On Friday, a world record was shattered as 138 skydivers jumped off six different planes to form the largest vertical formation to date. The unusual event occurred over Ottawa, Illinois, beating the previous record of 108 people.
According to Digital Trends, there were 15 failed attempts during the course of three days before the skydivers were finally able to join hands and form a perfect formation. The divers faced speeds of up to 220 mph, and had to perform acrobatic tricks similar to “doing a handstand at 7,000 feet,” as described by Rook Nelson, an organizer and the owner of Skydive Chicago. Their hard work paid off, however, as the group was able to create a colorful snowflake shape that lasted for a few seconds, before divers had to disband and open their chutes.
My son is having an international childhood. His father is a Canadian who lived for a long time in the U.S. and his mother a Spaniard who lived for a long time in England. We divide our time between Santander in Spain and Oxford in England.
One effect of this is that he has different associations for different places. England, for example, is a summer place, a small-town place where in the early morning before going to camp or the park he gets to watch TV. Spain isn’t a TV place because TV sucks in Spain. We didn’t even bother buying a TV there.
I don’t mind him watching BBC because they have some great kids’ programs. One of his favorites also helps make him more international. It’s called “Rastamouse.” Rastamouse is a mystery-solving Reggae mouse musician who always catches the bad guys. Once he does, he shows them the error in their ways and helps them make amends. Rastamouse calls this “making a bad ting good.” It’s a nice change from superheroes, who simply kick the bad guy’s ass.
“Rastamouse” is hugely popular in the UK and is coming soon to the United States. It hasn’t been without controversy, however. Some viewers think the cheese on the show is a symbol for marijuana, ignoring the fact that Rastamouse and his friends are, um, mice. A less silly complaint came from Daily Mail columnist Lindsay Johns, who in his op-ed on “Rastamouse” objects to the Jamaican patois. He says it panders to racial stereotypes and that “the BBC is leading us down the path of linguistic rack and ruin.”
“Very soon (if they aren’t already), a whole generation of primary school children will be rushing around the playground mimicking Rastamouse and saying, ‘Wha gwan?'” he writes.
So far, I have yet to hear my son imitate Rastamouse, and if he did I don’t think that would lead him to forgetting the Queen’s English. I also don’t agree with Johns’ statement that Rastamouse’s being cool means he isn’t cerebral. He solves a mystery every episode by analyzing clues.I let my son watch this show because, unlike what some of its detractors say, it actually breaks stereotypes. I have to admit to a certain amount of snickering on the part of me and my wife when we first saw this show. We kept waiting for pot references but they never came. We missed the whole cheese thing. Rastamouse creators Genevieve Webster and Michael De Souza (who is a Rastafarian) are clearly not interested in making a cult show for stoner college kids.
Our reaction made me think. While we know that most Jamaicans aren’t lazy pot smokers, we were brought up with that stereotype so it pops into our heads even if we don’t believe it. I was interested to learn from various African-American friends that in their community, Jamaicans are stereotyped as workaholics. One friend who worked briefly as a farmer in Jamaica (growing sugar cane) said he couldn’t keep up with the hard pace of his island coworkers. The TV show In Living Color did a riff on this with a series of sketches of a Jamaican family who have more than a hundred jobs between them. Every skit involved the father complaining about his “lazy, good-for-noting son who only has eight jobs.”
My son is getting a different impression of Jamaicans. For him, folks from that island speak differently but have intelligent things to say, make good music, work hard, and help their erring brothers and sisters “make a bad ting good.”
With the Olympics in full swing, it’s easy to focus on the athletes’ accomplishments – the scores, the times, the medal counts – instead of celebrating the journey that brought them to London in the first place. Though not specific to the Olympic Games, this music video from Australian rock band The Temper Trap chronicles a journey that is probably familiar to many Olympians, particularly those in parts of the world where athletic training is less of a big business than it is in the United States.
The video, recorded in Havana for the band’s latest single, “Trembling Hands,” follows a young Cuban trapeze artist as she prepares for an upcoming performance, capturing all of the struggles, the frustrations and the raw emotion that comes with pursuing a passion. The video relies on the talents of real aerobatic athletes and exposes a part of Cuban culture that isn’t often visible to the public, with the faded streets of Havana as a backdrop.
Before last month, the world record holder for the 100-meter dash was Olympian Usain Bolt, with 9.58 seconds. However, on June 20, Sarah the cheetah beat this time, clocking in at 5.95 seconds. The 11-year-old cheetah, whose home is the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio, was clocked in as going 60 miles per hour.
“She looked like a polka-dotted missile,” said National Geographic photo editor Kim Hubbard. “I’ve never seen anything alive run that fast.”
To prepare, five cheetahs would run several sprints per day. These animals are used to sprinting long distances, as they often do it for zoo visitors who want to see the big cats in action. Not only is this exercise good for their bodies, it has helped to raise over $1 million for conservation efforts.
While Sarah’s sprint was the fastest 100-meter dash ever recorded of any moving thing on Earth, chances are cheetahs in the wild, who are extremely lean and must catch quick-moving prey for survival, have probably run faster.
To see Sarah in action, check out the video above.
Why fret over taxi fares, bus schedules and confusing subway maps when you can bike an entire city, street by street? Helsinki is the perfect size for navigation by bicycle. You can cross the downtown stretch in a matter of minutes, and jumps from the raucous bars in Kallio to the sultry restaurants in Punavuori are but a minor commute.
Gadling Labs took a few bikes out onto the streets of Helsinki this month to get the lay of the land. Above: the view from the hardware.