Churches and Campaign Activity: Analysis Under Tax and Campaign Finance Laws Source: Congressional Research Service (via OpenCRS)
Churches and other houses of worship qualify for tax-exempt status as Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3) organizations. One qualification for 501(c)(3) status is that these organizations may not participate in political campaign activity. They are permitted under the tax laws to engage in other political activities (e.g., distribute voter guides and invite candidates to speak at church functions) so long as such activity does not support or oppose a candidate. Additionally, church leaders may engage in campaign activity in their capacity as private individuals without negative tax consequences to the church. The tax code’s political campaign prohibition is sometimes referred to as the “Johnson Amendment,” after then-Senator Lyndon Johnson, who introduced the provision as an amendment to the Revenue Act of 1954. While some have argued the prohibition violates churches’ free exercise and free speech rights under the First Amendment, the two federal courts of appeals to address the issue have reached the opposite conclusion. Separate from the prohibition in the tax code, the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) may also restrict the ability of churches to engage in electioneering activities. Legislation introduced in the 110th Congress, H.R. 2275, would repeal the political campaign prohibition in the tax code. If this bill were enacted into law, churches could engage in campaign activities without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status, but they would still be subject to applicable campaign finance laws. This report examines the restrictions imposed on campaign activity by churches under tax and campaign finance laws, discusses recent IRS inquiries into such activity, and analyzes H.R. 2275.
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“Every vowel is a diphthong except e—and in Texas even e is a diphthong.”
Native Texan Gerre Hancock as he was leading a workshop in Toledo

diph·thong noun
Etymology: Middle English diptonge, from Middle French diptongue, from Late Latin dipthongus, from Greek diphthongos, from di- + phthongos voice, sound
Date: 15th century
a gliding monosyllabic speech sound (as the vowel combination at the end of toy) that starts at or near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves to or toward the position of another
www.m-w.com

Q. What is an oscine?
A. A songbird
http://www.answers.com/topic/oscine-oscine-bird
http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-554398/songbird

Remember to use Google as a dictionary—here is the result for define passerine.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:Passerine&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

At the Museum of the North, on the grounds of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, the composer John Luther Adams has created a sound-and-light installation called “The Place Where You Go to Listen”—a kind of infinite musical work that is controlled by natural events occurring in real time. The mechanism of “The Place” translates raw data into music: information from seismological, meteorological, and geomagnetic stations in various parts of Alaska is fed into a computer and transformed into an intricate, vibrantly colored field of electronic sound.
“The Place” occupies a small white-walled room on the museum’s second floor. You sit on a bench before five glass panels, which change color according to the time of day and the season. What you notice first is a dense, organlike sonority, which Adams has named the Day Choir. In overcast weather, the harmonies are relatively narrow in range; when the sun comes out, they stretch across four octaves. After the sun goes down, a darker, moodier set of chords, the Night Choir, moves to the forefront. Pulsating patterns in the bass, which Adams calls Earth Drums, are activated by small earthquakes and other seismic events around Alaska. And shimmering sounds in the extreme registers—the Aurora Bells—are tied to the fluctuations in the magnetic field that cause the Northern Lights.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_ross

London Bridge is Curling Up
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/magazine/24DESIGN.html

London Bridge is Rolling Up
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/skyline/2008/05/12/080512crsk_skyline_goldberger

May 13 is the birthday of novelist and travel writer Bruce Chatwin, (books by this author) born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England (1940). His father took him on trips when Chatwin was a boy, and he later became an archeologist, traveling to Africa and Afghanistan. He began writing a column for the London Times, and then decided to go off to Patagonia. There he collected the material for what would become his first book, In Patagonia (1977).
The Writer’s Almanac