The name of the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, means "Good Airs" or "Fair Winds" in Spanish.  When the Aragonese conquered Cagliari, Sardinia from the Pisans in 1324, they established their headquarters on top of a hill that overlooked the city.  The hill was known to them as Buen Ayre (or "Bonaria" in the local language), as it was free of the foul smell prevalent in the old city (the Castle area), which is adjacent to swampland.  "Foul smell" is another word for malaria ("mal aria" = bad air), since at that time people believed the air to cause the illness.  Swamps are the breeding ground of Anopheles mosquitoes, the vectors of malaria which plagued Sardinia until the swamps were drained and treated with DDT in the 20th century.  During the siege of Cagliari, the Aragonese built a sanctuary to the Virgin Mary on top of the hill.  In 1335, King Alfonso the Gentle donated the church to the Mercedarians, who built an abbey that stands to this day.  In the years after that, a story circulated, claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary was retrieved from the sea after it miraculously helped to calm a storm in the Mediterranean Sea.  In 1536, Spanish seaman Pedro de Mendoza established a fort and port in current-day San Telmo (about one kilometre south of the current Buenos Aires city centre) and called it Santa María del Buen Aire ("Our Lady of the Good Air").  The naming of Buenos Aires after the Sardinian virgin also suggested itself because Buenos Aires lies immediately beyond the southern limit of the South-American range of Anopheles species and was thus one of the first malaria-free ports for ships coming from the north.  Mendoza’s settlement soon came under attack by indigenous peoples, and was abandoned in 1541.  A second (and permanent) settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay, who sailed down the Paraná River from Asunción (now the capital of Paraguay).  Garay preserved the name chosen by Mendoza, calling the city Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Nuestra Señora la Virgen María de los Buenos Aires ("City of the Most Holy Trinity and Port of Saint Mary of the Good Airs").  The short form "Buenos Aires" became the common usage during the 17th century.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Buenos_Aires

Helene Hathaway Robison Britton (1879-1950) was the first woman to run a baseball franchise.  She inherited the St. Louis Cardinals from her uncle Stanley Robison in 1911.  She had to fight other owners, who did not like the idea of a woman joining their exclusive club, but by 1916 was holding the office of team president herself.  She worked on attracting more female fans to the ballpark by multiplying the number of Ladies Days.  After the 1916 season, having found the responsibilities of the day-to-day running of the club excessive and in a precarious financial state, she decided to sell the team.  The team's legal counsel, attorney James Jones put together a group of local businessmen who made an offer of $375,000.  The sale was made, but Helene Britton had to file lawsuits to receive the full payment.  http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Helene_Robison_Britton

When people think of Warner Bros., the first words that often come to mind are "Hollywood", "entertainment", or maybe "Bugs Bunny."  The billion dollar media and entertainment empire actually originated in Youngstown, Ohio.  The Warner brothers (Harry, Sam, Albert, and Jack) moved with their parents to the northeastern Ohio city in 1896.  The brothers grew up on the north side of the city and attended Rayen High School in addition to working in their father’s shoe repair and meat market businesses.  In the early 1900′s, the Warner Brothers made their grand entrance into the entertainment industry by taking over the city’s Old Grand Opera House, which they used for vaudeville and photoplays.  Soon after, Sam Warner purchased a movie projector for $150.  He financed the projector by pawning his father’s gold watch and a family horse (with his parents’ consent).  He also purchased a copy of the popular film, "The Great Train Robbery."  Sam and the rest of the Warner brothers rented out a storefront in nearby Niles and put on showings of the film.  They were so successful, they began opening up theaters around the Mahoning Valley.  The brothers left for New York and Hollywood to expand their foothold in the entertainment industry.  Brett Rosenstein  http://ohiowins.com/warner-bros/

Youngstown, Ohio  is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Mahoning County.   The municipality is situated on the Mahoning River, approximately 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Cleveland and 61 miles (100 km) northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Youngstown lies 10 miles (16 km) west of the Pennsylvania state line.  It lies midway between New York City and Chicago.  The city was named for John Young, an early settler from Whitestown, New York, who established the community's first sawmill and gristmill.  Find a list of notable or famous people who were all born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Youngstown at  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Youngstown,_Ohio

"If bridges are America’s cathedrals, the Notre Dame-standard of American bridges were built in Oregon in the 1920s and 30s by Conde McCullough.  Go to this page on Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conde_McCullough--then click on the bridges he designed for photos.  As stated in the article,  McCullough advocated that bridges be built economically, efficiently, and with beauty.  He helped design over 600 bridges, many with architectural details such as Gothic spires, art deco obelisks, and Romanesque arches incorporated into the bridges.  Many times while driving along the Oregon coastal highway, I would park and sit under these bridges to take in their beauty and majesty. ”  Thank you, Muse reader! 

The Digital Public Library of America, based in Boston, has begun to link the collections of research libraries in a national network, which now makes ten million items available free of charge to everyone with access to the Internet.  The Internet Archive, with headquarters in San Francisco, performs a similar service by harvesting texts from millions of websites as well as books.  HathiTrust, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, preserves the texts of 13.4 million volumes, largely from collections that were digitized by Google.  (Google’s own database cannot be made available as a commercial digital library, owing to a decision of a federal district court, which declared Google Book Search illegal in 2010.)  Each of these initiatives provides valuable services.  Although they overlap in places, they should be maintained—and above all, they should be integrated in a single system so that everyone has access to all of the country’s cultural resources.  The Library of Congress is the richest resource of all.  As it is supported by public funds, the public should be able to tap its collections—160 million items, of which 37.8 million are books and other print materials—by means of the Internet.”   http://www.bespacific.com/viewpoint-great-new-possibilities-for-the-library-of-congress/

August 17, 2015  It is not too early to identify the sleeper case of the last Supreme Court term.  In an otherwise minor decision about a municipal sign ordinance, the court in June 2015 transformed the First Amendment.  Robert Post, the dean of Yale Law School and an authority on free speech, said the decision was so bold and so sweeping that the Supreme Court could not have thought through its consequences.  The decision’s logic, he said, endangered all sorts of laws, including ones that regulate misleading advertising and professional malpractice.  “Effectively,” he said, “this would roll consumer protection back to the 19th century.”  Floyd Abrams, the prominent constitutional lawyer, called the decision a blockbuster and welcomed its expansion of First Amendment rights.  The ruling, he said, “provides significantly enhanced protection for free speech while requiring a second look at the constitutionality of aspects of federal and state securities laws, the federal Communications Act and many others.”  Whether viewed with disbelief, alarm or triumph, there is little question that the decision, Reed v. Town of Gilbert, marks an important shift toward treating countless laws that regulate speech with exceptional skepticism.  Though just two months old, the decision has already required lower courts to strike down laws barring panhandling, automated phone calls and “ballot selfies.”  The ordinance in the Reed case discriminated against signs announcing church services in favor of ones promoting political candidates.  That distinction was so offensive and so silly that all nine justices agreed that it violated the First Amendment.  It would have been easy to strike down the ordinance under existing First Amendment principles.  In a concurrence, Justice Elena Kagan said the ordinance failed even “the laugh test.”  But Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for six justices, used the occasion to announce that lots of laws are now subject to the most searching form of First Amendment review, called strict scrutiny.  The key move in Justice Thomas’s opinion was the vast expansion of what counts as content-based.  The court used to say laws were content-based if they were adopted to suppress speech with which the government disagreed.  Justice Thomas took a different approach.  Any law that singles out a topic for regulation, he said, discriminates based on content and is therefore presumptively unconstitutional.  A recent case illustrates the distinction between the old understanding of content neutrality and the new one.  Last year, the federal appeals court in Chicago upheld an ordinance barring panhandling in parts of Springfield, Ill.  The ordinance was not content-based, Judge Frank H. Easterbrook wrote, because it was not concerned with the ideas panhandling conveys.  This month, after the Reed decision, the appeals court reversed course and struck down the ordinance.  “The majority opinion in Reed effectively abolishes any distinction between content regulation and subject-matter regulation,” Judge Easterbrook wrote.  “Any law distinguishing one kind of speech from another by reference to its meaning now requires a compelling justification.”  That same week, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., agreed that Reed had revised the meaning of content neutrality.  “Reed has made clear,” the court said, that “the government’s justification or purpose in enacting the law is irrelevant” if it singles out topics for regulation.  The court struck down a South Carolina law that barred robocalls on political and commercial topics but not on others.  Last week, a federal judge in New Hampshire relied on Reed to strike down a law that made it illegal to take a picture of a completed election ballot and show it to others.  “As in Reed,” Judge Paul Barbadoro wrote, “the law under review is content-based on its face because it restricts speech on the basis of its subject matter.”  In a concurrence in the Reed decision, Justice Stephen G. Breyer suggested that many other laws could be at risk under the majority’s reasoning, including ones concerning exceptions to the confidentiality of medical forms, disclosures on tax returns and signs at petting zoos.  Professor Post said the majority opinion, read literally, would so destabilize First Amendment law that courts might have to start looking for alternative approaches.  Perhaps courts will rethink what counts as speech, he said, or perhaps they will water down the potency of strict scrutiny.  Adam Liptax  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/us/politics/courts-free-speech-expansion-has-far-reaching-consequences.html  See also Opinion analysis:  The message determines the right by Lyle Denniston   Amid deep divisions on First Amendment theory, the Supreme Court gave state governments sweeping new control over the messages that can be put on auto and truck license plates but restricted governments at all levels from using differing rules to control the messages put on billboards and other outdoor signs.  As a combined result of two new rulings, government both gained added power to speak for itself but faced the loss of some of its power to control what others may say in public displays.   And the meaning of the First Amendment, in general, became somewhat more confusing.

The license plate case — Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans — and the municipal sign case — Reed v. Town of Gilbert — are likely to be analyzed together from here on, to determine how — and whether — they fit into the strong pattern that the modern Court had followed in more or less steadily expanding free-speech rights.  Indeed, in some ways the outcomes seemed contradictory, and the splintering of the Court added to that appearance.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/opinion-analysis-the-message-determines-the-right/  Thank you, Muse reader! 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1341  August 20, 2015  On this date in 1858, Charles Darwin first published his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.  On this date in 1882, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was first publicly performed in Moscow, Russia.

Breakfast for dinner--or 'brinner'--is nothing new.  For the restaurant goer, three of the finest words you can read on a menu are 'all day breakfast'.  The brinner concept was immortalised in the film Juno when Paulie Bleeker's mother admonishes him skipping a family meal with the line, "But Paulie, it's your favourite--breakfast for dinner!"  Alaina Vieru  Link to recipes at http://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/collections/breakfast-for-dinner-brinner-recipes-ideas

The Constitutional Dictionary contains words, phrases, and concepts used in the United States Constitution, including double jeopardy, emolument, ex post facto, habeus corpus, impeachment, impost and pro tempore.  http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html

Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.  Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and novelist (1850-1893)

If Trees Could Sing is a Nature Conservancy program that brings together a diverse array of musical artists to talk about trees and their benefits for people.  Choose from 29 videos including:  Reba McIntire  1:37 http://www.nature.org/photos-and-video/video/if-trees-could-sing-reba-mcentire-the-pin-oak   Ketch Secor & the Osage Orange  2:29  http://www.nature.org/photos-and-video/video/if-trees-could-sing-ketch-secor-the-osage-orange  Deanie Richardson & the Shagbark Hickory  2:39  http://www.nature.org/photos-and-video/video/if-trees-could-sing-deanie-richardson-the-shagbark-hickory and The Fisk Jubilee Singers & the Bald Cypress  1:39  http://www.nature.org/photos-and-video/video/if-trees-could-sing-the-fisk-jubilee-singers-the-bald-cypress

16th Century Book Can Be Read Six Different Ways by Sara Barnes   It’s not everyday you see a book that can be read in six completely different ways, and this small book from the National Library of Sweden is definitely an anomaly.  According to Medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel, this 16th century text has a special sixfold dos-à-dos (or “back to back”) binding with strategically placed clasps that makes it possible for six books to be neatly bound into one.  This particular book contains devotional texts, including Martin Luther’s Der kleine Catechismus, which was printed in German between the 1550’s and 1570’s.  See pictures at http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/16th-century-book-bound-dos-a-dos

QUOTES ABOUT ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE  Bridges are America's cathedrals.  Author unknown; reported in Respectfully Quoted:  A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).  When, in architecture, one uses a fixed unit and combinations of it, to produce harmony, the effect should be most striking and apparent... as it is in music by the measured beat and in poetry by the cadence and rhythm.  Ernest Flagg, Small Houses:  Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)  Dancing and architecture are the two primary and essential arts.  The art of dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves first in the human person.  The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end they unite.  Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life (1923).  I call architecture frozen music.  Attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller  "Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life", page 282; by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann, Margaret Fuller; Translated by Margaret Fuller  Ah, to build, to build!  That is the noblest of all the arts.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Michael Angelo, Part I, II, line 54.  https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Architecture

The surplus of sodium in the American diet contributes to a host of cardiovascular problems, from high blood pressure and stroke to heart attack, heart failure, and more.  Cutting back on salt is generally good for the heart and arteries.  But could this strategy have the unintended consequence of making some Americans deficient in iodine?  That’s not likely, because salt provides only a fraction of daily iodine intake for most Americans.  In the 1950s and 1960s, the use of iodine-based disinfectants in the dairy industry and iodine-based conditioners in the commercial baking industry put many Americans on track to getting too much iodine.  The situation has stabilized in recent years, with national nutrition surveys showing that most Americans get enough iodine, and only small numbers get too little or too much.  Most Americans take in more sodium than they need.  Almost all of it comes from salt.  But here’s the rub:  between 75% and 90% of sodium in the average American’s diet comes from prepared or processed food, and most food companies don’t use iodized salt.  The so-called hidden salt in processed food is a great place to start trimming sodium from your diet, and cutting back on it will have little effect on your iodine intake.  To get all your iodine from salt, you would need more than half a teaspoon of iodized salt a day.  That’s two-thirds of the daily allotment of sodium (1,500 milligrams) recommended by the American Heart Association.  It makes more sense to get your iodine from food.  That way you can cut back on salt and not worry about losing out on this important element.  Ocean-caught or ocean-farmed fish and shellfish tend to be naturally rich in iodine.  Other good sources include milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, and vegetables grown in iodine-rich soil.  Read much more at http://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/cut-salt-it-wont-affect-your-iodine-intake

Over much of the Earth's surface, compass needles point roughly north.  However, because of the complex shape of the Earth's magnetic field there are few places where a compass needle will point exactly north.  A compass lines up with the horizontal component of the magnetic field in a direction called magnetic north.  True north, on the other hand is the direction from a given location to the north geographic pole.  The angle between magnetic north and true north is called magnetic declination.  Many people believe that a compass needle points at the North Magnetic Pole.  This is not true; if you follow your compass needle you will eventually arrive at the North Magnetic Pole, but not by the most direct route.  Both declination and variation are used to describe the angle between magnetic north and true north.  The term deviation is also used from time to time.  Here is an explanation of the differences between the three terms.  Declination  This is the term preferred by those who study the magnetic field; it is also the term most commonly used by land navigators.  Sometimes the term "magnetic declination" is used.  Variation  This term is preferred by mariners and pilots because the word "declination" also has an astronomical usage--the angle of a star or planet above the celestial equator.  However, the word "variation" is used by geomagneticians to refer to time changes in the magnetic field.  Deviation  In a vehicle such as a ship or aircraft, a compass is influenced by the magnetism of the iron used in the construction of the vehicle as well as the Earth's magnetic field.  This causes the compass needle to point in the wrong direction.  This directional error is called "deviation".  Many people incorrectly use deviation when they mean declination.  The first known determination of magnetic declination was made by the Chinese in about 720 AD.  In Europe, the concept of declination was known in the early 1400s, but the first precise measurement of declination was not made until 1510, when Georg Hartman determined the declination in Rome.  The importance of declination for navigation was obvious.  Mariners quickly devised methods for determining it and began compiling declination values from locations around the world.  In 1700 Edmund Halley came up with the idea of showing declination as contour lines on a map; he used this novel concept to produced the first declination chart of the Atlantic Ocean.  Declination charts have been produced on a regular basis ever since.  Read more and see graphics at http://www.geomag.nrcan.gc.ca/mag_fld/magdec-en.php

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1340  August 19, 2015  On this date in 1848, the New York Herald broke the news to the East Coast of the United States of the gold rush in California (although the rush started in January).  On this date in 1909, the first automobile race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was held.

Pommy  noun  A British person  Origin: Early 20th century--apparently a shortening of pomegranate, rhyming slang for 'immigrant'.  http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/Pommy  Pommyland means Britain, especially England.

The Library of Congress began a multiyear “Celebration of the Book” before the September 2012 National Book Festival with an exhibition on “Books That Shaped America.”  The initial books in the exhibition are displayed at http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/books-that-shaped-america/

What olive oil, nuts, beans, and sardines are to the Mediterranean, canola oil, berries, root vegetables, and cod are to Scandinavia.  Find New Nordic Diet with 10 guidelines and link to 10-point manifesto at http://qz.com/322049/the-mediterranean-diet-is-out-and-the-nordic-diet-is-in/

When two or more metaphors (or cliches) are jumbled together, often illogically, we say that these comparisons are "mixed."  In Garner's Modern American Usage, Bryan A. Garner offers this classic example of a mixed metaphor from a speech by Boyle Roche in the Irish Parliament:  "Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat.  I see him floating in the air.  But mark me, sir, I will nip him in the bud."  This sort of mixed metaphor may occur when a speaker is so familiar with the figurative sense of a phrase ("smell a rat," "nip in the bud") that he fails to recognize the absurdity that results from a literal reading.  More examples:  "So now what we are dealing with is the rubber meeting the road, and instead of biting the bullet on these issues, we just want to punt."  (Chicago Tribune, cited by The New Yorker, August 13, 2007)  "[T]he bill is mostly a stew of spending on existing programs, whatever their warts may be."  (The New York Times, January 27, 2009)  "A friend of mine, talking about the Democratic presidential candidates, tossed out a wonderful mixed metaphor:  'This is awfully weak tea to have to hang your hat on.'"  (Bob Herbert, "Behind the Curtain," The New York Times, November 27, 2007)  Richard Nordquist  http://grammar.about.com/od/qaaboutrhetoric/f/QAmixmetaphor.htm

Nephrops norvegicus is a shrimpy-looking crustacean in the lobster family.  Its body can grow up to ten inches long, but it’s basically just the delicious tail meat that has chefs from Copenhagen to Vegas in a full-on frenzy. ”Nothing highlights the elegance and bounty of the sea better than langoustines,” waxes Esben Holmboe Bang, chef of Maaemo in Oslo.  “They have a more complex and delicate taste than lobster.  The flavor is sweet, elegant.  Lobster is rustic by comparison.”  The real-deal, super-primo langoustine specimens come from the northeastern Atlantic Ocean, particularly the clear, frigid waters off the coasts of Iceland, Scotland, and Norway.  That same species of langoustine, however, ranges as far south as Portugal, and can be found in parts of the Adriatic sea.  Close cousins exist all over the world, notably Metanephrops challengeri, which can be found off the coasts of New Zealand and is sometimes marketed as the genuine article.  Amiel Stanek  http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/langoustine

At just two days after birth, babies are already able to process language using processes similar to those of adults.  International School for Advanced Studies of Trieste (SISSA) researchers have demonstrated that they are sensitive to the most important parts of words, the edges, a cognitive mechanism which has been repeatedly observed in older children and adults.  It is well-known that, in general, people better remember the edges of sequences and particularly in language, when we must remember and recognize words, the brain gives greater weight to information at the beginning and the end of the word.  "The syllables at the beginnings and the ends of words often carry important information.  For example, the parts of words that contain information about plurality of objects or verb tense are almost always found at the beginning or at the end of words in all known languages," says Alissa Ferry, researcher at SISSA and author of the study.  "The infants heard a sequence of six syllables and we examined if they could discriminate it from a very similar sequence, in which we switched the positions of two of the syllables.  When we switched the edge syllables, the newborns' brain responded to the change, but when we switched the two syllables in the middle, they did not respond to the change.  This suggests that the newborns better encoded the syllables at the edges of the sequence," says Perrine Brusini, a SISSA researcher and one of the study's authors.  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150721081725.htm

Soap making has remained unchanged over the centuries.  The ancient Roman tradition was to take rain water, potash and animal tallow, turning it into a cleansing agent.  Making soap was a long and arduous process.  First the fat had to be rendered, that is melted and filtered to remove any non-fat solids.  Then the potash solution was added to the hot fat.  Since water and oil do not mix, this mixture had to be continuously stirred and heated sufficiently to keep the fat melted. Slowly a chemical reaction called saponification would take place between the fat and the hydroxide which resulted in a liquid soap.  When the fat and water no longer separated, the mixture was allowed to cool.  At this point salt, such as sodium chloride, was added to separate the soap from the excess water.  The soap came to the top, was skimmed off, and placed in wooden molds to cure.  It was often aged many months to allow the reaction between the fat and hydroxide to run to completion.  All soap is made from fats and alkaline solutions. There are many kinds of fats, both animal and vegetable.  Animal fats are usually solid at room temperature, but many vegetable fats are liquid at room temperature.  Basic (alkaline) solutions all contain a metal and a hydroxide ion.  The most common bases are those produced by the reaction of a group I metal plus water.  Even though all soap is made by the chemical combination of lye, water and fat; which is called saponification, soaps differ from one another depending on the type of fat and lye that is used and the amount.  For instance, lye made from wood ash produces a soft soap.  Commercial lye produces a hard soap.  http://homepage.smc.edu/walker_muriel/making_soap_Procedure.htm

The Cartoon History of the Universe is a book series about the history of the world.  It is written and illustrated by American cartoonist, professor, and mathematician Larry Gonick.  Each book in the series explains a period of world history in a loosely chronological order.  Though originally published in limited runs as comic books, the series is now published in trade paperback volumes of several hundred pages each.  While seeking a publisher, Gonick received early support from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who worked as an editor at Doubleday and championed The Cartoon History of the Universe's publication.  Beginning with its original comic book Volume 1 in 1977, the complete series covers world history through 2008.  Gonick, Larry (1990).  The Cartoon History of the Universe - From the Big Bang to Alexander the Great (Volumes 1-7).  Doubleday. p. 368.  ISBN 0-385-26520-4.  Gonick, Larry (1994).  The Cartoon History of the Universe II - From the Springtime of China to the Fall of Rome (Volumes 8-13).  Doubleday. p. 305.  ISBN 0-385-42093-5.  Gonick, Larry (2002).  The Cartoon History of the Universe III - From the Rise of Arabia to the Renaissance (Volumes 14-19).  Doubleday. p. 300.  ISBN 0-393-32403-6.  Gonick, Larry (2006).  The Cartoon History of the Modern World - Volume 1:  From Columbus to the U.S. Constitution. Collins. p. 272.  ISBN 0-06-076004-4.  Gonick, Larry (2009).  The Cartoon History of the Modern World - Volume 2:  From the Bastille to Baghdad. Collins. p. 272.  ISBN 0-06-076008-7.

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

 http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1339  August 17, 2015  On this date in 1807, Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat left New York, New York, for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.  On this date in 1907,  Pike Place Market, a popular tourist destination and registered historic district in Seattle, Washington, opened.  On this date in 1908,  Fantasmagorie, the first animated cartoon, created by Émile Cohl, was shown in Paris, France.

Horseracing and gaming are related activities that often appeal to a similar demographic.  The development and increased legalization of casino/slots-style gaming and the establishment of state sponsored lotteries have increased competition for gambling/gaming dollars across the country.  The relationship between racetrack and casino/slots-style gaming and the development of “racinos”, a hybrid of racetrack and casino, are explored in this 35-page paper from Journal of Case Research in Business and Economics at http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/08058.pdf

German-born Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann famously said, “In nature, light creates the color.  In the picture, color creates the light.”  This idea is beautifully manifested in the work of Stanley Whitney (b. 1946), whose compact but exhilarating survey exhibition—28 pictures on canvas and paper from 2008 to now—is on view at the Studio Museum in Harlem through October 25, 2015.  The show’s title, “Dance the Orange,” derives from the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and is as joyously applicable to Mr. Whitney’s paintings as are Hofmann’s words. The exhibition’s eponymous painting from 2013 is a 4-foot-square oil-on-linen picture—a modest size for Mr. Whitney, whose paintings range up to 8 feet on a side.  Four horizontal rows of rectangles—one of the middle ones packed with slightly vertical, brightly colored forms, the bottom row looking like a narrow peek into an elevator stopped between floors—nudge one another into a casual harmony.  Peter Plagens  http://www.wsj.com/articles/stanley-whitney-dance-the-orange-review-1439332061?tesla=y  The Studio Museum is located at 144 W. 125th St. in Manhattan.  Phone:  (212) 864-4500  See also http://www.studiomuseum.org/

The Exploratorium is a museum in San Francisco whose stated mission is to change the way the world learns.  It has been described by the New York Times as the most important science museum to have opened since the mid-20th century, an achievement attributed to "the nature of its exhibits, its wide-ranging influence and its sophisticated teacher training program".   Characterized as "a mad scientist's penny arcade, a scientific funhouse, and an experimental laboratory all rolled into one", the participatory nature of its exhibits and its self-identification as a center for informal learning has led to it being cited as the prototype for participatory museums around the world.  The Exploratorium was founded by physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer and opened in 1969 at the Palace of Fine Arts, its home until January 2, 2013.  On April 17, 2013, the Exploratorium reopened at Piers 15 and 17 on San Francisco's Embarcadero.  The Exploratorium at Pier 15 was designed by architecture firm EHDD.  The piers had been neglected for decades leading up to the Exploratorium’s move, and extensive renovation and repair was required.  Nearly two thirds of the pilings under Pier 15 were repaired, including almost every piling needed to provide structural integrity, and new pilings were sunk.   The use of natural light whenever possible challenged exhibit designers relying on carefully controlled light levels; this was solved by using curtains and glare-reducing paint colors.  Other conflicts between construction and energy use included the glass in the Observatory, which would have presented a problem in cooling the building on warm days.  This was overcome by adding fritted glass to the windows in thin horizontal lines through the panes to decrease the transparency without affecting the views.  The fritting also makes the reflective surfaces of the Bay Observatory safe for birds.    Despite being generally thought of as a science museum, the Exploratorium has always incorporated both science and art.  As early as 1966, Frank Oppenheimer presented a paper discussing the connections between art and science, and the role of a museum in appealing to both casual visitors and serious students of all ages.  The formal artist in residence program was started in 1974, but artworks such as Bob Miller’s Sun Painting were commissioned shortly after the museum was opened in 1969.  Since the founding of the artist in residence program, over 250 artworks in various disciplines have been created.  Each year, the museum invites ten to twenty artists to participate in residencies ranging from two weeks to two years.  Artists-in-residence work with staff and the visiting public to create original installations, exhibits, or performances.  Artists are given a stipend, housing, travel expenses, and technical support, and they have at their disposal the Exploratorium's full array of metal and woodworking shops and materials.  Two artists-in-residence who went on to become staff members have been awarded MacArthur Fellowship "genius" grants:  Walter Kitunduand Ned Kahn.  The new Embarcadero campus opened with more than 40 pieces by prominent artists, including Douglas Hollis, Golan Levin, Lucky Dragons, Amy Balkin, and Fujiko Nakaya. The Center for Art and Inquiry, a new project at the new location, is an initiative to catalyze and orchestrate art across the museum.  The Exploratorium has an equally long history with musical, film and other performances.  Participating artists and performers included Laurie Anderson, John Cage, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Ali Akbar Khan, Trimpin, and The Mermen.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratorium  See also http://www.exploratorium.edu/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritted_glass

Ramesses the Great by John Ray  Ramesses II fought the Hittites and signed the world's first official peace treaty.  He undertook an unparalleled building programme, had over one hundred children and reigned for 67 years.  Ramesses has gained a multimedia afterlife:  his mummy is flown from Cairo to Paris to be exhibited and re­autopsied, and a series of airport­lounge best­sellers by a French writer, Christian Jacq, gives a soap­opera version of his life.  Yul Brynner captured the essence of his personality in the 1956 film The Ten Commandments, and in popular imagination Ramesses II has become the Pharaoh of the Exodus.  A form of the king's throne­name passed into Classical tradition as Ozymandias, and was immortalised as a symbol of ostentatious tyranny by the poet Shelley.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/ramesses_01.shtml  

See the poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) at http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/ozymandias

Dreaming of Xanadu:  A Guide to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” by Bob Holman and Margery Snyder  Read about Kubla Khan and link to the poem at  http://poetry.about.com/od/poems/a/kublakhanguide_3.htm  

See also The Abyssinian Paradise in Coleridge and Milton at http://www.jstor.org/stable/432654?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

The ketchup is a vegetable controversy refers to proposed United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) regulations, early in the presidency of Ronald Reagan, that intended to provide more flexibility in meal planning to local school lunch administrators coping with National School Lunch Plan subsidy cuts enacted by the Omnibus Regulation Acts of 1980 and 1981.  The regulations allowed administrators the opportunity to credit items not explicitly listed that met nutritional requirements.  While ketchup was not mentioned in the original regulations, pickle relish was used as an example of an item that could count as a vegetable.  A similar controversy arose in 2011 when Congress passed a bill prohibiting the USDA from increasing the amount of tomato paste required to constitute a vegetable; the bill allowed pizza with two tablespoons of tomato paste to qualify as a vegetable.  The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, reduced the Federal School Lunch and Child Nutrition Programs budget by approximately eight percent.  Building upon these reductions, the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981 (passed as the Gramm-Latta Budget) made further spending cuts to the Federal School Lunch Program decreasing its fiscal year 1982 budget by 25 percent.  To administer the requirements made by both Omnibus Reconciliation Acts of 1980 and 1981, the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) was tasked with proposing ways to implement the regulations while maintaining nutritional requirements for school lunches despite the lower funding.  Among the recommendations made by the Food and Nutrition Service's September 3, 1981 regulations was a proposal to give local school lunch administrators flexibility in accrediting substitute food items that met FNS nutritional requirements and regulations.  The report stated an item could not be counted as a bread that was not enriched or whole-grain, "but could credit a condiment such as pickle relish as a vegetable."  While ketchup was not specifically mentioned as a potential substitute, critics demonstrated outrage in Congress and in the media against the Ronald Reagan administration for cutting school lunch budgets and allowing ketchup and other condiments to count as vegetables.  The Food and Nutrition Service proposed regulations had roots in four previous pieces of legislation:  the National School Lunch Act of 1946, the Child Nutrition Act of 1966, the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980, and the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981.  In 2011, Congress passed a bill that barred the USDA from changing its nutritional guidelines for school lunches.  The proposed changes would have limited the amount of potatoes allowed in lunches, required more green vegetables, and declared a half-cup of tomato paste to count as a serving of vegetables, rather than the current standard of 2 tablespoons.  The blocking of these proposed higher standards meant that the smaller amount of tomato paste in pizza could continue to be counted as a vegetable in school lunches.  The move resulted in widespread mockery, with headlines saying Congress had declared pizza to be a vegetable.  The blocking legislation was criticized heavily, since the change had also been lobbied for by food companies such as ConAgra, and the block was a substantial blow to efforts to make school lunches healthier. 

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

37 amazing images of the 2015 Perseid meteor shower 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/37-amazing-images-of-the-perseid-meteor-shower-10453590.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com    Issue 1338  August 14, 2015  On this date in 1888, an audio recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan's "The Lost Chord", one of the first recordings of music ever made, was played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison's phonograph in London, England.  On this date in 1893, France became the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration.