The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and resting place of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953), located on U.S. Highway 24 in Independence, Missouri.  It was the first presidential library to be created under the provisions of the 1955 Presidential Libraries Act, and is one of thirteen presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration(NARA).  Built on a hill overlooking the Kansas City skyline, on land donated by the City of Independence, the Truman Library was dedicated July 6, 1957.  Here, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare Act on July 30, 1965.  On December 11, 2006, Kofi Annan gave his final speech as Secretary-General of the United Nations at the library, where he encouraged the United States to return to the multilateralist policies of Truman.  Truman actively participated in the day-to-day operation of the Library, personally training museum docents and conducting impromptu "press conferences" for visiting school students.  He frequently arrived before the staff and would often answer the phone to give directions and answer questions, telling surprised callers that he was the "man himself."  When Truman left the White House in 1953, he established an office in Room 1107 of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City at 925 Grand Avenue.  When the library opened in 1957, he transferred his office to the facility and often worked there five or six days a week.   In the office, he wrote articles, letters, and his book Mr. Citizen.  In 2007, the Truman Library Institute announced a $1.6 million preservation and restoration of his working office to preserve the artifacts it contains and allow for easier public viewing.  The three-stage project completed in 2009 and features an enclosed limestone pavilion for better access and viewing and an updated climate control system.  The office appears today just as it did when Harry Truman died on December 26, 1972.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman_Presidential_Library_and_Museum  See also https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/visit/truman.html

Aristotle called them "stars with hair.”   Before the telescope was invented, people didn't know what to make of comets.  Early astronomers said they were rogue planets, or the exhalations of gas from the Earth . . .   *  Every winter you can see Orion chasing the seven daughters of Atlas, the beautiful Pleiades, across the sky.  *  Science reveals the beautiful order hidden within the natural world  *  Stuck here on our tiny blue-and-white planet, it's enough to be human  *  The Night of the Comet, a novel by George Bishop

George Bishop, Jr. graduated with degrees in English Literature and Communications from Loyola University in New Orleans before moving to Los Angeles to become an actor.  After eight years of commercials, stage plays, guest starring roles in TV sitcoms, and the lead in a B-movie called Teen Vamp, he traveled overseas as a volunteer English teacher to the newly independent Czechoslovakia.  He enjoyed the ex-pat life so much that he stayed on, living and teaching in Turkey and Indonesia before returning to the States to earn his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, where he studied under Clyde Edgerton, Wendy Brenner, and Rebecca Lee.  After several years teaching at UNCW, he moved back overseas, first on a fellowship with the Open Society Institute in Azerbaijan, then with the US State Department’s Office of English Language Programs in India.  http://www.rusoffagency.com/authors/bishop_g/george_bishop.htm

One of the most familiar comets, Halley's comet, played a prominent role in history because of its large nucleus and therefore great brightness and longevity.  In 1066 when King Harold was overthrown by William the Conquerer at the Battle of Hastings, the cause of the event seems to have been pegged on a celestial visitor.  In 1456, on a return passage, Halley's comet was excommunicated as an agent of the devil by Pope Calixtus III, but it didn't do any good--the comet has continued to return.  According to Chambers, G. F. (1909), The Story of the Comets. Simply Told for General Readers, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, there are only a handful of comets which may be considered to be "remarkable".  Find a list of these 32 comets in the past 1000 years at http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~meech/education/psr/History.html  These remarkable comets are noteworthy for their extended visibility (including daytime visibility), and their exceptional brightness and spectacular features, which included reddish colors, multiple tails, jets and haloes. 

“Frankie and Johnny” is a traditional American murder ballad, but you might not know it was based on a true story.  The early versions of the song were called “Frankie and Allen” or “Frankie and Albert.”  According to eyewitness testimony in a lawsuit decades later, a St. Louis songwriter named Bill Dooley was performing the song “Frankie Killed Allen” just weeks after the shooting.  The song first appeared in sheet musicin 1904 under the name "He Done Me Wrong,” credited to Hughie Cannon.  That version had the same tune but different lyrics from the Dooley version.  Frank and Bert Leighton published the same tune, this time named “Frankie and Johnny,” in 1912, with "Albert" changed to "Johnny" because it flowed better.  Likewise, Alice Pryor’s name was changed to Nelly Bly.  Nellie Bly was a well-known journalist in New York whose only connection to the case was that her name was easy to rhyme.  Over 250 versions of “Frankie and Johnny” have been recorded, with widely varying lyrics.  In some, Frankie ends up being executed for her crime.  In a few, Johnny (or Allen, or Albert) survives the shooting.  Read more and link to video featuring Elvis Presley at http://mentalfloss.com/article/78308/story-behind-frankie-and-johnny

Bucky and Bunny by Martha Esbin (sung to tune used for Frankie and Johnny)

Bucky and Bunny are Buckeyes, born in the Buckeye State  

Uprooted and transplanted and forced to emigrate to Michigan . . . to Michigan

Bunny succumbed as an infant, Lordy how it does hurt  

Bucky survives and Bucky thrives in the dirt of Michigan . . . of Michigan  

(written when two tiny twigs with buckeyes still attached were pulled from a lawn in Toledo, Ohio, swaddled in damp paper towels, driven over five hours to the north,  and then planted in Traverse City, Michigan) 

Ohio Buckeye  Aesculus glabra  The name "Buckeye" presumably comes from local usage in the early days of settlement of Ohio.  An early botanist found it on the banks of the Ohio River, and added "Ohio" to the common name in order to distinguish this species from the related Yellow Buckeye.  The seeds are presumed to be poisonous to humans, but are eaten by squirrels.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/buckeye_ohio/buckeye_ohio.html

Panera Bread is buying the cafe restaurant chain that its CEO Ron Shaich co-founded more than three and half decades ago.  Both chains are fast-casual chains known for their sandwiches, salads, soups and pastries.  Au Bon Pain currently has 304 locations worldwide, including many in hospitals, universities, transportation hubs and urban office buildings.  The acquisition will enable Panera, a chain that promotes its healthy offerings, to catapult into new types of retail environments, it announced November 8, 2017.  “With the acquisition we are announcing today, we are bringing Au Bon Pain and Panera together again," Shaich said in a statement.  St. Louis-based Panera didn't disclose the terms of the deal. which is expected to close during the fourth quarter.  The Au Bon Pain news came half an hour before Shaich announced that he's stepping down step down as CEO effective January 1, 2018 but will remain chairman of Panera’s board of directors.  He said he'll continue to work on strategy, communications and acquisitions for Panera, plus focus on his personal investments and initiatives for JAB, which acquired Panera in July.  Replacing Shaich as CEO is Blaine Hurst, Panera’s president who joined the company in January 2011 after a stint as president at Papa John’s.  Zlati Meyer  https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/11/08/panera-bread-buying-au-bon-pain-deal-reunites-them/845067001/

The California chapter of the NAACP has called “The Star-Spangled Banner” a “racist” and “anti-black” song, and says it will call on Congress to remove it as the national anthem, The Sacramento Bee reported.  At issue is a portion of the third verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—which is rarely sung beyond its first verse at major sporting events—that reads:  “No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.”  “It’s racist; it doesn’t represent our community, it’s anti-black,” Alice Huffman, the organization’s president, told KOVR-TV in Sacramento.  “This song is wrong; it shouldn’t have been there, we didn’t have it ’til 1931, so it won’t kill us if it goes away.”  Luis Gomez  http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-california-naacp-urges-congress-to-change-national-anthem-20171108-htmlstory.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1797  November 10, 2017  On this date in 1983,  Bill Gates introduced Windows 1.0.  On this date in 1989, Germans began to tear down the Berlin Wall.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_10  Thought for Today  Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except the best. - Henry van Dyke, poet (10 Nov 1852-1933)

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

attic salt  (AT-ik salt)  noun  Refined, delicate wit.  Also known as attic wit.  [From Attic (of Greece or of Athens, after Attica, a region in southeast Greece surrounding Athens) + salt (wit).] 

wegotism  (WEE-guh-tiz-uhm)  noun  The habit of using “we” when referring to oneself.  A blend of we + egotism.  Earliest documented use:  1797.  Also see nosism, royal we, and illeist.

freemium  (FREE-mi-uhm)  noun  A pricing model in which the basic product or service is free, but extra features must be paid for.  adjective  Relating to such a model.  A blend of free + premium.  Earliest documented use:  1994.

slacktivism   (SLAK-tuh-viz-uhm)  noun  Activism that requires minimal effort.  A blend of slack + activism.  Earliest documented use:  1995.

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From:  Richard Plattner  Subject:  wegotism  Another variant is the “irresponsible we”.  Like when I tell my wife we need to get something done, and what I really mean is I want her to do it.  You won’t be surprised to learn that it was my wife who coined the phrase.
From:  Chris Witham  Subject:  slacktivism  The original meaning of “slacktivism” was positive. “Slacktivism” was the title of a seminar series Dwight Ozard and Fred Clark gave at Cornerstone Festival in 1995.  Fred Clark describes the seminar series and the meaning behind the word thus:  We chose the theme of “slacker activism” (which Dwight shortened, despite my objection that it sounded gimmicky) as a way of confronting the use of “slacker” as an epithet by Baby Boomers who had heard of, but not seen, the activity of those who don’t necessarily show up to marches (and thus are derided as slackers) but do act to make things better (thus activism) in small but measurable ways (such as planting trees) is always at the core of his description of what he and his colleague had in mind when talking about “slacker activism”, and therefore what Dwight Ozard meant when he coined the term “slacktivism”.  Obviously, very few people (mostly readers of Fred Clark) use the word as originally intended by Dwight Ozard, but I’m always interested in the original meanings of words, even if those meanings have long since become obsolete, and I’m sure others are too.

SweeTango (brand name) or 'Minneiska' is a cultivar (cultivated variety) of apple (Malus domestica) developed by the University of Minnesota in 2000 and first sold in the US in 2009.  It is a hybrid of two other apples varieties the university developed: the popular 'Honeycrisp' (the “mother”) and the early-ripening 'Minnewasheta' (brand name Zestar!, the “father” or pollinator).  The name SweeTango is a brand name of the 'Minneiska' apple, and is a registered trademark owned by the University of Minnesota.  Patent No.:  US PP18,812 P3 says it was obtained on May 13, 2008 by breeders David S. Bedford and James J. Luby.  The main feature distinguishing 'Minneiska' from other early ripening varieties known to the inventor is the longer time its fruit can be stored with little change in texture or flavor.  'Minneiska' fruit have a storage life of three to four months in refrigeration compared to one or two months for other common commercial early season varieties we have observed including 'State Fair' (not patented), 'Arends' (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 2,800), and 'Minnewashta'.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SweeTango

The difference between blackball and blacklist, as Twain said, might be the difference between lightning and lightning bug (or, if you prefer, the difference between a ham sandwich and Hamtramck).  When you use (or encounter) either word, you should understand what it means.  Historically, a blacklist is a list of individuals, organizations, or even entire countries that some entity finds undesirable, for whatever reason.  It might be due to a legitimate concern:  a blacklist of known criminals, for instance, or of countries with an unacceptable level of government corruption.  But blacklists are just as often used for discrimination on social or ideological grounds.  It is necessary to note that a blacklist does not have to physically exist for someone to be blacklisted:  the entire process can be informal, occurring only by word of mouth, or by wink and nod, or by tacit complicity.  It’s a matter of intent and outcome.  The concept of a blacklist is probably as old as human society itself; as a specific phrase in English, the OED dates it as far back as 1624 as a noun (with variable shades of meaning) and 1837 as a verb.  This is different from being blackballed.  The term blackball comes from a process by which any existing member of a group has the power to prevent a new member from joining.  This is not a “the majority rules” process, but a veto power:  in a club of 100, if only one existing member blackballs a potential member, that candidate will be rejected.  (In practice, organizations that use a blackball method usually require at least two black balls, but the principle is the same.)  OED offers examples of blackball (in the correct context) as a noun back to 1550 and a verb to 1765.  Christopher Daly  https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2017/10/27/blacklist-vs-blackball/

Today we apply “charlatan” to any kind of con artist or “pitchman.”  The original meaning of “charlatan,” when the term first appeared in English in the 17th century, was a patent medicine salesman, an itinerant seller of useless potions, liniments and cures.  We also called such smooth-talking hucksters “quacksalvers” (from the “quacking” sound of their patter as they pushed their phony “salves”), a term eventually shortened to “quack.”  An even older term for the species, “mountebank,” comes from the Italian “monta in banco,” literally “to climb up on the bench,” referring to the elevated platform from which the “quack” usually made his sales pitch.  “Mountebank” and “quack” are both also used today in the more general senses of “con artist” and “fraud.”  The roots of “charlatan” are, perhaps fittingly, a bit obscure.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is derived from the Italian “ciarlatano,” meaning “babbler,” thought to be from “ciarla,” to prattle or chat, a word possibly formed in imitation of the sound of someone babbling.  Etymologist Hugh Rawson, however, identifies “ciarlatano” as a mutation of “cerretano,” a seller of phony Papal indulgences, taken from the name of the Italian village of Cerretto, which supposedly produced many such con artists.  http://www.word-detective.com/2008/04/charlatan/

The new charalatans include sock puppets and trolls.  See https://fordhamcyberculture.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/sockpuppeting-the-ethics-and-who-does-it-harm/

"Where there is a will, there is a way."  The phrase dates back to 1640--George Herbert's "Jacula Prudentusm."  "To him that will, ways are not wanting."  The modern version, "Where there is a will, there is a way." appeared in "New Monthly Magazine" in 1822.  "Wise Words and Wives' Tales:  The Origins, Meanings and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk Sayings Olde and New" by Stuart Flexner and Doris Flexner (Avon Books, New York, 1993).

https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/57/messages/854.html

On November 8, 1830, an 11-year old piano virtuoso named Clara Wieck took the stage of the Leipzig Gewandhaus for her first solo recital.  Her father was a piano teacher, who had groomed Clara for a solo career since infancy.  Little Clara wrote original works for her own use.  Clara’s Op. 1, a set of four Polonaises, was published the following year.  In 1840, over her father’s strenuous objections, Clara eventually married composer Robert Schumann, a handsome young man who had moved into the Wieck household as a boarder just a month before Clara’s 1830 Leipzig debut.  Clara’s own career as a composer and  performer would eventually span five decades, and, like her father, she became one of the most famous piano teachers of her time.  Composers Datebook

THE PARADISE PAPERS   An international media investigation into 13.4 million documents accessed by German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, has brought into focus Appleby, a Bermuda-headqaurtered firm into focus.  According to the company website, the firm has about 470 staff.  These include 60 partners.  However, there are only 10 offices globally and the locations include Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Hong Kong and Shanghai.  It claims to be one of the top offshore law firms.  "The Group advises public and private companies, financial institutions, and high net worth individuals, working with these clients and their advisers to achieve practical solutions, whether in a single location or across multiple jurisdictions," the company's website says.  However, the Indian Express investigation has revealed that the company helps the rich and wealthy to avoid taxes, hide names and even supply directors for shell companies.  http://www.firstpost.com/business/paradise-papers-appleby-the-offshore-legal-advice-and-services-firm-thats-at-the-centre-of-the-media-probe-4195639.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1796  November 8, 2017  On this date in 1602, the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford was opened to the public.  On this date in 1895, while experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the X-ray.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_8  Thought For Today  Your voice dries up if you don't use it. - Patti Page, singer (8 Nov 1927-2013)

The word confit (pronounced "kon-FEE") derives from the French verb confire, which simply means to preserve.  Traditionally, confit simply refers to any sort of preserved food, whether it's meat, fruit, or vegetables.  This preservation takes place by slowly cooking food in a liquid that is inhospitable to bacterial growth.  With fruits, this is generally a very concentrated sugar syrup; with meats and vegetables, a pure fat.  Once cooked, the food is then packed into containers and completely submerged in the liquid, creating an impenetrable barrier and preventing any further bacterial growth.  Since the just-cooked food is nearly sterile as it is submerged and is cut off from any potential bacterial contamination sources, it can be stored for a very long time.  One common misperception many folks have about confit is that it is necessarily a fatty food.  That food is submerged in fat for hours, so that fat must make its way inside, right?  Not so.  Indeed, the fat is largely a surface treatment for muscles.  While it is true that it may find its way between the larger muscle groups and will cover the entire piece of meat in a thin layer of fat, it will not penetrate very far into the meat itself.  This is easy to see simply by cutting open a large muscle group and examining the inside.  It looks virtually the same as meat cooked through any other low-and-slow method, such as braising or steaming.  The fat's true purpose in a confit is twofold:  temperature regulation, and creating an environment inhospitable to bacterial growth if preservation is the goal.  http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/01/ask-the-food-lab-what-the-heck-is-confit.html

"Well, that's just the way it is!"  "Because I said so!"  There is no good reply to such statements.  In a time of disagreements, we need less pontificating and few claims of "my way or no way."  Allow questions and conversations.  Don E. Saliers  The American Organist Magazine  November 2017 

October 24, 2017  200 universities just launched 560 free online courses.  Here’s the full list from Dhawal Shah at https://medium.freecodecamp.org/200-universities-just-launched-560-free-online-courses-heres-the-full-list-d9dd13600b04

"dressed to the nines"  One theory is that it comes from the name of the 99th Wiltshire Regiment, known as the Nines, which was renowned for its smart appearance.  There are a couple of problems with this suggestion, though.  To begin with, the regiment's sartorial reputation seems to have dated from the 1850s, while the first recorded use of the phrase is from 1837.  Secondly, dressed to the nines  developed as an extension of the much earlier phrase to the nines, meaning 'to perfection, to the greatest degree':  the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary's first example of this earlier form dates back to 1719.  Why it should have been to the nines rather than to the eights, to the sevens, etc. remains unclear.  https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/origin-of-dressed-to-the-nines  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_nines

You’ve long been able to get localized search results by visiting Google at different domains—like google.com for the US, google.co.uk for England, or google.co.jp for Japan—but that is not the case any more after October 27, 2017.  Google said that it’ll now deliver search results relevant to your current location no matter which domain you visit.  So if you’re in New York and visit google.ru, you’ll still get results relevant to New York City.  Fortunately, it’ll still be possible to escape your country’s results.  You’ll be able to change locations, you’ll just have to do it through the settings menu at the bottom of google.com (which I’m willing to bet you’ve never noticed before because it’s hidden in the corner on the desktop and requires you to scroll down on mobile; I didn’t know it existed before today).  By going to settings and then “search settings,” you’ll be able to pick a new location.  Google says it’s making the change because one out of five searches “is related to location,” and the company feels it’s critical to offer local information to provide the best results.  The feature seems to be tailored most toward travelers:  Google says that if you visit another country, it’ll automatically serve results local to where you’re visiting, then switch back again as soon as you arrive home.  Jacob Kastrenakes 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/27/16561848/google-search-always-local-results-ignores-domain

Elephants can communicate using very low frequency sounds, with pitches below the range of human hearing.  These low-frequency sounds, termed "infrasounds," can travel several kilometers, and provide elephants with a "private" communication channel that plays an important role in elephants' complex social life.  Their frequencies are as low as the lowest notes of a pipe organ.  Although the sounds themselves have been studied for many years, it has remained unclear exactly how elephant infrasounds are made.  One possibility, favored by some scientists, is that the elephants tense and relax the muscles in their larynx (or "voice box") for each pulse of sound.  This mechanism, similar to cats purring, can produce sounds as low in pitch as desired, but the sounds produced are generally not very powerful.  The other possibility is that elephant infrasounds are produced like human speech or singing, but because the elephant larynx is so large, they are extremely low in frequency.  Human humming is produced by vibrations of the vocal folds (also called "vocal cords"), which are set into vibration by a stream of air from the lungs, and don't require periodic muscle activity.  By this hypothesis, elephant infrasounds result simply from very long vocal folds slapping together at a low rate, and don't require any periodic tensing of the laryngeal muscles.  To find out, researchers at the University of Vienna, led by voice scientist Christian Herbst and elephant communication expert Angela Stoeger, removed the larynx from an elephant (which died of natural causes), and brought it into the larynx laboratory of the Department of Cognitive Biology (headed by Tecumseh Fitch).  By blowing a controlled stream of warm, humid air through the larynx (substituting for the elephants lungs), and manually placing the vocal folds into the "vocal" position, the scientists coaxed the vocal folds into periodic, low-frequency vibrations that match infrasounds in all details.  Since there can be no periodic tensing and relaxing of vocal fold muscles without a connection to the elephant's brain, low-frequency vibrations in the excised larynx clearly demonstrate that the "purring" mechanism is unnecessary to explain infrasounds.  Thus, elephants "sing" using the same physical principles as we do, but their immense larynx produces very low notes.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120803103421.htm  Mystery of Elephant Infrasounds Revealed - Animal Super Senses - BBC  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQfDazQ9Rkg  3:25

John F. Kennedy was killed on November 22, 1963.  Almost 30 years later, Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.  The Act mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  The resulting Collection consists of more than 5 million pages of assassination-related records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts.   https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk  The National Archives is releasing documents previously withheld in accordance with the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.  The vast majority of the Collection (88%) has been open in full and released to the public since the late 1990s.  The records at issue are documents previously identified as assassination records, but withheld in full or withheld in part.  These releases include FBI, CIA, and other agency documents (both formerly withheld in part and formerly withheld in full) identified by the Assassination Records Review Board as assassination records.  The releases to date are as follows:  July 24, 2017:  3,810 documents; October 26, 2017:  2,891 documents;  November 3, 2017:  676 documents.  To view or download a released file, follow the link in the “"Doc Date” column.  You can also download the full spreadsheet with metadata about all the documents.  The files are sorted by NARA Release Date, with the most recent files appearing first.  https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/2017-release

Hear a Newly Found Kurt Weill Song That Surprised Experts by Joshua Barone   A previously unknown song by Kurt Weill, the composer best known for “The Threepenny Opera,” has been discovered in Berlin and taken some of the world’s pre-eminent Weill experts by total surprise.  The piece, “Lied vom weissen Käse” (“Song of the White Cheese”)—which was written for a Weimar-era musical revue and sung by the actress Lotte Lenya, Weill’s wife—was recently found in an archive unrelated to Weill at the Free University of Berlin and is the most significant discovery of the composer’s music since the early 1980s.   “It is stupefying in a way, because we are all so familiar with the catalog,” said Elmar Juchem, managing editor of the critical edition of Weill’s scores, who found the three-page manuscript for the song. “This was put to rest and was really on nobody’s mind.”  Weill discoveries like this are extremely rare, though not unheard-of.  The composer fled Germany in 1933 under threat of Nazi persecution, and many of his letters and manuscripts were either hidden or destroyed.  The last major Weill discovery came in 1983, when his sister-in-law unearthed a trove of unknown early pieces, said Kim Kowalke, president of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music in New York.  Mr. Juchem said that he was recently researching “Happy End” (1929), Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s follow-up to “The Threepenny Opera,” at the university in Berlin when he asked the archivist whether there was anything else related to Weill in the collection.  He was eventually shown the manuscript, which came from the obscure actress Gerda Schaefer at the Volksbühne theater.  Mr. Juchem said he didn’t believe the archivist at first, but when he saw the handwriting, “My jaw dropped.”   Then the search for the song’s origin began.  Lenya had mentioned the song before, but under a different title, “Song of the Blind Maiden.”  In the 1960s, she attempted to find the song but came up empty.  “Nowhere to be found,” she said at the time.  “Probably buried in some basement.”  Weill scholars thought the song Lenya remembered was written for “Das Lied von Hoboken,” a German translation of the American play “Hoboken Blues” that starred Lenya at the Volksbühne in 1930.  But, Mr. Juchem said, the lyric by Günther Weisenborn didn’t quite fit in the context of the play.  It was in newspapers that Mr. Juchem eventually found the origin of “Song of the White Cheese,” which Weill wrote for a politically charged revue to benefit actors who had been laid off from the Volksbühne in November 1931.  (Other artists who participated included Brecht and the composer Hanns Eisler.)  Read more, see graphics, and link to music video at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/arts/music/kurt-weill-song-of-the-white-cheese-discovered.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1795  November 7, 2017  On this date in 1893, women in the state of Colorado were granted the right to vote, the second state to do so.  On this date in 1916,  Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to the United States Congress.

For the ancient Romans and some other European cultures, the owl represented wisdom and protection from evil spirits.  In Japan, they are thought to ward off famine and in central Asia, owl feathers are thought to protect children and livestock from evil.  However, in Russian and Slavic traditions, owls are believed to be the harbinger of death and most African and Indian cultures have taboos against owls.  Indigenous tribes in North America vary in their beliefs.  Some view owls as positive totems while others share in the belief of owls as bad luck and thieves of newly departed spirits.  Many traditions are rooted in the physical characteristics and habits of these animals.  Most owls are nocturnal and have great ability to see in very low light.  This was a wonderment in ancient times.  Before electricity, many cultures were very fearful about darkness and spirits.  They believed that any animal that could live and navigate at night surely must be evil.  Others thought that owls had abilities see past the blanket of dark magic, thus making them good and wise.  In truth, owls do have amazing night vision.  The one drawback to such huge eyes is that there is no room in the skull for them to move, so bony plates surround them.  That’s why an owl has to be able to turn its head so far--it cannot move its eyes!  Kim Calcagno  http://kidoinfo.com/the-wise-old-owl-fact-versus-fiction-whoo-knows-the-truth/

"A Wise Old Owl" is an English language nursery rhyme.  It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7734 and in The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, 2nd Ed. of 1997, as number 394.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wise_Old_Owl

For thousands of years, from Ancient Greek legend to modern literature and TV, humans have portrayed owls as sage and wise.  The wise owl appears in everything from The Iliad to Winnie the Pooh.  But, it turns out, though they’re excellent hunters, owls probably aren’t any smarter than a lot of other birds.  In fact, they may be significantly worse at problem solving than other big-brained birds like crows and parrots.  One study found that great grey owls repeatedly failed a simple cognitive test—pulling a string to get a treat—that had been successfully solved by several other bird species.  While many cultures feature owls in their mythology, not all societies see owls as wise.  In India, for instance, owls are associated with ill-gained wealth and foolishness rather than wisdom.  The pervasive myth of the wise owl, meanwhile, likely originated with legends of the Ancient Greek goddess Athena.  The goddess of wisdom, Athena was often portrayed in art holding an owl, or described in literary works as “owl-eyed” or even “owl-faced.”  Anna Green  http://mentalfloss.com/article/69941/are-owls-actually-wise

glossology   noun  The science of language; linguistics.  (botany) The naming of parts of plants.

(chiefly lexicography)  The definition and explanation of terms in constructing a glossary. 

(medicine)  The diagnosis of disease by examination of the tongue.  Wiktionary

Per aspera ad astra (or, less commonly, ad astra per aspera) is a popular Latin phrase meaning "through hardships to the stars".  The phrase is one of the many Latin sayings that use the expression ad astra, meaning "to the stars".  See uses in music, literature, government and institutions at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_aspera_ad_astra

The new 429-page tax proposal has mentioned exactly one person by name--NBA star Stephen Curry, and he isn't exactly sure why.  The quote in question is used to clarify some tax speak:  "The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act includes specific safeguards to prevent tax avoidance and help ensure taxpayers of all income levels play by the rules under this new fairer, simpler tax system.  Our legislation will ensure this much-needed tax relief goes to the local job creators it's designed to help by distinguishing between the individual wage income of NBA All-Star Stephen Curry and the pass-through business income of Steve's Bike Shop."  The great thing about this passage is that it's written in a way that implies it will only be creating a distinction between Curry and "Steve."  Kevin Skiver  https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/warriors-stephen-curry-gets-mentioned-in-republican-tax-proposal-has-no-idea-why/

When asked how she became a custodian of the lore and traditions of childhood, Iona Opie, who died aged 94 on October 23, 2017, told a bedtime story.  The publishing company that employed her husband, Peter, was exiled by the London blitz to Bedfordshire in 1943, and there the couple walked by a field of corn.  Iona, who was pregnant, picked up a bug and recited “Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home / Your house is on fire and your children all gone.”  It flew and they were “left wondering about this rhyme–what did it mean?  Where did it come from?  Who wrote it?”  No index in the public library could direct them, so from scratch they started researching nursery rhymes.  Iona claimed the rhymes were uniquely British:  “All part of being frightfully tough and not minding the weather; we’re nourished with nonsense and it does us a lot of good”.  The Opies collected, codified and published that nonsense.  Iona had learned to study while young, as a silent child who read locked in a loo in the family house in Colchester, Essex.  During the second world war, she made meteorological maps in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.  Off duty, she read I Want To Be a Success, a popular 1939 publication written by, and very much about, an old Etonian, Peter Opie, another peruser of reference books.  She sent him a letter; the correspondence became a romance, an elopement, and in 1943 a marriage. Since they had no academic background, the Opies did not know they lacked proper qualifications, or how to publish within academic conventions; the keeper of western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, discovered them collecting riddles, and recommended them to the Oxford University Press.  The couple’s inquiries were exhaustive and exhausting.  Peter did the writing; Iona, whom he called “old mother shuffle paper”, did the research.  They worked three shifts daily in separate rooms, communicating by note in work hours–no social life, no money, picking nettles in the park to eat in lieu of greens.  Their first publication was I Saw Esau (1947), a slim precursor of the wide spines of The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951) and The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book (1955).  “It took 50 generations to make up Mother Goose,” Iona said.  “Nursery rhymes are the smallest great poems of the world’s literature.”  The Opies wanted to do fieldwork among the juvenile tribes of Britain, about whom anthropologists knew nothing; they ignored claims that traditions were dead and recruited helpers to question children in 70 schools.  The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959) revealed a complex, secret society with its “own code of oral legislation for testing, betting, swapping, keeping secrets”.  Tail Feathers From Mother Goose (1988) and Here Comes Mother Goose (1999) were meant to transmit tradition to children who no longer learned it from peers or grandmas. Iona overcame a fear that printing would dispel the spell:  “The world of childhood is too independent, too large, and too vital to be affected by any book.”  Iona changed direction temporarily with A Dictionary of Superstitions (1989), but never lost faith with children:  “I have a way of life that comes from the children, I’m going to go on playing until I expire.”  The encyclopedic by-product of this vow was Children’s Games With Things (1997).  Veronica Horwell  Read more at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/25/iona-opie-obituary

The American composer Florence Price wrote three symphonies in all.  Her first symphony was premiered by The Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933, and marked the first time a composition by an African-American woman was played by a major American orchestra.  Her third symphony, commissioned by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Music Project shortly thereafter, was premiered on November 6, 1940 by the Detroit Civic Orchestra.  The score for her second symphony is lost.  Florence Price was born in 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three children in a mixed-race family.  Her mother was a music teacher who guided Florence's early musical training.  At age 14, she had graduated from high school at the top of her class and enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music, where she pretended to be Mexican to avoid the Ivy League racial prejudice of that time.  After teaching in the South, Price moved to Chicago in 1927, where she won some composition prizes and became acquainted with the writer Langston Hughes and contralto Marian Anderson, both prominent figures in the African-American arts scene, and who both helped promote her music.  Price died in 1953, and for a while her music was all but forgotten.  Early 21st century performances and recordings of her works have helped revive interest in her life and career.  Composers Datebook

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1794  November 6, 2017  On this date in 1528, shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca became the first known European to set foot in the area that would become Texas.  On this date in 1856,  Scenes of Clerical Life, the first work of fiction by the author later known as George Eliot, was submitted for publication.

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

mimsy (MIM-zee)  adjective  Prim; feeble; affected.  Coined by Lewis Carroll in 1855 in a poem he published in his periodical Mischmasch.  An extended version of this poem appeared as Jabberwocky in his novel Through the Looking-Glass in 1871.  A blend of miserable + flimsy.

scare quote  (SKAIR kwoht)  noun  The quotation marks used to indicate that the quoted word or phrase is incorrect, nonstandard, or ironic.  Coined by the philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe in 1956.  The equivalent term in spoken communication is air quotes.

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From:  Carol Bauer  Subject:  mimsy  I am the happy owner of a two-volume paperback set of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  I found it at a bouquiniste along the Seine.  It is in English and again in French on the facing page.  The French translation is a marvel of good translating comparable to the Wilbur Moliere translations in quality.  For those who know French, the translation of the nonsense vocabulary of Jabberwocky is remarkable.  I have often thought that these two works by Lewis Carroll should only be read by adults who can fully appreciate the messages and plays on words so cleverly included.  Just the same the appeal to children in undeniable.  The first movie I ever saw was Alice in Wonderland in 1932 or 1933 when I was about six years old.  I was enchanted.  I have been a film buff ever since.

From:  Marlene Mitchel  Subject:  scare quote  Always enjoy Wordsmith and often learn a new word, but today was really eye-opening.  Actually “eye-opening” because I tumbled out of bed on this cold rainy day seeking the warmth of your column and learned about scare quotes, a term I had never heard even though I was an English teacher for many years.  My students would have loved this term and the others that are related, which I discovered with a bit of research:  shudder quotes and sneer quotes.

Why Do We Quote?  The Culture and History of Quotation   In the days following the death of Osama bin Laden, a quote attributed to Martin Luther King pinged about social networking websites and into email inboxes:  "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.  Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."  While the second, third and fourth sentences were spoken by King in 1957, the first 23 words are the appended thoughts of a US schoolteacher.  In a cyberspatial game of Chinese whispers, the distinguishing marks of punctuation become detached as quickly as you can say "retweet".  In a short time, the Twitter-friendly opening line ensured that the hybrid phrase was truncated to its first sentence, King's name still affixed.  A number of journalists have since traced the alchemy and transmission of an unknown teacher's thoughts to a misdescribed memetic sensation.  Yet the pathologies failed to investigate questions that seem far more fundamental.  Why did so many feel impelled to disseminate it?  In what way did the attachment of a famous name make it more meaningful?  Ruth Finnegan's study makes a remarkable attempt at answering these types of question.  Quotation, with its bedfellows imitation and allusion, is at least as old as written civilisation.  It has enlightening things to say about the Western tradition of compiling books of quotations.  Quotation is often used to connect us with the supposed wisdom of the ancients, but humanity has always searched in the past for phrases to help understand the present.  Just as books of quotations remain popular today, Erasmus' Adages has been called the first best-seller of the printed age.  The Distichs of Cato were compiled in the 3rd or 4th century AD, and Plato has Socrates quote Homer more than 100 times.   https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/why-do-we-quote-the-culture-and-history-of-quotation/417257.article

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.  Pumpkins are part of a large family of closely related squashes that grow in profusion throughout the Western Hemisphere. The English word “pumpkin” is a modern version of “pompion,” the term broadly applied to many sorts of similar-looking pumpkins and squash. The word’s origins are Greek:  pepon means large melon.  Poem dating from the 1630s (You may substitute  "pompions" for pumpkins.): 

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.

http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/autumn09/pumpkins.cfm

STEWED POMPION (PUMPKIN) also called "Ancient New England Standing Dish"  Find recipe at http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/stewed-pompion-pumpkin-189584

For the first time since its founding in 1901, the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) will present a special exhibition of Late Roman artwork, focusing on the period from the second century B.C. to the seventh century.  The majority of the approximately 30 masterpieces--glittering gold and silver, spectacular oversize carved garnets and rubies and dazzling rings and necklaces--have never before been displayed in a museum.  Glorious Splendor:  Treasures of Early Christian Art will be on view exclusively at TMA from Nov. 18, 2017, through Feb. 18, 2018.  In A.D. 330, the Emperor Constantine consecrated Constantinople as the new capital of the Roman Empire.  Seven years later, Constantine died, and on his deathbed he was baptized.  In part, for this reason, Constantine the Great frequently has been identified as a transitional figure ushering Rome from a pagan empire into a Christian one.  The exhibition is divided into sections focusing on Continuities in Manufacture; Continuities in Iconography; Continuity in Object Types; Social Continuities: Displaying Wealth; Gems and Jewelry:  Historical Context; and Illuminating Faith.  Admission is free.

http://www.toledo.com/news/2017/10/26/eye-on-art/glorious-splendor-treasures-of-early-christian-art-opens-nov.-18/  The exhibit is located in Gallery 18. 

Very little is known about the behavioral ecology of white-cheeked gibbons.  Most information comes from the very small Chinese population and details about the Laotian and Vietnamese populations are based on anecdotal field observations.  A gibbon family is territorial and defends its territory with regular morning songs performed by the breeding male and female.  Groups have, on average, four individuals and usually include an adult male and female, one infant and one juvenile, although the group may also include one adolescent and one subadult).  There is a high degree of social and behavioral equality between adult males and females and codominance is exhibited.  Gibbons defend their territories both vocally and physically.  The primary means by which adult males and females defend their territory is by ritualized morning duets.  The morning duet occurs at dawn and is a long, loud, energetically expensive song in which the female and male sing individual notes in specific patterns. The duet lasts between 10 and 13 minutes but is longer during the rainy season and shorter during the dry season.  The song is initiated by either sex but is always ended by the adult male.  Females begin singing long notes of increasing frequency with note durations and intervals between notes continuously decreasing and reaching a climax of short barks that eventually trail off.  Males sing three different notes that include boom notes, staccato notes, and high frequency modulated notes.  During his part of the duet, a male continuously cycles through these three notes and his song is accompanied by locomotory displays including violent brachiation, branch shaking, or prancing.  Females are usually involved in call displays, both morning duets and other calls during border disputes, while adult, subadult, and adolescent males of a gibbon group physically defend their territory from intruders or full takeovers.  Link to vocalizations at http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/white-cheeked_gibbon/behav

There are American, Hungarian, French, Portuguese, African, and Scandinavian variations of the story of Stone Soup—a parable that teaches how each of us can contribute a little to the whole, which then becomes something much greater than the sum of its parts.  So many different cultures telling a similar story of neighborliness and gathering around a pot of soup is a lesson in and of itself.  Find recipe for sausage and bean soup at https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/sausage-and-bean-soup?utm_campaign=TST_WNK_20171101&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc_Newsletter&utm_content=Weeknight%20Kitchen:%20Sausage%20and%20Bean%20Soup

Word of the year from dictionary publisher Collins

2017 - Fake news:  noun meaning false, often sensational information disseminated under the guise of news reporting 

2016 - Brexit:  noun meaning "the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union".

2015 - Binge-watch:  verb meaning "to watch a large number of television programmes (especially all the shows from one series) in succession".

2014 - Photobomb:  verb meaning "spoiling a photograph by stepping in front of them as the photograph is taken, often doing something silly such as making a funny face".

2013 - Geek:  countable noun meaning "someone who is skilled with computers, and who seems more interested in them than in people".  http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41838386

The full moon on November 4, 2017, the Beaver Moon, will be bigger and brighter than usual.  November's moon is also known as the Frost Moon or Hunter's Moon.  According to the Farmer's Almanac, the Beaver moon gets its name because it came at the time of year when the early colonists and the Algonquin tribes set their beaver traps before the swamps froze.  This would ensure they had a good supply of warm winter furs.  Pam Wright  https://weather.com/science/space/news/2017-11-02-november-beaver-full-moon

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1793  November 3, 2017  On this date in 2014, One World Trade Center officially opened.  On this date in 2016, the Chicago Cubs defeated the Cleveland Indians in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series to earn their first title in 108 years--ending the then longest title drought in US sports history.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_3

Before the advent of the grain elevator, grain was usually handled in bags rather than in bulk (large quantities of loose grain).  Dart's Elevator was a major innovation.  It was invented by Joseph Dart, a merchant, and Robert Dunbar, an engineer, in 1842 and 1843, in Buffalo, New York.  Using the steam-powered flour mills of Oliver Evans as their model, they invented the marine leg, which scooped loose grain out of the hulls of ships and elevated it to the top of a marine tower.  Because of the money to be made in grain production and, of course, because of the very existence of an all-water route to get there, increasing numbers of immigrants in Brooklyn came to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to become farmers.  More farmers meant more prairies turned into farmlands, which in turn meant increased grain production, which of course meant that more grain elevators would have to be built in places like Toledo, Buffalo, and Brooklyn (and Cleveland, Chicago, and Duluth).  It was precisely through this feedback loop of productivity—set in motion by the invention of the grain elevator—that America itself became an agricultural and economic colossus on the world stage:  the planet's single largest producer of wheat, corn, oats, and rice, a distinction it claims to this day.  Buffalo's grain elevators have been documented for the Historic American Engineering Record and added to the National Register of Historic Places. Currently, Enid, Oklahoma, holds the title of most grain storage capacity in the United States.   https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Grain%20elevator  See Four Ways to Exploring Buffalo's Grain Elevators by Drew Brown at http://www.visitbuffaloniagara.com/4-ways-to-explore-buffalos-grain-elevators/

It is generally accepted that wine growing and making originate in what is now the country of Georgia.  There is archaeological evidence of wine making in the region dating back to some time around 5000 B.C.  Some 500 unique varieties are reported to grow in Georgia’s wine region--a valley between two mountain ranges and the Black Sea situated along roughly on the same lines of latitude as the most renowned wine growing regions (France, Italy, Spain and Northern California).  With a few exceptions, Georgian varieties (which have been the staple of wine for centuries) have existed in a juxtaposition of global obscurity and vast planting in the cradle of viticulture.  Georgia has been one of the countries steadily supplying its neighbors and former Soviet Bloc countries with wine for quite some time.  Georgian red wines like Saperavi or Alexandrouli are produced in a range of styles named according to length of ageing in barrel.  They are deeply colored, have slight tannins, softer acids, bigger alcohols and notable sweetness.  Just the right combination for immediate enjoyment but not the phenolic, acid or sugar content for longevity or to place them in any rubric of what is considered a great wine by the arbiters of taste--past or present.  Unexpectedly, some of these varieties have found a home in New York’s Finger Lakes region.  Arthur Z. Przebinda  http://palatepress.com/2010/09/wine/from-the-black-sea-to-the-finger-lakes-old-georgian-varieties-find-a-home-in-new-york/

Terry W. Ervin II has quietly become one of NW Ohio’s most prolific authors.  The scribe, who works most prominently in sci-fi and fantasy, grew up fascinated by the concept of worldbuilding, taking part in tabletop-gaming guilds.  After studying biology and English at BGSU, he became a teacher— first at Macomber-Whitney High School and, once it closed, he headed south to Piqua, OH to teach English at the Upper Valley Career Center.  Ervin’s been down in Piqua since 1990, but he frequently makes his way back to Toledo, stopping in at Gathering Volumes (196 E. South Boundary St., Perrysburg), where we got to chat.  He was there signing his six novels and short story collection, Genre Shotgun, but the emphasis was on his latest novel, Thunder Wells.  It’s an alien apocalyptic sci-fi tale set in Toledo with Jack Fairbanks, a former college sophomore, living in Wildwood Metropark while hiding from destructive aliens and cannibals and searching for a means to save mankind.  Jeff Klima  http://toledocitypaper.com/lit/sci-fi-author-terry-w-ervin-iis-latest-is-set-in-toledo/

The dodo, first found on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, was the size of a very large turkey.  It became extinct in 1681, because animals ate their eggs.  The name dachshund came from one of its earliest uses--hunting badgers.  In German, dachs means badger and hund is hound.  The oldest letter in the alphabet is o--first used by Egyptians in about 3000 B.C.  The newest letters are j and v.  The Book of Answers:  The New York Public Library Telephone Reference Service's Most Unusual and Entertaining Questions

Philip Pullman's Realm Of Poetry And Inspiration by Annalisa Quinn   La Belle Sauvage is the first in a new trilogy called The Book of Dust.  It's the story of how Lyra, the hero of the first three books, came to live at Oxford's Jordan College, to be raised piecemeal by scholars.  The new protagonists, Malcolm and Alice, appeared only briefly and obscurely in other parts of the story.  Pullman was inspired by sources as diverse as Edmund Spenser's poem "The Faerie Queene," his auntie Ethel, who is transmuted into a sweet nun who befriends Malcolm, and a ship captain in the novel Pandora's Galley, by Macdonald Harris.  Read extensive book review at http://www.npr.org/2017/10/19/557189779/philip-pullmans-realm-of-poetry-and-inspiration

Alphabet soup as Kazakh leader orders switch from Cyrillic to Latin letters   Kazakhstan is to change its official alphabet for the third time in less than 100 years in what is seen in part as a symbolic move to underline its independence.  President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered his office on October 26, 2017 to prepare for a switch to a Latin-based alphabet from a Cyrillic one, distancing itself, at least graphically, from Russia.  The oil-rich former Soviet republic of 18 million has close ties with Moscow, its main trading partner, but is wary of Russia’s ambitions to maintain its political influence throughout the region.  Kazakh, a Turkic language, used to be written in Arabic script until the 1920s when the Soviet Union briefly introduced a Latin alphabet.  This was later replaced by a Cyrillic one in 1940, based on the Russian alphabet.  Part of the latest switch relates to modern technology.  The Cyrillic alphabet has 42 symbols, making it cumbersome to use with digital devices--a standard Kazakh keyboard utilises almost all number keys in addition to letter and punctuation keys.  The new proposed Latin alphabet works around that by using apostrophe signs to modify letters.  The country’s official name would thus be spelled as Qazaqstan Respy’blikasy.  According to a statement published by Nazarbayev’s office, he has ordered his chief of staff to draft an executive order introducing the new alphabet.  The switch will be gradual, it said.  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/26/kazakhstan-switch-official-alphabet-cyrillic-latin

October 14, 2017  Three days ago, New Zealand's Prime Minister elect's cat Paddles appeared on the Twitter scene, and people have no idea who's behind the account.  Paddles, a ginger and white cat with opposable thumbs, has proven to be a prolific social media user and has fired off  hundreds of tweets in a matter of days.  The cat's Twitter bio says she is an "Independent cat- not affurliated with the Labour pawty".  Prime Minister-Elect Jacinda Ardern has batted down speculation it's run by her partner Clarke Gayford.  "There is indeed an account in the name of my cat and I have no idea who has created it."  "I am quite happy for that person to continue logging on behalf of Paddles, keeping in mind Paddles has thumbs, I can't put it past her it's her own account as well,"  "She's a polydactyl," Ardern says.  For reference a "polydactyl" is a cat with extra claws that look like opposable thumbs.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/10/the-first-cat-of-new-zealand-is-a-hit-on-twitter.html

November (from Latin for ninth month), is a female name.  Nicknames include Nova, Novi, or Ember.  Pop culture references:  November, one of the dolls in Joss Whedon's Series, "Dollhouse"; "November Has Come", song by Gorillaz; Princess November, the heroine of the webcomic, "No Rest for the Wicked"; "November Rain" song by Guns N' Roses  https://nameberry.com/babyname/November/girl 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1792  November 1, 2017  On this date in 1512, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, was exhibited to the public for the first time.  On this date in 1800, John Adams became the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion (later renamed the White House).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1