Pet Frogs Tend to Live On and On

Pet Frogs Tend to Live On and On

by John Nielsen

Weekend Edition Saturday, December 22, 2007 ·

A mother in Rockville, Maryland, bought a tadpole for her daughter in 1989. The frog it became, Gilly, is still going strong, causing an inquiry into the lifespan of a pet frog. Amphibian experts say pet frogs are a lot heartier and longer-lived than gold fish, hamsters or even cats.

Click here to listen to story and see what type of frog Gilly is.

Persimmons

A Japanese-American relative in California sent me this photo of his annual November activity of processing hachiya persimmons. He picks, peels, dries and his wife massages the persimmons... over one thousand in 2007.

Click on Photo to enlarge.

Hirshorn Modern Art Gallery Contest

Hirshorn Modern Art Gallery Contest

January 9th, 2008 by Mr. Mai Tai

The Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden had a contest where the artist had to create something out of one sheet of paper. Some of the things they did are amazing.

Check out the other entries by clicking here.

Teacher's climate message goes global

Teacher's climate change message goes global

YouTube - Greg Craven's video appeal about the dangers he says we face draws over 4 million views

Click on photo to see video.

Sunday, December 16, 2007
SCOTT LEARN The Oregonian Staff

INDEPENDENCE -- Central High School science teacher Greg Craven had one night before the last day of school to finish "The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See" in time to let his students know about it.

Downing cans of Red Bull, Craven holed up in a science lab of the Independence school, near Salem, editing all night. At 6 a.m., bleary-eyed, he posted his nine-minute, 33-second global warming video on YouTube.

His students linked to it on their MySpace pages. By that night, 60 people had clicked on it. The next day, 300. By Monday morning, 1,000. Craven was psyched. That kind of "viral" growth gets you noticed on YouTube, the Internet's anarchic video smorgasbord. Within two hours, his wife called: It's up to 10,000, she said.

Now, six months later, Craven's earnest and quirky appeal to act on climate change has collected more than 4 million views worldwide -- roughly 500 times the population of Independence. That puts it near the top of YouTube's all-time list for views in the news and politics category, despite competition from videos featuring Britney Spears, Satan's face in a 9/11 explosion and an Alabama leprechaun.

The 38-year-old family man has sifted through some 7,000 comments and discussions, mostly critical. "My toddler drools more cogent arguments," one said.

After posting the first video, Craven agonized about a hole in his theory, skipped his aunt's wedding to fill it, took a monthlong break at his wife's insistence, then spent six weeks producing a 44-part, six-hour sequel, "How It All Ends." It includes small explosions, silly hats Craven bought in a Nepalese tourist mart and a script totaling 70,000 words.

He slept two or three hours a night. He spent $500 on energy drinks. He made his relatives very nervous.

"It became a little bit maniacal," Craven admitted last week from behind his desk at Central High. "But if you think you see the emergency escape hatch when the Titanic's going down, you're going to do what you can to help people get to it."

Craven's YouTube site gives little biography, and his first video gives none (the sequel says he's a science teacher and fellow "Joe Schmoe").

Jan Hawkins, Craven's mother, can fill in: As a young boy, Craven looked inside padlocks and tadpoles to see how they worked. As a young man, he camped out for four days in the Honolulu airport to reflect on his year of traveling in Asia.

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2008 Masterpiece Theater Announcement

Masterpiece Theater

December 11, 2007

Dear Friend of OPB,

Masterpiece Theatre has just announced exciting plans for the 2008 season. Gillian Anderson, well known to fans for her Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated performance in Bleak House (as well as for playing Agent Scully on The X-Files), will make her debut as host on The Complete Jane Austen, the highly anticipated showcase of all six of Jane Austen's novels, premiering Sunday, January 13 on OPB.

Masterpiece Theatre will break the year into three "seasons," each with its own host. In winter and spring, Masterpiece Classic will feature signature period dramas. In summer, Masterpiece Mystery! will present the best British mysteries, and in fall, Masterpiece Contemporary will show dramas set in modern times.

Anderson will present the ten programs in the first Masterpiece Classic season, including adaptations of all six of Austen’s novels and a new biopic; Cranford, a three-part miniseries starring Judi Dench; My Boy Jack, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Kim Cattrall; and a new adaptation of A Room with a View by Andrew Davies. The other two new hosts will be announced next year.

No word yet on if we can expect Masterpiece SciFi.

John Bell
OPB Membership Team

May all your holidays be white

Click on photo and then on "Play" to hear song.

Originally recorded by the Drifters in 1954.

Gift Cards Go Philanthropic

Gift Cards Go Philanthropic

By ALAN KRAUSS
Published: December 5, 2007

THIS year, the use of gift cards, many of which are bought and redeemed online, has merged with another venerable holiday tradition: charitable donations made in the name of gift recipients.

And in a new twist, several groups are offering charitable gift cards that allow the recipient to choose the organization that will receive the money given in his or her name.

“This is a movement that has exploded in the last year,” said Trent Stamp, president of Charity Navigator, a Web site that uses information from federal financial filings to evaluate charities.

“It seems to be something that has caught on nationally,” he added. “People are realizing that giving somebody another sweater is not as good as giving them the opportunity to give to a charity they support.”

More than half of all consumers say they plan to buy gift cards this year, according to an annual survey by the National Retail Federation, which expects sales of the cards to rise 6 percent to $26.3 billion by the end of the season, from $24.8 billion last year. The average buyer is likely to spend a bit more on the cards too, the retailers’ group says.

Most gift cards are sold by merchants and used to buy clothing, toys, electronic devices and the like. But groups offering charity gift cards say their offerings are not that different. “Philanthropy and commercial products are converging with each other,” said Daniel B. Goodman, president of Charitygiftcertificates.org. “We’re offering a charity gift card as basically a commercial product.”

His group has been offering online gift-card buyers the option of letting the recipient choose where the money goes since 2004, Mr. Goodman said, and last year it received about $100,000 in such donations. But the introduction of plastic cards this year for gifts of $50 or more, he said, led to a big increase in donations, with more than $200,000 coming in before Thanksgiving.

Two new cards that allow gift recipients to choose where the money will go arrived on the market in November.

Network for Good, an Internet fund-raising organization founded by Time Warner, Yahoo and Cisco Systems, introduced the Good Card over Thanksgiving weekend.

The card can be sent either electronically, as an e-mail or as a plastic card. William E. Strathmann, chief executive of Network for Good, said it was the plastic form that really made the card compelling. “It’s nice to have something to put in the stocking,” he said.

TisBest Philanthropy, a Seattle nonprofit group, began selling its TisBest Charity Gift Card on Nov. 1. Erik Marks, a local lawyer and entrepreneur who is the founder and executive director of TisBest, said that 200 to 300 TisBest Charity Gift Cards had been sold and that sales were doubling every week. TisBest chose not to offer plastic cards for environmental and economic reasons. Instead, Mr. Marks said, he focused on using a simply designed Web site and evocative photographs to create the most satisfying emotional experience.

“When you pick a greeting card, the image on the face of it matters,” he said. “If I’m buying a gift for someone around the holidays and I’m spending $50 or $60 on the gift, what’s really important is the experience of buying the gift.”

Charges for the gift cards range from $3.95 at TisBest to $5 at Network for Good. At JustGive.org, another group that offers an electronic Charity Gift Certificate, there is a $5 fee for the first certificate and $2 for each additional one ordered at the same time. Charitygiftcertificates.org charges 50 cents a card plus 10 percent of the amount donated.

The groups also take different approaches in how the gift-card recipient can research and choose the charity that gets the money.

TisBest and Charitygiftcertificates.org offer screened lists of charities, while at Network for Good and JustGive, the money can go to any of the more than one million federally registered nonprofit groups in the United States.