Browsing: Lifestyle

A Brief History On January 6, 2014, only one year ago today, former Venezuelan beauty queen Monica Spear, age 29, was murdered on a lonely Venezuelan roadside along with her ex-husband during a botched robbery. Digging Deeper The beauty had previously reigned as Miss Venezuela 2004 and came in as the 4th runner up in the 2005 Miss Universe contest.  She had married British citizen Thomas Berry in 2008 and had a daughter, but the couple divorced in 2012. Of German and English extraction, Monica’s family had emigrated to Venezuela prior to her birth.  Monica herself had moved to Orlando, Florida…

A Brief History On January 2, 2009, Maria de Jesus of Portugal died in her home at age 115.  At the time of her death, she was the oldest living person in the world and the 20th oldest recorded person ever to live.  Maria ate fish, but not meat, and never drank alcohol or smoked.  Digging Deeper Every so often, you hear of a centenarian who drank and smoked every day of his or her life right up to the end, which was not the case with Maria.  So what does the trick?  Did Maria live so long due to her healthy diet and habits? …

A Brief History On December 23, 1972, the survivors of an airliner crash in the Andes Mountains were finally rescued after 73 days.  Rescuers soon discovered the grisly evidence that the survivors had lived only because they had eaten those who had died. Throughout history, there have been instances where humans have eaten other humans, sometimes out of sheer desperation to survive, other times just because they wanted to.  Here 10 more such incidents are listed. (No, Hannibal Lecter does not count, even if they do call him “Hannibal the Cannibal!”)  In case you feel cheated out of a couple famous cannibals, consider…

A Brief History On December 15, 1973, with a vote of 13-0, the American Psychiatric Association agreed to remove homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders.  Obviously, prior to this, the psychiatric world of medicine had considered homosexuality a mental problem, and this ruling was a major step in the social definition of sexual orientation. Digging Deeper Other questions remain unanswered though; at least consensuses have not yet been reached in their regard.  For example, is homosexuality something a person is born with, or is it a learned behavior brought about by a person’s life experiences?  Is homosexuality perhaps a choice, something that…

A Brief History On August 6, 2005, Creme Puff, the oldest cat to make it into the 2010 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, died at the age of 38!  Digging Deeper For those of you who have ever owned a cat, you know that 38 years is more than a ripe old age; it is next to impossible for any cat to reach.  In human terms, this particular cat made it to 169 years of age, an age certainly not experienced by any man or woman in modern history.   If your cat makes it to 15, that is already good, and every year beyond that is…