Thursday, November 25, 2004

walrus

Walruses mate in the water and give birth on land or ice floes. They feed in the water, diving to depths of 300 ft (91 m), sometimes staying under for as long as a half hour. Clams and mollusks form a large part of their diet. Male walruses compete for territory, often fighting each other; the winners in these fights breeds with large numbers of females. Older male walruses are frequently seen with large scars from these battles, which are bloody but rarely fatal.
Pacific walruses spend the summer north of the Bering Strait in the Chukchi Sea along the north shore of eastern Siberia, around Wrangel Island, in the Beaufort Sea along the north shore of Alaska, and in the waters between those locations.
Smaller numbers of males summer in the Gulf of Anadyr on the south shore of the Chukchi Peninsula of Siberia and in Bristol Bay off the south shore of southern Alaska west of the Kenai Peninsula.
In the spring and fall they congregate in the Bering Strait, adjacent to the west shores of Alaska, and in the Gulf of Anadyr. They winter to the south in the Bering Sea along the eastern shore of Siberia south to the northern part of the Kamchatka Peninsula, and along the southern shore of Alaska.
The breeding season for walruses is midwinter, a time spent in the southern Bering sea. The males show off in the water for the females who view them from pack ice. Males compete aggressively for this display space with each other. Mating is probably in the water. After fertilization the fertilized egg is dormant for several months, then a gestation period of 11 months follows. When a calf is born it is over 3 ft (1 m) long and able to swim. Birth takes place on the pack ice; the calf nurses for about 2 years, spending 3 to 5 years with its mother. Females are mature at about 6 years, males at 9 or 10. A walrus lives about 40 years.

eskimos

The Inuit of northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland and the Yupik of western Alaska and the Russian Far East.
The word Eskimo in English is of uncertain origin, but probably came from a French word, Esquimaux, to English. Many Canadian Inuit consider the name "Eskimo" to be derogatory.
The Eskimos are related to the Aleuts who live on the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.
The name is widely but incorrectly believed to derive from a Cree word sometimes translated as "eaters of raw meat". A few have gone so far as to claim that the Cree, on first encountering the Eskimos, were disgusted by the Eskimo practice of eating meat raw, and so called them, essentially, "sickening humans." Because this folk etymology is so tenacious, many Inuit consider the name "Eskimo" to be derogatory.
However, this etymology is generally held to be false by philologists. Some Algonquian languages - particularly Plains Ojibwe - do call Eskimos by names that mean "eaters of raw meat" or similar. However, in the period of the earliest attested French use of the word, these peoples were not in contact with Europeans, nor did the Plains Ojibwa have very much direct contact with the Inuit in pre-colonial times. It is entirely possible that the Ojibwa have adopted words resembling Eskimo by borrowing them from French, and the French word merely sounds like the Ojibwa word for "eaters of raw meat." Furthermore, since Cree people also traditionally consumed raw meat, a pejorative significance based on this etymology seems unlikely.
people would go to a Denny's restaurant on Thanksgiving it would cost more than preparing this.

stuck in the Alamo

John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa in 1907, but the name became Marion Mitchell Morrison when his parents decided to name their next son Robert; however in later life he often stated that his middle name was Michael. His family was Presbyterian; father Clyde Leonard Morrison was of Scottish descent and the son of an American Civil War veteran, while mother Mary Alberta Brown was of Irish descent. Wayne's family moved to Glendale, California in 1911; it was neighbors in Glendale who started calling him "Big Duke," because he never went anywhere without his Airedale Terrier dog, who was Little Duke. He preferred "Duke" to "Marion," and the name stuck for the rest of his life.
Duke Morrison's early life was marked by poverty, his father was a man that did not manage money well. Duke was a good student and popular, but had a bad reputation as a drinker. Tall from an early age, he played football for Glendale and was recruited by USC.
After nearly gaining admission to the U.S. Naval Academy, he attended the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the Trojan Knights and Sigma Chi Fraternity. Wayne also played on the USC football team under legendary coach Howard Jones. An injury while supposedly swimming at the beach curtailed his athletic career, however; Wayne would later note that he was too terrified of Jones' reaction to reveal the actual cause of his injury. He lost his athletic scholarship and with no funds was unable to continue at USC.
While at the university, Wayne began working around the local film studios. Western star Tom Mix got him a summer job in the prop department in exchange for football tickets, and Wayne soon moved on to bit parts, establishing a long friendship with director John Ford. After two years working as a prop man at the William Fox Studios for $35 a week, his first starring role was in the movie The Big Trail; it was the director of that movie, Raoul Walsh, who gave him the stage name "John Wayne," after Revolutionary War general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. His pay was raised to $75 a week. He was tutored by the studio's stuntmen in riding and other western skills. san fransisco shuttletours wiley x cheap spanish holiday outdoor villa lighting