Abby Sunderland is a 16 year-old girl from Thousand Oaks, California. On January 24, 2010, Abby embarked on a solo-sailing journey around the world. The trip, approximately 24,500 miles long (39,429 km), will take approximately 5 to 6 months to complete.
Having turned 16 on Oct. 19, Abby is chasing a record now held by British 17-year-old Mike Perham, who took the mark last August from Abby's brother Zac.
But Perham's mark could be beaten soon by Australia's 16-year-old Jessica Watson, born five months earlier than Abby and currently in the middle of a round-the-world solo voyage.
Zac was 17 when he completed a 13-month trip last July, heading west across the Pacific.
Unlike Zac and the others, Abby plans no stops on land, and she has a faster yacht designed for the giant swells and 60-knot winds she will face on a different route: starting south from California, past
The nonstop itinerary would give her an added distinction as the youngest person to sail around the world "unassisted," topping Australia's Jesse Martin, who did it at 18 in 1999.
To read more about Abby’s incredible journey click here:
With the official start of Spring, life seems to be getting a bit sweeter in Southern California. Gone are the storm clouds that had been shrouding the Southland with a dark, cold and gloomy cover.
The last few days, Southern Californians have been basking in the warm rays of a glorious Sun. Warm days and clear skies are back - the promise of a fun Summer beckons tantalizingly ahead.
With the return of warm, sunny days, a small miracle has taken place in Southern California. If you recall, I have written several articles about the damage that the recent storms caused to the population of California’s brown pelican. Following the storms, sick or dying pelicans began to wash ashore. There were reports of very sick pelicans flying inland searching for food. Pelican rehabilitation centers were filled with sick birds in need of rescue.
Scientists were baffled by the sudden and pervasive pelican die off. While they looked for clues to explain the pelicans’ deaths, the birds continued to die in large numbers.
In the weeks following the storms, I saw the bodies of dead pelicans along the bike trails that I normally ride. The skies above the beach, which were usually filled with dozens of pelicans flying in formation like ancient Pterodactyls, were empty of the birds. In the lagoon at the mouth of the Ventura River, home for a large group of brown pelicans, there were only a few pelicans swimming with the other birds.
Then last Sunday I went for my usual bike ride on by the beach on Pacific Coast Highway. As I rounded a corned and faced the ocean, a wonderful sight greeted my eyes. Flying in circles above the water was a whole bunch of brown pelicans.
When I took a closer look, I saw the reason for the pelicans’ sudden appearance. Swimming near the water’s surface there must have been a school of fish. The pelicans flew in big circles over the school of fish, then dove into the water to pick up a fish and then returned to air to get back in line. Watching the pelicans fly over the school of fish was like watching people waiting at a sushi super buffet line.
After a cold, wet winter when the storms almost killed off the pelicans, it was good to see that Mother Nature still cares and protects its critters.
As B.J. Thomas sang in a song that was popular back in the ‘70s:
So please play for me a sad melody So sad that it makes everybody cry-y-y-y A real hurtin' song about a love that's gone wrong 'cause I don't want to cry all alone
Here are three songs about lost love.
BREAD – Everything I Own
WILLIE NELSON – You Were Always On My Mind
THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS – You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling
EDITOR’S NOTE: The two black and white photos were taken at the Sculpture Garden in the Norton Simon Museum. The Norton Simon Museum in located in Pasadena, California. The Simon collections include European paintings, sculpture, tapestry and remarkable sculpture from South Asia. Outside gardens house sculpture and a pond. The museum is located along the route of the Tournament of Roses Parade, where its distinctive, brown tile-exterior can be seen in the background on television.
The museum features a theater which shows films throughout the day. It hosts lectures, symposia, and dance and musical performances year-round.
The first photograph is of a sculpture by French – Catalan sculptor Aristide Maillol (December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944). The subject of nearly all of Maillol's mature work is the female body, treated with a classical emphasis on stable forms. The figurative style of his large bronzes is perceived as an important precursor to the greater simplifications of Henry Moore and Alberto Giacometti, and his serene classicism set a standard for European (and American) figure sculpture until the end of World War II.
He died in Banyuls, France at the age of eighty-three, in an automobile accident. A large collection of Maillol's work is maintained at the Musée Maillol in Paris, which was established by Dina Vierny, Maillol's model and platonic companion during the last 10 years of his life.
The sculpture on this photograph is called Le Montagne, (The Mountain) and was sculpted by Maillol in 1937. Dina Vierny was the model for this work.
The second photograph is of a bronze sculpture by British sculptor Henry Moore (July 30 1898 – August 31 1986). Moore was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art.
Moore was born in Castleford, the son of a self-taught Irish mining engineer. Henry became well-known through his larger-scale abstract cast bronze and carved marble sculptures, and was instrumental in introducing a particular form of modernism to the United Kingdom.
His forms are usually abstractions of the human figure, typically depicting mother-and-child or reclining figures. Moore's works are usually suggestive of the female body, apart from a phase in the 1950s when he sculpted family groups. His forms are generally pierced or contain hollow spaces. Many interpreters liken the undulating form of his reclining figures to the landscape and hills of his birthplace, Yorkshire. Maillol was a big influence in Moore’s work.
The Art Gallery of Ontario (Ontario, Canada) houses the largest public collection of Moore’s works in the world.
The third, and final photograph depicts a worker bee “working” a flower. It was taken on the gardens of the Gene Autry Museum, in Griffith park, Los Angeles, California.
At Between Homes we have some very talented residents. Two of those residents immediately come to mind.
First is Bird Thor. I have known Bird for a very long time. In addition to being a good friend, Bird is also a very talented writer. Bird's mother tongue is Swedish, in which she has written many articles about Vikings and Viking history. Bird can also express herself quite well in short, eloquent poetry written in English.
Here is one sample of Bird's poem:
A child is born -By Bird Thor
A child is born in joy A mother smile at the little baby pink skin and small feet joy for a family But they grow up so fast One day they’re out
At Between Homes we also have very talented graphic designers. One of them is Rogers Albatros. Rogers has contributed many posters and photos to BH. Here is a sample of Rogers's work. (I really love the subject of this particular poster. OK, I can be just as vain as the next person!)
In the aftermath following the deaths of two Southern California young women, Amber Dubois and Chelsea King, there has been renewed focus on the issue of violence against women, especially young women.
Human trafficking is a particularly egregious form of violence. Unfortunately, human trafficking is on the rise. I have previously written on the issue of human trafficking and its pernicious effect on its young victims - be they male or female.
At a recent public forum, held in Oxnard, California, expert Susan Bissell spoke about human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Ms. Bissell is intimately familiar with the subject of sexual exploitation; she survived sexual abuse by a family member and ran away as a teenager, only to be sexually exploited by an employer.
Speaking in front of an audience of about 65 people, Ms. Bissell said, “Sexual exploitation and abuse of children is becoming more common.” Ms. Bissell then added, that the Internet is partially responsible for the increase number of incidents of sexual exploitation of children.
I have stated it before, and I will repeat it again: as a society we simply cannot stand idly by while our society’s most vulnerable members are being used and exploited. Children are our society’s our future. If we continue to turn a blind eye to the abuse, exploitation and mistreatment of children we will be contributing to the destruction of our species.
For more information on the magnitude of the problem and on ways that you can help children, please go here: Silver Braid Project
Let’s make this a safer and more joyful world for future generations.
In the article, I documented the slaughter of dolphins that occurs every year in the Japanese town of Taiji. The town of Taiji is located at the tip of the Kii peninsula, south of Kyoto. During the slaughter season, which runs from October through March, more than 3,000 small whales and striped, bottlenose and spotted dolphins have been slaughtered for meat that ends up on the tables of local homes and restaurants and in vacuum-packed bags in supermarkets. According to environmentalists, this is probably the single, largest annual cull of cetaceans – about 26,000 year-round around coastal Japan - in the world.
The dolphin hunts are notoriously brutal. Local dolphin hunters erect blue tarpaulin sheets to block the main viewing spots overlooking the cove where the killings take place to prevent picture taking. The hunt starts just outside the cove, where a small fleet of hunting boats surrounds a pod of migrating dolphins. The hunters then lower metal poles into the sea and bang them to frighten the animals and to disrupt their sonar. Once the panicking, thrashing dolphins are herded into the narrow cove, the hunters attack them with knives, turning the sea bloody red before dragging the wounded and dying animals to a harbor-side warehouse where the surviving dolphins are slaughtered.
In my article, I also mentioned a wonderful documentary film titled The Cove. In that film, the filmmakers document the terrible cruelty of the hunt, how these intelligent mammals are herded into a small cove and then beaten to death by the Japanese “fishermen.” The documentary is a powerful reminder of man’s cruelty to the animals that share our planet with us.
Tonight, during the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony, The Cove, won an “Oscar” for best documentary film. Winning an Oscar will undoubtedly bring additional exposure to the plight of the Taiji dolphins. Maybe now Taiji’s residents will be persuaded to end the cruel and needless practice of the dolphin killing fields.
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