Later today, as many presidents before him have done, President Obama will pardon a couple of turkeys. “The office of the presidency—the most powerful position in the world—brings with it many awesome and solemn responsibilities,” Obama said in 2013. “This is not one of them.”
Gifting a turkey to the president is certainly nothing new. The tradition dates back at least to 1873, when Ulysses S. Grant benefited from the poultry present. But until the past couple of decades, the presentation of a bird was more or less a private photo op for representatives of the Poultry and Egg Board or the National Turkey Federation. And—surprise, surprise—the presidents typically ate the birds, with the exception of Kennedy.
The whole pardoning event is fairly new, though, and giving the fortunate turkeys monikers is even newer. Here’s what we know about the names of those lucky suckers:
1863: Jack, allegedly. As one story goes, Abraham Lincoln’s son, Tad, became a little too attached to the gift that was destined to end up on the dinner table, naming him Jack. His father agreed to let the turkey live, and Jack ended up as part of the menagerie the Lincoln boys had at the White House. 1873: The Vose Turkey. Turkey farmer Horace Vose formally started the tradition of presenting the president with the main entree for his meal. We’re sure Grant was grateful. 1987: Charlie 1994: Tom (how original) 1999: Harry 2000: Jerry. You can see Bill Clinton dutifully performing the pardon here:
Beginning in 2001, two turkeys were always on tap—the one that would look best on camera, and a backup in case the first choice got skittish in front of the crowd. Traditionally, both the main turkey and the understudy have been pardoned.
2001: Liberty and Freedom, in the wake of 9/11. 2002: Katie and Zack, named after the children of the chairman of the National Turkey Federation. 2003: Stars and Stripes, which narrowly won over Pumpkin and Cranberry in an online poll. 2004: Biscuits and Gravy 2005: Marshmallow and Yam 2006: Flyer and Fryer 2007: May and Flower 2008: Pumpkin and Pecan 2009: Courage and Carolina 2010: Apple and Cider 2011: Liberty and Peace 2012: Cobbler and Gobbler 2013: Caramel and Popcorn 2014: Mac and Cheese 2015: Honest and Abe
The 2016 turkeys, Tater and Tot, come from Storm Lake, Iowa; their names were suggested by the classmates of the children of Chris and Nicole Domino, the turkey farmers who raised the birds. Tater and Tot will live out the rest of their days at Virginia Tech, in a specially built enclosure called Gobblers Rest.
You can read more about the history of the presidential turkey pardon here. Whether or not you agree with John Oliver that this is a particularly ridiculous American tradition, we can all be thankful that at least we’ve come a long way from the Nixon era, when one doomed bird had his feet nailed to the table because he wouldn’t behave for the press.
It’s an inconvenient irony that some of the busiest travel days in the United States also happen to land right in the middle of the stormiest part of autumn. Since the beginning of this decade, we’ve only had one Thanksgiving travel period that wasn’t seriously marred by hazardous weather in any of the country’s largest travel hubs. This year looks like it’ll follow the pattern of Thanksgivings before it by producing just enough dreary, sloppy weather to cause some headaches.
Things are slowly starting to return to normal after the long stretches of strangely quiet weather that have blanketed the country for the past couple of months. It’s easy to forget that enjoyable weather is not normal in November when you can wear shorts on Election Day and keep your windows open the week before Thanksgiving, but that’s been our reality these days. November is supposed to be a gloomy, bone-chilling time of the year, and that miserable normalcy is back in place just in time for everyone to head to grandma’s for the long weekend.
Dreary weather will plague the Midwest and West Coast on Wednesday, November 23, 2016. Image Credit: NOAA/WPC
The wavy jet stream that’s bringing normal back will spawn a large low-pressure system in the central Plains on Wednesday morning, quickly making its way toward the Great Lakes as it gathers moisture and strength. The combination of cold, Arctic air to the north and warmish, moist air from the south will allow this system to produce everything from thunderstorms in the south to a chilly rain and a few mushy inches of snow in the north.
If you’re flying anywhere for the long Thanksgiving weekend, the ease of your travels will depend on where you’re going and, more importantly, where you’re connecting. Things are looking pretty good if you’re mostly staying along the East Coast, with weather-related delays at major hubs like Atlanta and Washington looking minimal leaving this week or coming back home this weekend.
Folks flying into or out of Chicago, Detroit, or Minneapolis on Wednesday and Thursday might encounter some delays due to low clouds, gusty winds, and occasionally heavy precipitation. The impending low-pressure system will produce a couple of inches of snow in the Upper Midwest, likely blanketing Minneapolis with a small coating of snow on Wednesday before the storm lifts out of the area on Thursday. The weather-related delays in these hubs shouldn’t be as severe as we’ve seen in years past, but even minor delays can cause disruptions that trickle through the system with such a packed schedule of flights coming and going.
Flights along the West Coast might see some weather delays as well. A fast-moving series of small storm systems will come ashore from the Pacific Ocean over the next five days, with each system bringing with it gusty winds, steady rainfall, and poor visibility during the worst conditions. The greatest impacts should be limited to Seattle and Portland, Oregon, but they could extend as far south as San Francisco on Wednesday night.
Driving across the stormy areas won’t be much of a treat, either. Make sure to check the forecast before you head out so you know what you’re driving into before you get there. If you’re not able to drive in the snow or rain, make alternate plans or see if you can get someone else to drive for you. The weather won’t be much worse than what you experience during a normal commute, but there will be more people on the highways than you’d see on a normal day, so make sure you give yourself plenty of time and space to get to your friends or family safely.
The relationship between humans and turkeys may not be a great one, but it’s certainly enduring. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of domesticated turkeys at the site of a 5th-century CE ritual sacrifice in Oaxaca, Mexico. They published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
Archaeologists have theorized that humans had started raising turkeys by the year 400 or 500 CE, but they had relatively little evidence. Then, in 2009 and 2010, researchers excavating the famous ancient fortress of Mitla in Oaxaca uncovered piles of turkey bones and eggs.
One of those researchers was archaeologist Gary Feinman of The Field Museum in Chicago. “It was very exciting because it’s very rare to find a whole cluster of intact eggs,” he said in a press statement. “This was very unexpected.”
Bone expert and lead author Heather Lapham of the University of North Carolina recognized the remains and their significance immediately. Lapham counted five intact or unhatched eggs, plus the bones of seven newly hatched turkey poults: an offering. Nearby were broken eggshells and the remains of many other juvenile and adult turkeys.
Feinman, Lapham, and their colleague Linda Nicholas brought the turkey eggs back to the laboratory and examined them under high-powered scanning electron microscopes. They discovered that the eggs were not all the same age. Some were unfertilized, while others had been recently fertilized when they were buried under the floors and in the walls. Others still contained embryos that were nearly ready to hatch.
The presence of eggs and turkeys of all different developmental stages suggests that the fortress’s inhabitants had regular access to a flock. These birds weren’t hunted or collected from the wild. They’d been raised here.
The domestication of these birds by the Zapotec people would have been hugely beneficial to their culture and economy. “There were very few domesticated animals in Oaxaca and Mesoamerica in general compared with Eurasia,” Feinman said. “Eurasia had lots of different meat sources, but in Oaxaca 1500 years ago, the only assuredly domestic meat sources were turkeys and dogs.”
That changed with the arrival of the Spanish, who brought over domesticated pigs, chickens, and cows. Yet turkeys remain an important part of life in Oaxaca to this day. They’re given as gifts, included in important feasts, and are still used in ritual offerings. “The reasons might be different,” the authors write, “certainly the gods are different, but this practice among the Zapotec of ritually sacrificing turkeys and egg offerings shows amazing continuity over an extended period.”
Steve Martin and John Candy starred in the holiday movie classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles, writer/director John Hughes’ first big foray away from writing about teenage angst. Martin played Neal Page, a marketing executive desperate to get back home to Chicago to see his wife and kids for Thanksgiving, who along the way is thoroughly aggravated by shower curtain ring salesman Del Griffith (Candy), and the many, many, many mishaps that befall the two throughout their travels. Here are some facts about the film that are not pillows.
1. JOHN HUGHES ONCE HAD A HELLISH TRIP TRYING TO GET FROM NEW YORK CITY TO CHICAGO.
Before he became a screenwriter, Hughes used to work as a copywriter for the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago. One day he had an 11 a.m. presentation scheduled in New York City on a Wednesday, and planned to return home on a 5 p.m. flight. Winter winds forced all flights to Chicago to be canceled that night, so he stayed in a hotel. A snowstorm in Chicago the next day continued the delays. The plane he eventually got on ended up being diverted to Denver. Then Phoenix. Hughes didn’t make it back until Monday. Experiencing such a hellish trip might explain how Hughes managed to write the first 60 pages of Planes, Trains and Automobilesin just six hours.
2. HOWARD DEUTCH WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO DIRECT.
The comedian, who had written his own screenplays, thought the 145-page length of the script was a lot for a comedy. When Martin asked Hughes where he thought they might cut scenes, Hughes was confused by the question. Martin later claimed that the first cut of Planes, Trains and Automobileswas four and a half hours long.
4. HUGHES ACTED OUT THE ENTIRE MOVIE TO SOMEONE ON HIS JOB INTERVIEW.
Reid Rosefelt went in to meet Hughes for the unit publicist position. Rosefelt recalled in his blog that he found it strange, but admirable, that Hughes did not allow Rosefelt to see the script to the movie he would potentially work on and promote beforehand. After the two grew more comfortable with one another at their meeting, Rosefelt asked what the movie was about—he only knew Steve Martin and John Candy were starring and it was called Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Hughes then performed the entire movie for him. Rosefelt didn’t get the job.
5. JOHN CANDY ARRIVED ON SET WITH EXERCISE EQUIPMENT.
On the first day of shooting, the crew brought in treadmills, weights, and other exercise equipment for Candy to use in his hotel suite. Martin said Candy didn’t use any of it.
6. IT WAS ALL MEANT TO BE SHOT IN CHICAGO, BUT THERE WASN’T ENOUGH SNOW.
7. THE CONSTANT DELAYS ON PRODUCTION WERE VERY BENEFICIAL TO ONE ACTOR.
In John Hughes: A Life in Film, Kirk Honeycutt wrote that one actor, who played a truck driver, was only supposed to have one line and work for one day. Hughes chose to keep him on standby. The actor ended up working enough days while the crew waited for the snow to come that he was able to make a down payment on a house. It’s very possible this was Troy Evans, who was uncredited, as the shy truck driver in the movie. He went on to appear, credited, on ER for the show’s final five seasons as Frank Martin.
8. SUSAN PAGE WAS WATCHING ANOTHER HUGHES MOVIE, SHE’S HAVING A BABY.
In the scene that goes back and forth between Neal trying to sleep next to Del clearing his sinuses and Neal’s wife (Laila Robins) watching TV alone in their bed, she is somehow watching She’s Having a Baby, which wouldn’t be released in theaters until February of the following year. Kevin Bacon stars in that movie, and made a cameo in Planes as the guy who out-hustles Neal in getting a cab. Some people believe Bacon—who was officially listed in the credits as “Taxi Racer”—was playing his She’s Having a Baby character, Jake, in that scene.
McClurg, probably best known as Grace, Principal Rooney’s secretary in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, played the St. Louis car rental employee upon whom Neal dropped 18 F-bombs. For the first few takes, McClurg simply raised her finger and had a standard phone conversation with a customer. Then Hughes told her to improvise talking on the phone about Thanksgiving. She then came up with the stuff about needing roasted marshmallows and taking care of the crescent rolls because she can’t cook based on her own life. When she finished, Hughes asked her how she came up with those details so quickly. When McClurg explained she just got it from her own life just like he does with his scripts, he said, “Oh yeah!” She claims people to this day ask her to tell them they’re f*cked.
10. A SCENE IN A STRIP CLUB WAS CUT.
After their car blew up, Neal and Del went inside a strip club to use a phone, where Del got distracted by the dancers. Actress Debra Lamb didn’t know that her scene was cut until she went to a screening.
11. JERI RYAN WAS ALSO CUT FROM THE MOVIE, BUT HER SCENE WASN’T.
It was the actress’s first role. She was one of the passengers on the bus ride and couldn’t help but laugh at Martin and Candy’s antics. They reshot the scenes without her.
12. ELTON JOHN WROTE A SONG FOR THE MOVIE.
Elton John and lyricist Gary Osborne were almost finished writing the theme song when Paramount insisted on ownership of the recording master, which John’s record company would not allow. The song has never been released.
13. IN THE ORIGINAL ENDING, DEL FOLLOWED NEAL ALL THE WAY HOME.
Hughes decided during the editing process that instead, John Candy’s character would be “a noble person” and finally take the hint from Martin’s character, and let Neal return home alone, before Neal has a change of heart and finds Del again.
14. IN THE SCENE WHERE NEAL THINKS ABOUT DEL ON THE TRAIN, MARTIN DIDN’T KNOW THE CAMERA WAS ON.
In order to get the new ending he wanted, Hughes and editor Paul Hirsch went back to look for footage they previously didn’t think would be used. Hughes had kept the cameras rolling in between takes on the Chicago train, without his lead’s knowledge, while Martin was thinking about his next lines. Hughes thought Martin had a “beautiful expression” on his face in that unguarded moment.
Inexpensive paper microscopes may be headed for a classroom near you—and you can buy one too. Several years ago, Stanford University researchers unveiled a microscope that can be built from a single piece of paper with an LED and a lens, allowing aspiring scientists to explore the micro world for less than a dollar. Now, a Kickstarter campaign is making Foldoscope’s technology available to consumers ahead of the product’s wider commercial release, as Popular Science reports.
The origami microscope comes with a glass lens that boasts a high enough magnification to see red blood cells and watch live bacteria, at 140 times magnification and a two-micron resolution. The Kickstarter kit comes with associated lab tools like microscope slides and tweezers. The Foldoscope is also compatible with a smartphone, so you can take videos and photos of the amazing stuff you see on those microscope slides, and the kit comes with a cellphone clip to make that process even easier.
Your kit won’t cost as little as $1, though. At the classroom scale, the company can sell the packs cheaply, but for individual consumers, the Kickstarter kits start around $18, reflecting the cost of the extra tools. However, teachers can currently buy 20 packs of microscopes for just $25, or you can donate the classroom kit to a school (scheduled for August 2017 delivery). The makers of Foldoscope hope to sell 1 million microscopes next year.
If you’re stingy, you can always use your own paper at home create a Foldoscope for free, but for most people, it’s easier to just shell out for the pre-folded kit. Regardless, see how the devices are made in the video below:
Fans of Jim Henson’s 1982 fantasy film The Dark Crystal know a little something about patience. Though the movie didn’t receive unanimous praise from critics or break box office records, its loyal cult fanbase has been hoping for a follow-up film for nearly 35 years. And it looks like all that waiting has paid off … kind of. Next year, The Dark Crystal will finally be getting a sequel, but it will take place on the pages of a comic book from Archaia Entertainment, Nerdist reports.
The 12-issue series—titled The Power of the Dark Crystal—is based on the actual screenplay for a now-abandoned movie sequel by David Odell, Annette Odell, and Craig Pearce. Writer Si Spurrier (X-Force) will handle this new script, as Kelly and Nichole Matthews (Toil and Trouble) take on the art duties. Not a whole lot is known about the book’s plot, but Archaia and parent company Boom Studios did write up a brief taste of what’s to come:
“Years have passed since the events of the original film, and though Jen and Kira have ruled Thra as King and Queen, bringing Gelfling back to the land, they have become distracted by power and can no longer feel or see the needs of the world the way they once did.”
The Power of the Dark Crystal #1 will hit comic book store shelves on February 15, 2017, with a cover by Jae Lee (Batman/Superman) and June Chung (Birds of Prey).
There are plenty of interesting lamps to illuminate your workspace—but why not opt for one that will inspire you to obliterate your work? This new Death Star lamp from ThinkGeek has arrived just in time for the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The officially licensed gadget uses the ominous space station’s shape for the base, with a blueprint-style pattern for the shade design.
With a push of the superlaser, users can turn on the top of the lamp; with a second push, they can make the base glow; a third push turns off the top light and leaves the base illuminated. All the lights are long-lasting LEDs, which cannot be replaced by the customer. That said, the LED lights are meant to last 60,000 hours—roughly seven years of continual operation. You can get your own for $50 here.
