HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 22:01:48 EDT
From:         "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Rantings of the 'new' religious right

   We appreciate Renato Barrahona's advice down here underneath these
floorboards, but the Exterminator came today, we survived him, we survived
Hitler, we survived everything for 300 million years, but I don't think
that is what Fyodor Dostoyevsky had in mind in calling his novel Cockroach
Notes [Notes From Underground to you].

   In an ill-planned, ill-advised adventure, actually, whose advise was there,
I went off to annoy ANTHRO-L, at the time quiescent following a rather languid
discussion of crosscultural patterns of flatulence. The pretext was, the
superficial issues in this election - nobody has said a *thing* about the
economy, inter alia, which would stand the slightest scrutiny - include sex,
kinship, community, religion, the family, child-rearing practices, and
cultural identity, all of which are within the province of the discipline of
anthropology. Also mythology, in that Clinton was shamelessly emulating and
appropriating the toga of JFK and the latter's mortuary cult, albeit *not
even Clinton* has dared promise to "get this country moving again."

   All went well so long as I appeared to mouth the pieties of the feminist-
Liberal core orthodoxy. Then, I suggested an analysis whereby the feminist
platitude, "The personal is political," had got appropriated by the Right
albeit religiously transformed. This, I said, gives us a species of sexual
Populism confronting a "Cultural Elite," as Mr. Quayle would have it, of
ocuupational and sexual sucesses: In effect, "You can't call me ugly. You're
Sinful!" Feminism, I said, needed rethinking.
   I lost the feminists.
   Then, I said, the JFK myth was no more than a crutch for intellectually
bankrupt Liberals who had nothing else except a historically falsified figment
to hold onto, and told them what I thought JFK really was and would have been
had he not died when he did. That did it, and I got brickbats, dead cats, and
a grass-roots movement to have my computer account shut down. Also a sick
e-mail letter from a young woman in Arizona about JFK, "He was young,
virile...."

   As the HISTORY subscribers well know, a more tactless person than myself
can hardly be found to issue the call to "Burn your past and start analyzing
the society you are living in." Neither, however, is it possible to convince
me, without irrefutable empirical evidence to the contrary, that social
scientists in general, especially those not paid to live in the past (and
I note in passing that, once again this year, Historical Sociology is the
fastest-growing subfield of sociology), the capacity to critically analyze
the society they inhabit as members or citizens has suffered from what i'd
call "motivated atrophy."

Daniel A. Foss
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 08:05:29 EDT
From:         Ken Koester <MAINT2@ERS.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: U.S Military Intervention

I am bothered by the emphasis on "U.S. intervention" in your posting, Yoni.
I find it difficult to accept this as a special case, either for or against,
in discussing the ethics of intervening in the affairs of another country.

I also find it difficult to accept Kerr's assertion that going to war is a
failure of policy w/o some qualification:  going to war indicates that one,
possibly *all* of the belligerents, has made a grave mistake, but then, some
wars are forced on nations, willy-nilly.  No conceivable foreign policy can
*always* successfully deal with madmen located elsewhere in the world, or
prevent them from taking up arms w/o taking up arms yourself.
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Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 23:57:52 EDT
From:         Lenny <LABBEY@GTRI01.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Rantings of the 'new' religious right
              28 Aug 1992 21:44:55 CDT from <U17801@UICVM.BITNET>

Oh Renato!  The problem is that we dare not delete DAF's messages unread.
Buried in the stream of conciousness stuff there is always a brilliant
observation, or a point of view which is at the same time original and
penetrating.

Lenny
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 16:26:14 EDT
Comments:     Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2
From:         Allan Needell <NASSH100@SIVM.BITNET>
Subject:      George C. Marshall

From: Allan Needell

Bob,

Why do you consider the Marshall quotation "a gem?" When did he say it? What
context? I'd guess it was as Secretary of State in 1947-48. No?

Allan Needell
National Air & Space Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560  (BITNET: NASSH100@SIVM)
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Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 08:46:00 EDT
From:         "Glenn R. Greene" <U953117@RUTADMIN.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Futzing

Tom,
   Newsweek is right.  I probably futz with computer output at least 30%
of the time.  What Newsweek isn't pointing out is that if I didn't
futz as much as I do my boss would kill me.  You see, what I send out
reflects on him,(a point he has made quite clear), and therefore it
has to be perfect: font type, page centering and of course numerical
accuracy.  It's also one of the few ways to stand out in a drab job
like my own, accounting.  Being one of the first people to master a
new computer package, which requires endless futzing, makes you an
information guru.  People come to you for help, and superiors notice.
It really is a bureaucratic phenomenon.

                                Squandering time as a paper shuffler,
                                              Glenn Greene
------------------------------TEXT-OF-YOUR-MAIL--------------------------------

> Enter the Futz Factor. A study to be released this week by a Sausalito,
> CA software company called SBT concludes that 2 percent of America's
> gross domestic product -- $97 billion -- is being "futzed away" by workers
> who spend too much time tinkering with their PCs.
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 16:01:58 +1000
From:         Marion Diamond <med@LINGUA.CLTR.UQ.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: Beyond the drinking age
Comments: To: HISTORY%RUTVM1.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU

Denis (et. al.)
Have you looked around at your colleagues lately?  Are these the young,
convivial, confident men of the early 1970s, with a secure career ahead of
them, and youthful livers and libidoes?
Alas, twenty years on, those happy imbibers of yesteryear are middle-aged,
worried about their health, their sex lives and their chances of promotion,
and some of them (hush, whisper who dares) are even women.  In other words,
the profile of conference attenders has changed and we are all collectively
older and poorer.  There are also more women in the academy, who tend to
drink less.  I also suspect we are much harder working (futz aside) then
20 years ago.
Marion Diamond
med@lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au
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Subject: (no subject given)
X-Envelope-to: HISTORY@RUTVM1.BITNET
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 13:05:00 EST
Reply-To:     RRISS@DREW
From:         Richard M <RRISS@DREW.BITNET>

                                        Date:     27-Aug-1992 01:00pm EST
                                        From:     Riss, Richard M
                                                  RRISS
                                        Dept:     1
                                        Tel No:   (201)-408-4006

TO:  Remote Addressee                     ( _in%HISTORY@RUTVM1 )


Subject:

Is anyone aware of a subscription list devoted to Erasmus of Rotterdam?
There seems to have been a list of this kind at the University of Toronto,
but apparently, it is no longer in operation?

Two other questions: (1) How can one access a list of lists, with
descriptions without going to each individual node, and (2) How does one go
about organizing a new list?

If anybody can answer one or more of these questions for me, I would be
very grateful.

Richard M. Riss
RRISS@DREW
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 14:37:27 EDT
From:         Cal <PRYLUCK@VM.TEMPLE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Beyond the drinking age
Comments: To: History <HISTORY%RUTVM1.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
              3 Sep 1992 16:01:58 +1000 from <med@LINGUA.CLTR.UQ.OZ.AU>

Marion's observations about getting older seem to be on the mark.  There's
an additional point that I noticed as I approached emeritus status.  The only
people I knew were my generation and the one just behind me (i.e., those who
are now middle-aged).  I don't have the vaguest idea what goes on with the
the generation behind them; you know, the new spunky PhDs who are going to
show us how scholarship and drinking are  r e a l l y  done.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
From: bee@ms.uky.edu (Elizabeth Gilliam)
Subject: ancient germanic myths
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 08:29:18 GMT
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences

I am looking for books, articles, or just plain personal
knowledge of germanic myths for some research I am doing.

My research touches on how germanic mythology played a role
in post-WWI Germany.


-- 
elizabeth a. gilliam: bee@ms.uky.edu
If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
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X-Vms-Mail-To: HISTORY-L
X-Vms-Mail-Cc: BOB
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 22:08:16 PDT
From:         bob pasker <bob@HALFDOME.SF.CA.US>
Subject:      social history list
Comments: To: well!rutvm1.BITNET!history@uunet.UU.NET

well, its only been about six months.

the new Social History list is now up and running.  you can subscribe
to it via the standard listserv (e.g.: SUB SOCHIST <your name>)
commands to:

	LISTSERV@USCVM
or
	listserv@vm.usc.edu

as appropriate for your site.

this list will address three aspects of what is called the "New Social
History":

(1) emphasis on quantitative data rather than an analysis of
prose sources.

(2) borrowing of methodologies from the social sciences, such as
linguistics, demographics, anthropology, etc.

(3) the examination of groups which have been ignored
by traditional disciplines (i.e. the history of women,
families, children, labor, etc.)

laurie abbott (BL.LXA@RLG or bl.lxa@rlg.stanford.edu) is co-
list owner.

if you had already sent me your name, i will attempt to automatically
subscribe you.  look for a message to that effect in the next day.

--
-- bob pasker
-- bob@halfdome.sf.ca.us
--
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Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 12:10:21 EDT
From:         Juniper Sage <CHEATING@SBCCVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Rantings of the 'new' religious right

On Thu, 27 Aug 1992 22:52:45 CDT <U17801@UICVM> said:
>On Thu, 27 Aug 1992 22:01:48 EDT Daniel A. Foss said:
>>                                Neither, however, is it possible to convince
>>me, without irrefutable empirical evidence to the contrary, that social
>>scientists in general, especially those not paid to live in the past (and
>>I note in passing that, once again this year, Historical Sociology is the
>>fastest-growing subfield of sociology), the capacity to critically analyze
>>the society they inhabit as members or citizens has suffered from what i'd
>>call "motivated atrophy."
>>
>>Daniel A. Foss
>
>Daniel: You really must try the decaf; if that doesn't work, go for a decent an
>d reliable mood stabilizer.  Come on, Daniel, do the right thing for all of us
>on this list.
>
>Renato
>History
>University of Illinois at Chicago

Oh, this was grand.  I needed this this morning.

Very good, Renato; I especially liked the use of contemporary cliche
in "do the right thing", in addressing Daniel.  Very nicely done, indeed.

JS
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 15:57:00 EDT
From:         DGPAZ@CLEMSON.BITNET
Subject:      Re: U.S Military Intervention

On Wed, 2 Sep 1992 14:19:00 EST YONI@BROWNCOG.BITNET said:

> also looking for historical examples perhaps in the 19th century when
> U.S Military intervention in the affairs of other countries was rare.

Perhaps not _too_ rare. You might begin with the American
invasion of Lower Canada in 1776, and follow that with the
invasion of Upper Canada in 1812. If the Cherokee Nation
can be counted as an "other country," they would serve as
a good historical example. Turn to Texas, and check out
the filibustering expeditions there. Don't neglect the
Ostend Manifesto (one of my all-time favorites) and the
invasion of Nicaragua.
Let's see, I'm running out of time, and have only made it
to the 1850s.
Jump to the 1890s, and the coup that overthrew the Hawaiian
monarchy ....
Anyway, you have no dearth of historical examples.

Denis Paz
dgpaz@clemson.bitnet
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Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 00:25:19 EDT
From:         Cal <PRYLUCK@VM.TEMPLE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Colonial Fairs
Comments: To: History <HISTORY%RUTVM1.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
              2 Sep 1992 21:44:52 CDT from
              <AXTHEPD%UICVMC.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>

I would also be interested in accounts of colonial fairs along the lines
sought by Peter Davis.

Cal Pryluck                               <PRYLUCK@VM.TEMPLE.EDU>
Dept of Radio-Television-Film             <PRYLUCK@TEMPLEVM>
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA 19122                    voice (215) 247-9663
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Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 09:05:24 METDST
From:         George Welling <welling@LET.RUG.NL>
Subject:      Re: the value of money
              92

>
>
> how does one find out the historical value of a dollar?  for instance,
> i have an estate inventory which declares a few thousand dollars in
> notes are owed to the deceased's estate.  how would i find out the
> relative value of that debt in either today's terms, or in
> comparative terms to others of his time?
>
>
> --
> -- bob pasker
> -- bob@halfdome.sf.ca.us
> --
>
One of the methods I have seen frequently used is calculating the silver value
of those dollars and then calculating how much that amount of silver would
cost today. I think you moay find the silver value of those dollars in
McCluskers book on money (I don't remember the exact title).

--
                =
             ___|_____               George M. Welling
            /        __|____           phone : +31 50 63 54 74
       _|__         /      /             fax : +31 50 63 49 00
      /    /_______/______/                History and Computing  HCI
     /____/    | ______|__                 depart. ALFA-INFORMATICA
 _______|______|_\  o o o |              University of Groningen
      \  o o o o o o o o  |            welling@let.rug.nl
        \                 /
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 21:44:55 CDT
From:         U17801@UICVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Rantings of the 'new' religious right
              28 Aug 1992 21:48:37 -0400 from <kruchio@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>

On Fri, 28 Aug 1992 21:48:37 -0400 Agnes Kruchio said:
>>
>> On Fri, 28 Aug 1992 19:59:14 EDT Lenny said:
>> >Hot Damn!!!  DAF sent a one-screen message!
>> >
>> >Praise be to God (whom I do not believe in, but thank him anyway).
>> >
>> >Lenny
>>
>> Why are you -- and we -- thankful? Because it was *only* a one-screen msg?
>Are
>> they usually longer? More or less coherent? Being a novice helps to ask the
> dum
>> b questions --rhetorical ones of course! No answers necessary.
>>
>> Renato
>
>I think DAF has written a couple of books - in dribs and drabs -
>on this list even since I have been here and I am relative
>newcomer. The longer messages were 100s of lines long - provocative,
>all of them; in fact someone at one point (who knows how
>seriously) even proposed a list devoted solely to DAF's writings. There
>was some bemused or serious? interest, but there was no followup as
>far as I know. I think he has a lot to offer, and I am glad he is
>cutting down on the length - a) he might get more readers this way and
>b) and we can finally figure out what it is!
>
>Agnes

Agnes:
      We should all be thankful for the PF2/discard keys on our terminals.  It
only takes *one* well-aimed push to delete the even the longest posting.  We sh
ould all be grateful for such wonders.

Renato
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Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 17:04:02 EDT
From:         "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Subject:      Beyond the drinking age

The shrunken faculty pay packet no longer suffices to account for declining
consumption of any luxury or quasi-luxury consumer goods. There's always the
utility preference problem to deal with, which renders the problem of how
much less your money is worth such a mess.

Always bear in mind that in these dismal times we, statistically speaking,
have had declining real income since 1973 and a more complicated product
mix to spend it on, and spend it more friviolously in that we have a higher
propensity to consume. Which in terms of that faculty member with the shrinking
pay packet says that the alcohol consumed by him or her will take the form of
lower-alcohol-content imported wine; sales of expensive wines are increasing as
those of hard liquor decline.

This has two correlates: Wine has greater snob appeal, or in Bourdieu's usage,
accumulates more "symbolic capital," than the rapidly-becoming-archaic hard-
drinking he-man sexist booze of the fading provincial-masculine subculture. You
are, I can't, insnsibly acquiring world-class Class (statistically at least),
if a bit late.

Second, booze is not healthy. What is healty or good for you, what is a health
hazard is often a matter of arbitrary social construction. See Mary Douglas and
Aaron Wildawsky, Risk and Culture (1982). We need a quite deep understanding of
a culture, and even that may not suffice, to account for why one toxin or "act
of God" is feared and another ignored. But booze kills half as many people as
does tobacco annually. The more informed people are, the more health hazards
they tend to shun and the more health-promoting practices and dietary laws they
will adopt. The characterization of "being informed" correlates with income and
occupational status hence with snob appeal as mentioned above.

Alcohol is tabooed as physical fitness becomes mandatory. Physical fitness is
expensive, entailing health club fees, hence ensuring that those merely tough
from hard work and harder living cannot afford to get in. Such people are
scorned as violent criminals who'd readily kill each other over a pair of
sneakers; decent people merely become envious and buy more. Anything which can
be sold to the smart - in any sense - set as healthful, no matter how weird,
will sell. For a while. The Style Section of the Sunday New York Times (Aug 23)
featured the vogue among women for *aerobic boxing*. Why not mud wrestling if
suitably endorsed?

One final, minor point. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, hence
defeats the upward-striver's aspirations to the stature of Type-A Manic Super-
achiever much in vogue today.

Sorry this has gone so far afield but, you see, I haven't had a drink since
1966.

Daniel A. Foss
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 00:06:01 CDT
From:         LHNELSON --UKANVM <LHNELSON@UKANVM.BITNET>
Subject:      RE: ftp archives

I would like to join my voice to that of Don Mabry regarding FTP sites. MALIN
works co-operatively with ra.msstate.edu in that we try not to duplicate any
but the most essential materials, and each of us maintains catalogues of the
other site. Largely because of the extent of participation at Kansas, we are
presently strongest in medieval materials, but we would be happy to receive
other materials. Like Don, we (that's not the editorial we; there are four
operators at MALIN) believe that the initial worth of FTP sites will be to
preserve "ephemeral" materials such as a list's archives, unpublished
conference papers, organization newletters, and the like.

Looking to the future, we believe that we can provide some useful "basic
professional kits," in the form of course packets of syllabi, examinations,
and so forth; specialized bibliographies; word lists and grammar reviews; and
other such things.

The graduate students in history here will be starting an on-line journal this
year, and MALIN will serve as a permanent repository for their back issues.
The students of the medieval seminar this semester will be producing a series
of analyses of major bibliographic aids and source collections that we will
make available in "book" form. The Mid-West Conference on History will be held
here next month, and we have asked all participants who are willing and able
to provide us with disk copies of their papers for deposit in MALIN.

In short, there is a great deal that can be done to make ra.msstate.edu and
MALIN at kuhub.cc.ukans.edu significant research resources if those who are
interested in this sort of an endeavor will keep these sites in mind as they
pursue their research or plan their teaching.

The time will come, of course, when ra and MALIN are filled and cannot beg
more space, but both Don Mabry and I have some ideas of positive measures that
can be taken when that eventuality begins to arise. These sites are not
private preserves; we are operating them -- and our computer services support
them -- as services to the profession, so the more who take an active role in
their development, the better we will be fulfilling our function.

Lynn

Lynn_Nelson
Department of History
University of Kansas
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