HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Tuesday, 14 Apr 1992 09:28:24 CDT
From: Mary Jacobs <U45301@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.whine
Subject: Re: The Great Chicago Floooooood

In article <BMoIM9.n32@world.std.com>, adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin) says:
>
>So I "tune in" to alt.whine tonight expecting to see some good hearty
>whiiiiiining from our loyal Chicago correspondents about their soggy
>basements, but nooooooooooooooooooo!
>
>I wanna hear allllll about it, and I wanna hear it nowwwwwwwwww!
>Waaaaaaaaah!

HELP!  HELP!  We're all wet!  Glug...Glug...Glug!

The flooding occurred in the downtown "Loop" area, equivalent to having
Manhattan flooded out.  The Chicago Board of Trade is still
closed.  They have 50 feet of water on their electronics in the
basement.  They are losing 50 BILLION dollars a DAY in trades.

Seriously, this is a major horrid disaster.  The "Loop" is still shut
down.  Many buindings who have several sub-basements and who are
connected to the old "coal tunnel" system which was flooded by the
leak in the Chicago River (the coal tunnel runs under the river) have
40 feet of water in their basements.  Power is out and they are
now trying to sink shafts on each side of the river to shut off the
part of the coal tunnels under the river where the breach is.  No one
knowy why it happened yet.

This is worse than any blizzard we ever had in terms of crippling
the entire city.  The water in basements will turn septic in another
day.  Drinking water is fine.  It is separate.  No one is working due
to lack of power.

There is a plan to try and connect the coal tunnel system to the infamous
"Deep Tunnel" that runs for 40 miles at a depth of 250 feet under the
entire expanse of the city.  This deep tunnel took 20 years to create
and has been used to prevent floding during rain storms.  It will
take at least a week before this draining off can occur at best.  The coal
tunnels are about 30 feet unde the surface so they would drain down to the
Deep Tunnel if the two can be connected.

More later as I know it.

It is hoooooooriiiiiiiible.  Waaaaaaaaaaaah!  We're in a teeeeeriiiiiible
meeeeeeeeeeeess!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
| Mary Jacobs            | This is MY view;  |"There is another alter-  |
| U45301@UICVM           |  not the view of  |native than to obtain the |
| U45301@uicvm.cc.uic.edu|     the " U "     |superfluities."--Thoreau  |
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
From: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: STNG
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 6 Apr 92 23:45:42 GMT

In article <702438182.F00002@mintir.fidonet.org> Ayla@f155.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Ayla) writes:
>
> AW> "There is always something more important than what you are doing."
> AW>   -- Sriram Ramkrishna
>Wrong.  Haven't you brushed up on your Zen philosophy?  What you are doing is
>what you should be doing.
>     Namaste',
>          Ayla

If so, I'm in serious trouble.  I haven't known what I was doing for
years.  Although with Zen, it's hard to figure whether this is a good
thing or not . . .

Blessings,
Janis
From: zbyslaw@EuroPARC.Xerox.COM (Alex Zbyslaw)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Sacrifice
Date: 14 Apr 92 11:51:29 GMT
Reply-To: zbyslaw@EuroPARC.Xerox.COM (Alex Zbyslaw)
Organization: Rank Xerox EuroPARC, Cambridge, UK

In article <20150@castle.ed.ac.uk>, egnr76@castle.ed.ac.uk (A Kashko) writes:
> 
> 	Someone recently  gave me the idea that giving up your time
> could be regarded as a sacrifice, even if no material object was sacrificed.
> Especially if you are or feel you are short of time.
> 
> 	Comments ?

Time is my most precious commodity; it's the one thing I need that I'm
sure to run out of, one day permanently; and it's something I can't
accumulate, or work to get more of.  Time is the most precious thing I could
sacrifice, short of killing something.*  When times are bad it's what I
cling to most tightly.

The most valuable material object isn't worth even a second of time well
spent.

So yes, I agree with those sentiments.  Sacrificing time represents real
commitment.

As a sideline, it seems at the heart of why I hated Christianity.
The thought that there was some afterlife to be working towards cheapened
the experience of living; and worse, allowed people to justify cheapening
that experience for others.  Classic examples of witch burners apply,
but that's just the apocalyptic extreme.

And yes, those sentiments extend to reincarnation beliefs too -- they
just never got so personal.

Kind of interesting to know that reconciliation with death can spark
an immanent philosophy.  I'd never realised that until now.  Seems a
lot less desperate than transcendence -- but then I'm biased :-)

--Alex

* Isn't animal sacrifice just time sacrifice, but something elses?  A
  permanent removal of another creature's time; that much more powerful
  when it's human sacrifice, because of the affinity to the creature
  killed.
From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Alcor Nevada
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 14:49:20 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world
  <67281@netnews.upenn.edu><1992Feb25.214918.10842@apollo.hp.com><1992Feb26.
 163826.104546@watson.ibm.com> <92058.083951J5J@psuvm.psu.edu>

Alcor Nevada will be meeting Sunday April 12th at 5 PM at the 
Riverside Casino owned by Don Laughlin in Laughlin, Nevada.  Don 
Laughlin will be attending our meeting.  The effect of cryonic 
suspension on the soul will be discussed.  For more info call Eric 
Klien at (702) 255-1355.  
 
Note that opinions of this discussion group do not necessarily 
reflect the views of the non profit organization Alcor.
 
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: rickheit@dragon (Erich Rickheit KSC)
Subject: Novels about the Good Neighbors.. (was re: (you know))
Organization: University of Lowell Computer Science, Lowell MA
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 03:06:27 GMT

In article <23625@scorn.sco.COM> caroline@sco.COM (friend of a fiend) writes:

>Also, "War for the Oaks", by Emma Bull.  This novel is great, 
>and the Fair Folk are presented credibly.

One of the first in the sub-genre popular a few years ago, the 'rock-n-roll
elves' sub-genre. Another good one was 'Gossamer Axe', by Gael Baudino. Mind
candy, but both worth a read. (as opposed to 'Knight of Ghosts and Shadows',
by Mercedes Lackey, in the same sub-genre--bleah)

-- 
			Erich the hahaha Mad
rickheit@hawk.ulowell.edu     AT&T: 508 453 1753  : USnail : Erich Rickheit KSC
         "Here, my ice lolly's melted --          :          85 Gershom Ave, #2
          You really _are_ the devil!"            :          Lowell, MA 01854
From: amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: warfare and women
Date: 15 Apr 92 23:22:27 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at Austin


Janis Maria Cortese writes:
>Loren Petrich writes:
>>Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik writes:

>>:I just thought I'd mention that the deities of slaughter and war in
>>:both the Irish and Welsh pantheons are female (the Morrigan in
>>:Ireland; and Aeron in Wales).  There are also many other aspects of
>>:these deities; the Morrigan includes Badb, Nemain, Macha, for
>>:instance.  And actually there were no male battle deities; gods like
>>:Lugh came much later on and were never accorded domain over war and
>>:battle.
[My Deathless Prose deleted :) ]
>>:Goddess of war not make any sense.  Snort.
>>
>>	Another possibility: these were originally goddesses of death,
>>inherited from the pre-Indo-European population. When war became a big
>>thing, they became goddesses of war.
>>
>>	Marija Gimbutas discusses symbols of death in detail in her
>>books, and supports the change-of-function hypothesis for war
>>goddesses, giving Athena as an example.
>
>This is an exceptionally good point.  From what I recalled in my
>reading, the Morrigan et. al. *did* start out as death goddesses,
>since death was connected with entering the next life.

This makes sense (I've got the Gimbutas books on my huge
"next-to-read" stack, alas).  But this sounds to me funny somehow.  I
definitely believe that the breaking down of deity attributes (gods of
war, gods of needlecraft, goods of music, et cetera) came later, as
people became less primitive, but some of this sounds as if the
specific things (in this case, war, slaughter and conflict) did not
occur.  I also think of righteous battle, things like defending one's
children or something.  And, since the Morrigan is also a goddess of
sex (not love, sex), sex can be seen as a combative situation as well.

I guess I'm just hesitant to jump on the "men-invented-war" bandwagon,
and this is sort of what this sounds like to me.  Back to the Utopia
thing.

Also, on the idea that, the more primitive the goddess, the less
specified the area She is associated with -- the Morrigan, being one
of the Tuatha de Danaan, isn't of the most primitive cast.  Aspects of
her like the battle crow are.  Now, when you talk about death being
connected to entering the next life, I think in a much more primitive
sense -- the Sheila-na-gig.

Another thought -- the Morrigan has a mother, Her name is Ernmas, and
Her name means murder.  So murder is the mother of slaughter and war.
Food for thought... I know I'm going to have to go and think on this
one some more.

>Blessings,
>Janis

-- 
-----Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik-------------------------------*<:-)-------------
"Queens never make bargains."  -- The Red Queen, _Through the Looking Glass_
-----amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu--------------The University of Texas @Austin---
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: darkstar@milton.u.washington.edu (Alden Hackmann)
Subject: Can anyone identify this book?
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 20:09:04 GMT

My wife had a book of fiction a long time ago, the storyline of which
included pagan beliefs.  The book has been lost from our collection, and
we can't remember title or author.   We hoped that someone out there has
read it and can identify it from the following summary:

An English author hires an American woman as his secretary.  She was
stationed in Britain in WWII as part of the Allied forces.  He has a
sister who has been dabbling in black magic.  The secretary got pregnant
during the war and performed a self-abortion, about which she has
flashbacks.  He has a friend who is an artist (a potter?) who is pagan. 
There are scenes of them playing mah-jongg, and a scene of shooting off
fireworks while the author's stereo plays Handel.  The author and the
secretary get married in the end, or at least she is pregnant by him.
There is a line something about "What do you plant with delphiniums blue?"
"Why geraniums red of course."

I hope this is enough that someone can identify it.  Please reply by
email. Thank you.  

Alden Hackmann
darkstar@u.washington.edu

"Not everyone has a useful quote to put in their sigfile."
From: gaucher@lynx.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: hair color
Date: 13 Apr 92 00:20:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: agate.sak4hINN6q
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: beryllium.cchem.berkeley.edu
Originator: gaucher@beryllium.cchem.berkeley.edu

All this talk in alt.pagan about magick and hair has
caused me to think about the old superstitions surrounding
different hair colors, specifically those concerning
RED hair. Can anyone tell me why red hair has received
such negative attention in the magickal community throughout
the ages? I have heard that there are still fishermen in
Western Ireland who will not go fishing if they see a
red-headed woman on the way to their boat! Where does all
this stuff come from?!

Lee Gaucher
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: pciszek@isis.cs.du.edu (Paul Ciszek)
Subject: Re: Worship of the Greek gods
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 06:21:25 GMT

cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

>Why does everybody always assume that the Neanderthals DIED OUT?  They
>were as much human as any Cro-Magnon.  Is it just possible that they
>interbred or something?

You may have something here; the name "homo sapiens neanderthalus" implies
that they are merely a different variety, not a different species, but
we really don't KNOW what their breeding status was.  However...

>I once heard something that made sense to me.  If you got a Neanderthal
>and dressed them up in modern clothing, you probably wouldn't give them
>a second glance.  But an Australian aborigine?  THEM you'd look at.  And

This I disagree with.  Supposedly the Ns were a "cold weather adaptation"
of the human form.  Their faces were shaped differently than those of any
modern human population, and supposedly their hands were better suited for using
cruder tools without handles.  I suppose though, that if any had survived
to modern times they would merely have been considered another "race" in
the contemporary sense of the word.

>So why this problem with Neanderthals?  It's called interbreeding,

OK, but this would mean that you side with the "polygenesis" folks rather
than the "out of Africa" school.  Neanderthals predate "anatomically modern"
humans, and none have ever been found in Africa.  Thus, if we are descended
from Neanderthals, then development eveloution was not limited to a single
continent.
--
Paul Ciszek, pciszek@nyx.cs.du.edu | Saddam Hussein still has a job; do you?
From: pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: warfare and women
Date: 14 Apr 92 23:44:15 GMT

In article <70170@ut-emx.uucp> amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik) writes:
>Did mankind worship some form of goddess first?  Probably.  Was
>lineage traced through the mother for many centuries?  Undoubtedly.
>Have we gotten ourselves unbalanced as a species?  In my opinion, yes.
>But fantasizing about how wonderful things were before, *however* they
>were before, isn't going to change a damn thing.

Most, not all, stone age cultures, (that we know about), were neither
matralineal nor patralineal. Both sex's were balanced when it came to
power or deities. Women were often in charge of childbearing and edible
and medicinal plants, and men were often in charge of dance, hunting
and scavenging for meat. But there were many exceptions, more than there
were rules, if there were any rules at all. There were ussually allowances
for women to live the life of men, and visa versa, except that men could
never perform the ritual of childbirth and sex between opposites was
required for pregnancy to occur.

The three main agricultural, neolithic-age, cultures were matralineal. Were
they as badly unbalanced as today's patralineal society? Could be. Some
people speculate that the oppresion of men in these matrilineal societies
may have been what caused them to rise up and enforce patralinealism.
Maybe we will be stuck in endless cycles of matra/patra until we can
figure it all out and return to a balance.

The purpose of discussing or speculating about the past is not fantasy,
we can never return to where we came from or to the past, too many things
have changed. But you must know and understand the past, before you
can go forward.

Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: ba@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (B.A. Davis-Howe)
Subject: Re: New Age/Christian Survey -Help!-specifically the responses to the
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 17:45:07 GMT

heimberg@chance.mitre.org (Jeff Heimberger) writes:

>Just a quick observation...

>I cannot understand why folks continue to consider themselves Catholic
>(or any religion for that matter) when they have such fundamental
>disagreements with their religious leaders.  It seems to me that they
>may be sheep in wolves clothing, i.e., they want the apparent pleasures
>and freedoms of modern society, but want to fall back on their version
>of God when times get tough -- at the "11th hour".  Just how important
>then, is their religion to them?  IMHO, you have to work without a net
>in order to be truly free.  To my frail mind, a religion that
>incorporates personal freedom (and thus, responsibility) as a central
>tenet would be preferred.

The *official* doctrine of the Roman Church is that one must consider your
action(s) to be wrong for it to be a sin.  The hierarchy forgets this when it
is inconvenient, but, since Vatican II, many Roman Christians have started
taking this seriously.  This means that they are using a principle of 
personal freedom and responsibility in their religion.  Many of them are *very*
sincere in their faith--which is in their God, not in the hierarchy.

If I accepted the idea that one must bow to the leaders of one's religion, I
could not be a Witch--I am queer, and I have not been Initiated by another 
Witch.  The "leaders" of Wicca--GBG and Sanders--would not have approved at all.
I hope that you would not consider me a "sheep in wolves clothing" for 
worshipping the Gods I find meaningful, in the way I find meaningful, even
though some "leaders" would disapprove.

              Merry meet, merry part, merry meet again,
                               Br'anArthur

Queer, Peculiar, and Weird! :-)
From: tcg8@aber.ac.uk (Telsa Christina Gwynne)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: hair color
Date: 13 Apr 92 08:36:03 GMT
Organization: University of Wales, Aberystwyth

In article <sak4hINN6q@agate.berkeley.edu> gaucher@lynx.berkeley.edu writes:
>All this talk in alt.pagan about magick and hair has
>caused me to think about the old superstitions surrounding
>different hair colors, specifically those concerning
>RED hair. Can anyone tell me why red hair has received
>such negative attention in the magickal community throughout
>the ages? I have heard that there are still fishermen in
>Western Ireland who will not go fishing if they see a
>red-headed woman on the way to their boat! Where does all
>this stuff come from?!
>
>Lee Gaucher

Um...I have no idea where the idea comes from, but isn't Judas
Iscariot supposed to have red hair? That might explain why fishermen
are particularly averse to red-haired women, although my book of
legends about the sea included the superstition that all women were
ill luck to meet when setting off to the boats. (OK, so I've had it
for years and it's aimed at ten year olds...but when I was nine, 
it was a good read :-))

Whilst this thread is still going on, can I add another question?
A recent(ish) radio quiz about the origin of words and phrases gave
me a surprise by saying the origin of the "eeny, meeny miny, mo"
counting rhyme was that this is what the druids said when they had
all the red-haired people lined up and were counting out to pick
one to be burned. This isn't the derivation I had thought! Would
anyone out in net-land like to comment? I was going to write off
to the bbc to find out where they had got this info, but not knowing
the name of the quiz didn't seem to help.

		Telsa
From: markbr@radian.UUCP (markbr)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Warfare and women
Summary: ever been in a high-school lunchroom?
Date: 15 Apr 92 17:37:12 GMT
Organization: Radian Corp. Austin, TX

In article <29EB1E70.23266@noiro.acs.uci.edu>, cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
> In article <1992Apr14.064304.25424@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> pciszek@isis.cs.du.edu (Paul Ciszek) writes:
> >
> >cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
> >
> >>It's not that men are fucked-up, but when they try to deny the
> >
> >Why, how veryvery KIND of you to say that.
> >
> 
> When we state our opinions and those opinions are even slightly critical
> of men in general, we are accused of saying "All men are pigs."  When we
> state explicitly that we don't think that all men are pigs, we get
> accused of calling all men pigs.
> 
> What the fuck do you people want anyway, and give me one good reason why
> I should care?
> 
> Janis C.

I certainly didn't feel you called all men (in general), or me (in particular)
a pig. You were obviously (to me, at least) referring to those in question, 
and particularly to those in power (in general).

What's the matter, Paul, didn't you live through Junior/Senior High? You know,
when the turkey walks in, and yells right behind you, "hey, you with the five
noses!", and you ignore him, since he's *obviously* not talking to you (or
the converse, if you like to fight)? 

Now *this* is what I call over-sensitivity - on his part.

	mark
/*___________________________________________________________________________*
 *  1.     How *DARE* you attribute these opinions to anyone else!           *
 *  2.     Would *you* claim opinions like these if they *weren't your own?  *
 *					                                     *
 *		         Mark Silverdragon                                   *
 *					                                     *
 *          	       	markbr@radian                                        *
 *___________________________________________________________________________*/
Etymology, n.:
	Some early etymological scholars come up with derivations that
were hard for the public to believe.  The term "etymology" was formed
from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy"
("study of").  It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow."
		-- Mike Kellen
From: de0t+@andrew.cmu.edu (Daniel S. Efran)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Discordianism (was: "What does PAGAN mean anyway?")
Date: 9 Apr 92 01:39:30 GMT
Organization: Freshman, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Chris Lilley writes:

>Further to this literary discussion of Eris, might i ask why what someone
>wrote about her in Greece in XXX BC is an authoritative source, and what
>someone wrote about her in 19XX AD in the USA is not? After all the later
>accounts add much more material and round out her character substantially;
>they also suffer from fewer problems in translation and are wittier.

Personally I know basically nothing about the 'original' Eris,
but I see no problem with the 'modern' one.  Times have changed.
Maybe the old Eris and the new one are the same, and she's just 
changed with the times.  Or maybe it's a different goddess entirely,
who just happens to have the same name.  Or perhaps she's a different
goddess who's just *pretending* to be the old Eris, to further confuse us.
This is perhaps the most likely possibility, considering her personality.
In any event, I plan to remain as much a discordian as I have been (not
much of one, actually) until such time as the old Eris personally asks me
not to. :)

> 
>Or did the ancient greeks actually know her personally?

Quite possibly.  Check out "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of
the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes, a book that most people seem to feel
is "wrong, but interestingly wrong."  Personally, I think Jaynes has some 
good ideas but probably takes them too far.  <shrug>  It's an interesting
book, anyway.

>
>	Chris


	---Daniel Efran
----------------------------------
An it harm none, do as you Will.
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.