Two less excuses

Every time I’ve had the insane thought that it would be cool to climb Mount Everest I trot out a long list of reasons why it will never happen. In addition to the blindingly obvious such as the exorbitant cost and a fear of heights, there are dozens more on a seemingly endless list destined to ensure that I will never, ever risk life and limb to go where only 2,700 or so people before me have gone and from which only about 2,500 have returned. (Yes, a 10% chance of dying is close to the top of the list.)

But even with my fevered imagination crafting one disaster scenario after another, the lack of cell phone service on the summit has never been a major concern. Nor has the absence of team sports at the base camp ever been a factor.

However if they were, I would now have two fewer excuses to stay down where the air still actually contains some oxygen.

According to this news item Nepal Telecom is going to expand its cell phone service to the top of Mount Everest by installing 4 more cellular telephone towers. Once that’s completed in June of this year, you’ll be able to take telemarketing calls to new heights (or should that be “at” new heights?).

And if a few weeks away from watching your favourite sport is all that’s keeping you from acclimatizing at base camp, the first ever cricket match has now been played at that dizzying altitude (16,495 feet).

So if either of those was all that was keeping you from strapping on the crampons and grabbing the oxygen bottle, you are  now out of excuses. Put $20 on Team Tenzing for me, and call me from the top when you get there.

We are all connected

In 1990, a young news photographer, Tom Hanson, was covering the Oka Crisis in Quebec when he took this photo. The subject was Richard Nicholas, a Mohawk warrior waving his rifle while standing atop an overturned Sûreté du Québec police van. The two men never met.

On March 10, Tom Hanson, aged 41, collapsed while playing hockey in Ottawa and died shortly after. That very same day, Richard Nicholas, also aged 41, died in a motor vehicle accident in Quebec.

We are all connected in ways impossible to fathom, and last Tuesday one such connection was shattered by tragedy, 19 years after two very different men briefly crossed paths.

Photo: Tom Hanson

One man’s whoopee cushion…

As reported here, the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean is in the grips of a religious fervour over a wrinkled seat cushion.

THOUSANDS of people have flocked to a Roman Catholic church on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion after believers said they saw the "face of Christ" in the pleats of a church cushion.

…

Antoinette, an 82-year-old parishioner, said the face was a "divine phenomenon" as tears welled up her eyes.

"This church is a holy site," added Lise-May, another worshipper.

…

"This is not a miracle, it's a sign of God," said parish priest Daniel Gavard.

No comment from the person who was most recently sitting on the “face of Christ” however.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Anyone who has been kept awake by that sound at night will appreciate this story in The Sunday Times.

AMERICAN scientists are making a ray gun to kill mosquitoes. Using technology developed under the Star Wars anti-missile programme, the zapper is being built in Seattle where astrophysicists have created a laser that locks onto airborne insects.

…

The laser – dubbed a weapon of mosquito destruction (WMD) – has been designed with the help of Lowell Wood, one of the astrophysicists who worked on the original Star Wars plan to shield America from nuclear attack.

…

The WMD laser works by detecting the audio frequency created by the beating of mosquito wings. A computer triggers the laser beam, the mosquito’s wings are burnt off and its smoking carcass falls to the ground. “

Sounds great, right? Especially the bit, “its smoking carcass falls to the ground.” The mere thought of being able to fry the little bastards brings a flutter of joy to the heart as mosquito season approaches.

But is this a realistic solution to a serious problem? Who will pay for these outrageously expensive (because you know they will be) high-tech fly swatters controlled by a computer probably running Microsoft Vista? (Bill Gates is backing the research.) How will they be powered in the villages of darkest Africa? Who will maintain them and keep the hackers at bay and avoiding the blue screen of death? What will happen to the birds and bats that depend on mosquitoes for their food if the populations are decimated or seriously reduced? What happens if the mosquito is sitting in the tip of your nose when the laser locks on?

There is no doubt malaria is a huge problem, especially since the banning of DDT, but there is a very good, low-tech solution out there that has far fewer unintended consequences – the mosquito bednet. For a mere $10 (3 latte’s) you can protect one or more children for up to 5 years. Check it out here, at www.spreadthenet.org.

Golf prolongs life

According to research from Europe's leading medical research institute, playing golf can add five years to a person's life.

Or perhaps it just seems longer.

You'd rather be called Sue?

From the ridiculous file (and the Australian News Network):

BRITISH soldier Kerry Hylton is suing the army because of the embarrassing nickname given to him by fellow troops.

Hylton claims he has been "demeaned'' by the nickname "Paris'', after the notorious blonde American socialite and Hilton hotel empire heiress. He is suing for race discrimination, alleging that his fellow soldiers ignored orders to stop calling him Paris.

The Daily Express newspaper reported that Hylton, a chef with the Welsh Guards, finds the nickname offensive because he considers Paris Hilton "a white woman with a low reputation''.

The Jamaica-born 33-year-old also alleged he was called several racist names at his barracks in London. An employment tribunal in London is expected to hear his case next month.

If every soldier who was given a less than complimentary nickname by his mates stared suing, there wouldn’t be an open court date anywhere until about 2025. Ridiculous that this should even get to an employment tribunal.

How will this work again?

Florida is trying to enact a Droopy Pants law, in part because of the fashion’s origins, which, according to the article, was in prisons where the saggy pants were worn by inmates as an indicator they were looking for sex.

And so what’s the penalty for wearing droopy pants in school you ask? Up to 60 days in jail.

There was no mention whether offenders would be able to take their pants with them.

De-sensitivity training may be just the ticket ....

As has been reported by the CBC and picked up here, here, and here, Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has apparently apologized for something he isn’t sure he did, to someone who wasn’t there to witness his supposedly egregious behaviour. Now we get Newfoundland and Labrador NDP Leader Lorraine Michael wading in demanding that Minister Hearn attend sensitivity training as a result of his “shocking” behaviour.

Now no one, to my knowledge, has publicly re-told the joke that set these folks off, but I would submit it can’t be that bad as it was told in a public speech to a mixed audience. But regardless, perhaps what’s really needed here is not so much sensitivity training for Minister Hearn, but possibly some de-sensitivity training for the very thin-skinned who travel among us.

Irene Mathyssen redux

According to this story: "Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has apologized for a joke he's not sure he made, responding to a complaint from a politician who didn't hear it."

I don’t particularly care for Loyola Hearn, but this seems a bit of a stretch even in the highly-charged atmosphere of Newfoundland politics.

Not another remote control!

Doctors have developed a remote-controlled valve that offers a type of temporary vasectomy by blocking the flow of sperm through the vas deferens. The valve is remotely controlled, by a device similar to a car door lock key fob.

“Honey, where’s the remote?” has a whole different significance when it isn’t just about switching off the big game.

Clearing security should be a breeze ....

A few days ago, I spent several hours at 30,000 feet, crammed into a large tube with 200 or so other unfortunates who desperately needed to escape the wrath of winter and head south for a brief respite from -25C temperatures. And as usual in these days of airline cost-cutting, the flight was full, the seats were tiny, and you were lucky if elbows were all you rubbed with the strangers with whom you shared that very small space.

So I had to shudder when I came across this story about a German travel agent who is now booking nude flights for customers going on naturist vacations.

Fortunately for the general population (but not for the crew), nudity is restricted to the flight itself, so passengers will have to undress and dress on board and not in the airport. One wonders, will there be a "Dress/Undress Now” lamp to go along with the “Fasten Seatbelts” sign?

And what about the post-landing crush when everyone leaps from their seats to stand in the aisles 30 seconds after the wheels touch down? It’s bad enough on a clothed flight when everyone is grabbing their bags to deplane, but that will be nothing compared with what it will be like when a bunch of naked folks are grabbing bags (oops, sorry mate) and trying to get dressed at the same time.

Now I have no issues with naturism, or as it used to be more quaintly known, nudity. If folks want to bare all in the privacy of their homes, their back yards, or on the beach that’s fine by me; l may even join in if it’s appropriate and I feel like it. But I just can’t get my head around being in the middle seat of a row of naked people, excited (but hopefully not too excited) about going off on a naturist vacation to some hot spot.

And why, oh why, since reading this story have I been unable to purge my mind of the Monte Python sketch that goes, in part, “... draught Red Barrel and swimming pools full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging into queues...”?