Ghostposting Now in his mid-70s, actor George Takei has
found new fame as a beloved social media maven boasting millions of followers
across his various social
networking accounts. But many of Takei’s
virtual admirers might be disappointed to know that Mr. Sulu is not solely
responsible for all that delightfulness. Some of the humorous quips posted under his
name were actually written by a ghostwriter being paid ten bucks per Facebook post. As it turns out, Takei’s use of outside help
for his social media work isn’t unique among celebrities. Sarah Palin, Britney
Spears, Kanye West and Barack Obama have admitted to using paid professional
help to maintain their social media profiles.
Evan Dashevsky http://www.techhive.com/article/2048479/whos-actually-writing-your-favorite-celebritys-tweets-.html The agents for US figure skaters
Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold both say sponsors draft some of their tweets,
plugging their brands. http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/16/3939522/some-sponsors-compose-olympians.html
Fennel seeds
are actually a spice, although the leaves, stalks and roots of the plant are
known as an herb. The bulb-like
vegetable called fennel is related to the herb fennel, but is not the same
plant. Fennel has been around for
thousands of years and food historians say that the name has Greek origins. In 490 BC the Ancient Greeks fought with the
Persians in the city of Marathon.
According to the story, the battleground was actually a field of fennel
and the word for fennel is derived from the Greek word for “marathon”. The Romans introduced the spice to the UK and
other European countries and over time it was also transported East to Asia and
China. The Puritans took the spice to the US, where they called fennel
seeds “meeting seeds”, due to the fact that during long church sermons or
Puritan meetings, they chewed on the seeds to fend off hunger and
tiredness. http://jovinacooksitalian.com/2013/10/03/cooking-with-italian-spices-fennel-seeds/
Do you know the word mumpsimus? It
comes to us from medieval England. Here’s
the story: There was a monk—call him
Anselm—who habitually misrecited one of the Latin prayers. Where the text called for sumpsimus (“we have taken”), Anselm would always
say mumpsimus. After
a time, Anselm’s brethren corralled him: “You keep saying mumpsimus. ... Look,
here’s the prayer book.” “I don’t care,”
Anselm replied. “I’m not trading in your
new sumpsimus for my old mumpsimus.” Anselm
gave us both the word mumpsimus and
its definition: One who continues
perpetrating a clear error even after irrefutable correction. Read four
vignettes leading to a single moral about writing better briefs by Bryan Garner
at
Australia’s indigenous inhabitants had very good reasons for being nomadic. One was ‘Kindal Kindal’, an imposing tree with
shiny dark green leaves and sweet-smelling blossoms that grew on the eastern
strip of the Great Dividing Range. The
Aborigines would congregate wherever the tree grew, to feast on its edible nuts
which first had to be removed from hard, woody shells. They regarded the nuts not
only as a delicacy with rich nutritional value, but a source of valuable
medical and cosmetic properties. In the
1850′s, botanists Ferdinand von Mueller and Walter Hill discovered two species
of these trees growing in the Queensland rainforests. The named the smooth-shelled macadamia
‘Macadamia Integrifolia’ and the rough-shelled species ‘Macadamia Tetraphylla’.
The genus ‘Macadamia’ acknowledged a
prominent scientist of the time, Dr John McAdam. Macadamias, then, had both a tradition and a
name, but their commercial potential was neglected to such a degree that the
first commercial plantations were established in Hawaii from seeds sent from
Australia. http://www.macadamia.com.au/macadamia-nuts/
Dr. John Macadam (1827-1865) was
a doctor of medicine, government chemical analyst, Melbourne city health
officer, lecturer in Melbourne University, and member of parliament and
minister of Victoria, Australia. He studied chemistry at Anderson's (now
Strathclyde) University and Edinburgh University, then medicine at Glasgow
University, graduating in 1854, and arrived in Australia the following
year. Initially he taught chemistry and natural science at the Scotch
College in Melbourne, and is also celebrated as one of the two umpires of the
first recorded game of Australian-rules football in 1858. http://www.earthwords.fsnet.co.uk/macadam.htm
“America’s network of public libraries is older than America itself. You can make a strong case that the precursor
to our modern book-lending system was developed in Boston in 1636, in Charleston
in 1698, by Benjamin Franklin and his Philadelphia cohort in 1731, or in the
Massachusetts town that named itself after Franklin in 1790. But what is indisputable is that this
“amazing decentralized mutual aid” creation, as one librarian described it, was founded on a radical belief that all
citizens have a right to information, art, and literature. That these things are not a luxury, but a
necessity, is an idea that turned the old elite concept of private libraries
and ivory towers on its head . . . By being responsive to the unique needs of
their communities, libraries have taken on sometimes surprising roles. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example, the central
branch of the City-County library has a case worker from the state’s Family and
Children Services agency on hand four hours a day, five days a week. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, you can check out musical instruments,
microscopes, telescopes, and home tools. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, New York
libraries offered direct assistance to residents who needed help rebuilding. The Sacramento Public Library in California
hosts Punk Rock Aerobics, led by one of its librarians. Outside Rochester, New York, you can check out fishing
poles. In Dallas, Texas, a public library
facilitates Coffee and Conversations, one-hour sessions for the homeless; more than 70
people attended the second meeting. And
in Woodbine, Iowa, you can borrow cake pans.”
Anna Clark http://www.bespacific.com/american-libraries-critical-part-of-fabric-of-life-in-a-changing-and-challenging-world/
"Make soft" is Hawaiian for "be careful." Example:
Make soft with
the eggs in that package.
Mining for White Gold in March by Wendy Kummerer One of the oldest
agricultural crops native to North America, maple syrup was once referred to as
“white gold.” Native Americans were
likely the first people to discover the many uses of maple syrup from
sweetening their meats to using it as a treat for small children. It is commonly thought that they then shared
their discovery with early settlers. Maple
syrup production occurred in late March, during a time everything on the farm
was relatively dormant – fences were mended, logging was completed and it was
still too early to plow. Farmers used
maple sugar to make maple honey, sap beer, maple cream and maple butter. A good yield of syrup might also have been
used to trade or barter to buy new shoes, seed, fabric or even to pay taxes. In the 1860s, production of maple syrup soared
with the availability of sheet metal, which allowed for the manufacture of tin
to make maple sugar buckets and bucket lids, metal spouts and evaporator pans. The Festival of the Sugar Maples is an annual
celebration of maple sugaring held the first two weekends in March at Coral
Woods Conservation Area in McHenry County, Illinois. March is chosen because by late February, a
thawing/freezing cycle begins where temperatures rise above 40 degrees during
the day and drop below 32 degrees at night. The daytime warmth causes sap to flow to the
tree’s branches to nourish developing buds, and then back to the roots when the
temperatures drop again. It is during
this up and down flow of the sap that collectors can catch the sap run. . http://mchenrycountyliving.com/places/item/532-mining-for-white-gold
Issue 1112 February 19, 2014 On this date in 1674, England and
the Netherlands signed
the Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. A provision of the agreement transferred the
Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England, and it was
renamed New York
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