In the first full week of May, Burson-Marsteller, a top-five public relations firm, stepped up a whisper campaign to get top-tier media outlets, including USA TODAY, to run news stories and editorials about how an obscure Google Gmail feature — Social Circle — ostensibly tramples the privacy of millions of Americans and violates federal fair trade rules. Google said that Social Circle in fact allows Gmail users to make social connections based on public information and private connections across its products in ways that don't skirt privacy. Yet the PR stunt played out during a week in which Google was responding to a raid of its Seoul office by South Korean privacy regulators and was preparing for a U.S. Senate hearing today over the location-tracking feature in Android smartphones. Pushed by two high-profile media figures — former CNBC news anchor Jim Goldman and former political columnist John Mercurio, both of whom recently joined Burson — the whisper campaign illustrates how privacy has become a lightning-rod issue. Goldman pitched the Social Circle issue as a huge privacy breach to Google users and an important story for consumers. Burson's efforts, on behalf of an unnamed client, also highlight the delicate balancing act Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple face as they rush to profit from cutting-edge Internet services that tap into consumer data. In a May 3 e-mail to former FTC researcher and blogger Christopher Soghoian, Burson's Mercurio offered to ghost write an op-ed column to that effect for Soghoian. Mercurio even offered in a widely circulated e-mail to help Soghoian get it published in The Washington Post, Politico, The Hill, Roll Call and The Huffington Post. Meanwhile, Goldman connected with USA TODAY and outlined a news story critical of Social Circle. However, Soghoian derailed Burson's efforts by posting the full e-mail text of Mercurio's pitch — along with his rejection — on the Internet. After Goldman's pitch proved largely untrue, he subsequently declined USA TODAY's requests for comment. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-05-06-google_n.htm

anomia (uh-NOH-mee-uh) noun The inability to recall names of people or objects. From Latin a- (without) + nom (name). Earliest documented use: 1900.
subitize (SOO-bi-tyz) verb tr., intr. To perceive, without counting, the number of objects in a small group. From Latin subitus (sudden), from past participle of subire (to appear suddenly), from sub- (under) + ire (to go). Earliest documented use: 1949. When you throw a die, you don't count the number of pips to determine the value of the throw. You subitize. Estimates of the upper limit of humans' subitizing capability range from four to seven. Subitizing also depends on the arrangement of the objects. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Cate Tiernan (born July 24, 1961) is the pen name of Gabrielle Charbonnet, an American author. Writing as Cate Tiernan, she is best known for her Sweep series, which follows the Wiccan adventures of a cast of high school students. The stories are sold as the Wicca series in the UK, Belgium, The Netherlands and Australia, and as White Magic (Magie Blanche) in Italy and France. Under her own name, she is chiefly known for children's books in the Princess, American Gold Gymnasts, and Disney Girls series. In 2008 and 2009, Charbonnet collaborated with author James Patterson on two "young adult" novels, Sundays at Tiffany'sand Witch & Wizard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cate_Tiernan

Charcuterie (French from chair 'flesh' and cuit 'cooked') is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, pâtés, and confit, primarily from pork. Originally intended as a way to preserve meats before the advent of refrigeration, they are prepared today for their flavors derived from the preservation processes. The Romans may be the first to have regulated the trade of charcuterie as they wrote laws regulating the proper production of pork joints; but the French have also had some influence. In 15th century France, local guilds regulated tradesmen in the food production industry in each city. The guilds that produced charcuterie were those of the charcutiers. The members of this guild produced a traditional range of cooked or salted and dried meats, which varied, sometimes distinctively, from region to region. The only "raw" meat the charcutiers were allowed to sell was unrendered lard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcuterie

Bill Wharton (Sauce Boss) has cooked gumbo on stage for over 175,000 for free. He mixes his own spicy original music--Florida Slide Guitar Blues--and adds his famous Liquid Summer hot sauce right into every night's cooking demonstration of his own gumbo recipe. It's a multi-sensory soul shouting picnic of rock and roll brotherhood. And at the end of the night, everybody eats. Hear Sauce Boss tunes and find out about the non-profit Planet Gumbo Foundation at: http://www.sauceboss.com/

Architecture rarely goes viral on the Internet, but a video of Toyo Ito's Mediatheque in Sendai taken at the height of the Japanese earthquake has had an extraordinary run as an eyewitness and vertigo-inducing account of what it was like to be inside a building during the magnitude-9.0 earthquake that struck Japan on March 11. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=heh5ITmYbRs) The video was shot by someone who had taken refuge under one of the tables in the audio-visual library on the sixth floor. The building shook and swayed violently; everything cascaded from shelves and desks onto the floor. Ceiling panels appeared to swing drunkenly overhead. But the Mediatheque did not collapse. It stood firm against the massive seismic forces that were tearing other buildings apart; the basic structure did not fail. Mr. Ito is one of Japan's, and the world's, best-known architects, and the Mediatheque has been celebrated internationally for its visual elegance and radical structural solution. Completed in 2001, it was the winning design in a competition for an interactive multimedia center with a wide range of cultural activities, from the visual and performing arts to computers with free Internet access. See a photograph and a sketch of the lattice columns at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703859304576305243667119026.html

"Spring for Music," continuing at Carnegie Hall through Saturday, May 14 shows what can happen when industry insiders act creatively. The festival is presenting seven North American orchestras chosen, from 25 applicants, for their imaginative programming habits. Participants range from the Albany Symphony Orchestra, with 76 mostly part-time members and an annual budget of about $2 million, to the 89-member Dallas Symphony Orchestra, which has annual expenditures of $28 million, an extensive discography and a world-class concert hall. Most of the concert offerings assembled by the orchestras are truly inventive, forging intriguing thematic links or presenting works considered dicey at the box office. On May 11: Dallas Symphony in the New York premiere of "August 4, 1964" for chorus, soloists and orchestra, a 70-minute concert drama by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky. The piece revisits two fateful events during the Lyndon Johnson presidency—one affecting the civil-rights movement, the other, the Vietnam War. On May 12: the 76-member Oregon Symphony Orchestra with an intelligently conceived, war-themed program of John Adams, Benjamin Britten, Charles Ives and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Subsequent performances by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the 92-member Montreal Symphony Orchestra should prove equally stimulating. So far, the results have been instructive. The superbly played opening-night concert May 6: Orpheus, the renowned conductorless chamber orchestra with six commissioned "Brandenburg" concertos inspired by Bach's originals. On May 7: Toledo Symphony Orchestra with a program that was ingenious. Self-produced symphonic concerts at Carnegie, a traditional rite of passage for regional orchestras, now cost an untenable $400,000 to $500,000. "Spring for Music" mitigates some of the risk involved in such outings. Each orchestra is responsible for trip expenses and production "extras." And each shares equally in the box office proceeds, with a guaranteed minimum of $50,000. Toledo Symphony president Kathleen Carroll said she expects to see a "positive benefit" from the festival appearance. Next year, festival organizers will showcase one less orchestra, enabling them to raise the guarantee to a more attractive $65,000.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576312931035466752.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

An Arizona restaurant's trademark case against the 2nd Ave Deli's "Instant Heart Attack Sandwich" is full of baloney, according to a federal lawsuit filed May 10. The Heart Attack Grill, which "proudly serves unhealthy and overly caloric fare such as hamburgers, fries cooked in lard," claims in a letter that the famed New York deli stole its idea for the sandwich and for a planned "Triple Bypass Sandwich." The 2nd Ave Deli, fought back with a lawsuit asking a federal judge to declare that there is no copyright infringement. The New York deli says it has been selling its version of the sandwich - of two large potato pancakes (latkes) served with a choice of corned beef, pastrami, turkey, or salami piled high - since 2004, while the Arizona eatery has only been open since 2005. http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/05/10/2011-05-10_heart_attack_grills_trademark_case_against_2nd_ave_deli_over_sandwich_name_is_ba.html

"Potting Pretty" 67 pots, of four different styles, will go on public display in Sylvania, Ohio May 16. Although many of the distinctively decorated "Potting Pretty in Sylvania" vessels have been purchased by sponsors, a few may be available for auction during a gala unveiling May 19 during which the results of "best of show" artistic-merit judging will be announced. Among the more distinctive entries are two by artist Todd Kime: a round pot dressed up like a milkshake for Sonic Drive-In and a square one inverted and mounted on a pole to resemble a reading lamp for Pinnacle Eye Care. Mr. Kime won the "Sittin' Pretty" best in show with the bench he created for Pinnacle. Seventeen of the planters were decorated by students in various Sylvania schools, and others were done by professional artists, collegiate art students, and the Shared Lives Studio at Lott Industries. The artwork is in styles ranging from whimsical drawings to mosaics to tributes to classic masterpieces and ancient cultures. http://toledoblade.com/West/2011/05/11/Chamber-hopes-Sylvania-has-pot-luck.html
May 16-23 Pots on display in downtown Sylvania
May 19, 4-8 p.m. Grand unveiling and Best of Show Awards
May 19 Entertainment, refreshments, auction of pots and Sylvania Sprouts Flower Sale

Collingwood Arts Center 2413 Collingwood Boulevard, Toledo
JOHN WALZ PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT- OPENING 5/13 This exhibit will feature selected works by the high regarded Owens Community College instructor and owner of Waterville’s John Walz Photo. Mr. Walz is a graduate of Huntington University and also received a Masters degree in photography from the Savannah College of Art. He has exhibited extensively around our region at galleries like Space 237 and abroad. Runs until the end of May.
LOL COMEDY GROUP: PRESENTS LOL LIVE-5-21-11 Six of Toledo’s hottest up and coming comedians take center stage at the Lois M. Nelson Theater. Produced by Keith Cook and Glenn Kynard. This is being planned as a monthly showcase.