The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. -Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)
Annie Murphy has an article on Peruvian "Lucha Libro." Mexico's version of pro wrestling is called "Lucha Libre" where competitors put on masks and pseudonyms to fight in a ring." She says: "Peru's Lucha Libro is kind of like that, without the violence. It's literary 'wrestling.' New writers don masks, and head onto a stage where they're given three random words, a laptop hooked up to a gigantic screen, and five minutes to write a short story. At the end of a match, the losing writer has to take off his or her mask. The winner goes on to the next round, a week later. And the grand prize? It's a book contract."
Skamania County in Washington outlawed killing Sasquatches in 1969. Revised in 1984, it states that killing it would be a misdemeanor unless it was shown to be humanoid; then it would be homicide.
Two similar sounding but unrelated terms, both of Latin origin: The term Mendicant ( from Latin mendīcāre to beg, from mendīcus beggar, from "mendus" flaw) refers to begging, usually as a part of religious alms. The term Mendacity means lying. (Latin mendācitās falsehood, equivalent to Latin mendāci- (stem of mendāx) given to lying.)
Conservation groups are in an uproar over Montana's decision to issue over 6000 permits to hunt the last 625 remaining wolves in the state.
For two days' work in "Animal House," Donald Sutherland initially declined $35,000. Universal then offered him $35,000 and 15% of the film's gross, assuming that the movie would be quickly forgotten. Sutherland wanted guaranteed money and settled for $50,000; although this made him the highest-paid member of the cast, the decision cost Sutherland what is estimated as at least $20 million.
200 former exchange students were surveyed, in cooperation with an international exchange organization called AFS, and 90% of foreign students who had lived in the U.S. said that kids here cared more about sports than their peers back home did. A majority of Americans who'd studied abroad agreed. In eighth grade, American kids spend more than twice the time Korean kids spend playing sports, according to a 2010 study published in the Journal of Advanced Academics. This information is always bandied about, as if it suggested a conclusion.
Who was....Baudelaire?
Cinnamon originally came from groves in Sri Lanka but Arab merchants, eager to keep their source a secret from the Europeans, concocted the story that cinnamon was collected from nests of gigantic birds who, in turn, had collected the cinnamon from far away and mysterious sites.
Kate Losse, author of The Boy Kings (a memoir about working at Facebook), has accused Dave Eggers of stealing her story in his new novel The Circle, which is also set in the tech world. She clarifies further by admitting she hasn't read the book.
A new study from researchers at ETH Zurich (Federal Institute of Technology) has revealed that niacin (vitamin B3) could help you live longer. The niacin-rich food menu includes Marmite, sun-dried tomatoes, paprika, and peanuts. And bacon. Bacon!
Rich Synchef has collected books from the '50's and '60's with political and social ephemera because, as he says, "These are my idols." There are hundreds of important works, all signed. And his collection is deep; a copy of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" was autographed by the poet as well as his longtime publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Bookstore. The two most impressive books in Synchef's collection are Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" (a first-edition paperback from 1958) and Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (a first-edition hardcover from 1968). On October 10, 2013, these books, along with several hundred other publications and objects, are up for auction at PBA Galleries in San Francisco.
Golden oldie:
Breath mint company Mentos launched an ad campaign in Singapore that encouraged everyone to do their civic duty by making a baby on August 9th. Russia, which has seen a steady population decline since the early 1990s, began a program in which moms who give birth on June 12 - the country's National Day holiday -- are entered into a drawing to win money and prizes from the government, including refrigerators and SUVs.
Samantha Dempsey, a design student, a set of temporary tattoos to commemorate the extinction of the oblong rocksnail, St. Helena giant earwig, and the Pasadena freshwater shrimp. And next?
Of the twenty-seven U.S. airliners hijacked to Cuba between the beginning of 1981 and the end of 1983, twenty-four were seized by Cuban 'refugees' so eager to escape the United States they didn't care if returning home meant going to prison.
"Why shouldn't our old people... likewise suck the blood of a youth? - a youth, I say who is willing, healthy, happy and temperate, whose blood is of the best but perhaps too abundant. They will suck, therefore, like leeches, an ounce or two from a scarcely-opened vein of the left arm; they will immediately take an equal amount of sugar and wine; they will do this when hungry and thirsty and when the moon is waxing. If they have difficulty digesting raw blood, let it first be cooked together with sugar; or let it be mixed with sugar and moderately distilled over hot water and then drunk."--Marsillo Ficino (1433-1499), Italian philosopher, from his work entitled Three Books on Life. An entirely new--or old--take on the young supporting the old.
A fire that destroyed a Tesla electric car near Seattle began in the vehicle's battery pack, officials said Wednesday.
Mary Shelley, the author of "Frankenstein," kept the withered heart of her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrapped in silk and pressed in her leather bound copy of Adonis (his poem) for over 30 years.
Gravity" opened as the greatest earning movie in the first week in history. It has drawn flack from Tyson, the astrophysicist, who objected to a medical doctor as a general scientist in space, Bullock's hair not being at zero gravity and satellite debris orbiting east to west. Nearly all satellites orbit Earth west to east .
Marcellus Shale wells are less than 7 years old, but 78% of those wells have already paid off all their costs.
AAAAannnnnnnddddd.....a picture of a plane being hit by lightning:
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