The James Logan Courier

By Korie Wilkins
Detroit Free Press (MCT)

DETROIT — A secretary in Dearborn, Mich., Bonnie Monroe never expected to play a role in saving the lives of soldiers in Iraq.

But the idea to help came from watching a news story — about Silly String.

The pressurized foam spray is being used to detect trip wires around bombs.

By Kenneth R. Bazinet
New York Daily News(MCT)

WASHINGTON — Political operatives and officials from both parties usually take long lunches, long weekends and long vacations in the two months right after an election — win or lose.

But fired up by the outcome of the November midterm elections, Democrats scrapped that practice and are going after potential 2008 Republican candidates.

Maria Edgeworth (January 1, 1767-May 22, 1849) was an Anglo-Irish novelist.

Maria Edgeworth was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire, the second child of Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Anna Maria Edgeworth nee Elders. On her father's second marriage in 1773, she went with him to Ireland, where she eventually was to settle on his estate, Edgeworthstown, in County Longford. There, she mixed with the Anglo-Irish gentry, particularly Kitty Pakenham (later the wife of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington), Lady Moira, and her aunt Margaret Ruston of Black Castle. She acted as manager of her father's estate, later drawing on this experience for her novels about the Irish. Edgeworth's early literary efforts were melodramatic rather than realistic. One of her schoolgirl novels features a villain who wore a mask made from the skin of a dead man's face. Maria's first published work was Letters for Literary Ladies in 1795, followed in 1796 by her first children's book, The Parent's Assistant, and in 1800 by her first novel Castle Rackrent.

Read Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth, one of 17 of her works available free from Project Gutenberg.