Beginning with the October Term 2015, postrelease edits to slip opinions on the U.S. Supreme Court’s website will be highlighted and the date they occur will be noted.  The date of any revision will be listed in a new “Revised” column on the charts of Opinions, In-Chambers Opinions, and Opinions Related to Orders under the “Opinions” tab on the website.  The location of a revision will be highlighted in the opinion.  When a cursor is placed over a highlighted section, a dialog box will open to show both old and new text.  Read more and see the Supreme Court's calendar at http://www.supremecourt.gov/at

2015 Nobel prizes  http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/year/

A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope.  Shapes other than rectangular may also be used.  There are novelty exceptions, such as wood postcards, made of thin wood, and copper postcards sold in the Copper Country of the U.S. state of Michigan, and coconut "postcards" from tropical islands.  Stamp collectors distinguish between postcards (which require a stamp) and postal cards (which have the postage pre-printed on them).  While a postcard is usually printed by a private company, individual or organization, a postal card is issued by the relevant postal authority.  The world's oldest postcard was sent in 1840 to the writer Theodore Hook from Fulham in London, England.  The study and collecting of postcards is termed deltiology.  The first American postcard was developed in 1873 by the Morgan Envelope Factory of Springfield, Massachusetts.  These first postcards depicted the Interstate Industrial Exposition that took place in Chicago.  Later in 1873, Post Master John Creswell introduced the first pre-stamped "Postal Cards", often called "penny postcards".  Postcards were made because people were looking for an easier way to send quick notes.  The first postcard to be printed as a souvenir in the United States was created in 1893 to advertise the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  The Post Office was the only establishment allowed to print postcards, and it held its monopoly until May 19, 1898, when Congress passed the Private Mailing Card Act, which allowed private publishers and printers to produce postcards.  Initially, the United States government prohibited private companies from calling their cards "postcards", so they were known as "souvenir cards".  These cards had to be labeled "Private Mailing Cards".  This prohibition was rescinded on December 24, 1901, from when private companies could use the word "postcard".  Postcards were not allowed to have a divided back and correspondents could only write on the front of the postcard.  This was known as the "undivided back" era of postcards.  From March 1, 1907 the Post Office allowed private citizens to write on the address side of a postcard.  It was on this date that postcards were allowed to have a "divided back". 

On these cards the back is divided into two sections:  the left section is used for the message and the right for the address.  Thus began the Golden Age of American postcards, which peaked in 1910 with the introduction of tariffs on German-printed postcards, and ended by 1915, when World War I ultimately disrupted the printing and import of the fine German-printed cards.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcard  

Thanksgiving cards were once as common as Christmas cards.  They conveyed greetings while making use of the penny postcard.  See free vintage Thanksgiving images and thankfulness quotes at http://savingmorethanme.com/2013/10/vintage-thanksgiving

Access the SSRN eLibrary with over 600,000 papers.  Search by author, title, abstract or keywords.    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/DisplayAbstractSearch.cfm  SSRN (the Social Science Research Network) was formally incorporated in October, 1994.  It originated in 1992 as FEN (Financial Economics Network), the brainchild of Wayne Marr.  SSRN's objective is to provide worldwide distribution of research to authors and their readers and to facilitate communication among them at the lowest possible cost.  In pursuit of this objective, we encourage authors to upload their papers to SSRN (without charge).  Any paper an author uploads to SSRN is downloadable for free, worldwide.  We allow publishers and other institutions to charge users for downloading papers they have uploaded to SSRN while encouraging them to charge fees that are as low as possible.  Our rule is that the price for such papers on SSRN must be equal to or below the lowest price that such papers are available anywhere on the web to non-subscribers.  The vast majority of papers in the SSRN eLibrary are downloadable at no charge.  In addition, SSRN provides free subscriptions to all of our abstracting eJournals to users in developing countries on request.  SSRN earns revenue to cover its considerable expenses from the more than 400 institutions that outsource the distribution of their research papers to SSRN through SSRN's Research Paper Series, subscription fees for SSRN's subject matter abstracting eJournals, fees received for professional and job announcements, conference fees for SSRN's Conference Management System, and lastly from fees shared with SSRN by publishers who distribute their papers through SSRN on a pay-per-download basis.  http://www.ssrn.com/en/index.cfm/mjensen-20th/

Snowclone is a neologism for a type of cliché and phrasal template originally defined as "a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants".  The term snowclone was coined by Glen Whitman on January 15, 2004, in response to a request from Geoffrey Pullum on the Language Log weblog.  Pullum endorsed it as a term of art the next day, and it has since been adopted by other linguists, journalists and authors.  The term alludes to one of Pullum's example template phrases:  If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have M words for Y.  As Language Log explains, this is a popular rhetorical trope used by journalists to imply that cultural group X has reason to spend a great deal of time thinking about the specific idea Y, although the basic premise (that Eskimos have a larger number of words for snow) is often disputed by those who study such Eskimo languages.  In 1995, linguist David Crystal referred to this kind of trope as a "catch structure," citing as an example the phrase "to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before" as originally used in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series (1978).  Adams' phrase references Star Trek ("...to boldly go where no man has gone before!") to humorously point out the use of a split infinitive, a controversial construction.  In the study of folklore, snowclones are a form of what are usually described as a proverbial phrase which have a long history of description and analysis.  There are many kinds of such wordplay, as described in a variety of studies of written and oral sources.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone

Purview vs Purvey:  What's the difference?  As a noun purview is the enacting part of a statute.  As a verb purvey is  (obsolete) to prepare in advance (for or to do something); to plan, make provision.  http://the-difference-between.com/purvey/purview

Purveyor  noun  1. a person who purveys, provides, or supplies:  2.    Old English Law. an officer who provided or acquired provisions for the sovereign under the prerogative of purveyance.  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/purveyor

Life list, bucket list—the basic idea has been around ever since the fifth century B.C., when Herodotus’ History sent Greeks eagerly across the Mediterranean to see Luxor and the pyramids.  See 20 places with descriptions and pictures at The 21st Century Life List:  25 Great New Places to See by Jamie Malanowski  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/the-21st-century-life-list-180956324/s

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1362  October 13, 2015  On this date in 1792, in Washington, D.C., the cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House since 1818) was laid.  On this date in 1958, Paddington Bear, a classic character from English children's literature, made his debut.

October 9, 2015   HOW DID J.R.R. Tolkien create The Lord of the Rings?  The simple answer is that he wrote it.  He sat down in a chair in 1937 and spent more than a dozen years working on what remains a masterwork of fantasy literature and a genius stroke of immersive worldbuilding.  The more complicated answer is that in addition to writing the story, he drew it.  The many maps and sketches he made while drafting The Lord of the Rings informed his storytelling, allowing him to test narrative ideas and illustrate scenes he needed to capture in words.  For Tolkien, the art of writing and the art of drawing were inextricably intertwined.  In the book The Art of The Lord of the Rings, we see how, and why.  The oversized tome by renowned Tolkien scholars Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull arrives next week to mark the 60th anniversary of the trilogy.  It contains more than 180 sketches, diagrams, maps, inscriptions, and trial runs of his invented alphabets, all related to The Lord of the Ringsand nearly 100 of which are just now being seen for the first time.  Ethan Gilsdorf  http://www.wired.com/2015/10/see-jrr-tolkien-lord-of-the-rings-middle-earth-illustrations-for-first-time/

The nouns weft and woof are weaving terms.  They derive from the verb to weave.  Weaving is the process of crossing threads or yarns to create a woven fabric.  Picture an old-fashioned loom:  a large wooden frame.  One set of threads is fastened from top to bottom of the loom.  These vertical threads are called the warp.  Threads that cross from side to side, over and under the warp, are called the weft or the woof.  Together, the warp and the weft (or woof) are the substance of the web thus created.  Because the warp and weft represent the essence of a woven cloth, the expressions “warp and weft” and “warp and woof” came to be used figuratively to refer to anything so closely related as to be inseparable.  http://www.dailywritingtips.com/woof-or-weft/

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day

From:  Michael Sharman  Subject:  Weft  

It might help those who get confused
On which is warp and which is weft.
The warP goes uP and down the cloth.
The weft goes right and left.

From:  Mark Engel  Subject:  weft  My favorite mnemonic for the difference between warp and weft is that the weft goes weft and wight.

From:  Jens Kaiser  Subject:  quaff  The activity of “quaffing” has another meaning on Terry Pratchett’s (mayherestinpeace) Discworld. Quoting from L-space:  “Quaffing is a form of social drinking where most of the ale misses the mouth, and the tankard is used not so much as a vessel to drink from, but as something handy to conduct the singing.”

World Heritage List by various categories   The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, was adopted by UNESCO in 1972.  http://whc.unesco.org/en/list

An architect once said to me, “The most difficult commission to fulfill is when the plot of land is a perfect, unflawed square.”  In my opinion, even Michelangelo would have a moment of pause, or even "sculptor's block," if faced with a perfect marble square.   Yet, David he sculpted from a damaged piece of marble.  That's why David leans a little to one side.  Leonardo Ciampa  The American Organist  October 2015

Donald Richard "Don" DeLillo (born 1936) is an American novelist, playwright and essayist.  His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, performance art, the Cold War, mathematics, the advent of the digital age, politics, economics, and global terrorism.  Initially a well-regarded cult writer, the publication in 1985 of White Noise brought him widespread recognition, and was followed in 1988 by Libra, a bestseller.  DeLillo has twice been a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist (for Mao II in 1992 and for Underworld in 1998, won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II in 1992 (receiving a further PEN/Faulkner Award nomination for The Angel Esmeralda in 2012), was granted the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and won the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2013.  See references in popular culture, bibliography and awards at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_DeLillo

SMS (Short Message Service) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) are both used in mobile phones for non-voice communications.  Some landline phones also have SMS capability.  While both SMS and MMS stand for the service, the abbreviations are often used in common parlance to mean the actual message itself that is sent using the service.  A standard SMS is usually 160 characters in length and can be sent from any regular mobile phone.  A standard MMS does not have a specific character limit.  One can, however, send music, animation and other interactive media with a MMS from a specially designed cellular handset that is capable of receiving and sending multimedia messages.  See a comparison chart and read about history, problems and pitfalls at http://www.diffen.com/difference/MMS_vs_SMS

British writer Michael White is a globally bestselling author of 39 books.  He has the unique distinction of being the only person in the world who has appeared in three Top 10 charts--as a novelist, as a non-fiction writer and as a pop musician.  Michael has sold over 4 million books in 40 languages.  Michael White has been a science editor of British GQ, a columnist for the Sunday Express in London and, in a previous incarnation, he was a member of the ’80s pop band, The Thompson Twins (1982).  Between 1984 and 1991 he was a science lecturer at d’Overbroeck’s College in Oxford before becoming a full-time writer.  Link to his portfolio at http://michaelwhite.com.au/about-michael-white/

The Wood Database  Browse by common name, scientific name or appearance at http://www.wood-database.com/

ArtPrize Seven in Grand Rapids. Michigan revealed the winners of $500,000 in prizes on October 9, 2015.  Two $200,000 Grand Prizes were awarded--through public vote toNorthwood Awakening by Loveless PhotoFiber, and by a jury of art experts to Higher Ground by Kate Gilmore.  Find a list of winners in the categories two-dimensional, three dimensional, installation, time-based and juried awards.  Jaenell Woods  http://www.artprize.org/blog/artprize-announces-the-winners-of-500000-in-awards

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1361  October 12, 2015  Many countries in the New World and elsewhere officially celebrate as a holiday the anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas, which happened on October 12, 1492.  The landing is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States, as Discovery Day in the Bahamas, as Día de la Raza ("Day of the Race") in many countries in Latin America, as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas) in Belize and Uruguay, as Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) in Argentina, as Día de la Hispanidad and Fiesta Nacional in Spain, and as Giornata Nazionale di Cristopher Columbus or Festa Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo in Italy and in the Little Italys around the world.  Columbus Day first became an official state holiday in Colorado in 1906, and became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937, though people have celebrated Columbus's voyage since the colonial period.  In the summer of 1990, 350 representatives from American Indian groups from all over the hemisphere, met in Quito, Ecuador, at the first Intercontinental Gathering of Indigenous People in the Americas, to mobilize against the quin-centennial celebration of Columbus Day.  The following summer, in Davis, California, more than a hundred Native Americans gathered for a follow-up meeting to the Quito conference.  They declared October 12, 1992, "International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People".  The largest ecumenical body in the United States, the National Council of Churches, called on Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others". 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day

PIRANHAS is their athletic team.  The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a long one-act musical comedy conceived by Rebecca Feldman with music and lyrics by William Finn, a book by Rachel Sheinkin and additional material by Jay Reiss.  The show centers on a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School.  Six quirky adolescents compete in the Bee, run by three equally quirky grown-ups.  The 2005 Broadway production, directed by James Lapine and produced by David Stone, James L. Nederlander, Barbara Whitman, Patrick Catullo, Barrington Stage Company and Second Stage Theater, earned good reviews and box-office success and was nominated for six Tony Awards, winning two, including Best Book.  The show has spawned various other productions in the U.S., including a national tour with performances in Canada, and Australian productions.  An unusual aspect of the show is that four real audience members are invited on stage to compete in the spelling bee alongside the six young characters.  During the 2005 Tony Awards, former Presidential candidate Al Sharpton competed.  Another amusing aspect of the show is that the official pronouncer, usually an improv comedian, provides ridiculous usage-in-a-sentence examples when asked to use words in a sentence.  The musical was based upon C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E, an original improvisational play created by Rebecca Feldman and performed by The Farm, a New-York-based improvisational comedy troupe.  Sarah Saltzberg, Wendy Wasserstein's weekend nanny, was in the original production, and Wasserstein recommended that Finn see the show.  Finn brought Rachel Sheinkin on board, and they worked together with Feldman to transform "C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E" into a scripted full-length musical.  Spelling Bee was workshopped and developed at the Barrington Stage Company (BSC), Massachusetts, where Julianne Boyd is the Artistic Director, in two different stages . In February 2004, a workshop was done in which a first act and parts of a second act were created--this stage of the process was directed by Michael Barakiva and Feldman.  The script was fleshed out and the show was given a fuller production in July 2004, directed by Feldman and Michael Unger.  See characters, musical numbers and awards at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_25th_Annual_Putnam_County_Spelling_Bee

CICADA is the school mascot.  ("You can stomp us, you can squish us, kill us by the pound," goes the college fight song.  "In another 17 years, we'll be back around.") in At the Reunion, a play with audience participation presented with a gourmet dinner served in courses.  We sang a cicadas fight song at a production in Chicago when we  pretended to be alumni at a college alumni reunion.  When we "registered" for the reunion, we made up our own dialogue as actors asked us questions.

See http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/at-the-reunion/Content?oid=876349

Peter Steiner is an American cartoonist, painter and novelist.   Steiner has contributed cartoons and other material to The New Yorker since 1979.  His cartoon captioned 'On the internet nobody knows you're a dog' is the most reproduced cartoon from The New Yorker, Steiner also is well known for his daily cartoons on contemporary events for the Washington Times, which he created for over 20 years, starting in 1983.  Steiner has published four novels, all featuring a former CIA agent named Louis Morgon who has retired to the Loire Valley in France.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Steiner_(cartoonist)

Chef  is a 2014 American comedy-drama film written, produced, directed by and starring Jon Favreau, and co-starring Sofía Vergara, John Leguizamo, Scarlett Johansson, Oliver Platt, Bobby Cannavale, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert Downey, Jr.  Favreau plays a professional chef who, after a public altercation with a food critic, quits his job at a popular Los Angeles restaurant and returns to his home town of Miami to fix up a food truck.  He reconnects with his ex-wife and invites their young son to join him in driving the truck back to L.A. while selling Cubanos in various cities along the way.  Favreau wrote the script after directing several big-budget films, wanting to go "back to basics" and to create a film about cooking.  Food truck owner and chef Roy Choi served as a co-producer and oversaw all of the menus and food prepared for the film.  Principal photography took place in July 2013 in Los Angeles, Miami, Austin and New Orleans. Chef premiered at South by Southwest on March 7, 2014 and was released theatrically on May 9, 2014 by Open Road Films.   Jon Favreau, the writer, director and star of Chef, wrote the film's script in about two weeks.  He had long wanted to make a film about food and chefs, and felt that the subject was suited to a small-scale independent film rather than a big-budget production.  He cited Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Eat Drink Man Woman and Big Night as inspirations for creating a food-centric film. The script was semi-autobiographical, incorporating parts of Favreau's life into the main character, such as being a father while having a busy career and coming from a "broken home".  Favreau also drew a comparison between his career as a director and Carl's career as a chef in the film, noting that he stepped down from directing major studio films to go "back to basics" and create Chef on a smaller budget, much like Carl's resignation from a popular restaurant to work in a food truck.  Favreau contacted Roy Choi, a restaurateur who created the Kogi Korean BBQ food truck, to serve as a consultant on the film; Choi was eventually promoted to co-producer. While the film was in pre-production, Favreau shadowed Choi in his restaurants and worked as part of Choi's kitchen crew after training at a culinary school.  Choi oversaw all of the menus prepared for the film and created the Cuban sandwiches that formed a central part of the storyline.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef_(film)  

See Chef (2014) Movie Clip "Tired Of Being Alone"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0f0FM6Uvew  0:59

Hominy is dried white or yellow corn kernels from which the hull and germ have been removed.  When dried hominy is broken or very coarsely ground, it is called samp.  When ground, it is called hominy grits or simply grits and is usually available in fine, medium or coarse grinds.  Hominy grits are generally simmered with water or milk until very thick.  

Link to recipes at http://www.food.com/about/hominy-553  Find more hominy recipes at http://allrecipes.com/recipes/16090/fruits-and-vegetables/vegetables/corn/hominy/

seer  noun  1.  one that sees  2.  a :  one that predicts events or developments  b :  a person credited with extraordinary moral and spiritual insight  3  :  one that practices divination especially by concentrating on a glass or crystal globe  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/seer

sere  adjective  1 :  being dried and withered  2  archaic :  threadbare  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sere

The three-dollar piece was a gold coin produced by the United States Bureau of the Mint from 1854 to 1889.  Authorized by the Act of February 21, 1853, the coin was designed by Mint Chief Engraver James B. Longacre.  The obverse bears a representation of Lady Liberty wearing a headdress of a Native American princess and the reverse a wreath of corn, wheat, cotton, and tobacco.  In 1851, Congress had authorized a silver three-cent piece so that postage stamps of that value could be purchased without using the widely disliked copper cents.  Two years later, a bill was passed which authorized a three-dollar coin.  By some accounts, the coin was created so larger quantities of stamps could be purchased.  Longacre, in designing the piece, sought to make it as different as possible from the quarter eagle or $2.50 piece, striking it on a thinner planchet and using a distinctive design.  Although over 100,000 were struck in the first year, the coin saw little use.  It circulated somewhat on the West Coast, where gold and silver were used to the exclusion of paper money, but what little place it had in commerce in the East was lost in the economic disruption of the Civil War, and was never regained.  The piece was last struck in 1889, and Congress ended the series the following year.  Although many dates were struck in small numbers, the rarest was produced at the San Francisco Mint in 1870 (1870-S); only one is known with certainty to exist.  Read much more and see pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dollar_piece

More Than A Game is a documentary that focuses in on 5 young basketball players--LeBron James, Dru Joyce III, Romeo Travis, Sian Cotton, Willie McGee--and their coach, Dru Joyce II, performing on an AAU team with the growing stardom of the future NBA superstar, LeBron James.  Taking them through their pre-teens to high school, this film follows their incredible journey as the unknown Ohio team rises to the top of youth athletics.  The music is mainly inspired by A .J. Mighton and John Colwill.  An executive producer of the movie, Harvey Mason, Jr., also is an executive producer of the soundtrack album, Music Inspired by More Than a Game.  The soundtrack features songs from Ester Dean, Drake, T.I., Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z, and HamSquad Ft. Soulja Boy amongst others.  The album also features additional vocals or raps from Chris Brown, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Eminem, Toni Braxton, JoJo, Jordin Sparks, Ya Boy, Omarion, and Faith Evans plus others.  A number of songs were released as singles.  First, "Stronger" by Mary J Blige is the soundtrack's lead single and was released on August 4, 2009 to support the film and later on August 21, 2009 as the second single from Blige's ninth studio album also titled Stronger.  "Drop It Low" by Ester Dean (with Chris Brown) was released as a single on August 9, 2009 while "Forever" by Drake (featuring Kanye West, Lil Wayne, & Eminem) was released as a single on September 15, 2009.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_than_a_Game

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1360  October 9. 2015  On this date in 1701, the Collegiate School of Connecticut (later renamed Yale University) was chartered in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  On this date in 1812, in a naval engagement on Lake Erie, American forces captured two British ships:  HMS Detroit and HMS Caledonia.  Word of the Day:  fictionary noun  A parlor game in which participants invent definitions for an unfamiliar word found in a dictionary, and as one person reads them out, the others try to guess which one is the correct definition.

One of America’s oldest native crops, pumpkins were an important staple long before Europeans crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered them.  Cultivated independently by the indigenous peoples of North and South America, pumpkins—or more accurately, pumpkin seeds—have been found at archaeological sites in the American southwest dating back six thousand years, as well as at sites throughout Mexico, Central and South America, and the eastern United States.  Evidently, seeds were the only part consumed by these ancient cultures because the flesh of most wild pumpkins was too bitter to eat.  Once cultivation altered the pumpkin enough to make it palatable, Native Americans devoured every part of the plant—seeds, flesh, flowers, and leaves.  Pumpkins and squashes of all sorts could be baked or roasted whole in the fire, cut up and boiled, or added to soup.  Removing the seeds, cutting the pumpkin into strips, and drying them—making a sort of jerky—effectively preserved them.  Indians also dried the outer shells of pumpkins and squashes and used them as water vessels, bowls, and storage containers.  In Massachusetts, the Pilgrims found pumpkin a mainstay.  

A poem dating from the 1630s tells the important role pumpkin played in their diet:

Stead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies, 
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon, 
If it were not for pumpkins we should be undoon.  (You may substitute  "pompions" for pumpkins.)  

Colonial Americans also drank their pumpkin.  An enterprising person can make an alcoholic beverage out of almost anything, and the Pilgrims seem to have been first to make pumpkin beer or ale.  The Pilgrim recipe was said to involve a mixture of persimmons, hops, maple syrup, and, of course, pumpkin.  Further south in Virginia, planter Landon Carter mentions pumpkins in his diary in 1765.  He, too, concocted some sort of alcoholic beverage from fermented pumpkins.  He christened it pumperkin.  Mary Miley Theobald  http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/autumn09/pumpkins.cfm

Stewed Pompion  This recipe for pumpkin, known as "pompions" to English people in the 17th century (as were all squash) is one of the earliest written recipes from New England, from a book written by John Josselyn, a traveler to New England in the 1600's.  (John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New England.)  John Josselyn called this recipe a “standing dish” suggesting that this sort of pumpkin dish was eaten everyday or even at every meal.  http://www.food.com/recipe/stewed-pompion-pumpkin-189584

Pompions were not common in old England, because they're vining plants which means they need hot summers, but they were incredibly abundant when the Pilgrims arrived here.  They mention three types: something called a vining apple, which by all accounts is an acorn squash, something called a buckler which sounds like a Patty Pan, and the Great Pompion, known today as a jack-o-lantern.  Find a recipe for PUMPKIN PIE (THE BEST) which uses either pumpkin or winter squash at http://www.diaryofalocavore.com/2012/11/the-local-food-report-stewed-pompion.html

In the year 2008 the artist Stan Herd traveled to Salina Kansas to recreate Leonardo da Vinci”s ‘glider’ sketch under the take off of Pilot Steve Fossett’s global flyer.  The one acre earthwork would become part of this amazing International story circumnavigating the globe.  From the artist’s 160 acre portrait of Kiowa Chief Satanta in 1981 through 35 monumental earthworks over the next 40 years, Stan Herd would become known as the ‘Father of Crop Art’, a term coined by Dan Rather on CBS evening news, his work was featured in major publications in 30 countries around the world and on major networks in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, Cuba, Australia, China, the Arab Emirates and Japan.  Inspired by ancient designs in England and Peru, the artist’s work also followed on the heels of American land based artists Christo, Heizer, Smithson and Walter de Maria.  http://www.stanherdarts.com/  Stan Herd's  latest work is a monumental 1.2-acre interpretation of Van Gogh’s 1889 Painting “Olive Trees” planted in Minneapolis.  http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/09/stand-herd-van-gogh-field/

culpa (Latin:  blame; responsible for wrong or error)

exculpation  1. The act of freeing from guilt or blame.  2.  A defense of some offensive behavior or some failure to keep a promise, etc.

inculpation  1.  To incriminate.  2.  Blame; censure; incrimination.  3.  An accusation that someone is responsible for some lapse or misdeed.  http://wordinfo.info/unit/585/page:2

Have you ever snapped angrily at someone when you were hungry?  Or has someone snapped angrily at you when they were hungry?  If so, you've experienced "hangry" (an amalgam of hungry and angry)--the phenomenon whereby some people get grumpy and short-tempered when they're overdue for a feed.  The carbohydrates, proteins and fats in everything you eat are digested into simple sugars (such as glucose), amino acids and free fatty acids.  These nutrients pass into your bloodstream from where they are distributed to your organs and tissues and used for energy.  As time passes after your last meal, the amount of these nutrients circulating in your bloodstream starts to drop.  If your blood-glucose levels fall far enough, your brain will perceive it as a life-threatening situation.  Unlike most other organs and tissues in your body which can use a variety of nutrients to keep functioning, your brain is critically dependent on glucose to do its job.  Besides a drop in blood-glucose concentrations, another reason people can become hangry is the glucose counter-regulatory response.  When blood-glucose levels drop to a certain threshold, your brain sends instructions to several organs in your body to synthesize and release hormones that increase the amount of glucose in your bloodstream.  The four main glucose counter-regulatory hormones are: growth hormone from the pituitary gland situated deep in the brain; glucagon from the pancreas; and adrenaline, which is sometimes called epinephrine, and cortisol, which are both from the adrenal glands.  These latter two glucose counter-regulatory hormones are stress hormones that are released into your bloodstream in all sorts of stressful situations, not just when you experience the physical stress of low blood-glucose levels.  In fact, adrenaline is one of the major hormones released into your bloodstream with the "fight or flight" response to a sudden scare, such as when you see, hear or even think something that threatens your safety.  Just as you might easily shout out in anger at someone during the "fight or flight" response, the flood of adrenaline you get during the glucose counter-regulatory response can promote a similar response.  Another reason hunger is linked to anger is that both are controlled by common genes.  The product of one such gene is neuropeptide Y, a natural brain chemical released into the brain when you are hungry. It stimulates voracious feeding behaviours by acting on a variety of receptors in the brain, including one called the Y1 receptor.  Besides acting in the brain to control hunger, neuropeptide Y and the Y1 receptor also regulate anger or aggression.  In keeping with this, people with high levels of neuropeptide Y in their cerebrospinal fluid also tend to show high levels of impulse aggression.  Read more at http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/20/health/science-behind-being-hangry/

Re:  Blocking robocalls.  It is possible to block unwanted callers on cellphones.  Before blocking an unfamiliar number, you may wish to run a Google search on it by simply keyboarding the number into the Google search box.  If it is a robocall or telemarketer call, you'll probably find people reporting it on one of the various sites that will come up.
Robocallers may switch numbers, but blocking new numbers as they come up may prove effective.  If the links below aren't helpful for blocking calls from your specific phone, you can probably find directions on the web by searching your particular phone's blocking features on Google.  Block calls on iPhone  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201229  Block calls on Android phones  http://www.wikihow.com/Block-a-Number-on-Android  Thank  you, Muse reader!

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1359  October 8, 2015  On this date in 1582, this day did not exist in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar.  On this date in 1982, Cats opened on Broadway, running for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.

What's a Robocall?  If you answer the phone and hear a recorded message instead of a live person, it's a robocall.  You've probably gotten robocalls about candidates running for office, or charities asking for donations.  These robocalls are allowed.  But if the recording is a sales message and you haven't given your written permission to get calls from the company on the other end, the call is illegal.  In addition to the phone calls being illegal, their pitch most likely is a scam.  What's the reason for the spike in robocalls?  Technology is the answer.  Companies are using autodialers that can send out thousands of phone calls every minute for an incredibly low cost.  The companies that use this technology don't bother to screen for numbers on the national Do Not Call Registry.  If a company doesn't care about obeying the law, you can be sure they're trying to scam you.  During the last few years, the FTC has stopped billions of robocalls that offer everything from fraudulent credit card services and so-called auto warranty protection to home security systems and grant procurement programs.  Tracing these calls is a tough job:  Many different companies use the same or very similar recorded messages.  Robocallers fake the caller ID information that you see on your phone.  That's called caller ID spoofing—and new technology makes it very easy to do.  In some cases, the fraudulent telemarketer may want you to think the call is from your bank, or another entity you've done business with.  Sometimes, the telephone number may show up as "unknown" or "123456789."  Other times, the number is a real one belonging to someone who has no idea his or her number is being misused.  Robocallers often place the calls through   internet technology that hides their location.  If you get a robocall:  Hang up the phone.  Don't press 1 to speak to a live operator and don't press any other number to get your number off the list.  If you respond by pressing any number, it will probably just lead to more robocalls.  Consider contacting your phone provider and asking them to block the number, and whether they charge for that service.  Remember that telemarketers change Caller ID information easily and often, so it might not be worth paying a fee to block a number that will change.  Report your experience to the FTC online at or by calling 1-888-382-1222.  Some prerecorded messages are permitted—for example, messages that are purely informational.  That means you may receive calls to let you know your flight’s been cancelled, reminders about an appointment, or messages about a delayed school opening.  But the business doing the calling isn’t allowed to promote the sale of any goods or services.  Prerecorded messages from a business that is contacting you to collect a debt also are permitted, but messages offering to sell you services to reduce your debt are barred.  Other exceptions include political calls and calls from certain health care providers.  For example, pharmacies are permitted to use prerecorded messages to provide prescription refill reminders.  Prerecorded messages from banks, telephone carriers and charities also are exempt from these rules if the banks, carriers or charities make the calls themselves.  http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0259-robocalls

Earthquake-proof buildings are not a modern phenomenon.  The outer minarets of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India were given a slight outward tilt to prevent them from falling on the mausoleum in the event of a tectonic shift.  Other information on the Taj Mahal:  An Indian historian, Proff. P.N.Oak claimed that the Taj Mahal was initially a Hindu Temple named ‘Tejo Mahalya’.  He elaborated upon this theory in his book “Taj Mahal:  The True Story” which was published in 1995 and even filed a petition for a proper archeological investigation of the site.  The petition was rejected for the lack of concrete evidence but the theory continues to live on.  ‘Mumtaz Mahal’ was a name given by Shahjahaan to Arjumand Banu Begum, his third wife, because of the deep love and affection he felt for her.  The name translates to ‘Jewel of the Palace’.  Shahjahan’s own official name was Prince Khurram.  The ornate tombs visible to visitors as they enter the Taj Mahal are cenotaphs.  The actual bodies are buried in simple graves in the lower level of the structure.  It is said that over 22,000 people and a 1000 elephants were employed in the construction of this grand structure, which took close to 22 years to complete.  However, there are no official court records documenting any of these details.  An oft repeated legend has it that Emperor Shahjahaan chopped off the arms of artisans and masons who worked on the Taj so that its beauty couldn’t be replicated.  This is fortunately an old wives’ tale with no basis in fact.  http://www.skyscanner.co.in/news/taj-mahal-10-historical-facts-you-didnt-know  See also http://www.worldatglance.com/2013/09/taj-mahal-india-at-a-glance.html

We’ve all been there:  You’re spending quality time with your partner, when they whip out their phone and completely block you out.  While the action is small, it can be infuriating—and new research has discovered that it can cause everything from a decrease in your relationship satisfaction to feelings of depression.  Phubbing (short for “phone snubbing”) is a term coined to capture the practice of ignoring the person you’re with by paying more attention to your phone than to them.  The new research findings were part of a study of more than 450 adults on “partner phone snubbing” (which they called  “Pphubbing”) that was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.  Korin Miller  https://www.yahoo.com/health/how-your-partners-phone-is-messing-up-your-173844214.html

Great places in America 2015 from the American Planning Association   You may link to great neighborhoods and great streets at https://www.planning.org/greatplaces/

Henning Mankell, the Swedish novelist and playwright best known for police procedurals that were translated into a score of languages and sold by the millions throughout the world, died on October 5, 2015 in Goteborg, Sweden.  He was 67.  Mr. Mankell was considered the dean of the so-called Scandinavian noir writers who gained global prominence for novels that blended edge-of-your-seat suspense with flawed, compelling protagonists and strong social themes.  The genre includes Arnaldur Indridason of Iceland, Jo Nesbo of Norway and Stieg Larsson of Sweden, among others.  But it was Mr. Mankell who led the way with 10 mystery novels featuring Inspector Kurt Wallander, a gruff but humane detective troubled by self-doubt, overeating, alcoholism and eventually dementia.  Most of the action takes place in and around Ystad, a real-life town of 18,350 inhabitants on the Baltic Sea, about 380 miles south of Stockholm and now a magnet for Wallander buffs.  Mr. Mankell divided his time between Stockholm and Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, where he was the artistic director of the main theater, Teatro Avenida.  “I came to Africa with one purpose:  I wanted to see the world outside the perspective of European egocentricity,” he wrote in an essay for The New York Times in 2011.  “I could have chosen Asia or South America. I ended up in Africa because the plane ticket there was cheapest.”  Jonathan Kandell  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/world/europe/henning-mankell-swedish-novelist-playwright-dies.html  

A deal that allows thousands of companies to transfer data from Europe to the United States is invalid, the highest EU court said on October 6, 2015 in a landmark ruling that follows revelations of mass U.S. government snooping.  Many companies, particularly tech firms, have said the Safe Harbour agreement helps them get round cumbersome checks to transfer data between offices on both sides of the Atlantic, including payroll and human resources information and also lucrative data used for online advertising.  But the decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) could sound the death knell for the system, set up by the European Commission 15 year ago and used by over 4,000 firms including IBM (IBM.N), Google (GOOGL.O) and Ericsson (ERICb.ST).  The court said Safe Harbour did not sufficiently protect EU citizens' personal data as American companies were "bound to disregard, without limitation" the privacy safeguards where they come into conflict with the national security, public interest and law enforcement requirements of the United States.  "The Court of Justice declares that the Commission's U.S. Safe Harbour decision is invalid," the court said.  "The Court of Justice declares that the Commission's U.S. Safe Harbour decision is invalid," the court said.  Julia Fioretti and Michele Sinner 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/06/us-eu-ireland-privacy-idUSKCN0S00NT20151006

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1358  October 7, 2015  On this date in 1868, Cornell University held opening day ceremonies; initial student enrollment was 412, the highest at any American university to that date.  On this date in 1919, KLM, the flag carrier of the Netherlands, was founded.  It is the oldest airline still operating under its original name.