HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon)
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Summary: contract negotiations ...
Organization: Panix Public Access Internet & Unix, NYC
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 22:34:11 GMT

In article <C0nDoC.GD3@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca
(Mike Morris) writes:

>I believe rather that the relationship between employer and employee
>ought to governed by a contract, which contract will lay out
>the only acceptable grounds for firing.

This sounds like someone with ZERO practical aquaintance with the use
of contracts by employers.

>I believe there is no
>reason why, in the vast majority of cases, employers would not
>*want* to sign a standard contractual clause, saying something like ``the
>employee shall not be terminated for any reason other than one
>relating to job performance''.

I believe you must have had VERY few jobs in your life, and most likely
NONE with any significant reliance on a contract.

Both on the professional level (I am a consultant in the software industry)
and for blue-collar workers (my brother is a mechanic for Union Pacific),
I see nothing but evidence that employers see contracts as a vehicle for
extracting whatever they can get away with from the employees.  The blue-
collar union, whatever your opinion of it [historical or contemporary] was
purely and simply a construct so that employees COULD enter contract nego-
tiation with some hope of countering the "Take it or Starve" strategy of
employers.  At my level, it is never as meanly vicious as in union contract
negotiations -- there, the employers know they are at war with a potential
equal, and GOD! are they nasty.  Oh no; everyone in the "professional"
world is very polite -- but the nature of the "game" is much the same.

If you are seeking a new job, and have three prospects of which two are,
at best limiting and potential dead ends while the third makes you a
"good offer" you are going to want to accept, no?  THEN (after you have
said yes, mind) they haul out their "standard contract" and you sign it.
Or you don't get the job.  If you are a) an absolute star performer in
the industry or b) rich enough to shrug off and turn down a half-dozen
such incidents before finding ONE employer willing to rework the contract
for your individual self, THEN you can get a chance to affect the terms.

Sure, the rich and the famous can write their own contracts.  What has
that got to do with anything important?
-- 
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."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kasprj@operators.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak)
Subject: Recent reading: r.a.b reccomendations
Reply-To: kasprj@rpi.edu
Organization: The Big Wedge 
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 13:18:48 GMT

 
 I've just finished reading Mary Gaitskill's _Two Girls, Fat and Thin_, 
which I enjoyed immensely. Gaitskill has a grasp of the English language
that manages to turn the banal into the poetic. The book's portrayal of
the cult of "Anna Granite" and her followers was also quite insightful 
and amusing in an ironic way. The only problem I had with the book was 
that I kept having an uncontrollable urge to eat junk food while reading
the chapters about Dorothy's youth. (-:
 
 I'd not have had the slightest idea that this book existed if it hadn't
been for Mike Godwin's reccomendation. Over the past year I've found that
this group has made me aware of quite a number of good books and authors 
which I'd otherwise have been in the dark about. Bruce Chatwin comes to 
mind immediately; I consider _The Songlines_ to be, if not my favorite book
read in '92, then certainly up there in the top five. I'll soon be picking 
up Robertson Davies' _Fifth Business_ on Mark Taranto's reccomendation, and
Kingsley and Martin Amis are both on my target list for '93 due to many 
people here putting in good words for them. And I must thank Mike Morris 
for his positive reviews of Morison's _The European Discovery of America_.
Those two volumes have been sitting on my shelf for several years now, and
I guess I've been missing out on something good. They'll definitely be 
tackled this year.
 
 This group has definitely been a help to a bibliophile who was ready to 
move forward from a steady diet of science fiction (though I do admit 
that most of my fiction reading of '92 was still SF, but even there I've
tried to move on to the "higher" works; for some high quality SF I've 
read this year, I can reccomend Olaf Stapledon's _Star Maker_, Stanley
Weinbaum's _The New Adam_, Philip Wylie's _Gladiator_, anything by Edgar
Pangborn, Michael Swanwick's _Stations of the Tide_, and Richard Grant's 
_Through the Heart_).
 
 For the statistics collectors, I read about 130 books in 1992, spending
an average of about 2.5 hours per day reading.
------------------------------------------------------------------
     __  Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
 ___/  | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *|          he who refuses to do nonsense  
     \_|          is doomed to talk arithmetic.
      ====  e-mail: kasprj@rpi.edu or kasprzak@mts.rpi.edu
From: hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu (Mary Loveless)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 7 Jan 1993 20:21:44 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: carson.u.washington.edu

In article <1993Jan7.145319.17111@spider.co.uk> ian@spider.co.uk (Ian
Heavens) writes: 
>In article <15400005@hpspdla.spd.HP.COM> kyle@hpspdla.spd.HP.COM (Kyle
Karnosh) writes: >>>/ hpspdla:rec.arts.books /
loosemore-sandra@cs.yale.edu (Sandra Loosemore) / 2:43 pm Dec 31, 1992 /
>>>ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes: 
>
>This is the kind of self-indulgent drivel for which r.a.b. is famous,
>isn't it?
>ian

Almost, Ian...keep trying, I know you'll get it!  };)
>
>PS No replies to my requests for the author of the book with the
>following quotation inside the front cover:
>
>A bowl of kif before breakfast gives a man the strength of a hundred
>camels in the courtyard.
>
>I'll have to make it blindingly obvious: the author is an American...

sigh.......I haven't read the piece, but somehow it reminds me of Jack
Kerouac or Hunter Thompson or Tom Robbins (should he aspire to be--wow, is
it Ginsberg?). };)

Mary Loveless  hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of my opinions are self-righteously my own and **certainly** have
nothing to do with the University of Washington.

*"Too much of a good thing can be *wonderful*."  Mae West
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.books.reviews
From: heidi@wales.net.com (Heidi Wolf)
Subject: Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith
Followup-To: rec.arts.books 
Organization: N.E.T., Redwood City, CA
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 16:54:34 GMT


I just finished reading Aldo Leopold's A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC, originally
published in 1948 (so I'm a little behind; I've been busy).  It's one
of the earliest* discussions of conservation and the "land ethic," as
Leopold calls it.  Leaving aside all issues of indoctrination, I highly
recommend this book: both for the clarity, simplicity, and elegance of
Leopold's prose style, and for its historical interest (some of these
conservation essays were written as early as the 1920s).


Heidi Wolf


* Well, I'm sure that John Muir and others wrote about conservation
  in the 19th century, but let's not split hairs...

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.93Jan4235352@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <1icjbcINNrpp@hal.com>
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:27:55

In article <1icjbcINNrpp@hal.com> dougm@hal.com (Doug Moran) writes:

   In article <JMC.93Jan4235352@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL (John McCarthy) writes:
   >
   >Bah, humbug.  Science graduates write as well as graduates in English,
   >and include far less nonsense in what they write.  The literacy level
   >of the PMLA isn't as high as that of _Science_ or _Nature_.

   A few observations:

   o) The vast preponderance of Technical Writers have degrees in English,
      Literature, or some other writing-intensive field of study.  (Tech
      Writers with "Science" degrees are an extreme rarity -- I don't think
      that I have met *any*.)
   o) Most, if not all, of the engineers I know would agree that letting
      engineers write their own documentation is a dangerous thing.
   o) Many engineers would agree that they can't write very well.
   o) As far as "nonsense," in my experience, no one includes more
      obstufication, extraneous information, obscure acronyms, and
      excessive verbiage than an engineer writing about his or her own
      work.  Most of my job consists in cutting extraneous material.

   And, to conclude, a rhetorical question: if Science graduates (and
   therefore Engineers) write as well as English graduates, why do
   companies not cease hiring technical writers at all, and include a
   several-week period at the end of every development cycle for the
   engineers to write their own doc?  It would be much cheaper and -- if
   your statement is correct -- the doc would be just as well written, and
   almost certainly more accurate.
   -- 
       Doug Moran        |  You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch;
      dougm@hal.com      |  you're a nasty, wasty skunk.
    {...}!hal.com!dougm  |  Your heart is full of unwashed socks,
    HaL Computer Systems |  your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch.

1. Technical writers are paid less than engineers.

2. It is important that a manual to make too many presumptions
about what its reader knows in advance.  It is difficult for the
designer of a product to avoid this.

3. Engineers would rather do engineering than spend time writing
up their work.  That's why we academic engineers have to say
to our graduate students, "Publish or perish".
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 15:25:54 GMT

roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>In article <JMC.93Jan8162455@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

>>Consider Rousseau saying that people are born free but live in chains
>>and his proposed remedies for that.  Did he include by not living in
>>chains not being obliged to take care of one's children.

>I suspect that, if confronted with this contradiction, he would have 
>admitted that he had acted imporperly, even vilely, or at least pointed
>out that circumstance can make people do things other than the optimum.

I urge you to read the _Confessions_.  It's a great book by a great
writer, and it'll cure you of your apparent view that Rousseau suffered
from straightforwardness or dignity.
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn."  (Montaigne)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: vince@cadence.com (Vince Gibboni)
Subject: Re: 1992 in Review
Organization: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:34:34 GMT

nadel@attatash.aero.org (Miriam Nadel) writes:
> Mystery               58
> Humor                 20
> SF                    11
> Other fiction         34
> History/Social Issues 17
> Other nonfiction      74
>
> For a total of 214.  

    I don't mean to pick on Miriam specifically - it seems like _everyone_
    who posted their 1992 reading had read about this many books - 
    but I'd like to point out that it's absolutely physically impossible 
    to read 214 books in a single year. Okay, that's not quite right, it's 
    absolutely physically impossible for _me_ to read 214 books in a single 
    year. I just figured it out - I read about 25 pages/hour, if I spent 
    every single free moment of every single day (approx. 40 hours/week) 
    reading for an entire year (about 2080 hours), I could probably polish 
    off about 208 average-size (250 page) books. So what's the catch ? 
    Should I be drinking more coffee ? (This may not be possible). Should
    I branch out into amphetamines ? Is there some trick here ? Do all
    you blitz-readers out there actually secretly skip over lots of stuff ? 
    Every time I ask someone about this they either just give me a puzzled, 
    annoyed look (as one might to a small child who has asked some simple, 
    obvious question you realize you don't know the answer to) or they 
    mutter something like "geez, you don't read _all_ the words do you ?" 
    Anyway, can some explain this to me ? (And are there actually lots of 
    slow readers lurking out there who just have the good sense to keep 
    quiet about it ?)



--
                                                         vince@gda.cadence.com
  
    Let's face it, we just don't need two Dakotas.
        - Dave Barry
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 02:19:05 GMT

In article <BHANAFEE.93Jan11132750@picasso.ads.com> bhanafee@picasso.ads.com (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.

	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?

	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.  It is as though a white commentator remarked that blacks
are irreducibly given to theft, and that the proper course of action
is to watch our property more carefully (all the while praising the
"savage vigor" of black lawlessness).

Cordially,

Michael S. Rooney


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Keywords: Paglia (again!), rape
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 01:20:31 GMT

In article <7JAN93.18530756@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>Mike Godwin wrote: 
>
>>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 
>>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 
>>says that male-female sexual and romantic interactions partake of a lot 
>>more ambiguity than the "No Means No" ideology contemplates or allows. 
>> 
>>On both of these points, I think she's closer to the truth than the 
>>post-Brownmiller rape theorists. 
>
>Not only is she closer to the truth, but she is far more "empowering" to
>women than most feminists are.   
>
>Heather

	How can knuckling under to a purported biological determinism
ever be empowering to anyone?  Holding that men "just can't help themselves"
(which is precisely what Paglia's position amounts to) rather gives the
lie to Heather's putative liberalism (cf. the exchange with Steve Dyer).

Cordially,
 
Michael S. Rooney

"That's where you and I split the dog, my little red friend."
From: ah@dunaad.co.uk (Alan Hunter)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Eternity and Infinite Loops (was Re: The 10,000 nights of Mike Morris
Date: 11 Jan 93 12:55:31 GMT
Organization: Dunathad

In article <C0o9I6.K2K@panix.com> mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>
>And given the inability of Heather Henderson, Mike Godwin and Steve Dyer
>to allow a Camille Paglia article to go uncommented upon, we can also 
>redefine the phrase "Infinite Loop."

John Brunner (I think in "Stand on Zanzibar") gave us the term "echo
trap".  Infinite loop implies a simple, repetitious replay; echo trap has
all sorts of reverberations, partial cuts, deja vu etc built into it. 

Alan

-- 
Alan Hunter
Johnson Hunter Ltd
Isle of Islay, Scotland
A.Hunter@dunaad.co.uk          fax: +44-496-2336         voice: +44-496-2286
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Date: 11 Jan 93 20:00:46 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Followup-To: talk.bizarre
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

Mike Morris's latest begins with a header that, after the usual throb of
anticipation induced by the second line:

	Subject: Re: Homophobia

culminates with the master-stroke:

	Lines: 418

Dazzling.  The whole article was so neatly encapsulated there that I needed
to read no further.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 6 JAN 93 17:01:13 GMT

Mike Godwin wrote:

>>>Well, when you spoke about the Canon and who was
>>>"well-received" or not, that seemed to me to go more to the issue of
>>>creating believable characters to the issue of "inhabiting points
>>>of view."

HH:
>>Really?  Funny, I remember typing the phrase "point of view" a lot,
>>and I also remember posting something in which I made a point of
>>saying I wasn't discussing the issue of creating believable
>>characters.

MG:
>I know. But don't forget that Don Zirilli stepped in to explain what
>you really meant.


So what?

I wrote:

>>How about listing all the female authors you can think of, popular
>>fiction and literature, who have written from a male point of view
>>(third-person as well as first)?  That should be interesting, and it
>>wouldn't involve too much blathering about exactly what point it is
>>we're discussing.

MG:
>I'm better at recognition than recall, as are we all, and I'm terrible
>at making lists of anything.

Well, do let me know if any names come to mind.  Hint: there are a lot
more male authors who have written from a female point of view.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dsy@psych.toronto.edu (Desiree Sy)
Subject: Re: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 18:23:37 GMT

>>How about listing all the female authors you can think of, popular
>>fiction and literature, who have written from a male point of view
>>(third-person as well as first)?

I can't remember if you didn't want genre authors included.  (I
can think of more mystery and sf/f writers who fit the
description.)

Otherwise, how about Colette?  Most of her fiction dealt with
women, but there are the Cheri novels.  Also, Carson McCullers.
Also, Sue Townshend (and if Francis says they study Adrian Mole
for credit....)

-desiree
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Computers not a substitute for books
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 20:42:54 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.171337.41508@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> arc2@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (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.

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?
 

--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: meltsner@crd.ge.com (Kenneth J. Meltsner)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 11 Jan 93 16:22:18 GMT
Reply-To: meltsner@crd.ge.com
Organization: GE Research and Development Center



My wife and I made the mistake of only taking 10 books on our
week-long honeymoon and were reduced to reading Joan Collins's
autobiography.  It was pretty grim, although it was pretty good trash
if you like that sort of thing.  Now we pack 10-15 books for a long
weekend trip.

===============================================================================
Ken Meltsner                        | meltsner@crd.ge.com (518) 387-6391
GE Research and Development Center  | Fax:  (518) 387-6474
P.O. Box 8, Room KWD270		    | Nothing I say should be attributed
Schenectady, NY 12301               | to my employer, and probably vice-versa
"It's probable, just not very likely." -- Fire Maidens From Outer Space.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 18:18:18 GMT

In article <1ijesiINNiav@phakt.usc.edu> rhogan@phakt.usc.edu (Ron Hogan) writes:
>Tim Starr writes:
>in response to Ron Hogan

>>}It's like the Albert Goldman school of intellectual history-- not so much
>>}sunlight being the best disnfectant as dragging historical figures through
>>}the mud.

>>They dragged themselves through the mud.  Johnson just exposed it.

>That, of course, hinges on whether or not we agree on the nature of 'mud'.
>The main thing, which Mike has pointed out as well, as that a good number
>of the incidents with which Johnson indicts his subjects aren't relevant
>to the core of their intellectual output, in the same way that Albert
>Goldman's biographies of Elvis and Lennon contribute little, if anything,
>to a serious discussion of their cultural contributions.

Goldman has a bigger problem, of course: he's usually *wrong* about his 
cultural history.  See Charles Hamm's review of the Elvis book in JAMS 1983.

>To pick an example that Johnson ignores (at least I think so, it's been
>a while since I read the book): Norman Mailer stabbed one of his wives,
>treated a lot of people like shit, and sponsored the release of a guy
>whose later actions proved that he should not have been let out of prison.
>(the guy's last name was Abbott, I forget the full name.  Mailer read some
>of his writing, and urged for his parole.  Less than a month after that
>parole was obtained, Abbott killed another guy)

Jack Henry Abbott, author of In the Belly of the Beast.

>Does any of this have anything to do with Mailer's talent as a writer?

>Ron
>of course, it can lead to an interesting
>interpretation of "The White Negro".

Actually, he *does* talk a little like Reggie Jackson...

Roger


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books