PORTLAND, Maine—Around here, you can find "Maine Potato Candy"—mashed potatoes rolled in coconut and dipped in chocolate—and potato donuts. A popular county fair offers wrestling matches in a vat of potatoes. In a state where spuds are the top agricultural product, locals can't get enough of them, even at schools. "We've got to have potatoes—our children are used to potatoes," says Louise Bray, food-service director for Caribou, Maine, public schools. She regularly serves hash browns for breakfast, plus mashed potatoes, "Maine fries," a baked potato bar and potato puffs for lunch. But now the federal government wants to all but toss tubers out of school. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing to eliminate the "white potato"—defined as any variety but the sweet potato—from federally subsidized school breakfasts and to limit them sharply at lunch. At a March Senate hearing on the USDA budget, Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) hoisted a standard-fare brown-skinned spud in one hand and, in the other, a head of iceberg lettuce, which hasn't come under explicit federal scrutiny. One medium white potato contains nearly twice the vitamin C "as this entire head," she said, asking: "So my question, Mr. Secretary, is what does the department have against potatoes?" The proposed change is part of a push to make school meals healthier, with more nutrient-rich vegetables and fewer French fries. Under the USDA proposal, school cafeterias would have to limit starchy vegetables such as potatoes, corn, peas and lima beans to a total of one cup per week for lunch. "Potatoes are really nutritious," says Heidi Kessler, school nutrition project manager for Let's Go!, a Portland, Maine, childhood-obesity prevention program that encourages schools to eliminate fries or serve them once a week. "It's the preparation that causes the problem." Indeed, much is heaped on the potato. At the annual Eastern State Exposition last fall, the state-run "Maine Building" served up 47 tons of baked potatoes, smothered with 10,500 pounds of sour cream, 8,040 pounds of cheddar cheese, 4,670 pounds of butter and 560 pounds of bacon bits over 17 days. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704810504576305250845743700.html

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on May 16 issued tips to help consumers shop for a variety of bank products and services by carefully evaluating their needs, contacting multiple institutions and reading the fine print before making a decision. The advice was published as a special edition of the quarterly FDIC Consumer News (the Spring 2011 issue), which is entitled "Shop and Save...at the Bank: A Buyer's Guide to Finding the Right Loan, Credit Card or Deposit Account." The FDIC publication includes:

* Strategies for choosing a mortgage, credit card, home equity loan, checking account or bank CD (certificate of deposit) that makes sense for the consumer;
* Lower-cost alternatives to traditional -- and potentially expensive -- overdraft programs.
* Information about escrow accounts for mortgage borrowers and the importance of monitoring the accounts for costly mistakes;
* A suggestion to avoid mistakes when additional services are marketed with a loan or a credit card;
* Information about why consumers should be cautious before using a prepaid card for their basic banking needs;
* A reminder that stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities and other non-deposit products sold at banks are not FDIC-insured and that some of these investments can lose money; and
* A basic "to-do" list for shopping at the bank. http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2011/pr11087.html Find Spring 2011 issue at: http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnspr11/

big wheel 1 informal big cheese 2 British ferris wheel http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/big-wheel
big wheel 1 a type of tricycle, usually made of plastic, with an oversized front wheel, that rides very low to the ground. Introduced by Louis Marx and Company in 1969, the Big Wheel was a very popular toy in the 1970s in the United States, partly because of its low cost and partly because consumer groups said it was a safer alternative to the traditional tricycle or bicycle. The design was quickly imitated, under a variety of brand names. Although Big Wheel was a registered trademark, it was frequently used as a generic name for any toy whose design resembled that of Marx.
2 An important, influential person: character, dignitary, eminence, leader, lion, nabob, notability, notable, personage. Informal big-timer, heavyweight, somebody, someone, VIP. Slang big shot, bigwig, muckamuck. http://www.answers.com/topic/big-wheel

Quote There's no catalyst for thought like competition. For Better or Worse comic strip May 13, 2011

Dyer's Chop House in Toledo did not admit women for lunch until forced to do so. On February 11, 1972 Charlene Bennett and Carol Nofen entered the restaurant and tried to order lunch. The hostess refused to seat them and, after a ten-minute wait, they went to the bar and were served drinks. After several more minutes, co-owner Joe Dyer informed the women they would neither be served food nor more drinks until after 1:30 p.m. and asked them to leave the restaurant immediately. They complied and, on April 18 filed a federal court lawsuit charging discrimination against women. On October 26 U.S. District Judge Don J. Young ruled that Dyer's could not discriminate against women and refuse to serve them. On October 27 the two women were served lunch. Thanks to Irene Martin at the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library for providing copies of pertinent Toledo Blade articles.

A cave with its name translated as “Mountain River Cave”, nicknamed “Vietnam’s Mammoth Cavern” or the “giant of all caves” is seen as one world wonder because it is wider, higher and larger than any other cave on the planet. Part of a network of 150 caves in the Annamite Mountains, this limestone titan has a point measuring three times the height of Niagara Falls and it also features a unique mini jungle in the middle of it. The scientific mystery of this Vietnamese attraction consists in the fact that the cave is continuously growing; the waters of its underground river eroding in an unusually straight line from North to South. Mountain River Cave is located in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, in the Bo Trach District of Vietnam’s Quang Bink Province. Close to the border with Laos, this epic cave is believed to have been created 2, 5 million years ago due to the Rao Thung River water eroding the limestone underneath the mountain. Its incredible measurements, more than 650 feet high, approximately 500 feet wide, have proclaimed Hang Son Doong a dangerous, mysterious giant. Not only that Hang Son Doong presented geological elements of great interest like big stalagmites and natural “sculptures” produced by the underground river but also it features dolines. Formed because of the collapse of the cave roof, connecting the darkness of the cave with the light of the upper ground, this exceptional opening is a spot where life thrives. In this lost world, the tropical plants which are usually evergreen have adapted to an extremely isolated environment, surviving with less natural light and humidity and so did the species discovered in the first expedition. http://www.travelnut.me/hang-son-doong Thanks, BH

philtrum (FIL-truhm) noun
The vertical groove below the nose and above the upper lip.
The line of the upper lip is known as Cupid's bow for its resemblance to the shape of a bow. While the ancients thought the groove above the upper lip had something to do with love, modern doctors have found that a smooth philtrum is one of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome. From Latin philtrum (love potion, groove under the nose), from Greek philtron (love potion, groove under the nose). Earliest documented use: 1609.
desultory (DES-uhl-tor-ee) adjective
1. Marked by absence of a plan; disconnected; jumping from one thing to another.
2 . Digressing from the main subject; random.
From Latin desultorius (leaping, pertaining to a circus rider who jumps from one horse to another), from desilire (to leap down), from salire (to jump). Other words derived from the same Latin root, salire, are sally, somersault, insult, result, saute, salient, and saltant. Earliest documented use: 1581.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Nutrient pollution is the process where too many nutrients, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus, are added to bodies of water and can act like fertilizer, causing excessive growth of algae. This process is also known as eutrophication. Excessive amounts of nutrients can lead to more serious problems such as low levels of oxygen dissolved in the water. Severe algal growth blocks light that is needed for plants, such as seagrasses, to grow. When the algae and seagrass die, they decay. In the process of decay, the oxygen in the water is used up and this leads to low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water. This, in turn, can kill fish, crabs, oysters, and other aquatic animals. Nutrients come from a variety of different sources. They can occur naturally as a result of weathering of rocks and soil in the watershed and they can also come from the ocean due to mixing of water currents. Because there are increasingly more people living in coastal areas, there are more nutrients entering our coastal waters from wastewater treatment facilities, runoff from land in urban areas during rains, and from farming. http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/nutpollution.html