One of America’s oldest native crops, pumpkins were an important staple long before Europeans crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered them.  Cultivated independently by the indigenous peoples of North and South America, pumpkins—or more accurately, pumpkin seeds—have been found at archaeological sites in the American southwest dating back six thousand years, as well as at sites throughout Mexico, Central and South America, and the eastern United States.  Evidently, seeds were the only part consumed by these ancient cultures because the flesh of most wild pumpkins was too bitter to eat.  Once cultivation altered the pumpkin enough to make it palatable, Native Americans devoured every part of the plant—seeds, flesh, flowers, and leaves.  Pumpkins and squashes of all sorts could be baked or roasted whole in the fire, cut up and boiled, or added to soup.  Removing the seeds, cutting the pumpkin into strips, and drying them—making a sort of jerky—effectively preserved them.  Indians also dried the outer shells of pumpkins and squashes and used them as water vessels, bowls, and storage containers.  In Massachusetts, the Pilgrims found pumpkin a mainstay.  

A poem dating from the 1630s tells the important role pumpkin played in their diet:

Stead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies, 
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon, 
If it were not for pumpkins we should be undoon.  (You may substitute  "pompions" for pumpkins.)  

Colonial Americans also drank their pumpkin.  An enterprising person can make an alcoholic beverage out of almost anything, and the Pilgrims seem to have been first to make pumpkin beer or ale.  The Pilgrim recipe was said to involve a mixture of persimmons, hops, maple syrup, and, of course, pumpkin.  Further south in Virginia, planter Landon Carter mentions pumpkins in his diary in 1765.  He, too, concocted some sort of alcoholic beverage from fermented pumpkins.  He christened it pumperkin.  Mary Miley Theobald  http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/autumn09/pumpkins.cfm

Stewed Pompion  This recipe for pumpkin, known as "pompions" to English people in the 17th century (as were all squash) is one of the earliest written recipes from New England, from a book written by John Josselyn, a traveler to New England in the 1600's.  (John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New England.)  John Josselyn called this recipe a “standing dish” suggesting that this sort of pumpkin dish was eaten everyday or even at every meal.  http://www.food.com/recipe/stewed-pompion-pumpkin-189584

Pompions were not common in old England, because they're vining plants which means they need hot summers, but they were incredibly abundant when the Pilgrims arrived here.  They mention three types: something called a vining apple, which by all accounts is an acorn squash, something called a buckler which sounds like a Patty Pan, and the Great Pompion, known today as a jack-o-lantern.  Find a recipe for PUMPKIN PIE (THE BEST) which uses either pumpkin or winter squash at http://www.diaryofalocavore.com/2012/11/the-local-food-report-stewed-pompion.html

In the year 2008 the artist Stan Herd traveled to Salina Kansas to recreate Leonardo da Vinci”s ‘glider’ sketch under the take off of Pilot Steve Fossett’s global flyer.  The one acre earthwork would become part of this amazing International story circumnavigating the globe.  From the artist’s 160 acre portrait of Kiowa Chief Satanta in 1981 through 35 monumental earthworks over the next 40 years, Stan Herd would become known as the ‘Father of Crop Art’, a term coined by Dan Rather on CBS evening news, his work was featured in major publications in 30 countries around the world and on major networks in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, Cuba, Australia, China, the Arab Emirates and Japan.  Inspired by ancient designs in England and Peru, the artist’s work also followed on the heels of American land based artists Christo, Heizer, Smithson and Walter de Maria.  http://www.stanherdarts.com/  Stan Herd's  latest work is a monumental 1.2-acre interpretation of Van Gogh’s 1889 Painting “Olive Trees” planted in Minneapolis.  http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/09/stand-herd-van-gogh-field/

culpa (Latin:  blame; responsible for wrong or error)

exculpation  1. The act of freeing from guilt or blame.  2.  A defense of some offensive behavior or some failure to keep a promise, etc.

inculpation  1.  To incriminate.  2.  Blame; censure; incrimination.  3.  An accusation that someone is responsible for some lapse or misdeed.  http://wordinfo.info/unit/585/page:2

Have you ever snapped angrily at someone when you were hungry?  Or has someone snapped angrily at you when they were hungry?  If so, you've experienced "hangry" (an amalgam of hungry and angry)--the phenomenon whereby some people get grumpy and short-tempered when they're overdue for a feed.  The carbohydrates, proteins and fats in everything you eat are digested into simple sugars (such as glucose), amino acids and free fatty acids.  These nutrients pass into your bloodstream from where they are distributed to your organs and tissues and used for energy.  As time passes after your last meal, the amount of these nutrients circulating in your bloodstream starts to drop.  If your blood-glucose levels fall far enough, your brain will perceive it as a life-threatening situation.  Unlike most other organs and tissues in your body which can use a variety of nutrients to keep functioning, your brain is critically dependent on glucose to do its job.  Besides a drop in blood-glucose concentrations, another reason people can become hangry is the glucose counter-regulatory response.  When blood-glucose levels drop to a certain threshold, your brain sends instructions to several organs in your body to synthesize and release hormones that increase the amount of glucose in your bloodstream.  The four main glucose counter-regulatory hormones are: growth hormone from the pituitary gland situated deep in the brain; glucagon from the pancreas; and adrenaline, which is sometimes called epinephrine, and cortisol, which are both from the adrenal glands.  These latter two glucose counter-regulatory hormones are stress hormones that are released into your bloodstream in all sorts of stressful situations, not just when you experience the physical stress of low blood-glucose levels.  In fact, adrenaline is one of the major hormones released into your bloodstream with the "fight or flight" response to a sudden scare, such as when you see, hear or even think something that threatens your safety.  Just as you might easily shout out in anger at someone during the "fight or flight" response, the flood of adrenaline you get during the glucose counter-regulatory response can promote a similar response.  Another reason hunger is linked to anger is that both are controlled by common genes.  The product of one such gene is neuropeptide Y, a natural brain chemical released into the brain when you are hungry. It stimulates voracious feeding behaviours by acting on a variety of receptors in the brain, including one called the Y1 receptor.  Besides acting in the brain to control hunger, neuropeptide Y and the Y1 receptor also regulate anger or aggression.  In keeping with this, people with high levels of neuropeptide Y in their cerebrospinal fluid also tend to show high levels of impulse aggression.  Read more at http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/20/health/science-behind-being-hangry/

Re:  Blocking robocalls.  It is possible to block unwanted callers on cellphones.  Before blocking an unfamiliar number, you may wish to run a Google search on it by simply keyboarding the number into the Google search box.  If it is a robocall or telemarketer call, you'll probably find people reporting it on one of the various sites that will come up.
Robocallers may switch numbers, but blocking new numbers as they come up may prove effective.  If the links below aren't helpful for blocking calls from your specific phone, you can probably find directions on the web by searching your particular phone's blocking features on Google.  Block calls on iPhone  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201229  Block calls on Android phones  http://www.wikihow.com/Block-a-Number-on-Android  Thank  you, Muse reader!

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1359  October 8, 2015  On this date in 1582, this day did not exist in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar.  On this date in 1982, Cats opened on Broadway, running for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.