HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jbg@sei.cmu.edu (John Goodenough)
Newsgroups: soc.couples
Subject: Re: Marriage....how do you know if she's the one???
Date: 5 Oct 92 16:15:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: sei.1992Oct5.161514.23749
Organization: The Software Engineering Institute


In article <cos.718134358@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu>, cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Ofer Inbar) writes:
|> jbg@sei.cmu.edu (John Goodenough) writes:
|> >There is a great book available on the stages of developing a long-term
|> >relationship with someone.  The book is "A Fine Romance" by Judith Sills.  The
|> >book discusses the various stages (more than three, by the way) experienced
|> >when developing a relationship, and gives good practical advice about how
|> >to cope with the difficulties of each stage.
|> 
|> ... Such and such a book will show you how, cookbook style! ...
|>
|> I have no problem with books about relationships, love, whatever.  But
|> when these books, start categorizing, classifying, generalizing,
|> offering step by step solutions, drawing artificial lines, etc., they
|> become the pop-psychology garbage that I despise.  The book mentioned
|> above may not be in that group; I don't know.

The author of the book is quite careful to point out exceptions to general
rules and doesn't oversimplify things, although my capsule description may
have suggested otherwise.  Most of the people I know who've read the book have
found it to contain useful guidelines, insights, and thoughts about patterns
of relationships.  Your mileage may vary.

John -- even good cooks sometimes use a cookbook
Xref: sparky soc.couples:3872 misc.legal:18000
Newsgroups: soc.couples,misc.legal
Subject: Re: What a Problem!!!
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Date: 2 Oct 92 14:02:10 EST
Followup-To: soc.couples
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <1992Sep30.163147.9706@cbnewsc.cb.att.com>, kapa@cbnewsc.cb.att.com (k.a.perkins) writes:
> In article <1ach72INN1em@gw.home.vix.com>, shedevil@vix.com (Anne P. Mitchell JD) writes:
...
> 
> < a law that requires non custodial parents to put children through
> college while there is no such law affecting families where parents are
> still married to each other >
> 
>> long said that such a law will be my first constitutional case [i.e. I
>> believe that such a law is unconstitutional and must be challenged].
> 
> Well, it may certainly be an unfair law, but how exactly is it
> unconstitutional?  I mean, what part of the constitution does it
> violate?  I don't think that it discriminates based on gender or
> race, and it doesn't exactly discriminate based on marital status
> (since the ncp could be married to someone else and still have it
> apply) not that marital status is listed in the constitution as something
> you can't base discrimination on anyway.

	Equal protection.  It targets one set of parents while others are
omitted.  Either all parents must pay for college or none have to.
	But telling some of them "yes you do" while others are not told this is
clearly unequal treatment.

	At least, that's my not-a-lawyer opinion.

Brett                                                      
_______________________________________________________________________________
Proconsul Computer Consulting                                        CHA-CHING!
Better, Cheaper, Faster					       (Pick any two :)
Disclaimer:								   NOT!
Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 17:15:30 EDT
From: K. Roper <ROPERK@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: soc.couples
Subject: Re: Gift for the groom
 <92274.175056ROPERK@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> <1adjidINN57e@gap.caltech.edu>

In article <1adjidINN57e@gap.caltech.edu>, peri@cco.caltech.edu (Michal Leah
Peri) says:
>
>K. Roper <ROPERK@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>
>>1) Pocket watch.
>>2) Swiss Army knife.
>
>Are you *sure* he wouldn't rather get a crowbar???
>
>                                                        --  Michal

  He already has one.  And bolt cutters.

  Kim
From: O1ADAMS@VM1.CC.UAKRON.EDU (Debbie Adams)
Newsgroups: soc.couples
Subject: Re: Wedding anniversary
Date: 6 Oct 92 06:08:49 GMT
Organization: The University of Akron

In article <1992Oct5.133405.26315@bcars6a8.bnr.ca>
muradia@bcarh1ed.bnr.ca (Rajiv Muradia) writes:
 
>Any ideas for a romantic wedding anniversary day? What should be sent to my
>better half besides balloons, flowers..?
>
>--
>
>Rajiv
Possibly a singing telegram if the job will allow it?
From: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Who lived in Great Britain before the Kelts?
Date: 30 Sep 92 14:58:02 GMT
Reply-To: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh Computer Science

In article <MJD.92Sep28164444@saul.cis.upenn.edu> mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu (Mark-Jason Dominus) writes:
>
>    It seems that the Kelts migrated into Great Britain from the
>Continent between 500-100 BC.  Was there an aboriginal people there
>before the Kelts?  If so, what happened?  Were they exterminated?

Yes, there certainly were people there prior to the Celts.  I'm
not sure whether they were absorbed or exterminated.  They built
Stonehenge, I believe.


-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.china,soc.culture.sri-lanka,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.iranian
From: exunikh@s08a20.com (NIKHIL TIKEKAR)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Date: 6 Oct 92 16:12:14 GMT
Reply-To: exunikh@s08a20.com
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems
X-Disclaimer: This article was posted by a user at Ericsson in North America.
              The opinions expressed are strictly those of the user and
              not necessarily those of Ericsson.


 
jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:


>There is one test for cultures as a whole, and this is migration.
>The country toward which people migrate need not be superior in
>all respects, since disadvantages may be counterbalanced by
>advantages.  One should note that all kinds of people migrate
>to America.  It would be interesting to know what kind of people
>form the largest group of emigrants from America.  There were
>some people avoiding the Vietnam War draft, but I don't count
>that.  Anyway most of them returned.  The best known emigration
>from America was of literary people, but that seems to have
>ended around WWII.

There are lot of reasons for migration eg.

* Economic opportunity
* Material convniences
* Frontier spirit (people have migrated to uninhanbited (no culture) places)
* Existence of open spaces/ land
* Boredom (and yearning for DIFFERENT)
* Climate
* hope (without knowing anything about the new palce)
* Fertile land

Now unless these comprise `culture', it (culture) is a rare reason for migration.

Also, its a function of time. There were many invasions/migrations towards the
indian sub-continent over 3000-5000 years.
Now unless you believe in supremacy of one of the `invaders', the
so called `aryans', you would have to agree (according to your theory) that
it (non-homogeneous sub-continent) was the `superior' culture of that time 
(non-western?)!

So  what do we conclude ?

   (1) The above mentioned reasons `make up' culture
    OR
   (2) Different cultures were `superior' at different times
    OR
   (3) Some combination 
    OR
   (4) Inconsistency

May I ask: (1) What was the motivation for starting this thread ?
           (2) Have you changed/refined your opinions since ?
           (3) Do you still believe in `superiority' of a culture ?

- nikhil tikekar

exunikh@exu.ericsson.se
1-214-997-4205


ericsson is not responsible for my opinions
From: samaddar@siemens.com (Sumitro Samaddar)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Date: 1 Oct 92 14:10:55 GMT
Reply-To: samaddar@siemens.com

cutchin@cs.purdue.EDU (Steve Cutchin) writes:

>In article <12570@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

>>   MILLIONS of Indians?  Even over the two centuries of British colonialism,
>>   that comes to at least 5000 Indians a year.  There was a rather

>   If one includes British warfare as slaughter (which I do) then the
>   number is easily in the millions.  Note I don't say tens of millions,

I don't believe that the British killed that many in warfare INSIDE India.
British Indian army fought in WW1 and WW2, but still the number of dead
wouldn't be in millions. However, if you count in famines caused/permitted
by the British, then the number goes into tens of millions. As recently as
in 1943, about 3 million died in the Bengal famine, in part because the
British diverted food towards it's war effort.

In contrast, since independence in 1947, there have been very few famine
deaths in India (maybe less than 1000).

Sumitro
From: karlr@think.com (Karl Rotstan)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Who Burned The Parthenon To Achieve Fame?
Date: 26 Sep 1992 21:48:40 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation
NNTP-Posting-Host: custard.think.com

In article <1992Sep25.195830.10307@nntp.hut.fi> c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen) writes:
>In article <12504@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>>
>>Issac Asimov's book on the Greeks mentions that one man burned the
>>Parthenon in classical times for the express purpose of achieving
>>fame as the man who burned the Parthenon.  His punishment was supposed
>>to have been that his name was removed from all records.

(stuff deleted)

>BTW, does anyone know from which era does the name Parthenon originate ?
>The Greek word "parthenos" means a virgin; during the Byzantine age the
>Parthenon was a christian church, named for The Blessed Virgin St. Mary,
>for more than thousand years. As I would remember, none but Artemis of
>the Greek goddesses were virgins, but lived in promiscuity...

THe Parthenon was dedicated to Athena Parthenos (sp?), aka Athena the
Virgin, who was the patron deity of Athens in the classical era

karl...
Newsgroups: soc.history
From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Date: 4 Oct 92 23:28:02 GMT
Followup-To: soc.history
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <1992Sep29.030620.11614@zip.eecs.umich.edu> sechrest@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Stuart Sechrest) writes:
|>II) The development of Capitalism in the West is unique.  We somehow take
|>for granted that large-scale trade must have always existed.  Yet, large-scale
|>trade requires a number of innovations that occurred only in the West.
|>These include the development of banking, including money-lending for
|>speculation; the concept of joint ownership (originally for mills and
|>dams in the middle ages, later applied to ships); the development of
|>double-entry bookkeeping and other accounting techniques; the development
|>of insurance.

All of these things existed during the Ming dynasty in China (e.g.
1500), they most certainly are not unique to the West.



Xref: sparky soc.history:8758 soc.culture.indian:32878
From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Date: 3 Oct 92 03:36:46 GMT
Followup-To: soc.history
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <2AC6FD8B.15497@news.service.uci.edu> josh@aris.ss.uci.edu (Josh Stern) writes:
>It isn't controversial that SOME of the Western technologies worked better.
>The guns and the ships for instance.  Continuing with your examples
>however, it seems likely that Western medical technology was more 
>widespread in, say, the year 1860, than Chinese medical technology even
>though it was technologically inferior.

One important point.  Today there isn't a "Chinese astronomy" which is
different from "Western astronomy" or a "Chinese chemistry" which is
different from "Western chemistry," yet there still exists a Chinese
medicine which is very different from Western medicine.  This does not
prevent Mainland China from having a rather high life expectancy (68
years).

>China did not have an electoral democracy last I checked.  Perhaps you
>are referring to the state of Taiwan, whose semi-indigenous ethnic population
>is governed by an opressive oligarchy representing a dominant minority 
>population which fled from mainland China when Mao came to power there, and 
>massacred over 20,000 Taiwanese for political reasons shortly thereafter with 
>the tacit support of the U.S. government.

What you said would have been quite true 15 years ago.  However,
things in Taiwan have changed drastically.  Most everyone in the
government (including the President, most of the cabinet, legislature,
and bureaucracy) now are descended from people who were there on the
island in 1949.  All the political prisioners have been released, and
the "lifetime legislators" have all been removed and replaced by
either elected members or members appointed by the parties based on
how well they did in the election.

One sign of how much things have changed is that Taiwan receives a
full USENET feed uncensored, and from time to time anti-government
postings appear from Taiwan itself. 

One of the more amazing these about this transformation is that it was
accomplished through internal changes in the ruling party. 

>If the criteria of ``superior'' is still widespreadness then Heavy Metal
>music certainly beats up on baroque music and madrigals.  While we are
>at it then the Big Mac is the best food recipe in the world.  "Dallas"
>was among the best dramatic productions ever, and Astrology is the best
>form of personal decision-making.

One philosopher friend of mine said the thing that he found most
disturbing was that non-Western cultures seem to pick up the traits in
the West which he disliked the most.  1/2 :-)

>As far as I can tell, almost all Earthlings have firm beliefs about which 
>cultural tradition is the most valuable - their own.  And that is the way 
>it has always been.  

True enough.  That's why it's so important to study cultures different
from your own.  Only in that way can one find what is universal and
what is not.
From: ghayalm@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Manoj Ghayalod)
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Date: 30 Sep 92 17:01:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: ucunix.BvEHz8.MrI
Organization: University of Cincinnati

In article <29SEP199216102199@rosie.uh.edu> mece21x@rosie.uh.edu (Yesudas, Michael) writes:
>In article <JMC.92Sep28214354@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes...
>>Manoj Ghayalod includes:
>> 
>>     Obviously the Western form of democracy is a better system
>>     than the others available and India is implementing this
>>     system, but the fact remains that no former Western powers
>>     ever used their systems to benifit their former colonies (as
>>     the orginal poster seems to claim).  But on the contrary all
>>     the colonies were ruthlessly exploited.
>> 
>>I did not wish to suggest taht Western powers were very often
>>motivated by benevolence, although I would suppose there is
>>an element of that in the 1829 suppression of sati.
>>Incidentally, that is 1829, and I suppose the Indian leaders
>>Manoj Ghayalod refers to were much later.
>
>True, the legal abolition of Sati was by William Bendick in 1829.
>
Just one point here.  No law has any value if it is not implemented.
The American constitution has always had 'All men are born equal', the
men who were responsible for this constitution had slaves and till
the 1950s not all people were treated equally.  The credit with
abolishing sati lies solely with Indian leaders, the British could
not abolish sati.  The people at that time had their priorities mixed
up (according to me), they held religion at a much higher than basic
human rights and there would have been extreme resistance if Hinduism
was percieved as being attacked (that was the reason for the mutiny,
which is regarded as the first freedom struggle).

Manoj
From: cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:34:45 GMT
Organization: pubs

John McCarthy writes:
...
      An early example of a cultural superiority contributing
   to political domination is the conquest of Mexico by Cortez with
   500 men.  The decisive battles were fought when the
   Conquistadores were out of ammunition for their firearms and
   using Aztec cotton armor that had proved superior to their metal
   armor. ...

	   Nevertheless, the Spanish victory was substantially a
   consequence of Spanish Catholicism's intellectual and moral
   superiority to Aztec religion and ideology.  In the first place, it
   proclaimed universal religious and moral principles.  These principles
   were asserted to be applicable to Mexican Indians just as well as to
   whites.  In particular, it proclaimed that human sacrifice was
   universally wrong, not merely that it wasn't the Spanish custom.
   These principles and the religious organizations that promulgated them
   enabled the Spanish to gain allies and to gain converts. ...

I'd like to believe that the Spanish Conquest was the victory of
humanitarian ethical ideals over despotism and human sacrifice, but it
doesn't wash.  

First, as soon as the Spaniards appeared, the inhabitants of the Aztec
capital were immediately decimated by a plague.  This (usually
unintentional) germ warfare was always critical to the colonists'
military success.

Second, the Aztecs, like most indigenous peoples in the Americas, were
initially awed by the visitors and considered them gods.  They
accordingly weakened their position in ways that they wouldn't have done
if they had understood Spanish intentions.  So it was partly a victory
of European realism over native superstition, but I see no moral
difference.

Finally, the Spanish themselves represented a despotic form of
government and typically enslaved the conquered peoples, often in the
most barbaric ways.  Nothing enlightened or modern about that.

I too believe that the West has created a uniquely versatile and
powerful intellectual tradition, including great moral and political
ideas, but I still feel that the West's sins come close to equalling its
accomplishments.

Chris Brewster
cb@cray.com
From: gb@cs.purdue.EDU (Gerald Baumgartner)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Date: 6 Oct 92 05:00:37 GMT
	<JMC.92Sep28214354@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <19764@ector.cs.purdue.edu>
	<1992Oct1.224600.17393@nntp.hut.fi> <19877@ector.cs.purdue.edu>
	<JMC.92Oct5201822@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University

In article <JMC.92Oct5201822@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
> There is one test for cultures as a whole, and this is migration.

That doesn't have anything to do with culture, rather with economics.

> The country toward which people migrate need not be superior in
> all respects, since disadvantages may be counterbalanced by
> advantages.  One should note that all kinds of people migrate
> to America.  It would be interesting to know what kind of people
> form the largest group of emigrants from America.

Most of the international people I know prefer the culture of their
home country but came to the U.S. for higher education or because of a
better job market.  Higher education in the U.S. is attractive since
many universities here have more money for hiring good researchers or
for buying equipment than the average university in other parts of the
world.  And the average salaries are higher too, especially when
compared to African, Asian, South American or East European countries.

So the main advantage of migrating to the U.S. is economics, the main
disadvantage is American culture.  :-)

--Gerald

--
Gerald Baumgartner
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University,  W. Lafayette, IN 47907
Internet: gb@cs.purdue.edu, UUCP: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!gb
From: stuart@cco.caltech.edu (Stuart Wagner)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: FTP archive for New Deal info
Date: 2 Oct 1992 16:36:30 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu
Summary: looking for an FTP archive
Keywords: New Deal FTP archive


Hello,
  I am writing a paper for a class evaluatng the New Deal.
Are there any ftp sites for related history information or
papers on the subject.  Most of my info will come from manual
research at several libraries, but I can always use more.
  Also, any copies of newspaper editorials from the era would
be nice to get ahold of.

Thanks,
Stuart
swagner@nba19.med.uth.tmc.edu
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Date: 1 Oct 92 19:39:03
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
	<19764@ector.cs.purdue.edu> <1992Oct1.224600.17393@nntp.hut.fi>
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: c34657b@saha.hut.fi's message of Thu, 1 Oct 1992 22:46:00 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.224600.17393@nntp.hut.fi> c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen) writes:

   In article <19764@ector.cs.purdue.edu> cutchin@cs.purdue.edu (Steve Cutchin) writes:

   >In article <JMC.92Sep28214354@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) wr
   >    tendencies  as abberations.  Let me make a list of some of the more
   >    negative creations of Western Culture:

   Mr. Cutchin tries to convince the following examples are proofs of the evilness
   and moral inferiority of the "Western" civilization (i.e. "only the Western Civ
   can produce such horrendous consequences"). However, all these can be proven


   >    the idea of societal 'progress' is often pushed for by the west yet why
   >    should one want ones society to 'progress'.  Is it really a benefit?  I
   >    am calling into question here Mr McCarthy's belief that organization,
   >    rule of law, written constitutions are beneficial things.  Is 'progress'
   >    itself a benefit?  I think you will find many in the west and east who
   >    have lived near polluted areas who will argue that 'progress' is not
   >    such a universally wonderfull thing.

Is there anyone willing to expound on the benefits of living in a
society that does not have rule of law? Ignoring written
constitutions, "progress" and "organization" (this one really
puzzles me, I hadn't appreciated it was a "western" thing - unless
the intent is for a very narrow interpretation of the phrase)
what benefits are there to the absence of rule of law? Historical
examples?

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			 Lick Observatory     	  *
* steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		       "standard disclaimer"  	  *
* But, oh, love is strange 					  *
* and you have to learn to take the crunchy with the smooth,      *
* I suppose 				              - B.B. 1983 *