Word of the day
- menorah December 26, 2024Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 26, 2024 is: menorah • \muh-NOR-uh\ • noun A menorah is a candelabra with seven or nine lights that is used in Jewish worship. // At sundown on the first night of Hanukkah, Elliott's father helped him light the first candle on the menorah. See the entry > […]Merriam-Webster
Widget not in any sidebars
On This Day
Unigenitus may also refer to a papal bull issued by Pope Clement VI in 1343.
Unigenitus (named for its Latin opening words Unigenitus dei filius, or “Only-begotten son of God”), an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713, opened the final phase of the Jansenist controversy in France. Unigenitus condemned 101 propositions of Pasquier Quesnel as:
false, captious, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, injurious to the Church and its practices, contumelious to Church and State, seditious, impious, blasphemous, suspected and savouring of heresy, favouring heretics, heresy, and schism, erroneous, bordering on heresy, often condemned, heretical, and reviving various heresies, especially those contained in the famous propositions of Jansenius.[1]
Background
In 1671 Pasquier Quesnel had published a book entitled Abrégé de la morale de l’Evangile (“Morality of the Gospel, Abridged”). It contained the four Gospels in French, with short explanatory notes, serving as aids for meditation. The work was approved by the bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne. Enlarged editions followed, containing an annotated French text of the complete New Testament, in 1678 and 1693–1694. This last edition was highly recommended by the new bishop of Châlons, Louis Antoine de Noailles. While the first edition of the work contained only a few Jansenist points, its tendency became more apparent in the second edition, and in its complete form, as it appeared in 1693, it was – in the words of the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia – “pervaded with practically all the errors of Jansenism”.[2]
Several bishops forbade it to be read, and Clement XI condemned it in a brief, July 13, 1708, which was, however, not accepted in France, because its wording and its manner of publication were not in harmony with the accepted prerogatives of the Gallican church. Noailles, who had become Archbishop of Paris and cardinal meanwhile, and who in 1702 discarded a relic that had long been venerated at Châlons as the umbilical cord of Jesus, was not prepared to withdraw the approbation which he had given to the book, and Jansenism again raised its head.[2]
Born On This Day
1921 – Donna Reed, American actress (d. 1986)
Donna Reed (born Donna Belle Mullenger; January 27, 1921 – January 14, 1986) was an American film and television actress and producer. Her career spanned more than 40 years, with performances in more than 40 films. She is well known for her role as Mary Hatch Bailey in Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life. In 1953, she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lorene Burke in the war drama From Here to Eternity.
Reed is probably most widely known for her work in television, notably as Donna Stone, a middle-class American mother and housewife in the sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–66), in which her character was more assertive than most other television mothers of the era. She received numerous Emmy Award nominations for this role and the Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star in 1963. Later in her career, Reed replaced Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie Ewing in the 1984–85 season of the television melodrama, Dallas; she sued the production company for breach of contract when she was abruptly fired upon Bel Geddes’ decision to return to the show.
FYI
By Kevin Pang: R.I.P. Terry Ward, the most interesting man in Indiana
By Kevin Pang: Our favorite award-eligible stories from The Takeout this week
By Stef Schrader: The 24 Hours Of Daytona Started With A Car Crashing On The Formation Lap
By Aimée Lutkin: How to See the Super Blue Blood Moon Next Week
Remember the Dymo Tape writer?
The Old Motor: Four Fun Friday Forties, Fifties and Sixties Kodachrome Car Images
By Hailey Reissman: Inside the quest to build the “Holy Braille,” an inexpensive e-tablet for the blind
By Mat Youkee: Who Killed the Nazi Botanist Trying to Wipe Out Cocaine?
Heinz Brücher (14 January 1915, Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse – 17 December 1991, Mendoza Province, Argentina) was a member of special science unit SS Ahnenerbe (ancestral heritage), PhD (1938, Tübingen) in botany.
In June 1943, 28-year-old Untersturmführer (Second Lieutenant) Brücher was tasked with an expedition to the Soviet Union. Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Konrad von Rauch and an interpreter identified as ‘Steinbrecher’ were also involved in the expedition. Brücher is also known as the person who saved and preserved a significant part of the scientific legacy of Nikolai Vavilov.
In February 1945, Brücher was ordered to destroy the 18 research facilities that were being studied, to avoid their capture by advancing Soviet forces. He refused, and after the second world war Brücher emigrated to Argentina and received there in 1948 a professorship in genetics and botany at University of Tucumán (Tucumán, Argentina), then in Caracas (Venezuela), Asunción (Paraguay) and later in Mendoza and Buenos Aires (Argentina).
Brücher wrote a number of books on the history of grain (1950), origin, evolution and domestication of tropical plants (1977) as well as the monograph Useful plants of neotropical origin and their wild relatives (1989).
On 17 December 1991 he was killed on his farm Condorhuasi in the district Mendoza (Argentina). His murder apparently occurred as a result of a burglary. However, some sources suggested that Brücher was working on a virus to combat the cocaine plant, and drug lords were implicated in his murder.[citation needed]
By Liza Donnelly: Drawing The 2018 Women’s March
By Ryan Holiday: 42 Books That Will Make You A Better Person (Each Described In 1 Sentence)
If you read a lot, it can be easy for all the books to blur together. Especially as the years pass, it can be difficult to even remember what books you’ve read are even about.
This is where one sentence book summaries come in. Though one should hope to get a lot from every book they read (and if they don’t, what exactly was the point of reading it?) at the very least, a reader ought to walk away with at least one clear insight. Sometimes that insight is the thesis of the book itself, sometimes it’s a minor detail that made an impact.
Below, are some one sentence descriptions of some of the best books ever written and a few of my personal favorites.
By Ryan Holiday: 14 Ways To Make Journaling One Of The Best Things You Do In 2018
The list of successful and wise and brilliant people who made time to journal is almost unbelievable: Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, Marcus Aurelius, John Quincy Adams, Anne Frank, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, Joan Didion. And those are just the people we know about, who talked about it, who didn’t ask that their journals be burned upon their death. Why were they so dedicated to this daily exercise? It was because, to paraphrase Susan Sontag, in a journal they were able not simply to express themselves openly, but in those pages, they were able to create themselves. I like Kafka’s observation about his own practice:
“In the diary you find proof that in situations which today would seem unbearable, you lived, looked around and wrote down observations, that this right hand moved then as it does today, when we may be wiser because we are able to look back upon our former condition, and for that very reason have got to admit the courage of our earlier striving in which we persisted even in sheer ignorance.”
By Nicolas Cole: 9 Valuable Lessons I Learned in the Real World (and Not in School)
My experience with formal education was, shall we say, less than impressive.
I was a straight C student all the way up through high school. I was a horrible test-taker. I didn’t do very well on my ACT. I was constantly asked to leave class because the questions I would ask were so rudimentary that my teachers thought I was mocking them — when really (at least, most of the time…) I just had trouble following the lesson.
Not everyone learns the same way.
And I believe a significant portion of my adolescence was wasted by a school system that tried to wedge me into a tiny circle on a Scranton sheet.
I’m not dumb.
By Hometalk Hits: 21 Ways To Use Those Pickle Jars You’ve Been Saving
By Katelyn Fagan: How to Get Rid of Black Mold in Your Shower Caulking
Widget not in any sidebars
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for December 26 December 26, 2024Picture of the day Khone Phapheng Falls, Si Phan Don, Laos. Located on the Mekong River near the border with Cambodia, at 10.7 kilometres (6.6 mi) wide, it is the widest waterfall in the world.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for December 25 December 25, 2024Picture of the day Nativity of Christ scene from the Kefermarkt Altarpiece. Today is Christmas.
Recipes
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars