Stephen J. Thorne

A good parade

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Who doesn’t love a good parade?

A jaunty march. Many feet and arms moving as one. Chins up. Shoulders back. The repetitive clack of heels on pavement. The stirring skirl of dozens of bagpipes rising. You feel it in the chest, the primordial stimulation of mechanoreceptors absorbing the rat-a-tat-tat and thump-thump of beating drums.

There is the odd satisfaction wrought by all that uniformity: dress (the more ostentatious the better), hats, footwear, accoutrements. All accentuated by discipline in execution and movement.

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Celebrating history’s first nuclear-arms control agreement

STORY BY PAIGE JASMINE GILMAR

The coldest, the windiest, the highest, the driest; Antarctica is a land of extremes. Twice the size of Australia, Antarctica experiences temperatures as cold as -89 C and winds as strong as 322 km/h. Although only select creatures are tough enough to endure its killer climate, the continent remains a boon for scientific study and exploration. What’s more, this 5.5-million-square-mile frozen desert makes up the largest anti-military, anti-industrial zone—thanks to the Antarctic Treaty.

With 12,512 warheads and counting worldwide, it’s hard to imagine that more than 60 years ago the planet’s leaders signed an agreement that effectively bypassed the territorial sovereignty and military-industrial development of 10 per cent of the Earth’s land mass for the benefit of scientific achievement, environmental preservation and peace.

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