On December 11, two hundred people attended the inaugural Boring Conference in central London. James Ward, who organised the event, explains that the point is to challenge the assumption that certain subjects are inherently boring. "Anything that seems boring on the surface can actually be interesting. You can find there's a hidden depth." Mr. Ward's opening soliloquy was on the minutiae of his tie collection – colour, pattern, fabric, width – and how it has changed in the past six months. Milk Guy – who leads the room through a taste-testing of full-fat milk complete with breakfast cereal pairing – carries the crowd, Car Park Man ends up as the morning's showstopper. Lewis Dryburgh's take on the hidden beauty of multi-storeys is the one talk that truly paints a dry subject in a different light. For him, the most boring thing about car parks is how we use them. Rather than park and scarper, he urges attendees to visit their local multi-storey on foot (apparently the top floor is empty for 89 per cent of the week) and once there to treat it much as they would their local park, making sure to enjoy the view. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/boring-the-number-23-bus-never-2158118.html Boring 2010 sprang to life when Mr. Ward heard that an event called the Interesting Conference had been canceled, and he sent out a joke tweet about the need to have a Boring Conference instead. He was taken aback when dozens of people responded enthusiastically. Soon, he was hatching plans for the first-ever meet-up of the like-mindedly mundane. The first 50 tickets for Boring 2010 sold in seven minutes. The organizers did their best to keep the audience alert. Many viewers brought coffee, and each received a goodie bag containing an energy bar. After a much-needed break, a drawing was held. Some of the winners got a DVD called "Helvetica," a 2007 documentary about typography. To mix things up, Mr. Ward and his colleagues set up a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle depicting British cereal boxes from the 1970s. Each attendee got a few pieces of the puzzle and was asked to help complete it. For all its archness, the conference occasionally veered from the ridiculous to the philosophical. Journalist and author Naomi Alderman spoke about the difficulty of having to observe the Jewish Sabbath as a child. Her talk, "What It's Like to Do Almost Nothing Interesting for 25 Hours a Week," ended on an unexpected, touching note. "When we learn to tolerate boredom," she said, "we find out who we really are." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703395904576025482554838642.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel_1

On December 28, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington named 25 motion pictures—Hollywood classics, documentaries and innovative shorts reflecting genres from every era of American filmmaking—to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Spanning the period 1891-1996, the films named to the registry range from a rare glimpse of San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake and the political thriller "All the President’s Men" to George Lucas’ student film in 1967 and his sci-fi special-effects extravaganza "The Empire Strikes Back." Also included in the registry are lesser-known, but culturally vital films such as the black independent film "Cry of Jazz," Luis Valdez’s "I Am Joaquin" and John Huston’s war documentary "Let There Be Light," which was banned by the War Department for 35 years. This year’s selections bring the number of films in the registry to 550. Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names 25 films to the National Film Registry that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant, to be preserved for all time. These films are not selected as the "best" American films of all time, but rather as works of enduring significance to American culture. One of the films named is: Preservation of the Sign Language (1913) Presented without subtitles, "Preservation" is a two-minute film featuring George Veditz, onetime president of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) of the United States, demonstrating in sign language the importance of defending the right of deaf people to sign as opposed to verbalizing their communication. See entire list at: http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/10-273.html

American FactFinder First results from Census 2010 will be available on the NEW American FactFinder in February 2011. In the meantime, you will find data compiled from the 2005-2009 American Community Survey.
http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en

supercilious (soo-puhr-SIL-i-uhs) adjective Showing haughty disdain. The word alludes to someone being disdainful by raising an eyebrow. It's derived from Latin supercilium (eyebrow, pride), from super (above) + cilium (eyelid). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kel- (to cover, conceal, or save) that is also the source of hollow, hole, holster, hell, apocalypse, and eucalyptus. Earliest documented use: 1528.
sinister (SIN-uh-stuhr) adjective 1. Threatening or foreshadowing evil or harm. 2. On the left side. Via French from Latin sinister (left, left hand, unlucky). Earliest documented use: 1411.
charivari (shiv-uh-REE, SHIV-uh-ree, shuh-riv-uh-REE) noun 1. A noisy, mock serenade to a newly married couple, involving the banging of kettles, pots, and pans. 2. A confused, noisy spectacle.
From French charivari (hullabaloo), perhaps from Latin caribaria (headache), from Greek karebaria, from kare/kara (head) + barys (heavy). Earliest documented use: 1735. Also spelled as chivaree, chivari, and shivaree. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

The virtue of juries is that they represent a cross-section of the community; however, the majority of that community is likely to use the Internet and participate in social media. This new form of communication and information sharing becomes especially important as jurors try to stay connected to work and home while performing their civic duty. Even the courts have begun to expedite the jury selection process through web-based applications. But the main concern for the legal system is the power of individual jurors to virtualize a trial by going online. While the lure of tweeting or doing a Google search or updating a Facebook profile seems all but irresistible, these upheavals are reshaping the social dimensions of the trial and breaking down the barriers that channel the flow of information within the courtroom. Online misbehavior by jurors can be reduced to four principle areas: (1) publishing or distributing information about a trial, e.g., tweeting or posting updates on a social media site; (2) uncovering information about the case by searching the Internet, entering social networking sites or visiting virtual crime scenes; (3) contacting parties, witnesses, lawyers or judges via social networking for example; and (4) discussing or deliberating the merits of the litigation prematurely or inviting outside opinions. Judges and court administrators are being tasked with responding to this technological revolution in jury behavior. They have been assigned expanded roles in jury selection and policing misconduct before, during and after trial. Moreover, the role of attorneys in investigating potential jurors through the Internet, social media and online databases is evolving from a strategy to a duty. You may go to substantive articles at: http://www.llrx.com/features/jurorbehavior.htm

Happy New Year! Happy New Decade!!

Three interactive maps - Foreclosure Rates | Unemployment Rates | Median Household Income | show foreclosure and jobless rates as well as household income by county. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111494514

Free Kindle books: a guide For all but the Kindle Store, you’ll need to transfer the books manually using a computer and USB cable.
Project Gutenberg: 33,000 free e-books, including all of the classics, available in Kindle, HTML and simple text formats.
Google E-Bookstore: The free section is filled with thousands of free, scanned copies of books, available in Kindle-friendly PDF formats.
Internet Archive: Millions of primarily rare, out-of-print works in multiple languages and formats (including Kindle), especially useful for academic work.
Open Library: 20 million user-contributed items in multiple editions and formats (including Kindle).
ManyBooks.net: Nearly 30,000 titles, many of which have been pulled from Project Gutenberg. Has a good collection of little-known Creative Commons works.
LibriVox: Thousands of free audiobooks.
http://mashable.com/2010/12/25/free-kindle-books/

BATTLE GROUND, Wash.—Sue Foster knew what she needed to do when her border collie, Taff, was expelled from puppy school for herding the black Labs into a corner. She rented some sheep. Then she bought another border collie and rented some grazing land. Then she bought some sheep of her own. And a third border collie. Now, like the old lady who swallowed the fly, Ms. Foster keeps a llama to chase off the coyotes that threaten the lambs that go to market to finance the sheep that entertain her dogs. Border collies, first bred along the frontier between England and Scotland, are compulsive herders, with instincts so intense they sometimes search for livestock behind the television when sheep appear on screen, says Geri Byrne, owner of the Border Collie Training Center, in Tulelake, Calif. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704681804576017731348653642.html

In Brooklyn, the answer to Prospect Park's geese problem may be a dog. Park officials plan to use a border collie to scare away Canada geese - so that the feds won't come in again and kill the waterfowl. There was an uproar when nearly 400 geese were culled over the summer out of fear they might interfere with planes in the sky. Now, park officials are on a wild-goose chase for less brutal ways to control the population - like destroying unhatched eggs and ticketing people who feed the birds. "We don't want to be a place where the federal government feels they want to come in and remove them," said park administrator Tupper Thomas. "This is the most humane way that we won't end up with a batch of geese." Critics said anything is better than killing off their fine-feathered friends, though they disapprove of using dogs to scatter the flocks.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/11/18/2010-11-18_officials_will_use_border_collie_to_scare_away_prospect_park_geese_so_they_wont_.html

Facing budget gaps and an aversion to new debt and taxes, states and local governments are slapping residents with an array of new fees—and some are applying them to nonprofits. That marks a sharp departure from long-standing tax exemptions mandated by state law or adopted on the theory that churches, schools and charitable organizations work alongside governments to provide services to the community. The issue is on display in Houston, where some flood-prone roads are in such disrepair that signs warn drivers, "Turn around, don't drown." Houston's taxpayers in November narrowly voted to adopt a "drainage fee" to raise at least $125 million a year toward the cost of improving roads and storm-water systems. The city will charge fees to property owners, and it won't grant exceptions to churches, schools and charities. Some cities are charging religious groups property taxes on buildings no longer used for worship. Other localities are soliciting voluntary contributions. Albany, N.Y., recently passed an ordinance asking schools, hospitals and other nonprofits to contribute to city services. In Minneapolis, residents recently began paying a street-light fee that also applies to nonprofits, which in some places pay fees for elevator safety and fire inspection. Drainage fees that apply to nonprofits have been adopted by cities that include Richmond, Va.; Lafayette, Ind.; and Verona, Wis. Such fees are emerging now because the federal government has been cracking down on how cities handle the rain that rolls off roofs, parking lots, and other impervious surfaces, sometimes causing floods and ripping up roads. The runoff can collect debris, oil and other pollutants and ultimately drag it all into the nation's waterways. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703548604576038080723678202.html

Quote Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

Q: When a television show says 11 million people watched last night, how do they know this and so quickly?
A: The Nielsen Co. uses electronic devices in about 17,000 households to estimate how many people watched particular television programs. About 95 percent are "set meters," which record what program is being watched on a television or is being replayed on a digital video recorder. The rest have additional "people meters," which record who in the household is watching. The information is automatically sent overnight to Nielsen, which distributes it to clients, including television networks and advertisers. Of course, "Nielsen households" know their viewing is being monitored, and family members must participate directly if they have a "people meter." Critics say this opens the system to abuse and skewed results. The Nielsen Co., a privately-held Dutch company headquartered in New York, is active in about 100 countries and does many other kinds of market research. Its revenues for the third quarter were about $1.29 billion. -- The Nielsen Co., various sources, Peter Mattiace.
Q: What is the smallest earthquake that can be felt by people?
A: About 2.0 magnitude is generally the lower range of an earthquake being felt, although there are documented cases of people feeling earthquakes in the high 1 magnitude range. Many people close to the epicenter of such small events may feel them, but the vibrations are so slight that they commonly do not recognize them as being from an earthquake. -- Ohio Geological Survey.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Dec/JU/ar_JU_122710.asp?d=122710,2010,Dec,27&c=c_13

When he was just 17 years old, he and a friend embarked on an expedition sponsored by the Minneapolis Star, from Minneapolis, Minnesota to York Factory on Hudson Bay. They canoed up the Minnesota River and its tributary, the Little Minnesota River to Browns Valley, Minnesota, portaged to Lake Traverse and descended the Bois des Sioux River to the Red River of the North which led to Lake Winnipeg, then went down the Nelson River, Gods River, and Hayes River to Hudson Bay, a trip of 2,250 miles. He was one of the original Murrow's Boys, at the forefront of broadcasting. He portrayed himself in The Right Stuff, .Countdown to Looking Glass and in an episode of Taxi in Tony Danza's character's fantasy. He appears in Philip Roth's novel Our Gang as "Erect Severehead."
Find his story at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Sevareid

Ham Loaf
2 lbs. smoked ham, ground
1 lb. ground pork
1/2 lb. ground beef
3 beaten eggs
1 green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 c. cracker crumbs
1 c. tomato juice or V-8
Mix together, moistening with tomato juice, pouring some juice over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Marilyn Crawford, Des Moines artist, adapted The American Gothic Cookbook comp. by Joan Liffring-Zug

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From: Rudy Rosenberg Subject: quixotic The Belgian songwriter and actor Jacques Brel made quite a splash with the French version of the musical "Man of La Mancha". That is the reason why an exact replica of that statue of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza can be found overlooking the Grand Place in Brussels; Jacques Brel forever jousting with the world in his quixotic quest.
From: Phil Jans Subject: quixotic I've always thought the word should be pronounced "kee-ho-tik". Why would the word be Anglicized, but not the title of the book or the name of the character? Since Quixote is a name, we go with its native pronunciation (kee-HO-tay), however, quixotic is an English word so it takes its pronunciation on English language terms (qwik-SOT-ik). -Anu Garg
From: Norma Meyer Subject: katzenjammer My parents were German immigrants and we had the original Katzenjammer Kids book. They were Max und Moritz, die zwei beiden konnt das Artig sein nicht leiden. Loosely translated from 70 years ago... Max and Moritz, those two, couldn't abide acting behaved.
From: Ken Kirste Subject: katzenjammer My heart jumped for joy when I saw the word "katzenjammer" in A.Word.A.Day as we have a framed original "Katzenjammer Kids" Sunday strip from Nov 7, 1948 on our wall. While it is definitely the longest-running strip, the implication is that "The Katzenjammer Kids" has run continuously since December 12, 1897. In fact, the creator, Rudolph Dirks had suspended the comic for a short period in 1898 while he fought in the Spanish American war. Nor was the strip titled "The Katzenjammer Kids" for the entire time. During World War I, anti-German sentiment resulted in the strip's being renamed "The Shenanigan Kids", with Hans and Fritz becoming Mike and Aleck and a nationality shift to being Dutch. (These changes all reverted in 1920.) None of this diminishes the fact that this strip has entertained millions in three different centuries.
From: Julia Mills Subject: No el When I read this week's blurb about what the word adventure would be, I couldn't help but smile. My husband's family plays the No el game every year. His mother has ornamental letters that were meant to spell Noel, but they play hide the 'L' until it is revealed Christmas day (so literally there is no 'L'). You get to hide it if you get to it first, then only if you find it from its previous hiding spot. You let people know that it has been rehidden by rearranging the letters 'N', 'O', and 'E' into a different word than it was previously. And if you're the one to unearth it on Christmas day, because you were the last one to hide it and no one could find it, then you win!

Q: Who is Murphy from the saying "Murphy's Law"?
A: Air Force Capt. Edward A. Murphy Jr. is credited with Murphy's Law, but colleague Col. John Paul Stapp first said, "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong." Murphy, a rocket scientist, and Stapp, a physician, worked on a 1949 project at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., to learn the effects of sudden acceleration and deceleration on jet pilots. When a technician wired something incorrectly, Murphy supposedly said one of two things:
• "If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it."
• "If there are two ways to do something, and one of those ways will result in disaster, he'll do it that way."
Soon after, Stapp, who rode a rocket sled during tests, described for reporters how it felt to stop from more than 200 mph in about one second. He said the sled was safe because engineers kept in mind "Murphy's Law." Reporters asked, what's that? "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong," Stapp said. Some say Murphy's Law is actually "Sod's Law," an old English saying that "any bad thing that can happen to some poor sod (fellow) will." Various sources, Peter Mattiace.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Dec/JU/ar_JU_122010.asp?d=122010,2010,Dec,20&c=c_13

Malcolm Moos, a journalist and academic, was a speechwriter for President Dwight Eisenhower. When Moos left the White House, in 1961, he donated some of his papers to the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, but he kept some, too. His son, Grant Moos, looked through the contents of the six boxes stored in a boathouse for decades, and came across a batch of folders marked “Farewell Address.” He looked up the Eisenhower Library, and sent the boxes off to Abilene. At first, the library did not know what it had. As archivists began to go through the papers, however, they discovered a trove of drafts, memos, and research materials that had long been missing from the record of one of the twentieth century’s most important speeches. For fifty years, Americans have regarded Eisenhower’s Farewell Address with a mixture of awe and bewilderment. Speaking three nights before the end of his Presidency, in 1961, Eisenhower warned of a “scientific-technological élite” that would dominate public policy, and of a “military-industrial complex” that would claim “our toil, resources, and livelihood.” Contrary to what some historians have speculated, it was not Moos or his assistant, Ralph Williams, who suggested a farewell address. On May 20, 1959, Moos was meeting with the President, when Eisenhower proposed an idea for “one speech he would like very much to make.” It was to be, Moos recorded, “a ten-minute farewell address to the Congress and the American people.” Moos deemed the idea “brilliant” and began making notes. Eisenhower was a rigorous editor. Major speeches such as the State of the Union might be refined ten or twelve times. Even by those standards, however, the Farewell Address was special. Eisenhower personally rewrote the opening passages, and his brother Milton overhauled the entire speech. It was batted back and forth for months; in the end, it underwent twenty-nine drafts (twenty-one previously unknown drafts were found in the boathouse papers). http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/12/20/101220ta_talk_newton

Retaining the institutional knowledge of librarians who will soon leave the profession by Amy Hartman and Meg Delaney
As libraries face the departure of staff with well-honed reference skills, years of experience in the community, and deep knowledge of the collection and traditional resources, how can we identify and retain their departing expertise—the gold in the library’s intellectual vault? How can we ensure that newly minted employees with e-knowledge skills have access to and a growing appreciation of what is most valuable in traditional knowledge? Now, perhaps more than ever before in the history of our profession, what we do and what we are will be affected by retirement’s brain drain. We need to be proactive in finding ways to hold on to valuable skills and knowledge. This is more than just succession planning; it is the redefinition and reinforcement of our core services and values. The Humanities Department of the Toledo–Lucas County (Ohio) Public Library’s (TLCPL) Main branch has developed tips and techniques for this critical effort that can be adopted by libraries of all sizes and applied to everyone from top administrators through front-line librarians and clerical staff. To retain the value represented by departing employees, it’s vital to plan ahead by keeping track of who is rotating toward retirement. Ideally, the formal process of in-depth evaluation should begin about three to six months before retirement, but the actual information gathering should be career-long, facilitated by the yearly review. We shouldn’t be surprised at the discovery of an employee’s key strengths shortly before he or she retires—or worse, when those capabilities are sorely missed later. Which employees exemplify the system’s best practices? Encourage them to document what they do; what’s their road map to success? Could they train their peers or incoming staff? We’ve narrowed the planning focus into three main categories: skills, knowledge, and connections. See more at: http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/10262010/wait-you-can-t-retire-without-sharing-us

The Federal Reserve Board on December 22 approved an interim rule amending Regulation Z, which implements the Truth in Lending Act (TILA). The Board is issuing this interim rule to clarify certain aspects of a September 24, 2010 interim rule, in response to public comments. The September interim rule implements provisions of the Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act (MDIA) which amended TILA to require mort age lenders to disclose examples of how a loan's interest rate or monthly payments can change. Those statutory amendments will become effective on January 30, 2011. The MDIA seeks to alert borrowers to the risks of payment increases before they take out mortgage loans with variable rates or payments. Under the Board's September interim rule, lenders' cost disclosures must include a payment summary in the form of a table stating the initial rate and corresponding periodic payment and, for adjustable rate loans, the maximum rate and payment that can occur during the first five years as well as a "worst case" example showing the maximum rate and payment possible over the life of the loan. http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20101222a.htm

Iberia is an ancient geographical region to the south of the Caucasus Mountains that corresponded approximately to the present-day Georgia.
Iberia, or the Iberian peninsula, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes modern-day states Portugal, Spain, Andorra and Gibraltar and a very small area of France.
Iberia is a book by James A. Michener.
Iberia is a suite for piano composed between 1905 and 1909 by the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz. It comprises four books of three pieces each; a complete performance lasts about an hour and a half.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:iberian&sa=X&ei=kNEQTbaME4TGlQe8y_D2Bw&sqi=2&ved=0CBcQkAE

Billionaire Aubrey McClendon was bouncing along Lake Michigan on a jet ski about 10 years ago when he spied a majestic stretch of dunes in Saugatuck Township, Michigan. "It was one of the most beautiful pieces of land I'd ever seen," said Mr. McClendon, chairman and chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp. of Oklahoma City. He envisioned what he could build amid the sandy hills: luxury homes; condos; a hotel; a marina; and a nine-hole golf course. In 2006, he bought about 400 acres of mostly undeveloped dunes for $39.5 million. Then, he said, "We ran into opposition we hadn't anticipated." Mr. McClendon is used to getting his way. He isn't getting it from this township of about 3,000 people abutting the little resort city of Saugatuck. While many municipalities struggle to lure investment and stay flush, Saugatuck Township has raised taxes and flirted with insolvency in a four-year battle over the zoning of the tycoon's land. He set his sights on dunes straddling the mouth of the Kalamazoo River. In the 1800s, a lumber town called Singapore stood there. For decades, the state tried to buy the land and preserve it as a park. He secured a half-interest in 2004. Two years later, he was about to finalize his purchase of the entire property when the five-member Saugatuck Township Board voted unanimously to rezone it, lowering the number of houses that could be built there and making it harder to build anything else. Mr. McClendon's lawyers asked the township to wait, saying they hadn't been notified. Township officials said the rezoning flowed from a comprehensive land-use plan publicly debated and adopted the year before. Mr. McClendon bought the property anyway. In 2007, his lawyers and township officials began to discuss easing the new zoning to avoid litigation. Last December, Mr. McClendon sold 171 acres to a land conservancy for $19 million, thinking it might appease his foes. It didn't. In March, he filed the federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the zoning, arguing the township illegally singled him out. His lawyers then unveiled specifics of his plan: Singapore Dunes, named for a mill town that once stood at the site, would be centered on a cluster including a hotel, marina and 28 condos. As many as 42 homes would be scattered across the rest of the property, including additional land Mr. McClendon has bought. Some local businesses display a poster supporting the project. "What's been shown in the paper looks pretty sharp to me," said Mike Carey, co-owner of the Del Sol apparel shop in Saugatuck. In July, the township settled a property-tax dispute Mr. McClendon brought, agreeing to lower his taxes and refund him $360,000. He remains the township's single largest taxpayer, meaning he is helping fund his opposition. In May, township residents voted 491-489 for a tax increase to help pay legal bills. Ballot inconsistencies halted a recount. Two residents have sued to void the election. Mr. McClendon is paying their legal bills. With an annual budget of $715,000, the township has spent more than $250,000 fighting the executive over zoning, taxes and the election. Officials say the burden could force it into state receivership. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703395904576025993432953986.html

Once a year the village of Stockbridge, Mass. transforms itself into a Norman Rockwell canvas. The painter and illustrator lived here for the last 25 years of his life, and he remains a big draw. During the annual Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas event, vintage cars line up by the Red Lion Inn as in Rockwell's famous painting, and throngs pour out of buses to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum and admire his festive holiday scenes. Down the road, Chesterwood, the 122-acre summer home of Daniel Chester French, the American sculptor who created, among countless other monumental works, the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, is a poster child for a host of cultural sites nationwide fading into obscurity. Mr. French rose to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th century. In addition to Lincoln, he sculpted the Minuteman statue in Concord, Mass., and Alma Mater, on the steps of Columbia University's Low Library in New York. Carol Bosco Baumann, chairwoman of the Chesterwood Advisory board, advocates updating the sculptor's image, starting with a name change. She and others now call him "Dan French." "I hate to sound marketing-ish, but it is all about branding," says Ms. Baumann, marketing director for the Red Lion Inn. "We have to figure out a way for people to connect with the man on a personal level." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704073804576023631871868552.html

For architects, 2010 has been another difficult year, with many commercial, institutional and residential projects killed, stalled or slowed to a snail's pace. That makes the year's highlights in good architecture all the more noteworthy. And there is plenty to celebrate. In a weird reversal of fortune, civic projects have never had it so good as the most talented architects vie for even the smallest public works and then have the time to do them right. It is possible that, someday, the schools, libraries, fire stations and park pavilions built in 2010 will be seen as the best and most carefully designed of the decade. In Washington, D.C., the beacon-bright Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library designed by Davis Brody Bond Aedas is shaped into a dynamically jutting prow that is a far cry from the inward-turned, windowless brick models of yesteryear. Read about the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Mass., Brooklyn Bridge Park, and plenty of other notable buildings completed in 2010, particularly new art museums in Los Angeles, Richmond, Va., Raleigh, N.C., as well as the just-opened Museum of Fine Arts in Boston at: http://topics.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704457604576011463998077344.html

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Gregory Carothers Subject: combining forms
You can think of them as the Legos of language. Isn't it more like the Legos of logos?
From: Tim Eaton Subject: Tautology
One of my favorite tautologies comes from Lewis Carroll:
'You are sad,' the Knight said in an anxious tone: 'Let me sing you a song to comfort you.'
'Is it very long?' Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
'It's long,' said the Knight, 'but very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it -- either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else -- '
'Or else what?' said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
'Or else it doesn't, you know.
From: Fran Gillespie Subject: ventifact
Def: A stone shaped, polished, or faceted by windblown sand.
I live in Qatar, where large areas in the centre of the peninsula are covered in ventifacts: three-sided pyramidal-shaped wind-polished pebbles in many colours; the remains of stones carried by a river 30 million years ago, and rolled for aeons by the dry desert winds. They are known to geologists as dreikanters: the German for 'three sides'.

A number of Southern towns and counties are hoping to attract retirees by making an unusual claim: They are certified. Some 83 towns and counties in five Southern states have been designated as Certified Retirement Communities by various state agencies, and more certifications are on the way. Now found in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia, CRCs have roughly doubled in four years, and more states and municipalities are expected to start programs, says Diana O'Toole, manager of Mississippi's CRC initiative. Local governments and businesses started pursuing certified status in the early 1990s as a way to attract retirees (and their wallets). The thinking: Retirees are an attractive growth alternative to the creation of new jobs. Often criteria such as low crime rates, low taxes and quality medical care must be met. But requirements tend to differ in each state. Texas guidelines, for example, call for festivals, entertainment events and "sports at all levels." In Mississippi, towns must describe intangibles such as "appearances or curb appeal" of the entrances and exits to downtown areas. Catherine Collinson, president of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, a nonprofit institute in San Francisco funded in part by Transamerica Life Insurance Co., cautions that interested adults need to look past the promotions and consider such things as the quality of local long-term care. "Most of us see ourselves in retirement activities such as parties and then passing away in our sleep after telling everyone we love them," she says. "That just isn't usually the reality." John Migliaccio, director of research at the MetLife Mature Market Institute in Westport, Conn., says CRC efforts are "looking at retirees almost as a commodity. The marketing message is like a vacation ad." He advises spending more than a few days visiting a prospective new community, and perhaps in different seasons.
http://topics.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704865704575610664047097530.html

Quote
Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.
Billings Learned Hand (1872-1961) United States judge and judicial philosopher

The Curious Evolution of Holiday Lights by Dave Mosher
In 1882, the look of the holiday season changed forever. Instead of decorating a Christmas tree with candles, Edward H. Johnson, inventor and vice president of Thomas Edison’s booming electric company, strung 80 red, white and blue light bulbs on his scrawny evergreen. The whole thing rotated six times per minute on an electric crank. “I need not tell you that the scintillating evergreen was a pretty sight — one can hardly imagine anything prettier,” wrote a reporter for the Detroit Post and Tribune. See history and images at:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/holiday-light-history/

Unveiled at 9 a.m. eastern time December 23, Google's 2010 holiday doodle has 17 interactive images that approximate the logo's letters and colors. It will remain on the site for 2½ days. For Micheal Lopez, creating this year's holiday card came down to the wire. The design took five artists about 250 hours. It will be opened by hundreds of millions of people. You're on the list. Mr. Lopez is in charge of what Google Inc. calls its "doodles," the illustrations that occasionally adorn the search engine's logo in the U.S. and abroad. Doodles appear throughout the year to commemorate holidays, pop-culture touchstones, civic milestones and scientific achievements. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704774604576035500936272100.html

Theodore Roosevelt, among others, believed that tax could be used to check the growth of large fortunes. But lawmakers continued to view the tax more modestly, using it to balance other, more regressive elements of the federal revenue system, including excise taxes and tariff duties. The history of federal estate taxation does include at least one episode in which wealth redistribution played a starring role. In 1935 Franklin Roosevelt championed a new federal inheritance tax -- intended to supplement, not replace the estate levy -- as a means to slow the growth of large fortunes. "Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security," FDR declared.
http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/ArtWeb/310E8B3293A7AD62852571A20068CBB7?OpenDocument

Q. What is frankincense? A. Frankincense is aromatic resin of dehydrated tree sap that comes from the milky-colored sap of Boswellia, a genus of deciduous trees. Once valued on a level with gold, it has been a commodity for more than 50 centuries. Incorporated into a diversity of cultures, it has been used in an array of settings, such as religious rites, cosmetics, alternative medicine, scent and incense. http://www.ehow.com/about_5121867_frankincense.html

Q. What is myrrh? A. Myrrh is as equally well known as frankincense in its use as an incense and anointment. Few know that the resin has also been used internally as medicine. Myrrh essential oil has many useful benefits, and is still used in natural products such as toothpaste, soap and perfumes. Myrrh has a pleasant scent for use in meditation or aromatherapy as well. http://www.ehow.com/about_5300033_benefits-myrrh-essential-oil.html

As a TV writer, Eddie Gorodetsky has seven Emmy nominations (and one win). He has written for "SCTV," "Saturday Night Live" and David Letterman. He now works with producer Chuck Lorre on the two most popular half-hour comedies on television—"Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory"—plus the new "Mike & Molly." A new project: writing a novel about "celebrity, paparazzi, drugs and superheroes." He was also the producer of "Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan," the weekly satellite radio series that from 2006-2009 produced a crazy-quilt mix of genre-and-decade-jumping songs, with running commentary from Mr. Dylan. Much of the material for the 100 episodes was culled from Mr. Gorodetsky's own record collection, which among other eclectic selections contains a vast array of Christmas music. Mr. Gorodetsky made these holiday songs into mixes and sent them to friends for years. The idea with the mix tapes was to get people to listen to stuff they wouldn't normally listen to—a reggae track here, then a country track, followed by a jump blues tune." He chose Christmas songs because "people will listen to anything if you put sleigh bells on it." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704156304576003783102082942.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

SantaLeaks
· Santa and several top elves colluded to circumvent a ban on Chinese-made toys, despite pressure from the North Pole community to deliver only toys made locally.
· Santa has, over the years, acted to undermine potential successors, privately disparaging one of his nephews as “lazy,” another as “not really committed to the whole Christmas thing,” and yet another as “incapable of growing a beard of the appropriate size, if you know what I mean.”
· Senior North Pole officials were astonished when an elf in Santa’s cabinet proposed halting a long-standing program monitoring pouting and crying. “For years, we’ve been telling people that they’d better not do this,” one said in a confidential cable, “and now we’re removing all restrictions? What’s next? Decriminalizing the failure to watch out? Read the other ten at: http://newyorker.tumblr.com/post/2351607272/santaleaks

Language analysts, sifting through two centuries of words in the millions of books in Google Inc.'s growing digital library, found a new way to track the arc of fame, the effect of censorship, the spread of inventions and the explosive growth of new terms in the English-speaking world. In research reported December 16 in the journal Science, the scientists at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Google and the Encyclopedia Britannica unveiled a database of two billion words and phrases drawn from 5.2 million books in Google's digital library published during the past 200 years. With this tool, researchers can measure trends through the language authors used and the names of people they mentioned. Analyzing the computerized text, the researchers reported that they could measure the hardening rhetoric of nations facing off for war, by tracking increasing use of the word "enemy." in the past," said Mark Liberman, a computational linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, who wasn't involved in the project. "Everywhere you focus these new instruments, you see interesting patterns." The digital text also captured the evolving structure of a living language, and almost a half-million English words that have appeared since 1950, partly reflecting the growing number of technical terms, such as buckyball, netiquette and phytonutrient. "Empathy has shot up since the 1940s," said Harvard University cognitive scientist and linguist Steven Pinker, who is experimenting with the data in his own research. "Will power, self-control and prudence have declined." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704073804576023741849922006.html

Silent monks "sing" Hallelujah Chorus--a selection of performances to choose from: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=silent+monks+hallelujah+chorus&aq=0

A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Yo, Silver! ... Three times a week on the radio, those words, juxtaposed with the galloping strains of Rossini’s “William Tell” overture, captivated generations of midcentury Americans. For a decade, first on the radio and later on television, Fred Foy was the man who intoned those gallant lines, among the most evocative in American broadcasting. Mr. Foy died on December 22, at 89, at his home in Woburn, Mass. Mr. Foy was not the first “Lone Ranger” announcer and narrator — the show had begun in 1933, when he was scarcely more than a boy — but he was the last, and almost certainly the best known. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/arts/television/23foy.html

Articles on gambling First page is displayed--full display is fee-based.
Getting A Piece Of The Action: Should the Federal Government be Able to Tax Native American Gambling Revenue? by S. Dean
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/collsp32&div=14&id=&page=
The Diceman Cometh: Will Gambling be a Bad Bet for Your Town by R.A. Reno
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=D33819BDD5019497C420C7AF5DD68B48.inst2_2b?docId=5001629544
U.S. National Security and the Strategic Economic Base: The Business/Economic Impacts of the Legalization of Gambling Activities by J.W. Kindt
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/stlulj39&div=27&id=&page=

The Melbourne Cup is a handicap race with weights set according to an individual horse’s record. There are strict requirements for getting into the race to ensure that only the best stayers with proven records get into the Melbourne Cup. Melbourne Cup Day is a public holiday in Melbourne, Australia. http://goaustralia.about.com/cs/melbournevic/a/melbournecup2.htm

The kangaroo is usually held up as the animal that represents the essence of Australia. However in terms of influencing Australian culture, the kangaroo is no match for the fly. Although the fly doesn't appear on any flags, it has shaped everything from the manner an Australian speaks to the style of Australian cuisine. In terms of speech, it has been said that the Australian accent is a product of Australians breathing through their noses for fear that flies might blow into their mouths. Flies have also inspired a new style of body language. Known as the "Australian Salute", Australians have turned flicking away a fly into an art form.
http://www.convictcreations.com/animals/flies.htm

Quotes
In creating, the only hard thing's to begin.
All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American editor, critic and one of the group of authors sometimes called the Fireside Poets or the Schoolroom Poets
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
There’s no substitute for hard work. Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) American inventor, entrepreneur

Thomas Alva Edison was born February 11, 1847 in the port town of Milan, Ohio, which was one of the largest wheat-shipping centers in the world. His parents taught him how to use the resources of the local library, and gradually, Thomas preferred learning through independent self instruction. At an early age, he became attracted to mechanics and chemical experiments. When young Thomas became interested in science, his parents scraped together money to hire a tutor. Thomas began to experiment with chemicals in the basement of his home. Edison’s various electric companies continued to grow until 1889, when they were all brought together to form Edison General Electric, which was controlled by J.P. Morgan . By 1892 the Edison General Electric Company had become the General Electric Corporation. Thomas Edison is most famous as the inventor of the incandescent light bulb, but what many people don't realize is that he also invented the motion picture camera. He desired a device that would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear" — record and reproduce objects in motion. He dubbed it the kinetoscope. One of Edison's first motion pictures -- the first ever copyrighted -- featured one of his employees pretending to sneeze. A good film for motion pictures was not available until 1893, at which time he built a motion picture studio in New Jersey. The studio had a roof that could be opened to let in light, and the entire building was constructed so that it could be moved to stay in line with the sun. The first motion pictures shown in a "movie theater" in America were presented to audiences on April 23, 1896, in New York City. The last experimental work of Edison's life was done at the request of Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone in the late 1920s. They asked Edison to find a substitute source of rubber for use in automobile tires. The natural rubber used for tires up to that time came from the rubber tree, which does not grow in the United States. It was becoming increasingly expensive. Edison tested thousands of different plants to find a suitable alternative, eventually finding a type of Goldenrod weed that could produce enough rubber to be practicable. Edison was still working on this at the time of his death in 1931. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1608.html

Quotes
What you lack in flexibility and agility you must make up with knowledge and constant practice.
Bruce Lee (1940-1973) Chinese-American actor, director, author, martial artist
Practice is the best of all instructions. Aristotle (384 B.C.-322 B.C.) Greek philosopher

Q. What is anti-static, hypoallergenic, insulates against heat and cold, reduces noise, shock absorbent, contains a natural insect repellent, is mildew, rot and mold-resistant, and a fire retardant?
A. Cork flooring.

Q. Where does cork come from?
A. ¬ Just ¬about every tree has an outer layer of cork bark, but the cork oak (Quercus suber) is the primary source of most cork products in the world, including wine bottle stoppers. These trees primarily grow in countries that run along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where there's plenty of sunshine, low rainfall and high humidity. The countries that produce the most cork include Portugal, Algeria, Spain, Morocco, France, Italy and Tunisia. http://home.howstuffworks.com/question550.htm

Quotes
Be kind. Every person you meet is fighting a hard battle.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Plato (ca. 428-348 B.C.) Greek philosopher; disciple of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle

A total eclipse of the moon will be visible throughout North and Central America from 11:41 p.m. PST Monday, December 20 until 12:53 a.m. Tuesday, December 21 the first such eclipse in almost three years. Unlike during a total solar eclipse, when the sun is blotted out, in a lunar eclipse the moon rarely appears black. Because of sunrises and sunsets around the world that scatter and refract light from the sun, the moon generally appears bright and coppery orange, or sometimes brown or dark red-black, depending on how much pollution is in the atmosphere. Also unlike a solar eclipse, which can generally only be seen from select places on the Earth's surface, a lunar eclipse can be seen from anywhere on the side of the Earth facing the moon at the time. NASA will be hosting Web chats about the eclipse and, for those encountering bad weather, showing it live at http://www.nasa.gov/watchtheskies. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/18/science/la-sci-eclipse-20101218

Demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) can be used as determiners. (Hand me that hammer.) Demonstrative pronouns can be used as qualifiers. (She wanted that much money?) See also information on personal, reflexive/intensive, indefinite, interrogative and relative pronouns at: http://www.towson.edu/ows/oronouns.htm

Christmas Island, named in 1643 for the day of its discovery, the island was annexed and settlement was begun by the UK in 1888. Phosphate mining began in the 1890s. The UK transferred sovereignty to Australia in 1958. Almost two-thirds of the island has been declared a national park. When the first settlers arrived, in 1897, it was covered with a dense forest of great trees and luxuriant under-shrubbery. Prior to colonization, the island had never been inhabited. http://www.historyofnations.net/asia/christmasisland.html The red crab is by far the most obvious of the 14 species of land crabs found on Christmas Island. Millions of these land crabs live over the island. They are a big crab with an adult body shell (or carapace) measuring up to 116mm across. Although most common in the moist environment of the rainforest, red crabs live in a variety of habitats including coastal shore terraces, and even domestic gardens. They dig burrows in soil or live in deep crevices in rock outcrops. The crabs' burrows have a single entrance tunnel which leads to a single chamber. Only one crab lives in a burrow and (except for the breeding season) red crabs are solitary and do not tolerate intruders into their burrows. See images including a crab crossing sign at: http://www.environment.gov.au/parks/christmas/nature-science/fauna/red-crabs.html

Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui, Spanish: Isla de Pascua) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern most point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile annexed in 1888, Easter Island is widely famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai (pronounced /ˈmoʊ.aɪ/), created by the early Rapanui people. It is a World Heritage Site (as determined by UNESCO) with much of the island protected within the Rapa Nui National Park. The name "Easter Island" was given by the island's first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday 1722, while searching for Davis or David's island and named it Paasch-Eyland (18th century Dutch for "Easter Island"). The island's official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means "Easter Island". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island

Pentecost Island, which gets its name from the day on which it was first sighted by Europeans, is a mountainous, tropical island in the South Pacific republic of Vanuatu. There are no towns on Pentecost - most of the islanders live in small villages and grow their own food in small gardens. http://www.pentecostisland.net/

A small group of Cistercian monks in Austria made music history recently when their album of Gregorian chant climbed England’s pop charts, landing in the Top Ten for two months and selling more than a million copies worldwide. Directed by Dana Perry. the documentary TOP TEN MONKS takes an unprecedented look at the daily lives of these unlikely celebrities, who rarely allow cameras inside their wall. Top Ten Monks airs on HBO 2 on Wednesday December 22nd at 8 p.m. et/pt.
http://smallscreenscoop.com/gregorian-chants-history/312277/ You will find about 300 examples on YouTube when you type in Cisterian monks.

A four-year, $10 million effort to digitize the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s archives, making hundreds of thousands of documents, photographs, and recordings available online, is nearing completion of its first phase. A formal announcement will come Jan. 13, one week before the 50th anniversary of JFK’s inauguration, at a press conference in the nation’s capitol. “Access to a Legacy,” as the project is called, marks the first time a presidential library established in the paper age has fully committed itself to the digital era. The amount of material to be posted online in January is huge — 200,000 pages of text, 1,500 photos, 1,250 files of audio recordings and moving images, and 340 phone conversations totaling 17 1/2 hours — but represents just a small portion of the collection. Among the documents likely to draw intense interest is a draft, in JFK’s handwriting, of his inaugural address (“Ask not what your country can do for you ... ”). There are also notes, tapes, and maps made during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and Oval Office phone conversations between Kennedy and other important historical figures, from foreign heads of state and former US presidents to key political allies and aides. Users will be able to print and copy material directly off the website, so they could download a personal note to JFK and make a copy for themselves. http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/11/28/10m_project_to_digitize_jfk_archives_underway/

tautology (taw-TOL-uh-jee) noun
1. Unnecessary repetition of an idea, especially in different words, for example, a good-looking beautiful woman.
2. In logic, a compound statement that is always true, irrespective of the value of its components, for example: Tomorrow either it will rain or not rain. From Greek tauto- (same), contraction of "to auto" (the same) + -logy (word). First recorded use: 1587
ontology (on-TOL-uh-jee) noun The philosophical study of existence and the nature of being. From Greek onto- (being) + -logy (study). First recorded use: 1663. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Diva or prima donna; a usually glamorous and successful female performer or personality Italian, literally, goddess, from Latin, feminine of divus divine, god first known use: 1883 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diva
Divo or primo don is the male equivalent.

Q. What is a yurt? A. a circular domed dwelling that is portable and self-supporting; originally used by nomadic Mongol and Turkic people of central Asia but now used as inexpensive alternative or temporary housing wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn See other definitions at: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:yurt&sa=X&ei=vg8JTeTOOcT48AbUoqGuAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CBkQkAE

Hannah's Socks is just over 12,000 pairs of socks short of meeting their 2010 goal of collecting 150,000 pairs to help families in need! There's still time to collect and donate socks, but they need them by December 30. Do you have new socks or other new clothing 'essentials' (men's, women's and children's briefs, T-shirts, thermals, pajamas, etc.) to donate but you're unsure where to go? No problem! You can drop off donations at locations in Toledo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Southern Michigan. See addresses of locations at: http://www.hannahssocks.org/find-a-drop-off-point If you have a large donation and/or need to make other arrangements, contact Hannah's Socks at: http://www.hannahssocks.org/contact and they'll be happy to help you.

Some 50 million Americans at least occasionally experience tinnitus, pronounced tin-EYE-tus or TIN-i-tus. And 16 million U.S. adults had it frequently in the past year, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some two million find it so disturbing that it interferes with sleep, work, concentration and family relationships. The incidence is rising these days along with the aging population and personal music players cranked up high. "Now we have 12-year-olds complaining of tinnitus. We never had that previously," says Jennifer Born, a spokeswoman for the American Tinnitus Association, a nonprofit education and advocacy group. Tinnitus is also the No. 1 service-related disability among veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq, due to brain injuries from explosive devices.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703727804576017473782047928.html

Internet users may not realize how much information they're giving up just by browsing the Web. Digital marketers like RapLeaf, for example, are getting better at sniffing through people's Web-browsing histories and online identities to compile user profiles that can be sold to advertisers. These targeted marketing campaigns have drawn the ire of some members of Congress and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which, on December 1, called for the United States to create a "do not track" list for the internet, which would let users essentially opt out from all targeted marketing and tracking. "Industry must do better," the agency says in its report, which warns consumers that if they use the internet, location-tracking smartphones or online social networks, they're likely sending information about themselves, and possibly friends, to an unknown list of advertisers and marketers. http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/12/13/end.of.privacy.intro/
Case in point: On December 13, I received a phone call from an insurance company saying that an Internet lead on me indicated that I had questions on health insurance. Not so.

An IBM computing system named "Watson" will compete on the first-ever man vs. machine competition, which will air Feb. 14, 15 and 16, with two matches being played over three consecutive days. Jennings and Rutter, the show's two most successful contestants, will face off against Watson for a grand prize of $1 million, second place earning of $300,000 and third place of $200,000. Rutter and Jennings will donate 50% of their winnings to charity, and IBM will donate all of its winnings to charity.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2010/12/ibm-computer-to-compete-on-jeopardy-/1

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) hosted the first major chess tournament for computers, the 1st United States Computer Chess Championship, in September 1970 in New York. The event was organized by Dr. Monty Newborn, Professor of Computer Science at McGill University. It was won by CHESS 3.0, a chess program from Northwestern University, written by David Slate, Larry Atkin, and Gorlen. Six programs competed that year. In 1994, the last ACM chess tournament was held in Cape May, New Jersey. The 24th ACM tournament was won by DEEP THOUGHT II. The ACM chess events were cancelled in 1995 as DEEP BLUE was preparing for the first match against world chess champion Garry Kasparov. See list of all tournaments at: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/ACM-ComputerChessWall.html
Virginia law on passing a stopped school bus has been clear for 40 years. "A person is guilty of reckless driving who fails to stop, when approaching from any direction, any school bus which is stopped on any highway, private road or school driveway for the purpose of taking on or discharging children." Yes, drivers must stop a school bus which is, er, stopped. Wait. Is something missing there? Indeed. The preposition "at" was deleted in 1970 when the law was amended, the statute's history shows. And a man who zipped past a school bus, while it was picking up children with its lights flashing and stop sign extended, was found not guilty recently by a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/30/AR2010113006753.html

What are combining forms? You can think of them as the Legos of language. As the name indicates, a combining form is a linguistic atom that occurs only in combination with some other form which could be a word, another combining form, or an affix (unlike a combining form, an affix can't attach to another affix).
exogamy (ek-SOG-uh-mee) noun
Marriage outside one's tribe or a similar social unit.
From Greek exo- (outside) + -gamy (marriage). First recorded use: 1865. The opposite is endogamy. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

At the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Mark Morris's "The Hard Nut" has returned for the first time in eight years, and will play through December 19. The modern-dance choreographer created it back in 1991, when his company was in residence at Belgium's Theatre de la Monnaie and had access to state-funded deep pockets - a full orchestra, set and costume shop, rehearsal space. Thus the lavishness of "The Hard Nut" - and the difficulty in performing it nowadays. In this work, he marries the full Tchaikovsky score with the complete E.T.A. Hoffmann story. You're seeing only a fragment of it in most ballet company versions, but Morris goes further. Of course, Marie (as his heroine is called, in keeping with the Hoffmann) receives the nutcracker doll from her "family friend" Drosselmeier. Her brother Fritz breaks the doll. And in Marie's dream, her devotion transforms it into a prince. After all that, Drosselmeier tells Marie a story-within-a-story about a hero's quest to find a magic nut, the hard nut of the title, that will restore beauty to a princess who is under a rat's evil spell. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121202991.html

BAM Gilman Opera House 30 Lafayette Avenue between St. Felix Street and Ashland Place Brooklyn 718-636-4100
Next Wave Festival: The Hard Nut
through December 19 To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Mark Morris Dance Group reprises its irreverent and much loved The Hard Nut, a retro-modern take on the holiday favorite The Nutcracker. The Brooklyn Youth Chorus participates in this dance work appropriate for all ages.
The Nutcracker: A World Premiere
Dec. 23-Jan. 2 With a cast of over 100 performers, American Ballet Theatre's world premiere of Alexei Ratmansky's Nutcracker features the classic Tchaikovsky score and sets and costumes by Richard Hudson (who won a Tony Award for his set designs for The Lion King).
http://www.nyc-arts.org/venues/view/id/145

In the United States nineteen states permit 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections and caucuses if they will be 18 by election day. An amendment to the state constitution is being considered in the Illinois legislature that would lower its voting age to 17 for non-federal elections, though states can set their voting age to lower than 18 for federal elections as well. Because it only applies to state elections, 17-year-olds would not be able to vote in primaries and general elections for representatives, senators, and President of the United States even if the amendment passes the legislature and referendum. To pass, 60 percent of each house of the state legislature would have to approve it, and it would then have to be approved over half of by voters in the November general election. Currently, the Green Party of Maine, the state branch of the Green Party of the United States, calls for the lowering of the voting age to 17. Youth suffrage appears to be gaining ground in Massachusetts; three of the four Democratic United States Senate candidates in 2010 supported lowering the voting age. See voting ages around the world at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age#United_States

On December 14, the U.S. Census Bureau released 5-year American Community Survey (ACS) estimates for the first time, making available social, economic, housing and demographic statistics for every community in the nation. Up until now, small geographic areas had to rely on outdated 2000 Census figures for detailed information about the characteristics of their communities. Consisting of about 11.1 billion individual estimates and covering more than 670,000 distinct geographies, the 5-year ACS estimates give even the smallest communities more timely information on topics ranging from commute times to languages spoken at home to housing values. The data released today are based on a rolling annual sample survey mailed to about 3 million addresses between Jan. 1, 2005, and Dec. 31, 2009. The new 2005-2009 ACS estimates are not related to the 2010 Census population counts that will be released Dec. 21. The ACS complements the decennial count and provides estimates of population characteristics that are far more detailed than the basic demographic information that will be released from the 2010 Census, which will be available starting in February. http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/cb10-cn90.html
Maryland's median household income was nearly $70,000, ahead of Connecticut and New Jersey, and far above the nationwide median of about $51,400.

Comic strip humor on December 15
In Kazakhstan, they refer to nomadic Muppets as They Who Make the Wild Crocodile Seem Cuddly. Get Fuzzy Ho! Ho! H--Thonk! (The Christmas They Left the Flue Shut TV movie). Garfield

Cord noun Middle English, from Anglo-French corde, from Latin chorda string, from Greek chordē first known use: 14th century http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cord Cordophones are musical instruments that use vibrating strings to make sound.

Concord noun Middle English, from Anglo-French concorde, from Latin concordia, from concord-, concors agreeing, from com- + cord-, cor heart first known use: 14th century http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concord?show=0&t=1292192361

The 10th Annual National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. set an attendance record at 150,000. The book lovers congregated on September 25, 2010. See lists of authors and illustrators attending at: http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/author/?PHPSESSID=99195036800292829604bbcb6aaf0f5a

In time for the premiere of the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson posed for Celebrity READ posters for the American Library Association. Browse or buy here:
http://www.alastore.ala.org/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=158&gclid=CJiOioiI4KUCFVdn5QodfUpx1w

Librarians and library school faculty variously attribute the origins of bibliotherapy to the Oct. 15, 1939 Library Journal article, “Can There Be a Science of Bibliotherapy?” or to Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop (1919). Researchers in psychology and gender studies, however, trace the concept back to 17th-century spiritual titles that American colonists counted on to guide them, which gave way to a burgeoning self-help literature that promised health and wealth beginning in the early 1800s. The advice guides of that era never used the term “bibliotherapy” but sold books that promised advice and self-improvement. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/youth-matters/feeling-books

Quotes We librarians never really retire because our work is never completely done. Will Manley in Will's World, American Libraries November/December 2010
You can't have too many books. Michigan muse reader

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: The pleonasm contest Def: The use of more words than those necessary to express an idea; redundancy. For example: free gift. More than 900 readers sent pleonasms in response to this week's contest. Here are some that were sent by a lot of readers:
Misc: preplan, advance planning, past history, past experience, very unique, future plan, forward planning, tuna fish, at this point in time, déjà vu all over again, 9am in the morning, new innovation.
RAS Syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome Syndrome): ATM machine, VAT tax, PCV valve, PIN number, VIN number, START treaty, SSN number, HIV virus, NIC Card, RPMs per minute, ER room, ISBN number, ATV vehicle, SQL language, CRT tube, LPG gas.
Trouble across the languages: chai tea, shrimp scampi, please RSVP, the La Brea Tar Pits.
Winner of the contest is Tracy Blues of Cape Town, South Africa for this entry: One of my favourite pleonasms is the Raid insecticide tagline: "Raid kills bugs dead." In 2002 there was some outdoor advertising of this in Johannesburg with a VW "bug" on its roof next to the advert -- so a pleonasm and a pun!

Refugees from a lost civilisation whose ruins and relics lie submerged on the seabed deep beneath the Persian Gulf may have founded ancient, advanced Middle Eastern societies thousands of years ago in the time before the Pharaohs. According to Jeffrey Rose, a Birmingham archaeologist, recent excavations and discoveries indicate that a large number of substantial and relatively sophisticated settlements sprang up around the shores of the Persian Gulf quite suddenly perhaps 7,500 years ago. “Where before there had been but a handful of scattered hunting camps, suddenly, over 60 new archaeological sites appear virtually overnight,” says Rose. “These settlements boast well-built, permanent stone houses, long-distance trade networks, elaborately decorated pottery, domesticated animals, and even evidence for one of the oldest boats in the world.” The theory might accord well with the myths and thousands-of-years-old records mentioning a place or land known as "Dilmun", known to the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians of the Middle East. Its location remains uncertain, but some theories suggest that Dilmun was located on the Gulf coast or an island in the Gulf - Bahrain is often suggested as a possibility. If Rose is correct, the Sumerians may in fact have been talking about a place now under water. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/09/ancient_dilmun_garden_eden_gulf_lost_civilisation/

Some people believe that that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans played different versions of tennis. Drawings and descriptions of any tennis-like games have not been discovered, but a few Arabic words dating from ancient Egyptian times are cited as evidence. The theory goes that the name tennis derives from the Egyptian town of Tinnis alongside the Nile and the word racquet evolved from the Arabic word for palm of the hand, rahat. Aside from these two words, evidence for any form of tennis preceding the year 1000 is lacking, and most historians credit the first origins of the game to 11th or 12th century French monks, who began playing a crude handball against their monastery walls or over a rope strung across a courtyard. The game took on the name jeu de paume, which means “game of the hand.” Many who dispute more ancient origins argue that tennis derived from the French tenez, which meant something to the effect of “take this,” said as one player would serve to the other. As the game became more popular, courtyard playing areas began to be modified into indoor courts, where the ball was still played off the walls. After bare hands were found too uncomfortable, players began using a glove, then either a glove with webbing between the fingers or a solid paddle, followed by webbing attached to a handle–essentially a racquet. Rubber balls were still centuries away, so the ball was a wad of hair, wool, or cork wrapped in string and cloth or leather, then in later years, hand-stitched in felt to look something like a modern baseball. The nobility learned the game from the monks, and some accounts report as many as 1800 courts in France by the 13th century. The game became such a popular diversion, both the Pope and Louis IV tried unsuccessfully to ban it. It soon spread to England, where both Henry VII and Henry VIII were avid players who promoted the building of more courts. http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-tennis.htm

There are many definitions for helm: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:helm&sa=X&ei=3f__TNiJK4et8AbM5t2ZBw&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQkAE Helm (deriving from the helmets worn in battle, the stylized helm sometimes signifies the rank of the person whose arms it accompanies) and other parts of heraldic images are explained here: http://www.library.nd.edu/rarebooks/digital_projects/heraldry/achievement.shtml

Occitan language (also called Provençal or Languedoc) is a Romance language spoken by about 1,500,000 people in southern France. All Occitan speakers use French as their official and cultural language, but Occitan dialects are used for everyday purposes and show no signs of extinction. The name Occitan is derived from the geographical name Occitania, which is itself patterned after Aquitania and the characteristic word oc and includes the regions of Limousin, Languedoc, the old Aquitaine, and the southern part of the French Alps, all of the populations of which are Occitan-speaking. The name Languedoc comes from the term langue d' oc, which denoted a language using oc for yes (from Latin hoc), in contrast to the French language, the langue d' oïl, which used oïl (modern oui) for yes (from Latin hoc ille). According to Encyclopédie Occitane, Provençal was actually the first Romance language to emerge from the mix of Roman and "barbarian" tongues; the earliest surviving texts in Langue d'Oc can be definitively attributed to the tenth century (a refrain attached to a Latin poem), and the 12th-century Donat provençal was the first grammar of a modern European language. The best-known ambassadors of Occitan were the troubadours, traveling minstrels who created enduring lyric poetry and canso, inventing and disseminating the idea of courtly love. Although Occitania was composed of small feudal polities, the Langue d'Oc benefited in medieval times from a common orthography, serving admirably as a language of philosophy, science, law and the arts, as well as the everyday dialect of its speakers. This usage continued well into the 14th century, and Occitan's eventual decline is closely tied to the evolution of royal power and the French state. http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Occitan/Occitan.html

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From: Ellen Amy Cohen Subject: apophasis When I read the definition, my mind was immediately brought back to the classic Bugs Bunny line: "I won't say it hasn't been a pleasure, because it hasn't."
From: Erna Buber-de Villiers Subject: sesquipedality German speakers? Zulu must be the most sesquipedalian language on earth. Here's a sample sentence, taken from a book for Zulu-speaking toddlers: Phela sengizigugela mina angisakwazi ukukhahlelana namathini emgwaqeni. 29 syllables for seven words - that's an average of 4.5 syllables per word. You won't find that in a simple German sentence!
From: Delores Orcutt Subject: paralipsis Def: Drawing attention to something while claiming to be passing over it. This brought to mind a character from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Gilderoy Lockhart uses a paralipsis when he often says that he's the "five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award -- but I don't talk about that." How apropos since one needs a "pair of lips" to win the most charming smile award.

On Thanksgiving Day, Dick Van Dyke appeared at a mission on Skid Row, going from table to table and entertaining the residents while they ate. “I sing and dance,” he said. “That’s my job.” http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/12/13/101213ta_talk_goodyear

Searching YouTube for terms flash mob hallelujah on December 12, I found 306 mentions. The performances of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus have been held around the world, often in mall food courts. The Masterworks Chorale of Toledo organized a performance on December 11. So far, the earliest and biggest I have found was held October 30, 2010 in Macy's downtown store in Philadelphia.

Random Acts of Culture are making quite a national impression. After surprising shoppers with a 650-person performance of Hallelujah in Philadelphia (the YouTube video has 5 million hits and counting), Knight partnered with the Florida Grand Opera and the Arsht Center to surprise shoppers at the Macy’s shoe department in Miami with six performances of “Toreador” from Carmen. Knight Foundation is funding 1,000 Random Acts of Culture over the next three years in eight cities, as a way to bring classical artists out of the performance halls and into our everyday lives. There were 78 Random Acts of Culture as of November 30, 2010. Check out RandomActsofCulture.org for more.

Rising ocean levels brought about by climate change have created a flood of unprecedented legal questions for small island nations and their neighbors. Among them: If a country disappears, is it still a country? Does it keep its seat at the United Nations? Who controls its offshore mineral rights? Its shipping lanes? Its fish? And if entire populations are forced to relocate -- as could be the case with citizens of the Maldives, Tuvalu, Kiribati and other small island states facing extinction -- what citizenship, if any, can those displaced people claim? "At the current negotiating sessions and climate change meetings, nobody is truly addressing the legal and human rights effects of climate change," said Phillip Muller, the Marshall Islands' ambassador to the United Nations. "If the Marshall Islands ceases to exist, are we still going to own the sea resources? Are we still going to be asked for permission to fish? What are the rights that we will have? And we are also mindful that we may need to relocate. We're hoping it will never happen, but we have to be ready. There are a lot of issues we need to know the answer to and be able to tell our citizens what is happening," he said. Frustrated by the dearth of answers to the questions he was posing, Muller said, Marshall Islands leaders contacted Columbia Law School. Michael Gerrard, who leads the law school's Center for Climate Change Law, picked up the challenge and issued a call for papers. http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/08/23/23climatewire-if-a-country-sinks-beneath-the-sea-is-it-sti-70169.html?pagewanted=all

sesquipedality (ses-kwi-pi-DAL-i-tee) noun The practice of using long words. From Latin sesqui- (one and a half) + ped- (foot). First recorded use: 1759.
Literally speaking, sesquipedality is using words that are one and a half feet long. A related word is sesquicentennial (150th anniversary). Nothing wrong with using a sesquipedalian word once in a while, if it fits, but it's best to avoid too many long, polysyllabic words. This dictum doesn't apply to German speakers though, as Mark Twain once observed, "Some German words are so long that they have a perspective." There's a bean subspecies commonly known as a yardlong bean. It's really misnamed as it's "only" half a yard long. Its scientific name, Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis, is more precise.
periphrasis (puh-RIF-ruh-sis) noun A roundabout way of saying something, using more words than necessary. Via Latin, from Greek periphrasis, from periphrazein (to explain around), from peri- (around) + phrazein (to speak, say). First recorded use: 1533.
paralipsis (par-uh-LIP-sis) noun Drawing attention to something while claiming to be passing over it. From Latin paralipsis, from Greek paraleipsis (an omission), from paraleipein (to leave on one side), from para- (side) + leipein (to leave). First recorded use: 1550. Paralipsis is especially handy in politics to point out an opponent's faults. It typically involves these phrases: "not to mention", "to say nothing of". "I won't speak of", "leaving aside" A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Nobel Lecture, In Praise of Reading and Fiction, by Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of The Nobel Prize in Literature 2010 When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute – the foundation of the human condition – and should be better. We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal. fiction is more than an entertainment, more than an intellectual exercise that sharpens one’s sensibility and awakens a critical spirit. It is an absolute necessity so that civilization continues to exist, renewing and preserving in us the best of what is human.
See entire speech at: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2010/vargas_llosa-lecture_en.html

A copy of the world's most expensive printed book has sold at auction in London for £6.5m ($10.3m), but why is John James Audubon's Birds of America such a collectors' item? If you ever see a copy of Audubon's Birds of America lying round a junk shop, you should consider buying it. It should stand out. The largest version of the book was in what printers call double elephant folio - an enormous 39.5 by 26.5 inches (100cm by 67cm), to allow lifesize illustration of birds. Even by today's standards, the vividness of its illustrations of birds is extraordinary but when it was being released in the 1830s it was mindboggling. It is perhaps no great surprise that one of the 119 complete copies in existence should fetch millions. Audubon, born in Haiti and largely self-taught, spent well over a decade of his life on the magnum opus, which has prints of watercolours of birds and an accompanying volume of ornithological description. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11937736

The president of the United States is not chosen by a nation-wide popular vote. The electoral vote totals determine the winner, not the statistical plurality or majority a candidate may have in the nation-wide vote totals. Electoral votes are awarded on the basis of the popular vote in each State. Note that 48 out of the 50 States award electoral votes on a winner-takes-all basis (as does DC). For example, all 55 of California's electoral votes go to the winner of that State election, even if the margin of victory is only 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent. In a multi-candidate race where candidates have strong regional appeal, as in 1824, it is quite possible that a candidate who collects the most votes on a nation-wide basis will not win the electoral vote. In a two-candidate race, that is less likely to occur. But it did occur in the Hayes/Tilden election of 1876 and the Harrison/Cleveland election of 1888 due to the statistical disparity between vote totals in individual State elections and the national vote totals. This also occurred in the 2000 presidential election, where George W. Bush received fewer popular votes than Albert Gore Jr., but received a majority of electoral votes. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#popularelectoral

Of our 44 presidents, four received fewer votes than their opponents but still became president.: #6, John Quincy Adams; #19, Rutherford B. Hayes; #23, Benjamin Harrison; and #43, George Bush.

Federal law enforcement agents on December 6 arrested a Brooklyn Internet merchant who mistreated customers because he thought their online complaints raised the profile of his business in Google searches. The merchant, Vitaly Borker, 34, who operates a Web site called decormyeyes.com, was charged with one count each of mail fraud, wire fraud, making interstate threats and cyberstalking. The mail fraud and wire fraud charges each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The stalking and interstate threats charges carry a maximum sentence of five years. In an arraignment in United States District Court in Lower Manhattan, Judge Michael H. Dolinger denied Mr. Borker’s request for bail, stating that the defendant was either “verging on psychotic” or had “an explosive personality.” Mr. Borker will be detained until a preliminary hearing, scheduled for Dec. 20. In an interview with a reporter from The New York Times in October, Mr. Borker maintained that scaring Clarabelle Rodriguez — and dozens of other customers in the last three years — enhanced the standing of DecorMyEyes in Internet searches on Google. That was because Google’s algorithm, he claimed, was unable to distinguish between praise and complaints. All of the negative postings translated into buzz, he said, which helped push DecorMyEyes higher in search results and increased his sales. It is unclear if Mr. Borker was right about the cause of DecorMyEyes’ surprisingly strong showing in online searches. But Google published a post on its official blog stating that it had changed its search formula so that companies were penalized if they provided customers with what it called “an extremely poor user experience.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/business/07borker.html?_r=1

Shakespeare was by no means the first to suggest that 'all that glitters/glisters is not gold'. The 12th century French theologian Alain de Lille wrote "Do not hold everything gold that shines like gold". In 1553, we have Thomas Becon, in The relikes of Rome: "All is not golde that glistereth." George Turberville, in Tragical tales, (and other poems), 1587, wrote that "All is not gold that glistringly appeere." The 'glitters' version of this phrase is so long established as to be perfectly acceptable - especially as 'glisters' and 'glitters' mean the same thing and are essentially synonymous. Only the most pedantic insist that 'all that glisters is not gold' is correct and that 'all that glitters is not gold', being a misquotation, should be shunned. John Dryden was quite happy to use 'glitters' as long ago as 1687, in his poem, The Hind and the Panther: For you may palm upon us new for old: All, as they say, that glitters, is not gold. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/28450.html

For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement. But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little. “It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.” American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership. NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge. The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/asia/23kabul.html?scp=1&sq=taliban%20impostor&st=cse

Top ten invasive species Asian Carp, Rabbits, Cane Toads, Kudzu, Gray Squirrel, Killer Bees, Starlings, Northern Snakehead, Zebra Mussels, Burmese Python
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1958657,00.html#ixzz17Scr3d00

The Sifto salt mine in Goderich, Ontario is the largest in the world. It extends five kilometres under Lake Huron. A team that was originally drilling for oil in the area first struck rock salt in 1866. The rock salt, discovered more than 300 metres feet beneath Goderich Harbour, was the first recorded discovery of a salt bed in North America. The entrance to what was once a vast, tropical sea that lay in the middle of North America, over four hundred million years ago during the Silurian period. As the continent shifted away from the equator the sea disappeared but the salty deposits on its bottom remained. http://www.cbc.ca/geologic/field_guide/gl_goderich.html?dataPath=/photogallery/documentaries/gallery_641/xml/gallery_641.xml

The existence of rock salt in the Detroit area was discovered in 1895. By 1906, the Detroit Salt and Manufacturing Company was ready to tackle the chore of creating a local rock salt mine. The struggle down to the salt beds is one of the most impressive engineering accomplishments of its time. Competitive and economic pressure forced International Salt to close the mine in 1983. Two years after the closure, Crystal Mines, Inc., purchased the mine as a potential storage site. After this venture failed, the current owner, Detroit Salt Company, LLC, purchased the mine in 1997, and began salt production in the fall of 1998. See much more of the company's history at: http://www.detroitsalt.com/about-history.htm

For the first time researchers have attempted to chart the evolutionary history of the brain across different groups of mammals over 60 million years. They have discovered that there are huge variations in how the brains of different groups of mammals have evolved over that time. They also suggest that there is a link between the sociality of mammals and the size of their brains relative to body size, according to a study published in the PNAS journal. The research team analysed available data on the brain size and body size of more than 500 species of living and fossilised mammals. It found that the brains of monkeys grew the most over time, followed by horses, dolphins, camels and dogs. The study shows that groups of mammals with relatively bigger brains tend to live in stable social groups. The brains of more solitary mammals, such as cats, deer and rhino, grew much more slowly during the same period. http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2010/102311.html

On December 4, Dave Sheppard became the new librarian at Oneida's Greig Memorial Library, and the first male in a lengthening list of live-in librarians. Local taxes and other funding add up to a small library budget, so the library board’s solution continues to be an offer of living quarters plus a small salary. Sheppard, who also works full time at Walmart, and his wife, Lois, will move into the library sometime after the holidays. As he provided a tour of the six rooms on the upper level of Greig Memorial Library on Wednesday, Sheppard seemed comfortable with the concept of living in a library, an option that had not occurred to him before his response to the ad for his new position. Despite the six rooms in the librarian’s private space, the only kitchen is on the main level, connected to the library’s main hallway, which houses computers and shelves of books for sale, and one of the main rooms which contains reference materials, juvenile fiction and videos available for borrowing. A quick online search located no references to live-in librarians, although some libraries in the New York City Public Library system had superintendents/custodians who lived in until possibly as recently as the early 1990s. Those employees — only men were mentioned — apparently often had families they raised in the library. While they maintained the buildings, they most likely did not answer research questions or check out books. In Oneida, Illinois, the situation is not so unusual. There has been a resident librarian since 1939 when Hugh Greig left a bequest in his will which made his former home into a city library. http://www.galesburg.com/news/x1790518469/Oneida-welcomes-new-live-in-librarian

At the Charlotte, N.C. children’s bookstore Author Squad, kids and parents don’t just buy books, they make books—as in writing, illustrating, laying out, and hand-binding hardcover volumes, at the store’s own publishing center. Owner Lauren Garber has gotten the process so kid-friendly, in fact, that even two-year-olds can get in on constructing their own books. Garber opened the store just three years ago—they celebrated their birthday the second week in November—having developed the idea after a stint teaching third grade. “When I gave the kids free time, they would make books,” she recalls. Noting the limited opportunities in typical school curricula for cooperative learning and creative expression, Garber thought it would be fun and valuable to make a business out book-making. She looked for examples of the concept at work elsewhere—and came up with virtually nothing. “You could do photobooks online, obviously, and there’s always been those put-your-kid’s-name-into-a-book services, even when I was a kid,” said Garber. More recently, she’s heard that some of the bigger chain stores have started similar services, but those still require you to send away your materials and wait for the result. At Author Squad, customers make their books on-site, from start to finish, using scanners, Microsoft Publisher, and binding materials the store orders from a library supply company. http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/45364-bookstore-turns-kids-and-parents-into-self-publishers.html

If content is king, is distribution queen? That appears to be the lesson to be the derived from the saga of Netflix, the hugely successful video distributor. In fact, after reading Tim Arango and David Carr’s story about Netflix in the New York Times, you could easily reverse the pecking order and no one would give you a serious argument. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/business/25netflix.html?_r=2&hp Netflix “has gone from being the fastest-growing first-class mail customer of the United States Postal Service [half a billion dollars annually] to the biggest source of streaming Web traffic in North America during peak evening hours,” they write. Thus a major brick and mortar operation has transformed itself with lightning speed into a major digital one. Once again, digital delivery of content has disintermediated traditional means of delivering tangible content. The closest analogy to Netflix in the book world is probably Google. When Google Editions finally comes out of the clouds – and it will very soon – we may see a similar phenomenon of the distribution queen capturing the content king. http://ereads.com/2010/12/netflix-and-movies-a-good-metaphor-for-book-business.html

Changes in Airport Passenger Screening Technologies and Procedures from Congressional Research Service: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R41502.pdf

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) provides monthly income support to families with disabled children, disabled working-age adults, and people 65 or older who have little or no income from other sources. The benefit is administered by the Social Security Administration. SSI is one of the four major cash or near-cash components of the nation’s social assistance system. Between 2000 and 2008, the number of SSI recipients grew by 14 percent, about 6 percentage points more than total population. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided a $250 payment to every SSI beneficiary. The SSI system was an ideal vehicle for rapid distribution of stimulus funds, given that SSI eligibility is means tested, the apparatus for distributing monthly benefit is well established, and beneficiaries likely live in households with a high marginal propensity to spend. But while useful as a stimulus, a one-off $250 payment obviously has no structural consequences. Read excerpt and find link to full report at: http://www.urban.org/publications/412266.html

Bumpers are the first line of defense against costly damage in everyday low-speed crashes. Bumpers on cars are designed to match up with each other in collisions, but a long-standing gap in federal regulations exempts SUVs from the same rules. New Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crash tests demonstrate the results: SUV bumpers that don't line up with those on cars can lead to huge repair bills in what should be minor collisions in stop-and-go traffic. http://web.docuticker.com/go/docubase/62364

From ancient times through the Middle Ages, and into the 13th century, man or animal power was the driving force behind hoisting devices. In ancient Greece, Archimedes developed an improved lifting device operated by ropes and pulleys, in which the hoisting ropes were coiled around a winding drum by a capstan and levers. By A.D. 80, gladiators and wild animals rode crude elevators up to the arena level of the Roman Coliseum. Medieval records contain numerous drawings of hoists lifting men and supplies to isolated locations. Among the most famous is the hoist at the monastery of St. Barlaam in Greece. The monastery stood on a pinnacle approximately (200 ft) above the ground. Its hoist, which employed a basket or cargo net, was the only means up or down. The first elevator designed for a passenger was built in 1743 for King Louis XV at his palace in France. The one-person contraption went up only one floor, from the first to the second. Known as the "Flying Chair," it was on the outside of the building, and was entered by the king via his balcony. The mechanism consisted of a carefully balanced arrangement of weights and pulleys hanging inside a chimney. Men stationed inside the chimney then raised or lowered the Flying Chair at the king's command. http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/elevator.htm

Bombazine is a fabric originally made of silk or silk and wool, and now also made of cotton and wool or of wool alone. It is twilled or corded and used for dress-material. Cambric is a lightweight cotton cloth used as fabric for lace and needlework. Oilcloth was, traditionally, heavy cotton or linen cloth with a linseed oil coating: it was semi-water-proof. The most familiar use was for brightly printed kitchen tablecloths. Dull colored oilcloth was used for bedrolls, sou'westers, and tents. By the late 1950's, oilcloth became a synonym for vinyl (polyvinyl chloride) bonded to either a flanneled cloth or a printed vinyl with a synthetic non woven backing. See glossary of textile manufacturing at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_textile_manufacturing