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OBESITY --- O.S.S. --- OBITUARY --- OBJECTIVITY OBSCENITY --- OBSCURITY --- OBSERVATION OBSESSION --- OBSTACLES

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OBESITY

see: "FAT"
see: "THE BODY" for other related links


-

THE PERILS OF OBESITY

Yesterday my gun exploded
When I thought it wasn't loaded;
Near my wife I pressed the trigger,
Chipped a fragment off her figure.

'Course I'm sorry and all that,
But she shouldn't be so fat.

--Harry Graham (1874—1936)
British writer and journalist.
_Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes_ [1899]

-

Under this flabby exterior is an
enormous lack of character.
--Oscar Levant (1906—1972)
American pianist and actor.

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Julius Caesar_ [1599]

-----

avoirdupois [av-uhr-duh-POIZ; AV-uhr-duh-poiz], noun:
1. Avoirdupois weight, a system of weights based on a pound
containing 16 ounces or 7,000 grains (453.59 grams).
2. Weight; heaviness; as, a person of much avoirdupois.
Ex.: Yet until middle age and avoirdupois overtook her,
Mary was no slouch.
--John Updike, "How to Milk a Millionaire,"
_New York Times_ [29 March 1987]




O.S.S.

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.

see "CIA"
see: "SPY"

When Julia McWilliams left Newport News, Va., by troop train to
travel to California before her assignment in Southeast Asia, she
was instructed to tell people she was a file clerk. She had been
sworn to secrecy and forbidden to keep a diary. It was February
1944.

After seven days' travel by train and seven days of orientation in
California, Julia and several other women were issued gas masks,
fatigues, bedrolls, canteens, and pith helmets. In Long Beach, as
these female civilians boarded the SS Mariposa, a cruise ship
converted to a troop ship, they were greeted by the loud music of
a band and the raucous wolf whistles of 3,000 enlisted men.

At sea the following morning, Julia, ever a leader, organized her
friends to spread the word that they were traveling missionaries.
(The men never fell for it.) The nine women shared one tub, toilet,
and sink and washed out their stockings in their helmets. Stopping
once along the way to take on fresh water, "We jumped off in
Perth, Australia, and promptly hit the bars, then went looking for
kangaroos," she recalled recently. Their ship was under military
escort for the final week of travel, for fear of encountering
Japanese submarines.

"Then, right after arriving in Bombay," Julia says, "we were
startled by the sounds of a great explosion — a true snafu!" she
chortles. "A ship in the harbor had caught fire and gotten loose
from its moorings. The British, who ran everything in those days,
were accustomed to taking two-hour lunches. So the unattended
ship drifted into an ammunition ship, which then blew up."

Thus began the service and subsequent adventures of the woman
we now know as Julia Child (her married name). Three-plus years
in the newly organized Office of Strategic Services (OSS) — the first
centralized U.S. spy service — would forever change the life of the
late-blooming, 31-year-old Californian.

--Marguerite Jordan, "Julia Child - Cooking Up Intrigue",
_Military Officer_ [January 2003]

-

The OSS (Office of Strategic Services} employed
4,500 women who served in every position from
code clerk to spy, and many of them joined the
CIA.

Eloise Page, who began as [William] Donovan's
secretary in the OSS and became an OSS and
CIA case officer, rose to become station chief
in Athens. It was the first time a female officer
had headed a major station. . . .

At one point, the CIA wanted Page to head a
new technology unit to be called the Scientific
Operations Branch. "I'll be damned if I'll be
the chief SOB," she said. The agency renamed
the branch for her.

--Ronald Kessler
Jounalist and author of non-fiction.
_The CIA at War_ [2003], Chapter 12




OBITUARY

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.

see "DEATH" for related links


I never killed a man, but I have read
many obituaries with a lot of pleasure.
--Clarence Darrow (1857—1938)
American lawyer.

^

The actor John Le Mesurier arranged for his own death notice
to appear in _The Times_ when appropriate. It duly appeared
on 16 November 1983, in the form: 'John Le Mesurier wishes it
to be known that he conked out on November 15th. He sadly
misses family and friends.' His last words were, 'It's all been
rather lovely.'
--_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_
Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Death"

^

Nobody has worked harder at inactivity
with such a force of character, with
such unremitting attention to detail,
with such conscientious devotion to
the task.
--Walter Lippmann (1889—1974)
American journalist.
Obituary of Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933).

I always wait for _The Times_ each morning.
I look at the obituary column, and if I'm not in
it, I go to work.
--A.E. Matthews (1869—1960)
English actor.
In Leslie Halliwell
_The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes_ [1973].

He died.
--Eugene McCarthy (1916—2005)
American politician; U.S. Senator [1959—1971].
(Response when asked by David Frost: "How would you
like the first line of your obituary to read?")
_Los Angeles Times_ [December 11, 2005],
"Eugene McCarthy; Candidacy Inspired Antiwar Movement"

Jeffrey Bernard, a famously bibulous columist for
London's Spectator, was often unable to write his
column. In its place would appear the words, "Jeffrey
Bernard is unwell." When he died in 1997 the notice
was, "Jeffrey Bernard is very unwell."
--anon.





OBJECTIVITY

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.

see: "REALISM"
see "THE MIND" for other related links


Women lack an objective point of view, and have not the inclination
or ability to weigh and dissect dispassionately. As female political
dominance has increased, our august national watchwords of life,
liberty, and property have yielded to "You're being mean to me!",
"Don't you dare touch that child!," and prissy reprimands of "incivility"
directed against anyone with a rigorous, unequivical manner of
speaking.
---Florence King (1936— )
American journalist, essayist, and novelist.

We don't see things as they are,
we see them as we are.
---Ana๏s Nin (1903—1977)
French-born American writer.

-

Whenever you tear an idea from it's context and treat it as
if it were a self-sufficient, independent item, you invalidate
the thought process involved.

A context-dropper forgets or evades any wider context. He
stares at only one element, and he thinks, "I can change just
this one point, and everything else will remain the same.

--Leonard Peikoff (1933— )
Canadian-born American philosopher.
_The Philosophy of Objectivism_

-

Context-dropping is one of the chief
psychological tools of evasion.
--Ayn Rand (1905—1982)
Russian-born American writer.
_The Virtue of Selfishness_ [1964]


TOPICAL

[W]e live in an era of non-contiguous information streams.
I believe one thing; someone else believes another — and
the bedrock assumptions are utterly contradictory. This is
what drives me nuts about discussing current events with
some people. It’s like discussing the Apollo program with
people who think it was all faked, or discussing archeology
with those who believe the world is six thousand years old.
I think the Iraq Campaign was part of a broad war against
Islamicist fascism and the states that enable it; others think
it’s all about oil and Halliburton jerking the strings of a Jeebus
puppet. No. Middle. Ground.
--James Lileks (1958— )
American journalist, columnist, and blogger.

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disinterested (adj.) [dis-'in-tre-stid or dis-'in-tr๊-stid]
Unbiased, objective, having no vested interest in;
indifferent, lacking interest in.




OBSCENITY

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.

see: "CURSING"
see: "SWEARING"
see "IMMORALITY" for other related links
see "COMMUNICATION" for other related links


He uses language that would
make your hair curl.
--W. S. Gilbert (1836—1911)
English writer of comic and satirical verse.
_Ruddigore_ [1887], Act I

Many women, particularly young women, have
claimed the right to use the most explicit sex
terms, including extremely vulgar ones, in public
as well as private. But it is men, far more than
women, who have been liberated by this change.
For now that women use these terms, men no
longer need to watch their own language in the
presence of women. But is this a gain for
women?
--Margaret Mead (1901—1978)
American anthropologist.

When seen
obscene
when heard
absurd
but done
great fun.
--John O'Mill

Shakespeare, Madam, is obscene, and thank God,
we are sufficiently advanced to have found it out!
--Frances Trollope (1780—1863)
English author [mother of Anthony Trollope.]
Quoting a remark made to her by an American in:
_Domestic Manners of the Americans_ [1832].




OBSCURITY

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.

Those who know they are profound strive for clarity.
Those who would like to seem profound strive for
obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot
see to the bottom of something it must be profound.
It is timid and dislikes going into the water.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844—1900)
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture.
_The Gay Science_ (Die fr๖hliche Wissenschaft) [1882]




OBSERVATION

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.

see: "ATTENTION (PAYING)"
see: "AWARENESS"
see "DISCOVERY" for other related links


I'm not smart. I try to observe. Millions saw the apple
fall but Newton was the one who asked why.
--Bernard Baruch (1870—1965)
American financier.
Quoted in _New York Post_ [24 June 1965].

You see but you do not observe.
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859—1930)
Scottish-born writer of detective fiction.
_Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ [1892]

See everything; overlook a great deal;
correct a little.
--Pope John XXIII (1881—1963)
261st Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

...I am a confirmed saunterer. I love to be set down haphazard among
unknown byways; to saunter with open eyes, watching the moods and
humors of men, the shapes of their dwellings, the criss-cross of their
streets. It is an implanted passion that grows keener and keener. The
everlasting lure of round-the-corner, how fascinating it is!
--Christopher Morley (1890—1957)
American journalist, novelist, and poet.
"Sauntering"

A traveller without observation is a bird without wings.
--Sa'di [Muslih-uddin] (c. 1184—1291?)
Iranian poet.
In Tryon Edwards
_A Dictionary of Thoughts__, p. 581 [1908].

The power of accurate observation is commonly
called cynicism by those who have not got it.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]




OBSESSION

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.

see "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for related links


Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or
baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to
the same species as Shakespeare it is simply
disgraceful.
--Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
English novelist (grandson of T.H. Huxley.)

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether
the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
--Carl Gustav Jung (1875—1961)
Swiss psychologist.

Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting,
but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an
empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow
misshapen.
--Peggy Noonan (1950— )
Speechwriter for U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

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monomania (noun) [mah-n๊-'mey-niy๊]
Fixation on or obsession with a single object or idea.
People with a single-minded obsession are monomaniacs
and they behave monomaniacally.




Click picture to ZOOM
OBSTACLES

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see "UNHAPPINESS" for related links


You gotta have a swine to show you where
the trufles are.
--Edward Franklin Albee III (1928— )
American dramatist and theatrical producer.
[adopted grandson of Edward Franklin Albee II]

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was
about to begin — real life. But there was always
some obstacle in the way, something to be got
through first, some unfinished business, time
still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life
would begin. At last it dawned on me that
these obstacles were my life.
--Fr. Alfred D'Souza,
_Handbook for the Soul_, edited by Benjamin Shield

It isn’t where you came from; it’s
where you’re going that counts.
--Ella Fitzgerald (1917—1996)
American jazz singer.
In Stuart Nicholson _Ella Fitzgerald_ [1994].

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields
to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does
not change his mind.
--Leonardo da Vinci (1452—1519)
Florentine painter, sculptor, musician, and scientist.


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