Incan citadels in the Peruvian Andes, a trek described by Mark Adams
The first known American to see Choquequirao was the young Yale history lecturer Hiram Bingham III, in 1909. He was researching a biography of the South American liberator Simón Bolívar when a local prefect he met near Cuzco persuaded him to visit the site. Many believed that the ruins of Choquequirao had once been Vilcabamba, the legendary lost city of the Incas. Bingham didn’t agree, and was mesmerized by the idea of lost cities waiting to be found. Two years later, he returned to Peru in search of Vilcabamba. On July 24, 1911, just days into his expedition, Bingham climbed a 2,000-foot-tall slope and encountered an abandoned stone city of which no record existed. It was Machu Picchu. Though Choquequirao was already well-known locally when Bingham arrived, its hard-to-reach location and scale — the main ruins of Machu Picchu are contained in a compact space of perhaps 20 acres, while the structures of Choquequirao sprawl over hundreds of acres — have slowed efforts to reclaim it from the surrounding cloud forest and restore its buildings to something like their original glory. (The government official who checked our tickets estimated that only 20 to 30 percent of what had existed in Incan times was currently visible.) But while the stonework of the palace doorways, the site’s finest examples of imperial Incan masonry, rivals anything in Peru, what drew Bingham to nearby Vitcos was the White Rock, an extraordinary carved granite boulder the size of a Winnebago (and now covered with gray lichen). Bingham had found the rock mentioned in a 17th-century Spanish chronicle and thought that it might point him toward the lost city of the Incas, Vilcabamba. I was delighted to find that it looked exactly as it did in Bingham’s 1911 photos. Abstract geometric shapes were engraved into its eastern face. Its backside was cut into smooth tiers, possibly altars. It might have been dropped into its lush green field by modernist aliens. About 30 miles away, at Espiritu Pampa, a team led by Javier Fonseca, the site’s friendly chief archaeologist, was regularly discovering pieces as impressive as anything Bingham had found at Machu Picchu. As we stood inside the walls of the former sun temple, one of Mr. Fonseca’s assistants bent over and picked up a plum-size Incan pot handle, shaped like a puma’s head. The only thing Espiritu Pampa didn’t have much of was visitors. Though it is only 40 very bumpy miles west of Machu Picchu, the trek to get there is so arduous — akin to hiking to Choquequirao twice, and in stifling jungle heat — that only 1,800 people have signed in at the visitors’ hut over the last decade. Llactapata has been called the “Lost Suburb of the Incas,” because it sits directly across the valley from Machu Picchu and, with a decent pair of binoculars, is visible from it. Bingham, always pressing on, spent only a few hours there in 1912. John showed me how on the morning of the June solstice — the shortest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the holiest dates on the Incan calendar — one corridor at Llactapata aligns perfectly with the Sun Temple at Machu Picchu and the exact spot on the horizon where the sun rises. The Incas were superb engineers; such an invisible axis couldn’t have been a coincidence.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/travel/in-peru-machu-picchu-and-its-sibling-incan-ruins-along-the-way.html?pagewanted=all

Erek “EcoErek” Hansen has kept 5,838 pairs of jeans out of landfills, helped insulate more than 11 homes rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina and helped set a Guinness World Record. EcoErek is 10 years old. He said he started recycling in 2009 due to a contest in the National Geographic Kids magazine, which called for pairs of jeans to recycle with the “Cotton. From Blue to Green” organization. The group shreds donated jeans, which become insulation for homes built by Habitat for Humanity across the United States. EcoErek and his mother, Amy Hansen, hosted a denim drive in their driveway, where they collected about 1,000 pairs of jeans. Combined with a local alternative energy company’s donation of 600 jeans, he shipped 1,684 pairs of jeans to National Geographic. As the largest donor to the project, EcoErek received a ticket to the Guinness World Records Ceremony in Washington, D.C. At the ceremony, National Geographic Kids magazine was listed as the “Largest Collection of Clothing to Recycle” for 33,088 pairs of jeans.
This year, EcoErek included shoes in his drive to donate to USAgain, a for-profit organization that collects used clothes and resells them. Amy said USAgain will pay EcoErek 2 cents per pair of shoes collected. He said he was not sure what charity to donate the money to. EcoErek set a goal of 5,000 pairs of jeans collected this year. There was no goal for the shoes. With his drives completed — the last was June 11 — he sits on 2,262 pairs of jeans and 1,585 pairs of shoes. Dropboxes in Perrysburg and Oregon will collect jeans and shoes until August. For the rest of the season, EcoErek and Amy will collect items from dropboxes and fetch donations from anyone unable to get to a box who contacts them. The two will visit garage sales at the end of June to drop off cards and offer a place for unwanted jeans. In August, Amy and EcoErek, who is “kinda known as the jean guy now,” Amy said, will gather the jeans and shoes for a final total before shipping them to the respective organizations. Until totaling time, the jeans and shoes will be stored in warehouse space provided by First Solar. The local company has collaborated with EcoErek since 2009. EcoErek and Amy gather the collection goods and haul them to storage. They also put the jeans and shoes into the 4-foot-square shipping containers. First Solar provides the shipping for the jeans.
http://www.toledofreepress.com/2011/06/23/10-year-old-%E2%80%98ecoerek%E2%80%99-recycles-jeans-shoes/
Find more information at: http://www.ecoerek.org/

Outstanding Reference Sources: The 2011 Selection of Titles from Reference & User Services Quarterly http://www.rusq.org/2011/06/20/outstanding-reference-sources-the-2011-selection-of-titles/

Notable Books: The 2011 Selection of Titles from Reference & User Services Quarterly khttp://www.rusq.org/2011/06/20/notable-books-the-2011-selection-of-titles/%20%20

The Reading List 2011 from Reference & User Services Quarterly
http://www.rusq.org/2011/06/20/the-reading-list-2011/

The Amazing Andean Larder, a sampler of popular ingredients in Peru.
Ají amarillo: Perhaps the most important ingredient in Peruvian cooking, this spicy pepper comes in green, yellow, and orange.
Aguaymanto: Tangy and sweet, this fruit was worn as jewelry by Peruvian women in the 18th century.
Camu camu: Very high in vitamin C; its taste is a mix of sour cherry and lime.
Piranha: The meat of this toothy fish, found in Peru's eastern rivers, is tart and acidic.
Paiche: One of the largest freshwater fish in the world, it can grow to 500 pounds and has a subtle, delicate flavor.
Lúcuma: Cultivated by pre-Incan cultures, depicted in ancient ceramics; its taste is a mix of maple syrup and sweet potato.
Pisco: This clear brandy, originating in the 16th-century vice-royalty of Peru, is distilled from fermented Quebranta grapes.
Chirimoya: Creamy, with a hint of pineapple, this fruit was called "deliciousness itself" by Mark Twain.
Guinea pig: Eaten throughout the Andes for thousands of years, cuy is also used in traditional Andean medicine.
Llama: Related to the camel and domesticated in the puna grasslands more than 6,000 years ago; the llama's meat is low-fat and has a taste between beef and lamb.
Potato: Originated in Peu's alitplano 6,000 years ago; the country now has more than 2,500 native varieties.
Sea urchin: Called erizo, it has been eaten along Peru's coast since settlements were first established here.
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/503810

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. Informally referred to as the High Court or by the acronym SCOTUS, it has ultimate (but largely discretionary) appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases. The Court, which meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they are removed after impeachment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

Slip Opinions, Per Curiams (PC), and Original Case Decrees (D) of the U.S. Supreme Court
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinions.aspx
84 opinions from 11/8/10 to 6/27/11

News and commentary on SCOTUS from The New York Times http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/index.html

News and commentary on SCOTUS from The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/24/LI2005032400136.html

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