December 4

Just because:

Not fun facts:

The possible demise of Hostess brand snacks has led to a lot of Internet chatter about how bad snack foods are for our bodies. Like we didn’t know already. But some things are much, much worse. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but an Outback Bloomin’ Onion starts with a perfectly healthy whole sweet onion that is sliced in a starburst fashion, then given an egg wash and dipped in flour (twice) before being deep fried – for an artery clogging 2,900 calories per order (including the dipping sauce). Did I mention the 158 grams of fat? Before you order the next one, consider that the average person expends only 2,000 calories a day when at rest, so you’d better get moving. I recommend a sprint to the nearest emergency room – just in case.

The good news: contains 4.7 grams of dietary fiber (19% of recommended daily allowance); the bad news – all the rest of it. Read for yourself.

Nutritional Facts for Outback Bloomin' Onion (without the sauce):
Serving Size: 1
Servings Per Recipe: 1
Calories 2573.2
Calories from Fat 1424
Total Fat 158.3 g (243% of recommended daily allowance)
Saturated Fat 71.5 g (357% of recommended daily allowance)
Cholesterol 1293.6 mg (431% of recommended daily allowance)
Sodium 2247.3 mg (93% of recommended daily allowance)
Total Carbohydrate 184.9 g (61% of recommended daily allowance)
Dietary Fiber 4.7 g (19% of recommended daily allowance)
Sugars 17.6 g (70% of recommended daily allowance)
Protein 107.2 g (214% of recommended daily allowance)

Item(s) not included: dipping sauce

December 3

Just because: 

Keith Haring

Pop culture artist Keith Haring (1958-1990), was a gay man whose simplistic images were influenced by New York City graffiti artists. His art had a strong graphic quality, with figures or objects drawn in outline form with rays emanating from them – instantly recognizable the world over. Unfortunately, his short life was halted by AIDS, and he succumbed to the disease at the age of thirty-one.

Keith Allen Haring was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and he was raised in a nearby rural farming community. He showed artistic promise from his childhood years, when he was an avid drawer of cartoons. As a teenager he became aware of Andy Warhol’s work and was fascinated by the prospect of mass-produced pop art that celebrated common objects. He moved to Pittsburgh after graduating from high school and it was there that he realized his homosexuality and art were interconnected, prompting a move to NYC, the center of both the art world and gay culture.

In the early 1980s he began creating his iconic graffiti drawings in the city’s subways. Haring worked at the Tony Shafrazi gallery, and in 1982 his employer launched his first major show, in which many of the works displayed homoerotic content. His images, bereft of detail, were ideal for social awareness campaigns, and his designs were soon used for UNICEF causes, AIDS prevention, literacy campaigns and even to fight apartheid in South Africa.

Within five years of his arrival in NYC, Haring’s popularity and unique artistic expression made him a rich man and a cultural celebrity. Madonna, one of his biggest fans, explained that Haring’s art had such a vast appeal because, "there was a lot of innocence and joy that was coupled with a brutal awareness of the world."

Influenced by Andy Warhols’ commercialism, Haring opened the Pop Shop in NYC’s SoHo neighborhood, where products bearing his images could reach a mass market. Responding to critics who said he had “sold out” his art, Haring explained that fine art was an expensive commodity beyond the reach of the middle class, and his retail outlet allowed ordinary people to own his work. More than twenty years after his death, the Pop Shop lives on and has expanded to encompass Internet operations.

Portrait of Haring (at left)