Just a couple years ago there were only two federally licensed distilleries in the state of Washington. The number of liquor makers has risen with a new law allowing distilleries that produce up to 20,000 gallons a year to register as “craft distilleries.” These small distilleries can open tasting rooms and small amounts of liquor on site. Five of the new craft distillery licenses have been granted and 13 are pending. Pacific Distillery obtained a regular license last year and is now producing Pacifique abinsthe. Pacific couldn’t take advantage of the craft license because their primary ingredients come from out of state (grain spirits from Kentucky and fennel from Florence, Italy) but they are benefiting from the repeal of the U.S. ban on absinthe.

Last year, a New York City mother duck and ducklings exited from Central Park into Park Avenue traffic and were aided by a taxi driver. This year, a nest of ducklings in a center strip on Park Avenue decided to find better digs and were chaperoned into Central Park by park rangers. Happy Mother’s Day, duckies!

All three of Corby Kummer’s James Beard award-winning articles are online at The Atlantic: “A Papaya Grows in Holyoke,” “Beyond the McIntosh,” and “Half a Loaf“. (links to even more winning writing are at Slashfood)

Paul Gauguin’s painting “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” is on loan to Japan from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and “Japanese embraced it with a kind of fanaticism usually reserved for their baseball players.”

Baby Bradypus Sloth at a sanctuary in Costa Rica (on Zooborns). Cute.

For April Fools Day this year, The New Philharmonia Orchestra in Massachusetts received, courtesy of principal second violinist David Pesetsky, a handy translation guide for the German markings in Mahler’s Symphony #1. It becomes rather obvious that the orchestra had been consistently playing too fast. Which means all markings could have instead been translated as “watch!” or the infamous 2-little-circles-joined-to-make-eyeglasses symbol. (original PDF version) (via The Rest is Noise)

Two bits of Seattle restaurant news: Chef William Belickis has signed a lease for Mistral Kitchen with plans to open by this fall. The multi-faceted restaurant will have a main dining room, fine dining room (with the tasting menus the old Mistral was famous for), a chef’s table and a private lounge. And coming soon to the streets, a Korean-Hawaiian taco truck to give Seattle its own version of Kogi BBQ that has foodies in L.A. raving.

Eilene Galloway
In 1958 President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law. NASA came into being soon afterwards. Dr. Eilene Galloway was instrumental in crafting the philosophy and approach to America’s space program, turning a reaction born of fear from the threat of Sputnik towards a focus on peaceful exploration. Galloway died on May 2nd. She was 102. Her government work in space policy is well documented, being public record, but it took a little digging to find out more about how she got there. There are transcripts online of oral histories she has given and scattered information in obituaries.

Galloway was born on May 4, 1906 (so she was practically 103!) in Kansas City, Missouri. Her father was in the Marine Corps and she had no siblings so her mother raised her alone. She was captain of the high school debate team and attended Washington University in St. Louis, transferring to Swarthmore College and graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1928 with a political science degree. She credits a Swarthmore honors program with providing the background in indisciplinary research that gave her the skills to determine how to organize the government to form a successful space program. She taught at Swarthmore after graduation. She and her husband, George Barnes Galloway, moved to D.C. in 1931 where she worked for Federal Emergency Relief Administration during the Great Depression.

Galloway was working as the National Defense Analyst in the Library of Congress when she wrote “Guided Missiles in Foreign Countries” shortly before Sputnik launched. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson asked her to consult for and then serve on the committees formed to discuss the country’s readiness for the space race. From there, Galloway, born only a few years after the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, became “The Grand Matriarch of Space Law” authoring legislation that propelled the country into that new frontier. She consistently argued for the continuation of peace in space, opposing the idea of occupation or sovereignty claims by nations. Swarthmore awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1992. Galloway attributed her longevity to good genes, but also quipped “I drank a lot of milk and I didn’t smoke.” She consulted Marcus Aurelius‘ The Meditations when in need of guidance. (Sources: oral history transcripts 1, 2 SpaceRef obituary 100th birthday inteview Aviation Week obituary)

The N.Y. Times’ Room for Debate blog had four experts express their views on China’s shift from traditional to simplified Chinese characters which began in the 1950s and is now being furthered by a government movement to simplify names that use characters that don’t exist in the official database. The more interesting discussion is of course in the reader comments, 121 and counting, including views from those brought up in Taiwan and Hong Kong where traditional characters are used.

Finding sea glass is my favorite part of beachcombing. My small collection has white, green, brown, and blue frosty pieces from east and west coasts. Many these little beauties originate from garbage piles, from a time when the ocean was the town dump (this behavior persists: in one day last year, volunteers collected 168,849 glass bottles from American beaches). Expert sea glass collectors often keep their favorite locations secret, but there are characteristics and times of year to look out for. Old seaport towns and resorts, very low tides. One collector has her husband look up historical records for old dumping sites. My favorite, and one of the more famous locations, Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, CA is now a State Park and gathering is no longer permitted, though I will venture a guess that it is still practiced.