Bob Groeneveld EDITOR
A8
Thursday, February 21, 2013
editor@langleyadvance.com
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Opinion
Ryan McAdams PUBLISHER rmcadams@langleyadvance.com
LangleyAdvance
Chamber basic to community
Almost exactly 82 years ago, a small band of forward-thinking, community-spirited business people sat down and decided to work together for the betterment of their businesses, and of their community. It wasn’t entirely a business proposition – but their plan was to use their businesses to promote their community. What they envisaged was business owners and professionals joining with other local citizens to start an organization to educate their neighbours about the important role that commerce plays in a community, while building cooperative networks among local business people, helping new businesses get off the ground, and sustaining existing businesses during difficult economic times (82 years ago was 1931, the heart of the Great Depression, and one the most difficult economic times that Langley – and most of the world – had known. Out of that meeting of minds, the Langley Board of Trade was formed. It was renamed the Langley Chamber of Commerce, and after merging with the Aldergrove Chamber and the Fort Langley and District Chamber, is now the Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce – one of the largest, most active, and effective chambers in B.C. Since receiving its charter in April 1931, the Langley chamber’s activities have always gone far beyond friendly meetings and business promotions, and many of its initiatives have become foundational to the community. For instance, one of its very first initiatives was to encourage establishment of a local newspaper to enhance Langley’s stature inside and beyond the immediate community. Three months later, the first Langley Advance edition rolled off the presses – and we now claim the honour of being the chamber’s longest-standing member. This week is Chamber of Commerce Week in B.C., a week to raise awareness of the chambers that enhance daily life in communities throughout the province – like the chamber that started right here in Langley 82 years ago. – B.G.
Your View
Advance Poll…
Are you tired of the provincial political advertising yet?
Vote at… www.langleyadvance.com Last week’s question… Are you pleased Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Langley Feb. 8? Yes
13.73 %
No
11.76 %
How much did it cost?
17.65 %
I hope he left quickly
15.69 %
Didn’t know he was here
41.18 %
Opinion
Big space rocks a cool way out Painful truth
thing other than mere space rocks were to blame. Actual cause of the Tunguska Event: probably a sizeable meteor that exploded in midair, unleashing an atomic-bomb sized blast. Matthew Claxton Proposed causes: mclaxton@langleyadvance.com • Tiny black hole tunneling through Earth. • Alien spacecraft, either crashing, blowing up, or getting royally pissed off at a reindeer I’ve now decided how I want to die. I want and deciding to zap Rudolf. to be killed by a meteorite. • Wandering chunk of anti-matter hitting Last week, a big chunk or rock and/or metal the upper atmosphere. Shame it didn’t land on slammed through the sky above Russia, blastDan Brown. ing out windows and injuring thousands. • Nikola Tesla. While this is, of course, a terrible tragedy, at The last is my favourite explanation, because least it’s one with some grandeur. It’s no petty it lets me use the phrase “death ray.” sink hole or flood, it’s death from space! Tesla, who invented alternatUnfortunately, my best chance ing current and was thus also for being killed by a meteorite hapTunguska wasn’t the partially responsible for the pened more than a century ago. It greatest Australian rock band biggest meteor to was also in Russia, as it happens, of all time, had built a sizein a remote region of Sibera known blast a hole in the able tower just before 1908, to as Tunguska. planet, not by a long be used for transmitting radio The Tunguska Event may not waves, and, you know, vast technically have been a meteorite shot. amounts of electricity through (which hits the ground in at least the air. Then in the 1930s he one piece) but it was definitely a started talking up his plans for an anti-aircraft meteor (which flies through the sky, leaving a gun based on shooting charged particles, blab visible trail). In fact, it was visible across a vast swathe of blah blah physics blah blah DEATH RAY! He was completely serious about this. Asia and Europe. Observers at the time, who However, in his later years it was hard to included officials and townspeople hundreds tell whether he was still a brilliant, madcap of miles away, and tribal reindeer herders inventor or just mad. The man’s pigeon fixamuch closer, described the event variously as tion was getting pretty bad by then. being shoved around by a mysterious force, So it’s fairly unlikely that he created the a sound of artillery and underground trains, Tunguska Event. hot winds, thunder, and the sensation that the Anyway, Tunguska wasn’t the biggest ground was being hit by large rocks. meteor to blast a hole in the planet, not by a That was in 1908, and it wasn’t until the long shot. Everyone knows about the dinosaur early 1920s that Soviet scientists managed to killer, the Chixulub comet that slammed into hack their way through hundreds of miles of the Yucatan about 66 million years ago. boggy forest to find the site of the blast. But there were bigger ones even than that. What they found was massive devastation: a Ever been to Sudbury? About 1.8 billion years core of scorched trees (superstitiously avoided ago, a rock hit that spot, leaving a 250-kiloby the locals) surrounded by about 2,000 metre-wide crater. If there had been life more square kilometres of fallen trees. complicated than slime, that would have No single piece of a meteorite from the punched its ticket. We’d all be dead if it hapTunguska Event has ever been found, which pened now, but what a way to go. has inspired suggestions that perhaps some-
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