Word of the Day for Friday, March 28, 2008

hullabaloo \HUL-uh-buh-loo\, noun:

• A confused noise; uproar; tumult.

Urban Word of the Day: slacktivism

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slacktivism&defid=304835

• The act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem.

Signing an email petition to stop rampant crime is slacktivism. Want to really make your community safer? Get off your ass and start a neighborhood watch!

Trivia

What was major league ballplayer Dick Allen referring to when he said, "If a horse can't eat it, I don't want to play on it"?

• Artificial turf.

Today in History

• washing machine: the first US patent titled "Clothes Washing" was granted to Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire (1797)
• Virginia Woolf: distinguished novelist, critic and essayist (A Room Of One's Own) committed suicide; she had been suffering from depression and bouts of mental illness for many years (1941)
• Three Mile Island: partial meltdown released radioactive material at a nuclear plant near Harrisburg, PA, forcing evacuation (1979)

Today's Birthdays

• Aristide Briand (1862-1932): French PM who served 11 times as premier and held 26 ministerial posts; he proposed the Kellogg-Briand Pact
• August Busch (1899-1989): businessman who built Anheuser-Busch into world's largest brewery
• Mario Vargas Llosa (72): writer who made an unsuccessful bid for president of Peru; novelist
• Russell Banks (68) was also born on this date
• Reba McEntire (53): four-time CMA Female Vocalist of the Year
• Vince Vaughn (38): comic actor, Wedding Crashers, The Break-Up; actors Ken Howard (64), Dianne Wiest (60) and Julia Stiles (27) also celebrate a birthday today