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The Riddle of Anthony's Nose

LOWER HUDSON VALLEY

The past is a long road winding back through the mists of time. Go back far enough, and history becomes hopelessly tangled with encroaching legend and folklore. In pursuit of local-interest stories in the history-rich Hudson Valley, a writer must sometimes venture into areas where the historian lifts his robes and stalks away.

One elusive tale surfacing from time to time argues that Esteban Gomez--and not Giovanni da Verrazano--discovered the Hudson River, which he named for St. Anthony. Upon close examination, this turns out to be as groundless as the story attributing the exhortation "Go west, young man" to Westchester's own Horace Greeley. For the record, it was John B.L. Soule, who first wrote, "Go west, young man." in 1851 in an Indiana newspaper, the Terre Haute Express. Greeley liked the advice so much he borrowed it for his editorials in the New York Tribune, enhancing it to "Go west, young man, and grow with the country."

That Gomez, a Portuguese sailing for the Spanish crown, explored the North American coast a year after Verrazano's 1524 voyage is not in dispute. No evidence exists that either penetrated farther upriver than the Upper Bay. Gomez may indeed have given the saint's name to our river; on later Spanish maps, a Rio San Antonio is shown at about this latitude.

Maritime historian Samuel Eliot Morison, however, gives solid credit to Verrazano for the discovery of the river. In his fascinating and diligently researched work, The Great Explorers: The European Discovery of America, Morison devotes an entire chapter to the exploratory voyages of Verrazano between 1524 and 1528.

Gomez, on the other hand, gets short shrift from Morison. He is mentioned--unflatteringly and only in passing--on six scattered pages--as fomenting a mutiny when a member of Magellan's history-making expedition, and as a teller of lies about Magellan. Morison says nothing about the 1525 voyage of Gomez.

Former Croton resident Bob Boyle put the controversy to rest in his 1969 book, The Hudson River. After acknowledging Verrazano's primacy in the discovery of the river, Boyle wrote: “Two maps showing the river were drawn in Europe in 1556 and 1569. However, these maps and the voyages of Verrazano, Gomez and the French rank as mere historical curiosities in terms of exploration and settlement. The true honor for the discovery of the river falls to the navigator after whom it is named, Henry Hudson.”

The Gomez story is occasionally embellished locally with the assertion that he reached the Hudson Highlands. As his ship sailed past the highest peak on June 13th, St. Anthony's feast day, he named it St. Anthony's Nose. According to legend, the name of this mountain, which today anchors the eastern end of the Bear Mountain Bridge, was later corrupted to Anthony's Nose.

Nice try--but no cigar. Anthony's Nose--or St. Anthony's Nose, if you insist--is not the highest mountain in the area. And the progression of this mountain's names went in the other direction--and then back again.

As a college student majoring in geology and an avid hiker, I came to know the Hudson Highlands "comme ma poche," as the French say. The major summits of the Highlands and their elevations in feet are, on the west side of the river, Storm King (1,340), Crow's Nest (1,396), Bear Mountain (1,284), and the Dunderberg Massif (1,120); on the east side, Breakneck Mountain (1,213) and Mt. Taurus (Bull Hill) (1,420).

All are taller and more impressive than Anthony's Nose, which barely reaches 900 feet. One consolation for proponents of this story may be that Anthony's Nose--part of which lies in Westchester--is still the highest point in both the town of Cortlandt and Westchester County, easily nosing out Dickerson Mountain on the old Valeria property.

But there's another reason why St. Anthony's Nose is an unlikely remnant name from earlier Spanish exploration: Without settlers and the reinforcement of frequent use, names applied to topographic features simply do not persist, no matter how formally bestowed.

In 1524, Verrazano named the Upper Bay "Santa Margarita," after the sister of King Francis I of France. The surrounding lands he called "Angouleme," for the king's original duchy. From that time until today, no one in what would become Brooklyn or Staten Island has ever used these two names.

The subject of our inquiry was first called Anthony's Nose early in the 17th century. Toward the end of the 18th century, it mysteriously became St. Anthony's Nose. Just as mysteriously in the 19th century, it became Anthony's Nose once again.

Let me settle all arguments: It was Dutch pilots sailing their "jachts" [sloops] on the river in the 17th century and naming every prominent natural feature useful for navigation who first called it Anthony's Nose.

Identifying a specific Dutchman as the Anthony of the nose is not easy. Early sources give that honor to Antoine de Hooges, an official of the colony of New Netherland at Fort Orange (Albany). Washington Irving recounted an often-repeated anecdote about the naming of the mountain in his whimsical 1809 work entitled Knickerbocker's History of New York. Irving insisted it was named for the prodigious and bejeweled nose of Anthony Van Corlear, Peter Stuyvesant's courier, dubbed "Anthony the Trumpeter."

In 1836, magazine publisher Freeman Hunt described a visit with Philip Van Cortlandt at the Upper Manor House in Cortlandt. Van Cortlandt, who had espoused the American cause in the Revolution and became a brigadier general, liked to be addressed by his military title. The following is from Hunt's Letters About the Hudson and Its Vicinity: “General V. is the owner of Anthony's Nose (on the river), as it is called. He gave me the origin of that name. Before the revolution, a vessel was passing up the river, under the command of a Capt. Hogans, when immediately opposite the mountain, the mate looked rather quizzically at the mountain and then at the captain's nose. The captain, by the way, had an enormous nose, which was not infrequently the subject of good-natured remark; and he at once understood the mate's allusion. ’What,’ says the captain, ‘does that look like my nose? Call it then if you please Antony's Nose.’"

The story was repeated on shore, and the mountain thenceforward assumed the name, and has thus become an everlasting monument to the redoubtable Capt. Antony Hogans and his nose. Antony Hogans is probably the Anglicization of Antoine de Hooges, a likely name conversion in a society moving from Dutch to English. Perceiving a nose in this rocky mass was not easy for some. Inveterate traveler James Kirke Paulding noted in his 1828 guidebook, the New Mirror for Travelers, "The most curious thing about it is that it no more looks like a nose than my foot."

To be a tracer of names on the land means following many false leads and dead-ends. Consider the famous "Turk's Face," a rocky feature on the ridge of Breakneck Mountain, itself sometimes called Turk's Face Mountain. A landmark for travelers on the Hudson about two miles north of Cold Spring, this rock formation bore a striking resemblance to a human face.

John Maude, an indefatigable English traveler, jokingly remarked about the Turk's Face during a voyage between Albany and New York City in 1800: “The profile of the Face Mountain so strongly resembles the profile of the human face, that I had for some time my doubts whether art had not assisted in improving the likeness. I have seen other blockheads which did not possess so sensible a countenance.”

In 1846, a rapacious quarryman blew Turk's Face to smithereens. With one mighty blast of black powder, Capt. Deering Ayers reduced 10,000 tons of picturesque scenery to a pile of rubble. Ayers blew himself to kingdom come a few years later while checking an explosive charge that failed to go off.

Conservationists of the period saw his violent end as justly deserved retribution. Despite the disappearance of the stone visage, the name Turk's Face Mountain persisted. Curiously, by the beginning of the 20th century, the long-vanished Turk's Face was being remembered as St. Anthony's Face, according to Wallace Bruce, author of a series of popular guidebooks to the Hudson River. References to it as St. Anthony's Face, of course, have led to inevitable confusion with Anthony's Nose.

The late Richard Lederer spent a good part of his life tracking the origins of the county's names. In his exhaustive The Place Names of Westchester County, he records that the name Anthony's Nose was used in the 1683 Indian deed to Stephanus Van Cortlandt.

In contrast, the first occurrence of St. Anthony's Nose I have encountered is in Charles Carroll's account of a passage through the Hudson Highlands by sloop in April 1776: “When we got into this strait the wind increased, and blew in violent flaws [sic]; in doubling one of these steep craggy points we were in danger of running on the rocks; endeavored to double [a nautical term meaning 'to sail around'] the cape called St. Anthony's Nose, but all our efforts proved ineffectual; obliged to return some way back in the straits to seek shelter; in doing this our mainsail was split to pieces by a sudden and violent blast of wind off the mountains.”

Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), a member of the Continental Congress, was sailing up the Hudson with Ben Franklin on an unsuccessful mission to Canada to get the Canadians to join the American cause. Carroll later signed the Declaration of Independence and became a U.S. senator.

St. Anthony's Nose also appears in an aquatint etching by J.W. Edy, after a drawing by G.B. Fisher, titled View of St. Anthony's Nose in the North River, Province of New York, 1795. A print of this charming scene on the placid river is in the Milberg Collection of the Princeton University Libraries. More recently, an early name of the hamlet at the little-used Manitou railroad station was St. Anthonysville. Nevertheless, the derogative quality of the name St. Anthony's Nose has always been bothersome to this writer. Would any sincerely religious person disparage a gentle saint like St. Anthony of Padua? This Portuguese-born Franciscan monk and patron saint of the poor--according to legend--once preached to an attentive audience of fish.

St. Anthony's Nose has the same derisive, antireligious ring found in comparative references to the posterior part of a roast chicken or turkey. (Depending upon one's prejudices, this was "the parson's nose" or "the Pope's nose.")

In his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Eric Partridge notes the latter expression first appeared in the 1788 edition of Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. This would agree timewise with the corruption of Anthony's Nose to St. Anthony's Nose. If derogation was the objective behind calling it St. Anthony's Nose, Charles Carroll's unwitting and unquestioning use of the term is ironic: Carroll, one of the richest men of his time, was a prominent Roman Catholic layman.

We should not conclude that the abandonment of the saint's name and the return to the use of Anthony's Nose on today's maps necessarily represents a setback for the good father. Think of it instead as another small victory in our never-ending battle against mindless bigotry.

Mr. President: It's Time to Acknowledge the Harsh Truths About Afghanistan

OP ED
Dear Mr. President:

In the 91 years of my life, which is to say since the end of the First World War, the United States has spent an inordinate amount of manpower, money and matériel fighting six major wars. Two of these, Vietnam (1962-1975) and Iraq (2003-2010) never should have been fought. Three of our six large-scale wars were what might be called ”good wars”: World War Two (1941-1945), in response to a surprise attack by Japan, and the two wars sanctioned by the United Nations--the Korean War (1950-1953) that masqueraded as a “police action” and the Gulf War (1991) to eject Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait.

The war in Afghanistan began in 2001 as punishment for a crime--the crime that has come to be known as 9/11--and for harboring a criminal. Unfortunately, we failed to catch the arch-criminal we sought, Osama bin Laden, who managed to slip away from Tora Bora to a prepared hideout in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan beyond our reach. In August of 2009 you told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, "This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity." There are many who would disagree with you.

Ramping Up the Troop Numbers with a New “Surge.”
In March of 2009, you authorized the doubling of the number of troops in Afghanistan to 68,000. Last December, you revealed to the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point--and the world--your decision about the direction the war in Afghanistan would take on your watch. The two massive escalations of the war you announced in March and December nearly tripled the American commitment to the conflict. No wonder the war in Afghanistan is now being called "Obama's War." So far the escalations have not resulted in any of the predicted benefits.

Since 2001, a total of 952 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, In 2009 alone, 317 U.S. soldiers died there, more than double the number killed in 2008. itself the previous record high. Britain lost 108 soldiers in Afghanistan in 2009, the most it has seen killed in one year since the 1982 Falkland Islands War with Argentina. Officials are predicting that 2010 will be even worse in terms of the overall death toll.

With 68,000 American troops “in country” in Afghanistan, you had four choices open to you. (1) You could withdraw immediately, which would have made the Pentagon and the war hawks unhappy. (2) You could have kept the number at 68,000 and announced a gradual withdrawal. (3) You could have increased the number of troops in Afghanistan to 108,000 by giving General Stanley McChrystal the 40,000 troops he requested. (4) You could have given Gen. McChrystal fewer than 40,000 troops.

Finally revealing your decision at West Point, you said, “I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan." Again there were many who did not agree with you. You added, "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.” In making this announcment, you chose the fourth course--a compromise and a cop-out. What you did not address was the key question: Can there ever be any victory in Afghanistan?

The decision about how many troops to send was never of consequence. We simply do not have enough troops to make a difference in the military outcome in Afghanistan. The huge size of that country, the mountainous nature of the terrain and the broad territory effectively controlled by the Taliban instantly dilute the effect of 30,000 additional troops. A truly serious effort would require a surge more on the order of ten times that many, a force we do not possess. Your troop surge only makes strategic sense if it is intended to strengthen our position politically as a preliminary to negotiating with the Taliban--but that Machiavellian tactic seems not to have been your intention.

Even the leaked report of General McChrystal gives evidence of muddled thinking. It says on page 2-20, "The campaign in Afghanistan has been hostorically under-resourced and remains so today. ISAF (International Security Asistance Force) is operating in a culture of poverty. Consequently, ISAF requires more forces." It goes on to say, "The greater resources will not be sufficient to achieve success, but will enable implementation of the new strategy. Conversely, inadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced."

In plain English, the above contorted passage says, in effect, "If you don’t send more troops to Afghanistan, we will fail. But you shouldn’t send more troops unless and until we adopt a new strategy, which we don’t have. And even if you do give us the troops we want for the new strategy we don't have, they won't be enough to achieve success."

Someone on General McChrystal's staff contributing to this report has confused the strategic and the operational levels of war. The report does not offer a new strategy but a new operational plan. How the war is fought (by following classic counter-insurgency doctrine) is operational, not strategic. The U.S. must indeed find a new strategy, because the current strategy depends on an Afghan state that simply does not exist. Yet the report offers no new strategy. No wonder you, as President, may have been confused and so compromised on the numbers.

What Can this New “Surge” Accomplish?
The answer to this question is, ”Very little—except for the troops to assume a defensive posture and try to stay alive.” In order to keep casualties low and acceptable to the public back home, Gen. Stanley McChrystal will be forced to adopt a static "fortress" strategy and withdraw forces from outlying outposts to a few cities.

The Taliban’s counterstrategy will be (1) to abandon those areas we strengthen and fortify; (2) to immediately take control of areas that no longer have an American presence; (3) to bottle up the Americans and make life miserable for them in their fortresses (including Kabul) with sudden "hit-and-run" raids and suicide bombers, while harassing and cutting the supply lines to and between the fortresses with daring ambushes and roadside IEDs.

You had two choices: get in deeper or get out. Unfortunately, not being given to making bold, sweeping decisions (your appointments bear this out), instead of a daring Hail Mary pass and a damn-the-torpedoes pull-out, you punted, deferring a decision until the summer of 2011, at which time you will be faced with the same decision again in a position no more advantageous than today. But casualties and costs will have risen, making another deferment of a fact-based decision even more difficult and more expensive. And you seem to have closed your eyes to the impossibility of making an effective force of an Afghan army riddled with illiteracy, drug abuse, low pay and a 25 percent rate of desertion (often to the enemy) and at the same time expecting it to be loyal to the flagrantly graft-ridden and corruption-plagued Karzai government.

Our constitution makes the President the Commander-in-Chief of the nation’s armed forces. This arrangement made eminent good sense when the inevitable first president was heroic Gen. George Washington. In today’s complex and hostile world, the President must rely on his military chiefs for guidance. This results in an awkward, if not peculiar situation in which the military advises the President about the course of action the military will then take in carrying out the President’s orders.

A major problem arises because the generals in the Pentagon, busy bucking for promotion, have yet to realize that the world and warfare have changed. Since the end of World War II we have seen the decline of the power of nations in all parts of the world and the rise of transnational, non-state forces. As many as 30 nation-states have either failed, as have Somalia, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, or are failing in the sense that they cannot provide even the most basic services to their citizens. Respected Israeli military historian Martin van Crefeld has said in The Transformation of War that what has changed is not so much how war is fought but who fights and what they fight for.

The war in Afghanistan is a Fourth Generation conflict. The concept was first described in an article by five offcers and miliary thinkers titled “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation” and published in the October 1989 issue of the Marine Corps Gazette. The generations of warfare described by these authors are:

First Generation Warfare: Tactics of line and column developed in the age of the smoothbore musket. Example: The American Revolution.

Second Generation Warfare: Tactics of linear fire and movement with great reliance on indirect artillery fire. Example: The First World War.

Third Generation Warfare: Tactics of infiltration to bypass and collapse the enemy's combat forces rather than seeking to close with and destroy them and defense in depth. Example: German Blitzkrieg in the Second World War.

Fourth Generation Warfare can be traced to the Cold War, as major powers attempted to retain their grip on restive colonies. Unable to mount direct combat against strafing fighter planes, bombing planes, tanks and mchine guns, non-state entities use tactics of secrecy, terror, and confusion to overcome the technological gap.

Fourth generation warfare often involves an insurgent group or other violent non-state actors trying to implement their own government or reestablish an old government over the current government, as in Afghanistan. The aim is to force the state as adversary to expend manpower and money in an attempt to establish order, ideally in such a highhanded way that it merely increases the level of civic disorder, until the state surrenders or withdraws. Afghanistan is a perfect example.

Fourth Generation warfare is definitely more than just an untested theory. It is a stark reality. Our generals still place great faith in technology and the ability to deliver the heaviest firepower on targets by plane or drone-fired missile, basically a holdover from the First World War. This is a classic example of Second Generation tactics, as created by the French General Staff, even though we are engaged in a Fourth Generation conflict. The Taliban, very definitely a low-technology force, today claim control over about 80 percent of Afghanistan, an increase from the 72 percent estimated in 2008.

Editor's Note: This is the third of four letters to President Obama on the war in Afghanistan.

Anatomy of Humor: The Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson

HUMOR

Samuel Johnson’s life is a story of how one individual triumphed over adversity to become one of the best-known figures of his age. Johnson was born in Lichfield, England, on September 18, 1709; his father Michael was a bookseller. Johnson was not a healthy child. He was scarred by scrofula, a form of tuberculosis affecting the lymph nodes, suffered loss of hearing and was blind in one eye. The availability of the books in his father's shop, and a natural appetite for learning, gave him extensive knowledge at an early age. He attended Oxford for about a year, but was forced to leave because of a lack of money.

In 1735, Johnson married Elizabeth "Tetty" Porter, a wealthy widow 21 years his senior; She was 46 and he 25. As a young man, Johnson tried his hand at a career as a schoolmaster, and was unsuccessful--largely because he didn't have a degree. Eventually he went to London to seek his fortune, and found employment as a writer for various periodicals. Johnson’s masterwork. his Dictionary, appeared in 1755.

Johnson received a government pension in 1762. Reluctant to accept it, he agreed to receive it on learning that it was for his work in the past. The money was a great help to him. No longer did he have to worry about being threatened with debtor's prison. He would receive an honorary doctorate from Trinity College in Dublin in 1765 and from Oxford in 1775 and would thereafter be called "Dr. Johnson."

In 1763, Johnson had met a young Scot named James Boswell in a London bookstore. The two became fast friends. Boswell took notes during their conversations and converted these notes and other material into his mammoth landmark biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson.

Johnson was tall and robust , but his odd gestures, grimaces and tics were confusing and even frightening to some on their first encounter with him. Boswell's biography documented Johnson's behavior and mannerisms in such detail that they have permitted doctors now to diagnose his condition as Tourette Syndrome, a condition undefined or undiagnosed in the 18th century.

A writer in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine observed that Johnson also displayed many of the obsessional-compulsive traits and rituals which are associated with this syndrome, noting, "It may be thought that without this illness Dr. Johnson's remarkable literary achievements, the great dictionary, his philosophical deliberations and his conversations may never have happened; and Boswell, the author of the greatest of biographies would have been unknown." Critic Harold Bloom described Johnson as "unmatched by any critic in any nation before or after him," and added, "Bate [W. Jackson Bate] in the finest insight on Johnson I know, emphasized that no other writer is so obsessed by the realization that the mind is an activity, one that will turn to destructiveness of the self or of others unless it is directed to labor."

In 1774 he printed The Patriot, a critique of what he viewed as false patriotism. On the evening of 7 April 1775, he made the famous statement, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." This line was not, as widely believed, about patriotism in general, but the false use of the term "patriotism" by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (the patriot-minister) and his supporters; Johnson opposed "self-professed Patriots" in general, but valued what he considered "true" patriotism.

After a series of illnesses he died on the evening of December 13, 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Boswell's biography was published seven years later in 1791, guaranteeing him a place in history. Johnson's output included a complete edition of Shakespeare; a number of frequently cited political tracts; sermons; a description of his 1773 tour to Scotland with Boswell, with considerable discussion of the change of an era; and a series of biographies of numerous British poets, The Lives of the Poets, commissioned to accompany reprints of each poet's works. Only years after his death did Johnson begin to be recognized as having had a lasting effect on literary criticism, and as the only great critic of English literature.

Poet, lexicographer, essayist, novelist, journalist, and critic of the period now called "The Age of Johnson," Johnson's wit and wisdom shines forth here:

On over-indulgence with drink, to the extent of becoming a beast: "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

On America: "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"

A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.

On second marriages: The triumph of hope over experience.

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.

No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

A man should keep his friendship in constant repair.

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

Depend upon it, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

Definition of oats: A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people.

The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.

Definition of pension: An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.

We must either outlive our friends you know, or our friends must outlive us, and I see no man that would hesitate about the choice.

Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding.

A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.

A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

Hope is necessary in every condition.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

Men have been wise in many different modes; but they have always laughed the same way.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

Of all the griefs that harass the distressed, sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry.

The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.

What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.

Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.

The following quotations are either attributed to Johnson or are closely related to quotations in his works:

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things--the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

A fishing pole has a hook at one end and a fool at the other.

Golf: A game in which you claim the privileges of age and retain the playthings of youth.

God Himself, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I?

He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

Slander is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation his defense.

Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant a standard of judging well.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop.

Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse, not a remarkable mathematician.

You don't have to eat the whole ox to know that it is tough.

The finest landscape in the world is improved by a good inn in the foreground.

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

The true aim of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.

I did not have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one instead.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues. Because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

What is the strongest argument for prayer? There is no argument for prayer.

A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws it in hopes he may hit.

Truth is the first casualty of war.

Clear your mind of cant (stock phrases that have become meaningless through endless repetition).

The grimmest dictatorship is the dictatorship of the prevailing orthodoxy.

The Anatomy of Humor 6: "A guy walks into a bar . . ."

HUMOR

No one knows when the first joke beginning with the six words "A guy walks into a bar . . ." was told, or how it went. Nevertheless, an entire genre of jokes has been created revolving around that opening scenario. Here's a sampling of some of the variants that have sprung up, many now involving animals or inanimate objects:

A guy walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says, "A beer please, and one for the road."

An amnesiac walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "Do I come here often?"

A guy with dyslexia walks into a bra.

A young Texan walks into a bar and orders a drink. "Got any ID?" asks the bartender. The Texan replies, "About what?"

A pair of battery jumper cables walk into a bar. The bartender says, "You can come in here, but you better not start anything!"

A Latin scholar walks into a bar and says, "I'll have a martinus." The bartender asks him. "Don't you mean martini?" The man tells the bartender, "Listen, if I wanted two or more drinks I would have asked for them."

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "So, why the long face?" A variant on this joke during the 2004 presidential campaign substituted John Kerry for the horse, but the punch line remains the same.

A penguin walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "Has my father been in here?" The bartender says, "I don't know. What does he look like?"

A brain goes into a bar and says to the bartender, "I'll have a beer, please." The bartender says, "Sorry, I can't serve you. You're out of your head."

A little pig goes into a bar and orders ten drinks. He finishes them and the bartender says, "Don't you want to know where the toilet is?" The pig says, "No, thanks, I go wee-wee-wee all the way home."

René Descartes is in a bar at closing time. The bartender asks him if he'd like another drink. Descartes says, "I think not," and he disappears.

A bear walks into a bar and says, "I'd like a beer and . . . . a packet of peanuts. The barman says, why the big pause?"

A kangaroo walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, "That'll be $10. You know, we don't get many kangaroos coming in here." The kangaroo says, "At $10 a beer, it's not hard to understand."

A termite walks into a bar and asks, "Is the bar tender here?"

A cheeseburger walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve food in here."

A dog with his foot wrapped in a bloody bandage hobbles into a Western saloon. He sidles up to the bar and announces: "I'm lookin' fer the man that shot my paw."

A baby seal walks into a bar. "What can I get you?" asks the bartender. "Anything but a Canadian Club," replies the seal.

A grasshopper hops into a bar. The bartender says, "You're quite a celebrity around here. We've even got a drink named after you." The grasshopper says, "You've got a drink named Steve?"

A goldfish flops into a bar and looks at the bartender. The bartender asks, "What can I get you?" The goldfish says, "Water."

A guy walks into a bar and sits down next to a lady and a dog. The man asks, "Does your dog bite?" The lady answers, "Never!" The man reaches out to pet the dog, and the dog bites his hand. The man says, "I thought you said your dog doesn't bite!" The woman replies, "He doesn't. That's not my dog."

A guy walks into a bar. A horse behind the bar serving drinks. The guy is just staring at the horse, when the horse says, "What are you staring at? Haven't you ever seen a horse serving drinks before?" The guy says, "Honestly, no. I never thought the parrot would sell the place."

A skeleton walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "What'll you have?" The skeleton says, "Give me a beer, and a mop."

A polar bear, a giraffe and a penguin walk into a bar. The bartender says, "What is this, some kind of joke?"

A guy walks into a bar in Cork, in Ireland, and asks the barman: "What's the quickest way to get to Dublin?" "Are you walking or driving?" asks the barman. "Driving," says a man. "That's the quickest way," says the barman.

A fellow walks into a pub near Buckingham Palace in London, sits down, and says, "Give me a beer. I've had a rough day at work." And the bartender says, "Oh? What do you do?" The guy says, "I take care of the corgis--you know, the dogs the royal family owns." The bartender asks, "Tough job, huh? The guy says, "Yeah. All that inbreeding has led to low intelligence and bad temperaments. And the dogs aren't too smart, either."

A man goes into a bar and says, "Give me a drink before the trouble starts." And the bartender pours him a drink. He drinks it and says, "Give me another drink before the trouble starts." He downs that one and says quotation mark, give me another drink before the trouble starts." Finally, the bartender asks, "Just when is this trouble going to start?" The man says, "The trouble starts just as soon as I tell you that I don't have any money."

A tourist goes into a bar where a dog is sitting in a chair playing poker. He asks, "Is that dog there really playing poker?" And the bartender says, "Yeah, but he's not too smart. Whenever he has a good hand, he starts wagging his tail."

This cowboy walks into a bar and orders a beer. His hat is made of brown wrapping paper. And so are his shirt, vest, chaps, pants, and boots. His spurs are also made of paper. Pretty soon, the sheriff arrives and arrests him for rustling.

A guy goes into a bar, orders four shots of the most expensive 30-year-old single malt Scotch whisky and downs them one after the other. The bartender says, "You seem to be in a great hurry." The guy says, "You would be too if you had what I have." The bartender asks, "What have you got? "Fifty cents," is the reply.

A Northerner walks into a bar in the Deep South around Christmas time. A small nativity scene is behind the bar, and the guy says, "That's a nice nativity scene. But how come the three wise men are all wearing firemen's hats?" And the bartender says, "Well, it says right there in the Bible--the three wise men came from afar."

A man walked into a bar, sat down, and ordered a beer. As he sipped the beer, he heard a voice say, "Nice tie." Looking around, he saw that the bar was empty except for him and the bartender. A few sips later, another voice said, "Beautiful shirt." At this, the man calls the bartender over. "Say, I must be losing my mind," he tells him. "I keep hearing these voices say nice things, and there is not a soul in here but us." "It's the peanuts," explains the bartender, indicating a dish on the bar. "The peanuts?" "That's right, the peanuts--they're complementary."

A man walks into a bar with a giraffe. He says, "A beer for me and one for my giraffe." And they stand around drinking for hours until the giraffe passes out on the floor. The man pays the tab and gets up to leave. The bartender says, "Hey! You're not going to leave that lyin' on the floor, are you?" The man says, "That's not a lion, it's a giraffe."

A guy walks into a bar with a German shepherd dog. The bartender says, "Hey buddy, can't you read that sign? It says no dogs allowed! Get that mutt out of here!" The man replies, "No, I can't read the sign--I'm blind, and this is my Seeing Eye dog." The bartender is embarrassed and gives the man a beer on the house. Later that day, the man tells his friend about it: "I told him I was blind, and I got a free beer!" The friend then takes his dog into the bar and sits down. The bartender says, "The sign says no dogs allowed! You'll have to leave!" The friend says, "Sorry, I can't see the sign because I'm blind, and this is my Seeing Eye dog." The bartender replies, "Since when do they give out Chihuahuas as Seeing Eye dogs?" The man says, "They gave me a Chihuahua?"

A blind man walks into a bar, grabs his dog by its hind legs and swings him around in a circle. The bartender says, "Hey, buddy, what are you doing?" And the blind man says, "Don't mind me. I'm just looking around."

A man walks into a bar looking sad, and the bartender asks him, "What's the matter?" The man says, "My wife and I had a fight, and she told me she wasn't going to speak to me for a month. The month is up today."

This guy walks into a bar and orders a drink. He looks in his pocket and orders another drink, looks in his pocket and orders still another drink. His curiosity aroused, the bartender asks, "What are you doing? What's in your pocket?" And the guy says, "It's a picture of my wife. When she starts looking good to me, I know it's time to go home."

The Anatomy of Humor

Because sending and posting videos online have becoming easier and more convenient than ever, many Internet users are currently using this technology to spread entertaining and hilarious materials through blogs, e-mails, and forums. Among these materials are those funny videos that you see everyone online from personal websites to forums, from Youtube to sites dedicated to funny videos. These funny video clips become so popular that they are widely spread all over the cyberspace. If you spend even just a few minutes online, you are probably familiar with these videos. And once these videos become so popular, it gains popular even beyond the Internet. These funny video clips are usually called viral video, named after the viruses with their ability to replicate. But why and how did these funny videos become an integral part of the Internet? And what are the different types of funny video clips?

Technology

Without a doubt, funny video clips became viral because of the technology available to the people today. Regardless of the nature of the videos, anyone can easily post them online. For instance, thanks to recording devices, television viewers can easily save clips from shows that they find funny. A good example is the D-ck in a Box video of a sketch from Saturday Night Live. Although the clip itself was temporarily available in the official website of NBC, individual television viewers already preserved the video to prosperity by posting it on Youtube. And since Youtube has features that allow members to post videos on their social networking pages and blogs, people have consciously and unconsciously spread the video, catapulting it to viral video status. Variations

Of course, funny videos or viral videos are not just limited to hilarious television clips from comedy shows. Sometimes, the humor is unintentional making it more amusing. These would include foreign game shows from other countries, with their bizarre game play and even more bizarre results. An example of this is the Human Tetris game videos from a game show in Japan. Other funny video clips came from homemade short clips, with the definition of hilarious mostly subjective. A popular example of this is the video blog of Chris Crocker. This video with Crocker defending Britney Spears Video Music Awards performance became one of the most watched videos on Youtube. Although not essentially funny, the context and the actual content made it entertaining and, to most of the viewers, hilarious.

Impact

The impact of these funny video clips online is overwhelming. Internet has been relegated as an alternative media but its content has become so popular that it has influenced the content of mainstream media, particularly on television. For instance, Chris Crocker was an instant Internet celebrity thanks to his video, but the coverage of entertainment news outfits made him an actual Hollywood figure at least, only for a while. The Human Tetris videos became such big Internet hits that the American noontime talk show Ellen simulated it. Without a doubt, funny videos are big not just online they are now mainstream entertainment too.

Lapovita Cosmin is the owner of funny stuff. You can find more information at funny cartoons.. Visit The Anatomy of Humor : The Makings of Funny Videos.

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