Every year, National Public Radio asks a writer
to compose an original story with a Christmas theme. In 2008,
Gregory Maguire reinvented the Hans Christian Andersen classic "The
Little Match Girl." Read the story or listen to "Matchless: a Christmas Story" at http://www.npr.org/2008/12/25/98143170/matchless-a-christmas-story The hard copy of the book, published in 2009,
was illustrated as well as written by Gregory Maguire (author of The Wicked
Years series, including Wicked, Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz). The dedication in Matchless reads: “To
Geraldine Fegan and to the thousands of school and public librarians who work
to keep the library lamps burning during dark times." See also http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/gregory-maguires-wicked-beginnings/
What exactly are frankincense and myrrh? Derived
from tree
sap, or gum resin, both frankincense and myrrh are prized for their
alluring fragrance. Frankincense is a milky white resin extracted
from species of the genus Boswellia,
which thrive in arid, cool areas of the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa and
India. The finest and most aromatic of
this species is Boswellia
sacra, a small tree that grows in Somalia, Oman and
Yemen. These plants, which grow to a
height of 16 feet (5 meters), have papery bark, sparse bunches of paired
leaves, and flowers with white petals and a yellow or red center. Myrrh is a reddish resin that comes from
species of the genus Commiphora,
which are native to northeast Africa and the adjacent areas of the Arabian
Peninsula. Commiphora myrrha,
a tree commonly used in the production of myrrh, can be found in the shallow,
rocky soils of Ethiopia, Kenya, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. It boasts spiny branches with sparse leaves
that grow in groups of three, and can reach a height of 9 feet (3 meters). http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/question283.htm Two thousand years ago, frankincense and
myrrh were as valuable as gold. Today, though, it will cost you a thousand
times more to buy gold than to buy the same quantity of the other two. Like money, gold does not grow on trees, but
frankincense and myrrh certainly do, typically on the Arabian Peninsula. Read more at http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/12/frankincense-and-myrrh-boswellic-acid-podcast
Angelo R. Pinto,
an artist and photographer, was a protege of Dr. Albert C. Barnes, who bought
five of Mr. Pinto's reverse paintings on glass for the Barnes museum. He joined the Barnes staff in 1935 and taught
there until 1992, when he retired.
"He raised generations of artists and collectors (at Barnes), and
introduced Dr. Barnes' concepts and the world of his paintings to generations
of Philadelphians," said his daughter, Jody Pinto, also an artist. "He was a very loved, very gentle and
very talented individual," said Marian Locks, who mounted an exhibit of
his paintings in 1983. "He had a
large body of followers who took his course at Barnes." Mr. Pinto also worked as a photographer. With his artist brothers, Salvatore and
Biagio, Mr. Pinto took color photos for the Saturday Evening Post, Town and
Country, Life and other magazines.
"He did it to make money during the Depression," Locks
said. He also designed sets and costumes
for performances of the Philadelphia Ballet Company.
Environmental artist Jody Pinto studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Philadelphia College of
Art in 1973. She taught at the Rhode
Island School of Design from 1980-1983 and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts beginning in 1978. Pinto's
site-specific public works span the globe, from Israel to New York to Spokane,
Washington. She has won numerous awards,
including a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and has been featured in the
1979 Whitney Biennial and the 1980 Venice Biennale. Her work is included in the collections of
the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, and P.S.1 in Long Island City, New York. http://www.kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu/islandpress/html/A052.html
“Here’s the simple and undeniable fact: The overwhelming majority of
violent criminals are Democrats.” — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), interview
on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Nov. 30,
2015 This was a startling assertion by the GOP presidential
hopeful. He used this “undeniable fact”
to explain why Democrats support giving the right to vote to convicted felons —
“because the Democrats know convicted felons tend to vote Democrat.” He also added that “the media never reports on
any of that, doesn’t want to admit any of that.” Find Fact Checker's response at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/01/ted-cruzs-claim-that-the-overwhelming-majority-of-violent-criminals-are-democrats/ Subscribe to Fact Checker newsletter from The
Washington Post at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/ See also Fact Check, a project of the
Annenberg Public Policy Center, at http://www.factcheck.org/
and PolitiFact, a joint project of the Tampa Bay Times and the Congressional
Quarterly, at http://www.politifact.com/
Most of the 1,000 or so Marshall
Islands, spread
out over 29 narrow coral atolls in the South Pacific, are less than six feet
above sea level — and few are more than a mile wide. For the Marshallese, the destructive power of
the rising seas is already an inescapable part of daily life. Changing global trade winds have raised sea
levels in the South Pacific about a foot over the past 30 years, faster than
elsewhere. Scientists are studying
whether those changing trade winds have anything to do with climate change. Read more and see graphics at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/02/world/The-Marshall-Islands-Are-Disappearing.html
On December 2, 2015, a group of doctors in white coats arrived on Capitol Hill to deliver a
petition to Congress. Signed by more than 2,000 physicians around
the country, it pleads with lawmakers to lift a restriction that for
nearly two decades has essentially blocked the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention from conducting research on gun violence. Joined by a handful of Democratic lawmakers,
the doctors spoke about the need to view gun violence as a public health
epidemic and research ways to solve it – as the country would with any
disease causing the deaths of thousands of Americans each year. “It is disappointing that we have made little
progress over the past 20 years in finding solutions to gun violence,"
said Nina Agrawal, a New York physician and member of the advocacy group
Doctors for America, according to the group's Twitter feed. Brady Dennis
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/12/02/hours-before-san-bernardino-mass-shooting-doctors-were-on-capitol-hill-petitioning-congress-to-lift-ban-on-gun-violence-research/
LeBron James’s new multimedia venture has secured a $15.8 million investment from Warner
Bros. Entertainment and Turner Sports. Uninterrupted,
which was created earlier this year by the four-time NBA MVP and his
business partner Maverick Carter, will use the money to create more
content and attract more partners. The
venture currently makes videos about athletes, including real-time shorts and
original digital series. The Cleveland
Cavalier’s All-Star isn’t the only athlete developing a media company. The National Football League Players
Association earlier this year announced plans tocreate a content company.
And in October, retired Yankee superstar
Derek Jeter launched The Players Tribune, an online publication
that several athletes have used to break news unfiltered by a traditional media
company. Most recently, Kobe Bryant, who
is an investor in Players Tribune, used the platform to reveal his intention to retire after this season. In exchange for its investment in
Uninterrupted, Turner Sports will get an equity stake and will serve as the
newly expanded venture’s primary sales arm. Turner’s Bleacher Report already distributes Uninterrupted
videos. Previously, James’s company
signed a deal with Facebook Inc. that includes a five-episode series called
“Striving for Greatness,” which documents his preparation for a National
Basketball Association season. The final
episode garnered more than 200,000 views on the social media platform in its
first 24 hours.
Scott Soshnik http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-02/lebron-james-s-media-company-gets-16-million-from-warner-bros-
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1387
December 3, 2015 On this date in 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state.
On this date in 1910, modern neon lighting was first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.
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