The Space Coast Guard

[Joseph Nebus]

Navies are popular models for space-based ship action. The
Royal Navy particularly gets plundered as a model for how spaceships
would be organized, operated, deployed, and treated, especially when
space war comes up.

Are there any good uses where the star fleet is seen more as
a Coast Guard, with missions primarily dedicated to rescue, research,
safety, and some law-enforcement operations, without any particular
expectation that when war comes they'll do more than make sure the
port stays safe? (Arguably _Star Trek_, yes, especially in its Next
Generation stage. But besides that.)

--
Joseph Nebus
Math: Theorem Thursday: What Is Cramer's Rule? http://wp.me/p1RYhY-11W
Humor: An Open Letter To Every Social Media Ever http://wp.me/p37lb5-1g0
--------------------------------------------------------+---------------------

[David Johnston]

On 6/13/2016 1:12 PM, Joseph Nebus wrote:
> Navies are popular models for space-based ship action. The
> Royal Navy particularly gets plundered as a model for how spaceships
> would be organized, operated, deployed, and treated, especially when
> space war comes up.
>
> Are there any good uses where the star fleet is seen more as
> a Coast Guard, with missions primarily dedicated to rescue, research,
> safety, and some law-enforcement operations, without any particular
> expectation that when war comes they'll do more than make sure the
> port stays safe? (Arguably _Star Trek_, yes, especially in its Next
> Generation stage. But besides that.)
>

The Patrol in the Hospital Station series. Because interstellar war is
in general not much of thing of that series (in only one of that that
series implausible assumptions) the primary function of the Patrol is
answering distress calls. And in Andre Norton's default space setting
they actually do have interstellar wars, quite massive ones, but they
also have a Patrol which never visibly fills the role of space navy.
Instead we only see it as a law enforcement agency in spaceships.

[Jerry Brown]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2016 19:12:04 +0000 (UTC), nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph
Nebus) wrote:

> Navies are popular models for space-based ship action. The
>Royal Navy particularly gets plundered as a model for how spaceships
>would be organized, operated, deployed, and treated, especially when
>space war comes up.
>
> Are there any good uses where the star fleet is seen more as
>a Coast Guard, with missions primarily dedicated to rescue, research,
>safety, and some law-enforcement operations, without any particular
>expectation that when war comes they'll do more than make sure the
>port stays safe? (Arguably _Star Trek_, yes, especially in its Next
>Generation stage. But besides that.)

The USAC Search & Rescue ship Lewis & Clark in the film Event Horizon.

--
Jerry Brown

A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord

nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) writes:

> Are there any good uses where the star fleet is seen more as
> a Coast Guard, with missions primarily dedicated to rescue, research,
> safety, and some law-enforcement operations, without any particular
> expectation that when war comes they'll do more than make sure the
> port stays safe? (Arguably _Star Trek_, yes, especially in its Next
> Generation stage. But besides that.)

In _Space Cadet_, that's what the patrol spends most of its time doing,
but its raisin d'eat is to drop orbital nukes on any city that revolts
against its despotic masters.

--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, June 13, 2016 at 6:34:05 PM UTC-6, Steve Coltrin wrote:

> In _Space Cadet_, that's what the patrol spends most of its time doing,
> but its raisin d'eat is to drop orbital nukes on any city that revolts
> against its despotic masters.

That's _raison d'être_, my lad.

And "despotic masters" is not in fact the case. You must not have read the
story carefully.

The passage in question illustrated that many ordinary civilians fail to
understand is that a soldier's duty is to be loyal, and carry out the orders of
those who lawfully command him. The young space cadet, innocently, exposed this
principle nakedly without sugar-coating it with certain things *which were also
factual*...

specifically, that while he would indeed drop a bomb on an American city if
ordered to, because his masters were anything but despotic, he would not *be*
ordered to do that unless the United States had ceased to be a democracy, and
had instead become a menace to world peace in the same fashion as Nazi Germany
or Communist Russia had been menaces to world peace.

And because this qualification was not recognized, the foolish woman in the
story went away in a huff or whatever.

John Savard

[Kevrob]

On Monday, June 13, 2016 at 9:10:03 PM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Monday, June 13, 2016 at 6:34:05 PM UTC-6, Steve Coltrin wrote:
>
> > In _Space Cadet_, that's what the patrol spends most of its time doing,
> > but its raisin d'eat is to drop orbital nukes on any city that revolts
> > against its despotic masters.
>
> That's _raison d'être_, my lad.
>

...unless it was meant to be "raison d'État."

> And "despotic masters" is not in fact the case. You must not have read the
> story carefully.
>
> The passage in question illustrated that many ordinary civilians fail to
> understand is that a soldier's duty is to be loyal, and carry out the orders of
> those who lawfully command him. The young space cadet, innocently, exposed this
> principle nakedly without sugar-coating it with certain things *which were also
> factual*...
>
> specifically, that while he would indeed drop a bomb on an American city if
> ordered to, because his masters were anything but despotic, he would not *be*
> ordered to do that unless the United States had ceased to be a democracy, and
> had instead become a menace to world peace in the same fashion as Nazi Germany
> or Communist Russia had been menaces to world peace.
>
> And because this qualification was not recognized, the foolish woman in the
> story went away in a huff or whatever.
>
> John Savard

Kevin R

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:10:00 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote
in<news:306cfb2e-8cc5-4e13...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Monday, June 13, 2016 at 6:34:05 PM UTC-6, Steve
> Coltrin wrote:

>> In _Space Cadet_, that's what the patrol spends most of
>> its time doing, but its raisin d'eat is to drop orbital
>> nukes on any city that revolts against its despotic
>> masters.

> That's _raison d'être_, my lad.

Steve was obviously being funny.

> And "despotic masters" is not in fact the case. You must
> not have read the story carefully.

Matter of opinion. Heinlein showed the Patrol in a very
favorable light, but in fact it is in a position to wield
despotic power and is restrained only by itself, and we
never get an objective account of the situation. And that
is not in the long term a stable situation even if the
Patrol is at that point every bit as upstanding and noble
as it’s presented.

[...]

> And because this qualification was not recognized, the
> foolish woman in the story went away in a huff or
> whatever.

The woman was his mother.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote in
news:njn0i4$4jv$1...@reader1.panix.com:

> Navies are popular models for space-based ship action.
> The
> Royal Navy particularly gets plundered as a model for how
> spaceships would be organized, operated, deployed, and treated,
> especially when space war comes up.
>
> Are there any good uses where the star fleet is seen
> more as
> a Coast Guard, with missions primarily dedicated to rescue,
> research, safety, and some law-enforcement operations, without
> any particular expectation that when war comes they'll do more
> than make sure the port stays safe?

Er, actually, in the alst century or so, any time the US has engaged
in military action, the Coast Guard has been the first service on the
scene nearly all the time.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:306cfb2e-8cc5-4e13...@googlegroups.com:

> The passage in question illustrated that many ordinary civilians
> fail to understand is that a soldier's duty is to be loyal, and
> carry out the orders of those who lawfully command him.

There isn't a single word in that sentence that has any objective
meaning.

[Greg Goss]

"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>Matter of opinion. Heinlein showed the Patrol in a very
>favorable light, but in fact it is in a position to wield
>despotic power and is restrained only by itself, and we
>never get an objective account of the situation. And that
>is not in the long term a stable situation even if the
>Patrol is at that point every bit as upstanding and noble
>as it’s presented.

In my reading, the Patrol is very aware of the temptations and tries
to preserve responsibility through psycological conditioning.
Lionizing Dalquist from The Long Watch is part of that.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[Dimensional Traveler]

If a mother can't trust her darling baby boy to not drop a nuke on her
head, who can she trust?

--
Running the rec.arts.TV Channels Watched Survey for Summer 2016

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <m2r3c0o...@kelutral.omcl.org>,

Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org> wrote:
>begin fnord
>nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) writes:
>
>> Are there any good uses where the star fleet is seen more as
>> a Coast Guard, with missions primarily dedicated to rescue, research,
>> safety, and some law-enforcement operations, without any particular
>> expectation that when war comes they'll do more than make sure the
>> port stays safe? (Arguably _Star Trek_, yes, especially in its Next
>> Generation stage. But besides that.)
>
>In _Space Cadet_, that's what the patrol spends most of its time doing,
>but its raisin d'eat is to drop orbital nukes on any city that revolts
>against its despotic masters.

Except that in _Space Cadet_ they aren't despotic, they're actual
peacekeepers. In _Between Planets_, now ....

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <306cfb2e-8cc5-4e13...@googlegroups.com>,

Well, she was (a) his mother, and (b) a resident of Des Moines,
Iowa, which I'm sure is a lovely place but not what you'd call
cosmopolitan.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <ckf04qdkr34f.1lzin61rtjqdh$.d...@40tude.net>,

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>On Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:10:00 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
><jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote
>in<news:306cfb2e-8cc5-4e13...@googlegroups.com>
>in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> On Monday, June 13, 2016 at 6:34:05 PM UTC-6, Steve
>> Coltrin wrote:
>
>>> In _Space Cadet_, that's what the patrol spends most of
>>> its time doing, but its raisin d'eat is to drop orbital
>>> nukes on any city that revolts against its despotic
>>> masters.
>
>> That's _raison d'être_, my lad.
>
>Steve was obviously being funny.

"Raisin daughter" is sometimes used.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 04:56:55 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>Well, she was (a) his mother, and (b) a resident of Des Moines,
>Iowa, which I'm sure is a lovely place but not what you'd call
>cosmopolitan.

Oh, I dunno. I mean, not compared to New York or Paris, but it's a
hell of a lot better than some places I've been.

(My daughter is a graduate of Drake University, which is in Des
Moines.)




--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:

> In article <m2r3c0o...@kelutral.omcl.org>,
> Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org> wrote:
>>
>>In _Space Cadet_, that's what the patrol spends most of its time doing,
>>but its raisin d'eat is to drop orbital nukes on any city that revolts
>>against its despotic masters.
>
> Except that in _Space Cadet_ they aren't despotic, they're actual
> peacekeepers.

Well, we only have a Patrolman's word for that.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <njo2tl$m6h$3...@dont-email.me>,

IIRC, in the first place, when told he'd gone EVA to check on the
orbiting bomb, she was afraid he'd fall. Then, that the bomb
would. Finally, that SOMEbody would decide to bomb Des Moines
out of sheer spite. Her husband calmed her down, sort of, by
explaining that it was "OUR Patrol", meaning North America's, and
somebody else might get bombed but not Des Moines. Which he had
a point, not because the Patrol was North America's instrument of
mother-flag-and-apple-pie, but because Des Moines was unlikely
ever to do anything that would require nuking.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:32:27 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>IIRC, in the first place, when told he'd gone EVA to check on the
>orbiting bomb, she was afraid he'd fall. Then, that the bomb
>would. Finally, that SOMEbody would decide to bomb Des Moines
>out of sheer spite. Her husband calmed her down, sort of, by
>explaining that it was "OUR Patrol", meaning North America's, and
>somebody else might get bombed but not Des Moines. Which he had
>a point, not because the Patrol was North America's instrument of
>mother-flag-and-apple-pie, but because Des Moines was unlikely
>ever to do anything that would require nuking.

My daughter was in Des Moines on Sept. 11, 2001.

Many of her classmates were absolutely certain that Des Moines would
be hit next after New York and Washington, since Iowa is the heart of
America's food supply.

Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
sink in immediately.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:35:46 UTC+1, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:32:27 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> Heydt) wrote:
>
> >IIRC, in the first place, when told he'd gone EVA to check on the
> >orbiting bomb, she was afraid he'd fall. Then, that the bomb
> >would. Finally, that SOMEbody would decide to bomb Des Moines
> >out of sheer spite. Her husband calmed her down, sort of, by
> >explaining that it was "OUR Patrol", meaning North America's, and
> >somebody else might get bombed but not Des Moines. Which he had
> >a point, not because the Patrol was North America's instrument of
> >mother-flag-and-apple-pie, but because Des Moines was unlikely
> >ever to do anything that would require nuking.
>
> My daughter was in Des Moines on Sept. 11, 2001.
>
> Many of her classmates were absolutely certain that Des Moines would
> be hit next after New York and Washington, since Iowa is the heart of
> America's food supply.
>
> Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
> sink in immediately.

Nor can they spell it. I wonder that anyone can.
A form of "security through obscurity"?

(Wikipedia provides three different pronunciations.)

So, they were terrorised by their own patriotic
pride.

I think I remember that there was a bomb threat
in central Glasgow, in Scotland, on the evening
of that September 11th - evidently a quick-
reacting prank; /probably/ not Al Qaeda unless
they were phoning up a /lot/ of places with
hoax warnings. Glasgow is maybe twice the
population of Des Moines - and, as I say, there's
the matter of pronunciation and spelling.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <vs80mbh8gld9auais...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:32:27 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>IIRC, in the first place, when told he'd gone EVA to check on the
>>orbiting bomb, she was afraid he'd fall. Then, that the bomb
>>would. Finally, that SOMEbody would decide to bomb Des Moines
>>out of sheer spite. Her husband calmed her down, sort of, by
>>explaining that it was "OUR Patrol", meaning North America's, and
>>somebody else might get bombed but not Des Moines. Which he had
>>a point, not because the Patrol was North America's instrument of
>>mother-flag-and-apple-pie, but because Des Moines was unlikely
>>ever to do anything that would require nuking.
>
>My daughter was in Des Moines on Sept. 11, 2001.
>
>Many of her classmates were absolutely certain that Des Moines would
>be hit next after New York and Washington, since Iowa is the heart of
>America's food supply.
>
>Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
>sink in immediately.

If 9/11 had happened back in the early fifties, and they were in
Chicago, they might have had something to worry about.

9/11 did not have to happen in the early fifties for President
Eisenhower to worry about somebody nuking Chicago, since at that
time virtually all railroad lines ran through it. He therefore
pushed for, and got, what became the Interstate Highway system.

But according to what I've read (I was a tiny tot at the time,
and not reading the papers), every city in the United States
started worrying about being on "the enemy's hit list" during
WWII. Including, probably, Des Moines....

/quick google

"Many factories in Iowa were converted to the production of war
materials. Among these were Solar Aircraft in Des Moines, the
John Deere plant in Ankeny, and the Army Ordinance Plant in West
Burlington. Value of manufactured products in Iowa rose from
$243,390,000 in 1939 to $671,100,000 in 1947. ...

"As during any war, there were fears of attack. Iowans feared
bombing by the Japanese. They feared German spies and were alert
for subversive talk or action. School children in Iowa purchased
"War Savings Stamps." The stamps were pasted in a booklet and
when a certain number were saved, the child was entitled to a
"War Bond." Even though the danger of air raids was slight,
Iowans installed "black-out curtains" for their windows. They
held black-out sessions closing off any light to the outside."

That Iowa was about as far as you can get from either coast, and
ICBMs had not been invented, probably didn't soothe their worries
much.

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 10:00:30 AM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:35:46 UTC+1, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:

> > Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
> > sink in immediately.

> Nor can they spell it. I wonder that anyone can.
> A form of "security through obscurity"?

What, isn't it on cans in every supermarket...

Oh no, that's "Del Monte".

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, June 13, 2016 at 9:04:45 PM UTC-6, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
> news:306cfb2e-8cc5-4e13...@googlegroups.com:

> > The passage in question illustrated that many ordinary civilians
> > fail to understand is that a soldier's duty is to be loyal, and
> > carry out the orders of those who lawfully command him.

> There isn't a single word in that sentence that has any objective
> meaning.

What? There are plenty of words in that sentence that have objective meaning,
like "fail" and "understand" and "passage" and "question".

But I think you have a valid point in relation to certain other words in that
sentence.

However, I used these... conventional... words because I really did not wish to
take the time to wade deeply into... associated issues.

In the world as it is, democratic nations need to have military forces in order
to survive. And while soldiers can be held to account individually if they
commit war crimes, atrocities, or crimes against humanity... a fighting force
cannot function effectively if individual soldiers are at liberty to decline to
participate in a war because they disagree with the political decision to wage
it.

One can regard this as regrettable, but I see no practical way to do something
about it.

John Savard

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <dc8ee325-0448-4eb5...@googlegroups.com>,

Right. And since that's Spanish for "From the mountain," and
there are a fair number of mountains on this planet, any
would-be assassins would get hopelessly geographically confused.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <ebf17e7b-752c-487b...@googlegroups.com>,

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:35:46 UTC+1, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>
>> My daughter was in Des Moines on Sept. 11, 2001.
>>
>> Many of her classmates were absolutely certain that Des Moines would
>> be hit next after New York and Washington, since Iowa is the heart of
>> America's food supply.
>>
>> Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
>> sink in immediately.
>
>Nor can they spell it. I wonder that anyone can.
>A form of "security through obscurity"?
>
>(Wikipedia provides three different pronunciations.)
>
>So, they were terrorised by their own patriotic
>pride.

Ogden Nash once wrote a light poem on the subject of placenames
that are not pronounced the way they're spelled. Excerpt
(approximate from memory):

Californians fine each other a dollar
If they say La Jolla,
And give each other a Picasso or a Goya
If they say La Hoya.
Why should I give up the chance of receiving an Old Master or a
coin?
I will no longer say Des Moines?
I will sail into the ticket office like a swan
And demand a round-trip ticket to Day Mwahn.

Much of it depends on the difference between French and English
spelling. I'll go into the source of "Chicago" some other time.

[Quadibloc]

I didn't remember everything about the story.

One more thing has come back to me, though. The city that *did* get bombed by
the Space Patrol was somewhere in Latin America - and this action _was_ highly
questionable. An atomic bomb attack that kills a large number of civilians is a
desperate last resort - not something one does simply because a political
leader is taking actions one disapproves of.

That would be like nuking Munich in response to Germany re-arming the
Rhineland; in hindsight that may not seem all that bad, but it would have made
the Allies the aggressors by any conventional standard of warfare.

But what I do know was that the lad in question was placed in an awkward
position. In order to give the kind of answer that his mother wanted to hear,
he would have either expressed a willingness to commit mutiny or treason, or
brought his superiors into disrepute by claiming that the Space Patrol only
bombed... lesser breeds without the law, as it were.

The incident was about a boy becoming a man; "Space Patrol" was no "Starship
Troopers", politics wasn't what it was about, and thus it's appropriate to be
indulgent with things brought in for the sake of the story. (Come to think of
it, though, I've seen Starship Troopers defended as a coming-of-age story which
should in no way be taken to have anything to do with Heinlein's own politics.
I think that while this is an appealing out, and may have some truth to it,
it's not really fully available.)

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, June 13, 2016 at 9:02:13 PM UTC-6, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:

> Er, actually, in the alst century or so, any time the US has engaged
> in military action, the Coast Guard has been the first service on the
> scene nearly all the time.

They may well have gotten to Pearl Harbor before any other Naval units, besides
the one already there and under attack, did...

but what the *heck* would a Coast Guard ship be doing in the Gulf of Tonkin?

Or anywhere near Korea... let alone Afghanistan or Iraq. (Then again, the Coast
Guard could have been involved in the immediate response to 9/11, although one
mostly hears about civilian first responders there - and the Pentagon is
inland.)

And given the timing of the U.S. entry to World War I, early Coast Guard
involvement there doesn't seem to make sense... ah, no, this one might well
bear out your contention, as they were there first to be mobilized, and
mobilizing them would be a reasonable response to learning the enemy is
planning "unrestricted submarine warfare".

After all, back before World War I, that part in the Constitution about
standing armies in peacetime actually *meant* something.

John Savard

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2016 22:53:48 -0600, Greg Goss
<go...@gossg.org> wrote
in<news:ds9gv5...@mid.individual.net> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

That’s the straightforward reading, yes, and for the
purposes of the story I’m willing to adopt it. But
self-deception is very easy, even at the institutional
level, and as I said, we never get an objective account of
what they permit and what kind of pressure, both explicit
and implicit, they exert. In real life I consider that
setup a recipe for disaster.

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 09:00:28 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
in<news:ebf17e7b-752c-487b...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:35:46 UTC+1, Lawrence
> Watt-Evans wrote:

[...]

>> Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des
>> Moines did not sink in immediately.

> Nor can they spell it. I wonder that anyone can.
> A form of "security through obscurity"?
>
> (Wikipedia provides three different pronunciations.)

That statement is grossly misleading. Wikipedia provides
*one* pronunciation of the name of the existing U.S. city;
the other two are *French* pronunciations of the French
phrase <des moines> 'of/from the monks', one current and
one older.

[...]

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 18:47:08 UTC+1, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 09:00:28 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote
> in<news:ebf17e7b-752c-487b...@googlegroups.com>
> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> > On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:35:46 UTC+1, Lawrence
> > Watt-Evans wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des
> >> Moines did not sink in immediately.
>
> > Nor can they spell it. I wonder that anyone can.
> > A form of "security through obscurity"?
> >
> > (Wikipedia provides three different pronunciations.)
>
> That statement is grossly misleading. Wikipedia provides
> *one* pronunciation of the name of the existing U.S. city;
> the other two are *French* pronunciations of the French
> phrase <des moines> 'of/from the monks', one current and
> one older.

Grossly misleading perhaps, but, I propose, it was more fun.
(For me, at least.)

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 09:00:28 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie

<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:35:46 UTC+1, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:32:27 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>> Heydt) wrote:
>>
>> >IIRC, in the first place, when told he'd gone EVA to check on the
>> >orbiting bomb, she was afraid he'd fall. Then, that the bomb
>> >would. Finally, that SOMEbody would decide to bomb Des Moines
>> >out of sheer spite. Her husband calmed her down, sort of, by
>> >explaining that it was "OUR Patrol", meaning North America's, and
>> >somebody else might get bombed but not Des Moines. Which he had
>> >a point, not because the Patrol was North America's instrument of
>> >mother-flag-and-apple-pie, but because Des Moines was unlikely
>> >ever to do anything that would require nuking.
>>
>> My daughter was in Des Moines on Sept. 11, 2001.
>>
>> Many of her classmates were absolutely certain that Des Moines would
>> be hit next after New York and Washington, since Iowa is the heart of
>> America's food supply.
>>
>> Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
>> sink in immediately.
>
>Nor can they spell it. I wonder that anyone can.
>A form of "security through obscurity"?
>
>(Wikipedia provides three different pronunciations.)

The correct pronunciation -- that is, the one used by the people who
live there, despite it not being correct French or English -- is "deh
Moyn." Rhymes with "coin."

(I had an epiphany a few decades back, and concluded that unless
there's a longstanding language difference (e.g., Moscow/Moskva), the
correct pronunciation of a place name is the way it's said by the
people who live there. After all, I'm from Massachusetts, and knew
that spelling and history didn't determine the pronunciation of a
dozen towns with names like Billerica* or Quincy**. This changed my
pronunciation of "Colorado," "Missouri," and "Nevada," to give just
three examples.)

* Bill-RICK-ah

** The C is pronounced like Z

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:58:20 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans
<l...@sff.net> wrote
in<news:o7k0mbdvq6qbrjinc...@reader80.eternal-september.org>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> (I had an epiphany a few decades back, and concluded that
> unless there's a longstanding language difference (e.g.,
> Moscow/Moskva), the correct pronunciation of a place
> name is the way it's said by the people who live there.
> After all, I'm from Massachusetts, and knew that
> spelling and history didn't determine the pronunciation
> of a dozen towns with names like Billerica* or Quincy**.
> This changed my pronunciation of "Colorado,"
> "Missouri," and "Nevada," to give just three examples.)

> * Bill-RICK-ah

> ** The C is pronounced like Z

And when my father was hired to teach chemistry at Amherst
College back in 1955, someone was kind enough to inform him
on the way to his first meeting with the dean or president
(I forget which) that said eminence paid attention to how
long it took newcomers to learn that the <h> in <Amherst>
is silent.

Around here the best one is probably <Mantua>, which is
pronounced ['mænəˌweɪ], roughly \MAN-ə-way\.

[Dimensional Traveler]

On 6/14/2016 8:35 AM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:32:27 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> Heydt) wrote:
>
>> IIRC, in the first place, when told he'd gone EVA to check on the
>> orbiting bomb, she was afraid he'd fall. Then, that the bomb
>> would. Finally, that SOMEbody would decide to bomb Des Moines
>> out of sheer spite. Her husband calmed her down, sort of, by
>> explaining that it was "OUR Patrol", meaning North America's, and
>> somebody else might get bombed but not Des Moines. Which he had
>> a point, not because the Patrol was North America's instrument of
>> mother-flag-and-apple-pie, but because Des Moines was unlikely
>> ever to do anything that would require nuking.
>
> My daughter was in Des Moines on Sept. 11, 2001.
>
> Many of her classmates were absolutely certain that Des Moines would
> be hit next after New York and Washington, since Iowa is the heart of
> America's food supply.
>
> Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
> sink in immediately.
>

_Every_ city of any significant size was expecting to come under attack.
I suspect every law enforcement agency in the US (and I assume Canada)
was recalling every officer or deputy to duty, opening their EOCs and
running thru whatever war/terrorist attack emergency plans they had. (I
base that on what I know every client LE agency of the company I worked
for at the time was doing.)

[J. Clarke]

In article <ad971807-652b-405b...@googlegroups.com>,
jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...

Navies are not armies though.

"To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use
shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;"

Note, separate clauses.

[Kevrob]

On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 1:12:28 PM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Monday, June 13, 2016 at 9:02:13 PM UTC-6, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>
> > Er, actually, in the alst century or so, any time the US has engaged
> > in military action, the Coast Guard has been the first service on the
> > scene nearly all the time.
>
> They may well have gotten to Pearl Harbor before any other Naval units, besides
> the one already there and under attack, did...
>
> but what the *heck* would a Coast Guard ship be doing in the Gulf of Tonkin?
>

USCG vessels get seconded to the Navy in time of war for use in
rivers, lakes, etc all over the world.

> Or anywhere near Korea... let alone Afghanistan or Iraq. (Then again, the Coast
> Guard could have been involved in the immediate response to 9/11, although one
> mostly hears about civilian first responders there - and the Pentagon is
> inland.)
>

The Pentagon isn't far from the Potomac. USCG has vessels on rivers.

> And given the timing of the U.S. entry to World War I, early Coast Guard
> involvement there doesn't seem to make sense... ah, no, this one might well
> bear out your contention, as they were there first to be mobilized, and
> mobilizing them would be a reasonable response to learning the enemy is
> planning "unrestricted submarine warfare".
>
> After all, back before World War I, that part in the Constitution about
> standing armies in peacetime actually *meant* something.
>
>

Someone with more specific knowledge could disabuse John of the
inaccuracy of those statements. I was never a Coastie, but I
knew those who served in USCG AND were overseas war vets.

Kevin R

[Kevrob]

Iowa was actually a prime destination for Syrian and Lebanese
immigrants in the 20th century. Cedar Rapids, while not the home
of the first mosque in the US, has the oldest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Mosque_of_America

One in North Dakota, that was older, burned and had to be rebuilt.

Iowa also has the Amana Colonies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies

Kevin R

[Kevrob]

On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 12:45:03 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

> But according to what I've read (I was a tiny tot at the time,
> and not reading the papers), every city in the United States
> started worrying about being on "the enemy's hit list" during
> WWII. Including, probably, Des Moines....
>

Hence, the 1990 story collection by Michael Martone,
"Fort Wayne Is Seventh On Hitler's List"

https://books.google.com/books/about/Fort_Wayne_is_Seventh_on_Hitler_s_List.html?id=oLcA6Fk55MMC

Kevin R

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:57:28 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
wrote:

>On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 1:12:28 PM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
>
>> Or anywhere near Korea... let alone Afghanistan or Iraq. (Then again, the Coast
>> Guard could have been involved in the immediate response to 9/11, although one
>> mostly hears about civilian first responders there - and the Pentagon is
>> inland.)
>
>The Pentagon isn't far from the Potomac. USCG has vessels on rivers.

The Pentagon is very close indeed to the Potomac, and well below the
fall line. I happen to know that the river bottom in that area is
deep enough for coastal vessels, though not all the big ocean-going
stuff; a local entrepreneur used to run cruises from the Alexandria
pier less than half a mile downstream, but had to be selective and
only use the smaller cruise ships because of the shallow draft.

The Pentagon is between the Wilson Bridge, which is passable by
sea-going traffic, and the 14th Street Bridge, which is not. It's
across the river from the Navy Yard. I remember seeing a German
cruiser on a goodwill visit tied up across from the Pentagon.

Offhand I don't recall actually seeing the Coast Guard there, but it's
certainly possible.

(I live in Maryland eight miles from the Pentagon.)

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 4:11:25 PM UTC-6, Kevrob wrote:

> Hence, the 1990 story collection by Michael Martone,
> "Fort Wayne Is Seventh On Hitler's List"

Which reminds me of a news item here in Edmonton, on how a list of possible terrorist targets in Edmonton did *not* include the world-famous West Edmonton Mall, but *did* include a poultry packing plant.

John Savard

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <wsvr0ycrn6tb.8spj6og9dy1b$.d...@40tude.net>,

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

There's always New MAD-rid, home of the fault.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:o8sAD...@kithrup.com:

I wonder how many other people here know what state that's in.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[David DeLaney]

On 2016-06-14, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Monday, June 13, 2016 at 6:34:05 PM UTC-6, Steve Coltrin wrote:
>> In _Space Cadet_, that's what the patrol spends most of its time doing,
>> but its raisin d'eat is to drop orbital nukes on any city that revolts
>> against its despotic masters.
>
> That's _raison d'être_, my lad.

I think you may have pruned some of his humor there.

Dave, a season in the sun-bomb
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://gatekeeper.vic.com/~dbd/ -net.legends/Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Alie...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 3:11:52 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:57:28 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:

> The Pentagon is very close indeed to the Potomac, and well below the
> fall line. I happen to know that the river bottom in that area is
> deep enough for coastal vessels, though not all the big ocean-going
> stuff; a local entrepreneur used to run cruises from the Alexandria
> pier less than half a mile downstream, but had to be selective and
> only use the smaller cruise ships because of the shallow draft.

I just deleted a story* from my Kindle which had full-on battleships on the Potomac. The story was set just pre WWII.

Were battleships of that era shallower draft, or was it just another case of an author not doing his homework?

* Can't recall title,author; had to do with an alien invasion that killed most humans but turned the few that lived into robots.


Mark L. Fergerson

[William December Starr]

In article <o8rn2...@kithrup.com>,

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:

> IIRC, in the first place, when told he'd gone EVA to check
> on the orbiting bomb, she was afraid he'd fall. Then, that
> the bomb would. Finally, that SOMEbody would decide to bomb
> Des Moines out of sheer spite. Her husband calmed her down,
> sort of, by explaining that

"I didn't marry you for your brains, darling."

-- wds

[William December Starr]

In article <vov0mb5vkk0o6vr8u...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> said:

> The Pentagon is very close indeed to the Potomac, and well below
> the fall line.

"Fall line"?

[...]

> The Pentagon is between the Wilson Bridge, which is passable by
> sea-going traffic, and the 14th Street Bridge, which is not.

It's not always passable by air-going traffic either...

-- wds

[Kevrob]

[quote]

Before navigation improvements such as locks, the fall line was
generally the head of navigation on rivers due to their rapids
or waterfalls, and the necessary portage around them. The Great
Falls of the Potomac River is one example. Because of the commercial
traffic, required labor and availability of water power to operate
mills, numerous cities were founded at the intersection of rivers
and the fall line. U.S. Route 1 links many of the fall line cities.

[/quote]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Seaboard_fall_line

Large boats and small ships can't go upriver past the
fall line. Canoes and other small craft can be portaged
past the falls.

Kevin R

[Don Kuenz]

>>>pronounced ['m??n????we??], roughly \MAN-??-way\.

>>
>> There's always New MAD-rid, home of the fault.
>>
> I wonder how many other people here know what state that's in.
>

It's in the same state as Saint Lewis.

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

There was a man in our town,
An Astrophysicist,
Who found a place
In Hyperspace
By just the twist of wrist.

But when he sought the Nearer Now
And gave another twist,
He found that he'd
Become somehow
A Cyberneticist.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <2f00aaff-ca05-478c...@googlegroups.com>,

nu...@bid.nes <Alie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 3:11:52 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:57:28 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
>> wrote:
>
>> The Pentagon is very close indeed to the Potomac, and well below the
>> fall line. I happen to know that the river bottom in that area is
>> deep enough for coastal vessels, though not all the big ocean-going
>> stuff; a local entrepreneur used to run cruises from the Alexandria
>> pier less than half a mile downstream, but had to be selective and
>> only use the smaller cruise ships because of the shallow draft.
>
> I just deleted a story* from my Kindle which had full-on battleships
>on the Potomac. The story was set just pre WWII.
>
> Were battleships of that era shallower draft, or was it just another
>case of an author not doing his homework?
>

Well, if it's alt-hist, there's no reason the river couldn't be dredged.
(That I am aware of. I suppose there could be hydrological or riparian
reasons why that would be impractical).
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <804c23a4-6946-4243...@googlegroups.com>,

Columbia is built at the confluence of three rivers and supposedly below
the fall line, but apparently nobody has ever managed to get a practical
amount of cargo up and down to the coast though I think a number of people
have gone broke trying.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

But not the same state as East Saint Lewis.

[Robert Bannister]

On 15/06/2016 12:49 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <dc8ee325-0448-4eb5...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>> On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 10:00:30 AM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:35:46 UTC+1, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>

>>>> Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
>>>> sink in immediately.
>>

>>> Nor can they spell it. I wonder that anyone can.
>>> A form of "security through obscurity"?
>>

>> What, isn't it on cans in every supermarket...
>>
>> Oh no, that's "Del Monte".
>
> Right. And since that's Spanish for "From the mountain," and
> there are a fair number of mountains on this planet, any
> would-be assassins would get hopelessly geographically confused.
>

And if they started looking for "Some Monks" they'd be searching all
over the place.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

[Robert Bannister]

I've never come across this expression "fall line" before either. Not
all rivers have waterfalls or even rapids, but often most serious
navigation stops at the limit of tides and sometimes earlier.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <dsc12i...@mid.individual.net>,

And they probably wouldn't know the difference between monks and
friars, which would get them even more confused.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <dsc1nv...@mid.individual.net>,

I never saw "fall line" before this discussion either, but it
seems to refer to a place where there's an actual waterfall, not
simply a point where the water is too shallow for a large ship.
"Limit of navigation," I think, covers both.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <o8sq9...@kithrup.com>,

Yes, not all limits of navigation are "fall lines". In SC it has
a pretty specific meaning, separating The Piedmont from the
Coastal Plain. Hmm, actually WP says that operates over a wider
area, and that US-1 connects a lot of fall line cities, which I did
not know..

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 15 Jun 2016 03:01:02 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan

<tednolan>) wrote:

>In article <2f00aaff-ca05-478c...@googlegroups.com>,
>nu...@bid.nes <Alie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 3:11:52 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:57:28 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
>>> wrote:
>>
>>> The Pentagon is very close indeed to the Potomac, and well below the
>>> fall line. I happen to know that the river bottom in that area is
>>> deep enough for coastal vessels, though not all the big ocean-going
>>> stuff; a local entrepreneur used to run cruises from the Alexandria
>>> pier less than half a mile downstream, but had to be selective and
>>> only use the smaller cruise ships because of the shallow draft.

Let me correct that "less than half a mile." It's a bit more than
that. I was misremembering where National Airport is. Alexandria is
immediately downstream from the airport, and the Pentagon is a few
blocks upstream. I had mentally swapped Alexandria and the airport.

>> I just deleted a story* from my Kindle which had full-on battleships
>>on the Potomac. The story was set just pre WWII.
>>
>> Were battleships of that era shallower draft, or was it just another
>>case of an author not doing his homework?

Could be either one -- or it could be that there are parts of the
river that are deep enough, as long as you don't bring it into shore.
Where on the Potomac did the author put them?

I know that they could dock a Baltic-built 800-passenger cruise ship
in Alexandria, but not a 1,200-passenger Atlantic-built one.
According to the official figures, the MV Leeward (the aforementioned
800-passenger ship) only had between 18" and 4' of water under its
keel when it was in port there, depending how heavily laden it was and
maybe whether the tide was in.

(I've never noticed any tidal effects there, but the lagoon just above
the 14th Street Bridge is called the Tidal Basin, so I'd guess there
might be some.)

>Well, if it's alt-hist, there's no reason the river couldn't be dredged.
>(That I am aware of. I suppose there could be hydrological or riparian
>reasons why that would be impractical).

They do dredge the channel, but I don't know how much of it or how
deep.

The area's not all that geologically stable; building the Metro system
turned out to be much more challenging than expected. Don't know
whether that's a factor.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 15 Jun 2016 04:57:39 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan

Depends how broadly you define "waterfall." Usually there isn't
anything like Niagara, but it's where the water gets too rough or the
current too fast for practical navigation. The Potomac has one of the
clearest examples -- there's a point (you can see it from the American
Legion Bridge, where I-495 crosses the river) where there's an obvious
break between the flat, calm water of the lower Potomac, and the rocks
and rapids of Great Falls.

Anyway, it's not a matter of how deep the water is, but how flat and
how fast-moving.

>>"Limit of navigation," I think, covers both.
>
>Yes, not all limits of navigation are "fall lines". In SC it has
>a pretty specific meaning, separating The Piedmont from the
>Coastal Plain. Hmm, actually WP says that operates over a wider
>area, and that US-1 connects a lot of fall line cities, which I did
>not know..

I grew up in New England, where the term "fall line" wasn't
particularly obscure; it's where the river (any river) changed from
being useful for boats to being useful for power. I'm surprised it's
unfamiliar to so many of you.

Washington DC was located where it is because it's at the fall line.
Georgetown, Maryland was already there, of course, and was absorbed by
the new capital, with all the government buildings going just
downstream from Georgetown.

(Washington himself at one point wanted the capital to be around
what's now Shepherdstown, West Virginia, because he was a shareholder
in the company building a canal up to that area. He said it would be
better for western expansion. He was talked out of it.)

[Alie...@gmail.com]

My CRS. It was a destroyer on the Hudson. Where on the Hudson? I dunno; there's a ragged group running at night from Times Square through subway tunnels, eventually they get to the U. S. S. Ward and spend most of the day "cleaning the ship up" (presumably at least partly in removing the imperfectly-converted dead crew) before putting on steam.

Later, the combined Australian and South African(!) Navies bring a flotilla upriver to land armies, tanks, etc. somewhere in New Jersey to fight the invaders.

The story is still on my laptop's HD- it was Pratt's 1932 _The Onslaught From Rigel_, an atypical (for him) SF potboiler.

Kinda moots the subthread. Sorry about that.


Mark L. Fergerson

[Peter Trei]

I have, but only in the current context - rivers flowing east from the
Appalachians into the Atlantic.

The Appalachians are a long, straightish (and very old and eroded) mountain
chain running down the East Coast of the US, and its reasonable to group
the mill towns at the last navigable point into a class, along the 'fall line'.

pt

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <f3p1mbpnet1c1qdno...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

And, for another thing, the depths (and paths) of rivers change
over time. York (UK) used to be at the limit of navigation of
the Ouse, but hasn't been for centuries; the river has silted up.

And, yes, I suppose it could be dredged, but (back in the 1980s,
when I was studying York and even went there, researching for a
book that never happened) nobody seemed to consider this a
possibility.

They'd find some interesting stuff there, though, if they did.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 6/14/16 7:56 PM, nu...@bid.nes wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 3:11:52 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:57:28 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
>> wrote:
>
>> The Pentagon is very close indeed to the Potomac, and well below the
>> fall line. I happen to know that the river bottom in that area is
>> deep enough for coastal vessels, though not all the big ocean-going
>> stuff; a local entrepreneur used to run cruises from the Alexandria
>> pier less than half a mile downstream, but had to be selective and
>> only use the smaller cruise ships because of the shallow draft.
>
> I just deleted a story* from my Kindle which had full-on battleships on the Potomac. The story was set just pre WWII.
>

That was also a plot point in Clive Cussler's _Vixen 03_, but he
recognized that a battleship would ground once it reached a certain
point in the river (or even if it just made a mistake navigating the
channel). Of course, the people sailing the ship didn't give a crap
about sailing AWAY, they just wanted to get the 16" guns in close to
Washington.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Scott Lurndal]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>
>>Around here the best one is probably <Mantua>, which is
>>pronounced ['mænəˌweɪ], roughly \MAN-ə-way\.
>
>There's always New MAD-rid, home of the fault.

Or New Prague (prayg) in Minn.

[Kevrob]

It's not just rivers. Harbors of seaports have these problems.
I spent the summers of my youth on Port Jefferson harbor, Long
Island, NY. It isn't a large port. I remember that ships that
drew more than 35" (or was it 33"?) of water could not get into
the channel. Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO), as was, had
a power plant there, and ships would bring in heating oil. The
ferry to Bridgeport, CT, operates from PJ harbor, also.

It was a point of controversy that a barge for dredging was
operating frequently, to keep the channel open. The dredging
hurt the clarity of the water, which was too bad for anyone
swimming or fishing. Not dredging meant that fuel for people's
homes couldn't get delivered, nor could fuel for the power plant.
If a ship is too big for the channel, it can be "lightered."

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightering

Oil offloaded from the mother-tanker onto barges would be brought
in by tugs and unloaded. Then the ship would dock and unload.
Lightering done poorly can result in oil spills. Absent any
pipeline to replace the ships, there's no good compromise.
Installing a structure outside the harbor breakwater to
connect to an onshore pipeline has its problems, too.

> And, yes, I suppose it could be dredged, but (back in the 1980s,
> when I was studying York and even went there, researching for a
> book that never happened) nobody seemed to consider this a
> possibility.
>
> They'd find some interesting stuff there, though, if they did.
>

Kevin R

[Kevrob]

On Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 10:47:48 AM UTC-4, Kevrob wrote:
th on Port Jefferson harbor, Long

> I remember that ships that
> drew more than 35" (or was it 33"?) of water could not get into
> the channel.

Oops! 35' or 33'.

A ship that drew only 35 inches wouldn't be much use!

Kevin R

[Dimensional Traveler]

Um, why would they need to sail into the Potomac to do that? In their
WWII configuration the Iowa class BBs main armament could almost reach
DC from Chesapeake Bay. In their latest configuration I wouldn't think
they'd have much trouble.


--
Running the rec.arts.TV Channels Watched Survey for Summer 2016

[Peter Trei]

Cussler - isn't he the guy who managed to put a Civil War ironclad in the
Sahara Desert, and a sailing ship in the Arctic tundra? He seems to have a
thing about grounding ships.

The Potomac is dredged to 24 feet. The USS Iowa draws 37 feet. The 16 inch guns
have a range of 24 miles. I don't think its going to work.

Other parts of Chesapeake Bay get marginally in range, but its not clear if they
are deep enough, either.

[Peter Trei]

Or better, steal a Ticonderoga class cruiser instead. The Vertical Launch
System has 188 Tomahawk cruise missiles. with ranges over 1000 miles.

The plot evidently involved much silliness, including have the Iowa sold for
scrap with functioning 16 inch guns, lightening it to sail up the Potomac,
and somehow managing to do so with no one noticing a 900 foot battleship
approaching the capital, much less challenging it.

pt

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <4b2d3398-524e-4e0f...@googlegroups.com>,

I don't know. There's a battleship at Wilmington and an aircraft carrier
at Charleston. If I saw such a thing coming up the river, my first
reaction would probalby be "neat!" and my second to guess that some sort
of floating naval museum was being established. If they actually issued
a press release, even better..

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <YJd8z.88332$Pv2....@fx44.iad>,

One of the results of the "melting-pot" effect was that people
tend to forget that there is any language but English and
pronounce names accordingly. It's less intense in the Southwest,
where there are a lot of people who are bilingual. But the
"shorter and sloppier" effect is still in force, so that _Puebla
de Nostra Sen~ora la Reina de los Angeles_ is generally
pronounced "loss anjilis" when it isn't shortened to "LA."

"Language flows down time in a current of its own making."
-- Edward Sapir, twerntieth-century linguist and poet

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <fb9b424b-46c4-4880...@googlegroups.com>,

But you could beach it almost anywhere! Think Viking drakkars.

"The worm with a hundred legs sheds its scales on the sand."

[Don Kuenz]

Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:

..

> I grew up in New England, where the term "fall line" wasn't
> particularly obscure; it's where the river (any river) changed from
> being useful for boats to being useful for power. I'm surprised it's
> unfamiliar to so many of you.

That's an excellent description. The fall line is over a hundred miles
closer to the coast in the North than the South. One Civil War theme is
that the Yankee population ran up against its fall line first, which
enabled Yankees to develop their manufacturing first. And that gave them
an industrial advantage over the South.

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

Little Bo-Peep
Has lost her sheep,
The radar has failed to find them.
They'll all, face to face,
Meet in parallel space,
Preceding their leaders behind them.

[Peter Trei]

You might. Do you think the harbormasters, Coast Guard, etal would?

pt

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <o8tLL...@kithrup.com>,

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:

Ooops, I truncated it. It's _Puebla de Nuestra Sen~ora la Reina
de los Angeles de Portiuncula._

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <ad6f8bfe-44ba-4847...@googlegroups.com>,

No, but I think it's not bad enough to be unhandwavable in fiction.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2016 01:31:28 -0700 (PDT), "nu...@bid.nes"

The Hudson is definitely deep enough; there's an aircraft carrier (USS
Intrepid) permanently moored on the West Side as a museum.

Landing on the New Jersey side, though, while possible, may have some
issues depending on just where, as there's an extensive line of
cliffs, the Palisades, in the way for a good distance.

> The story is still on my laptop's HD- it was Pratt's 1932 _The Onslaught From Rigel_, an atypical (for him) SF potboiler.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2016 16:00:22 -0000 (UTC), Don Kuenz
<gar...@crcomp.net> wrote:

>
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>..
>
>> I grew up in New England, where the term "fall line" wasn't
>> particularly obscure; it's where the river (any river) changed from
>> being useful for boats to being useful for power. I'm surprised it's
>> unfamiliar to so many of you.
>
>That's an excellent description. The fall line is over a hundred miles
>closer to the coast in the North than the South. One Civil War theme is
>that the Yankee population ran up against its fall line first, which
>enabled Yankees to develop their manufacturing first. And that gave them
>an industrial advantage over the South.

And it meant the South had lots more good level farmland, which is
part of why slavery made economic sense for them.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <20160...@crcomp.net>, Don Kuenz <gar...@crcomp.net> wrote:
>
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>..
>
>> I grew up in New England, where the term "fall line" wasn't
>> particularly obscure; it's where the river (any river) changed from
>> being useful for boats to being useful for power. I'm surprised it's
>> unfamiliar to so many of you.
>
>That's an excellent description. The fall line is over a hundred miles
>closer to the coast in the North than the South. One Civil War theme is
>that the Yankee population ran up against its fall line first, which
>enabled Yankees to develop their manufacturing first. And that gave them
>an industrial advantage over the South.

Well, also -- and related -- the terrain is rougher in the North,
so that agriculture (in those days practically every man's
default job) took the form of small family farms of a few acres,
worked by a man, his sons, and maybe a few hired hands. Whereas
the South was flatter, making large plantations possible -- so
long as they had enough manpower to work it, which meant slaves.

To this day you will hear some unregenerate Southerners saying,
"But the Confederacy was fighting to protect its way of life!"
which was perfectly true, and its way of life was completely
dependent on slavery.

Isaac Asimov pointed out somewhere that if the Confederacy had
somehow won its war, it wouldn't have become an economic
satellite of the North (which is what happened in OTL); it
would've become an economic satellite of Britain. Which had
abolished slavery in most of its territories in 1933, and the
rest in 1843. So the Confederacy's way of life would've gone
under anyway.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 6/15/16 11:26 AM, Peter Trei wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 9:46:04 AM UTC-4, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>> On 6/14/16 7:56 PM, nu...@bid.nes wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 3:11:52 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:57:28 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Pentagon is very close indeed to the Potomac, and well below the
>>>> fall line. I happen to know that the river bottom in that area is
>>>> deep enough for coastal vessels, though not all the big ocean-going
>>>> stuff; a local entrepreneur used to run cruises from the Alexandria
>>>> pier less than half a mile downstream, but had to be selective and
>>>> only use the smaller cruise ships because of the shallow draft.
>>>
>>> I just deleted a story* from my Kindle which had full-on battleships on the Potomac. The story was set just pre WWII.
>>>
>>
>>
>> That was also a plot point in Clive Cussler's _Vixen 03_, but he
>> recognized that a battleship would ground once it reached a certain
>> point in the river (or even if it just made a mistake navigating the
>> channel). Of course, the people sailing the ship didn't give a crap
>> about sailing AWAY, they just wanted to get the 16" guns in close to
>> Washington.
>
> Cussler - isn't he the guy who managed to put a Civil War ironclad in the
> Sahara Desert, and a sailing ship in the Arctic tundra? He seems to have a
> thing about grounding ships.

Yep -- and each time came up with a way to do it. He's filled with
total handwavy BS in many other fields, but in diving, salvage, and
general ship-related things, he knows his stuff.

>
> The Potomac is dredged to 24 feet. The USS Iowa draws 37 feet. The 16 inch guns
> have a range of 24 miles. I don't think its going to work.

And he had a detailed discussion of exactly how they trimmed and gutted
the ship to raise its draft sufficiently to get it to the point in the
river they wanted it.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Silliness in a Cussler plot is normal, but they actually had planned
carefully for all those contingencies. Note that the people operating it
were extremists who didn't intend to survive it, so "not noticing" isn't
really the key so much as "not raising the alarm until it's too late to
stop us from firing the guns at our targets".

Note also the era -- Vixen 03 was published in 1976, so a lot of the
things that would make this trick utterly impossible to pull off today
didn't exist then.

Not that it wasn't a Rube Goldberg plot of ridiculousness, but it was
less ridiculous than the immediate summary glance might imply.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Heck, there's an old WWII destroyer pretty much permanently moored here
at Albany, so a destroyer on the Hudson even all the way up to Troy
makes perfect sense. (Can't get much past that, the Cohoes Falls will
get in your way)

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2016 15:59:05 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
<djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in<news:o8tLq...@kithrup.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> Think Viking drakkars. [...]

I wonder where that spelling came from. The Old Norse word
is <dreki> 'dragon; ship of war', plural <drekar>.

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <doint0tvfok4.prz8yde5xuky$.d...@40tude.net>,

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>On Wed, 15 Jun 2016 15:59:05 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
><djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in<news:o8tLq...@kithrup.com>
>in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>[...]
>
>> Think Viking drakkars. [...]
>
>I wonder where that spelling came from. The Old Norse word
>is <dreki> 'dragon; ship of war', plural <drekar>.

Well, there was that other thread about how speakers of language
A (in this case, English) change names in language B (pick a
language, any language) to sound more familiar.

That said, I don't remember where I got that spelling.

[Dimensional Traveler]

What _exactly_ would a Coast Guard cutter do to stop an Iowa class
battleship?

[J. Clarke]

In article <f3p1mbpnet1c1qdno...@reader80.eternal-
september.org>, l...@sff.net says...

>
> On 15 Jun 2016 03:01:02 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan
> <tednolan>) wrote:
>
> >In article <2f00aaff-ca05-478c...@googlegroups.com>,

> >nu...@bid.nes <Alie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 3:11:52 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:57:28 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The Pentagon is very close indeed to the Potomac, and well below the
> >>> fall line. I happen to know that the river bottom in that area is
> >>> deep enough for coastal vessels, though not all the big ocean-going
> >>> stuff; a local entrepreneur used to run cruises from the Alexandria
> >>> pier less than half a mile downstream, but had to be selective and
> >>> only use the smaller cruise ships because of the shallow draft.
>

> Let me correct that "less than half a mile." It's a bit more than
> that. I was misremembering where National Airport is. Alexandria is
> immediately downstream from the airport, and the Pentagon is a few
> blocks upstream. I had mentally swapped Alexandria and the airport.
>

> >> I just deleted a story* from my Kindle which had full-on battleships
> >>on the Potomac. The story was set just pre WWII.
> >>

> >> Were battleships of that era shallower draft, or was it just another
> >>case of an author not doing his homework?
>
> Could be either one -- or it could be that there are parts of the
> river that are deep enough, as long as you don't bring it into shore.
> Where on the Potomac did the author put them?
>

> I know that they could dock a Baltic-built 800-passenger cruise ship
> in Alexandria, but not a 1,200-passenger Atlantic-built one.
> According to the official figures, the MV Leeward (the aforementioned
> 800-passenger ship) only had between 18" and 4' of water under its
> keel when it was in port there, depending how heavily laden it was and
> maybe whether the tide was in.
>
> (I've never noticed any tidal effects there, but the lagoon just above
> the 14th Street Bridge is called the Tidal Basin, so I'd guess there
> might be some.)

Adjacent to the Pentagon the deepest water is about 20 feet, however
you have to cross some much shallower water to get there from the ocean.
Draft on a WWII battleship is typically in the 30 foot range.

[J. Clarke]

In article <dsdc9e...@mid.individual.net>, t...@loft.tnolan.com
says...

Quite a trick when the VLS only has 122 cells. And you're rarely going
to find a Tico with the entire VLS dedicated to land attack--if you do
that there's no air defense at all except a point defense system.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2016 22:06:36 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
<djh...@kithrup.com> wrote
in<news:o8u2r...@kithrup.com> in rec.arts.sf.written:

It’s not just you: I’ve seen it quite often, though I
*think* typically in SCA contexts. It’s just that this
time I happened to notice the oddity.

[Greg Goss]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

>One of the results of the "melting-pot" effect was that people
>tend to forget that there is any language but English and
>pronounce names accordingly. It's less intense in the Southwest,
>where there are a lot of people who are bilingual. But the
>"shorter and sloppier" effect is still in force, so that _Puebla
>de Nostra Sen~ora la Reina de los Angeles_ is generally
>pronounced "loss anjilis" when it isn't shortened to "LA."
>
>"Language flows down time in a current of its own making."
>-- Edward Sapir, twerntieth-century linguist and poet

Back in the eighties I proposed to someone named Desireaux. (DEH s@r
oh). For a long time I tried to come up with a plausible conjugation
from some French form of "desirable".

Twenty or so years later, her daughter told me that an aunt had traced
the name back to an illiterate gold prospector named, phonetically,
"des Sureaux". (elderberries). Bit of a comedown from literal
"desirable", but it had never worked out anyhow.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[Robert Bannister]

On 15/06/2016 12:37 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <dsc12i...@mid.individual.net>,
> Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>> On 15/06/2016 12:49 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>> In article <dc8ee325-0448-4eb5...@googlegroups.com>,
>>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 10:00:30 AM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>>>>> On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:35:46 UTC+1, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
>>>>>> sink in immediately.
>>>>
>>>>> Nor can they spell it. I wonder that anyone can.
>>>>> A form of "security through obscurity"?
>>>>
>>>> What, isn't it on cans in every supermarket...
>>>>
>>>> Oh no, that's "Del Monte".
>>>
>>> Right. And since that's Spanish for "From the mountain," and
>>> there are a fair number of mountains on this planet, any
>>> would-be assassins would get hopelessly geographically confused.
>>>
>>
>> And if they started looking for "Some Monks" they'd be searching all
>> over the place.
>
> And they probably wouldn't know the difference between monks and
> friars, which would get them even more confused.
>

Thanks. My first laugh out loud for the morning.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

[Greg Goss]

Weren't some of the paddlewheel riverboats about that?

[Robert Bannister]

On 15/06/2016 10:47 PM, Kevrob wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 9:45:12 AM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

>> And, for another thing, the depths (and paths) of rivers change
>> over time. York (UK) used to be at the limit of navigation of
>> the Ouse, but hasn't been for centuries; the river has silted up.
>>
>
> It's not just rivers. Harbors of seaports have these problems.
> I spent the summers of my youth on Port Jefferson harbor, Long
> Island, NY. It isn't a large port. I remember that ships that

> drew more than 35" (or was it 33"?) of water could not get into

> the channel. Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO), as was, had
> a power plant there, and ships would bring in heating oil. The
> ferry to Bridgeport, CT, operates from PJ harbor, also.

And some former seaports aren't even on the sea anymore. Sandwich in
England, one of the famous Cinque Ports, is now two miles from the sea.

[Robert Bannister]

Radio the airforce?

[Robert Bannister]

It seems that the first slaves arrived in Jamestown in 1619 to work in
the tobacco plantations - those tobacco companies again!

[Dimensional Traveler]

I'm sure the Air Force would love that. According to Wikipedia the
1980s refit added 4 Phalanx CIWS mounts to each of the ships as well as
Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles. So no need to enter the Chesapeake.

(And do we actually have any air ordnance intended for something
carrying that much armor? I don't think bunker busters are intended for
moving targets. FAEs?)

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Wait a minute -- are you bringing actual FACTS into the discussion? I
thought you knew better than that.

[David Johnston]

That's dubious. I suppose Britain could just abandon trade with the
Confederacy as other sources for cotton came into play and their way of
life would be devastated by economic collapse, but the slave owning
thing was specifically entrenched in the Confederate constitution. No
state could repeal slavery. It would take them forever to let go of
slavery's legality. I expect it would have been well into the 20th
century unless they lost round two with the Americans.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2016 04:37:44 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
<djh...@kithrup.com> wrote
in<news:o8sq6...@kithrup.com> in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> And they probably wouldn't know the difference between
> monks and friars, which would get them even more
> confused.

As long as they can tell the difference between friars and
fryers!

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <dselfq...@mid.individual.net>,

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>On 15/06/2016 12:37 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <dsc12i...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>>> On 15/06/2016 12:49 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>> In article <dc8ee325-0448-4eb5...@googlegroups.com>,
>>>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>>> On Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 10:00:30 AM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>>>>>> On Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:35:46 UTC+1, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Telling them that most Arab fanatics never HEARD of Des Moines did not
>>>>>>> sink in immediately.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Nor can they spell it. I wonder that anyone can.
>>>>>> A form of "security through obscurity"?
>>>>>
>>>>> What, isn't it on cans in every supermarket...
>>>>>
>>>>> Oh no, that's "Del Monte".
>>>>
>>>> Right. And since that's Spanish for "From the mountain," and
>>>> there are a fair number of mountains on this planet, any
>>>> would-be assassins would get hopelessly geographically confused.
>>>>
>>>
>>> And if they started looking for "Some Monks" they'd be searching all
>>> over the place.
>>
>> And they probably wouldn't know the difference between monks and
>> friars, which would get them even more confused.
>>
>
>Thanks. My first laugh out loud for the morning.

You're welcome.

I once saw a cartoon about a little friar who was helping sell
fish'n'chips at a church bazaar. He explained to a customer,
"No, I'm not the fish friar, I'm the chip monk."

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <njt1fj$bai$1...@dont-email.me>,

Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

>What _exactly_ would a Coast Guard cutter do to stop an Iowa class
>battleship?

Scare it away?

/googles

From _Ruddygore_:

RICHARD:
I shipped, d'ye see, in a Revenue sloop,
And, off Cape Finistere,
A merchantman we see,
A Frenchman, going free,
So we made for the bold Mounseer,
D'ye see?
We made for the bold Mounseer.

But she proved to be a Frigate and she up with her ports,
And fires with a thirty-two!
It come uncommon near,
But we answered with a cheer,
Which paralysed the Parly-voo,
D'ye see?
Which paralysed the Parly-voo!

Then our Captain he up and he says, says he,
"That chap we need not fear,
We can take her, if we like,
She is sartin for to strike,
For she's only a darned Mounseer,
D'ye see?
She'S only a darned Mounseer!

But to fight a French fal-lal ! it 's like hittin' of a gal
It 's a lubberly thing for to do;
For we, with all our faults,
Why we're sturdy British salts,
While she 's only a Parley-voo,
D'ye see?
A miserable Parley-voo!"

So we up with our helm, and we scuds before the breeze
As we gives a compassionating cheer;
Froggee answers with a shout
As he sees us go about,
Which was grateful of the poor Mounseer,
D'ye see?
Which was grateful of the poor Mounseer!

And I'll wager in their joy they kissed each other's cheek
(Which is what them furriners do),
And they blessed their lucky stars
We were hardy British tars
Who had pity on a poor Parley-voo,
D'ye see?
Who had pity on a poor Parley-voo !
--- W. S. Gilbert

The purpose of this aria is to demonstrate that Richard is a
liar ... and, in fact, against all tradition, the tenor is the
villain.

But the higher-ups of the French Navy took offense, and there was
nearly an international incdent until some forerunner of Lord
Peter Wimsey calmed everyone down.

[Scott Lurndal]

Send in the sappers to drop the screw.

[Peter Trei]

On Thursday, June 16, 2016 at 2:30:03 AM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <njt1fj$bai$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>
> >What _exactly_ would a Coast Guard cutter do to stop an Iowa class
> >battleship?
>
> Scare it away?

They have a radio.

Call the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dhalgren, which is the second of
numerous military facilities the ship has to pass (the first is the Naval
Electronics Systems Center at St. Inigoes, but I think that's mainly research).

The Main Range Gun Line there points down the Potomac, and is tasked with
testing modern Naval weaponry.

Quite aside from that, do you really think the capitol of the US is
unprotected? There are plenty of military facilities with aircraft and
ship-killer missiles in the area.

Finally the ship would have to sail about 20 miles upstream to get in range;
this takes time in a narrow channel. It could not pass under
the bridge for Rt 301, though I suppose in Cussler-land it could smash
through it.

The whole purpose of the ship is an attempt to unleash a bioweapon in the
Capitol. Renting a Ryder truck seems a lot easier.

> From _Ruddygore_:
>
[G&S skipped]

> --- W. S. Gilbert
>
> The purpose of this aria is to demonstrate that Richard is a
> liar ... and, in fact, against all tradition, the tenor is the
> villain.
>
> But the higher-ups of the French Navy took offense, and there was
> nearly an international incdent until some forerunner of Lord
> Peter Wimsey calmed everyone down.

Really? To a musical play?

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 10:00:03 AM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

> One of the results of the "melting-pot" effect was that people
> tend to forget that there is any language but English and
> pronounce names accordingly.

It is reasonable to expect people to know that languages other than English _exist_.

It is less reasonable to expect them to be familiar with the pronounciation
rules for every other language, and it actually makes sense for one to
pronounce foreign place names and the like in such a way that an ordinary
English speaker could immediately derive the *correct spelling* of the name
from what they hear using the ordinary English rules of spelling and
pronounciation.

So even if one knows the "correct" pronounciation, using it should be geared to
the nature of one's immediate audience.

John Savard