Word: ancient
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...pointing finger of Brittany, Normandy juts out like a green thumb into the blue-gray waters of the English Channel. At this time of year, the lush countryside is lit up with apple, pear and cherry blossoms. Along narrow country lanes, lilacs bloom around stone farmhouses and over ancient walls. Cowslips, daisies and bluets ripple through the wet pastures, interrupted regularly by thick hedgerows. Once again the surging Norman spring is laying down a floral carpet over the old killing ground...
...that no one in the U.S. is above the law, judges have long been immune from harassing damage suits by those who believe they have been wronged in court. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has now ruled that even judges can sometimes be sued. While the court reaffirmed the ancient English common law doctrine of judicial immunity from damage suits, it held that a citizen may seek an injunction in federal court to order a state judge to stop violating civil rights. It also ruled that state judges are not immune from a 1976 law that forces the losers...
...folklore and literature of nearly every tribe and climate are riddled with riddles. Enigmas abounded in ancient Rome, in Sanskrit hymns and the sagas of the Norse. Galileo composed some, so did Shakespeare and Cervantes. In the last century, Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll experimented with trick questions; in this century, J.R.R. Tolkien in The Hobbit offered a few original puzzles: "A box without hinges, key or lid. Yet golden treasure inside is hid." Answer: An egg. The sport trickled down to Gotham City, home of Batman and Robin; in a recent comic-book adventure, the Riddler...
...supplements, a situation that leads the disgruntled anthologist to pose a question of his own: "Is riddling something only relevant to cultures at the so-called 'mythological' stage of thought or has all the fun gone out of the Western world?" Answer: No. For proof, see Riddles Ancient and Modern, an engaging festival of some 700 posers, ranging from Homer ("What we caught we threw away; what we didn't catch we kept") to Jean Jacques Rousseau ("The truer I am, the more false I appear, and I become too young as age creeps on") to everyone...
...fresh flowers in the Great Hall. She also contributed heavily to the restoration of Monet's magnificent gardens at Giverny, to the renovation of Boscobel, an early 19th century Federal mansion not far from her home in suburban New York, and to the massive efforts to save the ancient Egyptian temples at Abu Simbel. Meticulously organized and attentive even to small details, she believed, "Beauty is medicine...