vol. 18 no. 6 - December 2002
The U.S.S. Alaric is a North Carolina chapter of STARFLEET, the International Star Trek Fan Association. Starfleet and the Alaric recognize Paramount's sole ownership of all Star Trek copyrights. Annual individual member dues to the international club are $15.00 per year.
U.S.S. AlaricHow To Join:
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Carolina Communicator
Carolina Communicator (c) 2002 by USS Alaric. Promotional materials copyrighted by Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, and other companies, and selected submissions copyrighted by individual contributors. NEWSLETTER EDITOR: Ian "Krell" Johnsson Next Issue Deadline: Submission Guidelines: Please follow these guidelines:
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The views expressed in the Carolina Communicator do not necessarily reflect those of the staff, or all of the members of the Alaric. |
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Alaric |
ELECTED
OFFICERS:
President (Captain) - Richard Heim |
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Comm. Richard Heim |
Welcome to the December issue of the Carolina Communicator! You may have noticed some changes in this issue. The biggest change is our shift to a quarterly publication schedule. Also, since the USS Alaric is the science flagship of both Region One and all of STARFLEET, we are giving science a bigger emphasis in the newsletter. In the last three months, the biggest thing to happen aboard the Alaric was our 20th anniversary celebration --- Alaricon! was held on Saturday, October 26, in the basement auditorium of Asheville-Buncombe "Pack" Library in downtown Asheville, NC. The all-day (10:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m.) event drew a total of several dozen people and the Alaric grew by several members as a result. Our video schedule included the following shows: ST-Journey to Babel, STTNG-Yesterday's Enterprise, and STDS9-Trials and Tribble-ations. Shows that were on reserve but didn't get shown include STVoyager-Flashback, Enterprise-The Andorian Incident, and Destiny In Space. We had lots of games and puzzles on hand, and gave away tons of door prizes. In fact, several door prizes each hour for 4 hours!
We had two special guest speakers. Ralph Roberts is a well-known publisher and science-fiction writer who talked about writing starship stories. Brian Holloway is an expert costume designer and also has appeared in several Star Trek shows and other movies as an actor. Brian discussed designing Star Trek costumes, and he brought examples from several Star Trek series and movies. Both were excellent speakers and we are very grateful that they agreed to guest at Alaricon!
We collected canned food at Alaricon to help feed the hungry in the Asheville area and gave it to Manna Food Bank, one of the local charities the Alaric supports. We delivered a total of 48 pounds of food! We had tons of giveaways, courtesy of WASV 62, the local (Greenville, SC) UPN affiliate. WASV sent us stuff from Enterprise, X-Files, and Outer Limits, including hats, t-shirts, posters, casebooks, calendar-calculators, and other goodies. They also gave us a 30-second spot which they aired several times in the weeks before Alaricon! They came up to Asheville to film this public service announcement on October 5, and that was a blast! Pictures of the filming can be found at http://www.ussalaric.org/alaricon-filming-psa.html As always, I'd like to remind everyone of the other special club activities. These include collecting Campbells product labels in support of Eliada Children's Home, and aluminum can recycling as a club fund raiser. Our XO is heading up our participation in the Vessel Readiness Certification Program. I call upon the Alaric crew to please support these activities. Last, but not least, I want to thank our editor, Ian Johnsson, for a great job putting together the CC! As always, without his help, the CC simply would not happen.
Home page and backup: Online newsletters web page and backup:
http://home.sprynet.com/~ian/alaric/cc/ccYYMM.htm, where YY is the year and MM is the month of the issue.
I'll end this section of my report with another plug for Pastimes. If you're looking for music, comics, or gaming material, check them out! Pastimes, 175 Weaverville Highway, Asheville, NC 28804, phone (828) 658-0588 (email pastimesnc@earthlink.net). These great folks have been distributing our newsletters and flyers for years! Tell 'em "Richard of the Alaric sent me"! That's all for this report. Live Long, and Prosper!
Commodore Richard Heim
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Cmdr. Dale Anderson |
Note: the following is excerpted from different sources found from within 'About.com.' New Beginnings in North America for Right Whales The waters of the North Atlantic are now safer for the highly endangered northern right whale. With permission from the International Maritime Organization, Canada has relocated shipping routes in the Bay of Fundy to reduce the threat of collisions between ships and whales by up to 80 percent. Right whales inhabit the North Atlantic and spend their summers in the Bay of Fundy and migrate to the waters off the eastern coast of the United States where they spend the winter months. Currently, fewer than 350 right whales exist in the wild. During the past decade, over 50 percent of all right whale deaths were attributed to collisions with ships. In addition to collisions with ships, other factors that threaten right whales include hunting and entanglement in fishing nets. Right Whales- Description The northern right whale (scientific name Eubalaena glacialis) is a baleen whale. Adults reach lengths of 11 to 18 meters and weight 30-80 tons. Right whales have a large, round body and are predominantly black with white patches on their bellies and pale colored growths on their heads (known as callosities or whale lice). They have a bow-shaped lower jaw and a head that is up to one-quarter of the body length. The head is hairier than most whales; up to 300 hairs are found on the tip of the lower jaw and 100 are on the upper jaw. Right whales are similar to bowhead whales, but smaller. The right whale's skin is usually black to dark gray with white and/or brown patches. Calves are blue to gray colored. Right whales have no dorsal fin and no throat grooves. They have large flippers. These whales are rich in blubber and have 2 blowholes. The eyes are very small and lips are large. Right whales were named by whalers who considered them the "right" whales to hunt, since they were rich in blubber, they were easy to catch (they are relatively slow swimmers) and they floated after being killed. Northern right whale females grow to be about 50 feet (15.2 m) long, males are about 49 feet (15 m) long. They weigh approximately 120,000 pounds (54,000 kg). Southern right whale females are about 54 feet (16.5 m) long, males are about 50 feet (15.2 m) long. The females are slightly larger than males, as with all baleen whales. Right whales (like all baleen whales) are seasonal feeders and carnivores that filter pteropods, etc., from the water. Right whales are skimmers, filter feeders that swim slowly with their mouth open, constantly eating, feeding on plankton and tiny crustaceans like copepods, krill, pteropods, etc., from the water. On occasion, they are also bottom feeders, eating benthic prey from the mud on the ocean floor. The fine baleen hairs can filter out very tiny prey including copepods, steropods, euphasiids and mysids (tiny crustaceans). Right whales live in temperate and cool seas in both hemispheres at the surface of the ocean. Southern right whales live at latitudes between 20°-55° but will occasionally venture down to 63°. Present Conservation Measures The northern right whale - one of the world's most endangered animals - could be ensured long-term survival if more effort was made to prevent fatal collisions with shipping. In a new study recently published on Thursday, scientists say that if just two females a year could be spared a needless death, the species might escape extinction. It is thought there are now about 300 individuals left in existence and although the whales ( have been protected since the 1930s, their numbers have shown little sign of recovery. Formerly, in the outlawed whaling industry, their slow speed in the water, their migration close to the coast, and the fact that they stayed afloat after being killed made them an easy catch. This may be because these slow swimmers migrate along the eastern seaboard of the United States - from feeding grounds off New England to breeding grounds as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. These waters include some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, and collisions account for approximately 50% of known right whale deaths. Masami Fujiwara and Hal Caswell, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, US, have analyzed over 10,000 right whale sightings since the 1980s. The results could have important implications for the survival of the species. The researchers found that the age profile of observed females had changed dramatically in the last 20 years. In the past, females aged up to 50 years old were sighted; now, few live beyond the age of 15. Right whales need to be at least 10 years old before they can reproduce, and only have a calf every three to five years. This means an animal dying at the age of 15 will only have had one calf - not enough to sustain the population. The scientists say that if northern right whales are to survive, more effort needs to go into conservation measures, such as preventing ship collisions, rescuing whales from fishing nets, and even designing nets from which the whales can more easily break free. Preventing the deaths of just a few females each year will allow the animals to breed more than once and hence slowly build up the population, they say. The "mandatory ship reporting system" introduced in 1999 was having a positive effect. After whales are sighted, warnings of their presence are sent to large ships in the area. Whalers drove the animals to the brink of extinction because they were the right whales to kill. Click Here to Return to Table of Contents
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