“Hemming and hawing” first appeared in the late 18th century (“I hemmed and hawed … but the Queen stopped reading,” 1786), but other forms (“hem and hawk,” “hum and haw,” etc.) are a few centuries older, and the “hem” and the “haw” are both considerably older than the whole phrase.  The basic meaning of “hem,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), is “an interjectional utterance like a slight half cough, used to attract attention, give warning, or express doubt or hesitation.” If this sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it is the same sound depicted by the interjection “ahem,” the difference being that “ahem” is an actual word used to attract attention to the speaker, rather than producing the sound “hem” itself.  The verb “to hem,” meaning to make the noise, dates to the 15th century, and is “echoic” in origin, being an imitation of the sound itself.  “Hem” is also closely related to “hum,” also echoic.  “Haw,” which dates back to the 1600s, is another case of a word imitating a sound, in this case “as an expression of hesitation” (OED).  There are fashions in such things, and today we are more likely to say “uh,” “huh,” or “um” when faced with a sudden decision, but the feeling is the same.  So, put together, “hem and haw” vividly describes that moment when our mouth stalls for time while our mind attempts to assess the ramifications of our possible answers, the mental “looking” before the verbal “leaping.”  http://www.word-detective.com/2008/10/hem-and-haw/   

Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire that is notable for its long association with the British royal family and for its architecture.  The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror.  Since the time of Henry I, it has been used by a succession of monarchs and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe.  The castle's lavish, early 19th-century State Apartments are architecturally significant, described by art historian Hugh Roberts as "a superb and unrivalled sequence of rooms widely regarded as the finest and most complete expression of later Georgian taste".  The castle includes the 15th-century St George's Chapel, considered by historian John Robinson to be "one of the supreme achievements of English Perpendicular Gothic" design.  More than five hundred people live and work in Windsor Castle.  See picture at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Castle   

When Glenn D. Lowry arrived 17 years ago as director of the Museum of Modern Art, he and the curator Kirk Varnedoe sat down and wrote out a list of the 10 works they most wanted.  “Canyon,” a landmark of 20th-century art by Robert Rauschenberg, was at the top, Mr. Lowry recalled.  Now that wish has come true.  “Canyon” goes on display Nov. 28 at the Modern after being captured in a contest with its uptown sister, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it had resided on and off since 2005.  Its owners agreed to donate the work as part of a $41 million settlement with the Internal Revenue Service.  The Museum of Modern Art and the Met have never been direct competitors because their missions are different; one focuses on certain periods while the other is an encyclopedic institution.  In recent years, though, the Met has worked to bolster its traditionally weaker contemporary and modern art holdings, including a plan to lease the Whitney Museum’s Breuer building.  If the Met had won, the new space would perhaps have been the showcase for “Canyon,” an audacious combination of personal photographs, cardboard, wood, fabric, paint, string, a pillow and a stuffed bald eagle on canvas that helped redraw the bounds of postwar art.  That stuffed bird is ultimately the reason “Canyon” is being donated at all.  The presence of a bald eagle — a bird protected by federal laws — means that the work cannot be legally sold or traded.   Like all bald eagles, alive or dead, the one in “Canyon” is covered by two laws, the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act.  Because of these statutes, it is a crime not only to buy, sell or barter a bald eagle, but also to possess one.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/arts/design/moma-gains-treasure-that-metropolitan-museum-of-art-also-coveted.html?hp&_r=0

One government demands action by a company, while another government forbids it.  This uncomfortable situation, a familiar one to international lawyers, could soon hit U.S. airlines, although efforts are under way to avert a showdown.  Europe’s Directive 2008/101/EC requires all airlines, including those based in the U.S., to participate in Europe’s greenhouse-gas trading system, meaning they need to get allowances for carbon dioxide emitted during their flights.  But if U.S. airlines follow that directive, they may run afoul of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act, which President Barack Obama has signed.  The U.S. law authorizes the secretary of Transportation to prohibit those who operate aircraft in the U.S. from participating in the European program.  Airlines would need some skilled legal advice if the conflict reaches the breaking point, but diplomats may yet be able to execute an evasive maneuver.  Europe this month postponed its rules for a year, and a U.N. body is looking for an emissions program that airlines around the world could agree to.  For all its eagerness to reduce the emissions blamed for global warming, Europe isn’t likely to rush ahead with a program that threatens to ground trans-Atlantic flights.  http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/11/27/u-s-airlines-face-legal-pickle/ 

Irish actor Liam Neeson was chosen to play Abraham Lincoln in the film based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  In preparation for the role, Neeson visited Washington, D.C., Springfield, Illinois where Lincoln lived prior to being elected, and read Lincoln's personal letters.  Neeson eventually declined the role, claiming he was "past his sell date" and had grown too old to play Lincoln.  In November 2010, it was announced that Daniel Day-Lewis, an actor with both British and Irish citizenship, would play Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln.  The film began shooting in Richmond, Virginia in October 2011.  Day-Lewis spent a year in preparation for the role, a time he asked from Spielberg.  Day-Lewis read over 100 books on Lincoln, and long worked with the film's makeup artist to achieve a physical likeness to Lincoln.   Wikipedia 

Doris Kearns Goodwin (born Doris Helen Kearns; January 4, 1943) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American biographer, historian, and an oft-seen political commentator.  She is the author of biographies of several U.S. Presidents, including Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream; The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga; No Ordinary Time:  Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995); and her most recent book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin

Nov. 28, 2012  Google’s imprint on daily life is hard to ignore in Europe, where it reportedly has 93 percent of the Internet search market, more than in the United States.  Yet when it comes to its lobbying of lawmakers, Google prefers a low profile.  That all changed this week when Google fired a rare public broadside against a proposal that would force it and other online aggregators of news content to pay German newspaper and magazine publishers to display snippets of news in Web searches.  The proposed ancillary copyright law, which is to have its first reading Nov. 30 in the lower house of Parliament, the Bundestag, has ignited a storm of hyperbole pitting Google and local Web advocates against powerful publishers including Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Bild and Die Welt.  Google took off the gloves Nov. 27 when it opened a campaign urging German users to e-mail members of the Bundestag with their concerns.  Google said the proposal would shrink the free flow of information on the Internet in Germany, perhaps even forcing it to display blank links to German references.  The issue is also being debated in other European capitals.  Kevin J. O'Brien  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/technology/google-fires-a-rare-public-salvo-over-aggregators.html?_r=0

A connoisseur (French traditional (pre-1835) spelling of connaisseur, from Middle-French connoistre, then connaître meaning "to be acquainted with" or "to know somebody/something.") is a person who has a great deal of knowledge about the fine arts, cuisines, or an expert judge in matters of taste.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connoisseur

Brooklyn Museum   200 Eastern Parkway  Brooklyn, New York   718) 638-5000

February 8–August 4, 2013  Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing and Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, 5th Floor  The first solo exhibition in a New York museum by the globally renowned contemporary artist El Anatsui, this show will feature over 30 works in metal and wood that transform appropriated objects into site-specific sculptures.  Anatsui converts found materials into a new type of media that lies between sculpture and painting, combining aesthetic traditions from his birth country, Ghana; his home in Nsukka, Nigeria; and the global history of abstraction.  Included in the exhibition are twelve recent monumental wall and floor sculptures, widely considered to represent the apex of Anatsui’s career.  The metal wall works, created with bottle caps from a distillery in Nsukka, are pieced together to form colorful, textured hangings that take on radically new shapes with each installation.  Anatsui is captivated by his materials’ history of use, reflecting his own nomadic background.  Gravity and Grace responds to a long history of innovations in abstract art and performance, building upon cross-cultural exchange among Africa, Europe, and the Americas and presenting works in a wholly new, African medium.  Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui is organized by the Akron Art Museum and made possible by a major grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Brooklyn presentation is organized by Kevin Dumouchelle, Associate Curator of the Arts of Africa and the Pacific Islands, Brooklyn Museum.  http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/el_anatsui/

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

serendipity  (ser-uhn-DIP-i-tee)  noun:  The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by chance. Also, an instance of such a discovery.  Coined by novelist Horace Walpole based on the fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip.  The Princes were supposedly making these happy discoveries they were not looking for. From Persian Sarandip (Sri Lanka), from Arabic sarandib.
Earliest documented use:  1754.
mithridatism  (MITH-ri-day-tiz-uhm)  noun:  The developing of immunity to a poison by taking gradually increasing doses of it.  After Mithridates VI, king of Pontus (now in Turkey) 120-63 BCE, who is said to have acquired immunity to poison by ingesting gradually larger doses of it.  Earliest documented use:  1851.
elysian (i-LIZH-uhn)  adjective:  Blissful; delightful.  From Latin Elysium, from Greek elysion pedyon (Elysian plain/fields). n Greek mythology, Elysium (or the Elysian Fields) was the final resting place for the souls of heroes and the virtuous after their death.  
Earliest documented use:  1579.

icarian  (i-KAR-ee-uhn, eye-)  adjective: Of or relating to an over-ambitious attempt that ends in ruin.  After Icarus in Greek mythology who flew so high that the sun melted the wax holding his artificial wings.  Icarus plunged to his death into the sea.  Earliest documented use:  1595.

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From: Jonathan Cohen  Subject:  Mithridatism  This is central to the plot of one of the Lord Peter mysteries by Dorothy Sayers.  The murderer builds up tolerance to arsenic and then eats an arsenic-laced omelet, I believe, along with the victim who dies while he is OK.
From:  Ann Bietsch  Subject:  mithridatism  In The Princess Bride, the Dread Pirate Roberts (secretly the princess's true love, Wesley) has taken small doses of "iocane poison" for years to build up an immunity.  This mithridatism saves him in a battle of wits with the Sicilian.  Because of his far-thinking action, Wesley is able to survive the poisoned wine and free the princess.  This is an excellent modern application of an ancient concept.
From: David Martin  Subject:  mithridatism  The word reminds me of A.E. Housman's great philosophical poem, "Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff", that ends, "Mithridates, he died old."
From: Andrew Pressburger  Subject:  Icarian  The most notable illustration of the fall of Icarus is probably the painting by Brueghel Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, while its most poignant exegesis is the poem by Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts".

NEWARK, Ohio —Stephen Jones, now 47 and working in commercial real-estate finance in New York, is fighting valiantly to save a Louis Sullivan masterpiece in Newark.  Jones didn’t know much about the bank when he was a kid.  It took a move to Chicago to show him the architectural jewel that sits along Newark’s downtown square — the building he bought and now hopes to sell to a careful owner.  Louis H. Sullivan, born in 1856, was a passionate, difficult Chicago architect often credited as the father of the modern skyscraper.  He was Frank Lloyd Wright’s mentor.  He’s the guy who said “form follows function.”  And toward the end of his career, he started building banks.  Eight of them.  They’re compact, square but ornate — often described as “jewel boxes” — and they pop up in places most people have never heard of.  There’s one in Owatonna, Minn., and one in Columbus, Wis. Iowa has three:  in Grinnell, Algona and Cedar Rapids.  They’re also in West Lafayette, Ind., and Sidney, Ohio.  Jones  bought the building for $225,000 in 2007.  He has spent the time since trying to restore it to its original condition.  He hired workers to stabilize the basement, which had water damage, and to remove the dropped ceiling, revealing the well-preserved murals.  Bit by bit, the beautiful bank is emerging.  But as Jones restores the building’s form, he wants to re-establish its function as well.  He recently listed the building, which made the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, for sale.  He could see it becoming anything from a craft brewery to a company’s headquarters.  “We’re looking for that special person,” he said. “I’m optimistic we can find them.”  He’s asking $750,000.  The deal comes with about $775,000 in historic tax credits for a buyer willing to complete the restoration, which Jones expects will cost around $1.5 million.  He’s also willing to lease it out long term and complete the restoration with his own money.  http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/11/18/banking-on-a-new-life.html
 

Brad Meltzer (born 1970) is a bestselling American political thriller novelist, non-fiction writer, TV show creator and award-winning comic book author.  According to his website, his first novel Fraternity garnered 24 rejection letters, but he then sold his second novel, The Tenth Justice, while in law school.  In 1994, he co-wrote the original swearing-in oath that is taken by all AmeriCorps members, and has been delivered by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Meltzer  Raised in Brooklyn and Miami, Brad Meltzer is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Columbia Law School.  The Tenth Justice was his first published work and became an instant New York Times bestseller.  Dead Even followed a year later and also hit the New York Times bestseller list, as have all eight of his novels.  The First Counsel came next, which was about a White House lawyer dating the President's daughter, then The Millionaires, which was about two brothers who steal money and go on the run.  The Zero Game is about two Congressional staffers who are - literally - gambling on Congress.  The Book of Fate, is about a young presidential aide, a crazed assassin, and the 200 year-old code created by Thomas Jefferson that ties them together.  For authenticity, The Book of Fate was researched with the help of former Presidents Clinton and Bush.  The The Book of Lies , is about the missing murder weapon that Cain used to kill Abel, as well as the unsolved murder of Superman creator Jerry Siegel's father.  Brad is one of the only people to interview Jerry Siegel's family about the murder and, with his charitable site www.OrdinaryPeopleChangeTheWorld.com, has been the driving force behind the movement to repair the house where Superman was created.  His newest book, The Inner Circle, is based the idea that George Washington's personal spy ring still exists today. A young archivist in the National Archives finds out the spy ring is still around.  He doesn't know who they work for -- but the greatest secret of the Presidency is about to be revealed. While researching the book, former President George HW Bush also gave Brad, for the very first time, the secret letter he left for Bill Clinton in the Oval Office desk.  Brad has played himself as an extra in Woody Allen's Celebrity, co-wrote the swearing in oath for AmeriCorps, the national service program, and earned credit from Columbia Law School for writing his first book, which became The Tenth Justice.  http://www.bradmeltzer.com/brad-meltzer.aspxhe t ction letters for his true first novel, which still sits on his shelf, published by Kinko's.BBeore all of that, he got 24 rvel,

Among the top children’s books of 2012 — as chosen by a Columbus Dispatch-selected panel of judges — are two that couldn’t be more different.  The novel Wonder by R.J. Palacio finds a 10-year-old boy with an extremely disfigured face entering a public school for the first time, as it tells a story of courage, understanding and acceptance.  About the book, Maryland Elementary School fifth-grader Emma Segerman said:  “Don’t judge a boy by his cover, even when the cover may not be so pretty.”  Then there’s Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, a fractured fairy tale — and an example of picture-book humor at its goofiest — by Mo Willems.  The quality and diversity of children’s books published this year are reflected in the list of the best, as compiled by 25 adult panel members and 25 Ohio students from Maryland in Bexley and Wickliffe Progressive Community School in Upper Arlington.  http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2012/11/18/top-titles-tempt-young-eyes.html

South Korean rapper Park Jae-sang is more commonly known as Psy.  His viral music video "Gangnam Style" was originally intended as a satire of a small neighborhood in Seoul renowned for its wealth, with Psy playing a "clownish caricature of a Gangnam man."  But the video, in which Psy showcases his "crazy horse-riding dance" and croons catchily  has catapulted him to American fame, leading to a performance of "Gangnam Style" alongside Britney Spears on Ellen, and a cameo on Saturday Night Live's season premiere.  And as with any viral video, Psy's smash hit has also inspired a slew of YouTube parodies.  See his original video and 11 parodies at :  http://theweek.com/article/index/233651/gangnam-style-the-8-best-parodies-of-the-viral-video

Where did PSY's horse-riding dance in Gangnam Style come from? It certainly seems as if it might have come from Agnes De Mille's choreography for the dream-ballet sequence of Oklahoma!  Link to video at:  http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/11/gangnam-styles-broadway-roots/265262/

Caesar salad's creation is generally attributed to restauranteur Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who operated restaurants in Mexico and the United States.  Cardini was living in San Diego but also working in Tijuana where he avoided the restrictions of Prohibition.  His daughter Rosa (1928–2003) recounted that her father invented the dish when a Fourth of July 1924 rush depleted the kitchen's supplies.  Cardini made do with what he had, adding the dramatic flair of the table-side tossing "by the chef.  A number of Cardini's staff have said that they invented the dish.  The earliest contemporary documentation of Caesar Salad is from a 1946 Los Angeles restaurant menu, twenty years after the 1924 origin stated by the Cardinis.  The original Caesar salad recipe did not contain pieces of anchovy; the slight anchovy flavor comes from the Worcestershire sauce.  Cardini was opposed to using anchovies in his salad.  In the 1970s, Cardini's daughter said that the original recipe included whole lettuce leaves, which were meant to be lifted by the stem and eaten with the fingers; coddled eggs; and Italian olive oil. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_salad  NOTE that coddled eggs are gently or lightly cooked eggs.

Q:  I've read that the British were really among the world's most warlike people.  True?
A:  Britain has invaded 90 percent of the world's countries, says a new book, "All the Countries We've Ever Invaded; And the Few We Never Got Around To."  Everyone knows Britain invaded the United States, twice.  But, for example, few know Britain invaded Cuba in 1741 and 1761, and that 745 Royal Marines invaded Iceland in 1940 after it claimed neutrality in World War II.  In fact, there are only 22 countries Britain has not invaded, including Monaco, Mongolia and Vatican City.  "I don't think anyone could match this, although the Americans had a later start and have been working hard on it...," said author Stuart Laycock. -- The Telegraph, London.  http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2012/Nov/JU/ar_JU_111212.asp?d=111212,2012,Nov,12&c=c_13 

Q:  In Congress, what's the difference between joint and concurrent resolutions?
A:  A joint resolution has the same force as an act, and must be signed by the president or passed over his veto.  A concurrent resolution is not a law, but only a measure on which the two houses unite for a purpose concerned with their organization and procedure, or expressions of facts, principles, opinions, and purposes, "matters peculiarly within the province of Congress alone," and not embracing "legislative provisions proper." -- U.S. Archives.
Q:  "Just Ask" recently implied the U.S. Navy has the most accurate atomic clock.  But isn't there another clock out West?
A:  The National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, has a cesium fountain atomic clock in Boulder, Colo.  It claims its clock is "the nation's primary time and frequency standard."  The clock, NIST-F1, is accurate to a second per 100 million years, and is 10 times more accurate than a cesium beam clock it used from 1993 to 1999.  Its time is at http://www.time.gov/ . -- Department of Commerce.  http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2012/Nov/JU/ar_JU_111912.asp?d=111912,2012,Nov,19&c=c_13   

While staying in a New York City hotel called Hanover House, iconoclastic folksinger Woody Guthrie took a simple sheet of loose-leaf paper and wrote down words that have grown into some of the most timeless lyrics ever penned about the American experience on Feb. 23, 1940.  He originally called the song "God Blessed America," but quickly scratched out that title and renamed it "This Land Was Made for You & Me."  The tune, eventually renamed "This Land is Your Land," is now one of the most instantly recognizable pieces of music in American society.  In 2002, it became one of the first recordings ever included in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.  But, at the time, Guthrie "completely forgot about the song," explained Joe Klein in his biography "Woody Guthrie: A Life."  Not until years later, when the lyrics were published in a music teachers' songbook and Guthrie's banjo-playing, hootenanny-leading friend Pete Seeger started performing the tune on a regular basis, did it gain in popularity.  "I don't remember that he personally considered 'This Land' better than any of his [other songs]," wrote Nora Guthrie, Woody's daughter, in an e-mail interview. "He wrote over 3,000 songs, and he usually wrote songs very quickly, often just for special events or single performances.  Then, he'd put them away, making room in his notebook - and his brain - for the next one."  Woody Guthrie occasionally played the song live in the immediate years after writing it, but he did not record "This Land is Your Land" until 1944.  Guthrie, an Okemah, Oklahoma, native, wrote the lyrics in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," a version of which, performed by Kate Smith, was being heavily played on radios and jukeboxes around the time. Guthrie considered Berlin's song, with lyrics like "stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above," to be complacent, nationalistic, exclusionary and unrealistic. Berlin's pop song did not reflect the America Guthrie saw when he crisscrossed the continent, with a guitar strapped across his shoulder, during the Great Depression.  The Dust Bowl balladeer and strong union supporter wrote six verses on the original loose-leaf page.  Two stanzas offered social commentary and described the country in a much different way than Berlin did: 

"Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property.
But on the back side it didn't say nothing
God blessed America for me." 

"One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people
As they stood hungry I stood there wondering if
God blessed America for me." 

Guthrie later added another verse:

"Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me."

Dave Sutor  http://voices.yahoo.com/this-land-land-still-endures-inspires-7909416.html?cat=33

Evolution of the mystery genre 

1841  Edgar Allan Poe publishes the first mystery story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," introducing a brand new genre to readers of Graham's Magazine. 

1887  Sherlock Holmes, widely acknowledged as the most famous literary character in history, makes his debut in "A Study in Scarlet" in The Strand Magazine. 

Read the rest of the timeline at:  http://www.mysterynet.com/evolution/

A few of the current mystery writers

John Lescroart (born 1948) is a New York Times bestselling author known for his series of legal and crime thriller novels featuring the characters Dismas Hardy, Abe Glitsky and Wyatt Hunt.  His novels have sold more than ten million copies, have been translated into twenty-two languages in more than seventy-five countries, and fifteen of his books have been on the New York Times bestseller list.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lescroart

Joseph Finder (born 1958) is an American writer of several thrillers set in a business environment.  His books include Paranoia, Company Man, Killer Instinct and Power Play.  His novel High Crimes was made into a movie starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman.  His novel Paranoia is currently being filmed as a major motion picture, directed by Robert Luketic and starring Harrison Ford, Liam Hemsworth and Gary Oldman.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Finder

James Rollins is the pen name of American veterinarian James Paul Czajkowski (born 1961) a writer of best-selling, action-adventure, thriller novels.  He gave up his veterinary practice in Sacramento, California to be a full-time author.  Rollins is an amateur spelunker and a certified scuba diver.  These pastimes have helped him to provide content for some of his earlier novels, which are often set in underground or underwater locations.  Under the nom de plume James Clemens, he has also has published fantasy novels, including Wit'ch Fire, Wit'ch Storm, Wit'ch War, Wit'ch Gate, Wit'ch Star, Shadowfall (2005), and Hinterland (2006)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rollins

Arson and the Science of Fire by Ken Strutin  published on November 12, 2012  http://www.llrx.com/features/arsonsciencefire.htm 

Muenster is a cheese from the United States, not to be confused with the French variety, Munster.  The name Muenster is derived from an English transliteration of Münster, a city in Germany.  The original name of the French cheese comes from Alsatian abbey of Munster in the Vosgian mountains.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muenster_(cheese)

The Pillars of Hercules was the phrase that was applied in Antiquity to the promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar.  The northern Pillar is the Rock of Gibraltar in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar.  A corresponding North African peak not being predominant, the identity of the southern Pillar has been disputed through history, with the two most likely candidates being Monte Hacho in Ceuta and Jebel Musa in Morocco.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillars_of_Hercules

Snakes and Ladders (or Chutes and Ladders) is an ancient Indian board game regarded today as a worldwide classic.  It is played between two or more players on a gameboard having numbered, gridded squares.  A number of "ladders" and "snakes" (or "chutes") are pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares.  The object of the game is to navigate one's game piece from the start (bottom square) to the finish (top square), helped or hindered by ladders and snakes, respectively.  The historic version had root in morality lessons, where a player's progression up the board represented a life journey complicated by virtues (ladders) and vices (snakes).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_and_Ladders

Mel Angst was looking for an inspired way to tile the floor of the Garfield, Pa. tattoo gallery, Artisan, which she runs with her husband, tattoo artist Jason Angst.  “My floor is made out of about 250,000 pennies,” Angst told ABC Pittsburgh affiliate WTAE.  “Amazingly enough, it’s a lot cheaper to glue money to your floor than to actually buy tile.  It’s about $3 a square foot.”  Angst said that after she found the appropriate adhesive to affix the pennies to the floor of her shop, she then found people via Facebook to log the man hours.  She bartered tiling labor for $10 off per hour on tattoo work, she told ABCNews.com.  “Some days it was just me,” she said.  “I think the most we ever had was 7, but on average, (we have) 3 or 4 people a day for about 10 to 16 hours a day for about three weeks straight, gluing these down … People are just shocked that we did it because it took about 300 man hours, which was crazy.”  In total there will be approximately 800 square feet of Lincoln profiles.  http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/tattoo-shop-owner-tiles-floor-with-250000-pennies/ 

Thomas Jefferson's muffin recipe, developed from the original recipe by Monticello staff members Susan McCrary and Katherine G. Revell, would have produced "English muffins." 

http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/home-activity

Thomas' brand English muffins were introduced to New York City in the late 19th century: 

"Although tea muffins that were once popular in England resembled the American "English muffin," there is no single muffin in Britain by this specific name...Most of the store-bought varieties [of English muffin] derive from those made by the S. B. Thomas Company of New York, whose founder, Samuel Bath Thomas, emigrated from England in 1875 with his mother's recipe and began making muffins at his Ninth Avenue bakery in 1880.  The name was first printed in 1925."  ---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman: New York] 1999 (p. 123)  http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq2.html 

Cloud is a metaphor for a global network, first used in reference to the telephone network and now commonly used to represent the Internet.  See other cloud computing terms and definitions at:  http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/datacenter/mini-glossary-cloud-computing-terms-you-should-know/2308

Nether=lower or under.  The Netherlands is a low-lying country, with about 20% of its area and 21% of its population located below sea level.  Holland may refer to the whole country (as people tend to say England for United Kingdom) because it is populous and early explorers were likely to be from Holland.  From the 10th century to the 16th century, Holland was a unified political region.  Today we have the two provinces of North Holland and South Holland.

The spire-like cypress tree of the Mediterranean is named for Cyparissus, a youth beloved of Apollo who lived in Greek mythology on the Aegean island of Chios.  Read the story and why the cypress tree came to be associated with mourning at:  http://www.mceades.com/jerusalem2/cypress.html

The Mystery of Edwin Drood  Roundabout Theatre Company, Studio 54

Through Feb. 10 New York

If Charles Dickens had lived to finish "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," it might have ended up becoming one of his best-remembered books, though not so much for its literary quality as its subject matter.  Imagine, if you dare, a novel about an outwardly respectable choirmaster who is secretly addicted to opium and who strangles his nephew in a fit of passion (or does he?) because they're both in love with the same woman.  Who could resist a yarn like that?  It's got everything but serial murder.  Alas, Dickens died of a stroke in 1870 before he could pen the final chapters, and the unfinished manuscript became a half-forgotten curiosity known only to Dickens buffs and scholars of Victorian literature—until Rupert Holmes came along.  Mr. Holmes, a multitalented singer-songwriter who topped the pop charts in 1979 with "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)," had the uncommonly clever idea to turn "Drood" into a Broadway musical in which the audience is invited to vote on the ending.  Is Edwin Drood really dead?  If so, did John Jasper, the mad choirmaster, kill him—or was he murdered by one of the other characters.  The killer gets to sing an extra song in the last scene. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324556304578116812583424922.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5

 

A cognomen is a family name in ancient Rome which would be shared by a group of blood relatives.  Cognomina often, but not always, referred to a person's appearance or other characteristics.  It was also common to have a cognomen referring to a place of birth, a job, or some other thing which distinguished the person (usually an ancestor) who first bore that cognomen.  See types of cognomina and examples at:  http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Cognomen 

Typical Roman names of the late Republic had three parts (the "tria nomina").  

Example: Gaius Iulius Caesar where:
·         Gaius is a praenomen ("given name", plural praenomina),
·         Iulius is a nomen ("gens or clan name", plural nomina), and
·         Caesar is a cognomen ("family name within a gens", plural cognomina).
Some names had no cognomen, but in other cases a second cognomen, (called an agnomen), was added.  Female names could follow similar conventions, with a few differences.  Additional elements such as tribal affiliation and "filiation" (parentage), were also sometimes used.

http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Roman_name

The Italiotes were the pre-Roman Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Italian Peninsula, between Naples and Sicily.  Greek colonization of the coastal areas of southern Italy and Sicily started in the 8th century BC and, by the time of Roman ascendance, the area was so extensively hellenized that Romans called it Magna Graecia, "Greater Greece".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italiotes

The saying “to call a spade a spade,” meaning “to call something by its real name, is the English version of this ancient phrase is actually the result of a famous error.  Translating the saying from Plutarch, the Renaissance scholar Erasmus mistook a Greek word meaning “bowl or trough” for one meaning “spade.”  So “to call a spade a spade” should rightly have been “to call a bowl a bowl.”  The other “spade” in English, first appearing in the late 16th century, is the black spade-shaped mark that distinguishes one of the four suits of modern playing cards.  Apparently Italian playing cards of the “spade” suit originally carried the mark of a sword, but because the “spade” of playing cards was the same word as the digging tool in English, the shape of the tool ended up on our cards.  This new “spade” was only used in this “card” sense until the late 1920s, when the phrase “in spades” suddenly became slang in the US meaning “extremely, very much, in abundance” 

http://www.word-detective.com/2011/12/in-spades/

Canaries are small finches native to the Canary Islands that was named after the Canary islands.  The Canary Islands were named Canaria because of the descriptions of the large numbers of wild dogs roaming the islands.  Canaria is derived from the Latin canis meaning dog.  Columbus stopped in the Canary Islands on all four of his voyages to the New World as did many other Spanish explorers.  Claimed by Portugal, the islands were recognized as Spanish possessions by a treaty negotiated in 1479.  Spanish conquest of the islands was completed by the late 1490s.  The Canary group of islands consist of 7 larger islands (Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Tenerife, La Palma, Gomera, Hierro) and a few smaller ones (Alegranza, Graciosa, Montaña Clara, Roque del Este, Roque del Oeste und Lobos).  All were similarly formed by volcanic upheavals, creating dramatic mountains and craters and spectacular scenery.  Four of Spain's 13 national parks are located in the Canary Islands, more than any other autonomous community.  http://petcaretips.net/canary-island.html 

'Don't buy a pig in a poke' might seem odd and archaic language.  It's true that the phrase is very old, but actually it can be taken quite literally and remains good advice.  The advice being given is 'don't buy a pig until you have seen it'.  This is enshrined in British commercial law as 'caveat emptor' - Latin for 'let the buyer beware'.  This remains the guiding principle of commerce in many countries and, in essence, supports the view that if you buy something you take responsibility to make sure it is what you intended to buy.  A poke is a sack or bag.  It has a French origin as 'poque' and, like several other French words, its diminutive is formed by adding 'ette' or 'et' - hence 'pocket' began life with the meaning 'small bag'.  Poke is still in use in several English-speaking countries, notably Scotland and the USA, and describes just the sort of bag that would be useful for carrying a piglet to market.  A pig that's in a poke might turn out to be no pig at all.  If a merchant tried to cheat by substituting a lower value animal, the trick could be uncovered by letting the cat out of the bag.  Many other European languages have a version of this phrase - most of them translating into English as a warning not to 'buy a cat in a bag'.  The advice has stood the test of time and people have been repeating it in one form or the other for getting on for five hundred years, maybe longer.  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-pig-in-a-poke.html

chicken-pecked - persistent complaints and domination by a child 

hen-pecked - persistent complaints and domination by a woman    

rooster-pecked - persistent complaints and domination by a man

Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of iconic treats such as Twinkies and traditional pantry staple Wonder Bread, said Nov. 16 it is shuttering its plants and firing about 18,000 workers as it seeks to liquidate the 82-year-old business.  The fate of the company's brands remains uncertain, set to be decided by a bankruptcy court auction run by Hostess's investment bankers, or perhaps determined by a group of liquidators.  Chief Executive Gregory Rayburn has said he is unsure if all of the company's brands—there are about 30, from Drake's to Ding Dongs—will sell or how much they might fetch.  On the one hand, the names have decades of brand equity, and there is "pretty significant demand" for the products, according to Mr. Rayburn.  Hostess has revenue of about $2 billion annually. But a competitor would have to ramp up production if it took on the Twinkies or Ding Dong brands and give up valuable shelf space already devoted to its own goods, Mr. Rayburn noted.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324556304578122632560842670.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories 

On Nov. 16 the bestselling author Tim Ferriss, whose book The Four-Hour Chef will be published by Amazon’s New York imprint on November 20, entered into a marketing promotion with BitTorrent.A BitTorrent blog post proudly proclaims:  “It’s poised to be the most banned book in U.S. history.  The 4-Hour Chef is one of the first titles underneath Amazon’s new publishing imprint; boycotted by U.S. booksellers, including Barnes & Noble.”  The same “banned book” point is repeated in the materials sent to press, which include the following “points to consider”:  “It’s a significant marketing partnership, particularly in light of the ban of the book by Barnes & Noble and others.”  And “Similar promotions for recording artists generated downloads in the tens of millions amongst BitTorrent users, offering a significant lift in awareness and sales.”  So is Barnes & Noble banning The Four-Hour Chef because of its controversial content?  Not so much.  Ferriss’s book is simply one of several that Barnes & Noble will not stock in its stores because it is published by Amazon.  As Barnes & Noble announced earlier this year, “Our decision is based on Amazon’s continued push for exclusivity with publishers, agents and the authors they represent.  These exclusives have prohibited us from offering certain ebooks to our customers.  Their actions have undermined the industry as a whole and have prevented millions of customers from having access to content.”  http://paidcontent.org/2012/11/16/hey-tim-ferriss-book-banning-isnt-a-marketing-gimmick/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=gigaom