10 December 2014
martinet
[mahr-tn-et, mahr-tn-et]
noun
1. a strict disciplinarian, especially a military one.
2. someone who stubbornly adheres to methods or rules.
Origin
1670-1680; after General Jean Martinet (died 1672), French inventor of a system of drill
Related forms
martinetish, adjective
martinetism, noun
Dictionary.com
Examples from the web for martinet
– While not slighting the captain’s martinet personality, he gives a performance that is filled with empathetic understanding.
– The reprobate with the heart of gold, or the old-line martinet who resents the incursions of progress.
– It is a triangle romance, with a martinet of a divisional superintendent doing a noble deed during an exciting moment
Anagram
rant item
Today’s aphorism
Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden.
– Desmond Tutu
On this day
10 December 1896 – death of Alfred Bernhard Nobel, Swedish chemist and armaments manufacturer, inventor of dynamite and the Nobel Prizes. Was known as the ‘Merchant of Death’. A newspaper stated that he ‘became rich by finding ways to kill people faster than ever before‘. As a result, he decided to leave a better legacy than that and used his estate to establish and fund the Nobel Prizes, which included the Nobel Peace Prize. Born 21 October 1833.
10 December – Human Rights Day.
10 December 1948 – Universal Declaration of Human Rights is adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
10 December 1959 – James Coburn (star of ‘The Great Escape‘, ‘The Magnificent Seven‘) takes 200 micrograms of LSD-25 for the first time as part of a controlled experiment conducted by Dr Janiger. Other famous people who participated in Janiger’s experiments include Cary Grant (‘North by Northwest‘, ‘An Affair to Remember‘) who took over 100 acid trips, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, and author Anais Nin (refer:http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_history6.pdf andhttp://www.carygrant.net/autobiography/autobiography14.html)
10 December 1967 – Soul singer, Otis Redding and members of the Bar-Kays band are killed when the plane they are travelling on crashes into Lake Monona, Madison, Wisconsin.
10 December 1981 – An epidemic comprising of two diseases, skin cancer and pneumonia, spreads throughout the United States since July, killing 75 people, 92% of whom are gay men. The disease is eventually identified as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
10 December 1983 – Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
10 December 1992 – Prime Minister Paul Keating delivers the historic ‘Redfern Speech’ at Redfern Park, New South Wales. It is regarded as one of the greatest Australian speeches and was the first time a Prime Minister had acknowledged the role that European settlement had in the murders and other travesties inflicted on the indigenous population. In 2007, Radio National listeners voted the speech as the third most unforgettable speech in the world, behind Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech (first) and Jesus’s ‘Sermon on the Mount (second). The speech can be heard here:Redfern Speech – audio or on YouTube. The text is available here: Redfern Speech – Text.
10 December 2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomatic efforts in solving the Middle East crisis in the 1970s.
10 December 2009 – President Barack Obama is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his ‘extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples‘.