[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

You always pass failure on the way to success.

Mickey Rooney

 

Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she
meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.

Rick Polito, Marin Independent Journal's TV listing for "The Wizard of Oz"

 

When a person cannot deceive himself, the chances are against his being able
to deceive other people.

Mark Twain

 

A month in the laboratory can often save an hour in the library.

Frank Westheimer

 

The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there
aren't any space aliens. We can't be the best that creation has to offer. I
pray we're not all there is. If so, we're in big trouble.

Ellen DeGeneres

 

When I meet a man, I ask myself, 'Is this the man I want my children to
spend their weekends with?'

Rita Rudner

 

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Mess

 

When it first appeared in English, mess meant a portion of food. This came
from the Old French mes, "a dish", which in modern French is spelt mets.
This comes ultimately from the Latin missus, strictly "to put, send" but
which could also mean "a course at a meal" (that is, something put on the
table).

 

In the fifteenth century, mess came to refer to a group of people, usually
four in number, who sat together at a meal and were served from the same
dishes. This soon evolved into a name of any group that ate together. For
example, in warships, a group of a dozen or so men would usually sit
together at one table and were served from the same dishes; this was one
mess, and those who habitually sat together were messmates; the room was
often called a mess-room, a space that contained a set of messes. By an
obvious process, mess-room was itself later contracted to mess, so confusing
the place where one ate with the groups of people one ate with.

 

At one time mess could also refer to any cooked dish, especially one which
was liquid or pulpy; this is best remembered in the mess of pottage for
which Esau sold his birthright in the Bible (though the phrase doesn't
appear in the Authorized Version of 1611). The sense of a confused jumble or
a dirty or untidy state, which is the first association we have for mess
nowadays, evolved from this meaning and seems to have been a disparaging
reference to such sloppy food. It is actually a very recent usage, dating
only from the nineteenth century (it's first recorded in Webster's
Dictionary in 1828).

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Swashbuckling

 

A swashbuckler these days is somebody who engages in romantic and daring
piratical adventures with ostentatious flamboyance.

 

People who have fun with the word usually talk about some film hero buckling
his swash. A nice try, but there's no verb buckle hidden in it - the verbal
bit is actually swash. You should really say that the hero swashes his
buckler, but it's not as good a joke.

 

A member of this breed centuries ago actually did little more than that. A
buckler was a type of small shield, held by a handle at the back, whose main
purpose was to deflect blows from the sword of one's opponent. Its name is
from Old French (escu) bocler, literally "(a shield) with a boss" (this last
word, for a protrusion at the centre of something, is itself from French).
Someone who swashes is dashing about violently or lashing out with his
sword, often in pretend fights. It seems to have been an echoic term from
the sound of swords clashing or banging on shields.

 

In the sixteenth century swashbuckler was created from these two words to
convey the idea of a swaggering, bullying ruffian or undisciplined lout, who
made a lot of noise but to little practical purpose. It was most definitely
not a compliment to be called one in those days - a writer in 1560 described
a man as "a drunkard, a gambler and a swashbuckler".

 

The romantic image came along several centuries later.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Washington Monument

 

Building a monument to George Washington was not a unanimously supported
idea. Today, trumpeting George Washington as a hero and a symbol of national
pride isn't going to start any arguments. In the 19th century, however,
Washington's approval rating was far from 100 percent. The very idea of
constructing a monument to honor the former president felt like an affront
to the Democratic-Republicans-the opposing party to the Washington-aligned
Federalists-who both favored Thomas Jefferson over Washington and decried
such tributes as unseemly and suspiciously royalist.

 

It took almost 40 years to complete the Washington Monument's construction.
After decades of deliberation about where to build a monument to George
Washington, what form it should take, and whether the whole thing was a good
idea in the first place, the foundation for a great stone obelisk was laid
at the center of Washington, D.C.'s National Mall on July 4, 1848. Although
the design looks fairly simple, the structure would prove to be a difficult
project for architect Robert Mills and the Washington National Monument
Society. Due to ideological conflicts, lapses in funding, and disruptions
during the Civil War, construction of the Washington Monument would not be
completed until February 21, 1885. The site opened to the public three years
later.

 

A coup within the Washington National Monument Society delayed construction.
In 1855, an anti-Catholic activist group nicknamed the Know-Nothings seized
control of the 23-year-old Washington National Monument Society. Once in
power, the Know-Nothings rejected and destroyed memorial stones donated by
Pope Piux IX. The Know-Nothing affiliation cost the project financial
support from the public and from Congress. In 1858, after adding only two
layers of masonry to the monument, the Know-Nothings abdicated control of
the society.

 

Early ideas for the Washington Monument included statues, Greek columns, and
tombs. Before the society settled on building an obelisk, several other
ideas were suggested as the visual representation of George Washington's
grandeur. Among them were an equestrian statue of the first president (which
was part of Pierre L'Enfant's original plan for Washington, D.C.), a
separate statue situated atop a classical Greek column, and a tomb
constructed within the Capitol building. The last idea fell apart when
Washington's family was unwilling to move his body from its resting place in
Mount Vernon.

 

Later design plans included an elaborate colonnade.. Even after Mills'
obelisk model had been accepted, a few flashier design elements received
consideration as possible additions to the final project. Mills had
originally intended to surround the tower with a circular colonnade,
featuring not only a statue of George Washington seated gallantly atop a
chariot, but also 30 individual statues of renowned Revolutionary War
heroes.

 

... and an Egyptian sun. Mills placed a winged sun-an Egyptian symbol
representing divinity-above the doorframe of the Washington Monument's
principal entrance. The sun was removed in 1885.

 

The monument originally had a flat top. It has become recognizable for its
pointed apex, but the Washington Monument was originally designed to bear a
flat top. The monument's design was capped with a pyramid-shaped addition in
1879.