Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958) was an American writer, best known for his investigative journalism and muckraking.  From 1891 to 1900, he was a reporter for the New York Sun where his career began, and then joined McClure's Magazine, where he gained a reputation as a muckraker for his articles on the conditions of public health in the United States.  Adams considered himself a freelance writer and used his writings to support himself.  In 1905 Adams was hired by Collier's to prepared articles on patent medicines.  In a series of 11 articles he wrote for the magazine in 1905, "The Great American Fraud", Adams exposed many of the false claims made about patent medicines, pointing out that in some cases these medicines were damaging the health of the people using them.  The series had a huge impact and led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.  Adams was a prolific writer, who wrote fiction as well. "Night Bus", one of Adams's many magazine stories, became the basis for the film It Happened One Night.  Adams's first solo novel was in 1908, Flying Death, which added to his mystery collection.  His best-known novel, Revelry (1926), based on the scandals of the Harding administration, was later followed by Incredible Era (1939), a biography of Harding.  Among his other works are The Mystery (1907), with S. E. White, Average Jones (1911), The Secret of Lonesome Cove (1912), The Health Master (1913), The Clarion(1914), The Unspeakable Perk (1916), Our Square and the People in It (1917), Success (1921), Siege (1924), The Gorgeous Hussy (1934), Maiden Effort (1937), The Harvey Girls (1942; adapted into the 1946 movie musical starring Judy Garland), Canal Town (1944), Plunder (1948), Grandfather Stories (1955).  In addition to his many books, Adams also wrote 415 short stories and articles.  Adams last book, Tenderloin (1959), was a novel about his newspaper days and was published after his death. This novel was later made into a Broadway musical.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hopkins_Adams

The Harvey Girls is a 1946 MGM musical film based on the 1942 novel of the same name by Samuel Hopkins Adams, about Fred Harvey's famous Harvey House waitresses.   Directed by George Sidney, the film stars Judy Garland and features John Hodiak, Ray Bolger, and Angela Lansbury, as well as Preston Foster, Virginia O'Brien, Kenny Baker, Marjorie Main and Chill Wills.  Future star Cyd Charisse appears in her first film speaking role on film.  The Harvey Girls won an Academy Award for Best Song for "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe", written by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer.  The role of "Em" as originally intended to be played by Ann Sothern, but because of her personal problems, it went to Angela Lansbury, her fourth film role.  Despite Lansbury having a good voice, her voice was dubbed by Virginia Rees.  Byron Harvey Jr., the grandson of Fred Harvey of the Fred Harvey Company, had an uncredited role as a train conductor.  The Harvey Girls was the first re-union on film for Ray Bolger and Judy Garland since 1939's The Wizard of Oz.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harvey_Girls

Ray Bolger in The Harvey Girls 1946  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctDf2_R2MVw  3:07

How the world's largest landfill became New York's biggest new park, by Karrie Jacobs   On Staten Island, 50 years of garbage has been transformed into a bucolic landscape.  As more rooftops start to double as farms and towers become artificial forests, it's clear that hybrid objects, those that are part manmade and part natural, are a hallmark of 21st century design.  Engineered Nature, a five-part series, explores the emergence of this new hybrid world.  The hill I’m standing on in East Park, one of five areas that will make up the completed park, is composed entirely of garbage, the municipal solid waste generated by the people of New York City for 53 years, from 1948 to 2001 . With my yogurt containers, my paper towels, and my Baggies—and the help of eight million fellow New Yorkers—I built this hill.  Fresh Kills ("Kill" comes from a Dutch word for waterway), by the time it was finally closed in 2001, was New York City’s last functioning landfill.  We now bury our garbage in neighboring states and haul some of it to a plant in New Jersey that burns it to generate power.  Read more, see pictures and link to the first four articles in the Engineered Nature series at http://ny.curbed.com/2016/9/13/12891320/freshkills-park-nyc-staten-island-engineering-design

Demagogue has a very long history.  The word comes down to us nearly unaltered from the classical Greek dēmagōgos, usually translated as “leader of the people” (from dēmos, “people,” and agōgos or agein, “to lead”).  In its original sense—in Greek—the term was intended to give a label to someone who spoke for the people, usually with their support and acceptance.  This early use viewed a demagogue as a voice of the people, the person who stood up for the collective and expressed their opinions.  According to some sources, being a demagogue acquired negative connotations almost immediately.  This is essentially where the word stands today and has remained for the past couple of centuries.  Outside of historical descriptions, I suspect you’ll be hard pressed to find the word used with a neutral or positive intent.  Keeping in the vein of political science, Patricia Roberts-Miller, at the University of Texas at Austin, has done a tremendous amount of work analyzing what demagoguery (a 19th century expansion of the word and concept) really is and what it means for all of us.  You could spend hours, if not days, reading all of her thoughts on the subject, but a clear and simple place to start is this recent blog post http://www.patriciarobertsmiller.com/?tag=demagoguery.  I find it extremely interesting how she unfolds modern demagoguery to show that it is, in essence, not an integral part of an inclusive and fair democracy but a dangerous threat to it.  Christopher Daly  https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/what-is-a-demagogue/

Quotes from City of Saints, #1 in the Art Oveson mystery novels and winner of the 2011 Tony Hillerman Prize, by Andrew Hunt  “What you don't know about me could fill Fenway Park—and we might have to set aside part of Wrigley Field, too.”  "Ruffling feathers was his specialty . . . "  "Timidity visited me, poured himself a glass of milk, propped his feet on the ottoman, and made himself right at home."

Andrew Emerson Hunt (born 1968)  is a Professor of History at the University of Waterloo in Canada.   He is also the Director of the Tri-University Graduate Program in History.  Hunt was born in Calgary, Alberta.  He is a descendant of one of the founders of the University of Deseret (the original name of the University of Utah).  At age one he was relocated to the United States with his American parents E. K. Hunt and Linda Hunt.  Andrew Hunt was raised in California and Utah.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Hunt_(historian)

 http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1668  December 23, 2016  On this date in 1823, the Troy Sentinel printed Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” between a piece on taking honey from the hive and a marriage announcement.  It was the first of many appearances in periodicals of what soon became a very popular poem.  In 1823, St. Nicholas calls to Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder, and Blixem.  Various scholars have pointed out the similarities between “Dunder” and the Dutch word for “thunder”; and “Blixem” and “bliksem”—lightning.  More recent versions of the poem, however, have the last two named “Donder” and “Blitzen.” http://www.merrycoz.org/moore/1823Troy.xhtml  See also Revisiting "A Visit from St. Nicholas" at http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/collections/stnick/  On this date in 1893, the opera Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck was first performed.  Quote of the Day  “Every noon as the clock hands arrive at twelve, I want to tie the two arms together, And walk out of the bank carrying time in bags.”  The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems  (forty-eight poems written in the form called ghazal) Robert Bly poet (b. 23 Dec 1926)