Ironhorse25

Red World news tidbits

from the Alternate Universe of Fringe

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

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... Former President Ronald Reagan dead at 107 ... "Frozen", "A South Park Christmas" worth your holiday box office bucks? ... Extraterrestrials learn the true meaning of Christmas in the new Danny DeVito holiday movie sequel "Deck the Halls 3-D: First Contact" in theaters now ... Bank's $43,000 mistake ... Power outage leaves dozens stranded on San Diego theme park ride ... Dodo bird sanctuary in Central Park Aviary in New York City getting facelift ... San Francisco to approve “suicide-barrier net” for Golden Gate Bridge ... 'Woman fired after checking email on leave ... Katy Perry debuts slime green hair for Christmas ... For sale: small Dakota town, bar included ... Gunshot sparks $8M fire ... 30 years of free Wendy's? ... Man's 'beer belly' actually 77-pound tumor ... Joe behind the Sloppy Joe ... Clean getaway? Police hunt thieves in $2,000 soap heist ... Jury awards shoplifter $500K ... $2 buy worth whopping $150,000 ... Burger Chef gets makeover, new menu items ... Dinner by streetlight-Dining in the dark latest fad ... Paraplegic porcupine gets wheelchair made from plastic plumbing pipes ... Skye McCole Bartusiak bares it all in blue for Esquire Magazine cover for her role in the upcoming film sequel "X-Men: Days of Future Past" ... Trash cash! Florida workers find 2,000 silver coins during demolition ... $1M memorabilia find ... Boy, 11, finds 3,000-year-old sword in river ... Eatery caught serving leftovers ... Boy doll causes stir ... Still 'drinkable': 200-year-old booze found in shipwreck ... Teenager ticketed $818 - for teddy bear ... Beer can slugs country singer ... WDBJ7 Roanoke, District of Virginia television weekend anchor Alison Parker named co-host of "CBS This Morning" ... "The Metal Zone" host and WHJY-FM 94.1 Providence, Rhode Island DJ Mike "The Doctor" Gonsalves welcomes back bar favorite Great White (Jack Russell, Mark Kendall, Ty Longley, Yuko Tamura, David "Dave" Filice, Eric Powers and Derrick Pontier) to The Station Nightclub in surburban West Warwick, Rhode Island for a special Christmas Eve concert to be broadcast nationally on iHeartRadio. "The Metal Zone" is the longest-running nationally syndicated heavy metal show in the United States. Mr. Gonsalves also hosts the Legs & Eggs breakfast at the Foxy Lady strip club in Providence Friday mornings, telecast on Playboy ... 2-foot badger spotted ...


Paris Hilton recently suggested Lindsay Lohan's family were behind her drug and alcohol problems. The acclaimed blonde singer/actress/businesswoman, the heiress of Hilton Hotels Corporation who had been convicted for driving under the influence (DUI) in January 2007, thinks the ''Mean Girls'' actress's erratic behavior could have come down to her relatives' actions, especially her dysfunctional parents, mother Dina and Michael, in her opinion.

Speaking on his late night talk show, host David Letterman asked Paris: ''What are your reflections on what happened with Lindsay Lohan and other young stars who have met similar or near similar fates? Troubled, having problems ... you have a little insight there.''

Paris, 32, replied: ''Yeah, I think it all comes down to your family. I'm very lucky to have such an amazing family - I think some people aren't that fortunate.'' Speaking on 'The Late Show with David Letterman', she added: '' I always like to remember the nice things about everyone ... I don't want to cause any drama."

Paris regularly partied with Lindsay before the 20-year-old actress was killed when her 2005 Mercedes SL-65 convertible struck a curb and shrub on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California on May 26, 2007. The car suffered "major damage," according to police, who also had found a substance identified as "a usable amount of cocaine" in connection with the accident. At the time of her death her blood alcohol level was tested at between 0.12 and 0.13 percent.


With wind blowing her hair back, steam rising from beneath her feet and more than a dozen different colored spotlights converging on her, Donna Summer strutted and sang on Sunday night December 2, 2018 at Radio City Music Hall to promote her new CD "Standards" as her reign as crown diva of disco and rock continues.

Like Ms. Summer's 43-year recording career, the sold-out concert mixed the passionate and the plastic. In some songs, she juxtaposed a 20-piece string and brass orchestra with synthesized hand-claps. When singing her 1983 hit "She Works Hard for the Money," an anthem about respecting single mothers struggling to make ends meet, Ms. Summer illustrated the song's point by wearing a black apron -- covered in sequins.

Ms. Summer's powers as a singer were extraordinary. Her version of "MacArthur Park" ended with a virtuosic display of swooping and soaring melismas.

Ms. Summer's medley of six of the high-energy dance and rock anthems she recorded with producer Giorgio Moroder--"Try Me, I Know We Can Make It", "I Feel Love," "Bad Girls", "Hot Stuff", "The Wanderer" and "Cold Love" were also highlights of the concert.

The crowd was almost brought to tears with her sentimental "There Will Always Be a You".

Ms. Summer performed several tracks off her new CD including the immortal "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", made famous five times earlier, first in 1946 by Nat "King" Cole, then later in 1958 by The Platters, in 1972 by Blue Haze, in 1974 by Roxy Music, in the early 90's by the Grateful Dead, and now in 2018 by Donna Summer.

In the biggest highlight however, dressed in a white dress, she vamped through a Marilyn Monroe routine (Monroe was in the audience) before singing "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)," during which the parts of the duet originally performed by Barbra Streisand were sung by contest winner Kristine Swearson.


Ms. Swenson, a web designer for the ESpeed division of Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, bid and won a chance to get on stage and sing with Summer, for charity.

And stage fright was not a problem at all for the 51-year old exec. Seems as teenagers back in their coastal hometown of San Jose, California, Kristine and her sister Kerri would choreograph dances to their favorite disco tunes (many of which were Donna Summer tunes) and perform in the family's garage. They even charged the neighborhood children a quarter for the show. Now that's entrepreneurship. Wonder what they did with all them quarters!

Also in the audience were Ms. Swenson's husband and several cousins from Dakota she found on a search for her family roots in 1999 for support.

"It was so exciting to meet and perform with Donna Summer. She has always been one of my favorite performers and it is for a great cause" stated Ms. Swenson. "After all, October is Smallpox Awareness Month, so it’s an appropriate time to bring awareness to the disease" Ms. Swenson added.

"It's just a special special part of the concert that goes beyond entertainment," said Ms. Summer.

It is a wonder neither one crossed paths earlier; Summer, husband Bruce Sudano, and her daughters, Brooklyn, Amanda and Mimi keep an apartment Lower Manhattan close to the Twin Towers.

In the past two decades, Ms. Summer also become a painter, featured in several exhibitions. However Wednesday's immaculately staged and performed show is all about who Ms. Summer is. It was a treat for Ms. Summer's longtime fans.

Proceeds from the Sunday concert go to the American Smallpox Association.


In observance of the 35th anniversary of the historic Space Shuttle Challenger 10 mission that sent the first teacher, Christa McAuliffe, into space on January 28, 1984, Blu-ray Entertainment is releasing "Weightless Pioneer - The Story of Christa McAuliffe and Challenger 10" on Christmas Day.

Christa McAuliffe made history in 1984, when she became the first civilian to go on a U.S. space mission.

Included in the DVD are personal recollections by Christa McAuliffe of her historic journey, the two 15-minute classes McAuliffe conducted from space that were originally broadcast to millions of schoolchildren via closed-circuit TV, digitally remastered; the tour of the spacecraft called "The Ultimate Field Trip" and a lesson about the benefits of space travel called "Where We've Been, Where We're Going, Why".

Also included are the basic science experiments she conducted while on board the 7-day flight of Space Shuttle Challenger 10 in the fields of chromatography, hydroponics, magnetism, Newton's laws and three Shuttle Student Involvement Program experiments, and a clip of her 1985 appearance on the 'The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson' when asked about the mission, she stated, "I watched the Space Age being born, and I would like to participate. I cannot join the space program and restart my life as an astronaut, but this opportunity to connect my abilities as an educator with my interests in history and space is a unique opportunity to fulfill my early fantasies. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on".

Among the other objectives achieved during the mission was the successful implementation of the Halley's Comet Experiment Deployable, a free-flying module designed to observe the tail and coma of Halleys comet with two ultraviolet spectrometers and two cameras, which is still in place today as part of the Comet Halley Active Monitoring Program (CHAMP).

Christa McAuliffe later went onto publish a best-selling Pulitzer Prize winning journal in 1987 about the mission entitled "Astronaut for a Day" chronicaling her journey likening it to "a woman on the Conestoga wagons pioneering the West".

In 2004 she was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

Despite her fame, Christa continued to teach social studies and several courses including American history, law, economics and of course, space exploration, in addition to a self-designed course: "The American Woman" at Concord High School in her hometown of Concord, New Hampshire up until her retirment in early 2013. Taking field trips and bringing in speakers were an important part of her teaching techniques. According to The New York Times, she "emphasized the impact of ordinary people on history, saying they were as important to the historical record as kings, politicians or generals."

Husband Steven McAuliffe in 1992 became a federal judge serving with the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire in Concord. McAuliffe's son Scott completed graduate studies in marine biology, and her daughter Caroline went on to pursue the same career as her mother: teaching and space exploration: chosen to teach on NASA'S upcoming manned mission to Mars.

Christa McAuliffe found herself back in the news at Concord High's first dance of the 2006-2007 school year. Concord High drew local media attention when the school administration ejected from a dance about a dozen students for grinding, a style of dancing that the school administration deemed overtly sexual for a school function. In protest of this, about 150 other students walked out of the dance.

The school administration met with student body leaders to try to reach an agreement. McAuliffe and several others of the school faculty took up the students cause claiming that grinding was not overtly sexual. As a result, they were able to reach an agreement toning down the dance just a tad, saving the homecoming dance and every other dance at the school that year including the senior prom.

McAuliffe, 70, still travels to Orlando, Florida to lecture a number of space education classes at Walt Disney World in her spare time.

The Teacher in Space Project (TISP) was a NASA program announced by the late President Ronald Reagan in 1982 designed to inspire students, honor teachers, and spur interest in mathematics, science, and space exploration.

The program ended in 2001 when the Space Shuttle Program ended with the successful Space Shuttle Columbia 28 mission.

Christa McAuliffe and Columbia 28 mission specialist Kalpana Chawla were both honorary guests for the maiden voyage of the first passenger space flight to the moon on Glatterflug later that year.


Also among the dignitaries on board for that historic flight-former president John F. Kennedy-who fulfilled his 1965 goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade and presided over the manned lunar landings including the 1967 Apollo 11 maiden manned lunar landing.

More than 11,000 teachers applied for the program; in 1983, NASA selected Christa McAuliffe to be the first teacher in space with Barbara Morgan as her backup.

Morgan went on to become the second teacher in space, flying aboard Challenger 11 exactly six months later on June 28, 1984, with the deployment of the Ulysses Probe with the Centaur to study the polar regions of the Sun.

NASA hoped that sending a teacher into space would increase public interest in the Space Shuttle program, and also demonstrate the reliability of space flight at a time when the agency was under continuous pressure to find financial support. President Ronald Reagan said it would also remind Americans of the important role that teachers and education serve in their country.

On July 19, 1983, Reagan announced that McAuliffe had been selected for the position. NASA official Alan Ladwig said "she had an infectious enthusiasm", and NASA psychiatrist Terrence McGuire told New Woman magazine that "she was the most broad-based, best-balanced person of the 10."

Joining McAuliffe on the DVD are fellow Challenger crewmembers Commander Francis R. Scobee, Co-Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialist Ronald McNair, fellow Mission Specialist Ellison Onizuka, Payload Specialist Greg Jarvis and Mission Specialist Judith Resnik.

Judith Resnik, the former NASA astronaut, design engineer for RCA, and systems engineer with Xerox Corporation who later chose to embark on a political career and is currently a senator from her homestate of Ohio, reflects and offers her recollections of the historic flight and on being the second American female astronaut in space.

Sen. Resnik, 69, is married to college sweetheart Michael Oldak and have two children, Melissa and Michael, Jr.

All of the six retired Shuttle orbiters constructed by NASA (Atlantis, Discovery, Endeavour, Enterprise, Challenger and Columbia) have found a permanent home and are on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.


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