French fries aren't French—they're Belgian. And in a country without a single common language, the humble snack is a potent national symbol. That's why farmers, fryers and foodies are battling over the future of the potato which made Belgium great: the bintje. First grown a century ago, the bintje potato flourished in flat, rainy Belgium and fed the nation through two world wars. One legend has it American soldiers got a taste for the snack, taking it on to achieve global fame and misattributing its nationality in the process. And it makes delicious, golden frites, which are then served up with mayonnaise. "The bintje is irreplaceable in terms of taste and crunchiness," Pierre Lebrun, agronomist and head of the Walloon potato growers' association, said to an audience of hundreds of farmers at Potato Europe 2011, a trade show earlier this month. "It's intrinsic to Belgium." In this country of 10 million, the question Mr. Lebrun poses—"to bintje or not to bintje"—isn't small potatoes. Belgium's per capita annual french fry consumption exceeds America's by about a third. The picture-postcard city of Bruges is home to the world's only french fry museum. There's even an iPhone app to help hungry Belgians locate their nearest fix. It's an empire built on bintje. Yet while Belgium's potato production has nearly tripled since 1999, bintje cultivation has stagnated since 1996.
Learn how to cook fries and the origin of the name bintje at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903927204576573201537015890.html

Roadway noise is the collective sound energy emanating from motor vehicles. In the USA it contributes more to environmental noise exposure than any other noise source, and is constituted chiefly of engine, tire, aerodynamic and braking elements. Traffic operations noise is affected significantly by vehicle speeds, since sound energy roughly doubles for each increment of ten miles an hour in vehicle velocity; an exception to this rule occurs at very low speeds where braking and acceleration noise dominate over aerodynamic noise. Small reductions in vehicle noise occurred in the 1970s as states and provinces enforced unmuffled vehicle ordinances. The vehicle fleet noise has not changed very much over the last three decades; however, if the trend in hybrid vehicle use continues, substantial noise reduction will occur, especially in the regime of traffic flow below 35 miles per hour. As a pedestrian safety issue, hybrid vehicles are so quiet at low speeds that the customary warning noise may not alert the pedestrian to nearby danger, creating a potential hazard for visually impaired people, who rely on such noise to navigate in areas of heavy traffic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadway_noise

Through thick and thin: Through all forms of obstacle that are put in one's way.
'Through thick and thin' is one of the English language's older expressions and one that has maintained its figurative meaning over many centuries. It is venerable enough to date from the times when England was still a predominantly wooded country, with few roads and where animals grazed on what was known as wood pasture, i.e. mixed woodland and grass. The phrase originated as 'through thicket and thin wood', which was a straightforward literal description of any determined progress through the 'thick' English countryside. The earliest citation I can find that uses our contemporary wording is in Richard Baxter's religious text A Saint Or a Brute: The Certain Necessity and Excellency of Holiness, 1662: "Men do fancy a necessity [of holiness] where there is none, yet that will carry them through thick and thin." http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/through-thick-and-thin.html

2011 films shot in the Midwest
A Year in Mooring Traverse City, Michigan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1536374/
The Ides of March Cincinnati, Covington, Newport and Oxford (Ohio and Kentucky)
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110910/ENT02/109100338/Cincinnati-fantastic-says-Clooney-s-Ides-co-writer

Overuse of the word iconic continues. A May 25 search on Google brought 35,700,000 results. A September 13 search brought 80,700,000 results.

Q: Is Carnegie pronounced "CAR-na-gee" or "Car-NAY-gee"?
A: It's the former for the libraries, New York music hall, Pennsylvania town, and Pittsburgh university. It's the latter for their benefactor, industrialist Andrew Carnegie.
Q: Why do some broadcast stations start with W and others start with K?
A: In 1928, the Federal Radio Commission decreed that all radio stations east of the Mississippi River be licensed with call letters beginning with W, and stations west of the river be licensed with call letters beginning with K. Also, new radio licenses had to have four letters. Existing radio stations could keep their call letters. For example, venerable stations KDKA and KQV are in Pittsburgh and WOR is in New York. Television call letters followed suit. Various sources.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2011/Sep/JU/ar_JU_091911.asp?d=091911,2011,Sep,19&c=c_13

Erich Campbell, a student at St. Petersburg College’s Tarpon Springs campus, was driving his Toyota Tundra pickup on the Veterans Expressway in Tampa on a Monday night, Dec. 7, 2009, when he spotted two black-and-tan state trooper cruisers parked in the median. When he saw them, he said, he flashed his headlights on and off a few times to alert motorists headed in the opposite direction. The Florida Highway Patrol pulled Campbell over and ticketed him. Flashing your lights is illegal, they said. The ticket was for $115, but Hillsborough County Judge Raul Palomino dismissed it and Campbell never paid a dime. Claiming no such law exists, Campbell, 38, of Land O’Lakes, got angry. Now he wants to get even: He filed a lawsuit on behalf of every other driver in Florida ticketed for the same violation over the past six years, accusing police of misinterpreting state law and violating motorists’ free speech rights. Campbell and his attorney, J. Marc Jones of Oviedo, say police are misinterpreting a law that’s meant to ban drivers from having strobe lights in their cars or official-looking blue police lights. Soon after Campbell sued the state, the Highway Patrol on Aug. 29 ordered all troopers to stop issuing tickets to motorists who use headlights as a signal to other drivers. “You are directed to suspend enforcement action for this type of driver behavior,” said the memo from Grady Garrick, acting deputy director of patrol operations. Campbell’s lawsuit, filed in circuit court in Tallahassee, cites similar cases in Escambia, Osceola, Seminole and St. Lucie counties in which tickets for flashing were all dismissed by judges. “In each of these examples,” the lawsuit claims, “Florida courts properly found that [the law] does not prohibit the flashing of headlights as a means of communication,” which the suit calls “a right of free speech.” http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2011-09-13/motorist-goes-court-over-little-known-flashing-headlights-law