MensaMag (aka Cal-Amity) has a new editor,but he’ll work his changes slowly. Not too slowly, however, because the window of opportunity is narrow. Habit sets in. Excitement becomes routine and innovation dies. I know it and so do you. Editing is like marriage. What counts is freshness and creativity. Click the Comments button on this page and email your thoughts on any subject whatever. Afghanistan? Mensa? Arrogant politicians? Why wait? You have somethingto say, click Comments now and get it on the page.

The Editor

1. The Mensa International Photo contest is under way with deadline on July 31, 2007. The rules are at http://www.canada.mensa.org/photocontest07en.htm

2. If it takes 30 seconds for a clock to strike five, how long does it take to strike ten? Do you require more information? What if you know that each gong lasts ½ the interval between gongs? Is this enough information?

3. As at noon, Rocky Mountain Time, July 5, 2007, how many moons did Saturn officially have?

4. Is it true that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce? Where does Stephen Harper fit into this framework?

5. I am a timepiece. Remove one letter and I am a security device. Add one letter and I am a group. Change one letter and I am old-fashioned clothing. Finally, remove one letter and I am a popular type of music. What was I and what did I become? (courtesy British Mensa)

"[French photographer Jean Guichard] …is best known for his explosive ‘Wave’ photograph of a lighthouse, off the coast of Brittany, France, showing a keeper at the door about to be engulfed by a titanic wave. The photograph is truly one of the most recognizable lighthouse photographs in the world. When first seeing the famous photograph, most people assume that the lighthouse keeper must have been killed. In fact, the keepers had been living in fear of death during the 1989 storm and at one point had taken refuge in the lantern room of the tower. Waves the night before had smashed through the lower windows of the tower, causing the structure to flood, washing away everything in its path including the television, table, chairs, coffee maker and even the refrigerator. The keepers in fact were waiting to be rescued by helicopter. As Jean Guichard’s helicopter approached the tower he was unaware that the keepers were waiting for a rescue helicopter. Guichard was simply there to take photographs of the waves pounding the structure. The keepers heard the sound of the helicopter and naturally assumed it was the rescue helicopter. One of the keepers opened the lower door of the structure and as he looked up at the helicopter and realized that it was not the rescue chopper, he also realized that a giant wave was about to engulf the tower. He immediately turned about and pulled the door closed behind him. Had he not done so at that second, he surely would have been killed. While all this was happening, Jean Guichard was busy taking photographs as fast as he could click the camera, thus capturing on film the most dramatic action shots ever taken at a lighthouse. (text by Timothy Harrison in Lighthouse Depot (May 18, 2001), Wells, Maine)

A group of Mensans recently toured seven spectacular Calgary homes which featured unique architecture, beautiful artwork, luxurious furnishings, and delightful gardens. The tour provided a brief glimpse into the lifestyle of Calgary’s rich but perhaps not so famous and included a bright, modern chic home in Mount Royal with a bathtub within a bathtub (and rose petals) which fills from the ceiling (just like the one at your home), a fabulous (and very masculine) 5000 ft2 downtown penthouse with a grand staircase and a rooftop hot tub, a contemporary home in Rideau backing on to the Elbow River and filled with artifacts from around the globe, a modern home in Lakeview filled with colour and light, an urban cottage in Capital Hill designed by the architect owner and two lovely homes in the country: a warm family home in Braemar Estates with three whimsical children’s rooms and a 5-car garage, and a country 2-acre estate in Anatapi c/w marble, rich woods and slate, an indoor swimming pool, a tennis court and a glorious view. The tour is an annual event held in both Calgary and Edmonton to raise funds for the Alberta Ballet so keep it in mind for next year. Whoever said money doesn’t buy happiness has clearly never been on this tour.

(by patricia almost)

If you want to find out more about Mensa, check the Mensa Canada
website at www.canada.mensa.org/

If you would like to take a sample test you can find Mensa’s 10 minute
workout at http://www.canada.mensa.org/sampletesten.htm

The next supervised Mensa testing session in Calgary will take place on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 6:30pm. This should take just over an hour of your time and is not at all intimidating.

The testing fee is $90, which covers the cost of two tests, feedback on your eligibility for Mensa membership, plus the first year’s membership fee if you qualify. You write two tests so you have two chances to qualify. Full time students pay only $70.

Alternatively, a pictorial test is available if your mother tongue isn’t English and you don’t want your test scores to be disadvantaged by language.

You need to score in the top 2% of the population in one of the two tests to qualify.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions surrounding Mensa and the testing procedures. Also, if you wish to write the tests on July 17, please let me know so I can plan resources and give you directions to our testing site in Meeting Room 2, Basement, W R Castell Central Library, 616 Macleod Trail SE
Calgary.

Contact me asap to make arrangements. The testing session will be Tuesday, July 17, 2007, 6:30 to 8:00 pm

Vicki Herd, Proctor, Mensa Calgary
243-6144
vherd@shaw.ca

Attached are the two essay winners and two honourable mentions in Mensa Canada’s national competition. The judges included Calgary’s Peter Walker and Lethbridge’s Morna Hussey. The winner’s receive $750 each. The parameters are self-evident.

Winners

Amanda McLarty I believe the north is a unique part of Canada and teaching in the north comes with unique circumstances. When I was a child going to school in a northern community, I saw many well meaning teachers that couldn’t deal with these circumstances. Unfortunately those who suffered were the children who did not get the attention they deserved. After working in the daycare system I realized that I wanted to continue my education and joined the Indian Teacher Education Program. Majoring in Native Studies has helped me understand the children in my home community and territory. As I am nearing my final year of my Bachelor of Education Program at the University of Saskatchewan I am more certain than ever that I have chosen the correct career path. Through my education I have had to balance part time work and leaving home and family but my passion and goal to make a difference in children’s lives has driven me. My plan is to graduate and teach as part of the community that I feel so close to. Since graduating from high school I have been contributing to my northern community through practice teaching, work placements and volunteering through Girl Guides Canada. I know that when I graduate the north is where I want to return, hopefully encouraging children and inspiring them. These last four months will be an exciting final part of a long path, a path that I know will lead to a rewarding career shaping northern Canada’s future.

 

Anne Landau Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder. Through my thesis work towards a doctoral degree in the Department of Physiology at McGill University, I have identified a novel neuroprotective agent in models of PD. My research interest lies in the development of strategies to rescue and replace diseased neurons. I plan to accomplish postdoctoral studies using brain stimulation as a potential cure for PD. My personal long-term goal is a career in biomedical research and teaching. My first exposure to scientific research was when I worked in a DNA repair laboratory as a college student. Through this work, my interest in medical research grew which launched me into a research-based honours undergraduate program at McGill where I conducted research in a "Neurophysiology of Pain" laboratory. Funded through awards from McGill and Quebec (FRSQ), I completed the work for a Master’s degree in the same laboratory. Meanwhile, watching my grandmother battle Alzheimer’s disease shifted my focus to the study of neuroprotection, the topic of my doctoral research funded by a CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarship. I received a travel grant from the Society for Neuroscience to present my findings at a meeting in Portugal, a summer research fellowship under the auspices of CIHR and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to conduct research in Japan, and a dissertation fellowship from Standard Life Insurance Company. These research opportunities, in conjunction with my experience in teaching, writing and problem solving have prepared me for a future as a scientific researcher.

Honourable Mentions

Kate Buchan Growing up I was extremely reluctant to speak due to a speech impediment, but it was my first grade teacher who instilled in me a sense of courageousness that empowered me to aspire to my full potential. It has since been my goal to do for children what that teacher did for me.I am now in my second year of an undergraduate degree in Child and Youth Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, working towards a career with children. I have volunteered and worked with children in various capacities throughout my life. In the past, as a Tutor with the Children’s Aid Society and as a Program Assistant for special needs children at a childcare center. Currently, I am a Tutor for the Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority and a Literacy Tutor for the Halifax Public Libraries. On the road to eventually working as an Itinerant Teacher for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the public sector, I plan to complete a Bachelor’s of Education degree, followed by a Master’s in Education Psychology. It is important to me that I maintain my position on the Deans’ List, while Minoring in French and expanding my fluency in American Sign Language through ongoing immersion courses. Simply put, working with special needs children is the most gratifying occupation I can imagine. It is my desire to cultivate in the children that I encounter the self-confidence that was embedded in me by that very special teacher a long time ago.

 

Célia Kremer La découverte de l’anthropologie judiciaire fut décisive dans mon choix de carrière car elle est une science idéale pour allier les connaissances sur l’anatomie et les cultures humaines. Elle a également l’avantage d’aider nos pairs dans l’identification de personnes disparues ou la détermination des causes de la mort. Ainsi, elle est applicable dans des contextes autant mineurs (disparition d’individu, découverte de squelette…) que majeurs (charniers de pays anciennement dictatoriaux…). Elle présente donc un rôle humanitaire important et ce côté me fascine. Malheureusement, cette spécialisation n’existe pas au Québec et ma formation se base uniquement sur des démarches particulières et personnelles. Ainsi, pour développer mon expérience judiciaire, j’effectue depuis plus d’une année un bénévolat illimité au Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale de Montréal sous la direction d’une pathologiste judiciaire reconnue. Je publie également des articles dans plusieurs revues scientifiques afin de contribuer aux connaissances dans ce domaine. J’ai enseigné au niveau universitaire les techniques de mesures du corps humain, je donne actuellement un cours d’introduction à l’anthropologie judiciaire et en ostéologie. Sur le plan académique, j’ai une maîtrise portant sur la reconstruction faciale dans un cadre judiciaire et j’entame à l’Université de Montréal un doctorat sur les fractures crâniennes associées à différents mécanismes. Au Québec, l’anthropologie judiciaire est peu développée et la bourse Mensa Canada me serait vraiment utile afin d’acquérir les compétences et les qualifications nécessaires pour obtenir mon doctorat et adhérer à la communauté si utile des anthropologues judiciaires canadiens. The discovery of legal anthropology was decisive in choosing a career because it’s an ideal field combining knowledge of human anatomy and cultures. It also has the advantage of helping our peers in the identification of missing people or determining the cause of death. Thus, it is applicable as well in minor contexts (disappearance of individual, discovered skeleton) as well as major (mass graves in former dictatorial countries). It presents an important humanitarian role, and this aspect fascinates me. Unfortunately, this specialization does not exist in Quebec and my training is based only on particular and personal steps. To enhance my legal experience, since over a year ago, I carry out an unlimited voluntary help at the Montreal Legal Science and Forensic medicine Laboratory under the direction of a recognized legal pathologist. I also publish articles in several scientific reviews in order to contribute to knowledge in this field. I taught measurement techniques of the human body at the university level, I currently give an introduction course to legal anthropology and in osteology. On the academic level, I have a Masters Degree in facial rebuilding within a legal framework and I am starting a Doctor’s Degree at the University of Montreal on cranial fractures associated to various mechanisms. In Quebec, legal anthropology is not very developed and the Mensa Canada Scholarship would be really useful to acquire competences and the qualifications necessary to obtain my doctorate and join the community of Canadian legal anthropologists.

Friends -

Confession time: I’m a closet mariner.

Landlocked as I am, I read stories of the sea; embrace the writing of Chichester, Slocum, Moitessier, Lundy, and Goss, detailing their solo sailing efforts on blue water. I’ve read about the perfect storm, the ‘96 Vendee Globe disaster, and the trials of the great sea battles. For fiction, I’ve read Forester, Beach, Monsarrat, and others.

For all that, my experience at sea can be counted in hours, rather than months or years. A recent trip to Vancouver Island gave me a further taste of the mystery and the lure of salt water. Here are some photos from that trip.

1. Leaving Port Renfrew, on a 28 foot fishing boat, in the early morning. Crew: 1, passengers: 4. The spring air, passing over the colder waters off the coast, creates a dense, heavy fog, whose tendrils reach onto the edges of the island. The spruce and cedar loom like spectral sentinels as we idle past on our way to open water.

2. Moving up the coast at about 20 knots. This photo was one of the few which I was able to take with any clarity, as we were moving into a small swell, and this created quite a chop at the speed we were running. From the start, the Captain would not increase speed while I lolly-gagged outside the small cabin taking photos. Suitably chastened, I returned inside, and spent the outbound trip facing aft, braced against a forward bulkhead and a cabin table. Or something. Looking out the open door, and trying to hold the camera steady in the low light kept me occupied for most of the hour and a bit which took us to travel up the coast, then out several miles. Fortunately, the view was spectacular, and my mind was occupied with echoes of old salts’ tales of Torpedo Boat raids along enemy coasts.

3. The seamless transition from water to air is a mystical place. Here we float, a few miles off the coast, with no indication that there is anything but ocean and fog around us. The old ditty from Irving Berlin’s "We Saw The Sea" (1936), with Fred Astaire, kept running through my head.

"We joined the navy to see the world. And what did we see? We saw the sea… We joined the navy to see the girls. And what did we see? We saw the sea…"

4. Returning toward the coast, the edge of the fog was dramatic. The dark of the forest overwhelmed the contrast from the available light, creating a solid mass rising out of the waves.

5. A couple of days later, we stood looking south from the shore of Victoria, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The snow clad Olympic Mountains, reaching to nearly 8,000 feet in Washington, tower in the distance.

As a sidenote, I discovered a little antiquarian bookstore in Sidney, B.C., with the name "The Haunted Bookshop". An excellent shop, I made some wonderful acquisitions, including a first edition of "No Passing Glory" by Andrew Boyle, the 1955 biography of Leonard Cheshire, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for completing 100 bombing operations over Germany during World War II, at a time when fewer than 25 in 100 crews survived to complete 30 operations.

I also purchased an 1899 edition of "Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne 1812 - 1813", with a re-built spine, but otherwise in good original condition. Sergeant Bourgogne endured the expedition into Russia as part of Napoleon’s Grande Armee, one of only twenty-six men in his regiment to survive the campaign, and his account ranks as a companion to Philippe de Segur’s "Napoleon’s Russian Campaign". Left on the shelves was a four-volume history of the 13th Hussars, a regiment of the Royal Army, covering its history from the early 1700’s to the post World War 2 time, as the price was more than my allowance would permit.

I did notice a poem, however, in a frame hanging on one of the shelves:

The Haunted Bookshop

(for Howard Gerwing)

Isn’t haunted.
Not by definition at any rate.
However, if Ciardi is to be believed,
every word contains a ghost,
is a root into the past, and writing
is an act of raising the dead, a way
of communicating, and all our bodies
are like graves perhaps, resting
places haunted by life, and these ghosts
are merely movements of language
we feel on the backs of our necks,
and the shop a place of origins
….

 (by jim szpajcher)

Members, Ladies and Gentlemen,

With this issue, I pass the reins of editorship over to Aaron Rynd. And likewise Peter Temple hands over design and control of our web site to VisionTen. Peter has been with us since October 2006, and has made a vigorous mark on our newsletter site. He has put us into the “.org” realm, where we may be taken much more seriously than just “members.shaw.ca”, where we were for the previous few years.

I am very thankful for the work that Peter Temple has done and the help that he has provided over the past few months. Website construction is always difficult when a group is involved and it never stops. I hope that you will join me in wishing Peter all the best in his career, a career which is getting busier by the day.

Thank you Peter.