[Genuine Realist]

Boy, that's harder than it seems. We have never had this need before. We might never have it again for a few centuries.



There's a famous story abut a guard posted by a small flower bed in one of the Czar's palaces in St. Petersburg. Every day the guard would change, 24 hours, different watches, the works. But no one knew why, what was so important with this flowerbed that it was watched so intensely. This went on through most of the 19th Century. Finally, someone took the time to find out WHY the flowerbed was being guarded. It took research into a hundred years of palace orders, to find out that Catherine the Great had placed the guard there when there were some new and rare geraniums she wanted protected. The geraniums were long gone, as was Catherine, but the order had never been rescinded. And so a totally useless guard was kept for over a century.



Maybe you could include it in National Guard protocols, or police affiliates, or some such, so you have a useful cadre of volunteers at the ready. It  would also fit neatly into the rubric of national service, in which I believe. But a dedicated unit? Might turn into another flower guard thing.

Hmm, I looked around, but it appears that this story is not based in fact - it's more probably a fictional urban legend that is common in Christian sermons:

It's a good story, but is it true?  I can't find it in any of my Brunvand

books, which doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Any suggestions on where

to start looking in a library?  Even better (I can hope), does anyone

here know of a cite for it?

Searching on flower sentry czar

Versions to be found here:

http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/a-z/t/tradition.htm

http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/mt05v21.html [far down]

http://life.1stbaptist.org/SERa121000.htm

http://www.daft.com/~rab/liberty/Miscellaneous/Customs

http://www.escape.ca/~fpc/sermonjan62002.htm

http://www.leadershipdynamics.org/2000/12-11-00.htm

http://www.archimedesfoundation.org/quotes.html [also far down]

and on and on. It seems to happen either in 1860 or 1903 in all the
versions. Interesting that it appears in so many Christian sermons in my
search.

Apparently versions of this story appear in Babylon V and also peg it to the White Cliffs of Dover:

In the best science fiction TV series ever, Babylon V, Ambassador Londo
Mollari told exactly the same story about a spot being guarded in the
palace grounds on Centari Prime for hundreds of years.

Fair-use quotation from:
http://hootenanny.org/disney_rant/FMPro5.html (and, close to verbatim,
many other sites - did this appear in a "how to write speeches"
cluebook?)
"In 1803, the British positioned a watchman with a spyglass on the
Cliffs of Dover, looking over the Channel toward France. His mission was
clear: If he saw Napoleon's ships invading England, he was to ring the
warning bell he had been provided.
Napoleon never came, the bell never rang, but the watchman's position
was not abolished until 1945."
Oddly, I couldn't find this on urbanlegends.com or at snopes.com. On the
web, it is much vectored by anti-bureaucratic bloviators. I found
nothing resembling either debunkage or vorification.

No one seems to have a reputable source for this story, however, so it's probable that it isn't true, even though it makes an elegant point for "anti-bureaucratic bloviators." Given how many urban legends Catherine the Great has inspired, including, most famously, that of the Potemkin Village, which most scholars think was what we now call "fake news" spread by her political rivals, perhaps this is not a surprise.

I picked it up from a very knowledgable tour guide in St. Petersburg, while going by THE (so she said) flowerbed.

In any case, the moral stands. After a brief ventilator shortage scare in early March, we probably have enough for the next several centuries, or so I am told.

You want to plan with flexibility for worst case, but not necessarily staff and budget. The present situation is unique in the experience of the modern world. Who knows when or if it will ever recur again.

---

Boy, that's harder than it seems. We have never had this need before. We might never have it again for a few centuries.



There's a famous story abut a guard posted by a small flower bed in one of the Czar's palaces in St. Petersburg. Every day the guard would change, 24 hours, different watches, the works. But no one knew why, what was so important with this flowerbed that it was watched so intensely. This went on through most of the 19th Century. Finally, someone took the time to find out WHY the flowerbed was being guarded. It took research into a hundred years of palace orders, to find out that Catherine the Great had placed the guard there when there were some new and rare geraniums she wanted protected. The geraniums were long gone, as was Catherine, but the order had never been rescinded. And so a totally useless guard was kept for over a century.



Maybe you could include it in National Guard protocols, or police affiliates, or some such, so you have a useful cadre of volunteers at the ready. It  would also fit neatly into the rubric of national service, in which I believe. But a dedicated unit? Might turn into another flower guard thing.

Hmm, I looked around, but it appears that this story is not based in fact - it's more probably a fictional urban legend that is common in Christian sermons:

It's a good story, but is it true?  I can't find it in any of my Brunvand

books, which doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Any suggestions on where

to start looking in a library?  Even better (I can hope), does anyone

here know of a cite for it?

Searching on flower sentry czar

Versions to be found here:

http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/a-z/t/tradition.htm

http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/mt05v21.html [far down]

http://life.1stbaptist.org/SERa121000.htm

http://www.daft.com/~rab/liberty/Miscellaneous/Customs

http://www.escape.ca/~fpc/sermonjan62002.htm

http://www.leadershipdynamics.org/2000/12-11-00.htm

http://www.archimedesfoundation.org/quotes.html [also far down]

and on and on. It seems to happen either in 1860 or 1903 in all the
versions. Interesting that it appears in so many Christian sermons in my
search.

Apparently versions of this story appear in Babylon V and also peg it to the White Cliffs of Dover:

In the best science fiction TV series ever, Babylon V, Ambassador Londo
Mollari told exactly the same story about a spot being guarded in the
palace grounds on Centari Prime for hundreds of years.

Fair-use quotation from:
http://hootenanny.org/disney_rant/FMPro5.html (and, close to verbatim,
many other sites - did this appear in a "how to write speeches"
cluebook?)
"In 1803, the British positioned a watchman with a spyglass on the
Cliffs of Dover, looking over the Channel toward France. His mission was
clear: If he saw Napoleon's ships invading England, he was to ring the
warning bell he had been provided.
Napoleon never came, the bell never rang, but the watchman's position
was not abolished until 1945."
Oddly, I couldn't find this on urbanlegends.com or at snopes.com. On the
web, it is much vectored by anti-bureaucratic bloviators. I found
nothing resembling either debunkage or vorification.

No one seems to have a reputable source for this story, however, so it's probable that it isn't true, even though it makes an elegant point for "anti-bureaucratic bloviators." Given how many urban legends Catherine the Great has inspired, including, most famously, that of the Potemkin Village, which most scholars think was what we now call "fake news" spread by her political rivals, perhaps this is not a surprise.

I picked it up from a very knowledgable tour guide in St. Petersburg, while going by THE (so she said) flowerbed.

In any case, the moral stands. After a brief ventilator shortage scare in early March, we probably have enough for the next several centuries, or so I am told.

You want to plan with flexibility for worst case, but not necessarily staff and budget. The present situation is unique in the experience of the modern world. Who knows when or if it will ever recur again.

---

Boy, that's harder than it seems. We have never had this need before. We might never have it again for a few centuries.



There's a famous story abut a guard posted by a small flower bed in one of the Czar's palaces in St. Petersburg. Every day the guard would change, 24 hours, different watches, the works. But no one knew why, what was so important with this flowerbed that it was watched so intensely. This went on through most of the 19th Century. Finally, someone took the time to find out WHY the flowerbed was being guarded. It took research into a hundred years of palace orders, to find out that Catherine the Great had placed the guard there when there were some new and rare geraniums she wanted protected. The geraniums were long gone, as was Catherine, but the order had never been rescinded. And so a totally useless guard was kept for over a century.



Maybe you could include it in National Guard protocols, or police affiliates, or some such, so you have a useful cadre of volunteers at the ready. It  would also fit neatly into the rubric of national service, in which I believe. But a dedicated unit? Might turn into another flower guard thing.

Hmm, I looked around, but it appears that this story is not based in fact - it's more probably a fictional urban legend that is common in Christian sermons:

It's a good story, but is it true?  I can't find it in any of my Brunvand

books, which doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Any suggestions on where

to start looking in a library?  Even better (I can hope), does anyone

here know of a cite for it?

Searching on flower sentry czar

Versions to be found here:

http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/a-z/t/tradition.htm

http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/mt05v21.html [far down]

http://life.1stbaptist.org/SERa121000.htm

http://www.daft.com/~rab/liberty/Miscellaneous/Customs

http://www.escape.ca/~fpc/sermonjan62002.htm

http://www.leadershipdynamics.org/2000/12-11-00.htm

http://www.archimedesfoundation.org/quotes.html [also far down]

and on and on. It seems to happen either in 1860 or 1903 in all the
versions. Interesting that it appears in so many Christian sermons in my
search.

Apparently versions of this story appear in Babylon V and also peg it to the White Cliffs of Dover:

In the best science fiction TV series ever, Babylon V, Ambassador Londo
Mollari told exactly the same story about a spot being guarded in the
palace grounds on Centari Prime for hundreds of years.

Fair-use quotation from:
http://hootenanny.org/disney_rant/FMPro5.html (and, close to verbatim,
many other sites - did this appear in a "how to write speeches"
cluebook?)
"In 1803, the British positioned a watchman with a spyglass on the
Cliffs of Dover, looking over the Channel toward France. His mission was
clear: If he saw Napoleon's ships invading England, he was to ring the
warning bell he had been provided.
Napoleon never came, the bell never rang, but the watchman's position
was not abolished until 1945."
Oddly, I couldn't find this on urbanlegends.com or at snopes.com. On the
web, it is much vectored by anti-bureaucratic bloviators. I found
nothing resembling either debunkage or vorification.

No one seems to have a reputable source for this story, however, so it's probable that it isn't true, even though it makes an elegant point for "anti-bureaucratic bloviators." Given how many urban legends Catherine the Great has inspired, including, most famously, that of the Potemkin Village, which most scholars think was what we now call "fake news" spread by her political rivals, perhaps this is not a surprise.

I picked it up from a very knowledgable tour guide in St. Petersburg, while going by THE (so she said) flowerbed.

In any case, the moral stands. After a brief ventilator shortage scare in early March, we probably have enough for the next several centuries, or so I am told.

You want to plan with flexibility for worst case, but not necessarily staff and budget. The present situation is unique in the experience of the modern world. Who knows when or if it will ever recur again.

[Genuine Realist]

Boy, that's harder than it seems. We have never had this need before. We might never have it again for a few centuries.



There's a famous story abut a guard posted by a small flower bed in one of the Czar's palaces in St. Petersburg. Every day the guard would change, 24 hours, different watches, the works. But no one knew why, what was so important with this flowerbed that it was watched so intensely. This went on through most of the 19th Century. Finally, someone took the time to find out WHY the flowerbed was being guarded. It took research into a hundred years of palace orders, to find out that Catherine the Great had placed the guard there when there were some new and rare geraniums she wanted protected. The geraniums were long gone, as was Catherine, but the order had never been rescinded. And so a totally useless guard was kept for over a century.



Maybe you could include it in National Guard protocols, or police affiliates, or some such, so you have a useful cadre of volunteers at the ready. It  would also fit neatly into the rubric of national service, in which I believe. But a dedicated unit? Might turn into another flower guard thing.

Hmm, I looked around, but it appears that this story is not based in fact - it's more probably a fictional urban legend that is common in Christian sermons:

It's a good story, but is it true?  I can't find it in any of my Brunvand

books, which doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Any suggestions on where

to start looking in a library?  Even better (I can hope), does anyone

here know of a cite for it?

Searching on flower sentry czar

Versions to be found here:

http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/a-z/t/tradition.htm

http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/mt05v21.html [far down]

http://life.1stbaptist.org/SERa121000.htm

http://www.daft.com/~rab/liberty/Miscellaneous/Customs

http://www.escape.ca/~fpc/sermonjan62002.htm

http://www.leadershipdynamics.org/2000/12-11-00.htm

http://www.archimedesfoundation.org/quotes.html [also far down]

and on and on. It seems to happen either in 1860 or 1903 in all the
versions. Interesting that it appears in so many Christian sermons in my
search.

Apparently versions of this story appear in Babylon V and also peg it to the White Cliffs of Dover:

In the best science fiction TV series ever, Babylon V, Ambassador Londo
Mollari told exactly the same story about a spot being guarded in the
palace grounds on Centari Prime for hundreds of years.

Fair-use quotation from:
http://hootenanny.org/disney_rant/FMPro5.html (and, close to verbatim,
many other sites - did this appear in a "how to write speeches"
cluebook?)
"In 1803, the British positioned a watchman with a spyglass on the
Cliffs of Dover, looking over the Channel toward France. His mission was
clear: If he saw Napoleon's ships invading England, he was to ring the
warning bell he had been provided.
Napoleon never came, the bell never rang, but the watchman's position
was not abolished until 1945."
Oddly, I couldn't find this on urbanlegends.com or at snopes.com. On the
web, it is much vectored by anti-bureaucratic bloviators. I found
nothing resembling either debunkage or vorification.

No one seems to have a reputable source for this story, however, so it's probable that it isn't true, even though it makes an elegant point for "anti-bureaucratic bloviators." Given how many urban legends Catherine the Great has inspired, including, most famously, that of the Potemkin Village, which most scholars think was what we now call "fake news" spread by her political rivals, perhaps this is not a surprise.

I picked it up from a very knowledgable tour guide in St. Petersburg, while going by THE (so she said) flowerbed.

In any case, the moral stands. After a brief ventilator shortage scare in early March, we probably have enough for the next several centuries, or so I am told.

You want to plan with flexibility for worst case, but not necessarily staff and budget. The present situation is unique in the experience of the modern world. Who knows when or if it will ever recur again.

---

Boy, that's harder than it seems. We have never had this need before. We might never have it again for a few centuries.



There's a famous story abut a guard posted by a small flower bed in one of the Czar's palaces in St. Petersburg. Every day the guard would change, 24 hours, different watches, the works. But no one knew why, what was so important with this flowerbed that it was watched so intensely. This went on through most of the 19th Century. Finally, someone took the time to find out WHY the flowerbed was being guarded. It took research into a hundred years of palace orders, to find out that Catherine the Great had placed the guard there when there were some new and rare geraniums she wanted protected. The geraniums were long gone, as was Catherine, but the order had never been rescinded. And so a totally useless guard was kept for over a century.



Maybe you could include it in National Guard protocols, or police affiliates, or some such, so you have a useful cadre of volunteers at the ready. It  would also fit neatly into the rubric of national service, in which I believe. But a dedicated unit? Might turn into another flower guard thing.

Hmm, I looked around, but it appears that this story is not based in fact - it's more probably a fictional urban legend that is common in Christian sermons:

It's a good story, but is it true?  I can't find it in any of my Brunvand

books, which doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Any suggestions on where

to start looking in a library?  Even better (I can hope), does anyone

here know of a cite for it?

Searching on flower sentry czar

Versions to be found here:

http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/a-z/t/tradition.htm

http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/mt05v21.html [far down]

http://life.1stbaptist.org/SERa121000.htm

http://www.daft.com/~rab/liberty/Miscellaneous/Customs

http://www.escape.ca/~fpc/sermonjan62002.htm

http://www.leadershipdynamics.org/2000/12-11-00.htm

http://www.archimedesfoundation.org/quotes.html [also far down]

and on and on. It seems to happen either in 1860 or 1903 in all the
versions. Interesting that it appears in so many Christian sermons in my
search.

Apparently versions of this story appear in Babylon V and also peg it to the White Cliffs of Dover:

In the best science fiction TV series ever, Babylon V, Ambassador Londo
Mollari told exactly the same story about a spot being guarded in the
palace grounds on Centari Prime for hundreds of years.

Fair-use quotation from:
http://hootenanny.org/disney_rant/FMPro5.html (and, close to verbatim,
many other sites - did this appear in a "how to write speeches"
cluebook?)
"In 1803, the British positioned a watchman with a spyglass on the
Cliffs of Dover, looking over the Channel toward France. His mission was
clear: If he saw Napoleon's ships invading England, he was to ring the
warning bell he had been provided.
Napoleon never came, the bell never rang, but the watchman's position
was not abolished until 1945."
Oddly, I couldn't find this on urbanlegends.com or at snopes.com. On the
web, it is much vectored by anti-bureaucratic bloviators. I found
nothing resembling either debunkage or vorification.

No one seems to have a reputable source for this story, however, so it's probable that it isn't true, even though it makes an elegant point for "anti-bureaucratic bloviators." Given how many urban legends Catherine the Great has inspired, including, most famously, that of the Potemkin Village, which most scholars think was what we now call "fake news" spread by her political rivals, perhaps this is not a surprise.

I picked it up from a very knowledgable tour guide in St. Petersburg, while going by THE (so she said) flowerbed.

In any case, the moral stands. After a brief ventilator shortage scare in early March, we probably have enough for the next several centuries, or so I am told.

You want to plan with flexibility for worst case, but not necessarily staff and budget. The present situation is unique in the experience of the modern world. Who knows when or if it will ever recur again.

---

Boy, that's harder than it seems. We have never had this need before. We might never have it again for a few centuries.



There's a famous story abut a guard posted by a small flower bed in one of the Czar's palaces in St. Petersburg. Every day the guard would change, 24 hours, different watches, the works. But no one knew why, what was so important with this flowerbed that it was watched so intensely. This went on through most of the 19th Century. Finally, someone took the time to find out WHY the flowerbed was being guarded. It took research into a hundred years of palace orders, to find out that Catherine the Great had placed the guard there when there were some new and rare geraniums she wanted protected. The geraniums were long gone, as was Catherine, but the order had never been rescinded. And so a totally useless guard was kept for over a century.



Maybe you could include it in National Guard protocols, or police affiliates, or some such, so you have a useful cadre of volunteers at the ready. It  would also fit neatly into the rubric of national service, in which I believe. But a dedicated unit? Might turn into another flower guard thing.

Hmm, I looked around, but it appears that this story is not based in fact - it's more probably a fictional urban legend that is common in Christian sermons:

It's a good story, but is it true?  I can't find it in any of my Brunvand

books, which doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Any suggestions on where

to start looking in a library?  Even better (I can hope), does anyone

here know of a cite for it?

Searching on flower sentry czar

Versions to be found here:

http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/a-z/t/tradition.htm

http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/mt05v21.html [far down]

http://life.1stbaptist.org/SERa121000.htm

http://www.daft.com/~rab/liberty/Miscellaneous/Customs

http://www.escape.ca/~fpc/sermonjan62002.htm

http://www.leadershipdynamics.org/2000/12-11-00.htm

http://www.archimedesfoundation.org/quotes.html [also far down]

and on and on. It seems to happen either in 1860 or 1903 in all the
versions. Interesting that it appears in so many Christian sermons in my
search.

Apparently versions of this story appear in Babylon V and also peg it to the White Cliffs of Dover:

In the best science fiction TV series ever, Babylon V, Ambassador Londo
Mollari told exactly the same story about a spot being guarded in the
palace grounds on Centari Prime for hundreds of years.

Fair-use quotation from:
http://hootenanny.org/disney_rant/FMPro5.html (and, close to verbatim,
many other sites - did this appear in a "how to write speeches"
cluebook?)
"In 1803, the British positioned a watchman with a spyglass on the
Cliffs of Dover, looking over the Channel toward France. His mission was
clear: If he saw Napoleon's ships invading England, he was to ring the
warning bell he had been provided.
Napoleon never came, the bell never rang, but the watchman's position
was not abolished until 1945."
Oddly, I couldn't find this on urbanlegends.com or at snopes.com. On the
web, it is much vectored by anti-bureaucratic bloviators. I found
nothing resembling either debunkage or vorification.

No one seems to have a reputable source for this story, however, so it's probable that it isn't true, even though it makes an elegant point for "anti-bureaucratic bloviators." Given how many urban legends Catherine the Great has inspired, including, most famously, that of the Potemkin Village, which most scholars think was what we now call "fake news" spread by her political rivals, perhaps this is not a surprise.

I picked it up from a very knowledgable tour guide in St. Petersburg, while going by THE (so she said) flowerbed.

In any case, the moral stands. After a brief ventilator shortage scare in early March, we probably have enough for the next several centuries, or so I am told.

You want to plan with flexibility for worst case, but not necessarily staff and budget. The present situation is unique in the experience of the modern world. Who knows when or if it will ever recur again.