Which presidents have last names beginning with vowels?
Which were the 11th, 22nd, 33rd and 44th presidents?
See answers at: http://www.potus.com/

There are thirteen presidential libraries run by the National Archives and Records Administration. One is temporarily located in Lewiston, Texas and will be located in Dallas. Search them online at: http://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/

Diana: A Celebration is an exhibition of more than 150 personal objects including the wedding gown the former Lady Diana Spencer wore during her 1981 wedding to Prince Charles as well as another 28 designer dresses, including the Jacques Azagury evening gown she wore on her 36th birthday in what would be her last public appearance before her death. Family heirlooms include a gold-and-silver tiara dating from the 1830s and personal belongings include as a stuffed animal Diana kept on her bed as a child. Currently showing at the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Art Museum until February 16, 2011. Timed tickets are available. Call 616-831-1000 for information. http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/08/princess_diana_exhibition_at_t.html

Hot Water Pie Crust from Isabelle McKeeby, wife of B.H. McKeeby, the dentist who posed as the father in Grant Wood's painting, American Gothic
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. shortening
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. boiling water
1/2 tsp. baking powder
Pour boiling water over shortening and beat until creamy. Sift in flour, salt and baking powder. Stir and roll out. Makes two crusts. The American Gothic Cookbook

American Gothic Cheese Loaf from Nan Wood Graham, sister of Grant Wood and the model for the daughter in American Gothic
1 long loaf unsliced French or sourdough bread
1 lb. or 2 1/2 c. cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 c. or more mayonnaise
2 tbs. chopped parsley
2 tbs. prepared mustard
2 tsp. finely chopped onion
2 tbs. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
Slice the loaf thick and on the bias. Mix ingredients well and spread thickly between the broad slices. Wrap loaf in aluminum foil. Bake in preheated 400 degree oven for 25 minutes or until piping hot and crusty. The American Gothic Cookbook

In 1991, the Rose Museum opened as part of Carnegie Hall's 100th anniversary celebration. Located on the First Tier level of Carnegie Hall, the Museum houses special temporary exhibitions as well as a display of the permanent collection drawn from the Carnegie Hall Archives. Documenting more than a century of musical history connected with the Hall, the permanent collection of the Rose Museum features signed photographs, letters, musical quotes from the artists of the day, and Carnegie Hall archival material, from programs to unique memorabilia. More than 300 items recall the concerts, lectures, and other events that have appeared onstage at the Hall, along with the history of the building itself up through the 1986 renovation. Also on view are materials related to notable tenants of the studios above the stage, including Leonard Bernstein and Marlon Brando. From the silver trowel with which Mrs. Andrew Carnegie laid the cornerstone in 1890, to batons of Toscanini and von Karajan, Benny Goodman's clarinet, and an autographed program of the Beatles' landmark 1964 concert at the Hall, the display suggests the changing tides of American musical and social history. http://www.ny.com/museums/carnegie.hall.rose.museum.html

S. 510: FDA Food Safety Modernization Act

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510

Social Security faces a significant shortfall, which policy makers would be better off addressing sooner rather than later, according to a new paper, Social Security Shortfall Warrants Action Soon, released by the Pew Economic Policy Group. Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Charles Blahous, public trustee for Social Security and Medicare and former economic adviser to President George W. Bush, coauthored Social Security Shortfall Warrants Action Soon.
http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Economic_Mobility/PEW-Social-security-paper.pdf

Stieg Larsson did not live to see the enormous success of his Millennium trilogy, which has now sold over 46 million copies world-wide. But a new book, "On Stieg Larsson," offers a window into the creative process behind the series of thrillers, which revolve around the antisocial computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist. "On Stieg Larsson," which is part of the Millennium Trilogy Deluxe Boxed Set to be released on Nov. 26, includes four essays about the author, as well as an exchange of emails between him and his book editor, Eva Gedin, as they finished up the series. Mr. Larsson—who was also the editor of Expo, an anti-racism magazine, in Sweden—died suddenly at the age of 50 after having a heart attack at his office. His first book, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," was published in Sweden in 2005. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312504575618743115014852.html

Increasingly employees are asked to make voluntary or mandatory contributions to pension and other benefit plans. This is particularly true for 401(k) savings plans. These plans allow you to deduct from your paycheck a portion of pretax income every year, invest it and pay no taxes on those contributions until the money is withdrawn at retirement. An anti-fraud campaign by the Department of Labor uncovered a small fraction of employers who abused employee contributions by either using the money for corporate purposes or holding on to the money too long. See Ten Warning Signs That Your 401(k) Contributions Are Being Misused: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/publications/10warningsigns.html

The National Marine Fisheries Service allowed the states of Oregon and Washington to kill up to 85 sea lions a year at the Bonneville Dam. But the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held November 23 that the agency violated administrative procedures in reaching its decision. Although the Marine Mammal Protection Act does allow NMFS to take action against predators to protect Endangered Species Act-listed salmon populations, the appeals court held that it did not follow the correct procedures under the Administrative Procedures Act. Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Raymond Fisher said the agency "has not satisfactorily explained the basis of its decision." The court remanded the case back to NMFS, which will have a second chance to justify the need for the program. NMFS took action after the Army Corps of Engineers reported that the number of sea lions present had increased. The Army Corps also estimated that the number of salmon the sea lions were eating had also increased. As part of its analysis, the service calculated that 86 sea lions would eat nearly 17,500 salmon a year. http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/11/24/24greenwire-appeals-court-halts-us-sanctioned-killing-of-s-64262.html

Decem means ten in Latin: c.1000, from O.Fr. decembre, from L. December, from decem "ten" (see ten); tenth month of the old Roman calendar, which began with March. The -ber in four L. month names is probably from -bris, an adjectival suffix. Tucker thinks that the first five months were named for their positions in the agricultural cycle, and "after the gathering in of the crops, the months were merely numbered." http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=December

Definitions of Decembrist on the Web: The Decembrist revolt or the Decembrist uprising (Восста́ние декабри́стов) took place in Imperial Russia on 14 December (26 December New Style), 1825. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decembrist
The Decembrists is a planned novel by Leo Tolstoy, who finished three chapters. Its hero was to have been a participant in the abortive Decembrist Uprising of 1825, released from Siberian exile after 1856. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decembrists
one of those who conspired to overthrow Russian Czar Nicholas I in December of 1825. Also Dekebrist.
www.electionalize.com/info-glossary.asp http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:Decembrist&sa=X&ei=hb3mTM3XFYfSnAeylqSdDQ&ved=0CBMQkAE

The Decemberists is a pop/folk/rock band formed in 2000 in Portland, Oregon with Colin Patrick Henry Meloy as the lead singer and songwriter. In addition to guitars and drum, they use harmonica, accordion and mandolin. Sometimes they use Hammond or Wurlitzer organs. http://www.musiclogy.net/en/artist/The+Decemberists

RUSA-MARS has released their Twelfth Annual Best Free Reference Web Sites. This is an annual series initiated under the auspices of the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of ALA to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web. These sites include:
American Time Use Survey, http://www.bls.gov/tus/ The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) provides statistics and graphical data on the amount of time people in the U.S. spend on various activities: watching TV, eating, working in the yard.
GovTrack.us: Tracking the U.S. Congress, http://www.govtrack.us GovTrack, a non-governmental resource, is a tool for tracking the current activities and researching the United States Congress.
Hulu, http://www.hulu.com A site with free television episodes, full-length movies, and video clips.
Muckety – Exploring the paths of power and influence, http://news.muckety.com Muckety is a news site with a difference; taking the news, it charts relationships among players and other persons and events. Search on a celebrity name to see connections on an interactive graph. http://blog.fairfield.edu/The_DNL_Report/?p=1759 You will find the entire list here: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/sections/mars/marspubs/marsbestfreewebsites/marsbestfree2010.cfm
Each time I tried to go to the "horse's mouth" (www.rusq.org or www.rusq.org/2010/.../best-free-reference-websites-twelfth-annual-list) and get the original article, I got a message that "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage."

Q: Has anyone done research into using kudzu for biofuel? A: Most efforts are aimed at trying to kill kudzu, an invasive vine-like weed that has cost billions of dollars in lost crops. However, it has potential as an ingredient for biofuels. A 2008 study concluded that, under certain conditions, kudzu could produce about 400 liters of ethanol per acre, on par with corn. The study was by the University of Toronto and the U.S. Agriculture Department's Agriculture Research Service. The next step is a large-scale project that could prove using kudzu to make ethanol is economically feasible, University of Toronto Professor Rowan Sage said. That has yet to occur. One reason could be that investment in many areas of alternative energy virtually dried up as the recession took hold and gas prices fell. AgroGas, based in Cleveland, Tenn., is raising capital to prove commercial production of ethanol using kudzu is possible. It already has operated test vehicles using limited quantities. "It's quite a usable fuel and we're making it out of something nobody wants here in the South," AgroGas co-founder Doug Mizell said. -- Sandy Shore, AP, Denver. http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Nov/JU/ar_JU_112910.asp?d=112910,2010,Nov,29&c=c_13

READER RESPONDS to wherefore (HWAIR-for) adverb: For what reason? noun: Reason or purpose. From Middle English, a combination of where + for. The word often appears in the phrase "the whys and wherefores (of something)", meaning its reasons. First recorded use: c. 1200.
A little funny regarding wherefore. Its most famous use is by Shakespeare: "Wherefore art thou Romeo?", meaning why did you have to be named Romeo Montague, of a rival family, rather than some name such as Valentino Rossi, where we could just get married without any family problems. Some fatuous "scholar" several years ago (maybe 15? 20?) published a dumbed-down sort of Shakespeare for Dummies and translated this line as "Where are you, Romeo?" I would guess he had some hired hack do the translating on the cheap and never reviewed the work that he slapped his name to. He was interviewed on NPR and ambushed with this ghastly error, and it was delicious to hear him hem and haw trying to explain it away while the interviewer was not letting him off the hook for a moment. NPR is such a treasure. I also note (as I just checked rather than rely on memory) that Shakespeare's original is properly punctuated in that it does not have a comma before Romeo, as the wherefore means "why" rather than "where."

This is your brain on metaphors by Robert Sapolsky
Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech: we understand them. We understand that a captain wants more than just hands when he orders all of them on deck. We understand that Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” isn’t really about a cockroach. If we are of a certain theological ilk, we see bread and wine intertwined with body and blood. We grasp that the right piece of cloth can represent a nation and its values, and that setting fire to such a flag is a highly charged act. We can learn that a certain combination of sounds put together by Tchaikovsky represents Napoleon getting his butt kicked just outside Moscow. And that the name “Napoleon,” in this case, represents thousands and thousands of soldiers dying cold and hungry, far from home. Much more at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/this-is-your-brain-on-metaphors/

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy organization, says no one should eat olestra, and why Canada and the United Kingdom banned it. But it’s legal here – and you’ll find it in foods like low- or non-fat chips, crackers and cookies. Procter & Gamble, which sells olestra under the name Olean, says that nearly 6.5 million servings of foods containing Olean have been consumed since 1996, the year the FDA approved olestra for U.S. use. Olestra isn’t the only banned substance that Americans are noshing on. Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH (commonly sold under the name Posilac), a synthetic hormone injected into cows to stimulate milk production, pops up in many dairy-based snacks like ice cream. Not in the European Union or Canada, where it has been banned. See three-page article at: http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/for-the-home/10-things-snack-food-companies-wont-say/

Images of Gothic revival houses
Salem, MA http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/19th/goth_hs.jpg
"Wedding Cake House" Kennebunkport, ME http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/19th/wedding.jpg
Weaver Castle Selma, AL
http://selmaala.blogspot.com/2007/08/weaver-castle.html

Gothic bridges
The Brooklyn Bridge took fourteen years to complete. The Gothic structure was designed by the architectural firm of John Augustus Roebling of Trenton, New Jersey, who had built similar but smaller bridges in Cincinnati and Waco, Texas. To compensate for the rough Atlantic weather, Mr. Roebling designed the bridge to stand up to forces six times worse than he thought it would have to face. The plan was a good one, as the bridge stands long after later bridges have failed. Mr. Roebling took ill shortly after construction began and died several days later. His son, Washington, took up the project, but he too fell ill, and it was Washington's wife, Emily, who visited the site regularly and relayed her husband's wishes, despite her lack of engineering training.
http://travel.lovetoknow.com/wiki/New_York_City_Travel:_The_Brooklyn_Bridge

One of the most beautiful Gothic bridges is the Charles’ Bridge. It was built to cross Vltava River in 1357 as the only connection between Old Town and the Prague Castle. http://www.thetravelerszone.com/travel-destinations/9-most-famous-bridges-in-the-world/

Quote Words differently arranged have different meanings, and meanings differently arranged have a different effect. Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)

"Kill it and grill it!" says Sean Morton, superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, a 3,900-square-mile National Park that is entirely underwater. The park is licensing hundreds of scuba divers to exterminate red lionfish in "no-take" areas where other fishing and spearing isn't permitted. "We want people to get out there and kill as many as possible," he says.
The voracious species is breeding by the thousands, gorging on tropical fish near coral reefs and rapidly spreading from the Bahamas and Florida up to the Carolinas. The reddish-striped fish snarfs up nearly anything it can swallow, from crabs to shrimp to angelfish and other species divers like to see. Its prickly, venom-tipped spines fan out around its body and deter sharks and other predators. Now, the hunt for red lionfish is heating up. The nonprofit Reef Environmental Education Foundation hosted its third "Lionfish Derby" over the weekend in the Florida Keys and handed out $3,350 in prize money to teams that brought in the most fish—109 were killed. Two derbies in the Bahamas the past two years netted more than 2,000 lionfish. Near scuba spots, divers are increasingly submerging with spears, nets and protective gloves to try to battle the intruder—although divers say they still get stung through gloves. Websites, YouTube videos and Facebook pages describe how to catch and cook it. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704658204575610721532882174.html

IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS (1818–1865)
Known as the ‘‘father of infection control’’, Dr Ignaz (or Ignac) Semmelweis (fig 1) was a Hungarian born physician who received his MD degree in Vienna in 1844. In 1847 he was given a 2 year appointment as an assistant in obstetrics with responsibility for the First Division of the maternity service of the vast Allgemeine Krankenhaus teaching hospital in Vienna.4 There he observed that women delivered by physicians and medical students had a much higher rate (13–18%) of post-delivery mortality (called puerperal fever or childbed fever) than women delivered by midwife trainees or midwives (2%). This case-control analysis led Semmelweis to consider
several hypotheses. He concluded that the higher rates of infections in women delivered by physicians and medical students were associated with the handling of corpses during autopsies before attending the pregnant women. This was not done by the midwives. He associated the exposure to cadaveric material with an increased risk of childbed fever,5 and conducted a study in which the intervention was hand washing. Although Dr Semmelweis was the first healthcare professional to demonstrate experimentally that hand washing could prevent infections, it was not until approximately two decades after his death that his work was revisited and he was given credit. Only after Pasteur, Koch, and Lister had produced more evidence of the germ theory and antiseptic techniques was the value of hand washing appreciated.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1743827/pdf/v013p00233.pdf

Welcome, red giant, new visitor to our galaxy by Balasubramanyam Seshan
Visitors tend to visit our home at any time, but this time an immigrant red giant from another galaxy has arrived in our Milky Way. This happens to be a new planet at least the size of Jupiter that came from another galaxy and is orbiting a star called HIP 13044. While this star is now in the Milky Way, researchers at the Germany's Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the European Space Agency said that it originated in a separate galaxy that was later cannibalized by our galaxy. The planet lives 2,000 light years away inside the Helmi stream, a ring of ancient stars that cuts through the plane of the Milky Way. Astronomers have detected over the last 15 years nearly 500 exoplanets orbiting ordinary stars in our cosmic neighborhood
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/83760/20101119/milky-way-galaxy-jupiter-earth-sun-star-european-space-agency-max-planck-institute-for-astronomy-red.htm

The name "Olmec" (or "rubber people") was given to the oldest-known culture in the Americas almost 2,000 years after that culture had disappeared, and was accepted by scholars only in 1932. We have no idea what these people of what is now eastern Mexico, just inland from the Gulf at its southernmost point, called themselves. In fact, we know almost nothing about them, except that they seem to have endured from about 2,000 to 400 B.C. What we do know, or think we know, comes almost entirely from the carved stone monuments and other artifacts that outlived them underground, because stone does not rot. The first—one of those colossal heads for which the Olmec are famous—was found by a Mexican farmer in 1850 and made known to the world in 1869. Not until 1942 was it publicly asserted that the Olmec was the "mother culture" of Mesoamerica (i.e., Mexico plus Central America). Seventeen huge heads (c. 1400-1000 B.C.) have been discovered so far, in four sites within a 90-mile range, measuring from just under five feet to just over 11 feet tall and weighing (it is estimated) as much as 50 tons. One archaeologist has figured that it took 1,500 people three or four months to move an apppropriate boulder from its source in the mountains to its designated location. With presumably less effort, two of the smaller heads were hauled up from their homeland to Los Angeles, where they are the stars of the first major museum exhibition outside of Mexico devoted to the "people of Olman" and their art. The two great heads are set up at the front and the back of the light-filled central space of the new Resnick Pavilion at LACMA through January 9, 2011.
http://topics.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052702304510704575562263276050720.html

Egg wash can be used as a glue to seal two pieces of dough together, or as a finish. When brushed on an unbaked pastry or loaf, it creates a sticky surface that will help sprinkled seeds or sugar adhere, and an attractive color and sheen once baked.
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
Pinch of salt
Whisk all of the ingredients together and brush onto baked goods before they go in the oven. If you have any leftovers, you can add them to your scrambled eggs at breakfast the next morning.
Weeknight Kitchen® with Lynne Rossetto Kasper November 17, 2010

Connexions is:
a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:
authors create and collaborate
instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
learners find and explore content
I found the Web site by accident when putting in four related terms, and when I viewed it there were 17232 reusable modules woven into 1033 collections.
http://cnx.org/

On February 23, 1857, 13 architects met in Richard Upjohn's office to form what would become The American Institute of Architects. The group sought to create an architecture organization that would "promote the scientific and practical perfection of its members" and "elevate the standing of the profession." Richard Upjohn, FAIA, was AIA’s first President. He served from 1857 to 1876. He is also one of the founders of AIA. His business location was in New York, NY. http://www.aia150.org/hst150_default.php

When people advise avoiding the adverb, they're referring to words ending in -ly: extremely, really, endlessly, etc. It may be OK to use such words sparingly, but your writing appears stilted if they are used often. Many adverbs don't end in -ly.
in situ (in SY-too, SEE-, -tyoo, -choo) adverb
In the original place.
From Latin in situ (in place). The word is used in medicine to indicate a condition in a localized state, not spread beyond. First recorded use: 1740.
wherefore (HWAIR-for)
adverb: For what reason?
noun: Reason or purpose.
From Middle English, a combination of where + for. The word often appears in the phrase "the whys and wherefores (of something)", meaning its reasons. First recorded use: c. 1200.
in toto (in TO-to) adverb
Totally; as a whole. From Latin totus (total). First recorded use: 1639.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

One of the biggest events on the literary calendar was held November 17 in New York City. It was there that the winners of the 2010 National Book Awards were announced. This year there were 1,115 total submissions for the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature. The winners are:
Fiction: "Lord of Misrule," by Jaimy Gordon
Nonfiction: "Just Kids," by Patti Smith
Poetry: "Lighthead," by Terrance Hayes
Young people’s literature: "Mockingbird," by Kathryn Erskine
Lifetime achievement award: Tom Wolfe
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm/2010/11/2010_national_book_awards_winn.html

As Obama administration officials put into place some of the new rules that go into effect under the federal health care law, they are issuing more waivers to try to prevent some insurers and employers from dropping coverage and also promising to modify other rules because many of the existing policies would not meet new standards. Last month, federal officials granted dozens of one-year waivers that were aimed at sparing certain employers, including McDonald’s, insurers and unions who offer plans that sharply limit the coverage they provide. These limited-benefit plans, also known as “minimeds,” fail to comply with new rules phasing out limits on how much policies will provide in medical care each year. Concerned about the potential disruption that would be created by enforcing the new rules, the administration has granted dozens of additional waivers and also made clear that it would modify other rules affecting these policies. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services issued more guidance, saying it would use a different method of calculating spending for these plans so they would be able to meet new regulations dictating how insurers should use the premium dollars they collect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/health/policy/10waiver.html

Last month, the city of Seattle passed an ordinance that allows residents to opt out of receiving Yellow Pages phone books. Does the measure violate the U.S. Constitution? Yes, it does, argue lawyers for two Yellow Pages publishers, who filed suit in Seattle federal court on November 15 in an attempt to block the ordinance. According to the Seattle Times story, the ordinance directs the city to set up a registry of residents who don’t want to receive yellow pages, and requires distributors to honor those opt-out requests. Part of the problem, from the perspective of the publishers, lies in the fact that they’re soon to update a website that would allow anyone in the country to opt out. Neg Norton, the Yellow Pages Association president, told Seattle Times that if other cities follow Seattle’s lead, he said, it will confuse consumers faced with a “patchwork” of rules and opt-out websites. Meanwhile, the law’s sponsor, councilmember Mike O’Brien, said he and the city attorney’s office “remain confident” the ordinance is constitutional. Citizens are now paying $350,000 a year to recycle Yellow Pages, he said, and, “We’re simply trying to recoup those costs from them in a way that we believe is constitutionally valid.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/11/16/banned-books-in-seattle-yellow-pages-cries-foul-over-opt-out-law/?mod=djemlawblog_h

November 5, 2010 HHS supplemental guidance on P.L.111-148, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the new health care reform law t
http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/11-05-2010annual_limits_waiver_bulletin.pdf

Car companies have long tapped high-profile celebrities to spread word of mouth about new cars by test driving them around town. Now they are turning to a similarly powerful but cheaper source: young social-media influencers who have strong online followings. As social media become a growing force at generating attention, marketers are increasingly turning to the less famous to help them pitch products. Auto makers and ad executives say tapping social-media stars can give a brand more credibility with younger shoppers than hiring high-priced celebrities.
Still, the gimmick isn't without risk. Turning your brand over to individuals who often aren't under contract to say positive things about your product could backfire with criticism. Moreover, the Federal Trade Commission is paying close attention to plugs being made in so-called nontraditional contexts, such as tweeting and blogging. Last year, it issued new guidelines saying that bloggers must disclose any compensation they receive in exchange for writing product reviews. It also said celebrities must disclose if they have a relationship with an advertiser when they endorse a product in social media.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704658204575610593926104822.html

The U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy calls itself the voice of small business in government and as such, collects research, statistics, and sends comments to other federal agencies. Subscribe to free advocacy publications electronically at: http://www.sba.gov/advo/ See the October-November edition of The Small Business Advocate commemorating the 30th anniversary of the landmark Regulatory Flexibility Act at:
http://www.sba.gov/advo/oct-nov10.pdf

With the economy in the dumps, an array of franchisers are raising their standards for prospective buyers. They're demanding candidates bring much more cash to the table, as well as a stronger track record of experience in the industry. In some cases, they're even inspecting the buyers' current operations to see just how well they're run. Indeed, banks are a big reason some franchisers are raising the bar. Since the credit crunch hit, banks have been turning down loans left and right—and if a potential buyer can't get financing, it means big headaches all around. Read stories about Popeyes, Firehous Subs and Zoup Fresh Soup Co. at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704361504575552803956439716.html

Franchise and the law
Franchise Law Update http://franchiselaw.foxrothschild.com/
Rush on Business http://www.rushonbusiness.com/

It’s an amazing offer: “free miracle heaters” that will keep you warm and “slash your heating bills” this winter. Maybe you’ve seen the TV infomercials or the full-page color newspaper advertisements for the Heat Surge Roll-n-Glow Fireplace. They show Amish men and women in a barn building the wooden mantels. In order to get your free fireplace (which is described as “a home decorating sensation”) you have to buy the wood mantel for $298, plus shipping.
Consumer Reports tested the Heat Surge last year. The editors found that it was “reasonably convenient, quiet and safe.” But they said the Roll-n-Glow is “no more miraculous” than other space heaters they’ve tested. “Quite frankly, it’s a rather incredible price for something that is nothing more than a space heater that you can buy for hundreds less,” says Bob Markovich, home editor at Consumer Reports. “The product has been very successful,” says David Baker, president of Heat Surge. Baker tells me his Ohio-based company has made more than a million of these faux fireplaces in the last three years. Baker wants everyone to know that the mantels are made from solid American wood by Amish workers in Ohio. But the heaters are made in China, something the ads don’t mention. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40113829/ns/business-consumer news.

Q: How can I have my work copyrighted? A: There are two little-known points about copyright:
• Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine.
• You do not have to register your work for it to be copyrighted.
Copyright is a protection grounded in the Constitution for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium. It covers published and unpublished work. It is different from a patent or a trademark. Copyright protects literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, such as newspapers, poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. But it does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. Generally, registration is voluntary. But many register because they want their copyright on the public record and have a certificate of registration. Registered works may be eligible for damages and attorney's fees in successful litigation. Finally, if registration occurs within five years of publication, it is considered prima facie evidence in court. For more information, see http://www.copyright.gov. -- U.S. Copyright Office, Peter Mattiace.
Q: Where is the farthest spot from a McDonald's in the continental United States? A: There is a very lonely and, presumably, hungry place in the northern Nevada desert that one man says is 115 miles equidistant from McDonald's restaurants in Winnemucca, Nev.; Klamath Falls, Ore.; and Hines, Ore. Stephen Von Worley, a self-described artist and scientist in Santa Cruz, Calif., claims he recently found it using his GPS. He has proclaimed it, "The McFarthest Spot." -- datapointed.net.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Nov/JU/ar_JU_111510.asp?d=111510,2010,Nov,15&c=c_13

The term sniper was first attested in 1824 in the sense of the word "sharpshooter". The verb "to snipe" originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India where a hunter skilled enough to kill the elusive snipe was dubbed a "sniper" During the American Civil War, the common term used in the United States was "skirmisher". Throughout history armies have used skirmishers to break up enemy formations and to thwart the enemy from flanking the main body of their attack force. They were deployed individually on the extremes of the moving army primarily to scout for the possibility of an enemy ambush. Consequently, a "skirmish" denotes a clash of small scope between these forces. The term "sniper" was not in widespread use in the United States until after the American Civil War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper

Every state except New Hampshire has some form of a seatbelt law. Some state laws only mandate seat belts for front seats, while others require seat belt use for all riders, regardless of front or back seat position. Find your state's requirements at: http://dmvanswers.com/questions/2462/Are-seat-belts-required-in-every-state

MissingMoney.com is a database of governmental unclaimed property records. It is officially endorsed by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), a non-profit organization affiliated with the National Association of State Treasurers and the Council of State Governments. Searches are free and data is refreshed monthly. Common types of unclaimed property include bank accounts, safe deposit box contents, stocks, mutual funds, bonds, dividends, uncashed checks and wages, insurance policies CDs, trust funds, utility deposits, and escrow accounts. http://www.missingmoney.com/ http://www.unclaimed.org/

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Henry Willis Subject: Vitiate
Def: 1. To impair or spoil the effectiveness of. 2. To corrupt.
The California Legislature enacted a series of legal maxims over a century ago. My favorite has always been Section 3537 of the Civil Code: "Superfluity does not vitiate." This maxim is a jewel: compact and definite, as clear as can be. And it tells us to go out and do just the opposite, using three words where one will do.
From: Kit Powell Subject: vitiate
How good to learn what 'vitiate' means. I've known this word ever since my parents read me Kipling's "Elephant's Child" (reinforced by my own reading of it to our children and grandchildren) without really having known exactly what it meant, although it was clear that it meant something bad: Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch round the Elephant's Child's hind legs, and said, 'Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck' (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), 'will permanently vitiate your future career.' That is the way all Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk. ("Just So Stories", Rudyard Kipling)
From: Joni Parman Subject: Majordomo
Def: 1. Someone whose job is to make arrangements or organize things for another. 2. A steward or butler. Here in the southwest, a mayordomo is the manager of the community irrigation ditch or acequia. For a total description of the life of living along the acequias and farming in the southwest, please read Stanley Crawford's Mayordomo, Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico.
From: Lynn Mancini Subject: majordomo A majordomo is also a program that handles email list subscriptions and distributes posts to subscribers.
From: Ian Gordon Subject: Fatuous Def: Foolish or inane, especially in a complacent and smug manner. The Latin origin word for fatuous is still in occasional use -- the swamp phenomenon known as will-o'-the-wisp is also known by the term "ignis fatuus" or foolish fire.

In search of a rhyme When Stephen Sondheim writes, he looks at a blank wall. Lying on the couch where he has created some of his best-known Broadway musical scores, he tunes out the world beyond his New York brownstone. With his back to a stained-glass window featuring an image of a ship at sea, he trains his gaze across the room onto an empty alcove painted black. He occasionally walks a few steps to the Baldwin piano that Leonard Bernstein helped him to get at a discount decades ago. The composer-lyricist then picks up one of his yellow legal pads. On such pads he's written the lyrics, or the entire score, for the street gangs in "West Side Story," a grasping stage mother in "Gypsy," a blood-thirsty barber in "Sweeney Todd," and many others. Recently, Mr. Sondheim has been at work on a book, "Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes," an annotated compilation of lyrics. The second volume is expected next October. But the writing has always been painstaking. "A lyric doesn't have very many words in it, so every line is like a scene in a play," he said, "and that means every word is like a passage of dialogue." For instance, when crafting the opening number for "Sunday in the Park with George," he phoned the show's librettist to discuss a reference to a "dribble" of sweat on his heroine's neck as opposed to a "trickle." He went with "trickle" because it seemed less comic and better fit the moment. On rare occasions, knowing who would sing the song helped inform how he wrote it. In "A Little Night Music," for instance, many lines of "Send in the Clowns" end with short sounds, like "rich" or "bliss," because the show's star, Glynis Johns, was a breathy singer not known for holding long notes. Mr. Sondheim has occasionally drawn ideas from a woman he dubs his "Muse," someone he refuses to identify who has offered him advice as well as phrases and words that have found their way into his music. When he lost faith at the start of "A Little Night Music," calling the musical too frothy, the Muse convinced him to do it. But much of his inspiration has nothing to do with muses and other romantic notions. He relies on a 1936 edition of the Clement Wood rhyming dictionary that he has rebound at least twice and filled with his notes, as well as a 1946 edition of Roget's Thesaurus. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304173704575578693578734542.html

Eyeing the remains of his last year's Thanksgiving meal, Charles Phoenix noticed everyone took a sliver of each pie—cherry, pumpkin and apple—and some cake. "I was inspired," he says, "to combine all my family's traditional holiday desserts into one." Days later, the 47-year-old Los Angeles resident created a "cherpumple," a three-layer cake with an entire pie baked into each layer—a cherry pie baked inside a white cake, a pumpkin pie baked inside a yellow cake and an apple pie baked inside a spice cake. He stacked the layers and sealed them with a coat of cream-cheese frosting. Mr. Phoenix made a YouTube video of his experiment, and a star was born. "It both intrigues and horrifies people," says Mr. Phoenix, who collects photos from bakers who have attempted to make the cake. It "puts the kitsch in kitchen." See recipe for the monster pie at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304316404575580630406169718.html

The American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) occurs in 17 countries: Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Panama, United States, and Venezuela. The American crocodile is the only true crocodile found in the United States. The American crocodile and the American alligator are easily distinguishable. Crocodiles in general have much narrower heads than alligators, and they are further characterized by a pronounced fourth lower tooth, which is visible when the mouth is shut. See images and range map at: http://people.wcsu.edu/pinout/herpetology/cacutus/index.html

Most reptiles have a three-chambered heart consisting of two atria, one variably partitioned ventricle, and two aortas that lead to the systemic circulation. Crocodilians have an anatomically four-chambered heart, but also have two systemic aortas and are therefore capable of bypassing only their pulmonary circulation. Also, some snake and lizard species have three-chambered hearts that become functionally four-chambered hearts during contraction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile
Note that mammals and birds have four-chambered hearts.

A fringe of motorists across the U.S. are ditching cars for retired three-wheeled utility vehicles. They troll websites and government auctions to find used models that they can get for between $500 and $7,000, depending on model, condition and upgrades. Margie Bell, who works at a Crayola crayon plant outside Nazareth, Pa., uses her bright-yellow three-wheeler, which once belonged to the New York City Police Department, to pull Crayola-theme floats in holiday parades. The idea started out as a joke. In 2007, she wanted a fuel-efficient car and said, "Heck, I'd even drive one of those meter-maid cars," says her husband, Roland Bell. That night, he found one on eBay that the two bought for $1,900. Some people turn used meter-maid vehicles into hot-dog stands and ice-cream trucks, says Daniel Lanigan, a dealer of specialty concession equipment in Bridgeport, Conn., who sold a three-wheeler-turned-hot-dog-cart for $7,000 last month and has another for sale. Alec Bennett, a San Franciscan who owns five used three-wheelers, has created a website, sillylittlecars.com, for fans of the trikes. The three-wheelers are "the greatest city cars," he says. They're cheaper than autos and are covered by inexpensive motorcycle insurance, says Mr. Bennett, a photo-booth builder by profession. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703585004575604883465682458.html

There are two new ways this year to honor the everyday sacrifices of our men and women in uniform: "Art of the American Soldier," at Philadelphia's Constitution Center, features 200 never-before-seen works--the exhibit runs through January 10, 2011. The Air Force Art Program is celebrating its 60th anniversary with more than 250 works on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio through December 31, 2010. The Army exhibit at the Constitution Center opens with a display case full of the tools that a soldier takes to war: gun, ammunition belt, canteen. Alongside these are the tools of the artist—sketch pad, pencil—and this quote from World War II soldier-artist Edward Reep: "Many times I painted and sketched while a battle raged." See much more at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704353504575596372485457464.html

Marine experts are questioning whether there was a design flaw in the Carnival Splendor cruise ship, which lost power after an engine fire and was towed to San Diego on No vember 11 with nearly 4,500 people aboard. A generator for an engine caught fire in the aft engine room 6 a.m. November 8, damaging a switchboard and "preventing the transmission of electricity to other machinery, including the propulsion motors," said Carnival spokeswoman Joyce Oliva. The cause of the fire, which was put out by the crew and the ship's automatic fire-suppression system, Because the majority of passengers aboard the Panama-flagged cruise ship were U.S. citizens, the investigation into the cause of the fire will be conducted by the Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board and Panama, the NTSB said. The 952-foot-long Carnival Splendor has six engines—three in the aft engine room and three in a forward engine room. Electric cables connect each engine's generator to two switchboards, Oliva said.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/2010-11-12-cruise-inside_N.htm

Anton (Tony) Joseph Cermak (1873–1933) was the mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1931 until his assassination by Giuseppe Zangara in 1933. Born in Kladno, Austria-Hungary (now in the Czech Republic), Cermak emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1874. He began his political career as a precinct captain and in 1902 was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives. Seven years later, he would take his place as alderman of the 12th Ward. Cermak was elected president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1922, chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party in 1928, and mayor of Chicago in 1931. When Cermak challenged the incumbent "Big Bill" Thompson in the 1931 mayor's race, Thompson, representative of Chicago's existing power structure, responded with ethnic slurs:
I won't take a back seat to that Bohunk, Chairmock, Chermack or whatever his name is. Tony, Tony, where's your pushcart at?
Can you picture a World's Fair mayor? With a name like that?
Cermak's reply, "He doesn't like my name... it's true I didn't come over on the Mayflower, but I came over as soon as I could." Cermak is mentioned in Stephen Sondheim's play Assassins during the song "How I Saved Roosevelt". Cermak and his rise to the mayoralty has also been mentioned in Jeffrey Archer's novel Kane and Abel. Part of the episode Objects in Motion of the television series Babylon 5 is based on the circumstances of Cermak's death. Cermak's son-in-law, Otto Kerner, Jr., was governor of Illinois and a federal circuit judge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Cermak

Hubbard Glacier is the largest tidewater glacier on the North American continent. It has been thickening and advancing toward the Gulf of Alaska since it was first mapped by the International Boundary Commission in 1895. This is in stark contrast with most glaciers, which have thinned and retreated during the last century. This atypical behavior is an important example of the calving glacier cycle in which glacier advance and retreat is controlled more by the mechanics of terminus calving than by climate fluctuations. If Hubbard Glacier continues to advance, it will close the seaward entrance of Russell Fiord and create the largest glacier-dammed lake on the North American continent in historic times. http://ak.water.usgs.gov/glaciology/hubbard/
Find out about the 11 kinds of glaciers at: http://nsidc.org/glaciers/questions/types.html

By CONOR DOUGHERTY Architecture lectures commonly involve laser pointers and slides. In his, architect Tuomas Toivonen prefers throbbing bass and electronic drums. The 35-year-old Finn was wearing jeans and a blazer, moving his hands like a hip-hop star as he delivered a musical lecture to a bewildered, though dancing, crowd. He rapped about his love for cities and disdain for sprawl. "To heal the festering Metropolis by creation of tabula rasa," the song continued. "Instead the postwar need and greed sparks the big bang of Suburbia." A clash has been playing out for decades between those who champion densely populated cities with lots of public transportation and others who prefer the leafy and car-centric suburbs. "The world has been waiting for architecture and house [music]," said Mr. Toivonen, who lives and works in Helsinki. Mr. Toivonen isn't the first songwriter to deal with city and suburb in music. The 1962 Malvina Reynolds song "Little Boxes" dealt with suburban conformity. Talking Heads mused on the character of places such as London in 1979's "Cities." The 1980s rap group N.W.A. depicted a bleak inner city. These days, Arcade Fire is pooh-poohing "The Suburbs" ("Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains"). Mr. Toivonen runs a four-person architecture firm in Helsinki called NOW. It does a mix of residential and commercial projects, such as 16 row houses that the firm is designing in Espoo, Finland, outside Helsinki. He says for most of his life he has been fascinated with two things: Music and cities. I n the 1990s, Mr. Toivonen sang in a Finnish rock band called Giant Robot, which had a percussive sound and rhythmic music. Over time, architectural themes started worming their way into the lyrics. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635704575604471646475194.html

Once a year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets aside November 15 to remind everyone that recycling plays a dramatic role in reducing pollution. The average American discards about 4.5 pounds of trash, also known as solid waste, every day. This trash goes mostly to landfills, where it is compacted and buried. Thirty-three percent of solid waste, or 83 million tons, is recovered and recycled or composted; and 54 percent, or 135 million tons, is disposed of in landfills. Within your trash are many valuable resources which can be recycled and reused, such as glass bottles and jars, plastic detergent jugs, aluminum cans, paper containers and packaging, yard clippings and even food scraps. During World War II, industry recycled and reused about 25 percent of the waste stream.” America Recycles Day helps to raise awareness of the importance of recycling today. The nation's composting and recycling rate rose from 7.7 percent of the waste stream in 1960 to 17 percent in 1990 and is currently hovering around 33 percent.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/7c4cda0b525801e2852577d60077f1cb!OpenDocument

Recommended recipe from Illinois reader
Pasta with Tomato and Almond Pesto (Pesto Alla Trapanese) In Sicily, tomatoes and almonds take center stage. In the Sicilian village of Trapani, there’s a very different kind of pesto—it’s basically pesto crossed with tomato sauce. Almonds replace pine nuts. Watch the video and register at America's Test Kitchen.com to access this and all recipes from the current season. Registration is free. http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=19843&extcode=M**ASCA00

Social Security celebrates 75th anniversary
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. The original Social Security Act (1935) and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs. The larger and better known programs are: Federal Old-Age (Retirement), Survivors, and Disability Insurance Unemployment benefits Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Health Insurance for Aged and Disabled (Medicare) Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs (Medicaid) State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
Social Security is a social insurance program that is funded through dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). Tax deposits are formally entrusted to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, or the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund. The main part of the program is sometimes abbreviated OASDI (Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) or RSDI (Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance). When initially signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 as part of his New Deal, the term Social Security covered unemployment insurance as well. The term, in everyday speech, is used to refer only to the benefits for retirement, disability, survivorship, and death, which are the four main benefits provided by traditional private-sector pension plans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States) http://www.ssa.gov/75thanniversary/

November 11, 1933 in history Cities and towns from Texas to Canada are feeling the effects of the "black blizzard" that struck the mid-west today. This massive dust storm created sand drifts as high as six feet in areas of the country, burying roads and vehicles. As the worst drought in American history continues to turn over-farmed soil into dust, more of these devastating storms can be expected. http://newdeal.feri.org/timeline/1933b.htm

New 2010 estimates show that the number of Americans without health insurance is growing, affecting middle-income Americans as well as those living in poverty. About 50 million adults 18–64 years old had no health insurance for at least some of the past 12 months. People in all income brackets have been affected, not just adults living in poverty, according to a 2009 survey. In the past few years, the number of adults aged 18–64 who went without health insurance for at least part of the past 12 months increased by an average of 1.1 million per year. About half of those additional adults were middle-income. Adults without consistent health insurance are more likely to skip medical care because of cost concerns, which can lead to poorer health, higher long-term health care costs, and early death. http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/HealthcareAccess/

Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) is best known for her cookbooks The Frugal Housewife, 1830 later retitled as The American Frugal Housewife, 1832 and The Family Nurse, or, Companion of The Frugal Housewife, 1837. Most people have sung "Over the river, and through the wood" which is taken from her poem The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day from "Flowers for Children, II" 1845. The original first and last stanzas are as follows:
Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood-
now Grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie! http://www.angelfire.com/md3/openhearthcooking/Monthrecipe/aaThanks.html
For recipes on page 70 from The Frugal Housewife for pumpkin, carrot and cherry pies, see: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/display.cfm?TitleNo=3&PageNum=78 Go to page 69 for mince pie.

Q: Are all Coast Guard boats called "cutters"? A: No. A Coast Guard vessel must be at least 65 feet to be a "cutter." Cutters have always been its largest ships. The term is English and refers to "a small, decked ship with one mast and bowsprit, with a gaff mainsail on a boom, a square yard and topsail, and two jibs or a jib and a staysail," according to "The Oxford Companion to Ships & the Sea," 1976. The British Royal Navy's definition of a cutter was a small warship capable of carrying eight to 12 cannons. By general usage, the term came to define any vessel of Great Britain's Royal Customs Service. The term was adopted by the U.S. Treasury Department at the creation of what became the Revenue Marine, a forerunner of the Coast Guard. -- U.S. Coast Guard.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Nov/JU/ar_JU_110810.asp?d=110810,2010,Nov,08&c=c_13

NEWFANE, Vt. — After more than two years of finger-pointing and legal maneuvering, a family feud over the $2 million estate of Vermont author and illustrator Tasha Tudor was settled out of court Monday for undisclosed terms, just as a trial was to begin. The dispute centered on a revised will that gave almost all of Tudor's estate to son Seth Tudor and his family. The disagreement was to be the subject of a Probate Court trial in a Vermont courtroom. But it never got a court airing after lawyers for Seth Tudor and brother Thomas Tudor emerged from about two hours of closed-door talks in the courthouse and told Judge Robert Pu they had settled. Under the agreement, Thomas Tudor will withdraw his objections to the will, and other terms will remain confidential, the lawyers said. Tasha Tudor, who lived in Marlboro, earned a devoted following through the watercolors and drawings she created for "Pumpkin Moonshine," ''Corgiville Fair," and dozens of other books. http://www.accessatlanta.com/celebrities-tv/fight-over-vt-artists-732043.html

Answering questions with questions
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
What dance? Waltz? Square dance? Are they heavenly angels or Hell's Angels?

Why do deer hunters need accordions?
Accordions with buttons or accordions with keys? Deer hunters from Europe or the United States?

What makes red corn red? Like red pomegranates and purple grapes, red corn derives its color from anthocyanins, or health-promoting antioxidants. As for texture and taste, red corn has slightly crunchier kernels and an earthier flavor.
http://foodblogga.blogspot.com/2008/09/edible-red-corn-on-cob.html See more about corn including purple corn and hominy grits at: http://www.foodsubs.com/GrainCorn.html

gobsmacked (chiefly UK, slang) Flabbergasted, astounded, speechless, overawed.
As if smacked (“hit”) in the gob (“mouth (Scottish and thence Northern English dialect)”).
Attested since 1980s, from Northern English dialect, particularly Liverpool, popularized via television. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gobsmacked

Hornswoggle - Dylan Postl (born May 29, 1986) is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring names Hornswoggle or Little Bastard. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornswoggle
hornswoggle - To deceive or trick en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hornswoggle
hornswoggle - To triumph over; overcome; beat; bedevil. What often happens to a buyer when they purchase real property without the assistance of a real estate agent and a real estate lawyer.
key2yourhome.net/index.cfm/page/67437/parent/50175/Real_Estate_Terms_and_Definitions.html

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Laurie Kincaid Subject: buttle
And of course there's the butler in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the prison cell next to Joseph who had a bad dream that needed explaining: First the butler, trembling took the floor. Nervously he spoke of what he saw: Butler: There I was standing in front of a vine. I took some grapes and I crushed them to wine. I gave some to Pharaoh who drank from my cup. I tried to interpret but I had to give up. Joseph: You will soon be free, my friend. So do not worry any more. The king will let you out of here, You'll buttle as you did before.
From: Robert Cook Subject: Buttle
My favorite use of the word "buttle" comes from the English author P.G. Wodehouse, where Bertie Wooster comments that while the omni-competent Jeeves is normally Bertie's personal valet rather than a butler, "If the call comes, he can buttle with the best of them." From: Michael Tremberth Subject: buttle
I find it amusing that while the English language derived butler (and hence buttle) from bouteilleur, it has allowed the last term to be superseded by the upstart sommelier, which etymologically goes back to the transportation of general supplies on pack animals such as horses or donkeys.
From: Peretz Rodman Subject: back-formations
The founding president of Brandeis University, Abram Sachar, retired from that position in 1968 after 20 years as president, and was appointed to the newly created position of chancellor. Whenever he was asked what a chancellor does, he would reply with a twinkle in his eye, "He chancels." A chancellor is, literally speaking, a doorkeeper. The word comes from the railing or chancel (screen) where an usher stood before the altar of a church. -Anu Garg

The "Spring forward, Fall back" ritual of Daylight Saving Time was codified in the Uniform Time Act of 1966. States can opt out, of course. Hawaii and Arizona have said no thanks to the time changes that kick in on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November. But the rest of the country, including the once temporally bifurcated Indiana, are now on board. Back in 1895, one New Zealander George Vernon Hudson, post-office clerk by day, entomologist during his off hours, offered up the notion of a two-hour time shift to the Wellington Philosophical Society as a means "to bring working-hours of the day within the period of daylight." Many were the tut-tuts, according to a brief record of his presentation. Three years later, he offered up a refined version of the idea, arguing that "in this way the early-morning daylight would be utilised, and a long period of daylight leisure would be made available in the evening for cricket, gardening, cycling, or any other outdoor pursuit desired." It would be another 19 years before a nation would formally adopt the idea – Germany during World War 1 – as a way to cut down on energy demand, an aspect of Daylight Saving Time that is still a subject of dispute. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/1106/Daylight-savings-ends-Time-to-fall-back

U.S. News & World Report, once part of the triumvirate of newsweeklies but reduced now to a spare monthly, will print its last issue for subscribers in December. Its news content will now exist exclusively and free on the Web, though the magazine will still publish eight single issues a year. The move is the culmination of a long process inside U.S. News to gradually de-emphasize the printed magazine and shift focus to its highly influential and profitable rankings guides for institutions like colleges and hospitals. U.S. News had been scaled back in stages as the economics of publishing each week became too challenging. It went from printing once a week to twice monthly in 2008. Just five months later, it switched to once a month. Now it will cease to exist as readers know it. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/business/media/06mag.html

Ingredients for seared radicchio
2 large heads radicchio, preferably Trevisano
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
3 tablespoons grated Pecorino cheese
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar Find directions plus recipe and directions for warm polenta at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303467004575574453792674746.html

American artist Henry Darger (1892-1973) is one of the most widely admired "outsider" artists to be "discovered" in the last 30 years, and one of the few to reach a broad audience beyond the limited circle of folk-art devotees. He has been widely exhibited not only at specialized institutions such as New York's American Folk Art Museum (which houses a study center devoted to his work), but at mainstream contemporary museums such as PS 1 in Long Island City. The Musée de l'Art Brut in Lausanne Switzerland has a large collection of Darger's work on permanent view, and he is widely admired throughout Europe. Read about his 15,145-page novel, possibly the longest in existence, at: http://www.gseart.com/artists.asp?ArtistID=19

Tabula rasa is Latin for blank slate. See definitions and its use for musical groups and titles at: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Atabula+rasa

Quote Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. Arthur Koestler, novelist and journalist (1905-1983)

Tomatoes were first considered weeds in Mexican maize (corn) fields. Careful cultivation increased their yield and by 1492, the Aztecs were using the tomato in a variety of dishes and sauces. The name used today, tomato, comes from the Aztec or Nahuatl "tomatl." Before Europeans arrived, the only domesticated animals found in Mesoamerica and North America were the dog and the turkey. The Mexicans called the bird uexolotl but the English called it “turkie-bird.” Vanilla was discovered by the native peoples of Mexico. More than 1,000 years ago, the Tolonac first realized the fermented seedpods have fragrance and taste. They discovered a method for curing the beans and began to cultivate the plant. Vanilla beans became an important part of Totonac culture and were used for perfume, flavoring, medicine and insect repellent. When the Aztecs conquered the Tolonacs, they demanded vanilla beans as a tribute. “Chocolatl,” the dish of Aztec royalty, was made from cacao, maize, honey and vanilla.
http://www.nativevillage.org/Messages%20from%20the%20People/native_food_information_adapted_.htm

dust bunny, dust kitten, turkey's nest: a clump of dust and lint.
go cold turkey or quit cold turkey: to suddenly and completely stop doing something, especially a bad habit, talk turkey: to discuss a problem seriously with the intention of solving it http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/talking+turkey
turkey: failure, flop, fool. jerk, stupid person http://dictionary.babylon.com/turkey/#idioms-phrases

Virga (aka fallstreak, fall-stripe) are generally streaks of rain or snow appearing to hang under a cloud or tapering down from the cloud base, descending and evaporating before reaching the ground. The name of this supplementary cloud feature derives from the Latin virga meaning 'rod' or 'stripe'. http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/Virga-or-Fallstreak.htm Check Weather Facts on the right to learn about things like the northern lights and why the sky is blue.

The troposphere (from Greek: tropein - to change, circulate or mix) is the lowermost layer of the Earth's atmosphere. Most of the weather phenomena, systems, convection, turbulence and clouds occur in this layer, although some may extend into the lower portion of the stratosphere. The troposphere contains almost all the atmospheric water vapour, in fact it contains about 70 to 80 per cent of the total mass of the Earth's atmosphere and 99 per cent of the water vapor. The term troposphere was first used in 1902 by Léon Philippe Teisserenc de Bort, a french meteorologist who was a pioneer in the use of meteorological balloons. http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/Troposphere.htm

Protohistory refers to a period between prehistory and history, during which a culture or civilization has not yet developed writing, but other cultures have already noted its existence in their own writings. For example, in Europe, the Celts and the Germanic tribes may be considered to have been protohistoric when they began appearing in Greek and Roman texts. Protohistoric may also refer to the transition period between the advent of literacy in a society and the writings of the first historians. The preservation of oral traditions may complicate matters as these can provide a secondary historical source for even earlier events. Colonial sites involving a literate group and a non-literate group, are also studied as protohistoric situations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protohistory

The effect of tea is cooling and as a beverage it is most suitable. It is especially fitting for persons of self-restraint and inner worth. Lu Yu (715-803), Ch'a Ching Somehow Lu Yu wangled a contract for a book on tea. The tea interests wanted their haphazard methods of cultivation and production codified, compared, and analyzed in a clearly understandable report. He went into five years of hermithood and came out with the Ch'a Ching - the world's first "book of tea." In its own field, the Ch'a Ching was right away ranked alongside the I Ching, the "cyclopedia," "scripture," or "classic" of changes, for ching means more than "book." "The tea plant is a beautiful as well as beneficial tree of the southern regions," is how the Ch'a Ching begins. http://www.teamuse.com/article_020302.html

A backronym is a word or phrase re-interpreted as an acronym or an initialism. With a little ingenuity, any word can be turned into an acronym (or an initialism). SOS didn't originate as an acronym. It was a distress signal for the Morse code (...---...) devised to be easily recognizable by a radio operator listening to the chatter of multiple streams of signals. It was only a coincidence that this sequence spelled SOS in Morse Code. Later, people came up with explanations for this signal such as Save Our Souls and Save Our Ship.
aesthete or esthete (ES-theet) noun Someone who has or affects high sensitivity to beauty, especially in art. Back-formation from aesthetic. Via Latin from Greek aisthesis (sensation or perception). Ultimately from the Indo-European root au- (to perceive) which is the source of other words such as audio, audience, audit, obey, oyez, auditorium, anesthesia, aesthetic, and synesthesia. Earliest recorded use 1881.
buttle (BUT-l) verb intr. To do a butler's work. Back-formation from butler, from Old French bouteillier (cup-bearer), from bouteille (bottle). Originally, a butler was in charge of the wine. Earliest recorded use: 1867. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

2010 election results--Select senate, house or governor, then roll mouse over the desired state. http://www.politico.com/2010/maps/

The Art of Memory or Ars Memorativa ("art of memory" in Latin) is a general term used to designate a loosely associated group of mnemonic principles and techniques used to organize memory impressions, improve recall, and assist in the combination and 'invention' of ideas. It is sometimes referred to as mnemotechnics. It is an 'art' in the Aristotelian sense, which is to say a method or set of prescriptions that adds order and discipline to the pragmatic, natural activities of human beings. It has existed as a recognized group of principles and techniques since at least as early as the middle of the first millennium BCE, and was usually associated with training in rhetoric or logic. See much more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_memory

Spirit comes from the Latin spirare meaning to breathe. It also produced aspire (breathe upon), conspire (breathe together), expire (breathe out), inspire (breathe into), perspire (breathe through) and transpire (breathe across). Spire is, however, nothing to do with inspired but comes from the German Spier meaning tip of a blade of grass. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/oxford-dictionary-of-word-origins-edited-by-julia-cresswell-2106655.html

Vino Volo (Wine Flight) is a chain of wine bars with food located in various airports. Vino Volo at the Philadelphia International Airport is open every day of the week 7 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Philadelphia has a law that if an establishment serves food, it must be open for breakfast, and this is why their business day starts so early. In contrast, hours for Vino Volo at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m, and Sunday, noon-10 p.m. There are about ten locations now with more coming.

Panade is a basic dish similar to the Spanish sopa seca, or "dry soup." Or if you're familiar with the Italian ribollita--same thing. The foundation is always dry bread moistened with water or stock and any combination of vegetables, greens, and cheese you have on hand. While it sounds a lot like bread pudding, the recipe doesn't call for any eggs so it's actually best after setting and retaining its shape two or even three days after it's made. You slice it in wedges to serve and reheat it. See recipe, directions and pictures at: http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2010/09/27/book-review-tartine-bread/

Ethan Zuckerman served a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society from 2003 through 2009. Since 2009, he's been a senior researcher at the center, working on projects that focus on the impact of technology and media on the developing world and on quantitative analysis of media. Ethan and Berkman fellow Rebecca MacKinnon founded Global Voices, a global citizen media network. Beginning at a Berkman conference in 2004, Global Voices has grown into an independent Netherlands-based nonprofit with over 200 employees and volunteers in over 100 countries. Global Voices' work has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Knight Foundation, Hivos, Open Society Institute as well as Google, Reuters and private donors. In 2000, Ethan founded Geekcorps, a non-profit technology volunteer corps. Geekcorps pairs skilled volunteers from US and European high tech companies with businesses in emerging nations for one to four month volunteer tours. Volunteers have served in 14 nations, including Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Rwanda, Armenia and Jordan, completing over a hundred projects. Geekcorps became a division of the International Executive Service Corps in 2001. Prior to founding Geekcorps, Ethan helped found Tripod, an early pioneer in the web community space. Tripod was acquired by Lycos in 1998. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/ezuckerman

See Ethan Zuckerman's blog at: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/

In the hush of tranquil evening, 'mid a blaze of gold and crimson,
Now in state the red sun passes, to the west, in silence sinking.
Like a chant of color rising, slowly through the soft air drifting,
Tones of amethyst and topaz, sky and cloud are faintly tinting.
Puerto Rican school children

Members of corporate boards and audit committees, in-house lawyers and ethics officers are all still nervously awaiting the impact of one key component of the Dodd-Frank law that passed in July. The provision concerns one key, frightening word: “whistleblower.” Dodd-Frank provides significant financial incentives for employees to tell regulators about securities fraud and other wrongdoing. The “bounty” provision “runs in direct opposition” to internal fraud-detection efforts put in place or beefed up under the Sarbanes-Oxley law that passed after a wave of accounting scandals, says Richard Crist, chief ethics and compliance officer at Allstate Insurance Co. In the past, companies typically attempted to address certain fraud allegations internally by setting up confidential hotlines through which employees report alleged ethical misdeeds and illegal behavior. But the Dodd-Frank provision offers a financial incentive to ignore a company’s own process and run straight to the government, management lawyers say. Corporate whistleblowers who take original evidence of financial fraud under the Dodd-Frank law directly to the Securities & Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission stand to get between 10% and 30% of a penalty that is over $1 million.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/11/01/the-latest-headache-for-companies-that-every-employee-has-a-whistle/?mod=djemlawblog_h

The summer days are past and gone, all the birds flown, a misty light is over hill and dale,
But where the boughs are thinned comes a soft wind and all at once the autumn fleet sets sail!
Each leaf a ship, where they ride the blue air, the sea-blue air they travel on.
We watch their slow drift along the wind's lift, oh proud, the autumn fleet sets sail! Nancy Byrd Turner

Nancy Byrd Turner was born in 1880 in Boydton, Virgina. She had published a number of poems, novels, and song lyrics for children during her lifetime. She also served on the editorial staff of Youth Companion, Atlantic Monthly, and The Independent Magazine. In 1930 she received The Golden Rose, the highest award of the New England Poetry Society. See her biography and poetry at: http://oldpoetry.com/oauthor/show/Nancy_Byrd_Turner

Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions. This method was fundamental to LeWitt's definition of Conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print: In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art

Concept art includes all pre-production artwork created before actual animation begins. http://www.rainbo.net/animation-art.htm

The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighborhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces and a few small, abstract marker drawings. http://www.fleisher-ollmangallery.com/artists.php?id=5&page=2 http://folkartcooperstown.blogspot.com/2010/01/philadelphia-wireman.html

See picture of a lock-stitch machine, one of the first built by Isaac Merritt Singer (1811-1875) in accordance with his patent of 1851. It was originally called the 'Jenny Lind' after the famous Swedish singer. The shuttle is propelled by a driver moved by a crank pin below the work table, and the needle motion, obtained from a crank pin on the upper shaft, is straight and vertical. The machine was packed in a box, which doubled up as a stand and contained a treadle connected to the handle on the balance wheel by a pitman or connecting rod. The treadle was pivoted near the centre and was worked with a heel-and-toe action. Singer did not realise that he could have patented the treadle, but when this was pointed out to him it was too late, for it was then already in public use.
http://www.ssplprints.com/image.php?id=83240

Q: Why doesn't the interstate system have an I-50? A: The interstate numbering plan was based on numbered U.S. highways, but in mirror image. For example, U.S. 1 is on the East Coast, while I-5 is on the West Coast; U.S. 10 is in the north, while I-10 is in the south. In both plans, numbers ending in zero are used for transcontinental and other major multi-state routes. However, one of the rules for interstate numbering is that numbers are not duplicated in the same state. Duplicate numbers would be confusing. For example, if told to take "Route 50," the motorist might follow the wrong one. Because the interstate numbering plan is a mirror image of the U.S. numbered highway plan, I-50 would be in some of the same states as U.S. 50 (Ocean City, Md., to Sacramento, Calif.). So, "50" has not been used for an interstate route. -- Federal Highway Administration.
Q: Who was Maudine Ormsby? A: She was Ohio State University's homecoming queen in 1926, nominated by agriculture students. She was also a Holstein cow. Maudine was chosen after disqualification of the other candidates due to voting improprieties. She was part of the homecoming parade, but, alas, she was left in the barn during the dance. -- The Ohio State University Libraries. http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Nov/JU/ar_JU_110110.asp?d=110110,2010,Nov,01&c=c_13

Readers respond to collective terms: Terms of Generis used to be a trivia-type game. One of my favorite books: http://www.amazon.com/Exaltation-Larks-Ultimate-James-Lipton/dp/0140170960 For example, most people don't know that A Comedy of Errors isn't a funny story about errors. It means a collection of errors.

. . . one of my favorite books, A Bundle of Beasts, containing poems on collective nouns / groups of animals. I especially like a crash of rhinoceros and a knot of toads (if I remember correctly).

When workers in a McDonald’s restaurant in Canton, Ohio, opened their paychecks this month, they found a pamphlet printed on a McDonalds letterhead urging them to vote for the Republican candidates for governor, Senate and Congress, or possibly face financial repercussions. The pamphlet said: “If the right people are elected, we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above the current levels. If others are elected, we will not.” It then named three Republican candidates after stating, “The following candidates are the ones we believe will help our business move forward.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/us/politics/30ohio.html?src=me

Monticello is on a mountaintop, just outside Charlottesville, Va. Thomas Jefferson's 5,000-acre plantation served not only as his food supply, but also as a living laboratory. Jefferson grew plants from all over the world, including interesting vegetables such as sea kale, cardoon, Caracalla beans, Florence fennel, fava beans and crowder peas. Jefferson was willing to experiment. While he grew 330 varieties of vegetables and 170 varieties of fruit, they weren't all successes. Jefferson was not afraid of failure. He believed that if one thing failed, it is replaced by the success of another. In fact, he embraced every failure as a learning opportunity --something we modern-day gardeners should appreciate as well. Jefferson believed in adding soil-building components such as compost, manure and decomposing leaves to his soil because he noticed that the plants flourished in that environment, suffered from fewer pests and diseases, and were more drought-resistant. Today we know that organic matter promotes healthy biological activity within the soil, a complex web of life ranging from microbes to earthworms. http://scrippsnews.com/content/gardener-home-thomas-jeffersons-organic-garden

Roxbury Russet has a nutty flavor. Strawberry Chenango smells like roses. Cornish Gilliflower is reminiscent of clove. Farmers and chefs treat them like fine wine, but these are apples—"heritage" or "heirloom" varieties that were common on American tables as far back as colonial times but today are rarely tasted. Now, a number of orchards and apple historians are growing these old varieties again and promoting them to restaurants, distributors and grocers. "Heirloom" is a potent food-marketing buzzword, helping once-forgotten plant varieties and even animal breeds command premium prices. Heirloom apples were regionally popular for generations but have ceased to be cultivated commercially. From the 1950s on, mass-production farming favored reliable apples that could stand up to shipping, and stores have been dominated by apples from fewer than a dozen familiar types, including McIntosh, Red Delicious, Fuji and Granny Smith. The heirlooms, in contrast, with freckles, stripes and other visual peculiarities, buck the modern idea of what an apple looks like. Often priced in the $3.99-a-pound range, they can cost up to twice as much as common apple varieties. They are coming back strong nonetheless, as the increasing numbers of people who cook and eat at home seek out novel ingredients. Unusual appearance can be a problem at some more-commercial venues. "The heirloom apples look different. The russeting, how they're multicolor—those are normally no-nos and cause for rejection in other varieties," says Michael Rozyne, co-director of the Canton, Mass., nonprofit Red Tomato, which works to get local farm produce into mainstream supermarkets. "We can't sell them very well unless we create the romance and the story and the history that goes with it," he adds.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052702303467004575574262924513410.html

Quote Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English politician and writer

Here are words made with various combining forms to expand your verbal repertoire. Feel free to mix and match them; try various combinations and permutations to bring a little variety, a little zest, to your lingo. The combining forms we are using this week are:
ventr- (belly), poso- (what quantity), onoma- (name), hagio- (holy), miso- (hate), -logy (study), -mancy (divination), -latry (worship), and -gamy (marriage).
ventriloquism (ven-TRIL-uh-kwiz-uhm) noun
1. The art or practice of speaking without moving lips so that the voice seems to be coming from somewhere else.
2. The expression of one's views through another person, used as a literary technique. Literally speaking, ventriloquism is speaking from the stomach, from the former belief that the voice was produced from the ventriloquist's belly. The word is derived from Latin ventriloquus (ventriloquist), from ventr- (belly) + loqui (to speak). Earliest recorded use: 1797.
posology (puh-SOL-uh-jee, po-) noun The study of drug dosages. From Greek poso- (how much) + -logy (study). Earliest recorded use: 1786. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback:
From: Kate Karp Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--onomancy Dionne Warwick went through this -- she either dropped or added the e at the end of her name. Don't know how much good it did. Roger McGuinn of the Byrds was born as Jim McGuinn. He tells the story at his concerts of how he decided that Jim just didn't fit him and he wanted something extraordinary. He was practicing an Eastern religion at the time, and his guru told him that he felt a vibe from the letter R. He asked McGuinn to come up with a name with that initial consonant that resounded with his passion. McGuinn adored space travel and science fiction (check out the Byrds' clever "Mr. Spaceman"), so he thought up things like robot, rocket, rrrrrrrrrr, and roger, the latter being the radio call for "received and understood".
From: Rudy Rosenberg Sr Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--onomancy My father was born in Poland and his name was Rozenberg. When he arrived in Belgium where I was born, the name was changed to Rosenberg that was pronounced as if it still had the "Z". (Is there a term for when the S is S and when it turns into a Z?)