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SNACK WISELY

Sugar provides only a temporary boost to brain activity, so skip the candy bar and reach instead for a handful of almonds or walnuts. “Their balance of carbs, protein, and fat delivers a prolonged energy boost.”

SNAPSHOT

TIME TO GO TOMMIE

HARD TO BELIEVE

A Polish man impaled his head on a screwdriver, but only realized it when he saw himself in his rearview mirror. “I don’t remember what happened that day,” said the 25-year-old, who doesn’t want to be named. “At some point when I was working in my garden I slipped and fell down.” Only later did the man notice he had a screwdriver in his forehead. Surgeons removed the tool, which went in 2 inches deep but somehow missed his brain.

OFF TO SYDNEY

CRAZY STATUE

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 31

1606		Guy Fawkes is hanged, drawn and quartered for his part in the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up Parliament.
1620		Virginia colony leaders write to the Virginia Company in England, asking for more orphaned apprentices for employment.
1788		The Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart dies.
1835		A man with two pistols misfires at President Andrew Jackson at the White House.
1865		House of Representatives approves a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.
1911		The German Reichstag exempts royal families from tax obligations.
1915		Germans use poison gas on the Russians at Bolimov.
1915		German U-boats sink two British steamers in the English Channel.
1916		President Woodrow Wilson refuses the compromise on Lusitania reparations.
1917		Germany resumes unlimited sub warfare, warning that all neutral ships that are in the war zone will be attacked.
1935		The Soviet premier tells Japan to get out of Manchuria.
1943		The Battle of Stalingrad ends as small groups of German soldiers of the Sixth Army surrender to the victorious Red Army forces.
1944		U.S. troops under Vice Adm. Spruance land on Kwajalien atoll in the Marshall Islands.
1950		Paris protests the Soviet recognition of Ho Chi Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
1966		U.S. planes resume bombing of North Vietnam after a 37-day pause.
1968		In Vietnam, the Tet Offensive begins as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers attack strategic and civilian locations throughout South Vietnam.
1976		Ernesto Miranda, famous from the Supreme Court ruling on Miranda vs. Arizona is stabbed to death.
1981		Lech Walesa announces an accord in Poland, giving Saturdays off to laborers.

AND I QUOTE

"The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool." Stephen King

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A FEW MINUTES WITH THE MOONLIGHT SONATA

ROTARY WOMEN

WEATHER...OR NOT

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NOW YOU KNOW

 Since the 13th century, sheepherders in Spain have had the right (still honored) to use 78,000 miles of paths in the country for seasonal flock migrations -- even some streets of Madrid, including a crossing of Puerta del Sol, described as Madrid's Times Square. The shepherds pay a customary, token duty, which, according to an October Associated Press dispatch, the government proudly accepts, given the prominence of Spain's native Merino sheep breed in the world's wool market. [Associated Press via Yahoo News, 10-6-2013]

ONE MORE TIME. WHAT DOES 4-H STAND FOR?

H

TODAY IN HSITORY

January 30

1649		Charles I of England is beheaded at Whitehall by the executioner Richard Brandon.
1844		Richard Theodore Greener becomes the first African American to graduate from Harvard University.
1862		The USS Monitor is launched at Greenpoint, Long Island.
1901		Women Prohibitionists smash 12 saloons in Kansas.
1912		The British House of Lords opposes the House of Commons by rejecting home rule for Ireland.
1931		The United States awards civil government to the Virgin Islands.
1933		Adolf Hitler is named Chancellor by President Paul Hindenburg.
1936		Governor Harold Hoffman orders a new inquiry into the Lindbergh kidnapping.
1943		Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrenders himself and his staff to Red Army troops in Stalingrad.
1945		The Allies launch a drive on the Siegfried line in Germany.
1949		In India, 100,000 people pray at the site of Gandhi's assassination on the first anniversary of his death.
1953		President Dwight Eisenhower announces that he will pull the Seventh Fleet out of Formosa to permit the Nationalists to attack Communist China.
1964		The Ranger spacecraft, equipped with six TV cameras, is launched to the moon from Cape Canaveral.
1972		British troops shoot dead 14 Irish civilians in Derry, Ireland. The day is forever remembered in Ireland as 'Bloody Sunday.'
1976		The U.S. Supreme Court bans spending limits in campaigns, equating funds with freedom of speech.
1980		The first-ever Chinese Olympic team arrives in New York for the Winter Games at Lake Placid.

TRIVIA Q & A

What does “king” in the name of a snake signify?
(click below for the answer)

THE FIRST WORD

plutolatry

PRONUNCIATION:

(ploo-TOL-uh-tree) 

MEANING:

noun: Excessive devotion to wealth.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek pluto- (wealth) + -latry (worship). Earliest documented use: 1891. Pluto was the god of riches in Greek mythology.

USAGE:

"He said this reflected the 'appearance of unbridled avarice -- the flowering of plutolatry'."
John F. Copper & Ta-ling Lee; Coping With a Bad Global Image; University Press of America; 1997.

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A DRUG FOR PERFECT PITCH

Perfect pitch, the ability to identify or sing musical notes without a reference point, is a rare, largely genetic gift, although it can be nurtured through training in early childhood. Scientists have now identified a drug, valproate, that may help adults master that rare skill by re-creating a critical period in brain development, enabling them to absorb new information as easily as they did before age 7. “It’s a mood-stabilizing drug, but we found that it also restores the plasticity of the brain to a juvenile state,” Harvard molecular biologist Takao Hensch tells NPR.org. Such neuro-plasticity is what allows young children to easily pick up skills, from speaking new languages to playing musical instruments. In the study, 23 adult males with no previous musical training took either valproate or a placebo and were taught to identify pitch tones. When the men were tested after two weeks, those who had taken the drug showed a surprising gain in perfect pitch, while the placebo group did not. Scientists say further study may establish whether valproate enhances adults’ ability to learn languages and other skills as easily as young children.

WANT TO BE NICER? READ!

Reading fiction makes you a nicer, more empathetic person. Psychologists at the New School for Social Research in New York City asked people between the ages of 18 and 75 to read an excerpt of literary fiction or popular fiction or a nonfiction article and then tested their ability to gauge the emotions of people by looking at pictures of their faces. The subjects who read literary works scored much higher on the tests than the other readers. Study author Emanuele Castano says that’s likely because literary fiction takes readers into other lives and forces them to “reconstruct the mind of the character”—an ability that carries over into real social situations.

STAY WARM, IT'S ONLY 12 DEGREES OUTSIDE

ONE MAN'S ANXIOUS WAIT FOR A POLIO FREE INDIA

Polio eradication campaigner Ramesh Ferris, who has lived with the paralyzing nervous system disease since was just six months old, is hoping to see the country – and global eradication efforts — soon reach a major milestone. If no new cases of polio infection are reported in the country by Jan. 13, it will allow the World Health Organization, the United Nations’ public health arm, to declare the disease officially eradicated from its Southeast Asia zone, which includes 11 countries. (click below to read more)

GROWING UP

SNAPSHOT

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 29

1813		Jane Austin publishes Pride and Prejudice.
1861		Kansas is admitted into the Union as the 34th state.
1862		William Quantrill and his Confederate raiders attack Danville, Kentucky.
1918		The Supreme Allied Council meets at Versailles.
1926		Violette Neatley Anderson becomes the first African-American woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
1929		The Seeing Eye, America's first school for training dogs to guide the blind, founded in Nashville, Tennessee.
1931		Winston Churchill resigns as Stanley Baldwin's aide.
1942		German and Italian troops take Benghazi in North Africa.
1944		The world's greatest warship, Missouri, is launched.
1950		Riots break out in Johannesburg, South Africa, over the policy of Apartheid.
1967		Thirty-seven civilians are killed by a U.S. helicopter attack in Vietnam.
1979		President Jimmy Carter commutes the sentence of Patty Hearst.
1984		President Ronald Reagan announces that he will run for a second term.
1984		The Soviets issue a formal complaint against alleged U.S. arms treaty violations.
1991		Iraqi forces attack into Saudi Arabian town of Kafji, but are turned back by Coalition forces.

AND I QUOTE

“No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut.” -Sam Rayburn

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DON' TRY THIS AT HOME

PROJECT TO HELP WITH HIGHER EDUCATION

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FOR THOSE WHO HAVE EVERYTHING

The appeal of the Esla kicksled isn’t hard to understand. Sturdy, fast, and versatile, it’s both a toy and a cargo mover, and it’s “perfect for hauling an eggnogged uncle across the snow with ease.” The current edition isn’t that different from the ones that Finnish builder E.S. Lahtinen made when he committed to the business in 1933. His grandson eventually added a hinge to make the seat collapsible, but the frame is still made of solid birch and the runners are galvanized spring steel. “Twist the handles and the steel bends, turning the boxy frame with surprising agility.”
$256 with shipping, goslide.ca
Source: Wired

NOT ON MY BUSKET LIST

NO NEED TO RUSH

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 28

28		The Roman Emperor Nerva names Trajan, an army general, as his successor.
1547		Henry VIII of England dies and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Edward VI.
1757		Ahmed Shah, the first King of Afghanistan, occupies Delhi and annexes the Punjab.
1792		Rebellious slaves in Santo Domingo launch an attack on the city of Cap.
1871		Surrounded by Prussian troops and suffering from famine, the French army in Paris surrenders. During the siege, balloons were used to keep contact with the outside world.
1915		The U.S. Coast Guard is founded to fight contraband trade and aid distressed vessels at sea.
1915		The German navy attacks the U.S. freighter William P. Frye, loaded with wheat for Britain.
1921		Albert Einstein startles Berlin by suggesting the possibility of measuring the universe.
1932		The Japanese attack Shanghai, China, and declare martial law.
1936		A fellow prison inmate slashes infamous kidnapper, Richard Loeb, to death.
1941		French General Charles DeGaulle's Free French forces sack south Libya oasis.
1945		Chiang Kai-shek renames the Ledo-Burma Road the Stilwell Road, in honor of General Joseph Stilwell.
1955		The U.S. Congress passes a bill allowing mobilization of troops if China should attack Taiwan.
1964		The Soviets down a U.S. jet over East Germany killing three.
1970		Israeli fighter jets attack the suburbs of Cairo.
1986		The space shuttle Challenger explodes just after liftoff.
Born on January 28
1693		Anna "Ivanovna", Tsarina of Russia.
1706		John Baskerville, inventor of the "hot-pressing" method of printing.
1933		Susan Sontag, American essayist and novelist (The Style of Radical Will, Illness as a Metaphor).

TRIVIA Q & A

In addition to writing books, Lewis Carroll was very prolific in what other art form?
(click below for the answer)

THE FIRST WORD

gadabout

PRONUNCIATION:

(GAD-uh-bout) 

MEANING:

noun: One who roams around in search of amusement.

ETYMOLOGY:

From gad (to go around from one place to another aimlessly). Earliest documented use: 1817.

USAGE:

"The film charted Zelda Kaplan's transformation from homemaker to social gadabout flitting from party to party."
Ruth La Ferla; Zelda Kaplan; The New York Times; Feb 18, 2012.

TRAIN WRECK!

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SUNSET

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