Sine nomine (abbreviated s.n.) is a Latin expression, meaning "without a name".  It is most commonly used in the contexts of publishing and bibliographical listings such as library catalogs, to signify that the publisher (or distributor, etc.) of a listed work is unknown, or not printed or specified on the work.  Compare with sine loco (s.l.), "without a place", used where the place of publication of a work is unknown or unspecified.  While it may sometimes be used to disclose unknown authorship, this is more commonly indicated as anon. or similar.  The phrase and its abbreviation have been deprecated in Anglophone cataloging with the adoption of the Resource Description and Access standard, which instead prescribes the unabbreviated English phrase "publisher not identified" (or "distributor not identified", etc.).  Sine loco is likewise replaced by "place of publication not identified".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_nomine

American Sign Language (ASL) is the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of anglophone Canada.  Besides North America, dialects of ASL and ASL-based creoles are used in many countries around the world, including much of West Africa and parts of Southeast Asia.  ASL is also widely learned as a second language, serving as a lingua franca.  ASL is most closely related to French Sign Language (LSF).  ASL originated in the early 19th century in the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut, from a situation of language contact.  Since then, ASL use has propagated widely via schools for the deaf and Deaf community organizations.  Read more and see graphics includings signs for counting and letters at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Language

Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is an important public holiday, celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States.  It originated as a harvest festival.  Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, after a proclamation by George Washington.   It has been celebrated as a federal holiday every year since 1863, when, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens," to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.  Together with Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader holiday season.  The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in 1621.  This feast lasted three days, and—as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow—it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims.  In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving rather than the fifth one . Although many popular histories state otherwise, he made clear that his plan was to establish the holiday on the next-to-last Thursday in the month instead of the last one.  With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought an earlier Thanksgiving would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas.  Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would help bring the country out of the Depression.  At the time, advertising goods for Christmas before Thanksgiving was considered inappropriate.  Fred Lazarus, Jr., founder of the Federated Department Stores (later Macy's), is credited with convincing Roosevelt to push Thanksgiving to a week earlier to expand the shopping season, and within two years the change passed through Congress into law.  Republicans decried the change, calling it an affront to the memory of Lincoln.  People began referring to November 30 as the "Republican Thanksgiving" and November 23 as the "Democratic Thanksgiving" or "Franksgiving".  Regardless of the politics, many localities had made a tradition of celebrating on the last Thursday, and many football teams had a tradition of playing their final games of the season on Thanksgiving; with their schedules set well in advance, they could not change.  Since a presidential declaration of Thanksgiving Day was not legally binding, Roosevelt's change was widely disregarded.  Twenty-three states went along with Roosevelt's recommendation, 22 did not, and some, like Texas, could not decide and took both days as government holidays.  In 1940 and 1941, years in which November had four Thursdays, Roosevelt declared the third one as Thanksgiving.  As in 1939, some states went along with the change while others retained the traditional last-Thursday date.  On October 6, 1941, both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution fixing the traditional last-Thursday date for the holiday beginning in 1942.  However, in December of that year the Senate passed an amendment to the resolution that split the difference by requiring that Thanksgiving be observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, which was usually the last Thursday and sometimes (two years out of seven, on average) the next to last.  The amendment also passed the House, and on December 26, 1941, President Roosevelt signed this bill, for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law and fixing the day as the fourth Thursday of November.  For several years some states continued to observe the last-Thursday date in years with five November Thursdays (the next such year being 1944), with Texas doing so as late as 1956.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)

The New York of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s day did not respect female artists, did not prize contemporary artists and did not appreciate American artists.  Mrs. Whitney set out to change all that, working out of a crazy warren of studios and salons cobbled together a century ago from abutting townhouses and carriage houses on West Eighth Street in Greenwich Village.  Her eccentric compound was the birthplace of the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1931.  The museum had its headquarters there until 1954.  Since 1967, the interlocked buildings have housed the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture.  Beginning June 3, 2016, a limited number of visitors are able to take free, 45-minute tours of Mrs. Whitney’s studios.  The tours have been made possible in part by a $30,000 grant from theNational Trust for Historic Preservation.  Mrs. Whitney not only made art on West Eighth Street, she also collected and exhibited it.  The Whitney Studio opened in 1914.  In 1929, Mrs. Whitney empowered her assistant, Juliana Reiser Force, to offer more than 500 artworks to Edward Robinson, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  He declined the donation.  So Mrs. Whitney and Mrs. Force opened their own museum in 1931.  (Today, the Met occupies the former home of the Whitney on Madison Avenue.)  David W. Dunlap  Read more and see pictures at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/nyregion/gertrude-vanderbilt-whitneys-village-studios-birthplace-of-museum-to-admit-visitors.html

TURNING BACK THE TIDE:  As rising waters threaten coastal areas, communities are rethinking development and realizing that nature is their best first line of defense by Ted O'Callahan  See pictures and read extensive article about restoring reefs, creating artificial reefs, and planting salt-tolerant vegetation at  http://www.nature.org/magazine/archives/turning-back-the-tide.xml

In what will be perhaps the last great moment of comedy this presidential campaign season has given us, Scottie Nell Hughes of RightAlerts.com criticized Jay Z after the rapper performed in Cleveland on Friday in support of Hillary Clinton.  Except:  The explosive is called a molotov cocktail.  “Mazel tov” is a celebratory phrase in Hebrew—something you say when a baby is born, or a happy couple gets married.   Actually, there has been a Mazel Tov cocktail on the menu at DGS, a Dupont Circle modern delicatessen, for several years.  Partner Brian Zipin invented it when the restaurant first opened.  His recipe calls for plum gin liqueur, because “Plums are really important in Jewish heritage and culture.”  He wanted to use sparkling wine, because “when you say mazel tov, it’s kind of a toast.”  The cocktail is on the menu at DGS, where he says it has been a good seller over the years.  Through November 10, 2016, the $11 cocktail will be half price.  Maura  Judkis  See Zipin's recipe for mazel tov cocktail at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2016/11/07/actually-the-mazel-tov-cocktail-is-real-and-its-delicious/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1548  November 9, 2016  On this date in 1664, Henry Wharton, English librarian and author, was born.  On this date in 1871, Florence R. Sabin, American medical scientist, was born.