From Wordsmith Anu Garg  In Internet terms, it sounds prehistoric now, but 22 years ago, on March 14, 1994, I started what became Wordsmith.org.  Time flies when you are having fun.  Every morning I can’t wait to wake up and start playing with words, exploring their origins, identifying their cousins, and more, and sharing them with you.  There isn’t a word for a 22nd anniversary, but we can coin one.  It can be a duovicennial (vicenary:  relating to 20 years, from Latin viginti:  twenty).  We’ll be playing with words.  I have selected words about having fun with words. 

rebus  (REE-buhs)  noun  A representation of a word or phrase using pictures, symbols, letters, etc.  From Latin rebus (by things), from res (thing).  Earliest documented use:  1605.

calligram  (KAL-i-gram)  noun  A word, phrase, or piece of text arranged to form a picture of the subject described.  From French calligramme, from Greek calli- (beautiful) + -gram (something written).  Earliest documented use:  1923.  One of the best-known practitioners of the form was the French poet and writer Guillaume Apollinaire, whose work was published in the book Calligrammes.

ambigram  (AM-bi-gram)  noun  A word or phrase written in a manner that it reads the same (sometimes, a different word or phrase) when oriented in a different way, for example, when reflected or rotated.   From Latin ambi- (both) + -gram (something written).  Earliest documented use:  1985.  “Come In & Go Away Doormat.  This graphic uses an ambigram to greet and dismiss your visiting guests: ‘come in’ on arrival ‘go away’ when leaving.”  Wipe Your Feet in Style This Winter; The Kent and Sussex Courier (Tunbridge Wells, UK); Oct 4, 2013.

pangram  (PAN-gram, -gruhm, PANG-)  noun  A sentence that makes use of all the letters of the alphabet.  From Greek pan- (all) + -gram (something written).  Earliest documented use:  1873.  The best-known pangram is:  The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.  Here’s a pangram that makes use of the whole alphabet in a 26-letter sentence:  Mr. Jock, TV quiz PhD, bags few lynx.  What pangrams can you come up with?  Share them at http://wordsmith.org/words/pangram.html or email words@wordsmith.org.  

acrostic  (a-KRAW-stik, a-KRAWS-tik)  noun  A composition in which the first letter of each line spells out a word or message.  From Latin acrostichis, from Greek akrostikhis, from akron (head) + stikhos (line).  Earliest documented use:  1585.  A word with the same root is acrophobia.  When the spelled-out word is in the middle (instead of from the initial letters), it’s called a mesostic (example).  Also see, a meta acrostic.  FIND FEEDBACK, including graphics at http://wordsmith.org/awad/awadmail716.html

Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery Singing The Folks Who Live On The Hill  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKa96ch4q-A  3:29  BIG - film scene with Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yu62StlsMY  2:18  Other actor-musicians are Johnny Depp and Bruce Willis. 

U.S. PRESIDENTS WHO PLAYED INSTRUMENTS  Find 13 from Thomas Jefferson (violin and cello) to Bill Clinton(saxophone) at http://minormusicllc.com/?p=20

"Go to any gallery and you'll see aimless scribbles passed off as masterpieces.  Art is ninety-nine per cent bluffing."  "It's so quiet you can hear the snails saying their prayers."  Down Among the Dead Men, Peter Diamond mystery #15 by Peter Lovesey  Most of Peter Lovesey's writing has been done under his own name.  However, he did write three novels under the pen name Peter Lear.  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/30746.Peter_Lovesey

The History of Gettysburg, PA  The story of Adams County begins well before the 1863 American Civil War battle.  It starts even before the 1800 act of Assembly naming it an official Pennsylvania County and Gettysburg as the County Seat.  In 1736, the land now comprising the center of Adams County was purchased from the Iroquois Indians by the family of William Penn.  At that time, this land was known as Marsh Creek, the main tributary.  Many of these settlers were Scots-Irish who had fled Northern Ireland to escape English persecution.  In 1761, one of these early settlers, Samuel Gettys, established a tavern in the area.  Just twenty-five years later, his son James had laid out a town of 210 lots with a central town square on the land surrounding the tavern.  The town today is Gettysburg. At this time, Gettysburg was part of York County.  But by 1790, the growing population of the area decided to separate from York County.  A new county was approved by the state legislature in 1800 and was named after the President at the time, John Adams.  Gettysburg was chosen as the county seat.  By 1860, the town of Gettysburg had grown to 2,400 citizens.  Ten roads lead into the town, creating a few small but thriving industries.  Approximately 450 buildings housed carriage manufacturing, shoemakers, and tanneries as well as the usual merchants, banks and taverns.  There were also several educational institutions.  These roads and industries would lead two armies into the county in 1863.  By the summer of 1863, the Confederate Army, led by General Robert E. Lee, had achieved many victories, and was ready to invade the North, moving both armies from the war torn Northern Virginia.  By invading the north, and by chance securing a victory, it could cause disenchanted northerners to pressure the Lincoln Administration to seek a settlement toward peace, thus ending the war.  This decision would lead the two armies to the small, rural town of South Central Pennsylvania--Gettysburg.  Read the Gettysburg Address and link to a video of the Battle of Gettysburg at http://www.destinationgettysburg.com/history-of-gettysburg.asp

Culinary chat rooms clamor with debate over whether couscous is a grain or a pasta.  Let’s resolve the foodie feud by saying that, technically, it’s neither.  Traditionally, couscous was made by rolling moistened semolina (the hard cracked wheat produced by the first crushing in the milling process) in a bowl of flour.  Since it isn’t made with a conventional dough, it’s not a true pasta-and the flour coating takes it past the point of being simply a grain.  Most Western couscous is pre-steamed and requires no actual cooking.  Just soften in boiling water; in minutes, it’s ready to eat.  http://www.gazettetimes.com/lifestyles/food-and-cooking/couscous-it-s-neither-grain-nor-pasta/article_0545407c-c07a-11df-81d8-001cc4c03286.html

An autogyro,also known as gyroplane, gyrocopter, or rotaplane, is a type of rotorcraft which uses an unpowered rotor in autorotation to develop lift, and an engine-powered propeller, similar to that of a fixed-wing aircraft, to provide thrust.  While similar to a helicopter rotor in appearance, the autogyro's rotor must have air flowing through the rotor disc to generate rotation.  Invented by the Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva to create an aircraft that could fly safely at slow speeds, the autogyro was first flown on 9 January 1923, at Cuatro Vientos Airfield in Madrid.  De la Cierva's aircraft resembled the fixed-wing aircraft of the day, with a front-mounted engine and propeller in a tractor configuration to pull the aircraft through the air.  Under license from Cierva in the 1920s and 1930s, the Pitcairn & Kellett companies made further innovations.  Late-model autogyros patterned after Etienne Dormoy's Buhl A-1 Autogyro and Igor Bensen's designs feature a rear-mounted engine and propeller in a pusher configuration.  The term Autogiro was a trademark of the Cierva Autogiro Company, and the term Gyrocopter was used by E. Burke Wilford who developed the Reiseler Kreiser feathering rotor equipped gyroplane in the first half of the twentieth century.  The latter term was later adopted as a trademark by Bensen Aircraft.  Read more, see uses in fiction and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogyro

James Patterson is to target new avenues for selling books with a series of shorter, cheaper novels he is calling BookShots.  In the US, Patterson will publish between two and four of the 150-page, $5 novels a month via publisher Little Brown, telling the New York Times he hopes they might appeal to people who do not normally read at all.  "You can race through these--they're like reading movies," he said.  In the UK, PRH's Cornerstone has confirmed that it will publish BookShots in all its territories, but has so far released no further details.  In the US, the plan is for BookShots to be stocked in the usual booksellers, but according to the NYT Patterson and Little Brown want to target retail outlets that don't usually sell books, such as pharmacists and grocery stores.  "These venues are very inhospitable to traditional publishing, but we think this is a type of book that could work very well there," Hachette Book Group chief executive Michael Pietsch said.  HBG is planning to publish 21 BookShots in 2016, including thrillers, sf, mysteries and romances.  The first two, to be published in June, are Cross Kill starring Alex Cross and Zoo II, an sf thriller written by Patterson with Max DiLallo.  All the books in the BookShots series will be written or co-written by Patterson, aside from the romances, which will be branded "James Patterson Presents."  BookShots will later include non-fiction, "with a focus on short, newsy books that play off current events."   http://www.thebookseller.com/news/patterson-targets-new-readers-brief-bookshots-324793

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1449  March 31, 2016  On this date in 1732, Joseph Haydn, Austrian pianist and composer, was born.   On this date in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was officially opened.  On this date in 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps was established with the mission of relieving rampant unemployment in the United States.

Did you know that the Gulf of Mexico is the ninth largest body on the planet, and supports some of the largest fisheries in the world?  The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin--only a narrow connection to the Atlantic exists as the gulf is surrounded by North America and Cuba.  It covers about 600,000 square miles, and is bordered by five US states in the north, five Mexican states in the west, and Cuba in the southeast.  The total coastline of the gulf measures approximately 3,540 miles from the tip of Florida to the tip of the Yucatan, with an additional 236 miles along Cuba.  The Gulf was created first by continental plates colliding in the Late Triassic period, around 300 million years ago, and then by the sea floor sinking.  Almost half of the gulf basin is shallow waters over continental shelves, though it contains a trough that measures as deep as 14,383 feet.  Along the US portion of the Gulf coast, 33 major river systems and 207 estuaries empty into the sea.  The Gulf Stream, which originates in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, is one of the strongest ocean currents in the world.  A whopping 41% of the contiguous USA drains into the Mississippi River, which then drains into the Gulf of Mexico, bringing with it pollution and significant runoff from farmland.  There are four major industries in the Gulf of Mexico--fishing, shipping, tourism and of course, oil.  The first European exploration of the Gulf of Mexico was by Amerigo Vespucci in 1497.  Jaymi Heimbuch  Read more and see graphics at http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/48-facts-you-should-know-about-the-gulf-of-mexico-from-sunken-ships-to-ancient-corals.html

The "vocal cords" are so named from the resemblance of the vocal ligaments to strings or cords, so I wondered whether the "vocal chords" spelling might be an antique eggcorn.  The answer turns out to be "yes", but with a twist:  cord and chord participated in a rare reciprocal swap.  The OED explains that cord meaning "a string or small rope" is "a 16th cent. refashioning" of chord n.1 from Latin chorda, Greek χορδή.  On the other hand, chord meaning "agreement of musical sounds" is "[o]riginally cord, aphetic form of accord n., q.v.; the 17th cent. spelling chord arose from confusion with chord n.1" (which of course is what we now mostly spell "cord").  This all seems to have been in play before the standardization of English spelling—but unlike many similar confusions, it apparently was never fully resolved.  Some residues remain, like the "chord" (or "cord") of an arc, or the "chord" of an airplane's wing.  It's interesting that this does not seem to have become a serious irritant for peevers.  After all, essentially everyone is Doing It Wrong, at least from an etymological point of view:  cord should be "chord" and chord should be "cord".  http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4177

Even though principal shooting is complete on the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film, sub-titled Dead Men Tell No Tales, they are making a special exception to allow Paul McCartney to make a cameo.  This will be the second rock legend to make an appearance in the series.  The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards played the father of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow in the third movie in the series, At World's End, and the fourth, On Stranger Tides.  Depp has openly admitted that his actions and swagger in the role were based on Richards.  The movie is due to be released May 26, 2017.  http://www.vintagevinylnews.com/2016/03/paul-mccartney-to-have-cameo-in-pirates.html

Due to an error by the maker, the clock on the tower of Crimond Church, near Fraserburgh in Scotland  displays a 61-minute hour, with the inscription "The Hour's Coming".  During repainting in 1949, the extra minute was removed.  Following protests from parishioners, it was restored.  Read stories about five Scottish clocks at http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/best-clock-1-1076054  See picture of Crimond Clock at  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CrimondClock.jpg

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson is the definitive edition of the papers of the author of the Declaration of Independence, our nation’s third president.  Begun in 1943 as the first modern historical documentary edition, the project includes not only the letters Jefferson wrote but also those he received.  Julian P. Boyd, librarian, scholar of the Declaration of Independence, and first editor, designed an edition that would provide accurate texts with accompanying historical context.  With the publication of the first volume in 1950 and the first volume of the Retirement Series in 2004, these volumes print, summarize, note, or otherwise account for virtually every document Jefferson wrote and received.  Today, the project continues publishing at least two volumes a year under the leadership of Barbara B. Oberg at Princeton University and J. Jefferson Looney at the Jefferson Retirement Series at Monticello.  A team of historians at each location transcribes, verifies, annotates, and indexes documents copied from over nine hundred repositories and collections worldwide, maintaining the high standards crafted by Boyd.  To reach a modern audience, the edition also incorporates new technologies including XML software, content management systems, databases, and websites for both the main series and the Retirement Series.  The Jefferson Papers is well poised to complete the written legacy of the Jefferson corpus by the bicentennial of Jefferson’s death in 2026.  In cooperation with its publisher, Princeton University Press, these volumes provide the foundation of the Jefferson electronic edition, now sponsored by the University of Virginia Press and appearing through Founders Online.  See a complete list of Jefferson Papers volumes included in Founders Online, with links to the documents.  Search papers of Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and Washington at http://founders.archives.gov/about/Jefferson

Linguistic Analysis of Campaign Speeches from the 2016 US Presidential Campaign  http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2016/march/speechifying.html

NAME CHANGES  Actress Natalie Wood (born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko 1938)  See http://www.biography.com/people/natalie-wood-9536320  Author and poet Lemony Snicket (born Daniel Handler 1970)  See http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Sh-Z/Snicket-Lemony-Daniel-Handler.html

What’s the one word in the English language whose singular form shares no letters with its plural form?  If you think about it, you might come up with “I / we,” or “me / us.”  They’re correct.  But the word this question is usually looking for is cow.  In modern English, we use cattle as the plural.  But there’s an obscure plural form, kine.  Tolkien, an archaist, used it several times in both The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, and likely in the Silmarillion, although I can’t provide exact page numbers.  Addendum:  It was a bit lazy of me to not point out that “cows” is also an acceptable plural form.  “Cattle” usually means any herd, regardless of gender; “cows” would be expressly females.  Christopher Daly, The Better Editor of New England  Sign up for his e-mail posts at https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-plural-of-cow-is/

Asian slaw is a crunchy coleslaw.  Three recipes:  Asian Slaw  https://elanaspantry.com/asian-slaw/ Flavor-Packed Asian Slaw  http://www.today.com/recipes/flavor-packed-asian-slaw-t67206 Black Quinoa Asian Slaw  http://wholegrainscouncil.org/recipes/salads-sides/black-quinoa-asian-slaw

Marilynne Robinson, the author of a series of celebrated novels set in the American heartland, has been named the 2016 winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.  This lifetime achievement award, announced March 29, 2016 by acting librarian of Congress David S. Mao, will be presented to Robinson at the 16th annual National Book Festival in Washington on Sept. 24.  Robinson, who has taught for many years at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is the author of four award-winning novels, including “Gilead,” which won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award.  She has also published several collections of essays and works of nonfiction.  A deacon for the Congregatio nal United Church of Christ in Iowa City, she infuses her work with deep theological concerns. Her Gilead series, which also includes “Home” and “Lila,” revolves around the lives of two Iowa ministers.  Previous winners of this Library of Congress honor include Louise Erdrich, E.L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison.  Robinson said she was “awfully happy to be on the list” of winners because she feels such a strong kinship with the classic authors of the United States.  “The writers that have always been most influential to me have been early American writers such as Walt Whitman and Melville,” she said.  “To a great extent, they have defined for me what language could do.  So I really feel very much indebted to them and happy to be associated with them.”  Ron Charles 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/marilynne-robinson-talks-about-her-new-literary-award--and-politics/2016/03/28/bb282036-f110-11e5-a61f-e9c95c06edca_story.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1448  March 30, 2016  On this date in 1750, John Stafford Smith, English organist, composer and musicologist--best known for writing the music for The Anacreontic Song--which became the tune for the American patriotic song The Star-Spangled Banner, was born.  On this date in 1867, Alaska was purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about 2-cent/acre, by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.

21 BUNNY POEMS FOR SPRING AND EASTER

http://www.nanascorner.com/21-bunny-poems-for-spring-and-easter/

RABBIT POEMS  http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/rabbit

March 23, 2016  National Recording Registry Recognizes "Mack the Knife," Motown and Mahler  Two cuts at Kurt Weill's "Mack the Knife"—by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin—will join Billy Joel's single "Piano Man," Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," the Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go," a recording of the fourth quarter of Wilt Chamberlain's historic 100-point game and a poignant capture of Mahler's ninth symphony among the recordings recently selected for induction into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry.   Acting Librarian of Congress David S. Mao today named 25 new sound recordings to the registry that have been recognized for their cultural, artistic and/or historical significance to American society and the nation's aural legacy.  "These recordings, by a wide range of artists in many genres of music and in spoken word, will be preserved for future listeners," Mao said.  "This collection of blues, jazz, rock, country and classical recordings, interspersed with important recordings of sporting events, speeches, radio shows and comedy, helps safeguard the record of what we've done and who we are."  Under the terms of the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the Librarian, with advice from the Library's National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB), annually selects 25 recordings that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and are at least 10 years old.  The selections for the 2015 registry bring the total number of recordings on the registry to 450, only a minuscule portion of the Library's vast recorded-sound collection of more than 3 million items.  http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2016/16-056.html

Home in vs. hone in  Home in means to direct on a target.  The phrasal verb derives from the 19th-century use of homing pigeons, but it resurged in the 20th century to refer to missiles that home in on their targets.  It’s also commonly used metaphorically, where to home in on something is to focus on and make progress toward it.  Hone in began as an alteration of home in, and many people regard it as an error.  It is a very common, though, especially in the U.S. and Canada—so common that many dictionaries now list it—and there are arguments in its favor.  Hone means to sharpen or to perfect, and we can think of homing in as a sharpening of focus or a perfecting of one’s trajectory toward a target.  So while it might not make strict logical sense, extending hone this way is not a huge leap.  Outside North America, home in prevails by a huge margin.  It also prevails in North America, but only by a ratio of about two to one.  Hone in is common even in technical, scientific, and military contexts, where one might expect home in to prevail.  A few American and Canadian publishers clearly favor home in as a matter of policy, but most apparently have no strictly enforced policy one way or the other.  http://grammarist.com/eggcorns/home-in-hone-in/

Copyright Law:  Why is it okay to use a DVR or DVD burner to record a movie on cable TV, but it's considered wrong to copy that very same movie from a rented DVD?  by Richard Knight  This is a good, valid question, but I regret the answer is technically complex, logically convoluted, and generally unsatisfactory in the end.  In summary, I think the answer can best be summarized as "because each use-scenario resulted from court decisions decided at different times, using different technological backdrops, and taking different risks to copyright economics into consideration."  A bit longer answer--which presumes a basic understanding of the ins-and-outs of general copyright laws--is that recording a digital cable TV signal onto a DVR or DVD was not much different than doing so for an analog cable TV signal on an analog tape (e.g., taping a t.v. movie on VHS), which in turn was considered akin to audio recording an open-air AM/FM radio broadcast, and the courts had long ago decided that making a personal recording of a radio broadcast was not a copyright violation.   A key distinction here was that the resultant "copy" was something less than the original in terms of quality, completeness, purity, etc., and/or at most simply "time-delayed" the content (but with commercials, station ID, etc. still intact), and thus did not diminish the economic value of the original.  On the other hand, copying a movie from a rented DVD to another DVD--which results in a perfect digital copy of the original--was deemed to be more akin to copying computer software from one CD to another or from one CD to more than one computer.  Because this latter activity was already determined by the courts--at a much later time and in a different context--to be akin to every other form of completely illegal copyright theft--the same reasoning was applied to DVD/digital media technology because of its technical similarity and perceived negative impact on the economic value to the original (i.e., to specifically avoid purchasing the additional copies of software).  As a result, merely "time delaying" broadcast content was considered permissible--as long as no further copying or distribution occurred, and thus no economic detriment--while making perfect copies of digital content (to avoid purchasing the content) was considered impermissible because it equated to a lost sale.  

https://www.quora.com/Copyright-Law/Why-is-it-okay-to-use-a-DVR-or-DVD-burner-to-record-a-movie-on-cable-TV-but-its-considered-wrong-to-copy-that-very-same-movie-from-a-rented-DVD

Earl Hamner Jr., the Virginia-born writer who created not only TV’s folksy, Depression-era family drama “The Waltons” but the California wine country prime-time soap opera “Falcon Crest,” died March 24, 2016 at the age of 92.  In a long career that included writing episodes of “The Twilight Zone” in the 1960s and adapting the E.B. White classic “Charlotte’s Web” for a 1973 animated film, Hamner was best known for tapping his childhood memories of growing up in a large family in

“Spencer’s Mountain,” Hamner’s childhood-inspired 1961 novel, was turned into a 1963 movie starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara.  His 1970 book “The Homecoming: A Novel About Spencer’s Mountain,” inspired by Christmas Eve 1933 when Hamner’s father was late in arriving home, was turned into “The Homecoming: A Christmas Story,” a two-hour CBS television movie that introduced the family, renamed the Waltons, to television viewers in December 1971.  Its success led to the weekly hourlong TV series.  Dennis McLellan

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-earl-hamner-jr-dies-20160324-story.html

There will only be one type of candy served at this year's White House Easter Egg Roll and it was invented by a 7-year-old.  The candy is zollipops. Its inventor, Alina Morse, now 10, came up with the idea to create a lollipop that's actually good for your teeth three years ago.  The ingredients she settled on (xylitol and erythritol) help to reduce the risk of tooth decay and neutralize acid found in the mouth after a meal.  After settling on the perfect formula, Alina invested $7,500 of her savings from her grandparents to start the company her 5-year-old sister named "Zollipops" in 2014.  Business has been so good that Alina has committed 10 percent of company profits to bringing oral health education to schools.  Last year, Zollidrops–and its inventor–were invited to the White House Easter Egg Roll by First Lady Michelle Obama and they'll return March 28, 2016 as the event's only candy.  Tiare Dunlap  http://www.people.com/article/zollidrops-alina-morse-10-year-old-invented-candy-served-white-house-easter-egg-roll  See also https://www.whitehouse.gov/eastereggroll

March 26, 2016  Momentous Week in Cuba by Michael Wissenstein    The week opened with the arrival of President Barack Obama in Air Force One, accompanied by more than 1,000 employees of a government that waged a cold war against Cuba for more than 50 years.  The week ended with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts firing "Jumpin' Jack Flash" ''Sympathy for the Devil" and "Satisfaction" into a jubilant crowd from 3-story-tall high-definition television screens and thumping towers of speakers.  "Havana, Cuba, and the Rolling Stones!" Jagger cried. "This is amazing! It's really good to be here! It's good to see you guys!"  The Stones romped through 18 of their classics, picking up force as the crowd in the open-air Ciudad Deportiva, or Sports City, jumped and chanted "Rollings! Rollings!"  The Rolling Stones were the biggest mainstream rock act to play in Cuba since its 1959 revolution brought a communist government to power and isolated the island from the United States and its allies.  Ordinary Cubans said they felt shot through with energy, reconnected with the world.  "After today I can die," said 62-year-old night watchman Joaquin Ortiz.  "This is like my last wish, seeing the Rolling Stones."  http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Music/2016/0326/A-momentous-week-in-Cuba-From-Barack-Obama-to-Mick-Jagger

Jim Harrison, 'Legends Of The Fall' Author, Dies At 78 by Tom Vitale  Jim Harrison wrote more than three dozen books, including the novels Dalva and True North, the novella Legends of the Fall and many collections of poetry. He died Saturday March 26, 2016.  Harrison set his stories in the untamed corners of America—the Big Sky country of Montana, the arid deserts of the Southwest, the swamplands and forests of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where he spent his summers.  Harrison described the "massive presence of Lake Superior" beside the "undifferentiated wilderness."  There were rivers, creeks and beaver ponds.  "I had a wolf right outside my cabin years ago," he recalls.   "It was a lovely experience."  Read Harrison's 2007 poem "Water" at http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/27/469817873/legends-of-the-fall-author-who-found-freedom-outdoors-dies-at-78

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1447  March 28, 2016  On this date in 1890, Paul Whiteman, American violinist, composer, and bandleader, was born.  On this date in 1986, Lady Gaga (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta), American singer-songwriter, dancer, producer, and actress, was born.  

Yes, You Can Cook Radishes!  Here Are 5 Tasty Ways  http://www.thekitchn.com/yes-you-can-cook-radishes-here-are-5-tasty-ways-tips-from-the-kitchn-219890

Dinner Tonight - Sautéed Cucumbers by Nick Kindelsperger http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/10/dinner-tonight-sauteed-cucumbers.html

Homonyms  This is the big category—the umbrella—under which we find homophones and homographs.  Homophones are words that sound alike, but have different meanings and spellings.  Examples of common homophones include:  their and there, deer and dear, hear and here, to, too, and two.   Homographs are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings and may have different pronunciations.  Examples of common homographs include:  does and does--He does like to run.  Does are female deer.  (Same spelling, different pronunciation.)  well and well Sam doesn't feel well today.  Our neighbors are digging a new well.  (Same spelling, same pronunciation.)  One way to remember the difference between the terms homophone and homograph is by looking at the derivation of the words:  HOMO ("same") + PHONE ("sound")  HOMO ("same") + GRAPH ("writing")  http://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/homophones/#difference

Laundry and Library = Libromat  A group of friends at Oxford University is developing a combination childhood education and laundry services center, a concept they've dubbed a "Libromat."  Team member Nicholas Dowdall, 25, zeroed in on picture book reading after stumbling on a study in Khayelitsha, a township of more than 300,000 in Cape Town, South Africa.  Mothers of infants were recruited and given eight weeks of training to read to their children.  The women reported a significant increase in the number of words that their kids understood and vocalized.  Team Libromat estimates the total cost to build and retrofit centers to be approximately $10,000 (including the machines, books and furniture).  They hope to attract 200 regular customers every month.  As part of their research, the Libromat team members conducted surveys with over 300 parents in South Africa, Guatemala, Cameroon and Uganda.  They found that roughly 80 percent were willing to pay for the service.  Meanwhile, 94 percent of those surveyed in South Africa even said they would walk as far as 30 minutes to go to a center.  Dowdall suspects the enthusiastic response is due to the lack of laundry services in urban areas.  Once people experience a Libromat, however, he believes they will recognize that they can get more out of it than just clean clothes.  He also added that each course will offer free slots for members of the community who cannot afford laundry services.  The team members have received initial funds of $200,000 from an investor to start three new centers in South Africa.  They will extend their program to eight weeks and, when classes are not in session, operate the center as a walk-in laundry and library service with children's books.  Centers will be managed directly by the team and will employ one educator, laundry manager and general assistant from the community.  "Everyone can go to the local Libromat center and get a class," Dowdall says.  Andrew Boryga  http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/10/27/452210361/rinse-spin-read-to-kids-its-a-mash-up-of-laundromat-and-library?utm_content=buffer03db0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

A mirror doesn’t reverse your image either left-to-right or top-to-bottom—it reverses your image front-to-back, that is, along the axis perpendicular to the mirror.  Imagine you had a hollow Halloween mask, and you turned it inside out.  That’s exactly what a mirror does:  it “turns you inside out,” so that you’re facing the opposite direction without having been rotated.  Julia Galef  http://measureofdoubt.com/2011/03/31/mirror-paradox/

Howard Thurston (1869–1936) was a stage magician from Columbus, Ohio.  His childhood was unhappy, and he ran away to join the circus, where his future partner Harry Kellar also performed.  Thurston was deeply impressed after he attended magician Alexander Herrmann's magic show and was determined to equal his work.  He eventually became the most famous magician of his time.  Thurston's traveling magic show was the biggest one of all; it was so large that it needed eight train cars to transport his road show.  Thurston is mentioned and appears briefly in Glen David Gold's novel Carter Beats the Devil concerning fellow stage magician Charles J. Carter and the Golden Age of magic in America.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Thurston

Welcome to trick questions  http://trick-questions.com/  Discussion on the gry riddle/trick question (Librarians around the country field this question.)   http://www.wiskit.com/marilyn/gry.html and http://www.fun-with-words.com/word_gry_angry_hungry.html  Ambiguity, jokes, and trick questions by Chad Nilep http://linguisticanthropology.org/blog/2013/12/09/ambiguity-jokes-and-trick-questions/

manipulative question  Do you want to prepare and serve my favorite food to me now or in one minute?  March 18, 2016 Dilbert comic strip  Not a true choice, but a question of when you will do it.  See also types of questions at http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/question-types.html

A loaded question or complex question fallacy is a question that contains a controversial or unjustified assumption, such as a presumption of guilt.  A leading question or suggestive interrogation is a question that suggests the particular answer or contains the information the examiner is looking to have confirmed.

Morton's fork, a choice between two equally unpleasant options, is often a false dilemma.  The phrase originates from an argument for taxing English nobles:  "Either the nobles of this country appear wealthy, in which case they can be taxed for good; or they appear poor, in which case they are living frugally and must have immense savings, which can be taxed for good."  This is a false dilemma because it fails to allow for the possibility of nobles that are neither wealthy nor poor, or the possibility that those members of the nobility who appear poor may actually be poor.  Source:  Wikipedia

Mary Flannery O'Connor (1925–1964) was an American writer and essayist born in Savannah, Georgia.  An important voice in American literature, she wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.  O'Connor attended Peabody High School, where she worked as the school newspaper's art editor and from which she graduated in 1942.  She entered Georgia State College for Women (now Georgia College & State University), in an accelerated three-year program, and graduated in June 1945 with a Social sciences degree.  While at Georgia State College for Women, she produced a significant amount of cartoon work for the student newspaper.  In 1946, she was accepted into the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, where she first went to study journalism.  While there she got to know several important writers and critics who lectured or taught in the program, among them Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, Robie Macauley, Austin Warren and Andrew Lytle.  Lytle, for many years editor of the Sewanee Review, was one of the earliest admirers of her fiction.  Regarding her emphasis of the grotesque, O'Connor said:  "anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic."   O'Connor's Complete Stories won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and was named the "Best of the National Book Awards" by Internet visitors in 2009.  The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, named in honor of O'Connor by the University of Georgia Press, is a prize given annually since 1983 to an outstanding collection of short stories.  O'Connor was the first fiction writer born in the twentieth century to have her works collected and published by the Library of America, which occurred in 1988.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannery_O%27Connor

Garry Shandling's 'The Larry Sanders Show' is where the new age of television really began by Robert Lloyd   Garry Shandling, who trained as an electrical engineer, began as a comedy writer, then went into stand-up and became a frequent guest host of "The Tonight Show" died March 24, 2016.  For Showtime, he made "It's Garry Shandling's Show," a meta-meta-fictional sitcom in which he played a version of himself.  That series, which broke not only the fourth but the fifth wall, pulling the camera back far enough to make the studio audience part of the action, was something new.  Shandling's real legacy begins with "The Larry Sanders Show," which he created for HBO in 1992, in which he played a neurotic talk-show host whose life might have in some respects resembled his own. To my mind, this is where the new age of television—call it Golden or whatever you like—really begins.  It's a show that didn't settle for light or dark, for funny or not funny, for good people or bad; it was farcical and naturalistic at once, emotionally naturalistic, visually new—it had a documentary swing based on the exigencies of a low budget.  http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-garry-shandling-appreciation-20160324-column.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1446  March 25, 2016  On this date in 1867, Arturo Toscanini, Italian-American cellist and conductor, was born.  On this date in 1881, Mary Webb, English author and poet, was born.  On this date in 1925, Flannery O'Connor, American short story writer and novelist, was born.  

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) on March 19, 2016 announced the winners of the 2015 Free Software Awards.  The Award for Projects of Social Benefit is presented to a project or team responsible for applying free software, or the ideas of the free software movement, in a project that intentionally and significantly benefits society in other aspects of life.  This award stresses the use of free software in the service of humanity.  This year, it was given to the Library Freedom Project, a partnership among librarians, technologists, attorneys, and privacy advocates which aims to make real the promise of intellectual freedom in libraries.  By teaching librarians about surveillance threats, privacy rights and responsibilities, and digital tools to stop surveillance, the project hopes to create a privacy-centric paradigm shift in libraries and the local communities they serve.  Notably, the project helps libraries launch Tor exit nodes.  Project founders Alison Macrina and chief technology wizard Nima Fatemi accepted the award.  The Award for the Advancement of Free Software is given annually to an individual who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software, through activities that accord with the spirit of free software.  This year, it was presented to Werner Koch, the founder and driving force behind GnuPG. GnuPG is the defacto tool for encrypted communication. Society needs more than ever to advance free encryption technology.  Werner Koch was unable to attend, so the award was accepted on his behalf by David Shaw, a GnuPG contributor since 2002.  http://www.fsf.org/news/library-freedom-project-and-werner-koch-are-2015-free-software-awards-winners

What is Opte about?  This project was originally created to generate a picture (or map) of the Internet.  Since the Internet is basically a vast constellation of networks that somehow interconnect to provide the relatively seamless communication of data, it seemed logical one could draw lines from one point to another.  The visualization is a collection of programs that collectively output an image of every relationship of every network on the Internet.  The result was an award-winning representation of the Internet that now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.  The idea turned into a 10+ year labor of love under the moniker of The Opte Project.  The map has been used an icon of what the Internet looks like in hundreds of books, in movies, museums, office buildings, educational discussions, and countless publications.  http://www.bespacific.com/47752-2/  See also http://www.opte.org/the-internet/  Opte (pronounced op-tee) comes from the Latin word opti meaning optical.

The 20 Most Beautiful Libraries on Film and TV  http://flavorwire.com/392753/the-20-most-beautiful-libraries-on-film-and-tv  16 GREAT LIBRARY SCENES IN FILM

http://bookriot.com/2013/01/23/great-library-scenes-in-film/  MOVIE LIBRARIANS: NOTABLE LIBRARIANS & LIBRARIES IN FILMS  http://movielibrarians.com/

Q.  What do Eek, Embarrass, Okay, Ordinary, and Peculiar have in common?  A.  All are names of towns in the U.S.  http://www.infoplease.com/spot/wackytowns.html

The Rock of Gibraltar (Spanish and Llanito: Peñón de Gibraltar, sometimes called by its original Latin name, Calpe,) is a monolithic limestone promontory located in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, off the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.  It is 426 m (1,398 ft) high.  The Rock is Crown property of the United Kingdom, and borders Spain.  Most of the Rock's upper area is covered by a nature reserve, which is home to around 300 Barbary macaques. These macaques, as well as a labyrinthine network of tunnels, attract a large number of tourists each year.  The Rock of Gibraltar was one of the Pillars of Hercules and was known to the Romans as Mons Calpe, the other pillar being Mons Abyla or Jebel Musa on the African side of the Strait.  In ancient times, the two points marked the limit to the known world, a myth originally fostered by the Greeks and the Phoenicians.  Gibraltar is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and has no contact with the Atlantic Ocean.  Read more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Gibraltar

Sulfites are a naturally occurring class of compounds and they’re everywhere:  most living organisms, including humans, produce sulfites.  Our bodies produce about 1,000 mg of sulfites each day—a level that’s 100 times higher than the amount in your average glass of red wine.  In our bodies, sulfites act as antioxidants—scavenging the free radicals that damage cells.  They serve a similar function in food and wine, preventing the chemical reactions that cause off flavors to develop.  And the fact is, even if a winemaker doesn’t add sulfites to a wine, some sulfites are created naturally during the winemaking process.  So why aren’t sulfites allowed in certified organic wines?  “When the USDA was developing standards for certified organic wine, a few winemakers who were already making wines without adding sulfites lobbied to keep added sulfites out of certified organic wine,” says Glenn McGourty, M.S., a University of California Cooperative Extension winegrowing and plant science advisor.  Their argument was that organic foods shouldn’t contain added preservatives.  And they won.  While some winemakers were creating wines specifically for the less than 1 percent of the U.S. population with sulfite allergies, others ­believe adding sulfites hides the wine’s delicate flavors and its terroir—the authenticity and sense of place you can taste in a wine.  “Adding sulfites to wine can mask subtle flavors that would’ve otherwise added to the natural bouquet of the wine,” says Paul Frey of ­certified organic Frey Winery in Mendocino, California.  Corison agrees that using too many sulfites can negatively affect a wine’s flavor.  But she, like many other winemakers, argues that it’s impossible to make premium wines without using any added sulfites.  (In fact only about 1 percent of wine sold worldwide is certified organic.)  Sulfites are added to suppress wild yeasts and bacteria and minimize byproducts of chemical reactions, all things that can lead to off flavors.  Corison uses only as many sulfites as she needs and as a result, her wines have only 50 parts per million of total sulfites at bottling (the upper limit is 350 ppm), 20 of which are produced naturally by the yeast (most wines contain 25 to 150 ppm).  Just adding this small amount of sulfites helps to preserve the fruity character of Corison’s wines.  Sulfites also slow the oxidation process, helping to preserve wine’s flavor as it ages.  Organic wines with no added sulfites age unpredictably, notes McGourty.  “The downside to not using sulfites is that those wines are notoriously unstable over time.”  http://www.eatingwell.com/healthy_cooking/wine_beer_spirits_guide/the_hype_about_sulfites

In the desert of northwest Australia, about 10 miles east of the small mining town of Newman, lies a natural wonder.  If you fly overhead, you’ll see vast carpets of green spinifex grass, pockmarked by barren red circles, as if some deity had repeatedly stubbed out a cosmic cigar on the parched landscape.  These disks of bare soil are called “fairy circles,” and they’re not unique to Australia—they also exist 6,000 miles away in Namibia.  There, the circles number in the millions, and extend over some 1,500 miles of desert.  They comprise different grasses but their patterns are the same:  low-lying vegetation freckled by circles of empty soil.  They almost seem alive, growing and shrinking with a lifespan of 30 to 60 years.  Ed Yong  Read much more and see pictures at http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/mysterious-fairy-circles-australia-namibia/473625/

Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, pledged on March 11, 2016 to give any left-over food from its stores to charity so that by the end of 2017 nothing is thrown away.  "We believe no food that could be eaten should be wasted--that's why we have committed that no surplus food should go to waste from our stores," said Tesco Chief Executive Dave Lewis, who is trying to improve its image after an accounting scandal.  Some 55,400 tonnes of food were thrown away at Tesco stores and distribution centres in Britain last year, of which around 30,000 tonnes could otherwise have been eaten, equivalent to around 70 million meals, it said.  James Davey  http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-tesco-food-waste-idUKKCN0WD22N

Electoral politics are, in the best ways and also in the worst, reality shows.  They are heavily structured.  They thrive on “competition” that’s more accurately framed as “Darwinian struggles for survival.”  Megan Garber  http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/03/americas-next-top-president/474936/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1445  March 23, 2016  On this date in 1792, Joseph Haydn added a startling loud chord to the generally soft second movement of Symphony No. 94 in G Major at its London premiere.  The "surprise" was retained in later performances.  http://www.britannica.com/topic/Surprise-Symphony  On this date in 1806, Lewis and Clark departed from Oregon--Clark recorded that ". . . we loaded our canoes and at 1 P.M. left Fort Clatsop on our homeward bound journey.  At this place we had wintered and remained from the 7th of December 1805 to this day and have lived as well as we had any right to expect, and we can say that we were never one day without 3 meals of some kind either pore Elk meat or roots . . . "  Drouillard and a party of hunters were sent out ahead, and the two pirogues and three canoes began the return voyage up the Columbia River. http://lewisandclarktrail.com/section2/ndcities/timeline1805.htm