Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993) was a British naval historian and author of some 60 books, the most famous of which was his best-seller Parkinson's Law, which led him to be also considered as an important scholar in public administration and management.  Parkinson's law, which provides insight into a primary barrier to efficient time management, states that, "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion".  Parkinson first published his law in a humorous satirical article in the Economist on 19 November 1955, meant as a critique on the efficiency of public administration and civil service bureaucracy, and the continually rising headcount, and related cost, attached to these.  That article noted that, "Politicians and taxpayers have assumed (with occasional phases of doubt) that a rising total in the number of civil servants must reflect a growing volume of work to be done."  The law examined two sub-laws, The Law of Multiplication of Subordinates, and The Law of Multiplication of Work, and provided 'scientific proof' of the validity of these, including mathematical formulae.  Two years later, the law was revisited when Parkinson's new books, Parkinson's Law And Other Studies in Administration and Parkinson's Law:  Or The Pursuit of Progress were published in 1957.  In March 1952, Parkinson proposed a central public library, for Singapore, as a memorial to King George VI, commemorating that monarch's reign.  In 1953, the Lee Foundation pledged a dollar-for-dollar match up to $375,000 towards the establishment of a national library, provided that it was a free, without-cost, public library, open to men and women of every race, class, creed, and colour.  It was not, however until November 1960, that Parkinson's vision was realised, when the new library, free and for all, was completed and opened to the public. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Northcote_Parkinson  Find explanation of Parkinson's Law at  http://www.fluent-time-management.com/parkinsons-law.html

Hugo Gernsback (1884–1967), born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgish-American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best known for publications including the first science fiction magazine.  In his honour, annual awards presented at the World Science Fiction Convention are named the "Hugos".  Before helping to create science fiction, Gernsback was an entrepreneur in the electronics industry, importing radio parts from Europe to the United States and helping to popularize amateur "wireless."  In April 1908 he founded Modern Electrics, the world's first magazine about both electronics and radio, called "wireless" at the time.  While the cover of the magazine itself contends it was a catalog, most historians note that it contained articles, features, and plotlines, qualifying it as a magazine.  Under its auspices, in January 1909, he founded the Wireless Association of America, which had 10 000 members within a year.  In 1912, Gernsback said that he estimated 400 000 people in the U.S. were involved in amateur radio.  In 1913, he founded a similar magazine, The Electrical Experimenter, which became Science and Invention in 1920.  It was in these magazines that he began including scientific fiction stories alongside science journalism—including his own novel Ralph 124C 41+ which he ran for 12 months from April 1911 in Modern Electrics.  Gernsback started the modern genre of science fiction in 1926 by founding the first magazine dedicated to it, Amazing Stories.  The inaugural April issue comprised a one-page editorial and reissues of six stories, three less than ten years old and three by Poe, Verne, and Wells.  He said he became interested in the concept after reading a translation of the work of Percival Lowell as a child.  His idea of a perfect science fiction story was "75 percent literature interwoven with 25 percent science."  He also played a key role in starting science fiction fandom, by publishing the addresses of people who wrote letters to his magazines.  So, the science fiction fans began to organize, and became aware of themselves as a movement, a social force; this was probably decisive for the subsequent history of the genre.  He also created the term “science fiction”, though he preferred the term "scientifiction".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Gernsback

Q.  How many countries are in Central America?  A.  Seven.  Find a map showing them at http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/camerica.htm

Q.  How many countries are in the Caribbean Community?  A.  Fifteen plus five associate members.  Find names at http://www.caricom.org/jsp/community/member_states.jsp?menu=community

Q.  What country is in both Central America and the Caribbean Community?  A.  Belize.

The Muses were the Greek goddesses of inspiration in literature, science and the arts.  They were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (the personification of memory), and they were also considered water nymphs.  Some scholars believed that the Muses were primordial goddesses, daughters of the Titans Uranus and Gaea.  There were nine Muses according to Hesiod, protecting a different art and being symbolised with a different item; Calliope (epic poetry - writing tablet), Clio (history - scroll), Euterpe (lyric poetry - aulos, a Greek flute), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry - comic mask), Melpomene (tragedy - tragic mask), Terpsichore (dance - lyre), Erato (love poetry - cithara, a Greek type of lyre), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry - veil), and Urania (astronomy - globe and compass).  On the other hand, Varro mentions that only three Muses exist:  Melete (practice), Mneme (memory) and Aoide (song).  According to a myth, King Pierus of Macedon named his nine daughters after the Muses, thinking that they were better skilled than the goddesses themselves.  As a result, his daughters, the Pierides, were transformed into magpies.  http://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/The_Muses/the_muses.html

The parmesan cheese you sprinkle on your penne could be wood by Lydia Mulvany According to the FDA's report on Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania-based Castle Cheese, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, "no parmesan cheese was used to manufacture" the Market Pantry brand 100% grated Parmesan Cheese, sold at Target Corp. stores, and Always Save Grated Parmesan Cheese and Best Choice 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, sold by Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc., which along with its subsidiaries supplies 3,400 retail stores in 30 states.  Bob Greco of Cheese Merchants of America said competitors hawking bastardized products have underbid him by as much as 30 percent.  "The bad guys win and the rule-followers lose," Greco said.  The FDA regulates what can legally be called Parmesan or Romano according to standards established in the 1950s to ensure that manufacturers wouldn't sell cheeses wildly different in composition.  Americans love their hard Italian cheeses.  Italian producers, however, aren't loving it as much.  The Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium, a trade group based in Rome, asked the European Union in December to protect its manufacturers against U.S. companies that were using the names of their cheeses and Italian flags on their packaging.  "A deceit" is how the organization's president, Giuseppe Alai, characterized Americans' use of Italian names and symbols.  Of all the popular cheeses in the U.S., the hard Italian varieties are the most likely to have fillers because of their expense.  Parmesan wheels sit in curing rooms for months, losing moisture, which results in a smaller yield than other cheeses offer.  While 100 pounds of milk might produce 10 pounds of cheddar, it makes only eight pounds of Parmesan.  That two-pound difference means millions of dollars to manufacturers, according to Sommer.  Castle produced mainly imitation cheeses for nearly 30 years.  The company, whose factory was adorned with crenelated battlements and curved archways to look like a medieval castle, had $19 million in sales in 2013.  The trouble started in 2010 when it began making what it called 100 percent grated Parmesan.  A plant manager designed flawed recipes, and after Castle fired him in 2012, he alerted the FDA, the company said in a December 2012 letter to the agency, obtained through the FOIA.  The FDA accused Castle Cheese of marketing as real grated Parmesan what was in fact a mixture of imitation cheese and trimmings of Swiss, white cheddar, Havarti and mozzarella.  After the probe, Castle stopped production of the problematic cheeses and dumped inventories.  The company filed for bankruptcy in 2014.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-parmesan-cheese-wood-scandal-20160216-story.html

Here's a list of tips from Boomerang mail plug-in to get people to reply to your e-mails:  (1)  Use shorter sentences with simpler words.  (2)  Include 1-3 questions in your email.  (3)  Make sure you include a subject line!  Aim for 3-4 words.  (4)  Use a slightly positive or slightly negative tone.  Both outperform a completely neutral tone.  (5)  Take a stand!  Opinionated messages see higher response rates than objective ones.  (6)  Write enough, but not too much.  Try to keep messages between 50-125 words.  Hayley Tsukayama  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/02/16/want-to-get-more-responses-for-your-emails-write-like-a-third-grader/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1429  February 19, 2016  On this date in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese Americans to internment camps.  On this date in 1976, President Gerald Ford signed Proclamation 4417 rescinding executive order 9066.