
The Cleopatra’s Nose of 1914 - benbreen
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/scandal/cleopatras-nose-1914
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For 3'000 years, the role of women in producing armed conflict has been
measured in Helens[1]. (For instance, Silvercorp's filibuster, had it had any
involvement of someone without a Y chromosome, would have been rated at 2
milliHelens.)

More seriously, Lewis Fry Richardson argued that statistically[2] speaking,
"deadly quarrels" over the period he studied followed a Poisson distribution,
suggesting that even if we believe God doesn't play dice, a null hypothesis
might be that Ares does.

[1] "Argive Helen, lovely-haired / May I inquire discreetly / When are you
free to take some hemp with me?"

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Fry_Richardson#Mathemati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Fry_Richardson#Mathematical_analysis_of_war)

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cafard
And here I thought it was Samuel Butler who came up with the millihelen as a
measure of beauty.

And as Herodotus says, Nobody ever went to war over a kidnapped girl.

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082349872349872
I have no etymology, I'd thought the Helen was folklore, along with
furlongs/fortnight. (or, in common use, the acre-foot, an aggresively non-
cubical volume measure.)

Thanks for the Herodotus! I wonder if that was part of Plato's beef with
Homer, for taking the artistic line (as Romeo, or Shakespeare's Antony does)
of "hos before bros" when everyone knows the conservative ideal is the
opposite?

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cafard
Homer a) does not hide the bitterness and brutality of life and death, b)
takes a very earthy view of the gods, and this is what Plato/Socrates chiefly
complains of in The Republic. If Achilles's shade tells Odysseus that he'd
rather be alive as a hired hand that dead as a star among the shades, it does
not contribute to troop morale. If Zeus and Hera are stepping out for a
quickie, that just isn't dignified.

I think Butler invented the "milliherm" for male appearance.

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082349872349872
The milliherm, evoking the mutilation of the herms? Would a millicybele then
be the measure of trans pulchritude?

Zeus and Hera stepping out _together_ for a quickie at least sounds more
dignified than Zeus' usual attempts to pull. Having been a god before the
pill, no wonder they call him the "sky father."

κανόνας ΛʹΔʹ: if it exists, Zeus has used it as a disguise to smash mortals.

"Holding the line" has (outside of protest contexts?) become far less
important since the invention of rifling. We have a national hero, Winkelried,
who famously sacrificed himself to open a hole in the opposing polearm line.
This leads to the schooltime question: "What were Winkelried's last words?"

The answer the teacher is looking for is "take care of my wife and children."
Among students, the answer is "Melonfarmer! Who the flip pushed m--
aaaarrrrrggghhhh--"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_von_Winkelried#/media/F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_von_Winkelried#/media/File:Winkelried_at_Sempach.jpg)

