John Allen Cameron

John Allen Cameron, 67: Celtic musician
Nov. 22, 2006. 11:49 AM
CANADIAN PRESS

John Allan Cameron, a Cape Bretoner who helped spread the gospel of Celtic music across Canada and beyond, has died after a lengthy struggle with cancer. He was 67.

His brother, John Donald Cameron, said the legendary entertainer died Wednesday morning in a Toronto hospital.

A native of Mabou, N.S., Cameron was diagnosed five years ago with bone marrow cancer and leukemia.

Stuart Cameron said he was with his father when he died.

“It was his time and he was a fighter and he never wanted to give up. Everything he always did, he always, he did everything, lived life to the fullest in every regard.”

He said the family has received “countless” calls from friends and fans.

“It’s countless. . . . He never said he had fans, because fans comes from the word fanatical. He always said that he had a lot of friends,” Stuart Cameron said.

Known as “Mabou’s ministering minstrel,” John Allan Cameron tirelessly promoted Celtic music long before the Rankin Family, the Barra MacNeils and Natalie MacMaster became known to Canadian listeners.

“I was in on the ground floor, performing this stuff before it became sociologically acceptable,” Cameron said in a 1993 interview.

A charismatic performer, Cameron began his career with the Don Messer Show and Singalong Jubilee, then as the opening act for Anne Murray, and again with his own half-hour show on the CBC.

He made a name for himself playing strathspeys — a lively Scottish dance — reels and jigs on the guitar instead of the fiddle or bagpipe.

Murray, during a tribute last year to the then-ailing Cameron, said she remembers how people looked at him as a curiosity, especially in places like Las Vegas.

“He puts on a great show and he makes people laugh,” Murray said. “You can’t help but clap your hands and stomp your feet.”

In 1970, Cameron got a standing ovation at the Grand Ole Opry, with fellow Nova Scotian Hank Snow telling him offstage, “Whatever you’re doing, boy, keep it up because it works.”

Cameron’s career and health took a turn for the worse in the late 1980s when Murray’s management company dropped him and a tumour was removed from his thyroid gland.

For almost two years he couldn’t perform but eventually put his career back on track through conventions and staging shows for the military.

A devout Roman Catholic, he spent several years in a seminary studying for the priesthood, leaving six months before his ordination.

After graduating from university, he went to London, Ont., to teach but before long his music career took off.

He was a resident of Pickering, Ont., when he died.

powered by performancing firefox

The World's Newest Island

Mariners report new island in South Pacific - CNN.com

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A new volcanic island has risen from the South Pacific near Tonga, according to reports from two vessels that passed the area.

The crew of the Maiken, a yacht that left the northern Tongan islands group of Vava'u in August, reported on their Web log on August 12 that they saw streaks of light, porous pumice stone floating in the water -- then "sailed into a vast, many-miles-wide belt of densely packed pumice."

They posted photos of huge "pumice rafts" that they encountered after passing Tonga's Late island while sailing toward Fiji.

"We were so fascinated and busy taking pictures that we plowed a couple of hundred meters into this surreal floating stone field before we realized that we had to turn back," wrote a crewman identified only as Haken.

The next day they spotted an active volcanic island, Haken wrote.

He said they could see the volcanic island clearly. "One mile in diameter and with four peaks and a central crater smoking with steam and once in a while an outburst high in the sky with lava and ashes. I think we're the first ones out here," he reported.

There was no official confirmation of a new island, either from Tonga's Ministry of Lands or the Tonga Defense Service.

Separately, fishing boat captain Siaosi Fenukitau reported seeing the volcanic island, the Matangitonga news Web site reported.

Richard Wunderman, editor of the Washington-based Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network, said "a large pumice raft presumably from Tonga has been sweeping across Fiji, and we are trying to learn about its origins."

A previous eruption in the area generated a small island and similar fields of floating pumice, he said.

Pumice rafts drifted to Fiji in 1979 and 1984 from eruptions around Tonga, and some were reportedly 30 kilometers (19 miles) wide, the Matangitonga reported.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

powered by performancing firefox

powered by performancing firefox

World's biggest ship symbolizes world's biggest problems

Giant ship delivers Christmas to UK - CNN.com

 Popular

Giant ship delivers Christmas to UK
POSTED: 1135 GMT (1935 HKT), November 4, 2006

 LONDON, England (AP) -- Groaning with gifts and larger than any sleigh, the world's biggest container ship docked in Britain on Saturday on a maiden international voyage to deliver thousands of tons of Christmas presents, decorations and food across the globe.

The MS Emma Maersk -- which weighs 170,000 tons (190,400 U.S. tons) -- set sail from Gothenburg, Sweden, in September, collecting and delivering festive supplies in Yantian, China, Hong Kong and Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia.

Operated by a crew of 13, the vessel is the largest at sea -- a quarter-mile (half-kilometer) long, 200 feet (60 meters) high and powered by the biggest diesel engine ever built.

Among goods packed into 11,000 containers are 2 million Christmas decorations, 12,800 MP3 players, 33,00 cocktail shakers, 150 tons (168 U.S. tons) of New Zealand lamb, thousands of frozen chickens and 138,000 tins of cat food, the vessel's owner, Danish shipping company Maersk Line said in a statement.

Around 45,000 tons (50,400 U.S. tons) of goods were due to be unloaded Saturday at Felixstowe port, in southern England, before the ship sails to mainland Europe to deliver 8,000 containers of cargo.

The journey is the ship's first voyage from China to Europe, specifically planned to deliver Christmas stocks to shopkeepers -- including a haul of electronic dinosaurs, radio-controlled cars, pinball machines and computers.

Maersk Line said the ship was capable of traveling about 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) every year -- the equivalent of seven and a half trips around the world.

The majority of supplies onboard have been produced in China, which last year exported 16 billion pounds (US$30.5 billion; euro24 billion) worth of goods to Britain, said Caroline Lucas, a European Parliament legislator with Britain's environmentalist Green Party.

That should make Britons think twice, Lucas said. "People should see the ship as a little microcosm of all the major problems with world trade."

"The thousands of tons of goods being delivered are items which once would have been produced in Britain and Europe, but which are now made in China -- where exploitation of the labor market means we cannot compete on price," Lucas told The Associated Press.

The ship's two-month voyage also highlighted concerns about the environmental impact of transporting goods and food long distances, she said.

powered by performancing firefox

powered by performancing firefox

No More Fish

Report Warns of ‘Global Collapse’ of Fishing - New York Times

By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: November 2, 2006

If fishing around the world continues at its present pace, more and more species will vanish, marine ecosystems will unravel and there will be “global collapse” of all species currently fished, possibly as soon as midcentury, fisheries experts and ecologists are predicting.

The scientists, who are to report their findings on Friday in the journal Science, say it is not too late to turn the situation around. As long as marine ecosystems are still biologically diverse, they can recover quickly once overfishing and other threats are reduced, the researchers say.

But they add that there must be quick, large-scale action to protect remaining diversity, including establishment of marine reserves and “no take” zones, along with restrictions on particularly destructive fishing practices.

The researchers drew their conclusion after analyzing dozens of studies and fishing data collected by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and other sources. They acknowledge that much of what they are reporting amounts to correlation, rather than proven cause and effect.

And the data from the Fishing and Agricultural Organization have come under criticism from researchers who doubt the reliability of some nations’ reporting practices, said Boris Worm, a fisheries expert at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, who led the work.

Still, he said in an interview, “there is not a piece of evidence” that contradicts the dire conclusions.

Jane Lubchenco, a fisheries expert at Oregon State University who had no connection with the work, called the report “compelling.”

“It’s a meta analysis and there are challenges in interpreting those,” she said in an interview, referring to the technique of analyzing a host of previous studies. “But when you get the same patterns over and over and over, that tells you something.”

Twelve scientists from the United States, Canada, Sweden and Panama contributed to the work.

“We extracted all data on fish and invertebrate catches from 1950 to 2003 within all 64 large marine ecosystems worldwide,” they wrote. “Collectively, these areas produced 83 percent of global fisheries yields over the past 50 years.”

In an interview, Dr. Worm said, “We looked at absolutely everything — all the fish, shellfish, invertebrates, everything that people consume that comes from the ocean, all of it, globally.”

The researchers found that 29 percent of species had already been fished so heavily or were so affected by pollution or habitat loss that they were down to 10 percent of previous levels, a situation the scientists called collapse.

This loss of biodiversity seems to restrict the ability of marine ecosystems as a whole to recover from overfishing, Dr. Worm said. That results in an acceleration of environmental decay and further loss of fish, with potentially serious consequences to people and economies dependant on them.

Dr. Worm said he analyzed the data for the first time on his laptop while he was overseeing a roomful of students taking an exam. What he saw, he said, was “just a smooth line going down.” And when he extrapolated the data into the future “to see where it ends at 100 percent collapse, you arrive at 2048.”

“The hair stood up on the back of my neck and I said, ‘This cannot be true,’ ” he recalled. So he ran the data through his computer again. And then he did calculations by hand. The results were the same.

“I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t know what the future will bring, but this is a clear trend,” he said. “There is an end in sight, and it is within our lifetimes.”

Dr. Mabel

Sort of sad to see the passing of Dr. Mabel. We got to meet and talk with her a few times. But 101 year of the best kind of life with a vivid family rich in every way you can measure. We should all be so lucky.


The ChronicleHerald.ca

Alexander Graham Bell’s granddaughter dies at 101

By JOCELYN BETHUNE

BADDECK — Mabel Grosvenor, a granddaughter of famed telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell and likely the last person who had personal memories of him, died Monday at Baddeck. She was 101.

Born at Beinn Bhreagh, the Bells’ Cape Breton summer home, on July 28, 1905, she was the third child of Elsie Bell Grosvenor and Gilbert Grosvenor, longtime editor of National Geographic magazine.

While her parents travelled, writing and photographing faraway places for the publication, Mabel spent many summers with her grandparents at Beinn Bhreagh. In her late teens, she acted as secretary and note taker for Mr. Bell, quickly taking down dictation as he explored genetics, genealogy and hydrofoil boats.

She marched with her mother and grandmother in Washington, D.C., in 1913 for women to get the right to vote and was a witness to a number of Mr. Bell’s experiments, including the flight of the Cygnet, an early kite experiment of Mr. Bell’s Aerial Experiment Association.

In December 1907, her grandfather wrote: "I almost forgot to mention the witness who will probably live the longest after this event (and remember least about it) — my little granddaughter Miss Mabel Grosvenor — 2 years of age."

In the early 1920s, as Mr. Bell neared the end of his life, Ms. Grosvenor travelled with her grandparents to Scotland, where Mr. Bell searched for long-lost ancestors.

"He called it a farewell visit," Ms. Grosvenor said during an interview in 1994.

"He didn’t really get interested in genealogy until his father died and one reason he went back was to try and look for more information. We went to parish offices to look through records and visited cemeteries. He found several cousins he didn’t know existed."

She was one of five women to graduate from Johns Hopkins University in 1931 with medical degrees. She became a pediatrician and practised in Washington, D.C., for 35 years.

During a Bell Club meeting in the early 1990s, Ms. Grosvenor was asked by a nurse what the greatest medical advancement had been during the span of her career.

"Antibiotics," she said without hesitation.

Well into her 80s she was often seen driving her convertible around the streets of Baddeck.

"She was the leader of the family, a matriarch for sure," said Juanita MacAulay, a Baddeck resident who grew up on the estate where both her father and grandfather were caretakers.

In 1966, after her retirement, Dr. Mabel, as she is known locally, set about to operate the Beinn Bhreagh estate, which included a 37-room mansion built by her grandparents in the 1890s and several other homes, many of them dating back to her grandparents’ time.

"She didn’t like the spotlight, but in her quiet manner, she got things done," said Mrs. MacAulay.

For many close to the Bell story, Ms. Grosvenor’s death is the end of an amazing period in the history of Baddeck.

"It’s the end of an era for sure," said Sharon Bartlett, a guide at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site and member of the Alexander Graham Bell Club, of which Ms. Grosvenor was honorary president.

"Who else in this world remembers Dr. or Mrs. Bell? And even if there were someone, they certainly wouldn’t have had such an intimate relationship with them," Ms. Bartlett said.

Ms. Grosvenor was a very quiet and unassuming person, who would "sit in on a lecture (at the Bell museum) and no one would ever say who she was and she liked it that way. She was a very private person."

Her ability to recall names and connections, even into her 90s, was a source of amazement, said Ms. Bartlett, who played piano at Ms. Grosvenor’s 90th birthday party in 1995.

"When Dr. Mabel came back the next year, she thanked me for playing."

( jbethune@herald.ca

powered by performancing firefox