INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY (IWD), WE CAN DO IT!

Tomorrow is the International Women's Day and The Grangers & The Grandma have wanted to talk about it.

 

Before this, they have been continuing studying English with Can/Can't modal verb and the state verbs.

 

More information: Can/Can't

 

More information: State verbs

International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated annually on 8 March as a global day focussing on the women's rights movement, bringing attention to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women. Spurred on by the universal female suffrage movement that had begun in New Zealand, IWD originated from labor movements in North America and Europe during the early 20th century.

The earliest version was purportedly a Women's Day organized by the Socialist Party of America in New York City February 28, 1909. This inspired German delegates at the 1910 International Socialist Women's Conference to propose a special Women's Day be organized annually, albeit with no set date; the following year saw the first demonstrations and commemorations of International Women's Day across Europe. In 1913 IWD was moved to 8 March and continues to this day.

After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917 (the beginning of the February Revolution), it was subsequently celebrated on that date by the socialist movement and communist countries. The day was associated with far-left movements and governments until its adoption by the global feminist movement in the late 1960s. IWD became a mainstream global holiday following its adoption by the United Nations in 1977.

International Women's Day is commemorated in a variety of ways worldwide; it is a public holiday in several countries, and observed socially or locally in others to celebrate and promote the achievements of women.

The UN observes the holiday in connection with a particular issue, campaign, or theme in women's rights. 

In some parts of the world, IWD still reflects its political origins, being marked by protests and calls for radical change; in other areas, particularly in the West, it is largely sociocultural and centered on a celebration of womanhood.

The earliest reported Women's Day observance, called National Woman's Day, was held on February 28, 1909, in New York City, organized by the Socialist Party of America at the suggestion of activist Theresa Malkiel. There have been claims that the day was commemorating a protest by women garment workers in New York on March 8, 1857, but researchers have alleged this to be a myth intended to detach International Women's Day from its socialist origin.

In August 1910, an International Socialist Women's Conference was organized ahead of the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark. Inspired in part by the American socialists, German delegates Clara Zetkin, Käte Duncker, Paula Thiede, and others proposed the establishment of an annual Women's Day, although no date was specified. The 100 delegates, representing 17 countries, agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights, including women's suffrage.

The following year, on March 19, 1911, the first International Women's Day was marked by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. In Austria-Hungary alone, there were 300 demonstrations, with women parading on the Ringstrasse in Vienna, carrying banners honouring the martyrs of the Paris Commune. Across Europe, women demanded the right to vote and to hold public office, and protested against employment sex discrimination.

IWD initially had no set date, though it was generally celebrated in late February or early March. Americans continued to observe National Women's Day on the last Sunday in February, while Russia observed International Women's Day for the first time in 1913, on the last Saturday in February (albeit based on the Julian calendar, as in the Gregorian calendar, the date was March 8).

In 1914, International Women's Day was held on March 8 for the first time in Germany, possibly because that date was a Sunday. As elsewhere, Germany's observance was dedicated to women's right to vote, which German women did not win until 1918. Concurrently, there was a march in London in support of women's suffrage, during which Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested in front of Charing Cross station on her way to speak in Trafalgar Square.

More information: UN Women

Women don't realize how powerful they are.

Judith Light

SARS-CoV-2 & OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS IN THE USA

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the latest news of SARS-CoV-2 in the USA, three years after the pandemia started. SARS-CoV-2 and its derivates continue being a potencial labour risk for milions of workers in the USA.

The risks from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), for workers depends on how extensively the virus spreads between people; the severity of resulting illness; pre-existing medical conditions workers may have; and the medical or other measures available to control the impact of the virus and the relative success of these measures. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides detailed information about this topic.

According to the CDC, certain people, including older adults and those with underlying conditions such as heart or lung disease or diabetes, are at higher risk for developing more serious complications from COVID-19.

Classifying Risk of Worker Exposure to SARS-CoV-2

Worker risk of occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2 during a pandemic may depend in part on the industry type and the need for contact within 6 feet of people known to be, or suspected of being, infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Other factors, such as conditions in communities where employees live and work, their activities outside of work (including travel to COVID-19-affected areas), and individual health conditions, may also affect workers' risk of getting COVID-19 and/or developing complications from the illness.

OSHA has divided job tasks into four risk exposure levels: very high, high, medium, and lower risk, as shown in the occupational risk pyramid, below. The four exposure risk levels represent the probable distribution of risk. Most American workers will likely fall in the lower exposure risk (caution) or medium exposure risk levels.

Lower Exposure Risk (Caution)

Jobs that do not require contact with people known to be, or suspected of being, infected with SARS-CoV-2. Workers in this category have minimal occupational contact with the public and other coworkers. Examples include:

-Remote workers (those working from home during the pandemic).

-Office workers who do not have frequent close contact with coworkers, customers, or the public.

-Manufacturing and industrial facility workers who do not have frequent close contact with coworkers, customers, or the public.

-Healthcare workers providing only telemedicine services.

-Long-distance truck drivers.

Medium Exposure Risk

Jobs that require frequent/close contact with people who may be infected, but who are not known to have or suspected of having COVID-19. Workers in this category include:

-Those who may have frequent contact with travelers who return from international locations with widespread COVID-19 transmission.

-Those who may have contact with the general public (in schools, high population density work environments, and some high-volume retail settings).

High Exposure Risk

Jobs with a high potential for exposure to known or suspected sources of SARS-CoV-2. Workers in this category include:

-Healthcare delivery and support staff (hospital staff who must enter patients’ rooms) exposed to known or suspected COVID-19 patients.

-Medical transport workers (ambulance vehicle operators) moving known or suspected COVID-19 patients in enclosed vehicles.

-Mortuary workers involved in preparing bodies for burial or cremation of people known to have, or suspected of having, COVID-19 at the time of death.

Very High Exposure Risk

Jobs with a very high potential for exposure to known or suspected sources of SARS-CoV-2 during specific medical, postmortem, or laboratory procedures. Workers in this category include:

-Healthcare workers (doctors, nurses, dentists, paramedics, emergency medical technicians) performing aerosol-generating procedures (intubation, cough induction procedures, bronchoscopies, some dental procedures and exams, or invasive specimen collection) on known or suspected COVID-19 patients.

-Healthcare or laboratory personnel collecting or handling specimens from known or suspected COVID-19 patients (manipulating cultures from known or suspected COVID-19 patients).

-Morgue workers performing autopsies, which generally involve aerosol-generating procedures, on the bodies of people who are known to have, or are suspected of having, COVID-19 at the time of their death.

Guide to action for the prevention of occupational risk in the event of highly infectious dangerous biological agents in health facilities

Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving,

we get stronger and more resilient.

Steve Maraboli

ART, SHOPPING & CAST-IRON ARCHITECTURE IN SOHO

Today, The Grandma has visited SoHo in Lower Manhattan to visit some of the most influential artists of the city.

SoHo is a neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. 

Since the 20th century it has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and has also been known for its variety of shops ranging from trendy upscale boutiques to national and international chain store outlets. The area's history is an archetypal example of inner-city regeneration and gentrification, encompassing socioeconomic, cultural, political, and architectural developments.

The name SoHo derives from the area being South of Houston Street, and was coined in 1962 by Chester Rapkin, an urban planner and author of The South Houston Industrial Area study, also known as the Rapkin Report. The name also recalls Soho, an area in London's West End.

Almost all of SoHo is included in the SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District, which was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1973, extended in 2010, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978.

It consists of 26 blocks and approximately 500 buildings, many of them incorporating cast-iron architectural elements. Many side streets in the district are paved with Belgian blocks.

SoHo is part of Manhattan Community District 2 and its primary ZIP Codes are 10012 and 10013. It is patrolled by the 1st and 5th Precincts of the New York City Police Department.

Because of the nature of neighbourhoods in New York City, different sources will often give different boundaries for each one. In the case of SoHo, all sources appear to agree that the northern boundary is Houston Street, and the southern boundary is Canal Street, but the location of the eastern and western boundaries is disputed.

More information: SoHo Memory

In 1974, shortly after SoHo first came into existence, The New York Times described the boundaries as stretching from Houston to Canal Streets between West Broadway and Lafayette Street.

The map at the Community Board 2 profile page on New York City's official website has SOHO written near Broadway in the space roughly equidistant between Houston Street and Canal Street.

The SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District is contained within the zoned SoHo neighborhood. 

Originally ending in the west at the eastern side of West Broadway and to the east at the western side of Crosby Street, the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District was expanded in 2010 to cover most of West Broadway and to extend east to Lafayette and Centre Streets. The boundary lines are not straight, and some block-fronts on West Broadway and Lafayette are excluded from the District.

SoHo boasts the greatest collection of cast-iron architecture in the world. 

Approximately 250 cast-iron buildings stand in New York City, and the majority are in SoHo. Cast iron was initially used as a decorative front over a pre-existing building. With the addition of modern, decorative facades, older industrial buildings were able to attract new commercial clients. Most of these facades were constructed during the period from 1840 to 1880. In addition to revitalizing older structures, buildings in SoHo were later designed to feature the cast iron.

More information: The Bowery Boys

After the abandonment of the highway scheme, the city was left with a large number of historic buildings that were unattractive for the kinds of manufacturing and commerce that survived in the city in the 1970s. The upper floors of many of these buildings had been built as commercial Manhattan lofts, which provided large, unobstructed spaces for manufacturing and other industrial uses.

These spaces attracted artists who valued them for their large areas, large windows admitting natural light and low rents. Most of these spaces were also used illegally as living space, despite being neither zoned nor equipped for residential use. This widespread zoning violation was ignored for a long period of time, as the artist-occupants were using space for which there was little demand due to the city's poor economy at the time, and would have lain dormant or been abandoned otherwise.

In 2005, the construction of residential buildings on empty lots in the historic district was permitted. Nevertheless, with no enforcement of the new zoning laws by the city, beginning in the 1980s, in a way that would later apply elsewhere, the neighbourhood began to draw more affluent residents. Due to rent protection and stability afforded by the 1982 Loft Law, in addition to the fact that many of the artists owned their co-ops, many of the original pioneering artists remained despite the popular misconception that gentrification forced them to flee.

More information: Coldwell Banker Warburg

 Out of all the neighborhoods in Manhattan,
Soho in particular had the charged atmosphere of a movie set,
populated with passersby who looked
like extras from Central Casting,
so perfectly did they fit into this environment.
There was the feeling of everything being not quite real,
or too perfectly cliched to actually be true,
and it began to rain in a fine,
misty drizzle from a black patent leather sky.

Candace Bushnell

VISITING ROBERT ANTHONY DE NIRO IN MANHATTAN

Today, The Grandma has decided to visit a closer friend, Robert de Niro, the American actor born in Manhattan.
 

Robert Anthony De Niro (born August 17, 1943) is an American actor, producer, and director who holds both American and Italian citizenship.

Robert Anthony De Niro was born in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan, New York, the son of painters Virginia Admiral and Robert De Niro Sr. He is of Irish and Italian descent on his father's side, while his mother had Dutch, English, French, and German ancestry.

De Niro was cast as the young Vito Corleone in the 1974 film The Godfather Part II, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His longtime collaboration with director Martin Scorsese earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull. He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2003, the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2016.

More information: Biography.com

De Niro's first major film roles were in the sports drama, Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and Scorsese's crime film Mean Streets (1973). He earned Academy Award nominations for the psychological thrillers Taxi Driver (1976) and Cape Fear (1991), both directed by Scorsese. De Niro received additional nominations for Michael Cimino's Vietnam war drama, The Deer Hunter (1978), Penny Marshall's drama Awakenings (1990), and David O. Russell's romantic comedy-drama, Silver Linings Playbook (2012). His portrayal of gangster Jimmy Conway in Scorsese's crime film Goodfellas (1990), and his role as Rupert Pupkin in the black comedy film The King of Comedy (1983), earned him BAFTA Award nominations.

De Niro has earned four nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in the musical drama New York, New York (1977), the action comedy Midnight Run (1988), the gangster comedy Analyze This (1999), and the comedy Meet the Parents (2000). 

Other notable performances include roles in Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Brazil (1985), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Heat (1995), and Casino (1995). He has directed and starred in films such as the crime drama A Bronx Tale (1993) and the spy film The Good Shepherd (2006).

De Niro received an Italian passport in 2006. His Italian citizenship was granted by the Prime Minister despite strong opposition by the Sons of Italy, who believe that De Niro damaged the public image of Italians by portraying criminals.

More information: Getty Images

 

  

One of the things about acting is 

it allows you to live other people's lives 

without having to pay the price. 

Robert De Niro

VISITING THE MUSEUM OF COSTUME ART WITH IRIS APFEL

The Grandma has decided to visit The Museum of Costume Art, a part of the MET with a special cicerone, Iris Apfel, her closer friend. 

The Museum of Costume Art was founded by Aline Bernstein and Irene Lewisohn. In 1937, they merged with the Met and became its Costume Institute department. Today, its collection contains more than 35,000 costumes and accessories. The Costume Institute used to have a permanent gallery space in what was known as the Basement area of the Met because it was downstairs at the bottom of the Met facility. 

However, due to the fragile nature of the items in the collection, the Costume Institute does not maintain a permanent installation. Instead, every year it holds two separate shows in the Met's galleries using costumes from its collection, with each show centering on a specific designer or theme. The Costume Institute is known for hosting the annual Met Gala. 

More information: The Costume Institute-Digital Collections

In past years, Costume Institute shows organized around famous designers such as Cristóbal Balenciaga, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, and Gianni Versace; and style doyenne like Diana Vreeland, Mona von Bismarck, Babe Paley, Jayne Wrightsman, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Nan Kempner, and Iris Apfel have drawn significant crowds to the Met. 

The Costume Institute's annual Benefit Gala, co-chaired by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, is an extremely popular, if exclusive, event in the fashion world; in 2007, the 700 available tickets started at $6,500 per person. . 

Born Iris Barrel in Astoria, Queens, New York, Apfel is the only child of Samuel Barrel, whose family owned a glass-and-mirror business, and his Russian-born wife, Sadye, who owned a fashion boutique. Both were Jewish.

She studied art history at New York University and attended art school at the University of Wisconsin. As a young woman, Apfel worked for Women's Wear Daily and for interior designer Elinor Johnson. She also was an assistant to illustrator Robert Goodman.

On Feb 22, 1948, she married Carl Apfel (1914-2015). Two years later, they launched the textile firm Old World Weavers and ran it until they retired in 1992. From 1950 to 1992, Iris Apfel took part in several design restoration projects, including work at the White House for nine presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton.

Through their business, the couple began traveling all over the world where she began buying pieces of non-Western, artisanal clothes. She wore these clothes to clients' high-society parties.

More information: Iris Apfel's Instagram

On September 13, 2005, The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York premiered an exhibition about Iris Apfel's style entitled Rara Avis (Rare Bird): The Irreverent Iris Apfel. 

The success of the exhibition, curated by Stéphane Houy-Towner, prompted an initial traveling version of the exhibit at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, New York, and later at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History in Boynton Beach, Florida, is designing a building that will house a dedicated gallery of Apfel's clothes, accessories, and furnishings. 

At age 90 in 2012, Apfel was a visiting professor at University of Texas at Austin. In 2013, she was listed as one of the fifty Best-Dressed over 50 by The Guardian.

Apfel is the star of a documentary by Albert Maysles, called Iris. It premiered at the New York Film Festival in October 2014, and was subsequently acquired by Magnolia Pictures for US theatrical distribution in 2015. Apfel was also featured in the documentary If You’re Not In the Obit, Eat Breakfast, a television film which premiered in 2017.

More information: Magpictures

It's better to be happy than to be well-dressed. 

Iris Apfel

MONOPOLY, SOME PROPERTIES FOR PERLA GRANGER

Another day in New York and The Grangers and The Grandma have continued their formation in English.

They have studied the Adverbs of Frequency, and they have been buying some properties for Perla, who is going to start a new project as a prospector working for Lady Gaga.

Finally, they have continuing reading Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost.

 

+Info: Adverbs of Frequency

Monopoly is a multi-player economics-themed board game. In the game, players roll two dice to move around the game board, buying and trading properties, and developing them with houses and hotels. Players collect rent from their opponents, with the goal being to drive them into bankruptcy.

Money can also be gained or lost through Chance and Community Chest cards, and tax squares. Players receive a stipend every time they pass Go, and can end up in jail, from which they cannot move until they have met one of three conditions.

The game has numerous house rules, and hundreds of different editions exist, as well as many spin-offs and related media. 

Monopoly has become a part of international popular culture, having been licensed locally in more than 103 countries and printed in more than 37 languages.

Monopoly is derived from The Landlord's Game created by Lizzie Magie in the United States in 1903 as a way to demonstrate that an economy that rewards individuals is better than one where monopolies hold all the wealth, and to promote the economic theories of Henry George -in particular his ideas about taxation.

The Landlord's Game had two sets of rules originally, one with taxation and another on which the current rules are mainly based. When Monopoly was first published by Parker Brothers in 1935, it did not include the less capitalistic taxation rule, which resulted in a more aggressive game.

Parker Brothers bought the game's copyrights from Darrow. When the company learned Darrow was not the sole inventor of the game, it bought the rights to Magie's patent for $500.

Parker Brothers began marketing the game on November 5, 1935. Cartoonist F. O. Alexander contributed the design. U. S. patent number US 2026082 A was issued to Charles Darrow on December 31, 1935, for the game board design and was assigned to Parker Brothers Inc. 

The original version of the game in this format was based on the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Parker Brothers was eventually absorbed into Hasbro in 1991. The game is named after the economic concept of monopoly -the domination of a market by a single entity.

More information: The Guardian

 I get more upset at losing at other things than chess.
I always get upset when I lose at Monopoly.

Magnus Carlsen

RUBÉN GRANGER DRIVES HIS CAR PROUDLY IN NYC

Another day in New York and The Grangers and The Grandma have continued their formation in English.

They have studied the Adverbs of Manner, and they have been talking about buying a car to Rubén Granger.

Finally, they have started to read Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost.

+Info: Adverbs of Manner

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world.

MoMA's collection offers an overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated books and artist's books, film, and electronic media.

The MoMA Library includes approximately 300,000 books and exhibition catalogs, more than 1,000 periodical titles, and more than 40,000 files of ephemera about individual artists and groups. The archives hold primary source material related to the history of modern and contemporary art.

It attracted 706,060 visitors in 2020, a drop of sixty-five percent from 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It ranked twenty-fifth on the list of most visited art museums in the world in 2020.

The idea for the Museum of Modern Art was developed in 1929 primarily by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and two of her friends, Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan.

They became known variously as the Ladies or the adamantine ladies. They rented modest quarters for the new museum in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and it opened to the public on November 7, 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash.

The Museum of Modern Art closed for another round of major renovations from June to October 2019.

Upon reopening on October 21, 2019, MoMA added 4,400 m2 of gallery space, and its total floor area was 65,800 m2.

The expansion and refurbishment was overseen by the architectural firm of Diller Scofidio+Renfro.

The institution began offering free online classes in April 2014.

More information: MoMA

Art is what you can get away with.

Andy Warhol