HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homeschooling
Date: 4 Jan 93 22:58:40 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1i28psINN53u@agate.berkeley.edu>, spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope) writes:
> Mike Morris writes in explanation of his homeschooling decision:
# # I *do* think social agendists are at the root of the problem..[..]
# # Nor do I believe that all the public-education campaigns (safe sex,
# # harassment, drugs, drinking and driving, the environment, whatever
# # have you) take up that much of the schoolday. What I do believe
# # rather is that it is a commonly held belief that these manipulation
# # campaigns, like Coca-Cola advertising campaigns, *work*. Since I don't
# # believe that they *really* do work...
# 
# Mike, am I to take it then that the inclusion of education
# on safe sex, the environment, and drinking/driving is
# one reason you pulled your kids out of public schools?

None of those motivated my decision to move my daughter out of
public schools -- though had she been a few years older, some of
those would have been issues.  Some of the teaching on "safe sex"
is about as sensible and correct as the drug propaganda used
when I was in junior high.  Condoms aren't the magic solution to
AIDS, merely a way of reducing risk -- and even then, if the skill
in teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic to the current 
generation of high school graduates are any indication, what will
you call the generation after the one now in school?  HIV+ babies.

# I'm happy to see your emphasis on calculus and physical 
# sciences, but it would seem to me environmental science
# is just as important for a well-rounded education.  Consider
# holding your nose and teaching your kids a little about
# the environment.
# 
# Steve

Unfortunately, what is taught in schools seems closer to 
environmentalism than ecology.  One is a science, with the
requirements of a science for proof and experiment.  The 
other is a political movement closely akin to the mystical
movements that set the stage for National Socialist Germany.


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
C++ is to C, as lung cancer is to lung.
From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Date: 12 Jan 93 21:28:41 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1993Jan9.234707.114@Princeton.EDU>, roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
> In article <C0Ln7H.LDw@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
> >Mike Godwin asks:
> >  Should they be allowed to fire an employee if they discover he's Jewish?
> >  What if they feel that Jews undermine their "flaming fundie image"?
> 
> >I think I've already said that they should be ``allowed'' to 
> >do this, yes.
> 
> So they have the right to punish employees for freesdom of association, 
> punishment that, if carried out generally enough, leads to starvation.

You mean, if nearly everyone in the society supports discrimination
against Jews, they will starve to death.  But if nearly everyone in
the society hates Jews that much, economic matters are the least of
the concerns.  The government's actions will be far worse than the
actions of private employers.  And how will antidiscrimination laws
get passed in a society where nearly everyone hates Jews?

> Sieg heil to you too, pal.
> 
> Roger

Bad analogy.  The Nazis REQUIRED discrimination against Jews --
interfering in the private actions of consenting adults.  If anything,
the analogy to Mr. Lustig and other liberal/fascists is the strongest
analogy to the Nazis -- an ideology that was terrified that someone,
somewhere, was doing something without government supervision.



-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
"When freedom destroys order, order will destroy freedom." -- Eric Hoffer
Not a goal, just a statement of reality.
From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Het Boys (was: Homophobia)
Date: 9 Jan 93 04:59:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1993Jan9.045903.19370
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

In article <9JAN93.03013663@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>What I see happening is: Mike is expressing his opinion reasonably.

Shirley, you're joking.

>You and
>others disagree with his opinion, which is fine, but instead of disagreeing
>with him on an equally reasonable basis, you're resorting to namecalling and
>stereotyping.  Do what Evelyn recommended: replace "white Protestant het boy"
>with something like "black homo" and see how acceptable your comment becomes.

You're crazy if you think this is symmetric.  It's not.  Calling
someone a "black homo" is an insult, precisely because of these groups'
very marginalization.  Recall the Stein/lesbian thread, please.
Calling someone who is in every aspect just what they are--a member of
the majority, when that privileged condition contributes to their
complacency and insensitivity is perfectly acceptible.  It's not
stereotyping to identify this in someone, if that's _why_ you think
they're acting the way they are.  What else explains it?  Genes?

At the same time, I hope Morris finds my comments a tenth as uncomfortable-
making as his musings have made me feel.  Willful, self-righteousness dumbness
of this order is extremely discouraging.

>>Second, I expect white Protestant het girls 
>>to have more on the ball than their white Protestant het boyfriends, simply 
>>by virtue of being raised female in a sexist society.  This is usually, 
>>but not always the case.  That's why I was not uncivil with them. 
>
>So the more you're oppressed, the more right-minded you are?  I don't happen
>to believe that.

I think privilege clouds and oppression hones the mind when it
comes to discerning and appreciating the oppression of others.
As I've said before, it's no guarantee, just a working assumption
I've found to be more true than not, and this is certainly true
here on USENET.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction 
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 22:27:20 GMT

callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu (Paul Callahan):
>Far be it from me to criticize

You're criticizing.  People who start with phrases like that generally do.

>I just have trouble understanding people who read constantly.

You've misunderstood.  By and large, the people engaged in this discussion
only read a few hours a day.  There's more to life than books, after all.

>I don't read *merely* to pass the time...

Few of us do.  As you correctly point out, time is in too-short supply.
If I read a book for pleasure, it's with the hope or expectation that
it will, indeed, give me pleasure.

>Hell, a more interesting hobby I've discovered in Baltimore is what I call 
>the sidewalk beverage survey.

De gustibus non disputandum.  (That's Latin.  It means "nobody messes with
Gus."  There was a good short story with that title, or one similar to it...)
If I'm going to read trash, I prefer to do it in the comfort of my own home.

>She said she liked me too, but when she would visit after a long absence, 
>the most banal reading material would draw her attention away from 
>conversation with *me*.  I didn't understand. 

You have gumption.  Most people wouldn't profer such a straight line.

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

  Watership Down:  
  You've read the book.  You've seen the movie.  Now eat the stew!
From: John.Roseveare@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: The WORST novel ever written?
Date: 11 Jan 93 11:05:57 GMT
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange

In his "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" Robert Conquest notes that "What is to
be Done?" by Nokolai Chernyshevsky has been described as "..the worst novel
ever written..".

1) Can anyone who has read Chernyshevsky venture an opinion as to whether
the reported description is warranted?

2) Are there any other nominations for the title? To qualify, I suggest
that candidates should have been written as "serious" fiction and
considered as such by at least a few people somewhere, sometime.

3) Reasons for nominations may be even more interesting than the
nominations themselves.

-- 
John Roseveare
c/- Department of Justice/Private Box 180/Wellington,NZ
Usenet John.Roseveare.@bbs.actrix.gen.nz / FAX (NZ) 4 4992295
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: The WORST novel ever written?
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 22:07:25 GMT

blaisec@sr.hp.com (Blaise Cirelli):
> _ Lord of the Flies - mechanical and clumsy
> - Armies of the Night - Mailer's ego at full-stage
> - Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon can stay hidden for all I care

For one reason or another, when someone asks for 'worst', people
almost always respond with "fell furthest short of expectations",
however high those expectations were.  (Of course, the truly worst
should be virtually unknown, not best-sellers.)

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

   God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine  -- Edmund Spenser
From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Date: 9 Jan 93 05:05:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1993Jan9.050513.19580
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

In article <C0KJvC.IAM@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
>I think that the owners of Cracker Barrel have a Right to insist on
>a homespun, conservative, even flaming fundie image if they want to.
>Precisely insofar as hiring gays conflicts with this desire of the
>owners of Cracker Barrel to associate in their business only with
>people other than gays, or even only with people who disapprove of gayness,
>I think that Cracker Barrel ought to be allowed legally to fire the people
>it fired for this reason.

We're not talking about CB not hiring drag queens, we're talking about
them firing people who do a fine job, but were discovered or suspected
to be gay.  These are attributes _irrelevant_ to job performance.

>In Colorado, because of CO2, it would
>be legal by state law for Cracker Barrel to do this. That is as
>I think it should be. In other states it would not be legal. That
>is wrong. (Point being there ought not to be legislated anything
>approaching a Right to Employment, that being an intrusion by
>government on the private sector's business---even if that
>pursuit is morally misguided, as I think it is in Cracker
>Barrel's case.)

God, what a loser.  A libertoonian cannot be argued with.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: nickles@sage.cc.purdue.edu (John A. Nickles)
Subject: Re: academic settings
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 18:50:52 GMT


>John Lovett wrote:
>
>>Can anyone recommend other books set in academia? Any genre will do.

By a strange coincidence, I am taking a course at the moment on "Contemporary
British Fiction". Among the books I will be reading are "Small World" and
"Lucky  Jim". My professor (William J. Palmer, author of "The Detective
and Mr. Dickens) explained that after WWII, writers by and large lived not
in the rough-and-tumble world like Jack London, Ernest Hemingway etc. but
in the groves of academe. They get their start through academic papers, not
through journalism. This gives today's writers an entirely different set of 
baggage to carry around.

Now for my choices for academic novels (N.B. These are mostly mysteries
as that is the genre I read most frequently )

A.S. Byatt POSSESSION

David Lodge NICE WORK (his most recent Rummidge novel
           and
           PARADISE NEWS (not strictly academic)
Jane Langton THE MEMORIAL HALL MURDER (Harvard)
   and       EMILY DICKINSON IS DEAD  (Amherst)

Amanda Cross DEATH IN A TENURED POSITION (also Harvard)
             A TRAP FOR FOOLS    (Columbia)
Edmund Crispin  THE MOVING TOYSHOP (Oxford)
Charlotte MCLeod  REST YOU MERRY (Balaclava County Agricultural College)


John A. Nickles
Standard Disclaimer: Purdue has their opinions, I have mine
"I don't have to do this for a living. I could be making
$20,000 a year just teaching"    Tom Leher
From: mworley@mathcs.emory.edu (Meg Worley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: jog my aging memory
Date: 11 Jan 1993 09:32:31 -0500
Organization: Emory University, Dept of Math and CS
NNTP-Posting-Host: emory.mathcs.emory.edu

While Barclay & I were shuffling around the
aisles of Oxford Books here in sunny Atlanta,
we came across Byatt, and I started to mention
her famous sister -- and couldn't.  It's on
the tip of my tongue as I write, has been for
days, but I can't reach it.  

Would some kind person e-mail me her name and
put me out of my misery?

Thanks,

meg

-- 

 Meg Worley 				Internet:  mworley@mathcs.emory.edu
From: loosemore-sandra@cs.yale.edu (Sandra Loosemore)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction
Date: 4 Jan 1993 17:37:33 -0500
Organization: staff hacker @ Yale Haskell project
	<1992Dec31.210824.222@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>
	<1993Jan4.183703.12584@ncar.ucar.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: functor.systemsz.cs.yale.edu
In-reply-to: chucks@uars2.acd.ucar.edu's message of Mon, 4 Jan 1993 18:37:03 GMT

chucks@uars2.acd.ucar.edu (Chuck Smythe) writes:

   Now THERE are the makings of an interesting thread.  OK, fellow bookaholics,
   just why do you read so much?  What does it add to your lives?  

Let's see....

(1) Entertainment.  Life would be pretty boring without books.
They're portable, relatively cheap, and come in varieties to suit
every mood or taste.  They don't require rounding up other people to
"play" with you, but reading or talking about or shopping for books
can also be a social activity.

(2) Therapy.  Having a broad range of reading interests as hobbies is
good for preventing me from becoming too nerdy or too caught up in
work.  Also, good fiction stimulates creativity by leading you to
think about "what if" situations.

(3) Information.  Some of the books I read actually contain
information that is immediately useful (e.g., recipes, how to
understand cat language, and the like).

(4) Understanding.  Reading history is often useful in understanding
current affairs. 

(5) Guilt.  The larger my pile of unread books, the more time I spend 
reading so I can buy more without feeling too guilty!

-Sandra
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: Jeeves and Wooster on BBC
Organization: Clark University
Date: 6 JAN 93 23:55:32 GMT

I enjoy Fry and Laurie as Jeeves and Wooster, but someone (sorry,
I forget the name) mentioned in a post that there was a BBC
adaptation of the Jeeves stories several years back, starring
Ian Carmichael as Bertie.  Carmichael is in my pantheon of minor
gods -- Peter Wimsey will ever be Ian rather than Petherwhatsisface --
but I've never seen the Wodehouse shows.  Does anyone know if they
can be tracked down on video?

Wistful for Wodehouse in Worcester (you know how it's pronounced),

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu

I also recall there was a very good series of Wodehouse adaptations
starring John Alderton and Pauline Collins, but I can't remember if
any of them were Bertie Wooster stories.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 4 Jan 93 21:41:52

Mr. Bennet seems like a sensible fellow.  What's absurd about him?
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: olsen@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Diane Olsen)
Subject: Re: Women Writers (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:58:15 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.211627.8082@ninja.zso.dec.com> rcrowley@donne.zso.dec.com (Rebecca Crowley) writes:
>Diane Olsen (olsen@Csli.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
>
>: P.S. -- Speaking of cross-writing, I'm nearly finished Richardson's 
>: _Pamela_.  Does anyone else find the plot in this book just a little,
>: uh, implausible?
>
>Heh.  Didn't Henry Fielding spoof this one?  _Shamela_, I think,
>but I have no proof to hand. 

Yes, he did.  In fact, my copy of Pamela is bound with it.  I just finished
reading both.  _Shamela_ is pretty funny, though I suspect it was a *lot*
funnier in 1741.

--Diane

-- 
Diane L. Olsen		"A woman with a mind is fit for all tasks."
olsen@csli.stanford.edu		--Christine de Pizan (c.1363-c.1431)
From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Het Boys (was: Homophobia)
Date: 8 Jan 93 21:12:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1993Jan8.211252.5057
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

In article <8JAN93.19331032@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>>  No, it just means he's a clueless "I've got mine" white Protestant het boy
>Het Boys.  Hmmm.  Manny, Moe, and Jack?
>Listen, if you're gay/black/Chinese/whatever and expect white Protestant
>het boys and girls to treat you civilly, you ought to treat them civilly too.

Heather, if you are a straight white Protestant het girl (hey, choose any
of the adjectives above), there should only be more like you.  Yet you
distort my very argument: first, I think it's unwise to identify yourself,
even for the purposes of gaining points, as someone in solidarity with Morris.
This is clearly not the case.  Second, I expect white Protestant het girls
to have more on the ball than their white Protestant het boyfriends, simply
by virtue of being raised female in a sexist society.  This is usually,
but not always the case.  That's why I was not uncivil with them.

As for Morris, pardon me if I express more than a little impatience with
such fatuous, late-night-college-dorm-bull-session, "Liberal" (snort)
musings on the legitimacy of circumscribing others' rights, when he's
totally unaware of the "special rights" he enjoys so completely and
inviolately.

Why doesn't Morris promote his "Liberal" (snort) ideas regarding civil
rights laws protecting blacks and other minorities?  I'll tell you why:
first, because it isn't a real issue for him whereas this gay thing
seems to stick in his craw, and second, because there's a social cost
to doing so which he is more than willing to observe, whereas gay bashing
is still a polite sport among intellectuals whether it's the Podhoretz/
Buckley type or of Morris's "Liberal" (gag) variety.

Finally, the ease with which a supposedly intelligent man can embrace a
right-wing Fundamentalist catch phrase like "special rights" so
enthusiastically, or be so completely oblivious to the political
agenda behind the CO:9 amendment, as if the words themselves were
all that matters, bespeaks "engineer-think" and Dilbertism at its worst.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: nadel@attatash.aero.org (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: 1992 in Review
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organization
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 22:58:38 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.003434.7496@Cadence.COM> vince@cadence.com (Vince Gibboni) writes:
>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 ? 

The catch is that I read about 60 pages an hour and average size books are
200 pages.  So readin 214 books takes under 14 hours per week on the average.

Actually, I read somewhat longer books and did little else but read on
weekends, as I have devoted myself to means of avoiding housework and 
figuring out whodunit in a detective novel is clearly a better use of
my time than scrubbing the toilet.

Miriam Nadel
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: TROUTMAN@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Dissertation Abstracts OnDisc (was: Re: Request: History books)
Organization: C.C.S.O.
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 19:04:25 GMT

>
>University Microfilms International publishes Dissertation Abstracts
>International, an annual guide to US and some foreign dissertations,
>which is now available on CD-ROM. I don't recall exactly how far back
>the CD-ROM issues go, but I think it's as far as the early decades of
>this century (a retrospective conversion, obviously :-). If UMI has a
>
DAI OnDisc has entries for dissertations back to the mid-ninetheenth
century.  Abstracts are available for only the past 10 to 15 years in
electronic form; of course, the paper form has abstracts back much
farther.
 
>The Center for Research Libraries in Chicago maintains a large
>collection of foreign dissertations, which may be available through
>--
 
Individuals do not deal with CRL directly; consult the folks at your
Interlibrary Loan office.  Of course, your local reference librarian
would be more than happy to help with questions regarding dissertations
or any other aspect of research.  :-)
 
Leslie Troutman
Music User-Services Coordinator
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
EMAIL: TROUTMAN@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
VOICE: 217-244-4071
From: botteron@pop-tarts.ai.mit.edu (Carol J. Botteron)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Bookstores in London?
Date: 9 Jan 1993 17:24:30 GMT
Organization: ~/.mail-plain.cf
NNTP-Posting-Host: pop-tarts.ai.mit.edu

Is there a list of London bookstores?  

If so, I'd appreciate it if someone could email it to me or repost it.

In case there isn't, any recommendations?  All kinds of books!

aTdHvAaNnKcSe!
Carol Botteron     botteron@ai.mit.edu
From: lc1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Lori Cole)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Nancy Drew Fans?
Date: 5 Jan 93 04:41:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.YfGNs5600WBM81eFw5
Organization: Doctoral student, History, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I'm trying, unsuccessfully, to remember where I recently read a piece on
the Nancy Drew series, comparing the revised versions to the original. 
The author maintained that the revisions had made Nancy a much less
independent character than she had originally been depicted!  She put
sections from unrevised and revised versions side by side so that the
reader could compare the differences.

Along similar lines (i.e., to the revisions in the various
Stadtemeyer(?) series), I have this vague memory of reading a Bobbsey
Twins book called something like _The Bobbsey Twins in the South_, which
obviously did not make _this_ series revisions.  The book depicted happy
"pickaninnies" and sharecroppers!  Does this ring a bell with anyone? 
I'd love to get my hands on it, to see if my 30-year-old memories are at
all accurate.

Lori
 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books