“[On her opposition to the death penalty:] People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives.”
Quote in N.Y. Times Magazine, 9 May 1993
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Caesarism: Governmental system similar to that established by Julius Caesar (101-44 BC) in ancient Rome, that is, a semi-popular system of dictatorship, the dictator being enabled to seize power by the support of the army, a party or section of the people. Once in power, the dictator preserves the outward democratic forms with impotent parliaments, rigged elections and manipulations of the plebiscite. The property-owning class has its privileges and power curtailed, but is still protected from the poor. Egalitarian sentiments are expressed and the dictator claims to derive power from the people. Bonapartism is a variant of the model. Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), the German political philosopher, held that Caesarism would replace democracy in the 20th century since it was a trend to emerge in all civilizations at a certain point in their development.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged philosophy/religion, readings/research
“Allport, Gordon W. (1897-1967) A leading American social psychologist who became head of the Harvard Department of Psychology in 1938. His most significant contributions include a theory of personality which highlighted the self and the proprium, the latter defined ‘all the regions of our life that we regard as peculiarly ours’ (see Becoming, 1955); studies of the importance of prejudice as a historical and cultural, as well as a psychological, phenomenon; an emphasis on the importance of personal documents in social science (such as his collection of Letters from Jenny, 1965); and his championing of the ideographic method.”
Excerpted from: Matthews, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged philosophy/religion, professional development, readings/research
“bestiaries: Allegorical poems or books giving descriptions of various animals or stories concerning them, with Christian application or moral appended to each. Although the characteristics and habits assigned to each animal were largely legendary, bestiaries were often treated during the Middle Ages as treatises on natural history, as well as moral instruction, and were highly popular.
The beast-fable, popular from Aesop to the medieval Roman de Renart, was usually satirical and pragmatic in its moral; a 4th-century work in Greek was probably the first to turn animal descriptions into specifically Christian allegory, and its translations into Latin Physiologi were the basis of most English and Continental bestiaries. The best known are the Latin Physiologus (11th century) by the abbot Theobaldus, the Bestiary by the Anglo-Norman poet Phillippe de Thaun, and an anonymous Middle English Bestiary (c1250).”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged literary oddities, science literacy
“Which for That. “The boat which I engaged had a hole in it.” But a parenthetical clause may rightly be introduced by which; as, The boat, which had a hole in it, I nevertheless engaged. Which and that are seldom interchangeable; when they are, use that. It sounds better.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“Antony and Cleopatra * Justinian and Theodora * Ferdinand and Isabella * William and Mary
Antony and Cleopatra are the archetypal lover-monarchs, They met at a magnificent conjunction of fleets off the coast of modern Turkey in the autumn of 41 BC. Antony was in command of the eastern half of the Roman Empire; Cleopatra ruled over the Hellenistic monarchy of Egypt; they met in order to forge a diplomatic alliance, but became lovers. Their attempt to conquer the East was destroyed by Octavian, but the pair gained immortality with their double suicides, their colorful descendants (Caligula, Nero, and Queen Zenobia), and their leading Shakespearian roles.
The Emperor Justinian’s long reign, which saw the definitive establishment of the Byzantine Empire, was aided by his truste wife, Theodora, who brought a street-fighter determination to the partnership. Her mother had been a dancer and her father a bear-trainer, and she had grown up working in the circuses, brothels, and dance halls of Constantinople.
Ferdinand of Aragon was a womanizing, ruthless warrior-king of Aragon; Isabella, the intellectual heir of the richer but troubled Kingdom of Castile; they were cousins and their marriage began as an elopement. But their long reign was a political triumph, marked by their joint conquest of Moorish Granada (and notorious expulsion of Muslims and Jews) and the lucky patronage of Columbus and the discovery of America, which helped to forge the nation of Spain.
Britain’s most famous joint monarchs were William (of Orange) and Mary (Stuart): A personal union of cousins that ended the Anglo-Dutch naval wars and created a Protestant bulwark against Louis XIV’s expansionist Catholic kingdom of France. Their union allowed them to be ‘jointly offered the throne’ by Parliament when their uncle/father, James II, had been deposed. Mary miscarried their child in the first year of their marriage and was never able to conceive again, but kept an affectionate relationship with her husband, who had just one mistress and one boyfriend–his ex-pageboy Arnold van Keppel (who he elevated to Earl of Abelmarle). The appeal of the Keppels as royal companions has remained constant, with Edward VII and, most recently, Prince Charles, falling in love with Arnold’s descendants.
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
[This, of course, refers to Dr. Seuss’s 1937 book, which refers to Mulberry Street in Springfield, Massachusetts, which was the good doctor’s home, rather than the famous street in Little Italy in Manhattan.]
“…too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.”
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“public art: Most artwork created from the dawn of history has been public art in the sense that it was located in places of public gathering or worship, such as Greek temple sculpture and medieval church frescoes. Since the 1960s, artists’ appetites for creating works too large to be exhibited in galleries or museums, coupled with government-sponsored initiatives, have resulted in the placement of large, publicly funded sculptures in many parks and plazas, with various degrees of critical and popular success, Public uproar over Richard Serra’s site-specific Tilted Arc in Manhattan eventually forced its removal. Other artists created earthworks, such as Christo’s Running Fence, which required vast amounts of open space. See MEDIA ART.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“orthographic awareness: An individual’s command of the sound-letter relationship,. As children learn to write, their approaches to spelling change as they become more aware of sounds and letters. In the beginning, children often spell very simply (such as ‘bt’ for ‘boat’). As they get older they may apply conventions of spelling but still misspell (‘bote’ for ‘boat’).
With more exposure to written language, as they become more proficient readers and learn specific spelling patterns, young writers begin to apply more sophisticated spelling patterns (‘boat’ for ‘boat’). Individuals with learning disabilities who have underdeveloped orthographic awareness often have problems with spelling.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“amber: Fossilized pine resin. It was much appreciated in antiquity not only for its beauty but for its supposed magical properties–of attracting small particles when warmed and rubbed. The major source in Europe is along the southeast coast of the Baltic and North Sea, and minor ones in even in southeast Europe. However, the distribution of finds strongly supports the view that there was an important trade in amber following specific routes up the Elbe and Vistula, across the upper Danube to the Brenner Pass, and so down to the Adriatic and the countries bordering it. Other objects and ideas travelled by the same route, which made it an important factor in European prehistory. The trade began in the Early Bronze Age but expanded greatly as a result of the Mycenaeans’ interest. Even Britain was brought into this trading area, as witnessed by amber spacer plates in barrows of the Wessex Culture. Later, amber was very popular with the Iron Age peoples of Italy, particularly the Picenes.
Excerpted from: Bray, Warwick, and David Trump. The Penguin Dictionary of Archaeology. New York: Penguin, 1984.
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