John Brady's 10-book "Matt Minogue Mystery" series beings with A Stone in the Heart (1988), as DS Matthew (Matt) Minogue returns to duty and the Murder Squad after nearly being killed when the British Ambassador is assassinated.  The early books in the series are set in the late 1980s and the stories are infused with the ongoing tensions of the Northern conflict.  Brady is a native of Dublin.  He studied at Trinity College Dublin and emigrated to Canada when he was 20.  He worked there as a bank official, an RCMP clerical officer and a teacher.  He now divides his time between Ireland and Canada.  http://crimeire.blogspot.com/2015/01/john-brady.html

Paraphrases from A Stone in the Heart by John Brady   a crowd of yobboes (louts, yokels) . . .   she  preferred the condensed richness of a quick sermon--she preferred the apt word to the hyperbole . . .

“Belfast upspeak” describes the upward inflection you find in Belfast English (and perhaps Northern Irish accents generally).  In a nutshell, upspeak is the tendency to go up at the end of sentences?  So everything sounds a bit like a question?  At least to American ears?  Upspeak obviously isn’t confined to Belfast or Northern Ireland.  It also seems common in Northern English and Scottish accents (Liverpool perhaps being the most famous example of this).  And it has made headway in the US, as in the classic Valley Girl accent (“I was driving to the mall?  To buy a bikini?”)  http://dialectblog.com/2011/05/23/belfast-upspeak/

When two or more subjects are connected by “and”, the verb is plural.  He and I are good friends. 
If two singular nouns refer to the same person, the verb must be singular.  The secretary and cashier was present. (That means the same person was a secretary and cashier).  Note:  To find out whether the two words refer to the same person or two different persons, look at the article or possessive adjective.  If there are two articles or possessives, there are two different persons.  In that case, the verb must be in plural. 
If we get the word “each” and “every” before singular subjects, the verb is singular.  Every member was ready to speak. 
Two or more singular subjects connected by or, nor, either…or, neither…nor take singular verb.  Either he or his brother might have done this. 
When the subjects, connected by or, nor, either…or, neither…nor, are of different numbers.  The verb must be plural and the plural subject must be put just before the verb.  Mr. Gobi or his brothers have to do this. 
When the subjects connected by or, nor, either…or, neither…nor are of different persons.  The verb agrees in person with the subject that comes just before it.  He or I have to be there. 
When subjects which are different in person or number or both are connected by ‘and’, the verb is plural.  He and I are friends. 
For a collective noun, usually a singular verb is used, but when the individuals in the group are taken into consideration, a plural verb is used.  The committee meets tomorrow.  Find more rules and examples at http://www.english-for-students.com/Verb-and-Subject.html

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup, was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name "Operation Boot") and the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project).  Mossadegh had sought to audit the books of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now BP) and to change the terms of the company's access to Iranian petroleum reserves.  Upon the refusal of the AIOC to co-operate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize the assets of the company and expel their representatives from the country.  Following the coup in 1953, a government under General Fazlollah Zahedi was formed which allowed Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran (Persian for king), to rule the country more firmly as monarch.  He relied heavily on US and UK support to hold on to power until his own overthrow in February 1979.  In August 2013, 60 years after, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) admitted that it was involved in both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda. The CIA is quoted acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government."  Iran's oil had been discovered and later controlled by the British-owned AIOC.  Popular discontent with the AIOC began in the late 1940s:  a large segment of Iran's public and a number of politicians saw the company as exploitative and a central tool of continued British imperialism in Iran.  Despite Mosaddegh's popular support, the AIOC was unwilling to allow Iranian authorities to audit the company accounts or to renegotiate the terms of its access to Iranian petroleum.  In 1951, Iran's petroleum industry was nationalized with near-unanimous support of the Majlis in a bill introduced by Mossadegh who led the Iranian nationalist party, the National Front.  In response, Britain instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically.  Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the British-built Abadan oil refinery, then the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee opted instead to tighten the economic boycott while using Iranian agents to undermine Mosaddegh's government.  With a change to more conservative governments in both Britain and the United States, Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration decided to overthrow Iran's government, though the predecessor Truman administration had opposed a coup.  Classified documents show that British intelligence officials played a pivotal role in initiating and planning the coup, and that the AIOC contributed $25,000 towards the expense of bribing officials.  As a condition for restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, in 1954 the U.S. required removal of the AIOC's monopoly; five American petroleum companies, Royal Dutch Shell, and the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, were to draw Iran's petroleum after the successful coup d'état—Operation Ajax.  The Shah declared this to be a "victory" for Iranians, with the massive influx of money from this agreement resolving the economic collapse from the last three years, and allowing him to carry out his planned modernization projects.   Operation Ajax's formal leader was senior CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., while career agent Donald Wilber was the operational leader, planner, and executor of the deposition of Mosaddegh. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

Gerald M. Panter on his web pages  "Atget's Paris:  Then and Now" compares Atget's 1890s photos of streets and buildings in Paris with carefully matched contemporary photos of the same scenes.  http://www.gmpanter.com/atget-s-paris.html   (See the 22 pictures he posts by clicking on the arrows underneath the picture of Église Saint-Sulpice on the first page.)  Christopher Rauschenberg has also put out a book of such comparisons.  See "Paris Changing: Revisiting Eugene Atget's Paris" on Amazon and elsewhere.  Thank you, Muse reader!

FOOD AND DRINK NEWS

The Museum of Food and Drink is opening its first permanent location, on October 28, 2015 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Its debut exhibition, “Flavor:  Making It and Faking It,” is a multisensory take on what executive director Peter Kim called the little-known story of the flavor industry.  The museum has been in the works for more than a decade.  Joshua Barone  http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/museum-of-food-and-drink-to-open-permanent-space-in-brooklyn/  MOFAD is located at 62 Bayard St in Brooklyn.

October 21, 2015  A U.S. magistrate judge in Miami has ruled that Anheuser-Busch InBev falsely led American beer drinkers to believe that Beck’s was authentically German and approved an estimated $20 million settlement, according to The Wall Street Journal.  Beck’s signature green bottle is emblazoned with a label that says it “Originated in Bremen, Germany” and is “German Quality” beer, duping customers as to its true production location.  Beck’s is currently made in St. Louis after the company moved production there from Germany in 2012.  The settlement covers consumers who purchased Beck’s Light and Beck’s Dark beers since May 2011.  To get your money, you’ll have until next month to fill out an online form to claim your refund.  With all your receipts, you can claim as much as $50.  No such luck?  You can still get as much as $12 back.  Laura Lorenzetti 

http://fortune.com/2015/10/21/becks-settlement/

The 2016 Zagat Guide to New York City was released October 13, 2015, with a few surprises.  A notable addition to the top 20 restaurants is Graffiti, which received a 28 (on a scale of 1 to 30) for food.  Last year Graffiti also received a 28, but from too few voters to put it on the top 20 food list, said Evan Barbour, a spokeswoman for the guide. 

Daniel Boulud’s flagship, Daniel, has climbed back into the rarefied circle of restaurants with a 29 for food; it received that score back in 2012 but then dropped to 28.  It joins Eric Ripert’s Le Bernardin and David Bouley’s namesake restaurant, Bouley, at that highest score.  Tim and Nina Zagat, both lawyers, began the survey informally, polling friends about restaurants in Paris.  Then they added New York, and before long had a new career.  In 2011 they sold the survey to Google, which now conducts and publishes the surveys.  Florence Fabricant  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/dining/zagat-guide-nyc-2016.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1368  October 26, 2015  On this date in 1825, the Erie Canal opened from Albany, New York to Lake Erie.  On this date in 1861, the Pony Express officially ceased operations.

Writing is talking to someone else on paper.  Anybody who can think clearly can write clearly, about any subject at all.  [...] the essence of writing is rewriting.  Good writers know that very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time or the fifth time.  I often find myself reading with interest about a topic I never thought would interest me--some scientific quest, perhaps.  What holds me is the enthusiasm of the writer for his field.  Clutter is the disease of American writing.  We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.  The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.  Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that's already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what--these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.  Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.  On Writing Well:  The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsserithttp://books.danielhofstetter.com/on-writing-well/

Metrication (or metrification) is the process of introducing the International System of Units (or SI), commonly known as the metric system, to replace the traditional or customary units of measurement of a country or region. Although all U.S. customary units have been redefined in terms of SI units, the United States does not commonly mandate the use of SI.  This, according to the CIA Factbook, makes the US one of only three countries, alongside Myanmar (Burma) and Liberia, that have not adopted the metric system as their official system of weights and measures.  Although the Constitution gave the authority to dictate standards of measure to Congress, it was not until 1832 that the customary system of units was formalized.  In the early 19th century, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (the government's surveying and map-making agency) used meter and kilogram standards brought from France.  In 1866, Congress authorized the use of the metric system and supplied each state with a set of standard metric weights and measures.  In 1875, the United States solidified its commitment to the development of the internationally recognized metric system by becoming one of the original seventeen signatory nations to the Metre Convention or the Treaty of the Metre.  The signing of this international agreement concluded five years of meetings in which the metric system was reformulated, refining the accuracy of its standards.  The Metre Convention established the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (Bureau international des poids et mesures, BIPM) in Sèvres, France, to provide standards of measurement for worldwide use.  Under the Mendenhall Order in 1893, metric standards, developed through international cooperation under the auspices of BIPM, were adopted as the fundamental standards for length and mass in the United States.  The U.S. customary units such as the foot and pound have been defined in relation to metric units ever since.  The 1895 Constitution of Utah, in Article X, Section 11, originally mandated that:  "The Metric System shall be taught in the public schools of the State."  This section was, however, later repealed.  The General Conference on Weights and Measures is the governing body for the modern metric system and comprises the signing nations of the Treaty of the Metre.  The General Conference on Weights and Measures approved an updated version of the metric system in 1960 named Le Système international d'unités (International System of Units) and abbreviated SI.  On February 10, 1964, the National Bureau of Standards (former name of National Institute of Standards and Technology) issued a statement that it will use the metric system except where this would have an obvious detrimental effect.  In 1968, Congress authorized the U.S. Metric Study, a three-year study of systems of measurement in the U.S., with emphasis on the feasibility of metrication.  The United States Department of Commerce conducted the study.  A 45-member advisory panel consulted and took testimony from hundreds of consumers, business organizations, labor groups, manufacturers, and state and local officials.  The final report of the study concluded that the U.S. would eventually join the rest of the world in the use of the metric system of measurement.  The study found that metric units were already implemented in many areas and that its use was increasing.  The majority of study participants believed that conversion to the metric system was in the best interests of the U.S., particularly in view of the importance of foreign trade and the increasing influence of technology in the U.S.  On December 31, 2012, a petition was created on the White House's petitioning system, petitioning the White House to "Make the Metric system the standard in the United States, instead of the Imperial system."  On January 10, 2013, this petition garnered over 25,000 signatures--exceeding the threshold needed to require the Obama Administration to officially respond to the petition.  Patrick D. Gallagher, director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, provided the official response stating that customary units were defined in the metric system, thus making the nation "bilingual" in terms of measurement systems.  Gallagher also said that using the metric system was a choice to be made by individuals.  Early in 2013 a bill was introduced by state Representative Karl Rhoads of Hawaii that seeks to make the metric system mandatory within his state.  Called “Relating to the Metric System,” the bill stipulates that the law would go into effect on January 1, 2018.  As of June 2014, bill HB36 didn't gain enough support and was considered dead.  If the bill had become law, Hawaii would have been the first state to introduce the metric system throughout its state on a broad scale.  In January 2015, Oregon congressman Brian Boquist at the request of David Pearl, proposed Oregon Senate Bill 166, which is similar to Hawaii's bill.  The bill would establish the International System of Units as the official measurement of units within the state of Oregon.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States

The life and the intention of Eugene Atget (1857-1927) are fundamentally unknown to us.  He was born in Libourne, near Bordeaux, and worked as a sailor during his youth; from the sea he turned to the stage, with no more than minor success; at forty he quit acting, and after a tentative experiment with painting Atget became a photographer, and began his true life's work.  Atget's work is unique on two levels.  He was the maker of a great visual catalogue of the fruits of French culture, as it survived in and near Paris in the first quarter of this century.  He was in addition a photographer of such authority and originality that his work remains a bench mark against which much of the most sophisticated contemporary photography measures itself.  Other photographers had been concerned with describing specific facts (documentation), or with exploiting their indivisual sensibilities (self-expression).  Atget enconpassed and transcended both approaches when he set himself the task of understanding and interpreting in visual terms a complex, ancient, and living tradition.  See pictures and link to quotes, videos and references at http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/Eugene-Atget.html  Atget was not particularly well known in his lifetime, but in the 1920s the aging photographer came to the attention of modern art's avant-garde.  Man Ray, an expatriate American photographer and painter who was associated with the Dada and surrealist movements, met Atget between 1921 and 1924, in all likelihood because Man Ray's studio was a few steps down the street from Atget's apartment.  Atget's images, which simultaneously appear real and dreamlike, appealed to Man Ray's surrealist sympathies, especially his interest in the outmoded; he bought about 50 photographs and in 1926 had four of them reproduced in a surrealist journal, La Révolution Surréaliste.  Man Ray encouraged others from his artistic circle to visit Atget.  Julien Levy, an American filmmaker, bought as many Atget prints as Atget would permit, eventually exhibiting them at a gallery he would open in New York.  When Atget died, his executor and close friend, André Calmettes, ensured the photographer's legacy by dividing the negatives and prints between the French government's Commission des monuments historiques and Berenice Abbott; as Abbott herself became a towering figure of 20th-century photography, she continued to work throughout her career to promote Atget, even making prints from his negatives.

http://www.nga.gov/feature/atget/bio.shtm

Safe Preserving: What to do with green tomatoes?

http://fyi.uwex.edu/safepreserving/2013/09/19/safe-preserving-what-to-do-with-green-tomatoes/

Bok Choy: 10 Fun Facts by Chloe Thompson

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/bok-choy-10-healthy-facts

Rovi Corporation and Michigan State University announced on October 19, 2015 that Rovi has donated a rare and valuable media collection to MSU.  This donation establishes the largest media collection held by a library in the United States.  The new “Rovi Media Collection” is comprised of close to one million CDs, Blu-Rays, DVDs, and video games, and is now publicly available through the MSU library and interlibrary loan services.  “We are honored to be the proprietors of the largest media archive in the country, which has quickly become the most requested material in the Michigan inter-library loan system,” said Clifford H. Haka, director of libraries, Michigan State University.  “The ‘Rovi Media Collection’ dramatically enhances our teaching curriculum and research within the College of Music, popular culture and film studies, and an emerging gaming program.  Assembling a collection of such cultural and historic importance and overall magnitude would simply not have been feasible with our current budget.  https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/rovi-and-michigan-state-university-establish-largest-us-library-media-collection-2015-10-19

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1367  October 23, 2015  On this date in 1861, Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C., for all military-related cases.  On this date in 1906, Alberto Santos-Dumont flew an airplane in the first heavier-than-air flight in Europe at Champs de Bagatelle, Paris, France.

Confessions of Kwame Alexander  “Being sort of uncool and goofy [as a teenager], I was always trying to figure out the best way to communicate with girls,” he said.  What I discovered that I did have, and a lot of guys didn’t, was a way with words.  I knew how to arrange words and make them dance on a page.  And, of course, that came from reading.”  Alexander will headline the October 22, 2015 Authors! Authors! lecture at the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, co-sponsored by The Blade.  To be honest, he clarified, adolescence meant “rediscovering” reading after being introduced to the joy of books early on by his parents.   “My parents were my first librarians,” he said.  “My father wrote 16 books; he was a book publisher—and my mother was an English teacher.  From a very early age we were reading and writing, and certainly I enjoyed being read to as a child.   “But I think once I got to middle school I sort of fell out of love with books.  I was being forced to read at home, and a lot of these books were these huge texts my father made me read.  Both at home and school I wasn’t really being given books that I was interested in, so I sort of lost the interest and excitement I had as a kid.”  In February 2015, Alexander won the Newbery Medal, the American Library Association’s highest honor in children’s literature, for The Crossover, which details the exploits of basketball-playing twins JB and Josh.  Written in verse, the writer said it was designed to introduce children to poetry, while also targeting a neglected segment of the youth market:  boys.  “I know I wanted to play outside with my friends when I was a boy, and my sister was probably more apt to be in the house reading a book,” he said.  “If you give boys books that are interesting to them they will read, and that’s ultimately the goal.  That’s what I set out to do with The Crossover, write a book that boys couldn’t put down.  “Books are like amusement parks; sometimes you have to let kids choose the ride.  I think boys do want to read and imagine a world for themselves.  But you have got to give them something that will connect with them. That really goes for anybody.” Authors! Authors! with Kwame Alexander  October 22, 2015, 7 p.m.  McMaster Center at the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, 325 N. Michigan St.  Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for students   Information:  419-259-5266 or visit toledolibrary.org.  Mike Pearson   http://www.toledoblade.com/Books/2015/10/18/Celebrated-writer-makes-books-cool-to-speak-at-Authors-Authors-Kwame-Alexander.html  See also Five questions for Kwame Alexander

http://www.hbook.com/2015/02/authors-illustrators/interviews/five-questions-kwame-alexander/ and 2015 Newbery-Caldecott-Wilder Banquet June 28, 2015  Kwame Alexander--The Crossover  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnh3JNCMLq8  27:04

Brothers Stephen Quay and Timothy Quay are esteemed filmmakers, film directors and animators.  They are identical twins most famously known as both either Brothers Quay or the Quay Brothers.  Indeed their collaborative stop-motion animations are extremely well known for the ways in which they have been influential to the field.  They were born on June 17, 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, a town that had an important European immigrant influx.  They attended art school together at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, USA and at the Royal College of Art in London, UK in the late 1960s where they would set their studio and where they still live today as well.  They are both professors of Animated Film at The European Graduate School where they have taught an intensive summer seminar, typically in the form of a workshop.  It is during their time studying in Philadelphia that they would take film courses and in doing so would see for the first time the surrealist movies of Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), the ones by the Danish film director Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968), who is considered by many critic as being one of the most important directors of all times.  But the two brothers would also be introduced to the films of the Russian movie director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) as well as the ones of Swedish movie and theater director Ingmar Bergman (1918- ).   With their first movies, Stephen and Timothy Quay would show a particular taste for esoteric influences.  Indeed they began with the Polish animators Walerian Borowczyk (1923 - 2006) and Jan Lenica (1928-2001).  They would then show their inspiration was grounded by the work of writers such as the famous Czech novelist Franz Kafka (1883-1924), the Swiss writer Robert Walser (1878-1956), the avant-gardes Belgian dramatist Michel de Ghelderode (1898-1962), the Russian and French animator Wladyslaw Starewicz (1882-1965).  Moreover, Czech composers Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) as well as Zdeněk Liška (1922-1983) would be a great source of inspiration for them.  The same would be true with the Polish composer Leszek Jankowski (1956- ) who would in fact write original musical scores for a good deal of their films.  The Quay Brothers would create films that the critics would often call surreal and which usually involve inanimate objects coming to life.  In 1998 they were the recipient of the prestigious Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for their outstanding effort on the play The Chairs (originally “Les Chaise”) by the Romanian and French Theatre of the Absurd playwright Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994).  The other recipient that same year was Richard Hudson (1954- ) for his work on the famous musical The Lion King.  http://www.egs.edu/faculty/stephen-timothy-quay/biography/  Interview with Stop Motion Animation Pioneers, The Brothers Quay

by Edward Douglas  http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/features/474489-interview-with-stop-motion-animation-pioneers-the-brothers-quay

The next generation of drones, which are just beginning to roll out, doesn’t require users to hold remote controllers:  They are hands-free.  Simply toss them in the air, and they will follow you like Tinker Bell.  With names such as Lily (around $700 on pre-order) and Nixie (not yet available for pre-order), they are capable of recording breathtaking video footage and trailing adventure travelers across bridges and streams, down ski slopes and into secluded gardens.  Nixie, which you can wear on your wrist until you want to fling it off for a photo or video, has a “boomerang mode” that allows it to fly back to you as if it were a trained raptor.  There is no denying that the latest drone technology is impressive.  And the footage is striking.  Adventure travelers who wish to watch themselves scale Kilimanjaro or surf in Hawaii along the North Shore of Oahu will no doubt want one.  But if selfie-drones become staples of every traveler who can afford them, we stand to lose more than we stand to gain when it comes to privacy, safety and quality-of-life factors like peace and beauty.  Strolling Sheep Meadow in Central Park in New York on a warm spring day is already an art with all of the dodging of footballs and Frisbees one must perfect to survive.  If a drone is in midair when its battery dies, it falls from the sky.  Pitfalls abound.  Yet when it comes to travel, there is no greater concern than drone use near airports.  The Federal Aviation Administration said in August 2015 that pilot reports of close calls with drones had increased drastically in 2015, to more than 650 sightings by Aug. 9, up from 238 in all of 2014.  “Pilots of a variety of different types of aircraft—including many large, commercial air carriers—reported spotting 16 unmanned aircraft in June of 2014, and 36 the following month,” the F.A.A. said in a statement.  “This year, 138 pilots reported seeing drones at altitudes of up to 10,000 feet during the month of June, and another 137 in July.”  Drones have been spotted near all of the New York area’s major airports, including John F. Kennedy International, La Guardia and Newark Liberty International in New Jersey.  Last year, pilots on major carriers reported seeing drones 100 feet off a wing (Delta) and flying under the plane’s nose (JetBlue).  Stephanie Rosenbloom  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/travel/selfie-camera-drones.html

A compound noun is a noun that is made with two or more words.  A compound noun is usually [noun + noun] or [adjective + noun], but there are other combinations.  Each compound noun acts as a single unit and can be modified by adjectives and other nouns.  There are three forms for compound nouns:  open or spaced (tennis shoe); hyphenated (six-pack); and closed or solid (bedroom).  See examples at https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/nouns-compound.htm

John Tukey (1915-2000) as an American mathematician best known for development of the FFT algorithm and box plot.  The Tukey range test, the Tukey lambda distribution, the Tukey test of additivity, and the Teichmüller–Tukey lemma all bear his name.  Mr. Tukey coined many statistical terms that have become part of common usage, but the two most famous coinages attributed to him were related to computer science.  While working with John von Neumann on early computer designs, Tukey introduced the word "bit" as a contraction of "binary digit".  The term "bit" was first used in an article by Claude Shannon in 1948.  In 2000, Fred Shapiro, a librarian at the Yale Law School, published a letter revealing that Tukey's 1958 paper "The Teaching of Concrete Mathematics" contained the earliest known usage of the term "software" found in a search of JSTOR's electronic archives, predating the OED's citation by two years.  This led many to credit Tukey with coining the term, particularly in obituaries published that same year, although Tukey never claimed credit for any such coinage.  In 1995, Paul Niquette claimed he had originally coined the term in October 1953, although he could not find any documents supporting his claim.  The earliest known publication of the term "software" in an engineering context was in August 1953 by Richard R. Carhart, in a Rand Corporation Research Memorandum.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tukey

suffix:  ware  [in uncountable nouns]  1 things made of a particular material, especially for use in the home:  glassware, silverware  2 things used in a particular place for the preparation or serving of food:  ovenware, tableware  3 things used in operating a computer:  software (programs), shareware  (programs which can be shared via the Internet)  http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/-ware

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1366  October 21, 2015  On this date in 1879, Thomas Edison invented a workable electric light bulb at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. which was tested the next day and lasted 13.5 hours.  This would be the invention of the first commercially practical incandescent light.  Popular belief is that he invented the first light bulb, which he did not.  On this date in 1959, in New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opened to the public.

Wineries With an English Accent by Christine Ajudua  October 15, 2015  One recent Saturday morning, four Australians, two Britons and this reporter met beside 17 acres of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier vines, ready to sample what’s been called one of the world’s finest sparkling wines, at the source.  We were 88 miles from France’s Champagne region, on the English side of the Channel, in a two-pub village called Ditchling, in East Sussex.  Here lies Ridgeview Estate (ridgeview.co.uk), which took the top prize for bubbly at the 2010 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA), never before given to a producer outside France.  This was no anomaly.  Increasingly, English sparkling wines have been racking up international awards, and like Ridgeview, many hail from the South Downs.  With the same chalky soil as Champagne’s Côte des Blancs—geologically linked by the Paris Basin, which runs under the English Channel—the rolling grassland, ancient woodland and white cliffs between Hampshire and Sussex counties in southeast England encompass not only part of Britain’s newest national park, but also a burgeoning wine region.  And rising temperatures have been working in its favor.  Or, according to the DWWA chairman Steven Spurrier—who organized the 1976 Paris tasting that famously pitted Californian wines against French and put Napa Valley on the map—“Part of it is global warming, but most of it is dedication, determination and deep pockets.”  Mark and Sarah Driver (a former hedge fund owner and a former lawyer turned fine-wine enthusiasts, husband and wife) bought 600 acres in a valley between Alfriston village and the East Sussex coast and started planting vines.  Their Rathfinny Estate (rathfinnyestate.com) recently opened as England’s largest vineyard.  With their Moët & Chandon–trained winemaker, the Drivers plan to produce one million bottles of “world-class” sparkling wine annually (last year, all of Britain released about 4 million) while creating a sustainable, state-of-the-art hub for English wine tourism.  See pictures at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/travel/wine-tasting-hampshire-sussex.html

16 Searches You Can Run on Wolfram Alpha That Don't Work on Google by David Nield  http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/16-searches-you-can-run-on-wolfram-alpha-that-dont-work-1733971884

Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett & the Crypt-Kickers is a dance song based on the "Mashed Potato" dance craze, which is where The "Mash" in the title comes in.  The sound effects on the song were done as follows:  The coffin being opened was made by pulling a rusty nail out of a lump of wood with the claw of a hammer.  The bubbling sounds came from blowing through a straw in a glass of water.  The sound of the chains was made by dropping chains onto plywood planks on the record studio floor.  This is arguably the most successful novelty song of all time.  Bobby Pickett accomplished the rare feat of reaching the top 100 music chart three times with the same song.  http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=6618

See also The Monster Mash Man at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2534-2004Oct27.html?nav=rss_liveonline/entertainment

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow  Student Theater Production  Owens Community College 30335 Oregon Road  Perrysburg, OH  October 29 & 30 at 7:30 p.m., October 31 & November 1 at 2:00 p.m.  Mainstage Theatre  Tickets ($12 for general public, $8 for students; staff, faculty and alumni)  Washington Irving’s classic tale of Ichabod Crane & the Headless Horseman takes the stage at Owens for Halloween weekend!  For more information, call 567-661-2798.

Kid Theater with Tom Hanks  Tom Hanks and Jimmy read scenes written by elementary school kids where we gave them the title "Bridge of Spies," and they had to write the rest.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p1Iv9z8bOY  7:10

A U.S. appeals court ruled on October 16, 2015 that Google's massive effort to scan millions of books for an online library does not violate copyright law, rejecting claims from a group of authors that the project illegally deprives them of revenue.  The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York rejected infringement claims from the Authors Guild and several individual writers, and found that the project provides a public service without violating intellectual property law.  The authors sued Google, whose parent company is now named Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), in 2005, a year after the project was launched.  But Google argued that the effort would actually boost book sales by making it easier for readers to find works, while introducing them to books they might not otherwise have seen.  A lawyer for the authors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  Google had said it could face billions of dollars in potential damages if the authors prevailed.  Circuit Judge Denny Chin, who oversaw the case at the lower court level, dismissed the litigation in 2013, prompting the authors' appeal.  Chin found Google's scanning of tens of millions of books and posting "snippets" online constituted "fair use" under U.S. copyright law.  A unanimous three-judge appeals panel said the case "tests the boundaries of fair use," but found Google's practices were ultimately allowed under the law.  Joseph Ax  http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/16/us-google-books-idUSKCN0SA1S020151016

At a ceremony October 15, 2015 in Austin, Texas, three writers took home Kirkus Prizes:  Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hanya Yanagihara and Pam Muñoz Ryan.  The literary award, now in its second year, awards $50,000 to the winner in each category—nonfiction, fiction and young readers' literature.  Coates' Between the World and Me earned the honors in nonfiction.  In a statement, the judges praised it as "a formidable literary achievement and a crucial, urgent, and nuanced contribution to a long-overdue national conversation."  Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life continued its sterling run this literary awards season, winning the Kirkus for fiction.  Already a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and for the National Book Award Yanagihara's novel is "disturbing yet humane, capacious yet intimate, and never less than brilliant," according to the judges.  Pam Muñoz Ryan's Echo, a novel aimed at middle-grade readers, garnered the prize in young readers' literature.  The book, a quest tale centered on a mysterious harmonica, is nothing less than "a masterwork by a virtuoso storyteller," the judges said.  To be considered eligible for the prize, writers had to receive a starred review from the literary journal Kirkus Reviews.  The winners were selected from a pool of 1,032 eligible books.  http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/15/448961756/ta-nehisi-coates-hanya-yanagihara-and-pam-mu-oz-ryan-win-kirkus-prizes  Books can not be submitted just for the Kirkus Prize; eligibility for the Prize begins with the process of having a book reviewed by Kirkus Reviews.  (If your book is traditionally published, you or your publicist can learn how to submit your book for review by reading these guidelines.  If your book is self-published, you can submit your book to Kirkus’ indie department by following these guidelines.)  For answers to other questions, please visit the FAQ page for the Prize.  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/prize/rules/

Bingley, United Kingdom, 19 October 2015 – Emerald Group Publishing is marking International Open Access Week (19-25 October) with the launch of a Special Issue on Open Access (OA) from Online Information Review, with contributions from some of the world’s leading experts on the debate.   The aim of this Special Issue is to contribute insights, analysis and commentary towards an enhanced understanding of how Open Access “can be made to work in practice” (Pinfield, 2015, p.604).  Some of the authors that have contributed articles to this Special Issue include:  • Martin Paul Eve, Senior Lecturer, Birkbeck, University of London and Director of Open Library of Humanities, an advocate for OA that has written prolifically on this topic; • Robin Osborne, Professor, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, argues that the most important feature of OA should be ‘accessibility’; • Stephen Pinfield, Senior Lecturer, University of Sheffield, who looks at the challenges for various stakeholders in delivering OA; and • Melissa Terras, Professor, Department of Information Studies, University College London and Director of UCL Centre for Digital Humanities, writes extensively on OA issues including exploring the effects of what happens when you tweet and blog about research papers.  This Special Issue has been published in line with Emerald’s Green Open Access Zero Embargo trial, applicable for all articles published in the company’s Library and Information Science (LIS) journal programme and selected Information and Knowledge Management journals. This empowers authors to self-archive their post-prints, and thus ensure the Special Issue content is Open Access.  http://www.bespacific.com/emerald-group-publishing-launches-new-contribution-to-open-access-debate/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1365  October 19, 2015  On this date in 1386, the Universität Heidelberg held its first lecture, making it the oldest German university,  On this date in 1789, John Jay was sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy (1855-1931).  It was originally published in The Youth's Companion on September 8, 1892.  In its original form it read:  "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."  In 1923, the words, "the Flag of the United States of America" were added.  At this time it read:  "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."  In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words "under God," creating the 31-word pledge we say today.  Bellamy's daughter objected to this alteration. 

http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm  See also How the Pledge of Allegiance Went From PR Gimmick to Patriotic Vow by Amy Crawford at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/pledge-allegiance-pr-gimmick-patriotic-vow-180956332/  NOTE that Francis Bellamy was the cousin of American author Edward Bellamy

The history of the city of Cremona, Italy on the Po River, just over an hour south of Milan by train, is inexorably intertwined with violins and other stringed instruments.  More than 140 liutaio currently ply their trade in the city.  Wandering the narrow streets around the Piazza del Comune, you can watch dozens of violinmakers at their workbenches through their storefront windows.  If they’re not busy or if they’re in the right mood, some of them may wave you inside to have a look.  “This is an antique job.  Nothing has changed for centuries,” the violinmaker Philippe Devanneaux, who came to Cremona from Paris 34 years ago, told me during a recent visit.  “Of course, you can make a violin with a machine or a computer, but you can’t put your heart inside of it.”  “The secret of the Cremona violin is the weight,” said Giovanni Colonna, violinmaker and lutherie director at the Academia Cremonensis. “It’s light, but not too light.”  And then there’s the food. Mario Batali also wrote that a visit to Cremona is “absolutely essential to the gastrovoyager.”  Cremona’s location at the border of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna brings influences from both:  charcuterie like cotecchino and salame; grana padana cheese; stuffed pastas specialties like marubini and tortelli di zucca; and the famed Mostarda di Cremona, a sweet and gently spiced fruit preserve, served with the classic stew called bollito misto.  But perhaps the crowning food achievement of Cremona is its perfection of the tramezzini sandwich, spongy, perfectly triangled white bread stuffed with myriad varieties of ham, tuna, eggs and artichokes and slathered with mayonnaise.  They are always served with the question, “Mangia subito?”—to which the answer can only be, “Yes, I am eating this immediately.”  Ugo Grill, which closely guards the recipe for its mayonnaise, has served the tramezzini gold standard for decades.  Places to visit:  Museo del Violino, Piazza Marconi; 39-0372-080-809; museodelviolino.org/en.  Museo Civico “Ala Ponzone,” Via Ugolani Dati 4; 39-0372-407-269;musei.comune.cremona.it. The city museum boasts a priceless collection of stringed instruments.  Academia Cremonensis, Via Platina 66; 39-0372-808-970; academiacremonensis.it/en. This professional violin and bow-making school is open to small groups by appointment.  Casa Stradivari, Corso Garibaldi 57; 39-0347-597-6856; stradivariazioni.com.  The former home of young Stradivarius is run by an association of violin-makers who often put on exhibitions.  Jason Wilson  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/travel/italy-cremona-violin.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

TOASTS  Here's to bread--it makes the best toast.  Here's to bread, because without bread we wouldn't have toast.

QUOTES from Woman Strangled--News at Ten, a novel by Laurie Moore  "Bad cop!  No donut!"  "He wasn't jaywalking.  He lost his balance."

Nestled in the rolling hills of Southeast Missouri and minutes off I-55, the Kage School was originally built in 1880 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.  In 2015, the Historic Kage Guest Cottage was brought back to life as a beautiful, richly decorated guest cottage.  Although re-purposed as a guest cottage, The Cottage retains the charm and character of the original school building with 13 foot ceilings, the original school lights and original Missouri Ozark pine hardwood floors, as well as many other artifacts and original materials recovered from the building during restoration.  The initials and dates of many Kage School students can still be seen scratched into the soft brick on the exterior of the building.  The small stone wall comprising the border at the front of the building is constructed of the stone footings originally used in the 1880 construction of the school.  http://www.vrbo.com/717740  NOTE that the school was established in 1854 according to the plaque.  See a video with before and after pictures at http://www.hetzelproperties.net/historic-kage-school-guest-cottage  2:52

Conservation tests reveal details of 1917 ceiling in Oberlin College's art museum   Next time you are in the Allen Art Museum, take a look up while standing in the King Sculpture Court.  The restoration of artworks often takes place out of public view.  In the future, however, museum visitors will have an opportunity to witness the transformation of the King Sculpture Court ceiling, an integral part of Cass Gilbert’s vision for the museum’s original 1917 building.  During a two-week period, conservators cleaned a test area of the ceiling, clerestory wall, and architectural moldings, lifting decades of accumulated grime.  Vibrant details are now visible in the paintings forming four of the ceiling’s 100 square coffers.  “As you clean these, the details come out.  The animals actually have shadows, and you see touches of blue and orange in the duck,” noted Andrea Chevalier, senior painting conservator with the Intermuseum Conservation Association.  http://amamblog.tumblr.com/post/61429756608/conservation-tests-reveal-details-of-1917-ceiling  As part of the original design for the 1917 building, architect Cass Gilbert hired painter Frederick J. Wiley to decorate the upper walls and ceiling of the museum’s grand central space, later named for the museum’s first curator, Hazel B. King.  The faux-coffered ceiling is enlivened with animal and foliage designs in emulation of a 16th-century French style, while the upper walls feature verses written by the American transcendentalist Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813-92). http://oberlin.edu/amam/HistoricRenovation.htm  

See pictures at  http://www.cleveland.com/architecture/index.ssf/2015/02/ceiling_restoration_polishes_o.html

On January 12, 1814, a 33-year-old architect named Robert Mills mailed off a “book of designs” to the Board of Managers of the Washington Monument in Baltimore.  Accompanying the dozen drawings and pages of notes describing his design, Mills included a letter making the case for his particular qualifications as an American architect:  Four years earlier on January 6, 1810, Maryland  had  authorized the “Board of Managers of the Washington and Monument in Baltimore” to raise funds by lottery to support the design and construction of a monument to George Washington.  Delayed by the war and difficulties in raising money, the members of the board voted on February 15, 1813 to hold a design competition with a prize of $500 for the “best design, model or plan for a Monument to the memory of General Washington.”  Robert Mills submitted a detailed description of his proposal back in November along with a few rough sketches.  When the board extended competition deadline  from January 1 to April 15, it gave him more time to prepare the illustrations contained in his “book of designs,” an essay with a description of the drawings and “a few remarks upon Monuments in general,” and the letter excerpted above.  http://1814.baltimoreheritage.org/architect-robert-mills-submits-a-book-of-designs-for-baltimores-washington-monument/  Intended to be located in today’s Monument Square on Calvert Street in Baltimore, when nearby residents saw Mills’ winning design, they feared the tall column might topple on their houses in the event of a natural disaster.  With these concerns, a new location was found north of the city on a 200 square foot plot of land donated by Revolutionary War hero John Eager Howard from his vast “Belvidere” estate.  The area surrounding the monument’s site was untamed, and was generally known as “Howard’s Woods.”  With its cornerstone laid on July 4, 1815, the monument became the first public monument to honor Washington.  By this time Mills’ elaborate tiered design had been modified, largely to the simple column on square base we have today.  The project was funded by a state-enabled lottery, as were many semi-public projects at this time.  http://mvpconservancy.org/history/   Baltimore celebrated the rededication of its most recognizable landmark, the Washington Monument on July 4th, 2015.  The nation's first monument to George Washington was closed to visitors in 2010, when it was deemed structurally unsound.  http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2015/07/02/designing-the-washington-monument/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1364  October 16, 2015  On this date in 1909, William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz held a summit, a first between a U.S. and a Mexican president, and they only narrowly escaped assassination.  On this date in 1916, in Brooklyn, New York, Margaret Sanger opened the first family planning clinic in the United States.  On this date in 1923, The Walt Disney Company was founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.

On September 29, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 at a White House Rose Garden ceremony, attended by scholars, artists, educators, political leaders, and other luminaries.  (Read a history of how NEH got its start ).  The law created the National Endowment for the Humanities as an independent federal agency, the first grand public investment in American culture.  It identified the need for a national cultural agency that would preserve America’s rich history and cultural heritage, and encourage and support scholarship and innovation in history, archeology, philosophy, literature, and other humanities disciplines.  In the five decades since, NEH has made more than 63,000 grants totaling $5.3 billion, including leveraging an additional $2.5 billion in matching grants to bring the best humanities research, public programs, education, and preservation projects to the American people.  Examples of NEH impact include funding that has led to the discovery of a lost Jamestown settlement fort, brought the scholarship of famed linguist Deborah Tannen to a broader audience, created the first museum exhibit of the King Tut, preserved the papers of ten presidents including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, invested in the career of then relatively unknown documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, and thousands of other examples.  “For the past 50 years the National Endowment for the Humanities has helped create and sustain the nation’s cultural capital,” said NEH Chairman William Adams.  “NEH grants have enabled libraries and museums to preserve and develop their collections. NEH grants have allowed historic sites to broaden their public programs.  Our grants have funded exhibitions across the country that give Americans access to history and culture in their towns and cities.  Our grants have sparked additional investment that has expanded the ability of cultural organizations to serve the public.  The immense growth in this cultural infrastructure would not have been possible without NEH leadership and public investment in the humanities to support America’s cultural legacy.”  (Read reflections from Chairman William Adams on NEH’s 50^th anniversary.)  http://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2015-09-28  See a long list of celebratory events including Pennsylvania German Music, Dance and Instruments and Walt Disney on American Experience at http://www.neh.gov/events

Students Recreate Historic Buildings With 3D Printers by Steve Zind   Since October 2014, about 20 Vermont schools have been competing in a first-of-its-kind project that combines high tech 3D printing and old fashioned local history.  The teams of students gathered at Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center to show their work.  A big white rectangle that covered the floor represented the state of Vermont.  Marked on it were various towns, and on each town stood small buildings ranging from the size of a matchbox to a breadbox.  Each was a replica of a historic structure in the town and each was created using a 3D printer.  The buildings are the culmination of months of work that started with learning the history of the buildings.  “It’s authentic historical research.  It’s more of what a historian would do rather than a history student,” says Hartford High School teacher Mike Hathorn.  He got the idea for the competition among the state’s middle and high schools after learning of a similar college event.  Hathorn trained teachers from around the state to work with teams of students at their schools.  The first step was choosing which buildings to study.  Then came researching their histories and studying their architecture.  They then used 3D modeling software to create a virtual replica of the buildings and after that, came the process of turning the virtual model into a real one using a 3D printer to create a three dimensional scale replica.  Read more and see pictures at http://digital.vpr.net/post/students-recreate-historic-buildings-3d-printers#stream/0

5 Lessons Library Websites Can Learn from Buzzfeed by Christina Manzo   Since its 2006 launch, Buzzfeed has become an Internet institution by recognizing and capitalizing on the insatiable life-cycle of viral media.  The idea behind the website is relatively simple:  bring together trending content from around the web and organize it into a format that is short and eye-catching.  The venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz estimates the net worth of Buzzfeed Inc. at around $850 million.  And according to analytics website QuantCast, the site saw 146 million visitsin May 2015 alone (accounting for both unique online and mobile visits).  For contrast, the Library of Congress—the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States—drew in about 1.1 million visits in the same period.  Buzzfeed’s business model relies on shareability, something it has in common with today’s library, which is why library website designers have the opportunity to learn from Buzzfeed’s overwhelming success.  

Find the top lessons library website designers can learn from Buzzfeed at

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/w/weave/12535642.0001.302?view=text;rgn=main

                  

A malapropism is the misuse of similar sounding words, especially with humorous results.  The word malapropos is an adjective or adverb meaning "inappropriate" or "inappropriately", derived from the French phrase mal à propos(literally "ill-suited").  The earliest English usage of the word cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1630.  Malaprop used in the linguistic sense was first used by Lord Byron in 1814 according to the OED.  The terms malapropism and the earlier variant malaprop come from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals, and in particular the character Mrs. Malaprop.  Sheridan presumably named his character Mrs. Malaprop, who frequently misspoke (to great comic effect), in joking reference to the word malapropos.  The alternative term "Dogberryism" comes from the 1598 Shakespearean play Much Ado About Nothing, in which the character Dogberry produces many malapropisms with humorous effect.  Find examples of malapropism at http://dictionary.sensagent.com/Malapropism/en-en/

On 10 December 2014, the Capital Times published an article titled "The Political Pitfalls of Cultural Crossover:  Scott Walker Edition" regarding the contents of a letter purportedly sent by Wisconsin governor Scott Walker to a Jewish constituent on the matter of including a menorah in holiday decor.  The article claimed Walker awkwardly signed off by saying "molotov" when he presumably meant "mazel tov," a Hebrew expression of good wishes:  In an undated letter unearthed by the liberal group One Wisconsin Now during the August release of documents from the first of two John Doe investigations related to the governor, Walker responded to a letter from Milwaukee attorney and chairman of the Wisconsin Center District Franklyn Gimbel.  Walker told Gimbel his office would be happy to display a menorah celebrating "The Eight Days of Chanukah" at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, and asked Gimbel to have a representative from Lubavitch of Wisconsin contact Walker's secretary, Dorothy Moore, to set it up.  The letter is signed, "Thank you again and Molotov."   Although somewhat phonetically similar, the two terms have vastly different meanings: "Mazel tov" is a common phrase denoting benevolent intent, whereas "molotov" is most often paired with "cocktail" to describe an improvised explosive device (so named as an insulting reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov).  The latter was undated, and Walker's best guess was it was sent in 2003 or thereabouts.  Neither Walker nor the letter's recipient (Gimbel) recognized the missive when asked about the claim, and the governor surmised if the mistake had occurred, it was due to a typo rather than a lack of understanding about the difference between the two terms.  Additionally, a Milwaukee paper reported its attempt to duplicate a correction of a misspelled "mazel tov" in Microsoft Word led to replacement with the word "molotov":  Microsoft Word doesn't have an automatic correction function.  But if you type mozoltov — a phonetic spelling of mazel tov—Microsoft will suggest "molotov" as an alternative spelling.   Gimbel said he doesn't remember reading Walker's entire letter.  He said he probably saw that Walker had accepted his menorah suggestion and stopped there.  Had he seen the use of the phrase "molotov," Gimbel said he almost certainly would have called to point out the mistake.  "That's pretty basic," Gimbel said.  Even if the letter as published is entirely accurate, it's possible the error was made by a staffer and was not a misstep by Walker himself.  In any event, it's likely Walker is aware of the difference between "mazel tov" and "molotov," and (if true) the error was one born of a finger slip and not ignorance.  http://www.snopes.com/politics/politicians/molotov.asp

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1363  October 15, 2015  On this date in 1066, Edgar the Ætheling was proclaimed King of England, but never crowned.  He reigned until 10 December 1066.  On this date in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII implemented the Gregorian calendar.  In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year was followed directly by October 15.  Word of the Day:  belly-timber  noun  (archaic, now only humorous or regional)  Food, provender.