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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.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

A new version of Canada’s Food Guide was announced by Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement on Feb. 5, 2007. The guide has helped Canadians with healthy eating habits since 1942 but was last updated in 1992. It is the Canadian government’s most-requested publication after income tax forms.

Changes to the Food Guide include:

• a first-time recommendation to include a small amount of unsaturated fat in regular diets;
• physical activity to complement healthy eating;
• advice for some people to take vitamin supplements;
• an advisory to limit foods with excess salt, sugar, fat and calories, which is considered an unprecedented caution regarding junk food.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Fiji’s national airline Air Pacific has now officially returned to its original name: Fiji Airways. Fiji Airways adopted the Air Pacific name in 1971, slightly prior to its first international flight on June 3, 1973. The re-brand was described by interim CEO Aubrey Swift as allowing the airline to align itself “closer with Fiji as a destination”. The name change is designed in part to reduce the confusion which surrounded the name Air Pacific. Swift noted that “Air Pacific just didn’t resonate with our customers” and said that same people “thought we were an air conditioning company”.

Along with the name change, the airline has redesigned its website, and changed the name of each of its classes of service. Pacific Voyager and Tabua Class have been replaced with economy and business class respectively. The airline has also introduced plans to overhaul its fleet of older Boeing 747s with Airbus A330s. It has said that the completion of this overhaul and the re-branding efforts will be completed by the end of the year.

The airline’s new brand-mark and livery features a masi design created by Fijian artist, Makereta Matemosi. The new identity is to “symbolises the airline’s new identity and epitomises all that Fiji Airways represents. It is authentic, distinctive, and true to the airline’s Fijian roots”, the airline said.

Saturday, April 9, 2005

The top money grossing entertainers in Australia in 2005 were not Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman, or Russell Crowe. In fact, it was four tot-time entertainers, the Wiggles, with their preference for bright colours and sing-along dance numbers. Their earnings level was estimated at AU$45 million over the last year by Australian publication Business Review Weekly (BRW), in its yearly who’s-who ranking of the nation’s top 50 entertainment earners.

“They got into the market early, they took time to understand their audience, not only children but the parents who pay for everything,” BRW managing editor Tony Featherstone, said.

Though almost doubling her earnings from the previous year, Nicole Kidman only made second place, at AU$40m. And Crowe came in third, at “only” AU$27m. Fourth place was long-time heavy metal favourites, AC/DC, whose estimated income was AU$18m.

Another children’s entertainment band, Hi-5 came in sixth with $15m, after Naomi Watts.

Sunday, January 2, 2005

< 26 December-31 December 2004 • Index • 11-18 January 2005 >

Articles dated 1 to 10 January 2005 are included in the compilation below.Experimental Format

Sunday, February 7, 2021

The New Zealand Government on Thursday announced the creation of a new public holiday, Matariki. Matariki marks the beginning of the M?ori New Year, which coincides with the rising of the star cluster Pleiades, known as Matariki in the M?ori language.

At Waitangi, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said “This will be a day to acknowledge our nation’s unique, shared identity, and the importance of tikanga M?ori. It’s going to be something very special, and something uniquely New Zealand.” Ardern also said the new holiday would break up the over-4 month gap between public holidays in June and October.

The date of the Matariki holiday is not consistent from year to year, as it follows Maramataka, the M?ori lunar calendar, but would likely always fall on a Monday or Friday according to Ardern. A Matariki advisory group has been established, with M?ori Crown Relations — Te Arawhiti — Minister Kelvin Davis explaining that the purpose of the group is “to provide advice on future dates of the public holiday, how it should be celebrated and to support the development of resources to educate the public on Matariki and the celebrations”. The first Matariki holiday is scheduled for Friday, June 24 of next year.

Ardern’s Labour Party made the Matariki holiday an election promise, and won last year’s general election with a majority. This result was the best for any party since New Zealand’s 1996 adoption of a mixed-member proportional system.

This is not the first attempt to make Matariki a public holiday. In 2009, M?ori Party Member of Parliament Rahui Katene introduced legislation to create a Matariki public holiday. While it was supported by the then-opposition Labour Party, the governing National Party did not support it, and it was defeated with 59 votes in favour and 63 votes against.