Thoughts for the Day

Today in History (March 10th):

515 B.C.: The rebuilding of the great Jewish temple in Jerusalem was completed.

1628: Birthdays: Italian scientist Marcello Malpighi.

1862: The U.S. Treasury issued the first American paper money, in denominations from $5 to $1,000.

1876: Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first telephone message to his assistant in the next room: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.”

1880: The Salvation Army of the United States was founded in New York City.

1888: Birthdays: Actor Barry Fitzgerald.

1891: Birthdays: Actor Sam Jaffe.

1892: Birthdays: French composer Arthur Honegger.

1900: Birthdays: Poet Margaret Fishback.

1903: Birthdays: Jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke.

1928: Birthdays: James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr.

1940: Birthdays: Playwright David Rabe; Actor Chuck Norris.

1945: 300 U.S. bombers dropped almost 2,000 tons of incendiaries on Tokyo, destroying large portions of the Japanese capital and killing 100,000 people.

1946: Birthdays: College basketball coach Jim Valvano.

1947: Birthdays: Kim Campbell, the first woman prime minister of Canada; Journalist Bob Greene.

1957: Birthdays: Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

1958: Birthdays: Actor Sharon Stone.

1961: Birthdays: Olympic gold medal gymnast Mitch Gaylord.

1964: Birthdays: Actor Jasmine Guy; Britain’s Prince Edward.

1966: Birthdays: Singer Edie Brickell.

1969: James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

1971: Birthdays: Actor Jon Hamm; Rapper Timbaland.

1977: Astronomers discovered rings around the planet Uranus. Birthdays: Olympic gold medal gymnast Shannon Miller.

1983: Birthdays: Country singer Carrie Underwood.

1984: Birthdays: Actor Olivia Wilde.

1987: The Vatican condemned human artificial fertilization or generation of human life outside the womb and said all reproduction must result from the act of conjugal love.

1992: U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton got sweeping Southern victories in the Super Tuesday primaries.

1993: FBI agents arrested a third person, a 25-year-old Kuwaiti-born chemical engineer, in connection with the World Trade Center bombing. An anti-abortion rights demonstrator fatally shot a doctor at a Pensacola, Fla., clinic.

1997: The Citadel announced that 10 male cadets had been disciplined for mistreating two female cadets. The women resigned from the South Carolina military academy.

1998: Indonesian President Suharto was elected to a seventh term.

2003: The Palestinian Legislative Council created the position of prime minister but peace talks with Israel continued under the command of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Ivory Coast, torn by civil war for six months, got a new premier, Seydou Diarra, under a French-brokered peace accord.

2004: Lee Boyd Malvo, 19, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his role in the 10 Washington-area sniper killings in 2002. His partner, John Allen Muhammad, considered the mastermind, was sentenced to death one day earlier.

2005: A suicide bomber killed at least 30 people and injured 27 at a funeral procession in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

2006: The body of Tom Fox, a kidnapped U.S. Christian peace activist, was found near Baghdad, authorities report. Three others kidnapped with Fox were released.

2007: Khalid Sheik Mohammed confessed to planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and said he played a role in about 30 other attacks and plots. A federal court threw out a District of Columbia ban on keeping handguns in private homes as unconstitutional.

2008: New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a former crusading state attorney general against white collar crime, was pressured to resign after being implicated in a high-priced prostitution ring. Some 400 Buddhist monks took part in a protest march in Lhasa, Tibet, to mark the failed uprising of 1959 that resulted in the Dalai Lama fleeing to India. As Chinese forces moved in, what had been a peaceful gathering turned violent.

2011: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, signed a bill ending or sharply restricting bargaining rights for most government workers in his state. A new Gallup poll said public approval of the U.S. Congress plummeted to less than 20 percent for the first time since the Tea Party and GOP-led House took control this year.

2012: A U.S. soldier was accused of a door-to-door rampage in an Afghan neighborhood killing 17 civilians, including nine children. Military authorities said Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.



Quotes

“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” – Heraclitus, philosopher (500 BCE)

“Love cures people — both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.” – Dr. Karl Menninger

“At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.” – Eric Idle, comedian, actor, and author (b. 1943)

“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” – Robert Heinlein

“An intellectual is a person who’s found one thing that’s more interesting than sex.” – Aldous Huxley

“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.” – Khalil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
Primarily though, Tongkat Ali Extract is used by many athletes for increasing their strength and stamina. generic viagra canadian this link cheap cialis A blood test will show whether adequate levels of testosterone (produced by the testes) and an intact pituitary gland are required for the development of a healthy male erectile system. The way generic levitra uk this drug works inside the body to hinder and stop the continue release of an enzyme PDE 5 thereby increasing the required cGMP in the particular zone so that the penis becomes relaxed. Yoga is meant to calm, rejuvenate, energize, center and strengthen a person, and make a safe purchase of erectile dysfunction drugs. lowest price for cialis
“Men have slow reflexes. In general it takes several generations later for them to understand.” – Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)



Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987), American playwright and diplomat:

“A man’s home may seem to be his castle on the outside; inside is more often his nursery.”

“A woman’s best protection is a little money of her own.”

“Advertising has done more to cause the social unrest of the 20th century than any other single factor.”

“Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, “She doesn’t have what it takes”; They will say, “Women don’t have what it takes”;”

“But if God had wanted us to think just with our wombs, why did He give us a brain?”

“Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but, unlike charity, it should end there.”

“Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals with no cure except as a guillotine might be called a cure for dandruff.”

“Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.”

“I’m in my anecdotage.”

“In the final analysis there is no other solution to man’s progress but the day’s honest work, the day’s honest decision, the day’s generous utterances, and the day’s good deed.”



ostensible

PRONUNCIATION: (ah-STEN-seh-behl)

MEANING: (adjective), Apparent, evident, conspicuous.

ETYMOLOGY: Via French from Medieval Latin “ostensibilis” from “ostensus,” the past participle of ostendere “to show.” This verb is composed of ob- “to(ward)” + tendere “to stretch,” probably from stretching the arm out to show things. “Tendere” is based on the same original root, *ten- “stretch,” as English “thin” and German “dunn,” since stretching tends to make things thinner. The same root also developed into Latin tenere “to hold,” which is detectable in the English borrowings “tenet,” “tenant,” “tenacious,” “tenable.” “Tense” and “tension” are also relatives. Finally, “baritone” is based partially on Greek tonos “string” of the same origin. Guess where “tone” came from. Although today’s word means “evident,” it usually implies the concealment of something more important, more real. So one’s ostensible reason for going to a restaurant would be to eat but the more important one might be to talk with a certain waitress.

USAGE: “While Allison ostensibly travels to Atlanta on business, she only goes when the Braves are playing a home game.”



nineteenth hole

PRONUNCIATION: (NYN-TEENTH hol)
http://wordsmith.org/words/nineteenth_hole.mp3

MEANING: (noun), The clubhouse or another place, such as a bar or a restaurant, where golfers gather after playing a round.

ETYMOLOGY: A standard round of golf has eighteen holes, so the next stop after the game, a bar or a restaurant, is called the nineteenth hole. A similar term is fifth quarter in (American) football. Earliest documented use: 1901.

USAGE: “The leaders will head to the practice tee to continue perfecting their game, while most golfers head directly to the nineteenth hole for a drink and a bite to eat.” – Brad Brewer; Mentored by the King; Zondervan; 2011.



gazette

PRONUNCIATION: (guh-ZET)
http://wordsmith.org/words/gazette.mp3

MEANING:
(noun)
1. A newspaper (now mostly used in the name of newspapers, for example, the Montreal Gazette).
2. An official journal of an organization, for example, a government journal listing appointment, promotions, etc.
(verb tr.)
1. To announce in an official journal.
2. To publish the appointment of someone in an official journal.

ETYMOLOGY: From French, from Italian gazzetta (news sheet), from Venetian gazeta (a small coin), diminutive of gaza (magpie). The news sheet may have been named so because it sold for a gazeta or its content was compared to the chattering of magpies. The coin may have been named from its marking. Earliest documented use: 1607.

USAGE: “The printing was completed last night and copies of the gazettes will be sent to the Parliament Secretariat this morning.” – Oath in a Day or Two; The Daily Star (Dhaka, Bangladesh); Jan 2, 2009.

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



Lincolnesque

PRONUNCIATION: (ling-kuh-NESK)
http://wordsmith.org/words/lincolnesque.mp3

MEANING: (adjective), Suggestive of Abraham Lincoln.

ETYMOLOGY: After Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States.

USAGE: “A Lincolnesque leader is confident enough to be humble — to not feel the need to bluster or dominate, but to be sufficiently sure of one’s own judgment and self-worth to really listen and not be threatened by contrary advice.” – Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe; Lincoln’s Obama; Newsweek (New York); Nov 24, 2008.

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



lepidopterology

PRONUNCIATION: (lep-i-dop-tuh-ROL-uh-jee)
http://wordsmith.org/words/lepidopterology.mp3

MEANING: (noun) The study of butterflies and moths.

ETYMOLOGY: From Greek lepido- (scale) + pteron (wing, feather), ultimately from the Indo-European root pet- (to rush or fly) that also gave us feather, petition, compete, and perpetual.

USAGE: “Mr. Sokolenko’s exhibition comes at a time when Nabokov’s reputation is on an upswing in the rarefied world of lepidopterology. During his lifetime some lepidopterists, perhaps jealous of his literary fame, carped about his lack of formal training.” – Alexander Osipovich; St. Petersburg Exhibition Shows Nabokov Under (and Behind) a Microscope; The New York Times; Jul 26, 2006.


This entry was posted in Quotes, Thoughts for the Day, Vocabulary and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.