Fujian Tulou

 

Postcard CN-1464982 from China shows a Fujian Tulou (福建土楼),  the most representative and best preserved example of the earthen houses in China. Located in the mountainous regions in Fujian Province, those houses exemplify a particular combination of communal living and defensive functions, with a harmonious building relationship with the environment. A group of 46 earthen houses built between the 15th and 20th centuries was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.

Fujian Tulou reminds me the elevated pit houses, pueblos, and cliff dwellings that Ancient Pueblo peoples built in the present-day Four Corners area in the United States.

Coca-Cola Airs "America the Beautiful" Commercial at Super Bowl

From MSNBC: "Coca-Cola celebrated diversity in America Sunday night with a powerful commercial that featured a variety of faces young and old, of every skin color, with roots all over the world, and -- for the first time in Super Bowl ad history -- a family with gay parents."

Postcard US-2303290 to Italy shows the Coca-Cola bottle evolution in its 120-year time span, as part of the popular American culture. From the early non-distinctive glass bottles, to the famous contour shaped bottles, to the green PlantBottle recyclable bottles, it captures the journey of a society with increased creativeness, environmental consciousness, and recognition of diversity. See more of the Coca-Cola History at the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta and in Las Vegas.

Sustainable Style: Fashion and Photography

It is the Museums on Us by Bank of America weekend again on October 5 and 6 in 2013. You can get a free admission to one of more than 150 participating museums, science centers, or botanic gardens by presenting your Bank of America or Merrill Lynch debit/credit card. The traveling postcard US-2437271 to Massachusetts shows a photo of the exhibition: "Sustainable Style: Fashion and Photography" at the Springs Preserve from an early Museum on Us event on June 2, 2013.

"Sustainable Style" highlights fashion items made out of sustainable or environment-friendly materials. The collection on the card was designed by Elizabeth Calderon, an Mexican designer based in Las Vegas since 1996, using renewable fiber, recycled polyester and organic cotton.

According to the event web site: "Sustainable fashion is part of the growing design trend of sustainability, the goal being to create a system that can be supported indefinitely. Fashion designers are now re-introducing eco-conscious methods at the source through the use of environmentally friendly materials and socially responsible methods of production."

Organized in association with Fashion for a Cause, the exhibition ran from March 22 to June 16, 2013.

Image Schématique du Soleil

Schematic Image of the Sun and its Environment

This postcard from my space related collection shows the schematic image of the Sun and its environment. It provides a blue print showing the wide range of phenomena studied by the various experiments on board the spacecraft Ulysses.

Ulysses, decommissioned on June 30, 2009, was a joint robotic space probe to study the Sun by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). The launch of Ulysses was delayed until October 6, 1990 aboard Discovery (mission STS-41) due to the loss of its initially assigned carrier Challenger. It studied the Sun at all latitudes, breaking the limitation that the Sun had been only observed from low solar latitudes due to the Earth's orbit confined on the ecliptic plane. The mission was managed by JPL.