simple and healthful:  bell peppers, cabbage, chicken broth, lime juice

App--short for application.  The word comes down from Latin applicatio, which is ap plus plicatio (based on the root plica, "fold").  Ap is actually ad ("to").  Copter is short for helicopter--helico- ("spiral") plus pter ("wing"), same as in pterodactyl, "wing finger".  Obviously nobody says it like "helico-pter" — pronunciation trumps etymology.  Comp comes from complimentary, which comes from compliment (originally referring to a courtesy), which comes from Latin com ("with"; used as an intensifier) plus plementum, from the verb plere ("fill").  Did you notice how that's spelled plem and not plim?  Guess what:  they come from the same source, but compliment came by way of French in the 1600s, while we got complement from Latin a bit earlier.  James Harbeck, "professional word taster and sentence sommelier"  Find more words dissected at http://theweek.com/article/index/263404/10-words-that-are-badly-broken

The Inca road system was the most extensive and advanced transportation system in pre-Columbian South America.  The construction of the roads required a large expenditure of time and effort, and the quality of that construction is borne out by the fact that it is still in quite good condition after over 400 years of use.  The network was based on two north-south roads with numerous branches.  The best known portion of the road system is the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.  Part of the road network was built by cultures that precede the Inca Empire, notably the Wari culture.  During the Spanish colonial era, parts of the road system were given the status of Camino Real.  The Qhapaq Ñan (English: Great Inca Road, or Main Andean Road, and meaning "the beautiful road") constituted the principal north-south highway of the Inca Empire traveling 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) along the spine of the Andes.  The Qhapaq Ñan unified this immense and heterogeneous empire through a well-organized political system of power.  It allowed the Inca to control his Empire and to send troops as needed from the capital, Cusco.  The most important Inca road was the Camino Real (Royal Road), as it is known in Spanish, with a length of 5,200 kilometres (3,200 mi).  It began in Quito, Ecuador, passed through Cusco, and ended in what is now Tucumán, Argentina.  The Camino Real traversed the mountain ranges of the Andes, with peak altitudes of more than 5,000 m (16,000 ft). El Camino de la Costa, the coastal trail, with a length of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi), ran parallel to the sea and was linked with the Camino Real by many smaller routes.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_road_system

Linguists, public relations professionals and management experts were not shocked when a General Motors document surfaced that includes words that engineers were told not to use when discussing its products.  Words to be avoided included “asphyxiating,” “deathtrap,” “disemboweling,” “genocide,” “grenadelike,” and “powder keg.”  But some of the advice was more extreme, for example, urging people to use such watered-down language as “does not perform to design” instead of “defect,” and “condition” instead of “problem.”  In fairness, GM is not the only company to encourage such euphemisms.  Ford, for example, has recalled vehicles at risk of “thermal events,” when the diesel engine in the 2008 F-Series Super Duty pickup could result in flames coming out of the exhaust.  Cable TV providers take pains to avoid the word “monopoly,” when emphasizing competition from satellite TV, telephone and mobile phone providers.  Brent Snavely and Alisa Priddle  http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20140617/NEWS02/306170011/GM-s-banned-words-What-s-wrong-using-plain-English-?nclick_check=1

achromatic  adjective   (1)  Designating color perceived to have zero saturation and therefore no hue, such as neutral grays, white, or black.  (2)  Refracting light without spectral color separation  (3)   Biology:  Difficult to stain with standard dyes.  Used in reference to cells or tissues.  (4)  Music:  Having only the diatonic tones of the scale.  The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition  https://www.wordnik.com/words/achromatic

Trivia  The Institute for the Works of Religion, also called the Institute for Religious Works, is commonly referred to as the Vatican Bank.  The Smithsonian Institution has collected more than 142 million objects.  The word atom is derived from the Greek word "atomos", meaning indivisible.

Muse reader's follow-up to art crimes article:  Priceless:  How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman  "The Wall Street Journal called him “a living legend.”  The London Times dubbed him “the most famous art detective in the world.”  In Priceless, Robert K. Wittman, the founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, pulls back the curtain on his remarkable career for the first time, offering a real-life international thriller to rival The Thomas Crown Affair.  Rising from humble roots as the son of an antique dealer, Wittman built a twenty-year career that was nothing short of extraordinary.  He went undercover, usually unarmed, to catch art thieves, scammers, and black market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid.  In this page-turning memoir, Wittman fascinates with the stories behind his recoveries of priceless art and antiquities:  The golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior king.  The Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement.  The headdress Geronimo wore at his final Pow-Wow.  The rare Civil War battle flag carried into battle by one of the nation’s first African-American regiments.  He traveled the world to rescue paintings by Rockwell and Rembrandt, Pissarro, Monet and Picasso, often working undercover overseas at the whim of foreign governments.  Closer to home, he recovered an original copy of the Bill of Rights and cracked the scam that rocked the PBS series Antiques Roadshow."  http://www.amazon.com/Priceless-Undercover-Rescue-Worlds-Treasures/dp/0307461483

James MacGregor Burns, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and political scientist who wrote voluminously about the nature of leadership in general and the presidency in particular, died July 15, 2014 at his home in Williamstown, Mass.  He was 95.  Mr. Burns, who taught at Williams College for most of the last half of the 20th century, was the author of more than 20 books, most notably “Roosevelt:  The Soldier of Freedom” (1970), a major study of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s stewardship of the country through World War II.  It was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.  He distinguished

between transforming and transactional leadership.  He explained it in “Leadership,” the transactional leader is the more conventional politician, a horse trader with his followers, offering jobs for votes, say, or support of important legislation in exchange for campaign contributions.  The transforming leader, on the other hand, “looks for potential motives in followers, seeks to satisfy higher needs, and engages the full person of the follower,” Mr. Burns wrote.  “The result of transforming leadership,” he went on, “is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents.”  He would never bump a student appointment to meet with someone more important.  Once Hillary Clinton invited him to tea, and he wouldn’t go because he had to meet with a student.  And he would never leave his place in Williamstown during blueberry season.  Bruce Weber  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/us/james-m-burns-a-scholar-of-presidents-and-leadership-dies-at-95.html?_r=0

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1171  July 16, 2014  On this date in 1790, the District of Columbia was established as the capital of the United States after signature of the Residence Act.  On this date in 1941, Joe DiMaggio hit safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a MLB record.  On this date in 1951,  The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger was published for the first time by Little, Brown and Company.

When someone thinks of art crime, a Hollywood image is conjured, one of black-clad cat burglars and thieves in top hats and white gloves.  But, the truth behind art crime, one misunderstood by the general public and professionals alike, is far more sinister and intriguing.  Over the last 50 years, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has ranked art crime behind only drugs and arms in terms of highest-grossing criminal trades.  There are hundreds of thousands of art crimes reported per year, but, despite this fact, the general public only hears about the handful of big-name museum heists that make international headlines.  In Italy alone there are 20,000 to 30,000 thefts reported annually, and many more go unreported.  In fact, even though reported art crime ranks third in the list of criminal trades, many more such incidents go unreported worldwide, rather than coming to the attention of authorities, making its true scale much broader and more difficult to estimate.  http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/march-2012/protecting-cultural-heritage-from-art-theft

The appropriation for the Fort Knox Bullion Depository was made by the Deficiency Act of June 22, 1936.  The building was completed in December 1936 and in 1937, the first shipment of gold to Fort Knox was sent from the Philadelphia Mint and New York Assay Office.  http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/mint_facilities/?action=KY_facilities  See also http://www.industrytap.com/how-they-built-fort-knox-gold-bullion-depository/7986  and http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-articles/much-gold-fort-knox/

Although 445,500 double eagles (U.S. gold coins worth $20 each) had been minted with a 1933 date, none were released into circulation because of changes made to currency laws during the Great Depression.  In an effort to end the run on the banks and stabilize the economy, President Franklin Roosevelt took America off the gold standard.  Not only were no more gold coins to be issued for circulation, people had to turn in the ones they had.  It became illegal for private citizens to own gold coins, unless they clearly had a collectible value.  The Mint melted down nearly all the 1933 run of double eagles and converted them to gold bullion bars by 1937.  See picture and 2002 auction story at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099031/Rare-Double-Eagle-1933-coin-worth-7-6-MILLION-goes-UK-time.html  See 2012 story where a judge ruled that 10 double eagle gold coins worth $80 million belonged to the U.S. government, not a family that had sued the U.S. Treasury, saying it had illegally seized them at http://abcnews.go.com/Business/judge-10-rare-gold-coins-worth-80-million/story?id=17159793

Pachyrhizus erosus, also known as Mexican yam or Mexican turnip, is a native Mexican vine, although the name most commonly refers to the plant's edible tuberous root.  Plants in this genus are commonly referred to as yam bean, although the term "yam bean" can be another name for jícama.  The names for jicama include Mexican potato, ahipa, saa got, Chinese turnip, lo bok, and Chinese potato.  (In Ecuador and Peru, the name jicama is used for the unrelated yacón or Peruvian ground apple, a plant of the sunflower family whose tubers are also used as food).  The jícama vine can reach a height of 4–5 m given suitable support.  Its root can attain lengths of up to 2 m and weigh up to 20 kg.  The heaviest jícama root ever recorded weighed 23 kg and was found in 2010 in the Philippines (where they are called singkamas).  Jicama is frost tender and requires 9 months without frost for a good harvest of large tubers or to grow it commercially.  It is worth growing in cooler areas that have at least five months without frost, as it will still produce tubers, but they will be smaller. The root's exterior is yellow and papery, while its inside is creamy white with a crisp texture that resembles raw potato or pear.  The flavor is sweet and starchy, reminiscent of some apples or raw green beans, and it is usually eaten raw, sometimes with salt, lemon, or lime juice and chili powder.  It is also cooked in soups and stir-fried dishes. Jícama is often paired with chili powder, cilantro, ginger, lemon, lime, orange, red onion, salsa, sesame oil, grilled fish, and soy sauce.  It can be cut into thin wedges and dipped in salsa.  In Mexico, it is popular in salads, fresh fruit combinations, fruit bars, soups, and other cooked dishes.  In contrast to the root, the remainder of the jícama plant is very poisonous; the seeds contain the toxin rotenone, which is used to poison insects and fish.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachyrhizus_erosus

Jicama recipes  http://allrecipes.com/recipes/fruits-and-vegetables/vegetables/jicama/

Illinois is flatter than every state but one, according to researchers, and is less hilly even than Kansas, a place once proven to be flatter than an IHOP pancake.  Jerome Dobson, a University of Kansas geographer, set out to compare how flat states actually are with how flat people think they are.  In a 2013 survey that asked Americans which state is flattest, a full third of respondents guessed Kansas.  But Dobson’s team found that Florida, with its low-lying coastal plains, was the flattest of the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C.  Mitch Smith  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-study-says-illinois-is-second-flattest-state-on-mainland-20140619,0,214821.story

How Increasing Ideological Uniformity and Partisan Antipathy Affect Politics, Compromise and Everyday Life  June 12, 2014  “Liberals and conservatives are divided over more than just politics.  Those on the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum disagree about everything from the type of community in which they prefer to live to the type of people they would welcome into their families.  It is an enduring stereotype – conservatives prefer suburban McMansions while liberals like urban enclaves – but one that is grounded in reality.  Given the choice, three-quarters (75%) of consistent conservatives say they would opt to live in a community where “the houses are larger and farther apart, but schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away,” and just 22% say they’d choose to live where “the houses are smaller and closer to each other, but schools, stores and restaurants are within walking distance.”  The preferences of consistent liberals are almost the exact inverse, with 77% preferring the smaller house closer to amenities, and just 21% opting for more square footage farther away.  Americans overall are divided almost evenly in this preference, with 49% preferring the larger houses and 48% preferring the more convenient locations.  Liberals and conservatives don’t disagree on all community preferences.  For example, large majorities of both groups attach great importance to living near family and high-quality public schools.  Yet their differences are striking:  liberals would rather live in cities, while conservatives prefer rural areas and small towns; liberals are more likely to say racial and ethnic diversity is important in a community; conservatives emphasize shared religious faith.  And while 73% of consistent liberals say it’s important to them to live near art museums and theaters, just 23% of consistent conservatives agree – one of their lowest priorities of eight community characteristics tested.”  Sabrina I. Pacifici  http://www.bespacific.com/political-polarization-personal-life-pew/  This is the first report of a multi-part series based on a national survey of 10,013 adults nationwide, conducted January 23-March 16, 2014 by the Pew Research Center.  Read the 93-page report at http://www.people-press.org/files/2014/06/6-12-2014-Political-Polarization-Release.pdf  The questions are listed after the report itself.

AVIATION ENJOYMENT  On July 2, 2014 we expected to travel from the Detroit airport to New York's LaGuardia easily.  Due to storms causing cancellations, rescheduled and missed flights, we arrived 27 hours after the scheduled time.  Our last pilot (we were in Minneapolis at this point) promised us two hours and three minutes of aviation enjoyment.  He said he'd have us to New York in a New York minute.  That didn't actually happen, as we flew over Canada to avoid storms and bumped our way southward into New York.

New York minute  A very short period of time; an instant.  [From the allusion to the frenzied pace of life in New York City.]  "Sometimes in New Orleans, the weather can change in a New York minute."  Janet Angelico; 2nd-graders Invent a Way to Win Contest; Times Picayune (Louisiana); Mar 28, 2004.  "Jambalaya, a spicy Louisiana rice dish, usually takes an hour or more to prepare, but this version's ready in a New York minute."  Meghan Pembleton; Jambalaya's Ready in Minutes When You Use Precooked Rice; The Arizona Republic (Phoenix); Apr 21, 2004.  The English language is replete with such expressions where the name of a place has become associated with a particular quality, such as laconic (using few words) from Laconia in ancient Greece, bohemian (unconventional) from Bohemia in the Czech Republic, and Siamese (connected twin) from Siam, the former name of Thailand.  The term New York Minute has been facetiously defined as the time between a New York City traffic light turning green and the driver of the car behind you honking his or her horn.  http://wordsmith.org/words/new_york_minute.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1170  July 14, 2014  On this date in 1969, Honduras lost a soccer match against El Salvador and riots broke out in Honduras against Salvadoran migrant workers.  On this date in 1969, United States $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills were  officially withdrawn from circulation.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is a collection of whimsical poems by T. S. Eliot about feline psychology and sociology, published by Faber and Faber.  The poems were written during the 1930s and included by Eliot, under his assumed name "Old Possum," in letters to his godchildren.  They were collected and published in 1939 with cover illustrations by the author, and quickly re-published in 1940, illustrated in full by Nicolas Bentley.  It has also been published in reillustrated versions by Edward Gorey (1982) and Axel Scheffler (2009).  In 1954 the English composer Alan Rawsthorne set six of the poems in a work for speaker and orchestra entitled Practical Cats, which was recorded soon after, with the actor Robert Donat as the speaker.  At about the same time period another English composer, Humphrey Searle, composed another narrator piece based on the poems, using the flute, piccolo, cello and guitar.  This work, Two Practical Cats, consisted of settings of the poems of Macavity and Growltiger.  The best-known musical adaptation of the poems is the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats.  This musical premiered in London's West End in 1981 and on Broadway in 1982, and went on to become the longest-running Broadway show in history, until it was beaten by another Andrew Lloyd Webber show, The Phantom of the Opera.  As well as the poems in this volume, the musical introduces several additional characters from Eliot's unpublished drafts—most notably Grizabella.  In the film Logan's Run Logan and Jessica meet an old man in the ruins of the United States Senate Chamber during their search for Sanctuary.  The Old Man has many cats and refers to The Naming of Cats, explaining that each cat has three names:  one common, one fancy, and one that only the cat knows.  Later, the Old Man refers to one cat in particular.  This cat is called "Gus," short for Asparagus.  He then goes on to recite parts of "Macavity:  the Mystery Cat".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Possum's_Book_of_Practical_Cats

Paraphrase of a corporation's golden rule from the novel Critical Judgment by Michael Palmer (1942-2013)  We have the gold--we make the rules.

Although historians disagree on the causes of the French Revolution, the following reasons are commonly cited:  (1)  the increasingly prosperous elite of wealthy commoners—merchants, manufacturers, and professionals, often called the bourgeoisie—produced by the 18th century’s economic growth resented its exclusion from political power and positions of honour; (2)  the peasants were acutely aware of their situation and were less and less willing to support the anachronistic and burdensome feudal system; (3)  the philosophes, who advocated social and political reform, had been read more widely in France than anywhere else; (4)  French participation in the American Revolution had driven the government to the brink of bankruptcy; and (5)  crop failures in much of the country in 1788, coming on top of a long period of economic difficulties, made the population particularly restless.  The Revolution took shape in France when the controller general of finances, Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, arranged the summoning of an assembly of “notables” (prelates, great noblemen, and a few representatives of the bourgeoisie) in February 1787 to propose reforms designed to eliminate the budget deficit by increasing the taxation of the privileged classes.  The assembly refused to take responsibility for the reforms and suggested the calling of the Estates-General, which represented the clergy, the nobility, and the Third Estate (the commoners) and which had not met since 1614.  The efforts made by Calonne’s successors to enforce fiscal reforms in spite of resistance by the privileged classes led to the so-called revolt of the “aristocratic bodies,” notably that of the parlements (the most important courts of justice), whose powers were curtailed by the edict of May 1788.  During the spring and summer of 1788, there was unrest among the populace in Paris, Grenoble, Dijon, Toulouse, Pau, and Rennes. The king, Louis XVI, had to yield; reappointing reform-minded Jacques Necker as the finance minister, he promised to convene the Estates-General on May 5, 1789.  He also, in practice, granted freedom of the press, and France was flooded with pamphlets addressing the reconstruction of the state.  The elections to the Estates-General, held between January and April 1789, coincided with further disturbances, as the harvest of 1788 had been a bad one.  There were practically no exclusions from the voting; and the electors drew up cahiers de doléances, which listed their grievances and hopes.  They elected 600 deputies for the Third Estate, 300 for the nobility, and 300 for the clergy.  The Estates-General met at Versailles on May 5, 1789.  They were immediately divided over a fundamental issue:  should they vote by head, giving the advantage to the Third Estate, or by estate, in which case the two privileged orders of the realm might outvote the third?  On June 17 the bitter struggle over this legal issue finally drove the deputies of the Third Estate to declare themselves the National Assembly; they threatened to proceed, if necessary, without the other two orders.  They were supported by many of the parish priests, who outnumbered the aristocratic upper clergy among the church’s deputies.  When royal officials locked the deputies out of their regular meeting hall on June 20, they occupied the king’s indoor tennis court (jeu de paume) and swore an oath not to disperse until they had given France a new constitution.  The king grudgingly gave in and urged the nobles and the remaining clergy to join the assembly, which took the official title of National Constituent Assembly on July 9; at the same time, however, he began gathering troops to dissolve it.  http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/219315/French-Revolution

See also http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/frenchrevolution.htm and http://history-world.org/french_revolution.htm

The National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic.  The upper house is the Senate ("Sénat"). The National Assembly's members are known as députés.  The assembly is presided over by a president, normally from the largest party represented, assisted by vice-presidents from across the represented political spectrum.  The term of the National Assembly is five years; however, the President of the Republic may dissolve the Assembly (thereby calling for new elections) unless he has dissolved it in the preceding twelve months.  This measure is becoming rarer since the 2000 referendum reduced the President's term from seven to five years: a President usually has a majority elected in the Assembly two months after him, and it would be useless for him to dissolve it for those reasons.  Following a tradition started by the first National Assembly during the French Revolution, the "left-wing" parties sit to the left as seen from the president's seat, and the "right-wing" parties sit to the right, and the seating arrangement thus directly indicates the political spectrum as represented in the Assembly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Assembly_(France) 

Knapsack is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.  The noun knapsack means a bag made of sturdy material and furnished with shoulder straps, designed for carrying articles on the back.  Origin of knapsack:  Probably Low German Knappsack :  knappen, to bite (probably of imitative origin) + Sack, bag (from Middle Low German sak, from Old High German sac, from Late Latin saccus. 

Major John Jermain (1758–1819) served in the Westchester Militia during the American Revolution.  A library in Sag Harbor, New York was built and named in his honor in 1910.  Margaret Sage organized the effort to fund and build the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor in honor of her grandfather.  The library was designed by Augustus N. Allen and presented as a gift to the people of Sag Harbor in 1910.  The property was bought at a cost of $10,000, and was directly across from Mrs. Sage's then summer home on Main Street.  At that time, it was the highest price ever paid for a piece of real estate in Sag Harbor.  In 1912, a deed of trust was executed by Mrs. Sage in which the library, its grounds and equipment were deeded to a body of trustees under the laws of New York State.  The John Jermain Memorial Library was permanently endowed by Mrs. Sage that it might forever be secured to the people of Sag Harbor and vicinity.  She became known as Sag Harbor's greatest benefactor, also providing the village with Pierson High School and Mashashimuet Park.  In total, she gave Sag Harbor a total of between $300,000 and $400,000, just a small portion of the $23 million she gave to philanthropy in her lifetime.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jermain  See also the John Jermain Memorial Library home page at http://johnjermain.org/

A social-network furor has erupted over news that Facebook Inc. in 2012, conducted a massive psychological experiment on nearly 700,000 unwitting users.  To determine whether it could alter the emotional state of its users and prompt them to post either more positive or negative content, the site's data scientists enabled an algorithm, for one week, to automatically omit content that contained words associated with either positive or negative emotions from the central news feeds of 689,003 users.  Facebook has long run social experiments.  Its Data Science Team is tasked with turning the reams of information created by the more than 800 million people who log on every day into usable scientific research.  Reed Albergotti  http://online.wsj.com/articles/furor-erupts-over-facebook-experiment-on-users-1404085840

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1169  July 2, 2014  On this date in 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.  On this date in 1900, the first Zeppelin flight took place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.

Guglielmo Marconi was born in 1874 into a wealthy family in Bologna, Italy, and educated by private tutors.  He developed an interest in science, particularly the work of German physicist Heinrich Hertz on the transmission of electromagnetic waves through the air.  Though he failed the entrance exam at the University of Bologna, Marconi began experimenting with wireless telegraphy on his own in 1894.  He discovered that by connecting his transmitter and receiver to the earth (grounding them), and then increasing the height of the antenna, he could extend the range of the signal.  Despite this important technical breakthrough, the Italian government declined to sponsor his work.  Marconi moved to Great Britain where his work received greater support.  In 1896 he patented his first device for wireless telegraphy and in 1897 found investors for his Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, which began manufacturing radio sets that were able to transmit and receive messages in Morse Code.  Marconi believed that radio waves would follow the earth's curvature, making communication to ships at sea feasible, and designed an experiment to prove his contention.  If successful, the experiment would also provide a "stunt" that would give the relatively new technology, and Marconi's company, world-wide publicity.  This was to be the transmission of a wireless message across the Atlantic.  Marconi constructed a transmitter at Poldhu, Cornwall, in the west of England and another at Cape Cod in Massachusetts.  When a storm damaged the Poldhu antenna, and it had to be replaced by a smaller one, Marconi decided to change the North American destination to St. John's Newfoundland.  In any event, the Cape Cod station was itself destroyed in a storm.  In December 1901 Marconi assembled his receiver at Signal Hill, St. John's, nearly the closest point to Europe in North America.  He set up his receiving apparatus in an abandoned hospital that straddled the cliff facing Europe on the top of Signal Hill.  After unsuccessful attempts to keep an antenna aloft with balloons and kites, because of the high winds, he eventually managed to raise an antenna with a kite for a short period of time for each of a few days.  Accounts vary, but Marconi's notes indicate that the transatlantic message was received via this antenna.  Marconi continued to experiment with long-wave and short-wave transmission as well as to manage his business interests until his death in 1937.  His work, and that of other scientists and inventors, had revolutionized communications at sea and on land and had created whole new industries, such as radio broadcasting.  Marconi's patents and investments made him wealthy and his scientific achievements led to his sharing the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909.   http://www.heritage.nf.ca/society/marconi.html

Road Scholar, formerly Elderhostel, is a  not-for-profit group offering  5,500 educational tours in all 50 states and 150 countries.  Solo participants are welcome, and there are scholarships for those who need financial help.  http://www.roadscholar.org/about/pos_page.asp

The Philippine archipelago comprises 7,107 islands, of which only about 2,000 are inhabited.  They are clustered into the three major island groups of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_of_the_Philippines

Indonesia, with over 18,000 counted islands, is by far the largest and most varied archipelago on Earth. It spans almost 2 million square kilometers between Asia and Australia.  Positioned on the Equator, across a region of immense volcanic activity, Indonesia has some 400 volcanoes within its borders, with at least 90 still active in some way.  Many of the islands here are still uninhabited, with the larger islands of Java, Kalimantan (Borneo), Irian Jaya (Papua), Sumatra and Sulawesi home to most of the population base.  http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/id.htm

QUOTES by  Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)  "I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding.  We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.”  

“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.” 
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/17241.Michel_de_Montaigne 

In August 1620, a group of about 40 Saints joined a much larger group of (comparatively) secular colonists–“Strangers,” to the Saints–and set sail from England on two merchant ships:  the Mayflower and the Speedwell.  The Speedwell began to leak almost immediately, however, and the ships headed back to port.  The travelers squeezed themselves and their belongings onto the Mayflower and set sail once again.  In September 1620, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, a port on the southern coast of England.  Typically, the Mayflower’s cargo was wine and dry goods, but on this trip the ship carried passengers:  102 of them, all hoping to start a new life on the other side of the Atlantic.  Nearly 40 of these passengers were Protestant Separatists–they called themselves “Saints”–who hoped to establish a new church in the New World.  Today, we often refer to the colonists who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower as “Pilgrims.”  After two miserable months at sea, the ship finally reached the New World.  There, the Mayflower’s passengers found an abandoned Indian village and not much else.  They also found that they were in the wrong place:  Cape Cod was located at 42 degrees north latitude, well north of the Virginia Company’s territory.  Technically, the Mayflower colonists had no right to be there at all.  In order to establish themselves as a legitimate colony (“Plymouth,” named after the English port from which they had departed) under these dubious circumstances, 41 of the Saints and Strangers drafted and signed a document they called the Mayflower Compact.  This Compact promised to create a “civil Body Politick” governed by elected officials and “just and equal laws.”  It also swore allegiance to the English king.  The colonists spent the first winter, which only 53 passengers and half the crew survived, living onboard the Mayflower.  (The Mayflower sailed back to England in April 1621.)  Once they moved ashore, the colonists faced even more challenges.  During their first winter in America, more than half of the Plymouth colonists died from malnutrition, disease and exposure to the harsh New England weather.  In fact, without the help of the area’s native people, it is likely that none of the colonists would have survived.  An English-speaking Pawtuxet named Samoset helped the colonists form an alliance with the local Wampanoags, who taught them how to hunt local animals, gather shellfish and grow corn, beans and squash.  At the end of the next summer, the Plymouth colonists celebrated their first successful harvest with a three-day festival of thanksgiving.  We still commemorate this feast today.  Eventually, the Plymouth colonists were absorbed into the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony.  http://www.history.com/topics/mayflower

Link to U.S. Supreme Court opinions at http://www.supremecourt.gov/  The current term ends June 30, 2014.  See also http://live.scotusblog.com/Event/Live_blog_of_orders_and_opinions__June_23_2014?Page=0

Who said:  I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade — or about the length of the average soccer game — so as not to offend anyone.  But enough is enough.  Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.  Find out who said this at http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/06/25/coulter-growing-interest-soccer-sign-nations-moral-decay/11372137/

June 27, 2014  What was fake on the Internet this week:  Bees, Zs, KFCs and SOS calls from sweatshop detainees.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/06/27/what-was-fake-on-the-internet-this-week-bees-zs-kfcs-and-sos-calls-from-sweatshop-detainees/?tid=hpModule_1f58c93a-8a7a-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e&hpid=z11

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1168  June 30, 2014  On this date in 1864, Abraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation".  On this date in 1886, the first transcontinental train trip across Canada departed from Montreal.  It arrived in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4.

The Arecibo message was broadcast into space a single time via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico on 16 November 1974.  It was aimed at the globular star cluster M13 some 25,000 light years away because M13 was a large and close collection of stars that was available in the sky at the time and place of the ceremony.  The message consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes, transmitted at a frequency of 2,380 MHz and modulated by shifting the frequency by 10 Hz, with a power of 1,000 kW.  The "ones" and "zeros" were transmitted by frequency shifting at the rate of 10 bits per second.  The total broadcast was less than three minutes.  The cardinality of 1,679 was chosen because it is a semiprime (the product of two prime numbers), to be arranged rectangularly as 73 rows by 23 columns.  The alternative arrangement, 23 rows by 73 columns, produces jumbled nonsense.  Dr. Frank Drake, then at Cornell University and creator of the Drake equation, wrote the message with help from Carl Sagan, among others.  Because it will take 25,000 years for the message to reach its intended destination (and an additional 25,000 years for any reply), the Arecibo message was more a demonstration of human technological achievement than a real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrials.  In fact, the stars of M13, to which the message was aimed, will no longer be in that location when the message arrives.  According to the Cornell News press release of November 12, 1999, the real purpose of the message was not to make contact but to demonstrate the capabilities of newly installed equipment.  See description of the message's seven parts and a graphic with color added to highlight separate parts at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

The only ferret native to North America also is the only serious natural predator of the prairie dog.  While some snakes, coyotes and badgers are known to occasionally snack on prairie dogs, the deceivingly vicious black-footed ferret makes them a regular entrée.  In fact, a single ferret may eat more than 100 prairie dogs in a year.  "The grass grows back where my cattle graze,” cattleman Gary Walker said.  “But where prairie dogs live the grass is completely destroyed, and it takes a long time to restore that land.  “Whenever you see tumbleweed you can thank a prairie dog.”  However, those who take time to study the prairie dog species appreciate that they represent an important wildlife resource.  Even those like Walker who curse the varmints, recognize that responsible conservation of the prairie dog has important consequences for many other species of animals in the grassland ecosystem.  The swift fox, burrowing owl, raptor, mountain plover, several snakes, many rodents, and of course the black-footed ferret, all depend on the prairie dogs for food, shelter and/or nesting sites.  It also is important to note that prairie dogs are naturally nomadic, meaning that they prefer to keep moving.  But with so much of the prairie lands having been plowed for crops, these large colonies have remained relatively static for years.  Their destruction is dramatic.  Walker estimates that more than 10,000 acres of his ranch land has been rendered “non-productive” for grazing.  In addition to the dramatic loss of habitat, the introduction of plague (from fleas), and poisoning has led to the demise of both the prairie dogs and the black-footed ferrets.  The Walkers are opposed to poisoning, and they believe that nature always has provided the best solution to this complex problem.  Many of Walker’s fellow cattlemen and many environmental and regulatory experts agree.  On the surface the solution of bringing back the black-footed ferret seemed fairly simple.  Turns out it was one of the toughest challenges the Walkers and their “BFF allies” have ever faced, officials said.  The biggest roadblock was the legislation that actually penalized private land owners who attempted to harbor any endangered species.  Walker said that historically, when an endangered species was found on private property, the federal government stepped in and imposed strict mandates on the use of the land.  In some cases, the agencies also held the land owners and their neighbors liable for any harm that came to the rare animals.  It was a classic “catch 22” for ranchers, tribal leaders and other private land owners.  The black-footed ferret recovery effort has been under way since 1981, when a small population was discovered in Meeteetse, Wyoming.  Remarkably, only 18 ferrets were taken into captivity.  But these precious few provided the foundation for a successful captive-breeding program that has brought the species back from the brink of extinction.  In 2011, it was reported that 1,000 ferrets were surviving in the wild, and 300 more in captivity.  The recovery program is supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center in Wellington, the National Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, and the zoological institutions in Colorado Springs (Cheyenne Mountain Zoo), Phoenix, Louisville and Toronto.  Some of the folks on the front lines of the recovery effort at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo were on hand to witness and celebrate the release of fifty of their black-footed ferrets on the Walker Ranch.  Dr. Della Garelle, director of Field Conservation and a veterinarian at Cheyenne Mountain, spoke about the hard work and collaboration that led to the momentous release day.  “The recovery program at the CMZ has been in effect for twenty three years,” Garelle said.  “The six captive-breeding programs have been reintroducing the ferret on public land since 1991, but reintroduction on private land — especially in Colorado — has been extremely difficult.”  The 50 new furry residents were released over a 4,000-acre radius, in order to ensure that each breeding pair has adequate room and board.  Each animal came equipped with a high-tech microchip that will enable scientists monitor the overall progress of the colony, and the activities of each individual ferret.  Since the ferrets have a gestational period of only 41 to 43 days, and an average litter size of three to four kits, scientists are hopeful that the Walker Ranch colony will grow quickly.  All of the new arrivals also will have microchips implanted before they leave home and establish new territories at the ripe old age of four months.  Mark Young  http://www.pueblowestview.com/home/1980062-119/ferret-black-footed-prairie

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on June 24, 2014 published a Federal Register notice on its interpretation of the statutory special rules for model aircraft in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012.  The guidance comes after recent incidents involving the reckless use of unmanned model aircraft near airports and involving large crowds of people.  The FAA is issuing the notice to provide clear guidance to model operators on the “do’s and don’ts” of flying safely in accordance with the Act and to answer many of the questions it has received regarding the scope and application of the rules.  While the notice is immediately effective, the agency welcomes comments from the public which may help further inform its analysis.  The comment period for the notice will close 30 days from publication in the Federal Register.  http://www.bespacific.com/drone-package-deliveries-amazons-future/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=drone-package-deliveries-amazons-future  See notice [4910-13] DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Federal Aviation Administration, 14 CFR Part 91, [Docket No. FAA-2014-0396] at http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/uas/media/model_aircraft_spec_rule.pdf

See also FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 at http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/apl/aatf/legislative_history/media/faa_modernization_reform_act_2012_plaw-112publ95.pdf

Two hours west of Fort Worth, the county seat of Shackelford County boasts a rarity:  art in a former prison, the Old Jail Art Center.  "Home of the Hereford" boasts the sign as you enter this one-traffic-light town (population c.2,000), established by Scottish Presbyterians 16 miles south of Fort Griffin.  But home on this range means more than cattle.  The gorgeously restored county courthouse rises proudly over the square, with the Old Jail (begun in 1877) down the street.  Scottish masons carved their initials into the prison's limestone blocks as a means of ensuring payment for their work.  The jail was closed in 1929 and stayed vacant until 1940, at which point Robert E. Nail Jr. bought it.  Nail came from an important local family.  A wealthy boy whose mother sent him off to Lawrenceville School in Princeton, N.J., where he studied writing with Thornton Wilder before graduating as class valedictorian, he headed to Princeton University, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1933.  He had his sights set on a New York theater career but was called home after graduation, owing to his father's suicide the previous year.  His college theatrical coterie included José Ferrer, Jimmy Stewart and Joshua Logan.  They managed to thrive, in New York and then in Hollywood, while Nail went back to Texas.  In 1938 Nail produced the first version of what has become the town's annual crowd-pleasing pageant, "Fandangle," a musical extravaganza in which 300 unpaid townspeople perform during the last two weekends of June.  Think Wilder's "Our Town" meets Christopher Guest's "Waiting for Guffman."  Nail, who used the jail as a writing studio, died in 1968, and then his nephew Reilly Nail (also a Princeton alumnus), a television producer, inherited the building.  Flash forward:  The younger Nail and his first cousin Bill Bomar decided to combine their families' collections of 19th and 20th century paintings, plus classic Asian art.  Bomar was the museum's greatest benefactor:  He either painted or owned about 300 works in the collection.  Voilà:  The Old Jail Art Center opened in 1980. Willard Spiegelman  Read more at http://online.wsj.com/articles/museum-review-great-art-behind-bars-1403733940?tesla=y&mod=djemITP_h&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304198504579571842316536288.html?mod=djemITP_h  See also http://theoldjailartcenter.org/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1167  June 27, 2014  On this date in 1895, the inaugural run of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue from Washington, D.C., to New York, New York, was the first U.S. passenger train to use electric locomotives.  On this date in 1898, the first solo circumnavigation of the globe was completed by Joshua Slocum from Briar Island, Nova Scotia.