We skipped a week due to my Scotland posts, but here is this week's TED (the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference)video, back on schedule. Actually this one's for Bella who enjoys the Technology videos the best. This is the most jawdropping piece of technology you're likely to ever see.
Is this a new life form?
Dutch artist Theo Jansen demonstrates his amazingly lifelike kinetic sculptures, built from plastic tubes and lemonade bottles. His "Strandbeests" (Beach Creatures) are built to move and even survive on their own. Watch them walk the coastline of Holland, feeding on wind and fleeing from water.
I've made the climb down to the foot of the bluffs for the first time in six months. There is no wind and the lake is gentle. Lindsay has taken off up the beach where a flock of seagulls have rested through the night from a long day spent scavanging.
As she approaches, barking madly, they take off in a lazy cloud of white, giving her a distainful glance as they rise into the sky.
Its been a hard climb down to the beach. We're at the bottom of Coronation Dr. where the bluffs lower to about twenty feet in height and some stones form a rough stairway to the lake.
Its the day after St. Patrick's Day and I'm thinking about a different and more famous stone than the one I just climbed. Millions have made the pilgrimage to Blarney Castle in southern Ireland to kiss its "stone of eloquence" But now I read they may have put their lips on the wrong stone.
The term "Blarney talk" is thought to stem from Queen Elizabeth I who lost patience with the insolent excuses of Chieftain Cormac MacDermot Mor MacCarthy who refused to hand the castle to English forces and said: "Blarney, Blarney, I will hear no more of this Blarney!"
Anyone can try to gain Chieftain MacCarthy's rare gift for persuasive speech by climbing up to the battlements of one of Ireland's top tourist attractions, bending backwards over a long drop and kissing the "Blarney Stone", a difficult, but far from impossible task. My mother kissed the stone when she was in her 70's.
I've never visited the castle, or kissed the stone myself, having been told (more than once) that I'm sufficiently full of blarney and not in need of a refill. Now it turns out my lack of effort might have been a good thing, because archaeologist, Mark Samuel, claims the stone my mother (and 400,000 other yearly tourists) kissed cannot be "The" Blarney stone. Indeed, he claims, the first mention of the stone in its current position is only from 1888.
His book, "Blarney Castle: Its History, Development and Purpose" also traces the history of the stone, said either to have been "Jacob's Pillow" and brought back by crusaders from the Holy Land or that it is part of the Stone of Scone on which Scottish monarchs are crowned and was a 14th Century gift from King Robert the Bruce of Scotland.
The reason for doubt about the current Blarney Stone comes from earlier descriptions of pilgrims having to reach the stone by being lowered 2.4 meters (8 feet) by rope, head downward from the top of the castle. Now that, my mother didn't do.
Samuel claims that after 1800 either they moved the stone or else simply declared another stone the Blarney stone. Your not going to have 400,000 tourist each year willing to have their legs tied and lowered 8 feet down the steep castle walls.
Samuel said he was not looking to debunk the Blarney stone's long history, only to establish which was the original. His book lists three possible alternatives to the current stone.
But then, maybe Samuel is just full of a lot of Blarney.
Before you go, check out the Comments section for some wonderful photos of the Blarney Stone kindly sent over by Dalpha from the Major Danes blog.
Dan Sandor, recent Conservative candidate in Scarborough Centre, and I are leading the fight to protect police enforcement animals here in Canada with a new law Sandor calls "Brigadier's Law".
Brigadier was an 8-year-old prize-winning Belgian cross, who worked in the Mounted Unit of Toronto Police until he was killed by an erratic driver in 2006 at Lawrence and Kingston Road, about a kilometer from my home. Being 16 hands high, "Brig", the "Gentle Giant", weighed 1500 lbs but was no match for a speeding van.
According to police, on February 24, 2006, Brigadier and his rider, PC Kevin Bradfield, were on Community Patrol in the West Hill area, when their attention was drawn to a driver of a van stopped at the former drive-through ATM machine at TD Canada Trust.
The driver was reportedly yelling and screaming at the driver in front of him. The enraged driver sped away when approached by the mounted unit, but then made a screeching u-turn and came roaring back down Lawrence, ramming full force into Brigadier. Leaving the horse and his rider crumpled in the roadway. Brigadier had been struck so hard, the full imprint of his head was in the roof of the van
The officer's neck, back and rib were damaged, and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. But Brigadier had taken the full brunt of the collision and his massive injuries were untreatable.
He was put down where he lay on the street next to MacDonalds Restaurant, by officers from the Toronto Police Emergency Task Force.
Unlike many other countries and several US states, there are no additional charges available under the Criminal Code of Canada for deliberately killing a law enforcement animal. This is despite the critical roll Police Service Animals perform in a whole range of duties such as Search and Rescue, Community Oriented Policing, Public Safety and building a bridge between the community and the police.
Duties that often place their lives at special risk for the community good.
Now Dan Sandor has proposed creating an amendment to the Criminal Code of Canada to better protect Law Enforcement Animals.
Letters have been written to the Canadian Federal Government, including the Prime Ministers office, regarding this proposal giving Police Service Animals the much needed protection they require, under the law.
The proposed amendment was nicknamed "BRIGADIERS LAW". For a copy of the open letter to Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, written by Dan Sandor, visit: Brigadier's Law or join us in furthering this cause on Facebook at Brigadier's Law
(And aye, in honour of The Day we've dressed the joint up a wee bit. To give it a wee bit o' the Celtic vaudeville feel, don't you know. We hope you'll be likin' it.)
My grandmother's cousins, the O'Connor Sisters, were the daughters of John O'Connor and Ellen O'Leary (no relation to the owner of the cow that burned down Chicago). Born on their parents pioneering farm in southern Etobicoke, they made their 1910 singing debut at Shea's in Buffalo.
Now largely forgotten, they appeared with the likes of Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, Jimmy Durante, Buster Keaton, Sophie Tucker, Red Skelton, George Burns and Gracie Allen. The Sisters played the major vaudville houses throughout the North East United States and Canada.
Among the theatres where they appeared were Shea's Hippadrome in Toronto, Fox Theatre in Detroit, Majestic in Chicago and Fifth Avenue in New York.
When sisters left the group to marry, three of the sisters continued as a trio, working into the 1930's. The members of the group had always been fluid, beginning as a quartet, it became a sextet when their manager decided that would be original. They were the subject of a major CBC special in 1973 with music arranged by Moe Koffman and Peter Appleyard.
Billed as the "Greatest Singing Voices in Vaudeville", some of their earliest numbers were arranged by a young composer just beginning his career, George Gershwin. Comedians as well as singers, their 12 minute act featured much playful comedy, especially when one of the sisters discovered she could sing baritone. The Sisters were also natural atheletes, with Mary holding the World record for running the half mile. Their costumes were almost always mentioned in reviews of their act, some of their gowns costing up to $1,000.--an amazing sum for 1920.
The Sisters never let the world of show business erode their deep religious faith. They often sang on Sunday mornings at major churches as they travelled the country, "Leonard's Mass" being their favourite.
Mary, Anna, Ada, Kathleen, Vera & Nellie
One of the songs they loved to sing was Danny boy. In honour of St; Patrick's Day, here is a beautiful version by Celtic Women.
She told us her secret during a visit with Charles. My daughter knew Charles personally, having worked with him for several years while she was attending Ryerson University.
He was temperamental, but what artist isn't? He was used to throwing his considerable weight around, but never with her. He always treated her with great respect.
As an artist, Charles has a world wide reputation. His paintings are in great demand but sell for a modest price between $400 to $1000 dollars. Charles may be intimidating, but he isn't greedy and his needs are simple. An abstract artist he is noted for his use of colour, and the violence of course.
With Charles the potential for violence is always there, just below the surface. And when you weight over 400 pounds, all of it solid muscle, that makes you very dangerous indeed.
Except with Kathy, whom he always treated kindly and with grave courteously. Part of her job was to clean his windows while he sat and watched her with intense fascination. Sometimes they sent a guy along to help her, but that always made Charles fly into a violent rage. Any male coming close to the windows of his cage would rouse him to a ferocious anger and he would charge the window throwing his full weight at the bullet proof glass. Over and over again.
The resounding impacts would reverberate through the African Pavilion at the Toronto Zoo, frightening many of the patrons. Parents would have to explain that Male Silver Back gorillas were very protective of their children and didn't take well to male intruders. And Charles has over ten children.
Today there is no protective glass between us and Charles. The Mountain Gorilla exhibit has been moved to a new enclosure, the worlds largest indoor gorilla exhibit. It is height that protects us now, not bullet proof glass.
Kathy likes the new display. It is much larger than the old one and she always worried about Charles hurting himself with those frightening charges at the glass.
She's feeling a little protective of children these days herself, she tells us, now that she is pregnant again.
My wife stops. Her heart skips a beat. There's the need for a wrenching adjustment in thinking from gorillas to babies. What? Pregnant again? Kathy?
My daughter has a huge grin on her face and suddenly there are hugs and tears all around. I shake her husband's hand while their son dances around us with a big "we gotcha" smile on his face.It had been seven years since her first and only child, so we are very surprised and pleased by the news.
This will make four living grandchildren for us. There was a fifth, my youngest daughter's first son, but that was over nine years ago now and is not a story for this happy time.
In the distance, Charles takes the news in his stride, lying comfortably on his back beside a log, arms akimbo, one leg pointed straight toward the sky,giving himself an occasional lazy scratch.
Many Blogstream members are there
already! Quotes from members: "It's like blog lite!" -- "I like the instant
gratification!" -- "Stop spectating, get in the game!"
If you have not joined in, you are really missing out!
