Semitic people or Semites is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group associated with people of the Middle East, including Arabs, Jews, Akkadians, and Phoenicians.  The terminology is now largely unused outside the grouping "Semitic languages" in linguistics.  First used in the 1770s by members of the Göttingen school of history, this biblical terminology for race was derived from Shem (Hebrew: שֵׁם), one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis, together with the parallel terms Hamites and Japhetites.  In archaeology, the term is sometimes used informally as "a kind of shorthand" for ancient Semitic-speaking peoples.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people#:~:text=Semitic%20people%20or%20Semites%20is,%22Semitic%20languages%22%20in%20linguistics.   

The word "Semitic" was coined by German orientalist August Ludwig von Schlözer in 1781 to designate the Semitic group of languages - Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew and others - allegedly spoken by the descendants of Biblical figure Sem, son of Noah.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism   

The Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) is an organization that developed and maintains a mechanism through which plant breeders can designate the new crop varieties they have bred as open source.  This mechanism is advanced as an alternative to patent-protected seeds sold by large agriculture companies such as Monsanto or DuPont.  OSSI is a U.S. based not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization focusing on establishing a protected commons of open source varieties and on educational and outreach activities associated with the development of this open source seed commons and on seed rights and issues related to the control of seed.  The OSSI was founded in 2012 by a group of plant breeders, farmers, and seed companies.  OSSI is governed by a board of directors and as of July 2017 includes 36 plant breeders and 46 seed company partners in its work.  Members of the group are unhappy with the patenting of plant varieties, as they say the patenting of seeds restricts plant breeders' freedom and increases the power of large seed companies.  Taking inspiration from open source software, the OSSI seeks to create a "protected commons" of open-source seed varieties as an alternative to patented or otherwise legally restricted seeds.  At first the OSSI tried to draft a legally-defensible license, but they found that the principle of software licenses did not translate easily to plants, as a license on plant seeds would need to continue to each new generations of plants, quickly creating a huge amount of legal work.  The OSSI eventually decided to use an informal Pledge printed on every seed packet or transmitted along with the seed, both for simplicity and because they felt this less restrictive approach was more in line with the goals of the project.  The Open Source Seed Initiative Pledge asks farmers, gardeners, and plant breeders who use the seed to refrain from patenting or licensing the seed or derivatives from it, and to pass on the Pledge to any derivatives made.  The Pledge states: "You have the freedom to use these OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose.  In return, you pledge not to restrict others' use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this Pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives."  The work of University of Wisconsin sociologist Jack Kloppenburg, particularly his book First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, 1492-2000 (2nd ed.) influenced the development of OSSI.  Originally published in 1990, then updated in 2000, this book chronicles the vast changes in seed sovereignty that took place during the 20th century through the rise of modern plant breeding approaches, the expansion of intellectual property rights, and emerging crop biotechnologies.  Kloppenburg's work explored global consequences of legal control over crop seeds during an era of heavy consolidation in the seed industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Seed_Initiative  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Alice Ann Munro (née Laidlaw 1931–13 May 2024) was a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.  Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of the short story, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time, and with integrated short fiction cycles, in which she has displayed "inarguable virtuosity".  Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade".  Munro's fiction is most often set in her native Huron County in southwestern Ontario.  Her stories explore human complexities in an uncomplicated prose style.  Her writing has established Munro as "one of our greatest contemporary writers of fiction", or, as Cynthia Ozick put it, "our Chekhov".  Aside from the Nobel Prize, Munro received many awards for her work as "master of the contemporary short story", and the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work.  She was also a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for Fiction, and received the Writers' Trust of Canada's 1996 Marian Engel Award and the 2004 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for Runaway.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Munro    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2814  May 15, 2024

Despite its pronunciation, just deserts, with one s, is the proper spelling for the phrase meaning "the punishment that one deserves."  The phrase is even older than dessert, using an older noun version of desert meaning "deserved reward or punishment," which is spelled like the arid land, but pronounced like the sweet treat.  https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/just-deserts-or-just-desserts 

The big cheese is the person who holds the most power in any situation.  If you overhear someone at work describe you as "the big cheese," it means that he thinks of you as the most important person in the office.  You might also call someone important the head honcho or the top dog.  The idiomatic phrase big cheese comes from a definition of cheese that comes from Urdu, in which chiz means "a thing."  The British colonization of India brought English speakers and Urdu speakers together, and one result was the phrase "the real chiz" to mean "a big thing or event."  This evolved over time into big cheese.  https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/big%20cheese  

The Maison carrée (French for "square house") is an ancient Roman temple in Nîmes, southern France; it is one of the best-preserved Roman temples to survive in the territory of the former Roman Empire.  It is a mid-sized Augustan provincial temple of the Imperial cult, a caesareum.  The Maison carrée inspired the neoclassical Église de la Madeleine in Paris, St. Marcellinus Church in Rogalin, Poland, and in the United States the Virginia State Capitol, which was designed by Thomas Jefferson, who had a stucco model made of the Maison carrée while he was minister to France in 1785.  In September 2023, the Maison carrée of Nîmes was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maison_carr%C3%A9e  

“Nothing to do and we do it all the time.”

 “The Northeast coast blossomed . . . what in 1899 Thorstein Veblen would call conspicuous consumption.”

“The pitch of a roof is measured by comparing the horizontal with the vertical.  If the roof rises six inches each horizontal foot, it is called a six-pitch roof.”

The Big House:  A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt

galvanic  (gal-VAN-ik) adjective
1.  Stimulating; energizing; shocking.
2.  Relating to electric current, especially direct current.

After Luigi Galvani (1737-1798), physician and physicist known for his pioneering experiments on the electrical stimulation of animal tissues, which demonstrated the existence of electricity within biological organisms. Earliest documented use: 1797.  A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg 

Modern English is the Wal-Mart of languages:  convenient, huge, hard to avoid, superficially friendly, and devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand. - Mark Abley, writer and editor (b. 13 May 1955)  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2813  May 13, 2024

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 

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. - Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (18 Apr 1857-1938) 

In medieval French, there was a set expression rifle et rafle.  These words are from the verbs rifler, to spoil or strip, and raffler, to carry off.  The phrase referred to the plundering of the bodies of the dead on the battlefield and the carrying off of the booty.  The French phrase moved into English in the forms rif and raf or riffe and raf, which meant at first every scrap, from which we may guess that medieval plunderers were extremely thorough.  It’s known by at least 1338 (it appears in Mannyng’s Chronicle of English of that date).  Later it shifted sense through a series of stages, first referring to one and all, or everybody, and then later taking on the idea of the common people, those of no special social standing.  The phrase was abbreviated to riff-raff and can be found in Gregory’s Chronicle of London of about 1470.  It seems to have taken some decades longer for it to have gone even further downhill and for it to be associated in particular with the dregs of society.  We’re familiar with descendants of both of the original old French words in English, by the way.  Riffler is the origin of our riffle in the card-shuffling sense, amongst others, and of rifle, for searching hurriedly through possessions for something, or to steal.  It also gave rise to the firearms sense, since a rifle takes its name from the spiral grooves cut in the barrel of such a gun to improve its accuracy; this comes from a different sense of the French word, meaning to graze or scratch.  In the early nineteenth century raffish appeared.  This adjective originally referred to somebody who was disreputable or vulgar.  Only later did it acquire the undertones it now has of a person who is attractively unconventional.  This may have come from the second half of riff-raff, or from raff, which had survived by itself in dialect usage in much the same sense of the lowest class of the population.  https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa-rif1.html  

Pulitzer Prizes were awarded at Columbia University May 6, 2024.  Included were:  Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips, a beautifully rendered novel set in West Virginia's Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the aftermath of the Civil War where a severely wounded Union veteran, a 12-year-old girl and her mother, long abused by a Confederate soldier, struggle to heal and Primary Trust, by Eboni Booth, a simple and elegantly crafted story of an emotionally damaged man who finds a new job, new friends and a new sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person's life and enrich an entire community.  Find other titles at https://www.npr.org/2024/05/06/1248897860/pulitzer-prize-winners-2024   

The Scorpion and the Frog is an animal fable which teaches that vicious people cannot resist hurting others even when it is not in their own interests.  This fable seems to have emerged in Russia in the early 20th century.  A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across.  The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river.  The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both.  The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies:  "I am sorry, but I couldn't resist the urge.  It's my character."  The earliest known appearance of this fable is in the 1933 Russian novel The German Quarter by Lev Nitoburg.  The fable also appears in the 1944 novel The Hunter of the Pamirs, and this is the earliest known appearance of the fable in English.  The Hunter of the Pamirs is an English translation of the 1940 Russian novel Jura by Georgii Tushkan.  In the English-speaking world, the fable was made famous by the 1955 film Mr. Arkadin.  It is recounted in a soliloquy by the movie's villain, played by Orson Welles.  A likely precursor to The Scorpion and the Frog is the Persian fable of The Scorpion and the Turtle, which appears in a number of Persian texts from the late 15th century.   

greenmail  (GREEN-mayl)  noun  The practice of buying a large quantity of a company’s stock as a means of hostile takeover, then selling it back to the company at a higher price.  verb tr.:  To subject a company to this tactic.   Earliest documented use:  1983.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come. - Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (7 May 1861-1941)  A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2811  May 8, 2024 

Yoda condition (plural Yoda conditions) noun   An allusion to the somewhat grammatically reversed speech style of Yoda, a character in the Star Wars franchise—for example, “Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.  The term was possibly coined by Félix Cloutier (username “zneak”) in 2010, based on Yoda notation which is claimed to have been coined by Thomas M. Tuerke and published online in 2006.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Yoda_condition#English  May the Fourth—oops, the Force—be with you!   May the Fourth is observed as Star Wars Day by fans of the franchise.  Wiktionary   

The Kentucky Derby Museum is one of the region’s premier attractions, celebrating the tradition, history, hospitality, and pride of the world-renowned event that is the Kentucky Derby.  Each year, the Museum welcomes over 240,000 visitors from across the U.S. and around the world.  With a general admission ticket, visitors can enjoy two floors of interactive exhibits, a 30-minute guided historic walking tour at Churchill Downs Racetrack, and watch the Museum’s signature 18-minute movie, “The Greatest Race” on a 360°, 4K high-resolution screen.  The Museum’s exhibits tell the story of how the Kentucky Derby got its start, going back to the first Derby in 1875.  Displayed are unique artifacts ranging from early fashion pieces to winning Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas’ trophies and artwork entrusted to the Museum in 2017.  Visitors can call a race, play Derby trivia and learn about what it takes to be a jockey.  The Derby Café offers a modern take on some of Kentucky’s signature dishes, including a Hot Brown Panini, Burgoo, and Bourbon Bread Pudding. The bourbon bar offers Mint Juleps, bourbon flights, and other drinks at the full bar.  Find hours and location at https://www.derbymuseum.org/about.html

The 150th Kentucky Derby in Louisville produced one of the most dramatic finishes in its storied history—three noses at the wire.  Mystik Dan desperately fought to hang on with two challengers coming to him in the closing strides.  He did, too, after a delay of several minutes while the closest three-horse photo finish since 1947 was sorted out.  Mystik Dan, an 18-1 shot, edged Sierra Leone by a nose, with Forever Young another nose back in third on May 4, 2024.  Sierra Leone was the most expensive horse in the race at $2.3 million.  Long shots Track Phantom and Just Steel led the field through the early going, with 3-1 favorite Fierceness racing three-wide just off the leaders.  It was just the 10th Kentucky Derby decided by a nose—the closest margin in horse racing—and the first since Grindstone edged Cavonnier to wear the garland of red roses in 1996.  https://apnews.com/article/kentucky-derby-2024-fierceness-sierra-leone-7a75a2184aa4433bafd1397340b61d99 

"My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!" typically shortened to "My Old Kentucky Home", is a sentimental ballad written by Stephen Foster, probably composed in 1852.  It was published in January 1853 by Firth, Pond, & Co. of New York.  Foster was likely inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, as evidenced by the title of a sketch in Foster's sketchbook, "Poor Uncle Tom, Good-Night!"  Interpretations of the song vary widely. Frederick Douglass wrote in his 1855 autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom that the song "awakens sympathies for the slave, in which antislavery principles take root, grow, and flourish".  However, the song's publication by Firth & Pond as a minstrel song and its use in "Tom shows" (stagings of Stowe's novel of varying degrees of sincerity and faithfulness to the original text), and other settings, have clouded its reception.  Foster was greatly inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe's abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which appeared in bookstores in Foster's hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in March 1852.  The novel, written about the plight of a slave in Kentucky, had a profound effect on Foster's future songwriting by altering the tone of his music to sympathize the position of the enslaved person.  In his notebook, Foster penned the lyrics inspired by Stowe's novel, initially named "Poor Old Uncle Tom, Good-Night!" Foster ultimately removed references to Stowe's book, renaming the work, "My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Old_Kentucky_Home#   

Renowned minimalist painter Frank Stella died May 4, 2024 at his home in Manhattan, N.Y.  The artist was 87 years old.  When Stella was only 23, he made his debut at New York's Museum of Modern Art.  And soon after his series Black Paintings, which he started in 1958, Stella created two more series, Aluminum Paintings (1960) and Copper Paintings (1960-61), that committed to the idea that the art was in the medium and was, as he told The Guardian in 2015, supposed to be "fairly straightforward."  In 1970, when he was 33 years old, Stella became the youngest artist ever to receive a retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art.  His exhibition covered a decade of his drawings and paintings and emphasized his originality in simplicity.  In the 1990s, Stella's work evolved from the canvas to colorful geometrical configurations and sculptures.  He started using computer technology and architectural rendering to incorporate digital images into his work.  His Moby Dick series, a set of paintings, lithographs, and sculptures, took their titles from chapters of Herman Melville's classic novel.  https://www.npr.org/2024/05/04/1112027057/frank-stella-dead-art-minimalist

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue  2810   May 6, 2024 

Roman and Byzantine Food and Dining  

No doubt in Roman as well as Byzantine cultures in fact in almost all cultures, food has played an important part and till now it does play a part in every country’s identity, though back then in the age of empires, the food culture was one way to show how powerful and cultured an empire was.  The emperors, legions, cities with advanced engineering, aqueducts, entertainment, art, music, bathhouses, education, literature, science, and multi-ethnic populations showed the imperial might of both Rome and Byzantium but one thing that shows both how sophisticated Roman/ Byzantine culture was as well as how people lived their daily lives was through food and dining as well the diverse cuisine in their history. Of course with Rome’s location in the Mediterranean it shared many cuisine elements with that of Ancient Greece, Carthage, and the Etruscans having a lot of olive oil, cheese, chickpeas, meat, and fish but with the Roman world expanding north into Europe and east into Western Asia, trade within the vast expanse of the empire built up Rome’s cuisine introducing an unlimited grain supply for Rome from Egypt, eastern herbs and spices as well as cooking methods both barbarians in Europe and civilizations in the east had used.  See illustrations at https://byzantium-blogger.blog/2020/07/05/roman-and-byzantine-food-and-dining/  “Civilized life cannot proceed without salt.” -  Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24–AD 79), called Pliny the Elder (/ˈplɪni/), was a Roman author, naturalist, natural philosopher, naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian.  He wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias.  He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Elder 

 

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61–c. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger (/ˈplɪni/), was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome.  Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him.  Pliny the Younger wrote hundreds of letters, of which 247 survived, and which are of great historical value.  Some are addressed to reigning emperors or to notables such as the historian Tacitus. Pliny served as an imperial magistrate under Trajan (reigned 98–117), and his letters to Trajan provide one of the few surviving records of the relationship between the imperial office and provincial governors.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger

 

Coddled eggs are cooked inside their own little “pots”, so the egg never touches the water, unlike poached eggs which are cooked directly in water.  Ouefs en cocotte is the French name for eggs in pots which could refer to coddled or baked eggs.  yield: 2   prep time: 3 MINUTES  cook time: 8 MINUTES  Link to other recipes including fried bread and Scotch eggs at https://www.christinascucina.com/coddled-eggs-how-to-coddle-eggs-easy-directions/   

In cooking, coddled eggs are eggs that have been cracked into a ramekin or another small container, placed in a water bath or bain-marie and gently or lightly cooked just below boiling temperature.  They can be partially cooked, mostly cooked, or hardly cooked at all (as in the eggs used to make Caesar salad dressing, which is only slightly poached for a thicker end-product).  Poached eggs are similar to coddled eggs but cooked by submersion in water, rather than being placed in a water bath.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coddled_egg   

The Modern is a two Michelin-starred, contemporary American restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art, in Manhattan at 9 W, 53d Street, featuring three separate experiences:
THE BAR ROOM, THE MODERN, and THE KITCHEN TABLE  Link to menus at https://www.themodernnyc.com/  Thank you, Muse reader!   

pen picture (plural) pen pictures)(idiomatic) noun written description, often biographical.  synonyms ▲quotations ▼  (art, archaic) A picture drawn with a pen. synonym ▲  

Synonym  pen portrait  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pen_picture#English   

May 3 is World Press Freedom Day, which is recognized by the United Nations to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression. The Windhoek Declaration, a statement of press freedom principles by African newspaper journalists, was adopted on May 3, 1991.   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2809  May 3, 2024