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October 2012 Issue 118 Return to Home Page 2009 Index 2010 Index 2011 Index 2012 Index MESSAGE FROM THE STAFF
And, Ryan Fredette celebrated his 19th birthday in MA, and his grandparents were there to be part of the celebration. The
October issue of The Akumalian has been outsourced to the Cape Cod
branch in Chatham. MUNICIPAL PRESIDENT COMES TO AKUMAL, OCT 1STLaura Wolfe
has arranged for the Municipal President,
Martin Cobos Villalobos,
to IMPORTANT OCTOBER FACTSIn Latin, octo means "eight". October was also the eighth month in the Roman calendar until a monthless winter period was divided between January and February. October has always had 31 days. Libra - September 23 - October 22 October
Birthstone: Opal October
Birthday Flower: Marigold
OKTOBERFEST, SEPT. 22 – OCT. 7
O'zapft is - The Octoberfest has started and is well Saturday, 12 o'clock - high noon in the "Schottenhamel" beer tent: By tapping the first barrel of beer, the mayor of Munich started the 179th Oktoberfest. The nowadays both legendary and traditional ritual of tapping the first barrel of Oktoberfest-beer, broadcast on live TV and via the Internet, was, as usually, held in the “Schottenhamel” beer tent. Celebrities, press and thousands of Oktoberfest fans were attending, as the mayor of Munich did his duty.
As protocol demands, the first mug of beer was passed on to prime-minister Seehofer and with that all the other beer tents could start selling beer as well.
Why is Oktoberfest called "Oktober"-fest when it actually
begins in September? By moving the festivities up, it allowed for better weather conditions. Because the September nights were warmer, the visitors were able to enjoy the gardens outside the tents and the stroll over "die Wiesen" or the fields much longer without feeling chilly. Historically, the last Oktoberfest weekend was in October and this tradition continues into present times. How much will a liter of beer (the "Maß" Oktoberfest Beer) cost this year? The prices for one litre of beer will range from 9,10 € to 9,50 € on the Oktoberfest in 2012. OCTOBER BIRTHDAYS
Birthdays and Anniversaries
There must be more than this. Let’s hear about YOUR birthday before it happens. Missed
September Birthdays
THE 22nd 1ST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY, SEPT WINNERS
In a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theatre, 1,200 splendidly eccentric spectators watched the winners step forward to accept their Prizes. These are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel Laureates. The ceremony was webcast live. The Ig
Nobel Prizes are organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics
Student, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, and the Harvard
Computer Society. Ig Nobel prizes awarded, highlighting the fun side of science. They are not the discoveries that have altered our understanding of nature, transformed medicine, or rewritten the laws of physics. But they have made us laugh. The 2012 prizes: · PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE: Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller. · PEACE PRIZE: Converting old Russian ammunition into new diamonds. · ACOUSTICS PRIZE: Creating the SpeechJammer — a machine that disrupts a person's speech, by making them hear their own spoken words at a very slight delay. · NEUROSCIENCE PRIZE: Demonstrating that brain researchers, by using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere — even in a dead salmon. · CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Solving the puzzle of why, in certain houses in the town of Anderslöv, Sweden, people's hair turned green. · LITERATURE PRIZE: The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports. · PHYSICS PRIZE: Calculating the balance of forces that shape and move the hair in a human ponytail.
·
FLUID DYNAMICS PRIZE: Studying the dynamics of
liquid-sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks while carrying a
cup of coffee. · ANATOMY PRIZE: Discovering that chimpanzees can identify other chimpanzees individually from seeing photographs of their rear ends.
·
MEDICINE PRIZE: Advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how
to minimize the chance that their patients will explode. DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN SELL ELECTRICITY BACK TO CFE?
As
population and industry grows, Mexico will have to build new transmission
and gas-fired generation plants to meet demand. But Mexico already depends
on gas for 74% of electric generation capacity, and PEMEX production of
fossil fuels has diminished to such a great extent that Mexico now imports
40% of the gas needed for domestic consumption. This has resulted in
drastically higher electricity rates, as every homeowner and business owner
in Mexico can attest. That’s why net metering is so important for Mexico, as
it begins the process of creating a stable and green energy grid for Mexico
that is not dependent on fossil fuels, and which can produce electricity at
half the cost of gas. Wind and solar energy resources in Mexico are abundant
and limitless. And the day will surely come when most of the electricity
produced in Mexico comes from such renewable resources. It makes logical,
ecological and economic sense. HURRICANE SEASON UPDATE
The ‘official’ hurricane season ends on November 30, and while we have passed the peak point of the season, the Atlantic continues to be quite inactive, with most of the activity that has come from Africa heading up into the Atlantic. Did you
Know? Hurricane Nadine has been swirling around in the Atlantic for more
than two weeks since becoming a tropical storm Sept. 11. WORLD SMILE DAY, OCTOBER 5th
World
Smile Day is celebrated on the first Friday in the month of October every
year. The idea of World Smile Day was coined and initiated by Harvey Ball,
a commercial artist from Worcester, Massachusetts. Harvey Ball is known to
have created the Smiley Face in 1963. The World's first World Smile Day was
held in the year 1999 and has been held annually since. ROBIN’S BEST SHIRT AWARD, OCT. 5thCome one, come all, to the Beach Bar, where we’ll have a ball.
This
award is based on Robin’s penchant for good, classy Beach Bar shirts, and
his sister, Mary, has the honor of judging the merits of the shirts. And,
as we go to print the criteria are still somewhat nebulous, and they seem to
be changing as we move into Fall.
The
September competition drew another large crowd of brightly shirted
contestants, and the judges had a difficult time with their decision, and
they ultimately selected Sherwood Anders. The photos are located at
September Best Shirt Award. DIA DE LA RAZA (COLUMBUS DAY), OCT 12In Mexico, October 12th is a national holiday known as Día de la Raza or Day of the Race. This date is honored in other countries as Columbus Day and under other names; but the event it commemorates and the way in which it is observed have become quite controversial.
Although Christopher Columbus was perhaps not the first to discover America, as has so often been claimed, he was the one to bring about the first real contact and interaction between Renaissance Europe and the American continent with its various civilizations; and that has shaped and changed world history in countless ways. Over 500 years later, this date is still celebrated, lamented, and debated. One of the main consequences of this contact, was the imminent conquest of the new world by the old. In writing of his discovery, Columbus noted how he and his men were greeted with gifts and said: "As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts". And, generally speaking, this was to characterize relations between the old world and the new: Europeans sought wealth and to impart (or impose) their culture. The indigenous people befriended them and were dominated by armies from abroad. Less than 30 years later, in 1521, Hernán Cortés landed on the shores of Mexico. He too was received with gifts, and he proceeded to conquer the vast Mexica empire, which is Mexico today. Relations between the indigenous population and the conquerors of Mexico during the 300 year colonial period were complex. Spain sought riches in the new land, but also converts for Catholicism. Missionaries traveled with the soldiers. Some of them were greatly impressed by native cultures and are responsible for the preservation of many codices and documents regarding the period. When Mexico celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus' landing, in 1892, the country was ruled by Porfirio Díaz, who remained in power for over thirty years and was a great admirer of European culture, especially the French. At that time, the government prepared a celebration of "The communion of all peoples in sentiments of justice and admiration for the past, noble aspirations and glowing hopes for the future" for October 12, 1892. As in most of the world, this event praised Columbus for his skill as navigator, for his Discovery of America and for bringing European culture to this land, although all of these things have since been questioned and re-examined.
As early as 1836, Oaxacan historian Don Carlos María de Bustamante began the "first vitriolic Mexican commentary on the Columbian event". For him, October 12, 1492 was "the most villainous day there could ever be in America; the day its slavery was established". Columbus Day is
on Monday, October 8 in the US. COMINGS AND GOINGSSeptember was one busy month but for the most part, it was quite slow. The photos from the Best Shirt Award give some example of the “crowd”. Comings: There were a few people down in South Akumal in September, including: · Tom Baxter returned for a short visit to check on the house. · Debby Entwistle is here in Casa Cielo· Sharne Hampton was spotted in South Akumal.· Gene & Mary Ellen Langan were also back in South Akumal for a bit.
Goings:
MLB WORLD SERIES STARTS OCT. 24th
Now,
there definitely are some readers who question the designation of this event
as the “World” Series, when only 30 teams – all but Toronto being from the
United States – are eligible to even be considered. TULUM’S SEA TURTLE FESTIVAL, OCT. 25 - 28th
This year
we are celebrating the 10th Tulum Sea Turtle Festival. The festival will
take place from the 25–28 October in various places. Some of the hosts will
be the Bahía Príncipe Hotel, Casa de Cultura de Tulum, and Playa Pescadores
in Tulum and Akumal. Centro
Ecológico Akumal is, once again, part of the organizing committee. On
Sunday, 28 October, Akumal will be hosting the closing event, in which you
will be able to participate in different activities, as well as watch an
artistic event and enjoy lots of food and drink. Check out our Newsletter
next month for more details about the festival. See you in October! DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME (DST), OCT. 28thIn Akumal and Europe, DST ends on Sunday, October 28. Do not forget to turn the clocks back one hour. For the U.S., and only the
U.S., DST ends on the first Sunday in Remember,
On August 8, 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of
2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in
the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST begins on the second Sunday in March and
ends the first Sunday in November. FULL MOON, OCTOBER 29thThe Full
Hunter's Moon is on Wednesday, October 29, 6:49p TAMPA BAY TO PROGRESSO FERRY UPDATEThere is not much to report on here, other than the brief update below.
All we can do is wait and see.
WHAT’S NEW AROUND TOWN?Good question. Not much. HALLOWEEN, OCTOBER 31st
The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.
Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess. Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach. The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.
The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree. According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer. The Irish
used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants
came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than
turnips, so the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit
with an ember. EVENTSBesides the usual Robin’s “Best Shirt Award” in September as an Event, we also had another exhibition at ONDEARTE.
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