Thursday, April 30, 2009

Swine Flu

It's nice to know that even in a time like this, we can accessorize?
Here are some masks that are all-the-rage in Mexico:

Pimped-up swine flu mask

Pimped-up swine flu mask

Saturday, April 18, 2009

How Susan Boyle won over the world


Found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8005767.stm

By Ian Youngs 
Entertainment reporter, BBC News



Susan Boyle has appeared on Larry King's CNN showLast weekend, Susan Boyle was just a face in the crowd.This weekend, clips of her singing on Britain's Got Talent have notched up almost 50 million views on YouTube.Her face appears on the front pages of papers in Britain and beyond, she been offered a seat on Oprah's sofa and has been told she is as good as guaranteed a worldwide number one album.The rise of the 47-year-old spinster from Scotland has been a true global phenomenon.Last Saturday, viewers saw Boyle, with double chin, unkempt hair, frumpy appearance and eccentric demeanour, step onto the talent show stage and proclaim her dream of being a professional singer.The judges rolled their eyes and the audience pulled incredulous faces. Onlookers, on set and at home, were rubbing their hands at the prospect of another hopeless, deluded loser being crushed by a withering Simon Cowell insult.Then she opened her mouth and sang I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables.Her voice confounded all expectations - the judges' eyes bulged, the crowd went wild and Boyle became an instant star.Watch Susan Boyle perform I Dreamed A Dream and speak to BBC ScotlandEver since, the "fairytale" has travelled the globe and interest in the church volunteer has snowballed.It is the story of a talent unearthed, but that does not fully explain why she has become such a sensation.Boyle has shattered prejudices about the connection between age, appearance and talent. She has proved that you don't have to be young and glamorous to be talented, and recognised as such.The YouTube millions have cheered on the underdog, and seen in her the possibilities for their own hopes and dreams.Locals in her home town of Blackburn, West Lothian, have got behind herImmediately after her performance, one of the judges, Amanda Holden, said they had been "very cynical", and that the performance was the "biggest wake-up call ever".Another judge, former newspaper editor Piers Morgan, appeared with Boyle on CNN's Larry King Show."I'm sorry because we did not give you anything like the respect we should have done when you first came out," he told her. Referring to her appearance, he said: "We thought you were going to be a bit of a joke act, to be honest with you."Boyle would have a best-selling album and a world tour by the end of the year, whether she wins Britain's Got Talent or not, he assured her.And mentioning fellow judge Simon Cowell, Morgan added: "It's fair to say that his eyes have been going ker-ching ever since Susan's performance."Blogs, newspaper columns and talk shows have been full of discussion about why Boyle has sparked such a reaction. She reordered the measure of beauty - and I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective 
Lisa Schwarzbaum 
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum, writer for US celebrity magazine Entertainment Weekly, said the performance was a powerful reality check.She wrote: "In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging - the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts - the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace."She pierced my defences. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective."Her post has been followed by comments from scores of readers saying they watched the clip repeatedly, with the same emotional response."I cried SO hard," read one. "There's something so beautiful about reaching your dreams... and knowing that age means nothing."Another wrote: "I cry because she reminds us to hope, to never lose track of our dreams, to keep putting one foot in front of the other no matter what others say or think. She gives us hope."Boyle's home has been besieged by media from around the world"Fairytales don't come any more satisfactory than this," wrote columnist Melanie Reid in The Times."The sisterhood of the plain, those of us who will never look like Girls Aloud, nor even Girls Aloud's grandmothers, are cheering as never before."Susan Boyle is the ugly duckling who didn't need to turn into a swan; she has fulfilled the dreams of millions who, downtrodden by the cruelty of a culture that judges them on their appearance, have settled for life without looking in the mirror."Miranda Sawyer, writing in the Daily Mirror, questioned why image was less of an issue for male singers."No woman gets to perform publicly unless she looks like Mariah Carey," she wrote. "If you're a female singer, you are required by showbiz law to appear sexy at all times."Poor Madonna and Kylie are desperately keeping up appearances, holding back the years with Botox and face-fillers just so they're allowed to continue with their careers."The Sun newspaper has given away a free Susan Boyle souvenir poster. US talk show host Jay Leno performed an impression of her on his show.Demi Moore famously joined the fan club. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has congratulated her. She is odds-on favourite to win Britain's Got Talent.A star has been born. Whether she will she leave a dent on our prejudices about age and appearance remains to be seen.

Long-Wayward History Volume Has Quite a History Itself

Found at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041502000_pf.html

By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 16, 2009 

Soon after the end of the Civil War, a thousand or so books looted from Washington College library during a raid by Union soldiers were returned.

Another has shown up almost 145 years later, the school, now known as Washington and Lee University, announced yesterday, brought in by a book-loving college coach from Illinois, who inherited it from the soldier's descendants and tracked down the library where it belonged.

"We were astounded to get something back with the history that it has," said Laura Turner, technical services librarian at the Lexington, Va., school. "It's invaluable to us because of the historical connection to the university. We're just so grateful that he decided to return it."

The leather-bound book, Volume 1 of a four-volume history of a Napoleonic military campaign, probably was stashed in a saddlebag, perhaps to save it from the blaze Union soldiers set to destroy the neighboring Virginia Military Institute on June 12, 1864, according to a book dealer who helped the coach, Mike Dau, unravel its story.

It was handed down from generation to generation of the family of C.S. Gates, the soldier who apparently took it. When his last descendant, Isabel Gates, died in 1988, she left the book to Dau, 73, a close friend who said he loves reading as much as she did.

In February, after some detective work, Dau returned it to the Washington and Lee library, reuniting it with the almost-identical second volume of W.F.P. Napier's "History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France From the Year 1807 to the Year 1814," the school announced yesterday.

A note written in the book and signed by C.S. Gates reads: "This book was taken from the Military Institute at Lexington Virginia in June 1864 when General Hunter was on his Lynchburg raid. The Institution was burned by the order of Gen Hunter. The remains of Gen. Stonewall Jackson rest in the cemetery at this place."

According to historical records, Charles S. Gates was a soldier in the 54th Pennsylvania Regiment.

In June 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, Maj. Gen. David Hunter led troops assigned to cut the Virginia Central Railroad. On June 11, they swept into Lexington and occupied the town. They burned the Virginia Military Institute, which trained Confederate troops, and looted the neighboring Washington College campus.

"They burned VMI to the ground because of its connection to [Confederate Gen.] Stonewall Jackson, who was an instructor there," Dau said.

Turner believes that the Union soldier mistakenly thought he was taking the book from VMI. But the volume has "Washington College" written on its frontispiece and matches Volume 2, which the school's Leyburn Library still houses.

Myron Gates of Lake Forest, Ill., was Charles Gates's grandson. He and his wife befriended Dau when Dau was a student at Lake Forest College, and they hired him to do odd jobs such as cleaning gutters and washing windows.

"They were very, very dear people," Dau said. "They really were a second family for me. I miss 'em both."

The couple had no children. When Isabel Gates died 21 years ago, she left half her estate, including the book, to Dau and his wife.

After a stint in the Marine Corps, Dau spent most of his life at Lake Forest College near Chicago, as football coach and athletic director. He married his college sweetheart, also a Lake Forest alum, and still coaches there.

"He's a wonderful guy, just full of great wisdom. . . . He's highly revered by his students, and I can see why," said book dealer Harry G. Goodheart III, who helped Dau track down the book's rightful owner.

Dau is a big reader and a serious collector, with 1,300 volumes, many of them old or rare books about football. "He's somebody that did appreciate the intrinsic value of that book from the outset. He knew there was something about that book that merited some investigation," Goodheart said.

But over the years, Dau said, he forgot about it. Then one day he saw it on the shelf and pulled it out.

Dau had never had the book appraised. Goodheart said it's not valuable -- it's the story behind it, the history wrapped around it that matter.

Dau was visiting relatives in North Carolina who recommended Goodheart Books. "They know I love a good hunt," Goodheart said. Coincidentally, he is a Washington and Lee alumnus, so he knew the name Washington College and some of the history of the battles.

Goodheart contacted Turner, and they exchanged photocopies of the title pages of the two volumes. "They matched exactly," Turner said. There was also a small label, added by the library in the 1800s, when books were numbered instead of catalogued to keep track of them. Volume 1, in Dau's possession, was 139. Volume 2, the copy in the library, was 140.

"Volumes three and four are out there somewhere," Turner said with a laugh. "We'd love to have them back!"

In February, Dau and his wife traveled to Virginia to visit family and return the book, which was 52,858 days overdue. He saw its companion volume, went to Lee's tomb on campus and thought about history.

The book, he said, is back where it belongs. "It's not an empty spot in my library."

Staff researchers Rob E. Thomason and Terissa Schor contributed to this report.

Introduction

I've always enjoyed collecting articles that have incredible stories and tales.  Some of them heroic - others seemingly mundane.  The problem is that these clippings and etc. get lost and torn over the years.  I'm not nearly devoted enough to scrapbooking and find a majority of my news online, so this may be a better alternative.

Bad news dominates the airwaves and internet.  It's important for all of us to be informed and aware of our surroundings.  That being said, it's still nice to be able to read news that reminds us of our humanity on an individual basis.  This blog will seek to do exactly that.

I do not take credit or ownership of the articles posted on this blog.  I will cite and provide links for the sources of these articles.  Most of these photos and articles are from public news domains.