text:
The End Is Nigh
by Stephen Cox | Posted May 03, 2011
In an article in the December 2010 issue of Liberty, I alerted readers to the fact that a leading network of Christian radio stations was predicting that the end of the world was absolutely, positively going to happen in 2011. According to Family Radio, which broadcasts in many countries, and which probably has a station near you, Judgment Day will begin on May 21 with the Rapture of the true believers and will conclude on October 21 with the total destruction of the physical universe. In the process, almost all the inhabitants of the earth will perish.
This is the message of Family Radio's "Bible teacher," a retired businessman named Harold Camping. His interpretations of Scripture are explained — as well as I, or probably anyone else, could explain them — in the article just mentioned, "An Experiment in Apocalypse." You can download it here. For a less critical perspective, see Family Radio's own website, which offers a list of stations where you can hear the apocalyptic message for yourself.
For students of human nature, especially American human nature, this particular religious prediction is a matter of great importance, interest, and (let's face it) fun. It is, for them, what a transit of Venus is to astronomers, what the sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker is to ornithologists, what an eruption on the scale of Mt. Saint Helens is to volcanologists. It's the kind of thing that happens much less than once in a generation.
Of course, experts, religious and secular, make predictions all the time, and other people believe them. Generals predict that if they are given appropriate resources, they will be able to accomplish their mission. Scientists predict that if their policy advice goes unheeded, the environment will be subject to further degradation. Politicians predict that if you vote for them, they will initiate a new age of prosperity for the American people, and if you don't, you will be visited by spiraling unemployment and a continuing decline in the American standard of living. Preachers say they are confident that the signs of the times point to an early return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Economists assure us that if trends continue, we can expect to see whatever they themselves have been trained to expect.
According to Family Radio, Judgment Day will begin on May 21 with the Rapture of the true believers and will conclude on October 21 with the total destruction of the physical universe.
All these modes of prophecy are potent. They have effects. They get people's attention. They lead some people to do things that otherwise they would not do — vote, go to war, buy a house, pledge more money to the church. But they are all escapable and forgettable. They never include a date on which something definitewill happen. What you see, when you look at the words and figure out what they really mean, is just a suggestion that something that is capable of almost any definition ("prosperity," "job creation," "depression," "desertification," "a world in which our children will have more (or less) opportunity than we do," "the fulfillment of God's plan") will manifest itself at some time that is really not a time: "very soon," "in our generation," "by the end of the century," "earlier than predicted," "much earlier than anyone would have thought," "with a speed that is startling even the experts," "at the end of the day," "eventually").
Of course, the less definite a prediction is, the less meaning it has; but the more definite it is, the less likely it is to come true. Real economists and real theologians can tell you why. A real economist will show you that human events result from individual human choices, their motives unresolvable into quantifiable data, their possible sequences multiplying from the original motives in fantastic variety. Real theologians will tell you, in the words of the old hymn, that the Deity is not a writer of op-ed forecasts: "God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform; / He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm."
Nevertheless, it is impossible that someone's announcement that "California is more vulnerable than ever to a catastrophic earthquake," or that "this administration will meet the problem of the deficit, and solve it" could ever be completely disconfirmed. If the big one doesn't destroy San Francisco during your lifetime, as you thought had been predicted, don't use your dying breath to complain. You'll just be told that California is even more vulnerable "today" than it was "before," because more years have passed since the last prediction. If the politician you helped elect disappoints you by not having "solved the problem," whatever the problem is, you'll be told that "our plan for the new America ensures that appropriate solutions will be implemented, as soon as Congress enacts them into law."
How can you disconfirm the ineffably smarmy language of the exhibits in the California Academy of Sciences? Once an intellectually respectable museum, it now adorns its walls with oracles like this: "If we don't change our actions, we could condemn half of all species of life on earth to extinction in a hundred years. That adds up to almost a million types of plants and animals that could disappear." Should you decide to argue, you can't say much more than, "If you don't stop purveying nonsense like that, your museum has seen the last of me, and my $29.95 admission fees, too."
Thirty years ago there was a considerable emphasis among mainstream evangelical Christians on the prospect of Christ's imminent return. There was a popular religious song, urging people to keep their "eyes upon the eastern skies." Less mainstream religionists said that all indications point to the probability that the present system of things will end in 1975. Meanwhile, a very popular book, Famine 1975! America's Decision: Who Will Survive? (1967), predicted that the world would soon run out of food; and scientists worried the world with predictions that "global cooling" would soon be upon us.
For students of human nature, especially American human nature, this particular religious prediction is a matter of great importance, interest, and (let's face it) fun.
Among these predictions were a few that, wonder of wonders, actually could be disconfirmed, and were. Though no one said that the Egyptians (often thought to be especially "vulnerable") would begin starving to death precisely on May 21, 1975, some people came close enough to saying that; and events showed they were wrong. Yet there are escape routes available for all predictors, even those proven to be wrong. Two escape routes, really: memory and interest.
Jesus knew about this. He told his followers that no man knows the day or the hour of his Return, but that people would always be running around predicting it (Mark 13:32, Luke 21:8–9). The failed predictions, which seemed so snazzy before they failed, wouldn't really be perceived as failures, because the failures wouldn't be remembered, or considered interesting enough to be remembered. Watch out for predictions, he said.
There are two things going on here. One is that people die, and their enthusiasms die with them — often to be revived by the next generation, before being forgotten again. Quack medical treatments, as someone has pointed out, have a generational life, and so do quack economic and religious treatments. The Bates Eye Method, a way of using exercise to improve your eyesight, doesn't work, and when people find that it doesn't, they abandon it. They eventually die, and another group of people "discovers" the great idea, wants to believe it, and makes a big deal out of it, temporarily. The phony (and I mean "phony" not in the sense of "mistaken" but in the sense of "created to make money and impress people") religious ideas of the I Am Movement have had a similar life cycle among New Age types. And when it comes to economics, where would we be without such recurrent notions as the idea that unions are responsible for "the prosperity of the middle class," the idea that the minimum wage lifts people out of poverty, and the idea that general wellbeing can be created by forcing the price of commodities up by means of tariff regulations?
The gullible people who endorse such ideas often die with their convictions intact, although they may not succeed in passing them along to others, at least right away. In April we witnessed the death of the oldest man in the world, a gentleman named Walter Breuning. Before his death at the age of 114, Mr. Breuning gave the nation the benefit of his more than a century of experience and learning — his belief that America's greatest achievement was . . . Social Security! Yes, if you retire at 66, as Mr. Breuning did, and collect benefits for the next 48 years, I suppose you might say that. But it's an idea that's likely to be ignored by people who are 30 years old and actually understand what Social Security is.
And that's the additional factor: lack of interest. Failed ideas, and failed predictions, aren't always forgotten — many of them have a second, third, or fourth advent. But they may be ignored. They may not be interesting, even as objects of ridicule. I suspect that most young people would say that Social Security is "good," but it's not as important to them as it was to Mr. Breuning. The same can be said of mainstream Christians, who agree that Christ will return, but pay little or no attention to any current predictions.
Right or wrong, as soon as an idea reveals even a vulnerability to disconfirmation, it often starts to dwindle in the public's mind. Global cooling is a perfect example. Once, cooling was fairly big in the nation's consciousness; then it didn't seem to be happening, right now anyway; then it began to seem unimportant; then it disappeared, without anyone really noticing its absence.
This is what tends to happen with political and economic predictions. The smart people, and the political fanatics (such as me), go back to what Roosevelt said or Kennedy said or Obama said, and notice how wildly their promises and predictions varied from the accomplished facts; but the people in the street go their way, unshocked and unaffected. They may not have expected specific accuracy from their leaders' forecasts, but if they did, they forgot about it. Initially, they were foolish enough to be inspired, or frightened, but they were canny enough to realize that other forecasts — equally inspiring, frightening, and vulnerable to failure — would succeed the present ones.
The subject changes; the language does not. It's always apocalypse on the installment plan.
It's like Jurassic Park, where the dinosaurs seem certain to devour the heroes, and almost manage to do so — about 1100 times. After the first few hundred near-death experiences, you realize that the only logical reason this won't go on forever is that the theater has to be cleared for another showing of Jurassic Park. Expectation diminishes, long before the show is over — although you may be willing to see it again, in a few years, once the specific memory wears off. That's the way the language of prediction often works, or fails to work.
As long as the idea of socialism has existed, its priests have predicted the downfall of the capitalist system. When each seemingly fatal contingency proved not to be fatal, another contingency was identified; when that failed to produce the climax, a third came into view . . . and so on. Some people were willing to return for Downfall of Capitalism 2, 3, and4; but others sensed that the plot had no logical ending, after all, and sought something different.
So new performances began in the Theater of Prognostication. Followers of Malthus demonstrated that civilization would perish through "over-breeding." Eugenicists showed that it would end by the over-breeding of the "unfit." For many generations, journalists computed the size of "the world's proven fuel resources" and demonstrated that unless alternative sources of energy were found, the engines of the world would stop. In 1918, the world was assured that it was about to be made safe for "democracy." Then it was assured that it was on the brink of unimaginable prosperity, to be produced by "technocracy." After that, it learned it was about to be completely destroyed by a new world war. When the war came, but did not succeed in destroying the world, optimists prophesied an imminent "era of the common man," while pessimists prophesied annihilation by the atom bomb. For generations, the "doomsday clock" of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists stood at a few minutes till midnight. It still does — because now it registers not only the purported danger of atomic war, but also the purported likelihood of destruction by "climate change." In other words, another movie has hit the theater.
The subject changes; the language does not. It's always apocalypse on the installment plan. You buy it in little doses. First, "evidence seems to show"; then, "all the evidence shows"; after that, "experts are all agreed." The only thing lacking is clear language about exactly how and exactly when the event will happen.
In the early 20th century, many millions of words were spilled about (A) the world's inevitable political and social progress; (B) the world's inevitable destruction in a great war. But when the first great war began, there was nothing of inevitability about it. If Russia, France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary had decided, as they might easily have decided, not to bluff one another, or to call one another's bluffs, about the insignificant matter of Serbian nationalism, there would have been no World War I. In the 1930s, world war was regarded as inevitable by people terrorized by new types of weapons and by the traditional bogeys of "monopoly capitalism" and "western imperialism." When war came, it wasn't ignited by any of those things, but by the least predictable of world historical factors: the paranoid nationalism of the Shinto empire, and the weird appeal of Nazism, embodied in the unlikely figure of Adolf Hitler.
If you refuse to be gulled by apocalyptic lingo, what will happen to you? Here's what. You'll be told that you are "in denial."
There's nothing much to the predictive power of human intelligence. But if you refuse to be gulled by apocalyptic lingo, what will happen to you? Here's what. You'll be told that you are "in denial." Even more repulsively, you will be told that "denial is not just a river in Egypt." (Isn't that clever?) You will be accused of not believing in Science, not respecting the Environment, not caring about History, and so forth. You will be accused of all the characteristics exemplified by the prophets of doom themselves: ignorance, arrogance, and not-listening-to-others.
But let's see how Harold Camping, Family Radio's leader and prophet, compares with the other leaders and prophets we've considered. In one way he is exactly similar — his use of what Freud called "projection." In every broadcast Camping warns his audience against arrogance, unloving attitudes toward other people, impulsive and subjective interpretations of the Bible, and submission to the mere authority of so-called Bible teachers. And in every broadcast he denounces members of ordinary churches for failing to heed his prophecies; rejoices in the pain they will suffer on May 21, when they realize that he was right and they were wrong; and suggests that anyone who disagrees with him is denying the authority of the Bible itself. On April 28, his radio Bible talk concerned the dear people in the churches, whom he reluctantly compared with the 450 priests of Baal who were slaughtered by Elijah because they trusted in their own ideas and wouldn't listen to the true prophet — a prophet who, like Camping, was favored by God because he was absolutely certain that what he said was true.
But — and this is the most important thing — Camping has a dignity and intellectual integrity denied to most other predictors, including those most esteemed in our society. He doesn't speak in generalities. He predicts that Judgment Day will come, without any doubt or question or problem of definition, on a particular day: May 21, 2011. In all likelihood it will begin with a great earthquake, which will devastate New Zealand and the Fiji Islands, at sundown, local time. After that, the wave of destruction will circle the globe, with the setting sun. By May 22, the Rapture will have been concluded; "it will all be over!", and everyone will know that it is; the whole thing is "completely locked in." In making his prophecies, Camping is actually risking something. He is actually saying something, not just uttering fortune cookie oracles.
I use that phrase advisedly. The other night, Mehmet Karayel and I dined at the Mandarin, and as always we were interested in seeing what our fortune cookies had to say. Mehmet's fortune was a typically New Age, ostensibly precise manipulation of words. It said, "You may attend a party where strange customs prevail." Yeah, right. Or he may not attend such a party, or the customs may be "strange" only to ignorant people, or the customs may be present but not prevail, etc.
Mehmet is a real intellectual, not a person who plays one on TV, so he was not taken in by this exciting forecast. Then came the unveiling of my fortune. It was, believe it or not, "Your future looks bright." Can you imagine a feebler thing to bake into a cookie? But Mehmet is aware of Mr. Camping's prophecies, so he knew how to strengthen the message: "It should say, 'YourMay 22 looks bright.'"
So Mehmet and Harold Camping, though disagreeing firmly on specifics, stand together in demanding that they be produced. Mehmet is certain that my May 22 can be bright; Camping is certain that it can't. But they both know that only one of them can be right about a proposition like this, and that we'll soon find out which one it is. How refreshing.
I must admit that not everybody in Camping's outfit is up to his high intellectual standard. On April 26 I received a plea for contributions to Family Radio (which, by the way, has a good deal of wealth and doesn't really need many contributions — but why not ask?). The plea came in two parts. One was a brief letter from Camping, requesting my "continued involvement" in FR's ministry, because "Time is running out! The end is so very near, with May 21, 2011, rapidly approaching." The second was a pledge card, where I could check the amount of money I planned to give "each month." As I said in my December article, there is evidence that some people at FR are biding their time, trying to keep the organization together so it can continue — under their leadership — after the failure of May 21. My speculation is that the pledge card is their product, and they don't mind contradicting Camping's message in the letter. They may even be alerting "supporters" like me to keep the faith: my May 22 does indeed look bright.
But that's a digression. Harold Camping is not a politician or a professor of environmentalism, whose prophecies can never be proven wrong because they're ridiculously non-specific. No, he has said exactly what he means by the end of the world, and he has said exactly when the end of the world will happen. You can check it. I hope you do. Go to Family Radio's website, find out where its nearest radio station is, and tune in during the evening of May 20 (US time), when, Camping believes, Judgment Day will begin in the Fiji Islands. Then listen through the next few days, as Family Radio responds to the disconfirmation of its prophecies. Or does not respond — until it figures out how to do so (and that should be interesting also).
As I've said before, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It will be much more interesting than listening to the constant din of the secular prophets — politicians, historians, economists, and environmentalists — whose intellectual stature, compared to that of Harold Camping, addlepated prophet of the End Time, is as nothing, a drop in a bucket, and the small dust that is wiped from the balance.
Stephen Cox is editor of Liberty, and a professor of literature at the University of California San Diego. His recent books include The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison and American Christianity: The Continuing Revolution. Newly published is Culture and Liberty, a selection of works by Isabel Paterson.
Share This
Frank Ricciardone
When they are all done laughing, Mr. Camping, I want to say you were right. I have checked your figures and they are accurate. The trouble, Mr. Camping, is that God wants Judgement Day to be a surprise, and you spilled the beans, necessitating a change in plan.
Mon, 2011-05-23 19:19
Robert K. Stock
As a former Jehovah's Witness I understand the excitement of the listners of Family Radio. I held my breath all through October 1975. Waiting for Armageddon- the destruction of all non-Jehovah's Witnesses and the ushering in of the "New World".
Even though I was disappointed I persevered in my faith for another 15 years before realizing I had been duped by the Watchtower Society. Now most Witnesses refuse to admit they ever thought the end would come in 1975.
A few of Family Radio's listeners will most likely fall away from their faith, but I will bet that most will remain true believers. And in time they will probably say as Jehovah's Witnesses now say regarding another failed end time prediction, October 1914, "Jesus did come in 1914, but it was invisible to human eyes!".
It is a little weird to see another group make the same silly mistake as my former religion.
Fri, 2011-05-13 13:10
And speaking of religious claims, this is disappointing:
"Jesus knew about this. He told his followers that no man knows the day or the hour of his Return, but that people would always be running around predicting it (Mark 13:32, Luke 21:8–9)."
There is not a shred of evidence that the biblical Jesus ever existed, nor is the bible considered to be anything like an historical record by anyone who has read how it came about.
Please, Mr. Cox, don't offer the bible as anything other than a collection of mythical tales.
Wed, 2011-05-04 23:41
Stephen Cox
Not only have I read "how it came about," I've published a book about it and related topics: "The New Testament and Literature" (Open Court, 2006).
Best regards,
Fri, 2011-05-06 18:37
For those interested, here's where to get a copy:
Mine is now on order and I look forward to reading it. But you didn't address the question: Do you regard the bible as an historical source?
I use as my primary source Ehrman's "Lost Christianities" for these statements:
1) There is no verifiable evidence of a biblical Jesus.
2) The accounts included in the new testament were written by second- to tenth-hand sources at best hundreds of years after the supposed events.
Sat, 2011-05-07 21:04
Jon Harrison
"Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom" (Matthew 16:28). Jesus himself began the all-too-human folly of predicting the end time. He avoided naming an exact date, but made the mistake of claiming that some of his auditors would live to see his return. Or should we believe that some members of his audience still walk among us, almost 2,000 years later?
I have no wish to associate myself with the California Academy of Sciences, which I have never visited, or with the specifics of the line quoted by Cox, but the fact is that we are living through a period of mass extinction, as human beings crowd out other species through habitat destruction and other forms of environmental degradation. There really is no doubt about this, no matter how inconvenient some people may find the fact. At the very least we should admit that the pointy-headed academics at CAS are better bearers of truth and light than the followers of good ol' JC.
Wed, 2011-05-04 17:07
"I have no wish to associate myself with the California Academy of Sciences, which I have never visited, or with the specifics of the line quoted by Cox, but the fact is that we are living through a period of mass extinction, as human beings crowd out other species through habitat destruction and other forms of environmental degradation."
First, you have zero evidence of "mass extinction"; the term "mass" is exactly the sort of general claim that Cox referred to and debunked.
Secondly, even if it were true, so what? Is it written somewhere that the number of individuals of a certain species is ordained to be the proper amount? Do you have some knowledge that the world should have X members of Y species? Or are you simply repeating some religious claims?
If not, let's see the data. What evidence do you have?
Wed, 2011-05-04 23:34
Stephen Cox
Thanks for your comment. Fortunately, there are no mass extinctions. I commented about this in Liberty's April 2003 issue, in an essay starting on page 11. See http://www.libertyunbound.com/node/90
During the intervening eight years, I haven't seen any mass extinctions--has anyone? If so, what are the life forms that have become extinct? If there are mass extinctions, it should be easy to provide a list of them--those that took place during the last eight years, not since the pleistocene. If mass extinction were happening, extinctions should be happening every day--and if they were, you can be certain that environmentalists would occupy the top of the news every day, with information about the death of the last snail darter. What you see, on the contrary, is occasional information about the rediscovery of species formerly thought to be
extinct, and grudging coverage of the recrudescence of bears in New Jersey and big cats in California.
Anyway, here's some of what I wrote in 2003:
Assiduous searches and comparisons of purportedly authoritative sites indicate that environmentalists believe that since 1492, 25 species, quasi-species, or pseudo-species of mammals have gone into extinction in the continental United States. And during the
past 25 years, it seems that there have been only two real or supposed extinctions: the extinctions of the hot springs cotton rat and the Penasco chipmunk.
The cotton rat is listed as having gone extinct in 1996, but the last specimen was collected in 1909, so who knows when it happened? The chipmunk is said to have died out in 1980, but there's a problem with that, too. The New Mexico
Department of Game and Fish - which, by the way, considers the Penasco chipmunk "a subspecies of the least chipmunk" - appears to be of two minds on the question of whether the little guys are gone. It talks about them as if they were still alive, but notes that the last, unconfirmed, sighting happened in 1993.
Speaking of confirmation, I have so far failed to confirm the extinction of the big thicket hog-nosed skunk, which according to some lists became extinct in the mid-1990s. I hope that it didn't. Anything with a name like that should live forever. Other sources proclaim the end of the Mexican gray wolf and the black-footed ferret, two mammals that are not only alive but the object of programs designed to repopulate the wild with them.
Environmentalists helped to save those critters. If that's what environmentalists do, it's fine with me. But I've stopped worrying about their comments on the dizzy pace of animal extinction.
Best regards,
Fri, 2011-05-06 19:01
Jon Harrison
Steve, the term mass extinction has been defined by biologists and paleontolgists. What you write above has nothing to do with the phenomenon as recognized by science. As I told the anonymous poster, the evidence is available and easily accessed. You might begin by consulting Jablonski's paper published in the Proceddings of the National Academy of Sciences, May 8, 2001. There was also an important article in "Nature" (a refereed journal, of course) back in, I think, March. You could make a start with these. The literature concerning mass extinctions, including the one now underway, is voluminous, and includes books and articles by people such as E.O. Wilson, Richard Leakey, S.J. Gould, and many, many other highly respected scientists. I'm not talking about "environmentalists," but scientists with training in the relevant fields, i.e., biology, zoology, and paleontology.
My own comments merely reflect the conclusions of these highly-trained people. I have as much technical training in this area as you do -- that is to say, none. And while I have great respect for your intellect, on the matter of mass extinctions I rather lean toward consulting the experts rather than you, my dear Stephen.
Sat, 2011-05-07 13:36
Jon Harrison
The evidence is available, and easily accessed. I see no reason to do the work for you, especially since you don't even tell us who you are. Try educating yourself on the issue.
"Even if it were true, so what?" I wasn't writing to convince you or any other individual of the importance of mass extinctions. Whether you care about the issue is a matter of complete indifference to me.
Thu, 2011-05-05 11:28
Main menu
Search Liberty
Most Read
Monthly archive
- November 2010 (24)
- December 2010 (24)
- January 2011 (31)
- February 2011 (17)
- March 2011 (29)
- April 2011 (21)
- May 2011 (22)
- June 2011 (18)
- July 2011 (20)
- August 2011 (20)
- September 2011 (19)
- October 2011 (18)
- November 2011 (17)
- December 2011 (15)
- January 2012 (21)
- February 2012 (15)
- March 2012 (18)
- April 2012 (16)
- May 2012 (20)
- June 2012 (14)
- July 2012 (24)
- August 2012 (20)
- September 2012 (19)
- October 2012 (19)
- November 2012 (21)
- December 2012 (17)
- January 2013 (21)
- February 2013 (16)
- March 2013 (13)
- April 2013 (16)
- May 2013 (12)
- June 2013 (15)
- July 2013 (13)
- August 2013 (13)
- September 2013 (12)
- October 2013 (15)
- November 2013 (13)
- December 2013 (13)
- January 2014 (15)
- February 2014 (13)
- March 2014 (14)
- April 2014 (13)
- May 2014 (13)
- June 2014 (10)
- July 2014 (12)
- August 2014 (14)
- September 2014 (10)
- October 2014 (14)
- November 2014 (12)
- December 2014 (12)
- January 2015 (12)
- February 2015 (11)
- March 2015 (11)
- April 2015 (11)
- May 2015 (10)
- June 2015 (12)
- July 2015 (13)
- August 2015 (10)
- September 2015 (10)
- October 2015 (10)
- November 2015 (9)
- December 2015 (12)
- January 2016 (10)
- February 2016 (10)
- March 2016 (10)
- April 2016 (10)
- May 2016 (13)
- June 2016 (11)
- July 2016 (10)
- August 2016 (10)
- September 2016 (10)
- October 2016 (10)
- November 2016 (11)
- December 2016 (11)
- January 2017 (11)
- February 2017 (11)
- March 2017 (10)
- April 2017 (10)
- May 2017 (10)
- June 2017 (9)
- July 2017 (10)
- August 2017 (10)
- September 2017 (10)
- October 2017 (10)
- November 2017 (10)
- December 2017 (10)
- January 2018 (12)
- February 2018 (10)
- March 2018 (10)
- April 2018 (10)
- May 2018 (10)
- June 2018 (10)
- July 2018 (10)
- August 2018 (10)
- September 2018 (10)
- October 2018 (10)
- November 2018 (10)
- December 2018 (10)
- January 2019 (10)
- February 2019 (10)
- March 2019 (10)
- April 2019 (10)
- May 2019 (10)
- June 2019 (10)
- July 2019 (10)
- August 2019 (10)
- September 2019 (10)
- October 2019 (10)
- November 2019 (10)
- December 2019 (10)
- January 2020 (10)
- February 2020 (10)
- March 2020 (12)
- April 2020 (10)
- May 2020 (8)


text:
Contribute to ReadWriteThink / RSS / FAQs / Site Demonstrations / Contact Us / About Us
ReadWriteThink couldn't publish all of this great content without literacy experts to write and review for us. If you've got lessons plans, videos, activities, or other ideas you'd like to contribute, we'd love to hear from you.
Find the latest in professional publications, learn new techniques and strategies, and find out how you can connect with other literacy professionals.
Teacher Resources by Grade
|1st - 2nd
|3rd - 4th
|5th - 6th
|7th - 8th
|9th - 10th
|11th - 12th
Home › Classroom Resources › Lesson Plans
Lesson Plan
The Connection Between Poetry and Music
|3 – 5
|Lesson Plan Type
|Standard Lesson
|Estimated Time
|Six 30-minute sessions
|Lesson Author
Ashland, Oregon
Music helps children develop rhythmic intelligence and notice rhythm in language, which are important skills in learning how to read and developing fluency as readers. In this lesson, students listen to poems read aloud, and they discuss the rhythm and sound of poetry. Students then perform poems using musical instruments to emphasize cadence. Using online tools, they learn about line breaks and the way these affect the rhythm of a poem. Finally, students write poems they believe will be enhanced by music and perform them for the class.
Line Break Explorer: Students can use this interactive to discover why a poet chose to break lines in certain places.
Towell, J.H. (1999). Motivating students through music and literature. The Reading Teacher, 53(4), 284287.
- Music exposes children to rhyme, rhythm, and repetition, which are the some of the same skills needed to learn to read.
- Because poetry has cadence, rhythm, and rhyme, music may be used to complement it.
- Music may benefit children with learning difficulties.
- The language of music is understood by all cultures. All cultures use music to communicate, and the sounds and rhythms of music cross cultural boundaries.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Kiss will perform at Dodger Stadium on Jan. 25 as part of the 2014 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series. The costumed rockers will perform before and during the first intermission of the NHL game between the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks. The match is the first-ever outdoor NHL game in L.A. The game and concert sets will air live on NBC.
In other Kiss news, while singer-bassist Gene Simmons appears to be open to a one-time reunion performance at the band's Rock Hall of Fame induction ceremony in April with long-departed original members, lead guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss, singer-guitarist Paul Stanley may not be.
Stanley tweeted, "Not likely" when asked about it. When asked if he would wear his trademark makeup with the ex-band members wearing their old makeup, he also tweeted, "no way." However, he was also asked if he harbored any bad feeling toward Frehley or Criss and he answered, "None. Proud to be inducted with them."
Criss left the band 34 years ago, in 1980, when his substance abuse affected his ability to perform; while Frehley left two years later, disagreeing with the band's direction. The foursome reunited at the Grammy Awards in 1996 and it went well enough that they then undertook a tour and recorded the 1998 album, "Psycho Circus" together. Criss left for the last time in 2001 over a contract dispute, while Frehley left again a year later.
Eurythmics to reunite for one-off Beatles tribute
Rocking British synth-poppers Eurythmics — singer Annie Lennox and guitarist Dave Stewart, who last did anything together nine years ago — will reunite in Los Angeles for one night to pay tribute to The Beatles, the Recording Academy announced.
The duo formed in London and first performed together in 1976 and became Eurythmics in 1981. They scored in the 1980s with such worldwide hits as "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," "Here Comes the Rain Again," "Would I Lie to You?" and "the bone-crunching rocker, "Missionary Man."
Since 2008, among his numerous projects, Stewart has worked in the studio with Ringo Starr on the Beatles drummer's last three albums. Since 2012, Stewart says that he and Ringo have also been working on a film musical for Paramount they title, "Hole in the Fence" that about a group of kids in a poor, supposedly British, mining town who form a band.
The pair will perform at the Jan. 27 taping at the Los Angeles Convention Center for "The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles," commemorating the 50th anniversary of the band's first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" that kicked off the so-called British Invasion which changed pop music. Thetwo-hour special will air on CBS on Feb. 9, exactly 50 years since The Fab Four's historic debut appearance.
Other acts announced thus far include Maroon 5, John Mayer, Keith Urban, and Alicia Keys, who will perform a duet with John Legend.
Johnny Rivers to mark 50th anniversary opening the Whiskey a Go Go
Johnny Rivers will mark the 50th anniversary of his debut on opening night at the Whiskey a Go Go, launching the musical golden era of West Hollywood's Sunset Strip, with a celebratory concert on Jan. 15 at the 1,897-seat Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills. The show takes place 50 years to the day of that event.
His opening act is hit songwriter Jimmy Webb, for whom Rivers gave his first big break (the two will also perform together the end of the concert). It's the first time in a quarter-century that the pair is teaming up in concert. The last time they teamed up onstage, Bob Dylan and Bette Midler were among the luminaries in attendance.
In a telephone interview, the 71-year-old rock and roller, an energetic, rapid-fire talker, relayed stories of those days and of his professional relationship with the 67-year-old Webb. However, we began with his remembrances of Phil Everly, who died this week.
"I met Phil in Nashville in 1959. Hank Williams' wife Audrey introduced us. Phil sang backup harmony on several of my songs. This past New Year's Eve, I was in the Valley with friends and we talked about Phil, and only a few days later… You never know."
On playing at the Whiskey, Rivers laughs about his time there, saying that "back then, the club was so hot that the doorman made more money than me."
"I was making about $350 a week there, but the doorman was being handed hundred dollar bills by people wanting in," he said, laughing.
Along with his personal hits, Rivers also became a successful record producer as well as a record company owner (Soul City Records) and music publisher.
"One day in 1965, I was handed a tape of songs by an unknown songwriter. I'm a blues and R&B guy. Music from Louisiana, you know, so this tape full of pop songs wasn't my thing. But for some unexplained reason, I kept listening," he recalled. "Well, I got to the last song and, what do you know, it hit me. I said, 'Wow, this is something.'"
The song was "By the Time I get to Phoenix" and the composer was Jimmy Webb. The Whiskey's resident headliner signed Webb to a publishing deal and recorded the song. It wasn't a hit, but it provided Webb with a professional start.
Rivers relayed one final tale of those thrilling days of yesteryear at the Whiskey.
"One night in August '64, we were onstage and all of a sudden,the crowd shifted to one side of the room. 'What's going on?' I asked our bassist Joe Osbor," he said. "It didn't take long before we found out: The Beatles. Well, three of them — John, George and Ringo — had come by to see us play. They had just finished playing their first Hollywood Bowl show and decided to drop in. I remember that Elmer introduced us. John's date that night was Jayne Mansfield."
Such was life on the Sunset Strip in the mid-60s and at the Whiskey a Go Go.
Obit: Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers
Phil Everly, the younger half of the most influential singing duo in the history of pop music, The Everly Brothers, died on Jan. 3 at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to his son Jason, who blamed a lifelong smoking habit on his father's death, reports the Associated Press. His widow, Patti, said he quit smoking a dozen years ago but the damage was already done.
Everly was 74 years old.
With Don usually taking the lead and singing baritone to Phil's tenor, the harmonies they produced on their first hit, "Wake Up Little Susie" in 1957, "All I Have to Do is Dream" the following year, and "Cathy's Clown" in 1960, it was no wonder the duo topped Billboard's Hot 100 singles charts.
Across the pond, in Liverpool, The Beatles referred to themselves as "The English Everly Brothers" (Paul McCartney paid tribute via the inclusion of "Phil and Don" in the lyrics of "Let 'Em In," his million-selling hit single with Wings in 1976). The Hollies and The Bee Gees and other British Invasion groups as well as Yanks like The Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel were heavily influenced by Everly Brothers harmonies.
The Everlys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young, who said that night that every group in which he joined tried unsuccessfully to copy their harmonies. Bob Dylan once said, "We owe these guys everything, They started it all."
Last year, three Everly Brothers tribute albums were released, including "Foreverly," by Green Day leader Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones that was inspired by the brothers' 1958 LP, "Songs Our Daddy Taught Us."
"The Everly Brothers go back as far as I can remember hearing music. Those harmonies will live on forever," Armstrong said.
Upon the news of Phil Everly's death, tributes began flooding in.
"I loved my brother very much. I always thought I'd be the one to go first. I was listening to one of my favorite songs that Phil wrote and had an extremely emotional moment just before I got the news of his passing. I took that as a special spiritual message from Phil saying goodbye," Phil's older brother, Don, 76, told People magazine.
Paul Simon called The Everlys "the most beautiful sounding duo I ever heard."
"The Everlys were there at the crossroads of country and R&B," Simon continued. "They witnessed and were part of the birth of rock and roll."
Nancy Sinatra recalled "touring with Phil and Don was one of the thrills of my life."
Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers, who recently recorded The Beach Boys' "In My Room" with its co-writer Brian Wilson and Phil Everly on backup vocals (possibly his final recording), stated: "Elvis, The Everly Brothers and Dion & The Belmonts were about the only white acts I was influenced by."
Brian May of Queen, whose harmonies were Everly Brothers-influenced, said he felt "like a huge piece of my youth just melted away."
"They will always be my heroes," he said.
Steve Smith writes a new Classic Pop, Rock and Country Music News column every week that runs in two parts on Wednesdays and Fridays. Contact him by email at email@example.com.


text:
I originally planned to continue the last post by discussing the math battle problem in Episode 1, but I think it's mostly sufficiently explained in the episode already, though there are some logical holes: Sayuri's first "proof" isn't really a proof, and not really an argument either. It just sets up part of the geometry, which Nina extends to actually derive something. The whole thing also relies a bit too much on assumed accuracy of measurements, I think, which I don't really buy, but once you get past the assumption, things are sound. If you'd like more explanation, however, I can write up something on it.
I also refer you to Prettycatchy's video explanation:
Instead, in this post, I'll discuss (and solve) the seven problems posed to Kazuki in Episode 2. In context, they're presented in reverse order of difficulty, from university-level to lower-middle-school-level, and only the last problem is explained. I'll go through all of them in order.
- Prove that when 0 < x < π/4, the integral of cosine t from 0 to x is greater than twice the integral of sine t from 0 to x.
In mathematical notation, the inequality to be proven is
Each side is a definite integral, which gives you the area of the region underneath the curve given inside the integral (or the negative area when the curve is below the horizontal axis). In this case, we have t as the independent variable of the function inside the integral, instead of x as is usually the case (since x is the independent variable of the entire expression). The left-hand side is the area of the region bounded by the t-axis, the curve , the vertical line and the vertical line . The right-hand side is the same except the curve is and you multiply the resulting area by 2. So the inequality states that the gray area is strictly larger than twice the orange area, as shown in the two graphs below:
You can evaluate a definite integral by finding the antiderivative and taking the difference of the antiderivative evaluated at the upper point and the antiderivative evaluated at the lower point. The antiderivative of is , and the antiderivative of is . Doing this and simplifying results in an equivalent inequality:
So if we prove this is true for , we prove the original inequality.
Let .
You can plot over that interval and see that it's always greater than 1:
But arguing by graph isn't a foolproof method (and isn't feasible to do by hand), so let's do this analytically. We can do a proof by contradiction: we suppose that there is a point q in such that the inequality does not hold (that is, ), and show that this leads to a contradiction.
We can now use the mean value and intermediate value theorems to prove that if such a point q exists, then there must be two distinct points in where the derivative (the slope of the line tangent to the curve at a given point) is 0, which we will show is a contradiction.
We start by checking the coordinates of the endpoints of the interval:
For the first endpoint, is 1, but since 0 is not itself part of the open interval , this is not a problem. The right endpoint is greater than one (this can be easily verified by hand by squaring both sides), so it is also consistent with the inequality. Next, we compute the derivative and evaluate it at the endpoints:
So the derivative at 0 is positive, and the derivative at π/4 is negative.
If we connect the left endpoint and by a straight line, the slope of the line is
Since and , the slope is either zero (if ) or negative. By the mean value theorem, since f is continuous and differentiable (a property of all sinusoids), there must exist a point p in such that the derivative at p is equal to this slope. So .
Next, we connect to the right endpoint by a straight line. The slope here is
Since and , their difference must be positive. is also positive, so the slope here is positive. Again, by the mean value theorem, this means that there is a point r in such that .
We now have constraints on the derivative at the two endpoints as well as some points p and r within the interval.
Since , this means the value of goes from positive to zero/negative to positive to negative.
The intermediate value theorem tells us that since is continuous, for any closed interval , for every d in (assuming ; switch the two otherwise), there exists a point c in where . This means that any interval where a is positive and b is zero/negative, or vice versa, must contain a point c where .
So there must be a point u in such that , a point v in such that , and a point w in such that . Since these are closed intervals with overlapping endpoints, it is possible for u and v to be identical. It is not possible for u and w to be identical, however, since p is strictly less than r.
This shows that there are two distinct points u and w in whose derivative is 0.
We will now show that this contradicts the properties of the particular f we have. Let us solve for any points c in the interval with a derivative of 0:
The tangent function is one-to-one in the interval , so there is at most one c in such that . (We can can quickly prove the one-to-one property analytically. First, the tangent function defined for all points in this interval, since the cosine of all points in this range is nonzero. Suppose it's not one-to-one; then there must be two distinct points m and n in such that . This means the slope of the line connecting the two points is 0, so by the mean value theorem, there is a k in such that the derivative of the tangent function is 0. The derivative is , which is always positive, so there is no such point.)
Our assumption that there is a point q in where leads to the conclusion that there are two distinct points meeting this condition, so there is a contradiction. Therefore, the assumption is not valid, so there is no such q.
So for all points x in , . This proves the desired inequality.
- Find the volume V of a regular octahedron with side length a.
A regular octahedron is a polyhedron with 8 faces (each one an equilateral triangle) and 12 sides of equal length. We can compute the volume by splitting the octahedron into two pyramids of equal volume, finding the volume of one of the pyramids, and multiplying by 2.
Let's look at one of the pyramids. We can compute the volume , where B is the area of the base, and h is the height. In the figure below, each of the edges is of length a, the height is h, and the diagonal of the square base is d:
The area of the square base is . To determine the height h, we can take a cross-section along one of the diagonals. This yields a triangle formed from two of the sides of the octahedron and the diagonal of the square:
The diagonal has length . Since two of the sides have the same length, we can divide the isosceles triangle into two right triangles. This yields a triangle with one of the octahedron's sides as the hypotenuse and two legs: one is half the diagonal of the base square, and the other is the height of the pyramid.
We can use the Pythagorean theorem to relate these:
Multiplying to get the volume of the entire octahedron, we have:
- Find a vector c of length 1 orthogonal to both vector a = (5, 7, 3) and vector b = (7, 6, 5).
One can compute the cross product of two linearly independent vectors to get a vector orthogonal to both.
There are several ways to compute the cross product. One is to make a 3×3 matrix out of the standard basis vectors i, j, and k in the first row and the two vectors in the second and third rows, and then compute the determinant of this matrix. In this case we have
We can break this into three smaller determinants via Laplace expansion:
Then we can easily compute each of the three determinants by multiplying the main diagonal elements and subtracting the product of the other two elements:
So the cross product is .
But we're not done yet. The problem wants an orthogonal vector of length one, so we have to normalize the cross product. We can compute the magnitude of the cross product by squaring each component, adding, and taking the square root:
We can divide each of components of the cross product by the magnitude to produce a vector pointing in the same direction with length 1:
There are two possible answers, actually. The vector can point in the same direction as the cross product, as given above, or it can point the opposite way. Either of these is acceptable:
- Find the radius of the inscribed circle in triangle ABC, where AB = 5, BC = 7, and CA = 3.
The circle inscribed in a triangle is the circle that is tangent to all three sides of the triangle:
Here we have triangle with the inscribed circle at center O with radius r. The triangle can be partitioned into three triangles , , and .
The area of each of the triangles is equal to half of the radius r times the length of the edge tangent to the circle.
The area of the entire circle can be found by using Heron's formula:
where s is the semiperimeter:
For the triangle given in the problem, we have
The total area is equal to the sum of the areas of the three smaller triangles:
Set these equal to each other and solve for r:
- Find the smallest positive integer n such that 765n is a square number.
A square number is an integer whose square root is also an integer. This requires that each prime factor of the number have an even multiplicity, so that you can divide the factors into two identical groups, each of them multiplying to form the square root.
So for 765n to be square, each of the factors in its prime factorization must appear an even number of times. Since we don't know what n is yet, we can do it just for 765 (factorization in general is a hard problem, but this one can be done by hand easily, once you observe that it's a multiple of both 3 and 5):
3 already appears twice, but 5 and 17 each appear once. Therefore n needs to have an odd number of occurrences of 5 and 17 for 765n to be square. Since we want the smallest positive integer that works, we can just multiply 5 and 17:
- Solve the system of equations 5x + 7y = 3, 7x – 6y = 5.
Sayumi's favorite pastime, solving systems of equations!
This can be done using several methods, but some form of Gaussian elimination is probably the most fun.
To do so, we take the system of equations and put the coefficients in an augmented matrix, with the right-hand values in a column on the right:
We divide the first row by the leftmost element, 5, to get a 1 in the upper left:
Then we subtract 7 times the resulting first row from the second row, to put a 0 in the lower left corner:
Now we divide the second row by -79/5 to get a 1 there as well:
Finally we subtract 7/5 times the second row from the first row to get an identity matrix:
This translates back into , which is our solution.
- The time is 3:00. Between 3:00 and 4:00, what hour, minute, and second will the minute hand and the hour hand overlap exactly?
This was sufficiently explained in the episode, I think, so I won't discuss it in detail. The idea is to determine the angular velocity of the minute hand and the hour hand (6°/min and 0.5°/min, respectively), find their relative difference (5.5°/min), and divide the initial angular displacement (90°) by this relative velocity to get the time it takes for the hands to overlap, which is 16 and 4/11 minutes. 4/11 of 60 seconds is 21.8181… seconds, or approximately 22 seconds. So the time would be 3:16:22.
Prettycatchy has another video explanation here:
With those 7 problems solved, I look forward to seeing what awaits us in the next episode!! (^_^)


text:
Home » Education & Discovery » Educational Visits
Education Group Visits
to the Watercress Line
The safety and wellbeing of our visitors and staff is our priority and we are taking all necessary precautions to ensure their continued welfare. We will continue to actively monitor the situation with regards the outbreak of Covid-19 coronavirus and are reviewing and following the guidelines of Public Health England.
In line with government advice we are ceasing our services until at least the end of May.
If your school was booked to come to the Watercress Line in April or May we are sorry to inform you that we will not be able to go ahead with your visit. If your school has already paid your deposit, we can offer you an outreach session instead or hold your deposit for a rearranged visit.
For bookings for June onwards, we have contingency plans in hand to ensure that when we are safely able to run our midweek services we will be able to offer education visits.
We hope that you will understand that the options available for some visits may still then be limited due to availability of our volunteers. We will not be offering the 'Talk to an Evacuee' option this summer term due to the ages of our 'Evacuees'.
Should you need to cancel an education booking made for June onwards, either due to a local outbreak, advice from the Government or your education authority/academy or a temporary change in your school's external visit policy, we will do our upmost to rearrange your visit, offer you an outreach session or a refund of your deposit if already paid.
We ask you to notify us by email to firstname.lastname@example.com of any cancelations, however we appreciate that this is an ongoing situation and that your needs may change.
An Education Visit to the Mid Hants Railway, The Watercress Line, offers the opportunity for your pupils to learn about the present day operation of our preserved railway and to investigate its past life and times. Your visit can be teamed with the experience of travelling through the Hampshire Countryside behind a restored steam locomotive during our midweek running season.
Visits with train travel are available in term time on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays until the end of September.
Station Visits without train travel are bookable during the spring and autumn terms, from Tuesday to Friday, on non-running days except during December and January.
To book an education visit: Please contact the Education Office for availability. Your date can be reserved with a £50 deposit
Tailor made sessions: We can offer education sessions tailored to your curriculum. Please contact us to discuss your requirements.
Covid-19. Information for Education Bookings, click here.
For details general details of our education facilities and timetables CLICK HERE.
For more information or to book please contact the Education Office by email firstname.lastname@example.com
Travel Visits for Summer& Autumn Terms 2020
Station Visits 2020 - Without train travel
Outreach Sessions and Home Educator Days
Visits for all abilities
Risk Assessment Guidance
Summer Club Visits
Book Loan Resource
Basket of Memories (for Leisure Groups)
Art on track


text:
Sweet potato stew
Makes 8 cups - 6 servings
I love the flavor of sweet potatoes, especially at this time of year. And, here's one of my favorite ways to enjoy their beta-carotene benefits. Cornbread and red wine, such as aromatic and fruity Côtes du Rhône, complement their earthy flavor and brilliant color. It's the perfect combination for a holiday feast.
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups canned chicken stock or vegetable stock (prepare using stock concentrate, cubes, or powder)
2 orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (about 12 ounces each), peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes
One 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
2 large tomatoes, cut into ½-inch cubes
½ cup coarsely chopped dried plums
½ cup dry sherry
¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper, or to taste
Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and bell pepper; cook, stirring occasionally, until the bell pepper is tender, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic; stir constantly for about 1 minute.
Stir in the stock, sweet potatoes, beans, tomatoes, and dried plums. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat; stir in the sherry; cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Add the salt and pepper. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
Paulette Mitchell, a culinary instructor, television personality, spokesperson, freelance food writer, and the award-winning author of 13 cookbooks, is known internationally for her quick-to-prepare recipes with gourmet flair. Paulette's most recently published cookbook is "The Complete 15-Minute Gourmet: Creative Cuisine Made Fast and Fresh." She is also the author of "A Beautiful Bowl of Soup" and "The Spirited Vegetarian," which was voted "Best Book in the World on Cooking with Wine" at the 2005 Gourmand World Media Awards. Paulette says that international travel is her favorite source of culinary inspiration.


text:
Browsing School of Political Science and Sociology by Subject "Judith Butler"
Now showing items 1-1 of 1
Frames of war: when is life grievable? (invited review essay) (Taylor & Francis, 2010)Sometimes when faced with photographs and videos of terrible war scenes, we are left feeling nothing. Though increasingly exposed to images of the horrors of conflict, we often remain immune, unable to really engage with ...


text:
29651 Arnold Dr.
Unit K-7A
Sonoma, CA 95476
Site Contents
Contact Us
Created: 7/27/2004 12:24
Modified: 9/13/2008 20:09
This site is powered by
|Log In | Register with Us
My Location: AIM Tire: American International Motorsports >> NASA ENDURANCE SERIES
This product is not currently available for online purchase.
|Track URL:
|Start Date:
|End Date:
TIRE WEAR: We're always asked how many tires will be needed for the 25 hours as well as other endurace events of a shorter length.
Well, it depends upon:
1- the normal tire wear that your expect from your car
2- How hard your co-drivers are on the tires
3- What the weather is during the race. i.e. If it rains ALL 25 hours you can expect that one set of TOYO RA-1's will last all 25 hours! But, under dry conditions you MUST expect a lot MORE wear. If the car isn't setup very well or if the drivers are a bit too aggressive expect to change the right front every 1.5 to 2 hours in consideration that Thunderhill Raceway Park is a predominately left and turn track.
A Good rule of thumb would be to figure on 4 DOT TYPE tires per every 4-6 hours.
Thus if your endurance race is only 3-4 hours long a nicely set up car racing a set of 6/32nd shaved tires will last the entire race. Or just use the R-888's which are molded at 6/32nds and are a better rain tire than the RA-1.
In fact some competitors can run a full 3-4 hours on a TOYO RA-1 shaved to 4/32nds!
For the 25 hours 16 tires on a good handling car.
But in previous years we've seen teams practicing for 8 hours prior to the race. People, people tires wear out in practice just as quickly as during the race. So, figure on USING more tires if you plan on a day of practice.
Don't wait, don't hesitate. Hit your co-drivers up NOW for their share of the tire bill.
Once the tires have been sold there are no returns. 707-938-9193


text:
One, Two, Three Streaks, You're Out
Do baseball teams really enforce "lifetime bans" against unruly spectators?
A man wearing batman underwear and a cape ran onto the field at Baltimore's Camden Yards during last Friday's opening game, and a second man invaded the field on Tuesday. Both were subsequently banned from the stadium for life. Dozens of other fans have been prohibited from entering sports arenas nationwide for similar acts over the years. How are such bans enforced?
They're not. Stadium security personnel are tight-lipped about their procedures, but people in the industry say that little is done to prevent banned spectators from entering U.S. arenas. Some teams may stop rule-breakers from buying tickets online, but that wouldn't interfere with their acquiring tickets through friends or scalpers and entering the stadium anonymously. A "lifetime ban" simply makes it easier to prosecute a repeat offender. The team wouldn't have to prove that the suspect instigated a fight or threw something on the field, because his mere presence in the stadium would constitute trespassing.
Stadium security is tighter across the pond, where officials are less worried about batman-caped streakers than they are about rioting, hooliganism, and racial abuse of athletes. Governments and sports governing bodies have issued detailed guidelines on venue security, and stadium owners are strictly liable to the teams for any losses that result from security breaches. In 2007, the Italian government ordered several teams to play their games in empty stadiums until they complied with security requirements. Fans are typically asked to produce identification that matches bar-coded information on their tickets as they enter the stadium. Scalping tickets outside the venue is banned for security reasons, and the rule tends to be strictly enforced.
A handful of European stadiums have deployed newer video technologies to keep out banned spectators. Parking lot entrances provide the first line of defense, with cameras set up to screen license plates in real time. Digital cameras mounted at the turnstiles, paired with facial recognition software, can identify banned spectators as they enter the stadium proper. If security misses a trespasser at the gate, they may be able to get him at his seat. It only takes 10 to 12 high-tech cameras to monitor a 50,000-seat stadium with sufficient resolution to identify individual spectators with reasonable reliability. Of course, it's easy enough to defeat the facial recognition analysis with a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap. Stadium owners who are really serious about barring miscreants, however, force spectators to remove such accessories as they pass through the gate. The process isn't 100 percent effective, but violators are caught with some regularity.
Similar security measures are fairly common in U.S. casinos, which use facial recognition to keep notorious card-counters from the tables. Most American stadiums, however, are still using older surveillance technology with limited resolution at the gates and in the stands. These cameras are good enough to detect a fight, and they can be manually zoomed in to identify individual perpetrators. But few stadiums have enough of these pan tilt zoom cameras to use facial recognition software across the entire seating area.
Orioles Batman Streaker: Can sports teams really prevent rule-breakers from coming back? – Slate Magazine.


text:
Storytelling Key to Great Advertising
Storytelling key to great advertising
Original article here
Romance doesn't play nearly as well with buyers of industrial wares, but b2b marketers still need to spin engaging stories around their brands unless they are content to simply push a commodity. Unlike branded products and services, commodities usually can't command a premium price in the marketplace.
Stories about the attributes of a product or service—such as reliability, quality, availability, deft engineering or flawless logistics—are what business decision-makers want to hear. Let's take a look at how three iconic b2b marketers support their brand through the powerful storytelling medium of TV advertising.
General Electric Co., which has been telling stories about its innovative prowess since the 19th century when it was known as the Edison Light Co., taps actor Hugo Weaving to reprise his role as Agent Smith from "The Matrix" to illustrate how the industrial giant is using Big Data and brilliant machines to reduce wait times in hospitals.
Agent Smith moves menacingly through a hospital emergency room, noting: "I found software that intrigues me. It appears to be an agent of good." With the audience's attention secured by the opening scene, Agent Smith delivers the unique selling proposition: "GE has wired their medical hardware with innovative software to be in many places at the same time using data to connect patients to software to nurses to the right people and machines."
Using Agent Smith, who's capable of being in many places at the same time, was inspired, further underscoring the capabilities of the GE offering and reinforcing its brand reputation for innovation. Agent Smith delivers the payoff near the end of the spot by noting that GE is helping hospitals reduce wait times, or as he puts it: "Now a waiting room is just a room."
IBM Corp. over the years has morphed from being the dominant maker of mainframe computers into a more nimble company that can deliver a raft of services. In a well-produced, 30-second spot that uses a series of quick cuts, it tells the story of how it's analyzing Big Data to help its customers make savvier decisions.
Voice-over says: "Our leaders say they make the wrong decisions about a quarter of the time. So how can they be more right more often? But on a smarter planet, analytics can help predict trends down to the customer; sales down to the shelf." At the conclusion, voice-over then asks: "So what can Big Data and analytics do for you?" Cut to a friendly-looking IBM representative who says: "That's what I'm working on. Let's build a smarter planet." It's a concise story, well told.
United Parcel Service of America in recent years has been telling the story of how it's more than just a package delivery service. It's about logistics, offering a finely tuned package of many services that can help a business run more efficiently.
UPS uses a simulated chalk talk by Billy Donovan, the University of Florida men's basketball coach, to his assistant coaches and players to make the point that logistics is the name of the game. With his game face firmly in place, Donovan, one of the college game's winningest coaches, says: "OK, guys, what do you call the process of getting all the little things right?" They answer in unison: "Logistics!"
With impeccable timing, a UPS delivery man steps into the room and says, "Excuse me. I'm looking for Coach Donovan." The coach glances at the UPS man in his trademark brown uniform and says: "That's what I'm talking about." This spot is as well-executed as a no-look pass.


text:
[Hook 2X: Do or Die]
We the murderers, pimps plus thugs
We the murderers, pimps plus thugs
We the murderers, pimps plus thugs
We the murderers, murderers, murderers
[Ja Rule]
Growing up in the ghetto
With that New York state of mind
I realized that night, that my future was crime
Hustlin dimes was my trademark
Soon as that blunt spark
I, inhale, exhale, took my next sale
Daily routine, get up, wash ass, get cream
Cop that first tear on my slick sixteen
I seen more bricks and cash and sh*t
Got greedy, and weed up with that counterfit
Cuz Pa-pi's gettin sloppy, and kinda fiendly
Stupid n*gga, you been trading thoughts with your enemy?
Murderous, grimey, from where? Hollis Queens
Woodhull, got it all from thugs and fiends
I need cream, so I strap the nine to my waistline
Grabbin OZ, keys to the three
Hundred GS n*gga
Bulletproof vest to eliminate stress
Ha, who the best?
[Hook 2X]
[Do or Die]
Don't get close to our side if you ain't from New York
You screamin "Ride or Die" or "Pimp till you die"
You figurin you a murderer, put your guns in the sky
Make them see em, cuz every n*gga we f*ck with has heaters
Don't get, stepped with these heaters when you hatin on these po-pos
Don't think for one time Ja's comin solo
It's Do or Die, Chicago collabo
Neighborhood watch you from a block with a flock of thugs
Ready to show some love
Grippin with extra guns and clips
And worldwide all these n*ggas know we love that sh*t
How hard we hit, we put you in your darkest pits
It's Do or Die and Ja Rule n*gga
Murda for life
[Hook 2X]
[Do or Die]
Can't keep up with the paper chasin
Gonna run up with these Glocks and rob the basement
Two n*ggas with Glocks, c*ck, pop, drop, quit hastin
I's put two in your b*tch ass gettin hot with the casin
It's kill or be killed in Chi recognize what you facin
Whores and pimps, hustlers, killers, and drug dealers
Since a shorty been hollerin seeds with a plug in
Two for ten, up on the block diamond cut griller
Be em or see em motherf*ckers, be a ho skrilla
Iller noise state put through my blood
If n*ggas got love it's in my blood
Run n*ggas spittin hollows that's followin sh*t
And killin n*ggas that ain't real, been hollerin sh*t
[Hook 2X]
[Do or Die]
Better get gone, chrome by the hip bone
Hit domes like pickles, it's not to sit on
Better get'cho pimp on 'for the clips get sticked home
Sit back til the tricks gone
Then flash through the hood like you misunderstood
Diamonds over get that wood
It's all good see, low down four pound
Full clips for showdowns, smoke weed and throw down
Representin both towns, you don't know now, better slow down
P-I-M-P flippin filty
Cream stream dream, Hennessy, tipsy
Theres blood for the true thug, puttin weight in the po-pub
It's nuthin, sit down and shut up, roll like that
Then in the morn we ball like that
[Hook till fade]


text:
100,000 Friends
Four months ago, I embarked on a quest to have 100,000 friends on thefacebook.com. Now that it's completed, I'm not sure what to do. I feel a bit like Inigo Montoya at the end of The Princess Bride. Maybe there's an opening for a new Dread Pirate Roberts.
First, a brief refresher. I'm a comedian - so I started the quest partly as a joke and partly as a way to get my name out there. There's nothing better to a comedian than simultaneous laughs and publicity. The Facebook seemed the perfect way to get both. Instead I ended up with a journey filled with horror, intrigue, and a dastardly murder plot so dastardly, even the most dastardly of dastardly people couldn't come up with something this dastardly.
Okay, so what really happened was I got a whole bunch of e-mails, but the dastardly stuff sounded more dramatic.
I accomplished both my goals. It was funny in how seriously some people took what I was doing. Hopefully you've perused the hate mail section on my website by now. If you haven't yet, let me sum it up for you: a lot of stupid people have access to the internet.
Some people got offended--really offended--that I sent them an unsolicited friend request. "How dare you disturb my thousand year slumber!," they'd bellow. Of course, I'm paraphrasing.
Really, I was told I had too much time on my hands and got a whole bunch of invitations to have sex with myself. If I could have sex with myself, don't you think I'd have less time on my hands?
For the most part, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Some people checked my profile every day. Some e-mailed all their friends about what I was doing. Some even helped me confirm all the friend requests I was getting. Which all added up to one thing: I'm not the only one with too much time on my hands.
I'm kidding. What it really added up to is that human nature involves a desire to be a part of something bigger than yourself. And that's what this quest was to a lot of people. It was a large, fun way to have an ice breaker. I got hundreds of emails talking about how I was the subject of conversation at a party or on a road trip or in an e-mail. What it came down to was that people wanted to help because of the feeling of community, and because none of us has yet to figure out how to have sex with ourselves.
On the flip side, I also figured out why others hated it. Some people don't just want to be involved in something bigger - they want to be involved in something bigger that they own. And thus, the majority of people who sent me hate mail didn't hate the idea of what I was doing; they hated that I was the one to do it. So much so that there are now several dozen people on The Facebook trying to duplicate what I did.
I happened to check my friend count when I was at 99,999. So I hit reload, and sure enough, I saw it at exactly 100,000. I don't know who that 100,000th was. But thank you, whoever you are. May you live a long happy life, and eventually be flexible enough to have sex with yourself.
There were no balloons, and no band played. But I did get a nice sense of satisfaction that I did what I set out to do and I could go back to my life. Which coincidentally consists mainly of answering emails and coming up with zany quests.
I wanted to thank everyone who helped, be it actively or by simply clicking "confirm." Especially the staff of The Facebook, who let me use their product to perform a simultaneous social experiment and publicity campaign. I also want to, once again, make fun of all the people who had to ask who I am despite the caption on my picture explaining, well, who I am. For those of you that did this, I want to explain that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person, since you might have missed that one, too.
I do have good news, as promised. This September, director Andrew Hevia will be screening his documentary about my quest in Tallahassee. This October, I'll be taping my first TV special in Atlanta. And later this month, I will be having a big party for all the facebookers that want to come in Los Angeles. And I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico. (I'll also be doing shows in lots of other places, but this is supposed to be an 800-word column.)
I will continue to add friends, and answer all the messages I've gotten. I also branched out. I have 4,000 friends on ConnectU and 8,000 on MySpace. But I will always have a place in my heart for the 100,000 from The Facebook. Right next to my left ventricle.


text:
EDMONTON - Help Wanted: Mid-sized western city with major aspirations and plenteous potholes seeks new leader. Applicants must have high tolerance for long meetings, innumerable community events, and impenetrable budget documents. A passion for Edmonton, its people and its future, essential. (Recreational crack users or aggressive daytime biters need not apply.)
With Stephen Mandel's official announcement this week that he will not be seeking a fourth term, the race to be Edmonton's new mayor has begun in earnest.
This fall promises one of the most exciting and complex municipal election we've seen in years.
At least four councillors are considering a run for mayor, including Kerry Diotte, the councillor for Ward 11, who has already launched his campaign. Don Iveson has already said he won't be running for council, leaving his Ward 10 seat open, whether or not he runs for mayor. And it's expected he will.
If Karen Leibovici and perhaps Amarjeet Sohi follow Diotte into the fray, they'll leave their own seats in wards 5 and 12 open.
On top of that, it's likely neither Kim Krushell, from Ward 2 nor Jane Batty, in Ward 6, will run again.
That could mean that as a many as six out of 12 council seats, in addition to the mayor's chair, will be open races this time out. In other words, we aren't just going to get a new mayor. We're going to get a very new council.
What qualities will that new person need?
First, the capacity to lead a potentially fractious council, filled with rookies. Being a mayor is akin to herding cats. Bobcats. You only get one vote on council. No matter how bold your vision or radical your agenda, if you can't build alliances on council, if you can win consensus, you stall and sputter. Mandel's best political trick as mayor was his capacity to build unexpected alliances that won him the votes he needed. His successor would do well to learn from that.
We need a mayor who will be a responsible custodian of public dollars. At this point, I don't much care whether he or she supported or opposed the arena deal, or supported or opposed the redevelopment of the municipal airport lands. Both projects are potentially transformational for our city, but they're also both potentially disastrous.
We need a mayor who does his or her utmost to make sure both initiatives live up to their promise and price tags.
We need a mayor who can lobby effectively for the city's urban interests with the province, the federal government and the capital region, a mayor who can work and play well with others, but who isn't afraid to play aggressively when the need arises.
We need a mayor who won't spend like mad on pet vanity projects, but who will have the courage to invest public dollars when and where they're required.
We need a mayor who will give us the courage to be a big city, and not a backwater, a mayor who will inspire us to be tolerant and creative and open, not selfish, parochial and pinched.
We need a mayor who won't put ideology — left-wing or right-wing — ahead of common sense. We need a mayor who won't be unduly beholden to the donors or interest groups that fund and support a candidacy — be they developers, unions, or activist groups. A mayor who can be her own woman. Or his own man.
And we need a mayor with the stamina, the commitment, the unflagging energy to put in the hard work and gruelling hours the job requires. A mayor who makes us the envy of other Canadian cities.
Is there a candidate out there, either on this current council or outside of it, up to the job? We have five months to poke and prod platforms, to ask tough questions, to see who has the vision, the moxie, the strategic smarts and the work ethic to earn our support.
After nine years of Mandel's expansionist dreams, will Edmontonians opt for a more back-to-basics, fiscally prudent mayor? Or one who wants to build on Mandel's grand legacy? For a mayor who makes them feel safe and secure? Or bold and ambitious?
Because, come Oct. 21, we're not hiring a mayor. We're choosing a future, a vision of the city we'd like to call home. Now, it's up to the candidates to show us what they want our Edmonton to be.
Paula Simons is on Facebook. To join the conversation, go to www.facebook.com/EJPaulaSimons or visit her blog at edmontonjournal.com/Paulatics


text:
Taking your tresses from long to short can be a
stressful, sometimes traumatic experience. The questions that loom,
"What if I hate it"? "What if everyone else hates it"? It takes
courage. I mean we are not fighting a war here but a drastic change
definitely stirs a battle in your head. Especially a change so visible. One you are clearly unable to hide from if heaven forbid
something goes wrong. Let's face it, your hair is right there. It's
the first thing on your body.
did the major
chop to my hair about two months ago, after a 5
year love affair with long hair. Believe me it took me about 5
months to finally decide to go for it. It's not like I've never had
short hair. I am a bonafide hair experimenter. The day I graduated
from high school I headed straight to the salon and promptly cut about 7 inches
from my hair.. And in the year to follow it would go from a bob to
pretty much a buzz cut, give or take an inch. I've been a blond, a red
head, a brunette with major highlights and even accidentally in an at home
experimental phase ended up with pink hair. Thank god for brown dye
kits. The pink was not for me.
seem to be getting grossly off point. Okay lets reel it back in. I
say all of this to say that I did all of that and I still have hair. The best part about hair is that it grows back..and depending on your
vitamin regimen, it grows back fairly quickly.
going from one extreme to the other does require some changes in your
daily and weekly routine. Short hair requires a whole new set of
products, and styling aids. And me having naturally super curly hair,
it took me a few weeks to really get the hang of it. Now everyone will
form their own routine. In hopes of maybe providing a bit of inspiration
I thought I would share mine.
Here we go..
Tools needed and what the hec to do with them. As you read on refer to the handy visual aid at the beginning of this post.
Proliss Ionic Hair Dryer. Whether you blow your hair out once a day
or once a week. An ionic hair dryer dries your hair faster and does much
less damage. I adore mine.
Drybar Hair Clips. While you are blowing out your Bob..part your hair
into four sections and use these clips to hold it in place. I usually
part around from ear to ear leaving a top and bottom section then I part
the bottom half and work my way up to the middle. I section the top
half down the middle and work my way up from each ear. I completely separate my bangs from it all and secure in place until the rest if my hair is dry. I secure the
hair in each clip so as I am blowing out the loose sections the other
sections don't dry up. If you have curly hair like me, the key to a good
blowout is to start with wet hair.
3. Phyto 7. This non greasy moister cream is brilliant. I apply it to my wet hair from roots to ends and a little more anywhere my hair is a bit more dry. For me that is the center of my head and both sides by my ears. I was a bit reluctant at first because it is a bit pricey for such a small tube. However a little goes a long way.
4. Olivia Garden Round Bristle Ceramic Brush. This is where for me the huge difference is between short and long hair. Before I cut my hair I never used a round brush to blow dry. This brush makes all the difference between a flat lifeless bob and a bouncy beautiful bob. Even if you flatiron afterwards. Which is necessary for those of us with curly hair. Here's the thing. Don't try to emulate what you see your stylist do when they blow out your hair. It's impossible due to to the fact that your arms are attached to your body. Take a second and figure out what positioning works best for you. For me, I grab a section, roll the hair around the brush first, then apply the heat. Working my way from the roots to the ends and using a whole lot of tension.
5. L'Oreal total repair 5. Heat protectant is super important in maintaining the shine and bounce if your bob. Whether you flatiron or just curl, putting a barrier between your strands and the iron is a must. There are a ton of thermal protectant products out there and L'Oreal has been rocking my world lately with their total repair system. I spray a tiny amount of this dry oil into the palm of my hands and distribute it evenly through my freshly blown out hair before any further styling takes place. It protects and smells great!
6. T3 Single Pass Flat Iron. Here is what I have to say about flat irons. They are not all created equal. Invest in a good one and you will save both time and money. Take it from me. I have wasted more money trying to get a cheaper flatiron that ends up not working. Anyhow.. A good flatiron can curl, straighten, defrizz and seal in shine. I always go over my blowout with a flatiron. Sealing the cuticle of your hair helps to eliminate the frizz that occurs when you step outside. For the curly haired gals.. just pass the iron on your roots to ensure that they stay straight.
7. Amika triple barrel curling Iron. Three curlers in one. Great for making tousled beachy bedroom waves. Use the biggest iron for a longer bob.. and the smaller irons to add texture to shorter cuts. It comes with a handy glove to protect your hand.
Bangs are not as scary as they seem. Here's what to do. Use your round brush.. wrap your bangs around it as far as they will go. Blow dry with tension. Once dry, use a small tooth comb and flat iron straight. Pass the iron through a few times. Slightly curve the iron under towards the end of the last pass to get a slight bend. I do this every day.. even on the days that I do not wash my hair.
From right to left..
1. Karlie Kloss: The Short, sexy and flirty bob with a medium bang. This bob is easy to maintain and even easier to grow out
2. Rihanna: The edgy bob with long bangs. This is a daring move due to the extreme differences in hair lengths that will adorn your head all at one time.. Super cool. Rock and roll!
3.Keira Knightley: The Lob with long bangs. It's the long bob. Not too scary. Super cute and will work on everyone.
4.Linda Evangelista: The classic sophisticated bob with a shorter bang. This bob stands the test of time. Case in point.. this photo was taken in 1996.
Okay so now that you are armed with the facts.. and some pretty awesome inspiration.. get out there and chop your locks..
Happy Monday
Bang's & Bob's.. I "Like"
Taye 😉
Stumbled upon your blog today! Love this post……I actually did a similar post on bangs and bobs…great minds think alike. I love your chic short hair….looks amazing on you. I wish more girls we be brave to cut off there hair. I feel that there is so many more styling options. Lucky us!
OC style blog
I really love your blog, I just came across it. Your formatting and content are great, I look forward to following!
Keira Knightly is "the Lob" not Olivia Wilde.


text:
Just when I thought hotel life might get humdrum, I discovered the Making Waves Boatel, a B&B operating on a trawler in the Toronto harbour. It's an engaging non-hotel experience steps from downtown Toronto. The boat is on the water, but it remains docked at all times so guests enjoy a slice of nautical life, although not a cruise on the high seas.
If you do a Google map search for Toronto B&Bs, most are spread out north of Dundas St., but Boatel is an isolated red dot well south of downtown. That's the good part. No skyscrapers, no concrete and no cars. Only open sky and the gentle lapping of waves against the hull, with the impressive Toronto skyline as a backdrop.
On the port side of the boat, the B&B yields a yacht-worthy view of the open waters of Lake Ontario and the passing flotilla of sailboats, powerboats, schooners and ocean-going ships.
On the starboard side, Boatel borders the Toronto Music Garden, a waterfront promenade that draws strollers, joggers, dog-walkers and cyclists (there is a Bixi station at the end of the quay). And, only steps from Boatel, Toronto Harbourfront will present live indoor and outdoor shows at various times, many designed for children and many for free.
When you arrive at Queen's Quay West, Captain Ted Greene will meet you and walk you down the pier to Boatel. He's a commercial maritime pilot licensed by Transport Canada, and Diane Greene is his wife, first mate and the breakfast chef.
Staying at Boatel is similar to staying at any B & B, but the surroundings are totally different. Visits usually start with a cup of coffee and an orientation in the salon. Guests can relax here, indoors, with the TV, or settle into a lounge chair on the upper deck. In fine weather, that's the ideal spot at sunset, and Boatel has an honour bar for wine and beer, or guests can bring their own.
In the morning, Diane cooks up a storm in the galley with a different dish daily — perhaps blueberry pumpkin pancakes, baked eggs with herbs and avocado, apple lasagna with ricotta and cheddar cheese or her signature breakfast pizza with basil pesto, kale, egg and feta.
Boatel has three staterooms: Veradero and Nassau are both in the bow, so they are cozy and triangular niches, just big enough for two people to sleep on platforms covered with foam mattresses and homespun quilts. They are compact spaces, but once you are snuggled in, they are roomier than they look. These two staterooms share a head (that's nautical talk for bathroom), which encompasses a sink, a shower and a toilet with a pedal-flush, plus a cabinet for toiletries.
The Bondi is the larger stateroom, shaped more like a mainland bedroom and equipped with a flat-screen television and an iHome radio with iPod dock. This room has its own private head and more portholes for better daylight and views.
"People come to us for the uniqueness, to have a change from a standard hotel room, or for a light adventure, or simply because they are curious about the boating lifestyle," said Diane.
Business people, usually stuck in offices where the windows don't open, appreciate the sunlight and fresh air. They can hold meetings in Boatel's breakfast room, which doubles as a boardroom on the aft deck. The boat gently rocks on the water, the ideas flow, the vibe is positive and clients are charmed.
"It's very calm; it's a great place to have no distractions, especially since it's almost in the middle of bustling Toronto," said Montrealer Charles Quintal, president of Quintal & Co. Financial Services who travels to Toronto frequently for business.
Another Boatel guest, Gérald Brosseau, visited with his wife, Lola Thissault. "We liked the price, and we loved the personal service, much better than a big hotel," said Brosseau.
"Diane and Ted showed us to the subway, suggested restaurants and gave us discount tickets for a lot of attractions … we were a short walk from the CN Tower … we didn't use our car at all, just left it parked in the marina."
The Greenes have a special retreat planned in May to raise awareness of and to benefit Childhood Cancer Canada. Girls Night INN will be a mini-vacation for girls living with cancer. Three teenagers and their mothers will travel from their home towns to Toronto, courtesy of VIA Rail, and will enjoy a weekend on Boatel, with a City Sightseeing Toronto bus tour, a harbour cruise on Mariposa Cruises and dinner catered by Williams Fresh Café, plus gifts from Toys-R-Us, Million Dollar Smiles (a support organization) and Shoppers Drug Mart.
Boatel is docked about a half-kilometre, in various directions, from the Habourfront Centre, the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the CN Tower, the Rogers Centre, where the Blue Jays play, and Ripley's Aquarium, which opened in 2013 with nine vast galleries of marine life. Boatel also is 1.5 kilometres from Union Station. Most guests walk everywhere, hop on the subway or rent a Bixi, just down the quay.
firstname.lastname@example.com Twitter: rochellelash
If you go:
VIA Rail: 514 989-2626, 888-842-7245, www.viarail.ca; operates approximately seven trains daily each way between Montreal and Toronto; economy costs $39-$155 one-way, or $78-$310 round trip; business class costs $89-$248 one way or $178-$496 round trip. By air: Air Canada and Porter Airlines operate frequent flights daily from Montreal's Trudeau Airport to the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.
Making Waves Boatel: 647-403-2764, www.boatel.ca; 539 Queens Quay W., Toronto; operates May 1-Sept. 30.
Price: $250 for two people in the Bondi stateroom with private head (bathroom), $175 for Nassau and Veradero, which share a bathroom; $525 for all three rooms for up to six people; all including wi-fi, breakfast and free telephone calls throughout North America. Special diets on request.
Tourism Toronto: 800-499-2514, 416-987-1739, www.seetorontonow.com.


text:
By Kastalia Medrano
Every lobster reference we have, from playful cartoons to sunburn allegories, leads us to believe that the clawed crustaceans are red.
Not so in the case of Toby, a rare blue lobster caught in May off the Maryland coast. John Gourley, who owns the restaurant to which Toby was brought, graciously donated him to the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C.
Weird & Wild spoke to lobster experts about blue lobsters and the crustacean's panorama of color variations.
Buster Blue, a rare blue lobster, was caught in 2009. Photo by Justin Brooks
Though it seems the likes of Toby would turn up, well, once in a blue moon, it's "unusual, but not that unusual" to find a blue lobster, said Robert C. Bayer, executive director of the Lobster Institute, an organization that works to sustain the U.S. lobster fishery. Though the odds of such an encounter run about one in two million, "we see a few every year," Bayer said.
True red lobsters—not just ones that turn red when cooked—are a one-in-ten-million find. Yellow lobsters, 1 in 30 million. If you find an albino lobster, hang onto it, because those are one in a hundred million. Bayer can't recall ever seeing one.
(See pictures of albino animals.)
Colorful Lobsters Explained
Genetics are mostly the cause of the odd colorations, noted National Aquarium curator Jay Bradley.
"Blue, in particular, is a genetic defect in that the lobsters are producing more of a certain protein than normal," Bradley said.
"Combined with their normal pigmentation, it forms a blue color. But they turn red when they're boiled, like the rest. The more orange-y ones [when they're alive] are an expression of the lack of that protein, so they're only showing this carotenoid pigment, and it's bright red, like how they look when they're boiled."
The only lobsters that don't turn red in the pot are albinos, sometimes referred to as "crystal" lobsters.
Just as lobsters aren't all the same color, neither are they necessarily only one color. "Calico" lobsters, as they've been called, display mottled shells, usually comprising black and orange. The odds of a calico lobster is 1 in 30 million.
(See "Lobster Caught 'Half Cooked' in Maine.")
Farther down the statistical rabbit hole, at 1 in 50 million, are split-colored lobsters, or those showing two colors that are distinctly separated—sometimes split down the middle, sometimes showing a more checkerboard pattern. All split-colored specimens observed by the Lobster Institute so far have also proven hermaphroditic.
Hermaphrodites aside, the color differences are only skin-deep, Bayer explained. More—or less—brightly colored lobsters don't live longer than average, nor are there any recorded difference in size, reproduction, or general health. And despite their value as a novelty, rare-colored lobsters aren't a target for poachers or black-market traders for precisely that reason—they're rare. No one wastes time hunting for them.
Odd-Colored Lobsters May Help Science
But weirdly hued lobsters—blue ones in particular—can be useful for scientific purposes, he noted.
"If you breed a blue male and blue female, you get all blue offspring," Bayer said. "So [20 years ago] we did that, and released them, and in the process studied their behavior to see if there were any obvious impediments to their survival." There weren't.
"The reason we're interested in them is we use them as a marker to study their survival rates," Bayer said, explaining that no one knows for certain just how long a lobster can live. "We released them and followed them for ten years. I'd guess they can maybe live a hundred years—there's no way to tell how old they are. And they will reproduce as long as they're alive."
(Also see "Lobsters to Be Supersized by Climate Change?")
And that reproductive cycle can last up to two years. A female, once sexually mature, will first shed her shell. She then sends a pheromone into the water that simultaneously alerts male lobsters to her presence and serves as a warning to not eat her.
That's because lobsters are occasionally cannibalistic and will attack their own kind when their target is in the vulnerable, soft-shelled stage that follows molting, as a female must be in to conceive. Lobsters will remain hungry rather than attack a female ready to breed, however.
Once a male and female mate, according to Bayer, the female's ovaries begin to mature. Six to nine months later, the eggs are extruded from her tail, where they remain, each no bigger than a raspberry kernel. There they remain for still another six to nine months, when they are released into the water as larvae.
"They don't look very much like lobsters at that point," Bayer said. "They don't have claws, and there's a very small survival rate. But at the end of two weeks, you have a lobster that has molted four times and is ready to settle to the bottom, ready to begin a happy life. Until, you know, we eat them."
A large female can lay up to 80,000 eggs at a time. So while chances are most will grow to be a nondescript sort of green, we're never sure when the next blue—or yellow or calico or albino—lobster has been born.