HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: NYT family in new book (was Worthwhile newspapers...)
Date: 3 Sep 92 03:35:00 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Independence
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1

An item in the NY TImes arts section on Wednesday, headlined "A
Times Dynasty Biography", reported the announcement by Little,
Brown that it would publish "the first comprehensive biography
of the Ochs-Sulzberger family," who control the Times. Its
authors will be Susan Tifft and Alex Jones, who have already
written a book about the Bingham family of the Louisville Times,
"The Patriarch". 

The positioning of the article (in the NYC/East Coast edition,
at least) is interesting, because its an instance of
meta-organization that is unique to the Times. It appeared at
the bottom of a conceptual funnel. Above it were two stories
about Bobby Fischer, 

 Fischer's 20-Year Silence Ends in Outburst of Rancor

            What's Next? Emotion Runs High


At the top of the facing page, a continuation of a story about a
German movie director, Hans Jurgen Syberberg, who has emerged
after 10 years of absence from filmaking: 

    An Elusive Director In Another Entrance

Next to the Times item on the facing page, a continuation of a
story about Garth Brooks, the reigning country music heavy.

Tracing the Brooks and Syberberg stories back to the front page
of the Arts section, we see it also contains s story headlined

   Networks Intensify The Courtship of David Letterman

and one about a new oratorio -- the headline is what's relevant here:

  A New Jeremiah in Jerusalem? Don't Despair


In other words, a sudden concentration of material emphasizing
two things. First, individuals who are "heavies", in movies, pop
music, TV, chess, and Biblical lore. Indeed, the story about
Brooks calls him "the 900 pound gorilla" of the record industry.
Second, there is a consistent tone of expectancy, newness,
change. The Brooks headline is "Seizing a Chance To Make
Changes." 

What does it mean? Like poetry, it's subject to interpretation.
At any rate, it's these coalescences, only partly due to chance
(the Fischer stories are the only ones generated by breaking
events -- the others could have been run any time) that make the
Times interesting to me, rather than "comprehensive foreign
policy news" or some other conventional standard of regard. 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: Peacock a-kimbo
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 13:48:37 GMT

Larry Hammer writes on his discovery of Peacock's *Maid Marian*:

	But ... one question.  A friar, presumed to be Tuck, on page 4 
	stands watching the fray with arms a-kimbo.  I've never found 
	out what stature this is.  It's not in this dictionary here (see? 
	this one).  How is this good friar standing?  Hands on hips? I
	await further instruction.


Hands on hips; elbows forward. The OED devotes about 50 lines to this
word, and seem to fall back on Skeat for the etymology.

								Fido
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: rabfest
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:15:10 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Sep4.143938.5553@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:

>Barclay Blanchard writes:
>
>	Have y'all in California had your rabfest yet?  How was it?
>	Meg Worley suggested that we have one in Atlanta.  Terrance 
>	is coming from Athens.
>
>The exception that proves the rule that All Greeks are White?


And fat?  No, wait, that was the Germans.  Or Turks, rather.  
Damned liberalism ...



-- 
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu

I believe we are on the irreversible trend toward more freedom and
democracy -- but that could change.   -- J. Danforth Quayle  
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kathe@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (katherine.e.fagan)
Subject: Re: Family Relationships
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 22:03:30 GMT

In article <9208252330.AA27270@cfdev1.shearson.com> mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:

>Check that!  I believe that Koop may have been in the nave, and was
>an Admiral.

Wouldn't a guy in a nave be a priest?  Wait a minute, that's the brother
of the other General, er Admiral.

Kathy
>
>Marky


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.sf.misc
From: flournoy@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Raymond Suke Flournoy)
Subject: Re: butter flavored Crisco
Keywords: lock and, lime pie, note, phrase
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 21:07:39 GMT


  I remember when BFC first came out reading this warning on the side
of a can of the stuff:

  "NOTE:  Not to be used as a spread on bread or rolls"

Mmmm.  I hope all you people already ate lunch before reading this...


--Raymond Flournoy        
======================================================================
flournoy@cs.stanford.edu         "For reasons I cannot explain
Computer Science Dept.            There's some part of me wants to see 
Stanford University, CA           Graceland"               -- P. Simon
From: grady@btr.BTR.COM (Grady Ward  grady@btr.com)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: loose literary canons
Date: 29 Aug 92 15:43:54 GMT
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA. Contact: Customer Service cs@BTR.COM

Clayton, I think the problem is not that
your answer to questions as "what color were
the ancient Greeks?" or "is this a liberal
objection?" are necessarily wrong,                            
it's that formulating such stereotyped
questions demonstrates a limiting world-view.                                                  
 
One point of being a voracious reader                   
(and of being educated in general) is
to Damascene both the _approach_ as
well as the _content_ of a mind, which
for a well-educated person more likely
resembles a Symposium of friends arguing
rather than an Oracular disquisition.
                      
This kind of fexibility and "community
of mind"  is the kind of "liberalism" that
most readers in this group pursue; not the
kind of straw dog liberalism that you are
busy kicking.
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Take a Chill (Re: The Literary Canon)
Keywords: race canon
Date: 2 Sep 92 21:31:40 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer):
>Why are liberals so dense?

I prefer to think of myself as optimistic, rather than dense.

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

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
 Are full of passionate intensity." -- W.B. Yeats
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 12:57:23 GMT

Jeremy Henderson writes:

	On a different note, Francis, the only thing I picked up at the
	Oxford Union was a powerful desire to emigrate!!

And here you are, back in Scotland. I am a Life Member, and one of these
days I'll drop in there again. During WWII they elected an Austrian, Rudi 
Weissweiler, as President, and it seemed like a noble sentiment at a time
when the Nahzees (Churchillian pronunciation) were the bad guys. Rudi 
had an Open house every Wednesday evening, and kept it up for twenty years
after he left Oxford. The great thing about his Open House was that it was
truly that. There was no standard for admission. An extraordinarily eclectic
bunch would turn up. I recommend the idea to anyone interested in advancing
ideas.

The Dining Room service was the best in Oxford. Still is?

						Fido
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rjwill6@PacBell.COM (Rod Williams)
Subject: Re: Back to Books
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Francisco
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 21:40:03 GMT

> janines@novell.com (Janine Schenone) moans:

>I have a problem, which I hope you R.a.b.belaisians can help me solve: 
>I am in a fiction funk. The problem is so severe that I believe 
>they should add a new diagnostic category to depression for people 
>who can't seem to find anything to read. 

Thanks to a long-forgotten r.a.b.bit, I've been slowly
getting through (not because they're hard slogging at all,
but because I'm too easily distracted by newspapers and
magazines and the backs of cereal boxes) David Lodge's
wonderful Rummidge books, most recently "Paradise News"
(only tangentially a Rummidge book).

I recommend it highly -- a very unworldly ex-priest takes
his cantankerous father from Rummidge (read: Birmingham) to
Honolulu to bid farewell to the father's long-absent sister,
who is dying of cancer.  Lodge manages to take a rather banal
plot and people it with some marvellous and hilarious
characters.  Best of all, he sneaks in some thoughtful
ruminations on The Meaning Of Life, family ties, and the role
of faith in the 90s, all mixed with a generous dash of
farcical situation and heartwarming humanity.  The bemused
Brit view of American mores is also worth mention.  "Paradise
News" lacks the brilliance, I think, of "Nice Work" (my
favorite Lodge so far), but it's sure to lift you way out of
your fiction funk...

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
rod williams -=- pacific bell -=- san francisco -=- rjwill6@pacbell.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: jjh00@outs.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Worthwhile newspapers (WAS Re: Why I read the Economist
Summary: What do you folks read?
Keywords: dumbed-down drool-proof
Date: 1 Sep 92 19:15:17 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@OUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Distribution: na
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA


  cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster) writes:
>
>   Although I
> agree with the criticisms aimed at Time and Newsweek, other magazines,
> good or bad, aren't intended to serve the same purpose (and they don't).
> There is value in a good weekly synthesis of news, but no magazine
> really delivers this anymore.  ...
> The Economist doesn't fill the bill, nor does the
> New York Times's "Week in Review", which concentrates on analysis and
> essays rather than summarizing the actual news.  The function of the
> original Time mag is simply no longer being served.

Agreed.

(Interesting that no one has even mentioned "Insight".)


I try to read newspapers keep up, since an intelligent
news summary magazine doesn't seem to exist -- at various times,
I've tried the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times,
the Sacramento Bee ...  I grew up with the Des Moines Register,
which used to be a pretty good small-town paper.


Anyway, here in the Bay Area, I read the San Francisco Chronicle
every day, supplemented with the San Jose Mercury News on the
weekends (mostly for their Perspectives opinion section and
for the Classifieds), and I still feel hungry, particularly
for longer articles with detail and understanding.
Neither paper runs much US news, and world news coverage
is even more cursory.

What newspapers are read by members of the r.a.b.ble, and
what are their strong and weak points?

---
Joel Hanes
From: alexande@genghis.borland.com (Mark Alexander)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Unreliable narrator in "Pale Fire"
Date: 28 Aug 92 17:02:43 GMT
Organization: Borland International
Originator: alexande@genghis.borland.com

In article <25288@castle.ed.ac.uk> egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson) writes:
>Is there *anything* he says that can be believed?

Absolutely everything he says is true :-)

But seriously, the questionable reliability of the narrator is one 
of the pleasures of this book.
From: lopresti@henson.cc.wwu.edu (lopresti robert)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: McClure's South Africa: THE SONG DOG
Date: 1 Sep 92 20:04:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: henson.1992Sep1.200441.786
Organization: Western Washington University


I just finished reading James McClure's excellent mystery novel THE
SONG DOG.  This is a "prequel" to his Kramer and Zondi novels in
which the white and black South African police officers meet for the 
first time.  I recommend it highly.  

However...the last page includes a passage that is apparently a
prediction about the eventual fate of the two officers, and I wonder if
it is a reference to actual events in South Africa.  If you know more
about South Africa than I do, perhaps you can fill me in.  So as to
avoid spoilers for anyone who is thinking of reading the book, I will
drop down a screen...






















Okay?

Zondi tells Kramer that the Zulu withc he consulted tells him to
beware of the wife of the man who was taken prisoner that week: apparently
a reference to Nelson (and therefore) to WInnie Mandela.  Then he says
that according to the witch someday the two officers will "stand alone
together, arm in arm, in a black township, wearing red necklaces as 
bright as petrol flames, on the orders..."  Then there is an interruption.
I would assume the orders are coming from one of the Mandelas, by the
context.  

My assumption is that this is a description of the cops' deaths.  Does this
make
sense to anyone who knows more about Sotuh Africa than I do?  Or perhaps
it is a prediction of an event still in the future.  I dunno.  Good book,
though.

Rob 

lopresti@henson.cc.wwu.edu
From: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: I give up...
Date: 4 Sep 1992 02:43:25 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc12.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) says:

	Clough? Clough? Oh, you know, the one that Churchill quoted
	in one of his wartime rations:

Clough?
Enough!
-- 
      ||    Gary Lee Stonum                gxs11@po.cwru.edu    ||
      ||    English Department                  216-368-3342    ||
      ||    Case Western Reserve University                     ||
      ||    Cleveland, OH 44106-7117                            ||
From: jwc@netxcom.netx.com (Jeff Comer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 28 Aug 92 20:43:20 GMT
Organization: The Chaos Bobs

In article <787@dsbc.icl.co.uk> sut@dsbc.icl.co.uk (Secure Unix Team KID01) writes:
|In article <1992Aug21.081211.5150@pacifier.rain.com> keithf@pacifier.rain.com (Keith Furrow) writes:
|>In article <g60nbv2z@csv.warwick.ac.uk> csuah@warwick.ac.uk (~WISP at CU~) writes:
|>>In article <1992Aug18.140604.19294@wam.umd.edu> ara@wam.umd.edu (Ford Prefect) writes:
|>>>In article <chris.714120892@rufus> chris@state.COM.AU (Chris Keane) writes:
|>>>>ara@wam.umd.edu (Ford Prefect) writes:
|>>>>
|>>>>>IF THIS DOESN'T STOP, IM GOING TO START THE WORST CASCADE EVER.
|>>>>WHILE EATING THIS SLOP, I SEWED THE FIRST BROCADE BEAVER.
|>>>BILE FITTING RIG STOP, LIE SPEWED THIRST LIVER !!!!
|>>IF YOU MUST CONTRIBUTE, AT LEAST DELIVER...
|>WHO MAY I ATTRIBUTE TO THIS BEASTLY SLIVER?
|TO SPAY A LUTE IN A GREASY RIVER
OR PLAY A FLUTE WHILE I DELIVER

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis)
Subject: Re: couple Ross Macdonald queries
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:53:51 GMT
Organization: The Gizmonic Institute

Jon Corelis writes:
>
>   Does anyone know what Chandler's Bay City really is?  Santa Monica?
>Pacific Palisades?  

Long Beach is what I've been told. 

-- 
Jeff Davis <davis@keats.ca.uky.edu> Write when you get the chance. 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 14:32:23 GMT

Michelle Manes writes:

	Mark Taranto writes:

		Clayton used the word "White" in a fairly standard way.  
		If we replace the word "White" with the word "Caucasion" 
		his statement turns into...

		However, Dan also takes a cheap shot at Clayton for his 
		typo -- he used "statutes" instead of "statues."  As 
		someone who makes a lot of typos myself (two recent ones 
		were "nave" instead of "navy," and "tenant" instead of 
		"tenet"), ...

	and "Caucasion" for "Caucasian"?
	sorry...couldn't resist.  :>

In fact, Mark may have provided us with a useful neolog. Caucasion, and
then caucasional and caucasionally. 

				Sometimes white

								Fido

Postscript. Oh yes. Michelle? What on earth is less than a colon?



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tomeno@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (mary.p.siringo)
Subject: Shakespeare (Single Volume Rec. Wanted)
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 18:29:16 GMT

What is considered to be the best one-volume,
definitive edition of Shakespeare's work?
Any recommendations or comments?
Thanks.

Mary
From: wagner@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Title of poem from scanty fragment?
Date: 4 Sep 92 17:02:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: ohstpy.13662.2aa75e63

I'd like to find the poem which contains (I'm sure I've mangled the lines,
so I know this is a tall order)

        Things fall apart, the center doesn't hold

                    ...


	The best are gnawed by withering doubts
        The worst are full of headstrong certainty... 

							-Luke
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 1 Sep 92 18:43:35 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Aug29.124704.11659@ultb.isc.rit.edu>, entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu writes:
> In 6766 Margaret Kulska writes "You mean Cervantes wasn't a...
> White Caucasian male?  What race was he, then?"
> 
> I am saddened to see that the superstition of race is still
> with us despite the progress(?) of the last 50 years.
> 
> There is no such thing as race.  No one group of people has
> achieved evolutionary superiority over another group.  No
> person's "race" can be determined from his or her skeleton.

Pathologists do it with great frequency.  It is definitely
a probabilistic sort of thing, but there are some items that
can be examined with some degree of certainty -- for example,
pelvic bone separation.

> It is time to bury the racist notion of race and get on with
> the business of building a safe, liveable world.
> 
> Erik Timmerman

It it is time bury the notion of racial inferiority, but there
are measureable differences: the response of black and white
newborns to the standard awareness tests are very similar;
Chinese and Navajo babies give different responses.  (The
study in question used babies of comparable development,
birth weight and circumstances, and socioeconomically
similar background parents).

There are signficant differences in tolerance of lactose based 
on race.  There are some diseases which are almost entirely 
concentrated in particular races: Tay-Sachs in Jews, sickle-cell 
anemia in blacks.  (Doubtless there are diseases that are white
specific, but since Western medicine until recently has been 
dominated by whites, I'm sure that "fish don't study the
ocean" problems may be the reason I'm not aware of these
white-specific diseases).  There are a host of interesting
and bizarre differences that are race-specific: for example,
the varieties of ear wax were unknown to the West until
Japanese scientists asked why this wasn't categorized.  It
turned out to be specific to the Japanese that there were
different types of ear wax.

Building a safe liveable world involves facing reality, not
rewriting it.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Sherlock Holmes Quote
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 92 00:16:19 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <2060@deadmin.ucsd.edu> napier@cs.ucsd.edu (Jim Napier) writes:
>
>I looking for a Sherlock Holmes quote which I can't remember fully. ...
>

	The entire Holmes corpus (is that the right word?) is available
	via anonymous FTP at oes.orst.edu, so you can search for it yourself.

	The keywords for this quote, I believe, are 'impossible,' and 
	'improbable.'


>
>Jim Napier

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 26 Aug 92 00:21:40 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Aug24.202946.14878@cs.brown.edu>, ks@cs.brown.edu (Kate Sanders) writes:
> In article <94417@bu.edu> manes@bass.bu.edu (Michelle Manes) writes:
# #I had the priveledge (?) of checking out the new Encyclopedia
# #Brittanica during an annoyingly hard-sell two days ago.  It now
# #comes with a series of "Great Books."  By my count:
# 
# #nonwhite males who weren't ancient Greeks: 1 (Cervantes)
# [other statistics omitted]
# 
# not to be picky, but ... it seems like a stretch to count Cervantes
# as nonwhite. now if you had said Dumas ...

How many nonwhite ancient Greeks were there, by the way?  Greeks are
a people of indisputably white race.  Or did Ms. Manes perhaps mean
"members of the classical Greco-Roman culture"?

Maybe I'm just a narrow-minded sort, but unless a writer makes a point
of telling me his race or gender, and that it has some significance to 
what he is writing about (e.g., Shelby Steele's _The Content of our 
Character_), I don't see much point to classifying the author by race 
or gender.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sherlock Holmes Quote
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:09:40 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <2060@deadmin.ucsd.edu> napier@cs.ucsd.edu (Jim Napier) writes:
>
>I looking for a Sherlock Holmes quote which I can't remember fully. To
>paraphrase it Holmes stated that "when all the facts have been
>properly taken into account, the resulting conclusion, no matter how
>bizarre, must be the truth". Can anyone give me the correct exact quote?
>Thanks.

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth?"

	--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, _The Sign of Four_

One of my favourites,
Marko
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: long@cogsci.ucsd.edu (Adam Long)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Family Relationships
Date: 26 Aug 92 20:26:53 GMT
Organization: Department of Cognitive Science, U.C. San Diego
In-reply-to: bkt@blacks.jpl.nasa.gov's message of 25 Aug 92 21:05:30 GMT

The surgeon general is Don Novello's sister-in-law

--
Adam "Two Sheds" Long
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sammy@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (Sammy)
Subject: Re: Back to Books
Organization: The Comp Center
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 01:56:06 GMT

>In article <1992Sep3.195439.10516@novell.com> janines@novell.com (Janine Schenone) writes:
>>
>>Can anyone recommend a book that will knock my socks off? I'm looking
>>for something entertaining but not empty. Nothing that might dampen
>>the spirit, please. I could use a change of scenery, so something
>>set in a country other than the U.S. might be nice.
>>

Have you read A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Halprin? A big book,
beautifully written, in which an old Italian looks back over his life,
especially that part spent during WWI. It has some fantastical elements
in it (not like SF&F fantasy), and Alessandro (the hero) falls in and
out of amazing adventures, while having a keen eye for the beauty that
surrounds him in the midst of war and emotional pain. 


-- 
Sammy=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The enemy of women...is not men, just as the enemy of blacks is not whites.
The enemy is "the tyranny of the dull mind." Carol S. Pearson, _The Hero Within_ 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=