April 15, 2011 What are the odds? A Las Vegas
replica of Statue of Liberty, not the real one, appears on U.S. postage stamp
-- forever. Though 2 billion of the
stamps were issued Dec. 1 -- and 3 billion were printed -- the agency learned
of the discrepancy only last month. "A
stamp collector looked at the image and noticed that's not the original, that's
the replica, the Las Vegas version," said Roy Betts, manager of community
relations for the Postal Service in Washington. The scaled-down version appears at the New York-New
York Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas
Strip. What tipped the collector to the
differences on the stamp? The dark areas
instead of windows in the crown for starters, Betts said. The stamp is based on a photograph from
Raimund Linke that was labeled only "Lady Liberty." Mary Forgione
We pledge our allegiance to a republic,
and not to a democracy. The
original wording of the pledge of allegiance was: I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the
republic for which it stands: one nation,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
It has been claimed that the pledge of allegiance to the flag first
appeared in a children's magazine called The Youth's Companion. On Columbus Day, October 12, 1892, by
proclamation of President Benjamin Harrison, the pledge was first used by
school children, and it was amended by the substitution of the words the
flag of the United States of America rather than my flag. The pledge was adopted officially on Flag Day,
June 14, 1924 by joint resolution of Congress and was again amended, this time
in 1954, by the addition of the words under God. In a democracy
the sovereignty of the nation rests with the people, as it also does in a republic. The primary difference is in the exercise of that sovereignty. In a democracy
the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person, while in a republic they exercise the powers of
sovereignty through representatives elected by the people, or through the organs established by the constitution. http://www.learn-usa.com/transformation_process/roa022.htm
The former central role of the horse in our society is reflected by the influence of all
things equestrian
on our language. From curtail and marshal to put the cart
before the horse and curry
favour, English is pervaded by either explicit or long-lost references to
our equine
friends – so much so that we’re now more likely to encounter them linguistically
and figuratively
rather than literally. To give a horse free rein is to hold the
reins loosely so as to allow the animal freedom of movement – it’s the opposite
of keeping a tight rein on the horse (controlling it closely).
John Harris (1756–1846) published children's books in England from the end of the 18th
century to the mid-19th century, creating innovative and popular new styles. Apprenticed to Thomas Evans he found employment for a
short time with John Murray before joining John
Newbery's publishing firm. Harris
took over Newbery's firm which had passed first to his son, then to his nephew
and nephew's wife. Harris had managed
the firm for Elizabeth Newbery and in 1801 bought it from her, renaming in his
own name. Noticing that playful books
such as Mother Goose's Melody sold better than Evangelical fare, in 1805
he issued The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and Her Dog which
departed from Newbery's publications in that it was completely devoid of
didacticism and was meant to amuse. The
first edition of the book was illustrated with copperplate engravings, one on each page,
unlike Newbery's sparse use of woodcuts, and of a relatively small size (4
inches by 5 inches). Mother Hubbard
sold well and began a run of similar books such as Whimsical Incidents
in 1805 followed a year later by an edition of John Gilpin
with colour illustrations. The
Butterfly's Ball was published in 1807 to great success, followed by a
number of similar titles as well as a few cautionary
tales such as The Cowslip by Daisy Turner. In 1807 he added a series he called Harris'
Cabinet of Amusement and Instruction with stories that were meant to
entertain children, unlike works written by authors such as Mrs.
Trimmer who wrote to instruct children. By 1809 he had a catalogue of 419 titles that
he sold from his premises at St Paul's Churchyard. In 1819 the firm became J. Harris & Son,
and at that time they began to issue newly illustrated colour editions of
editions previously published without colour illustrations. The books were
expensive by the standard of the time, costing "One Shilling plain and
Eighteen Pence coloured. Children's
literature scholar Jack Zipes explains that because of traditional Puritan
laws against fairy tales, English publishers had to import fairy stories of
French and German origin. Harris
published a volume of fairy tales in 1802, Mother Bunch's Fairy Tales,
and in 1820 the firm published The Court of Oberon; or, The Temple of Fairie
which children's literature and folklore scholar Iona Opie calls "an
important volume". See images at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harris_(publisher)
The Memorial Tournament always yields a top-notch field to test Jack
Nicklaus' Muirfield Village Golf Club. The 2013 tournament includes many of the
world's top 20 players, including international stars such as Master's champion
Adam Scott, Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald and Justin Rose, as well as American
stalwarts Bubba Watson and defending champion Tiger Woods. http://www.dispatch.com/content/pages/sports/memorial/memorial-tournament.html
May 31, 2013 At the Memorial Tournament, roving teams confiscate cellphones from spectators to protect golfers from jarring ringtones, snapshots. Its members wear matching blue
shirts and stern expressions. Wrapped
around their biceps are ominous yellow bands stamped with the four letters of
fear: MDCC. They are the Mobile Device Courtesy
Committee, and they want you to put away your darn phone. Or else:
They get their phone confiscated, and they can’t fetch it from
lost-and-found until the last player finishes that day. The MDCC, a band of volunteers who carry
paddles displaying pictures of circled-and-slashed cellphones, formed because
fans got a little too aggressive with their mobile devices last year, said
Memorial executive director Dan Sullivan. Golfers complained. Some speculated that Phil Mickelson’s early
withdrawal after the first round had something to do with cellphones. Memorial officials actually want fans to bring
phones. They want them to tweet their
location and tell everyone what a great time they’re having at the golf
tourney. But they don’t want those
phones ringing. They don’t want them
taking pictures during competitive rounds, which began yesterday. They don’t want people chatting up grandma in
Florida while Rory McIlroy tries to dig his way out of a lousy opening round. And so they say: Keep the phone on silent, don’t talk on it
outside designated areas, and don’t dare pull it out near the ropes. Marshals remind the fans of the rules at each
hole. MDCC teams travel in packs of
eight and follow the most-popular player pairings, two in the morning and two
in the afternoon. Lori Kurtzman http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/sports/2013/05/31/memorial/roving-teams-confiscate-cellphones-from-memorial-spectators.html
The Memorial Tournament runs from May 30-June 2, 2013 and is located at the
Muirfield Village Golf Course in Dublin, Ohio.
The Memorial Tournament is themed each year around a person, living or
dead, who has contributed to the game of golf. Find more information and a list of
honorees, 1976-2013 at: http://www.thememorialtournament.com/the-memorial/honorees/
Part of the allure of learning a new language is discovering words for things you wouldn’t have
known existed or thought of in the same way before. The perpetual fascination of attempting to
translate between two languages lies in the gap that always exists, even
between very closely related words. The
Spanish olvido describes something we don’t quite
have a word for: not an act of forgetting or moment of forgetfulness or total
oblivion, but a mental compartment that sits opposite memory, just as blindness
is the opposite of sight. Words that
don’t seem to have an exact equivalent are often described as untranslatable. The great Japanese translator
Motoyuki Shibata claims that Arthur Golden’s Memoirs
of a Geisha (an English fiction that purports to
be a translation from Japanese) is much improved by its translation into Japanese by Takayoshi Ogawa, who
transformed it into something authentic by incorporating the actual traditional
vocabulary used by geishas. Esther
Allen http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/57551-why-does-language-always-change.html
Many thanks, Paul.
May 30, 2013 Jack Vance, who penned his first short stories while serving in the
U.S. Merchant Marine in the 1940s and became a prolific, award-winning author
of elaborate works of science fiction, fantasy and mystery, has died. He was 96.
Among his best-known works was "The Dying Earth," a collection
of linked fantasy stories first published in 1950 that told of life on the
planet in the far distant future, with a weak sun ever in danger of burning
out. Complete with heroic quests and
magical duels, it is considered to have influenced many more recent fantasy
writers, including "Game of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin, and
was later expanded into several novels. Vance, who published more
than 60 books, collected various honors over his career, including
several Hugo awards, a prestigious science fiction and fantasy prize. He won Hugos in 1963 for "The Dragon
Masters," in 1967 for "The Last Castle" and in 2010 for his
memoir "This is Me, Jack Vance!" Other awards included an Edgar, for mystery
writing, for "The Man in the Cage," published in 1961. But for many of his fans, he never received
quite the credit he was due. In 2009, a New York Times magazine profile described him
as "one of American literature's most distinctive and undervalued
voices" and quoted author Michael Chabon speaking in a similar vein. "Jack Vance is the most painful case of
all the writers I love who I feel don't get the credit they deserve," Chabon
said. "If 'The Last Castle' or 'The
Dragon Masters' had the name Italo Calvino on it, or just a foreign name, it
would be received as a profound meditation, but because he's Jack Vance and
published in Amazing Whatever, there's this insurmountable barrier." John Holbrook Vance, known as Jack, was born
Aug. 28, 1916, in San Francisco, the son of Charles and Edith Vance. His first short story, "The World Thinker,"
was published in 1945 in a pulp magazine. Other stories soon followed, although he also
supported himself with non-writing work — as a carpenter and welder, among
other jobs — until the early 1970s.
Rebecca Trounson
June 1, 2013 That guy you
may have seen busily building a nest
in the Cleveland Public Library’s Eastman Reading Garden? He’s not some birdbrain. Nor is he preparing for an avian invasion. The nest builder is New York-based artist and
Cleveland Institute of Art grad Mark Reigelman, who expects to be finished June
3 with his public art installation, “Reading Nest.” The nest structure, which
patrons can enter through a door, is 30 feet wide and 12 feet high. Reigelman has already made
his mark on Cleveland. At the Cleveland
Museum of Art, he created the “White Cloud” public art exhibit and “Wood Pile.”
He also conceived Cleveland’s downtown
Bike Rack project and designed steel and concrete planters along the
reconstructed Euclid Avenue. Michael K.
McIntyre See picture at: http://www.cleveland.com/tipoff/index.ssf/2013/06/at_the_cleveland_public_librar.html
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