A TANK AWAY FROM TOLEDO OR COLUMBUS
Last week we visited special friends in Champaign, Illinois. We started out by touring the University of Illinois. In the center of the campus are the Morrow Plots, the oldest continuous agricultural research fields in the United States. Planted in 1876, they’ve been designated a national historical landmark. Nearby is the undergraduate library, built underground so as not to shade the plots. After Harvard and Yale, the University of Illinois has the largest public university library system in the country. We also visited the new Champaign Public Library and the Spurlock Museum with its exhibits of world history and culture. http://uitours.ncsa.uiuc.edu/museumsentertainment/spurlock/
Two quotes from Spurlock Museum:
“Athletics developed as a form of ritualized warfare and were first organized into state events in the early eighth century BCE.”
“The Yoruba [African tribe] say that proverbs are the horses of speech, meaning that proverbs convey wisdom as horses carry riders and heavy workloads.”
Recommended restaurants in Champaign:
Jim Gould
Sun Singer
We drove to Springfield and saw the only surviving building where Abraham Lincoln practiced law. We toured Old Capitol and the new Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. The library has 12 million documents and is open to the public.

Heading eastward, we stayed at French Lick Springs Hotel in the Hoosier National Forest, first built in 1845, and where tomato juice was first served in 1917. “Licks” in southern Indiana--salt residue on rocks from mineral water springs--attracted buffalo and deer. We spent time in Dunkirk Public Library and Museum and Marion Public Library and Museum before viewing a move (The Dark Knight, filmed principally in Chicago) before returning home.

Cuil Boasts of 120 Billion Pages and New Format
Cuil (pronounced cool) founded by former engineers from Google and other tech giants is launching a search engine that claims to cover three times as many Web pages as Google.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121721408704288951.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

California became the first state in the country to ban artery-clogging trans fats on July 25 when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a measure to phase them out in restaurants beginning in 2010 and from baked goods by 2011.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR2008072502308.html?hpid=sec-health

Sixteenth U.S. poet laureate named
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/352
Kay Ryan describes herself as a “modern hermit”

morganatic (mor-guh-NAT-ik)
adjective: Of or relating to a marriage between two people of different social ranks such that the spouse of lower rank and the children do not share the titles or possessions of the higher-ranking spouse.
From Latin matrimonium ad morganaticam (marriage with a morning gift), implying that the gift given on the morning after the marriage was the only gift received by the wife. It was also known as a left-handed marriage because the groom held his bride's hand with his left (instead of right) hand. The word is of Germanic origin (morgen: morning, e.g. guten morgen: good morning). From a word for 'morning' to a word for a kind of marriage, that's an example of the idiosyncratic ways languages evolve.
A.Word.A.Day

July 28 is the birthday of the children's author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, (books by this author) born Helen Beatrix Potter in London, England (1866) Beatrix Potter thought she might become a scientist, but when she wrote a paper to present to the Royal Botanic Gardens, she was turned away because only men were allowed to present. She continued to make detailed drawings of animals and plants. In 1893, Potter sent an illustrated letter to the child of her former governess, and it was in that letter that Peter Rabbit made his debut. She liked creating animal characters, writing and illustrating their stories. When she died, Potter had written 20 books, and she had donated more than 4,000 acres of farmland to the national trust. She said, "I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever."
July 28 is the birthday of writer Alice Duer Miller, (books by this author) born in New York City in 1874. Her family was wealthy but they lost all their money in a bank crisis when Alice was a teenager. Even though she really wanted to be a mathematician and studied math and astronomy at Barnard College, she started writing short stories and novels to pay for her education. She said, "Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course—because, like democracy and freedom, many people you'll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you."
The Writer’s Almanac