Starship Asterisk*

• Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
  CHAPTER VI HUMPTY DUMPTY
  Humpty Dumpty took the book and looked at it carefully. `That seems to be done right --' he began.
  
  `You're holding it upside down!' Alice interrupted.
  
  `To be sure I was!' Humpty Dumpty said gaily as she turned it round for him. `I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that seems to be done right -- though I haven't time to look it over thoroughly just now -- and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents --'
  
  `Certainly,' said Alice.
  
  `And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'
  
  `I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
  
  Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
  
  `But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
  
  `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
  
  `The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
  
  `The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=46980 wrote:

That ghostly rainbow in the middle of the photo is not a camera effect. The distant shadow of the plane is surrounded by a glory, the scattering of light by water droplets and ice crystals in the air.

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Most people think of satellites, space stations or shuttles when they think of NASA, but airplanes play a vital role. One of NASA’s workhorse planes, the DC-8, is being used this month to provide insight on the health of the ice sheets and shelves at the southern tip of the world. Scientists enjoyed this view of the Brunt Ice Shelf, south and east from the Antarctica Peninsula, on October 26, 2010, during the first flight of the Operation IceBridge fall 2010 campaign. The mission is called IceBridge because it is designed to span the gap in observations between the IceSat I mission, which recently ended, and IceSat II, slated for launch later this decade.

Several times per week, the DC-8 airborne laboratory carries researchers and instruments from Punta Arenas, Chile, to select locations over Antarctica. The payload includes: a laser altimeter to map and identify surface changes; radar instruments to see below the snow and ice; and a gravity instrument to measure the shape of seawater-filled cavities at the edge of some fast-moving glaciers. The dynamic, flowing ice of Antarctica is being closely watched for its potential impact on global sea level. The team re-visits certain features each year for the sake of monitoring changes in critical ice shelves and outlet glaciers.>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichabod wrote:

The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane

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<<Ichabod (Hebrew: אִי כָבוֹד‎ inglorious) is named by the Books of Samuel as the brother of Ahitub. Ichabod is also identified by the Books of Samuel as having been the son of Phinehas, and as having been born on the day that the Ark was taken into Philistine captivity. His mother went into labour due to the shock of hearing that her husband and father-in-law died and the Ark had been captured. The identity and name of his mother is not given, and she is said to have died shortly after having given birth to him, and having named him.

"In most ruined cities you can bury the dead, clean up the rubble, rebuild the houses and have a living city again. One feels that is not so here. Like the ancient Sodom and Gomorrah, its site has been sown with salt and ichabod is written over its gates."

-- A letter home from a US serviceman stationed in Nagasaki, on Sept. 14, 1945.

In the masoretic version of the Books of Samuel, his name is said to be a reference to the fact that the glory is departed from Israel, either in reference to the death of his father, or of Eli, or a reference to the loss of the Ark. Yairah Amit suggests that his name indicates "the fate of this newborn child who would have no parents, no grandfather and not even God, because even the glory has departed from the place."

The Septuagint, however, states that his name was a complaint: woe to the glory of Israel. The Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 refers to him as ouai barchaboth, i.e. as I Bar Chabod - I, son of Chabod or No, son of Glory. According to textual scholars, this section of the Book of Samuel, the sanctuaries source, derives from a fairly late source compared with other parts, and hence this justification of his name may simply be a folk etymology.

While Ichabod is barely mentioned in the current text of the Hebrew Bible, the fact that Ahitub is referred to as the brother of Ichabod, rather than as son of Phinehas (or of anyone else), has led textual scholars to suspect that Ichabod was once seen as a far more significant individual, although the reasons for his importance are no longer known. Some scholars have argued that Ichabod may be the historic figure underlying the biblical Jacob, having first concluded that both Jacob and Ichabod are corruptions of Jochebed/Jocabod, meaning yahweh is the [divine] glory.>>