HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Saturday, 7 Nov 1992 00:54:15 CST
From: <U30993@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Martha Grimes-The Old Silent
 <BwwKLC.Gtt@emu.com> <1d4nb9INN46d@agate.berkeley.edu>

M. Grimes may be leaving us hanging. In an interview, she stated
that she was very tired of the Jury/Plant series. Because of the
contract with the publishers, she was basically forced to keep
writing 'em. This might explain some of the lacklustre in the
Contemptibles. End of the Pier is a book she's been waiting to
write for a while.  At least that's what the interview said...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: PUTTING ON THE RITZ by Joe Keenan
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 18:46:02 GMT

	I would like to second Ms. Leeper's recommendations of Joe
Keenan's books.  I think of him as a gay New York Wodehouse.  
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
				Alex Alexander
From: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com (Joel Hanes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: re: Torturing Politicals
Summary: A Modest Proposal
Keywords: anthropophagy satire irony
Date: 11 Nov 92 21:39:59 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com
Organization: Amdahl Corporation  Sunnyvale California


  warkent@ltisun14.epfl.ch (Ken Warkentyne) writes:
>
>Other topics not suitable for humourous treatment:
>
>  Rape
>  Incest
>  Hitler
>  Cannibalism

I refer you Swift's humorous essay, "A Modest Proposal",
in which he suggests that the Irish should eat their babies
to solve the problems of starvation and overpopulation.

---
Joel Hanes
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten)
Subject: Re: Property Rights (was re: Progress: The New Great Divide? (was Re: Cult)
Summary: You've mistaken my intent
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:26:48 GMT

In article <anand.720993471@cds705>, anand@Cadence.COM (Anand Bemra) writes:
> colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten) writes:
> 
> >As for property rights themselves - when do they begin?  Who owns
> >land in America?  I "own" about 3/4 of an acre, which I bought
> >from someone who bought it from someone else. Follow that trail
> >back far enough and you find some king giving the property to
> >a loyal subject - neither of whom had ever been here.
> 
> Great. We will just skip over those native american indians who
> did not have a piece of paper to show the white folks that they
> really owned the land!
> 

You've obviously mistaken me for the people I was arguing against.
They claim "absolute property rights" and I've been pointing out
where they are not, and where property ownership is not that simple.

> Would you believe it. This was the logic put forth by a teacher
> at San Jose State University for a history class. Or was it
> a sociology class? I forget.
> 
It's been put forth on this net - that unused undeveloped land was
there for the taking.


marc colten

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ghouse@gauss.cs.jhu.edu (Mujtaba Ghouse)
Subject: Re: literary lions
Organization: Johns Hopkins Computer Science Department, Baltimore, MD
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 15:10:59 GMT

miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:

>In article <1drnnjINNn3r@bigboote.WPI.EDU>, kat@banach.WPI.EDU (Christina Lynne Freeman) writes:
>Another use: lion as Christ figure in C. S. Lewis's _Narnia_ books.
>"Aslan" was the name of the lion and I always wondered where the name
>came from.

Didn't Lewis get it from the Turkish "Arslan", which was one of the names of 
some of the Seljuk Sultans?  As a name of kings, it first struck me as quite
appropriate, although using a muslim name in this most Christian of fantasies
seems a little odd in retrospect.

-Mujtaba Ghouse
"Somewhere else, the tea is getting cold."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: The Truth According to Mickie Medved
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 08:26:46 GMT

In article <pquince.721074003@blacks> pquince@blacks.jpl.nasa.gov (Peter Quince) writes:
}
}I have never heard a funny holocaust joke; most prey on the prejudices
}and fears of ignorance; and such 'sarcastic' humor is a failure of 
}spirit.  But humor that is part of understanding and coping with 
}terrible realities is valid, I think.  Only it has an appropriate 
}time and place as well.

This reminds me of when some friends of mine and I tried to think up the most
tasteless possible movie, along the lines of "Springtime for Hitler" in
Mel Brooks' "The Producers."  The title we came up with: "Nasty Night Nurses
at Auschwitz."  I thought it was hilarious.


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." - Voltaire
From: kassover@rumsey.crd.ge.com (David Kassover)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Truth According to Mickie Medved
Date: 6 Nov 92 23:04:33 GMT
Organization: NYET

In article <1992Nov6.052908.29199@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.222809.10131@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
>
>>There are things that can't be laughed at?  Topics that contain no
>>raw material for humor?  Like what?
>
>Torturing political prisoners to death. To name one thing.
>

What about doing it by forcing them to watch Doris Day movies,
with voice over of Vogon poetry read alternately by Ringo Starr
and George Carlin?

-- 
David Kassover             "Proper technique helps protect you against
uupsi!khazad!kassover	          sharp weapons and dull judges."
kassover@aule-tek.com                   F. Collins
kassover@ra.crd.ge.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: nickles@sage.cc.purdue.edu (john a nickles)
Subject: Re: A rose is a rose is a rose.
Summary: Battle Hymn of the Bimbo
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 19:31:35 GMT

The Dorothy Parker quotation reminded me that I was once fortunate enough
to hear Isaac Asimov sing his own variation on this poem.
He entitled it "Battle Hymn of the Bimbo"

Herewith follows all I can remember of it:
(I have it on tape, but the tape is in Albany, N.Y

I'd like to watch my assets as they steadily unfroze,
I'd like to have a bank account that grows and grows and grows,
But every time that I begin to remove my pantyhose,
I get another stupid rose.

Glory, glory, halleluia!
glory, glory, halleluia!
glory, glory, halleluia!
I have a perfect rose!

It goes on for many more verses, but I cannot recall them at the moment

John A Nickles
Standard Disclaimer: Purdue has no opinions of any worth whatsoever
My love has got a red, red nose --- Charlie McCarthy
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein's PI
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:39:54 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.212854.9969@news.columbia.edu> dth2@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (David T Ho) writes:
>I was told that Wittgenstein's _Philosophical Investigations_ has gone
>out of print.  Is this true?

Sounds as if someone is playing a language game with you.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I can solve this Orient Express thing without
mnemonic@eff.org| breaking a sweat. It's that simple."
(617) 864-0665  | 
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Hercule Perot
From: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com (Joel Hanes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Advice to the World Weary (was Re: The Eudaemonic Pie
Date: 5 Nov 92 17:53:34 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@diag.amdahl.com
Organization: Amdahl Corporation  Sunnyvale California


  Kate Catmull writes:
> 
> 	Fashion note to Mark, Marko, & Nietschze: I wear black more 
> 	often than not, neither to visit trendy nightspots nor to 
> 	look more intelligent, but because I happen to know it makes 
> 	me Invisible.


      I am invisible, he thinks often.  And Exempt.   Immunity  has  been
   granted  to  me,  for  I do not lose my cool.  Polarity is selected at
   will, for I am not ionized and I possess not valence.  Call  me  inert
   and  featureless  but  Beware,  I  am  the Shadow, free to cloud men's
   minds.  Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts  of  men?   I  am  the
   Dracula, look into my eye.


                                               Farina
                           _Been_Down_So_Long_It_Looks_Like_Up_To_Me_
From: lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Truth According to Mickie Medved
Date: 6 Nov 92 01:13:09 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Society for the Appreciation of Janni Lee Simner

Mike Morris writes:
> ...there unfortunately exist in this our sublunar sphere some realities
> which are no joking matter.

There is nothing so serious it cannot be laughed at.

There are things where sometimes it is inapropreate to do so.  A few.

	the living by a most moral code Mr. E-----
--

LNH@physics.arizona.edu   \  In the deserts of the heart 
sometimes a Wombat         \ Let the healing fountains start  -- Auden
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: yarnot@babbage.csus.edu (Jan Yarnot)
Subject: The Secret Garden
Organization: Moi?
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 01:21:31 GMT

(Note: this is NOT _My Secret Garden_ by Nancy Friday, which I have every
intention of reading Real Soon Now, but is, indeed, the kiddie-book by
Frances Hodgson Burnett)

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity of seeing the musical _The
Secret Garden_ (which I loved, by the way) and I realized at the time that
I was due to re-read the book for the umpteenth time.  Well, our copy (the
third or fourth) has been read into paperflakes, so I needed to get the
Bantam Classic edition, ISBN 0-553-21201-X (1987).  This has an introduction
by Lois Lowry (I believe she died recently?  Yes?  No?) that is worth the
price of the book all by itself.  (I _tolerate_ Ms. Lowry's books, but rarely
push them at children of my acquaintance.)
 
	"When _The Secret Garden_ was published in 1909, _Booklist_, the
	prestigious review journal of the American Library Association,
	described it as a book "dealing almost wholly with abnormal
	people."

	"Abnormal?  Mary, a spoiled, unattractive, petulant ten-year-old
	girl?  Colin, a whining, manipulative hypochondriac?  Dickon, an
	ingratiatingly nice little boy obsessed by flowers and animals?
	You could find all three of them in any sixth grade classroom
	today.

	"Abnormal my foot."
	. . .
	"Orphanhood -- how kids love it.  More than love it -- _yearn_ for it,
	at least in the abstract, as my own treacherous six-year-old had 
	reminded me.  What a dream: freedom from parents!  To prowl about on
	one's own, to pry into forbidden things, as Mary did. . . .

	"It's tough for a contemporary writer to get rid of parents.  We
	_want_ to, often (count the number of kids' books set in summer
	camps: that's no accident), but there aren't too many ways to do it
	without taking on the trappings of tragedy and psychological 
	ramifications. [Then a whole bit envying an author who in a book
	that just happens to be on the KIDSQUIZ this month manages to get
	rid of a set of inconvenient parents with an angry rhinoceros.]

	"Would that we authors could all just let loose an enormous angry
	rhinoceros on page one and go on from there."

It's a great introduction, to a really great story.
--
---Jan Yarnot, net.grandma.-- | A lifetime of smirking behind your hand
                              | is a lot better than a few seconds of
                              | triumph.
CSUS depends on my every word.              Kinsella, _Box Socials_
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: The trouble with gurus
Date: 10 Nov 1992 14:40:12 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

John MacCarthy writes:

	The trouble with gurus is that their writings are not refereed, 
	and this makes them intellectually self-indulgent.

MacCarthy is right on ther money here, and may have provided the makings 
of an interesting new thread. Their name is Legion, of course, but my
candidate for Most Pompous Ass among the self-appointed gurus would be
Joseph Campbell.

						Fido
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: epowers@mccoy.NMSU.Edu (POWERS)
Subject: Re: Annoyance (was re: Borders Anecdote)
Organization: New Mexico State University
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 05:25:30 GMT

In article <1992Oct29.112705.16896@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu  
(Michael Zeleny) writes:
> In article <1992Oct28.090339.8633@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
> baker@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Baker) writes:
> 
> >In article <1992Oct27.170048.12058@informix.com>
> >proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts) writes:
> 
> PR:
> >>So, is it true that GM's "safety" research involves crashing live animals
> >>into brick walls? That they are the only car company in the world still to
> >>do this? And that they still have the worst safety record of any major
> >>car manufacturer?
> 
[various stats deleted]
> >
> >But I like the idea of crashing the live animals.  Just to annoy the
> >bleeding-heart animal rights activists, maybe there should be a theme
> >park where one could buy various animals and then crash them in various
> >ways.
> 
> Since I like the idea of annoying the bleeding-heart animal activists,
> do you think you could humor me by coming up with a way to do so that
> wouldn't involve your knee-jerk penchant for gratuitous, unimaginative
> cruelty?
> 
> cordially,
> mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
> "Un de mes plus grands plaisirs est de jurer Dieu quand je bande."
> 
 P.S.'s deleted

	Perhaps if it was called a religious festival (year-round, of course)  
such a park could become somewhat successful.  I guess we'll see when the  
supreme court rules on whether or not the constitution allows the sacrifice of  
animals in religious ceremonies.
						Erik Powers
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Welfare myths (was: BOOK: Hollywood vs. America by Michael Medved)
Date: 5 Nov 92 08:11:28 GMT
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences

In article <1992Nov3.213856.9108@cs.ucla.edu> reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher) writes:
}
}It certainly is the case that a majority of the people on welfare are
}children and their mothers.  This is a bad reflection on a sizable
}proportion of our male population, who are, indeed, shirking their
}responsibilities.  I make no defense for them.  But, given that they
}are shirking their responsibilities, and the children are there, no
}matter what we do, I believe it's better to give them support to keep
}them from starving.

The defense is rather obvious: if the fathers stick around, the mothers and
children don't get the benefits.  It's still immoral, but the economic in-
centive is the major factor causing it to happen.

}>> percentage of people on welfare has been rather steady over the past
}>> twenty years, ranging from 4.2 percent of the population to 5.2 percent.
}>
}>How about over the last 30 years?
}
}The article I saw didn't show figures before 1970.  If you have some 
}reason to believe their was a great jump in the 1960's, that may well
}be true.  However, there has been no substantial fluctuation since then.
}Which suggests to me that, if something suddenly went wrong that caused
}people to flock to welfare (and it's only 5.2% who flocked, at most),
}it happened back then, not in the last 20 years.  That suggests that
}the state of society is fairly stable with regard to welfare, rather
}than being drastically worsening.  Of course, it would be nice were it
}dramatically improving, and perhaps working for stronger families would
}make that happen.

Prior to the Great Society wave of legislation during Johnson's elected term,
the number of welfare recipients underwent an unprecedented surge.  I don't
recall the absolute numbers, but 3/4 of the increase was between 1964 and
1968.  According to Marvin Olasky's "The Tragedy of American Compassion,"
a major factor in this was community agencies which aimed to get rid of the
stigma of being on the dole by teaching blacks, among others, that it was
their right to claim their "fair" share of the national income.  Until these
agencies started up, social workers had a tough time getting people to go on
welfare.  Afterwards, the task was easier.  Legal services agencies were also
set up to teach people how to sue the Federal government for increased
redistribution of wealth.


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." - Voltaire
From: donz@ui.org (Posthumous O'Toole)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: A rose is a rose is a rose.
Date: 6 Nov 92 15:36:53 GMT
Organization: UNIX International, Parsippany, NJ

In article <0ce=02wU2aEW01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> jjh00@diag.amdahl.com writes:
>
>              somewhere i have never travelled

please allow me to repost this poem with the proper punctuation (at least,
according to my anthology)


	somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
	any experience,your eyes have their silence:
	in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
	or which i cannot touch because they are too near

	your slightest look easily will unclose me
	though i have closed myself as fingers,
	you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
	(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose

	or if your wish be to close me,i and
	my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
	as when the heart of this flower imagines
	the snow carefully everywhere descending;

	nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
	the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
	compels me with the colour of its countries,
	rendering death and forever with each breathing

	(i do not know what it is about you that closes
	and opens;only something in me understands
	the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
	nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands


e. e. cummings
-- 
nobody/not even the rain/              	/	   /      /  /    
 /   /   /     /   /   / /     /       /    /    // /    /  /         /    
/     / / /   /   /     /   / /    / /   / / /  /  /   /      /      /
   / /   /   /	/	 / /      //    /   / /     / /      / / /
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Truth According to Mickie Medved
Date: 9 Nov 92 18:52:09 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <9211061736.AA25767@cfdev1.shearson.com>, mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
> > fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
# ## There are things that can't be laughed at?  Topics that contain no
# ## raw material for humor?  Like what?
#  
# # Torturing political prisoners to death. To name one thing.
#  
# Humor is an important tool, as well.  I think that a large part of
# the reason that the ERA failed is that feminists were incorrectly
# perceived as being humorless, giving rise to the "angry lesbian feminist"
# stereotype.  With this, I will leave Mike with two lightbulb jokes.
# I just made up the second one:
#  
#         1.  How many angry lesbian feminists does it take to
#             change a lightbulb?
#  
#             One, and it's not funny!
#  
#         2.  How many tortured political prisoners does it take
#             to change a lightbulb?
#  
#             None, those sockets are for the prisoners.
#  
# I don't think either joke is that great, just posting them because I
# want to show that there is al least raw material to do so.
#  
# Mark

I told the first joke in Media Ethics last week.  (We were discussing
whether there are jokes that the government should suppress -- our
professor is a liberal, and seems very partial to the idea the
government should regulate the content of news shows, regulate who
may advertise, etc.)  People laughed.  I don't think anyone would
have laughed at the second joke.  I didn't even get a brief chuckle
out of it, and I am easily amused.

Unfortunately, I know too much about such torture to find anything
even slightly amusing about joke #2, because all I can see when I 
read that joke is prisoners tied to tables, while electric probes are 
placed on their genitals.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
The Physician Assisted Death Initiative failed.  Term limits for Congressmen
passed.  If only we could have combined the two... two terms, and a doctor
does lethal injection...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: Advice to the World Weary (was Re: The Eudaemonic Pie
Organization: Clark University
Date: 6 NOV 92 03:02:29 GMT


The ever-concerned Mark Taranto remarks:

>But I am starting to get a little concerned about Francis. 

Tom Maddox replies:

>	Fido has suffered lately...
>	And of course he was not mentioned at the Austin r.a.b.ble
>convocation.
> 
>	He seems embittered by it all,

Well, perhaps, but all I can say is that he was overcome (like me) by the
element of Greek tragedy in the Braves' demise.  I know that we both
were depressed about it.  In any case, it's tough to be miserable in
a town that contains amazing food, drink, and music.   

Perhaps I've poisoned Francis' nature.  I doubt it, though.

>	I have no answers to these deep questions, but I do find them
>amusing.

I hope I haven't frustrated your imaginations.  But would you do
me a favor?  Your sig.line is very amusing up to a point, but after
that point I would suggest you either change it, or stop posting.
It's kinda boring.  I mean, maybe Wade Boggs could eat chicken
every day, but you know what he wound up doing.

>
>				Tom Maddox
>		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
>		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
>				Alex Alexander

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Organization: Arizona State University
Date: Sunday, 8 Nov 1992 21:37:34 MST
From: <IBUDXL@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: More 'salems Lot Bashing!
 <1q0pc7b@lynx.unm.edu> <8981@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>

I love Stephen King.  You have to realize that there is always more going on
than meets the eye.  I suggest you read more of his books.  Try Eyes of the
Dragon, in there you will find out about his entire motivation namely Randall
Flagg.  His is in almost every book of Kings that I've read, in one form or
another.                          BYE BYE BUY BONDS!!!!!  8-)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Columbus and the Egg?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 19:16:58 GMT

                                     Monday, the 9th of November, 1992

Neal Bauer asks about the story of Columbus and his egg.

The story goes that Columbus, back triumphant from his first voyage,
was wined and dined by all of the high Castilian muckety-mucks. At one
of these feasts some upstart whippersnapper remarked that finding the
Indies was, after all, no great feat, since anyone might have done it.
Whereupon Columbus picked up an egg that had been set in front of him
and asked if anyone present knew how to make the egg stand on end. The
egg was passed around the table, from hidalgo to grandee to archbishop,
and everyone present was made to admit that he knew not how to make
the egg stand on end. So Columbus then took the egg and smashed the end
of it gently down on the table. It then stood perfectly. Columbus
then commented that now it was easy, yes, once he had shown the way.

Unfortunately, like most other pretty stories in history, this one
isn't true. I don't remember if this one was one of Washington
Irving's inventions or not, but we know that the story was one
which had been current in Columbus' time, and that it had been told
of other ``wise men'' before him.

I remember most recently reading a debunking of the story in Kirkpatrick
Sale's _The Conquest of Paradise_. You may also find it Samuel
Eliot Morison's _Admiral of the Ocean Sea_, with what degree of
skepticism, I do not remember.
          
             Mike Morris
       (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)