The 10 best food cities in America, ranked  Tom Sietsema spent over 60 days, and ate, drank and shopped in 271 restaurants, bars, food stores and farmers markets before writing this story.  Find descriptions and link to maps and recipes at http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2015/12/21/the-10-best-food-cities-in-america-ranked/

Too means as well or also.  Too portrays the idea of in excess or more than it should be.  To is used in expressions like to walk, to run, to paint., to the park, to the postman, agree to a proposal.  http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/too_to.htm Too is an adverb (a word or set of words that modifies verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs).  To is a preposition (a word or phrase that connects a noun or pronoun to a verb or adjective in a sentence).  See also http://grammarist.com/usage/to-too/  Conjunctions are used to connect words, phrases, or clauses and Prepositions are those connecting words that show the relation of a noun or pronoun to other words in a sentence.  Find examples at http://www.libraryonline.com/default.asp?pID=51

December 15, 2015  Thanks to centuries of legislating by Parliament, which bans the wearing of suits of armor in its chambers, Britain has accumulated many laws that nowadays seem irrelevant, and often absurd.  So voluminous and eccentric is Britain’s collective body of 44,000 pieces of primary legislation that it has a small team of officials whose sole task is to prune it.  Their work is not just a constitutional curiosity, but a bulwark against hundreds of years of lawmaking running out of control.  Over the centuries, rules have piled up to penalize those who fire a cannon within 300 yards of a dwelling and those who beat a carpet in the street—unless the item can be classified as a doormat and it is beaten before 8 a.m.  “To have a legal situation where there is so much information that you cannot sit down and comprehend it, does seem to me a serious problem,” said Andrew Lewis, professor emeritus of comparative legal history at University College London.  “I think it matters dreadfully that no one can get a handle on the whole of it.”  Yet, as Professor Lewis also noted, many old laws have survived because crime and bad behavior have, too.  “One reason is that human nature doesn’t change much,” Professor Lewis said, “though of course the institutions which we develop to protect, organize, and govern ourselves do change, and then it becomes necessary to adjust the existing law to practice.”  Sifting out the obsolete legislation is the work of two lawyers and a researcher at Britain’s Law Commission, which is responsible for reviewing laws and recommending changes.  Thanks to them, more than 200 measures are scheduled to be repealed next year, including some—but not all—of a law dating to 1267.  Though some elements of the 1267 Statute of Marlborough are set to be repealed in 2016, others, including one relating to the seizure of goods to satisfy debts, will remain.  This piece of legislation predates the incorporation into law of Magna Carta (which was signed in 1215 but which was not enrolled on the statute book until 1297).  Another medieval act, Quia Emptores, which was passed in 1290, also established important principles for English property law.  Before any repeal is proposed to Parliament, the law is thoroughly researched and discussed, said Elaine Lorimer, chief executive of the Law Commission.  “Just the age of the legislation isn’t a determining factor,” she said.  “The research has got to be done to make sure that actually this is no longer required.”  The lawyers and researcher sometimes retreat to a dusty Justice Ministry basement or to law libraries to find relevant texts, some of which do not make easy reading.  The 1351 Treason Act, for example, was written in Norman French.  David Connolly, a senior lawyer with the commission, said he was struck by how much old law is still used.  “You think that those sorts of things are right for repeal,” he said, “and then you get in touch with the police, and the police say, ‘Well you know, on the whole, we’d rather you didn’t repeal that because we sometimes use it.’ ”  The Offenses Against the Person Act of 1861 is still widely used to prosecute violent crimes, he said, adding that, if just a part of the legislation is still useful, it is sometimes simpler to keep all of it on the statute book, rather than to repeal specific clauses.  “Put what looks like silly, pointless piece of law into its historical context and you realize that they had slightly different interest or they had the same sort of interests but were pursuing them in a different way,” Mr. Connolly said.  According to Professor Lewis, the legislative pileup is explained partly by the fact that Britain, unlike many countries, has chosen not to codify its laws, leading to an accumulation of piecemeal legislation.  Stephen Castle  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/world/europe/britain-pares-down-silly-laws-from-salmon-handling-to-armor-wearing.html?_r=0

Lake Superior State University’s annual list of “Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness” was unveiled December 31, 2015 by Lake Superior State University.  The 41st annual list includes 13 words and phrases.  Created in 1976 to draw attention to the state’s smallest university, the list has became a phenomenon around the new year, attracting worldwide nominators, spawning discussions and giving Lake State—located in the Upper Peninsula town of Sault Ste. Marie—a moment to bask in at the beginning of a new year.  The list has grown to include nearly 800 words that have been banished over the decades, including overused words linked to culture, celebrities and politics.  Soon, it might become its own lexicon, as some are working to compile the banished words into a dictionary.  Among the words and phrases on the first list: “macho,” “scenario” and “at this point in time.”  Thousands of words have since been nominated through the university’s website, and also via Facebook, including 2,000 this year.  Mark Dobias, an attorney in Sault Ste. Marie, has nominated words over the years, and a few have made the list, including “decimate” and “job creators/creation.”  Kim Kozslowski  See the 41st list of overused words at http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/12/31/list-overused-words-conversation/78108874/

The Rose Bowl Game is an annual American college football bowl game, usually played on January 1 (New Year's Day) at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California.  When New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the game is played on Monday, January 2 (14 times now).  The Rose Bowl is nicknamed "The Granddaddy of Them All" because it is the oldest bowl game.  It was first played in 1902, and has been played annually since 1916.  Since 1945, it has been the highest attended college football bowl game.  It is a part of the Tournament of Roses "America's New Year Celebration", which also includes the historic Tournament of Roses Parade.  Beginning with the 2015 game, the official name for sponsorship is the "Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual".  Vizio was the previous sponsor, since 2012; prior sponsors included AT&T, Sony, and Citi.  In 2015, the game will also be officially known as the "College Football Playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual".  The Rose Bowl Game has traditionally hosted the conference champions from the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences (or their predecessors), but due to its past and present membership in several consortiums that seek to determine a national champion in Division I FBS, in 2002, the Rose Bowl began to infrequently deviate from its traditional match-up in order to facilitate championship games. In 2002 and 2006 (2001 and 2005 football seasons), under the Bowl Championship Series system, the Rose Bowl was designated as its championship game, and hosted the top two teams determined by the BCS system.  Beginning in 2015, the Rose Bowl is part of the College Football Playoff system, and will host one of its semi-final games every three years.  During non-Playoff years, the Rose Bowl will revert to a Pac-12/Big Ten matchup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Bowl_Game  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_game

History of the Rose Parade  This event began as a promotional effort by Pasadena's distinguished Valley Hunt Club.  In the winter of 1890, the club members brainstormed ways to promote the "Mediterranean of the West."  They invited their former East Coast neighbors to a mid-winter holiday, where they could watch games such as chariot races, jousting, foot races, polo and tug-of-war under the warm California sun.  The abundance of fresh flowers, even in the midst of winter, prompted the club to add another showcase for Pasadena's charm:  a parade would precede the competition, where entrants would decorate their carriages with hundreds of blooms.  The Tournament of Roses was born.  http://www.tournamentofroses.com/history/rose-parade

The 127th annual Rose Parade on January 1, 2016 featured 92 groups.  See the listing, including #12 PBS (Downton Abbey) and #15 National Park Service (celebrating its centennial in 2016) at   http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/lifestyle/20151221/rose-parade-2016-lineup-find-all-the-floats-bands-and-equestrian-groups  Pedro Molina band from Guatemala was unable to attend due to visa problems.  Downton Abbey and Elizabeth Mcgovern - Rose Parade - PBS float 2016  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR-vbDc7U1U  1:38  Find the 2016 Parade of Roses Equestrian Units, including the National Park Service, at http://www.tournamentofroses.com/rose-parade/participants

More than a million people in New York's Times Square hailed the arrival of 2016 with kisses, cheers and a measure of relief as America's biggest New Year's Eve celebration unfolded without a hitch under a blanket of unprecedented security.  The transition to the new year was marked by the descent of the traditional lighted crystal ball from atop a skyscraper amid fireworks and a blizzard of confetti at the center of the famed Manhattan crossroads, the climax of an annual rite of winter dating back to 1904.  See one-minute video at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-year-usa-idUSKBN0UE19P20160101

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1403  January 4, 2016  On this date in 1710, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Italian composer, violinist, and organist, was born.   On this date in 1809, Louis Braille, French educator and inventor of Braille, was born.  On this date in 1838, Tom Thumb, American circus performer, was born.