{"id":5315,"date":"2011-03-20T09:56:18","date_gmt":"2011-03-20T13:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/?p=5315"},"modified":"2011-03-20T14:41:51","modified_gmt":"2011-03-20T18:41:51","slug":"odyssey-dawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/2011\/03\/20\/odyssey-dawn\/","title":{"rendered":"Odyssey Dawn?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One interpretation of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defense.gov\/news\/newsarticle.aspx?id=63225\">Operation Odyssey Dawn<\/a> is a ten year struggle to get home. Instead of ten years, I think it refers to a single day.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=_f09AAAAYAAJ&amp;dq=odyssey+homer&amp;output=text&amp;source=gbs_navlinks_s\">Odyssey<\/a> is a Greek epic poem by Homer describing the ten year adventure of the craftiest Greek general attempting to return home from the Trojan War. Odysseus wandered the Adriatic Sea and Mediterranean Sea for ten years. One place he briefly stayed was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fordham.edu\/halsall\/ancient\/herod-libya1.html\">Libya<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Across the fishy deep for nine whole days,<br \/>\nOn the tenth day we reached the land where dwell<br \/>\nThe <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lotus-eaters\">Lotus-eaters<\/a>, men whose food is flowers.<br \/>\nWe landed on the mainland, and our crews<br \/>\nNear the fleet galleys took their evening meal.<br \/>\nAnd when we all had eaten and had drunk<br \/>\nI sent explorers forth &#8212; two chosen men,<br \/>\nA herald was the third &#8212; to learn what race<br \/>\nOf mortals nourished by the fruits of earth<br \/>\nPossessed the land. They went and found themselves<br \/>\nAmong the Lotus-eaters soon, who used<br \/>\nNo violence against their lives, but gave<br \/>\nInto their hands the lotus plant to taste.<br \/>\nWhoever tasted once of that sweet food<br \/>\nWished not to see his native country more,<br \/>\nNor give his friends the knowledge of his fate.<br \/>\nAnd then my messengers desired to dwell<br \/>\nAmong the Lotus-eaters, and to feed<br \/>\nUpon the lotus, never to return.<br \/>\nBy force I led them weeping to the fleet,<br \/>\nAnd bound them in the hollow ships beneath<br \/>\nThe benches. Then I ordered all the rest<br \/>\nOf my beloved comrades to embark<br \/>\nIn haste, lest, tasting of the lotus, they<br \/>\nShould think no more of home.\u00c2\u00a0All straightway went<br \/>\nOn board, and on the benches took their place,<br \/>\nAnd smote the hoary ocean with their oars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Odysseus&#8217; men consumed the lotus narcotic and would have stayed forever. Only by quickly extricating themselves before more men consumed it, aka cut their losses, could they return home. Maybe that is the intent for the operation name. Do what they need to do quickly and get out before they get mired in yet another quagmire. Of course, that was the intent of Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>As a child reading the Odyssey for the first time, I thought better to under the influence of the lotus than Circe. Dunno that is still the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One interpretation of Operation Odyssey Dawn is a ten year struggle to get home. Instead of ten years, I think it refers to a single day. The Odyssey is a Greek epic poem by Homer describing the ten year adventure of the craftiest Greek general attempting to return home from the Trojan War. Odysseus wandered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[45,148],"tags":[1960,94,1961,903,906,1959,1954,1958,1957,905,1956,1955],"class_list":["post-5315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-history","tag-adriatic-sea","tag-books","tag-fleet","tag-greek","tag-homer","tag-libya","tag-lotus-eaters","tag-mediterranean-sea","tag-odysseus","tag-odyssey","tag-quagmire","tag-trojan-war"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1rUBW-1nJ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezrasf.com\/wplog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}