LLRX Book Review by Heather A. Phillips: The Little Red Book of Wine Law: A Case of Legal Issues - Heather A. Phillips recommends this slim volume as it provides an engaging and accessible introduction to American wine law and history that will broaden the reader's appreciation of the wine industry.

Green Files: Green Resources and Sites on the Internet - Marcus P. Zillman provides a comprehensive, wide ranging listing of web based green resources and sites, inclusive of home and business related information.

The seals on the back of a dollar bill include 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 stars above the eagle's head, 13 war arrows in the eagle's claw and 13 leaves on the olive branch. http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2009/feb/friday021109.html

Tree Museum
About two years ago, Katie Holten was competing for an art commission to commemorate the centennial of the Concourse in the Bronx this year and racking her brain for a way to tell the story of the place and its people. “The light bulb came on: If this is about the whole street, well, then the trees have to be part of it,” she said. “The Concourse has always been tree-lined, even before it was paved.” She has marked out 100 trees along the Concourse, which is about four and a half miles long. Each one will have a sign that gives a phone number and a code to listen to short recordings of people speaking about the Bronx, their lives and their work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/nyregion/07about.html
http://www.treemuseum.org/

Q. What is a basilisk?
A. A basilisk is described as "like a cock with dragon's wings, the beak of an eagle and the tail of a lizard."
http://travelguide.all-about-switzerland.info/basilisk-fable-heraldic-animal.html
Basel, Switzerland has 170 monumental fountains, some of which feature the 'Basilisk': a dragon with a cock's head that has been Basel's emblem since the 15th century. The basilisk about halfway down at the following link is the one we viewed on our recent trip to Europe. http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/viamichelin/gbr/search/Datasheet/a705baf6a4e8301be4297a69ba80fa1e/125195

Homage to herring
Herring are among the most important fish groups on the planet. They are the dominant converter of the enormous production of zooplankton, utilizing the biomass of copepods, mysids, and krill in the pelagic zone. Small herring also feed on phytoplankton, and large herrings feed on small fish and fish larvae. On the other side of the food chain, they are a central prey item for higher trophic levels, including seabirds, dolphins, pinnipeds, whales, sharks, swordfish, tuna, cod, salmon, and numerous other large fish. For humans, they also are very important, being harvested for their nutritious meat and eggs. They have been a known staple food source since 3000 B.C.E. In The Netherlands, herring have played a major role in historical and economic development dating back to the fourteenth century.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Category:Art%2C_music%2C_literature%2C_sports_and_leisure
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Herring
Annual herring festivals are held around the world. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22herring+festival%22+annual&aq=f&oq=&aqi= There are herring museums in Iceland and Sweden. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22herring+museum%22+-tia+-ed&hl=en&start=0&sa=N Read about the herring feast held in midtown Manhattan recently at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/07/20/090720ta_talk_sacks

Feedback to “sculpted by nature” words in A.Word.A.Day
From: Richard Jesse Watson (rjw olympus.net)
Subject: ventifact
My dad was a scientist, and taught geology at Pacific University in his early years. As a child I used to look at various rock samples that he had gathered. One beautiful, sculpted sample was a rock he found in the Mojave desert where I grew up until I was seven. He called it a ventifact. It was very hard and was shaped by the wind on all sides. This rock was the size of a small flat loaf of bread but had obviously flipped from the workings of the wind to have many angles of soft sandblasted angles and curves.
From: Mark Bennett (Mark_Bennett harvard.edu)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--yardang
Def: An elongated ridge formed by wind erosion, often resembling the keel of an upside down ship. Hoodoo or fairy chimney is another erosional feature due to wind. Why these features are not lumped together, under one name, regardless of shape, is unclear to me.

On July 21, 1855 Ralph Waldo Emerson sent Walt Whitman a letter to "greet" him "at the beginning of a great career." Whitman had just self-published the first edition of Leaves of Grass earlier in the year. The letter, which Emerson writes from Concord, Massachusetts, begins: "Dear Sir: — I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of 'Leaves of Grass.' I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed."
July 21 is the birthday of Ernest Hemingway, (books by this author) born in Oak Park, Illinois (1899), the Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such books as The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952).
Both U.S. presidential candidates of 2008 cited Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) as one of their favorite books. The Writer’s Almanac