USO Canteen FReeper Style ~ Pancakes on Wednesday ~ 10 September 2003

Canteen FRiends ~ Radix

[Radix]

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The United States Armed Forces.

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Pancakes on Wednesdays

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Welcome to Pancakes on Wednesdays.

Wednesday September 10, 2003

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Here is an amalgamation of trivial facts and seemingly useless data.

Do not forget to hit the hyperlinks.

We have links, lots of them.

ULTRACREPIDARIAN

Of somebody who gives opinions on matters beyond his knowledge.

Thursday 10 April 2003 was the 225th anniversary of the birth of the essayist William Hazlitt (a date commemorated by the unveiling of his restored memorial in St Anne’s churchyard, Soho). This week’s Weird Word is one he is first recorded as using.

He did so in a famous letter of 1819 to William Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review, a letter which has been described as “one of the finest works of invective in the language”. In one of his more moderate castigations, Hazlitt wrote: “You have been well called an Ultra-Crepidarian critic”. What Hazlitt thought of Gifford’s journal may be deduced from this passage in The Spirit of the Age (1825):

His Journal, then, is a depository for every species of political sophistry and personal calumny. There is no abuse or corruption that does not there find a Jesuitical palliation or a bare-faced vindication. There we meet the slime of hypocrisy, the varnish of courts, the cant of pedantry, the cobwebs of the law, the iron hand of power. Its object is as mischievous as the means by which it is pursued are odious.

You can see why Hazlitt described himself as “a good hater”.

Ultracrepidarian comes from a classical allusion. The Latin writer Pliny recorded that Apelles, the famous Greek painter who was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, would put his pictures where the public could see them and then stand out of sight so he could listen to their comments. A shoemaker once faulted the painter for a sandal with one loop too few, which Apelles corrected. The shoemaker, emboldened by this acceptance of his views, then criticised the subject’s leg. To this Apelles is reported as replying (no doubt with expletives deleted) that the shoemaker should not judge beyond his sandals, in other words that critics should only comment on matters they know something about. In modern English, we might say “the cobbler should stick to his last”, a proverb that comes from the same incident. (A last is a shoemaker’s pattern, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning to follow a track, hence footstep.)

What Pliny actually wrote was ne supra crepidam judicaret, where crepidam is a sandal or the sole of a shoe, but the idea has been expressed in several ways in Latin tags, such as Ne sutor ultra crepidam (sutor means “cobbler”, a word still known in Scotland in the spelling souter). The best-known version is the abbreviated tag ultra crepidam, “beyond the sole”, from which Hazlitt formed ultracrepidarian.

Crepidam derives from Greek krepis, a shoe; it has no link with words like decrepit or crepitation (which are from Latin crepare, to creak, rattle, or make a noise) or crepuscular (from the Latin word for twilight), though crepidarian is a very rare adjective meaning “pertaining to a shoemaker”.

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Happy Birthday

Ian Fleming 1888

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Happy Birthday

Fay Wray 1907

One of the films she did in those years( 1920's-1930's) assured her place as a screen icon and made her a figure in folklore and myth. King Kong, among the half-dozen most famous films ever produced.

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Happy Birthday

Arnold Daniel Palmer 1929

I am an excellent driver!

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Happy Birthday

Charles Kuralt 1934

Charles Osgood Memory 3: I remember eating a stack of 100 pancakes at an IHOP outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, with syrup made from clover and sausages made of moose. At least that's what the waitress, a cute little number with buck teeth and no hair, told me.

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There will be a full moon tonight 10 September 2003

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Happy Birthday

Roger Maris 1934

We are counting cards!

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Would you like some Geometry with your pancakes?

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Happy Birthday

Jose Feliciano 1945

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Happy Birthday

Amy Irving 1953

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Todays Wednesday field trip takes us to the lunar surface

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On this day...

1608 - John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown, VA. colony council.

When the first 104 English colonists landed on Jamestown Island on May 14th, 1607, they imagined themselves the first civilized men in a wild and savage environment. In truth, the region of present-day Virginia in which the settlers arrived had long been home to some thirty Native American tribes, organized into what is known as the Powhatan Confederacy. The English traded with, learned from and waged war with the Powhatan. With the legendary Pocahontas as ambassador, these people played perhaps the most pivotal role in the fate of the first English settlement in America.

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1862 - Rabbi Jacob Frankel became the first Jewish Army chaplain.

CARDINAL NUMBERS

A cardinal number is one way to measure the size of a set. Here is the definition used in Zermelo Fraenkel set theory.

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1913 - The Lincoln Highway opened. It was the first paved coast-to-coast highway in the U.S.

I am an excellent driver.

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1935 - "Popeye" was heard on NBC radio for the first time.

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Spinach Pancakes

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The area of a triangle is calculated using the formula:

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Pancakes Wednesdays

Definitely

 

[MoJo2001]

I'm just a ray of too much energy and time out here. If it rains, big deal. It's only rained half of the summer. So? If Virginia is not out of the drought yet, it isn't MoJo's fault or God's for that matter. Outside of that, life is grand. The day is beautiful. My house is quiet. And I'm ready to have some fun today! Woohoo!! *HUGS*

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning Little Diva!!
*HUGS*
I am doing well today thank you.
How are you doing?
It is really chilly here burr!!!
It will warm up later on but the house is chilly.
I want to turn the furnace on!!!!
Have a great day Little Diva.

[MoJo2001]

Did you have a nightmare last night?

Don't worry!! It wasn't a nightmare! It was just the Presidential Debates.

Can you believe we have to put up with that from now until Election Day next year. I wish there was a DO NOT MAIL list for those stupid Campaign Flyers and brochures trying to sugarcoat the uselessness of the average politician.

Here's a thought: Why not save all the millions of dollars being spent for campaigns and send all the money to the troops or their families. Send our troops and their families on vacation when they return. Wow! That would actually be too useful, huh?? Forget about it! Logic and Politics don't mix!

[MoJo2001]

TUrn the Furnace on???

Please! I haven't turned my AC off yet! LOL!

[MoJo2001]

Oh! I know why I am in a grand mood. Israel, our ally and friend, rid the world of another terrorist. Yep! Another one of those SOBS departed this Earth in a horrible fashion. Isn't that grand? Someone who deserved to die in the most horrible way..did! Woohoo!! Thank you, Israel!!

If you are reading this and are totally offended, keep in mind that Israel is doing nothing different than we are!!

[Fawnn]

You drinking quadruple espressos today? (With a Mountain Dew chaser?) ;)

g'mornin'!!!

[MoJo2001]

LOL!! I haven't had any coffee or Mountain Dew today. Nope!! I had a Cinnabon today! Hehehe!! WOOHOO!

[Fawnn]

A question from yesterday's OpinionJournal.com Best of the Web Today:

Was FDR a failure because he never caught Hitler?

Discuss. ;)

[Fawnn]

I got some Vietnamese cinnamon, which supposedly is the kind they use in Cinnabons. It sure smells like it! I hate to use the stuff; I just wanna sit around and sniff the jar. ;)

[Mr. Silverback]

Here's today's feeble attempt at humor for the troops:

An Update on the old Two Sows Story: New Dairy Business Practices

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go in hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who like the brown one best, vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which is the best looking cow.

NEW YORK CORPORATION
You have fifteen million cows.
You have to choose which one will be the leader of the herd, so you pick
some fat cow from Arkansas.

[MoJo2001]

LMAO! Sniffing isn't my thing, but I must say that I could have bought some Vietnamese Cinnamon much cheaper than I paid for my Cinnabon!!

[MoJo2001]

I read something about that.

It's hard to be a failure at catching someone that puts a gun to his head. (Supposedly) Anyways, I don't care how Hitler left this Earth. I hope he left it in the most horrible way imaginable. The only consolation that we can have is knowing that he is rotting in Hell next to the other tyrannical brutes that walked this Earth.

Besides, I can blame FDR for the other failures in his Administration that led to our government still taking taxes from us today. What a loser in that aspect. No politician will step up and stop taking Federal taxes from your check or the Social Security deductions. (Of which most people in my generation, DO NOT EXPECT WILL SEE OR BE AROUND WHEN WE ARE IN THE RETIREMENT AGE GROUP)

[Fawnn]

You have to choose which one will be the leader of the herd, so you pick some fat cow from Arkansas.

LOL!!!

I'm gonna paste some more stuff from OpinionJournal.com's Best of the Web Today:

Great Moments in Palestinian Parenting
An Israeli raid in Hebron killed two Hamas terrorists, the Jerusalem Post reports. Palestinian Arabs say a 13-year-old boy also died when he was hit by shell shrapnel. And what was the boy doing there? "Standing on the sidelines watching the action with his family." Sounds like a great show to take your kid to.

On the site, the Best of the Web Today's JAMES TARANTO's headlines links will take you to the actual stories. (The actual headlines are the ones in quotation marks.)

Hey, Whatever Floats Your Boat
"Giant Dino Feces Excites Researchers"--headline, United Press International, Sept. 7

Whatever You Do, Don't Tell Anyone!
"Air Force Launches Top Secret Satellite"--headline, CNN.com, Sept. 9

This one is a reoccurring one:

Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead
"Diplomat: No New Missile at N. Korea Parade"--headline, Reuters, Sept. 9

[MoJo2001]

Hey! Aren't we discussing? LOL!

[MoJo2001]

Whatever You Do, Don't Tell Anyone!
"Air Force Launches Top Secret Satellite"--headline, CNN.com, Sept. 9

I was at the Post Office the other day and I was standing in line with 2 WWII Vets and they were angry with the news media discussing everything that our military does. One of them suggested that those reporters that put our troops in harms way because this need to be first should be placed in Gitmo next to those other terrorists. He had a point!

[Fawnn]

I thought you'd appreciate the piece about "great moments in Palestinian parenting." (It amazes me how people try to claim Israel's actions are the same as the terrorist acts perpetrated by the Palestinians. Yes, terrorist acts! "Freedom fighters" my Aunt Fanny! ... I'll stop myself before I rant about more stuff not appropriate for this thread.) ;)

Hitler/Saddam. Either way, we stopped 'em from butchering more people! It's a matter of time before Osama is literally bad history, too.

I think I need to go read some Dave Barry or something. ;)

[Fawnn]

Hey! Aren't we discussing? LOL!

Patience, grasshopper. (I have a short attention span and am easily distracted, remember? ... Ohhhhhhh, sparkly things!!!....)

[MoJo2001]

My grandmother always said to pray for peace in the Middle East when I was little. It's hard to pray for the peace of terrorists.

[MoJo2001]

YE!

[MoJo2001]

FEEL THE LOVE!!