HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 17:38:10 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.091900.2538@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>In article <1993Jan8.220801.18406@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>>In article <1ikq4gINNa58@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>>>Mike Godwin writes:
>>>
>>>	Roger Lustig writes:
>>>
>>>		Whatever.
>>>
>>>	In these four lines, Roger sums up Paul Johnson's book perfectly.
>>>
>>>Oh my God! We're not back to those back-scratching, log-rolling days of
>>>yore are we? 
>>
>>
>>Great posting, Fido!
>
>	I'll say!
>
>	Yours, too, Mike!

I didn't think anyone could top Fido's and Roger's great postings until I
saw your grand effort here, Tom!

Keep it up!


--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,rec.arts.sf.written
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 20:39:29 GMT

curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin):
>>>But why should theirs be thought better?
>>
>>Better for what?
>
>Exactly - better for what?  "Better" is an absolute...

Interesting proposition...

Today's paper had a nice restatement of Curtis's argument:

Calvin:  I don't want to go to school  I don't want to know anything new.
	 I already know more than I want to!  I liked things better
		when I didn't understand them!
	 The fact is, I'm being educated against my will!  My rights
		are being trampled!

Hobbes:  Is it a right to remain ignorant?

Calvin:  I don't know, but I refuse to find out!

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

Roses red and violets blew
  and all the sweetest flowres that in the forrest grew -- Edmund Spenser
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: "Jeeves and Wooster"
Date: 6 Jan 1993 13:21:58 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


I have no problem with Bertie and Jeeves being similar in age;
but did anyone notice that Jeeves was more "substantial" in the
first round of episodes. I guess Fry may have cut back on the
Old Peculier and bangers and mash......
-- 
Ted....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 23:42:15 GMT

In article <1iflblINN12r@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:

>Oh I agree totally that there are an interesting lot; my point is that
>they are interesting as persons, not as women.

A nice distinction, that.


--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: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 05:10:33 GMT

In article <13892@optilink.COM> cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.174508.29597@eff.org>, mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>> Should they be allowed to fire an employee if they discover he's Jewish?
>> What if they feel that Jews undermine their "flaming fundie image"?
>> 
>> Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
>
>Sure.  And if they do so, they will probably have a hard time staying
>in business, won't they?  Catering to neo-Nazis sounds like a fine
>way to discover the ins and outs of bankruptcy law.

If only history had shown this to be the case.


--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: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 12:24:52 GMT

In article <1ig4ofINNbgb@phakt.usc.edu> rhogan@phakt.usc.edu (Ron Hogan) writes:

>As for the Bette Davis et al. cults among male homosexuals, I personally
>think she's blowing it way out of proportion.  I imagine that the number
>of male homosexuals who admire Bette Davis, for example, is not
>*significantly* greater than those who admire a different type of actress
>such as Vivien Leigh.

Fasten your seatbelt, Ron; this was a bumpy comparison. Vivian Leigh never
made ALL ABOUT EVE.



--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,alt.books.review
From: evanh@sco.COM (Evan Hunt)
Subject: Review: Watching the Roses (YA)
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 02:26:44 GMT


_Watching the Roses_ by Adele Geras.  Reviewed by Wendy E. Betts, 
staff reviewer for THE WEB.  Copyright 1992 THE WEB. Reproduction of 
this review without permission is prohibited.


Who would Sleeping Beauty be if she were alive today?  What would be
the forces that shaped her life and the cause of her deathless sleep...
what would be the truth of her rescue?  These are the questions asked in
_Watching the Roses_, a truly unique and powerful retelling of a fairy 
tale.

Alice, an English schoolgirl, has lain on her bed, seemingly asleep, since
the night of her eighteenth birthday party - stricken dumb by a trauma so
severe she can only cope by retreating from the world.  But her retreat is
not complete:  in the lonely hours, when no is watching, she keeps a diary. 
And as she writes in soft murmers about her friends, her school, her family 
history, she gets closer and closer to the events of her birthday, until she
is able to release the words that keep her under a spell of silence.

_Watching the Roses_ could stand alone as a beautifully written young adult
novel about recovering from trauma, without the trappings of the fairy
tale, yet they somehow add immeasurably to the story.  The constant yet
suprising shock of seeing parallels adds to the sense of pre-destined doom
which haunts the book, especially as the reader realizes the terrible form
the evil must inevitably take.  Perhaps Geras overdoes the parallels
slightly, occasionally straining credibility, but the overall effect of the
familiar story in its modern form is fascinating and utterly convincing.
She has given Sleeping Beauty a soul, one which will be hard to forget.

Geras, Adele. _Watching the Roses_. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; 
1992 (0-15-294816-3). 

-- 
Evan Hunt, Asst. Editor, THE WEB
For more information about THE WEB, e-mail to evanh@sco.COM.
From: arc2@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (AMY CHARLES)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Surprised at ISBN response
Date: 6 Jan 93 16:26:49 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University


In article <1993Jan5.212725.29922@rtsg.mot.com>, bukovins@rtsg.mot.com (Dave Buk
ovinsky) writes:
>
>I am a little surprised at the responses I have received to my request for
>an ISBN database...
>
>The most useful suggestion to date has been to telnet to dra.com, where they
>have a database server set up - however, it doesn't appear to be nearly
>comprehensive enough for my needs...
>(in other words I entered the ISBN #'s from a random sampling of my
>fiction collection and none of them were found - some of which were 1992
>best sellers....)
>
>An internet telnet-type service does not provide me with a suitable
>solution anyway - the connect time required to search for some 1500 ISBN
>numbers would be ridiculous...
>
>What I am ideally looking for are CD-Roms from book publishers, etc that
>have the ISBN databases on them, so that I can perform the indexing
>on my own PC. Another alternative would be database files that I could
>ftp to my PC and manipulate there...
>
>Am I the first person to ever think about indexing their book collection?
>I would think that someone else would have done this.....
>(e.g. how are book stores keeping track of their inventory ?)
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>David Bukovinsky   bukovins@rtsg.mot.com    (708) 632-4410
>

Bowker, which publishes Books In Print, *does* sell the set on CD-ROM.  You'll
pay great big bucks, though.  Maybe they've remaindered (!) last year's.

Bookstores often *don't* keep track of inventory.  (Surprise!)  But a store
may use digital info provided by a major distributor, which then acheives a
virtual monopoly in that store.  Big chains, like Walden/Kmart, use
centralized databases but these by no means cover all books in print -- only
thoZfd--T3}ise carried by major distributors.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 17:46:46 GMT

In article <12JAN93.04573174@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>
>> The fact is, men rape, and women are in danger. 
>
>Mark Taranto writes:
>
>>I find the generality of this statement offensive. 
>
>Then you're an asshole.
>
>Nothing personal, of course, Mark.  I *like* you.  But I have the 12-step
>plan to consider.

	Hold on just a minute. If Heather calls Mark an asshole does
that negate steps 8-11? I thought we would proceed to a discussion of
the epithet "asshole" so that Godwin's Rule may be invoked. Or, does
Heather have to call someone, anyone but Mark, an asshole so that the
12 step can continue? And, doesn't this place a lot of responsibility
on Heather. After all, if she *refrains* from calling someone an asshole
(or, if someone else doesn't call *her* an asshole) then rab will be
looped into this books, more books, and ideas thread of steps 1-3.

	Seeking counsel,

	I remain,

	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: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Subject: Re: Self-knowledge of bookstore workers & others
Keywords: curious areas of ignorance  
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Distribution: na,local
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:28:11 GMT

stoddard@ccit.arizona.edu (MJ STODDARD) writes:

>The classic example of curious areas of ignorance (forgive me if
>this was mentioned in the orignial post) is, of course, Sherlock
>Holmes. While possessed of vast knowledge about ashes, foot prints,
>and train schedules, he was actively annoyed when Watson tried to
>tell him about celestial mechanics (So what if the earth goes around
>the sun? What does that have to do with detection?).
>
>Cetainly, this is an admirable dedication to essential matters.


     A number of Holmes scholars have claimed that SH was pulling Watson's
leg about this, but I think it quite conceivable that he was serious.  The
*very* highest mental achievements require a level of concentration and 
monomania that excludes quite a bit of mundanity. (Questioner: "How did
you hatch your great idea?"  Isaac Newton: "Nocte dieque incubando.")
Holmes said (more than once, I think) that his mind was so full that he
lost a fact out the back whenever he shoved a new one in the front.
On the other hand, Nero Wolfe said "The more you put into a mind, the
more it will hold."  Whom to believe?  Is anyone here nervous about
reaching his limit?

                                                 -- jf
From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homeschooling (was  Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith)
Date: 4 Jan 93 22:13:02 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Dec31.152903.25127@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>, ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
# If one believes (as I do) that a society benefits by educating all its
# members, than for people to say, "Well, the school system is bad, so
# rather than work to fix it, I will pull my kids out."  I certainly
# believe that parents should be concerned about their children's
# education, but it seems to me that this can be done in addition to
# sending them to public school, rather than in place of.  If you take your
# children to museums, or talk about history, or do any number of things,
# you can add to the public school system, not replace it.

Except that in many public schools, you are adding to nearly zero,
by supplementing what they get.  In some public schools, you are
adding to a negative number.  What about a school where a child
learns that the correct response to a teacher's request for quiet
is, "Shut up, bitch!"  What about a school where you get beat up
for wearing blue, red, or British Knights shoes?  (The experience of
a friend attending a high school in Southern California -- and not
in the inner city, either.)

# Why is this important?  Well, you may be committed to homeschooling
# your children.  But what about the single parent who has to work
# full-time (or more) just to *support* his/her children?  What about the
# parents who for whatever reason can't homeschool their children?  Maybe
# they can't speak English very well.  Maybe they are illiterate.  Maybe
# they are handicapped.  These children need a decent education, and

Most likely, however, the parents are lazy, and think that sitting
in front of the TV for five hours a night is real life.

# abandoning the public school system and saying homeschooling is the
# answer seems to me to guarantee that the next generation will be even
# worse educated than the current one.

How does removing your child destroy the public school?  But I would
agree, that these children need an education also.  Public schooling,
of course, doesn't do much of a job of that.

# Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
C++ is to C, as lung cancer is to lung.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: Paglia
Organization: Clark University
Date: 8 JAN 93 19:28:15 GMT

I wrote:

>>I continually find it interesting to see terms like "narcissistic" applied
>>to Paglia.  Also, words like "boastful", "arrogant", and "egomaniacal".
>>She is, of course.  But so what?  Male writers, critics, and academics
>>have been narcissistic, boastful, arrogant, and egomaniacal for ages.
>>Why is it a constant source of comment in Paglia's case?  Ask yourself if
>>you'd be so quick to characterize her that way if she were a man.

Ron Hogan writes:

>I beleive the word you're looking for is "Oliver Stone".

Is "Oliver Stone" a word?

And heck, Ron, being a film student, you should know that film directors
are, by definition, narcissistic, boastful, arrogant and egomaniacal.*
That's why there are so few female ones.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu

*Well, I can name one or two who aren't, but they're the exceptions that
prove the rule.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written
From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 12:23:27 GMT

                                    Monday, the 4th of January, 1993

Curtis Yarvin asks:
  But why should theirs be thought better?

Better for what?

              Mike Morris
          (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Celebrating McGonagall
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.93Jan2184022@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <3JAN93.03253274@vax.clarku.edu>
	<1993Jan5.223131.15522@ecrc.de> <JMC.93Jan6002645@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
	<1993Jan6.210450.4366@ecrc.de>
Date: 7 Jan 93 01:01:09

Sorry, but I am always caught out in ignorance of Monty Python.  Is there
a Cliff's Notes to Monty Python.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 06:54:55 GMT

Would someone repost or mail me the addiction survey?  It's expired here.

Speaking of which, I went home for the holidays with one bag with 30
pounds of stuff, and came back with two bags, 100 pounds.  Mostly books.
-- 
If God is perfect, why did he create discontinuous functions?
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Which Shakespeare works to buy?
Date: 5 Jan 93 19:03:08 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology


	Steven Chung inquires of collected Shakespeare:

	How about Wells+Taylor (Oxford)?  Is this controversial?

Jon Corelis replies:

   Apparently not.  Several weeks ago I asked in this newsgroup for
opinions on this edition and got not a single followup.  I guess my
query must have been drowned out by such intensive literary
controversies as homosexual genetics, snobbish computerized cliques, and
politically correct methods of chiding automata. 


	Drowned out it must have been for I did not see it. Yes, the
Oxford Shakespeare was very controversial when it began to trickle
out. As I remember it was *Hamlet* especially that arose the critic's
ire. The editors reinserted scenes that the Shakespearian
establishment had discarded some years ago. I used Kenneth Muir's
edition of *Troilus and Cressida* as the ur-text for my thesis. I like
his notes and his emendations made critical sense. The only reaction I 
received was when one of my committee members returned my final draft
and he had changed all the Oxford Troilus punctuation back to standard
Riverside/ Penguin / etc. BTW, the best Shakespeare, in my opinion, is
the Arden Shakespeare. The trouble is it hasn't been collected so you
have to either buy each edition singly or lay out several hundred big
ones for a complete set. 

	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: mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: TRISTRAM SHANDY
Date: 8 Jan 93 03:30:40 GMT
Organization: The Inner Clique


michael mcdonald writes:

> 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.

It is funny that this thread just came up.  Just the other day, I was talking 
with the squash pro at my health club.  He was saying that about 100 pages
into TRISTRAM SHANDY it suddenly hit him *why* every literary critic loves
the book, and why he did not.  He thought it a one joke book, and thought
that its major drawback was that unlike books like ULYSSES, the style
never varied.  I should mention that he left the graduate program in
English, at Columbia, where his major area of interest was English Lit
in the same period as TRISTRAM SHANDY.  I remember that my ex, who is 
also an ABD in English liked it quite a bit, though.  

I must admit that I haven't read it yet, but am intrigued.  The discussion 
came up because I am reading the *only* book which I got for Christmas
(and I gave books to 8 people on *my* list).  The book is called
THE MEZZANINE, by Nicholson Baker.  I'll write more about it in a
few days, but the whole book is a digression on thoughts that occurred
to the narrator while taking an escalator ride.

Mark
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: academic settings
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 00:46:46 GMT

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.


--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: mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Legal theory, Homophobia, and the Bible
Summary: commendable!
Date: 11 Jan 93 01:56:09 GMT
Organization: Panix Public Access Internet & Unix, NYC

In article <1iq3puINNmee@ARGENTINA.AI.CS.YALE.EDU> engelson-sean@cs.yale.edu
writes:

>Something along the lines of "No discrimination in employment shall be
>permitted except regarding necessary qualifications for the job
>specified." (In appropriate legalese, of course).  The question of
>relevance in discrimination suits is properly left to the courts.

A totally admirable statement, as far as I can see.  One might want
to reflect for a while on WHY so obvious and clearly equitable a
formulation is the LAST thing one would expect in American politics.
As a gay advocate of gay rights, I would be quite happy to subsume
my aims under *positive* statements of human rights like the above,
with no mention at all of the particular category I have been in that
subjects me to arbitrary discrimination.

And yet, the positive statements of our Bill of Rights, and other
foundations of our legal system, somehow have NOT historically been
read in a way that extends "equal protection" where it seem obvious
to me it should go.  The need to say "No! that is NOT an exception!"
is what has driven civil rights legislation in my lifetime.  I don't
quite know what a world would be like in which there was no need
for such legislation -- since all human societies I have encountered
have groups who, it is generally understood, may NOT expect to be
treated like "respectable" people.

>This avoids singling out certain groups as "special" in that
>membership in *that* group confers discrimination-inviolability.  It
>may also have the effect of reducing spurious lawsuits by members of
>such a group, alleging illegal discrimination where none exists.
>
>BTW, after having read the text of the measures under discussion, I
>must say that I disagree with them both, and find the Oregon measure
>rather repugnant (and me a former Oregonian!).
>
>-- 
>Sean Philip (Shlomo) Engelson		
>Yale Department of Computer Science	
>Box 2158 Yale Station			
>New Haven, CT 06520			


-- 
Michael L. Siemon	"We honour founders of these starving cities
mls@panix.com		 Whose honour is the image of our sorrow ...
			 They built by rivers and at night the water
			 Running past the windows comforted their sorrow."
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Woosterspeak
Date: 12 Jan 93 20:39:16 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <C0rAzo.F3p@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> nickles@sage.cc.purdue.edu (John A. Nickles) writes:

>As an additional ironic historical footnote 
>JOY IN THE MORNING was written in a Nazi detention camp.

Well, that certainly explains the unwatchable movie.  I never did attempt
the book.



-- 
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