Neddy's Palaver

I am wondering if this Masonic Temple on a hill in Alexandria, Virginia will be featured in the new novel by Dan Brown The Lost Symbol.

Dan Brown had said that his next book was to be entitled “The Solomon Key.” Obviously he has changed those plans, as it is now published as “The Lost Symbol.” George Washington and many of the Founding Fathers were Masons as were founders of Mormonism: Masonry and Mormon Mysteries.

I snapped the picture one day while awaiting the Metro train at the King Street Station in Alexandria. The AmTrak Station is just next to it.

The image, Amtrak Train, was originally uploaded by Edna Barney. It is posted here from Barneykin’s account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

Vanquished, Vanished

Come, come, come …
Let us ponder the America of our memories:
We sang like the birds of the field; we sang of freedom;
When we sought opportunity, we found it awaiting us.
America was a dream, a vision of seekers;
America was a dream that lasted ten score and thirty years.
The dream that was America encountered the anarchy of liberty;
And was felled by the anarchy of immorality.
We beg forgiveness of our founders, our fathers;
We weep for the blood they shed for us.
The America that was their dream is now our master.
Freemen no longer, we are serfs to toil land that is not ours.
We live the lives of the slaves of old, lives of quiet desperation;
We beat our breasts in despair knowing we sold our posterity into bondage.
We still pray, but not to God; We still sing, but not of freedom.
We tell tales to our children and they laugh,
For, as we recollect our remembrances,
Our children hear fairy tales of long, long ago.
We talk to those who sacrificed for freedom,
And they ask: “Did we win or did we lose?
Was God with us or were we against God, in those days?
Was freedom worth the blood we spilt?
Or was freedom but a mysterious nothing,
A mere longing of our souls?”
We will soon go away too, we who have the memories.
When we are gone, will seekers ever dream that dream again?

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Oh Poor Lady Caroline; to be saddled with the “Curse of Beauty.”

Try as she may to be snooty and dismissive to others, her bewitching beauty and lovely voice betrayed her true feelings. The more she tried to be rude and cold to acquaintances. the more they were enchanted by her natural charms and they loved her even more. Oh, to be so cursed as was Lady Caroline!

So she ignored Mrs. Arbuthnot’s remark and raised forefinger, and said with marked coldness–at least, she tried to make it sound marked–that she supposed they would be going to breakfast, and that she had had hers; but it was her fate that however coldly she sent forth her words they came out sounding quite warm and agreeable. That was because she had a sympathetic and delightful voice, due entirely to some special formation of her throat and the roof of her mouth, and having nothing whatever to do with what she was feeling. Nobody in consequence ever believed they were being snubbed. It was most tiresome. And if she stared icily it did not look icy at all, because her eyes, lovely to begin with, had the added loveliness of very long, soft, dark eyelashes. No icy stare could come out of eyes like that; it got caught and lost in the soft eyelashes, and the persons stared at merely thought they were being regarded with a flattering and exquisite attentiveness. And if ever she was out of humour or definitely cross–and who would not be sometimes in such a world?—she only looked so pathetic that people all rushed to comfort her, if possible by means of kissing. It was more than tiresome, it was maddening. Nature was determined that she should look and sound angelic. She could never be disagreeable or rude without being completely misunderstood.

‘I had my breakfast in my room,’ she said, trying her utmost to sound curt. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you later.’

And she nodded, and went back to where she had been sitting on the wall, with the lilies being nice and cool round her feet.”

“The Enchanted April,” by Elizabeth von Arnim, at the end of Chapter 6.

Perhaps I’ll see you later.

You Need to Start with Pork Chops, Japanese Style!

These young Japanese girls can teach us everything we need to know about catching dragons. First thing - strap a meaty pork chop onto your forehead and the toothy dragons, who cannot resist the temptation, will head right for it … or YOU! “Dragon-san is falling! Dragon-san is falling!” The girls lose heart as the dragon escapes into the audience. Poor Dragon-san never even captured a single pork chop. Isn’t there a Japanese version of PETA in Japan to protect these poor dragons from such abuse from these wicked girls?

If you want to discover the insanity that is Morning Musume, here they are.

“And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave [him] leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.” (John 19:38-42 KJV)

Mural of Jesus from the Crypt at Washington National Cathedral

The chapel that contains this mural is located on the crypt level of the cathedral. It contains New Testament imagery that show the promise of eternal life: Jesus’ birth, his death and entombment, and his resurrection. This somber mural tells the story of Jesus’s entombment following the crucifixion. I snapped the photograph at the CHAPEL OF SAINT JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA. Joseph was the wealthy man who gave his tomb for the burial of Christ’s body after the crucifixion.

The image, Mural of Jesus, was originally uploaded by barneykin. It is posted here from Barneykin’s account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

Who were Harry Thaw, Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White?

I have been listening to an audio book of “Ragtime,” which I purchased because I have tickets to the play “Ragtime” that is scheduled for the Kennedy Center in May. Halfway through the book, I have decided that Evelyn Nesbit and Harry Thaw are featured characters that I should know more about. To learn more about them is quite easy, as, before reading “Ragtime” I had never heard anything of either of them; for all I knew, they were figments of the author’s imagination.

After the author’s coverage of Houdini, Teddy Roosevelt, Admiral Byrd, the famous psychiatrists Freud and Jung, I decided that murderer Harry Thaw, Gibson Girl Evelyn Nesbit and Evelyn’s lover Stanford White must have been historical characters. In 1906, Harry Thaw’s trial for the murder of White was labelled the “Trial of the Century.” Of course, OJ Simpson had not yet been born, and his trial for murder was fated for the end of the same century.

I find “Ragtime” interesting reading as it covers the historical events of my father’s boyhood. He was born 1901, and came to the U.S. as a teen. Also, my grandmother and my mother had grown up on a Virginia plantation of the family of another Gibson Girl, Irene Langhorne Gibson. I remember my grandmother recounting how she and her siblings played with the discarded drawings of Irene’s artist husband, Charles Dana Gibson. This is all doubly intriguing, as E.L. Doctorow links all of his historical characters with one another, and with his created characters, and I have found that my own family is linked to the very same people of his novel.

Well, back to “Ragtime” and Evelyn Nesbit, I finally Googled her this morning. (I’m not sure if “Google” the verb should be in caps or not.) She and her star-crossed lovers are in Wikipedia as real American characters and she even has her own web page: “The Story of Evelyn Nesbit.”

The image, Evelyn Nesbit, was originally uploaded by westiemom. It is posted here from Barneykin’s Flickr account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

The Smithsonian wants it, but Aretha Franklin is not keen about reliquishing her hat with the big wool bow sparkling with genuine Svarovski crystals. At latest count there are more than twenty-five Fan Groups for her hat at Facebook and probably as many at Flickr. The hat’s Detroit designer has more than 3,000 requests for silk replicas at $180 each. The original in wool would cost upwards of $500, and it is unknown how many have ordered that version. And … Even I have finally got my own official “Aretha Franklin Inauguration Hat.” Mine is the original - all wool Svarovski. Now I can die happy. My only regret is that it was not available in fire engine red.
Flickr Slide Show of Aretha Chapeaux

(The Weekly Standard)

The image, Edna-Aretha, was originally uploaded by barneykin. It is posted here from Barneykin’s account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

I uploaded a few photographs from the last meeting of my DAR chapter to the Daughters of the American Revolution Group at Facebook, and “suddenly” found that my Regent Pamela and I had become the “Faces of DAR at Facebook.” Kinda funny?

The image, Faces of DAR on Facebook, was originally uploaded by barneykin. It is posted here from Barneykin’s account.

Visit Neddy’s Archives for more of Edna’s writings.

To My Daughter-in-law, Diane, who turns thirty-three today, January 18th.

Happy Birthday Diane - May three be your lucky number, as in the third time is always a charm. Three times six equals eighteen, as in January 18th. Three is the first of four perfect numbers - 3, 7, 10 and 12. Three denotes divine perfection. Three is the number in the Godhead; three times the Seraphim cried “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Isaiah 6:3). All time is divided into three parts - Past, Present and Future. On telephone keypads, the “3″ key is also associated with the letters “D” for Diane. You were married in 2003 to a man with three names from a family of three boys. You have three children, a family of three girls. Two threes = 33. And … a tricycle always has three wheels.