As a punch line, poutine has a lot going for it. Canadians’ fondness for poutine is often the basis of the punch line, because a description of poutine in its basic form is French fries with cheese curds and brown gravy. Poutine was invented in rural Quebec. In recent years, it has rapidly widened its range. National franchise restaurants in Canada like Harvey’s and New York Fries and Burger King now have poutine on the menu. Canadian chefs with national reputations often do gourmet takes on poutine. Commenting on the results of a nationwide survey last summer, Roy MacGregor wrote that one of the more surprising discoveries was the possibility that “the national food of Canada is now poutine.” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/23/091123fa_fact_trillin

Pulao, a baked, buttery, sophisticated indulgence, Persian in origin, is a rice dish served at festive occasions. It is served at annaprasan, a rite of passage in which Bengali children are given solid food for the first time; it is known colloquially as a bhath, which happens to be the Bengali word for “cooked rice.” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/23/091123fa_fact_lahiri

Image searches for Grand Rapids Arch and Crown Fountain compared
Google: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22grand+rapids+arch%22&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22crown+fountain%22&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g2
Bing: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%22grand+rapids+arch%22&go=&form=QBIR#
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%22crown+fountain%22&form=QBIR&qs=n#

Feeding by root phylloxera on European grapevines, Vitis vinifera nearly destroyed the French wine industry in the late 1800's. The epidemic was eventually brought under control by grafting V. vinifera varieties onto resistant American, Vitis labruscana, rootstocks. http://fruit.cfans.umn.edu/grape/IPM/phylloxera.pdf

Inadvertently introduced to Europe in 1860 on imported North American vinestocks, phylloxera wiped out a significant portion of European wine grapes in the mid-to-late 1800s. Phylloxera is native to the United States, and native grape species there are at least partially resistant. The European wine grape Vitis vinifera is very susceptible, so when the pest was introduced in Europe it devastated the wine growing industry. A huge amount of research was devoted to finding a solution to the phylloxera problem, and two major solutions gradually emerged: hybridization and resistant rootstocks. Hybridization was the breeding of Vitis vinifera with resistant species. Native American grapes are naturally phylloxera resistant but have aromas that are offputting to palates accustomed to European grapes. The intent of the cross was to generate a hybrid vine that was resistant to phylloxera but produced wine that did not taste like the native grape. Ironically, the hybrids tend not to be especially resistant to phylloxera, although they are much more hardy with respect to climate and other vine diseases. The new varieties have never gained the popularity of the traditional ones, and in the European Union are generally banned or at least strongly discouraged from use in quality wine. Use of a resistant rootstock, promoted by Thomas Munson, involves grafting a Vitis vinifera scion onto the roots of a resistant Vitis labrusca or other American native species. The use of resistant American rootstock to guard against phylloxera also brought about a debate that remains unsettled to this day: whether self-rooted vines produce better wine than those that are grafted. Had American rootstock not been available and used, there would be no V. vinifera wine industry in Europe or most other places other than Chile. http://www.encyclowine.org/?title=Phylloxera

See monument in Montpellier thanking America Jules Émile Planchon was a French botanist who was the head of the botany department at Montpellier University when the phylloxera plague started killing off all the French grapevines. In collaboration with Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet and the American Charles Valentine Riley, he discovered that importing American grape rootstock and grafting French vines onto it made the vines resistant to the organism that was spreading the plague.
http://berlinbites.blogspot.com/2008/07/montpellier-thanks-america.html

homologate (huh-MOL-uh-gayt, ho-) verb tr
1. to approve officially
2. to register a specific model of a motor vehicle to make it eligible to take part in a racing competition
From Latin homologare (to agree), from Greek homologein (to agree or allow)
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback from A.Word.A.Day
From: Govind Mukundan (govind.mukundan@gmail.com)
Subject: homologate
This must be a stress-inducing verb for many individuals. It certainly was for me, in my days as a firmware engineer for a German automobile supplier in Bangalore. At the near end of each (two- to three-year) project, the electronic control units that we wrote software for would be sent for homologation tests. Bugs found during homologation were not taken lightly, and many a sleepless night was spent trying to solve such bugs or prove they were features!
From: Steve Leone-Ganado (steve.ganado@magna.com)
Subject: homologation
For the first time since I started subscribing to AWAD many years ago, the "things you most likely don't do every day" does not apply. I spend my day designing stuff with the intent of getting it homologated for the European market. The word "homologate" is as common in this office as the word gingivitis is in a dental office. The automotive world has a few strange words that outsiders rarely hear of. Some examples are chmsl (pronounced chimsel), jounce, and gimp.
From: Laura Null (tigerpast@verizon.net)
Subject: subserve
For a moment I wondered if this word was derived from my field—service of process. We "serve" individuals named in suits or subpoenas with the documents, and then file an affidavit with the court. If we serve the pleadings on someone else at the same address, who can accept for the person we are serving, we say we "subserved" the pleadings.
From: Jamie Spencer (jspencer@stlcc.edu)
Subject: nettle and Hotspur
I suspect that the British/Australian phrase "grasp the nettle" is a direct borrowing from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part One. In it the rebel Hotspur claims "from this nettle, danger, we grasp this flower, safety." I bet even the Brits use it. They know their Shakespeare over there too.

Quote The geek shall inherit the earth. Non Sequitur comic strip, November 21, 2009

November 21 is the birthday of Christopher Reuel Tolkien (1924) (books by this author) born in Leeds, England. He's the youngest son of J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of the Rings, and he drew the original maps that appeared in his father's epic fantasy novel. In addition to synthesizing all that complicated information about the imaginary Middle Earth to draw up the illuminating maps, he was also his famous father's test audience. It took J.R.R. Tolkien 12 years to write Lord of the Rings; during that time, Christopher was a teenager and in his 20s, and he constantly provided feedback for his dad's work in progress. Since his dad's death, he's edited and published a number of his manuscripts, including The Silmarillion in 1977, which he completed after years of sorting through and deciphering his father's handwritten notes. Between 1983 and 1996, Christopher Tolkien published a 12-volume work, The History of Middle-earth.
The Writer’s Almanac
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Later that day, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States. Read the Warren Commission Report.
On November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied during the Six Days' War, and for respect of the right of all States in the area to "live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries." Read Resolution 242, which remains a cornerstone of efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.
On November 23, 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed the Willis-Campbell Act, popularly termed the "anti-beer bill", prohibiting doctors from prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/