HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Computers not a substitute for books
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 03:15:51 GMT

Amy Charles writes:

I've been having a running argument with the Project Gutenberg folks
(bit.gutenberg, I think) about this.  Aside from problems with aesthetics and
transferability, digital text makes the most egalitarian of media the most
classbound.

Mike Godwin writes:

Doesn't this argument assume that the means of reading digital text will
be prohibitively expensive to poorer classes? Will this always be the 
case?

	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. Having said that, I
predict more of a balance between the traditional methods of reading
and new ways of accessing information. Statistical data, periodical
indexing, research archiving etc. will all be the more logical
candidates for digital access; however, for reasons we discussed in
this forum several months ago, there are indeed aesthetic and
practical considerations that indicate life in the old paper format
for a while yet. 

	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: nickles@sage.cc.purdue.edu (John A. Nickles)
Subject: Re: "Jeeves and Wooster"
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 03:25:45 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.183805.26430@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (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.
>
>				Tom Maddox
>		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
>	"That's a bird bone chair, Bob.  I don't know if I should sit there."
>				Tom Waits

What was it the poet chappie said?
        Umpty-tumpty-tumpty
         Someone had blundered.
Anyway, I know just how that chap felt. I mean, well, casting, nothing
to say against that. Hugh Laurie captures Bertie's mental negligibility 
and I do like his rendition of '20s songs. (All the music is fantastic)
and Stephen Fry manages great things with a part that , when it comes 
right down to it is nothing more than the repitition of the words "Indeed,
sir?" I also liked Gussie Fink-Nottle and the present Madeline Basset.
(Last seasons MB was entirely forgettable) The problem, as I see it,
is in the adaptation. Exton (the adaptor) has an annoying habit of
in some episodes sticking two unrelated short stories together and
in others taking half the characters out of a novel to shorten it.
This padding and excising does not sit well. More to the point, Exton 
changes the endings of the stories transforming Wodehouse's sublime plot
manipulations into cliched chase scenes. But what is really lacking from
the TV show is Wodehouse's language and this is the most serious ommision.
Wodehouse's plots are humorous but greatly contrived. What makes Wodehouse
last is his use of language such as in the classic:
  "The shifty, hangdog look of the face of the young man on the terrace
of the Hotel Marseilles indicated that he was a foriegner who was about
to speak French"   The Luck of the Bodkins (quoted from memory)
Since TV has no way of conveying this, it, like Wodehouse's musicals,
will "fade from the landscape, leaving not a wrack behind".

John A. Nickles
Standard Disclaimer: Who reads Wodehouse at Purdue?
"Let's leave at once. It's not a good house.
It has no books by P.G. Wodehouse"

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: cass8806@elan.rowan.edu (Kyle Cassidy)
Subject: lost joyce / byron?
Organization: Rowan College of New Jersey
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 20:25:09 GMT

i heard last year a rumor about byron's autobiography not being as lost as 
we had though also heard that a "lost" james joyce book would be out by 
xmas. haven't heard of either since. any word?

thanks

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: don@helix.nih.gov (donald seto)
Subject: Re: Best Scientific terms dictionary? (surprise!)
Keywords: dictionary websters
Organization: National Institutes of Health, Bethesda
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 19:44:26 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.175804.26243@netcom.com> troach@netcom.com (Tom Roach) writes:
>I recently started reading Edward O. Wilson's The Diversity of Life. On
>page ten (last sentence) I ran into all of the words I have listed
>below. Since I didn't know what any of them meant I decided I would look
>them up in my reference dictionaries/encyclopedias (Cambridge and Van

along these lines, i'm curious as to whether people who are not in the
field actually do slug through the terminology and/or the background
material, for ex. richard rhodes' making of the atomic bomb and the feynman
biog "genius".  do you think that the background/terminology is useful for
understanding the "big picture"

anybody read rhodes' making love?  is there a similarity of the contents
(protagonist?) to the feynman character?

--
don@helix.nih.gov
301-402-0580   Bldg10/Rm8D14    NIDDK/NIH       Bethesda, MD  20892
From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Date: 6 Jan 1993 17:56:03 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

In article <1ifr9nINN7fg@phakt.usc.edu> 
rhogan@phakt.usc.edu (Ron Hogan) writes:
> adolphson writes:
> > Ron Hogan writes:
> >> In certain cases, though, the writer's personality is totally infused
> >> with the writing, and Camille Paglia's _Sexual_Personae_ is exactly
> >> what I have in mind.

[ ... ]
> >What Paglia wrote is not that she doesn't "why people think
> >Tristam Shandy is funny", but rather that Sterne's habit of
> >drawing attention to the artifice of art on every other page
> >belabors the obvious and is a very *male* thing, which she 
> >finds tiresome. 
>
> Which, I think, even further proves my point.  She dismisses it
> because she finds it "tiresome".  Now there's literary criticism
> for you. 

Well, yes, there's literary criticism for you.

> If that's not infusing your subjectivity into the work,
> what is? 

Has someone disputed the fact that Paglia infuses her 
subjectivity into her work?  Here's a nice little 
exercise for you: name a literary critic or cultural
historian who *hasn't* infused his/her subjectivity
into his/her work.

> And I still seem to recall her saying that it wasn't as
> funny as has been claimed.  Can we get somebody with a copy to
> quote the passage, or should I leaf through a copy at the Univ
> bookstore?

Well, yes, I do recall she writes something to that effect.
She also dumps on Chaucer.  So?

> I have a serious question as to whether Sterne's self-referentiality
> was a 'habit' or a 'technique', but unless you want to press the
> issue, I'll hold my peace.

That was sloppy writing on my part.  It was indeed Sterne's
technique.  I happen to enjoy Sterne's (and Nabokov's) self-
referentiality, but can't abide it from other authors.  I'm
not quite sure why that is, either.

Arne
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23838 rec.arts.sf.written:16954
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Date: 5 Jan 1993 02:00:30 GMT
Organization: CS Dept. Snakepit - Do Not Feed.
NNTP-Posting-Host: cobra.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <C0Bx34.M6p@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
>                                    Monday, the 4th of January, 1993
>
>Curtis Yarvin asks:
>  But why should theirs be thought better?
>
>Better for what?

Exactly - better for what?  "Better" is an absolute; when
you say one book is better than another, you are making
a statement which is logically clear and extremely powerful.

Basing such on the opinions of Messrs. Rexroth et al is
like mounting an 18-inch naval canon on a rowboat.

c
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Angela Carter, _Wise Children_, also "Jeeves and Wooster"
Date: 7 Jan 93 17:31:57 GMT
     <1993Jan6.032450.5856@athena.mit.edu>
     <1993Jan6.192601.8794@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1993Jan6.195338.1828@sctc.com>
Organization: UT Art History
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1



In article <1993Jan6.192601.8794@leland.Stanford.EDU> Stefan Michalowski,
stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU writes:
>I thought I'd mention the WORST Wodehouse adaptation I ever saw: an old
>movie with Arthur Treacher as Jeeves and William Powell as Bertie.
>Treacher was about 6'9" and looked, walked and talked (?) like the
>Frankenstein monster. Bertie seemed to be on PCP. Wait a minute - did 
>I really see that movie, or I am making this up?

Only partially. David Niven was the unlucky Bertie. In the one I saw a
few months back, Jeeves actually performed some sort of dance. Auugh!
--

"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: koosman@UTKUX1.UTK.EDU (Toby Koosman)
Subject: Re: Computers not a substitute for books
Organization: University of Tennessee Computing Center
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 21:19:07 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.050439.26035@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes
>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?

This is a poor defense of technology from my view, demonstrating the sorry
pass we've come to on account of sound reproduction technology, in that the
normal way to appreciate music is assumed to be, not witnessing musicians
playing their instruments before you, but hearing recorded music.  

Not that this is analogous to the digitalization of books.  It might be
better compared to that other misfortune of communications technology by which
we have come to accept the telephone as the normal way to converse at a
distance.  In this respect I consider electronic networking a great advance,
or if you will a great retreat to epistolary exchange, although it too has
potential for marginalizing those without access.  (Certainly my
correspondents with internet addresses are especially privileged in the 
frequency of exchange.)

-Toby (who has more opinions about music than books)

-- 
Toby Koosman                                Internet: koosman@utkux1.utk.edu
University of Tennessee                     Bitnet: takoosma@utkvx             
Knoxville, TN  USA       
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 11 JAN 93 04:07:51 GMT


Michael Sean Rooney wrote:

>	I just don't understand your position.  How is placing the
>onus of responsibility on the woman as potential rape target (i.e., 
>as potential *victim*) in any way empowering?  Rather, it seems the
>very source of women's victimization.

Mike Godwin wrote:

>Oh, it's far more empowering to characterize women as a child-like class
>of individuals who have no responsibility for the situations in which they
>find themselves? Shall we rank them under the law with children and
>the insane?
> 
>Paglia's point is about *date rape* (go back and look at the quote,
>please). She's saying that when women go out on dates, they're at some
>risk, and they should recognize that this risk is there. 

Thank you, Mike, couldn't have put it better myself.

I'd respond to Seaneen's comments directly, but as he thinks I'm
dishonest and inane, I'm sure he would consider my opinions as
weighty as I do his.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Jeeves (a cop thunker)
Date: 11 Jan 1993 14:26:30 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Aiyee! Jeeves bashed the constable over the head with a tree
limb! Now must we boycott P.G.Wodehouse as we must ICE-T??
-- 
Ted....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 07:35:01 GMT

In article <1ifpocINN5kv@aludra.usc.edu> rhogan@aludra.usc.edu (Ron Hogan) writes:
}
}In *general*, I prefer this kind of discussion as well.  And for most
}cases, it holds true.  Certainly one doesn't need to know the sordid
}details of Foucault's life to discuss his theories: they may *amplify*
}that discussion, but don't provide the essence of the debate.  That's
}why I think Paul Johnson's _Intellectuals_ is such a reprhensible book:
}because it's main thesis seems to be, "The people we claim are the great
}shapers of modern thought were all depraved, immoral, and had lousy
}personalities."

I didn't take Johnson's thesis therein to be that at all.  For one thing,
the sample was hardly representative of the great shapers of modern thought
(e.g., only one of the great state-of-nature political philosophers, Rousseau,
was included, neither Hobbes, who had chronological priority, nor Locke,
who arguably has had greater influence).  It seemed to me much more that
Johnson wished to expose some corruption in Western intelligentsia on the
theory that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

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: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Political Correctness in the Dark Ages
Date: 13 Jan 1993 01:53:18 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Crawford Kilian writes:

	We might consider, while enjoying the endorphin rush of pure 
	righteousness, what our grandchildren will think of us, and 
	which of our attitudes and actions they will cringe to think 
	about. 

Our intolerance of the recent past and smug, warm feeling of Enlightenment.

						RABworm
From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Date: 12 Jan 93 20:49:11 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1ii9a9INN8tu@agate.berkeley.edu>, spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope) writes:
> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
# #I think that nevertheless I would favor a CO2-type measure excluding
# #any one of these categories from legal special treatment. That
# #would mean, of course, that I don't approve of affirmative
# #action legislation, but this would also mean that I would not
# #be willing legally to punish a business which refused to hire
# #blacks, say. Personally, I would boycott the products of such a
# #company, and I would suspect such a company would not long remain
# #in business. In any event, you can understand why I would not be happy
# #to add yet another protected minority group to the list, when I
# #disagree with the principle of having such a list in the first place.
# 
# Mike, I have to admit that you are usually quite consistent in 
# your political philosophising, with the singular exception
# that your self-description as a "liberal" is bizarre.
# 
# As for the CO2-type measure, this measure singles out
# homosexuality as a category that has special legal 
# treatment.  Anybody who truly believes the line that

No, it says that it will NOT have a special legal treatment.

# all this measure does is "exclude [gays] from special
# legal treatment" is way off base.
# 
# Let me explain by the simplest possible example.
# 
# If a Colorado employer decides to fire an employee because
# he is heterosexual, that employer would get sued
# up the wazooo for wrongful termination.

No, they won't.  There's NO right to a job, and no protection
based on being heterosexual.

# Steve


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
"When freedom destroys order, order will destroy freedom." -- Eric Hoffer
Not a goal, just a statement of reality.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 20:53:54 GMT

John Ewing writes:

	I correct this misunderstanding every time I see it.

	The intent of these measures was not to take away "equal
	protection" from some "minority" groups.

	The intent is to prevent certain people, that exhibit
	"certain behaviors" (read: "any unique behavior at all that
	one choses to engage in -- e.g.  reading mystery novels"), from
	gaining an unfair advantage under the law that the rest of the
	population does not enjoy (the behavior being focused
	on here is sexual activity with another of the same sex).  
	


The Oregon Measure was quite a bit stronger than that.  It declared
that "reading mystery novels" was wrong and devient behavior and 
required that no one in public schools be allowed to teach otherwise.

In Springfield, Oregon, where a similar city law was passed, it 
resulted in the library having its list of books to be purchased
edited to make sure no books about "reading mystery novels" was
included in the list.

Not the same at all.




William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Books I Got For Xmas
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 18:26:30 GMT

Mike Godwin writes:

	Keith Morgan writes:

		I would imagine that there are more 'writers' at this moment
	than at any other comparable time in history, and given that men have
	been in the majority in ages past, perhaps the criticism of a man
	being able to write from a woman's perspective is just a transitory
	and not wholly unexpected event.

The book that triggered the latest bout of discussion of this issue on the
WELL is Norman Rush's MATING. But the subject is at least as old as
Joyce's ULYSSES.

	
	OK, but there has certainly been an increase in the *quantity*
of conversations on this topic, an event possibly related to the
ever-increasing number of writers (both male and female). And, also,
that a subject is as old as Joyce's ULYSSES, or indeed of MILL ON THE
FLOSS, doesn't mean that it won't, as I suggested, peter out in time.

	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: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: RE: academic settings
Date: 10 Jan 93 18:21:36 GMT
Organization: Clark University

John Lovett wrote:

>Can anyone recommend other books set in academia? Any genre will do.

The setting of Joyce Carol Oates' novel _Unholy Loves_ is a college 
in upstate New York.  She describes some awful faculty cocktail
parties in memorable fashion.   Her more recent novel _American
Appetites_ concerns characters who are recognizably "academic" and
work for a research institute affiliated with a university, though
I don't remember much action taking place on campus.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: CP or not PC (is that a question?)
Date: 12 Jan 93 20:29:08 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1993Jan7.154127.20596@eff.org>, mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
> In article <C0HLGB.Kpw@news.iastate.edu> s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:
# #I wonder who the proponents of a "risk free" society might *be* that
# #you're thinking of . . . I frankly have never met any of the sort of
# #folks you're talking about.
# 
# I've known folks who think rape is an ideology or social construct, so
# that if you "cure" society, you could eliminate rape altogether. (Hence

In fact, the belief that violence is almost entirely a social construct
is a common one in 19th century Marxist thought.  (I'm not sure that
Marx ever went quite so far as some of his students, however.)  See
Edward Bellamy's _Looking Backward_ (1884) for an example of social
democratic ideology that forsaw a world where violence and theft would
be almost unknown, because the causes of these crimes -- capitalism --
would be abolished.  This is also why the Soviet Union for so many
years claimed that nearly none of the crime problems that plagued the
West happened there.  It is also the position articulated by liberals
today, in attempting to justify massive redistribution of wealth as
a method of solving the violent crime problem -- in spite of the
1960s demonstrating that massive increases in social spending AND
violent crime could easily happen at once.

# the reference to "risk free" society.) Paglia takes the position that the
# impulse to rape is constrained by society rather than created by it, and
# that, because it is a function of very basic drives (sex and aggression),
# neither rape nor date rape can ever wholly be eliminated. Moreover, she

Agreed.

# says that male-female sexual and romantic interactions partake of a lot
# more ambiguity than the "No Means No" ideology contemplates or allows.

Hence, the reason that societies with rather detailed courtship
procedures, and that promote a certain level of self-discipline about
sex, don't have quite the same level of ambiguities that our society
has today.  Is it rape?  Or just incredibly boorish behavior?

# Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
"When freedom destroys order, order will destroy freedom." -- Eric Hoffer
Not a goal, just a statement of reality.
From: shong@bucknell.edu (SHER)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Tiger and Del ->J. Roberson
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Date: 12 Jan 1993 18:35:55 GMT
Organization: Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: macb02.bucknell.edu

Does anyone know if Jennifer Roberson (sp?) is going to write another book
in the Tiger and Del series?  If so, when it might be out on bookstore
shelves?  Thanks!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 03:51:26 GMT

In article <C0o2Ap.4vz@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:

>Mike responds:
>  In that case, I find it easy to imagine a reinstantiation of the 
>  Nuremburg race laws.
>
>Ahh, Godwin's Rule?

I may be corrected on this, but it seems appropriate, when one is
justifying laws that support the practice of anti-Semitism, to refer to a
period when anti-Semitism received the full support of the state.

You may be sure that, precisely because I prefer not to be another data
point in support of Godwin's Rule, I don't make such a comparison lightly.

>Personally, I think the claim of this warrant for some out
>of the whole package of non-discrimination and civil rights
>laws, has guaranteed an extra twenty years of racial tension
>in the States.

Yes, now that we've had laws on the books for years that bar
anti-Semitic employment practices, Jews and non-Jews are at each other's
throats.

Yeah, right. 

I think you should look a little deeper than the civil rights laws for
sources of today's racial tensions.


--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