[WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

Thu Oct 30 18:34:10 UTC 2003

Fred Bauder wrote:

>>>let's just get a grip and wipe the article.
>>>take the long-term view -- will anyone remember this
>>>in twenty years' time?
>>>
>>Maybe not outside of the US, but probably within it. I
>>still vividly remember when Jessica McClure ("Baby
>>Jessica") fell down that well in Texas in 1987. She
>>should have an article too.
>>
>Yes and there was another child in the 1950s, and the chicken that lived
>after his head was cut off, again from the fifties, and Bridey Murphey, etc.
>
>See:
>
>http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/story.htm
>
I certainly think that there is a place in an encyclopedia for the 
offbeat and ephemeral.  They can be a source of endless fascination to 
the reader who discovers them and proceeds to introduce them at a 
dinner-table conversation with the words "Did you know that....?" 
 Articles about Jessica McClure, Bridey Murphey and [[Mike (headless 
chicken)]]  are all perfectly appropriate.  

In science and technology there are any number of attempts that might 
have worked but were superceded by a more practical idea that 
wasdiscovered before the old plan could be put into operation.  Thus the 
Collins International Telegraph Company scheme to lay a telegraph wire 
from New York to London via Alaska and Siberia, quashed by the undersea 
cable laid by the "Great Eastern".  Also the 1920s plan to put a series 
of floating airports as refueling stops across the Atlantic, which 
quickly lost its appeal after Lindbergh's famous flight.

Ec