Douglas P. Lyle is the Macavity and Benjamin Franklin Silver Award winning and Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Scribe, and USA Best Book Award nominated author of many non-fiction books as well as numerous works of fiction, including the SAMANTHA CODY and DUB WALKER thriller series and the ROYAL PAINS media tie-in novels.  His essay on Jules Verne’s THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND appears in THRILLERS:  100 MUST READS and his short story “Even Steven” in International Thriller Writer’s anthology THRILLER 3:  LOVE IS MURDER.  He has worked with many novelists and with the writers of popular television shows such as Law & Order, CSI:  Miami, Diagnosis Murder, Monk, Judging Amy, Peacemakers, Cold Case, House, Medium, Women’s Murder Club, 1-800-Missing, The Glades, and Pretty Little Liars.  He was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama where his childhood interests revolved around football, baseball, and building rockets in his backyard.  After leaving Huntsville, he attended college, medical school, and served an internship at the University of Alabama; followed by a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Texas at Houston; then a Fellowship in Cardiology at The Texas Heart Institute, also in Houston.  For the past 35 years, he has practiced Cardiology in Orange County, California.  He is the co-host, along with Jan Burke, of CRIME AND SCIENCE RADIO, a twice-monthly program on SUSPENSE RADIO.  Find his awards and nominations at http://www.dplylemd.com/DPLyleMD/Bio.html

See The Writer's Forensics Blog, forensic comments for writers from D.P. Lyle, M.D. at http://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com/

Before the age of mass media, salesmen traveled door to door demonstrating their wares and leaving product information in households.  Manufacturers offered bonuses and incentives to consumers who purchased their products, often in the form of trade cards included with the product or left by salesmen.  Colorful, printed trade cards created by the Woolson Spice Company of Toledo, Ohio are held in the Center for Archival Collections at Bowling Green State University.  The advertising on the back of the cards includes the text, "To secure a picture card like this you have only to Buy a Package of Lion Coffee."   http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/ref/collection/p267401coll36/id/24469  See also an inventory of the Woolson Family Papers at Newberry Library http://mms.newberry.org/xml/xml_files/Woolson.xml and information on the Woolson Company which initially offered its customers "flour, sugar, whiskey and dynamite" at https://www.facebook.com/EastToledoHistoricalSociety/posts/10152121420435980

Is there really a hand in handsome?  It was an Old English suffix (-sum) used primarily to form adjectives from nouns, and occasionally from other adjectives and verbs.  So the suffix -some added to hand meant pertaining to a hand.  Follow the evolution of the word, starting in 1435 A.D., through the eyes of the Oxford English Dictionary. 
•  Easy to handle or manipulate, or to wield, deal with, or use in any way.
•  Of action, speech, appropriate, apt, dexterous, clever, happy:  in reference to language, sometimes implying gracefulness of style.
•  Proper, fitting, seemly, becoming, decent, courteous, gracious.
•  Of a sum of money, a fortune, a gift, considerable.  Now in stronger sense:  Ample, generous, liberal, munificent.
•  Having a fine form or figure (usually in conjunction with full size or stateliness); ‘beautiful with dignity’; ‘fine’.  (The prevailing current sense.) 
So, “attractive because easy to handle” eventually lost the hand but retained the attractiveness.   Michael J. Sheehan   http://verbmall.blogspot.com/2007/08/handsome-is-as-handsome-does.html

Find close to 100 words ending in some at http://www.morewords.com/ends-with/some/

Mary Tebbetts Wolfe (1931-2014) When Mary was 17, her father died unexpectedly, and her family moved from Dobbs Ferry, NY to Manchester, NH where she finished her high school career at Manchester Central High.  While Mary studied at this school, Bob Montana, the artist for the Archie Comics, spotted her and drew his character "Veronica" after her likeness.  Mary's thirst for knowledge of the arts inspired her to enroll in Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio to earn a Master's degree in History of Art and Painting, which she received in 1968.  After she graduated, the University recruited her to teach its survey course in History of Art, as well as Art of the Renaissance.  She taught at BGSU for eight years, and her animated lectures became very popular with hundreds of students.  After teaching, she was the director of the McFall Arts Center in the BGSU President's building, where she curated four shows a year for five years.  Later, in 2006, BGSU awarded Mary an honorary doctorate degree.  While juggling her teaching career and family responsibilities, she also assumed an important role in community leadership.  By then the Wolfe family relocated to the Toledo area and Fritz became increasingly successful in establishing his business in the long-term healthcare industry.  Both Mary and Fritz began to serve on arts agency boards and educational institutions, contributing to a growing arts renaissance in Northwest Ohio.  The Wolfe family participated financially in sizable projects, such as the new Contemporary Art Gallery at the Toledo Museum of Art.  At Bowling Green State University, Mary helped to found The Medici Circle, an arts advocacy group, which continues today thirty years later.  Read much more at http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/toledoblade/obituary.aspx?n=mary-wolfe&pid=173245467&fhid=13947

Q.  How long is a passport valid and when should I renew my passport?  A.  If you were age 16 or older when your passport was issued, your passport is valid for 10 years.  If you were age 15 or younger when your passport was issued, your passport is valid for 5 years.  The Issue Date of your passport can be found on the data page of your Passport Book or on the front of your Passport Card.  If possible, you should renew your passport approximately nine months before it expires.  Some countries require that your passport be valid at least six months beyond the dates of your trip.  Some airlines will not allow you to board if this requirement is not met.  If your passport has already expired, you may still be able to renew your passport by mail. See How to Renew Your U.S. Passport at http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/passports/renew.html  Source: 

http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/passports/FAQs.html

Dec. 6, 2014  The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of a group claiming the Texas DMV violated their free speech rights by blocking the distribution of vanity license plates marked with the Confederate flag emblazoned on them.  The crux of the case hinges on whether the justices determine that the license plates qualify as the speech endorsed and distributed by the government (and therefore the government can decide what it wants to say) or if the vanity tags are the private speech of the individual who decides to purchase and display their opinions (a perfectly legal and Constitutionally protected right).  The case began when the Sons of Confederate Veterans had their vanity license plate application denied by a Texas board and they sued the state for infringing on free speech rights.  At first a federal judge ruled that the state was within its rights to reject the application, but then a federal appeals court overturned that ruling on the grounds that the rejection was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.  The Fifth Circuit Court ruled that even though the Confederate flag would be next to the “Texas,” a reasonable observer would understand that vanity plates are a result of the individual driver’s personal beliefs, not an endorsement of the state’s convictions.  Tom Sherman

http://www.statecolumn.com/2014/12/supreme-court-to-hear-case-about-vanity-license-plates/

The Hour of Code is a global movement reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries.  Anyone, anywhere can organize an Hour of Code event.  One-hour tutorials are available in over 30 languages.  No experience needed.  Ages 4 to 104.  Link to FAQs and tutorials at http://hourofcode.com/us 

Coding sounds hard, but sometimes all a kid (or grown-up) needs is a push in the right direction. That's the motivation for the second annual Hour of Code, which runs between December 8th and 14th, 2014  as part of Computer Science Education Week. The initiative from non-profit site Code.org is designed to help students learn the basics of programming by providing a variety of educational tools online.  It's also aiding 76,000 US classrooms by providing Hour of Code sessions -- double the number from last year.   Major US tech companies are also involved, with Apple and Microsoft hosting Hour of Code workshops in participating stores during the week, for instance.  Other activities include coding with Disney's Frozen characters Anna and Elsa to learn to draw and position objects, JavaScript drawing basics from Khan Academy and a tutorial from Lightbot that teaches students to program a robot.  President Barack Obama kicked off the proceedings with a new YouTube video.  Link to 1:09 video at  http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/08/hour-of-code-computer-science/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1228  December 10, 2014  On this date in 1684, Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, was read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley.  On this date in 1799,  France adopted the metre as its official unit of length.