Monday, December 13, 2010

prosopography \pros-uh-POG-ruh-fee\, noun:

1. A description of a person's appearance, career, personality, etc.

2. A study of a collection of persons or characters, esp. their appearances, careers, personalities, etc., within a historical, literary, or social context.

Prosopography ultimately originates in the combination of the Greek roots prosopon, "face, or person," and graphia, "writing of."

emberrorist

• a radical who employs the potential to embarass others as a political weapon. Contrary to terrorist who uses fear.

Wikileaks and those involved with leaking inconsequential but potentially embarrassing communications are political emberrorists.

Trivia

What famous Hollywood sex symbol claimed she once used a hair dryer to speed up the preparation of a pasta dinner?

• Marilyn Monroe.

History

• Francis Drake: British explorer set out on a three-year circumnavigation of the globe, looting Spanish ships as he sailed (1577)
• New Zealand: was sighted for the first time by a European, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman (1642)
• Susan B. Anthony dollar: the US Mint began stamping out the first US coin to honor a woman, suffragist Susan B. Anthony (1978)
• United States presidential election of 2000: Democratic candidate Al Gore conceded the race to President Bush 36 days after Election Day
• Saddam Hussein: Iraqi dictator was captured hiding in a spider hole near Tikrit (2003)

Birthdays

• Heinrich Heine (1797-1856): lyric poet, essayist
• Carlos Montoya (1903-1993): flamenco guitarist
• Ross Macdonald (1915-1983): crime fiction novelist, creator of Lew Archer
• Christopher Plummer (81): stage and screen actor; also, actors Dick Van Dyke (85), Robert Prosky (1930-2008), John Davidson (69), Wendie Malick (60), Steve Buscemi (53), Jamie Foxx (43), Christie Clark (37) and James Kyson Lee (35)
• Richard Zanuck (76): film producer; plus, music producer Lou Adler (77)
• Taylor Swift (21): award-winning country/pop singer; other musicians born today include Jeff Baxter and Ted Nugent (both 62), Thomas Delonge (35) and Amy Lee (29)
• Sergei Fedorov (41): hockey forward; MLB hall-of-famer Ferguson Jenkins (67) has a birthday today, too