600 staff will be needed to fully man the Scientology Valley Org

[Knows]

Now we have the why to Planetary Clearing:

"After working around the clock since the release of Super Power and GAT II, COB has made a fascinating discovery: The internet is your Ideal Org. Please install the enclosed Net Nanny disk to all computers at home and work immediately and report to your Ethic's Officer that it is done or you will not be eligible for any services and all certs will be cancelled".

OSA will be stopping by to make sure you are in full compliance!

 

[Anonycat]

Now we have the why to Planetary Clearing:

"After working around the clock since the release of Super Power and GAT II, COB has made a fascinating discovery: The internet is your Ideal Org. Please install the enclosed Net Nanny disk to all computers at home and work immediately and report to your Ethic's Officer that it is done or you will not be eligible for any services and all certs will be cancelled".

OSA will be stopping by to make sure you are in full compliance!

And it looks like your e-meter needs a new battery.

 

[Veda]

It's perfectly reasonable to think they'd need 600 staff. Maybe 10 staff for inside to do the usual posts, and around 590 standing outside arguing with the homo sapiens.

[video=youtube;W949q6Mtsfk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W949q6Mtsfk#t=22[/video]

 

[NonScio]

Maybe the call for 600 is, if not hyperbole, a bit of poetic license?


The Charge Of The Light Brigade

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854



Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

 

[Dulloldfart]

Maybe the call for 600 is, if not hyperbole, a bit of poetic license?


The Charge Of The Light Brigade

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Ooh, that reminds me, this was one of the items of "rectilinear poetry" I wrote in 1996. I see they're still easily available via Google, although they're not formatted there in proportional type so the effect is lost. Here's the Tennyson one:

Half a league, half a league
And half of a league onward,
All into the valley of Death
Rode the doomed six hundred.
"Forwards the Light Brigade!
Charge on the guns!" he said
Far into the valley of Death
Rode the doomed six hundred.
"Forward the Light Brigade!"
Were there any men dismayed?
Not though the soldiers knew
Someone had badly blundered.
Theirs was not to bid reply,
They came not to reason why,
Their job but to do and die.
And into the valley of Death
Rode the doomed six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon too off left of them,
Cannon more in front of them
Volleyed loud and thundered;
Stormed with shot and shell,
Boldly they strode and well,
Nigh unto the jaws of Death,
Right into the mouth of hell
Rode the doomed six hundred.

Flashed all the sabres bare,
Flashed, and churned the air
Sabring those gunners there,
Charging brave an army while
Near all the world wondered.
Plunging on in battery-smoke
On across a line they broke;
Both Cossack and Russian too
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and well-sundered.
And they rode back, but not,
Not wholly that six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon off the left of them,
Cannon still in back of them
Volleyed loud and thundered;
Stormed with shot and shell,
While horses and heroes fell
They that had fought so well
Came from the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left from them,
Left of the old six hundred.

When could their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world then wondered.
Honor that charge they made!
Honor now the Light Brigade,
Brave and noble six hundred!​

Paul

 

[Student of Trinity]

That's, um, an interesting poetic form, Paul. On the one hand, why not aim for the same number of characters per line, instead of the same number of syllables? On the other hand, though, it's bonkers. It looks fine in equal-length type like that, but as soon as you try to perceive the text as anything more meaningful than a bunch of shapes, your brain parses them into syllables that you hear in your mind, and the lines become very unequal in length and awkward in rhythm and I'm sorry but Blech.

An interesting exercise it must have been, to modify the poem to fit the line constraint. For the same sort of effort, though, I bet you could write a proper sonnet. That also involves casting around in your mind for alternative phrasings that will express the same thought while fitting within a fixed pattern. I think the product would be better.

 

[Dulloldfart]

That's, um, an interesting poetic form, Paul. On the one hand, why not aim for the same number of characters per line, instead of the same number of syllables? On the other hand, though, it's bonkers. It looks fine in equal-length type like that, but as soon as you try to perceive the text as anything more meaningful than a bunch of shapes, your brain parses them into syllables that you hear in your mind, and the lines become very unequal in length and awkward in rhythm and I'm sorry but Blech.

An interesting exercise it must have been, to modify the poem to fit the line constraint. For the same sort of effort, though, I bet you could write a proper sonnet. That also involves casting around in your mind for alternative phrasings that will express the same thought while fitting within a fixed pattern. I think the product would be better.

I can read it aloud with perfect rhythm no problem. I can also read it in such a way as to destroy any rhythm.

It was an exercise. I did about 10 of them over the space of a couple of days: William Blake, Robert Herrick, Edgar Allan Poe, John Donne, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christopher Marlowe, William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson. No-one liked it.

It's not as easy as it might appear as one has to minimise extraneous words. I tried to do one of Shakespeare's sonnets and couldn't do it without (in my opinion) ruining the character of the piece. My respect for Shakespeare went up at that point.

I haven't written any original poetry in maybe 20 years beyond a limerick or two on ESMB. No interest these days.

Paul

 

[Student of Trinity]

My respect for Shakespeare went up at that point.

The secret of William Shakespeare isn't that he was really Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford. It's that his editor was Chuck Norris.

 

[NonScio]

Well, anyway...do ya suppose the "OT committee" planners or whatever....being of the "valley org" as it were...thinking of riding into the mouth of hell and
all...that most of the new "staff" would not survive the charge (ordered by incompetent, bungling, bumbling officers don't ya know)....600 hundred being kind of a neat, tidy number of literary fame...simply borrowed the 600 from Tennyson's famous poem?

 

[Dulloldfart]

It seems like a ripe subject for a parody, what with the silly horses from the birthday game and the IAS videos.

Original:
Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Parody:
(Thinks - do I want to spend the time doing this well? Answer - no!)

How did they get 600? Surely they wouldn't knowingly allude to that poem with that so-well-known "Valley of Death" phrase. Maybe someone did some calculation based on the square hoofage (sorry) or something and got a figure of 570 or 640 and rounded it off, and with the 600 at the back of their mind and no sleep for 3 days it seemed like the "right" number.

Paul