a galloping snippet

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Blue Whale Photographed for the First Time in Irish Waters

A Blue Whale was photographed for the first time off of Ireland's County Kerry coast. Amaetuer whale-watcher Ivan O'Kelly didn't realize the importance of his snapshot until he sent the photograph into the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG). O'Kelly, from Dublin, was on board an albacore tuna fishing vessel when he saw what he thought was a large fin whale.

"It was colossal, like an oil tanker beside you. It was intimidating," he said.

"But we didn't know at the time we were looking at a blue whale."

"It was certainly one-and-a-half times the size of our boat," he said.

"It had a speckled back, and was very fast moving, fast swimming and very muscular.

"I never realised how impressive these creatures are. It was mind-blowing. It really was a very unique experience."

The planet's largest animal, the Blue Whale was dangerously close to extinction due to unregualted whaling practices, but in 1966 the international community passes a series of laws to protect the animal.
Padraig Whooley, IWDG sightings co-ordinator, said blue whales have been sighted three times in the last three days. Previously there had only been one validated sighting in Irish waters in the last century, he said.

"It is one of three things," said Mr Whooley. "Either they were there all the time and no one is seeing them or their population is growing or they have had a slight shift in distribution and are moving in shore.

"This sighting will have not just Irish or EU significance - it is of global importance," he added.

Stars and Stripes on the Puck: Hockey's New Attention

A recent resident of Canada, I saw my first ever hockey game last February in the Thunderbird Stadium at UBC and though I haven’t since devoted a better part of my personal worth to the sport, I can see how one might want to. The roughness and immediate gore combined with the chilly stadium air are exhilarating, but more than anything, it’s the devotion hockey players have for the sport that I find most intriguing.
As an American, I have always seen hockey as a standard of Canadian culture and so when Sarah Palin, from further north than Canada, proudly calls herself a “hockey mom” I feel a bit confused.
In the past, the American politician has called upon the noble everyday ethics of American football and baseball maybe even basketball to flesh out their image, but never hockey. And in turn hockey as a sport doesn’t want to be aligned with politics. Notice the hilarious hockey mom parody of 2004’s Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, "Hockey Moms for Truth" and you will get a sense of this wanted detachment and then there’s Slate.com’s Bruce Reed’s writings to consider as well.

But after a few weeks under the media spotlight, the hockey world is starting to remember why we preferred our rinks dimly lit in the first place. Stu Hackel, a hockey blogger for the New York Times, wrote a long post recently on how much he resents the game being dragged into politics and used as a pawn. Several readers agreed -- and chided him for dragging politics into a hockey blog.

Over at OnFrozenBlog, pucksandbooks tried to look on the bright side: "If you love hockey, how can you not like how hockey is being celebrated (associated with perseverance and toughness) in the rhetoric of 2008's political debates?" For readers, however, pride was tempered by grave concern about what the association with politics might do to hockey's reputation.

In my experience, we hockey parents are already a little grumpy from ice times that are too late or too early. For many, the sudden attention just brings up the sore subject of how little respect the sport gets in the U.S. "You know hockey is never going to be better than the fourth major sport," one OnFrozenBlog reader lamented, recalling how ESPN's SportsCenter used to make fans suffer through golf highlights before getting around to the NHL.

One also has to take into account that all the attention hockey is getting is associated with Governor Sarah Palin. I’m scared to think that Palin’s political aims will eclipse the true chilly gore that is hockey.

Now- what?

I've started work at an online news organization, not as exciting as the online women's audio erotic website, but the erotic industry is kinda flaky (as can be expected). Anyway, here is the link if you want to check it out. Though I will be posting my articles on here just to keep it all togethers.

http://www.nowpublic.com/

Monday, September 15, 2008

Something soon will be written. It's just that now I have my typewriter and modern day technology seems to be on the back burner.

a galloping snippet