Happy Thanksgiving! Some facts...

Some facts you might not have known about Thanksgiving...

• In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to move the official Thanksgiving date to earlier in November in order encourage a longer Christmas shopping season as a Depression recovery strategy.

*His idea was shut down by Congress and the official date was declared

permanently as the fourth Thursday in November via Public Law #379.

• Turkey is naturally low in fat without the skin, containing only 1 gram of fat per ounce of flesh. A 5-ounce serving provides almost half of the recommended daily allowance of folic acid, and is a good source of vitamins B, B1,B6, zinc and potassium.

• Wild turkeys are covered with dark feathers that help them blend in with their woodland homes. The bare skin on the throat and head of a turkey can change color from flat gray to striking shades of red, white, and blue when the bird becomes distressed or excited.

Turkey Terms:

• Caruncle is the brightly colored growths on the throat region. It turns bright red when the turkey is upset or during courtship.


• Gizzard is a part of a bird's stomach that contains tiny stones. It helps them grind up food for digestion.


• Hen is a female turkey


• Poult is a baby turkey; a chick


• Snood is the flap of skin that hangs over the turkey's beak. It turns bright red when the turkey is upset or during courtship.


• Tom is a male turkey; aka a gobbler.


• Wattle is the flap of skin under the turkey's chin. It turns bright red when the turkey is upset or during courtship.

Sources:

http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodhistory/a/tgivinghistory.htm

http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/turkey.htm

Tattoo, graffiti and identity

Regarding our third paper on the topic of graffiti, we had a speaker come and talk about his experience with body modifications, tattoos in particular. He presented the class with the reasoning behind his tattoo and how it defines him as a person. In class we talked about identity and how both of these art forms, graffiti and tattoos, are related. I believe that tattoos and graffiti are both expressions of art and define either the person wearing the tattoo or the person tagging the graffiti.

Both art forms help create an identity. For example, a person can be spotted out of a crowd by the tattoo they wear or a well known graffiti artist can be identified by their artwork on a wall. These forms of expressing one's self also have stories behind the artwork. For example my favorite graffiti artist, Banksky, is a political activist and it really shows in his street art. The same can be said about tattoos. I have six tattoos myself and each one has its own story on how it became on my body. All of them help identify who I am.

Megan Girouard