derivative  early 15c. (adj.); mid-15c. (n.), from M.Fr. dérivatif (15c.), from L.L. derivativus, from pp. stem of L. derivare (see derive).  Mathematical sense is from 1670s. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=derivative 

A derivative instrument is a contract between two parties that specifies conditions (especially the dates, resulting values of the underlying variables, and notional amounts) under which payments are to be made between the parties.  Under US law and the laws of most other developed countries, derivatives have special legal exemptions that make them a particularly attractive legal form to extend credit.  However, the strong creditor protections afforded to derivatives counterparties, in combination with their complexity and lack of transparency, can cause capital markets to underprice credit risk.  This can contribute to credit booms, and increase systemic risks.  Indeed, the use of derivatives to mask credit risk from third parties while protecting derivative counterparties contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 in the United States.    Financial reforms within the US since the financial crisis have served only to reinforce special protections for derivatives, including greater access to government guarantees, while minimizing disclosure to broader financial markets.  One of the oldest derivatives is rice futures, which have been traded on the Dojima Rice Exchange since the eighteenth century.  Derivatives are broadly categorized by the relationship between the underlying asset and the derivative (such as forward, option, swap); the type of underlying asset (such as equity derivatives, foreign exchange derivatives, interest rate derivatives, commodity derivatives, or credit derivatives); the market in which they trade (such as exchange-traded or over-the-counter); and their pay-off profile.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) (often called "the Chicago Merc," or "the Merc") is an American financial and commodity derivative exchange based in Chicago and located at 20 S. Wacker Drive.  The CME was founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, an agricultural commodities exchange.  Originally, the exchange was a non-profit organization. The Merc demutualized in November 2000, went public in December 2002, and merged with the Chicago Board of Trade in July 2007 to become a designated contract market of the CME Group Inc., which operates both markets.  On August 18, 2008, shareholders approved a merger with the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and COMEX. The Merc, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX are now markets owned by the CME Group.  Today, the Merc trades several types of financial instruments: interest rates, equities, currencies, and commodities.  It also offers trading in alternative investments, such as weather and real estate derivatives, and has the largest options and futures contracts open interest (number of contracts outstanding) of any futures exchange in the world.  As a Designated Self-Regulatory Organization (DSRO), the CME had primary regulatory-audit authority over firms such as MF Global.  CME also pioneered the CME SPAN software that is used around the world as the official performance bond (margin) mechanism of 50 registered exchanges, clearing organizations, service bureaus and regulatory agencies throughout the world.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)

monish  (MON-ish)  verb tr:  To warn; to admonish. 

From Old French amonester (to warn, to urge), from Latin monere (to warn).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root men- (to think) which is the source of mind, mnemonic, mosaic, music, mentor, money, mandarin, and Sanskrit mantra.  Earliest documented use:  before 1382. 

suasion  (SWAY-zhuhn)  noun:  The act of urging: persuasion.  (Often used in the phrase 'moral suasion')  From Latin suadere (to advise).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root swad- (sweet, pleasant), which also gave us sweet, suave, hedonism, persuade, and Hindi swad (taste).  Earliest documented use:  1374.

versal  (VUHR-suhl)  adjective:  Universal; whole.

Shortening of universal, from Latin universum (universe).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root wer- (to turn or bend), also the source of wring, weird, writhe, worth, revert, universe, verso, versicolor, and animadvert.  Earliest documented use:  1590s, in Romeo & Juliet.

complice  (KOM-plis)  noun:  An associate; accomplice.

Via French from Latin com- (with) + plicare (to fold).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root plek- (to plait), which is also the source of plait, pleat, pliant, ply, apply, deploy, display, exploit, replicate, and perplex.  Earliest documented use:  1475.

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg 

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day

From:  Liz Juniper  Subject:  Back-formations

Gen Y (and younger) are fond of using the back-formation "verse" as in "Who is our team versing this week?"  (in sport) -- back-formation of "versus". It hurts my ears... but I suppose I have to get used to it.

From:  Monroe Thomas Clewis  Subject:  Way back

In the "Is there no limit?" category, "back-formation" has its own back-formation, "back-form" which brings to mind this nursery rhyme: 

Big fleas have little fleas, Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, And so, ad infinitum.  (The Siphonaptera)

From:  Jan Manyfeathers  Subject:  back-formation
Our local radio station has just announced that parents must registrate their kids for summer sports camp by the end of the week.  I bet a week does not go by that I don't hear someone saying they want to just conversate with so-and-so, and the other word that gets so much abuse around here, funeralize.  "When they gonna funeralize him?"  "He gone be funeralized Friday." We call it word morphing here.  

By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. S.C. held the Affordable Care Act's  mandate requiring Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty valid under Congress's constitutional authority to levy taxes.  The financial penalty for failing to carry insurance possesses "the essential feature of any tax," producing revenue for the government, Chief Justice Roberts wrote.  The ruling means that the law's reordering of the $2.7 trillion health industry will move forward mostly as planned, with implications affecting every hospital, doctor, health insurer and drug maker in the nation.  About 30 million more Americans are expected to gain coverage, although the Medicaid change could lower that.  Companies said they were relieved to have a greater degree of certainty about what's in store, and some welcomed the influx of new customers the insurance mandate will provide.  Others pointed to concerns, including the complexity of the law and the remaining questions about Medicaid.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304898704577480371370927862.html

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act shifts the focus from whether sweeping changes to the health insurance market should take place to a scramble to meet the law’s rapidly approaching deadlines.  A number of largely Republican-led states that gambled on delay now face the unsettling prospect that the federal government could take over their responsibilities, particularly in setting up the health insurance marketplaces known as exchanges, where people will be able to choose among policies for their coverage.  Under the law, which the court upheld in its entirety by a 5-to-4 vote, individuals must be able to buy insurance coverage through the new state exchanges by Jan. 1, 2014.  But a more immediate deadline is less than six months away, on Jan. 1, 2013, when states must demonstrate to the Department of Health and Human Services that the exchanges will be operational the next year.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/us/states-face-a-challenge-to-hit-laws-deadlines.html?_r=1&hp 

Broccoli is mentioned 12 times in the June 28 health care decision of the U.S.S.C.  See all mentions at:  http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/06/28/is-broccoli-overexposed/

“Medicine for the soul.”- Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes.

“Without librarians, I wouldn’t be a writer today,” said Brad Meltzer, best-selling author and honorary chairman of National Library Week 2012.  (Meltzer is author of “The Book of Fate,” “The Inner Circle” and “Heroes For My Son,” and the host of Brad Meltzer’s “Decoded” on the History Channel.)  http://lincolnnewsmessenger.com/detail/205037.html

On March 15, 2012, updates to the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) went into effect.  The new standards—known as the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design—focus specifically on creating wayfinding signage for the visually impaired.  The good news is that libraries are already doing well in compliance from a technology standpoint, providing visually impaired patrons with text-manipulation software and closed-circuit televisions to enlarge print.  The better news is that these new standards offer more guidance in making traditional wayfinding signage more patron-friendly.  Fatima Kukaswadia is one of those who will benefit from the standards.  A senior business and economics major at North Park University in Chicago, Kukaswadia is legally blind.  Signs that normally help patrons navigate through the stacks are not as simple for Kukaswadia, who has a rare genetic disease known as achromatopsia.  The vision disorder prevents her from driving, seeing in color, and reading the whiteboard in her classes.  Kukaswadia told American Libraries that reading signs with glare is difficult.  “I also have difficulty tolerating bright light and am forced to close my eyes when there is too much of it,” she said.  The new ADA standards will help Kukaswadia, because they require a non-glare finish on all signage and recommend a 70% contrast between the sign background and lettering.  To meet the 70% guideline, the ADA provides a formula that uses light reflectance values to determine contrast.  The formula was published in the 2002 amendment to the 1991 standards (Appendix, 4.30.5).  The new ADA standards include several differences from the 1990 rules, which became enforceable in 1992.  Perhaps the most noticeable change is the recognition that signage created for the visually impaired needs to accommodate those who read by sight, those who read Braille, and those who read raised characters—particularly because only an estimated 10% of all people who are blind read Braille.  Liz Humrickhouse   Read more at:  http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/04252012/new-ada-signage-standards-take-effect

Affixes:  -archy and -arch

Words in -archy are abstract nouns for types of government, leadership, or social influence or organization.  They correspond to nouns in -arch for a person or people who rule or command in that way.  For example, a monarch (Greek monos, alone or single) is a sovereign head of state, in a type of government called monarchy.  Find examples including anarchy and synarchy at:  http://www.affixes.org/a/-archy.html  Find examples including diarchy and tetrarchy using -archy, -ism and more at:  http://www.faqs.org/ologies-isms/Fir-Gra/Government.html

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum has opened its Library and Archives to the public, granting scholars and fans alike access to over 200 archival collections, including the personal papers of performers, radio disc jockeys, photographers, journalists, critics, historians, poster artists, collectors, fans, and fan clubs.  The strength of the Rock Hall’s archival collections currently lies in hundreds of boxes of music business records from record executives, artist managers, labels, historic venues, recording studios, specialists in stage design and lighting, and long-running concert tours.  The collections also contain important individual items, such as personal letters penned by Aretha Franklin and Madonna; handwritten working lyrics by Jimi Hendrix and LL Cool J; and rare concert recordings from CBGB in the 1970s.  The Library and Archives also houses a growing library collection that includes thousands of books, sound recordings, and video recordings.  The state-of-the-art facility is housed in a new four-story, $12 million building located on the Metro Campus of Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, approximately two miles from the Museum.  See picture plus links to catalog, location, parking and more at:  http://rockhall.com/library/

Q:  What do senators and congressmen earn?
A: Senators and representatives earn $174,000 a year.  The House speaker earns $223,500 and party leaders earn $193,400.  Members are covered by the same retirement plans as other federal employees, the Civil Service Retirement System for those whose service began before 1984, and the Federal Employees Retirement System for those whose service began in 1984 or later.  There are differences in age eligibility, years required, and contributions.  Members elected after 1984 also participate in Social Security.  As of October 2007, the average annual pension was $63,696 under the pre-1984 plan and $36,372 under the post-1984 plan. -- Library of Congress.
Q:  What is hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia?
A:  Ironically, it's the fear of long words. -- dictionary.com. 

http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2012/Jun/JU/ar_JU_061812.asp?d=061812,2012,Jun,18&c=c_13

Dan Leno (1860-1904), born George Wild Galvin, was a leading English music hall comedian and musical theatre actor during the late Victorian era.  He was perhaps best known, aside from his music hall act, for his dame roles in the annual pantomimes that were popular at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane from 1888 to 1904.  Leno was born in St Pancras, London, and began to entertain as a child.  In 1864, he joined his parents on stage in their music hall act, and he made his first solo appearance, aged nine, at the Britannia Music Hall in Coventry.  As a youth, he was famous for his clog dancing, and in his teen years, he became the star of his family's act.  He adopted the stage name Dan Leno and, in 1884, made his first performance under that name in London.  As a solo artist, he became increasingly popular during the late 1880s and 1890s, when he was one of the highest-paid comedians in the world.  He developed a music hall act of talking about life's mundane subjects, mixed with comic songs and surreal observations, and created a host of mostly working-class characters to illustrate his stories. In 1901, still at the peak of his career, he performed his "Huntsman" sketch for Edward VII at Sandringham.  The monarch was so impressed that Leno became publicly known as "the king's jester".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Leno

He is an artist.  He is 97.  His Toledo apartment displays his works in every room from floor to ceiling.  On June 27, he showed me his works including a painting he finished the day before.  He is Jim Brower.  He is a consistent exhibitor in state, regional and national shows and has achieved signature membership in the Ohio, Kentucky and Georgia watercolor societies, as well as the National Watercolor Society and the Transparent Watercolor Society of America.  He is an honorary life member of the Ohio Watercolor Society.  Jim is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World.  The listings honor his many years in advertising art and his accomplishments as a fine artist.  His more than seventy watercolor painting awards have included the Watercolor Ohio ’84 Gold medal, the 1990 Georgia Watercolor Society Gold Medal, and awards in the San Diego International, National Watercolor Society and Oklahoma Watercolor Society exhibitions.  Jim has served as president of the Northwestern Ohio Watercolor Society and of the Toledo Federation of Art Societies.  He served on the board of the Ohio Watercolor Society from 1986 to 1992.  http://lakecurrents.com/release-room/20100708/mood-and-mode-art-jim-brower-view-now-through-august-31-main-library

The acronym SERP often means Search Engine Results Page or Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (nontax-qualified).  See about two dozen definitions at:  http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/SERP

Sculpture:  Eos in Columbus, Indiana 

Created by artist Dessa Kirk.  In Greek mythology the winged Eos was the goddess of the dawn, and rose from her home at the edge of Oceanus, the Ocean, dispersed the mists of the night and opened the gates of heaven every day so her brother, Helios, the sun, could ride his chariot across the sky.  Generally depicted as a supernaturally beautiful woman, her tears were considered to be the morning dew.  Eos is one of the second generation of gods and goddesses in Greek mythology called the Titans.  See more than 40 pieces of public art at:  http://www.columbus.in.us/listings/index.cfm?action=showSub&catID=336&subcatID=2929   

Housing shortage in Columbus, Indiana

Cummins Inc. http://www.cummins.com/cmi/ is bussing in college interns, mostly engineering students, from Indianapolis, Bloomington and Greenwood and also asking Columbus-area homeowners if they want to rent rooms to its interns.  A large apartment and parking structure is currently being built downtown to meet housing demands. 

Although the federal government has increased protection for passengers in the last two years, the legal fine print in airlines' contracts of carriage really spells out the agreement you've got with the carrier when you buy a ticket.  In a nutshell:  The airlines promise to get you from one place to another — but they don't guarantee they'll do so on time.  Many people taking to the skies this summer for vacations don't even know that contracts of carriage exist.  Although located on each airline's website, they're not always prominently displayed.  On Delta Air Lines' website, for instance, you have to scroll down to the bottom of the home page and click on the link for "Legal."  If travelers do find the contracts, they typically don't have the patience to go through pages and pages of legalese, or find that it's too often skewed against them.  "They're written by airline lawyers for airlines," says Robert Mann, founder of airline consulting firm R.W. Mann & Co.  The Transportation Department has tipped the scales back toward consumers by ruling: 

•Airlines can no longer let domestic flights linger on airport tarmacs for longer than three hours or international flights for longer than four hours.  If passengers are stuck on tarmacs for more than two hours, airlines have to give them food and water and access to bathrooms.

•Airlines are required to refund baggage fees if the bag is lost.

•Advertised airfares must include all government taxes and other fees once hidden behind asterisks or in footnotes. All baggage fees must also be included when you book and pay for a ticket online.

•Customers can change their reservations without having to pay re-booking fees within 24 hours of making them.

•Previously, if a flight was oversold and you were involuntarily kept off the plane, you'd get up to twice the value of the one-way price of the ticket, up to $800.  Now you can get as much as four times the value, or $1,300.  "We've never had the (Transportation Department) taking on the carriers for consumer protection as they did the last year," says Alexander Anolik, a San Francisco-based travel lawyer.  But are the new protections enough?  Consumer complaints against U.S. airlines are on the rise.  In April of this year, there were 865 complaints filed with the Transportation Department against U.S. airlines, up from 745 in April 2011.  "I think the one clause in most contracts that consumers should take to heart is the one that reads, basically, 'schedules are not guaranteed,' " says George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog.com. "Airlines can change flight times, cancel flights, eliminate routes at will, and there's nothing the consumer can do other than, in some cases, ask for a refund of the fare paid."  "In the U.S., it is effectively a free-for-all," says Andrew Thomas, author of Soft Landing: Airline Industry Strategy, Service and Safety.  "Passengers are at the mercy of the carrier.  The airlines have blocked any substantial attempt by the government to make it similar to the EU."  That wasn't always the case.  Before 1978, when U.S. airlines were regulated by the government, there was a "Rule 240" that required carriers to put a passenger on another flight or another airline if they were to blame for a delayed or canceled flight.  http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2012-06-25/Airline-contracts-limit-what-passengers-should-expect/55815466/1   

June 26, 2012  Microsoft paid $1.2 billion to acquire Yammer, an enterprise social network company.  Yammer's got a lot of users -- and Microsoft plans to use that base to make the Office suite more useful.  If you've never heard of Yammer, Microsoft's new billion-dollar darling, you're not out of the loop; it just means you don't keep up with corporate social networks.  Think of a network like Facebook, complete with sharing and news posting capabilities, but limited to employees of a single organization.  That's Yammer.  It's designed to let users within organizations communicate and collaborate on projects -- and on June 25 Microsoft paid $1.2 billion to acquire the company.  To be fair, Yammer brings quite a bit to the table.  Founded in 2008 by former Paypal COO David Sacks, it boasts a customer base of more than 200,000 companies, which translates into about 5 million users.  It's matured since its early days as a microblogging service, and now boasts file and photo sharing, mobile clients, public and private groups within a network, and solid security.  Back in 2010 Sacks said that 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies were using Yammer for collaboration.  Jeff Ward-Bailey  http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2012/0626/Yammer-Microsoft-s-billion-dollar-social-bid 

The National Geographic Channel is preparing to collect your tweets, then broadcast them into space via the world-famous Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico this August.  The channel is producing a show about the so-called Wow signal, a 72-second transmission from space received in 1977.  The extremely unusual frequency of the signal is why it’s still one of the high points of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.  It’s also why the astronomer who picked it up wrote “wow!” in the margins of his printout.  To mark the 35th anniversary of the signal — and heavily promote its show UFO Chasers — the channel is asking you to tweet on July 29 with the hashtag #ufochasers.  The resulting tweets will be sent via Arecibo on August 15.

http://mashable.com/2012/06/26/et-rt/

The tower housing Big Ben, the backdrop to millions of tourist photos every year, is poised for a right royal re-brand.  On June 25, lawmakers passed a motion officially renaming the London landmark  the “Elizabeth Tower” in honor of Her Majesty’s 60th year on the throne.  More than half of Parliament’s 650 MPs supported the proposal.  “The renaming of the Clock Tower to the Elizabeth Tower is a fitting recognition of the Queen’s 60 years of service,” Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement.  “This is an exceptional tribute to an exceptional Monarch.”  Politicians know full well that tourists and London residents alike will still call the 96-meter (315-foot) tower “Big Ben.”  But they won’t be far off the mark.  “Big Ben” technically refers to the massive bell perched on top of the tower, which itself is officially known as the “Clock Tower.”  The name “Elizabeth Tower” only affects the latter designation.  The name change mirrors a tribute made to Queen Victoria—the only other monarch to ever celebrate a Diamond Jubilee.  In the 19th century, officials at the Houses of Parliament renamed the King’s Tower, which is situated at the southwest end of the complex, the Victoria Tower.  http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/27/big-ben-to-become-the-elizabeth-tower-in-honor-of-the-queen/

'Usonian' is a term usually referring to a group of approximately sixty middle-income family homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright beginning in 1936 with the Jacobs House.  The "Usonian Homes" were typically small, single-story dwellings without a garage or much storage, L-shaped to fit around a garden terrace on odd (and cheap) lots, with native materials, flat roofs and large cantilevered overhangs for passive solar heating and natural cooling, natural lighting with clerestory windows, and radiant-floor heating.  A strong visual connection between the interior and exterior spaces is an important characteristic of all Usonian homes.  The word carport was coined by Wright to describe an overhang for a vehicle to park under.  Variants of the Jacobs House design are still in existence today and do not look overly dated.  The Usonian design is considered among the aesthetic origins of the popular "ranch" tract home popular in the American west of the 1950s.  The word Usonian appears to have been coined by James Duff Law, an American writer born in 1865.  In a miscellaneous collection titled Here and There in Two Hemispheres (1903), Law quoted a letter of his own (dated 18 June 1903) that begins "We of the United States, in justice to Canadians and Mexicans, have no right to use the title 'Americans' when referring to matters pertaining exclusively to ourselves."  He went on to acknowledge that some author had proposed "Usona", but that he preferred "Usonia."  Perhaps the earliest published use by Wright was in 1927:  But why this term "America" has become representative as the name of these United States at home and abroad is past recall.  Samuel Butler fitted us with a good name.  He called us Usonians, and our Nation of combined States, Usonia.  –Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture: Selected Writings 1894–1940, p. 100.

The word is clearly cognate with the Esperanto name for the United States, Usono.  The creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, used this name in his speech at the 1910 World Congress of Esperanto in Washington, D.C., coincidentally the same year Wright was in Europe.  However, the Esperanto online dictionary Reta Vortaro attributes the word to Wright.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usonia   

Supreme Court opinions

ARIZONA ET AL. v. UNITED STATES

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 11–182.  Argued April 25, 2012—Decided June 25, 2012
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-182b5e1.pdf

MILLER v. ALABAMA

CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF ALABAMA
No. 10–9646.  Argued March 20, 2012—Decided June 25, 2012*
 *Together with No. 10–9647, Jackson v. Hobbs, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction, on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Arkan­sas.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-9646g2i8.pdf   

The U.S. Supreme Court didn’t rule on President Barack Obama’s health-care law on June 25, pushing the decision to June 28, when the justices plan to complete their nine-month term.  The health-care ruling will determine the fate of Obama’s signature domestic achievement and promises to be one of the court’s most significant decisions in decades.  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the biggest overhaul of the U.S. health-care system since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, is designed to extend coverage to at least 30 million uninsured Americans and would reshape an industry that makes up about 18 percent of the economy.  http://www.boston.com/news/nation/2012/06/25/supreme-court-set-issue-health-care-decision-june/OpeEX0Zr1FKhUbAAaT2AoJ/story.html   

U.S. Supreme Court on June 25 ruled against a century-old law in Montana that set limits on business spending for political campaigns in the state.  By a 5-4 vote, the country's highest court ruled for three corporations - the American Tradition Partnership Inc political advocacy group, a nonprofit group that promotes shooting sports, and a small family-owned painting business - all of which challenged the law as violating their free-speech rights.  The ruling effectively applies to state and local elections and said there was "no serious doubt" the Montana law was covered by same legal reasoning as the U.S. Supreme Court's January 2010 ruling in the federal campaign finance case known as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. 

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/06_-_June/Supreme_Court_rejects_Montana_campaign_money_limits/

Thursday June 28 will be the last day of the Term. We expect to the Court to issue an opinion in the health care cases that day.  We will begin live blogging at 9:00 EDT.  We will Live Blog at an internet address that has its own dedicated server.  The goal is to minimize the chance the site crashes.  You can come to scotusblog.com to be redirected to the new liveblog address.  But you will avoid delays by going to the new address directly.  It is scotusblog.wpengine.com.  See opinions from October 2011-June 2012 at:  http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/terms/ot2011/

AUTHENTIC MUSICAL WASHBOARD USIC VENDORS AND PERCUSSION INSTRUMENT BUYERS. "We have the perfect percussion instrument for you"

The Columbus Washboard Company has been making washboards since 1895 and is the only manufacturer still operating in the United States of America today.  This site features our products, our traditional construction methods and history, washboard uses and our Annual Washboard Music Festival on Father's Day Weekend in downtown Logan, Ohio.  http://www.columbuswashboard.com/

AARP was initially started as a means to sell insurance to senior citizens.  Leonard Davis, an insurance salesman, put in $50,000 to establish AARP so he could expand his customer base from the NRTA.  To help insurance sales, members were not required to be retired (as in the NRTA).  Colonial Penn Insurance was started for the sole purpose of selling insurance through AARP.  Until a "60 minutes" expose, they were the most profitable insurance company for senior citizens.  They were replaced by Prudential after the scandal.  In the 1980s, businessman Leonard Davis was the man behind AARP.  The image that was projected was that of an advocacy group, but it was found that the sole purpose was to sell insurance to this target group.  In the 1990s, AARP was investigated by Congress over its tax-exempt status.  There was not enough evidence to change the status.  AARP is a 502(c)(4) corporation.  Donations are not tax-exempt, since the group lobbies the government.  http://www.ehow.com/facts_4879795_history-aarp.html

The Harvard Five was a group of architects that settled in New Canaan, Connecticut in the 1940s:  John M. Johansen, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, Philip Johnson and Eliot Noyes.  Marcel Breuer was an instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, while Gores, Johansen, Johnson and Noyes were students there.  They were all influenced by Walter Gropius, a leader in the Bauhaus movement and the head of the architecture program at Harvard.    The small town of New Canaan is nationally recognized for its many examples of modern architecture.  Approximately 100 modern homes were built in town, including Johnson's Glass House and the Landis Gores House, and about 20 have been torn down.  Four are now listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places:  the Landis Gores House, the Richard and Geraldine Hodgson House, the Philip Johnson Glass House, and the Noyes House.   http://www.enotes.com/topic/Harvard_Five 

Odds bodkins  (God's body)

The phrase sounds entirely suited to Tudor yokels and is a stock in trade of any author wishing for a shortcut to convey a sense of 'Olde Engylande'.   A bodkin is a small tool for piecing holes in leather etc.  This term borrows the early bodikin version of that word, not for its meaning but just because of the alliteration with body, to make a euphemistic version of the oath God's body.  This would otherwise have been unacceptable to a pious audience.  That is, odds bodkins is a minced oath.

Shakespeare ignored the impropriety in Henry IV Part II, 1597:
First Carrier:  God's body! the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved. 
Perhaps he was rebuked for that.  In any event by 1600, when he wrote Hamlet, he had gone halfway towards the euphemistic version:
POLONIUS:  My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET:  God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
The first to use 'odds bodkins' in something approaching the current spelling was Henry Fielding, in Don Quixote in England, 1734:  "Odsbodlikins... you have a strange sort of a taste."
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/262450.html

Pronunciation of Ohio places

Bellefontaine (behl FOWN tuhn)

Conneaut (KAHN ee awt)

Geauga (Gee AW gah) or (JAW gah)

Gnadenhutten (ji NAY dun huh tehn)

Gratiot (GRAY shot)

Versailles (ver SALES)

Wooster (WUSS tur)  See others at:  http://scrippsjschool.org/pronunciation/#V

Q:   Do we run the U.S. military cemeteries on foreign soil?  Where are they?
A:  Yes.  They are U.S. soil forever.  The American Battle Monuments Commission maintains 24 cemeteries overseas.  They contain 30,921 American dead from World War I, 93,238 dead from World War II, and 750 dead from the Mexican War.   There are 11 cemeteries in France, three in Belgium, two each in Great Britain and Italy, and one each in Luxembourg, the Philippines, the Netherlands, and Tunisia.  Also, there are 6,177 American veterans and others interred in American cemeteries in Mexico City, and Corozal, Panama.  The largest of the 24, with 17,202 dead, is the Manila American Cemetery.  The smallest, with 368 dead, is the Flanders Field American Cemetery in Waregem, Belgium.  The cemeteries were given free of charge or taxation.  Burial is limited by international agreements to members of the U.S. armed forces who died overseas during war, and to American civilians, Red Cross workers, and entertainers serving with the military.  Unlike national cemeteries domestically, all American cemeteries overseas are closed to new burials, except for the remains of those lost during the world wars that may be found on battlefields.   All dead found since 1945 have been returned home. -- American Battle Monuments Commission. 
Q:  So, why were the remains of some war dead brought home and others interred overseas?
A:  Following the two world wars, the Department of War asked next-of-kin of those buried overseas whether they wanted remains returned home to a national or private cemetery, or buried in an American cemetery in the region where the death occurred.  Overseas interments are permanent.  Remains are not repatriated. -- American Battle Monuments Commission.
Q:  What's the record rainfall for a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone?
A:  Over 10 days in January 1980, Cyclone Hyacinthe dumped 223.5 inches of rain, or more than 18.6 feet, on Reunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean off Madagascar. -- Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.  http://www.thecourier.com/Issues/2012/May/21/ar_news_052112_story4.asp?d=052112_story4,2012,May,21&c=n

Most everyone is familiar with the enigmatic stone heads of Easter Island, the massive carved rocks that sit on stone platforms on the coast and lie scattered across the landscape.  The heads, called moai, and a small native population are virtually all that is left of the Polynesian civilization that once flourished on the island.  The once-lush forests that covered the 63-square-mile island, known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui, have all been lost and the fertile soil that once supported a vital farming community has been blown away by tradewinds.  Something else has been left behind:  two great mysteries.  How did the islanders manage to transfer the massive heads, some weighing as much as 80 tons, from the quarries to the shore, and what happened to the forests?  This month's National Geographic magazine examines the two competing theories for each of those questions.  UCLA anthropologist Jared Diamond famously detailed what the called the "ecocide" of Rapa Nui in his 2005 book "Collapse."  When Polynesians first settled the island about AD 800, they had the misfortune to select one that was dry, cool and remote -- and thus poorly fertilized by windblown dust or volcanic ash.  They chopped down forests to provide wood for construction and for moving the moai, and the trees didn't return.  The denuded landscape allowed winds to blow off the topsoil, and fertility fell sharply.  When the natives no longer had wood for building fishing canoes, they killed and ate all the birds.  Before the Dutch arrived at the island on Easter Sunday in 1722, the population had descended into cannibalism and barbarity.  Diamond called it "the clearest example of a society that destroyed itself by over-exploiting its own resources."  But archaeologists Carl Lipo of Cal State Long Beach and Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii have a different take on the events based on more recent research.  They agree that the island was an ecological disaster, but argue that the inhabitants share a smaller portion of the blame.  Their research indicates that the Polynesian settlers did not arrive at Rapa Nui until about AD 1200, which would not leave nearly enough time to devastate the forests solely by slashing and burning.  Unfortunately, the settlers brought Polynesian rats with them.  The first inhabitants dined on the rats, but the animals had no other natural predators and overran the island.  Buried nuts from the extinct Easter Island palms show distinctive teethmarks from the rats.  They probably also ate birds' eggs.  With the rats eating the palm nuts, the trees could not be reseeded naturally, Lipo and Hunt argue in their recent book, "The Statues That Walked," and the forests disappeared.  Thomas H. Maugh II  http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-stoneheads-easter-island-20120620,0,6247582.story?track=rss

A Founding Father, a federal bailout and the press were at the center of the only documented congressional insider trading case in U.S. history.  It was 1789, and state-backed revolutionary war bonds had become virtually worthless. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton moved in to shore up the investments.  Before word spread, members of Congress secretly scooped up thousands of the bonds from unsuspecting farmers and war veterans, paying pennies on the dollar.  What followed set the stage for how Congress would respond to public outrage over such conflicts of interest for the next 200 years.  In response to the scandal, lawmakers prohibited Hamilton and future Treasury secretaries from buying or selling government bonds while in office.  But members of Congress did not extend the ban to themselves, a pattern that persists to this day.   In its ethics rules, Congress presents a twofold argument for why it creates different rules for itself than it does for federal judges and the executive branch officials.  First, Congress views itself as a “citizen legislature.”  As such, lawmakers think their investment portfolios should mirror those of their constituents:  The farm belt is best represented by farmers, who should serve on agriculture committees.  Oil-rich states are best represented by oilmen, who should serve on energy committees.  The second argument for the disparate rules is that members of Congress are elected officials, while other federal workers are not.  If voters think a lawmaker is too deeply conflicted, they can vote him or her out of office.  Read more at:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congressional-rules-on-trading-had-their-start-in-1789/2012/06/23/gJQA1OvVyV_story.html