The Haris Burdick Chronicles - MIssing In Venice

Missing In Venice

Even with her mighty engines in reverse, the ocean liner was pulled further into the canal.

Most of Venice had already left after the third time it had happened, but a few remained. Those who had stayed knew the whole story.

The first time it happened everyone though it was just an engine malfunction or a drunk captain. But then it happened again. And again. That's when everyone realized it wasn't engine problems, something was wrong and that something was pulling ocean liners into the center of Venice. That's when everyone started leaving. Slowly Venice became a ghost city.

Eventually, the news stopped talking about it. I mean you can only carry the same story so many times.

After about 15 ocean liners had been pulled into the center of Venice, Venice was cut off from the rest of the world by an enormous wall, but every once in a while, one would come to close and be pulled through the wall. Because of the danger, whenever this happened no one wanted to go in and fix it, not one country, one city, one place. The wall began to crumble and fall into the depths of Venice's canals. 

But despite all this happening, everyone was afraid to go see what was pulling ships into Venice. It remained a mystery to the outside world. In fact it was even a mystery to to those who had stayed in Venice. They were afraid too, afraid and alone. Because even if they wanted to leave, to get away from Venice's buildings and streets falling into the canals, they could not, because there was no one left brave enough to save them. The whole world was in fear of what lay beneath the waters of Venice. 

Ships never went near Venice anymore, the never strayed from where was 'safe', except for that one ship. It had strayed to far, and now, even with it's engines in reverse it was being pulled further and further into the center of Venice.

It was a might ship and therefore mere buildings could not stop it from being pulled down, instead they were pulled down with it. Some of those buildings with people in them. And as what was left of the people of Venice watched their friends, their neighbors, the people stuck with them in fear of what lay beneath their city, they realized they could no longer live in fear. But it was not only their people dying that made them realize, it was seeing that mighty ship pulled down. Helpless. 

So right then and there, with no weapons, no plan, the people of Venice marched towards the center of their city, and when they got there, they all saw what had pulled all those ships down, but only as they were dragged down into the murky deep. 

World News - Bananas, Fish and Chips and Robots.

1. Bananas. 

We have seen tomatoes thrown and rotten vegetables and even water bottles but I don't think we've seen bananas. 

Bananas were thrown at AC Milan players when they lost 2-1 in Atlanta. The bananas were thrown by fans and they have been told that if there is a repeat the game would be suspended. "Whoever threw the bananas on the pitch deserve to have a coconut thrown back at them", said Atlanta Boss Stefano Colantuano, to Gazello Dello Sport. See more from the BBC HERE.

Sarcastic Banana Clapping.

  I mainly chose this story because I don't understand it. The fans were cheering for the team AC Milan were playing against. That team won. WHY ARE THEY THROWING BANANAS? Their team won. Did they go into the arena thinking 'Alright, win or lose AC Milan is getting bananas thrown at them'. The other reason I chose this story is I think it's childish - I mean come on, people should know by now what isn't a very sportsman like thing to do. Finally it's BANANAS why bananas?

2.Fish and Chips.

There was some major trauma in Llanberis, Gwynedd, Wales. The locale Fish and Chips shop caught fire. The blaze started on Sunday and the North Wales Fire and Rescue has to send 2 fire engines. Despite the 2 fire engines the fire went from 09:37 BST - 14:45 BST. However the fire is believed to be out. Though this might not be big news to us (what with our mayor and all) but it is in Wales. Read more HERE.

 I admit, this isn't about sportsmanship or robot arms (read on) but it is a REAL news article from the BBC, and apparently in Wales this is super-huge news, it is at the top of the articles under the Wales tab - almost up there with the upside-down sign. As a story it doesn't really have a big tie into equality or anything like that, but it does show how important some things are to people - and what they'll do to help (i.e all the fire crews and the article itself). To be honest I just loved the story (almost as much as THIS one).

3. Robots.

As we all know, there are lots of people in our world missing limbs. I would say that there are many selections for people who have now legs or arms etc. but, it's very hard for people with no arm to pick up things, etc. For people with no leg it's a bit easier to walk with prosthetics but like I said, for people with no arms/hands it's hard to pick up delicate objects. use keys, and so on. But this all may change soon. The 'Deka Arm' has been approved by US medical authorities. It has fingers that can move and pick up objects. The design was refined by US army veterans who also tested it. Finally the design was made to look as much like a real arm as possible. It's also very well thought out and tested - seeing as 40 million went into the project. Click HERE for more on this story.

I think that the idea of having a prosthetic arm that can do delicate things to make life easier on people who have lost arms is fantastic. The prosthetics before this have useable but not very good, it's hard to pick up objects and the 'Deka' just makes it so they can be more equal to everyone else. As the article says "This prosthetic limb system can pick up objects as delicate as a grape, as well being able to handle very rugged tools like a hand drill,".

Population Demographics-Child Mortality Rate

How can decreasing child mortality within a country change the population pyramid? 

Well, firstly, if all the children in a country die before they can reproduce the population will reduce drastically within a few years and die off, that's only in extreme cases of course, extreme meaning ALL the children die off. However you can still apply this to a slightly smaller scale, say HALF the children die. The population will still be drastically reduced, but it will still survive if, when the children grow up, they have kids of their own and those children have children, and so on, and so on. It doesn't JUST have to be applied to death, if you have 5 kids and 4 die, it's the same as only having 1 kid to start with, as long as that 1 kid survives. 

Look at this population pyramid, it's from 2000. 

When you use the logic of child mortality you can see that if all the people from about 0-14 died, in a few years there would be very few people 0-14 anymore, because they won't have reproduced. Fewer and fewer people would be on the population pyramid. Then, eventually, none. 

So, that's basically how DECREASING child mortality rate would affect the population pyramid, INCREASING would be quite the opposite. But I won't go into that now.

Wellington Infographic

*I apologize that it got a bit squished when I imbedded it-there's nothing I can do to fix it.

Urban Planning

I don't think Auckland actually spent that much time on their Urban Planning, maybe that's because it was first settled by Europeans around 1840. It does have neighborhoods that are divided into square type things by streets and roads (as you can see in the picture above). It also has a few piers which look like the could have been planned to look like the way they do (which is quite nice). I just don't think that Auckland was really planned for 'Birds Eye Views'.  At least from the ground Auckland is very beautiful, which I guess is better than having a great birds eye view and a very drab city from the ground.