Sound waves are vibrations that travel through the air. Complex waveforms are the combination of hundreds of waves. If a voice sounds bright it is usually because it is producing upper harmonics at higher amplitudes. If it is duller sounding, it has less upper harmonic content. The combination of all of these different simple sound waves at different frequencies and different amplitudes (levels) produces complex waveforms. These variations in complexity and harmonic structure are how we can tell the difference between the sound of a guitar and a trumpet, a knock on metal or wood, and a real human voice verses a synthesized one. There are a handful of basic waves not commonly found in nature, but easily created with electronics. These basic waves are the building blocks of many synthesizers, basic MIDI, and warning systems. The most basic and simple waveform, a sine wave, has only a fundamental and no harmonics. You may recognize it from warning tones and beeps. See images and listen to sounds at: http://www.thedawstudio.com/Tips/Soundwaves.html
A glass has a natural resonance. Resonance is the natural frequency at which the glass will readily vibrate. To find the resonance of the glass, ping the glass and listen to the sound. That is the correct frequency (or tone) for the glass to start to vibrate. The glass itself must not be affected by damping. Embossed glasses should be avoided. Lead in lead crystal may provide damping although otherwise the glass is very pure. The glass should be empty. The walls of the glass should be as thin as possible. Making the same tone as the natural frequency of the glass will induce vibration in the glass. However, the note alone is not the only factor - volume is also important. The louder the sound, the more violent the vibrations will be. When they reach a level that the glass cannot withstand it will shatter. Link to glass art and glass songs at:
http://www.breakglass.org/How-does-sound-break-glass.html
A fog bow is a similar phenomenon to a rainbow, however, as its name suggests, it appears as a bow in fog rather than rain. Because of the very small size of water droplets that cause fog—smaller than 0.05 millimetres (0.0020 in)—the fog bow has only very weak colors, with a red outer edge and bluish inner. See images and link to moonbow, halo and sun dog at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_bow
Nina Wilcox Putnam (1888–1962) was an American novelist, screenwriter and playwright. During her career she wrote over 500 short stories, around 1000 magazine articles, and several books in addition to regular newspaper columns, serials, comic books and children's literature. Many of her stories were made into films, including a story that was the basis for the 1932 film The Mummy starring Boris Karloff. She was estimated to have earned one million dollars from her writing, and drafted the first 1040 income tax form for the IRS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Wilcox_Putnam
On March 2, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain set the NBA single-game scoring record by tallying 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors in a 169-147 victory over the New York Knicks. Not 98 points, not 102, but a nice, round 100 -- an imposing record set by a most imposing player. Chamberlain was a gargantuan force in the NBA, a player of Bunyanesque stature who seemed to overshadow all around him. He was a dominant offensive force, unstoppable on his way to the basket, yet he was also a fine all-around athlete who took pride in developing the all-around skills to compete with players a half-foot shorter. He certainly was unstoppable that night in Hershey, Pa., where the Warriors played a few of their "home" games in order to attract additional fans. With New York's starting center, Phil Jordan, sidelined by the flu, Chamberlain could not be contained by Darrall Imhoff and Cleveland Buckner. He scored 23 points in the first quarter and had 41 by halftime, then tallied 28 in the third quarter, when the fans began to chant, "Give It To Wilt! Give It To Wilt!" That's exactly what the Warriors did, feeding Chamberlain at every opportunity in the fourth quarter. The Knicks tried fouling other Philadelphia players to keep the ball away from Chamberlain, but the Warriors countered by committing fouls of their own to get the ball back. See picture at: http://www.nba.com/history/features/moment-1962-wilt-100/index.html
See details, statistics and pictures at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamberlain's_100-point_game
Mr. Atomic, (identical twins, Mark and Michael Kersey), having been raised on comic books, Saturday cartoons, and sci-fi movies, developed a love of art and sense of humor at an early age. Pursuing their interest, Mark and Mike attended various art classes at the Toledo Museum of Art and private instruction from the likes of Walter Chapman and Diane Attie between 1962 and 1967. They have worked with area businesses such as Thomas Hart Associates and Libbey Glass, before venturing out to become their own bosses both in Toledo and Dallas. Mark and Michael currently maintain a working studio and gallery at Common Space, 1700 N. Reynolds Road, Suite 204, Toledo Ohio. Link to paintings and more at: http://mratomicart.com/Bio.html
Personal note: I have their entwined tulips (that remind me of ballet dancers) painted on wood.
A leap year (or intercalary or bissextile year) is a year containing one additional day (or, in the case of lunisolar calendars, a month) in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year. Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, a calendar that had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. A year that is not a leap year is called a common year. For example, in the Gregorian calendar (a common solar calendar), February in a leap year has 29 days instead of the usual 28, so the year lasts 366 days instead of the usual 365. Similarly, in the Hebrew calendar (a lunisolar calendar), a 13th lunar month is added seven times every 19 years to the twelve lunar months in its common years to keep its calendar year from drifting through the seasons too rapidly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year
February 29, known as a leap day in the Gregorian calendar, is a date that occurs in most years that are evenly divisible by 4, such as 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 do not contain a leap day, with the exception of years that are evenly divisible by 400, which do contain a leap day; thus 1900 did not contain a leap day while 2000 did. Years containing a leap day are called leap years. February 29 is the 60th day of the Gregorian calendar in such a year, with 306 days remaining until the end of that year. A person who is born on February 29 may be called a "leapling" or a "leap year baby". See Feb. 29 births and events at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_29
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
How rare it is to make a friend, a new friend, a real friend. In a time where people define friends as an electronic profile in a social network to which random comments get automatically directed, where the term may be the cryptogram for someone we have met on an airplane . . .
Haig Mardirosian The American Organist magazine March 2012
cryp•to•gram noun
1. a message or writing in code or cipher; cryptograph.
2. an occult symbol or representation. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cryptogram
Who wrote these words: Sing a song of seasons! Something bright in all! Send your answer to the muse.
As part of the Arizona-mandated termination of its ethnic studies program, the Tucson Unified School District released an initial list of books to be banned from its school. According to district spokesperson Cara Rene, the books “will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage.” Facing a multimillion-dollar penalty in state funds, the governing board of Tucson’s largest school district officially ended the 13-year-old program on Tuesday in an attempt to come into compliance with the controversial state ban on the teaching of ethnic studies. The list of removed books includes the 20-year-old textbook “Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years,” which features an essay by Tucson author Leslie Silko. Recipient of a Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award and a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, Silko has been an outspoken supporter of the ethnic studies program. Another notable text removed from Tucson’s classrooms is Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” Administrators informed Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any units where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes,” including the teaching of Shakespeare’s classic in Mexican-American literature courses.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sonorans/2012/01/13/did-you-know-even-shakespeare-got-banned-from-tusd-with-mas-ruling/
For six weeks starting April 18, the 1,228 McDonald's restaurants across France will feature the McBaguette, with a burger made from France's famed Charolais beef. McDonald's said the burger will be topped with French-made Emmental cheese and mustard. France's national Bread Observatory, which studies and promotes bread, says the French each consume about 150 grams of it a day, or roughly 55 kilograms a year. French research center Credoc found that 98% of French people eat bread every day. In particular, they are major fans of the baguette. A recent study for the Sandwich and Snack trade fair in Paris showed that 65% of the two billion sandwiches sold each year in France are baguette-based. MARION ISSARD
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204778604577241312286387028.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
It was early February, when the 10-hour day returns here on the 44th parallel, and Barbara Damrosch could see it in the brighter green leaves of her tatsoi and spinach growing in the unheated greenhouse attached to the house she shares with her husband, Eliot Coleman, at Four Season Farm. Mr. Coleman, 73, began farming here on Cape Rosier, a rocky peninsula in Penobscot Bay, in 1968, on 60 acres of forested land he bought from Scott and Helen Nearing for $33 an acre. By then, the Nearings had fled the tourists and skiers pouring into Vermont and moved to Maine, where they built a garden walled with stone that collected heat in a climate where winter temperatures can still fall to 20 below zero. Their greenhouse, nestled against the stone wall, absorbed its stored heat at night. Such techniques, as well as a root cellar beneath the house, helped them live off the land year-round. Mr. Coleman cleared his first acre with an ax and bow-saw, built a one-room cabin for his first wife, Sue, and two daughters, and started to improve the soil with seaweed pulled from the rocks by the bay along with loads of horse manure and soiled hay. His compost piles, which are now huge rectangles walled in by bales of straw, also fed the soil. That’s how three inches of thin topsoil have grown to the foot of black gold in these intensively cropped beds. “We’re growing 35 to 40 different crops, in greenhouses and in the field, with no pesticides, because we don’t need pesticides,” Mr. Coleman said. “Basically, we have no pests.” That’s because pests attack sick plants, he said. “They’re like the wolves eating the sick caribou,” he said. “They can’t catch the healthy ones. When you grow plants correctly, insects can’t maintain a population on them.” And Four Season Farm grossed $120,000 last year from crops grown on 1.5 acres of land. ANNE RAVER Read about portable hoop houses and much more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/garden/living-off-the-land-in-maine-even-in-winter.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
STEM The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Coalition works to support STEM programs for teachers and students at the U. S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies that offer STEM related programs. The STEM Education Coalition represents all sectors of the technological workforce – from knowledge workers, to educators, to scientists, engineers, and technicians. http://www.stemedcoalition.org/
L for Library by Marie Lebert A decidedly humorous account of my professional life in Normandy and Jerusalem at the end of the twentieth century, before I discovered the internet and left for San Francisco. The first part concerns the city library in Granville, with its dust and old books, before it was transformed into a beautiful media library. The second part concerns two libraries in Jerusalem, one with its cardboard boxes and the other with its computers. This account was inspired by an older version that was published in a printed magazine. http://marielebert.blogspot.com/2012/02/lforlibrary.html
Gordon Gekko, the character played by actor Michael Douglas in the movie "Wall Street," is the New York FBI office's newest weapon in its arsenal to combat insider trading. The message from Douglas in a public service announcement unveiled Feb. 27 won't be "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." In a first for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Douglas, reprising his role in the 1987 film, will urge fund managers and Wall Street analysts to avoid taking the same route to the federal penitentiary as his character does, FBI Special Agent David Chaves said in an interview on Feb. 24. "He's talking about himself as Gordon Gekko and the role that he played and how that was fiction and this is not but about real crime on Wall Street," said Chaves, a supervisor of one of the FBI's securities and commodities fraud units in New York. Some television stations have agreed to broadcast the spot, he said. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/02/27/bloomberg_articlesM00U9K1A1I4H01-M022Y.DTL
Haig Mardirosian The American Organist magazine March 2012
cryp•to•gram noun
1. a message or writing in code or cipher; cryptograph.
2. an occult symbol or representation. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cryptogram
Who wrote these words: Sing a song of seasons! Something bright in all! Send your answer to the muse.
As part of the Arizona-mandated termination of its ethnic studies program, the Tucson Unified School District released an initial list of books to be banned from its school. According to district spokesperson Cara Rene, the books “will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage.” Facing a multimillion-dollar penalty in state funds, the governing board of Tucson’s largest school district officially ended the 13-year-old program on Tuesday in an attempt to come into compliance with the controversial state ban on the teaching of ethnic studies. The list of removed books includes the 20-year-old textbook “Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years,” which features an essay by Tucson author Leslie Silko. Recipient of a Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award and a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, Silko has been an outspoken supporter of the ethnic studies program. Another notable text removed from Tucson’s classrooms is Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” Administrators informed Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any units where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes,” including the teaching of Shakespeare’s classic in Mexican-American literature courses.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sonorans/2012/01/13/did-you-know-even-shakespeare-got-banned-from-tusd-with-mas-ruling/
For six weeks starting April 18, the 1,228 McDonald's restaurants across France will feature the McBaguette, with a burger made from France's famed Charolais beef. McDonald's said the burger will be topped with French-made Emmental cheese and mustard. France's national Bread Observatory, which studies and promotes bread, says the French each consume about 150 grams of it a day, or roughly 55 kilograms a year. French research center Credoc found that 98% of French people eat bread every day. In particular, they are major fans of the baguette. A recent study for the Sandwich and Snack trade fair in Paris showed that 65% of the two billion sandwiches sold each year in France are baguette-based. MARION ISSARD
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204778604577241312286387028.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
It was early February, when the 10-hour day returns here on the 44th parallel, and Barbara Damrosch could see it in the brighter green leaves of her tatsoi and spinach growing in the unheated greenhouse attached to the house she shares with her husband, Eliot Coleman, at Four Season Farm. Mr. Coleman, 73, began farming here on Cape Rosier, a rocky peninsula in Penobscot Bay, in 1968, on 60 acres of forested land he bought from Scott and Helen Nearing for $33 an acre. By then, the Nearings had fled the tourists and skiers pouring into Vermont and moved to Maine, where they built a garden walled with stone that collected heat in a climate where winter temperatures can still fall to 20 below zero. Their greenhouse, nestled against the stone wall, absorbed its stored heat at night. Such techniques, as well as a root cellar beneath the house, helped them live off the land year-round. Mr. Coleman cleared his first acre with an ax and bow-saw, built a one-room cabin for his first wife, Sue, and two daughters, and started to improve the soil with seaweed pulled from the rocks by the bay along with loads of horse manure and soiled hay. His compost piles, which are now huge rectangles walled in by bales of straw, also fed the soil. That’s how three inches of thin topsoil have grown to the foot of black gold in these intensively cropped beds. “We’re growing 35 to 40 different crops, in greenhouses and in the field, with no pesticides, because we don’t need pesticides,” Mr. Coleman said. “Basically, we have no pests.” That’s because pests attack sick plants, he said. “They’re like the wolves eating the sick caribou,” he said. “They can’t catch the healthy ones. When you grow plants correctly, insects can’t maintain a population on them.” And Four Season Farm grossed $120,000 last year from crops grown on 1.5 acres of land. ANNE RAVER Read about portable hoop houses and much more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/garden/living-off-the-land-in-maine-even-in-winter.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
STEM The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Coalition works to support STEM programs for teachers and students at the U. S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies that offer STEM related programs. The STEM Education Coalition represents all sectors of the technological workforce – from knowledge workers, to educators, to scientists, engineers, and technicians. http://www.stemedcoalition.org/
L for Library by Marie Lebert A decidedly humorous account of my professional life in Normandy and Jerusalem at the end of the twentieth century, before I discovered the internet and left for San Francisco. The first part concerns the city library in Granville, with its dust and old books, before it was transformed into a beautiful media library. The second part concerns two libraries in Jerusalem, one with its cardboard boxes and the other with its computers. This account was inspired by an older version that was published in a printed magazine. http://marielebert.blogspot.com/2012/02/lforlibrary.html
Gordon Gekko, the character played by actor Michael Douglas in the movie "Wall Street," is the New York FBI office's newest weapon in its arsenal to combat insider trading. The message from Douglas in a public service announcement unveiled Feb. 27 won't be "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." In a first for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Douglas, reprising his role in the 1987 film, will urge fund managers and Wall Street analysts to avoid taking the same route to the federal penitentiary as his character does, FBI Special Agent David Chaves said in an interview on Feb. 24. "He's talking about himself as Gordon Gekko and the role that he played and how that was fiction and this is not but about real crime on Wall Street," said Chaves, a supervisor of one of the FBI's securities and commodities fraud units in New York. Some television stations have agreed to broadcast the spot, he said. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/02/27/bloomberg_articlesM00U9K1A1I4H01-M022Y.DTL
Monday, February 27, 2012
"Eat rice, cheer up and be strong . . . "
"A bowl of rice is equivalent to love and affection in Korea . . . "
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204136404577211072079207422.html
I love you in many languages http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/iloveyou.htm
Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) born Mary Patricia Plangman, was an American novelist and short-story writer most widely known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. In 1942, Highsmith graduated from Barnard College, where she had studied English composition, playwriting and the short story. Living in New York City and Mexico between 1942 and 1948, she wrote for comic book publishers. Answering an ad for "reporter/rewrite", she arrived at the office of comic book publisher Ned Pines and landed a job working in a bullpen with four artists and three other writers. Initially scripting two comic book stories a day for $55-a-week paychecks, she soon realized she could make more money by writing freelance for comics, a situation which enabled her to find time to work on her own short stories and also live for a period in Mexico. The comic book scriptwriter job was the only long-term job she ever held. Highsmith's first novel was Strangers on a Train, which emerged in 1950, and which contained the violence that became her trademark. At Truman Capote's suggestion, she rewrote the novel at the Yaddo writer's colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. The book proved modestly successful when it was published in 1950. However, Hitchcock's 1951 film adaptation of the novel propelled Highsmith's career and reputation. Highsmith's second novel, The Price of Salt, was published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan. As her other novels were issued, moviemakers adapted them for screenplays: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), Ripley's Game (1974) and Edith's Diary (1977) all became films. See bibliography and awards at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Highsmith
How to Boil Eggs
Place eggs in single layer in saucepan.
Cover with at least one inch of cold water over tops of shells.
Cover pot with lid and bring to a boil over medium heat.
As soon as the water comes to a full boil, remove from heat and let stand.
Large soft-cooked eggs: let stand in hot water 1 to 4 minutes, depending on your tastes.
Large hard-cooked eggs: let stand in hot water 15 to 17 minutes.
When cooked to desired level, drain off hot water.
Immediately cover with cold water and add a few ice cubes.
Soft-cooked eggs: let stand in cold water until cool enough to handle. Serve.
Hard-cooked eggs: let stand in cold water until completely cooled. Use as needed.
http://homecooking.about.com/cs/atozfoodindex/ht/How_Cook_Eggs_S.htm
The word agenda is a plural form, but only a most die-hard literalist would insist on using agendum when talking about a single list of items to discuss. The word has lost all hints of its once plural life and now goes proudly solo. If you have many lists of things to do or discuss, you have agendas. There are many everyday words in English that we use as singular, oblivious of their etymology: opera (plural of opus), stamina (plural of stamen: fiber), magazine (plural of Arabic makhzan: storehouse, used figuratively as "storehouse of information" for books, and later to periodicals). Other words that are formed as a plural but are now used as a singular: truce, graffiti, insignia, viscera and paraphernalia.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to glass artist Labino story. I just wanted to point out that Nick Labino's given name was Dominick - with a K at the end. Thank you, proofreader.
Mark Byron was sentenced to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine, but the magistrate gave him an out—pay back child support and post an apology for the post on Facebook to avoid the jail term and fine. The magistrate's apology option took an odd turn in the details of how it would be carried out. Byron was told he had to keep the apology on his Facebook page for 30 days. To make sure that happened, he was forbidden to close down his Facebook account and had to make his wife or someone of her choosing a "friend" so they could check that the terms of the deal were being upheld. A new hearing on the case is set for March 19.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400701,00.asp
84th Academy Awards: nominees and winners
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/84th_Academy_Awards
Fishermen participating in the annual Lake Winnebago ice fishing contest over the weekend found themselves instead scouting for their modes of transportation after 36 parked vehicles went through the ice, authorities said Feb. 26. "We had some cars that got wet," a dispatcher with the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department said. "We had cars parked on the ice like it was a parking lot. Usually they do park out on the ice. That's not unusual. It's just that they parked too close together. It was too much for the ice conditions this year." Tournament organizers for the Battle on Bago reportedly warned people about parking on the ice Saturday, but some had trouble finding spots elsewhere and parked on the lake anyway. Of about 50 cars parked on the ice, four were submerged more than half way, 18 were partially submerged, and 14 sunk to the top of their wheels, according to the sheriff's department. "They all started early in the morning. Throughout the day with the sun and everything else, vehicles started to sink," the dispatcher explained. The ice was about a foot thick.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/no-contest-lake-winnebago-swallows-sturgeon-fishermens-vehicles-dg4be6q-140485133.html
"A bowl of rice is equivalent to love and affection in Korea . . . "
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204136404577211072079207422.html
I love you in many languages http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/iloveyou.htm
Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) born Mary Patricia Plangman, was an American novelist and short-story writer most widely known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. In 1942, Highsmith graduated from Barnard College, where she had studied English composition, playwriting and the short story. Living in New York City and Mexico between 1942 and 1948, she wrote for comic book publishers. Answering an ad for "reporter/rewrite", she arrived at the office of comic book publisher Ned Pines and landed a job working in a bullpen with four artists and three other writers. Initially scripting two comic book stories a day for $55-a-week paychecks, she soon realized she could make more money by writing freelance for comics, a situation which enabled her to find time to work on her own short stories and also live for a period in Mexico. The comic book scriptwriter job was the only long-term job she ever held. Highsmith's first novel was Strangers on a Train, which emerged in 1950, and which contained the violence that became her trademark. At Truman Capote's suggestion, she rewrote the novel at the Yaddo writer's colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. The book proved modestly successful when it was published in 1950. However, Hitchcock's 1951 film adaptation of the novel propelled Highsmith's career and reputation. Highsmith's second novel, The Price of Salt, was published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan. As her other novels were issued, moviemakers adapted them for screenplays: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), Ripley's Game (1974) and Edith's Diary (1977) all became films. See bibliography and awards at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Highsmith
How to Boil Eggs
Place eggs in single layer in saucepan.
Cover with at least one inch of cold water over tops of shells.
Cover pot with lid and bring to a boil over medium heat.
As soon as the water comes to a full boil, remove from heat and let stand.
Large soft-cooked eggs: let stand in hot water 1 to 4 minutes, depending on your tastes.
Large hard-cooked eggs: let stand in hot water 15 to 17 minutes.
When cooked to desired level, drain off hot water.
Immediately cover with cold water and add a few ice cubes.
Soft-cooked eggs: let stand in cold water until cool enough to handle. Serve.
Hard-cooked eggs: let stand in cold water until completely cooled. Use as needed.
http://homecooking.about.com/cs/atozfoodindex/ht/How_Cook_Eggs_S.htm
The word agenda is a plural form, but only a most die-hard literalist would insist on using agendum when talking about a single list of items to discuss. The word has lost all hints of its once plural life and now goes proudly solo. If you have many lists of things to do or discuss, you have agendas. There are many everyday words in English that we use as singular, oblivious of their etymology: opera (plural of opus), stamina (plural of stamen: fiber), magazine (plural of Arabic makhzan: storehouse, used figuratively as "storehouse of information" for books, and later to periodicals). Other words that are formed as a plural but are now used as a singular: truce, graffiti, insignia, viscera and paraphernalia.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to glass artist Labino story. I just wanted to point out that Nick Labino's given name was Dominick - with a K at the end. Thank you, proofreader.
Mark Byron was sentenced to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine, but the magistrate gave him an out—pay back child support and post an apology for the post on Facebook to avoid the jail term and fine. The magistrate's apology option took an odd turn in the details of how it would be carried out. Byron was told he had to keep the apology on his Facebook page for 30 days. To make sure that happened, he was forbidden to close down his Facebook account and had to make his wife or someone of her choosing a "friend" so they could check that the terms of the deal were being upheld. A new hearing on the case is set for March 19.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400701,00.asp
84th Academy Awards: nominees and winners
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/84th_Academy_Awards
Fishermen participating in the annual Lake Winnebago ice fishing contest over the weekend found themselves instead scouting for their modes of transportation after 36 parked vehicles went through the ice, authorities said Feb. 26. "We had some cars that got wet," a dispatcher with the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department said. "We had cars parked on the ice like it was a parking lot. Usually they do park out on the ice. That's not unusual. It's just that they parked too close together. It was too much for the ice conditions this year." Tournament organizers for the Battle on Bago reportedly warned people about parking on the ice Saturday, but some had trouble finding spots elsewhere and parked on the lake anyway. Of about 50 cars parked on the ice, four were submerged more than half way, 18 were partially submerged, and 14 sunk to the top of their wheels, according to the sheriff's department. "They all started early in the morning. Throughout the day with the sun and everything else, vehicles started to sink," the dispatcher explained. The ice was about a foot thick.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/no-contest-lake-winnebago-swallows-sturgeon-fishermens-vehicles-dg4be6q-140485133.html
Friday, February 24, 2012
A blackwater river is a river with a deep, slow-moving channel that flows through forested swamps and wetlands. As vegetation decays in the water, tannins are leached out, resulting in transparent, acidic water that is darkly stained, resembling tea or coffee. Most major blackwater rivers are in the Amazon River system and the Southern United States. The term "blackwater" here is an agreed-upon technical one in fluvial studies, geology, geography and ecology/biology. Not all dark-colored rivers are true blackwater rivers in the technical sense. Some rivers in temperate regions, which drain or flow through areas of dark black loam, are colored black due to the color of the soil. These types of rivers can be referred to as black mud rivers; there are also black mud estuaries. See list of blackwater rivers of the world at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_river
Five bandmates, one guitar: Walk Off the Earth's Joel Cassady, Gianni Luminati, Sarah Blackwood, Ryan Marshall and Mike Taylor play a guitar as one on 'Somebody That I Used to Know.' For Walk Off the Earth's version of Somebody That I Used to Know, the five members of the Ontario band crowded together to play the entire song on a single acoustic guitar: Three pluck the strings and one plays percussion on the body while another supports the guitar by its headstock and occasionally strums the strings between the nut and the tuning pegs. That video, posted Jan. 5, has generated 58 million views. ERIN O'CONNEL
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/story/2012-02-20/somebody-that-i-used-to-know/53181898/1
Created before his masterpieces The Last Supper and Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's iconic Vitruvian Man is considered one of the world's most reproduced images. Today, more than 500 years since da Vinci inked that figure on a 13½-by-9⅝-inch piece of paper, the image can be seen on T-shirts, coffee mugs, posters, jewelry, fridge magnets, ties and the face of the Italian 1-euro coin, not to mention in The Simpsons and Mickey Mouse parodies. Author Toby Lester calls it "the world's most famous drawing." But Vitruvian Man represents much more than da Vinci's 1490s perspective of the perfect human form. After all, the image didn't emerge fully rendered from da Vinci's genius. And that back story is the fascinating tale this book tells. But Da Vinci's Ghost is a much larger, more complex mosaic, combining centuries and layers of relevant religion, architecture, art, early science and personalities, plus a rich variety of historic illustrations, to trace the influences that may have led da Vinci to that moment when he penned the famous drawing. Beginning with the Roman engineer Vitruvius, who in the 20s B.C. described the ideal human body fitting inside a circle (the divine) and a square (the temporal), Lester speculates on a host of likely forerunners and influences to the microcosmic-man drawing, from eighth-century scholar the Venerable Bede and 12th-century visionary Hildegard of Bingen to the Renaissance dome-builder Filippo Brunelleschi and 15th-century anatomy mapper Leon Battista Alberti. At the heart of the book, Lester fleshes out a pointed biography of da Vinci — not a cradle-to-grave chronicle, but rather the events and episodes in the context of the Vitruvian Man timeline. DON OLDENBUG http://books.usatoday.com/book/toby-lester-da-vincis-ghost-genius-obsession-and-how-leonardo-created-the-world-in-his-own-image/r630277
Rocking back in his office chair several weeks ago, Jack Azizo seemed stunned. "That was done here?" asked the 57-year-old co-owner of Jimmy Sales Corp., a men's-accessories company based in Manhattan. Mr. Azizo had just been told that the very first jazz phonograph record was made in his company's 12th-floor office space on Feb. 26, 1917. "I can't believe this—I love jazz," he said. If New Orleans is the cradle of jazz, then New York's Garment District is where jazz spoke its first words. Ninety-five years ago, members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) boarded the freight elevator at 46 W. 38th St. and rode to the top floor. When the five musicians arrived at the new studio of Victor Talking Machine Co., the quintet set up their instruments and recorded two songs—"Dixieland Jass Band One-Step" and "Livery Stable Blues." Released weeks later, the 78-rpm record became an overnight sensation—and a fitting start to jazz's future. On one side was a blues and on the other a dance number—two forms that jazz would rely on for decades to come. "These songs by the ODJB were terrific, expressive tunes that changed popular music overnight," said Dan Morgenstern, a jazz historian and author of "Living With Jazz." "The impact of their syncopated approach can only be compared to records by Elvis Presley in the mid-1950s. Everything changed after their release." Despite the band's boastful name, the Original Dixieland Jass Band wasn't quite as original as it claimed. "Black musicians in New Orleans had been playing the music that would come to be called jazz as early as 1906," said Bruce Raeburn, curator of Tulane University's Hogan Jazz Archive. "The idea to form a group and take the show on the road wasn't really theirs either." That honor belongs to a Northern promoter, who in 1916 convinced several white musicians from New Orleans to form a pre-ODJB band and relocate to Chicago. Another New Orleans dance band—Tom Brown's Band From Dixieland—had already had success playing there at local restaurants. Shortly after the musicians arrived, they were renamed the ODJB and met Max Hart, Al Jolson's agent. He booked them into a New York restaurant near Columbus Circle in January 1917. MARC MYERS
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577195080015884786.html
The instantaneous transmission of news and information across the globe was made possible in the 1830s by the invention of the telegraph, the invention that gave rise to the word "telecommunications". The electric telegraph machine was created through efforts of Morse, Wheatstone and Cooke, and telegraphy began in England in 1837. In the early days of cross-national communication, messages were encoded on a telegraph machine and sent to the bordering country for transcription, usually by a national post office, and then sent to their destination. Messages could not be sent directly from a source in one country to a receiver in another country because a common code was not used. The need for technical standardization was recognized by Prussia and Austria and in October l849, these two countries made the first attempt to link telegraph systems with a common code. One year later, an agreement between these two countries, Bavaria and Saxony created the Austro-German Telegraph Union. The success of this first union gave rise to additional unions such as the International Telegraph Union, then later to the International Radio Conferences, and finally, in 1865, the to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Today, the ITU is the sole regulating institution with power to regulate the transfer of data throughout the world. In 1947 the ITU became an agency in the United Nations. One hundred and sixty countries within the United Nations (UN) have representatives in the ITU. Each of these countries gets one vote on ITU decisions. The general meeting of the ITU is held once every few years and is called the Plenipotentiary Conference. The chief objective of this conference is to review and revise the ITU Convention, which is the governing document of the Union. The one-country, one-vote format often leads to voting blocks based on country alliances, and creates the political nature of the ITU. The voting blocks and the tenets of the new World Information Order threaten the existence of the ITU. Many developing countries in the UN want to break the dominant flow of information from Northern industrialized countries to Southern developing countries. The Northern industrialized countries want to continue the "free flow" of information while the developing countries in the South want a balanced flow to ensure control of socio-cultural development. A second aspect that threatens the existence of the ITU is the fact that the speed at which technological changes occur is greater than the ITU's international standards process can accommodate. Thus, several other standards organizations have developed such as the T1 Committee of the Exchange Carriers Standards Association in the United States, the Telecommunications Technology Committee (TTC) in Japan, and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). These regional standards organizations (RSOs) offer a more homogeneous membership than the ITU which makes the standardization process quicker. http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=international
CORRECTION
Glass artist Baker O'Brien bought the Dominic Labino studio and 80 acres from Mrs. Labino in 1991. See this interesting site: http://www.labinostudio.com/about.htm
Two lawyers are taking on legal database providers Westlaw and LexisNexis with what appears to be a novel interpretation of copyright law. Edward L. White, a Oklahoma City, Okla., lawyer, and Kenneth Elan, claim WestLaw and LexisNexis have engaged in “unabashed wholesale copying of thousands of copyright-protected works created by, and owned by, the attorneys and law firms who authored them” — namely publicly filed briefs, motions and other legal documents. In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court Feb. 22, White and Elan are hoping to represent two classes of lawyers: ones who have obtained copyright registration of their works and ones who haven’t done so. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/02/22/keep-your-hands-off-my-briefs-lawyers-sue-westlaw-lexis/?mod=djemlawblog_h See the class action complaint at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82495562/022212-West
Five bandmates, one guitar: Walk Off the Earth's Joel Cassady, Gianni Luminati, Sarah Blackwood, Ryan Marshall and Mike Taylor play a guitar as one on 'Somebody That I Used to Know.' For Walk Off the Earth's version of Somebody That I Used to Know, the five members of the Ontario band crowded together to play the entire song on a single acoustic guitar: Three pluck the strings and one plays percussion on the body while another supports the guitar by its headstock and occasionally strums the strings between the nut and the tuning pegs. That video, posted Jan. 5, has generated 58 million views. ERIN O'CONNEL
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/story/2012-02-20/somebody-that-i-used-to-know/53181898/1
Created before his masterpieces The Last Supper and Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's iconic Vitruvian Man is considered one of the world's most reproduced images. Today, more than 500 years since da Vinci inked that figure on a 13½-by-9⅝-inch piece of paper, the image can be seen on T-shirts, coffee mugs, posters, jewelry, fridge magnets, ties and the face of the Italian 1-euro coin, not to mention in The Simpsons and Mickey Mouse parodies. Author Toby Lester calls it "the world's most famous drawing." But Vitruvian Man represents much more than da Vinci's 1490s perspective of the perfect human form. After all, the image didn't emerge fully rendered from da Vinci's genius. And that back story is the fascinating tale this book tells. But Da Vinci's Ghost is a much larger, more complex mosaic, combining centuries and layers of relevant religion, architecture, art, early science and personalities, plus a rich variety of historic illustrations, to trace the influences that may have led da Vinci to that moment when he penned the famous drawing. Beginning with the Roman engineer Vitruvius, who in the 20s B.C. described the ideal human body fitting inside a circle (the divine) and a square (the temporal), Lester speculates on a host of likely forerunners and influences to the microcosmic-man drawing, from eighth-century scholar the Venerable Bede and 12th-century visionary Hildegard of Bingen to the Renaissance dome-builder Filippo Brunelleschi and 15th-century anatomy mapper Leon Battista Alberti. At the heart of the book, Lester fleshes out a pointed biography of da Vinci — not a cradle-to-grave chronicle, but rather the events and episodes in the context of the Vitruvian Man timeline. DON OLDENBUG http://books.usatoday.com/book/toby-lester-da-vincis-ghost-genius-obsession-and-how-leonardo-created-the-world-in-his-own-image/r630277
Rocking back in his office chair several weeks ago, Jack Azizo seemed stunned. "That was done here?" asked the 57-year-old co-owner of Jimmy Sales Corp., a men's-accessories company based in Manhattan. Mr. Azizo had just been told that the very first jazz phonograph record was made in his company's 12th-floor office space on Feb. 26, 1917. "I can't believe this—I love jazz," he said. If New Orleans is the cradle of jazz, then New York's Garment District is where jazz spoke its first words. Ninety-five years ago, members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) boarded the freight elevator at 46 W. 38th St. and rode to the top floor. When the five musicians arrived at the new studio of Victor Talking Machine Co., the quintet set up their instruments and recorded two songs—"Dixieland Jass Band One-Step" and "Livery Stable Blues." Released weeks later, the 78-rpm record became an overnight sensation—and a fitting start to jazz's future. On one side was a blues and on the other a dance number—two forms that jazz would rely on for decades to come. "These songs by the ODJB were terrific, expressive tunes that changed popular music overnight," said Dan Morgenstern, a jazz historian and author of "Living With Jazz." "The impact of their syncopated approach can only be compared to records by Elvis Presley in the mid-1950s. Everything changed after their release." Despite the band's boastful name, the Original Dixieland Jass Band wasn't quite as original as it claimed. "Black musicians in New Orleans had been playing the music that would come to be called jazz as early as 1906," said Bruce Raeburn, curator of Tulane University's Hogan Jazz Archive. "The idea to form a group and take the show on the road wasn't really theirs either." That honor belongs to a Northern promoter, who in 1916 convinced several white musicians from New Orleans to form a pre-ODJB band and relocate to Chicago. Another New Orleans dance band—Tom Brown's Band From Dixieland—had already had success playing there at local restaurants. Shortly after the musicians arrived, they were renamed the ODJB and met Max Hart, Al Jolson's agent. He booked them into a New York restaurant near Columbus Circle in January 1917. MARC MYERS
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577195080015884786.html
The instantaneous transmission of news and information across the globe was made possible in the 1830s by the invention of the telegraph, the invention that gave rise to the word "telecommunications". The electric telegraph machine was created through efforts of Morse, Wheatstone and Cooke, and telegraphy began in England in 1837. In the early days of cross-national communication, messages were encoded on a telegraph machine and sent to the bordering country for transcription, usually by a national post office, and then sent to their destination. Messages could not be sent directly from a source in one country to a receiver in another country because a common code was not used. The need for technical standardization was recognized by Prussia and Austria and in October l849, these two countries made the first attempt to link telegraph systems with a common code. One year later, an agreement between these two countries, Bavaria and Saxony created the Austro-German Telegraph Union. The success of this first union gave rise to additional unions such as the International Telegraph Union, then later to the International Radio Conferences, and finally, in 1865, the to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Today, the ITU is the sole regulating institution with power to regulate the transfer of data throughout the world. In 1947 the ITU became an agency in the United Nations. One hundred and sixty countries within the United Nations (UN) have representatives in the ITU. Each of these countries gets one vote on ITU decisions. The general meeting of the ITU is held once every few years and is called the Plenipotentiary Conference. The chief objective of this conference is to review and revise the ITU Convention, which is the governing document of the Union. The one-country, one-vote format often leads to voting blocks based on country alliances, and creates the political nature of the ITU. The voting blocks and the tenets of the new World Information Order threaten the existence of the ITU. Many developing countries in the UN want to break the dominant flow of information from Northern industrialized countries to Southern developing countries. The Northern industrialized countries want to continue the "free flow" of information while the developing countries in the South want a balanced flow to ensure control of socio-cultural development. A second aspect that threatens the existence of the ITU is the fact that the speed at which technological changes occur is greater than the ITU's international standards process can accommodate. Thus, several other standards organizations have developed such as the T1 Committee of the Exchange Carriers Standards Association in the United States, the Telecommunications Technology Committee (TTC) in Japan, and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). These regional standards organizations (RSOs) offer a more homogeneous membership than the ITU which makes the standardization process quicker. http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=international
CORRECTION
Glass artist Baker O'Brien bought the Dominic Labino studio and 80 acres from Mrs. Labino in 1991. See this interesting site: http://www.labinostudio.com/about.htm
Two lawyers are taking on legal database providers Westlaw and LexisNexis with what appears to be a novel interpretation of copyright law. Edward L. White, a Oklahoma City, Okla., lawyer, and Kenneth Elan, claim WestLaw and LexisNexis have engaged in “unabashed wholesale copying of thousands of copyright-protected works created by, and owned by, the attorneys and law firms who authored them” — namely publicly filed briefs, motions and other legal documents. In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court Feb. 22, White and Elan are hoping to represent two classes of lawyers: ones who have obtained copyright registration of their works and ones who haven’t done so. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/02/22/keep-your-hands-off-my-briefs-lawyers-sue-westlaw-lexis/?mod=djemlawblog_h See the class action complaint at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82495562/022212-West
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Dictionary of American Regional English
When the American Dialect Society (ADS) was founded in 1889, one of the major goals of its charter members was to do for the United States what Joseph Wright was doing for England in compiling his English Dialect Dictionary. But of course the task of making a dictionary of the dialects of the United States was going to be a lot bigger because of the size of this country. So the Society began by publishing word lists made by professors who jotted down unfamiliar terms or expressions as they visited places new to them. For decades, lists were published in the ADS journals Dialect Notes (1890-1939) and Publications of the American Dialect Society (1944-). But the First World War intervened, then came the Depression, and then the Second World War, and no systematic plan had been made to carry out this project. Finally Fred Cassidy, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, decided he had waited long enough. In the late 1940s, he and Audrey Duckert carried out a pilot project in Wisconsin, testing a questionnaire that had been based on all the word lists the Society had compiled over the years. It worked pretty well, so he refined the methods and the questionnaire and published the results in the Society’s journal in 1953. Still nothing happened. So in 1962 at the Society’s annual meeting he read a paper titled “The ADS Dictionary—How Soon?” The result was that he was appointed Chief Editor of the proposed dictionary. As Fred Cassidy had always expected, the DARE materials have been extremely useful to people such as librarians, teachers, historians, journalists, and playwrights. But they have also proved to be valuable in other fields as well: forensic linguists and detectives use DARE to help apprehend criminals; physicians use DARE to understand the folk and regional terms used by their patients for ailments and diseases; natural scientists use DARE to identify plants and animals based on regional and folk names; psychologists use DARE in conjunction with standardized vocabulary tests to diagnose aphasia; lawyers consult DARE with reference to questions of trademark and commercial use; and actors and dialect coaches use DARE’s audio collection to perfect their regional accents. http://dare.wisc.edu/?q=node/244
The desire to collect information on customers is not new for Target or any other large retailer, of course. For decades, Target has collected vast amounts of data on every person who regularly walks into one of its stores. Whenever possible, Target assigns each shopper a unique code — known internally as the Guest ID number — that keeps tabs on everything they buy. “If you use a credit card or a coupon, or fill out a survey, or mail in a refund, or call the customer help line, or open an e-mail we’ve sent you or visit our Web site, we’ll record it and link it to your Guest ID,” Pole said. “We want to know everything we can.” Also linked to your Guest ID is demographic information like your age, whether you are married and have kids, which part of town you live in, how long it takes you to drive to the store, your estimated salary, whether you’ve moved recently, what credit cards you carry in your wallet and what Web sites you visit. Target can buy data about your ethnicity, job history, the magazines you read, if you’ve ever declared bankruptcy or got divorced, the year you bought (or lost) your house, where you went to college, what kinds of topics you talk about online, whether you prefer certain brands of coffee, paper towels, cereal or applesauce, your political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving and the number of cars you own. There are some brief periods in a person’s life when old routines fall apart and buying habits are suddenly in flux. One of those moments — the moment, really — is right around the birth of a child, when parents are exhausted and overwhelmed and their shopping patterns and brand loyalties are up for grabs. Because birth records are usually public, the moment a couple have a new baby, they are almost instantaneously barraged with offers and incentives and advertisements from all sorts of companies. Which means that the key is to reach them earlier, before any other retailers know a baby is on the way. Specifically, the marketers said they wanted to send specially designed ads to women in their second trimester, which is when most expectant mothers begin buying all sorts of new things, like prenatal vitamins and maternity clothing. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html
Harvey Littleton, whose father was a leading glass scientist, suggested during the American Craftsmen's Council conference that "glass should be a medium for the individual artist." Dominic Labino, a research chemist, developed a formula for glass that could be melted at a low enough temperature to be practical, as well as, designing the first small, single-pot furnaces affordable for use by a single artist in a small studio environment. Littleton went on to lead two workshop/seminars on glass at The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, in 1962. It was at this workshop, using the technological advancements of Dominic Labino, that what is now called the American Studio Glass Movement was born. http://www.cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=5616
Toledo’s image as the Glass City of the U.S. was firmly established by the time of its founding in 1901, based on a spate of inventions across the glass industry—bottles, window glass, tableware, windshields and construction materials. Glass industrialist Edward Drummond Libbey spearheaded the initiative to improve the education of local craftsmen and designers by assembling a model glass collection, as well as promoting training, competitions and exhibitions of new work. In 1913, Libbey purchased the first of several significant glass collections. The group of 53 European Renaissance and Baroque glasses came from the estate of German publisher Julius Heinrich Wilhelm Campe. With this purchase, the Museum acquired the most important historic European glass collection in the United States at the time, and many of the rare objects remain the only examples of their kind in the country. By the early 1920s, Toledo’s glass collection ranked with the most important in the United States, that at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Libbey continued to acquire systematically formed collections of high repute from both abroad and from the U.S. His desire to document the history of American glass from the 17th century onward was at the time remarkably forward-looking. Until the beginning of the 20th century, American-made glass was generally viewed as inferior to its European counterparts in both design and execution and only recently deemed worthy of serious study and collecting. Today, Toledo’s American glass ranks among the principal collections in the field, including objects of exceptional quality and historical importance. Since the 1970s, works of art in glass continue to be added judiciously to the collection by purchase and through the generosity of donors. In recognition of the Toledo Museum of Art’s role as the cradle of the Studio Glass Movement, many artists and collectors have donated works of art.
http://www.toledomuseum.org/glass-pavilion/glass-at-tma
Baker O’Brien, a jeweler by training, is an established world-class glass artist. As the sole apprentice of legendary glassmaster Dominic Labino, she has been mixing, melting and blowing vividly colored glass for over 30 years. She uses strong, rich colors in bold simple forms for one of a kind glass pieces of distinction. She inherited Labino's studio after his death in 1987, and bought a large tract of land from the Labino estate in Grand Rapids, Ohio. http://www.labinostudio.com/about.htm http://www.labinostudio.com/images/americanstyle.pdf
Synesthetes can taste numbers, feel colors or have other sensations triggered by sensations. Studies of their brains could provide clues for neurological disorders. "We're using the synesthetic brain as a model for neural hyper-connectivity," says Steffie Tomson, a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "What we're learning is that there are very specific delicate relationships between different regions of the brain that can cause it to function normally — or to tweak." Scientists have been aware of synesthesia for more than 100 years, but only in the last decade or so has it been considered more than a strange quirk. Recent advances in neuroimaging have allowed researchers to visualize what's going on inside a synesthete's brain when it makes its unconventional connections. The Internet has inspired the creation of online tests that have gathered data from tens of thousands of synesthetes throughout the world. And genetic sequencing has enabled scientists to come closer to pinpointing the genes that cause this condition. David Brang, a UC San Diego neuroscientist, says nature provides a strong hint that the brains of synesthetes may have some kind of cognitive advantage. The genes for synesthesia appear to be dominant, and family trees depict the trait marching through the bloodline. This high degree of heritability suggests the genetic mutation that causes synesthesia provides some significant evolutionary benefit.
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-synesthesia-brain-20120220,0,6760571.story
When the American Dialect Society (ADS) was founded in 1889, one of the major goals of its charter members was to do for the United States what Joseph Wright was doing for England in compiling his English Dialect Dictionary. But of course the task of making a dictionary of the dialects of the United States was going to be a lot bigger because of the size of this country. So the Society began by publishing word lists made by professors who jotted down unfamiliar terms or expressions as they visited places new to them. For decades, lists were published in the ADS journals Dialect Notes (1890-1939) and Publications of the American Dialect Society (1944-). But the First World War intervened, then came the Depression, and then the Second World War, and no systematic plan had been made to carry out this project. Finally Fred Cassidy, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, decided he had waited long enough. In the late 1940s, he and Audrey Duckert carried out a pilot project in Wisconsin, testing a questionnaire that had been based on all the word lists the Society had compiled over the years. It worked pretty well, so he refined the methods and the questionnaire and published the results in the Society’s journal in 1953. Still nothing happened. So in 1962 at the Society’s annual meeting he read a paper titled “The ADS Dictionary—How Soon?” The result was that he was appointed Chief Editor of the proposed dictionary. As Fred Cassidy had always expected, the DARE materials have been extremely useful to people such as librarians, teachers, historians, journalists, and playwrights. But they have also proved to be valuable in other fields as well: forensic linguists and detectives use DARE to help apprehend criminals; physicians use DARE to understand the folk and regional terms used by their patients for ailments and diseases; natural scientists use DARE to identify plants and animals based on regional and folk names; psychologists use DARE in conjunction with standardized vocabulary tests to diagnose aphasia; lawyers consult DARE with reference to questions of trademark and commercial use; and actors and dialect coaches use DARE’s audio collection to perfect their regional accents. http://dare.wisc.edu/?q=node/244
The desire to collect information on customers is not new for Target or any other large retailer, of course. For decades, Target has collected vast amounts of data on every person who regularly walks into one of its stores. Whenever possible, Target assigns each shopper a unique code — known internally as the Guest ID number — that keeps tabs on everything they buy. “If you use a credit card or a coupon, or fill out a survey, or mail in a refund, or call the customer help line, or open an e-mail we’ve sent you or visit our Web site, we’ll record it and link it to your Guest ID,” Pole said. “We want to know everything we can.” Also linked to your Guest ID is demographic information like your age, whether you are married and have kids, which part of town you live in, how long it takes you to drive to the store, your estimated salary, whether you’ve moved recently, what credit cards you carry in your wallet and what Web sites you visit. Target can buy data about your ethnicity, job history, the magazines you read, if you’ve ever declared bankruptcy or got divorced, the year you bought (or lost) your house, where you went to college, what kinds of topics you talk about online, whether you prefer certain brands of coffee, paper towels, cereal or applesauce, your political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving and the number of cars you own. There are some brief periods in a person’s life when old routines fall apart and buying habits are suddenly in flux. One of those moments — the moment, really — is right around the birth of a child, when parents are exhausted and overwhelmed and their shopping patterns and brand loyalties are up for grabs. Because birth records are usually public, the moment a couple have a new baby, they are almost instantaneously barraged with offers and incentives and advertisements from all sorts of companies. Which means that the key is to reach them earlier, before any other retailers know a baby is on the way. Specifically, the marketers said they wanted to send specially designed ads to women in their second trimester, which is when most expectant mothers begin buying all sorts of new things, like prenatal vitamins and maternity clothing. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html
Harvey Littleton, whose father was a leading glass scientist, suggested during the American Craftsmen's Council conference that "glass should be a medium for the individual artist." Dominic Labino, a research chemist, developed a formula for glass that could be melted at a low enough temperature to be practical, as well as, designing the first small, single-pot furnaces affordable for use by a single artist in a small studio environment. Littleton went on to lead two workshop/seminars on glass at The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, in 1962. It was at this workshop, using the technological advancements of Dominic Labino, that what is now called the American Studio Glass Movement was born. http://www.cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=5616
Toledo’s image as the Glass City of the U.S. was firmly established by the time of its founding in 1901, based on a spate of inventions across the glass industry—bottles, window glass, tableware, windshields and construction materials. Glass industrialist Edward Drummond Libbey spearheaded the initiative to improve the education of local craftsmen and designers by assembling a model glass collection, as well as promoting training, competitions and exhibitions of new work. In 1913, Libbey purchased the first of several significant glass collections. The group of 53 European Renaissance and Baroque glasses came from the estate of German publisher Julius Heinrich Wilhelm Campe. With this purchase, the Museum acquired the most important historic European glass collection in the United States at the time, and many of the rare objects remain the only examples of their kind in the country. By the early 1920s, Toledo’s glass collection ranked with the most important in the United States, that at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Libbey continued to acquire systematically formed collections of high repute from both abroad and from the U.S. His desire to document the history of American glass from the 17th century onward was at the time remarkably forward-looking. Until the beginning of the 20th century, American-made glass was generally viewed as inferior to its European counterparts in both design and execution and only recently deemed worthy of serious study and collecting. Today, Toledo’s American glass ranks among the principal collections in the field, including objects of exceptional quality and historical importance. Since the 1970s, works of art in glass continue to be added judiciously to the collection by purchase and through the generosity of donors. In recognition of the Toledo Museum of Art’s role as the cradle of the Studio Glass Movement, many artists and collectors have donated works of art.
http://www.toledomuseum.org/glass-pavilion/glass-at-tma
Baker O’Brien, a jeweler by training, is an established world-class glass artist. As the sole apprentice of legendary glassmaster Dominic Labino, she has been mixing, melting and blowing vividly colored glass for over 30 years. She uses strong, rich colors in bold simple forms for one of a kind glass pieces of distinction. She inherited Labino's studio after his death in 1987, and bought a large tract of land from the Labino estate in Grand Rapids, Ohio. http://www.labinostudio.com/about.htm http://www.labinostudio.com/images/americanstyle.pdf
Synesthetes can taste numbers, feel colors or have other sensations triggered by sensations. Studies of their brains could provide clues for neurological disorders. "We're using the synesthetic brain as a model for neural hyper-connectivity," says Steffie Tomson, a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "What we're learning is that there are very specific delicate relationships between different regions of the brain that can cause it to function normally — or to tweak." Scientists have been aware of synesthesia for more than 100 years, but only in the last decade or so has it been considered more than a strange quirk. Recent advances in neuroimaging have allowed researchers to visualize what's going on inside a synesthete's brain when it makes its unconventional connections. The Internet has inspired the creation of online tests that have gathered data from tens of thousands of synesthetes throughout the world. And genetic sequencing has enabled scientists to come closer to pinpointing the genes that cause this condition. David Brang, a UC San Diego neuroscientist, says nature provides a strong hint that the brains of synesthetes may have some kind of cognitive advantage. The genes for synesthesia appear to be dominant, and family trees depict the trait marching through the bloodline. This high degree of heritability suggests the genetic mutation that causes synesthesia provides some significant evolutionary benefit.
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-synesthesia-brain-20120220,0,6760571.story
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Caesar Salad consists of greens (classically romaine lettuce) with a garlic vinaigrette dressing. In the 1930s, Caesar Salad was voted by the master chefs of the International Society of Epicures in Paris as the "greatest recipe to originate from the Americas in fifty years. Most historians believe that Caesar salad honors restaurateur Caesar Cardini (1896-1956), who invented it in Tijuana, Mexico in 1924 on the Fourth of July weekend. It is said that on this busy weekend, Cardini was running low on food and he put together a salad for his guests from what was left over in the kitchen. His original recipe included romaine, garlic, croutons, and Parmesan cheese, boiled eggs, olive oil and Worcestershire sauce. The original salad was prepared at tableside. When the salad dressing was ready, the romaine leaves were coated with the dressing and placed stem side out, in a circle and served on a flat dinner plate, so that the salad could be eaten with the fingers. In 1926, Alex Cardini joined his brother, Caesar, at the Tijuana restaurant. Alex, an ace pilot in the Italian Air Force during World War I, added other ingredients, one of which was anchovies, and named the salad "Aviator's Salad" in honor of the pilots from Rockwell Field Air Base in San Diego. It is reported that Alex's version became very popular, and later this salad was renamed "Caesar Salad." Caesar was said to be staunchly against the inclusion of anchovies in this mixture, contending that the Worcestershire sauce was what actually provided that faint fishy flavor. He also decreed that only Italian olive oil and imported Parmesan cheese be used in the dressing. In 1948 Caesar Cardini established a patent on the dressing (which is still packaged and sold as "Cardini's Original Caesar dressing mix," distributed by Caesar Cardini Foods, Culver City, California. Link to other salad and salad dressing histories at: http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/SaladHistory.htm
A blue hole is a cave (inland) or underwater sinkhole. They are also called vertical caves. There are many different blue holes located around the world, typically in low-lying coastal regions. The best known examples can be found in Belize, the Bahamas, Guam, Australia (in the Great Barrier Reef), and Egypt (in the Red Sea). Blue holes are roughly circular, steep-walled depressions, and so named for the dramatic contrast between the dark blue, deep waters of their depths and the lighter blue of the shallows around them. Their water circulation is poor, and they are commonly anoxic below a certain depth; this environment is unfavorable for most sea life, but nonetheless can support large numbers of bacteria. The deep blue color is caused by the high transparency of water and bright white carbonate sand. Blue light is the most enduring part of the spectrum; where other parts of the spectrum—red, yellow, and finally green—are absorbed during their path through water, blue light manages to reach the white sand and return back upon reflection. The deepest blue hole in the world—at 202 metres (663 ft)—is Dean's Blue Hole, located in a bay west of Clarence Town on Long Island, Bahamas. Other blue holes are about half that depth at around 100–120 metres (330–390 ft). The diameter of the top entrance ranges typically from 25–35 metres (82–115 ft) (Dean's Blue Hole) to 300 metres (980 ft) (Great Blue Hole in Belize). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_hole
"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." Author Unknown
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Arthur Silverstein Subject: Promethean
You might be interested in the application of 'Promethean' (and his brother Titan 'Epimethean') in the field of immunology. We recognize two mechanisms of defence against disease: a germline mechanism acquired over longtime evolution (the 'innate system') and an 'acquired system' (appearing suddenly in vertebrates) able to protect against newly developed germs and viruses. The former has been called by an immuno-philosopher "Epimethean evolution" (backward-looking) and the latter "Promethean evolution" (forward-looking).
From: Robert Payne Subject: Prometheus
The subtitle of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein" was "The Modern Prometheus".
From: Don Williams Subject: Dionysian
As a botanist and amateur enologist, Dionysus makes for interesting reading and discussion. I have been using Michael Pollan's book, The Botany of Desire, as a supplementary reading assignment for my botany students. Periodically, after they have had a chance to read an assigned chapter, we then come together and discuss both the botanical as well as the cultural and intellectual aspects of his book. I have quite enjoyed the way he has juxtaposed Dionysus and Apollo throughout his book. Surprisingly, I have found that many students are unaware of these Greek characters.
From: Asa Goodwillie Subject: Apollonian
Def: Serene; harmonious; disciplined; well-balanced.
An Apollonian gasket is the name for a beautiful fractal composed of ever-shrinking, mutually tangent circles. It's named for a Greek mathematician, Apollonius of Perga, whose work on conic sections gave us the names of some more common mathematical objects: the ellipse, the hyperbola, and the parabola.
Kent Hartman has written an entire book about session musicians, specifically a posse of players who flourished in Los Angeles during the 1960s and in various permutations contributed to the instrumental tracks for hit records such as "Be My Baby," "Good Vibrations," "I Got You, Babe," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Light My Fire," "California Dreamin' " and "Bridge Over Troubled Water." The Wrecking Crew operated, as Mr. Hartman aptly observes, at "the intersection of time and money." Because its members played expertly and efficiently, they saved many costly hours in the recording studio. The Wrecking Crew thought as well as played. It was Mr. Blaine's idea, for instance, to slam automobile snow chains against a cement floor in order to heighten the percussive intensity of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," whose grandiose arrangement was inspired, in part, by Phil Spector's production of the Righteous Brothers' rendition of "Old Man River." Mr. Hartman's chronicle is chock-full of such nuggets. I, for one, had never recognized that the "chink-chink" guitar chords in the background of the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man" echo those in the foreground of the Beach Boys' "Don't Worry, Baby" and were played by the same session. KEN EMERSON http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577209153859157584.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Production designer David Wasco and his wife, set decorator Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, created Jack Rabbit Slim's, the 1950s-themed restaurant where John Travolta and Uma Thurman do the twist in "Pulp Fiction." They crafted the intricate, quirky interior of the derelict Harlem mansion where Gwyneth Paltrow sulks in "The Royal Tenenbaums." And they styled the prep school where Bill Murray falls in love with a teacher in "Rushmore." The couple's work tends to have an offbeat, edgy feel, inspired by California midcentury-modern architecture and design, and it has won them accolades. The partners were recognized by Cooper-Hewitt Museum's 2003 National Design Triennial for pushing the boundaries of design. The couple met in Boston in the 1970s, where they both learned the basics of modern design while working at a company called Design Research, a store that spawned a rash of offshoots. After moving to Los Angeles, they worked together on period dramas for PBS in the 1980s and then the 1992 movie "Reservoir Dogs." The couple have veered into other fields occasionally. For the Los Angeles County Museum of Art they created full-size mock-ups of iconic "test case" midcentury-modern houses using movie production techniques.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204883304577221180988336966.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
If Paramount Pictures gets its way, the latest “Godfather” sequel novel will sleep with the fishes. The film studio has sued the estate of Mario Puzo, arguing that the heirs of the author of the “Godfather” were tarnishing the reputation of the studio’s film trilogy by publishing a pair of sequel novels. The lawsuit, filed Feb. 17 in Manhattan federal court, seeks damages and to prevent publication of a Godfather novel set for release this year, claiming that it would be a threat to the “legacy and integrity” of Paramount’s film franchise. Puzo sold the studio the rights to the Godfather story in 1969, the lawsuit said. The first two Godfather films produced by the studio both received the Academy Award for Best Picture. Paramount claims that after Puzo’s death in 1999, the studio agreed to allow his estate to publish a single novel by another author continuing the story. That novel, “The Godfather Returns” was released in 2004. But Paramount, a unit of Viacom Inc., is now seeking damages from the Puzo estate, claiming that it violated its rights to the franchise by publishing a subsequent, unauthorized sequel in 2006, and planning another.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/02/21/paramount-sues-to-stop-godfather-sequel-novel/?mod=djemlawblog_h
A blue hole is a cave (inland) or underwater sinkhole. They are also called vertical caves. There are many different blue holes located around the world, typically in low-lying coastal regions. The best known examples can be found in Belize, the Bahamas, Guam, Australia (in the Great Barrier Reef), and Egypt (in the Red Sea). Blue holes are roughly circular, steep-walled depressions, and so named for the dramatic contrast between the dark blue, deep waters of their depths and the lighter blue of the shallows around them. Their water circulation is poor, and they are commonly anoxic below a certain depth; this environment is unfavorable for most sea life, but nonetheless can support large numbers of bacteria. The deep blue color is caused by the high transparency of water and bright white carbonate sand. Blue light is the most enduring part of the spectrum; where other parts of the spectrum—red, yellow, and finally green—are absorbed during their path through water, blue light manages to reach the white sand and return back upon reflection. The deepest blue hole in the world—at 202 metres (663 ft)—is Dean's Blue Hole, located in a bay west of Clarence Town on Long Island, Bahamas. Other blue holes are about half that depth at around 100–120 metres (330–390 ft). The diameter of the top entrance ranges typically from 25–35 metres (82–115 ft) (Dean's Blue Hole) to 300 metres (980 ft) (Great Blue Hole in Belize). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_hole
"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." Author Unknown
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Arthur Silverstein Subject: Promethean
You might be interested in the application of 'Promethean' (and his brother Titan 'Epimethean') in the field of immunology. We recognize two mechanisms of defence against disease: a germline mechanism acquired over longtime evolution (the 'innate system') and an 'acquired system' (appearing suddenly in vertebrates) able to protect against newly developed germs and viruses. The former has been called by an immuno-philosopher "Epimethean evolution" (backward-looking) and the latter "Promethean evolution" (forward-looking).
From: Robert Payne Subject: Prometheus
The subtitle of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein" was "The Modern Prometheus".
From: Don Williams Subject: Dionysian
As a botanist and amateur enologist, Dionysus makes for interesting reading and discussion. I have been using Michael Pollan's book, The Botany of Desire, as a supplementary reading assignment for my botany students. Periodically, after they have had a chance to read an assigned chapter, we then come together and discuss both the botanical as well as the cultural and intellectual aspects of his book. I have quite enjoyed the way he has juxtaposed Dionysus and Apollo throughout his book. Surprisingly, I have found that many students are unaware of these Greek characters.
From: Asa Goodwillie Subject: Apollonian
Def: Serene; harmonious; disciplined; well-balanced.
An Apollonian gasket is the name for a beautiful fractal composed of ever-shrinking, mutually tangent circles. It's named for a Greek mathematician, Apollonius of Perga, whose work on conic sections gave us the names of some more common mathematical objects: the ellipse, the hyperbola, and the parabola.
Kent Hartman has written an entire book about session musicians, specifically a posse of players who flourished in Los Angeles during the 1960s and in various permutations contributed to the instrumental tracks for hit records such as "Be My Baby," "Good Vibrations," "I Got You, Babe," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Light My Fire," "California Dreamin' " and "Bridge Over Troubled Water." The Wrecking Crew operated, as Mr. Hartman aptly observes, at "the intersection of time and money." Because its members played expertly and efficiently, they saved many costly hours in the recording studio. The Wrecking Crew thought as well as played. It was Mr. Blaine's idea, for instance, to slam automobile snow chains against a cement floor in order to heighten the percussive intensity of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," whose grandiose arrangement was inspired, in part, by Phil Spector's production of the Righteous Brothers' rendition of "Old Man River." Mr. Hartman's chronicle is chock-full of such nuggets. I, for one, had never recognized that the "chink-chink" guitar chords in the background of the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man" echo those in the foreground of the Beach Boys' "Don't Worry, Baby" and were played by the same session. KEN EMERSON http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577209153859157584.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Production designer David Wasco and his wife, set decorator Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, created Jack Rabbit Slim's, the 1950s-themed restaurant where John Travolta and Uma Thurman do the twist in "Pulp Fiction." They crafted the intricate, quirky interior of the derelict Harlem mansion where Gwyneth Paltrow sulks in "The Royal Tenenbaums." And they styled the prep school where Bill Murray falls in love with a teacher in "Rushmore." The couple's work tends to have an offbeat, edgy feel, inspired by California midcentury-modern architecture and design, and it has won them accolades. The partners were recognized by Cooper-Hewitt Museum's 2003 National Design Triennial for pushing the boundaries of design. The couple met in Boston in the 1970s, where they both learned the basics of modern design while working at a company called Design Research, a store that spawned a rash of offshoots. After moving to Los Angeles, they worked together on period dramas for PBS in the 1980s and then the 1992 movie "Reservoir Dogs." The couple have veered into other fields occasionally. For the Los Angeles County Museum of Art they created full-size mock-ups of iconic "test case" midcentury-modern houses using movie production techniques.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204883304577221180988336966.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
If Paramount Pictures gets its way, the latest “Godfather” sequel novel will sleep with the fishes. The film studio has sued the estate of Mario Puzo, arguing that the heirs of the author of the “Godfather” were tarnishing the reputation of the studio’s film trilogy by publishing a pair of sequel novels. The lawsuit, filed Feb. 17 in Manhattan federal court, seeks damages and to prevent publication of a Godfather novel set for release this year, claiming that it would be a threat to the “legacy and integrity” of Paramount’s film franchise. Puzo sold the studio the rights to the Godfather story in 1969, the lawsuit said. The first two Godfather films produced by the studio both received the Academy Award for Best Picture. Paramount claims that after Puzo’s death in 1999, the studio agreed to allow his estate to publish a single novel by another author continuing the story. That novel, “The Godfather Returns” was released in 2004. But Paramount, a unit of Viacom Inc., is now seeking damages from the Puzo estate, claiming that it violated its rights to the franchise by publishing a subsequent, unauthorized sequel in 2006, and planning another.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/02/21/paramount-sues-to-stop-godfather-sequel-novel/?mod=djemlawblog_h
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Menton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ("The Pearl of France"). The Menton area has been inhabited since the paleolithic era, and is the site of the original "Grimaldi Man" find of early modern humans, as well as remains of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. The first major settlement occurred during the 11th century CE, when the Count of Ventimiglia constructed the Château de Puypin (Podium Pinum) on the Pépin hill, north and west of the modern town center. During the 13th century, the seigneury of Puypin fell to the Vento family of Genoa who built a new castle along the Roman road, now the site of the Vieux-Château cemetery, providing the core around which the current town grew. Menton was thus incorporated into the Republic of Genoa. The first mention of Menton dates from 21 July 1262, in the peace treaty between Charles of Anjou and Genoa. Its position on the border between the Angevin-ruled Provence and the Republic of Genoa, which at the time claimed Monaco as its western limit, made it a coveted location. Acquired in 1346 by Charles Grimaldi, Lord of Monaco, Menton was ruled by the Princes of Monaco until the French Revolution. Annexed during the Revolution, Menton remained part of France through the First Empire. It belonged to the district of Sanremo in the department of Alpes-Maritimes, which at the time included Monaco and Sanremo. The Lemon Festival takes place every February. The festival follows a given theme each year; past themes include Viva España, Disney, Neverland, and India. The Casino Gardens in the centre of town are decorated in the theme of the festival, using lemons to cover the exhibits, and huge temporary statues are built and covered with citrus fruit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton
The 79th Lemon Festival is being held February17-March 7th, 2012. See pictures at: http://www.fete-du-citron.com/Lemon-Festival-Menton-French,34.html
George Cope (1855–1929) was an artist who stayed close to home. He began his career painting the lush Brandywine River Valley landscape in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and its wildlife and architecture. He later explored realism in highly detailed trompe l’oeil (literally translated, “fool-the-eye”) and in still lifes of favorite objects from the homes of his neighbors and patrons. At the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, Cope met German-born landscape painter Hermann Herzog (1832–1932), who became his lifelong friend and only teacher. The pair often took sketching and hiking trips in the Pennsylvania countryside. Cope’s Landscape with Two Horses (1883; Chester County Historical Society) is very similar to Herzog’s work in both composition and style. Cope’s big break came when Major Levi Gheen McCauley, a prominent West Chester businessman, politician, and Civil War hero, commissioned him to paint “an exhibition hanging picture” in 1887. The subject was the major’s Civil War regalia—swords, cap, belt, pistol, holster, sash, canteen, and two important military medals—all rendered in exact scale and in vivid realistic color. This was one of Cope’s first ventures into the illusionism of trompe l’oeil. See Fig. 4: The Civil War Regalia of Major Levi Gheen McCauley, 1887. Oil on canvas, 50 x 36 1/2inches. Photography by Greg Williams. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. at: http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=516
DUBLIN, Ohio 15 February 2012—OCLC Research has made FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) available for bulk download, along with some minor improvements based on user feedback and routine updates. FAST is an enumerative, faceted subject heading schema derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). OCLC made FAST available as Linked Open Data in December 2011. The bulk downloadable versions of FAST are offered at no charge. Like FAST content available through the FAST Experimental Linked Data Service, the downloadable versions of FAST are made available under the Open Data Commons Attribution (ODC-By) license.
http://www.oclc.org/research/news/2012-02-15.htm
Flax (also known as common flax or linseed) (binomial name: Linum usitatissimum) is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax
Sesame (Sesamum indicum) is a flowering plant in the genus Sesamum. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office's updated analysis, replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin would provide a net benefit to the government of approximately $4.4 billion over 30 years, or an average of about $146 million per year. The overall net benefit was due solely to increased seigniorage and not to reduced production costs. This estimate differs from GAO’s 2011 estimate because it considers recent efficiency improvements in note processing that have extended the expected life of the $1 note and other updated information. GAO’s estimate covered 30 years to be consistent with previous GAO analyses and because that period roughly coincides with the life expectancy of the $1 coin. Using the same model and assumptions used for its 30-year analysis, GAO found that replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin would provide a net loss to the government of about $531 million in the first 10 years, or an average of about $53 million per year. The cost of producing a large number of coins necessary for the transition would result in a net loss in 6 of the first 7 years. In the eighth year, and for the remaining 2 years, this situation is reversed: the interest savings outweigh the production costs and the net benefits would be positive. Overall, the net loss over 10 years compared with the net benefit GAO estimated over 30 years would occur because of large costs in the first few years to produce the initial supply of $1 coins. If the interest savings due to increased seigniorage are excluded from the analysis, the government would incur a total net loss of about $1.8 billion over 10 years, or an average of $179 million per year. With no interest savings to offset the costs of coin production, net losses would be incurred in 9 of the 10 years. As in the preceding scenario, these production costs are greatest in the first 4 years, when a large number of coins need to be produced for the transition. Although this scenario suggests there are no net benefits of switching to a $1 coin, GAO believes that excluding the interest savings related to seigniorage omits a monetary benefit to the government. If it is assumed that each $1 note will be replaced by 1, rather than 1.5, $1 coins, the government would incur a total net loss of about $582 million over 10 years, or an average of about $58 million per year. The costs of producing coins for the transition dominate in the first 3 years, followed by benefits in the fourth year due to the overproduction of coins during the transition. In this scenario, net losses continue to accrue through year 10. Net losses in this scenario are smaller than in the preceding scenario because fewer coins are produced and coin production costs are lower, but the one-to-one replacement does not provide increased seigniorage. Moreover, this lower replacement ratio is not consistent with the experiences of other countries that have switched from notes to coins and is likely to produce too few coins to meet demand, which could be disruptive to the economy.
See 15-page document GAO-12-307 at: http://gao.gov/assets/590/588549.pdf
Seignorage is "The amount of real purchasing power that [a] government can extract from the public by printing money." -- Cukierman 1992
When a government prints money, it is in essence borrowing interest-free since it receives goods in exchange for the money, and must accept the money in return only at some future time. It gains further if issuing new money reduces (through inflation) the value of old money by reducing the liability that the old money represents. These gains to a money-issuing government are called "seignorage" revenues. The original meaning of seignorage was the fee taken by a money issuer (a government) for the cost of minting the money. Money itself, at that time, was intrinsically valuable because it was made of metal. http://economics.about.com/od/economicsglossary/g/seignorage.htm
The 79th Lemon Festival is being held February17-March 7th, 2012. See pictures at: http://www.fete-du-citron.com/Lemon-Festival-Menton-French,34.html
George Cope (1855–1929) was an artist who stayed close to home. He began his career painting the lush Brandywine River Valley landscape in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and its wildlife and architecture. He later explored realism in highly detailed trompe l’oeil (literally translated, “fool-the-eye”) and in still lifes of favorite objects from the homes of his neighbors and patrons. At the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, Cope met German-born landscape painter Hermann Herzog (1832–1932), who became his lifelong friend and only teacher. The pair often took sketching and hiking trips in the Pennsylvania countryside. Cope’s Landscape with Two Horses (1883; Chester County Historical Society) is very similar to Herzog’s work in both composition and style. Cope’s big break came when Major Levi Gheen McCauley, a prominent West Chester businessman, politician, and Civil War hero, commissioned him to paint “an exhibition hanging picture” in 1887. The subject was the major’s Civil War regalia—swords, cap, belt, pistol, holster, sash, canteen, and two important military medals—all rendered in exact scale and in vivid realistic color. This was one of Cope’s first ventures into the illusionism of trompe l’oeil. See Fig. 4: The Civil War Regalia of Major Levi Gheen McCauley, 1887. Oil on canvas, 50 x 36 1/2inches. Photography by Greg Williams. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. at: http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=516
DUBLIN, Ohio 15 February 2012—OCLC Research has made FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) available for bulk download, along with some minor improvements based on user feedback and routine updates. FAST is an enumerative, faceted subject heading schema derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). OCLC made FAST available as Linked Open Data in December 2011. The bulk downloadable versions of FAST are offered at no charge. Like FAST content available through the FAST Experimental Linked Data Service, the downloadable versions of FAST are made available under the Open Data Commons Attribution (ODC-By) license.
http://www.oclc.org/research/news/2012-02-15.htm
Flax (also known as common flax or linseed) (binomial name: Linum usitatissimum) is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax
Sesame (Sesamum indicum) is a flowering plant in the genus Sesamum. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office's updated analysis, replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin would provide a net benefit to the government of approximately $4.4 billion over 30 years, or an average of about $146 million per year. The overall net benefit was due solely to increased seigniorage and not to reduced production costs. This estimate differs from GAO’s 2011 estimate because it considers recent efficiency improvements in note processing that have extended the expected life of the $1 note and other updated information. GAO’s estimate covered 30 years to be consistent with previous GAO analyses and because that period roughly coincides with the life expectancy of the $1 coin. Using the same model and assumptions used for its 30-year analysis, GAO found that replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin would provide a net loss to the government of about $531 million in the first 10 years, or an average of about $53 million per year. The cost of producing a large number of coins necessary for the transition would result in a net loss in 6 of the first 7 years. In the eighth year, and for the remaining 2 years, this situation is reversed: the interest savings outweigh the production costs and the net benefits would be positive. Overall, the net loss over 10 years compared with the net benefit GAO estimated over 30 years would occur because of large costs in the first few years to produce the initial supply of $1 coins. If the interest savings due to increased seigniorage are excluded from the analysis, the government would incur a total net loss of about $1.8 billion over 10 years, or an average of $179 million per year. With no interest savings to offset the costs of coin production, net losses would be incurred in 9 of the 10 years. As in the preceding scenario, these production costs are greatest in the first 4 years, when a large number of coins need to be produced for the transition. Although this scenario suggests there are no net benefits of switching to a $1 coin, GAO believes that excluding the interest savings related to seigniorage omits a monetary benefit to the government. If it is assumed that each $1 note will be replaced by 1, rather than 1.5, $1 coins, the government would incur a total net loss of about $582 million over 10 years, or an average of about $58 million per year. The costs of producing coins for the transition dominate in the first 3 years, followed by benefits in the fourth year due to the overproduction of coins during the transition. In this scenario, net losses continue to accrue through year 10. Net losses in this scenario are smaller than in the preceding scenario because fewer coins are produced and coin production costs are lower, but the one-to-one replacement does not provide increased seigniorage. Moreover, this lower replacement ratio is not consistent with the experiences of other countries that have switched from notes to coins and is likely to produce too few coins to meet demand, which could be disruptive to the economy.
See 15-page document GAO-12-307 at: http://gao.gov/assets/590/588549.pdf
Seignorage is "The amount of real purchasing power that [a] government can extract from the public by printing money." -- Cukierman 1992
When a government prints money, it is in essence borrowing interest-free since it receives goods in exchange for the money, and must accept the money in return only at some future time. It gains further if issuing new money reduces (through inflation) the value of old money by reducing the liability that the old money represents. These gains to a money-issuing government are called "seignorage" revenues. The original meaning of seignorage was the fee taken by a money issuer (a government) for the cost of minting the money. Money itself, at that time, was intrinsically valuable because it was made of metal. http://economics.about.com/od/economicsglossary/g/seignorage.htm
Monday, February 20, 2012
palladium (puh-LAY-dee-uhm) noun
1. A safeguard.
After Athena (also known as Pallas Athena), a goddess in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of Zeus and was born fully-grown from his forehead. Palladium was a statue of Athena that was believed to protect Troy. Earliest documented use: before 1393.
2. A rare, silvery-white metal.
Palladium was discovered by chemist and physicist William Hyde Wollaston in 1803. He named it after the asteroid Pallas which had been discovered the year before. The asteroid was named after Pallas Athena. Earliest documented use: 1803.
cruciverbalist (kroo-si-VUHR-buh-list) noun A crossword designer or enthusiast.
[From Latin cruci-, stem of crux (cross), + verbalist (one skilled in use of words), from verbum (word).]
Cadmean victory (kad-MEE-uhn VIK-tuh-ree) noun
A victory won at as great a cost to the victor as to the vanquished.
After Cadmus, a Phoenician prince in Greek mythology who introduced writing to the Greeks and founded the city of Thebes. Near the site where Cadmus was to build Thebes he encountered a dragon. Even though he managed to kill the dragon, only five of his comrades survived, with whom he founded the city. Other words coined after him are calamine (a pink powder used in skin lotions), from Latin calamina, from Greek kadmeia ge (Cadmean earth) and the name of the chemical element cadmium. A similar eponym is Pyrrhic victory.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
The first example of a crossword puzzle appeared on September 14, 1890, in the Italian magazine Il Secolo Illustrato della Domenica. It was designed by Giuseppe Airoldi and titled "Per passare il tempo" ("To pass the time"). Airoldi's puzzle was a four-by-four grid with no shaded squares; it included horizontal and vertical clues. On December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne, a journalist from Liverpool, England, published a "word-cross" puzzle in the New York World that embodied most of the features of the genre as we know it. This puzzle is frequently cited as the first crossword puzzle, and Wynne as the inventor. Later, the name of the puzzle was changed to "crossword". Learn about grids, clues and variants at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword
Toledo Botanical Garden Seed Swap February 25 noon-3 p.m. Erie Street Market downtown
Join us for our 7th annual Seed Swap! This FREE event offers a myriad of seeds for you to browse. Bring your own seeds and exchange them for different ones! We’ll also have informative workshops on gardening and other activities.
Workshops:
Cindy Bench - Bensell's Greenhouse 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Intro to Gardening
Anna Miller 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. All About Gourds!
Matt Ross - Landscape Turf Management Instructor at Owens Community College
12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Gettin' Dirty in the Garden
Mary Machon - Bensell's Greenhouse 12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Seed Saving 101
Greg & Olivia Willerer 2:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Market Gardening
Lindsay Graham 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Raising Chickens
http://toledogarden.org/content/events/
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Feb. 16 announced the first-ever federally proposed guidelines to encourage automobile manufacturers to limit the distraction risk for in-vehicle electronic devices. The proposed voluntary guidelines would apply to communications, entertainment, information gathering and navigation devices or functions that are not required to safely operate the vehicle. Issued by the Department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the guidelines would establish specific recommended criteria for electronic devices installed in vehicles at the time they are manufactured that require visual or manual operation by drivers. Geared toward light vehicles (cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, minivans, and other vehicles rated at not more than 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight), the guidelines proposed are the first in a series of guidance documents NHTSA plans to issue to address sources of distraction that require use of the hands and/or diversion of the eyes from the primary task of driving. The Phase I guidelines were published in the Feb. 16 Federal Register and members of the public will have the opportunity to comment on the proposal for 60 days. Final guidelines will be issued after the agency reviews and analyzes and responds to public input. NHTSA will also hold public hearings on the proposed guidelines to solicit public comment. The hearings will take place in March and will be held in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C.
See Doc. NHTSA 01-12 at: http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2012/U.S.+Department+of+Transportation+Proposes+'Distraction'+Guidelines+for+Automakers
The Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and National Geographic's Enduring Voices project has announced eight new talking dictionaries, containing 32,000 entries and 24,000 audio files. Listen to a sampler of the new online talking dictionaries and the endangered languages they record at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577227300151734134.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The online talking dictionaries for the first time document the songs, sound, syntax and structure of Matukar Panau and record seven other unusual, vanishing languages, including Tuvan in Mongolia, Chamacoco in Paraguay and Ho, Sora and Remo in India.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577228982976760026.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
1. A safeguard.
After Athena (also known as Pallas Athena), a goddess in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of Zeus and was born fully-grown from his forehead. Palladium was a statue of Athena that was believed to protect Troy. Earliest documented use: before 1393.
2. A rare, silvery-white metal.
Palladium was discovered by chemist and physicist William Hyde Wollaston in 1803. He named it after the asteroid Pallas which had been discovered the year before. The asteroid was named after Pallas Athena. Earliest documented use: 1803.
cruciverbalist (kroo-si-VUHR-buh-list) noun A crossword designer or enthusiast.
[From Latin cruci-, stem of crux (cross), + verbalist (one skilled in use of words), from verbum (word).]
Cadmean victory (kad-MEE-uhn VIK-tuh-ree) noun
A victory won at as great a cost to the victor as to the vanquished.
After Cadmus, a Phoenician prince in Greek mythology who introduced writing to the Greeks and founded the city of Thebes. Near the site where Cadmus was to build Thebes he encountered a dragon. Even though he managed to kill the dragon, only five of his comrades survived, with whom he founded the city. Other words coined after him are calamine (a pink powder used in skin lotions), from Latin calamina, from Greek kadmeia ge (Cadmean earth) and the name of the chemical element cadmium. A similar eponym is Pyrrhic victory.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
The first example of a crossword puzzle appeared on September 14, 1890, in the Italian magazine Il Secolo Illustrato della Domenica. It was designed by Giuseppe Airoldi and titled "Per passare il tempo" ("To pass the time"). Airoldi's puzzle was a four-by-four grid with no shaded squares; it included horizontal and vertical clues. On December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne, a journalist from Liverpool, England, published a "word-cross" puzzle in the New York World that embodied most of the features of the genre as we know it. This puzzle is frequently cited as the first crossword puzzle, and Wynne as the inventor. Later, the name of the puzzle was changed to "crossword". Learn about grids, clues and variants at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword
Toledo Botanical Garden Seed Swap February 25 noon-3 p.m. Erie Street Market downtown
Join us for our 7th annual Seed Swap! This FREE event offers a myriad of seeds for you to browse. Bring your own seeds and exchange them for different ones! We’ll also have informative workshops on gardening and other activities.
Workshops:
Cindy Bench - Bensell's Greenhouse 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Intro to Gardening
Anna Miller 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. All About Gourds!
Matt Ross - Landscape Turf Management Instructor at Owens Community College
12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Gettin' Dirty in the Garden
Mary Machon - Bensell's Greenhouse 12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Seed Saving 101
Greg & Olivia Willerer 2:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Market Gardening
Lindsay Graham 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Raising Chickens
http://toledogarden.org/content/events/
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Feb. 16 announced the first-ever federally proposed guidelines to encourage automobile manufacturers to limit the distraction risk for in-vehicle electronic devices. The proposed voluntary guidelines would apply to communications, entertainment, information gathering and navigation devices or functions that are not required to safely operate the vehicle. Issued by the Department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the guidelines would establish specific recommended criteria for electronic devices installed in vehicles at the time they are manufactured that require visual or manual operation by drivers. Geared toward light vehicles (cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, minivans, and other vehicles rated at not more than 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight), the guidelines proposed are the first in a series of guidance documents NHTSA plans to issue to address sources of distraction that require use of the hands and/or diversion of the eyes from the primary task of driving. The Phase I guidelines were published in the Feb. 16 Federal Register and members of the public will have the opportunity to comment on the proposal for 60 days. Final guidelines will be issued after the agency reviews and analyzes and responds to public input. NHTSA will also hold public hearings on the proposed guidelines to solicit public comment. The hearings will take place in March and will be held in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C.
See Doc. NHTSA 01-12 at: http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2012/U.S.+Department+of+Transportation+Proposes+'Distraction'+Guidelines+for+Automakers
The Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and National Geographic's Enduring Voices project has announced eight new talking dictionaries, containing 32,000 entries and 24,000 audio files. Listen to a sampler of the new online talking dictionaries and the endangered languages they record at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577227300151734134.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The online talking dictionaries for the first time document the songs, sound, syntax and structure of Matukar Panau and record seven other unusual, vanishing languages, including Tuvan in Mongolia, Chamacoco in Paraguay and Ho, Sora and Remo in India.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577228982976760026.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Friday, February 17, 2012
The word "raccoon" was adopted into English from the native Powhatan term, as used in the Virginia Colony. It was recorded on Captain John Smith's list of Powhatan words as aroughcun, and on that of William Strachey as arathkone. It has also been identified as a Proto-Algonquian root *ahrah-koon-em, meaning "[the] one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands". Similarly, Spanish colonists adopted the Spanish word mapache from the Nahuatl mapachitli of the Aztecs, meaning "[the] one who takes everything in its hands". The raccoon's scientific name, Procyon lotor, is neo-Latin, meaning "before-dog washer", with lotor Latin for "washer" and Procyon Latinized Greek from προ-, "before" and κύων, "dog". Due to its adaptability, the raccoon has been able to use urban areas as a habitat. The first sightings were recorded in a suburb of Cincinnati in the 1920s. Since the 1950s, raccoons have been present in Philadelphia, Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Since the 1960s, Kassel has hosted Europe's first and densest population in a large urban area, with about 50 to 150 animals per square kilometre (130–400 animals per square mile), a figure comparable to those of urban habitats in North America. Fruit and insects in gardens and leftovers in municipal waste are easily available food sources. Furthermore, a large number of additional sleeping areas exist in these areas, such as hollows in old garden trees, cottages, garages, abandoned houses, and attics. The percentage of urban raccoons sleeping in abandoned or occupied houses varies from 15% in Washington, DC (1991) to 43% in Kassel (2003). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon
CONTROL INVASIVE SPECIES BY EATING THEM
Raccoon recipes
http://www.backwoodsbound.com/zracoon.html
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,raccoon,FF.html
Asian Carp recipes
http://magblog.audubon.org/recipes-invasive-species-asian-carp
Asian carp may be a problem in the Great Lakes, but in Louisiana they are renaming it silver fin and promoting it as a delicacy. Chef Philippe Parola says the Asian carp's texture is a cross between scallop and crabmeat, adding its bones can be removed easily by steaming. http://www.chefphilippe.com/recipes_silverfin.pdf
TWITTER is being sued for defamation for the first time under Australian law. Joshua Meggitt, the Melbourne man wrongly named by writer and TV identity Marieke Hardy as the author of a hate blog dedicated to her, is now suing Twitter Inc itself. Mr Meggitt's lawyer, Stuart Gibson, served a legal notice yesterday on the San Francisco-based social media giant, a company valued last year at $US7 billion ($A6.5 billion), as the publisher of a tweet by Hardy last November. Her tweet read: ''I name and shame my 'anonymous' internet bully. Liberating business! Join me,'' with a link to her blog, where she incorrectly named Mr Meggitt as the author of ''ranting, hateful'' articles about her. It was a tweet seen around the world, and now that Hardy (below) has already reached a confidential legal settlement with Mr Meggitt, believed to be about $15,000, and published an apology on her blog, his lawyers are seeking damages from the social media site where the original defamation had the greatest exposure. The original tweet appeared on Twitter's homepage, and was copied by some of Hardy's 60,897 followers and other Twitter users taking part at the time in a worldwide online anti-abuse campaign. Many also commented on the original post in ways that could be construed as defamatory. http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/twitter-sued-over-hardy-tweet-20120216-1tbxz.html
Twitter is rolling out the self-serve ad platform it's been testing to 10,000 small and midsize businesses next month through a partnership with American Express, in a bid to broaden its revenue streams. Starting Feb. 16, American Express cardmembers and merchants can register to use the platform on a first-come, first-serve basis and also receive $100 in advertising credits to put toward bidding on promoted tweets and promoted accounts -- hopefully whetting their appetites for more. Twitter had begun the roll-out of self-serve, which lets advertisers make electronic payments instead of being invoiced by the sales team, in mid-November with a group of fewer than 20 advertisers and ultimately expanded the group to about 100.
http://adage.com/article/digital/twitter-opens-serve-ad-platform-10-000-businesses/232787/
Chicken Marengo takes its name from the battle of Marengo in 1800, when Napoleon defeated the Austrians. The original version, improvised on the battlefield by Napoleon's chef, was made with a chicken, tomatoes, eggs, crayfish, garlic, and a splash of brandy from the General's flash. See recipe at: http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com/2009/08/chicken-marengo.html
Recipe from Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/4-step-chicken-marengo-recipe/index.html
When firefighters arrived at the $11-million mansion in the Hollywood Hills last year, they thought they had a chance to save the 13,500-square-foot structure. More than 80 firefighters raced to the home, and 19 were temporarily trapped as the fire spread. Veteran firefighter Glenn Allen was on the ground floor when several hundred pounds of plaster and lumber fell on him. His colleagues dug him out using chainsaws to cut through the debris, but his injuries were so severe that he died two days later. From the beginning, investigators were suspicious of how the fire started. After a yearlong investigation, prosecutors on Feb. 15 charged the home's architect with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly building a home that was the perfect backdrop for a reality TV show but a deathtrap for the firefighters who tried to save it. Authorities said the Feb. 16, 2011, fire occurred two days before filming was set to begin at the home for "Germany's Next Top Model." The show starred Heidi Klum and centered around a group of models staying at the home, with its sweeping views, dramatic terraces and infinity pool. Prosecutors said Gerhard Albert Becker, 48, knowingly ignored safety recommendations and altered the home after inspections. He has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with Allen's death. Building inspectors said Becker had told them there were no plans to build fireplaces in the home, and none were spotted during a final inspection. After the fire, investigators discovered that he had installed four outdoor fireplaces inside the home, a violation of city building codes. Becker has pleaded not guilty. Last year, he told investigators after Allen's death that "he did not consider them to be fireplaces but rather architectural features or decorations," according to court records. "This man built an 18-foot fire trough designed for outdoors inside the home. It was a recipe for disaster," added Deputy Dist. Atty. Sean Carney. "He essentially put this fireplace on 2-by-4s." According to a search warrant affidavit, the manufacturer of the fireplaces warned Becker that they were for outdoor use only. Records show he replied in an email, "I am aware I just don't see the difference. It is a pit with a pipe." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-firefighter-killed-20120216,0,512896.story
CONTROL INVASIVE SPECIES BY EATING THEM
Raccoon recipes
http://www.backwoodsbound.com/zracoon.html
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,raccoon,FF.html
Asian Carp recipes
http://magblog.audubon.org/recipes-invasive-species-asian-carp
Asian carp may be a problem in the Great Lakes, but in Louisiana they are renaming it silver fin and promoting it as a delicacy. Chef Philippe Parola says the Asian carp's texture is a cross between scallop and crabmeat, adding its bones can be removed easily by steaming. http://www.chefphilippe.com/recipes_silverfin.pdf
TWITTER is being sued for defamation for the first time under Australian law. Joshua Meggitt, the Melbourne man wrongly named by writer and TV identity Marieke Hardy as the author of a hate blog dedicated to her, is now suing Twitter Inc itself. Mr Meggitt's lawyer, Stuart Gibson, served a legal notice yesterday on the San Francisco-based social media giant, a company valued last year at $US7 billion ($A6.5 billion), as the publisher of a tweet by Hardy last November. Her tweet read: ''I name and shame my 'anonymous' internet bully. Liberating business! Join me,'' with a link to her blog, where she incorrectly named Mr Meggitt as the author of ''ranting, hateful'' articles about her. It was a tweet seen around the world, and now that Hardy (below) has already reached a confidential legal settlement with Mr Meggitt, believed to be about $15,000, and published an apology on her blog, his lawyers are seeking damages from the social media site where the original defamation had the greatest exposure. The original tweet appeared on Twitter's homepage, and was copied by some of Hardy's 60,897 followers and other Twitter users taking part at the time in a worldwide online anti-abuse campaign. Many also commented on the original post in ways that could be construed as defamatory. http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/twitter-sued-over-hardy-tweet-20120216-1tbxz.html
Twitter is rolling out the self-serve ad platform it's been testing to 10,000 small and midsize businesses next month through a partnership with American Express, in a bid to broaden its revenue streams. Starting Feb. 16, American Express cardmembers and merchants can register to use the platform on a first-come, first-serve basis and also receive $100 in advertising credits to put toward bidding on promoted tweets and promoted accounts -- hopefully whetting their appetites for more. Twitter had begun the roll-out of self-serve, which lets advertisers make electronic payments instead of being invoiced by the sales team, in mid-November with a group of fewer than 20 advertisers and ultimately expanded the group to about 100.
http://adage.com/article/digital/twitter-opens-serve-ad-platform-10-000-businesses/232787/
Chicken Marengo takes its name from the battle of Marengo in 1800, when Napoleon defeated the Austrians. The original version, improvised on the battlefield by Napoleon's chef, was made with a chicken, tomatoes, eggs, crayfish, garlic, and a splash of brandy from the General's flash. See recipe at: http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com/2009/08/chicken-marengo.html
Recipe from Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/4-step-chicken-marengo-recipe/index.html
When firefighters arrived at the $11-million mansion in the Hollywood Hills last year, they thought they had a chance to save the 13,500-square-foot structure. More than 80 firefighters raced to the home, and 19 were temporarily trapped as the fire spread. Veteran firefighter Glenn Allen was on the ground floor when several hundred pounds of plaster and lumber fell on him. His colleagues dug him out using chainsaws to cut through the debris, but his injuries were so severe that he died two days later. From the beginning, investigators were suspicious of how the fire started. After a yearlong investigation, prosecutors on Feb. 15 charged the home's architect with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly building a home that was the perfect backdrop for a reality TV show but a deathtrap for the firefighters who tried to save it. Authorities said the Feb. 16, 2011, fire occurred two days before filming was set to begin at the home for "Germany's Next Top Model." The show starred Heidi Klum and centered around a group of models staying at the home, with its sweeping views, dramatic terraces and infinity pool. Prosecutors said Gerhard Albert Becker, 48, knowingly ignored safety recommendations and altered the home after inspections. He has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with Allen's death. Building inspectors said Becker had told them there were no plans to build fireplaces in the home, and none were spotted during a final inspection. After the fire, investigators discovered that he had installed four outdoor fireplaces inside the home, a violation of city building codes. Becker has pleaded not guilty. Last year, he told investigators after Allen's death that "he did not consider them to be fireplaces but rather architectural features or decorations," according to court records. "This man built an 18-foot fire trough designed for outdoors inside the home. It was a recipe for disaster," added Deputy Dist. Atty. Sean Carney. "He essentially put this fireplace on 2-by-4s." According to a search warrant affidavit, the manufacturer of the fireplaces warned Becker that they were for outdoor use only. Records show he replied in an email, "I am aware I just don't see the difference. It is a pit with a pipe." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-firefighter-killed-20120216,0,512896.story
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Maldives, a group of about 1,200 islands, separated into a series of coral atolls, is just north of the Equator in the Indian Ocean. Only 200 of the islands are inhabited. Many of these tropical atolls and islands are simply gorgeous, with swaying palms, white sandy beaches and deep-blue lagoons; none of the islands rise higher than 7.8 ft. above sea level. These low lying specs of coral are subject to erosion, and stand at the mercy of any sea level rise. Some were severely damaged during the December, 2004 Tsunami. The Maldives was long a sultanate (a territory ruled by a sultan), first under Dutch control, and then under British protection. It gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1965, and three years later, declared itself an independent republic. See map at: http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/mv.htm
BRIC is an acronym for the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China combined. The general consensus is that the term was first prominently used in a Goldman Sachs report from 2003, which speculated that by 2050 these four economies would be wealthier than most of the current major economic powers. The BRIC thesis posits that China and India will become the world's dominant suppliers of manufactured goods and services, respectively, while Brazil and Russia will become similarly dominant as suppliers of raw materials. It's important to note that the Goldman Sachs thesis isn't that these countries are a political alliance (like the European Union) or a formal trading association - but they have the potential to form a powerful economic bloc. BRIC is now also used as a more generic marketing term to refer to these four emerging economies. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bric.asp#axzz1mG7ivkw9
The Industrial Revolution started in England around 1733 with the first cotton mill. A more modern world had begun. As new inventions were being created, factories followed soon thereafter. England wanted to keep its industrialization a secret, so they prohibited anyone who had worked in a factory to leave the country. Meanwhile, Americans offered a significant reward to anyone who could build a cotton-spinning machine in the United States. Samuel Slater, who had been an apprentice in an English cotton factory, disguised himself and came to America. Once here, he reconstructed a cotton-spinning machine from memory. He then proceeded to build a factory of his own. See links Eli Whitney & the cotton gin (short for cotton engine), Robert Fulton & the steam engine, and Francis Cabot Lowell & the American Textile Industry at: http://library.thinkquest.org/4132/info.htm
Angelo Bartlett "Bart" Giamatti (1938–1989) was the president of Yale University and later the seventh Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Giamatti negotiated the agreement that terminated the Pete Rose betting scandal by permitting Rose to voluntarily withdraw from the sport, avoiding further punishment. Giamatti had a lifelong interest in baseball (he was a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan). In 1978, when he was first rumored to be a candidate for the presidency of Yale, he had deflected questions by observing that "The only thing I ever wanted to be president of was the American League." He became president of the National League in 1986, and later commissioner of baseball in 1989. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Bartlett_Giamatti
A. Bartlett Giamatti made a speech to the incoming Yale freshman class in 1980. He reminded the class of something I trust they carried with them through Yale and beyond. “You are not expected to know,” he said, “but you are expected to wish to know.” He went on to raise a rhetorical question—“Why does any ideology tend to be authoritarian?”—and then answered it: “These closed systems are attractive because they are simple and they are simple because they are such masterly evasions of contradictory, gray, complex reality. Those who manipulate such systems are compelling because they are never in doubt.” To a later class of Yale, he noted that the twentieth century was coming to a close. “The fact is,” Giamatti said, “nothing is old or tired or declining for you. You are new. You do not need the worn intellectual cloaks of others; you must weave your own, with which to walk out into the world.” He sent them on their way with a charge to be remembered by all: “Do not become one of those who only has the courage of other people’s convictions.” The Time of our Lives by Tom Brokaw
A 2,000-Degree Dinner Party at Esque The artisans at Portland, Oregon’s Esque host a dinner party at their studio, inviting star chef Naomi Pomeroy to cook in their superhot ovens. In less than five minutes, a glassblower can transform a small molten blob at the end of a long tube into a drinking glass; in about half an hour, the glassblower can create a foot-long vase. And in the studio’s 2,000-degree oven, a roast beef for eight people—the main course for an amazing dinner party—will cook in only about three minutes. Andi Kovel and Justin Parker, cofounders of Esque, are part of both fast-moving experiences. The pair launched Esque a dozen years ago after meeting at Parsons design school in New York City. See high-heat cooking tips and the dinner party menu at: http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/a-2000-degree-dinner-party-with-the-artisans-at-esque
The Federal Communications Commission is set to approve tougher rules giving consumers additional protection against unwanted autodialed or prerecorded calls to home phone lines. "We have gotten thousands of complaints," says FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. "Consumers were still getting robocalls they don't want and shouldn't get." He expects the commission to approve new rules that will require telemarketers to get written consent before making such calls. Even though Congress in 2008 passed legislation making Do Not Call permanent, some telemarketers have continued to make unsolicited calls because of loopholes in the law. Under the new FCC rules, telemarketers must get consent before calling home phones, even if the consumer hasn't included their number on the Do Not Call registry. Current rules already prohibit such calls to cellphones without consent. Robocall telemarketers use predictive technology to automatically dial thousands of homes simultaneously and connect live representatives with call recipients. Often, consumers hear nothing when they pick up the phone because there's no representative available. Previously, companies that consumers already had done business with could robocall them, but that exemption will be removed under the new rules. Other new provisions require telemarketers to give consumers a quick way to end the call and automatically add their number to telemarketers' Do Not Call lists. Not covered by the new rules: robocalls from schools and other non-profit organizations and political groups, because they are considered informational. Those calls cannot be made without consent to wireless phones, however.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/story/2012-02-14/robocall-ftc-do-not-call/53097276/1
"I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett … " So begins the first love letter http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/ab-letters/id/1966/rec/1 to poet Elizabeth Barrett from her future husband, fellow poet Robert Browning. Their 573 love letters, which capture their 19th century courtship, their blossoming love and their forbidden marriage, have long fascinated scholars and poetry fans. Though transcriptions of their correspondence have been published in the past, the handwritten letters could only be seen at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where the collection has been kept since 1930. But beginning on Valentine's Day, their famous love letters will become available online where readers can see them just as they were written – with creased paper, fading ink, quill pen cross-outs, and even the envelopes they used. The digitisation project is a collaboration between Wellesley and Baylor University in Waco, Texas, which houses the world's largest collection of books, letters and other items related to the Brownings. Thanks, Linda.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/14/love-letters-barrett-browning-valentines
BRIC is an acronym for the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China combined. The general consensus is that the term was first prominently used in a Goldman Sachs report from 2003, which speculated that by 2050 these four economies would be wealthier than most of the current major economic powers. The BRIC thesis posits that China and India will become the world's dominant suppliers of manufactured goods and services, respectively, while Brazil and Russia will become similarly dominant as suppliers of raw materials. It's important to note that the Goldman Sachs thesis isn't that these countries are a political alliance (like the European Union) or a formal trading association - but they have the potential to form a powerful economic bloc. BRIC is now also used as a more generic marketing term to refer to these four emerging economies. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bric.asp#axzz1mG7ivkw9
The Industrial Revolution started in England around 1733 with the first cotton mill. A more modern world had begun. As new inventions were being created, factories followed soon thereafter. England wanted to keep its industrialization a secret, so they prohibited anyone who had worked in a factory to leave the country. Meanwhile, Americans offered a significant reward to anyone who could build a cotton-spinning machine in the United States. Samuel Slater, who had been an apprentice in an English cotton factory, disguised himself and came to America. Once here, he reconstructed a cotton-spinning machine from memory. He then proceeded to build a factory of his own. See links Eli Whitney & the cotton gin (short for cotton engine), Robert Fulton & the steam engine, and Francis Cabot Lowell & the American Textile Industry at: http://library.thinkquest.org/4132/info.htm
Angelo Bartlett "Bart" Giamatti (1938–1989) was the president of Yale University and later the seventh Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Giamatti negotiated the agreement that terminated the Pete Rose betting scandal by permitting Rose to voluntarily withdraw from the sport, avoiding further punishment. Giamatti had a lifelong interest in baseball (he was a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan). In 1978, when he was first rumored to be a candidate for the presidency of Yale, he had deflected questions by observing that "The only thing I ever wanted to be president of was the American League." He became president of the National League in 1986, and later commissioner of baseball in 1989. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Bartlett_Giamatti
A. Bartlett Giamatti made a speech to the incoming Yale freshman class in 1980. He reminded the class of something I trust they carried with them through Yale and beyond. “You are not expected to know,” he said, “but you are expected to wish to know.” He went on to raise a rhetorical question—“Why does any ideology tend to be authoritarian?”—and then answered it: “These closed systems are attractive because they are simple and they are simple because they are such masterly evasions of contradictory, gray, complex reality. Those who manipulate such systems are compelling because they are never in doubt.” To a later class of Yale, he noted that the twentieth century was coming to a close. “The fact is,” Giamatti said, “nothing is old or tired or declining for you. You are new. You do not need the worn intellectual cloaks of others; you must weave your own, with which to walk out into the world.” He sent them on their way with a charge to be remembered by all: “Do not become one of those who only has the courage of other people’s convictions.” The Time of our Lives by Tom Brokaw
A 2,000-Degree Dinner Party at Esque The artisans at Portland, Oregon’s Esque host a dinner party at their studio, inviting star chef Naomi Pomeroy to cook in their superhot ovens. In less than five minutes, a glassblower can transform a small molten blob at the end of a long tube into a drinking glass; in about half an hour, the glassblower can create a foot-long vase. And in the studio’s 2,000-degree oven, a roast beef for eight people—the main course for an amazing dinner party—will cook in only about three minutes. Andi Kovel and Justin Parker, cofounders of Esque, are part of both fast-moving experiences. The pair launched Esque a dozen years ago after meeting at Parsons design school in New York City. See high-heat cooking tips and the dinner party menu at: http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/a-2000-degree-dinner-party-with-the-artisans-at-esque
The Federal Communications Commission is set to approve tougher rules giving consumers additional protection against unwanted autodialed or prerecorded calls to home phone lines. "We have gotten thousands of complaints," says FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. "Consumers were still getting robocalls they don't want and shouldn't get." He expects the commission to approve new rules that will require telemarketers to get written consent before making such calls. Even though Congress in 2008 passed legislation making Do Not Call permanent, some telemarketers have continued to make unsolicited calls because of loopholes in the law. Under the new FCC rules, telemarketers must get consent before calling home phones, even if the consumer hasn't included their number on the Do Not Call registry. Current rules already prohibit such calls to cellphones without consent. Robocall telemarketers use predictive technology to automatically dial thousands of homes simultaneously and connect live representatives with call recipients. Often, consumers hear nothing when they pick up the phone because there's no representative available. Previously, companies that consumers already had done business with could robocall them, but that exemption will be removed under the new rules. Other new provisions require telemarketers to give consumers a quick way to end the call and automatically add their number to telemarketers' Do Not Call lists. Not covered by the new rules: robocalls from schools and other non-profit organizations and political groups, because they are considered informational. Those calls cannot be made without consent to wireless phones, however.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/story/2012-02-14/robocall-ftc-do-not-call/53097276/1
"I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett … " So begins the first love letter http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/ab-letters/id/1966/rec/1 to poet Elizabeth Barrett from her future husband, fellow poet Robert Browning. Their 573 love letters, which capture their 19th century courtship, their blossoming love and their forbidden marriage, have long fascinated scholars and poetry fans. Though transcriptions of their correspondence have been published in the past, the handwritten letters could only be seen at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where the collection has been kept since 1930. But beginning on Valentine's Day, their famous love letters will become available online where readers can see them just as they were written – with creased paper, fading ink, quill pen cross-outs, and even the envelopes they used. The digitisation project is a collaboration between Wellesley and Baylor University in Waco, Texas, which houses the world's largest collection of books, letters and other items related to the Brownings. Thanks, Linda.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/14/love-letters-barrett-browning-valentines
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Rabbit, Run--Rabbit, Jump
She was the fastest rabbit in town, taking just 11 seconds to jump all the hurdles in the round. Cherie, a 2-year-old Swedish bunny, left the competition in the dust at the U.K.'s Rabbit Grand National, held in the dignified Yorkshire town of Harrogate in late January. The lop-eared speed demon, who also won the competition last year, elicited gasps from the audience as she jumped hurdles close to 28 inches high. In Sweden, where the fluffy competitors train for up to two hours a day, there is an established network of breeders who are always looking for talent. "Our bunnies are so used to competing, so they know what to do," Ms. Hedlund says. Choosing the right breed of rabbit is also important. Sweden's 200 or so breeders are experimenting widely, and charge more—up to 1,500 kronor ($225)—for a rabbit with prizewinning parentage. Bunny-jumping enthusiasts say it is good for the rabbits. A domestic rabbit that is allowed to exercise can live 10 or 12 years, compared with five years at most if kept in a cage, says Lisbeth Jansson, who has written two books on rabbit jumping and, with her husband, Lars, runs Libra Arctic, the world's only professional maker of rabbit jumps. "These bunnies develop psyche, heart, lungs and muscles, so they live longer and the vets have more to do," she says. "Some [owners] even take out life insurance on renowned jumping rabbits. Despite their dominance of the sport, Swedish bunnies are bested by their Danish neighbors when it comes to world records. In 1999, a Danish rabbit called Yaboo set the world long-jump record when he flew over a three-meter, or nearly 10-feet, hurdle, while his compatriot Tösen bounced 99.5 centimeter, or about 40 inches, to nab the high-jump record in 1997. JAVIER ESPINOZA and ANNA MOLIN http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204652904577196912649404638.html
For his first show for the Paul Kasmin gallery in Manhattan, the artist Will Ryman will take over both of its locations with two massive installations, one in the gallery on 10th Avenue and the second in the newly opened space on West 27th Street, the former home of Bungalow 8, just around the corner. The show will run from February 16 to March 24. The two projects both feature an obsession with trash and items found at hardware stores. The first, called Everyman, will turn the original gallery into a gigantic human form in repose, some 50 feet long and curved around the walls of the gallery. Mr. Ryman’s shirt will be composed of work boots, flattened and painted, and his extended fingers will be bottlecaps. The second project, Bird, features a giant raven made of nails that range in size, from one inch to three feet. The bird holds a rose in its mouth, perhaps a reference to Mr. Ryman’s installation The Roses, which appeared on Park Avenue earlier this year. His roses could also be spotted at a new installation, Desublimation of the Rose, at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden during Art Basel Miami Beach.
http://www.galleristny.com/2011/12/big-willie-style-will-rymans-new-installations-will-take-over-paul-kasmin-gallery/
If your pension plan is underfunded, you could be at risk of losing some of your benefits. That isn't news. But did you know that your pension can be at risk even if the plan is relatively healthy? Something as seemingly innocuous as having a lump-sum payout provision, or even having a religious affiliation, could mean your benefits are vulnerable. Here are some red flags to look for, and some ways to protect yourself:
Your pension is healthy, but your employer isn't.
Your plan offers lump-sum payouts.
Your company changes hands.
Your employer gets religion. ELLEN E. SCHULTZ
See examples and explanations at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203315804577211064028695608.html
Sarasota, FL Feb. 10 If you're a theater buff with a serious interest in American comedy, "Once in a Lifetime" probably ranks high on the list of little-known shows you'd love to see onstage. Otherwise, I doubt you've heard of it. A farce about the coming of talking pictures to Hollywood, "Once in a Lifetime" was the first collaboration between George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, who went on to write "The Man Who Came to Dinner" and "You Can't Take It With You." It opened on Broadway in 1930 and ran for 406 performances, which was big business back then. Two years later, it was turned into a middling movie, then vanished from sight (the 1979 Broadway revival was a flop). Today the play is known solely because Mr. Hart wrote about it in "Act One," his 1959 autobiography. Why doesn't anybody do "Once in a Lifetime" nowadays? It costs too much—way too much. The published script calls for five sets and 38 actors. You could get away with that in the 1930s, but no commercial producer would think of bringing so horrendously expensive a play to Broadway anymore. Enter San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater and Sarasota's Asolo Repertory Theatre, two regional companies that double as drama schools, making it possible to put on large-cast shows by using students to cover smaller parts. ACT mounted "Once in a Lifetime" last fall and Asolo Rep is doing it now. TERRY TEACHOUT http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204136404577205803496515734.html
Professor A. Craig Baird, reading from a speech titled “The Responsibilities of Free Communication,” at a University of Iowa commencement speech in 1952, told his audience of newly minted graduates that they must “reject communication as the primitive art of arousing the emotions …. College graduates, as well as reporters, columnists, congressional investigators, must join in the search for intelligent answers to intelligent questions.” What exactly is civility? Civilpolitics.org, which provides a clearinghouse for research and approaches to improving America’s political dialogue, defines it as “the ability to disagree with others while respecting their sincerity and decency.” Essentially, America’s political system depends on a rational exchange of views; it relies on healthy debate that, ideally, leads to the best ideas for mutual governance. As Baird told the class of 1952, “Ours is a government of talk …. Only thus can we have mature opinion and responsible action.” JENNIFER HEMMINGSEN http://www.iowalum.com/magazine/feb12/civility.cfm?page=all
Portmanteau words, also called blended words or simply portmanteaux, are words that are formed by splicing or merging two other words together. The term portmanteau words comes from Chapter Six of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, in which the character Humpty Dumpty, in explaining the meaning of the word slithy in the poem "Jabberwocky", says: “Well, slithy means 'lithe and slimy.' Lithe is the same as 'active.' You see it's like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word." This is a double joke: first, a portmanteau is a suitcase, in which one would “pack” things, like the multiple meanings within portmanteau words; second, portmanteau is itself a compound word, similar to portmanteau words, in that it is from the French words for "carry" – porter – and "cloak" – manteau. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-portmanteau-words.htm
The Parliament of Fowls by Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343-1400) Valentine is mentioned five times in this modern translation. http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/Fowls.htm
She was the fastest rabbit in town, taking just 11 seconds to jump all the hurdles in the round. Cherie, a 2-year-old Swedish bunny, left the competition in the dust at the U.K.'s Rabbit Grand National, held in the dignified Yorkshire town of Harrogate in late January. The lop-eared speed demon, who also won the competition last year, elicited gasps from the audience as she jumped hurdles close to 28 inches high. In Sweden, where the fluffy competitors train for up to two hours a day, there is an established network of breeders who are always looking for talent. "Our bunnies are so used to competing, so they know what to do," Ms. Hedlund says. Choosing the right breed of rabbit is also important. Sweden's 200 or so breeders are experimenting widely, and charge more—up to 1,500 kronor ($225)—for a rabbit with prizewinning parentage. Bunny-jumping enthusiasts say it is good for the rabbits. A domestic rabbit that is allowed to exercise can live 10 or 12 years, compared with five years at most if kept in a cage, says Lisbeth Jansson, who has written two books on rabbit jumping and, with her husband, Lars, runs Libra Arctic, the world's only professional maker of rabbit jumps. "These bunnies develop psyche, heart, lungs and muscles, so they live longer and the vets have more to do," she says. "Some [owners] even take out life insurance on renowned jumping rabbits. Despite their dominance of the sport, Swedish bunnies are bested by their Danish neighbors when it comes to world records. In 1999, a Danish rabbit called Yaboo set the world long-jump record when he flew over a three-meter, or nearly 10-feet, hurdle, while his compatriot Tösen bounced 99.5 centimeter, or about 40 inches, to nab the high-jump record in 1997. JAVIER ESPINOZA and ANNA MOLIN http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204652904577196912649404638.html
For his first show for the Paul Kasmin gallery in Manhattan, the artist Will Ryman will take over both of its locations with two massive installations, one in the gallery on 10th Avenue and the second in the newly opened space on West 27th Street, the former home of Bungalow 8, just around the corner. The show will run from February 16 to March 24. The two projects both feature an obsession with trash and items found at hardware stores. The first, called Everyman, will turn the original gallery into a gigantic human form in repose, some 50 feet long and curved around the walls of the gallery. Mr. Ryman’s shirt will be composed of work boots, flattened and painted, and his extended fingers will be bottlecaps. The second project, Bird, features a giant raven made of nails that range in size, from one inch to three feet. The bird holds a rose in its mouth, perhaps a reference to Mr. Ryman’s installation The Roses, which appeared on Park Avenue earlier this year. His roses could also be spotted at a new installation, Desublimation of the Rose, at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden during Art Basel Miami Beach.
http://www.galleristny.com/2011/12/big-willie-style-will-rymans-new-installations-will-take-over-paul-kasmin-gallery/
If your pension plan is underfunded, you could be at risk of losing some of your benefits. That isn't news. But did you know that your pension can be at risk even if the plan is relatively healthy? Something as seemingly innocuous as having a lump-sum payout provision, or even having a religious affiliation, could mean your benefits are vulnerable. Here are some red flags to look for, and some ways to protect yourself:
Your pension is healthy, but your employer isn't.
Your plan offers lump-sum payouts.
Your company changes hands.
Your employer gets religion. ELLEN E. SCHULTZ
See examples and explanations at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203315804577211064028695608.html
Sarasota, FL Feb. 10 If you're a theater buff with a serious interest in American comedy, "Once in a Lifetime" probably ranks high on the list of little-known shows you'd love to see onstage. Otherwise, I doubt you've heard of it. A farce about the coming of talking pictures to Hollywood, "Once in a Lifetime" was the first collaboration between George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, who went on to write "The Man Who Came to Dinner" and "You Can't Take It With You." It opened on Broadway in 1930 and ran for 406 performances, which was big business back then. Two years later, it was turned into a middling movie, then vanished from sight (the 1979 Broadway revival was a flop). Today the play is known solely because Mr. Hart wrote about it in "Act One," his 1959 autobiography. Why doesn't anybody do "Once in a Lifetime" nowadays? It costs too much—way too much. The published script calls for five sets and 38 actors. You could get away with that in the 1930s, but no commercial producer would think of bringing so horrendously expensive a play to Broadway anymore. Enter San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater and Sarasota's Asolo Repertory Theatre, two regional companies that double as drama schools, making it possible to put on large-cast shows by using students to cover smaller parts. ACT mounted "Once in a Lifetime" last fall and Asolo Rep is doing it now. TERRY TEACHOUT http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204136404577205803496515734.html
Professor A. Craig Baird, reading from a speech titled “The Responsibilities of Free Communication,” at a University of Iowa commencement speech in 1952, told his audience of newly minted graduates that they must “reject communication as the primitive art of arousing the emotions …. College graduates, as well as reporters, columnists, congressional investigators, must join in the search for intelligent answers to intelligent questions.” What exactly is civility? Civilpolitics.org, which provides a clearinghouse for research and approaches to improving America’s political dialogue, defines it as “the ability to disagree with others while respecting their sincerity and decency.” Essentially, America’s political system depends on a rational exchange of views; it relies on healthy debate that, ideally, leads to the best ideas for mutual governance. As Baird told the class of 1952, “Ours is a government of talk …. Only thus can we have mature opinion and responsible action.” JENNIFER HEMMINGSEN http://www.iowalum.com/magazine/feb12/civility.cfm?page=all
Portmanteau words, also called blended words or simply portmanteaux, are words that are formed by splicing or merging two other words together. The term portmanteau words comes from Chapter Six of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, in which the character Humpty Dumpty, in explaining the meaning of the word slithy in the poem "Jabberwocky", says: “Well, slithy means 'lithe and slimy.' Lithe is the same as 'active.' You see it's like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word." This is a double joke: first, a portmanteau is a suitcase, in which one would “pack” things, like the multiple meanings within portmanteau words; second, portmanteau is itself a compound word, similar to portmanteau words, in that it is from the French words for "carry" – porter – and "cloak" – manteau. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-portmanteau-words.htm
The Parliament of Fowls by Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343-1400) Valentine is mentioned five times in this modern translation. http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/Fowls.htm
Monday, February 13, 2012
When William Shield's comic opera Rosina was first performed at Covent Garden in 1782, Scottish song enthusiasts may have recognized a snippet of melody played by oboe and bassoon, in imitation of bagpipes, toward the end of the overture. It was reminiscent of "The Miller's Wedding," a popular Scottish country dance tune that foreshadowed the melody we now call "Auld Lang Syne." Shield included several such folk references in the opera, and this one led to repeated claims—entirely erroneous—that he had composed the now-famous air. http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/online/AuldLangSyne/default.asp?id=6
Until a few years ago it was assumed that the music to this famous song about time, love and friendship was the work of Scottish poet Robbie Burns. Controversy arose a number of years ago over claims that the tune was in fact written by Swalwell (village in northeast England)-born composer and musician William Shield, and appeared in his opera Rosina. With headlines such as ‘England lays claim to Auld Lang Syne’, appearing in the Independent, some people understandably got a little hot and bothered. The opera is a retelling of the biblical story of Ruth in a rural North of England setting, Rosina was Shield's fourth opera, and was a considerable success at its premiere on the last day of December, 1782. Clearly a popular tune it its day, it seems reasonable to imagine that it was heard by Burns, adapted and put to his words. Unfortunately there appears to be a strong case for arguing that neither Shield, nor Burns were responsible. According to Nigel Gatherer : “It's long been known that Burns did not write all the words to 'Auld Lang Syne', and he was the first man to say so. The first three verses belong to a much older song, to which Burns added two more.” Robert Burns in fact sent a copy of the original song to the British Museum with the comment: "The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man's singing, is enough to recommend any air." http://www.swalwell-online.co.uk/auld_lang_syne.htm
Paul Revere's Ride (excerpt) "the famous Revolutionary War poem that's really about slavery"
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend,—“If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
See the whole poem plus stories by Mark Twain, Henry James, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and others in the 150th anniversary of the Civil War commemorative issue of the Feb. 9, 2012 Atlantic at: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/toc/2012/02/
The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, testified in a courtroom Feb. 7 for the first time in his life. The web pioneer flew down from Boston, near where he teaches at MIT, to an eastern Texas federal court to speak to a jury of two men and six women about the early days of the web. His trip is part of an effort by a group of internet companies and retailers trying to defeat two patents — patents that a patent-licensing company called Eolas and the University of California are saying entitle them to royalty payments from just about anyone running a website.
The defendants, including Google, Amazon, and Yahoo, are hoping that Berners-Lee’s testimony—combined with that of other web pioneers like Netscape co-founder Eric Bina, Viola browser inventor Pei-Yuan Wei, and Dave Raggett (who invented the HTML “embed” tag) — will convince the jury that the inventions of Eolas and its founder, Michael Doyle, aren’t worth much. The stakes couldn’t be higher — if Berners-Lee and the defendants don’t succeed, Eolas and Doyle could insist on a payout from almost every modern website.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/tim-berners-lee-patent/
A Texas school-prayer case that fueled calls by Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich to curtail the power of federal judges was settled Feb. 9. Schultz v. Medina Valley Independent School District Case 5: 11-cv-00422-FB Document 136 Filed 02/09/12 from the document: What This Case Has Not Been About: The right to pray. The Real Issue: Does the United States Constitution allow a government entity elected by the majority to use its power to tax and its agents and employees to support and promote a particular religious viewpoint not held by a minority? Read the order at: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/tx/Schultz_v_Medina_Valley.pdf
"The Agreement is entered as a final judgment, resolving any and all claims set forth in Plaintiffs' Complaint and First Amended Complaint, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 54 and 58. Motions pending with the Court are DISMISSED as MOOT. The trial set for March 5, 2012, is CANCELLED. This case is ADMINISTRATIVELY CLOSED subject to reinstatement if necessary. It is so ORDERED. SIGNED this 9th day of February, 2012." Fred Biery Chief Judge United States District Court
An unusual personal statement follows the signature on page 3.
For 32 years, a portrait of a serene Mary Todd Lincoln hung in the governor’s mansion in Springfield, Ill., signed by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, a celebrated painter who lived at the White House for six months in 1864. The story behind the picture was compelling: Mrs. Lincoln had Mr. Carpenter secretly paint her portrait as a surprise for the president, but he was assassinated before she had a chance to present it to him. Now it turns out that both the portrait and the touching tale accompanying it are false. The canvas, which was purchased by Abraham Lincoln’s descendants before being donated to the state’s historical library in the 1970s, was discovered to be a hoax when it was sent to a conservator for cleaning, said James M. Cornelius, the curator of the Lincoln library and museum in Springfield. The museum is planning to present its findings at a lecture on April 26. The Lincolns were not the only ones fooled. Ever since The New York Times announced the portrait’s discovery in 1929, on Feb. 12, Lincoln’s birthday, historians and the public have assumed it depicted Mary Todd Lincoln. It was reproduced in The Chicago Tribune and National Geographic, and versions of it still illustrate at least two biographies, including the latest paperback edition of Carl Sandburg’s 1932 “Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow.” In reality, the painting depicts an unknown woman and was created by an anonymous 19th-century artist, said Barry Bauman, the independent conservator who uncovered the fraud. The con, however, dates to the late 1920s, when the portrait was recast as that of Mrs. Lincoln, he said. Mr. Bauman identifies the culprit behind the scam as Ludwig Pflum, who rechristened himself Lew Bloom and was given to the kind of self-invention that America became famous for during the industrial era. He worked as a jockey, circus clown, boxer and vaudevillian before settling on art collecting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/arts/design/portrait-of-mary-todd-lincoln-is-deemed-a-hoax.html
Until a few years ago it was assumed that the music to this famous song about time, love and friendship was the work of Scottish poet Robbie Burns. Controversy arose a number of years ago over claims that the tune was in fact written by Swalwell (village in northeast England)-born composer and musician William Shield, and appeared in his opera Rosina. With headlines such as ‘England lays claim to Auld Lang Syne’, appearing in the Independent, some people understandably got a little hot and bothered. The opera is a retelling of the biblical story of Ruth in a rural North of England setting, Rosina was Shield's fourth opera, and was a considerable success at its premiere on the last day of December, 1782. Clearly a popular tune it its day, it seems reasonable to imagine that it was heard by Burns, adapted and put to his words. Unfortunately there appears to be a strong case for arguing that neither Shield, nor Burns were responsible. According to Nigel Gatherer : “It's long been known that Burns did not write all the words to 'Auld Lang Syne', and he was the first man to say so. The first three verses belong to a much older song, to which Burns added two more.” Robert Burns in fact sent a copy of the original song to the British Museum with the comment: "The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man's singing, is enough to recommend any air." http://www.swalwell-online.co.uk/auld_lang_syne.htm
Paul Revere's Ride (excerpt) "the famous Revolutionary War poem that's really about slavery"
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend,—“If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
See the whole poem plus stories by Mark Twain, Henry James, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and others in the 150th anniversary of the Civil War commemorative issue of the Feb. 9, 2012 Atlantic at: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/toc/2012/02/
The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, testified in a courtroom Feb. 7 for the first time in his life. The web pioneer flew down from Boston, near where he teaches at MIT, to an eastern Texas federal court to speak to a jury of two men and six women about the early days of the web. His trip is part of an effort by a group of internet companies and retailers trying to defeat two patents — patents that a patent-licensing company called Eolas and the University of California are saying entitle them to royalty payments from just about anyone running a website.
The defendants, including Google, Amazon, and Yahoo, are hoping that Berners-Lee’s testimony—combined with that of other web pioneers like Netscape co-founder Eric Bina, Viola browser inventor Pei-Yuan Wei, and Dave Raggett (who invented the HTML “embed” tag) — will convince the jury that the inventions of Eolas and its founder, Michael Doyle, aren’t worth much. The stakes couldn’t be higher — if Berners-Lee and the defendants don’t succeed, Eolas and Doyle could insist on a payout from almost every modern website.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/tim-berners-lee-patent/
A Texas school-prayer case that fueled calls by Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich to curtail the power of federal judges was settled Feb. 9. Schultz v. Medina Valley Independent School District Case 5: 11-cv-00422-FB Document 136 Filed 02/09/12 from the document: What This Case Has Not Been About: The right to pray. The Real Issue: Does the United States Constitution allow a government entity elected by the majority to use its power to tax and its agents and employees to support and promote a particular religious viewpoint not held by a minority? Read the order at: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/tx/Schultz_v_Medina_Valley.pdf
"The Agreement is entered as a final judgment, resolving any and all claims set forth in Plaintiffs' Complaint and First Amended Complaint, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 54 and 58. Motions pending with the Court are DISMISSED as MOOT. The trial set for March 5, 2012, is CANCELLED. This case is ADMINISTRATIVELY CLOSED subject to reinstatement if necessary. It is so ORDERED. SIGNED this 9th day of February, 2012." Fred Biery Chief Judge United States District Court
An unusual personal statement follows the signature on page 3.
For 32 years, a portrait of a serene Mary Todd Lincoln hung in the governor’s mansion in Springfield, Ill., signed by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, a celebrated painter who lived at the White House for six months in 1864. The story behind the picture was compelling: Mrs. Lincoln had Mr. Carpenter secretly paint her portrait as a surprise for the president, but he was assassinated before she had a chance to present it to him. Now it turns out that both the portrait and the touching tale accompanying it are false. The canvas, which was purchased by Abraham Lincoln’s descendants before being donated to the state’s historical library in the 1970s, was discovered to be a hoax when it was sent to a conservator for cleaning, said James M. Cornelius, the curator of the Lincoln library and museum in Springfield. The museum is planning to present its findings at a lecture on April 26. The Lincolns were not the only ones fooled. Ever since The New York Times announced the portrait’s discovery in 1929, on Feb. 12, Lincoln’s birthday, historians and the public have assumed it depicted Mary Todd Lincoln. It was reproduced in The Chicago Tribune and National Geographic, and versions of it still illustrate at least two biographies, including the latest paperback edition of Carl Sandburg’s 1932 “Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow.” In reality, the painting depicts an unknown woman and was created by an anonymous 19th-century artist, said Barry Bauman, the independent conservator who uncovered the fraud. The con, however, dates to the late 1920s, when the portrait was recast as that of Mrs. Lincoln, he said. Mr. Bauman identifies the culprit behind the scam as Ludwig Pflum, who rechristened himself Lew Bloom and was given to the kind of self-invention that America became famous for during the industrial era. He worked as a jockey, circus clown, boxer and vaudevillian before settling on art collecting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/arts/design/portrait-of-mary-todd-lincoln-is-deemed-a-hoax.html
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Fox Studios won a pair of well deserved Oscar® nominations, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, for State Fair (1933), an affectionate slice of Americana. The film would inspire two musical remakes -- in 1945 and 1962 -- but true connoisseurs consider the original the perfect rendition of Philip Stong's tale of a family that finds love and adventure at the Iowa State Fair. Stong based his first hit novel on his own childhood growing up in Pittsburg, Iowa, where his father ran a general store. Fox quickly bought the rights for $15,000 and even offered him the chance to pen the film adaptation. Instead, it was written by Sonya Levien, who already had written such Janet Gaynor vehicles as Daddy Long Legs and Delicious (both 1931), and playwright Paul Green, known for such rural dramas as his Pulitzer Prize-winning In Abraham's Bosom and The House of Connelly. Their backgrounds came in handy when the studio cast their top female star, Gaynor (number two on the exhibitors' list of top box office stars for 1932), and homespun humorist Will Rogers, whose star at the studio had been steadily rising since the coming of sound. The writers crafted a tale perfectly suited for both, with daughter Gaynor falling for slick newspaperman Lew Ayres, while father Rogers hopes to lead his 900-pound hog to a blue ribbon. Rounding out the family are Louise Dresser as the mother who competes in the mincemeat competition with the help of a generous dose of apple brandy and Norman Foster as the son who falls for a beautiful trapeze artist (Sally Eilers). Blue Boy, Rogers's hog in the film, was played by the grand champion boar from the actual Iowa State Fair, Dike of Rosedale. State Fair was the first Fox film to open at the prestigious Radio City Music Hall and brought in $1.5 million at the box office, a big figure at that time and enough to earn it a place among the year's box office top ten. Ultimately, the film's popularity cost it a scene. State Fair had been made a year before the institution of strict Production Code enforcement in 1934. Although the writers had cut the novel's depiction of a sexual affair between the daughter and the reporter, they had kept the son's seduction by the trapeze artist. When Fox re-issued State Fair in 1935, the film industry's self-governing board insisted the scene be removed. The cut has never been restored. http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/455912%7C463931/State-Fair.html
In anatomy, heterochromia refers to a difference in coloration, usually of the iris but also of hair or skin. Heterochromia is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin (a pigment). It may be inherited, or caused by genetic mosaicism, disease, or injury. Eye color, specifically the color of the irises, is determined primarily by the concentration and distribution of melanin. The affected eye may be hyperpigmented (hyperchromic) or hypopigmented (hypochromic). In humans, usually, an excess of melanin indicates hyperplasia of the iris tissues, whereas a lack of melanin indicates hypoplasia. In complete heterochromia, one iris is a different color from the other. In partial heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia, part of one iris is a different color from its remainder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterochromia_iridum
James Coleman (born 1949) is an American painter who has worked for Disney as a background artist on numerous animated features. In 1991, after twenty-two years working for Disney, James left to pursue the true passion in his life, fine art. Find selected filmography and links to three sites at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Coleman_(American_artist)
Franklin Court Museum and exhibitions dedicated to Benjamin Franklin
318 Market Street Philadelphia, PA
Inventor. Publisher. Diplomat. Statesman. Scientist. The life and accomplishments of America’s favorite Renaissance man are celebrated in a museum complex tucked behind the city’s busy streets. A steel frame structure, nicknamed the “ghost house,” rises up from the ground, outlining the shape and dimensions of Franklin’s home. Like any couple, Benjamin and his wife Deborah had strong opinions about their home’s design and décor and excerpts from their correspondence about the topic are embedded in the walkways surrounding the house. Descend into the adjacent underground museum to discover some of Franklin’s many inventions including his glass “armonica” (a musical instrument), library chair and music stand. A 20-minute film narrated by David Hartman tells the story of Franklin’s amazing life. Architects Robert Venturi and John Rauch created Ghost Structures, steel frameworks tracing the outlines of Ben Franklin’s vanished house and print shop.
See a picture of Ghost Structures at: http://www.visitphilly.com/history/philadelphia/franklin-court/
Feb. 9 events
1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.
1825 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams President of the United States.
1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
1870 – President Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau.
1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.
1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.
1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a "record-busting" audience of 73 million viewers.
1965 – Vietnam War: The first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam.
Feb. 9 births
1645 – Johann Aegidius Bach, German violist (d. 1716)
1737 – Thomas Paine, English radical liberal philosopher, American revolutionary (d. 1809)
1773 – William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States (d. 1841)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_9
In anatomy, heterochromia refers to a difference in coloration, usually of the iris but also of hair or skin. Heterochromia is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin (a pigment). It may be inherited, or caused by genetic mosaicism, disease, or injury. Eye color, specifically the color of the irises, is determined primarily by the concentration and distribution of melanin. The affected eye may be hyperpigmented (hyperchromic) or hypopigmented (hypochromic). In humans, usually, an excess of melanin indicates hyperplasia of the iris tissues, whereas a lack of melanin indicates hypoplasia. In complete heterochromia, one iris is a different color from the other. In partial heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia, part of one iris is a different color from its remainder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterochromia_iridum
James Coleman (born 1949) is an American painter who has worked for Disney as a background artist on numerous animated features. In 1991, after twenty-two years working for Disney, James left to pursue the true passion in his life, fine art. Find selected filmography and links to three sites at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Coleman_(American_artist)
Franklin Court Museum and exhibitions dedicated to Benjamin Franklin
318 Market Street Philadelphia, PA
Inventor. Publisher. Diplomat. Statesman. Scientist. The life and accomplishments of America’s favorite Renaissance man are celebrated in a museum complex tucked behind the city’s busy streets. A steel frame structure, nicknamed the “ghost house,” rises up from the ground, outlining the shape and dimensions of Franklin’s home. Like any couple, Benjamin and his wife Deborah had strong opinions about their home’s design and décor and excerpts from their correspondence about the topic are embedded in the walkways surrounding the house. Descend into the adjacent underground museum to discover some of Franklin’s many inventions including his glass “armonica” (a musical instrument), library chair and music stand. A 20-minute film narrated by David Hartman tells the story of Franklin’s amazing life. Architects Robert Venturi and John Rauch created Ghost Structures, steel frameworks tracing the outlines of Ben Franklin’s vanished house and print shop.
See a picture of Ghost Structures at: http://www.visitphilly.com/history/philadelphia/franklin-court/
Feb. 9 events
1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.
1825 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams President of the United States.
1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
1870 – President Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau.
1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.
1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.
1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a "record-busting" audience of 73 million viewers.
1965 – Vietnam War: The first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam.
Feb. 9 births
1645 – Johann Aegidius Bach, German violist (d. 1716)
1737 – Thomas Paine, English radical liberal philosopher, American revolutionary (d. 1809)
1773 – William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States (d. 1841)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_9
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