Mission

ok, how is it that you 2 got busted for lemonade? And how is it I avoided the gentleman at the gate when i was certainly consuming more than innocent water? We didn't get busted for lemonade, we got asked not to hold non-PC plastic cups while we were standing guard on the dock. There was lemonade in the cups from one of the local vendors. So we complied and scrounged up our mugs. You'll have to ask Michael about being asked to dump water out of his mug when leaving the camp area (from his post, I gather he was leaving the roped off wee small campsite.) But that never happened to me - I just got scolded.

For some reason this event reminds me of the Buffett song Take it Back. (Except for the references to Australia and the cup and so forth.)

Agreed. I have had a helluva time figuring out what various prescriptions in period medical books mean (they are all in 17th century Latin and many include the compounding problem of interpretation by introducing spelling errors.) Plus, as I have said somewhere around here, you can literally find the same word spelled three different ways on the same page in many 17th and 18th C. books. I cannot state exactly what he means by 'calendaring' because he doesn't define it; he just uses it. Since it is not actually important to the info I am looking for, I haven't researched it before now. The word does mean 'scheduling' in Britain (according to FreeDictionary). I infer from the text that it means scheduling the ships to go into and out of Quarantine. The fact that we are now discussing the meaning of a fairly current word proves the original point about different people trying to interpret meanings and foreign words during their time period.

And I agreed and verified that this was the case. Michael has done a lot of research on behalf of my costume and I appreciate that. (I just want to rewrite history so I think I look cool.) As Kate said this weekend, "Hon, you picked the wrong period to re-enact." Could we move it to the 1960s?

I am not complaining about Michael's tailoring. He did not have me there to measure and I only gave him the simplest of dimensions. He did a sparkling job and I particularly like the second pair. What I really want to wear long pants which I don't believe would be period correct for a barber/surgeon in the 1720s tropics. (Well...what I really want is to wear a light tropical double-breasted suit. I like the way I look in a double-breasted suit. But that's another discussion entirely...)

What's his hare made of? Look how long his breeches are when he's sitting down. (I'm jealous.) Is that a higher class style, an affect for the painting or did most people do that? They would have run down mid-calf when he stood up.

I am reading a book on maritime quarantine, imaginatively called Maritime Quarantine (subtitled "The British Experience, c. 1650-1900) which is by John Booker. In it, he talks about the problems of interpreting the random spelling and interpretation of such during period in government documents. I thought it was sort of interesting as it adds yet another dimension of uncertainty to effective period research. "But certain problems do exist. for instance, in August 1711 the phrase 'and deals for Denidge goods' follows iron, pitch and tar as part of a particular cargo. The calender [published by the Treasury] interprets Denidge as Danish (placed in square brackets after the word); but the supposed adjective is actually a noun, dunnage, meaning material used as packing or protection on the voyage. The point is significant, not only because Denmark had no stake in this particular Swedish cargo, but because the deals [boards or planks], if only dunnage, were a minor part of the cargo and possibly damaged. In another list of cargoes, the unknown word 'oales' is interpreted as '[?oils]', but recourse to the Privy Council register shows the word to be bales. The real mistake there was by a Treasury clerk, and clerical transcription at both Privy Council and Treasury level was sometimes distinctly careless.'" (Booker, p. 53-4) He goes on, "Difficulty in spelling obscure Baltic ports is understandable; more trying are the problems associated with ships' names. Not only is the spelling at time inconsistent between the two levels of evidence, but there are many problems in deciding if a ship with apparently two linked Christian names (a common practice) is actually two different ships of one name each. For instance, in the Treasury calendars, the George and John [named after song-writers, no doubt] should be two ships, as should the Salvatore and Prince, the Benjamin Hope and the John Thorowgood. This can be proved from the Privy Council registers. Calendaring, of course, makes another opportunity for error. If it was difficult for contemporary clerks to be certain, it was doubly so for archivists, faced often with an ambiguous text, or evidence of doubt or second thoughts on the part of the scribe. An associated problem was the frequency of certain names, both abstract nouns live Providence and Love and single female Christian names, such as Ann(e) or Elizabeth. Even when all the evidence is correct, it can be difficult to differentiate between ships. In these years before registration, the practice of showing the master's name after that of his vessel was the only way to distinguish between apparently identical ships. Luckily the Privy Council registers do, at times, give masters' names when the Treasury records do not; this means that a Mary Flower in one source and a Mayflower in the other can be identified as the same ship, and similar comparisons are almost endless. Foreign names were a particular bewilderment for clerks: the Swedish prefix Hedvig (as in Hedvig Sophia or Hedvig Eleona) was sometimes cast as Headway or Headwick; and Lady Kerdrant to a clerk in the Privy Council was Lady Herdrowt to his colleague in the Treasury. The Treasury calendars correct Ufro to Jeffrouw. It would be tedious to extend variants and inconsistencies any further, but it is necessary to draw attention to them as another reason why, in the Baltic period, no absolute list of ships subjected or liable to quarantine can be drawn up." (Booker, p. 54-5) And those are the ones he knows about...

That's neat. Doubly so in that she actually followed up. According to deviantart, she is 18, so she's probably just out of high school.

That's sooo cool.

Would you feel even the least bit... inappropriate... for displaying said plastic cup? (Btw, I'm not saying I haven't done the same, I just trying to examine a mindset.) I know I don't. I'd prefer to use my mug, but I'm not going to get all upset because I happen to be holding a plastic cup. But then I'd be surprised if (outside of Michael's excellent kit) my behavior, language, hair style, teeth, explanations, activities, insulin pump and even my medical tools are more than 20 or 30% correct. (We don't exactly have a film to compare ourselves to.) I figure I'll do my best within the bounds I set for myself. At the core of it, I have only myself to please. If someone else isn't pleased, I'd be sort of foolish to make their problem mine unless I agreed to submit to their opinion for some reason. (We're sort of straying here, though...back we go into the murky realms of PCness...)

Yeah, the editing thing can be a problem. I think it depends in part on how many people "experts" are regularly checking over the content of a Wiki. (Although one does wonder at the potential ramifications of the spreading of a false quote by a newly deceased French composer. (That's a cheap shot. )) I believe Thrower was indeed a physician. I couldn't find a good reference for him on Wiki to back me up, though. Having read several scholarly papers on surgery in the 17th and 18th C, I agree that the sources generally seem more credible. However, they also so dry and lacking in color that the practically crackle when you read them. Many of them still throw their opinions in there, although, as far as I can tell, they usually codify this with "It seems that..." or some such statement. Still, to turn that stuff into a narrative that can keep most people's attention seems to require the work of an author with some imagination, not a PhD in history. A good author can do this and still provide plenty of supporting evidence for the things he's saying. Then the question seems to me to be whether it's better to get more people reading or researching something historical - even with errors in it - or to have every statement supported by some other (presumably) correct reference and have it lie in state at some dusty library. (Personally, I like to read both if I can. However, there is a lot of medical source literature that I can't get to because it's at libraries that don't seem to have their material on-line that are over in England. That's a long way to go to get my info.)

Well if that be the case...I'd have been dead by the age of 5 or 6 from dehydration or insulin coma or some such making it a non-issue.

I can't see how there would be. You're always relying on the interpreting computer to decode the font. If it doesn't know what it's viewing, it interprets it as best as it can. For example, Callenish sometimes uses a font that I still haven't gotten and my computer turns it into a huge font that makes it kind of look like he's yelling. I've had the same problem with my website. If I want to use a font, particularly one of the cool "free" fonts like the Delorean "Stainless" font for a page (my kitchen has a Delorean theme), I always put it into a jpg or gif. How many of you have the font "Stainless"? Anyone? Bueller? Didn't think so. (For the curious, the "Stainless" font can be seen in the titles on the page shown here.)

Is that tax deductible?

≠ I find our inability to be objective to be fascinating. This also means we are not completely capable of sharing facts. (I do think facts exist, but we always color them with our perception about them. Always.)

Yeah, it was you and me who got busted. That actually left a bad taste in my mouth, although I completely understood the reasoning behind it and wasn't really angry about it. Most of the public knows we're just a bunch of people who want to play dress up and could give a whit if we carry tankards or plastic cups or cans strapped on our hats with a plastic straw leading from them to our mouths. (In fact, many of the public would probably find that to be pretty humorous.) So - in a sort of convoluted way - we're doing the strict authenticity thing for each other, which is funny because once the public leaves, the plastic cups and hidden coolers come out from under the hastily draped canvas. But again, I totally understand the effort to present as authentic a display as we can. It is what we're supposed to be there for. As for the hanging tankard and shared drinking vessels...remember that they didn't have any clue about germs at that time. Shared items appear to have been just a part of the culture. (Although I haven't read anything about that, so I'm just taking Patrick at his word. I have read that surgeons often didn't clean their aprons after operations because one way to recognize a good surgeon was by the amount of gore he wore. Surgical instruments had fancy wood, bone and shell handles that could not be easily cleaned and some references suggest that in battle no thought whatever was given to cleaning them between patients.) So it would probably be a bad idea to try to go for total authenticity knowing what we do today. Better to be slightly off and carry your mug with you. Garb tends to be hot and as Silkie and Michael noted, if you're smart, you'll stay hydrated. For myself, I try to just leave my mug somewhere that I'll remember and hope that Stynky doesn't steal it. On a related note (speaking of hot garb), I thought this was interesting: “Unfortunately the planning committee made no recommendations regarding tropical clothing, the customary seaman’s slops being supplied by the clothiers. Only when, on December 11, 1655, the Navy Commissioners had their attention drawn to the matter was a rig suited to a hot climate advocated…. They could not, however, undo all the harm which had long since resulted from the oversights of the planning committee, among which was a complete failure to deal with the clothing of the soldiers. The known association between the ragged and dirty clothing of newly pressed soldiers and typhus, together with Cromwell’s recognition of their endangering the health of ships’ companies, makes this omission so inexplicable that it appears more probable the recommendation was made but could not be acted upon.” (John Keevil, Medicine and the Navy 1200-1900: Volume II – 1640-1714, p. 57-8) Be glad our period is a bit after that one.

I haven't actually read anything about treating them. I've read secondary sources that talk about finding remains of women who had venereal diseases, but so far that's been all. Of course (without meaning to be indelicate), the doctor would have had much easier access to the affected area, so I would actually think it would have been easier. Still, the focus of the primary literature I've read is on the men. If I find something else, I'll report back.

How is this any worse than books? Has anyone read W.R Thrower's books on Piracy or Life at Sea? The guy is a professor or doctor or something, but his books contain several undocumented statements, some of which I know are wrong. They also contain enough documentation to make you think he researched everything. And his books contain obvious stuff...what about the books that aren't obvious? All facts and drawings are tainted by the knowledge and perception/interpretation of the author. On top of all that, one author may quote another who may have gotten it wrong. At least on Wiki there's some chance of having it corrected if it's possible. There can be more than one set of "expert" eyes observing the stated facts.

Yeah, whaddaya want? It's a POTC movie generator. Just plug in the following: Mystical Element - associated with the sea or seamen or pirates or, failing all that, fantasy lore Stock Hero - Bold, Intense & Yearning for...something he can't get where he is Stock Heroine - Attractive, Independent, Intelligent but Willing to Play Second Banana to a bunch of guys (Note Stock Hero and Stock Heroine must be from different social or ethereal classes) Stock Villain - Wants to Thwart Pirates or at least Jack Sparrow Mystical Element Leader - If not the Stock Villain, must be Misunderstood Several scary and/or slightly comical mystical henchmen. Lots of bright red garbed British soldiers Fantastic Locations including one (1) Villain's Lair and/or Ship, one (1) candle lit Pub, two or more (2+) ships (excluding the Black Pearl which is a given), one (1) British-owned colony. May also include several historically pirate-related ports or islands and a fantastic location around which much of the action revolves. (If they follow up on the broad hints in the last movie, this would be the Fountain of Youth set which will feature lots of unworldly blue lighting, skulls and smoke.) Also, if they can find some corner in the back of the ride which they haven't evoked yet, that should be popped into the background somewhere. A few references to other movies (The Dollars trilogy, James Bond, or other successful series) is also a good bet. If nothing else works, that makes the movie geeks happy. (I am a movie geek.)

*Ahem.* First there is some kid singing some song just before the first situation is presented. Then we see the main characters get into the first situation which looks absolutely hopeless, but turns out not to be. In the process of said situation, all the main characters are introduced. There is some action, possibly some explosions, but nothing like what's yet to come. The titles roll. The orchestra swells, causing Hans Zimmer to get more credit for music that his minions wrote and he rubber stamped. Then there is a bunch of set up that may or may not be linked to the opening situation. The villain is introduced - probably a corporation or government in some form. A mystical element is presented that creates monsters somehow linked to pirates and/or seamen. Hopefully this involves skeletons, but probably not. With any luck it doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with Calypso or Davy Jones. If the villain is not a corporation or government of some form, it is the mystical element. There is impending danger to the pirates/main characters or their way of life or their relatives. Jack is alternatively silly and devious. This is all very witty and fun and probably features a visit to Port Royal at some point. Jack and Barbossa verbally riposte and this is the highlight of the movie. Pintel and Ragetti get a lot of exposition disguised as comic relief. Some sort of romantic story is introduced which includes people from different classes of society who want to be together, but shouldn't be. A battle or something similar happens. The heroes are bested. Beaten and dejected, they go somewhere to lick their wounds and prepare for the final battle. Some key to unraveling the villains, obtaining the needed McGuffin or finding the missing piece of the central puzzle is discovered. Jack the Monkey is featured in some humorous situations to lighten the mood. The main characters gird their loins in preparation for the upcoming battle. One of the main characters realizes that they must make some personally morally repugnant decision to achieve their goal. The final battle takes place. Several situations occur simultaneously as we alternate between various heroes or groups of heroes who battle various pockets of villains and/or mystical monsters. This includes non-stop action, lightened with comic moments to keep the audience's interest. CGI stuff is slopped liberally all over the screen. All looks lost. Then the tide turns simultaneously in each situation. All looks good. This includes several Bruckheimer "over-the-top" explosions; far beyond what could have ever actually happened with cannon and gunpowder during period. The villain is smited. The mystical element is tamed or removed or given peace. The romantic crises is resolved in favor of twue wove. The morally repugnant action is taken by the main character, the result of which is that... The film overruns its suggested audience attention span running time by a good 10 minutes. The morally repugnant action somehow places the main characters (most likely including Jack) in an ultimately anti-climactic situation which they did not foresee. All looks dire. If there is to be a Pyrrhic victory to set up a sequel, it will happen here followed by a swell of an intense version of the POTC main theme. If not, there will be a cute joke or pithy comment followed by a slightly less intense version of the POTC main theme. The door is left open for a sequel. The end. The critics say it is a summer movie and hopefully approve or disapprove of it based on the standard of summer movies rather than that of, say, The Third Man. Many of the older fans of POTC movies are disappointed and pick apart minutiae on websites all over the 'net. If it doesn't do $200M at the box office, the studio begins mulling the idea of "re-booting" or "re-imagining" the series to "keep it fresh."

1. My insulin pump and all the insulin I can carry. 2. Lighter 3. A Flat Blade Screwdriver (A screwdriver is probably the most useful tool man has created.)

May you never grow up so's you can continue collecting comics, riding sport bikes, playing pirate and having ink splashed all over yourself. (What does the fourth tattoo contain?)

Mission had lots of help. Mission probably would have fell flat on his hat without all the help. (A nod of thanks to Connie, Captain Sophia, M.A. d'Dogge and Miles.) I posted the info for this on my website in one of the hidden "Easter Egg" pages for the PiP '08 Surgeon's Journal. You can see it here.

They should have named Phil "Francis." That would have been really funny.

dag-nab-it woman!?!?...move it somewhere i aints gots to remember more passwords...we all kknow how good at that i am!?!? It's the year the Fort was founded.