My mom, who is 75, wants to go up to teeny tiny town near Rapid City,
to see her sister, who is 80. They live in a house in the boonies and
have no internet.
I'll be back online on Monday the 24th and promise not to miss another day.
Please bear with me, your patience is appreciated!
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
60 is the new 40
On August 10, 2012, the Cheyenne chapter of the AARP hosted a seminar
called Gray Matters - which was free and provided a free lunch -
unfortunately fish and cheesecake, blech - from 4 to 6 was a reception
for all travelers who had come in for the AARP National Spelling Bee to
be held on the 11th.
I attended that and it was a lot of fun. The emcee introduced a few folks, we talked about words, there was a "mock" spelling bee (which only consisted of about 20 people getting up and being questioned on one word...._ and so on. And there were finger foods there - Chinese food to be precise. Don't know where they got it from or if they cooked it on site (Little America is a hotel and resort where people come to play golf among other things) but it was delish.
The spelling bee started at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am (Well...8:30 is not so ungodly but I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 to get there in time for registration, etc.) It started with 4 rounds of 25 words each - which was a Written Test.
The first 25 words were extremely easy. They asked words like "Greetings" and "Navel" and "Mince." I suppose a few might have been considered difficult... "Animus" and "Lacuna."
The second 25 words were equally easy, but I did miss MUGWUMP.
I assume they did this just to help everyone settle the nerves and get new people used to what was going on. People had trouble hearing some of the words (hey, they were all over 50 and most over 60) and the Pronouncer would come down and tell them the word face to face and have them say it back, etc. Indeed, the Pronouncer did an excellent job.
Third round was where they started asking the difficult words.
I missed:
QUESTIONARY INERCALATE
TUATARA
SKOSH
VIRIDITY
WIMBLE
The fourth round was the real killer. I only got 12 out of 25 right. I missed:
FELICIFIC
DOVEKIE
FLYTING
NAPERY
COTYLEDONARY
WELTSCHMERRZ
OPPUGNER
AECIOSPORE
SYNCYTIAL
KNUR
IRIDIUM
TUYERE
HYOSCYAMINE
I then stayed for the Oral rounds and was joined by one of my friends from my Scrabble Club. (I think an audience could have assembled for the Written rounds, too. There were chairs there and family were in them...but I think most people only wanted to come see the Oral rounds where you actually saw the speller's faces as opposed to their backs, etc.)
Two of the people I met last night at the reception made it to the Orals. One of them it was his first trip to the Bee and he was successful his first time out. Made it through about 10 rounds. (In the Orals, you miss two words and you're out.) Another one was an elderly woman from Minnesota who also got through about 10 rounds before being knocked out.
There were three sisters and a brother who had come as a sort of family reunion. The eldest sister made it to the Oral rounds but was bounced after only two rounds. This was too bad and it was because she was a bit unlucky - she got two 6-syllable words in a row while some of the others were getting much easier ones (but still, not ones I could have spelled). But she was disqualified along with several other people in the same round, so hopefully she didn't feel too bad.
The words in the Oral Rounds were extremely difficult. Several times more difficult than the toughest words in the final round of the Written.
But, had I studied for a year, I think I could have handled them.
And it is my intention to study for a year and get into the Orals next year.
So, why is the title of this blog entry 60 is thenew 40?
Because it is.
People are living longer. You don't want to outlive your money and more importantly you don't want to outlive your sense of enjoyment of life. And learning new things every day is enjoyment and keeps the mind active.
The AARP Spelling Bee is held every year, and it gives you an excellent reason to travel to Cheyenne and see The Cowboy State. You'll meet lots of interesting people.
You do have to study.
I studied very desultorily for about a month...combine all the time I studied and it was about 10 hours. Not nearly enough, but then, I'm a good speller so the Written Rounds were relatively easy - except for that killer last round.
Why learn words that you'll never, ever say in real life?Well, because they're interesting. And the concepts of what you'll learn, you can apply in other areas. So it's a win win.
So start planning to live a long, healthy, active, intellectual life, and do it now, however old you might be!
I attended that and it was a lot of fun. The emcee introduced a few folks, we talked about words, there was a "mock" spelling bee (which only consisted of about 20 people getting up and being questioned on one word...._ and so on. And there were finger foods there - Chinese food to be precise. Don't know where they got it from or if they cooked it on site (Little America is a hotel and resort where people come to play golf among other things) but it was delish.
The spelling bee started at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am (Well...8:30 is not so ungodly but I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 to get there in time for registration, etc.) It started with 4 rounds of 25 words each - which was a Written Test.
The first 25 words were extremely easy. They asked words like "Greetings" and "Navel" and "Mince." I suppose a few might have been considered difficult... "Animus" and "Lacuna."
The second 25 words were equally easy, but I did miss MUGWUMP.
I assume they did this just to help everyone settle the nerves and get new people used to what was going on. People had trouble hearing some of the words (hey, they were all over 50 and most over 60) and the Pronouncer would come down and tell them the word face to face and have them say it back, etc. Indeed, the Pronouncer did an excellent job.
Third round was where they started asking the difficult words.
I missed:
QUESTIONARY INERCALATE
TUATARA
SKOSH
VIRIDITY
WIMBLE
The fourth round was the real killer. I only got 12 out of 25 right. I missed:
FELICIFIC
DOVEKIE
FLYTING
NAPERY
COTYLEDONARY
WELTSCHMERRZ
OPPUGNER
AECIOSPORE
SYNCYTIAL
KNUR
IRIDIUM
TUYERE
HYOSCYAMINE
I then stayed for the Oral rounds and was joined by one of my friends from my Scrabble Club. (I think an audience could have assembled for the Written rounds, too. There were chairs there and family were in them...but I think most people only wanted to come see the Oral rounds where you actually saw the speller's faces as opposed to their backs, etc.)
Two of the people I met last night at the reception made it to the Orals. One of them it was his first trip to the Bee and he was successful his first time out. Made it through about 10 rounds. (In the Orals, you miss two words and you're out.) Another one was an elderly woman from Minnesota who also got through about 10 rounds before being knocked out.
There were three sisters and a brother who had come as a sort of family reunion. The eldest sister made it to the Oral rounds but was bounced after only two rounds. This was too bad and it was because she was a bit unlucky - she got two 6-syllable words in a row while some of the others were getting much easier ones (but still, not ones I could have spelled). But she was disqualified along with several other people in the same round, so hopefully she didn't feel too bad.
The words in the Oral Rounds were extremely difficult. Several times more difficult than the toughest words in the final round of the Written.
But, had I studied for a year, I think I could have handled them.
And it is my intention to study for a year and get into the Orals next year.
So, why is the title of this blog entry 60 is thenew 40?
Because it is.
People are living longer. You don't want to outlive your money and more importantly you don't want to outlive your sense of enjoyment of life. And learning new things every day is enjoyment and keeps the mind active.
The AARP Spelling Bee is held every year, and it gives you an excellent reason to travel to Cheyenne and see The Cowboy State. You'll meet lots of interesting people.
You do have to study.
I studied very desultorily for about a month...combine all the time I studied and it was about 10 hours. Not nearly enough, but then, I'm a good speller so the Written Rounds were relatively easy - except for that killer last round.
Why learn words that you'll never, ever say in real life?Well, because they're interesting. And the concepts of what you'll learn, you can apply in other areas. So it's a win win.
So start planning to live a long, healthy, active, intellectual life, and do it now, however old you might be!
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Soon to Come: Cheyenne Frontier Days photos
I went to two days worth of Cheyenne Frontier Days and have lots of photos to share...coming up tomorrow...
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Century-old cards found in Ohio attic expected to fetch millions
From CBSSports : Century-old cards found in Ohio attic expected to fetch millions
DEFIANCE, Ohio -- Karl Kissner picked up a soot-covered cardboard box that had been under a wooden dollhouse in his grandfather's attic. Taking a look inside, he saw hundreds of baseball cards bundled with twine. They were smaller than the ones he was used to seeing.
But some of the names were familiar: Hall of Famers Ty Cobb, Cy Young and Honus Wagner.
Then he put the box on a dresser and went back to digging through the attic.
It wasn't until two weeks later that he learned that his family had come across what experts say is one of the biggest, most exciting finds in the history of sports card collecting, a discovery worth perhaps millions.
The cards are from an extremely rare series issued around 1910. Up to now, the few known to exist were in so-so condition at best, with faded images and worn edges. But the ones from the attic in the town of Defiance are nearly pristine, untouched for more than a century. The colors are vibrant, the borders crisp and white.
"It's like finding the Mona Lisa in the attic," Kissner said.
Sports card experts who authenticated the find say they may never again see something this impressive.
"Every future find will ultimately be compared to this," said Joe Orlando, president of Professional Sports Authenticator.
The best of the bunch -- 37 cards -- are expected to bring a total of $500,000 when they are sold at auction in August during the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore. There are about 700 cards in all that could be worth up to $3 million, experts say. They include such legends as Christy Mathewson and Connie Mack.
Kissner and his family say the cards belonged to their grandfather, Carl Hench, who died in the 1940s. Hench ran a meat market in Defiance, and the family suspects he got them as a promotional item from a candy company that distributed them with caramels. They think he gave some away and kept others.
"We guess he stuck them in the attic and forgot about them," Kissner said. "They remained there frozen in time."
After Hench and his wife died, two of his daughters lived in the house. Jean Hench kept the house until she died last October, leaving everything inside to her 20 nieces and nephews. Kissner, 51, is the youngest and was put in charge of the estate. His aunt was a pack rat, and the house was filled with three generations of stuff.
They found calendars from the meat market, turn-of-the-century dresses, a steamer trunk from Germany and a dresser with Grandma's clothes neatly folded in the drawers.
Months went by before they even got to the attic. On Feb. 29, Kissner's cousin Karla Hench pulled out the dirty green box with metal clips at the corners and lifted the lid.
Not knowing whether the cards were valuable, the two cousins put the box aside. But Kissner decided to do a little research. The cards were at his office in the restaurant he owns when he realized they might have something. He immediately took them across the street and put them in a bank vault.
Still not knowing whether the cards were real, they sent eight to expert Peter Calderon at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, which recently sold the baseball that rolled through the legs of Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner in the 1986 World Series for $418,000.
Calderon said his first words were "Oh, my God."
"I was in complete awe," he said. "You just don't see them this nice."
The cards are from what is known as the E98 series. It is not clear who manufactured them or how many were produced, but the series consists of 30 players, half of them Hall of Famers.
The experts at Heritage Auctions checked out the family's background, the age of the home and the history of the meat market. They looked at the cards and how they were printed.
"Everything lines up," said Chris Ivy, the company's director of sports auctions.
They then sent all the cards to Professional Sports Authenticator, which had previously authenticated fewer than 700 E98s. The Ohio cards were the finest examples from the E98 series the company had ever seen.
The company grades cards on a 1-to-10 scale based of their condition. Up to now, the highest grade it had ever given a Ty Cobb card from the E98 series was a 7. Sixteen Cobbs found in the Ohio attic were graded a 9 -- almost perfect. A Honus Wagner was judged a 10, a first for the series.
Retired vintage sports card auctioneer Barry Sloate of New York City said: "This is probably the most interesting find I've heard of."
In a measure of what baseball cards can be worth, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks paid a record $2.8 million for a rare 1909 Honus Wagner. Another version of the card brought $1.2 million in April. (Wagner's tobacco cards were pulled from circulation, either because the ballplayer didn't want to encourage smoking among children or because he wanted more money.)
Heritage Auctions plans to sell most of the cards over the next two of three years through auctions and private sales so that it doesn't flood the market. In all, they could bring $2 million or $3 million, Ivy said.
The Hench family is evenly dividing the cards and the money among the 20 cousins named in their aunt's will. All but a few have decided to sell their share.
"These cards need to be with those people who appreciate and enjoy them," Kissner said.
DEFIANCE, Ohio -- Karl Kissner picked up a soot-covered cardboard box that had been under a wooden dollhouse in his grandfather's attic. Taking a look inside, he saw hundreds of baseball cards bundled with twine. They were smaller than the ones he was used to seeing.
But some of the names were familiar: Hall of Famers Ty Cobb, Cy Young and Honus Wagner.
Then he put the box on a dresser and went back to digging through the attic.
It wasn't until two weeks later that he learned that his family had come across what experts say is one of the biggest, most exciting finds in the history of sports card collecting, a discovery worth perhaps millions.
The cards are from an extremely rare series issued around 1910. Up to now, the few known to exist were in so-so condition at best, with faded images and worn edges. But the ones from the attic in the town of Defiance are nearly pristine, untouched for more than a century. The colors are vibrant, the borders crisp and white.
"It's like finding the Mona Lisa in the attic," Kissner said.
Sports card experts who authenticated the find say they may never again see something this impressive.
"Every future find will ultimately be compared to this," said Joe Orlando, president of Professional Sports Authenticator.
The best of the bunch -- 37 cards -- are expected to bring a total of $500,000 when they are sold at auction in August during the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore. There are about 700 cards in all that could be worth up to $3 million, experts say. They include such legends as Christy Mathewson and Connie Mack.
Kissner and his family say the cards belonged to their grandfather, Carl Hench, who died in the 1940s. Hench ran a meat market in Defiance, and the family suspects he got them as a promotional item from a candy company that distributed them with caramels. They think he gave some away and kept others.
"We guess he stuck them in the attic and forgot about them," Kissner said. "They remained there frozen in time."
After Hench and his wife died, two of his daughters lived in the house. Jean Hench kept the house until she died last October, leaving everything inside to her 20 nieces and nephews. Kissner, 51, is the youngest and was put in charge of the estate. His aunt was a pack rat, and the house was filled with three generations of stuff.
They found calendars from the meat market, turn-of-the-century dresses, a steamer trunk from Germany and a dresser with Grandma's clothes neatly folded in the drawers.
Months went by before they even got to the attic. On Feb. 29, Kissner's cousin Karla Hench pulled out the dirty green box with metal clips at the corners and lifted the lid.
Not knowing whether the cards were valuable, the two cousins put the box aside. But Kissner decided to do a little research. The cards were at his office in the restaurant he owns when he realized they might have something. He immediately took them across the street and put them in a bank vault.
Still not knowing whether the cards were real, they sent eight to expert Peter Calderon at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, which recently sold the baseball that rolled through the legs of Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner in the 1986 World Series for $418,000.
Calderon said his first words were "Oh, my God."
"I was in complete awe," he said. "You just don't see them this nice."
The cards are from what is known as the E98 series. It is not clear who manufactured them or how many were produced, but the series consists of 30 players, half of them Hall of Famers.
The experts at Heritage Auctions checked out the family's background, the age of the home and the history of the meat market. They looked at the cards and how they were printed.
"Everything lines up," said Chris Ivy, the company's director of sports auctions.
They then sent all the cards to Professional Sports Authenticator, which had previously authenticated fewer than 700 E98s. The Ohio cards were the finest examples from the E98 series the company had ever seen.
The company grades cards on a 1-to-10 scale based of their condition. Up to now, the highest grade it had ever given a Ty Cobb card from the E98 series was a 7. Sixteen Cobbs found in the Ohio attic were graded a 9 -- almost perfect. A Honus Wagner was judged a 10, a first for the series.
Retired vintage sports card auctioneer Barry Sloate of New York City said: "This is probably the most interesting find I've heard of."
In a measure of what baseball cards can be worth, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks paid a record $2.8 million for a rare 1909 Honus Wagner. Another version of the card brought $1.2 million in April. (Wagner's tobacco cards were pulled from circulation, either because the ballplayer didn't want to encourage smoking among children or because he wanted more money.)
Heritage Auctions plans to sell most of the cards over the next two of three years through auctions and private sales so that it doesn't flood the market. In all, they could bring $2 million or $3 million, Ivy said.
The Hench family is evenly dividing the cards and the money among the 20 cousins named in their aunt's will. All but a few have decided to sell their share.
"These cards need to be with those people who appreciate and enjoy them," Kissner said.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Scrabble Museum: Scrabble Showdown TV series
It's a Sunday night show on Hub TV: http://www.hubworld.com/scrabble/shows/showdown?dsp=sbl_pmo_sbl_ssd_1011_113
The world's most popular word game comes to the television screen with the all-new, half-hour Hub Original Series Scrabble Showdown. In this all-new, family game show, kids and parents use teamwork to solve a variety of challenging word games and puzzles that test their speed, spelling and vocabulary for points and prizes including the chance to win family vacations to anywhere in the world. Scrabble Showdown, only on the Hub.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Posts resume Saturday
I've procrastinated on a big job and now it's come home to bite me in the butt.
Posts resume Saturday.
Posts resume Saturday.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Exhibit: Hail
It's a 5-hour drive from Cheyenne to Rapid City, South Dakota. On the way, via I25, you go up to Highway 16, and turn east. First you come to the Crazy Horse Monument, then the exit for Mt. Rushmore, then various camping resorts, such as Rushmore Shadows where I stayed for 2 nights (23rd and 24th May, 2012) and then Rapid City.
Since I was passing by Crazy Horse Monument on my way to Rushmore Shadows, I stopped there for about 3 hours. Had to wind down my window to pay for the parking, and for some reason forgot to rewind it.
It was a grey day, kind of drizzly, but I figured since I'd be spending most of my time inside the buildings, I'd go for it.
After about an hour, took a $4 bus ride up to a photogenic spot to take photos. It was cold, but not raining at this point.
On way back, the bus drove through the parking lot and I discovered my open window. Dropped off at museum entrance, walked back up to my car.
No theft, but this is what I saw:
Fortunately, I had some towels in my trunk. So after scraping away most of the hail, I put the towels down when I resumed my drive to Rushmore Shadows.
Since I was passing by Crazy Horse Monument on my way to Rushmore Shadows, I stopped there for about 3 hours. Had to wind down my window to pay for the parking, and for some reason forgot to rewind it.
It was a grey day, kind of drizzly, but I figured since I'd be spending most of my time inside the buildings, I'd go for it.
After about an hour, took a $4 bus ride up to a photogenic spot to take photos. It was cold, but not raining at this point.
On way back, the bus drove through the parking lot and I discovered my open window. Dropped off at museum entrance, walked back up to my car.
No theft, but this is what I saw:
Fortunately, I had some towels in my trunk. So after scraping away most of the hail, I put the towels down when I resumed my drive to Rushmore Shadows.
Monday, May 21, 2012
I crave your indulgence
My mother's sister is visiting for three days.
My mom's deaf as a post, my dad can't be bothered to get out of his chair, so I will be doing the entertaining - the chauffeuring and the talking and the communicating - for the next three days.
So I'll be posting back here Thursday.
Thanks for your patience.
My mom's deaf as a post, my dad can't be bothered to get out of his chair, so I will be doing the entertaining - the chauffeuring and the talking and the communicating - for the next three days.
So I'll be posting back here Thursday.
Thanks for your patience.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Exhibit: Procrastinator's Hell
You'd think at age 50 I would have learned by lesson about procrastination a long time ago, but not so.
I've got work to do for a client, so I won't be posting here...but sooon, very soon...
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Coors Field - Rockies Baseball Team
Tomorrow I'll be driving down to Denver with my brother to catch a Rockies game. If I'd planned it better I'd be there tonight - Jamie Moyer who is pitching for the Rockies tonight is my favorite player - still winning games at age 40 - not only that but he's got the best ERA on the Rockies, for all that he's not doing too well because the Rockies don't score him any runs...
Anyway, it will be the first in my goal to visit every major league baseball stadium. A journey that will take many years and will only happen if I win the lottery...but I'm starting the collection now.
(As a kid I was at the old Astrodome, and I saw a couple of games at the Metrodome (the Twins) and that's it.)
So look for photos tomorrow of this new exhibit.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Soon...very soon
I've been very remiss in posting here...
Will get back to it in a systematic way tomorrow...
Friday, April 13, 2012
Robert Sabuda: Paper Engineer
I've been taking advantage of the - relatively - low prices on Ebay to pick up some Robert Sabuda popup books.
I won't be buying all of his books, but I'll get the fairy tale ones - Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, etc.
I don't even buy them for the stories but rather for the intricate pop-ups he created. They are just so fun to look at.
Robert James Sabuda (born March 08, 1965) is a leading children's pop-up book artist and paper engineer. His books, such as those describing the stories of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, have been well-received and critically acclaimed.
Biography
Sabuda was born in Pinckney, Michigan. He was skilled as an artist from a very young age, and attended the Pratt Institute in New York City. His specific interest in 3-D paper engineering (i.e., pop-up books) was sparked by a book he received that was illustrated by Vojtech Kubasta.[citation needed] His interest in children's book illustration began with an internship at Dial Books for Young Readers while attending the Pratt Institute. Initially working as a package designer, he illustrated his first children's book series, of "Bulky Board Books", in 1987. Wide recognition only came his way after he started designing pop-up books for children in 1994.
Sabuda has experimented with modes of illustration in a conventionally conservative genre, using techniques including:
* faux stained glass (Arthur and the Sword)
* batik (Blizzard's Robe)
* papyrus-textured illustrations (Tutankhamen's Gift)
* murals (Saint Valentine)
Sabuda presently works from his studio in New York City and is involved in a wide variety of projects that involve movable paper. He has also released a video of his working style, which can be seen on YouTube.
Sabuda has also been awarded the Meggendorfer Prize three times, an award instituted by the Movable Book Society of America in honor of German illustrator Lothar Meggendorfer.
# Sabuda, Robert (1994). The Mummy's Tomb: A Pop-Up Book. Golden Books.
# Sabuda, Robert (1994). The Knight's Castle: A Pop-Up Book. Golden Books.
# Beach, Thomas (pseudonym) (1994). Creepy, Crawly Halloween Fright. Troll Associates.
# Sabuda, Robert (1995). Help the Animals of North America (A Pop-Up Book). Readers Digest.
# Sabuda, Robert (1995). Help the Animals of Asia (A Pop-Up Book). Readers Digest.
# Sabuda, Robert (1995). Help the Animals of Africa (A Pop-Up Book). Readers Digest.
# Williams, Nancy; Sabuda, Robert (1995). A Kwanzaa Celebration: A Pop-up Book. Little Simon.
# Sabuda, Robert (1996). The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Pop-Up Celebration. Little Simon.
# Sabuda, Robert (1997). Cookie Count: A Tasty Pop-Up. Little Simon.
# Sabuda, Robert (1998). ABC Disney Pop-Up. Disney Press. ISBN
# Sabuda, Robert (1999). The Movable Mother Goose. Little Simon.
# Sabuda, Robert (2000). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Pop-Up. Little Simon.
# Thomas, Pamela; Sabuda, Robert (2000). Brooklyn Pops Up. Little Simon.
# Moore, Clement Clarke; Sabuda, Robert (2002). The Night Before Christmas Pop-up. Little Simon.
# Sabuda, Robert (2003). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: A Popup Adaptation. Little Simon.
.
# Sabuda, Robert (2004). America the Beautiful. Little Simon.
# Sabuda, Robert (2005). Winter's Tale: An Original Pop-Up Journey. Little Simon.
# Sabuda, Robert (2007). The Chronicles of Narnia. Little Simon.
# Sabuda, Robert (2010). Beauty & the Beast: A Pop-up Book of the Classic Fairy Tale. Little Simon.
# Sabuda, Robert; Rosen, Michael J. (September 2011). Chanukah Lights. Candlewick Press.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Easter Pause
So sorry to have missed so many days of posting - unexpected family matters cropped up.
And now it's Easter, so more family matters.
Will get back on track Monday.
Thanks for your patience.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Observatories: Mount Palomar (San Diego, CA)
Palomar Observatory is a privately owned astronomical observatory located in San Diego County, California (USA), 145 kilometers (90 mi) southeast of Los Angeles, California, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) located in Pasadena, California. Research time is granted to Caltech and its research partners, which includes the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Cornell University.
The observatory operates several telescopes, including the famous 200-inch Hale Telescope (5.1 m) and the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope (1.2 m). In addition, other instruments and projects have been hosted at the observatory, such as the Palomar Testbed Interferometer and the historic 18-inch Schmidt telescope (0.46 m), Palomar Observatory's first telescope, dating from 1936.
History
stronomer George Ellery Hale, whose vision created the Palomar Observatory, built the world's largest telescope four times. He published an article in the April 1928 issue of Harper's Magazine called "The Possibilities of Large Telescopes". This article contained Hale's vision for building what was to become the 200-inch Palomar reflector; it was an invitation to the American public to learn about how large telescopes could help answer questions relating to the fundamental nature of the universe. Hale hoped that the American people would understand and support his project. In fact the 200-inch telescope was the most important telescope in the world from 1949 until 1992 when the Keck I telescope (at approximately 10 metres (390 in)) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii became the world's largest.
Hale followed this article with a letter to the International Education Board (later absorbed into the General Education Board) of the Rockefeller Foundation dated April 28, 1928, in which he requested funding for this project. In his letter, Hale stated:
"No method of advancing science is so productive as the development of new and more powerful instruments and methods of research. A larger telescope would not only furnish the necessary gain in light space-penetration and photographic resolving power, but permit the application of ideas and devices derived chiefly from the recent fundamental advances in physics and chemistry."
Etymology
The word palomar is a Spanish term dating from the time of Spanish California that means pigeon house (in the same sense as henhouse). The name may be in reference to the large shoals of pigeons that can be seen during the spring and autumn months atop Palomar Mountain, or reminiscent of an old pigeon-raising facility built there by the Spaniards.
The Hale Telescope
The 200-inch telescope is named after astronomer George Hale. It was built by Caltech with a $6 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, using a Pyrex blank manufactured by Corning Glass Works. The telescope (the largest in the world at that time) saw first light January 26, 1949 targeting NGC 2261. The American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble, perhaps the most important observer of the 20th century, was given the honor of being the first astronomer to use the telescope.
Astronomers using the Hale Telescope have discovered distant objects at the edges of the known universe called quasars and have given us the first direct evidence of stars in distant galaxies. They have studied the structure and chemistry of intergalactic clouds leading to an understanding of the synthesis of elements in the universe and have discovered thousands of asteroids. A one-tenth-scale engineering model of the telescope at Corning Community College in Corning, New York, home of the Corning Glass Works (now Corning Incorporated) was used to discover at least one minor planet, (34419) Corning †.
Architecture and design
According to the Observatory's Public Affairs Office, Russell W. Porter was primarily responsible for the striking Art Deco architecture of the Observatory's buildings, most notably the dome of the 200–inch Hale Telescope. Porter was also responsible for much of the technical design of the Hale Telescope and Schmidt Cameras, producing a series of remarkable cross-section engineering drawings that are considered among the finest examples of such work. Porter worked on the designs in collaboration with many engineers and Caltech committee members. The iconic, gleaming white building on Palomar Mountain that houses the 200–inch Hale Telescope is considered by many to be "The Cathedral of Astronomy".
Directors
* Ira Sprague Bowen, 1948–1964
* Horace Welcome Babcock, 1964–1978
* Maarten Schmidt, 1978–1980
* Gerry Neugebauer, 1980–1994
* James Westphal, 1994–1997
* Wallace Leslie William Sargent, 1997–2000
* Richard Ellis, 2000–2006
* Shrinivas Kulkarni, 2006–
Palomar Observatory and light pollution
Much of the surrounding region of Southern California has adopted shielded lighting to reduce the light pollution that would potentially affect the observatory.
Telescopes and instruments
* The 200-inch Hale Telescope was first proposed in 1928 and has been operational since 1948. It was the largest telescope in the world for 45 years.
* A 60-inch reflecting telescope is located in the Oscar Mayer Building. It was dedicated in 1970 to take some of the load off of the Hale Telescope. This telescope was used to discovered the first brown dwarf star.
* The 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope (Schmidt Camera) was started in 1938 and installed in 1948. It was initially called the 48–inch Schmidt, and was dedicated to Samuel Oschin in 1986. The dwarf planet Eris was discovered using this instrument. The existence of Eris triggered the discussions in the international astronomy community that led to Pluto being re-classified as a dwarf planet.
* A 24-inch robotic telescope completed in January 2006 is used to monitor the weather on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It is also used for follow-up observations of solar system discovered with the Oschin telescope.
Former instruments
* An 18-inch Schmidt camera became became the first operational telescope at the Palomar in 1936. In the 1930s a Caltech astronomer named Fritz Zwicky discovered over 100 supernovae (exploding stars) in other galaxies with this telescope and gathered the first evidence for dark matter. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was discovered with this instrument in 1993. It has since been retired.
* The Palomar Testbed Interferometer was a multi-telescope instrument that permitted astronomers to make very high resolution measurements of the sizes and positions of objects in space. The shapes of some bright stars have been measured with the PTI. It operated from 1995 to 2008.
* The Palomar Planet Search Telescope (PPST), aka Sleuth, was a 0.1 m (3.9 in) robotic telescope that operated from 2003 until 2008. It was dedicated to the search for planets around other stars using the transit method. It operated in conjunction with telescopes at Lowell Observatory and in the Canary Islands as part of the Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES).
Research
The observatory has completed several astronomical surveys: the first in the 1950s, the second in the 1980s and 1990s, and a third in 2003.
POSS-I
The initial Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS or POSS-I), sponsored by the National Geographic institute, was completed in 1958. The first plates were shot in November 1948 and the last in April 1958. This survey was performed using 14 inch2 or (6 degree2) blue-sensitive (Kodak 103a-O) and red-sensitive (Kodak 103a-E) photographic plates on the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Schmidt reflecting telescope. The survey covered the sky from a declination of +90 degrees (celestial north pole) to -27 degrees and all right ascensions and had a sensitivity to +22 magnitudes (about 1 million times fainter than the limit of human vision). A southern extension extending the sky coverage of the POSS to -33 degrees declination was shot in 1957 - 1958. The final POSS I consisted of 937 plate pairs.
Fritz Zwicky was the first astronomer to observe on Mt. Palomar and was the father of the Sky Survey Technique.
Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) produced images which were based on the photographic data developed in the course of POSS-I.
J.B. Whiteoak, an Australian radio astronomer, used the same instrument to broaden this POSS-I data further. Whiteoaks observations extended south to about -45 degrees declination, using the same field centers as the corresponding northern declination zones. Unlike POSS-I, the Whiteoak extension consisted only of red-sensitive (Kodak 103a-E) photographic plates.
POSS-II
The Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II) was performed in the 1980s and 1990s that made use of better, faster films and an upgraded telescope. The Oschin Schmidt was given an achromatic corrector and provisions for autoguiding. Images were recorded in three wavelengths: blue (IIIaJ), red (IIIaF) and near infrared (IVN) plates, respectively. Observers on POSS II included C. Brewer, D. Griffiths, W. McKinley, D. Mendenhall, K. Rykoski, J. Phinney and Jean Mueller (who discovered over 100 supernovae by comparing the POSS I and POSS II plates). Ms Mueller also discovered several comets during the course of POSS II and the bright Comet Wilson 1986 was discovered by then graduate student C. Wilson early in the survey.
Until the completion of the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), POSS-II was the most extensive wide-field sky survey ever. When completed, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey will surpass POSS-I and POSS-II in depth, although the POSS covers almost 2.5 times more area on the sky.
POSS-II also exists in digitized form (i.e., the photographic plates were scanned), both in photographic form as the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS).
QUEST
The multi-year POSS projects were followed by the Palomar Quasar Equatorial Survey Team (QUEST) Variability survey. This survey yielded results that were used by several projects, including the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking project. Another program that used the QUEST results discovered 90377 Sedna on 14 November 2003, and around 40 Kuiper belt objects. Other programs that share the camera are Shri Kulkarni's search for gamma-ray bursts (this takes advantage of the automated telescope's ability to react as soon as a burst is seen and take a series of snapshots of the fading burst), Richard Ellis' search for supernovae to test whether the universe's expansion is accelerating or not, and S. George Djorgovski's quasar search.
The camera for the Palomar QUEST Survey was a mosaic of 112 Charge-coupled devices (CCDs) covering the whole (4 degree by 4 degree) field of view of the Schmidt telescope, the largest CCD mosaic used in an astronomical camera when built. This instrument was used to produce The Big Picture, the largest astronomical photograph ever produced.
The Big Picture is on display at Griffith Observatory.
Current research
Current research programs on the 200-inch Hale Telescope cover the range of the observable universe including studies on near-Earth asteroids, outer solar system planets, Kuiper Belt Objects, star formation, exoplanets, gamma-ray bursts, black holes, quasars and much more.
The 48-inch Samuel Oschin Schmidt Telescope is actively working on a new sky survey, the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). The 60-inch telescope is used for a variety of projects including follow-up observations for the Palomar Transient Factory and is a rapid response telescope for gamma-ray bursts.
Clearest images
In September 2007, a team of astronomers from the United States and Britain released some of the clearest pictures ever taken of outer space. The pictures were obtained through the use of a new hybrid "Lucky imaging" and "adaptive optics" system that sharpens pictures taken from the Palomar Observatory. The resolution attained exceeds that of the Hubble Space Telescope by a factor of two.
Visiting
The Palomar Observatory is an active research facility. However, parts of it are open to the public during the day. Visitors can take self-guided tours of the 200-inch telescope daily from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Guided tours of the 200-inch Hale Telescope dome and observing area are available Saturdays and Sundays from April through October. Details are available at the Observatory's web site. There is a visitor's center and a gift shop on the grounds. Behind-the-scenes tours for the public are offered through the community support group, Friends of Palomar support group. Periodic tours are also organized by the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in San Diego. The observatory is located off State Route 76 in northern San Diego County, California, is two hours' drive from downtown San Diego, and three hours' drive from central Los Angeles ( UCLA, LAX airport ).
In pop culture
The band Wellwater Conspiracy's 1997 debut album, Declaration of Conformity, contains a track entitled "Palomar Observatory." It is the last track on the album and completely instrumental. It is likely the track title was chosen by singer/drummer Matt Cameron, who grew up in San Diego near the observatory. Also, Canadian band The Rheostatics 11th track from their effort Whale Music is entitled Palomar. The song depicts a man named Palomar on the top of a mount, cleaning his lenses with saline waters. Palomar assembles his kaleidoscope in his lonely observatory. The song presents a visual characterization of a man on a mountain and his relationship with his best friend, a dog.
Palomar is mentioned in the first episode of season 2 of The X-Files, "Little Green Men". Fox Mulder refers to Hale's suggestion that an elf crawled through his window and told him to build the observatory.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Observatories: Mount Wilson Observatory, Los Angeles, CA
The Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) is an astronomical observatory in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The MWO is located on Mount Wilson, a 5,715 foot (1,742 m) peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, northeast of Los Angeles. The observatory contains two historically important telescopes: the 60 inch (1.5 m) Hale telescope built in 1908, and the 100 inch (2.5 m) Hooker telescope, which was the largest telescope in the world from its completion in 1917 until 1948.
Thanks to the inversion layer that traps smog over Los Angeles, Mount Wilson has naturally steadier air than any other location in North America, making it ideal for astronomy and in particular for interferometry. The increasing light pollution due to the growth of greater Los Angeles has limited the ability of the observatory to engage in deep space astronomy, but it remains a productive center, with many new and old instruments in use for astronomical research.
The observatory was conceived and founded by George Ellery Hale, who had built the 40 inch (1 m) telescope at the Yerkes Observatory. The Mount Wilson Solar Observatory was first funded by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1904, leasing the land from the owners of the Mount Wilson Hotel in 1904. Among the conditions of the lease was that it allow public access.
George Ellery Hale received the 60 inch (1.5 m) mirror blank, cast by Saint-Gobain in France, in 1896 as a gift from his father, William Hale. It was a glass disk 7½ inches (191 mm) thick and weighing 1900 pounds (860 kg). However it was not until 1904 that Hale received funding from the Carnegie Institution to build an observatory. Grinding began in 1905 and took two years. The mounting and structure for the telescope was built in San Francisco and barely survived the 1906 earthquake. Transporting the pieces to the top of Mount Wilson was an enormous task. "First light" was December 8, 1908. It was at the time the largest operational telescope in the world.
The 60 inch reflector became one of the most productive and successful telescopes in astronomical history. Its design and light-gathering power allowed the pioneering of spectroscopic analysis, parallax measurements, nebula photography, and photometric photography. Though surpassed in size by the Hooker telescope nine years later, the Hale telescope remained one of the largest in use for decades.
In 1992, the 60 inch telescope was fitted with an early adaptive optics system, the Atmospheric Compensation Experiment (ACE). The 69-channel system improved the potential resolving power of the telescope from 0.5-1.0 arc sec to 0.07 arc sec. ACE was developed by DARPA for the Strategic Defense Initiative system, and the National Science Foundation funded the civilian conversion.
Today, the 60 inch telescope is used for public outreach. Eyepieces are fitted to its focus instead of instruments. It is the largest telescope in the world devoted to the general public. As of June 2009, the cost for a half-night of observation is $900, $1700 for a full night.
100 inch (2.5 m) Hooker Telescope
Hale immediately set about creating a larger telescope. John D. Hooker provided crucial funding for it, along with Carnegie.[3] The Saint-Gobain factory was again chosen to cast a blank in 1906, which it completed in 1908, After considerable trouble over the blank (and potential replacements), the 100 inch (2.5 m) telescope was completed and saw "first light" on November 2, 1917. The blank started with over two tons of fused glass which was melted in a furnace into one piece. The blank once melted into one piece took over a year to cool without cracking.
Just like the 60" telescope, the mechanism incorporates a mercury float to provide smooth operation. The Hooker telescope was equipped in 1919 with a special attachment, an optical astronomical interferometer developed by Albert Michelson, much larger than the one he had used to measure Jupiter's satellites. Michelson was able to use the equipment to determine the precise diameter of stars, such as Betelgeuse, the first time the size of a star had ever been measured. Henry Norris Russell developed his star classification system based on observations using the Hooker.
In 1935 the silver coating used since 1917 on the Hooker 100 inch mirror was replaced with a more modern and longer lasting aluminum metallic coating that reflected 50% more light than the older silver method of coating. The newer method of coating for the telescope mirrors was first tested on the older 60 inch mirror telescope.
Edwin Hubble performed his critical calculations from work on the 100 inch (2.5 m) telescope. He determined that some nebulae were actually galaxies outside our own Milky Way. Hubble, assisted by Milton L. Humason, discovered the presence of the redshift that indicated the universe is expanding.
The Hooker's reign of three decades as the largest telescope came to an end when the Caltech-Carnegie consortium completed its 200-inch (5.1 m) telescope in 1948 at Palomar Observatory, 90 miles (150 km) south, in San Diego County, California.
By the 1980s, the focus of astronomy research had turned to deep space observation, which required darker skies than what could be found in the Los Angeles area, due to ever-increasing problem of light pollution. In 1986, the Carnegie Institution, which ran the observatory, handed it over to the non-profit Mount Wilson Institute. At that time, the 100 inch (2.5 m) telescope was deactivated, but it was restarted in 1992 and outfitted with adaptive optics. The Hooker telescope remains one of the pre-eminent scientific instruments of the 20th century.
The telescope has a resolving power of 0.05 arcsecond.
Solar telescopes There are three solar telescopes, two of which are now used for astronomical research, also known as solar towers due to their construction. The 60 foot (18 m) tower telescope was completed in 1908, and the 150 foot (46 m) tower telescope was completed in 1912. The Snow solar telescope, built in 1904 is used for educational demonstrations. The telescopes are used to study helioseismology and other changes in the sun's nature.
Interferometry
The extremely steady air over Mount Wilson is well suited to interferometry, the use of multiple viewing points to increase resolution enough to allow for the direct measurement of the size of details such as star diameters. Michelson performed the first measurements of other stars in the history of astronomical interferometry on the Hooker telescope in 1919.
The Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) is an array of three 65 inch (1.65 m) telescopes operating in the mid-infrared. The telescopes are fully mobile and their current site on Mount Wilson allows for placements as far as 70 m apart, giving the resolution of a telescope of that diameter. The signals are converted to radio frequencies through heterodyne circuits and then combined electronically using techniques copied from radio astronomy. ISI is run by an arm of the University of California, Berkeley. The longest (70m) baseline provides a resolution of 0.003 arcsec at 11 micrometers. On July 9, 2003, ISI recorded the first closure phase aperture synthesis measurements in the mid infrared.
The Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) array is an interferometer formed from six 1 m (40-inch) telescopes arranged along three axes with a maximum separation length of 330 m. The light beams travel through vacuum tubes and are combined optically, requiring a building 100 meters long with movable mirrors to keep the light in phase as the earth rotates. CHARA is operated by the Georgia State University and began scientific use in 2002 and began "routine operations" in early 2004. In infrared the integrated image can resolve down to 0.0005 arcseconds. As of 2005, four of the six telescopes have been commissioned for interferometric observations.
These and other astronomical interferometers are included in the List of astronomical interferometers at visible and infrared wavelengths. The history of the development of these instruments is given in History of astronomical interferometry.
Other telescopes
A 24-inch (610 mm) telescope fitted with an infrared detector purchased from a military contractor was used by Eric Becklin in 1966 to determine the center of the Milky Way for the first time.
In 1968, the first large-area near-IR (2.2 µm) survey of the sky was conducted by Gerry Neugebauer and Robert B. Leighton using a 62-inch (1.6 m) reflecting dish they had built. The instrument is now in the Smithsonian.
History
* Letters to the Mount Wilson Observatory are the subject of a permanent exhibition at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, California. A small room is dedicated to a collection of unusual letters and theories received by the observatory circa 1915–1935. These letters were also collected in the book No One May Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again: Letters to Mt. Wilson Observatory 1915–1935 (ISBN 0-9647215-0-3).
* The historic monument came under threat during the August 2009 California wildfires.
* The poet Alfred Noyes was present for the "first light" of the Hooker telescope on November 2, 1917. Noyes used this night as the setting in the opening of Watchers of the Sky, the first volume in his trilogy The Torchbearers, an epic poem about the history of science. According to his account of the night, the first object viewed in the telescope was Jupiter and Noyes himself was the first to see one of the planet's moons through the telescope.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Observatories: Yerkes Observatory
http://astro.uchicago.edu/yerkes/
Yerkes Observatory is an astronomical observatory operated by the University of Chicago in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The observatory, which calls itself "the birthplace of modern astrophysics," was founded in 1897 by George Ellery Hale and financed by Charles T. Yerkes. It represented a shift in the thinking about observatories, from their being mere housing for telescopes and observers, to the modern concept of observation equipment integrated with laboratory space for physics and chemistry.
The Observatory has the largest refracting telescope successfully used for astronomy and has a collection of over 100,000 photographic plates. The present (2010) director of the observatory is Dr. Kyle M. Cudworth.
Telescopes
Yerkes Observatory is most famous for its 102 cm (40 inch) refracting telescope built by the master optician Alvan Clark. This is the largest refracting telescope used for scientific research (a larger demonstration refractor, the Great Paris Exhibition Telescope of 1900, was exhibited at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900). The 40-inch telescope was exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago before being installed in the observatory.
In addition to the Yerkes refractor, the observatory also houses 102 cm (40 inch, referred to as the "41 inch" to prevent confusion) and 61 cm (24 inch) reflecting telescopes. Several smaller telescopes are used for educational outreach purposes.
Current Research
Present research activity includes work on the interstellar medium, globular cluster formation, infrared astronomy, and near-Earth objects. Additionally, the University of Chicago maintains an engineering center in the observatory, dedicated to making and maintaining scientific instruments. As of 2011, the engineers are working on the High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera (HAWC), which will be an integral part of Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). Research is also done utilizing Yerkes' collection of over 150,000 archival photographic plates that date back to the 1890's.
Development and preservation plans
The Geneva Lake Conservancy, a regional conservation and land trust organization, took the position that it was critical to save the historic Yerkes Observatory structures and telescopes for education and research, as well as to conserve the rare undeveloped, wooded lakefront and deep forest sections of the 77-acre (310,000 m2) site.
On June 7, 2006, the University announced it would sell the facility to Mirbeau for US$8 million with stipulations to preserve the observatory, the surrounding 30 acres (120,000 m2), and the entire shoreline of the site. Under the Mirbeau plan, a 100-room resort with a large spa operation and attendant parking and support facilities was to be located on the 9-acre (36,000 m2) virgin wooded Yerkes land on the lakeshore -- the last such undeveloped, natural site on Geneva Lake's 21-mile (34 km) shoreline.
About seventy homes were to be developed on the upper Yerkes property, surrounding the historic observatory. These grounds were designed more than 100 years ago by John Olmsted, the brother of famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York's Central Park.
In view of the public controversy surrounding the development proposals, the university suspended these plans in January 2007. The university's department of astronomy and astrophysics then formed a study group, including representatives from the faculty and observatory and a wide range of other involved parties, to plan for the operation of a regional center for science education at the observatory. The study group began its work in February 2007 and its final report was issued November 30, 2007. Ultimately, Williams Bay's refusal to change the zoning from education to residential caused Mirbeau to abandon its development plans.
Popular culture
Yerkes Observatory is the setting for about seven minutes of the 1996 movie Chain Reaction. One of the principal characters, Maggie McDermott, is first seen looking through the big refractor. The movie features a gunfight on the roof of Yerkes Observatory and an airboat chase across frozen Geneva Lake.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Capital Cities of the World: Mexico City pt 1
Mexico City, also known as México D.F., or simply D.F.) is the Federal District (Distrito Federal), capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole. Mexico City is the country's largest city as well as its most important political, cultural, educational and financial center.
As an "alpha" global city, Mexico City is one of the most important financial centers in North America. It is located in the Valley of Mexico (Valle de México), a large valley in the high plateaus at the center of Mexico, at an altitude of 2,240 metres (7,350 ft). The city consists of sixteen boroughs.
The 2009 estimated population for the city proper was around 8.84 million people, and has a land area of 1,485 square kilometres (573 sq mi). According to the most recent definition agreed upon by the federal and state governments, the Mexico City metropolitan area population is 21.2 million people, making it the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere and the fifth largest agglomeration in the world.
Mexico City has a gross domestic product (GDP) of $390 billion US$ in 2008, making Mexico City the eighth richest city in the world. The city was responsible for generating 21% of Mexico's Gross Domestic Product and the metropolitan area accounted for 34% of total national GDP.
The city was originally built on an island of Lake Texcoco by the Aztecs in 1325 as Tenochtitlan, which was almost completely destroyed in the 1521 siege of Tenochtitlan, and subsequently redesigned and rebuilt in accordance with the Spanish urban standards. In 1524, the municipality of Mexico City was established, known as México Tenochtitlán, and as of 1585 it was officially known as La Ciudad de México (Mexico City). Mexico City served as the political, administrative and financial center of a major part of the Spanish colonial empire. After independence from Spain was achieved, the Federal District was created in 1824.
After years of demanding greater political autonomy, residents were given the right to directly elect the Head of Government and the representatives of the unicameral Legislative Assembly by popular vote in 1997. Ever since, the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has controlled both of them. In recent years, the local government has passed a wave of liberal policies, such as abortion on request to any woman up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy, a limited form of euthanasia, no-fault divorce and same-sex marriage.
History of Mexico City
Aztec period
Tenochtitlan
The city now known as Mexico City was founded by the Mexica people, later known as the Aztecs, in 1325. The old Mexica city is now referred to as Tenochtitlan. The Mexica were one of the last of the Nahuatl-speaking peoples who migrated to this part of the Valley of Mexico after the fall of the Toltec Empire. Their presence was resisted by the peoples who were already in the valley, but the Mexica were able to establish a city on a small island on the western side of Lake Texcoco.
The Mexica themselves had a story about how their city was founded, after being led to the island by their principal god, Huitzilopochtli. According to the story, the god indicated the site where they were to build their home with a sign - an eagle perched on a nopal cactus with a snake in its beak. Between 1325 and 1521, Tenochtitlan grew in size and strength, eventually dominating the other city-states around Lake Texcoco, and in the Valley of Mexico. When the Spaniards arrived, the Aztec Empire reached much of Mesoamerica, touching both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Scholars estimate that between 200,000 and 250,000 people lived in Tenochtitlan in 1500, more than four times the population of London at that time.
Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlán
After landing in Veracruz, Hernán Cortés heard about the great city and the long-standing rivalries and grievances against it. Although Cortés came to Mexico with a very small army, he was able to persuade many of the other native peoples to help him destroy Tenochtitlan. Cortés first saw Tenochtitlán on November 8, 1519 Upon viewing it for the first time, Cortés and his men were stunned by its beauty and size. The Spaniards marched along the causeway leading into the city from Iztapalapa. Although Montezuma came out from the center of Tenochtitlán to greet them and exchange gifts, the camaraderie did not last long.
Cortés put Montezuma under house arrest, hoping to rule through him. Tensions increased until, on the night of June 30, 1520 – during a struggle commonly known as "La Noche Triste" – the Aztec revolted against the Spanish intrusion and managed to capture or drive out the Europeans and their Tlaxcalan allies. Cortés regrouped at Tlaxcala. The Aztecs thought the Spaniards were permanently gone. They elected a new king, Cuitláhuac, but he died after a few months due to smallpox; the next king was Cuauhtémoc.
Cortés decided to lay siege to Tenochtitlán in May 1521. For three months, the city suffered from the lack of food and water as well as the spread of smallpox brought by the Europeans. Cortés and his allies landed their forces in the south of the island and fought their way through the city, street by street, and house by house.[26] Finally, Cuauhtémoc had to surrender in August 1521.
The rebuilding of the city as Mexico City
The Spaniards practically razed Tenochtitlán. Cortés first settled in Coyoacán, but decided to rebuild the Aztec site to erase all traces of the old order.[21] Cortés did not establish an independent, conquered territory under his own personal rule, but remained loyal to the Spanish crown. The first viceroy of the new domain arrived in Mexico City fourteen years later. By that time, the city had again become a city-state, having power that extended far beyond the city's established borders. Although the Spanish preserved Tenochtitlán's basic layout, they built Catholic churches over the old Aztec temples and claimed the imperial palaces for themselves. Tenochtitlán was renamed "Mexico", its alternative form name, only because the Spanish found this easier to say.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Ottawa Part 3
Navigable waterways
Ottawa sits at the confluence of three major rivers: the Ottawa River, the Gatineau River and the Rideau River. The Ottawa and Gatineau rivers were historically important in the logging and lumber industries and the Rideau as part of the Rideau Canal system for military, commercial and, subsequently, recreational purposes. The Rideau Canal, connecting the Ottawa River and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston, Ontario, by-passes unnavigable sections of the Rideau River as it winds its way through the city. Rideau is a French word that means 'Curtain' in English, and the Rideau Falls resemble a curtain, thusly named by the early French canoeists. During part of the winter season the frozen waters of the canal form the world's largest skating rink thereby providing both a recreational venue and a 7.8 kilometres (4.8 mi) transportation path to downtown for ice skaters (from Carleton University and Dow's Lake to the Rideau Centre and National Arts Centre).
Ottawa sits at the confluence of three major rivers: the Ottawa River, the Gatineau River and the Rideau River. The Ottawa and Gatineau rivers were historically important in the logging and lumber industries and the Rideau as part of the Rideau Canal system for military, commercial and, subsequently, recreational purposes. The Rideau Canal, connecting the Ottawa River and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston, Ontario, by-passes unnavigable sections of the Rideau River as it winds its way through the city. Rideau is a French word that means 'Curtain' in English, and the Rideau Falls resemble a curtain, thusly named by the early French canoeists. During part of the winter season the frozen waters of the canal form the world's largest skating rink thereby providing both a recreational venue and a 7.8 kilometres (4.8 mi) transportation path to downtown for ice skaters (from Carleton University and Dow's Lake to the Rideau Centre and National Arts Centre).
Demographics
In 2006, the populations of the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa-Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) were 812,129 and 1,130,761 respectively, while the Ottawa-Gatineau urban area had a population of 860,928. The city had a population density of 1,680.5 persons per km2 in 2006, while the CMA had a population density of 197.8 persons per km2. The estimated population of the National Capital Region is 1,451,415. The pre-amalgamated city population was 337,031 in 2001.
Ottawa's median age of 36.7, as well as its percentage of seniors are both below the provincial average and the national average, while those under 15 exceed Canadian percentages.
The vast majority of the population growth is attributable to relocations to the city, and over 20 percent of the city's population is foreign-born. Around 75% describe themselves as Christian, with Catholics accounting for 43.3% of the population and members of Protestant churches was 27.6%.
Bilingualism became official policy for the conduct of municipal business in 2002, and 37% of the population can speak both languages, making it the largest city in Canada with both English and French as co-official languages.Mother tongue was listed as 62.8% English, 14.9% French and 21.6% list languages other than English and French as their mother tongue.
Local government and politics
Ottawa is a single-tier municipality, meaning it is in itself a census division and has no county or regional municipality government above it. As a single tier municipality, Ottawa has responsibility for all municipal services, including fire, ambulatory, police, parks, roads, sidewalks, public transit, drinking water, stormwater, sanitary sewage and solid waste. Ottawa is governed by the 24-member Ottawa City Council consisting of 23 councillors each representing one ward and the mayor, currently Jim Watson, elected in a citywide vote.
Along with being the capital of Canada, Ottawa is politically diverse in local politics. Most of the city has traditionally supported the Liberal Party. Perhaps the safest areas for the Liberals are the ones dominated by Francophones, especially in Vanier and central Gloucester. Central Ottawa is usually more left-leaning, and the New Democratic Party can win ridings there as government unions and activist groups are fairly strong. Some of Ottawa's suburbs are swing areas, notably central Nepean and, despite its Francophone population, Orléans. The southern and western parts of the old city of Ottawa are generally moderate and swing to the Conservative Party. The farther one goes outside the city centre like to Kanata and Barrhaven and rural areas, the voters tend to be increasingly conservative, both fiscally and socially. This is especially true in the former Townships of West Carleton, Goulbourn, Rideau and Osgoode, which are more in line with the conservative areas in the surrounding counties. However not all rural areas support the Conservative Party. Rural parts of the former township of Cumberland, with a large number of Francophones, traditionally support the Liberal Party, though their support has recently weakened.
Education
Ottawa is known as one of the most educated cities in Canada, with over half the population having graduated from College and/or university.Ottawa has the highest per capita concentration of engineers, scientists, and residents with PhDs in Canada.
The city has two main public universities Carleton University and University of Ottawa, and two main public colleges Algonquin College and La Cité collégiale. It also has two Christian universities Dominican University College and Saint Paul University. There is also the University of Quebec en Outaouais, Cégep de l'Outaouais, and Heritage College in the neighbouring City of Gatineau.
There are four main public school boards in Ottawa: English, English-Catholic, French, and French-Catholic. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) is the largest board with 147 schools, followed by the Ottawa Catholic School Board with 85 schools. The two French language boards are the Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est with 49 schools, and the Conseil des écoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario with 37 schools. The Ottawa Public Library was created in 1906 as part of the famed Carnegie library system. The library system had 2.3 million items as of 2008.
Economy
Ottawa's primary employers are the Public Service of Canada and the high-tech industry. The city has a high standard of living and low unemployment. Ottawa had the fourth highest growth rate among major Canadian cities in 2007 with a 2.7% GDP growth rate, which exceeded the Canadian average of 2.4%. It is estimated that the National Capital Region attracts around seven million tourists annually who spend about 1.3 billion dollars.
The region of Ottawa-Gatineau has the third highest income of all major Canadian cities. The average gross income in the region amounted to $40,078, an increase of 4.9% compared to the previous year. The annual cost of living rate in 2007 was 1.9%.
Developed in the early 1950s, Tunney's Pasture is an area that is exclusively reserved for various federal government buildings.
The Federal government is the city's largest employer, employing over 110,000 individuals from the National Capital region. Ottawa is also an important technology centre; its 1800 companies employ approximately 80,000 people. The concentration of companies in this industry earned the city the nickname of "Silicon Valley North." Most of these companies specialize in telecommunications, software development and environmental technology. Large technology companies such as Nortel, Corel, Mitel, Cognos and JDS Uniphase were founded in the city. Ottawa also has regional locations for 3M, Adobe Systems, Bell Canada, IBM, Alcatel-Lucent and Hewlett-Packard. Many of the telecommunications and new technology are located in the western part of the city (formerly Kanata).
Another major employer is the health sector, which employs over 18,000 people. Nordion, i-Stat as well as the National Research Council of Canada and OHRI are part of the growing life science sector. Business, finance, administration, and sales and service occupations rank high among types of occupations. Approximately ten percent of Ottawa's GDP is derived from finance, insurance, real estate whereas employment is in goods-producing industries is only half the national average. The City of Ottawa is the second largest employer with over 15,000 employees.
In 2006, Ottawa experienced an increase of 40,000 jobs over 2001 with a five-year average growth that was relative slower than in the late 1990s. While the number of employees in the federal government stagnated, the high-technology industry grew by 2.4%. The overall growth of jobs in Ottawa-Gatineau was 1.3% compared to the previous year, down to sixth place among Canada's largest cities. The unemployment rate in Ottawa-Gatineau was 5.2% (only in Ottawa: 5.1%), which was below the national average of 6.0%. The economic downturn resulted in an increase in the unemployment rate between April 2008 and April 2009 from 4.7 to 6.3%. In the province, however, this rate increased over the same period from 6.4 to 9.1%.
Culture
Traditionally the ByWard Market (in Lower Town), Parliament Hill and the Golden Triangle (both in Centretown - Downtown) have been the focal points of the cultural scenes in Ottawa. Modern thoroughfares such as Wellington Street, Rideau Street, Sussex Drive, Elgin Street, Bank Street, Somerset Street, Preston Street and Sparks Street; are home to many boutiques, museums, theaters, galleries, landmarks and memorials, while dominated by eating establishments, cafes, bars and nightclubs.
Ottawa's hosts a variety of annual seasonal activities — such as Winterlude, the largest festival in Canada, and Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill and surrounding downtown area, as well as Bluesfest, Canadian Tulip Festival, Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival, Ottawa International Jazz Festival, Fringe Festival and Folk Music Festival, that have grown to become some of the largest festivals of their kind in the world. In 2010, Ottawa's Festival industry received the IFEA "World Festival and Event City Award" for the category of North American cities with a population between 500,000 and 1,000,000.
As Canada's capital, Ottawa has played host to a number of significant cultural events in Canadian history, including the first visit of the reigning Canadian sovereign—King George VI, with his consort, Queen Elizabeth—to his parliament, on 19 May 1939. VE Day was marked with a large celebration on 8 May 1945, the first raising of the country's new national flag took place on 15 February 1965, and the centennial of Confederation was celebrated on 1 July 1967. Elizabeth II was in Ottawa on 17 April 1982, to issue a royal proclamation of the enactment of the Constitution Act. In 1983, Prince Charles and Diana Princess of Wales came to Ottawa for a state dinner hosted by then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In 2011, Ottawa was selected as the first city to receive Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge during their Royal tour of Canada.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Seaborn One: June 1943
Jacques Cousteau's book, The Silent World, (first published in 1953) opens with this paragraph:
One morning in June, 1943, I went to the railway station at Bandol on the French Riviera and received a wooden case expressed from Paris. In it was a new and promising device, the result of years of struggle and dreams, an automatic compressed-air diving lung conceived by Emile Gagnan and myself.First, some political histoyr. In June, 1943, what was the state of France?I rushed it to Villa Barry where mu diving comrades, Philippe Tailliez and Frederic Dumas waited. No children ever opened a Christmas present with more excitement than ours when we unpacked the first "aqualung." If it worked, diving could be revoluionized.
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, Vichy Government, or simply Vichy are common terms used to describe the government of France which collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944, during the Second World War. It officially called itself the French State (État Français) and was headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, who proclaimed the government following the military defeat of France by Germany.The Free French, led by De Gaulle, were based in North Africa.The Vichy regime maintained some legal authority in the northern zone of France (the Zone occupée), which was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, but was most powerful in the unoccupied southern "free zone", where its administrative centre of Vichy was located. In November 1942 the southern zone was also occupied and fully subjected to German rule.
Pétain collaborated with the German occupying forces in exchange for an agreement to not divide France between the Axis Powers. Vichy authorities aided in the rounding-up of Jews and other "undesirables", and at times, Vichy French military forces actively opposed the Allies. Much of the French public initially supported the new government despite its pro-Nazi policies, seeing it as necessary to maintain a degree of French autonomy and territorial integrity.
The legitimacy of Vichy France and Pétain's leadership was constantly challenged by the exiled General Charles de Gaulle, who claimed to represent the legitimacy and continuity of the French government. Public opinion turned against the Vichy regime and the occupying German forces over time, and resistance to them grew within France. Following the Allied invasion of France in June 1944, de Gaulle proclaimed the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF).
Most of the Vichy regime's leaders were later put on trial by the GPRF, and a number of them were executed. Pétain was sentenced to death for treason, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
What about the French Riviera in 1943?
The Côte d'Azur (Azure (blue)Coast), often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from the Italian border in the east to Saint Tropez, Hyères or Cassis in the west.Cousteau, a Navy man, was out of work after the Armistice of 1940, and did not join the Free French. However, as evidenced in the Wikipedia article below, he did do work for his country against the Nazis:The French Riviera coastline covers 560 miles and consists of both sand and shingle beaches.
[WIkipedia doesn't say anything specifically about how the average French person lived, on the French Riviera, during this time, but does mention:
The Second World War
When Germany invaded France in June 1940, the remaining British colony was evacuated to Gibraltar and eventually to Britain. American Jewish groups helped some of the Jewish artists living in the south of France, such as Marc Chagall, to escape to the United States. In August 1942, 600 Jews from Nice were rounded up by French police and sent to Drancy, and eventually to death camps. In all about 5,000 French Jews from Nice perished during the war.On August 15, 1944, American parachute troops landed near Fréjus, and a fleet landed 60,000 troops of the American Seventh Army and French First Army between Cavalaire and Agay, east of Saint-Raphaël. German resistance crumbled in days.
Saint-Tropez was badly damaged by German mines at the time of the liberation. The novelist Colette organized an effort to assure the town was rebuilt in its original style.
When the war ended, artists Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso returned to live and work.
After the armistice of 1940, the family of Simone and Jacques-Yves Cousteau took refuge in Megève, where he became a friend of the Ichac family who also lived there. Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Marcel Ichac shared the same desire to reveal to the general public unknown and inaccessible places — for Cousteau the underwater world and for Ichac the high mountains. The two neighbors took the first ex-aequo prize of the Congress of Documentary Film in 1943, for the first French underwater film: Par dix-huit mètres de fond (18 meters deep), made without breathing apparatus the previous year in the Embiez islands (Var) with Philippe Tailliez and Frédéric Dumas, using a depth-pressure-proof camera case developed by mechanical engineer Léon Vèche (engineer of Arts and Métiers and the Naval College).Begin a notebook for Ocean One, if you have not already done so. It should be a loose-leaf notebook, so that you can take out and insert pages as needed.In 1943, they made the film Épaves (Shipwrecks), in which they used two of the very first Aqua-Lung prototypes. These prototypes were made in Boulogne-Billancourt by the Air Liquide company, following instructions from Cousteau and Émile Gagnan. When making Épaves, Cousteau could not find the necessary blank reels of movie film, but had to buy hundreds of small still camera film reels the same width, intended for a make of child's camera, and cemented them together to make long reels.
Having kept bonds with the English speakers (he spent part of his childhood in the United States and usually spoke English) and with French soldiers in North Africa (under Admiral Lemonnier), Jacques-Yves Cousteau (whose villa "Baobab" at Sanary (Var) was opposite Admiral Darlan's villa "Reine"), helped the French Navy to join again with the Allies; he assembled a commando operation against the Italian espionage services in France, and received several military decorations for his deeds. At that time, he kept his distance from his brother Pierre-Antoine Cousteau, a "pen anti-semite" who wrote the collaborationist newspaper Je suis partout (I am everywhere)
Write each name below on its own sheet of paper. Keep track of their activities in chronological fashion as we go through This Silent World.
* Jacques Cousteau
* Simone Cousteau
* Emile Gagnan
* Philippe Tailliez
* Frederic Dumas
Monday, March 26, 2012
Ottawa Part 2
Climate
Ottawa has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) with four distinct seasons. The average July maximum temperature is 26 °C (79 °F). The average January minimum temperature is −15.3 °C (4.5 °F).
Ottawa has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) with four distinct seasons. The average July maximum temperature is 26 °C (79 °F). The average January minimum temperature is −15.3 °C (4.5 °F).
Summers are warm and humid in Ottawa. Daytime temperatures of 30 °C (86 °F) or higher are commonplace. Ottawa averages many days with humidex (combined temperature & humidity index) between 30 °C (86 °F) and 40 °C (104 °F) annually.
Snow and ice are dominant during the winter season. Ottawa receives about 235 centimetres (93 in) of snowfall annually. Days well above freezing and nights below −30 °C (−22 °F) both occur in the winter. High wind chills are common, with annual averages 14 days with wind chills below −30 °C (−22 °F).
Spring and fall are variable, prone to extremes in temperature and unpredictable swings in conditions. Hot days above 30 °C (86 °F) have occurred as early as April (as in 2002) or as late as September, as well as snow well into May and early in October (although such events are extremely unusual and brief).
Average annual precipitation averages around 940 millimetres (37 in). Ottawa receives an average of 915 mm (36.0 in) of total precipitation a year. There are about 2,060 hours of average sunshine annually (47% of possible)
Neighbourhoods and outlying communities
Ottawa is bounded on the east by the United Counties of Prescott and Russell; by Renfrew County and Lanark County in the west; on the south by the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville and the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry; and on the north by the Regional County Municipality of Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais and the City of Gatineau. Modern Ottawa is made up of eleven historic townships, ten of which are from Carleton County and one from Russell.
The city has a main urban area but there are many other urban, suburban and rural areas within the modern city's limits. The main suburban area extends a considerable distance to the east, west and south of the centre,and includes the former cities of Gloucester, Nepean and Vanier, the former village of Rockcliffe Park and the community of Blackburn Hamlet, the community of Orléans. The Kanata suburban area consists of Kanata and the former village of Stittsville. Nepean is another major suburb which also includes Barrhaven and the former village of Manotick. There are also the communities of Riverside South on the other side of the Rideau River, and Greely, southeast of Riverside South.
There are a number of rural communities (villages and hamlets) that lie beyond the greenbelt but are administratively part of the Ottawa municipality. Some of these communities are Burritts Rapids; Ashton; Fallowfield; Kars; Fitzroy Harbour; Munster; Carp; North Gower; Metcalfe; Constance Bay and Osgoode and Richmond. There are also a number of towns located within the federally-defined National Capital Region but outside the city of Ottawa municipal boundaries, these include the urban communities of Almonte, Carleton Place, Embrun, Kemptville, Rockland, and Russell.
Cityscape and infrastructure
Architecture
Influenced by government structures, much of the city's architecture tends to be formalistic and functional. However, the city is also marked by Romantic and Picturesque styles of architecture such as the Parliament Building's gothic revival architecture. Ottawa's domestic architecture is dominated by single family homes. There are also smaller numbers of semi-detached, rowhouses, and apartment buildings. Most domestic buildings are clad in brick, with small numbers covered in wood or stone. The Ottawa skyline has remained conservative in skyscraper height throughout the years due to a skyscraper height restriction. The restrictions were originally implemented to keep Parliament Hill and the Peace Tower at 92.2 metres (302 ft) visible from most parts of the City. Today, several buildings are slightly taller than the Peace Tower, with the tallest located on Albert Street being the 29-storey Place de Ville (Tower C) at 112 metres (367 ft). Federal buildings in the National Capital Region are managed by Public Works Canada, while most of the federal land in the region is managed by the National Capital Commission; its control of much undeveloped land gives the NCC a great deal of influence over the city's development.
Public transit
The current public transit system is operated by OC Transpo, a department of the city. An integrated hub-and-spoke system of services is available consisting of: regular buses travelling on fixed routes in mixed traffic, typical of most urban transit systems; a bus rapid transit (BRT) system — a high frequency bus service operating on the transitway — a network of mostly grade-separated dedicated bus lanes within their own right-of-way and having full stations with Park & Ride facilities further supported by on-road reserved bus lanes and priority traffic signal controls; a light rail transit (LRT) system known as the O-Train operating on one north-south route; and a door-to-door bus service for the disabled known as ParaTranspo. Both OC Transpo and the Quebec-based Société de transport de l'Outaouais (STO) operate bus services between Ottawa and Gatineau. Currently, Ottawa has a 12.5 km light-rail metro up for tender while Gatineau is building its own BRT called the Rapibus.
Inter-city services
Ottawa is served by a number of airlines that fly into the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, as well as two main regional airports Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport, and Ottawa/Carp Airport. The city is also served by inter-city passenger rail service at the Ottawa Train Station by Via Rail, and inter-city bus service operating out of the Ottawa Bus Central Station.
Highways, streets and roads
The capital city of Canada is also served by a network of freeways, the main one being provincial Highway 417 (called The Queensway), Ottawa-Carleton Regional Road 174 (formerly Provincial Highway 17), and Highway 416 (Veterans' Memorial Highway), connecting Ottawa to the rest of the 400-Series Highway network in Ontario. Highway 417 is also the Ottawa portion of the Trans-Canada Highway. The city also has several scenic parkways (promenades), such as Colonel By Drive, Queen Elizabeth Driveway, the Ottawa River Parkway, Rockcliffe Parkway and the Aviation Parkway and has a freeway connection to Autoroute 5 and Autoroute 50, in Gatineau. In 2006, the National Capital Commission completed work on the long-discussed Confederation Boulevard, a ceremonial route linking key attractions in National Capital Region on both sides of the Ottawa River, in Ottawa as well as Gatineau, Quebec.
Bicycle and pedestrian pathways
There are numerous paved multi-use trails that wind their way through much of the city, including along the Ottawa River, Rideau River, and Rideau Canal. These pathways are used for transportation, tourism, and recreation. Because most streets either have wide curb lanes or bicycle lanes, cycling is a popular mode of transportation in the region throughout the year. There are over 220 kilometeres of paths located throughout the Ottawa-Gatineau region. A downtown street that is restricted to pedestrians only, Sparks Street was turned into a pedestrian mall in 1966. On July 10, 2011 Ottawa saw its first dedicated, segregated bike lanes in the down town core. The lane is separated from car traffic by a low concrete barrier with many gaps to allow for loading and unloading of people and goods. Ottawa's cycling advocacy group, Citizens for Safe Cycling, has been actively promoting safer cycling infrastructure in the community since 1984. On Sundays (since 1960) and selected holidays and events additional avenues and streets are reserved for pedestrian and/or bicycle uses only. In May 2011, The NCC introduced the Bixi Bike rental program.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
World Capitals: Ottawa pt 1
Ottawa is the capital of Canada. It is the second largest city in the Province of Ontario and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, located on the north bank of the Ottawa River; together they form the National Capital Region (NCR).
The 2011 census had the city's population as 883,391, and the metropolitan population as 1,236,324.Mercer ranks Ottawa with the second highest quality of living of any large city in the Americas, and 14th highest in the world. It is also rated the second cleanest city in Canada, and third cleanest city in the world.
Founded in 1826 as Bytown and incorporated as "Ottawa" in 1855, the city has evolved into a political and technological center of Canada. Its original boundaries were expanded through numerous minor annexations and ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and major amalgamation in 2001 which significantly increased its land area.
The name "Ottawa" is derived from the Algonquin word adawe, meaning "to trade". Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley was home to the Algonquin people prior to the arrival of Europeans during the fur and subsequent lumber trade eras. Initially an Irish and French Christian settlement, Ottawa has become a multicultural - bilingual city with a diverse population
History
Étienne Brûlé, the first European to travel up the Ottawa River, passed by Ottawa in 1610 on his way to the Great Lakes. Samuel de Champlain three years later on his trip wrote about the waterfalls of the area, and about his encounters with the Algonquins, a people who have been using the Ottawa River for centuries. They called the river Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi' meaning "Great River" or "Grand River". These early explorers were later followed by many missionaries.
Philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first settlement in the area on March 7, 1800, on the north side of the river, across from Ottawa in Hull. He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, set about to create an agricultural community called Wrightsville and Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade (soon to be the most significant economic activity) by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City.
Bytown (Ottawa's early name) came about because of the Rideau Canal, on which preliminary work began in 1826, the year of Bytown's founding. Its construction was overseen by Colonel John By, and was intended to provide a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario, bypassing the stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering New York State.Colonel By set up a military barracks on the site of today's Parliament Hill. He also laid out the streets of town with its "Upper Town" and "Lower Town" separated by the canal. Bytown's population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was being completed in 1832. Bytown was renamed Ottawa in 1855, when it was incorporated as a city.
On December 31, 1857, Queen Victoria was asked to choose a common capital for the Province of Canada and chose Ottawa.The Queen's advisers suggested she pick Ottawa for several reasons: Ottawa's position in the back country made it more defensible, while still allowing easy transportation over the Ottawa River. Ottawa was at a point nearly exactly midway between Toronto and Quebec City (500 kilometres (310 mi)),and that the smaller size of the town made it less likely that politically motivated mobs could go on a rampage and destroy government buildings, as had happened in the previous Canadian capitals.
Starting in the 1850s large sawmills began to be erected by entrepreneurs, known as lumber barons, and would become some of the largest in the world. Rail lines erected in 1854 connected Ottawa to areas south, and to the transcontinental rail network via Hull and Lachute, Quebec in 1886. Between 1910 and 1912, the Chateau Laurier, and a downtown Union Station would be constructed. Public transportation began in 1870 with a horsecar system., overtaken in the 1890s by a vast electric streetcar system that would last until 1959. The Hull-Ottawa fire of 1900 destroyed two thirds of Hull, including 40 per cent of its residential buildings and most of its largest employers along the waterfront. The fire also spread across the Ottawa River and destroyed about one fifth of Ottawa from the Lebreton Flats south to Booth Street and down to Dow's Lake.The Centre Block of the Parliament buildings were destroyed by fire on February 3, 1916. The House of Commons and Senate were temporarily relocated to the recently constructed Victoria Memorial Museum, now the Canadian Museum of Nature until the completion of the new Centre Block in 1922, the centrepiece of which is a dominant Gothic revival styled structure known as the Peace Tower.
Urban planner Jacques Greber was hired in the 1940s to work on a master plan for the National Capital Region (the Greber Plan). Jacques Greber was the creator of the National Capital Greenbelt, the Parkway System, as well as many other projects throughout the NCR. He was also responsible for the removal of the streetcar system and closing down historic downtown Union Station (now Government Conference Centre) in favour of a suburban station several kilometres to the east. In the 1960s through 1980s, the National Capital Region experienced a building boom. This was followed by large growth in the high-tech industry during the 1990s and 2000s. In 2001, in an amalgamation legislated by the Province, all twelve existing municipalities in the area were terminated and replaced by a new incorporation of the City of Ottawa.
Geography
Ottawa is situated on the south bank of the Ottawa River, and contains the mouths of the Rideau River and Rideau Canal. The older part of the city (including what remains of Bytown) is known as Lower Town, and occupies an area between the canal and the rivers. Across the canal to the west lies Centretown and Downtown Ottawa, which is the city's financial and commercial hub. As of June 29, 2007, the Rideau Canal, which stretches 202 km (126 mi) to Kingston, Fort Henry and four Martello towers in the Kingston area was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Located on a major, yet mostly dormant fault line, Ottawa is occasionally struck by earthquakes. Examples include a magnitude 5.2 earthquake on January 1, 2000, a magnitude 4.5 earthquake on February 24, 2006, a magnitude 5.0 earthquake on June 23, 2010.
Across the Ottawa River, which forms the border between Ontario and Quebec, lies the city of Gatineau, itself the result of amalgamation of the former Quebec cities of Hull and Aylmer together with Gatineau. Although formally and administratively separate cities in two separate provinces, Ottawa and Gatineau (along with a number of nearby municipalities) collectively constitute the National Capital Region, with a combined population exceeding one million residents, which is considered a single metropolitan area. One federal crown corporation (the National Capital Commission, or NCC) has significant land holdings in both cities, including sites of historical and touristic importance. The NCC, through its responsibility for planning and development of these lands, is an important contributor to both cities. Around the main urban area is an extensive greenbelt, administered by the National Capital Commission for conservation and leisure, and comprising mostly forest, farmland and marshland.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Ocean One: Jacques Coustea Biography pt 3
1980–1990s
In 1980, Cousteau traveled to Canada to make two films on the Saint Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, Cries from the Deep and St. Lawrence: Stairway to the Sea.
In 1980, Cousteau traveled to Canada to make two films on the Saint Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, Cries from the Deep and St. Lawrence: Stairway to the Sea.
In 1985, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan.
On 24 November 1988, he was elected to the French Academy, chair 17, succeeding Jean Delay. His official reception under the Cupola took place on 22 June 1989, the response to his speech of reception being given by Bertrand Poirot-Delpech. After his death, he was replaced under the Cupola by Érik Orsenna on 28 May 1998.
In June 1990, the composer Jean Michel Jarre paid homage to the commander by entitling his new album Waiting for Cousteau. He also composed the music for Cousteau's documentary "Palawan, the last refuge".
On 2 December 1990, his wife Simone Cousteau died of cancer.
In June 1991, in Paris, Jacques-Yves Cousteau remarried, to Francine Triplet, with whom he had (before this marriage) two children, Diane and Pierre-Yves. Francine Cousteau currently continues her husband's work as the head of the Cousteau Foundation and Cousteau Society.
From that point, the relations between Jacques-Yves and his elder son worsened.
In November 1991, Cousteau gave an interview to the UNESCO courier, in which he stated that he was in favour of human population control and population decrease. The full article text can be found online.
In 1992, he was invited to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations' International Conference on Environment and Development, and then he became a regular consultant for the UN and the World Bank.
In 1996, he sued his son who wished to open a holiday center named "Cousteau" in the Fiji Islands.
On 11 January 1996, Calypso was rammed and sunk in Singapore harbor by a barge. The Calypso was re-floated and towed home to France.
Death
Jacques-Yves Cousteau died on 25 June 1997 in Paris, aged 87. Despite persistent rumors, encouraged by some Islamic publications and websites, Cousteau did not convert to Islam, and when he died he was buried in a Roman Catholic Christian funeral. He was buried in the family vault at Saint-André-de-Cubzac in France. An homage was paid to him by the city by the inauguration of a "rue du Commandant Cousteau", a street which runs out to his native house, where a commemorative plaque was affixed.
Honors
During his lifetime, Jacques-Yves Cousteau received these distinctions:
* Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur
* Grand-Croix de l'Ordre national du Mérite
* Croix de guerre 1939–1945
* Officier de l'Ordre du Mérite Maritime
* Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
* Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia (26 January 1990)
* National Geographic Society's Special Gold Medal in 1961
Legacy
Cousteau's legacy includes more than 120 television documentaries, more than 50 books, and an environmental protection foundation with 300,000 members.
Cousteau liked to call himself an "oceanographic technician." He was, in reality, a sophisticated showman, teacher, and lover of nature. His work permitted many people to explore the resources of the oceans.
His work also created a new kind of scientific communication, criticised at the time by some academics. The so-called "divulgationism", a simple way of sharing scientific concepts, was soon employed in other disciplines and became one of the most important characteristics of modern television broadcasting.
Cousteau died on 25 June 1997. The Cousteau Society and its French counterpart, l'Équipe Cousteau, both of which Jacques-Yves Cousteau founded, are still active today. The Society is currently attempting to turn the original Calypso into a museum and it is raising funds to build a successor vessel, the Calypso II.
In his last years, after marrying again, Cousteau became involved in a legal battle with his son Jean-Michel over Jean-Michel licensing the Cousteau name for a South Pacific resort, resulting in Jean-Michel Cousteau being ordered by the court not to encourage confusion between his for-profit business and his father's non-profit endeavours.
In 2007, the International Watch Company introduced the IWC Aquatimer Chronograph "Cousteau Divers" Special Edition. The timepiece incorporated a sliver of wood from the interior of Cousteau's Calypso research vessel. Having developed the diver's watch, IWC offered support to The Cousteau Society. The proceeds from the timepieces' sales were partially donated to the non-profit organization involved into conservation of marine life and preservation of tropical coral reefs.
Films
* The Silent World (1956) * World Without Sun (1964)Television series
* Journey to the End of the World (1976)
* Cries from the Deep (1981) (Jacques Gagné, director)
* St. Lawrence: Stairway to the Sea (1982) (co-director)
* 1966–68 The World of Jacques-Yves Cousteau
* 1968–76 The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau
* 1977–77 Oasis in Space
* 1977–81 Cousteau's Odyssey Series
* 1982–84 Cousteau's Amazon Series
* 1985–91 Cousteau's Rediscovery of the World I
* 1992–94 Cousteau's Rediscovery of the World II
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Ocean One: Jacques Cousteau Biography pt 2
Late 1940s: GERS and Élie Monnier
In 1946, Cousteau and Tailliez showed the film Épaves to Admiral Lemonnier, and the admiral gave them the responsibility of setting up the Groupement de Recherches Sous-marines (GRS) (Underwater Research Group) of the French Navy in Toulon.
In 1946, Cousteau and Tailliez showed the film Épaves to Admiral Lemonnier, and the admiral gave them the responsibility of setting up the Groupement de Recherches Sous-marines (GRS) (Underwater Research Group) of the French Navy in Toulon.
A little later it became the GERS (Groupe d'Études et de Recherches Sous-Marines, = Underwater Studies and Research Group), then the COMISMER ("COMmandement des Interventions Sous la MER", = "Undersea Interventions Command"), and finally more recently the CEPHISMER. In 1947, Chief Petty Officer Maurice Fargues became the first diver to die using an aqualung while attempting a new depth record with the GERS near Toulon.
In 1948, between missions of mine clearance, underwater exploration and technological and physiological tests, Cousteau undertook a first campaign in the Mediterranean on board the sloop Élie Monnier, with Philippe Tailliez, Frédéric Dumas, Jean Alinat and the scenario writer Marcel Ichac. The small team also undertook the exploration of the Roman wreck of Mahdia (Tunisia). It was the first underwater archaeology operation using autonomous diving, opening the way for scientific underwater archaeology. Cousteau and Marcel Ichac brought back from there the Carnets diving film (presented and preceded with the Cannes Film Festival 1951).
Cousteau and the Élie Monnier then took part in the rescue of Professor Jacques Piccard's bathyscaphe, the FNRS-2, during the 1949 expedition to Dakar. Thanks to this rescue, the French Navy was able to reuse the sphere of the bathyscaphe to construct the FNRS-3.
The adventures of this period are told in the two books The Silent World (1953, by Cousteau and Dumas) and Plongées sans câble (1954, by Philippe Tailliez).
1950–1970s
In 1949, Cousteau left the French Navy.
In 1950, he founded the French Oceanographic Campaigns (FOC), and leased a ship called Calypso from Thomas Loel Guinness for a symbolic one franc a year. Cousteau refitted the Calypso as a mobile laboratory for field research and as his principal vessel for diving and filming. He also carried out underwater archaeological excavations in the Mediterranean, in particular at Grand-Congloué (1952).
With the publication of his first book in 1953, The Silent World, he correctly predicted the existence of the echolocation abilities of porpoises. He reported that his research vessel, the Élie Monier, was heading to the Straits of Gibraltar and noticed a group of porpoises following them. Cousteau changed course a few degrees off the optimal course to the center of the strait, and the porpoises followed for a few minutes, then diverged toward mid-channel again. It was evident that they knew where the optimal course lay, even if the humans did not. Cousteau concluded that the cetaceans had something like sonar, which was a relatively new feature on submarines.
Cousteau won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1956 for The Silent World co-produced with Louis Malle. With the assistance of Jean Mollard, he made a "diving saucer" SP-350, an experimental underwater vehicle which could reach a depth of 350 meters. The successful experiment was quickly repeated in 1965 with two vehicles which reached 500 meters.
In 1957, he was elected as director of the Oceanographical Museum of Monaco. He directed Précontinent, about the experiments of diving in saturation (long-duration immersion, houses under the sea), and was admitted to the United States National Academy of Sciences.
In October 1960, a large amount of radioactive waste was going to be discarded in the Mediterranean Sea by the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA). The CEA argued that the dumps were experimental in nature, and that French oceanographers such as Vsevelod Romanovsky had recommended it.
Romanovsky and other French scientists, including Louis Fage and Jacques Cousteau, repudiated the claim, saying that Romanovsky had in mind a much smaller amount. The CEA claimed that there was little circulation (and hence little need for concern) at the dump site between Nice and Corsica, but French public opinion sided with the oceanographers rather than with the CEA atomic energy scientists. The CEA chief, Francis Perrin, decided to postpone the dump.
Cousteau organized a publicity campaign which in less than two weeks gained wide popular support. The train carrying the waste was stopped by women and children sitting on the railway tracks, and it was sent back to its origin.
A meeting with American television companies (ABC, Métromédia, NBC) created the series The Underwater Odyssey of Commander Cousteau, with the character of the commander in the red bonnet inherited from standard diving dress) intended to give the films a "personalized adventure" style.
In 1970, he wrote the book The Shark: Splendid Savage of the Sea with Philippe, his son. In this book, Costeau described the oceanic whitetip shark as "the most dangerous of all sharks".
In 1973, along with his two sons and Frederick Hyman, he created the Cousteau Society for the Protection of Ocean Life, Frederick Hyman being its first President; it now has more than 300,000 members.
Three years after the volcano's last eruption, on 19 December 1973, the Cousteau team was filming on Deception Island, Antarctica when Michel Laval, Calypso's second in command, was struck and killed by a propeller of the helicopter that was ferrying between Calypso and the island.
In 1976, Cousteau uncovered the wreck of HMHS Britannic. He also found the wreck of La Therese in Crete island
In 1977, together with Peter Scott, he received the UN International Environment prize.
On 28 June 1979, while the Calypso was on an expedition to Portugal, his second son, Philippe, his preferred and designated successor and with whom he had co-produced all his films since 1969, died in a PBY Catalina flying boat crash in the Tagus river near Lisbon. Cousteau was deeply affected. He called his then eldest son, the architect Jean-Michel Cousteau, to his side. This collaboration lasted 14 years.
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