Whole Grains A (Amaranth) to Z (Zizania)  Thumbnail descriptions of some of the many whole grain varieties from the Whole Grains Council  http://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/whole-grains-a-to-z

Long white cloud is lifting by Rowan Collick  The top income tax rate in New Zealand is 33 per cent, compared with 45 per cent in Australia; the corporate rate 28 per cent against 30 per cent.  Read an extensive article showing why the wave of New Zealanders shifting to Australia has become a trickle, and threatens to become a steady stream moving in the ­reverse direction at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/long-white-cloud-is-lifting/story-e6frg6z6-1227065791604?nk=b0dcbea789dbfc01d44ef6735ef9cbed

Aotearoa, originally used in reference to the North Island of New Zealand, is now the most widely known and accepted Māori name for the entire country.  The original derivation of Aotearoa is not known for certain.  The word can be broken up as:  ao = cloud, dawn, daytime or world, tea = white, clear or bright and roa = long.  It can also be broken up as Aotea = the name of one of the migratory waka that travelled to New Zealand, or the Large Magellanic Cloud, and roa = long.  The common translation is "the land of the long white cloud".  Alternative translations are ‘long bright world’ or ‘land of abiding day’ referring to the length and quality of the New Zealand daylight (when compared to the shorter days found further north in Polynesia).  Aotearoa can also be broken up as:  aotea-roa. Aotea is the name of one of the Māori migration canoes. The first land sighted was accordingly named Aotea (Cloud), now Great Barrier Island.  When a much larger landmass was found beyond Aotea, it was called Aotea-roa (Long Aotea).  Find titles of seven pieces of music using the words Aotearoa, Land of the Long White Cloud or both  at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aotearoa

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

loblolly  (LOB-lol-ee)  noun
1.  A thick gruel.
2.  Mire; mudhole.
3.  An assistant to a ship's surgeon.
4.  A pine tree with long needles and strong wood (Pinus taeda).
5.  An evergreen, loblolly-bay (Gordonia lasianthus).

Apparently from lob (an onomatopoeic word representing the sound of bubbling while boiling) + lolly (an English dialectal word for broth, soup, etc.).  The use of the word for mire or a mudhole is from the porridge-like consistency of the contents of mire or mudhole.  The word came to be used for a medical assistant because he fed the patients.  The trees received this name from their prevalence in swamp lands.  Earliest documented use:  1597.

QUOTES from The November Man, previously published as There Are No Spies by Bill Granger (1941-2012) who also wrote under the pseudonyms Joe Gash and Bill Griffith.

"A cliché is only something well said in the first place.”

"Clichés fell by the bushelful in this administration.  Jargon clogged the corridors of power."

"The Oval Office--which had begun life as the presidential library--is a gigantic room in image; in reality, it is very much of the eighteenth century, small cozy and able to be heated by a single fireplace."

Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady of the United States, used radio to communicate on a wide variety of issues that she felt the American public, and women in particular, should know or think about.  She had been a radio pioneer, broadcasting from the 1920s onward and starting with her own radio show in 1932.  By the 1950s, radio as a technology began facing increasing competition from television.  Yet, as a medium to reach mass audiences and women in particular, radio continued to play a vital role.   Read more at http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/4/3/2158244014551712  Thank you, Muse reader.

Apple's shiny iPhone 6 Plus has been talked up by buyers for, among other things, its thin case and the toughness of its 5.5-inch multi touchscreen.  But Apple didn't mention that it also appears to be the company's most flexible handset – whether you want it to be or not. 

A handful of early adopters have reported that after carrying the phablet around in a pocket, their iPhone 6 Plus has become slightly bent.  The pictures were posted to the MacRumors forums and later joined by images from other blogs.  The condition was then replicated in a video test.  The phones do not break or become unusable, but do have a noticeable bend.  Shaun Nichols  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/23/iphone_6_plus_tells_fanbois_get_bent/

A phablet is a class of mobile device designed to combine or straddle the functions of a smartphone and tablet.  The word Phablet is a portmanteau of the words phone and tablet.  Phablets typically have screens that measure (diagonally) between 5.3 to 6.9 inches (135 to 180 mm), which complement screen-intensive activity such as mobile web browsing and multimedia viewing.  Phablets may also include software optimized for an integral self-storing stylus to facilitate sketching, note-taking and annotation.  Reuters called 2013 the "Year of the Phablet."  In 2014, noting that phablets had overtaken laptops and desktops in global sales, the New York Times said "phablets could become the dominant computing device of the future — the most popular kind of phone on the market, and perhaps the only computer many of us need."  In 2014, Business Insider predicted phablets would outsell smartphones by 2017.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phablet

The -Ize Have It Contest  For an American Scholar tote bag, convert a noun into a verb ending in “ize.”  (New coinages only, please.)  The three most annoying examples will win.  Find entry form at http://theamericanscholar.org/back-talk/#.VCK7Q_ldV8E

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1195  September 24, 2014  On this date in 1789, Congress passed the Judiciary Act which created the office of the United States Attorney General and the federal judiciary system, and ordered the composition of the Supreme Court of the United States.  On this date in 1852, the first airship powered by (a steam) engine, created by Henri Giffard, traveled 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to Trappes.