Late-Summer Chop   Combine 2 tablespoons rice-wine vinegar, 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt.  Toss with 1 cup each cucumber, fennel and apple, all cut into uniform 1/2-inch pieces.  Serve spooned over cottage cheese, sprinkled with freshly ground pepper and fennel fronds.  Martha Stewart Living  September 2017

Silence was a virtue to the Anglo-Saxon monks of Christ Church, Canterbury who followed the Rule of St Benedict.  These monks followed the Rule’s insistence on silence during daily activities outside the divine office, when monks celebrated the liturgy with the singing of psalms and the reading of prayers.  By not speaking outside these times the community attempted to lead a way of life that reflected the Benedictine core values of chastity, obedience and humility.  Yet a non-communicative way of life would have proved highly impractical for the Canterbury monks.  A manuscript produced at Canterbury in the 11th century (now Cotton MS Tiberius A III) reveals how the monks overcame this dilemma.  The manuscript includes the only Old English copy of Monasteriales Indicia (ff. 97r–101v), a form of sign language used by Benedictine monks at times when forbidden to speak out loud.  The Indicia features descriptions of 127 hand signs representing books and items used in the divine office, food consumed in the refectory, tools used daily, and persons met in the monastery and outside.  Read more and see graphics at http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2016/11/silence-is-a-virtue-anglo-saxon-monastic-sign-language.html

The subjunctive is a specific verb form.  It usually expresses something that you wish for, or a hypothetical rather than actual situation.  It is also used to indicate that something is being suggested or demanded.  Find examples at https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/grammar/when-to-use-the-subjunctive

September 5, 2017,  80 years after the launch of white chocolate as the third type after dark and milk, Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products, revealed the fourth type in chocolate ‘ruby’ which is made from the ruby cocoa bean.  Ruby chocolate has an intense taste and characteristic reddish color.  Read press release at https://www.barry-callebaut.com/news/2017/09/barry-callebaut-reveals-fourth-type-chocolate-ruby

Banal (buh NAL, BANE ul) adj:  unoriginal, ordinary  Bane (bane) n:  poison, torment, cause of harm  Find other difficult words at http://www.english-for-students.com/Bane.html

WHAT ARE THE WINDWARD ISLANDS?  The Windward Islands include the southeastern islands of the Caribbean.  They're called the Windward Islands because they are exposed to the wind ("windward") of the northeast trade winds (the northeasterlies) from the Atlantic Ocean.  Within the Windward Islands is a chain that includes many of the smaller islands in this group.  This is often called the Windward Chain and here they are listed from north to south:  Dominica - The northernmost island, the British government held this territory until 1978 and considered it part of the Leeward Islands.  It is now an independent country and most often thought to be in the Windward Islands; Martinique (France); Saint Lucia; Saint Vincent and The Grenadines; and Grenada.  WHAT ARE THE LEEWARD ISLANDS?  Between the islands of the Greater Antilles and those of the Windward Islands are the Leeward Islands.  Mostly small islands, they are called the Leeward Islands because they are away from the wind ("lee").  Just off the coast of Puerto Rico are the Virgin Islands and this is the northernmost part of the Leeward Islands.  The northern set of islands are territories of the United Kingdom and the southern set are territories of the United States. Outside of the Bahamas and Jamaica, the Virgin Islands are among the most popular tourist destinations in the Caribbean.  St. Croix is the largest of the Virgin Islands.  Though considered part of the Lesser Antilles, from a purely geological standpoint, the Virgin Islands are actually part of the Greater Antilles.  Learn about more islands in the Caribbean at https://www.thoughtco.com/windward-islands-and-leeward-islands-4069186

"Once you have knowledge--whatever knowledge it may be--you can't go back to a state of innocent ignorance.  It's like an attempt to return to childhood--we can't."  The Dog Who Came In From the Cold, #2 in the Corduroy Mansions series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith

Jon Jefferson (born 1955) is a contemporary American author and television documentary maker.  Jefferson has written eight novels in the Body Farm series under the pen name Jefferson Bass, in consultation with renowned forensic anthropologist William M. Bass, as well as two non-fiction books about Bass’s life and forensic cases.  Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, Jefferson spent most of his youth in Guntersville, Alabama.  As a high school senior, he was named a National Merit Scholar, a state winner in the National Council of Teachers of English writing contest, and a Presidential Scholar (one of two from Alabama).  He won a scholarship to Birmingham-Southern College, where he majored in English, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.  He did graduate study in English and comparative literature at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Prior to writing books, Jefferson worked as a staff science writer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory; as an educator and administrator at Planned Parenthood of East Tennessee; as a freelance magazine and newspaper journalist; and as a television documentary writer/producer.  His writings have been published in The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today and Popular Science, and have been broadcast on NPR.  His documentaries include programs for the A&E Network, The History Channel, and the Oxygen Network.  He also wrote and directed for the National Geographic Channel a two-part documentary--Biography of a Corpse and Anatomy of a Corpse—about the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility, which is also widely known as the Body Farm.  During filming, Jefferson met the founder of the Body Farm, Bill Bass, who asked for Jefferson's assistance to write his memoir, which was published in 2003 under the title Death’s Acre.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Jefferson

ghit  noun  contraction of Google and hit:  a hit obtained using the search engine Google.  Wiktionary

In modern use, a bollard is a device used for traffic control.  More precisely, they’re used to prevent motor vehicle traffic from entering a specific area.  You’re most likely to encounter them as metal posts about one meter high, but they come in many shapes and sizes.  Some are concrete only, some are steel-reinforced concrete, some are concrete sheathed in steel.  They’re meant as a deterrent to keep drivers from veering into a work zone or parking on the sidewalk, or from taking their vehicles down bike paths or into pedestrian-only areas.  Simply by having some form of obstacle (a bollard), most drivers will get the message, even if a lot of those bollards wouldn’t stop a vehicle with a determined driver.  But increasingly, much more serious bollards are being installed.  These devices are sturdy—strong enough to stop a car at speed.  In fact, many of them, especially the ones meant for high security areas, are able to stop large trucks (if you want to see just how effective these are, google “bollard truck test” and browse the images; this very short video of a test is also revealing, although if you’re more of a “greatest hits” person, try this one).  They’re typically made of some variety of structural steel and, when properly installed, very little on wheels will make it past them.  They meet rigorous standards for impact (at least one of ISO IWA 14-1, BSi PAS 68, or ASTM F2656-07, if you’re interested).  My first (incorrect) impression was that the word was most likely old, but obscure.  I suspected it was probably a British import to the US (correct), possibly from French (incorrect).  It turns out bollard is a fairly recent word in English:  the OED cites a first print use only from 1844.  At that time it was a nautical term, indicating the large post on a wharf used as the point to tie up ships.  Of course, these posts were used long before that, they simply went by other names (“posts” being one, “knights-heads” another, “bitt” possibly another).  Bollards could also exist aboard a ship, not necessarily in the same form but serving a similar purpose (securing ropes and lines).  Traffic bollards are (probably) the later innovation (and certainly a later word usage).  OED lists a first use in this sense from 1948.  Merriam-Webster claims a 1763 first use for the word (but doesn’t provide a citation:  their online dictionary is deficient that way).  That’s 80 years earlier than the OED’s reliable citation.  Christopher Daly  https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2017/08/30/vocabulary-what-is-a-bollard/

Conduct during playing of the national anthem https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title36/html/USCODE-2011-title36-subtitleI-partA-chap3-sec301.htm

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1775  September 26, 2017  On this date in 1789, Thomas Jefferson was appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay was appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood was appointed the first United States Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph was appointed the first United States Attorney General.  On this day in 1905, Albert Einstein published his first paper on the special theory of relativity.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_26  Word of the Day  pie in the sky  noun  A fanciful notion; an unrealistic or ludicrous concept; the illusory promise of a desired outcome that is unlikely to happen.