Viktor Schreckengost dies at 101

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Viktor Schreckengost, the father of industrial design and creator of the Jazz Bowl, an iconic piece of Jazz Age art designed for Eleanor Roosevelt during his association with Cowan Pottery died yesterday. He was 101.

Schreckengost was born on June 26, 1906 in Sebring, Ohio, United States.

Schreckengost’s peers included the far more famous designers Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes.

In 2000, the Cleveland Museum of Art curated the first ever retrospective of Schreckengost’s work. Stunning in scope, the exhibition included sculpture, pottery, dinnerware, drawings, and paintings.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

An American inventor has patented a pair of new time formats with a footprint less than 50% of that of conventional four-digit time. The more unusual of the two new formats, called “TWELV”, dispenses with numerals altogether. In place of clock hands or digits, the new clock uses color to convey the hour and a moon image to convey the minute, which moon slowly grows throughout the course of an hour from a narrow crescent to a full-fledged circle.

The second and more approachable of the new formats retains numerical digits to indicate the minute but uses colors to convey the hour.

Early critics question whether the aesthetic benefits of the moon-clock will be sufficient to encourage users to learn the color-based time-telling system. However, the size advantages of the new system may make it particularly suitable for mobile applications, particularly cell phones, wearable computers, and head-mounted displays.

Friday, October 12, 2007

I had an unofficial phone call from Gay Talese last Tuesday. He had just flown back from Colombia and he was cranky. “I’m happy to do an interview with you,” he said, “but what the hell could you ask me that’s not already out there? Have you even bothered to look?!”

“Jeez, Mr. Talese, lots of things,” was my response. I lied. The truth is that when I call people to interview them, I do not have a set of preconceived questions. My agenda is to talk to them and gain a sense of who they are; to flesh them out as humans. To find out what they think about the world around them at that moment. With Gay Talese I had little interest in talking about Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and with Augusten Burroughs I had little interest in discussing Running with Scissors. I want to know what they think about things outside of the boxes people have placed them in.

With a memoirist like Burroughs, even this is a challenge. What parts of his life he has not written about himself, other interviewers have strip-mined. When we met for dinner at Lavagna in the East Village, I explained to Augusten this issue. I suggested we make the interview more of a conversation to see if that would be more interesting. “Instead of you in the catbird seat,” I said, “let’s just talk.”

We struck an instant rapport. What set out to be an hour and half interview over dinner had turned into four hours of discussion about our lives similarly lived. I removed half of the interview: the half that focused on me.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s conversation with writer Augusten Burroughs.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Businessman Rocky De La Fuente took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

The 61-year-old De La Fuente resides in San Diego, California, grew up in Tijuana, and owns multiple businesses and properties throughout the world. Since getting his start in the automobile industry, De La Fuente has branched out into the banking and real estate markets. Despite not having held or sought political office previously, he has been involved in politics, serving as the first-ever Hispanic superdelegate to the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

De La Fuente entered the 2016 presidential race last October largely due to his dissatisfaction with Republican front-runner Donald Trump. He argues he is a more accomplished businessman than Trump, and attacks Trump as “a clown,” “a joke,” “dangerous,” and “in the same category as Hitler.” Nevertheless, De La Fuente’s business background begets comparisons with Trump. The Alaskan Midnight Sun blog described him as the Democrats’ “own Donald Trump.”

While receiving only minimal media coverage, he has campaigned actively, and according to the latest Federal Election Commission filing, loaned almost US$ 4 million of his own money to the campaign. He has qualified for 48 primary and caucus ballots, but has not yet obtained any delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Thus far, according to the count at The Green Papers, De La Fuente has received 35,406 votes, or 0.23% of the total votes cast. He leads among the many lesser-known candidates but trails both Senator Bernie Sanders who has received nearly 6.5 million votes and front-runner Hillary Clinton who has just shy of 9 million votes.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, De La Fuente discusses his personal background, his positions on political issues, his current campaign for president, and his political future.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

After dropping 1.9% in July, house prices in the United Kingdom are now falling at the fastest rate since 1990, according to Nationwide Building Society.

The average price of a home has dropped by £20,000 down to £164,654, losing 10.5% of its value in 2008. Property values fell by 1.9% in the past month, and 1.5% in July. In another study, it was revealed that house prices have been steadily falling since October last year.

Nationwide’s chief economist, Fionnuala Earley said that activities in the housing market had recently been “very subdued”, although there are signs of increased interests in home sales, possibly due to the appeal of lower house prices.

The Bank of England stated there has been an increase in the number of people taking out a fixed rate mortgage as opposed to a variable rate loan. Further research by Nationwide has concluded that mortgage approvals also fell by 65% last month.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

English actress Rachel Weisz thinks that Botox injections should be banned for all actors.

The 39-year-old actress, best known for her roles in the Mummy movie franchise and for her Academy Award-winning portrayal in The Constant Gardener, feels facial Botox injections leave actors less able to convey emotion and that it harms the acting industry as much as steroids harm athletes.

In an interview with UK’s Harper’s Bazaar, coming out next month, Weisz says, “It should be banned for actors, as steroids are for sportsmen,” she claims. “Acting is all about expression; why would you want to iron out a frown?”

Currently living in New York, she also mentions that English women are much less worried about their physical appearance than in the United States. “I love the way girls in London dress,” she claimed. “It’s so different to the American ‘blow-dry and immaculate grooming’ thing.”

Saturday, December 21, 2019

On Wednesday, the United States House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump over complaints arising from an alleged abuse of power. Trump, the third President to be impeached by the House, is to face trial in the Senate.

The House passed two different articles of impeachment. The first charged Trump with abuse of power, and the second accused him of obstruction of Congress. The abuse of power charge stemmed from allegations Trump tried to pressure the Ukrainian government to launch an investigation of Joe Biden’s son, in order to help Trump’s chances in the 2020 United States presidential election in which Biden is also running. The articles passed by votes of 230-to-197 and 229-to-198 respectively.

The impeachment occurred largely along partisan lines, with Democratic members of the House voting in favor of the impeachment, and Republican members opposing. Two Democratic Representatives, Collin Peterson and Jeff Van Drew, opposed both articles of impeachment, and a third, Jared Golden, voted for the first article but against the second. In the immediate aftermath of the vote, CNN reported Jeff Van Drew was expected to leave the Democratic party.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, reportedly previously committed to proceeding with an impeachment trial, anticipated to begin in January. He publicly stated the trial would not be impartial, saying he anticipated having “a largely partisan outcome” in the Senate. Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, and for a trial to result in removal from office a two-thirds majority is needed. If Trump were removed, the Senate constitutionally could disqualify him from serving as President again.

The House has only impeached two other Presidents. Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998, and Andrew Johnson in 1868. The Senate acquitted both of them.