Friday, April 29, 2016

Professor Klaus Schwab founded what was originally called the European Management Forum, as a non-profit foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland.  It drew business leaders from Europe, and beyond, to Davos for an Annual Meeting each January.  Initially, Professor Schwab focused the meetings on how European firms could catch up with US management practices.  He also developed and promoted the ‘stakeholder’ management approach, which based corporate success on managers taking account of all interests:  not merely shareholders, clients and customers, but employees and the communities within which they operate, including government.  Events in 1973, namely the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate mechanism and the Arab-Israeli War, saw the Annual Meeting expand its focus from management to economic and social issues.  Political leaders were invited for the first time to Davos in January 1974.  Two years later, the organization introduced a system of membership for ‘the 1,000 leading companies of the world’.  The European Management Forum was the first non-governmental institution to initiate a partnership with China’s economic development commissions, spurring economic reform policies in China.  In 1987, the European Management Forum became the World Economic Forum and sought to broaden its vision to include providing a platform for dialogue.  World Economic Forum Annual Meeting milestones during this time include the Davos Declaration signed in 1988 by Greece and Turkey, which saw them turn back from the brink of war, while in 1989, North and South Korea held their first ministerial-level meetings in Davos.  At the same Meeting, East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl met to discuss German reunification.  In 1992, South African President de Klerk met Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the Annual Meeting, their first joint appearance outside South Africa and a milestone in the country’s political transition.  In 2015, the Forum was formally recognised as an international organisation.  It is now on the next phase of its journey as the global platform for public-private cooperation.

In late May 2003, the Library of Congress completed the purchase of the only surviving copy of the first image of the outline of the continents of the world as we know them today—Martin Waldseemüller’s monumental 1507 world map.  That map has been referred to in various circles as America's birth certificate, and for good reason—it is the first document on which the name America appears.  It is also the first map to depict a separate and full Western Hemisphere and the first map to represent the Pacific Ocean as a separate body of  water.  Martin Waldseemüller, the primary cartographer of the map, was a sixteenth-century scholar, humanist, cleric, and cartographer who had joined the small intellectual circle, the Gymnasium Vosagense, organized in Saint-Dié,France.  He was born near Freiburg, Germany, sometime in the 1470s, and died in the canon house at Saint-Dié in 1522.  During his lifetime, he devoted much of his activities to cartographic ventures, including the famous world map, a set of globe gores (for a globe with a 3 inch diameter) and, the Cosmographiae Introductio (a book to accompany the map) in the spring of 1507; the 1513 edition of the Ptolemy Geographiae; the Carta Marina, a large world map, in 1516; and a smaller world map in the 1515 edition of Margarita Philosophica Nova among other items.  Waldseemüller’s 1507 map was a bold statement that rationalized the modern world in light of the exciting news arriving in Europe as a result of explorations sponsored by Spain, Portugal, and others—not only across the Atlantic Ocean, but around the African coast and into the Indian Ocean.  The map must have created quite a stir in Europe, since its findings departed considerably from the accepted knowledge of the world at that time, which was based on the second century A.D. work of the Greek geographer, Claudius Ptolemy.  To us, the 1507 map appears remarkably accurate; but to the world of the early sixteenth century it represented a considerable departure from accepted views regarding the composition of the world. Its appearance undoubtedly ignited a debate in Europe regarding its portrayal of an unknown continent (unknown to Europe and others in the Eastern Hemisphere) between two huge bodies of water, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and separated from the classical world of Ptolemy, which had been confined to the continents of Europe, Africa, and Asia.  By 1513, when Waldseemüller and the Saint-Dié scholars published the new edition of Ptolemy's Geographiae, and by 1516, when his famous Carta Marina was printed,  Waldseemüller had removed the name America from his maps, perhaps suggesting that even he had second thoughts in honoring Vespucci exclusively for his understanding of the New World.  Instead, in the 1513 atlas the name America does not appear anyplace in the volume, and the place of America is referred to as Terra Incognita (Unknown land).  In the1516 Carta Marina, South America is called Terra Nova (New World), and North America is named Cuba, and is shown to be part of Asia.  No reference in either work is made to the name America.  Yet, cartographic contributions by Johannes Schöner in 1515 and by Peter Apian in 1520 adopted the name America for the Western Hemisphere, and that name became part of accepted usage.  John R. Hébert  Read more at http://www.stonybrook.edu/libmap/coordinates/seriesb/no4/b4.htm

BookCon is an annual fan convention established in 2014 in New York City.  Taking the name format from other fan conventions such as Comic-Con, BookCon was established to combine pop culture and the book industry.  The second BookCon took place in May 2015.  BookCon is run by ReedPOP, which also organizes New York Comic Con, Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, Star Wars Celebration, and other events.  BookCon was created to boost the image and attendance of long-running book fair BookExpo Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BookCon  The third BookCon will be held May 11, 12, and 13, 2016 at McCormick Place in Chicago.  http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/Show-Info/Event-At-A-Glance-Hours/#page=Event-Hours

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  BLEND WORDS
clairaudience  (kler-AW-dee-uhns)  noun  The supposed ability to hear what is inaudible.  A blend of clairvoyance + audience (the act of hearing), from audire (to hear).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root au- (to perceive), which also gave us audio, audit, obey, auditorium, anesthesia, aesthetic, and synesthesia.  Earliest documented use:  1864.
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From:  Andrew Pressburger  Subject:  Blend words  One portmanteau coinage I am still inordinately proud of after some fifty years past its creation is the name I gave to a late afternoon Christmas brunch I had in Montreal.  Adding to the already existing blend of breakfast and lunch, I came up with brinner, i.e. brunch and dinner, thus partaking of a Yule Brinner.  I hope fellow linguaphiles still remember the noted actor of such memorable films and musicals as Anastasia and The King and I (in whose name the -e is not only silent but invisible, too).
From:  Jorge Del Desierto  Subject:  Blend words  In French, the term for blend words is mot-valise or suitcase words.

September 18, 2014  The Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews is no longer just for men.  The R&A became the latest golf club to end years of male-only exclusivity when its members voted overwhelmingly in favor of inviting women.  The vote was effective immediately.  "I can confirm that The Royal & Ancient Golf of St. Andrews is now a mixed membership club," R&A secretary Peter Dawson said in a statement.  Dawson said more than three-quarters of the club's 2,500 members worldwide voted, with 85 percent in favor.  The members also voted to fast-track a "significant" number of women to join in the next few months.  Augusta National, home of the Masters, decided two years ago to invite women to join.  Unlike the R&A, Augusta National did not have a written policy that banned women.  Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore were the first female members.  While the R&A members have access to the clubhouse behind the first tee at the Old Course, they belong to a club, not a golf course.  The seven golf courses at St. Andrews are open to the public.  The Royal & Ancient governs golf everywhere in the world except for the United States and Mexico.   http://www.cbsnews.com/news/royal-and-ancient-golf-club-votes-to-admit-female-members/

Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation, according to population estimates released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Millennials, whom we define as those ages 18-34 in 2015, now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69).  And Generation X (ages 35-50 in 2015) is projected to pass the Boomers in population by 2028.  Generations are analytical constructs, and developing a popular and expert consensus on what marks the boundaries between one generation and the next takes time.  Pew Research Center has established that the oldest “Millennial” was born in 1981.  To distill the implications of the census numbers for generational heft, this analysis assumes that the youngest Millennial was born in 1997.  With immigration adding more numbers to its group than any other, the Millennial population is projected to peak in 2036 at 81.1 million.  http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/25/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/


http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1463  April 29, 2016  On this date in 1899, Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, and bandleader, was born.  On this date in 1945, Catherine Lara, French singer-songwriter and violinist, was born.  

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