Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres (45 ha) of land adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area.  In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city.   The year 1931 was pivotal for Las Vegas.  At that time, Nevada legalized casino gambling and reduced residency requirements for divorce to six weeks.   This year also witnessed the beginning of construction of the tunnels of nearby Hoover Dam.  The influx of construction workers and their families helped Las Vegas avoid economic calamity during the Great Depression.  The construction work was completed in 1935.  Las Vegas has a subtropical hot desert climate typical of the Mojave Desert in which it lies.  This climate is typified by long, extremely hot summers; warm transitional seasons; and short winters with mild days and cool nights.  There is abundant sunshine throughout the year, with an average of 310 sunny days and bright sunshine during 86% of all daylight hours.  Rainfall is scarce, with an average of 4.2 in (110 mm) dispersed between roughly 26 total rainy days per year. Las Vegas is among the sunniest, driest, and least humid locations in North America, with exceptionally low dew points and humidity that sometimes remains below 10%.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas

The main cause of “Vegas throat” is dryness although high levels of dust, pollution and pollen play contributing factors.   

The phrase lock, stock, and barrel dates back to the 1800s and refers to the three main components of a musket.  The “lock” is the firing mechanism, the “stock” is the wooden handle or butt, and the “barrel” is the part through which the bullet travels.  Owning all three parts meant possessing the entire musket.  Over time, the idiom evolved to signify having or owning something in its entirety.  Sir Walter Scott first used the phrase in this context in an 1817 letter, stating, “Like the High-landman’s gun, she wants stock, lock, and barrel, to put her into repair.”

Lock, Stock, and Barrel Synonyms

Hook, line, and sinker

Whole hog

The whole kit and caboodle

From A to Z

The whole megillah

Top to bottom

Whole enchilada

The full monty

The whole shebang

From start to finish

https://grammarist.com/idiom/lock-stock-and-barrel/    

Nov. 21, 2025  A self-portrait by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has become the most valuable work by a female artist sold at auction after selling for $54.7 million.  “El sueño (La cama)” – “The Dream (The Bed)” – grabbed the title at Sotheby’s in New York, after it surpassed the existing record held by the late American artist Georgia O’Keeffe.  Her “Jimson Weed/White Flower No.1,” which had previously hung in the White House, sold for $44.4 million in 2014.  Kahlo’s surrealist self portrait, which was sold by a private collector, had been valued at between $40 million and $60 million.  Another of the Mexican artist’s self portraits “Diego y yo” (Diego and I) previously held the title for second most expensive artwork sold by a female artist after also being auctioned by Sotheby’s, New York, in 2021.  https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/20/style/frida-kahlo-portrait-record-woman-scli-intl   

Two long-lost organ pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach have been performed in Germany, roughly 320 years after the composer wrote them as a teenage music teacher.  Entitled Chaconne in D minor BWV 1178 and Chaconne in G minor BWV 1179, the pieces were added to the official catalogue of Bach’s works on Nov. 17, 2025 and played in public for the first time in three centuries inside Leipzig’s St Thomas Church, where Bach is buried.  Researchers discovered the two anonymous and undated works in the Royal Library of Belgium in 1992, but it wasn’t until recently that they were able to authenticate Bach as their author.   https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/nov/17/lost-js-bach-organ-compositions-performed-for-first-time-in-300-years    

November 21, 2025 

 

The Constitution State isn't where the U.S. Constitution was drafted (that was in Philadelphia), but rather the nickname comes from a document with regulations for running towns that was put together in 1639 by three cities.  This document was called the Fundamental Orders and is considered by some to be the first written constitution.  There's much debate about this "first" and even debate about whether the document constitutes a constitution.  Wars come into play in the nicknames for Alabama, Maryland, and Tennessee.  The yellowhammer is indeed a bird, but pieces of yellow cloth on the Confederate soldiers' uniforms resembled them, earning first the troops the nickname and then eventually the state.  And Maryland's nickname "Old Line" refers to the steadfast Maryland troops from the era of the American Revolution.  Tennessee soldiers who volunteered during the Mexican-American War (not the War of 1812) earned them their state's nickname, the "Volunteer State."  Also from the colonial era, the "Tar Heel" nickname comes from the fact that North Carolina pine trees were harvested to make tar, pitch, and turpentine used in wooden naval shipbuilding.  This was messy work, and workers inevitably found the sticky substance on their feet—hence the name.  In 1889 in Oklahoma, settlers poured in to stake land claims.  Those who came in early, before the specified time, were called "Sooners." The territory became a state in 1907.  See list of state nicknames at https://www.thoughtco.com/state-nicknames-guide-1435566#:~:text=New%20Jersey:%20Garden%20State,Island:%20Ocean%20State%2C%20Little%20Rhody    

Cranberries are Wisconsin’s state fruit and a cornerstone of the state’s agricultural economy.  Wisconsin produces about 60 percent of the nation’s cranberries, according to the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association.  University of Wisconsin figures show the industry contributes roughly $1 billion annually to the state’s economy.  Much of that production takes place in central and northern Wisconsin, where sandy soils, wetlands and generations of farming knowledge converge to make the region ideal for cranberry cultivation.  https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsin-cranberry-harvest-peak-season-growers-economy#:~:text=The%20familiar%20sight%20of%20ruby,region%20ideal%20for%20cranberry%20cultivation.   

The Jemez Mountains are a group of mountains in Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and Los Alamos counties, New Mexico.  Numerous Puebloan Indian tribes have lived in the Jemez Mountains region for centuries before the Spanish arrived in New Mexico. The Pueblo Nations of this region are the Towa-speaking Jemez people, after whom the mountain range is named, and the Keres-speaking Zia People.  Pueblos in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico consisted of compact multistoried buildings which enclosed small plazas.  Most of their several hundred rooms were probably occupied by single families, but some were storerooms.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jemez_Mountains   

By no means is pie-and-cheese pairing a modern tradition.  It heralds back to the 17th century, when, in England, traditional fruit pies were first paired with dairy-based accoutrements such as custard and—later on—cheese.  Cheddar is the most common variety, but there are regional preferences.  In parts of Yorkshire, they prefer their regional cheese of Wensleydale.  There’s a saying that comes from the area:  "An apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without the squeeze."  English settlers brought the culinary tradition to North America, and it caught on in places where dairy farming flourished and cheese was most accessible—namely, New England and the American Midwest.  Apple Pie + Cheddar Cheese: An American Regional Delicacy | America's Test Kitchen   

Away from gardening, Alan Titchmarsh had spells presenting Songs of Praise as well as two BBC nature documentary series, British Isles-A Natural History, and The Nature of Britain.  He hosted the 20th Century Roadshow, a 2005 spin off series from the Antiques Roadshow; performed in the 2006 Children's Party at the Palace for the Queen's 80th birthday; and guest hosted an episode of The Paul O'Grady Show.  In 2007 Titchmarsh hosted The Great British Village Show.   He also presented the afternoon ITV chat show The Alan Titchmarsh Show (2007–2014) and in 2006 was given a permanent slot on BBC Radio 2 on Sunday evenings with the show Melodies for You.  Since January 2012, he has hosted a Saturday morning and now Saturday afternoon show on Classic FM.  Titchmarsh has written for newspapers and magazines for more than 50 years and has written over 70 books, including books on the countryside and the Royal Family.  His first book was published in 1979.  Twenty years later, he branched out into fiction.  His first novel was Mr MacGregor in 1998.  He has written a dozen novels.  Trowel & Error (2002) was an autobiographical work, followed by Nobbut A Lad:  A Yorkshire Childhood (2006) and then Knave of Spades (2009) and When I Was A Nipper (2010).  Titchmarsh has also published a series of gardening guides, the How to Garden series (2009 onwards).  He has a coastal home, near Cowes on the Isle of Wight, where he spends about a third of the year.  Titchmarsh is a bell ringer.  In 2011 he rang a quarter peal in Holybourne, Hampshire, to celebrate the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.  In 2011 he participated in an Elm Tree Planting Ceremony to promote urban greening in London.   He returned to the Marylebone and Fitzrovia area to plant a project's 1000th new tree in 2022.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Titchmarsh    

A portrait of an unnamed woman, "Lady with a Fan", by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt sold for 85.3 million pounds ($108.4 million) on June 27, 2025, setting a new record price for any work of art sold at an auction in Europe.  The painting, which had been given a guide price of 65 million pounds ($82.9 million), was sold after a tense 10-minute bidding war as auctioneer Helena Newman, Sotheby's head of impressionist and modern art, eked out the final bids in half-million pound increments.  See photo at https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/108-million-dollar-lady-klimt-portrait-sets-european-auction-record-2023-06-27/

November 19, 2025   

Suya, also known as Tsire, is a traditional Hausa (Nigerian) smoke-grilled spiced meat on skewer.  Suya is generally made with thin-sliced spiced beef, lamb, goat, ram, or chicken arranged on wooden skewers.  Organ meats such as kidney, liver and tripe as well as other types of meats and seafood (shrimp) are also sometimes used.  Suya is most popular as evening street food or snack, restaurant appetizer, and as accompaniment with drinks at bars and night spots.  Suya meat is thinly sliced and then marinated in a traditional Hausa spice mix called 'Yaji' which consists of dry hot chili & cayenne peppers, ginger, dried onion, ground peanut cake ('Kuli-Kuli'), salt and other spices.  The skewered meats are doused with vegetable oil before they are cooked on the grill.  Like with "curry," there is no standard recipe for composing the complex Yaji spice mix mixture of spices and additives which make up the Suya marinade and dry toppings served alongside it.  Ingredients may vary according to personal and regional preferences.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suya   Thank you, reader.   

THE STATE ON A SLANT

The U.S. state of Kansas is bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west.  The state is divided into 105 counties with 628 cities, with its largest county by area being Butler County.  Kansas is located equidistant from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.  The geographic center of the 48 contiguous states is in Smith County near Lebanon.  Until 1989, the Meades Ranch Triangulation Station in Osborne County was the geodetic center of North America:  the central reference point for all maps of North America.  According to the Kansas Geological Survey, the geographic center of Kansas is near Bushton in northwest Rice County.  Kansas is underlain by a sequence of horizontal to gently westward dipping sedimentary rocks.  A sequence of Mississippian, Pennsylvanian and Permian rocks outcrop in the eastern and southern part of the state.  The state's western half has exposures of Cretaceous through Tertiary sediments, the latter derived from the erosion of the uplifted Rocky Mountains to the west.  These are underlain by older Paleozoic and Mesozoic sediments which correlate well with the outcrops to the east.  The state's northeastern corner was subjected to glaciation in the Pleistocene and is covered by glacial drift and loess.   Kansas has been divided into eleven different physiographic regions.   The western two-thirds of the state, lying in the great central plain of the United States, has a generally flat or undulating surface, while the eastern third has many hills and forests.  The land gradually rises from east to west; its altitude ranges from 684 ft (208 m) along the Verdigris River at Coffeyville in Montgomery County, to 4,039 ft (1,231 m) at Mount Sunflower, 0.5 miles (0.80 kilometers) from the Colorado border, in Wallace County.  It is a common misconception that Kansas is the flattest state in the nation—in 2003, a tongue-in-cheek study famously declared the state "flatter than a pancake".   In fact, Kansas has a maximum topographic relief of 3,360 ft (1,020 m), making it the 23rd flattest U.S. state measured by maximum relief.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Kansas#:~:text=The%20western%20two%2Dthirds%20of,state%20measured%20by%20maximum%20relief.    

Florida is both the flattest and flattest-looking state in the U.S.  The least-flat states in the contiguous U.S. are California, Washington, and Utah.  https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/flattest-states    

This is a list of writing and formatting conventions typical of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, with real examples taken from Wikipedia articles and drafts.  It is a field guide to help detect undisclosed AI-generated content on Wikipedia.  This list is descriptive, not prescriptive; it consists of observations, not rules.  Advice about formatting or language to avoid in Wikipedia articles can be found in the policies and guidelines and the Manual of Style, but does not belong on this page.  This list is not a ban on certain words, phrases, or punctuation.  Not all text featuring these indicators is AI-generated, as the large language models that power AI chatbots are trained on human writing, including the writing of Wikipedia editors.  This is simply a catalog of very common patterns observed over many thousands of instances of AI-generated text, specific to Wikipedia.  Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia  Thank you, reader.     

In Ganado, Arizona, Diné (Navajo) shepherd and weaver Nikyle Begay grew up hearing stories and reading old newspaper clippings about the intricately designed textiles woven by the late master weaver Julia Bah Joe and her family.  Out of the hundreds of weavings that Joe created in nearby Greasewood, one always stood apart from the rest:  a 250-pound masterpiece rug made of hand-spun and dyed wool called “Diyogí Tsoh” (“The Big Rug”).  Now, the majestic work, long known as the “Hubbell-Joe Rug,” has been relabeled with its Diné name at the Affeldt Mion Museum (AMM).  Historic Diné Weaving Relabeled to Center Native History   Thank you, reader.    

November 17, 2025

Herschel Garfein (born January 17, 1958) is an American composer, librettist, stage director, and faculty member of the Steinhardt School of Music at New York University, where he teaches Script Analysis.  Garfein is widely known for his libretto written for Robert Aldridge's Elmer Gantry, which won two 2012 Grammy Awards including "Best Contemporary Classical Composition" won by Garfein and Aldridge.  He also collaborated with Aldridge on the oratorio Parables.  In his compositions for the musical Suenos he found an inspiration in Hispanic rhythms. Garfein also composed the music and libretto for an opera based on the Tom Stoppard play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Garfein

The spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula, (SLF) is an invasive pest that is capable of damaging certain plants such as grapevines, black walnut saplings and tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima).  SLF was first identified in Ohio in 2020, and has since been found in several counties across the state.  SLF and regulated articles are currently under quarantine in several counties in Ohio, including Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, and Lucas.  Although SLF cannot bite or sting, both nymphs and adults often jump when approached.  https://agri.ohio.gov/divisions/plant-health/invasive-pests/invasive-insects/slf  Lantern flies are attracted to lights on glassed-in areas.  

shrive

   verb tr.: 1. To hear a confession.

             2. To impose penance.

             3. To free from guilt.   

   verb intr.: 1. To make a confession.

             2. To hear a confession.   

[From Old English scrift (confession, penance), from scrifan (to shrive:  to impose penance).  Earliest documented use:   before 1150.]   NOTES: Here's a word that does it all, like a one-stop soul shop.  Shrive covers the entire moral supply chain:  hearing a confession, handing out a penalty, and wiping the slate clean.  Earlier, people went to priests for shriving.   These days, they go to therapists, life coaches, and podcasts. ("Tell me about your mother . . .  and say three Hail Marys.) https://wordsmith.org/words/hail_mary.html  The most common form of the word lives in the phrase "to get short shrift", meaning to receive little time, attention, or sympathy. https://wordsmith.org/words/shrift.html  Originally, the quick confession and absolution given to condemned prisoners before execution.  Thank you, reader.   

Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau published their formal proposal for the World Wide Web on November 12, 1990.  Wikipedia   

The world record for biggest bagpipe ensemble was broken in Melbourne on November 12, 2025, with 374 pipers playing in unison.  The ensemble played AC/DC's It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll) to a crowd of thousands.  It broke the previous record, set in Bulgaria in 2012, by 41.  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-12/world-bagpipe-record-melbourne/106002186   

November 14, 2025