Come In Out Of The Rain Dear

Elizabeth II takes shelter from the rain at March 29's official opening of the new Lawn Tennis Association training centre in Roehampton, England.

Kongou Falls, Gabon

Kongou Falls, or Chutes Kongou en francais, is a massively serial cataract on the Ivindo River. In appearance, it is a series of rushing falls, cascades and cataracts between dozens of heavily forested (alright, jungled...technically) islands. The falls are one of the focal points of the Ivindo National Park in Gabon. You can hear it days before you reach it, a two-mile-wide expanse of roiling water that thunders through a chain of islands, churning up mountains of foam.

Total Height: 185 feet
Tallest Single Drop: 185 feet
Number of Drops: 1
Waterfall Type: segmented
Average Width: 10,500 feet
Average Volume: 31,783 cubic feet / sec.
Maximum Recorded Volume: 95,349 cubic feet / sec.
Watercourse: Ivindo River
Seasonality: Perrenial

What I love about this picture is the attitude of the boatman at the base of the falls. In a craft that looks as though a teardrop would sink it, he paddles calmly along as though this may be his daily route... the most ordinary of passages. How wonderful.

What Day Does Spring Start?

What day does spring start?
The BBC News...

It's snowing but according to the Met Office spring has sprung. Others disagree. So what day does spring start? Much of the country is in the grip of icy winter weather but according to the Meteorological Office spring is here. It classes the first day of spring as 1 March, saying March, April and May are regarded as the spring months. But traditionally spring has started on the night of 20/21 March and a row has erupted over the official date.

"You would not regard the first three weeks of June as spring, yet historically summer does not start until 21 June," says a spokesman for the Met Office. "Equally, the bulk of people now regard 1 March as the first day of spring."

But disgruntled MPs are questioning "on whose authority" the date has been changed. "They may say that 1 March is the first day of spring - which it is not - but it certainly doesn't feel like it," says the seasonally named Sir Nicholas Winterton, Conservative MP for Macclesfield. He is supported by Stuart Bell, Labour MP for Middlesbrough, who says: "Spring starts on March 20/21 and if the Met Office are not aware of this simple fact, it reflects a casual approach to facts, which is all too inherent today."

Historically spring starts on the day of the vernal equinox, which usually occurs on the night of 20/21 March. Vernal comes originally from the Latin word for bloom and refers to the fact that, in the northern hemisphere, this equinox marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring. An equinox is a time when the nights are as long as the days and the vernal equinox is recognised the world over as the start of the new astrological cycle.

But does that necessarily make it the start of spring? After all, summer is commonly decreed to start on 21 June - the Summer Solstice - yet the following day is known as MID-summer's day. And since when has the prevailing weather had anything to do with it? Parts of the country may be ankle-deep in snow but cast your mind back three months and the talk was why, in mid-December, the weather felt like spring.

The Met Office, meanwhile, has little time for celestial patterns and historical precedent. It picked 1 March for simplicity's sake, choosing to slot the four seasons neatly into the 12 months... June, July and August are the summer months; September, October and November autumn, and so on.

Barrymore Joseph Bunt

Circa 1995 - March 17, 2007

His life was not an easy one but he never complained. Barry would sing no matter what. He was just happy to be.

He chose us. And he stayed with us all these years. Miss you Bammer. God bless.

Get the Picture?

A man burns a flag in protest against the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush in Montevideo March 9.

Go Fly a Kite

The Day in Photos

CHARLA JONES / TORONTO STAR

A lone kite rides the wind at the Lake Simcoe Wind Sports Festival yesterday.

The Political Compass

These days it's getting harder and harder to differentiate political beliefs. Here's an interesting place where you can take a bead on your own political leanings, and find out where some of the great world leaders stand in relationship to you and to each other.

The Political Compass™

Welcome to The Political Compass™. There's abundant evidence for the need of it. The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?

On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.

Go to this link to take a test that will show you were you stand on the Political Compass.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/