La Serenissima  (Italian) is a name for the Republic of Venice.  Serenissima Res Publica Poloniae  (Latin) is the official Latin name of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.  Find use of name in other ways, including art, entertainment, and sports at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenissima



In the politics of the United States, dark money refers to political spending by nonprofit organizations—for example, 501(c)(4) (social welfare) 501(c)(5) (unions) and 501(c)(6) (trade association) groups—that are not required to disclose their donors.  Such organizations can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals and unions.  In this way, their donors can spend funds to influence elections, without voters knowing where the money came from.  Dark money first entered politics with Buckley v. Valeo (1976) when the United States Supreme Court laid out Eight Magic Words that define the difference between electioneering and issue advocacy.  The term was first used by the Sunlight Foundation to describe undisclosed funds that were used during the United States 2010 mid-term election.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money  Dark Money may also refer to a 2016 non-fiction book by Jane Mayer and a 2018 documentary by Kimberly Reed.



Cianfotta  Some Neapolitans say this dish is simplified French ratatouille, while others contend that ratatouille is complicated cianfotta.  Either way, this stew is a tender medley of seasonal summer produce.  While cooking cianfotta, as it’s known in the local dialect (ciambotta in Italian), you want everything to sort of steam in its own juices; you’ll need to control the heat so you don’t need to add any water.  In the end, the vegetables should be very soft and almost falling apart and the flavors should all be beautifully married.  Katie Parla https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/cianfotta-neapolitan-style-ratatouille  serves 4-6



Alexander McCall Smith has a light-hearted take on the bleak world of Scandinavian crime fiction.  The first novel in a new series, The Department of Sensitive Crimes introduces readers to Ulf Varg, a Swedish detective who prefers a night in with his dog to an all-night bender.  Set in Malmö, the book follows Varg and his colleagues as they investigate a series of strange events including a market trader stabbed in the back of the knee, which is about as violent as it gets.  McCall Smith, whose long running series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency brought him global success, has described his unique approach to the Scandi-noir genre as “Scandi-blanc”.  As well as his new Scandi-blanc series, summer 2019 will also see the publication of The Second Worst Restaurant In France, the second book in another series starring food writer Paul Stuart.  “I suffer from this serial novelism condition,” McCall Smith explains.  “The symptoms are that you write serial novels, there’s no known cure, and then you die.  That’s the way it works.”  Chris Green  https://inews.co.uk/culture/alexander-mccall-smith-department-of-sensitive-crimes/



Disposing of plastic  When recycling plastic bottles, remove cap (some charities collect them) and snip away the ring around the bottle top.  Snip apart plastic six-pack holders before discarding.



Cristallo is a glass which is totally clear (like rock crystal), without the slight yellow or greenish color originating from iron oxide impurities.  This effect is achieved through small additions of manganese oxide.  Often Cristallo has a low lime content which makes it prone to glass corrosion (otherwise known as glass disease).  The invention of Cristallo glass is attributed to Angelo Barovier around 1450.  In addition to common glass making materials manganese, quartz pebbles, and alume catino, a particularly suitable form of soda ash, are used in the making of cristallo glass.  Rather than using common sand, crushed quartz pebbles were used instead.  The quartz pebbles had to be free of yellow and black veins and also had to be able to produce sparks when struck with steel.  If the quartz pebbles passed the selection process then the pebbles were heated to the point where the stones began to glow and then placed into cold water.  Then the pebbles were crushed and ground.  The typical flux was used in the production of cristallo was called alume catino.  Alume catino was derived from the ash of the salsola soda and salsola kali bushes that grew in the Levantine coastal region.  It was found to contain high and constant amounts of sodium and calcium carbonates, necessary to make workable and chemically stable glass.  The ash of the plants was then carefully sieved and then placed into water to be gently boiled with constant mixing.  Then the ashen mixture was placed into shallow pans to be dried.  Once dried the alume catino would repeat the boiling and drying process until all of the salt was extracted from the ashes.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristallo


People had used naturally occurring glass, especially obsidian (the volcanic glass) before they learned how to make glass.  Obsidian was used for production of knives, arrowheads, jewelry and money.  The ancient Roman historian Pliny suggested that Phoenician merchants had made the first glass in the region of Syria around 5000 BC.  But according to the archaeological evidence, the first man made glass was in Eastern Mesopotamia and Egypt around 3500 BC and the first glass vessels were made about 1500 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia.  For the next 300 years, the glass industry was increased rapidly and then declined.  In Mesopotamia it was revived in the 700 BC and in Egypt in the 500’s BC.  For the next 500 years, Egypt, Syria and the other countries along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea were centers for glass manufacturing.  The first glass factory in the United States was built in Jamestown, Virginia in 1608.  In the early 1800’s, there was a great demand for window glass which was called crown glass.  In the 1820s, the age of blowing individual bottles, glasses and flasks was ended by the invention of a hand-operated machine.  In the 1870s, the first semi-automatic bottle machine was introduced.  After 1890, glass use, development and manufacture began to increase rapidly.  Machinery has been developed for precise, continuous manufacture of a host of products.  In 1902, Irving W. Colburn invented the sheet glass drawing machine which made possible the mass production of window glass.  In 1904, the American engineer Michael Owens patented automatic bottle blowing machine.  In 1959 new revolutionary float glass production was introduced by Sir Alastair Pilkington by which 90% of flat glass is still manufactured today.  Link to other articles on the history of glass at http://www.historyofglass.com/



On August 19, 2019, umbrellas tumbled from north to south and lifeguards cleared beaches in Delaware's Rehoboth Beach region as a storm like a "pop-up hurricane" approached and a shelf cloud appeared.  According to a story from the Weather Channel, a shelf cloud is the boundary between a downdraft and updraft of a thunderstorm or line of thunderstorms.  The story explains the shelf cloud forms as rain-chilled air descends in a thunderstorm's downdraft, while warmer, more moist air is lifted at the leading edge, or gust front, of this rain-cooled air.  When this warm, moist air condenses, the shelf cloud is formed.  The Weather Channel story says there’s an abrupt shift in wind direction and increased wind speed as the shelf cloud's leading edge passes.  Once it passes, there may be clouds with a wavy appearance, called asperitas, showing the turbulent wave-like motions behind the gust front.  The passage of the shelf cloud, the article says, is followed within minutes by heavy rain or hail.  Chris Flood   See pictures at https://www.capegazette.com/article/crazy-weather-brings-awe-inspiring-pictures-video/187175



Indonesia announced August 26, 2019 that it will be relocating its capital from Jakarta, which is slowly sinking into the sea.  The new capital city will be in the East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, President Joko Widodo said at a news conference in Jakarta’s presidential palace, according to The Associated Press.  “We couldn’t continue to allow the burden on Jakarta and Java island to increase in terms of population density,” he said.  “Economic disparities between Java and elsewhere would also increase.”  The transition is expected to take a decade, and CNN Indonesia said the total cost could be $34 billion.  Jakarta is a huge metropolis built on swampy land, and it has been sinking for decades.  Rising sea levels caused by climate change are adding to the problem.  So is the continued extraction of groundwater, the rising population and congestion.  About 10 million people live in Jakarta, with 30 million in the area.  Chris Mills Rodrigo  https://thehill.com/policy/international/458882-indonesia-announces-location-of-new-capital-as-jakarta-sinks-into-sea



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2145  August 28, 2019