Local tribe of Chumash Native Americans goes all-in on sustainability

In perfect step with the wisdom and heritage of their ancestors — who lived in relative harmony with nature for thousands of prosperous years — the Santa Ynez Band of Mission Indians is turning its 130-acre reservation into a trailblazing example of sustainability in action.

During the past five years, with very little fanfare or recognition from the outside community, the Chumash people (as they are better known these days) have greened up every corner of their land, from the very public casino all the way down to their individual homes. With so many solar panels, biofuels, drought-tolerant plants, and creek-restoration projects underway — not to mention practical training for tribal members and loads of money being allocated to the cause — the Chumash efforts are not only at the forefront of what anyone else is doing in Santa Barbara County; they appear to be leading the state in this sort of development, as well.

“They are an actual vision of what can be achieved, and that is something the environmental movement needs. … It’s amazing and inspiring.”

And better yet, to hear the tribe tell it, they are just getting started.

Keep reading – The Sustainable Chumash

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Austrian sculpture – a house built upside down

A sculpture from Austria that takes the domestic setting and flips it on its head:

The upside down house was created by Polish architects Irek Glowacki and Marek Rozanski, and was built in the Austrian village of Terfens to serve as a tourist attraction. via Giant Sparrow

Voyager I – about to leave our Solar System

Last week, in the corners of the Internet devoted to outer space, things started to get a little, well, hot. Voyager 1, the man-made object farthest away from Earth, was encountering a sharp uptick in the number of a certain kind of energetic particles around it. Had the spacecraft become the first human creation to “officially” leave the solar system?

It’s hard to overstate how wild an accomplishment this would be: A machine, built here on Earth by the brain- and handiwork of humans, has sailed from Florida, out of Earth’s orbit, beyond Mars, beyond the gas giants of Jupiter and Saturn, and may now have left the heliosphere — tiny dot in the universe beholden to our sun. Had it really happened? How would we know?

We’re not quite there yet, Voyager’s project scientist and former head of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, Edward Stone, told me. The spacecraft is on its way out — “it’s leaving the solar system” — but we don’t know how far it has to go or what that transition to interstellar space will look like.

 

Keep reading – Get Ready, Because Voyager I Is *This Close* to Leaving Our Solar System

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Art exhibit – the native americans who survived the Spanish Colonial period

Here is a new exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art:

Children of the Plumed Serpent: the Legacy of Quetzalcoatl

You may remember the name Quetzalcoatl as the so-called white-bearded God in Atzec lore. Which Hernán Cortés was supposed to represent and then use to his advantage when he conquered the greatest empire of the Americas.

That understanding is in some dispute but what is not are the enemies of the Aztecs. The Nahua, Mixtec, and Zapotec kingdoms were resisting the Aztecs when the Spaniards arrived. They quickly allied with Spain and established a thriving culture, language, and trade that survives to this day.

These cultures have a strong history and a powerful modern presence in Mexico and the United States. This exhibit presents artifacts from their ancient and colonial history. A fascinating look at Native Americans who somewhat escaped the ravages of colonialism.

The exhibition examines the art and material objects of late pre-Columbian and early colonial societies across Mexico to explore Quetzalcoatl’s role as founder and benefactor of the Nahua-, Mixtec-, and Zapotec-dominated kingdoms of southern Mexico. These socially and culturally complex communities successfully resisted both Aztec and Spanish subjugation, flourishing during an era of unprecedented international entrepreneurship and cultural innovation. On view are painted manuscripts (codices), polychrome ceramics, textiles, and exquisite works of gold, turquoise, and shell that reflect the achievements of the Children of the Plumed Serpent.

 

Learn more about the exhibit – LACMA: Children of the Plumed Serpent

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Apple Adds Gay and Lesbian Couple Icons to iOS 6

The new version of Apple’s iPhone operating system comes with new emojis, the popular emoticons that are often used in texting and email, especially by young kids and nerdy adults like me. Two of these new pictograms represent gay and lesbian couples for the first time.

The icons are placed next to the previous relationship-related emojis showing a heterosexual couple holding hands and a heterosexual couple with a son. One shows two men holding hands. The other shows two women in the same position.

From Japan to the world

Emojis started in Japan. Meaning picture (e) and letter (moji), the pictograms quickly become a standard across this highly visually oriented culture. Apple introduced an emoji keyboard when it got the iPhone into the Japanese market, knowing that they were fundamental to compete there.

But then Westerners, fascinated by their cuteness, quickly adopted them too. Software appeared to enable that special Apple emoji keyboard in any iPhone or iPad. Every kid and nerdy adult with an Apple device quickly adopted them, and emojis spreaded like wildfire. Now you can find them everywhere.

via Gizmodo

 

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Listen online to Fiona Apple’s new album – The Idler Wheel…

Emotions are so darn beautiful — that’s the message of music, much of the time. The giggling lilt of a melody, the ennobling swell of a crescendo: Popular songs, especially, often enhance our moods to lift us up, unbreak our hearts, drive us toward liberating confessions and cathartic climaxes. Courting the sublime so aggressively that it often gets ridiculous, pop music encourages listeners to imagine feeling in ways that make us bigger, better.

Fiona Apple’s music does something different. A classically lovely woman whose gorgeous, sultry alto once led her toward alt-divadom, Apple has always dared herself to be and do something else: to say no to simple beauty and instead express the urges and insecurities that more accommodating artists tend to avoid.

This has never been truer than on Apple’s first album in seven years. The feelings Apple takes on in her deliberately maddening, eventually addictive new songs are those that inch us along, filling up most of our lives: icky little feelings like petty jealousy, self-doubt, bored loneliness and shamed regret. This is the stuff we’d rather tamp down. Apple wraps her fingers around it and makes it unavoidable.

Listen to the whole album, or individual songs – NPR – First Listen

The nation’s original Surf Dog competition – June 16, San Diego, CA

See Spot surf at the Loews Dog Surfing Competition – the nation’s original surfing competition for man’s best friend. Dozens of dogs take to the waves in the small dog, large dog and tandem categories. The only event of its kind when first launched, it has grown incredibly with the 2011 contest drawing 65 competitors and thousands of spectators to Coronado’s Silver Strand State Beach.

This event is family-friendly and appeals to animal lovers of all kinds. It also draws expert surfers who participate in the tandem event and perform amazing tricks on the waves.

New this year, the winner of the Ultimate Champion Round will become the 2012 “poster dog” for Loews Hotels! The star treatment includes a professional photo shoot and lunch. The featured photos will be showcased on Loews Hotels’ official website as well as the 2013 Loews Surf Dog Competition website, t-shirts and fliers!

This popular competition is an extension of Loews Hotels’ award-winning Loews Loves Pets program and has become a hugely successful fundraiser for non-profit organizations. Loews Coronado Bay Resort, with the help of its surf dog heroes, has set a personal goal to raise $10,000 this year.

This event is free to attend and watch. To enter: $50 for Divisions One or Two, $55 for Division Three. Fees also include a competition medal and a great goody bag filled with treats. All proceeds benefit the resort’s non-profit partner.

Dunes Park/Beach
700 Seacoast Drive
Imperial Beach, CA 91932

 

via SanDiego.org

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Timeline of women in space

Hundreds of humans have flown in space. Only 40 women (54 as of 2012) have made the journey — including Eileen M. Collins, who commands the Space Shuttle Discovery on NASA’s historic return to flight. NPR explores the long road that women like her have trod into space:

1960-1962: Ladies in Waiting

Twenty-five women report to the Lovelace Clinic, the aviation medicine hub that tested the Mercury 7, America’s first astronauts. There they undergo the same stringent tests endured by the men. All of the women are professional pilots. Several rank among the most distinguished pilots of their time, and many of them outperform the Mercury 7.

Lovelace dubs the 13 who pass the tests the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATs), and they are scheduled for training to become the “Mercury 13.” Just days before reporting to the Naval Aviation Center in Pensacola, Fla., the women receive telegrams canceling their training.

Two of the women — Jerrie Cobb and Janey Hart — campaign in Washington, D.C., to resume the training program. In July 1962, they testify before a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, but the panel decides that training female astronauts would hurt the space program. The FLATs never fly in space.

June 16, 1963: First Woman in Space

Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space. She spends more time in space than all of the astronauts of NASA’s Mercury program combined…

 

keep reading – NPR – Timeline: Women in Space

Profiles of Southern California marine species – Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

Here is a great resource for learning what is hanging out in the coastal waters of Southern California.

Cabrillo Marine Aquarium – Southern California Species

The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium is home to more than 200 species of animals that live in and around the waters of Southern California.

With its spectacular natural setting adjacent to Cabrillo Beach Coastal Park and the Port of Los Angeles, Cabrillo Marine Aquarium is uniquely suited to its leadership role in marine science education, aquaculture research and community recreation.  The historic Frank Gehry-designed aquarium displays the largest collection of Southern California marine life in the world.

Species

Sand Dollar – You can’t spend these dollars, they are relatives to sea stars.

 

Garibaldi – the California State marine fish and may live as long as 12 years.

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