QUOTES
OF THE WEEK
“Since
a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised
to be taken at his word.”
—Charles de Gaulle
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president
should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
—Douglas Adams
from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding
it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the
wrong remedies.”
—Groucho Marx
THIS
WEEK IN HISTORY
MARCH
11, 1818: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein,
or the Modern Prometheus, is published in London. Ms.
Shelley was a mere 21 years old when she wrote the story,
which many consider to be the world’s first science-fiction
novel.
The genesis of the novel was in the summer of 1816 (also known
as the “Year Without a Summer,” because global
temperatures remained well below normal, thanks to the eruption
of Mount Tambora the year before), when Mary and her husband-to-be
Percy Shelley visited their friend Lord Byron at the Villa
Diodati near Lake Geneva, Switzerland. After reading an anthology
of German ghost stories, Byron challenged Mary, Percy, and
his physician Polidori to compose ghost stories of their own.
It was here that Mary thought up the initial strands of Frankenstein.
Byron wrote a fragment of a story about vampires, which later
served as an inspiration for Polidori, who wrote The Vampyre.
This novel was published in 1819 and is widely regarded as
the impetus for the romantic vampire genre with which many
of us are familiar today. Polidori was largely responsible
for transforming the vampire from a character of folklore
to the form we now recognize: an aristocrat who preys on members
of high society.
The name Frankenstein likely came from the former
name of a city in Silesia, Poland, which was the historical
home of the Frankenstein family. A member of this family was
vacationing in Europe with Mary, and evidently left an impression.
It should be remembered that Frankenstein is the name of the
doctor, not the monster. In the book, Dr. Frankenstein calls
his creation “The Fiend.”
Sources: www.wikipedia.org,
www.historychannel.com/today.
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3
WORDS
Memorize these by week's end and you shall
quickly develop an enviable lexicon.
This week’s theme: words related to politics.
| psephology
(say-FOAL-a-gee) n |
| 1. |
|
the scientific analysis of political elections and voting |
| Ex. To most, psephology is more of an inexact art than a precise science. |
|
brass-collar adjective |
| 1. |
|
unwavering loyalty to a political party |
| 2. |
|
having the character-istic of always voting along party
lines |
Ex.
Grandpa is a diehard, brass-collar Democrat,
having never voted for a Republican in his life.
Etym. Likely from the image of a
faithful dog, bound by a collar and leash. |
|
blackball verb |
| 1. |
|
to vote against; esp. to exclude from member-ship by
casting a negative vote |
| 2. |
|
to exclude socially; ostracize |
| 3. |
|
noun.
a negative vote |
| Ex.
Calvin and Hobbes routinely blackball girls in their
frequent treetop G.R.O.S.S.
meetings. |
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