Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Facebook, which has gone after sites with the word "book" in their names, is also trying to trademark the word "face," according to court documents. Aaron Greenspan has asked for an extension of time to file an opposition to Facebook's attempt. Greenspan is the president and CEO of Think Computer, the developer of a mobile payments app called FaceCash. "If you search the patent database, there are thousands of marks that contain the word 'face,'" Greenspan said. "I understand where Facebook is coming from, but this move has big implications for my company and for others." http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/27/technology/facebook_trademark_face/

Oregon restaurants recently visited
Ashland: Callahan's Lodge--located just below the summit of Siskiyou Mountains--made to withstand 100 mph winds, level 8 earthquakes and 90-pound snow load, all at the same time--we had two excellent breakfasts and two excellent dinners here, including a confection which won the 2010 Oregon Chocolate Competition
Crater Lake National Park: Crater Lake Lodge
Dundee: Farm to Fork "best burgers in the world"
Eugene: King Estate--breathtaking view of Willamette Valley
Hood River: Columbia Gorge Hotel--located atop a bluff next to a waterfall
Portland: Heathman, Higgins, Pastini Pastaria, Pazzo

Less than a day after JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made headlines with his take-this-job-and-shove-it moment at New York's JFK airport, a computer-animated version of the event appeared online. The video, which quickly garnered 600,000 views on YouTube, was courtesy of Taiwan's Next Media Animation. For about a year, the company&mdashpart of Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai's empire, New Media&mdashhas been turning out computer animations of current events, including celebrity scandals, and local news. Three years ago, Lai decided his news stories needed to be more visual. "Images can transmit information so much faster," he says. He decided to start Next Media Animation (NMA) in Taiwan, a country with a successful video-game industry and a deep pool of animators. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_36/b4193038847783.htm

The Marionberry was originally called "No. 256". It was created at Oregon State University located in Marion County, Oregon, hence the name Marionberry. It is a horticultural cross between several cane berries; the Blackberry, Red Raspberry, Olallie Berry and Texas Dewberry, to name a few. http://www.genuineoregon.com/OREGON-MARIONBERRY-PRODUCTS.html

Unusual fruits
Mayhaws a small (1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter) crabapple-like fruit that grows on a type of thorny hawthorne tree. It ripens from mid-April to early May, from which the name, mayhaw, originated. The mayhaw is a wild native fruit tree found along river bottoms and swamps from east Texas, east to Georgia and Florida, and especially throughout Louisiana.
Paw-Paws Also known as a prairie banana, Kentucky banana, or Ozark banana, is small tree with large leaves and fruit, native to southeastern North America. Also spelled paw paw, paw-paw, and papaw.
Salmonberries They're sweet, with an orange blush when completely ripe. Small (1/2 inch across), tasty, native to the west coast, from California to Alaska and in to parts of Idaho.
Seaberries has bright yellow-orange to red berries that are 7 times higher in vitamin C than lemons.
Tayberries This is popular in Oregon, and even more popular in the UK. It comes from Scotland, in 1977, near the Tay River, when a raspberry was crossed with an Aurora trailing blackberry Or, it could be a cross between a loganberry and a black raspberry.
http://www.pickyourown.org/unusualfruits.htm

A notable piece of Rhode Island art history came to light on August 9 when workers removed Depression-era murals from a building undergoing renovation at the University of Rhode Island. The murals, by the late artist Gino Conti, had been hidden for decades beneath drywall put up during an earlier renovation inside Edwards Hall. They are bound for restoration and an eventual return to URI. A March 1941 Providence Sunday Journal story chronicled Conti’s work on the murals for what was then known as Rhode Island State College. “The six oil canvases are symbolical in character,” the paper wrote, “flat and decorative in treatment and very much stylized. Of the two largest panels, one symbolizes the drama, music and the dance; the other, the protection of youth, the striving for progress and the past.” Conti, the paper noted, received funding for the murals from the Federal Art Project, part of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) program that pumped government dollars into the economy. http://www.projo.com/art/content/URI_murals_08-10-10_S3JGBGA_v12.245bf88.html

rotund (ro-TUND) adjective
1. Plump; fat.
2. Round in shape.
3. Having a full-toned, resonant sound.
From Latin rotundus (round), from rota (wheel). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ret- (to run or to roll), which is also the source of rodeo, rotunda, rotate, rotary, roulette, and orotund.
sidereal (sy-DEE-ree-uhl) adjective
1. Relating to the stars.
2. Measured with reference to the apparent motion of the stars. For example, sidereal time.
From Latin sidus (star). A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Arthur Lewis Subject: randomness
Sometimes there's no substitute for walking into a random aisle in a library and perusing what books one might bump into. I did this during doctoral exam preparation. It made the difference for one of the five questions.
From: Bucky Timothy Miller Subject: epeolatry
Next week, a gallery exhibition I am curating opens at Arizona State University's Step Gallery. The exhibition, titled Epeolatry: The Worship of Words, will feature works of art that utilize text in some significant fashion. I just wanted to thank A.Word.A.Day for the inspiration, as this is where I originally discovered the word epeolatry

Monday, August 30, 2010

U.S. EPA’s Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld has announced details of the Agency’s proposal to ban all sewage discharges from large cruise ships and most other large ocean-going ships to the marine waters along California’s entire coastline. This will establish the largest coastal ‘No Discharge Zone’ in the United States and is expected to eliminate millions of gallons of sewage that large ships discharge every year into local waters. http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/035d6a7b195f40428525778a0048d0b1!OpenDocument

Clarification on "second moon" hoax
Lead-ins on television news programs and newspapers can be misleading. The "Top 5 Astronomy Hoaxes" article on the Mars second moon could have had a better title, something like "Mars as Large as the Moon". USA Today explains that for the seventh consecutive year, the "Mars Hoax" is making the rounds on the Internet. It all started with an e-mail declaring that on the night of Aug. 27, the planet Mars will come closer to Earth than it has in 60,000 years, thereby offering spectacular views of the Red Planet. The commentary even proclaims, with liberal use of exclamation marks, that Mars will appear as bright as (or as large as) the full moon. "Aug. 27" is actually Aug. 27, 2003. Mars made a historically close pass by Earth that night (34.6 million miles, or 55.7 million km). The Hubble Space Telescope used the opportunity to make some great images of Mars. But even then, to the naked eye Mars appeared as nothing more than an extremely bright yellowish-orange star, not at all like the full moon. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/08/-mars-hoax-goes-viral-on-the-internet/1

Quote A house without books is like a room without windows.
Heinrich Mann (1871-1950) German writer, elder brother of Thomas Mann http://archive.ifla.org/I/humour/subj.htm

Recent visit to Washington State
Maryhill: Maryhill Museum of Art--Auguste Rodin sculpture and drawings, Native People of North America collection, Lewis & Clark at Maryhill, special events--we were there during an art fair--located on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River. http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/visit.html
Thanks, muse reader David for recommending we visit the museum.

Walla Walla The old fur-trading Fort Walla Walla (Fort Nez Perce) was established downstream on the Columbia River at the site of modern-day Wallula in 1818. The mission of Marcus Whitman was built (1836) nearby modern Walla Walla. Wagon trains began bringing settlers in the 1840s, and Steptoeville (later Walla Walla) grew around the U.S. military Fort Walla Walla (est. 1856). The name was changed when the settlement became county seat in 1859. Walla Walla is a district headquarters of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is also the seat of Whitman College, Walla Walla Univ., and the state penitentiary. The Whitman mission nearby has been restored as a national historic site. http://www.answers.com/topic/walla-walla-washington

Approximately 40 growers cultivate creamy, yellow Walla Walla Sweet Onions on about 1,200 acres in the fertile soils of the Walla Walla Valley in southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon. Walla Walla Sweets are planted in September and hand-harvested the following summer. http://www.onionworld.com/walla_walla_sweet.php

The Walla Walla Valley wine region is the most remote of all Washington State wine regions. Lying within the larger Columbia Valley Appellation, the Walla Walla wine region includes land in both Washington and Oregon--from the far southeast corner of Washington State to the northeast tip of Oregon. More than 100 wineries (October 2009) call the Walla Walla Valley Appellation home. http://winesnw.com/walla.html

Walla Walla Public Library http://www.wallawallapubliclibrary.org/

Marcus Whitman Hotel & Conference Center http://www.marcuswhitmanhotel.com/
The hotel opened September 1, 1928 and served 1000 meals on that same day. The hotel has been beautifully restored, and on the second floor you may view 35 original oil paintings telling the story of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. In 1835, Whitman accepted a commission as a missionary to the Northwest Territory from a congregation in Wheeler, New York. In the spring of 1836, the Whitmans set out for the west. On August 29, 1838, Whitman built his first house of adobe bricks. On November 29, 1847, the Whitman family was massacred by Cayuse Indians.

Friday, August 27, 2010

The Toledo Museum of Art has defeated 62 other contenders, making it to the final round of America's Favorite Art Museum tournament. It's facing off with the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts, in a bragging-rights contest that's accepting votes through 5 p.m. Sunday, August 29. Starting with 64 museums (it's patterned after the March Madness/NCAA basketball tournament brackets) selected by art writer Tyler Green with input from two other writers, people can vote for their favorite art palace at http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/ http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100826/ART01/100829795

Oregon places recently visited
Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area: Bonneville Lock and Dam, a National Historic Landmark serving the Northwest, Multnomah Falls, Crown Point and Vista House*, an octagonal building built in 1916 where the Historic Columbia River Highway was dedicated. The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act, P.L. 99-663, creating the 295,000-acre area, was signed on November 17, 1986 by President Ronald Reagan.

Crater Lake, formed inside a caldera about 7,700 years ago when Mount Mazama, a volcano collapsed, is the deepest lake in the U.S.--and considered to be the cleanest lake in the world. The lake is 1,943 feet deep and 4.5 to 6 miles wide.

Portland: Central Library is a three-story public library branch in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Opened in 1913, it serves as the main branch of the Multnomah County Library system. The Georgian style building was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Central Building, Public Library in 1979. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Library_(Portland,_Oregon)
Japanese Garden, 5 1/2 acres with 5 different garden styles and International Rose Test Garden, the oldest official continuously operated public rose test gardens in the U.S. http://www.travelportland.com/visitors/gardens.html
Pittock Mansion 16,000 sq. ft mansion built by founder of The Oregonian http://pittockmansion.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittock_Mansion

Stoller's, first Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified winery in the U.S.--constructed on the grounds of the former largest turkey farm in Oregon, 400 acres

The Dalles-Wasco County Public Library (Dalles is the plural form of the French dalle, usually translated as a flagstone or paving-stone but with other meanings, including a drain-gutter on the bridge of a ship. In the combination dalles des morts it usually means a gravestone. In voyageur French, it came to mean a rapids or narrows on a river. Its most famous application is for The Dalles, Oregon, which is at the site of the former Grandes Dalles de la Columbia.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalles

Timberline Lodge, on the south flank of Mt. Hood and funded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), dedicated by President Roosevelt on September 28, 1937 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
* We visited Vista House on the one day of the year when park rangers baked cookies for visitors--I selected a ranger cookie. to be continued

Certain expectations come with working at an elite corporate law firm: long hours, good pay, and an office largely free from the smell of grilled hamburgers. Steptoe & Johnson has gone to court in a quest to rid itself of hamburger fumes. The powerhouse D.C. firm filed suit claiming that Rogue States, A Burger Company has been piping hamburger exhaust into the firm’s air intake system, causing firm employees to suffer “headaches, nausea, dizziness, watery and itchy eyes, drowsiness and distraction.” D.C. Judge John Mott this week ordered the restaurant to stop emitting the odors within 30 days, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/08/26/law-firm-hamburger-war-heats-up/?mod=djemlawblog_h

On August 24, a team of stargazers using the European Southern Observatory in the high Chilean desert announced they'd detected a system of at least five, and maybe as many as seven, planets circling a star known as HD 10180, about 127 light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Hydrus. On August 26, a paper appeared in Science trumpeting the discovery of a multiplanetary system circling a star called Kepler-9, 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra. The latter solar system has only two or three worlds — but the space telescope that found it is so powerful that this discovery is just a hint of the other worlds and other solar systems it may discover in the next few months. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2014024,00.html

Top 5 astronomy hoaxes
1. Mars "Second Moon"
2. Sun-believable Discoveries
3. Letter of Toledo
4. "War of the Worlds"
5. 36 Hours of Darkness
See descriptions at: http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/mars-as-big-as-the-moon-tonight-and-other-great-astronomy-hoaxes/19610111

Thursday, August 26, 2010

The detective story was invented by Edgar Allan Poe, but he wrote only four of them before he lost interest. The first “career” practitioner of the genre who is still important to us today is Arthur Conan Doyle. Agatha Christie, who began publishing detective fiction thirty-three years after Conan Doyle, elaborated upon the traditional rules of detective fiction, in sixty-six novels published between 1920 and 1983. According to a number of sources, her books have sold more than two billion copies, making her the most widely read novelist in history. Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/08/16/100816crat_atlarge_acocella#ixzz0wQZZtXyQ

There were nine Friday the 13ths in 2009—the maximum possible in a year, at least as long as we continue to mark time with the Gregorian calendar, which Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Catholic Church to adopt in 1582. "You can't have any [years] with none, and you can't have any with four, because of our funny calendar," said Underwood Dudley, a professor emeritus of mathematics at DePauw University in Indiana, and author of Numerology: Or, What Pythagoras Wrought. The calendar works just as its predecessor, the Julian calendar, did, with a leap year every four years. But the Gregorian calendar skips leap year on century years except those divisible by 400. For example, there was no leap year in 1900, but there was one in 2000. This trick keeps the calendar in tune with the seasons. The result is an ordering of days and dates that repeats itself every 400 years, Dudley noted. As time marches through the order, some years appear with three Friday the 13ths. Other years have two or, like 2010, one. Richard Beveridge, a mathematics instructor at Clatsop Community College in Oregon, authored a 2003 paper in the journal Mathematical Connections on the mathematics of Friday the 13th. He noted the 400-year cycle is further broken down into periods of either 28 or 40 years. "At the end of every cycle you get a year with three Friday the 13ths the year before the last year in the cycle … and you also get one on the tenth year of all the cycles," he said. 2009, for example, was the tenth year of the cycle that started in 2000.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100813-friday-the-13th-superstitions-triskaidekaphobia/
Note: We just returned from our Pacific Northwest vacation where we met actress, dancer and painter Adrienne King who played "Alice" in the 1980 film Friday the 13th. More information on the trip is coming.

Anagrams in Literature, Movies, and Beyond
Erewhon = Nowhere
The author Samuel Butler titled his satirical novel as an angram; incidentally, the word "nowhere" is a literal translation of the Greek utopia.
Dave Barry = Ray Adverb
Ray Adverb is a character in a book by Dave Barry, titled "Dave Barry In Cyberspace"
Gregory House = Huge ego, sorry
In the television series House, in the episode titled "Housetraining", the character Dr. House says his name, Gregory House, is an anagram for "Huge ego, sorry."
See many more at: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/literature.html

Japan's former capital city (Kyoto, A.D. 794-1868) and present capital city (Tokyo) names are anagrams of each other. http://wordsmith.org/anagram/odd.html

The original Kermit the Frog has been donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington. The muppet was donated by creator Jim Henson's widow Jane, along with nine other characters from the 1955 TV show Sam and Friends. Some of the other muppets in the collection include early versions of Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch. Henson's oldest puppet, Pierre the French Rat, was also donated. Jane Henson said the original characters provided five minutes of fun each night after the local news where they mostly mimed to popular music. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11094631

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Joe Fleischman Subject: Moraine - Boulder Field at Hickory Run SP, PA
On the East Coast of the US, one of the most amazing and accessible examples of a glacial deposit is the Boulder Field at Hickory run State Park in northeast Pennsylvania. ncompassing about 16.5 acres, the boulder field is the remnants of a retreating glacier and collection of rocks from surrounding hillsides; all deposited in a valley.
From: Henry Miller Subject: moraine
Def: An accumulation of boulders, gravel, or other debris carried and deposited by a glacier.
Iowa's gold-domed capitol building commands a view of the city from the largest hill in Des Moines, a moraine of rock and soil collected by glaciers hundreds of miles north of Iowa and deposited here during the last ice age. This fact caused one local historian to observe that Iowa's state capitol sits on Canadian soil.
From: Frank Schorn Subject: Moraine
Moraine is a word familiar to the residents of the Queens neighborhoods Glendale and Woodhaven, which sandwich Forest Park, the third largest in New York City. Forest Park was formed by the cessation of the Wisconsin Glacier, which traversed the northeast about 22,000 years ago.

Friday, August 13, 2010

In the early 20th century, the Netherlands and England had dominance over the world’s market for rubber production with plantations in the East Indies. Although the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis was native to the Amazon, 70,000 seedlings were taken from Brazil by Henry Wickham of England in 1876 and then brought to the East Indies for cultivation. This effectively robbed Brazil of its position as the number one exporter of rubber in the world. The dominance of Eastern rubber over world supply became especially obvious with the Britain Stevenson Plan in 1922, which attempted to establish the world price of rubber much higher than the cost of production . Because three quarters of the rubber imported into the United States was used in the automobile industry, the US government and the private sector started looking for new locations for plantations to bypass the unfair prices set by the British.
The start of Fordlandia Henry Ford was one of the business owners most interested in finding an alternate location to grow rubber trees. Influenced by a 1923 United States government survey that named the Amazon as an ideal location for producing rubber, Henry Ford commissioned his own independent study of the Tapajos River valley in 1926. On July 21, 1927 he was given a free land concession of one million hectares (2.5 million acres) along the Tapajos River with a deal that he was to pay 7% of his annual profits to the Brazilian government and 2% of annual profits to local municipalities after 12 years of operation. It was initially estimated that when the plantation was under full cultivation, it would produce enough rubber to make tires for 2,000,000 automobiles a year. An early problem at Fordlandia was the Amazon’s heavy rains that washed out the nutrient-rich soil needed for growing the rubber trees. Extensive terracing was needed to prevent flooding on the cleared land. Fordlandia was also plagued with other troubles, such as drought during the dry season and diseases and insects that attacked the trees. Among the attackers were a deadly leaf fungus and pests such as sauva ants, lace bugs, red spiders, and leaf caterpillars. The early troubles of Fordlandia partly had to do with the fact that the plantation was under the supervision of Ford factory-trained men rather than horticultural specialists. By 1933, after years of trouble with leaf diseases and pests, it was clear that changes were needed. Ford hired Dr. James Weir, a plant pathologist, who after a survey of the surrounding land suggested a new property eighty miles downstream from Fordlandia. The new plantation, Belterra, was established at the site. As Henry Wickham had originally spirited away rubber tree seedlings from Brazil half a century earlier, Weir obtained 2,046 buddings from high-producing trees in the Far East and brought them back to Brazil to start growing at Belterra. Weir founded a research laboratory and nursery at Belterra to experiment with producing high-yielding and disease-resistant strains of rubber.
Fordlandia was not abandoned, but the major operations of the plantation were transferred to Belterra. By 1940, 500 employees were working at Fordlandia while 2,500 employees were working at Belterra. During World War II, the rubber supply was cut off from the Far East, harming the US government’s wartime need for tire production. The Ford plantations continued to produce rubber, but a leaf disease epidemic and additional labor problems made producing a reliable supply of rubber difficult. By the time the war ended and the Far Eastern rubber plantations were opened again, Ford did not see the need to keep the Brazilian plantations open. For a mere $250,000, Ford gave up its rubber interests in the Amazon to the Brazilian government. The plantations were put under the control of the Brazilian Northern Agronomical Institute, and the legacy of Ford in the jungle was brought to an end. http://www.thehenryford.org/research/rubberPlantations.aspx

The most widely used alphabet is called the Latin alphabet, the standard script of most languages that originated in Europe. It developed before 600 BC from the Etruscan alphabet (in turn derived from the North Semitic alphabet by way of the Phoenician and Greek alphabets). The earliest known Latin inscriptions date from the 7th – 6th cent. BC. The classical Latin alphabet had 23 letters, 21 derived from the Etruscan. In medieval times the letter J became differentiated from I, and U and W became differentiated from V, producing the 26-letter alphabet of modern English. In ancient Roman times there were two types of Latin script, capital letters and cursive. Uncial script, mixing both types, developed in the 3rd century AD. http://www.answers.com/topic/latin-alphabet

drumlin (DRUM-lin) noun
A long, narrow, whale-shaped hill of gravel, rock, and clay debris, formed by the movement of a glacier. From Irish druim (back, ridge) + -lin, a variant of -ling (a diminutive suffix, as in duckling).
esker (ES-kuhr) noun
A long, narrow ridge of gravel and sand deposited by a stream flowing in or under a retreating glacier. From Irish eiscir (ridge of gravel).
fjord or fiord (fyord) noun
A long, narrow inlet of the sea, bordered by steep cliffs, and carved by glacial action.
From Norwegian fjord, from Old Norse. Ultimately from the Indo-European root per- (to lead, pass over), which also gave us support, comport, petroleum, sport, passport, colporteur (a peddler of religious books), Swedish fartlek (a training technique), rapporteur, and Sanskrit parvat (mountain).
cirque (suhrk) noun
1. A bowl-shaped semicircular mountain basin carved by glacial erosion. Also called cwm.
2. A ring; a circle.
Via French from Latin circus (circle). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sker- (to turn or bend) which is also the source of other words such as ranch, rank, shrink, circle, crisp, search, ring, curb, ridge, curve, and circa.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

THOUGHTS FROM LYNNE
Right now is the time to freeze fresh herbs for winter while they are cheap and prime. Just wash them well, drain well, strip leaves into heavy-duty plastic bags, press out all the air and seal. Rosemary and thyme can be frozen right on their branches. To use, don't defrost, just break off what you need.
The Splendid Table August 11, 2010

I am heading to Oregon and Washington State for a vacation and will be back by the end of the month.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Food Security Assessment, 2010-2020
Outlook Report No. (GFA-21) 64 pp, July 2010
Food security in 70 developing countries is estimated to have improved between 2009 and 2010, in part due to economic recovery in many of these countries.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/GFA21/

A confidential, seven-page Google Inc. "vision statement" shows the information-age giant in a deep round of soul-searching over a basic question: How far should it go in profiting from its crown jewels—the vast trove of data it possesses about people's activities? Should it tap more of what it knows about Gmail users? Should it build a vast "trading platform" for buying and selling Web data? Should it let people pay to not see any ads at all? Google is pushing into uncharted privacy territory for the company. Until recently, it refrained from aggressively cashing in on its own data about Internet users, fearing a backlash. But the rapid emergence of scrappy rivals who track people's online activities and sell that data, along with Facebook Inc.'s growth, is forcing a shift. http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748703309704575413553851854026.html

Speeders, beware: That innocent-looking Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Fusion or SUV you're about to blow past just might be the law. In their effort to reduce speeding — a factor in nearly one-third of all highway deaths — state and local police agencies around the USA increasingly are using unmarked patrol cars, sports cars and even "ghost" cruisers with obscured markings.
"This is not about being sneaky," says Fargo, N.D., Police Chief Keith Ternes, whose department recently began using unmarked vehicles. "This is about trying to change people's habits and having them pay attention to their driving even when they don't think a police officer is watching." http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-08-09-police-cars-unmarked_N.htm

Back to "stone age" Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls. In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as "poor man's pavement." Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575370950363737746.html

New private homes could replace Europe's largest collection of fruits and berries, if a Russian court rules the land could be sold to property developers. The Pavlovsk experimental station near the Russian city of St. Petersburg is the biggest European field seed bank and one of the largest in the world. Thousands of varieties of plants and crops there are found nowhere else. The court hearing is scheduled for 11 August. The court will then announce the decision regarding the earlier ruling of handing the station to the Russian Housing Development Foundation-- a state body that decides whether public land can be used to build private homes.
The Pavlovsk experimental station is one of several such stations in Russia. It is affiliated to the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry. Agricultural scientist Nikolai Vavilov built the seed bank--thought to be one of the oldest in the world--in 1926, to preserve biodiversity and enable the breeding of new crop varieties. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10899318

MAN’s America’s Favorite Art Museum tourney
Big upsets: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA are both out. In a way, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Met lost to the Toledo Museum of Art: Many art museum observers are (justifiably) skeptical of self-reported attendance figures, but still: Toledo annually ranks at or near the top of attendance per capita. According to the Association of Art Museum Directors 2009 survey, Toledo reported 363,000 visitors. There are 659,000 people in metropolitan Toledo. Compare that to the Met: 4.67 million visitors and a metro population of 19 million. Toledo’s numbers = local luv. See Round two results at: http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/2010/08/round-two-results-americas-favorite-art-museum-tourney/

Perseid meteor shower makes its appearance.
The "shooting stars" promise to deliver an excellent show this year to anyone with clear and dark skies away from urban and suburban lights. The best time to watch for meteors will be from the late-night hours of Wednesday, Aug, 11 on through the predawn hours of Aug. 13 – two full nights and early mornings. Patient skywatchers with good conditions could see up to 60 shooting stars an hour or more.
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/perseid-meteor-shower-2010-100806.html

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Petroleum Marketing Annual released August 6, 2010
Monthly price and volume statistics on crude oil and petroleum products at a national, regional and state level.
http://www.eia.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/petroleum_marketing_annual/pma.html

Ohioans chose light-bulb inventor Thomas Edison instead of the Wright brothers to represent the state in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Out of 37,000 votes cast over three months of voting, Edison snagged 12,132 votes while Wilbur and Orville grabbed 10,895. Former U.S. Rep. William McCulloch of Piqua came in a distant third among the 10 top nominees with 3,569 votes. The National Statuary Collection Study Committee will give the public vote great weight when deciding which famous Ohioan should go to the U.S. Capitol. The committee will make its recommendation to the full Legislature.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/edison-beats-wright-bros-in-voting-for-capitol-statue-801620.html

Mummies as commodities
From the 1100s until opinions changed in the 1700s, powdered or chopped up pieces of a mummy were considered a cure for many different health problems, including diseases, poisoning, open wounds, and even broken bones. "Mummy Brown" or “Egyptian Brown” was a paint composed of powdered mummy. Most often used in watercolor and oil painting during the 1500s and 1600s, artists enjoyed its pleasing color and texture although it was prone to cracking. Mummy Brown abruptly fell out of use in the 1800s after its gruesome composition became known. In Britain during the 1830s and 1840s, mummy “unwrapping” parties were popular. Tourists traveling to Egypt would bring back a mummy and invite friends over to witness the unwrapping of the mummy, followed by refreshments. Victorians also found it interesting to keep the hand or foot of a mummy as a display piece.
http://www.suite101.com/content/egyptian-mummies-as-commodities-a84841

Frankincense is the dried resin from trees of the genus Boswellia. They grow in arid climates and under very poor growing conditions. The trees are tapped and the resin that leaks out is dried into white clumps. Myrrh is a shrubby desert tree of the genus Burseraceae. Myrrh trees can grow to as tall as 9 feet. Frankincense and myrrh were used as embalming agents by the Egyptians. Traces were found in the mummy of Tutankhamen, who died in 1339 B.C.E.
http://www.ehow.com/about_5038332_uses-frankincense-myrrh.html

Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The musical is named for the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School (loosely based on William Howard Taft School), follows ten working-class kids as they navigate the complexities of love, cars, and drive-ins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_(musical)

American Graffiti is a 1973 coming of age comedy-drama film co-written and directed by George Lucas. Set in Modesto, California, American Graffiti is a study of the cruising and rock and roll cultures popular among the Post-World War II baby boom generation. The film is a nostalgic portrait of teenage life in the early 1960s told in a series of vignettes, featuring a group of teenagers and their adventures in a single night in late August 1962.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Graffiti

The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH), located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world. Located in park-like grounds across the street from Central Park, the Museum comprises 25 interconnected buildings that house 46 permanent exhibition halls, research laboratories, and its renowned library. As the "New York Museum of Natural History", the Museum is a favorite setting in many Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child novels, including Relic, Reliquary, The Cabinet of Curiosities, and The Book of the Dead. F.B.I. Special Agent Aloysius X. L. Pendergast plays a major role in all of these thrillers. Preston was actually manager of publications at the Museum before embarking upon his fiction writing career. The museum in the film Night at the Museum (2006) is based on a 1993 book that was set at the AMNH (The Night at the Museum). See AMNH mentions in popular culture at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Museum_of_Natural_History

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities and magazines. Most of its facilities are located in Washington, D.C., but its 19 museums, zoo, and nine research centers include sites in New York City, Virginia, Panama, and elsewhere. See list of locations and much more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Institution

Monday, August 9, 2010

phonogram noun date: 1860
1 : a character or symbol used to represent a word, syllable, or phoneme
2 : a succession of orthographic letters that occurs with the same phonetic value in several words (as the ight of bright, fight, and flight
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phonogram

The famous @ sign is a phonogram. See other definitions at: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:phonogram&sa=X&ei=bKpdTMPfF8P-8AbO74W1DQ&ved=0CBcQkAE

Where did the name "Martha's Vineyard" come from?
English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold is credited with giving Martha's Vineyard its name. When he visited this area in 1602, he had two journalists on board his ship who documented the voyage. When Gosnold returned to England, a book was published describing the voyage and the name "Martha's Vineyard" was assigned to this island. Martha was the name of Gosnold's mother- in-law, who supposedly helped finance the voyage, and also the name of his infant daughter. At the time of the voyage, and still today, wild grapevines grow throughout the island.
http://www.marthasvineyardhistory.org/faq.php

Animal names abound for houses: Badgers Bend, Fox Dell, Squirrel Bank, Deer Leap, Beaver Lee, Moles Retreat, Snakesfield, Bat's Cottage, Toad's Green, Robin's Oak, Ravensmead, Eaglescroft, Sparrow's Thatch, Herongate, Owlsmoor. House Names Around the World

In the 17th century, some of my ancestors lived in a house in England called Ravenroyd. "Raven" refers to Vikings, and "royd" refers to clearing. Today Ravenroyd is a 100-acre farm and riding school located beside the River Aire in West Yorkshire.

Ravenroyd is referred to in the book "Chronicles and Stories of Old Bingley" by Harry Speight. :- "...in the old name of Ravenroyd (mentioned in the poll tax of 1378-9), between Thwaites and Bingley, we have still another exposition of a royd, or clearing, made for the men of the raven, as the Vikings were sometimes called. Often on their marches they carried live ravens, as portents of good luck and on their battle-flags and banners its image always appeared, in the same way as the eagle was borne as the ensign of the Romans. The raven indeed was unknown in Yorkshire before its importation by the Vikings from the cliffs of Norway in the ninth century. To the valleys of Yorkshire they gave the name dales, and the streams they called becks and the ravines gills." The earliest mention of Ravenroyd of which we have any record was in 1312 when the Abbot of Rievaulx agreed that the canons of Drax (at that time owners of the Parish Church and other property, including Priest-Thorpe, in bingley) were granted "the tithes of places at Whitecoat in Ravenrode". http://www.ravenroyd.com/index_files/About.htm http://www.ravenroyd.com/index.htm

Q: How many states have now passed the Uniform POA Act?
A: The Uniform Power of Attorney Act was created in 2006 to set uniform standards for people to choose a representative to act on their behalf in a legal or business matter if they become incapacitated. When planning their estate, people often grant "durable" power of attorney to a friend or relative to represent their interests in the event they cannot do so themselves. Many states have different standards for granting durable power of attorney, and that has led to confusion and occasional mischief by people claiming to represent others when they are not authorized to do so. The Uniform Power of Attorney Act was designed so every state can have the same standards and prevent the misuse of the law. It's been approved by Maryland, Virginia, Wisconsin, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado and Maine, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Beth Fouhy, AP, New York. http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Aug/JU/ar_JU_080910.asp?d=080910,2010,Aug,09&c=c_13

LYNNE'S TIPS
• The key to juicy burgers is to keep the meat cold, and handle it with a light touch. Shape into loose patties, and never press down on the meat with a spatula while it's cooking; you'll just press out the good juices. Finally, let the meat rest, covered loosely with a tent of foil, before serving so the juices settle into the meat.
• For meatballs once the weather gets cold: Form the mixture into small balls, brown in olive oil in a skillet, then cook in a light tomato sauce—delicious reheated and so good just eaten on their own. Of course these and their sauce over a plate of brown rice are pretty swell, too.
The Splendid Table August 4, 2010

Friday, August 6, 2010

The Senate on August 5, 2010 confirmed Elena Kagan on a 63-37 vote to become an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, with a handful of Republicans joining almost all Democrats in making her the fourth woman to serve on the high court. When the court's new term starts in October, Ms. Kagan, 50 years old, will join Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor as the first trio of women in the court's history. Fifty-eight Democrats and independents, as well as five Republicans, voted for Ms. Kagan. Thirty-six Republicans and one Democrat, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, voted against her. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703748904575411214186345480.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEADNewsCollection
Kagan will be sworn in as the 112th Supreme Court justice on August 7.

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276 BC Cyrene – c. 194 BC Alexandria ), a friend of Archimedes of Syracuse, lived in Alexandria. He was born in Cyrene, a place in Libya which is called today Shahhat. He worked on geometry and prime numbers. He was a director of the great Library of Alexandria. He is best remembered for his prime number sieve which, in modified form, is still an important tool in number theory research . Eratosthenes measured the tilt of the Earth's axis with great accuracy and compiled a star catalogue containing 675 stars (now lost); he suggested that a leap day be added every fourth year and tried to construct an accurately-dated history. http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Eratosthenes.htm

The Cornish language offers picturesque names for houses: Penrose (heath end), Chybean (little house) Langarth (enclosed space with a garden). The Isle of Man has delightful names from the Manx language: Thie Ain (our house), Cronk My Chree (hill of my heart), Cooil Veg (little nook). Fruit and nut names exist almost by the ton: Appleyard, Cherry Orchard, Plum Tree House, Pear Tree Cottage, Walnut House, Chestnut Corner.
House Names Around the World to be continued

Movie misquotes
Casablanca – 1942 Misquote: “Play It Again Sam”
Correct Quote: “You played it for her, you can play it for me!”
Wall Street – 1987 Misquote: “Greed Is Good”
Correct Quote: “The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”
http://kentonville.com/archival/myths/movie-misquotes.html

German Chocolate Cake is not from Germany. The recipe’s name originated from a Englishman named Sam German. He invented a dark sweet baking chocolate for Baker’s Chocolate Company in 1852. The new bar was named for him: “Baker’s German’s Sweet Chocolate.” The original recipe was sent by a woman to a Dallas, Texas newspaper1 in 1957 and titled German’s Chocolate Cake. The recipe became so popular that brand owners General Foods (now owned by Kraft Foods) sent the recipe to papers across the country. The apostrophe “s” eventually dropped off the recipes through the years.
http://kentonville.com/archival/myths/german-chocolate-cake-is-not-from-germany.html

overwhelm
early 14c., "to turn upside down, to overthrow," from over + M.E. whelmen "to turn upside down" (see whelm). Meaning "to submerge completely" is mid-15c. Perhaps the connecting notion is a boat, etc., washed over, and overset, by a big wave. Figurative sense of "to bring to ruin" is attested from 1520s. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/overwhelm

underwhelm
to fail to impress or stimulate Etymology: under + overwhelm Date: 1949 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/underwhelm

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago (43 percent increase) according to new research from The Nielsen Company. The research revealed that Americans spend a third their online time (36 percent) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/what-americans-do-online-social-media-and-games-dominate-activity/

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has named the 50 green power partners using the most renewable electricity. The Green Power Partnership’s top purchasers use more than 12 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the electricity use of more than 1 million average American homes. The top 10 on the list are Intel Corporation, Kohl’s Department Stores, Whole Foods Market, City of Houston, Dell Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Cisco Systems, Inc., commonwealth of Pennsylvania, U.S. Air Force, and the city of Dallas. http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/14f16537509811468525777300580126!OpenDocument

Check out the weather in Google Earth 5.2. The latest version projects images of rain and snow over the areas with those weather patterns as it’s actually happening. First enable the clouds layer, then zoom in to a particular location where it might be raining or snowing. http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/07/rain-or-snow-now-you-can-see-weather-in.html

Naming a block of buildings after a benefactor is not new. There are Peabody Buildings and Peabody Estates in London named after American financier George Peabody who saved Maryland from bankruptcy in 1835, and gave over $2 million to London for the construction of low rental housing. Southampton has named some of its tower blocks after cities: Rotterdam Towers, Canberra Towers, and Oslo Towers. Liverpool has famous people: Atlee House, Churchill House, and Eden House; Birmingham has Wordsworth House and Browning Towers.
House Names Around the World to be continued

Researchers working in the Black Sea have found currents of water 350 times greater than the River Thames flowing along the sea bed, carving out channels much like a river on the land. The undersea river, which is up to 115ft deep in places, even has rapids and waterfalls much like its terrestrial equivalents. If found on land, scientists estimate it would be the world's sixth largest river in terms of the amount of water flowing through it. The scientists, based at the University of Leeds, used a robotic submarine to study for the first time a deep channel that had been found on the sea bed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/7920006/Undersea-river-discovered-flowing-on-sea-bed.html

Fangled is a word Shakespeare used, meaning newly-made. It's obsolete now, except as used in the phrase new-fangled. A new-fangled notion is one just started or entertained. (Saxon. fengan, to begin.) http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/55/messages/784.html

old•fan•gled ōl(d)-ˈfaŋ-gəld adjective
Etymology: old + -fangled (as in newfangled)
Date: 1842 : OLD-FASHIONED
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oldfangled

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, known as the Card Act, was intended to reshape the contours of consumer finance. Among other things, it forces card issuers to give customers more notice about interest-rate increases and restricts certain controversial billing practices such as inactivity fees. Yet some of the biggest card issuers in the U.S., including Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Discover Financial Services, are already rolling out a slew of fees designed to recapture some of their lost income, in part by skirting the new rules . Some banks may even be violating the law outright, say consumer advocates. "Card companies are figuring out how to replace old fees with new ones," says Victor Stango, an associate economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a professor at the University of California, Davis, who has been analyzing how the Card Act will affect consumer banking. "It's a race between regulators writing ever-more-complex laws and credit-card companies setting up ever-more-complex fees." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704895004575395823497473064.html

Sagamore Hill, once the home of Theodore Roosevelt, was named after Sagamore Mohannis who, as chief of his tribe, signed away the rights to the land on which the house was built. Some old properties in the American colonies changed names when the house changed hands--Fawn House, built around 1638, by John Fawn, within two years was sold to John Whipple and became Whipple House. In Sarasota, is Ca-D'Zan (Venetian patois for House of John) built by circus king John Ringling. In Asheville, the name of Biltmore House comes from "Bildt", a town in the Netherlands the family originally came from, and "more," an English word for rolling, upland country. House Names Around the World to be continued

The number of bistros in France has fallen from 200,000 in the 1960s to 35,000 now, and opinion is split on how to save them. Times are hard for Le Fontenoy, the only surviving cafe in a village in north-central France which once had three. Now, as changing habits and new laws alter the residents' relationship with an erstwhile local fixture, its future is looking bleak. In a last-ditch attempt to save the cafe he deems "the social link of the village", the determined patron has launched an online appeal for donations which he hopes will bring in enough money to keep the business afloat in the short term. The fundraising mission at Fontenay-Saint-Père, about 35 miles north-west of Paris, has attracted considerable media attention. But its struggle is just the tip of the iceberg. Last year, in its île de France region alone, about 2,000 bistros and cafes went under. Last week Le Parisien, the capital's daily newspaper, issued a clarion call for the hard-hit bistro, warning on its front page that time was running out to save the "fast disappearing" bastion of "jambon beurre baguettes, egg mayonnaise, jokes, chat and table football". But opinions are divided on how to go about this. Many, including the government, feel that it is up to the industry to adapt according to the needs of society and that any business that cannot keep up with the pace of change does not deserve to survive. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/25/france-bistros
Following in the footsteps of greats such as Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop, W.S. Merwin will take up the mantle of America's poet laureate this autumn. The 82-year-old poet has won the Pulitzer prize twice and is the author of more than 30 books of poetry and prose. " He leads us upstream from the flow of everyday things in life to half-hidden headwaters of wisdom about life itself," said James H Billington, librarian of Congress, announcing Merwin's appointment. "[His] poems are often profound and, at the same time, accessible to a vast audience." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/05/ws-merwin-us-poet-laureate

From the moment of Hendrik Hudson's trip up the mighty river until today, the Hudson River is one of the most important commercial and recreational rivers in America. Hundreds of cargo ships ply its waters and thousands of pleasure craft skip along its waves. The majestic Hudson transports the goods of America from the inland ports out to the greatest deep water port in the country, New York Harbor. All of this activity and industrial momentum would have ground to a halt except for the lonely sentinels of the Hudson River marking the way and warning shipping of the hazards and channels. Over the centuries, many lighthouses have come and gone, thru fire and flood, thru storm and accident, the lighthouses have stood their ground, sending their beacons to guide the ships and barks plying the waters of the Hudson. Now, only eight of these sentinels remain on the river. No longer serving their original purpose as aids to navigation, they now mark the passage of the history of America past their lights and horns.
http://hudsonlights.com/

Daniel Schorr, a longtime senior news analyst for NPR and a veteran Washington journalist who broke major stories at home and abroad during the Cold War and Watergate, died on July 23. He was 93. Schorr was surprised to find himself on the so-called Enemies List that had been drawn up by Richard Nixon's White House when he read it on the air. The list—naming hundreds of political opponents, entertainers and publications considered hostile to the administration—became the basis for one of the charges of impeachment against Nixon.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128846420

The "Opponents List and Political Enemies Project" was compiled beginning in 1971 by various Nixon Administration officials and was frequently updated. Find the original list of 20 names of White House "enemies" and an updated "master list" of political opponents divided into categories such as academics, business, celebrities, media and organizations at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030621235432/www.artsci.wustl.edu/~polisci/calvert/PolSci3103/watergate/enemy.htm

Monday, August 2, 2010

Starting on October 27, 2010, for-profit companies that sell debt relief services over the telephone may no longer charge a fee before they settle or reduce a customer’s credit card or other unsecured debt. Three other Telemarketing Sales Rule provisions to take effect on September 27, 2010, will: require debt relief companies to make specific disclosures to consumers; prohibit them from making misrepresentations; and extend the Telemarketing Sales Rule to cover calls consumers make to these firms in response to debt relief advertising. The Final Rule covers telemarketers of for-profit debt relief services, including credit counseling, debt settlement, and debt negotiation services. The Final Rule does not cover nonprofit firms, but does cover companies that falsely claim nonprofit status. http://ftc.gov/opa/2010/07/tsr.shtm

The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets by Julia Angwin first in a series
The Wall Street Journal conducted a comprehensive study that assesses and analyzes the broad array of cookies and other surveillance technology that companies are deploying on Internet users. It reveals that the tracking of consumers has grown both far more pervasive and far more intrusive than is realized by all but a handful of people in the vanguard of the industry.
• The study found that the nation's 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. A dozen sites each installed more than a hundred. The nonprofit Wikipedia installed none.
• Tracking technology is getting smarter and more intrusive. Monitoring used to be limited mainly to "cookie" files that record websites people visit. But the Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. Some tools surreptitiously re-spawn themselves even after users try to delete them.
• These profiles of individuals, constantly refreshed, are bought and sold on stock-market-like exchanges that have sprung up in the past 18 months. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703940904575395073512989404.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The practice of numbering houses began in France in 1463 on the Pont Notre Dame in Paris. The naming of houses is a much older habit. Caves lived in by prehistoric people may have been named--we have done so in our turn now: Long Hole, Swildon's Hole. Many ordinary Romans ate and slept in blocks of buildings enclosed on all sides by city streets and called insulae (islands). The blocks often bore their owner's name. Buckingham Palace has had four other official names and at least one unofficial one. The Maoris of New Zealand had sacred buildings with names like Te Aho Tamariki (a brilliant group of stars) and Puhikai (a small post at the top of which food is kept). House Names Around the World by Joyce C. Miles To be continued

psychopomp (SY-ko-pomp) noun
A guide of souls, one who escorts soul of a newly-deceased to the afterlife.
From Greek psychopompos (conductor of souls), from psycho-, from psyche (breath, spirit, soul) + pompos (conductor, guide). A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Canada geese are probably the most adaptable and tolerant of all native waterfowl. If left undisturbed, they will readily establish nesting territories on any suitable pond, be it located on a farm, backyard, golf course, apartment or condominium complex, or city park. (March through June). DO NOT FEED GEESE. Feeding bread, corn, potato chips, popcorn, and other human food items harms the geese and sets the scene for goose attacks on people. Canada geese are protected under both the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Ohio state law. This protection extends to the geese, goslings, nests, and eggs. Non-lethal scare and hazing tactics, which do not harm the geese, are allowed. These tactics include: pyrotechnics, dogs, barriers, a grid on the pond, laser pointers (at night), distress calls, or grape-flavored repellants such as Flight Control.
If non-lethal tactics have been used in the past, without success, the Ohio Division of Wildlife may issue a lethal permit to allow the landowner to destroy nests, conduct a goose roundup, or shoot geese. These permits can only be used March 1 through August 31. See how to control various types of wildlife at: http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Default.aspx?tabid=5674

Q: Does the Bermuda Triangle really exist?
A: The Bermuda Triangle, or Devil's Triangle, is a mythical geographic area off the southeastern coast of the United States. It supposedly has a high incidence of unexplained losses of ships, small boats and aircraft. The Coast Guard does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle as a geographic area of specific hazard to ships or planes. In a review of many losses in the area over the years, there has been nothing discovered that would indicate that casualties were the result of anything other than physical causes. No extraordinary factors have ever been identified. -- U.S. Coast Guard. http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Aug/JU/ar_JU_080110.asp?d=080110,2010,Aug,01&c=c_13