Most Icelanders are descendants of Norwegian settlers and Celts from Ireland and Scotland who were brought over as slaves during the age of settlement.  Recent DNA analysis suggests that around 66 percent of the male settler-era population was of Norse ancestry, where as the female population was 60 percent Celtic.  Iceland remained remarkably homogenous from Settlement until the 20th century.  Around 1% of the population of Iceland in 1900 was Danish (born in Denmark or to Danish parents).  Due to a shortage of labor, immigration to Iceland will most likely increase in the future.  Estimates show that the number of immigrants could be as high as 15% of the total population by 2030.  According to Icelandic government statistics, 99% of the nation's inhabitants live in urban areas (localities with populations greater than 200) and 60% live in the Capital Region.  Of the North Germanic languages, the Icelandic language is closest to the Old Norse language and has remained relatively unchanged since the 12th century.  Because of its small size and relative homogeneity, Iceland holds all the characteristics of a very close-knit society.  Large numbers of Icelanders began to emigrate from Iceland in the 1850s.  It has been estimated that around 17,000 Icelanders emigrated to North America in the period 1870-1914, with some 2,000 people returning to Iceland.  A total of around 15,000 individuals amount to roughly 20% of the Icelandic population in 1887.  According to historian Gunnar Karlsson, "migration from Iceland is unique in that most went to Canada, whereas from most or all other European countries the majority went to the United States.  This was partly due to the late beginning of emigration from Iceland after the Canadian authorities had begun to promote emigration in cooperation with the Allan Line, which already had an agent in Iceland in 1873.  Contrary to most European countries, this promotion campaign was successful in Iceland, because emigration was only just about to start from there and Icelandic emigrants had no relatives in the United States to help them take the first steps".  All living Icelanders, as well as all foreign citizens with permanent residence in Iceland, have a personal identification number (kennitala) identifying them in the National Registry.  This number is composed of 10 digits, whereof the first six are made up of the individual's birth date in the format DDMMYY.  The next two digits are chosen at random when the kennitala is allocated, the 9th digit is a check digit, and the last digit indicates the period of one hundred years in which the individual was born (for instance, '9' for the period 1900–1999).  An example would be 120192-3389.  While similar, all-inclusive personal registries exist in other countries, the use of the national registry is unusually extensive in Iceland.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Iceland

In Iceland only names which appear on the Personal Names Register are allowed.  Other names cannot be used, but it is possible to apply to a committee for permission to use a name which is not yet listed.  The committee does not accept every name.  List of approved Icelandic female names  List of approved Icelandic male names  http://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Icelandic_Names

The old Nordic tradition of patronymic/matronymic names is still in use in Iceland and by some people in the Faroe Islands.  This means that surnames are not fixed and cannot be inherited from the preceding generation.  To build a surname, one adds a suffix to the first name of one of the parents, usually the father.  Surnames like these are called patronymic or matronymic names.  Patronyms are names based on the first name of the father, matronyms are based on the first name of the mother.  http://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Surnames

In the first decade of the 21st century, commodity prices for copper and nickel, which make up the five-cent coin, rose dramatically, pushing the cost of manufacturing a nickel from 3.46 cents in fiscal year 2003 to 10.09 cents in fiscal year 2012.  By comparison, a Canadian nickel (which is primarily made of steel) still costs less than its face value to produce as of 2013.  In response, Mint Director Henrietta Fore in 2004 asked Congress to fund research into lower-cost alternatives to present coinage metals.  Although the initiative lapsed when she left office in 2005, in 2010, Congress passed the Coin Modernization, Oversight, and Continuity Act (CMOCA), directing the Mint to explore alternatives to the present compositions of the six denominations, from cent to dollar.  In 2011, the Mint awarded a contract to study the issue to Concurrent Technologies Corporation of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  The report in response to the legislation declared that there is no material that would reduce the one-cent coin's manufacturing cost to below one cent, so it was removed from consideration.  The report requested additional time to study the issue, ensuring the continuation, for the present, of the existing coinage metals.  Meanwhile, in an attempt to avoid losing large quantities of circulating nickels to melting, the United States Mint introduced new interim rules on December 14, 2006, that criminalized the melting and export of pennies (which as of 2013 cost 1.83 cents to produce) and nickels. Violators of these rules can be punished with a fine of up to $10,000, five years imprisonment, or both.  The rules were finalized on April 17, 2007.  The melt value of a nickel for some time was more than five cents, including nearing over one-and-a-half times its face value in May 2007.  Since then, the supply and demand of the coin's composition metals have stabilized.  A nickel's melt value fell below its face value from late 2008 through mid-2010, and more recently again from late mid-2012 through the present.  In February 2014, it was reported that the Mint was conducting experiments to use copper-plated zinc (the same composition used for the United States 1 cent coin) for the nickel.  In December 2014, the Mint released its next Biennial report in response to the CMOCA.  In it, the Mint declared that plated zinc products did not hold up to steam/wear tests and were rejected for US coins outside the penny (which does not see significant use by the public).  Materials considered "feasible" for the 5-cent coin were nickel-plated steel, multi-ply-plated steel, and potentially another copper/nickel alloy, this time with ~77% copper, ~20% nickel, and ~3% manganese.  Further testing was recommended to explore even less expensive alloys that would not require changes to vending machines (as the steel-based materials would require).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_(United_States_coin)

Discworld is a comic fantasy book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett (1948–2015), set on the fictional Discworld, a flat disc balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin.  The books frequently parody or take inspiration from J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft and William Shakespeare, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, often using them for satirical parallels with current cultural, political and scientific issues.  The series is popular, with more than 80 million books sold in 37 languages.  Forty one Discworld novels have been published.  Pratchett, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, said that he would be happy for his daughter Rhianna to continue the series when he is no longer able to do so.  However, Rhianna has stated she will only be involved in spin-offs, adaptations and tie-ins, and that there will be no more novels.  The original British editions of the first 26 novels, up to Thief of Time (2001), had distinctive cover art by Josh Kirby.  The American editions, published by Harper Collins, used their own cover art.  Since Kirby's death in October 2001, the covers have been designed by Paul Kidby.  Companion publications include eleven short stories (some only loosely related to the Discworld), four popular science books, and a number of supplementary books and reference guides.  In addition, the series has been adapted for graphic novels, for the theatre, as computer and board games, as music inspired by the series, and repeatedly for television.  Newly released Discworld books regularly topped The Sunday Times best-sellers list, making Pratchett the UK's best-selling author in the 1990s, although he has since been overtaken by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.  Discworld novels have also won awards such as the Prometheus Award and the Carnegie Medal. In the BBC's Big Read, four Discworld novels were in the top 100, and a total of fourteen in the  top 200.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld

Cronkite News http://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/, is produced by students at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, one of the 24 independent schools at Arizona State University and named in honor of veteran broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite.

The Glass-Steagall Act:  A Legal and Policy Analysis by David H. Carpenter, Edward V. Murphy, and M. Maureen Murphy  January 19, 2016 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R44349  Read 25-page document at https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44349.pdf

Can mothers be lawmakers? by Cathaleen Chen   Jennifer Herold, a mother of two, is running for the 7th House district seat in the Ohio legislature.  An occupational therapist, the Republican candidate has two main issues on her platform:  mental health awareness and funding for schools.  But her opponent, state Sen. Tom Patton, is drawing attention to another element of her campaign.  On a radio show last week, he emphasized the fact that Ms. Herold is a young mother.  “The gal that’s running against me is a 30-year-old, you know, mom, mother of two infants,” Patton said on America’s Work Force radio show with Ed Ferenc.  “I don’t know if anybody explained to her you have to spend three nights a week in Columbus.  So, how does that work out for you?  I waited until I was 48, until my kids were raised, and at least adults, before we took the opportunity to try.”  Mr. Patton, who told the radio host that he hasn’t faced any primary challenges since 2002, went on to call Ms. Herold by what some would consider a term of condescension--“sweetie.”  http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2016/0128/Can-mothers-be-lawmakers-Ohio-senator-asks

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1417  January 29, 2016  On this date in 1845, "The Raven" was published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe  Quote of the Day:  "Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something." - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (29 January 1860–15 July 1904) , Russian short story writer and playwright.  Alternate Version:  Nothing better forges a bond of love, friendship or respect than common hatred toward something.  Quoted in "Psychologically Speaking:  A Book of Quotations", page 96 by Kevin Connolly, Margaret Martlew, 1999.  

Jules Gabriel Verne (1828–1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright best known for his adventure novels and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction.  Verne was born in the seaport of Nantes, where he was trained to follow in his father's footsteps as a lawyer, but quit the profession early in life to write for magazines and the stage.  His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages Extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).  Verne is generally considered a major literary author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism.  His reputation is markedly different in Anglophone regions, where he has often been labeled a writer of genre fiction or children's books, largely because of the highly abridged and altered translations in which his novels are often reprinted.  Verne has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, ranking between the English-language writers Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare; he probably was the most-translated during the 1960s and 1970s.  In English he is one so-called father of science fiction, a title also given to H. G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback.  Verne's largest body of work is the Voyages Extraordinaires series, which includes all of his novels except for the two rejected manuscripts Paris in the Twentieth Century and Backwards to Britain (published posthumously in 1989 and 1994, respectively) and for projects left unfinished at his death (many of which would be posthumously adapted or rewritten for publication by his son Michel).  Verne also wrote many plays, poems, song texts, operetta libretti, and short stories, as well as a variety of essays and miscellaneous non-fiction.  Read more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne

Around the World in Eighty Days is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1873.  In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager (roughly £1.6 million today) set by his friends at the Reform Club.  The story starts in London on Tuesday, October 1, 1872.  At the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an argument over an article in The Daily Telegraph stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world in 80 days.  Accompanied by Passepartout, he leaves London by train at 8:45 P.M. on Wednesday, October 2, 1872, and is due back at the Reform Club at the same time 80 days later, Saturday, December 21, 1872.  The science fiction novel The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip José Farmer gives an alternate interpretation of the story.  In 1874 a theatrical adaptation by Verne and Adolphe d'Ennery opened at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris for 415 performances; in April 1876 it transferred to the Théâtre du Châtelet where it ran for 2,195 performances over 64 years.  In 1946 Orson Welles produced and starred in Around the World, a musical stage version, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, that was only loosely faithful to Verne's original.  A musical version, 80 Days, with songs by Ray Davies of The Kinks and a book by playwright Snoo Wilson, directed by Des McAnuff, ran at the Mandell Weiss Theatre in San Diego from August 23 to October 9, 1988, receiving mixed responses from the critics.  Davies's multi-faceted music, McAnuff's directing, and the acting were well received, with the show winning the "Best Musical" award from the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle.  In 2013 a musical version "Around the World in 80 Days" with book and lyrics by Chris Blackwood and music by Piers Chater Robinson went on general release and has had productions across the globe.  Mark Brown adapted the book for a five-actor stage production in 2001.  St. James Theatre, London put on an adaptation by Laura Eason which was directed by Lucy Bailey and ran from 26 November 2015 to 17 January 2016 with Robert Portal as Fogg, Simon Gregor as Passepartout and Shanaya Rafaat as Aouda.  See adaptations for radio, films, television and games at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_in_Eighty_Days

See also http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/67646/Around-the-World-in-80-Days/notes.html

Cyberlaw Clinic – Harvard Law School – [January 16, 2016], “the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic, on behalf of a group of esteemed law scholars, filed an amicus brief (pdf) in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) v. Public.Resource.org.  Amici argue in the brief that model codes incorporated into law are not, and should not be, copyrightable.  Several standards developing organizations (SDOs)--including ASTM, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)--filed the lawsuit against Public Resourceback in 2013, alleging copyright and trademark infringement.  After a lengthy discovery process, the federal District Court in D.C. is currently considering motions for summary judgment from both parties.”  http://www.bespacific.com/clinic-works-with-law-scholars-to-argue-against-copyright-in-legal-codes/

Ramsey, Michael D., The Original Meaning of ‘Natural Born’ (January 7, 2016).  Available at SSRN:  http://ssrn.com/abstract=2712485 orhttp://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2712485  McManamon, Mary Brigid, The Natural Born Citizen Clause as Originally Understood (2015).  Catholic University Law Review, v. 64, no. 2 (2015); Widener Law School Legal Studies Research Paper No. 14-21.  Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2444766

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

photoshop   (FOT-uh-shop)  verb tr.  To digitally alter an image, especially in order to distort reality.  From Adobe Photoshop, a widely-used software package for editing images.  Earliest documented use:  1992.

peeps  (peeps)  noun  People, especially when referring to one’s friends or associates.  Shortened form of people.  Earliest documented use:  1847.

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day

From:  David Fischer  Subject:  Photoshop  It is unfortunate that “photoshop” has acquired such negative connotations.  In the old days of black-and-white film, advanced amateurs and pros routinely used filters to darken skies, and dodged and burned their prints to bring out or diminish certain areas.  Photoshop now makes such operations so much easier and more exact.  No one ever asked me if I did these things in the old days, but I have been asked (more like accused) about Photoshop use.  For me it is just another tool to make an expressive print.

From:  Steve Haskin  Subject:  photoshop  There are also several variant words derived from the same root:  “That photo looks shopped.” etc.  I’ve been a Photoshop guy since ‘91, BTW.  It was actually released for the original Mac SE in 89.  Windows came in 1991 or so.  The original greyscale editor was developed in 1987-8 by the Knoll brothers.

From:  Larry Alden  Subject:  Peeps   To a birder, peeps are small brown and white sandpipers (named for the peeping call notes, I gather).  The five common North American species of peeps are told apart by subtle differences in feather color, size, leg color, wing length, bill structure, etc.  Due to the fact that their plumages vary with season and age along with the possibility of similar species showing up from Europe or Asia, peeps provide an identification challenge to even the best birders.

From:  Eve Burton  Subject: peeps  When I saw the word “peeps”, I immediately thought of marshmallow chicks, ubiquitous at Easter.  My husband agreed that was the first meaning of the word to pop into his head.  I also thought of baby chicks.  I’d never heard the word “peeps” applied to people before.

From:  Robert Low  Subject:  peeps  With “peeps”, you should have added (and you will doubtless get many responses just like mine) that “peeps” are what baby chickens use to keep contact with their “momma” hen when they are out “free ranging” for insects.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1416  January 28, 2016

To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one. -  Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, author (28 Jan 1873-1954)  Colette was a French novelist nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.  Her best known work, the novella Gigi, was the basis for the film and Lerner and Loewe stage production of the same name.

Rhetoric and Law:  the double life of Richard Posner, America’s most contentious legal reformer by Lincoln Caplan    Judge Richard A. Posner, LL.B. ’62, is a fierce iconoclast who adorns his chambers with icons.  In one corner are photographs of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Judge Henry Friendly.  In the opposite corner is one of Justice Benjamin Cardozo.  In Posner’s words, Holmes is “the most illustrious figure in the history of American law.”  Friendly was “the most powerful legal reasoner in American legal history.”  Cardozo “has no peers” among twentieth-century state court judges and was “a great judge.”  It’s been a generation since Friendly died:  he sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, from 1959 to 1986.  The other two died long before him:  Holmes served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1903 to 1932; Cardozo made his reputation on New York State’s highest court for 18 years and then sat on the U.S. Supreme Court for six until he died in 1938.  But for Posner, they remain alive through their judicial opinions as shapers of legal pragmatism, which he considers the only viable approach to judging in the United States today.  In The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand, Bass professor of English, called the “attitude” of pragmatism “an idea about ideas.”  “They are “not ‘out there’ waiting to be discovered,” Menand wrote, “but are tools—like forks and knives and microchips—that people devise to cope with the world in which they find themselves.”  Pragmatism holds that people, not individuals, produce ideas, which are social, “entirely dependent, like germs, on their human carriers and the environment.”  The survival of ideas, Menand wrote, “depends not on their immutability but on their adaptability.”  Read more at http://harvardmagazine.com/2015/12/rhetoric-and-law

The mission of the LBJ Presidential Library is "to preserve and protect the historical materials in the collections of the library and make them readily accessible; to increase public awareness of the American experience through relevant exhibitions and educational programs; to advance the LBJ Library's standing as a center for intellectual activity and community leadership while meeting the challenges of a changing world."  Situated on a 30-acre site on The University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas, the library houses 45 million pages of historical documents, 650,000 photos and 5,000 hours of recordings from President Johnson's political career, including about 643 hours of his recorded telephone conversations.  The ten-story building was designed by award-winning architect Gordon Bunshaft and features a Great Hall with a stunning four-story, glass-encased view of the archives collection.  A centerpiece in the Great Hall of the LBJ Library is the photo-engraving mural by artist Naomi Savage.  Approximately 100,000 visitors from around the world visit the LBJ Library exhibits each year.  http://www.lbjlibrary.org/page/library-museum/

Haptics (pronounced HAP-tiks) is the science of applying touch (tactile) sensation and control to interaction with computer applications.  (The word derives from the Greek haptein meaning "to fasten.")  By using special input/output devices (joysticks, data gloves, or other devices), users can receive feedback from computer applications in the form of felt sensations in the hand or other parts of the body.  In combination with a visual display, haptics technology can be used to train people for tasks requiring hand-eye coordination, such as surgery and space ship maneuvers.  It can also be used for games in which you feel as well as see your interactions with images.  For example, you might play tennis with another computer user somewhere else in the world.  Both of you can see the moving ball and, using the haptic device, position and swing your tennis racket and feel the impact of the ball.  http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/haptics  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haptics

As the first and only facility of its kind, the National First Ladies' Library of Canton, Ohio serves as a unique national resource for patrons from school children to serious scholars.  The National First Ladies’ Library is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that operates and manages the First Ladies National Historic Site in a partnership agreement with the National Park Service.  In October, 2000 President Bill Clinton signed a bill establishing the First Ladies National Site as the 380^th unit of the National Park Service.  The site consists of the Ida Saxton McKinley House, the family home of First Lady Ida Saxton McKinley and the longtime residence of William and Ida McKinley, and the Education and Research Center.  The Ed Center has exhibit space, a Victorian theatre, a research library, conference and seminar rooms, archival storage and processing rooms, and administrative offices.  http://www.firstladies.org/libraryobjective.aspx

Annie Proulx, The Art of Fiction No. 199  Interview by Christopher Cox   Proulx was in her fifties when she published her first short-story collection, Heart Songs (1988), but since then she has worked steadily, publishing four novels and three more story collections.  She often takes as her subject the dissolution of North American rural life:  farmers, laborers, and ranchers whose livelihood is destroyed both by changes in society and their own purblind stubbornness.  Proulx considers her short stories to be a greater accomplishment than her novels, particularly her three volumes of Wyoming stories—Close Range (1999), Bad Dirt (2004), and Fine Just the Way It Is (2008)—which cover broad swaths of Wyoming history, from the earliest trappers and settlers to the ranchers and game wardens and oil men who populate the state today.  Her long story “Brokeback Mountain,” from Close Range, was named an O. Henry Prize Story and won a National Magazine Award, and pieces from all three collections have been anthologized.  “The Wamsutter Wolf,” which appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of The Paris Review, received the magazine’s Aga Khan Prize for fiction and was collected in Bad Dirt.  Both The Shipping News and “Brokeback Mountain” were made into movies.  Read 2009 interview with Annie Proulx at http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5901/the-art-of-fiction-no-199-annie-proulx  Find  interviews from The Paris Review, 1990s to the 2010s, at http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews 

Quote from Accordion Crimes a novel by Annie Proulx  "You a living example, cast your bread upon the waters, it comes back moldy."  Accordion Crimes, recounts the 100-year journey of a small green accordion and the immigrant experience in America.

Swan House at Atlanta History Center was one of many Georgia set locations used during the filming of the movies The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire, Mockingjay:  Part 1, and Mockingjay:  Part 2.  http://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/swan-house-capitol-tours  See also https://savingplaces.org/stories/atlantas-swan-house-historic-home-hunger-games-set#.VoxXDPkrKUk and http://atlanta.curbed.com/archives/2015/11/23/hunger-games-filming-location-tour-atlanta-swan-house.php

A long-lost Beatrix Potter book, The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots, is set to be released fall 2016, 150 years after the beloved author's birth.  The tale about a sharply dressed feline has "all the hallmarks of Potter's best works," editor Jo Hanks, who stumbled upon the story, says in an interview with Penguin U.K., which will publish the book.  At the time Potter was writing Kitty-in-Boots in 1914, she told her publisher that the story was centered on "a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads rather a double life."  Hanks says she "stumbled on an out-of-print collection of her writings" and saw that reference to the story in a letter from Potter to her publisher.  This led her to the publisher's archive, where she says she found "three manuscripts, two handwritten in children's school notebooks and one typeset and laid out in a dummy book; one rough colour sketch of Kitty-in-Boots and a pencil rough of our favourite arch-villain, Mr Tod."  The tale features a favorite Potter character—Peter Rabbit—"albeit older, slower and portlier," Hanks says.  Because Potter finished only one drawing for the book, it will be illustrated by Quentin Blake, who is best-known for his art in many of Roald Dahl's books.  See a picture of the original Kitty in Boots, which Beatrix Potter illustrated herself.  http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/26/464433143/100-years-later-beatrix-potter-tale-of-sharply-dressed-feline-to-be-published

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1415  January 27, 2016  On this date in 1756,

 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, ( baptized as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart), Austrian composer and musician, was born.  On this date in 1832,  Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), English novelist, poet, and mathematician, was born.  

Stella Dorothea Gibbons (1902-1989) was an English author, journalist, and poet.  She established her reputation with her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm (1932), which won the literary Prix Femina Étranger and has been reprinted many times.  Although she was active as a writer for half a century, none of her later 22 novels or other literary works—which included a sequel to Cold Comfort Farm—achieved the same critical or popular success.  Much of her work was long out of print before a modest revival in the 21st century.  The daughter of a London doctor, Gibbons had a turbulent and often unhappy childhood.  After an indifferent school career she trained as a journalist, and worked as a reporter and features writer, mainly for the Evening Standard and The Lady.  Her first book, published in 1930, was a collection of poems which was well received, and through her life she considered herself primarily a poet rather than a novelist.  After Cold Comfort Farm, a satire on the genre of rural-themed "loam and lovechild" novels popular in the late 1920s, most of Gibbons's novels were based within the middle-class suburban world with which she was familiar.  Gibbons became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950.  Her style has been praised by critics for its charm, barbed humour and descriptive skill, and has led to comparison with Jane Austen.  The impact of Cold Comfort Farm dominated her career, and she grew to resent her identification with the book to the exclusion of the rest of her output.  Widely regarded as a one-work novelist, she and her works have not been accepted into the canon of English literature—partly, other writers have suggested, because of her detachment from the literary world and her tendency to mock it.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Gibbons

cold comfort   Slight consolation or encouragement in the face of a reverse.  This dates back to the 14th century. E. E. Allit. includes the line, "Lorde!  colde watz his cumfort."  It was used in early literature by several authors, notable Chaucer and Shakespeare.  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/81550.html

In the beginning was the Proto-Indo-European root “ten,” meaning “to stretch” (source of the adjective and verb “tense”).  From that came the Latin verb “tendere” (meaning “to stretch, point, direct, touch, offer”), and we were off and running.  With the help of some common Latin prefixes, we ended up with scads of “tend” words, including “attend,” “contend,” “distend,” “intend,” “extend,” “portend,” “pretend,” “subtend” and, of course, “bartend.”  English actually has two verbs we might call “just plain tend,” which are considered separate words although they both come from “tendere.”  “Tend” in the sense of “to care for, watch over” is actually an aphetic, or cropped, form of “attend,” which we borrowed from Old French in the 15th century and rests on the sense of “stretching” one’s mind, ears, eyes, etc., “towards” an object, person, etc.  Our other “tend,” meaning “to have an inclination to do something” (“Bob tends to ignore instructions”), appeared in English around the same time.  “Intend” comes from the Latin “intendere,” meaning “to turn one’s attention to” (literally “to stretch toward”) which also included the sense of “to plan.”  “Extend,” which appeared in the 14th century, was derived from the Latin “extendere,” meaning “to stretch out, expand.”  The original, now obsolete, sense of “extend” implied strong stretching or straining, but the weaker sense of “straighten or extend” (as one “extends” one’s arm) had appeared by the late 14th century.  The sense of “prolong in duration” first appeared in the late 16th century. Today we also use “extend” in senses including the geographic sense of “cover” (as in “His sales territory extends as far as California”) and “hold out, put forward” in (as in “He extended an offer of settlement to the victim”).  “Pretend,” which also appeared in English in the 14th century, comes ultimately from the Latin verb “praetendere” (“prae” meaning “before,” plus our old pal “tendere,” to stretch).  One of the senses of the Latin verb, carried into Anglo-Norman and from there to English, was “to put forward as a pretext or reason; to deceptively allege.”  So “pretend” has a long history of deception.  http://www.word-detective.com/2015/08/extend-pretend-etc/  See also http://membean.com/wrotds/ten-hold and http://wordinfo.info/unit/2808

The personal history of Phaedrus (15 BC-50 AD), a first century Roman writer, has been lost in the mist of history, but his fables in verse based on those of Aesop will live for countless generations to come.  Fables are one of the oldest forms of storytelling that have come down to us and survived through the ages.  They appear in cultures throughout the world, including those of ancient India and the Mediterranean region.  The oldest form of storytelling is the myth.  One style of myth is referred to an "animism," where every object, human or otherwise, assumes a personality.  Animals, rocks, weather phenomenon, as well as man are each given human characteristics.  This primitive form held no particular relationship to religion or science, but was told only for its entertainment value.  Although less primitive in style than the animistic tale, the Aesop Fable has its foundation in this form of myth.  The form recognized as the Western tradition is thought to begin with Aesop in the 6th century BC.  He created his fables by applying personalities to his characters regardless of their humanity.  These are learned tales, in written form—not handed down by word of mouth.  Each fable presents its reader with a double meaning and is intended to teach a moral lesson.  http://biography.yourdictionary.com/phaedrus

Find source of "things are not always what they seem" and "added insult to injury" at https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Phaedrus_(fabulist)

An added attraction for one person is an added detraction for another.  Do you want to hear recorded background music with a loud mechanized percussive beat?  Is it pleasing--or is it annoying?

The Diary of Anne Frank has been put online by a French politician and an academic, who cite EU law and the importance of intellectual freedom.  The Basel-based Anne Frank Foundation is considering legal action, saying it still holds the copyright.  “Anne Frank died in 1945 [in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany], therefore her diary should enter the public domain on January 1, 2016,” argues Olivier Ertzscheid, a lecturer at the University of Nantes, who has published the original Dutch text on his blog.  At the same time, Isabelle Attard from the French Green Party put it online on her website.  According to French law, which conforms to an EU directive, a work falls into the public domain on January 1, 70 years after the death of its author or last surviving author in the case of multiple authors.  But as copyright law is determined at a national level, each country has its own rules, resulting in differences in protection periods.   “According to Swiss copyright law, copyright protection expires 70 years after the death of the author,” Emanuel Meyer from the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property told swissinfo.ch.  The Anne Frank Foundation (AFF) sees things differently, pointing to the applicable French copyright law, which says a work first published posthumously before 1995 remains protected for 50 years after the initial publication.  Thomas Stephens

Read much more at http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/literature-and-law_uploading-of-anne-frank-s-diary-ruffles-legal-feathers/41880180

Though one of his songs is titled "I Can't Read", David Bowie was actually quite the voracious reader.  In 2013, he posted a list of his top 100 favorites on his Facebook page. Lauren Weiss  Find David Bowie's Top 100 Reads at http://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/01/11/david-bowies-top-100-books

 Here is a listing of all the full-moon names, as well as their corresponding dates and times (for the Eastern Time zone) for 2016.  Link to 3:10 video  Watch: The Full Moon - Why It Happens and What It Means]  Joe Rao  http://www.space.com/31699-full-moon-names-2016-explained.html

Walk like a penguin.  Why?  Because it's wise to waddle on ice.  Waddling will help you avoid creating an oblique angle with your legs, which often leads to a nasty fall.  Keep in mind, it doesn't always work—not even for penguins.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcx6YyXvvRI  Tablet Infographics—an illustration and design company that says it's "dedicated to visualizing the things that are difficult to explain" —put together a graphic  http://visual.ly/how-walk-ice to show how shifting body weight on ice will decrease the chances of taking a frosty fall.  According to the graphic, when a person normally walks on ice, the way he or she forces each leg to support body weight is not perpendicular to the surface of the ice.  To avoid taking a tumble, keep your center of gravity over your front leg.  Go ahead, try the penguin shuffle.  http://mentalfloss.com/article/61340/why-are-penguins-so-good-walking-ice

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1414  January 25, 2016  On this date in 1858, the Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn was played at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia.  On this date in 1881, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company.  On this date in 1890,  Nellie Bly completed her round-the-world journey in 72 days.  On this date in 1945, Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first community in the United States to fluoridate its drinking water to prevent tooth decay.  

Waldorf salad  Created at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1896 not by a chef but by the maître d'hôtel, (dining room manager) Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf salad was an instant success.  The original version of this salad contained only apples, celery and mayonnaise.  Chopped walnuts later became an integral part of the dish.  Waldorf salad is usually served on top of a bed of lettuce.  Find four recipes for Waldorf Salad and link to the histories of Cobb Salad and Caesar Salad at http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/Waldorf_Salad.htm

The case of the disappearing determiners  January 3, 2016  filed by Mark Liberman   For the past century or so, the commonest word in English has gradually been getting less common.  Depending on data source and counting method, the frequency of the definite article THE has fallen substantially—in some cases at a rate as high as 50% per 100 years.  At every stage, writing that's less formal has fewer THEs, and speech generally has fewer still, so to some extent the decline of THE is part of a more general long-term trend towards greater informality.  But THE is apparently getting rarer even in speech, so the change is more than just the (normal) shift of writing style towards the norms of speech.  Read more and see graphics at http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=23277

The vineyards of Aragón have their origins in the Celtíbera region, the location of the Roman villa of Caræ (now known as Cariñena)--it is known that the inhabitants of Caræ drank wine mixed with honey from before the 3^rd century B.C.  Cariñena wine was referred to in the chronicles of several Spanish and foreign travelers who made their way around the peninsula.  Enrique Cock tells of how, in 1585, Philip II, King of Spain, was received in Cariñena with two fountains of wine, "one white and the other red, from which whoever drank who wished to.”  In 1696, the town of Cariñena was the setting for approval of the Statute of the Vine, which aimed at limiting plantations on the basis of the quality of the land on which the vineyards were sited.  "If this wine is yours, it must be acknowledged that the Promised Land is near."  Those were the words that were used by the French thinker Voltaire to thank the Count of Aranda for his gift of flavorful wines from the area.  That was in 1773, and it was not the first time that illustrious and well-known figures allowed themselves to be seduced by Cariñena wines.  In 1786, Joseph Townsend said:  "The wine produced in this district is of the best quality, and I do not doubt that it would be greatly sought after in England as soon as communication by sea can be established."

The last great battle fought by Cariñena wines took place at the end of the 19^th century.  Phylloxera had destroyed French vineyards, and several French wine-growing families settled in the Cariñena area of Aragon, which from then on developed a significant level of commercial and scientific activity that led to--amongst other things--the building of a narrow-gauge railway line between Cariñena and Zaragoza.  The line was inaugurated in 1887, and was used to export production from the area.  In 1932 the "Denomination of Origin" system was established as well as the Estación Enológica de Cariñena (Cariñena Œnological Station), which boosts the development of new cultivation and manufacturing techniques.  However, the Civil War and its consequences meant that the focus on quality was held back until the 1970s, shortly after the wines began to be bottled.  http://www.docarinena.com/do-carinena/history/?idioma=2

Mapped:  The 7,000 languages across the world by Ashley Kirk   There are thought to be more than 7,000 languages around the world, shared between almost seven billion speakers.  These languages are spread unevenly across the globe, with Asia and Africa being home to higher levels of linguistic diversity.  Some languages could be spoken by fewer than 36 people--with Pitcaim, the country with the fewest speakers per language, having two languages for a population of just 36 speakers.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/12066200/Mapped-The-7000-languages-across-the-world.html

Cracking the code to speak Cherokee by Dale Neal   How you talk is how you conceptualize the world.  To speak Cherokee is to see the world around you as a verb.  Where English focuses on the world of things, or noun as objects and subjects, separate from verbs.  Cherokee words are more complex, building root verbs to convey meanings that it takes a whole phrase or even sentence to convey in English.  Once he found the root verbs, John Standingdeer Jr. could see how to conjugate Cherokee words through the 17 verb tenses and the 10 persons compared to the six used in English.  Standingdeer's discovery led to an algorithm and a nifty piece of computer software.  In October 2015, the U.S. Patent Office issued Standingdeer a patent for his idea for “Deconstruction and Construction of Polysynthetic Words for Translation Purposes.”  He has launched a company Flying Lizard Languages LLC, offering online classes at the learning site, Your Grandmother’s Cherokee.  http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2015/12/30/cracking-code-speak-cherokee/77744120/

The Du Pont family is an American family descended from Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739–1817).  Since the 19th century the Du Pont family has been one of the richest families in America.  Many former Du Pont family estates have been opened to the public as museums, gardens, or parks, such as Nemours Mansion and Gardens, Longwood Gardens, and Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.  The family's first American estate, located at Hagley Museum and Library, has been designated a National Historic Landmark.  The usual spelling of the family name is du Pont when quoting an individual's full name and Du Pont when speaking of the family as a whole; some individual Du Ponts have chosen to spell it differently, perhaps most notably Samuel Francis Du Pont.  However, the name of the chemical company founded by the family is commonly referred to as DuPont, or, in the long form, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Pont_family 

E.I. du Pont moved to the United States after the French Revolution.  In 1802, he started a gunpowder mill on the Brandywine River in Delaware.  His profits exploded when the U.S. government placed orders with him for the troops fighting in the War of 1812.  E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company lives on as DuPont, with headquarters in Delaware and offices around the world.  E.I. du Pont was born Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours on June 24, 1771, in Paris.  His father, Pierre Du Pont de Nemours, was a watchmaker by trade and later a publisher.  In the years before the French Revolution, Pierre advised the monarchy on economic matters and was connected to Louis XVI.  As a youth, du Pont was not interested in academics, but showed a fascination with explosives, engaging in his own independent research.  See a video at http://www.biography.com/people/eleuthere-irenee-du-pont-9281759

From a dangerous beginning manufacturing gun powder along the banks of the Brandywine River to the company's world-wide operations today, the DuPont family has fueled the growth and development of Wilmington and the Brandywine Valley over the course of centuries.  HAGLEY MUSEUM AND LIBRARY  Set on 235-acres along the Brandywine, Hagley Museum and Library includes the original DuPont Company gunpowder mills and the first DuPont family home in America.  WINTERTHUR MUSEUM, GARDEN & LIBRARY  Founded by Henry Francis du Pont, Winterthur is the premier museum of American decorative arts.  Its 60-acre naturalistic garden is among the country's best, and its research library serves scholars from around the world.  NEMOURS MANSION AND GARDENS  Nemours is the grandest residence ever constructed in Delaware, a full one-acre of space under a roof.  It is furnished with an eclectic collection of rare furniture and great art.  Nemours is also arguably North America's finest formal French garden and includes a centerpiece reflecting pool with 157 jets at the center shooting water 12 feet into the air.  LONGWOOD GARDENS  Known to many as the world's premier horticultural showplace, Pierre Samuel Du Pont's Longwood Gardens, set on 1,077 acres, offer breathtaking displays year-round.  http://www.visitwilmingtonde.com/media/story-ideas/dupont-legacy/

From Muse reader:  "My favorite elision is fo’c’s’le, a shortened form of forecastle, which was the living quarters of the crew on the upper deck forward of the fore mast on sailing ships." 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1413  January 22, 2016  On this date in 1849,  Johan August Strindberg, a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter, was born.  He wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics.  He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his The Red Room (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel.   On this date in 1858, Martha Beatrice Webb, an English sociologist, economist, socialist, labour historian and social reformer, was born.  It was Webb who coined the term "collective bargaining".  She was among the founders of the London School of Economics and played a crucial role in forming the Fabian Society.