"Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not."  "Science literacy is the artery through which the solutions of tomorrow's problems flow."  "Half of my library are old books because I like seeing how people thought about their world at their time.  So that I don't get bigheaded about something we just discovered and I can be humble about where we might go next.  Because you can see who got stuff right and most of the people who got stuff wrong."  Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and author (b. 5 Oct 1958)

Flour should be stored, covered, in a cool and dry area.  This prevents the flour from absorbing moisture and odors and from attracting insects and rodents.  Freezing flour for 48 hours before it is stored will kill any weevil or insect eggs already in the flour.  It is better not to mix new flour with old if you are not using the flour regularly.  Do not store flour near soap powder, onions or other foods and products with strong odors.  Keep whole wheat flour in the refrigerator the year around.  Natural oils cause this flour to turn rancid quickly at room temperature.  Put a bay leaf in the flour canister to help protect against insect infections.  Bay leaves are natural insect repellents.  Bread Flour –  white flour made from hard, high-protein wheat.  It has more gluten strength and protein content than all-purpose flour.  It is unbleached and sometimes conditioned with ascorbic acid, which increases volume and creates better texture.  Bread flour has 12% to 14% protein (gluten).  This is the best choice for yeast products.  Cake Flour –  fine-textured, soft-wheat flour with a high starch content. It has the lowest protein content of any wheat flour, 8% to 10% protein (gluten).  It is chlorinated (a bleaching process which leaves the flour slightly acidic, sets a cake faster and distributes fat more evenly through the batter to improve texture.  When you’re making baked goods with a high ratio of sugar to flour, this flour will be better able to hold its rise and will be less liable to collapse.  This flour is excellent for baking fine-textured cakes with greater volume and is used in some quick breads, muffins and cookies.  If you cannot find cake flour, substitute bleached all-purpose flour, but subtract 2 tablespoons of flour for each cup used in the recipe (if using volume measuring).  Find description of many flours, including gluten-free such as almond, amaranth, barley and buckwheat, at https://whatscookingamerica.net/Bread/FlourTypes.htm

Dollar was the English spelling of the German taler.  In 1792, the U.S. adpoted the dollar as its basic montary unit.  The cent meant one-hundredth of a dollar following a system first proposed by Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816).   Democrat Andrew Jackson first used the donkey as a symbol for his party after his opponents in the 1828 presidential election called him a "jackass".  Cartoonist and illustrator Thomas Nast (1840-1902) introduced the Republican elephant in an 1874 cartoon.  The Book of Answers:  The New York Public Library Telephone Reference Service's Most Unusual and Entertaining Questions

For 20 years, a Seattle computer scientist has been spreading his love of words through daily emails sent to more than half a million people . . .  and through best selling books.  His name is Anu Garg, and his "A Word A Day" emails allow him to explore words and their definitions for a living.  "Linguaphile.  It means a lover of language and words."  This is the word that perfectly describes Anu.  Anu says he started learning English in 6th grade as a second language.  He learned to love words from his father, a bibliotaph--meaning "one who hoards books."  He eventually moved to the U.S. and began sharing his favorite words through emails that he sent to his colleagues in the earliest days of the internet.  He said that was when he realized words have a universal appeal.  "The way I see it, having a large vocabulary is like an artist having a large palette of colors . . . you don't have to use all these colors in a single painting, but it helps to be able to find just the right shade when you need it."  Saint Bryant

http://www.king5.com/entertainment/television/programs/evening/seattle-computer-scientist-hones-in-on-the-power-of-words/482083294

In the 1300s Middle English adopted “affray” from Anglo-Norman, first as a verb and later as a noun.  In Anglo-Norman, affrayer meant to frighten or disturb, and an affray meant a fright or disturbance.  When the verb showed up in English, spelled “affraie,” it meant to frighten.  Although that sense is now archaic, the medieval past tense and past participle, “afreyd,” gave us the adjective “afraid.”  When the noun “fray” showed up at the end of the 1300s, it also referred to a fright, but that sense is now obsolete.  A few decades later, the shorter noun “fray” took on a similar sense that the OED describes as a “disturbance, esp. one caused by fighting; a noisy quarrel, a brawl; a fight, skirmish, conflict.”  The words “affray” and “fray” have had several other meanings over the years, but the one that sets them apart showed up in the 1400s, when “affray” became a legal term for a “breach of the peace caused by fighting or rioting in a public place,” or “the offence of taking part in such a disturbance,” according to the OED.  Read more at https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2017/05/fray-affray.html  See also http://www.finedictionary.com/fray.html

Chocolate chip cookies.  Is there a more beloved treat?  Nope.  And is there a better recipe than this one?  Nope.  (And we say that with all humility.)  These are the cookies that appeared in the July 9, 2008 edition of the New York Times, the very same cookies that set off an explosion of baking across the Internet to see if, indeed, they are the perfect specimen.  The consensus is yes.  Originally published May 22, 2009.   David Leite  Find recipe at https://leitesculinaria.com/9951/recipes-perfect-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" dates from the early 19th century, although versions of it that paraphrased the same thought existed well before then.  A nearer stab at the current version comes in a piece by the English writer Eustace Budgell in the newspaper The Spectator No. 605, October 1714:  Imitation is a kind of artless Flattery.   Charles Caleb Colton wrote, in Lacon: or, Many things in few words, 1820:  Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery.html

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness."  Oscar Wilde  https://medium.com/@carolineherrera/imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery-that-mediocrity-can-pay-to-greatness-oscar-wilde-4a59ce972f67

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders is named winner of the 2017 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.  Lincoln in the Bardo is the first full-length novel from George Saunders, internationally renowned short story writer.  The 58-year-old New York resident, born in Texas, is the second American author to win the prize in its 49-year history.  http://themanbookerprize.com/news/lincoln-bardo-wins-2017-man-booker-prize

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1786  October 18, 2017  On today's date in 1943, the British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham led the Seattle Symphony in the premiere performance of the Symphony No. 1 by a 30-year old composer named Jerome Moross.  The slow movement of the Moross symphony was inspired by the American hobo tune "The Midnight Special."  These days, Moross is better known for his film and TV work.  His 1958 score for "The Big Country" was nominated for an Academy Award, and he also wrote the music for the popular TV Western series "Wagon Train."  Three years after the Seattle premiere of the Moross First Symphony, Aaron Copland's Third Symphony had its premiere on the opposite coast.  Serge Koussevitzky conducted the Boston Symphony in the 1946 premiere of Copland's score, which includes as one of its themes Copland's enormously popular "Fanfare for the Common Man," a work the Cincinnati Symphony had premiered in 1943.  Composers Datebook