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Quote for Thursday, June 30, 2005

The capacity to combine commitment with skepticism

is essential to democracy.

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

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Today’s Bible Reading:
Mark 10:32-52; 2 Samuel 24; Hosea 4:1-11a
Read these at: http://www.biblegateway.com/

Portuguese:
Marcos 10:32-52; 2 Samuel 24; Oséias 4:1-11a
Read these at: http://www.cvvnet.org/cgi-bin/biblia

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Word of the Day for Thursday June 30, 2005
abscond \ab-SKOND\, intransitive verb:
To depart secretly; to steal away and hide oneself — used
especially of persons who withdraw to avoid arrest or
prosecution.
The criminal is not concerned with influencing or affecting
public opinion: he simply wants to abscond with his money
or accomplish his mercenary task in the quickest and
easiest way possible so that he may reap his reward and
enjoy the fruits of his labours.
–Bruce Hoffman, [1]Inside Terrorism
Pearl, now an orphan (her father having absconded shortly
after her conception), has been taken to live with her
great-aunt Margaret in the north of England.
–Zoe Heller, [2]Everything You Know
_________________________________________________________
Abscond comes from Latin abscondere, “to conceal,” from ab-,
abs-, “away” + condere, “to put, to place.”
References
1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0231114699/ref=nosim/lexico
2. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0743411951/ref=nosim/lexico
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=abscond

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On This Day: Thursday June 30, 2005
This is the 181st day of the year, with 184 days remaining in 2005.
Fact of the Day: Leap Second
June 30 is one of the two times (the other being December 31) when the addition or subtraction of a second from our clock time is allowed to coordinate atomic and astronomical time. The determination to adjust is made by the International Earth Rotation Service of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Paris. A leap second is an intercalary, one-second adjustment that keeps broadcast standards for time of day close to mean solar time. Leap seconds are necessary to keep time standards synchronized with civil calendars, the basis of which is astronomical. The announcement to insert a leap second is given whenever the difference between UTC and UT1 approaches one-half second, to keep the difference between UTC and UT1 from exceeding ±0.9 s. After UTC 23:59:59, a positive leap second at 23:59:60 would be counted, before the clock indicates 00:00:00 of the next day. Negative leap seconds are also possible should the Earth’s rotation becomes slightly faster; in that case, 23:59:58 would be followed by 00:00:00.
Holidays
Congo: Independence Day.
Guatemala: Armed Forces Day.
Sudan: Revolution Day.
Feast day of St Theobald of Provins, the Martyrs of Rome, St Emma, St Bertrand of Le Mans, St Erentrude, and St Martial of Limoges.
Events
1520 – Montezuma II is murdered as Spanish conquistadors flee the Aztec capital of Tenochtilan during the night.
1572 – Great Britain passed a Poor Law, giving assistance to the poor who were unemployed or vagrant.
1859 – A French acrobat known professionally as émile Blondin became the first daredevil to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
1864 – President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Land Grant
1870 – Ada Kepley became the first female law school graduate.
1906 – The Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act each became law.
1908 – One of the most powerful, natural explosions in recorded history occurred, in Central Siberia, devastating 70 miles in diameter.
1921 – President Warren Harding appointed former President Howard Taft to be Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
1921 – Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was incorporated.
1934 – Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered a purge (“Night of the Long Knives”) of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future.
1936 – “Gone With the Wind” was published.
1952 – “Guiding Light” premiered as a television soap opera.
1966 – The National Organization for Women was founded in Washington DC.
1971 – Three Soviet cosmonauts who served as the first crew of the world’s first space station died when their spacecraft depressurized during reentry.
1982 – The Equal Rights Amendment (passed by Congress in 1972), prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, failed to secure ratification by a sufficient number of states to ensure its inclusion in the Constitution.

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Moe: I just can’t stomach that magazine.

Joe: What magazine?

Moe: Reader’s Indigestion

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A blonde woman was having financial troubles, so she went to a local park, kidnapped a little boy, and wrote this note:
To the Boy’s Mother:
I have your child. Leave $10,000 in a plain brown bag behind the big oak tree in the park tomorrow at 7 A.M.
Yours Truly, The Blonde

She pinned the note inside the little boy’s jacket and told him to go straight home. The next morning, she returned to the park to find the $10,000 in a brown bag behind the big oak tree, just as she had instructed. Inside the bag was this note:
Here is your money. I cannot believe that one blonde would do this to another!

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On This Day: Tuesday June 28, 2005
This is the 179th day of the year, with 186 days remaining in 2005.
Fact of the Day: Happy Birthday
Mildred J. Hill, a schoolteacher born in Louisville, Kentucky, composed the melody “Happy Birthday to You.” Her younger sister, Patty Smith Hill, wrote the lyrics. The song was first published in 1893 as “Good Morning to All,” a classroom greeting, in the book Song Stories for Sunday School. Mildred Hill died in 1916 without knowing that her melody would become the world’s most popular song, but her sister Patty did not die until 1946. The lyrics were amended in 1924 to include a stanza beginning, “Happy Birthday to You.” It is now sung somewhere in the world every minute of every day. Though its writers earned very little from the song, its copyright owner earns about $1 million a year. The song is expected to enter the public domain upon expiration of the copyright in 2010.
Holidays
Feast day of St Austell, Saints Potamiaena and Basilides, St Irenaeus, St Heimrad, St John Southworth, Saints Sergius and Germanus of Valaam, and St Paul, pope.
Events
1519 – Charles I of Spain was elected Holy Roman Emperor. He was crowned as Emperor Charles V.
1635 – The French colony of Guadeloupe is established in the Caribbean.
1778 – Mary “Molly Pitcher” Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carries water to the soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth.
1894 – Labor Day was established as a holiday for federal employees on the first Monday of September.
1905 – Sailors on the Russian battleship Potemkin mutinied as unrest spread through the Russian navy.
1914 – Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, Sofia, were assassinated in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist — the event which triggered World War I.
1919 – The Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending World War I.
1939 – Pan American Airways began regular trans-Atlantic air service.
1950 – North Korean forces captured Seoul, South Korea.
1951 – “Amos ‘N’ Andy” premiered on TV, the first series to have an all-black cast.
1969 – A police raid of the Stonewall Inn–a gay club located on New York City’s Christopher Street–turned violent. This incident is regarded as the spark for the gay liberation movement.
1976 – Women entered the Air Force Academy for the first time.
2000 – The Supreme Court ruled the Boy Scouts can bar homosexuals from serving as troop leaders.
Births
1491 – Henry VIII, King of England (1509-1547), founder of the Church of England.
1577 – Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter.
1712 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher.
1902 – Richard Rodgers, award-winning composer with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein.
1926 – Mel Brooks (Kaminsky), writer, director, actor.

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Word of the Day for Tuesday June 28, 2005
woebegone \WOE-bee-gon\, adjective:
1. Beset or overwhelmed with woe; immersed in grief or sorrow;
woeful.
2. Being in a sorry condition; dismal-looking; dilapidated;
run-down.
Socrates, condemned to death by the people of Athens,
prepares to drink a cup of hemlock, surrounded by woebegone
friends.
–Alain De Botton, [1]The Consolations of Philosophy
This woebegone lot includes Henry, a real-estate developer
whose dream project has, like his marriage, slipped into
bankruptcy; Henry’s sister, Wiloma, who has hurled herself
headlong into the arms of a New Age church to survive her
own divorce; and Henry and Wiloma’s decrepit Uncle Brendan,
a former monk whose faith has eroded along with his health,
stranding him in a nursing home.
–Jennifer Howard, review of [2]The Forms of Water, by
Andrea Barrett, [3]New York Times, June 13, 1993
After 40 years as a producer he thinks of himself as a
battered, scarred but well-armoured animal, “like an old
turtle”; and if such creatures could speak they would
probably sound like [him], a bit woebegone but drolly
unsurprised by life’s vicissitudes.
–”Time for another Hugo hit,” [4]Times (London), May 22,
2000
_________________________________________________________
Woebegone is from Middle English wo begon, from wo (from Old
English wa, used to express grief) + begon, past participle of
begon, “to go about, to beset,” from Old English began, bigan,
from bi-, “around, about” + gan, “to go.”
References
1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679442766/ref%3Dnosim/lexico
2. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671795228/ref%3Dnosim/lexico
3. http://www.nytimes.com/
4. http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=woebegone

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Quote for Tuesday, June 28, 2005

The mediocre always feel

as if they’re fighting for their lives

when confronted by the excellent.

~ Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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A couple who’d been married for over fifty years were sitting on the sofa, watching television, as they did every night of the week. The wife put down her knitting and said, “Dear, do you remember how you used to sit close to me?”
“Yes, I do” he said as he slid over to her side.
“Dear,” she continued, “do you remember how you used to hold me tight?”
“Yes, I do,” he said as he reached over and held her.
“And,” she went on, “do you remember how you used to hug me and kiss me and nibble on my ear?”
Suddenly her husband got up and started to walk out of the room. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“To get my teeth,” he replied.