"Since the creation of the Internet, the Earth's rotation has been fueled, primarily, by the collective spinning of English teachers in their graves."

When I was in high school a common question (well maybe it wasn't "common," but I remember it being said a few times) in relation to vocabulary was, "but where did the word 'door' come from?  What does it mean?"  This segues into a much broader topic of frustration, which is so rarely addressed in schools: why are we learning what we are learning?  Believe it or not, there are reasons.

Math builds logical analysis processes and patterns.   For instance, when you complete a matrix table, you are organizing the numbers by algorhithmical patterns, which will later help you with logical problems in the world (taxes, billing, banking, budgeting, etc).  English strengthens verbal and social analysis processes and patterns; for example, in the same way you would do an analysis of a piece of literature and do a critical theory analysis of whether the main character was helping the main cause in "1984" by being an example for the people within the society, or was the society and example for the protagonist?  This type of analysis helps our discernment in real life while in social settings at work, in our families, in general settings.  It is a heightened awareness of how our surroundings affect us, and how we affect our surroundings, which ultimately leads to groups such as PETA, Greenpeace, NOW, among many; as well as encouraging individuals to participate in political organizations with the intentions of benefiting society through change and balance (this is, clearly, a view through rose colored glasses, but nevertheless...).

Not to get too sidetracked, but I wanted to post some interesting etymologies (because sometimes you're just curious why you're saying what you're saying!):

Door: M.E. merger of O.E. dor (neut.; pl. doru) "large door, gate," and O.E. duru (fem., pl. dura "door, gate, wicket"), both from P.Gmc. *dur-, from PIE *dhwer-/*dhwor- "a doorway, a door, a gate" (cf. Gk. thura, L. foris, Gaul. doro "mouth," Goth. dauro "gate," Skt. dvárah "door, gate," O.Pers. duvara- "door," O.Prus. dwaris "gate," Rus. dver' "a door"). The base form is frequently in dual or plural, leading to speculation that houses of the original Indo-Europeans had doors with two swinging halves. M.E. had both dure and dor; form dore predominated by 16c., but was supplanted by door. (in German it is "tur" which is where we get "door" as well, since English grammar and most of the lexicons originated with traveling Germanic tribes, and later incorporated Norman lexicon usage due to their invasion)

apple

O.E. æppel "apple," from P.Gmc. *ap(a)laz (cf. O.Fris., Du. appel, O.N. eple, O.H.G. apful, Ger. Apfel), from PIE *ab(e)l "apple" (cf. Gaul. avallo, O.Ir. ubull, Lith. obuolys, O.C.S. jabloko), but the exact relation and original sense of these is uncertain. Gk. melon and L. malum are probably from a pre-I.E. Mediterranean language. A generic term for all fruit, other than berries but including nuts, as late as 17c., hence its use for the unnamed "fruit of the forbidden tree" in Genesis. Cucumbers, in one O.E. work, are eorþæppla, lit. "earth-apples" (cf. Fr. pomme de terre "potato," lit. "earth-apple;" see also melon). Fr. pomme is from L. pomum "fruit."

"A roted eppel amang þe holen, makeþ rotie þe yzounde." ["Ayenbite of Inwit," 1340]

melon

c.1387, from O.Fr. melon, from M.L. melonem (nom. melo), from L. melopeponem, a kind of pumpkin, from Gk. melopepon "gourd-apple" (name for several kinds of gourds bearing sweet fruit), from melon "apple" (from PIE source attested in Hittite mahla- "grapevine, branch") + pepon, a kind of gourd, noun use of pepon "ripe." In Gk., melon "apple" was used in a generic way for all foreign fruits.

pomegranate

c.1320, poumgarnet, from O.Fr. pome grenate, from M.L. pomum granatum, lit. "apple with many seeds," from pome "apple, fruit" + grenate "having grains," from L. granata, fem. of granatus, from granum "grain." The L. was malum granatum "seeded apple." It. form is granata, Sp. is granada.

pineapple

1398, "pine cone," from pine (n.) + apple. The reference to the fruit of the tropical plant (from resemblance of shape) is first recorded 1664, and pine cone emerged 1695 to replace pineapple in its original sense. For "pine cone," O.E. also used pinhnyte "pine nut."

crab

O.E. crabba, from a general Gmc. root (cf. Low Ger. krabben "to scratch, claw"). The constellation name is attested in Eng. from c.1000; the Crab Nebula (1868), however, is in Taurus, and is so called for its shape. Crab "fruit of the wild apple tree" (c.1420) may be from unrelated Scand. scrab, of obscure origin. The combination of "bad-tempered, combative" and "sour" in the two words naturally yielded a meaning of "complain irritably," which is pre-1400, though crabby in this sense is Amer.Eng. 18c. Crabgrass is 1597, originally a marine grass of salt marshes; modern meaning is from 1743.

I can't get rid of the advertisement in the middle...this is the third time I've written this.

I can't imagine a man of this caliber existing outside of literature.  I am humbled, inspired and amazed by his life, and death.

JERUSALEM - The e-mails from grateful students arrived soon after Liviu Librescu was shot to death, telling how the Holocast survivor barricaded the doorway of his Virginia Tech classroom and saved their lives at the cost of his own.

Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer who survived the Nazi killings and later escaped from Communist Romania, was one of several foreign victims of Monday's shootings, which coincided with

Israel's Holocaust remembrance day.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Librescu's son, Joe Librescu, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home outside Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

Joe Librescu, who studied at Virginia Tech from 1989 to 1994, said his mother received e-mails from students shortly after learning of her husband's death.

The gunman, identified as Cho Seung-Hui — a 23-year-old English major and native of

South Korea — killed 32 people, then committed suicide.

Also among the victims was G.V. Loganathan, a 51-year-old engineering professor from India, his brother G.V. Palanivel said from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Peruvian student Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, was also killed while in his French class, said his mother, Betty Cueva.

Loganathan, who was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai, had been a professor at Virginia Tech since 1982.

"For us it was like an electric shock. We've totally collapsed today," his brother said. "Our parents are elderly and have broken down completely."

When Romania joined forces with Nazi Germany in World War II, the young Librescu was interned in a labor camp, and then sent along with his family and thousands of other Jews to a central ghetto in the city of Focsani, his son said. Hundreds of thousands of Romanian Jews were killed by the collaborationist regime during the war.

Librescu, who was 76 when he died, later found work at a government aerospace company. But his career was stymied in the 1970s because he refused to swear allegiance to the Communist regime, his son said, and he was later fired when he requested permission to move to Israel.

In 1977, according to his son, Israel's then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin personally intervened to get the family an emigration permit, and they left for Israel in 1978.

Librescu left Israel for Virginia in 1985 for a sabbatical year, but eventually made the move permanent, said Joe Librescu: "His work was his life in a sense."

The academic community in Romania also was mourning Librescu's death.

"It is a great loss," said Ecaterina Andronescu, rector of the Polytechnic University in Bucharest, where Librescu graduated with a degree in mechanics and aviation construction in 1953. "We have immense consideration for the way he reacted and defended his students with his life."

At the university, people placed flowers on a table holding his picture and a lit candle. "We remember him as a great specialist in aeronautics. He left behind hundreds of prestigious papers," said professor Nicolae Serban Tomescu.

Librescu, who specialized in composite structures and aeroelasticity, published extensively and received numerous awards for his work. He received a doctorate from the Bucharest-based Academy of Sciences in 1969, and an honorary degree from the Bucharest Polytechnic University in 2000.

He also received several

NASA grants and taught courses at the University "La Sapienza" in Rome and at the Tel Aviv University in Israel."

 

Today at Costco I was standing in line with the kids, and they both crawled under the cart (which is fine, they can both fit under there and it was so insanely crowded at the store, I was glad they were localized).  Glenn, unfortunately, started crying and when I went to see what was wrong, and his little knee was stuck between the bars on the bottom.  As I was trying to get him out, two men came over right quick to see what was wrong and how they could help.  Nothing to be done, I got him out pretty well (and strapped him into the seat); but it was so nice to see two men willing to be helpful to a stranger in a store. 

On that note, here is the Catholic definition of Good Friday (they have a much longer, more detailed explanation on their site :
Good Friday

Definition and etymology

Good Friday, called Feria VI in Parasceve in the Roman Missal, he hagia kai megale paraskeue (the Holy and Great Friday) in the Greek Liturgy, Holy Friday in Romance Languages, Charfreitag (Sorrowful Friday) in German, is the English designation of Friday in Holy Week -- that is, the Friday on which the Church keeps the anniversary of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Parasceve, the Latin equivalent of paraskeue, preparation (i.e. the preparation that was made on the sixth day for the Sabbath; see Mark 15:42), came by metonymy to signify the day on which the preparation was made; but while the Greeks retained this use of the word as applied to every Friday, the Latins confined its application to one Friday. Irenaeus and Tertullian speak of Good Friday as the day of the Pasch; but later writers distinguish between the Pascha staurosimon (the passage to death), and the Pascha anastasimon (the passage to life, i.e. the Resurrection). At present the word Pasch is used exclusively in the latter sense. The two Paschs are the oldest feasts in the calendar.

From the earliest times the Christians kept every Friday as a feast day; and the obvious reasons for those usages explain why Easter is the Sunday par excellence, and why the Friday which marks the anniversary of Christ's death came to be called the Great or the Holy or the Good Friday. The origin of the term Good is not clear. Some say it is from "God's Friday" (Gottes Freitag); others maintain that it is from the German Gute Freitag, and not specially English. Sometimes, too, the day was called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons; so today in Denmark.

Yesterday I (and the rest of the world, I imagine) read that Keith Richards snorted some ashes of his cremated father.  Today, it's a different story:

Keith Richards Snorting Of Dad Was A Joke

Rolling Stones rocker Keith Richards insists he never snorted his father's ashes - his recent comments were made in "jest". Richards can't believe people took him seriously after he told British music magazine NME he once snorted his dad Bert's ashes mixed with cocaine.

He said, "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared.

"It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

However, Richard's manager Jane Rose tells MTV that the hellraiser's comments were "said in jest. Can't believe anyone took (it) seriously."

Of course we took it seriously!  This is Keith Richards we're talking about!  Good grief, he'll survive us all and rock out when the last one of us drops!  Oh Keith, you silly man...