Jump to content

User:Maunus/Small News

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia Small News - Because the World is a Small Place.

Welcome to Wikipedia Small News. This is a place to showcase articles that have been created or updated to reflect noteworthy, interesting or surprising current events, which are nonetheless too small or specialized to be noteworthy for WP:ITN.

Topics that are underrepresented at ITN should be given priority: Particularly events in academia, arts and sciences, human rights, alternative economics, and events and issues pertaining to ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities, will be given priority. Topics such as sports, crimes, national elections, accidents or disasters, and prizes and awards such as Nobel prizes and Oscars are to be excluded.

There is no nomination process, just insert your news using the established format, but any inclusion is subject to consensus. Please write a small paragraph summarizing the update, including enough background information to make the topic interesting for readers, and preferable to show how the event fits into a larger global context.

Small World News

[edit]
  • 30 march 2012. Land-clearing forest fires threaten to wipe out major Orangutan population of Sumatra.

Man made forest fires used to clear jungle land for the palm oil industry in Sumatra threaten to wipe out one of the countries last large Orangutan population within weeks.[1] In the period 1994 - 2004 Indonesian Palm oil production increased 400%, the main investor in Indonesian palm oil being the Minnesota company Cargill. Indonesia accounts for 40% of the world's palm oil production and the industry is considered a vital strategy for alleviating poverty in the country.[2]


  • March 28th, 2012. US Congressman removed from the floor for wearing hoodie

American congressman Bobby Rush was called out of order and escorted from the chamber of the House, when he addressed the congress about the stigmatization of the hoodie as a dress style, while wearing one. The hoodie had come into public focus when commentators suggested that teenager Trayvon Martin had been killed because the fact that he wore a hoodie made him look threatening. "Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum", Rush said.


  • March 22nd, 2012. Chinese math student made full professor after solving puzzle

In march 2012 Chinese graduate student in Mathematics, Liu Lu was made a full professor at the Central South University of Changsha, after having succesfully solved the mathematical problem known as the "Seetapun Enigma". This made him the youngest full professor in China. The puzzle was devised by David Seetapun, another youth prodigy in the 1990s. After a short career in Goldman Sachs, Seetapun now works as a fisherman in Florida's deep-sea fishing fleet.

Obituaries

[edit]

Earl Scruggs, the banjoplayer who pioneered the three-finger style of banjo playing now also called "scruggs-style" after him passed away on march 28th. Originally rising to fame he was hired by Bill Monroe to fill the banjo slot in his group, the Blue Grass Boys, and later he formed a duo with Lester Flatt.


  • March 27th, 2012. Adrienne Rich, a force of feminist poetry dies

Adrienne Rich, American poet who has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century.", died 82 years old. After a long career of activist poetry, in 1997 she declined to receive thethe National Medal of Arts from then President Bill Clinton saying that "A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored."

"We are, I am, you are

by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which

our names do not appear"

— 
"Diving into the Wreck" (1972) (excerpt)


  • March 10th 2012. Jean Giraud, father of francophone sci-fi comics dies
"Blueberry" Giraud's famous Western anti-hero.
"Blueberry" Giraud's famous Western anti-hero.

French comic artist Jean Giraud also known as Mœbius, died on march 10th 2012. He was the creator of titles such as the Western Blueberry, Arzach and the Airtight Garage. His comics was a major influence on the visual aesthetics of late 20th century science fiction, inspiring Ridley Scott, William Gibson among others.