Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-12-10/Featured content

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 23 to 29 November 2014.

Featured articles
Eleven featured articles were promoted this week.
 * Pah Wongso Pendekar Boediman (nominated by Chris Woodrich) This is an exciting detective story! (Plot revealed) Pah Wongso is the hero, a schoolmaster and social worker who also sells nuts. One day, a young woman named Siti is almost hit by a carriage, but thanks to a young man, Wisnoe, she  escapes. Wisnoe is the young protégé of our detective. In thanks, Wisnoe is employed by the girl's father  and the girl and he start to fall in love. However he has a rival, Wisnoe's cousin Bardja, who is jealous of his success and wants the girl, and what's more, makes an attempt on Wisnoe's life. Bardja is a bad boy, a gambler who frequents prostitutes and steals from his rich uncle. He kills the uncle, then frames Wisnoe for the murder. Poor Wisnoe is arrested, but Pah Wongso begins to investigate the case, discovers that Bardja is the murderer and confronts him. They fight, Wongso wins, and Wisnoe's name is cleared.
 * Paraceratherium (nominated by FunkMonk) Consider yourself knee-high to a Paraceratherium ! Larger than the largest mammoth, 6 m high at the shoulder and weighing up to 15 to 20 tonnes, this hornless rhinoceros roamed Eurasia between 34 and 23 million years ago. It's the largest terrestrial mammal known, and was first discovered by a soldier in Balochistan in 1846- but he only found fragments. It wasn't till Guy Ellcock Pilgrim found a jaw and some teeth in 1907-1908 that the "resurrection" of Paraceratherium began, with subsequent work by Russian, American and Chinese scientists fleshing out the odd-toed ungulate. Check out the diagram of comparative sizes in the article- you'll see that you would in fact be staring Paraceratherium in the knees!
 * Ford Island (nominated by TParis) Named after one-time owner Dr Seth Porter Ford, this island is 441 acres of volcanic ash, coral debris and dredged sand in the center of Pearl Harbor, on which “[by] the late 1990s hundreds of millions of dollars had been invested in real-estate development and infrastructure". It’s also been listed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as “one of the U.S.'s most-endangered historic sites”. Called by Hawaiians Mokuʻumeʻume ("isle of attraction" or "island of strife") it was the site of a “festival for married couples who were having difficulty in conceiving children”- but the missionaries stopped that in 1830. In 1917 the US Army bought the island for an airbase, and in 1939 they moved off the island, as the US Navy had pushed their way onto it. New facilities were rapidly built, so that at the height of World War Two 40,000 people lived or worked on the island. During the attack on Pearl Harbor battleships berthed around the island were the principal target of the Japanese aircraft. Naval Station Ford Island was decommissioned in 1966, and in 1970 the runway was opened to flight training operations by military flying clubs. Access to the island was by two U.S. Navy-owned and operated ferries until the Admiral Clarey Bridge was opened in 1998.
 * Garnet Malley (nominated by Ian Rose) Malley was an Australian fighter ace who saw service in both World Wars. He flew Sopwith Camels with the Australian Flying Corps during World War I, achieving six aerial victories and earning the Military Cross. An aviation adviser to Chiang Kai-shek's government in China during the 1930s, Malley was able to observe air tactics in the Sino-Japanese War at first hand, but his reports were given little weight in Australia. Returning home, he served in intelligence roles with the Royal Australian Air Force and later the Commonwealth government during World War II. After the war he procured a yacht, the Royal Flight, which was used as a setting in the film The Blue Lagoon, and lived the rest of his life on his Fijian plantation.
 * William Beach Thomas (nominated by Sitush) Beach Thomas was a British author and journalist of "stately height and gigantic stride". After spending a few years as a schoolteacher he began to write for periodicals. A keen athlete he preferred the countryside to city life; he was taken on by the Daily Mail as a writer on rural matters. With the encouragement of Lord Northcliffe Beach Thomas moved to Hertfordshire . His book From a Hertfordshire Cottage was published in 1908. At the start of the First World War Beach Thomas was one of several journalists who managed unofficially to reach the front line in Belgium. He was arrested and imprisoned for a time by the British army. In December 1915 he became war correspondent for the Daily Mail, and filed reports from the Somme. His war reportage received national recognition, despite receiving heavy criticism from soldiers, who considered "his writing to be a trivialisation of the realities of war, jingoistic, pompous and particularly self-promoting". His book With the British on the Somme (1917) portrayed the English soldier in a positively positive way, and he wrote regularly for magazines and newspapers like The Observer,   The Spectator and Country Life. France and Britain rewarded him with knighthoods after the war. Beach Thomas's primary interest as an adult was the relationship between the people and the land.  He  was active in the creation of the national parks in England and Wales, and mourned the decline of the English village. His book  The English Landscape, published in 1938, included selected passages from his articles in Country Life magazine.
 * U.S. Route 45 in Michigan (nominated by Imzadi 1979) This highway, running from Mobile, Alabama, was extended into Michigan in the 1930s. It runs across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for 54+3/4 mi to the village of Ontonagon, and reaches its northern terminus at Ontonagon Street, about 1000 ft from Lake Superior. Part of US 45 near Paulding is the site of the mysterious Paulding Light.
 * Australian raven (nominated by Cas Liber) A member of the corvid family, the Australian raven is a member of the genus Corvus. It has an all-black plumage, is 46–53 cm (18–21 in) in length with a 100 cm (40 in) wingspan and weighs around 650 g (1.4 lb). The raven's preferred habitat is open woodland, although it has become a common bird in Australian cities. They are intelligent birds, and have adapted well to human habitations, scavenging for food for example in bins, rubbish tips, school playgrounds and farmyards, using fence posts as anvils to break snail shells, and softening hard biscuits in water before eating them.  In eastern Australia the raven is commonly found near sheep- the birds are known to pull the tails of sleeping lambs. When the lamb wakes and stands up the raven walks behind, eating feces from the lamb's anus. Although farmers often blame ravens for killing sheep, it appears that they mostly scavenge stillborn lambs and afterbirth. The raven bonds for life; pairs build bowl-shaped nests in high places, including telegraph poles and high-rise buildings.
 * Lightning (Final Fantasy) (nominated by ProtoDrake) Lightning is a fictional female character from the Final Fantasy series of commercially and critically successful games, a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, developed and owned by Square Enix. It centers on a series of fantasy role-playing video games, and includes motion pictures, anime, printed media and other merchandise and has since branched into other genres such as tactical role-playing, action role-playing, massively multiplayer online role-playing, racing, third-person shooter, fighting, and rhythm. Elements include plot themes, character names, and game mechanics, while plots center on a group of heroes battling a great evil while exploring the characters' internal struggles and relationships. Square Enix's best selling video game franchise, with more than 100 million units sold, and one of the best-selling video game franchises.
 * Léal Souvenir (nominated by Ceoil and User:Kafka Liz) Léal Souvenir also called Timotheus or Portrait of a Man, is a small 1432 oil-on-oak panel portrait by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. The painting depicts a man dressed in typically Burgundian fashion, with a red robe and a green wool chaperon with a bourrelet and a cornette hanging forward. The headdress is trimmed with fur, fastened with two buttons- while the right hand is holding the end of the cornette. He holds a scroll that contains six lines of illegible writing. Jan van Eyck's works are in the International Gothic style, but he soon developed it to a much greater realism. Van Eyck reached a new level of virtuosity, mainly because he used oil painting -  that gave him longer time to  finish his pictures, versus the earlier used fresco technique, that basically dried up in a couple hours and required careful planning from the artist since it is was impossible to make any changes after the plaster dried. He was highly influential and his techniques and style were quickly adopted and refined by generations and generations of Early Netherlandish painters.
 * The Fifth Element (nominated by Freikorp) The Fifth Element is a 1997 French science fiction film (in English) directed by Luc Besson and based on a story by him. Described by a critic as one of the most unhinged films ever made, it features a great evil which appears every 5,000 years; the only weapon capable of defeating it is one made from the combination of four stones that represent the classical four elements, viz. earth, fire, air and water, and a sarcophagus containing something in human form which actually is a fifth element. The five objects combine to make a blinding white light which destroys the evil. All these objects are in an ancient Egyptian temple, guarded by a priest. An alien race of Mondoshawans arrive at the temple in 1914 and borrow the five elements. In 2263, some 349 years later, the evil arrives in the form of a big ball of black fire; the Mondoshawans are returning the five elements to save the Earth when some Mangalores ambush them. The alien Mangalores have been hired by an industrialist called Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, played by Gary Oldman, who has been instructed by the great evil to acquire the stones. The Mondoshawans' spaceship is destroyed; the stones aren't on board because they've been entrusted to the alien opera singer Diva Plavalaguna. That's an alien who's an opera singer, not a… oh never mind. Told you it was unhinged. One hand from the fifth element is saved, and is used by scientists to make a humanoid woman, Leeloo. Terrified of the unfamiliar environment she finds herself in, Leeloo jumps off a ledge into Korben Dallas's (Bruce Willis) flying taxicab. Some more stuff happens. Eventually Dallas confesses his love for Leeloo; they kiss, she combines the power of the stones, releases the light and the evil ball of fire becomes dormant and forms another moon in the night sky. The costumes are by John Paul Gaultier and are "said to challenge sexuality and gender norms".

Featured lists
One featured list was promoted this week.
 * Works of John Betjeman (nominated by SchroCat) Poet Laureate, broadcaster, author, and campaigner for the preservation of Britain's historic architecture in the face of the mid-twentieth century craze for knocking down and rebuilding, John Betjeman had a varied and complicated career. This list covers all aspects of his work, from his poetry and prose to his broadcasts, acting work, and radio plays.

Featured pictures
Thirty (!) featured pictures were promoted this week.
 * Theatro Municipal, São Paulo (created and nominated by Wilfredor) One of the major landmarks in São Paulo, Brazil, the Theatro Municipal began building in 1903, and finished in 1911. With an architectural design referencing the famous Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy, it sought to create a world-class venue for the performance of opera and other theater. However, it has also hosted a variety of other cultural events, including the Modern Art Week in 1922, which revolutionized Brazil's artistic landscape.
 * 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (created by ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM,, nominated by Yann) Asteroid 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko as photographed by the Rosetta spacecraft. Rosetta ' s lander, Philae touched down on the asteroid on 12 November this year. That's a big stone - but the escape velocity is only about 2 miles per hour (3 km/hr), so if you move at mere walking pace on it, you'll fly off into space, never to be seen again.
 * Condong performer (created and nominated by Chris Woodrich) Part of Chris Woodrich's continuing series on Balinese dance, the condong dance originated in the Bali in the mid-19th century. Its creator is not known, but folk tales suggests that a prince of Sukawati, deathly ill, saw a vision of two beautiful girls dancing angelically while accompanied by gamelan music; and after this vision he regain his health. The girls dancing might have been two bidadari (celestial nymphs) named Supraba and Wilotama. Happy to feel good and healthy again, the prince, trying to hold on to this vision, recreated the dance he had seen.  In current performances, the condong dancers are playing these roles. It may be that Wilotama is a local version of Tilottama, who is also an angelic dancer and also an Apsara (celestial nymph, dito).
 * Dome, nave, choir (looking west), choir (looking east), high altar, and Chapel of St Michael and St George of St. Paul's Cathedral (created by David Iliff, nominated by The Herald) One of the most famous and most recognisable sights of London, with its dome, framed by the spires, St Paul's Cathedral was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren, and was completed within Wren's lifetime as part of the rebuilding of the city after the Great Fire of London (1666). Lucky him, not many architects lived to see a cathedral they started to build. The dedication of the cathedrals on this site to the apostle Paul dates back to AD 604. At 365 feet (111 m) high, it was the tallest building in London until 1962, and its dome is among the highest in the world.  St Paul's Cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral has hourly prayer (rare to have that in any other regular church in the country) and daily services.
 * Gilt-bronze Maitreya in Meditation (7th-century statue; photograph provided by the National Museum of Korea and nominated by Chris Woodrich) National Treasure of Korea number 83, the Gilt-bronze Maitreya in Meditation is considered one of the finest Buddhist sculptures ever produced. Everything seems to conspire to make this particularly impressive: It comes from a period when very few other bronze sculptures survive; it has a detailed, flowing drapery, unlike the stiff, stylized drapery of similar statues from the period; the proportions of the body are naturalistic, and, while some of his features are somewhat stylized, such as his head and chest, it has a very natural-looking posture. In particular, look at the hands, which are realistic and detailed, and in positions that help add to the feel of calm meditation and relaxedness.
 * Courtyard of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (created by Benh Lieu Song, nominated by Chris Woodrich) Panoramic view of the courtyard of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque or "Blue Mosque", in Istanbul, Turkey. The Mosque is from the classical period of Ottoman architecture. During the classical period, mosque plans changed to include inner and outer courtyards. The inner courtyard and the mosque were inseparable. The courtyard of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the lavish and spacious forecourt of the mosque, about as large as the mosque itself and is surrounded by a vaulted arcade. In the middle of the courtyard there is a hexagonal fountain. An iron chain that hangs in the court entrance on the western side was put there to make the sultan lower his head and bow when he entered the court on horseback, a gesture of humility of the ruler in the face of the divine. Only the sultan was allowed to come through the entrance on horseback. When he entered the Blue Mosque, an army of lamps inside the mosque lit up the interior, which was covered  with gold and gems. The walls were covered with blue ceramic tiles (hence the name of Blue Mosque) depicting flowers, fruit and cypresses and more than fifty different varieties of tulip.
 * Leotia lubrica (created by Dr. Holger Krisp, nominated by Tomer T)  The jelly baby (in Latin Leotia lubrica), is a tiny little fungus (2.4 in) growing in the woods, in Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia. They are yellowish-greenish in colour, irregularly shaped and grow in tight clumps. They are growing in woodland among moss, plant detritus or other woodland habitats, where they are typically found in large numbers.  The youngest fruit bodies are small and conical, but the fertile head quickly grows from the stalk.  Although described as inedible by many field guides, they are actually edible, but don't taste of anything. The article states that: Its relationship with other members of the genus, of which it is the type species, is complicated. What complications, I wonder?
 * Pulteney Bridge (created by Diego Delso, nominated by Tomer T) The Pulteney Bridge, designed by Robert Adam, is one of only four bridges in the world to have shops across its full span on both sides. The original drawings are preserved in Sir John Soane's Museum in London. The bridge is named after a woman, Frances Pulteney. Frances was the third daughter of MP and government official Daniel Pulteney (1684 – 1731) and first cousin of the 1st Earl of Bath. Inheriting the Earl's fortune, Frances Pulteney and her husband made plans to create a new town, and a better river crossing. The work of the Pulteneys is memorialized by Great Pulteney Street in Bathwick, and Henrietta Street and Laura Place, named after their daughter Henrietta Laura Johnstone.
 * Self-portrait with a friend (created by Raphael, nominated by Chris Woodrich) Raphael is the Renaissance painter in the picture, standing behind his friend. Traditionally the friend was identified as his fencing master. Modern art historians put him down to one of the painter's pupils like Antonio da Sangallo the Younger or Jacopo  Pontormo  but he can also be Giovanni Battista Branconio; papal protonotary and chamberlain, as well as a friend of the artist Raphael, and also a commissioner, for whom Raphael projected Palazzo Branconio. Yes, Raphael was both a painter and an architect, like many of the other big artists of his time, such as da Vinci and Michelangelo. In those times nobody considered this an impossibility. No, don't make the mistake of believing that it was easier to paint and build in those times than now- it wasn't. They just didn't realize it was impossible, so they did it.
 * Kongensbro gravel pit (source photos created and nominated by Slaunger, stitched into a panorama by David Iliff) It's a gravel pit, so obviously there's heaps of gravel. After reading the nomination several times I've drawn one lesson: the difference between TIFFs and RAW files is serious business. All I know is that this is one helluva picture.
 * Confederate money, first issue: Fifty-dollars (original version), fifty dollars (amended version), one hundred dollars (original version), one-hundred dollars (amended version), five hundred dollars, and one thousand dollars (created and nominated by Godot13) First issue of the Confederate States of America dollar under the Act of March 9, 1861 amended August 3, 1861. Ordered by the Confederate States of America; Engraved and printed by the National Bank Note Company (T1-4) and the Southern Bank Note Company (T5-6) From the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History and Smithsonian Institution.
 * Barn owl falconry (created by Carlos Delgado, nominated by Chris Woodrich) In classic falconry the use of owls is not very frequent, but some owls have successfully been used. The training of owls is different from the training of hawks and falcons, as they are hearing- rather than sight-oriented. Owls have acute hearing, with ears placed asymmetrically, improving detection of sound position at great distance, thus the bird does not require sight to hunt. Owls in training are distracted easily by new or unnatural noises and they do not respond as quickly to food cues. However, if trained properly, owls can be used in falconry like hawks and falcons. The barn owl hunts by flying slowly, using its broad wings, enabling it to manoeuvre and turn abruptly.
 * Oecophylla longinoda (created and nominated by Muhammad Mahdi Karim) Oecophylla longinoda is a red ant, that bites and waves. They are a species of tree ants found in the forested regions of tropical Africa, Oceania, Thailand and India. Weaver ants are nesting in the trees,  and they make nests impermeable to water, made of leaves that the ants bind together. The leaves are stitched together using the silk produced by their larvae. Weaver ants colonies can be extremely large, spanning numerous trees and containing more than half a million workers. These ants are highly territorial and workers aggressively defend their territories against intruders. Like many other ant species, weaver ants prey on small insects and supplement their diet with carbohydrate-rich honeydew excreted by small insects. In some countries the weaver ant is a highly prized delicacy harvested in vast amounts, like in Thailand.
 * Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees (created by Charles Bird King, nominated by CorinneSD) The painting portrays Plains Indian chiefs who traveled to Washington to meet with the president to negotiate their territorial rights with the government. In his Seventh Street studio, Charles Bird King painted their portraits, creating a gallery of allies in the government’s plan to settle the Indian question peacefully. In the painting Chief War Eagle wears a presidential peace medal, valued by Native Americans as a sign of status and worn on all formal occasions. The artist painted the chiefs with war axe, blood-red face paint, and eagle feathers atop their heads, reinforcing the romantic image of Indian warriors at their best.
 * Panyembrama performer (created and nominated by Chris Woodrich) The traditional Balinese dances are not suited for secular performances. A secular dance was created, accompanied by gamelan music, the Panyembrama, which could be used outside of the temples, for tourists, particularly Western audiences. This is what our article says: The name panyembrama,  comes from the Balinese word sambrama, and means "welcome". Wayan Beratha, a choreographer with the Kariwitan Conservatory  created a new, secular dance. In order to create what would become panyembrama, Beratha combined the most beautiful moves of traditional dances such as legong, condong, and pendet. Panyembrama was first performed in 1971, at the Pandan Festival. This dance form has been since then taught at Balinese dance schools, and also been used at temples in religious ceremonies, as a  welcoming dance for the gods. The dancers come onstage carrying incense and flowers. The dancers, numbering two or more, wear layered clothing, decorated with a golden pattern  and on their heads they wear golden headdresses and frangipani flowers. Their movements are slow, accentuating the curves of the dancers' bodies. At the end of the performance, the dancers move in circles, throwing flowers at each other and the audience.
 * Epilobium hirsutum seed dispersal triptych  (created by Colin, nominated by The Herald) An interesting image: This is an artistic portrayal of a scientific image, specifically, the seed head of Epilobium hirsutum, arranged as an artistic triptych by showing various angles. It's a neat idea, and, while we probably shouldn't do everything this way, in this case, it works.
 * Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts (created by John Singer Sargent, nominated by Chris Woodrich) Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, Governor of Natal and Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Transvaal Provinces, painted by John Singer Sargent. Roberts is depicted in his British Army uniform and decorations he earned under a lifetime of service in the British Army, such as the Victoria Cross, The Star of India, the Order of St John,  Order of St. Patrick and the Order of Merit. A much decorated soldier and sportsman, one of Sir Robert's more unusual merits was to became the vice-president of the Public Schools Alpine Sports Club during 1903. Part of the history of skiing, a forerunner of the downhill ski race, the Roberts of Kandahar Cup occurred on 11 January 1911, in Crans-Montana (Crans-sur-Sierre) organised by winter sports pioneer Arnold Lunn, with the trophies donated by Lord Roberts. The name Kandahar is still used for the premier races of the World Cup circuit.
 * The Rocket (created by Edward Middleton Manigault, nominated by Hafspajen) The Rocket is a painting by Edward Middleton Manigault, depicting the fireworks on Hudson River in the year 1909. Edward Middleton Manigault (1887 – 1922) was a modernist painter who in his short life (died at the age 35) succeeded with a brief but acclaimed career as a painter, ceramicist and furniture maker. Unfortunately, he experimented with fasting, because he thought that this could "heighten his sense of awareness and creativity and allow him to see colors not perceptible to the physical eye", pretty bad idea though. He was fasting for extended periods while working on paintings, but pushed it too far - until he reached the critical point and died of starvation. Thus he faded into obscurity for many years, an obscurity aided by Manigault's destruction of up to 200 of his paintings he considered were not worthy of his signature. Edward Middleton Manigault was rediscovered recently- despite the scarcity of his works, his paintings have experienced a renewed interest by a small circle of scholars and collectors. Painters and artists take note: have a good meal and a glass of wine instead ... Rembrandt did it, File:Rembrandt - Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son - Google Art Project.jpg, it worked fine for him, and nobody died.
 * Tromp-l'oeil Still-life (created by Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten, nominated by Hafspajen) Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten (1627 – 1678) was a Dutch Golden Age, with a multi-faceted career as a Dutch painter, writer and poet from the Netherlands. Beside creating paintings, van Hoogstraten also composed sonnets and tragedies. It may be under the influence of Carel Fabritius he became interested in the problem of perspective and at the same time, that of the trompe l'oeil painting. As a painter, he liked to play with optical tricks and illusions, and excelled in Tromp-l'oeil still lifes, a genre of painting that, through gimmicks, induces in the observer the illusion of the depicted objects being real and three-dimensional, while they are actually painted on a two-dimensional surface.
 * Wivenhoe Park (created by John Constable, nominated by Hafspajen) John Constable was an English Romantic painter who is best known for his landscape paintings that encapsulate all that is the quintessential English countryside, and Wivenhoe Park is no exception. His paintings are now considered among the most popular and valuable in British art, Constable's art is always penetrated by a certain longing and melancholy, a yearning for the simple, natural life. He was par excellence a landscape painter, depicting the pastoral idyll of the English countryside, a world that was disappearing with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, when he painted his landscapes. He was aware of the issue of urban growth, of urban life's unpleasantness - which he tried to contrast in his paintings with life in the countryside. Constable's art was rather unconventional for his time, and he loved simple things, a natural landscape without the ruins, spectacular effects or exalted, dramatic feelings, like the ones displayed in the paintings of his contemporary, J. M. W. Turner. His landscapes are flooded by a silvery brilliant light in the water and air and in the sky - and are characterized  by a special intensity that is such an important feature of this artist's works. His works are also mentioned as an early influence on Impressionism.