Hobbits are a fictional human-like race in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien. About half the height of humans, they are referred to as Halflings, they live barefooted, live in underground houses which have windows, as they are built into the sides of hills. Hobbits first appeared in the 1937 children's novel The Hobbit, whose titular hobbit is the protagonist Bilbo Baggins, thrown into an unexpected adventure involving a dragon. In its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, Meriadoc Brandybuck are primary characters. Hobbits are briefly mentioned in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, which are set in the same fictional world of Tolkien's, called Middle-earth. According to the author in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings, hobbits are "relatives" of the race of Men. Elsewhere, Tolkien describes hobbits as a "variety" or separate "branch" of humans. Within the story and other races seem aware of the similarities. However, within the story, hobbits considered themselves a separate people.

At the time of the events in The Lord of the Rings, hobbits lived in the Shire and in Bree in the north west of Middle-earth, though by the end, some had moved out to the Tower Hills and to Gondor and Rohan. Tolkien claimed that he started The Hobbit without premeditation, in the midst of grading a set of student essay exams, writing on a blank piece of paper: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit". Tolkien set out a fictional etymology for the word "hobbit" in an appendix to The Lord of the Rings, to the effect that it was derived from holbytla, meaning "hole-builder"; this was Tolkien's own new construction from Old English hol, "a hole or hollow", bytlan, "to build". The term however has real antecedents in modern English. One is a fact that Tolkien admitted: the title of Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel Babbitt, about a "complacent American businessman" who goes through a journey of some kind of self-discovery, facing "near-disgrace. According to a letter from Tolkien to W. H. Auden, one "probably..

Unconscious" inspiration was Edward Wyke Smith's 1927 children's book The Marvellous Land of Snergs. Tolkien described the Snergs as "a race of people only taller than the average table but broad in the shoulders and have the strength of ten men." Another possible origin emerged in 1977 when the Oxford English Dictionary announced that it had found the source that it supposed Tolkien to have used: J. Hardy wrote in his 1895 The Denham Tracts, Volume 2: "The whole earth was overrun with ghosts, boggles... hobbits, hobgoblins." The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that the list was, however, of ghostly creatures without bodies, nothing like Tolkien's solid flesh-and-blood hobbits. An additional connection is with rabbit, one that Tolkien "emphatically rejected", although the word appears in The Hobbit in connection with other characters' opinions of Bilbo in several places. Bilbo compares himself to a rabbit; the giant bear-man Beorn teases Bilbo and jokes that "little bunny is getting nice and fat again", while the dwarf Thorin shakes Bilbo "like a rabbit".

Shippey writes that rabbit is not a native English species, but was deliberately introduced in the 13th century, has become accepted as a local wild animal. Shippey compares this "situation of anachronism-cum-familiarity" with the lifestyle of the hobbit, giving the example of smoking "pipeweed", he argues that Tolkien did not want to write "tobacco", as it did not arrive until the 16th century, so Tolkien invented a calque made of English words. Donald O'Brien notes, that Aragorn's description of Frodo's priceless mithril mail-shirt, "here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an elven-princeling in", is a "curious echo" of the English nursery rhyme "To find a pretty rabbit-skin to wrap the baby bunting in." In the prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes that hobbits are between two and four feet tall, the average height being three feet six inches. They dress in bright colours, favouring green. Nowadays, they are shy, but are capable of great courage and amazing feats under the proper circumstances.

They are adept at throwing stones. For the most part, they can not grow beards, their feet are covered with curly hair with leathery soles, so hobbits hardly wear shoes. The race's average life expectancy is 100 years. Two hobbits, Bilbo Baggins and the Old Took, are described as living to the age of 130 or beyond, though Bilbo's long lifespan owes much to his possession of the One Ring. Hobbits are considered to "come of age" on their 33rd birthday, so a 50-year-old hobbit would be regarded as entering middle-age. Hobbits are not quite as stocky as the similarly-sized dwarves, but still tend to be stout, with pointed ears. Tolkien does not describe hobbits' ears in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but in a 1938 letter to his American publisher, he described them as having "ears only pointed and'elvish'". Tolkien describes hobbits thus: I picture a human figure, not a kind of'fairy' rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face.

The feet from the ankles down, covered with brown hairy fur. Clothing: green velvet breeches.

The Library of Catalonia is a Catalan national library located in Barcelona, Spain. The mission of the Library of Catalonia is to collect and spread Catalan bibliographic production and that related to the Catalan linguistic area, to look after its conservation, to spread its bibliographic heritage while maintaining the status of a center for research and consultation, it has about three million items. The library was founded in 1907 as the library of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, it was opened to the public in 1914, in the time of the Commonwealth of Catalonia, was housed in the Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya. In 1914 the Commonwealth of Catalonia converted the library of the IEC into a public cultural service. In its early days, the library was situated in an area of the Palau de la Generalitat in Barcelona. In 1929, the library was acquired by the city government of Barcelona. In 1931, the 15th century buildings occupied by the Hospital de la Santa Creu were declared a part of Spain's historical patrimony.

In 1936 the first reading room, the Sala Cervantina was opened, but the project was halted because of the Civil War and not all of the necessary adaptations were completed. After the fall of Barcelona in early 1939, the library was closed until 1940. After the Spanish Civil War, in 1940, the library was renamed the Central Library in Francoist Spain and moved to its new site, where it remains to this day. In Francoist Spain, the institution was turned into a general use library, intended to supplement the deficiencies of the public and university libraries. In 1981 it was made the national library of Catalonia by the Llei de biblioteques of 1981, approved by the Parliament of Catalonia, conferring upon it the duties of the reception and distribution of the Catalan legal deposit. In 1993, the Law of the Library System of Catalonia extended the institution's depository functions and helped in its modernization, which included the remodelling of the building, its reorganization and the digitization of its procedures.

During the 1990s, a major renovation project further transformed the library, including the construction of four underground levels of storage and the annex building. In 1998, the library renovated the Gothic elements of its buildings and extended its space, thanks to the construction of a new services building. In 2007, the Biblioteca de Catalunya and four more Catalan libraries agreed to join the digitization project; these libraries have begun digitizing books of theirs. The digitization partnership project is intended to make these books available on the Internet; the Biblioteca de Catalunya acts as coordinator and intermediary on behalf of the other four Catalan libraries participating in the project: the library of the Monastery of Montserrat, the Public Episcopal Library of the Seminary of Barcelona, the Library of the Barcelona Excursionist Centre and the Library of the Barcelona Athenaeum. The Catalan libraries group became the second non-Anglo-Saxon collaborator to join the Google Books Library Project, within the Google Book Search program.

In 1977, the Library of Catalonia joined another Spanish participant in the project, the Complutense University of Madrid. Linear metres of shelving: Free access: 1,500 m Closed stacks: 49,000 m Total surface area of the Biblioteca: 15,000 m2 Total surface area of the General reading room: 2,700 m2 Surface area of the Reserve room: 360 m2 Seats: 229 Total documents: 3 million List of libraries in Spain Google Book Search Google Books Library Project PADICAT Joan Maragall Archive Name and Title Authority File of Catalonia Llista d'encapçalaments de matèria en català Riding, Alan. "France Detects a Cultural Threat in Google," New York Times. 11 April 2005. Fontbona, Francesc: Présentation dés tresors de la Unitat Gràfica de la Biblioteca de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2005. Jorba, Manuel: La Biblioteca de Catalunya com a biblioteca nacional, Barcelona, 1996. Panyella, V.: The Biblioteca de Catalunya, Library of Catalonia, Barcelona: Biblioteca de Catalunya, 1993.: Cincuenta años de la antigua Biblioteca de Catalunya, Biblioteca Central de la Diputación de Barcelona, Barcelona 1968.

Reis Fontanals, Marga Losantos: Biblioteca de Catalunya, 100 anys: 1907–2007, Biblioteca de Catalunya, Barcelona 2007 Rodón, Joan: Sales de lectura de la Biblioteca de Catalunya, 1995. Rodríguez Parada, Concepción: Los fondos patrimoniales de la Biblioteca de Catalunya, Firenze, 2010. Biblioteca de Catalunya The European Library

Edwin Meese III is an American attorney, law professor and member of the Republican Party who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration, the Reagan Presidential Transition Team and the Reagan White House rising to hold the position of the 75th United States Attorney General, a position from which he resigned following the Wedtech scandal. He holds fellowships and chairmanships with several public policy councils and think-tanks, including the Constitution Project and the Heritage Foundation, he was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He sits on the National Advisory Board of Center for Urban Renewal and Education, he is on the board of directors of The Federalist Society for Public Policy Studies. He has served on the board of Cornerstone closed end funds. Meese was born in Oakland, the eldest of four sons born to Leone and Edwin Meese, Jr, he was raised in a practicing Lutheran family, of German descent.

His father was an Oakland city government official, president of the Zion Lutheran Church, served 24 years in the non-partisan office of Treasurer of Alameda County. At age 10, Meese published along with his brothers a mimeographed neighborhood newspaper, the Weekly Herald, used the proceeds to buy a war bond; the young Meese rode a bicycle on a paper route and worked in a drugstore. At Oakland High School, Meese was involved in the Junior State of America and led his high school debate team to statewide championships, he was recognized as valedictorian, class of 1949. Two weeks prior to graduation, he was granted a scholarship. Meese served as president of the Yale Political Union, chairman of the Conservative Party, chairman of the Yale Debating Association. Meese made the dean's list, graduated with a bachelor of arts of political science in 1953. Meese became a member of ROTC upon enrollment at Yale, upon graduation he obtained a commission in the United States Army as a Second Lieutenant.

He spent 24 months at Fort Sill near Oklahoma. Meese gained experience in logistics, conducting installation and operations of the 240 mm howitzer M1. Meese completed active duty in 1956 and continued in the United States Army Reserve, specializing in military intelligence. Meese retired from the Army Reserve as a colonel in 1984. Meese returned to California, obtaining a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where he was a state Moot Court champion, he graduated in 1958 and accepted a position with the district attorney's office of Alameda County as a law clerk. While there, he worked under District Attorney J. Frank Coakley, he worked with future DA Delwen Lowell Jensen. Jensen was engaged in developing a case-management software program known as Dalite. Meese prosecuted felony cases while maintaining a private practice on nights and weekends, focusing on civil law. During this service, he first drew the attention of Republican State Senator Donald Grunsky, who would recommend him to governor-elect Ronald Reagan.

In 1959 he married daughter of Oakland's postmaster. Meese joined Ronald Reagan's staff in 1967, he served as legal affairs secretary from 1967 to 1968 and as executive assistant and chief of staff to Governor Reagan from 1969 to 1974. Despite his well-known fondness for Reagan, Meese was reluctant to accept the appointment because he thought of himself as non-partisan: "I was not interested."Meese was known for his "unique ability" to explain complex ideas to Reagan in a way that mirrored Reagan's own speaking style and mannerisms. That made Reagan biographer Lou Cannon refer to Meese as "Reagan's geographer."After being named Reagan's chief of staff, Meese convinced his predecessor's deputy, Mike Deaver, to stay on with him, beginning a partnership that would last more than two decades. For his role in Reagan's office, Meese earned reluctant praise from across the aisle. Bob Moretti, a Democrat and former Democratic Speaker of the Assembly, said, "Were I in the governor's seat, I would want someone like on my side."

As Reagan's chief of staff, Meese was instrumental in the decision to crack down on student protesters at People's Park in Berkeley, California, on May 15, 1969. Meese was criticized for escalating the official response to the People's Park protest, during which law enforcement officers killed one student, on his way to class, not a protester and injured hundreds of others, including bystanders. Meese advised Reagan to declare a state of emergency in Berkeley, contrary to the recommendation of the Berkeley City Council; that resulted in a two-week occupation of People's Park by National Guard troops. The first governor to turn to Meese for advice on riot control was Democrat Edmund Brown, who first telephoned Meese seeking advice on how to best handle the situation. "I told him," Meese said, "that the people in that building should be arrested and taken out of there. I told him that if they were allowed to stay, there would be another mob scene bigger, the next day." Meese and Deputy District Attorney Lowell Jensen served as co-counsels in the trial of Berkeley demonstrators.

Meese was recognized as one of five "Outstanding Young Men of California" by the California Junior Chamber of Commerce for his role in countering the Berkeley demonstrators. Meese's role in quelling the riots at UC Berkeley have been identified by critics and supporters as an example of a conservative law-enforcement philosophy at work. From January 1975 to May 1976, Meese served as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries in Chula V

Intimate is a studio album by Smokey Robinson issued in 1999 on Motown Records. The album rose to No. 28 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. As an album Intimate was Grammy nominated for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance; the album marked a return to Motown Records. Artistes such as The Emotions and Gerald Albright guested on the album; the Album had 2 singles. 1. Easy to Love 2. Sleepin' In Alan Light for Vibe feels the album relies "too on dated synthesizer washes and'romantic' tinkly percussion", but Robinson's voice is "just as lovely, just as pure and clean, as ever." Andrew Hamilton of AllMusic doesn't think Intimate rates with his albums from the 1970s, calling the results "merely adequate" but says it "is a fine comeback by Mr. Motown." "Sleepin' In" – 4:07 "Easy to Love" – 4:30 "Love Love Again" – 4:12 "Intimate" – 4:36 "I'm the One" – 4:02 "Just Let Me Love You" – 4:04 "All of Mine" – 3:50 "The Bottom Line" – 3:54 "Feelings Flowing" – 4:13 "Ready to Roll" – 3:48 "Tu Me Besas Muy Rico" – 5:13 "Intimate" – 1:22

Herodian coinage are coins minted and issued by the Herodian Dynasty, Jews of Idumean descent who ruled the province of Judaea between 37 BC–92 AD. The dynasty was founded by Herod the Great, the son of Antipater, a powerful official under the Hasmonean King Hyrcanus II; the coinage of Herod the Great continued the Jewish tradition of not depicting a graven image. However, a prutah of Herod was the first coin since the Persian period to depict a living creature - an eagle, which may have been an allusion to the golden eagle that Herod erected over the entrance to the Second Temple, which caused such great offence to the Jews. Other objects depicted on coins of Herod include a winged caduceus and pomegranate, one of the seven species mentioned in the Bible as blessings to the Land of Israel, a plumed helmet and shield, a ship's stern and a palm branch; the largest denomination coin issued by Herod, bears a year, "year 3", displays a series of unusual designs, such as a helmet with long cheek pieces, surmounted by a star.

The second largest denomination features a crested helmet and a shield, as well as the Greek letter Chi within a diadem and a tripod holding a ceremonial bowl. These designs are surrounded by the Greek inscription Greek:'ΉΡΩΔΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ'; the Greek letter Chi representing the "crown of Kehunah" and the diadem representing the "crown of Malchus" are taken to mean that Herod claimed both offices for himself. The most common prutah issued by Herod the Great is similar in design to that of the Hashmonean coinage, an anchor with Greek inscription "ΉΡωΔ ΒΆCΙ", a caduceus between double cornucopiae, meant as a continuation of the Hashmonean coinage as well as a continuation of the Hasmonean dynasty. However, Herod used only the Greek script on his coins, not the dual Greek and Hebrew method of the Hasmoneans; the most common coins of Herod Archelaus are small prutot depicting a bunch of grapes one of the seven species, a crested helmet with his name and title in Greek, a ship's prow and wreath with his name and title abbreviated.

Grapes were depicted on Jewish coins, serving as s reminder of the fertility of the country. Other coins of Archelaus showed the bow of a laurel wreath. A rare double prutah of Herod Archelaus depicts a galley and conjoined double cornucopiae inscribed in Greek with his name and title; the coinage of Herod Antipas is rather rare, can be divided into four categories: i) coins dated'year 24' with the inscription'ΤΙΒΕΡΙΆC', where the coins were minted, contained within a wreath on the reverse. The coinage of Herod Antipas was minted in four denominations, with the inscription'ΤΙΒΕΡΙΆC' on the reverse within a wreath; the obverse has the Greek inscription "Herod the Tetrarch" with an upright palm branch. A variant type depicted an upright reed; the coins of Herod Philip II are bronze of middle-size. He was the first Jewish ruler to put the Roman Emperors on his coinage. An early issue has a portrait of the Emperor Augustus, with the Greek inscription'KAICAPI CEBACTΩ' on the obverse, and'ΦΙΛΙΠΠΌΎ ΤΕΤΡΆΡΧΌΎ' on the reverse.

Coins depicted Tiberius on the obverse, with the inscription'TIBEPIOΣ ΣEBAΣ', and'ΦΙΛΙΠΠΌΎ ΤΕΤΡΆΡΧΌΎ' on the reverse. Both types had the facade of a four-columned temple on the reverse the Temple in Jerusalem; the coins are dated according to the year of the Emperor's reign. Agrippa I was the son of Aristobulus and Berenice, was a grandson of Herod the Great. Agrippa spent much of his boyhood at the Imperial court in Rome, his friend, the Emperor Caligula, granted him the former territories of his uncles Herod Philip II and Herod Antipas. The Emperor Claudius also added Judaea; the most common prutah issued by Agrippa I shows a royal fringed umbrella-like canopy on the obverse, with the inscription'ΆΓΡΙΠΆ BACIΛEWC' in Greek, while the reverse shows three ears of barley between two leaves with the year. Another coin of Agrippa was issued in the name of the daughter of Nero; these coins show a temple with a seated figure within and the inscription'DIVA POPPAEA AUG' on the obverse, while the reverse shows a round temple with a figure standing within and the Greek inscription'DIVA CLAVD NER F'.

All the other coins of Herod Agrippa I contain graven images, with portraits of the Emperor or of Agrippa himself. A rare issue has a portrait of Agrippa with his son Agrippa II on horseback. Agrippa II was the last ruler of the Herodian Dynasty, his coins include both pagan symbolism. A Jewish type, for example, depicts a palm branch on the obverse with the inscription'ΚΛΆΎΔΙΌΥ KAICAPOC' in Greek, a wreath on the reverse surrounding the inscription'TIBERIAC' in Greek. In 66 AD he issued a prutah showing his own bust on the obverse with the Greek inscription'ΒΆΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΆΓΡΙΠΠΌΎ'; the coin's reverse depicts an anchor with the letters L and I on either side, giving the tenth year of the king's reign. Agrippa II minted a'Judaea Capta' coin; this large bronze coin was minted at Tiberias and shows a portrait of Titus on the obverse with the Greek inscription' KAICAP CEBAC AVTOKP TITOC', while the reverse depicts the goddess Nike advancing right holding a wreath and palm branch over her shoulder, with a star in upper right field and the inscriptio

Stephen Ashbrook is a Portland-based singer songwriter. Ashbrook rose to fame in the mid-1990s in his home state of Arizona, riding the wave of the Tempe music scene while performing with his band Satellite. Many bands, including the Gin Blossoms, The Refreshments and Dead Hot Workshop, found success with this guitar-driven rock music. Ashbrook has toured with Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, among others, has performed for President Bill Clinton. Thompson, Jason. "Review of Stephen Ashbrook. American B Sides". PopMatters.com. Retrieved 2008-07-04. Hansen Orf, Chris. "Stephen Ashbrook Releases'White Balloons'". PortlandTribune.com. Retrieved 2008-07-24. Mitchell, Barbara. "SONGWRITER: Stephen Ashbrook". Get Out Magazine. Retrieved 2008-07-24