- The military is tasked with protecting so many different
segments and aspects of American life…but it’s wildlife? For the men and women
of one Ohio Air Force base, taking care of some of nature’s smallest and winged
residents is not only important, it’s something for which they’ve been
recognized. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base received the Bee City USA
designation from a national program that helps strengthen ecosystems for bees,
meaning that saving human lives through the military doing its job well and
saving the lives of insects and bugs on the base can be done at the same time.
As anyone who has taken a fifth-grade science class knows, bees are vital to
pollinating many plants humans eat and that means we need them for more than
just making quality honey. What’s noteworthy in this case is that Wright-Patterson
is the first military base to earn the special environmental distinction,
something Wright-Patterson natural resources technician Danielle Trevino traces
back to when the base's conservation efforts began in 2015 with 50,000 bees in
four colonies. Over the past two years, through the diligent efforts of the
airmen and base personnel, the bee population has grown to about 250,000, so
large that Trevino says two of the bee colonies will be relocated to a remote
area on the base. Based on the base’s past efforts, those new bee dwellings
will be some extremely swanky, comfortable places for these proud pollinators
to call their home…….
- Who wants to direct one of Disney’s 8 billion planned
spin-off projects in the Star Wars universe? How about you, former “Happy Days”
star and director of “A Beautiful Mind,” “Apollo 13” and “The Da Vinci Code” Ron
Howard. Yes, Howard is set to take over as director of the upcoming Han Solo
Star Wars spin-off film, which began filming in February without a title, but
with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller at the helm. However, the duo,
who previously teamed up to make “The Lego Movie” and “21 Jump Street,” bolted
from the project and left it in need of a new visionary in the director’s
chair. Enter Howard, who takes over with time of the essence. “At Lucasfilm, we
believe the highest goal of each film is to delight, carrying forward the
spirit of the saga that George Lucas began forty years ago,” said Kathleen
Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm,. “With that in mind, we’re thrilled to
announce that Ron Howard will step in to direct the untitled Han Solo film. We
have a wonderful script, an incredible cast and crew, and the absolute
commitment to make a great movie. Filming will resume the 10th of July.” In between
now and then, Howard will have to get a firm grasp on what he’s inherited and
figure out where he wants to take a highly anticipated movie from here……..
- Bring back the penis rock. So say the hundreds of people
chipping in on a crowdfunding site to repair a crank-shaped rock formation in
southern Norway after the popular tourist attraction was found badly damaged. The
apparent vandalism to the site was discovered by runners who passed by the
Trollpikken rock formation and saw that it had cracked and also had drilling
holes in the rock -- a development that experts say strongly suggests the rock
was deliberately vandalized. News of the attack on a dick-shaped national
treasure spurred to donate nearly 90,000 Norwegian kroner ($10,600) to fix the
formation located south of the southern coastal city of Stavanger within a day
and activist Kjetil Bentsen, one of those spearheading the effort, is convinced
the Trollpikken "will be rebuilt" with donated money. In the
meantime, police are seeking tips to find the person or persons who did it and
lest you think this will result in nothing more than a slap on the wrist in a
country where the persons who commit violent, deadly crimes can never face the
death penalty, just know that the person who cranked this crank could face a
one-year prison sentence for a serious environmental crime. The good news for
nature lovers around the world is that there is still time to donate to this
effort to fix what’s broken and if you do, a free length of reindeer sausage
for you the next time you travel to Norway……..
- You can have it, Paris. The United States doesn’t really
want to host the 2024 Summer Olympics even though the grandstanding organizers
of Los Angeles’ bid for the Games would have you believe otherwise. If France
wants the gig enough to stage an elaborate event in which high-divers plunged
into the River Seine, trampoline athletes somersaulted inside the Petit Palais
art museum and a bunch of C-level French sprinters raced a 100-meter dash on a
temporary track floating on the Seine, then let Paris have it. Paris and L.A. are
the only two cities still dueling for the right to/burden of hosting the 2024
Games and Paris’ organizers hope their wacky two-day festival of more than 30
sports will help showcase the French capital's suitability for the games. All
of this is playing out ahead of a crucial International Olympic Committee
meeting in July that could decide to pick the 2024 and 2028 Olympic host cities
both at once -- in a final vote in September in Lima, Peru. If that happens,
the bribe-loving members of the IOC will merely have to decide which city gets
which Games, though Paris is sticking up its nose at that idea and claiming
that it is bidding only for 2024. To punctuate its push, the French government
event stopped the frenetic vehicle traffic around the iconic Arc de Triomphe
for three hours so cyclists could pedal around the landmark. Mix in a climbing
wall installed inside the Pavillon de l'Arsenal museum of Paris architecture
and demonstrations of an array of Olympic sports, including fencing, boxing,
archery and gymnastics and you have a show worthy of hosting the 2024 Summer
Olympics, the 2028 edition and beyond, as long as America doesn’t have to
shoulder this waste of a fiscal burden……..
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