In times like this we tend to procrastinate and our activity often comes to a grinding halt. There are things we want to achieve, but they’re just not happening for us right then. There are some big tasks to complete, like maybe finishing that marketing report, or business proposal, or lyrics to a song, but we just can’t get into it. Or perhaps it’s that job or extra income we are looking for that’s not happening as quickly as we would like.

So, we let our thoughts wander and engage in all kinds of unproductive activity that helps the time pass. All the while, scattered around us are little jobs we could do. That pile of paper on the desk that we’ve been putting off sorting through. The unread inspirational emails some friends have sent that we have saved in an email folder called “read me later”. The document that’s sitting on our desktop called “my to do list”. Maybe it’s the car that needs vacuuming, the dog that needs a walk, a friend we should call, the lawn that needs mowing or that pile of stuff sitting in the car port that we just keep walking past. When we ignore these things long enough, we begin to not notice them at all.

I believe there are some very important dynamics at play here. Two of them are resolution and motion.

Let’s start with resolution? Musicians understand this quite well. Melody is about tension and release. We’ve all watched thrillers and heard the tension in the sound track. Imagine stopping the soundtrack at that point of tension, rewinding it a bit and playing it again to that same point of tension, then doing that over and over again. There is no resolution; instead, there is dissonance and it doesn’t feel all that nice. Consider this: All of those little things we don’t complete create dissonance in our lives. It may not be apparent, but under the surface, subconsciously, a little voice is crying out for resolution. The more unresolved things we have in our lives, the less room there is for creative thought. It’s as if we have told ourselves that we can’t start anything new until we finish all of the other things we started.

What about motion? You can’t steer a parked car! You need to be moving in order to get somewhere. You need to take action to see some kind of result. When you start to move again, things that were not so apparent will come into sharp focus. For instance, while you are mowing the lawn, that last line to the lyrics you have been writing just might pop into your head or perhaps it’s the solution to a problem that was preventing you from finishing that business proposal. Besides, the air and exercise will do you good!

Take a moment and clear your mind. Close your eyes, take some nice slow deep breaths and relax. Now, open your eyes and look around you. What little thing will you complete? You might ask, “But where do I start?” Wherever you want! Pick one and finish it. Then move onto the next one. If you do, you will be in motion and you will bring resolution into your life. You will be creating space where there had been clutter and it is within that space that you will find new ideas and the solutions you are seeking.

Photo Credits

Image from the Microsoft Clip Art Collection

First posted at synaptici

Originally Posted December 23, 2010
Updated on September 7, 2024

Benjamin Edelstein is a world-renowned photographer who captures vivid, unique scenes of nature and metropolitan areas from the world’s most scenic views.

Miami Sunrise

Lighthouse Point

Photography started as an escape from the complexities of every day and has evolved into his life and passion.

Miami

Florida Keys

Photography brings Benjamin a sense of calmness, and he tries to portray that through his bright and vivid scenes.

Horseshoe Bend

Colorado

Be sure to visit Benjamin’s web site and follow him in Facebook and on Twitter. Links to all three are in his bio below.

Photo Credits

All photographs © Benjamin Edelstein – All Rights Reserved

Benjamin Edelstein Photographer Bio

Benjamin Edelstein is a renowned international award winning photographer born and raised in Miami, Florida. He specializes in both fine art and commercial photography. Benjamin’s photography work has been published in national and international advertising campaigns. His photographs have graced the pages of numerous leading magazines including Ocean Drive, People Magazine, Aventura Magazine, Miami Magazine, duPont Registry, 944 Magazine, Luxe Magazine, Haute Living, Allure, and Vogue. His photographs have been showcased in various cities across the United States.

His willingness to expand his portfolio has taken him to unique locations around the world. Although he is constantly exploring his home state of Florida, Benjamin can be found at National Parks throughout the United States. Benjamin aspires to push his creativity, and show a world that few people ever get the chance to see or experience.

Visit his website:  Benjamin Edelstein Photography

Follow Benjamin: Twitter | Facebook

Spin messages encourage increased investment in genetically modified methods of addressing the needs of the world at the expense of tougher environmental protectionist laws involving food and water supplies. Instead, platforms are repeatedly released that force citizens to choose between the environment and the economy.

This disassociation between people’s health and people’s wallets is thoroughly represented by the diminishing supply of organic food crops around the world. The NRDC, one of the most effective environmental law groups in the US, acknowledges that over one third of organic food crops are lost, costing as much as $165 billion worth of food every year in the US. In place of organic food is an increasing supply of genetically modified foods, created by biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto or Bayer.

In early 2007, a task force comprised of US scientists and beekeepers began to study potential causes of vanishing honeybees as one of the primary reasons for the diminishing supply of organic foods. Every year millions of honeybees disappear much faster than they can be replaced, which the task force officially described as ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ or CCD.

One of the most renowned champions of honeybees is David Hackenberg who runs a series of commercial beehives across several states. Prior to the establishment of the US task force in 2007, Hackenberg attempted to bring the plight of the vanishing honeybees to the awareness of beekeepers across the country, but was dismissed as an ineffective beekeeper in his own right.

However, Hackenberg’s dire warnings proved more prophetic than many people in the industry initially believed. Cases of CCD broke out at bee farms across the US with little warning to beekeepers. The widespread collapse of bee colonies put more pressure on scientists to find a root cause for CCD, but the task force was unable to confirm one direct reason for the growing problem.

After exhausting biological reasons for the vanishing of the bees, the task force began looking at the farming practices occurring in the US and around the world. Once upon a time, farms comprised multiple crops of fruits, vegetables, grains, and animals in very diverse yields. But those days are a thing of the past as many farmers today grow acres upon acres of one type of product. This is most often seen in massive corn fields, which is known as monoculture farming.

Unfortunately, bees require very diverse crops to survive, and monoculture farms are unable to provide the nutrients required by the bees. As a result, farmers must rely on non-organic measures to maintain the integrity of their crops.

While bees despise monoculture farms, pests that grow on individual crops flourish when fields are filled with one endless supply of food. This type of environment allows pests to spread throughout the field, making it very difficult for farmers to keep the outbreak under control. Monoculture farms are especially prevalent on corporate-owned farmlands, where owners spray the fields with poisonous pesticides to kill off the spreading pests.

Over time, developers of pesticides created newer, supposedly safer toxins due to growing public concern. However, these newer systemic pesticides were discovered to leech into plants and crops over the vegetation’s entire natural life, eventually reaching the pollen of the plants by the time they bloom. Once the pesticides are in the pollen, honeybees are exposed to the toxins when they pollinate the plants.

Beekeepers are nearly unanimous in agreeing that the pesticides are unlikely to poison the bees immediately after they pollinate the plants. But scientists on the task force are increasingly concerned about long-term exposure of sub-lethal doses to bees, and how one bee’s contact with the pesticides affects the entire beehive.

As more bees disappear, countries like the US, Canada, and other developed nations will increasingly rely on imported foods to survive, particularly produce. Without sufficient quantities of bees to safely pollinate and subsequently flourish crops in farm fields around the world, entire nations must look outward for sources of food to sustain their own populations.

While there are no affirmative causes for the vanishing of the honeybees, scientists safely predict that an increasing reliance on non-organic and non-traditional methods of farming is accelerating the problem. Text taken from a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. over 50 years ago aptly applies to the disappearance of the bees today, and how society must respond to counter the growing phenomenon:

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

Humans and animals everywhere require safe and healthy food to survive, which is disappearing alongside the honeybees. Until more pressure is placed on corporations developing pesticides, genetically modified foods, and political leaders with the power to enforce change – the world will continue to lose more of its healthy food supply in favour of profits for biotechnological giants.

Photo Credit:

European Honey Bee by John Severns via Wikimedia Commons

Guest Author Bio

Gary Parkinson
A young and creative writer, Gary is a very opinionated person who is not afraid to speak his mind. He uses writing to express his thoughts, and feels attached to his work. Gary believes that an article or a post is both an expression of the writer’s beliefs, but it should also challenge the reader to develop an opinion of their own. As a result, Gary expresses his own opinion within his writing, while leaving room for readers to agree or disagree with thoughts of their own.

Gary Parkinson On Google Plus

I’d be remiss if I didn’t see how all of this could overwhelm people, but I have found within myself a deep, burgeoning passion.

And then, conversely, there is the rollercoaster.

To speed along a track, breaking into turns at the last moment, smashing through the apex with great celerity whilst on the ground, is a great thrill for me.

Being fifty feet above the ground in a capsule that is being tossed around tracks that feel rickety and unstable, even if in peak condition, is something quite diametrical. Something I find daunting. Terrifying.

Presumably, I’m afraid of heights – a claim I feel can be reinforced based on aeroplane journeys where I’ve looked out of the porthole windows and felt my stomach knot and churn and my thoughts plague me with a plethora of possibilities – engine failure, terrorists crashing the plane, fuel shortages – which would all lead to a sudden plummet to earth, and my death.

Doubts and worries are pervasive by nature. We all have fears. Some rational, some irrational. I’m not just afraid of heights, but also snakes.

My usual day consists of waking up, having a small breakfast before doing some reading; lunch before my writing, dinner, and perhaps some time gaming. In between, I’ll be in touch with friends via text, or social networks. Rarely do I have to stand atop a skyscraper, seemingly at the zenith of Earth’s atmosphere, and look down while my devious inner self informs me: Jump Shaun, you can fly! Neither, thank all the gods, does my regular day allow time for me to be in close proximity to any serpents. Of course, I’ve stood on the other side of (what I hope) is a thick glass pane while a snake slithers slowly along a branch in a zoo’s reptile house. Such creepy places, they are. So many tanks littered with sand and gravel and plants that many of these creatures (that I probably don’t know the scientific names of) are able to camouflage around. Obfuscation is the work of the dastardly indeed.

Is it the strange, lattice-like scales that make me cringe? Perhaps their tongues, sometimes bifurcated, are the source of my fear? The ugly, pale yellows and greens that some snakes are hued? Or, like in my nightmares, the way they slither. One instant, it is a slow, unhurried movement, which I (in my head) attribute to the dark, fat snakes; the next moment, their motion is much quicker, which I can usually tag on the ones I’ve seen jumping from tree to tree and gliding along rivers in the television documentaries. They remain in one place for but a fugacious moment.

Whatever the reason might be, I cannot pinpoint it. Nearly all humans have a fear. Be it towards an animal, such as a snake, or more commonly, spiders. Heights are a common fear, too. Many people are afraid of the dark, some of the light! If you have ever watched a documentary on phobias, you’ll know that, occasionally, people are rocked to their core by quaint things, such as eggs or water. Bizarre, huh?

The reality is, it is easy to prevaricate about some trait, feature or characteristic of these objects of our fear and how the slither of a snake or the scurry of a spider or the unknowable unknown of the darkness is what drives us to a quivering panic. However, let us shout against ease for a moment, and think of fear as a broader concept, rather than simply individual responses.

Much of my pontificating and blogging and online –and offline, alas for my friends and family – has focused on the human condition. A concept that develops as we do, because we as a species are ever evolving in our understanding of ourselves, yes? What is the human condition? A series of quasi-accepted rules (would “laws” be too formal?) that have been founded on the trial and error of sympathy and empathy?

Empathy.

If you are a dog owner, and you ask somebody, “Is there an animal you are scared by or of?” and they respond with, “Sure, dogs!”, firstly, you should probably tighten the leash holding your Rottweiler, and secondly, if you were hoping like yourself that they fear spiders, the ability for you and they to now empathise with one another has grown diminutive.

Why? Well, a dog owner is almost certain to be a person comfortable around dogs no matter their size, appearance or ferocity. This isn’t always the case, because the owner of a small dog (or a small dog owner, for that matter!) might be as intimidated by a German Shepherd or Rhodesian Ridgeback as the next person. Yet if, like above, you own a Rottweiler or another big dog, it is unlikely you’ll turn to the person with cynophobia and say, “Gosh, I know how you feel,” placing a hand to your chest, your eyes narrowing as you cast all thoughts back to a dark and harrowing experience with a canine that caused you to fear dogs. You might have been bitten in the past, don’t let me rule that out, but you’ve clearly faced and overcome your fear, haven’t you?

What has occurred, then, is time. Time, alas, is a leveller. You can no longer truly say you share, only that you shared, their fear. Memories decay, fracture and dissipate until we might have only thin threads that are sewn back to equally thin threads every once a year, when somebody mentions that dreaded haunt we buried so long ago.

During a high school assembly, an older student I remember seeing only in that one assembly, had brought her mother and pet snake as part of a show and tell. The snake was innocuous, supposedly. She permitted the damned thing to coil around her and then at the end she replaced it into a tank and people were allowed to go up closer and take a look. I made what I hope was a dignified dash to my next class. Was she ever afraid of snakes, I’ll never know. Had I been offered any chance to go near the reptile, no matter how harmless, I’d have said No.

If you can empathise with a person, then you are not just resolving within yourself to understand their fear, but you are offering them the reassurance that they are not isolated from society by this phobia. To empathise is to share your feelings in a bond of mutual understanding that will, I suppose, manifest itself into something the empathiser wants to aid the “empathisee” with. The irony being that this manifestation is abstract, and might only be a smile or a shared look. Just something that allows us to feel for that person in such a way that they can reciprocate the smile, renewed by the knowledge that people understand what they are going through. Isolation can be pernicious if triggered by a seeming abnormality. To openly admit to cynophobia, in a world where dogs are heavily domesticated animals, could lead to social ridicule, directed ignorance and stigmatic labels. None of which is fair. Had I gone near that snake, and had to say in front of my friends and peers, “I’m scared of snakes,” I suspect I’d have been tormented for it. Maybe for merely an hour or so, but ridicule is unwanted no matter how fleeting or interminable.

What is my suggestion, here? That all people with acrophobia should stand atop a skyscraper and look down, and after a few minutes of this collective resilience, we should each cheer as we overcome our phobia in the here and now? Not so much. More that, when facing fears, perhaps a shared feeling from somebody else, a friend or not, just anybody who can say “me too”, is the best armour there is; there are so many fears out there, within so many of us – could we just not take a step closer and give each other a reassuring smile?

Perhaps sharing fear alone is enough to empathise, truly. Do I believe that?

I don’t know.

Photo Credits:

Dangerous Risk by epSos.de at Flickr Creative Commons

This article originally appeared at Fractured Paths

Mastery of the air has been paramount to many creatures’ survival in the Top End, from wedge-tailed eagles, owls and osprey to United States B-52 bombers, World War II Spitfires and Royal Australian Air Force F111 fighter aircraft.

It may seem a little incongruous to lump bird-life and military aircraft together, but you can do it within an hours’ drive of Darwin and it really does highlight both the beautiful diversity of avian nature and the extraordinary achievements of human engineering in the pursuit of flight.

Darwin: B-52 Bomber Darwin’s Pride (1) – Australian Aviation Heritage Centre

The majestic beauty and tangible threat of military aircraft is on display at the Australian Aviation Heritage Centre, 8km south of Darwin on the Stuart Highway.

To be struck by the awesome manner in which flight has evolved in nature, you have to travel a little further, to the Territory Wildlife Park near Berry Springs, another 40-minute drive south down the Stuart Highway.

The park is an impressive example of how wildlife can be effectively displayed to tourists and how, through imaginative displays, visitors can take away life-long memories of the versatility and beauty of nature.

To set the scene, it is well worth a visit to the aviation heritage centre to absorb the massive engineering feat which is the B-52 G Stratofortress “Darwin’s Pride”, one of only two B-52s on display in the world outside the United States.

Darwin: B-52 Bomber Darwin’s Pride (2) – Australian Aviation Heritage Centre

With a wingspan of 56m, powered by eight Pratt and Whitney jet engines and with a maximum operational range without mid-air refueling of 32 hours covering 13,200km, the massive grey spectre of the B-52 is inspiring, humbling, and just a little bit scary.

The B-52 is the jewel in the crown of an impressive display of aircraft which also includes an F-111, one of the air fleet retired by the Royal Australian Air Force in December, 2010, after 37 years of service.

There is also an RAAF Mirage, a Westland Wessex Royal Australian Navy helicopter, a World War II B-25 Mitchell Bomber and the replica of a MkVIII Spitfire from No 1 Fighter Wing, which took over the defence of Darwin from the RAAF Kittyhawk Squadrons in January, 1943.

Darwin: Replica Mk VIII Spitfire – Australian Aviation Heritage Centre

As an early colonial outpost in a vast continent, Darwin has a long history in aviation. On December 10, 1919, the Vickers Vimy aircraft flown by Captain Ross Smith and his crew landed at Fannie Bay on Darwin’s outskirts, winning the £10,000 prize offered by the Australian Government for the first flight from England to Australia in less than 30 days.

In the 1920s and 30s, famous fliers including Bert Hinkler, Amy Johnson, Amelia Erhardt and Kingsford Smith all passed through Darwin in their bid to pioneer air routes.

But while the human legends of aviation were finding their place in our skies, Australia’s birds had already conquered it in a myriad of ingenious ways. A visit to the Birds of Prey Display at the Territory Wildlife Park provides insight into the skill and versatility of our airborne hunters.

Darwin: Wedge-tailed eagle Yarak with handler Nicole (1) – Territory Wildlife Park

With brief hand signals, the wildlife handlers introduce to the crowd a variety of birds, some trained to fly low over the heads of the audience seated in the Flight Deck amphitheatre.

A buzzard swoops in when an emu egg is placed on the grass, deftly cracking the shell open with a rock in a clever display of the natural ingenuity of the species.

Buzzard breaking open emu egg – Territory Wildlife Park

A broad-winged jabiru lumbers in to land, an osprey soars high over the tree-tops to establish its territory before diving into the water and a wedge-tailed eagle lumbers in like a small B-52 bomber, pulling back on its wing beats to drop and pick up a morsel of food held by a handler.

Darwin: Wedge-tailed eagle Yarak with handler Nicole (2) – Territory Wildlife Park

The barn owl displays how beautifully adapted it is to hunting silently and swiftly at night.

A signal from the handler prompts it to fly low over the amphitheater, skimming silently less than a metre above the heads of the audience, demonstrating its ability to swoop soundlessly upon its prey.

Forget the F-111 fighter aircraft and the B-52 bomber, the barn owl is the epitome of the stealthy airborne hunter.

Darwin: Wedge-tailed eagle Yarak with handler Nicole (3) – Territory Wildlife Park

The Australian Aviation Heritage Centre is open seven days, 9am to 5pm, closed Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Entry is adults $14, seniors/pensioners $10, children (under 12) $7, students $7.50, family $30.

The 400 hectare Territory Wildlife Park has three main walking tracks – the Woodland Walk is 600m, the Wetlands Walk is 550m and the Monsoon Forest Walk is 1100m. A free shuttle train runs continuously around the park’s 4km loop road. The train can accommodate wheelchairs and strollers.

Darwin: Wedge-tailed eagle Yarak with handler Nicole (4) – Territory Wildlife Park

The Park is open daily from 8.30am to 6pm (including public holidays) except Christmas Day. Last entry 4pm. Adults $26, children (5-16 years) $13, children under 5 years free, seniors $20.80, concession/student $18.20, economy family (1 adult, 2 children) $45.50, super economy family (2 adults, 4 children) $45.50. Daily tours from Darwin with Darwin Day Tours.

For more information, visit:

The Australian Aviation Heritage Centre

Territory Wildlife Park

Photo Credits

All photos are © Vincent Ross – All Rights Reserved

I’ve scoured the internet for proof of this tribe and if the story was true, but I found no validation in the annals of the Google realms. Yet the story reverberates with a deeper truth that reaches beyond any sound byte or downloaded video evidence. It speaks to an innate quality within each of us to help the other, to reach out and give a hand up to someone who has fallen into the margins of this competitive world.

Getting ahead could be argued to be part and parcel of our primitive objective, a summary conclusion of Darwin’s theory of evolution and the precept of survival of the fittest. We see it acted out everyday in the halls of education with objectifying grading systems, in the bastions of corporations and organizations where promotions serve as ephemeral proof of innate worth, on the playing fields in nearly every North American community where play has devolved into obsession and at times hand-to-hand combat. How many times have we heard of parents brawling at their children’s soccer/baseball/hockey games in the name of winning at all costs, even if it means cruelty to someone else’s child? What lessons are seeding themselves into the consciousness of each of those children and each of us? Even seeing those disparaging parents as other from ourselves is to cannibalize our own humanity. Can we turn the anger and resentment we may feel towards those vengeful mothers and fathers into empathy and deep compassion?

When I think of intense sports rivalries such as the Super Bowl or the Olympics or the Stanley Cup, the moments that settle into my heart are not those of the winners holding medals or fabricated prizes high over their heads, but rather of the instances of humanity shared in brief encounters of forgotten competition. Take Canadian sailor, Lawrence Lemieux, who at the 1988 Olympics in Korea abandoned his chance for a medal by coming to the aid of a two competitors whose boat had capsized in high winds. There was the faultless humanity of high school track competitor, Meghan Vogel, who will probably not be remembered for winning the 1600 meter Ohio State Championship in 2012, but instead for her small act of compassion to aid fellow runner, Arden McMath, after she fell near the end of the 3200 meter race. Not only did Meghan carry her injured companion to the finish line, she pushed her ahead so that Arden would not finish last.

In a recent Nature article, Harvard researchers David G. Rand, Joshua D. Greene and Martin A. Nowak used an economic game to determine whether we as individuals are predisposed to selfishness or if we are innately wired for cooperation. Their findings showed that cooperation at the cost of personal gain is instinctive to our human nature; that “our gut response is to cooperate — but given more time to think the logic of self-interest undermines collective action and we become less generous.”

If we truly listen to the little voice inside of us, the one that answers before our brain has a chance to enter the conversation, imagine where our hearts could lead us. More of us would be like Lawrence Lemieux and Meghan Vogel, reaching out our hands of generosity to a colleague or a competitor or a stranger in a park. Grades would matter less in school and instead virtues of loving kindness and compassion, joy for another and equanimity would be the hallmarks of a successful scholar. Boards of Directors would vote for fair salaries for all and redistribute profits to their local communities. Multi-millionaire sports figures would buy up every golf course and turn them into nature and village sanctuaries, where public parks and community gardens, shops and affordable housing would coexist side by side. And that game of the Amazon would make its way to the playgrounds and sports arenas of the world, maybe even as an Olympic event, unless there’s no need for that sort of thing anymore. Perhaps the hunger for competition and winning will evaporate like a veil of mist that has clouded our view of each other for far too long.

Here’s a little exercise to try. The next time you’re waiting at a traffic light or running a 10K race or in line at Starbuck’s, consider moving aside and letting that person who’s behind you go ahead, not for thanks or for something in return, but just as a simple act of kindness. The aim of compassion is not to win or to lose or to even tie; it’s to let go of the goal entirely. To recognize that nothing lasts, even gold medals, and the truest reflection of ourselves is in our humanity to another. That’s a finish line worth crossing.

 Photo Credit:

Screen shot from YouTube video of Meghan Vogel

When the invasion of Iraq began in 2003, Bagdad was bombarded by internet messages of sympathy and support from around the world. Confused web users choked its Online Access Centre, not realising it was a small town of 650 people, 40km north of Hobart.

Bagdad isn’t the only town in Tassie with a rather unique name. There’s Doo Town, just past Eaglehawk Neck on the way to Tasman’s Arch, where locals have given their holiday homes names like Gunadoo, Doodle Doo, Love Me Doo, Doo Us, Doo Me, Doo Nix, Wee Doo, Xanadu, Rum Doo and Doo Little.

Dr Doolittle – a Doo Town shack

Driving south from Hobart along the Channel Highway, you will come across the little town of Snug, which was given its cute name in 1908 by not-so-cute sailors who found “snug” anchorage for their ships in the D’Entrecastreaux Channel. There are odd-named towns in the far-flung corners of Tasmania, everything from Daisy Bell to Egg and Bacon Bay, Flowerpot, Jetsonville, Milkshake Hills, Nook, Nowhere Else, Needles, Ouse, Squeaking Point and Tomahawk.

But for some real eccentricity, you can’t go past a town with, by comparison, a fairly ordinary name – Evandale.

Evandale village

The good folk of Evandale have added their own twist to Tassie’s tourist attractions by playing host to the National Penny Farthing Championships. Now in its 32nd year, the Annual Evandale National Penny Farthing Championships will be held on February 22, 2014, from 10am to 4pm. If you are thinking of heading to Evandale, that’s the time to visit.

National Penny Farthing Championship 1996 (1)

Continuing a tradition which began in 1983, the town comes alive with the Evandale Village Fair, which includes a full program of Penny Farthing bicycle races which attract enthusiasts from all over the world. The National Penny Farthing Championship features the fastest eight riders out of heats run over four laps of the town circuit, covering 1.6 kilometres.

National Penny Farthing Championship 1996 (2)

There are also separate championship races for ladies, juniors (under 16), veterans 1 (50+), 2 (60+), 3 (70+); a Slow Race (last over the line wins); Slalom (two at a time around witches’ hats); Novice Race (first time riders); Sprint (200m dash); Relay (teams of 4, one lap each); Biathlon (run one lap, ride 2, run one); Miss ‘n Out (last rider on each lap eliminated); Obstacle (run, carry bike, wheel bike, sprint); Consolation (for those who haven’t won a medal).

Penny farthing bicycle outside the Clarendon Arms Hotel

The day of racing and fun also includes food and produce stalls, entertainment, puppets, dancers, pipe bands, clowns, pony rides, vintage cars and historical machinery displays, including steam engines.

Penny farthing bicycle

Racing around Evandale on Penny Farthing bicycles is an easy pastime compared to that faced by early colonials tackling Bust-Me-Gall and Break-Me-Neck hills. Both hills are located on the road from Hobart to Orford and while the exact derivation of their names is unclear, it is believed they came from early settlers who travelled the east coast with bullock drays carrying supplies.

National Penny Farthing Championship 1996 (3)

Getting over Bust-Me-Gall Hill often meant riders had to dismount their horses or drays to relieve the struggling animals, both on the way up and on the steep road down. Break-Me-Neck is believed named after an exclamation made by a wagon driver on his first encounter of the steep hill.

Penny farthing bicycle (2)

If all this quirkiness hasn’t piqued your interest, here are a few more odd facts. Tasmania has the cleanest air in the world (measured at Cape Grim on the northwest coast); it was the first Australian state to introduce a compulsory education system in 1868 and Coles Bay, on the Freycinet Peninsula, was the first town in Australia to ban plastic bags in 2003.

Australia’s oldest brewery, Cascade Brewery, is in Hobart; Australia’s oldest golf course is at Bothwell in the Tasmanian midlands; Tasmania has the lowest crime rate of any state in Australia; the nation’s first legal casino was opened in Hobart in 1973 and the world’s smallest marsupial, the pygmy possum, is native to Tasmania.

Oh yes, and the first French black truffle was dug up in northern Tasmania in 1999, the result of years cultivating the state’s truffle industry. The truffles are grown under oak and hazelnut trees and the very expensive “black nuggets” are now farmed by some 30 growers and hobbyists. There are two reasons truffle growing has taken off in Tasmania – the state is roughly on the same latitude in the southern hemisphere as France and Italy are in the northern hemisphere and Tasmanian truffles are harvested in the European off-season, and as such, enjoy a virtually competition-free world market.

You really should get down to Tasmania and take a look.

For more information, visit Discover Tasmania

Photo Credits

Dr Doolittle – a Doo Town shack © Tourism Tasmania/Dan Fellow

Evandale village © Tourism Tasmania

National Penny Farthing Championship 1996 (1) © Tourism Tasmania/Ray Joyce

National Penny Farthing Championship 1996 (2)  © Tourism Tasmania/Rob Burnett

Penny farthing bicycle outside the Clarendon Arms Hotel© Tourism Tasmania/ Justin Malinowski

Penny farthing bicycle © Tourism Tasmania/Michael Walters

National Penny Farthing Championship 1996 (3) © Tourism Tasmania/Ray Joyce

Penny farthing bicycle (2) © Tourism Tasmania/Michael Walters

National Penny Farthing Championship (2) 1996 © Tourism Tasmania/Rob Burnett

Featured Image – Penny farthing bicycle outside the Clarendon Arms Hotel © Tourism Tasmania/Brian Dullaghan   

Well, speculate no longer. This morning I ran into her at the park and struck up a conversation. We started with the usual icebreakers: glacial melt ponds, global warming, warm ocean undercurrents, and the CCGS Terry Fox, then quickly moved on to more personal matters such as her recent lack of albedo.

During the 10 minutes or so when we discussed possible solutions for her intense distress, she kept spitting on me, then drying it up, then spitting again, and drying it again, until she became so flustered that she just dumped a random bucket of water on my head and laughed hysterically. But did she stop there? No.

She ran from tree to tree breaking off branches and throwing them, howling, and hissing at people. Then, just as suddenly as she had started the rampage, she stopped, calmly walked over to me, and beamed: “There are some sexy dog walkers around here.”

I nodded like a plastic bobble head doll.

At that point it was clear to me that she was somewhat unstable, but to what extent, I did not know. Was she a danger to herself? Was she a danger to me? Was she a danger to humanity at large even? I thought it important to determine how serious her personality swings were so I asked if she would take a short survey. To my surprise she replied: “Bring it on!”

Here is the transcript.

K: “Please rate each statement on a scale from 1 to 5 as follows: 1 – not at all, 2 – somewhat, 3 – yeah, I guess, 4 – looks like, 5 – you bet. All clear?”

G: “You bet!”

K: “Great! Would you say…At times I create much more wind or blow it much faster than usual?”

G: “You bet!”

K: “Would you say…There have been times when I was much more tectonically active or shook many more things than usual?”

G: “You bet!”

K: “How about…I get into storm states where I feel very speeded up or irritable?”

G: “You bet!”

K: “Hmmm. And…There have been weather patterns when I have felt both high and low at the same time?”

G: “You bet! How about you read them and you can assume it’s a ‘you bet’ unless I say otherwise?”

K: “Sounds good to me. OK…At times I have had a much stronger albedo than usual?”

G: “Usual meaning the new normal? You bet!”

K: “My microorganisms range from great self-regulation to equally great overabundance.”

K: “There have been GREAT variations in the quantity or quality of my rainfall.”

K: “For no apparent reason I sometimes have been VERY angry or hostile to humans.”

G: (giggling) “My bad.”

K: “I’ll take that as a ‘You bet’. (short pause) I have periods of mundane predictability and other periods of very creative mayhem.”

K: “Right. Just moving along now…At times I am greatly interested in connecting with people and at other times I just want to be left alone.”

G: “That would be a 10 – You frackin’ know it!”

K: “All right then next…I have had periods of great optimism for humanity and other periods of equally great pessimism.”

G: (sighing and nodding)

K: “And finally…I have had periods of drizzle and torrential downpour and other times when I shine and scorch excessively.”

Her silence said it all.

Gaea took a quick look around, leaned over to me, and whispered: “Does this surprise you?”

I must admit that I was surprised, but not that she was pathologically bipolar rather that she was still holding it all together despite all the crap she has been swallowing since the industrial revolution.

On that note, she hugged me, rubbed my back and flew south to primp for the hurricane season.

So. Where does that leave us?

Is Earth’s current extreme behaviour a reflection of her true nature or are we wittingly (or not) swinging her back and forth on a long pipeline with a slip knot tied to its end? A slip knot with humanity’s neck in the noose?

And now, a quote from the most famous psychoanalyst of the 20th century.

“Fossil fuels are a mistake, a giant mistake.” ~ Si Mondo Fried

I vote to grab some shears and snip!

What about you?

Photo Credit

Render of Earth – Wikimedia Creative Commons

Note: questions adapted from the Goldberg Bipolar Spectrum Screening Questionnaire

The Royal Family is the biggest PR bargain in the world! Paparazzi chase them, newspaper, magazines, e-zines, blogs…you name it. The world is royal crazy. When royals get married, tourists (spending large amounts of money) flock to England. Just look at the crowds when Prince William and Kate got hitched.

When members of the Royal Family speak, the media pay attention. Sorry, if I had to choose between Oprah and Princess Kate touting my favorite charity it would be Kate hands down. Most Americans, if they were honest, would admit that they’d snub an invitation to meet from Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie if they were asked to babysit for Prince George or go to a royal function and meet the Queen.

British papers headlined that the Royal Family cost taxpayers 33 million pounds or about 50 million American dollars in the 2011/2012 fiscal year. Did they really cost tax payers that much? The Royal Family pays income tax, often voluntarily such as the Prince of Wales’ revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall which by law are tax exempt. Most members of the Royal Family have worked tirelessly for charities or representing their country, the Queen as head of state, taking time demands and pressure off British politicians. Somehow I don’t think the historical residences of the Royal Family such as Buckingham Palace will be torn down if the Royal Family was disenfranchised. Some of the funds go to these institutions. How much does Versailles cost the French taxpayer these days?

In actual fact, the British government receives about 200 million pounds (about 300 million dollars) yearly from royal estates, property that would remain with the family in any event if there were no monarchy.
My father was a Madison Avenue marketing executive for years. Chatting with him, the Royal Family is worth ten times the putative cost to British taxpayers in the services and publicity they provide. Talk about bargains.

Am I a monarchist? Heck no. I just know a good deal when I see one.

Photo Credits

“Queen Victoria in her coronation robes” – 1860 by George Hayter – Wikipedia Public Domain

Feature Image of Buckingham Palace – by Diliff – Wikipedia Creative Commons

Long gun cannon with crossed naval cutlasses.

Top heavy with cannons the Hamilton and Scourge quickly take on water, capsize and sink settling upright and intact 88 metres below the surface. The wrecks can’t be more perfect with cannons and crossed cutlasses visible on their decks over 160 years after their discovery. It is what every child imagines a shipwreck looks like, when in reality ship wrecks from this era usually consist of a portion of the keel, several ribs and some hull planking with none of their decks or hold contents to be found without excavation, making the Hamilton and Scourge unique world-heritage wonders in the realm of marine archaeology.

Found in 1973 by Dr. Daniel Nelson, a St. Catherines, Ontario dentist and confirmed in 1975, the Hamilton and Scourge have attracted undersea greats such as Jacques Cousteau (1980), Emory Kristof (1982) and Robert Ballard (1990), with additional expeditions in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Earlier this year, on June 20, I was part of a Parks Canada expedition to the Hamilton and Scourge. Resting in Canadian waters, the two ships became a National Historic Site of Canada in 1976 and have been owned and managed by the City of Hamilton since 1980. Departing from Ontario’s historic Port Dalhousie on the Parks Canada research vessel Investigator, ours would be the first expedition to use a magnetometer to gather data from the wreck site.

Parks Canada research vessel Investigator in Port Dalhousie.

On board the Investigator are Parks Canada employees Chriss Ludin (at the helm), Jonathan Moore and Ryan Harris, both senior marine archaeologists. Jonathan oversees the Hamilton and Scourge survey, while Ryan heads up the search for Franklin’s lost ships in the Canadian Arctic. Another member of our team is Peter Rowe, recently published author of the vastly entertaining book “Adventures in Filmmaking”. As the book’s title alludes to, Peter is a filmmaker who is producing and directing a film about Canadian-born, turned American navy sailor, Ned Myers, who survived the sinking of the Scourge. The film will be entitled “Shipwrecked on a Great Lake”.

(Left to right) Jonathan Moore, Peter Rowe, Ryan Harris
and Chriss Ludin (foreground).

Unfortunately, over the past couple of decades, quagga mussels, an invasive species of mussel from Europe, were introduced to the Great Lakes by foreign ships pumping their bilge water containing the mussels into the lakes. Quagga mussels now cover the lakebed around the two ships and as our side scan sonar (which we also used in addition to the magnetometer) showed the starboard side of Scourge is engulfed by quaggas obstructing the view of the hull, deck, cannons and other ship’s artifacts.

Quagga mussels will eventually encrust both vessels hiding them from clear view; fortunately the pre-quagga 1982 expedition by Emory Kristof, Chris Nicholson, Dr. Dan Nelson, Martin Bowen and Randy Weldon documented both ships.

The 1982 expedition team:
Dan Nelson, left – Randy Weldon, upper left – Emory Kristof, upper right
Chris Nicholson, right – Martin Bowen, lower center

 “The 1982 expedition resulted in the largest 2,000 plus collection of the best photographs collected to date from the wrecks, as well as some colour video”, stated Jonathan Moore. “The high quality colour slides of both wrecks (first time Scourge was imaged) show in great detail the schooners as if frozen in time, a cliché that is appropriate to use in the case of these wrecks. They were used extensively for several sets of archaeological site plans created by researchers. This imagery is doubly valuable now given the subsequent colonization of the wrecks by quagga mussels, that have covered and obscured most of the features photographed in 1982. All of the 1982 slides have now been digitized.”

Quagga mussels have killed the feasibility of bringing both ships to the surface as has been done with Sweden’s Vasa and England’s Mary Rose but with all the research carried out to date it might be possible to build life-size replicas of both ships in the City of Hamilton and introduce the curious to Ned Myers.

Expeditions to the USS Hamilton and USS Scourge

All expeditions and resulting research are group efforts. Once Dr. Daniel Nelson located the Hamilton and Scourge various organizations have played, and some still do, a role in either the exploration, research, mapping, conservation, management, archiving or storytelling of these two magnificent archaeological treasures. They are, the City of Hamilton, Parks Canada, ASI Group, Canadian Conservation Institute, United States Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Coast Guard, Canadian Hydrographic Service, Royal Ontario Museum, YAP Films and Peter Rowe Productions Inc., to name a few.

Female figurehead of the goddess Diana on USS Hamilton.

 City of Hamilton website links to the USS Hamilton and USS Scourge

The Hamilton & Scourge National Historic Site

Hamilton & Scourge War Ships – War of 1812 Virtual Tour

Tourism links for Port Dalhousie and the City of Hamilton

Port Dalhousie

City of Hamilton – Visitor Information

Photo Credits

All photos of the Investigator expedition are © Joseph Frey – All Rights Reserved

Photos of the Hamilton And Scourge are © Dan Nelson, Emory Kristof, Chris Nicholson,
Martin Bowen and Randy Weldon.- All Rights Reserved