HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Date: 12 Jan 93 04:01:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1993Jan11.230134.19209
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1993Jan11.212630.20298@Princeton.EDU>
roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:

>In article <1993Jan10.152706.19164@husc3.harvard.edu>
>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>>In article <1993Jan10.031748.17865@Princeton.EDU>
>>roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>>In article <C0M6vv.EMn@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca>
>>>msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:

RL:
>>>[...]
>>>Horseshit.
>>>[...]  
>>>Go stuff it. 
>>>[...]

MM:
>>>>What is so wrong about letting the employment contract be freely negotiable
>>>>between both parties? 

RL:
>>>Can you say "horse and rabbit stew"?  When the employer has thousands of
>>>times more resources, the freedom in the negotiations is entirely his/hers.

MZ:
>>Pardon me for insinuating myself into this exceedingly polite discussion,
>>but hasn't the ever-so-aptly named Roger ever heard about unions?

RL:
>I sure have.

Then, perhaps, you would be kind enough to retract your utterly
groundless claim that, "[w]hen the employer has thousands of times
more resources, the freedom in the [labor] negotiations is entirely
his/hers"?

RL:
>	      I also know that, in times past, private armies were 
>raised to put them down, that just twenty years before I was born
>major violent battles were fought by organizers, and that it took
>a fair amount of governmental intervention to stop this.  Recently
>the government has again taken up the cause of union-busting.

All the more reason to emphasize the merits of unions in contractual
negotiations of employment terms.

>Roger
>

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Shouting at robots
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<1993Jan6.163429.6956@math.ucla.edu> <1993Jan8.062733.3435@netcom.com>
Date: 7 Jan 93 23:18:55

In article <1993Jan8.062733.3435@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:

   In article <1993Jan6.163429.6956@math.ucla.edu> dstein@oak.math.ucla.edu (David Stein) writes:

   >  Well well well.  You get paid thousands and thousands of dollars and
   >it's not enough -- now you want to conquer the little leagues, too.

	   I merely alluded to the story.  I did not enter it in Prof. McDuck's
   contest.  In fact, for unintentionally misleading you into believing that
   I was trying to gain the prize, I will myself contribute a coupon good for
   a Big Mac and Big Fries to the winner of the prize (unintended rhyme alert)
   provided that the winner is actually hungry enough to eat such swill.  If 
   not, I will agree to meet the winner at Cactus Taqueria (close by the 
   Rockridge BART station) and buy and carry to the winner's table a taco or 
   tostada of the winner's choice (I recommend the carne asada taco myself)
   along with a reasonable selection of side dishes and drinks.


   -- 
				   Tom Maddox
			       tmaddox@netcom.com
	   "That's a bird bone chair, Bob.  I don't know if I should sit there."
				   Tom Waits

Should the winner turn out to be someone who can conveniently get there,
I will join you at some mutually convenient time.  If the time is very
convenient, I may be able to bring Timothy and his robot.  Timothy will
probably prefer the Big Mac, but the robot will not stoop to eating
any such swill.

Quackishly yours,


--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: 1992 in Review
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 18:17:32 GMT

vince@cadence.com (Vince Gibboni):
>I'd like to point out that it's absolutely physically impossible to
>read 214 books in a single year....I read about 25 pages/hour, if I spent 

The obvious problem with your logic is that 25 pages/hr is very slow.
(Okay, it depends on subject matter.  For a dense reference book, it's
phenomenal; for the average work of fiction, 50 is common and 100 is
reasonable without 'speed-reading', or otherwise skipping text.)  Do you 
subvocalize?  Or read one word at a time?  These are kickable habits.

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

   God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine  -- Edmund Spenser

From: daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom)
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 16:32:25 GMT
Subject: Re: Good Westerns
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books

I cannot believe that noone here has mentioned the Oxbow Incident
by L. Van-Tilberg Clark.

doug
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Celebrating McGonagall
Organization: The Inner Clique
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 04:11:16 GMT


John McCarthy writes:

> sanjiva@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad) writes:

>> Um, excuse the ignorance, but is McGonagall the poet that a Certain British
>> TV Program once did a feature on?  The Scots poet who wrote such 
>> masterpieces as  "If ye lend me fiyve bob till Thursdae..." ?

> I'll stick my neck out.  Although I have had very little exposure to
> MacGonagall, I'd nevertheless be quite surprised if he wrote any such
> thing.  It doesn't fit my MacGonagall image.

It was from a Monty Python sketch.  Terry Jones played the Scot.


Mark
From: lc1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Lori Cole)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: ISBN information wanted
Date: 5 Jan 93 04:35:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.cfGNmO200WBM81eEsP
	<4JAN199311001785@milori.ccit.arizona.edu>
Distribution: world,local
Organization: Doctoral student, History, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Surprisingly, not all library databases include ISBN's, even when one
asks for the full record!  I did editorial assisting/annotating for the
soon-to-be-published updated American Historical Association _Guide to
Historical Literature_ where I had to search for ISBN's for a
preliminary list of entries and it was a very frustrating process. 
Hence Mr. Stoddard's rather glib answer is not really very useful, much
less accurate.

Lori Cole
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: The WORST novel ever written?
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 05:36:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.044759.22971@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> mad5c@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU writes:
>I can only speak for novels I have read, or at least attempted to read, so
>this is of course not a definitive answer, but I can say without doubt that
>the worst novel I have ever read was Philip Roth's _Portnoy's Complaint_.
>Frederick Exley has covered much of the same ground in each of his three
>novels and has in each case produced a remarkably good read.  Philip Roth,
>on the other hand, reads like the graffiti in the Men's room of a
>particularly disreputable downtown bus station.

Gee, that's not even *Roth's* worst novel...

Roger

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 15:31:43 GMT

                                    Wednesday, the 6th of January, 1993

Staci Ann Waldroop writes:
 You say that the educational system is bad.  I ask you...WHAT ARE YOU DOING 
 ABOUT IT???  If you turn away from the system society has set up, then all you
 are doing is burying your head in the sand!  If something is wrong, then you
 should do everything in your power to change it...if you do anything less than
 you have no right to complain.

If you can explain to me how my desire/decision to homeschool my children,
and to give to them thereby the best education I possibly can, is
doing other than facing the problem squarely, then perhaps I might agree
as to the appropriateness of your response.

                   Mike Morris
           (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
From: ed@wente.llnl.gov (Ed Suranyi)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Novel set in Montreal?
Date: 6 Jan 93 01:21:07 GMT
Organization: UC Davis Dept of Applied Science at LLNL

Does anyone know of a good novel set in Montreal?  I'd like to read one
that conveys a strong sense of place.  It has to be in English (or
translated into English) because I don't read French THAT well.
Mordecai Richler can be pretty good, but he can be too smart-alecky
sometimes.

Ed
ed@wente.llnl.gov
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The WORST novel ever written?
Date: 11 Jan 93 20:24:38 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <C0p9K4.AL@srgenprp.sr.hp.com> blaisec@sr.hp.com (Blaise Cirelli) writes:

> _ Lord of the Flies - mechanical and clumsy
> - Armies of the Night - Mailer's ego at full-stage
> - Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon can stay hidden for all I care

I assume you're including only "serious" novels here and not such accepted
trash as "Rock Star" by Jackie Collins?

If so, I nominate (and this will make me *real* popular) "A Confederacy of
Dunces" and (to cement my reputation) "Rebel Angels."  Oh, and "Even
Cowgirls Get the Blues" and  "Bright Lights, Big City."

  

-- 
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: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Doctrines of Maybe: 7 truth values
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 17:57:27 GMT

In article <7620061@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom) writes:
>In rec.arts.books, jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
>
>> 
>> >The Jains are still around.  Do they still use that 7-valued system?
>> 
>> Yes and no.
>
>You know, I am sure this was not intended to be funny ....

What makes you sure?


--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: donz@uiunix.ui.org (Don Zirilli)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Date: 5 Jan 93 15:41:45 GMT
Organization: UNIX International, Parsippany, NJ  07054

In article <1993Jan5.024814.11577@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>In article <5JAN93.00195577@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>>I wrote:
>>
>>>>Maybe.  I'm not so sure.  I think people are more demanding of a
>>>>female writer writing from a male point of view. 
>>
>>One idea would be to look at the "canon" and see how many female
>>authors' books have male points of view, and how many male authors'
>>books have female points of view.  That would give you a fair idea
>>of how well-accepted "cross-writing" is for men as opposed to
>>women.  
>
>Perhaps so, but while these data would be interesting, it seems to me they
>wouldn't directly address the issue we've raised in this thread:
>namely, whether "people are more demanding of a female writer writing
>from a male point of view."  
>
>The statistics on use of the opposite gender's point of view wouldn't
>really tell us how well the writers' efforts were received.
>

Mike,

note above that HH said "canon".  This is not a term of "use" but precisely
a term of "well...received" work.  You can dispute her facts here, but not
her logic.

In other news, the books I read last year:

Under God, by Garry Wills
Sex, by Madonna
a Marlene Dietrich biography from the 1970's
Juggling With Finesse, by Somebody-or-other
a Bobby Fischer chess education book

Happy New Year all,

Posthumous O'Toole

-- 
Chucklehead awaits the return of his .sig

Aaron Radomski, where are you???
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 19:05:59 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.120711.16093@cheshire.oxy.edu> rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:

>	Really, Mike, it ill-becomes you to attempt to label me
>with positions I do not hold.  Your comment does help me understand
>what the Paglian position is, however indirectly.  Apparently she
>(and you) believe that the prevailing feminist orthodoxy circa date
>rape holds women "as a child-like class..." capable of no wrong --
>am I getting this down right?

No.

>And that the woman who goes upstairs 
>with that frat boy (I believe this is one of Paglia's examples) is
>an irresponsible idiot if she expects nothing more than stimulating
>literary discussion will happen? 

It seems indisputable that she's taking a risk. The issue is whether this
risk can be eliminated by proper indoctrination of everyone. Paglia thinks
the risk of this kind of situation is irreducible, and that the way to
prevent date rape is to tell women what they can do to avoid it.

Her position about feminist prescriptions is simply this: the notion that
rape is a social construct is misleading and dangerous, because it gives
rise to the expectation that properly indoctrinated males won't commit
date rape. This expectation, Paglia says, both disempowers women and puts
them in danger.


--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: bhanafee@picasso.ads.com (Brian Hanafee)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mountain View, CA 94043, +1 (415)
	960-7300
	<1993Jan11.124919.16849@cheshire.oxy.edu>
	<BHANAFEE.93Jan11132750@picasso.ads.com>
	<1993Jan12.021905.6415@cheshire.oxy.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 03:24:50 GMT


In article <1993Jan12.021905.6415@cheshire.oxy.edu> rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:
>	Your point, like Paglia's, jells with "common sense," but 
>remains morally dubious.  To return to the car theft analogy I made
>previously, if I leave my car with the keys in the ignition and the 
>doors open and it's stolen, is the thief any less culpable?  Is the
>act of theft any less immoral because of "tempting" circumstances?

   No, the theft is not less immoral, but, as I stated in my previous
post, culpability is not a zero-sum game.  If you leave your car with
the keys in the ignition, you make yourself more culpable for the
consequences.  There is, in this case, more culpability to go around.


>	The trouble with Paglia's position vis-a-vis date rape is
>that it plays directly into a long tradition of sexist victim-blaming
>which would enroll women in a self-disciplinary acceptance of male
>intimidation.

No, she is suggesting that women should *not* accept male
intimidation.  She is stating that women should understand male
intimidation and react to it, first by not making themselves easy
victims, and second by punishing rapists when they rape anyway.


--
Brian Hanafee                         Advanced Decision Systems
bhanafee@ads.com                      1500 Plymouth Street
(415) 960-7300                        Mountain View, CA 94043-1230
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields)
Subject: Re: Child molestation & celibacy (was: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 15:37:34 GMT


>>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.

This looks like a sweeping generalization - any evidence to support it?

>>Jeff Davis writes:
>>However you word it, it's still boloney.

I agree.

Laurie Mann writes:

>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.

I think the key word here is notorious.  There is nothing so shocking as
someone we've all been taught to have respect for (ie: clergymen,
teachers, nuns, doctors), people we are supposed to trust (parents,
grandparents, other close relatives) do something like molest a child.
But most children who are sexually abused are abused by a parent or close
relative - does this mean that being a parent is going to lead someone
(mother or father) to molest a child?   The same could be said of any
brutal/violent crime and crimminal - especially if that person is someone
we generally associate with gentleness and compassion.

"Nothing smells to foul a rotten lilies" something like that Shakespeare
wrote (I'm sure someone else can and will provide the correct quote).  

Yours in wet fishes and backroom side-dishes,

Joan
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cajuns
Date: 11 Jan 1993 11:34:00 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Here are a few titles and authors (who are all Cajun)

Barry Jean Ancelet;
   MAKERS OF CAJUN MUSIC
   CAJUN CULTURE (vol 1 of the Southern Folklife Series from the
     University of Mississippi)
Anne Savoy
   CAJUN MUSIC; A REFLECTION OF A PEOPLE

 laissez le bon ton roulet, y'all
-- 
Ted....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:29:47 GMT

                                  Tuesday, the 12th of January, 1993

I just wanted to make a small comment on this thread: A thank-you note
to Mike and to Heather. I mean, besides their discussion, which I have
enjoyed (much, much more, that is, than anything I have recently been
discussing), my thanks to Mike because I'm pretty sure it was his posting
long ago a paragraph or two of Paglia on cats that induced me go out and
get the book and begin to read it (_SP_ I mean). My thanks to Heather,
because she has managed to relieve me of a large burden of guilt
for not having yet finished it. I find Paglia wonderful in her ability
alternately to command my raptorous agreement and enrage me on every
page. But, I've found the oracular style---every other sentence a Bartlett's
wannabe---slow to read. I feel like I've been stuck somewhere halfway
through the book for ages now. Along comes Heather, who calls those
things I've been thinking of as Chapters ``Essays'', and suddenly
my burden of guilt has become eversomuch lighter.
               
                      Mike Morris
             (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Keywords: Paglia (again!)
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 01:43:40 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.000217.11210@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> echristo@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Elena A Christofides) writes:
>
>The one major reason I agree with much of Paglia's sentiments center around her
>treatment of the "empowerment of women" and how modern day feminists have done 
>more to degrade and diminish the power of the woman.
>I'm more offended by a woman who upon incurring some
>terrible (verbal) assault (I DON'T MEAN RAPE!) by a member of the opposite sex,
>say in the workplace, like "Hey baby, come over here and show off your hot
> legs!" Runs off to some authority crying "BooHooHoo, he said BAD things to
>me!" Instead of just kicking him in the shins and telling him to go to hell!"
>
>

	This is all well and good, but who are these "crybaby" feminists?
It seems to me that Paglia is raising straw women.  Of course you can deal
with harassment informally; I don't know any feminists who frown on the
"fuck off, asshole" school of self-defense.  Trouble is, the harasser's
response can sometimes be "You're fired" or a swift progression to physical
intimidation.  No one should feel like formal action against harassment is
"boohooing," or anything less than the legal equivalent of "go to hell."

Cordially,

Michael S. Rooney
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 12 JAN 93 04:49:36 GMT

Brian Hanafee writes:

>   Having just thrashed my way through this entire thread, I am left 
>with the impression that you think that (and I'll state this in the 
>negative) acts that are not justifiable are not inevitable.  No one in 
>this thread has suggested that rape of any kind is justifiable.  But 
>culpability is not some kind of moral zero-sum game.  The rapist 
>should be held responsible for a rape, and should bear the entire 
>brunt of severe punishment.  Nobody in this thread seems to disagree 
>with that.  The point Paglia makes is that this does not entirely 
>absolve the victim of responsibility--everyone must act to avoid being 
>victims.  It is futile to expect that crime can be significantly 
>reduced by changing the criminals alone. 

Michael Sean Rooney writes: 

>        Your point, like Paglia's, jells with "common sense," but 
>remains morally dubious.  To return to the car theft analogy I made 
>previously, if I leave my car with the keys in the ignition and the 
>doors open and it's stolen, is the thief any less culpable?  Is the 
>act of theft any less immoral because of "tempting" circumstances? 

Funny you should bring up this analogy.  Paglia herself says (I quote an from
an interview in _SA&AC_):

     These girls say, "Well, I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity
     party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening."  And
     I say, "Oh, really?  And when you drive your car to New York City, do
     you leave your keys on the hood?"  My point is that if your car is
     stolen after you do something like that, yes, the police should pursue
     the thief and he should be punished.  But at the same time, the police -
     - and I -- have the right to say to you, "You stupid idiot, what the
     hell were you thinking?"

The car thief is morally wrong for stealing, and guilty of breaking an
established law.  His punishment, should he be caught and convicted, is jail. 
The victim is guilty of being careless about her property.  Her punishment is
that she's lost her car.  I don't consider stupidity to be a moral failing;
but expecting the rest of the world to take responsibility for your own
property, when *you yourself* can't be bothered to care for it -- yes, that
does verge on being immoral.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Shouting at robots
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 18:43:50 GMT

	In my story "Gravity's Angel" (Nov. '92 _Omni_), the protagonist
has a couple of conversations with a defective groundskeeping robot--he
doesn't actually shout, however, as what he has to say is more in sorrow
than in anger.


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
	"That's a bird bone chair, Bob.  I don't know if I should sit there."
				Tom Waits
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: watters@world.std.com (Tim Watters)
Subject: Wanted: Meditations from the Breakdown Lane. Shapiro, James
Summary: Wanted: Meditations From the Breakdown Lane by James Shapiro
Keywords: wanted, shapiro. 
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 01:34:23 GMT

I need a copy of Meditations From the Breakdown Lane by James Shapiro.
Recently out of print.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books