"hoist by one’s own petard"
Some days this whole Blog thingy is just ridiculously easy. The whole enchilada is laid out for Big Bubba to add a dollop of his unique salsa and serve it up. Just point and shoot, Big Bubba, just point and shoot.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.
hoist by one’s own petard
(pi-TAHRD) To be caught in one’s own trap: “The swindler cheated himself out of most of his money, and his victims were satisfied to see him hoist by his own petard.” A “petard” was an explosive device used in medieval warfare. To be hoisted, or lifted, by a petard literally means to be blown up.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.
hoist by one’s own petard
(pi-TAHRD) To be caught in one’s own trap: “The swindler cheated himself out of most of his money, and his victims were satisfied to see him hoist by his own petard.” A “petard” was an explosive device used in medieval warfare. To be hoisted, or lifted, by a petard literally means to be blown up.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
posted by BigBubba at 11:01 PM
![[Link to THOMAS Home Page]](http://thomas.loc.gov/images/link.gif)
37 Comments:
LOL!
Think of all the new jobs a hotel could generate for the community. Where do I send the cheque???.. I want to invest!!
-FJ
Let's get serious, Farmer John, seriously. I also read the press release and said, "I want to invest." Then I thought about the statement that they were looking for large investors. They probably considered being open to all for one brief moment. They foresaw being inundated with small investor supporters. They believe that they will have no problem quickly rounding up sufficient large investors. I believe that these folks are serious. I also believe they will be successful in schooling Souder. Let's keep on eye an the situation and a smile on our face.
Perhaps the wealthy Duck will kick-in with some of his idle cash. With the proviso that the Ten Commandments will not be posted in the lobby, of course.
Somedays chicken, somedays feathers.
The eminent domain judgement: so what else is new? Well, one thing: Thanks to the hoopla I found out it used to be called "despotic power." Now that's a term with some zing to it.
Hey Ducky (or anyone else), are you familiar with the work of John Dominic Crossan? The thread regarding deism and Jefferson's remarks to Adams regarding the "immaterial" brought to mind Crossan's work to de-mystify Christ. I am no fan of the Jesus Seminar, but Crossan's stuff is very thorough and compelling.
Duck,
Unfortunately, from the little I've looked into, most books on the early church are pretty dry affairs that somehow manage to avoid some serious questions, namely, the hows and whys of the "supernatural" elements in the Scriptures. Crossan's books are a little less dry, but exhaustively researched. Though it's sometimes a leap equal to faith to reach some of his conclusions regarding interpretation, I can't argue his scholarship.
Got to love Teddy K. asking Rumsfeld why he still had a job the other week.
mr. ducky,
Modern day lawyers must be really slipping if they can't be bothered to pull the old "Chavez Ravine" bait 'n switch anymore [First use emminent domain to condemn existing housing with a promise to build public housing, then sell the land to a private developer and let him build "Dodger Stadium"]. I guess the lawyers have decided it's time to stop dressing things up, remove their eyepatches and cast off the peg-legs, and really save some time usually spent down at the Dept. of Planning and Zoning. It was simply a matter of time... and time IS, after all, money.
btw - This thread has really sparked some ideas. I'm thinking of putting together a consortium of Japanese and Texas interests to develop a public wasteland commonly referred to as "Central Park" on the Island of Manhattan, and replace it w/ the largest WALMART in the free world. To hedge my bets, I've also targetted the area just north of Columbia University, in an area I think they call it "Harlem" or something like that. It'll depend upon how the regional tax breaks work out as to which property will get developed. It's a ground floor opportunity for investors... care for a piece?
-FJ
norm,
If you really want to "know" where all the "supernatural" elements come from, you really should start with Herodotus' "Histories" in the Chapters on Egypt... move on over to the history of the Pythagoreans... jump over to Plato from there.. and then watch the Doctrine of the Soul get woven directly into the Christian Bible.
If you keep relying on "secondary sources", you're never going to get there.
btw - For a short-cut, you might try skipping directly to Plotinus' "Six Enneads", but the going gets rather tough unless you've taken the "baby steps" through Plato first...
Six Enneads
but if you don't want to take a Platonist's word for it, you might try either Tertullian, Thomas Aquinas, or Aristotle... they've all done work "on" the "soul".
-FJ
btw - After yur done, I'm sure that YOU would probably enjoy reading Nietzsche's critique in "The Anti-Christ"... being as how you liked Crossan so much
Anti-Christ
mr ducky,
The beauty of the whole thing lies in using emminent domain, so that the only real guys needing grease up front are in the mayor's office and on the city council.
As for lubricant, imagine having the entire island of Manhattan as your "captive market"...especially after you've put every mom & pop retail operation within subway distance of Penn Station out of business. Heck, and if we have to, we could even sweeten the pot for the governor... offer him a 2-3% sales tax piggy-back, courtesy of the Walton family after a year or two of "operations".
I figure a one-time campaign contribution of $5-10M per city politican ought to overcome any "political" opposition "voter organizers" might care to drum up. And who knows, I might find a couple of Chicago "Rainbow" backers to run political interference for me. What's Jackson support run these days? I think I'll go ask Nike...
-FJ
FJ,
I recently read the Nietzsche; always a pleasure, though methinks he doth protest too much.
Will check into the classic sources.
Wish I could say that I'd try the Aquinas but every time I've tried to read him I've been bored stiff. I do enjoy his aesthetics through the lens of James Joyce, however.
Not to get too personal, Norm, but when you read Joyce do you experience many "knock you down on you keister" epiphanies? I've never been able to read him. I don't know how many times I've tried starting "Ulysses".
Modern writing, like modern art, leaves my soul rather "under-nourished", as if I'd been eating celery to satisfy a hunger. I guess Aquinas leaves you feeling pretty much the same?
-FJ
Mr. Ducky, your freeper arguments are tiresome yet amusing. Do you look under your bed at night for freepers?
Norm, I wanted to find how we got from "despotic power" to "eminent domain" and found this interesting site. Don't go there Duck they are probably freepers since they don't share your erudite opinions about lawyers and bureaucrats seizing private property.
Farmer John, my father used to be fond of saying that there was no more good music composed after 1812. He didn't share my fondness for John Philip Sousa. I believe he did recognize Sousa's genius he just had issues in his connection to it.
Norm,
Perhaps the idea of "despotic power" comes from the Declaration of Independence... the idea that a "just" government derives its' authority from the "consent" of the people.
A "taking" implies "non-consent". Aaaarrrrghhhhh! Shiver me timbers!
BB
Which "site" are you referring to in your comments to m.r. duckies??
As for John Philip Sousa, I must admit that although I find the music itself quite "stirring", I sometimes find some of the self-deprecating lyrics rather contrapuntal, and therefore "inappropriate". Even though the spirit of the words harmonize with the spirit of the music, it is a little too "light" for the subject. I favor a "reverant" "God Bless America!" or a "Star Spangled Banner"... or even a "vocally un-acompanied" Sousa (ie - Yankie Doodle Dandy/Grand Old Flag).
Sousa also takes his "never a boast or brag" line a little too literally at times.... for as long as their are no foreigners at the festival, we SHOULD boast and brag!
-FJ
Before entering into battle, or while "on the march", the Spartan's often raised a paean so as to "synch" and "psych" everyone up for the challenge ahead. Do you think Sousa's "marching music" would compare favorably with those of the Spartan's? They might suit the "march", but I doubt they would suit the "mood" required for entering the "battle".
-FJ
FJ,
I have experienced some "knocked on the keister" moments with J. Joyce. Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist are worthwhile and poetic. Ulysses is a slog, though breathtaking at times; and Finnegan's Wake, which I won't claim to have read, is of course a fascinating feat of linguistic virtuosity. But you are right to feel "left cold:" that sort of modernist genius burns with a "hard, gem-like flame" a la Walter Pater. Joyce's genius is undeniable, but it's also fair to call it often "unreadable." "Usefulness" was considered vulgar, then.
There's a purity to the aesthetics of modernism that is appealing. Probably my favorite "modernism," ironically because it was most necessary and useful, is architectural modernism. Music, art, and literature could have gone on being classical and romantic and we'd have been well-served, but "form follows function" was needed.
norm,
Perhaps I need to give Joyce another try... But somehow I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to appreciate his work beyond the art inherent in his style, for the subject represents an aesthetic ideal that I cannot fully share.
I possess a "mixed" body and mind, one that does not long for absolute purity, for if it were to ever achieve such "purity" I fear I must evolve/devolve to either priest/satyr or priestess/Amazon, and Nature steers me towards an admixture of the former, whereas Joyce attempts to direct me towards the latter.
And I also favor the epic over the lyrical, Homer over Hipparchus, the noble lie to the honest truth, and therefore favor "art" to "nature" and especially "pure truth".
I'm also think that it is rather too late in the game and our "evolution" for mankind to turn his back on art, and return to the “purely” useful, for Nature truly provides the latter and only humanity can generate the former.
Art was the "gift" Prometheus gave man which allowed him to emerge from the "mud". I do not wish to see “unbound” the hard restraints Olympian Zeus has conferred on Titan Prometheus, and replaced again by those of Kratos and Bia, for it was the Olympian conquest of the human mind which allowed Athena to conquer her city.
I appreciate your concession that had art been allowed to remain classical and romantic, we'd have been "well served". Perhaps that means that there still might be a chance for Athena to save her city.
mr. ducky,
That art deco and ornamentation survived perhaps indicates the futility in attempting to create a "truly" socialist art, for to experience such an art, one would have to return to a cave, and then dowse our "warming/cooking fire". Then, we would emerge from it's depths, and then go huddle together for warmth in the rain. For domesticated animals cannot form cooperatives or prides, their hoves are "cloven" and they must spend considerable time chewing their "cud".
-FJ
Farmer John, I slipped up and left out the link, castlecoalition.org . It is an interesting question to compare the martial music of the Spartans to Sousa. The Spartans would have only had drums and crude horns. Sousa had much more musical instrument diversity at his disposal. Sousa even invented a musical instrument, the Sousaphone, to fill a need. In ancient times, and even up to the 18th/19th century the cadence of drums was essential to the coherent maneuvering of masses on open fields that characterized early warfare. Horns were used from a very early age for signaling. The bugle was probably the last musical instrument to exit the modern battlefield. The Chinese Communists were using them during the Korean War.
On the parade ground give me Sousa over anyone else you could come up with. I will admit to an affection for bagpipes and drums. Now there's something that will rattle the enemy.
Give me a break, Duck. The third message of this thread you said,
"The New Hampshire thing is quite amusing. A handful of FREEPS are going to demonstrate that they completely misunderstand the court's ruling."
FJ,
Anyone who truly loves art is by nature a romantic (and by extension, a classicist). Though I favor the lyric over the epic, we have a surfeit of the former. Now, a surfeit of art is always good. But perhaps the times we live in necessitate the epic, the grand. Coming "out" of the age of irony (though we never really leave), we need new "mythologies."
You've got me throwing quotes around everything.
(Don't waste time with Joyce if it doesn't float your boat--though as I've said you may find Dubliners and Portrait worthwhile--certainly more moving than his "high art.")
BB,
It is my understanding that a Spartan Paean was received by opposing troops in much the same way a Rebel Yell was experienced by Yankees.
-FJ
mr. ducky,
I agree whole-heartedly with Your number 2 statement to neptune. Imagine that (not hard, huh?) I listen to Gregorian Chants whenever I have a headache. It clears 'em right up! Now if I could only unlock the secrets of the Corybantine dance, I wouldn't need Medicare/aide.
-FJ
mr. ducky
I suppose I could try and distinguish "modernism" from "socialism"... but one appears to be only an "imitation" of the other... as in life imitating art.
And indeed, it is a movement towards a "new" society. That of the "last" man... or as I like to call him, the "hive" man... ( but all "drones").
-FJ
(Apologies to Big Bubba for derailing any pertinent topics).
Ducky, where you see "socialism" in modernism, I prefer to see "democracy." That doesn't mean you aren't accurate. Many of the modernists were motivated to realize the utopias posited in the 19th century.
I guess I prefer to see the "effect" of modernism in architecture--the simplicity, purity, and poetry of form. I would love to see our country embrace a more modern architecture rather than inauthentic endlessly-removed vinyl permutations of English country homes with faux columns and shutters and such. (I live in one of these, myself, so no offense).
Housing can be much more affordably and efficiently produced, and create much lower environmental impact--and still, you could offer plenty of variety and customization. We already have the technologies. The trick of course is convincing people they want it!
norm,
I think I might try taking Joyce up. You've peaked my curiosity. But you'll probably always have a hard time convincing me to call it "high" art. I'm not prepared for a sea-change. For...
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me."
--T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
...only I expect that I belong to the mer-people, and it is humans I cannot bear to hear sing.
-FJ
norm,
btw - I wouldn't push the architectural modernism analogy too far with mr. ducky. I don't think he tolerates well the ideas of Ayn Rand and will start accusing you of being a closet "Howard Roark objectivist Randoid". ;-)
-FJ
Duck, get off with the Osher Doctorow already before I have to unleash my mindless twit epithet.
Norm,
"vinyl permutations of English country homes with faux columns and shutters and such."
That's all the rage for our local doctors. At first glance impressive stone buildings. Plywood and stucco, the classical structure with no substance, literally. Don't lean on a column, not that it would ever be load bearing, just flimsy.
I love the anarchy of a thread going where a thread is going to go. I am an anarchist, you mindless twit Duck, you hear? Not a freeper. A libertarian, anarchist, conservative Republican.
German Romanticism, Marlene Dietrich singing "Wenn die Soldaten durch die Stadt Marschieren." ta rumprump rump, ta rumprump, rump.
Big Bubba, the old German Romantic, has to go back to his chores now.
mr. ducky,
So you believe that the part of "strife" called "envy" which compels humans to "work" (puts them on a treadmill) to attain social "status" (a "higher" peer ranking) is a "bad" thing.
And so the man who lives "below the average/mean" in social status (ie - a bum) who seeks to improve his lot and rise (become a garbage man) therby does something "wrong", and the man who lives above the mean in social status (ie - a doctor) who seeks to reduce his station (become a garbage man) thereby "lowering" his social status does something "right"?
Or do we just all deserve the same social status, doctor, bum, and garbage men... all equally deserving of praise and social recognition?
Just curious.
-FJ
Nothing like a little social setting anarchy to get the ball rolling and stir things up, Duck.
mr. ducky,
That pendulum sounds a lot like life. What would you have people do, if not swing back and forth?
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Very few men have the ability to simply "be". It requires a practice of near perfect virtue. Either that, or a pre-frontal lobotomy coupled with massive doses of saltpeter. And I suspect that "practically speaking", it would be much easier to accomplish the "latter". Got any plans in mind?
-FJ
Mr. Ducky, please, enlighten us lesser mortals by posting the three different versions of the Ten Commandments so that we may understand your argument. Do you remember my posting the Duoay-Rheims Version of Exodus 20? This old Baptist was unable to discern any difference between that and the King James, other than the words selected to express the THOUGHT behind the language. Please help us understand, Duck.
Bless your heart, Duck, you do get your little feathers ruffled. You would have done better to have directed me to a Ten Commandments
source like this rather than trying your usual m.o. of trying to slip stuff by the Big Bubba. Let’s look at my side by side comparison, Mr. Ducky. Seems to me that both have the same exact ten moral strictures, honor God, keep the Sabbath, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, honor mom and dad, don’t covet your neighbor’s wife or goods, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, and don’t worship idols. Did I miss something? Is the order relevant, or the thought? Then there is the Aseret Hadiberot ( The Ten Commandments). Mr. Ducky, I realize that I am only a flyover hayseed and not a bright lights, big city pseudo intellectual like you, but, I think we have ten thoughts about a moral conduct expressed three different ways, but, still the same ten thoughts.
Bless your heart, Duck, you do get your little feathers ruffled. You would have done better to have directed me to a Ten Commandments
source like this rather than trying your usual m.o. of trying to slip stuff by the Big Bubba. Let’s look at my side by side comparison, Mr. Ducky. Seems to me that both have the same exact ten moral strictures, honor God, keep the Sabbath, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, honor mom and dad, don’t covet your neighbor’s wife or goods, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, and don’t worship idols. Did I miss something? Is the order relevant, or the thought? Then there is the Aseret Hadiberot ( The Ten Commandments). Mr. Ducky, I realize that I am only a flyover hayseed and not a bright lights, big city pseudo intellectual like you, but, I think we have ten thoughts about a moral conduct expressed three different ways, but, still the same ten thoughts.
Bless your heart, Duck, you do get your little feathers ruffled. You would have done better to have directed me to a Ten Commandments
source like this rather than trying your usual m.o. of trying to slip stuff by the Big Bubba. Let’s look at my side by side comparison, Mr. Ducky. Seems to me that both have the same exact ten moral strictures, honor God, keep the Sabbath, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, honor mom and dad, don’t covet your neighbor’s wife or goods, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, and don’t worship idols. Did I miss something? Is the order relevant, or the thought? Then there is the Aseret Hadiberot ( The Ten Commandments). Mr. Ducky, I realize that I am only a flyover hayseed and not a bright lights, big city pseudo intellectual like you, but, I think we have ten thoughts about a moral conduct expressed three different ways, but, still the same ten thoughts.
Post a Comment
<< Home