Thoughts for the Day

Today in History (December 15th):

0037: Birthdays: The Roman Emperor Nero.

1791: The Bill of Rights, comprising the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, took effect.

1832: Birthdays: French engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, builder of the Paris tower that bears his name and engineer of the Statue of Liberty.

1859: Birthdays: Polish linguist Ludwik Zamenhof, creator of the international language Esperanto.

1888: Birthdays: Playwright Maxwell Anderson.

1890: Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull was killed in a skirmish with U.S. soldiers along the Grand River, S.D.

1891: Dr. James Naismith established first rules of basketball in Springfield, Mass.

1892: Birthdays: Billionaire oilman J. Paul Getty.

1911: Birthdays: Bandleader Stan Kenton.

1921: Birthdays: Pioneer rock ‘n’ roll disc jockey Alan Freed.

1933: Birthdays: Comic actor Tim Conway.

1939: The film version of Gone with the Wind premiered in Atlanta.

1942: Birthdays: Rock musician Dave Clark.

1943: The Battle of San Pietro between U.S. forces and a German panzer battalion left the 700-year-old Italian town in ruins.

1948: A federal grand jury in New York indicted former U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss on perjury charges.

1949: Birthdays: Actor Don Johnson.

1954: What may be considered TV’s first mini-series premiered. Davy Crockett aired in a series of five segments on Walt Disney’s Disneyland show.

1961: Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer regarded as the architect of the World War II Jewish Holocaust, was condemned to death by an Israeli war crimes tribunal.

1963: Birthdays: Actor Helen Slater.

1965: The Gemini 6A was launched from Florida.

1968: Birthdays: Actor Garrett Wang.

1973: The American Psychiatric Association reversed its longstanding position and declared that homosexuality isn’t a mental illness. Jean Paul Getty III, grandson of U.S. billionaire J. Paul Getty, was found alive near Naples, five months after his kidnapping by an Italian gang.

1979: Birthdays: Actor Adam Brody.

1982: Teamsters Union President Roy Williams and four others were convicted in federal court of conspiring to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon, D-Nev.

1989: Panamanian lawmakers designated Gen. Manuel Noriega head of state and declared that a state of war existed with the United States.

1990: In a landmark right-to-die case, a Missouri judge cleared the way for the parents of Nancy Cruzan to remove their daughter from life-support systems.

1991: More than 400 people drowned when a ferry headed from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Egypt sank in the Red Sea. About 150 people were rescued.

1992: The governor of Michigan signed a bill making assisted suicide a felony on the same day two chronically ill women killed themselves with the help of Jack Kevorkian. Salvadorans celebrated the formal end to their country’s 12-year civil war.

1993: British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds issued a framework for lasting peace in Northern Ireland. The Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ended with agreement on new global-trade regulations.

1997: 85 people were killed when a Tajik charter airliner crashed in the United Arab Emirates.

2000: First lady and senator-elect Hillary Clinton signed an $8 million book deal to write a memoir of her years in the White House.

2005: As many as 11 million Iraqis turned out to select their first permanent Parliament since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

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2007: At the end of a two-week conference on climate change in Indonesia, delegates from 187 countries, including the United States, agreed to negotiate a new accord on global greenhouse gas emissions.

2008: The Illinois state legislature began impeachment proceedings against Gov. Rod Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

2009: U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the federal government to take over the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois for the housing of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, a major step toward closing the controversial penal facility.

2010: The United States sued BP, the British oil giant, and eight others over the massive months-long Gulf of Mexico oil spill, alleging violations of federal safety and operational regulations.

2011: The United States formally ended its nearly nine-year military mission in Iraq with a solemn ceremony at Baghdad’s international airport. In declaring the official end to the war, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recognized a independent, free and sovereign Iraq. The U.S. Senate passed a $662 billion defense authorization bill, sending it to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature. The House earlier approved the measure after weeks of wrangling over how to deal with suspected terrorists. Former French President Jacques Chirac received a two-year suspended prison sentence for political corruption.



Quotes

“The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love heterosexuals. It’s just that they need more supervision.” – Lynn Lavner

“I look just like the girls next door… if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.” – Dolly Parton



Jean Paul Getty (1892–1976) American business executive:

“Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed.”

“Formula for success: Rise early, work hard, strike oil.”

“Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you’re just sitting still?”

“I buy when other people are selling.”

“I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success.”

“If you can count your money, you don’t have a billion dollars.”

“If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.”

“In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.”

“Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.”



chops

PRONUNCIATION: (CHAPS

MEANING: (noun), (Jazz slang) The skill with which a jazz musician plays an instrument or sings. “Chops” refers especially to one’s technique and fluidity with riffs, improvisations and melodic lines. Anyone who plays an instrument knows that speed and accuracy are difficult to achieve together. The ability to play quickly and with technical precision, mixed with an innate ability to phrase with nuance, emotion and creativitythat’s chops.

ETYMOLOGY: Today’s word stands alone it’s not the plural of “chop.” A jazz bassist doesn’t have “a really good chop,” but he can show his “great chops.” Billie Holiday, a singer with a small range and soft voice, had some of the best chops ever because of her timing and phrasing. Lady Day’s reputation goes to prove that pure sound isn’t everything when it comes to judging chops. “Chops” is usually associated with the lower part of the mouth, especially the jaw, under the assumption that “chops” originally referred to the lip or jaw movement of brass and reed players (from choppers “teeth”). More likely, however, it originates from a phrase not often heard any more, “chops and changes,” referring to swift, unexpected turns or twists (“licks”), as the “chops and changes of fortune.” This sense of “chop” originates in a Middle English word that originally meant “barter” or “bargain,” probably related to Dutch (aan)kopen “buy” and Modern English “cope” and “cheap.”

USAGE: “Albert’s mama always told him he’d never earn his chops without learning his scales.”



schlockmeister

PRONUNCIATION:  (SHLOK-my-stuhr)
http://wordsmith.org/words/schlockmeister.mp3

MEANING:  (noun), One who deals in inferior goods.

ETYMOLOGY:  From Yiddish shlak (evil, nuisance) + German Meister (master). Earliest documented use: 1965.

USAGE:

“Schlockmeister Ed Wood was supposedly the world’s worst director.” – Philippa Hawker and Jake Wilson; Top 10 Films; The Age (Melbourne,Australia); Jul 17, 2010.

“You’re a Harvard historian, for god’s sake, not a pop schlockmeisterlooking for a quick buck.” – Dan Brown; The Da Vinci Code; Doubleday; 2003.

Explore “schlockmeister” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=schlockmeister

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