Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters.  It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers.  Founded in 2017, Substack is headquartered in San Francisco.  Substack was founded in 2017 by Chris Best, the co-founder of Kik Messenger; Jairaj Sethi, a head of platform and principal developer at Kik Messenger; and Hamish McKenzie, a former PandoDaily tech reporter.  Best and McKenzie describe Ben Thompson's Stratechery, a subscription-based tech and media newsletter, as a major inspiration for their platform.  Best serves as chief executive as of March 2019.  Substack users include journalists, subject-matter experts, and media platforms.  The New York Times columnist Mike Isaac argued in 2019 that companies like Substack see newsletters as a more stable means to maintain readers through a more direct connection with writers.  In 2020, The New Republic said there was an absence of local news newsletters, especially in contrast to the large number of national-level political newsletters.  As of late 2020, large numbers of journalists and reporters were coming to the platform, driven in part by the long-term decline in traditional media (there were half as many newsroom jobs in 2019 as in 2004).  In 2019, Substack added support for podcasts and discussion threads among newsletter subscribers.  As of November 2021, the platform said it had more than 500,000 paying subscribers, representing over one million subscriptions.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substack   

MEDITERRANEAN-STYLE TAVERNA CHOPPED GREEK SALAD  RECIPE

You can omit the oil and red wine vinegar and just use the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes, but I like to add it in for extra flavor, use as much artichokes as you like, adjust all ingredients to taste, the oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes are what makes this salad so do not omit.  Serves 6-8  recipe submitted by Kittencalrecipezazz  https://www.food.com/recipe/kittencals-mediterranean-style-taverna-chopped-greek-salad-238190   

The National Hurricane Center doesn't decide the names of tropical storms.  That role is the job of the World Meteorological Organization, a special international committee of scientists.  For each of the world's primary storm region there are six lists of 21 names—one for each letter of the alphabet except for letters Q, U, X, Y, or Z due to limited availability—that are used on an annual rotation.  In the U.S., storms that could impact the eastern part of the country follow the Atlantic list; storms that impact the west coast of the Americas use the Eastern North Pacific list; and Hawaii follows the Central North Pacific lists.  Names are removed from the lists if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate.  If that occurs, the committee retires that name and replaces it with another.  Hurricanes Andrew, Sandy, Hugo, and Ida are all examples of retired storm names.

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/national-international/how-do-hurricanes-get-their-names-heres-how-it-works/3287859/   

A white elephant is something whose cost of upkeep is not in line with its usefulness or value.  From an investment perspective, the term refers to an asset, property, or business that is so expensive to operate and maintain that it is extremely difficult to actually make a profit from it.  White elephants also tend to be illiquid assets, meaning they cannot be easily or quickly exchanged or sold for cash without the seller experiencing a significant loss.  The term white elephant derives from Asia.  The white elephant is an icon with roots in Siam, now commonly known as Thailand.   These rare animals were regarded as holy in ancient times and automatically gifted to the reigning monarch.  The story goes that the monarch would give the white elephant as a gift of either good or bad fortune.  If he liked the recipient, he would gift land along with the elephant to help pay for the cost of the elephant.  If he did not like you, he would not include land, turning the gift into a money pit.  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/whiteelephant.asp   

Reader feedback:   As for riff-raff, is it possible that the latter changes in usage was associated with the character Riff-Raff in the cult classic "Rocky Horror Picture Show" in the 1970s?   See:  https://rockyhorror.fandom.com/wiki/Riff_Raff   

As for the Scorpion, there is an earlier Persian version with a tortoise that seems to pre-date the Russian version.  See:  https://wordandsorcery.com/the-scorpion-and-the-tortoise-fable/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2812  May 10, 2024