Month: December 2019

The more you give, the richer you become that’s the philosophical idea behine the gift economy.  It’s an idea that’s catching on. At the famous Burning Man festival in Nevada for instance money has no worth. In his book “The Gift”, Lewis Hyde described this model in detail. Misha Gutkin looked into the whole idea.
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What would it be like to attend a concert with thousands of other people without leaving your home? Matt Dibble dons a VR headset to find out
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This New Year’s Eve, an estimated 1 million people will pack the streets of New York City’s Times Square to watch the famous ball drop. It’s a tradition that dates back to 1907, as visitors from around the world gather to count down the final seconds to the New Year. VOA’s Tina Trinh heads to the rooftop of One Times Square for a look at the New Year’s Eve ball, the centerpiece of one of the world’s most anticipated New Year’s Eve celebrations.
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Wheelchair basketball is growing in popularity in South Sudan, offering hope for athletes with disabilities, some of whom lost legs from unexploded ordnance left from decades of conflict. U.S. professional wheelchair basketball players, including Sudanese American Malat Wei, this month helped eighty South Sudanese players take part in a week-long training program and tournament, as Sheila Ponnie reports from Juba.
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The Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City is celebrating its second baby giraffe of the year, already as tall as a full-grown human.The female giraffe was unveiled last week after a mandatory quarantine period following her Oct. 23 birth. She will be named via a public vote to generate empathy with the little cow, zoo director Juan Carlos Sanchez Olmos said Sunday.The 96-year-old zoo on the grounds of the capital’s central park has a knack for breeding creatures in captivity: This year it welcomed 170 baby animals, including six Mexican gray wolves, which are in danger of extinction.”A new birth of a character as unique, as charismatic as a giraffe becomes emblematic – a flag for conservation, for the prestige of the zoo,” said Sanchez Olmos while four grown giraffes happily munched branches and leaves behind him.Giraffes are considered “vulnerable” because the species faces significant habitat loss in the 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where they reside.Unlike the wolves, which will be released into the Sierra de San Pedro Martir National Park in Baja California, the giraffes are expected to spend their lives under observation in a dusty patch of the Chapultepec Zoo.A team of professionals – including nutritionists, veterinarians and biologists like Sanchez Olmos_ takes care of more than 1,000 animals in the zoo, which sits under the flight path of jetliners that roar overhead.As Sanchez Olmos detailed the zoo’s mission to not just educate and amuse, but also conserve species, caretaker Alejandro Gonzalez offered long branches from a pomegranate tree to four hungry giraffes. The tallest of the pack eagerly yanked the branches from Gonzalez’s hands.”What did I tell you?” the caretaker said, looking the tall giraffe square in the eyes. “Take it easy, please.”If Gonzalez had his way, the new addition to the herd of giraffes would be called Sarita. At least, that’s what he calls her.The long-necked creatures are a favorite fixture at the zoo. The public voted in April to name the first baby giraffe of the year Jirafifita, which translates as Uppity Little Giraffe – a play on the president’s favorite word for dismissing critics.”Fifi” is slang for uppity or posh. Populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador frequently uses the word to describe opposition politicians and others who question his decisions.
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“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” stayed on a strong glide path in North American theaters, taking in an estimated $73.6 million for the three-day weekend, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday.The Disney film, marketed as a grand finale of the nine-film “Skywalker Saga,” has had mixed reviews and was down considerably from last weekend’s lofty $177.4 million opening.But it has compiled a strong domestic total of $364.5 million.It again maintained a big lead over the No. 2 film, Sony’s “Jumanji: The Next Level,” an action sequel starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart, which had $34.4 million in North American ticket sales for the Friday-through-Sunday period.In third for the second straight week was Disney’s “Frozen II,” at $17 million. The animated musical film has Broadway star Idina Menzel voicing Queen Elsa in her latest adventures.Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel “Little Women” has been brought to the screen many times — no fewer than seven, by Variety’s count — but the new version from director Greta Gerwig has drawn strong reviews and netted $16.2 million to place fourth in its debut this weekend.The film stars Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Timothee Chalamet, Emma Watson and Laura Dern, in the story of the joys and struggles of four sisters during the US Civil War.In fifth was new Fox/Disney release “Spies in Disguise,” at $13.4 million. The animated children’s film features the voices of Will Smith and Tom Holland.Rounding out the top 10 were:”Knives Out” ($9.9 million)”Uncut Gems” ($9.4 million)”Bombshell” ($4.8 million)”Cats” ($4.8 million)”Richard Jewell” ($3 million)
 
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A U.S. astronaut set a record Saturday for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, breaking the old mark of 288 days with about two months left in her mission.Christina Koch, a 40-year-old electrical engineer from Livingston, Montana, arrived at the International Space Station on March 14. She broke the record set by former space station commander Peggy Whitson in 2016-2017.Koch is expected to spend a total of 328 days, or nearly 11 months, on board the space station before returning to Earth. Missions are typically six months, but NASA announced in April that it was extending her mission until February.The U.S. record for longest space flight is 340 days set by Scott Kelly in 2015-2016. The world record is 15 months set in the 1990s by a Russian cosmonaut aboard the former Mir space station.Koch’s extended mission will help NASA learn about the effects of long spaceflights, data that NASA officials have said is needed to support future deep space exploration missions to the Moon and Mars.Before breaking the endurance record for a woman in space, Koch set another milestone as part of the first all-female spacewalking team in October. It was Koch’s fourth spacewalk.She previously said she took a lot of helpful advice from Kelly’s 2017 autobiography “Endurance.”
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Lee Mendelson, the producer who changed the face of the holidays when he brought “A Charlie Brown Christmas” to television in 1965 and wrote the lyrics to its signature song, “Christmas Time Is Here,” died Christmas day, his son said.Mendelson, who won a dozen Emmys in his long career, died at his home in Hillsborough, California, of congestive heart failure at age 86 after a long struggle with lung cancer, Jason Mendelson told The Associated Press.Lee Mendelson headed a team that included “Peanuts” author Charles Schulz, director Bill Melendez, and pianist and composer Vince Guaraldi, whose music for the show, including the opening “Christmas Time Is Here,” has become as much a Christmas staple as the show itself.Mendelson told The Cincinnati Enquirer in 2000 that he was short on time in finding a lyricist for the song, so he sketched out the six verses himself in “about 15 minutes on the backside of an envelope.”He found a choir from a church in his native Northern California to sing the song that sets the show’s unforgettable tone, beginning with Mendelson’s words: “Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer, fun for all that children call, their favorite time of year.”The show won an Emmy and a Peabody Award and has aired on TV annually ever since. The team that made it would go on to create more than 50 network specials, four feature films and many other “Peanuts” projects.Mendelson also took other comic strips from newspapers to animated TV, including “Garfield,” for which he produced a dozen television specials.His death was first reported by The Daily Post of Palo Alto.Northern CalifornianBorn in San Francisco in 1933, Mendelson’s family moved to nearby San Mateo when he was a boy, and later to nearby Hillsborough, where he went to high school.He graduated from Stanford in 1954, served in the Air Force and worked for his father’s fruit-and-vegetable company before going into TV for the Bay Area’s KPIX-TV.In 1963 he started his own production company and made a documentary on San Francisco Giants legend Willie Mays, “A Man Named Mays,” that became a hit television special on NBC.Show that nearly wasn’tHe and Schulz originally worked on a “Peanuts” documentary that proved a hard sell for TV, but midway through 1965 a sponsor asked them if they could create the first comic strip’s first animated special in time for Christmas.Schulz wrote the now-familiar story of a depressed Charlie Brown seeking the meaning of Christmas, a school Christmas play with intractable actors including his dog Snoopy, a limp and unappreciated Christmas tree, and a recitation of the nativity story from his best friend Linus.Mendelson said the team showed the special to executives at CBS a week before it was slated to air, and they hated it, with its simplicity, dour tone, biblical themes, lack of laugh track and actual children’s voices instead of adults mimicking them, as was common.“I really believed, if it hadn’t been scheduled for the following week, there’s no way they were gonna broadcast that show,” Mendelson said on a 2004 documentary for the DVD of the special.Holiday classicInstead, it went on to become perhaps the biggest holiday classic in television.“It became part of everybody’s Christmas holidays,” Mendelson told The Los Angeles Times in 2015. “It was just passed on from generation to generation. … We got this huge initial audience and never lost them.”Mendelson is survived by his wife, Ploenta, his children Lynda, Glenn, Jason and Sean, his stepson Ken and eight grandchildren.
 
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Disc jockey Don Imus, whose career was made and then undone by his acid tongue during a decades-long rise to radio stardom and an abrupt public plunge after a nationally broadcast racial slur, has died . He was 79. Imus died Friday morning at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas, after being hospitalized since Christmas Eve, according to a statement issued by his family. Deirdre, his wife of 25 years, and his son Wyatt, 21, were at his side, and his son Lieutenant Zachary Don Cates was returning from military service overseas. Imus survived drug and alcohol woes, a raunchy appearance before President Bill Clinton and several firings during his long career behind the microphone. But he was vilified and eventually fired after describing a women’s college basketball team as nappy-headed hos. His April 2007 racist and misogynist crack about the mostly black Rutgers squad, an oft-replayed 10-second snippet, crossed a line that Imus had long straddled as his rants catapulted him to prominence. The remark was heard coast to coast on 60 radio stations and the MSNBC cable network. Despite repeated apologies, Imus — just 10 years earlier named one of Time Magazine’s 25 most influential Americans — became a pariah for a remark that he acknowledged was completely inappropriate ... thoughtless and stupid. FILE – Radio talk show host Don Imus hosts his 10th annual “Kiss Me, I’m Imus” St. Patricks Day show via WTKK-FM, March 17, 2009, in Boston.Lost show, but won settlementHis radio show, once home to presidential hopefuls, political pundits and platinum-selling musicians, was yanked eight days later by CBS Radio. But the shock jock enjoyed the last financial laugh when he collected a reported multimillion-dollar settlement of his five-year contract with the company. Imus’ unsparing on-air persona was tempered by his off-air philanthropy, raising more than $40 million for groups including the CJ Foundation for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He ran a New Mexico ranch for dying children, and often used his radio show to solicit guests for donations. A pediatric medical center bearing Imus’ name was opened at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Imus, born on a Riverside, California, cattle ranch, was the older of two boys — his brother Fred later became an Imus in the Morning show regular. The family moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, where Imus joined the Marines before taking jobs as a freight train brakeman and uranium miner. Only at age 28 did he appear on the airwaves. His caustic persona, though it would later serve him well, was initially a problem: Imus was canned by a small station in Stockton, California, for uttering the word hell. The controversy only enhanced his career, a pattern that continued throughout the decades. More awardsImus, moving to larger California stations, earned Billboard’s Disc Jockey of the Year award for medium-sized markets after a stunt where he ordered 1,200 hamburgers to go from a local McDonald’s. His next stop was Cleveland, where he won DJ-of-the-year honors for large markets. By 1971, he was doing the morning drive-time show on WNBC-AM in New York, the nation’s largest and most competitive radio market. Imus brought along a destructive taste for vodka, along with a growing reputation for irascibility. In 1977, Imus was ignominiously dismissed by WNBC and dispatched to the relative anonymity of Cleveland. Within two years, though, he turned disaster into triumph, returning to New York and adding a new vice: cocaine. While his career turned around, his first marriage, which produced four daughters, fell apart. Imus struggled with addiction until a 1987 stint at a Florida alcohol rehabilitation center, coming out just as WNBC became the fledgling all-sports station WFAN — which retained Imus’ non-sports show as its morning anchor. Imus’ career again soared. Time Magazine named Imus one of the 25 Most Influential People in America, and he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. His show began simulcasting on cable’s MSNBC in September 1996. FILE – Radio host Don Imus arrives at his Manhattan residence, April 13, 2007, in New York. Rutgers women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer said the team had accepted Imus’ apology for having used a slur in referring to team members.In the decade before his slur debacle, Imus redefined his show by mixing his comedy segments with A-list guests: politicians (Senators John Kerry and John McCain), journalists (NBC-TV’s Tim Russert and The New York Times’ Frank Rich) and musicians (Harry Connick Jr. and John Mellencamp). A book plug on Imus’ show guaranteed sales, and authors were soon queuing up for a slot on the show. Feud with SternBut he rarely missed a chance to get in trouble, even in the good times. He engaged in a long-running feud with shock jock Howard Stern, who usurped Imus’ position as the No. 1 morning host in New York City. And he outraged guests at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner in 1996, cracking wise about Clinton’s extramarital activities as the first lady sat stone-faced nearby. We all know you're a pot-smoking weasel, Imus said at another point about the president. A White House spokesman called Imus’ bit fairly tasteless. One year later, he was sued by a Manhattan judge after ripping the jurist on air as a creep and a senile old dirtbag.  A February 2006 profile in Vanity Fair contained the quote that might best serve as Imus’ epitaph. I talk to millions of people every day, he said while riding home in a limousine after one show. I just like it when they can't talk back. 
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Cambodian cuisine, often overshadowed by its similar Thai and Vietnamese counterparts, is relatively unknown to the world, but a Cambodian chef is working to change that. VOA’s Chetra Chap reports.
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