Thermometers measure temperature, by using materials that change in some way when they are heated or cooled.  In a mercury or alcohol thermometer the liquid expands as it is heated and contracts when it is cooled, so the length of the liquid column is longer or shorter depending on the temperature.  Modern thermometers are calibrated in standard temperature units such as Fahrenheit (used in the United States) or Celsius (used in Canada) and Kelvin (used mostly by scientists).  Before there was the thermometer, there was the earlier and closely related thermoscope, best described as a thermometer without a scale.  A thermoscope only showed the differences in temperatures, for example, it could show something was getting hotter.  However, the thermoscope did not measure all the data that a thermometer could, for example an exact temperature in degrees.  Several inventors invented a version of the thermoscope at the same time.  In 1593, Galileo Galilei invented a rudimentary water thermoscope, which for the first time, allowed temperature variations to be measured.  Today, Galileo's invention is called the Galileo Thermometer, even though by definition it was really a thermoscope.  It was a container filled with bulbs of varying mass, each with a temperature marking, the buoyancy of water changes with temperature, some of the bulbs sink while others float, the lowest bulb indicated what temperature it was.  In 1612, the Italian inventor Santorio Santorio became the first inventor to put a numerical scale on his thermoscope.  In 1654, the first enclosed liquid-in-a-glass thermometer was invented by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II.  The Duke used alcohol as his liquid.  However, it was still inaccurate and used no standardized scale.  Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was the German physicist who invented a alcohol thermometer in 1709, and the mercury thermometer in 1714.  In 1724, he introduced the standard temperature scale that bears his name - Fahrenheit Scale - that was used to record changes in temperature in an accurate fashion.  The Celsius temperature scale is also referred to as the "centigrade" scale.  Centigrade means "consisting of or divided into 100 degrees".  In 1742, the Celsius scale was invented by Swedish Astronomer Anders Celsius.  Lord Kelvin took the whole process one step further with his invention of the Kelvin Scale in 1848.  The Kelvin Scale measures the ultimate extremes of hot and cold. Kelvin developed the idea of absolute temperature, what is called the "Second Law of Thermodynamics", and developed the dynamical theory of heat.  Read more at http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/History-Of-The-Thermometer.htm

THE THREE C'S  Q.  One problem that always trips me up is knowing the correct use of comprise, consist, and constitute.  Is there a rule of thumb for knowing when to favor one over the others?   A.  Change them all to "makes up" or "is made up of."  Well, maybe not all, but I prefer that construction.  Remember that nothing is "comprised of."  The whole comprises the parts. That's the one that people most often get wrong.  Bill Walsh

http://live.washingtonpost.com/grammar-geekery-with-bill-walsh-140603.html#The-three-C's

Rotten stone, or rottenstone, is a form of powdered stone which is used to polish wood and some soft metals; you may also hear it referred to as tripoli.  This product can be useful to have  around the home, as it can be utilized to buff out stains in addition to being used to finish wood.

Classically, rotten stone is made from soft, powdered limestone mixed with silica.  The result is a soft abrasive powder which can be used towards the end of the finishing process to create a smooth, clean finish.  Typically, rotten stone is applied after varnishing and a rough polishing with pumice powder, which buffs out the big uneven spots, making it easier to use the rotten stone.  After polishing, the wood should have a bright, glossy finish.  Rotten stone comes in powder form, meaning that people must mix it into a paste before using it.  Many woodworkers use oil to make their rotten stone paste, although it is also possible to use water.  Rotten stone can also be used on some metals, like brass, in addition to wood.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-rotten-stone.htm

John Winslow Irving, born on March 2, 1942 in Exeter, New Hampshire, pursued wrestling and worked as a teacher before shooting to fame with his bestselling 1978 novel, The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award.  He later crafted the 1985 novel The Cider House Rules, for which he also wrote the screenplay adaption, winning an Oscar for his efforts.  When he was 15, Irving read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, which had a profound effect on his life and inspired much of his future writing.  Irving studied as an undergrad at the University of New Hampshire, and went on to earn an Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Iowa, studying fiction and graduating in 1967.  He published his first book, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968, and taught at the University of Iowa and Mount Holyoke through the '70s, while continuing to write and publish novels like The Water-Method Man and The 158-Pound Marriage.  http://www.biography.com/people/john-irving-39979#awesm=~oG7LNTChVP3RBK

The New York Public Library's Rose Main Reading Room will remain closed for the next six months for inspection and repairs after a plaster rosette fell from its ceiling, library officials said June 16, 2014.  The reading room is the jewel of the library's flagship Fifth Avenue building, which draws 2.3 million visits a year.  The room's 52-foot-tall ceilings are adorned with painted clouds and other decorations molded in plaster.    The reading room, and the adjacent Bill Blass Public Catalog Room, have been closed since the plaster fell on May 29 at about 2 a.m., while the library was closed.  The fallen rosette was about 12 to 16 inches wide.   The library's recently scrapped renovation plan wouldn't have altered the reading room, but would have gutted the historic book stacks that provide its structural support.  The library in early May announced that the stacks would be preserved, after concluding that the renovation would cost $200 million more than expected.  Jennifer Maloney  See beautiful pictures at http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-new-york-public-librarys-rose-main-reading-room-will-close-for-six-months-after-plaster-fell-from-the-ceiling-in-may-1402958037?tesla=y&mod=djemITP_h&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304068704579628702469129092.html?mod=djemITP_h

Apple Inc reached an out-of-court settlement with U.S. states and other complainants in an e-book price-fixing class action lawsuit on June 16, 2014, effectively avoiding a trial in which the iPad maker faced more than $800 million in claims.  U.S. District Judge in Manhattan Denise Cote ordered the parties to submit a filing to seek approval of their settlement within 30 days. 

The terms of the settlement, which still needs court approval, have not been revealed.  The U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple and five publishers in April 2012, accusing them of working together illegally to increase e-book prices.  Since then, 33 states and U.S. territories have separately sued Apple on behalf of their consumers, while individual consumers in other states and territories filed a class action lawsuit.  The complainants are seeking up to $840 million in damages for e-book customers. The exact amount of damages was to be litigated at a trial scheduled for July 14.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/17/us-apple-ebooks-settlement-idUSKBN0ES0GH20140617

Food companies go to great lengths to safeguard their coveted recipes—KFC’s (YUM) and Coca-Cola’s (KO) are stored in vaults—no doubt because they’re considered to be any successful brand’s secret weapon.  Yet curiously, a recipe isn’t always owned by the restaurant.  Such has been the case at fried-chicken chain Popeyes (PLKI), which announced on June 17, 2014 that it just bought several recipes used in its core menu for $43 million.  (The chain won’t specify which recipes.)  How did it not own its recipes?  Until now, the recipes have belonged to Diversified Foods and Seasonings, a Louisiana food manufacturer started by Popeyes founder Al Copeland in 1984 after he opened Popeyes.  For the last 23 years the chicken chain has paid DFS a $3.1 million “spice royalty” to license the use of its recipes.  It’s a peculiar arrangement dating back to the early 1990s, when Copeland was forced to step down as chief executive of Popeyes’ parent company following a bankruptcy reorganization.  It left him as a franchisee of 26 Popeyes and Church’s restaurants, and with a 12-year contract to supply DFS products to the chain.  DFS makes biscuit, cake, and meat mixes; batters; seasoning blends; gravies; soups; sauces; and sides like macaroni and cheese, spinach and artichoke dip, and jambalaya and grits, according to its website at http://diversified-foods.com/products.  After he left Popeyes, Copeland retained ownership of Popeyes’ recipes and continued to collect royalties for their use.  Copeland died in 2008, and DFS is now owned by his estate.  Venessa Wong  http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-17/popeyes-buys-its-recipes-for-43-million-dot-wait-popeyes-didnt-own-its-recipes

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1163  June 18, 2014  On this date in 1812, War of 1812:  The U.S. Congress declared war on Great Britain, Canada, and Ireland.  On this date in 1858, Charles Darwin received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory.  On this date in 1873, Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.

diction  (1)  The choice and use of words in speech or writing.  (2)  A way of speaking, usually judged in terms of prevailing standards of pronunciation and elocution.  http://grammar.about.com/od/d/g/disctionterm.htm   "Is your food tasting OK?"  Is this proper diction?  "You are tasting" is listed as present indicative at http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/English/taste.html  So this expression seems proper.  We are conditioned to be polite and to answer the question in a positive way.  However, the phrase is awkward, overused and annoying to many.  OK is a wishy-washy word--it can mean good or not so good.   Thank you, muse reader.

'Do' verbs can be divided into 'transitive' verbs requiring direct objects (make, have, etc.) and 'intransitive' verbs (swim, cry, etc.) that don't take objects and 'ditransitive' verbs that can go either way. (eat, play, etc.)  Taste, smell and feel are examples of verbs that can be both 'be' verbs AND 'do' verbs.  

http://www.urch.com/forums/english/126659-transitive-vs-intransitive-verbs.html

Umami is one of the five basic tastes (together with sweet, sour, bitter and salty).  A loanword from the Japanese umami can be translated as "pleasant savory taste".  This particular writing was chosen by Professor Kikunae Ikeda from umai "delicious" and mi "taste".  Scientists have debated whether umami was a basic taste since Kikunae Ikeda first proposed its existence in 1908.  In 1985, the term umami was recognized as the scientific term to describe the taste of glutamates and nucleotides at the first Umami International Symposium in Hawaii.  Umami represents the taste of the amino acid L-glutamate and 5’-ribonucleotides such as guanosine monophosphate (GMP) and inosine monophosphate (IMP).  It can be described as a pleasant "brothy" or "meaty" taste with a long lasting, mouthwatering and coating sensation over the tongue.  Its effect is to balance taste and round out the overall flavor of a dish.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami  See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate

Paintings mentioned in Donna Tartt's novel, The Goldfinch 

Young Man Handling a Skull (Vanitas) was painted by Frans Hals between 1626 and 1628.  "His right hand reaches towards us as he gestures.  The artist has skillfully foreshortened his hand in such a way that it seems to be bursting out of the canvas towards us.  In his left hand is the skull, glowing in comparison to the darkness of the boy’s palm and clothes.  The light comes from the left hand side of the painting causing a dark shadow on one side of the boy’s face."

http://mydailyartdisplay.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/young-man-with-a-skull-vanitas-by-frans-hals/  

The Anatomy lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp  Rembrandt painted this group portrait of seven surgeons and the physician Nicolaes Tulp in 1632.  The painting is one of a series of group portraits that were made for the board room of the Guild of Surgeons, the earliest of which dates from 1603.  An anatomy piece of this kind has a central motif, an anatomy lesson, and a protagonist, the praelector or reader.  This painting was occasioned by the anatomy lesson that Tulp gave in January 1632.   http://www.rembrandthuis.nl/en/rembrandt/belangrijkste-werken/de-anatomische-les-van-dr-nicolaes-tulp  

The Goldfinch, 1654 by Carel Fabritius  In the early 1640s Fabritius had been the pupil of Rembrandt, and it must have been the master's chiaroscuro, employed as a subtle method of defining form through the inflection of light which impressed him most deeply.  Rembrandt's chiaroscuro was basically tonal, using intensities of light on a scale varying from very dark to very bright.  The paintings of Fabritius, of which The Goldfinch is a brilliant example, maintain an overall brightness, a golden glow; yet within the strong light, light is still more inflected--not by toning it down or intensifying it but by tingeing it with subtle hues of colour.  It has been suggested that this painting, rather than fitting in a cabinet or interior window, may have served as a house sign for a family in The Hague whose name, De Putter, is Dutch for goldfinch.  http://www.wga.hu/html_m/f/fabritiu/carel/goldfinc.html

June 12, 2014  Illinois may have a budding celebrity chef — or politician — on its hands.  Between the two careers, Tess Boghossian, a 12-year-old girl from Palatine and the state's winner in first lady Michelle Obama's annual Healthy Lunchtime Challenge, would prefer to be a chef.  But Tess' fondness for the kitchen is well matched by her love of books and American history, especially presidents .  Based on the description of her room, covered in pictures of Abe Lincoln, and her last birthday celebration visiting Lincoln's home and museum, it's not hard to tell who her favorite is.  Just check out her winning dish: Lincoln's inaugural soup.  It earned her a seat at the presidential dinner table with Obama and the 53 other winners, one from each state, three territories and the District of Columbia, on July 18.  Winners were announced this week.  "(Tess' recipe) stood out right off the bat because it was so creative, had historical, presidential and local ties, and was healthy and delicious to boot," Tanya Steel, creator of the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge and a special projects contributor for Epicurious, wrote in an email.  After learning about Epicurious' and the first lady's annual contest searching for delicious and healthy recipes created by kids ages 8 to 11, Tess (who was 11 at the time of the contest) set out to make a dish even Honest Abe would appreciate.  Researching food that sat on the 16th president's plate, she discovered a vegetable-based brunoise soup served at his inauguration.  In a matter of days, the young cook with the help of her mother, Debbie Boghossian, had perfected her own interpretation with onion, carrots, quinoa, asparagus, green beans, chicken, white beans, chicken broth and parsnip, her favorite vegetable.  Debbie said they wanted to pay tribute to Lincoln's inauguration, but incorporate more nutritional value by adding whole grains and lean protein.  Lindsay Friedman  http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/ct-food-0618-obama-healthy-challenge-20140617,0,2754705.story

June 13, 2014  Rejecting government fears of a “crime-friendly Internet,” the Supreme Court of Canada said anonymity is vital to personal privacy in the digital era.  It told police they need a judge’s permission before asking Internet providers for basic information that would identify their customers – such as a suspected child pornographer at the heart of a 2007 Saskatchewan investigation.  Legal observers called the unanimous ruling a privacy landmark, with implications for everything from child porn investigations to snooping by national security agencies to police powers under the Conservative government’s cyberbullying bill.  David Fraser, a Halifax privacy lawyer, said that "the message to police is 'Come back with a warrant;' customers' names and addresses are not as innocuous as police might think, or want us to believe."  The Conservative government would not say whether it would amend proposed laws that expand the sharing of that kind of private information.  Sean Fine  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/supreme-court-privacy/article19155295/

What was fake on the Internet this week, 15th installment   Japan’s soccer team did not arrive at the World Cup in a Pokemon-plastered plane.  The Amazonian rainforest was not defaced for England’s World Cup team.  Paddy Power, the Irish bookmaker that’s become a household name thanks to a series of controversial viral marketing stunts, released a photo last weekend of a supportive message by England’s World Cup team … carved into the Amazon.  U.S. stores will still take coupons after July 1.   Read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/06/13/what-was-fake-on-the-internet-this-week-turing-tests-pokemon-planes-and-angry-stingrays/ 

Seven things I came across this week that are worth reading by Mathew Ingram

"Inspired by my friend Om’s regular series of “Seven stories to read this weekend” posts, I thought I would collect some of the pieces of writing that have impressed me and/or made me think this week . . . "  Thank you, muse reader, for reminding us of http://gigaom.com/2014/06/14/seven-things-i-came-across-this-week-that-are-worth-reading/?utm_source=GeneralUsers&utm_campaign=6459615572-c:tec,cld,apl,dta,mdad:06-15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-6459615572-99283785

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1162  June 16, 2014  On this date in 1816, Lord Byron read Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests at the Villa Diodati, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori.  His challenge that each guest write a ghost story culminated in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, John Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre, and Byron writing the poem Darkness.  On this date in 1858, Abraham Lincoln delivered his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.

PRONOUNS  Q.  Why do you think that "their" should be acceptable for ambiguous singulars?  To me, pronouns are already the most confusing and difficult part of our language.  Sentences with multiple nouns become horrible so quickly.  The rules of pronoun agreement are thus crucial to communication.   I prefer the chauvinist "him," or "her" if I want to feminize the noun.  So, communicative power--the point of language.  But anything but "their," which is truly horrible. Your thoughts?   A.  The singular "they/them/their" is hardly new, and it's clearly the best among the imperfect solutions.  Bill Walsh

http://live.washingtonpost.com/grammar-geekery-with-bill-walsh-140603.html#pronouns

name-dropping  the studied but seemingly casual mention of prominent persons as associates done to impress others  

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/name-dropping

price-dropping  the frequent mention of high prices paid for possessions and meals even though you don't need or want that information

"We need much less than we think we need."  "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."  "Surviving is important.  Thriving is elegant."  See other Maya Angelou quotes at

http://news.hamlethub.com/southbury/life/301-12-maya-angelou-quotes-about-what-matters-most-1401448838

In New York City, there are roughly 10,000 doormen working in 3,200 buildings.  The changes in recent years have reset the relationships they have with the residents who pass them by each day.  To keep up with changing demands, some older upscale buildings are training staff members, updating uniforms, installing concierge desks and adding high-tech communication systems. Read about a "white-glove" state of mind at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/realestate/a-white-glove-state-of-mind.html

Pursuant to its authority under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the FCC established, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a national Do-Not-Call Registry.  The registry is nationwide in scope, applies to all telemarketers (with the exception of certain non-profit organizations), and covers both interstate and intrastate telemarketing calls.  Commercial telemarketers are not allowed to call you if your number is on the registry, subject to certain exceptions.  Find out how to register and how to file complaints at http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/do-not-call-list  Calls that are still permitted include those from:  political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors, some insurance situations,

organizations with which you have a relationship. 

http://www.usa.gov/topics/family/privacy-protection/telemarketing/do-not-call.shtml

Thales of Miletus (c. 620 BCE – c. 546 BCE)  The ancient Greek philosopher Thales was born in Miletus in Greek Ionia.  Aristotle, the major source for Thales’s philosophy and science, identified Thales as the first person to investigate the basic principles, the question of the originating substances of matter and, therefore, as the founder of the school of natural philosophy.  Thales was interested in almost everything, investigating almost all areas of knowledge, philosophy, history, science, mathematics, engineering, geography, and politics.  He proposed theories to explain many of the events of nature, the primary substance, the support of the earth, and the cause of change.  Thales was much involved in the problems of astronomy and provided a number of explanations of cosmological events which traditionally involved supernatural entities.  His questioning approach to the understanding of heavenly phenomena was the beginning of Greek astronomy.  http://www.iep.utm.edu/thales/#H8

Q.  What do trial attorneys and professional basketball players have in common?  

A.  They are actors.

QUOTES by Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)  “Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.”  “To teach is to learn twice.”  “Never cut what you can untie”   http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/313376.Joseph_Joubert

Obama library:  Bidders settle on sites by  Melissa Harris and Dahleen Glanton

June 11, 2014  The South Side lakefront jewel where Barack and Michelle Obama held their wedding reception vs. a rare, open downtown field set against Chicago's majestic mountain range of skyscrapers.  The home of the 1893 world's fair, near where Frederick Law Olmsted dredged his intricate lagoons, vs. parking lots on a West side medical campus near the Polk Street Pink Line station.  Or vacant blocks near the University of Chicago that back up to the Garfield Green Line station vs. incorporating public transit, a Metra station, into the building itself on a far South Side college campus.  These are just a few of the preliminary offerings area universities plan to present to the president, the first lady and the few confidants helping them as they begin to weigh where to locate the Obama presidential library and museum, according to multiple sources.  Although Chicago is considered the front-runner, other bidders — from New York City's Columbia University to the University of Hawaii and a private Chicago developer — plan to submit offerings ahead of a June 16, 2014 deadline for initial proposals set by The Barack Obama Foundation.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-obama-library-sites-biz-20140611,0,3954065.story

A high-profile food blogger has launched a petition to persuade major beer companies to list their ingredients.  Vani Hari, known as the “Food Babe,” has started an online campaign urging Anheuser-Busch and Chicago-based MillerCoors to disclose a full set of ingredients for consumers to see.  While food and drinks have strict nutrition labeling standards, beer, wine and pure alcohol are generally not required to list every ingredient.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-beer-ingredients-petition-20140611,0,86312.story

A sharp-eyed muse reader pointed out a mistake in this sentence from the Washington Post:  "Eugene was one of five supercomputers who entered the 2014 Turing Test."  Who else will tell me what's wrong with this sentence?

Charles Wright once said, “I want to be the anonymous author.”  But for 44 years this modest Southerner has been publishing poetry, and the accolades have kept arriving:  a National Book Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Bollingen Prize.  Sorry, Charlie — more bad news:  The Librarian of Congress has named Wright the next poet laureate of the United States.  Wright, a former professor at the University of Virginia and the author of 24 collections of poetry, will begin his one-year appointment with a public reading of his work at the Library of Congress in late September.  “I guess I’ll have to wear my suit,” he says by phone from his home in Charlottesville, Va.  “I’ve only worn it for weddings and funerals.”  Wright’s extraordinary humility doesn’t rhyme with his prominence in the poetry world.  His celebrated work, inflected with influences from ancient China, Ezra Pound and his native Tennessee, has continued to evolve and fascinate critics for decades.  Librarian of Congress James H. Billington made his selection in consultation with about 50 people, including 10 previous poets laureate. Speaking by phone this week, he said, “As I was reading through the finalists, I always kept  returning to this man who wrote so beautifully and movingly about important things without self-importance but with extraordinary skill and beauty.”  Ron Charles  http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/charles-wright-former-u-va-professor-and-author-is-named-new-us-poet-laureate/2014/06/11/98a2b974-efee-11e3-9ebc-2ee6f81ed217_story.html?tid=hpModule_ef3e52c4-8691-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&hpid=z11

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1161  June 13, 2014  On this date in 1774, Rhode Island became the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.  On this date in 1805, Lewis and Clark Expedition:  scouting ahead of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis and four companions sighted the Great Falls of the Missouri River.

The Klondike Gold Rush, also called the Yukon Gold Rush, the Alaska Gold Rush, the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush and the Last Great Gold Rush, was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899.  Gold was discovered there on August 16, 1896 and, when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors.  The journey proved too hard for many, and only between 30,000 and 40,000 arrived.  Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain and only around 4,000 struck gold.  The Klondike Gold Rush ended in 1899 after gold was discovered in Nome, prompting an exodus from the Klondike.  It has been immortalized by photographs, books and films.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush

The Literary Gold Rush:  Jack London and Robert Service by Catherine Watson  Realistic adventure tales have fallen out of literary fashion, just like heavy rhyme schemes.  But Jack London remains famous the world over for his, particularly for two novels of the north, "The Call of the Wild" and "White Fang," and for the short story that every high school kid on the continent has had to read at least once, "To Build a Fire."  In his short lifetime--1876 to 1916--London wrote about 250 short stories and nearly 50 books, the best of which drew on his own Gold Rush experiences and on real events that had become legends in the Klondike mining community.  Robert Service, who grew up in Scotland, had the risk-taking personality for the Gold Rush, but he didn't go with the herd.  Instead, he bummed around North America, riding rails, doing odd jobs, earning meals by singing songs he'd made up.  By the time he got to Dawson, the rush was over, the town had settled down, and he was in banking.  Service was aware of his literary failings.  "Rhyming has my ruin been," he once wrote; "with less deftness, I might have produced real poetry."  It wasn't much of a regret, though:  His Klondike poems are still in print, and they paid him enough in royalties to let him live nicely on the French Riviera for 40 years.  Read the opening of Service's poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," a Klondike classic at http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/travel/11277606.html

In 1913, a character in Jack London’s The Valley of the Moon bitterly complains, “We’re hornswoggled.  We’re backed to a standstill.  We’re double-crossed to a fare-you-well”.  Seven years later the young P G Wodehouse employed it in Little Warrior:  “Would she have the generosity to realize that a man ought not to be held accountable for what he says in the moment when he discovers that he has been cheated, deceived, robbed — in a word, hornswoggled?”  By then, the word had been in the language with that meaning for more than half a century, and even then it had been around for some decades with an older sense of “embarrass, disconcert or confuse”.  People had long since turned it into an exclamation of surprise or amazement:  “Well, I’ll be hornswoggled!”  Peter Watts argues in A Dictionary of the Old West that it comes from cowpunching.  A steer that has been lassoed around the neck will “hornswoggle”, wag and twist its head around frantically to try to slip free of the rope.  A cowboy who lets the animal get away with this is said to have been “hornswoggled”.  A nice idea, but nobody seems to have heard of hornswoggle in the cattle sense, and it may be a guess based on horn.  Nobody else has much idea either, though it’s often assumed to be one of those highfalutin words like absquatulate and rambunctiousthat frontier Americans were so fond of creating.  It’s sad to have to tag a word as “origin unknown” yet again, but that’s the long and the short of it.  http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-hor1.htm

Tasting France Through 5 Signature Dishes by Ann Mah  Travelers have been eating their way around France, at least, since the 1920s, when the French food writer Maurice Edmond Sailland — known by his pen name, Curnonsky — published “La France Gastronomique,” a multivolume guide to the country’s regional cuisine.  In the decade that followed, Les Accords de Matignon — a pet project of the Popular Front, the 1930s leftist political party led by Prime Minister Léon Blum — guaranteed two weeks’ paid vacation to French workers.  Working-class travelers took advantage of the new policy and government-sponsored train tickets, streaming south to resort towns previously the exclusive domain of the bourgeois.  Eventually the Guide Michelin replaced Curnonsky as the primary source for travelers, and hungry motorists ignited an interest in regional cuisine that became a French passion.  Explore through words and pictures:  Brittany:  Galettes and Crepes; Lyon:  Quenelle de Brochet; Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées:  Cassoulet; Bouches-du-Rhône, and Provence:  Bouillabaisse; Alsace:  Choucroute Garnie at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/travel/tasting-france-through-5-signature-dishes.html?hpw&rref=travel

Ayn Rand’s Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone by Mallory Ortberg  Read the parody at http://the-toast.net/2014/05/27/ayn-rands-harry-potter-sorcerers-stone/?fb_action_ids=10101889719084670&fb_action_types=og.likes

Celebrating the Summer Season in Poetry by Bob & Margery Snyder  Mid-June and the planet is turning toward the summer solstice—longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere, some people call it Midsummer and others say it marks the official calendar beginning of the summer season.  Read a selection of poems and link to a collection of summer poems at http://poetry.about.com/b/2013/06/12/celebrating-the-summer-season-in-poetry.htm

Short June Poems  Read the most popular short poems on or about June by PoetrySoup Members.  Link to long June poems and June quotes at http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/short/june

Can a machine think?  In 1950, famed London scientist Alan Turing, considered one of the fathers of artificial intelligence, published a paper that put forth that very question.  But as quickly he asked the question, he called it “absurd.”  The idea of thinking was too difficult to define. Instead, he devised a separate way to quantify mechanical “thinking.”  “I shall replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words,” he wrote in the study that some say represented the “beginning” of artificial intelligence.  “The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the ‘imitation game.’”  What he meant was:  Can a computer trick a human into thinking it’s actually a fellow human?  That question gave birth to the “Turing Test” 65 years ago.  This weekend, for the first time, a computer passed that test.   “Passing,” however, doesn’t mean it did it with flying colors.  For a computer to pass the test, it must only dupe 30 percent of the human interrogators who converse with the computer for five minutes in a text conversation.  In the test, it’s up to the humans to separate the machines from their fellow sentient beings throughout their five-minute inquisition.  This go-round, a Russian-made program, which disguised itself as a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman from Odessa, Ukraine, bamboozled 33 percent of human questioners.  Eugene was one of five supercomputers who entered the 2014 Turing Test.  “We are proud to declare that Alan Turing’s Test was passed for the first time on Saturday,” declared Kevin Warwick, a visiting professor at the University of Reading, which organized the event at the Royal Society in London.  There is some cause for concern, however.  For starters, convincing one-third of interrogators that you’re a teenager who’s speaking in a second language perhaps skews the test a bit.  Was the computer that smart?  Or was it a gimmick?  And then there is the concern that such technology can be used for cybercrime.  Terrence McCoy  http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/09/a-computer-just-passed-the-turing-test-in-landmark-trial/?hpid=z4

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1160  June 11, 2014  On this date in 1898, Spanish-American War:  U.S. war ships set sail for Cuba.  On this date in 1901, New Zealand annexed the Cook Islands.

Jack is a male given name, although in some cases it can be used as a female given name (a shortened version of "Jacqueline" or "Jackie", for example), and sometimes as a surname.  In English it is traditionally used as the diminutive form of the name John, though it is also often given as a proper name in its own right.  The name Jack is unique in the English language for the frequency of its use as a verb and a noun for many common objects and actions; and also its use in many compound words and phrases: jack-of-all-trades, jackknife, jackpot, jack tar, hijack, union jack, jack straw (scarecrow), apple jack, lumberjack, jackhammer, jackdaw, jack o'lantern and others.  The Encyclopædia Britannica article on the history of the word "jack" linked it directly to the common name:  "Jack, a word with a great variety of meanings and applications, all traceable to the common use of the word as a by-name of a man."  In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, "Jack" was the most frequently used male name for the years 2003–2007.  See lists naming Jack in fiction, film, music, comics, nursery rhymes and video games at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_(given_name)

Really Good Books, Part I by David Brooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/opinion/brooks-really-good-books-part-i.html

Really Good Books, Part II by David Brooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/opinion/brooks-really-good-books-part-ii.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

Dog whistles have been around since the 19th century.  The English polymath Francis Galton is credited with inventing a high-pitched whistle for testing the auditory ranges of dogs and other animals back in 1876.  Another English inventor, Archibald Low, described in 1933 how to "make a whistle that cannot be heard by human beings, but to which a dog answers readily."  And by 1940, Purina was selling ultrasonic dog whistles.  Several decades later, the "dog whistle" turned into a figure of speech for subtle messages that not everyone could discern.  Lexicographer Grant Barrett traces the usage back to a 1988 article by Washington Post pollster Richard Morin, in which he described the "dog whistle effect" in opinion polling:  "Respondents hear something in the question that researchers do not."  Ben Zimmer

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304479704579577953445124862

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788–1879) was an American writer and an influential editor.  She is the author of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Her advocacy for Thanksgiving as a national holiday began in 1846 and lasted 17 years before it was successful.  In support of the proposed national holiday, Hale wrote letters to five Presidents of the United States:  Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln.  Her initial letters failed to persuade, but the letter she wrote to Lincoln convinced him to support legislation establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving in 1863.  The new national holiday was considered a unifying day after the stress of the American Civil War.  Before Thanksgiving's addition, the only national holidays celebrated in the United States were Washington's Birthday and Independence Day.  Hale also worked to preserve George Washington's Mount Vernon plantation, as a symbol of patriotism that both the Northern and Southern United States could all support.  Hale raised $30,000 in Boston for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument.  When construction stalled, Hale asked her readers to donate a dollar each and also organized a week-long craft fair at Quincy Market.  The fair sold handmade jewelry, quilts, baskets, jams, jellies, cakes, pies, and autographed letters from Washington, James Madison, and the Marquis de Lafayette.  She "made sure the 221-foot obelisk that commemorates the battle of Bunker Hill got built."  

A prestigious literary prize, the Sarah Josepha Hale Award, is named for her.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Josepha_Hale

Nick's Kitchen 506 N. Jefferson, Huntington, Indiana   260.356.6618  nickskitchen.net

Nick Freienstein was born in Huntington January 22, 1876.  Nick was 12 years old when he dropped out of parochial school at SS Peter & Paul to take a job as a tobacco stripper at Reichard’s cigar Factory on Cherry Street. In the next 15 years, Nick worked many places around the town – at Joe Hegner’s Confectionery and the Peter Geizieichter and Stuart Lippman grocery store.  In 1904, Nick Freienstein had resigned his position from Stuart Lippman grocery. The next thing the public knew, Nick made his appearance on the streets at night selling hamburgers.  He had a stand at the corner of the courthouse square, which consisted of a push cart and a dim lantern.  In the course of time, his hamburger trade was housed in a little ten by ten structure, which occupied a space under a stairway at the corner of Jefferson and Market streets.  There he built a business for Nick’s hamburgers that provided him with the funds to move in 1908 to the present location of 506 North Jefferson Street.  For the first time, he no longer cooked his food on a cart but had a kitchen.  There are plenty of items on the menu at Nick’s, but there is one item that is a local hit.  The tenderloin sandwiches are made with the same recipe Freienstein himself used and there are no plans of changing it.

Link to menu at https://nickskitchen.net/history/  Nick's recipe includes a long soak in buttermilk before the cutlets are drenched in crushed cracker crumbs. 

Amana Meat Shop & Smoke House sells Iowa products "crafted with pride since 1855."  Their pork tenderloins rivals the Hoosier classic sandwich at Nick's Kitchen of Indiana.   The tenderloins come from the leanest part of the loin, are tenderized twice, then blanketed with a light egg batter and cracker crumb coating.  Order at 800-373-6328 or

http://www.amanameatshop.com/product/breaded-pork-tenderloins/All-Time-Favorites

Reclusive cartoonist Bill Watterson has emerged from nearly two decades in retirement to guest-draw a syndicated comic strip that runs in 750 newspapers globally.  The Calvin and Hobbes creator collaborated with fellow cartoonist Stephan Pastis, creator of Pearls Before Swine, on three strips that were published throughout last week.  But it was not until June 6, 2014 that Mr Pastis revealed the man behind the drawings.  Writing on his blog, Mr Pastis explained that he had written to Mr Watterson to express his admiration.  Not expecting a response, he was shocked when the cartoon titan not only replied, but also said that he had an idea that he wanted to run past Mr Pastis.  Together the pair conceived a series of comic strips in which Mr Watterson would appear under the guise of a 12-year-old girl called Libby, who would mock Mr Pastis' drawings - in reference to the self-deprecation that characterises his work - before going on to produce her own cartoons.  http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson-makes-surprise-return-9508343.html

What was fake on the Internet this week:  Detached retinas, doodled passports and a murder caught on Google Streetview  See Caitlin Deweys 14th installment in her series at http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/06/06/what-was-fake-on-the-internet-this-week-detached-retinas-doodled-passports-and-a-murder-caught-on-google-streetview/?tid=hpModule_d39b60e8-8691-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&hpid=z10

If you missed the 146th running of the Belmont Stakes, you can see Tonalist win during this 2:50 video  http://www.nbcsports.com/horse-racing/tonalist-wins-belmont-stakes-california-chrome-fourth

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1159  June 9, 2014  On this date in 1650, the Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, was established--the first legal corporation in the Americas.  On this date in 1732, James Oglethorpe was granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Hamlet  (HAM-lit)  noun  1.  An apprehensive, indecisive person.  2.  A small village.

For 1:  After Hamlet, the prince of Denmark in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.  The opening of Hamlet's soliloquy "To be, or not to be" is among the best-known lines in literature.  Earliest documented use:  1903.  For 2:  From Old French hamelet, diminutive of hamel (village), which itself is a diminutive of ham (village).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root tkei- (to settle or dwell), which also gave us home, haunt, hangar, and site.  Earliest documented use:  1330.  The idiom "Hamlet without the Prince" is used to refer to an event or a performance taking place without its main character.

Polonian  (po-LO-nee-uhn) adjective  1.  Abounding in aphoristic expressions.  2 . A native or inhabitant of Poland.  For 1:  After Polonius, a courtier and the father of Ophelia in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, known for his moralistic aphorisms.  Earliest documented use: 1847.  For 2:  From Latin Polonia (Poland).  Earliest documented use:  1533.  Some of Shakespeare's best-known quotations come out of Polonius's mouth.  As his son Laertes heads for France, Polonius advises:  "Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend."  "This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."  At another time, he says:  "Brevity is the soul of wit."  As happens with quotations, some of his words have become simplified and sharpened with time, such as from the original "For the apparel oft proclaims the man." to "Clothes make the man."

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From:  Joel Mabus  Subject:  hamlet  As today's word, hamlet, can mean both "village" and "an indecisive person", it leads me to observe:  It takes a Hamlet to raise a question.  

From:  F.J. Bergmann  Subject:  hamlet  The Vampire of the Village, one of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown detective stories, turns upon the dual meanings of Hamlet and hamlet.

From:  Laura Burns  Subject:  hamlet  The play Hamlet is Gamlet in Russian.  In Vladimir Nabakov's Ada, the narrator speaks of going through "Gamlet, a half-Russian village".

Cherry Republic, a company selling cherry products and cherry gifts, is headquartered in Glen Arbor, Michigan.

One Percent Off The Top  Each year, we donate 1% of our sales and give it to causes that we believe will have a positive influence in our region.  

Plus One  When someone comes into one of our stores we charge them a refundable 1% tariff on their purchase.  This tariff was enacted by the Cherry Republic legislature in 2002.  The typical tariff amount on each purchase is 25 cents.  This money is set aside and donated to agricultural programs in northern Michigan.  Primary focus is on preserving our farmland forever and strengthening the new small farm economy in northern Michigan

ISLAND Involvement  ISLAND is a non-profit arts and ecology center dedicated to connecting people with nature, art and community.  As part of that work, ISLAND is developing a slate of programs designed to double the value and increase the resilience of local agriculture by 2019.  Cherry Republic's support has been essential in making that happen.  Here are some specifics on three programs Cherry Republic has supported: The CRAFT Program (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) offers farm interns and beginning farmers a chance to tour area farms, learn a wide variety of management styles and farming techniques, and build the relationships that will support them as they embark on a farming career.  The Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference -- ISLAND is a planning partner for this annual conference held in Grayling.  We are specifically responsible for the new Homesteading Track designed to teach new skills to backyard growers and micro-farmers.  Skill Swaps - ISLAND hosts a series of skill building workshops for farmers, homesteaders and other folks throughout the year, with topics like cheese making, permaculture, green building, beekeeping and hand tool use.  https://www.cherryrepublic.com/about

LATIN ROOTS

centrum (center)=eccentric, concentric, concentrate

centum (hundred, tenth, ten)=percent, centimeter, centurion

civis, civilis (citizen, community)=civic, city, civility

Find Latin roots and prefixes, definitions and examples at http://www.empire.net/~merlin/latin.html

Amazon and Hachette took their cases to the public on May 28, 2014 as a dispute over contract terms became clashing visions about the distribution of information in the digital age.   “Amazon indicates that it considers books to be like any other consumer good,” Hachette said in a statement.  “They are not.”  There are many considerations here besides money, the publisher said, noting that authors are engaging “in a complex and difficult mission to communicate with readers.”  It added, “In addition to royalties, they are concerned with audience, career, culture, education, art, entertainment and connection.”  The only thing the publisher and the retailer agree on is that there is no deal in sight, and 5,000 Hachette books are caught in the middle.  Amazon said that if customers ordered them, it would ship them — eventually.  “We are not optimistic that this will be resolved soon,” Amazon said in its statement.  Hachette said any resolution would have to “value appropriately” the publisher’s role in editing, marketing and distributing books.  In Amazon’s mission to remove all barriers between readers and writers, the biggest obstacle is the New York publishers, which for the most part still publish the writers whom people want to read.  But Amazon controls the Kindle e-reader platform and sees no reason a publisher like Hachette should receive so much of the revenue from a digital book.  That was where the negotiations failed.   “This situation is rife with antitrust risk” for Amazon, said William MacLeod, chairman of the antitrust and competition practice group at the Washington firm Kelley Drye.  “Under U.S. law, even a monopolist can refuse to deal or can charge what the market will bear," said Mr. MacLeod, the former director of the F.T.C.’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.  “But if the activity has the potential to create or entrench market power, a company’s exclusionary conduct or imposition of onerous terms could indeed run afoul of the law.”  Amazon declined to comment on May 28 on antitrust topics.  While it issued its statement defending itself, it also tried to take a nothing-to-see-here approach.  “This business interruption affects a small percentage of Amazon’s demand-weighted units,” it pointed out. (Demand-weighted means the things that people are actually buying.)  If customers really wanted any of those 5,000 Hachette books immediately, Amazon said, they could go “to one of our competitors.”  It was an extraordinary declaration from a company that has striven to be the “everything” store, merchandising an ever-increasing pile of goods in ever-increasing ways.  The retailer has had great success in reworking the publishing industry, partly because it has focused so relentlessly on customers that they always knew they were getting a better deal.   Thanks to Wall Street’s unwavering support, Amazon could afford to sell books for what it paid for them — something no physical bookseller could do.  It also paid higher royalty rates on e-books it published itself than the traditional publishers did on their e-books.  All those editors and other legacy overhead needed their cut.  But even those who believed Amazon was ushering in a utopia of publishing were jolted a few months ago when it abruptly chopped the royalty rates on self-published audiobooks.  David Streitfeld  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/technology/amazon-hachette-book-publisher-dispute.html?_r=0

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1158  June 6, 2014  On this date in 1944, in World War II,  the Battle of Normandy began.  D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, commenced with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers  pushed inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history. Find suggested books, including D-Day:  The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor at http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/258767-books-on-d-day-overlord 

 On this date in 1946, the National Basketball Association was created, with eleven teams.