My horoscope for this week, compliments of Creative Loafing and Rob Brezny:

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Big rivers don't travel in straight lines. Their paths are curvy and complicated, with periodic turns and bends. In some places they flow faster and in others they're slower. Their depth and width may vary along the way, too. Your own destiny is like one of those big rivers, Cancerian. In some years, it meanders for long stretches, slowing down as it wanders along a crooked course. It may even get shallower and narrower for a while. But I expect that in 2014, you will be moving more rapidly than usual. You will be traveling a more direct route, and you will be both wide and deep.

http://clatl.com/atlanta/free-will-astrology/Content?category=1222985

It seems spot on for how I've been feeling the last few months and even for the past year or so.

A history lesson for Christmas Eve.

Hope all is well with you and yours this Christmas Season.



I stumbled onto this video over at www.Treehugger.com

A few bull sharks were trapped in a freshwater lake at golf course when flood waters receded.
They seem quite happy and have even had young bull sharks there.
These are not small sharks - they're 8-10 feet long!
And have no problem at all in the fresh water and have been there over a year.
Scary!

Treehugger also had this doc from the BBC on the great white shark. (below.)
Fantastic stuff.
And included a lot on The Birkenhead Disaster.

http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/1661to1966/birkenhead/birkenhead.html

A British troop ship, The Birkenhead, was on its way to Port Elizabeth from Cape Town when it struck a hidden reef.
643 people were on board when the ship sank in roughly 20 minutes.
When the captain gave the order to abandon ship he ordered the soldiers to stand fast on the deck so that the women and children could use the 3 life rafts.  All of them did.
This was the birth of the "women and children" first tradition of sailing.
And because 600 men went into the water and over 400 died, many taken by great whites, it was here that the great white earned it's fearsome reputation and became nicknamed "the Tommy shark" after the British troops taken that night.

Worth a watch if you've got a couple days off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_(1845)



The "Birkenhead drill" is mentioned in a poem by Rudyard Kipling.
Everytime I read I Kipling I remember how incredible his work is.

Soldier an' Sailor too 

(The Royal Regiment of Marines)

AS I was spittin’ into the Ditch aboard o’ the Crocodile,
I seed a man on a man-o’-war got up in the Reg’lars’ style.
’E was scrapin’ the paint from off of ’er plates, an’ I sez to ’im, “’Oo are you?”
Sez ’e, “I’m a Jolly—’Er Majesty’s Jolly—soldier an’ sailor too!”
Now ’is work begins by Gawd knows when, and ’is work is never through;
’E isn’t one o’ the reg’lar Line, nor ’e isn’t one of the crew.
’E’s a kind of a giddy harumfrodite—soldier an’ sailor too!

An’ after I met ’im all over the world, a-doin’ all kinds of things,
Like landin’ ’isself with a Gatlin’ gun to talk to them ’eathen kings;
’E sleeps in an ’ammick instead of a cot, an’ ’e drills with the deck on a slew,
An’ ’e sweats like a Jolly—’Er Majesty’s Jolly—soldier an’ sailor too!
For there isn’t a job on the top o’ the earth the beggar don’t know, nor do—
You can leave ’im at night on a bald man’s ’ead, to paddle ’is own canoe—
’E’s a sort of a bloomin’ cosmopolouse—soldier an’ sailor too.

We’ve fought ’em in trooper, we’ve fought ’em in dock, and drunk with ’em in betweens,
When they called us the seasick scull’ry-maids, an’ we called ’em the Ass Marines;
But, when we was down for a double fatigue, from Woolwich to Bernardmyo,
We sent for the Jollies—’Er Majesty’s Jollies—soldier an’ sailor too!
They think for ’emselves, an’ they steal for ’emselves, and they never ask what’s to do,
But they’re camped an’ fed an’ they’re up an’ fed before our bugle’s blew.
Ho! they ain’t no limpin’ procrastitutes—soldier an’ sailor too.

You may say we are fond of an ’arness-cut, or ’ootin’ in barrick-yards,
Or startin’ a Board School mutiny along o’ the Onion Guards; (1)
But once in a while we can finish in style for the ends of the earth to view,
The same as the Jollies—’Er Majesty’s Jollies—soldier an’ sailor too!
They come of our lot, they was brothers to us; they was beggars we’d met an’ knew;
Yes, barrin’ an inch in the chest an’ the arm, they was doubles o’ me an’ you;
For they weren’t no special chrysanthemums—soldier an’ sailor too!

To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,
Is nothing so bad when you’ve cover to ’and, an’ leave an’ likin’ to shout;
But to stand an’ be still to the Birken’ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,
An’ they done it, the Jollies—’Er Majesty’s Jollies—soldier an’ sailor too!
Their work was done when it ’adn’t begun; they was younger nor me an’ you;
Their choice it was plain between drownin’ in ’eaps an’ bein’ mopped by the screw,
So they stood an’ was still to the Birken’ead drill, (2) soldier an’ sailor too!

We’re most of us liars, we’re ’arf of us thieves, an’ the rest are as rank as can be,
But once in a while we can finish in style (which I ’ope it won’t ’appen to me).
But it makes you think better o’ you an’ your friends, an’ the work you may ’ave to do,
When you think o’ the sinkin’ Victorier’s (3) Jollies—soldier an’ sailor too!
Now there isn’t no room for to say ye don’t know—they ’ave proved it plain and true—
That whether it’s Widow, or whether it’s ship, Victorier’s work is to do,
An’ they done it, the Jollies—’Er Majesty’s Jollies—soldier an’ sailor too!


(1) Long ago, a battalion of the Guards was sent to Bermuda as a punishment for riotous conduct in barracks.

(2) In 1852 the Birkenhead transport was sunk off Simon’s Bay. The Marines aboard her went down as drawn up on her deck.

(3) Admiral Tryon’s flagship, sunk in a collision in 1893
\

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Marines