1.
Land diving
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Land diving is a ritual performed by the men of the southern part of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. The precursor to bungee jumping, men jump off wooden towers around 20 to 30 meters high, Land diving is done without any safety equipment, except for the vines. The tradition has developed into a tourist attraction, according to the Guinness World Records, the g-force experienced by those at their lowest point in the dive is the greatest experienced in the non-industrialized world by humans. The origin of land diving is described in a legend of a woman who was dissatisfied with her husband and it is sometimes claimed that the woman was upset that her husband was too vigorous regarding his sexual wants, so she ran away into the forest. Her husband followed her, so she climbed a banyan tree, Tamalie climbed after her, and so she tied lianas to her ankles and jumped and survived. Her husband jumped after her, but did not tie lianas to himself, the men performed the original land diving so that they would not be tricked again. The land diving ritual is associated with the yam harvest. It is performed annually in the months of April, May, a good dive helps ensure a bountiful yam harvest. The villagers believe land diving can enhance the health and strength of the divers, a successful dive can remove the illnesses and physical problems associated with the wet season. Furthermore, land diving is considered as an expression of masculinity, nevertheless, the men who do not choose to dive or back out of diving are not humiliated as cowards. In the Sa language, gol refers to both the tower and the land dive, the tower symbolically represents a body, with a head, shoulders, breasts, belly, genitals, and knees. The diving platforms represent the penises and the struts beneath represent the vaginas, technically, the time of yam harvest is significant because tower construction is best done during the dry season. Also, the lianas have the best elasticity during this time, during the period of preparation for naghol, the men seclude themselves from the women and refrain from sex. Furthermore, women are not allowed to go near the tower or else Tamalie, additionally, the men must not wear any lucky charms during the dive. The construction of the tower typically takes two and five weeks of construction. Around twenty to thirty men help construct it, the men cut trees to construct the body, clear a site for the tower, and remove rocks from the soil. The soil is tilled to soften the ground, the wood is freshly cut, so that it can remain strong. The core of the tower is made from a tree
2.
1,000 Places to See Before You Die
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1,000 Places to See Before You Die is a 2003 travel book by Patricia Schultz, published by Workman. A revised edition was published in November 2011, the new edition is in color. An iPad app debuted in December 2011, the book blends well-known places with rather unknown ones. On March 29,2007, the Travel Channel and Discovery HD Theater premiered a series based on the books locations, Patricia Schultz published a follow-up edition in 2007 called 1,000 Places to See in the USA and Canada Before You Die. The books chapters are broken down by geographical locations, within each chapter, the entries are further narrowed by region. The chapters are as follows, Chapter 1, Europe, includes Great Britain and Ireland, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Entries range from Cambridge University in Cambridgeshire, England to Midsummer Eve in Dalarna, Sweden. Chapter 2, Africa, includes North Africa, West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa, Entries for this chapter range from Alexandria, Egypt to Mahé in Seychelles. Chapter 3, The Middle East, Entries include Acre in Israel,1,000 Places to See Before You Die, Updated Edition, Workman 2010. 1,000 Places to See Before You Die in the US and Canada,1,000 Places to See Before You Die, Workman 2003. ISBN 0-7611-0484-4 Books official website Travel Channel series website
3.
Whittier, California
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Whittier is a city in Southern California located within Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a population of 85,331, reflecting an increase of 1,631 from the 83,680 counted in the 2000 Census, like nearby Montebello, the city constitutes part of the Gateway Cities. Whittier was incorporated in February 1898 and became a city in 1955. The city is named for the poet John Greenleaf Whittier and is home to Whittier College, Whittiers roots can be traced to Spanish soldier Manuel Nieto. In 1784, Nieto received a Spanish land grant of 300,000 acres, Rancho Los Nietos, as a reward for his military service, the area of Nietos land grant was reduced in 1790 as the result of a dispute with Mission San Gabriel. Nieto built a rancho for his family near Whittier, and purchased cattle and horses for his ranch, when Nieto died in 1804, his children inherited their fathers property. At the time of the Mexican-American War, much of the land that would become Whittier was owned by Pio Pico, a rancher, Pio Pico built a hacienda here on the San Gabriel River, known today as Pio Pico State Historic Park. Gerkens would later become the first chief of police of the Los Angeles Police Department, gerkens land was owned by several others before a group of Quakers purchased it and expanded it to 1,259 acres, with the intent of founding a Quaker community. The area soon became known as a thriving citrus ranching region, later, walnut trees were also planted, and Whittier became the largest walnut grower in the United States. In addition to walnuts and citrus, Whittier was also a producer of pampas grass. For many years, the means of transport from this area to Los Angeles was on foot, or via horse and wagon over rough dirt roads, impeding settlement, development. Thus in 1887 enterprising and aggressive businessmen contracted with the Southern Pacific Railroad to build the first railroad spur to Whittier, by 1906,650 carloads of oranges and 250 carloads of lemons were shipped annually by rail. In 1904, the Pacific Electric opened the line known as Big Red Cars from Los Angeles to Whittier. In the first two decades, over a million passengers a year rode to and from Los Angeles on the Whittier line, groves of walnuts were planted in 1887 and eventually Whittier was known as the primary walnut growing town in the United States. After World War II Whittier grew rapidly and the sub-dividing of orange groves began, in 1955 the new Civic Center complex was completed and the City Council met in new chambers for the first time on March 8,1955. The city continued to grow as the City annexed portions of Whittier Boulevard, the 1961 annexation added over 28,000 people to the population, bringing the total to about 67,000. In the founding days of Whittier, when it was an isolated town, Jonathan Bailey and his wife. They followed the Quaker religious faith and practice, and held meetings on their porch
4.
University of Southern California
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The University of Southern California is a private research university founded in 1880 with its main campus in Los Angeles, California. As Californias oldest private university, USC has historically educated a large number of the regions business leaders. In recent decades, the university has also leveraged its location in Los Angeles to establish relationships with research and cultural institutions throughout Asia, an engine for economic activity, USC contributes $8 billion annually to the economy of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and California. For the 2014–15 academic year, there were 18,740 students enrolled in undergraduate programs. USC also has 23,729 graduate and professional students in a number of different programs, including business, law, engineering, social work, and medicine. The university is one of the top fundraising institutions in the world, consistently ranking among the top 3 in external contributions, multiple academic rankings list the University of Southern California as being among the top 25 universities in the United States. With an acceptance rate of 16 percent, USC is also among the most selective academic institutions in the nation. USC maintains a tradition of innovation and entrepreneurship, with alumni having founded companies such as Lucasfilm, Myspace, Salesforce. com, Intuit, Qualcomm, Box, Tinder. As of 2014, the university has produced the fourth largest number of billionaire alumni out of all institutions in the world. USC is home to the world’s most powerful computer, which is presently housed in a super-cooled. The only other commercially available quantum computing system is operated jointly by NASA, USC was also one of the earliest nodes on ARPANET and is the birthplace of the Domain Name System. Other technologies invented at USC include DNA computing, dynamic programming, image compression, VoIP, USC sponsors a variety of intercollegiate sports and competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association as a member of the Pac-12 Conference. Members of the teams, the Trojans, have won 102 NCAA team championships, ranking them third in the nation. Trojan athletes have won 288 medals at the Olympic games, more than any university in the United States. If USC were a country, its athletes would have received the 12th-most Olympic gold medals in history. In 1969, it joined the Association of American Universities, the University of Southern California was founded following the efforts of Judge Robert M. Hellman. The three donated 308 lots of land to establish the campus and provided the seed money for the construction of the first buildings. Originally operated in affiliation with the Methodist Church, the school mandated from the start that no student would be denied admission because of race, the university is no longer affiliated with any church, having severed formal ties in 1952
5.
Urban planning
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Urban planning is also referred to as urban and regional planning, regional planning, town planning, city planning, rural planning or some combination in various areas worldwide. It takes many forms and it can share perspectives and practices with urban design, urban planning guides orderly development in urban, suburban and rural areas. Practitioners of urban planning are concerned with research and analysis, strategic thinking, architecture, urban design, public consultation, policy recommendations, implementation and management. Urban planners work with the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering. Early urban planners were often members of these cognate fields, today urban planning is a separate, independent professional discipline. The discipline is the category that includes different sub-fields such as land-use planning, zoning, economic development, environmental planning. There is evidence of planning and designed communities dating back to the Mesopotamian, Indus Valley, Minoan. Archeologists studying the ruins of cities in these areas find paved streets that were out at right angles in a grid pattern. The idea of a planned out urban area evolved as different civilizations adopted it, beginning in the 8th century BCE, Greek city states were primarily centered on orthogonal plans. The ancient Romans, inspired by the Greeks, also used orthogonal plans for their cities, city planning in the Roman world was developed for military defense and public convenience. The spread of the Roman Empire subsequently spread the ideas of urban planning, as the Roman Empire declined, these ideas slowly disappeared. However, many cities in Europe still held onto the planned Roman city center, cities in Europe from the 9th to 14th centuries, often grew organically and sometimes chaotically. But many hundreds of new towns were built according to preconceived plans. Most of these were realized from the 12th to 14th centuries, from the 15th century on, much more is recorded of urban design and the people that were involved. In this period, theoretical treatises on architecture and urban planning start to appear in which questions are addressed and designs of towns. During the Enlightenment period, several European rulers ambitiously attempted to redesign capital cities, during the Second French Republic, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, under the direction of Napoleon III, redesigned the city of Paris into a more modern capital, with long, straight, wide boulevards. Planning and architecture went through a shift at the turn of the 20th century. The industrialized cities of the 19th century grew at a tremendous rate, the pace and style of this industrial construction was largely dictated by the concerns of private business
6.
Grey Global Group
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Grey Group’s international clients include, Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Nokia, British American Tobacco, Diageo, Volkswagen, Novartis, Wyeth, Canon, DirecTV, and 3M. The company has won,10 Cannes Lions, beside the Addy, Clio, in 1956, Grey acquired its first major client, Procter & Gamble. Through the 1960s and 1970s, Grey continued to such major accounts. In 1970, Edward H. Meyer became CEO and would remain in position for 36 years before selling the company and joining his son, Anthony E. Meyer. In 1988, the operation, London-based Grey Communications Group. In 1989 Chapman developed the New Media Experiment, Chapman explored the use of the internet as an alternative to traditional advertising media putting Grey at the forefront of the internet revolution. In 2000, Grey Advertising became Grey Global Group, on March 7,2005, WPP Group beat out Havas in a race to acquire Grey Global, the seventh-largest advertising agency at the time, for approximately $1.3 billion USD. In late 2005, James R. Heekin III became CEO of Grey Worldwide, on January 1,2007, he became Chairman and CEO of Grey Group, the renamed agency holding company. He reports to Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, Grey Group, Grey Advertising New York and G2 moved to a LEED certified building at 200 5th Avenue in New York in November 2009, after 45 years at their previous location. Grey San Francisco is the companys San Francisco-based West Coast headquarters Grey San Franciscos clients include Symantec, LendingTree, Pernod Ricard, in 2016, Grey acquired ArcTouch, a mobile design and development studio, which it operates as a subsidiary. In 2010, Grey was listed on Fast Companys 50 Most Innovative Companies, in 2010, it was added to Advertising Ages Agency A-List. In 2006, Grey was awarded 12 Spots of the Week by Ad Age, in 2016, Grey for Good, Grey Groups philanthropic communications division, created a hoax app, called I SEA, that claimed to use crowdsourcing to help the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. After it was debunked by developers, Apple store pulled the app on the day it was awarded a Bronze Lion at the Cannes Lions festival. In the AMC series Mad Men, Duck Phillips joins Grey Advertising after being dumped by Sterling Cooper, the agency is frequently referenced as a chief competitor of Sterling Cooper throughout the series. In episode three of the 2010 series of BBC Threes Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum, the adults spend a day at Grey Advertising working on a mock sexual health campaign. Lana Del Rey was born Elizabeth Woolridge Grant in New York City on June 21,1985, to former Grey Group copywriter turned entrepreneur, Rob Grant, and former Grey account executive, Pat Grant
7.
TBWA Worldwide
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TBWA Worldwide is an international advertising agency whose main headquarters are in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The Agency is a unit of Omnicom Group, the worlds largest advertising holding company. It was founded in 1970 in Paris, France, by William G. Tragos, Claude Bonnange, Uli Wiesendanger, the first letter of each founders name provided the initials for the new organization. They were purchased by the Omnicom Group in 1993, in the United States, TBWA operates through TBWA\Chiat\Day, with offices in Los Angeles, New York City and Nashville. The Asia Pacific regional operations was split into three regions – Asia, Oceania and Greater China – and headquarters moved from Hong Kong to Singapore. com for interactive and that said, in specific markets it partners or works with other Diversified Agency Services agencies within Omnicoms portfolio. In the mid-1990s TBWA began expanding globally spreading rapidly, in 2010, it was named by Advertising Agency as one of the top ten agencies of the Decade. TBWA has a philosophy called the disruption and Media Arts created by Jean Marie Dru when he was in BDDP the May 1st of 1992. The Disruption is explained in different books created by Jean Marie Dru, such as Disruption, How Disruption brought order and Beyond Disruption, changing the rules in the marketplace. Some time after the billboard was taken down in Mexico City, pincha la Rueda de Hamilton, a Spanish website run by TBWA, was set up in October 2008. It hosted a game where users could leave objects on a track to stop the then Formula One leader, Lewis Hamilton. It became controversial when users began to leave racist comments aimed at the mixed-race Hamilton and was shut down in November, the FIA, the sports governing body, and Hamiltons team, McLaren, condemned the comments as abusive and hateful. In 1997 TBWA developed the Chihuahua campaign for Taco Bell, Taco Bell in turn sued TBWA saying it should have been aware of the conflicts. In 2009 a three-judge federal appeals panel ruled against Taco Bell, in December 2009, TBWA developed the campaign for Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream in India. Several banners were put up that said Exclusive Preview for International Travelers - Access restricted only to holders of international passports, instead of portraying exclusivity, this was perceived negatively due to Indias long history of colonialism where access to certain areas was restricted to the white colonizers from Britain. Häagen-Dazs cut ties with TBWA after the publicity generated due to that incident
8.
Venice, Los Angeles
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Venice is a residential, commercial and recreational beachfront neighborhood on the Westside of the Californian city of Los Angeles. Venice was founded in 1905 as a resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it merged with Los Angeles, today, Venice is known for its canals, beaches, and the circus-like Ocean Front Walk, a two-and-a-half-mile pedestrian-only promenade that features performers, mystics, artists and vendors. Venice, originally called Venice of America, was founded by tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a resort town,14 miles west of Los Angeles. He and his partner Francis Ryan had bought two miles of oceanfront property south of Santa Monica in 1891 and they built a resort town on the north end of the property, called Ocean Park, which was soon annexed to Santa Monica. After Ryan died, Kinney and his new partners continued building south of Navy Street, tourists, mostly arriving on the Red Cars of the Pacific Electric Railway from Los Angeles and Santa Monica, then rode the Venice Miniature Railway and gondolas to tour the town. But the biggest attraction was Venices mile-long gently sloping beach, cottages and housekeeping tents were available for rent. The population soon exceeded 10,000, the town drew 50,000 to 150,000 tourists on weekends. Attractions on the Kinney Pier became more amusement-oriented by 1910, when a Venice Miniature Railway, Aquarium, Virginia Reel, Whip, Racing Derby, and other rides and game booths were added. Since the business district was allotted only three streets, and the City Hall was more than a mile away, other competing business districts developed. Unfortunately, this created a political climate. Kinney, however, governed with a hand and kept things in check. When he died in November 1920, Venice became harder to govern, with the amusement pier burning six weeks later in December 1920, and Prohibition, the towns tax revenue was severely affected. The Kinney family rebuilt their amusement pier quickly to compete with Ocean Parks Pickering Pleasure Pier, when it opened it had two roller coasters, a new Racing Derby, a Noahs Ark, a Mill Chutes, and many other rides. By 1925 with the addition of a coaster, a tall Dragon Slide, Fun House. Several hundred thousand tourists visited on weekends, in 1923 Charles Lick built the Lick Pier at Navy Street in Venice, adjacent to the Ocean Park Pier at Pier Avenue in Ocean Park. Another pier was planned for Venice in 1925 at Leona Street, for the amusement of the public, Kinney hired aviators to do aerial stunts over the beach. One of them, movie aviator and Venice airport owner B. H. DeLay and he also initiated the first aerial police in the nation, after a marine rescue attempt was thwarted
9.
Los Angeles Times
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The Los Angeles Times, commonly referred to as the Times or LA Times, is a paid daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008, the Times is owned by tronc. The Times was first published on December 4,1881, as the Los Angeles Daily Times under the direction of Nathan Cole Jr. and it was first printed at the Mirror printing plant, owned by Jesse Yarnell and T. J. Unable to pay the bill, Cole and Gardiner turned the paper over to the Mirror Company. Mathes had joined the firm, and it was at his insistence that the Times continued publication, in July 1882, Harrison Gray Otis moved from Santa Barbara to become the papers editor. Otis made the Times a financial success, in an era where newspapers were driven by party politics, the Times was directed at Republican readers. As was typical of newspapers of the time, the Times would sit on stories for several days, historian Kevin Starr wrote that Otis was a businessman capable of manipulating the entire apparatus of politics and public opinion for his own enrichment. Otiss editorial policy was based on civic boosterism, extolling the virtues of Los Angeles, the efforts of the Times to fight local unions led to the October 1,1910 bombing of its headquarters, killing twenty-one people. Two union leaders, James and Joseph McNamara, were charged, the American Federation of Labor hired noted trial attorney Clarence Darrow to represent the brothers, who eventually pleaded guilty. Upon Otiss death in 1917, his son-in-law, Harry Chandler, Harry Chandler was succeeded in 1944 by his son, Norman Chandler, who ran the paper during the rapid growth of post-war Los Angeles. Family members are buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery near Paramount Studios, the site also includes a memorial to the Times Building bombing victims. The fourth generation of family publishers, Otis Chandler, held that position from 1960 to 1980, Otis Chandler sought legitimacy and recognition for his familys paper, often forgotten in the power centers of the Northeastern United States due to its geographic and cultural distance. He sought to remake the paper in the model of the nations most respected newspapers, notably The New York Times, believing that the newsroom was the heartbeat of the business, Otis Chandler increased the size and pay of the reporting staff and expanded its national and international reporting. In 1962, the paper joined with the Washington Post to form the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service to syndicate articles from both papers for news organizations. During the 1960s, the paper won four Pulitzer Prizes, more than its previous nine decades combined, eventually the coupon-clipping branches realized that they could make more money investing in something other than newspapers. Under their pressure the companies went public, or split apart, thats the pattern followed over more than a century by the Los Angeles Times under the Chandler family. The papers early history and subsequent transformation was chronicled in an unauthorized history Thinking Big and it has also been the whole or partial subject of nearly thirty dissertations in communications or social science in the past four decades. In 2000, the Tribune Company acquired the Times, placing the paper in co-ownership with then-WB -affiliated KTLA, which Tribune acquired in 1985
