Monday, January 31, 2011

Facebook is rolling out a new ad product that lets advertisers give prominent visibility to interactions a user’s friends have with a brand. “Sponsored Stories” can be built around user interactions with a brand’s applications, likes, location check-ins and page posts. Sponsored Stories are the same type of content that already appears in the main News Feed, only now brands have a way of making sure they’re visible, with promotion to a placement on the right side of the page. Facebook said Sponsored Stories would not increase the ad load on the site. Instead, they will displace ad messages that are purely promotional copy in favor of ads that report on user actions. “It’s about taking the word of mouth recommendations and endorsements that are happening across Facebook every day and increasing the distribution of those,” said Jim Squires, a product marketing lead at Facebook. Facebook hasn’t rolled out many new ad products recently, mostly because its ad system, which was originally panned, is working quite well. eMarketer estimates Facebook is on pace to double revenue this year, generating $4 billion. It is diversifying from ad revenue with its Facebook Credits virtual currency, which it is requiring social gaming companies use—and give Facebook a 30 percent cut on transactions. The move is part of Facebook’s efforts to provide more “social context” to its ads. A Facebook-Nielsen study found ads with such context—showing that a friend recently liked a brand, for example—improves ad effectiveness. Facebook already does this for many of its ad products, showing users which of their friends have liked a brand. Among new advertisers, Coke is using Sponsored Stories in order to highlight interactions with its “Coke Cheers” Facebook application. Other possibilities cited by Squires include a Starbucks campaign to highlight when a friend uses Facebook Places to check in at a Starbucks store. Facebook is not alone in blending paid and earned media. Twitter’s ad system does this to an extent by letting advertisers attach themselves to trending terms that already exist in Twitter.
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/e3i48e8837b4923e4934c3485b9a37af20e?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+adweek%2Ftop-news+(Adweek.com+-+Top+News)

The Giselle or Peasant Foot: The main characteristic is that there are at least three toes of the same length and all the toes tend to be short. The width of the heel for this foot is medium to wide.
The Egyptian Foot: This type of foot has a longer big toe and the rest of the toes taper down from longest to shortest. This tends to be a narrow foot.
The Greek Foot: On this foot the second toe is longer than all the others and the width of the foot is narrow to medium. http://ezinearticles.com/?Different-Types-of-Feet-in-Relation-to-Ballet-Dancing&id=3790381

The long term misunderstanding and simplification of RIGHT vs. LEFT terminology in political discourse is responsible for the misconception that “The RIGHT” with its emphasis on traditional, nationalistic, conservative or religious values is inevitably a step in the direction of the FAR RIGHT "ending in Fascism." Yet history has demonstrated that both political extremes share a basic common appeal to the “masses” and depend on a collectivist ideology that glorifies abstractions such as "The Nation," "The People," "The Throne" or "The Working Class." On the eve of World War II, various so called “Right Wing” authoritarian regimes of the conservative, traditional, national and religious type (always considered by the Left to be "proto-Fascist") in Ethiopia (Emperor Haile Selassi), Austria (the “Clerical-Fascist” regime of Engelbert Dollfus and Kurt Schuschnigg), Poland (General Jozef Pilsudski and his successors), Yugoslavia (General Simovic and his supporters in the armed forces) and Greece (Ionnas Metaxas), all stood up and opposed Hitler and the Axis forces that threatened to blackmail, intimidate and subjugate their nations. All these leaders were labeled as “Fascist” by Soviet and Left-Wing propaganda up until the German invasion of the USSR in 1941. The Spanish Civil War has frequently been portrayed as an epic struggle between the forces of the LEFT (variously identified as progressive, liberal, socialist, internationalist, democratic and "anti-Fascist") and the RIGHT (labeled reactionary, conservative, religious, and "anti-democratic"). During the latter part of General Franco’s long 35-year rule, more and more speculation revolved around the question of who or exactly what type of regime would succeed him. Unlike Hitler and Mussolini, Franco survived World War II as well as the isolation of his country by the Allies, who at first considered him a remnant of the Fascist states aligned with the Axis powers. Franco, however, was a military man whose career in the army and arch-conservative views propelled him to lead the uprising against the Republic, but he did not establish a political party nor did he express open support for any of the various Catholic, conservative, monarchist and fascist parties who rallied to his cause. In order to understand both what happened during and after the Spanish Civil War, it is necessary to distinguish between the coalition of forces that supported both sides in the conflict. Franco’s supporters were divided between those who hoped for a return to the monarchy, rival wings of the Bourbon dynasty, moderates, conservatives and the Fascists. The Fascist but anti-monarchist forces of the Falange Española (Spanish Phalanx), had been founded by the extremely popular (and handsome) “martyred leader” (executed by the Republican forces) Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera (son of the dictator who ruled the country following World War I), wanted a republic, modeled after Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, and claimed to be the hero of Spain’s poor and dispossessed. He appealed to the working class and stressed that they had his full sympathy and understanding of the oppressive role played by the monarchy and landed aristocracy. Many conservative supporters of the church, military and monarchy were concerned as much by the leader of the Falange, Jose Antonio, (always referred to by his admirers and followers by his first names only) as by the Marxists and their myriad anarchist and socialist parties. The moderate conservative right, monarchist and centrist parties that opposed the Leftist “Popular Front” in the elections in 1936 refused to enter into an electoral alliance with the Falange which stood isolated. http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/21484/sec_id/21484

The novel Winter in Madrid by C.J. Sansom depicts dangerous games and choices in Spain after the Spanish Civil War is over.

Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist. The style was widespread from the 1940s until the early 1960s, and is closely associated with abstract expressionism (some critics have used the terms "action painting" and "abstract expressionism" interchangeably). A comparison is often drawn between the American action painting and the French tachisme. The term was coined by the American critic Harold Rosenberg in 1952 and signaled a major shift in the aesthetic perspective of New York School painters and critics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_painting

You've probably tried a number of optical 'tricks', such as staring at a red dot for some time, and then looking away at a plain white wall or piece of paper. You then 'see' a green dot. This is an illusion known as 'after-image'. The after-image is always the complementary color of the color you first stared at. If you use two complementary colors of equal intensity in a room you can create an uncomfortable effect. The eye doesn't know which one to concentrate on. The solution here is to tone down one of the colors. You could tint it (make it lighter) or shade it (make it darker). Colors based on the red/ orange/ yellow area of the color wheel appear (to most of us) as warm colors and inviting. They seem to 'come into' the room, and are termed advancing colors. On the other hand, violet-blue/ blue/ green-blue appear to recede from us and are known as receding colors. http://www.ideas-for-home-decorating.com/warm-colors.html

Friday, January 28, 2011

A morpheme is a minimal meaningful language unit; it cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:morpheme&sa=X&ei=TiI0TdH9PMSt8AaczN3kCA&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQkAE

Because of their modifying function, qualifiers really are adverbs (words that modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb). Very, too, rather, even, much, fairly, quite, still, kind of, and sort of are qualifiers. Qualifiers can be a strong writing tool, especially when used for emphasis or clarification. They can help liven up language and ensure that the reader understands your meaning, but they can also cause wordiness. We use them often in speech, so it seems natural that they would flow in writing as well. But there are several strategies to avoid wordiness with qualifiers.
Qualifiers with Absolutes
One problem writers encounter when using qualifiers is that, many times, it is tempting to use a qualifier to modify a word that is already absolute in its meaning. Absolute words describe something as it is in a certain form or extreme state, thus they cannot take on a modifier.
Ex. The Christmas decorations looked absolutely perfect.
(Something that is perfect cannot be any more or less so, nor can it be, as this sentence seems to say, “perfectly perfect.”) Ex. Salvador Dali’s paintings strike most people as being very unique.
(Unique refers to something that is one of a kind, not something that can be measured in degrees of how one-of-a-kind it is.)
In each one of these sentences, the adjective after each qualifier already has a clear meaning. Writers should try to avoid using qualifiers with absolute words in most writing.
Imprecise Qualifiers
Writers may also have difficulty qualifying or intensifying imprecise adjectives when more precise meaning could be conveyed by choosing a different, more specific adjective instead. The technique to employ here is to draw on that extensive vocabulary we all have stored up. For example, rather than claiming to have read a really great book, what about an excellent or outstanding book? A very tired individual may instead feel exhausted or fatigued. Extremely upset may be exasperated or enraged or devastated depending on the context.
Replacing weak qualifier + adjective/adverb combinations with more specific words strengthens a writer’s voice and can even make ideas easier to understand. http://www.uhv.edu/ac/newsletters/writing/grammartip2008.06.10.htm

France's experimental-comic-book movement, OuBaPo, has been trying to revolutionize the genre for two decades. OuBaPo's members produced one book that could be read back-to-front; another that boiled down the 4,300 pages of Marcel Proust's voluminous "In Search of Lost Time" to six drawings; and one that told a single story—of how a man went to get something from the refrigerator—in 99 different ways. The exclusive group's nine current members live in France, the U.S., Spain and Switzerland. Thousands of OuBaPo books have been sold, and the drawings have been featured in several museum exhibitions. "They have opened the door to a vast artistic territory," says Julien Misserey, the organizer of an annual comic book symposium in France. The name OuBaPo abbreviates a long French phrase meaning Potential Comics Workshop. In France and other European countries, comics have long been considered more than child's play. Known in some circles as the "ninth art," after music, theater, dance, etc., comics have entertained French adults since the 19th century and today are a big business. In 2008, 7% of all books sold in France were comics, according to the French Publishers' Trade Union. That's the same market share held by elementary, secondary and high-school books. Academic study of comics also dates to the 19th century. A Swiss writer named Rodolphe Töpffer is considered by many to be the first comic-book theoretician, for the work he published on comic strips in 1845. French scholars came to grips with comic books in the middle of the 20th century. OuBaPo stands for Ouvroir de Bande-Dessinée Potentielle. It was founded in 1993 by a group of artists and a comic-book historian who used to hang out in a Parisian artists' studio called Nawak, French slang for "nonsense." Aspiring members can't apply to be part of the group; they have to be singled out and then unanimously approved by existing OuBaPo members. The collective was inspired by a French literary group called Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (the Experimental Literary Workshop), whose members write books using defined restrictions. In 1969, one member of the literary workshop wrote a book without using the letter "e." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704515904576075980439410992.html

The publisher of The Wall Street Journal filed suit January 25 to overturn a decades-long court order barring public access to a confidential Medicare database. Dow Jones & Co says access to the database is essential to rooting out fraud and abuse in the government health-care program. The American Medical Association, the doctors’ trade group, successfully sued the government in 1979 to keep secret how much money individual doctors receive from Medicare, and the ruling still stands. The filing, made in Florida federal court, comes after a series of articles in the Journal about abuses of the Medicare system. The articles were based on computerized Medicare records that represent part of the broader database at the center of the 1979 case. Dow Jones, owned by News Corp., claims the 1979 injunction hampered the paper’s reporting since it limited its access to the data and its ability to name physicians and other providers. “It’s time to overturn an injunction that, for decades, has allowed some doctors to defraud Medicare free from public scrutiny,” Dow Jones general counsel Mark Jackson said in a statement. The AMA withstood at least two attempts to reverse the injunction in 2009. In one case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that under the Freedom of Information Act, physicians’ privacy interest outweighed the public interest in knowing how much doctors were collecting from Medicare. WSJ Law Blog January 26, 2011

To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.
A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.
When the smog lifts in Los Angeles , U.C.L.A.
The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.
The batteries were given out free of charge.
Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.
A boiled egg is hard to beat.
Acupuncture: a jab well done.

Condo life is hard Her upstairs neighbors owned 66 percent of the building’s square footage, and so had a 66 percent voting stake in the association that governed its management. That meant they controlled what condo fees everyone in the three-unit building paid, what would or wouldn’t get done to the property’s common areas, and how much the association was willing to pay for that work. They left snippy notes at her door, turned down the thermostat during the day (she worked at home), and made her life a misery. Read her stories and those of others at: http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2011/01/23/home_sweet_hell_falling_into_the_condo_trap/ Click on single page at bottom for ease in reading.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. The film deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous imagery that is open-ended to a point approaching surrealism, sound in place of traditional narrative techniques, and minimal use of dialogue. Music plays a crucial part in 2001, and not only because of the relatively sparse dialogue. From very early on in production, Kubrick decided that he wanted the film to be a primarily non-verbal experience, one that did not rely on the traditional techniques of narrative cinema, and in which music would play a vital role in evoking particular moods. About half the music in the film appears either before the first line of dialogue or after the final line. Almost no music is heard during any scenes with dialogue. In the early stages of production, Kubrick had actually commissioned a score for 2001 from noted Hollywood composer Alex North, who had written the score for Spartacus and also worked on Dr. Strangelove. However, on 2001 Kubrick did much of the filming and editing using, as his guides, the classical recordings which eventually became the music track. Kubrick decided to use these 'guide pieces' as the final musical soundtrack, and he abandoned North's score. Kubrick failed to inform North that his music had not been used and, to his dismay, North did not discover this until he saw the movie just before its release. What survives of North's soundtrack recordings has been released as a "limited edition" CD from Intrada Records. All the music North originally wrote was recorded commercially by North's friend and colleague Jerry Goldsmith with the National Philharmonic Orchestra and was released on Varèse Sarabande CDs shortly after Telarc's first theme release but before North's death. 2001 is particularly remembered for using pieces of Johann Strauss II's best-known waltz, An der schönen blauen Donau (On the Beautiful Blue Danube), during the extended space-station docking and lunar landing sequences, and the use of the opening from the Richard Strauss tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra (Usually translated as "Thus Spake Zarathustra" or occasionally "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" - the soundtrack album gives the former, the movie's credits give the latter). Composers Richard and Johann Strauss are not related. HAL's version of the popular song "Daisy Bell" (referred to by HAL as "Daisy" in the film) was inspired by a computer-synthesized arrangement by Max Mathews, which Arthur C. Clarke had heard in 1962 at the Bell Laboratories Murray Hill facility when he was, coincidentally, visiting friend and colleague John Pierce. At that time, a speech synthesis demonstration was being performed by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr, by using an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer vocoder recreated the song "Daisy Bell" ("Bicycle Built For Two"), with Max Mathews providing the musical accompaniment. Arthur C. Clarke was so impressed that he later used it in the screenplay and novel. Many foreign language versions of the film do not use the song "Daisy." In the French soundtrack to 2001, HAL sings the French folk song "Au Clair de la Lune" while being disconnected. In the German version, HAL sings the children's song "Hänschen Klein" ("Johnny Little") and in the Italian version HAL sings "Giro giro tondo." See awards, honors, mentions in top film lists, parodies and homages at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)

intromit (in-truh-MIT) verb tr. To enter, send, or admit. From Latin intromittere, from intro- (inwardly) + mittere (to send). Earliest documented use: 1600.
remonstrate (ri-MON-strayt, REM-uhn-) verb intr. To reason or plead in protest. From Latin remonstrare (to exhibit, demonstrate), from re- + monstrare (to show). Ultimately from the Indo-European root men- (to think), which is the source of mind, mnemonic, mosaic, music, mentor, money, mandarin, and mantra. Earliest documented use: 1601. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

FDA Needs to Reassess Its Approach to Protecting Consumers from False or Misleading Claims January 2011 report from Government Accountability Office. GAO-11-102 http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11102.pdf

A muse reader has shared her new blog address with me. She started in December and has several postings in January as of this writing. See at: http://keepamericaworried.blogspot.com/

According to Lorrin Andrews, author of the first Hawaiian dictionary published in 1865, "kahuna" is a contraction of "kahu" (to cook, especially in an earth oven) and "ana" (a particle that adds "ing" to a word). So the base meaning by this idea is "a cooking." This doesn't make much sense until you learn that "kahu" also means "to tend an oven, or to take care of the cooking." Ancient Hawaiian thought, from our point of view, was very symbolic or figurative and a word for one type of activity or experience could be applied to other symbolically related activities or experiences. So "kahu," originally referring to taking care of an oven, became a general word for taking care of anything. Another possible origin for the word "kahuna," however, is that it is simply a combination of "kahu" (to take care of) and "na" (a particle that makes words into nouns). In that case, a basic translation of "kahuna" would be "a caretaker." Over time languages change and at some point "kahu" and "kahuna" both became nouns with somewhat different meanings. The word "kahu" came to refer not only to caretakers, but to what are now known as "care-givers," as well as to administrators, regents, pastors, masters and mistresses of households, dog-owners, and leaders of clubs, associations, orders and other groups. The word "kahuna," according to J.S. Emerson, an early observer of Hawaiian culture, "suggests more of the professional relation of the priest to the community." Andrews, mentioned above, defines a "kahuna" as "a general name applied to such persons as have a trade, an art, or who practice some profession." He says that some qualifying term is generally added, such as "kahuna lapa'au, a physician; kahuna pule, a priest; kahuna kalai la'au, a carpenter; kahuna kala, a silversmith." He also notes that "the word kahuna without any qualifying term (generally) refers to the priest or the person who offers sacrifices." Pukui and Elbert, authors of the modern standard Hawaiian dictionary, define a kahuna as a "priest, sorcerer, magician, wizard, minister, expert in any profession (whether male of female)." They add that under the 1845 laws of the Hawaiian kingdom doctors, surgeons and dentists were called kahuna. http://www.huna.org/html/kahuna.html

Aloha [Alo = presence, front, face] + [hā = breath] 'The presence of (Divine) Breath.' Aloha is a word in the Hawaiian language that has numerous meanings both as a single word and when used in context with other words. The most common uses are as a greeting, farewell or a salutation. Aloha is also commonly used to mean love. It can also be used to express compassion, regret or sympathy. http://gohawaii.about.com/od/glossary/g/aloha.htm

A nelogism is a word, term, or expression that has recently been invented in order to define a new meaning. For example, "wallpaper" originally referred only to the material you would use to cover a room's walls; now, it also refers to the colors or images that adorn your desktop. The rate of neologisms has increased dramatically with the introduction of new technology and the Internet, producing many of the words found in NetLingo (such as emoticon and netiquette). http://www.netlingo.com/word/neologism.php “Moasting” is a verb that combines the words moaning and boasting, especially used on Twitter. Find Web Slang, lingo, and acronyms used in chat rooms, Instant Messages, and Text Messaging, emoticons and special use of letters and numerals at: http://www.city-net.com/~ched/help/lingo/chatslang.html Unnecessary, overused and tiresome: BTW, FWIW, IMHO, IMO and JMO.

The most common given names of U.S. presidents are: George (3), John (4), William (4), and James (5). http://www.potus.com/

A female Cooper's hawk that spent a week trapped in the Library of Congress was safely captured January 26 and taken to a rehabilitation center in Virginia. The hawk caught the public's imagination as it eluded would-be rescuers and swooped over researchers' heads in the dome of the Thomas Jefferson Building's Main Reading Room. It even snatched frozen quail from a trap without being caught. The hawk probably flew in through a broken window Jan. 19, said Matt Raymond, the library's director of communications. Aa three-member team led by representatives of the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia captured the bird using a caged pair of starlings, named Frick and Frack, as bait. It took 25 minutes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/26/AR2011012607541.html

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

On Dateline NBC January 23, someone said that George W. Bush was the 44th president. That didn't sound right, so I checked a list and found that Barack Obama is the 44th president. Then I got curious--what is the most common first name? Answer is forthcoming.

The Nomura’s jellyfish is a monster to be reckoned with. It’s the size of a refrigerator — imagine a Frigidaire Gallery Premiere rather than a hotel minibar — and can exceed 450 pounds. For decades the hulking medusa was rarely encountered in its stomping grounds, the Sea of Japan. Only three times during the entire 20th century did numbers of the Nomura’s swell to such gigantic proportions that they seriously clogged fishing nets. Then something changed. Since 2002, the population has exploded — in jelly parlance, bloomed — six times. In 2005, a particularly bad year, the Sea of Japan brimmed with as many as 20 billion of the bobbing bags of blubber, bludgeoning fisheries with 30 billion yen in losses. Why has the Nomura’s jellyfish become a recurring nightmare? The answer could portend trouble for the world’s oceans. In recent years, populations of several jellyfish species have made inroads at the expense of their main competitor — fish — in a number of regions, including the Yellow Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Black Sea. Overfishing and deteriorating coastal water quality are chief suspects in the rise of jellies. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/massive_outbreak_of_jellyfish_could_spell_trouble_for_fisheries/2359/

Here are the top candidates for longest word in the English language. One comes from Shakespeare (of course.) In Love's Labour's Lost, a clown named Costard, arrested for having unlawful fling with a milkmaid, gets to say honorificabilitudinitatibus. That's 27 letters. The word means something like "loaded with honors," but, suspiciously, it comes in the middle of a conversation about wordiness, so it might be a word created to be wordy.
Here's one you know better: antidisetablishmentarianism. It has 28 letters, but what is it? J ust a bundle of suffixes and prefixes piled up into a little attention-grabbing hummock. The most famous long word (at least in our times) is, of course, Disney's supercaliphragilisticexpialidocious. It uses 34 letters, but doesn't mean anything beyond giving Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke (and a slew of animated characters) something to dance to. Science writer Sam Kean, in his book The Disappearing Spoon, worked really hard on this and after much sleuthing, he landed on a word that comes not from dancing English nannies but from virus-hunting scientists. It's a protein, found in a virus, but this is a very dangerous, economically important virus, the first ever discovered--dreaded tobacco mosaic virus. It appeared in all its lettery splendor in 1964 in a reference source for chemists, "Chemical Abstracts." It is one thousand, one hundred and eighty five letters long. See the word at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/01/21/133052745/whats-the-longest-word-in-the-english-language

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Dan Fullerton Subject: Remonstrate
The word brings to mind the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657, when the word "remonstrate" was still fairly young. The Flushing Remonstrance was about religious freedom in the Dutch colony of New Holland, when the authorities in New Amsterdam prohibited the Quakers from residing and worshiping in Flushing. The Flushing town council went on record challenging Gov. Stuyvesant. When the town persisted in its openness to religious tolerance, several council members were tried for violating the law and one or two lost their lives. One who was executed, I believe, was the town clerk. It is precisely because of such public actions as this that the United States is a country in which religious tolerance is practiced.
From: Robert Payne Subject: Beau Geste
There's a 1924 P.C. Wren adventure novel, Beau Geste, which still floats around this culture's collective subconscious (especially in its filmed versions) and probably remains the word's best-known use. In the English novel, Beau Geste is the name of the heroic lead character. The French phrase "beau geste" also translates as "gracious gesture". But now that I know the word "geste" can also mean "notable adventures or exploits", this gives the novel's title another layer of meaning.
From: John Alzamora Subject: limn
Def: 1. To portray in words. 2. To draw or paint, especially in outline.
In Elizabethan England a limner was a miniaturist. In our Colonial and Federalist periods, limner was the name given to a portrait painter, often self-taught and itinerant and sometimes anonymous. A handful, however, acquired studio training and became quite famous and much in demand in their time, the most famous of which is perhaps Gilbert Stuart. See: Paintings from The Historic Hudson Valley Collection and What Is a Limner?, by S.E. Smith.
From: Dorothy S. Stewart Subject: limn
My favorite use of the word is in Francis Thompson's poem, "The Hound of Heaven": Must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?
From: Tanvi Choudhary Subject: Theme: short words which are potent
I had once read these words somewhere as the 'Ten small words with the greatest meaning' -- "If it is to be, it is up to me." The moment I read the theme for this week, these words just struck me. They are small but potent, just like the theme.

Mothers and fathers used to bring up children: now they parent. Critics used to review plays: now they critique them. Athletes podium, executives flipchart, and almost everybody Googles. Watch out—you’ve been verbed. The English language is in a constant state of flux. New words are formed and old ones fall into disuse. But no trend has been more obtrusive in recent years than the changing of nouns into verbs. “Trend” itself (now used as a verb meaning “change or develop in a general direction”, as in “unemployment has been trending upwards”) is further evidence of—sorry, evidences—this phenomenon. It is found in all areas of life, though some are more productive than others. Financiers are never lacking in ingenuity: Investec recently forecast that “Better-balanced autumn ranges should allow Marks & Spencer to anniversary tougher comparisons”—whatever that may mean. Politics has come up with “to handbag” (a tribute to Lady Thatcher) and “to doughnut”—that is, to sit in a ring around a colleague making a parliamentary announcement, so that it is not clear to television viewers that the chamber is practically deserted. Verbing—or denominalisation, as it is known to grammarians—is not new. Steven Pinker, in his book “The Language Instinct” (1994), points out that “easy conversion of nouns to verbs has been part of English grammar for centuries; it is one of the processes that make English English.” Elizabethan writers revelled in it: Shakespeare’s Duke of York, in “Richard II” (c1595), says “Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle”, and the 1552 Book of Common Prayer includes a service “commonly called the Churching of Women”.

There is a difference today, says Robert Groves, one of the editors of the new “Collins Dictionary of the English Language”. “Potential changes in our language are picked up and repeated faster than they would have been in the past, when print was the only mass communication medium, and fewer people were literate.” http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/anthony-gardner/youve-been-verbed

Nominees for 83rd Academy Awards http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/83/nominees.html

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

A pundit is an initiate, learned person, savant or someone who has been admitted to membership in a scholarly field. The term originates from the Hindi term pandit, which in turn originates from the Sanskrit. Today it may be used in a scornful and derogatory manner; for instance, a conservative pundit or a liberal pundit. This means you disagree with the person's views and want to discount its value.

Ne'er-do-wells were originally known as "whip snappers" in the 17th century, after their habit of standing around on street corners all day, idly snapping whips to pass the time. The term was been based on the already-existing phrase, "snipper-snapper," also meaning a worthless young man, but in any case, "whip snapper" became "whippersnapper" fairly rapidly. http://www.word-detective.com/101797.html

A reverse merger is an alternative method for a private company to become publicly traded. It is synonymous with an IPO (Initial Public Offering), but less expensive and quicker. Typically, a private company is merged into a public shell stock, with the owners of the private company obtaining control of the new combined public entity. Also referred to as a Reverse Take Over (RTO). A shell stock (shell company) is a public company that no longer has any business operations. It retains its capital structure and public trading status with the intention to complete a reverse merger with a non-public company with an on-going business. This merger creates a new company that is both publicly trading and generating revenues. There are many reasons why a Shell Stock exists in the first place, but most commonly, they either lost the business due to a bankruptcy, or just sold or closed it. http://www.shellstockreview.com/ssr-Shell-Stock-Glossary.html

What is a good rhyming dictionary? What rhymes with pebble? How (and in what plays) did Shakespeare use pebble? http://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=pebble&typeofrhyme=perfect&org1=syl&org2=l

PEBBLE PEBBLE by Martha Esbin
Johnny went to Pebble Beach. He took a chance without advance reservations at the golf course. Pebble pebble.

Johnny went to Pebble Beach. He could have pranced! He could have danced! A canceled reservation meant he could play golf at Pebble pebble.

Johnny took his cell phone and called his friends. “Where do you think I am? Playing golf at Pebble Beach.”

Many a month has come and gone. Johnny’s tale spins on and on. Pebble pebble.

Note: Johnny is a nickname for a graduate of St. John’s Jesuit High School in Toledo. Written for architect and friend Paul Sullivan

Q: What happened to the Differential Car Co.? Do they still make rail cars anywhere?
A: The company known as Differential Steel Car Co., Differential Car Co., DIFCO, and Trinity DIFCO was founded in New York in 1915 and moved to Findlay in 1920. It was sold to Trinity Industries Inc., of Dallas, Texas, in the late 1990s. It was best known for building air-operated side-dump rail cars for ballast to maintain railways, and for "Larry cars" to move slate at mines. Trinity ran the plant along North Main Street until 2002, when it moved production to Dallas. Several DIFCO veterans built a plant on Ohio 12 between Findlay and Arcadia under the name JK Co. LLC, with John Kurtz, CEO; Joe Kurtz, president; and C. Leon Thornton, vice president. It is on the Norfolk Southern Railroad, just west of Memory Gardens Cemetery. JK Co. LLC, which has about 35 employees, produces air-operated side-dump cars on the DIFCO model. Joe Kurtz said the company is about to produce 10 new cars for a Canadian iron ore mine. Trinity Industries has large rail car construction and repair, rail car leasing and management, barge, energy, and construction divisions. -- Mark Donaldson, Hancock Historical Museum, Findlay; JK Co. LLC; Peter Mattiace.
Q: Why a salute of 21 guns?
A: Gun salutes started when early warriors demonstrated their peacefulness by rendering their weapons ineffective. This took one shot with firearms and cannons of the 14th century.
Warships fired seven-gun salutes, probably because of the number's astrological and Biblical significance. Land batteries, having more gunpowder, fired three guns for every shot fired afloat, hence their salute was 21 guns. The 21-gun salute became the highest honor a nation rendered. Varying customs among the maritime powers led to confusion in saluting and returning salutes. Great Britain, the dominant sea power in the 18th and 19th centuries, compelled weaker nations to salute first, and monarchies once received more guns than did republics. The United States joined an international agreement on 21-gun salutes in August 1875. In the early 1800s, the War Department had defined the "national salute" equal to the number of states in the Union, at that time 17. This salute was fired by all U.S. military installations at 1 p.m. on Independence Day. The president also received a salute equal to the number of states. In 1890, regulations designated the national salute as 21 guns. Today, 21 guns are fired in honor of a national flag, the sovereign or chief of state of a foreign nation, a member of a reigning royal family, and the president, ex-president and president-elect of the United States. It is also fired at noon of the day of their funerals. Salutes are also rendered to other domestic and foreign military and civilian leaders based on protocol. These salutes are always in odd numbers. -- U.S. Army http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2011/Jan/JU/ar_JU_012411.asp?d=012411,2011,Jan,24&c=c_13

The library at Stony Stratford, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, looks like the aftermath of a crime, its shell-shocked staff presiding over an expanse of emptied shelves. Only a few days ago they held 16,000 volumes. Now, after a campaign on Facebook, there are none. Every library user was urged to pick their full entitlement of 15 books, take them away and keep them for a week. The idea was to empty the shelves by closing time on January 15: in fact with 24 hours to go, the last sad bundle of self-help and practical mechanics books was stamped out. Robert Gifford, chair of Stony Stratford town council, planned to collect his books when he got home from work in London, but left it too late. The empty shelves, as the library users want to demonstrate, represent the gaping void in their community if Milton Keynes council gets its way. Stony Stratford, an ancient Buckinghamshire market town famous only for its claim that the two pubs, the Cock and the Bull, are the origin of the phrase "a cock and bull story", was one of the communities incorporated in the new town in 1967. The Liberal Democrat council, made a unitary authority in 1997, now faces budget cuts of £25m and is consulting on closing at least two of 10 outlying branch libraries. Stony Stratford council got wind in December and wrote to all 6,000 residents – not entirely disinterestedly, as the council meets in the library, like many other groups in the town. "In theory the closure is only out for consultation," Gifford said, "but if we sit back it will be too late. One man stopped me in the street and said, 'The library is the one place where you find five-year-olds and 90-year-olds together, and it's where young people learn to be proper citizens'. It's crazy even to consider closing it." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/14/stony-stratford-library-shelves-protest

If you make it here, you make it anywhere. The celebrated lyrics by Fred Ebb are from 1977: "If I can make it there / I'll make it anywhere / It's up to you, New York, New York." But in 1959, the New York Times quoted actress Julie Newmar (born 1933) saying the words above—prefaced by "That's why I came to New York." (Newmar introduced another well-known expression in 1964, when her robot character Rhoda, in the television show My Living Doll, used the catchphrase "That does not compute." Her most famous role was as Catwoman in the Batman TV series.)
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. The French philosopher Voltaire is widely credited for what may be the most celebrated quotation about freedom of speech. Bartlett's lists it under his name, calling it a paraphrase from his letter to a M. le Riche, February 6, 1770—but that attribution was based on a misreading. The quote does not appear in Voltaire's letter to François-Louis-Henri Leriche of that date, nor anywhere else in Voltaire's works. The real writer was Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868–1919), English author of The Friends of Voltaire, a book she published in 1906 under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre. The illustrious line is Hall's own characterization of Voltaire's attitude. Discussing a book by one of his friends, she explains that even though he had thought the work rather light, he rose to its defense when it was censored.
Iron curtain This term became basic to world politics after Winston Churchill used it in a 1946 speech, referring to the political divide between the Soviet Union and the nations it dominated, on the one hand, and the rest of the world, on the other. But Ethel Snowden (1881–1951), an English suffragette, used it in this sense much earlier, in her 1920 book Through Bolshevik Russia: "We were behind the ‘iron curtain’ at last!" See other misattributed quotations at: http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2011_01/anon4651.html

Monday, January 24, 2011

Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), member supported organization that saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations. Our mission is to save North America's diverse, but endangered, garden heritage for future generations by building a network of people committed to collecting, conserving and sharing heirloom seeds and plants, while educating people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity. At the heart of Seed Savers Exchange are the dedicated members who have distributed hundreds of thousands of heirloom and open pollinated garden seeds since our founding 35 years ago. Those seeds now are widely used by seed companies, small farmers supplying local and regional markets, chefs and home gardeners and cooks, alike. Seed Savers Exchange was founded in 1975 by Diane Ott Whealy and Kent Whealy to honor this tradition of preserving and sharing. Their collection started when Diane's terminally-ill grandfather gave them the seeds of two garden plants, Grandpa Ott's morning glory and German Pink tomato. Grandpa Ott's parents brought the seeds from Bavaria when they immigrated to St. Lucas, Iowa in the 1870s. Today, the 890-acre Heritage Farm, near Decorah, Iowa, is our home. We maintain many thousands of heirloom garden varieties, most having been brought to North America by members' ancestors who emigrated from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and other parts of the world. http://www.seedsavers.org/Content.aspx?src=aboutus.htm

Toledo-born Oliver F. Senn led a group of local chemical engineers who in 1949 devised a way to synthesize the sugar substitute saccharin, eliminating its bitter metallic aftertaste. Originally called the "Senn process," the method is now practiced around the world as the "Maumee process," a reference to the former Maumee Chemical Co. of East Toledo that Mr. Senn and the other chemists founded. The Maumee Chemical plant was destroyed on May 10, 1962, in what remains the second deadliest industrial fire in Toledo history. Clouds of multicolored smoke rolled across the city as the plant's chemicals burned. Ten people were killed and 46 were injured. The production of saccharin and the firm's other chemical products was soon moved to a plant in suburban Cincinnati. The Cincinnati facility, now owned by PMC Specialties Group Inc., still makes saccharin but is fighting for existence against lower-cost Chinese competitors. http://toledoblade.com/article/20110116/NEWS16/110119641/0/SPORTS17

Metropolitan population growth is just one of more than a thousand topics addressed in the U.S. Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2011. The Abstract is perennially the federal government's best-selling reference book. When it was first published in 1878, the nation had only 38 states, people usually got around using a horse and buggy, Miami and Las Vegas did not yet exist, and Franklin D. Roosevelt had yet to be born. The Abstract has been published nearly every year since then. Contained in the 130th edition are 1,407 tables of social, political and economic facts that collectively describe the state of our nation and the world. Included this year are 65 new tables, covering topics such as insufficient rest or sleep, nursing home occupancy, homeschooling, earthquakes, U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions, organic farmland, honey bee colonies, crashes involving distracted drivers and cities with the highest transit savings. The statistics come not only from the Census Bureau but also from other governmental agencies and private organizations. The data generally represent the most recent year or period available by summer 2010. Most are national-level data, but some tables present state- and even city- and metropolitan-level data as well. http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellaneous/cb11-07.html See 2011Abstract at: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/

In 1887, Newton S. Conway unearthed what became the largest and most complete mastodon skeleton discovered up to that time from a swamp on his Ohio farm on the Clark-Champaign County line. The Conway Mastodon was an immediate sensation and made the rounds of several county fairs. The skeleton was eventually donated to Ohio State University and was on display in Orton Hall for 25 years. In 1970, when the Ohio Historical Center opened, the university loaned the Conway Mastodon to the Ohio Historical Society. It been greeting visitors to the society’s natural history exhibit area ever since. About 70 percent of the skeleton is complete. The mastodon’s enormous tusks, weighing more than a hundred pounds each, were deemed too heavy and were replaced with lightweight, fiberglass replicas. The real tusks now lie at its feet. Mastodons were distant relatives of modern elephants and lived during Ohio’s last ice age about 10,000 to 14,000 years ago. They were covered in heavy, shaggy, brown fur and lived on a vegetarian diet. Because mastodon bones have been found all across the state, it is thought that mastodons were once relatively common and that their meat provided a good foodstuff for prehistoric hunters. The Ohio Historical Center, located at I-71 and 17th Avenue in Columbus, is open Thursdays 10 a.m.–7 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Admission is $8/adults, $7/seniors, $4/youth (6-12) and free for children age 5 and under and Ohio Historical Society members. For more information, call 800.686.6124 or visit at www.ohiohistory.org. http://www.ohiohistory.org/about/pr/121410a.html
New Latin mastodont-, mastodon, from Greek mastos + odont-, odōn, odous, tooth First Known Use: 1811 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mastodont
Mastodonts and mammoths can readily be distinguished by their teeth, which in turn indicate different life habits. The chewing surface of the mastodont tooth is characterized by a series of cone-shaped cusps fused together. These cone-like cusps are covered by hard enamel and were well suited for snipping leaves and branches from trees and shrubs. Mastodonts probably frequented woodlands, swamps and ponds, where they could dine on vegetation associated with these habitats. Mammoths, on the other hand, are characterized by a more advanced tooth morphology, composed of a series of enamel plates (laminae) held together with a natural substance called cementum, forming a rather flat chewing surface. These teeth were well adapted for chewing highly abrasive vegetation, such as grasses. http://www.statemuseumpa.org/Assets/pdf-files/natural-history-notes-2.pdf

2011 Ohio History Day is April 30th at Columbus State Community College. National History Day in Ohio is a co-curricular program for students in grades 4-5 and 6-12. Each year, students conduct research based on the annual theme and create historical papers, original performances, media documentaries, creative exhibits and imaginative websites as a result of their research. National History Day in Ohio is open to all public schools, private schools, parochial schools, virtual academies, homeschools and independent students. http://www.ohiohistoryday.org/

The prospect of American settlement in the Ohio Valley after 1783 created immense opportunities for entrepreneurs. Businessmen and politicians such as George Washington legally purchased large tracts of government land in the hopes of profiting from the new wave of settlement. But speculation also could promote corruption, as French immigrant settlers learned in 1790, when they invested in the Scioto Land Company’s proposed settlement at Gallipolis, Ohio. The Company itself grew out of efforts by veterans of the American War of Independence to obtain payment for their military service in the form of land grants in the Ohio Valley. In 1786 the Ohio Company of Associates formed to press veterans’ claims before Congress, raise funds, purchase land, and encourage settlement. In 1787 Colonel William Duer (1747-1799), secretary of the U.S. Treasury Board, used his position to grant the Ohio Company’s request for land, with the secret proviso that the company act as a cover for his own speculation along the Scioto River in southeast Ohio. Representatives used misleading tactics to market their shares to potential investors in Europe, who purchased them with devalued U.S. bonds. Duer and the other principals stood to profit by using these same bonds, redeemed at face value, to pay off the initial debt. Problems plagued the settlers from the beginning. When the French immigrants arrived at the port of Alexandria, Virginia, in May 1790, the company’s representative failed to meet them. Those who did not return to France immediately remained in Alexandria for a month, plagued with unanticipated expenses. The Company failed to provide sufficient provisions in Gallipolis. Many of the settlers were members of the nobility, middle-class professionals, and well-to-do artisans, all poorly suited for land clearing and cultivation. When settlers learned that the Ohio Company was the true owner of the lands that they had purchased, most abandoned Gallipolis for Kentucky, Illinois, New Orleans, and the eastern seaboard. For two decades, Gallipolis remained a tiny, undeveloped, log-cabin village. http://memory.loc.gov/intldl/fiahtml/fiatheme5b1.html

Quote They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Carl W. Buechner

Six of us went to Findlay on January 21, the last day that Stately Raven Bookstore, reviewed as "Ohio's best bookstore" by Ohio Magazine, was open. People raved about the Raven, its remarkable furnishings, ambiance and murals painted by Toledoan Beth Covert. Books were sold at 75% off, and we bought ten, including works by Elmore Leonard, Alexander McCall Smith and William Gibson (the man who coined the word cyberspace). Beth told us that the bookstore actually had a good year but "saw the handwriting on the wall" and decided to sell. After our visit to Stately Raven, we went to Logan's Irish Pub in downtown Findlay to see more of Beth's art work on the walls and ceiling and have a hearty meal.

Jack LaLanne, whose obsession with grueling workouts and good nutrition, complemented by a salesman’s gift, brought him recognition as the founder of the modern physical fitness movement, died January 23 at his home in Morro Bay, Calif. He was 96. He started working out with weights when they were an oddity, and in 1936 he opened the prototype for the fitness spas to come — a gym, juice bar and health food store — in an old office building in Oakland. “The Jack LaLanne Show” made its debut in 1951 as a local program in the San Francisco area, then went nationwide on daytime television in 1959. At 60 he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat. At 70, handcuffed and shackled again, he towed 70 boats, carrying a total of 70 people, a mile and a half through Long Beach Harbor. Mr. LaLanne, 5-foot-6 and 150 pounds or so with a 30-inch waist, maintained that he disliked working out. He said he kept at it strictly to feel fit and stay healthy. He built two gyms and a pool at his home in Morro Bay, and began each day, into his 90s, with two hours of workouts: weight lifting followed by a swim against an artificial current or in place, tied to a belt. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/sports/24lalanne.html?src=me

Friday, January 21, 2011

In 1967, Data Corp, an Ohio-based company who developed ink jet printing technologies, was contracted by the Ohio State Bar Association to provide a "free-text" search and retrieval system. This development drew the attention of the Mead corporation who would purchase Data Corp a year later. In 1970, Mead Data Central was spun off as a subsidiary of Mead, going on to establish its own phone communications network and providing the long-term strategic and operation plans for the initial LEXIS database. In 1973, Mead Data Central introduces LEXIS® and NAARS services. LEXIS provides the full text of Ohio and New York codes and cases, the U.S. code, and some federal case law. NAARS is the National Automated Accounting Research Service, a tax database from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) paves the way for reliable electronic data delivery. The following year Lexis® service pioneers online legal research by allowing attorneys to search case law database in firm via private telecommunications network. In 1994, Reed Elsevier acquired LexisNexis. In 1997, LexisNexis debuted the first Web-based service for U.S. legal professionals, the precursor to LexisNexis® at www.lexis.com. http://www.lexisnexis.com/about-us/history.aspx

Mead Data Central, then Lexis, then Lexis-Nexis, now LexisNexis is the oldest of the computerized legal research and retrieval services. It is fee-based; however, you may go to http://law.lexisnexis.com/infopro/ free and, without a password , access material including Zimmerman's Research Guide, an Online Encyclopedia for Legal Researchers by Andrew Zimmerman. You will find material for general researchers as well as people in the legal field.

The Appalachian Mountains (pronounced /ˌæpəˈleɪʃɨn/ or /ˌæpəˈlætʃɨn/), often called the Appalachians, are a vast system of mountains in eastern North America. The whole system may be divided into three great sections: the Northern, from the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador to the Hudson River; the Central, from the Hudson Valley to the New River (Great Kanawha) running through Virginia and West Virginia; and the Southern, from the New River onwards. The northern section includes the Long Range Mountains and Annieopsquotch Mountains on the island of Newfoundland, Chic-Choc Mountains and Notre Dame Range in Quebec and New Brunswick, scattered elevations and small ranges elsewhere in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the Longfellow Mountains in Maine, the White Mountains in New Hampshire, the Green Mountains in Vermont, and The Berkshires in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Metacomet Ridge Mountains in Connecticut and south-central Massachusetts, although contained within the Appalachian province, is a younger system and not geologically associated with the Appalachians. The central section comprises, excluding various minor groups, the Valley Ridges between the Allegheny Front of the Allegheny Plateau and the Great Appalachian Valley, the New York - New Jersey Highlands, the Taconic Mountains in New York, and a large portion of the Blue Ridge. The southern section consists of the prolongation of the Blue Ridge, which is divided into the Western Blue Ridge (or Unaka) Front and the Eastern Blue Ridge Front, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and the Cumberland Plateau. The Adirondack Mountains in New York are sometimes considered part of the Appalachian chain but, geologically speaking, are a southern extension of the Laurentian Mountains of Canada. In addition to the true folded mountains, known as the ridge and valley province, the area of dissected plateau to the north and west of the mountains is usually grouped with the Appalachians. This includes the Catskill Mountains of southeastern New York, the Poconos in Pennsylvania, and the Allegheny Plateau of southwestern New York, western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia. This same plateau is known as the Cumberland Plateau in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, western Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and northern Alabama. The dissected plateau area, while not actually made up of geological mountains, is popularly called 'mountains', especially in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia, and while the ridges are not high, the terrain is extremely rugged. In Ohio and New York, some of the plateau has been glaciated, which has rounded off the sharp ridges, and filled the valleys to some extent. The glaciated regions are usually referred to as hill country rather than mountains. The Appalachian region is generally considered the geographical dividing line between the eastern seaboard of the United States and the Midwest region of the country. The Eastern Continental Divide follows the Appalachian Mountains from Pennsylvania to Georgia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Mountains

The Appalachian National Scenic Trail runs 2100 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. 90 miles of this long-distance footpath are in Massachusetts running along the ridges and traversing the valleys of Berkshire County. Conceived in 1921, by Massachusetts native Benton McKay, the Trail was designed to provide a continuous green corridor along the ridge of the Appalachian Mountain chain of mountains and hills. In 1968 the footpath was officially designated a National Scenic Trail, and in 1969 the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management (DEM) enacted legislation to protect the Appalachian Trail. http://www.berkshireweb.com/sports/parks/app.html

The Berkshires are characterized by varied topography and bedrock geology which in turn have contributed to the exquisite diversity of species and biotic communities. Environmental forces, including the role of human activities, have conspired to make the landscape of the Berkshires a mosaic of biological communities in a dynamic state of change: From most places in the Berkshire region one can sample biological communities that are typical of an area extending 1000 miles from central Canada to the mid-Atlantic states. The biological communities also vary in age from newly mown suburban lawns and cultivated farm fields to ancient woodlots and fragments of the pre-colonial forest. Envision the Berkshires as a broad, longitudinal valley forming a conduit for the Hoosic River in the north and the Housatonic River in the south. The valley is defined by the Taconic Range (ca. 2400’ above sea level) on the west, forming the boundaries between New York State and three states to the east: Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The Taconics are comprised predominately of phyllite shist. The Hoosac Range, with a complex of phyllite, quartzite, and granitic bedrock, defines the eastern flank of the valley as its summits form the Berkshire Plateau, at around 2400’ in the north, decreasing to about 2000’ in the south. The Berkshire Plateau merges to the north with the granitic Green Mountains of Vermont. Mt. Greylock rises as a massif in the northern Massachusetts portion of the region. I ts summit at 3491’ being the highest peak in Southern New England. While the geographic position of Mt. Greylock aligns with the Green Mountains to the north, its bedrock geology is more closely related to the Taconic Range to the west. The Hoosic-Housatonic valley bottom (ca. 700’ above sea level) is punctuated by marble hills rising to 1200’ or so. The southern portion of the Berkshires is drained by the Housatonic River whose major branches arise on the southwestern flanks of Mt. Greylock and the east-central Berkshire plateau and converge in Pittsfield, MA. The Housatonic River then meanders through the broad valley of the southern Berkshires flowing south through Connecticut and eventually entering Long Island Sound. The North Branch of the Hoosic River flows south from Readsboro, VT to North Adams, MA where it joins the South Branch that originates in Lanesborough, MA. The Hoosic then flows west through Williamstown, MA, north into Pownal, VT and then north and west through eastern New York, entering the Hudson River at Stillwater, NY. During the peak of the most recent geologic epoch -- the Pleistocene -- some 18,000 years ago. the entire Berkshire region was covered by a kilometer-thick ice sheet that scoured out the U-shaped valley as it crept southward toward Long Island. As the ice sheet receeded northward through the region14,000 years ago, the Hoosic River valley below the1000’ elevation contour was filled by Lake Bascom as the glacier dammed up the melt water, preventing its drainage to the northwest. Lake Bascom persisted for about 800 years until it emptied toward the Hudson River in a series of dramatic flood events. Similarly, in the late Pleistocene Lake Ashley filled the Housatonic Valley from what now is Great Barrington, MA to Falls Village, CT. http://cdm.williams.edu/nhb/

2010 midsize cars with EPA's estimated miles per gallon http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass/Midsize_Cars2010.shtml
2010 compact cars with EPA's estimated miles per gallon http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass/Compact_Cars2010.shtml
Search estimated MPG by market class http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass.htm

Within 60 miles of Mount Ararat, scientists have unearthed a surprisingly advanced winemaking operation, surrounded by storage jars, and say it dates back 6,000 years, making it the earliest known site in the world for wine-making with grapes, by far. Its presence, along with the recent discovery of the world's oldest leather moccassin in the same cave outside the small town of Areni, is requiring professionals in the field to broaden and, to some extent reexamine, exactly what constituted early civilization and where it occurred. "This is the oldest confirmed example of winemaking by a thousand years," said Gregory Areshian, an archaeologist and co-director of the dig. "People were making wine here well before there were pharaohs in Egypt." The winemaking in the cave appears to be associated with burial rituals because numerous graves are close by, he said. "This was almost surely not wine used at the end of the day to unwind." Areshian said that the discovery of winemaking in the Areni cave complex, outlined in the peer-reviewed Journal of Archaeological Science and released January 11, indicates that the people there were settled and relatively sophisticated 6,000 years ago. Although researchers traditionally look to Egypt and Mesopotamia to understand ancient civilization, Areshian said that "there were many, many specialized and unique centers of civilization in the ancient world, and we can only understand it as a mosaic of these peoples." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011006227.html

Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle Sunday, January 23, 2011 3 p.m. The Composer is Dead Bob Clemens, narrator Tickets start at $20 at 419-246-8000 or http://www.toledosymphony.com/ Enjoy Lemony Snicket's "The Composer is Dead." Dastardly deeds have happened at the hapless Toledo Symphony Orchestra. Help narrator-extrordinaire (and TSO cellist) Bob Clemens find the culprit in this whodunnit concert aimed to celebrate the joys of reading--with lots of help from the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. Also on the program will be works by Smetana, Stravinsky, Strauss, and others.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) A FULL AND TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE FOUGHT LAST FRIDAY BETWEEN THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN BOOKS IN SAINT JAMES'S LIBRARY is a short satire published with Tale of A Tub The text is widely available online--one site is: http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/jswift/bl-jswift-battleofbooks.htm

A border collie called Chaser has been taught the names of 1022 items - more than any other animal. She can also categorise them according to function and shape, something children learn to do around the age of 3. Chaser follows in the footsteps of Rico, who trained at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Rico had a "vocabulary" of 200 words and could identify new objects in a group of familiar objects by a process of elimination, according to a study published in 2004. To find out whether there was a limit to the number of words a border collie could learn, psychologists Alliston Reid and John Pilley of Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, started an intensive training programme with Chaser. Over three years, they taught the collie the names of 1022 toys by introducing them to her one by one, getting her to fetch the toy and then repeating the name to reinforce the association. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827921.900-border-collie-takes-record-for-biggest-vocabulary.html

Why did z and x become so attractive in the attempt to influence prescribers? asks Rob Stepney If you leaf through the June 2000 issue of the British Journal of Cardiology you will see advertisements for Zocor, Xenical, and Cozaar before you reach a brand name that does not contain a prominent x or z (and that brand is Viagra). In an issue of Hospital Doctor from the same month (22 June), adverts for Celebrex, Topamax, Flomax, Vioxx, Zispin, Zyprexa, Oxis, Efexor, and Fosamax outnumber those for brands not containing letters from the tail end of the alphabet. Examination of the British National Formulary (BNF) from 1986 to 2004 confirms that z and x suddenly achieved remarkable and previously unexplained popularity in the branding of drugs. Of 1436 products added to the BNF between 1986 and 2005, more than a fifth had names that began with z or x or contained a prominent x or z within them. In 1986, only 19 branded drugs began with one of these letters. Over the next two decades, the number of brands beginning with a z increased by more than 400% (to 63) and those beginning with an x increased by 130% (to 16). In the same period, the overall content of the BNF grew by only 80%. Why did these letters suddenly become so attractive to companies trying to persuade doctors to prescribe their drugs? In linguistics, the “zuh” sound is described as a voiced fricative. The “fricative” element refers to the fact that airflow directed over the tongue becomes turbulent when passing the sharp edges of the teeth, while the “voiced” aspect reflects the vibration of the vocal cords. But there is nothing magical in the sound itself. One suggestion for the popularity of z is that it works well in the Middle East, which was becoming an increasingly important market for drug companies. This has a superficial plausibility: think of how Arab scientists launched astronomy with the terms zenith and azimuth and zodiac. X, though representing the unknown for centuries, has been famously associated with medical advance since x rays. http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c6895.full

Fricatives are speech sounds produced by forcing air through a constricted passage (as `f', `s', `z', or `th' in both `thin' and `then') http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:fricative&sa=X&ei=nxovTeC-CIX6lwfx-YHtCw&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQkAE

World Court is the popular name of the Permanent Court of International Justice, established pursuant to Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The protocol establishing it was adopted by the Assembly of the League in 1920 and ratified by the requisite number of states in 1921. By the time of its dissolution in 1945 (when its functions were transferred to the newly created International Court of Justice), the court had 59 member states. Established at The Hague, the court was empowered to render judgments in disputes between states that were voluntarily submitted to it and to give advisory opinions in any matters referred to it by the Council or the Assembly of the League. Its functions, thus, were judicial rather than, as in the case of the older Hague Tribunal, purely arbitral and diplomatic. It also differed from the Hague Tribunal in having a permanent group of judges instead of a panel from which judges might be selected to hear a particular dispute. The court originally had 11 judges and 4 deputy judges, but in 1931 its composition was changed to 15 regular judges. Judges were elected for nine-year terms by the Council and the Assembly concurrently; they were selected from a list of nominees of the Hague Tribunal regardless of nationality, except that not more than one citizen of a country might sit on the bench at any one time. Although the United States never joined the court (because the Senate refused to ratify the protocol), there was always an American jurist on the bench. To assure impartiality, the judges were paid salaries and were forbidden to engage in governmental service or in any legal activity except their judicial work. In the course of its existence, the court rendered 32 judgments and 27 advisory opinions. An important judgment was that which affirmed (1933) Danish sovereignty over the northern coast of Greenland and disallowed Norway's claim. The advisory opinions of the court were important in developing international law. A notable opinion declared (1931) that the proposed customs union of Germany and Austria would violate Austria's pledge to remain independent. The court virtually ceased to function after the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0852731.html

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946. The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). Of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it is the only one not located in New York (United States of America). The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies. The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. It is assisted by a Registry, its administrative organ. Its official languages are English and French. http://www.icj-cij.org/court/index.php?p1=1

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Ralf Czerny Subject: wormwood The word "wormwood" reminded me of one of my favorite poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Cliff Klingenhagen.
From: Tom Priestly Subject: wormwood What an interesting substance! 500 years ago it was used to protect clothing and animals from fleas and mites -- "A medecyne for an hawke that hath mites. Take the Juce of wormewode and put it ther thay be and thei shall dye", The Book of St. Albans, 1486; later it was a useful medicine for humans; Thomas Tusser wrote, in 1590, "Where chamber is sweeped, and wormwood is strowne, No flea for his life dare abide to be knowne," and Dr. John Pechey wrote in 1694: "It strengthens the Stomach and Liver, excites Appetite, opens Obstructions, and cures Diseases that are occasion'd by them; as, the Jaundice, Dropsie, and the like." And apparently the wormwood used in absinthe not only made the drink cloudy and green, and very bitter, but contained a hallucinogen.
From: Frances Wade Subject: primrose path Def: 1. An easy life, especially devoted to sensual pleasure. 2. A path of least resistance, especially one that ends in disaster. I think the easy path is called the primrose path because the primrose is thornless, unlike the real rose, which is thorny. There is probably a cultural assumption in this expression as well, that the 'real' rose with its thorny path yields a superior reward (the primrose is of the primulaceae family, unlike the rose, which is one of the rosaceae).

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

On a Virginia hillside rising above the Potomac River and overlooking Washington, D.C., stands Arlington House. The 19th-century mansion seems out of place amid the more than 250,000 military grave sites that stretch out around it. Yet, when construction began in 1802, the estate was not intended to be a national cemetery. The mansion, which was intended as a living memorial to George Washington, was owned and constructed by the first president's adopted grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, son of John Parke Custis who himself was a child of Martha Washington by her first marriage and a ward of George Washington. Arlington won out as a name over Mount Washington, which is what George Washington Parke Custis first intended calling the 1,100-acre tract of land that he had inherited at the death of his father when he was 3. Arlington won out because it was the name of the Custis family ancestral estate in the Virginia tidewater area.
The property was confiscated by the federal government when property taxes levied against Arlington estate were not paid in person by Mrs. Lee. The property was offered for public sale Jan. 11, 1864, and was purchased by a tax commissioner for "government use, for war, military, charitable and educational purposes." Arlington National Cemetery was established by Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, who commanded the garrison at Arlington House, appropriated the grounds June 15, 1864, for use as a military cemetery. His intention was to render the house uninhabitable should the Lee family ever attempt to return. A stone and masonry burial vault in the rose garden, 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep, and containing the remains of 1,800 Bull Run casualties, was among the first monuments to Union dead erected under Meigs' orders. The federal government dedicated a model community for freed slaves, Freedman's Village, near the current Memorial Amphitheater, on Dec. 4, 1863. More than 1,100 freed slaves were given land by the government, where they farmed and lived during and after the Civil War. Neither Robert E. Lee, nor his wife, as title holder, ever attempted to publicly recover control of Arlington House. They were buried at Washington University (later renamed Washington and Lee University) where Lee had served as president. The couple never returned to the home George Washington Parke Custis had built and treasured. After Gen. Lee's death in 1870, George Washington Custis Lee brought an action for ejectment in the Circuit Court of Alexandria (today Arlington) County, Va. Custis Lee, as eldest son of Gen. and Mrs. Lee, claimed that the land had been illegally confiscated and that, according to his grandfather's will, he was the legal owner. In December 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, returned the property to Custis Lee, stating that it had been confiscated without due process. On March 3, 1883, the Congress purchased the property from Lee for $150,000. It became a military reservation, and Freedman's Village, but not the graves, was removed. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/historical_information/arlington_house.html

From Private Sector, a novel by Brian Haig
chatter between a pair of overly jocular anchors
wouldn't know a tort from a tortilla
An old lawyer's stunt is when you maintain control by asking questions.

Q: I heard Ohio had something to do with the first traffic light.
A: The first electric traffic light was set up at Euclid Avenue and 105th Street, Cleveland, sometime in August 1914. (The dates vary by source.) It had red and green lights, and a buzzer. www.usacitiesonline.com.
Q: Why, in playing golf, do you yell "Four!" instead of "Five!"?
A: It's "Fore!," not "Four!" But we'll play along. There's no agreement on its origin anyway.
"The Shorter Oxford Dictionary records its first use in 1878 as a warning cry to people in front of a golf stroke and, like most people, believes it is an abbreviation of the word 'before.' There is an earlier reference in 1857 in a glossary of golfing terms," says "Scottish Golf History." Golfers once employed "'forecaddies' to stand where the ball might land and reduce the number of lost balls, as is done in tournaments today," according to the source. "In 1875, Robert Clark mentions that Andrew Dickson performed this role for the Duke of York in 1681 and describes it as 'what is now commonly called a fore-caddie.' It is probable that golfers called to their 'forecaddie,' who would always be some distance ahead, to draw attention to the fact the ball was coming and, in time, this was shortened to 'Fore!' "The almost contemporaneous appearance of the terms caddie, fore-caddie and 'fore!' supports this theory..." Scottish Golf History
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2011/Jan/JU/ar_JU_011011.asp?d=011011,2011,Jan,10&c=c_13

Author John Grisham has explained how libraries played a major role in the selling of his first book, A Time to Kill (1989). Of his second work, The Firm (1991), Grisham said, "Most of the encouragement came from two groups – independent booksellers and librarians.” Grisham will take on his role as Honorary Chair of National Library Week (NLW) to be observed from April 10-16, 2011, has as its theme "Create your own story @ your library®" http://www.examiner.com/mystery-series-in-national/ala-conference-speaker-john-grisham-to-be-2011-honorary-chair-of-national-library-week

The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011. The ceremony will again take place at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.

The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS t is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film. The performers of a song are not credited with the Academy Award unless they contributed either to music, lyrics or both in their own right. The original requirement was only that the nominated song appear in a motion picture during the previous year. This rule was changed after the 1941 Academy Awards, when "The Last Time I Saw Paris", from the film Lady Be Good, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, won. Kern was upset that his song won because it had been published and recorded before it was used in the movie. The song was actually written in 1940, after the Germans occupied Paris at the start of World War II. It was recorded by Kate Smith and peaked at number 8 on the best seller list before it was used in the film Lady Be Good. Kern got the Academy to change the rule so that only songs that are "original and written specifically for the film" are eligible to win. See list of winners and nominees at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Original_Song

See Academy Awards winners and nominees for best original score at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Original_Score Look under "Superlatives" to find the composer with the most awards (9).

Made in Ohio Get an inside look at how Wilson makes the Official NFL Game Ball at our factory in Ada, Ohio. As the official football supplier for the NFL since 1941, Wilson workers at the Ada factory construct thousands of NFL Game Balls annually by hand from genuine leather hides. Located approximately 80 miles northwest of Columbus, Ohio, the factory employs only 150 workers whose average tenure exceeds 20 years. http://www.wilson.com/wilson/football/video.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673974607&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302756199
Gaston Glock, has managed to dominate not just the American handgun market, but America's gun consciousness. Before Glock arrived on the scene in the mid-1980s, the U.S. was a revolver culture, a place where most handguns fired five or six shots at a measured pace, then needed to be reloaded one bullet at a time. With its large ammunition capacity, quick reloading, light trigger pull, and utter reliability, the Glock was hugely innovative—and an instant hit with police and civilians alike. Headquartered in Deutsch-Wagram, Austria, the company says it now commands 65 percent of the American law enforcement market, including the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration. I also controls a healthy share of the overall $1 billion U.S. handgun market, according to analysis of production and excise tax data. For decades until the early 1980s, Gaston Glock ran a radiator plant in suburban Vienna. On the side, he manufactured window fittings and bayonets in his garage, using a secondhand Russian metal press. Now 81 and living reclusively at a lakeside resort in southern Austria, Glock got his start in guns by listening closely to the customer. In 1980 the Austrian army was looking for a new sidearm to replace the antiquated Walther P-38. Steyr, Austria's premier arms maker since the mid-1880s, offered a clunky update that tended to misfire. Glock, though he had no firearm expertise, saw an opportunity. He studied the best pistols available and consulted with leading European firearm experts. "We sit together and made the plan and drawing," he recalled in a March 1998 legal deposition in the U.S. "It was like a pistol in the future." http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_04/b4212052185280.htm

Monday, January 17, 2011

Steig Larsson, author of Millennium trilogy books—“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2008, American edition), “The Girl Who Played with Fire” (2009), and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2010)—and who was born in a village in the north of Sweden in 1954, was an ardent leftist all his life. In the nineteen-eighties, because of immigration, Sweden, like other European countries, saw a sharp increase in racism. Suddenly, there were neo-Nazis and Aryan leagues, and the people involved were no longer crazed souls operating mimeograph machines in basements but smooth characters, in suits, running for public office. In 1995, Larsson and some friends in Stockholm founded a quarterly magazine, Expo, with the declared mission of safeguarding “democracy and freedom of speech by . . . documenting extremist and racist groups in society.” Expo was undisguisedly the model for Millennium, the journal that is Blomkvist’s home base in the trilogy. Larsson’s anti-authoritarian writings won him and Expo many enemies. The printers and distributors of the magazine had their windows smashed. Larsson received death threats. He took precautions. He allowed no photographs. In restaurants, he and his companion, Eva Gabrielsson, sat so that he could watch one exit, she the other. Despite all this, Larsson is said to have been a happy man, who lived the life he wanted. He smoked three packs a day, subsisted on hamburgers, and often worked around the clock. He consumed popular novels, especially crime fiction, by the cartload. And then, in 2001, in a move that no one has been able to explain satisfactorily—and about which, for a long time, he told almost no one—he began writing crime fiction. Later, he said that he did it for fun. Or he said that it was for money—that the books were going to be his “retirement fund.” He wrote fast, easily, and late at night. Larsson submitted the manuscript to Piratförlag, a publishing house with a strong line of crime novels. The editors there never opened the package. (They did not read manuscripts from first-time authors.) Today, one almost pities them. The publisher that accepted the Millennium trilogy—Norstedts Förlag, the second firm Larsson contacted—has sold three and a half million copies of the books. In part because Larsson was not alive when the books were published, the Millennium trilogy has been surrounded by a number of controversies, the juiciest being the question of who should be receiving the fortune the books have earned. The most deserving beneficiary, as many people saw it, was Eva Gabrielsson, who was not only Larsson’s companion for three decades but who also, at various times, supported him, not to speak of putting up with the fact that he normally came home around midnight. The two of them never married, however. Larsson—and, later, Gabrielsson—said that this was a way of protecting her; she would not run his risks. Years earlier, Larsson had written a will leaving his entire estate to the Communist Workers’ Party of his home town, but the will was not witnessed and therefore was not valid. When Swedes die intestate, everything is awarded to their kin—a strange law in a country where unregistered unions are almost the rule. I n any case, Larsson’s money has gone to the two surviving members of his immediate family, his father and his brother. These two men were not unaware of the awkwardness of their position. They gave Gabrielsson Larsson’s half of the apartment that she shared with him. They also proposed to pay her $2.7 million, by way of a settlement. She refused this offer, at which point the dealings between the two parties grew nasty. Gabrielsson told the press that Larsson had been alienated from his father and brother. They, in turn, suggested that Gabrielsson was psychologically disturbed. The story became even more exciting when the news got out that Gabrielsson had Larsson’s laptop, which, according to several sources (including her), contained more than half of a fourth novel, plus notes for the remainder—in other words, enough material so that someone else could finish it and it could still be called a Stieg Larsson novel. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/01/10/110110crat_atlarge_acocella

Festina lente is a classical adage and oxymoron meaning "make haste slowly" or "more haste, less speed". Favorite sayings of Augustus were: "More haste less speed," "Better a safe commander than a bold," and "That is done quickly enough which is done well enough."

Gold coins were minted for Augustus which bore the image of a crab and a butterfly, which was considered to be emblematic of the adage. Other pairings used to illustrate the adage include a hare in a snail shell; a chameleon with a fish; a diamond ring entwined with foliage; and, especially, a dolphin entwined around an anchor. Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany had festina lente as his motto and illustrated it with a tortoise with a sail upon its back.
Erasmus praised the adage in his great work, Adagia, and used it especially to compliment his printer — "Aldus, making haste slowly, has acquired as much gold as he has reputation, and richly deserves both." Aldus used the corresponding symbol of the dolphin and anchor as his printer's mark. He showed Erasmus a Roman silver coin, given to him by Cardinal Bembo, which bore this symbol on the reverse side. The adage was popular in renaissance times and Shakespeare alluded to it repeatedly. In Love's Labour's Lost, he copied the crab and butterfly imagery with the characters Moth and Armado. The great Onslow family of Shropshire, have the adage as their motto. This is a pun upon the family name — on-slow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festina_lente

Camel (Camelus)
Dromedary (one-hump): Camelus dromedarius
Bactrian camel (two-humps, endangered): Camelus bactrianus
Camels live in dry desert areas of southwestern Asia, the Sahara Desert in North Africa and along the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East and Indian desert areas. There is a large feral population of dromedary camels in the Australian outback. When running, a camel can reach a speed up to 40 mph in short bursts, 25 mph for longer periods of time. Camels do not have hooves. The foot of a camel is made up of a large leathery pad, with two toes at the front, the bones of which are embedded in the foot. The padding makes the gait of a camel silent, and keeps it from sinking in the sand. The camel also has pads of thick leathery skin, on its leg joints, enabling it to kneel or lay in the hot sand. Similar to giraffes, camels move both legs together on each side of their body to walk. There are a number of different sounds that the camel can make. Grumpling, bellowing and grunting sounds are common. They also can bleat like a goat or lamb. They also make a loud roaring noise. As a domestic animal, the camel is used for milk, food and transportation. Camels can carry up to 200 lbs on their back for distances in the heat. Their dung is so dry that it can be used to fuel fires. http://www.desertusa.com/animals/camel.html

The words alms, amends, cattle, clothes, doldrums, ides, pants, pliers, scissors, shorts, smithereens, and trousers are all plural but have no singular form.
Many words, such as deer, moose, and sheep, are spelled and pronounced the same way in both their singular and plural forms. More interesting words with this property are congeries, kudos, premises, shambles, series, and species.
Fish can be both singular and plural, yet fishes is also a correct pluralization of the word.
The words bourgeois, chassis, corps, faux pas, gardebras, précis, pince-nez, and rendezvous all have plurals spelled the same way but pronounced differently.
The plural of human is humans.
The plural of foot is feet. The plural of goosefoot is goosefoots.
The plural of moose is moose. The plural of goose is geese. The plural of mongoose is mongooses.
The plural of mouse, the rodent, is mice. The plural of mouse, the computer hardware device, is mouses. http://www.rinkworks.com/words/wordforms.shtml

Seen on church sign in Toledo
Bizarre (should be bazaar, a sale of miscellaneous contributed articles to benefit some charity, cause or organization)

Transcript and video of Barack Obama January 12 speech in Tucson The video is 34 minutes long, and you can read the transcript in under ten minutes.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/barack-obama-tucson-speech-transcript-video-arizona-memorial-2747009.html

Wedded Perfection: Two Centuries of Wedding Gowns is on exhibit through January 30 at the Cincinnati Art Museum, 953 Eden Park Drive. Wedded Perfection features over 50 gowns from the late 18th-century to modern designers including Vera Wang, Yohji Yamamoto and Geoffrey Beene. One of the gowns belonged to the great-grandmother of a muse reader. The exhibit will be in Utica, New York June 19 through Sept 18 at the Munson William Proctor Museum of Art.

Wedded Perfection: Two Centuries of Wedding Gowns, ISBN 978-1-904832-84-3, by Cynthia Amnéus with essays by Katherine Jellison and Sara Long Butler has been published by D Giles Limited in association with the Cincinnati Art Museum. The volume contains full-length colour plates and exquisite details of nearly 60 wedding gowns and dresses from the late 18th century to the present day, drawn from Cincinnati Art Museum’s internationally renowned permanent collection, are supplemented with loans from major designers. http://www.gilesltd.com/books/catalogue/exhibition-catalogues/wedded-perfection/

Friday, January 14, 2011

wormwood (WUHRM-wood) noun 1. A plant of the genus Artemisia, used in making absinthe and medicines. 2. Something that brings bitterness or grief. From alteration of wermod, of obscure origin. Earliest documented use: 1400.
limn (lim) verb tr. 1. To portray in words. 2. To draw or paint, especially in outline. Via French, from Latin luminare (to illuminate), from lumen (light). Ultimately from the Indo-European root leuk- (light), which is also the source of words such as lunar, lunatic, light, lightning, lucid, illuminate, illustrate, translucent, lux, lynx, and lucubrate. Earliest documented use: 1440.
gest or geste (jest) noun A tale, especially of someone's notable adventures or exploits. From Old French geste (exploit), from Latin gesta (exploits), past participle of gerere (to carry on, perform). The word jest (joke) arose as a spelling variant of gest. Earliest documented use: Before 1300.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Sumac spice powder is deep purplish in color. A little pinch of this spice can add a nice tangy lemon flavor to salad or meat dishes. There is no good sumac spice substitute, however, if you want to get the lemony tang flavor you can add juice of lemon to the salads or on the grilled meat recipes. If you are looking to add color to a dish, then you can add a dash of paprika spice if you don't have sumac spice. Sumac is derived from Aramaic word 'summaq', which means dark red. The variety of sumac tree called rhus coriaria, has been used for cooking purposes for millennia . The sumac spice comes from the berries of a wild bush, which grows in the wilds of Mediterranean, especially in regions like southern Italy, Sicily and parts of the Middle East, notably in Iran. Sumac is an essential ingredient in Arabic cooking, as preferred to lemon for sourness and astringency. Sumac spice health benefits are well known in the Middle East. Sumac is used to add flavor to many food recipes like fish, chicken, rice pilaf, etc. It can also be used to sprinkle salads, or added to the salad dressings or sprinkled over raw onions. You can try substituting any dish that uses lemon juice with this spice. Hummus when sprinkled with sumac spice, becomes very tasty. Sumac is used in Lebanon and Syria to flavor many seafood and fish recipes. It can be also used for flavoring stuffings , legumes, rice and breads in general. You can also combine sumac spice with yogurt and herbs, and make a great sauce or dip. Sumac spice can also be used as salt, but to to use it as salt one needs to add it more generously to the dishes. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sumac-spice.html

Abderian laughter comes from Abdera in Thace, whose citizens were considered rustic simpletons who would laugh at anything or anyone they didn't understand
about-face is a shortening of right about face, a cavalry instruction
above the fold is the content of a Web page that can be seen without scrolling down--also called above the scroll
abstract nouns are things like goodness, evil, beauty, fear, love
concrete nouns are physical objects like table, apple, moon
abstract number stands alone (1,2,3)
concrete number refers to a particular object: one horse, two feet
Phraseology 2008 Thanks, Barb.

In the play Hamlet, the main setting is Elsinore Castle in eastern Denmark, on the Øresund strait separating the Danish island of Sjælland (Zealand) from the Swedish province of Skåne and linking the Baltic Sea in the south to the Kattegat Strait in the north. Elsinore is a real town. Its Danish name is Helsingør. In Shakespeare's time, Elsinore was an extremely important port that fattened its coffers by charging a toll for ship passage through the Øresund strait. Modern Elsinore, or Helsingør, is directly west of a Swedish city with a similar name, Helsingborg (or Hälsingborg). Within the city limits of Elsinore is Kronborg Castle, said to be the model for the Elsinore Castle of the play. Construction on the castle began in 1574, when Shakespeare was ten, and ended in 1585, when Shakespeare was twenty-one. It is believed that actors known to Shakespeare performed at Kronborg Castle. Other settings in Hamlet are a plain in Denmark, near Elsinore, and a churchyard near Elsinore. Offstage action in the play (referred to in dialogue) takes place on a ship bound for England from Denmark on which Hamlet replaces instructions to execute him (see the plot summary below) with instructions to execute his traitorous companions, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and on a pirate ship that returns him to Denmark. Read probable main sources for the play, plot summary and more at: http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/xHamlet.html

Cummings Study Guides are free
Shakespeare Study Guide (Shake Sphere) Rated an A+ Shakespeare resource by Web English Teacher, an American Internet site. Recommended in England by the BBC, the British Library, the UK SchoolsNet, TopMarks, Universal Teacher, and the University of Birmingham. This site contains guides for every play and poem Shakespeare wrote, as well as literary works Shakespeare was reported to have written. This site also includes essays, glossaries, quotations, historical background, a complete description and history of the Globe Theatre, and other information related to Shakespeare.
Edgar Allan Poe Study Guide A growing collection of study guides
Other Free Cummings Literature Guides Novels, plays (including Greek drama), poems, essays, glossaries, definitions. http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/

“Revolutionary” diet books flood the market this time of year, promising a life changed permanently and for the better — yes, in just 10 to 30 days! — but, as everyone knows, the key to eating better begins with a diet of real food. The problem is, real food is cooked by real people — you! — and real people are cooking less than ever before. Yet Americans watch 35 hours of television a week, according to a Nielsen survey. (Increasing amounts of that time are spent watching other people cook). And although there certainly are urban and rural pockets where people have little access to fresh food, about 90 percent of American households own cars, and anyone who can drive to McDonald’s can drive to a supermarket. But perhaps most important, a cooking repertoire of three basic recipes can get anyone into the kitchen and beyond the realm of takeout food, microwaved popcorn and bologna sandwiches in a few days. One could set off a heated argument with a question like, “What are the three best basic recipes?” but I stand behind these: a stir-fry, a chopped salad, and the basic combination of rice and lentils, all of which are easy enough to learn in one lesson.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/weekinreview/02bittman.html

Amid a dry spell for breakthrough cancer drugs, recent U.S. approval of Eisai Co.'s Halaven represents some vindication for a small group of researchers who believe, contrary to recent pharmaceutical fashion, that molecules from nature hold promise against hard-to-treat diseases.

The Food and Drug Administration's approval of Halaven in November for treating late-stage breast cancer was a triumph of chemistry and tenacious research. Its path, extending nearly three decades from the first studies, demonstrates not only potential benefits but also some of the hurdles in the hunt within nature's bounty for drugs of the future. Primitive creatures developed many clever ways to kill each other after billions of years of evolution, and some can be turned to human use. "Weapons of mass destruction are alive and well on a coral reef," says David Newman of the National Cancer Institute, who has studied the subject for decades. Halaven derives from halichondrin B, a substance identified in a black sponge that lives off the coast of Japan. Studies showed it has a powerful effect on tumors, blocking cell division in a way that scientists hadn't previously thought of. Read more including a list of drugs developed from cinchona tree, Pacific yew tree, Gila monster, soil samples and willow bark at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059772498413328.html

Retired physician Thomas Clark of Ann Arbor learned the artistry on how to fold paper to make snowflakes from Loretta Ennis, a secretary at the University Health Service nearly 30 years ago. His physician training enabled him to unlock his creativity as he soon discovered he could cut pictures into the designs. First he develops the designs and then uses special jeweled screwdrivers to cut away at the paper. Although this process demands a lot of concentration, he mostly enjoys drawing the scenes. Over the years, he was named “Doctor Snowflake” in the art world for his works as well as what it takes to create them. His snowflakes require not only a delicate hand to carve the intricate paper cuts, but also a very gentle and patient personality. Doctor Snowflake’s works cover a range of different scenes from Biblical, Poetic, Christmas and the Zodiac signs. He also has several books in print; in fact, eleven of them ranging from his own artworks, face cards and trees, sonnets, including stories like from his “The Night before Christmas in Snowflakes” book. See examples of his work at: http://www.arttoartpalettejournal.com/2010/10/%E2%80%98snowflake-doc%E2%80%99-tells-stories-with-his-paper-artistry/

The Beige Book Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District January 12, 2011 http://www.federalreserve.gov/fomc/beigebook/2011/20110112/FullReport.htm