Nov 22 2020 - A Timely Whale report

 

I must relay this story to you - just in case you haven't seen it.  It has been covered by a number of media outlets.  It started for me when I saw a small, humorous article in the Globe and Mail.  It covered the 50th Anniversary of the Blow Up the Dead Whale story.  The Globe's 'punch line' was that the town in Oregon where this strange event occurred on November 12  1970 has named a park Dead Whale Park in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the 'blow-up' event.   So I was really intrigued when Day 6 on CBC said they were interviewing the reporter who covered the story for U.S. news in the first place.  His story was on preserved on tape and has gone viral every so often.  It has to do with his alliterative language during the live coverage. He says there isn't a day goes by without someone referencing this story and his report.  His son particularly likes to replay the lines to him. Paul Linnman was on-site in November 1970 to report on the explosion of a dead beached whale in Oregon. State highway officials decided that the only way to get rid of the decomposing marine mammal was with a half tonne of dynamite. It would 'dissipate' somehow. "As soon as we got out of the car and were still a good distance from the whale, and behind sand dunes, the smell hit us. I mean, this thing had been rotting for a few days and the smell is beyond description," he told CBC Radio's Day 6. "We realized things weren't necessarily going well when we started hearing chunks of blubber hitting the ground around us, which you can also hear in the video," he said.  (A car was destroyed - owned by Paul's friend.  His friendsaid the car dealer he got it from had a sign out front inviting people to get  - 'A Whale of a Deal'- Paul went and checked at the time and could confirm this) In his alliterative voice-over of the clip, Linnman quipped that “land-lubber newsmen” became “land-blubber newsmen … for the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.” His closing line: “It might be concluded that should a whale ever wash ashore in Lane County again, those in charge will not only remember what to do, they’ll certainly remember what not to do." The original newscast video is in the CBC story HERE.  Or HERE from the New York Post.   The sculpture on the lake shore in Kingston - with the Skylum sky - was a Betterphoto Finalist for September.  I'd just noticed it the other day.

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Vimy Ridge

April 9th was the 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge.  Saturday's marking in St. Catharines was particularly significant, as it unveiled a relic that was in the battle.  A restored 105-millimeter Howitzer German artillery gun was captured  by Canadian soldiers during the battle, and was sitting in storage in the Butler's Barracks in Niagara-on-the-Lake. It had sat in the village of Queenstown from 1926 to 1992. Volunteers of the Lincoln & Welland Regiment restored it in 2009.   The gun was at Vimy Ridge and efforts were made to find out if it actually fired on the Canadians.  They do know that the Canadians flipped the gun around when they captured it and 'used it against the Germans.' There is further significance of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment in yesterday's ceremony.  They raised $15 million to build a new Niagara Military Heritage Centre where the Vimy Ridge gun will eventually stay.  The unveiling story is here.

Canada's Birthday is Canada's Anniversary

Here we are on the 149th anniversary/birthday of Canada.  What makes it an anniversary of confederation rather than the marking of the birth of Canada? The Huffington Post calls it Canada's 150th Birthday with a series of articles on the plans and activities here.  The official website is here and calls it the anniversary of Confederation.  Wikipedia is always so instructional and it lists sovereign states by date of formation (date of their independence or of their constitution).  We have such a stable country that we don't think that there are states that have disputed sovereignty or are former sovereign states or have limited recognition.  And there are proposed states as well.  I didn't even realize that there are micronations.  So here's the link for that interesting information. So enjoy our celebration day -  appreciate the security and freedom that we experience here. Show the red and white colours of our flag.