HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Computers not a substitute for books
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 05:04:39 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.031551.5479@athena.mit.edu> kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan) writes:

>	Amy does have a point that this "egalitarian media" would now
>have a middleman. I can give you a book and you can read it. I can
>give you a digital text and you will need *something* to read it with.
>Unless technology expands its largesse and efficiency enough to
>virtually give digital text readers away with the text, then there
>will be information poor and information rich.

Hmmm. Does the fact that one requires *something* to listen to a record,
tape, or CD mean that our culture is divided into the music poor and the
music rich?

My Sony Walkman cost me less than $25, yet with it I can listen to the
same tapes as my roommate, with his multi-thousand-dollar system.
While this is no consolation to the person who can't even afford a
Walkman, it does suggest the potential for economies of scale to put
whatever reading technology is developed into the hands of the great
majority of citizens.

I speak to a lot of librarian groups, by the way, and I often encounter
the specter of the "information rich and poor"--yet what I know of the
decline in costs and rise in availability of sophisticated information
technologies suggests to me that this specter is a will-o'-the-wisp.


--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
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: academic settings
Date: 13 Jan 1993 00:31:59 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: milton.u.washington.edu

In article <1993Jan11.004646.12311@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.1479.24625@channel1> "john lovett" <john.lovett@channel1.com> writes:
>>I just finished David Lodge's hilarious book 'Small World', based on a
>>recommendation in a recent post, and have started 'Changing Places',
>>also by Lodge.
>>
>>Can anyone recommend other books set in academia? Any genre will do.
>>I'll post the list.
>
>This seems as good a time as any to post the obligatory monthly
>recommendation of A.S. Byatt's POSSESSION.
>
>See also Kingsley Amis's LUCKY JIM.


Randall Jarrell's _Pictures from an Institution_.  This really 
should be read in conjunction with Mary McCarthy's _The Groves 
of Academe_, as it is said to have been written in response to 
her novel.  (McCarthy and Jarrell were writers in residence at 
the same women's college --Sarah Lawrence?-- at the same time.) 
McCarthy wrote her savage (and very funny) novel with apparently 
thinly-disguised portraits of some of their fellow teachers; 
Jarrell's novel features a visiting writer who is a soulless 
writing machine.  Although, on balance, he didn't seem to be 
any fonder of their colleagues than she was. 


--Barbara
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Text of CO2 and OR9
Date: 9 Jan 93 18:52:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1993Jan9.135222.19144
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <C0LID2.HrI@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> 
msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:

>                                        Saturday, the 9th of January, 1993
>
>Mikhail Zeleny reminds me that I have left our earlier
>discussion in abeyance:
>  As for your moral assertion, I take it to be the height of moral
>  irresponsibility on your part, to repeat it after having failed to
>  convict me, or, for that matter, Plato and Kant, of promulgating bad
>  moral philosophy.
>
>As I recall, I did not agree with your assertion that sex has
>a morally generative purpose. I think I did agree with you finally
>that your logic was fine, that it came down to a disagreement about
>what moral assumptions one should make. I think your moral assumptions
>are wrong (in that they fail to understand the nature of sex, and
>its moral purpose). I do not now wish to carry on that discussion,
>however, for I think it merits more time than the present flurry
>allows me. Why you should think it irresponsible of me to assert that
>condemning homosexual intercourse is morally wrong, merely because
>you have not yet been publicly convinced of it, is beyond my powers
>to understand the vast moral edifice you have evidently constructed.

I like to think that no more than a commonsensical consideration of the
meaning of "slander", is required to rule that the promulgation of
accusations of scrofulousness is itself morally justifiable only in the
presence of a rational justification for itself.  Considering that,
despite my requests to do so, you have, up to this point, abjectly
failed to substantiate your charge of falsehood and immorality of my
moral assumptions, your continued vilification of my moral reasoning is,
by definition, no more than hypocritical slander.

>                       Mike Morris
>              (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: academic settings
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Distribution: rec
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 21:22:29 GMT

francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir):
>	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.

It was and it wasn't.  As other people's suggestions have shown, there is
considerable variation in what people consider to be a novel with an
academic setting.  Eg,

The Vulcan Academy Murders
Little Men
The Chocolate War
Tam Lin
What's Bred in the Bone
And Both were Young

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

"The death of God left the angels in a strange position."
	--Internal documentation, programmer unknown




Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Angela Carter, _Wise Children_, also "Jeeves and Wooster"
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 03:24:50 GMT

Mary Loveless writes:

>That does it.  I have been dithering (in Spinsterish fashion) for two
>years about whether to introduce the Dreaded Bugeyed Monster into my
>maiden bower (I *am* talking about a TV, yaknow).  Dithering is done, and
>I may well buy one this weekend.  A teeny one that I can put in the closet
>when there is nothing worth watching.  (As soon as I get one installed, my
>friends will start a pool to see how long it is before I am glued to the
>re-run channel for 6 hours/day.  With book in lap.)

	Well, if several years from now you look up, bleary-eyed and
besotted from your teeny TV and wonder, "where has my life gone?", I
wish to state here and now, for the record, that it was Maddox that
brought up Bertie and Jeeves. Isn't it the subgenius fellow who calls
it "the coaxial vampire"? 

	Anyway, we were talking about *MASTERPIECE* Theatre. Which
Wodehouse part of the canon, right?

	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: mapd1@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Nigel Ling)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: University of Sussex
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 14:37:27 GMT

In article <1ig4ofINNbgb@phakt.usc.edu> rhogan@phakt.usc.edu (Ron Hogan) writes:
>Heather writes:
>(in response to Ron Hogan)
>
>>Paglia is a critic rather than a historian.  You read critics for their
>>opinions, not to get an unbiased, objective view.
>
>But those opinions should (I think) be rooted in, if not unbiased, at least
>a semi-objective analysis of the work.  Dealing with Sterne in a paragraph
>because you find him *tiresome* isn't criticism; it's coffeehouse chat.
>

Well, I can't really imagine what a `semi-objective' analysis of fiction
means, unless you mean not beating some drum under the guise of
criticism. Any criticism of literature has to be subjective it seems to
me. It's interesting to note that many famous writers of literature are
unable to say much more about any book than Paglia did about Sterne.
Chekhov wrote that he could only divide books into those he liked and
those he didn't. Of course, that doesn't sell books on criticism or
get you on TV. Makes you wonder, though, whether critics have much 
worth saying.

Nigel


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Dickinson (was Re: Paglia)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 17:34:20 GMT

In article <C0L28r.KJn@news.iastate.edu> s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:

>I love the synesthetic notion that cathedral tunes have "heft."
>I love the way that, without saying that "Heavenly Hurt" is *like* an
>internal scar, Dickinson anticipates Derrida's notion of a rupture at
>the level of internal differences, or Lacan's notion of the linguistic
>"suture."

Shhhhh! Don't tell Paglia!


--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
From: lmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Laurie Mann)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Child molestation & celibacy (was: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Date: 11 Jan 1993 14:08:18 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer Inc, Marlboro MA
Reply-To: lmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: ansible.pubs.stratus.com

Jeff Davis writes
>Francis Muir writes:
>>I thought I had worded this with some care. I am sayiny that enforced  
celibacy
>>and and all-male clergy encoureges child molestation. I am not saying that
>>the Church directly encourages the practise.
>However you word it, it's still boloney.

Care to explain why it's boloney (sic)?  Would you care to speculate 
as to why so many child abusers, particularly of boys, wind up being
Catholic priests?  True, you find child sexual abusers in all professions
and in all classes, but the most notorious cases recently have been
by priests or ex-priests.

*  In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak *
*  because I wasn't a Communist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I *
*  didn't speak because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade *
* unionists, and I didn't speak because I wasn't a trade unionist... *
*Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.*
*  Rev. Martin Niemoeller     [Why to March on Washington in April]  *
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Political Correctness in the Dark Ages
Date: 12 Jan 93 23:24:19 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

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

>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. 

Vanity Fair.

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

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

>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!)

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 ....

  



-- 
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: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu (michael bruce mcdonald)
Subject: Re: ah, sweet serendipity of life
Reply-To: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 13:50:55 GMT

In article <1ih3icINNhcc@phakt.usc.edu>, rhogan@phakt.usc.edu (Ron Hogan) writes:
>ah@dunaad.co.uk (Alan Hunter) writes:
>
>>There's nowt like a Martin Amis when you need cheering up.
>
>Isn't that the truth?  So far, with half of his fiction read,
>my favorite is _London_Fields_.
>
>Ron Hogan


Having been a bit turned off by London Fields and Time's Arrow for reasons that
remain unclear to me, I plan to have another go at these books soon (and The
Rachel Papers sounds like fun), but meanwhile I've discovered the joy of
reading his da, Kingsley.  Namely, I'm a little way into *Lucky Jim*, and
finding it to be full of fun and wit, and some pretty interesting insights,
too.

michael mcdonald
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: The WORST novel ever written?
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 18:00:34 GMT

Jack Campin dilates parenthetically:

  (The original condemnation quoted here was from the ultra-right
CIA-funded propagandist Robert Conquest, from who you'd expect a kneejerk
condemnation of anything Lenin liked enough to steal from.)

	Ah yes, Robert Conquest. This reminds me of what Conquest said
after the Soviet archives were opened and he was approached about 
reprinting a revised edition of _The Great Terror_. The publisher
suggested a new title in keeping with the spirit of the project.
Conquest, not missing a beat, replied, "How about _I Told You So, You
Fucking Assholes_."

	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
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Angela Carter, _Wise Children_, also "Jeeves and Wooster"
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:04:51 GMT
Organization: UT Art History
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1



In article <1993Jan5.044630.8421@athena.mit.edu> Keith Morgan,
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu writes:
>Tom Maddox writes:
>
>	Also, on an almost unrelated note:  the Guthrie/Fry "Jeeves and
>Wooster" series on PBS is half done (2 out of 4), and I for one love it--
>also, would be interested to hear how other r.a.b.ble Wodehouse fanciers
>respond.
>
>	I am also loving every looney minute of it. The second
>episode was absolutely priceless with Bertie and Gussie Fink-Nottle
>changing places. The scene where Bertie tries to tell a joke to the
>assembled aunts was hilarious. Fry and Laurie have brought Jeeves and
>Wooster to life. As I'm watching I can remember what is going to
>happen next but then when it does it never fails to crack me up. Fans
>might want to try to imitate the Bertie ga-ga look. I'm not sure how
>Laurie gets his face all screwed up like that but it is a perfect
>picture of exactly what it is that Bertie represents. Finally, I have
>also enjoyed Stephen Fry's introductions. The concluding remarks to #2
>where he tried to explain why certain English names are pronounced as
>they are was also very funny.

This is not the first Jeeves/Wooster series that Fry and Laurie have
done; Masterpiece Theatre had four episodes (including one two-parter)
last year. I actually prefer the earlier ones as being even funnier, and
a bit more free-form. Jeeves seems a little graver in them, and Bertie
seems a trifle younger and, well, twittier. And the first series had
different actors playing Fink-Nottle and Madeleine Bassett (or else
Gussie has gained an awful lot of weight as a result of his engagement)
who I found more satisfying. But I still love both series. Fortunately
Plum left a whole pile of Jeeves stories--ten books, I think, two of
which were collections.
--

"They like sitting around reading all the books there are. And then they 
love arguing about them. Some of those arguments go on for millenium 
after millenium. It just seems to keep them young, for some reason, 
arguing about books." -- Julian Barnes          

Joann Zimmerman (jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu)
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: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 07:07:14 GMT

In article <1ijesiINNiav@phakt.usc.edu> rhogan@phakt.usc.edu (Ron Hogan) writes:
}Tim Starr writes:
}in response to Ron Hogan
}
}>}It's like the Albert Goldman school of intellectual history-- not so much
}>}sunlight being the best disnfectant as dragging historical figures through
}>}the mud.
}
}>They dragged themselves through the mud.  Johnson just exposed it.
}
}That, of course, hinges on whether or not we agree on the nature of 'mud'.

Very well, then, if it be mud, then they dragged themselves through it and
Johnson tried to expose it.

}The main thing, which Mike has pointed out as well, as that a good number
}of the incidents with which Johnson indicts his subjects aren't relevant
}to the core of their intellectual output, in the same way that Albert
}Goldman's biographies of Elvis and Lennon contribute little, if anything,
}to a serious discussion of their cultural contributions.

But Johnson seems to admit this in his chapter on Shelley, where he says
that Shelley's life seems to cast a shadow over his poetry, which Johnson
claims to admire.

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: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com (Joel Hanes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Keywords: intentional
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:43:30 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com
Distribution: usa
Organization: Amdahl Corporation  Sunnyvale California

>  twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin) writes:
>
>  (poking fun at giving students credit for reading
>   Whatever They Like)
>
>> _How to Achieve a Rich and Fulfilling Spiritual Life while Eating 
>> Pizza_, _Everything I Need to Know I Know Already_, and assorted 
>> collections of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. 


dstein@oak.math.ucla.edu (David Stein) writes:
>
>   Have you read any? (Calvin and Hobbes)

Yes.  I got a lot out of _Leviathan_, but found the
Rev. Calvin's narrow moralism rather heavy going.
Got college credit for the Hobbes, too -- but the
Calvin was on my own.

---
Joel Hanes
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Date: 11 Jan 1993 11:56:12 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


So , gays are more important than native americans? Ben
Nighthorse Campbell was elected senator from CO. Not that
this matters to you dillettantes, though.
-- 
Ted....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 16:55:11 GMT

                                       Thursday, the 7th of January, 1993

Laurie Mann writes:
  Perhaps that's the crux of the problem.  I think I ought to hire the best  
  people for the job.  As much as I dislike the beliefs of religious  
  fundamentalists, I don't think I should be permitted to refuse to hire them  
  because of their religious beliefs.  Or fire them if I learn they are
  fundies after I hire them.  That's ridiculous.  It leads towards a society  
  which refuses to protect co-existence and differing opinions.   The point of  
  the Bill of Rights is to protect the rights of the minorities against the  
  tyranny of the majority.

I think we are *almost* at the crux of the problem, Laurie. The crux
is that you seem to think the ``rights of the minority'' are something
rather different than I do. I think rights are things like free speech,
free press, due process, free association, free exercise of religion, 
the right to keep and bear arms. These things I think are rights because
they are grounded in the only moral philosophy I will allow is
reasonable. I think they come from God, or, rather, since I'm
atheist, from some source transfinitely more powerful than cultural
agreement, or the good wishes of a democratic majority of my fellow citizens.
I.e. rights are inherent in *individual* human beings, by virtue of
their being human, possessive of moral free agency and rational
soul, and being of an age of majority capable of exercising rational
judgment. Rights are not inherent in minority groups or collectivities
of any kind. Also, things like employment, housing, food, and education
cannot be considered rights, leastways not in the same sense that
free speech is a right. Employment for instance is artificially contingent
on there being a job and an employer willing to hire you. Food is
contingent on farmers being willing to grow it and being capable of
doing so.

I do think it in most cases (not all) morally wrong to discriminate in job
hiring on the basis of the religious beliefs of the job applicant.
I certainly agree with you that simply refusing to hire any fundies
(at least for most jobs) would not only be morally wrong (because the
religious beliefs are probably irrelevant) but stupid, insofar as
it would deny one hiring the best applicant. But, *I* thought the point
of having a right of free association was that one could go about making
associations that even the democratic majority was certain were wrong, and
there still would be no laws to say you couldn't.

I was not talking about the wrongness of refusing to hire religious
fundamentalists. I was talking about the essential criminality of
having a law which says you can't make such a refusal.

                      Mike Morris
              (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books