Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Stratovolcanoes, also known as composite cones, are the most picturesque and the most deadly of the volcano types.  Their lower slopes are gentle, but they rise steeply near the summit to produce an overall morphology that is concave in an upward direction.  The summit area typically contains a surprisingly small summit crater.  This classic stratovolcano shape is exemplified by many well-known stratovolcanoes, such as Mt. Fuji in Japan, Mt. Mayon in the Philippines, and Mt. Agua in Guatemala.  Read more and see pictures at http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/stratovolc_page.html

Mount Vesuvius is a stratovolcano a short distance from the Gulf of Naples.  Its eruption in AD 79 buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, killing about 16,000 people.  In 1858, French organist Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély wrote a piece for the harmonicorde (combination piano and harmonium) titled Naples—La Prière sur le Vésuve, Op. 123, No. 3  The American Organist magazine  March 2014

The word "tantalize" comes from the plight of the mythological Tantalus, who so offended the gods that he was condemned in the afterlife to an eternity of hunger and thirst.  He was made to stand in a pool in Tartarus, the Underworld zone of punishment.  Each time he reached down for the water that beckoned to his parched lips, it drained away.  Overhanging the pool were boughs laden with luscious fruit.  But each time Tantalus stretched to pluck this juicy sustenance, the boughs receded from his grasp.  http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/tantalus.html

QUOTE   She takes more pleasure in rediscovery than in discovery itself, the mixture of newness and familiarity that rediscovery affords.  December by Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop

University of Toledo Professor Emeritus Joel Lipman has learned from nationally known poets who told him to keep his focus local.  That is his intention with ABRACADABRA Studio of Poetics.   “I want to build a local poetry community,” Lipman said.  “My goals as a publishing poet were not to reach everybody, but to reach people that somehow I happen to cross paths with.”  Lipman came to Toledo in 1975 after already being involved in the poetry community in Buffalo and Chicago.  He assumed a position in UT’s Department of English Language and Literature to teach creative writing.  Opening ABRACADABRA has been a family affair.  His son Eli is a partner while his daughter Samantha designed the website.  “ABRACADABRA gave me a chance to plug into my three kids,” Lipman said.  Lipman was inspired to move further with his idea for ABRACADABRA while visiting his other son Jesse, a slam poet who lives in Honolulu, as he competed in the National Poetry Slam Finals in Boston.  “It’s a national movement with enormous participation,” Lipman said. “Going there and seeing the vibrancy … made me aware of the fact that there was a huge appetite for poetry in the country.”  
Matt Liasse

A demonym, also referred to as a gentilic, is a name for a resident of a locality and is usually, though not always, derived from the name of a locality.  For example, the demonym for the people of the United Kingdom is British (derived from "British Isles"); the demonym for the people of Canada is Canadian; the demonym for the people of Norway is Norwegian; while the most common English language demonym for the people of the Netherlands is Dutch.  The word demonym comes from the Greek word for "populace" (demos) with the suffix for "name" (-onym).  While many demonyms are derived from placenames, many countries are named for their inhabitants (Finland for the Finns, Germany for the Germans, Thailand for the Thais, Denmark for the Danes, France for the Franks, Slovakia for the Slovaks, and Slovenia for the Slovenes).  The English language uses several models to create demonyms. The most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location's name, slightly modified in some instances.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonym

Stella Bain, the 17th novel by bestselling author Anita Shreve, opens in 1916, in a French field hospital where the eponymous protagonist awakens with practically no memory of who she is or how she arrived there.  Set against the rich and tragic backdrop of World War I, this mysterious story traces Stella’s attempt to piece together her true life and the events leading up to the desperate, shell-shocked state in which she wakes.  A resident of Massachusetts, Shreve has explored the theme of identity in earlier novels, which include The Pilot’s Wife, a selection of Oprah’s Book Club, and The Weight of Water, which was a finalist for the Orange Prize in England.  She has frequently written from a male point of view, but her focus, primarily and in Stella Bain, has been on women:  their choices, relationships, triumphs, crises, imposed gender roles, and essential humanity.  http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/a-talk-with-bestselling-stella-bain-author-anita-shreve-before-her-nashville-visit/Content?oid=4062048

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
scrutate   (SKRU-tayt)  verb. tr.  To investigate.  from Latin scrutari (to examine).  Earliest documented use:  1882.
manumit  (man-yuh-MIT)  verb. tr. To free from slavery.  From Latin manus (hand) + mittere (to let go).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root man- (hand), which also gave us manual, manage, maintain, manicure, maneuver, manufacture, manuscript, command, manure, manque, legerdemain, and mortmain.  Earliest documented use:  1455.
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Subject  Hand words
I was intrigued to learn that the word surgeon (archaic spelling: chirurgeon) is derived from Greek chiro- (hand).  In Czech, the word is "chirurg".  However, in Polish, German, Dutch, and Russian it is chirurg. In French it's chrurgien, in Italian -- chirurgo, and so on and so on.  In Scandinavian languages, the "ch" in the beginning of the word is replaced by "k".  Podiatrists are also hand-workers, like surgeons and chiropractors.  Or at least that is what I understand from the old riddle:  What did the Irishman say to the podiatrist?  Me fate is in your hands.  That's why podiatrists are also known as chiropodists.  Anu Garg

Internal Revenue Service 2014 Standard Mileage Rates  IR-2013-95, Dec. 6, 2013
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2014, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be:  56 cents per mile for business miles driven; 23.5 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes; 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations

Great Lakes mostly frozen over; big thaw to replenish water levels by Tom Henry
Lakes Michigan and Huron are expected to regain 9 to 14 inches, yet still could be as much as a foot below their long-term average.  Lake Superior, which holds more water than the other four Great Lakes combined, might edge above its long-term average this month for the first time since 1998.  Many might be surprised to learn the lake bringing down the region’s ice-cover average is Lake Ontario.  Its surface, even now, is less than 60 percent frozen.  The others were as much as 91 to 96 percent frozen.  Lake Ontario is last to freeze for a number of reasons:  It has one of the region’s warmer climates — though residents of upstate New York might disagree — and gets warmth from two hydroelectric plants.  But, perhaps more importantly, it has some of the fastest-moving water and relatively little surface area for its depth.  The Great Lakes region has 30 million U.S. and 10 million Canadian residentsIce covered 92.2 percent of the Great Lakes March 6, 2014 according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  That’s the most since 94.7 percent of the Great Lakes surface area was frozen over in early 1979.  See three maps from the NOAA at http://www.toledoblade.com/Energy/2014/03/12/Great-Lakes-mostly-frozen-over-big-thaw-to-replenish-water-levels.html


Issue 1121  March 12, 2014  On this date in 1894, Coca-Cola was bottled and sold for the first time in Vicksburg, Mississippi, by local soda fountain operator.  In 1912, the Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) were founded in the United States.

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