Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio A meditation on the fragility of life.
Hamlet says this in a graveyard as he looks at the skull of Yorick, a court jester he had known as a child, and grieves for him. From Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1602. Often misquoted for some reason as 'Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well'. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/25500.html
Since its debut in 1868, The World Almanac and Book of Facts has become the best-selling American reference book of all time, with more than 82 million copies sold. his essential household and workplace desk reference is “the most useful reference book known to modern man,” according to the L.A. Times. Renowned New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz calls it his “#1 reference work for facts.” The 1932 World Almanac was buried in the cornerstone of the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC by Mrs. William Howard Taft on October 13, 1932. The 1938 World Almanac was buried in a 5,000 Year Time Capsule at the World Fair Grounds in New York, September 23, 1938. http://www.worldalmanac.com/world-almanac.aspx
Famous Ohioans: Hamilton and Gish
It is ironic that Margaret Hamilton (1902-1985) as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939) was so scary to children, because her first job was as a kindergarten teacher. She loved and doted upon children all her life. Until the day she died she had children recognizing her and coming up to her to ask why she was so mean to Dorothy. She became very concerned about the role's effect on children, and finally guested on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (1968) to explain that the Witch was just a character in the film, and not herself. She was the kindergarten teacher of five-year-old William Windom, until she threw him out for rambunctious behavior. Another of her students was Jim Backus. Gave her most noted recollection of her role in The Wizard of Oz (1939) by writing the Preface to the book "The Making of The Wizard of Oz" by Aljean Harmetz. Under her married name of Margaret Meserve, she served on the Beverly Hills Board of Education from 1948 to 1951. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002121/bio
Lillian Gish was born Lillian Diana de Guiche on October 14, 1893, in Springfield, Ohio; her sister, Dorothy (1898–1968), was born in Dayton. All of the Gish women—Lillian, Dorothy, and their mother, Mary—were talented actors, but Lillian excelled both in front of the camera and behind it, with a career stretching from 1902, when she debuted at The Little Red School House in Rising Sun, Ohio, through 1988, when she made her 106th feature film, The Whales of August, at the age of ninety-two. Gish made her debut as the first female film director in 1920 with Remodeling Her Husband, starring her sister Dorothy. In 1922, Lillian Gish started making movies at MGM, where she gained the distinctive privilege of artistic control over her films. She made her first sound movie, One Romantic Night, in 1930. Shortly thereafter, she returned to the Broadway stage, where she spent most of the remainder of her career, returning periodically to do films. http://www.ohioana.org/features/profiles/lilliangish.pdf
Flutist FLOO-tist The word flutist was first recorded in 1603, and FLOO-tist has been and still is the only acceptable pronunciation for it. The variant flautist was adapted from the Italian flautista in 1860. The preferred pronunciation for flautist is FLAW-tist (FLAW- like flaw) The variant FLOW-tist (FLOW- rhyming with cow), which mimics the Italian pronunciation of -au, appears in current dictionaries but only the NBC Handbook (1984) prefers it. Unless you have some special reason for preferring Italian spellings and pronunciations, stick with the English flutist (FLOO-tist), which is both traditional and unaffected. http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/beastly/#Flutist
James Galway says, "I am a flute player not a flautist. I don't have a flaut and I've never flauted." http://www.flute4all.com/articles/flutistflautist.html
Find 100 examples of suggested pronunciations from The Big Book Of Beastly Mispronunciations: The Complete Opinionated Guide For The Careful Speaker by Charles Harrington Elster at: http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/beastly/
Chart of the original thirteen colonies including years of settlement and founders is at: http://americanhistory.about.com/library/charts/blcolonial13.htm
The Inn Crowd Vintage American Hotels Renovated: Past and Present, eight properties that are rooted in America's past but still have plenty of modern charm See a slideshow with before and after pictures at: http://www.cntraveler.com/features/2012/02/historic-hotels-america-renovated-boutique-new-york-california-colorado#slide=1
Here Greek and Roman find themselves Alive along these crowded shelves;
And Shakespeare treads again his stage, And Chaucer paints anew his age.
As if some Pantheon's marbles broke Their stony trance, and lived and spoke,
Life thrills along the alcoved hall, The lords of thought await our call!
from The Library by John Greenleaf Whittier, sung at the opening of the Haverhill Library, November 11, 1875 See whole poem at: http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/sherman/whittier/haverhill/ft_library.html
The Whittier Collection In 1887 the Whittier Club began to collect all known editions by the poet, as well as anything else relating to Whittier including books, photographs, manuscripts and broadsides. The club donated the articles to the library where they are properly maintained and protected. The collection is open to the public by appointment.
Haverhill Public Library 99 Main Street Haverhill, Massachusetts (978) 373-1586
Find information on The Whittier Trail and the Freeman Memorial Trail at: http://www.johngreenleafwhittier.com/pdf/Whittier_Brochure-WEB.pdf
Gastronaut is not a valid Scrabble word, but you can look up examples of its use at: http://www.wordnik.com/words/gastronaut
A Scene Grows in Brooklyn Brooklyn's Literary Landmarks Link to detailed lists of bookstores and bars in West Brooklyn, Park Slope Fort Greene and Williamsburg/Greenpoint at:
http://www.cntraveler.com/arts/2012/02/brooklyn-authors
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
There’s no doubt that Pinterest has exploded in popularity in recent months. But with that boom has come concerns for some users about copyright law. Pinterest allows its users to create virtual bulletin boards by pinning content from across the web, including photos and recipes. Some lawyers say that could potentially leave Pinterest users vulnerable to lawsuits — if they don’t have permission to use the content. Some lawyers say that could potentially leave Pinterest users vulnerable to lawsuits — if they don’t have permission to use the content. “The best and easiest way to avoid trouble is to put up your own content, the content you created,” Jonathan Pink, a California-based intellectual property lawyer with Bryan Cave LLP told the Law Blog. For example, Mr. Pink said that if a Pinterest user sees a piece of furniture that he or she likes, or a tasty-looking cookie, they’ll be safe taking out their smart phone, snapping a photo, and pinning it. “Own the content you are publishing,” Mr. Pink said. On the flip side, Mr. Pink said, “if you are going to play it conservative and safe, you should never pin an image on Pinterest for which you don’t own the copyright interest or for which you have not obtained a license from the copyright owner.” There are some exceptions: Old photos that pre-date 1923 can be “safely posted” under copyright law, he said. One area that might be somewhat less risky is recipes.
“You can post a recipe as long as you are creating the text of the recipe yourself," according to Mr. Pink. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/03/13/dont-get-stuck-by-pinterest-lawyers-warn/
LG Electronics was originally established in 1958 as GoldStar, producing radios, TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioner. The LG Group was a merger of two Korean companies, Lucky and GoldStar, from which the abbreviation of LG was derived. The current "Life's Good" slogan is a backronym. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Electronics
Spring cleaning is the process of thoroughly cleaning a house from top to bottom once the weather has lost its winter chill. In the past, inadequate heating in homes and small living spaces often meant that certain types of cleaning had to wait for spring. For example, pioneers who used straw tick mattresses, tended to wait till spring to refill these, so that they could use fresh dry hay for filling. Before modern dryers, washing drapes or comforters was complicated by cold weather and tight living quarters. Those in cold climates and had no other choice but to wait for warm weather to hang laundry outdoors to dry. Read about spring cleaning based on other practices and celebrations at:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-origins-of-spring-cleaning.htm
Women in the White City, Lessons from the Woman’s Building Library at the Chicago World’s Fair by Susan E. Searing Next year will be the 120th anniversary of the World’s Columbian Exposition, more commonly known as the Chicago World’s Fair—a grand event that lasted six months, attracted 27 million visitors, and introduced attendees to the Ferris Wheel, shredded wheat, and belly dancing. Although you won’t learn it from Erik Larson’s bestseller The Devil in the White City, librarians participated in many aspects of the 1893 fair. A library of literature for youth was a key attraction in the Children’s Building, and elsewhere on the grounds a committee of American Library Association members established a model library that demonstrated innovative practices in our still-new profession. Now Sarah Wadsworth and Wayne Wiegand have brought to light another forgotten aspect of library history connected with the fair. In Right Here I See My Own Books: The Woman’s Building Library at the World’s Columbian Exposition (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), the coauthors chronicle the unprecedented collection of works by “women in all ages and all countries” that was housed in the fair’s famed Woman’s Building. The library filled a large and beautifully furnished room on the second story of the temporary structure. Wadsworth, a scholar of 19th-century literature, and Wiegand, a library historian, recount the energetic planning and diligent work that went into gathering, cataloging, and exhibiting the impressive collection. It’s a surprisingly gripping tale of power struggles, budget crises, and last-minute machinations that will feel familiar to any reader who’s strived to meet impossible goals with inadequate resources. Never before had a library been assembled for the express purpose of showcasing women’s literary achievements. Committees of clubwomen in nearly every state of the Union identified female authors, living and deceased, and shipped copies of their works to Chicago. Many foreign women contributed books as well. The resulting collection topped 8,000 volumes and represented 24 nations.
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/02292012/women-white-city
To celebrate Wordsmith's octodecennial (18th anniversary), here are a few 18-letter words: preantepenultimate (fourth from the last), hemidemisemiquaver (64th note in music--from Greek hemi- (half) + French demi- (half) + Latin semi- (half) + quaver (an eighth note), from Middle English quaveren (to shake or tremble), gedankenexperiment (an experiment carried out in imagination only), plurisignification (use of a word to convey multiple meanings at the same time).
In a survey completed in February 2012, the Pew Internet Project found that 80% of adults use the internet and 66% of those online Americans use social networking sites. Some 75% of SNS users say their friends post at least some content related to politics and 37% of SNS users post political material at least occasionally. The survey found that a portion of SNS users have assessed some relationships based on political material that is posted on the sites. Some 18% of social networking site users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone due to political disagreements. http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/PIP_SNS_and_politics.pdf
#26104 MONDAY, MARCH 19, 2012 – NO. 1 Detmers v. Costner
In the early 1990s, Kevin Costner envisioned building a luxury resort called “The Dunbar” on property he owned near Deadwood, South Dakota. After discussions, Costner commissioned Peggy Detmers to design 17 buffalo and Lakota warrior sculptures, intending to display them at The Dunbar’s entrance. Detmers and Costner orally agreed that she would be paid $250,000, and would receive royalty rights in the sculptures’ reproductions that were to be marketed and sold at The Dunbar’s gift shop. When The Dunbar had not been built in the late 1990s, Detmers stopped working on the sculptures. In 2008, Detmers and Detmers Studios, Inc. brought suit against Costner, and The Dunbar, Inc. seeking a declaratory judgment that she did not agree to the placement of the sculptures as required by paragraph three of their May 2000 contract. For relief, Detmers sought an order requiring Costner to sell the sculptures with the proceeds dispersed consistent with paragraph three. Detmers claimed that because The Dunbar was not built within ten years and the sculptures were not “agreeably displayed elsewhere,” she was entitled to 50% of the proceeds from the sale of the sculptures, which would be specific performance. Before trial, Costner made a motion to use parol evidence. Detmers objected, requesting summary judgment that the May 2000 contract was not ambiguous and parol evidence was therefore inadmissible. The circuit court concluded that the May 2000 contract was not ambiguous. The court denied Costner’s motion to admit parol evidence. The sole issue at the bench trial was whether the sculptures were “agreeably displayed elsewhere.” Costner, Detmers, and Wyss testified at trial. After post-trial briefing, the court granted judgment in favor of Costner. The court maintained its earlier conclusion that the May 2000 contract was unambiguous. The court concluded that “‘[e]lsewhere,’ as used in the contract, clearly means at a site other than The Dunbar.” Additionally, “[b]ecause The Dunbar has not been built, any site is elsewhere, i.e., somewhere other than The Dunbar. The placement of the sculptures at Tatanka is elsewhere.” The court also concluded: “Detmers actions following the decision to place the sculptures at Tatanka indicate that she agreed to display them at that location. Detmers was notified of the plan to place the sculptures at Tatanka in January 2002 . . . .”
On appeal, the issues presented are:
1. Whether the circuit court erred in determining that the sculptures were agreeably displayed “elsewhere” as required under the contract.
2. Whether Detmers agreeably displayed the sculptures elsewhere in the absence of a promise or guarantee from Costner that The Dunbar would be built by 2010.
3. Whether the circuit court erred in concluding that construing the agreement literally would lead to an absurd result.
Read much more at: http://www.usd.edu/law/upload/Monday-9am.pdf
The parol evidence rule is a Legal rule that once a written agreement has been duly executed (signed by all concerned parties) then it cannot be altered or annulled by any oral evidence that may contradict the terms of the agreement, except in case of a fraud or mistake.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/parol-evidence-rule.html
“You can post a recipe as long as you are creating the text of the recipe yourself," according to Mr. Pink. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/03/13/dont-get-stuck-by-pinterest-lawyers-warn/
LG Electronics was originally established in 1958 as GoldStar, producing radios, TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioner. The LG Group was a merger of two Korean companies, Lucky and GoldStar, from which the abbreviation of LG was derived. The current "Life's Good" slogan is a backronym. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Electronics
Spring cleaning is the process of thoroughly cleaning a house from top to bottom once the weather has lost its winter chill. In the past, inadequate heating in homes and small living spaces often meant that certain types of cleaning had to wait for spring. For example, pioneers who used straw tick mattresses, tended to wait till spring to refill these, so that they could use fresh dry hay for filling. Before modern dryers, washing drapes or comforters was complicated by cold weather and tight living quarters. Those in cold climates and had no other choice but to wait for warm weather to hang laundry outdoors to dry. Read about spring cleaning based on other practices and celebrations at:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-origins-of-spring-cleaning.htm
Women in the White City, Lessons from the Woman’s Building Library at the Chicago World’s Fair by Susan E. Searing Next year will be the 120th anniversary of the World’s Columbian Exposition, more commonly known as the Chicago World’s Fair—a grand event that lasted six months, attracted 27 million visitors, and introduced attendees to the Ferris Wheel, shredded wheat, and belly dancing. Although you won’t learn it from Erik Larson’s bestseller The Devil in the White City, librarians participated in many aspects of the 1893 fair. A library of literature for youth was a key attraction in the Children’s Building, and elsewhere on the grounds a committee of American Library Association members established a model library that demonstrated innovative practices in our still-new profession. Now Sarah Wadsworth and Wayne Wiegand have brought to light another forgotten aspect of library history connected with the fair. In Right Here I See My Own Books: The Woman’s Building Library at the World’s Columbian Exposition (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), the coauthors chronicle the unprecedented collection of works by “women in all ages and all countries” that was housed in the fair’s famed Woman’s Building. The library filled a large and beautifully furnished room on the second story of the temporary structure. Wadsworth, a scholar of 19th-century literature, and Wiegand, a library historian, recount the energetic planning and diligent work that went into gathering, cataloging, and exhibiting the impressive collection. It’s a surprisingly gripping tale of power struggles, budget crises, and last-minute machinations that will feel familiar to any reader who’s strived to meet impossible goals with inadequate resources. Never before had a library been assembled for the express purpose of showcasing women’s literary achievements. Committees of clubwomen in nearly every state of the Union identified female authors, living and deceased, and shipped copies of their works to Chicago. Many foreign women contributed books as well. The resulting collection topped 8,000 volumes and represented 24 nations.
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/02292012/women-white-city
To celebrate Wordsmith's octodecennial (18th anniversary), here are a few 18-letter words: preantepenultimate (fourth from the last), hemidemisemiquaver (64th note in music--from Greek hemi- (half) + French demi- (half) + Latin semi- (half) + quaver (an eighth note), from Middle English quaveren (to shake or tremble), gedankenexperiment (an experiment carried out in imagination only), plurisignification (use of a word to convey multiple meanings at the same time).
In a survey completed in February 2012, the Pew Internet Project found that 80% of adults use the internet and 66% of those online Americans use social networking sites. Some 75% of SNS users say their friends post at least some content related to politics and 37% of SNS users post political material at least occasionally. The survey found that a portion of SNS users have assessed some relationships based on political material that is posted on the sites. Some 18% of social networking site users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone due to political disagreements. http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/PIP_SNS_and_politics.pdf
#26104 MONDAY, MARCH 19, 2012 – NO. 1 Detmers v. Costner
In the early 1990s, Kevin Costner envisioned building a luxury resort called “The Dunbar” on property he owned near Deadwood, South Dakota. After discussions, Costner commissioned Peggy Detmers to design 17 buffalo and Lakota warrior sculptures, intending to display them at The Dunbar’s entrance. Detmers and Costner orally agreed that she would be paid $250,000, and would receive royalty rights in the sculptures’ reproductions that were to be marketed and sold at The Dunbar’s gift shop. When The Dunbar had not been built in the late 1990s, Detmers stopped working on the sculptures. In 2008, Detmers and Detmers Studios, Inc. brought suit against Costner, and The Dunbar, Inc. seeking a declaratory judgment that she did not agree to the placement of the sculptures as required by paragraph three of their May 2000 contract. For relief, Detmers sought an order requiring Costner to sell the sculptures with the proceeds dispersed consistent with paragraph three. Detmers claimed that because The Dunbar was not built within ten years and the sculptures were not “agreeably displayed elsewhere,” she was entitled to 50% of the proceeds from the sale of the sculptures, which would be specific performance. Before trial, Costner made a motion to use parol evidence. Detmers objected, requesting summary judgment that the May 2000 contract was not ambiguous and parol evidence was therefore inadmissible. The circuit court concluded that the May 2000 contract was not ambiguous. The court denied Costner’s motion to admit parol evidence. The sole issue at the bench trial was whether the sculptures were “agreeably displayed elsewhere.” Costner, Detmers, and Wyss testified at trial. After post-trial briefing, the court granted judgment in favor of Costner. The court maintained its earlier conclusion that the May 2000 contract was unambiguous. The court concluded that “‘[e]lsewhere,’ as used in the contract, clearly means at a site other than The Dunbar.” Additionally, “[b]ecause The Dunbar has not been built, any site is elsewhere, i.e., somewhere other than The Dunbar. The placement of the sculptures at Tatanka is elsewhere.” The court also concluded: “Detmers actions following the decision to place the sculptures at Tatanka indicate that she agreed to display them at that location. Detmers was notified of the plan to place the sculptures at Tatanka in January 2002 . . . .”
On appeal, the issues presented are:
1. Whether the circuit court erred in determining that the sculptures were agreeably displayed “elsewhere” as required under the contract.
2. Whether Detmers agreeably displayed the sculptures elsewhere in the absence of a promise or guarantee from Costner that The Dunbar would be built by 2010.
3. Whether the circuit court erred in concluding that construing the agreement literally would lead to an absurd result.
Read much more at: http://www.usd.edu/law/upload/Monday-9am.pdf
The parol evidence rule is a Legal rule that once a written agreement has been duly executed (signed by all concerned parties) then it cannot be altered or annulled by any oral evidence that may contradict the terms of the agreement, except in case of a fraud or mistake.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/parol-evidence-rule.html
Monday, March 19, 2012
Ever since the Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, killing 1,517 people, researchers have puzzled over Capt. Edward Smith's seeming disregard of warnings that icebergs were in the area where the ship was sailing. Greenland icebergs of the type that the Titanic struck generally become stuck in the shallow waters off Labrador and Newfoundland, and cannot resume moving southward until they have melted enough to refloat or a high tide frees them, Olson said. So how was it that such a large number of icebergs had floated so far south that they were in the shipping lanes well south of Newfoundland that night? The team investigated speculation by the late oceanographer Fergus Wood that an unusually close approach by the moon in January 1912 may have produced such high tides that far more icebergs than usual managed to separate from Greenland, and floated, still fully grown, into shipping lanes that had been moved south that spring because of reports of icebergs. Olson said a "once-in-many lifetimes" event occurred on Jan. 4, 1912, when the moon and sun lined up in such a way that their gravitational pulls enhanced each other. At the same time, the moon's closest approach to Earth that January was the closest in 1,400 years, and the point of closest approach occurred within six minutes of the full moon. On top of that, the Earth's closest approach to the sun in a year had happened just the previous day. "This configuration maximized the moon's tide-raising forces on the Earth's oceans," Olson said. "That's remarkable." His research determined that to reach the shipping lanes by mid-April, the iceberg that the Titanic struck must have broken off from Greenland in January 1912. The high tide caused by the bizarre combination of astronomical events would have been enough to dislodge icebergs and give them enough buoyancy to reach the shipping lanes by April, he said. The research will appear in the April issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. http://www.timescolonist.com/Moon+blame+Titanic+sinking+scientists+believe/6284857/story.html
Number sign is a name for the symbol #, which is used for a variety of purposes including, in some countries, the designation of a number (for example, "#1" stands for "number one"). The symbol is in Unicode as code point U+0023 # NUMBER SIGN (HTML: #); it is also present in ASCII with the same value. In Commonwealth English, the symbol is usually called the hash and the corresponding telephone key is called the hash key. In American English, the symbol is usually called the pound sign (outside the US, this term often describes instead the British currency symbol "£") and the telephone key is called the pound key. In Canadian English, this key is most frequently called the pound key but also in some circumstances the number sign key. Beginning in the 1960s, telephone engineers have attempted to coin a special name for this symbol, with variant spellings including octothorp, octothorpe, octathorp, octotherp, octathorpe, and octatherp, none of which has become widely accepted. On social networking sites such as Twitter, # is used to denote a metadata tag, or "hashtag". See uses in mathematics, computing and other ways at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign
The Once and Future Library, an architect’s perspective on designing for changing constituencies by Charles G. Mueller In what history may well mark as an important milestone in how we live and learn, Amazon and the Association of American Publishers reported in spring 2011 that ebook sales had surpassed print for the first time. The former grew by triple-digit percentages from February 2010 to the same month this past year; the latter declined 25% in the same period. Besides librarians, architects are among the people most concerned about how, and how rapidly, such trends play out. Plans made a year ago for library additions or even modest renovations—never mind an entirely new building—are probably out of date. Longstanding formulas to calculate the space required for stacks, seating, and even computer stations no longer apply. The library standards codified in many states, often a criterion for funding, would probably result in a library design that is larger than necessary, or certainly too big or too small in all the wrong places. Change may be inevitable, but it will not be uniform. For example, a public library I am working with reports its current monthly ebook circulation at a few hundred—versus 5,000+ paper editions. That’s less than 5% of the total. At the other end of the spectrum, Stanford University’s new Engineering Library made headlines in 2010 when officials proclaimed their intent to go “largely bookless” within the decade. Pared down by nearly two-thirds from the old facility’s size to a mere 6,000 square feet, the new library contains 16,500 physical books, a whopping decrease of more than 80%, while it holds 40,000 ebooks. Still, the culled books and periodicals didn’t disappear: They were carted off to a central university repository, which can provide any requested materials in less than a day. What are we looking at? In general terms, there will be more, varied spaces but probably less overall square footage, fewer physical books, and more services. Compact, efficient libraries can be a good thing for patrons as users and taxpayers. A public library addition that I am working on has shrunk from more than 40,000 square feet (based on a nearly decade-old plan that projected the book and VHS tape collections would continue to grow linearly) to less than 20,000 square feet—most of which is dedicated to children and young people. The best libraries today—old, new, or in design—are a cross between a modern community center, an old-fashioned YMCA, and a town center. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/03062012/once-and-future-library
Quick Ten: ten famous people who once worked in libraries: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/24574
Reader feedback to chalk letterer: Put together a PowerPoint presentation on Tanamachi for my graphics class, thanks. In one of her videos, she says she references "Ghost Signs" as her inspiration.
A ghost sign is an old hand-painted advertising signage that has been preserved on a building for an extended period of time. They are found across the world with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada having many surviving examples. Ghost signs are also called fading ads and brickads. In many cases these are advertisements painted on brick that remained over time. Old painted advertisements are occasionally discovered upon demolition of later-built adjoining structures. Many ghost signs still visible are from the 1890s to 1960s. Such signs were most commonly used in the decades before the Great Depression. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_sign
On a foray into the wilds of Staten Island in 2009, Jeremy A. Feinberg, a doctoral candidate in ecology and evolution at Rutgers University, heard something strange as he listened for the distinctive mating call of the southern leopard frog — usually a repetitive chuckle. But this was a single cluck. “I started hearing these calls, and I realized they were really distinct,” Mr. Feinberg said. Three years later, Mr. Feinberg and four other scientists who joined him in multiple field and laboratory studies, are finally comfortable making their declaration: a new species of leopard frog — as yet unnamed — has been identified in New York City and a number of surrounding counties. The find is surprising on a number of fronts, not least of which is that the new frog was hiding in plain sight in one of the most populated centers in the world. (Most new species are found in remote areas. There are more than a dozen leopard frogs, ranging from Canada to Central America. Medium in size, with dark spots on a tan, olive or green background, they gravitate toward grassy meadows and breed in ponds or pools. The researchers say that the new frog species was confused for a long time with the southern leopard frog, which it closely resembles. Its known range is limited, more or less, to commuting distance from Midtown Manhattan, stretching from around Trenton, N.J., in the south, to Putnam County, N.Y., to the north. The findings are to be published in an issue of the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, but are currently available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790312000383 Lisa W. Foderaro http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/nyregion/new-leopard-frog-species-is-discovered-in-nyc.html
President Obama unjustly criticized a dead Republican president — Rutherford B. Hayes — by putting words in Hayes’ mouth that he never uttered. Obama, speaking about his energy policies at Prince George’s Community College March 15 in Largo, Md., said: There always have been folks who are the naysayers and don’t believe in the future, and don’t believe in trying to do things differently. One of my predecessors, Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone, “It’s a great invention, but who would ever want to use one?” (Laughter.) That’s why he’s not on Mt. Rushmore — (laughter and applause) — because he’s looking backwards. He’s not looking forwards. (Applause.) Actually, as New York Magazine‘s Daily Intel blog and others were quick to point out, Hayes never said that. In fact, Hayes was the first president to have a telephone in the White House. It was one of the earliest telephones anywhere in the nation’s capital. For the record, Hayes was also the first president to use a typewriter. And he invited Thomas Edison into the White House to demonstrate the phonograph. http://factcheck.org/2012/03/obamas-fake-hayes-quote/
Number sign is a name for the symbol #, which is used for a variety of purposes including, in some countries, the designation of a number (for example, "#1" stands for "number one"). The symbol is in Unicode as code point U+0023 # NUMBER SIGN (HTML: #); it is also present in ASCII with the same value. In Commonwealth English, the symbol is usually called the hash and the corresponding telephone key is called the hash key. In American English, the symbol is usually called the pound sign (outside the US, this term often describes instead the British currency symbol "£") and the telephone key is called the pound key. In Canadian English, this key is most frequently called the pound key but also in some circumstances the number sign key. Beginning in the 1960s, telephone engineers have attempted to coin a special name for this symbol, with variant spellings including octothorp, octothorpe, octathorp, octotherp, octathorpe, and octatherp, none of which has become widely accepted. On social networking sites such as Twitter, # is used to denote a metadata tag, or "hashtag". See uses in mathematics, computing and other ways at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign
The Once and Future Library, an architect’s perspective on designing for changing constituencies by Charles G. Mueller In what history may well mark as an important milestone in how we live and learn, Amazon and the Association of American Publishers reported in spring 2011 that ebook sales had surpassed print for the first time. The former grew by triple-digit percentages from February 2010 to the same month this past year; the latter declined 25% in the same period. Besides librarians, architects are among the people most concerned about how, and how rapidly, such trends play out. Plans made a year ago for library additions or even modest renovations—never mind an entirely new building—are probably out of date. Longstanding formulas to calculate the space required for stacks, seating, and even computer stations no longer apply. The library standards codified in many states, often a criterion for funding, would probably result in a library design that is larger than necessary, or certainly too big or too small in all the wrong places. Change may be inevitable, but it will not be uniform. For example, a public library I am working with reports its current monthly ebook circulation at a few hundred—versus 5,000+ paper editions. That’s less than 5% of the total. At the other end of the spectrum, Stanford University’s new Engineering Library made headlines in 2010 when officials proclaimed their intent to go “largely bookless” within the decade. Pared down by nearly two-thirds from the old facility’s size to a mere 6,000 square feet, the new library contains 16,500 physical books, a whopping decrease of more than 80%, while it holds 40,000 ebooks. Still, the culled books and periodicals didn’t disappear: They were carted off to a central university repository, which can provide any requested materials in less than a day. What are we looking at? In general terms, there will be more, varied spaces but probably less overall square footage, fewer physical books, and more services. Compact, efficient libraries can be a good thing for patrons as users and taxpayers. A public library addition that I am working on has shrunk from more than 40,000 square feet (based on a nearly decade-old plan that projected the book and VHS tape collections would continue to grow linearly) to less than 20,000 square feet—most of which is dedicated to children and young people. The best libraries today—old, new, or in design—are a cross between a modern community center, an old-fashioned YMCA, and a town center. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/03062012/once-and-future-library
Quick Ten: ten famous people who once worked in libraries: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/24574
Reader feedback to chalk letterer: Put together a PowerPoint presentation on Tanamachi for my graphics class, thanks. In one of her videos, she says she references "Ghost Signs" as her inspiration.
A ghost sign is an old hand-painted advertising signage that has been preserved on a building for an extended period of time. They are found across the world with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada having many surviving examples. Ghost signs are also called fading ads and brickads. In many cases these are advertisements painted on brick that remained over time. Old painted advertisements are occasionally discovered upon demolition of later-built adjoining structures. Many ghost signs still visible are from the 1890s to 1960s. Such signs were most commonly used in the decades before the Great Depression. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_sign
On a foray into the wilds of Staten Island in 2009, Jeremy A. Feinberg, a doctoral candidate in ecology and evolution at Rutgers University, heard something strange as he listened for the distinctive mating call of the southern leopard frog — usually a repetitive chuckle. But this was a single cluck. “I started hearing these calls, and I realized they were really distinct,” Mr. Feinberg said. Three years later, Mr. Feinberg and four other scientists who joined him in multiple field and laboratory studies, are finally comfortable making their declaration: a new species of leopard frog — as yet unnamed — has been identified in New York City and a number of surrounding counties. The find is surprising on a number of fronts, not least of which is that the new frog was hiding in plain sight in one of the most populated centers in the world. (Most new species are found in remote areas. There are more than a dozen leopard frogs, ranging from Canada to Central America. Medium in size, with dark spots on a tan, olive or green background, they gravitate toward grassy meadows and breed in ponds or pools. The researchers say that the new frog species was confused for a long time with the southern leopard frog, which it closely resembles. Its known range is limited, more or less, to commuting distance from Midtown Manhattan, stretching from around Trenton, N.J., in the south, to Putnam County, N.Y., to the north. The findings are to be published in an issue of the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, but are currently available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790312000383 Lisa W. Foderaro http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/nyregion/new-leopard-frog-species-is-discovered-in-nyc.html
President Obama unjustly criticized a dead Republican president — Rutherford B. Hayes — by putting words in Hayes’ mouth that he never uttered. Obama, speaking about his energy policies at Prince George’s Community College March 15 in Largo, Md., said: There always have been folks who are the naysayers and don’t believe in the future, and don’t believe in trying to do things differently. One of my predecessors, Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone, “It’s a great invention, but who would ever want to use one?” (Laughter.) That’s why he’s not on Mt. Rushmore — (laughter and applause) — because he’s looking backwards. He’s not looking forwards. (Applause.) Actually, as New York Magazine‘s Daily Intel blog and others were quick to point out, Hayes never said that. In fact, Hayes was the first president to have a telephone in the White House. It was one of the earliest telephones anywhere in the nation’s capital. For the record, Hayes was also the first president to use a typewriter. And he invited Thomas Edison into the White House to demonstrate the phonograph. http://factcheck.org/2012/03/obamas-fake-hayes-quote/
Friday, March 16, 2012
DANA TANAMACHI is a graphic designer and custom chalk letterer who hails from the Lone Star State, but currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating in 2007 with a BFA in Communication Design from The University of North Texas, Dana moved to New York City to design Broadway show posters at Spotco—a leader in arts and live entertainment branding. In early 2010, she took a job working under Louise Fili at Louise Fili Ltd, specializing in the design of restaurants and food packaging. Currently, Dana works full time as a custom chalk letterer.
http://www.danatanamachi.com/about/
Impeccably hand-drawn in a range of styles, Dana Tanamachi's old-timey and evocative chalk-only compositions have appeared on everything from wine bottles to in-store displays to the cover of O, the Oprah Magazine. It was just over two years ago when Ms. Tanamachi, 26, accidentally started her new career by attending a friend's housewarming party in Brooklyn. The hosts had created several chalk walls in their new apartment by using commercially bought "chalkboard" paint (a thick matte variety that can turn any wall into a chalkboard-like surface), and they asked Ms. Tanamachi to sketch something on one of them. The drawing was a hit, and photos of partygoers posing in front of it quickly surfaced on Facebook. Ms. Tanamachi made similar works for each of their subsequent parties and word spread among friends and friends of friends. In May 2010, Ms. Tanamachi received her first official commission: an in-store display for Desiron, a furniture showroom in SoHo. A friend of a friend led to a second commission, this time from Google—she wrote "Room to Breathe" in elegant block letters on a chalkboard wall in one of the Internet giant's new Chelsea offices. Jobs soon followed with New York's Ace Hotel, the British Columbia winery Nagging Doubt and Rugby Ralph Lauren, for which Ms. Tanamachi made a series of window displays in type reminiscent of 1940s-era signage. Chalk, she discovered, was the perfect medium for her work; it's cheap and easy to manipulate. For any given commission, her tools are a tape measure, a rag and a pack of dollar-store chalk—nothing else. "The cheaper the better," she said regarding the chalk. "It's more hollow so it goes on smooth. The more expensive stuff is denser, and that's what makes those bad noises." Rachel Wolff See picture of the artist's chalkboard wall in her bedroom at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203458604577265453430025274.html
Words spelled with more letters on the right of the keyboard are associated with more positive emotions than words spelled with more letters on the left, according to new research by cognitive scientists Kyle Jasmin of University College London and Daniel Casasanto of The New School for Social Research, New York. Their work shows, for the first time, that there is a link between the meaning of words and the way they are typed - a relationship they call the QWERTY* effect. Their study is published online in Springer's journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Some words are spelled with more letters on the right side of the keyboard, others with more letters on the left. In a series of three experiments, the researchers investigated whether differences in the way words are typed correspond to differences in their meanings. They found that the meanings of words in English, Dutch and Spanish were related to the way people typed them on the QWERTY keyboard. Overall, words with more right-side letters were rated more positive in meaning than words with more left-side letters. This effect was visible in all three languages and was not affected by either word length, letter frequency or handedness. The QWERTY effect was also found when people judged the meanings of fictitious words like “pleek,” and was strongest in new words and abbreviations like “greenwash” and “LOL” coined after the invention of QWERTY. Why should the positions of the keys matter? The authors suggest that because there are more letters on the left of the keyboard midline than on the right, letters on the right might be easier to type, which could lead to positive feelings. *The most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six keys appearing in the top left letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120307112711.htm
The 14th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (CLMPS), held last July in France, included a special symposium on the subject of "What is an algorithm?" This may seem to be a strange question to ask just before the Turing Centenary Year, which is now being celebrated by numerous events around the world (see http://www.turingcentenary.eu/ ). Didn't Turing answer this question decisively? Isn't the answer to the question "an algorithm is a Turing machine"? But conflating algorithms with Turing machines is a misreading of Turing's 1936 paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem." Turing's aim was to define computability, not algorithms. His paper argued that every function on natural numbers that can be computed by a human computer (until the mid-1940s a computer was a person who computes) can also be computed by a Turing machine. There is no claim in the paper that Turing machines offer a general model for algorithms. So the question posed by the special CLMPS symposium is an excellent one. Incontrovertibly, algorithms constitute one of the central subjects of study in computer science. Should we not have by now a clear understanding of what an algorithm is? It is worth pointing out that mathematicians formalized the notion of proof only in the 20th century, even though they have been using proofs at that point for about 2,500 years. Read very different definitions of algorithm by two keynote speakers at the symposium:
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/3/146261-what-is-an-algorithm/fulltext
One of America's most enduring poems was written by Robert Degen, who died in 2009 on his 104th birthday. His creation, "The Hokey Pokey," seems timeless. Though the tune and lyrics are often credited to the Ram Trio, who popularized it in the late 1940s in Sun Valley, the "Hokey Pokey Dance" was copyrighted in 1944 by Degen, who maintained the Rams stole it. However, American and British servicemen sang a similar song, "The Hokey Cokey" written by someone else, even earlier in the war. And according to Degen's NY Times obituary, some Catholic clergy and the Oxford English Dictionary contend that "hokey pokey" is derived from "hocus pocus," and the song was written by Puritans in the 1700s to satirize the Catholic mass. Degen's words figured into the winning entry in the 2003 Washington Post Style Invitational Contest, wherein readers could enter instructions to anything as long as it was composed in the manner of a famous person. Jeff Brechlin submitted "The Hokey-Poke" as written by Shakespeare. "O proud left foot, that ventures quick, within/ Then soon upon a backward journey./ Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:/ Command sinistral pedestal to writhe./ Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,/ A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl./ To spin! A wilde release from heaven's yoke./ Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl./ The Hoke, the poke - - banish now thy doubt/ Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about." http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2011/04/hokey_pokey_1.php
See a list of recent Washington Post Style Invitational weekly contests at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/style-invitationa l-weekly-contest-archives/2010/07/06/AB15r7D_linkset.html
January 21, 2012 The Tucson Unified School District has dismantled its Mexican-American studies program, packed away its offending books, shuttled its students into other classes. It was blackmailed into doing so: keeping the program would have meant losing more than $14 million in state funding. It was a blunt-force victory for the Arizona school superintendent, John Huppenthal, who has spent years crusading against ethnic-studies programs he claims are “brainwashing” children into thinking that Latinos have been victims of white oppression. As a state legislator, he co-wrote a law cracking down on ethnic studies, and as superintendent he decided that Tucson’s district was violating it. Mr. Huppenthal's law prohibits programs that “promote the overthrow of the United States government,” “promote resentment toward a race or class of people” and “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” Unless two students win a federal lawsuit arguing that the loss of the program violates their First Amendment rights, Tucson school officials and students are going to have to enrich their curriculum another way. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/rejected-in-tucson.html
March 14, 2012 The Librotraficante Caravan is scheduled to arrive in Tucson March 16 carrying copies of books banned by TUSD. March 17 highlights: All Day: The Libros Libres Taco Truck will hand out free books around Tucson. 1-4pm: The Ultimate Lit Workshop 1-4pm: John Valenzuela Youth Center, 1550 S. 6th Ave. 7pm: Literary Showcase: Leading authors will present their literary works: UA Social Sciences Building, Room 100, 1145 E. South Campus. http://tucsoncitizen.com/in-the-aggregate/2012/03/14/librotraficante-wet-books-events-in-tucson-saturday/
Internal Komen documents reviewed by Reuters reveal the complicated relationship between the Komen Foundation and the Catholic church, which simultaneously contributes to the breast cancer charity and receives grants from it. In recent years, Komen has allocated at least $17.6 million of the donations it receives to U.S. Catholic universities, hospitals and charities. Church opposition reached dramatic new proportions in 2011, when the 11 bishops who represent Ohio's 2.6 million Catholics announced a statewide policy banning church and parochial school donations to Komen. Such pressure helped sway Komen's leadership to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to current and former Komen officials. The earliest signs of discord came in 2005, when South Carolina's Catholic diocese pulled out of the local Komen fundraiser. I t was followed over the next four years by individual dioceses in Arizona, Indiana, Florida, Missouri and other states, where bishops either spoke out against Komen or took steps to stem donations to the charity, mainly because of its Planned Parenthood link. The momentum picked up in 2011 when top Ohio clerics met in Columbus. High on their agenda was the question of whether the state's nine dioceses should participate in Komen fundraisers. No Planned Parenthood clinics in Ohio receive Komen money. But the bishops decided that diocese funds should no longer benefit the charity, for fear that money sent from local Komen affiliates to the Dallas headquarters could wind up in Planned Parenthood's coffers or help fund research on stem cells collected from human fetuses, according to church officials. But even as opposition to Komen continues, some Catholic recipients of Komen money have promoted their ties with the breast cancer charity to the media. Other institutions carry hypertext links to Komen on their Web sites and some display the Susan G. Komen for the Cure logo, including a pink ribbon. Catholic institutions overall collected $7.4 million from the charity in 2011 alone, while Planned Parenthood's receipts totaled $684,000 during the same year. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/15/us-usa-komen-catholic-idUSBRE82E12Q20120315
http://www.danatanamachi.com/about/
Impeccably hand-drawn in a range of styles, Dana Tanamachi's old-timey and evocative chalk-only compositions have appeared on everything from wine bottles to in-store displays to the cover of O, the Oprah Magazine. It was just over two years ago when Ms. Tanamachi, 26, accidentally started her new career by attending a friend's housewarming party in Brooklyn. The hosts had created several chalk walls in their new apartment by using commercially bought "chalkboard" paint (a thick matte variety that can turn any wall into a chalkboard-like surface), and they asked Ms. Tanamachi to sketch something on one of them. The drawing was a hit, and photos of partygoers posing in front of it quickly surfaced on Facebook. Ms. Tanamachi made similar works for each of their subsequent parties and word spread among friends and friends of friends. In May 2010, Ms. Tanamachi received her first official commission: an in-store display for Desiron, a furniture showroom in SoHo. A friend of a friend led to a second commission, this time from Google—she wrote "Room to Breathe" in elegant block letters on a chalkboard wall in one of the Internet giant's new Chelsea offices. Jobs soon followed with New York's Ace Hotel, the British Columbia winery Nagging Doubt and Rugby Ralph Lauren, for which Ms. Tanamachi made a series of window displays in type reminiscent of 1940s-era signage. Chalk, she discovered, was the perfect medium for her work; it's cheap and easy to manipulate. For any given commission, her tools are a tape measure, a rag and a pack of dollar-store chalk—nothing else. "The cheaper the better," she said regarding the chalk. "It's more hollow so it goes on smooth. The more expensive stuff is denser, and that's what makes those bad noises." Rachel Wolff See picture of the artist's chalkboard wall in her bedroom at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203458604577265453430025274.html
Words spelled with more letters on the right of the keyboard are associated with more positive emotions than words spelled with more letters on the left, according to new research by cognitive scientists Kyle Jasmin of University College London and Daniel Casasanto of The New School for Social Research, New York. Their work shows, for the first time, that there is a link between the meaning of words and the way they are typed - a relationship they call the QWERTY* effect. Their study is published online in Springer's journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Some words are spelled with more letters on the right side of the keyboard, others with more letters on the left. In a series of three experiments, the researchers investigated whether differences in the way words are typed correspond to differences in their meanings. They found that the meanings of words in English, Dutch and Spanish were related to the way people typed them on the QWERTY keyboard. Overall, words with more right-side letters were rated more positive in meaning than words with more left-side letters. This effect was visible in all three languages and was not affected by either word length, letter frequency or handedness. The QWERTY effect was also found when people judged the meanings of fictitious words like “pleek,” and was strongest in new words and abbreviations like “greenwash” and “LOL” coined after the invention of QWERTY. Why should the positions of the keys matter? The authors suggest that because there are more letters on the left of the keyboard midline than on the right, letters on the right might be easier to type, which could lead to positive feelings. *The most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six keys appearing in the top left letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120307112711.htm
The 14th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (CLMPS), held last July in France, included a special symposium on the subject of "What is an algorithm?" This may seem to be a strange question to ask just before the Turing Centenary Year, which is now being celebrated by numerous events around the world (see http://www.turingcentenary.eu/ ). Didn't Turing answer this question decisively? Isn't the answer to the question "an algorithm is a Turing machine"? But conflating algorithms with Turing machines is a misreading of Turing's 1936 paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem." Turing's aim was to define computability, not algorithms. His paper argued that every function on natural numbers that can be computed by a human computer (until the mid-1940s a computer was a person who computes) can also be computed by a Turing machine. There is no claim in the paper that Turing machines offer a general model for algorithms. So the question posed by the special CLMPS symposium is an excellent one. Incontrovertibly, algorithms constitute one of the central subjects of study in computer science. Should we not have by now a clear understanding of what an algorithm is? It is worth pointing out that mathematicians formalized the notion of proof only in the 20th century, even though they have been using proofs at that point for about 2,500 years. Read very different definitions of algorithm by two keynote speakers at the symposium:
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/3/146261-what-is-an-algorithm/fulltext
One of America's most enduring poems was written by Robert Degen, who died in 2009 on his 104th birthday. His creation, "The Hokey Pokey," seems timeless. Though the tune and lyrics are often credited to the Ram Trio, who popularized it in the late 1940s in Sun Valley, the "Hokey Pokey Dance" was copyrighted in 1944 by Degen, who maintained the Rams stole it. However, American and British servicemen sang a similar song, "The Hokey Cokey" written by someone else, even earlier in the war. And according to Degen's NY Times obituary, some Catholic clergy and the Oxford English Dictionary contend that "hokey pokey" is derived from "hocus pocus," and the song was written by Puritans in the 1700s to satirize the Catholic mass. Degen's words figured into the winning entry in the 2003 Washington Post Style Invitational Contest, wherein readers could enter instructions to anything as long as it was composed in the manner of a famous person. Jeff Brechlin submitted "The Hokey-Poke" as written by Shakespeare. "O proud left foot, that ventures quick, within/ Then soon upon a backward journey./ Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:/ Command sinistral pedestal to writhe./ Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,/ A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl./ To spin! A wilde release from heaven's yoke./ Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl./ The Hoke, the poke - - banish now thy doubt/ Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about." http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2011/04/hokey_pokey_1.php
See a list of recent Washington Post Style Invitational weekly contests at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/style-invitationa l-weekly-contest-archives/2010/07/06/AB15r7D_linkset.html
January 21, 2012 The Tucson Unified School District has dismantled its Mexican-American studies program, packed away its offending books, shuttled its students into other classes. It was blackmailed into doing so: keeping the program would have meant losing more than $14 million in state funding. It was a blunt-force victory for the Arizona school superintendent, John Huppenthal, who has spent years crusading against ethnic-studies programs he claims are “brainwashing” children into thinking that Latinos have been victims of white oppression. As a state legislator, he co-wrote a law cracking down on ethnic studies, and as superintendent he decided that Tucson’s district was violating it. Mr. Huppenthal's law prohibits programs that “promote the overthrow of the United States government,” “promote resentment toward a race or class of people” and “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” Unless two students win a federal lawsuit arguing that the loss of the program violates their First Amendment rights, Tucson school officials and students are going to have to enrich their curriculum another way. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/rejected-in-tucson.html
March 14, 2012 The Librotraficante Caravan is scheduled to arrive in Tucson March 16 carrying copies of books banned by TUSD. March 17 highlights: All Day: The Libros Libres Taco Truck will hand out free books around Tucson. 1-4pm: The Ultimate Lit Workshop 1-4pm: John Valenzuela Youth Center, 1550 S. 6th Ave. 7pm: Literary Showcase: Leading authors will present their literary works: UA Social Sciences Building, Room 100, 1145 E. South Campus. http://tucsoncitizen.com/in-the-aggregate/2012/03/14/librotraficante-wet-books-events-in-tucson-saturday/
Internal Komen documents reviewed by Reuters reveal the complicated relationship between the Komen Foundation and the Catholic church, which simultaneously contributes to the breast cancer charity and receives grants from it. In recent years, Komen has allocated at least $17.6 million of the donations it receives to U.S. Catholic universities, hospitals and charities. Church opposition reached dramatic new proportions in 2011, when the 11 bishops who represent Ohio's 2.6 million Catholics announced a statewide policy banning church and parochial school donations to Komen. Such pressure helped sway Komen's leadership to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to current and former Komen officials. The earliest signs of discord came in 2005, when South Carolina's Catholic diocese pulled out of the local Komen fundraiser. I t was followed over the next four years by individual dioceses in Arizona, Indiana, Florida, Missouri and other states, where bishops either spoke out against Komen or took steps to stem donations to the charity, mainly because of its Planned Parenthood link. The momentum picked up in 2011 when top Ohio clerics met in Columbus. High on their agenda was the question of whether the state's nine dioceses should participate in Komen fundraisers. No Planned Parenthood clinics in Ohio receive Komen money. But the bishops decided that diocese funds should no longer benefit the charity, for fear that money sent from local Komen affiliates to the Dallas headquarters could wind up in Planned Parenthood's coffers or help fund research on stem cells collected from human fetuses, according to church officials. But even as opposition to Komen continues, some Catholic recipients of Komen money have promoted their ties with the breast cancer charity to the media. Other institutions carry hypertext links to Komen on their Web sites and some display the Susan G. Komen for the Cure logo, including a pink ribbon. Catholic institutions overall collected $7.4 million from the charity in 2011 alone, while Planned Parenthood's receipts totaled $684,000 during the same year. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/15/us-usa-komen-catholic-idUSBRE82E12Q20120315
Thursday, March 15, 2012
An eyespot (sometimes ocellus) is an eye-like marking. They are found on butterflies, reptiles, birds and fish. In members of the Felidae family (such as the Leopard Cat and Leopard), the white circular markings on the backs of the ears are termed ocelli, and they are functionally similar to eyespots in other animals. Eyespots may be a form of mimicry in which a spot on the body of an animal resembles an eye of a different animal to deceive potential predator or prey species; to draw a predator's attention away from the most vulnerable body parts; or to appear as an inedible or even dangerous animal. In larger animals, eyespots may play a role in intraspecies communication or courtship – the most well-known example is probably the eyespots on a peacock's display feathers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyespot_(mimicry)
Researchers studying the nature of crowds playing Foldit called some strategies “shocking” in how well they mimicked some of the methods already used by protein scientists. Gamers made headlines in September 2011 for unraveling the structure of a protein central to research on AIDS. On November 7, 2011, in a paper published online at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Washington researchers reveal the creative power of Foldit players’ strategies and compare them to the best-known scientist-developed methods. “We enabled players to create and improve each other’s best recipes to play the game. Once we looked at the variety and creativity of these recipes, we were shocked to find state-of-the-art algorithms.” said Zoran Popovic, principal investigator of the Foldit Project and the Director of the Center for Game Science. Foldit is developed by the Center in collaboration with the biochemistry laboratory of David Baker. Link to the game at: http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/paper-uncovers-power-of-foldit-gamers2019-strategies
A novella (also called a short novel, or novelette) is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The English word "novella" derives from the Italian word "novella", feminine of "novello", which means "new" The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000. Other definitions start as low as 10,000 words and run as high as 70,000 words. The novella is a common literary genre in several European languages. Famous English language novellas include John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, George Orwell's Animal Farm, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Isaac Asimov's Nightfall, Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and Stephen King's Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. French examples of the novella include Voltaire's Candide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novella
The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, 15 U.S.C. §2601 et seq., provides EPA with authority to require reporting, record-keeping and testing requirements, and restrictions relating to chemical substances and/or mixtures. Certain substances are generally excluded from TSCA, including, among others, food, drugs, cosmetics and pesticides. TSCA addresses the production, importation, use, and disposal of specific chemicals including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos, radon and lead-based paint. For a more detailed summary, history, compliance and enforcement , see http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/tsca.html
One hundred organizations in 35 states on March 14 formally petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate toxic lead in hunting ammunition to protect public health and prevent the widespread poisoning of eagles, California condors and other wildlife. Up to 20 million birds die each year from lead poisoning after consuming spent lead shot and bullet fragments left in the wild from hunting. The petition follows the EPA’s refusal in 2010 to review a petition asking for a ban on lead bullets, shotgun pellets and fishing tackle under the Toxic Substances Control Act, and seeks federal rules requiring use of nontoxic bullets and shot for hunting and shooting sports. It was filed by groups representing conservationists, birders, hunters, zoologists, scientists, American Indians, wildlife rehabilitators and veterinarians. In the United States, 3,000 tons of lead are shot into the environment by hunters every year, while another 80,000 tons are released at shooting ranges. Birds and animals are poisoned when they scavenge on carcasses containing lead-bullet fragments or ingest spent lead-shot pellets, which can cover popular hunting grounds at high densities. http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/51136/
The Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martii or Idus Martiae) is the name of the 15th day of March in the Roman calendar. The word Ides comes from the Latin word "Idus" and means "half division" especially in relation to a month. It is a word that was used widely in the Roman calendar indicating the approximate day that was the middle of the month. The term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other months. The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god Mars and a military parade was usually held. In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. Caesar was stabbed (23 times) to death in the Roman Senate by a group of conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March
The 60 Plus Association began this week with a $3.5 million TV and online advertising campaign. The commercials target Democratic senators up for re-election this fall in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Montana and Missouri. In the ad, singer and association spokesman Pat Boone called the Independent Payment Advisory Board a panel of "unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats" with the power to deny Medicare treatments. American Crossroads and an affiliated conservative group plan to make abolishing the board a prominent issue in its $300 million campaign against Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans who control the House of Representatives plan to hold a floor vote this month to repeal the provision and dismantle the board before it can get started. The political stakes are high for both political parties among voters 65 and older, who make up 13% of the population, but accounted for more than one in five people who voted in the last election. The advisory board is tasked with finding ways to reduce spending in Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly and disabled. Its 15 members are to be selected by the president and confirmed by the Senate. None has been named yet. Starting in fiscal year 2015, the board must recommend cuts if the program's growth rate exceeds a specific target. Those recommendations will be sent to Congress for approval. If Capitol Hill doesn't like them, it must pass alternative cuts of the same size or the board's recommendations automatically take effect. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-03-13/health-care-ads/53520462/1
HEALTH INSURANCE DEDUCTIONS Self-Employed Requirements The IRS has two requirements to qualify for the self-employed health insurance deduction on Form 1040, line 29. The first is that you report a net profit on Schedule C - Profit or Loss From Business; Schedule C-EZ - Net Profit From Business; or Schedule F - Profit or Loss From Farming. The second requirement is that the health insurance policy be either in your name or the name of your business. Self-Employed Considerations If you are self-employed and your health insurance is Medicare, IRS Publication 535 and the instructions for Form 1040 indicate that Medicare premiums do not qualify for the self-employed health insurance deduction.
http://www.ehow.com/info_7757067_paid-health-insurance-deduction.html
Researchers studying the nature of crowds playing Foldit called some strategies “shocking” in how well they mimicked some of the methods already used by protein scientists. Gamers made headlines in September 2011 for unraveling the structure of a protein central to research on AIDS. On November 7, 2011, in a paper published online at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Washington researchers reveal the creative power of Foldit players’ strategies and compare them to the best-known scientist-developed methods. “We enabled players to create and improve each other’s best recipes to play the game. Once we looked at the variety and creativity of these recipes, we were shocked to find state-of-the-art algorithms.” said Zoran Popovic, principal investigator of the Foldit Project and the Director of the Center for Game Science. Foldit is developed by the Center in collaboration with the biochemistry laboratory of David Baker. Link to the game at: http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/paper-uncovers-power-of-foldit-gamers2019-strategies
A novella (also called a short novel, or novelette) is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The English word "novella" derives from the Italian word "novella", feminine of "novello", which means "new" The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000. Other definitions start as low as 10,000 words and run as high as 70,000 words. The novella is a common literary genre in several European languages. Famous English language novellas include John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, George Orwell's Animal Farm, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Isaac Asimov's Nightfall, Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and Stephen King's Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. French examples of the novella include Voltaire's Candide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novella
The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, 15 U.S.C. §2601 et seq., provides EPA with authority to require reporting, record-keeping and testing requirements, and restrictions relating to chemical substances and/or mixtures. Certain substances are generally excluded from TSCA, including, among others, food, drugs, cosmetics and pesticides. TSCA addresses the production, importation, use, and disposal of specific chemicals including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos, radon and lead-based paint. For a more detailed summary, history, compliance and enforcement , see http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/tsca.html
One hundred organizations in 35 states on March 14 formally petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate toxic lead in hunting ammunition to protect public health and prevent the widespread poisoning of eagles, California condors and other wildlife. Up to 20 million birds die each year from lead poisoning after consuming spent lead shot and bullet fragments left in the wild from hunting. The petition follows the EPA’s refusal in 2010 to review a petition asking for a ban on lead bullets, shotgun pellets and fishing tackle under the Toxic Substances Control Act, and seeks federal rules requiring use of nontoxic bullets and shot for hunting and shooting sports. It was filed by groups representing conservationists, birders, hunters, zoologists, scientists, American Indians, wildlife rehabilitators and veterinarians. In the United States, 3,000 tons of lead are shot into the environment by hunters every year, while another 80,000 tons are released at shooting ranges. Birds and animals are poisoned when they scavenge on carcasses containing lead-bullet fragments or ingest spent lead-shot pellets, which can cover popular hunting grounds at high densities. http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/51136/
The Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martii or Idus Martiae) is the name of the 15th day of March in the Roman calendar. The word Ides comes from the Latin word "Idus" and means "half division" especially in relation to a month. It is a word that was used widely in the Roman calendar indicating the approximate day that was the middle of the month. The term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other months. The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god Mars and a military parade was usually held. In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. Caesar was stabbed (23 times) to death in the Roman Senate by a group of conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March
The 60 Plus Association began this week with a $3.5 million TV and online advertising campaign. The commercials target Democratic senators up for re-election this fall in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Montana and Missouri. In the ad, singer and association spokesman Pat Boone called the Independent Payment Advisory Board a panel of "unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats" with the power to deny Medicare treatments. American Crossroads and an affiliated conservative group plan to make abolishing the board a prominent issue in its $300 million campaign against Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans who control the House of Representatives plan to hold a floor vote this month to repeal the provision and dismantle the board before it can get started. The political stakes are high for both political parties among voters 65 and older, who make up 13% of the population, but accounted for more than one in five people who voted in the last election. The advisory board is tasked with finding ways to reduce spending in Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly and disabled. Its 15 members are to be selected by the president and confirmed by the Senate. None has been named yet. Starting in fiscal year 2015, the board must recommend cuts if the program's growth rate exceeds a specific target. Those recommendations will be sent to Congress for approval. If Capitol Hill doesn't like them, it must pass alternative cuts of the same size or the board's recommendations automatically take effect. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-03-13/health-care-ads/53520462/1
HEALTH INSURANCE DEDUCTIONS Self-Employed Requirements The IRS has two requirements to qualify for the self-employed health insurance deduction on Form 1040, line 29. The first is that you report a net profit on Schedule C - Profit or Loss From Business; Schedule C-EZ - Net Profit From Business; or Schedule F - Profit or Loss From Farming. The second requirement is that the health insurance policy be either in your name or the name of your business. Self-Employed Considerations If you are self-employed and your health insurance is Medicare, IRS Publication 535 and the instructions for Form 1040 indicate that Medicare premiums do not qualify for the self-employed health insurance deduction.
http://www.ehow.com/info_7757067_paid-health-insurance-deduction.html
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Phat means great or excellent. Other uses: Navy pilots making a good landing in a crosswind (1946-1947), Phat Bach, a great pun if you mispronounce "Bach" as "Back" (1957 jazz album), game of cards (an English trick-taking partnership card game derived from the 17th century game of All Fours), Pretty Hot and Tempting
A nanometer (also "nanometre") is a unit of measurement used to measure length. One nanometer is one billionth of a meter, so nanometers are certainly not used to measure long distances. Instead, they serve to measure extremely small objects, such as atomic structures or transistors found in modern CPUs. http://www.techterms.com/definition/nanometer
Journeying thousands of miles to New Zealand, Chad Furlong of Springfield, Ore. is one of a hard-core group of U.S. sheep handlers who competed in the recent Golden Shears World Championships. In a converted basketball court in this small town in a prime farming region, he tested his speed and dexterity with a pair of electric clippers, and strength in controlling a wriggling sheep, against 600 shearers from 25 other nations. At stake in New Zealand—the spiritual home of shearing and a country where sheep outnumber people about seven to one—is a prize of $2,000 and the title of world's best shearer. "It's like a martial art," said Angus Moore, 27, and New Zealand national champion, who was taking his third shot at the ultimate title. "Everything has got to be perfect. Your harmony with the animals makes you the best or not the best." Each round lasts about 14 minutes for the electric-powered machine shearers, but longer for divisions where cutting is done by hand. By the end, competitors are dripping with sweat and there are always a couple of injuries to contend with. Bad backs are par for the course and bangs and bruises are to be expected. "It takes the same amount of energy to work in a shearing shed for eight hours as it does to run a marathon twice," said Leann Brimmer, 38, of Biddle, Mont. Not only was she in New Zealand competing as a wool handler, but she travels the world following the shearing season each year sorting the fleeces as they come off the animals. New Zealander John Kirkpatrick, 41, took away the Golden Shears Open Shearing Final, which is open to all shearers whether they made their national team or not. Gavin Mutch, 32, who represented Scotland, won the World Open Machine Shearing event, for those on national teams. Winning was "surreal," he said. He had been battling injury and hadn't been sure he would be up to competing. Lucy Cramer http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203370604577266150012936434.html
The Court of Justice of the European Communities (often referred to simply as ‘the Court’) was set up under the ECSC Treaty in 1952. It is based in Luxembourg. Article 19 TEU provides that the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is ‘(…) to ensure that in the interpretation and application of the Treaties the law is observed.’ It makes sure that EU legislation is interpreted and applied in the same way in all EU countries, so that the law is equal for everyone. It ensures, for example, that national courts do not give different rulings on the same issue. The Court also ensures that EU Member States and institutions do what the law requires. The Court has the power to settle legal disputes between EU Member States, EU institutions, businesses and individuals. The Court is composed of one judge per Member State, so that all 27 of the EU’s national legal systems are represented. The Court is assisted by eight ‘advocates-general’ whose role is to present reasoned opinions on the cases brought before the Court.
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/industrialrelations/dictionary/definitions/EUROPEANCOURTOFJUSTICE.htm
The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a six-nation international organisation serving to unify Western Europe during the Cold War and create the foundation for the modern-day developments of the European Union. The ECSC was the first organisation to be based on the principles of supranationalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community
Find news about the European Court of Justice, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times at: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_court_of_justice/index.html
There are several large drumlin fields in the Great Lakes region. One of the largest and most widespread drumlin fields in the Midwest lies in the Michigan's NW Lower peninsula, centered on Antrim and Charlevoix Counties. The drumlin field is cut into many smaller pieces by deep (dry) valleys, some of which contain long narrow lakes such as Torch Lake and Lake Bellaire. The Leelanau peninsula also contains a significant drumlin field, as does the Mission Peninsula. See maps at: http://www.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/drumlins.html
Drumlins are asymmetrical, canoe shaped hills with aerodynamic profiles made mainly of till. Their heights vary from 15 to 50 meters and they can reach a kilometer in length. The tilted side of the hill looks toward the direction from which the ice advanced (stoss), while the longer slope follows the ice's direction of movement (lee). Drumlins are found in groups called drumlin fields or drumlin camps. An example of these fields is found east of Rochester, New York, and it is estimated that it contains about 10,000 drumlins. It is believed that many drumlins were formed when glaciers advanced over and altered the deposits of earlier glaciers. Read more about glacial geology and see images at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier#Drumlins
Depiction of a library in the snow from The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich " . . . the lighted castle of a building draws me across the snowy street. And there it is. There are great squares of glass, rectangles of golden warmth that stream onto the snow in a rich, full invitation."
The United States has 58 protected areas known as national parks, which are operated by the National Park Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior. National parks must be established by an act of the United States Congress. The first national park, Yellowstone, was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, followed by Sequoia and Yosemite in 1890. The Organic Act of 1916 created the National Park Service "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." National parks usually have a variety of natural resources over large areas. Many of them had been previously protected as National Monuments by the President under the Antiquities Act before being upgraded by Congress. Seven national parks are paired with a National Preserve, six of which are in Alaska. The newest national park is Great Sand Dunes, established in 2004. See list of national parks in the U.S. at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_United_States
http://
Phat means great or excellent. Other uses: Navy pilots making a good landing in a crosswind (1946-1947), Phat Bach, a great pun if you mispronounce "Bach" as "Back" (1957 jazz album), game of cards (an English trick-taking partnership card game derived from the 17th century game of All Fours), Pretty Hot and Tempting
A nanometer (also "nanometre") is a unit of measurement used to measure length. One nanometer is one billionth of a meter, so nanometers are certainly not used to measure long distances. Instead, they serve to measure extremely small objects, such as atomic structures or transistors found in modern CPUs. http://www.techterms.com/definition/nanometer
Journeying thousands of miles to New Zealand, Chad Furlong of Springfield, Ore. is one of a hard-core group of U.S. sheep handlers who competed in the recent Golden Shears World Championships. In a converted basketball court in this small town in a prime farming region, he tested his speed and dexterity with a pair of electric clippers, and strength in controlling a wriggling sheep, against 600 shearers from 25 other nations. At stake in New Zealand—the spiritual home of shearing and a country where sheep outnumber people about seven to one—is a prize of $2,000 and the title of world's best shearer. "It's like a martial art," said Angus Moore, 27, and New Zealand national champion, who was taking his third shot at the ultimate title. "Everything has got to be perfect. Your harmony with the animals makes you the best or not the best." Each round lasts about 14 minutes for the electric-powered machine shearers, but longer for divisions where cutting is done by hand. By the end, competitors are dripping with sweat and there are always a couple of injuries to contend with. Bad backs are par for the course and bangs and bruises are to be expected. "It takes the same amount of energy to work in a shearing shed for eight hours as it does to run a marathon twice," said Leann Brimmer, 38, of Biddle, Mont. Not only was she in New Zealand competing as a wool handler, but she travels the world following the shearing season each year sorting the fleeces as they come off the animals. New Zealander John Kirkpatrick, 41, took away the Golden Shears Open Shearing Final, which is open to all shearers whether they made their national team or not. Gavin Mutch, 32, who represented Scotland, won the World Open Machine Shearing event, for those on national teams. Winning was "surreal," he said. He had been battling injury and hadn't been sure he would be up to competing. Lucy Cramer http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203370604577266150012936434.html
The Court of Justice of the European Communities (often referred to simply as ‘the Court’) was set up under the ECSC Treaty in 1952. It is based in Luxembourg. Article 19 TEU provides that the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is ‘(…) to ensure that in the interpretation and application of the Treaties the law is observed.’ It makes sure that EU legislation is interpreted and applied in the same way in all EU countries, so that the law is equal for everyone. It ensures, for example, that national courts do not give different rulings on the same issue. The Court also ensures that EU Member States and institutions do what the law requires. The Court has the power to settle legal disputes between EU Member States, EU institutions, businesses and individuals. The Court is composed of one judge per Member State, so that all 27 of the EU’s national legal systems are represented. The Court is assisted by eight ‘advocates-general’ whose role is to present reasoned opinions on the cases brought before the Court.
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/industrialrelations/dictionary/definitions/EUROPEANCOURTOFJUSTICE.htm
The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a six-nation international organisation serving to unify Western Europe during the Cold War and create the foundation for the modern-day developments of the European Union. The ECSC was the first organisation to be based on the principles of supranationalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community
Find news about the European Court of Justice, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times at: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_court_of_justice/index.html
There are several large drumlin fields in the Great Lakes region. One of the largest and most widespread drumlin fields in the Midwest lies in the Michigan's NW Lower peninsula, centered on Antrim and Charlevoix Counties. The drumlin field is cut into many smaller pieces by deep (dry) valleys, some of which contain long narrow lakes such as Torch Lake and Lake Bellaire. The Leelanau peninsula also contains a significant drumlin field, as does the Mission Peninsula. See maps at: http://www.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/drumlins.html
Drumlins are asymmetrical, canoe shaped hills with aerodynamic profiles made mainly of till. Their heights vary from 15 to 50 meters and they can reach a kilometer in length. The tilted side of the hill looks toward the direction from which the ice advanced (stoss), while the longer slope follows the ice's direction of movement (lee). Drumlins are found in groups called drumlin fields or drumlin camps. An example of these fields is found east of Rochester, New York, and it is estimated that it contains about 10,000 drumlins. It is believed that many drumlins were formed when glaciers advanced over and altered the deposits of earlier glaciers. Read more about glacial geology and see images at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier#Drumlins
Depiction of a library in the snow from The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich " . . . the lighted castle of a building draws me across the snowy street. And there it is. There are great squares of glass, rectangles of golden warmth that stream onto the snow in a rich, full invitation."
The United States has 58 protected areas known as national parks, which are operated by the National Park Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior. National parks must be established by an act of the United States Congress. The first national park, Yellowstone, was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, followed by Sequoia and Yosemite in 1890. The Organic Act of 1916 created the National Park Service "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." National parks usually have a variety of natural resources over large areas. Many of them had been previously protected as National Monuments by the President under the Antiquities Act before being upgraded by Congress. Seven national parks are paired with a National Preserve, six of which are in Alaska. The newest national park is Great Sand Dunes, established in 2004. See list of national parks in the U.S. at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_United_States
http://
Monday, March 12, 2012
Imagine, for a moment, that you're a publisher hearing a pitch about a children's book whose tangled plot braids together quantum physics, fractions and megaparsecs (a measure for distances in intergalactic space). The book also casually tosses out phrases in French, Italian, German and ancient Greek. Sound like the next kids' best-seller to you? It didn't to the many publishers who rejected Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, which turns 50 this year. The novel was an immediate hit with young readers and with critics when it was published, and it won the Newbery Medal in 1963. Since then, it has remained a beloved favorite of children and adults alike. Despite considerable misgivings, Farrar, Straus and Giroux bought the book. They sent it to an outside reader, who called it "the worst book I have ever read." The book's editor admitted it was "distinctly odd" but conceded: "I for one believe that the capabilities of young readers are greatly underestimated." His faith in young readers paid off. There are currently 10 million copies of the book in print.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/05/146161011/the-unlikely-best-seller-a-wrinkle-in-time-turns-50
The Hen “Alas! my child, where is the Pen That can do justice to the Hen? Like Royalty, she goes her way, Laying foundations every day, Though not for Public Buildings, yet For Custard, Cake and Omelette. Of if too old for such a use They have their fling at some abuse, As when to censure Plays Unfit Upon the stage they make a Hit Or at elections seal the Fate Of an Obnoxious Candidate. No wonder, Child, we prize the Hen, Whose Egg is Mightier than the Pen.” Oliver Herford (1863-1935) http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/Oliver+Herford/1/index.html
Mead, also called honey wine, is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by fermenting a solution of honey and water. It may also be produced by fermenting a solution of water and honey with grain mash, which is strained after fermentation. Depending on local traditions and specific recipes, it may be flavored with spices, fruit, or hops (which produce a bitter, beer-like flavor). The alcoholic content of mead may range from about 8% ABV[5] to 18%. It may be still, carbonated, or naturally sparkling, and it may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet. Its origins are lost in prehistory. "It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has observed, "antedating the cultivation of the soil." Find history, varieties, festivals and use in literature at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead
In wildness is the preservation of the world. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26296.html
The Basic Health Program (BHP) is an optional coverage program under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that allows states to use federal tax subsidy dollars to offer subsidized coverage for individuals with incomes between 139-200% of the federal poverty level (FPL) who would otherwise be eligible to purchase coverage through state Health Insurance Exchanges. States can use the BHP to reduce the cost of health insurance coverage for these low-income consumers, a highly price-sensitive population with high rates of uninsurance. Depending on how it is designed, the BHP also can help consumers to maintain continuity among plans and providers as their income fluctuates above and below Medicaid levels.
See brief by the Kaiser Family Foundation at: http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8283.pdf
James Madison warned in the Federalist Papers about laws "so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." If only he had lived to see the Medicare and Medicaid programs. "Picture a law written by James Joyce and edited by e.e. cummings," wrote Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in a January ruling in a Medicare case. Last September, Judge Gilbert S. Merritt Jr. of the Sixth Circuit lamented Medicare's "tortuous text." "An aggravated assault on the English language," is how the Supreme Court characterized the Medicaid statute in a 1981 opinion, quoting a federal judge in New York. A typical provision of Medicare, for instance, reads like this: "In the case of a plan for which there are average per capita monthly savings described in section 1395w–24 (b)(3)(C) or 1395w–24 (b)(4)(C) of this title, as the case may be, the amount specified in this subparagraph is the amount of the monthly rebate computed under section 1395w–24 (b)(1)(C)(i) of this title for that plan and year (as reduced by the amount of any credit provided under section 1395w–24 (b)(1)(C)(iv) [2] of this title)." Congress passed the Medicare and Medicaid laws in 1965 as amendments to the Social Security Act. The laws span several hundred pages, and additional provisions are scattered elsewhere in the federal code. Joe Palazzolo http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204571404577253734216831386.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
What's Large Where in the United States List includes all 50 states--includes artichoke in California and Hercules Beetle in Colorado. http://www.worldslargestthings.com/wllist.htm
Moored in Brooklyn just under the Brooklyn Bridge, Bargemusic presents music up to five days a week, every week of the year. Walk across the gangplank of a renovated coffee barge into a "perfect chamber music hall" with "thrilling views of lower Manhattan and excellent acoustics.” See calendar and more at: http://bargemusic.org/
Also under the Brooklyn Bridge: The River Café with sweeping views of the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty and its own spectacular garden.
http://www.rivercafe.com/
The term "electoral college" does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to "electors," but not to the "electoral college." In the Federalist Papers (No. 68), Alexander Hamilton refers to the process of selecting the Executive, and refers to "the people of each State (who) shall choose a number of persons as electors," but he does not use the term "electoral college." The founders appropriated the concept of electors from the Holy Roman Empire (962 - 1806). An elector was one of a number of princes of the various German states within the Holy Roman Empire who had a right to participate in the election of the German king (who generally was crowned as emperor). The term "college" (from the Latin collegium), refers to a body of persons that act as a unit, as in the college of cardinals who advise the Pope and vote in papal elections. In the early 1800's, the term "electoral college" came into general usage as the unofficial designation for the group of citizens selected to cast votes for President and Vice President. It was first written into Federal law in 1845, and today the term appears in 3 U.S.C. section 4, in the section heading and in the text as "college of electors." Reference sources indicate that over the past 200 years, over 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject. The American Bar Association has criticized the Electoral College as "archaic" and "ambiguous" and its polling showed 69 percent of lawyers favored abolishing it in 1987. But surveys of political scientists have supported continuation of the Electoral College. Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing it by majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html
Q. How many times has the candidate who lost the popular vote become president? A. Four times: 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000.
Little Free Library news http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/news.html
Find a little free library http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/find-a-library.html
This Week's Sky at a Glance Some daily events in the changing sky for March 9–17
See descriptions and images of Venus and Jupiter at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/141918503.html
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/05/146161011/the-unlikely-best-seller-a-wrinkle-in-time-turns-50
The Hen “Alas! my child, where is the Pen That can do justice to the Hen? Like Royalty, she goes her way, Laying foundations every day, Though not for Public Buildings, yet For Custard, Cake and Omelette. Of if too old for such a use They have their fling at some abuse, As when to censure Plays Unfit Upon the stage they make a Hit Or at elections seal the Fate Of an Obnoxious Candidate. No wonder, Child, we prize the Hen, Whose Egg is Mightier than the Pen.” Oliver Herford (1863-1935) http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/Oliver+Herford/1/index.html
Mead, also called honey wine, is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by fermenting a solution of honey and water. It may also be produced by fermenting a solution of water and honey with grain mash, which is strained after fermentation. Depending on local traditions and specific recipes, it may be flavored with spices, fruit, or hops (which produce a bitter, beer-like flavor). The alcoholic content of mead may range from about 8% ABV[5] to 18%. It may be still, carbonated, or naturally sparkling, and it may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet. Its origins are lost in prehistory. "It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has observed, "antedating the cultivation of the soil." Find history, varieties, festivals and use in literature at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead
In wildness is the preservation of the world. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26296.html
The Basic Health Program (BHP) is an optional coverage program under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that allows states to use federal tax subsidy dollars to offer subsidized coverage for individuals with incomes between 139-200% of the federal poverty level (FPL) who would otherwise be eligible to purchase coverage through state Health Insurance Exchanges. States can use the BHP to reduce the cost of health insurance coverage for these low-income consumers, a highly price-sensitive population with high rates of uninsurance. Depending on how it is designed, the BHP also can help consumers to maintain continuity among plans and providers as their income fluctuates above and below Medicaid levels.
See brief by the Kaiser Family Foundation at: http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8283.pdf
James Madison warned in the Federalist Papers about laws "so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." If only he had lived to see the Medicare and Medicaid programs. "Picture a law written by James Joyce and edited by e.e. cummings," wrote Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in a January ruling in a Medicare case. Last September, Judge Gilbert S. Merritt Jr. of the Sixth Circuit lamented Medicare's "tortuous text." "An aggravated assault on the English language," is how the Supreme Court characterized the Medicaid statute in a 1981 opinion, quoting a federal judge in New York. A typical provision of Medicare, for instance, reads like this: "In the case of a plan for which there are average per capita monthly savings described in section 1395w–24 (b)(3)(C) or 1395w–24 (b)(4)(C) of this title, as the case may be, the amount specified in this subparagraph is the amount of the monthly rebate computed under section 1395w–24 (b)(1)(C)(i) of this title for that plan and year (as reduced by the amount of any credit provided under section 1395w–24 (b)(1)(C)(iv) [2] of this title)." Congress passed the Medicare and Medicaid laws in 1965 as amendments to the Social Security Act. The laws span several hundred pages, and additional provisions are scattered elsewhere in the federal code. Joe Palazzolo http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204571404577253734216831386.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
What's Large Where in the United States List includes all 50 states--includes artichoke in California and Hercules Beetle in Colorado. http://www.worldslargestthings.com/wllist.htm
Moored in Brooklyn just under the Brooklyn Bridge, Bargemusic presents music up to five days a week, every week of the year. Walk across the gangplank of a renovated coffee barge into a "perfect chamber music hall" with "thrilling views of lower Manhattan and excellent acoustics.” See calendar and more at: http://bargemusic.org/
Also under the Brooklyn Bridge: The River Café with sweeping views of the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty and its own spectacular garden.
http://www.rivercafe.com/
The term "electoral college" does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to "electors," but not to the "electoral college." In the Federalist Papers (No. 68), Alexander Hamilton refers to the process of selecting the Executive, and refers to "the people of each State (who) shall choose a number of persons as electors," but he does not use the term "electoral college." The founders appropriated the concept of electors from the Holy Roman Empire (962 - 1806). An elector was one of a number of princes of the various German states within the Holy Roman Empire who had a right to participate in the election of the German king (who generally was crowned as emperor). The term "college" (from the Latin collegium), refers to a body of persons that act as a unit, as in the college of cardinals who advise the Pope and vote in papal elections. In the early 1800's, the term "electoral college" came into general usage as the unofficial designation for the group of citizens selected to cast votes for President and Vice President. It was first written into Federal law in 1845, and today the term appears in 3 U.S.C. section 4, in the section heading and in the text as "college of electors." Reference sources indicate that over the past 200 years, over 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject. The American Bar Association has criticized the Electoral College as "archaic" and "ambiguous" and its polling showed 69 percent of lawyers favored abolishing it in 1987. But surveys of political scientists have supported continuation of the Electoral College. Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing it by majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html
Q. How many times has the candidate who lost the popular vote become president? A. Four times: 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000.
Little Free Library news http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/news.html
Find a little free library http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/find-a-library.html
This Week's Sky at a Glance Some daily events in the changing sky for March 9–17
See descriptions and images of Venus and Jupiter at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/141918503.html
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