Category Archives: ~ pop culture

~ my 2cents ..., ~ pop culture

SWAY …


TumblrSWAYtumblr_ngdsqziIsq1te8hhso3_250SWAY: A dance Trilogy ends … 

Reports are that this Production was hot, even better than the first SWAY which was a hit that led to SWAY2.0 and definitely a show they would love to see come back, with some adjustments to the Meet & Greet.  The breakdown is that Tony …was beyond elegant, so smooth it brought back that classic club dance feeling with some skill sets that we just do not get to see that often when we watch Dancing With The Stars … We see you Tony.  What I heard: The man can dance lest we talk about those insane lifts of his SWAY dance partner and dwts’s beauty Sharna Burgess.  The group dances were fun, kitschy with a whole lot of amazing dancing and word is Henry, Serge & Artem have people wanting more.  Well, all the dancers impressed and like dwts Season16, Zendaya & Val’s SWAY did not disappoint. We all know dance has evolved, this couple added some of their own texture with some urban splashed on it … those that went said their dancing seemed better than last time and made folks want to move, maybe take some classes. Honestly, who doesn’t want to try to SWAY like these fabulous dancers, but the main chatter was about Maks and Meryl. Yes, many fans watched Maks & Meryl’s SWAY videos and thought omg did she just say she never danced in a theatre setting. Well, they did not disappoint either. I have to say, after watching their video’s from SWDOI (Shall We Dance On Ice) and their SWAY, we can all agree that it was once again magical, breath taking, beautiful and passionate, but seemed way too short. The fans loved seeing Meryl in her dwts costumes, yet there was a new flavor, or feeling to their dances unlike their time on dwts Season18 … was it more passion?  If they SWAY again, some hope to see them do a Paso, maybe some up-tempo stuff next time  … the word from those who were able to go  … amazing!

So, if you want SWAY 3.0 say so!   http://dancewithmeusa.com/sway/

Folks had things to say …

Shout out to Alex for all he does for DWM

Please be a next time

Hey, when you see two people SWAY as they did … you do not want it to end

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hmmm …could we get a Maks Meryl / Val Zendaya dance piece …

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                                    Maksim, Tony & Val = SWAY

                                              Do you want more SWAY … let DWM know !

                                              LIVE ~~ (Westbury NY) ~~ LIVE

                                                    Maksim and Meryl’s SWAY was beyond words …

                                                (http://dancewithmeusa.com/sway/)

                  Tony & Sharna were great

                                        LIVE ~~ (Westbury NY) ~~ LIVE

                                                   and

Zendaya & Val were back and great !

 

 

~ Culture & History, ~ pop culture

Ok, what is that?


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Wait, Is That a Human on the Moon?

The Atlantic

By Adrienne LaFrance 21 hours ago

In this age of big surveillance and miniature satellites, there is an idea that—once we are able to track everything around us—the magic and mystery of the universe will be replaced with data, knowledge, and understanding. 

Yet it often seems like the deeper we get into the world around us, the more we realize how little we actually know. A mountain of data may promise us answers, but first you have to sift through the questions.

The latest evidence: A YouTube video that’s circulating and shows what looks like a human figure standing on the surface of the moon.

Sure enough, go to Google Moon and find the coordinates (27° 34′ 12.83” N, 19° 36’21.56 W) and you’ll see it, too. Here’s a screenshot I took (I added the red arrow): 

Click for better …. View photo

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Google Earth/NASA

Google Earth/NASA

It’s been a generation since humans ruled out the possibility of life on the moon—let alone a giant humanoid just chilling on the lunar surface. So, uh, what is that thing? NASA, which has checked the image against its trove of images from the same location, is shrugging it off.

“We have other images that do not show any imperfection so most analysts believe the image reflects nothing more than a tiny piece of debris on the lens,” spokesman Robert Jacobs told me. (And in a follow-up email: “Believe me, if there was a man on the moon, we’d be recounting our own astronauts to make sure we got them all back from Apollo and then telling everyone else!”)

Fair enough. The rational explanation, after all, is quite often the best one.

And yet there’s something about the image that lingers. In a vast landscape of shameless Photoshopping and Internet hoaxes, and at a time where most people have long since given up on the Loch Ness Monster and the Cottingley Fairies, there’s still that little tug of wonder—misplaced, though it may be.

Just think: We can zoom in on actual photographs of the actual moon from our unbelievably sophisticated handheld computers. But it’s the smudge of dirt on a camera lens that makes people marvel at the depths of what we still don’t know.

Read Wait, Is That a Human on the Moon? on theatlantic.com

~ my 2cents ..., ~ pop culture, ~ Youtube ...gotta listen to this

SWAY prep-work


Most of their shows are sold out – Dec.17

Tell DWM YOU Want More SWAY !!

… they look good together

~ pop culture

Frost flowers: beauty in the far north … a repost from 2013

2 Comments

by Lynda V. Mapes

Jeff Bowman had never heard of frost flowers when he decided to study them to earn his PhD in oceanography at the University of Washington. But, as it turned out, they are a ubiquitous, spectacular marvel at both poles, forming whenever the conditions are just right, with superchilled air hitting newly formed sea ice. The result is salt crystals in the seawater forming structures in the frozen sea water, atop the sea ice: frost flowers.
Acres and acres of them.

Frost_Flowers_Black_Ice.jpg

Photo by Matthias Wietz

Jeff Bowman was on an icebreaker in 2009 near the North Pole when his research team encountered miles and miles of new ice, covered with these frost flowers, each about one to two inches tall. The ice appears black to the eye, enhancing the visual effect. While it looks like rippled open water, the newly-formed sea ice is about three inches thick.

The team disembarked to collect samples of some of the flowers, which, it turned out, are teaming with bacteria. They also had surprising chemical properties, including very high levels of mercury, and formaldehyde, Bowman said.

His research team is still trying to understand just what these frost flowers are up to, chemically and biologically. But one thing that seems certain is whatever these flowers are, there are going to be many more of them as the area of perennial sea ice in the arctic shrinks. That means new sea ice forming on open water, blooming with frost flowers.

For more on Bowman’s research, here is a link to his blog.

~ my 2cents ..., ~ pop culture

internship programs … a change needed in 2014?


        by McKenna Grant, USA TODAY
  11:13 a.m. EDT October 23, 2013

The magazine publisher will no longer offer students an internship program starting in 2014.

Internship programs have proven to be a touchy subject for magazine publishing giant Condé Nast in the last few years, but that will not be the case beginning next year.

Condé Nast – one of the nation’s largest magazine publishers and home to Vogue, Vanity Fair and Glamour – is stripping its internship program all together starting in 2014, according to Women’s Wear Daily.

The discontinuation comes after two lawsuits, filed by former interns, who claimed the media company failed to pay them minimum wage at their internships in 2009 and 2010.

The former interns — Lauren Ballinger (W ) and Matthew Leib (The New Yorker) — claimed in their suit they were paid less than $1 an hour. The case is still pending.

Other media companies, such as Hearst Corporation, have faced similar scrutiny regarding internship programs — long hours and insufficient payment.

In Feb. 2012, a former Harper’s Bazaar intern, Xuedan Wang, sued Hearst saying the company breached overtime and minimum wage laws.

Gawker and Fox Searchlight have also been sued for similar reasons.

All current Conde Nast interns will remain with the company through to their prearranged terms, according to WWD.

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Do you have an internship story to share ?

In 2013, I saw an article asking if unpaid internships were possibly illegal. Well, I will say that the internship of today has gone from work in the industry you were interested in to work on the cheap by college students then work on the cheap with college credit only or maybe some pay. The fact is, some businesses use interns instead of paying an adult out of college a living wage and while I have know idea how long this has been going on, it is happening more frequently than parents probably are aware of. The idea that companies are choosing to add to our jobless by sidestepping possible living wages to folks who want to work not just cost effective for them it is not hard to understand and sad.

On October 30, 2013 I posted the following …

I spent some time looking for the old story in Conde Nast about ending internships and why on their website, but found nothing. I have/had a subscription to subsidiaries of the magazine and still deciding if it is time to move on … not that ending my free access will make an impact. This intern story is not new and while it is old news, the rules keep changing. I have experience as an intern and as someone who had a few interns work for me. In my opinion, it is possible the whole idea of what an intern does, why and salary requirement needs a major makeover.  In the old days, interns actually were assigned to positions that gave them a taste of what their field or degree of choice was like and when those options dried up the disbursement of internships became tied to money, 19 credit hours and or what the department or company needed. I believe internships are important. The fact is, and unfortunately, they have definitely become a way of getting part-time or fulltime work wages for what seemingly looks like on the cheap and students are very lucky if it is tied into your degrees. I know that some of our interns were ok with filing, data entry and answering phones because they had plenty of exams, a lot of reading while others were going into the service industry on some level. The lack of training or experience in their specific area of choice was not a big deal while getting credit; it also was a break from 20credit qtrs. or more and with lunch …well, when they actually allowed themselves to eat lunch and do some homework

I also feel getting students to work on the cheap, allowing them to believe they would not only be performing duties in their field of choice then find out something different when they get to the office is unacceptable. It is not only a problem for their credit hours, but most students are unable to opt out easily to go work somewhere else, top that off with the possibility of long work hours and little or no pay, it’s just wrong.

… PointCounterPoint