The National Museum of the Great Lakes, 1701 Front Street, in Toledo, Ohio opened on April 26, 2014.  The Great Lakes contain 21% of the world's fresh water, and 84% of the North American continent's fresh water.  Exhibits at the museum list many statistics, including:  Lake Huron, with 3,827 miles of shoreline has a surrounding population of 1.5 million in the U.S. and 1.5 million in Canada.  Lake Ontario, with 712 miles of shoreline, has a surrounding population of 2.8 million in the U.S. and 2.8 million in Canada.  Lake Michigan, with 1,640 miles of shoreline, has a surrounding population of 12 million in the U.S.  Lake Erie, with 871 miles of shoreline, has a surrounding population of 10.5 million in the U.S. and 1.9 million in Canada.  Lake Superior, with 2,726 miles of shoreline, has a surrounding population of 444,000 in the U.S. and 229,000 in Canada.   http://www.inlandseas.org/

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew of 29.  When launched on June 8, 1958, she was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes, and she remains the largest to have sunk there.  Many theories, books, studies and expeditions have examined the cause of the sinking.  Fitzgerald may have fallen victim to the high waves of the storm, suffered structural failure, been swamped with water entering through her cargo hatches or deck, experienced topside damage, or shoaled in a shallow part of Lake Superior.  Gordon Lightfoot made it the subject of his 1976 hit song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".  Investigations into the sinking led to changes in Great Lakes shipping regulations and practices that included mandatory survival suits, depth finders, positioning systems, increased freeboard, and more frequent inspection of vessels.  Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB) are now installed on all Great Lakes vessels for immediate and accurate location in event of a disaster.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald

The Great Lakes have been sailed upon since at least the 17th century, and thousands of ships have been sunk while traversing them.  Many of these ships were never found, so the exact number of shipwrecks in the Lakes is unknown; the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum approximates 6,000 ships and 30,000 lives lost, while historian and mariner Mark Thompson has estimated that the total number of wrecks is likely more than 25,000.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_the_Great_Lakes

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

What does a marathoner have in common with a Neanderthal and a milliner?  All three are derived from the names of places.  The word marathon is from Marathon in Greece, the word Neanderthal is coined from Neander valley in Germany, and a milliner is, literally, someone from Milan, Italy.  

These are examples of toponyms (from Greek topos: place), words derived from place names.

damson  (DAM-zuhn, -suhn)  noun  1.  A variety of small plum (Prunus insititia) or its fruit.  2.  A dark purple color.  From Latin Prunum Damascenum (plum of Damascus), perhaps because it was first cultivated in Damascus or because it was introduced into Europe from Syria.  Two other words coined after Damascus are damask and damascene.  

Earliest documented use:  1398.

Whitehall  (HWYT-hawl) noun  The British government or the British Civil Service.   From Whitehall, a street in London, on which many government offices are located. The street gets its name from the Palace of Whitehall.  Earliest documented use:  1827. 

rounceval or rouncival  (ROUN-si-vuhl)  adjective  Big or strong.  noun  Someone or something that is large.  From Roncesvalles, a town at the foot of the Pyrenees.  It was the site of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 in which Roland, a commander of Charlemagne's army, was defeated by the Basques.  Earliest documented use:  1570.

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From:  Michael Tremberth  Subject:  Whitehall  Like The White House, always with a capital W.  A delightfully ambiguous term; one must be an insider to be sure whether it means the UK Government or the Civil Service or both acting in consort or occasionally at loggerheads.  Senior civil servants are known as mandarins.  The set-up was satirised some years ago in a television series entitled Yes Minister, which accurately and mercilessly exposed all the foibles of the system.  If you wanted to be cruel you could say that UK didn't need a civil war, because it already had Whitehall.

From:  James P. Albert  Subject:  Whitehall  Whitehall was also a reference to the draft offices in NYC for the years, some time back, when I was eligible to take a government-paid trip to Vietnam.

From:  Toby Churchill  Subject:  Whitehall  Also a type of American rowing boat usually 14 to 22 feet long.

From:  Sue Wright  Subject:  rounceval  The word rounceval took me back to a beloved poem from my long ago childhood, Edward Lear's charming "The Owl and the Pussycat".  After their wedding, the owl and the pussycat "dined on mince, and pieces of quince which they ate with a runcible spoon."  Although if used today, I believe the term rounceval or runcible spoon has taken on the characteristics of a spork with a flat cutting edge.

PARAPHRASE and QUOTES from The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith  Daggers in the eyes are always visible, sometimes even through sunglasses.  "If you have enemies, then your biggest enemy is yourself."  "People who behave badly are often unhappy with themselves--and with the world."

Alexander McCall Smith was born in Zimbabwe (called Southern Rhodesia at the time) and was educated there and in Scotland.  He became a law professor in Scotland, and it was in this role that he first returned to Africa to work in Botswana, where he helped to set up a new law school at the University of Botswana.  He is currently Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh, but has been a visiting professor at a number of other universities elsewhere, including ones in Italy and the United States (where he has twice been visiting professor at SMU Law School in Dallas, Texas).  Over the past twenty years, Smith has written more than fifty books, including specialist academic titles, short story collections, and a number of immensely popular children's books.  In 1998, McCall Smith's detective novel, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, was published and received two Booker Judge's Special Recommendations. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1676691/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm  The BBC filmed a six-part TV series based on Alexander's No. 1. Ladies' Detective Agency books

Bobbin' and robbin' robins have spent the last week diving and bobbing about a cherry tree in my backyard, robbing it of ripe fruit.  The robins are fat and satisfied.

The general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board ruled on July 29, 2014 that McDonald’s could be held jointly liable for labor and wage violations by its franchise operators — a decision that, if upheld, would disrupt longtime practices in the fast-food industry and ease the way for unionizing nationwide.  Business groups called the decision outrageous.  Some legal experts described it as a far-reaching move that could signal the labor board’s willingness to hold many other companies to the same standard of “joint employer,” making businesses that use subcontractors or temp agencies at least partly liable in cases of overtime, wage or union-organizing violations.   Steven Greenhouse  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/business/nlrb-holds-mcdonalds-not-just-franchisees-liable-for-worker-treatment.html?_r=0

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1177  July 30, 2014  On this date in 1932, the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award winning cartoon short, Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees premiered.  On this date in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.