HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: Life's too short. Was: 1930s Science Fiction
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 16:45:34 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis):
>>>I've tried for almost 12 seconds to come up with a broader umbrella for
>>>science fiction than man's relationship to science and can't. 

>    [A thoughtful and only occasionally insulting article on the 
>      uses and realms of science fiction deleted]
>
>I thank you. Eleanor thanks you. And my dog Falla thanks you.
>I believe this thread can no claim to have served its purpose.

The problem from the beginning was deciding whether Jeff was expressing
honest ignorance or whether he was prodding to see how high people would
jump.  Those of us who responded were those who chose to err on the
charitable side.  Sometimes you guess wrong.

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

  The surface of the strange, forbidden planet was roughly textured and green,
  much like cottage cheese gets way after the date on the lid says it is all 
  right to buy it.--Scott Jones
From: danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR])
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 27 Aug 1992 17:15:25 GMT
Organization: Lurkers Anonymous
NNTP-Posting-Host: earlybird
Keywords: Greeks race Cramer foolishness

(Michael Sean Rooney) wonders:
    
   	When was the last time you saw Herodotos in the flesh, eh,
   Clayton?  Did he seem "indisputably white"?  There's little ethno-      

(Clayton Cramer) rants:

 Sorry, I'll just ignore all the statutes left from the classical
 civilization.
 
This is interesting. What do civil laws have to do with the
skin color of the inhabitants? Perhaps you meant "statues"
which is even more ludicrous. Because the statues were white
so were the people? 

 East Mediterranean peoples are definitely white, asshole.  So are
 Asian Minor people, asshole.

Clearly the calm and precise words of someone to be taken seriously. . .
 
 Yup.  Irrelevant.  Whether a Congresscritter is white, black, male,
 female, whatever, is irrelevant.  Hell, I'm no liberal, I vote for
 what a person based on what they say, not how they look.

Why do I have trouble believing this?

                     But until very recently, the non-European
 cultures have had little impact on our culture (outside of the
 area of religion).

This seems to ignore many, many things. However, I am sure
that since Mr. Cramer is a teacher, upon reflection come up
with a few things.

 You know, rec.arts.books (perhaps because it's dominated by
 liberals) has among the least polite jerks anywhere on USENET.

I for one can vouch that this is patently untrue. Mr. Cramer
has taken far worse thumpings in a much more "uncivilized"
manner on other newsgroups.  And avoiding the title of 
"least polite jerk" may be difficult after calling other
people "assholes".

Just an opinion,

Dano


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull)
Subject: Re: Unreliable narrator in "Pale Fire"
Organization: Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society, Austin, Tx
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 22:43:15 GMT



The Pale Fire narrator is as unreliable as possible, a horrible
person, and completely charming.

Or would it be more accurate to say that he is an inadvertently
reliable narrator?

I love Pale Fire.

Kate


-- 
- - - - - - - -
kate@cactus.org
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
From: patricka@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Patrick Anderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Live From Golgotha
Keywords: Gore,Vidal,Sassoon,Skull,Calgary,Calvary,Cavalry,Orson Bean
Date: 26 Aug 92 23:52:19 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


It's Saturday NITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.comics.wanted
Subject: Whitman's Big Little Books
Date: 2 Sep 92 01:55:41 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.comics.wanted,poster
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque


	I came across one of the old Big Little Books a few days
	ago (Goofy in Giant Trouble, which is a lot of fun)
	and recalled really enjoying the only other one of these
	I've ever seen (Donald Duck in The Fabulous Diamond Fountain, I think).

	Are these books still available, or could someone point
	me to book/comic stores that carry them?  Thanks!
	(Also, an address for Whitman would be appreciated;
	the copyright page is missing from the volume I have)

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: The literary canon and academic freedom
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 29 Aug 92 10:21:11

I interpreted something Michael Sean Rooney wrote recently as describing
himself as an academic.  This and the vigor of his early replies
to what Clayton Cramer posted led me to wonder how Cramer
would fare were he an undergraduate at Mr. Rooney's institution.

Would Cramer be subject to academic penalties if he expressed himself
in the manner that aroused Mr. Rooney's ire in any of the following
manners?  Any of Cramer's postings, whether on r.a.b. or elsewhere
might be considered.

a. In conversation in the student union, supposing there to be
enough opposition so that voices were raised and overheard?
Could what he said be interpreted as harassment of some kind?

b. On Usenet as he has done?

c. In a class of Rooney's but shutting up when rebuked?

d. In a class of Rooney's but in four or five exchanges before
shutting up and in essays submitted as class assignments?
How might his grade be affected if he continued to defend his
opinions as he has done in rec.arts.books?

e. In leaflets on campus?  In a conservative student magazine.

f. As an applicant for an academic position in history, assuming that
the publications submitted were not Usenet postings but in the normal
form and not primarily polemical?  For this question, assume that
Cramer will shortly have a PhD from somewhere else, but his
undergraduate expressions are known and he is not known to have
recanted them.

If Mr. Rooney does not teach classes but is willing to hypothesize
that he did, he could still answer the questions about how Cramer
ought to be treated.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: 00bjhoyt@bsu-ucs.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Star Wars: Dark Force Rising
Date: 1 Sep 92 01:16:47 GMT
Distribution: na

In article <nudnik.714945930@camelot>, nudnik@camelot.bradley.edu (Steven Parks) writes:
> In <1992Aug27.133040.9019@bsu-ucs.uucp> 00bjhoyt@bsu-ucs.uucp writes:
> 
>>Has anybody seen or read "Star Wars: Dark Force Rising"  the second book 
>>in a three book cycle by Timothy Zahn.
> 
> check out rec.arts.sf.starwars.  there's plenty of discussion of this
> and the first book there.
> --

I don't think rec.arts.sf.starwars exists...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,misc.forsale,rec.arts.startrek.misc
From: vinlai@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (vincent.lai)
Subject: Trek, Best Sellers, etc. 4Sale
Followup-To: poster
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 19:13:16 GMT

Got 'em for sale, and I'm taking offers for:

Dreadnought! - Diane Carey
Prime Directive - Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Doctor's Orders - Diane Duane
Enterprise - Vonda McIntyre
The Entropy Effect - Vonda McIntyre
Double, Double - Michael Jan Friedman

Presumed Innocent - Scott Turow (pb)
Squash Racquets - Brown Physical Education Activities Series (70 pgs., pb)
Edmund's 1990 Car Survey (pb)
Rush - Kim Wozencraft (HC)
Life 101 - John-Roger and Peter McWilliams (HC)
Uh-oh - Robert Fulghum
Helping Your Teenage Student - Marvin Cohn, Ph.D. (240 pgs. HC)
The Cardinal of the Kremlin - Tom Clancy (HC)
Patriot Games - Tom Clancy (HC)
Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe (HC)
Time Management for the Pre-Med Student - Charles Kozoll, Ph.D. (65 pgs. pb)
Microbiology - John J. Lee (282 pgs., pb)
Lotus 1-2-3 Managerial Worksheets - Robert Schware (114 pgs., pb)
More than 32 BASIC Progams for the IBM PC - Tom Rugg & Phil Feldman

--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mom, we're hungry!" - Bud Bundy          "Why tell me?" - Peg Bundy

Vincent Lai
vlai@attmail.com
vinlai@cbnewsb.att.com
wcmnja!lai@somerset.att.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From:  (jmhodapp@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu)
Subject: Re: couple Ross Macdonald queries
Organization: haphazard, at best
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 15:14:08 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.143551.2355@news.acns.nwu.edu>, myboy@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Lewis Murtaugh) writes:
> 

> 
> God, just what I need -- an excuse to plug ross MacDonald, THE BEST DAMN
> MYSTERY WRITER IN HISTORY!
> 
> Sorry about the hyperbole.  He doesn't use natural disasters in all his
> novels -- in fact I think those are the only ones in which he *does*.  Those
> are also his best novels, IMHO.  Other greats include: _The Barbarous Coast_,
> _The Galton Case_, _The Way Some People Die_, _The Blue Hammer_ (all Lew
> Archers), and _Blue City_ (I think that's the title -- anyway its not Lew 
> Archer, it's about this kid who comes home after serving in the Army and finds
> his father's been murdered).
> 
Hey, hey. Hold on their young fella.  Ross is good, but too ...distant.  I still
must (in my never ending crusade)  pump Dashiell Hammett as the far superior
writer.  Chandler is fun to read, while Jim Thompson has the grittiest edge.

Current authors who, (IMSWHO) , rank up there for grittiness are James
Lee Burke, Estelman (who tries too hard), Ellroy, and Mosley.  Speaking of 
Mosley, his first book, Devil in A Blue Dress is amazing, but his second is only
fair.  Does anyone have any word on number 3?  Any suggestions for other
noir novels?  Thanks for the list of woman detective authors, whoever you are,
V.I. Warchalski (sp?) is becoming my latest must read.

Jon jmhodapp@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu
===============================
She was a blonde, a blonde that would make a bishop kick a hole in a stained
glass window.
She entered the room with a walk that would be banned in Boston.


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Sea Stories 
Keywords: Ramage, Dudley Pope
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 17:21:19 GMT

I remember hearing that Forester had actually designated his
"successor", and although I'm not sure which one, it was either Dudley
Pope or Alexander Kent. Anyone else ever hear this?

Keith
  
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Morgan		      | Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu       |                          H.L. Mencken
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 19:32:02 GMT

Chris Brewster writes:

	Francis Muir writes:

		Yes, I have been surprised at the mindless and inordinate 
		amount of attention that TIMESWEEK has been getting -- as 
		though they were the only sources of news. ... 

	There is value in a good weekly synthesis of news, but no magazine
	really delivers this anymore. The function of the original Time mag 
	is simply no longer being served.

Correction. The function of the original TIME magazine has been long usurped 
by TV. We have no need of newsmagazines. For a decade or two LIFE was the
pinnacle of photojournalism, and when they saw the impact of TV, they wisely
folded their tent and went away -- returning, what, once a year? once a
quarter? once a month? to remind us of their once glory. So, what we need
now are journals about the news. Commentary. Analysis. The ECONOMIST at least
has recognized this rreality and is doing rather well commercially if not
much to write home about journalistically. The Brits have alwats had more
than their share of pol weeklies. Are they still around? The NEW STATESMAN?
Perhaps Jack Campin or Matthew Huntbach can fill us in. Sometimes some very
specialized technical journals like the LANCET are useful reading for their
more popular stuff.

						Fido

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 01:41:50 GMT

Emma Pease writes:

	Mark Taranto writes:

		Mike, of course is right -- however this pompous 
		persona does seem to post from the Palo Alto area.

Markie does it again. there is no "Palo Alto area". There is a Bay Area,
but that is it by way of areas.

	I am surprised that Fido did not castigate Palo Alto for closing 
	its harbor after all I suspect that Redwood residents are just as 
	likely to mispronounce Cowper (or Berkeley) as Palo Alto residents, 
	but, at least they haven't closed their harbor.

No Cowpers in RC, luv. No namby-pamby fawning after the literati. RC has
strong names. 5th Ave. Madison Ave. Jefferson. Roosevelt. My own, Cleveland,
is one block away from a bit of prescience; Clinton. We sport our Perot
bumper stickers with pride. We have four harbors! Dockland, Pete's,
Peninsula, and the Port of Redwood City whereat is stacked a mammoth pile
of salt and an even larger pile of powdered Chevvies.

							Fido

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ansok@stsci.edu (Gary Ansok)
Subject: Lyrics to "Sir Thinks-a-Lot" wanted
Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 17:32:52 GMT

Did anyone else catch the rap song that Dave Ross did last week
(while subbing for Charles Osgood on CBS radio)?  Does anyone
have the lyrics at hand?

It was done as a sort of "literary rap", and included lines like:

My women find it sexy
when I quote from Dostoevski

And they think it's really peachy
when I mention Proust or Nietzsche

I can take away their breath
with a passage from Macbeth

Gimme some BOOK!


Gary "I like FAT books" Ansok
-- 
Gary Ansok           ansok@stsci.edu
A second Flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere,
Or a cataclysmic earthquake I'd accept with some despair.
But no...You sent us Congress.  Good God, Sir, was that fair?
From: ian@spider.co.uk (Ian Heavens)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 1 Sep 92 15:41:12 GMT
Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK.

In article <1SEP199208295364@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov> calvo@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Sherri Calvo) writes:
>In article <67235@hydra.gatech.EDU>, barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard) writes...
>> 
>> 
>>Some fairly contemporary women's works I've read and which I found excellent:
>>
>            (list omitted)
>> 
>> 
>>Some fairly contemporary women's works I've not yet read but which have been
>>highly recommended to me:
>>
>            (list omitted) 
>> 
>>-- 

Also:
	Leonora Carrington (The House of Fear, The Seventh Horse)
	Jane Bowles (Two Serious Ladies, a Guatemalan Idyll, etc.)

ian
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:15182 rec.humor:27214 alt.folklore.urban:22285 rec.arts.sf.misc:2718
From: ltf@ncmicro.lonestar.org (Lance Franklin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.sf.misc
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 27 Aug 92 14:51:03 GMT
Organization: NC Microproducts, Inc.

In article <1992Aug25.194259.853@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> gfm@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (George Francis McBay) writes:
}In article <1992Aug25.153404.2055@ccs.QueensU.CA> 3005904@jeff-lab.queensu.ca (Colleen Davis (Dexter)) writes:
} >>>>>>>IF THIS DOESN'T STOP, IM GOING TO START THE WORST CASCADE EVER.
} >>>>>>WHILE EATING THIS SLOP, I SEWED THE FIRST BROCADE BEAVER.
} >>>>>BILE FITTING RIG STOP, LIE SPEWED THIRST LIVER !!!!
} >>>>IF YOU MUST CONTRIBUTE, AT LEAST DELIVER...
} >>>WHO MAY I ATTRIBUTE TO THIS BEASTLY SLIVER?
} >>TO SPAY A LUTE IN A GREASY RIVER
} >DAMN CASCADERS THINK YOU'RE SO CLEVER
} I WILL NOT CASCADE; NOPE, NO, NEVER
WOULD YOU, COULD YOU, ON A TRAIN?



Sam I am!

-- 
Lance T. Franklin            +----------------------------------------------+
(ltf@ncmicro.lonestar.org)   | "You want I should bop you with this here    |
NC Microproducts, Inc.       |    Lollipop?!?"                 The Fat Fury |
Richardson, Texas            +----------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jyc@leo.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis)
Subject: Re: Poetry Suggestion
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date:  2 Sep 92 02:50:25 GMT

scottj@tahiti.dml.georgetown.edu (John L. Scott) writes:

>I will soon read a poem to my Toastmasters club (a club for people
>interested in improving public speaking skills).   I am looking for a
>particular sort of poem to read--I want an inspirational poem, a rousing
>tribute to the power and spirit of the human race.  I want a poem that
>brings a lump to your throat and makes you proud to be a human being.  I am
>particularly interested in something that celebrates the the noble or
>courageous individual.  I also need it to be from a reasonably well known
>poet, one that I would be able to find in a public or college library.

>So how about it?  Anybody out there have any favorites that fit the bill? 

   I have always felt that the following poem's bleak yet affirmative
vision admirably sums up the tragic heroism which is at the core of
human existence.  I first came across it in one room of the library of
a very prestigious university, and I'm sure it will be found in similar
rooms in college libraries everywhere: 

          Here I sit
          broken hearted;
          tried to shit
          but only farted.
From: danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR])
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: REQUEST: "KILL your TV" bumperstickers
Date: 25 Aug 92 21:15:25 GMT
Organization: Hmmm
NNTP-Posting-Host: earlybird

There is also a book by Jerry Mander (love that name)
called "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television".

Dano
From: rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Summary: Fido tries hard to be priggish
Keywords: Fido [0]
Date: 28 Aug 92 04:21:14 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.

In article <1992Aug26.154958.8411@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>Michael Sean Rooney at oxy.edu rants:
>
>Oxy? Oxy? And who, pray, is the Resident Moron?
>
>						Fido
>


	You know, sometimes I have the temptation to avoid making
substantive comment on a posting I've read and instead post a childishly
insipid attempt at a flame.  Unfortunately, I just can't build up the   
requisite amount of mental guano to do so.  I guess going to gentrified
private schools in England would've helped.

	Still nursing a grudge over THE YELLOW WALLPAPER post, Francis?  

Cordially,

Michael S. Rooney

"It becomes apparent that behind the so-called curtain which is supposed
 to conceal the interior of things there is nothing to be seen unless we
 ourselves go behind it."
From: rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Summary: Yes, but...
Keywords: canon
Date: 28 Aug 92 04:48:49 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.

In article <14616@mindlink.bc.ca> Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian) writes:
>
>Michael S. Rooney talks about the "disproportionately small numbers of
>minorities in the traditional canon of so-called great literature." I wonder if
>he'd complain about the "disproportionately small numbers" of Tahitians and
>Norwegians in the traditional canon of Inuit sculpture," or the
>disproportionately small number of Nigerians in the ranks of British Columbia
>totem-pole carvers, or the virtual absence of Italian tenors in Mexican
>mariachi bands.

Since you asked: No, I don't.  However, in the United States, which
pays at least lip service to being a "melting pot" (or "tossed salad",
what metaphor have you), one might expect a much broader canon than
that of NW Europe -- especially considering the heterogeneity of the
U.S. population.  The argument might also be made that the Inuits,
Yoruba, and NW Europeans should broaden their canonical horizons to
include one another.  Indeed, this has happened, for example, in Africa
(book recommendation: IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE by Anthony Appiah).  Yet
this cross-cultural fertilization has been slow to occur in NW Europe
and the U.S.  Hmm...imperialist oppression wouldn't have anything to
do with this, would it? 

>
>The "so-called" great literature of the northwest Europeans is a cultural
>expression which we should not expect to find duplicated among other cultures.
>Every art has its history, and every work of art is a commentary on earlier
>works in the genre. The literary canon of the northwest Europeans has inspired
>respectable work in other cultures (from the Russians to the Japanese to a very
>fine Inuit novel by Markoosie, "Harpoon of the Hunter"), but we should no more
>expect every culture to find expression in prose fiction, any more than we
>should expect the Welsh to be good transPacific navigators, or residents of
>Cincinnatti to be brilliant makers of pinatas.

	I agree.  However, some posters in the canon debate have either
asserted or come close to asserting the objective, trans-cultural greatness
of the Western Canon.  That's what I meant by "so-called".  Again, let
me disclaim that I am not rabidly tearing the "classics" to shreds -- my
second languages (actually my third and fourth, come to think of it) are
classical Greek and Latin, and I venerate Homer and Plato as much as
anyone (but I also venerate Lem, Morrison, and comic books).

Cordially,

Michael S. Rooney

"La philosophie est cette mesure apporte'e a l'infini de l'^etre-pour-
 l'autre de la proximite' et comme la sagesse de l'amour."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: Sherlock Holmes Quote
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 21:22:03 GMT

In article <2060@deadmin.ucsd.edu> napier@cs.ucsd.edu (Jim Napier) writes:
> 
> I looking for a Sherlock Holmes quote which I can't remember fully. To
> paraphrase it Holmes stated that "when all the facts have been
> properly taken into account, the resulting conclusion, no matter how
> bizarre, must be the truth". Can anyone give me the correct exact quote?
> Thanks.

There are four versions:

The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet:
  "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth."

The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier:
  "That process," said I, "starts upon the supposition that
when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever
remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans:
  "We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other
contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must
be the truth."

The Sign of Four:
   "Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth."
and
   "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated
the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the truth?"

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
"IQ describes how big your gas tank is, but it doesn't tell if you're
running on empty." -- Harvey Newstrom (hnewstro@x102c.ess.harris.com)