Captain Ernie Blanchard left for work January 10, 1995, a successful officer. Respected by superiors and subordinates, his personal and professional values seemed perfectly aligned with the institution he served, the United States Coast Guard. By day's end his career was finished. At a speaking engagement at the Coast Guard Academy, Blanchard's icebreaker--a series of time-tested corny jokes--was met with silence. Within hours, an investigation was underway into whether his remarks constituted sexual harassment. Several weeks later, threatened with a court-martial, he shot himself. The author investigates Blanchard's "death by political correctness" in the context of the turmoil surrounding the U.S. Armed Forces' gender inclusion struggles from the 1980s to the present.

In the final decade of the 17th century in England, the Dutch trade wars are coming to a close, and the struggles with the French for naval supremacy are just starting. Meanwhile, young Matthew Loftus has no intention of spending his life underground in the coal mines of Whitby. Living in a seaside town, he studies navigation and yearns to go to sea, following in his late father's footsteps. He eventually leaves the port of Whitby for what he expects will be a short voyage, but after he risks his life to save a man who fell overboard, Loftus is himself rescued by a passing Dutch trader—that turns out to be a pirate ship. The Dutch vessel sweeps Matthew to the Spanish Main where he, surprisingly readily, plunges into a bloody life of pillage and prize money. Struggling to adhere to his code of honor yet seduced by life at sea, Matthew carries in his heart the hope of reclaiming his rightful legacy. Furthermore, he longs to be worthy of the woman he loves—the woman he left behind in Whitby—who was on the brink of marriage to another man. Fierce sea battles, lawless privateers, naval skirmishes, and ruthless slave traders combine in this story of adventure and high drama.

The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays unfolds as a series of questions, commentaries, and criticisms of the analysis, interpretation, and explanation of folklore. Can we confidently regard jokes as the catharsis of sexual and aggressive impulses? What is the basis for characterizing a joke as Jewish or Scottish or Japanese? What do we really know about “dirty jokes”? How is a text or behavior constructed so that it is perceived as humorous? Can we get a computer to reliably recognize jokes? What is the relevance of memetics and a Darwinian paradigm to understanding folklore change over time? Can we identify laws operating in the realm of folklore? How can the marginalization, extinction, or continuity of traditions be explained? In the course of addressing these questions, Elliott Oring identifies some fundamental problems, brings new evidence and observations to the discussion, and proffers some original and startling insights. While recognizing the study of jokes and other forms of folklore as a humanistic endeavor, Oring believes in the relevance of a scientific perspective to the enterprise. He values clear definitions, tests of hypotheses and theories, empirical evidence, experiment, and the search for laws. Written in a sophisticated yet accessible style, The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays stimulates both scholars and students alike and contributes to the creation of a more robust folkloristics in the twenty-first century.

Reproduction of the original.

A fascinating account of varied careers, providing a rich snapshot of the later eighteenth-century sailing navy in microcosm. This book sets out the lives of seventeen 'young gentlemen' who were midshipmen under the famous Captain Sir Edward Pellew. Together, aboard the frigate HMS Indefatigable, they fought a celebrated action in 1797 against theFrench ship of the line Les Droits de l'Homme. C. S. Forester, the historical novelist, placed his famous hero, Horatio Hornblower, aboard Pellew's ship as a midshipman, so this book tells, as it were, the actual stories of Hornblower's real-life shipmates. And what stories they were! From diverse backgrounds, aristocratic and humble, they bonded closely with Pellew, learned their naval leadership skills from him, and benefited from his patronage and his friendship in their subsequent, very varied careers. The group provides a fascinating snapshot of the later eighteenth-century sailing navy in microcosm. Besides tracing the men's naval lives, the book shows how they adapted to peace after 1815, presenting details of their civilian careers. The colourful lives recounted include those of the Honourable George Cadogan, son of an earl, who survived three courts martial and a duel to retire with honouras an admiral in 1813; Thomas Groube, of a Falmouth merchant family, who commanded a fleet of boats which destroyed the Dutch shipping at Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies, in 1806; and James Bray, of Irish Catholic descent, who was killed commanding a sloop during the American war of 1812. Heather Noel-Smith is a genealogist and a retired Methodist minister. Lorna Campbell is a digital education manager at the University of Edinburgh and an education technology consultant. They are both independent researchers.