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PENNIES FOR POLIO

An Orestimba (California) High-based “Pennies for Polio” drive held Halloween night collected $1,265 for the effort to eliminate polio worldwide.Twenty-three Orestimba Interact Club members and six members of the Hispanic Youth Leadership Council (HYLC) went door to door collecting in the annual Halloween campaign, which was among the most successful ever.Pennies alone added up to significant dollars, with 15,849 copper coins collected. (click below to read more)

IT'S VERY SIMPLE

VINTAGE ROTARIAN

BAD SCIENCE

British researchers admitted that they had killed the world’s oldest living animal, a 507-year-old Icelandic clam, when they opened its shell to determine its age.

YOUR NEXT HOUSE

New Orleans:  The owners of this six-bedroom, six-bathroom house in New Orleans’s historic Uptown district are long-standing supporters of the city’s art and cultural institutions. The home includes a garage and a fully landscaped courtyard with a pool and waterfalls. $3,000,000. 

TODAY IN HISTORY

November 30
1782		The British sign a preliminary agreement in Paris, recognizing American independence.
1838		Mexico declares war on France.
1861		The British Parliament sends to Queen Victoria an ultimatum for the United States, demanding the release of two Confederate diplomats who were seized on the British shipTrent.
1864		The Union wins the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee.
1900		The French government denounces British actions in South Africa, declaring sympathy for the Boers.
1900		Oscar Wilde dies in a Paris hotel room after saying of the room's wallpaper: "One of us had to go."
1906		President Theodore Roosevelt publicly denounces segregation of Japanese schoolchildren in San Francisco.
1919		Women cast votes for the first time in French legislative elections.
1935		Non-belief in Nazism is proclaimed grounds for divorce in Germany.
1945		Russian forces take Danzig in Poland and invade Austria.
1948		The Soviet Union complete the division of Berlin, installing the government in the Soviet sector.
1950		President Truman declares that the United States will use the A-bomb to get peace in Korea.
1956		The United States offers emergency oil to Europe to counter the Arab ban.
1961		The Soviet Union vetoes a UN seat for Kuwait, pleasing Iraq.
1974		India and Pakistan decide to end a 10-year trade ban.
1974		Pioneer II sends photos back to NASA as it nears Jupiter.
1979		Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope in 1,000 years to attend an Orthodox mass.
1981		Representatives of the US and USSR meet in Geneva, Switzerland, to begin negotiations on reducing the number of intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe.
1982		Thriller, Michael Jackson's second solo album, released; the album, produced by Quincy Jones, became the best-selling album in history.
1993		US President Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (better known as the Brady Bill) into law.
1994		MS Achille Lauro, a ship with long history of problems including a 1985 terrorist hijacking, catches fire off the coast of Somalia.
1995		Operation Desert Storm officially comes to an end.
1998		Exxon and Mobil oil companies agree to a $73.7 billion merge, creating the world's largest company, Exxon-Mobil.
2004		On the game show Jeopardy! contestant Ken Jennings loses after 74 consecutive victories. It is the longest winning streak in game-show history, earning him a total of over $3 million.
2005		John Sentamu becomes Archbishop of York, making him the Church of England's first black archbishop.

TRIVIA Q & A

What metal is the best conductor of electricity?
(click below for the answer)

THE FIRST WORD

sub rosa

PRONUNCIATION:

(sub RO-zuh) 

MEANING:

adverb: Secretly, privately, or confidentially.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin sub (under) rosa (rose). Earliest documented use: 1654. The English term "under the rose" is also used to refer to something in secret.

NOTES:

In Roman mythology, Venus's son Cupid gave a rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, to ensure his silence about Venus's many indiscretions. Thus the flower became a symbol of secrecy. Ceilings of banquet halls were decorated with roses to indicate that what was said sub vino (under the influence of wine) was also sub rosa.

USAGE:

"'Much of this goes on sub rosa and never comes to public view,' said Wesley Wark."
Peter Goodspeed; Vladimir Putin's Support of Spying; National Post (Canada); Jan 23, 2012.

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DO YOU REMEMBER?

CANDY BUTTONS

There doesn't seem to be a hard date for when the old Cumberland Valley Co. started making these ubiquitous rounded pegs of candy that you peel off a strip of paper. Necco has been making them since 1980 — three-quarters of a billion of them a year, in fact.

NOW YOU KNOW

Almost 40 percent of adults between the ages of 25 and 60 will spend at least one year earning less than 150 percent of the poverty line. But most Americans will eventually recover: Just 11.6 percent will spend five years or more impoverished, and only 6.1 percent of Americans spend five or more consecutive years in poverty.
TheAtlantic.com

SAFETY UPGRADE?

A Swedish hotel made entirely out of ice has installed fire alarms by order of government officials. Authorities warned the IceHotel—where guests sleep on ice beds in temperatures as low as 17 degrees Fahrenheit—that it would be shut down without the safety upgrade. So far, the alarm has gone off once, said a hotel spokeswoman. “It was just one of our guests who’d snuck off to the cleaning closet and had a cigarette,” she said.

JUST ONE MORE THING...

Global Language Monitor ranking of the most popular business terms is based on how many times the word was used, analyzing billions of pages on the Internet, social media, blogs, and the top 275,000 print and electronic global media sources. To be considered for the list, terms needed at least 25,000 citations across the world.
Here are the year’s most overused business words: (click below to read more)

IT'S CHINA BY A LONGSHOT

The number of international students in the U.S. rose to a record high last year, as universities aggressively recruited abroad for full-tuition payers. China had the most students in U.S. colleges, with 235,597, followed by 96,754 from India and 70,627 from South Korea.
The Wall Street Journal

FRESH WATER, THE GIFT OF LIFE

SNAPSHOT

TODAY IN HISTORY

November 29
1760		Major Roger Rogers takes possession of Detroit on behalf of Britain.
1787		Louis XVI promulgates an edict of tolerance, granting civil status to Protestants.
1812		The last elements of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armee retreats across the Beresina River in Russia.
1863		The Battle of Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Tenn., ends with a Confederate withdrawal.
1864		Colonel John M. Chivington's 3rd Colorado Volunteers massacre Black Kettles' camp of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians at Sand Creek, Colo.
1903		An Inquiry into the U.S. Postal Service demonstrates the government has lost millions in fraud.
1923		An international commission headed by American banker Charles Dawes is set up to investigate the German economy.
1929		Commander Richard Byrd makes the first flight over the South Pole.
1931		The Spanish government seizes large estates for land redistribution.
1939		Soviet planes bomb an airfield at Helsinki, Finland.
1948		The Metropolitan Opera is televised for the first time as the season opens with "Othello."
1948		The popular children's television show, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, premieres.
1949		The United States announces it will conduct atomic tests at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific.
1961		NASA launches a chimpanzee named Enos into Earth orbit.
1962		Algeria bans the Communist Party.
1963		President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints Chief Justice Earl Warren head of a commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
1967		US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces his resignation.
1972		Atari announces the release of Pong, the first commercially successful video game.
2007		Armed forces of the Philippines besiege The Peninsula Manila in response to a mutiny led by Senator Antonio Trillanes.

AND I QUOTE

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best."

Henry Van Dyke

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THE TAIL WAG TELLS ALL

A dog’s tail wagging sends two distinctly different messages, a new study has found. Italian researchers say that the direction of the wagging is an automatic response triggered by activity in the brain’s two hemispheres, offering evidence that dogs, like humans, have asymmetrically organized brains. The study builds on work by the same team that found dogs wagged their tails to their right when seeing something positive, like their owners, and to their left upon encountering threats, like an unfriendly dog.  (click below to read more)

ANOTHER JACKPOT FREE MEETING

HUH?

A team of Dutch linguists has identified the word “huh?” as universally understood across five continents. In 10 languages including Dutch, Mandarin, the Ghanaian language Siwu, and an Australian aboriginal language, “huh?” is used as a request for clarification.
The New York Times

TODAY IN HISTORY

November 28
1520		Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan, having discovered a strait at the tip of South America, enters the Pacific.
1729		Natchez Indians massacre most of the 300 French settlers and soldiers at Fort Rosalie, Louisiana.
1861		The Confederate Congress admits Missouri to the Confederacy, although Missouri has not yet seceded from the Union.
1868		Mt. Etna in Sicily violently erupts.
1872		The Modoc War of 1872-73 begins in northern California when fighting breaks out between Modoc Chief Captain Jack and a cavalry detail led by Captain James Jackson.
1899		The British are victorious over the Boers at Modder River.
1919		Lady Astor is elected the first woman in Parliament.
1925		The forerunner of the Grand Ole Opry, called the WSM Barn Dance, opens in Nashville, Tennessee.
1935		The German Reich declares all men ages 18 to 45 as army reservists.
1937		Spanish leader Francisco Franco blockades the Spanish coast.
1939		The Soviet Union scraps its nonaggression pact with Finland.
1941		The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise departs from Pearl Harbor to deliver F4F Wildcat fighters to Wake Island. This mission saves the carrier from destruction when the Japanese attack.
1943		Sir Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt meet at Tehran, Iran, to hammer out war aims.
1944		The first shipment of supplies reach Antwerp by convoy, a new route for the Allies.
1948		Dr. Edwin Land's first Polaroid cameras go on sale in Boston.
1950		In Korea, 200,000 Communist troops launch attack on UN forces.
1961		Ernie Davis becomes the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy.
1963		Cape Canaveral is renamed Cape Kennedy.
1971		The Anglican Church ordains the first two women as priests.
1975		East Timor declares independence from Portugal.
1980		Operation Morvarid (Iran-Iraq War); Iranian Navy destroys over 70% of Iraqi Navy.
1984		Republican Robert Dole is elected Senate majority leader.
1989		Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announces it will give up its monopoly on political power.
1991		South Ossetia declares independence from Georgia.
2002		Suicide bombers blow up an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya.

TRIVIA Q & A

Which Nobel Prize category is the newest?
(click below to read more)

THE FIRST WORD

gerrymander

PRONUNCIATION:

(JER-i-MAN-duhr) 

MEANING:

verb tr.: To repartition an area in order to create electoral districts that give an unfair advantage to a political party.
noun: 1. An instance of gerrymandering. 2. One or more electoral districts, widely differing in size or population, created as a result of gerrymandering.

ETYMOLOGY:

A blend of Elbridge Gerry and salamander. Massachusetts Governor Gerry's party rearranged the electoral district boundaries and someone fancied the newly redistricted Essex County resembled a salamander. A cartoon showing the district in the shape of a salamander appeared in March 1812 issue of the Federalist newspaper. Earliest documented use: 1812.

USAGE:

"Country members such as Katter enjoyed disproportionate influence thanks to the Queensland gerrymander that effectively made a rural vote worth more than a city vote."
Tony Wright; Put Down That Blunderbuss; The Age (Melbourne, Australia); Aug 28, 2010.

IT'S A LONG WAIT

 Thanksgiving will fall on the first day of Hanukkah. Physicists calculate that the next “Thanksgivukkah” will not occur until A.D. 79,811.
The Jewish Daily Forward

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PEOPLE BEING PEOPLE

Two burglars picked the wrong victim when they tried to rob the California home of a champion -tomahawk-thrower. Robin Irvine was sleeping when she felt someone trying to remove her wristwatch. Instinctively, she grabbed a tomahawk from her bedside, let out a war cry, and chased the men from her house. She restrained herself from hurling the ax at the burglars’ backs. “I hit what I aim for,” she said. But Irvine promised she wouldn’t go so easy on the next intruder. “If you’re in my house,” she said, “you’re not walking out.”

NOW YOU KNOW

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, blacks and Hispanics make up one quarter of the U.S. workforce, but represent 44 percent of the country’s high school dropouts and 15 percent of its college graduates. Hispanic men have the highest workforce participation rate by ethnicity and gender, but they are outearned by white and black men and women.
TheAtlantic.com

WHERE IS EVERYONE?

SNAPSHOT

SAD, BUT TRUE

The amount of gun violence in PG-13 movies has more than tripled since 1985, according to a new study in the journal Pediatrics. In 2012, in fact, there was more such violence in PG-13 films than in R-rated movies. “Violence sells,” said study author Daniel Romer.
CNN.com

SPACE

Anemic Spiral NGC 4921 from Hubble 
Image Credit: Data - Hubble Legacy Archive, ESA, NASA; Processing - Roberto Colombari

Explanation: How far away is spiral galaxy NGC 4921? Although presently estimated to be about 310 million light years distant, a more precise determination could be coupled with its known recession speed to help humanity better calibrate the expansion rate of the entire visible universe. Toward this goal, several images were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in order to help identify key stellar distance markers known as Cepheid variable stars. Since NGC 4921 is a member of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies, refining its distance would also allow a better distance determination to one of the largest nearby clusters in the local universe. The magnificent spiral NGC 4921 has been informally dubbed anemic because of its low rate of star formation and low surface brightness. Visible in the above image are, from the center, a bright nucleus, a bright central bar, a prominent ring of dark dust, blue clusters of recently formed stars, several smaller companion galaxies, unrelated galaxies in the far distant universe, and unrelated stars in our Milky Way Galaxy.

TODAY IN HISTORY

November 27
43BC		Octavian, Antony and Lepidus form the triumvirate of Rome.
511		Clovis, king of the Franks, dies and his kingdom is divided between his four sons.
1095		In Clermont, France, Pope Urbana II makes an appeal for warriors to relieve Jerusalem. He is responding to false rumors of atrocities in the Holy Land.
1382		The French nobility, led by Olivier de Clisson, crush the Flemish rebels at Flanders.
1812		One of the two bridges being used by Napoleon Bonaparte's army across the Beresina River in Russia collapses during a Russian artillery barrage.
1826		Jebediah Smith's expedition reaches San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the southwestern part of the continent.
1862		George Armstrong Custer meets his future bride, Elizabeth Bacon, at a Thanksgiving party.
1868		Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer's 7th Cavalry kills Chief Black Kettle and about 100 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) on the Washita River.
1887		U.S. Deputy Marshall Frank Dalton, brother of the three famous outlaws, is killed in the line of duty near Fort Smith, Ark.
1904		The German colonial army defeats Hottentots at Warm bad in southwest Africa.
1909		U.S. troops land in Blue fields, Nicaragua, to protect American interests there.
1919		Bulgaria signs peace treaty with Allies at Unequally, France, fixing war reparations and recognizing Yugoslavian independence.
1922		Allied delegates bar the Soviets from the Near East peace conference.
1936		Great Britain's Anthony Eden warns Hitler that Britain will fight to protect Belgium.
1942		The French fleet in Toulon is scuttled to keep it from Germany.
1950		East of the Choosing River, Chinese forces annihilate an American task force.
1954		Alger Hiss, convicted of being a Soviet spy, is freed after 44 months in prison.
1959		Demonstrators march in Tokyo to protest a defense treaty with the United States.
1967		Lyndon Johnson appoints Robert McNamara to presidency of the World Bank.
1967		Charles DeGaulle vetoes Great Britain's entry into the Common Market again.
1970		Syria joins the pact linking Libya, Egypt and Sudan.
1973		US Senate votes to confirm Gerald Ford as President of the United States, following President Richard Nixon's resignation; the House will confirm Ford on Dec. 6.
1978		San Francisco mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the city's first openly gay supervisor, assassinated by former city supervisor Dan White.
1978		Kurdistan Workers' Party (Parti Karkerani Kurdistan, or PKK) founded; militant group that fought an armed struggle for an independent Kurdistan.
1984		Britain and Spain sign the Brussels Agreement to enter discussions over the status of Gibraltar.
1999		Helen Clark becomes first elected female Prime Minister of New Zealand.
2001		Hubble Space Telescope discovers a hydrogen atmosphere on planet Osiris, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
2004		Pope John Paul II returns relics of Saint John Chrysostom to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
2005		First partial human face transplant completed Amiens, France.
2006		Canadian House of Commons approves a motion, tabled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, recognizing the Quebecois as a nation within Canada.