3% is a streaming TV series from Brazil. It is the first Portuguese-language Netflix original series, and the second non-English production.
Parasite, the 2019 South Korean film, is the only non-English language film to date to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, which it won in 2020. Other non-English language films which have been nominated, but did not win, include Roma (2018), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and Life is Beautiful (1997).
In South Korea, on Valentine’s Day, it’s the men who are pampered, not the women. The woman spoils the man in the relationship with flowers and chocolates.
In 1824, John Cadbury began selling tea, coffee and drinking chocolate in Birmingham, England. Cadbury introduced his brand of chocolate bar in 1849. The company was in decline in the 1850s and 60s but increased its business by focusing on chocolate instead of tea and coffee. In 1905, it launched a milk chocolate bar, the first time a British company had been able to mass-produce milk chocolate.
Around the time that Cadbury introduced his brand of chocolate bar in 1849, in 1847 Necco Wafers were first produced by the New England Confectionery Company (or, NECCO) at its historic factory complex at 250 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Production of the candy was suspended in July 2018 when Necco went into bankruptcy, but returned in May 2020 after purchase of the brand and production equipment by the Spangler Candy Company.
And I bought some Neccos today. IMHO they’re not the best tasting candy, but they’re part of American history.
Here is the package I bought today:
Back when I was younger (m̲u̲c̲h̲ younger!) you could buy a roll of those for a nickel. I had a two by four with about a dozen spring-clip clothespins nailed to it, and I’d clip a wafer in each pin and use them as BB gun targets since they would shatter like miniature clay pigeons when hit.
-“BB”-
Not only does the NECCO candy company create the hub wafer that they’re mostly known for, but they also produce Valentine’s Day candy hearts, MaryJanes, Canada Mints and Squirrel Nut Zippers.
Prairie dogs are burrowing rodents native to the grasslands of North America. Despite the name, they are not canines; rather, they are a type of ground squirrel. Five different species have been identified, and prairie dogs have been found from northern Mexico to the Canadian prairies.
“Prairie schooner” is a nickname for a covered wagon, in particular the style of covered wagons (frequently farm wagons which were repurposed by adding a canvas cover) which were widely used during the westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century.
There were many different types of covered wagons. A ‘prairie schooner’ was usually a smaller wagon, just as a schooner was smaller than a barquentine or full-rigged clipper ship, and was capable of being pulled by four or fewer draft animals. Larger freight wagons, such as the iconic Conestoga wagon, could require as many as eight to twelve horses, mules, or oxen depending on the amount of cargo being transported.
-“BB”-
Deuteronomy 22:10 states “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together”. Commentators have given many possible reasons for this command, which is not explained in the Bible itself.
The reasons include
- Israel showing its differences from its non-Jewish neighbors, who did plow with these animals together
- kindness to animals because of the arrangement’s unfairness to the weaker donkey
- the fact that donkeys are “impure” animals while oxen are “pure”
- the dislike of oxen for donkeys, who have bad breath because of their eating coarse weeds.
An interesting thing to know about wild donkeys is that they’re considered an invasive species. They tend to ruin local ecosystems by eating all of the grass, spreading weeds with their fur and eroding all of the soil with their hard hooves. They’re a particular problem in Australia: More than five million wild donkeys roam the land, and they’re considered such pests that it’s legal to kill them.
When Australia changes from Standard Time to Daylight Saving Time, it goes from three time zones to five time zones.
Standard Oil controlled nearly all aspects of the oil business until it was broken up in 1911. John D. Rockefeller founded and ran it. While certainly he was in it for the money, another reason for the monopoly was to make sure there was a standard for oil products that could be used nationwide.
The Rockefeller Forest in California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Forest is the largest remaining contiguous old-growth coastal redwood forest in the world. Named for John D. Rockefeller, Jr (1874-1960), it is 30 miles south of Eureka. It was purchased from the Pacific Lumber Company in 1931. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. had taken a tour of the area with Save-the-Redwoods League officials and was impressed. The Save-the-Redwoods League purchased the land with a pair of million-dollar donations from Rockefeller and matching funds from the state.
Humboldt Forest (and Humboldt County, and Humboldt California) are named after Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), the great 19th-century scientist known for his work in botanical geography. Humboldt was the first person to describe the phenomenon and cause of human-induced climate change, in 1800 and again in 1831, based on observations generated during his travels.
Rockefeller Redwood Forest:
Humboldt, Saskatchewan, is a town named after Alexander von Humboldt. During the North-West Rebellion of 1885, it was a critical staging area for the Canadian military forces, prior to the Battle of Batoche, 100 miles farther north.
Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin in 1769 and died in Berlin in 1859. During his life, he travelled extensively in the Americas and wrote profusely, particularly on the subjects of botany, zoology, astronomy, and mineralogy. His writings inspired many scientists and naturalists, including Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir.
Naturalist John Muir attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for several years in the 1860s. In his autobiography, Muir described how he received his first botany lesson while there, from a fellow student, who explained that the black locust tree that they were sitting under (outside of the university’s North Hall) was a member of the same family as the pea plant.
A “naturalist” is quite different from a “naturist”, although there may be some individaul overlap.
Scientists have a general idea about when humans first started wearing clothes. They draw their conclusions from genetic studies of the common body louse. The body louse feeds on humans but needs clothing to infest in order to do so. The studies show that humans first began to wear clothes some 72,000 years ago. That is give or take 42,000 years, so it is not exactly pinpointed. The human has existed in it present form, homo sapiens, for around 200,000 years, so the numbers show that most likely for more than half the existence of our species, we all were nudists. A nudist is, of course, a person who does not wear clothes.
In those early days, most humans lived in warm climates and there is some indications that they were much hairy than they are today. It was only when they began migrating to colder climates that clothes were first worn and even then it was not modesty, but warmth that was the motivation. Even as we became civilized and in the time of recorded history, the attitude about nudism was much different. In ancient Greece, for example, the habit of nudity was so common that even our word, gymnasium, comes from the Greek word, gymnos, which means nude. This came about because nudity in athletic events was common and accepted.