Word-Wednesday for November 16, 2022

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for November 16, 2022, the forty-sixth Wednesday of the year, the eighth Wednesday of fall, and the 320th day of the year, with 45 days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for November 16, 2022
Cold Conifers
While we’ve already turned on our furnaces, added layers to our clothing, conifers make changes for the winter, too. Conifers go dormant in cold weather, slowing their metabolism to conserve water when the ground is frozen. Similarly, since conifers don’t drop leaves like deciduous trees, conifers coat their evergreen needles with a waxy coating to reduce water loss. Sartorially speaking, conifer bark contains many air pockets to provide insulation and prevent freezing and cracking. Sap provides further freezing and cracking prevention by working as antifreeze with a much lower freezing point, where conifers concentrate their winter sap especially high.

And conifers have an additional trick up their sleeves. Because winter is too cold for photosynthesis, but their needles still absorb light energy, this light energy needs to be disipated. Using what's known as the xanthophyll cycle, wintering conifers use a pigment called violaxanthin to convert absorbed light energy into heat rather that using the light energy for photosynthesis, usually at temperatures of 0°C.

November 16 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


November 16 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for November 16, 2022
Sunrise: 7:35am; Sunset: 4:43pm; 2 minutes, 41 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 11:51pm; Moonset: 2:07pm, waning crescent, 49% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for November 16, 2022
                Average            Record              Today
High             33                     59                     23
Low              17                    -23                     16


November 16 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Button Day
• International Check Your Wipers Day
• National Fast Food Day
• National Indiana Day
• National Educational Support Professionals Day
• International Day for Tolerance

November 16 Word Riddle
Flat as a leaf, with two round eyes that can’t see a thing.
What am I?*


November 16 Word Pun
One time at an Irish sandwich shop, the actress Ms. O’Hara asked what the tiny pimiento-stuffed thing in my cheddar-bread sandwich was. Her waiter replied, “Wee olive in a yellow sub, Maureen.”


November 16 Etymology Word of the Week
rehearse
/rə-ˈhərs/ v., practice (a play, piece of music, or other work) for later public performance, from 1300, rehersen, "to give an account of, report, tell, narrate (a story); speak or write words;" early 14th century, "repeat, reiterate;" from Anglo-French rehearser, Old French rehercier (12th century) "to go over again, repeat," literally "to rake over, turn over" (soil, ground), from re- "again" (see re-) + hercier "to drag, trail (on the ground), be dragged along the ground; rake, harrow (land); rip, tear, wound; repeat, rehearse;" from herse "a harrow" (see hearse (n.).


November 16 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1849 Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labor.
• 1907 Oklahoma becomes the 46th state.
• 1916 Eugene O'Neill's Bound East for Cardiff premieres.

November 16 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1793 Francis Danby, Irish painter.
• 1807 Jónas Hallgrímsson, Icelandic poet.
• 1810 Karel Hynek Mácha, Czech poet.
• 1839 Louis-Honoré Fréchette, Canadian poet.
• 1869 Dorothea Conyers, Irish novelist.
• 1873 W.C. Handy, American composer and musician.
• 1922 José Saramago, Portuguese writer and Nobel laureate.
• 1930 Alice Adams, American sculptor.
• 1954 Andrea Barrett, American novelist.
• 1967 Craig Arnold, American poet.

Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem or pram) from the following words:

• alderelde: ˈɑl-də-rɛld/ n., old age; a life of many years.
• cúpla focal: /ˌku-plə- ˈfək(ə)l/ n., a few words in Irish; /esp./ a token Irish phrase used to introduce a speech, etc., that is otherwise in English. Often with /the/.
• emulous: /ˈem-yə-ləs/ adj., seeking to emulate or imitate someone or something, motivated by a spirit of rivalry.
• fustigate: /ˈfə-stə-ˌgāt/ v., to cudgel; to criticize severely.
• gasconade: /ˌɡas-kə-ˈnād/ n., extravagant boasting.
• jomo: /JOH-moh/ n., joy of missing out, pleasure derived from living in a quiet or independent way without feeling anxious that one is missing out on exciting or interesting events that may be happening elsewhere.
• orenda: /ɔ-ˈrɛn-də/ n., in Iroquois belief: a spirit or power thought to exist in all things.
• peduncle: /ˈpē-ˌdəNG-kəl/ n., the stalk bearing a flower or fruit, or the main stalk of an inflorescence.
• tabanca: /tə-ˈbæŋ-kə/ n., a state or feeling of depression or melancholy, esp. as a result of unrequited love or the end of a romantic relationship; lovesickness; (also) deep longing for a person or thing which is absent or lost.
• wazzock: /ˈwæ-zək/ n., stupid or annoying person; an idiot.

November 16, 2022 Word-Wednesday Feature
democracy
/də-ˈmäk-rə-sē/ n., a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives, from 1570s, from French démocratie (14c.), from Medieval Latin democratia (13c.), from Greek dēmokratia "popular government," from dēmos "common people", originally "district" (see demotic), + kratos "rule, strength".

Here we are, only the second Wednesday since the mid-term elections, and it looks like we continue to enjoy the our democracy. Today Word-Wednesday examines the words that form the roots of our two predominant political party names, particularly based on the type of governments rooted in each party name. In contrast to a democracy, a republic /rə-ˈpəb-lik/ n., is defined as a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. Hmmm. Some citizens become confused. James Madison clearly elaborated his understanding of the difference in Federalist 14: 

In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.

Both democracies and republics draw legitimacy from the people and depend on the rule of its voting citizens, where the republic relied on representation, and where in the pure democracy, the voting citizens represented themselves. Although he used both terms, Madison wrote more often of our country as a republic that as a democracy.

Alexander Hamilton was firmly rooted in using democracy to characterize our system of government. In a May 19, 1777 letter to the mayor of Morris Town, New Jersey, Hamilton said this:

A representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislative, executive and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable.

In time, we've moved from the Federalist Papers and the struggles to describe our nested system of local democracies aggregated across a vast region, where distinctions between "pure democracy" and "direct democracy" gave way to the compromise of "representative democracy". Madison, Hamilton, and the other signers of our constitution wanted a democracy — one that might adapt to phenomenal expansion in a rapidly changing world. Our ongoing work to preserve their vision will always be one of guarding against tyranny, whether by the majority or by the minority or by the one. With these thoughts in mind, consider the words of some other persons familiar with the greatness and the difficulties of democracy:

To define democracy in one word, we must use the word "cooperation".

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers.

Aristotle

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.

E. B. White

Democracy is not a beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government, and to that extent it deserves our support. It does start from the assumption that the individual is important, and that all types are needed to make a civilization.

E. M. Forster

The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

Molly Ivins

The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly.

Margaret Atwood

In an autocracy, one person has his way; in an aristocracy a few people have their way; in a democracy, no one has his way.

Celia Green

Democ’acy gives every man
A right to be his own oppressor.

James Russell Lowell

My political ideal is that of democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

Albert Einstein

The cure for the ills of Democracy is more democracy.

Jane Addams

Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.

William Beveridge

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

Robert M. Hutchins

It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

James Fenimore Cooper

Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve.

Maureen Dowd

The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy—then go back to the office & sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.

Hunter S. Thompson

I swear to the Lord
I still can’t see
Why democracy means
Everybody but me.

Langston Hughes

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

Abraham Lincoln

The rock of democracy will founder when people in other parts of the country or in other parties begin to see each other as The Other, rather than as common citizens.

Theodore Roosevelt

Democracy is not only a form of state, it is not just something that is embodied in a constitution; democracy is a view of life, it requires a belief in human beings, in humanity.

Madeleine Albright

The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.

Helen Keller

A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Winston Churchill

At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper—no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.

Winston Churchill

Democracy is not a state. It is an act.

John Lewis

Even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it beats breaking them.

Learned Hand

Democracy is not a tea party where people sit around making polite conversation. In democracies people get extremely upset with each other. They argue vehemently against each other's positions. (But they don't shoot.)

Salman Rushdie

The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.

W. E. B. Du Bois,

Democracy does not give the people the most skillful government, but it produces what the ablest governments are frequently unable to create: namely, an all-pervading and restless activity, a superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it and which may, however unfavorable circumstances may be, produce wonders.

Alexis de Tocqueville

From A Year with Rilke, November 16 Entry
Not Caught in the Drama, from Letter to Marianne von Goldschmidt-Rothschild

I can still only think of God as the One who allows everything, the One who is not caught up in the whole inexhaustible drama.

Adam and Eve with the Forbidden Fruit
by Marc Chagall

Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.






*a button.