? about a test ?
Kanga Mum
once more, is very glad she was homeschooled and wishes everybody else
was, too.;-D
Here is the first question on a recent test from her management class:
"Excessive emphasis on long-term revenues over shorter-term
considerations is a challenge to maintain consistent ethical behavior
that organizations face."
I am wondering what anybody else makes of that. Jemima thought the
teacher meant to say that it is challenging to maintain consistent
ethical behavior when there is an excessive emphasis on long-term
revenues over shorter-term considerations. This is apparently not
what the teacher meant. Other students did ask questions about this
wording and pointed out it was unclear. The teacher disagreed and
indicates that those students are being dense.
I personally thing this isn't really a true/false question at all, but
simply a bungled conglomeration of words and catch-phrases,
patchworked together in an unlovely and unwieldy shape. I am
wondering what anybody else makes of it.
Here's another:
"Rock Bottom Pizza, a chain of full-service pizzeria's,
periodically...."
Jemima was so distracted by the errant apostrophe that she got that
answer wrong, even though the question itself was clear enough.=) I
suggest we give this teacher a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
Yesterday in the computer lab she overheard a fellow student ask if
the word 'hisself' was one word or two.
Art History is a pleasant review of the ground we covered when she was
in the eighth grade.
She recently passed the CLEP on English Comp 1 & 2. She plans to CLEP
microeconomics next.
Kanga
Scott Bryce
> "Excessive emphasis on long-term revenues over shorter-term
> considerations is a challenge to maintain consistent ethical behavior
> that organizations face."
>
> I am wondering what anybody else makes of that.
It is nonsense. The problem is that the teacher knew what he meant, so
it was clear to HIM. Anyone else must have been too dense to understand.
It sounds like he shouldn't be teaching.
Jayne Kulikauskas
"Kanga Mum" <kangamaroodoes...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:b62b291b.04102...@posting.google.com...
> Jemima Puddleduck is doing well in her second semester of college, but
> once more, is very glad she was homeschooled and wishes everybody else
> was, too.;-D
>
> Here is the first question on a recent test from her management class:
>
> "Excessive emphasis on long-term revenues over shorter-term
> considerations is a challenge to maintain consistent ethical behavior
> that organizations face."
>
> I am wondering what anybody else makes of that. Jemima thought the
> teacher meant to say that it is challenging to maintain consistent
> ethical behavior when there is an excessive emphasis on long-term
> revenues over shorter-term considerations. This is apparently not
> what the teacher meant. Other students did ask questions about this
> wording and pointed out it was unclear. The teacher disagreed and
> indicates that those students are being dense.
If I had to guess a meaning I would have gone with the same one that Jemima
did. Even knowing that the teacher did not mean this, I have difficulty
seeing another. The sentence is not merely unclear, it is ungrammatical.
That is my official opinion as a linguistics major and all-round general
language snob. <g>
Unfortunately, knowing that she is right, is not likely to make it any
easier for Jemima to deal with this teacher. My condolences.
Jayne
Paul Danaher
> Jemima Puddleduck is doing well in her second semester of college, but
> once more, is very glad she was homeschooled and wishes everybody else
> was, too.;-D
>
> Here is the first question on a recent test from her management class:
>
> "Excessive emphasis on long-term revenues over shorter-term
> considerations is a challenge to maintain consistent ethical behavior
> that organizations face."
>
> I am wondering what anybody else makes of that.
I've been staring at it for five minutes. It's ungrammatical on the face of
it, and I can't imagine what the point's supposed to be.
Michael S. Morris
Wednesday, the 20th of October, 2004
Kanga Mum wrote:
Jemima Puddleduck is doing well in her second
semester of college, but once more, is very glad
she was homeschooled and wishes everybody else
was, too.;-D
Here is the first question on a recent test
from her management class:
"Excessive emphasis on long-term revenues
over shorter-term considerations is a challenge
to maintain consistent ethical behavior
that organizations face."
I am wondering what anybody else makes of
that. Jemima thought the teacher meant to
say that it is challenging to maintain consistent
ethical behavior when there is an excessive
emphasis on long-term revenues over shorter-term
considerations.
I'm with JP. I think this teacher *meant* something like
"A challenge that organizations face in maintaining
consistent ethical behavior is the excessive emphasis on
long-term revenues over shorter-term considerations." And
my guess is that the teacher *wanted* false as the answer
to this, because there'll be a sentence in the book which goes
something like "The excessive emphasis on short-term revenues
over longer-term considerations is a challenge for organizations
to face in maintaining consistent ethical behavior."
Tell JP that I can probably find it in my heart to forgive---
or that's probably not the word exactly, but at least
understand and be compassionate towards murderers,
armed robbers, forgerers, counterfeiters, traitors and indeed
most perpetrators of most high crimes, but I draw the line at
litterers and teachers like this one. I see no understanding
or compassion possible, and I think that special punishments
ought to be devised.
The especially damning piece of evidence is where the
students pointed out poor sentence to the teacher, and
the teacher didn't correct his error. His imputation of
density to the students themselves at that point also
seems to me a clue that he *thinks* the falseness of
the sentence is transparent, and probably that he thinks
so because he has simply switched the association of
"long-term" and "shorter-term" and imagines that one
doesn't have to try and read the rest of the sentence
to know that "shorter-term" and "revenues"
ought to go together. (And JP was probably reading the
tortured construction for meaning as a whole and
thinking, correctly I would say, that "excessive" anything
might be truly said to be a "challenge"?)
Kanga:
This is apparently not
what the teacher meant.
Hmm.
Kanga:
Other students did ask questions about this
wording and pointed out it was unclear. The teacher disagreed and
indicates that those students are being dense.
Yeah, it's one for the Underground Grammarian.
I have never understood the kind of college
subject that is taught in this way. Martha's
favourite example from Purdue is "Com 114",
a course that most freshmen were subjected to.
It was taught by graduate students who enthusiastically
thought that their subject was a real academic discipline,
and, if the textbook listed "The 14 Modes of Communication"
or "The 8 Purposes of Communication", by Jove,
the fact that there were precisely 14 Modes
and 8 Purposes and that the 7th of the latter
was "To create understanding out of misunderstanding"
was a *fact* as immutable as the proportionality
of applied force and resulting acceleration in
mechanics.
Kanga:
I personally think this isn't really a true/false
question at all, but simply a bungled conglomeration
of words and catch-phrases, patchworked together
in an unlovely and unwieldy shape. I am
wondering what anybody else makes of it.
And of course you are correct, too.
Kanga:
Here's another:
"Rock Bottom Pizza, a chain of full-service pizzeria's,
periodically...."
Jemima was so distracted by the errant apostrophe
that she got that answer wrong, even though the
question itself was clear enough.=) I suggest
we give this teacher a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
I'd be happy to contribute for a copy, although
my earlier comment about there being life lessons
for JP with last year's teacher still applies.
I'd say it's an open question whether such a move
would alienate this teacher, and I'd say it is
an open ethical question whether such a rebuke
would be to good effect or bad. Probably, at this
time in *my* life, I would lean towards arguing the
point tenaciously with the teacher and gifting the
book. I would think that this teacher would *remember
me* as different, and that that would be a good thing---
it would spice up my life and the teacher's and perhaps
create a story to remember. However, I wouldn't
counsel JP to do that. That is, part of the *real
test* of college for her is the one where you learn
that inside a hierarchical structure sometimes
you must just bite your tongue.
I do confess to a jot more forgiveness in this
instance. I figure my own writing hereon is rife
with typos (often missing words, but also misplaced
apostrophes, confusions of "there" "they're" and "their",
and so on---and even when I perfectly well know how to do
it right). And I'll swear that I do not see the problems
on screen when I write them---my brain just supplies the
missing words, for instance. Only later when I read a post
I have made, or especially if I print something off
will I spot what's wrong. Anyway, I know that I personally
try to get tests right that I give to students, but
nevertheless I often get things wrong.
[...]
Kanga:
Art History is a pleasant review of the ground
we covered when she was in the eighth grade.
This reminds me that I have never yet queried you
about Art and Art History and that I would very much
like to have a conversation with you along those lines
at some future time. I guess I'm thinking about this at
the moment because of stuff I've been reading around the
subject of Richard Wagner and his various theories
and pronouncements on the history of Western art. And
Butterfield's _The Whig Interpretation of History_
and Gertrude Himmelfarb's review of a biography of
Butterfield in the latest New Republic. And even my latest
spat hereon with Paul (on the issue of whether philosophy
may be said to have progressed since Plato) contributes.
Wagner saw Greek tragedy as, well, simply the high point
in all of Western art. And he thought all art went into
degenerate decline ever since those fifth-century Athens
dramatic festivals. I don't necessarily buy the story of
decline, or Wagner's infatuation with "Gesamtkunstwerk"
(="total art work", in which all arts---music, drama,
performance, painting, architecture, design---are rolled
into one communal celebration of art) as special, but I
*am* sympathetic insofar that I see
_The Iliad_ as a (perhaps *the*) high point of world art
(T.S. Eliot said "Dante and Shakespeare divide the world
between them. There is no third." I understand and agree,
sort of, except that for me it's Homer first, and *then*
come Dante and Shakespeare), and I agree with the special
excellence of the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles. But,
anyway, what I'd like to hear you out on sometime would be
the question of whether there is any specially significant
course to Western art. I know some see, for instance,
the Renaissance as a flourishing, an improvement
beyond a stultified medieval art, and others see
the turn to the human with the Renaissance as a
turning away from "giving to God all the glory". Perhaps
as the beginning of a long decline into artsitic selfishness
(the glorification of the artist himself by himself---quite
true of Wagner, by the way, cf. Father Owen Lee's _Wagner:
The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art_). Anyway, to me I
see all art as, in a sense, contemporary with myself.
And I apply to it something like Robert Maynard Hutchins'
and Mortimer Adler's metaphor for the Great Books as a
Great Conversation---as though it were all literally like
Steve Allen's "Meeting of Minds" shows dramatized it to be.
I love Moche pottery and Edward Hopper and Anselm Kiefer and
and Tang horses and Michelangelo and Chagall and Greek
Red-figure and Black-figure Vase Painting and Ancient
Egyptian statuary and Velazquez and Van Gogh in some
equal way. I wonder what you make of it.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Pam Crouch
college. Am I right? If so, it's slightly more understandable.
However, if it is a major university, take this *horribly* written test to
the dept. chair. If they don't seem to care, then tell JP to make good
grades and try to transfer to a better school next year. That's what I
would advise my own child to do. (NB: I've transferred a lot in my time,
so the idea of it isn't painful for me anymore.)
I know that sounds extreme, but having been so well-educated by you, there
is no need for her to spend her whole college career with her brain
operating on its "low" setting. (Note correctly un-apostrophized word
"its.") I've been to enough schools to know that there's a vast difference
in the quality of faculty and what's expected of the students. For example,
I'm studying CS at UT, where Dijkstra used to be in the department.
Studying it at Concordia Lutheran just wouldn't compare.
Two comments: The confusing paragraph really irritates me, because it seems
to indicate that the teacher has bought into the misconception that
scholarship and academia are synonymous with obfuscation. As in, "We'll
just state this in strange construction and combine several thoughts into
one sentence, and then everyone will think we're really, really smart."
That couldn't be further from the truth! Good teaching is the ability to
make complexity more accessible, IMHO.
Also, this incident remids me of the time I had read Kafka's
_Metamorphosis_, and wanted to talk to someone about what it meant, so I
asked my English prof. He hadn't read it.
College, in my opinion, should be a place where you can explore new realms
of study, and everywhere you turn, there is someone who is passionate about
that subject with whom you can discuss it. You know, kind of like the "Don"
model used in England. I found a math prof at UT who got me interested in
theoretical math, which is something I never thought I'd be interested in.
He even listened to my half-baked theories! That's what should be
available. You don't want to "hit the ceiling" when you're an undergrad.
You have taught her well! Perhaps even too well for the school she's in(?)
Best wishes and blessings,
--Pam :o)
P.S. Here are two grains of salt ..
"Kanga Mum" <kangamaroodoes...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:b62b291b.04102...@posting.google.com...
Ray Drouillard
"Pam Crouch" <jaso...@nospammingswbell.net> wrote in message
news:whFdd.8250$Lk3....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com...
> Also, this incident remids me of the time I had read Kafka's
> _Metamorphosis_, and wanted to talk to someone about what it meant, so
I
> asked my English prof. He hadn't read it.
Is that the nasty little SF short story where the protagonist gets
turned into a big bug? That thing is enough to give someone nightmares!
I love SF, but that one is just depressing.
Ray
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 21st of October, 2004
Pam:
Also, this incident remids me of the time
I had read Kafka's _Metamorphosis_, and
wanted to talk to someone about what it meant, so
I asked my English prof. He hadn't read it.
Ray:
Is that the nasty little SF short story where
the protagonist gets turned into a big bug?
Yep. Although I confess I've never heard it called SF
before.
That thing is enough to give someone nightmares!
It's supposed to.
I love SF, but that one is just depressing.
All of Kafka is like that. _The Trial_, a novel and
his masterpiece, begins with "Someone must have been
telling lies about Joseph K, for without having
done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning."
It then proceeds over several hundred pages to put
K through a trial for some crime about which we never
learn. I got Zan, Martha, and Isabelle all to read
Kafka's longish short story "In the Penal Colony" immediately
after they had read the last Harry Potter book. I forget
her name at the moment, but there is a "teacher from
hell" in _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_
who is a pomo parody and who punishes Harry and
other students in detention by assigning multiple repititions
of a sentence that have to be written with a special
magic pen. The words written with the pen cut themselves
at first imperceptibly into the back of hand writing them,
leaving it quite bloody by the end of Harry's
detention. In the Kafka story, there is a machine with a
razor-sharp needle or somesuch that writes a prisoner's
guilt ever so slowly into his back, and it's designed so that
the perception of guilt by the prisoner---because the prisoner's
mind is focused on where the "pen" is going next on his
back---coincides with death. The overseer of the machine
is enamoured of it and ultimately puts himself into it.
The last Harry Potter was very dark, I think.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Ray Drouillard
"Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote in message
news:4177B232...@netdirect.net...
>
> Thursday, the 21st of October, 2004
>
> Pam:
>
> Also, this incident remids me of the time
>
> I had read Kafka's _Metamorphosis_, and
>
> wanted to talk to someone about what it meant, so
>
> I asked my English prof. He hadn't read it.
> Ray:
> Is that the nasty little SF short story where
>
> the protagonist gets turned into a big bug?
>
>
> Yep. Although I confess I've never heard it called SF
> before.
What else could you call it? Horror, I guess, though it isn't quite the
same as the usual fare that I have seen. The concept of
metamorphasizing into something else is definitely in the 'speculative
fiction' (science fiction/fantasy) realm. Shape-shifting is old fare
for fantasy. Whether you want to call the story science fiction or
fantasy depends on whether you consider the metamorphasis to have
occured because of some unknown scientific reason, or due to magic.
Since the cause of the metamorphasis is not mentioned in the story, the
reader is free to choose.
As an aside, I accidentally stumbled upon a long-running argument about
whether Anne McCaffrey's _Dragonriders of Pern_ series of stories is
science fiction or fantasy. I consider it to be science fiction because
there is no magic involved. Also, the backstory (Colonists landed on
the planed Pern; deadly silver threads ejected from the Red Planet wreak
havoc; colonists genetically modify local wildlife to deal with problem)
is solidly in the science fiction arena. The characteristics that get
it billed as fantasy are the dragons themselves (large flying
warm-blooded reptilians), their inate ability to teleport, and the
telepathic communication between the dragons and their riders.
>
>
> That thing is enough to give someone nightmares!
>
>
> It's supposed to.
Ick!
Well, I guess there's no accounting for taste. H. P. Livecraft, Edger
Allen Poe, and a number of others are famous for their horror tales.
Actually, I like some of Poe's poetry. His short stories are just
demented, though. I guess they're artfully demented or beautifully
demented, but they are demented none the less.
OK, so I guess there is another author that I can avoid. Having been
forced to read one of his short stories, I can claim that I know as much
as necessary about his works ;-)
Ray Drouillard
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 21st of October, 2004
Pam:
Also, this incident remids me of the time
I had read Kafka's _Metamorphosis_, and
wanted to talk to someone about what it meant, so
I asked my English prof. He hadn't read it.
Ray:
Is that the nasty little SF short story where
the protagonist gets turned into a big bug?
I said:
Yep. Although I confess I've never heard it called SF
before.
Ray:
What else could you call it? Horror, I guess, though
it isn't quite the same as the usual fare that I have seen.
Horror or absurdism or magic realism or a parable or a fable.
Or just one of the great short stories of the 20th century.
Putting a genre label on it seems to me mostly useful if you
are laying out a bookstore, or trying to figure the layout
of a bookstore, and in a bookstore I don't think you'd put
or expect to find Kafka in "sci-fi", "fantasy", or "horror",
but rather in "fiction", "literature", or "classics".
Ray:
The concept of metamorphasizing into something else
is definitely in the 'speculative fiction' (science
fiction/fantasy) realm. Shape-shifting is old fare
for fantasy.
Well, but it's also much, much older fare for
just plain literature. Ovid's _Metamorphoses_,
for instance, is epic poetry. And there is a
long tradition of that that would include the Icelandic
_Egil's Saga_, Dante, Ariosto, Shakespeae (Bottom in
"Midsummer Night's Dream"), Charles Perrault ("La Belle
et Le Bete") as well as Wagner's _Ring_.
Ray:
Whether you want to call the story science fiction
or fantasy depends on whether you consider the
metamorphosis to have occured because of some
unknown scientific reason, or due to magic.
Since the cause of the metamorphasis is not
mentioned in the story, the reader is free to
choose.
SF works for me if you like it. Although maybe
genre identification also says something about
the tradition inside of which an author understands
himself to be writing. In that sense, I don't think
Kafka thought of himself as either a "science fiction"
or "fantasy" writer.
Ray:
That thing is enough to give someone nightmares!
I said:
It's supposed to.
Ray:
Ick!
Well, I guess there's no accounting for taste.
Perhaps. Speaking of which, there's a Woody Allen
film---"Annie Hall", I think---in which Woody's
character is in bed with a tall, gaunt blonde
spaced-out rock-magazine reporter type. It's after
the sex, and she tells him "Making love to you is
so...Kafkaesque." She means some sort of weird
pseudo-intellectual compliment by it, and he's
wondering if she's just called him a cockroach.
Ray:
H. P. Lovecraft, Edger
Allan Poe, and a number of others are famous for their horror tales.
Actually, I like some of Poe's poetry. His short stories are just
demented, though. I guess they're artfully demented or beautifully
demented, but they are demented none the less.
Hmm, no accounting for taste and all that. I just read
Poe's collected poetry probably a couple of months ago.
I decided I really do not like it. It's too "Me thinkest
I'd fain feel poetical today"---too affected for me.
I love the short stories, however. Especially
the "Cask of Amontillado" and "The Masque of the
Red Death" like that.
Ray:
I love SF, but that one is just depressing.
I said:
All of Kafka is like that. _The Trial_, a novel and
his masterpiece, begins with "Someone must have been
telling lies about Joseph K, for without having
done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning."
It then proceeds over several hundred pages to put
K through a trial for some crime about which we never
learn. I got Zan, Martha, and Isabelle all to read
Kafka's longish short story "In the Penal Colony" immediately
after they had read the last Harry Potter book. I forget
her name at the moment, but there is a "teacher from
hell" in _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_
who is a pomo parody and who punishes Harry and
other students in detention by assigning multiple repititions
of a sentence that have to be written with a special
magic pen. The words written with the pen cut themselves
at first imperceptibly into the back of the hand writing them,
leaving it quite bloody by the end of Harry's
detention. In the Kafka story, there is a machine with a
razor-sharp needle or somesuch that writes a prisoner's
guilt ever so slowly into his back, and it's designed so that
the perception of guilt by the prisoner---because the prisoner's
mind is focused on where the "pen" is going next on his
back---coincides with death. The overseer of the machine
is enamoured of it and ultimately puts himself into it.
The last Harry Potter was very dark, I think.
Ray:
OK, so I guess there is another author that I can avoid.
Having been forced to read one of his short stories,
I can claim that I know as much
as necessary about his works ;-)
This strikes me in the same way as if somebody said
to me: Knowing that Job is faithful to God and rich, and
that then God permits him to be ruined, his children
wiped out, and Job to be afflicted with sores in order
to test Job's faith, and that Job has friends who
"comfort" him with sage advice which suggests that
Job himself must be to blame for what happens to him,
but finally Job is brought to such a pass that he
questions God directly, and God answers Job from
out of a whirlwind and basically responds to Job with
"Who the f*** are you to question me?" and Job then leaves
off any hint of protest, at which point there's
a tag ending where God prospers Job again (whew!) is
all I need to know about it to know I don't
need to read it.
It's a true sketch as far as it goes, and it's OK,
really, to prefer at this or that point in time to
be entertained by something altogether lighter---
personally I might choose, say, Randy Wayne White's
next Doc Ford novel (well as soon as _Tampa Burn_ comes
out in paperback). But the sketch falls far, far short
of the experience of reading The Book of Job and does
not begin to convey the *Wow!* that awaits in reading
it.
I intend exactly that implied comparison---the Book
of Job and the novels and stories of Kafka (a German-speaking
Jew writing in Prague 1900-1920) are simply some of the best
and most profoundly truthful written art that has ever
been created.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Pam Crouch
Kafka was a pretty miserable guy who felt very put-upon by the world. He
probably felt that he had no individuality or power. It's not surprising
that he felt that he was being transformed into something subhuman. I can
identify, since I used to teach middle school. ;o)
Don't you like "Annabelle Lee?" "The Raven" doesn't do much for you?
--Pam :o)
"Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote in message
news:4177B232...@netdirect.net...
>
Ray Drouillard
Good point, but I think you missed the winkie.
>
> It's a true sketch as far as it goes, and it's OK,
> really, to prefer at this or that point in time to
> be entertained by something altogether lighter---
> personally I might choose, say, Randy Wayne White's
> next Doc Ford novel (well as soon as _Tampa Burn_ comes
> out in paperback). But the sketch falls far, far short
> of the experience of reading The Book of Job and does
> not begin to convey the *Wow!* that awaits in reading
> it.
I have read Job a couple times, but I find it difficult to read. Still,
there is a message there that Christians and Jews need to read.
As for Kafka... Well, I can't say that I had any kind of a "Wow!"
experience from reading his stuff. It was more of an "Ick! That's
depressing!" experience. I remember the story, so it has obviously
added to my knowledge base. I don't feel uplifted or enlightened by the
experience, though.
If I want something thought-provoking, there is fare that is much easier
to digest. Lois McMaster Bujold's stuff is a load of fun, but can also
be very intense and can touch one very deeply. It is also quite
thought-provoking.
>
> I intend exactly that implied comparison---the Book
> of Job and the novels and stories of Kafka (a German-speaking
> Jew writing in Prague 1900-1920) are simply some of the best
> and most profoundly truthful written art that has ever
> been created.
What was the point of the bug story? Maybe he wants to remind us that
our mommy and daddy and brothers and sisters won't love me anymore if I
turn into a bug ugly bug and can't in any way communicate to them that I
am me, and not the bug that ate me.
Ray Drouillard
>
> Mike Morris
> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
>
>
>
>
Ray Drouillard
> I would call it "classic lit" or maybe "old social commentary."
>
> Kafka was a pretty miserable guy who felt very put-upon by the world.
He
> probably felt that he had no individuality or power. It's not
surprising
> that he felt that he was being transformed into something subhuman. I
can
> identify, since I used to teach middle school. ;o)
>
> Don't you like "Annabelle Lee?" "The Raven" doesn't do much for you?
I like some of the poetry. It's the short stories that are too much
like midnight theater or the ghoul or something. And, even though I
find the meter and rhyme compelling in the above two poems, the subject
matter is depressing in _Annabelle Lee_, and just cold and empty in _The
Raven_.
Ray
Kanga Mum
> Jemima Puddleduck is doing well in her second
> semester of college, but once more, is very glad
> she was homeschooled and wishes everybody else
> was, too.;-D
>
> Here is the first question on a recent test
> from her management class:
>
> "Excessive emphasis on long-term revenues
> over shorter-term considerations is a challenge
> to maintain consistent ethical behavior
> that organizations face."
>
> I am wondering what anybody else makes of
> that.
Several of you chimed in with your reactions, which were all similar
to our own. Jemima got a good laugh from your witty responses. She
says to thank you all, she feels better.
Pam, she is going to a community college, and no, it's really not up
to her speed, but we do what we can afford, which means we will not do
college loans. Our only financial contribution thus far has been room
and board and the use of a car, which contribution is actually more
than repaid by Jemima's contributions to the smooth running of our
home and the joy of just having her around. In two more years our
children can go to IN state schools for free, because of dh's being a
disabled Vet. That will be a bit late for Jemima, as she will be 23,
and won't be covered by that perk, so meanwhile...
However, this is not just a community college problem, apparently.
This teacher has told the class that she gets her questions from a
test bank. If she wrote this question herself, maybe that explains why
she ought to get them from a test bank. If she got this question from
a test bank, then the mind rather hiccups at the thought that other
teachers have seen this test question and didn't flinch.
Her grading systems strikes me as odd, too. One of the students
laughingly told her that since her own essay question response was so
long, she should get higher marks for giving it so much thought.
The teacher said that no, the way she graded papers was to "skim
through them all first. The ones I think are good go in one pile, the
ones that are alright go in a second pile, and then the ones she
doesn't like at all go in the last pile." Then she grades the first
pile on a question by question basis, knowing that this pile will be
higher marks, the middle pile average, and the last pile will receive
poor marks.
There are ways I could see this working, but I have my doubts about
it.
There are 29 students in this class. Five of them received an A on
the last test (JP was one of those five). Only two of th em received
an A on the True/False portion, which was the section where the above
question appeared. JP was one of those two. I mention this just to
make sure we all understand that our distaste for this teacher is not
motivated by sour grapes.
And we are in agreement with Michael that there is much to learn from
this experience, though the best of the lessons are not on the course
syllabus. Meanwhile, we enjoy laughing about this and other foibles,
and sharing the laughs with others who wll appreciate them.
Kanga
P.S. Michael, we have been discussing your art questions around here,
and I am looking forward to responding online,b ut it must wait. My
brother and his wife and kids are here for a visit, and we are off
shortly to spend the day at Battleground, and then discuss the War of
1812 with the kids and take them out to the cemetary to visit the
grave of the ancestor who fought in that war and so was deeded the
family homestead.
TEACHES
> I like some of the poetry. It's the short stories that are too much
> like midnight theater or the ghoul or something. And, even though I
> find the meter and rhyme compelling in the above two poems, the subject
> matter is depressing in _Annabelle Lee_, and just cold and empty in _The
> Raven_.
>
But the metaphors are so brilliant; my favorite:
Ah distinctly I remember
It was in the bleak December
And each seperate dying ember
Wrought its ghost upon the floor
TEACHES
> I like some of the poetry. It's the short stories that are too much
> like midnight theater or the ghoul or something. And, even though I
> find the meter and rhyme compelling in the above two poems, the subject
> matter is depressing in _Annabelle Lee_, and just cold and empty in _The
> Raven_.
>
Also, how about "Dream within a Dream"
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 22nd of October, 2004
Kanga:
P.S. Michael, we have been discussing your art
questions around here, and I am looking forward
to responding online, but it must wait.
Online or in person or just sometime would be
lovely.
Kanga:
My brother and his wife and kids are here for
a visit, and we are off shortly to spend the
day at Battleground, and then discuss the War of
1812 with the kids and take them out to the
cemetary to visit the grave of the ancestor
who fought in that war and so was deeded the
family homestead.
I respond because I thought I'd give you Mike's
summary of the War of 1812: All three sides won it.
The US won it because it was kind of a second war
of independence, it kept the West open from British
seizure of the Lakes; Canada won it because of the
successful and gloriously storied repulsion of the
American invasion (epitomized by the death of
General Brock on Queenston Heights---a visit to the
monument there is highly recommended to anyone
visiting Niagara); The British won it because they
demonstrated to the Canadians that could successfully
defend Canada against American aggression, and the
war to them after all was only a minor sideshow in
their utterly glorious defense of liberty and
appl^H^H^H^H steak-and-kidney pie against
that arch-tyrant of all arch-tyrants, Napoleon. Oh
yeah, and the fun factoid always to remember: The
decisive American victory in the war was the Battle
of New Orleans, fought in 1815, after the Peace Treaty
(of Ghent?) had already been signed. But the really
fun thing about it is the 1959 Jimmy Driftwood song:
<http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/battleof.htm>
And why, oh why, can't they put the Yul Brynner/Charlton
Heston film whose finale is the battle, "The Buccaneer",
onto DVD?
Serious Footnote: While "all three sides" can claim to
be winners of the war, the real *losers* of the War of
1812 were the Indians of the Old Northwest Territory/
Upper Midwest.
Helen's main history text at the moment is
Samuel Eliot Morison's _Oxford History of the
American People_, and she finished reading
in the second volume thereof about the
War of 1812 at the start of this school year.
I then sent her on an excursionary read through
Pierre Berton's _The Invasion of Canada_
and _Flames Across the Border_. Berton does
narrative, almost novelistic, history, and
there are a large number of Berton's books that
cover various periods in Canadian history---
I think the CBC has turned some of them into
television documentaries as well. Anyway, these
are recommended reads covering the war from a
Canadian perspective.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Pam Crouch
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
--Pam
"TEACHES" <symb...@altavista.com> wrote in message
news:281ccac3.0410...@posting.google.com...
Ray Drouillard
Hmmm... I never read that one.
<does the google thing>
Hey, it seems a little more positive than the others, but it's still
desolate. Not that that's a really bad thing, mind you. In fact, it
kind of reminds me of the theme of Ecclesiastes.
Ray
Ray Drouillard
Hey, I won't dispute that. There is no doubt that his works are quite
deep, and show the mark of genius. They also show the mark of a
disturbed mind.
Ray Drouillard
Marty Carts
> "TEACHES" ...
>>"Ray Drouillard" <cosmi...@comcast.net> wrote...
>>>I like some of the poetry. It's the short stories that
>>>are too much like midnight theater or the ghoul or
>>>something. And, even though I find the meter and rhyme
>>>compelling in the above two poems, the subject matter
>>>is depressing in _Annabelle Lee_, and just cold and
>>>empty in _The_Raven_.
>>But the metaphors are so brilliant; my favorite:
>>Ah distinctly I remember
>>It was in the bleak December
>>And each seperate dying ember
>>Wrought its ghost upon the floor
Yes, neat.
> Hey, I won't dispute that. There is no doubt that his works are quite
> deep, and show the mark of genius. They also show the mark of a
> disturbed mind.
Oddly enough, I wasn't struck that way by Poe's short
stories. Maybe it was more a matter of where I was at
at the time I red them (HS). Nowadays I think they
might put me off.
Faulkner, on the other hand, I find, as you put it,
marked by some sort of at least near genius, but his
is definitely a dark, dark, to I think the point of
being disturbed, mind. I'll pass on reading any
more of his stuff for a long while. Eventually,
but not soon. ______________________________Marty
Michael S. Morris
Saturday, the 23rd of October, 2004
TEACHES:
But the metaphors are so brilliant; my favorite:
Ah distinctly I remember
It was in the bleak December
And each seperate dying ember
Wrought its ghost upon the floor
Marty:
Yes, neat.
I'm agreed that it is brilliant. Also, taking
poetry to be a *making* of language, and for
such a tiny poetic output in total, there is
an amazing lot of Poe that has come into
common usage.
Ray:
Hey, I won't dispute that. There is no doubt
that his works are quite deep, and show the
mark of genius. They also show the mark of a
disturbed mind.
Marty:
Oddly enough, I wasn't struck that way by Poe's short
stories. Maybe it was more a matter of where I was at
at the time I red them (HS). Nowadays I think they
might put me off.
Faulkner, on the other hand, I find, as you put it,
marked by some sort of at least near genius, but his
is definitely a dark, dark, to I think the point of
being disturbed, mind. I'll pass on reading any
more of his stuff for a long while. Eventually,
but not soon.
I guess there is something here that connects into
my question on art history to Kanga. I'm thinking in
particular of Father Owen Lee's _Wagner: The Terrible
Man and His Truthful Art_. I think that I have fallen in
love with Father Lee. I know that if he's still alive,
he's probably ancient, but I think he'd be my number one
choice of person I'd like to have as a dinner guest.
I first ran into him when he was a commentator and
featured expert on Texaco Radio Broadcasts of the
Metropolitan Opera, where he would introduce parts
of the Ring cycle broadcasts for listeners. Turns out,
in addition to being a Catholic priest and at one point
in time a church organist, he was a classicist and professor
of classics (Greek and Latin) at the University of Toronto.
Anyway, in this short book, Father Lee uses the myth of
Philoctetes in a sequence of three public lectures to
argue both for a recognition and acknowledgement of
Wagner's essential nastiness as a human being *and*
the value to us of his art.
_Philoktetes_ by Sophocles is the source, but the
story goes that Philoktetes was the best friend
and younger protege of Herakles (the Greek form of
"Hercules"). Herakles was a (not the only) begotten
son of Zeus, who went around "saving" the world and
mankind from all these terrible monsters. At the
end of his labors, Herakles was unintentionally
gifted a poisoned robe by his wife, Deianeira, who
had been tricked into believing this would keep him
faithful to her (it works, sort of, but not quite
in the way she intended...). That story is told in
Sophocles' _Trachinian Women_. So, Herakles was
in agony and chose to burn himself on a funeral pyre.
So, of all his friends and companions, only Philoktetes
could be found to light the pyre. And, the story goes,
Herakles's mortal half was burned away, and his divine half
rose to Olympus to join the gods (a motif familiar to
those who know about Jedi Apparitions). Before Philoktetes
lit the pyre, Herakles gave to Phil his great bow.
The Bow of Herakles was a "Divine Gift", that is,
it was given to Herakles in the first place by the god
and his brother, Apollo. And its quality was that its arrows
always struck their mark.
OK, so that's the start of the story of Philoktetes
and the Bow of Herakles. See, Philoktetes was part of
the generation of Greek heroes who made war on Troy.
Well, on the way to Troy, Phil stopped at an island
to worship at the shrine of Apollo, and there was bitten
by a snake in the foot, and he was afflicted by a
suppurating wound. He smelled so bad, and was in such
agony, that the rest of the Greeks decided to leave him
behind alone on the island rather than put up with
him. So, for nine years while the Greeks besieged Troy,
Philoktetes raged at his fate, and at the injustice of
his companions, and suffered in agony on his lonely island.
Then, of course, Achilles was killed, and still the siege
was getting nowhere, and the Greeks consulted soothsayers
and were told that they could only capture the city with the
help of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, and Philoktetes
wielding the Bow of Herakles. So, we get Sophocles' play
where the Greeks have fetched the young Neoptolemus and
try to use the naive young man to "talk Philoktetes down"
and out of his rage at his fellow man and into using his
Divine Gift to help the Greeks capture Troy.
OK, so Father Lee uses this myth as a metaphor for the
artist as a person who has been given a Divine Gift
and at one and the same time the Wound which Will Not Heal.
We non-artists are in the position of needing the fruits
of that Divine Gift---we need the arrows from the bow to
capture Troy, or the truth about human beings and
the human condition that is only to be found in art.
Father Lee goes so far as to consider the Divine Gift and
the Wound Which Will Not Heal as two aspects of the same
condition in the Artist. The idea is that insight into
Truth (the Bow and Arrows of the Artist) comes from the
Wound and its Agonies (loneliness, pain, stench).
I guess I would say with Father Lee that we who
are not geniuses like that are hungry for what
artists can give us, but also that we are called
upon to be compassionate towards their wounds.
See, I'm not sure that I quite buy all of this---there
*is* this archetype of the troubled, tortured, and
suffering Artist. And it certainly fits many great
artists (Michelangelo, Beethoven, Mozart, Byron,
Melville, Baudelaire, Poe, Wagner, Van Gogh, Gauguin,
Monet) but, it seems to me Bach is a perfect
counterexample of a relatively happy man who
nevertheless was one of the greatest of them
all. So, I don't know. Anyway, the idea is that the
insight into Truth (the Bow and Arrows of the Artist)
comes from the Wound and its Agonies (loneliness,
pain, suffering). And both are a Single Gift from the
God. (It occurs to me that Jacob/Israel is another
instance of this same myth---struggles with God and
is wounded and elevated at the same time thereby.
Also Moses who must bear death alone without being
permitted to cross over in the end himself.)
Anyway, that's a very long-winded way of saying
that, just because an artist or writer is dark,
or is a suffering soul, that I don't see that as
a caution flag or a warning against him. It's
more that he's likely got something to teach me.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Pam Crouch
right to the heart of the fear we all have of devastating disease. He plays
on the same fear that Stephen King does in _The_Stand_. I have a theory
that _The_Stand_ will be canonized (in a literary sense) someday. I think
it's one of his best. Currently, King isn't considered literature, but look
at Dickens; he was mostly a serial writer in his day. I'm also betting
David Foster Wallace gets canonized.
I also like "The Gold Bug" because it's one of those stories where you are
led to believe a character is loopy, when in actuality there is something
you don't know that is revealed at the end.
The more I think about "The Cask of Amontillado," the more horrifying it
seems, because Poe doesn't even provide a motive for this horrible crime,
other than in the first sentence. It's like _Silence_of_the_Lambs_ level of
horror. Brr.
I think Faulkner is a great writer, but I'm not a big fan.
--Pam :o)
"Marty Carts" <p.addami...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:4179D45D...@worldnet.att.net...
Paul Danaher
> I think "Masque of the Red Death" is great. It's so chilling, and it
> goes right to the heart of the fear we all have of devastating
> disease. He plays on the same fear that Stephen King does in
> _The_Stand_. I have a theory that _The_Stand_ will be canonized (in
> a literary sense) someday. I think it's one of his best. Currently,
> King isn't considered literature, but look at Dickens; he was mostly
> a serial writer in his day. I'm also betting David Foster Wallace
> gets canonized.
>
> I also like "The Gold Bug" because it's one of those stories where
> you are led to believe a character is loopy, when in actuality there
> is something you don't know that is revealed at the end.
>
> The more I think about "The Cask of Amontillado," the more horrifying
> it seems, because Poe doesn't even provide a motive for this horrible
> crime, other than in the first sentence. It's like
> _Silence_of_the_Lambs_ level of horror. Brr.
>
> I think Faulkner is a great writer, but I'm not a big fan.
I'm certainly not going to get into a discussion about who's going to be in
the literary canon in the future - just check out the winners of the Nobel
Prize for Literature at
http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/index.html. And there's always
Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins' ("the giants," as Spock observes in
"Star Trek: The Voyage Home") ...
Marty Carts
> TEACHES:
Well, from what you've given us here, I'm not sure
that it is a *necessary* characteristic of artistic
genius that there be suffering to balance the
artisic mindedness. There's certainly ample room
in the analogies to offer alternate hopes--
Herakles wasn't an only son, Apollo certainly gifted
others with neat toys, etc.
I do accept that there seems to be something about
suffering, or adversity, or necessity (the mother of
invention, you know), or whatever, that spurs the
exquisite from people. A disturbing thought in of
itself, really. I'm a hsing father and I want my
children to be exquisite in whatever pursuits they
follow. That means...
> Anyway, the idea is that the
> insight into Truth (the Bow and Arrows of the Artist)
> comes from the Wound and its Agonies (loneliness,
> pain, suffering). And both are a Single Gift from the
> God. (It occurs to me that Jacob/Israel is another
> instance of this same myth---struggles with God and
> is wounded and elevated at the same time thereby.
> Also Moses who must bear death alone without being
> permitted to cross over in the end himself.)
> Anyway, that's a very long-winded way of saying
> that, just because an artist or writer is dark,
> or is a suffering soul, that I don't see that as
> a caution flag or a warning against him.
No, I didn't mean to suggest any warning except of
accessibility. _The_Hamlet_ is just SOOOOooo darned
depressing that it was a real boxing match within me
each time I had an opportunity to continue the book
(on tape, I might add. I'm positive I would never
have made it thru on paper).
Something else--I'm not sure that there's a necessary
correlation between the sufferingness of an artist and
darkness of the art.
> It's more that he's likely got something to teach me.
Well, I can't argue with the particulars of what you
need, but I generally think that what most people need
most is not the dark complexities of life but the
simplest truths of how to nurture joy within one's self,
how to live for the best benefit of their own selves.
______________________________________________Marty
Michael S. Morris
Sunday, the 24th of October, 2004
Marty:
Well, I can't argue with the particulars of what you
need, but I generally think that what most people need
most is not the dark complexities of life but the
simplest truths of how to nurture joy within one's self,
how to live for the best benefit of their own selves.
I don't know about this. Mainly, I'm not sure what
"most people" need. In my case, however, I think John
Rice called it correctly. He said that I *loved* life, the
game of it. And that's true---I feel I have been,
umm, "blessed" with many good things, material possessions,
talents, and, above all else, family and friends to love
and be loved by. I do not live out a tragic existence.
Kanga, I think, will attest that I tend to be convivial
in person and muchly enjoy lingering a couple of
hours over conversation at lunch, and like that.
It seems to me, therefore, *the thing that is needed
for me* is, in a sense, just the opposite of "nurturing
the joy". It's mindfulness of others, and the fact that
there are others who *do* live a tragic existence,
and that there, but for those aforesaid blessings,
go I.
But, then, if I believe anything, it's that
to be most human is to be the most mindful
that I can be. "The unexamined life is not
worth living", and all that. So, give me mindful
darkness anyday over emotionalism, howsomever
joyful it may be. I might be drawn to make peace
with a church that featured Aquinas in
the pulpit and Bach on the organ and Bach
and Mozart and Palestrina in the choir. I
loathe "praise song" services.
I am attracted to the story of Simone Weil.
I encountered her some years ago when I was reading Homer,
and her essay on the Iliad "Poem of Force" was recommended
to me as one of the best essays on Homer in existence.
She loved the Greeks and wrote about them, and was this
fairly left French intellectual Jew before WWII, who
joined the Free French and worked for de Gaulle in
exile during the war, and I'm not sure if she survived the
war. If so, not for long. She was attracted to Christianity
and apparently went into a lengthy conversion process in
long conversations with a Catholic priest/mentor
friend. She never converted, however, because, the story goes,
she understood that *if she accepted salvation that
that then meant she had to accept that others would
not be saved*.
[...the following is out of sequence, but I decided
to comment as an afterthought]
Marty wrote:
I do accept that there seems to be something about
suffering, or adversity, or necessity (the mother of
invention, you know), or whatever, that spurs the
exquisite from people. A disturbing thought in of
itself, really. I'm a hsing father and I want my
children to be exquisite in whatever pursuits they
follow. That means...
Right. And with I suppose ambitions for myself
in various directions (physics, music, writing...) I also
think that my wife to have and to hold and my children
*satisfy* basic needs in myself, and that I would be an
altogether less sane and whole person than I am without
them. But, then I also might be *more driven* by dissatisfaction
to push myself harder in those directions of ambition.
The thing that this *also* touches upon, it seems to
me, is what I had been discussing around "The Passion of the
Christ" and my own recoil from the Christian myth.
That is, I don't want to accept that this beautiful
man had to be tortured to death in this horrible way
in order to redeem some ugliness in myself. I.e.,
that's a Divine Gift I don't want. Thanks but no thanks.
So, I can kind of sense that it is consonant with Father
Owen Lee's Christianity that he believes in this whole
Freudian/Jungian idea of the Gift/Wound. (Umm, of course,
in nonbiblical, but Christian, legend there is the whole
Grail Quest and the Amfortas Wound, where the life-giving
Grail and the Wound Which Will Not Heal are tied
symbolically together. And that of course is the source
for Wagner's final opera "Parsifal".)
That is, I personally don't want to believe that the Wound
is a necessary condition for the Gift. As a father
of my children, who also wants to see them gifted,
but also as a man myself who desires the gift,
and as a man who relishes the fruits of the gift
from others. I don't want to become complicit in
Van Gogh's suffering in order to enjoy his paintings.
It's like *I have to cut off his ear* in order to "spur
the exquisite" from him. I'd muchly prefer to think
that Van Gogh's exquisite art did not in fact
require Van Gogh's mental torture.
It's always the example of Bach that gives me
hope and inspiration that exquisite art need
not require that the artist suffer in some
abnormal way.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Jayne Kulikauskas
[]
> I am attracted to the story of Simone Weil.
> I encountered her some years ago when I was reading Homer,
> and her essay on the Iliad "Poem of Force" was recommended
> to me as one of the best essays on Homer in existence.
> She loved the Greeks and wrote about them, and was this
> fairly left French intellectual Jew before WWII, who
> joined the Free French and worked for de Gaulle in
> exile during the war, and I'm not sure if she survived the
> war. If so, not for long. She was attracted to Christianity
> and apparently went into a lengthy conversion process in
> long conversations with a Catholic priest/mentor
> friend. She never converted, however, because, the story goes,
> she understood that *if she accepted salvation that
> that then meant she had to accept that others would
> not be saved*.
What do you think of Flannery O'Connor's fiction?
[]
> That is, I personally don't want to believe that the Wound
> is a necessary condition for the Gift. As a father
> of my children, who also wants to see them gifted,
> but also as a man myself who desires the gift,
> and as a man who relishes the fruits of the gift
> from others. I don't want to become complicit in
> Van Gogh's suffering in order to enjoy his paintings.
> It's like *I have to cut off his ear* in order to "spur
> the exquisite" from him. I'd muchly prefer to think
> that Van Gogh's exquisite art did not in fact
> require Van Gogh's mental torture.
>
> It's always the example of Bach that gives me
> hope and inspiration that exquisite art need
> not require that the artist suffer in some
> abnormal way.
It seems to me that most great works of beauty grow out of slime. For
example, the beauty of the Palace of Versaille is inextricably linked to the
exploitation of peasants. Famous artists, musicians, etc. have frequently
had wealthy patrons whose fortunes came about unethically. I feel this
taints their creation, much like unethical research taints any knowledge
obtained by its means.
Jayne
Michael S. Morris
Sunday, the 24th of October, 2004
Jayne:
What do you think of Flannery O'Connor's fiction?
I don't know and have not read anything by her.
I'm wondering why you thought of her specifically.
I said:
That is, I personally don't want to believe that the Wound
is a necessary condition for the Gift. As a father
of my children, who also wants to see them gifted,
but also as a man myself who desires the gift,
and as a man who relishes the fruits of the gift
from others. I don't want to become complicit in
Van Gogh's suffering in order to enjoy his paintings.
It's like *I have to cut off his ear* in order to "spur
the exquisite" from him. I'd muchly prefer to think
that Van Gogh's exquisite art did not in fact
require Van Gogh's mental torture.
It's always the example of Bach that gives me
hope and inspiration that exquisite art need
not require that the artist suffer in some
abnormal way.
Jayne:
It seems to me that most great works of beauty grow
out of slime. For example, the beauty of the Palace
of Versaille is inextricably linked to the exploitation
of peasants.
Or the glory of St. Peter's basilica in Rome. Basically,
Italy held the Renaissance and paid for it by taxing Germany,
leading to the Lutheran rebellion.
Jayne:
Famous artists, musicians, etc. have frequently
had wealthy patrons whose fortunes came about
unethically. I feel this taints their creation,
much like unethical research taints any knowledge
obtained by its means.
Which theme of taintedness opens up a whole new vista
of query. There is a longstanding Christian debate---
I mean, it's certainly in Augustine, you can see it
in Dante, and you can see it things like various
traditional pruderies about dancing and the stage and actors
and like that---over the *ethics* of creating art
in some sort of rivalry with God. I think Dante
was very concerned that his poems be an offering
to God and not a prideful exaltation of himself.
The thing I think immediately of is C.S. Lewis's
book _The Four Loves_, which is fascinating because
it is a tour through different kinds of human love,
and Lewis raison de guerre for that book is precisely
to put out the *taintedness* of every kind of human love.
Our spouse will die, and so will we, and chances are
good (unless we are given the gift of Baucis and Philemon)
one of us faces the terrible thing of living on without the
either. Parental love can be a source of friction between
neighbour and neighbour, and a source of sibling rivalry,
friendship can lead to jealousy, and so on.
Umm, basically, I grant you, Jayne, the taintedness of
any human artistic creation or scientific discovery.
But I see that as the inherent imperfection of what
we have been given to work with. I *still* value as
the very highest of the things that we human beings can do
that human artistic creation and scientific discovery.
Not to mention love. That is, I'd no more see the
taintedness as a reason not to do it than I'd see
the imperfections inherent in human love as a reason
not to do or value that.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
TEACHES
"Pam Crouch" <jaso...@nospammingswbell.net> wrote in message news:<NHeed.8745$Lk3....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>...
Jayne Kulikauskas
> Sunday, the 24th of October, 2004
>
> Jayne:
>
> What do you think of Flannery O'Connor's fiction?
>
>
> I don't know and have not read anything by her.
> I'm wondering why you thought of her specifically.
Some of your comments led me to think you might appreciate her work. I'd
rather not say more than this. I'd prefer to hear your reaction to her
without it being influenced by my remarks.
[]
> Jayne:
>
> It seems to me that most great works of beauty grow
> out of slime. For example, the beauty of the Palace
> of Versaille is inextricably linked to the exploitation
> of peasants.
>
> Or the glory of St. Peter's basilica in Rome. Basically,
> Italy held the Renaissance and paid for it by taxing Germany,
> leading to the Lutheran rebellion.
Yes, that is another example of the sort of thing I mean.
[]
> Umm, basically, I grant you, Jayne, the taintedness of
> any human artistic creation or scientific discovery.
> But I see that as the inherent imperfection of what
> we have been given to work with. I *still* value as
> the very highest of the things that we human beings can do
> that human artistic creation and scientific discovery.
> Not to mention love. That is, I'd no more see the
> taintedness as a reason not to do it than I'd see
> the imperfections inherent in human love as a reason
> not to do or value that.
This was very helpful for me, Michael. It has long bothered me that beauty
is flawed this way. But, when you put it in this perspective, I wonder why
I ever thought that it wouldn't be. It is the nature of everything in this
world to fall short of perfection. Love, beauty, truth - they all must be
incomplete in human experience. Our sense of the wrongness of this and our
longing for something more points us toward God.
Jayne
Paul Danaher
> It seems to me that most great works of beauty grow out of slime. For
> example, the beauty of the Palace of Versaille is inextricably linked
> to the exploitation of peasants. Famous artists, musicians, etc.
> have frequently had wealthy patrons whose fortunes came about
> unethically. I feel this taints their creation, much like unethical
> research taints any knowledge obtained by its means.
>
> Jayne
Like the Doge, I wasn't particularly impressed by Versailles. How about a
more complex question - the great cathedrals and the great monasteries?
There's certainly a signifcant element of exploitation, but when I stand in
Rheims or Chartres or Rouen or (your own favourites here) I can't help
feeling that even the exploited got value for their money.
Michael S. Morris
Wednesday, the 27th of October, 2004
Paul:
Like the Doge, I wasn't particularly impressed
by Versailles. How about a more complex
question - the great cathedrals and the great
monasteries? There's certainly a signifcant
element of exploitation, but when I stand in
Rheims or Chartres or Rouen or (your own
favourites here) I can't help feeling that
even the exploited got value for their money.
I know you've killfiled me, Paul, so this may be
writing into the void, but I see merit even in that
and I'll therefore take exception to your last sentence.
But, even before that, I wonder why you figure
cathedrals and monasteries are more complex. Because
they are more beautiful in your opinion? Or because
they were dedicated as Christian works? My sense is
that the basic problem of taintedness is the same---
it doesn't matter one jot if not even a single peasant
was taxed at swordpoint for goods or for labor to build
them. There still is a "nature red in tooth and claw"
that underpins them. If the US were unquestionably good
in every single one of its actions since 1900, there
still will be the fact the whole enterprise has been
erected on stealing Native American land. Usw.
There is a hinge perhaps on this word "exploitation".
I have encountered the usage in England and in Canada
where "exploiting" workers is practically
indistinguishable from "employing" workers. I don't
use "exploit" in that way. To me, "exploit" implies
some injustice done, and some company hiring a laborer
is not an unjust relation, but a mutually beneficial
contract.
So, *if* what you are really saying is that these
cathedrals are so beautiful that they are *worth*
injustices that may have been done in building them,
then I think my point in this thread is a strong
disagreement with that. And I think I disagree
*at the same time as valuing the beauty of these
cathedrals as highly or more highly than you*.
(Hyperbole there, I know, but it makes the point.)
What I mean is that I reject utterly the proposition
that *some level of exploitation is necessary to their
construction*. Same as I am rejecting the notion that
Van Gogh's art is predicated upon Van Gogh's suicide.
My sense is that this marks a huge political divide between
us, by the way. I see *any taxation* as dependent on
the Gewaltmonopol of the state. I.e., we are *necessarily*
taxed at swordpoint. So, I am unwilling to permit the
state to wield that power much more than is absolutely
necessary. I am certainly not willing to permit the state
to wield the power of the sword in order to build cathedrals,
howsomever beautiful they may turn out to be. I'm happy to
applaud privately-built-and-funded future cathedrals,
and like that. It just seems to me that acceding to the
proposition that Chartres is worth whatever exploitation
went into its making is tantamount to acceding to future
organized societal exploitation. And that seems to me
to be a basic socialist premise. I don't accede to that.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Vic Kulikauskas
...
> I see *any taxation* as dependent on
> the Gewaltmonopol of the state. I.e., we are *necessarily*
> taxed at swordpoint. So, I am unwilling to permit the
> state to wield that power much more than is absolutely
> necessary.
If you've got the paradigm where we, the people, are US, and the
state is THEM, then what you're saying makes sense. And that's
how it's always been. Those with power, whether it was the kings
of old, or those with political power now, rule the others.
Taxation is THEM taking OUR money, then, if we're lucky, being
generous to us and giving us some of it back, in various forms.
But why does it have to be that way? What happened to
sovereignty residing in the people themselves? In theory, WE do
the governing, through our elected representatives, but how many
of us feel that our representatives are really there to represent
OUR interests and OUR points of view?
We need a totally new paradigm (or maybe it's an old paradigm).
Maybe I'm just spoiled by observing the consensus decision-making
in our farm group. Yes, in a way, we tax ourselves: we make up
budgets, and figure out how much we are all going to have to chip
in, to pay for all the projects we want to do (or, in theory,
decide to run up our line of credit). But nothing is approved
unless EACH ONE of us agrees to it. If Mary says "I refuse to
pay for that", then the budget gets changed until EVERYBODY is
happy. If Jeff still wants to go ahead with that (whatever
"that" is), then, as long as nobody objects to "that" being done
in principle, I guess he has the option of doing it and paying
for it himself. And if the differences become totally
irreconcilable, then any of us has the option of taking our money
out and leaving.
The only part of this that I haven't quite figured out is how to
scale it up from about 10 people to a few hundred million.
Anybody got any ideas?
Maybe, now that we have the technology to do it, we could set
budgets by EACH person submitting the amount they would be
willing to pay for fire department, libraries, foreign aid, farm
subsidies, space program, whatever. The amount could be zero.
Then the MEDIAN gets selected automatically, and that's what the
budget is set to be.
Hmm, never mind, I can see a number of problems with that idea
already. Okay, that one won't work, but maybe some other idea
will. Somehow we have GOT to get rid of the ability of some of us
to tax others at swordpoint, while still allowing us to do things
as a common body.
Can you tell that it's late at night and I'm rambling? G'night!
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 28th of October, 2004
I said:
I see *any taxation* as dependent on
the Gewaltmonopol of the state. I.e., we
are *necessarily* taxed at swordpoint. So,
I am unwilling to permit the state to wield
that power much more than is absolutely
necessary.
Vic:
If you've got the paradigm where we, the people,
are US, and the state is THEM, then what you're
saying makes sense. And that's how it's always
been. Those with power, whether it was the kings
of old, or those with political power now, rule the others.
I don't think that it is "a paradigm" so much as a
distinction drawn between a tax and a voluntary
contribution/investment.
Vic:
Taxation is THEM taking OUR money, then,
It's not exactly THEM, because, at least in the
Western democracies, it's US, too. That is,
we the people have granted to THEM, our
representatives, the power to tax us, at least
somewhat. Notice please I have *not* rebelled above
at taxation. What I have done is to say that taxation
is a necessary evil, and should therefore be severely
limited to necessity.
Vic:
if we're lucky, being generous to us and
giving us some of it back, in various forms.
But why does it have to be that way? What
happened to sovereignty residing in the people
themselves? In theory, WE do the governing,
through our elected representatives, but how many
of us feel that our representatives are really
there to represent OUR interests and OUR points
of view?
The problem arises when the limits on the transfer
of power to the state are off, when we do not retain
that sovereignty natural to the individual human
being. Those limits are what Jefferson called
the "inalienable Rights". And that was a new idea
in the world, I think, about the time of Jefferson.
At least, the old English idea of a Bill of Rights was
the one from 1689, brought about by the Glorious
Revolution of 1688. It was Rights as powers not given
to the Crown, *unless Parliament granted those powers*.
100 years later, the idea of Rights being inalienable,
and Creator-endowed, meant that not even the legislature
could take these powers and transfer them to the state.
In any event, that is why democracy ain't nothing worth
*if* it's illiberal democracy. And it's why George
W. Bush stands to lose this war in Iraq---you can't
on the one hand shout "democracy, democracy!" and
on the other shut down a newspaper that prints the
disagreeable, and detain people indefinitely
without charging them criminally. The possibility of
elections is irrelevant in the face of that.
By the way, I recall from my 3 1/2 year sojourn in
Canada (in 1990-93) the whole Meech Lake Accord episode, and the
vote on the repatriation of the Canadian constitution
from Britain. Quebec was trying to preserve what it
called "distinct society status"---a multiculturally
attractive idea really, except that what it meant
in practice was that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms
would not in fact limit Quebec's provincial powers,
if and when Quebec's provincial government decided
any exercise of power was important enough to
permit the violation of the Rights of Canadians. Pierre
Trudeau became for me forever a true hero of liberalism
in his criticism of Quebec's insistence on this "distinct
society status". He said at the time that it is a bedrock
principle of liberalism that the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms should apply to every Canadian, and that no
exceptions should be made for societally collective
desiderata. Of course, Mordecai Richler also endeared
himself to me (in _Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!) by reporting
some wag in a Montreal pub who said that what was
really needed was for the rest of Canada to declare itself
indistinct.
Vic:
We need a totally new paradigm (or maybe it's an old paradigm).
Maybe I'm just spoiled by observing the consensus decision-making
in our farm group. Yes, in a way, we tax ourselves: we make up
budgets, and figure out how much we are all going to have to chip
in, to pay for all the projects we want to do (or, in theory,
decide to run up our line of credit). But nothing is approved
unless EACH ONE of us agrees to it. If Mary says "I refuse to
pay for that", then the budget gets changed until EVERYBODY is
happy. If Jeff still wants to go ahead with that (whatever
"that" is), then, as long as nobody objects to "that" being done
in principle, I guess he has the option of doing it and paying
for it himself. And if the differences become totally
irreconcilable, then any of us has the option of taking our money
out and leaving.
I think you have very likely the recipe for disaster.
What you describe is like the American states under the
Articles of Confederation (from the middle of the Revolutionary
War until the Constitution was adopted in 1789). Each
state had veto power in Congress over any *big thing*
proposed. People were not taxed directly by the federal
government, but the states were requisitioned amounts.
What happened was some states paid and others didn't
(for various arguably good reasons), and the government
had no power whatsoever to *enforce* compliance. A war
was on, and money was *needed* to fight it, and
yet still states could not be made to cough up the
requisitions.
Or like my kid brother, who lives in a five-unit condominium.
They have an association and a budget with a $100 a month
requisition from each owner. The problem is that he's got one
neighbour who fights tooth and nail every single expenditure.
Siding was put on poorly by the builders. It was a major repair
job to fix it (but even more costly to try and force the builder
to come back and fix it), so it was voted to do it, in accord
with the association's constitution that repairs to the outside of
the building were a joint responsibility. Except Chris's unit is
an end unit, hence with more surface area (plus even more because it
has a 4th-story tower on top). So, the argument was made by
this neighbout that Chris should pay for the repairs to the
outside of his own unit. Without passing judgment on who was
right or wrong about that (I can see both sides), my point is
that human difference will necessitate disagreements of that
kind. *Someone* will have the end unit with the tower and more
surface area, or want *their* door painted red, when everybody
else's door is ecru.
If we honor the individuality of human beings, and human
*difference*, then I see no way to sustain an arrangement
in which everyone has to agree to proceed.
Vic:
The only part of this that I haven't quite figured out is how to
scale it up from about 10 people to a few hundred million.
Anybody got any ideas?
Do sociopaths get this veto power, too?
Vic:
Maybe, now that we have the technology to do it, we could set
budgets by EACH person submitting the amount they would be
willing to pay for fire department, libraries, foreign aid, farm
subsidies, space program, whatever. The amount could be zero.
Then the MEDIAN gets selected automatically, and that's what the
budget is set to be.
Hmm, never mind, I can see a number of problems with that idea
already. Okay, that one won't work, but maybe some other idea
will. Somehow we have GOT to get rid of the ability of some of us
to tax others at swordpoint, while still allowing us to do things
as a common body.
I don't see any elimination of the swordpoint possible, *if*
we are to have government. Even traffic tickets rest upon
the Gewaltmonopol. Since, if one just ignores the tickets one
gets, and refuses any compliance with the police, and the
police absolutely could not escalate so far as deadly force,
then one could always escalate to a point beyond which the
police could not go, and one could thereby perpetually escape
arrest and any application of the law to one's self.
I think it was Jefferson again, as an old man in the remarkable
correspondence when he had patching things up with his onetime friend
and then political enemy, John Adams, who said that there would be
no need for government if men were angels. Men aren't angels, is
the basic problem.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Kanga Mum
[ ]
> in our farm group. Yes, in a way, we tax ourselves: we make up
> budgets, and figure out how much we are all going to have to chip
> in, to pay for all the projects we want to do (or, in theory,
> decide to run up our line of credit). But nothing is approved
> unless EACH ONE of us agrees to it. If Mary says "I refuse to
> pay for that", then the budget gets changed until EVERYBODY is
> happy. If Jeff still wants to go ahead with that (whatever
> "that" is), then, as long as nobody objects to "that" being done
> in principle, I guess he has the option of doing it and paying
> for it himself. And if the differences become totally
> irreconcilable, then any of us has the option of taking our money
> out and leaving.
>
> The only part of this that I haven't quite figured out is how to
> scale it up from about 10 people to a few hundred million.
> Anybody got any ideas?
Actually, a more important part you haven't figured out is what to do
when somebody turns out to be a selfish, arrogant, uncooperative,
jerk. You know, human. Your farm project is small, the people are
handpicked, y'all know each other and meet face to face. Do you let
just anybody join? If we are talking about a government, then you
can't screen people for niceness and willingness to get along.
Some of you may remember a project I posted about a couple years ago.
Several homeschooling mothers got together to work on a project. We
intended to put together a homeschooling resource that would be freely
available on the internet for others to use. The goal was always
service, a project run, supported by, and developed by volunteer labor
without any recompense at all. At some point the husband of one of us
got involved because of his computer expertise. He was going to
maintain our website, freeing us for curriculum writing. The stated
goal was always a *gift,* a project of service done solely out of love
for the principles behind our curriculum. Behind the scenes, somebody
had a different agenda.
Except meanwhile, he began copyrighting our work to himself, meeting
privately with a private school behind the scenes, charging money for
people to use the material through the school. Eventually, he shut us
out of our own list, publicly lying and slandering us, and insisted he
was going to incorporate our project, putting himself in place as a
paid employee of the corporation, making his wife president, and he
was going to do it without us, and sue us for ever using our own
written materials.
How does your vision protect you from people like that? Because they
do exist. Would the measures you have in mind for your farm group
really work if applied to a larger scheme, say, a city level?
State/Province?
How long do those consensus meetings take? How long will they take
with, say, 100 times that number of people?
In our case we managed to retrieve our data using Google's cache
system. Several kindly motivated, ethical, upright people tried to
mediate, and all came away shaking their heads at the way this man
lied, said one thing in public and then would repudiate it immediately
in private. In the end, a couple of hsing fathers who were also
lawyers explained to the other guy that the law was not on his side,
that we had no interest in pursuing legal remedies, but that we would
use our own material without his permission. However, there are people
who still believe the lies he told us about us, and the friendships we
thought we had with the couple are, apparently, irrevocably broken.
They will not speak to us. No further relationship is possible,
certainly not a working relationship, and frankly, I could never again
be a part of any project he was involved in.
I can't imagine having to continue to work with somebody like this.
Nor can I imagine any community surviving long under the type of
system you are describing with a person like this involved- and there
will be people like this involved.
As for the small group of mothers who initially worked on that
project, we still work together, but we are *very* cautious about who
else we work with in this capacity. We don't invite others on board.
We don't partner with any other projects because we don't want to run
the same risks again. I can't imagine a governmental system that
could govern more than a couple households on the premise that if
anybody doesn't like what's done, they can take their money and go.
Kanga
Kanga Mum
> Wednesday, the 20th of October, 2004
>[ ]
>
> Kanga:
> Art History is a pleasant review of the ground
> we covered when she was in the eighth grade.
Mike:
> This reminds me that I have never yet queried you
> about Art and Art History and that I would very much
> like to have a conversation with you along those lines
> at some future time. I guess I'm thinking about this at
> the moment because of stuff I've been reading around the
> subject of Richard Wagner and his various theories
> and pronouncements on the history of Western art. And
> Butterfield's _The Whig Interpretation of History_
> and Gertrude Himmelfarb's review of a biography of
> Butterfield in the latest New Republic. And even my latest
> spat hereon with Paul (on the issue of whether philosophy
> may be said to have progressed since Plato) contributes.
> Wagner saw Greek tragedy as, well, simply the high point
> in all of Western art. And he thought all art went into
> degenerate decline ever since those fifth-century Athens
> dramatic festivals. I don't necessarily buy the story of
> decline, or Wagner's infatuation with "Gesamtkunstwerk"
> (="total art work", in which all arts---music, drama,
> performance, painting, architecture, design---are rolled
> into one communal celebration of art) as special, but I
> *am* sympathetic insofar that I see
> _The Iliad_ as a (perhaps *the*) high point of world art
> (T.S. Eliot said "Dante and Shakespeare divide the world
> between them. There is no third." I understand and agree,
> sort of, except that for me it's Homer first, and *then*
> come Dante and Shakespeare), and I agree with the special
> excellence of the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles. But,
> anyway, what I'd like to hear you out on sometime would be
> the question of whether there is any specially significant
> course to Western art. I know some see, for instance,
> the Renaissance as a flourishing, an improvement
> beyond a stultified medieval art, and others see
> the turn to the human with the Renaissance as a
> turning away from "giving to God all the glory". Perhaps
> as the beginning of a long decline into artsitic selfishness
> (the glorification of the artist himself by himself---quite
> true of Wagner, by the way, cf. Father Owen Lee's _Wagner:
> The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art_). Anyway, to me I
> see all art as, in a sense, contemporary with myself.
> And I apply to it something like Robert Maynard Hutchins'
> and Mortimer Adler's metaphor for the Great Books as a
> Great Conversation---as though it were all literally like
> Steve Allen's "Meeting of Minds" shows dramatized it to be.
> I love Moche pottery and Edward Hopper and Anselm Kiefer and
> and Tang horses and Michelangelo and Chagall and Greek
> Red-figure and Black-figure Vase Painting and Ancient
> Egyptian statuary and Velazquez and Van Gogh in some
> equal way. I wonder what you make of it.
I would guess we see it in similar ways. When Jemima read what you
said above about "some see, for instance,
> the Renaissance as a flourishing, an improvement
> beyond a stultified medieval art, and others see
> the turn to the human with the Renaissance as a
> turning away from "giving to God all the glory". Perhaps
> as the beginning of a long decline into artsitic selfishness"
she commented that she did not see why it couldn't be both. I think
there is definitely medieval art that is stultified, stiff, and, well,
formulaic, and definitely Renaissance art that throws open the windows
and lets in some oxygen.
But I also think that there is REnaissance art that was merely
hedonistic, and in its own way as stultifying as any medieval effort.
Some of the most sensitive, lovely art I've ever seen pictures of is
the stuff on cave walls and ceilings in France, so if we to plot a
graph of the course of Western art, it would not look very graphlike
after all. I'm thinking it would look more like the ebb and flow of
the tide than a steady upwards climb- and a lot would depend on
individual artists.
I'm not familiar, btw, with the books you mention. I have read
Francis Schaeffer, who would say, I think, that the Renaissance is
indeed the beginning of a downward turn.
He had worse things to say about the impressionsits, and while I saw
his point, I just couldn't completely capitulate to his view.
Rambling, I know. I'm trying to type and listen to the news at teh
same time I listen to Calmity Jane and Roo discuss who gets to decide
the fate of a puzzle oen of them wants and the other does not.
Um, I guess my answer is a line from the movie Christmas in
Coneecticut, 'some say yes, others say no. I'm inclined to agree with
them.'
Kanga
P.S. Thanks for the war of 1812 stuff. That song is one we sing
around here, although I didn't know all the verses, having learned it
from an old Johnny Horton record back in jr. high
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 27th of October, 2004
Jayne:
What do you think of Flannery O'Connor's fiction?
I said:
I don't know and have not read anything by her.
I'm wondering why you thought of her specifically.
Jayne:
Some of your comments led me to think you might
appreciate her work. I'd rather not say more
than this. I'd prefer to hear your reaction to her
without it being influenced by my remarks.
I've actually got her collected works in a Library of America
volume. She seems to be mentioned alongside Eudora Welty
as "southern gothic", and I like what little of Eudora
Welty I've read. But, OK, I'll make a mental note and
let you know what I think when I get to her.
[]
Jayne:
It seems to me that most great works of beauty grow
out of slime. For example, the beauty of the Palace
of Versaille is inextricably linked to the exploitation
of peasants.
I said:
Or the glory of St. Peter's basilica in Rome. Basically,
Italy held the Renaissance and paid for it by taxing Germany,
leading to the Lutheran rebellion.
Jayne:
Yes, that is another example of the sort of thing I mean.
We are agreed---I would tend to generalize, even. That is,
it doesn't matter that a specific injustice did or did not
happen in the creation of a specific work of art. Earlier,
historical injustices did occur, and, moreover, there's the
decay of all things (in-this-world things, anyway). We
build our houses on our forefathers' graves, and all that.
[]
I said:
Umm, basically, I grant you, Jayne, the taintedness of
any human artistic creation or scientific discovery.
But I see that as the inherent imperfection of what
we have been given to work with. I *still* value as
the very highest of the things that we human beings can do
that human artistic creation and scientific discovery.
Not to mention love. That is, I'd no more see the
taintedness as a reason not to do it than I'd see
the imperfections inherent in human love as a reason
not to do or value that.
Jayne:
This was very helpful for me, Michael.
You are welcome. The insight comes to me from C.S. Lewis's
_The Four Loves_. I think he wants to show in what way
each kind of human love---that thing we humans do that we
are most proud of---falls short of the love we can imagine.
It's kind of a bracing book for that reason. I.e., human
imperfection points the way towards and adumbrates the
qualities of divine perfection.
Jayne:
It has long bothered me that beauty
is flawed this way. But, when you put it in this
perspective, I wonder why I ever thought that it
wouldn't be. It is the nature of everything in this
world to fall short of perfection.
Which goes back to a Greek philosophical insight---
that anything in the World of Becoming must be open
to decay.
Jayne:
Love, beauty, truth - they all must be
incomplete in human experience. Our sense
of the wrongness of this and our
longing for something more points us toward God.
I am wholly agreed with you that that is where
this points. It is a suggestion of God. I would
also see in that suggestion a parallel with what is
known as "The Ontological Proof" (of God's existence,
usually credited to St. Anselm). Here is a
sketch of it:
"The Argument can be reduced to five points:
1 God is That Than Which Nothing Greater Can
Be Conceived (TTWNGCBC)
2 Whenever a person talks about or considers
the possibility of TTWNGCBC, TTWNGCBC
exists in their understanding.
3 That which exists both in re and in
intellectu is greater than that which
exists in intellectu alone.
4 TTWNGCBC already exists in intellectu, as
people believe in God, talk about God,
and even if they do not believe in God,
are aware of the concept. If TTWNGCBC
only existed in intellectu and not also
in re, then it is not truly TTWNGCBC, as
the TTWNGCBC which only exists in intellectu
is less great than a TTWNGCBC which exists in re.
5 Therefore TTWNGCBC exists in re."
Sketch from:
<http://www.apatheticagnostic.com/articles/talkback/talk01/talk012.html>
Which see for footnotes, discussion.
Now, there is (for me at least) always a sense of
sleight of hand when I encounter this argument. But, it should
be plain that our "experience of the lesser" is the
thing that gives us in our intellects this "TTWNGCBC".
Something about our imaginations being larger than the
world we see, and asking then why this should be so.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
cantueso
I read (some) Ruskin who also thought that the Renaissance was too
much body and not enough soul. as I remember, he said so when talking
about Michelangelo's David's face (which does look a bit dull). I
wonder whether Ruskin would have said it when talking about the Pietà.
there is nothing sweeter than that sadness in the Virgin's face.
I myself do not really like Michelangelo, though I can see the beauty
and poetry of his sculpture.
maybe it is a mistake to judge people in terms of trends. how could
you in one single judgment decide on the meaning of a period
including both Picasso and Chagall? they are opposites.
Paul Danaher
> Jemima Puddleduck is doing well in her second semester of college, but
> once more, is very glad she was homeschooled and wishes everybody else
> was, too.;-D
>
> Here is the first question on a recent test from her management class:
>
> "Excessive emphasis on long-term revenues over shorter-term
> considerations is a challenge to maintain consistent ethical behavior
> that organizations face."
If this was a "true/false" question, what was the "correct" answer, and do
you know why it was supposed to be correct?
Kanga Mum
> Thursday, the 28th of October, 2004
>
> of power to the state are off, when we do not retain
> that sovereignty natural to the individual human
> being. Those limits are what Jefferson called
> the "inalienable Rights". And that was a new idea
> in the world, I think, about the time of Jefferson.
> At least, the old English idea of a Bill of Rights was
> the one from 1689, brought about by the Glorious
> Revolution of 1688. It was Rights as powers not given
> to the Crown, *unless Parliament granted those powers*.
> 100 years later, the idea of Rights being inalienable,
> and Creator-endowed, meant that not even the legislature
> could take these powers and transfer them to the state.
> In any event, that is why democracy ain't nothing worth
> *if* it's illiberal democracy. And it's why George
> W. Bush stands to lose this war in Iraq---you can't
> on the one hand shout "democracy, democracy!" and
> on the other shut down a newspaper that prints the
> disagreeable, and detain people indefinitely
> without charging them criminally. The possibility of
> elections is irrelevant in the face of that.
>
Is Al-Sadr's paper the one you are talking about?
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2931
I'm a little conflicted here. Ordinarily, I'd be in complete
agreement on the reprehensible-ness (?) of this government shutting
down a newspaper. However, I'm not sure al-Sadr's paper was a
newspaper as much as a recruiting organ for murderers. I've also read
elsewhere in another context that Iraq currently has something like
125 newspapers being published, so it seems to me that there must have
been something more than merely printing the disagreeable that got
al-Sadr's paper singled out. Or can you tell me more?
Kanga
Jon Houts
> http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2931
Captain Ed! I was listening to him last night, doing the local
election returns. No Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw for me... I listened to
people calling themselves "Captian Ed," "Chad the Elder," "Anoka
Flash," and "King Banion."
but,but...
Jon
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 5th of November, 2004
I was saying:
The problem arises when the limits on the transfer
of power to the state are off, when we do not retain
that sovereignty natural to the individual human
being. Those limits are what Jefferson called
the "inalienable Rights". And that was a new idea
in the world, I think, about the time of Jefferson.
At least, the old English idea of a Bill of Rights was
the one from 1689, brought about by the Glorious
Revolution of 1688. It was Rights as powers not given
to the Crown, *unless Parliament granted those powers*.
100 years later, the idea of Rights being inalienable,
and Creator-endowed, meant that not even the legislature
could take these powers and transfer them to the state.
In any event, that is why democracy ain't nothing worth
*if* it's illiberal democracy. And it's why George
W. Bush stands to lose this war in Iraq---you can't
on the one hand shout "democracy, democracy!" and
on the other shut down a newspaper that prints the
disagreeable, and detain people indefinitely
without charging them criminally. The possibility of
elections is irrelevant in the face of that.
Kanga:
Is Al-Sadr's paper the one you are talking about?
Yes.
Kanga provides this link:
<http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2931>
That link has hung up my browser, but this one
works for me:
<http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002931.php>
Kanga:
I'm a little conflicted here. Ordinarily, I'd
be in complete agreement on the reprehensible-ness
(?) of this government shutting down a newspaper.
However, I'm not sure al-Sadr's paper was a
newspaper as much as a recruiting organ for murderers.
I've also read elsewhere in another context that
Iraq currently has something like 125 newspapers
being published, so it seems to me that there must have
been something more than merely printing the
disagreeable that got al-Sadr's paper singled out.
Or can you tell me more?
OK, let me say in the first place that I had no idea Kerry
had had anything to say about it. I heard about the shutting
down of the newspaper on NPR and with no particular editorial
commentary. I get conflicted here because of my low opinion
of Kerry---my sense that he is a man who always says what he
thinks his audience wants to hear.
In any event, I'm still absolutist about a free press in
this case. It seems to me the kind of press or speech that
*could be legitimately outlawed* would be speech or press
that is directly instrumental in the execution of crime. That
is, Don Vito sez "Vinny, I want him rubbed out and rubbed
out tonight!" "Anything you say, boss!" And the target ends
up wearing cement overshoes, I think we can prosecute Don
Vito for murder. I don't think DV has a defense in that
"all he did was speak". But, then again, it's still not
the speech I think that is outlawed, but the murder.
OK, with that preface, I think certainly if Al-Sadr's
newspaper were printing things like "Ibrahim and Achmed,
you guys set a roadside bomb up at the intersection of
Houri Avenue and Saladin Boulevard at 3:30 this morning,"
or "All new recruits willing to martyr themselves against
the evil infidel American invaders meet outside Shahram's
Cafe at 9:00 tonight to sign up," then it would be legitimate
*in principle* to shut it down *as an instrument of war or
murder*. However, I *also* think any American commander,
if he were getting that kind of information from a newspaper,
would be really stupid to shut it down.
Therefore, what I think is that this newspaper *as a
recruiting tool* is likely more guilty in the way of
printing vague hatreds like "Death to the American
invaders!". And that is something that I *do not think*
is like a mobster issuing a hit order, but is an
execrable, yet arguable sentiment given the American
invasion and the lack of womd's, etc.. In other words,
with something like that---which I think is evil speech---
the only appropriate response is *good speech*. If Al-Sadr
is wrong in what he says, then we ought to be able to
persuade his readers that he is wrong. The shutting down
of such speech *I think* only persuades Al-Sadr's followers
that we do not have a good argument against what he says---
that we can only resort to force. I think it's wrong
both in principle *and* in terms of practical strategy.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Kanga Mum
Mike:
> OK, let me say in the first place that I had no idea Kerry
> had had anything to say about it. I heard about the shutting
> down of the newspaper on NPR and with no particular editorial
> commentary. I get conflicted here because of my low opinion
> of Kerry---my sense that he is a man who always says what he
> thinks his audience wants to hear.
Kanga:
Well, I figured you had heard it on NPR. We do have rather different
opinions on NPR. I am impressed by their production values, and they
often do some very good stuff. When they do cover a story, they
generally give that coverage a depth unseen from the likes of ABC,
CBS, Fox et al.
However, often they miss out on some major issues, or get them wrong
way around, IMO, and they are fairly consistant in that these sins of
omission or commission are slanted left. Their treatment of the story
of CBS using obviously forged documents and lying about it in an
attempt to smear a sitting president during an election year is a
recent example of NPR's laughable fumbling of the ball. They weren't
the worst example by a long shot, of course, but they certainly
demonstrated that they make a very bad single source for news. Their
coverage of the Swift Boat Vets was flatly wrong (NPR reporter Juan
Williams claimed that their "nasty ads...have been proven to be
totally wrong," and this is utterly and completely false). I also
think they tend to be biased against Israel and slanted favorably
toward Palestine.
Kanga replies:
You know, I agree with you, I really do, in theory and practice.
Except in war. Doesn't being at war make any difference at all? Is
it really a violation of free speech to destroy an enemy propaganda
and communications arm when at war? As I see it, Al Sadr is a
terrorist who is therefore part of the enemy. Is it violation of free
speech or good and fairly obvious war tactics to knock out the enemy's
television, radio and newspaper centers during war. In war time,
aren't those legitimate targets?
Kanga
Michael S. Morris
Tuesday, the 9th of November, 2004
Kanga:
Well, I figured you had heard it on NPR. We do
have rather different
opinions on NPR. [...]
Yes, we certainly do. We also have rather divergent opinions
on "Focus on the Family", for example.
But, in the present instance, I don't think there is anything
about my knowledge of the shut-down of the newspaper that
NPR has failed me on. My embarassment was simply that Kerry
apparently *also* brought up the newspaper incident in the
same way that I had, which I did not know, but which, apparently,
I could have known had I listened to NPR when he did that, presumably
some time after the actual incident.
*Of course* the people who shut down the newspaper are going
to claim they have good to do so. The question is, do they?
And is the action likely to advance war aims on my side
or no? I still think the answer is no.
It's like the detentions and what this administration did
with the Padilla case. They arrested a US citizen on US soil
and then detained him without ever charging him for a crime.
And Congress *has not* suspended habeas corpus (which *I* don't
think they legally can do and still keep the 5th Amendment,
since due process is *not* negotiable or suspendable). When it
got to Court, the Administration defended its actios by saying
Padilla was planning to blow up shopping malls or somesuch.
OK, well, fine, maybe the guy is a real bad guy and maybe it's
best he were behind bars---but that sidesteps the point that
government is *not given* the power in this country to detain
people without a warrant obtained on probably cause and a speedy
trial by jury to determine criminal guilt. If the government *does*
have evidence the guy is planning terrorism, by all means prosecute him.
But *do not*, Mr. Bush, lock him up or any other person whether a
US citizen or no, without conviction of a guilt of a crime beyond
a reasonable doubt in front a jury.
I think war makes no excuse whatsoever for acting illegally
and unconstitutionally. I also think if Congress doesn't actually
declare war, then *it ain't* legally a war. So, there ain't no
such thing as treason, for example, unless Congress actually declares
war and states very explicitly what the war aims and ultimatums
are, so that an endpoint is defined.
[...]
Kanga:
However, often they miss out on some major issues, or get them wrong
way around, IMO,[...]
Well, in the case of this newspaper shut-down, all they
told me was that it happened, and this was something
I did not get told in the Indianapolis newspaper. I do
not recall any editorializing by anybody at the time on
it. The editorializing was mine.
Kanga:
and they are fairly consistant in that these sins of
omission or commission are slanted left.
Personally, I sort of agree. That is, I think the Dianne
Riehm Show, for example, is pretty slanted to the left.
I also think most callers-in in the last four years have
been very anti-Bush. On the other hand, I also think that
the folks on Morning Edition, on All Things Considered,
and on Talk of the Nation and Fresh Air are superb
sources of news.
I do not agree with you about either NPR's coverage of
the Dan Rather forged documents thing *or* the Swift-Boat
Ads. I think NPR did a great job on the Swift-Boat Ads,
and both made clear what was wrong about them, *and* what
was right about them.
As for Israel and Palestine, yes, I personally applaud Ariel
Sharon as the man who has come closest to bringing peace to
the conflict in a long time, and by winning the intifada.
So, what I see is that NPR tries to be very even-handed with
regard to Palestinians and Israel, and I think that tends to
be very unfair to Israel. But, anyway, I can always take my
own slant away from it.
[...]
Kanga replies:
You know, I agree with you, I really do, in theory and practice.
Except in war. Doesn't being at war make any difference at all?
I don't think you fully understood what I was saying. (Umm, technically,
I do not buy that this *is* war. As a strict constructionist, I think
military operations under the President's authority, authorized
by Congress is not yet "war". I don't think we have been in a bona fide
war since 1945. Anyway, that's maybe beside the point.) The point is,
I want to *win* that war, and I think shutting down that newspaper was
a losing strategy.
Kanga:
Is it really a violation of free speech to destroy an enemy propaganda
and communications arm when at war?
Of course it is. But, more to the point, it is *also*
likely to lose us that war (in the same way that the
Abu Ghraib abuses tend in that direction), since our
stated *goal* in the war is not to kill Iraqis,
but *liberate* them.
Kanga:
As I see it, Al Sadr is a
terrorist who is therefore part of the enemy.
As I see it, maybe. (There's another technical point---
the President declared hostilities over, then the interim
Iraqi gov took over and we declared "the occupation" over.
So, at that point, I don't think it's exactly our call
to shut down that newspaper. And, if the interim Iraqi
gov does that, then there's a problem with respect to *our*
credibility about bringing freedom. It suddenly looks like
freedom is something we are happy to trade in exchange for
security.)
Kanga:
Is it violation of free
speech or good and fairly obvious war tactics to knock out the enemy's
television, radio and newspaper centers during war.
As I think I said, if one's enemy is using these commincations media
as an instrument of war, sure, it's an acceptable part of war to
knock them out. On the other hand, it may not be the brightest
move for a military commander to make. I.e., it's a win-the-battle,
but lose-the-real-war kind of move.
Kanga:
In war time, aren't those legitimate targets?
Certainly they are legitimate. On the other hand,
I do not believe that it is so smart to attack all
legitimate targets in military strategy.
Mike Morris
Michael S. Morris
Wednesday, the 10th of November, 2004
I said:
I do not agree with you about either NPR's coverage of
the Dan Rather forged documents thing *or* the Swift-Boat
Ads. I think NPR did a great job on the Swift-Boat Ads,
and both made clear what was wrong about them, *and* what
was right about them.
It occurred to me I could probably illustrate this with what
I think regarding the Swift-Boat Ads, since pretty much everything
I think about them has been based off of NPR-derived information.
What I think is that Kerry got a Bronze Star, a Silver Star,
and some number of purple hearts for four months of active
service in Vietnam. What I think (and some allowance must
be given me for transience of memory at this point) is that
he got the Bronze Star for turning his boat around and picking
up a guy from the water, the Silver Star for he and another
captain deliberately beaching their boats and
chasing a guy down who had shot at them from the riverbank,
and purple heart or hearts for not being wounded very much,
if at all.
What I think is that his medals are disproportionate to
his actions, and that he, therefore, chased those medals
more than other guys did. In particular, I think it was
one of the purple hearts that he got by pushing for it
himself without his commander's recommendation. I know
one Vietnam-Viet Marine who got his purple heart for,
I think it is, "the third time I was blown up", so
he's not very impressed with Kerry's purple hearts. Anyway,
I doubt the Bronze Star incident was actually under
fire, and the Silver Star incident probably was running
after and blowing away a single scared sniper.
My sense is that, nevertheless, John Kerry's Vietnam-era
service was more honourable than George W. Bush's. Kerry
*did* go into combat and Bush did not. Moreover, *I* think
Kerry's turning against the Vietnam War as an activist
*also* redounds to his honour. Had it been left at that,
I would have awarded Kerry one or two more brownie points
towards the historical character merit badge than I would
have awarded Bush.
However, it seems to me that Kerry draped himself in
the "I served in Vietnam and you didn't" thing (again,
because he is a man without a there there, and said at any
given time the thing he was advised to say, and his advisors thought
playing up the Vietnam Service thing was going to be a winner). So,
in my opinion, Kerry opened himself up to *exactly* the sort
of attacks the Swift-Boat Ads made on him.
OK: factoid I remember from NPR (Marketplace I think)
maybe a week before the election: Kerry spent $270
million on his presidential campaign, Bush spent $220
million, anti-Bush 527s spent $70 million and anti-Kerry
527s spent $50 million. (Mike's editorial comment: Kerry
spent *more* than Bush. Also, none of this counts Michael
Moore's film, which isn't "campain spending".) The
Marketplace commentator put this in perspective by saying
Toyota Corporation spends $660 million annually on
"product-recognition" advertising. I.e. it strikes me
spending $600 million on presidential campaigning is
simply not all that big a deal. Anyway, that made an
interesting context for this whole Swift-Boat-Ad thing, since
those guys spent $0.5 million on those ads, at least that was
the number given out on NPR after the point the ads had really had
their effect (I.e., the number could well have gone higher insofar
as the ads continued up to the election). I.e. it was a *tiny*
amount of money that had a huge effect, in my opinion precisely
because Kerry made such an unseemly hullabaloo about his
Vietnam service---he got precisely what he deserved on that score.
Do I think Kerry lied about his service? No, not particularly.
I just think he glommed after medals while he was there and
spun greater stories out of the events than the facts will
support. I think it's quite clear that the sailors who supported
Kerry's version of events were much closer witnesses to those events
than the Swift-Boat Vet critics of Kerry's service record. I
think it's also quite clear that a lot of those critics are motivated
less by disagreement over the events themselves and more by
some sort of (I think) stupid reaction to Kerry's having
criticized the war and what American soldiers did in the war
*after his service*.
Oh yeah: 527s. The whole issue of 527s was big on NPR
in there when the Swift-Boat Ads were having their effect.
They were not an issue before the Swift-Boat Ads, when
527s like MoveOn.Org were operating, and anti-Bush. The 527s
keep their ability to take unlimited donations under the
campaign finance rules (McCain-Feingold) as long as they
are not in collusion with the campaigns or parties. So there
was the whole issue of the lawyer with the Bush campaign
who had also advised the Swift-Boat Veterans. Anyway, he resigned
from the Bush campaign, and it didn't look to me like anything
really could be pinned on the Bush campaign itself in the way
of directing those ads.
I guess I am ardently opposed to McCain-Feingold and there
being limits on the amount of anybody's money which could be spent in
promoting some political cause he cares about. And Newt Gingrich
won big points with me when he was interviewed on NPR at the
Republican Convention and was asked about 527s and said he
thought the more 527s, the better, and that was free speech,
and McCain-Feingold itself was an unconstitutional violation of
the First Amendment. Most commentators on NPR do not see it
that way, and see 527s as a loophole in McCain-Feingold that
now needs to be closed.
Anyway, I guess in the end I think the Swift-Boat Ads raised
a valid point---if not exactly the point they thought they were
making---but, by calling into question Kerry's service record
precisely *because* of the context that Kerry himself had
made such a big hairy deal of it.
We've been arguing over on rec.arts.books on this column
by historian Garry Wills:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/opinion/04wills.html>
I offered this one by Kathleen Parker as "getting it"
much better than Wills does:
<http://www.jewishworldreview.com/kathleen/parker110504.asp>
I've also been defending anti-abortionism as perfectly consistent
with the Enlightenment.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 11th of November, 2004
Kanga:
Well, I figured you had heard it on NPR. We do
have rather different opinions on NPR. [...]
I said:
Yes, we certainly do. We also have rather divergent opinions
on "Focus on the Family", for example.
Kanga:
I'm not sure I quite understand the comparison. FoF doesn't claim to
be nonpartisan, or a news agency, or unbiased, for one thing. I don't
listen to FoF, for another. I did like their free indoor children's
play area when we lived in the Springs, but frankly, I would have
taken advantage of the same free facilities if offered by the
Democratic Party.=)
OK, well, it seems to me that NPR's great quality is the time
it spends on airing opinions, on asking opinions of experts
and of partisan participants on different sides of each
question. The talk shows---the Diane Riehm Show, the Tavis
Smiley Show, Talk of the Nation, and Day by Day, all are
the airing of opinion and point/counterpoint. Anyway,
when I was in grad school in the LA area, in the mid 1980s,
I tended to listen to two radio stations in my car. One
of these was KPFK, which is the Pacifica station (listener-sponsored
and very leftie in content), the other's call letters I
can't remember, but was some "Bible" station. The entertainment
value to me of both stations was approximately the same---I
would argue out loud with what I was hearing as I was driving
in the car. "Focus on the Family" was one show I encountered,
and it was probably one of the least objectionable, more
sensible shows on that station, but, anyway, that experience
taught me to be very wary of Dr. James Dobson, especially
on issues like pornography, where he would conclude what
he wanted to conclude and cite his credentials and
"studies" when neither his credentials nor any studies
actually supported anything he was saying. I was especially
and am eternally angry with him over the infamous
Ted Bundy interview and the conclusions he liked to draw
from that. Anyway, that's kind of what I was thinking of.
Also, I was thinking that the "leftness" of NPR is altogether
right-wing compared to the leftness of something like KPFK.
I was also thinking that I really find the radio spectrum
in Indianapolis to be witheringly boring. Music stations are
either country or various gradations of pop/rock, and there's
the Rush Limbaugh station, all of these with blaring commercials
taking up half the time. There are a couple of Bible stations,
which, whenever I happen upon them, bore me (the thing I used
to love was listening to some preacher interpret the Book of
Revelation in terms of current world politics, but OK....).
And then there's NPR, which is far and above the best news source
around, as well as the only place I can hear classical music
or blues (on Saturdays).
[...]
I said:
I think war makes no excuse whatsoever for acting illegally
and unconstitutionally.
Kanga:
But I think there are some acts the government does in a war that
would not be acceptable or legal outside of war. Collateral damage is
a dreadful thing, but it's a grimly accepted reality of war- in
peacetime, the equivilant of collateral damage is viewed far
differently, and treated differently under the law.
Killing of enemy terrorists is acceptable in war, unconstitutional
outside the battlefield, more or less.
Right, but *there are* some huge legal issues here, given that
this is an undeclared war, the President declared major operations
over, and the transition to the caretaker Iraqi government took
place ostensibly this last summer. So, we are technically no longer
even an occupying force, but are in the country at the invitation
of that Iraqi government. I believe the President has made it clear
we would *have to leave* if asked, for instance.
Kanga:
Is it really a violation of free speech to
destroy an enemy propaganda and communications
arm when at war?
I said:
Of course it is.
Kanga:
[...}
What I *meant* was a much longer and more complicated point about
whether or not enemy combatants in a war on a foreign field can really
be said to be protected by the first ammendment, or should be.
I;d give several answers to that question. One thing I'd do
is differentiate between what I think should be and what I think
the courts say or would say. The First Amendment limits the
US federal government absolutely---I personally see no restriction
of that limitation of US powers to only citizens or only people
inside the US or only in time of peace. Moreover, *I think* the
reasons for free speech are transcendantly based in Natural Law
and are about what human beings are and what the nature of human
beings is and why governments can never be trusted with the exercise
of such powers. So *I think* free speech absolutely ought to
apply in time of war, and, in a practically somewhat limited
sense, even to enemy combatants. I doubt that the Supreme Court
would join me in that opinion. So, I think, no, enemy combatants
during time of war are not legally covered by the US First Amendment.
Nevertheless, *I still think* free speech is simply a good idea,
and remains *always* a good idea, and always for the same
reasons. Furthermore, Iraq is not some "total war" we are
engaged in. We have basically two reasons for being there---
one of them is the search for weapons of mass destruction,
which we didn't know didn't exist because Saddam never
complied with the international inspection requirements of
the Resolution that ended the first Gulf War (and because
our intelligence was bad). The second reason we have for
doing what we are doing is to bring something approaching
a liberal democracy to Iraq. And that is precisely where
we may lose this thing spectacularly. It is obvious that
Iraqi patriots can be very suspicious by this point of
American motives and have every reason to believe we
*aren't in it for anything but the oil*. So, we're in a
really tough strategic situation, where *we have to win
the peace in order to win the war*. I don't buy that shutting
down a newspaper because it is printing a call to armed
rebellion moves us in the direction of winning. In fact,
I think the way it played out quite clearly, it almost blew up
in our face. That is, the shutting down of the paper is the
thing that sent Al Sadr and his militia into actual
armed rebellion. I think we are very fortunate indeed that
we were able to back him down. (The thing we are trying to
prevent is a three-way civil war between Sunni, Shia, and
Kurd over who is going to rule, and this in not the kind
of thing that can be achieved resorting to all of the
blunt instruments of war. We are being judged by the examples
we set, as well.)
I said:
But, more to the point, it is *also* likely
to lose us that war (in the same way that the
Abu Ghraib abuses tend in that direction), since our
stated *goal* in the war is not to kill Iraqis,
but *liberate* them.
As I think I said, if one's enemy is using these
commiunications media as instruments of war, sure,
it's an acceptable part of war to knock them out.
On the other hand, it may not be the brightest
move for a military commander to make. I.e., it's
a win-the-battle, lose-the-war kind of move.
Kanga:
In war time, aren't those legitimate targets?
I said:
Certainly they are legitimate. On the other hand,
I do not believe that it is so smart to attack all
legitimate targets in military strategy.
Kanga:
Agree- but, again, this is one newspaper, over a
hundred are still operating without interference.
And I keep thinking of what everybody we have ever known who had
anything to do with the no-fly zone and/or other military dealings
with the Middle East has said- all attempts to be 'nice' are
misunderstood by terrorists as weakness. So I'm not sure I
agree that it a politically dumb move either.
But, "being nice" is certainly not the point here. With
Al Sadr we had this huge political faction about ready
to go postal. That's not terrorism, but failure in our
war aim. And, as I understand the time sequence, the shutting
down of that paper precisely precipitated the open
rebellion by the Al Sadr militia. I.e. it was just
inflammatory anti-American words before that point, and
it became a military problem after that point.
Also, I think it *isn't just one newspaper*. I think
you shut down one newspaper for saying what it shouldn't say,
and every other newspaper now quite possibly limits what it
says to perhaps much less than it would like to say.
Kanga:
I hope to continue this discussion tomorrow, but
we'll see... Without our third car I'm back to doing
*lots* of transporting. Funny, that,
because for the vast majority of our 22 years of marriage we've been a
single vehicle family. Now two is just not enough. And I feel
strangely spoiled saying that.
I know what you mean. Zan is starting driving school
this Monday evening (he goes every weeknight for three
weeks). We have three cars at our disposal, and three adult
drivers at the moment (myself, Martha, and Martha's mother,
Isabelle). But everyone is being driven everywhere at
the moment, and we drivers look forward to the time
when the kids can drive themselves (while at the same
time we parents shudder to imagine the learning curves
our children are going to have to go through with
automobiles).
Kanga:
P.S. Tigger got a new horse today- friends gave
him to us. He's an 18 month old Tennessee Walker
named Sky.
Congratulations to her. It's amazing to me that, once one
has the facilities to care for horses, there seems to be
this flux of free ones. Helen's first eventing horse,
Lil, was a pony free from a neighbor who felt Lil
was getting shunned and mistreated by the rest of her horses.
And then Helen's newer eventing horse is a "free lease"
pony (confusingly named Lily) where Helen trains her
and garners show points, and the owner gets the horse trained
and Lily's breeding value goes up. Several of the girls
in Helen's Pony Club are riding and raining horses now that
have come their way for free. Oh yeah, we gave Lil to our
neighbours and equestrian friends, the Stickneys as the next
step up for their 7-year-old daughter, Jenny, to ride. And
they gave us their Shetland Pony, Cocoa, for Galen to begin
riding. We're up to 5 horses/ponies at the moment. I suppose
it's like anything else---a house, a car, whatever---the real
cost isn't in the purchase price, but in the care and
maintenance.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
>
Kanga Mum
> Thursday, the 11th of November, 2004
Kanga:
Oh. Okay. Thanks for explaining. I understand the comparison
better.
In rereading this exchange, it occurs to me that I may have left a
wrong impression. I like Focus on the Family okay, I just don't
listen to it. Mainly because I don't have time and it's not very
convenient for me to remember to go turn on the radio at a specific
time. There's a lot that isn't to my taste on the rest of Christian
radio, so I don't leave my radio on Christian stations. I don't like
much noise, so I don't leave the radio on, period, much.
I did listen to FoF and other Christian radio, as well as other
stations, regularly about 20 years ago. We lived in a furnished
trailer in Chanute, ILL, and had no t.v., no car, no phone, and no
ties in the area. We were supposed to there for 12 weeks while dh was
doing some technical school for the Air Force. We ended up being
there for six months, October thru March. I'd only been able to pack
what we could carry on the plane, and as I recall, I couldn't get a
library card because we weren't permanent party. There was a
serviceman's YMCA, which was kind of cool, and had a free lending
library, but what they had was limited. Our oldest was five months
old when we got there. For soem reason, most of the other young wives
in our trailer park were fearful sorts, plus they were mostly only
there for a few weeks at a time, and they wouldn't come to their doors
to meet me when I tried to get out and get acquainted, except for two
fo them, one of whom was a good friend, and the other a very needy
friend, but that's another story.
So what with one thing and another, I listened to a lot of radio.
Focus on the Family and Elizabeth Eliot's Gateway to Joy were two that
happened to address a lot of issues that were were where I was living
at that time. Focus is also where I first heard of homeschooling, so
even though I don't listen anymore, I do have a soft spot for Focus on
the Family for that reason (and no, it's not my head <g>). And no
matter what one thinks of Focus, it simply can't be said that they
claim to be 'neutral.'
The leftness of NPR bothers me not for being left, but for being
dishonest about being left. It is probably true that compared to the
leftness of KPFK, NPR looks right, but I think that's not the proper
frame of reference. The standard is that mythical neutrality,
nonbiased, nonpartisan position that NPR and the mainstream news media
claim, and do not have.
> I was also thinking that I really find the radio spectrum
> in Indianapolis to be witheringly boring. Music stations are
> either country or various gradations of pop/rock, and there's
> the Rush Limbaugh station, all of these with blaring commercials
> taking up half the time.
There are a couple of Bible stations,
> which, whenever I happen upon them, bore me (the thing I used
> to love was listening to some preacher interpret the Book of
> Revelation in terms of current world politics, but OK....).
> And then there's NPR, which is far and above the best news source
> around, as well as the only place I can hear classical music
> or blues (on Saturdays).
In our neck of the woods, the NPR station out of Chicago occupies
the exact same space on our radio as a Lafayette oldies station that
also gives traffic reports. Living where we do, as we drive along the
two mile stretch of our road, we can be listening to Classical music,
hit a curve and find ourselves listening to Heart or Paul Simon
singing "Me and Julio..." Very frustrating. We do get more
consistant programming with NPR's Lafayette station, but the Chicago
station is the one with better music, we think.
Actually, we have the same problem with all the radio stations. We
appear to live at the outermost edge of the reach of all the radio
stations around us, except for one very boring local stations which
plays only popular music.
Anyway, se do love NPR's music. I don't want them off the air by any
means. I enjoy many of their programs, even ones I think are biased.
I just don't think they are adequate as a main source of political
information because they lean left and don't seem to even know it.
>
> [...]
>
>
> I said:
>
> I think war makes no excuse whatsoever for acting illegally
> and unconstitutionally.
> Kanga:
> But I think there are some acts the government does in a war that
> would not be acceptable or legal outside of war. Collateral damage is
> a dreadful thing, but it's a grimly accepted reality of war- in
> peacetime, the equivilant of collateral damage is viewed far
> differently, and treated differently under the law.
> Killing of enemy terrorists is acceptable in war, unconstitutional
> outside the battlefield, more or less.
>
>
> Right, but *there are* some huge legal issues here, given that
> this is an undeclared war, the President declared major operations
> over, and the transition to the caretaker Iraqi government took
> place ostensibly this last summer. So, we are technically no longer
> even an occupying force, but are in the country at the invitation
> of that Iraqi government. I believe the President has made it clear
> we would *have to leave* if asked, for instance.
Don't you think he made that "clear" as a political move towards
calming Iraqi fears of a permanent occupation, and only because he
knew that Allawi wasn't going to ask?
I think after Iraqi elections things will be different, and then we
really may be asked to leave (and I would welcome that, I think).
The legal questions are huge, and complicated- but I think we are, for
all practical purposes, at war because people are shooting at our
military and our military is shooting back, and I'm kind of simple
minded that way, and I don't see how the military can fight
effectively if they are hampered by a need to protect freedom of
speech for people like al-sadr.
[ ]> Nevertheless, *I still think* free speech is simply a good
As I understand it, Al Sadr had been asked to comply with certain
requests and had refused. He would agree to dialogue, and then break
it off, or he would violate an agreement he'd previously made.
He was already wanted for murder of an opposing cleric, there had
already been a riot, he was not doing what he was being asked to do,
and he wasn't doing things he'd agreed to do- and _not_ cracking down
in some way, under those circumstances, is as good as sending a little
note saying "We are weak and ineffectual and we don't mean what we
say, please abuse us some more."
So we said enough is enough, and his newspaper got shut down for two
months.
[ ]
All that said, I guess I agree that in retrospect, politically it was
a hamfisted move.
Kanga
Kanga Mum
> Wednesday, the 10th of November, 2004
>
>
> I said:
>
> I do not agree with you about either NPR's coverage of
> the Dan Rather forged documents thing *or* the Swift-Boat
> Ads. I think NPR did a great job on the Swift-Boat Ads,
> and both made clear what was wrong about them, *and* what
> was right about them.
>
>
> It occurred to me I could probably illustrate this with what
> I think regarding the Swift-Boat Ads, since pretty much everything
> I think about them has been based off of NPR-derived information.
If everything you think about them is based off of NPR derived
information, and NPR didn't report some significant facts (and it
didn't), then I don't think you know whether or not NPR did a great
job on the Swift-Boat vets.
You don't mention Christmas in Cambodia, for instance, and I think
that was an important point in the Swift Boat Vet's claims. In fact,
I believe it was their first charge, and it was proven absolutely
true- Kerry had to back down from it and withdraw the claims from his
website.
Here's one article about it, not, IMO, the best, but I was in a hurry.
One of the funniest things to me about Kerrys' false claims is not
included- that's that he said he was in Cambodia at the direction of
his government and was devastated when he heard President Nixon claim
there were no soldiers in Cambodia, and yet there he was, and that
moment is seared in his memory. Except Nixon wasn't President at the
time. Among other discrepancies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27211-2004Aug23.html
Neither do you mention his reprehensible secret meetings with North
Vietnamese communists while in Paris, and while still in the Reserves.
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2582
The Swift Boat Vets also are an important gauge of the maisntream
media, including NPR, because they made important allegations,
allegations far more serious and with more substantiation behind them,
against Kerry's service than anything that was said about Bush- and
the Mainstream Media attempted to ignore them, and later lie about
them, and never fully investigated the claims. Left to their own
devices, the MSM never gave them half the attention that Bush's
service got, and, as you point out, Kerry, unlike Bush, actually made
his service a major part of his campaign.
>
> What I think is that Kerry got a Bronze Star, a Silver Star,
> and some number of purple hearts for four months of active
> service in Vietnam. What I think (and some allowance must
> be given me for transience of memory at this point) is that
> he got the Bronze Star for turning his boat around and picking
> up a guy from the water,the Silver Star for he and another
> captain deliberately beaching their boats and
> chasing a guy down who had shot at them from the riverbank,
> and purple heart or hearts for not being wounded very much,
> if at all.
>
> What I think is that his medals are disproportionate to
> his actions, and that he, therefore, chased those medals
> more than other guys did. In particular, I think it was
> one of the purple hearts that he got by pushing for it
> himself without his commander's recommendation. I know
> one Vietnam-Viet Marine who got his purple heart for,
> I think it is, "the third time I was blown up", so
> he's not very impressed with Kerry's purple hearts. Anyway,
> I doubt the Bronze Star incident was actually under
> fire, and the Silver Star incident probably was running
> after and blowing away a single scared sniper.
>
> My sense is that, nevertheless, John Kerry's Vietnam-era
> service was more honourable than George W. Bush's. Kerry
> *did* go into combat and Bush did not. Moreover, *I* think
> Kerry's turning against the Vietnam War as an activist
> *also* redounds to his honour. Had it been left at that,
> I would have awarded Kerry one or two more brownie points
> towards the historical character merit badge than I would
> have awarded Bush.
When John Kerry signed up for the Swift Boats, they were actually not
in combat, and weren't expected to be. He didn't sign up to go to
Viet Nam. He signed up, by his own admission, to avoid Viet Nam (just
like Bush). So as I see it, it was neither more nor less honorable in
his signing up for Swift Boat Service than Bush signing up to fly
fighter jets- except flying fighter jets in training is far more
dangerous than the Swift Boat service that Kerry was expecting, and
Bush logged in hundreds more hours than he needed.
So since it's just an accident that Kerry's swift boat got sent to
Viet Nam, I don't see how he gets more brownie points.
He enlisted in the Naval Reserves only *after* his request for a
deferment was refused (he wanted to study in Paris). His Reserve Unit
was called up. Here's what he had to say about it: "When I signed up
for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They
were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was
going to be doing." He requested an early discharge from his Admiral
on the grounds of "conscientious objection" to the ongoing conflict.
According to a a very pro-Kerry article in the Boston Globe, " He
enlisted as a Navy officer candidate despite his criticisms as Yale's
class orator of America's intervention in Southeast Asia." So he
didn't only become an activist against the war *after* his service.
When he joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War he was _still_ in
the Naval Reserves. He was still in the Reserves when he secretly met
twice with the Viet Cong in Paris.
While still in the reserves, he solicited testimony at the VVAW's
Winter Soldier Investigation, which he later used in his testimony
before the Senate. Many of the "witnesses" he quoted had never
actually been in Vietnam or in combat.
Here's what he said to Meet the Press in April 1971, ""There are all
kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I
committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers
have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I
conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine
guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only
weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in
the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of
warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions…"
In July, on another television program, he said, "I personally didn't
see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or
something like that. However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I
did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in
search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were
burned to the ground…And all of these acts… are contrary to the Hague
and Geneva conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense,
anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the application of
the Nuremberg Principles, is in fact guilty."
Kerry has consistently refused to sign his form 180 to release his
Military Records from 1/3/70 – 7/1/72. The Navy confirms that they
are still holding over 100 pages of his records because of this.
The "Honorable Discharge from the Reserves" on Kerry's website is
strangely dated six years after the expiration of his original
enlistment contract. This discharge depended on the review of "a board
of officers," citing "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163,"
which refers to the grounds for involuntary separation from the
service. Honorable discharges do not require a review by a board of
officers, and certainly not by "direction of the President" as Kerry's
did (the President at that time was Jimmy Carter). This is not
standard procedure for honorable discharges.
He was still a reserve officer while meeting with the North
Vietnamese in Paris. Under oath Kerry's Senate testimony in that time
frame includes this claim: "I have been to Paris. I have talked to …
the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary
Government [both Communist Regimes] and… if the United States were to
set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned."
>
> However, it seems to me that Kerry draped himself in
> the "I served in Vietnam and you didn't" thing (again,
> because he is a man without a there there, and said at any
> given time the thing he was advised to say, and his advisors thought
> playing up the Vietnam Service thing was going to be a winner). So,
> in my opinion, Kerry opened himself up to *exactly* the sort
> of attacks the Swift-Boat Ads made on him.
[ ]
Ironic, that.
>
> Do I think Kerry lied about his service? No, not particularly.
Christmas in Cambodia was a pretty big lie.
He claimed to have come under enemy fire for his first purple heart.
"The date of the skimmer incident was December 2, 1968. According to
Brinkley, Kerry had written in his private journals that on December
11, 1968, just after he turned twenty-five, his crew had not yet come
under enemy fire, even though the date was nine days after the skimmer
incident, when Kerry had claimed he was wounded by enemy fire."
> I just think he glommed after medals while he was there and
> spun greater stories out of the events than the facts will
> support. I think it's quite clear that the sailors who supported
> Kerry's version of events were much closer witnesses to those events
> than the Swift-Boat Vet critics of Kerry's service record.
Steven Gardner served with him longer than anybody else and has not
supported his version of events, while those who do actually served
with him *less* than anybody else.
Schacte (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20040827.shtml)
The doctor who treated him.
The vast majority of his fellow commanders who served with him:
http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=SwiftPhoto
Every single officer in his chain of command:
http://swift1.he.net/~swiftvet/index.php?topic=FAQ
I
> think it's also quite clear that a lot of those critics are motivated
> less by disagreement over the events themselves and more by
> some sort of (I think) stupid reaction to Kerry's having
> criticized the war and what American soldiers did in the war
> *after his service*.
It wasn't a reaction to Kerry having criticized the war. It was a
reaction to having been lied about and slandered by Kerry, as well as
objecting to his meeting with the enemy *before* his discharge, and
apparently taking on their talking points at home and admitting to
things that other vets were *tortured* in an attempt to gain similar
false confessions.
He testified before Congress that he and other vets participated in
the vilest of war crimes on a daily basis. This was a lie. He now
admits that his testimony was 'a little over the top...' and not as
'artful' as it shoudl have been.
He met with the Viet Cong, an enemy, during wartime, while he was
still in the Reserves, secretly. He was willing to end the war and
bring all military home *before* the POWs were released. I don't know
any POWs who believe they would have made it home alive under those
circumstances. IT's not his anti war stance they detest. It is
willingness at the time to abandon them in POW camps and leave them
there forever.
[ ]
>
> Anyway, I guess in the end I think the Swift-Boat Ads raised
> a valid point---if not exactly the point they thought they were
> making---but, by calling into question Kerry's service record
> precisely *because* of the context that Kerry himself had
> made such a big hairy deal of it.
That is key- but I still don't think NPR accurately reported some
significant points of the Swift Boat Vets claims.
Sigh, no time to clean up this mess- Miss Jemima insists that she
needs to write a paper for school.
We need four cars, three computers, and more than one bathroom around
here. Need, I say, Need.
Spoiled Brat
Kanga Mum
> Wednesday, the 10th of November, 2004
> by historian Garry Wills:
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/opinion/04wills.html>
> I offered this one by Kathleen Parker as "getting it"
> much better than Wills does:
> <http://www.jewishworldreview.com/kathleen/parker110504.asp>
> I've also been defending anti-abortionism as perfectly consistent
> with the Enlightenment.
I just had time to go over and look at the discussion, and indeed you
have been defending what you call anti-abortionism (<g>) as consistent
with the Englightenment and defending it well. You should be knighted
for your able defense, good sir.
I am more astonished than I ought to be at the venom, ignorance, and
bigotry of those with whom you argue. I had thought the argument that
those who are pro-life are so because we hate women had been debunked
over twenty years ago...
Kanga
L.S. King
address book among other things in a hard drive failure some time back.
Abbreviated version of private email: thanks for considering the Pern series
SF not fantasy. :-)
~Lee
In news:2tpsu9F...@uni-berlin.de,
Ray Drouillard <cosmi...@comcast.net> typed:
> "Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote in message
> news:4177B232...@netdirect.net...
>>
>> Thursday, the 21st of October, 2004
>>
>> Pam:
>>
>> Also, this incident remids me of the time
>>
>> I had read Kafka's _Metamorphosis_, and
>>
>> wanted to talk to someone about what it meant, so
>>
>> I asked my English prof. He hadn't read it.
>> Ray:
>> Is that the nasty little SF short story where
>>
>> the protagonist gets turned into a big bug?
>>
>>
>> Yep. Although I confess I've never heard it called SF
>> before.
>
> What else could you call it? Horror, I guess, though it isn't quite
> the same as the usual fare that I have seen. The concept of
> metamorphasizing into something else is definitely in the 'speculative
> fiction' (science fiction/fantasy) realm. Shape-shifting is old fare
> for fantasy. Whether you want to call the story science fiction or
> fantasy depends on whether you consider the metamorphasis to have
> occured because of some unknown scientific reason, or due to magic.
> Since the cause of the metamorphasis is not mentioned in the story,
> the reader is free to choose.
>
> As an aside, I accidentally stumbled upon a long-running argument
> about whether Anne McCaffrey's _Dragonriders of Pern_ series of
> stories is science fiction or fantasy. I consider it to be science
> fiction because there is no magic involved. Also, the backstory
> (Colonists landed on the planed Pern; deadly silver threads ejected
> from the Red Planet wreak havoc; colonists genetically modify local
> wildlife to deal with problem) is solidly in the science fiction
> arena. The characteristics that get it billed as fantasy are the
> dragons themselves (large flying warm-blooded reptilians), their
> inate ability to teleport, and the telepathic communication between
> the dragons and their riders.
>
>
>>
>>
>> That thing is enough to give someone nightmares!
>>
>>
>> It's supposed to.
>
> Ick!
>
> Well, I guess there's no accounting for taste. H. P. Livecraft, Edger
> Allen Poe, and a number of others are famous for their horror tales.
>
> Actually, I like some of Poe's poetry. His short stories are just
> demented, though. I guess they're artfully demented or beautifully
> demented, but they are demented none the less.
>
>
>>
>>
>> I love SF, but that one is just depressing.
>>
>>
>> All of Kafka is like that. _The Trial_, a novel and
>> his masterpiece, begins with "Someone must have been
>> telling lies about Joseph K, for without having
>> done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning."
>> It then proceeds over several hundred pages to put
>> K through a trial for some crime about which we never
>> learn. I got Zan, Martha, and Isabelle all to read
>> Kafka's longish short story "In the Penal Colony" immediately
>> after they had read the last Harry Potter book. I forget
>> her name at the moment, but there is a "teacher from
>> hell" in _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_
>> who is a pomo parody and who punishes Harry and
>> other students in detention by assigning multiple repititions
>> of a sentence that have to be written with a special
>> magic pen. The words written with the pen cut themselves
>> at first imperceptibly into the back of hand writing them,
>> leaving it quite bloody by the end of Harry's
>> detention. In the Kafka story, there is a machine with a
>> razor-sharp needle or somesuch that writes a prisoner's
>> guilt ever so slowly into his back, and it's designed so that
>> the perception of guilt by the prisoner---because the prisoner's
>> mind is focused on where the "pen" is going next on his
>> back---coincides with death. The overseer of the machine
>> is enamoured of it and ultimately puts himself into it.
>> The last Harry Potter was very dark, I think.
>
> OK, so I guess there is another author that I can avoid. Having been
> forced to read one of his short stories, I can claim that I know as
> much as necessary about his works ;-)
>
>
> Ray Drouillard
Ray Drouillard
Or, you can use the more private one that consists of my first name at
my last name dot com.
Ray Drouillard
"L.S. King" <SJK...@mapson.comcast.net> wrote in message
news:xsudnXZxj6c...@comcast.com...