July 15, 2013
Slim Jim is a brand of jerky snacks or dried sausage manufactured by ConAgra Foods, Inc., the food conglomerate based in Omaha. They are popular in the United States. More than 500 million are produced annually in at least 20 varieties.
The Slim Jim itself has been transformed in the years since Adolph Levis invented it in 1928. He sold the company in 1967 for about 20 million dollars to General Mills, who moved the operations to Raleigh, N.C., and merged them into other meatpacking operations that it renamed Goodmark Foods. It sold Goodmark in 1982 to a group led by Ron Doggett, who sold it to ConAgra in 1998.
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July 15, 2013
Randy Mario Poffo (1952 – 2011), better known by his ring name ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage, was an American professional wrestler and occasional color commentator. He has held championships with both the WWF and WCW.
A one-time WWF Intercontinental Champion, WWE (formerly WWF) has named Savage as the greatest champion of all time and credited him for bringing, ‘a higher level of credibility to the title through his amazing in-ring performances.’ Hulk Hogan, face of the WWF during the professional wrestling ‘Golden Era’ of the 1980s and early 1990s, described Savage as, ‘…the only guy we could pass the belt to, and we wouldn’t lose money…things would stay the same, or get better.’
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July 2, 2013
‘My Cousin Vinny‘ is a 1992 American comedy film written by Dale Launer (‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,’ ‘Ruthless People’), directed by Jonathan Lynn (‘Clue,’ ‘The Whole Nine Yards’), and starring Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei, and Fred Gwynne (best known for playing Herman Munster; the film was Gwynne’s final role before his death the following year).
‘My Cousin Vinny’ is the story of two young New Yorkers traveling through rural Alabama who are put on trial for a murder they did not commit, and the comic attempts of a cousin, Vincent Gambini, a newly minted lawyer, to defend them. Much of the humor comes from the contrasting personalities of the brash Italian-American New Yorkers, Vinny and his fiancée Mona Lisa Vito, and the more reserved Southern townspeople.
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June 20, 2013
New Atheism is a social and political movement that began in the early 2000s by a collection of modern atheist writers who have advocated the view that ‘religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises.’ During ‘The God Debate’ in 2010 featuring Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza four outspoken atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett) were referred to as the ‘Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse,’ a cheeky counterpart to the figures in the Book of Revelation.
Harris is a neuroscientist and the author of, ‘The End of Faith,’ ‘Letter to a Christian Nation,’ and ‘The Moral Landscape.’ Biologist Richard Dawkins is the author of ‘The God Delusion,’ which was preceded by a British television documentary titled ‘The Root of all Evil?’ Philosopher Daniel Dennett, author of ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea,’ ‘Breaking the Spell,’ and many others, has also been a vocal supporter of ‘The Clergy Project,’ an organization which provides support for clergy in the US who no longer believe in God, and cannot fully participate in their communities any longer. Journalist Christopher Hitchens was the author of ‘God Is Not Great’ and served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America.
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June 18, 2013
Bill Nye (b. 1955) is an American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, and scientist who began his career as a mechanical engineer at Boeing. He is best known as the host of the Disney/PBS children’s science show ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator.
Nye was born in Washington, D.C., to Jacqueline Nye, a codebreaker during World War II, and Edwin Darby Nye, also a World War II veteran, whose experience in a Japanese prisoner of war camp led him to become a sundial enthusiast. Bill is a former fourth-generation Washington resident through his father’s side of the family. He studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University (where one of his professors was Carl Sagan).
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June 17, 2013
Joey Skaggs (b. 1945) is an American prankster who has organized numerous successful media pranks, hoaxes, and other presentations. He is considered one of the originators of the phenomenon known as ‘culture jamming’ (subverting media culture).
Skaggs has numerous aliases including: Kim Yung Soo, Joe Bones, Joseph Bonuso, Giuseppe Scaggioli, Dr. Joseph Gregor, and the Rev. Anthony Joseph. When not pranking the media, Skaggs earns his living by painting, making sculptures and lecturing.
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June 14, 2013
Nathan Sawaya (b. 1973), is a New York-based artist who builds custom three-dimensional sculptures and large-scale mosaics from popular everyday items and is best known for his work with standard LEGO toy bricks.
His unique art creations are commissioned by companies, charities, individuals, museums and galleries all over the world.
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June 13, 2013
Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to imply that it may not signify its apparent meaning or that it is not necessarily the way the quoting person would express its concept.
Use of the term appears to have arisen at some point during the first half of the 20th century. In books it appears as early as 1946 in ‘Southern California: An Island on the Land’ by Carey McWilliams and in the 1950s in academic literature.
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June 8, 2013
A granfalloon, in the fictional religion of Bokononism (created by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1963 novel ‘Cat’s Cradle’), is defined as a ‘false karass.’ That is, it is a group of people who outwardly choose or claim to have a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is actually meaningless. ‘If you wish to examine a granfalloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon.’ — Bokonon
The most commonly purported granfalloons are associations and societies based on a shared but ultimately fabricated premise. As examples, Vonnegut cites: ‘the Communist Party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company —and any nation, anytime, anywhere.’ A more general and oft-cited quote defines a granfalloon as ‘a proud and meaningless association of human beings.’ Another granfalloon example illustrated in the book were Hoosiers, of which the narrator (and Vonnegut himself) was a member.
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June 4, 2013
‘You Only Move Twice‘ is the second episode of The Simpsons’ eighth season. It first aired in 1996. The original concept for the episode came from a story idea by Greg Daniels involving Homer getting a new job for an employee-friendly, Silicon Valley type, modern boss (Hank Scorpio voiced by Albert Brooks) who would stand in contrast with Mr. Burns, an authoritarian, 19th century style boss.
Homer’s new boss, despite being friendly and personable, would be a supervillain in the mold of Ernst Stavro Blofeld of the James Bond novels and films. This element was meant to be in the background and Homer would be oblivious to it.
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June 3, 2013
In the UFO conspiracy theory, disclosure is the revelation of suppressed evidence of extraterrestrial life by the United States government or other world governments. In 1993, ufologist Steven M. Greer founded the ‘Disclosure Project’ to promote the concept of disclosure.
In 2001, Greer held a press conference at the National Press Club in D.C that featured ’20 retired Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration and intelligence officers’ who demanded that Congress begin hearings on ‘secret U.S. involvement with UFOs and extraterrestrials’ and was described by an attending BBC reporter as ‘the strangest ever news conference hosted by Washington’s August National Press Club.’ Such arguments were met with by derision by skeptics and spokespeople for the U. S. Air Force who maintain that there is no convincing evidence for the speculation that UFOs are alien spacecraft.
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June 3, 2013
Area 51 is a military base, and a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. It is in the southern portion of Nevada, 83 miles north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. At its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield. The base’s primary purpose is to support development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. Though the name ‘Area 51’ is used in official CIA documentation, other names used for the facility include ‘Dreamland,’ ‘Paradise Ranch,’ ‘Home Base,’ ‘Watertown Strip,’ ‘Groom Lake,’ and most recently ‘Homey Airport.’
The area is part of the Nellis Military Operations Area, and the restricted airspace around the field is referred to as R- 4808N, known by the military pilots in the area as ‘The Box’ or ‘the Container.’ The intense secrecy surrounding the base, the very existence of which the US government did not even acknowledge until 2003, has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore.
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