THE CLOSED RULE
by Michael Doran The closed rule constitutes a critical component of
managerial power in the contemporary House of Representatives and an
increasingly important element of the legislative process. Subject to approval by the full membership,
the closed rule allows managers to block all amendments to a measure when
bringing that measure to the floor. Despite
objections from the minority, both Republicans and Democrats regularly use the
closed rule when in the majority, and rank-and-file members ordinarily approve
any closed rule put to a floor vote. Once rarely used, the closed rule has become
managers’ preferred instrument for controlling the House floor agenda. This article examines the use of the closed
rule by the Republican majority in the 109th Congress and the Democratic
majority in the 110th Congress. 59 Emory
Law Journal 1363-1454 (2010) http://www.law.emory.edu/fileadmin/journals/elj/59/59.6/Doran.pdf
New York's Adirondacks Park gets its largest
acquisition in a century by Ginger
Strand Mike Carr
is like a kid who requested a pony for Christmas and found a whole dude ranch
under the tree. “For 35 years the
conservation community dreamed of protecting the Finch lands,” he says. “They were at the geographic center of the
park, surrounded by protected lands, connecting about 800,000 acres.” A
big man with a booming voice, Carr directs The Nature Conservancy’s work in the
Adirondacks. Pilot, skier, hiker, paddler, volunteer fireman—he has been avidly
exploring the Adirondacks since he was a kid and his Illinois family would ship
him here every summer to visit relatives. But the map he’s pointing to justifies his
enthusiasm. The Finch
timberlands—161,000 acres formerly owned by paper company Finch Pruyn &
Company and purchased in
2007 by the Conservancy—look like puzzle pieces completing a jigsaw of the
Adirondack Park. The map alone explains
why the Conservancy would race to pull together $110 million in just a few
short weeks upon hearing the lands might be for sale. All over the world, forests are being cleared
and fragmented, but here, the Conservancy wanted to piece one back together. And what a forest: The Finch lands include 300 lakes and ponds,
90 mountains, nearly 16,000 acres of wetlands and 29 untouched miles along the
upper Hudson River. They contain land
formations that have been off-limits to the public for more than a century. And they reconnect the Adirondack Park’s
6-million-acre landscape, providing the large tracts of land and elevation
gradients that are increasingly critical: Species from moose, bobcats and bears all the
way down to mosses and liverworts need this room to move and adapt to changing
climate conditions. Read much more at Nature
Conservancy magazine June/July 2014
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
holograph (HOL-uh-graf) noun: 1.
A document handwritten by its author. adjective:
2. Handwritten by the author. noun: 3.
A hologram: a three-dimensional image created using laser.
For 1, 2: Via Latin, from Greek holographos, from holos
(whole) + -graphos (written). Earliest documented use: 1623. For 3: From holography, which was coined from
hologram on the pattern of photography, from Greek holos (whole). Earliest documented use: 1968.
plutarchy (PLOO-tahr-kee) noun: 1. Rule
by the wealthy. 2. A wealthy ruling class.
The Greek biographer
Plutarch (c. 46-120 CE) has no connection with this word. Rather, it's Ploutos, the god of riches in Greek
mythology. The word (and its synonym plutocracy and the word plutolatry) are derived
from Greek pluto- (wealth) + archos (ruler), from arkhein (to rule). Earliest documented use: 1643.
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day It appears
Plutarch is the author of the original quotation "The mind is not a vessel
that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting" that is rephrased in a
widely attributed quotation to Yeats.
See Quote Investigator at http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/28/mind-fire/
"We
have updated this on our website now."
Anu Garg
From Distant Admirers to Library Lovers–and beyond, A typology of public library engagement in America by KATHRYN ZICKUHR, KRISTEN PURCELL AND LEE RAINIE
Work by the Pew Research
Center has shown that print books are still central to Americans’ library use, just as they remain central in
Americans’ overall reading habits. In
fact, though more Americans than ever are reading e-books (28% of adults ages 18 and older, as of January 2014),
few have abandoned print entirely; just 4% of readers read e-books exclusively.
Still, many Americans say they would be
interested in exploring a range of technological services at public libraries,
from personalized reading recommendations and online “Ask a Librarian” services
to media kiosks and mobile apps. Libraries
loom large in the public imagination, and are generally viewed very positively:
90% of Americans ages 16 and older say
that the closing of their local public library would have an impact on their
community. This means that many people
have a stake in the future of libraries, and as the digital age advances, there
is much discussion about where they are headed. To help with that conversation, Pew Research
has spent three years charting the present role libraries play in Americans’
lives and communities, in the hopes that this will set the foundation for
discussions of what libraries should be in the future. The first stage of our research studied the
growing role of e-books, including their impact on Americans’ reading habits and Americans’ library habits. second
stage explored the full universe of library services, as well as what
library services Americans most value and what they might want from libraries
in the future. This typology completes
our third and final stage of research, which explores public libraries’ roles in people’s lives and in American
culture writ large—how they are perceived, how they are valued, how people rely
on them, and so forth. All of this
research and the underlying data sets are available at http://libraries.pewinternet.org/
June 9, 2014. http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/13/library-engagement-typology/
The 2014
FIFA World Cup, the 20th, a tournament for the men's football world
championship, is being held in Brazil June 12-July 13. It
is the second time that Brazil has hosted the competition, the first being in 1950. Brazil was elected unchallenged as host nation
in 2007 after the international football federation, FIFA,
decreed that the tournament would be staged in South America for the first time
since 1978 in
Argentina, and the fifth time overall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FIFA_World_Cup See also http://www.fifa.com/
King James a.k.a. LBJ LeBron James has informed the Miami Heat that he will
exercise his early termination option and become an unrestricted free agent on
July 1. http://espn.go.com/nba/truehoop/miamiheat/story/_/id/11127329/lebron-james-opt-contract-miami-heat
The Local History & Genealogy Department of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library is the 2014
recipient of the John Sessions Memorial Award by the Reference and User
Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association
(ALA). Established in 1980, the award
recognizes a library or library system which works closely with the labor
community and consequently raises awareness of the history and contribution of
the labor movement to the development of the United States. The late John Sessions was co-chair of the
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
(AFL-CIO)/ALA Joint Committee on Library Service to Labor Groups. Sessions was also an assistant director of the
AFL-CIO Department of Education. The
local history department was selected for its extensive efforts in building an
ongoing legacy recognizing the labor community, according to the RUSA official
website.
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1166
June 25, 2014 On this date in 1788,
Virginia became
the 10th state to ratify the United States
Constitution. On this date in
1910, Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird was premiered in Paris, bringing him
to prominence as a composer.
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