The Social Security Act of 1935 created, in addition to the retirement insurance for which it’s named, a federal and state system of unemployment compensation that provides temporary, partial wages to the newly out-of-work. It’s a cushion for families, and it helps stabilize the economy during recessions. The safety net devised under Roosevelt protects the country today “from looking like it did in 1931 and 1932,” says Nick Taylor, whose book, American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, analyzes the economic crisis that began under Herbert Hoover, brought FDR into office, and prompted creation of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), among other economic reforms. Perhaps more significant, the New Deal forever changed the public’s expectation of the government’s role in times of hardship. “The Roosevelt administration was the first one to recognize that the government was responsible for the welfare of the people,” Taylor says. “One of government’s purposes is to have a humanitarian side.” Roosevelt first proposed the idea of a permanent jobs program during his annual message to Congress on January 4, 1935. A variety of temporary relief measures had been implemented by then, but Roosevelt considered them handouts and demeaning to human dignity. At that time, 5 million people were receiving some form of government aid, 3.5 million of whom Roosevelt felt were able-bodied and could be working. His proposal became the Works Progress Administration. At its peak in March 1938, the WPA rolls hit 3.4 million. By June 1943, when the program was ended because it was no longer needed—unemployment had fallen to 1.9 percent—the WPA had employed more than 8.5 million people on 1.4 million different projects.
Between 1935 and 1943, workers in the Works Progress Administration:
Created 651,087 miles of streets and highways
Repaired or improved 124,031 bridges
Built 125,110 public buildings, 8,192 parks, 853 airport landing fields.
Served almost 900 million hot lunches to students
Operated 1,500 nursery schools
Presented 225,000 concerts
Produced 475,000 works of art,
Published 276 books and 701 pamphlets.
http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2010/07/26/lifestyle/features/putting-america-work.html
In Toledo, the public library and zoo benefitted from WPA. http://www.toledozoo.org/zooinfo/WPA.html
The word September comes from the Latin word "septem", meaning "seven". September used to be the seventh month of the Roman calendar prior to 153 BCE, when the first month of the year changed from Calendrius Martius (beginning on March 1), to Calendrius Januarius (beginning on January 1). http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_the_Month_of_September_get_its_Name
The month September is the same in English and German; Spanish is Septiembre, French is Septembre, and Settembre is Italian.
Amid all the junk mail pouring into your house in recent months, you might have noticed a solicitation or two for a "professional card," otherwise known as a small-business or corporate credit card. Professional cards aren't covered under the Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, or Card Act for short. Among other things, the law prohibits issuers from controversial billing practices such as hair-trigger interest rate increases, shortened payment cycles and inactivity fees—but it doesn't apply to professional cards. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913704575454003924920386.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The Kihansi spray toad, Nectophrynoides asperginis, is a dwarf toad, with adults reaching no more than three quarters of an inch long. It was discovered in 1996. It was found only in the spray zone around the Kihansi and Mhalala waterfalls in the southern Udzungwa Mountains in Tanzania. It is now listed as an extinct species in the wild by the IUCN Red List due to a restricted range, habitat loss and a declining population. This was due to the Kihansi Dam being built in 1999, which reduced the amount of silt and water coming down from the waterfall into the gorge by 90 percent. Some of the toads were taken from their native gorge and placed in captivity in the late 1990s as a possible hedge against extinction, because the species had such a limited habitat. For some time, the Toledo Zoo in Ohio was the only place in the world where the Kihansi spray toad was on display to the public. But the Bronx Zoo in New York City also has several hundred Kihansi spray toads, and it opened a small exhibit in February 2010. In August 2010, a group of 100 Kihansi Spray Toads were flown from the Bronx Zoo and Toledo Zoo to their native Tanzania. The toads remain in captivity however, there are plans to reintroduce them into their small 0.02Km2 natural habitat in the Kihansi Gorge in the south of Tanzania. http://www.servinghistory.com/topics/Kihansi_Spray_Toad
What's in a name?
Rhinoceroses get their name from their most famous feature: their horns. The word rhinoceros comes from the Greek rhino (nose) and ceros (horn). Black rhinos Diceros bicornis and white rhinos Ceratotherium simum are the same color—they're both brownish gray! How the white rhino came to be called “white” is uncertain. One account says that South Africa's early Boer settlers called it wijde, Dutch for “wide,” which could refer to the wide lip or the size of the animal.
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-rhinoceros.html
Grey (often spelled gray in the U.S., see spelling differences) describes the colors ranging from black to white. These, including white and black, are known as achromatic colors or neutral colors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey
American author Zane Grey (1872-1939) was born Pearl Zane Gray. (He later dropped "Pearl" and changed the a to an e in "Grey").
The medical textbook Gray's Anatomy was first published under the title Anatomy: Descriptive and Surgical in the United Kingdom in 1858, and the following year in the United States. The 40th edition of Gray's Anatomy was published in September 2008 by Elsevier under the Churchill Livingstone imprint in both print and on-line versions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray's_Anatomy#Most_recent_available_editions
Note that the television series Grey's Anatomy is a pun on the textbook title.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Facebook, which has gone after sites with the word "book" in their names, is also trying to trademark the word "face," according to court documents. Aaron Greenspan has asked for an extension of time to file an opposition to Facebook's attempt. Greenspan is the president and CEO of Think Computer, the developer of a mobile payments app called FaceCash. "If you search the patent database, there are thousands of marks that contain the word 'face,'" Greenspan said. "I understand where Facebook is coming from, but this move has big implications for my company and for others." http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/27/technology/facebook_trademark_face/
Oregon restaurants recently visited
Ashland: Callahan's Lodge--located just below the summit of Siskiyou Mountains--made to withstand 100 mph winds, level 8 earthquakes and 90-pound snow load, all at the same time--we had two excellent breakfasts and two excellent dinners here, including a confection which won the 2010 Oregon Chocolate Competition
Crater Lake National Park: Crater Lake Lodge
Dundee: Farm to Fork "best burgers in the world"
Eugene: King Estate--breathtaking view of Willamette Valley
Hood River: Columbia Gorge Hotel--located atop a bluff next to a waterfall
Portland: Heathman, Higgins, Pastini Pastaria, Pazzo
Less than a day after JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made headlines with his take-this-job-and-shove-it moment at New York's JFK airport, a computer-animated version of the event appeared online. The video, which quickly garnered 600,000 views on YouTube, was courtesy of Taiwan's Next Media Animation. For about a year, the company&mdashpart of Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai's empire, New Media&mdashhas been turning out computer animations of current events, including celebrity scandals, and local news. Three years ago, Lai decided his news stories needed to be more visual. "Images can transmit information so much faster," he says. He decided to start Next Media Animation (NMA) in Taiwan, a country with a successful video-game industry and a deep pool of animators. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_36/b4193038847783.htm
The Marionberry was originally called "No. 256". It was created at Oregon State University located in Marion County, Oregon, hence the name Marionberry. It is a horticultural cross between several cane berries; the Blackberry, Red Raspberry, Olallie Berry and Texas Dewberry, to name a few. http://www.genuineoregon.com/OREGON-MARIONBERRY-PRODUCTS.html
Unusual fruits
Mayhaws a small (1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter) crabapple-like fruit that grows on a type of thorny hawthorne tree. It ripens from mid-April to early May, from which the name, mayhaw, originated. The mayhaw is a wild native fruit tree found along river bottoms and swamps from east Texas, east to Georgia and Florida, and especially throughout Louisiana.
Paw-Paws Also known as a prairie banana, Kentucky banana, or Ozark banana, is small tree with large leaves and fruit, native to southeastern North America. Also spelled paw paw, paw-paw, and papaw.
Salmonberries They're sweet, with an orange blush when completely ripe. Small (1/2 inch across), tasty, native to the west coast, from California to Alaska and in to parts of Idaho.
Seaberries has bright yellow-orange to red berries that are 7 times higher in vitamin C than lemons.
Tayberries This is popular in Oregon, and even more popular in the UK. It comes from Scotland, in 1977, near the Tay River, when a raspberry was crossed with an Aurora trailing blackberry Or, it could be a cross between a loganberry and a black raspberry.
http://www.pickyourown.org/unusualfruits.htm
A notable piece of Rhode Island art history came to light on August 9 when workers removed Depression-era murals from a building undergoing renovation at the University of Rhode Island. The murals, by the late artist Gino Conti, had been hidden for decades beneath drywall put up during an earlier renovation inside Edwards Hall. They are bound for restoration and an eventual return to URI. A March 1941 Providence Sunday Journal story chronicled Conti’s work on the murals for what was then known as Rhode Island State College. “The six oil canvases are symbolical in character,” the paper wrote, “flat and decorative in treatment and very much stylized. Of the two largest panels, one symbolizes the drama, music and the dance; the other, the protection of youth, the striving for progress and the past.” Conti, the paper noted, received funding for the murals from the Federal Art Project, part of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) program that pumped government dollars into the economy. http://www.projo.com/art/content/URI_murals_08-10-10_S3JGBGA_v12.245bf88.html
rotund (ro-TUND) adjective
1. Plump; fat.
2. Round in shape.
3. Having a full-toned, resonant sound.
From Latin rotundus (round), from rota (wheel). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ret- (to run or to roll), which is also the source of rodeo, rotunda, rotate, rotary, roulette, and orotund.
sidereal (sy-DEE-ree-uhl) adjective
1. Relating to the stars.
2. Measured with reference to the apparent motion of the stars. For example, sidereal time.
From Latin sidus (star). A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Arthur Lewis Subject: randomness
Sometimes there's no substitute for walking into a random aisle in a library and perusing what books one might bump into. I did this during doctoral exam preparation. It made the difference for one of the five questions.
From: Bucky Timothy Miller Subject: epeolatry
Next week, a gallery exhibition I am curating opens at Arizona State University's Step Gallery. The exhibition, titled Epeolatry: The Worship of Words, will feature works of art that utilize text in some significant fashion. I just wanted to thank A.Word.A.Day for the inspiration, as this is where I originally discovered the word epeolatry
Oregon restaurants recently visited
Ashland: Callahan's Lodge--located just below the summit of Siskiyou Mountains--made to withstand 100 mph winds, level 8 earthquakes and 90-pound snow load, all at the same time--we had two excellent breakfasts and two excellent dinners here, including a confection which won the 2010 Oregon Chocolate Competition
Crater Lake National Park: Crater Lake Lodge
Dundee: Farm to Fork "best burgers in the world"
Eugene: King Estate--breathtaking view of Willamette Valley
Hood River: Columbia Gorge Hotel--located atop a bluff next to a waterfall
Portland: Heathman, Higgins, Pastini Pastaria, Pazzo
Less than a day after JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made headlines with his take-this-job-and-shove-it moment at New York's JFK airport, a computer-animated version of the event appeared online. The video, which quickly garnered 600,000 views on YouTube, was courtesy of Taiwan's Next Media Animation. For about a year, the company&mdashpart of Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai's empire, New Media&mdashhas been turning out computer animations of current events, including celebrity scandals, and local news. Three years ago, Lai decided his news stories needed to be more visual. "Images can transmit information so much faster," he says. He decided to start Next Media Animation (NMA) in Taiwan, a country with a successful video-game industry and a deep pool of animators. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_36/b4193038847783.htm
The Marionberry was originally called "No. 256". It was created at Oregon State University located in Marion County, Oregon, hence the name Marionberry. It is a horticultural cross between several cane berries; the Blackberry, Red Raspberry, Olallie Berry and Texas Dewberry, to name a few. http://www.genuineoregon.com/OREGON-MARIONBERRY-PRODUCTS.html
Unusual fruits
Mayhaws a small (1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter) crabapple-like fruit that grows on a type of thorny hawthorne tree. It ripens from mid-April to early May, from which the name, mayhaw, originated. The mayhaw is a wild native fruit tree found along river bottoms and swamps from east Texas, east to Georgia and Florida, and especially throughout Louisiana.
Paw-Paws Also known as a prairie banana, Kentucky banana, or Ozark banana, is small tree with large leaves and fruit, native to southeastern North America. Also spelled paw paw, paw-paw, and papaw.
Salmonberries They're sweet, with an orange blush when completely ripe. Small (1/2 inch across), tasty, native to the west coast, from California to Alaska and in to parts of Idaho.
Seaberries has bright yellow-orange to red berries that are 7 times higher in vitamin C than lemons.
Tayberries This is popular in Oregon, and even more popular in the UK. It comes from Scotland, in 1977, near the Tay River, when a raspberry was crossed with an Aurora trailing blackberry Or, it could be a cross between a loganberry and a black raspberry.
http://www.pickyourown.org/unusualfruits.htm
A notable piece of Rhode Island art history came to light on August 9 when workers removed Depression-era murals from a building undergoing renovation at the University of Rhode Island. The murals, by the late artist Gino Conti, had been hidden for decades beneath drywall put up during an earlier renovation inside Edwards Hall. They are bound for restoration and an eventual return to URI. A March 1941 Providence Sunday Journal story chronicled Conti’s work on the murals for what was then known as Rhode Island State College. “The six oil canvases are symbolical in character,” the paper wrote, “flat and decorative in treatment and very much stylized. Of the two largest panels, one symbolizes the drama, music and the dance; the other, the protection of youth, the striving for progress and the past.” Conti, the paper noted, received funding for the murals from the Federal Art Project, part of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) program that pumped government dollars into the economy. http://www.projo.com/art/content/URI_murals_08-10-10_S3JGBGA_v12.245bf88.html
rotund (ro-TUND) adjective
1. Plump; fat.
2. Round in shape.
3. Having a full-toned, resonant sound.
From Latin rotundus (round), from rota (wheel). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ret- (to run or to roll), which is also the source of rodeo, rotunda, rotate, rotary, roulette, and orotund.
sidereal (sy-DEE-ree-uhl) adjective
1. Relating to the stars.
2. Measured with reference to the apparent motion of the stars. For example, sidereal time.
From Latin sidus (star). A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Arthur Lewis Subject: randomness
Sometimes there's no substitute for walking into a random aisle in a library and perusing what books one might bump into. I did this during doctoral exam preparation. It made the difference for one of the five questions.
From: Bucky Timothy Miller Subject: epeolatry
Next week, a gallery exhibition I am curating opens at Arizona State University's Step Gallery. The exhibition, titled Epeolatry: The Worship of Words, will feature works of art that utilize text in some significant fashion. I just wanted to thank A.Word.A.Day for the inspiration, as this is where I originally discovered the word epeolatry
Monday, August 30, 2010
U.S. EPA’s Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld has announced details of the Agency’s proposal to ban all sewage discharges from large cruise ships and most other large ocean-going ships to the marine waters along California’s entire coastline. This will establish the largest coastal ‘No Discharge Zone’ in the United States and is expected to eliminate millions of gallons of sewage that large ships discharge every year into local waters. http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/035d6a7b195f40428525778a0048d0b1!OpenDocument
Clarification on "second moon" hoax
Lead-ins on television news programs and newspapers can be misleading. The "Top 5 Astronomy Hoaxes" article on the Mars second moon could have had a better title, something like "Mars as Large as the Moon". USA Today explains that for the seventh consecutive year, the "Mars Hoax" is making the rounds on the Internet. It all started with an e-mail declaring that on the night of Aug. 27, the planet Mars will come closer to Earth than it has in 60,000 years, thereby offering spectacular views of the Red Planet. The commentary even proclaims, with liberal use of exclamation marks, that Mars will appear as bright as (or as large as) the full moon. "Aug. 27" is actually Aug. 27, 2003. Mars made a historically close pass by Earth that night (34.6 million miles, or 55.7 million km). The Hubble Space Telescope used the opportunity to make some great images of Mars. But even then, to the naked eye Mars appeared as nothing more than an extremely bright yellowish-orange star, not at all like the full moon. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/08/-mars-hoax-goes-viral-on-the-internet/1
Quote A house without books is like a room without windows.
Heinrich Mann (1871-1950) German writer, elder brother of Thomas Mann http://archive.ifla.org/I/humour/subj.htm
Recent visit to Washington State
Maryhill: Maryhill Museum of Art--Auguste Rodin sculpture and drawings, Native People of North America collection, Lewis & Clark at Maryhill, special events--we were there during an art fair--located on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River. http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/visit.html
Thanks, muse reader David for recommending we visit the museum.
Walla Walla The old fur-trading Fort Walla Walla (Fort Nez Perce) was established downstream on the Columbia River at the site of modern-day Wallula in 1818. The mission of Marcus Whitman was built (1836) nearby modern Walla Walla. Wagon trains began bringing settlers in the 1840s, and Steptoeville (later Walla Walla) grew around the U.S. military Fort Walla Walla (est. 1856). The name was changed when the settlement became county seat in 1859. Walla Walla is a district headquarters of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is also the seat of Whitman College, Walla Walla Univ., and the state penitentiary. The Whitman mission nearby has been restored as a national historic site. http://www.answers.com/topic/walla-walla-washington
Approximately 40 growers cultivate creamy, yellow Walla Walla Sweet Onions on about 1,200 acres in the fertile soils of the Walla Walla Valley in southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon. Walla Walla Sweets are planted in September and hand-harvested the following summer. http://www.onionworld.com/walla_walla_sweet.php
The Walla Walla Valley wine region is the most remote of all Washington State wine regions. Lying within the larger Columbia Valley Appellation, the Walla Walla wine region includes land in both Washington and Oregon--from the far southeast corner of Washington State to the northeast tip of Oregon. More than 100 wineries (October 2009) call the Walla Walla Valley Appellation home. http://winesnw.com/walla.html
Walla Walla Public Library http://www.wallawallapubliclibrary.org/
Marcus Whitman Hotel & Conference Center http://www.marcuswhitmanhotel.com/
The hotel opened September 1, 1928 and served 1000 meals on that same day. The hotel has been beautifully restored, and on the second floor you may view 35 original oil paintings telling the story of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. In 1835, Whitman accepted a commission as a missionary to the Northwest Territory from a congregation in Wheeler, New York. In the spring of 1836, the Whitmans set out for the west. On August 29, 1838, Whitman built his first house of adobe bricks. On November 29, 1847, the Whitman family was massacred by Cayuse Indians.
Clarification on "second moon" hoax
Lead-ins on television news programs and newspapers can be misleading. The "Top 5 Astronomy Hoaxes" article on the Mars second moon could have had a better title, something like "Mars as Large as the Moon". USA Today explains that for the seventh consecutive year, the "Mars Hoax" is making the rounds on the Internet. It all started with an e-mail declaring that on the night of Aug. 27, the planet Mars will come closer to Earth than it has in 60,000 years, thereby offering spectacular views of the Red Planet. The commentary even proclaims, with liberal use of exclamation marks, that Mars will appear as bright as (or as large as) the full moon. "Aug. 27" is actually Aug. 27, 2003. Mars made a historically close pass by Earth that night (34.6 million miles, or 55.7 million km). The Hubble Space Telescope used the opportunity to make some great images of Mars. But even then, to the naked eye Mars appeared as nothing more than an extremely bright yellowish-orange star, not at all like the full moon. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/08/-mars-hoax-goes-viral-on-the-internet/1
Quote A house without books is like a room without windows.
Heinrich Mann (1871-1950) German writer, elder brother of Thomas Mann http://archive.ifla.org/I/humour/subj.htm
Recent visit to Washington State
Maryhill: Maryhill Museum of Art--Auguste Rodin sculpture and drawings, Native People of North America collection, Lewis & Clark at Maryhill, special events--we were there during an art fair--located on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River. http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/visit.html
Thanks, muse reader David for recommending we visit the museum.
Walla Walla The old fur-trading Fort Walla Walla (Fort Nez Perce) was established downstream on the Columbia River at the site of modern-day Wallula in 1818. The mission of Marcus Whitman was built (1836) nearby modern Walla Walla. Wagon trains began bringing settlers in the 1840s, and Steptoeville (later Walla Walla) grew around the U.S. military Fort Walla Walla (est. 1856). The name was changed when the settlement became county seat in 1859. Walla Walla is a district headquarters of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is also the seat of Whitman College, Walla Walla Univ., and the state penitentiary. The Whitman mission nearby has been restored as a national historic site. http://www.answers.com/topic/walla-walla-washington
Approximately 40 growers cultivate creamy, yellow Walla Walla Sweet Onions on about 1,200 acres in the fertile soils of the Walla Walla Valley in southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon. Walla Walla Sweets are planted in September and hand-harvested the following summer. http://www.onionworld.com/walla_walla_sweet.php
The Walla Walla Valley wine region is the most remote of all Washington State wine regions. Lying within the larger Columbia Valley Appellation, the Walla Walla wine region includes land in both Washington and Oregon--from the far southeast corner of Washington State to the northeast tip of Oregon. More than 100 wineries (October 2009) call the Walla Walla Valley Appellation home. http://winesnw.com/walla.html
Walla Walla Public Library http://www.wallawallapubliclibrary.org/
Marcus Whitman Hotel & Conference Center http://www.marcuswhitmanhotel.com/
The hotel opened September 1, 1928 and served 1000 meals on that same day. The hotel has been beautifully restored, and on the second floor you may view 35 original oil paintings telling the story of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. In 1835, Whitman accepted a commission as a missionary to the Northwest Territory from a congregation in Wheeler, New York. In the spring of 1836, the Whitmans set out for the west. On August 29, 1838, Whitman built his first house of adobe bricks. On November 29, 1847, the Whitman family was massacred by Cayuse Indians.
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Toledo Museum of Art has defeated 62 other contenders, making it to the final round of America's Favorite Art Museum tournament. It's facing off with the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts, in a bragging-rights contest that's accepting votes through 5 p.m. Sunday, August 29. Starting with 64 museums (it's patterned after the March Madness/NCAA basketball tournament brackets) selected by art writer Tyler Green with input from two other writers, people can vote for their favorite art palace at http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/ http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100826/ART01/100829795
Oregon places recently visited
Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area: Bonneville Lock and Dam, a National Historic Landmark serving the Northwest, Multnomah Falls, Crown Point and Vista House*, an octagonal building built in 1916 where the Historic Columbia River Highway was dedicated. The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act, P.L. 99-663, creating the 295,000-acre area, was signed on November 17, 1986 by President Ronald Reagan.
Crater Lake, formed inside a caldera about 7,700 years ago when Mount Mazama, a volcano collapsed, is the deepest lake in the U.S.--and considered to be the cleanest lake in the world. The lake is 1,943 feet deep and 4.5 to 6 miles wide.
Portland: Central Library is a three-story public library branch in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Opened in 1913, it serves as the main branch of the Multnomah County Library system. The Georgian style building was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Central Building, Public Library in 1979. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Library_(Portland,_Oregon)
Japanese Garden, 5 1/2 acres with 5 different garden styles and International Rose Test Garden, the oldest official continuously operated public rose test gardens in the U.S. http://www.travelportland.com/visitors/gardens.html
Pittock Mansion 16,000 sq. ft mansion built by founder of The Oregonian http://pittockmansion.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittock_Mansion
Stoller's, first Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified winery in the U.S.--constructed on the grounds of the former largest turkey farm in Oregon, 400 acres
The Dalles-Wasco County Public Library (Dalles is the plural form of the French dalle, usually translated as a flagstone or paving-stone but with other meanings, including a drain-gutter on the bridge of a ship. In the combination dalles des morts it usually means a gravestone. In voyageur French, it came to mean a rapids or narrows on a river. Its most famous application is for The Dalles, Oregon, which is at the site of the former Grandes Dalles de la Columbia.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalles
Timberline Lodge, on the south flank of Mt. Hood and funded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), dedicated by President Roosevelt on September 28, 1937 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
* We visited Vista House on the one day of the year when park rangers baked cookies for visitors--I selected a ranger cookie. to be continued
Certain expectations come with working at an elite corporate law firm: long hours, good pay, and an office largely free from the smell of grilled hamburgers. Steptoe & Johnson has gone to court in a quest to rid itself of hamburger fumes. The powerhouse D.C. firm filed suit claiming that Rogue States, A Burger Company has been piping hamburger exhaust into the firm’s air intake system, causing firm employees to suffer “headaches, nausea, dizziness, watery and itchy eyes, drowsiness and distraction.” D.C. Judge John Mott this week ordered the restaurant to stop emitting the odors within 30 days, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/08/26/law-firm-hamburger-war-heats-up/?mod=djemlawblog_h
On August 24, a team of stargazers using the European Southern Observatory in the high Chilean desert announced they'd detected a system of at least five, and maybe as many as seven, planets circling a star known as HD 10180, about 127 light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Hydrus. On August 26, a paper appeared in Science trumpeting the discovery of a multiplanetary system circling a star called Kepler-9, 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra. The latter solar system has only two or three worlds — but the space telescope that found it is so powerful that this discovery is just a hint of the other worlds and other solar systems it may discover in the next few months. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2014024,00.html
Top 5 astronomy hoaxes
1. Mars "Second Moon"
2. Sun-believable Discoveries
3. Letter of Toledo
4. "War of the Worlds"
5. 36 Hours of Darkness
See descriptions at: http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/mars-as-big-as-the-moon-tonight-and-other-great-astronomy-hoaxes/19610111
Oregon places recently visited
Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area: Bonneville Lock and Dam, a National Historic Landmark serving the Northwest, Multnomah Falls, Crown Point and Vista House*, an octagonal building built in 1916 where the Historic Columbia River Highway was dedicated. The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act, P.L. 99-663, creating the 295,000-acre area, was signed on November 17, 1986 by President Ronald Reagan.
Crater Lake, formed inside a caldera about 7,700 years ago when Mount Mazama, a volcano collapsed, is the deepest lake in the U.S.--and considered to be the cleanest lake in the world. The lake is 1,943 feet deep and 4.5 to 6 miles wide.
Portland: Central Library is a three-story public library branch in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Opened in 1913, it serves as the main branch of the Multnomah County Library system. The Georgian style building was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Central Building, Public Library in 1979. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Library_(Portland,_Oregon)
Japanese Garden, 5 1/2 acres with 5 different garden styles and International Rose Test Garden, the oldest official continuously operated public rose test gardens in the U.S. http://www.travelportland.com/visitors/gardens.html
Pittock Mansion 16,000 sq. ft mansion built by founder of The Oregonian http://pittockmansion.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittock_Mansion
Stoller's, first Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified winery in the U.S.--constructed on the grounds of the former largest turkey farm in Oregon, 400 acres
The Dalles-Wasco County Public Library (Dalles is the plural form of the French dalle, usually translated as a flagstone or paving-stone but with other meanings, including a drain-gutter on the bridge of a ship. In the combination dalles des morts it usually means a gravestone. In voyageur French, it came to mean a rapids or narrows on a river. Its most famous application is for The Dalles, Oregon, which is at the site of the former Grandes Dalles de la Columbia.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalles
Timberline Lodge, on the south flank of Mt. Hood and funded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), dedicated by President Roosevelt on September 28, 1937 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
* We visited Vista House on the one day of the year when park rangers baked cookies for visitors--I selected a ranger cookie. to be continued
Certain expectations come with working at an elite corporate law firm: long hours, good pay, and an office largely free from the smell of grilled hamburgers. Steptoe & Johnson has gone to court in a quest to rid itself of hamburger fumes. The powerhouse D.C. firm filed suit claiming that Rogue States, A Burger Company has been piping hamburger exhaust into the firm’s air intake system, causing firm employees to suffer “headaches, nausea, dizziness, watery and itchy eyes, drowsiness and distraction.” D.C. Judge John Mott this week ordered the restaurant to stop emitting the odors within 30 days, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/08/26/law-firm-hamburger-war-heats-up/?mod=djemlawblog_h
On August 24, a team of stargazers using the European Southern Observatory in the high Chilean desert announced they'd detected a system of at least five, and maybe as many as seven, planets circling a star known as HD 10180, about 127 light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Hydrus. On August 26, a paper appeared in Science trumpeting the discovery of a multiplanetary system circling a star called Kepler-9, 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra. The latter solar system has only two or three worlds — but the space telescope that found it is so powerful that this discovery is just a hint of the other worlds and other solar systems it may discover in the next few months. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2014024,00.html
Top 5 astronomy hoaxes
1. Mars "Second Moon"
2. Sun-believable Discoveries
3. Letter of Toledo
4. "War of the Worlds"
5. 36 Hours of Darkness
See descriptions at: http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/mars-as-big-as-the-moon-tonight-and-other-great-astronomy-hoaxes/19610111
Thursday, August 26, 2010
The detective story was invented by Edgar Allan Poe, but he wrote only four of them before he lost interest. The first “career” practitioner of the genre who is still important to us today is Arthur Conan Doyle. Agatha Christie, who began publishing detective fiction thirty-three years after Conan Doyle, elaborated upon the traditional rules of detective fiction, in sixty-six novels published between 1920 and 1983. According to a number of sources, her books have sold more than two billion copies, making her the most widely read novelist in history. Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/08/16/100816crat_atlarge_acocella#ixzz0wQZZtXyQ
There were nine Friday the 13ths in 2009—the maximum possible in a year, at least as long as we continue to mark time with the Gregorian calendar, which Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Catholic Church to adopt in 1582. "You can't have any [years] with none, and you can't have any with four, because of our funny calendar," said Underwood Dudley, a professor emeritus of mathematics at DePauw University in Indiana, and author of Numerology: Or, What Pythagoras Wrought. The calendar works just as its predecessor, the Julian calendar, did, with a leap year every four years. But the Gregorian calendar skips leap year on century years except those divisible by 400. For example, there was no leap year in 1900, but there was one in 2000. This trick keeps the calendar in tune with the seasons. The result is an ordering of days and dates that repeats itself every 400 years, Dudley noted. As time marches through the order, some years appear with three Friday the 13ths. Other years have two or, like 2010, one. Richard Beveridge, a mathematics instructor at Clatsop Community College in Oregon, authored a 2003 paper in the journal Mathematical Connections on the mathematics of Friday the 13th. He noted the 400-year cycle is further broken down into periods of either 28 or 40 years. "At the end of every cycle you get a year with three Friday the 13ths the year before the last year in the cycle … and you also get one on the tenth year of all the cycles," he said. 2009, for example, was the tenth year of the cycle that started in 2000.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100813-friday-the-13th-superstitions-triskaidekaphobia/
Note: We just returned from our Pacific Northwest vacation where we met actress, dancer and painter Adrienne King who played "Alice" in the 1980 film Friday the 13th. More information on the trip is coming.
Anagrams in Literature, Movies, and Beyond
Erewhon = Nowhere
The author Samuel Butler titled his satirical novel as an angram; incidentally, the word "nowhere" is a literal translation of the Greek utopia.
Dave Barry = Ray Adverb
Ray Adverb is a character in a book by Dave Barry, titled "Dave Barry In Cyberspace"
Gregory House = Huge ego, sorry
In the television series House, in the episode titled "Housetraining", the character Dr. House says his name, Gregory House, is an anagram for "Huge ego, sorry."
See many more at: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/literature.html
Japan's former capital city (Kyoto, A.D. 794-1868) and present capital city (Tokyo) names are anagrams of each other. http://wordsmith.org/anagram/odd.html
The original Kermit the Frog has been donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington. The muppet was donated by creator Jim Henson's widow Jane, along with nine other characters from the 1955 TV show Sam and Friends. Some of the other muppets in the collection include early versions of Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch. Henson's oldest puppet, Pierre the French Rat, was also donated. Jane Henson said the original characters provided five minutes of fun each night after the local news where they mostly mimed to popular music. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11094631
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Joe Fleischman Subject: Moraine - Boulder Field at Hickory Run SP, PA
On the East Coast of the US, one of the most amazing and accessible examples of a glacial deposit is the Boulder Field at Hickory run State Park in northeast Pennsylvania. ncompassing about 16.5 acres, the boulder field is the remnants of a retreating glacier and collection of rocks from surrounding hillsides; all deposited in a valley.
From: Henry Miller Subject: moraine
Def: An accumulation of boulders, gravel, or other debris carried and deposited by a glacier.
Iowa's gold-domed capitol building commands a view of the city from the largest hill in Des Moines, a moraine of rock and soil collected by glaciers hundreds of miles north of Iowa and deposited here during the last ice age. This fact caused one local historian to observe that Iowa's state capitol sits on Canadian soil.
From: Frank Schorn Subject: Moraine
Moraine is a word familiar to the residents of the Queens neighborhoods Glendale and Woodhaven, which sandwich Forest Park, the third largest in New York City. Forest Park was formed by the cessation of the Wisconsin Glacier, which traversed the northeast about 22,000 years ago.
There were nine Friday the 13ths in 2009—the maximum possible in a year, at least as long as we continue to mark time with the Gregorian calendar, which Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Catholic Church to adopt in 1582. "You can't have any [years] with none, and you can't have any with four, because of our funny calendar," said Underwood Dudley, a professor emeritus of mathematics at DePauw University in Indiana, and author of Numerology: Or, What Pythagoras Wrought. The calendar works just as its predecessor, the Julian calendar, did, with a leap year every four years. But the Gregorian calendar skips leap year on century years except those divisible by 400. For example, there was no leap year in 1900, but there was one in 2000. This trick keeps the calendar in tune with the seasons. The result is an ordering of days and dates that repeats itself every 400 years, Dudley noted. As time marches through the order, some years appear with three Friday the 13ths. Other years have two or, like 2010, one. Richard Beveridge, a mathematics instructor at Clatsop Community College in Oregon, authored a 2003 paper in the journal Mathematical Connections on the mathematics of Friday the 13th. He noted the 400-year cycle is further broken down into periods of either 28 or 40 years. "At the end of every cycle you get a year with three Friday the 13ths the year before the last year in the cycle … and you also get one on the tenth year of all the cycles," he said. 2009, for example, was the tenth year of the cycle that started in 2000.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100813-friday-the-13th-superstitions-triskaidekaphobia/
Note: We just returned from our Pacific Northwest vacation where we met actress, dancer and painter Adrienne King who played "Alice" in the 1980 film Friday the 13th. More information on the trip is coming.
Anagrams in Literature, Movies, and Beyond
Erewhon = Nowhere
The author Samuel Butler titled his satirical novel as an angram; incidentally, the word "nowhere" is a literal translation of the Greek utopia.
Dave Barry = Ray Adverb
Ray Adverb is a character in a book by Dave Barry, titled "Dave Barry In Cyberspace"
Gregory House = Huge ego, sorry
In the television series House, in the episode titled "Housetraining", the character Dr. House says his name, Gregory House, is an anagram for "Huge ego, sorry."
See many more at: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/literature.html
Japan's former capital city (Kyoto, A.D. 794-1868) and present capital city (Tokyo) names are anagrams of each other. http://wordsmith.org/anagram/odd.html
The original Kermit the Frog has been donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington. The muppet was donated by creator Jim Henson's widow Jane, along with nine other characters from the 1955 TV show Sam and Friends. Some of the other muppets in the collection include early versions of Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch. Henson's oldest puppet, Pierre the French Rat, was also donated. Jane Henson said the original characters provided five minutes of fun each night after the local news where they mostly mimed to popular music. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11094631
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Joe Fleischman Subject: Moraine - Boulder Field at Hickory Run SP, PA
On the East Coast of the US, one of the most amazing and accessible examples of a glacial deposit is the Boulder Field at Hickory run State Park in northeast Pennsylvania. ncompassing about 16.5 acres, the boulder field is the remnants of a retreating glacier and collection of rocks from surrounding hillsides; all deposited in a valley.
From: Henry Miller Subject: moraine
Def: An accumulation of boulders, gravel, or other debris carried and deposited by a glacier.
Iowa's gold-domed capitol building commands a view of the city from the largest hill in Des Moines, a moraine of rock and soil collected by glaciers hundreds of miles north of Iowa and deposited here during the last ice age. This fact caused one local historian to observe that Iowa's state capitol sits on Canadian soil.
From: Frank Schorn Subject: Moraine
Moraine is a word familiar to the residents of the Queens neighborhoods Glendale and Woodhaven, which sandwich Forest Park, the third largest in New York City. Forest Park was formed by the cessation of the Wisconsin Glacier, which traversed the northeast about 22,000 years ago.
Friday, August 13, 2010
In the early 20th century, the Netherlands and England had dominance over the world’s market for rubber production with plantations in the East Indies. Although the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis was native to the Amazon, 70,000 seedlings were taken from Brazil by Henry Wickham of England in 1876 and then brought to the East Indies for cultivation. This effectively robbed Brazil of its position as the number one exporter of rubber in the world. The dominance of Eastern rubber over world supply became especially obvious with the Britain Stevenson Plan in 1922, which attempted to establish the world price of rubber much higher than the cost of production . Because three quarters of the rubber imported into the United States was used in the automobile industry, the US government and the private sector started looking for new locations for plantations to bypass the unfair prices set by the British.
The start of Fordlandia Henry Ford was one of the business owners most interested in finding an alternate location to grow rubber trees. Influenced by a 1923 United States government survey that named the Amazon as an ideal location for producing rubber, Henry Ford commissioned his own independent study of the Tapajos River valley in 1926. On July 21, 1927 he was given a free land concession of one million hectares (2.5 million acres) along the Tapajos River with a deal that he was to pay 7% of his annual profits to the Brazilian government and 2% of annual profits to local municipalities after 12 years of operation. It was initially estimated that when the plantation was under full cultivation, it would produce enough rubber to make tires for 2,000,000 automobiles a year. An early problem at Fordlandia was the Amazon’s heavy rains that washed out the nutrient-rich soil needed for growing the rubber trees. Extensive terracing was needed to prevent flooding on the cleared land. Fordlandia was also plagued with other troubles, such as drought during the dry season and diseases and insects that attacked the trees. Among the attackers were a deadly leaf fungus and pests such as sauva ants, lace bugs, red spiders, and leaf caterpillars. The early troubles of Fordlandia partly had to do with the fact that the plantation was under the supervision of Ford factory-trained men rather than horticultural specialists. By 1933, after years of trouble with leaf diseases and pests, it was clear that changes were needed. Ford hired Dr. James Weir, a plant pathologist, who after a survey of the surrounding land suggested a new property eighty miles downstream from Fordlandia. The new plantation, Belterra, was established at the site. As Henry Wickham had originally spirited away rubber tree seedlings from Brazil half a century earlier, Weir obtained 2,046 buddings from high-producing trees in the Far East and brought them back to Brazil to start growing at Belterra. Weir founded a research laboratory and nursery at Belterra to experiment with producing high-yielding and disease-resistant strains of rubber.
Fordlandia was not abandoned, but the major operations of the plantation were transferred to Belterra. By 1940, 500 employees were working at Fordlandia while 2,500 employees were working at Belterra. During World War II, the rubber supply was cut off from the Far East, harming the US government’s wartime need for tire production. The Ford plantations continued to produce rubber, but a leaf disease epidemic and additional labor problems made producing a reliable supply of rubber difficult. By the time the war ended and the Far Eastern rubber plantations were opened again, Ford did not see the need to keep the Brazilian plantations open. For a mere $250,000, Ford gave up its rubber interests in the Amazon to the Brazilian government. The plantations were put under the control of the Brazilian Northern Agronomical Institute, and the legacy of Ford in the jungle was brought to an end. http://www.thehenryford.org/research/rubberPlantations.aspx
The most widely used alphabet is called the Latin alphabet, the standard script of most languages that originated in Europe. It developed before 600 BC from the Etruscan alphabet (in turn derived from the North Semitic alphabet by way of the Phoenician and Greek alphabets). The earliest known Latin inscriptions date from the 7th – 6th cent. BC. The classical Latin alphabet had 23 letters, 21 derived from the Etruscan. In medieval times the letter J became differentiated from I, and U and W became differentiated from V, producing the 26-letter alphabet of modern English. In ancient Roman times there were two types of Latin script, capital letters and cursive. Uncial script, mixing both types, developed in the 3rd century AD. http://www.answers.com/topic/latin-alphabet
drumlin (DRUM-lin) noun
A long, narrow, whale-shaped hill of gravel, rock, and clay debris, formed by the movement of a glacier. From Irish druim (back, ridge) + -lin, a variant of -ling (a diminutive suffix, as in duckling).
esker (ES-kuhr) noun
A long, narrow ridge of gravel and sand deposited by a stream flowing in or under a retreating glacier. From Irish eiscir (ridge of gravel).
fjord or fiord (fyord) noun
A long, narrow inlet of the sea, bordered by steep cliffs, and carved by glacial action.
From Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse. Ultimately from the Indo-European root per- (to lead, pass over), which also gave us support, comport, petroleum, sport, passport, colporteur (a peddler of religious books), Swedish fartlek (a training technique), rapporteur, and Sanskrit parvat (mountain).
cirque (suhrk) noun
1. A bowl-shaped semicircular mountain basin carved by glacial erosion. Also called cwm.
2. A ring; a circle.
Via French from Latin circus (circle). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sker- (to turn or bend) which is also the source of other words such as ranch, rank, shrink, circle, crisp, search, ring, curb, ridge, curve, and circa.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
THOUGHTS FROM LYNNE
Right now is the time to freeze fresh herbs for winter while they are cheap and prime. Just wash them well, drain well, strip leaves into heavy-duty plastic bags, press out all the air and seal. Rosemary and thyme can be frozen right on their branches. To use, don't defrost, just break off what you need.
The Splendid Table August 11, 2010
I am heading to Oregon and Washington State for a vacation and will be back by the end of the month.
The start of Fordlandia Henry Ford was one of the business owners most interested in finding an alternate location to grow rubber trees. Influenced by a 1923 United States government survey that named the Amazon as an ideal location for producing rubber, Henry Ford commissioned his own independent study of the Tapajos River valley in 1926. On July 21, 1927 he was given a free land concession of one million hectares (2.5 million acres) along the Tapajos River with a deal that he was to pay 7% of his annual profits to the Brazilian government and 2% of annual profits to local municipalities after 12 years of operation. It was initially estimated that when the plantation was under full cultivation, it would produce enough rubber to make tires for 2,000,000 automobiles a year. An early problem at Fordlandia was the Amazon’s heavy rains that washed out the nutrient-rich soil needed for growing the rubber trees. Extensive terracing was needed to prevent flooding on the cleared land. Fordlandia was also plagued with other troubles, such as drought during the dry season and diseases and insects that attacked the trees. Among the attackers were a deadly leaf fungus and pests such as sauva ants, lace bugs, red spiders, and leaf caterpillars. The early troubles of Fordlandia partly had to do with the fact that the plantation was under the supervision of Ford factory-trained men rather than horticultural specialists. By 1933, after years of trouble with leaf diseases and pests, it was clear that changes were needed. Ford hired Dr. James Weir, a plant pathologist, who after a survey of the surrounding land suggested a new property eighty miles downstream from Fordlandia. The new plantation, Belterra, was established at the site. As Henry Wickham had originally spirited away rubber tree seedlings from Brazil half a century earlier, Weir obtained 2,046 buddings from high-producing trees in the Far East and brought them back to Brazil to start growing at Belterra. Weir founded a research laboratory and nursery at Belterra to experiment with producing high-yielding and disease-resistant strains of rubber.
Fordlandia was not abandoned, but the major operations of the plantation were transferred to Belterra. By 1940, 500 employees were working at Fordlandia while 2,500 employees were working at Belterra. During World War II, the rubber supply was cut off from the Far East, harming the US government’s wartime need for tire production. The Ford plantations continued to produce rubber, but a leaf disease epidemic and additional labor problems made producing a reliable supply of rubber difficult. By the time the war ended and the Far Eastern rubber plantations were opened again, Ford did not see the need to keep the Brazilian plantations open. For a mere $250,000, Ford gave up its rubber interests in the Amazon to the Brazilian government. The plantations were put under the control of the Brazilian Northern Agronomical Institute, and the legacy of Ford in the jungle was brought to an end. http://www.thehenryford.org/research/rubberPlantations.aspx
The most widely used alphabet is called the Latin alphabet, the standard script of most languages that originated in Europe. It developed before 600 BC from the Etruscan alphabet (in turn derived from the North Semitic alphabet by way of the Phoenician and Greek alphabets). The earliest known Latin inscriptions date from the 7th – 6th cent. BC. The classical Latin alphabet had 23 letters, 21 derived from the Etruscan. In medieval times the letter J became differentiated from I, and U and W became differentiated from V, producing the 26-letter alphabet of modern English. In ancient Roman times there were two types of Latin script, capital letters and cursive. Uncial script, mixing both types, developed in the 3rd century AD. http://www.answers.com/topic/latin-alphabet
drumlin (DRUM-lin) noun
A long, narrow, whale-shaped hill of gravel, rock, and clay debris, formed by the movement of a glacier. From Irish druim (back, ridge) + -lin, a variant of -ling (a diminutive suffix, as in duckling).
esker (ES-kuhr) noun
A long, narrow ridge of gravel and sand deposited by a stream flowing in or under a retreating glacier. From Irish eiscir (ridge of gravel).
fjord or fiord (fyord) noun
A long, narrow inlet of the sea, bordered by steep cliffs, and carved by glacial action.
From Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse. Ultimately from the Indo-European root per- (to lead, pass over), which also gave us support, comport, petroleum, sport, passport, colporteur (a peddler of religious books), Swedish fartlek (a training technique), rapporteur, and Sanskrit parvat (mountain).
cirque (suhrk) noun
1. A bowl-shaped semicircular mountain basin carved by glacial erosion. Also called cwm.
2. A ring; a circle.
Via French from Latin circus (circle). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sker- (to turn or bend) which is also the source of other words such as ranch, rank, shrink, circle, crisp, search, ring, curb, ridge, curve, and circa.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
THOUGHTS FROM LYNNE
Right now is the time to freeze fresh herbs for winter while they are cheap and prime. Just wash them well, drain well, strip leaves into heavy-duty plastic bags, press out all the air and seal. Rosemary and thyme can be frozen right on their branches. To use, don't defrost, just break off what you need.
The Splendid Table August 11, 2010
I am heading to Oregon and Washington State for a vacation and will be back by the end of the month.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Food Security Assessment, 2010-2020
Outlook Report No. (GFA-21) 64 pp, July 2010
Food security in 70 developing countries is estimated to have improved between 2009 and 2010, in part due to economic recovery in many of these countries.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/GFA21/
A confidential, seven-page Google Inc. "vision statement" shows the information-age giant in a deep round of soul-searching over a basic question: How far should it go in profiting from its crown jewels—the vast trove of data it possesses about people's activities? Should it tap more of what it knows about Gmail users? Should it build a vast "trading platform" for buying and selling Web data? Should it let people pay to not see any ads at all? Google is pushing into uncharted privacy territory for the company. Until recently, it refrained from aggressively cashing in on its own data about Internet users, fearing a backlash. But the rapid emergence of scrappy rivals who track people's online activities and sell that data, along with Facebook Inc.'s growth, is forcing a shift. http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748703309704575413553851854026.html
Speeders, beware: That innocent-looking Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Fusion or SUV you're about to blow past just might be the law. In their effort to reduce speeding — a factor in nearly one-third of all highway deaths — state and local police agencies around the USA increasingly are using unmarked patrol cars, sports cars and even "ghost" cruisers with obscured markings.
"This is not about being sneaky," says Fargo, N.D., Police Chief Keith Ternes, whose department recently began using unmarked vehicles. "This is about trying to change people's habits and having them pay attention to their driving even when they don't think a police officer is watching." http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-08-09-police-cars-unmarked_N.htm
Back to "stone age" Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls. In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as "poor man's pavement." Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575370950363737746.html
New private homes could replace Europe's largest collection of fruits and berries, if a Russian court rules the land could be sold to property developers. The Pavlovsk experimental station near the Russian city of St. Petersburg is the biggest European field seed bank and one of the largest in the world. Thousands of varieties of plants and crops there are found nowhere else. The court hearing is scheduled for 11 August. The court will then announce the decision regarding the earlier ruling of handing the station to the Russian Housing Development Foundation-- a state body that decides whether public land can be used to build private homes.
The Pavlovsk experimental station is one of several such stations in Russia. It is affiliated to the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry. Agricultural scientist Nikolai Vavilov built the seed bank--thought to be one of the oldest in the world--in 1926, to preserve biodiversity and enable the breeding of new crop varieties. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10899318
MAN’s America’s Favorite Art Museum tourney
Big upsets: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA are both out. In a way, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Met lost to the Toledo Museum of Art: Many art museum observers are (justifiably) skeptical of self-reported attendance figures, but still: Toledo annually ranks at or near the top of attendance per capita. According to the Association of Art Museum Directors 2009 survey, Toledo reported 363,000 visitors. There are 659,000 people in metropolitan Toledo. Compare that to the Met: 4.67 million visitors and a metro population of 19 million. Toledo’s numbers = local luv. See Round two results at: http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/2010/08/round-two-results-americas-favorite-art-museum-tourney/
Perseid meteor shower makes its appearance.
The "shooting stars" promise to deliver an excellent show this year to anyone with clear and dark skies away from urban and suburban lights. The best time to watch for meteors will be from the late-night hours of Wednesday, Aug, 11 on through the predawn hours of Aug. 13 – two full nights and early mornings. Patient skywatchers with good conditions could see up to 60 shooting stars an hour or more.
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/perseid-meteor-shower-2010-100806.html
Outlook Report No. (GFA-21) 64 pp, July 2010
Food security in 70 developing countries is estimated to have improved between 2009 and 2010, in part due to economic recovery in many of these countries.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/GFA21/
A confidential, seven-page Google Inc. "vision statement" shows the information-age giant in a deep round of soul-searching over a basic question: How far should it go in profiting from its crown jewels—the vast trove of data it possesses about people's activities? Should it tap more of what it knows about Gmail users? Should it build a vast "trading platform" for buying and selling Web data? Should it let people pay to not see any ads at all? Google is pushing into uncharted privacy territory for the company. Until recently, it refrained from aggressively cashing in on its own data about Internet users, fearing a backlash. But the rapid emergence of scrappy rivals who track people's online activities and sell that data, along with Facebook Inc.'s growth, is forcing a shift. http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748703309704575413553851854026.html
Speeders, beware: That innocent-looking Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Fusion or SUV you're about to blow past just might be the law. In their effort to reduce speeding — a factor in nearly one-third of all highway deaths — state and local police agencies around the USA increasingly are using unmarked patrol cars, sports cars and even "ghost" cruisers with obscured markings.
"This is not about being sneaky," says Fargo, N.D., Police Chief Keith Ternes, whose department recently began using unmarked vehicles. "This is about trying to change people's habits and having them pay attention to their driving even when they don't think a police officer is watching." http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-08-09-police-cars-unmarked_N.htm
Back to "stone age" Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls. In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as "poor man's pavement." Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575370950363737746.html
New private homes could replace Europe's largest collection of fruits and berries, if a Russian court rules the land could be sold to property developers. The Pavlovsk experimental station near the Russian city of St. Petersburg is the biggest European field seed bank and one of the largest in the world. Thousands of varieties of plants and crops there are found nowhere else. The court hearing is scheduled for 11 August. The court will then announce the decision regarding the earlier ruling of handing the station to the Russian Housing Development Foundation-- a state body that decides whether public land can be used to build private homes.
The Pavlovsk experimental station is one of several such stations in Russia. It is affiliated to the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry. Agricultural scientist Nikolai Vavilov built the seed bank--thought to be one of the oldest in the world--in 1926, to preserve biodiversity and enable the breeding of new crop varieties. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10899318
MAN’s America’s Favorite Art Museum tourney
Big upsets: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA are both out. In a way, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Met lost to the Toledo Museum of Art: Many art museum observers are (justifiably) skeptical of self-reported attendance figures, but still: Toledo annually ranks at or near the top of attendance per capita. According to the Association of Art Museum Directors 2009 survey, Toledo reported 363,000 visitors. There are 659,000 people in metropolitan Toledo. Compare that to the Met: 4.67 million visitors and a metro population of 19 million. Toledo’s numbers = local luv. See Round two results at: http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/2010/08/round-two-results-americas-favorite-art-museum-tourney/
Perseid meteor shower makes its appearance.
The "shooting stars" promise to deliver an excellent show this year to anyone with clear and dark skies away from urban and suburban lights. The best time to watch for meteors will be from the late-night hours of Wednesday, Aug, 11 on through the predawn hours of Aug. 13 – two full nights and early mornings. Patient skywatchers with good conditions could see up to 60 shooting stars an hour or more.
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/perseid-meteor-shower-2010-100806.html
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