How Moonshine Bootlegging Gave Rise to NASCAR by Jennifer Billock   Even before Prohibition, erstwhile distillers were gathering in secret locations throughout rural areas in the south, brewing up homemade spirits to sell under the radar and away from alcohol taxes and bans.  The drinks were made under the light of the moon, in hopes that no one would detect smoke rising from the stills and ultimately bust the operation—a practice that earned the booze its name “moonshine.”  Moonshining dates back to the 1700s, when officials imposed taxes on liquor sales.  Farmers and immigrants throughout the south took to making their own batches to sell for extra money, tax free, to counteract the effects of extreme poverty in the region.  And with the introduction of Prohibition, production skyrocketed, creating a thriving black market business for secretly distilled hooch.  Each hidden distillery needed to use runners—drivers in understated or otherwise ordinary-looking cars who could smuggle moonshine from the stills to thirsty customers across the region.  On the outside, the cars looked “stock,” normal enough to avoid attention.  But inside, both the mechanics of the cars and the drivers behind the wheel were far from ordinary.  The vehicles were outfitted with heavy-duty shocks and springs, safeguarding the jars containing the hooch from breaking on bumpy mountain roads.  The seats in the back were usually removed so more booze could fit.  And high-powered engines gave the cars extra speed to outrun any cops and tax agents along the route.  As for the drivers, they knew every path in the area like the backs of their hands, able to outpace those in pursuit, even turning off headlights and still successfully navigating.  They became known for their high-speed reckless driving—coining maneuvers like the bootleg turn, in which the drivers would quickly turn the car around in a controlled skid, either to elude the cops chasing them or to play a game of chicken with them, driving head-on at full speed until they abruptly changed course.  When the runners weren’t smuggling alcohol, many spent their free time racing other runners for bragging rights.  From the 1930s on, once Prohibition had ended, demand for bootlegged alcohol waned and the runners found themselves with souped-up cars yet out of work—though they continued to take part in organized races.  On December 14, 1947, one of these runners, Big Bill France, held a meeting with other drivers, car owners and mechanics to finally put in place some standardized rules for the races—thus NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, was born.  The first official race was held two months later.  Read more and see pictures at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-moonshine-bootlegging-gave-rise-nascar-180962014/

Pumpernickel is probably the most German of all breads.  While German-style wholesome and wholegrain breads can nowadays be found in other countries, under European Union law authentic Westphalian pumpernickel can only be made in Germany.  The commercial use of the term Westfälischer Pumpernickel (Westphalian Pumpernickel) is regulated by the European Union scheme of protected geographical indications (PGIs).  Bread may only be sold under that name if the production process, from the mixing of the dough to the baking, takes place in Westphalia, an area where rye is a traditional crop and pumpernickel has been baked for more than five centuries.  The dark brown bread sold as pumpernickel in the United States has no resemblance with the real thing.  Instead of baking the bread the traditional way, which is at very low temperature for 12 to 16 hours, in the US molasses are added to the dough to give it its dark color.  In authentic pumpernickel, the sugars slowly caramelize during the baking process in a steam oven.  Pumpernickel must not contain any preservatives yet it has a very long shelf life.  Shrink-wrapped, it keeps for several months, and in metal cans for up to two years.  Authentic pumpernickel is a pure rye bread made of at least 90% coarsely ground rye flour or wholemeal rye grain, or a mixture of both, plus water, salt, and yeast.  Other optional ingredients are malt, sugar beet, or syrup. Sometimes, a little bit of stale pumpernickel is added to the dough.  This intensifies the flavor and uses up leftovers at the same time.  Nadia Hassani  Find recipe at https://www.196flavors.com/germany-pumpernickel/

Forty years after blasting off, Earth's most distant ambassadors—the twin Voyager spacecraft—are carrying sounds and music of our planet ever deeper into the cosmos.  August 20, 2017 marks the 40th anniversary of NASA's launch of Voyager 2, now almost 11 billion miles distant.  Voyager 1 followed a few weeks later and is ahead of Voyager 2.  Each carries a 12-inch, gold-plated copper phonograph record (there were no CDs or MP3s back then) containing messages from Earth:  Beethoven's Fifth, chirping crickets, a baby's cry, a kiss, wind and rain, a thunderous moon rocket launch, African pygmy songs, Solomon Island panpipes, a Peruvian wedding song and greetings in dozens of languages.  There are also more than 100 electronic images on each record showing 20th-century life, traffic jams and all.  "The Farthest - Voyager in Space," airs at 9 p.m. EDT August 23, 2017 on PBS.  The two-hour documentary describes the tense and dramatic behind-the-scenes effort that culminated in the wildly successful missions to our solar system's outer planets and beyond.  It was Carl  Sagan who, in large part, got a record aboard each Voyager.  The 55 greetings for the Voyager Golden Records were collected at Cornell University, where Sagan taught astronomy, and the United Nations in New York.  The music production fell to science writer Timothy Ferris, a friend of Sagan living then in New York.  For the musical selections, Ferris and Sagan recruited friends along with a few professional musicians.  They crammed in 90 minutes of music recorded at half-speed; otherwise it would have lasted just 45 minutes.  How to choose from an infinite number of melodies and melodious sounds representing all of Earth?  Beethoven, Bach and Mozart were easy picks.  Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven represented jazz, Blind Willie Johnson gospel blues.  For the rock 'n' roll single, the group selected Chuck Berry's 1958 hit "Johnny B. Goode."   Marcia Dunn  http://www.nwitimes.com/entertainment/television/nasa-pbs-marking-years-since-voyager-spacecraft-launches/article_8306e2f0-a825-5be7-846b-ff8c7f5fb850.html

“Every structure that I have built has been a ‘first’ for me—I have refused to emulate any existing form or idea.”  So wrote Gunnar Birkerts in the preface to a 2009 monograph of his work.  The Latvian-American architect died August 15, 2017 at the age of 92.  Considered part of a second wave of foreign-born modernists in the United States, Birkerts came to prominence in the 1970s.  He began his studies in architecture as a ‘displaced person’ at the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart, Germany just as World War II ended.  There, studying with Rolf Gutbrod, Birkerts trained under a strong Bauhaus curriculum.  “We had a faculty of Bauhaus people there.  And right across the street, practically, from the college, from our building, was the Weissenhof—an arrangement of buildings by all the Modernists,” Birkerts recalled in a 2014 interview.  “There was Mies van der Rohe, Hans Scharoun . . . everybody had a building.  It was almost like a village.  So this thing was sort of absorbed, inhaled.”  After coming to America and showing up unannounced at Eero Saarinen’s office, he completed a brief apprenticeship in the Chicago office of Perkins + Will from 1950-51, until Saarinen was able to hire him.  He worked there for several years, an experience he referred to as both “destiny” and “profound.”  He would later become chief designer at Minoru Yamasaki’s firm before founding his own practice in the Detroit area in the early 1960s.

Josephine Minutillo  http://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/12910-obituary-gunnar-birkerts-1925-2017

Prominent Polish playwright and screenwriter Janusz Głowacki died in Warsaw on August 19, 2017 less than a month before his 79th birthday.  Born in 1938, Głowacki graduated from the Polish Studies Department at the University of Warsaw.  In 1960, while still a student, he made his prose debut and four years later joined the editorial board of the popular weekly Kultura, contributing weekly columns and short stories to it.  When martial law was imposed in Poland in December 1981, he happened to be in London for the British premiere of his play Cinders.  He stayed in the UK for some time, before going to New York, where he settled.  It was in the US that he wrote his best-known plays:  Hunting Cockroaches, Antigone in New York, and The Fourth Sister.  In 1993, Antigone in New York was included in the list of 10 best plays of the year compiled by Time magazine.  His film scripts include Andrzej Wajda’s Hunting Flies (1969) and Wałęsa: Man of Hope (2013).  http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/321670,Polish-writer-Janusz-Glowacki-dies

Dick Gregory, the pioneering standup comedian and civil rights activist who made his advocacy work a key component of his on-stage persona, died August 19, 2017 in Washington, D.C.  He was 84.  Gregory was active on the standup and public speaking circuit on and off for more than a half-century.  Gregory recently released a new book, “Defining Moments in Black History:  Reading Between the Lies,” and he penned a guest column for Variety on how communities can band together to end police brutality.  In June, Gregory was the subject of a lengthy profile on “CBS Sunday Morning.”  Actor Joe Morton explored the ups and downs of Gregory’s standup career in the one-man show “Turn Me Loose,” which ran in New York last year.  Cynthia Littleton 

http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/dick-gregory-dead-84-comedian-civil-rights-activist-1202533709/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1757  August 21, 2017  On this date in 1888, the first successful adding machine in the United States was patented by William Seward Burroughs.  On this date in 1987, Oldsmobile, a brand of American automobiles, was founded.  On this date in 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen by a Louvre employee.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_21  Word of the Day  occultation  noun  (astronomy)  An astronomical event that occurs when one celestial object is hidden by another celestial object that passes between it and the observer when the nearer object appears larger and completely hides the more distant object.  The state of being occult (“hidden, undetected”). (astronomy)  An astronomical event that occurs when one celestial object is hidden by another celestial object that passes between it and the observer when the nearer object appears larger and completely hides the more distant object.  The state of being occult (“hidden, undetected”).  (Shia Islam)  The disappearance of the messianic figure, or Mahdi, who will one day return to the world.  On this day in 2017, a total solar eclipse is visible within a band across the contiguous United States, the first time since June 8, 1918.

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  In the late 19th century, men were often kidnapped to work on ships.  Since China was often the destination for these ships, Shanghai became a verb, meaning to recruit forcibly.  (The name Shanghai literally means upon-the-sea).  Shanghai may be the best-known example of a place name turning into a verb, but there are many such words in the English language.

birminghamize  (BUHR-ming-ham-aiz)  verb tr.  To render artificial.  After Birmingham, UK, where counterfeit coins were produced in the 17th century.

barbados  (bar-BAY-doz, -dos, duhs)  verb. tr.  To forcibly ship someone to another place to work.  After Barbados, an island country in the Caribbean, formerly a British colony.  Between 1640 and 1660 thousands of Irish people were sent by the British as indentured servants to work in Barbados and elsewhere in the Caribbean.  The name of the island is from Portuguese/Spanish barbados (bearded ones).

solecize  (SOL-uh-syz)  verb intr.  To make an error in language, etiquette, etc.  After Soloi, an ancient Athenian colony in Cilicia, whose dialect the Athenians considered as substandard.  The noun form is solecism

debunk  (di-BUNGK)  verb tr.  To expose the falseness of a claim, myth, belief, etc.  After Buncombe, a county in North Carolina.  In 1820, Felix Walker, a representative from that area, made a pointless speech in the US Congress.  While his colleagues in Congress urged him to stop and move to vote on an issue, Walker claimed that he had to make a speech “for Buncombe”.  Eventually, “Buncombe” became a synonym for meaningless speech, became shortened to “bunkum”, and then to “bunk”.  And if there’s bunk, it’s one’s duty to debunk.

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From:  Alan W. Ritch  Subject: Birminghamize and Coventrate  Having grown up on a farm between the cities of Birmingham and Coventry (Brum and Cov in local slang), I was less familiar with Birminghamize than with Coventrate.  The latter verb was coined soon after November 1940, when I was two weeks old.  The medieval center of Coventry was obliterated by German bombs, and other blitzed cities in the English provinces were said to be Coventrated, after the site of the first and worst destruction.  The verb the British coined in horror, the Third Reich adapted in pride:  koventreiren.

From:  Kathy Geer Root  Subject:  to be norwalked   Right here in small-town Ohio, we’re “famous” for being where the dreaded “cruise-ship” and “Chipotle” virus was first identified.  Yep, that is Norwalk, Ohio--home of what was first-known and named “Norwalk virus” until just a few years ago, when the name was Latinized to “norovirus” to reflect that it’s not just a single virus but rather a family.  “Norwalk virus” was initially identified in the late 1960s by Earl R. McLoney, MD, a family physician (and personal friend) who also served as county health commissioner at the time.

From:  Anderson Blenman  Subject:  Barbados  I have lived in Barbados all my life and had no idea that it was a verb.  As far as the comment on the origin of the name, it is generally believed here that the “bearded ones” refer to the bearded fig tree.  When the Portuguese first landed in the early 17th century, there was an abundance of the trees, giving rise to the name.
From:  Georgia Morehouse  Subject:  solecize  What an amusing memory this word conjured!  My husband and I were on a road trip through the Appalachians when we needed to refuel, so we pulled into a small filling station.  That’s when we noticed the sign on one of the pumps that said:  OUT OF ODOR.

From:  Robert Rietz  Subject:  debunk  As a faithful reader and a Buncombe County resident, I was proud of the witty signs hoisted during the March for Science held in Asheville this spring.  My favorite was “You know it’s serious when the nerds start protesting”.  The primary theme of the march was to debunk(!) the claims of the climate change deniers.

National Invasive Species Information Center (NISIC):  Gateway to invasive species information; covering Federal, State, local, and international sources   Invasive species are plants, animals, or pathogens that are non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause harm.  Browse by subject or geography at https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/index.shtml

The predicate of a sentence is the part that modifies the subject in some way.  Because the subject is the person, place, or thing that a sentence is about, the predicate must contain a verb explaining what the subject does.  Look at some of the shorter sentences in the English language:  “She danced.”  The subject of the sentence is “she,” the person about whom the speaker is speaking, but what is being conveyed or expressed about this person?  She performed an action, of course; she moved her body; she danced.  The word that modifies the subject “she” is the past-tense verb “danced.”  “It talked!”  It might be a baby saying a word for the first time, a parrot squawking “hello,” or even an inanimate object somehow bestowed with the power of speech.  What you know about “it” is that, according to the speaker, it spoke.  “Talked” modifies the subject “it.”  These sentences are very simple examples of what predicates are, since the predicate is expressed entirely by one word.  Predicates may also be whole phrases.  http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/sentences/what/what-is-a-predicate.html  See origin of predicate and uses as noun and verb at https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/predicate

Maputo is the capital of Mozambique.  It used to be known as Lourenço Marques.  Maputo is known as the City of Acacias (because many of its streets are bordered by acacias) or the Pearl of the Indian Ocean; it is located 77 km from the South African border.  The city was built on the northern bank of the Esturio do Esprito Santo, an estuary which leads to the Maputo Bay on the West.  Prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the area in the 1500s, the area was known as an exchange place between Arabs and Africans, and was known as Catembe, on the southern bank of the estuary.  In 1502, the Portuguese Antonio de Campos was the first European to get to Maputo Bay, but it was the navigator Lourenço Marques who explored it truly for the first time in 1544.  Initially, the bay was known as Delagoa bay, as it was the first maritime transit from Goa.  It was a village whose main economy was based on the ivory trade.  It is only in 1876, that the city became known as Lourenço Marques, after the navigator.  A commission was sent by the Portuguese government in 1876 to drain the marshy land near the settlement, to plant the blue gum tree, and to build a hospital and a church.  A city since 1887, it superseded the Island of Mozambique as the capital of Mozambique in 1898.  Today, Maputo is a melting pot of several cultures dominated by the Bantu and Portuguese, but also influenced by Arab, Indian and Chinese cultures.  It is also well-known for its beautiful colonial architecture.  Read more and see graphics at https://afrolegends.com/2013/02/18/why-the-name-maputo/

Zero-Tasking Day occurs on the day when Daylight Saving (not Savings) Time ends.  Zero-tasking is a term coined by Nancy Christie, an author and motivational speaker.  (I guess we can call her a “de-motivational” speaker.)  Christie encourages us to resist the urge to fill that hour with activity.  She wants us to kick back and relax, to be, not to do.  Christie’s holiday is an important reminder of the need to rest and recharge.  It also sounds like the perfect excuse for a nap.  http://www.worldwideweirdholidays.com/zero-tasking-day/ 

i.e. and e.g.:  What are they?  Why do we use them?  What do they mean?  And why don’t we just get rid of them?  A small issue in a larger project recently got me thinking about this topic.  To put it bluntly, an author who had otherwise produced a manuscript that was clear and easy to read, using plain and lively language with a minimum of clichés, jargon, and academic English, had chosen to liberally sprinkle one or two chapters with uses of i.e. and e.g.  I didn’t think much of it at the time, but later it nagged at me.  Why had the author done this, I wondered?  Because (I knew) it seemed appropriate.  To a great many writers, i.e.and e.g. are just two more tools in the box, ready to be used when needed.  The more common concern is using them correctly (e.g. = for example; i.e. = that is) and not confusing them.  It’s a very common error.  But many of those same writers, who strive for clarity, have become so familiar with these terms that they don’t recognize they are not only cliché-like in their overuse, but that their use is actually a kind of pretentious faux academic English.   It seems to me that using e.g. and i.e. falls into this category.  By themselves, maybe they’re not so bad.  But they can quickly become symptoms in a broader diagnosis of a greater out-of-touch state (dare we say cluelessness?) about contemporary style and best practice.  Which is why when I spent a little time thinking on and researching this issue, I rapidly came to the obvious conclusion: e.g. and i.e. should not be used.  Kick them out of your writing, and don’t let them back in, no matter how hard they bang on the door.  Christpher Daly  Read about the infamous butterfly effect at https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2017/07/31/i-e-and-e-g-youre-not-writing-in-latin-so-why-are-you-using-them/

Live broadcast of solar eclipse  From the comfort of your own couch or cubicle, you can have a front-row seat the total eclipse on August 21, 2017 thanks to a team from the University of Maine and a balloon floating three times higher than a commercial airliner flies.  The UMaine High Altitude Ballooning group will travel to Clemson University in South Carolina, where it will be one of many teams documenting the eclipse as part of the NASA-sponsored Great American Eclipse project.  Millions of Americans are expected to tilt their heads upward to catch a glimpse of a total eclipse of the sun, which will be blocked out as the moon passes in front of it.  The best views of the eclipse will be in a 70-mile-wide band stretching from Oregon to South Carolina.  The UMaine group, partnering with Montana State University, will launch a pair of high-altitude balloons about 110,000 feet above Clemson to capture a unique angle on the event, which will be broadcast live on the internet at nasa.gov/eclipselive.  “The live-stream video will show the curvature of the planet, the blackness of space, and the whole of the moon’s shadow crossing the earth during the eclipse,” Angela DesJardins, director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium, said in a statement.  “By live streaming it on the internet, we are providing people across the world an opportunity to experience the eclipse in a unique way.”  More than 50 other teams from across the country plan on doing the same, creating a network of high-altitude cameras to catch the action as the eclipse draws its path across the country.  Because they’ll be on the East Coast, UMaine’s balloons will be among the last to go airborne.  Nick McCrea  https://bangordailynews.com/2017/08/16/news/bangor/umaine-team-to-launch-high-altitude-balloons-for-live-broadcast-of-solar-eclipse/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1756  August 18, 2017  On this date in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage.  On this date in 1938, the Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York, United States with Ontario, Canada over the Saint Lawrence River, was dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  On this date in 1958, Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita was published in the United States.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_18

By far the most popular form of common ownership is the condominium.  A condominium is characterized by separate ownership of identified portions of the subject property (such as individual apartments in a multi-unit building) and undivided or joint ownership of the remainder (the common areas of that apartment building).  The most common form of condominium is the residential, multi-unit high-rise apartment style building, but the condominium concept is not limited to this form.  Condominiums exist in commercial real estate settings, such as office condominiums, and in other residential forms, such as condominium townhouses.  A condominium is a form of ownership, not a type of building.  Existing apartment buildings can be turned or "converted" into condominiums, and condominiums can be changed back into traditional apartment buildings.  The condominium is generally created by a condominium declaration, which includes, among other provisions, descriptions of the units and common areas, and any material restrictions on the occupancy or use of the units.  The condominium is managed by the Condominium Association, which is composed of the owners of the individual units and which makes and enforces rules (much like the landlord of a traditional apartment building), sets and collects the dues and maintenance fees necessary to maintain the structure, and manages the common areas.  Additionally, to some extent the rights and duties associated with a common-interest ownership will be governed by the state's condominium statute.  All fifty states have passed statutes governing condominiums, with some passing broader statutes governing common-interest communities generally.  A cooperative is also a form of shared or common-interest ownership, although it is much less common than the condominium.   Real estate cooperatives are formed on the same theory and general lines as other cooperative organizations, such as banking or credit cooperatives, which are owned by and operated for the benefit of those using the organization's services.  The major difference between a condominium and a cooperative is that in a cooperative, each owner does not have outright ownership of any specific, identifiable unit.  Rather, title to the entire property is held by the cooperative (usually a corporation), and the residents own stock in the corporation.  As shareholders, the residents elect directors to manage the building, and the corporation in turn provides each resident with a long-term renewable lease to his or her specific apartment unit.  http://realestate.findlaw.com/owning-a-home/condominiums-and-cooperatives.html

Reuters  2007  Co-operatives comprise about two thirds of the non-rental residential units in Manhattan.  Instead of owning individual apartments, buyers own shares in the corporations, which are governed by boards.  The boards have the final say on any sale and can reject a candidate for just about any reason other than those that violate U.S. constitutional rights.  Richard Nixon was rejected twice by Manhattan co-op boards after leaving the White House.  Mariah Carey was rejected by the same Central Park West board that rejected buyers for Barbara Streisand's apartment.  Many candidates have found the boards too intrusive, requiring references, payment guarantees, extensive income histories and long tallies of assets.  Even media tycoon Rupert Murdoch had to seek co-op board approval before spending $44 million on a three-story penthouse three years ago.  The difference in standards between co-op boards and the banks has been substantial in recent years.  Most co-op boards will reject a candidate who plans to spend more than 25 percent of their gross monthly income on mortgage and maintenance payments, while a bank will allow 44 percent, said Eric Appelbaum, president and owner of mortgage brokerage Apple Mortgage.  The boards also want a candidate to have one year of maintenance payment money in the bank as a cushion, while banks require only two months.  As for down payments, most co-op boards require at least 25 percent down and some will demand as much as 50 percent, while banks have been allowing 10 percent down or even nothing at the height of the recent lending frenzy.  Stringent boards might have a thing or two to teach some of the banks and other home-loan lenders hurt by loose lending practices.  Ilaina Jonas  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-manhattanapartments-coops-idUSN1030383320070812   See also Richard Nixon’s Search for a New York Home by Ralph Blumenthal at https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/richard-nixons-search-for-a-new-york-home/

"Starboard" was originally "steerboard", referring to the side on which the steering rudder was hung on Viking ships. The "port" side used to be called "larboard" in earlier times.  The term "larboard" was officially dropped in favour of "port" by international agreements in the 19th century, to avoid confusion between the similar-sounding calls.  The term "posh" (meaning wealthy or upper-class) originated as an acronym P.O.S.H. (standing for "Port Out, Starboard Home") used by booking staff on British cruise-liners to describe the cabin arrangements for rich passengers wanting the sunny (southern) side of the ship on Atlantic crossings out to America and back.  http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/portstar.htm

" . . . we always make the most remarkable journeys deep down inside ourselves, where there is no time or space."  "All the sea offers us is the unexpected."  A Treacherous Paradise, a novel by Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell (1948-2015) was born in Stockholm.  When Henning was barely two years old his father, Ivar Mankell, was offered to serve as a court judge in a small town in the north of Sweden called Sveg, where Henning spent his childhood.  We were not rich, but we did not lack anything either.  Nevertheless, his childhood was also affected by the fact that he grew up without a present mother.  My mother did what many men do, she left.  Hence, Ivar Mankell raised his children himself and he always encouraged them to read, but he never told them what to read.  So Henning Mankell read a lot about the African explorers and imagined that the logs in Ljusnan, the river that runs through Sveg, were crocodiles in the Congo.  Africa was the most exotic place I could imagine--the end of the world--and I knew I would go there one day.  He also learned that imagination could be an instrument of survival, not just of creativity.  When Henning Mankell was thirteen his family moved to Borås, a city 50 km north west of Gothenburg on the Swedish west coast.  Henning Mankell was soon bored with secondary school and left at the age of 16 for Paris.  Shortly after he left Paris to work as a merchant  seaman.  He worked for two years as a stevedore on a Swedish ship ferrying coal and iron ore to Europe and America.  I loved the ship’s decent hard-working community.  It was my real university.  It was also a romantic Conradian dream of escape, though there were long, boring times too.  After having signed off Henning Mankell settled in Paris in 1966.  He stayed there for a year and a half in a constant shortage of money, although he experienced the activism and political debate.  Thereafter he went to Stockholm to work as a  stagehand.  While working as a stagehand he wrote his first play, The Amusement Park, about Swedish colonial interests in the 19^th century’s South America.  In 1973, shortly after his father died, Henning Mankell’s first novel The Stone Blaster was released.  It tells the story of the workers’ union movement and is still in print in Sweden.  It is about an old man looking back on his life and on Swedish society and the need for solidarity, a theme that is frequently recurring in Henning Mankell’s works and in his life.  Since then Henning Mankell has spent a great part of his life on the African continent.  After living in Zambia and other countries, he was invited in 1986 to run the Teatro Avenida in the capital of Mozambique, Maputo.  Since his arrival in 1986 he spent at least half the year in Maputo working with the theatre and writing, gaining another perspective on Sweden and Europe.  Read much more at http://henningmankell.com/author/biography/

An IndyStar editorial cartoon retweeted August 15, 2017 on President Trump’s account and later deleted is an altered version of a cartoon originally published in January, 2017.  The original image, created by IndyStar cartoonist Gary Varvel, depicted a Democratic donkey trying to hold back the Trump train.  The altered image shows a CNN logo covering the donkey's face and includes the words "fake news can't stop the Trump train."  A White House official later told the New York Times that the tweet of the train was posted inadvertently and was deleted as soon as it was noticed.  The real cartoon:  Cartoonist Gary Varvel: Stopping the Trump train   “We don’t know who altered Gary’s original cartoon, but we’re looking into it,” said Jeff Taylor, editor and vice president for news of The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com.   “The cartoon was altered without anyone’s knowledge or permission at The Star."  Justin L. Mack  http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2017/08/15/president-donald-trump-retweets-fake-indystar-cartoon/568133001/

We honor the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley, on the anniversary of his death (August 16, 1977).  What better way to celebrate the legacy of Elvis than by exploring the foods he enjoyed while he was alive?  Now, when most people think about Elvis and food, the first thing that comes to mind is peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  He enjoyed a wide variety of rich Southern foods, and also acquired a taste for sauerkraut and sausage while stationed in Germany during the war.  Find a list of food items that had to be on hand for Elvis every day at Graceland (Source:  “Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley” by David Adler) and a recipe for buttermilk skillet cornbread at http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2011/08/what-elvis-ate-southern-skillet-cornbread-2/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1755  August 16, 2017  On this date in 1858, U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurated the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.  However, a weak signal forced a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.  On this date in 1930, the first color sound cartoon, called Fiddlesticks, was made by Ub Iwerks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_16   

Raymond "Ray" Kurzweil (born February 12, 1948) is an American author, computer scientist, inventor and futurist.  Aside from futurism, he is involved in fields such as optical character recognition(OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments.  He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism.  Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.  Kurzweil was the principal inventor of the first charge-coupled device flatbed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first commercial text-to-speech synthesizer, the Kurzweil K250 music synthesizer capable of simulating the sound of the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition.  Kurzweil received the 1999 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the United States' highest honor in technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony.  He was the recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for 2001, the world's largest for innovation.  And in 2002 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office.  He has received twenty-one honorary doctorates, and honors from three U.S. presidents.  Kurzweil has been described as a "restless genius" by The Wall Street Journal and "the ultimate thinking machine" by Forbes.  PBS included Kurzweil as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America" along with other inventors of the past two centuries.  Inc. magazine ranked him #8 among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the United States and called him "Edison's rightful heir".  Kurzweil has written seven books, five of which have been national bestsellers.  The Age of Spiritual Machines has been translated into 9 languages and was the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in science.  Kurzweil's book The Singularity Is Near was a New York Times bestseller, and has been the #1 book on Amazon in both science and philosophy.  Kurzweil speaks widely to audiences both public and private and regularly delivers keynote speeches at industry conferences like DEMO, SXSW and TED.  He maintains the news website KurzweilAI.net, which has over three million readers annually.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil

Signe Hasso (1910-2002) was born Signe Larsson in Stockholm.  At the age of 12, appeared in productions at the Royal Dramatic Theatre.  At 16, she became the youngest person to enrol in the theatre's academy.  Her first success was in the title role of Schiller's Maria Stuart, and she continued to act under her own name until her marriage to Swedish producer Harry Hasso in 1933, the year she entered films.  In 1940, she decided to go to the United States with her young son because she had been offered a contract by RKO, her marriage had broken down and the Nazis had invaded Norway.  But RKO failed to come up with any roles, and, after a short runon the New York stage, she made her Hollywood debut for MGM with a brief part in Journey For Margaret (1942).   Her last major Hollywood part was as Isabel Farrago, the cool wife of José Ferrer's South American dictator, in Crisis (1950).  On stage in the 1950s, she appeared in Uncle Vanya and The Apple Cart, as well as in live television dramas.  After her son died in a car accident in 1957, she returned to Sweden for a while, though she was soon acting again both in Sweden and the US, mostly on stage and in television.  Hasso, who held dual citizenship, also wrote music and lyrics for the album Scandin-avian Folk Songs Sung And Swung, and published novels, short stories and articles.  Ronald Bergan  Read more at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/jun/11/guardianobituaries

The adjective systematic means (1)  carried out using step-by-step procedures, or (2)  of, characterized, or constituting a system.  It typically describes carefully planned processes that unfold gradually.  Systemic, which is narrower in definition, means systemwide or deeply engrained in the system.  It usually describes habits or processes that are difficult to reverse because they are built into a system.  There is some gray area between the words.  When there is doubt, it’s usually safer to go with systematic, which is older and more broadly defined.  http://grammarist.com/usage/systematic-systemic/  

The Côte d'Azur literal translation "Coast of Azure"), often known in English as the French Riviera, is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the state of Monaco.  There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from the Italian border (Italian Riviera) in the east to Saint-Tropez, Hyères, Toulon, or Cassis in the west.  This coastline was one of the first modern resort areas.  It began as a winter health resort for the British upper class at the end of the 18th century.  With the arrival of the railway in the mid-19th century, it became the playground and vacation spot of British, Russian, and other aristocrats, such as Queen Victoria and King Edward VII, when he was Prince of Wales.  In the first half of the 20th century, it was frequented by artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edith Wharton, Somerset Maugham, and Aldous Huxley, as well as wealthy Americans and Europeans.  After World War II, it became a popular tourist destination and convention site.  Many celebrities, such as Elton John and Brigitte Bardot, have homes in the region. Officially, the Côte d'Azur is home to 163 nationalities with 83,962 foreign residents, although estimates of the number of non-French nationals living in the area are often much higher.  As a tourist center, French Riviera benefits from 310 to 330 days of sunshine per year, 115 kilometres (71 miles) of coastline and beaches, 18 golf courses, 14 ski resorts and 3,000 restaurants.  The name Côte d'Azur was given to the coast by the writer Stéphen Liégeard in his book, La Côte d’azur, published in December 1887.  Liégeard was born in Dijon, in the French department of Côte-d'Or, and adapted that name by substituting the azure blue color of the Mediterranean for the gold of Côte-d'Or.  The term French Riviera is typical of English use.  It was built by analogy with the term Italian Riviera, which extends east of the French Riviera (from Ventimiglia to La Spezia).   Originally, riviera is an Italian noun which means "coastline".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Riviera

How do you pronounce David Baldacci's last name?   Ball-DAH-chee.  https://davidbaldacci.com/faq/#one

How do you pronounce Alan Alda's last name?   AL-da.  Most pronounce the first syllable to rhyme with ball, but considering Alda's father created the name from the first two letters of his first and last name (Alphonso D'Abruzzo), arguably the first syllable should be as in the Al in Alphonso.  https://www.bookbrowse.com/authors/author_pronunciations/

Official Pronunciation Guide for 'Game of Thrones'

http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/production-diary/2011/2/11/official-pronunciation-guide-for-game-of-thrones.html

In February 2017, NRKbeta, the tech vertical of the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, published an explainer about a proposed new digital surveillance law in the country.  Digital security is a controversial topic, and the conversation around security issues can become heated.  But the conversation in the comments of the article was respectful and productive:  Commenters shared links to books and other research, asked clarifying questions, and offered constructive feedback.  The team at NRKbeta attributes the civil tenor of its comments to a feature it introduced last month.  On some stories, potential commenters are now required to answer three basic multiple-choice questions about the article before they’re allowed to post a comment.  (For instance, in the digital surveillance story:  “What does DGF stand for?”)  While many outlets have gotten rid of comments and outsourced reader conversations to platforms such as Facebook, others like NRKbeta are working to improve on-site conversations.  Last week, Google parent company Alphabet announced that it was working with The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, and Wikipedia to test a new tool called Perspective that uses machine learning to identify “toxic” comments, which it defines as “rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable comment that is likely to make you leave a discussion.”   Similarly, the Times, The Washington Post, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Knight Foundation launched the Coral Project, an initiative to create open-source tools to help news orgs improve their on-site community.  There’s also the startup Civil, which created its own commenting platform that requires users to grade the civility of comments before they’re allowed to post their own.  Joseph Lichterman  http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/03/this-site-is-taking-the-edge-off-rant-mode-by-making-readers-pass-a-quiz-before-commenting/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1754  August 15, 2017  On this date in 1843, Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opened in Copenhagen, Denmark.  On this date in 1914, the Panama Canal opened to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship SS Ancon.  On this date in 1939, The Wizard of Oz premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_15  Thought for the Day  O, what a tangled web we weave, / When first we practise to deceive! - Walter Scott, novelist and poet (15 Aug 1771-1832) 

Anyone serving in any capacity in an organization must be passionate about their work.  Without a love of what we do and a desire to accomplish great things, we will not succeed.  Second, the most successful people in leadership positions are those who are positive.  Participate in meetings with attitudes of openness and respect, offering differences of opinion congenially and in a supportive way.  Finally, volunteers in positions of service must be patient.  It is a major act of self-control not to move too quickly before everyone has been heard, and all input has been weighed that affects any decision.  Michael Bedford  The American Organist  August 2017

Kansas City holds its fountains near and dear.  The City of Fountains Foundation, a local group dedicated to preserving Kansas City’s fountains, has officially counted more than 200 fountains throughout the metro area.  And that number is understated, because the foundation’s count excludes subdivision markers and fountains inside privately owned buildings.  It appears no other city has an official count, so Kansas City’s claim appears to be uncontested by virtue of indifference.  And for that matter, Kansas City may have more fountains than Rome.  Kansas City’s reputation as the “City of Fountains” can be traced to August Meyer and George Kessler, two urban planners from the 1890s credited with bringing the City Beautiful Movement to Kansas City.  Both men, having traveled extensively throughout Europe, sought to transform the burgeoning, but aesthetically lacking, cow town into a beautifully-manicured metropolis with “more boulevards than Paris and more fountains than Rome.”  Nathan Zoschke  http://info.umkc.edu/unews/all-around-town-true-of-false-five-facts-and-myths-about-kansas-city/

The Great Northern Hotel (1891-1940) was an impressive 500 room 16-story hotel that was located at the intersection of Dearborn and Jackson Boulevard in Chicago.  The hotel was originally constructed 891 by the architecture firm of D.H. Burnham and Company, and was originally called the “Chicago Hotel”, but Proprietors/Owners, Hulbert & Eden, changed the name to the “Great Northern”.  The Aeolian Pipe Organ at the Great Northern Hotel in Chicago, built and installed in 1896, was a renowned landmark in its day.  Read a story from the Chicago Chronicle in October, 1897:   "A few nights ago, when the big Aeolian at the Great Northern began its usual evening programme, it didn’t seem to work just right.  The Aeolian was doing its level best to play the wedding march from Lohengrin, but made an awful mess of it.  The first strain, which everyone remembers goes “Rum-tum-te-tum,” was followed by “Meouw-wow-ow.”  All the crowd looked up at the organ and tried to locate the spot where the unusual accompaniment came from.  The next strain of the march was followed by a screeching yowl that was heard clear up to the “G” floor.  People at dinner dropped their knives and forks and looked nervously at each other and then at the doors and windows.  Just as the third yell came out of the Aeolian, Proprietor Eden was seen on the second floor, stealthily moving toward the instrument with a ladder in his hand.  Mr. Eden crept up close to the Aeolian and listened for a moment.  Then he put his ladder against the right side and slowly made his way to the top.  When he got up he reached over and put his hand down inside of the E flat pipe.  There were no results at first.  Then he stood on tiptoe and shoved his arm to the shoulder down the mouth of the pipe.  There followed a terrible yowling and scratching, but the Colonel pulled, and with a noise like the departure of a tight cork from the neck of a beer bottle, he pulled the hotel cat out of the pipe and carried it down to the baggage room, where it belongs."  Read more and see many pictures at https://chicagology.com/goldenage/goldenage004/

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

middlescence  (mid-uhl-ES-uhns)  noun  The middle-age period of life.  Patterned after adolescence.  Earliest documented use: 1965 (adolescence is from 1425).

yeasayer  (YE-say-uhr)  noun  1.  A person with a confident and positive outlook.  2.  A person who agrees uncritically; a yes-man.  Patterned after the term naysayer.  Earliest documented use:  1934 (naysayer is from 1628)

BRITAIN TO SCRAP LIBOR BY 2021 by Huw Jones   A substitute for the widely-used Libor interest rate benchmark should be in place for banks to use by the end of 2021, the head of Britain's financial markets watchdog said.  Libor, a daily rate in a range of currencies, is based on submissions from banks of interest rates they believe they would be charged by others for borrowing money.  Banks have been fined billions of dollars for trying to manipulate the benchmark, forcing a rethink of its future.  The benchmark is used to price financial contracts worth $350 trillion, ranging from home loans to credit cards, and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said this month that such a reference rate should in future be based on actual market transactions and not banks' judgments.  Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, told an event in London on July 27, 2017 that work must "begin in earnest" on shifting to an alternative index, saying the end of 2021 would offer time to ensure a smooth transition.  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-regulator-libor-idUSKBN1AC18L

LIBOR or ICE LIBOR (previously BBA LIBOR) is a benchmark rate that some of the world’s leading banks charge each other for short-term loans.  It stands for IntercontinentalExchange London Interbank Offered Rate and serves as the first step to calculating interest rates on various loans throughout the world.  LIBOR is administered by the ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA), and is based on five currencies:  U.S. dollar (USD), Euro (EUR), pound sterling (GBP), Japanese yen (JPY) and Swiss franc (CHF), and serves seven different maturities:  overnight, one week, and 1, 2, 3, 6 and 12 months.  There are a total of 35 different LIBOR rates each business day.  The most commonly quoted rate is the three-month U.S. dollar rate.  http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/libor.asp

The word barouche is an anglicisation of the German word barutsche, via the Italian baroccio or biroccio and ultimately from the Latin birotus, "two-wheeled".  The name thus became a misnomer, as the later form of the carriage had four wheels.  The barouche, used in the 19th century, was a shallow vehicle with two double seats inside, arranged so that the sitters on the front seat faced those on the back seat.  It had carriage was suspended on C springs and used leather straps to connect parts.  It was drawn by a pair of high-quality horses and was used principally for leisure driving in the summer.  A light barouche was a barouchet or barouchette.  A barouche-sociable was described as a cross between a barouche and a victoria.  The barouche-landau is a form of carriage mentioned in Emma, published in 1816 by Jane Austen.  It "combines the best features of a barouche and a landau".  The structure of the carriage is heavier than it looks, because of the lack of a rigid roof structure.  An illustration of the expensive and more rarely seen vehicle, on account of the expense, is shown in a paper by Ed Ratcliffe, citing editor R. W. Chapman's collection of the works of Jane Austen, in the volume Minor Works a soft collapsible half-hood folding like a bellows over the back seat and a high outside box seat in front for the driver.  The entire, as noted in Ratcliffe's sources.  Barouches can be seen in the 21st century, as replicas of the carriages of an earlier time, in many places around the world.  The barouche followed from an earlier carriage type, called a calash or calèche:  this was also a light carriage with small wheels, inside seats for four passengers, a separate driver's seat and a folding top.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barouche

Buttered Roll Redux:  A Lowly Breakfast Food Begets High Drama by Sadie Stein  In New York, they’re on every corner—plus the coffee cart mid-block—pre-buttered and prepackaged, fast and cheap and extremely in control.  And while the component parts of butter and rolls are universally available, the Buttered Kaiser Roll is not a breakfast staple in most of the country—especially not as an official menu option. Could I walk into a diner elsewhere in the U.S. and ask for a Kaiser roll with butter at 8 a.m.?  Yes, I could, and I have.  But why would I, when I can get so many other, better, buttered breadstuffs—say, a behemoth cinnamon bun in Oregon, or a buttermilk biscuit in Nashville, or a fresh muffin in New England?  And yet, I love the buttered roll . . .  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/insider/buttered-roll-redux-a-lowly-breakfast-food-achieves-high-drama.html?hpw&rref=times-insider&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1753  August 14, 2017  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.  On this date in 1975, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the longest-running release in film history, opened in London.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_14

Delmonico's, the restaurant that now occupies a triangle of a building down in the Financial District, is widely known as the restaurant that changed New York dining forever.  The restaurant has existed, through different owners and permutations, over 184 years and over eight locations and enjoyed a reputation as the best fine dining restaurant in New York for over six decades.  From the early Dutch settlements up until the late 1820's when Delmonico's opened, there was little by way of restaurants.  Taverns opened in the 1700's and oyster cellars and coffee houses could be found relatively easily, but there were no proper sit down restaurants, no cafes.  When the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the city in 1825, and when the first steam ship completed a trip from Albany to Manhattan, it was seen as a public embarrassment that New York offered nowhere for a celebration.  In short, New York was a fine dining desert until the arrival of John (Giovanni) and Peter (Pietro) Delmonico, Swiss brothers who used $20,000 in gold coins they saved to open a cafe serving French pastries at 23 William Street called Delmonico.  They opened, along with nephew Lorenzo, in 1827 and by 1831 they evolved into a full fledged French restaurant by expanding into the building next door.  Soon enough, competition sprouted up in the wake of their success and a dining society was born.  The restaurant also represented a cultural shift toward French dining.  At the time, all of the best home cooks were preparing traditional British fare, and American cookbooks were British in nature.  In 1834 the Delmonicos bought a farm in present day Williamsburg to grow produce for the restaurant.  In Appetite City, author William Grimes notes that an 1838 menu offered squab, hare, quail, pheasant, grouse, venison, and wild duck as well as salmon, mackerel, artichokes a la Barigoule, salsify au jus, eggplant and more.  The famous Delmonico steak was added to the menu in 1850, and Delmonico's potatoes, mashed potatoes covered in cheese and breadcrumbs, were a favorite of Abraham Lincoln.  Nephew Charles Delmonico hired chef Charles Ranhofer to helm the stoves.  Ranhofer, considered one of the great chefs of the day, would go on to work for the restaurant group for 35 years, host thousands of banquets, create hundreds of dishes (including Lobster Newburg and baked Alaska), and compile them into a book called The Epicurean.  Throughout the years several copycat Delmonico's opened up around town, including one in the original Citadel Delmonico's building at 2 South William Street (at Beaver) in 1929 called "Oscar's Delmonico's."  Though the family protested, a judge ruled that the name was public domain after the closure of the last restaurant in 1923.  Oscar's Delmonico's served many of the restaurant's original dishes and operated until 1977.  Amanda Kludt  Read more and see many pictures at https://ny.eater.com/2011/6/29/6673317/remembering-delmonicos-new-yorks-original-restaurant

In 1919, Edward L.C. Robins purchased Delmonico's.  Its grand location at Fifth Avenue and 44th Street closed in 1923 as a result of changing dining habits due to Prohibition.  That location was the final incarnation of Delmonico's with continuity to the original.  Eggs Benedict were also said to have originated at Delmonico's, although others claim that dish as well.  It is often claimed that the Baked Alaska's name was coined at Delmonico's in1867, by cook Charles Ranhofer.  However, no contemporary account exists of this occurrence and Ranhofer himself referred to the dish, in 1894, as "Alaska Florida", apparently referring to the contrast between extremes of heat and cold.  Manhattan clam chowder also first appeared in New York at Delmonico's.  Under Oscar Tucci's ownership of Delmonico's, he created the Wedge Salad.  After a trip to a Bridgeport, Connecticut farm, Oscar picked the ingredients that became the salad as we know it to be.  Tucci added bacon to the dish shortly after.  The salad became an instant favorite, though some notable restaurateurs criticized the salad saying it was drenched in dressing.  Today the Wedge Salad is served internationally and recognized as one of the most famous salads of the 20th century.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delmonico%27s

Juan Vucetich (1858–1925), an Argentinian police official, devised the first workable system of fingerprint identification, and pioneered the first use of fingerprint evidence in a murder investigation.  As a young man, Vucetich emigrated from Croatia to Argentina, where he took a job in the La Plata Police Office of Identification and Statistics.  After reading an article in a French journal on Francis Galton's experiments with fingerprints as a means of identification, Vucetich began collecting fingerprints, taken from arrested men, while also making Bertillon-style anthropometric measurements.  He soon devised a useable system to group and classify fingerprints, which he called dactyloscopy.  https://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/galleries/biographies/vucetich.html

Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914), the son of medical professor Louis Bertillon, was a French criminologist and anthropologist who created the first system of physical measurements, photography, and record-keeping that police could use to identify recidivist criminals.  Before Bertillon, suspects could only be identified through eyewitness accounts and unorganized files of photographs.  Bertillon began his career as a records clerk in the Parisian police department.  In 1883, the Parisian police adopted his anthropometric system, called signaletics or bertillonage.  Bertillon identified individuals by measurements of the head and body, shape formations of the ear, eyebrow, mouth, eye, etc., individual markings such as tattoos and scars, and personality characteristics.  The measurements were made into a formula that referred to a single unique individual, and recorded onto cards which also bore a photographic frontal and profile portrait of the suspect (the "mug shot").  The cards were then systematically filed and cross-indexed, so they could be easily retrieved.  In 1884, Bertillon used his method to identify 241 multiple offenders, and after this demonstration, bertillonage was adopted by police forces in Great Britain, Europe, and the Americas.

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/galleries/biographies/bertillon.html

Canadian Bacon is a misnomer.  The only place they call it that is in the United States.  Just as they don’t call Philly Cheese steak in Philadelphia, or Buffalo Wings in Buffalo.  Canadian Bacon probably got that name says because in the mid 1800’s there was shortage of pork in the United Kingdom and they imported the meat from Canada.  They would cure the backmeat in a special brine, which the Canadians call peameal bacon, because they would roll it in ground yellow split peas to help preserve it.  The English smoked it instead, and this new concoction was just referred to probably as Canadian Bacon.  http://kitchenproject.com/history/CanadianBacon/  See also The Real Deal:  Authentic Canadian bacon isn't what most Americans think it is by Marlene Parrish at http://old.post-gazette.com/food/20020602bacon0602fnp4.asp

World War II began in September 1939 but it was not until January 8th, 1940 that the first foods--bacon, butter and sugar--were rationed in Britain.  Successive ration schemes for meat, tea, jam, biscuits, breakfast cereals, cheese, eggs, lard, milk and canned and dried fruit quickly followed.  Almost all foods apart from vegetables and bread were rationed by August 1942.  Almost all controlled items were rationed by weight, except meat which was rationed by price.  Game meat such as rabbit and pigeon were not rationed, but were not always available.  Fresh vegetables and fruit were not rationed but supplies were limited.  Some types of imported fruit all but disappeared.

http://www.tastesofhistory.co.uk/Recipes/World-War-II/  See also 167 Wartime Recipes at

https://the1940sexperiment.com/100-wartime-recipes/

The Triborough Bridge, known officially as the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge since 2008, and sometimes referred to as the RFK Triborough Bridge, is a complex of three separate bridges in New York City.  The bridges connect the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx via Randalls and Wards Islands, which are joined by landfill.  The bridge complex, which carries Interstate 278 and unmarked New York State Route 900G, connects with the FDR Drive and the Harlem River Drive in Manhattan, the Bruckner Expressway and the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx, and the Grand Central Parkway and Astoria Boulevard in Queens.  The three bridges of the Triborough Bridge complex are:  the Harlem River vertical-lift bridge, the largest in the world, which connects Manhattan to Randall's Island; the Bronx Kill truss bridge, connecting Randall's Island and the Bronx; the suspension bridge over Hell Gate--a strait of the East River--which connects Ward's Island to Astoria in Queens.  These are connected by an elevated highway viaduct across Randall's and Ward's Islands and 14 miles (23 km) of support roads.  Also part of the complex is a grade-separated T-interchange on Randall's Island, which sorts out traffic in a way that ensures that drivers pay a toll at only one bank of toll booths.  The bridge complex was designed by chief engineer Othmar H. Ammann and architect Aymar Embury II, and has been called the "biggest traffic machine ever built".  The American Society of Civil Engineers designated the Triborough Bridge Project as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1986.  Read more and see pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triborough_Bridge  See also http://web.mta.info/bandt/html/rfk.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1752  August 11, 2017  On this date in 1929, Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.  On this date in 1942, actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil received a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones and Wi-Fi.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_11