HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: harsha@ksr.com (Paul Harsha)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Date: 11 Jan 93 16:29:11 EST

msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:


>No, Steve, I think the reality is quite different. The non-discrimination
>laws in reality *immediately and directly* limit an employer's Right
>to associate with whomever he wishes (i.e. Right to make up his
>own reasons for hiring B rather than A). 

Again I have to aask why you feel freedom of association is a fundemental
Right, and why you feel this individual right extends to companies. 

I'm also interested in how far you think society should go in protecting this
Right.  Do government and municipal employees have the same Right to freedom
of association?  Could a fireman, for example, refuse to put out a fire in a
home owned by Jews, or a policeman refuse to come to the aid of a black man,
because doing so would violate their freedom of association?  If not, why not?
There is no guaranteed Right to being saved from a fire, just like there is no
guaranteed Right to employment.  Could a bus driver refuse to admit passengers
or force them to sit in a special area of the bus?  Again, why not?

Is my perception that you would say Jim Crow laws were justifiable because
they protected the rights of white people not to associate with black people a
correct one? 

-Paul

--
   Paul Harsha (harsha@ksr.com)               Kendall Square Research Corp.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Subject: Le Monde des Livres
Organization: University of Helsinki
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 16:47:54 GMT

Some of you might want to check out yesterday's Le Monde.  There is a good
roundup of new books for spring '93 from the French _editions_. Josyane 
Savigneau and Pierre Lepape list books in literature, science, religion and
politics.  Next week Le Monde des Livres will survey new foreign books. 
There is also an essay on the origins of the French language by Denis Slakta
and reviews of books on the philosophy of art.  In addition to translations
of Ernst Gombrich and John Ruskin, there are several new French books on
aesthetics.  I would recommend buying Le Monde on Fridays, when it features
the book review section.  Articles and reviews in Le Monde are usually well
written, sort of like mini essays, really.

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Political Correctness in the Dark Ages
Date: 13 Jan 93 05:33:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1993Jan13.003305.19269
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <104587@netnews.upenn.edu> 
crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:

>In article <C0rHsC.6G7@news.cso.uiuc.edu> 
>levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) writes:

LL:
>>Unfortunately, Thackeray wrote a novel (I forget which one), in which
>>he wishes to show the staff of a girl's school as kissing ass
>>to rich students. 

LLC:
>Vanity Fair.

LL:
>>He does this by having a Black,
>>Jewish young woman enrolled at this school (whose father made his
>>money in the Caribbean); 

LLC:
>Was she Jewish?  Funny, I don't remember that.  

LL:
>>and says that teachers tell her she's
>>beautiful and treat her like the social equal of the other girls!
>>In other words (he's saying) (sarcasm on) the administration is
>>so blinded by cold cash they'll even treat a Black, Jewish woman
>>like she's a full-scale human (sarcasm off). 
>>
>>(Now, if a novelist as imperceptive to social issues as Thackeray
>>were writing that scene today, don't you think he'd have the
>>girl be fat instead...Imagine -- telling a size 20 she's lovely!)

LLC:
>Yeah, that's probably exactly what he'd do.  Good analogy.  I'm not sure
>what you mean by "imperceptive to social issues," though.  It seems to me
>that Thackeray had his society down pat.  He understood its prejudices and
>its gods perfectly.  That he himself believed half-black women to be
>inferior is entirely possible, even probable.  I'm of the school, though,
>that just sees him as a product of his time.  Today, as you aptly point
>out, she'd be fat and pimply.  Those are our society's acceptable
>prejudices.  Interestingly, fat wasn't the bugaboo then that it is today. 
>Plus ca change ....

If beauty is only skin deep, how does considering a fat and pimply
woman to be unattractive, count as a prejudice, acceptable or
otherwise?  It sure sounds like a warranted judgment to me.

>-- 
>The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world --
>if only from time to time.     -- Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: academic settings
Date: 10 Jan 1993 18:32:59 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Distribution: rec
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Dani Zweig writes:

	John Lovett writes:

		Can anyone recommend other books set in academia? 
		Any genre will do.

	Tom Brown's School Days?

While this may not have been intended seriously -- I never know nowadays --
it would make a great introduction to McDonald's (?) *Flashman* novels.

						RABworm
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,misc.kids
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 12 Jan 1993 13:34:07 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Mark Taranto writes:

	I didn't read one damn book on my 10 day honeymoon, and had 
	no problems figuring out what to do with my free time.

Perhaps if you and your bride had done more reading, your honeymoon might 
have been more of an exemplar than previously posted lamentations from 
yourself have indicated.

						RABworm
From: rhogan@aludra.usc.edu (Ron Hogan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Date: 6 Jan 1993 10:21:51 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aludra.usc.edu


As far as Camille Paglia's _Sexual_Personae_ goes, I found the
chapters on Emily Dickinson and the Marquis de Sade to be fairly
interesting, but the rest of the book...well...

The thing that annoys me the most, I think, is the way her arguments
generally rely on multiple repititions of her thesis points-- "Elizabeth
Taylor is a modern Nefertitti," for example. (a paraphrase, btw)  Proof
of these 'points' tends to lie in yet another blanket assertion of their
truth, because *she said them*.

Then, of course, there's the whole specious argument on why male
homosexuals like Bette Davis.  And fistfucking.  The two pages on
the relationship between raw clams ond menstrual fluid were cool,
on the other hand.

Basically, I think she's a pundit wannabe who's using her academic
position as an excuse to write about whatever she feels like.  Which
isn't so bad, and I've got a better feeling for her writing than,
for example, Todd Gitlin, but she's a pop writer with a degree.

Not a bad thing to be, if you've got the writing skill to match,
but Paglia's skill comes only in bursts.  After that, she relies
on the bludgeon.

Ron Hogan

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: bhanafee@picasso.ads.com (Brian Hanafee)
Subject: Re: Het Boys (was: Homophobia)
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mountain View, CA 94043, +1 (415)
	960-7300
	<9JAN93.14541592@vax.clarku.edu> <1993Jan9.160643.1403@spdcc.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 01:26:09 GMT


In article <1993Jan9.160643.1403@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>You seem to think the term "het boy" is an insult.  It's not.
>And it can't be, because of what it means to be a white het boy
>in our society.  Its only power comes from irony.

Nonsense.  It is an insult.  "White het boy" connotates an assumed
degree of self-centered insensitivity.  About the same as "frat boy".
I suppose "frat boy" can't be an insult, either, because of what it
means to be one in our society.


--
Brian Hanafee                         Advanced Decision Systems
bhanafee@ads.com                      1500 Plymouth Street
(415) 960-7300                        Mountain View, CA 94043-1230
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: faunt@netcom.Netcom.COM (Doug Faunt N6TQS 510-655-8604)
Subject: Re: Shouting at robots
Organization: at home, in Oakland
	<1993Jan6.163429.6956@math.ucla.edu> <1993Jan8.062733.3435@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 20:54:46 GMT

Do I detect another rab gathering in its infancy?
If so, count me in.
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:24004 rec.arts.sf.written:17013
From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:58:07 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1iaq3uINNlci@agate.berkeley.edu>, curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
> In article <C0Bx34.M6p@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
# #Curtis Yarvin asks:
# #  But why should theirs be thought better?
# #
# #Better for what?
# 
# Exactly - better for what?  "Better" is an absolute; when
# you say one book is better than another, you are making
# a statement which is logically clear and extremely powerful.
# 
# Basing such on the opinions of Messrs. Rexroth et al is
# like mounting an 18-inch naval canon on a rowboat.

Is that a "literary canon", or the more conventional kind?



-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
"When freedom destroys order, order will destroy freedom." -- Eric Hoffer
Not a goal, just a statement of reality.
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The 10,000 nights of Mike Morris
Date: 12 Jan 93 18:12:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: netcom.1993Jan12.181221.1190
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

In article <BHANAFEE.93Jan11174921@picasso.ads.com> bhanafee@picasso.ads.com (Brian Hanafee) writes:
>
>In article <1993Jan10.091645.16839@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>>I once heard eternity defined as two people and a ham.  Perhaps we
>>can now redefine it as Mike Morris and a controversy.
>
>Well, it does take two people to make a controversy.  The remainder of
>the proof is left as an exercise for the reader.

	It takes Mike Morris to make eternity?
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
	"That's a bird bone chair, Bob.  I don't know if I should sit there."
				Tom Waits
From: nichael@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Mangled song lyrics (was: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age)
Date: 4 Jan 93 17:45:00 GMT
Reply-To: ncramer@bbn.com
Organization: BBN, Interzone Office
NNTP-Posting-Host: kariba.bbn.com
In-reply-to: lkahn@mitre.org's message of Thu, 31 Dec 1992 20:31:52 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.203152.22513@linus.mitre.org> lkahn@mitre.org (Larry Kahn) writes:

   Back in high school we had a guy convinced that

   I'm Your Venus           (Shocking Blue, I think)

   was I'm Your Penis and he couldn't figure out how they were playing that 
   on the radio.

Maybe not all that outlandish.

If I recall correctly (it _has_ been a long time since I heard the
song), the title is actually "I'm Your Venis".  (Does anyone have a
copy of the 45 handy?)

Never did figure that one out.

N
From: arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Angus H Rodgers)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Legal theory, Homophobia, and the Bible
Date: 11 Jan 93 22:39:35 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London

In <1iq4baINNmgf@ARGENTINA.AI.CS.YALE.EDU>
engelson-sean@cs.yale.edu (Sean P. Engelson) writes:

>In article <1993Jan6.184309.5416@netcom.com>,
>tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>|> [...]
>|> 	For instance, this group has suffered several outbreaks recently,
>|> including the in-crowd/newbie virus, the robust randroid virus, the 
>|> currently dormant Zeleny/gay virus, etc.  I predict this new outbreak--
>|> the homophobe virus--will spread rapidly.

I think you've mistaken the aetiology. I would trace this infection
to the Libertarian virus, which has recently been plaguing readers
of misc.kids and soc.bi. (It is believed to be a close cousin of the
Objectivism meme, although I have had less contact with this one.)

The Liberal vaccine appears to be distressingly ineffective against
these outbreaks. Stringent newsreader hygiene is an essential first 
line of defence; but is not sufficient, and has proven entirely useless
against infection via the e-mail canal, as I can ruefully testify.
--
Gus Rodgers,  Dept. of Computer Science, | Cinema's worst romantic dialogue? --
Queen Mary & Westfield College, Mile End | "Mechagodzilla's brain is  installed
Road, London, England.   +44 71 975 5241 | in my stomach!" "I don't care if you
E-mail (JANET):   arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk | are a cyborg  --  I still love you!"
From: lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble)
Subject: Standards In Publishing (was: Standards in Journalism...)
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 22:03:05 GMT
Organization: Usenet Power Elite: Crush-The-Innocent-Newbies Strike Team

claird@NeoSoft.com (Cameron Laird) writes:

> By my rough memory, the spell-checking in the *WSJ* also began to slip 
> about a decade ago, but the *NYT* is simply replete with stylistic 
> infelicities that competent copyboys of a century ago would have caught.

The problem is creeping into book publishing as well.  Victor Milan's new 
potboiler 'Red Sands' is rife with mispellings . . . doesn't Warner Books 
bother to hire editors anymore?

--
Lazlo (lazlo@triton.unm.edu)
From: mcdowelj@pleiades.cps.msu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Meet Camille Paglia!
Date: 12 Jan 93 18:51:10 GMT
Organization: Composite Materials & AI/KBS Lab, Michigan State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: helmholt.che.msu.edu

In article <1iv0p9INNq7c@hal.com> dougm@hal.com (Doug Moran) writes:
>I read this article, and all I could think was, what would happen if
>Camille Paglia and Robert Bly were forced to spend an entire week
>together -- four days in the city, three in the country.
>
>Truly, the mind boggles.
>-- 
>    Doug Moran        |  You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch;
>   dougm@hal.com      |  you're a nasty, wasty skunk.
> {...}!hal.com!dougm  |  Your heart is full of unwashed socks,
> HaL Computer Systems |  your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch.
>

Actually this might be a productive get-to-gether.  They could learn a lot from
each other, and maybe we could learn something in the process.

One point they would most certainly come together on would be their views on
"angry feminism."




James K. McDowell, Ph.D.
Research Associate

Composite Materials and Structures Center
Research Complex - Engineering
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1326

Tel: 517 353-5010
Fax: 517 336-1634
email: mcdowelj@pleiades.cps.msu.edu
From: boebert@sctc.com (Earl Boebert)
Subject: Re: "Jeeves and Wooster"
Organization: SCTC
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:53:38 GMT

stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski) writes:

[stuff deleted]

>My unrelated note: why is it that the Brits can do such a fantastic
>job adapting "Jeeves" (or the old "Forsythe Saga" - best thing I ever 
>saw on TV), and then can proceed to absolutely butcher Simenon's 
>Maigret. They made the lugubrious detective into a sprightly British 
>gentleman, and MMe. Maigret into a svelte beauty. Gendarmes! Au secours!

Even closer to home, you should have seen what they did to Ashenden.
Everything from botching the plots to miscasting a dog. 

Earl

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 07:49:13 GMT

In article <1ih01dINNh29@phakt.usc.edu> rhogan@phakt.usc.edu (Ron Hogan) writes:
}
}I agree with you that the sample is woefully unrepresentative.
}
}As far as our divergence, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying 'some'
}where I said 'all'.  So you think he's being selective, and I think he's
}stacking the deck.
}
}I mean, look at his cases.  Rousseau, Shelley, Hemingway.  It's not like
}he even tried to make things hard for himself by finding somebody who led
}a nominally conventional life.

Ibsen was perhaps the most conventional of the lot, or maybe Brecht, and
they were pretty weird.  You've got our divergence about right, I think.

It's like the Albert Goldman school of
}intellectual history-- not so much sunlight being the best disinfectant
}as dragging historical figures through the mud.

They dragged themselves through the mud.  Johnson just exposed it.

}I'm willing to change 'all' to 'many of the
}shapers of modern thought', though.

What, not "some"?

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
From: wagner@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Date: 4 Jan 93 11:35:53 EST
Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Physics

In article <1i8ct7INN7c3@agate.berkeley.edu>, curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
> In article <C0B8My.HBG@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
> |                                   Sunday, the 3rd of January, 1993
> |
> |Curtis Yarvin writes:
> |  If taste were knowledge, chefs would be savants.
> |
> |My own experience is that my taste changes, sometimes
> |dramatically, with increasing knowledge. It seems natural
> |to me, then, that people who know more about an art form than
> |I do will have a different taste for it.
> 
> But why should theirs be thought better?
> 

At the risk of sullying the purity of either of your viewpoints, gentlemen,
may I suggest that there might be a road intermediate to the ferociously
egalitarian 

   (Students are customers indeed, Mr Yarvin.  I think you have 
   confused the exchange of money for a diploma with the respect that the 
   curious have for their guides through strange terrain.  These two phenomena
   are in principle totally unrelated, though often coincident.) 

and the uncompromisingly elitist, 

   (Allan Bloom?!  Methinks this is a counterexample
   to your argument, Mr Morris.  It is indisputable that well-read fools 
   are legion.  If you disagree with my including Dr. Bloom among their 
   ranks, let us say "de gustibus...," but surely you agree that being well
   read is not sufficient for inclusion in the ranks of sagedom.)

whose travellers are unburdened by platitudes containing "everyone" or
"objective?"
							-Luke
						wagner@mps.ohio-state.edu

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: angelab@vcd.hp.com (Angela Byington)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 19:34:02 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard VCD
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Miriam Nadel (nadel@attatash.aero.org) wrote:
: had a very odd twist on this.  I don't know which of us figured this out
: but we discovered we were less likely to be caught reading in bed by
: flashlight if we climbed inside the (zippered) quilt cover to read.

Ah, see, the trick is not to use a independent, and therefore easily
noticed light source.  Instead, one must train oneself to use the
meager supply of reading light from the hall light, or, as in my
case, a night light.  I always professed to have a fear of the
dark, and then strategically placed the nightlight as close to
the head of my bed as humanly possible.

Another thing that childhood readers will remember is the "book
under the pillow" reflex.  Used when parental footsteps are approaching.
Even now, when I am supposed to be tired or sick, if I hear a 
roommate heading up the stairs, whoosh, book under the pillow, thumb
marking the page, eyes closed, and deep regular breathing....

: I might also note that my very favorite excuse for not doing chores as a
: child was "I'm in the middle of a chapter."  One merely has to time this
: so that one starts the next chapter before parents ask again and one
: can quite effectively avoid mowing the lawn, raking leaves, weeding and other
: heinous garden chores until Dad realizes that bribery may be in order and
: offers to pay one for doing them.

Lucky you!  My parents finally figured this one out, and started 
getting mad at me whenever I was reading.  My young life was punctuated
by my mother yelling at my father, "Marvin, she's got her nose in
a book again!" This was usually followed by "Angela, help your mother."
So I took to hiding in the bathroom, claiming to have various
disorders, until they figured that one out too.  ("Are you *reading*
in there?"  Like it's some big sin or something.)

Definite avoidance tactics.  These, unfortunately followed me into
college, where I would spend my time re-reading escapist fantasy
instead of studying.  My number one requirement of fiction at that
time was the number of books in the series.

-Angela

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Angela Byington                Individually we can make a difference.
 angelab@vcd.hp.com              Collectively we can change the world.
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Narrators (Was Re: "Jeeves and Wooster")
Date: 5 Jan 93 18:52:25 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1993Jan5.104437.46114@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:

>	As a storyteller Bertie is his own central character,
>	and he has to narrate strictly from the first-personal
>	point of view, often writing scenes in such a way that
>	Bertie-the-character must not realize the purport of
>	what Bertie-the-narrator is narrating, but his readers
>	must.  Very difficult...

One of the things that intrigued me most about Ishiguro's books
(particularly REMAINS OF THE DAY and ARTIST OF THE FLOATING WORLD) is this
very thing, the way that he gets the reader to see things that the
narrator doesn't yet see but will soon.  He creates a wonderful suspense
this way -- in fact, the only suspense in REMAINS OF THE DAY comes through
our watching the narrator gradually realize something that we figured out
early on, and our wondering how he will handle that realization once he
hits on it.

Granted, there probably aren't many other similarities between Wodehouse
and Ishiguro.  And for the record, I too always thought of Jeeves as older --
and much more bald and rotund -- than the fellow in the series.

-- 
The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world --
if only from time to time.     -- Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: blaisec@sr.hp.com (Blaise Cirelli)
Subject: Rilke-Translation by S.Mitchell
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 20:28:21 GMT
Organization: HP Sonoma County (SRSD/MWTD/MID)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.9 PL6]

Picked up a copy of Stephen Mitchell's translation of
Rilke's Duino Elegies and thoroughly enjoyed it. I really like the
Shambala publisher's version since you can fit it easily in your jacket
pocket.

Happened to be in San Francisco last night and decided to go to
Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights book store to check out
the poetry section.

I wanted to compare translations of Rilke's poetry. I compared
Stephen Mitchell's translations against others. I was trying not
to like Stephen Mitchell since he seems to be the rage today. If 
you live in the S.F. Bay area his books are everywhere.

However, I must admit that I found his translations to be much
superior than all of the other translators.

Check it out!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books