beware intransitive verb: to be on one's guard
transitive verb
1: to take care of
2: to be wary of
Middle English been war, from been to be + war careful — more at BE, WARE
First Known Use: 14th century http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beware

Be wary of opening e-mails with:
no subject line
no message--just a Web site
someone "wants you to do" something or someone "needs your help"'
someone wants personal information or money
scams like Dr. Philip Moor wants to have business partnership with you
forwarded mass messages that may have picked up viruses while being transmitted
Please note that unwanted e-mails are increasing because individual's address lists can be captured and used.

Kudzu, the “plant that ate the South” has met a pest that eats it and is just as voracious. Trouble is, the so-called “kudzu bug” is also fond of another East Asian transplant that is big money for American farmers: soybeans. “When this insect is feeding on kudzu, it’s beneficial,” Clemson University entomologist Jeremy Greene says in a field swarming with the pea-sized critters. “When it’s feeding on soybeans, it’s a pest.” Like kudzu, introduced from Japan in the late 19th century as a fodder and a way to stem erosion on worn-out farmlands, this bug is native to the Far East. Megacopta cribrari, this member of the stinkbug family, was first identified near Atlanta in 2009. It has spread to most of Georgia, the Carolinas and several counties in Alabama. It shows no signs of stopping. Kudzu and soybeans are both legumes. The bug, also known as the bean plataspid, breeds and feeds in the kudzu patches until soybean planting time, then crosses over to continue the moveable feast, says Tracie Jenkins, a plant geneticist at the University of Georgia. http://www.ajc.com/news/kudzu-bug-threat-to-1204401.html

"Disappearing kudzu is a cultural problem," says John Shelton Reed, a sociologist and essayist on Southern life. "But disappearing soybeans is an economic problem." Kudzu is celebrated in James Dickey's poetry, a long-running comic strip by the late Doug Marlette and on the cover of R.E.M.'s "Murmur" album. "In Georgia, the legend says that you must close your windows at night to keep it out of the house," Mr. Dickey writes in "Kudzu." "The glass is tinged with green, even so." Kudzu covers trees and fields from southern Virginia as far west as Arkansas and south to the Florida Panhandle. Researchers have spent 50 years looking for ways to control it. The plant was brought over by the Japanese for an 1876 botanical exhibit but wasn't widely cultivated until the Great Depression, when New Deal-era federal workers planted the vine for erosion control. It quickly enveloped the rural South, growing as much as a foot a day in the steamy summer. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203791904576611721227144948.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Kudzu, a green vine that can grow as fast as a foot a day, is growing in 22 Ohio counties. It was in 15 counties last year, and eight in 2009. See picture of the bounding vine at:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/11/07/voracious-vineslinks-acrossohio.html

Ohio is looking for a few good shepherds. A growing demand for domestic lamb, sheep and wool is fueling an urgent call by the American Sheep Industry Association and the Ohio Sheep Improvement Association for more Ohioans to get into the sheep-herding business, and for existing producers to expand their flocks. The cause is the confluence of the decline in sheep imports from Australia and New Zealand caused by drought and the increase in the number of Americans, particularly immigrants, who consume lamb as a primary protein. Contributing factors include requirements by the U.S. military to purchase only domestic wool for military uniforms, and a move by Kroger and Walmart to sell more domestic lamb in their stores, said Peter Orwick, executive director of the American Sheep Industry Association. Lamb and wool prices are at record highs, and the market for ewes is strong. But there is concern among growers nationwide that the U.S. sheep flock is not large enough to keep up with the demand, he said. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2011/10/27/calling-all-shepherds.html

Every play during an NFL game is filmed from multiple angles in high definition. There are cameras hovering over the field, cameras lashed to the goalposts and cameras pointed at the coaches, who have to cover their mouths to call plays. But for all the footage available, and despite the $4 billion or so the NFL makes every year by selling its broadcast rights, there's some footage the league keeps hidden. For decades, NFL TV broadcasts have relied most heavily on one view: the shot from a sideline camera that follows the progress of the ball. Anyone who wants to analyze the game, however, prefers to see the pulled-back camera angle known as the "All 22." While this shot makes the players look like stick figures, it allows students of the game to see things that are invisible to TV watchers: like what routes the receivers ran, how the defense aligned itself and who made blocks past the line of scrimmage. By distributing this footage only to NFL teams, and rationing it out carefully to its TV partners and on its web site, the NFL has created a paradox. The most-watched sport in the U.S. is also arguably the least understood. "I don't think you can get a full understanding without watching the entirety of the game," says former head coach Bill Parcells. The zoomed-in footage on TV broadcasts, he says, only shows a "fragment" of what happens on the field. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577015903150731054.html

All Hail the Wale
Corduroy's devotees have been celebrating since Nov. 1 due to that date's resemblance — 1/1/11 — to corduroy. Foods that look like the wales in the fabric -- celery and Ruffles potato chips — have been eaten with gusto by members of the secret social Corduroy Appreciation Club while red velvet cake (due to its reference to velvet) has been shunned. See a picture of The wales of Queens artist Jean Barberis, who won the Corduroy Appreciation Club's Best Wearer of Corduroy competition on 11/11/09 and 11/11/10 at:
http://culture.wnyc.org/articles/features/2011/nov/11/all-hail-wale-corduroy-11-11-11/

"The Corduroy Appreciation Club is a social club which wishes to cultivate good fellowship by the advancement of Corduroy awareness, understanding, celebration and commemoration of the fabric and all related items. Club events are held on dates which resemble Corduroy." http://corduroyclub.com/

Blog for Bibliophiles "Paper Cuts Joins With ArtsBeat" ArtsBeat is now the source for The New York Times’s blog dispatches from the world of letters, with contributions from the Sunday Book Review, the culture department and more. Recent posts: Nov. 2, Limericks from Salman Rushdie, Nov. 3, The 2011 Best Illustrated Children’s Books by Pamela Paul http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/category/books/

Honey has been used by humans for centuries, for sweetening foods to making alcoholic beverages and curing ailments. Pharaohs were buried with it, Greeks and Romans revered it for its culinary and medicinal properties. And today it as still as useful in the medicine cabinet, as the kitchen, to treat colds, hayfever and potentially hospital superbugs. But has honey ever been used to bring people together and raise awareness about the plight of the bees whose industriousness transforms nectar from flowers into the "food of the gods"? That is the aim of the Honey Club, which launched on November 10 in London's King's Cross. A collaboration between international brand consultants, Wolff Ollins, and charity, Global Generation, the club will draw its members from local businesses. In return for a membership fee, companies will be able to send employees to bee-themed events as well as receive a few jars of honey from the rooftop hives on Wolff Ollins' office. Surplus honey – and the two hives next to its roof top vegetable garden could produce 80lbs in the summer – will be sold locally and the money reinvested in the social enterprise. See picture of urban rooftop garden at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/nov/11/bees-business-corporate-beehive?newsfeed=true

Nov. 14 birthday Monet, Claude (b. Nov. 14, 1840, Paris, Fr.--d. Dec. 5, 1926, Giverny) French painter, initiator, leader, and unswerving advocate of theImpressioniststyle. He is regarded as the archetypal Impressionist in that his devotion to the ideals of the movement was unwavering throughout his long career, and it is fitting that one of his pictures--Impression: Sunrise (Musée Marmottan, Paris; 1872)--gave the group his name.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/