AND I QUOTE

"Life consists not in holding good cards, but in playing those you hold well."-Josh Billings

ONLY IN AMERICA

Pentagon to examine generals’ entourages
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will review the numbers and kinds of support personnel who serve the military’s general officers, the Defense Department said last week. The review was ordered by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta after a series of scandals involving top generals, including retired four-star general David Petraeus, who was escorted to a party in Tampa by 28 police motorcycles. In other cases, generals reportedly indulged in lavish trips at taxpayer expense and used military aides as errand boys. Dempsey, who is also looking at ethics training for top brass, said he will determine if staffing is “consistent, sensible, and efficient.”

DOGS DO SOME STRANGE THINGS

A mixed-breed dog in Southampton, England, with a penchant for eating things, after surgeons had to remove a foot-long string of Christmas lights from his stomach. “I have never known a dog to act like this before,” sighed his owner.

R U SMARTER THAN AN 8TH GRADER?

U.S. students knew only about half of what they were expected to on a new vocabulary section of a national exam, in the latest evidence of severe shortcomings in the nation's reading education.
Eighth-graders scored an average of 265 out of 500 in vocabulary on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the results of which were made public Thursday. Fourth-graders averaged a score of 218 out of 500. (click below to read more)

CONGRATS TO WENDELL ON HIS PAUL HARRIS FELLOWSHIP AWARD

NOW YOU KNOW

Women now make up a third of all the lawyers and doctors in the U.S. In 1970, women represented only 9.7 percent of the nation’s doctors, and less than 4.9 percent of its lawyers.

SNAPSHOT

TODAY IN HISTORY

DECEMBER 26

1931: George and Ira Gershwin's musical Of Thee I Sing, based on a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, debuts at the Music Box Theatre in New York. The political satire will become the first American musical to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama, in 1932.

1606:Shakespeare's King Lear 1st performed

1954: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" The popular radio mystery show The Shadow, featuring the crime-stopping, psychically gifted vigilante Lamont Cranston, goes off the airwaves after a 24-year run on various radio networks.

1966: Jimi Hendrix pens the lyrics to "Purple Haze" while backstage at the Upper Cut Club in London; the electric guitar-driven song will become the Jimi Hendrix Experience's first hit in the United States.


1878:John Wanamaker installed electric lights in his department store in Philadelphia.

1865:Coffee percolator patented by James H. Mason of Franklin, MA

1966:The first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga.

1933:The FM radio is patented.

MENSA Q & A

What living animal has the largest eyes?
(click below for the answer)

THE FIRST WORD

behoove

PRONUNCIATION:

(bi-HOOV) 

MEANING:

verb tr., intr.: To be necessary, worthwhile, or appropriate.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old English behofian (to need), from behof (profit, need). Earliest documented use: around 890.

USAGE:

"And it will behoove you to keep my visit and our secret to yourself."
Brenda Jackson; A Silken Thread; Kimani Press; 2011.

"It may behoove Google to take these suits to trial in order to clarify a principle."
Old Media Sue; The Economist (London, UK); Mar 14, 2007.