Cultural Geography Archives - Renaissance Granddad

Mind Social Studies Geography Archive by category "Cultural Geography"

World Vegan Day and the NYC Marathon – Nov. 1st

World Vegan Day – November 1st! I was all ready to have some Archer Farms Korean Barbecue for lunch, until I went to Wikipedia to see what was happening outside of my world today! What I discovered is that today is World Vegan Day and the start of World Vegan Month! So Korean Barbecue didn’t seem quite right fork today.Luckily I still had a vegan meal in the cabinet….Punjab Choley! For those of you who like me may not know that much about World Vegan Day here is some background from Wikipedia…… World Vegan Day is an annual event celebrated on 1 November, by vegans around the world. The Day was established in 1994 by Louise Wallis, then President & Chair of The Vegan Society, United Kingdom to commemorate its 50th anniversary and in 2014 the 70th anniversary of the term ‘vegan’, ‘veganism’, and the establishment of The Vegan Society. Vegans around the world join together to celebrate animal rights. Animal advocates hold street stalls about veganism, host vegan potluck events, plant memorial trees for World Vegan Day.[citation needed] Speaking in 2011 Wallis said: “We knew the Society had been founded in November 1944, but didn’t know the exact date, so I decided to go for the 1st November. Partly because I liked the idea of this date coinciding with Samhain/Halloween and the Day of the Dead – traditional times for feasting and celebration. Both apt and auspicious. Read More Ok so I confess while I did go vegan with…

Happy "Juneteenth" and "World Sauntering Day"!!

Good Morning World!! Let’s All Go Sauntering Somewhere Today! Where’s That Oliver Today?? Can you saunter with a stroller?? Today is a special day in the United States particularly within the African-American community where Juneteenth is celebrated!! From Wikipedia: Juneteenth, also known as Juneteenth Independence Day, Freedom Day, or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States that commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. state of Texas in 1865, and more generally the emancipation of African-Americancitizens throughout the United States. Celebrated on June 19, the term is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth,[1][2] and is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in most states. Read More It is also a day to go outside and simply walk slowly with a happy disposition, and commune with nature and just enjoy the day, because it’s World Sauntering Day!! “World Sauntering Day” is celebrated on the 19th day of June every year. The purpose is to remind us to take it easy, smell the roses, to slow down and enjoy life as opposed to rushing through it. It is also sometimes referred to as International Sauntering Day So who did this great holiday start….. The exact year of its origin is 1979, and it is believed to have begun at Grand Hotel (Mackinac Island) in Michigan. The Grand Hotel has the world’s longest porch at 660 feet in length. The holiday was created by W.T. Rabe in response to the growing popularity of jogging. The idea behind the day was to encourage people to slow down and appreciate the world around them. More at Wikipedia..…. Now…

Trooping the Colour Day, Flag Day and Bourbon Distilled!

June 14th – Trooping the Colour Day in the UK, Flag Day in the US and Bourbon was first distilled! Today is Trooping the Colour Day in the United Kingdom, as well as, the Official Birthday of the Queen from Wikipedia…. Trooping the Colour is a ceremony performed by regiments of the British and Commonwealth armies. It has been a tradition of British infantry regiments since the 17th century, although the roots go back much earlier. On battlefields, a regiment’s colours, or flags, were used as rallying points. Consequently, regiments would have their ensigns slowly march with their colours between the soldiers’ ranks to enable soldiers to recognise their regiments’ colours. Since 1748 Trooping the Colour has also marked the official birthday of the British sovereign.[1] It is held in London annually on a Saturday in June[2] on Horse Guards Parade by St. James’s Park, and coincides with the publication of the Birthday Honours List. Among the audience are the Royal Family, invited guests, ticketholders and the general public. The colourful ceremony, also known as “The Queen’s Birthday Parade“, is broadcast live by the BBC.Read More I read about the above, after I read that on this date….. On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress decided to proceed with the establishment of a Continental Army for purposes of common defense, adopting the forces already in place outside Boston (22,000 troops) and New York (5,000). It also raised the first ten companies of Continental troops on a one-year…

The Theremin,Ruth Rendell,and Star Wars Day

Monday Explorations: Ruth Rendell, Star Wars Day and the Theremin…. This morning as I was looking over the front page of Wikipedia to see what was new, I noted that author Ruth Rendell has passed away. One would think that as a lover of mystery books I would have read plenty of Ruth Rendell’s works, but somehow I have avoided them and I can’t give you one good reason why!! From Wikipedia: Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE (née Grasemann; 17 February 1930 – 2 May 2015) was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries.[1] Rendell’s best-known creation, Chief Inspector Wexford, was the hero of many popular police stories, some of them successfully adapted for TV. But Rendell also generated a separate brand of crime fiction that explored deeply into the psychological background of criminals and their victims, many of them mentally afflicted or otherwise socially isolated. This theme was developed further in a third series of novels, written under her pseudonym Barbara Vine. Read More I do have a copy of her book The Vault on my TBR shelf. My wife accidentally bought it one Christmas when I asked for a book with the same title from a different author. She read it and liked it. Maybe it’s time now to enjoy Rendell’s tremendous legacy!! Next I saw that today May 4th is Star Wars Day Star Wars Day is an unofficial secular holiday in May that celebrates the Star Wars franchise created…

Nowruz – A New Day, A New Year!

Nowruz – The Beginning of a New Year in the Persian Calender! As I look out my window this morning, I am hopefully looking at the last gasp of winter! Three to five inches of snow is supposed to fall today, and be gone tomorrow, when temperatures climb into the 50s! I read this morning that today Iranians and other countries in areas surrounding Iran are celebrating Nowruz. Since I had no idea what Nowruz was I needed to find out! What I found out was that Nowruz in Persian means “The New Day” and is the name of the Iranian’Persian New Year! From Wikipedia: Nowruz marks the first day of spring or Equinox” and the beginning of the year in the Persian calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical Northward equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed. The moment the sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year and families gather together to observe the rituals. Nowruz is celebrated by people from diverse ethnic communities and religious backgrounds for thousands of years. It is a secular holiday for most celebrants that is enjoyed by people of several different faiths, but remains a holy day for Zoroastrians. It originated in Persia in one of the capitals of the Achaemenid empire in Persis (Fars) in Iran and is also celebrated by the cultural region that came under Iranian influence or…

Umami – um that's good!

Umami – The reason we love bacon?? This morning I was looking through The Costco Connection magazine, when I came across this article Uma-what? Umami is more familiar than you think. Since Uma-what? is actually what I think when I hear Umami. I read the article and then went to Wikipedia to find out more about Umami. Umami is a savory taste and is one of the five basic tastes, the others are sweet, sour, bitter and salt. Umami .translates as a “pleasant savory taste” which comes from the taste of glutamates and nucleotides. Th use of Glutamate has been around in cooking for a long time according to Wikipedia… Fermented fish sauces (garum), which are rich in glutamate, were used widely in ancient Rome,[15] fermented barley sauces (murri) rich in glutamate were used in medieval Byzantine and Arab cuisine,[16] and fermented fish sauces and soy sauces have histories going back to the 3rd century in China. In 1908 Umami was first “scientifically identified” in a professor of the Tokyo Imperial University Kikunae Ikeda,. Kikunae found that glutamate was responsible for the palatability of the broth from kombu seaweed. He noticed that the taste of kombu dashi was distinct from sweet, sour, bitter and salty and named it umami! Ever since umami’s existence was proposed by Kikunae scientists have debated whether umami was a basic taste. It wasn’t until 1985 that….. the term umami was recognized as the scientific term to describe the taste of glutamates and nucleotides at the first…

Philip Levine – An American Poet Laureate Passes…

Philip Levine – (January 10, 1928 – February 14, 2015) Poet of America’s Middle Class…. When I created Finding Out! I envisioned it as kinda’ my Trivia Crack.Spin the wheel, or surf the Internet and explore things that fall into the main categories of Trivial Pursuit, the arts, science, sports, history, entertainment, and geography all things that I love, Finding Out about! Today the wheel within my ADD addled brain spun and landed on the Arts….I have mentioned before when discussing Rod McKuen Baudelaire, that I am not a big fan of poetry, which is why I didn’t know who Philip Levine was when I saw his name among Wikipedia’s list of those who have recently passed away Philip Levine was not only and award-winning American poet, known for his poems about working-class Detroit, he was also appointed Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012! Here are those awards that Philip Levine won…. 2013 Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry – The Simple Truth (1994) 1991 National Book Award for Poetry and Los Angeles Times Book Prize – What Work Is 1987 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Modern Poetry Association and the American Council for the Arts 1981 Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine 1980 Guggenheim Foundation fellowship 1980 National Book Award for Poetry – Ashes: Poems New and Old 1979 National Book Critics Circle Award – Ashes: Poems New and Old – 7 Years from Somewhere 1978 Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize from…