Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 12:30:42 -0400
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Where Was This When Bucky Needed It?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Strong, Lee wrote:
> 	Piracy as a way of life is distinctly overrated by those with
> selective memories.  Real pirates had all the disadvantages of sailors in
> the Royal Navy with few of the compensating protections.  Pirates worked
> hard, ate poorly, got "paid" at the point of a gun, and could expect to be
> hung by the neck until dead if they didn't die in battle with professionals
> or more "imaginatively" at the hands of a "creative" court.  Their peers,
> the merchant and military sailors, worked hard, but got regular food, drink,
> clothing and pay, and could expect to die in bed.

"The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it
isn't here." --Finley Peter Dunne

Piracy and pirates (especially the Caribbean variety) have been wildly
romanticized  (see, for example, Bucky).  In reality, they were some of
the nastiest characters in history.  Seamen and passengers on any
merchant ship they encountered could expect an unpleasant death.

Time blunts the edges.  Already, there's the "Stalin World" amusement park:
<http://www.balticsww.com/stalin_world.htmgt;

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."