Sunday 17 March 2024

Answer The Call

 


"I should've known - no human is that humane."

-- Ripley-8





humane
 (adj.)

mid-15c., a parallel variant of human (adj.), with a form and stress that perhaps suggest a stronger association with Latin humanus than with Old French humainHuman and humane were used interchangeably in the senses "pertaining to a human being" and "having qualities befitting human beings" (c. 1500). The latter at first meant "courteous, friendly, civil, obliging," then "marked by tenderness, compassion, and a disposition to kindly treat others" (c. 1600). By early 18c. the words had differentiated in spelling and accent and humane took the "kind" sense.


Compare germane, urbane. Meaning "inflicting less pain than something else" is from 1904. Inhuman is its natural opposite. The Royal Humane Society (founded 1774) was originally to rescue drowning persons; such societies had turned to animal care by late 19c.


What We Have To Understand About Russian Leaders






What We Have To Understand About Russian Leaders




What we have to understand that as far
as The Russians are concerned 
uh, that they at one moment can
be very Russian and another woman can be
very communist uh it's like a Dr Joo Mr
Hyde syndrome that works uh I have such
vivid Recollections of that both with
regard to Kruschev but also with regard to
Brezhnev uh we would have for example 
a very very tough argument uh with
Brezhnev uh and then we go up to dinner as we
did at adasha afterwards and he would be
raising his glass and toasting the
grandchildren etc etc etc now I don't
mean by that that it was an act either
the first time or the second time what I
mean is that there are split
personalities there and my conclusion
basically is this we have to understand
the world as it is Russians and
Americans can be friends
and everybody must remember that we were
friends and we were allies too Russians
and Americans were were
too but the governments of the United
States and the Soviet Union can never be
friends because our goals are totally
different so what we have to do then is
to find a way uh to deal with the
Russian leaders as much as we can as
Russians recognizing also that as
Communists uh that they do not have our
best interest to put it mildly in mind I
think too that uh another recollection
that I have of brf that is interesting
is the way that he was so physical in
his contact he he was a man uh who was
always grabby in his conversation or
when I was riding along uh after being
in the Crimea to the airport in the car
and he put his hand over on my leg and
this and it I felt that I was in the
Oval Office with Lyndon Johnson uh cuz
Johnson also I did I just think it's a
shame that those two never got together
it would really been a a a bear wrestle
uh but uh the but on the other hand I
would say
that that while
brf uh was without question a ruthless
tough uh communist he could be a very
warm generous Uh Russian he could be
like a little boy with his collection of
cars for example uh and he drove like a
madman practically scared me to death
one time when we' given him a new lincol
and he drove over the single Lane roads
up in Camp David uh going around curves
that I wouldn't even take a 30 mil hour
we were going 60 and he got after we got
out of the car he said you know this car
handles very
well one of the prices of
diplomacy

Madman

The Truth About The "Madman" Theory




It isn't just what I would call 
A Madman Theory 
I think that overstates it uh --
I remember Johnson telling me in
1959 -- or 69 I should say -- uh 
that Johnson told me, when he came to 
The White House that he felt that one of his mistakes
was to give The Soviet an impression uh
that, uh we wanted peace and we would pay
almost any price to get it uh -- he said, uh --

He said one of the advantages at Ike had -- 
-- he referred, he always called him "Ike", 
never did but he said 
one of the advantages that Ike had was 
that The Russians were afraid of Ike 
afraid of him because he had been the great
commander in World War II, and because of
his military background and just because
of the kind of man he was, even though
Eisenhower was a very amiable, pleasant
grandfatherly type but they knew that
beneath that exterior was a very cold
tough fella

Do you think they were afraid of you? 


Oh yes  -- well they were afraid of me 
though not because of my appearances
and not because of my speeches but
because what I had done

There is nothing that added more to my credibility
certainly with The Russians and with
others as well, than that I took great
risks in order to bring The War in
Vietnam to a to a conclusion, to assure
the withdrawal of our forces uh --
The incursion into Cambodia uh the purpose
of that was to shorten the war to make
sure that our withdrawal program could
go forward on schedule uh -- and to save
American lives and it worked -- uh the fact
that be three weeks before the summit
meeting in Moscow which we wanted which
they wanted as well, that we bombed and
mined Hyphong uh -- after there was a great
North Vietnamese offensive supported by
Soviet tanks and guns which 
we could not tolerate --

I remember people said "Well, you can still go 
to Moscow even though Saigon is lost,
I said "No Way!" I said, "We -- I can't
be sitting across the table from Breznhev
when Soviet tanks are rumbling through
the streets of Saigon and that's why we
did what we did and despite all the
predictions by some of our Soviet experts 
to the effect that they would have no choice 
but to cancel the summit, it made them 
really I think more eager to have it and 
the other thing which I think may have had 
some impact on their thinking was that 
even after the elections of 1972 uh -- 
The December Bombing which was the
critical action was taken in order to
break the deadlock in Paris and 
have The Peace Negotiation uh --
that was a very difficult decision 
but it was necessary --

Now all of these actions you don't take them in
order to prove that You're a Madman or
that You're a tough guy or a macho
or all the rest,  it's simply you take them 
when it is in the interest 
of your foreign policy and also 
to make sure that you are 
a credible leader when you meet 
with others or when they  take actions 
that you want to oppose.

Mine is an Evil Laugh





Odin Sentence Loki - Thor: The Dark World (2013) Movie CLIP HD


"For years I was the personification of everything evil, everything rotten in this country.

Yeah, you dumped all 
your own criminality off on me

I was Your Goat.

It's your own Judgment, now

The Judgment 
you're making on Me 
is only A Mirror.

You have to carry the burden 
of The Image you created."

-- Manson






“I don’t know what I thought 
when it happened.... 
I just think a lot of 
the things he says are True --

That he’s A Child of The State, 
made by Us. 
That he took Their Children in 
when nobody else would … 

But of course he’s cracked, all right … 
he’s barmy.”


-- Lennon.




scarf (n.1)
[band of silk, strip of cloth], 1550s, "a band worn across the body or over the shoulders," probably from Old North French escarpe "sash, sling," which probably is identical with Old French escherpe "pilgrim's purse suspended from the neck," perhaps from Frankish *skirpja or some other Germanic source (compare Old Norse skreppa "small bag, wallet, satchel"), or from Medieval Latin scirpa "little bag woven of rushes," from Latin scirpus "rush, bulrush," which is of unknown origin [Klein].

It also is attested in early Modern English as scarp. OED points to "the change of the initial p into f after liquids". 

As a cold-weather covering of warm and soft material for the neck, by 1844. Plural scarfs began to yield to scarves early 18c., on model of half/halves, etc.
also from 1550s

scarf (n.2)
[connecting joint in carpentry, the ends being cut or notched so as to fit into each other], late 13c. (implied in scarf-nail), probably from a Scandinavian source, such as Old Norse skarfr "nail for fastening a joint; diagonally cut end of a board," Swedish skarf, Norwegian skarv, from Proto-Germanic *skarfaz, source also of Dutch scherf, Old English scearfe "a fragment, piece"(from PIE root *sker- (1) "to cut"). Also used as a verb, "unite by means of a scarf" (1620s). Also borrowed into Romanic (French écart, Spanish escarba).
also from late 13c.
scarf (v.)
"eat hastily," 1960, U.S. teen slang, originally a noun meaning "food, meal" (1932), perhaps imitative, or from nautical slang scoff "eat hastily or voraciously, devour" which is attested from 1846 (compare U.S. tramps slang scoffing "food, something to eat," 1907). This is said to be a variant of scaff (by 1797) in the same sense, and scaff (n.) "food, provisions" is attested from 1768, but the group is of obscure origin. Perhaps the word comes ultimately from some survival of Old English sceorfan "to gnaw, bite" (see scarf (n.2)). South African scoff (n.) is said to be a colloquial representation of Dutch schoft "quarter of a day," hence "each of the meals of a day." Related: Scarfed; scarfing.
also from 1960
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Entries linking to scarf

*sker- (1)
also *ker-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to cut."
It forms all or part of: bias; carnage; carnal; carnation; carnival; carnivorous; carrion; cenacle; charcuterie; charnel; corium; cortex; crone; cuirass; currier; curt; decorticate; excoriate; incarnadine; incarnate; incarnation; kirtle; scabbard; scar (n.2) "bare and broken rocky face of a cliff or mountain;" scaramouche; scarf (n.2) "connecting joint;" scarp; score; scrabble; scrap (n.1) "small piece;" scrape; screen; screw; scrimmage; scrofula; scrub (n.1) "low, stunted tree;" scurf; shard; share (n.1) "portion;" share (n.2) "iron blade of a plow;" sharp; shear; shears; sheer (adj.) "absolute, utter;" shirt; shore (n.) "land bordering a large body of water;" short; shrub; skerry; skirmish; skirt.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit krnati "hurts, wounds, kills," krntati "cuts;" Hittite karsh- "to cut off;" Greek keirein "to cut, shear;" Latin curtus "short," caro (genitive carnis) "flesh" (originally "piece of flesh"); Lithuanian skiriu, skirti "to separate;" Old English sceran, scieran "to cleave, hew, cut with a sharp instrument;" Old Irish scaraim "I separate;" Welsh ysgar "to separate," ysgyr "fragment."
snarf (v.)

"to take, grab," by 1989, probably imitative (compare scarf (v.)). Related: Snarfed; snarfing.
Trends of scarf




Dictionary entries near scarf

Nineties





nostalgia (n.)
Origin and meaning of nostalgia

1726, "morbid longing to return to one's home or native country, severe homesickness considered as a disease," Modern Latin, coined 1688 in a dissertation on the topic at the University of Basel by scholar Johannes Hofer (1669-1752) as a rendering of German heimweh "homesickness" (for which see home + woe).

From Greek algos "pain, grief, distress" (see -algia) + nostos "homecoming," from neomai "to reach some place, escape, return, get home," from PIE *nes- "to return safely home" (cognate with Old Norse nest "food for a journey," Sanskrit nasate "approaches, joins," German genesen "to recover," Gothic ganisan "to heal," Old English genesen "to recover"). French nostalgie is in French army medical manuals by 1754.

Originally in reference to The Swiss and said to be peculiar to them and often fatal, whether by its own action or in combination with wounds or disease.

[Dr. Scheuzer] had said that the air enclosed in the bodies of his countrymen, being in Æquilibrium with a rare and light air that surrounds them, was overloaded in lower countries with an air more dense and heavier, which compressing and obstructing the capillary vessels, makes the circulation slow and difficult, and occasions many sad symptoms. 

— Account of the publication 
of "Areographia Helvetiæ
in New Memoirs of Literature, 
London, March 1726

By 1830s the word was used of any intense homesickness : that of sailors, convicts, African slaves. 

"The bagpipes produced the same effects sometimes in the Scotch regiments while serving abroad

— Penny Magazine," 
Nov. 14, 1840

It is listed among the "endemic diseases" in the "Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine" 

London, 1833, edited by three M.D.s , which defines it as "The concourse of depressing symptoms which sometimes arise in persons who are absent from their native country, when they are seized with a longing desire of returning to their home and friends and the scenes their youth ...."

It was a military medical diagnosis principally, and was considered a serious medical problem by The North in The American Civil War :

In the first two years of The War, there were reported 2588 cases of nostalgia, and 13 deaths from this cause. These numbers scarcely express the real extent to which nostalgia influenced the sickness and mortality of the army. To the depressing influence of home-sickness must be attributed the fatal result in many cases which might otherwise have terminated favourably

— "Sanitary Memoirs of the War,
U.S. Sanitary Commission, N.Y.: 1867

Transferred sense (the main modern one) of "wistful yearning for the past" is recorded by 1920, perhaps from such use of nostalgie in French literature. The longing for a distant place also necessarily involves a separation in time.

Related entries & more


nostalgic (adj.)
1782, in medical writings, "relating to, characteristic of, or affected with nostalgia, homesick" (in nostalgic insanity), from nostalgia + -ic. The modern weaker sense of "evoking a wistful and sentimental yearning for the past" is by 1842. Related: Nostalgically.

Related entries & more
 
homesickness (n.)
1756, translating German Heimweh, from Heim "home" (see home (n.)) + Weh "woe, pain;" the compound is from Swiss dialect, expressing a longing for the mountains, and was introduced to other European languages 17c. by Swiss mercenaries. Also see nostalgia.
Related entries & more
 
Nestor 
name for a counselor wise from experience, or, generally, the oldest and most experienced man of a class or company, 1580s, from Greek Nestōr, name of the aged and wise hero in the "Iliad," king of Pylos, who outlived three generations. Klein says the name is literally "one who blesses," and is related to nostimos "blessed;" Watkins connects it with the root of the first element in nostalgia.

Related entries & more
 
harness (n.)
c. 1300, "personal fighting equipment, body armor," also "armor or trappings of a war-horse," from Old French harnois, a noun of broad meaning: "arms, equipment; harness; male genitalia; tackle; household equipment" (12c.), of uncertain origin, perhaps from Old Norse *hernest "provisions for an army," from herr "army" (see harry (v.)) + nest "provisions" (see nostalgia). Non-military sense of "fittings for a beast of burden" is from early 14c. German Harnisch "harness, armor" is the French word, borrowed into Middle High German. The Celtic words are believed to be also from French, as are Spanish arnes, Portuguese arnez, Italian arnese. Prive harness (late 14c.) was a Middle English term for "sex organs."

Related entries & more
 

Madeleine 
fem. proper name, variation of Madeline. The kind of small, rich confection is attested from 1845, said in OED to be named for Madeleine Paulmier, 19c. French pastry cook; any use with a sense of "small thing that evokes powerful nostalgia" is due to Proust (1922).
Related entries & more
 
nineties (n.)
1857 as the years of someone's life between 90 and 99; from 1848 as the tenth decade of years in a given century; 1849 with reference to Fahrenheit temperature. See ninety.

Many still live who remember those days; if the old men cannot tell you the exact date, they will say: 'It were in the nineties;' (etc.) 

— Chambers's Journal, 
Nov. 1, 1856

Related: Ninetyish "characteristic of the (eighteen-) nineties" (1909). In Britain, the naughty nineties was a popular name 1920s-30s for the 1890s, based on the notion of a relaxing of morality and mood in contrast to earlier Victorian times. In U.S., gay nineties in reference to the same decade is attested from 1927, and was the title of a regular nostalgia feature in "Life" magazine about that time.

The long, dreary blue-law Sunday afternoons were periods of the Nineties which no amount of rosy retrospect will ever be able to recall as gay, especially to a normal healthy boy to whom all activities were taboo except G. A. Henty and the bound volumes of Leslie's Weekly of the Civil War. 

— Life magazine, 
Sept. 1, 1927


 

Cosmic Edge-Lords








SCULLY :
No exam has been done?

The Sheriff
Uh ... No, Ma'am. Once I heard y'all was interested 
I figured we'd best leave it to 
The Experts. (Scully smiles broadly
Now, uh ... that can't be 
what it looks like, right?

MULDER
That depends on what you think 
it looks like, Sheriff Hartwell. 
Vampires have always been with Us
in ancient myths and stories 
passed down from early Man. 
(Scully stands behind Mulder, smiling, eyes wide, 
rocks from side to side, goofing around
From the Babylonian Ekimu to the Chinese Kuang-Shi 
to Motetz Dam of the Hebrews, the Mormo 
of ancient Greece and Rome* 
to the more familiar Nosferatu 
of Transylvania.

The Sheriff :
Mormo.* Yeah.

SCULLY
In short, Sheriff, no. This can't be what it looks like. 
I think what we're dealing with here is 
simply a case of some lunatic. (She chuckles
Who, uh, has watched too many Bela Lugosi movies. 
He wishes that he could transfigure himself
 into a creature of the night.

The Sheriff :
Yeah. Okay. Uh ... what she said, 
that's what I'm thinking, 
and, uh ... Yeah. 
(Scully loves being right)

MULDER
Still, that leaves us in something of a quandary 
because there are as many different 
kinds of vampires as there are 
cultures that fear them. 
(Scully yawns and covers her mouth
Some don't even subsist on blood
The Bulgarian Ubour, for example, 
eats only manure.

SCULLY: (sarcastically
Thank you.

MULDER
To The Serbs, a prime indicator 
of vampirism is red hair
(raises his hand to Scully's head
Some vampires are thought to be eternal
Others are thought to have 
a Life-span of only 40 days
(Scully's pointing at her watch, rolling her eyes, carrying on.
Sunlight kills certain vampires 
while others come and go 
as they please, Day or night.

(Scully sighs deeply from boredom).

SCULLY: 
If There's A Point, Mulder, 
please feel free to come to it.

MULDER
My Point is that We Don't know 
exactly what we're looking for. 
What kind of vampire, or if you prefer
what kind of vampire this killer 
wishes himself to be.

(Mulder notices the untied shoes on the corpse 
and stands with his head between his feet)



SCENE 19 
TODAY X FILES OFFICE

SCULLY
Now, why is it so important 
that his shoes were untied?

MULDER
I'm getting to it.

CEMETERY - DAY
MULDER VOICE OVER
So, while You stayed behind to do The Autopsy
The Sheriff drove me to the town cemetery.

(Hartwell opens the gate and they walk through. 
This cemetery is certainly not off the beaten path, 
the creepier the better)

The Sheriff :
Agent Mulder, you mind me 
asking you why we're out here?

MULDER: 
Historically, cemeteries were thought to be 
a haven for vampires, as are castles
catacombs and swamps
but unfortunately, you don't 
have any of those.

The Sheriff :
We used to have swamps only 
The EPA made us take to 
calling them ‘wetlands’.

MULDER: 
Yeah. So, we're out here looking 
for any signs of vampiric activity.

The Sheriff :
Which would be like, uh...?

MULDER: 
Broken or shifted tombstones. 
The absence of birds singing.

The Sheriff :
There you go. Cuz I ain't hearing any birds singing. 
Right? Course, it's winter, and We ain't 
got no birds. Is there anything else?

Mulder : 
A faint groaning coming from under the earth. 
The sound of manducation -- of the creature 
eating its own death shroud.

The Sheriff :
Nope. No manuh... ma-ma...

MULDER: 
Manducation.

The Sheriff :
Manducation. No.

MULDER: 
Now, Sheriff, I know my methods 
may seem a little odd to you, but..

The Sheriff :
Hey, look, y'all work for the federal 
guv'mint and that's all I need to know. 
I mean, CIA, Secret Service --
-- y'all run the show, so --

MULDER
It's just that my gut instinct tells me 
that the killer will visit this place. 
That it may well hold some fascination -- 
some kind of siren call for him, you know. 
(A horn honks)

RONNIE: 
Howdy, Sheriff.
(The teen delivery boy is in a red car on the street, a Gremlin)

The Sheriff :
Oh, hey, Ronnie. How's it going?

RONNIE: 
Can't complain.

The Sheriff : 
Well, all right, then. 
(Ronnie drives off)

MULDER: 
Maybe after nightfall, Sheriff, 
but he'll come. Oh, he'll come.

(we watch the car drive off down the road)



SCENE 20 
CEMETERY - NIGHT
(Mulder looking around with his flashlight)
MULDER VOICE OVER
So, we staked out the cemetery.



SCENE 21 
TODAY X FILES OFFICE

SCULLY
Mulder, shoelaces?

MULDER
Hmm?

SCULLY
On The Corpse. You were going to tell me 
what was Meaningful about 
finding untied shoelaces.

MULDER
I'm getting to it.



SCENE 22 
CEMETERY - NIGHT
(Mulder is spreading sunflower seeds around 
the cemetery, he gets into Sheriff's car)

MULDER: 
Sunflower seed? 
(He accidentally drops some) Sorry.

The Sheriff :
No, thanks. Do you mind ... (he picks up a seed that fell 
from Mulder's bag and tosses it) Do you mind 
me asking you what you were ...

MULDER
Historically, certain types of seeds 
were thought to fascinate vampires. 
Chiefly oats and millet, but you 
make-do with what you have
Remember when I said before 
that we didn't know what type of 
vampire we were looking for?


The Sheriff : 
Yeah.

MULDER
Well, oddly enough, there seems 
to be one obscure fact which 
in all the stories told 
by the different cultures 
is exactly the same, and that's 
that vampires are really
really obsessive-compulsive. 

Yeah, you toss a handful of seeds 
at one, no matter what he's doing 
he's got to stop and pick it up
If he sees a knotted rope
he's got to untie it. 
It's in His Nature

In fact, that's why,
I'm guessing that our victim's 
shoelaces were untied.

The Sheriff : 
Yeah, obsessive... Like Rain Man. (Mulder nods
It's like when that old boy dropped them matchsticks, 
he had to pick them all up. 
Same thing, right?

MULDER
Well, he didn't actually 
pick them up. 
He counted them.

The Sheriff : 
Oh, yeah. 247
Right off the top of your head.

MULDER
Well, if he had picked them up,
he would have been 


The Sheriff :
Yeah. I'll tell you what. 
I know I'm in Law-enforcement
but I'd like to take him 
to Vegas myself
Am I right?

MULDER
Well, that would be illegal, right?

The Sheriff :
He's like a little calculator.

MULDER
Yeah.




EndNotes :

* : “Mormu. Yeah.” Is The Sherrif answering The Question implicit in Mulder’s colloray, qualifying his response to The Sherriff own initial Question…? 

This Line of Enquiry, more fully-explored by way 
of being Gamed-out via Free-Play would, 
thereforerun as follows :

My Training is Secret

Ghostbusters 2: Louis vs Slimer deleted scene Completed


Saturday 16 March 2024

So What? It's a Free Country.





The sun is shining brightly and Liberty 
is back on her pedestal where she belongs. 
The Mayor and a host of officials are commemorating her return. 
The Ghostbusters, Dana, Janine and 
Louis are there as honoured guests. 
The Mayor comes out with a giant gold key, 
symbolic of The Key to the City.

Notice Janosz Poha and Jack Hardemeyer 
standing to the left of the podium.

The Mayor shakes hands with Peter, then hands the key over to him. Peter accepts it, then hands it down to the other members of the team.

VENKMAN
(looking up at the statue)
Pretty impressive, huh?

SPENGLER
(musing)
It's probably the first thing my grandparents 
saw when they came to this country.

VENKMAN
From where -- Neptune?

SPENGLER
They came from Ostrov in Eastern Poland.

VENKMAN
Ostrov? I've been there. Good party town.

STANTZ
(in a similarly reflective mood)
My great-grandparents were Swiss
I still have the pictures they took of 
The Statue from the boat when they arrived.

VENKMAN
Oh, right, you told me that. 
They came to America seeking other 
kinds of cheese, as I recall. 
How about you, Winston?

WINSTON
My people weren't taking any pictures from those slave ships, 
man. And there wasn't any Statue in Charleston Harbor 
to welcome them, either. 
What are you, Dana?

VENKMAN
Miss Blue Blood? Her family's 
been here since the year 12.

DANA
That's not true. It was 1620.

VENKMAN
Same difference.

STANTZ
What's your story, Pete?

VENKMAN
Me? I'm a little of everything. Some Irish, 
some German, some French, Dutch -- 
the women in my family slept around.
And that's what made this country great.

DANA
That's a terrible thing to say.

VENKMAN
So what? It's a free country.
(looking up at the statue)
Thanks, Lib.

They all look up at the Statue.

EXT. STATUE OF LIBERTY - HEAD OF STATUE - DAY

Slimer flies out one of the observation windows, THEME MUSIC KICKS IN and the CAMERA PULLS UP and AWAY FROM the island TO a HIGH SHOT of the Statue, lower Manhattan and the shining sea beyond.