The vegetable rhubarb requires cold winters to grow.  As a result, it’s mainly found in mountainous and temperate regions around the world, especially in Northeast Asia.  It’s also a common garden plant in North America and Northern Europe.  Rhubarb is a vegetable grown for its thick, sour stalks, which are usually eaten after being cooked with sugar.  Rhubarb is a very good source of vitamin K1, providing around 26–37% of the Daily Value (DV) in a 3.5-ounce (100-gram) serving depending on whether it’s cooked (2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source).  Like other fruits and vegetables, it’s also high in fiber, providing similar amounts as oranges, apples, or celery.  Its acidity is mainly due to its high levels of malic and oxalic acid.  Interestingly, growing rhubarb in darkness makes it less sour and more tender.  This variety is known as forced rhubarb, which is grown in spring or late winter.  https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/rhubarb#sour-taste 

Valley Forge functioned as the third of eight winter encampments for the Continental Army's main body, commanded by General George Washington, during the American Revolutionary War.  In September 1777, Congress fled Philadelphia to escape the British capture of the city.  After failing to retake Philadelphia, Washington led his 12,000-man army into winter quarters at Valley Forge, located approximately 18 miles (29 km) northwest of Philadelphia.  They remained there for six months, from December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778.  At Valley Forge, the Continentals struggled to manage a disastrous supply crisis while retraining and reorganizing their units.  About 1,700 to 2,000 soldiers died from disease, possibly exacerbated by malnutrition.  Today, Valley Forge National Historical Park protects and preserves over 3,500 acres of the original encampment site.  In 1777, Valley Forge consisted of a small proto-industrial community located at the juncture of the Valley Creek and the Schuylkill River.  In 1742, Quaker industrialists established the Mount Joy Iron Forge.  Largely thanks to capital improvements made by John Potts and his family over the following decades, the small community expanded the ironworks, established mills, and constructed new dwellings for residents.  Surrounding the valley was a rich farmland, where mainly Welsh-Quaker farmers grew wheat, rye, hay, Indian corn, among other crops, and raised livestock including cattle, sheep, pigs, and barnyard fowl.  Settlers of German and Swedish descent also lived nearby.  In the summer of 1777 the Continental Army's quartermaster general, Thomas Mifflin, decided to station a portion of his army's supplies in outbuildings around the forges, because of its variety of structures and secluded location between two prominent hills.  Fearing such a concentration of military supplies would undoubtedly become a target for British raids, the forge-ironmaster, William Dewees Jr., expressed concerns about the army's proposal.  Mifflin heeded Dewees' concerns but established a magazine at Valley Forge anyway.  After the British landing at Head of Elk (present-day Elkton, Maryland), on August 25, 1777, the British Army maneuvered out of the Chesapeake basin and towards Valley Forge.  Following the Battle of Brandywine (September 11, 1777) and the abortive Battle of the Clouds (September 16), on September 18 several hundred soldiers under General Wilhelm von Knyphausen raided the supply magazine at Valley Forge.  Despite the best efforts of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton and Captain Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, the two Continental army officers selected to evacuate the supplies from Valley Forge, Crown soldiers captured supplies, destroyed others, and burned down the forges and other buildings.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Forge  See also https://www.nps.gov/vafo/learn/historyculture/valley-forge-history-and-significance.htm 

April 23, 2021  The Smithsonian will open seven museums and the National Zoo next month, starting with the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., on May 5, the 60th anniversary of Alan Shepard becoming the first American in space.  The National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery will open May 14, followed a week later by the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Zoo.  The rest of the Smithsonian museums, including the popular Air and Space and Natural History museums, will open later in the year.  In step with the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art also announced that it will reopen its West Building on May 14 after an almost six-month closure.  Peggy McGlone  https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/smithsonian-national-gallery-reopenings/2021/04/22/414b818e-a2ce-11eb-85fc-06664ff4489d_story.html 

On a warm Texas night in 1956, Bette Nesmith—later known as Bette Nesmith Graham—sat in a garage surrounded by buckets of white tempera paint, empty nail polish bottles, and handmade labels.  She didn’t know it then, but she was on the brink of something magical.  The product she would eventually create—Liquid Paper, a white correction fluid used to conceal handwritten or printed typos—would become one of the world’s most popular and enduring office supplies.  Graham wasn’t a chemist or an engineer.  She was a single mom from Texas who had a brilliant idea while working a 9-to-5 job as a secretary.  But she was also a budding product marketing genius:  Over several decades, she identified a need in the market, organically grew her business, staved off competition, and bootstrapped her way to a $47.5m exit—$173m in today’s money.  And she did it all during a time when women were discouraged from pursuing business ventures.  Zachary Crockett  Read more at https://thehustle.co/how-a-secretary-and-single-mom-invented-liquid-paper/  Thank you, Muse reader!  

The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2020 and early 2021.  It was the first time the 93rd Academy Awards was held virtually and in-person due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  It took place in Los Angeles, at both Union Station and the Dolby Theatre, on April 25, 2021, two months later than originally planned, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema.  The nominations were announced on March 15, 2021.  Nomadland won three awards, the most of the night, including Best Picture.  Other winners included The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Mank, Soul, and Sound of Metal with two awards, and Another Round, Colette, If Anything Happens I Love You, Minari, My Octopus Teacher, Promising Young Woman, Tenet, and Two Distant Strangers with one.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/93rd_Academy_Awards

A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion. - Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (26 Apr 1889-1951) 

Kafkatrap  noun  A sophistical rhetorical device in which any denial by an accused person serves as evidence of guilt.  Kafkatrap  verb  (transitive) To employ a Kafkatrap against (someone ). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kafkatrap#English

The Bohemian author Franz Kafka’s book Der Proceß (The Trial), which inspired the word, was first published posthumously on April 26, 1925. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2356  April 26, 2021