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  gamahuche2 months, 1 week ago

  I was too slow off the mark with a political story on the Court Ruling which compared the incarceration of an Uighur tribesman at Guantanamo to a Lewis Carroll absurdity, - see http://politics.propeller.com/story/2008/06/30/...

  and another version offered by idyll, but for your perusal here is Lewis Carroll's original. The "Bellman's Story" is the most specifically relevant section.

  Enjoy!

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  gamahuche2 months, 1 week ago

  Also posted earlier by idyll [I should have listed it first] at:

  http://news.propeller.com/story/2008/06/30/judg...

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  gamahuche2 months, 1 week ago

  The whole text of the poem can be downloaded free, in a variety of different formats, here:

  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13

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  gamahuche2 months, 1 week ago

  [I imagine that this is the section to which the judgment referred!]

  He had bought a large map representing the sea,

  Without the least vestige of land:

  And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be

  A map they could all understand.

  "What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,

  Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"

  So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply

  "They are merely conventional signs!

  "Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!

  But we've got our brave Captain to thank:"

  (So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--

  A perfect and absolute blank!"

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  gamahuche2 months, 1 week ago

  This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out

  That the Captain they trusted so well

  Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,

  And that was to tingle his bell.

  He was thoughtful and grave--but the orders he gave

  Were enough to bewilder a crew.

  When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"

  What on earth was the helmsman to do?

  Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:

  A thing, as the Bellman remarked,

  That frequently happens in tropical climes,

  When a vessel is, so to speak, "snarked."

  But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,

  And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,

  Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,

  That the ship would not travel due West!

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