HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books

>/ hpspdla:rec.arts.books / loosemore-sandra@cs.yale.edu (Sandra Loosemore) /  2:43 pm  Dec 31, 1992 /
>ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
>
>   Speaking of which, another test of biblioholism is: Do you spend more
>   time planning what books to take on a trip than what clothes?
>
>Not to mention: do you have to think about what *not* to take with so
>you'll have enough room for all the books you'll be coming back with?
>Or, do you spend more time planning what bookstores you'll visit than
>on any other aspect of travel planning?  Or extend business trips by
>two or three days so you'll have time to visit all the local
>bookstores?
>
>-Sandra (guilty on all counts)
>

Do you always pack two times as many books as you will have time to read?
How about deciding what not to pack so that you can fit all the books
you want to take with you? The books and magazines come first, if
there's not enough room to fit the required clothes, you get another
suitcase. 

Kyle

>----------
From: landsbur@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Steven E. Landsburg)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Discrimination and the law
Date: 7 Jan 93 23:38:10 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)



Many recent posters seem to believe that it is a good thing for governments
to dictate the criteria we are allowed to use in choosing our employees and
our tenants.  This way of thinking is very foreign to me, and I would like
to understand it better.  Therefore, I wonder if some of the posters I've
referred to could answer a couple of questions to help clarify their views.

      I.  Do you think such laws should apply symmetrically?  For example:
    
             A.  If I apply for a job and am turned down because the
                 employer does not like my sexual preference, you 
                 believe that I should be able to take some kind of 
                 action against the employer.  If I offer someone a 
                 job and he turns it down because *he* doesn't like
                 *my* sexual preference, do you also believe that I
                 should be able to take some kind of action against the
                 applicant?

             B.  If  a landlord doesn't want to rent to me
                 because he dislikes my religion, you believe that he
                 should be forced to rent to me anyway.  If a tenant
                 doesn't want to rent *from* me because *he*
                 dislikes *my* religion, do you also believe that he should
                 be forced to rent the apartment anyway?

      II.  Do you think that such laws should be extended to cover other 
           sorts of personal relationships?  For example:

             C.  If a woman can demonstrate that I failed to marry her
                 because I applied racial criteria, should a court be
                 able to order me to marry her?
--
Steven E. Landsburg
landsbur@troi.cc.rochester.edu
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Paglia (again)
Date: 11 Jan 1993 15:23:14 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

michael mcdonald writes:

	[60, count 'em, 60, copied lines]

	Mike, it's obviously important to you to insist that my post 
	misrepresents her views.  In fact, however, my post is a very 
	faithful representation of what she did say on that particular 
	show.

MM, if brevity is the soul of wit, do you see how witless you look?

						RABworm
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:22:27 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.164724.562@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> ashall@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew S Hall) writes:
>A couple of things on Johnson

>1) There was a hilarious piece in Spy about issues ago (I will cite
>specifics if anyone asks) about the writer's attempt to interview him.
>Evidently Johnson is a total flake and curmudgeon. The interview
>(conducted in Johnson's house) ended when Johnson got up and went
>upstairs and didn't return.

The Independent had one about 18 mo. ago.  Similar, actually...

>3) I think Johnson is responding more to the cult of personality
>that "left" intellectuals have. Too often I have heard "liberal"
>educators, psychologists, etc. cite Rousseau with an air of reverence.
>These people don't rely on the ideas to stand alone and be tested/argued.
>They cite various thinkers as scripture. Johnson points out that these
>gods do have feet of clay (mud?).

Which adds nothing to the testing of ideas.  

btw, didn't Alan Bloom cite Rousseau an awful lot?

>4) I agree that Shelley's personal life has little to do with
>his artistic capabilities. The same holds for the other artists.
>It is fun (in a sleazy way) to revel in their exploits though.

>5) As a caveat to 4), artists that do step into the political
>realm deserve what they get. If one accepts that just because someone
>is a great artist, that they're contributions in a political
>arena are somehow more valid, then they are as wrong as accepting
>personal life as a criteria for evaluating ideas. Someone like
>Brecht is exposed as on opportunist and manipulator not to degrade
>their artist output, but to point out that such a person's political
>pronouncements should be taken with a grain of salt.

As opposed to whose political pronouncements????

>6) The "left" has enaged in the ad hominem style of argument for
>some time. Ezra Pound has been bounced from the English canon by
>many. 

Not by the Left.  At least, not exclusively.

>Other conservative like Evelyn Waugh are ignored not for
>their lack of literary abilities, but because of their staunch
>conservative and religous values.

Which, in his case, are very close to the material covered in his books!

>7)  Whereas Johnson's book may not be the nicest book, and it is
>certainly not the most reasoned and valid critique of anything,
>it is a necessary book. The ideas of any thinker need to be evaluated
>independantly of their life, but their lives are a necessary component
>to understanding the history of their ideas.

So why just *those* thinkers?  Why not Waugh?  Or C.S.Lewis?  

Roger
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Date: 8 Jan 1993 13:44:53 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

John McCarthy writes:

	Tom Maddox writes:

		John McCarthy writes:

			Bah, humbug.  Science graduates write as well 
			as graduates in English, and include far less 
			nonsense in what they write.

			The literacy level of the PMLA isn't as high as 
			that of _Science_ or _Nature_.

		Surely the literacy level among (a) editors, (b) writers, 
		and (c) readers of all three magazines is *very* close to 
		one hundred per cent.  

	Perhaps "literary level" would have been more precise than 
	"literacy level", although there are literacy levels above 
	those required to read magazine articles.

	Quack, quack.

A problem with some journals is that they believe Olympian heights are
reached only by matching literacy levels. The reverse is true. Some
software style checkers quantize literacy by grade. I have found it useful
in checking out my technical writing to aim at an 8-th grade marking
from my style checker.

						RABworm
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Organization: The Inner Clique
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 00:46:17 GMT



meltsner@crd.ge.com (Kenneth J. Meltsner) writes:

> My wife and I made the mistake of only taking 10 books on our
> week-long honeymoon and were reduced to reading Joan Collins's
> autobiography.  It was pretty grim, although it was pretty good trash
> if you like that sort of thing.  Now we pack 10-15 books for a long
> weekend trip.

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.


Mark

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Rilke-Translation by S.Mitchell
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 02:59:08 GMT

Blaise Cirelli writes:

Picked up a copy of Stephen Mitchell's translation of
>Rilke's Duino Elegies and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

>I wanted to compare translations of Rilke's poetry. I compared
>Stephen Mitchell's translations against others.

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


	I've only read two, and I forget the first, many years ago;
however, I still have the second and actually reread it this past
weekend. I don't know if it is in print or not. It's by Elaine Boney
and it's part of a Univ. of North Carolina German literature series.
It's bilingual, with text on facing pages, and Boney provides an
interpretation of each elegy singly at the end of the book. I don't
know about Mitchell but I have always gotten a *sense* of Rilke's
intent from this volume.

	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: schuck@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Mary Margaret Schuck)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 8 Jan 93 18:35:42 GMT
Organization: Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine

In article <15400005@hpspdla.spd.HP.COM> kyle@hpspdla.spd.HP.COM (Kyle Karnosh) writes:
>>ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
>>
>>   Speaking of which, another test of biblioholism is: Do you spend more
>>   time planning what books to take on a trip than what clothes?

Of course.  You can always wear yesterday's clothes over again, but
what if you run short of books and there are no bookstores nearby?
(God forbid.)

>Do you always pack two times as many books as you will have time to read?
>How about deciding what not to pack so that you can fit all the books
>you want to take with you? The books and magazines come first, if
>there's not enough room to fit the required clothes, you get another
>suitcase. 

1) Pick books.
2) Pick more books just in case your plane crashes on a desert island
or you get stuck in an airport for more than the expected time or you
find a way to hold the book in your lap and read during the business
meetings. :-)
3) Pick a few more books just in case you no longer feel like reading
the selections from (1) or (2).  This is the tricky part for me, since
I never have a clue what I'll feel like reading as far ahead as two
weeks from now.  (For example, right before I started THE MAGUS, which
I've almost finished, I was on an Orson Scott Card binge.  What I felt
most like reading next was more sf. I started reading the Fowles so I
could return it to its owner, and now I want nothing to do with sf but
want to go back and re-read D.H. Lawrence. <sigh>)
4) Pack extra bag in suitcase if travelling to a place where books are
available.
5) Check if additional suitcase is required for clothes.  If necessary
discard all changes of outerwear.  You can always buy more. Plan to
layer clothing for flight so less room is required in suitcase for
clothes.  


Do others have as hard a time as I do figuring out what types of books
to pack?  I find it extremely frustrating when I finish a book which
has put me in just the right mood for another, only to realize that
the other is 2000 miles away.  On the other hand, I have become adept
at finding libraries all over the continent.  And on at least two
occasions I've bought a copy of the book I crave, even though the
original was at home.  For the price of a restaurant dessert, it
always seemed worth it.

	Mary Margaret.
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
        	  My mailer hates everyone.  Be sneaky.
schuck@ben.dciem.dnd.ca     		{decvax,attcan}!utzoo!dciem!ben!schuck
schuck@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca  	 	{decvax,attcan}!utzoo!dciem!schuck
From: drm@esl.com (Don McGregor)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith
Date: 10 Jan 93 00:02:54 GMT
Reply-To: drm@esl.com

In article <1993Jan6.161742.10994@sunova.ssc.gov> pamela@sscux1.ssc.gov  
(pamela gurd) writes:
> 
> I hesitate to respond, because I haven't been following much so I don't
> know what's already been said, but I must say this.  I believe strongly
> in the rights of all children to a chance at education.  I cannot
> understand how a voucher system will help the ones who need the most
> help: those whose parents are not involved or who do not have the
> resources to choose a school other than the closest one.

Some percentage of the parents of any school will care, and move their  
children to the best school available at a similar price.  The  
administration of the first school will notice this drain on their revenue  
and make changes to increase the quality of the education they provide. (A  
soviet-style shoe store would have to either improve or go out of business  
if Niketown moved next door.) Therefore even the children of the slugs who  
did not consider changing schools will benefit.  

Admittedly, the students who blissfully sat through all this are still  
drones.  But they're drones in a higher quality school, and perhaps the  
association with a better educational environment will cause them to stop  
being drones.

The whole point of the public education system is to educate children.  I  
fail to see how educating children in publicly run schools is morally  
superior to educating them in privately run schools.  If school X is  
required to impart certain skills and knowledge to its students as a  
precondition for keeping its accredited status, and it performs that job,  
it seems immaterial to me who signs the teacher's paycheck.  

>  I don't
> have an answer; but it seems obvious to me that a voucher system
> condemns the children of the ghetto to a substandard education.

They're getting that now, so I think trying a few experiments to see if  
something else works is in order.

--
Don McGregor | Double your pleasure, double your fun.  Xerox
drm@esl.com  | your paycheck.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dsy@psych.toronto.edu (Desiree Sy)
Subject: Frailty, thy name is reader! (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 14:51:42 GMT

Nancy Lebovitz asks:

>Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

And Mike Godwin answers:
>In the video store, possibly. In the bakery, certainly.

This human's nature is definitely weaker in the bookstore than in
the bakery (on a good buying day, I will count the last bits of
change I have to make certain I've got enough for a paperback
before buying that Mrs. Field's cookie).

shaking those crumbs out of the pages,
desiree
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dstein@oak.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Subject: Re: Shouting at robots
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 16:24:27 GMT

  Proffessor Taranto says he likes my story (thanks, Mark!), but he
also reveals what may be a major development in Maddox's book "Halo",
and adds a hint of the resolution ('thanks a lot', Mark!).

  Not all of us have yet read Tom's book.  Maybe I'm stupid and blind,
but I have seen neither the hardcover (which I would not be able to 
afford) nor the paperback (which I might, if Mr. McCarthy has a heart
and doesn't change the rules on me).

  Tom published an excerpt from his novel in Quanta, where I read it and
liked it enough to be willing to go hungry a day so I can buy the book
and finish the tale (well, I hope the excerpt was from the beginning).

  Maybe you can mail me your copy, Mark!

 - David

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: houk@athena.cs.uga.edu (Mr Congeniality Of 1967)
Subject: Re: John Sayles' Fiction
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 00:01:40 GMT

In article <1993Jan10.205525.22976@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>In article <10JAN93.18424258@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>>For those of you who enjoy Sayles' films, I highly recommend the
>>recent _City of Hope_.  It might, in some ways, be his best work so
>>far, and contains echoes of his novel _Union Dues_.  It's out on
>>video.  (Don't confuse it with _City of Joy_, starring Patrick Swayze.)  
>
>I was expecting a lot from this movie, given all the favorable press
>when it came out (what, two years ago or so.)  What I found instead
>was a completely servicable made-for-TV movie that was in every other
>respect undistinguished.  At no point did any of the main characters
>seem real to me; they all manifested a kind of lifeless phoniness which
>came from the screenwriter's condescension, drawn as either stereotypes or
>earnest proto-saints.  I couldn't imagine _why_ this movie was getting
>the good press it was; finally I could only ascribe it to the general
>drek out there, where a movie worthy of the Hallmark Hall of Fame would
>be overpraised, and to the ossification of Sayles' apotheosis as the
>aging generation-in-power's film-maker-of-note.

(Wow - something to bring me out of my shell in r.a.b. :)

Actually, I quite enjoyed 'City Of Hope' - in fact, I'd also say that
it was his strongest film so far. I do agree that most of the characters
(if not all) were stereotypes, but I think that the film worked on a
level beyond characterization - showing how all these people in a city
are affected by one another - interlocked in one huge web of humanity.
There's no time to feel empathy with any one person, so you're forced
to take everything as a whole, and examine the relationships between
the urbanites. I quite enjoyed it - quite much more so than 'Amy Fisher -
My Story'. :)

Joshua Houk

-- 
houk@athena.cs.uga.edu * indie-list co-moderator
We have no idea what we're saying.
	- Superchunk
From: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com (Joel Hanes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Schooling, Rabbis, and Asparagus -- a temporally cohesive post
Keywords: alice
Date: 5 Jan 93 18:16:04 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com
Organization: Amdahl Corporation  Sunnyvale California


  dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>
>I finally got to Suetonius, which had been sitting on my shelf for too
>long (the book, not...), and I'm sorry I didn't read it earlier.  I
>noticed, in passing, that Augustus used the expression "quicker than you
>can cook asparagus", which implies that asparagus doesn't take long to
>cook.  Well, it takes *me* a long time to cook asparagus, so I deduce that
>either asparagus has mutated significantly in the past couple of millenia,
>or Augustus liked his asparagus almost raw, or the Ancients had a since-
>forgotten super-microwave technology, or the boiling point of water was
>significantly higher in those days -- perhaps due to a change in the
>values of Universal Constants over time.  Now there's glory for you!

But "glory" doesn't mean "a fine knock-down argument".

---
Joel Hanes
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mdb@netcom.com (Mark Bisgeier)
Subject: Quotation from Waugh: BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 23:36:28 GMT


Does anyone know the derivation and/or meaning of the phrase

	Quomodo sedet sola civitas

which Charles Ryder utters two or three times in "Brideshead"?

Thanks
-- 


                      """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
                       Mark Bisgeier   mdb@netcom.com

                         Imagine the possibilities!

                        """"""""""""""""""""""""""""
From: ah@dunaad.co.uk (Alan Hunter)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: propriety in Pride and Prejudice
Date: 7 Jan 93 11:22:50 GMT
Organization: Dunathad

In article <JMC.93Jan7015510@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

>Miss Austen always shows a high regard for Mr. Bennet.

Except that she persistently spelt his name as Bennett, don't you think
that was impolite? or was she just winding him up?

Alan


-- 
Alan Hunter
Johnson Hunter Ltd
Isle of Islay, Scotland
A.Hunter@dunaad.co.uk          fax: +44-496-2336         voice: +44-496-2286
From: mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: RE: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Date: 7 Jan 93 03:44:40 GMT
Organization: The Inner Clique



hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu (Heather) writes:


> I think she's overstating in her typical Paglia furious-Italian manner.
                                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What do you mean by this?




Mark
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.logic
From: cjh@tinton.ccur.com (Christopher J. Henrich)
Subject: Re: Doctrines of Maybe: 7 truth values
Organization: Concurrent Computer Corp., Tinton Falls, NJ
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 20:02:08 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.020944.20105@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>I read [*] that an ancient Hindu sect, the Jains, rejected the law of
>the excluded middle and instead believed in seven truth values,
>yielding their Doctrines of Maybe.  Anyone know how they characterized
>these seven shades of truth?
>
>[*] in "The Creators" by Daniel J. Boorstin.

It would be very interesting to compare this system with modern
"modal logic."  This is the name for a diverse class of logical
systems that formalize the concept of Possible along with True and
False.  My reference is _Survey of Modal Logic_ by Hughes & Cresswell;
title approximate.  This book describes one system in which there are
6 truth values, and refers to another in which there are 42.

The Jains are still around.  Do they still use that 7-valued system?

Regards,
Chris Henrich
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Books I Got For Xmas
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 16:49:36 GMT

In article <3JAN93.19412471@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:

>To connect this with a recent r.a.b. thread: would Anne Rice's
>skill (or lack thereof) at writing from a male point of view excite
>any comment at all if she had published under a male pseudonym?

No, but her skill at writing from a female point of view might, if it were
not known that the male pseudonym concealed a female author.

It may be recalled that the science-fiction writer "James Tiptree Jr." was
noted for "his" skill at writing from a female point of view years before
it was revealed that "Tiptree" was, in fact, a woman named Alice Sheldon.


--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu (michael bruce mcdonald)
Subject: Tristram Shandy
Reply-To: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 07:06:38 GMT

Tristram Shandy is a marvelously funny book, Paglia and her
defenders notwithstanding.  Frankly, I simply cannot imagine
Paglia having the patience to appreciate such a work.  Her loss.

michael mcdonald
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books