Craftsmanship--what happens when labor meets love (paraphrase) 

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane 

The Kitchen Cabinet was a term used by political opponents of President of the United States Andrew Jackson to describe the collection of unofficial advisers he consulted in parallel to the United States Cabinet (the "parlor cabinet") following his purge of the cabinet at the end of the Eaton affair and his break with Vice President John C. Calhoun in 1831.  In an unprecedented dismissal of five of the eight Cabinet officials in the middle of his first term, Jackson dismissed Calhoun's allies Samuel D. Ingham, John Branch, and John M. Berrien as well as his own supporters, Secretary of State Martin Van Buren and Secretary of War John Eaton.  However, Jackson retained Van Buren in Washington as the minister to Great Britain.  Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet included his longtime political allies Martin Van Buren, Francis Preston Blair, Amos Kendall, William B. Lewis, Andrew Jackson Donelson, John Overton, and his new Attorney General Roger B. Taney. The first known appearance of the term is in December 1831 correspondence by Bank of the United States head Nicholas Biddle, who wrote of the presidential advisors that "the kitchen . . . predominate[s] over the Parlor."  The first appearance in publication was March 13, 1832 by Mississippi Senator George Poindexter, in an article in the Calhounite Telegraph defending his vote against Van Buren as minister to Great Britain:  The President's press, edited under his own eye, by a 'pair of deserters from the Clay party' [Kendall and Blair] and a few others, familiarly known by the appellation of the 'Kitchen Cabinet,' is made the common reservoir of all the petty slanders which find a place in the most degraded prints of the Union.  In colloquial use, "kitchen cabinet" refers to any group of trusted friends and associates, particularly in reference to a President's or presidential candidate's closest unofficial advisers.  Clark Clifford was considered a member of the kitchen cabinet for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson before he was appointed Secretary of Defense. Robert Kennedy was uniquely considered to be a kitchen cabinet member as well as a Cabinet member while he was his brother's Attorney General.  Ronald Reagan had a kitchen cabinet of allies and friends from California who advised him during his terms.  This group of ten to twelve businessmen were all strong proponents of the free enterprise system.  His conservative California backers included: Alfred Bloomingdale, Earl Brian, Justin Whitlock Dart, William French Smith, Charles Wick, William A. Wilson, auto dealer Holmes Tuttle, beer baron Joseph Coors, steel magnate and philanthropist Earle Jorgensen, and about four to six others.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Cabinet

Quote 

If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe. 

Carl Sagan (1934-1996)  astronomer and writer
See many other Sagan quotes at:  http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

Jam/jam session 

jam (v.)   "to press tightly," also "to become wedged," 1706, of unknown origin, perhaps a variant of champ (v.).  Of a malfunction in the moving parts of machinery, by 1851.  Sense of "cause interference in radio signals" is from 1914.  Related: Jammed; jamming.  The adverb is recorded from 1825, from the verb. 

jam (n.1)  "fruit preserve," 1730s, probably a special use of jam (v.) with a sense of "crush fruit into a preserve." 

jam (n.2)  "a tight pressing between two surfaces," 1806, from jam (v.).  Jazz meaning "short, free improvised passage performed by the whole band" dates from 1929, and yielded jam session (1933); but this is perhaps from jam (n.1) in sense of "something sweet, something excellent."  Sense of "machine blockage" is from 1890, which probably led to the colloquial meaning "predicament, tight spot," first recorded 1914.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=jam

Q:  What do the digits mean in a Social Security number?  Is the number of a deceased person reissued?
A:  Before June 25, 2011, the first three digits indicated the state in which the applicant lived.  The remaining had no significance.  The Social Security Administration now issues numbers randomly.  But, it does not issue numbers beginning with 000, 666, and 900-999; nor with 00 in the fourth and fifth positions; nor with 0000 in the last positions.  And the number is yours forever. -- Doug Nguyen, Social Security Administration.
Q:  At Christmastime, I was wondering:  We know about gold, but what happened to frankincense and myrrh?
A:  The popularity of frankincense and myrrh has faded through the centuries, but you can still buy them.  Myrrh is used in about 7 percent of perfumes.  Both resins are used in some Eastern cultures for fragrance and for medicine, treating everything from diarrhea to cancer.  They are also rubbed on wounds, which some studies support.  A few laboratories in Africa, Egypt and China contend they have antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties.  One study suggests they work best in combination. -- Slate.  http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2013/Jan/JU/ar_JU_012113.asp?d=012113,2013,Jan,21&c=c_13

Q:  We hear about invasive animals/plants here in the USA.  I'm curious if any of our animals/plants have affected other countries.
A:  We've exported our share.  Some are:
• The western corn rootworm, a leaf beetle that attacks corn, was brought to Serbia in the early 1990s and is attacking European crops.
• The North American bullfrog, native to eastern North America, has been spread worldwide because it is edible.  But it, in turn, eats many native creatures.
• The Eastern gray squirrel was first a pet in Great Britain and Italy, but their offspring are hopping across Europe.  It especially threatens the smaller red squirrel.
• Leidy's comb jelly, a western Atlantic Ocean jellyfish, has stung the Black Sea's anchovy industry, and has invaded the Mediterranean and Caspian seas.
• The largemouth bass, a tough fighter with a good taste, has been taken around the world.  But it eats native fish, amphibians, insects, and even small animals in the water.
• The Southeast's rosy wolfsnail was taken to Pacific and Indian Ocean islands in the 1950s to combat the giant African snail, itself an invasive animal.  In French Polynesia, the rosy wolfsnail nearly eliminated partula tree snails, which survive only in zoos.  As for invasive plants, there appears to be little information about those originating in the United States.  The National Agricultural Library, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recently told The Courier it had no information on them. -- National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species, Peter Mattiace  http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2013/Jan/JU/ar_JU_012813.asp?d=012813,2013,Jan,28&c=c_13

From Jeff O'Neal at Book Riot  Jan. 23, 2013  When news broke last week that Dan Brown’s new novel will center on some sort of mystery surrounding Dante’s Inferno, I immediately began hoping that there is a nutty, fun scene of Robert Langdon racing around a library just like he raced around the Louvre in The Da Vinci Code.  And because I am who I am, it got me thinking about great movie library scenes that already exist.  At first, I thought the list would be pretty short, but you know what? Hollywood loves a library.  Some combination of ambiance, seclusion, hidden knowledge, and the sheer beauty of shelves upon shelves of books make libraries a fantastic film setting.  Find Jeff's 16 favorites filmed library scenes including the New York Public Library  covered in ice at:  http://bookriot.com/2013/01/23/great-library-scenes-in-film/?doing_wp_cron=1358964144.7754089832305908203125 

Follow-up on Jackson Twenty-One:  a Dream Village  At the urging of an accountant, Mitch  Leigh started buying land; he chose Jackson Township.  Over the years, he added to that Jackson parcel, bit by bit, as nearby land came up for sale, and today he owns nearly 1,000 acres, making him one of the largest landowners in the area.  He has been working on plans to develop parts of the land for more than 20 years.  Sitting in his Manhattan office last week, in front of large picture windows on the 27th floor, Mr. Leigh said he did not expect to see Jackson Twenty-One finished in his lifetime — he will celebrate his 85th birthday at the end of the month with a big party put on by his wife, the artist Abby Leigh — but he does hope to see it started.  Much of the infrastructure is in place, and Mr. Leigh says he hopes to break ground on some of the housing in the spring or summer.  According to Jackson Township, Mr. Leigh has so far been approved to develop 150 acres of his land, which may include retail, restaurants, housing and a hotel.  But most of the plans remain far from solid.  What the Web site displays are not formal offerings but architectural concepts and ideas under consideration, said Tom Bovino, manager of Mr. Leigh’s real estate company, Leigh Realty.  They have yet to contract with builders.  And even the ever-optimistic Mr. Leigh estimates it will take 25 years to complete the project.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/nyregion/la-mancha-composer-promotes-homes-for-nice-people.html?_r=0