Librarian's Muse

2012-01-31T03:45:00.000-08:00

Joel Beckerman spent about 18 months developing a song that boils down to a melody just four notes long. He's one of a handful of composers who specialize in sonic logos, or the audio equivalents of the Nike "swoosh" or John Deere's leaping deer. More concise than a theme song and subtler than a jingle, sonic logos are brief melodies or sound effects designed to cement a brand in the consumer's subconscious mind. Famous examples include the five-note Intel bong, McDonald's "Ba da ba ba ba" signoff and NBC's three-note chime, in use since 1929. Sonic branding is becoming increasingly popular in a highly fragmented media world, and Mr. Beckerman's New York agency Man Made Music has composed dozens of catchy tunes you've probably heard announcing high-profile properties. In addition to embellishing NBC's famous chime for multiple jobs, including works for the network's news division, his studio composed the new theme song for "CBS This Morning" and tweaked the 25-year-old melody used by HBO to introduce its movies and original series. He's currently on deadline to deliver the rock-driven music of next week's Super Bowl broadcast, building off an original composition by John Williams. The company's new sonic logo—its first—is a stair-step of bright tones. The bite-size tune has popped up in the closing seconds of the company's advertisements, including a TV spot in heavy rotation featuring a stolen tiger mascot and football tailgaters boasting about the speed of AT&T's wireless network. In various lengths and forms, the music will eventually be integrated into every product and service AT&T offers, from music at retail stores to navigation sounds on smartphones and digital video recorders.
JOHN JURGENSEN http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203718504577182951405815364.html

Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. Author Robert Neuwirth suggests that there are one billion squatters globally, that is, about one in every seven people on the planet. Yet, according to Kesia Reeve, "squatting is largely absent from policy and academic debate and is rarely conceptualized, as a problem, as a symptom, or as a social or housing movement. Read an overview and find discussion of squatting by country at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting

Luminary endorsements for GOP presidential candidates
Todd Palin on Newt Gingrich: Gingrich isn't one of those Beltway types.
Christine O'Donnell on Mitt Romney: He's been consistent since he's changed his mind.
Barry Manilow on Ron Paul: I agree with just about everything he says.
Michelle Duggar on Rick Santorum: Rick is the man for the job.
Bloomberg Businessweek January 30-February 5, 2102, p. 35

The digital revolution was supposed to do away with a lot of fusty old relics. First compact discs took their toll on the long-playing (and long-played) vinyl record; then iPods and digital downloads began doing the same to CDs. But long after the eulogies had been delivered, the vinyl LP has been revived. The LP still represents just a sliver of music sales. But last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan data, while CD sales fell by more than 5%, vinyl record sales grew more than 36%. The majority of vinyl sells in independent record stores, which have championed the format in their quixotic quest to survive. But now big-box stores such as Best Buy are carrying vinyl. Amazon—loath to let any niche escape its domination—has a "Vinyl Store" and recently introduced shipping boxes designed to coddle LP records in transit. Not just the sales of records are growing, but the equipment to play them, too. As David Bakula, who follows LPs for Nielsen, puts it: "When I walked into Target and found turntables, then I knew we've arrived." United Record Pressing, the Nashville factory where the Beatles' first U.S. singles were stamped nearly 50 years ago, is feeling the boom: "This plant often runs 24 hours," says Jay Millar, its marketing director. Then there is the sound: Those who collect LPs swear by the virtues of analog. For decades a vinyl-dedicated subset of hard-core audiophiles have resisted the digital onslaught. They've rightly derided the brittle compression of CDs and given the cold shoulder to even the more robust digital formats, such as super-audio CDs. (Don't get them started on the hopeless degradation of MP3s.) And yet that narrow niche of audiophiles with their Ferrari-dear sound systems isn't what has kept LPs alive. Even, it would seem, in the rarefied world of classical recordings. When the San Francisco Symphony packaged its acclaimed recordings of Gustav Mahler's orchestral works, the set was first made available on SACD. But now it has been released on vinyl as well. According to the symphony's general manager, John Kieser, the idea to release "The Mahler Project" on LPs started a few years ago with his then-teenage son, who collected vinyl and insisted that music sounds different in the old analog format. ERIC FELTEN http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204573704577184973290800632.html

When attorney Marc Reiner sends an email from his work account at a Manhattan law firm, recipients get a host of admonishments. The email might contain "privileged, confidential and/or proprietary information," they are told. If it landed in their inbox by error, they are strictly prohibited from "any use, distribution, copying or disclosure to another person." And in such case, "you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email." Mr. Reiner thinks the disclaimer—144 words in total—is, for the most part, bluster. Email disclaimers, those wordy notices at the end of emails from lawyers, bankers, analysts, consultants, publicists, tax advisers and even government employees, have become ubiquitous—so much so that many recipients, and even senders, are questioning their purpose. "Who reads them?" asks Bruce Nyman, a former county official from Long Island, N. Y., who has grown tired of the many disclaimers attached to messages in his inbox. He says they are like the modern-day mattress tag. "And has anyone ever been arrested for tearing them off?" Emails are becoming bogged down with unwanted information. They often now include automatic digital signatures with a sender's contact information or witty sayings, pleas to save trees and not print them, fancy logos and apologies for grammatical errors spawned by using a touch screen.
DIONNE SEARCEY and MICHAEL ROTHFELD Read much more at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409004577157213839856718.html

Toronto Jan. 28 Teenaged imaginations dreamed up Lego Man’s sky-high adventure but science — not just whimsy — made the little toy’s voyage a headline-grabbing success. A 1,200-gram weather balloon, the crucial role of gravity, quiver-reducing ropes, Styrofoam’s versatility, burst altitude, a University of Wyoming website and a free software program for shutterbugs were part of the formula Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, both 17, used to launch, film and land the patriotic, flag-bearing Lego Man. The duct-taped Styrofoam capsule was released three weeks ago at a Newmarket soccer pitch by the Grade 12 students from Agincourt Collegiate Institute. It soared 24 kilometres into the stratosphere via balloon then landed 97 minutes later in dense bush near Rice Lake, south of Peterborough — a remarkably close return considering January’s winter winds were howling.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1122894

Newt Gingrich might feel like Rocky Balboa when he takes the stage at campaign events to Survivor’s 1982 hit “Eye of the Tiger,” but it’s the co-writer of the song who is ready for a fight. Chicago-born Frankie Sullivan sued Gingrich in federal court Jan. 30, saying the Republican presidential candidate is using his “Rocky III” anthem in his campaign without permission. Sullivan, who has a home in the northwest suburbs, insisted it’s not about politics. It’s about someone who should know better using his copyright material for free.
http://www.suntimes.com/10332797-418/former-survivor-member-sues-newt-gingrich-for-using-eye-of-tiger.html

2012-01-30T03:58:00.000-08:00

Nebula Science Fiction was the first Scottish science fiction magazine. It was published from 1952 to 1959, and was edited by Peter Hamilton, a young Scot who was able to take advantage of spare capacity at his parents' printing company, Crownpoint, to launch the magazine. Because Hamilton could only print Nebula when Crownpoint had no other work, the schedule was initially erratic. In 1955 he moved the printing to a Dublin-based firm, and the schedule became a little more regular, with a steady monthly run beginning in 1958 that lasted into the following year. Nebula's circulation was international, with only a quarter of the sales in the United Kingdom (UK); this led to disaster when both South Africa and Australia imposed import controls on foreign periodicals at the end of the 1950s. Excise duties imposed in the UK added to Hamilton's financial burdens, and he was rapidly forced to close the magazine down. The last issue was dated June 1959. The magazine was popular with writers, partly because Hamilton went to great lengths to encourage new writers, and partly because he paid better rates per word than much of his competition. Initially he could not compete with the American market, but he offered a bonus for the most popular story in the issue, and was eventually able to match the leading American magazines. He published the first stories of several well-known writers, including Robert Silverberg, Brian Aldiss, and Bob Shaw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Science_Fiction

Andrew Borakove didn't know it seven years ago when he started an Internet gong store, but gongs are economic indicators. When the economy was going gangbusters, salesmen were piling into gongs. Sales people seem to like making customers bang gongs to ease the pain of buying something they might not be able to afford. "But as soon as the recession hit, bam! It stopped," says Mr. Borakove. Gong sales shifted over to the meditation market. He was walking on the beach, in 2005, when the idea hit him: He would start an Internet business. It would be based someplace cheap and noncoastal. It would be called "Gongs Unlimited." "More people need gongs than you'd think," he said. Before the crash of '08, some of his biggest customers were car dealers. "Big Bob" Ladendorf of Victory Motors in Royal Oak, Mich., bought two. "Everybody that buys a car, they have to bang the gong," he says. Subprime borrowers banged, too. "I supplied Countrywide Financial," said Mr. Borakove. After the crash, Mr. Borakove said, "suddenly I was selling to a whole lot of yoga teachers." Among them is Mehtab Benton, 61, a Texan with a yoga operation in Austin. "Hard times are good times in the yoga business, and that's good for gongs," he says. Mr. Benton, author of the book, "Gong Yoga," says he once tried learning the clarinet, but "it took too much time. A gong, you play right away
BARRY NEWMAN http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203806504577181151324644504.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_10_1

HOMONYMS
dis•crete adjective
1. apart or detached from others; separate; distinct
2. consisting of or characterized by distinct or individual parts; discontinuous.
3. Mathematics a. (of a topology or topological space) having the property that every subset is an open set. b. defined only for an isolated set of points
c. using only arithmetic and algebra; not involving calculus
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discrete
dis•creet adjective
1. judicious in one's conduct or speech, especially with regard to respecting privacy or maintaining silence about something of a delicate nature; prudent; circumspect.
2. showing prudence and circumspection; decorous
3. modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discreet
Google is getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies and replacing them with one. The new policy covers multiple products and features. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012. Find links to Google privacy, terms of service and FAQ at: https://www.google.com/policies/#utm_source=googlehp&utm_medium=hpp&utm_campaign=en-us-hpp_pp
Memidex is an online dictionary and thesaurus. See an example using the words bush league and wilderness: http://www.memidex.com/bush+wilderness

"POTUS” is an acronym for “President Of The United States.” The shorter “POT” stood for “President of the” in the book The Phillips Telegraphic Code (1879) by Walter Polk Phillips. “POTUS” has been cited in print since at least 1895. Similar acronyms include “SCOTUS” (Supreme Court Of The United States), “FLOTUS” (First Lady Of The United States), “VPOTUS” (Vice President Of The United States) and “COTUS” (Constitution Of The United States). http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/potus_president_of_the_united_states/
SOTU means State of the Union address.

OAKLAND (Reuters) Riot police fought running skirmishes with anti-Wall street protesters in Oakland on Jan. 28, firing tear gas and bean bag projectiles and arresting more than 200 people in clashes that injured three officers and at least one demonstrator. The scuffles erupted in the afternoon as Occupy activists sought to take over a shuttered downtown convention center, sparking cat-and-mouse battles that lasted well into the night in a city that has seen tensions between police and protesters boil over repeatedly. "Occupy Oakland has got to stop using Oakland as its playground," Mayor Jean Quan, who has come under criticism for the city's handling the Occupy movement, told a late evening press conference. "Once again, a violent splinter group of the Occupy movement is engaging in violent actions against Oakland," she said. City Council President Larry Reid said a group of protesters broke into City Hall, damaging exhibits and burning a U.S. flag. Elsewhere, the National Park Service said on Jan 27 it would bar Occupy protesters in the nation's capital, one of the few big cities where Occupy encampments survive, from camping in two parks where they have been living since October. That order, which takes effect Jan. 30, was seen as a blow to one of the highest-profile chapters of the movement. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/sns-rt-us-oakland-proteststre80s005-20120128,0,522990.story

Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian skit from Jan. 28 A Prairie Home Companion
http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2012/01/28/scripts/ruth.shtml

Researchers have "cloaked" a three-dimensional object, making it invisible from all angles, for the first time. However, the demonstration works only for waves in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It uses a shell of what are known as plasmonic materials; they present a "photo negative" of the object being cloaked, effectively cancelling it out. The idea, outlined in the January 2012 issue of New Journal of Physics
http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/14/1/013054, could find first application in high-resolution microscopes. Most of the high-profile invisibility cloaking efforts have focused on the engineering of "metamaterials" - modifying materials to have properties that cannot be found in nature. The modifications allow metamaterials to guide and channel light in unusual ways - specifically, to make the light rays arrive as if they had not passed over or been reflected by a cloaked object. Previous efforts that have made 3-D objects disappear have relied upon a "carpet cloak" idea, in which the object to be cloaked is overlaid with a "carpet" of metamaterial that bends light so as to make the object invisible. Now, Andrea Alu and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin have pulled off the trick in "free space", making an 18cm-long cylinder invisible to incoming microwave light. JASON PALMER http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16726609

2012-01-26T03:54:00.000-08:00

Located at the heart of a ferocious, River of Wind and the Roaring Forties, the capital of New Zealand is famous throughout the world, as The Windy City. Local experts predict Wellington’s wind mean speed is a brisk, 22 km/h (12 knots), with at least 22 days of the year visited by gale-force (up to 74km/h; 40 knots) winds, and a further 173 days featuring gusts greater than 60 km/h (32 knots). It’s not just the frequency of the wind in Wellington that sees locals and tourists clawing at the lampposts, it’s the sheer ferocity. The regular gusts that pound Wellington, usually peak at over 140 km/h (76 knots), which is comparable to a major hurricane, or to really make things clear — the absolute highest available category for wind speed. It’s little surprise that one of Wellington’s most cherished landmarks is an ode to the famous winds: Brooklyn wind-turbine has been a local icon since its construction in 1993. It continues to produce electricity for 80 local homes from its location on Pol Hill, where it can be seen for miles around. http://www.wheninwellington.com/worlds-windiest-city/

The city of Chicago has been known by many nicknames, but it is most widely recognized as the "Windy City". There are three main possibilities to explain the city's nickname: the weather, as Chicago is near Lake Michigan; the World's Fair; and the rivalry with Cincinnati. The earliest known reference to Chicago as the "Windy City" is from an 1858 Chicago Tribune article. The first known repeated effort to label Chicago with this nickname is from 1876 and involves Chicago's rivalry with Cincinnati.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_name_%22Windy_City%22

Dried beans/shellouts
Equivalents: For most beans: 1 pound dried beans = 2 cups dried = 4 - 5 cups cooked beans
Beans are low in fat and loaded with nutrients, and we'd probably eat more of them if they weren't also loaded with flatulence-producing enzymes. There are ways to enjoy beans without having to forego social appointments, however. One is to change the water from time to time while you're soaking or cooking the beans. Pouring off the water helps gets rid of the indigestible complex sugars that create gas in your intestine. It also helps to cook the beans thoroughly, until they can be easily mashed with a fork. Most bean aficionados prefer dried beans, but canned beans are also available. These don't need to be cooked, but they tend to be saltier and less flavorful than reconstituted dried beans. See dozens of images and descriptions at: http://www.foodsubs.com/Beans.html

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before. Although the butterfly effect may appear to be an esoteric and unusual behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position. The butterfly effect is a common trope in fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel and with "what if" cases where one storyline diverges at the moment of a seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes. See images and read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

Many phrases that have been adopted into everyday use originate from seafaring--in particular from the days of sail. Virtually all of these are metaphorical and the original nautical meanings are now forgotten. That association of travel and metaphor is significant in that the word metaphor derives from ancient Greek for 'to carry' or 'to travel'. The influence of other languages and other cultures is evident in many of the long list of English phrases that have nautical origins. See over three dozen phrases including Broad in the beam, By and large,
Chock-a-block, Close quarters, Copper-bottomed, and Cut and run at: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/nautical-phrases.html

Quote
Mysteries are wonderful things. It would be boring to have all the answers.
White Shark by Peter Benchley

In the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea, there are 718 islands, 389 islets and 78 reefs, making the Croatian archipelago the largest in the Adriatic Sea and the second largest in the Mediterranean Sea, the Greek archipelago being the largest. Of the 718 islands, only 48 are inhabited in the sense that at least one person resides on that island. Some sources indicate that Croatia has 67 inhabited islands, which is the number of islands that have a settlement on them, but 19 of these islands have lost all of their permanent population as a result of the population decline occurring throughout the Croatian islands due to insufficient economic activity. The islands of Croatia have been populated at least since the time of Ancient Greece. The main industries on the islands are agriculture, fishing and tourism. The islands' agriculture is primarily devoted to viticulture and olive growing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inhabited_islands_of_Croatia

The Joy of Books (There's nothing quite like a real book). Stop motion animation with music. See a 1:51 video where books come to life when the owner locks up for the night at: http://thecuriousbrain.com/?p=27929

2012-01-25T04:33:00.000-08:00

argosy (AHR-GUH-see) noun
1. A large ship, or a fleet of ships, especially one carrying valuable cargo.
2. A rich source or supply.
Shortening of Italian nave Ragusea (ship of Ragusa), after Ragusa, a maritime city on the Adriatic sea, modern day Dubrovnik, Croatia. Earliest documented use: 1577.
paladin (PAL-uh-din) noun
1. A strong supporter of a cause.
2. A heroic champion.
From French paladin, from Italian paladino, from palatinus ([officer] of the palace). After Palatine, the name of the centermost of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built. Roman emperors had their palaces on this hill. Other words such as palace and palatine derive from the same source. The 12 peers in Charlemagne's court were also called paladins. Earliest documented use: 1592.
damascene (DAM-uh-seen, dam-uh-SEEN)
verb tr.: To inlay a metal object with gold or silver patterns; to gild.
noun: A native or inhabitant of Damascus.
adjective:
1. Relating to Damascus or the Damascenes.
2. Having a wavy pattern as on Damascus steel.
3. Sudden and significant.
After Damascus, the capital of Syria. Earliest documented use: around 1386.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th US President, served (1953-1961) lived (1890-1969), retired to a farm near Gettysburg, PA, now run by the National Parks Service, where he raised cattle, welcomed distinguished visitors and became an expert on the Battle of Gettysburg. The Eisenhower National Historic Site comprises the Eisenhower's home, farm, & their mementos. See photos plus two of Eisenhower's paintings at: http://travelphotobase.com/s/PAGDDE.HTM
Find two more Eisenhower paintings at: http://www.whha.org/whha_publications/publications_documents/whitehousehistory_21.pdf
The Eisenhower College Collection ISBN: 0840212895 / 0-8402-1289-5, Nash Publishing, 1972 contains 50 plates including one of George Washington and two of Abraham Lincoln.

When it comes to corporate colors, brown belongs to United Parcel Service Inc., Owens Corning protects its own shade of pink, and Tiffany & Co. has domain over robin's-egg blue. On Jan. 24, the famed French shoemaker Christian Louboutin SA stepped into the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan to make the case that it should effectively own the exclusive right to use red—it calls the shade "China Red"—to coat the bottoms of its popular, pricey high-heeled shoes. Mr. Lewin and his client were in court hoping to reverse a lower-court ruling that appeared to suggest Louboutin shouldn't be allowed to hold a trademark for its signature red-soled shoes, sported in recent years by red-carpet A-list celebrities nationwide, from actresses Scarlett Johansson and Halle Berry to singers Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera. Last August, Manhattan Federal Judge Victor Marrero denied Louboutin's request to stop another iconic French fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent, from selling a line of shoes whose tops, as well as bottoms, are red. Louboutin was granted a trademark registration to use the red for its shoe soles in 2008. But in his opinion denying Louboutin's injunction, Judge Marrero strongly suggested that the registration was granted in error. He acknowledged that trademarks can be given for the colors on products, chiefly when a single color is used only to identify or advertise a brand, like the pink used for Owens Corning's insulation. Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham University and an expert in law and fashion who has been following the case, said that she hoped the appellate court would correct Judge Marrero, who, in her opinion, "colored well outside the lines" in his ruling. "There are broader issues raised by this case, and they're that fashion designs really have no protection," she said. "The industry has been trying for 100 years, but intellectual property law still stops right at fashion's door." ASHBY JONES http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203718504577181360914355808.html

January 25 Dunkin' Brands Inc. and Target Corp.'s in-store cafes among other chains have made the switch from white to brown napkins. Next week, Cascades Tissue Group is trying what marketers long considered the unthinkable: brown toilet paper. It is pitching beige rolls, dubbing the product "Moka." Brown paper products are becoming an obvious way for consumers to show that they care about the environment. They assume the products are made with recycled materials or didn't involve whitening chemicals. Now, however, white paper can be made from 100% recycled fibers and whitened without the chemical chlorine, traditionally the primary complaint against it. Still, Cascades says dropping the extra step of bleaching reduces the environmental impact of Moka toilet paper by about 25% compared to their white recycled paper because of energy savings and other benefits. At least one company adds brown pigments to non-chlorine bleached diapers to drive home the environmental message. The diapers need "visual differentiation," says Louis Chapdelaine, product director of fibers at Seventh Generation Inc., a Burlington, Vt.- based company that specializes in eco-friendly household cleaning products and paper. It's important "not so much that it's brown, it's that it's not white," he says. All diapers, if left undyed, would be the color of raw plastic or semi-translucent, he says. SARAH NASSAUER http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203718504577180852718515394.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_Life%26Culture

2012-01-24T03:33:00.000-08:00

January 22 Tod Machover, an intriguing futurologist as well as an inventive composer, runs the departments in hyper-instruments (acoustical instruments given spiffy electronic features) and opera of the future at MIT's ultra-high-tech Media Lab. Last week, he was at UC Santa Barbara to speak on "Music, Mind and Health: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Well-being through Active Sound," one of four lectures he's given recently at the university's Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. Music, Machover said, touches on just about every aspect of cognition. There are theories that music exists to exercise the mind and to help coordinate its separate functions. The practical applications of music for healing are irresistible. Cutting-edge music therapy can help Parkinson's patients walk, enables the autistic to rehearse their emotions and provides opportunities for stroke victims to regain speech and motor movement. Music is usually the last thing Alzheimer's sufferers recognize. It is our final way to communicate with them, and now it seems music can play a significant role in forestalling Alzheimer's. In an inspiring feedback loop, Machover and his MIT minions, which include some of the nation's most forward-looking graduate students, are applying their musical gadgets to therapy. The process of making remarkable restorative advances is changing how they think about and make music. It all began with Hyperscore, a program Machover developed to enable children to compose by drawing and painting on a monitor. A sophisticated computer program translates their artwork into a musical score. Machover's team took Hyperscore to Tewksbury Hospital outside of Boston, which serves patients with severe physical and mental disabilities, including the homeless. The residents, many of whom were physically unable to communicate or were otherwise uncommunicative, discovered their inner composer. Through Hyperscore they found they could express themselves in a way that bypassed language. MARK SWED
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/22/entertainment/la-ca-tod-machover-notebook-20120122

Frederica Sagor Maas, one of the last surviving screenwriters, if not the last, with credits dating back to Hollywood's silent era, died Jan. 5 in La Mesa, Calif. She was 111. Maas contributed to the screenplays of 15 films from 1925-28. She was an uncredited contributor to the Greta Garbo-John Gilbert classic "Flesh and the Devil" and to the Clara Bow starrer "It," but perhaps most significantly, she earlier co-adapted "The Plastic Age," a 1925 hit film that proved a huge career break for Bow. She married Fox-based producer Ernest Maas in 1927, after which they teamed on scripts. In 1941 she wrote "Miss Pilgrim's Progress," a sober treatment of women in the workplace that sold for a song and eventually became Fox's 1947 picture "The Shocking Miss Pilgrim," a lighthearted musical comedy vehicle for Betty Grable. Maas felt repeatedly misused by the film industry and detailed her unhappy experiences in the 1999 memoir "The Shocking Miss Pilgrim: A Writer in Early Hollywood," published when she was 99.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118048297?refcatid=25&printerfriendly=true

Freerice is a website where users play various educational, multiple-choice games in order to fight world hunger. For every question the user answers correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated. The categories include English vocabulary (the game the site began with), multiplication tables, pre-algebra, chemical symbols (basic or intermediate), English grammar, basic foreign language vocabulary for English speakers (French, German, Italian, and Spanish), geography (flags of the world, world capitals and country identification), the identification of famous artwork, and literature (popular books). As you answer questions, your total score is displayed as a mound of rice and the amount. The website went live on October 7, 2007 with 830 grains of rice donated on its first day. The second word in its name was originally capitalized as "FreeRice." For a brief while, the amount of rice donated per correct answer was increased to 20 grains, though this was reduced to 10 grains of rice per answer within a few months. In March 2009 the FreeRice website was donated to the UN World Food Programme. In exchange for advertisements on the website, various sponsors donate the money necessary to pay for the rice and other costs to run Freerice. The donations are distributed by the United Nations's World Food Programme (WFP), starting with Bangladesh. Freerice's partner is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. In its first ten months of operation, Freerice donated over 42 billion grains of rice. Since its inception, as of October 15, 2010, Freerice players had earned sufficient rice to feed over 4.32 million people for one day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freerice

Pick a category and play multiple-choice games at: http://freerice.com/category

Daniel Ek always thought he’d be a musician. He grew up in Rågsved, a cluster of three-story row houses on a hill 20 miles south of Stockholm. He drummed with knitting needles on a lampshade at two. He cried when Kurt Cobain died. When he was five, his mother and stepfather bought him a Commodore Vic 20, which was soon replaced by a Commodore 64. If you were born after the Baby Boom and mess with computers, the C 64 carries the fetish value of a first-press of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. One C 64 now sits in the Spotify office in Stockholm, awaiting assembly. By the time Ek was 10, in 1993, his stepfather had retrained as an electrical engineer, and the two strung a local network at home with coaxial cable. When he was 14 he taught himself HTML, began undercutting design firms to build websites for local companies, hired his friends to code for him, then hired them to do his homework, too. He sold his Web hosting business in 2002 and started new companies until he ran out of money. In 2005, Index Ventures, a venture capitalist, approached him with a Finnish website run by a woman who drew paper dolls. She was unemployed and had attracted so many viewers that she couldn’t pay her bandwidth bills. He came on as CTO, hired engineers from his failed ventures, took the site to 10 million users, and left. Now called Stardoll, it attracts an audience of 100 million girls who assemble virtual outfits. In 2006, he became CEO of uTorrent, now the most popular client for Bittorrent, the standard protocol for sharing files. UTorrent and Bittorrent are perfectly legal; the files shared through them aren’t always. Ludvig Strigeus, who created uTorrent, served as chief architect of the Spotify beta. Around the same time, Ek shared an idea with Martin Lorenzton, who had bought one of Ek’s companies for €1 million. Ek’s idea: Anyone should be able, legally, to listen instantly to any song at any time. Lorenzton suggested that the two start a company. According to the filing obtained by ComputerSweden, the two men together retain a controlling interest in Spotify. Ek reached out to a contact in the music industry and asked what he would need to do to make his idea legal. Spotify is slick, intuitive, and fast; it can, for a verifiable fact, instantly serve Graceland to a phone resting in your shirt pocket on a highway in North Carolina at 1 a.m. In Europe, if you want to listen longer than 10 hours per month, avoid ads, or move offline with a music player, you pay a subscription fee that comes to about $15 a month. According to the company, 1.5 million Europeans already do.
Read detailed article at : http://www.businessweek.com/printer/magazine/daniel-eks-spotify-musics-last-best-hope-07142011.html

Q: Which airports have the highest fares?
A: In order: Memphis, Cincinnati, Washington/Dulles, Huntsville (Ala.) and Houston/Bush.
The lowest? Atlantic City, N.J. -- U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Q: Why, when you flip a coin over after looking at the heads side, is the picture on the tails side upside down?
A: All U.S. coins are produced with a "coin turn." That is, the obverse side, or "heads," is upside down to the reverse side, or "tails."
The U.S. Mint doesn't know the reason for this custom. It still produces coins this way as tradition and not to satisfy any legal requirement. -- U.S. Mint.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2012/Jan/JU/ar_JU_012312.asp?d=012312,2012,Jan,23&c=c_13

2012-01-23T05:14:00.001-08:00

The Martin Luther King quote originally was: “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.” Paraphrased to fit the north face of the new King monument, the inscription says: “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has given the National Park Service 30 days to meet with the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, the King family and others to determine a more accurate quote for the landmark, an official at the Interior Department said, reports CNN. http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/morning_call/2012/01/king-memorial-quote-panned-by-angelou.html

Known as "ancient grains," thanks to the advanced age of the species (a cool 5,000 years old in some cases) and because they've managed to evade the industrial grooming of modern crops like wheat and corn, these old-school strains have retained their unique personalities. Some are plump and creamy; others lean and laced with smoke. They're perfect for shoring up unfilling salads and brothy soups, stuffing small birds and pork loins or standing in for rice in risottos. And because preparing these grains is no more demanding than boiling pasta or steaming rice, they're easier to cook at home than you might think.
QUINOA A magic bullet for both gluten-free and vegetarian diets, this quick-cooking complete protein absorbs other flavors well. Though technically a seed, quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) performs like a cereal with its soft and fluffy texture.
KAMUT The word kamut is actually a trademarked name for an oversized strain of organically grown wheat that's 99% free of any genetically modified organisms—or even modern interlopers. Its grains are sturdy, golden and twice as large as most wheats.
TEFF Teff is said to be the teeniest grain on earth: 150 times smaller than a single wheat berry. When ground into a flour, it's used to make the Ethiopian staple injera, a spongy fermented flatbread. Cooked whole, teff makes a nutty hot cereal and will melt into stews as a flavorful, gluten-free thickening agent.
FREEKEH Freekeh is the name used for any wheat, usually durum, that's harvested when still green, then fire-threshed to give it a smoky intensity and pliant pop. Perhaps the fastest up-and-comer in the ancient grain crowd, freekeh (pronounced FREE-kah) can be found in warm salads, risottos and pilafs.
FARRO Though best known as a recent import from Italy, farro was cycled into rice crop rotations in the American south before the Civil War. The term farro is broadly used for wheat family members that have a nutty flavor and stout build, including emmer, spelt and einkorn.
MILLET If you find yourself thinking millet looks suspiciously like birdseed, that's because it is. Yet humans have been eating millet for millennia; it preceded rice as the staple grain of China. It can be eaten raw or cooked.
RYE Whole rye grains cook up like a dense, earthy cousin of wheat berries. Here you'll find a taste that's close to that of a walnut. At Seattle's Emmer & Rye, chef Seth Caswell simmers the restaurant's namesake ingredients together, along with various aromatics to make a rustic risotto-like side. KRISTEN MIGLORE Read more and see image at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577141363042147218.html?mod=WSJ_ITP_offduty_12

Veteran crime writer Elmore Leonard, 86, looms large on the set of "Justified," the FX series starring his exceedingly courteous but trigger-happy character, U.S. Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens. Writers for the show consult his novels to study their dialogue and tone. Mr. Leonard suggests plot developments. Raylan, a cowboy type who's prone to dispensing justice vigilante-style, first appeared in the 1993 novel "Pronto." He returned in the 1995 novel "Riding the Rap" and last appeared in the 2001 short story "Fire in the Hole." FX used the short story as the basis for "Justified," which has been picked up for a third season and draws a weekly average of nearly four million viewers. Mr. Leonard set aside Raylan for more than a decade, publishing nine other books. But he's grown so enamored of the TV series that he decided to write a new novel starring the Kentucky marshal—an unusual reversal of the page-to-screen adaptation process.
How has your writing style evolved over the years? It started to evolve in the '60s, I think. I could detect a change. I wasn't using as many words. I wasn't using as many adverbs. I just finally kind of fell into my style. I'm not sure what to call it.
Which writers influenced you, and who do you like to read?
I started out of course with Hemingway when I learned how to write. Until I realized Hemingway doesn't have a sense of humor. He never has anything funny in his stories.
In your "10 Rules of Writing" you tell people what not to do: Never open a book with the weather, never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. Do you have any rules for what writers should do? Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write. It's just that if you avoid these, you're going to come out ahead.
You're 86 and still writing every day. What keeps you working when you could easily retire?
I still like to write. I might as well do it. I can't just sit here and look out the window. There's a lot of snow out there right now. ALEXANDRA ALTER
Read the rest of the interview at: http://topics.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204257504577155180069629066.html?mod=WSJ_hp_editorsPicks_3

Etta James,equally at home singing unadulterated blues, searing R&B and sophisticated jazz, died on Jan. 20. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and her biggest hit, 'At Last,' has been enshrined in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Her dusky voice, which could stretch from a sultry whisper to an aching roar, influenced generations of singers who came after, from Tina Turner to Bonnie Raitt to Christina Aguilera. And pop-R&B singer Beyonce carefully studied James before portraying her in the loosely historical 2008 film "Cadillac Records." As a teen, James formed a trio called the Peaches, which was discovered by R&B musician and promoter Johnny Otis. Soon, she was in a duo called Etta & Harvey with Harvey Fuqua of the Moonglows, the R&B group behind the 1955 hit "Sincerely." Early on, she toured with Johnny Guitar Watson, the Texas singer, songwriter and guitarist, in an association that figured prominently in her approach to music for the rest of her life. Read much more at: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-etta-james-20120121,0,1608543.story

2012-01-20T04:33:00.001-08:00

The Supreme Court on Jan. 18 upheld a 1994 law granting copyright protection to a large number of foreign works that had been freely available in the public domain. The ruling was a victory for the movie, music and publishing industries, which argued that granting copyright protections for the foreign works was an important step in securing reciprocal overseas rights for U.S. works. The decision means some musicians and other artists will have to keep paying to use the now-copyrighted foreign works. Congress enacted the measure to bring the U.S. in compliance with the Berne Convention, an 1886 treaty providing for international recognition of copyrights. The court, by a 6-2 vote, said Congress acted within its powers in granting the protections. "Congress determined that U.S. interests were best served by our full participation in the dominant system of international copyright protection," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court. The ruling defeated a challenge by a group of orchestra conductors, performers, educators and others who argued that Congress exceeded its powers by restricting their ability to perform, share and build upon foreign works that once had been free for use.
BRENT KENDALL and JESS BRAVIN http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204555904577168752017626174.html

Phrases from Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris, a novel of deception and revenge set in a private school
the blackboard and his smug cousin, the chalkboard
Suits and their natural enemy, the Tweed Jacket
a good teacher knows that there is fake anger and real anger
I was hooked, lined and sinkered
a word or two of Latin speaks volumes to the fee-paying parents
Joanne Harris is the author of Five Quarters of the Orange, Chocolat and the co-author with Fran Warde of My French Kitchen, The French Market.

Publishers are convinced that viewers of Downton Abbey who obsessively tune in to follow the war-torn travails of an aristocratic family and its meddling but loyal servants are also literary types, likely to devour books on subjects the series touches. So they are rushing to print books that take readers back to Edwardian and wartime England: stories about the grandeur of British estates (“Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle” by the Countess of Carnarvon); the recollections of a lady’s maid (“Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor” by Rosina Harrison); and World War I (“A Bitter Truth” by Charles Todd), the bloody backdrop to the show’s second season, which had its premiere in the United States Jan. 8 on PBS, drawing 4.2 million viewers. Book publicists have swarmed Twitter, where “Downton Abbey” has been endlessly discussed and analyzed, to drop suggestions and link to alluring titles in both their e-book and print editions, borrowing hashtags like #downtonabbey and #downtonpbs that are already in heavy circulation. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/business/media/mad-for-downton-publishers-have-a-reading-list.html

Today's networks are suffering from unnecessary latency and poor system performance. The culprit is bufferbloat, the existence of excessively large and frequently full buffers inside the network. Large buffers have been inserted all over the Internet without sufficient thought or testing. They damage or defeat the fundamental congestion-avoidance algorithms of the Internet's most common transport protocol. Long delays from bufferbloat are frequently attributed incorrectly to network congestion, and this misinterpretation of the problem leads to the wrong solutions being proposed. A network with no buffers has no place for packets to wait for transmission; thus, extra packets are dropped, creating an increasing loss rate and decreasing throughput, though the received packets would have the same constant delay. To operate without buffers, arrivals must be completely predictable and smooth; thus, global synchronized timing is critical to avoiding loss. Such networks are complex, expensive, and restrictive (i.e., they lack the flexibility of the Internet). A well-known example of a bufferless network is the original telephone network before packet switching took over. Adding buffers to networks and packetizing data into variable-size packets was part of the fundamental advance in communications that led to the Internet. The fundamental transport protocol of the Internet is TCP/IP. TCP's persistence is testimony both to the robust and flexible design of the original algorithm and to the excellent efforts of the many researchers and engineers who have tuned it over the decades. TCP made use of the idea of pipesize and the knowledge that there was reasonable but not excessive buffering along the data path to send a window of packets at a time—originally sending the entire window into the network and waiting for its acknowledgment before sending more data. JIM GETTYS and KATHLEEN NICHOLS Read much more at: http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2071893

What does TCP/IP stand for? Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
http://www.acronymfinder.com/Transmission-Control-Protocol%2FInternet-Protocol-(TCP%2FIP).html

A brownie supplier to Ben & Jerry's ice cream, a skateboard maker and a payday lender are among the hundreds of existing businesses that plan to incorporate as "benefit corporations" in coming months. They will be taking advantage of a new and untested corporate charter, available in only a half dozen states, allowing a company's governing board to consider social or environment objectives ahead of profits. The legal structure is intended to shield the board from investor lawsuits. That anything other than maximizing shareholder value should be considered in a company's decision-making normally can open the door to investor suits. The idea has its share of critics. "For an investor, this is a terrible idea," says Charles Elson, who teaches corporate governance at the University of Delaware. "The structure creates a lack of accountability," he adds, so if the management of a benefit corporation makes a bad decision, "there's very little you can do about it as a shareholder." Others say that companies can simply add specific goals into their articles of incorporation under existing corporate codes, making a benefit-corporation designation unnecessary. It costs about $30 to incorporate as a benefit corporation, not including fees paid to outside lawyers. The incorporation isn't to be confused with "B Corp" certification, which is a privately administered program to label companies aiming to tackle social and environmental problems. ANGUS LOTEN
Find list of states with benefit corporation laws at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203735304577168591470161630.html

On August 25th, 1994, Jimmy Buffett crashed his Grumman G-44 Widgeon, N1471N, while attempting to takeoff in the waters off Nantucket, Massachusetts. The airplane nosed over, and Jimmy was able to swim to safety, sustaining only minor injuries. Buffett credits his survival to Navy Survival Training he had to complete before being able to ride in an F-14 Tomcat from the deck of an aircraft carrier.
http://www.buffettworld.com/incidents/widgeon-seaplane-crash/

On January 16, 1996, Jimmy Buffett’s Grumman HU-16 Albatross, dubbed the Hemisphere Dancer, was shot at by Jamaican authorities as he taxied in the waters near Negril. The Jamaicans had mistaken it for a drug-runner’s plane, though Jimmy had “only come for chicken.” On board the plane was Chris Blackwell from Island Records and U2′s Bono and his family. Buffett penned a tune about the incident: “Jamaica Mistaica”, which appeared on the 1996 album Banana Wind. See excerpt from the song plus Bono's account of the incident at: http://www.buffettworld.com/incidents/jamaica-mistaica/

Russian cuisine Learn about caviar, Beef Stroganoff, created for Russian Count Alexander Grigorievitch Stroganoff (1795-1891), vodka, Strawberries Romanoff, created for Romanoff Czar Nicholas II (ruled 1894 -1917), in the early 1900s by famous French chef Georges Auguste Escoffier, and desserts named for Anna Pavlova and Nadezhda Pavlova. See pictures, including those of General Prince Piotr Bagration, whose 30 year military career included 20 campaigns and 150 battles. Bagration was one of the Russian heroes of the Napoleonic War, and important figure in Tolstoy's War and Peace and his wife, Princess Katerina, for whom Bagration soup was created by Antoine Careme, the "King of Chefs and Chef of Kings." http://www.frccusa.org/Cuisine.html

2012-01-19T04:41:00.000-08:00

100 novels everyone should read, Telegraph selection of the essential fiction library
100 The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
WH Auden thought this tale of fantastic creatures looking for lost jewellery was a “masterpiece”.
93 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
Nursery rhyme provides the code names for British spies suspected of treason.
3 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy’s doomed adulteress grew from a daydream of “a bare exquisite aristocratic elbow”.
2 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Monomaniacal Captain Ahab seeks vengeance on the white whale which ate his leg.
1 Middlemarch by George Eliot
“One of the few English novels written for grown-up people,” said Virginia Woolf.
See entire list at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/4248401/100-novels-everyone-should-read.html

Top 100 Desert Island Books (in no particular order)
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: "Always a joyous and thought-provoking read." (Recommended by Sharon Cognetti)
Toni Morrison, Beloved: "One of the few books that actually caused me to drop my jaw while reading -- haunting, magical, and beautifully poetic; tragic and uplifting at the same time." (Recommended by Jennifer Grabowski and Sharon Cognetti)
Laura Esquival, Like Water For Chocolate: "Although I teach it, this book is one of my favorites! On a desert island, the passion for food and love would be perfect." (Recommended by Heather Hickman)
Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends: "A fantastic collection of entertaining poems that got me through childhood and the difficult times in adulthood." (Recommended by Greg Krikava)
Read entire list at: http://ecs.edisonchargers.com/dsp.subpage.print.cfm?id=838

Top 100 Fantasy Books
100. Tiganaby by Guy Gavriel Kay (1990)
After losing his son in a battle against Tigana, a king places a curse on the land. All those born within it will be unable to remember its name.
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (2007)
Read entire list at: http://www.fantasybooksandmovies.com/best-fantasy-books.html
Ten 100-year predictions that came true In 1900, American civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins made a number of predictions about what the world would be like in 2000. Read the ones that came true and those that didn't at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16444966

Inspired by the predictions of Watkins, readers of BBC News Magazines sent in twenty top predictions for life 100 years from now. Read what futurologists Ian Pearson and Patrick Tucker think of the ideas at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16536598

Antique cut glass Do not serve hot food in cut glass. Do not put the glass in the refrigerator or dishwasher. Wash two or three times a year in warm water and pure soap with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of ammonia. Never let liquids stand in old glass bottles or decanters.
Top ten rules of glass care: http://www.antique-central.com/antique-glass-care-cleaning.shtml

Australia is the world's smallest continent, comprising the mainland of Australia and proximate islands including Tasmania, New Guinea, the Aru Islands and Raja Ampat Islands. Australia and these nearby islands, all part of the same geological landmass, are separated by seas overlying the continental shelf — the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, and Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. When sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene ice age, including the last glacial maximum about 18,000 BC, the lands formed a single, continuous landmass. During the past ten thousand years, rising sea levels overflowed the lowlands and separated the continent into today's low-lying arid to semi-arid mainland and the two mountainous islands of New Guinea and Tasmania. Geologically, the continent extends to the edge of the continental shelf, so the now-separate lands can still be considered a continent. Due to the spread of flora and fauna across the single Pleistocene landmass the separate lands have a related biota. New Zealand is not on the same continental shelf and so is not part of the continent of Australia but is part of the submerged continent Zealandia. Zealandia and Australia together are part of the wider region known as Oceania or Australasia. Australia is sometimes known in technical contexts by the names Sahul, Australinea and Meganesia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_(continent)

On June 15 and 16, 2012, 32 ACM A.M. Turing Award Winners http://turing100.acm.org/index.cfm?p=awardees come together for the first time at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco to honor the 100th Anniversary of Alan Turing and reflect on his contributions, as well as on the past and future of computing. Celebrate with us! Registration is free but limited to 700 attendees. http://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1043823 and includes the Friday reception. http://www.acm.org/news/featured

The Turing Award, in full The ACM A.M. Turing Award, is an annual award given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field". The Turing Award is recognized as the "highest distinction in Computer science" and "Nobel Prize of computing". The award is named after Alan Turing, mathematician and Reader in Mathematics at The University of Manchester. Turing is "frequently credited for being the Father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence". As of 2007, the award is accompanied by a prize of $250,000, with financial support provided by Intel and Google. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award

A "treasure trove" of fossils - including some collected by Charles Darwin - has been re-discovered in an old cabinet. The fossils, lost for some 165 years, were found by chance in the vaults of the British Geological Survey HQ near Keyworth, UK. They have now been photographed and are available to the public through a new online museum exhibit released Jan. 17. The find was made by the palaeontologist Dr Howard Falcon-Lang. Dr Falcon-Lang, who is based in the department of earth sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London, spotted some drawers in a cabinet marked "unregistered fossil plants".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16578330
The collection was assembled by botanist Joseph Hooker (Darwin’s best friend) while he was briefly employed by the Survey in 1846. The material includes some of the first thin sections ever made by William Nicol, the pioneer of petrography, in the late 1820s, as well as specimens picked up by Darwin and Hooker on their round the world voyages in the 1830s and 1840s.
Link to the online exhibit at: http://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/item/25377-charles-darwin-fossils-foun

2012-01-18T05:45:00.000-08:00

The humor stakes are so high in Los Angeles that live-audiences sitcoms are turning to laughter ringers, folks so good at guffawing they're planted in the audience and get everyone else cackling at the right moment. To find those ringers, TV execs turn to Central Casting, the staffing company that's been LA's go-to place for extras and stand-ins since 1925. That's where we are right now, at Central Casting's giant warehouse-sized headquarters in Burbank, ready to meet with the woman who started it all: Lisette St. Claire. She started auditioning people, looking for dominating, infectious laughs, guffaws that were explosive and unique. She aimed for a 50-50 mix of men and women, and she discovered those in their 40s and 50s tended to be the best. She doesn't know why; maybe it takes more life experiences, more joy and sorrow, to find things to really laugh about. Her formula was a hit. Her phone started ringing off the hook, with three to four shows a week planting her cacklers in their audience. While demand for St. Claire's laughers eventually began to wane, lately she says business is picking up. It could be tied in to the return of the laugh track; with competition fierce for the few comedy slots left on TV, folks are eager for any advantage they can get. JOEL WARNER http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/2011/12/how_to_be_a_professional_laugh.php

A novel by an anonymous Chinese author living in America, which started life as a blog, has become a worldwide publishing sensation. It has been snapped up by publishers in 15 countries who have been impressed by the fact that it has sold more than a million copies in China and inspired a film by an Oscar-winning Chinese director. Some publishers even bought it before reading a translation. Yet none of the publishers, translators or editors knows the author's identity. Under the Hawthorn Tree, a tragic love story set during the Cultural Revolution, is written under the pen name of Ai Mi. All that is known about the author is that she leads a reclusive life in Florida, having gone there to study. She is thought to be in her fifties or sixties, if only because her insight into the Cultural Revolution suggests someone who experienced first hand the political and social persecution of Mao Zedong's last decade. She tells her readers that it was inspired by a true story. Her central character – a young woman from a "politically questionable family" who falls in love with the son of a general – is based on a real person with names and places disguised. In a publishing world where an author's identity is often more important than their talent, it is striking that publishers as far afield as Italy, Norway, Brazil and Israel have responded to the writing alone. Lennie Goodings of Virago bought it without knowing a word of Chinese – and was relieved to discover that it lived up to her expectations when she commissioned an English translation. She said: "It's a beautiful love story, almost like a Romeo and Juliet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/08/hawthorn-tree-zhang-yimou-ai-mi

Quotes
Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into a flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) German philosopher, physician, musician, humanitarian, winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize

UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme is an international initiative launched to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, the ravages of time and climatic conditions, and willful and deliberate destruction. It calls for the preservation of valuable archival holdings, library collections and private individual compendia all over the world for posterity, the reconstitution of dispersed or displaced documentary heritage, and the increased accessibility to and dissemination of these items. The Memory of the World Register is a compendium of documents, manuscripts, oral traditions, audio-visual materials, library, and archival holdings of universal value. Inscription on the Register leads to improved conservation of the documentary heritage by calling upon the program's networks of experts to exchange information and raise resources for the preservation, digitization, and dissemination of the material. The program also has the aim of using state-of-the-art technologies to enable wider accessibility and diffusion of the items inscribed on the Register. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_of_the_World_Programme Memory of the World official site http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/flagship-project-activities/memory-of-the-world/homepage/

Edgar Allan Poe
Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business. By the age of thirteen, Poe had compiled enough poetry to publish a book, but his headmaster advised Allan against allowing this. Read more and see events at the Poe Museum site: http://www.poemuseum.org/life.php

BALTIMORE—Each year, on the anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth, several fans of the writer spend a chilly night by his grave here. They are hoping to catch a glimpse of another Poe admirer—one who wears a dark hat and coat and for several decades has left three red roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac by the tombstone. But the mysterious figure—who, due to a masculine gait and imposing size, is presumed to be male—hasn't shown up the past two years. And if the so-called Poe Toaster doesn't pay a visit sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday, the Poe fanatics who keep vigil in the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground will declare "nevermore." The tradition will be over. JONATHAN D. ROCKOFF http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203735304577166873613905702.html

Follow-up: Wikipedia has taken its English-language site offline as part of protests against proposed anti-piracy laws in the US. Users attempting to access the site see a black screen and a political statement: "Imagine a world without free knowledge." The user-generated news site Reddit and the blog Boing Boing are also taking part in the "blackout". Wikipedia, which attracts millions of hits every day, is opposed to the US Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) being debated by Congress. The legislation would allow the Justice Department and content owners to seek court orders requiring search engines to block results associated with piracy. The site's founder, Jimmy Wales, told the BBC: "Proponents of Sopa have characterised the opposition as being people who want to enable piracy or defend piracy". "But that's not really the point. The point is the bill is so over broad and so badly written that it's going to impact all kinds of things that, you know, don't have anything to do with stopping piracy." Read more and find Full explanation on Sopa and Pipa at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16590585

2012-01-17T03:19:00.000-08:00

Celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens http://www.dickens2012.org/
The Charles Dickens Museum, 48 Doughty Street (the author’s only surviving London house) holds the world's most important Dickens collection with over 100,000 items including manuscripts, rare editions, personal items, paintings and other visual sources. http://www.dickensmuseum.com/

Travel quotes
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.
Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430.
One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.
Henry Valentine Miller (26 December 1891 - 7 June 1980) American writer
Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, 1957 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Miller
Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.
Pat Conroy (b. 1945) American teacher and writer

Stink bugs infiltrated the U.S. as cargo ship stowaways from Asia about 15 years ago and have proliferated in the past two years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the immigrants have spread to 36 states; trade groups say they were responsible for $37 million of damage to apple crops alone in 2010. "It's not so much an evolution but a takeover," says Anne Nielsen, an entomologist recruited by Rutgers University in New Jersey specifically to study stink bugs, known to scientists as the Halyomorpha halys. Brian McCausland, a contractor from Chester County, Pa., conjured up his own solution. He invented a trap that uses light and a spruce-scented spray to draw the pests to a bowl, where they drown. So far, he says, he's sold 5,000 of the $9.99 contraptions by word-of-mouth. The stink bug measures between 1/2 inch and one inch long, with a speckled brown exoskeleton. Its colloquial name stems from the odor emitted from glands on its abdomen—a defense mechanism triggered by disturbances like predators or homeowners who stumble upon them in attics. It feeds through a stylus that is "as hard as steel," says Mark Seetin of the U.S. Apple Association. Scientists are more concerned with the bug's appetite for crops than its smell. The insects are voracious vegetarians that forage on about 300 species of produce, trees and vegetation. HEATHER HADDON http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204124204577148833091069496.html

On Jan. 15, the White House outlined its opposition to two similar bills pending in the House and Senate that would crack down on the sale of pirated American movies, music and other goods on foreign-based websites. The bills would require Internet companies to hobble access to foreign pirate websites, bar search engines from linking to them and prevent U.S. companies from placing ads on them. The Senate is still scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the legislation on Jan. 24. House backers haven't announced any plans to advance the legislation, but they said on Jan. 13 that they will remove a provision that worried some cybersecurity experts. The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act has stoked wild rhetoric from both supporters and detractors. Opponents, including technology companies, have compared some provisions in the legislation to methods used by dictatorial regimes. To protest the proposed legislation, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia said it will close down its English language version for 24 hours on Jan. 18. But supporters say the competitiveness of the movie and television industry—and even that of American business as a whole—is at stake. Major media companies that own TV channels and movie studios have been among the legislation's supporters. They worry that piracy could thwart their still nascent efforts to get consumers to pay for online content. In the TV business, for instance, channels are increasingly making their shows available online only to paying subscribers to cable and satellite operators—a system that could be undermined by pirate sites.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203735304577165081404005466.html

Exactly 100 pieces of trefoil-shaped construction paper crisscross the walls of the Girl Scouts headquarters in Toledo. Every emblem proclaims a message squarely knotted to the Girl Scouts' 100th birthday this year, beginning with No. 1: "1st Chartered Council in the U.S." In 1917, the same year Girl Scouts were for the first time selling homemade cookies as a way to fund troop activities, founder Juliette "Daisy" Gordon Low was signing her name to the first charter for a local council in the United States, and that council was here in Toledo. "No. One" is penned in the corner of that charter, a copy of which is proudly displayed in the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio office on Collingwood Boulevard in the Old West End. An Ohio Historical Marker, now in the works, is to be erected in May to commemorate Toledo's significant link to an organization that has had more than 50 million members since that night when Mrs. Low called a friend saying, "Come right over. I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight." She assembled 18 girls from Savannah, Ga., on March 12, 1912, to register the first troop meeting of the American Girl Guides; the name was changed to Girl Scouts the following year, and the rest is history. Actually, in 2012, declared by the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. as the Year of the Girl, it is being termed "HERstory." "It is one of the little-known facts about the Girl Scouts of our area," said Allison Demkowski, program services manager for Toledo and Lima regions of the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio. As part of the celebration, Girl Scouts in the Toledo area will have a rare opportunity to spend the night at the Toledo Museum of Art. "There will be sleeping bags all over," said Carol Bintz, chief operating officer at the museum. She's expecting about 2,000 girls to participate in Girl Scout Night at the Museum on May 5-6, featuring hands-on projects, flashlight tours, and storytelling. On May 5 about 4 p.m., the Ohio Historical Marker is to be dedicated on the grounds of the art museum during a public ceremony, she said, noting close connections between the scouts and the museum. When the Girl Scouts' first charter was issued to the Toledo council, the first commissioner was Nina Stevens, who was assistant director of the museum. She was the wife of museum director George Stevens. The charter was signed by the new council officials on the steps of the museum. All of these significant historical connections are fantastic, she said. Not only is the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. celebrating its 100th anniversary, but the museum is marking the 100th anniversary of the completion of the building's center core, Ms. Bintz said.
"We are celebrating our centennials together," she said. "We really want to make this a great event for the girls." The Green Hat Society, a nationwide Girl Scout alumnae organization founded in Toledo in 2004, is to hold its 2012 national encampment at Camp Libbey Aug. 15-19, and Green Hatters from New York, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin are among those expected to attend, according to Bonnie Hamic of Whitehouse, Green Hat Society, Maumee Valley Chapter chairman.
JANET ROMAKER See images, including the document showing the nation's first charter at: http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2012/01/16/Toledo-celebrates-its-role-in-herstory.print

The first published recipe for Girl Scout cookies was printed in July, 1922. Find recipe and instructions at: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Original-Girl-Scout-Cookies-100807

2012-01-16T05:30:00.000-08:00

Poets, novelists, essayists, and anyone who writes uses the same currency: words. That's all they need to say to say all there is to say. The trick is to choose the right denomination and arrange them in the right way. There are times when nothing quite fits, and then you can invent your own. You have the building blocks. This week we'll feature words made by using combining forms. What are combining forms? You can think of them as Lego (from Danish, leg: play + godt: well) bricks of language. As the term indicates, a combining form is a linguistic atom that occurs only in combination with some other form which could be a word, another combining form, or an affix (unlike a combining form, an affix can't attach to another affix).
duopsony (doo-OP-suh-nee, dyoo-) noun
A market condition in which there are only two buyers, thus exerting great influence on price.
From Greek duo- (two) + -opsony, from opsonia (purchase).
From Greek duo- (two) + -opsony, from opsonia (purchase).
NOTES
monopoly: one seller, many buyers
duopoly: two sellers, many buyers
oligopoly: a few sellers, many buyers
gerontology (jer-uhn-TOL-uh-jee) noun
The scientific study of aging.
From Greek geronto-, from geras (old age) + -logy (study). Earliest documented use: 1903.
autologous (ah-TOL-uh-guhs) adjective
Involving a situation in which the donor and the recipient (of blood, skin, bone, etc.) are the same person. From Greek auto- (self) + -logous (as in homologous), from logos (proportion, ratio, word). Earliest documented use: 1911.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

The Fine Art of Where to Start by DARIN STRAUSS
Good stories can be good for a thousand and one reasons, but failed stories often fail in the same way. For the fiction students I teach, one of the most common mistakes is to start in the wrong place. Often the actual story doesn't begin until about a third of the way into their narratives. They start off instead with excessive scene-setting, metaphysical speculation, introducing nonessential dramatis personae, throat-clearing, etc. But there's no need for any of that.
One of the first lessons in writing school is (to paraphrase my great teacher Lee K. Abbott) "a story equals trouble"—that is, no trouble, no story. E.L. Doctorow made the same point, a bit cryptically, when he recommended starting a story "as late as possible." By which he meant as late as possible in the crucial action. The clearest guidance on this point may come from the Canadian writer Douglas Glover, a master of narrative structure. He compares a story's protagonist to a boulder perched insecurely on a hilltop and suggests that we imagine a bird coming along to knock the boulder off the hill. That's a perfect place to begin—the moment of impact, the start of the trouble. The motion of the boulder is the story. For an example of this, look at a classic: Kafka's "The Metamorphosis." His opening line: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect." The main thing is to think strategically about what will engage your readers. Trust me when I tell you that few people are eager to read a story whose opening lines sound like a dissertation on giant bugs. —Mr. Strauss's books include the novel "Chang & Eng" and the memoir "Half a Life," which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550304577138892700746530.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Sarah Trimmer (1741–1810) was a writer and critic of 18th-century British children's literature. Her periodical, The Guardian of Education, helped to define the emerging genre by seriously reviewing children's literature for the first time; it also provided the first history of children's literature, establishing a canon of the early landmarks of the genre that scholars still use today. Trimmer's most popular children's book, Fabulous Histories, inspired numerous children's animal stories and remained in print for over a century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Trimmer

TWO HUNDRED AND COUNTING Armies, archaeology and art are on the agenda at Ohio Historical Society sites in coming weeks. The War of 1812 bicentennial gets underway in 2012 and featured events begin, appropriately, with the 2012 Bentley Lecture Series at Fort Meigs, our reconstructed War of 1812 fort in Perrysburg near Toledo.
At Fort Meigs in Perrysburg Visitor Center
Third Thursdays except June, July, August and December
Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
Detroit and the War of 1812, with Dr. Denver Brunsman of Wayne State University
Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
Thus Fell Tecumseh, with Frank Kuron
See future dates in various locations at: http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/enews/0112f.shtml
Bentley Lecture Series programs are free. For more information, call 800.283.8916
or visit fortmeigs.org.

JERUSALEM In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry. The professor, Channa Maayan, knew that the acting health minister, who is ultra-Orthodox, and other religious people would be in attendance. So she wore a long-sleeve top and a long skirt. But that was hardly enough. Not only did Dr. Maayan and her husband have to sit separately, as men and women were segregated at the event, but she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award for her because women were not permitted on stage. The list of controversies grows weekly: Organizers of a conference last week on women’s health and Jewish law barred women from speaking from the podium, leading at least eight speakers to cancel; ultra-Orthodox men spit on an 8-year-old girl whom they deemed immodestly dressed; the chief rabbi of the air force resigned his post because the army declined to excuse ultra-Orthodox soldiers from attending events where female singers perform; protesters depicted the Jerusalem police commander as Hitler on posters because he instructed public bus lines with mixed-sex seating to drive through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods; vandals blacked out women’s faces on Jerusalem billboards. ETHAN BRONNER and ISABEL KERSHNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/world/middleeast/israel-faces-crisis-over-role-of-ultra-orthodox-in-society.html

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Velvet Underground sued a foundation that manages artist Andy Warhol’s legacy in a trademark dispute over the influential New York-based rock band’s iconic cover for its 1967 album “The Velvet Underground & Nico.” The cover features a banana on a white background with Warhol’s signature. The artist selected the banana design from an element of advertisement in the public domain, according to the lawsuit. The band essentially served as the house band for Warhol’s studio, The Factory, and contributed soundtracks to several of his film projects. A partnership, which manages the band’s catalogue and includes band members Lou Reed and John Cale as partners, claims that The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc. has infringed the band’s trademark by licensing the banana image to third parties, including purportedly cases for iPhones and iPads. The partnership, which filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court on Jan. 11, is seeking a declaration that the Warhol Foundation has no copyright interest in the design. CHAD BRAY
See image of Warhol banana at: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/01/11/yes-we-have-no-bananas-velvet-underground-sues-warhol-group/

December 08, 2011
As one of the pioneers of information technology, LexisNexis has earned its reputation as an innovator that only works with best-in-class solutions. After careful consideration, the company picked MarkLogic Corporation, the company empowering organizations to make high stakes decisions on Big Data in real time, to power components of the new platform behind Lexis Advance, the next generation legal research solution.
http://www.bloomberg.com/article/2011-12-08/aBLTkRBMK3Fo.html
Please note that this is a "puff piece".

January 12, 2012
Today, Bernstein Research. released a report: Reed Elsevier: Voices Calling for Asset Divestitures Should Grow Louder, and Perhaps Fall on Deaf Ears which includes some significant implications for the legal publishing marketplace. The report recommends that Reed Elsevier divest some units including LexisNexis and suggests by implication that Bloomberg Law is standing by and ready to purchase those assets. The report also notes that interviews with U.S. law librarians were a key source used in the report. http://deweybstrategic.blogspot.com/

THREE SISTERS
Three Sisters (play), a play by Anton Chekhov.
The Three Sisters (1930 film)
Three Sisters (film), a 1970 motion picture adaptation of the Chekhov play
Three Sisters (TV series), a 2001 comedy series on NBC
Three Sisters (Oregon), a cluster of volcanoes in Oregon
Three Sisters (District of Columbia), three islands in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.
Three Sisters (Great Lakes), a series three islands on the Great Lakes.
The Three Sisters (New York), three small islands off the west side of Goat Island in the Niagara Falls State Park.
The Three Sisters (Queensland), three islands in the Torres Strait North Queensland, Australia.
The Three Sisters (Aleutian Islands), Alaska
The Three Sisters (Ireland), a group of three rivers in Ireland.
Three Sisters Springs (Florida), on the Crystal River.
Three Sisters Wilderness, a wilderness area in the Oregon Cascades.
Three Sisters (Pittsburgh), a collection of three nearly identical bridges in Pittsburgh
Three Sisters (Waipoua Forest), three large Kauri trees in Waipoua Forest, New Zealand.
Three Sisters (agriculture), the three basic agricultural crops of indigenous peoples in North America.
Three Sisters (tomato), a variety of tomato See many more items at:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_the_term_three_sisters_mean

Giving Turnips a Second Look TARA PARKER-POPE
Last fall, I was speaking with the Meatball Shop chef, Daniel Holzman, and the conversation turned to one of his favorite side dishes: Smashed Turnips With Fresh Horseradish. The turnip, Chef Holzman says, is one of the most “underappreciated and often overlooked” vegetables at the market. “They are super-delicious, really inexpensive and easy to cook,” he said. “But for whatever reason, they are not part of our regular culinary quiver.” This week, Martha Rose Shulman weighs in with five new ways to enjoy turnips, including her own take on mashed turnips, as well as a frittata, a creamy gratin, a stir-fry and a comforting couscous.
Turnip Gratin:
Couscous With Turnips and Sweet Potatoes:
Frittata With Turnips and Olives: Rice Noodles With Stir-Fried Chicken, Turnips and Carrots:
Mashed Turnips and Potatoes With Turnip Greens: Find recipes at: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/giving-turnips-a-second-look/?ref=health

Homemade brass and copper polish Put 2 tablespoons of salt into a cup of white vinegar. Add just enough flour to form a smooth paste. Dip a damp cloth into the paste, then rub until the stains disappear. Rinse with cold water, dry.

2012-01-12T03:54:00.000-08:00

The Houston Main Building (HMB) formerly the Prudential Building, was a skyscraper in the Texas Medical Center, Houston, Texas. It originally housed offices of the Prudential Insurance Company, before becoming a part of the MD Anderson Cancer Center. The building was demolished on January 8, 2012. The building was built in 1952. The building was the first corporate high rise building established outside of Downtown Houston. The 18 story, 500,000-square-foot (46,000 m2) building was designed by Kenneth Franzheim. The offices in the building served the states of Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. The MD Anderson Cancer Center bought the building in 1974. In 2002 MD Anderson announced that it planned to demolish the building and replace it with a four story medical campus. Area preservationists opposed the plan. William Daigneau, the vice president of operations and facilities, said that renovating the buildings would be too costly. In 2008 Daigneau said that the building was slowly disintegrating. A fresco, titled "The Future Belongs To Those Who Prepare For It," was located in the Prudential Building. The fresco, 16 feet (4.9 m) by 47 feet (14 m), depicts life on a farm in West Texas. The Prudential Life Insurance Company commissioned the mural from the artist Peter Hurd. The company wanted to evoke its motto, which was used as the painting's title. To create the mural, Hurd used construction workers as his models. Hurd himself appears as a soil conservation agent in the work. The vice president of MD Anderson, Bill Daigneau, said in 2008 the structural problems in the building are cracking the mural. Daigneau also said that the fresco "does not reflect the values of M.D. Anderson. ... There's the issue of who's running the farm, and who's working on it." In 2010 a benefactor from Artesia, New Mexico agreed to have the mural removed. The mural will become a part of the public library of Artesia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Main_Building
PETER HURD (1904-1984) arrived in Chadds Ford in 1923, with a click of his heels and a salute. He had recently left West Point after struggling through a personal conflict of interests: the military or painting. Hurd's respect for the work of N. C. Wyeth, and his own perseverance gave him the opportunity to meet Wyeth at his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. The meeting went well, and soon Hurd moved to Chadds Ford, and became a student of the renowned illustrator. Peter Hurd later commented that West Point was tough on its students, but N. C. Wyeth was tougher. For the next ten years, he lived and painted under the strict guidance of his teacher. All of the Wyeths were quite taken by this handsome, energetic young man in cowboy boots and hat, but none so much as N. C.’s eldest daughter, Henriette, who married Peter Hurd in 1929. Peter Hurd was born in Roswell, New Mexico, and his longing to return to New Mexico determined the course of his life and his art. Peter Hurd is best known for his watercolors, luminous egg temperas and lithographs depicting the New Mexican landscape he loved. Hurd was an early pioneer of the Italian renaissance medium of egg tempera in the US. In 1932, he introduced his young brother-in-law, Andrew Wyeth, to egg tempera. Eventually, N. C. Wyeth adopted the medium, as did son-in-law John W. McCoy.
http://www.wyethhurd.com/family.html

Hiccups are caused by involuntary contractions of your diaphragm — the muscle that separates your chest from your abdomen and plays an important role in breathing. This involuntary contraction causes your vocal cords to close very briefly, which produces the characteristic sound of a hiccup. There is no one proven cure for the hiccups. Different things may work at different times and for different people. The following hiccup remedies may be effective:
Holding your breath
Slowly drinking a cold glass of water
Breathing into a paper bag
Eating a spoonful of sugar
If your hiccups last longer than 48 hours, consult your doctor.
http://www.riversideonline.com/health_reference/Questions-Answers/AN01249.cfm

A legal battle between HarperCollins Publishers Inc. and a company run by one of its former chief executives is putting the spotlight on a key issue in book publishing today: Who owns the e-book rights to decades-old titles? Two days before Christmas, HarperCollins filed a copyright-infringement suit against Open Road Integrated Media Inc. in federal court in New York, seeking to block Open Road from selling an e-book edition of Jean Craighead George's 1972 children's novel "Julie of the Wolves." The lawsuit appears likely to reopen a critical issue relating to e-book rights that was thought to be resolved about a decade ago. That is, whether book contracts written before the digital age granted publishers digital rights, or whether those rights were retained by the author and could be sold to an e-publisher. JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203436904577153142705735660.html

Chief Justice John Roberts starts out his analysis in Jan. 11’s unanimous ruling on a religious-freedom case by drawing on the biggest and oldest of them all, the Magna Carta or Great Charter of 1215. That’s when the chief’s namesake, King John, agreed that “the English church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired.” Skipping lightly through Henry II, Henry VIII, the 1662 Act of Uniformity and Hamilton James Eckenrode’s 1910 review of 17th century Virginia colonial law, the chief justice finds that the Constitution prevents the government both from appointing ministers in a church and from “interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own.” All this is in service of resolving the complaint by Cheryl Perich, a kindergarten teacher at a Lutheran school who also held a diploma designating her as a commissioned minister. The school fired her after a disability leave, and Ms. Perich sued, claiming a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Chief Justice Roberts found that religious groups are entitled to an exception from federal employment laws because of their special constitutional status. Specifically, he wrote: “Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so … infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.” And, to complete the case, the opinion found that Ms. Perich qualifies as a minister because of her credentials, although her actual job was as a schoolteacher.
Here’s the opinion http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-553.pdf and, if you share the reading habits of the chief, you can peruse that entire 1910 work, “Separation of Church and State in Virginia,” online at: http://books.google.com/books?id=2gwVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=falseonline PETER LANDERS http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/01/11/justices-turn-to-english-law-in-religious-freedom-ruling/

2012-01-11T05:55:00.000-08:00

The only thing that lies between Americans and the sultry streets of Havana these days is the Florida Straits, since the Obama administration has widened the kind of travel allowed. A growing list of organizations have licenses to operate trips to Cuba, including National Geographic Expeditions, Austin-Lehman and the Center for Cuban Studies. There are also more flights from more American cities: Fort Lauderdale and Tampa recently joined New York, Miami and Los Angeles on the list, and Chicago will be added this year. The “people-to-people” rules require Americans to interact with Cubans (sun-and-sand vacations are still prohibited) so tours involve meeting with art historians, organic farmers and others. Conveniently, new restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts, some in gorgeous colonial villas, have sprung up over the past year as the government has allowed more private enterprise. Havana is also gearing up for its 11th Biennial, from May 11 to June 11, which will draw more than 100 Cuban and international artists. VICTORIA BURNETT
http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/travel/45-places-to-go-in-2012.html

Q: I have some damaged currency. What can I do?
A: The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing generally reimburses the full value of damaged currency if more than half of the note remains. Fragments amounting to less than half are not redeemable. Go to http://www.moneyfactory.gov/damagedcurrencyclaim.html -- U.S. Treasury Department. http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2012/Jan/JU/ar_JU_010912.asp?d=010912,2012,Jan,09&c=c_13

Baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate. When baking soda is combined with moisture and an acidic ingredient (yogurt, chocolate, buttermilk, honey), the resulting chemical reaction produces bubbles of carbon dioxide that expand under oven temperatures, causing baked goods to rise. The reaction begins immediately upon mixing the ingredients, so you need to bake recipes which call for baking soda immediately, or else they will fall flat. Baking powder contains sodium bicarbonate, but it includes the acidifying agent already (cream of tartar), and also a drying agent (usually starch). Baking powder is available as single-acting baking powder and as double-acting baking powder. Single-acting powders are activated by moisture, so you must bake recipes which include this product immediately after mixing. Double-acting powders react in two phases and can stand for a while before baking. With double-acting powder, some gas is released at room temperature when the powder is added to dough, but the majority of the gas is released after the temperature of the dough increases in the oven. You can substitute baking powder in place of baking soda (you'll need more baking powder and it may affect the taste), but you can't use baking soda when a recipe calls for baking powder. Baking soda by itself lacks the acidity to make a cake rise. Make your own baking powder by mixing two parts cream of tartar with one part baking soda. http://chemistry.about.com/cs/foodchemistry/f/blbaking.htm

There are growing numbers of rewards for serial "likers" who click that button. Hotel chain Marriott International Inc., for instance, is offering those who Like its Facebook pages prizes totaling 10 million reward points, including two grand prizes of a million points each. "It's become a real competition between companies to grow the size of that number [of online followers] and to have more fans than your rivals," said Matt Simpson, marketing director for Phoenix-based Bulbstorm, which develops social-media applications for companies such as NBC and World Wrestling Entertainment. "Over the last year, we've been seeing more and more of it, and it's been driven largely by promotional applications like sweepstakes." In the third quarter of last year, an average of 100 million "Like" buttons were being clicked on Facebook every day. That's double the amount of liking that went on during the same period last year. Corporations are doing this for a reason. They're building marketing lists, they're aiming to boost sales, and they're planting themselves in users' news feeds. Coca-Cola Co. has more than 36 million Likes, and Disney Co. has more than 29 million, assembling an audience that can be tapped at any time. Once a company has an army of online followers, that's not the end of the marketing road. There's the question of what to do with them all. That's why companies are proceeding to Phase Two of the Like operation: Figuring out how to engage and entertain Annie Scranton, the founder and president of a New York public relations company says: "My business is inextricably linked to social media, so if I wasn't constantly Liking things, my clients wouldn't be happy." "Even when I'm working, I'm on Facebook all day long. You can never do enough Liking." http://www.toledoblade.com/Technology/2012/01/03/Companies-rewarding-Likers-on-Facebook.html

noosphere (NOH-uh-sfeer) noun
The sum of human knowledge, thought, and culture.
From French noösphere, from Greek noos (mind) + sphere. Earliest documented use: 1930.
nutate (NOO-tayt, NYOO-) verb intr.
1. To nod the head.
2. To oscillate while rotating (as an astronomical body).
3. To move in a curving or circular fashion (as a plant stem, leaf, etc.).
Back-formation from nutation, from Latin nutare (to nod repeatedly), frequentative of -nuere (to nod), from numen (nod of the head, command, divine will). Earliest documented use: 1880. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Raisins are dried grapes. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Canada the word "raisin" is reserved for the dried large dark grape, with "sultana" being a dried large white grape, and "currant" being a dried small Black Corinth grape. The word raisin dates back to Middle English and is a loanword from Old French; in French, raisin means "grape," while a dried grape is referred to as a raisin sec, or "dry grape." The Old French word in turn developed from the Latin word racemus, "a bunch of grapes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raisin

2012-01-10T05:41:00.000-08:00

Quote I dreamt that my hair was kempt. Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.
Ogden Nash (1902-1971) American poet

Competitive Intelligence - A Selective Resource Guide - Completely Updated - December 2011 from Law Library Resource Xchange http://www.llrx.com/features/ciguide.htm
Locating the Law, 5th edition, revised (2011) from Southern California Association of Law Libraries http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/scall/locating.htm

Tivoli Gardens (or simply Tivoli) is a famous amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park opened on 15 August 1843 and is the second oldest amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klampenborg. The amusement park was first called "Tivoli & Vauxhall", "Tivoli" alluding to the Jardin de Tivoli in Paris (which in its turn had been named from Tivoli near Rome), and "Vauxhall" alluding to the Vauxhall Gardens in London. Tivoli's founder, Georg Carstensen (1812 –1857), obtained a five-year charter to create Tivoli by telling King Christian VIII that "when the people are amusing themselves, they do not think about politics". From the very start, Tivoli included a variety of attractions: buildings in the exotic style of an imaginary Orient: a theatre, band stands, restaurants and cafés, flower gardens, and mechanical amusement rides such as a merry-go-round and a primitive scenic railway. After dark, coloured lamps illuminated the gardens. On certain evenings, specially designed fireworks could be seen reflected in Tivoli's lake. Composer Hans Christian Lumbye (1810 –1874) was Tivoli's musical director from 1843 to 1872. Lumbye was inspired by Viennese waltz composers like the Strauss family (Johann Strauss I and his sons), and became known as the "Strauss of the North." Many of his compositions are specifically inspired by the gardens, including "Salute to the Ticket Holders of Tivoli", "Carnival Joys" and "A Festive Night at Tivoli". The Tivoli Symphony Orchestra still performs many of his works. See more plus pictures at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoli_Gardens

A world of previously unseen creatures has been found thriving next to boiling vents of water, several miles under the surface of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. Hundreds of hairy-chested yeti crabs, a mysterious-looking pale octopus and colonies of limpets, snails and barnacles were found by British scientists at a hydrothermal vent located in the ocean's East Scotia Ridge. Prof Alex Rogers of Oxford University used a remotely operated vehicle called Isis to scout the sea bed around the ridge, which spans about 2.4km and features springs of black, smoky water that can reach temperatures of almost 400C (752F). The hydrothermal vents are powered by underwater volcanoes, and the scalding temperatures and rich mineral content of the water gives rise to vast rocky chimneys that support a wide variety of life forms. "The visually dominant species are the yeti crabs, which occur in fantastically high densities, up to 600 per square metre around the southern ridge," said Rogers, who led the expedition aboard the RSS James Cook in January 2010. "Also high densities of stalked barnacles, a large snail from a group called the peltospiroids, and we've also got small, green limpets which occur all over the vents." See pictures at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/04/new-species-southern-ocean-antarctica?newsfeed=true
The average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen, Nicholas Carr notes in his eye-opening book “The Shallows,” in part because the number of hours American adults spent online doubled between 2005 and 2009 (and the number of hours spent in front of a TV screen, often simultaneously, is also steadily increasing). The average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day, though one girl in Sacramento managed to handle an average of 10,000 every 24 hours for a month. The urgency of slowing down — to find the time and space to think — is nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen. Two journalist friends of mine observe an “Internet sabbath” every week, turning off their online connections from Friday night to Monday morning, so as to try to revive those ancient customs known as family meals and conversation. Other friends try to go on long walks every Sunday, or to “forget” their cellphones at home. A series of tests in recent years has shown, Mr. Carr points out, that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper.”
PICO IYER http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: John McQuillan Subject: reechy
Def: verb tr.: To pay the penalty for. verb intr.: To suffer, to endure.
In my native Scotland, a common greeting (wishing others well) is: "Lang may yer lum reek" i.e. Long may your chimney smoke. The implication being -- Long may you have fuel for your fire/stove. A corollary: The slang name for our capital city Edinburgh was "Auld Reeky" last century.
From: Dave Marks Subject: reechy
Surprised you didn't mention that it is also the source of reek and Reykjavik (smoky bay).
From: Tom Priestly Subject: mickle
Def: noun: A large amount. adjective: Great, large. adverb: Much.
The old village of Micklethwaite, now a suburb of the English city of Bradford, Yorkshire has its origin as mickle + thwaite, "small + section of forest cleared for tilling". One could add: many old villages now make up one huge urban sprawl, or "many a mickle makes a muckle" (many small things add up to a big thing).
From: Chris Papa Subject: mickle
In Act 2 of Ruddigore, a wonderful but seldom performed Gilbert & Sullivan opera, an elderly lady whose young lover had died is reunited with his ghost and the two sing a touching duet, which includes the following:
When she found that he was fickle,
Was that great oak tree,
She was in a pretty pickle,
As she well might be -
But his gallantries were mickle,
For Death followed with his sickle,
And her tears began to trickle
For her great oak tree!
Sing hey,
Lackaday!
Let the tears fall free
For the pretty little flower and the great oak tree!
From: Allen Foster Subject: mickle
I learned this word from a medieval Christmas carol, Lullay My Liking:
There was mickle melody at that childes birth.
Though the songsters were hevenly, they made a mickle mirth.
Never quite had the confidence about its specific meaning to use it conversationally, thanks for clearing up an age-old mystery!

2012-01-09T06:51:00.000-08:00

Library of Congress
Books and other materials are shelved on some 838 miles of shelves in three buildings on Capitol Hill and off-site storage facilities. The Library serves as the research arm of Congress and is recognized as the national library of the United States. Its collections comprise the world's most comprehensive record of human creativity and knowledge. Open to those age 16 and older without charge or special permission, it is the world's largest library and a great resource to scholars and researchers. The library does not have a copy of every book published in the United States, but it does have more than 33 million books and printed materials, as well as more than 113 million maps, manuscripts, photographs, films, audio and video recordings, prints and drawings, and other special collections. The library gets its holdings through exchange with libraries in this country and abroad, gifts, materials received from local, state and federal agencies as well as foreign governments, purchase, and copyright deposits. Materials are added to the collections of the Library at a rate of 10,000 items per working day. Selection officers review materials and decide which should be kept and added to the permanent collections. Copyright deposits make up the core of the collections, particularly those in the map, music, motion picture, and prints and photographs divisions. http://www.loc.gov/about/faqs.html

"On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" was among the best-selling songs of the 19th century, earning over $100,000 from sheet music revenues. Written and composed by American songwriter Paul Dresser, it was published by the Tin Pan Alley firm of Howley, Haviland & Co. in October 1897. The lyrics of the ballad reminisce about life near Dresser's childhood home by the Wabash River in Indiana. It remained popular for decades and the Indiana General Assembly adopted it as the official state song on March 14, 1913. The song was the basis for a 1923 film of the same title. Its longtime popularity led to the emergence of several lyrical versions, including an 1898 anti-war song and a Swedish version that was a number one hit. The song was composed during a transitory time in musical history when songs first began to be recorded for the phonograph. It was among the earliest pieces of popular music to be recorded. Dresser's inability to control the distribution of phonograph cylinders led him and his company to join other composers to petition the United States Congress to expand federal copyright protections over the new technology. Dresser's ballad was the subject of some controversy after his death in 1906. His younger brother, novelist Theodore Dreiser, publicly claimed to have authored part of the song; the validity of his claim was never proven. The ambiguity of United States copyright laws at the time and the poor management of Dresser's estate left the song vulnerable to plagiarism. The 1917 song "Back Home Again in Indiana" borrowed heavily from Dresser's song, both lyrically and musically, and led to a dispute with Dresser's estate that was never resolved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Banks_of_the_Wabash,_Far_Away

"In the Beginning, ARPA created the ARPANET.
And the ARPANET was without form and void.
And darkness was upon the deep.
And the spirit of ARPA moved upon the face of the network and ARPA said, 'Let there be a protocol,' and there was a protocol. And ARPA saw that it was good.
And ARPA said, 'Let there be more protocols,' and it was so.
And ARPA saw that it was good.
And ARPA said, 'Let there be more networks,' and it was so." Danny Cohen
Read an extensive history of ARPANET with a timeline from 1962 to 1992 at: http://www.computerhistory.org/internet_history/

pome noun
A fleshy fruit, such as an apple, pear, or quince, having several seed chambers and an outer fleshy part largely derived from the hypanthium. Also called false fruit.
[Middle English, from Old French, apple, fruit, from Vulgar Latin *p ma, from neuter pl. of Late Latin p mum, from Latin, fruit.] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pome

Blue Lake Rangimairewhenua in Māori) is a small lake in Nelson Lakes National Park, in the northern reaches of New Zealand's Southern Alps. Sacred to local Māori, it has the clearest natural fresh water in the world. The Blue Lake is drained by the west branch of the Sabine River, which is part of the Buller River system. It is fed by a short upper segment of the Sabine, which in turn is fed by underground seepage through the landslide debris impounding the much larger Lake Constance. Blue Lake is roughly boomerang shaped, running north then northwest, with each arm of the lake stretching some 200 metres (700 ft). Its waters are cold, ranging from 5 to 8 °C (41 to 46 °F). The lake has extremely clear water, and is the clearest natural body of fresh water yet reported. A 2011 study found its visibility ranged from 70 to 80 metres (230 to 260 ft), clearer than the 63 metres (207 ft) measured for Te Waikoropupu Springs, a previous record holder. For comparison, laboratory measurements show distilled water has a visibility of approximately 80 metres (260 ft). Scientists attribute the lake water's clarity to its passage underground from Lake Constance, which filters out nearly all the particles suspended in the water. Its clarity reveals water's natural blue-violet colour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Lake_(Tasman)

Greek and Latin roots: gram, graph
meaning: written, write
examples: graph, graphic, autograph, photography, graphite, telegram https://www.msu.edu/~defores1/gre/roots/gre_rts_afx2.htm
more examples: logogram, diagram, epigram, ideogram, seismograph

Lake Superior State University 2012 List of Banished Words
AMAZING
BABY BUMP
SHARED SACRIFICE
OCCUPY
BLOWBACK
MAN CAVE
THE NEW NORMAL
PET PARENT
WIN THE FUTURE
TRICKERATION
GINORMOUS
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE
See definitions and comments at: http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php

2012-01-06T05:09:00.000-08:00

Quotes
It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.
Work is much more fun than fun.
Noel Coward (1899-1973) English playwright

Transition of American FactFinder — The legacy version of American FactFinder will no longer be available as of Jan. 20. Nearly all of the data from the older version has now been uploaded to the new American FactFinder website, including previous years of American Community Survey estimates and data from the Economic Census and other business surveys. When the older version of FactFinder is discontinued, any deep links or bookmarks in the system will no longer work. A how-to guide for Building Deep Links in the new American FactFinder is available online, along with tutorials on searching, bookmarking and using the other features of the new site. http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/tip_sheets/tp11-25.html Thanks, Julie See also: http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml

Origin of the name "Google" from David Koller
From time to time I read or hear stories of the origin of the search engine and company name "Google" that are incorrect, which prompts me to write this brief account, based on my understanding of the genesis of the name. The source of my information is my friends and colleagues from Wing 3B of the Gates Computer Science Building at Stanford University, where Google was born. In 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin called their initial search engine "BackRub," named for its analysis of the web's "back links." Larry's office was in room 360 of the Gates CS Building, which he shared with several other graduate students, including Sean Anderson, Tamara Munzner, and Lucas Pereira. In 1997, Larry and his officemates discussed a number of possible new names for the rapidly improving search technology. Sean recalls the final brainstorming session as occurring one day during September of that year. Sean and Larry were in their office, using the whiteboard, trying to think up a good name - something that related to the indexing of an immense amount of data. Sean verbally suggested the word "googolplex," and Larry responded verbally with the shortened form, "googol" (both words refer to specific large numbers). Sean was seated at his computer terminal, so he executed a search of the Internet domain name registry database to see if the newly suggested name was still available for registration and use. Sean is not an infallible speller, and he made the mistake of searching for the name spelled as "google.com," which he found to be available. Larry liked the name, and within hours he took the step of registering the name "google.com" for himself and Sergey (the domain name registration record dates from September 15, 1997). http://graphics.stanford.edu/~dk/google_name_origin.html

Even though an elephant’s leg looks like a solid column, it actually stands on tip-toe like a horse or a dog. Its heel rests on a large pad of fat that gives it a flat-footed appearance. The pad hides a sixth toe — a backward-pointing strut that evolved from one of their sesamoids, a set of small tendon-anchoring bones in the animal's ankle. Fossils suggest that the earliest ancestors of elephants had flat feet, with no sixth toes, and their ankles rested on the ground. As the animals evolved into giants, they adopted a tip-toe stance that straightened their legs and better supported their weight. During this change in their posture, one of their sesamoid bones was co-opted into a load-sharing strut. But Gerald Weissengruber at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna says that it is unclear if the sixth toe is a sesamoid bone at all, because it has no obvious muscles attached to it as do the panda’s thumb or a human sesamoid. Weissengruber also points out that John Hutchinson at the Royal Veterinary College in London mainly looked at captive elephants, which are known to suffer from foot and bone disorders. Disease could have turned cartilage in their foot into bone, and the ‘joint’ in the back toe might just be a fracture. A similar thing often happens to the cartilage in horse's hoofs. Hutchinson acknowledges the problem. “We don’t know how much of the ossification is normal and how much is pathological,” he says. “It would be nice to look at wild elephants.”
http://www.nature.com/news/how-the-elephant-got-its-sixth-toe-1.9712

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Mike Finestone Subject: Kosher
Def: 1. Conforming to the dietary laws of Judaism. 2. Proper; genuine; permissible.
The ultimate decision on whether a food is Kosher or not depends on the ruling of a rabbi. In the UK some time ago the London Rabinate deliberated on whether or not Mars bars were acceptable and decided against them. However in the North of the country no such question had been asked so in Manchester, for example, one could still enjoy them. At a meeting this anomaly was brought up and someone asked where the dividing line was between the North and the South. As quick as a flash the answer came from the audience -- Nuneaton (a town between the two).
From: Greta Dorfman Subject: kosher
"Kosher" is a word that is routinely egregiously misused by the non-Jewish public which has no understanding of the dietary laws. Oh well... but since it's actually a Hebrew word, I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed, that in the one week that you devote to Yiddish words, that you would use one that is so uninteresting in its true meaning. (I live in Israel, and I do everything possible to avoid buying kosher foods, particularly because kosherized meat is high in sodium.)

The Secret of the Fibonacci Sequence in Trees by Aidan Dwyer
"I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for they have no tongues." —Dr. Seuss (The Lorax)
People see winter as a cold and gloomy time in nature. The days are short. Snow blankets the ground. Lakes and ponds freeze, and animals scurry to burrows to wait for spring. The rainbow of red, yellow and orange autumn leaves has been blown away by the wind turning trees into black skeletons that stretch bony fingers of branches into the sky. It seems like nature has disappeared. But when I went on a winter hiking trip in the Catskill Mountains in New York, I noticed something strange about the shape of the tree branches. I thought trees were a mess of tangled branches, but I saw a pattern in the way the tree branches grew. I took photos of the branches on different types of trees, and the pattern became clearer. The branches seemed to have a spiral pattern that reached up into the sky. I had a hunch that the trees had a secret to tell about this shape. Investigating this secret led me on an expedition from the Catskill Mountains to the ancient Sanskrit poetry of India; from the 13th-century streets of Pisa, Italy, and a mysterious mathematical formula called the "divine number" to an 18th-century naturalist who saw this mathematical formula in nature; and, finally, to experimenting with the trees in my own backyard. My investigation asked the question of whether there is a secret formula in tree design and whether the purpose of the spiral pattern is to collect sunlight better. After doing research, I put together test tools, experiments and design models to investigate how trees collect sunlight. At the end of my research project, I put the pieces of this natural puzzle together, and I discovered the answer. But the best part was that I discovered a new way to increase the efficiency of solar panels at collecting sunlight! Read much more and see images at: http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2011/aidan.html
NORTHPORT, N.Y. The legitimacy of Aidan Dwyer's original idea remains unsettled, though scientists are skeptical. Aidan is now revamping his experiment as he maneuvers around homework, sleepovers and the odd curfew violation. But there is no disputing that he has become a star. Many in the scientific community are championing his intellectual curiosity and graceful ability to weather an Internet firestorm, making him a hot speaker at events around the world. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550304577138511287470508.html

2012-01-05T05:12:00.000-08:00

The Peace dollar is a United States dollar coin minted from 1921 to 1928, and again in 1934 and 1935. Designed by Anthony de Francisci, the coin was the result of a competition to find designs emblematic of peace. Its reverse depicts a Bald Eagle at rest clutching an olive branch, with the legend "Peace". It was the last United States dollar coin to be struck for circulation in silver. With the passage of the Pittman Act in 1918, the United States Mint was required to strike millions of silver dollars, and began to do so in 1921, using the Morgan dollar design. Numismatists began to lobby the Mint to issue a coin that memorialized the peace following World War I; although they failed to get Congress to pass a bill requiring the redesign, they were able to persuade government officials to take action. The Peace dollar was approved by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon in December 1921, completing the redesign of United States coinage that had begun in 1907. The public believed the announced design, which included a broken sword, was illustrative of defeat, and the Mint hastily acted to remove the sword. The Peace dollar was first struck on December 28, 1921; just over a million were coined bearing a 1921 date. When the Pittman Act requirements were met in 1928, the Mint ceased to strike the coins, but more were struck in 1934 and 1935 as a result of other legislation. In 1965, the Mint struck over 300,000 Peace dollars bearing a 1964 date; these were never issued and are believed to have been melted. See images and read statutory history at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_dollar
Anonymity and pseudonymity have a long history. We think of medieval authors laboring anonymously, but even the first age of literary celebrities, the 18th century, was also paradoxically an age of anonymity. Book historian James Raven estimates that "over 80% of all novels published in Britain between 1750 and 1790 were published anonymously. Satirists such as Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope published anonymously, often for legal and political reasons. Anonymity protected Swift from arrest when a reward was offered for the author of his "Drapier's Letters," pamphlets advising the Irish not to take copper half-pence from England. The novels of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Laurence Sterne, Tobias Smollett and Fanny Burney were all anonymous. Journalism too was generally anonymous. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele were "Mr. Spectator" with an initial at the end of each daily Spectator essay providing a clue to the author's identity. Samuel Johnson, the subject of the world's most famous literary biography, is far from unknown to literary history, yet until he was nearly 40, his name only appeared on a handful of his writings. And even after his "Dictionary of the English Language" was published with his name in 1755, he often remained anonymous. Johnson wrote to the printer of "Rasselas," his only long fiction, "I will not print my name, but expect it to be known." Printers and booksellers would be in the know; readers familiar with his style would guess. Read more at: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-1227-folkenflik-anonymous-20111227,0,7045611.story

Quotes
Common Beltway wisdom dictated that in reality, it was not senators, congressmen, or Presidents that controlled Washington--it was lobbyists.
Poetry slams are about poetry from the people, not the eggheads.
Capitol Threat by William Bernhardt, #15 in the Ben Kinkaid series
Former trial attorney Bernhardt has twice won the Oklahoma Book Award for Best Fiction, and in 2000 was presented the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with Marc Smith, and the word was "slam." This was in 1986 and Smith, who had been staging poetry-performance events for a couple of years at the Get Me High Lounge, had just moved to what he hoped might be a permanent home at the Green Mill. It was a simple idea. Smith on stage every Sunday night, playing energetic, almost evangelical host/emcee of an evening he called "a grab-bag variety show which mixes together an open stage, special guests, musical and dramatic acts." At its heart was the slam itself, a competition among poets of varying talent scored by three judges chosen at random from the crowd. Audience members voiced their displeasure with the poetry by finger snapping, foot stomping, groaning, hissing or grunting. The winning poet gets $10. Poetry slams now take place on a regular basis in more than 500 cities in the U.S. and around the world.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-15/entertainment/ct-ae-0717-kogan-sidewalks-20110716_1_kevin-coval-slam-marc-smith

The title of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley comes from The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare quotes through the book come from 13 of his works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_quotes_from_Shakespeare_in_Brave_New_World

A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts. Nuts are a composite of the seed and the fruit, where the fruit does not open to release the seed. Most seeds come from fruits, and the seeds are free of the fruit, unlike nuts such as hazelnuts, hickories, chestnuts and acorns, which have a stony fruit wall and originate from a compound ovary. Culinary usage of the term is less restrictive, and some nuts as defined in food preparation, like pistachios and Brazil nuts, are not nuts in a biological sense. Everyday common usage of the term often refers to any hard-walled, edible kernel as a nut. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_(fruit)

Dehiscence is the opening, at maturity, in a pre-defined way, of a plant structure, such as a fruit, anther, or sporangium, to release its contents. Sometimes this involves the complete detachment of a part. Structures that open in this way are said to be dehiscent. Structures that do not open in this way are called indehiscent, and rely on other mechanisms such as decay or predation to release the contents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indehiscent

Set in 33 acres of beautiful woodland with some stunning views of the surrounding countryside, Dartmoor Zoological Park is a unique, family owned zoo with a fantastic collection of animals and the widest variety of big cats in the south west of England. Formerly known as Dartmoor Wildlife Park, the zoo was purchased by the Mee family and, following major refurbishment work, reopened in July 2007. Dartmoor Zoological Park was depicted as Rosemoor Animal Park in the 2011 movie, We Bought A Zoo. http://www.dartmoorzoo.org/
The Dartmoor Zoo story: http://www.dartmoorzoo.org/your-visit/the-dzp-story.html

Events of January 5
1066 – Edward the Confessor dies childless, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.
1781 – American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia, is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.
1846 – The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom.
1914 – The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.
1925 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female governor in the United States.
1933 – Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.
1940 – FM radio is demonstrated to the Federal Communications Commission for the first time.
1957 – In a speech given to the United States Congress, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces the establishment of what will later be called the Eisenhower Doctrine.
1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program.
1974 – Warmest reliably measured temperature in Antarctica of +59°F (+15°C) recorded at Vanda Station
1976 – The Khmer Rouge proclaim the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_5

2012-01-04T05:07:00.000-08:00

Garrigue is the name given to the Mediterranean scrubland which is made up of low growing, bushy plants including holm oak, juniper, broom and wild herbs such as rosemary and thyme. In Provence it also includes lavender although I have never seen this in the wild in the Languedoc. Walking amongst the garrigue on a warm day, crushing herbs underfoot, releases a fabulous aroma of warm thyme and rosemary. When used to describe a wine, garrigue refers to these green herby aromas. It can also be used to describe flavours too although I find it more evocative as a descriptor for aroma. from blog of Juliet Bruce Jones, Master of Wine http://languedocwinetales.blogspot.com/2009/02/garrigue-what-is-it.html

Learn more about the origins of the wild Languedoc countryside and the Languedoc garrigue The garrigue (the name comes from the Occitan word for holm oak – garric) as we know it now is a place for leisure activities; walking, mountain biking, birdspotting, hunting … and we tend to think of it as an area of wild countryside. Much more at: . http://www.frenchentree.com/languedoc-roussillon-holiday/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=32179

Walking in Languedoc http://www.walking-languedoc.com/Article-Hiking_in_Garrigue.html

An aggressive promotional campaign helped “Downton Abbey” win six Emmy Awards, including best mini-series or movie, away from competitors on HBO and Starz. “Downton Abbey,” which follows an aristocratic English family and its nosy staff at a sprawling estate on the cusp of World War I, was first shown on ITV in Britain. It slowly built an audience in the United States after critics called it a “delightful romp.” Viewers who didn’t typically watch PBS tuned in. “It was the closest thing to water-cooler television as public television gets,” said Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of Masterpiece, produced by WGBH Boston. A water-cooler show couldn’t come at a more critical time. The Budget Control Act, which ended the debt ceiling crisis in August, strips public television and others of a portion of federal financing starting as early as 2013. In 2010, PBS had $571 million in total revenue, down from $624 million in 2007. (A PBS spokeswoman said annual revenue varies based on programming investments.) Federal financing for public television in 2010, through grants and appropriations to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was $97.8 million, or 17 percent of PBS’s total revenue. That’s down from $121 million, or 19 percent, in 2007, according to audited consolidated financial statements. States, meanwhile, under severe budget pressure, have cut financing for local public broadcasting stations. A social media campaign includes “Downton” actors sending Twitter messages about the show and sponsored, promotional Twitter messages. Viewers can unlock “Downton Abbey” stickers on GetGlue. On Dec. 26 fans got a 10-minute preview of “Downton Abbey” on the “Masterpiece” and PBS Facebook pages. “Social media drove the success of ‘Downton’ the first time around,” said Lesli Rotenberg, senior vice president of marketing and communications for PBS. “This time we’re using social media to help further drive buzz.” Viking River Cruises has signed on as “Masterpiece’s” corporate sponsor, filling a five-year void that began when Exxon Mobil withdrew its support in 2004. Viking will send mailers to customers pegged to the “Downton Abbey” Season 2 premiere. A corporate message will come on right after the show’s host, Laura Linney, introduces the program. “Our demographic is affluent baby boomers, 55-plus,” said Richard Marnell, Viking’s senior vice president of marketing. “We’d been looking for a broadcast partner that reaches that group.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/business/media/pbs-shifts-tactics-to-reach-wider-audience.html

Ohio became the latest state to take action on the possible link between seismic activity and wells used to dispose of waste water from oil and gas production when state officials ordered a halt to the practice near Youngstown this weekend after several minor earthquakes. The wells, known as injection wells, have been proliferating in Ohio to accommodate growing volumes of waste water left over from hydraulic fracturing, which involves blasting water, sand and chemicals underground to break apart dense layers of rock to free up oil and gas. The state's move could stoke the political debate about hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, a technique that has sparked an energy boom in several states but also concerns from environmental advocates. The decision also highlights a controversy surrounding the exporting of fracking waste water from one state to another. More than half of the fluid injected at the Youngstown well came from Pennsylvania, said Andy Ware, deputy director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Ohio regulators previously asked the company operating the Youngstown well, D&L Energy Inc., to stop injecting waste water after a 2.7-magnitude earthquake Dec. 24. But on Saturday evening, officials declared a moratorium on all injections within a five-mile radius of the well after another, 4.0-magnitude earthquake earlier in the day.
There have been 11 small temblors around the well since March, roiling the rustbelt region of northeast Ohio, which has no known history of seismic activity.
DANIEL GILBERT
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203462304577136920749123772.html

Christmas tree down
Decorations too
The room is so empty
Makes me kind of blue. --Donna Dean

Vivian Maier (1926-2009) had a talent for seeing. As she walked down the street, she not only avoided bumping into people and objects, she actually saw them in a way most people do not; she saw them in their particularity. We know this because more than 100,000 negatives of photographs she took were somewhat accidentally stumbled upon after her death and now form the basis of two concurrent gallery exhibitions, a photo book and two websites. The rent on Maier's storage lockers had gone unpaid, and their contents were put up for sale. In 2007, John Maloof, a young real-estate agent, bought one of the boxes for $400 because there was a picture of the Loop in it he thought he could use for a book he was writing. Mr. Maloof knew nothing about art photography, but as he went through the 30,000 images in the box he got interested, and educated himself. He tracked down people who had bought other boxes and picked them up. But whose pictures were they? Finally, in April 2009, he found deep in one of the boxes an envelope from a photo lab with "Vivian Maier" penciled on it. A Google search turned up the death notice the Gensburgs had placed in the Chicago Tribune a few days before: "Vivian Maier . . . Second mother to John, Lane and Matthew." In October 2009, Mr. Maloof posted some of Maier's pictures on Flickr, and since then interest in her work has grown steadily. Besides Mr. Maloof's holdings, Jeff Goldstein, another collector, has about 15,000 negatives. Because she used a medium-format Rollei rather than a 35mm camera, Maier's pictures have more detail than those of most street photographers. Like them, though, her main subject is people she encountered on her outings. Her compositions tend to be straightforward. WILLIAM MYERS http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204879004577110884090494826.html
See photographs at: Howard Greenberg Gallery through Jan. 28 41 E 57th St New York, NY 10022 (212) 334-0010 Steven Kasher Gallery through Feb. 25 521 West 23rd St # 2R New York, NY 10011-1114 (212) 966-3978

12 must-see events in the sky in 2012
Jan. 4: Quadrantid meteor shower peaks
Feb. 20 to March 12: Best evening apparition of Mercury
March 3: Mars arrives at opposition
March 13: Brilliant "double planet"
May 5: Biggest full moon of 2012
May 20: Annular eclipse of the sun
June 4: Partial eclipse of the moon
June 5: Rare transit of Venus across the sun
Aug. 12: Perseid meteor shower
Nov. 13: Total eclipse of the sun
Dec. 13-14: Geminid meteor shower
Dec. 25: Christmas evening and Jupiter
Read details at: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57350935/12-must-see-skywatching-events-in-2012/

2012-01-03T04:06:00.000-08:00

bread and circuses noun
something, as extravagant entertainment, offered as an expedient means of pacifying discontent or diverting attention from a source of grievance.
Origin: 1910–15; translation of Latin pānis et circēnsēs; from a remark by the Roman satirist Juvenal on the limited desires of the Roman populace. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bread+and+circuses

To celebrate New Year's Eve, a crowd of 500 revelers at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, N.Y., whip into frenzy as the band plays the KISS song, "Rock and Roll All Nite." But for this audience, the anthem is just a metaphor. The disco ball signaling the arrival of the new year will drop at 8:30 p.m. Singer Robert Burke Warren, known by the stage name Uncle Rock, has held this annual "Family New Year's Eve" for four years. Strange objects drop at even stranger times to welcome 2012. Bethlehem, Pa., which has an annual tradition of dropping a 6-foot-wide replica of a marshmallow Peep chick from a crane on New Year's Eve, at 5:15 in the afternoon this year to attract families. At 9 p.m. in Easton, Md., a steel-reinforced, papier-mâché crab—8 feet from claw tip to claw tip—drops 20 feet into a crowd to mark the New Year in this crab-fishing community. Why 9 p.m.? "That's midnight in the mid-Atlantic where crabs live," says Marie U'Ren, who helps run the event. Other towns, zoos and amusement parks have created an even earlier alternative New Year celebration, dubbed "Noon Year's Eve," with countdowns and ball drops that happen when the sun is high in the sky. But there's likely no earlier alternative than the annual "Early New Year's Eve Party" held by a chapter of the AARP in the Pennsylvania Poconos. On Dec. 30, more than 100 partygoers aged 50 to 90 gather from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Riverview Inn Ballroom in Matamoras, Pa., for a roast-beef-and-potatoes lunch, followed by a Champagne toast and performance by crooner and sometime Elvis impersonator Rich Wilson. GEOFFREY A. FOWLER http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204632204577126893681096380.html

Millions more Americans will be required to show photo identification when they head to the polls in four states in 2012, headlining the welter of new laws across the nation that take effect with the turn of the year. Kansas, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Texas will require voters to prove their identities at the ballot box, bringing the total number of states that require some form of voter identification to 30, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan group that provides research and data to state governments. The voter ID measures are among a large number of new state laws that also reflect concerns related to illegal immigration, employment and the well-being of the country's youth. An estimated 40,000 new laws were passed in 2011, up 29% from the previous year. A few states tackled illegal immigration. Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama will require many businesses to enroll in the federal E-Verify program to check whether new hires are allowed to work in the U.S. California went in the other direction, saying it would prevent private employers from checking such eligibility unless federal law requires it or federal funds depend on it. Separate provisions of the South Carolina law, including requirements that law enforcement check the immigration status of persons during traffic stops, were blocked by a federal judge last week. JENNIFER SMITH
Get details on an avalanche of new laws including a ban on minors from tanning indoors and making it harder for them to get high on cough syrup at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203899504577130952187227564.html

National Conference of State Legislatures is a bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and staffs of the nation's 50 states, its commonwealths and territories. NCSL provides research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas on the most pressing state issues. http://www.ncsl.org/

Roses and Thistles from the Des Moines Register's editorial staff
A rose to Jon Huntsman for taking the pressure off Iowans who were operating under the mistaken impression they had an important role to perform on Tuesday in stating their preference for a Republican presidential nominee in the first major measure of candidate strength in the nation. This should come as a big relief to Iowans, who have more important work to do, like picking corn. Meanwhile, Huntsman should share his insight with the all those other candidates who have spent gobs of money and oodles of time in this state. Not to mention the hordes of political writers and TV crews. They are getting in the way of our cornpickers. A thistle to all those pundits (too many to list here) who weigh in about this time every four years with a tiresome rant about how Iowa is not the right place to start the presidential nominating process. We won’t defend the people of Iowa, the caucus process or the weather in January. They are what they are, and not likely to change anytime soon. What’s galling about the caucus critics is the predictability and lack of originality of their rants. Iowans generally shrug off character assassination, however, with the quiet knowledge that just like the snowbirds that return in the spring, the candidates will wing their way back to the state.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120101/OPINION03/301010026/-1/gallery_array/Roses-Thistles-Here-results-our-R-T-staff-caucus

January 3 is the third day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 362 days remaining until the end of the year (363 in leap years). The Perihelion, the point in the year when the Earth is closest to the Sun, occurs around this date.
1870 – The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.
1888 – The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest telescope in the world at the time.
1925 – Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.
1932 – Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop revolt by banana workers fired by United Fruit Company.
1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
1958 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
1961 – The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba.
1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_3

2011-12-30T05:59:00.000-08:00

British village mystified after hundreds of apples fell from the sky over their homes People in the Keresley area of the city said the fruit came raining down at about 19:00 GMT on December 12, hitting passing vehicles. Parish councillor Sandra Camwell said the apple storm lasted a few minutes and was the second occurrence of its kind in a fortnight. Weather experts said winds could have carried the apples from an orchard. Allen Hogan, the owner of Hogan's Cider in Alcester, 30 miles away, said there were no apples obviously missing from his orchards. In Keresley itself Ms Camwell said there was only a small number of fruit trees. She said she believed the apples could have fallen from a passing aircraft. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-16203214

The name Sudoku comes from Japan and consists of the Japanese characters Su (meaning 'number') and Doku (meaning 'single') but the puzzle itself originates from Switzerland and then travels to Japan by way of America. Sudoku has its deep roots in ancient number puzzles. For many centuries people have been interested in creating and solving puzzles. This was the basis of developing important mathematics. Read about Magic Squares, Chinese Puzzle and more at: http://www.sudokudragon.com/sudokuorigins.htm
Note that letters, pictures or symbols may be used instead of numerals.

new verbs defriend, unfriend
new nouns fake friend, friend collector

It’s that time of the year, again! It’s time for The Marist Poll to reveal the word or phrase considered to be the most annoying in casual conversation. And, for the third consecutive year, “whatever” receives the dubious honor. Nearly four in ten adults nationally — 38% — say “whatever” grates on their nerves the most. “Like” one in five — 20% — say that verbal filler is the most irritating while 19% despise “you know.” “Just sayin’” gets on the nerves of 11% of the population compared with 7% who report “seriously” should be banned from casual conversation. Five percent are unsure. Link to complete release and tables at: http://maristpoll.marist.edu/1216-whatever-still-most-annoying-word-you-know-like-seriously-just-sayin%e2%80%99/

In Greek, psephology means the study of elections. At its root is pseph which means pebble or ballot. In ancient times, Greek citizens were required to present a pebble to cast their votes. It’s the most rudimentary way of gauging public opinion, and while the technology may have changed, our goal at the Marist Poll is the same — to identify current trends by measuring what people think. Pundit comes from a Hindi word that traces its origin back to Sanskrit where, pandita, means learned. See Pebble and Pundits, poll results from Marist Institute for Public Opinion (MIPO) divided by topic at: http://maristpoll.marist.edu/

Dickens trivia
There are over 60 English language adaptations of "A Christmas Carol."
See also: 'Christmas Carol' is a gift worth giving at: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/23/entertainment/la-et-christmas-carol-20111223

This year there will be no Friday 30th December on the Pacific Island of Samoa. Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi says the change to move the Samoan calendar 24 hours forward has been made so business links can be improved with countries like Australia. "In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we're losing out on two working days a week," the prime minister said. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/16353404

Three already elderly Stieg Larsson thrillers topped 2011's all-year bestsellers table, followed by Jamie's 30-Minute Meals (the Christmas No 1) and Guinness World Records, with One Day and The Help just outside the top 10. This was a year when old books saw off new ones, and paperbacks sent hardbacks packing. The same seven titles merely change places, with Larsson's trio and David Nicholls's and Kathryn Stockett's two-year-old novels all given renewed sales muscle by movie versions. Joining them are two titles representing the class of 2010 – the nearest thing to new books that the 2011 list's elite group has to offer: a novel by Dawn French (3) that was last year's bestselling debut, and Emma Donoghue's Room (4), Booker-shortlisted and a double bookclub choice. With publishing in transition from "physical books" to ebooks (Nielsen's figures are confined to the former) and no overall picture yet available of the ebook market, buying trends are hard to read. But shoppers seem increasingly reluctant to shell out for higher-price titles, other than "manuals" (such as the Guinness annual or cookbooks), where the hardback format clearly makes sense. America's Jeff Kinney dominates the children's chart, and has five of his Wimpy Kid books in the overall top 30. Lorraine Pascale, with two well-placed spin-off titles (41, 60), is the only newcomer to convincingly challenge the Jamie-Hugh-Nigella-Gordon-Heston old guard of TV cheffery. Epic fantasy writer George RR Martin arrived impressively with titles at 13 and 76. Jo Nesbø's five entries defy talk that the Scandinavian crime boom has run its course, and contribute significantly to Random House at long last overtaking Hachette as top-scoring publishing group.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/29/books-years-bestseller-charts-commentary

Top Worldwide tours in 2011
U2 wouldn’t be at the top of 2011’s box office results if it wasn’t for Bono’s 2010 back injury that resulted in the band postponing a large chunk of its 360° tour until 2011. Worldwide, U2 fans gobbled up 2,387,535 tickets in 2011 at an average price of $97.15 per. The stadium tour sold an average of 91,828 tickets per show for a final global gross of $231.9 million (All figures converted to U.S. dollars). U2’s North American journey was equally impressive, selling 1,701,486 tickets overall for a year’s gross of $156 million. Thanks, Mike http://www.pollstar.com/blogs/news/archive/2011/12/28/792619.aspx
Click http://www.pollstarpro.com/charts/2011YearEndTop25WorldwideTours.pdf for Pollstar’s Top 25 Worldwide Tours chart.

2011-12-29T05:00:00.000-08:00

His passion for painting burned so hot, it fueled two roundtrip walks from Ohio to New York City, three stints studying in Europe, and 62 years of intense creativity and teaching. Karl Kappes, born to German immigrants in Zanesville six weeks after the first shots of the Civil War were fired, liked to quote a Chinese saying that no man is an artist until he’s painted 10,000 pictures. "I am an artist," he would then declare. We’ll never know whether his grand claim was true, but he churned out oils, watercolors, and pencil drawings until he died in 1943 at 82 in his crammed, walk-up apartment/studio at 1822 Adams St. in Toledo. Still in the studio six years later, his widow said, "How can a person be lonely when she has more than 2,000 paintings to keep her company?" Kappes’ productivity, along with an enduring appreciation for his talent, has earned him a berth among the region’s best artists. Fifty of his pieces are displayed in Karl Kappes: Ohio Painter, 1861-1943, through Jan. 28 at the Zanesville Museum of Art, 190 miles southeast of Toledo.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Art/2011/12/25/Ohio-museum-celebrates-work-of-late-Toledo-artist.html

In most jurisdictions, the state's court of last resort is called the supreme court. This name differs in some jurisdictions, however. For example, the court of last resort in New York is the New York Court of Appeals, while the trial-level court is called the Supreme Court. In Texas, the court of last resort for civil trials is the Texas Supreme Court, but the highest court for criminal appeals is the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The state of Texas is rather unusual because it employs two courts of last resort to hear appeals. West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Last+resort

Valentine Davies (1905-1961) was an American film and television writer, producer, and director. His credits included Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Chicken Every Sunday (1949), The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), and The Benny Goodman Story (1955). He was nominated for the 1954 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Glenn Miller Story. Davies was born in New York City, served in the Coast Guard, and graduated from the University of Michigan. He wrote a number of Broadway plays and was president of the Screen Writers Guild and general chairman of the Academy Awards program. Davies' 1947 novel Miracle on 34th Street was adapted for the screen the same year, earning the author the Academy Award for Best Story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_Davies Read more at: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800034499/bio and http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0204016/

Leading is the space between lines of text. (The term is pronounced “led-ing,” after the strips of lead used to separate lines of type.) Kerning and tracking both address the spacing between letters. Kerning refers to the space between any two letters in a line. Tracking refers to the space between all of the letters in a line. Read more and see examples at:
Understanding Typography Concepts by Adobe Systems Incorporated. http://collaborgator.pbworks.com/f/indesign_typography.pdf

Top ten new restaurants in New York by Sam Sifton
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/dining/sam-siftons-top-10-new-restaurants-of-2011.html

Puritans were contemptuous of Christmas, nicknaming it "Foolstide" and banning their flock from any celebration of it throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The upper classes in ancient Rome celebrated Dec. 25 as the birthday of the sun god Mithra. The date fell right in the middle of Saturnalia, a monthlong holiday dedicated to food, drink, and revelry, and Pope Julius I is said to have chosen that day to celebrate Christ's birth as a way of co-opting the pagan rituals. Beyond that, the Puritans considered it historically inaccurate to place the Messiah's arrival on Dec. 25. Puritans in the English Parliament eliminated Christmas as a national holiday in 1645, amid widespread anti-Christmas sentiment. Settlers in New England went even further, outlawing Christmas celebrations entirely in 1659. Anyone caught shirking their work duties or feasting was forced to pay a significant penalty of five shillings. Christmas returned to England in 1660, but in New England it remained banned until the 1680s. Colonial New Englanders began to associate Christmas with royal officialdom, and refused to mark it as a holiday. It was only in the following decades that disdain for the holiday slowly ebbed away. Clement Clarke Moore's poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" — aka "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" — was published in New York in 1823 to enormous success. In 1836, Alabama became the first state to declare Christmas a public holiday, and other states soon followed suit. But New England remained defiantly Scrooge-like; as late as 1850, schools and markets remained open on Christmas Day. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow finally noted a "transition state about Christmas" in New England in 1856. "The old Puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful, hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so," he wrote. Christmas Day was formally declared a federal holiday by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870.
http://theweek.com/article/index/222676/when-americans-banned-christmas

Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics in a turf war at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the church in preparation for Orthodox Christmas, on 7 January. Palestinian police armed with batons and shields broke up the clashes. 1,700-year-old church, one of the holiest sites in Christianity, is in a bad state of repair, largely because the priests cannot agree on who should pay for its upkeep.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16347418

Dec. 29 anniversaries
1170 – Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
1813 – British soldiers burn Buffalo, New York during the War of 1812.
1835 – The Treaty of New Echota is signed, ceding all the lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States.
1845 – According with International Boundary delimitation, U.S.A annexes the Mexican state of Texas, following the Manifest Destiny doctrine. For others, the Republic of Texas, which had been independent since the Texas Revolution of 1836, is admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
1890 – United States soldiers kill more than 200 Oglala Lakota people with four Hotchkiss guns in the Wounded Knee Massacre.
1911 – Sun Yat-sen becomes the provisional President of the Republic of China; he formally takes office on January 1, 1912.
1911 – Mongolia gains independence from the Qing dynasty.
1914 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the first novel by James Joyce, is serialised in The Egoist.
1937 – The Irish Free State is replaced by a new state called Ireland with the adoption of a new constitution.
1959 – Physicist Richard Feynman gives a speech entitled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", which is regarded as the birth of nanotechnology.
2003 – The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_29

2011-12-28T06:04:00.000-08:00

manger noun
1. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Agriculture) a trough or box in a stable, barn, etc., from which horses or cattle feed
2. (Transport / Nautical Terms) Nautical a basin-like construction in the bows of a vessel for catching water draining from an anchor rode or coming in through the hawseholes
[from Old French maingeure food trough, from mangier to eat, ultimately from Latin mandūcāre to chew] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/manger

Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr. (December 22, 1862 – February 8, 1956), better known as Connie Mack, was an American professional baseball player, manager, and team owner. The longest-serving manager in Major League Baseball history, he holds records for wins (3,731), losses (3,948), and games managed (7,755), with his victory total being almost 1,000 more than any other manager. He managed the Philadelphia Athletics for the club's first 50 seasons of play before retiring at age 87 following the 1950 season, and was at least part-owner from 1901 to 1954. He was the first manager to win the World Series three times, and is the only manager to win consecutive Series on separate occasions (1910–11, 1929–30); his five Series titles remain the third most by any manager, and his nine American League pennants rank second in league history. However, constant financial struggles forced repeated rebuilding of the roster, and Mack's teams also finished in last place 17 times. Mack was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Mack

The Asian tiger prawn, a foot-long crustacean with a voracious appetite and a proclivity for disease, has invaded the northern Gulf, threatening prized native species, from crabs and oysters to smaller brown and white shrimp. Though no one is sure what the ecological impact will be, scientists fear a tiger prawn takeover could knock nature's balance out of whack and turn a healthy, diverse marine habitat into one dominated by a single invasive species. The tiger prawns from the western Pacific - which can grow up to 13 inches long - have been spreading along the Gulf Coast since 2006, but their numbers took off this year. Shrimpers pulled one from Texas waters for the first time in June.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Giant-shrimp-raises-big-concern-as-it-invades-the-2424242.php

An exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York through February 5 traces the tangled roots of "Auld Lang Syne," using printed books and manuscripts, including Burns's letter to Mrs. Dunlop, to illuminate the genesis of Burns's poem and the melody we sing it to today. In the process it throws up questions—about the extent of Burns's authorship, and the aesthetic and political considerations behind the deliberate "intermixing" of Scots and English—that add resonance to the old song, even as they remain unanswerable. By the time Burns wrote to Mrs. Dunlop, he had become a passionate collector of his native folk songs. He was the chief contributor to two anthologies, the workmanlike "Scots Musical Museum" by James Johnson and the much more ambitious "Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice" by George Thomson, who commissioned musical settings from composers across Europe, including Haydn, Hummel and Pleyel, "the most agreeable composer living" in Thomson's view. (The manuscript draft of a setting he commissioned from the less agreeable Beethoven is also on show.) In 1793, Burns sent the text of "Auld Lang Syne" to Thomson, presenting it as "the old Song of the olden times, & which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man singing." But, as Christine Nelson, the Morgan's curator of literary and historical manuscripts, notes, Burns made no secret of the fact that he reshaped, amended and edited much of the material he sent in. "Did Burns really just write down what he heard an old man sing or did he entirely rewrite the song?" Ms. Nelson asks. Among the evidence on display are two other songs sharing the opening line "should old acquaintance be forgot." The first, cited in a songbook of 1667, "is much more in reference to a love relationship gone bad than friendship," Ms. Nelson says. Burns's fame, already considerable during his short lifetime, became a cult after his death. The Morgan's exhibit contains a memento of Keats's pilgrimage to Burns's tomb in Dumfries, Scotland; a tribute by Sir Walter Scott; and a gushing letter by Sophia Hawthorne. There's also a modest bunch of pressed wildflowers she and Nathaniel picked on Burns's Mossgiel Farm—the wild daisies, or gowans, of "Auld Lang Syne." Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204464404577115072207414162.html?mod=ITP_personaljournal_2

Follow-up to the words snackage, websterize and wordage coined by Bucky Katt in Get Fuzzy comic strip August 5, 2011 December 21, 2011: Bucky, a feline meanie, coins see-worthy and critisults.

Reader feedback to "You're better than perfect. You're good." (T. Jefferson Parker)
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. The better is the enemy of the good.
La Bégueule by Voltaire (1772)
Variant translations:
The perfect is the enemy of the good. The best is the enemy of the good.
Note: This quotation also appears in Italian (Il meglio è l'inimico del bene) in the Questions sur l'Encyclopédie article, "Dramatic Art" (1764) Thanks, Paul.
The name "Voltaire", which the author adopted in 1718, is an anagram of "AROVET LI," the Latinized spelling of his surname, Arouet, and the initial letters of "le jeune" ("the younger"). The name also echoes in reverse order the syllables of the name of a family château in the Poitou region: "Airvault". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire

Q: Why do most peninsulas on the globe point south? From the southern continents to Scandinavia, Italy, Iberia, all seem to point in a southerly direction. Is there a geological explanation of this striking fact?
Reply by Dr Ted Nield (Editor, Geoscientist) Thank you for your interesting inquiry about the apparent tendency of continents to taper, and peninsulas to point, south. It is a fascinating question, which I can see raises all kinds of different explanations, from geology to cognition, human psychology, cartographic conventions and even fractal geometry. Let us start with the southern continents and their southerly taper. The former southern supercontinent Gondwanaland, began to split up about 250 million years ago and gave rise to wedge-shaped pieces like segments of a pie. This was because the cracks in Gondwana tended to follow intersecting courses. This is not hard to understand, since when objects crack their fractures are dominated by geometry. Cracks in dinner-plates are usually radial, and cracks in a continental lithospheric plate on a globe will similarly follow great circles. Read more at: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/pid/6197;jsessionid=1F2834CB5EA7F58740E5251BAC2AEB33 Thanks, Paul.

2011-12-27T06:52:00.000-08:00

Ohio is the nation's largest producer of Swiss Cheese. Swiss Cheese has no holes when it is first made; the "Eyes" need 5-7 weeks of aging at room temperature to develop. Over one-third of all the milk produced in the U.S.is used to make cheese. It takes slightly more than one gallon of milk to make a pound of cheese. The average American consumes about 30 pounds of cheese each year. Cheese tastes best when served at room temperature--allow the wrapped or covered cheese to "warm up" for about an hour before serving. Cheeze can be frozen; always thaw frozen cheese in the refrigerator. Pearl Valley Cheese Co. Fresno, OH www.pearlvalleycheese.com

Most watches in advertisements are best photographed at 10:10, but not all. The brand name is "framed" by the hands. Ulysse Nardin is photographed at 8:19 so that the name is clearly seen. To preserve batteries, Timex ships many watches turned off at 10:09:36, which lends synchronicity to Timex displays in store windows. At Rolex, watches are always photographed at 10:10:31, and for models that list the day of the week and calendar day, it is always Monday the 28th. “In advertising we would never expect someone to look at a watch and say, ‘The watch is smiling,’ but it’s just a feeling you get,” said Linda Kaplan Thaler, co-author, with Robin Koval, of “The Power of Nice,” which features a big smile on its cover. The watch theme, she added, is typical of “subconscious cues that are used in print ads.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/business/media/28adco.html

Questions to ask candidates for president of the U.S.
Shall we abolish the filibuster?
Shall we restrict each bill to one subject?
Shall we abolish the alternative minimum tax?
What will you do to control the immigration of Canada geese? Asian carp?

Sort out fact from fiction in statements of candidates at PolitiFact. PolitiFact is a project of the Tampa Bay Times to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters and editors from the Times fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups and rate them on our Truth-O-Meter:
TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
FALSE – The statement is not accurate.
PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. http://www.politifact.com/

cali- or calo- or calli- or callo [from Greek kalos beautiful] In taxonomic names: beautiful, beauty, white (Calliandra). http://www.macroevolution.net/biology-prefixes-ca.html#cali
Examples: California, Callisto, calligraphy, calliope, calisthentic

New Year's resolutions
Write a poem. If you like, choose a form from choices at: http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/formsofverse/furtherreading/page2.html
Remind yourself of sweet memories.
Learn something new every day.

Eric Arthur Blair (1903 –1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism. Considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote fiction, polemical journalism, literary criticism and poetry. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues decades after his death. Several of his neologisms, along with the term "Orwellian"—now a byword for any totalitarian or manipulative social phenomenon opposed to a free society—have entered the vernacular. In an autobiographical piece that Orwell sent to the editors of Twentieth Century Authors in 1940, he wrote: "The writers I care about most and never grow tired of are: Shakespeare, Swift, Fielding, Dickens, Charles Reade, Flaubert and, among modern writers, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence. But I believe the modern writer who has influenced me most is Somerset Maugham, whom I admire immensely for his power of telling a story straightforwardly and without frills." Elsewhere, Orwell strongly praised the works of Jack London, especially his book The Road. Orwell's investigation of poverty in The Road to Wigan Pier strongly resembles that of Jack London's The People of the Abyss, in which the American journalist disguises himself as an out-of-work sailor in order to investigate the lives of the poor in London. In his essay "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" (1946) Orwell wrote: "If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put Gulliver's Travels among them." Other writers admired by Orwell included: Ralph Waldo Emerson, G. K. Chesterton, George Gissing, Graham Greene, Herman Melville, Henry Miller, Tobias Smollett, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and Yevgeny Zamyatin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell

Doublespeak is language which pretends to communicate but doesn't. It is language which makes the bad seem good, the negative seem positive, the unpleasant seem unattractive, or at least tolerable. It is language which avoids, shifts or denies responsibility; language which is at variance with its real or purported meaning. It is language which conceals or prevents thought. A neologism based on the compounds Newspeak and Doublethink in George Orwell's novel 1984 (1949) http://grammar.about.com/od/d/g/doublespeakterm.htm

Is it downsizing or rightsizing? Outsourcing or rightsourcing? Are these doublespeak?

The Froebel star carries the name of the German educationist Friedrich Fröbel (1782–1852), founder of the Kindergarten concept. He encouraged the use of paper folding in pre–primary education with the aim of conveying simple mathematical concepts to children. It is, however, likely that Froebel did not invent this item and that it had already been within the realm of general knowledge for a long time. Descriptions of how to fold a Froebel star date back to at least the 19th century. In Germany the name Fröbelstern has been the common name for this paper decoration since the 1960s. It is used as ornament on Christmas trees and wreaths, and to make garlands and mobiles. The three-dimensional Froebel star is assembled from four identical paper strips with a width-to-length proportion of between 1:25 and 1:30. The weaving and folding procedure is rather complex and can be accomplished in about forty steps. The product is a paper star with eight flat prongs and eight cone-shaped tips. The assembly instructions can be aborted midway, producing a two-dimensional eight–pronged star without cones. See pictures and read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froebel_star

"I'll Be Home for Christmas" is a Christmas song recorded in 1943 by Bing Crosby who scored a top ten hit with the song. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" has since gone onto to become a Christmas standard. The song is sung from the point of view of an overseas soldier during WWII, writing a letter to his family. The song was written by the American lyricist Kim Gannon, and the Jewish-American composer Walter Kent. Buck Ram, who previously wrote a poem and song with the same title, was credited as a co-writer of the song following a lawsuit. See a list of recordings at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'll_Be_Home_for_Christmas

STRANGE HAPPENINGS
Christmas Eve--directing a choir while seeing a flashing electronic sign through clear glass
Christmas--serving tomolives thinking they were olives when they were actually olive-shaped pickled green tomatoes;
hearing Frosty the Snowman sung as a slow dirge on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion

2011-12-23T03:13:00.000-08:00

Information grenades: spoilers (giving away surprise endings), disinformation and misinformation spreading like wildfire through social media

U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. It marked the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC, who at that time considered the U.S. one of its staunchest foes. The visit has become a metaphor for an unexpected or uncharacteristic action by a politician. One of the main reasons Richard Nixon became the 1952 Vice-president candidate on the Eisenhower ticket was his strong anti-communism stance. Despite this, in 1972 Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit mainland China while in office. Ulysses S. Grant visited China on a world tour after leaving office. Herbert Hoover lived in China briefly in 1899 before becoming President and could speak fluent Mandarin. Dwight Eisenhower made a state visit to Taiwan in 1960, during the period when the United States recognized the government there as the sole government of China. Max Frankel of The New York Times received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his coverage of the event. The visit inspired John Adams' 1987 opera Nixon in China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Nixon_visit_to_China

Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8•4H2O. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue. In recent times, turquoise, like most other opaque gems, has been devalued by the introduction of treatments, imitations, and synthetics onto the market. The substance has been known by many names, but the word turquoise, which dates to the 16th century, is derived from an Old French word for "Turkish", because the mineral was first brought to Europe from Turkey, from the mines in historical Khorasan Province of Persia. Pliny referred to the mineral as callais, the Iranians named it "pirouzeh" and the Aztecs knew it as chalchihuitl. Turquoise was among the first gems to be mined, and while many historic sites have been depleted, some are still worked to this day. These are all small-scale, often seasonal operations, owing to the limited scope and remoteness of the deposits. Most are worked by hand with little or no mechanization. However, turquoise is often recovered as a byproduct of large-scale copper mining operations, especially in the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turquoise

Amber is fossilized tree resin (not sap), which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Amber is used as an ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents. Because it originates as a soft, sticky tree resin, amber sometimes contains animal and plant material as inclusions. Amber occurring in coal seams is also called resinite, and the term ambrite is applied to that found specifically within New Zealand coal seams. See pictures at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber

Follow-up to Christmas truce in World War I During the Civil War, musical duels between the two sides were common, as they heard each other as the music traveled across the countryside. The night before the Battle of Stones River, bands from both sides dueled with separate songs, until both sides started playing Home! Sweet Home!, at which time soldiers on both sides started singing together as one. A similar situation occurred in Fredericksburg, Virginia in the winter of 1862–3. On a cold afternoon a Union band started playing Northern patriotic tunes; a Southern band responded by playing Southern patriotic tunes. This back and forth continued into the night, until at the end both sides played Home! Sweet Home! simultaneously, to the cheers of both sides' forces. In a third instance, in the spring of 1863, the opposing armies were on the opposite sides of the Rappahannock River in Virginia, when the different sides played their patriotic tunes, and at taps one side played Home! Sweet Home!, and the other joined in, creating "cheers" from both sides that echoed throughout the hilly countryside. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_American_Civil_War
Read about music during the Civil War in Michael Shaara's novel The Killer Angels, winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Joshua Lionel Cowen/Cohen (1877-1965) was an inventive guy and had always been very interested in trains. In 1901, he fitted a small motor under a model of a railroad flatcar, powered by a battery on 30 inches of track and the Lionel electric train was born. The first Lionel train was designed to attract window-shopping New Yorkers using the power of animated display. Since its humble beginning Lionel has sold more than 50 million train sets and today produces more than 300 miles of track each year. Youthful inventor Joshua Lionel Cowen wasn't the first to manufacture toy trains and he did not lack for competition. Carlisle & Finch Co., of Cincinnati, OH, first made electric trains in 1896 and German toy manufacturers such as Bing and Marklin were producing electric and steam-powered toy trains. The first electric train was exhibited at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. The Ives Co., of Bridgeport, CT, had manufactured wind-up trains as early as 1874. Cowen beat them because he produced a reliable product, with an expanding line of accessories, while being an audacious promoter, selling his toys as educational because he knew parents needed a rationalization for their purchase. http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/lionel.htm

The Task: A Poem, in Six Books (1785) is a poem in 6000 lines of blank verse by William Cowper, usually seen as his supreme achievement. Its six books are called "The Sofa", "The Timepiece", "The Garden", "The Winter Evening", "The Winter Morning Walk" and "The Winter Walk at Noon". Beginning with a mock-Miltonic passage on the origins of the sofa, it develops into a discursive meditation on the blessings of nature, the retired life and religious faith, with attacks on slavery, blood sports, fashionable frivolity, lukewarm clergy and French despotism among other things. Cowper's subjects are those that occur to him naturally in the course of his reflections rather than being suggested by poetic convention, and the diction throughout is, for an 18th century poem, unusually conversational and unartificial. Quotes:
Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour. Book 2, line 606
The cups, That cheer but not inebriate. Book 4, line 37
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Task_(poem)
Note that the temperance movement used cups that cheer in slogans such as: "Tea--the Drink That Cheers and Not Inebriates."
Read all about tea at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea

The modern-day ampersand is believed to be a descendant of an earlier Latin logogram—a combination of the cursive letters e and t (et meaning and)—that was part of a shorthand system invented by Marcus Tullius Tiro, secretary and former slave of the Roman writer Cicero. The heyday of the ampersand was in the United Kingdom in the seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, when it was commonly used in business documents and, perhaps most notably, in the titles of companies—partnerships in particular, such as Fortnum & Mason and Marks & Spencer. It’s still used in many names of firms and publications, including that of this magazine, Poets & Writers, now celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary under the banner of a pair of nouns festively joined by an ampersand on every cover. In the twentieth century, the ampersand was rediscovered and exploited, variously, by several generations of American poets, especially those eager to declare their position outside the academic mainstream. Kevin Nance
See images of ampersands by Leo Reynolds at: http://www.pw.org/content/poets_ampersands

2011-12-22T05:14:00.000-08:00

Dead or alive? Check whether a famous person is still alive or if they have passed away. Find birthdays too at: http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.nsf/pages-nf/main Thanks, Pete.

Books of the Year 2011 The Atlantic’s literary editor picks the five best of the crop.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/12/books-of-the-year-2011/8712/

Twelve Months of Reading with articles from authors, and people in the business world
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204466004577102800650505034.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_editorsPicks_2

Quote For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice. Little Gidding II.
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) American born English editor, playwright, poet and critic

Little Gidding II by T.S. Eliot http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/gidding1.html

The maker of a fake driver's license app that was yanked from Apple's App Store this week has fired back, saying the free app was "specifically and deliberately designed ... to prevent the creation of counterfeit identification." Apple pulled DriversEd.com's two-year-old "Driver License" app from its iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch online app outlets at the urging of U.S. Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania who in 2010 helped organize the Senate's Global Internet Freedom Caucus to promote online freedom in countries like Iran and China. Casey and the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License told Apple that they were concerned that the app, which contains templates for driver's licenses for all 50 states, could be used produce a "high quality digital image of the completed template," which could then be sent to an email account. "From the email attachment, the image can then be printed and laminated, creating a high quality counterfeit driver's license difficult to discern from one that's genuine," the coalition said in a letter sent to Apple. But DriversEd.com founder and chief operating officer Gary Tsifrin said such concerns were unfounded. "By design, it would take more effort and expertise to modify the product of the DriversEd.com Driver License app than to construct a counterfeit from scratch," Tsifrin said. Rather than high-quality license replicas, he added, the app produces images at just 72 dpi, not suitable for printing. DriversEd.com said it used design elements in the app that "deliberately do not correspond to government-issued IDs." The licenses created "incorporate obvious layout differences, font and color discrepancies, and the words 'MOCK by DriversEd.com' in proximity to the word 'license,' while containing "none of the security features of a modern government-issued ID," the company said.
DriversEd.com created the Driver License app to help market its core business, a free, full-featured driving test preparation suite, which is currently available in the App Store and in Google's Android Market
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397565,00.asp

Many automobile owners are spending more than they need on motor oil, believing that it should be changed every 3,000 miles even though almost no manufacturer requires such an aggressive oil-change schedule. The long-held notion that the oil should be changed every 3,000 miles is so prevalent that California officials have launched a campaign to stop drivers from wasting millions of gallons of oil annually because they have their vehicles serviced too often. "Our survey data found that nearly half of California drivers are still changing their oil at 3,000 miles or even sooner," said Mark Oldfield, a spokesman for the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery, which has launched the Check Your Number campaign to encourage drivers to go with the manufacturer's recommendations. Improvement in oils, friction proofing and car engines have lengthened the oil-change interval, typically 7,500 miles to 10,000 miles for most vehicles. Changing motor oil according to manufacturer specifications would reduce motor-oil demand in California by about 10 million gallons a year, the agency said. The state has created a website, checkyournumber.org, where drivers can look up the suggested motor-oil change interval number for their vehicles. "The 3,000-mile oil change just says that the marketing campaign by quick-lube companies has been effective," said Steve Mazor, manager of the Auto Club of Southern California's Automotive Research Center. It made sense years ago, when "we had cast-iron block engines with cast-iron pistons that would expand when they got hot and older lubricants," Mazor said. Jerry Hirsch http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-autos-oil-change-20111215,0,4554184.story

Aides to Representative Rick Larsen, Democrat of Washington, broadcast via Twitter how cool it was to be sitting in the seat of power at midday while drinking Jack Daniels and watching Nirvana videos on the taxpayers’ dime. For good measure, these Aides Gone Wild sent out a couple of bad mots about their “idiot boss.” Within an hour of hearing about the indiscretions, which had continued for months on personal, not Congressional, Twitter accounts, the boss fired all three young people. Facebook, Twitter, cell phone text messages and palm-size appliances yet to sprout from Apple’s labs allow all of us to be banal in real time. From one (I’ll protect him here, even if he won’t do the same thing for himself by going silent for a day), a man known for daring urban design ideas, came these recent insights on his Twitter account:
Stuck in traffic. OMG, this light is long!
Just had the best burrito of my life!
Saw my first deliveryman on a Segway — how cool is that?
Not very, actually. Where did this compulsion for light confession come from?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/please-stop-sharing/

CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. The term CAPTCHA (for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas Hopper and John Langford of Carnegie Mellon University. See an example and read about applications and guidelines at: http://www.captcha.net/

Thieves at South Gate High School in Southern California pried open a door and torn the band room apart while hunting for a specific instrument. "All they took were tubas," music teacher Ruben Gonzalez Jr. said. Losses included an upright concert tuba and a silver sousaphone — or marching-band tuba — worth a combined $13,000. Several weeks earlier, band members at Centennial High School in Compton experienced a similar shock when they found that eight sousaphones were missing. And on Dec. 6, burglars broke into Huntington Park High School and spirited away the school's last tuba, according to band instructor Fernando Almader. A silver Jupiter tuba had been stolen earlier in the school year. Those are just the latest in what police and music instructors are describing as a rash of unsolved tuba thefts at high schools in southeast Los Angeles County. The thefts, according to band leaders, were probably spurred by Southern California's banda music craze, as well as the high prices the brass instruments fetch on the black market. A high-quality tuba can cost well more than $5,000, but even an old, dented tuba can sell for as much as $2,000, music teachers say. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tuba-thefts-20111212,0,5110587.story

Christmas truce was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires that took place along the Western Front around Christmas of 1914, during the First World War. Through the week leading up to Christmas, parties of German and British soldiers began to exchange seasonal greetings and songs between their trenches; on occasion, the tension was reduced to the point that individuals would walk across to talk to their opposite numbers bearing gifts. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, many soldiers from both sides – as well as, to a lesser degree, from French units – independently ventured into "No man's land", where they mingled, exchanging food and souvenirs. As well as joint burial ceremonies, several meetings ended in carol-singing. Troops from both sides had also been so friendly as to play games of football with one another. The truce is seen as a symbolic moment of peace and humanity amidst one of the most violent events of modern history. It was not ubiquitous, however; in some regions of the front, fighting continued throughout the day, whilst in others, little more than an arrangement to recover bodies was made. The following year, a few units again arranged ceasefires with their opponents over Christmas, but to nothing like the widespread extent seen in 1914; this was, in part, due to strongly worded orders from the high commands of both sides prohibiting such fraternisation. The truces were not unique to the Christmas period, and reflected a growing mood of "live and let live", where infantry units in close proximity to each other would stop overtly aggressive behaviour, and often engage in small-scale fraternisation, engaging in conversation or bartering for cigarettes. In some sectors, there would be occasional ceasefires to go between the lines and recover wounded or dead soldiers, whilst in others, there would be a tacit agreement not to shoot while men rested, exercised, or worked in full view of the enemy. However, the Christmas truces were particularly significant due to the number of men involved and the level of their participation – even in very peaceful sectors, dozens of men openly congregating in daylight was remarkable. Find information on books, film, music, television and description of a monument. A Christmas truce memorial was unveiled in Frelinghien, France, on 11 November 2008. Also on that day, at the spot where, on Christmas Day 1914, their regimental ancestors came out from their trenches to play football, men from the 1st Battalion, The Royal Welch Fusiliers played a football match with the German Panzergrenadier Battalion 371. The Germans won, 2–1) at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

2011-12-21T05:49:00.000-08:00

Let your ear be your guide to the King James Bible
The extraordinary global career of this book, of which more copies have been made than of any other book in the language, began in March 1603. After a long reign as Queen of England, Elizabeth I finally died. This was the moment her cousin and heir, the Scottish King James VI, had been waiting for. Scotland was one of the poorest kingdoms in Europe, with a weak and feeble crown. ngland by comparison was civilized, fertile, and rich. When James heard that he was at last going to inherit the throne of England, it was said that he was like "a poor man … now arrived at the Land of Promise." In the course of the 16th century, England had undergone something of a yo-yo Reformation, veering from one reign to the next between Protestant and anti-Protestant regimes, never quite settling into either camp. The result was that England had two competing versions of the Holy Scriptures. The Geneva Bible, published in 1560 by a small team of Scots and English Calvinists in Geneva, drew on the pioneering translation by William Tyndale, martyred for his heresy in 1536. It was loved by Puritans but was anti-royal in its many marginal notes, repeatedly suggesting that whenever a king dared to rule, he was behaving like a tyrant. Ground rules were established by 1604: no contentious notes in the margins; no language inaccessible to common people; a true and accurate text, driven by an unforgivingly exacting level of scholarship. To bring this about, the King gathered an enormous translation committee: some 54 scholars, divided into all shades of opinion, from Puritan to the highest of High Churchmen. Six subcommittees were then each asked to translate a different section of the Bible. Each member of the six subcommittees, on his own, translated an entire section of the Bible. He then brought that translation to a meeting of his subcommittee, where the different versions produced by each translator were compared and one was settled on. That version was then submitted to a general revising committee for the whole Bible, which met in Stationers' Hall in London. Here the revising scholars had the suggested versions read aloud—no text visible—while holding on their laps copies of previous translations in English and other languages. The ear and the mind were the only editorial tools.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/king-james-bible/nicolson-text

Africa is a continent comprising 62 political territories, representing the largest of the great southward projections from the main mass of Earth's surface. Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea and from much of Asia by the Red Sea, Africa is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the Isthmus of Suez. For geopolitical purposes, the Sinai Peninsula – east of the Suez Canal – is often considered part of Africa, although geographically it belongs in Asia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Africa

Who first proposed making health insurance compulsory?
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank did. In the late 1980s the Heritage Foundation suggested that every American be required to buy health insurance, a requirement known as the individual mandate. Many Republicans took up that idea in the early 1990s, after President Clinton introduced a plan that would have forced companies to cover employees. "I am for people, individuals — exactly like automobile insurance — having health insurance and being required to have health insurance," said Newt Gingrich, then House minority whip, in 1993. When the Clinton plan collapsed in 1994, talk of the individual mandate died with it. During his 2008 campaign for the Democratic nomination, Obama ran a TV ad criticizing rival candidate Hillary Clinton's support for a mandate, saying she would force everyone "to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it." But after President Obama and the Democratic Congress began to construct his health-care plan, advisers warned that free riders would undermine the objectives of extending insurance coverage to anyone who wanted it. For health reform to work, young, healthy people had to be pushed into the pool, to spread cost and risk. So the president allowed his 2010 Affordable Care Act to incorporate a provision that, by 2014, all Americans must have health coverage or face a tax penalty.
http://theweek.com/article/index/222477/the-individual-mandate-health-cares-inherent-controversy

English-only movement, also known as Official English movement, refers to a political movement for the use only of the English language in official government operations through the establishing of English as the only official language in the United States. Find about earlier English-only movements and a table of the current laws in each state at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement

If it ever comes to pass that only English may be spoken, will we be allowed to say Colorado, Florida, Montana, fiesta, siesta, rodeo? Valet, ballet? Kindergarten, Oktoberfest? Spaghetti, lasagne?

Origin of state names: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0854966.html

Steeped in history and romance and almost in a class by itself, the pomegranate, Punica granatum L., belongs to the family Punicaceae which includes only one genus and two species, the other one, little-known, being P. protopunica Balf. peculiar to the island of Socotra. The pomegranate tree is native from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and has been cultivated since ancient times throughout the Mediterranean region of Asia, Africa and Europe. For enjoying out-of-hand or at the table, the fruit is deeply scored several times vertically and then broken apart; then the clusters of juice sacs can be lifted out of the rind and eaten. Italians and other pomegranate fanciers consider this not a laborious handicap but a social, family or group activity, prolonging the pleasure of dining. In the home kitchen, the juice can be easily extracted by reaming the halved fruits on an ordinary orange-juice squeezer.
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/pomegranate.html
How to De-Seed a Pomegranate (Every pomegranate has 840 seeds.)
http://www.coconutandlime.com/2006/11/how-to-de-seed-pomegranate.html

One of the earliest of the 'health food fadists', Dr. James H. Salisbury, a 19th century English/American physician (1823-1905), wrote 'The Relation of Alimentation and Disease'. Make the cakes from half an inch to an inch thick. Broil slowly and moderately well over a fire free from blaze and smoke. When cooked, put it on a hot plate and season to taste with butter, pepper, salt; also use either Worcestershire or Halford sauce, mustard, horseradish or lemon juice on the meat if desired." Find his complete recipe for Salisbury steak at: http://www.foodreference.com/html/artsalisburystk.html
(In case you haven’t heard of Halford sauce, it was “Halford Leicestershire Table Sauce,” advertised in the 1880s thusly: “The Most Perfect Relish of the Day. An absolute Remedy for Dyspepsia. Invaluable to all Good Cooks. A Nutritious Combination for Children. Invaluable for Soups, Hashes, Cold Meats, and Entrées.”) http://www.metnews.com/articles/2004/reminiscing020504.htm

James Salisbury is one of many famous people interred in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. Some others are:
James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States
Lucretia Garfield, former First Lady of the United States
Marcus A. Hanna, U.S. Senator and Republican Party boss
John Hay, former United States Secretary of State and aide to President Abraham Lincoln (Hay's monument was created by sculptor James Earle Fraser)
Edwin Converse Higbee, founder of Higbee's, the first department store in Cleveland
Adella Prentiss Hughes, founder of the Cleveland Orchestra
Effie Hinckley Ober Kline, founder of the Boston Ideal Opera Company, second wife of Virgil P. Kline.
Virgil P. Kline, Abolitionist publisher and anti-trust attorney, later house counsel to John D. Rockefeller.
Garrett Morgan, inventor of the gas mask and the three-colored traffic light
Eliot Ness, detective, investigator and Cleveland safety director best known member of The Untouchables
(Ness's ashes and those of his wife Elizabeth and son Robert were scattered over a pond in the cemetery.)
Harvey Pekar, comic book writer, known for his groundbreaking series American Splendor. Ashes scattered here.
John D. Rockefeller, billionaire oil tycoon and philanthropist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_View_Cemetery

Quote
You're better than perfect. You're good.
Black Water, #3 in the Merci Rayborn series by T. Jefferson Parker

Ajiri black tea "Through the sale of Ajiri Tea, we hope to create a sustainable cycle of community employment and education." Ajiri means "to employ" in Swahili, the national language of Kenya. The leaves have a lovely sweet cocoa scent. The liquor tastes of whole wheat toast, and dark chocolate. It is a strong brew that is very basic, perfect for the morning and would hold up well to milk and sugar. It's an easy tea to over-steep, so be very careful! A teaspoon for each cup is more than enough, and watch that you don't steep for more than 3 minutes. This tea was named a 2011 North American Tea Champion for CTC Black Tea at the World Tea Expo.
http://teahappiness.blogspot.com/2011/03/ajiri-tea.html
Find retailers by state or buy online: http://www.ajiritea.com/WheretoBuy.html

69 – The Roman Senate declares Vespasian as Roman emperor, the last in the Year of Four Emperors.
1620 – Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
1826 – American settlers in Nacogdoches, Mexican Texas, declare their independence, starting the Fredonian Rebellion.
1872 – Challenger expedition: HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sails from Portsmouth.
1879 – World première of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen.
1913 – Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.
1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theater.
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_21

2011-12-20T04:51:00.000-08:00

Americans are generous. In 2010, they gave $290.89 billion, according to the Giving USA Foundation—and that's from all sources, including individuals, corporations, foundations and bequests. But how much do you really know about the nonprofit world—about the finances, the institutions and the people who dominate it? Take a quiz from The Wall street Journal and find out. John M. Leger
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203699404577044012134154658.html

Confusion on the Web: Seen this month: "we'll please your pallet" Pick the correct word from the list below:
The noun palate refers to the roof of the mouth or the sense of taste. The noun palette refers to an artist's paint board or a range of colors. The noun pallet is a straw-filled mattress or a hard bed. http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/PalatePalettePalletGlossary.htm

Oversharing on the Web: too much trivial information, strong reactions without checking facts

Poached Scrambled Eggs adapted from Daniel Patterson
Beat the eggs, cook quickly in a whirlpool of boiling water, drain immediately. Find recipe and directions at: http://events.nytimes.com/recipes/12047/2006/01/08/Poached-Scrambled-Eggs/recipe.html
More on Daniel Patterson, his "eccentric eggs," and an adaptation of NY Times recipe at: http://www.doriegreenspan.com/2007/03/eccentric-eggs-from-daniel-patterson.html

Most historians agree that Gabriel Mouton, the vicar of St. Paul's Church in Lyons, France, is the “founding father” of the metric system. He proposed a decimal system of measurement in 1670. Mouton based it on the length of one minute of arc of a great circle of the Earth (now called a nautical mile, 1852 meters). He also proposed the swing-length of a pendulum with a frequency of one beat per second as the unit of length (about 25 cm). A pendulum beating with this length would have been fairly easy to produce, thus facilitating the widespread distribution of uniform standards. Over the years, his work was revised, improved, and extended by a number of French scientists. The political sponsor of weights and measures reform in the French Revolutionary National Assembly was the Bishop of Autun, better known as Talleyrand. Under his auspices, the French Academy appointed several committees to carry out the work of developing a usable system of weights and measures for France. One of the committees recommended a decimalized measurement system based upon a length equal to one ten-millionth of the length of a quadrant of the earth's meridian (i.e., one ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and the North Pole). Although the metric system was not accepted with enthusiasm at first, adoption by other nations occurred steadily after France made its use compulsory in 1840. The standardized structure and decimal features of the metric system made it well suited for scientific and engineering work. Consequently, it is not surprising that the rapid spread of the system coincided with an age of rapid technological development. In the United States, by Act of Congress in 1866, it became “lawful throughout the United States of America to employ the weights and measures of the metric system in all contracts, dealings or court proceedings.” (Note that there has never been a law explicitly making it legal to use the inch-pound system nor defining those units' values. In fact, it wasn't until the Mendenhall Order, in 1893, that the units of the inch-pound system were finally officially defined — in terms of metric measurements.)
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/origin.html

Pinto may refer to:
Conspiracy of the Pintos, a rebellion against Portuguese rule in Goa, India in 1787
Ford Pinto (1971–1980), a subcompact car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company for the North American market
Ford Pinto engine, unofficial nickname for a 4 cylinder internal combustion engine built by the Ford Motor Company in Europe
Gallo Pinto, a dish traditional to Nicaragua and Costa Rica consisting primarily of beans and rice
Pinto bean, a type of mottled bean
Pinto horse, a horse coat color that consists of large patches of white and another color Find as names and places at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinto

Thomson Reuters, the company created when Thomson, a Canadian purveyor of professional information for lawyers, accountants and others, bought Reuters in 2008, and Bloomberg are the big fish in the professional-publishing pond, at least eight times larger than their nearest competitor. Bloomberg, besides expanding its terminals business, which has over 300,000 customers (at about $20,000 a pop), is pushing into government-related news and data. In 2010 it launched Bloomberg Government, which competes with Congressional Quarterly, a sister company of The Economist. In September it made its biggest purchase ever, spending $990m on BNA, a legal- and tax-information firm. http://www.economist.com/node/21541413

Nicolas Sarkozy born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa; 28 January 1955) is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier. Sarkozy is a Frenchman of mixed national and ethnic ancestry and is the first president of France to be a mixed heritage. He is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál, in some sources Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál István Ernő), a Hungarian aristocrat, and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah who is of Greek Jewish and French Catholic origin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy

Rules for writing fiction Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" . . . To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose". This article is based on Elmore Leonard's ten writing rules. Find rules from Margaret Atwood, P.D. James and others. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one Link to second part of article with rules by Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx and others.

December 19 events
1606 – The Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery depart England carrying settlers who found, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.
1776 – Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in the Pennsylvania Journal titled The American Crisis.
1843 – Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol goes on sale.
1924 – The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.
1946 – Start of the First Indochina War.
1975 – John Paul Stevens is appointed a justice of The United States Supreme Court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_19
December 20 events
1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.
1860 – South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.
1989 – United States invasion of Panama: The United States sends troops into Panama to overthrow government of Manuel Noriega. This is also the first combat use of purpose-designed stealth aircraft.
1996 – NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X.
1999 – Macau is handed over to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.
2005 – US District Court Judge John E. Jones III rules against mandating the teaching of "intelligent design" in his ruling of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
2007 – Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_20

2011-12-19T05:44:00.000-08:00

AN UNPUBLISHED Charlotte Bronte manuscript has sold for a record 690,850 pounds ($1.09 million) at auction. The Young Men's Magazine, Number 2, was written when Charlotte was 14 and is set in Glass Town, the earliest fictional world created by the Bronte siblings. Sotheby's had estimated it would sell for between 200,000 and 300,000 pounds at the English Literature, History, Children's Books and Illustrations sale overnight. But the manuscript sold for more than double the top estimate, setting new auction records for a manuscript by Charlotte Bronte and for a literary work by any of the Bronte sisters. The book contains more than 4000 words on 19 pages, each measuring about 35mm by 61mm. It is dated August 1830 - 17 years before Bronte wrote Jane Eyre - and is said to have never before been seen by scholars. See picture at: http://www.news.com.au/news/bronte-book-fetches-more-than-1m/story-fn7djq9o-1226223521780

In a major surprise on the politically charged new health care law, the Obama administration said December 16 that it would not define a single uniform set of “essential health benefits” that must be provided by insurers for tens of millions of Americans. Instead, it will allow each state to specify the benefits within broad categories. The move would allow significant variations in benefits from state to state, much like the current differences in state Medicaid programs and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/health/policy/health-care-law-to-allow-states-to-pick-benefits.html

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on December 13 adopted a Report and Order that implements the 2010 Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (the CALM Act), in which Congress gave the Commission, for the first time, authority to address the problem of excessive commercial loudness. The rules require that commercials have the same average volume as the programs they accompany. The rules also establish simple, practical ways for stations and MVPDs to demonstrate their compliance with the rules. As the CALM Act requires, the rules will become effective one year after the date of their adoption, or December 13, 2012. For further information, contact Lyle Elder (202-418-2120; lyle.elder@fcc.gov). http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-rules-restricting-loud-commercials

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them. It is also used in scholarly and historical musical contexts to refer to dramas of the 18th and 19th centuries in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The term originated from the early 19th-century French word mélodrame, which is derived from Greek melos, music, and French drame, drama (from Late Latin drāma, which in turn derives from Greek drān, to do, perform). An alternative English spelling, now obsolete, is "melodrame". Beginning in the 18th century, melodrama was a technique of combining spoken recitation with short pieces of accompanying music. In such works, music and spoken dialog typically alternated, although the music was sometimes also used to accompany pantomime. The earliest known examples are scenes in J. E. Eberlin's Latin school play Sigismundus (1753). The first full melodrama was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Pygmalion, the text of which was written in 1762 but was first staged in Lyon in 1770. The overture and an Andante were composed by Rousseau, but the bulk of the music was composed by Horace Coignet. A different musical setting of Rousseau's Pygmalion by Anton Schweitzer was performed in Weimar in 1772, and Goethe wrote of it approvingly in Dichtung und Wahrheit. Pygmalion is a monodrama, written for one actor. Some 30 other monodramas were produced in Germany in the fourth quarter of the 18th century. When two actors are involved the term duodrama may be used. Georg Benda was particularly successful with his duodramas Ariadne auf Naxos (1775) and Medea (1778). The sensational success of Benda's melodramas led Mozart to use two long melodramatic monologues in his opera Zaide (1780). Other later, and better-known examples of the melodramatic style in operas are the grave-digging scene in Beethoven's Fidelio (1805) and the incantation scene in Weber's Der Freischütz (1821). See other examples, including Perils of Pauline and Sweeney Todd at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodrama

The Roots of Dickens's Christmas Books and Plays in Early Nineteenth-Century Melodrama and Pantomime
"One cannot properly appreciate the psychological realism as well as the theatrical qualities of the Christmas Books of Charles Dickens until one places these five novellas and their dramatic progeny in the context of the Hungry Forties and early Victorian drama. The central message of these seasonal productions, that the hope of the world lies in the reformation of the individual human heart and in the social reintegration of the deviate, is consistent with both the drama and the problems of the period prior to the repeal of the Corn Laws and the expiration of Chartism. Then, too, this was the age of the minor playhouses and new periodicals, innovations that indicate a cultural broadening and a new awareness of the importance of entertainment, information, and moral guidance for the middle and working classes." From the appearance of the initial serial numbers of Pickwick onward, Dickens had found himself plagiarized by dramatic adapters, and powerless to strike back since British copyright law did not protect novelists or guarantee them any financial compensation for use of their work on stage. Logically, if Dickens, in need of ready money, could not beat the pirates in court, he could derive some profit from allying himself with one of their number. Robertson Davies in the sixth volume of The Revels History of Drama in English tersely notes the essential principles of Edward Stirling and the other adapters who tackled A Christmas Carol in January, 1844: where in the original "dramatic incident was strong it was exaggerated; eccentric characters, where they existed, were made occasions for shows of professional skill" (241). With the various adaptations of the five Christmas Books, however, there were the additional characteristics of spectacular stage effects, traditional Pantomime characters, and the inclusion of as much dialogue as possible from the original novellas. In particular, the dramatist sought ingenious ways of retaining the "original" and humorous observations of the Dickensian Christmas Book narrator, even if doing so materially altered the nature of some of the story's characters. Find much more on melodrama at: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva56.html

New York City police clashed with protesters and arrested 49, some in religious garb, after they broke into a private park in Manhattan December 17. Occupy Wall Street protesters, who were evicted from their Lower Manhattan encampment last month, were marking the movement’s three-month anniversary by attempting to claim a second New York City park. They ripped holes in a fence around the park and used ladders to climb over it. Paul Browne, a spokesman for NYPD, confirmed the arrests in an e-mail. Protesters had gathered for speeches, live music and performances in Duarte Square Park in New York’s TriBeCa neighborhood. Part of the half-block parcel is city-owned public land, while the other portion belongs to Trinity Wall Street, a nonprofit religious organization and one of the city’s largest real estate holders. One of the first to enter the park by ladder was Episcopal Bishop George Packard, dressed in purple cassock with collar, who’s been a public supporter of OWS, said Dan Shockley, a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild who was at the scene. Ben Meyers, a staffer at the National Lawyers Guild office, confirmed that Packard was among those arrested. Duarte Square’s eastern edge is public parkland while an adjacent larger, fenced-in area is owned by Trinity. Occupiers haven’t been granted permission to enter the space by either Trinity or the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, to which the area is currently licensed for an art installation that’s closed for the season, said Lloyd Kaplan, a spokesman for Trinity. In a Dec. 9 statement, Reverend James H. Cooper said Trinity has “probably done as much or more for the protesters than any other institution in the area.” It’s provided Occupy members with meeting rooms, pastoral services and spaces to rest, charge mobile phones and computers, and use bathrooms, he said.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-18/nyc-police-arrest-49-protesters-in-duarte-square-park.html

The notebooks in which Sir Isaac Newton worked out the theories on which much classical science is based have been put online by Cambridge University. More than 4,000 pages have been scanned, including his annotated copy of Principia Mathematica, containing Newton's laws of motion and gravity. Newton wrote mainly in Latin and Greek, the scientific language of his time, and was reluctant to publish. The university plans to put almost all of its Newton collection online. The papers mark the launch of the Cambridge Digital Library project to digitise its collections. As well as Principia and Newton's college notebooks, the Newton Papers section of the online library contains his "Waste Book". The large notebook was inherited from his stepfather, and scholars believe it helped Newton to make significant breakthroughs in the field of calculus. A further 8,000 pages of Newton's works are to be added over the next few months. Other works which will become part of the digital library include the university's Charles Darwin collection. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-16141723

2011-12-16T04:30:00.000-08:00

In September, the journal Science ran an article by eight prominent scientists titled "The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling." They argue that "There is no well-designed research showing that single-sex (SS) education improves students' academic performance, but there is evidence that sex segregation increases gender stereotyping and legitimizes institutional sexism." The lead author on the piece was professor Diane Halpern of Claremont McKenna College, past president of the American Psychological Association. The Science authors, prominent psychologists or neuroscientists, find the performance of the news media sorely lacking. "Novelty-based enthusiasm, sample bias, and anecdotes account for much of the glowing characterization of SS education in the media," they write. "Factoids" promoted by advocates keep appearing in news stories around the world, even though good science has disproved or critiqued them. In the past few years, the news media have promoted a series of myths that, as it turns out, have little evidence behind them. As more misinformation is reported, the false narrative of great differences grows stronger.
Find myths and facts at: http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=5212 Thanks, Julie.

Type ingredients you have and find recipes using them at: http://www.supercook.com/

Maple syrup is a syrup usually made from the xylem sap of sugar maple, red maple, or black maple trees, although it can also be made from other maple species such as the bigleaf maple. In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before the winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in the spring. Maple trees can be tapped by boring holes into their trunks and collecting the exuded sap. The sap is processed by heating to evaporate some of the water, leaving the concentrated syrup. Maple syrup was first collected and used by indigenous people of North America. The practice was adopted by European settlers, who gradually improved production methods. Technological improvements in the 1970s further refined syrup processing. Quebec, Canada is by far the largest producer, making about three-quarters of the world's output; Canada exports more than C$145 million (approximately US$141 million) worth of maple syrup per year. Vermont is the largest producer in the United States, generating about 5.5% of the global supply. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_syrup

Thanks to Joseph Farrell, Glenn Close gets shot at the end of "Fatal Attraction." Mr. Farrell, who died Wednesday at age 76, was chief executive of National Research Group, long the film industry's dominant market-research group. When NRG told studios what test audiences thought of their movies, the film bosses listened—and often made changes. In the case of "Fatal Attraction," a 1987 thriller featuring Ms. Close as a stalker, the film originally concluded with Ms. Close's character committing suicide. But Mr. Farrell's surveys showed audiences wanted her punished. The ending was reshot, and the film went on to gross more than $300 million at the box office. Another film changed based on NRG research was "The Bodyguard," which was reworked to include more action scenes featuring Kevin Costner after research showed young men were less receptive to it than young women. The film grossed more than $400 million. Hollywood has used pre-screenings to gauge audience response since the silent-film era, but Mr. Farrell drew on his earlier career with the Lou Harris polling organization to develop a systematic approach to focus groups, telephone surveys and interviews at screenings. Audience reaction was tracked to advertising, trailers, titles and plots. An accomplished painter and sculptor, he also designed furniture under the name Giuseppe Farbino.
Stephen Miller http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204319004577086782750362996.html

This summer, Darcie Chan's debut novel became an unexpected hit. It has sold more than 400,000 copies and landed on the best-seller lists alongside brand-name authors like Michael Connelly, James Patterson and Kathryn Stockett. It's been a success by any measure, save one. Ms. Chan still hasn't found a publisher. Five years ago, Ms. Chan's novel, "The Mill River Recluse," which tells the story of a wealthy Vermont widow who bestows her fortune on town residents who barely knew her, would have languished in a drawer. A dozen publishers and more than 100 literary agents rejected it. "Nobody was willing to take a chance," says Ms. Chan, a 37-year-old lawyer who drafts environmental legislation for the U.S. Senate. "It was too much of a publishing risk." This past May, Ms. Chan decided to digitally publish it herself, hoping to gain a few readers and some feedback. She bought some ads on Web sites targeting e-book readers, paid for a review from Kirkus Reviews, and strategically priced her book at 99 cents to encourage readers to try it. She's now attracting bids from foreign imprints, movie studios and audio-book publishers, without selling a single copy in print. Self-publishing has long been derided as a last resort for authors who lack the talent or savvy to hack it in the publishing business. But it has gained a patina of legitimacy as a growing number of self-published authors land on best-seller lists. Last year, 133,036 self-published titles were released, up from 51,237 in 2006, according to Bowker, a company that tracks publishing trends. Alexandra Alter Read much more at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204770404577082303350815824.html

tit for tat A blow or some other retaliation in return for an injury from another
Origin It's tempting to assume that this little phrase is another way of saying 'this for that' and, in a way, it is. 'Tit' and 'tat' are both the names of small blows which originated as 'tip' and 'tap'. These are recorded by Charles, Duke of Orleans in a book of poems that he wrote while captive in England after the battle of Agincourt and first published circa 1466: "Strokis grete, not tippe nor tapp." The widespread unconcern about spelling and pronunciation in the Middle Ages led to 'tip', 'tap', 'tit' and 'tat' all to be variant spellings. John Heywood appears to be the first to have used 'tit for tat', in the parable The Spider and the Flie, 1556: "That is tit for tat in this altricacion [altercation]."
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/tit-for-tat.html

Edward G. Robinson’s professional accomplishments include roles in 100 motion pictures, scores of plays and exactly one writing credit, for “Kibitzer.” He helped steer that play to critical and commercial success when it ran on Broadway for 120 performances in early 1929. Ten spirited cast members with the Actors Company Theater, a company in Manhattan that seeks to rediscover lost and forgotten plays, have been shaking “Kibitzer” out of its mothballs with a series of readings. The audience at Dec. 5's final performance seemed to appreciate its theme of thwarted ambition. Find the plot and more at: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/kibitzer-a-forgotten-play-doctored-by-edward-g-robinson-gets-a-reading/

Results released 12/14/11 by the National Center for Health Statistics demonstrate that the extension of dependent coverage up to age 26 has increased the number of young adults with health insurance, by even more than prior analyses had suggested. This policy, enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act, took effect for insurance plan renewals beginning on September 23, 2010, and was designed to address the fact that young adults have traditionally been the age group least likely to have health insurance. These new estimates show that from September 2010 to June 2011, the percentage of adults 19 to 25 with insurance coverage increased from 64% to 73%, which translates into 2.5 million additional young adults with coverage. This shows a marked continuation of the coverage gains from the Affordable Care Act; estimates based on data from earlier in the year showed that this provision of the Act had led to the extension of coverage to one million young adults. http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2011/YoungAdultsACA/ib.shtml

December 16 events
1431 – Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris.
1773 – American Revolution: Boston Tea Party – Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawks dump crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.
1811 – The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes occur in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri. These four so-called mega-quakes are believed to be an ongoing cataclysmic danger that could reprise the 1811-12 series of 2,000 quakes that affected the lands of what would be eight of today's heartland states of the United States.
1907 – The Great White Fleet begins its circumnavigation of the world
1972 – Vijay Diwas: (Victory Day) is commemorated every 16 December in India as it marks its military victory over Pakistan in 1971 during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
1978 – Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first post-Depression era city to default on its loans, owing $14,000,000 to local banks.
1998 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Operation Desert Fox – The United States and United Kingdom bomb targets in Iraq.
2003 – President George W. Bush signs the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 into law. The law establishes the United States' first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission to enforce its provisions.
December 16 births
1770 – Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer and pianist (d. 1827)[1]
1775 – Jane Austen, English writer (d. 1817)
1899 – Sir Noel Coward, English playwright, actor and composer (d. 1973)
1900 – V. S. Pritchett, English author and critic (d. 1997)
1901 – Margaret Mead, American anthropologist (d. 1978) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_16

2011-12-15T05:52:00.001-08:00

When architect Wilfred Armster walked through a two-acre meadow on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, Michigan to ponder a project, a dream house for a couple who loved modern architecture, he said he was struck with a sudden vision of the waist-high grass being left untouched. "And that was it," he said. The result: a long, slim bar of a building that bridges two low mounds in the field, suspended over the ground at certain points by more than 8 feet. The ends of the 230-foot long by 20-foot wide building are dug into the ground and anchored by hidden basements; massive steel H-beams support its floating length. While the long, western wall of the dark grey home has large windows overlooking the meadow, the street-side is solid cement-board save for two long, narrow glass slits. When lit, the pattern of light through the windows looks like a Mondrian painting, said owner Barbara Wilson, a lighting designer. With a shape like that on the outside, the 3,400-square-foot home has to be unusual inside. A white hallway runs its length, with three bedrooms and living spaces off the hallway. Ms. Wilson and her husband, electrical engineer Joe McElroy, 53, had the spruce-clad ceilings lowered more than a foot, to a little over 8 feet, to create a sense of coziness. Bedrooms and baths are scaled down, to encourage use of the living areas. Some of the furniture is from Ikea, which also was the source of the royal-blue kitchen. "We spent all the money on the architecture—not on fancy fixtures," Ms. Wilson said. Finished in 2007 for under $500,000, the house won a top 2011 design award from the New England chapters of the American Institute of Architects and one in 2009 from the Connecticut chapter (Mr. Armster is based in Connecticut). Juliet Chung Read more and see photos at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204770404577080750737852644.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Ohio's new license plate and driver's license will showcase how ”Ohioans feel about Ohio." The deadline for submitting your recommendation is January 8, 2012. Pick a slogan, phrase or fact already proposed or make up your own at: https://ext.dps.state.oh.us/BMVOnlineServices.Public/NewPlateSloganVote.aspx

The "Rangers Victory Song" was written in 1940 by J. Fred Coots in tribute to the team that finished the 1939-40 season as Stanley Cup champions. He officially dedicated the song to "Lester Patrick and the New York Rangers." In addition to being a native New Yorker and avid Rangers fan, Coots was a nationally-known songwriter who authored more than 700 songs. His most famous works included "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "Love Letters in the Sand." A member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Coots died in 1985 at the age of 87, but his love for the Rangers has lived on for decades in the song played after every Blueshirts win at Madison Square Garden. See lyrics at: http://rangers.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=53535

The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) is an American lobbying group representing the interests of many businesses and trade associations. It is not an agency of the United States government. The Chamber is staffed with policy specialists, lobbyists and lawyers. Politically, the Chamber is generally considered to be a conservative organization. It usually supports Republican political candidates, though it has occasionally supported conservative Democrats. The Chamber spends more money than any other lobbying organization on a yearly basis. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's own history of itself describes it as originating from an April 22, 1912 meeting of delegates. The Chamber was created by President Taft as a counterbalance to the labor movement of the time. The Chamber generally tries to maintain amicable relationships with both parties. For instance, the Chamber supported both Ronald Reagan's tax cuts and Bill Clinton's NAFTA efforts. In 1993 the Chamber lost several members over its support for Clinton's healthcare reform efforts. The Chamber had chosen to support healthcare reform at that time due to the spiraling healthcare costs experienced by its members. However, House Republicans retaliated by urging boycotts of the organization. The Chamber operated its own cable television station, Biz-Net until 1997 in order to promote its policies. The Chamber shifted somewhat more to the right when Tom Donahue became head of the organization in 1997. By the time health care reform became a major issue again in 2010, the organization opposed such efforts. More than 90 years later, the Chamber claims a direct membership of 300,000 businesses, and 3 million through its various affiliates such as state and local chambers. Some of the Chamber’s members and donors are Goldman Sachs, Chevron, Texaco, and Aegon. The US Chamber is different from local and state chambers of commerce located in many cities, towns and states nationwide. The US Chamber focuses on national issues on the federal government level. Local and state chambers of commerce are independently started and operated organizations. Local chambers focus on local issues, and state chambers on state issues. The Washington, DC headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce occupies land that was formerly the home of Daniel Webster. The Chamber has emerged as the largest lobbying organization in America. It spent $91.7 million on lobbying in 2008, and $144.5 million in 2009, up from $18.7 million in 2000. The Chamber's lobbying expenditures in 2009 were five times as high as the next highest spender: Exxon Mobil, at $27.4 million. The Chamber had more than 150 lobbyists from 25 different firms working on its behalf in 2009. The major issues that it advocated on were in the categories of torts, government issues, finance, banking and taxes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chamber_of_Commerce

Two donkeys rescued from Greece live on an 11,000-acre estate called Angmering Park in England, owned by Anne Herries, the daughter of a late Duke of Norfolk. The donkeys wander green rolling fields during the day and dine on fresh hay and ginger snaps. They enjoy frequent tooth and hoof cleaning. At night, they sleep in a heated stable with a view of the English Channel. Donkeys have worked in Greece since the start of recorded history. They still carry food and firewood. Some haul tourists up steep steps in such vacations spots as Santorini. Animal-rights groups say the animals are now being abandoned at a growing pace by Greek owners who can't afford them. The market for work donkeys has plummeted along with demand for Greek debt. The Donkey Sanctuary, based in England's southwest region of Devon, funds a Greek rescue facility that costs €45,000 a year, or about $60,000. Another U.K.-based charity, Greek Animal Rescue, raises about €150,000 per year, with a portion earmarked for a donkey sanctuary on the island of Kos. Some rescued donkeys work a bit to break up the day. At the Donkey Sanctuary in Devon, donkeys give rides to emotionally-troubled children as therapy. Others make house calls to comfort the elderly. Sara Schaefer Muñoz
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204397704577072590201172360.html

The Wikipedia reference desk works like a library reference desk. Users leave questions on the reference desk and Wikipedia volunteers work to help you find the information you need. Before asking a question, please try using the search boxes to search Wikipedia as a whole or the Reference Desk archives. You can often find the answer you're looking for more quickly with a search than by waiting for a response. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk

December 15
1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.
1917 – World War I: An armistice is reached between the new Bolshevik government and the Central Powers.
1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol.
1945 – Occupation of Japan: General Douglas MacArthur orders that Shinto be abolished as the state religion of Japan.
1946 – US-backed Iranian troops evict the leadership of the breakaway Republic of Mahabad, putting an end to the Iran crisis of 1946.
1954 – The Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands is signed.
1978 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will recognize the People's Republic of China and cut off all relations with Taiwan
2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_15

2011-12-14T04:10:00.000-08:00

Response to NY Times article and editorial on teaching law
Stanley Fish of Yale Law School says that one can make the case that the practice of law is more than a technical/strategic exercise in which doctrines, precedents, rules and tests are marshaled in the service of a client’s cause. The marshaling takes place within an enterprise that is purposive. That is, law is more than an aggregation of discrete tactics and procedures; it is an enterprise informed by a vision of how the state can and cannot employ the legalized violence of which it is the sole proprietor. That vision will come into view in the wake of a set of inquiries. What obligations do citizens owe one another? How far can the state go in enforcing those obligations? What restrictions on what the state can do to (and for) its citizens should be in place? How do legal cultures differ with respect to these issues?
Read much more at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/teaching-law/

The Mark Twain legacy CD, titled Mark Twain: Words & Music, combines spoken word and Americana music to tell the life story of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. It was created to commemorate 2010 – The Year of Mark Twain– and was produced by Grammy award-winning producer/musician/singer/songwriter Carl Jackson who also wrote some original music for the project and recorded one of his compositions (Safe Water). It was hoped that the CD would have been ready by Nov. 30, 2010 (the 175th birthday of Sam Clemens), but to accommodate the busy schedules of the generous artists who stepped forward to help with this project, production ran a little longer than anticipated (as did the paperwork). The double-CD, which is carried on Jimmy Buffett's label, Mailboat Records, became available for purchase on September 21, 2011. http://www.marktwainmuseum.org/index.php/community-projects/mark-twain-cd
Buffett has made a career of writing and singing about life on the water and is a huge Twain fan. He not only agreed to participate, but also made the decision to release the final project on his own label, Mailboat Records. He even came on board as the voice of Huck Finn, Twain's most beloved character. The final project resulted in Mark Twain: Words & Music, a double-CD with a 40-page booklet of liner notes was written and produced to benefit the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and tells Twain's life from comet to comet in spoken word and song. The CD includes a mixture of narration, Twain's dialogue, and Huck's voice along with a combination of old music and new songs written specifically for this project. Entertainers include best-selling author and rock star Jimmy Buffett; nine-time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow; multiple Academy Award-winning film director and star Clint Eastwood; best-selling author and radio host Garrison Keillor; and a Who's Who of Country and Bluegrass music legends including Vince Gill, Brad Paisley, Carl Jackson, Ricky Skaggs, Emmylou Harris, Joe Diffie and more. Dr. Cindy Lovell , Executive Director of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, originally conceived the idea.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-twain-words-music-benefit-131000315.html

Jacob Soll is a historian whose meticulously researched studies of early modern Europe are shedding new light on the origins of the modern state. Drawing on intellectual, political, cultural, and institutional history, Soll explores the development of political thought and criticism in relation to governance from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries in Western Europe. Soll's first book, Publishing "The Prince" (2005), examines the role of commentaries, editions, and translations of Machiavelli produced by the previously little-studied figure Amelot de La Houssaye (1634-1706), who became the most influential writer on secular politics during the reign of Louis XIV. Grounded in extensive analysis of archival, manuscript, and early printed sources, Soll shows how Amelot and his publishers arranged prefaces, columns, and footnotes in a manner that transformed established works, imbuing books previously considered as supporting royal power with an alternate, even revolutionary, political message . In The Information Master (2009), he investigates the formation of a state-information gathering and classifying network by Louis XIV's chief minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), revealing that Colbert's passion for information was both a means of control and a medium for his own political advancement: his systematic and encyclopedic information collection served to strengthen and uphold Louis XIV's absolute rule. http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.7731011/k.1A2A/Jacob_Soll.htm
In September, Rutgers history professor Jacob Soll received word that he had been selected as a 2011 MacArthur Fellow. The honor, which recognizes creative accomplishments in varied fields, is known as the "genius grant" and comes with a $500,000 financial award to be used over five years. Soll's scholarship focuses on the birth of information systems in modern Europe mixing the history of science, finance, libraries and politics. http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2011/09/28/a-conversation-with-2011-macarthur-fellow-jacob-soll/
"Libraries are the vital organs of democracies. Online libraries are great, but open-stack shelves are absolutely necessary arteries of knowledge." Jacob Soll Iowa Alumni Magazine December 2011

Quotes
. . . before Lillian knew that words had a meaning beyond the music of their inflections, her mother had read aloud to her.
Perhaps, Lillian thought, smells were for her what printed words were for others, something alive that grew and changed.
. . . one of the essential lessons in cooking is how extraordinary the simplest foods can be when they are prepared with care and the freshest ingredients.
Life is beautiful. Some people just remind you of that more than others.
It's not always easy to slow our lives down. But just in case we need a little help, we have a natural opportunity, three times a day, to relearn the lesson.
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister, a first novel about a cooking class in a restaurant where food is thought of as a gift of love, and fragrant cooking smells are described beautifully. Each chapter has a small picture of a food that is important to the person featured in the chapter.
Bauermeister has also written Joy for Beginners. She is co-author of two non-fiction books – 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader's Guide and Let's Hear It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.

Build your own surveys, spreadsheets and other documents. Find ideas at: https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=writely&passive=1209600&continue=https://docs.google.com/&followup=https://docs.google.com/<mpl=homepage

Haiku is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities: The essence of haiku is "cutting" (kiru). This is often represented by the juxtaposition of two images or ideas and a kireji ("cutting word") between them, a kind of verbal punctuation mark which signals the moment of separation and colours the manner in which the juxtaposed elements are related. Traditional haiku consist of 17 on (also known as morae), in three phrases of 5, 7 and 5 on respectively. Any one of the three phrases may end with the kireji. Although haiku are often stated to have 17 syllables, this is incorrect as syllables and on are not the same. Modern Japanese gendai (現代) haiku are increasingly unlikely to follow the tradition of 17 on or to take nature as their subject, but the use of juxtaposition continues to be honoured in both traditional haiku and gendai. In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line while haiku in English often appear in three lines to parallel the three phrases of Japanese haiku. Previously called hokku, haiku was given its current name by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century. In 1973, the Haiku Society of America noted that the then norm for writers of haiku in English was to use 17 syllables, but they also noted a trend toward shorter haiku. Some translators of Japanese poetry have noted that about 12 syllables in English approximates the duration of 17 Japanese on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku

December 14
557 A large earthquake severely damaged the city of Constantinople.
1782 In Avignon, France, the Montgolfier brothers conducted their first test of their hot air balloon.
1911 The first expedition to reach the geographic South Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. He and four others arrived at the pole, five weeks ahead of a British party led by Robert Falcon Scott as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. Source: Wikipedia

2011-12-13T06:50:00.000-08:00

Jeff Cobb was one of the hardest hitting journalists in comics. Making his debut on June 28, 1954, this blonde, clean cut, two fisted, newspaper reporter worked for the Daily Guardian, and like other traditional comic strip newsmen, got into every conceivable situation, from searching for the abominable snowman, to hunting down international war criminals. Cobb survived hundreds of adventures, including losing his right eye in one chilling storyline, only to become a more popular character, with his distinctive black eye patch, for the rest of the series. Over its twenty-four year run, "Jeff Cobb" ran in one-hundred national papers as well as South America and Canada before the feature was picked up for reprint syndication in Europe. Dave Karlen discovered the feature in the Menomonee Falls Gazette and was immediately impressed by the clean line work of the strip's creator, Pete Hoffman. Some time later, Karlen was introduced to Hoffman by his friend and fellow artist Harold Ledoux, illustrator of the syndicated strip, "Judge Parker".
Interview with Pete Cobb by Dave Karlen
My oldest brother drew very well and starting as a kindergartener, I imitated him. The teacher submitted it to Toledo Morning Times...it was of cowboys and Indians and horses. They seemed to think it was worth running. Before graduating from the University of Toledo in 1941, I was the cartoonist on the campus weekly (The Campus Collegian) and art editor of the yearbook (The Blockhouse). Also, during that period, I drew some occasional sports cartoons for the Toledo Blade. After graduation, I worked as an advertising artist for Tiedtke's department store (then the most widely known store in Toledo). Three weeks after Pearl Harbor, I entered military service. I first met Allen Saunders and his partner Elmer Woggon while a student cartoonist. After the war, I stopped by their studio and was asked to work on the Chief Wahoo and Steve Roper strip (later shortened to Steve Roper). They were familiar with my work on The Collegian, and were impressed with the character illustrations of my service buddies I had drawn during the war. Apparently they saw something in them, and they asked me to go to work for them. This was because the strip was in a transition stage and a more illustrative style of drawing was desired. My style fit their needs. I enjoyed ghost-drawing the characters for nearly nine years. At one time, this was was really the hot bed of cartooning. There were many artists and writers in Toledo who produced syndicated serials while I was working on Roper. Among them were Allen Saunders, Elmer Woggon, Bill Woggon, Dr. Nick Dallas, Frank Edgington, Dan Heilman, Harold LeDoux, Jim Seed, Walt Buchanan, etc. Much of my work has gone to aid the University of Toledo's alumni projects. Originals of my work are included in the permanent collections of the International Museum of Cartoon Art, Ohio State University's Cartoon Research Library, and the University of Toledo Archives. See the rest of the interview plus pictures including Hoffman's first published drawing at age four in the Toledo Morning Times. http://www.comicartville.com/hoffmaninterview.htm

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is named after the Roman god Saturn, its astronomical symbol (♄) representing the god's sickle. Saturn is a gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. While only 1/8 the average density of Earth, due to its larger volume Saturn is just over 95 times more massive than Earth. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h. Saturn has a ring system that consists of nine continuous main rings and three discontinuous arcs, composed mostly of ice particles with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. Sixty-two known moons orbit the planet; fifty-three are officially named. This does not include the hundreds of "moonlets" within the rings. Titan, Saturn's largest and the Solar System's second largest moon, is larger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the Solar System to retain a substantial atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn

NPR's Best Books of 2011 is available divided by category or as one whole list. NPR will add new lists from their critics throughout the holiday season. At the same link, you may sign up for NPR Books Newsletter, weekly book reviews and stories. http://www.npr.org/series/142590674/best-books-of-2011

See best books of 2011 according to The Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/21541386

December Solstice (approximately December 21-22)
This day begins summer in the Southern Hemisphere and is the longest day in the Southern Hemisphere. It begins winter in the Northern Hemisphere and is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
March Equinox (approximately March 20-21)
This day begins fall in the Southern Hemisphere and spring in the Northern Hemisphere. There are twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness at all points on the earth’s surface on the two equinoxes. Sunrise is at 6 a.m. and sunset is at 6 p.m. local (solar) time for most points on the earth’s surface.
June Solstice (approximately June 20-21)
This day begins summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere. This day is the longest in the year for the Northern Hemisphere and the shortest for the Southern Hemisphere.
September Equinox (approximately September 22-23)
This day begins fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. There are twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness at all points on the earth’s surface on the two equinoxes. Sunrise is at 6 a.m. and sunset is at 6 p.m. local (solar) time for most points on the earth’s surface.
http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/fourseasons.htm

October 30, 2009 Alan Pollom, state director of The Nature Conservancy, stood at the gate of a holding pen on the rolling hills of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve northwest of Strong City in Kansas. Inside the pen were 13 young bison -- seven male, six female -- waiting for Pollom to open the gate and release them to roam the 1,100-acre Windmill Pasture nestled in the Flint Hills. "This is a soft release," Pollom said, explaining how a few bison would be released to graze and then a few more released after about 30 minutes. "We ease them out so they don't head to South Dakota. We want them to get used to the sights and feel of their new home." After an absence of more than 150 years, bison are being reintroduced to the tallgrass prairie at the national preserve. At one time, up to 60 million bison roamed North America. By the early 1900s, fewer than 1,000 were left. Pollom said the 11/2- to 21/2-year-old bison were transported from Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota and arrived at the preserve on Oct. 20. The South Dakota herd originated from 14 bison donated in 1913 by the New York Zoological Society and six donated in 1916 from Yellowstone National Park. Bison, which live an average of 20 to 25 years, are subject to the same diseases as cattle, he said. Veterinarians tested blood samples from each bison in the new herd before they left South Dakota to ensure they were disease-free. As the herd grows, Nature Conservancy and National Park Service officials will monitor the bison for age and sex, which will help project herd growth, determine which animals are surplus and calculate stocking rates. "We're looking to get up to 100 on this area," said Wendy Lauritzen, park superintendent at the preserve. Lauritzen said The Nature Conservancy and National Park Service had been working on the bison reintroduction project for nearly 10 years. Their work included a management plan, an environmental assessment and installing fencing to contain the bison on the pasture. http://cjonline.com/news/local/2009-10-30/bison_return_to_prairie
2011 update
May 11, 2011 and July 7, 2011 marked the second and third bison calf births at the Tallgrass National Preserve. The original thirteen-member herd came from Windcave National Park, South Dakota in October 2009. On May 9, 2010 the first bison calf was born on the landscape in over 140 years. http://www.nps.gov/tapr/index.htm

2011-12-12T05:10:00.000-08:00

Invasive species have become a vexing problem in the United States, with population explosions of Asian carp clogging the Mississippi River and European green crabs mobbing the coasts. With few natural predators in North America, such fast-breeding species have thrived in American waters, eating native creatures and out-competing them for food and habitats. While most invasive species are not commonly regarded as edible food, that is mostly a matter of marketing, experts say. Imagine menus where Asian carp substitutes for the threatened Chilean sea bass, or lionfish replaces grouper, which is overfished. “We think there could be a real market,” said Wenonah Hauter, the executive director of Food and Water Watch, whose 2011 Smart Seafood Guide recommends for the first time that diners seek out invasive species as a “safer, more sustainable” alternative to their more dwindling relatives, to encourage fisherman and markets to provide them. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is now exploring where it might be helpful. Models suggest that commercial harvest of Asian carp in the Mississippi would most likely help control populations there, “as part of an integrated pest management program,” said Valerie Fellows, a spokeswoman. To increase culinary demand, Food and Water Watch has teamed up with the James Beard Foundation and Kerry Heffernan, the chef at the South Gate restaurant in New York City, to devise recipes using the creatures. At a recent tasting, there was Asian carp ceviche and braised lionfish filet in brown butter sauce. Lionfish, it turns out, looks hideous but tastes great. The group had to hire fishermen to catch animals commonly regarded as pests. Mr. Heffernan said he would consider putting them on his menu and was looking forward to getting some molting European green crabs to try in soft-shell crab recipes. Last summer, the Nature Conservancy sponsored a lionfish food fair in the Bahamas, featuring lionfish fritters and more. They offered fishermen $11 a pound — about the price of grouper — and got an abundant supply. Lionfish, native to the Indian Ocean and South Pacific, arrived in the Caribbean in the early 1990s. Mitchell Davis, vice president of the Beard Foundation, said other species had moved from being pariah pests to must-have items on American plates, like dandelion greens for salads. Elisabeth Rosenthal
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/science/earth/10fish.html

Q: I bet that Star Trek's Capt. James T. Kirk never said, "Beam me up, Scotty."
A: Correct. The closest Kirk came was, "Beam us up, Mr. Scott," during a 1968 episode, "The Gamesters of Triskelion."
Q: What was the highest U.S. money note printed?
A: The $100,000 Gold Certificate, Series 1934, printed from Dec. 18, 1934, to Jan. 9, 1935, were issued by the U.S. Treasurer to Federal Reserve Banks against an equal amount of gold held by the Treasury. They were used only among Federal Reserve banks. U.S. Treasury Department.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2011/Dec/JU/ar_JU_120511.asp?d=120511,2011,Dec,05&c=c_13

James Patterson's READKIDDOREAD.com is "dedicated to making kids readers for life." Sign up for a newsletter or enter a sweepstakes for either high schools or middle schools to receive free books. Find recommended books divided by ages 0-8, 6 & up, 8& up, and 10 & up at: http://www.readkiddoread.com/home

Name that nym
Find definitions of allonym, aptronym, charactonym, cryptonym, demonym, exonym, hypernym, hyponym, metonym and more at: http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/Name-That-Nym-A-Brief-Introduction-To-Words-And-Names.htm

Charactonyms are fictional characters whose names reflect their attributes.
Examples of charactonyms
Squire Allworthy from the novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (also called Tom Jones), 1749
Mrs. Malaprop (from mal--bad and apropos--fitting) from play The Rivals, 1775
Daddy Warbucks from comic strip Little Orphan Annie, 1924-2010 (title comes from "Little Orphant Annie," an 1885 poem) written by James Whitcomb Riley.
Tex Richman from The Muppets film, 2011

terrene (teh-REEN, TER-een) adjective
Relating to the earth; earthly; worldly; mundane.
From Latin terra (earth). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ters- (to dry), which is also the source of territory, terrace, turmeric, and toast. Earliest documented use: 1300s.
baldachin (BAL-duh-kin, BOL-) Also, baldacchino, baldachino (bal-duh-KEE-noh) noun
1. A rich embroidered fabric of silk and gold.
2. A canopy.
English baldachin is derived from Italian baldacchino which is from Baldacco, the Italian name for Baghdad. The city was once known for this fabric and earlier canopies were made of it. Earliest documented use: 1598.
Babylon (BAB-uh-luhn, -lawn) noun
A place of great luxury and extravagance, usually accompanied with vice and corruption.
After Babylon, an ancient city of southwestern Asia, on the Euphrates River, now the site of Al Hillah city. It was the capital of Babylonia and known for its opulence and culture. It was the site of the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Earliest documented use: around 1225.
muslin (MUHZ-lin) noun
A plain-woven cotton fabric made in various degrees of fineness.
From French mousseline, from Italian mussolina, from Mussolo (Mosul, Iraq) which was known for this fabric. Earliest documented use: 1609. Earlier sheer muslin was used for women's dresses and as a result, the word muslin was used collectively for women. Today muslin is mostly used for curtains, sheets, tablecloths, etc.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Michael Tremberth Subject: redolent Def: 1. Fragrant; smelling. 2. Suggestive; reminiscent.
I've thought of the power of this and other words that connect us to our sensory memories. Proust explored this space; so did Dickens and others who explored the pollution of the 19th century in terms of the sights, smells and sounds of the urban environment; Keats described a vintage "Tasting of Flora and the country green,/Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!" -- though his imagery is so powerful that you don't at first notice how he makes tasting do duty for other forms of sensory perception implied by his words, viz hearing, seeing and smelling. Olfaction seems to be the most powerful of these, which perhaps explains why the meaning of redolent has become extended.
From: Molly Kalifut Subject: Hegemony
Def: Predominance over others, especially of a country over other countries.
I loved the illustrated H for 'hegemony' -- the top cat being carried in a sedan chair. In other words: kitty litter.
Now I have to go back and study the rest of the week's illustrations much more carefully!
From: Michael Tremberth Subject: terrene, terrine Def: Relating to the earth; earthly; worldly; mundane.
Another word derived from Latin terra is terrine (tuhr-REEN). Terrene and terrine may be confused in speech because terrene can also be pronounced with the stress on the final syllable. Terrine, a loan word from French, is both a prepared food, ideally cooked in a tureen (terracotta utensil); and also the name for the utensil in which the food has been cooked. Lasagne (Italian) is a word of the same type, meaning both the food, and the utensil, literally a "chamber pot", in which it is baked. You may not have realised that Italian cookery is so eclectic!
From: Elizabeth E. Vaughn Subject: antediluvian
Hadn't thought of this word since Donovan's recording of Atlantis. Worth a YouTube search. Then listen to Hey Jude. Next, trick your children by playing the New Christy Minstrels' version which superimposes these two songs. Yes, I'm old and the first time I heard this done I thought my friend personally blended these songs.

On the bitterly cold afternoon of Dec. 2, 1944, West Point's Felix "Doc" Blanchard kicked the football to Annapolis's Bobby Tom Jenkins to begin the biggest contest in the history of the Army-Navy series. Sitting in the press box in Baltimore's Municipal Stadium, reporter Al Laney wrote, "There never has been a sports event, perhaps never an event of any kind, that received the attention of so many Americans in so many places around the world." On that day the world was at war, but for a few hours, for the legions of American servicemen huddled around shortwave sets in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Pacific, the hostilities seemed to stop. The matchup almost didn't happen. Slightly less than three years earlier, when the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor plunged the U.S. into World War II, there were calls from politicians and journalists for Americans to set aside peacetime frivolities. Professional baseball and college football had no place in a nation at war, some thought. "You can't train a man to be a fighter by having him play football and baseball," said Cmdr. James Joseph "Gene" Tunney, the Navy's director of physical training and boxing's former heavyweight champion. College football, he said, "has no place in war or preparing for war." Others disagreed. Cmdr. Thomas J. Hamilton, the head of the Navy's Prefight and Physical Training program and a former head coach at Annapolis, thought football was an ideal way to train men for combat. And since Hamilton had the ear of the Navy brass, his position carried the day. Football became an integral part of the Navy's V-5 preflight initiative. This training program was installed at select college campuses including Iowa and Georgia. Other larger Navy V-programs followed the V-5's lead. The mammoth V-12 program, instituted in over 130 colleges just before the 1943 football season to train naval and marine officers, also permitted—and even encouraged—these candidates to participate in varsity sports. While the Navy was underwriting the continuation of college football, the Army moved in the opposite direction. The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), instituted in more than 240 colleges, prohibited cadets from participating in intercollegiate sports. These decisions by leaders of the Army and Navy reshaped college football. Traditions were shed and the prewar pecking order was scrambled. Schools with Army Specialized Training Program were out of the running as serious football schools. Most could not field a team and discontinued the sport. Alabama, Auburn, Stanford and Syracuse didn't field teams in 1943. Meanwhile, schools with V-12 programs, especially V-12 Marine programs, walked in tall cotton. As some football programs declined or folded, V-12 schools like Notre Dame, Southern California and Purdue snapped up their best players. A player from Ohio State or Illinois, for instance, could enlist in a Marine V-12 program in July and find himself playing in the opener for Notre Dame in September (not surprisingly, the Irish won the 1943 national title). Then there was Army's famous backfield of Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis—a tandem that's widely regarded as one of the best in the history of the sport. Blanchard, the fullback who was known as "Mr. Inside," had played his freshman year at North Carolina. Davis, the halfback known as "Mr. Outside" was one of the few big-name players on the Army team who had gone directly to West Point from the gridirons of high school. The game was close for three quarters. Army led 9-7 going into the fourth. Then came a nine-play, 52-yard Army scoring drive in which Blanchard carried the ball seven times and accounted for all but four of the team's yards. On the final play of the drive, he ran over three Navy defenders and bulled his way into the end zone. A short time later, Davis put an exclamation point on the game. Finding a sliver of space, he broke through the Navy line, dodged past several defenders and outraced everyone else for a euphoric 50-yard touchdown run. The 23-7 Army victory was Blaik's first in the series. After the game, the coach received a telegram from the Pacific: "The greatest of all Army teams—STOP—We have stopped the war to celebrate your magnificent success." It was signed MacArthur. Randy Roberts http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203501304577086691362897410.html

December 12: Independence Day in Kenya (1963)
1915 President Yuan Shikai of the Republic of China reinstated the monarchy and declared himself Emperor.
1918 The Flag of Estonia was raised for the first time atop the Pikk Hermann in Tallinn.
2000 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore that the election recount of the ballots cast in Florida for the presidential election must stop, effectively making George W. Bush the winner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

2011-12-09T05:19:00.000-08:00

YAHOO AS NAME Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels - Yahoos and Houyhnhnms
7 September 1710 – 2 July 1715
Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain of a merchantman as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew who he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His crew then mutiny, and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes first upon a race of (apparently) hideous deformed and savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly thereafter he meets a horse and comes to understand that they call themselves Houyhnhms (which in their language means "the perfection of nature"), and that they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization, and expels him. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables.
See illustrations at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver's_Travels
Read Gulliver's Travels at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/829

YAHOO AS BACKRONYM
Yahoo! began as a student hobby and evolved into a global brand that has changed the way people communicate with each other, find and access information and purchase things. The two founders of Yahoo!, David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, started their guide in a campus trailer in February 1994 as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. Before long they were spending more time on their home-brewed lists of favorite links than on their doctoral dissertations. Eventually, Jerry and David's lists became too long and unwieldy, and they broke them out into categories. When the categories became too full, they developed subcategories ... and the core concept behind Yahoo! was born. The Web site started out as "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" but eventually received a new moniker with the help of a dictionary. The name Yahoo! is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but Filo and Yang insist they selected the name because they liked the general definition of a yahoo: "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth."
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html

A backronym or bacronym is a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology. The word is a combination (a portmanteau or a blend) of backward and acronym, and has been defined as a "reverse acronym". Its earliest known citation in print is as "bacronym" in the November 1983 edition of the Washington Post monthly neologism contest. The newspaper quoted winning reader "Meredith G. Williams of Potomac" defining it as the "same as an acronym, except that the words were chosen to fit the letters". Backronyms can be constructed for educational purposes, for example to form mnemonics. An example of such a mnemonic is the Apgar score, used to assess the health of newborn babies. The rating system was devised by and named after Virginia Apgar, but ten years after the initial publication, the backronym APGAR was coined in the US as a mnemonic learning aid: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration. Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs use backronyms as teaching tools, similar to slogans such as "one day at a time", or "Let go, let God", but often with an ironic edge. For example, a slip may be expanded as "Sobriety Losing Its Priority", and denial as "Don't Even Notice I Am Lying".
Backronyms are also created as jokes, often expressing consumer loyalties or frustration. For example, the name of the restaurant chain Arby's is a play on "RB", referring to "roast beef" as well as the company's founders, the Raffel brothers. An advertising campaign in the 1980s created a backronym with the slogan "America’s Roast Beef, Yes Sir!" Many companies or products spawn multiple humorous backronyms, with positive connotations asserted by supporters or negative ones by detractors. For example, Ford, the car company founded by Henry Ford, was said to stand for "First On Race Day" among aficionados but disparaged as "Fix Or Repair Daily" and "Found On Road, Dead" by critics. Likewise Fiat was in the 70's and 80's jokingly said by some American critics to stand for "Fix it again Tony".
NASA named its ISS treadmill the Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT) after Stephen Colbert. The backronym was a lighthearted compromise in recognition of the comedian's ability to sway NASA's online vote for the naming of an ISS module. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym

WISE AS ACRONYM
The Wellness Initiative for Students at Eastman, or WISE, is a series of events, workshops, and resources throughout the academic year. These services are meant to support the well-being of students and complement the academic rigor of the Eastman School of Music. Two of the free programs are yoga and boxing. http://www.esm.rochester.edu/studentlife/wise/

Using twin telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered 18 new Jupiter-like planets orbiting massive stars. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), surveyed about 300 stars, and focussed on those dubbed “retired” A-type stars that are more than one and a half times more massive than the sun. "It's the largest single announcement of planets in orbit around stars more massive than the sun, aside from the discoveries made by the Kepler mission," John Johnson, first author on the paper, said. The study has been recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. http://www.hindustantimes.com/HTNext/LifeAndUniverse/Massive-18-new-planets-discovered/Article1-777412.aspx

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was Britain's first true literary superstar. In his time, he attracted international adulation, and many of his books became instant classics. Today, his popularity continues unabated, and his work remains not only widely read but widely adapted for stage and screen. The Morgan Library & Museum's collection of Dickens manuscripts and letters is the largest in the United States and is one of the two greatest collections in the world, along with the holdings of Britain's Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibit Charles Dickens at 200 celebrates the bicentennial of the great writer's birth in 1812 with manuscripts of his novels and stories, letters, books, photographs, original illustrations, and caricatures. Purchase tickets and find links to lectures, programs and online exhibition at: http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=48
The exhibit is showing at the Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, New York (212) 685-0008 through February 12, 2012. For hours and admission prices, see: http://www.themorgan.org/visit/default.asp

Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (1869 –1958) was an American architect and designer. As a child, Mary Colter traveled with her family through frontier Minnesota, Colorado and Texas in the years after the American Civil War. After her father died in 1886, Colter attended the California School of Design in San Francisco. In 1901, the Fred Harvey Company (of the famous Harvey Houses) offered her the job of decorating the Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque. Colter began working full-time for the company in 1910, moving from interior designer to architect. For the next thirty years, working as one of few female architects and in rugged conditions, Colter completed 21 projects for Fred Harvey. She created a series of landmark hotels and commercial lodges through the southwest, including the La Posada, the 1922 Phantom Ranch buildings at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and five structures on the south rim of the Grand Canyon: the Hopi House (1905), Hermit's Rest (1914), the observatory Lookout Studio (1914), the 70-foot Desert View Watchtower (1932) with its hidden steel structure, and the Bright Angel Lodge (1935). The Bright Angel became a de facto model for subsequent National Park Service and Civilian Conservation Corps structures in the following years, influencing the look and feel of an entire architectural genre some call National Park Service rustic, and setting the precedent for using site materials and bold, large-scale design elements (the use of native fieldstone and rough-hewn wood at the bottom of the Grand Canyon was deemed the only practical thing to do). The Bright Angel Lodge also has a remarkable "geological fireplace" in the lodge's History Room, with rocks arranged floor to ceiling in the same order as the geologic strata in the canyon walls. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jane_Colter

Entertainers who thought outside the box
Hedy Lamarr In 1941, she co-invented a jamproof radio guidance system for torpedoes.
Marlon Brando He devised a cooling system using seawater.
Barbara Cartland Working with the Royal Air Force, she conceived of the first long-distance-tow-gliders for troops.
Kevin Costner He has invested $26 million in the development of a machine that uses a centrifuge to separate crude oil from seawater.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/book-review-hedys-folly-by-richard-rhodes-12012011.html

2011-12-08T05:37:00.000-08:00

Books as Comfort by Karen Ballum
Unread books are full of possibilities -- there's more to learn and new worlds to discover. I've been using books to escape since before I could read. Re-reading books is like visiting old friends. There are books I read with the seasons -- Dickens at Christmas, something scary and gothic in autumn. When I crave independence I re-read L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle. If I need to laugh I grab something from Christopher Moore. When I find myself getting the itch to learn something I grab one of the many history volumes I stock up for just such occasions. Are there books or authors you read at certain times or when you are in certain moods? Do you stock up on books for some day in the future? http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/books-comfort

Add two names to the periodic table of elements, although you may want to write them in pencil for now. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry — the scientific body that is the keeper of the list of elements — unveiled Dec. 1 the proposed names for elements 114 and 116: flerovium (atomic symbol Fl) and livermorium (atomic symbol Lv). If you do not like them, now is the time to voice your objections. The chemistry union will have a five-month comment period open to anyone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/science/names-proposed-for-new-elements-on-periodic-table.html
IUAPC Periodic Table of the Elements: http://old.iupac.org/reports/periodic_table/

Libraries have a certain amount of space and a certain amount of money. The careful culling of books is painstaking work. Not only are there challenges that come from the limited space and the vast number of new books that come out every year (and month) (and week), but the number of functions that library users are looking for from libraries is increasing as well. Libraries have book sales and, in some cases, permanent bookstores for books they don't want to keep (there's a bookstore just like that at the University of Florida). On top of that, there are growing initiatives to create "shared print repositories," where books can be stored offsite and remain available for retrieval when they're needed. It's not as convenient as keeping books on-site, but it means you can still give your users access to that book. There's also some help to be found in some of the same technologies that have sometimes been pitted against the printed book. There's a massive online library catalog called WorldCat that helps librarians (and others) know how many copies of a book other libraries are holding. It would presumably not be as big of a deal to get rid of a book 3,000 other libraries have as it is to dispose of one of the last three copies of something that remain available for borrowers.
Thanks, Sam. Read much more at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/10/12/141265066/hard-choices-do-libraries-really-destroy-books

The popular, painted calabash gourds of the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America come from a native tropical American tree that belongs to the Bignonia Family (Bignoniaceae), along with catalpa and jacaranda trees. Although calabash gourds can be large, they are not the largest tree-bearing fruit. Another unrelated cauliflorous tree called jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophylla) bears the world's most massive tree-bearing fruits from its trunk and lower branches. Native to the Indo-Malaysian region, the jackfruit is grown throughout the tropics for its pulpy, edible fruits which may reach nearly 3 feet (1 m) in length and weigh up to 75 pounds (34 kg). Jackfruit and its close relative, breadfruit (A. altilis), belong to the diverse Mulberry Family (Moraceae). Dried calabash gourds are painted in bright colors and are fashioned into all sorts of decorative and useful objects, including shakers, bowls and containers. Read much more at The Wild & Wonderful World of Gourds: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0503.htm
Note that the Kora is a plucked harp-lute with a large calabash (gourd) body.

Jimmy Durante signed off his radio program with "Good night, Mrs. Calabash." He added "wherever you are" after the first year. At a National Press Club meeting in 1966 Durante revealed that it was a tribute to his first wife, Jeanne, who died in 1943.

Modern sanctuary for two avid cyclists in Southeast Portland
On a frigid winter evening, after the sun has dipped behind the trees, Tim Butler heads out for a bike ride. Shedding his daytime financial-analyst apparel in favor of cycling garb, he traverses the rainy streets for an hour or two before heading home for the night. His wife, Sue, one of the top cyclists in the world, makes dinner; she took a three-hour bicycle ride earlier in the day and has her suitcases packed in preparation for yet another race over the weekend. Eighteen bicycles, all Cannondales except for a single Litespeed, are lined up in the garage. The Butlers discuss recent rides and flat tires while they eat. The couple lives and breathes on two wheels, so it comes as no surprise that they built their home around their shared obsession. “We were running out of space at our condo, and we had overtaken the whole communal boiler room with our bikes,” Sue explains of their impetus to build a house. “And coming home from cyclocross races, we’d traipse upstairs in muddy clothes to use the community washing machines.” So the two enlisted the help of Path Architecture, a local firm headed by Ben Kaiser and Corey Martin, to create a home that not only evokes their love of the outdoors but also meets their need to restore both bodies and bicycles. Because the Butlers prefer unobstructed spaces, there are only two doors inside: one for the guest bedroom and one for the bathroom. The rest of the 2,000-square-foot interior is a series of expansive rooms that spiral up and around the fireplace. Sparsely furnished, the emphasis is on the sense of space and the view rather than on belongings—it’s a place for the couple to relax after hard days on their bikes. Perched on the third floor, overlooking the back courtyard, the master bedroom is a light-filled aerie. In temperate weather, the Butlers slide open the six-foot door to the adjoining porch and lie in bed watching the clouds drift above the treetops. “You can’t see the other houses. It’s like you’re in a tree house,” Sue says. As for the Butlers’ bicycles, those live across the courtyard in an outbuilding divided into two spaces. The first space, at the end of the driveway, is a garage for bicycles. Inside, bicycles hang on hooks in neat lines. Rows of labeled plastic bins hold spare parts, nutrition bars, and gels. A stacked washer and dryer in the corner stand at the ready for muddy jerseys and tights. Outside, there’s even a warm-water hose for washing off dirty bicycles on cold, rainy days. The other half of the outbuilding is separated from the mud and grease of the bicycle storage area by a small breezeway. The main room is a home gym that features what Sue calls the “Wall of Fame”—photos of the pair’s racing exploits. The pictures document Sue’s impressive rise in just five years from complete cycling novice to a competitor in last year’s UCI Cyclocross World Championships (she’s sponsored by MonaVie Cannondale). In the corner, at the top of two large Columbia basalt stone steps (another reference to the Gorge), sits a slender cedar bench that leads into an all-cedar custom sauna furnished with more movable benches. “It’s really nice after a cold ride,” says Sue. “When it’s chilly, Tim takes a shower, then goes in the sauna, and he’s as happy as a clam.” Amara Holstein January 2010
See pictures and slideshow at: http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/home-and-garden/articles/architecture-path-0110/

Bicyclists' house built for two, a December 2, 2011 update by Nancy Keates
Tall and narrow, reflecting the limitations of a skinny lot, the 2,800-square-foot two-bedroom, 2½-bathroom house looks like a mini, modern, wood-clad version of a high rise. Horizontal wood slats compensate for its verticalness, and a cedar wall that rings the house and garage creates the look of a compound. Exterior wood louvers slide across the windows to act as sun screens. See amazing pictures at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204262304577068260202452078.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Botts' dots are round nonreflective raised pavement markers. In many U.S. states and in several other countries, Botts' dots are used (along with reflective raised pavement markers) to mark lanes on highways and arterial roads. They provide tactile feedback to drivers when they move across designated travel lanes, and are analogous to rumble strips. Botts' dots are named after Dr. Elbert Dysart Botts, a California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) engineer credited with overseeing the research that led to the development of the markers. Botts' dots are most commonly white but may also be yellow when used to substitute for the yellow lines that divide opposing directions of traffic in North America. The dots are made of various ceramic materials, or plastics like polyester. On some roads, lanes are marked only with a mix of Botts' dots and conventional reflective markers, eliminating the need to repaint lane divider lines. Botts' dots are rarely used in regions with substantial snowfall, because snow plows damage or dislodge them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botts'_dots

The term bouma is sometimes used in the work of cognitive psychology to mean the shape of a cluster of letters, often a whole word. It is a reduction of "Bouma-shape", which was probably first used in Paul Saenger's 1997 book Space between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, although Saenger himself attributes it to Insup & Maurice Martin Taylor. Its origin is in reference to hypotheses by a prominent vision researcher, H. Bouma, who studied the shapes and confusability of letters and letter strings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouma

Brussels, 06 December 2011 - The European Commission has opened formal antitrust proceedings to investigate whether international publishers Hachette Livre (Lagardère Publishing, France), Harper Collins (News Corp., USA), Simon & Schuster (CBS Corp., USA), Penguin (Pearson Group, United Kingdom) and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck (owner of inter alia Macmillan, Germany) have, possibly with the help of Apple, engaged in anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books in the European Economic Area (EEA), in breach of EU antitrust rules. The opening of proceedings means that the Commission will treat the case as a matter of priority. It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation. The Commission will in particular investigate whether these publishing groups and Apple have engaged in illegal agreements or practices that would have the object or the effect of restricting competition in the EU or in the EEA. The Commission is also examining the character and terms of the agency agreements entered into by the above named five publishers and retailers for the sale of e-books. The Commission has concerns, that these practices may breach EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices (Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – TFEU). Thanks, Julie.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1509&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

2011-12-07T05:43:00.000-08:00

FROM THE CENTER FOR SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
Mycoprotein, the novel ingredient in Quorn-brand frozen meat substitutes, is made from processed mold (Fusarium venenatum). Though the manufacturer's (Marlow Foods) advertising and labeling implied that the product is "mushroom protein" or "mushroom in origin," the mold (or fungus) from which it is made does not produce mushrooms. Rather, the mold is grown in liquid solution in large tanks. It has been used in the United Kingdom since the 1990s and has also been sold in continental Europe. Quorn foods have been marketed in the United States since 2002. The chunks of imitation meat are nutritious, but the prepared foods in which they are used may be high in fat or salt. http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm#mycoprotein
Summary of the safety of food additives http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm#safety_summary

Manhattan is home to some of the country's oldest and most celebrated pizzerias, but the great metropolis also holds many mediocre slices. Colin Hagendorf has tasted it all. Hagendorf, a 28-year-old Brooklyn resident, may know New York-style pizza more exhaustively than any other living soul. During a 2½-year quest, he has sampled nearly every pie sold by the slice in Manhattan. The feat—involving 362 slice joints—is unmatched by any modern-day enthusiast, according to local pizza experts. Mr. Hagendorf began in August 2009 at Grandpa's Place near 211th Street and Broadway—in Manhattan's northernmost neighborhood—and worked his way down to the island's southern tip. He excluded from consideration national chains and cafeterias that don't make their own pizzas. The results are chronicled on Mr. Hagendorf's website, Slice Harvester, as well as in printed 'zines he assembles at copy shops and sells for $3 apiece—only slightly more than the price of the average cheese slice. The reviews are deeply personal and occasionally blue, written in the confessional manner of a pizza-obsessed Lenny Bruce. Each pizzeria gets a grade, from zero to an exalted eight. For Mr. Hagendorf, the best slices display balance above all, cheese and sauce used in moderation upon a solid yet supple crust. His slice-eating endeavor was born after a cross-country trip in 2009, when he grew outraged at a New York-style pizza served in Colorado Springs, Colo. After hearing him berate that, friends jokingly suggested Mr. Hagendorf market himself as a consultant for out-of-town pizzerias. Aaron Rutkoff http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203935604577064641987645430.html

Top Ten New York City Food Blogs
http://www.blogs.com/topten/top-10-new-york-city-food-blogs/

Farro is a food product consisting of the grains of certain wheat species in whole form. The exact definition is debated. It is sold dried and is prepared by cooking in water until soft, but still crunchy (many recommend first soaking over night). It may be eaten plain, though it is often used as an ingredient in dishes such as salads and soups. It is sometimes ground into flour and used to make pasta or bread. There is much confusion or disagreement about exactly what farro is. Emmer, spelt, and einkorn are called farro in Italy, sometimes (but not always) distinguished as farro medio, farro grande, and farro piccolo, respectively. Regional differences in what is grown locally and eaten as farro, as well as similarities between the three grains, may explain the confusion. Barley and farro may be used interchangeably because of their similar characteristics. Spelt is much more commonly grown in Germany and Switzerland and, though called dinkel there, is eaten and used in much the same way, and might therefore be considered farro. Common wheat may also be prepared and eaten much like farro, in which form it is often referred to as wheatberries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farro

In the hyperconnected Western world, our preoccupation with technology is evident in the glut of new expressions now in common parlance. Cringeworthy they may be, but expressions such as 'Let's take this offline, 'Do you have bandwidth?' and 'My brain needs a reboot' signify tech has become interwoven into our language. The birth of new words, and new meanings for existing words, are the most obvious signs of what technology has wrought in linguistic terms. A significant number of new words are being driven into the language because of the increasingly pervasive role technology plays in our lives, according to lexicographer John Simpson, a senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. "Digital technology is one of the main motivating forces behind new vocabulary," he tells silicon.com.
See the A-Z of tech-inspired words at: http://www.silicon.com/technology/software/2011/11/21/from-lolcat-to-textspeak-how-technology-is-shaping-our-language-39747927/print/

Think outside the box
Give non-electronic modest gifts such as books, magazines, games (Apples to Apples, Scrabble), homemade items (soaps, candles, food, crafts), service ("IOU" for certain number of visits, phone calls, postcards or letters, preparing meals, cleaning house, mowing grass or shoveling snow), money (individual or charity). Keep in mind that many gift cards and tickets for shows or concerts are never used.
See "Gifts That Say You Care" by Nicholas D. Kristof at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/kristof-gifts-that-say-you-care.html

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Petronella J.C. Elema Subject: pharaoh Def: 1. A title of an ancient Egyptian ruler. 2. A tyrant.
Pharaoh (or faro) was the name of a card game as well -- all the rage in the 18th and even 19th century, with whole fortunes being gambled away!
From: Jamie Polichak Subject: Massachusett / Wampanoag is no longer extinct
Massachusett/Wampanoag is no longer extinct. It has been revived, with work beginning in 1993 by people of Wampanoag ancestry and the linguistics department at MIT. It is the subject of a PBS documentary We Still Live Here.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/we-still-live-here/film.html
From: Clyde Johnson Subject: wampum
In my study of the American Indian I found it fascinating that wampum was also used as a record (history) of events in the life of the tribe by the pictograms that were woven into the wampum belt.

How much a person eats can be affected by the colors of the dinnerware and tablecloth, suggests a new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research. Previous research has shown the size of a dinner plate influences the quantity of food people consume—the larger the dish, the bigger the portion, and vice versa. A series of experiments by two U.S. researchers found participants served themselves significantly more food if the color contrast between the dinnerware and the food was low—for example, cream-colored pasta on a white plate. Overserving was reduced, however, when the contrast was more pronounced, for instance, by offering pasta with red tomato sauce on a white plate, the study found. The opposite occurred when dinnerware was contrasted with an underlying tablecloth. When the color difference was high, as with a white plate on a black tablecloth, for instance, participants served themselves about 10% larger portions than when the contrast was low. Excess portion size was essentially eliminated when contrast was removed, such as a white plate on a white tablecloth. The experiments, which involved about 200 participants 18 to 39 years old, were based on an optical illusion described by philosopher Franz Delboeuf in 1865. He discovered that if the same-size circle is placed inside two separate circles with different circumference sizes, the inner circles appear to be different sizes as well. Ann Lukits
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204753404577066253349009674.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
See Plate Size and Color Suggestibility: The Delboeuf Illusion's Bias on Serving and Eating Behavior by Koert Van Ittersum and Brian Wansink, Journal of Consumer Research http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/662615

The Delboeuf illusion is an optical illusion of relative size perception. In the best-known version of the illusion, two circles of identical size have been placed near to each other and one is surrounded by an annulus; the surrounded circle then appears larger than the non-surrounded circle if the annulus is close, while appearing smaller than the non-surrounded circle if the annulus is distant. See example of the illusion at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delboeuf_illusion

Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the good or service is featured. Product placement is an investment for brands trying to reach a niche audience, and there are strong reasons for investors to expect that film product placement will increase consumer awareness of a particular brand. Firms paid $722 million in fees, free product placement, and promotional support for film placement in 2005, and by 2010, spending on film placement is predicted to surge to 1.8 billion. In 2002, Volkswagen spent a estimated $200 million in fees to be integrated into NBC Universal films. Among the famous silent films to feature product placement was Wings (1927), the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It contained a plug for Hershey's chocolate. In Fritz Lang's film "M" released in (1931) there is a prominent banner display on a stair case in one scene for Wrigley's PK Chewing Gum which is right in the viewers eye for around 20-30 seconds. Another early example in film occurs in Horse Feathers (1932) where Thelma Todd's character falls out of a canoe and into a river. She calls for a life saver and Groucho Marx's character tosses her a Life Savers candy. The film It's a Wonderful Life (1946), directed by Frank Capra, depicts a young boy with aspirations to be an explorer, displaying a prominent copy of National Geographic. See many examples of placement, some "extreme," at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement Examples of reverse product placement (fictional brands brought to life) are Dunder Mifflin copy paper coming from television show The Office, and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, coming from the film Forrest Gump.

2011-12-06T04:51:00.000-08:00

Brenda Priddy runs an international photo syndicate, Brenda Priddy & Co. Her business card reads “Automotive Spy Photography.” “People claim that we do industrial espionage,” she says, “but we do it all from public areas and without breaking any laws. Basically we spend hours and hours doing surveillance and stakeouts, hoping to catch sight of a future car.” This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Automakers take myriad measures to protect forthcoming models. They cloak vehicles during transport. They create “mules,” cars with updated running gear hidden under the body of a current model. And they use camouflage—darkened trim, grafted prosthetics, black vinyl patches, or arresting paint patterns. “If you catch an action shot of our vehicles driving, you won’t be able to catch a clear shot of a feature line on the exterior,” says Corey Davis, who, as General Motors’ former quality audit supervisor for pre-production operations, was responsible for camouflage inspection. The subterfuge may seem absurd, but for automakers the stakes are huge. Not only are they working to prevent their intellectual property from being appropriated by their competitors, they’re also defending their current products, especially those that remain unsold. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/how-new-car-models-end-up-unmasked-11232011.html

The Fish Barcode of Life Initiative (FISH-BOL), is a global effort to coordinate an assembly of a standardised reference sequence library for all fish species, one that is derived from voucher specimens with authoritative taxonomic identifications. The benefits of barcoding fishes include facilitating species identification for all potential users, including taxonomists; highlighting specimens that represent a range expansion of known species; flagging previously unrecognized species; and perhaps most importantly, enabling identifications where traditional methods are not applicable. See map showing major fisheries regions of the Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations (FAO) at: http://www.fishbol.org/

U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, a name that honors an American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system, running east-northeast from Bishop, California to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Until 1964, it continued south from Bishop to Long Beach, California, and was a transcontinental route. After U.S. Route 20, it is the second-longest U.S. highway in the United States and the longest continuous highway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_6

The University of Pittsburgh owns one of the rare, complete sets of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. It is considered to be the single most valuable set of volumes in the collections of the University Library System (ULS). Only 120 complete sets are known to exist. While Audubon was creating Birds of America, he was also working on a companion publication, namely, his Ornithological Biography. Both of these sets were acquired by William M. Darlington in the mid-nineteenth century and later donated, as part of his extensive library, to the University of Pittsburgh. The Darlington Digital Library http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington/ includes significant historical materials, such as rare books, maps, atlases, illustrations, and manuscripts, the ULS charted an ambitious course to digitize a large portion of Mr. Darlington’s collection, including the Birds of America.
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/

A ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal's first compartment of the stomach, principally through bacterial actions, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again. The process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called "ruminating". There are about 150 species of ruminants which include both domestic and wild species. Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, bison, moose, elk, yaks, water buffalo, deer, camels, alpacas, llamas, antelope, pronghorn, and nilgai. Taxonomically, the suborder Ruminantia includes all those species except the camels, llamas, and alpacas, which are Tylopoda. Therefore, the term 'ruminant' is not synonymous with Ruminantia. The word "ruminant" comes from the Latin ruminare, which means "to chew over again". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruminant
The most significant gesture in business and in life is a handshake. In many cultures it is the unspoken message that accompanies our words. A handshake often takes place when you meet someone new, when you are greeting someone you haven't seen in a while, when you leave a party or meeting, when you offer congratulations or when you agree on a contract or working arrangement. Historians agree that the handshake was most likely developed several hundred years ago in England as a method to communicate that you were empty-handed and unarmed during a meeting. Weapons were often concealed in the left sleeve so shaking was done with the left hand. As more people began to travel without weapons it became common to shake with the right hand. http://ezinearticles.com/?Shaking-Hands-Throughout-History-and-Around-the-World&id=715550
Lucy King's work proved that beehive "fences" can keep elephants out of African farmers' fields or compounds. The animals are scared of bees, which can sting them inside their trunks, and flee when they hear buzzing. Dr King received the Unep/CMS Thesis Prize at the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) meeting in Norway.
Working in Kenya, she and her team showed that more than 90% of elephants will flee when they hear the sounds of buzzing bees. Subsequently, they also found that elephants produce a special rumble to warn their fellows of the danger.
They used the findings to construct barriers where beehives are woven into a fence, keeping the elephants away from places where people live and grow food. A two-year pilot project involving 34 farms showed that elephants trying to go through the fences would shake them, disturbing the bees. Later, the fences were adopted by farming communities in three Kenyan districts - who also made increased amounts of money from selling honey. "Dr Lucy King has designed a constructive solution that considers the needs of migratory animals but also the economic benefits to the local communities linked to species conservation," said CMS executive secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema. The elephants run away from bees - and from the lands that people have settled. As Africa's population grows, competition for space between people and elephants is becoming more serious, and there are fatalities on both sides. The same is true in parts of Asia. Sri Lanka alone sees the deaths of an estimated 60 people and 200 elephants each year from conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15836079

Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn New York Historical Society
November 11, 2011 - Apr 15 2012 Exhibition will travel; venues to be determined
The exhibition explores the enormous transformations in the world’s politics and culture between the 1763 triumph of the British Empire in the Seven Years' War and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Responding to growing public interest in the history of other cultures, Revolution! compares three globally influential revolutions in America, France and Haiti. The story of the 18th-century Atlantic revolutions is explained as a global narrative. Find address of museum and hours open at: http://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/revolution-the-atlantic-world-reborn
Browse the collection of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at: http://www.nyhistory.org/library

Q. Well, Doctor, what have we got--a Republic or a Monarchy? A. A Republic, if you can keep it.
The response is attributed to Benjamin Franklin--at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation--in the notes of Dr James McHenry, one of Maryland's delegates to the convention. http://www.bartleby.com/73/1593.html

Law enforcement’s use of cell phones and GPS devices to track an individual’s movements brings into sharp relief the challenge of reconciling technology, privacy, and law. Beyond the Constitution, a miscellany of statutes and cases may apply to these tracking activities. One such statute is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), P.L. 99-508, 100 Stat. 1848 (1986), which protects individual privacy and governs the methods by which law enforcement may retrieve electronic communications information for investigative purposes, including pen registers, trap and trace devices, wiretaps, and tracking devices. The primary debate surrounding cell phone and GPS tracking is not whether they are permitted by statute but rather what legal standard should apply: probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or something less. Legislation has been introduced in the 112th Congress that proposes to update, clarify, or, in some instances, strengthen the privacy interests protected under the law and give law enforcement a clearer framework for obtaining crucial crime-fighting information. Read Governmental Tracking of Cell Phones and Vehicles: The Confluence of Privacy, Technology, and Law by Richard M. Thompson December 1, 2011 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R42109 at: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R42109.pdf

Dec. 6 in History 1884: The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed.
http://www.siftingsherald.com/mobiletopstories/x1904671249/Morning-Minutes-Dec-6

2011-12-05T04:52:00.000-08:00

wampum (WOM-puhm) noun
1. Beads made from shells, strung in strands, belts, etc. used for ceremonial purposes, jewelry, and money.
2. Money.
Short for Massachusett wampompeag, from wampan (white) + api (string) + -ag, plural suffix. Massachusett, now extinct, was a member of the Algonquian language family spoken in the US and Canada. Earliest documented use: 1636.
pharaoh (FAR-o) noun
1. A title of an ancient Egyptian ruler.
2. A tyrant.
Via Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, from Egyptian pr-o, from pr (house) + o (great). The designation was for the palace but later used to refer to the king, just as White House can refer to the US President. Earliest documented use: around 1175. Egyptian is an extinct language of ancient Egypt.
mantissa (man-TIS-uh) noun
1. An addition of little importance.
2. The decimal part of a logarithm or the positive fractional part of a number.
Via Latin mantisa/mantissa (makeweight, something put in a scale to complete a needed weight), from a now extinct language, Etruscan, once spoken in what is now Tuscany, Italy. Earliest documented use: 1641. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Peter Nau Subject: DIOXIDE error
"What is special about the word DIOXIDE? You don't have to be a chemist to know that it reads the same upside down."
Not true, and a chemist would know better, since symmetry is very important to chemists. Stand on your head, read DIOXIDE, and you'll see what I mean. The usual meaning for "upside down" is to rotate something by 180 degrees, which doesn't achieve what you have in mind. The word does read the same if you fold over the word in place, top to bottom -- or if you read its reflection in a mirror placed along the top or bottom edge of the word. Furthermore, if it's written on a piece of paper, it reads the same upside down, if you flip the paper over (top to bottom) and read it with a strong light shining through the paper. Yes, this is a symmetry problem. Any word has the same property if its spelling exclusively comprises some of these upper case letters: BCDEHIOX. The letters are the same upon top/bottom reflection (as described above). The reason this happens, is that if you draw a horizontal line across the middle of the letters, the top and bottom of each letter are mirror images of each other. 'K' can be written so as to have this property, but it usually isn't.
From: Peter Langston Subject: verisimilitude
You wrote: The word verisimilitude has alternating consonants and vowels. Can you find a longer word with this property? Yes, here are a few: adenolipomatosis, aluminosilicate, anatomicomedical, categorematical, epicoracohumeral, epatomelanosis, hepatoperitonitis, heterometabolic, katakinetomeric, medicobotanical,
overimaginative, papulovesicular, parasitological, pericanalicular, reticulatoramose, reticulatovenose, retinopapilitis, semimineralized, superacidulated, superoratorical, vesiculotubular.
From: Zack Fisher Subject: yob
The creation of words and names by reversing the spelling of (other) words brings to mind Horace Miner's classic article Body Ritual Among The Nacirema. The article was published in The American Anthropologist in June 1956 and describes the quaint body rituals among the highly superstitious Nacirema people. The Nacirema believe that "...the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease." The article specifies various customs, including daily purification rituals, acquiring potions and charms from medicine men, and visiting the Latipso temple where "...ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover." The article uses professional and slightly condescending language, as befits an anthropological study of such a backward tribe. This is all very well until you realize that "Nacirema" is "American" spelled backwards and "Latipso" is "[H]ospital" in reverse. The article makes a fun and educational read.
From: Nancy Gill Subject: spelled backwards
Knitters who make a mistake and un-knit what they have done back to the point of the error are said to be "tink"-ing their work -- knit spelled backwards.

Dec. 7, 2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt called the unprovoked attack "a day that will live in infamy." Almost overnight, the United States moved from an officially neutral observer to a key participant in a world-wide war. By attacking the United States, Japan brought the world's greatest industrial complex, a skilled and resolved labor force and the largest supply of strategic raw materials into the war on the side of the Allies. The war turned into global conflict involving every major power in the world. Find links to interviews and more at: http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/enews/1111d.shtml

In an effort to hold onto sales of cholesterol fighter Lipitor after the drug loses patent protection at the end of this month, Pfizer is planning to sell the pills at generic prices directly to patients. If successful, the risky move could rewrite the industry's playbook for selling medicines. To stem the exodus, Pfizer has partnered with Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy in Flint, Mich., to mail Lipitor to patients who order the pills directly through the pharmacy. Diplomat would bill the patients' health plans. Those that have contracted with Pfizer would pay about a generic price for Lipitor, while plans that didn't would pay a higher price. Long term, Pfizer is kick-starting sales in fast-growing emerging markets like China, where the drug maker is betting that growing numbers of people diagnosed with high cholesterol will pay more for a so-called branded generic version of the drug than cheaper no-names. The effort may provide a new road map for selling prescription drugs, one no longer circumscribed by 20 years of patent protection and a 1984 law that sought to curb drug spending by authorizing generics following a patent's expiration. Johathan D. Rockoff Read much more at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203710704577052350701638614.html

The vine has a long history in Southern Italy. Oenotria, the land of vines, is what the Greeks affectionately called the modern-day ‘Mezzogiorno,’ the southern part of the Italian boot, in addition to Sicily. (It is important to know that) Southern Italy was effectively a Greek colony in the centuries before Christ, so much so, that the south was known as ‘Magna Graecia,’ literally ‘Greater Greece.’ When they colonized Southern Italy they brought with them one of the markers of civilization, the vine. Technically, the Phoenicians were the first to bring the vine, but it was the Greeks who brought both viticulture and viniculture, essentially a wine-making culture. http://www.colonialspirits.com/wine/oenotria-part-1

Italian wine is wine produced in Italy, a country which is home to some of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world. Italy is the world's largest wine producer, responsible for approximately one-fifth of world wine production in 2005. Italian wine is exported largely around the world and has market share of over 10% in most Asian countries like India. More than 1 million vineyards are under cultivation. Etruscans and Greek settlers produced wine in the country long before the Romans started developing their own vineyards in the 2nd century BC. Roman grape-growing and winemaking was prolific and well-organized, pioneering large-scale production and storage techniques like barrel-making and bottling. Italy's classification system has four classes of wine, with two falling under the EU category Quality Wine Produced in a Specific Region (QWPSR) and two falling under the category of 'table wine'. The four classes are:
Table Wine:
Vino da Tavola (VDT) - Denotes simply that the wine is made in Italy. The label usually indicates a basic wine, made for local consumption.
Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) - Denotes wine from a more specific region within Italy. This appellation was created in 1992 for wines that were considered to be of higher quality than simple table wines, but which did not conform to the strict wine laws for their region. Before the IGT was created, "Super Tuscan" wines such as Tignanello were labeled Vino da Tavola.
QWPSR:
Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC)
Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG)
Find a list of Italian wines and Italy's 20 wine regions at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_wine

December 5: Day of Ashura (Islam, 2011); St Nicholas's Eve in various European countries; Father's Day in Thailand
1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
1952 – The "Great Smog" began in London and lasted for five days, causing 12,000 deaths and leading to the Clean Air Act 1956.
See a picture of The Karnataka High Court, the High Court of the Indian state of Karnataka, is housed in a building named Attara Kacheri, meaning "eighteen offices" and more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

2011-12-02T06:16:00.000-08:00

The Federal Trade Commission on Nov. 30 issued the National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for Fiscal Year 2011. The FTC's National Do Not Call Registry provides consumers with an easy way to stop unwanted telemarketing calls. In its third year of publication, the Data Book contains a wealth of information about the Registry for FY 2011, including: The number of active registrations and consumer complaint figures since the Registry began in 2003; FY 2011 complaint figures by month and complaint type; FY 2011 registration and complaint figures for all 50 states and the District of Columbia by population; The number of entities accessing the Registry by fiscal year; and An appendix on registration and complaint data by consumer state and area code. According to the Data Book, at the end of FY 2011 (September 30, 2011), the Do Not Call Registry contained 209,722,924 actively registered phone numbers, up from 201,542,535 at the end of FY 2010. In addition, the number of consumer complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls increased from 1,633,819 at the end of FY 2010 to 2,272,662 at the end of FY 2011.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/11/dnc.shtm

Congress passed the National School Lunch Act in 1946 to support commodity prices after World War II by reducing farm surpluses while providing food to schoolchildren. By 1970, the program was providing 22 million lunches on an average day, about a fifth of them subsidized. Since then, the subsidized portion has grown while paid lunches have declined, but not since 1972 have so many additional children become eligible for free lunches as in fiscal year 2010, 1.3 million. The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the meals program. Eleven states, including Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/education/surge-in-free-school-lunches-reflects-economic-crisis.html?_r=1

The Beige Book, Nov. 30, 2011, a summary Overall economic activity increased at a slow to moderate pace since the previous report across all Federal Reserve Districts except St. Louis, which reported a decline in economic activity. District reports indicated that consumer spending rose modestly during the reporting period. Motor vehicle sales increased in a number of Districts, and tourism showed signs of strength. Business service activity was flat to higher since the previous report. Manufacturing activity expanded at a steady pace across most of the country. Overall bank lending increased slightly since the previous report, and home refinancing grew at a more rapid pace. Changes in credit standards and credit quality varied across Districts. Residential real estate activity generally remained sluggish, and commercial real estate activity remained lackluster across most of the nation. Single family home construction was weak and commercial construction was slow. Districts mostly reported favorable agricultural conditions. Activity in the energy and mining sectors increased since the previous report. Read more at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/BeigeBook/2011/20111130/default.htm

Law schools know all about the tough conditions that await graduates, and many have added or expanded programs that provide practical training through legal clinics. But almost all the cachet in legal academia goes to professors who produce law review articles, which gobbles up huge amounts of time and tuition money. The essential how-tos of daily practice are a subject that many in the faculty know nothing about — by design. One 2010 study http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1646983 of hiring at top-tier law schools since 2000 found that the median amount of practical experience was one year, and that nearly half of faculty members had never practiced law for a single day. Christopher Langdell was appointed dean of the Harvard Law School in 1870 and began to rebrand legal education. Mr. Langdell introduced “case method,” which is the short answer to the question “What does law school teach you if not how to be a lawyer?” This approach cultivates a student’s capacity to reason and all but ignores the particulars of practice. Consider, for instance, Contracts, a first-year staple. It is one of many that originated in the Langdell era and endures today. In it, students will typically encounter such classics as Hadley v. Baxendale, an 1854 dispute about financial damages caused by the late delivery of a crankshaft to a British miller. Here is what students will rarely encounter in Contracts: actual contracts, the sort that lawyers need to draft and file. “We should be teaching what is really going on in the legal system,” says Edward L. Rubin, a professor and former dean at the Vanderbilt Law School, “not what was going on in the 1870s, when much of the legal curriculum was put in place.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/business/after-law-school-associates-learn-to-be-lawyers.html

ARL is a nonprofit membership organization of 126 research libraries in North America. The Association operates as a forum for the exchange of ideas and as an agent for collective action. Membership in ARL is institutional. http://www.arl.org/arl/membership/members.shtml

OCLC is Online Computer Library Center, Inc. of Dublin, Ohio
In 1967, the presidents of the colleges and universities in the state of Ohio founded the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) to develop a computerized system in which the libraries of Ohio academic institutions could share resources and reduce costs. OCLC’s first offices were in the Main Library on the campus of The Ohio State University (OSU), and its first computer room was housed in the OSU Research Center. It was from these academic roots that Frederick G. Kilgour, OCLC’s first president, oversaw the growth of OCLC from a regional computer system for 54 Ohio colleges into an international network. In 1977, the Ohio members of OCLC adopted changes in the governance structure that enabled libraries outside Ohio to become members and participate in the election of the Board of Trustees; the Ohio College Library Center became OCLC, Inc. In 1981, the legal name of the corporation became OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Today, OCLC serves more than 72,000 libraries of all types in the U.S. and 170 countries and territories around the world. http://www.oclc.org/uk/en/about/history/default.htm

WorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative. It is built and maintained collectively by the participating libraries. Created in 1971, it contains more than 246 million different records pointing to over 1.77 billion physical and digital assets in more than 470 languages. It is the world's largest bibliographic database. OCLC makes WorldCat itself available free to libraries, but the catalog is the foundation for other fee-based OCLC services (such as resource sharing and collection management). WorldCat was founded by Fred Kilgour in 1967. In 2003, OCLC began the "Open WorldCat" pilot program, making abbreviated records from a subset of WorldCat available to partner Web sites and booksellers, to increase the accessibility of its member libraries’ collections. In 2006, it became possible to search WorldCat directly at its website: http://www.worldcat.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldCat

The Top 25 US Public Libraries’ Collective Collection, as Represented in WorldCat by Brian Lavoie, OCLC Research Taken together, all US public library holdings in WorldCat comprise a collective collection of 22.7 million distinct publications. Nearly 15 million of these are also held by at least one ARL member library, leaving about a third of the US publics’ collection that is exclusive of ARL holdings. The addition of the collective holdings of non-ARL US academic libraries to the ARL collection yields a collection of more than 71 million publications, of which more than 16 million are also held by at least one US public library. This still leaves 28 percent of the US publics’ collective collection distinct from US academic library holdings.
http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2011/lavoie-ndpl.pdf

The eyes of the world's media have been focused on Burma this week, for the first visit from a US Secretary of State since since 1955. Mrs Clinton used the term "Burma" but only sparingly, preferring to say "this country", but never apparently using the word "Myanmar", which is its official name. Why does the US not recognise the country's name? Nations and news organisations differ in what they call the country. The ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon. The Adaptation of Expression Law also introduced English language names for other towns, some of which were not ethnically Burmese. The change was recognised by the United Nations, and by countries such as France and Japan, but not by the US and the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16000467

2011-12-01T04:45:00.000-08:00

Products native to Latin America--unknown in Europe, Asia and Africa during the Middle Ages: Bean, Cacao, chocolate , Corn or maize , Peanut, Hot or chilli pepper, capsicum or sweet or bell pepper, Pineapple, Potato, Squash or marrow, zucchini, pumpkin, Tomato, Turkey, Vanilla http://www.oldcook.com/en/history-products_america

Quinine is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic (fever-reducing), antimalarial, analgesic (painkilling), anti-inflammatory properties and a bitter taste. Quinine is an effective muscle relaxant, long used by the Quechua Indians of Peru to halt shivering due to low temperatures. The Peruvians would mix the ground bark of cinchona trees with sweetened water to offset the bark's bitter taste, thus producing tonic water. Quinine has been used in unextracted form by Europeans since at least the early 17th century. Quinine was first used to treat malaria in Rome in 1631. During the 17th century, malaria was endemic to the swamps and marshes surrounding the city of Rome. Malaria was responsible for the death of several popes, many cardinals and countless common Roman citizens. Most of the priests trained in Rome had seen malaria victims and were familiar with the shivering brought on by the febrile phase of the disease. The Jesuit brother Agostino Salumbrino (1561–1642), an apothecary by training who lived in Lima, observed the Quechua using the bark of the cinchona tree for that purpose. At the first opportunity, Salumbrino sent a small quantity to Rome to test as a malaria treatment. In the years that followed, cinchona bark was known as Jesuit's bark or Peruvian Bark and became one of the most valuable commodities shipped from Peru to Europe. The form of quinine most effective in treating malaria was found by Charles Marie de La Condamine in 1737. Quinine was isolated and named in 1820 by French researchers Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou. The name was derived from the original Quechua (Inca) word for the cinchona tree bark, "quina" or "quina-quina", which roughly means "bark of bark" or "holy bark". Prior to 1820, the bark was first dried, ground to a fine powder and then mixed into a liquid (commonly wine) which was then drunk. To maintain their monopoly on cinchona bark, Peru and surrounding countries began outlawing the export of cinchona seeds and saplings beginning in the early 19th century. The Dutch government persisted in its attempt to smuggle the seeds, and by the 1930s Dutch plantations in Java were producing 22 million pounds of cinchona bark, or 97% of the world's quinine production. During World War II, Allied powers were cut off from their supply of quinine when the Germans conquered The Netherlands and the Japanese controlled the Philippines and Indonesia. The United States, however, had managed to obtain four million cinchona seeds from the Philippines and began operation of cinchona plantations in Costa Rica. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinine

Learn how about foods and how to pronounce them: quinoa, achiote, clafouti, and fregola. http://www.oprah.com/blogs/Sounds-Weird-Tastes-Good

Facebook, in a proposed settlement with the FTC, has agreed to get users' permission before changing privacy settings. It would also have privacy audits every other year for 20 years. According to an eight-count complaint, the FTC alleged that Facebook told users that third-party apps they installed would have access to only as much information as the apps needed to operate but took far more. It also alleged that personal information labeled as to be shared only with friends had been shared with third-party apps when a friend installed the apps. The FTC also accused Facebook of sharing personal information with advertisers. Facebook did not admit to violating any law. The proposed settlement notes that the company denies the FTC's allegations. But Facebook has agreed to get express consent from users before changing how it shares their information. An issue of growing concern at the FTC is facial recognition, which Facebook rolled out last year. The FTC said it would hold a workshop on facial recognition next week. "If they unveil a new product that uses facial recognition technology, they would have to address the privacy concerns," said Maneesha Mithal, associate director in the FTC's division of privacy and identity protection. The proposed settlement is open to public comment until Dec. 30 and requires a final vote by the FTC's commissioners.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-facebook-privacy-20111130,0,74780.story

News release from FTC, Facebook Settles FTC Charges That It Deceived Consumers By Failing To Keep Privacy Promises, 11/29/11 http://ftc.gov/opa/2011/11/privacysettlement.shtm

Nutcracker follow-up due to reader interest
The Imperial Mariinsky Theatre and its predecessor, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, hosted the premieres of many of the operas of Mikhail Glinka, Modest Mussorgsky, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. At the behest of the theatre director Ivan Vsevolozhsky, both the Imperial Ballet and the Imperial Opera were relocated to the Mariinsky Theatre in 1886, as the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was considered unsafe. It was there that the renowned choreographer Marius Petipa presented many of his masterpieces, including such staples of the ballet repertory as The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, The Nutcracker in 1892, Raymonda in 1898, and the definitive revival of Swan Lake (with Lev Ivanov) in 1895. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariinsky_Theatre

Earlier this year Amazon worked out a deal with California delay a start to collecting sales taxes until September 2012, after the state passed a law to require it. http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202513941879 More states – possibly all of them – are expected to follow its example. Currently, Amazon and other online sellers take advantage of a loophole in national sales-tax policy that requires a “physical presence” in the state for tax collection. Amazon had claimed its operations didn’t constitute a physical presence in California, and therefore, the “use tax” applied, which means customers are supposed to keep track of their purchases where sales tax isn’t collected and pay tax each year to their state. The Marketplace Fairness Act http://enzi.senate.gov/uploads/marketplacebill.pdf has been proposed in the Senate by a bipartisan group, and would close loopholes everywhere. However, critics point out that Amazon could benefit from the legislation, as it will offer to handle sales-tax chores for merchants selling through its site for a fee, according to MultiChannel Merchant, a marketing industry site.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/11/30/amazon-sales-tax-loopholes-likely-to-end-next-year/

New York City rang in the holiday season November 30 lighting the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree during a ceremony. The tree with its 30,000 lights (5 miles worth), will be on until Jan. 7. The first Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was set up in 1931.

December 1: World AIDS Day; Great Union Day in Romania (1918)
1822 Pedro I was crowned the first Emperor of Brazil, less than two months after he actually began his reign on October 12.
1913 Ford Motor Company began operating the world's first moving assembly line for the mass production of automobiles.
1925 The Locarno Treaties were formally signed in London, establishing post-First World War territorial settlements.
1955 In a key event in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About

2011-11-30T04:52:00.000-08:00

Around 1912, Ellen Shipman (1869-1950) began her career as a garden designer in Cornish, New Hampshire, and gained a mentor in the architect Charles Platt. Platt’s assistant taught her draftsmanship, and from Platt himself she developed a taste for strong axial garden layouts and tight visual connectivity between house and garden. She held her own, however, in preferring the simple clean geometries of Colonial gardens. By 1920, she had opened an office in New York City, where she hired graduates of the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture. Her most noted gardens are Longue Vue Gardens in New Orleans, the Cummer Estate (now the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida), and Stan Hywet Hall in Akron, Ohio, the latter where she was recommended by Warren H. Manning. Among her rare commercial projects are Lake Shore Boulevard, Grosse Point, Michigan and Aetna Life, Hartford, Connecticut. http://tclf.org/pioneer/ellen-shipman

The Carson Family Fund through the Toledo Community Foundation committed a significant gift to Metroparks to further the restoration of the historical Ellen Biddle Shipman garden at the Wildwood Manor House. In the latest project, the garden was extended in front of the garden, approximately in the footprint of a former swimming pool. The timing of the project seems fitting because this year marks the 75th anniversary of the garden, which was designed and built by Shipman, a pioneer in the field of landscape design. The Manor House is one of the few places you can still see an original Shipman garden. See picture at: http://www.metroparkstoledo.com/metro/item.asp?item_id=3934

See a guide to the Ellen Shipman papers, 1914-1946 held at Cornell: http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/pdf_guides/RMM01259s_A.pdf

See pictures of Shipman's New England gardens at: http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/457.pdf

Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

When you look closely at the people crowding Hong Kong's busy shopping streets, in many cases their eyeglasses have no glass. The plastic frames, usually in black, tortoiseshell or bright colors, are empty. Some reasons: "for fashion," "It makes my eyes look bigger," and "Those black circles are so seriously bad, I try to find some way to cover it." Not everyone is crazy about the trend, which optical industry executives say originated in Japan in the 1990s, mostly died away and then resurfaced recently with a vengeance among urbanites, male and female, in China, South Korea and Taiwan. Alex Frangos http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203699404577044020959385832.html

Stuck in a "deep freeze" for millennia, a mysterious mountain range deep under the Antarctic ice is finally coming to light. The Gamburtsev Mountains appear to be part of a rift—a series of ridges that form where Earth's tectonic plates separate—that once stretched about 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) long, a new study says. The rift may have been created about 250 million years ago, during the breakup of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. That landmass included today's East Antarctica, India, Africa, and Australia, said study co-author Fausto Ferraccioli of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England. Buried under about three miles (five kilometers) of ice, the Gamburtsev Mountains weren't even found until the mid-1900s, when Russian explorers recorded unusual gravity fluctuations emanating from beneath the ice. Subsequent studies have revealed a giant range, on par with the European Alps, with the highest peaks rising nearly 15,000 feet (4,500 meters). Richard A. Lovett http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111116-antarctica-mountains-mystery-ice-science-earth/

Nuts and Crackers In this annual holiday-themed performance, students from Fort Wayne Dance Collectives’s School for Movement Studies and Creative Process showcase what they’ve learned in the Fall semester.
Sunday, December 18 at 2 p.m. Email info@fwdc.org or call 424-6574 for more information.

"Get Up and Get Moving" Fort Wayne Dance Collective is a nonprofit organization, whose mission is to provide people of all ages and abilities a respectful environment to learn, collaborate and perform using movement, rhythm and language. See video at: http://fwdc.org/

Nov. 30 in history
1782 American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris – In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).
1803 In New Orleans, Louisiana, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.
1804 The Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase.
1824 First ground is broken at Allenburg for the building of the original Welland Canal.
1829 First Welland Canal opens for a trial run, 5 years to the day from the ground breaking.
1872 The first-ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England.
1886 The Folies Bergère stages its first revue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_30

Nov. 30 birthdays
1965 Ben Stiller
1952 Mandy Patinkin
1874 Winston Churchill
1874 Lucy Maud Montgomery
1835 Mark Twain

2011-11-29T04:33:00.000-08:00

In the world of dance, there is a tradition that dates back the to the late 19th century – the tradition of The Nutcracker, the marvelous ballet Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was commissioned by Marius Petipa to compose for Russia’s Kirov Ballet. Based on Alexandre Dumas’ adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s book, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” which was published in the early 1800s, the ballet was choreographed by Lev Ivanov and conducted at that premiere performance on Dec. 8, 1890 by Riccardo Drigo. Marius Petipa, renowned dancer/choreographer who choreographed the composer’s Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty Ballet, wrote the libretto for The Nutcracker, to which Tchaikovsky composed the music. The Nutcracker was one of the composer’s final works. He died November 6, 1893 a year after its premiere. The Nutcracker ballet was performed in various parts of its native Russia after its debut at the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg. It took almost forty years before it made it to Europe. It first appeared in the United States performed by the Ballet Russe in 1940. It is often performed with movements transposed, and for a long time The Nutcracker Suite, eight selections from the ballet which Tchaikovsky himself selected, was mistaken for the entire 90-minute ballet. The Suite premiered a year before the complete ballet was performed.
http://www.arttimesjournal.com/dance/Dec_06_Trevens/Dec_06_Nutcracker.htm

HOBOKEN, Belgium—Dirk Denoyelle got his first Lego set when he was 7 years old. Today, he has nearly three million pieces. In between, he earned an engineering degree, learned several languages and became a stand-up comedian. Mr. Denoyelle is a proud Adult Fan of Lego, or AFOL, as aficionados call themselves. "We still see ourselves as a toy company, but the world is challenging us on that," says Tormod Askildsen, a senior director at Lego headquarters in Billund, Denmark. Lego is in contact with about 90 fan groups boasting roughly 70,000 members throughout the world, says Mr. Askildsen. Many of them are adults with strong opinions. Adults increasingly use Lego in business for graphics, modeling and education. So many professionals use Lego that the company is rethinking its Certified Professionals program, which began in 2005, to make it seem less elitist, says Lego spokesman Andrew Arnold. As of now, the 13 LCPs, who act as goodwill ambassadors, aren't paid by Lego but must adhere to its strict decency standards, such as no weapons. In return, they get to buy bricks wholesale. Daniel Michaels See pictures at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203503204577038164225658328.html

The sestina is a challenging form in which, rather than simply rhyming, the actual line-ending words are repeated in successive stanzas in a designated rotating order. A sestina consists of six 6-line stanzas, concluding with a 3-line “envoi” which incorporates all the line-ending words, some hidden inside the lines. Find links to a glossary of poetic forms and examples of sestinas at: http://poetry.about.com/od/poeticforms/g/sestina.htm

A E I O U, más sabe el burro que tú. (A E I O U, the donkey knows more than you.) Spanish jingle

Y can make a vowel sound; for instance, sympathy uses Y as a vowel twice. Rhythm uses Y and H as vowels. (The H makes a brief, indeterminate vowel sound.) Syzygy uses Y as a vowel three times. (The second Y is a brief, indeterminate vowel sound.)

A dash of high-quality oil provides an intense burst of unusual flavor to a portion of vegetables, an ordinary salad dressing or even a piece of bread, chefs say. Reddish-green and nutty-tasting, pumpkin seed oil is among the fastest growing in popularity. Like pumpkin itself, it is suitable for both sweet and savory dishes. Avocado oil imparts a light fruitiness to salad dressings; macadamia-nut oil works on salads, too, and is ideal for baking. Amber-red argan oil, an expensive Moroccan import, has a deep, almost meaty flavor suitable for hearty dishes. At Kalustyan's, a Manhattan grocer that specializes in imported spices, oils and vinegars, co-owner Aziz Osmani says his best-selling specialty oils are argan, pumpkin seed and pistachio—neon green, with an intense pistachio perfume. Most are bought by professional chefs, Mr. Osmani says, although he is seeing more interest from "people who are really foodies." J.S. Marcus
See pictures and read tips from chefs at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204358004577032440100359370.html

Remove tarnish from aluminum pots
Combine 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar with 1 quart of water or combine 2 tablespoons of white vinegar and a sliced lemon with 1 quart of water. For pots larger than 1 quart, make enough liquid to cover the tarnished portion, but preserve the ingredients ratio. Pour the mixture into the aluminum pot. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. Allow the mixture to boil for 20 minutes. Rinse the pot to remove residue. Dry thoroughly with a towel.
http://www.ehow.com/how_12100337_remove-tarnish-aluminum-pots.html

Cream of tartar, more technically known as potassium hydrogen tartrate, is a fine white powder with many culinary applications. It is a byproduct of the winemaking process as the powder forms inside wine barrels during fermentation. It comes from tartaric acid, a naturally occurring substance in grapes and some other tart fruits that in the principle acid in winemaking. It helps to help control the pH of fermenting grape juice (wine) and that also acts as a preservative for the wine. Tartaric acid has been used in winemaking for centuries (when separated from grapes and purified, it is a white powder that is similar to cream of tartar) and cream of tartar has been around just as long, put to use by creative cooks in a variety of culinary applications. It is an acid and it is often used as a major component in baking powder, combined with baking soda to react when the mixture is moistened to ensure that baked goods will rise well. Although it is an acid, the cream of tartar and the baking soda will not react when dry, so the entire reaction is saved for the mixing bowl and the oven. http://bakingbites.com/2008/07/what-is-cream-of-tartar/

The Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization of science centers and museums dedicated to furthering public engagement with science among increasingly diverse audiences. ASTC encourages excellence and innovation in informal science learning by serving and linking its members worldwide and advancing their common goals. http://www.astc.org/about/index.htm

See short demonstration titled Quantum Levitation from ASTC at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA Thanks, Paul.

2011-11-28T04:42:00.000-08:00

IOWA CITY – A 7,000-year-old archaeological site in Des Moines is so well-preserved and complete that it will provide researchers with exciting insight into the types of tools the people in the village used, the types of animals they kept and ate and the types of seeds they planted, University of Iowa archaeologists said August 18 after the find was announced. The site, nicknamed “the Palace” because of its size and preservation, yielded the remains of two humans, a woman and an infant, that are the oldest human bones to be found in the state. “It’s always fun to find the oldest of something … but the real significance lies in how well-preserved it is,” State Archaeologist John Doershuk said. “This site is important because it was intensively occupied and very quickly river floods sealed the deposits and very quickly preserved items that otherwise could have been lost. It’s all about preservation context, and that’s what this site really has in abundance that other sites don’t.” Because so many items were found together at the site – UI archaeologists gathered more than 6,000 artifacts – it helps researchers put into context the information they learn about how the villagers lived, what they ate and how they were developing as a people, Doershuk said. “It’s all the archaeological questions that anthropologists wish they could answer in more detail but often can’t,” he said. Construction work was ongoing at the site, the future home of a new wastewater treatment facility north of the Des Moines River in southeast Des Moines, when workers moving dirt noted charcoal and burned earth stains, Doershuk said. The Office of the State Archaeologist, based at the UI, was called to the site in December 2010 to monitor the work and investigate interesting findings. The site is owned by the Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority, made up of 16 metro area municipalities, counties and sewer districts. Anytime a project has federal permitting or federal funding, like this one does, it triggers certain requirements, including archaeological studies, Doershuk said. The UI archaeologists worked through May to collect as much information and as many artifacts as possible before construction work had to return to that portion of the site. They found the remnants of four oval-shaped deposits, possibly houses, as large as 800 square feet with hearths.
http://thegazette.com/2011/08/18/ui-archaeologists-find-7000-year-old-site-in-des-moines/

America has a new poet laureate as of August 10, when the Library of Congress named Philip Levine in the one-year position. He succeeds W.S. Merwin in the post. Born in Detroit in 1928, Levine has used his poetry to examine blue-collar life, often embroidering everyday events with a sense of myth. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington called Levine "one of America's great narrative poets. His plainspoken lyricism has, for half a century, championed the art of telling 'The Simple Truth'—about working in a Detroit auto factory, as he has, and about the hard work we do to make sense of our lives."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/08/10/139348573/philip-levine-named-as-americas-new-poet-laureate

See Philip Levine biography, awards and other resources at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Levine_(poet)

earmark noun identification mark on the ear of a domestic animal, a distinctive characteristic or attribute
a distinguishing quality, a distinctive nature, character, or type
earmark verb give or assign a resource to a particular person or cause
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/earmark

Almost 13 years ago, Rep. David McIntosh, R-Ind., directed $375,000 in federal funding "to improve State Road 31" in Columbus, Ind., a city at the edge of his district. The McIntosh "earmark" seemed routine at the time, like almost 2,000 other congressional pet projects that lawmakers inserted into the 1998 highway bill. But there was a problem: "There is no State Road 31 that travels through Columbus, only U.S. 31," says Will Wingfield, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation. The error hurt all of Indiana and has wrapped the earmark in red tape to this day. The money not only remains unspent, but because Congress counts money earmarked for highway projects against a state's share of federal gas tax revenue, the amount of the earmark reduced what Indiana would have received in federal funding — almost dollar for dollar. See a table showing lost money by states at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-01-04-earmarks_N.htm

When the recession squeezed Miami's budget in recent years, officials reached into funds raised for road repairs and other projects to plug the shortfall. In Miami, the Securities and Exchange Commission is wrapping up an investigation into whether the city used funds intended for roads and other purposes to fill budget gaps elsewhere, according to people close to the probe. Bondholders are suing, saying the moves obscured the city's true finances. The city's former budget director is also suing, claiming he was fired for cooperating with the SEC and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In Modoc County, Calif., officials were ordered last year by the state controller to repay more than $13 million they moved, including state and federal tax dollars earmarked for schools, roads, welfare programs and other projects. The county, as late as 2008, channeled some of those restricted funds into its main hospital. When Ecorse, Mich., ran into a financial crunch in 2008 and 2009, the city used more than $2 million intended for schools and other areas to fill budget shortfalls, according to a state audit. Portland, Ore., over the past five years used money raised for water and sewers to pay for other purposes, including remodeling a building for the nonprofit foundation that runs the city's Rose Festival, according to a March report by the city auditor.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203503204577035931801712666.html

Q: I read there's a place in Ohio with 18 covered bridges.
A: It's Ashtabula County, which also claims the nation's longest and shortest covered bridges. The longest, at 613 feet, was dedicated three years ago. The shortest, just 18 feet, replaced an old bridge in Geneva in August. A bus passing through looks like a hot dog in a bun. Associated Press
Q: Does the Constitution prohibit members of certain religious denominations from becoming president?
A: It says "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office of public Trust under the United States." U.S. Archives http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2011/Nov/JU/ar_JU_111411.asp?d=111411,2011,Nov,14&c=c_13

Find calendars, holidays, moon phases and more at: http://www.calendar-365.com/

Congressional Cemetery - for presidents and residents alike
In 1807 the first burial ground in the new federal city was founded. Because of its close proximity to the seat of government members of Congress, military and government officials were interred, along with a number of ordinary citizens. The Association for the Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery maintains and operates the 35+ acres, 14,000 headstones, and burial place of over 55,000 people whose stories are part of our American History.
http://www.congressionalcemetery.org/
Frequently asked questions: http://www.congressionalcemetery.org/faq
Histories of Congressional Cemetery: http://www.congressionalcemetery.org/histories-congressional-cemetery
Find well-known people such as J. Edgar Hoover and John Philip Sousa in the Interment Index: http://www.congressionalcemetery.org/interment-index-0

2011-11-23T04:26:00.001-08:00

Beginning September 1, 2009, prerecorded commercial telemarketing calls to consumers – commonly known as robocalls – will be prohibited, unless the telemarketer has obtained permission in writing from consumers who want to receive such calls, the Federal Trade Commission announced today. “American consumers have made it crystal clear that few things annoy them more than the billions of commercial telemarketing robocalls they receive every year,” said Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC. “Starting September 1, this bombardment of prerecorded pitches, senseless solicitations, and malicious marketing will be illegal. If consumers think they’re being harassed by robocallers, they need to let us know, and we will go after them.” The new requirement is part of amendments to the agency’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) that were announced a year ago. After September 1, sellers and telemarketers who transmit prerecorded messages to consumers who have not agreed in writing to accept such messages will face penalties of up to $16,000 per call. The rule amendments going into effect on September 1 do not prohibit calls that deliver purely “informational” recorded messages – those that notify recipients, for example, that their flight has been cancelled, an appliance they ordered will be delivered at a certain time, or that their child’s school opening is delayed. Such calls are not covered by the TSR, as long as they do not attempt to interest consumers in the sale of any goods or services. For the same reason, the rule amendments also do not apply to calls concerning collection of debts where the calls do not seek to promote the sale of any goods or services. In addition, calls not covered by the TSR – including those from politicians, banks, telephone carriers, and most charitable organizations – are not covered by the new prohibition. The new prohibition on prerecorded messages does not apply to certain healthcare messages. The new rule prohibits telemarketing robocalls to consumers whether or not they previously have done business with the seller. Under a previous rule that took effect on December 1, 2008, telemarketing robocall messages by businesses covered by the TSR must tell consumers how to opt-out of further calls at the start of the message, and provide an automated opt-out mechanism that is voice or keypress-activated. Prerecorded messages left on answering machines must also provide a toll-free number that connects to the automated opt-out mechanism. After September 1, consumers who receive prerecorded telemarketing calls but have not agreed to get them should file a complaint with the Commission, either on the donotcall.gov Web site or by calling 1-888-382-1222.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/08/robocalls.shtm

Rachel/Michelle/Heather of Cardholder Services robocalls cannot be prevented "because credit card companies aren't covered by these new regulations." http://www.startribune.com/blogs/56621147.html

Robocalls are made by all political parties in the United States, including but not limited to both the Republican and Democratic parties as well as unaffiliated campaigns, 527 organizations, unions, and individual citizens. Political robocalls are exempt from the United States National Do Not Call Registry. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. However, political groups are excluded from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) definition of telemarketer, thus robocalls from or on behalf of political organizations are permitted under the FTC rules however they are prohibited by FCC rules that prohibit all robocalls (including charity and political calls) when made to cell phones and certain other numbers, without express consent or an emergency purpose. The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) regulates automated calls. While political calls are exempt from FTC regulations, all calls, irrespective of whether they are political in nature, must do two things to be considered legal. The federal law requires all telephone calls using pre-recorded messages to identify who is initiating the calls and include a telephone number or address whereby the initiator can be reached. The TCPA prohibits all prerecorded calls to cell phones, except those made with express consent or emergency purposes. Some states (23 according to DMNews) have laws that regulate or prohibit political robocalls. Indiana and North Dakota prohibit automated political calls. In New Hampshire, political robocalls are allowed—except when the recipient is in the National Do Not Call Registry. Many states require the disclosure of who paid for the call, often requiring such notice be recorded in the candidate's own voice. The patch-work of state laws regulating political robocalls has created problems for national campaigns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocall

Before computers, photo manipulation was achieved by retouching with ink, paint, double-exposure, piecing photos or negatives together in the darkroom, or scratching Polaroids. Airbrushes were also used, whence the term "airbrushing" for manipulation. The first recorded case of photo manipulation was in the early 1860s, when a photo of Abraham Lincoln was altered using the body from a portrait of John C. Calhoun and the head of Lincoln from a famous seated portrait by Mathew Brady – the same portrait which was the basis for the original Lincoln Five-dollar bill. The 1980s saw the advent of digital retouching with Quantel computers running Paintbox, and Scitex imaging workstations being used professionally. Silicon Graphics computers running Barco Creator became available in the late 1980s which, alongside other contemporary packages, were effectively replaced in the market by Adobe Photoshop. Photo manipulation is as old as photography itself; contrary to the idea of a photo having inherent verisimilitude. Photo manipulation has been regularly used to deceive or persuade viewers, or for improved story-telling and self-expression. Oftentimes even subtle and discreet changes can have profound impacts on how we interpret or judge a photograph which is why learning when manipulation has occurred is important. Joseph Stalin made use of photo retouching for propaganda purposes. On May 5, 1920 his predecessor Vladimir Lenin held a speech for Soviet troops that Leon Trotsky attended. Stalin had Trotsky retouched out of a photograph showing Trotsky in attendance. Nikolai Yezhov, an NKVD leader photographed alongside Stalin in at least one photograph, was edited out of the photograph after his execution in 1940. A notable case of a controversial photo manipulation was a 1982 National Geographic cover in which editors photographically moved two Egyptian pyramids closer together so that they would fit on a vertical cover. This case triggered a debate about the appropriateness of photo manipulation in journalism; the argument against editing was that the magazine depicted something that did not exist, and presented it as fact. There were several cases since the National Geographic case of questionable photo manipulation, including editing a photo of Cher on the cover of Redbook to change her smile and her dress. Another example occurred in early 2005, when Martha Stewart's release from prison was featured on the cover of Newsweek; her face was placed on a slimmer woman's body to suggest that she had lost weight while in prison. Another famous instance of controversy over photo manipulation, this time concerning race, arose in the summer of 1994. After O.J. Simpson was arrested for allegedly murdering his wife and her friend, multiple publications carried his mugshot. Notably, TIME Magazine published an edition featuring an altered mugshot credited to Matt Mahurin, removing the photograph's color saturation (perhaps inadvertently making Simpson's skin darker), burning the corners, and reducing the size of the prisoner ID number. This appeared on newsstands right next to an unaltered picture by Newsweek. A further noted example is the Adnan Hajj photographs controversy (2006), when the photographer in question retouched war images using the clone tool to increase the size of a smoke plume and to duplicate flares. There is a growing body of writings devoted to the ethical use of digital editing in photojournalism. In the United States, for example, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) have set out a Code of Ethics promoting the accuracy of published images, advising that photographers "do not manipulate images [...] that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects." Infringements of the Code are taken very seriously, especially regarding digital alteration of published photographs, as evidenced by a case in which Pulitzer prize-nominated photographer Allan Detrich resigned his post following the revelation that a number of his photographs had been manipulated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_manipulation

When Michael Crichton died at age 66 in November 2008, he left behind a pregnant wife, an unpublished novel and the beginnings of another book. His son, John Michael Crichton Jr., was born four months later. His 16th novel, Pirate Latitudes, was published in November 2009. On November 28, Micro (Harper, $28.99), a techno-thriller that Crichton worked on during cancer treatments, will be released. It was completed by Richard Preston. Preston, 57, a former veterinarian, is best known for The Hot Zone, a 1994 non-fiction best seller about the ebola virus, and The Cobra Event, a 1998 novel about the terrorist release of a fictional virus. Preston never met Crichton but recalls being thrilled as a teen by Crichton's first best seller, The Andromeda Strain, about a deadly alien microorganism. It was published in 1969, the year Crichton graduated from medical school. Preston says, "The Hot Zone was a non-fiction answer to The Andromeda Strain." http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2011-11-21/micro-michael-crichton-richard-preston/51340362/1

John F. Kennedy quotes
"If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live." Address at Harvard University, June 14, 1956
"The life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is very close to the center of a nation's purpose...and is a test of the quality of a nation's civilization." Statement prepared for Creative America, 1963 (Inscribed at the Kennedy Center for the performing Arts)
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx

Famous authors who died on November 22, 1963 are Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis. Find list of well-known people who died on November 22 of various years at: http://www.brainyhistory.com/daysdeath/death_november_22.html

Find obituaries listed by November, by the years 2007-2011, and from archives at: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/obituaries/index.html

2011-11-22T05:44:00.000-08:00

Despite rising online book sales and digital downloads and the Great Recession, bookstores in the Nashville area were profitable—right up until they closed. Even Davis-Kidd, locally owned until the Joseph-Beth Booksellers chain purchased it in 1997, had been solvent, undone not by the collapse of the local market but by the bankruptcy of the parent company. (The local Barnes & Noble, at the Opry Mills mall, was closed after a 2010 flood.) Nashville lost its bookstores not because people there had abandoned physical books and retailers. For the most part, it lost them remotely, at the corporate level. Nashville’s story is not unique. When Borders declared bankruptcy in February, more than 200 of its 400 outlets were still “highly profitable,” says its final chief executive officer, Mike Edwards. There’s no question that the book industry is in flux, with digital sales last year making up about $900 million of the $28 billion-a-year market and increasing fast. But a sizable portion of the book business is still taking place in actual stores. The one thing Borders did have going for it was its huge selection, yet even that wasn’t worth as much as the company thought. An average Borders superstore stocked around 140,000 titles at immense cost, but if a customer craves selection, no store can compete with the long tail of the Internet. Maybe more crucially for Borders, the assortment of titles that provided the key to its identity didn’t give it a competitive edge over Barnes & Noble. From 1999 onward, though, Borders was headed by six different CEOs, none of whom stayed long enough to make the company work. In 2008, Borders launched 14 “concept stores,” as part of what it called “a new shopping experience.” Customers were expected to travel to these massive stores to use download stations for books and music, which just isn’t how e-commerce works. In Nashville, retailers are springing up to fill the bookstore void. In November, Vanderbilt moved its university bookstore into the 27,000 square feet formerly occupied by Borders. Just a mile away, BookMan BookWoman, a used bookstore, has started stocking new titles, mostly New York Times bestsellers or books by local authors. Novelist and local resident Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder, will open a bookstore in Nashville in November. Called Parnassus, after the Greek mountain that is the mythological home of poetry and learning, Patchett’s store will be a 10th the size of the average Borders. “I want to do it brilliantly at 2,500 square feet,” she says, “not struggle in something the size of Macy’s.” Like many others in Nashville, she was waiting for someone to do something about the city’s bookstore drought.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-end-of-borders-and-the-future-of-books-11102011.html

Favignana is a wonderful Mediterranean island full of colours and traditions. It is the biggest one of the Egladi islands (the other ones are Levanzo, Marettimo, Formica and Maraone) being characterized by a level land where there is just a hill called S.Caterina and many natural marvels. Its sea is very clear, uncontaminated and full of fish while its coast is essentially rocky but also very accessible. All around this island you can find many beaches made up by thin sand that can be white or pink. Here the climate is mild characterized by a long summertime that starts in May and finishes in October. During the first part of May there is the traditional tuna fishing. This island takes its name from “Favonio” that is a hot wind coming from the west and its shape recalls which one of a butterfly. Its chalky soil has always allowed the tufa stones mining: this material, in fact, has been used to build many houses in Sicily and in North Africa.
http://www.goingthroughitaly.com/1223/favignana-the-butterfly-shaped-island/

Limestone refers to sedimentary rocks that contain a minimum of 50 percent of calcium carbonate in their composition. Minor components include clay, iron, feldspar, and quartz. Limestone is formed by the deposition of calcium carbonate suspended in the water or by the accumulation of shells and other fossilized materials. Limestone rock types include chalk, coquina, travertine, tufa, as well as oolitic and lithographic limestone.
http://www.ehow.com/info_8212230_limestone-rock-types.html

Ever growing use of software and wireless technology in modern cars exposes users to unknown risks to personal safety while driving, according to security technology company McAfee. In a new report on emerging risks in automotive system security, McAfee said that researchers have already demonstrated potential attacks on running cars such as opening doors and starting car engines by using text messages. The risk of losing control and privacy increases if hackers gain access to the cars physically, but malicious hacking could target drivers remotely as well, said the report. The report said that "researchers have showed that an attack can be mounted to track a vehicle and compromise passengers' privacy by tracking the RFID tags using powerful long-distance readers at around 40 meters." The report, 'Caution: Malware Ahead', published in conjunction with Wind River and ESCRYPT, examines the security of electrical systems that have become commonplace in today's cars. Modern cars have become ever more reliant on wireless systems such as Bluetooth and software to function. McAfee said that software is embedded in several car parts now including airbags, power seats, anti-lock braking systems, electronic stability controls, autonomous cruise controls, communication systems and in-vehicle communication.
http://security.cbronline.com/news/modern-cars-vulnerable-to-remote-malicious-attacks-mcafee-090911

Caution: Malware Ahead Read the 12-page report at:
http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-caution-malware-ahead.pdf

Thanksgiving recipes http://thanksgiving.food.com/
Number to Know 3: Number of places in the United States named after the holiday's traditional main course. Turkey, Texas, was the most populous in 2009, with 445 residents, followed by Turkey Creek, La., (362) and Turkey, N.C. (272). There are also nine townships around the country named Turkey, three in Kansas. – Census.gov
This Day in History Nov. 22, 1963: In Dallas, President John F. Kennedy is killed and Texas Gov. John B. Connally is seriously wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald.
http://www.eldoradotimes.com/newsnow/x1760399995/Morning-Minutes-Nov-22

In Chile's dry, hot, desert-like Atacama Region, a group of Smithsonian researchers are digging up whales. The fossil site, near the port city of Caldera in northern Chile, was discovered in late 2010 by a construction company expanding the Pan-American Highway. In a road cut, the workers discovered complete skeletons of baleen whales, says paleobiologist Nick Pyenson, the curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The company agreed to grant the site a brief reprieve, allowing Pyenson to coordinate a short-term excavation of the fossils. Since October, Pyenson and a team of researchers have made two trips to the site's late Miocene marine rocks, which contain a rich diversity of marine vertebrates. They are striving to learn how the site was formed and how the marine mammals died—a field known as taphonomy. The team has found more than 20 complete whale skeletons, and about 80 individual specimens, as well as other types of marine mammals.
Carolyn Gramling http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/11/researchers-rush-to-recover-whale.html

Learning to Live Without a Statistical Abstract: Thinking about Future Access to Government Information by James T. Shaw Twenty-four years ago, in 1987, I made a presentation called “Basic Ready Reference: Documents that a Reference Librarian Cannot Live Without” at a meeting of the Iowa Library Association Government Documents Round Table. My top recommendation was the Statistical Abstract of the United States, that annual compendium of data so familiar and indispensable to American librarians everywhere. Twelve years ago, in 1999, I made a similar presentation at the NLA/NEMA Annual Conference, and again the Statistical Abstract took its place as the preeminent resource. The title of my presentation [at the Nebraska Library Association annual conference, October 2011] “Learning to Live Without a Statistical Abstract,” signals that our gathering this morning is something of a memorial. The Statistical Abstract, born in 1878 and published annually thereafter, may well be dead, a victim of cuts to the U.S. Census Bureau contained in the House of Representatives’ 2012 Appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice, and Science. For librarians and researchers, the Statistical Abstract provides not only immediate access to data, it also provides valuable leads via the source notes. The Statistical Abstract includes both public and private sources. In the case of private sources, it gives you a glimpse of data that may reside behind a pay wall. The cryptic “unpublished data” gives a clue to when it is time to contact an agency directly. The 2011 Statistical Abstract includes 1,407 tables, which address an impressive range of topics related to government, the economy, business, politics, and social concerns. If it has been awhile since you have browsed through a Statistical Abstract, or if it is a resource new to you, then I think it would be well worth your time to become reacquainted or acquainted with it. http://www.llrx.com/features/futureaccessgovtinfo.htm

2011-11-21T04:03:00.000-08:00

David Handler (aka 1/2 of Russell Andrews w/Peter Gethers) Handler started his career as a New York journalist and writes two series: one about a film critic and the other about a celebrity ghostwriter and, for all of you dog lovers, his neurotic Basset Hound. http://www.cozy-mystery.com/Author_H.html

Russell Andrews is a pseudonym used by book editor Peter Gethers and mystery author David Handler. http://authors.omnimystery.com/andrews-russell.html

Norton, The Loveable Cat Who Travelled the World by Peter Gethers
Peter Gethers hates cats. That is until he meets Norton, a very cute, very friendly Scottish Fold kitten. Soon Peter and Norton are inseparable, travelling together on trains and boats, in planes and cars all over the world! Eating at restaurants, making new friends and meeting famous movie stars - read all about these and Norton's other real-life adventures in this wonderful true story.
http://nayusreadingcorner.blogspot.com/2011/05/norton-loveable-cat-who-travelled-world.html

catawampus (kat-uh-WOM-puhs) adjective
1. Askew; crooked.
2. Diagonally positioned: catercornered.
From cater (diagonally), from French word quatre (four). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kwetwer- (four), which also gave us four, square, cadre, quadrant, quarantine (literally, period of forty days). Earliest documented use: 1840. The word is also spelled as cattywampus.
syzygy (SIZ-uh-jee) noun
1. An alignment of three objects, for example, sun, moon, and earth during an eclipse.
2. A pair of related things.
From Latin syzygia, from Greek syzygia (union, pair). Ultimately from the Indo-European root yeug- (to join), which is also the ancestor of junction, yoke, yoga, adjust, juxtapose, rejoinder, jugular, and junta. Earliest documented use: 1656.
yob (yob) noun
A rude, rowdy youth.
Coined by reversing the spelling of the word boy. Earliest documented use: 1859.
There are not a lot of words in the English language that are coined from the backward spelling of another word. Another example is mho, the unit of electrical conductance, coined by reversing ohm, the unit of resistance. Fiction writers sometimes come up with names for their characters by spelling another name or word backwards.
spendthrift (SPEND-thrift) noun
A person who spends money wastefully.
adjective: Wasteful with money.
A spendthrift is, literally, one who spends his wealth, from Middle English thrift (prosperity), from Old Norse thrifast (to thrive), from thrifa (to grasp). Earliest documented use: 1601. Spendthrift is the longest word whose phonetic and normal spellings are the same. Two colorful synonyms of this word are dingthrift and scattergood. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Erewhon: or, Over the Range is a novel by Samuel Butler, published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed in which part of the world Erewhon is, but it is clear that it is a fictional country. Butler meant the title to be read as the word Nowhere backwards, even though the letters "h" and "w" are transposed, therefore Erewhon is anagram of nowhere. The first few chapters of the novel, dealing with the discovery of Erewhon, are in fact based on Butler's own experiences in New Zealand where, as a young man, he worked as a sheep farmer for about four years (1860–1864) and explored parts of the interior of the South Island. One of the country's largest sheep stations, located near where Butler lived, is named "Erewhon" in his honour. In the preface to the first edition of his book, Butler specified: The author wishes it to be understood that Erewhon is pronounced as a word of three syllables, all short — thus, E-re-whon. Nevertheless, the word is occasionally pronounced with two syllables as 'air - one'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon

After a local farmer left a bowl of eggs on Joe Hutto’s front porch, his life was forever changed. Hutto, possessing a broad background in the natural sciences and an interest in imprinting young animals, incubated the eggs and waited for them to hatch. As the chicks emerged from their shells, they locked eyes with an unusual but dedicated mother. Deep in the wilds of Florida’s Flatlands, Hutto spent each day living as a turkey mother, taking on the full-time job of raising sixteen turkey chicks. Hutto dutifully cared for his family around the clock, roosting with them, taking them foraging, and immersing himself in their world. In the process, they revealed their charming curiosity and surprising intellect. There was little he could teach them that they did not already know, but he showed them the lay of the land and protected them from the dangers of the forest as best he could. In return, they taught him how to see the world through their eyes. Based on his true story, My Life as a Turkey chronicles Hutto’s remarkable and moving experience of raising a group of wild turkey hatchlings to adulthood. This program premiered on Nature at PBS on November 16.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/my-life-as-a-turkey/full-episode/7378/

President Abraham Lincoln first declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863, placing it on the last Thursday in November. But November sometimes has five Thursdays and big retailers during the Great Depression complained those Christmas shopping seasons were too short. So, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 set Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday. Of course, others were unhappy, including calendar makers, whose products were printed years in advance. Finally, Congress settled it by law on Dec. 26, 1941, by making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday of November. -- U.S. Census Bureau, various sources.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2011/Nov/JU/ar_JU_112111.asp?d=112111,2011,Nov,21&c=c_13

U.S. sales of the Jeep Wrangler have set monthly records in each of the last five months, and the 14,500 dealer orders placed in the first 10 days of November already have surpassed the number of vehicles built there in three of the last four months. The plant also is nearing what union officials identify as its production capacity. "To me, this is going to be one of the biggest months we've ever had that we can remember," said Mr. Henneman. A Chrysler spokesman declined to assign a production capacity number for the plants, but Mr. Henneman said the Wrangler plant's two shifts of workers are producing about 630 vehicles a day. They would struggle to build more, he said. The success of the vehicle that dates to World War II and of a relatively new four-door version grabbing public attention was bolstered this fall with a new, more fuel-efficient engine.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Automotive/2011/11/20/Chrysler-races-to-meet-demand-for-iconic-SUV.html
All Jeep Wranglers sold worldwide are built at the Toledo Assembly complex.

The Nov. 21, 2011 issue of The New Yorker, with contributions by Calvin Trillin, Lauren Collins, Jane Kramer, Paul Theroux, Louis Erdrich and others, features food. In a cartoon, a chicken sits next to a roadside stand with a bowl of eggs. The stand has a sign that says, "Fresh-Squeezed Eggs." See the cartoon at:
http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/A-chicken-sits-next-to-a-roadside-stand-with-a-bowl-of-eggs-The-stand-has-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i8575607_.htm

2011-11-18T06:21:00.000-08:00

MakeUseOf features Web sites, computer tips and downloads that aim to make you more productive. Learn about new sites you may not know, find alternatives to popular software programs and get all kinds of “how to” tips for Windows, Mac and Linux users. You may subscribe to daily updates at: http://www.makeuseof.com/

Novelist Jasper Fforde was born in London on 11 January 1961. His father was John Standish Fforde, the 24th Chief Cashier for the Bank of England (whose signature appeared on sterling banknotes during his time in office). He is the cousin, by her marriage, of the author Katie Fforde, the grandson of Austro-Hungarian (later, Polish) political adviser Joseph Retinger, and a great-grandson of journalist E. D. Morel. Fforde published his first novel, The Eyre Affair, in 2001. His published books include a series of novels starring the literary detective Thursday Next: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels and One of our Thursdays Is Missing. The Eyre Affair had received 76 publisher rejections before its eventual acceptance for publication. Fforde won the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction in 2004 for The Well of Lost Plots. The Big Over Easy (2005), set in the same alternative universe as the Next novels, is a reworking of his first written novel, which initially failed to find a publisher. Its original title was Who Killed Humpty Dumpty?, and later had the working title of Nursery Crime, which is the title now used to refer to this series of books. These books describe the investigations of DCI Jack Spratt. The follow-up to The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear, was published in July 2006 and focuses on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Fforde's books are noted for their profusion of literary allusions and word play, tightly scripted plots, and playfulness with the conventions of traditional genres. His works usually contain various elements of metafiction, parody, and fantasy. None of his books has a chapter 13 except in the table of contents where there is a title of the chapter and a page number. In many of the books the page number is, in fact, the page right before the first page of chapter 14. However, in some the page number is just a page somewhere in chapter 12. Shades of Grey, the first novel in a new series, was published December 2009 in the US and January 2010 in the UK.
See his bibliography at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Fforde

The Doha Development Round or Doha Development Agenda (DDA) is the current trade-negotiation round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which commenced in November 2001. Its objective is to lower trade barriers around the world, which will help facilitate the increase of global trade. As of 2008, talks have stalled over a divide on major issues, such as agriculture, industrial tariffs and non-tariff barriers, services, and trade remedies. The most significant differences are between developed nations led by the European Union (EU), the United States (USA), and Japan and the major developing countries led and represented mainly by Brazil, China, India, South Korea, and South Africa. There is also considerable contention against and between the EU and the USA over their maintenance of agricultural subsidies—seen to operate effectively as trade barriers. The Doha Round began with a ministerial-level meeting in Doha, Qatar in 2001. Subsequent ministerial meetings took place in Cancún, Mexico (2003), and Hong Kong (2005). Related negotiations took place in Geneva, Switzerland (2004, 2006, 2008); Paris, France (2005); and Potsdam, Germany (2007). The most recent round of negotiations, 23–29 July 2008, broke down after failing to reach a compromise on agricultural import rules. After the breakdown, major negotiations were not expected to resume until 2009. Nevertheless, intense negotiations, mostly between the USA, China, and India, were held in the end of 2008 in order to agree on negotiation modalities. However, these negotiations did not result in any progress. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doha_Development_Round

2010 DePuy Hip Replacement Recall was instituted when DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., a division of Johnson and Johnson, recalled its ASR XL Acetabular metal-on-metal hip replacement system on August 24, 2010. This recall came after data from a recent study indicated that the five year failure rate of this product is approximately 13%, or 1 in 8 patients. The defective and dangerous replacement hips have already been implanted in patients. The recall means that patients who have already undergone one surgical procedure to replace a hip may have to undergo a “revision.” The DePuy ASR XL Acetabular System first became available in 2005 in the United States. Johnson & Johnson was given special clearance from the FDA in 2005 to market the ASR devices without first performing clinical trials—tests to determine the safety of the products. But since 2008, the FDA has received approximately 400 complaints from patients who received ASR hip replacements. The first lawsuit in the United States against DePuy Orthopaedics was filed on June 15, 2010. The lawsuit claims that the DePuy ASR hip replacement was defectively designed, that DePuy knew that there were problems with the implant early on but didn't do anything to let patients or their surgeons know about the possible problems. The United States Judicial Panel on MultiDistrict Litigation filed a ruling on December 7, 2010 that determined the fate of the thousands of lawsuits regarding DePuy Hip Recalls in the United States. Its ruling stated that all cases filed across the country, "are transferred to the Northern District of Ohio and, with the consent of that court, assigned to the Honorable David A. Katz for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_DePuy_Hip_Recall

DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., ASR Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, Multidistrict Litigation Cases, MDL 2197 Find attorneys and orders at U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio, Toledo
http://www.ohnd.uscourts.gov/home/clerk-s-office-and-court-records/multidistrict-litigation-cases/mdl-2197/

Found in Translation by Stephen Mitchell
I have spent the last three years translating Homer's "Iliad," a project I began because none of the English translations on my bookshelf interested my ear enough to get past Book 1. Translating is a specialized kind of work, but in the most general sense, it is the art of listening. It has lessons for anyone who cares about the sound of their writing. With Homer, the first thing that I do is my homework, looking up the Greek words I don't know and studying the commentaries. I'm left with a bramble of possibilities handwritten on the right-hand page of my notebook and a blank page on the left. I begin to listen for the rhythm (a music that I hear before the words themselves come into focus in my ear), and line by line, sometimes after a minute, sometimes after 10—magically, it seems—the words begin to configure themselves, my hearing creates what I want to hear, the pen starts to write, and I am a fascinated witness. The rest of the work, over the next few days or weeks, is a process of refining, of testing every word, every sound, against my sense of what Homer's music should sound like in English, an English that is rapid, direct and noble, as his Greek is. Sometimes it takes five or six drafts until my ear is satisfied, sometimes 30 or 40. Before you finish a piece of your own writing, you might try reading it out loud or silently, paying attention just to the sound of the words. If you come to a phrase that doesn't sound quite right, let your ear, rather than your thinking, revise the line. You may be surprised by what you didn't know you knew. —Mr. Mitchell is a writer and translator whose many books include "Tao Te Ching," "The Book of Job" and "Gilgamesh." His translation of Homer's "Iliad" was published in October. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190704577024470798695892.html

Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for fiction on November 16 for “Salvage the Bones.” In the nonfiction category, Stephen Greenblatt won for “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.” The award for poetry went to Nikky Finney for her fourth collection, “Head Off & Split.” The prize for young people’s literature went to Thanhha Lai for “Inside Out and Back Again.” Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, which has independent stores in South Florida,Westhampton Beach, N.Y., and the Cayman Islands, won the 2011 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Mr. Kaplan, who is also the gregarious co-founder of the Miami Book Fair International, has been hailed as one of the most innovative independent booksellers in the country. The award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters went to the poet John Ashbery, a native of Rochester, N.Y., who has published more than 20 books of poetry and has won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Read much more at: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/celebratory-night-for-the-book-world/?partner=rss&emc=rss

2011-11-17T04:56:00.000-08:00

Last spring, Julie Johnstone, a librarian at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, was wandering through a reading room when she saw, sitting alone on a random table, a little tree. It was made of twisted paper and was mounted on a book. Gorgeously crafted, it came with a gold-leafed eggshell broken in two, each half filled with little strips of paper with phrases on them. When reassembled properly, the strips became a poem about birds, "A Trace of Wings" by Edwin Morgan. Then, it happened again. This time, a coffin, topped by a large gramophone showed up suddenly at The National Library of Scotland. The scene was carved from a book, a mystery novel by Ian Rankin, one of Britain's bestselling crime writers. It seemed like a visual pun, because the book's title was Exit Music. Just as the news cycle was about to hit boil, The Edinburgh Evening News announced it had cracked the case. It turns out, they said, their own former music librarian, a Mr. Garry Gale, had figured it out. Mr. Gale said when he saw the sculptures he realized they looked exactly like a paper sculpture he had bought a year or so earlier from a certain artist that he didn't name, but the styles were so unerringly similar it had to be the same artist who was dropping these little gifts on major cultural centers in Edinburgh. Instead of having Mr. Gale immediately identify the perpetrator, the Evening News decided to take a poll: Do you really want to know, it asked its readers, who made these gorgeous teacups and dragons and magnifying glasses, or would you rather honor the artist, and let him/her remain anonymous? The readers wrote in. And according to Central Station, a Scottish website, "the general view is that We Don't Want To Know." Presumably a significant number of respondents said they would rather not learn the identity of the sculptor and it would be best if those who know just not tell. Read the rest of the story with accompanying pictures at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/10/28/141795907/who-left-a-tree-then-a-coffin-in-the-library?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20111106

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Helen Hileman Subject: chintzy, but proud
Def: 1. Decorated with chintz. 2. Cheap; gaudy; inferior. 3. Stingy.
I am 79 years old but I can vividly remember wearing the chintz feedsack skirts made from the feedsack material our animal feed came in. They may have been chintzy to some, but we loved our new clothes and we whirled around so our gathered skirts would whirl too.
From: Simon Jarvis Subject: Chintzy
There is a lovely example of chintz fabric on some furniture in Queen Victoria's bedroom in Osborne House -- her beloved holiday home -- on the Isle of Wight, UK. Looking carefully, you can see that both her and Prince Albert's profiles are cleverly printed onto the fabric as plant tendrils. Definitely not cheap, gaudy or inferior!
From: Bernice Colman Subject: Chintzy
It is curious that a word describing a fabric that was one of the most labor intensive to produce should come to mean the opposite. Chintz was also one of the biggest players in the European industrial revolution. Its import caused a panic and prompted all sorts of sumptuary laws. True it was less costly than woven silks or wools from India but it caused a great stir. Nothing chintzy about it.

Sumptuary laws (from Latin sumptuariae leges) are laws that attempt to regulate habits of consumption. Black's Law Dictionary defines them as "Laws made for the purpose of restraining luxury or extravagance, particularly against inordinate expenditures in the matter of apparel, food, furniture, etc." Traditionally, they were laws that regulated and reinforced social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures. In most times and places, they were ineffectual. Throughout history, societies have used sumptuary laws for a variety of purposes. They attempted to regulate the balance of trade by limiting the market for expensive imported goods. They were also an easy way to identify social rank and privilege and often were used for social discrimination. As early as 1860, Anthony Trollope, writing about his experiences in Maine under the state's prohibition law, stated, "This law (prohibition), like all sumptuary laws, must fail." In 1918, William Howard Taft decried prohibition in the United States as a bad sumptuary law, stating that one of his reasons for opposing prohibition was his belief that "sumptuary laws are matters for parochial adjustment." Taft later repeated this concern. The Supreme Court of Indiana also discussed alcohol prohibition as a sumptuary law in its 1855 decision Herman v. State. During state conventions on the ratification of the 21st Amendment in 1933, numerous delegates throughout the United States decried prohibition as having been an improper sumptuary law that never should have been included in the Constitution of the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law

Since Biblical times, gardens have been horizontal, with flowers and plants sprouting out of the ground. Patrick Blanc has turned that whole notion on its side, literally. Mr. Blanc is the inventor of the vertical garden, also known as the living (or green) wall. Mr. Blanc, 58, is a botanist with France's National Center for Scientific Research, the country's giant science and technology agency. He also has a private practice designing gardens. Among the more than 250 he has installed around the world, his most famous are at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, the Caixa Forum Museum in Madrid and the French embassy in New Delhi. A celebrity among horticulturalists, he's even got a new kind of begonia named after him, Begonia blancii, after discovering it two years ago while trekking through a rainforest in the Philippines. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204394804577010012002153138.html

15 Incredible Vertical Gardens Around the World
http://twistedsifter.com/2011/10/incredible-vertical-gardens-patrick-blanc/

Used restaurant grease has become a hot item for thieves, who siphon it from barrels behind restaurants to sell on the booming biofuels market. Restaurants and grease recyclers have been forced to move barrels inside, lock them up, or install surveillance cameras, according to Tom Cook, president of the National Renderers Association in Alexandria, Va. "It's become the new copper," a commodity that also attracts thieves, Cook tells NPR's food blog, The Salt. Yellow grease, the proper name for cooking oil that's had the food and trash filtered out of it, is selling for about 40 cents a pound, almost five times what it was a decade ago. That means a gallon of yellow grease today sells for more than $3 a gallon — on par with a gallon of milk. Used restaurant grease has long been used in animal feed, but it's also now in demand as a fuel for vehicles. Thieves sell it to a renderer or recycler because the stuff needs to be processed before it can be used as fuel or feed. After the grease has been processed, brokers buy it from renderers and sell it on the commodities market, where it can eventually end up in the transportation sector. New standards published earlier this year by the Environmental Protection Agency expanded requirements for use of renewable fuels in the transportation industry. So when crude oil prices rise, yellow grease prices rise, too. Still, grease rustling isn't a brand new: NPR's Bryant Park Project reported on the problem in 2008. And the 1998 season of "The Simpsons" opened with the episode "The Lard of the Dance", with Homer and Bart hatching a scheme to steal grease from the school cafeteria. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/11/03/141986455/restaurant-grease-as-good-as-gold-to-biofuel-thieves?sc=tw&cc=share

Find list of NPR blogs at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/

The online social networking and messaging service Twitter (also referred to as a micro-blogging tool) was launched on July 15, 2006. By 2011, it was reported to have around 200 million global users. And as of June 2011, 13% of online Americans reported using Twitter, according to data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, up from sharply from 8% in November 2010. The confines of the tool, not unlike text messaging (SMS or Short Message Service), are its most distinguishing feature. Individual “tweets” are limited to 140 characters, truncating what any one individual, organization, institution or brand can communicate in a single post. Anyone can search and find Twitter feeds that might interest them either by searching by name, by topic or by “hashtags,” a designated topic code that users can assign to a topic or event. Users can also choose to “follow” a Twitter feed, which means they receive all of the posts from that outlet or individual. In the news context, this allows users to curate their own news. If a user “retweets” the post (essentially placing someone else’s post in their own Twitter feed), the ultimate reach of the original post can potentially multiply many times over. Read the 25-page report, How Mainstream Media Outlets Use Twitter, at: http://www.journalism.org/sites/journalism.org/files/How%20Mainstream%20Media%20Outlets%20Use%20Twitter.pdf

Viral Spiral: FAQ from FactCheck.org
Just because you read it on somebody’s blog or in an email from a friend or relative doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s probably not, as we advised in our special report “Is this chain e-mail true?” back on March 18, 2008. On this page we feature a list of the false or misleading viral rumors we’re asked about most often, and a brief summary of the facts. Click on the links to read the full articles. There is a lot more detail in each answer. http://factcheck.org/hot-topics/ Click on home at top left to go to the page where claims made by or about politicians are examined.

2011-11-16T04:21:00.000-08:00

Communicating well with the written word
Do have print large enough with enough blank space around it so that the eye is drawn to the message.
Don't plant a tree in front of a sign that blocks it (as a nearby flower shop has done).
Don't put a street sign with dark green background and slim white bars in front of evergreens so that the print blends into the greenery (as the street sign by our house is--used to be medium green background with broad white bars that could be read from a distance).

Hidden advertising messages
It used to be that if you bought a product "people would love you."
Today if you buy a product or service your life will be changed and you "will love yourself."

Male bowerbirds weave intricate display areas (or bowers) out of twigs. They decorate their bowers with charcoal, saliva and colourful objects. Because of this, bowerbirds are often thought of as the most advanced of all birds. A bower is not a nest. It is an attractive 'avenue', used by male bowerbirds to entice a female. When they are not feeding, the males spend much of their time perched in the bower, calling to potential mates and warning off potential rivals. Bowerbirds are very closely related to birds of paradise, and species of bowerbird are found in many parts of Australia and New Guinea. They are mainly forest birds, living in a particular local area throughout their live. See more information plus picture of bowerbird in a bower decorated with mainly blue items at: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/animals/Bowerbirds.htm

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR Part 255
Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising
Read regulations at: http://ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf
Recent articles on celebrity endorsements via Twitter prompted me to find the federal regulations.

Advertising Industry in the Digital Age by Suzanne M. Kirchhoff
Congressional Research Service February 1, 2011
In the 111th Congress, members introduced legislation to limit the tax deductibility of advertising for pharmaceutical marketing and circulated proposals to give consumers more ability to block technology that tracks individuals’
activities online so that marketers may tailor advertising accordingly. House and Senate committees held hearings on privacy issues; advertising and marketing directed at children; and the state of the newspaper industry, which is in financial distress as advertising moves to the Internet and away from the print product. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing on potentially deceptive advertising practices, including false testimonial advertising, blogging, and other areas. Congress passed and President Obama signed legislation to regulate the volume of commercials on television (P.L. 111-311). On the regulatory front, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released guidelines calling on bloggers to disclose paid product reviews, and in December 2010 recommended a Do Not Track function to allow consumers to prevent advertising and other firms from collecting data about individuals’ online activities. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is examining pharmaceutical marketing in social networks and could propose guidance for online marketing early in 2011. In December 2010, the Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force released a paper on commercial privacy issues. Much of this activity is in response to the rapid growth of advertising on the Internet. Online ad spending has jumped more than 400% during the past decade, to more than $20 billion. The online market is dominated by a small number of firms, with the top 10 digital ad firms garnering more than 70% of all online ad revenues, a level that has remained relatively constant in recent
years. “Search” advertising—where companies sell ads as part of consumer-initiated information queries on web browsers—accounted for nearly half of digital ad revenues in 2009, with Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo getting most of the online search traffic. http://womma.org/diresta/2-10-11.pdf

March 30, 2011 The FDA has once again postponed the release of its first draft guidance for social media. The federal agency was supposed to release the guidelines in late December, but stated at the time that it would delay the release of the first draft guidance until the first quarter of 2011. Now that's been put on hold. http://www.mmm-online.com/fda-again-delays-promised-social-media-guidance/article/199595/

June 8, 2011 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration missed its last two self-imposed deadlines to issue guidance on using social media to promote drugs, leaving pharmaceutical companies at risk of unwittingly running afoul of marketing laws. Drugmakers that set up Facebook fan pages, "tweet" company announcements on Twitter, and post videos on YouTube can reach millions of consumers with their message. But without guidance from the FDA on how to do that, they can also attract unwanted attention from the regulator, according to lawyers who track social media trends. Drugmakers also risk losing customers when their audience can't tell the difference between legitimate companies and illegal online pharmacies. The FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications said after hearings on social media in November 2009 that it would issue guidance by the end of last year. http://www.cwsl.edu/content/news/060811_Bryan%20Liang_FDA%20Social%20Media_Los%20Angeles%20Daily%20Journal.pdf

2011-11-15T05:10:00.000-08:00

The caduceus (from Greek κηρύκειον kērukeion "herald's staff" ) is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology. The same staff was also borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris, the messenger of Hera. It is a short staff entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. In Roman iconography it was often depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, guide of the dead and protector of merchants, shepherds, gamblers, liars and thieves. As a symbolic object it represents Hermes (or the Roman Mercury), and by extension trades, occupations or undertakings associated with the god. In later Antiquity the caduceus provided the basis for the astrological symbol representing the planet Mercury. Thus, through its use in astrology and alchemy, it has come to denote the elemental metal of the same name. By extension of its association with Mercury/Hermes, the caduceus is also a recognized symbol of commerce and negotiation, two realms in which balanced exchange and reciprocity are recognized as ideals. This association is ancient, and consistent from the Classical period to modern times. The caduceus is also used as a symbol representing printing, again by extension of the attributes of Mercury (in this case associated with writing and eloquence). The caduceus is sometimes mistakenly used as a symbol of medicine and/or medical practice, especially in North America, because of widespread confusion with the traditional medical symbol, the rod of Asclepius, which has only a single snake and no wings. The Homeric hymn to Hermes relates how Hermes offered his lyre fashioned from a tortoise shell as compensation for the cattle he stole from his half brother Apollo. Apollo in return gave Hermes the caduceus as a gesture of friendship. The association with the serpent thus connects Hermes to Apollo, as later the serpent was associated with Asclepius, the "son of Apollo". The association of Apollo with the serpent is a continuation of the older Indo-European dragon-slayer motif. Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (1913) pointed out that the serpent as an attribute of both Hermes and Asclepius is a variant of the "pre-historic semi-chthonic serpent hero known at Delphi as Python", who in classical mythology is slain by Apollo. A simplified variant of the caduceus is to be found in dictionaries, indicating a “commercial term” entirely in keeping with the association of Hermes with commerce. In this form the staff is often depicted with two winglets attached and the snakes are omitted (or reduced to a small ring in the middle). The Customs Service of the former German Democratic Republic employed the caduceus, bringing its implied associations with thresholds, translators, and commerce, in the service medals they issued their staff. The rod of Asclepius is the dominant symbol for healthcare professionals and associations in the United States. One survey found that 62% of healthcare professionals used the rod of Asclepius, while 76% of commercial healthcare organizations used the caduceus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus

Symbols of ancient Rome http://www.ancient-symbols.com/roman_symbols.html
Find links on left leading to Chinese, Egyptian, Grecian, Japanese, Mayan, Native American and Celtic symbols.

blue blindness, blue-yellow blindness popular names for imperfect perception of blue and yellow tints; see tritanopia and tetartanopia .
color blindness 1. popular name for color vision deficiency. 2. see monochromatic vision.
complete color blindness monochromatic vision.
day blindness hemeralopia.
flight blindness amaurosis fugax due to high centrifugal forces encountered in aviation.
green blindness imperfect perception of green tints; see deuteranopia and protanopia.
legal blindness that defined by law, usually, maximal visual acuity in the better eye after correction of 20/200 with a total diameter of the visual field in that eye of 20 degrees.
letter blindness alexia characterized by inability to recognize individual letters.
music blindness musical alexia.
night blindness failure or imperfection of vision at night or in dim light.
object blindness, psychic blindness visual agnosia.
red blindness popular name for protanopia.
red-green blindness popular name for any imperfect perception of red and green tints, including all the most common types of color vision deficiency. See deuteranomaly, deuteranopia, protanomaly, and protanopia.
snow blindness dimness of vision, usually temporary, due to glare of sun upon snow.
text blindness alexia.
total color blindness monochromatic vision.
word blindness alexia.
Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers. © 2007 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/word+blindness

Glen Whitney left his job as an algorithms specialist and manager at Renaissance Technologies LLC, a quantitative hedge fund started by Jim Simons, and created the nonprofit Museum of Mathematics. This year, he found a 19,000-square-foot space on East 26th Street in Manhattan and plans to open the doors in 2012. “I started this museum because I wanted people to have a chance to see the beauty, excitement and wonder of mathematics,” said Whitney, 42, speaking in the empty space under construction. When it opens, MoMath won’t display slide rules or other relics initially. It will offer math experiences for visitors of all ages: logic puzzles and games like Rubik’s Cube and a hyper hyperboloid, a sculpture made of lines of red thread that create the illusion of being in a curved cage of strings. One planned exhibit features a square-wheeled tricycle that can ride on a special path as smoothly as one with round wheels. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-01/harvard-grad-starts-math-museum-helped-by-google-hedge-funder.html

Eddie Miller, 23, is the founder of Heritage Lawn Mowing, a company that rents out sheep — yes, sheep — as a landscaping aid. For a small fee, Mr. Miller, whose official job title is “shepherd,” brings his ovine squad to the yards of area homeowners, where the sheep spend anywhere from three hours to several days grazing on grass, weeds and dandelions. The results, he said, are a win-win: the sheep eat free, saving him hundreds of dollars a month in food costs, and his clients get a freshly cut lawn, with none of the carbon emissions of a conventional gas-powered mower. (There are, of course, other emissions, which Mr. Miller said make for “all-natural fertilizer.”) Mr. Miller, a 2010 graduate of Boston University, started his business last year, when several post-college grant applications fell through and no other job opportunities presented themselves. He moved back home to Ohio and acquired two Jacob sheep, a small, sturdy breed that dates to biblical times. Recently, he added two more to his flock, which he keeps in a pen in the backyard when not in service. Customers pay $1 per sheep per day, but Mr. Miller also accepts barter payments, which have so far included karate lessons, jugs of maple syrup and the use of one homeowner’s truck. He has done around 20 homes so far, and has so many requests he can’t keep up with them. Read more about urban farming and agricultural start-ups at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/garden/sheep-lawn-mowers-and-other-go-getters.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Scribble specialists The Postal Service has money troubles. It's closing post offices, axing staff. One-day delivery may end. Saturday delivery may end. Email is the prime culprit: 104 billion first-class letters were mailed in 2001, 78 billion in 2010. Still, the service is obliged to complete its appointed rounds. If the handwriting is atrocious, no matter. Postal inspectors don't police penmanship. Which is why Postal clerk Gary Oliver can look at an envelope hand-addressed to "GALLERY303FIFTHAVESUITE1603NYNY" and see in it: "Job security." The National Postal Museum's curator, Nancy Pope, calls his scribble-disentangling responsibility "the last vestige of human intelligence versus machine intelligence in the sorting race." The race—to modernity—began with a hand-cranked canceller in 1875, then a device known as the "hamper-dumper." After World War II, thought was given to sending mail by missile. Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield said at the time he would try anything, "Yes, even ballpoint pens." But machines could barely read print in 1965. By the '80s, they were able to detect handwriting—and then give up. "Peek-and-poke" clerks in postal plants were still sliding envelopes into pigeonholes when, in 1994, the Postal Service hired Siemens and Lockheed Martin to teach machines to read scribbling. In late afternoon, when volume peaks at the Salt Lake center, a blinking panel showed 67,000 letters awaiting attention—from San Juan, Paducah, Los Angeles, Kokomo. A clerk wearing a headset had hit a patch of pen-pal letters from pupils in Memphis. She was decrypting them at a rate of 800 per hour, down from the desired 1,100. "We ought to teach kids how to address letters," said Bruce Rhoades, a manager looking over her shoulder. His boss, Karen Heath, stood watching beside him and sighed, "A lost art." If a clerk broods over an envelope for 30 seconds, it gets snatched away for another clerk. Scribble-reading isn't everyone's gift: Up to 20% of new hires quit within five weeks. Barry Newman http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204394804577012122145910692.html

Is a Patent a Monopoly? —Antitrust Considerations by Arnold B. Silverman
The term “monopoly” is often misused in the context of patent law, but has a better-defined meaning in antitrust laws. Under patent law, a patent does not give one a monopoly in the sense of having the absolute right to practice the protected invention. It gives one the right to keep others from making, using, offering for sale, selling, and importing the claimed invention, and thereby provides a meaningful exclusionary right. To the extent that one is engaged in conduct permitted by patent laws, one is immunized from antitrust laws. To determine what conduct is included within this shield, one must look to statutes and court rulings. Read more at:
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/matters/matters-0404.html

A different view on monopoly Antitrust law frowns on monopolies. Patent law grants them to inventors. The tensions between the two bodies of law, long apparent to scholars, are coming to a head in technology's hottest area: handheld devices. Any smartphone, e-reader or tablet touches on hundreds or thousands of patents, and technology companies have unleashed a blizzard of patent-infringement lawsuits, seeking to derail rival devices or win big licensing fees. The free-for-all raises a basic legal question: In an industry susceptible to monopolies, are companies abusing patent rights to stifle competition? Court documents filed last week by retailer Barnes & Noble Inc. offer a rare public glimpse into the fierce lobbying some companies are doing to get the government to act against competitors. They show that the bookseller, which is defending itself in a patent suit brought by Microsoft, had asked the Justice Department to open an antitrust probe into whether the software giant was trying "to use patents to drive open source software out of the market." Read full article by Thomas Catan at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203503204577036003036334374.html