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Saturday, June 10, 2017

They're Everywhere! They're Everywhere!

I used to believe that they were all in it together, but now I'm not so sure. I still think they're all in it, just not together. If they were all in it together, it seems like they would be better organized. As it is, their left hands don't seem to know what their right hands are doing. That's probably for the best, if they were better organized we'd all be doomed. Then again, maybe if they were better organize we'd have to become better organized ourselves in order to resist them. In order to become better organized, we would need effective leadership, and then we might start to think of our leadership as them. Maybe were better off the way we are. It's like they used to tell us in the army, "Spread out! Spread out! One round would get you all!"

They never called us "mister" in the army, I think it's the navy that does that. They usually called us by our last name because we all had name tags on our uniforms. Sometimes they would call us by our rank instead of our names, like "private, sergeant, or specialist". If they called you by both your rank and your name, like "Private Beagles", it usually meant they were mad at you, like when your mother addressed you by your first, middle, and last name.

The English word "guy" comes from Guy Fawkes (1570-1606). I think his real name was "Guidon", or something like that, but everybody called him "Guy". He and some other blokes  got together and hatched out a plot to blow up the king and the whole British Parliament. They rented a room across the street from the Parliament Building, planning to tunnel under it, plant an explosive charge, and set it off when the king and everybody were inside. Turned out they didn't even have to dig their own tunnel, there was one already there. The landlady told them she didn't know who dug it or why, it was there when she bought the building, and she just used it for storage. Over time, they accumulated a substantial store of gunpowder, which was the only explosive available in those days, and stockpiled it under the Parliament Building, smuggling it in a little at a time so nobody would notice. That's why this event is known as "The Gunpowder Plot", in case you want to look it up.

The plot was revealed when the conspirators foolishly warned some of their friends in Parliament not to go to work that day because something big was going to happen. One of these "friends" reported it as suspicious activity, there was a big investigation, and the plot was busted. When they raided the tunnel, only Guy Fawkes was in there, and he confessed the whole thing. He later revealed the names of his accomplices under torture, but they had already skipped the country by then and were never caught. Guy was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. He tried to avoid that by leaping to his death from the gallows before they put the rope on him, but they hung, drew, and quartered him anyway, even though he was already dead.

Flashback to the day the Gunpowder Plot was uncovered: The king announced there would be a big party that night to celebrate the foiling of the plot. There were bonfires, fireworks, and picnics all over the land, and a good time was had by all. Somebody got the idea to burn Guy Fawkes in effigy, and some old clothes were stuffed with straw and thrown on one of the bonfires. Ever since then, the British have called any kind of dummy or scarecrow a "guy" while, in America, it became a generic name for a male, and later a female, person. Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated in Britain with bonfires, fireworks, picnics, and the burning of a guy even unto this day. I know this because I saw a Guy Fawkes party as part of a British TV show once. Since the show was originally broadcast in Britain where everybody knew what it was, they didn't see the need to explain any of the history to the viewers, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.

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