May 3, 2011
Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996) was an American astronomer. He devoted his life to popularizing science. He speculated about what life from other planets would be like, and promoted the search for extraterrestrial life. He is world famous for his popular science books and the television series Cosmos, which he co-wrote and presented.
He was born in Brooklyn New York where his father, Sam Sagan, was a Jewish clothes maker and his mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, was a housewife. Sagan attended the University of Chicago earning two degrees in physics. He followed with a doctorate in Astronomy in 1960 and taught at Harvard University until 1968, when he moved to Cornell University. Continue reading →
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May 3, 2011
The Yellow Kid emerged as the lead character in ‘Hogan’s Alley,’ a comic first drawn by Richard F. Outcault in 1894, which became one of the first Sunday supplement comic strips in an American newspaper. The Yellow Kid was a bald, snaggle-toothed boy who wore a yellow nightshirt and hung around in a ghetto alley filled with equally odd characters, mostly other children.
With a goofy grin, the Kid habitually spoke in a ragged, peculiar ghetto argot printed on his shirt, a device meant to lampoon advertising billboards. His head was drawn wholly shaved as if having been recently ridden of lice, a common sight among children in New York’s tenement ghettos at the time. His nightshirt, a hand-me-down from an older sister, was white or pale blue in the first color strips.
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May 3, 2011
Alfred E. Neuman is the fictional mascot and iconic cover boy of Mad magazine. The face had drifted through American pictography for decades before being claimed and named by Mad editor Harvey Kurtzman. Since his debut in Mad, Neuman’s likeness, distinguished by jug ears, a missing front tooth, and one eye lower than the other has graced the cover of all but a handful of the magazine’s 500 issues. His face is rarely seen in profile; he has virtually always been shown in full frontal view, directly from behind, or in silhouette.
Harvey Kurtzman first spotted the image on a postcard pinned to the office bulletin board of Ballantine Books editor Bernard Shir-Cliff. ‘It was a face that didn’t have a care in the world, except mischief,’ recalled Kurtzman.
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May 3, 2011
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is a fictional mascot from the Ghostbusters franchise of media, which sometimes appears as a giant, lumbering paranormal monster.
It first appears in the 1984 film Ghostbusters as a picture logo on a prop package of marshmallows in Dana Barrett’s apartment when she places the groceries on her kitchen counter, on a graffiti advertisement on the building next to the Ghostbuster’s HQ when the ghosts are released from the containment grid after the power is shut down, then later in the climax of the film.
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May 3, 2011
A Brocken specter is the apparently enormous and magnified shadow of an observer, cast upon the upper surfaces of clouds opposite the sun. The phenomenon can appear on any misty mountainside or cloud bank, or even from an airplane, but the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken, a peak in the Harz Mountains in Germany, have created a local legend from which the phenomenon draws its name. The Brocken specter was observed and described by Johann Silberschlag in 1780, and has since been recorded often in literature about the region. The ‘specter’ appears when the sun shines from behind a climber who is looking down from a ridge or peak into mist or fog. The light projects the climber’s shadow forward through the mist, often in an odd triangular shape due to perspective.
The apparent magnification of size of the shadow is an optical illusion that occurs when the observer judges his shadow on relatively nearby clouds to be at the same distance as faraway land objects seen through gaps in the clouds, or when there are no reference points at all by which to judge its size. The shadow also falls on water droplets of varying distances from the eye, confusing depth perception. The ghost can appear to move (sometimes quite suddenly) because of the movement of the cloud layer and variations in density within the cloud. The head of the figure is often surrounded by the glowing halo-like rings of a glory, rings of coloured light that appear directly opposite the sun when sunlight is reflected by a cloud of uniformly-sized water droplets. The effect is caused by the diffraction of visible light.
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May 2, 2011
The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is a component of the US military, which studies special operations requirements and techniques. It was established in 1980 on the recommendation of Col. Charlie Beckwith, in the aftermath of the failure of Operation Eagle Claw (a failed attempt by President Jimmy Carter to put an end to the Iran hostage crisis). JSOC is headquartered at Pope Army Air Field and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, USA. JSOC also commands and controls Special Mission Units (SMU). These units perform highly classified activities. So far, only three SMUs have been publicly disclosed: The Army’s Delta Force, the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 (credited with killing Osama Bin Laden in 2011), and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron (a search and rescue team).
Also under JSOC’s purview, the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) collects specific target intelligence prior to SMU missions, and provides signals support. The ISA often operates under various cover names, the most recent one being Gray Fox. If needed, Army Rangers and Night Stalkers can be transferred under the JSOC command. JSOC has an excellent relationship with the CIA’s elite Special Activities Division and the two forces often operate together. The CIA’s Special Activities Division’s Special Operations Group often selects their recruits from JSOC.
Posted in War |
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May 2, 2011
‘Mission Accomplished‘ refers to a banner that was displayed during an address by President George W. Bush on May 1, 2003. Bush stated at the time that major combat operations in Iraq were completed. While his statement did coincide with an end to the conventional phase of the war, his assertion—and the sign itself—became controversial with the growing violence of the Iraqi insurgency. The vast majority of casualties, both military and civilian, occurred after the speech. White House staff members produced the banner. For critics of the war, the photo-op became a symbol of the Bush administration’s unrealistic goals and perceptions of the conflict. The banner came to symbolize the irony of Bush giving a victory speech only a few weeks after the beginning of a long war.
Bush became the first sitting President to make an arrested landing in a fixed-wing aircraft on an aircraft carrier when he arrived at the USS Abraham Lincoln in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, dubbed ‘Navy One,’ as the carrier returned from combat operations in the Persian Gulf. He posed for photographs with members of the ship’s crew while wearing a flight suit. Opponents criticized the event as a theatrical and expensive stunt. Bush was a passenger of the plane (unlike his father, who was a Navy pilot, he was never trained to land on a carrier). According to the Navy, the banner referred specifically to the Abraham Lincoln’s 10-month deployment (which was the longest deployment of a carrier since the Vietnam War) and not the war itself.
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May 2, 2011
Sandwiches That You Will Like is a 2002 PBS documentary by American film director, Rick Sebak. The unique sandwich offerings of cities across the United States are shown.
The sandwiches showcased are: Tripe, The Elvis, Beef on weck, Roast beef, French dip, Italian beef, Loose meat, Cheesesteak, Hoagie, Pig ears and snouts, Brain, St. Paul, Bánh mì, Primanti, Chipped ham, Hot Brown, Lobster roll, Po’ boy, Muffuletta, Barbecue, Falafel, and Pastrami.
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May 2, 2011
A Dagwood is a tall, multi-layered sandwich made with a variety of meats, cheeses and condiments. It was named after Dagwood Bumstead, a central character in the comic strip Blondie, who is frequently illustrated making enormous sandwiches. According to Blondie scripter Dean Young, his father, Chic Young, began drawing the huge sandwiches in the comic strip during 1936. Though the actual contents of Chic Young’s Dagwood sandwich remain obscure, it obviously contains large quantities and varieties of cold cuts, sliced cheese and vegetables, plus additional slices of bread. An olive pierced by a toothpick or wooden skewer usually crowns the edible superstructure.
In May 1999, a counter-service restaurant named Blondie’s opened at Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure, serving a traditional Dagwood-style sandwich. Blondie’s bills itself as ‘Home of the Dagwood Sandwich.’ A Blondie-themed restaurant chain, Dagwood’s Sandwich Shoppe, was founded in 2006. The Dagwood is sold as a 1.5-pound sandwich with three slices of deli bread, hard salami, pepperoni, cappicola, mortadella, deli ham, cotto salami, cheddar, Provolone, red onion, green leaf lettuce, tomato, fresh and roasted red bell peppers, mayo, mustard and a secret Italian olive salad oil.
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May 2, 2011
A beak doctor costume was an ankle length overcoat and bird beak mask worn by a plague doctor to protect him from airborne diseases. The overcoat, as well as leggings, gloves, boots, and a hat, was made of waxed leather. Straps held the beak in front of the doctor’s nose. The mask had glass openings for the eyes and a curved beak. It had two small nose holes and was a type of respirator against airborne germs. The beak held dried flowers, herbs, spices, camphor or a vinegar sponge. The robe was impregnated with similar fragrant items. Doctors believed the herbs would counter the ‘evil’ smells of the plague and prevent them from becoming infected.
Plague doctors wore wide brimmed leather hoods to indicate their profession. They used wooden canes to point out areas needing attention and to examine the patients without touching them. The canes were also used to keep people away and to remove clothing from plague victims without touching them or to take patients’ pulses.
Posted in Death, Health |
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May 2, 2011
The final girl is a thriller and horror film (particularly slasher film) trope that specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in dozens of films, including Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Alien and Scream. The term was coined by American professor of film studies, Carol J. Clover, who argues that in these films, the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film.
According to Clover, the final girl is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, avoiding the vices of the victims (sex, narcotic usage, etc.). She sometimes has a unisex name (e.g., Teddy, Billie, Georgie, Sidney). Occasionally the Final Girl will have a shared history with the killer. The final girl is the ‘investigating consciousness’ of the film, moving the narrative forward and as such, she exhibits intelligence, curiosity, and vigilance. One of the basic premises of Clover’s theory is that audience identification is unstable and fluid across gender lines, particularly in the case of the slasher film. During the final girl’s confrontation with the killer, Clover argues, she becomes masculinized through ‘phallic appropriation’ by taking up a weapon, such as a knife or chainsaw, against the killer.
Posted in Art, Death, Sex |
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May 2, 2011
For a one-time charge of $10, After the Rapture Pet Care promises to look after Christian’s pets on Earth should the rapture occur. When Jesus returns, their non-Christian administrators will activate a rescue plan: animal caretakers will be alerted immediately by email and telephone that they have been activated.
Pets will be assigned to caretakers based upon location and other factors. Administrators will do whatever it takes to find and rescue pets covered by a policy.
Posted in Death, Humor, Philosophy |
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