So, online auctions.

The first rule of online auctions is “Caveat Emptor”, right? Buyer beware. Everyone knows that, I think. Well, I hope.

But what’s the second rule? Or the third? The fourth?

Personally, I like to say they are, in no particular order, “don’t buy something if the seller doesn’t know what it is, because it’s probably fake, or broken, or both”; “don’t buy anything if the seller is less-literate than a fourth-grader, you’ll just encourage them”; and “don’t buy something if you don’t know what it is, either”.

Sometimes, I’m not afraid to admit, I break those rules myself.

Case in point…
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When reading old books, a certain type of person likes to laugh or snicker when they come across some quaint old bit of vocabulary that happens to have changed slightly in meaning in the intervening decades.

You know the things I’m talking about. Describing someone who is merely strange as queer, or someone happy as gay. Mentioning throwing another faggot on the fire, perhaps.

Language changes. We all know this, and most of these instances really aren’t that noteworthy, let alone funny.

Sometimes, though…
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In the summer of 2008, I – and others, it appears – made a FOIA request to the Department of State for a couple of pages from “Diplopedia”, the department’s internal wiki.

At the same time, I made a request for pages on the same handful of topics to the ODNI, regarding the better-known “Intellipedia” system of wikis.

The plan was to do a compare-and-contrast thing, see what the DOS wiki had to say on certain subjects compared to the wikis of the intelligence community – and Wikipedia.

Fast forward two requests, several phone calls, one administrative appeal, and more than four years, and…
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It’s kind of sad, if you stop and think about it, how much history is getting destroyed these days. I’m not talking about the fad of “upcycling”, wherein all too often perfectly serviceable antiques, or at least things that are old, get – if we’re honest – ruined and turned into… uninspired objets d’art, and then listed for sale on Etsy in the hopes that there really is a sucker born every minute. (I kid. But only slightly.)

No, what really depresses me is how much history is being destroyed, these days, because of inflated precious-metal prices. Grandma’s gold wedding ring? Melt it down! Uncle Bobby’s Air Force wings, in sterling silver? Melt ‘em down! Those old salt cellars sitting in the cabinet? Melt ‘em down!

Artistic value? Historical value? Sentimental value? All subservient to the intrinsic value. Nobody cares about anything except the weight, anymore. Which is a bad thing, because as precious-metal prices have increased several-fold in the last decade or so, the market value of most old jewelry, silverware, and so on has not increased accordingly, so that a really huge number of artifacts from the last two-hundred years are worth, in many instances, the same or even less to collectors than to precious-metal refiners, which is not a terribly enviable situation, if you care about history.
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Macaroni and Cheese. The name, in much of the world, conjures up a familiar image of elbow macaroni in a yellow, cheddar-y sauce. According to Wikipedia, the English-speaking world’s love of the gooey stuff owes much to President Jefferson, who encountered the dish in France in the late 1700s, and became enamored of it.

The Wikipedia article points out a recipe for macaroni and cheese in an influential 1824 cookbook, and it’s quite a simple one, at that: Macaroni, cheese, and butter.

Guess what? That’s not the original recipe for mac and cheese, as we know it. It’s almost certainly not the recipe that Jefferson enjoyed at the White House.
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