What is Bulgur Wheat? by JOLINDA HACKETT  Bulgur wheat is a whole wheat grain that has been cracked and partially pre-cooked.  Though bulgur wheat is most commonly found in tabbouleh salad, you can use it just like rice or couscous, or any other whole grain,  such as barley or quinoa.  Instead of rice, try pairing your favorite vegetable stir-fry or vegetable curry with cooked whole grain bulgur wheat.  Link to easy bulgur wheat recipes at https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-bulgur-wheat-3376810  See broken wheat also known as Cracked wheat, Dalia, Bulgar, Burghul, Fada, Lapsi, Bulgar Wheat, Couscous at https://www.tarladalal.com/glossary-broken-wheat-426i

Bulgar is the name for an inhabitant of Bulgaria (or, historically, of one of the predecessor states or tribes).  The word is derived from the Bulgarian language, which from the 7th century has been a form of Slavonic.  Bulgur wheat is a type of cereal.  It is made by boiling wheat, drying it and then crushing it.  It forms a staple in Turkey, from which the word comes.  It is often spelled bulghur, as is the equivalent transliteration into Arabic, in English, and also, confusingly, bulgar is recorded.  In America, bulgur is more usually called cracked wheat.  http://hull-awe.org.uk/index.php?title=Bulgar_-_bulghur_-_bulgur

The Gishwati Area Conservation Programme (GACP) began in September 2007, when H.E. President Paul Kagame, and the Founder and Chair of the Great Ape Trust/Earthpark Ted Townsend, pledged at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City to found a "National Conservation Park" in Rwanda to benefit climate, biodiversity and the welfare of the Rwandan people.  Since then, Great Ape Trust of Iowa/Earthpark and the Republic of Rwanda co-sponsor and manage the programme.  The work is centred in an area around the Gishwati Forest Reserve today recognised as "Forest of Hope".  Gishwati region is a part of the Congo-Nile Divide and Albertine Rift.  The relief is dominated by hills with high slopes.  The characteristics of that relief have an important impact on the local climate which is characterised by cool temperatures and high rainfall.  Gishwati Forest Reserve is a protected area.  Gishwati has a history of deforestation extending over the past 50 years.  This deforestation was mainly caused by ill-advised large-scale cattle ranching schemes, resettlement of refugees after the genocide, inefficient small-plot farming, free-grazing of cattle, and establishment of plantations of non-native trees.  As a result, the area is plagued with catastrophic flooding, landslides, erosion, decreased soil fertility, decreased water quality, and heavy river siltation, all of which aggravate local poverty.  This forest had 28,000 ha in the 1970s, while in 2005, the remnant forest was 600 ha.  And today, the Gishwati Forest Reserve is 1,484 ha.  http://www.forestlandscaperestoration.org/learning-site-gishwati

Land of a Thousand Hills  The years-long effort of Des Moines businessman Ted Townsend and colleagues to save two tiny forests and a group of chimpanzees in the small East Africa country of Rwanda is on the verge of success.  Part-time Urbandale resident Townsend and his colleagues from the Des Moines area helped establish a new Rwanda, from a different continent.  More than once, they left the insurance buildings of Greater Des Moines for the “Land of a Thousand Hills,” where a forest had nearly disappeared, along with a small group of chimpanzees.  Because of this work, the isolated chimps that called Gishwati Forest home before Townsend showed up have an even better chance of survival.  The number of Gishwati chimpanzees grew to 24, double the level when work began under the moniker “Forest of Hope.”  Part of that success came as “ecoguards” hired by Townsend’s team cracked down on forest-raiding, and as husband-wife researchers Rebecca Chancellor and Aaron Rundus, now of West Chester University in Pennsylvania, observed the chimps and learned more about their dietary habits.  Read more at https://businessrecord.com/PrintArticle.aspx?aid=68269&uid=c7025de5-1011-4caf-9cf8-e38882ddcc3f

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses one of the world's most extensive combinations of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field.  These materials are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances.  An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts—whether professional or amateur—the library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters, and photographs.  https://www.lincolncenter.org/venue/new-york-public-library-for-the-performing-arts-dorothy-lewis-b-cullman-center

"With four research centers in Manhattan and eighty-eight neighborhood libraries throughout Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx, the New York Public Library looks forward to welcoming you.  Providing far more than access to books and materials, the Library offers 55,000 free programs annually—serving everyone from toddlers to teens to seniors."  https://www.nypl.org/about/locations

Harold Clayton Lloyd Sr. (1893–1971) was an American actor, comedian, director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer who is best known for his silent comedy films.  Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and "talkies", between 1914 and 1947.He is best known for his bespectacled "Glasses" character, a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s-era United States.  Lloyd's Beverly Hills home, "Greenacres", was built in 1926–1929, with 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens, and a nine-hole golf course.  After attempting to maintain the home as a museum of film history, as Lloyd had wished, the Lloyd family sold it to a developer in 1975.  The grounds were subsequently subdivided but the main house and the estate's principal gardens remain and are frequently used for civic fundraising events and as a filming location, appearing in films like Westworld and The Loved One.  It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lloyd  The January 2018 issue of The American Organist magazine shows a picture of Virgil Fox with Harold Lloyd at the console of the 31-rank Aeolian organ installed at Lloyd's Greenacres estate.  The organ, still in the house, is restored with a computer player system.  Pipes are in the basement and speak through a tone chamber into the living room.  The Echo organ is installed between the first and second floors, speaking into the hall ceiling.

The word ‘serendipity’ was invented by Horace Walpole.  He is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with introducing over 200 words into the English language, among them beefy, malaria, nuance, sombre, and souvenir.  But his most celebrated neologism was ‘serendipity’, meaning the ‘faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident’.  This was coined in a letter of 28 January 1754 written to another man named Horace, namely Horace Mann.  The word ‘serendipity’ comes from Serendip, the old name for Sri Lanka, but Walpole was indebted to a specific work of literature for the creation of the word.  ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’ is one of the earliest detective stories in existence:  it tells of how three princes track down a missing camel through luck and good fortune.  However, that’s not the whole truth.  The three princes in the story do actually utilise what we would now call forensic deduction--almost Sherlockian in its method--and that, ironically, is what gets them into trouble.  https://interestingliterature.com/2015/01/28/a-short-history-of-the-word-serendipity/  Read about Serendip, serendipity and serendipitist at http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/serendip/about.html

"Young people are the antidote to hopelessness."  Jason Reynolds  See Jason Reynolds:  From Kid Poet to Award-Winning Author by Jordan Foster at https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/73381-jason-reynolds-from-kid-poet-to-award-winning-author.html and Jason Reynolds at http://www.pippinproperties.com/authors/jason-reynolds/

June 26, 2017  The OED's latest update to the dictionary is the addition of the definition of woke, which TIME defines as a term "embraced by the Black Lives Matter movement."  woke, adjective:  Originally:  well-informed, up-to-date.  Now chiefly:  alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; frequently in stay woke.  Katherine Martin, head of Oxford's U.S. dictionaries, explains that in the 1920s, the term simply meant to "stay awake."  For example, there was an event held in Harlem with ran from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. called the "Stay Woke Ball."  However, in the 1960s, people began using "woke" to signal a more figurative sense of the word "awakened," referring to those who are aware or well-informed.  Samantha Scelzo  http://mashable.com/2017/06/26/oed-adds-woke-to-dictionary/#99ut8uaHfkqK

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1833  January 26, 2018  On this date in 1837, Michigan was admitted as the 26th U.S. state.  On this date in 1838, Tennessee enacted the first prohibition law in the United States.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_26