HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: RE: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 11:33:49 GMT
Organization: The Inner Clique:
Followup-To: rec.arts.books


Heather (hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu) writes to Michael Wise:

> you can ram your inconsequential remarks up your ass.

I fully support Heather's campaign to make r.a.b a friendlier place
where one can post varied views without fear of reprisal.

Where do we start?

Mark
From: jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk (Jeremy Henderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Mangled song lyrics (was: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age)
Date: 31 Dec 92 13:36:45 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University


"Every time you go away
 You take a piece of meat with you"

                     Paul Young ??





-- 
===Jeremy Henderson===jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk=          

This message cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
Bloody good value if you ask me.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<1992Dec24.181422.19391@netcom.com> <1992Dec24.194250.11322@eff.org>
Date: 24 Dec 92 16:34:36

In article <1992Dec24.194250.11322@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:

   In article <1992Dec24.181422.19391@netcom.com> dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:

   >You shouldn't offend people unintentionally.

   I think that offending people unintentionally is part of the human
   condition.

   >It suggests an incomplete
   >mastery of the medium.

   If this is true, then I have yet to encounter anyone with a *complete*
   mastery.


   --Mike

Maybe one should take offense only when offense was intended.

Conversely, to fail to take offense when offense was intended is indeed
offensive.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: What Santa brought -
Date: 1 Jan 93 07:23:36 GMT
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <29860@castle.ed.ac.uk> 
jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk (Jeremy Henderson) writes:

>A pre-publication copy of Elisabeth George's new book "Missing Joseph" -
>jolly good, despite the virtual absence of Havers.
>
>Intro to Percolation Theory - the revised expanded second edition, if you
>care.
>
>A pretty picture book of Paris, to whet my appetite for moving there next
>month.

I recommend the XVIIIth.  Check out "Le Sancerre" on Rue des Abbesses.

>"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."
>
>This isn't in my "Dictionnaire des citations francaises", for some reason.
>Where is it from?

Maupassant, who ought to have known about both.

>-- 
>===Jeremy Henderson===jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk=          
>
>This message cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
>Bloody good value if you ask me.

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 16:31:16 GMT
Organization: The Inner Clique


wwhitman@nevada.edu (MICHAEL WISE) writes:


> I am not above trading insults with Heather; I just don't think it will 
> go anywhere. She has been villified, and accordingly she has become a
> martyr, a martyr for a cause that Mark (if he were not so sadly embroiled
> in and so tired of it) would have written a finer parody of than the MERRY 
> SPINSTERS OF R.A.B could ever hope to be. 

I could not write a parody unless I thought those involved could laugh
at themselves.  Heather has shown that she cannot.

> I did not intend to offend her with my reply to her post on Gertrude
> Stein's AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

After watching Heather for a while, I've come to the conclusion that she
is not really offended by what she claims to be offensive.  Think about
it.  She complains that Barbara Hlavin dismisses Paglia with an opinion,
and without giving her reasons.  Yet, a week later she does the same thing
to Norman Mailer.  She complains that others are snotty, yet out-snots them.
She complains that Tom told her to fuck off and die when she offends him,
yet tells Michael Wise to shove it up his ass when he offends her.  And 
finally, she is offended when Stein is called a fat, lazy lesbian, but
thinks it perfectly acceptable to call Norman Mailer a dick-waving fathead.

But she is offended by something -- by what?  Only Heather can really tell us.
It appears that she is offended when people disagree with her.  

Michael says that I am embroiled in this.  At this point, I have two feelings.
There is amusement by the massive set of contradictions in the way that
Heather presents herself.  But there is also concern for Heather, because
she appears to exhibit a lot of misplaced anger. 


Mark
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Non-rabelaisian farts
Date: 27 Dec 1992 21:59:30 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Mike Godwin writes:

	Francis Muir writes:

		Yes indeed. No less than your humble scribe. However, 
		MG disallowed it as being non-non-Rabelaisian, and I 
		think we are still scratching our heads -- woops! 
		sorry!! our balls, trying to work out just what Mike 
		meant.

	Sorry, but I thought it had already been clarified. Since it 
	hasn't, let me spare your balls further abrasion by explaining 
	that I used "Rabelaisian" in the sense of "like Rabelais"--not 
	in the sense of "written by Rabelais."

How on earth is Chaucer "like Rabelais"? And that is pretty much my point.
Gargantua & Pantagruel are not on our earth. They are giant, grotesque
denizens of terra incognita. Contrariwise, Chaucer's Pilgrims have their 
feet solidly planted on terra firma. Chaucer's language is the everyday 
language of the folk he knew. Rabelais' language is outlandish. In any
case, with Chaucer living some one and a half centuries before Rabelais,
the notion of refering to Geoffrey Chaucer as "Rabelaisian" approaches
a gaffe of formidable proportions.

							RABworm
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23555 alt.culture.ny-upstate:229
From: bownes@crd.ge.com (Keptin Komrade Dr. Bobwrench III)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.culture.ny-upstate
Subject: Re: Down From Troy
Date: 31 Dec 92 15:20:38 GMT
Reply-To: bownes@crd.ge.com
Organization: School of Corrective Phrenology

From article <sz12vw+@rpi.edu>, by kasprj@jec310.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak):
> 
>  Dr. Selzer's book, subtitled "A Doctor Comes of Age", mainly deals with
> the experiences that shaped his life while growing up - what led him to
> become a doctor, and later, an author. But in such a process, Troy is 
> revealed as a character second in importance only to Dr. Selzer himself.
> Selzer's Troy was a primarily Irish-Catholic industrial city, a railroad
> junction and important stop on the route from Montreal to New York. My
> Troy is a college town which tries to pretend it isn't one, inhabited 
> by Euromix and African-Americans, no longer a very important stop on the
> route to anywhere. Most of the churches and the factories are still there,
> but neither gets much use any more. Still, Selzer saw the richness in his
> Troy just as I do in mine. (He speaks of it more eloquently, though.)
>  

But Troy clings heartily to its Irish/Italian Catholic beginnings and
you need not look very far to find them. True, the economicly less
advantaged are more african-american than catholic, but the good old
Irish catholics have not gone far up the economic ladder, occupying the
boundry layers of the lower middle class and poorer blue collar working
class. They have move on from being clothing mill workers to being the
staple of what is left of the blue collar workforce of the capital
district. The attitudes of the city are still dominated by this
ultra-conservative democratic group. The catholic church is still a
strong and powerful force in this city, effecting the way everyone who
lives here lives their lives by manipulating everything, politics and
politicians, landlords and hospitals.

Troy has, however, changed somewhat as a manufacturing center and trade
stop, primarily due to its status as a college town. More and more RPI
and Sage students are staying here, often despite crippling economic
conditions because they like it here or do in fact find jobs in local
business that is attributable to the universities.

But the manufacturing operations spun off by these startups and
spin-offs frequently fail or relocate out of state due to statewide
issues of taxes and zoning.

Another thing that has always bothered me about Troy is the Us vs. Them
mentality of the natives and the students or those that are perceived
as being students. If I could count the times I've been called a
GodD___ed RPI student, I'd be impressed. Not that I've actually BEEN a
student @ RPI in over 10 years, mind you....

---
Bob Bownes, aka iii "The only way I know where the train will go is when I'm 
sleeping on the tracks" -M. Etheridge
Warning: This may contain opinions. They belong to me, not to Aule-Tek, 
Sun Microsystems, General Electric or anyone else. But you can rent them. 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Too generic?
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 23:39:11 GMT

In article <1hg2d2INNj3o@morrow.stanford.edu> BL.JYC@forsythe.stanford.edu (Jon Corelis) writes:
>
>   How about creating a newsgroup for the discussion of books
>and literature?  We could call it rec.arts.books.

	Naa, there's no way anyone would be interested in discussing
*books*. 

Keith

--

Keith Morgan kamorgan@athena.mit.edu
In the end nothing could be said of his work except that it was
preposterous and true and totally unacceptable. Edward Whittemore
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Morally good hypertext
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<BzoFKz.B26@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk> <BzoM10.MAt@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: 23 Dec 92 00:18:36

Part of Mike Morris's problem is an apparent belief that anyone who
bothered to get the facts would realize that Ronald Reagan was all
wrong.  There are plenty of people with quite detailed knowledge
and no special interests who agreed with Reagan's program.  I am
one of them.  Unfortunately, I cannot say that everyone who takes
the trouble to learn the facts widely available will agree with
me.  There are some very smart and knowledgeable people with quite
different opinions.

Now a plug for studying human nonmonotonic reasoning.  No theory
can take every social phenomenon into account.  Some are important
and some are unimportant.  Moreover, some observations are of
typical phenomena and give rise to correct generalizations and
others don't.  People disagree about which phenomena are important
and which observations generalize.  For example, I regard Reagan's
verbal gaffes as unimportant compared to his being correct on
a very small number of important issues.

I don't think that this inability of smart people to agree is a
permanent phenomenon.  The fact is that no correct comprehensible
theory of economics and politics has been developed.  I hope that some
day politics and economics will be no more controversial than physics,
but I don't think we are close.

What can one recommend in the meantime?

1. Be tolerant of people with different points of view.  Maybe they
are taking into account some facts that you regard as unimportant.

2. Resist demands for giving power to any revolutionary movement
that doesn't say precisely and convincingly what it will do with
the power.

3. Prefer immediate benefits to hypothetical long range benefits.
The theory promising the long range benefits may not be that good.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: arc2@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (AMY CHARLES)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Shouting at robots
Date: 3 Jan 93 17:27:00 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <C09Ivy.IuE@panix.com>, mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon) writes:
>In article <JMC.93Jan2141039@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>
>>I hear my 7 year old son shouting "Stop! Stop!" at his robot.
>...
>>A $25 prize is offered for the best posting in the next week viewing
>>this development with alarm, i.e. children shouting at robots.
>
>Well, I certainly don't view-with-alarm the shouting-at-robots of
>children (whatever are robots FOR, if not to be shouted at?)  But
>two, possibly minor, thoughts intrude:
>
>       o what DOES one do about robots that do NOT stop when told to?
>
>       o what DOES Prof. McCarthy intend in the "home education" of
>         his son, that a raised voice is (apparently) NOT to be heard?
>--
>Michael L. Siemon      "We honour founders of these starving cities
>mls@panix.com           Whose honour is the image of our sorrow ...
>                        They built by rivers and at night the water
>                        Running past the windows comforted their sorrow."
>
Oh, for God's sake, he never said he was going to wallop his kid for shouting.
 Relax.  More to the point, there's an excellent warning re shouting at robots
 in Asimov's I, Robot, the definitive source.  If I were Prof. McCarthy I
 would read very carefully the first story, where the little Susan Calvin
 displays a remarkable...affinity toward robots.  She later becomes a
 dessicated and misanthropic robopsychologist.  For robots that don't stop
 when told to, read on about robots whose imprint with the Three Laws of
 Robotics has been somehow weakened.  I say the prize goes to Asimov's estate.
From: spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homeschooling (was  Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith)
Date: 31 Dec 1992 20:46:19 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley -- ERL
NNTP-Posting-Host: zion.berkeley.edu

In article <31DEC92.20054001@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:

>I never said anything about liberal educators or social agendas in my post.

This is true.  My comment regarding the above was not based
on your post.  Sorry, I was getting carried away.

Steve
From: lkahn@mitre.org (Larry Kahn)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Good Westerns
Date: 23 Dec 92 19:05:05 GMT
Organization: The MITRE Corporation

Anything by Louis L'Amour.  Also, I enjoyed the Wagons West series and the 
White Indian series (I believe the authors were Dana Fuller Ross and 
William Porter, but not necessarily respectively).  For more pulpy stuff 
(although fun), try the Longarm series.
                                    Larry

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
   | Larry Kahn                       |                                  |
   | The MITRE Corporation            |   BE REASONABLE. DO IT MY WAY.   |
   | lkahn@mitre.org                  |                                  |
   |---------------------------------------------------------------------|
   |  These opinions may not coincide with my employer's (not that they  |
   |  pay any attention to an insignificant lackey like me, anyhow).     |
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: U48073@uicvm.uic.edu (Cole Kendall)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Good Westerns
Date: 28 Dec 92 20:17:15 GMT
 <KK.92Dec27133918@dj.cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago

I will admit to having enjoyed Larry McMurtry's _Lonesome Dove_ quite
a bit, although Westerns are not usually my cup of tea.

Cole Kendall
From: sph0301@utsph.sph.uth.tmc.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Mangled song lyrics (was: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age)
Date: 30 Dec 1992 14:41:10 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Texas School of Public Health

In article <1hs4avINN8nn@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel) writes:
>From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
>Subject: Re: Mangled song lyrics (was: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age)
>Date: 30 Dec 1992 12:22:55 GMT
>
>Then there's the children's song GLADLY THE CROSSEYED BEAR.....
>-- 
>Ted....


 ...and in the holiday spirit, GOOD KING WESCES CAR BACKED OUT, ON A
PIECE OF STEPHEN...

kate
From: anita@devvax.mincom.oz.au (Anita Graham)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Is a bimbo the modern name for hussy?
Date: 29 Dec 92 03:34:55 GMT
Organization: Mincom

In article <BzqD92.In7@ns1.nodak.edu>, hennebry@plains.NoDak.edu (Michael J. Hennebry) writes:
> 
> On the rare occasion that I feel the urge to refer to someone as the
> male version of a bimbo, I usually say "bimba". On the even rarer
> occasion I might otherwise have gotten the urge to refer to a female
> as a bimbo, someone else, usually another character beat me to it.
> I don't know any non-fictional bimbos or bimbas.
> 
Read a P.G. Wodehouse book over Christmas I noted a young lady referring to
a young man as a bimbo. I think the book may have been Spring Fever - it
featured the Cobbold family. I can't get any closer than that as I left the
book at Mum and Dad's house.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anita Graham
anita@mincom.oz.au
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 18:14:22 GMT

tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox):
>In fact, if the majority were lunatic enough to conform to your 
>restrictions, r.a.b. would become a very dull place indeed.  The implied
>maxim of "do not offend, whatever the cost"...

I don't recall offering any explicit restrictions, but surely there's
a middle ground between "do not offend, whatever the cost" and "if
they don't understand what I mean then screw 'em"?

>>...feedback:  You see that the listener is misinterpreting and
>>you modify your delivery or, in emergencies, go directly to "just kidding."
>
>Again, if you understand the difference between speaking and
>writing, you won't invoke this "defense."

You had to, however awkwardly:

>>tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox):
>>>A *joking* attitude, it's called, and is easily recognized as such
>>>by anyone with either a clue or a sense of humor.


>I don't make it my practice to worry about whether I'm offending others...

You shouldn't offend people unintentionally.  It suggests an incomplete
mastery of the medium.  If you don't *care* whether you're as offensive
as an Oscar Wilde or a Dorothy Parker, then the question becomes: are you 
as witty as an Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker?

-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com

   God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine  -- Edmund Spenser
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu (michael bruce mcdonald)
Subject: retraction on education and environment and homeschooling
Reply-To: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 23:10:03 GMT

Reading the various posts on this thread, I've come to cringe at some
of the remarks I made (you know, the ones that get quoted over and over
again!).  Frankly, I said some foolish and hasty things, and I apologize
for stating that the homeschoolers on this list are selfish, for their
posts prove quite the opposite (I still believe, however, that many people
do homeschool their kids for essentially selfish reasons).

Reflecting on my posts on this thread, I realize that I was bothered by the
assumption that the sort of pedagogy indicated in the review of *Education
and the Environment* would *necessarily* entail some sort of indoctrination.
Yes, all pedagogy is ideological, and I know that my own students are
subjected to my ideology, but trying *not* to indoctrinate students is
crucial to my conception of pedagogy.  Given this, I know that I had my
reasons for reacting so quickly to the initial thread, but now wish that
I had not been quite so hasty.

michael mcdonald
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wagner@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Request: History books
Date: 22 Dec 92 16:58:03 GMT
Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Physics

In article <1h7ch8INNdhi@transfer.stratus.com>, jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann) writes:
> 
> Also, how many books do you want for each period. I could
> easily recommend half a dozen good books on the period 1776-1790
> and a dozen on the American Civil War and the times leading up
> to it.
> 
> ----
> Jim Mann            
> Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com  
> 

I wonder, do you know of any good books on the period 1776-1790 which might 
address these two questions:

1)  How many of the europeans in America in, say, 1790 had arrived 
    voluntarily?  {The endless quibbles about "voluntarily"... I'd
    really like to know how many were deportees [Georgia
    had a particularly good stock of these, I think], how many had a
    choice between these barbarian shores and debtor's prison, and
    how many were destitute upon arrival}

2)  How did the revolution affect the distribution of wealth in the 
    colonies?   {Did merchants, bankers, or farmers get a bigger 
    slice of the pie after the changes?}

None of the books about the glorious birth of the US that I've seen
have talked about either of these questions.  I sincerely hope it's
because I've been looking in the wrong places....

							-Luke
					wagner@mps.ohio-state.edu
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Date: 24 Dec 92 02:35:37 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences

In <1992Dec23.192222.10975@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:

>	In yuppie shops in Berkeley, you will find "primitive" artwork from
>Central America, Armenia, and Asia, much of it straightforwardly part of the
>religious practice of the people who made it (this includes paintings on 
>leather, cement statuary, tapestries, various icons, etc.).

>	The work is usually divorced entirely from its original context and
>is in fact being offered for the esthetic pleasure of the urban dweller with
>(often significant) disposable income.  

The same thing is true of most of the things you see in museums, at
least the objects made before modern times.  Does that bother you as
well?
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Rem tene; verba sequentur."  (Cato)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 22:58:27 GMT

In article <1huq85INNq5j@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>Tom Maddox writes:

>	disingenumous

[Fido replies]: 
>Nevertheless, Tom does demonstrate a humungous ingenuity for neologs.

	Not a "neolog" (which I believe is itself a neologism, for 
neologism, if you see what I mean) but a double typo--that I, for one,
rather like; it seems to be a portmanteau word of some sort, but I'm
not sure what's packed into that suitcase.  Any conjectures?


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
	"That's a bird bone, chair, Bob.  I don't know if I should sit there."
				Tom Waits
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 19:13:50 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.183207.25805@crd.ge.com> meltsner@crd.ge.com
writes:
> [test deleted] 
> [Janice's note: I scored 17. Can anyone beat me?]

I scored 19.  (The reprimand was in school though, not work.)

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
"God does not play dice with the universe."  --Albert Einstein
"Albert, stop telling God what to do."  --Niels Bohr
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books