From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: You Should Have Known I'd Do This (to Galen et. al.)
Keywords: hang glider, rights, harness, viable
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 15 Sep 92 14:59:12 GMT

In <1992Sep14.153414.7594@pwcs.stpaul.gov> chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:

>nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:

>> Open letter to Galen:

>>         Your advanced hang glider, the one you do not let anyone go
>> up in who has had no previous experience, has asked me to tell you that
>> it does not like your posting about how what a woman may or may not feel
>> while hang-gliding compares to what she may or may not feel while
>> pregnant.

>> {Recall how you wrote the other day on the "Corn (was Re: Badges of Honor)"
>> thread: "I checked with someone who does both and she assures me that hang
>> gliding is not even remotely like being pregnant."}

>Mr. Nyikos would give more credence to a hang glider than a woman, and that
>doesn't surprise me at all.

Lighten up a bit, it'll make you better at hang gliding, for starters.

>>         Like so many others, you missed the point that it is you who is
>> inhabiting the hang glider, and not vice versa.  Your advanced hang glider
>> has asked me to tell you that it alone is qualified to speak of what it
>> is like to be inhabited by you.

>That hang glider was bought and paid for by Galen.  Is this the beginning of
>an "Empancipate Hang Gliders and Enslave Women" movement?

I sure don't want to enslave women.  As for emancipating hang gliders,
you'll have to take that up with Massa Galen, who bought and paid for
his slave.

>>         It says that, as Ms. Regard might put it, giving you and other
>> experienced hang gliders the right to inhabit it is giving yourselves
>> a right over and above ANY rights any other human being on this planet
>> has.  NO OTHER HUMAN BEING has the right to inhabit this hang glider 
>> against its will, yet you would suggest that you should have that right?

>Of course, hang gliders don't get morning sickness nor do their bodies have
>to make radical changes to accommodate the hang glider pilot.
 
Sez you.  My brother-in-law, who a couple of years ago
 came in 19th in the hang gliding 
championship Down Under [Though nowadays the Aussies, pronounced "Ozzies",
prefer the moniker "Oz"] has several times been attacked by eagles and
had to take pretty radical action.

>>         Your hang glider tells me it thinks that's bogus.

>Your 'hang glider == pregnant woman' analogy is bogus.  It's like saying that
>the fetus 'pilots' the woman.

Have you been reading some of the pro-choice posts about how the fetus
uses the woman's body, including organs, tissues, and fluids?  
How having a fetus inside takes away *most* of
the woman's rights?  How having a fetus inside is like making a kidney
donation?  How being fisted is no worse than being pregnant?

>  The farther I get into replying to your open
>letter, the more I agree with Susan Garvin that your inept try at satire is
>insulting to women.

I can see where it might be insulting to Adrienne Regard, whom I
paraphrased very closely.  As to "insulting to women", would a woman have
any less right to an abortion if she really WERE being piloted by the
fetus?

Peter Nyikos