The tiny seeds of the sesame plant have been valued since biblical times as a flavorful ingredient and a rich source of oil for culinary purposes.  The seeds are almost 50 percent oil by weight and yield a light, golden oil that's highly stable and resists becoming rancid.  Plain sesame oil is delicately flavored and well suited for table use or cooking.  Oil made from toasted sesame seeds is much darker and is used primarily as a flavoring.  Each sesame oil has its own strengths.  Cold-pressed sesame, with its neutral flavor, makes an excellent base for vinaigrettes, mayonnaise and similar cold sauces or dressings. Conventional sesame oil is a fine choice as a premium cooking oil, neutral enough for most purposes but bringing a delicate flavor of its own to dishes.  It's also a very fine salad oil and can be used in place of walnut oil or hazelnut oil to lend your salads a hint of nuttiness.  Toasted sesame oil is most often used in stir-fries and other Asian dishes, but it's also valuable ingredient for marinades and salad dressings.  http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/toasted-sesame-oil-vs-sesame-oil-11158.html

Linguistic concepts of 'syncope' and 'compression' make big words into smaller words.  Examples of dropped syllables are the words interesting, every, favorite, and different.  https://pronuncian.com/podcasts/episode71

Silent letter rules  https://www.eulexic.com/guide/silent/  NOTE that the silent a is not mentioned although the a before lly may be dropped when saying words such as artistically, logically, musically, romantically, and stoically. 

QUOTE from The Old Man, a novel by Thomas Perry  They loved routines, because routines implied order, and order reassured them.

Thomas Perry was born in Tonawanda, New York in 1947.  He received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1969 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Rochester in 1974.  He has worked as a park maintenance man, factory laborer, commercial fisherman, university administrator and teacher, and a writer and producer of prime time network television shows.  He lives in Southern California.  Perry is the author of more than 20 novels, including the Jane Whitefield series (VANISHING ACT, DANCE FOR THE DEAD, SHADOW WOMAN, THE FACE CHANGERS, BLOOD MONEY, RUNNER, POISON FLOWER and STRING OF BEADS), DEATH BENEFITS, and PURSUIT, the first recipient of the Gumshoe Award for best novel.  He won the Edgar for THE BUTCHER'S BOY, and METZGER'S DOG was a New York Times Notable Book.  The Independent Mystery Booksellers’ Association included VANISHING ACT in its “100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century,” and NIGHTLIFE was a New York Times bestseller.  METZGER'S DOG was voted one of NPR’s 100 Killer Thrillers--Best Thrillers Ever.  STRIP was chosen as a  New York Times Notable Crime Book for 2010, and THE INFORMANT was a New York Times Notable Crime Book for 2011 and won the Barry Award for Best Thriller, 2011.  POISON FLOWER was chosen among Booklist’s Best Crime Novels of 2013.  http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/thomas-perry

March 2, 2017  In the military-style hierarchy of U.S. restaurant kitchens, a dishwasher ranks near the bottom, even if chefs, given half a chance, will loudly sing a good pot-scrubber’s praises.  But over in Copenhagen, Rene Redzepi, the chef and co-owner of Noma, did something extraordinary last week for the restaurant’s longtime dishwasher:  He made Ali Sonko a partner in the Danish gastronomic temple that regularly ranks among the world’s best.  Sonko, a native of Gambia, was one of three new partners named during a party on Noma’s last day at its waterfront space in the Christianshavn neighborhood.  Noma is expected to relocate in December to its new urban farm near Christiania, Copenhagen’s famous “free town” known for its boho lifestyle and ample drugs.  When Redzepi made the announcement to an assembled crowd of 250 staffers and friends of the house, he “never expected it to be the big story that it’s become,” the chef says from Tulum, Mexico, where Noma will operate an open-air popup in the jungle, starting in April 2017.  Since the announcement, Sonko has been interviewed on just about every TV channel in Denmark, Redzepi says.  Tim Carman  Read more and see pictures at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/03/02/a-dishwasher-becomes-a-partner-in-one-of-the-worlds-greatest-restaurants/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_dishwasher-3am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.e6bba03ff1d8

Secretary of HUD Ben Carson remarks on March 6, 2017  There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less.  But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land . . .  A patient can be zapped into remembering a book read in 1957 . . . "It remembers everything you've ever seen.  Everything you've ever heard.  I could take the oldest person here, make a little hole right here on the side of the head," Carson said while pointing at his left temple, "and put some depth electrodes into their hippocampus and stimulate.  And they would be able to recite back to you, verbatim, a book they read 60 years ago.  It's all there.  It doesn't go away.  You just have to learn how to recall it."  http://www.syracuse.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/03/ben_carson_slaves_immigrants_brain.html

PARAPHRASES from Music & Silence, a novel by Rose Tremain   Acceptance is the harshest lesson life teaches and the one most important to learn.  "Enough" is a mountain whose summit can't be reached. 

On March 7, 2017, the American Library Association (ALA) joined a diverse group of consumer, media, technology, library, arts, content creators, civil liberties, and civil rights advocates urging federal lawmakers to oppose legislation and regulatory actions that would threaten net neutrality and roll back the important protections put in place by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015, and to continue to enforce the Open Internet Order as it stands.  In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) and Ranking Member Bill Nelson (D-FL) ALA joined other organizations to emphasize that continued economic, social, and political growth and innovation, is dependent on an open and accessible internet.  Equitable access to information is a core principle for libraries.  And the rules put in place in 2015–and affirmed by an appeals court– ensure the strongest possible protections for equitable access to online information, applications and services for all.  http://www.districtdispatch.org/2017/03/ala-supports-net-neutrality/

We can do amazing things in the realm of coding, but somehow a fix to the phishing pandemic continues to elude us.  The main reason for this is at least understandable:  It’s a crime that preys on human nature—something that can’t be (reliably) coded.  Phishing emails spoof legitimate companies or contacts in an attempt to get the recipient to click on a fraudster’s link.  Best practices often fly out the window when it comes to salacious material about our favorite celebrities.  The main threat is malware.  It may be something simple, like code that turns your computer into a spam distribution center, or a more serious app that will record your keystrokes (including when you log in to your bank, email, social networking, brokerage accounts, or the gubernatorial back office).   There’s no way to know what you’re getting yourself into.  The best course of action is to use your imagination—or possibly even your sense of what should be off-limits.  Malware leads to identity theft and worse.   If you tend to chase breaking news stories and like to download the ephemera related to them (eyewitness photographs, blog posts), you may want to do a malware scan of your computer.  Adam Levin  http://www.ajc.com/business/personal-finance/the-vice-president-got-phished-are-you-next/r4qVPjhIpIx90Bs9ZAWeqI/  NOTE that within minutes of reading this story, I received a phishing email with no subject--using a friend's name.  I deleted it without clicking on the link it provided.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1675  March 10, 2017  On this date in 1804, in St. Louis, Missouri, a formal ceremony was conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.  On this date in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Mexican–American War.