Abner Pratt House, 107 North Kalamazoo Avenue, Marshall, Calhoun County, MI  This mid-nineteenth century mansion is believed locally to be a replica of the dwelling which Abner Pratt occupied when Consol to the Sandwich Islands in 1857.  This mansion, built in 1860 for a former United States Consul to Hawaii, combines exotic and domestic features into a unique whole.  It also contains elaborate decorative paintings of the late 19th century.  A mid-19th century mansion of unique architectural character, reputedly modeled on Hawaiian prototypes, with many original features and notable painted decoration.  National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number:  91002053  https://www.loc.gov/item/mi0036/

Abner Pratt was born on May 22, 1801, at Springfield, Otsego County, New York.  He had no formal schooling but eventually read law at Batavia, New York, later practicing in Rochester, New York, as District Attorney.  He liked what he saw of Michigan on a business trip in 1839, and resigned his post in New York to move to Marshall, Michigan.  At first he practiced with a Judge Lee, but shortly thereafter went into partnership with Judge Isaac E. Crary.  In 1844 Pratt was elected State Senator from the Fourth District, and in 1850, was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court to succeed Justice George Miles.  Under the new Constitution of 1850, he was elected Circuit Judge and Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court for a term of six years.  Pratt resigned from the Bench in 1857, when President James Buchanan appointed him Consul to the Sandwich Islands, with headquarters in Honolulu, a post he held until 1862. 

http://www.micourthistory.org/justices/abner-pratt/  See also https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/fall/pratt.html

Pratt is an English surname.  Find notable people and fictional characters with the surname at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt

The inventor of Morse code, Samuel Morse (1791-1872), needed to know which letters of the alphabet are used the most often so that he could give the simplest codes to the most frequently used letters.  He did it simply by counting the number of letters in sets of printers' type.  However, this gives the frequency of letters in English text, which is dominated by a relatively small number of common words.  For word games, it is often the frequency of letters in English vocabulary, regardless of word frequency, which is of more interest.  Find tables showing both frequencies at https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/which-letters-are-used-most/

What's the meaning of the phrase 'Go down like a lead balloon'?  Fail completely and be considered a flop by the public.  'Go over like a lead balloon' is the US version of this phrase.  In the UK a complete failures 'go down like a lead balloon'.  The phrase is American in origin and the first mention of a lead balloon with the meaning of something that fails comes from a Mom-N Pop cartoon that was syndicated in several US newspapers in June 1924.  Actually, that coinage went over like a lead balloon itself and the phrase didn't appear again until after WWII; for example, this piece from The Atchison Daily Globe, May 1947:  "But occasionally a column or comic strip will 'go over' like a V-1 rocket in one community and, for inexplicable reasons, a lead balloon in another."  That's when the phrase can be said to have entered the language and there are many examples in print from US sources of ventures which went down like a lead balloon from that date onward.  The most celebrated use of the term is the part played in the naming of the English heavy-metal band Led Zeppelin.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/lead-balloon.html

Black chokeberry is a multi-stemmed, deciduous, eastern North American shrub.  It reaches 4–8 feet in height, but in cultivation, and with selection of hybrids, many plants available in commerce reach only the lower end of this height range.  The plant’s habit is multi-stemmed, and plants can form large, dense colonies over time.  Black chokeberry fruits are unpleasant when raw (hence the common name), but when processed they have culinary and nutraceutical value.  Smith notes that, historically, the Potawatomi people used the fruits as food and made an infusion of fruits as a treatment for colds.  The Abnaki also used the fruits as a food (Rousseau).  In recent history, black chokeberry has been extensively produced in Russia as a small fruit, used in juice products (mixed with apple juice), wine, compote and pickles (Kask).  It has been commercially grown in Europe where its fruits are used in juice, alcoholic beverages, energizing beverages, and as a food colorant (Bussieres et al.).  Sweden initiated studies to develop this crop in 1986 (Jeppsson and Johansson).  Knudson notes that fruits can be canned whole, the juice can be used in fruit drinks and jelly, and extracts can be used as natural colorants in the food industry.  The fruit of black chokeberry has higher levels of antioxidants (anthocyanins and flavonoids) than any other temperate fruit.  This is generating an increasing level of interest among small fruit producers in the U.S.

https://extension.umaine.edu/agriculture/aronia/plant-description-and-habitat/  See also What are the health benefits of aronia berries? by Dan Wessels at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320610.php

Suppose you are assembling an audiovisual presentation on Eleanor Roosevelt's relationship with the media or are delving into the effect of women's radio shows on consumers.  There are a variety of materials available in the Library of Congress for exploring the history of American women in both print and non-print media and how to find these sources.  Because of the diversity of formats held by the Library, there exists no one catalog that lists all items, no online record for many individual items, no one set of authorized subject headings, and no single system of call numbers.  Different formats require different search strategies.  The next few sections on subject headings and call numbers apply mostly to print sources—especially books and periodicals.  Many researchers, however, will need to use published works to help locate items such as photographs or newspaper articles.  Most reading rooms have additional catalogs, bibliographies, discographies, and finding aids that you must consult to determine the full range of materials available within the Library.  Explanations of these specialized catalogs, methods of subject access, and numbering systems may be found in the Using the Collections pages of the American Women Research Guide.  The Library of Congress Online Catalog is available from any computer with Internet access.  In one integrated system, it contains approximately twelve million records representing many, but not all, of the Library's books, serials, computer files, manuscript collections, cartographic materials, music, sound recordings, and visual materials.  The catalog also displays cross-references and scope notes that assist in navigating and locating relevant records.  (Separate catalogs for pictorial materials such as prints and photographs and for sound recordings supplement the main online catalog.)  Complex searches are possible using commands, Boolean operators, truncation, and special cataloging codes.  You can limit by language, year and place of publication, types of material (e.g., limiting your search to manuscript material, computer files, or nonmusic sound recordings), and location of the material within the Library.  For a detailed description of how to search the online catalog, see the Help pages.  Most users find the basic search relatively straightforward, but "Help" screens and "Search examples" are available at every step.  Once you arrive at the Library, the Computer Catalog Center (Jefferson Building, room LJ 139) has reference staff available to assist you.  https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awsearchcat.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2092  May 6, 2019