How to Teach the Children Days of the Week- In Spanish!

From the TierneyLab blog, NYT.com ("Why is there a weekend?" quiz question)

E3: Why are there seven days in a week?

The seven day week is traced back to at least Babylonian times, a civilization known for its detailed sky watching. As several readers noted, we are not exactly sure why a week is divided into seven days, but one idea with historical merit is that even very ancient societies would have noticed objects that moved with respect to the fixed stars in the night sky. They observed seven objects that “wandered” relative to the stars: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Seven objects, seven days of the week. It is probably also significant that the number 7 is almost (7×4=28) evenly divisible in to the number of days required for a full cycle of lunar phases (29.5 days), and almost (7×52=364) evenly divisible into the number of days in a year (365.25).

We still see the names of the “wanderers” in English (Sunday, Monday), and even more clearly in other languages: Monday: lunes (Moon), Tuesday: martes (Mars), Friday: viernes (Venus) in Spanish, for example. Since all other parts of our calendar are related to motions in the night sky, a link between seven days and these seven objects might not be too surprising. A year is the time that it takes our planet to orbit the Sun. And before we understood that we were orbiting the Sun, it was the time it took for the Sun to move through a great circle around the sky (the ecliptic) and come back to the same stars. A lunar month is the time it takes for the moon to go through its well-known cycle of phases. A day is how long it takes for the Earth to rotate on its axis.

As several readers also noted, the need for a unit of time that is greater than a day, but less than a month may have origins in early agrarian societies and agreed-upon market days.

vines

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=13991671

ROOM DECOrrrrrr

This is so very, very important to me.

Well done, dooce.com.  

Follow the link for another reminder that we Americans cannot believe everything we are told on TV.

Read the fine print, folks.

Recently-made discovery:  The frozen "chick patties" that I bought to satisfy my need for meat-protein?  ...They're made of vegetables.

Don't fall for the hoax

It's no secret that offshore drilling is not the answer to the question of how to lower gas prices.

A great overview/collection of articles.

So if you're in, please click a button or two and let the folks in DC know how you feel.

Wondering about Biloxi, Mississippi

The history of Biloxi, Mississippi, spans more than 300 years.

The first permanent settlement in French Louisiana was founded at Fort Maurepas, now in Ocean Springs, Mississippi and referred to as Old Biloxi, in 1699 under the direction of Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, with Louisiana separated from Spanish Florida at the Perdido River near Pensacola (founded 1559 & again 1698).

The name of Biloxi in French was "Bilocci" (with "fort Maurepas"),^[4] and the name was sometimes translated into English as "Fort Bilocci" on maps updated circa year 1710/1725.^[5][6]

In 1720, the administrative capital of French Louisiana was moved to Biloxi(Presently Ocean Springs) (or Bilocci) from Mobile (or Mobille). French Louisiana (part of New France) was known in French as La Louisiane in colonial times, but in modern times is called "La Louisiane française" to distinguish from the modern state of Louisiana (also "Louisiane" in French).^[4]

Due to fears of tides and hurricanes in the 1700s, the capital of French Louisiana was later moved by colonial governor Bienville, in 1723, from Biloxi to a new inland harbor town named La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans), built for the purpose in 1718-1720.

In 1763, France had to cede French Louisiana east of the Mississippi River, except for New Orleans, to Great Britain. At that same time, the king Louis XV of France sold Louisiana west of the Mississippi, including New Orleans, to Spain.

Katie Couric on 'marrying young'

"Hi, everyone.

Should a girl go from picking out a prom dress...to picking a wedding dress?

More of them are. According to one poll, 84% of those between the ages of 17 and 23 say that they either support... or are, themselves, seriously considering... getting married young.

And they aren't just TALKING about it.

One Washington think-tank found that the number of married teenagers in the U.S. surged by almost 50% during the 1990's... leading to more divorce, more school drop-outs, and more domestic violence. Experts say a renewed sense of cultural conservatism is behind some of these young marriages, with young people wanting more traditional lives than their rebellious baby boomer parents.

Everyone needs to make their own choices. But marriage is a BIG decision. You really need to know YOURSELF before you can be a good partner.

It's hard enough when to fill that role when you're 47-- let alone when you're 17.

That's a page from my notebook."

An America I've never known

from kottke.org:

"Photos of that postcard America, which even though it's vanishing, probably none of us have known.

 May 30, 2008, by Cliff Kuang"

Bras Cause Urgency

From Kottke.org:

(May 30, 2008, by Cliff Kuang)

Lots of people bemoan the sexism of bikini drenched beer ads and overtly sexual marketing. Turns out, the marketers might just be rationally exploiting a fact of the male brain:

A recent study shows that men who watched sexy videos or handled lingerie sought immediate gratification--even when they were making decisions about money, soda, and candy.

Authors Bram Van den Bergh, Siegfried DeWitte, and Luk Warlop (KULeuven, Belgium) found that the desire for immediate rewards increased in men who touched bras, looked at pictures of beautiful women, or watched video clips of young women in bikinis running through a park.

"It seems that sexual appetite causes a greater urgency to consume anything rewarding," the authors suggest. Thus, the activation of sexual desire appears to spill over into other brain systems involved in reward-seeking behaviors, even the cognitive desire for money.

*Wikipedia on 'hysteria':

The term originates with the Greek medical term, hysterikos. This referred to a medical condition, thought to be particular to women, caused by disturbances of the uterus, hystera in Greek. The term hysteria was coined by Hippocrates, who thought that suffocation and madness arose in women whose uteri had become too light and dry from lack of sexual intercourse and, as a result, wandered upward, compressing the heart, lungs, and diaphragm.

The same general definition, or under the name female hysteria, came into widespread use in the middle and late 19th century to describe what is today generally considered to be sexual dissatisfaction.^[1] Typical treatment was massage of the patient's genitalia by the physician and later vibrators or water sprays to cause orgasm.^[1] By the early 1900s, the practice and usage of the term had fallen from use until it was again popularized when the writings of Sigmund Freud became known and influential in Britain and the USA in the 1920s. The Freudian psychoanalytic school of psychology uses its own, somewhat controversial, ways to treat hysteria.

Hair Dryers

how they work

Intentional Miss Pronouncee Atee Ons

http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/grantbarrett/saying_it_wrong_on_purpose/

Hafiz

The Gift

Translations by Daniel Landinsky

Published by Penguin Books

It Felt Love

How

Did the rose

Ever open its heart

And give to this world 

All its

Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light

Against its

Being,

Otherwise,

We all remain

Too

Frightened.

-Hafiz

A.A. Milne

Time for a little something.

July 10, gn.

Marcus Aurelius

Perform every act in life as though it were your last.

June 21, gn.

William James

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

July 6, GN.

Lewis Carrol

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Dec. 11, Grace Notes by alexandra stoddard.