Mar. 7, 2013  Hugh Howey's postapocalyptic thriller "Wool" has sold more than half a million copies and generated more than 5,260 Amazon reviews.  Mr. Howey has raked in more than a million dollars in royalties and sold the film rights to "Alien" producer Ridley Scott.  And Simon & Schuster hasn't even released the book yet.  In a highly unusual deal, Simon & Schuster acquired print publication rights to "Wool" while allowing Mr. Howey to keep the e-book rights himself.  Mr. Howey self-published "Wool" as a serial novel in 2011, and took a rare stand by refusing to sell the digital rights.  Last year, he turned down multiple seven-figure offers from publishers before reaching a mid-six-figure, print-only deal with Simon & Schuster.  "I had made seven figures on my own, so it was easy to walk away," says Mr. Howey, 37, a college dropout who worked as a yacht captain, a roofer and a bookseller before he started self-publishing.  "I thought, 'How are you guys going to sell six times what I'm selling now?' "  It's a sign of how far the balance of power has shifted toward authors in the new digital publishing landscape.  Self-published titles made up 25% of the top-selling books on Amazon last year.  Four independent authors have sold more than a million Kindle copies of their books, and 23 have sold more than 250,000, according to Amazon.   Alexandra Alter  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324678604578340752088305668.html   

Q:  I read I could send the front of used greeting cards for a recycling program at a St. Jude Ranch.  Is this true?  Do you know of other organizations?
A:  There are many good crafts ideas for recycling greeting cards at home, but their leading solicitor appears to be St. Jude's Ranch for Children, 100 St. Jude's St., Boulder City, NV 89005.
The charity houses "abused, abandoned and neglected children," who "learn entrepreneurship skills ... in making the new cards by removing the front and attaching a new back. The result is a beautiful new card made by children and volunteers."  Cards for many occasions are sold in packets of 10 for $10. -- St. Jude's Ranch for Children.  http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2013/Mar/JU/ar_JU_031113.asp?d=031113,2013,Mar,11&c=c_13

Far from the madding crowd:  a quiet and rural place  This phrase is best known as the title of one of Thomas Hardy's most successful novels.  Hardy took the title from Thomas Gray's poem - Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 1751:  'Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.'  It is possible that Gray was also alluding to earlier works:  by William Drummond, circa 1614:  "Farre from the madding Worldlings hoarse discords." or by Edmund Spenser, 1579:  "But now from me hys madding mynd is starte, And woes the Widdowes daughter of the glenne."  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/134150.html 

Broad beans are shelled beans with large, flat seeds.  Also called fava bean, English bean, field bean, horse bean, pigeon bean, tick bean and Windsor bean. http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetables/p/Growing-Broad-Beans.htm

Read why fava bean is a pleonasm at p. 72 in Ladyfingers & Nun's Tummies:  A Lighthearted Look At How Foods Got Their Names  by Martha Barnette at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=4_R8iFjlkBcC&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=%22fava+bean%22+redundant&source=bl&ots=VLesFjGgKQ&sig=iz6dcF_fmie2gqDRXs9BuoYbjPg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7WxDUZmHCbS24AOu-ICoCg&ved=0CFUQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=%22fava%20bean%22%20redundant&f=false

Pleonasm  noun

1.  the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy.
2.  an instance of this, as free gift or true fact.
3.  a redundant word or expression.
Origin:  1580–90; < Late Latin pleonasmus < Greek pleonasmós redundancy, surplus, derivative of pleonázein to be or have more than enough, itself derivative of pleíōn more (see pleo-)  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pleonasm

Pleonasms & Redundant Phrases  http://www.pleonasms.com/#l

Eye rhyme  noun  A rhyme consisting of words, such as lint and pint, with similar spellings but different sounds.  Also called sight rhyme. 

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition 

http://www.wordnik.com/words/eye%20rhyme

The British Union Jack was formed by the union of the flags of Scotland and England when the crowns of Scotland and England were united in 1605 by the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England (as James I of England).  Thus we have the "United Kingdom".  Wales was already subsumed as a principality in England long before that, so was never considered to have a "portion" of the flag.  That is why we talk about the Principality of Wales, but the Kingdom of Scotland.  Wales was united with England under the Statute of Wales, passed on 19 February 1284 . Union with England was entrenched with the passage of Acts in 1535 and 1543 whereby parliamentary taxation was extended to Wales, and English common law applied in the principality.  http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/gb-wales.html

The Union Flag, commonly also known as the Union Jack, is the flag of the United Kingdom, as well as a flag with an official or semi-official status in some Commonwealth realms; for example, it is known by law in Canada as the Royal Union Flag.  See images of the Union Jack plus flags from around the world incorporating the Union Jack.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Jack

The Federal Trade Commission April 2 announced the finalists in its FTC Robocall Challenge to find a crowdsourced technique that can accurately block illegal, automated calls to landlines and mobile phones.  The contest offered a first-place prize of $50,000 to the best robocall-busting solution, while promising that "solvers will retain ownership of their solutions."  The FTC also announced that it would award a "Technology Achievement Award" -- no cash prize included -- for the best entry hailing from an organization with more than 10 employees.  The Federal Communications Commission allows non-commercial robocalls -- referring to the practice of using computerized auto-dialers to deliver pre-canned messages -- for many types of noncommercial purposes, provided they're not sent to cellphones.   But as noted in the rules for the FTC's Robocall Challenge -- which ran from October 2012 to January 2013, and received nearly 800 entries -- "the vast majority of telephone calls that deliver a prerecorded message trying to sell something to the recipient are illegal" under the FTC-enforced Telemarketing Sales Rule.  Furthermore, the FTC gets over 200,000 consumer complaints per month pertaining to robocalls.  But thanks to low-cost VoIP telephony, the calls can be generated from anywhere in the world, which makes cracking down on them at the source difficult, if not impossible.  Enter the FTC's top two robocall-blocking finalists, separate proposals from computer engineer Serdar Danis and software developer Aaron Foss -- they'll each receive $25,000.  Both proposals focus "on intercepting and filtering out illegal prerecorded calls using technology to 'blacklist' robocaller phone numbers and 'whitelist' numbers associated with acceptable incoming calls," according to the FTC.  "Both proposals also would filter out unapproved robocallers using a CAPTCHA-style test to prevent illegal calls from ringing through to a user."  The Technology Achievement Award went to a proposal dubbed "Crowd-Sourced Call Identification and Suppression" from Daniel Klein and Dean Jackson, both of whom are Pittsburgh-based Google employees.  Mathew J. Schwartz  http://www.informationweek.com/security/government/robocall-killers-seek-end-of-nuisance-ca/240152238