December 21, 2013 archive

Three Things On The Internet

The team of All In with Chris Hayes puts out a daily request on Twitter asking their followers to send them the things they find most interesting on the internet. These are their finds for December 16, 2013

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On This Day In History December 21

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 10 days remaining until the end of the year. This is a frequent day for the winter solstice to occur in the northern hemisphere and summer solstice to occur in the southern hemisphere.

On this day in 1968, Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, Jr., and William Anders aboard.

Apollo 8 was the first human spaceflight to leave Earth orbit; the first to be captured by and escape from the gravitational field of another celestial body; and the first crewed voyage to return to planet Earth from another celestial body-Earth’s Moon. The three-man American crew of mission Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first humans to directly see the far side of the Moon, as well as the first humans to see planet Earth from beyond low Earth orbit. The 1968 mission was accomplished with the first manned launch of a Saturn V rocket. Apollo 8 was the second manned mission of the Apollo program and the first manned launch from the John F. Kennedy Space Center.

Originally planned as a second Lunar Module/Command Module test in an elliptical medium Earth orbit in early 1969, the mission profile was changed in August 1968 to a more ambitious Command Module-only lunar orbital flight to be flown in December, because the Lunar Module was not ready to make its first flight then. This meant Borman’s crew was scheduled to fly two to three months sooner than originally planned, leaving them a shorter time for training and preparation, thus placing more demands than usual on their time and discipline.

After launching on December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 took three days to travel to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8’s successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.

Late Night Karaoke

Random Japan

 photo pizzanecklace01_zps8d84ea24.jpg

Pizza Hut Japan’s latest promotion gives “golden crust pizza” new meaning

   Rachel Tackett

Though it may not be a traditional holiday dish, pizza is often the perfect entrée for the holiday season. After all, between Christmas and New Years, there’s bound to be an opportunity to throw a party for your friends, and for those who’d rather not slave away in the kitchen for a day, pizza is often the best way to provide food to a group.

Well now Pizza Hut Japan has given us a new reason to party: in its latest promotion, the company is giving away actual gold necklaces worth nearly a thousand dollars each.

That’s right, early next year Pizza Hut will be giving away eight gold necklaces with pendants shaped like pizza slices. Now, while that may not sound like much, each necklace has an estimated value of 80,000 yen (US$770)!

A Midwinter Nights Dream

Guiding the Spirits Home

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Secret Bids Guide Hopi Indians’ Spirits Home

By Thomas Mashberg, New York Times

The auction in Paris was set to move briskly, at about two items a minute; the room was hot and crowded, buzzing with reporters.

More than 100 American Indian artifacts were about to go on sale at the Drouot auction house, including 24 pieces, resembling masks, that are held sacred by the Hopi of Arizona. The tribe, United States officials and others had tried unsuccessfully to block the sale in a French court, arguing that the items were religious objects that had been stolen many years ago.

Now the Annenberg Foundation decided to get involved from its offices in Los Angeles. It hoped to buy all of the Hopi artifacts, plus three more sought by the San Carlos Apaches, at the Dec. 9 sale and return them to the tribes. To prevent prices from rising, the foundation kept its plan a secret, even from the Hopis, in part to protect the tribe from potential disappointment. Given the nine-hour time difference, the foundation put together a team that could work well into the night, bidding by phone in the auction in France.

The foundation had never done something like this before – a repatriation effort – and the logistics were tricky, to say the least.

Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Nuts About Greens

Spaghetti with Briccoli and Walnut/Ricotta Paesto photo 11recipehealth-articleLarge_zps3b4d60a4.jpg

I was planning to devote this week’s Recipes for Health to walnuts, as the California walnut harvest took place just a few weeks ago and the walnuts I am buying in my farmers’ market couldn’t be fresher (well, they could be a little fresher – slightly moist, the way fresh, undried walnuts are sold in French produce markets. But the California growers dry their nuts before sending them to market, as the spoilage risk for moist fresh walnuts is high.) I began working on recipes, and once I had written out and begun testing I realized that each dish was a winter greens recipe that included walnuts. The two foods go wonderfully together.

Martha Rose Shulman

Mixed Grains Risotto With Kale, Walnuts and Black Quinoa

A comforting risotto with a little crunch.

Mâche and Radicchio Salad With Beets and Walnut Vinaigrette

A salad that is high in omega-3s and doesn’t need much dressing.

Spaghetti With Broccoli and Walnut/Ricotta Pesto

Small broccoli florets soak up the sauce in a delicious way in this creamy dish.

Kale and Red Cabbage Slaw With Walnuts

A briny slaw that gets its crunch from red cabbage and walnuts.

Spinach With Garlic Yogurt and Walnut Dukkah

A healthy dish inspired by a favorite Middle Eastern spinach recipe.

Another transgender teen suicide: the combined effects of depression and bullying

This time of year is often a sad one for transgender people.  Family time hits people hard if they have been rejected by their families.  And the reminders that it should be family time are unceasing.

But it can be hard even for those who have supportive families and friends.  It was apparently too hard for a Wisconsin 14 year-old.

 photo Lexi-Lopez-Brandies_zps8e3ee025.jpgAlexis “Lexi” Lopez-Brandies recently asked to be called Landon.  That makes this a tough article to write because all of the reports refer to the Horlick High School freshman as a girl and use female pronouns…so much so that when I heard that Lopez was transgender, I was unsure what direction of change Landon was pursuing.

William Horlick High School is in the city of Racine, Wisconsin, has about 2100 students and 200 faculty.  And apparently none of them knew how the bullying Lopez was enduring was affecting him.  

Landon took his own life last Sunday morning.  Landon’s parents don’t lay all the blame at the feet of the bullying, saying that Landon also suffered from severe depression.