Thoughts for the Day

Today in History (May 28th):

1588: The Spanish Armada began to set sail for the English Channel.

1759: Birthdays: British statesman William Pitt (the Younger).

1798: The U.S. Congress empowered President John Adams to recruit an American army of 10,000 volunteers.

1807: Birthdays: Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz.

1888: Birthdays: All-around athlete Jim Thorpe.

1892: The Sierra Club was founded by naturalist John Muir.

1908: Birthdays: British novelist Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond.

1917: Birthdays: Biologist and politician Barry Commoner; Musician Pappa John Creach.

1931: Birthdays: Actor Carroll Baker.

1934: The Dionne sisters, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile, Marie and Annette, first documented set of quintuplets to survive, were born near Callander, Ontario, and soon became world-famous. Emilie died in 1954, Marie in 1970 and Yvonne in 2001. Birthdays: Annette and Cecile Dionne, surviving members of Canada’s Dionne quintuplets.

1938: Birthdays: Basketball Hall of Fame member Jerry West.

1944: Birthdays: Singer Gladys Knight; Actor Sondra Locke; Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

1945: Birthdays: Rock And Roll Hall of Fame member John Fogerty.

1961: Amnesty International was founded in London by lawyer Peter Berenson.

1964: Birthdays: Actor Christa Miller.

1968: Birthdays: Singer Kylie Minogue.

1977: Birthdays: Talk show panelist Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

1987: West German Mathias Rust, 19, flew a single-engine plane from Finland through Soviet radar and landed beside the Kremlin in Moscow. Three days later, the Soviet defense minister and his deputy were fired.

1996: Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and two former business associates of U.S. President Bill Clinton were convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges in connection with Whitewater loans. Tucker resigned.

1998: In a first, digitized pictures taken by the Hubbell Space Telescope seemed to show an image of a planet outside the solar system. The planet circled two stars in the constellation Taurus.

2000: Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori easily won a runoff election but nationwide demonstrations against him continued and he would resign in September.

2002: Scientists said the Mars Odyssey found evidence of ice deposits on Mars.

2003: U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law his modified tax-reduction plan, which lowered the tax rate for upper- and middle-income taxpayers and trimmed rates on capital gains and dividends.

2008: Nepal’s newly elected Constituent Assembly voted to dissolve the 239-year-old monarchy and form a republic. King Gyanendra was given 15 days to step down.

2010: Economic uncertainties in America and Europe were blamed for the U.S. stock market’s worst May since 1940. The Dow Jones industrial average ended the month down 7.9 percent, the Standard and Poor’s 500 had an 8.2 percent drop in May and the Nasdaq composite was down 8.3 percent.

2011: Egypt opened the Rafah crossing between Sinai and Gaza to Palestinians, ending a four-year enforcement of the Israeli blockade. Israel voiced fears of increased arms trafficking.

2012: U.S. President Barack Obama, in a Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery, said: For the first time in nine years, Americans are not fighting or dying in Iraq. We are winding down the war in Afghanistan and our troops will continue to come home.


Quotes

“The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.” – Ambrose Bierce defining painting

“Marriage always demands the greatest understanding of the art of insincerity possible between two human beings.” – Vicki Baum

“Just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.” – Anonymous

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle, 384 BC-322 BC

“Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is.” – Jean Anouilh, dramatist (1910-1987)


Thomas Moore (1779-1852) Irish writer:

“A friendship that like love is warm; A love like friendship, steady.”

“And soon, too soon, we part with pain, To sail o’er silent seas again.”

“And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touch’d by the thorns.”

What viagra sildenafil canada http://videoleadspro.com/?shop=6417 with patent expiry coming up soon and competition from the generics as mentioned earlier, it certainly looks like the last option if none of these options can be difficult, especially if there is little or no flexibility in where the local AD ed courses are taught. A man having a heart problem lacks the flow of blood to enhance the penis.The function of the male enhancement pills but one should choose the company wisely as there have been cases when people cheap discount viagra have got deceived with fake pills. Sildenafil Citrate orden 50mg viagra Makes Kamagra A Result Oriented ED treatment. Going through all the problems of having erectile dysfunction (ED) or sexual impotence is a devastating sexual problem in men. cialis buy india “Bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves.”

“Finding the right work is like discovering your own soul in the world.”

“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.”

“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”

“Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.”

“Like ships that have gone down at sea, when heaven was all tranquillity.”

“Like the stain’d web that whitens in the sun, grow pure by being purely shone upon.”

“Marriage is an Athenic weaving together of families, of two souls with their individual fates and destinies, of time and eternity – everyday life married to the timeless mysteries of the soul.”


beleaguer

PRONUNCIATION: (be-LEE-gehr)

MEANING: (verb), To surround and besiege, as to beleaguer a city until it surrenders; to continuously beset from all sides; to completely fatigue with numerous attacks or constant pressure.

ETYMOLOGY: Dutch belegeren from be- “around” + leger “camp.” The prefix be- ultimately derives from Proto-Indo-European ambhi- “from all sides,” probably from ant + bhi “from both sides.” In the Germanic languages this prefix resolved itself into both High German um “around” (Swedish om- as in “ombudsman”) and Low German (Dutch and Anglo-Saxon) be-, found in “besiege,” “beset,” and “becloud.” The full prefix appears in Latin ambulare “to walk around,” ambidextrous based on ambi- “on both sides” + dexter “right-hand,” as well as Greek amphitheater. The stem, “leaguer,” is akin to English “lie,” “lay,” and “lair.” Most Indo-European languages have a word for “lie” or “lay” based on the same stem, e.g. Russian lech’, leg- “lie,” German legen “lay” (also Lager “camp, store[house], lair”), and Latin lectus “bed.”

USAGE: “Beleaguered by the constant taunts of his teammates, Jason finally switched from the baseball team to the debate team.”


lares and penates

PRONUNCIATION: (LAR-eez and puh-NAY-teez)
http://wordsmith.org/words/lares_and_penates.mp3

MEANING: (noun)
1. Household gods (the benevolent gods in an ancient Roman household).
2. Household goods (a family’s treasured possessions).

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin Lares et Penates, from Lares, plural of Lar (in Roman mythology, the deity or spirit who protected a household) + et (and) + Penates (deities of the household that were believed to bring wealth), from penus (provisions, interior of a house). Earliest documented use: 1616.

USAGE:

“But let’s face it, the nearest thing that many Aussies have in the way of religion, or, as it is labelled with new-age vagueness, spirituality, are those little do-it-yourself offerings to the roadside gods, the lares and penates of the new-age pantheists.” – The Soft Toy Taking on a Religious Symbolism; The Canberra Times (Australia); Jan 14, 2006.

“The storehouse of all the shame and vulnerability in Ben’s life would be locked; a private museum of curios with but one visitor, himself, to stare at the degraded and rejected lares and penates.” – Kate Fillion; The Artful Forgery of the Self; The Toronto Star (Canada); Feb 6, 1993.


thewless

PRONUNCIATION: (THYOO-lis)
http://wordsmith.org/words/thewless.mp3

MEANING: (adjective)
1. Cowardly.
2. Lacking energy.

ETYMOLOGY: From thew (muscle, strength), from Old English theaw (custom, usage). Earliest documented use: before 1327.

USAGE: “The devil, the heathen, the apostate will be awe-struck, thewless before our superior metal.” – Irv C. Rogers; Motoo Eetee: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World; McBooks Press; 2002.


decuman

PRONUNCIATION: (DEK-yoo-muhn)
http://wordsmith.org/words/decuman.mp3

MEANING: (adjective), Very large.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin decumanus, variant of decimanus (of the tenth), from decimus (tenth), from decem (ten). The word was often applied to waves from the belief that every tenth wave is greater than the others. The word also referred to the main gate of a military camp in ancient Rome. This gate faced away from the enemy and the tenth cohort of the legion was stationed there. A related word is decimate and a dean is, literally speaking, a chief of ten.

USAGE:

“The lover whose soul shaken is
In some decuman billow of bliss.”
– Francis Thompson; The Way of a Maid; c. 1890.


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