Seshendra’s life. Seshendra’s father admitted him for B.A. Graduation course in Andhra Christian College in Guntur. Incidentally, Seshendra’s Family Sir Name and this town’s name are one and the same. This is a turning point in the budding poet’s journey. Seshendra got significant exposure to the Western World, particularly to the Western Literature. The makings of a Visionary Poet germinated in him in this Alma Mater. His journey of poetry started with Translation of Mathew Arnold’s “Sohrab and Rustum “ , a long poem , which Seshendra translated into Telugu in Metrical poetry with accomplished finesse . This trend eventually blossomed and Seshendra emerged as an Epic – Poet. His My Country – My People : Modern Indian Epic is observed by learned critics as a land mark in modern poetry ranking it on par with T.S. Eliot’s Waste Land . This long poem was nominated for Nobel Prize in 2004. His subsequent works Gorilla, Turned into water and fled away, Ocean is my name – long poems were reviewed in scholarly strain.
Seshendra’s desire to perform in films took him to Madras, today’s Chennai in Tamil Nadu. In Madras he formally joined B.L. Course with Madras Law College. And was developing contacts in the Telugu Cinema Circles and was working as a freelance journalist. He used to translate articles into Telugu for Janavani , a popular weekly of those times whose editor was Tapi Dharma Rao , a towering personality of Telugu Literature. This facet of journalism of his personality rose to its full heights in 90s. When Soviet Union collapsed he wrote a series of articles in Telugu as well as in English decrying the west’s sinister plot, villainous machinations to pull down Communist Regimes. He sang odes / Laurels to communism and expressed in aggressive tone and style that communism will never die. It remains in the genes of oppressed peoples of the world for ever. Perhaps Seshendra is the only poet from the Indian Subcontinent to pen Anti – Imperialist essays during those times. He completed his Law course but his desire to act in films remained unfulfilled. Seshendra’s Classmates at his Alma Mater, A.C.College, Guntur, N.T.Rama Rao and Kongara Jaggaiah became popular actors of Telugu Cinema. N.T.R became an all time super –hero. Seshendra’s father and maternal uncle forcibly brought him back from Madras, and with the good offices of native Member of Parliament put him in Government service as Deputy Panchayat Officer. In due course of time, on deputation, joined Municipal Administration Department and worked as Municipal Commissioner in all Major cities and towns of Andhra Pradesh. With the result he got wide exposure to conditions of social life of his times. He obtained personal acquaintance of Common Man’s life and his travails. This enriched his vision of life and literature a great deal.
With Seshendra Poetry and Poetics are Siamese Twins. He penned works of Literary Criticism both on classical and contemporary poetry. Sahitya Kaumudi (Telugu ) and his bi-lingual book “ the ARC of Blood : My Note Book “ illustrate this point. His Research work on Valmiki’s Ramayana , Shodasi : Secrets of The Ramayana , questions the very foundations of centuries old assumptions. Seshendra, based on scientific research citing from the original text of Valmiki and Vedas, reveals that The Ramayana is not just story of Rama told in enchanting poetry , But the Sage wrote the epic to spread Kundalini Yoga among the masses of his era. His observations that the concepts of Vishnu and Reincarnation were non –existent during Valmiki’s Epoch constitute a revolt against centuries old beliefs. Sita is the central character of The Ramayana and she is Kundalini Shakti / Adi Para Shakthi . During that era temples and prayers were nonexistent. This hits directly at the very foundation of Temple System.
His Kavisena Manifesto , is a noteworthy work on Modern Poetics. In this work, he compiles cogently definitions of poetry cutting across centuries and countries and writes scintillating commentary. This Manifesto of Modern Poetry is a sort of Wikipedia page of world poetry. Seshendra, finally concludes that poetry is emotions and feelings skilfully garbed in unusual diction, and poetry is a way of life.
Discerning scholars critics and academics are of intrinsic opinion that T.S.Eliot ,Archibald MacLeish and Seshendra Sharma are trinity of world poetry and Poetics.
But this Scholar – poet of 20th century is an unsung and unwept genius of his times.
Prime Minister of India honoured Seshendra with Gold Medal in Sahitya Akademi ( India ) Golden Jubilee celebrations and Chief Minister of AP honoured him with Hansa Literary Award on the eve of UGADI , Telugu New Year Day in 2005 .
In one of his poems he says fragrance of stars is calling me. Seshendra left this world and vanished into fragrance of galaxies on May 30, 2007.
* * * * * *
GunturuSeshendraSarma: an extraordinary poet-scholar
One of the ironies in literature is that
he came to be known more as a critic than a poet
HYDERABAD: An era of scholastic excellence and poetic grandeur has come to an end in the passing away of GunturuSeshendraSarma, one of the foremost poets and critics in Telugu literature. His mastery over western literature and Indian `AlankaraSastra' gave his works a stunning imagery, unparalleled in modern Indian works. One of the ironies in literature is that he came to be known more as a critic than a poet. The Central SahityaAkademi award was conferred on him for his work `KaalaRekha' and not for his poetic excellence. The genius in him made him explore `Kundalini Yoga' in his treatise on Ramayana in `Shodasi' convincingly. His intellectual quest further made him probe `NaishadhaKaavya' in the backdrop of `LalitaSahasraNaamavali', `SoundaryaLahari' and `Kama Kala Vilasam' in `SwarnaHamsa', Seshendra saw the entire universe as a storehouse of images and signs to which imagination was to make value-addition. Like Stephene Mallarme who was considered a prophet of symbolism in French literature, SeshendraSarma too believed that art alone would survive in the universe along with poetry. He believed that the main vocation of human beings was to be artists and poets. His `Kavisena Manifesto' gave a new direction to modern criticism making it a landmark work in poetics. Telugus would rue the intellectual impoverishment they suffered in maintaining a `distance' from him. Seshendra could have given us more, but we did not deserve it! The denial of the Jnanpeeth Award to him proves it
The Hindu
India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 01, 2007
* * * * * *
Pardon Me Father!
I could not rescue him from the clutches of that nymphomaniac and vampire. There may be an exception or two but an average Indian woman desires from the depths of her soul that her husband should live long and she should pass away before him. She performs prayers and fasts on auspicious days for this purpose. She in spite of being 3years elder to him did away with my father in a planned and premeditated manner and I was a silent and helpless witness to it. He suffered 1st Heart attack in November 1997. Cardiologists performed angiogram and advised open heart surgery. Because there were blocks in vessels and one valve was damaged. But she successfully thwarted it and without my knowledge or informing any one got angioplasty done in Mediciti (Hyderabad: AP; India) her plan was to do away with him and live long, and establish herself as his wife through his books. He was succumbing to her blackmail. My overwhelming hunch is that she was threatening him with social insult and humiliation if he parts ways with her.
Between 1997-2007, she played football with his body. He used to be hospitalized every now and then with swollen body and heart pain. Because of damaged valve pumping was impaired and water used to accumulate in the system. Every time I used to force her to hospitalize him. He used be in ICCU for a couple of days and recover marginally. After each visit to hospital he was getting debilitated gradually. He was put on wheel chair. He was virtually under house arrest. He was not allowed to speak to friends and family members. Visitors were kept away. He was taking Lasix (Tablet: is a diuretic that is used to treat fluid accumulation, caused by heart failure, cirrhosis, chronic kidney failure, and nephrotic syndrome.) to flush out water accumulated in his body. This creates a painful dilemma in me whether my interference in his health matters was just. As his son it was my moral duty to protect him. But I sometimes feel if I were not to interfere she would have put him to death long ago and thus he would have escaped from physical and mental torture quite early.
Towards perhaps end of the month of March she withdrew medication. He got swollen suddenly and that condition continued till the last day i.e. 30th may 2007. Each time I visited I used to tell that witch to take him to hospital. But after a couple of visits I got convinced that she made up her mind this time to do away with him. I requested a bastard who was feigning to be a friend of mine, who incidentally happens to be a legal luminary of this region to send a doctor friend to that place and ascertain the exact condition of his health. But of no avail.
I kept on telling him to come out of that place and lead a normal and healthy life. Her blackmail gained an upper hand and I lost in my efforts to restore health to him and bring him back to civilized society. O God pardon me for not being able to outmanoeuvre her machinations. Pardon me father.
* * *
Who Are The Legal Heirs of Seshendra Sharma ?
DISCLAIMER
The literary world is aware that my father Gunturu Seshendra Sharma, eminent poet, litterateur and scholar-critic, died on 30th may 2007. Ever since he expired, there has been no mention of his parents, family members and other personal details in the news and in the articles about him. Not only this, fictional lies are being spread and using money power one shady lady is being propagated as his wife and so on. This has been causing me, as his son, a great mental agony. That is why, through this article, I am revealing certain fundamental truths to the literary field of this country and the civilized society. I appeal to your conscience to uphold truth, justice and values of our composite culture.
Seshendra Sharma's family members are: Parents: Subrahmanyam Sharma, Ammaayamma- Wife: Janaki Daughters: Vasundhara, Revathi, Sons: Vanamali, Saatyaki. Only these two are legal heirs of Seshendra Sharma, socially and morally too.
Street Play and Circus: In 1972, away from the civilized society, without the knowledge of parents and near and dear, in a far flung village called Halebeed in Karnataka a circus, a street play was staged. Let me make it clear that even after this street play my father did not divorce my mother Mrs.G.Janaki legally. He never had even a faint intention of committing such an uncivilized act. On the contrary, in all crucial Government documents he nominated my mother as his legal heir from time to time. During his long career as Municipal Commissioner with The Government of Andhra Pradesh, he retired 3 times. His first retirement came in 1975 by way of compulsory retirement for his anti establishment writings during Mrs. Gandhi's' emergency. His second retirement came in 1983 when the then new chief minister N.T. Rama Rao's government reduced the age of service from 58 to 55 years. The third and final retirement in the year 1985 on attaining 58 years of age. On all these occasions, in all the government documents, my father Seshendra Sharma nominated my mother Mrs. Janaki as his legal heir. This is precisely why the self contradictory 'second marriage' is a circus enacted away from the society and Law does not recognize this type of street plays as marriage.
Lakshmi Parvathi in literature
N.T. Rama Rao, actor turned politician married Ms. Lakshimi Parvathi in 1994 and subsequently in January 1995 he came to power for the second time. She used to act as an extra constitutional power and run the matters of government and the party. She developed her own coterie of cohorts and started dominating the party. After NTR was toppled by his own son- in-law, most of them parted ways with her. And the remaining touts left her for good the day NTR breathed his last. Ms.Indira Dhanrajgir has been playing the same role in Telugu literature over a period of more than 3 decades. In the guise of literature she developed her own coterie of lumpens with extra literary and money mongering elements - Tangirala Subba Rao, Velichala Kondala RAo(Editor:Jayanthi) Cheekolu Sundarayya(A.G.'s Office, Hyderabad et al).
There are a couple[ of dissimilarities between these two instances. After the demise of NTR, L.P's coterie of cohorts disappeared once and for all. Whereas, in Indira Dhanrajgir's case new lumpens are entering the field with the passage of time. Squandering her late father's wealth, she is roping in new touts. Since NTR's wife Basava Tarakam passed away in 1984 and since he was old and sick NTR's marriage with LP has ethical basis and is legal completely. Whereas I.D's is neither ethical nor legal. Hence it is a street play. This is the reason why after my father's death she has been spending money on a larger scale and indulging in false publicity and propaganda. Bh. Krishna Murthy, Sadasiva Sharma (The then Editor of Andhra Prabha:Telugu Daily, presently with Hindi Milap) Chandrasekhara Rao(Telugu lecturer: Methodist Degree College) etc. are indulging in all sorts of heinous acts to prop up I.D as my father's wife.
My father passed away on 30 May 2007. When our family was in grief and I was performing the 11 day ritual as per my mother's wish, the above mentioned Sadasiva Sharma went to Municipal Office on 4th June, created ruckus, played havoc telling them that he is from the Prime Minister's Office , мейд some 'senior officials' make phone calls to the officials concerned and got my father's death certificate forcibly issued. When the entire family was mourning the death of the family head, a stranger and a lumpen S.S -Why did he collect my father's death certificate forcibly from the municipal authorities? Whom did he collect it for?
THREE NAMES OF THE SAME PERSON IN 3 DECADES
This is perhaps for the first time that the name of a lady appears in 3 forms at a time. Perhaps in 1970, in my father's collection of poems"PAKSHULU her name appeared As Rajkumari Indira Devi Dhanrajgir. In 2006 she published a fake version of Kamaostav(Rewritten by a muffian Called Chandrasekhara Rao) . In this book her name appears as R.I.D.D. Prior to 1970 in Maqdoom Mohiuddeen's(Renowned Urdu Poet) anthology of poetry 'Bisath -E-Raks', in Urdu as well as Hindi , at the end of two poems her name appears as Kumari Indira Dhanrajgir. On 15th June 2007 A.P state cultural affairs department and Telugu University jointly held my father's memorial meeting. I.D hijacked this meeting by issuing her own commercial advertisements in English and Telugu dailies. In these advertisements her name appeared as Smt. Indira Devi Seshendra Sharma and again in the commercial public notices мейд by her in the month of November 2007her name appeared as Rajkumari devi etc. Why does her name appear in different forms on different occasions? Will I.D explain? Will Sadasiva Sharma clarify, who forcibly took my father's death certificate after four days of his death? Or will Bh.Krishna Murthy clarify?
If I.D has even an iota of regard, respect for or faith in love, or relation, the institution of marriage, immediately after'Halebeed Circus', she would have used my father's family sir name and her name would have appeared as Gunturu Indira. Since she was conscious of her goal during all times and conditions she did not take such a hasty and mindless step of change of her name.
WHERE DOES THE REAL SECRET LIE? Her life is totally illegal, anti-social and immoral. I.D's father performed her marriage with SRikishenSeth, Nephew of the then Prime minister to Nizam, Maharaja Kishen pershad in 1945. On the day of marriage itself I.D beat SrikeshenSeth up and ran away from him. She did not stop at that. She propagated among his friends and relatives and near and dear that he was not enough of a man and unfit for conjugal/ marital life. She filed a divorce case against him and dragged it till 1969/70. Lion's share of her husband's life got evaporated and was sapped completely by then. His parents used to approach I.D's father and plead with him to prevail upon his daughter, put sense into her head and see that she either lives with their son or dissolves the marriage legally so that they can remarry off their son. But I.D did not heed. Raja Dhanrajgir after getting disgusted with her nasty activities stipulated a mandatory condition in his will. He stated that I.D would be entitled to get a share of his property only if she is married.
This is the reason why ID who has no respect for the institution of marriage or regard or desire for marital life , in the guise of love and love poetry inflicted indelible blemish on the institution of marriage which is unprecedented in the literary history of the world. After my father's death she has been indulging in more rigorous false publicity along with her coterie of touts.
KAMOSTAV:STORY OF ID'S SOUL:
With this novel Kamostav, father's literary life came to an end for good. He did not produce literary works worth mentioning in his later phase of life. During those days he asked for my opinion on that novel. I told him clearly that it lacks the form and content of a novel- it does not have a story line, plot, sequences, characters and eventually a message which every novel gives. Hence it is a trash. Several people went to court and got its publication in a weekly stopped. ID got this very trash rewritten completely by Chandrasekhara Rao and printed it. This kind of heinous development has never taken place in the recorded history of Telugu literature till date. A writing which brought disrepute to my father in the literary field and isolated him in the society, why did she get it rewritten by somebody and publish it claiming copyright to be hers? What is her motive? What is her aim? That is why Kamotsav is ID's biography, story of her inner soul.
SESHENDRA'S COPYRIGHTS:
My father gifted away copyrights of his entire works along with their translations to me by way of birth day gift to me on 2.12.1989. Since then I have published several of his works during his lifetime itself. Kamostav, the version that is secretly мейд available is the dirty work of cheapsters and lumpens under the leadership of ID. It is much worse than violation of copyrights. That is the reason why I have been reluctant to take action so far. If she and her debased henchmen try to violate copyrights of my father's works bequeathed to me, I shall take exemplary legal action against them.
ID мейд 2 public notices to the effect that my father cancelled all his earlier transfer of copyrights and retransferred all his rights to her. This is a palace intrigue in the modern era in our civilized society.
WHAT DOES LAW SAY ABOUT COPYRIGHTS?
An author can transfer copyrights of his works to any one as per her/his wish. But the Copyrights Act 1957 and the Supreme Court in its various judgments has clearly stipulated a procedure to revoke earlier assignment and transferring of copyrights to somebody else subsequently. The author has to issue a notice to the 1st assignee, giving 6 months time for reply. Depending on the reply the author can take his next step. Where as in my father's copyrights matter he did not even inform me orally of any such cancellation. ID claims that she has a typed document of transfer of copyrights signed by my father on 5.1.2006. Between 5.1.2006 and 30.5.2007, leave alone issuing a notice, he did not even inform me orally.
My father who assigned copyrights to me in his own handwriting, when he was relatively young and physically fit did not require to cancel the 1st assignment when he was totally dilapidated, almost bedridden and was counting his days. Another important aspect of the matter is that I have printed the Xerox of my father's document in his own works as early as 1995 and have been doing so from time to time during his life time. Where as ID claims to possess a document after my father's death and she has not мейд it public so far. ID tried to get my father's complete works published in different languages by Telugu University (Hyderabad: A.P: India) by paying them Rs. 6 Lakhs. I approached Telugu University and apprised them of facts. On the advice of legal experts, they stopped this project and returned ID's money to her. It is an incontrovertible fact that ID's document is a forged and fraudulent document which does not stand scrutiny before law. Court shall certainly award her exemplary punishment. In all societies and times literature has been social wealth/public property from time immemorial. It should not be used as a mask to grab share of parental property illegally and unethically. I am committed to this cause/ ideal and appeal to the civilized society to strengthen my hands in this endeavor. ID's younger brother Sri Mahendra Pratapgir is the lone legal heir apparent of that family and keeping him in dark, she is squandering her father's wealth in Telugu literature for her nasty propaganda.
FATHER PASSED AWAY:
In 1997 when he suffered the 1st heart attack he was half-dead. Dr.Sudhakar Reddy, cardiologist of Mediciti Hospitals (Native of Warangal.A.P) performed angiogram and diagnosed that he had blocks in arteries and one valve was damaged completely. He advised open heart surgery. But ID averted it and got angioplasty performed. His health declined rapidly since then and was leading the life of virtually an invalid till he breathed his last. He suffered inexplicable mental and physical torture for about a decade. During the last leg of his journey he was isolated from his family completely. He was deserted by one and all in the literary field. When his younger brother passed away, his younger sister passed away he did not visit his ancestral home in his village and call on those families. He became target of jealousy and animosity in the society. He became a victim of false impression with the society that he was an aristocrat and rolling in luxuries. Whereas, he was deprived of even his native vegetarian food for decades together. As a silent and helpless witness to these painful happenings, I was subject to untold mental agony.
In the later half of March 2007 on one of my visits to him, I was aghast at his condition. His entire body was swollen. His appearance was like that of a stuffed gunny bag. I told him to get hospitalized. I told ID to rush him to a hospital. But of no avail. On 30th may 2007 at about 11 pm I got a phone call from her" Come soon/Serious" she said. As I entered at 11.15 pm "Go inside/he is no more' she said.
* * One day when swarms of lamps vanish, in the light of a lonely lamp I ask the dumb pillars "Can't you liberate me from the disgust of this existence? I ask those stand still forest flame trees
which blossom flowers at that very place year after year
"can't you rescue me?
I ask those high roof tops and this Venetian furniture
which every one feels are greater than me, "can't you rescue me from the disgust of this existence?" All these answer in a melancholic voice "We have been languishing since more than 100 years watching the same unchanging scenes we are older prisoners than you are" (Janavamsham: Telugu: Seshendra: Page 80-81:1993: Translated by me)
My father's first biography (in Hindi) titled "Rashtrendu Seshendra: Ashesh Aayaam" by Dr.Vishranth Vasishth appeared in 1994. Touching upon these very sensitive aspects of my father's life he commented in that book"SONE KE PINJRE ME PANCHCHI" (A bird in a golden cage). Alarmed and agonized by his rapidly declining health, as early as June 2002, in order to bring pressure on ID, I gave a 2 cassettes long interview to Vijayaviharam of Janaharsha group. Later on when I enquired about that interview they said that in the raids conducted on their premises, they got destroyed.
I wanted to rescue my father and bring him back home when he was in good health. Alas! At last, I took him to the burial ground, laid him on the funeral pyre and consigned him to flames and returned home all alone.
G.Satyaki S/o Late.G.Seshendra Sharma
Hyderabad.T.S.INDIA
saatyaki@gmail.com
+91 94410 70985, 7702964402
Good news is the mid-Kent colony of this wonderfully unusual plant has tripled in size, and now at its peak.
--------------------------------------------
Monotropa hypopitys — called Dutchman's pipe, false beech-drops, pinesap, or yellow bird's-nest — is a herbaceous perennial plant, formerly classified in the families Monotropaceae or Pyrolaceae, but now included within the subfamily Monotropoideae of the blueberry family (Ericaceae). It is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, and is scarce or rare in many areas. However, it is still the most widespread member of the subfamily. While currently included in the genus Monotropa, recent genetic evidence strongly suggests that Monotropa hypopitys should be placed in its own genus, Hypopitys, with the single species Hypopitys monotropa Crantz, but possibly containing several other species.
Unlike most plants, it does not contain chlorophyll; it is a myco-heterotroph, getting its food through parasitism upon fungi rather than photosynthesis. These fungi form a mycorrhiza with nearby tree species.
Plants are fleshy and grow 10–35 cm tall. True stems are nonexistent. Instead, the only part which emerges from the soil are unbranched adventitious inflorescences which are developmentally similar to adventitious roots.[2] All parts of the plant are pale yellowish white to reddish-tinged. The bracts are 5–10 mm long scale-like structures, which cover most of the inflorescence. Plants flower from April to December depending on the geographic region (May to October in North America).[3] The flowers are pendulous when young, but become erect when they begin to mature into the fruit which is a capsule. The flowers are 9–12 mm long and produced in a cluster of 1–11 together at the apex of the inflorescence, which is a raceme.[4] It flowers between early summer and mid autumn; plants that flower in summer are yellow and sparsely hairy, while those that flower in autumn are red and densely hairy. These two color "forms" overlap in flowering time. It has been suggested that yellow individuals are largely self-pollinating.[5]
The species name is from Latinized Greek hypo-, "under", and pitys, "pine", referring to where pinesap often grows.[6] However, Linnaeus misspelled it hypopithys. Many authorities have followed his spelling.[7][8][9] On the other hand, it has been stated that the spelling "is generally treated as correctable to 'hypopitys'",[10] as followed by other authorities.[11] The variability of the species in colour, hairiness, and in the number of flowers, has led to an extensive synonymy for the species. The entire list is over 80 synonyms;[2] some of which include Hypopitys americana, H. fimbriata, H. insignata, H. lanuginosa, H. latisquama, H. monotropa, Monotropa chinensis, M. hypophegea, M. lanuginosa, M. latisquama, M. multiflora and M. taiwaniana.
In California, Monotropa hypopitys may be confused for the much less common Pityopus or Hemitomes which are superficially similar.
During the formative years of our planet, the atmosphere was a poisonous mixture of methane, ammonia, and old sock. It was also unbearably warm. This is, of course, relative. It turned out to be perfect for early microbial life forms, which loved the extreme heat and fed on just these substances, converting them into waste: carbon dioxide. So these early microbes—the Methanites—covering much of the planet, took its atmosphere and processed it. They processed the hell out of it, until they ran out of methane. With a much thinner atmosphere, the temperature dropped, and most of the Methanites, not accustomed to the cold, died. Yet some of them adapted—and they learned an important lesson. They were through putting all their nuclei in one cytoplasm.¹ They began what scientists now call The Great Turning-Into-All-Sorts-of-Stuff Period. They turned into plants, which processed the carbon dioxide into oxygen, animals, which processed oxygen back into carbon dioxide to sustain the plants, and politicians. As the blanket of carbon dioxide thinned, the planet—which I will call Earth, until I think of something better—cooled to a level not unlike what it is today: hot! I don't know where you are, but it is hot here. It's so hot the Venusians are sending ice cream. It's so hot Paris Hilton got tired of saying her own catchphrase. What was I talking about? Oh, yes.
So, plants and animals are part of a symbiotic oxygen economy, which has kept the Earth² in a relatively narrow range of temperature for the past hundred thousand years, give or take an ice age or two.
Then, something went horribly wrong. Plants, once the shining stars of biology, weren't evolving fast enough. With no brains and no way to develop weapons, let alone hold them in their nonexistent hands, they were simply not equipped to challenge humans for supremacy. And fire didn't help either. The careful balance of nature was suddenly like a see-saw with the Olsen twins on either side, where one of the Olsens weighed eight times more than the other (and I'm not saying which). Some of the scientists in Switzerland (which is where I believe all scientists are vacationing this week, to get out of the unexpectedly hot Glasgow summer) now say that if the polar ice caps melt much further, it will set in motion a series of events that will result in the release of vast quantities of methane locked in unstable deposits around the world. Once that happens, it will get so hot that Al Roker will be covered by fifty meters of ocean. It's happened before, when the average temperature rose too high. Not the Al Roker part. That would be new.
If you think this sounds bad, I have good news for you. It isn't. I mean, sure, it's bad for humans, but it's perfectly natural. You can take comfort in the fact that we are all part of a cycle of life on this crazy planet.³ From Methanites, to plants, to humans, to robots, and back.
And the Methanites are waiting to take their turn.
¹ Except for the amoebas. They still do that.
² Still trying to think of a better name. Is Humania too, uh, sapien-centric? How about Aqua?
³ And by crazy I mean horrifyingly unstable.
Doubtful Sound is a very large and naturally imposing fjord (despite its name) in Fiordland, in the far south west of New Zealand. It is located in the same region as the smaller but more famous and accessible Milford Sound.
Doubtful Sound was named 'Doubtful Harbour' in 1770 by Captain Cook, who did not enter the inlet as he was uncertain whether it was navigable under sail. It was later renamed Doubtful Sound by whalers and sealers.
A Spanish scientific expedition commanded by Alessandro Malaspina visited Doubtful Sound in February 1793 to conduct experiments measuring the force of gravity using a pendulum, a part of the effort to establish a new metric system. The officers of the expedition, which included Felipe Bauzá y Cañas, a cartographer, also made the first chart of the entrance and lower parts of the Sound, naming features of it. Today these form a unique cluster of the only Spanish names on the map of New Zealand: Febrero Point, Bauza Island and the Nee Islets, Pendulo Reach and Malaspina Reach.
There are three distinct arms to the sound, which is the site of several large waterfalls, notably Helena Falls at Deep Cove, and the Browne Falls which have a fall of over 600 metres. The steep hills are known for their hundreds of waterfalls during the rainy season.
Access to the sound is either by sea, or by the Wilmot Pass road from the Manapouri Power Station. Most areas of the sound itself are only accessible by sea however, as the road network in this area of New Zealand is sparse or nonexistent, as is the human population.
Charles John Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham, Governor-General of New Zealand (1957-1962) wrote about this part of Fiordland:
"There are just a few areas left in the world where no human has ever set foot. That one of them should be in a country so civilized and so advanced as New Zealand may seem incredible, unless one has visited the south-west corner of the South Island. Jagged razor backed mountains rear their heads into the sky. More than 200 days of rain a year ensure not a tree branch is left bare and brown, moss and epiphytes drape every nook. The forest is intensely green. This is big country... one day peaceful, a study in green and blue, the next melancholy and misty, with low cloud veiling the tops... an awesome place, with its granite precipices, its hanging valleys, its earthquake faults and its thundering cascades."
Doubtful Sound is unusual in that it contains two distinct layers of water that scarcely mix. The top few meters is fresh water, fed from the high inflows from the surrounding mountains, and stained brown with tannins from the forest. Below this is a layer of cold, heavy, saline water from the sea. The dark tannins in the fresh water layer makes it difficult for light to penetrate. Thus, many deep-sea species will grow in the comparatively shallow depths of the Sound.
This fiord is home to one of the southernmost population of bottlenose dolphins. The Doubtful Sound bottlenoses have formed a very insular sub-group of only about 70 individuals, with none having been observed to leave or enter the Sound during a multi-year monitoring regime. Their social grouping is thus extremely close, which is also partly attributed to the difficult and unusual features of their habitat, which is much colder than for other bottlenose groups and is also overlaid by the freshwater layer.
Other wildlife to be found in Doubtful Sound includes fur seals and penguins (Fiordland crested and blue), or even rare large whales (Southern Right Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale and some Giant Beaked Whales. Orca, the Killer Whales and Long-Finned Pilot Whales can be found also. The waters of Doubtful Sound are also home to an abundance of sea creatures, including many species of fish, starfish, sea anemones and corals. It is perhaps best known for its black coral trees which occur in unusually shallow water for what is normally a deep water species.
The catchment basin of Doubtful Sound is generally steep terrain that is heavily forested except for locations where surface rock exposures are extensive. Nothofagus trees are dominant in many locations. In the understory there are a wide variety of shrubs and ferns.
一次又一次，背上背包
完成一个又一个的旅程
每次即将踏上未可知的旅程
发现脚下的路是依旧长而空荡
寂寂的四周，一个人影也找不出
风在流动，带走了体温
也带走依附于体温的生命激情
习惯了有风的童话
也习惯了没有人的生涯
只是在回首的那一刹
才发觉，事实上，Something,that is not
Existence, is nonexistent.
他们说：孤独的人是可耻的
Doubtful Sound is a very large and naturally imposing fjord (despite its name) in Fiordland, in the far south west of New Zealand. It is located in the same region as the smaller but more famous and accessible Milford Sound.
Doubtful Sound was named 'Doubtful Harbour' in 1770 by Captain Cook, who did not enter the inlet as he was uncertain whether it was navigable under sail. It was later renamed Doubtful Sound by whalers and sealers.
A Spanish scientific expedition commanded by Alessandro Malaspina visited Doubtful Sound in February 1793 to conduct experiments measuring the force of gravity using a pendulum, a part of the effort to establish a new metric system. The officers of the expedition, which included Felipe Bauzá y Cañas, a cartographer, also made the first chart of the entrance and lower parts of the Sound, naming features of it. Today these form a unique cluster of the only Spanish names on the map of New Zealand: Febrero Point, Bauza Island and the Nee Islets, Pendulo Reach and Malaspina Reach.
There are three distinct arms to the sound, which is the site of several large waterfalls, notably Helena Falls at Deep Cove, and the Browne Falls which have a fall of over 600 metres. The steep hills are known for their hundreds of waterfalls during the rainy season.
Access to the sound is either by sea, or by the Wilmot Pass road from the Manapouri Power Station. Most areas of the sound itself are only accessible by sea however, as the road network in this area of New Zealand is sparse or nonexistent, as is the human population.
Charles John Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham, Governor-General of New Zealand (1957-1962) wrote about this part of Fiordland:
"There are just a few areas left in the world where no human has ever set foot. That one of them should be in a country so civilized and so advanced as New Zealand may seem incredible, unless one has visited the south-west corner of the South Island. Jagged razor backed mountains rear their heads into the sky. More than 200 days of rain a year ensure not a tree branch is left bare and brown, moss and epiphytes drape every nook. The forest is intensely green. This is big country... one day peaceful, a study in green and blue, the next melancholy and misty, with low cloud veiling the tops... an awesome place, with its granite precipices, its hanging valleys, its earthquake faults and its thundering cascades."
Doubtful Sound is unusual in that it contains two distinct layers of water that scarcely mix. The top few meters is fresh water, fed from the high inflows from the surrounding mountains, and stained brown with tannins from the forest. Below this is a layer of cold, heavy, saline water from the sea. The dark tannins in the fresh water layer makes it difficult for light to penetrate. Thus, many deep-sea species will grow in the comparatively shallow depths of the Sound.
This fiord is home to one of the southernmost population of bottlenose dolphins. The Doubtful Sound bottlenoses have formed a very insular sub-group of only about 70 individuals, with none having been observed to leave or enter the Sound during a multi-year monitoring regime. Their social grouping is thus extremely close, which is also partly attributed to the difficult and unusual features of their habitat, which is much colder than for other bottlenose groups and is also overlaid by the freshwater layer.
Other wildlife to be found in Doubtful Sound includes fur seals and penguins (Fiordland crested and blue), or even rare large whales (Southern Right Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale and some Giant Beaked Whales. Orca, the Killer Whales and Long-Finned Pilot Whales can be found also. The waters of Doubtful Sound are also home to an abundance of sea creatures, including many species of fish, starfish, sea anemones and corals. It is perhaps best known for its black coral trees which occur in unusually shallow water for what is normally a deep water species.
The catchment basin of Doubtful Sound is generally steep terrain that is heavily forested except for locations where surface rock exposures are extensive. Nothofagus trees are dominant in many locations. In the understory there are a wide variety of shrubs and ferns.
© branko
youtube channel: www.youtube.com/a2b1
NY Times, Dec. 4 2011
Colin Huggins was there with his baby grand, the one he wheels into Washington Square Park for his al fresco concerts. So were Tic and Tac, a street-performing duo, who held court in the fountain — dry for the winter. And Joe Mangrum was pouring his elaborate sand paintings on the ground near the Washington Arch.
Follow @NYTMetro
Connect with @NYTMetro on Twitter for New York breaking news and headlines.
Enlarge This Image
Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Kareem Barnes of Tic and Tac collected donations on Sunday.
Enlarge This Image
Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Joe Mangrum showed his sand paintings on Sunday.
In other words, it was a typical Sunday afternoon in the Greenwich Village park, where generations of visitors have mingled with musicians, artists, activists, poets and buskers.
Yet this fall, that urban harmony has grown dissonant as the city’s parks department has slapped summonses on the four men and other performers who put out hats or buckets, for vending in an unauthorized location — specifically, within 50 feet of a monument.
The department’s rule, one of many put in place a year ago, was intended to control commerce in the busiest parks. Under the city’s definition, vending covers not only those peddling photographs and ankle bracelets, but also performers who solicit donations.
The rule attracted little notice at first. But the enforcement in Washington Square Park in the past two months has generated summonses ranging from $250 to $1,000. And it has started a debate about the rights of parkgoers seeking refuge from the bustle of the streets versus those looking for entertainment.
At a news conference in the park on Sunday organized by NYC Park Advocates, the artists waved fistfuls of pink summonses while their advocates, including civil rights lawyers, called on the city to stop what they called harassment of the performers.
“This is a heavy-handed solution to a nonexistent problem,” said Ronald L. Kuby, one of the lawyers.
The rule is especially problematic in Washington Square Park, performers say, because there are few locations across its 10 acres that are beyond 50 feet from a memorial or fountain — whether the bust of Alexander Lyman Holley, who introduced the Bessemer steel process to this country, or the statue of the Italian liberator Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Then there is the park’s international reputation as a gathering place for folk music pioneers and the Beats.
“Washington Square is the live-music park of New York City, and it would be close to impossible for any one of us to follow these regulations,” said Mr. Huggins, who has received nine summonses with fines totaling $2,250.
But Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, argues that there is ample room for performers away from the monuments. And, he added, a musician who is not putting out a tin cup is welcome to sit on the edge of the fountain or under a monument.
“It’s the whole issue of the ‘tragedy of the commons,’ ” he said. “If you allow all the performers and all the vendors to do whatever they want to do, pretty soon there’s no park left for people who want to use them for quiet enjoyment. This is a way of having some control and not 18 hours of carnival-like atmosphere.”
Gary Behrens, an amateur photographer visiting from New Jersey, applauded the city’s efforts to rein in the performers. “I’m O.K. with the guitar, but the loud instruments have taken over the park,” he said.
The lawyers and advocates, however, challenged the idea that street performers were selling a product as a vendor does. And threatening a lawsuit, they faulted the city for creating what they called “First Amendment zones” through the rules.
“Is this place zany?” asked Norman Siegel, the former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “You bet. Public parks are quintessential public forums. Zaniness is something we should cherish and protect.”
Park visitation has soared along with the rise of tourism in the last 15 years, and with it vendors and artists interested in a lucrative market.
Mr. Benepe insisted that the rules would not scare off future music legends.
“If Bob Dylan wanted to come play there tomorrow, he could,” he said, “although he might have to move away from the fountain.”
Oddly, the dispute coincided with the 50th anniversary of the so-called Folk Riot in Washington Square Park, when the parks commissioner tried to squelch Sunday folk performances. Hundreds of musicians gathered in protest, the police were called in and a melee ensued.
In April, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wrote a letter commemorating the Folk Riot, saying he applauded “the folk performers who changed music, our city and our world beginning half a century ago.”
One really can never get enough of Benedict Cumberbatch... most of the planet is still waiting for Sherlock Season 5 to finally be filmed. But in the mean time, there's of course his biggest money maker, Dr. Strange.
Strange was most recently seen headlining the first half of the Avengers Infinity Saga - Infinity War, while coming back for the climactic battle with Thanos in Endgame. Hot Toys and Marvel Legends did their versions of this character a while ago, and now it was time for Figuarts and Mafex, with the latter being out of my price range... for now.
I do get bored, after all.
As the fancy box indicates, this is Strange from the Battle on Titan, before he made that ultimate sacrifice and disappeared for a movie. It comes decently packed, though is missing two key items - the multi armed effect, and a FREAKING STAND TO LEVITATE HIM WITH.
Contents do, however, include the figure, an alternate eye closed sculpt, 14 posing hands, one additional Crimson Bands of Cytorek hand, two small and medium Time Stone hand effects coupled with one "large" effect, two small, medium, and large general orange effects, his mystic sword, interchangeable Eye of Agamoto and Time Stone chest effect, and finally, a giant ass portal effect.
Even from the prototype pictures, it's easy to see that Tamashii Nations improved the figure aesthetically. I say that because I only own components of the first figure. Two major areas of discussion, namely the sculpt and the cape.
The sculpt I'm pretty sure my photos speaks for itself. Like with most of the recent Avengers release.. again.. MOST, because their Loki is made of the stuff I laugh at. Tamashii Nations have done a damn fine job of capturing the essence of the actor. The first one really isn't that great., nailing maybe the hairstyle and general facial structure.
The cape isn't super fancy per se, but it IS a wired cloth cape, though sadly the section that drapes over the shoulder is rigid plastic. The work on the Mafex cape admittedly destroys this, as it really does look like a scaled down Hot Toys version. This cape, however, is far superior to the Wile E Coyote steam roller accident prop that came with the first one. It's truly a sight to behold, possibly being the worst toy cape I've ever seen on any toy, with the only redeeming value being that it's decently painted. Furthermore, this wired cape still allows for some pretty cool posing.
Having said that, we're now free to move on to this figure.
The outfit is multi layered, which does look nice. Unfortunately, those layers are made of some pliable, yet still pretty rigid plastic, which looks great but generally gets in the way of everything. There's even a warning about permanent deformation if you leave Strange in his crossed leg pose for too long.
The Eye of Agamoto is something you want to keep your eye on because there is a tendency for the piece to go flying should you move the figure too quickly. Also, the Eye is connected to two raised and painted lines that represent the necklace strap, rather than being on an actual strap.
The translucent plastics used for the effects are also somewhat concerning, given the fragility of them and all. Especially the sword, where you have to shove the handle into a fist. The larger mystic mandalas are printed on clear plastic, which are less fragile, but more susceptible to scratching. There's also lovely warnings in the manual about potential paint wear as you pose the figure and attach the various mystic effects.
From an articulation perspective, Strange is about the same as Bucky, except that Strange has pull down hips. Based on previous practices and general logic, I'm going to go ahead and guess that they probably reused the actual body. You get ankles, single jointed knees, hips with thigh twist, waist, mid torso, standard shoulders with butterfly joints for lateral movement, single jointed elbows, wrist, neck, and head.
I've mentioned the hips, so here's some other highlights. The ankle joints are terrible, probably due to the bulk of the boot. Basically they're nonexistent. The coattails predictably get in the way of leg movement, as does the solid shoulder piece on the cape. All-in-all, it's a functional body with decent posing options, but I can't help but feel it's an older body that they didn't want to spend money to bring up to Ant Man standards.
Paint is generally above average. Work on the head and body are very good. Even in the areas of finer detail you can make out the masking is pretty sharp. Things like the Eye of Agamoto I can give a pass on as it is hard to get the paint into every tiny crevice. Paint work appears smooth. But, it's the hands that knock it down a peg for me. For starters, paint application is a bit thick, but maybe that's a material thing.
What you might not be able to make out is that wrist at the wrist there's a very small layer of black to help it blend in with the wrist and sleeves. The masking here is horrible.. like, they didn't even try, and it's consistent across all the hands I looked at. I wish they hadn't bothered at all, and just kept them as all flesh coloured.
Build quality, however, is all good. The usual criteria of joints, materials used, QC, tolerances, finish - none of those register a true concern or complaint from me and are up to what I expect from a Figuarts release.
Overall, I'd say this Dr. Strange is pretty much what the WW 84 Figuarts was like, namely its what they should have done in the first place, though I guess I can say that at least WW was better than Dr. Strange. While from an overall perspective the Figuarts certainly looks more like Benedict Cumberbatch as compared to the Mafex photos, you are getting a better articulated body and an outfit that works with you as opposed to against you... and a 120 USD preorder price tag.
To me, it's fascinating that each of the two figures chose a different key moment to include accessories for. Maybe this was planned so they didn't compete with each other?
*Sigh* I guess I'll just have to eventually get the other one too.
Manufacturer: UltraFire Aeronautics/Rogue Automotive
Nationality: USA
First assembled: September 6, 2049
Birthplace: Phoenix, Arizona U.S.A
Engine: Ultrafire 2o Turbofan + 1 Brushless E-motor w/ 20 kWh Solid State Battery
Power: 3,500 ft/lbs of thrust/200 HP(electric-only)
0-60: 1.5 seconds
Top speed: 320.24 MPH
Stationed in a mid-sized plant in northern Phoenix, Arizona, right in the shadow of Phoenix Deer Valley Airport, you'll find a company by the name of Ultrafire Aeronautics. Established in the early 21st century, Ultrafire started out by manufacturing clean-burning microturbine generators and auxiliary power units for small aircraft. Over time they would become a bit of an innovator in the industry, building carbon-neutral turbofan engines for light jets and other aircraft. They've even won military contracts to build and maintain engines for heavy transport aircraft, alongside turbine generators. Light aircraft is their bread and butter though, which is why they're well-known in the field for making some of the most power-dense engines in the industry. Their latest product, the 2o series of turbofans, takes this pursuit of power density to the extreme. The 2o is very small for a turbofan engine, comparable in size to ICE engines seen in light commercial vehicles, but produces an impressive 3,500 ft/Ibs of thrust. Power density isn't its only party trick, boasting some of the best fuel efficiency for an engine in its class thanks to advanced materials used in its construction and a high bypass ratio. Its one of the best products the company has ever produced with a multitude of potential uses, which is why its within Ultrafire's best interest to make sure it makes some splashes marketing-wise. How they made those splashes is unique, to put it lightly.
Ultrafire's current CEO, James Barlow, is an avid automotive enthusiast. He got his start working for Nomad Heavy Industries as an engineer before finding his way to Ultrafire in the late 2030s. Every project in the company has been touched by him, but he's never headed anything for Ultrafire. By 2047, the seeds of change would be planted when he took order of a Rogue Firepower GT MAX. The Firepower GT MAX was a variant of the Firepower hypercar built by midwestern company Rogue Automotive. Unlike the regular track-oriented Firepower GT, The GT MAX was a sleek, slippery take on the car focused entirely on top speed. That focus on speed gave James some ideas, and after a few meetings with Rogue themselves, something truly unique was kicked into development.
Turbine-powered cars are rare if not virtually nonexistent, even well into the 21st century. Fuel efficiency is too poor, manufacturing and maintenance is too pricey, throttle response is notoriously bad, and noise can be too loud. For an automobile used for more general daily activities, this isn't exactly sustainable. For something more "premium" and high-performance that isn't going to see daily use, more exotic powertrains become a bit more viable. Despite this, what Ultrafire did isn't any less insane. At the 2049 New York International Auto Show, Rogue Automotive had something special in their booth. Sitting next to the car that more or less inspired it, the out-of-production Firepower GT MAX, Ultrafire's latest creation stole the entire show. Dubbed the 2o-49 Rush, it was as though somebody took a bondafide fighter jet, shrunk it down, took off the wings and replaced them with 4 high-performance wheels. Since it was sitting in Rogue's booth, it was clear that Ultrafire wasn't shy about the Rush's parentage. The Rush was very much co-developed with the high-performance marque from Illinois, with them in charge of developing and assembling the platform, handling components and electronics. Ultrafire themselves were in charge of final assembly, the design itself (and therefore the body), and of course the powertrain. The Rush is by far the most unique place the 2o Turbofan will ever find itself, not just because its an aerospace powertrain in a car, but because its not working alone.
The 2o Turbofan is relatively unmodified for the Rush. Same compact size, same surprising efficiency, same 3,500 Ibs of thrust. Keeping with the Rush's clear aerospace theme, it also has a prominent exhaust nozzle at the end. The Rush doesn't feature an afterburner for obvious reasons, but there's still incredibly hot gases exiting the nozzle at high speed even at idle. Not ideal for use on dense public roads. That's why the Rush is a hybrid. Situated up front is a small electric motor powering the rear wheels. When the Rush is set to "touring" mode, it is strictly electric-only, quietly and docilely puttering around with 200 HP. No loud turbine, no poor throttle response, and no hot exhaust melting anyone behind it. Which gives everyone the chance to take in the Rush's incredible design. Its no exaggeration that it looks like a fighter jet that lost its wings. The single-seat isn't accessed by a door, but a rear-hinged bubble canopy emulating some of the best attack aircraft serving in the world's air forces. This canopy even features detonation cords to shatter it. In fighter jets this is done right before a pilot ejects, but in the Rush it's just so the driver can escape in case of a rollover. Also taken from these aircraft are a pair of rear vertical stabilizers. Like the stabilizers seen in fighter jets, they provide high-speed stability without causing aerodynamic drag. Downforce is mainly provided by the front and side splitters, and the large rear diffusor. The wheels are even subjected to this focus on aero, being the very same flat nanocomposite disks seen on the Firepower GT MAX. With this fighter jet focus on looks and aero, it'd be disappointing if the speed didn't match. Does it? It has an actual jet engine, what do you think?
As said before, the 2o Turbofan engine produces a very impressive 3,500 Ibs of thrust. There's no solid way to convert that to the more familiar horsepower, but it honestly doesn't matter with the numbers the Rush puts down. When the Rush is switched to the "Max" setting, the turbofan spools up and unleashes everything it has at outright supersonic speed. The advanced launch control system combined with the immense power allows the Rush to accelerate from 0-60 in an unbelievable 1.5 seconds. Top speed of the Rush is currently unknown. They have so far only been able to properly test it on the runway of the Phoenix Deer Valley Airport that they call home. They managed to break the mythical 300 MPH barrier before the driver needed to slow down, utilizing the active chutes to not end up in the grass. The specific number they clocked was 320.24 MPH, but Ultrafire themselves theorize the Rush wasn't even close to giving it all they had. At the Rush's unveiling at New York, they stated that they're working with Rogue Automotive to set up a run at the famous Bonneville salt flats to see just what the Rush can really do. While straightline speed is clearly where the Rush shines the brightest, its not all it can do. Rogue was in charge of building the Rush's platform and handling components, and considering Rogue has a Le Mans-winning factory race team, its not hard to guess how the Rush performed on their test track in Peoria, IL. The Rush actually has a "track" setting, where both the Turbofan and electric powertrain components work together. The turbofan providing surging power in the straight lines, with the electric motor filling in on the slower sections to compensate for the turbofan's poor throttle response. So hypothetically, the Rush can be a decent track racer. Due to its slippery aero, long length and weight, there are better choices. Which is fair because again, top speed is where the Rush does its best work. And that work is incredible, with the current official top speed the Rush has put down easily setting it up as the worlds fastest production car. And yet, the Rush will never sit on that throne on the account that it doesn't come close to meeting the definition of a production car.
The Rush can only really exist thanks to low volume production car laws, and it certainly takes advantage of the fact. Only 10 Rushes ever were, each selling for an eye-watering price of $2 Million each. Despite this high price, the Rush quickly sold out. Making profit solely off the Rush was never the primary goal of the Ultrafire, however. Marketing and demonstrating the advanced 2o Turbofan engine was, and the Rush seemingly did that job well. Ultrafire signed a contract with Patton Defense to deliver 1,500 2o turbines. It's not too likely that Patton Defense made this choice solely due to the Rush, but the simple fact is that this contract was signed about 4 months after the Rush was produced and started making noise. The chances that the Rush at least caught the attention of one of the world's largest defense corps and one thing lead to another is without question more than zero.
A Zen garden, is an enclosed shallow sandpit containing sand, gravel and rocks.
The main elements of karesansui are rocks and sand, with the sea symbolized not by water but by sand raked in patterns that suggest rippling water.
Plants are much less important (and sometimes nonexistent) in many karesansui gardens. Karesansui gardens are often, but not always, meant to be viewed from a single, seated position.
This was my first time actually plane watching at Miami International Airport (MIA). I checked some spotter websites to find some good locations. They recommended The Holes as being an "official" site so we checked it out. I was pretty disappointed; there was a lot of construction going on and parking was nonexistent. My wife dropped me off. The area is totally exposed. Even though it was December it was pretty hot - no shade, no place to sit, no other people around. The holes are actually pretty small so it's hard to get a lens through the hole. Arrivals were almost impossible to shoot but you could see planes taxiing by for takeoff. After an hour I was cooking so we bagged it. We then went to the area close to the El Dorado furniture store. Much better. There were a bunch of spotters from around the world there. It was a great atmosphere. Nicely shaded, safe, close to some stores and a lot of good traffic to watch. I saw a bunch of planes from airlines I had not seen before, including some airlines I had not heard of. Some of the planes didn't show up on Flight Radar 24 so they were very pleasant surprises. All in all a very good day and I'd love to go back there!
I took these photos in December 2019.
Doubtful Sound is a very large and naturally imposing fjord (despite its name) in Fiordland, in the far south west of New Zealand. It is located in the same region as the smaller but more famous and accessible Milford Sound.
Doubtful Sound was named 'Doubtful Harbour' in 1770 by Captain Cook, who did not enter the inlet as he was uncertain whether it was navigable under sail. It was later renamed Doubtful Sound by whalers and sealers.
A Spanish scientific expedition commanded by Alessandro Malaspina visited Doubtful Sound in February 1793 to conduct experiments measuring the force of gravity using a pendulum, a part of the effort to establish a new metric system. The officers of the expedition, which included Felipe Bauzá y Cañas, a cartographer, also made the first chart of the entrance and lower parts of the Sound, naming features of it. Today these form a unique cluster of the only Spanish names on the map of New Zealand: Febrero Point, Bauza Island and the Nee Islets, Pendulo Reach and Malaspina Reach.
There are three distinct arms to the sound, which is the site of several large waterfalls, notably Helena Falls at Deep Cove, and the Browne Falls which have a fall of over 600 metres. The steep hills are known for their hundreds of waterfalls during the rainy season.
Access to the sound is either by sea, or by the Wilmot Pass road from the Manapouri Power Station. Most areas of the sound itself are only accessible by sea however, as the road network in this area of New Zealand is sparse or nonexistent, as is the human population.
Charles John Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham, Governor-General of New Zealand (1957-1962) wrote about this part of Fiordland:
"There are just a few areas left in the world where no human has ever set foot. That one of them should be in a country so civilized and so advanced as New Zealand may seem incredible, unless one has visited the south-west corner of the South Island. Jagged razor backed mountains rear their heads into the sky. More than 200 days of rain a year ensure not a tree branch is left bare and brown, moss and epiphytes drape every nook. The forest is intensely green. This is big country... one day peaceful, a study in green and blue, the next melancholy and misty, with low cloud veiling the tops... an awesome place, with its granite precipices, its hanging valleys, its earthquake faults and its thundering cascades."
Doubtful Sound is unusual in that it contains two distinct layers of water that scarcely mix. The top few meters is fresh water, fed from the high inflows from the surrounding mountains, and stained brown with tannins from the forest. Below this is a layer of cold, heavy, saline water from the sea. The dark tannins in the fresh water layer makes it difficult for light to penetrate. Thus, many deep-sea species will grow in the comparatively shallow depths of the Sound.
This fiord is home to one of the southernmost population of bottlenose dolphins. The Doubtful Sound bottlenoses have formed a very insular sub-group of only about 70 individuals, with none having been observed to leave or enter the Sound during a multi-year monitoring regime. Their social grouping is thus extremely close, which is also partly attributed to the difficult and unusual features of their habitat, which is much colder than for other bottlenose groups and is also overlaid by the freshwater layer.
Other wildlife to be found in Doubtful Sound includes fur seals and penguins (Fiordland crested and blue), or even rare large whales (Southern Right Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale and some Giant Beaked Whales. Orca, the Killer Whales and Long-Finned Pilot Whales can be found also. The waters of Doubtful Sound are also home to an abundance of sea creatures, including many species of fish, starfish, sea anemones and corals. It is perhaps best known for its black coral trees which occur in unusually shallow water for what is normally a deep water species.
The catchment basin of Doubtful Sound is generally steep terrain that is heavily forested except for locations where surface rock exposures are extensive. Nothofagus trees are dominant in many locations. In the understory there are a wide variety of shrubs and ferns.
The Seoul City Tour is a city-run bus service for foreign visitors, in the form of a hop-on, hop-off service. For first-time visitors to Seoul or those whose Korean is rusty/nonexistent, this is an excellent choice.
My choice was to tour Seoul using mass transit like the locals. For the duration of my Seoul stay, my point was to function like a lifelong Seoul native resident - and I think I did pretty well.
The bus model is a Hyundai AeroCity, like 70% of all city buses in South Korea.
Hampton Roads is such a historic area. It's so historic that you can actually go and see Virginia state highways that no longer exist!
VA 305 has not existed here since 1963!
We decided that hiking would be one of the methods for my wife and I to get healthier. Luckily there is a state park near us with some great trails. After working up to a five mile route we met a hiker who told us about the trails off the main trail, or ridge trails. They were a bit hard to find but once we got the hang of it locating the ridge trails was easy. They were more challenging and much more fun.
After reading many books on hiking the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail, the last book I read was from a Michigander who hiked the AP Trail, tried it as a through-hike but life got in the way and he had to go home a few times. I knew this was beyond our interest but we really enjoy the day hikes. The wife won’t go for the backpacking just yet; I keep working on her though.
In looking to try something new, I came across information on the North Country Trail on the internet and read about the Hike 100 Challenge. We thought it was a good idea and made it our goal. We also decided to attend the 2016 Celebration in Fargo, ND.
We started in April at the Birch River Schoolhouse Loop in MI. We picked the hottest and most humid day in May to hike the NCT in Shawnee State Forest, OH. Met a nice local family who camped out on the trail because they got a late start the night before. Ohio pushed me to the limit physically with the weather, it was either up or down and the trail markings were nonexistent. After that we decided we were cool weather hikers.
So we took a break until mid-September when we went to the Celebration in Fargo. I was a bit worried we would not achieve the challenge since we were only about a third of the way in mileage. However, Fargo got us back on track, we really enjoyed the prairie hiking which is much different than that of MI. We made a vacation out of the trip and took our time coming home by way of the Upper Peninsula. But first we had to stop and walk across the Montreal River that borders Wisconsin and Michigan. You see, after hiking in MI, OH, ND, MN, it only seemed logical to hike in WI since we were already there. Then we could make a vacation out of going to the PA/NY border, that way we would have hiked in all the states of the NCT. Oh yes, we had decided to hike all seven states when we were at the Celebration in Fargo!
We camped and hiked in the Porcupine Mountains, the “Grand Canyon” of Michigan, and Hemingway country in the Upper Peninsula. We found the NCT crossing the highway near Lowell on our frequent drives to see the kids at the University of Michigan and got more mileage in that way. It is also a nice stop to get out of the car and stretch the legs. We then traveled to Bradford, PA and hiked the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania and the Allegany State Park in New York. Oh, it’s not a typo, PA likes the “heny” and NY likes the “any”, I have the photos to prove it.
We took two days off then headed back to our now favorite place, Bitely MI. We camped and did our final twenty miles on the trail over three days. As a present we had just purchased backpacks for both of us at REI in Ann Arbor (shout out), they worked out great.
A shout out to the Outpost in Holland, MI where we purchase most of our stuff. Thanks to all the folks volunteering and working for the NCT, what a wonderful concept. It is a great way to get out and rejuvenate.
Greg & Cathy Brock, Members at Large
Pictured at the Oct. 15, 2011 Occupy Augusta march are Joey Traina (left), an organizer of the group Occupy Augusta and President of the Richmond County Young Democrats, and community activist Rev. Terence A. Dicks (right) of Augusta.
Rev. Dicks is the Southern Regional Organizer for the Progressive Democrats of America and its State of Georgia coordinator.
He also holds positions in the Richmond County Democratic Party.
OccupyAugusta did an impressive job on Sat., Oct. 15, 2011 as they marched on downtown Augusta protesting the evil greed that created the current economic crisis.
The bankers, Wall Street traders, insurance industry, politicians proved they cannot be trusted when left to their own devices when the Bush administration made oversight almost nonexistent.
And sure enough when the foxes were in charge of the hen-house it was a slaughter of American jobs, the evaporation of retirement funds, a flood of home foreclosures, sending the world economy into crisis.
See the photos at these links!
occupyaugusta.org/occupy/wp-content/lg-gallery/October%20...
occupyaugusta.org/occupy/gallery?file=October%2015%202011/
Occupy Augusta, GA: Occupy Wall Street Pages:
Occupy Augusta, GA on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/pages/OCCUPY-AUGUSTA/178325418914632
Occupy Augusta, GA on Twitter:
Occupy Augusta, GA on WordPress.org:
Occupy Augusta, GA on discussion page of WordPress.org (#OccupyAugusta ) in Solidarity with #OWS and #OccupyTogether:
occupyaugusta.org/discuss/index.php
Occupy Augusta, GA on MeetUp:
www.meetup.com/occupytogether/Augusta-GA/382952
Occupy Augusta, GA on Tumblr:
Occupy Wall Street Movement in other Georgia cities:
Check out this OccupyAugusta video by Jane Pietkivitch
She shot and edited video from the Occupy Augusta march on downtown on Saturday (10-15-11).
The OccupyAugusta movement is doing a fantastic job coordinating and the enthusiasm is no less that in New York
The H.E. Burke family in a Model T at Yellowstone National Park.
"Harry Burke was not fond of autos or of driving them and was not too knowledgeable about how they functioned. Marion [Armstrong] Burke [his wife] loved the automobile. She was an expert driver, driving from Palo Alto to Yellowstone National Park in 1926 with four young children and a dog in a model T Ford over practically nonexistent roads. She felt the automobile liberated her."
For more about Harry Eugene and Marion Armstrong Burke, see:
Wickman, Boyd E. 2005. Harry E. Burke and John M. Miller, pioneers in Western forest entomology. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-638. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 163 p. here: www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/publications/harry-e-burke-and-john-m...
Photo by: H.E. Burke
Date: 1926
Credit: USDA Forest Service, Region 6, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection.
Source: Boyd E. Wickman Collection; Regional Office; Portland, Oregon.
Andy Eglitis brought Boyd's slides from Bend to Portland February 13, 2019.
For additional historical forest entomology photos, stories, and resources see the Western Forest Insect Work Conference site: wfiwc.org/content/history-and-resources
Image provided by USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection: www.fs.usda.gov/main/r6/forest-grasslandhealth
Doubtful Sound is a very large and naturally imposing fjord (despite its name) in Fiordland, in the far south west of New Zealand. It is located in the same region as the smaller but more famous and accessible Milford Sound.
Doubtful Sound was named 'Doubtful Harbour' in 1770 by Captain Cook, who did not enter the inlet as he was uncertain whether it was navigable under sail. It was later renamed Doubtful Sound by whalers and sealers.
A Spanish scientific expedition commanded by Alessandro Malaspina visited Doubtful Sound in February 1793 to conduct experiments measuring the force of gravity using a pendulum, a part of the effort to establish a new metric system. The officers of the expedition, which included Felipe Bauzá y Cañas, a cartographer, also made the first chart of the entrance and lower parts of the Sound, naming features of it. Today these form a unique cluster of the only Spanish names on the map of New Zealand: Febrero Point, Bauza Island and the Nee Islets, Pendulo Reach and Malaspina Reach.
There are three distinct arms to the sound, which is the site of several large waterfalls, notably Helena Falls at Deep Cove, and the Browne Falls which have a fall of over 600 metres. The steep hills are known for their hundreds of waterfalls during the rainy season.
Access to the sound is either by sea, or by the Wilmot Pass road from the Manapouri Power Station. Most areas of the sound itself are only accessible by sea however, as the road network in this area of New Zealand is sparse or nonexistent, as is the human population.
Charles John Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham, Governor-General of New Zealand (1957-1962) wrote about this part of Fiordland:
"There are just a few areas left in the world where no human has ever set foot. That one of them should be in a country so civilized and so advanced as New Zealand may seem incredible, unless one has visited the south-west corner of the South Island. Jagged razor backed mountains rear their heads into the sky. More than 200 days of rain a year ensure not a tree branch is left bare and brown, moss and epiphytes drape every nook. The forest is intensely green. This is big country... one day peaceful, a study in green and blue, the next melancholy and misty, with low cloud veiling the tops... an awesome place, with its granite precipices, its hanging valleys, its earthquake faults and its thundering cascades."
Doubtful Sound is unusual in that it contains two distinct layers of water that scarcely mix. The top few meters is fresh water, fed from the high inflows from the surrounding mountains, and stained brown with tannins from the forest. Below this is a layer of cold, heavy, saline water from the sea. The dark tannins in the fresh water layer makes it difficult for light to penetrate. Thus, many deep-sea species will grow in the comparatively shallow depths of the Sound.
This fiord is home to one of the southernmost population of bottlenose dolphins. The Doubtful Sound bottlenoses have formed a very insular sub-group of only about 70 individuals, with none having been observed to leave or enter the Sound during a multi-year monitoring regime. Their social grouping is thus extremely close, which is also partly attributed to the difficult and unusual features of their habitat, which is much colder than for other bottlenose groups and is also overlaid by the freshwater layer.
Other wildlife to be found in Doubtful Sound includes fur seals and penguins (Fiordland crested and blue), or even rare large whales (Southern Right Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale and some Giant Beaked Whales. Orca, the Killer Whales and Long-Finned Pilot Whales can be found also. The waters of Doubtful Sound are also home to an abundance of sea creatures, including many species of fish, starfish, sea anemones and corals. It is perhaps best known for its black coral trees which occur in unusually shallow water for what is normally a deep water species.
The catchment basin of Doubtful Sound is generally steep terrain that is heavily forested except for locations where surface rock exposures are extensive. Nothofagus trees are dominant in many locations. In the understory there are a wide variety of shrubs and ferns.
Capitol Reef National Park is an American national park in south-central Utah. The park is approximately 60 miles (97 km) long on its north–south axis and just 6 miles (9.7 km) wide on average. The park was established in 1971 to preserve 241,904 acres (377.98 sq mi; 97,895.08 ha; 978.95 km2) of desert landscape and is open all year, with May through September being the highest visitation months.
Partially in Wayne County, Utah, the area was originally named "Wayne Wonderland" in the 1920s by local boosters Ephraim P. Pectol and Joseph S. Hickman. Capitol Reef National Park was designated a national monument on August 2, 1937, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the area's colorful canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths; however, it was not until 1950 that the area officially opened to the public. Road access was improved in 1962 with the construction of State Route 24 through the Fremont River Canyon.
The majority of the nearly 100 mi (160 km) long up-thrust formation called the Waterpocket Fold—a rocky spine extending from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell—is preserved within the park. Capitol Reef is an especially rugged and spectacular segment of the Waterpocket Fold by the Fremont River. The park was named for its whitish Navajo Sandstone cliffs with dome formations—similar to the white domes often placed on capitol buildings—that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold. Locally, reef refers to any rocky barrier to land travel, just as ocean reefs are barriers to sea travel.
Capitol Reef encompasses the Waterpocket Fold, a warp in the earth's crust that is 65 million years old. It is the largest exposed monocline in North America. In this fold, newer and older layers of earth folded over each other in an S-shape. This warp, probably caused by the same colliding continental plates that created the Rocky Mountains, has weathered and eroded over millennia to expose layers of rock and fossils. The park is filled with brilliantly colored sandstone cliffs, gleaming white domes, and contrasting layers of stone and earth.
The area was named for a line of white domes and cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, each of which looks somewhat like the United States Capitol building, that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold.
The fold forms a north-to-south barrier that has barely been breached by roads. Early settlers referred to parallel impassable ridges as "reefs", from which the park gets the second half of its name. The first paved road was constructed through the area in 1962. State Route 24 cuts through the park traveling east and west between Canyonlands National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, but few other paved roads invade the rugged landscape.
The park is filled with canyons, cliffs, towers, domes, and arches. The Fremont River has cut canyons through parts of the Waterpocket Fold, but most of the park is arid desert. A scenic drive shows park visitors some highlights, but it runs only a few miles from the main highway. Hundreds of miles of trails and unpaved roads lead into the equally scenic backcountry.
Fremont-culture Native Americans lived near the perennial Fremont River in the northern part of the Capitol Reef Waterpocket Fold around the year 1000. They irrigated crops of maize and squash and stored their grain in stone granaries (in part made from the numerous black basalt boulders that litter the area). In the 13th century, all of the Native American cultures in this area underwent sudden change, likely due to a long drought. The Fremont settlements and fields were abandoned.
Many years after the Fremont left, Paiutes moved into the area. These Numic-speaking people named the Fremont granaries moki huts and thought they were the homes of a race of tiny people or moki.
In 1872 Almon H. Thompson, a geographer attached to United States Army Major John Wesley Powell's expedition, crossed the Waterpocket Fold while exploring the area. Geologist Clarence Dutton later spent several summers studying the area's geology. None of these expeditions explored the Waterpocket Fold to any great extent.
Following the American Civil War, officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City sought to establish missions in the remotest niches of the Intermountain West. In 1866, a quasi-military expedition of Mormons in pursuit of natives penetrated the high valleys to the west. In the 1870s, settlers moved into these valleys, eventually establishing Loa, Fremont, Lyman, Bicknell, and Torrey.
Mormons settled the Fremont River valley in the 1880s and established Junction (later renamed Fruita), Caineville, and Aldridge. Fruita prospered, Caineville barely survived, and Aldridge died. In addition to farming, lime was extracted from local limestone, and uranium was extracted early in the 20th century. In 1904 the first claim to a uranium mine in the area was staked. The resulting Oyler Mine in Grand Wash produced uranium ore.
By 1920 no more than ten families at one time were sustained by the fertile flood plain of the Fremont River and the land changed ownership over the years. The area remained isolated. The community was later abandoned and later still some buildings were restored by the National Park Service. Kilns once used to produce lime are still in Sulphur Creek and near the campgrounds on Scenic Drive.
Local Ephraim Portman Pectol organized a "booster club" in Torrey in 1921. Pectol pressed a promotional campaign, furnishing stories to be sent to periodicals and newspapers. In his efforts, he was increasingly aided by his brother-in-law, Joseph S. Hickman, who was the Wayne County High School principal. In 1924, Hickman extended community involvement in the promotional effort by organizing a Wayne County-wide Wayne Wonderland Club. That same year, Hickman was elected to the Utah State Legislature.
In 1933, Pectol was elected to the presidency of the Associated Civics Club of Southern Utah, successor to the Wayne Wonderland Club. The club raised U.S. $150 (equivalent to $3,391 in 2022) to interest a Salt Lake City photographer in taking a series of promotional photographs. For several years, the photographer, J. E. Broaddus, traveled and lectured on "Wayne Wonderland".
In 1933, Pectol was elected to the legislature and almost immediately contacted President Franklin D. Roosevelt and asked for the creation of "Wayne Wonderland National Monument" out of the federal lands comprising the bulk of the Capitol Reef area. Federal agencies began a feasibility study and boundary assessment. Meanwhile, Pectol guided the government investigators on numerous trips and escorted an increasing number of visitors. The lectures of Broaddus were having an effect.
Roosevelt signed a proclamation creating Capitol Reef National Monument on August 2, 1937. In Proclamation 2246, President Roosevelt set aside 37,711 acres (15,261 ha) of the Capitol Reef area. This comprised an area extending about two miles (3 km) north of present State Route 24 and about 10 mi (16 km) south, just past Capitol Gorge. The Great Depression years were lean ones for the National Park Service (NPS), the new administering agency. Funds for the administration of Capitol Reef were nonexistent; it would be a long time before the first rangers would arrive.
Administration of the new monument was placed under the control of Zion National Park. A stone ranger cabin and the Sulphur Creek bridge were built and some road work was performed by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. Historian and printer Charles Kelly came to know NPS officials at Zion well and volunteered to watchdog the park for the NPS. Kelly was officially appointed custodian-without-pay in 1943. He worked as a volunteer until 1950, when the NPS offered him a civil-service appointment as the first superintendent.
During the 1950s Kelly was deeply troubled by NPS management acceding to demands of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission that Capitol Reef National Monument be opened to uranium prospecting. He felt that the decision had been a mistake and destructive of the long-term national interest. It turned out that there was not enough ore in the monument to be worth mining.
In 1958 Kelly got additional permanent help in protecting the monument and enforcing regulations; Park Ranger Grant Clark transferred from Zion. The year Clark arrived, fifty-six thousand visitors came to the park, and Charlie Kelly retired for the last time.
During the 1960s (under the program name Mission 66), NPS areas nationwide received new facilities to meet the demand of mushrooming park visitation. At Capitol Reef, a 53-site campground at Fruita, staff rental housing, and a new visitor center were built, the latter opening in 1966.
Visitation climbed dramatically after the paved, all-weather State Route 24 was built in 1962 through the Fremont River canyon near Fruita. State Route 24 replaced the narrow Capitol Gorge wagon road about 10 mi (16 km) to the south that frequently washed out. The old road has since been open only to foot traffic. In 1967, 146,598 persons visited the park. The staff was also growing.
During the 1960s, the NPS purchased private land parcels at Fruita and Pleasant Creek. Almost all private property passed into public ownership on a "willing buyer-willing seller" basis.
Preservationists convinced President Lyndon B. Johnson to set aside an enormous area of public lands in 1968, just before he left office. In Presidential Proclamation 3888 an additional 215,056 acres (87,030 ha) were placed under NPS control. By 1970, Capitol Reef National Monument comprised 254,251 acres (102,892 ha) and sprawled southeast from Thousand Lake Mountain almost to the Colorado River. The action was controversial locally, and NPS staffing at the monument was inadequate to properly manage the additional land.
The vast enlargement of the monument and diversification of the scenic resources soon raised another issue: whether Capitol Reef should be a national park, rather than a monument. Two bills were introduced into the United States Congress.
A House bill (H.R. 17152) introduced by Utah Congressman Laurence J. Burton called for a 180,000-acre (72,800 ha) national park and an adjunct 48,000-acre (19,400 ha) national recreation area where multiple use (including grazing) could continue indefinitely. In the United States Senate, meanwhile, Senate bill S. 531 had already passed on July 1, 1970, and provided for a 230,000-acre (93,100 ha) national park alone. The bill called for a 25-year phase-out of grazing.
In September 1970, United States Department of Interior officials told a house subcommittee session that they preferred about 254,000 acres (103,000 ha) be set aside as a national park. They also recommended that the grazing phase-out period be 10 years, rather than 25. They did not favor the adjunct recreation area.
It was not until late 1971 that Congressional action was completed. By then, the 92nd United States Congress was in session and S. 531 had languished. A new bill, S. 29, was introduced in the Senate by Senator Frank E. Moss of Utah and was essentially the same as the defunct S. 531 except that it called for an additional 10,834 acres (4,384 ha) of public lands for a Capitol Reef National Park. In the House, Utah Representative K. Gunn McKay (with Representative Lloyd) had introduced H.R. 9053 to replace the dead H.R. 17152. This time, the House bill dropped the concept of an adjunct Capitol Reef National Recreation Area and adopted the Senate concept of a 25-year limit on continued grazing. The Department of Interior was still recommending a national park of 254,368 acres (102,939 ha) and a 10-year limit for grazing phase-out.
S. 29 passed the Senate in June and was sent to the House, which dropped its own bill and passed the Senate version with an amendment. Because the Senate was not in agreement with the House amendment, differences were worked out in Conference Committee. The Conference Committee issued its report on November 30, 1971, and the bill passed both houses of Congress. The legislation—'An Act to Establish The Capitol Reef National Park in the State of Utah'—became Public Law 92-207 when it was signed by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971.
The area including the park was once the edge of a shallow sea that invaded the land in the Permian, creating the Cutler Formation. Only the sandstone of the youngest member of the Cutler Formation, the White Rim, is exposed in the park. The deepening sea left carbonate deposits, forming the limestone of the Kaibab Limestone, the same formation that rims the Grand Canyon to the southwest.
During the Triassic, streams deposited reddish-brown silt that later became the siltstone of the Moenkopi Formation. Uplift and erosion followed. Conglomerate, followed by logs, sand, mud, and wind-transported volcanic ash, then formed the uranium-containing Chinle Formation.
The members of the Glen Canyon Group were all laid down in the middle- to late-Triassic during a time of increasing aridity. They include:
Wingate Sandstone: sand dunes on the shore of an ancient sea
Kayenta Formation: thin-bedded layers of sand deposited by slow-moving streams in channels and across low plains
Navajo Sandstone: huge fossilized sand dunes from a massive Sahara-like desert.
The Golden Throne. Though Capitol Reef is famous for white domes of Navajo Sandstone, this dome's color is a result of a lingering section of yellow Carmel Formation carbonate, which has stained the underlying rock.
The San Rafael Group consists of four Jurassic-period formations, from oldest to youngest:
Carmel Formation: gypsum, sand, and limey silt laid down in what may have been a graben that was periodically flooded by sea water
Entrada Sandstone: sandstone from barrier islands/sand bars in a near-shore environment
Curtis Formation: made from conglomerate, sandstone, and shale
Summerville Formation: reddish-brown mud and white sand deposited in tidal flats.
Streams once again laid down mud and sand in their channels, on lakebeds, and in swampy plains, creating the Morrison Formation. Early in the Cretaceous, similar nonmarine sediments were laid down and became the Dakota Sandstone. Eventually, the Cretaceous Seaway covered the Dakota, depositing the Mancos Shale.
Only small remnants of the Mesaverde Group are found, capping a few mesas in the park's eastern section.
Near the end of the Cretaceous period, a mountain-building event called the Laramide orogeny started to compact and uplift the region, forming the Rocky Mountains and creating monoclines such as the Waterpocket Fold in the park. Ten to fifteen million years ago, the entire region was uplifted much further by the creation of the Colorado Plateau. This uplift was very even. Igneous activity in the form of volcanism and dike and sill intrusion also occurred during this time.
The drainage system in the area was rearranged and steepened, causing streams to downcut faster and sometimes change course. Wetter times during the ice ages of the Pleistocene increased the rate of erosion.
There are more than 840 species of plants that are found in the park and over 40 of those species are classified as rare and endemic.
The closest town to Capitol Reef is Torrey, about 11 mi (18 km) west of the visitor center on Highway 24, slightly west of its intersection with Highway 12. Its 2020 population is less than 300. Torrey has a few motels and restaurants and functions as a gateway town to Capitol Reef National Park. Highway 12, as well as a partially unpaved scenic backway named the Burr Trail, provide access from the west through the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument and the town of Boulder.
A variety of activities are available to tourists, both ranger-led and self-guided, including auto touring, hiking, backpacking, camping, bicycling (on paved and unpaved roads only; no trails), horseback riding, canyoneering, and rock climbing. The orchards planted by Mormon pioneers are maintained by the National Park Service. From early March to mid-October, various fruit—cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, or apples—can be harvested by visitors for a fee.
A hiking trail guide is available at the visitor center for both day hikes and backcountry hiking. Backcountry access requires a free permit.
Numerous trails are available for hiking and backpacking in the park, with fifteen in the Fruita District alone. The following trails are some of the most popular in the park:
Cassidy Arch Trail: a very steep, strenuous 3.5 mi (5.6 km) round trip that leads into the Grand Wash to an overlook of the Cassidy Arch.
Hickman Bridge Trail: a 2 mi (3.2 km) round trip leading to the natural bridge.
Frying Pan Trail: an 8.8 mi (14.2 km) round trip that passes the Cassidy Arch, Grand Wash, and Cohab Canyon.
Brimhall Natural Bridge: a popular, though strenuous, 4.5 mi (7.2 km) round trip with views of Brimhall Canyon, the Waterpocket Fold, and Brimhall Natural Bridge.
Halls Creek Narrows: 22 mi (35 km) long and considered strenuous, with many side canyons and creeks; typically hiked as a 2-3 day camping trip.
Visitors may explore several of the main areas of the park by private vehicle:
Scenic Drive: winds through the middle of the park, passing the major points of interest; the road is accessible from the visitor center to approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) into the Capitol Gorge.
Notom-Bullfrog Road: traverses the eastern side of the Waterpocket Fold, along 10 mi (16 km) of paved road, with the remainder unpaved.
Cathedral Road: an unpaved road through the northern areas of the park, that traverses Cathedral Valley, passing the Temples of the Sun and Moon.
The primary camping location is the Fruita campground, with 71 campsites (no water, electrical, or sewer hookups), and restrooms without bathing facilities. The campground also has group sites with picnic areas and restrooms. Two primitive free camping areas are also available.
Canyoneering is growing in popularity in the park. It is a recreational sport that takes one through slot canyons. It involves rappelling and may require swimming and other technical rope work. Day-pass permits are required for canyoneering in the park, and can be obtained for free from the visitor's center or through email. It's key to know that each route requires its own permit. If one is planning on canyoneering for multiple days, passes are required for each day. Overnight camping as part of the canyoneering trip is permitted, but one must request a free backcountry pass from the visitor center.
It is imperative to plan canyoneering trips around the weather. The Colorado Plateau is susceptible to flash flooding during prime rainy months. Because canyoneering takes place through slot canyons, getting caught in a flash flood could be lethal. Take care to consult reliable weather sources. The Weather Atlas shows charts with the monthly average rainfall in inches.
Another risk to be aware of during the summer months is extreme heat. Visitors can find weather warnings on the National Weather Service website. The heat levels are detailed by a color and numerical scale (0-4).
One of the most popular canyoneering routes in Capitol Reef National Park is Cassidy Arch Canyon. A paper by George Huddart, details the park's commitment to working with citizens to maintain the route as well as the vegetation and rocks. The canyon route is approximately 2.3 miles long (0.4 miles of technical work), consisting of 8 different rappels, and takes between 2.5 and 4.5 hours to complete. The first rappel is 140 ft and descends below the famous Cassidy Arch.
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.
Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.
People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.
Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.
The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.
Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.
The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:
use of the bow and arrow while hunting,
building pithouse shelters,
growing maize and probably beans and squash,
building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,
creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,
producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.
The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.
These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.
In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.
In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.
Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.
At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.
The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.
A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.
Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.
Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.
Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.
Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.
The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.
Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.
Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.
In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.
The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.
Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.
After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.
As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.
Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.
Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.
Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.
Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.
On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.
Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century
During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.
The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.
Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:
William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859
Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866
3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868
A Black man in Uintah, 1869
Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873
Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874
Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880
William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883
John Murphy in Park City, 1883
George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884
Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886
Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925
Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).
Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.
Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.
During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.
In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.
Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.
Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.
As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.
One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.
It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.
One Year Ago - I paused in the forest for this beautiful little Amanita muscaria. The south coast of British Columbia is like no other place in Canada; our fearsome winters are practically nonexistent here. Instead of the frozen prairie (my current location), the landscape is defined by a temperate rainforest, coastal mountains, and the interface with the Pacific Ocean. I lived in this part of the world for 35 years - most of my adult life. It will always be a comfort zone for me when I return to visit.
Don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without explicit permission.
© James R. Page - all rights reserved.
from Wikipedia
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a gunfight that happened at about 3 P.M. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881. The famous gunfight did not actually occur at the O.K. Corral. It took place in Harwood's lumberyard down the street from the rear entrance to the corral. William Harwood sold lumber from his house after he was forced from office as Tombstone's second mayor (its first elected mayor). The gunfight began in the side yard between his house and Fly's Lodging House. Normally he stored his lumber there, but since there was so much construction going on, he was often sold out — as he was on the day of the gunfight. The end of the gunfight took place out in Fremont Street, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, United States. Some of the fighting was in Fremont Street in front of the vacant lot. About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds. Although only three men were killed during the gunfight, it is generally regarded as the most famous gunfight in the history of the Old West.
The gunfight at the O.K. Corral has been portrayed in numerous Western films. It has come to symbolize the struggle between law-and-order and open-banditry and rustling in frontier towns of the Old West where law enforcement was often weak or simply nonexistent.
I enjoyed my visit to Tombstone last week. This sign at the O.K. Corral also symbolizes my view of life right now. And that is good.
2018-04-07 JAMIE BULL n LAUREN CLAY Porthole Portico at Camayuhs
Porthole Portico is an exhibition of new, site specific work by Jaime Bull and Lauren Clay.
We are entering the regions of Dream. A time beyond history, where everyday life is imbued with mythology. 'Eat me' - Glimpse a world existing outside of things known to the human spirit. Complicated rooms with stairs, ramps, windows, and secret doors. Sea like a mirror. See, well marked streaks of foam are blown along the direction of the wind. 13 is Shipwreck. Bridges and more stairs, leading to more rooms. Limitless. Never ending. Glittering abyss. This metaphysical world, nonexistent for us, this world beyond physical things, is the Porthole Portico.
Jaime Bull splits her time between Atlanta and Athens. Bull looks to the ocean for inspiration. Her work walks a tightrope between Busby Berkley’s dazzling, synchronized choreography to conversely, falling off a Carnival cruise ship and drowning. There’s glitz, glitter and energetic dancing ladies but there’s also slumping, over-fed obesity and the futile treading of water. Bull received her MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Georgia, Athens in 2013. She is a recipient of the Willson Center for the Arts research grant for her thesis work Lady Beasts: An Investigation of Womanliness. She has exhibited in Atlanta with the Doppler Project, the Mint Gallery, the Mammal Gallery, Whitespace Gallery and at the Airport in Terminal E. Regionally, she has shown work at the University of North Georgia, Auburn University, and the COOP Gallery in Nashville. She is a Vermont Studio School Fellow and attended a two-month residency at the Bernheim Arboretum in Louisville, KY. She was featured in and on the cover of the 219th edition of Ambit Magazine, London. She currently teaches at the University of Georgia and is an Atlanta Contemporary Art Center Studio Artist.
Lauren Clay, originally from Atlanta, now lives and works in New York. Clay makes sculpture and large wall works. Her site-specific wall installations warp and manipulate space using digitally printed vinyl photos of handmade collages. Her sculptures, painted plaster reliefs, also address metaphysical interactions with architecture. She received her MFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University, and BFA in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design. She has had solo exhibitions at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Denver; Larissa Goldston Gallery, New York; Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta, and Savannah College of Art and Design. Her work has been included in recent group exhibitions at Asya Geisberg Gallery, New York; Patrick Parish Gallery, New York; and Sometime Salon, San Francisco. Clay’s work has been written about in the New York Times, Bomb Magazine, Art in America, and Sculpture Magazine. Her artist book, Subtle Body, published by Small Editions, is included in the library collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Maker:L,Date:2017-8-29,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y
Doubtful Sound is a very large and naturally imposing fjord (despite its name) in Fiordland, in the far south west of New Zealand. It is located in the same region as the smaller but more famous and accessible Milford Sound.
Doubtful Sound was named 'Doubtful Harbour' in 1770 by Captain Cook, who did not enter the inlet as he was uncertain whether it was navigable under sail. It was later renamed Doubtful Sound by whalers and sealers.
A Spanish scientific expedition commanded by Alessandro Malaspina visited Doubtful Sound in February 1793 to conduct experiments measuring the force of gravity using a pendulum, a part of the effort to establish a new metric system. The officers of the expedition, which included Felipe Bauzá y Cañas, a cartographer, also made the first chart of the entrance and lower parts of the Sound, naming features of it. Today these form a unique cluster of the only Spanish names on the map of New Zealand: Febrero Point, Bauza Island and the Nee Islets, Pendulo Reach and Malaspina Reach.
There are three distinct arms to the sound, which is the site of several large waterfalls, notably Helena Falls at Deep Cove, and the Browne Falls which have a fall of over 600 metres. The steep hills are known for their hundreds of waterfalls during the rainy season.
Access to the sound is either by sea, or by the Wilmot Pass road from the Manapouri Power Station. Most areas of the sound itself are only accessible by sea however, as the road network in this area of New Zealand is sparse or nonexistent, as is the human population.
Charles John Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham, Governor-General of New Zealand (1957-1962) wrote about this part of Fiordland:
"There are just a few areas left in the world where no human has ever set foot. That one of them should be in a country so civilized and so advanced as New Zealand may seem incredible, unless one has visited the south-west corner of the South Island. Jagged razor backed mountains rear their heads into the sky. More than 200 days of rain a year ensure not a tree branch is left bare and brown, moss and epiphytes drape every nook. The forest is intensely green. This is big country... one day peaceful, a study in green and blue, the next melancholy and misty, with low cloud veiling the tops... an awesome place, with its granite precipices, its hanging valleys, its earthquake faults and its thundering cascades."
Doubtful Sound is unusual in that it contains two distinct layers of water that scarcely mix. The top few meters is fresh water, fed from the high inflows from the surrounding mountains, and stained brown with tannins from the forest. Below this is a layer of cold, heavy, saline water from the sea. The dark tannins in the fresh water layer makes it difficult for light to penetrate. Thus, many deep-sea species will grow in the comparatively shallow depths of the Sound.
This fiord is home to one of the southernmost population of bottlenose dolphins. The Doubtful Sound bottlenoses have formed a very insular sub-group of only about 70 individuals, with none having been observed to leave or enter the Sound during a multi-year monitoring regime. Their social grouping is thus extremely close, which is also partly attributed to the difficult and unusual features of their habitat, which is much colder than for other bottlenose groups and is also overlaid by the freshwater layer.
Other wildlife to be found in Doubtful Sound includes fur seals and penguins (Fiordland crested and blue), or even rare large whales (Southern Right Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale and some Giant Beaked Whales. Orca, the Killer Whales and Long-Finned Pilot Whales can be found also. The waters of Doubtful Sound are also home to an abundance of sea creatures, including many species of fish, starfish, sea anemones and corals. It is perhaps best known for its black coral trees which occur in unusually shallow water for what is normally a deep water species.
The catchment basin of Doubtful Sound is generally steep terrain that is heavily forested except for locations where surface rock exposures are extensive. Nothofagus trees are dominant in many locations. In the understory there are a wide variety of shrubs and ferns.
NY Times, Dec. 4 2011
Colin Huggins was there with his baby grand, the one he wheels into Washington Square Park for his al fresco concerts. So were Tic and Tac, a street-performing duo, who held court in the fountain — dry for the winter. And Joe Mangrum was pouring his elaborate sand paintings on the ground near the Washington Arch.
Follow @NYTMetro
Connect with @NYTMetro on Twitter for New York breaking news and headlines.
Enlarge This Image
Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Kareem Barnes of Tic and Tac collected donations on Sunday.
Enlarge This Image
Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Joe Mangrum showed his sand paintings on Sunday.
In other words, it was a typical Sunday afternoon in the Greenwich Village park, where generations of visitors have mingled with musicians, artists, activists, poets and buskers.
Yet this fall, that urban harmony has grown dissonant as the city’s parks department has slapped summonses on the four men and other performers who put out hats or buckets, for vending in an unauthorized location — specifically, within 50 feet of a monument.
The department’s rule, one of many put in place a year ago, was intended to control commerce in the busiest parks. Under the city’s definition, vending covers not only those peddling photographs and ankle bracelets, but also performers who solicit donations.
The rule attracted little notice at first. But the enforcement in Washington Square Park in the past two months has generated summonses ranging from $250 to $1,000. And it has started a debate about the rights of parkgoers seeking refuge from the bustle of the streets versus those looking for entertainment.
At a news conference in the park on Sunday organized by NYC Park Advocates, the artists waved fistfuls of pink summonses while their advocates, including civil rights lawyers, called on the city to stop what they called harassment of the performers.
“This is a heavy-handed solution to a nonexistent problem,” said Ronald L. Kuby, one of the lawyers.
The rule is especially problematic in Washington Square Park, performers say, because there are few locations across its 10 acres that are beyond 50 feet from a memorial or fountain — whether the bust of Alexander Lyman Holley, who introduced the Bessemer steel process to this country, or the statue of the Italian liberator Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Then there is the park’s international reputation as a gathering place for folk music pioneers and the Beats.
“Washington Square is the live-music park of New York City, and it would be close to impossible for any one of us to follow these regulations,” said Mr. Huggins, who has received nine summonses with fines totaling $2,250.
But Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, argues that there is ample room for performers away from the monuments. And, he added, a musician who is not putting out a tin cup is welcome to sit on the edge of the fountain or under a monument.
“It’s the whole issue of the ‘tragedy of the commons,’ ” he said. “If you allow all the performers and all the vendors to do whatever they want to do, pretty soon there’s no park left for people who want to use them for quiet enjoyment. This is a way of having some control and not 18 hours of carnival-like atmosphere.”
Gary Behrens, an amateur photographer visiting from New Jersey, applauded the city’s efforts to rein in the performers. “I’m O.K. with the guitar, but the loud instruments have taken over the park,” he said.
The lawyers and advocates, however, challenged the idea that street performers were selling a product as a vendor does. And threatening a lawsuit, they faulted the city for creating what they called “First Amendment zones” through the rules.
“Is this place zany?” asked Norman Siegel, the former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “You bet. Public parks are quintessential public forums. Zaniness is something we should cherish and protect.”
Park visitation has soared along with the rise of tourism in the last 15 years, and with it vendors and artists interested in a lucrative market.
Mr. Benepe insisted that the rules would not scare off future music legends.
“If Bob Dylan wanted to come play there tomorrow, he could,” he said, “although he might have to move away from the fountain.”
Oddly, the dispute coincided with the 50th anniversary of the so-called Folk Riot in Washington Square Park, when the parks commissioner tried to squelch Sunday folk performances. Hundreds of musicians gathered in protest, the police were called in and a melee ensued.
In April, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wrote a letter commemorating the Folk Riot, saying he applauded “the folk performers who changed music, our city and our world beginning half a century ago.”
© branko
youtube channel: www.youtube.com/a2b1
NY Times, Dec. 4 2011
Colin Huggins was there with his baby grand, the one he wheels into Washington Square Park for his al fresco concerts. So were Tic and Tac, a street-performing duo, who held court in the fountain — dry for the winter. And Joe Mangrum was pouring his elaborate sand paintings on the ground near the Washington Arch.
Follow @NYTMetro
Connect with @NYTMetro on Twitter for New York breaking news and headlines.
Enlarge This Image
Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Kareem Barnes of Tic and Tac collected donations on Sunday.
Enlarge This Image
Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Joe Mangrum showed his sand paintings on Sunday.
In other words, it was a typical Sunday afternoon in the Greenwich Village park, where generations of visitors have mingled with musicians, artists, activists, poets and buskers.
Yet this fall, that urban harmony has grown dissonant as the city’s parks department has slapped summonses on the four men and other performers who put out hats or buckets, for vending in an unauthorized location — specifically, within 50 feet of a monument.
The department’s rule, one of many put in place a year ago, was intended to control commerce in the busiest parks. Under the city’s definition, vending covers not only those peddling photographs and ankle bracelets, but also performers who solicit donations.
The rule attracted little notice at first. But the enforcement in Washington Square Park in the past two months has generated summonses ranging from $250 to $1,000. And it has started a debate about the rights of parkgoers seeking refuge from the bustle of the streets versus those looking for entertainment.
At a news conference in the park on Sunday organized by NYC Park Advocates, the artists waved fistfuls of pink summonses while their advocates, including civil rights lawyers, called on the city to stop what they called harassment of the performers.
“This is a heavy-handed solution to a nonexistent problem,” said Ronald L. Kuby, one of the lawyers.
The rule is especially problematic in Washington Square Park, performers say, because there are few locations across its 10 acres that are beyond 50 feet from a memorial or fountain — whether the bust of Alexander Lyman Holley, who introduced the Bessemer steel process to this country, or the statue of the Italian liberator Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Then there is the park’s international reputation as a gathering place for folk music pioneers and the Beats.
“Washington Square is the live-music park of New York City, and it would be close to impossible for any one of us to follow these regulations,” said Mr. Huggins, who has received nine summonses with fines totaling $2,250.
But Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, argues that there is ample room for performers away from the monuments. And, he added, a musician who is not putting out a tin cup is welcome to sit on the edge of the fountain or under a monument.
“It’s the whole issue of the ‘tragedy of the commons,’ ” he said. “If you allow all the performers and all the vendors to do whatever they want to do, pretty soon there’s no park left for people who want to use them for quiet enjoyment. This is a way of having some control and not 18 hours of carnival-like atmosphere.”
Gary Behrens, an amateur photographer visiting from New Jersey, applauded the city’s efforts to rein in the performers. “I’m O.K. with the guitar, but the loud instruments have taken over the park,” he said.
The lawyers and advocates, however, challenged the idea that street performers were selling a product as a vendor does. And threatening a lawsuit, they faulted the city for creating what they called “First Amendment zones” through the rules.
“Is this place zany?” asked Norman Siegel, the former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “You bet. Public parks are quintessential public forums. Zaniness is something we should cherish and protect.”
Park visitation has soared along with the rise of tourism in the last 15 years, and with it vendors and artists interested in a lucrative market.
Mr. Benepe insisted that the rules would not scare off future music legends.
“If Bob Dylan wanted to come play there tomorrow, he could,” he said, “although he might have to move away from the fountain.”
Oddly, the dispute coincided with the 50th anniversary of the so-called Folk Riot in Washington Square Park, when the parks commissioner tried to squelch Sunday folk performances. Hundreds of musicians gathered in protest, the police were called in and a melee ensued.
In April, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wrote a letter commemorating the Folk Riot, saying he applauded “the folk performers who changed music, our city and our world beginning half a century ago.”
Bora Bora (French: Bora-Bora, Tahitian: Pora Pora) is a 30.55 km2 island group in the Leeward group in the western part of the Society Islands of French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the Pacific Ocean. The main island, located about 230 kilometres northwest of Papeete, is surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef. In the center of the island are the remnants of an extinct volcano rising to two peaks, Mount Pahia and Mount Otemanu, the highest point at 727 metres.
Bora Bora is a major international tourist destination, famous for its aqua-centric luxury resorts. The major settlement, Vaitape, is on the western side of the main island, opposite the main channel into the lagoon. Produce of the island is mostly limited to what can be obtained from the sea and the plentiful coconut trees, which were historically of economic importance for copra.
DEMOGRAPHICS
As of 2017, the Bora Bora group has a permanent population of 10,605.
NAME
In ancient times the island was called "Pora pora mai te pora", meaning "created by the gods" in the local Tahitian dialect. This was often abbreviated Pora Pora meaning simply "first born". Because of ambiguities in the phonemes of the Tahitian language, this could also be pronounced Bola Bola or Bora Bora. When explorer Jacob Roggeveen first landed on the island, he and his crew adopted the name Bora Bora which has stood ever since.
HISTORY
The island was inhabited by Polynesian settlers around the 4th century C.E.[citation needed] The first European sighting was made by Jakob Roggeveen in 1722.
James Cook sighted the island on 29 July 1769, using a Tahitian navigator, Tupaia. The London Missionary Society arrived in 1820 and founded a Protestant church in 1890. Bora Bora was an independent kingdom until 1888 when its last queen Teriimaevarua III was forced to abdicate by the French who annexed the island as a colony.
WORLD WAR II
In World War II the United States chose Bora Bora as a South Pacific military supply base, and an oil depot, airstrip, seaplane base, and defensive fortifications were constructed. Known as "Operation Bobcat", it maintained a supply force of nine ships, 20,000 tons of equipment and nearly 7,000 men.
At least eight 7"/44 caliber guns, operated by elements of the 13th Coast Artillery Regiment (later the 276th Coast Artillery Battalion), were set up at strategic points around the island to protect it against potential military attack. Eight of these guns remain in the area.
However, the island saw no combat as the American presence on Bora Bora went uncontested over the course of the war. The base was officially closed on 2 June 1946. The World War II airstrip was never able to accommodate large aircraft, but it nonetheless was French Polynesia's only international airport until Faa'a International Airport opened next to Papeete, Tahiti, in 1960.
ADMINISTRATION
The commune of Bora-Bora is made up of the island of Bora Bora proper with its surrounding islets emerging from the coral reef, 29.3 km2 in total. The surrounding islets include Motu Tapu, Motu Ahuna, Tevairoa, Motu Tane, Motu Mute, Motu Tufari, Motu Tehotu, Motu Pitiaau, Sofitel Motu, Motu Toopua, and Toopuaiti. The commune also includes the Tūpai atoll. (11 km2), located 20 kilometres north of Bora Bora. The atoll of Tūpai has no permanent population apart from about 50 workers in the coconut plantations.
The commune is an administrative subdivision of the Leeward Islands and consists of three associated communes: Anau, Faanui and Vaitape. The administrative centre of the commune is the settlement of Vaitape, on the island of Bora Bora proper. Gaston Tong Sang is the Mayor of the commune of Bora-Bora, serving since 1989.
TOURISM
The island's economy is driven almost solely by tourism. Several resorts have been built on motu (small islands, from Tahitian) surrounding the lagoon. Hotel Bora Bora opened in 1961, and nine years later built the first over-the-water bungalows on stilts over the lagoon. Today, over-water bungalows are a standard feature of most Bora Bora resorts. The quality of those bungalows ranges from comparably cheap, basic accommodations to very luxurious and expensive places to stay.
Most of the tourist destinations are aqua-centric; however it is possible to visit attractions on land such as WWII cannons. Air Tahiti has five or six flights daily to the Bora Bora Airport on Motu Mute from Tahiti (as well as from other islands). Public transport on the island is nonexistent so rental cars and bicycles are the recommended methods of transport. There are also small, two-seater buggies for hire in Vaitape. It is possible to rent a motorboat to explore the lagoon.
Snorkeling and scuba diving in and around the lagoon of Bora Bora are popular activities. Many species of sharks and rays inhabit the surrounding body of water. There are a few dive operators on the island offering manta ray dives and also shark-feeding dives. Sharks living in the island's lagoon are not considered to be dangerous to people.[citation needed]
In addition to the existing islands of Bora Bora, the new manmade motu of Motu Marfo has been added in the northeastern corner of the lagoon on the property of the St. Regis Resort.
WIKIPEDIA
We decided that hiking would be one of the methods for my wife and I to get healthier. Luckily there is a state park near us with some great trails. After working up to a five mile route we met a hiker who told us about the trails off the main trail, or ridge trails. They were a bit hard to find but once we got the hang of it locating the ridge trails was easy. They were more challenging and much more fun.
After reading many books on hiking the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail, the last book I read was from a Michigander who hiked the AP Trail, tried it as a through-hike but life got in the way and he had to go home a few times. I knew this was beyond our interest but we really enjoy the day hikes. The wife won’t go for the backpacking just yet; I keep working on her though.
In looking to try something new, I came across information on the North Country Trail on the internet and read about the Hike 100 Challenge. We thought it was a good idea and made it our goal. We also decided to attend the 2016 Celebration in Fargo, ND.
We started in April at the Birch River Schoolhouse Loop in MI. We picked the hottest and most humid day in May to hike the NCT in Shawnee State Forest, OH. Met a nice local family who camped out on the trail because they got a late start the night before. Ohio pushed me to the limit physically with the weather, it was either up or down and the trail markings were nonexistent. After that we decided we were cool weather hikers.
So we took a break until mid-September when we went to the Celebration in Fargo. I was a bit worried we would not achieve the challenge since we were only about a third of the way in mileage. However, Fargo got us back on track, we really enjoyed the prairie hiking which is much different than that of MI. We made a vacation out of the trip and took our time coming home by way of the Upper Peninsula. But first we had to stop and walk across the Montreal River that borders Wisconsin and Michigan. You see, after hiking in MI, OH, ND, MN, it only seemed logical to hike in WI since we were already there. Then we could make a vacation out of going to the PA/NY border, that way we would have hiked in all the states of the NCT. Oh yes, we had decided to hike all seven states when we were at the Celebration in Fargo!
We camped and hiked in the Porcupine Mountains, the “Grand Canyon” of Michigan, and Hemingway country in the Upper Peninsula. We found the NCT crossing the highway near Lowell on our frequent drives to see the kids at the University of Michigan and got more mileage in that way. It is also a nice stop to get out of the car and stretch the legs. We then traveled to Bradford, PA and hiked the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania and the Allegany State Park in New York. Oh, it’s not a typo, PA likes the “heny” and NY likes the “any”, I have the photos to prove it.
We took two days off then headed back to our now favorite place, Bitely MI. We camped and did our final twenty miles on the trail over three days. As a present we had just purchased backpacks for both of us at REI in Ann Arbor (shout out), they worked out great.
A shout out to the Outpost in Holland, MI where we purchase most of our stuff. Thanks to all the folks volunteering and working for the NCT, what a wonderful concept. It is a great way to get out and rejuvenate.
Greg & Cathy Brock, Members at Large
www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/what-americas-...
America Has Lost the Plot on COVID
We’re avoiding the hardest questions about living with the coronavirus long term.
We know how this ends: The coronavirus becomes endemic, and we live with it forever. But what we don’t know—and what the U.S. seems to have no coherent plan for—is how we are supposed to get there. We’ve avoided the hard questions whose answers will determine what life looks like in the next weeks, months, and years: How do we manage the transition to endemicity? When are restrictions lifted? And what long-term measures do we keep, if any, when we reach endemicity?
The answers were simpler when we thought we could vaccinate our way to herd immunity. But vaccinations in the U.S. have plateaued. The Delta variant and waning immunity against transmission mean herd immunity may well be impossible even if every single American gets a shot. So when COVID-related restrictions came back with the Delta wave, we no longer had an obvious off-ramp to return to normal—are we still trying to get a certain percentage of people vaccinated? Or are we waiting until all kids are eligible? Or for hospitalizations to fall and stay steady? The path ahead is not just unclear; it’s nonexistent. We are meandering around the woods because we don’t know where to go.
What is clear, however, is that case numbers, the metric that has guided much of our pandemic thinking and still underlies CDC’s indoor-masking recommendation for vaccinated people, are becoming less and less useful. Even when we reach endemicity—when nearly everyone has baseline immunity from either infection or vaccination—the U.S. could be facing tens of millions of infections from the coronavirus every year, thanks to waning immunity and viral evolution. (For context, the flu, which is also endemic, sickens roughly 10 to 40 million Americans a year.) But with vaccines available, not every case of COVID-19 is created equal. Breakthrough cases are largely mild; 10,000 of them will cause only a fraction of the hospitalizations and deaths of 10,000 COVID cases in the unvaccinated. The more highly vaccinated a community is, the less tethered case numbers are to the reality of the virus’s impact.
So if not cases, then what? “We need to come to some sort of agreement as to what it is we're trying to prevent,” says Céline Gounder, an infectious-disease expert at New York University. “Are we trying to prevent hospitalization? Are we trying to prevent death? Are we trying to prevent transmission?” Different goals would require prioritizing different strategies. The booster-shot rollout has been roiled with confusion for this precise reason: The goal kept shifting. First, the Biden administration floated boosters for everyone to combat breakthroughs, then a CDC advisory panel restricted them to the elderly and immunocompromised most at risk for hospitalizations, then the CDC director overruled the panel to include people with jobs that put them at risk of infection.
On the ground, the U.S. is now running an uncontrolled experiment with every strategy all at once. COVID-19 policies differ wildly by state, county, university, workplace, and school district. And because of polarization, they have also settled into the most illogical pattern possible: The least vaccinated communities have some of the laxest restrictions, while highly vaccinated communities—which is to say those most protected from COVID-19—tend to have some of the most aggressive measures aimed at driving down cases. “We’re sleepwalking into policy because we’re not setting goals,” says Joseph Allen, a Harvard professor of public health. We will never get the risk of COVID-19 down to absolute zero, and we need to define a level of risk we can live with.
Scientific experts have been reluctant to make that call themselves. For one, there is real scientific uncertainty ahead. We don’t know how much immunity may continue to wane, how long the effects of a booster last, the exact incidence of long COVID in the vaccinated, or if a new variant will upend even the best-laid plans.
But the level of COVID-19 risk we can live with is also not an entirely scientific question. It is a social and political one that involves balancing both the costs and benefits of restrictions and grappling with genuine pandemic fatigue among the public. China, for example, has been brutally effective at suppressing COVID cases with strict lockdowns: Residents are barred from leaving locked-down neighborhoods; planes, trains, buses, and taxis in and to locked-down cities are being suspended; even vaccinated travelers are subject to mandatory quarantine. But are we willing to go that far? Currently, no. “This is the point at which we then have to start looking at ourselves and asking the hard question: Exactly how hard do we want to work to help how many people?” says Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard. By we, he means all of us and, in particular, the public officials who represent us. “I can give you a policy, and I can tell you, okay, if you do that, I think you will have that outcome,” he says, but public officials need to first define what that policy is supposed to achieve.
One plausible goal is to focus on minimizing COVID-19’s impact on hospitals. A collapsed health-care system means more people will die, not just of COVID-19 but from other treatable diseases and injuries. Elsewhere in the world, like in the U.K. and Germany, leaders have explicitly tied their policies to containing hospitalizations rather than all cases. But in addition to hospitalizations, Gounder suggests we should also consider the risk of long COVID. “I think for people that is the big question. We just don’t know enough,” she says. Preliminary data suggest vaccines do reduce the risk of long COVID, but exactly how much is unclear given the uncertainties in diagnosing it.
Once we’ve defined what we are trying to prevent, we can define thresholds for lifting and, if necessary, reinstating COVID-19 measures. This can actually be quite tricky if the goal is minimizing hospitalizations, a lagging indicator that gives you a picture of the past rather than the present. By the time hospitalizations start to rise, a bigger increase may already be baked in with people already infected but not yet sick enough to see a doctor. What to track instead?
Here are some answers I got from scientific experts: hospitalizations and deaths, but stratified by age and vaccination status; a combination of vaccination rate and local transmission; a combination of vaccination rate and hospitalizations; a combination of long-COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths; a combination of case growth rate, testing uptake, vaccination rate, and hospitalizations. If this seems confusing, why not consider a real-life example? San Francisco and seven other Bay Area counties recently set three-pronged criteria for lifting indoor mask mandates: (1) Community transmission is moderate, as defined by the CDC, for at least three weeks, (2) hospitalization numbers are low and stable, and (3) 80 percent of the total population is fully vaccinated or eight weeks have passed since COVID-19 vaccines have been available for kids age 5 to 11.
If we are in fact going to try keeping hospitalizations stable, one reason to define this goal now is to untangle this mess of what data to track. Then, we can get to outlining specific tactics in the weeks and months ahead.
In the absence of a coherent strategy, our attention has focused on a policy change we know is coming: vaccines for kids under 12. COVID shots for kids 5 to 11 were authorized last week, and data for those ages 2 to 4 are expected before the end of the year. For some families, this will bring real relief and soon. Vaccinated parents, living with vaccinated children, who have vaccinated grandparents, can worry that much less about the virus’s worst impacts, and start behaving less cautiously.
But on a population level, as policy makers should be thinking, tying pediatric vaccinations to the end of restrictions doesn’t necessarily make sense, if we are trying to keep hospitalizations down. Vaccinating kids will protect them individually and help dampen transmission from and among them—but this policy lever simply has limited impact on hospitalizations.
To prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, the key group we need to vaccinate is really the elderly. The risk of hospitalization for an unvaccinated person over 80 is 25 times that for an unvaccinated person under 18. A Financial Times analysis of data from the U.K. found vaccinating 25,000 children had the same effect on hospitalizations as vaccinating just 800 adults over age 60. Unvaccinated elderly adults are just that much more likely to become severely ill with COVID-19. You can’t compensate for a low vaccination rate among older adults by vaccinating more people in younger groups, says Müge Çevik, a virologist at the University of St. Andrews.
The U.S. still has too many unvaccinated elderly people—or rather, parts of the U.S. do. States such as Vermont and Hawaii have done well, given almost 100 percent of people over 65 immunized at least one dose. But in Idaho, Arkansas, and Mississippi, the percentage is languishing in the 80s. Even small differences in this percentage can have an outsize impact on hospitalization outcomes. For example, two communities with 90 versus 99 percent of the elderly vaccinated actually have a tenfold difference in the number of people at risk for hospitalization. “You don’t need a lot of infections in the unvaccinated over 65 to give you a problem,” Hanage says. During the summer wave in the U.S., the community vaccination rate in people over 65 correlated with hospitalization trends. The trend, he says, is “extremely clear.”
One country that has excelled at vaccinating its elderly population is Denmark. Ninety-five percent of those over 50 have taken a COVID-19 vaccine, on top of a 90 percent overall vaccination rate in those eligible. (Children under 12 are still not eligible.) On September 10, Denmark lifted all restrictions. No face masks. No restrictions on bars or nightclubs. Life feels completely back to normal, says Lone Simonsen, an epidemiologist at Roskilde University, who was among the scientists advising the Danish government. In deciding when the country would be ready to reopen, she told me, “I was looking at, simply, vaccination coverage in people over 50.” COVID-19 cases in Denmark have since risen—under CDC mask guidelines, the country would even qualify as an area of “high” transmission where vaccinated people should still mask indoors. But hospitalizations are at a fraction of their January peak, relatively few people are in intensive care, and deaths in particular have remained low.
Crucially, Simonsen said, decisions about COVID measures are made on a short-term basis. If the situation changes, these restrictions can come back—and indeed, the health minister is now talking about that possibility. Simonsen continues to scrutinize new hospitalizations everyday. Depending on how the country’s transition to endemicity goes, it could be a model for the rest of the world.
Even when the coronavirus is endemic, it will still make people sick and it will still cause deaths and hospitalizations. That means our fight against COVID-19 is not over, and we might consider strategies sustainable over the long term. Better ventilation, for example, can make indoor spaces safer against all respiratory viruses, not just COVID-19. And even without mask mandates, people who feel at risk can still voluntarily mask up. In the longer term, Çevik says, we also need less focus on policies that work by “reducing small risks among many” and more on policies targeted at the people most affected by COVID-19. During the pandemic, the virus has disproportionately sickened people who are poor, who are less likely to be able to work from home, and who are less likely to have space to isolate from their family at home. When COVID-19 becomes endemic, it will likely, as many diseases are, continue to be correlated with poverty.
“Pay much more attention to who and why people are at risk,” says Stefan Baral, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University. Baral says public health needs to go back to its traditional roots, where tackling disease also means reforming the living and working conditions that make people more susceptible. For example, universal paid sick leave and free voluntary isolation spaces can help minimize the impact of COVID-19, as well as many other diseases.
Hard questions lie ahead, and the answers require political will. But first, we have to stop avoiding them. We need a goal.
Not a common species it seems as description on the WEB is almost nonexistent, Pic taken on the north edge of Roswell, New Mexico on 08-16-18.
The F-101 Voodoo was originally built as an escort fighter for USAF strategic bombers. Unfortunately for the Voodoo, the jet bombers coming on the line for the USAF--the B-47, B-52, and B-58--didn't require escorts. The F-101 was a good aircraft without a mission. The USAF began building the F-101A as a low-level strike fighter, because if there was one thing the Voodoo had, it was high speed at all altitudes. This led the USAF to consider: would the F-101 make a good tactical reconnaissance aircraft?
In response, McDonnell rebuilt two of the YF-101A prototypes as RF-101A testbeds. This replaced the fighter nose with a more "chisel" design that contained six cameras instead of radar and cannon. The RF-101A turned out to be a superb reconnaissance aircraft, and entered production on a limited basis. Further variants were developed from later Voodoo versions, namely the purpose-built RF-101C, which entered service in 1958.
The RF-101 gave the USAF its first supersonic reconnaissance aircraft, and largely replaced the RF-84F Thunderflash and RT-33A Shooting Star. Pilots liked its speed and responsiveness; it was capable of genuine aerobatics in the hands of a good pilot. RF-101s would first be used by the Republic of China Air Force (Taiwan), either flown by ROCAF or CIA pilots, over the Chinese mainland; the USAF's first combat usage would be the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The RF-101's dash speed was such that it was tough to intercept, though not impossible.
This was found to be true over Vietnam as well, where the RF-101 was the backbone of USAF tactical reconnaissance until the later years of the war. The Voodoo's speed at altitude made it impervious to flak, and even the MiG-21 could not keep up with it. However, the RF-101s often had to get down low to "get the pictures," and that meant that barrage flak could bring down Voodoos. SAMs were also a threat at higher altitudes. After losses began to mount, the RF-101s were camouflaged, which helped some, but also slightly lowered their top speed. 39 RF-101s were lost over Vietnam.
With the age of the aircraft beginning to tell, the Voodoo was gradually relegated to second-line units, replaced by the RF-4C Phantom II. Some soldiered on in Air National Guard units, but all the RF-101s were gone by 1979. A handful remain in museums.
56-0214 joined the USAF in 1958, and was assigned to the 66th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Laon, France; the 66th later moved to RAF Upper Heyford, UK in 1966 when France withdrew from NATO. It returned stateside in 1969 to serve with the 363rd TRW at Shaw AFB, South Carolina, but was only with the 363rd a short time before going to the Air National Guard, first with the 189th TRG (Arkansas ANG) at Little Rock AFB, and then with the 186th TRG (Mississippi ANG) at Key Field. It was retired in 1979 and was donated to the Pima Air and Space Museum in 1982.
56-0214 is looking a bit worn: the Southeast Asia camouflage has faded, and her tail numbers are nonexistent. Most of the aircraft around it have been recently restored, so 56-0214 probably won't have much longer to wait.
Astute followers of my page may notice that the career history for 56-0214 is virtually identical to the other RF-101C I photographed in 2019--56-0229, on display at the Museum of Aviation at Robins AFB, Georgia.
A sculpture of a swan that I made from LEGO bricks. This is actually a combination of two different species of swans. I grabbed various characteristics from the two of them, making a probably nonexistent species. It took maybe 40 hours to design and build.
The head and feet are recycled parts from my old bird old bird, made a 1.5 years before this one. The old one fell off of a shelf, and I didn't want to repair it, so I made a better version.
The wings of this sculpture ended up being too heavy to sustain their own weight (although they are pretty durable), but the cross support holds them firmly in place.
Spaceship Earth, the iconic and symbolic structure of Epcot, opened with the park in Future World in 1982. The 18-storym 180-foot tall geosphere, whose design was conceived by Wallace Floyd Design Group and completed by Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., is derived from the Class 2 geodesic polyhedron. Each face of the polyhedron is divided into three isosceles triangles to form each point—with, in theory, 11,520 triangles forming 3,840 points (some are nonexistent due to supports and doors). The 15,520,000 pound sphere, with a circumference of 518.1 feet and a diameter of 165 feet, is raised 18-feet off the ground by three pylons sunk more than 120-feet into the ground.
Inside the sphere, guests take a 15-minute dark Omnimover ride in a "time machine" to learn how advancements in communication have helped create the future. Narrators have included Lawrence Dobkin, Walter Cronkite, Jeremy Irons and now Dame Judi Dench.
This was my first time actually plane watching at Miami International Airport (MIA). I checked some spotter websites to find some good locations. They recommended The Holes as being an "official" site so we checked it out. I was pretty disappointed; there was a lot of construction going on and parking was nonexistent. My wife dropped me off. The area is totally exposed. Even though it was December it was pretty hot - no shade, no place to sit, no other people around. The holes are actually pretty small so it's hard to get a lens through the hole. Arrivals were almost impossible to shoot but you could see planes taxiing by for takeoff. After an hour I was cooking so we bagged it. We then went to the area close to the El Dorado furniture store. Much better. There were a bunch of spotters from around the world there. It was a great atmosphere. Nicely shaded, safe, close to some stores and a lot of good traffic to watch. I saw a bunch of planes from airlines I had not seen before, including some airlines I had not heard of. Some of the planes didn't show up on Flight Radar 24 so they were very pleasant surprises. All in all a very good day and I'd love to go back there!
I took these photos in December 2019.
Coal Empties bound for Peach Creek make their way along the Logan Subdivision passing the nonexistent Baber Siding (sigh) on an overall beautiful day in the Logan Coalfields
I don’t normally seek/acquire patches, emblems, decals, etc., but this one was so cool, obscure, unique, pleasantly ‘asymmetrical’…and affordable, that I had to get it. And it’s big…~7.5 inches in diameter! I assume once worn on the back of an employee’s work coveralls.
I’m tempted to gently wash it, but don’t dare.
As expected, something/anything pertaining to this patch’s origin & history, let alone any specifics regarding “Apollo Spaceborne Products” are nonexistent. Even information about Autonetics and its contributions to the Apollo Program are vague & generic. As such, my date range is a total SWAG.
Some of what little there is:
“Autonetics was a division of North American Aviation that designed and built guidance and navigation systems for the Apollo program, including the Apollo spacecraft. As a leader in precision electronics and instruments like gyroscopes, Autonetics' expertise was crucial for reliably guiding spacecraft on their complex lunar missions.”
Above per Google’s AI-generated response to my “Autonetics” query.
Additionally, from Boeing’s Autonetics Memorial/Monument “brochure/flyer”:
“…innovations provided the systems that the Apollo astronauts used to determine the exact position of the lunar module during rendezvous and docking.”
And:
“Autonetics also contributed to space exploration, including rendezvous and docking systems for Apollo…”
At/From:
bos.ocgov.com/legacy3/newsletters/pdf/Honoring_the_Legacy...
Credit: Orange County website
Additionally:
www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum38/HTML/001197.html
Credit: collectSPACE website
Finally, the specific Autonetics contribution to Apollo referenced by Scott Schneeweis in the above citation:
www.spaceaholic.com/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_i...
Credit: Scott Schneeweis/Spaceaholic website
This ship is my favorite out of my physical collection. Its just the rights size for play while still having enough detail for display and has an interior. Said interior is based of the cross section book for the force awakens. There is a single bed and nothing else. I wish that the bed could be moved over though, as it is taking up quite a bit a space.
Problems:
the rear door is invisible
the rear wings are not all the way at the end of the ship
there are no front wings
the cockpit is nonexistent
Doubtful Sound is a very large and naturally imposing fjord (despite its name) in Fiordland, in the far south west of New Zealand. It is located in the same region as the smaller but more famous and accessible Milford Sound.
Doubtful Sound was named 'Doubtful Harbour' in 1770 by Captain Cook, who did not enter the inlet as he was uncertain whether it was navigable under sail. It was later renamed Doubtful Sound by whalers and sealers.
A Spanish scientific expedition commanded by Alessandro Malaspina visited Doubtful Sound in February 1793 to conduct experiments measuring the force of gravity using a pendulum, a part of the effort to establish a new metric system. The officers of the expedition, which included Felipe Bauzá y Cañas, a cartographer, also made the first chart of the entrance and lower parts of the Sound, naming features of it. Today these form a unique cluster of the only Spanish names on the map of New Zealand: Febrero Point, Bauza Island and the Nee Islets, Pendulo Reach and Malaspina Reach.
There are three distinct arms to the sound, which is the site of several large waterfalls, notably Helena Falls at Deep Cove, and the Browne Falls which have a fall of over 600 metres. The steep hills are known for their hundreds of waterfalls during the rainy season.
Access to the sound is either by sea, or by the Wilmot Pass road from the Manapouri Power Station. Most areas of the sound itself are only accessible by sea however, as the road network in this area of New Zealand is sparse or nonexistent, as is the human population.
Charles John Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham, Governor-General of New Zealand (1957-1962) wrote about this part of Fiordland:
"There are just a few areas left in the world where no human has ever set foot. That one of them should be in a country so civilized and so advanced as New Zealand may seem incredible, unless one has visited the south-west corner of the South Island. Jagged razor backed mountains rear their heads into the sky. More than 200 days of rain a year ensure not a tree branch is left bare and brown, moss and epiphytes drape every nook. The forest is intensely green. This is big country... one day peaceful, a study in green and blue, the next melancholy and misty, with low cloud veiling the tops... an awesome place, with its granite precipices, its hanging valleys, its earthquake faults and its thundering cascades."
Doubtful Sound is unusual in that it contains two distinct layers of water that scarcely mix. The top few meters is fresh water, fed from the high inflows from the surrounding mountains, and stained brown with tannins from the forest. Below this is a layer of cold, heavy, saline water from the sea. The dark tannins in the fresh water layer makes it difficult for light to penetrate. Thus, many deep-sea species will grow in the comparatively shallow depths of the Sound.
This fiord is home to one of the southernmost population of bottlenose dolphins. The Doubtful Sound bottlenoses have formed a very insular sub-group of only about 70 individuals, with none having been observed to leave or enter the Sound during a multi-year monitoring regime. Their social grouping is thus extremely close, which is also partly attributed to the difficult and unusual features of their habitat, which is much colder than for other bottlenose groups and is also overlaid by the freshwater layer.
Other wildlife to be found in Doubtful Sound includes fur seals and penguins (Fiordland crested and blue), or even rare large whales (Southern Right Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale and some Giant Beaked Whales. Orca, the Killer Whales and Long-Finned Pilot Whales can be found also. The waters of Doubtful Sound are also home to an abundance of sea creatures, including many species of fish, starfish, sea anemones and corals. It is perhaps best known for its black coral trees which occur in unusually shallow water for what is normally a deep water species.
The catchment basin of Doubtful Sound is generally steep terrain that is heavily forested except for locations where surface rock exposures are extensive. Nothofagus trees are dominant in many locations. In the understory there are a wide variety of shrubs and ferns.
Here's a relic from the nonexistent casino, the Tangiers. This was a prop for the 1995 movie "Casino". A friend of mine gave it to me. The interior shots were filmed at the Riviera and the exterior shots were taken at the Landmark.
1. working 71/365, 2. Freedom08-2, 3. Cover 41/365, 4. 155/365 waiting for things to pass, 5. but.. you`re a girl.! 56/365, 6. The man in my life 47/365, 7. blenda 77/365, 8. hung out to dry 21/365,
9. Surely I can now fit my bum into my nice dress..? 2/365, 10. scarred breast in blue, 11. 39/365, 12. sunshine 91/365, 13. window 118/365, 14. Evil Twin? 92/365, 15. tiptoe on cold bathroom floor 38/365, 16. new years day 65/365,
17. knees 102\365, 18. Balloons, 19. black shoes, white stockings 90/365, 20. in need of care 129/365, 21. Spare parts on grubby table 107/365, 22. legs 10/365, 23. 151/365 Copycat, 24. Glass cage for Clem and Trial 67/365,
25. No matter how long, I will be waiting 7/365, 26. 91/365 outtake, 27. curve 69/365, 28. growth 22/365, 29. stripes 123/365, 30. Contourless, 31. blue 117/365, 32. Pumpkinheads,
33. No gherkins, please!! 27/365, 34. Individually wrapped, 35. fat people are hard to kidnap 106/365, 36. Fear the walken! 85/365, 37. Woodwork, 38. bw 115/365, 39. Message to B. 44/365, 40. dancing 125/365,
41. face 9/365, 42. socks 5/365, 43. breathe 80/365, 44. Kampsportgalla 2008, 45. freedom 08 -1, 46. Free 98/35, 47. on dusty table 83/365, 48. finger 23/365,
49. Self through wineglass, 50. nerd 89/365, 51. Not a good day 76/365, 52. my hometown, 53. Hiding 75/365, 54. Can`t wait for spring 36/365, 55. 137/365 you did it wrong!, 56. Hands behind your back 104/365,
57. apple 8/365, 58. fight like a girl! 101/365, 59. silly pink nonexistent underwear on head, 60. side by side, 61. freedom08-4, 62. big balls 113/365, 63. finished 14/365, 64. bits and pieces 82/365,
65. shadows 60/365, 66. Gift 54/365, 67. lunch 26/365, 68. water, 69. individually wrapped2, 70. stuck 119/365, 71. mag 84/365, 72. xmas day 58/365
Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
Human Enkeli (Pink hair)
Euri Enkeli (White hair)
I'm so excited!! Today my dream colored wig arrived. Leeke's Sakura was sure the perfect for Enkeli's human shape.
Hoy llegó la peluquita de Enkeli en mi soñado color sakura. De hecho ya había tirado la toalla con ese color... incluso ordené la peluca en misty rose, color que no me llenaba del todo.... hasta que unos días después en el mercado de DoA ... ahi estaba esperandome una peluca en este hermoso color!! [luego la alisaré]
y eso sólo significa una cosa....
www.flickr.com/photos/nonexistent/6053735371/in/photostream
They're the same doll!!! I put 2 pictures together here x3