The Peace dollar is a United States dollar coin minted from 1921 to 1928, and again in 1934 and 1935. Designed by Anthony de Francisci, the coin was the result of a competition to find designs emblematic of peace. Its reverse depicts a Bald Eagle at rest clutching an olive branch, with the legend "Peace". It was the last United States dollar coin to be struck for circulation in silver. With the passage of the Pittman Act in 1918, the United States Mint was required to strike millions of silver dollars, and began to do so in 1921, using the Morgan dollar design. Numismatists began to lobby the Mint to issue a coin that memorialized the peace following World War I; although they failed to get Congress to pass a bill requiring the redesign, they were able to persuade government officials to take action. The Peace dollar was approved by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon in December 1921, completing the redesign of United States coinage that had begun in 1907. The public believed the announced design, which included a broken sword, was illustrative of defeat, and the Mint hastily acted to remove the sword. The Peace dollar was first struck on December 28, 1921; just over a million were coined bearing a 1921 date. When the Pittman Act requirements were met in 1928, the Mint ceased to strike the coins, but more were struck in 1934 and 1935 as a result of other legislation. In 1965, the Mint struck over 300,000 Peace dollars bearing a 1964 date; these were never issued and are believed to have been melted. See images and read statutory history at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_dollar
Anonymity and pseudonymity have a long history. We think of medieval authors laboring anonymously, but even the first age of literary celebrities, the 18th century, was also paradoxically an age of anonymity. Book historian James Raven estimates that "over 80% of all novels published in Britain between 1750 and 1790 were published anonymously. Satirists such as Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope published anonymously, often for legal and political reasons. Anonymity protected Swift from arrest when a reward was offered for the author of his "Drapier's Letters," pamphlets advising the Irish not to take copper half-pence from England. The novels of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Laurence Sterne, Tobias Smollett and Fanny Burney were all anonymous. Journalism too was generally anonymous. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele were "Mr. Spectator" with an initial at the end of each daily Spectator essay providing a clue to the author's identity. Samuel Johnson, the subject of the world's most famous literary biography, is far from unknown to literary history, yet until he was nearly 40, his name only appeared on a handful of his writings. And even after his "Dictionary of the English Language" was published with his name in 1755, he often remained anonymous. Johnson wrote to the printer of "Rasselas," his only long fiction, "I will not print my name, but expect it to be known." Printers and booksellers would be in the know; readers familiar with his style would guess. Read more at: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-1227-folkenflik-anonymous-20111227,0,7045611.story

Quotes
Common Beltway wisdom dictated that in reality, it was not senators, congressmen, or Presidents that controlled Washington--it was lobbyists.
Poetry slams are about poetry from the people, not the eggheads.
Capitol Threat by William Bernhardt, #15 in the Ben Kinkaid series
Former trial attorney Bernhardt has twice won the Oklahoma Book Award for Best Fiction, and in 2000 was presented the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with Marc Smith, and the word was "slam." This was in 1986 and Smith, who had been staging poetry-performance events for a couple of years at the Get Me High Lounge, had just moved to what he hoped might be a permanent home at the Green Mill. It was a simple idea. Smith on stage every Sunday night, playing energetic, almost evangelical host/emcee of an evening he called "a grab-bag variety show which mixes together an open stage, special guests, musical and dramatic acts." At its heart was the slam itself, a competition among poets of varying talent scored by three judges chosen at random from the crowd. Audience members voiced their displeasure with the poetry by finger snapping, foot stomping, groaning, hissing or grunting. The winning poet gets $10. Poetry slams now take place on a regular basis in more than 500 cities in the U.S. and around the world.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-15/entertainment/ct-ae-0717-kogan-sidewalks-20110716_1_kevin-coval-slam-marc-smith

The title of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley comes from The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare quotes through the book come from 13 of his works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_quotes_from_Shakespeare_in_Brave_New_World

A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts. Nuts are a composite of the seed and the fruit, where the fruit does not open to release the seed. Most seeds come from fruits, and the seeds are free of the fruit, unlike nuts such as hazelnuts, hickories, chestnuts and acorns, which have a stony fruit wall and originate from a compound ovary. Culinary usage of the term is less restrictive, and some nuts as defined in food preparation, like pistachios and Brazil nuts, are not nuts in a biological sense. Everyday common usage of the term often refers to any hard-walled, edible kernel as a nut. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_(fruit)

Dehiscence is the opening, at maturity, in a pre-defined way, of a plant structure, such as a fruit, anther, or sporangium, to release its contents. Sometimes this involves the complete detachment of a part. Structures that open in this way are said to be dehiscent. Structures that do not open in this way are called indehiscent, and rely on other mechanisms such as decay or predation to release the contents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indehiscent

Set in 33 acres of beautiful woodland with some stunning views of the surrounding countryside, Dartmoor Zoological Park is a unique, family owned zoo with a fantastic collection of animals and the widest variety of big cats in the south west of England. Formerly known as Dartmoor Wildlife Park, the zoo was purchased by the Mee family and, following major refurbishment work, reopened in July 2007. Dartmoor Zoological Park was depicted as Rosemoor Animal Park in the 2011 movie, We Bought A Zoo. http://www.dartmoorzoo.org/
The Dartmoor Zoo story: http://www.dartmoorzoo.org/your-visit/the-dzp-story.html

Events of January 5
1066 – Edward the Confessor dies childless, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.
1781 – American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia, is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.
1846 – The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom.
1914 – The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.
1925 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female governor in the United States.
1933 – Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.
1940 – FM radio is demonstrated to the Federal Communications Commission for the first time.
1957 – In a speech given to the United States Congress, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces the establishment of what will later be called the Eisenhower Doctrine.
1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program.
1974 – Warmest reliably measured temperature in Antarctica of +59°F (+15°C) recorded at Vanda Station
1976 – The Khmer Rouge proclaim the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_5