h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Was Mel Brooks involved? It sounds like The Producers.

The Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax NS
http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mmanew/en/home/default.aspx
has a lot of Titanic memorabilia that was
recovered along with the bodies that were
brought here for identification and burial.
A deckchair:
http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mmanew/en/home/whattoseedo/default.aspx

The new artifacts brought up recently by James
Cameron's expeditions are at auction and valued
at millions.

The curator here has been put on the spot because
the artifacts on display are virtually within touching
distance of the great unwashed public.

When asked about the value he said, "Oh these are all
worth more than the new stuff they brought up. These
things survived the sinking."


~jwf~

Here's another anniversary of tragedy at sea.
There's ice and storms and heroism and racial discrimination.
And it's 1942 on the rocky shores of Newfoundland.
The URL goes to a preview page for those who don't trust links.
Click 'proceed to site'.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/759cq4t


~jwf~

That's an amazing story of heroism and kindness.

Today I heard one of those 'this day in history' reports
on the CBC and it simply blew my mind. A mix of milestones,
disasters, birthdays, deaths and a lot of personal memories.

But the one story that stood out was the Christchurch quake
that was just a year ago.


Anybody heard from kea lately?


~jwf~

Today (feb 22 2012) is also the 40th anniversary of the IRA's bombing campaign on the UK mainland, when they planted a bomb in Aldershot:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/22/newsid_2519000/2519029.stm

They killed seven: 5 female kitchen staff, a gardener, and a Catholic padre.

The bomb was the IRA's response to the Bloody Sunday shootings on 30th January.

The IRA's bombing campaign in Britain started long before 40 years ago. I guess you can make anything be an anniversary - it just depends when you start counting.

I'm sure that not everything can be made into an anniversary, though. To take an admittedly extreme example, what day would be the four-and-a-half-billionth anniversary of the formation of the Earth?

The word anniversary of course is based on the word annual,
a period of time equal to one earth orbit of the sun. This
would have varied over time with the size, shape and mass of
the collected bits that make up today's earth.

It may not be apparent or even comprehensible but earth is in
an ongoing process in its relation to the star which gave us
birth. Human consciousness represents a small part of the total
time involved. And since the whole notion of anniversaries is a
human concept we'd have to establish an arbitrary beginning date
perhaps coincidental with the advent of fire and someone's seeing
possible relationships between it and the sun above.


~jwf~