There came by the post the loveliest thing that one could imagine a postman might bring! It came to me from a friends of mine, it came to me from my Valentine! Elizabeth Winton

If apples were pears, and peaches were plums, and roses had a different name; If tigers were bears, and fingers were thumbs, I'd love you just the same. Unknown

Coyotes Join Wildlife Migration to Cities
CHICAGO AREA IS HOME TO GROWING NUMBERS OF COYOTES
“A delicate balance definitely exists between good and bad impacts when coyotes come to town,” says Dr. Stan Gehrt, a wildlife biologist and professor at Ohio State University. “There’s no way to minimize how people feel when the family cat doesn’t come home.” Gehrt is in charge of ongoing studies to monitor urban coyotes in the Chicago area; studies started when he worked at the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation in Dundee, Illinois. Gehrt began studies in Cook County when residents began noticing more coyotes in urban areas near fields and wild areas. A few cats and dogs disappeared, and biologists decided it was time to understand more about the situation. Coyotes once were rare in Illinois. As many as 30 years ago, coyote populations were low due to now-defunct eradication programs. Coyotes have proliferated since then, moving from the western U.S. into eastern habitat where wolves used to be. Coyotes are adaptable and can live almost anywhere. “Surprisingly, in Chicago there is plenty of food for coyotes,” Gehrt notes. “Coyotes help stem urban deer over-population -- a serious concern to vehicle drivers, gardeners and park managers. In some areas, coyotes take 70 to 80 percent of urban fawns each year. Also, anyone who has battled throngs of cranky Canada geese or slipped on a blanket of droppings in the park knows that geese often are a problem. Coyotes eat goose eggs, goslings and occasionally nesting adults.” He notes that people sometimes demand eradication of coyotes. But eliminating all coyotes is not practical, economical or workable. Research shows that once coyotes are removed, others quickly replace them. Therefore, widespread removal is a temporary solution. Steps for keeping pets safe, if your home is near coyote habitat, include:
Don’t feed any wild animals such as raccoons or deer, which encourages coyotes as well.
Keep cats indoors at all times.
Keep your dog on a leash.
Don’t leave cat or dog food outside.
Secure garbage in areas where coyotes can’t access it; keep yards clean of refuse and brush.
Do not let pets out at night unless accompanied by a person.
About 30 percent of country-living coyotes live to see a new year; in the city, that survival rate is 58 percent. Diseases have little impact on urban coyotes; their biggest cause of death is automobiles. For more information on coyotes in Illinois, contact Illinois DNR at 217-782-6384. Learn more about coyotes by visiting the Fur Hunting and Trapping in Illinois website at dnr.state.il.us/orc/wildlife
http://dnr.state.il.us/orc/wildlife/virtual_news/releases/070104_coyotes.htm

An elegant legal brief (a written argument submitted to a court) has all the harmony of great prose. Attorney and author Adam Freedman, in his January 29 Word Craft column in The Wall Street Journal, writes that at his old law firm "Does it sing?" was code for "Is your brief finished?" The key is boiling down your arguments to a single theme. If there is an obvious weakness, concede it upfront to clear the air and allow the judge to focus on the facts that support your theme.

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) is most famous outside Germany as the author of the ‘Ode to Joy’, set by Beethoven’s in his Ninth Symphony. Poet, playwright, writer on aesthetics, his most famous plays are The Robbers, Don Carlos, Wallenstein and William Tell. Schiller’s play, William Tell, was completed in 1804 and is known throughout the world as a hymn to, and archetypical dramatic expression of, self-liberation from tyranny. http://www.librislondon.co.uk/books/1870352866.html

Gnocchi is the name for a thick, soft, small dumpling that is a traditional dish in Italian food. It can be made of a number of different ingredients, though it is most traditionally composed of porridge-like dough that is cut up into small pieces and then cooked. It is served as both a side dish and as a main meal. The origins of gnocchi are probably Middle Eastern. While gnocchi is most commonly referred to as an Italian dish with mainly Italian origins, it is important to know the importance of the dish in other countries, namely in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. These countries had a high percentage of Italian immigrants at the start of the 20th century who brought gnocchi dishes along with them. Gnocchi became so popular here that a sort of holiday was created in its honor. This is a monthly "holiday" that occurs on the 29th day of each month, and it is called "Noquis del 29" or "Gnocchi of the 29th." http://www.ehow.com/about_4572254_does-gnocchi-come.html

Triskaidekaphobia (from Greek tris meaning "3", kai meaning "and", deka meaning "10" and phobia meaning "fear" or "morbid fear") is fear of the number 13; it is a superstition and related to a specific fear of Friday the 13th, called paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia.
The term was first used by I.H. Coriat in "Abnormal Psychology", 1910. Tetraphobia, fear of the number 4. In Korea, China and Japan, as well as in many other East-Asian and some Southeast-Asian countries, it is not uncommon for buildings (including offices, apartments, hotels) to lack floors with the number 4, and Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia's 1xxx-9xxx series of mobile phones does not include any model numbers beginning with a 4. In China, this is because in Mandarin, the pronunciation of the word for "four" (四, sì) is a homophone to that of the word for "death" (死, sǐ). 17 is an unlucky number in Italy, because in Roman digits 17 is written XVII, that could be rearranged to "VIXI", which in Latin means "I have lived" but can be a euphemism for "I am dead." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskaidekaphobia

Tuesday is considered, by many Greeks, to be the unluckiest day of the week. It was on Tuesday, May 29th, 1453 that the city of Constantinople was besieged and taken by the Ottoman Turks. The loss of life was considerable. Conversely, Greeks consider the number 13 (on its own) to be good luck. The ancient philosophy of Numerology considers 13 to be "the most selfless of all" and "love for the world revolves around" thirteen. The Celts also considered the number 13 to be related to good fortune. However, the combination of Tuesday and 13 as Tuesday the 13th of the month is considered a very unlucky day in Greek culture. Spanish speaking cultures fear "Martes Trece", Tuesday the 13th. http://everything2.com/title/Tuesday+the+13th

The 7th edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans advises: Enjoy your food, but eat less. Avoid oversized portions. Make half your plate fruits and vegetables. Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk. Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals – and choose the foods with lower numbers. Drink water instead of sugary drinks. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines is available at www.dietaryguidelines.gov. For more information on dietary guidelines, see www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines and www.healthfinder.gov/prevention

After two years of congestion decline — likely attributable to the economic crisis and the reduction in overall driving — commuters in 439 American cities experienced a rise in traffic in 2009. That’s according to this year’s Urban Mobility Report (pdf), published by the Texas Transportation Institute. The report found that congestion in 2009 cost commuters about $115 billion in unused time and fuel. I n personal terms, the average commuter lost $808 and 34 hours sitting in rush-hour. Residents of Chicago and Washington, D.C. experienced the year’s worst traffic, as measured in the report by annual hours delayed per commuter. People in both cities lost 70 hours to congestion, on average, in 2009. Other cities in the top 5 of the report’s “very large areas” — cities with populations greater than 3 million — were Los Angeles (63 hours), Houston (58), and San Francisco (49). Though the Urban Mobility Report is considered by some to be an industry standard for determining congestion, some analysts have found flaws in its method. An evaluation of last year’s report, performed by CEOs for Cities, often reached opposite conclusions about the traffic problem in certain large cities. The latest Urban Mobility Report boasts of an improved methodology that considers traffic speed data as well as volume data to provide a “more detailed picture of the problems facing urban travelers.” But some aren’t seeing much of a change. Streetsblog says this year’s report is filled with “maddening wrongness”. To be fair, the new report ranks cities by several metrics — with speed being just one. Still, CEOs for Cities doesn’t seem impressed with the changes either. Although it hasn’t performed a thorough analysis, its cursory review prompted a statement calling the new report a “flawed and misleading guide” (pdf).
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/01/24/new-report-ranks-congestion-in-americas-cities/

The Carnegie Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum have a friendly wager going on involving the temporary transfer of a French impressionist painting. PennFuture and Clean Wisconsin are playing dueling environmentalists in a Super Bowl fundraising challenge. Heck, even Bishop David Zubik (formerly the bishop of Green Bay) is working out a wager with the current bishop of Green Bay. The presidents of St. Vincent College in Latrobe and St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis., announced a Super Bowl wager. At stake is cheese and sausage from Wisconsin and a bag of flour and loaf of bread from St. Vincent College's historic grist mill. Schoolchildren at St. Bernard School in Mt. Lebanon have bet that they can donate more cans of soup than their counterparts at St. Bernard School in Green Bay. At least 37 other Pittsburgh schools are also involved in soup-related competitions.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11032/1122038-455.stm

NASA's Kepler space telescope has upended a cornucopia of planet candidates on astronomy, including 54 in the "habitable zone" of their stars. The spacecraft eyeballs stars in the "Orion Spur" of our Milky Way galaxy, a lane of stars filled with sun-like stars. In 2009, mission chief scientist William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., suggested the space telescope would find 1,200 planets in four years. Yale astronomer Debra Fischer called the results "historic" and suggested about 80% would eventually prove to be planets, not mistakes.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/02/kepler-exoplanet-astronomers/1