New Lesbian Sci-Fi Novel!
Joan Arndt
A novel that I toiled over for 12 years has just come out in e-book
and print-on-demand formats by Artemis Press, a publisher of
"high-quality, thought-provoking feminist and lesbian fiction and
nonfiction of interest to the worldwide womyn's community." The title
is Zoo Gang Girls, and it can best be described as an outrageous
Lesbian science fiction adventure/ social satire. I have set up a
promotional web page for it that describes it in more detail. It can
be reached by clicking here:
http://www.geocities.com/joanarndt
If you like what you see, links are there to Artemis Press's site,
where you can read excerpts and perhaps buy a copy :)
Artemis Press is a legit, non-subsidy publisher that charges the
author nothing and pays her 35% royalty on every book sold.
url: http://www.artemispress.com
I do hope you will check out my book!
sincerely,
Joan Arndt
Mr. Meval
On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 20:18:33 -0800, Joan Arndt wrote:
> Hello,
> A novel that I toiled over for 12 years has just come out in e-book and
> http://www.geocities.com/joanarndt
SilverFox
news:3b3cc38e.04012...@posting.google.com...
> Hello,
> A novel that I toiled over for 12 years has just come out in e-book
> and print-on-demand formats by Artemis Press, a publisher of
> "high-quality, thought-provoking feminist and lesbian fiction and
<snip>
I'm still waiting for the same people who ripped Bruce Holland Rogers a new
one to jump on Joan...... or is it because she's female, hmmm, guys?
SilverFox ^..^
hielan' laddie
(in message <KPadnV5ls7o...@io.com>):
I'm waiting for those who have so much to say about lesbian/bi xtrs done by
other writers (<cough> Stirling, Heinlein </cough>) to come and start
chewing.
Or is it 'cause she's not only female, but of the right political persuasion,
hmmm, guys?
Rich Clark
"SilverFox" <bsc...@io.com> wrote in message
news:KPadnV5ls7o...@io.com...
No, I'm still trying to learn how to tell what gender a book is, so that I
can get my head around the idea of a female book that's attracted only to
other female books.
Something to do with the weave of the paper, I think.
RichC
Michael Grosberg
I'm still waiting for someone to write a story about how men become
extinct, and humankind, even when only women are left, is still
agressive, wars are still being fought, and pollution continues.
Dan Goodman
> joan...@yahoo.com (Joan Arndt) wrote in message
Poul Anderson's _Virgin Planet_ still has wars and aggression, I believe.
--
Dan Goodman
Journal http://dsgood.blogspot.com or
http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Mark Atwood
>
> I'm still waiting for someone to write a story about how men become
> extinct, and humankind, even when only women are left, is still
> agressive, wars are still being fought, and pollution continues.
There is a comic book series from Vertigo (The Last Man, IIRC), where
a disease kills all the men, except for one, who is just an average
shmoe.
Lots of doctrinare separation feminists are then upset to discover
that the result is not a political and social paradise...
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
m...@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Gareth Wilson
> There is a comic book series from Vertigo (The Last Man, IIRC), where
> a disease kills all the men, except for one, who is just an average
> shmoe.
>
> Lots of doctrinare separation feminists are then upset to discover
> that the result is not a political and social paradise...
It's a great series. I wonder how it would be received as a SF novel
rather than a comic book. Everything in the world with a Y chromosome
dying simultaneously, including frozen sperm in locked freezers, might
raise a few eyebrows if it was a book. Although there have certainly
been weirder premises.
Gareth Wilson
Michael Grosberg
This is a comppletely valid SFnal premise, once you posit the
existance of alien space bats.
Andrea Leistra
Michael Grosberg <preac...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I'm still waiting for someone to write a story about how men become
>extinct, and humankind, even when only women are left, is still
>agressive, wars are still being fought, and pollution continues.
See _Ammonite_ by Nicola Griffith. Men aren't extinct, they just can't
live on the particular planet on which the novel is set (some sort of
virus), but the planet is neither a utopia nor filled with desparate women
pining for Men, it's just a place. With people. It was, AIUI, written
largely as a response to both the separatist utopias and the male-fantasy
female only worlds.
--
Andrea Leistra
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
Wasn't that the point of Russ' "When it changed" in
"Again, Dangerous Visions"?
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
entropy123
:) I liked the cover! If I get the print version will it come also?
ent
lewy
Congratulations on your new book, and can I watch?
Matt Austern
More or less ditto for Suzy Charnas's _Motherlines_. Again, men
aren't extinct, they're just somewhere else. Most of the book is set
in an all-female society. And, again, it's neither utopia nor hell,
and the people in that society are just people.
On the other hand, neither _Ammonite_ nor _Motherlines_ nor "When it
Changed"/_The Female Man_ is set in an urban industrial society like
ours. I can't think offhand of an all-female society set in such a
world.
Steve Coltrin
> On the other hand, neither _Ammonite_ nor _Motherlines_ nor "When it
> Changed"/_The Female Man_ is set in an urban industrial society like
> ours. I can't think offhand of an all-female society set in such a
> world.
Brin's Stratos isn't heavily urban or industrial, but they're _still_
Destroying! The! Environment!.
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org WWVBF?
"God forbid that a child know what a member of the opposite sex looks
like naked before they're 13 and gangbanging each other in a back alley
after huffing paint." - drdoody
Joan Arndt
Eric F
Grosberg) wrote:
>I'm still waiting for someone to write a story about how men become
>extinct, and humankind, even when only women are left, is still
>agressive, wars are still being fought, and pollution continues.
Not exactly the same, but I'm surprised nobody's mentioned The
Left Hand of Darkness.
Dan Goodman
news:oitd20pj731bq9mau...@4ax.com:
And I'm surprised that you're surprised. The discussion is on stories in
which there's only one sex and it's female. There's nothing like that in
_The Left Hand of Darkness_.
Eric F
>And I'm surprised that you're surprised. The discussion is on stories in
>which there's only one sex and it's female. There's nothing like that in
>_The Left Hand of Darkness_.
I said it wasn't exactly the same, and The Left Hand of Darkness is
all about duality. It's very much "like that".
Martin
"Eric F" <eri...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:d30e20lif5ajvgtet...@4ax.com...
Its very interesting in these only female or memale dominated society how
they appear to treat the few men that are left to exist. I find it quite
interesting that they always depict the women being extremely cruel and
treating men as sub human. Something that the (generally Lesbian writers)
seem to almost applaud. If it shows one thing, its that given half a chance
women can be as cruel (if not more) than any man. Perhaps there's a warning
there for us?
Martin
Dreamer
"Omixochitl" <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Martin" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:c08guq$3np$1...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk:
>
>> Its very interesting in these only female or memale dominated society
>> how they appear to treat the few men that are left to exist. I find it
>> quite interesting that they always depict the women being extremely
>> cruel and treating men as sub human. Something that the (generally
>> Lesbian writers) seem to almost applaud. If it shows one thing, its
>> that given half a chance women can be as cruel (if not more) than any
>> man. Perhaps there's a warning there for us?
>
> The impression I got from Nicola Griffith's _Ammonite_, Dara Joy's _Rital
> of Proof_, Elisabeth Vonarburg's _Chroniques du pays des mères_ (_The
> Maerlande Chronicles_ a.k.a. _In the Mother's Land_), Joanna Russ's _The
> Female Man_, what I've read so far of David Brin's _Glory Season_, etc...
>
> ...is that there's a history of the majority treating the minority badly
> and the minority still hasn't achieved 100% equality and meanwhile some
> peeps in the majority are pissed off at some *other* peeps in the majority
> (for various reasons) while they're at it and the society ends up being no
> utopia and so on.
>
> Sound familiar?
No.
Women are not a minority.
Anyway, *my* theory is that while it's *harder* to turn a woman into the
sort of other-gender-hating psychotic that such books discuss, when you
succeed you get a much more vicious animal than when you do it to a man.
My wife had a roommate in college who had some sort of hormone problem and
to whom, in fairness to her, neither nature nor nurture had been
particularly kind. She responded by becoming a really *vicious* sadist and a
professional authoress of books about civilizations where women ran things
and men were cringing slaves if they were lucky and perpetual pain-tolerance
experiments if they weren't. (She's also - and I know this will shock you -
a professor of women's studies at a university.)
So far as I know she strives to create her own little version of such
societies in her private life. That's fine with me, so long as the
recipients of such treatment agree to it, but the thing is, I honestly
believe if she had the power she *would* create such a society, which is
something you don't often see even among fairly hardcore dominant types.
D
Chuck Bridgeland
> Its very interesting in these only female or memale dominated society how
> they appear to treat the few men that are left to exist. I find it quite
> interesting that they always depict the women being extremely cruel and
> treating men as sub human. Something that the (generally Lesbian writers)
> seem to almost applaud. If it shows one thing, its that given half a chance
> women can be as cruel (if not more) than any man.
True "by inspection".
--
"Changes have been made to critical system components. You must die
and be reborn for changes to take effect."
Chuck Bridgeland, chuckbri at computerdyn dot com
http://www.essex1.com/people/chuckbri
Martin
"Dreamer" <dre...@dreamstrike.com> wrote in message
news:BC4D95E7.2BCEF%dre...@dreamstrike.com...
> On 2/9/04 6:35 PM, in article Xns948AC750...@130.133.1.17,
> "Omixochitl" <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > "Martin" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in
> > news:c08guq$3np$1...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk:
> >
> >> Its very interesting in these only female or memale dominated society
> >> how they appear to treat the few men that are left to exist. I find it
> >> quite interesting that they always depict the women being extremely
> >> cruel and treating men as sub human. Something that the (generally
> >> Lesbian writers) seem to almost applaud. If it shows one thing, its
> >> that given half a chance women can be as cruel (if not more) than any
> >> man. Perhaps there's a warning there for us?
> >
> > The impression I got from Nicola Griffith's _Ammonite_, Dara Joy's
_Rital
> > of Proof_, Elisabeth Vonarburg's _Chroniques du pays des mères_ (_The
> > Maerlande Chronicles_ a.k.a. _In the Mother's Land_), Joanna Russ's _The
> > Female Man_, what I've read so far of David Brin's _Glory Season_,
etc...
> >
> > ...is that there's a history of the majority treating the minority badly
> > and the minority still hasn't achieved 100% equality and meanwhile some
> > peeps in the majority are pissed off at some *other* peeps in the
majority
> > (for various reasons) while they're at it and the society ends up being
no
> > utopia and so on.
> >
>
> No.
>
> Women are not a minority.
>
> Anyway, *my* theory is that while it's *harder* to turn a woman into the
> sort of other-gender-hating psychotic that such books discuss, when you
> succeed you get a much more vicious animal than when you do it to a man.
>
> My wife had a roommate in college who had some sort of hormone problem and
> to whom, in fairness to her, neither nature nor nurture had been
> particularly kind. She responded by becoming a really *vicious* sadist and
a
> professional authoress of books about civilizations where women ran things
> and men were cringing slaves if they were lucky and perpetual
pain-tolerance
> experiments if they weren't. (She's also - and I know this will shock
you -
> a professor of women's studies at a university.)
>
> So far as I know she strives to create her own little version of such
> societies in her private life. That's fine with me, so long as the
> recipients of such treatment agree to it, but the thing is, I honestly
> believe if she had the power she *would* create such a society, which is
> something you don't often see even among fairly hardcore dominant types.
>
> D
Its a good point. Given half the chance many of the feminist left who
prattle on about equality and peace would quite happily create a society
based on cruelty & punishment if given half a chance. They often talk
(Germaine Greer for example in a recent newspaper article) about eliminating
most men, as we are "unnecessary" What right do they have to decide who
lives and who dies?
A very dangerous bunch, who get a disproportionate amount of media time.
That dyke that tried to bump off Andy Warhol years ago was another example
of the type of person you described. She had this society called SCUM
(Society for Cutting Up Men). You try and start a society for cutting up
women and see how long you last before you are dragged up in some court by
those rather dodgy short haired wimmin that run the law agencies these days.
And its also interesting how the same feminists (who usually hate male
writing) quite happily hold up the ideal of the Amazon myth as something to
be proud of. Ignoring that the Amazon myth was based on the usual male
fantasy (and as far as I'm aware all male writing) of dominant women and
that the Amazon society was very violent and barbaric, ranging from the
murder of baby boys en mass, the castration & crippling of male slaves etc.
But that's OK cos they were wimmin.
There have been several movies very similar to the story being told by the
author of this book The most recent movie was called Last Man on Planet
Earth. In which women develop a virus that kills only men. They take control
of the world, lesbianism becomes the norm blah blah blah. Some men survived
and are kept in a sort of brothel to pleasure women who for some perverted
reason want sex (or even to be dominated by a man) with a man.
Our wonderful heroine decides that men were not all bad (how nice of her)
and that with a few genetic modifications (like removing the violence gene -
whatever that is) we could make a bit of a come back. So Adam is born (he's
a bit of a wimp and women all want to know if he has a big dick etc.) and he
dies saving our heroine, who of course was going to be killed by all those
bad men.
The women have such a wonderful society, but why did they still need guns
and helicopter gunships?
Another TV show (from the Twilight Zone I think) had another female society
where men had been killed off in a war and for some reason only baby girls
born survived. They appeared to have had a stock of sperm (of course) and
some men frozen as a bit of a keepsake. They thaw a few out (soldiers) and
try to re-introduce them to society, only to find that funnily enough
soldiers still behave like soldiers. So the women give up and re-freeze
them. Wonderful. The soldiers couldn't understand why the women were living
in what was basically a shithole and were shafting each other (over food
supplies etc.)
The real danger is that some bezerk feminazi will actually try something
like this one day. A bad case of PMS (or PMT in the UK) and hey we could all
be pushing up the daisies!! and that if books like this were written and
talked of eliminating black people or Asians, they'd be up in front of a
judge quicker that you can say the phrase dodgy dyke.
Martin
Dreamer
"Omixochitl" <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Anyway, *my* theory is that while it's *harder* to turn a woman into
>> the sort of other-gender-hating psychotic that such books discuss,
>> when you succeed you get a much more vicious animal than when you do
>> it to a man.
>>
>> My wife had a roommate in college who had some sort of hormone problem
>> and to whom, in fairness to her, neither nature nor nurture had been
>> particularly kind. She responded by becoming a really *vicious* sadist
>> and a professional authoress of books about civilizations where women
>> ran things and men were cringing slaves if they were lucky and
>
> And she's presenting those settings as utopias? Bleah. >:(
I don't know that she presents them as utopias, but she certainly seems to
think that such societies would be way better than what we've got now.
>
>> perpetual pain-tolerance experiments if they weren't. (She's also -
>> and I know this will shock you - a professor of women's studies at a
>> university.)
>
> Lemme guess, women's studies as in hermetically sealed from other
> departments ("the rest of the faculty reject women's ways of knowing!!!")
> and not women's studies as in least expensive major to offer in the
> university ("let's relabel ENG 237 as ENG/WOM 237 and relabel HST 168 as
> HST/WOM 168 and so on to lengthen the list of majors that the high school
> kids read on our website without hiring any new professors!!!")?
Could be a either or both. I don't know much about her university.
>> So far as I know she strives to create her own little version of such
>> societies in her private life. That's fine with me, so long as the
>
> Egads. :( My sympathies to your wife for having had to live with that
> jerk.
They got along fine. My wife doesn't think much of most men either, for
entirely different reasons, and while she (the roommate) is a fanatic, she's
not an evangelist.
D
Martin
Would your wife say publicly that she doesn't think much of black men? Or
much of Muslim men? To say such things openly today, especially say at a
University Capmus would probably result in you being thrown out. Yet if
Women say it about ALL men it appears to be tolerated. But I bet if a guy
said the same thing about ALL women, he would so have the cropped hair,
Billie Jean King types on his back.
What conerns me is that we already have a society where laws are now being
written that favour one Gender over another. It's only a short step away
from removing one Genders rights completely. Take rape trial, where men now
have to prove the woman consented to sex. Like what, get a written
agreement? If you can't prove she concented you are in the crap. Most
feminists I've heard on the Radio/TV always assume that any woman who makes
a rape allegation is telling the truth and that if a man is found not
guilty, somehow he got away with it. They assume female = truth, male= lie,
without looking at the individual and the law is starting to support them.
Woman accuses husband of abusing children, man is removed from home without
trial. Woman=truth, man= lie.
I don't ever see it stopping.
Martin
Dreamer
"Martin" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:c0devv$vja$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
> > They got along fine. My wife doesn't think much of most men either, for
> > entirely different reasons, and while she (the roommate) is a fanatic,
> she's
> > not an evangelist.
>
> Would your wife say publicly that she doesn't think much of black men? Or
> much of Muslim men? To say such things openly today, especially say at a
> University Capmus would probably result in you being thrown out. Yet if
> Women say it about ALL men it appears to be tolerated. But I bet if a guy
> said the same thing about ALL women, he would so have the cropped hair,
> Billie Jean King types on his back.
She wouldn't say any of those things, because she doesn't disapprove of
*all* men. Just most of them. In this she was distinct from the roommate,
who, even when men were grovelling at her feet, still didn't approve of
them: she just disapproved of them slightly less.
> What conerns me is that we already have a society where laws are now being
> written that favour one Gender over another. It's only a short step away
> from removing one Genders rights completely.
We have lots of laws that favor one interest group over another. Your
examples are egregious, but not unique. I don't like it either, and I don't
see it ending anytime soon, either.
D
Brandon
Martin wrote:
>
>
> What conerns me is that we already have a society where laws are now being
> written that favour one Gender over another. It's only a short step away
> from removing one Genders rights completely. Take rape trial, where men now
> have to prove the woman consented to sex. Like what, get a written
> agreement? If you can't prove she concented you are in the crap. Most
> feminists I've heard on the Radio/TV always assume that any woman who makes
> a rape allegation is telling the truth and that if a man is found not
> guilty, somehow he got away with it. They assume female = truth, male= lie,
> without looking at the individual and the law is starting to support them.
> Woman accuses husband of abusing children, man is removed from home without
> trial. Woman=truth, man= lie.
>
> I don't ever see it stopping.
It seems to me that you're describing the societal bias
against criminal defendants -- "He must be guilty, or he
wouldn't be on trial." Historically, rape has been an
exception to this rule, it has generally been *very*
difficult to get a conviction, and many people accept the
"nuts and sluts" defense, sometimes before it is even
articulated. If you're observations are correct, rather
than being anecdotal, then it would just reflect rape being
folded into the mix and treated by public opinion like any
other serious felony -- i.e., adopting the kneejerk belief
that the crime really was committed, and that they've
probably got the right guy.
fwiw, I know an attorney who has been in practice for more
than 30 years, both in criminal defense and in a
prosecutor's office (not at the same time, of course). His
opinion, having seen *both* sides of the process, is that
90% or more of the people who stand trial (as opposed to
those who are arrested but never charged) really are guilty
of the crime they are accused of.
--
Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable
from malice. -- seen on Usenet, 10/22/03 (with apologies to
Arthur C. Clarke)
Martin
"Brandon" <jch...@avalon.net> wrote in message
news:402A4DF2...@avalon.net...
Well of course people shouldn't be brought to court unless there is
sufficient evidence to convict. But by the same token, why bother with
courts then? Why not allow the Police to convict based on the simple
principle that if they think they have the evidence then it must be so? The
Police here in the UK have often been found to have lied to fit someone up
and I guess the Police in other Countries are just as bad (although the UK
has the worst Police in the Western World and that is from my own experience
of working with the UK Police)
I strongly object to any law which is written to benefit a particular group.
It a free society the rights of a "citizen" should be recognised, regardless
of gender, race, sexual orientation etc. however, in the UK at least we are
seeing more and more legislation that is specifically written to favour
women in particular. For example, on a recent radio interview the head of
the equal opportunities commission commented on how more men than women were
using the legislation to bring cases of sex discrimination. She clearly
implied that the law had been brought in to apply only to women or at least
be used only by women.
Wimmins groups are also now saying that women should not go to prison in
most cases when they commit a crime as often they have children to care for.
So what? If you commit a serious crime, then you should serve the punishment
that the state can administer, regardless of the fact you own a set of
testicles or breasts. Women should think of their children before they
commit a serious crime. There have been cases of women who have been charged
with a serious offence managing to get themselves pregnant as a way to avoid
prison.
If you take the view that women who steal from shops shouldn't face a prison
sentence, then why is it that the same wimmins groups think it's OK to send
a man to prison for the same offence?
I agree the issue of rape is difficult to prove in some cases. But that is
no excuse to change the law. The state has to prove it's case and it can't
start changing the law just because of a few minority "wimmins groups" many
of whom are lesbian groups who often brainwash young women who have gone
out, got drunk and ended up having sex into thinking they were raped, when
in fact they were plain stupid. The issue is not that sex took place, but of
consent. That comes down to one persons word against another. Hardly
"evidence".
There have been several high profile rape cases in the UK over the last few
years involving male celebrities (hence the publicity) where the woman
remains anonymous, accuses a man of rape, he has his name plastered all over
the papers and then after a few months the Police drop the charges as the
supposed crime took place years ago. No witnesses and no DNA evidence. How
can that be fair? And why do the Police even consider charges? Often the
newspapers trawl for women to come forward, they get paid for some story
about being raped by this "celeb" but of course don't actually complain to
the Police. He gets his named rubbed in the shit and unless they have a
bucket load of money to sue Rupert Murdoch, they stand little chance of
redress. We've had another lot in the UK just this week, where men have been
convicted of child abuse whilst working in care homes, it now turns out that
the Police trawled for witness with the offer of lots of compensation if
they gave evidence. Now hundreds of men have having their cases reviewed.
Many years ago in my local town a man was arrested for "Rape" he spent
several weeks locked up in prison, before the young girl admitted she had
made up the story as she had got home late from being with her boyfriend,
her parents went mental with her. So she made up the rape story to explain
being late. Of course the parents rang the Police and the who thing
snowballed. It turned out the guy she gave the description of to the Police
was just some ordinary guy she'd seen in a pub (she didn't even know him).
The Plods simply arrested him and banged him up. Finally the girl had to
admit she was telling a load of bollocks as it was all going to go to court.
Fortunately, she was charged by the Police for wasting Police time and the
man was released. But just think, that could have been any man, just picked
out at random. And it you can't instantly come up with an alibi, you're
fucked. The Police are so frightened by the feminazi's running these rape
support groups that they have to act regardless of the merits of the
individual case.
We have also recently had men carrying out publicity stunts to point out how
slanted the law is in regards to the rights (or lack of) that men have over
their own children. Married men have almost no rights (and the rights they
have are ignored by the courts) and of course single men that father
children have no rights under law at all. Except of course men are expected
to pay for those children. And of course the feminazi groups simply tell
women having trouble with the father wanting access that they should simply
accuse him of child abuse. Plod steps in removes the man from the house and
hey presto the courts dump all over the man, regardless of the lack of any
evidence.
I won't even bother to start on how the education system has failed boys,
but the National Health Service that is in large part paid for my working
men, yet whilst hundreds of NHS hospitals exist that concentrate on female
health issues, not one NHS hospital exists in the UK that is dedicated to
male health care, despite the fact men die younger and suffer more from all
diseases than women. The fact that women have cancer screening programmes,
yet even though more men get cancer, not a single screening programme
exists, even for Prostate cancer. The NHS says it can't afford it. Well it
manages to afford it for women. And not to mention that on a recent BBC
radio 5 show the boss of UK Cancer research couldn't give a decent answer as
to why only 1%, yes 1% of money spent on cancer research was spent on male
related cancers.
Any man who can't see that society and the law is being turned against them
by the cropped hair deep voiced wimmin who now dominate the media and our
social services needs to wake up FAST. Or in the not to distant future men
will end up as an irrelevancy, needed only for sperm and money.
Have you read about the US soldiers returning from the Gulf, who expecting
to find a nice bundle of saved money have found their wives have blown it
whilst they have been away, or the wives who have had affairs and now want a
divorce, take their children away, but of course still want him to pay and
are entitled to half his service pension? Try reading the book called Black
Knights by Oliver Poole.
And of course the famous lesbian myth is that men cause wars. Well form my
knowledge of WW1 & WW2 neither of these wars could have been fought without
women going into the factories and making the bullets, bombs and poisoned
gas. In WW1 the feminist groups were actively invloved in the white feather
campaign that basically told a man he was a coward if he didn't join up and
go and get slaughtered in the trenches in France. Of course in WW2 men
didn't even get a choice, you were simple conscripted. Of course women were
the big winners out of both world wars, the vote and a more active role in
the workplace. What did the average working class man get? Fuck all, except
shot, crippled or his life expectancy severely reduced. Wonderful.
Martin
Justin Bacon
> I'm still waiting for someone to write a story about how men become
> extinct, and humankind, even when only women are left, is still
> agressive, wars are still being fought, and pollution continues.
Well, Bujold has flipped the tropes in a different direction: In ETHAN
OF ATHOS she has a perfectly pleasant, utopian colony entirely
populated by men.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Martin
"Justin Bacon" <tria...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ead87502.04021...@posting.google.com...
Many thanks for that.
Martin
Mark Atwood
>
> Well, Bujold has flipped the tropes in a different direction: In ETHAN
> OF ATHOS she has a perfectly pleasant, utopian colony entirely
> populated by men.
Well, not wholly utopian. There are bandits and ungoverned men living
in the mountains. But this exists as a safety valve instead of
a threat, because it is physically impossible for the bandits to
outbreed the city dwellers and farmers...
Martin
> tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
> >
> > Well, Bujold has flipped the tropes in a different direction: In ETHAN
> > OF ATHOS she has a perfectly pleasant, utopian colony entirely
> > populated by men.
>
> Well, not wholly utopian. There are bandits and ungoverned men living
> in the mountains. But this exists as a safety valve instead of
> a threat, because it is physically impossible for the bandits to
> outbreed the city dwellers and farmers...
>
> --
> Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
So how do they breed? Are they rebels from wthin the society that refuse to
conform or were they outcasts from the start?
Martin
Tim McDaniel
Martin <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>"Mark Atwood" <m...@pobox.com> wrote in message
>news:m3r7x19...@marka.linux.digeo.com...
>> tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
>> > Well, Bujold has flipped the tropes in a different direction: In
>> > ETHAN OF ATHOS she has a perfectly pleasant, utopian colony
>> > entirely populated by men.
>>
>> Well, not wholly utopian. There are bandits and ungoverned men
>> living in the mountains. But this exists as a safety valve instead
>> of a threat, because it is physically impossible for the bandits to
>> outbreed the city dwellers and farmers...
>
When he wrote "men", he really did mean that they were entirely
unaltered in their reproductive anatomy from our sort of men.
So the answer is a fairly immediate implication of
"entirely populated by men". It is physically implication for the
bandits to outbreed anything.
>Are they rebels from wthin the society that refuse to conform or were
>they outcasts from the start?
He elided over it with "safety valve": they are indeed rebels that
refuse to conform and head for the outback.
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com; tm...@us.ibm.com is my work address
Kerry J. Renaissance-McAdams
wrote:
>
>"Mark Atwood" <m...@pobox.com> wrote in message
>news:m3r7x19...@marka.linux.digeo.com...
>> tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
>> >
>> > Well, Bujold has flipped the tropes in a different direction: In ETHAN
>> > OF ATHOS she has a perfectly pleasant, utopian colony entirely
>> > populated by men.
>>
>> Well, not wholly utopian. There are bandits and ungoverned men living
>> in the mountains. But this exists as a safety valve instead of
>> a threat, because it is physically impossible for the bandits to
>> outbreed the city dwellers and farmers...
>> Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
>
>So how do they breed? Are they rebels from wthin the society that refuse to
>conform or were they outcasts from the start?
I have to presume the outlanders/bandits _don't_ breed; their ranks
may be replenished by new younger disaffected men, but since breeding
on Athos requires meeting certain standards set by authority, earning
the required amount of social duty credits, and probably most
importantly, having access to a reproductive center, the outlanders
probably don't usually have children of their own.
The one example we sort of see is Ethan's brother Janos, who
eventually leaves for the ungoverned life. He could be a young rebel,
though he's hardly aflame for any cause; he's certainly not an
outcast. Mostly he's an irresponsible young man who decides to bail
the constraints and expectations of the society.
----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
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John Schilling
>"Mark Atwood" <m...@pobox.com> wrote in message
>news:m3r7x19...@marka.linux.digeo.com...
>> tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
>> > Well, Bujold has flipped the tropes in a different direction: In ETHAN
>> > OF ATHOS she has a perfectly pleasant, utopian colony entirely
>> > populated by men.
>> Well, not wholly utopian. There are bandits and ungoverned men living
>> in the mountains. But this exists as a safety valve instead of
>> a threat, because it is physically impossible for the bandits to
>> outbreed the city dwellers and farmers...
>So how do they breed? Are they rebels from wthin the society that refuse to
>conform or were they outcasts from the start?
They don't breed at all. They are all men, and not living in the towns
and cities they don't have access to the extremely sophisticated technology
required for two men to make a baby. So the society consists of conformists,
who live in the cities and towns and play by the rules and breed at the
usual rate but in an unusual way, and non-conformists who run off into
the mountains and either A: come to their senses and do the prodigal son
thing later in life or B: die alone and silent.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Tim McDaniel
>> Well, not wholly utopian. There are bandits and ungoverned men living
>> in the mountains. But this exists as a safety valve instead of
>> a threat, because it is physically impossible for the bandits to
>> outbreed the city dwellers and farmers...
>
>
>Why would that stop the bandits from being a threat to the city
>dwellers and farmers? Can nobody on Athos join a gang without having
>a father already in it? I mean, last time I heard anything about the
>Bloods and Crips they managed to be pretty menacing without raising
>each new Blood or Crip from infancy....
Bloods and Crips aren't living out in the mountains without connection
to the money economy. They can make money and buy weapons, for
example.
He wrote "physically impossible for the bandits to outbreed the city
dwellers and farmers" to cover one common long-term failure mode of
settled life and civilizations. Another problem for the wanderers is
that, as best I recall, Athos is being terraformed, so they're going
to be in lousy real estate, so they don't have much surplus to work
with. I suspect from the terraforming and the tenor of the laws shown
that there probably are constraints on weapons and other resources,
making it even harder for the masterless men to get together and
attack civilization in a major way (rather than occasionally stealing
from cornfields or something).
Dreamer
"Omixochitl" <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dreamer <dre...@dreamstrike.com> wrote in
> news:BC4F0314.2BE63%dre...@dreamstrike.com:
>
>> On 2/10/04 5:36 PM, in article Xns948BBD3F...@130.133.1.17,
>> "Omixochitl" <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> Anyway, *my* theory is that while it's *harder* to turn a woman into
>>>> the sort of other-gender-hating psychotic that such books discuss,
>>>> when you succeed you get a much more vicious animal than when you do
>>>> it to a man.
>>>>
>>>> My wife had a roommate in college who had some sort of hormone
>>>> problem and to whom, in fairness to her, neither nature nor nurture
>>>> had been particularly kind. She responded by becoming a really
>>>> *vicious* sadist and a professional authoress of books about
>>>> civilizations where women ran things and men were cringing slaves if
>>>> they were lucky and
>>>
>>> And she's presenting those settings as utopias? Bleah. >:(
>>
>> I don't know that she presents them as utopias, but she certainly
>> seems to think that such societies would be way better than what we've
>> got now.
>
> Ok, smaller bleah then. See, if I wrote a story set like that then I'd
> want the readers to sympathize with the poor guys instead of thinking
> they automatically deserved it. Kinda like how Orwell didn't want the
> readers to sympathize with Big Brother.
Her stories don't so much portray men as unsympathetic as simply start with
the core assumption that men are not fit to *be* anything but cringing
slaves and/or experiments in perpetual pain tolerance. I personally wouldn't
have much sympathy for such men either, but she assumes that all men are
like that. Similarly, her women are not noble philosopher-queens dealing
with the vexatious men, nor are they always (sometimes) *evilly* sadistic,
they're just sadistic toward men because that is the natural order of
things.
>>>> So far as I know she strives to create her own little version of
>>>> such societies in her private life. That's fine with me, so long as
>>>> the
>>>
>>> Egads. :( My sympathies to your wife for having had to live with
>>> that jerk.
>>
>> They got along fine. My wife doesn't think much of most men either,
>
> Is she just sexist, or applying Sturgeon's law to people ("90% of men are
> jerks, 90% of everyone else are jerks too")?
The latter, using her own particular parameters, of course. Her standards
for men in some respects are higher.
D
Captain Button
Dreamer <dre...@dreamstrike.com> wrote:
[ snip ]
>Her stories don't so much portray men as unsympathetic as simply start with
>the core assumption that men are not fit to *be* anything but cringing
>slaves and/or experiments in perpetual pain tolerance. I personally wouldn't
>have much sympathy for such men either, but she assumes that all men are
>like that. Similarly, her women are not noble philosopher-queens dealing
>with the vexatious men, nor are they always (sometimes) *evilly* sadistic,
>they're just sadistic toward men because that is the natural order of
>things.
Sounds like we've found the female counterpart to Dave Sim ....
--
Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Four times is enemy action.
BOMB MARS NOW! [ Captain Button - but...@io.com ]
Martin
"Omixochitl" <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:Xns948CC231...@130.133.1.17...
> "Martin" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:c0devv$vja$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk:
>
> > Would your wife say publicly that she doesn't think much of black men?
> > Or much of Muslim men? To say such things openly today, especially say
> > at a University Capmus would probably result in you being thrown out.
> > Yet if Women say it about ALL men it appears to be tolerated. But I
>
>
> > bet if a guy said the same thing about ALL women, he would so have the
> > cropped hair, Billie Jean King types on his back.
>
> first place.
>
> Seriously, when I was a girl I noticed that while a whole bunch of other
> girls and young women in my area had long hair almost nobody's mom did.
> These days Mom's on my case to cut my hair short (and switch from red to
> beige lipstick, and carry a purse the size of my head, and wear parkas,
and
> so on). And she's a heterosexual housewife instead of a lesbian
separatist
> or a pro tennis player. Hmm.
I was being slightly tongue in cheek over the cropped hair :-)
But women appear to be able to get away by a blanket assault on men in the
media, knowing that no one would stop them or object. Yest if they singled
out a single group of ethnic men (who they obviously include in their
blanket accusations) they would probably be on the end up in court. So
called feminist lesbian writers like Germaine Greer do this constantly and
get away with it.
Martin
Martin
> I'm reminded of the Louise Woodward case. When she plead innocent and
> said 'I did not kill Matthew Eappen,' lots of people were angry with her
> for not adding 'and I'm sorry that I killed him.' And one local
> newspaper columnist was all 'a child died, someone must pay!!!' without
> no indication of whether she thought that someone should be the same
> someone who killed the child.
>
> Then you've got those juries who can't make up their minds about whether
> there's enough evidence to convict so they split the difference and
> convict the defendant of a lesser charge.
She got a lot of positive publicity in the UK, even down to bottles of
Champagne being popped when she was released. Everyone forgetting a young
child had died. Even in the UK media some comments were made that had "she"
been a "he" or "black" public sympathy would not have been anything like it
was.
The media have a habit of painting women (especially if they are white and
attractive) as a victim and the "Wimmins" rights lot jump on the bandwagon
to defend these women, who are often in prison for some quite nasty crimes.
Martin
Christopher Adams
> Dreamer wrote:
>
>> Her stories don't so much portray men as unsympathetic as simply start
>> with the core assumption that men are not fit to *be* anything but
>> cringing slaves and/or experiments in perpetual pain tolerance. I
>> personally wouldn't have much sympathy for such men either, but she
>> assumes that all men are like that. Similarly, her women are not noble
>> philosopher-queens dealing with the vexatious men, nor are they always
>> (sometimes) *evilly* sadistic, they're just sadistic toward men because
>> that is the natural order of things.
>
> Sounds like we've found the female counterpart to Dave Sim ....
John Norman, surely?
--
Christopher Adams - SUTEKH Functions Officer 2004
She's a cock-tease. He's her obsessive stalker. Together . . . they fight crime.
- Sean O'Hara on "Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones"
Pete McCutchen
>Its very interesting in these only female or memale dominated society how
>they appear to treat the few men that are left to exist. I find it quite
>interesting that they always depict the women being extremely cruel and
>treating men as sub human. Something that the (generally Lesbian writers)
>seem to almost applaud.
"Almost"? I remember reading _The Female Man_ and thinking that if I
were a more sensitive sort, I'd have been appalled. One character has
a robotic male meat puppet which services her sexually. Can you
imagine the outrage if a male writer wrote a book where a male
protagonist had the female equivalent and if this were depicted as a
*good* thing? The point of the book seems to be, "men are pigs,
forever and unalterably." So the answer is genocide.
It's really a bit like you might imagine some racist fantasy after the
blacks or Jews are wiped out. Quite amazing that she's still a
respected figure.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
Yes, but they're homosexuals, and therefore Not Like the Rest of Them.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>fwiw, I know an attorney who has been in practice for more
>than 30 years, both in criminal defense and in a
>prosecutor's office (not at the same time, of course). His
>opinion, having seen *both* sides of the process, is that
>90% or more of the people who stand trial (as opposed to
>those who are arrested but never charged) really are guilty
>of the crime they are accused of.
Don't tell Keith Lynch that.
That's probably true, but it's true largely because most defendants
are apprehended quite accidentally -- because they're caught carrying
a TV out of a house, for example, rather than due to any sort of
detective work. I suspect that the error rates are higher for crimes
serious enough to induce the police to engage in detective work which
requires them to ferret out the identify of the culprit.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>>So how do they breed? Are they rebels from wthin the society that refuse to
>>conform or were they outcasts from the start?
>
>
>They don't breed at all. They are all men, and not living in the towns
>and cities they don't have access to the extremely sophisticated technology
>required for two men to make a baby. So the society consists of conformists,
>who live in the cities and towns and play by the rules and breed at the
>usual rate but in an unusual way, and non-conformists who run off into
>the mountains and either A: come to their senses and do the prodigal son
>thing later in life or B: die alone and silent.
OK, it's been forever since I read the book, and I'm probably not
inclined to reread it, as it's definitely not my favorite Bujold.
However, how do they prevent dissatisfied men from emigrating? That
sounds preferable to living in the woods, at least to me.
--
Pete McCutchen
Dreamer
"Christopher Adams" <mhacde...@spammity-spammity-spam.yahoo.com> wrote
in message news:JJJWb.53228$Wa.2...@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Captain Button wrote:
> > Dreamer wrote:
> >
> >> Her stories don't so much portray men as unsympathetic as simply start
> >> with the core assumption that men are not fit to *be* anything but
> >> cringing slaves and/or experiments in perpetual pain tolerance. I
> >> personally wouldn't have much sympathy for such men either, but she
> >> assumes that all men are like that. Similarly, her women are not noble
> >> philosopher-queens dealing with the vexatious men, nor are they always
> >> (sometimes) *evilly* sadistic, they're just sadistic toward men because
> >> that is the natural order of things.
> >
> > Sounds like we've found the female counterpart to Dave Sim ....
>
> John Norman, surely?
No. Norman likes women. (He just likes them naked and in chains.) Sim
actively despises them.
D
Michael S. Schiffer
news:5cdm20t2nn7j10tj1...@4ax.com:
> On 11 Feb 2004 16:39:49 -0800, schi...@spock.usc.edu (John
> Schilling) wrote:
>...
>>They don't breed at all. They are all men, and not living in
>>the towns and cities they don't have access to the extremely
>>sophisticated technology required for two men to make a baby.
>>So the society consists of conformists, who live in the cities
>>and towns and play by the rules and breed at the usual rate but
>>in an unusual way, and non-conformists who run off into the
>>mountains and either A: come to their senses and do the prodigal
>>son thing later in life or B: die alone and silent.
> OK, it's been forever since I read the book, and I'm probably
> not inclined to reread it, as it's definitely not my favorite
> Bujold.
> However, how do they prevent dissatisfied men from emigrating?
> That sounds preferable to living in the woods, at least to me.
I'm pretty sure they don't-- IIRC there was a reference to an
emigrant Athosian coming through Kline Station and encountering
some hostility and general culture shock. But the rebels are still
part of the culture, and mostly have the same ingrained gynophobia
as the mainstream members. Also, space travel is expensive
(particularly for a planet with as little to trade as Athos) and
the ships don't come that often. Given the choice to run off to a
known and comparatively familiar option and scrimping for a ticket
into the land of the bogey(wo)men, I can seem most of them choosing
the former. Maybe not as large a ratio as Bujold suggests (a lot
of things work a little better on Athos than I'd expect them to in
reality) but enough that it's not a huge issue. (Janos, in
particular, isn't able to function in society because he's not good
at planning or responsibility. The idea of him saving up enough
for a ticket off-planet doesn't really go along with that.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Brandon
I don't have any information about that; it's an interesting question.
The statistic I cited, if correct, also suggests that most
prosecutors are ethical, and do not knowing prosecute
innocent people who can be made to look guilty just to pad
their won/loss record.
Michael S. Schiffer
news:402BAD4D...@avalon.net:
>...
> The statistic I cited, if correct, also suggests that most
> prosecutors are ethical, and do not knowing prosecute
> innocent people who can be made to look guilty just to pad
> their won/loss record.
My impression of the cases where DNA or other evidence exonerates
people is that the prosecutors honestly believe that the defendants
are guilty, but that this can in extreme cases run to the extent of
wilfully ignoring exonerating evidence. When they go too far (e.g.,
trying to keep such evidence from being introduced) it's generally
not because they want to keep an innocent person in jail, but that
they've convinced themselves that the person is guilty and the
evidence, if introduced, will mislead the court/parole board/governor
into releasing a guilty person. At some point, this itself becomes
culpable (in our last election, I voted against a gubernatorial
candidate I might otherwise have preferred because as a state's
attorney his office had been implicated in a particularly egregious
instance of this) but it's a different thing from cynically framing
innocents.
Taki Kogoma
allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
The only regular interstellar contact with Athos is an annual census ship
with a passenger capacity of 20 at most; the planet has very little worth
exporting, and the rest of the galaxy tends to think of the Athosians,
when they are thought of at all, as a buncha queer religious loonies.
Naturally, the only spaceport is under the control of the Governing
Council, which also censors information from off-planet. (The upper
levels of the Reproduction Centers only get a partial exemption from
the censorship for Biological Need To Know.)
All information about the galaxy as a whole is filtered through the
Council, which also controls the only means of leaving. The
disaffected can't even think about leaving as an option.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | /"\ ASCII RIBBON
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | \ / CAMPAIGN
quirk @ swcp.com | X AGAINST HTML MAIL
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | / \ AND POSTINGS
Martin
"Michael S. Schiffer" <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote in message
news:Xns948D7273BCCD...@130.133.1.17...
But there are cases where the Police have clearly fitted someone up for a
crime or have tried to get someone to admit to other crimes so simply make
them look more efficient.
TO go back to my main point. In today's UK paper there was an article
stating that men are now losing out in the jobs market, yet when interviewed
the (female) jobs minister only blabbed on how we need more women in top
jobs. Totally missing the point.
The UK Government has wasted millions over the years on trying to get women
into male dominated jobs, yet has never spent a single pound on trying to
get more men into female dominated jobs, especially like infant school
teachers (almost now all female)
Not to mention the highly sexist (Government backed) bring your daughter to
work campaigns, which have been run many times. Parents have even complained
that because they have sons, they can't take part. All part of the
Lesbian/Feminist domination of Town Halls, and Government "Think Tanks
combined with spineless male politicians who are frightened of the harridans
that are creeping into politics.
Martin
John Schilling
Not if you believe that all women are demon sorceresses who rule the
whole of the known universe outside Athos, which even the disaffected
men mostly believe for lack of any counterexamples to the party line.
More than that, though, they keep disaffected men from leaving by
not having any starships, and not offering to export anything that
would encourage outsiders with starships to come visit. Presumably
Athos is by design at a wormhole dead-end like Barrayar as well.
So they get one annual mail/census ship from the Galactic equivalent of
the UN or something, and that's it. It's not commercial, and even if
it were there's almost no hard currency on Athos, so no way to buy
passage.
Possibly some disaffected Athosian with access to an orbital shuttle
could pop up with a load of quaint native artwork and try to barter
for a ticket, but that can't be a major drain on their society nor
an option for most of the disaffected.
J.B. Moreno
> schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling) wrote:
> > "Martin" <nos...@nospam.com> writes:
>
> >>So how do they breed? Are they rebels from wthin the society that refuse
> >>to conform or were they outcasts from the start?
> >
> >They don't breed at all. They are all men, and not living in the towns
> >and cities they don't have access to the extremely sophisticated technology
> >required for two men to make a baby. [...]
>
> OK, it's been forever since I read the book, and I'm probably not
> inclined to reread it, as it's definitely not my favorite Bujold.
>
> However, how do they prevent dissatisfied men from emigrating? That
> sounds preferable to living in the woods, at least to me.
They don't. And they apparently don't have restriction to make it
harder -- but then again they don't need to. They don't have a hard
currency to use to buy an outgoing ticket, they aren't visited by
outsiders that frequently, and while they may be dissatisfied, they
still have their cultural blind spots -- the biggest of which is that
the outside universe is full of bad things, and Athos is the best place
in the universe.
I imagine that most of them agree with this, they just want to be in
charge and or change a a couple of details...
--
JBM
"Everything is futile." -- Marvin of Borg
J.B. Moreno
> On 11 Feb 2004 10:41:09 -0800, tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) wrote:
>
> >preac...@hotmail.com (Michael Grosberg) wrote
> >> I'm still waiting for someone to write a story about how men become
> >> extinct, and humankind, even when only women are left, is still
> >> agressive, wars are still being fought, and pollution continues.
> >
> >Well, Bujold has flipped the tropes in a different direction: In ETHAN
> >OF ATHOS she has a perfectly pleasant, utopian colony entirely
> >populated by men.
>
> Yes, but they're homosexuals, and therefore Not Like the Rest of Them.
A good sized minority are strictly celibrate, maybe /those/ are like the
Rest of Them?
Captain Button
Omixochitl <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote:
[ snip ]
>Oh, OK. I can see the location and lack-of-cash issues stopping the
>bandits from being very threatening.
>
>My question above should have been clearer: I meant specifically "Why
>would being unable to outbreed the city dwellers and farmers stop the
>bandits from being a threat to the city dwellers and farmers?" because
>IRL lots of groups out there (from harmless ones to harmful ones) accept
>converts as well as children.
In theory that could happen, but it is very unlikely, since the mainstream
society has the army and the industry as well as the monopoly on
reproduction.
The last just removes the option of going into the wilderness and returning
300 years later as a barbarian horde, which is possible on planets with
both genders.
Yeah if the government of Athos really screws up big time and manages to
alienate enough of the population that they run off to join the outlaws
such that the outlaws now have a roughly comperable population, they could
get overthrown. But that would take some doing, and would more likely
result in a coup or civil war than an out and back barbarian horde
scenario.
Mark Atwood
> >
> > Yes, but they're homosexuals, and therefore Not Like the Rest of Them.
>
> A good sized minority are strictly celibrate, maybe /those/ are like the
> Rest of Them?
I doubt they are *strictly* celibate. There is always Ms Rosy Palm.
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
Mark Atwood
>
> Oh, OK. I can see the location and lack-of-cash issues stopping the
> bandits from being very threatening.
>
> My question above should have been clearer: I meant specifically "Why
> would being unable to outbreed the city dwellers and farmers stop the
> bandits from being a threat to the city dwellers and farmers?" because
> IRL lots of groups out there (from harmless ones to harmful ones) accept
> converts as well as children.
In this case, the ungoverned men have literally *nothing* to offer
over the city & farm dwellers other than a "no rules" lifestyle.
It would be interesting to see what kind of society evolves. Probably
a bit of "island of lost boys" with an uncomfortably high homocide and
accidental death rate.
But it depends, and it could go many different ways.
Konrad Gaertner
> there's no such thing as raping someone in self-defense.
Not in our world, but I wouldn't be surprised to find an SF story
about that. Of course, there's people who *think* that's what
they're doing, but that's a different issue.
> What I'd like to see is both the right to a public trial and the right
> to a private trial. Let each accused choose which one. Then the
> accused can be just as anonymous as the accuser, and shouldn't have to
> worry about his or her reputation still being smeared after the Not
> Guilty verdict. ;)
Bad idea. What happens if you chose a private trial and then get
falsely convicted?
I'd rather see much more prosecution of perjurists and false
accusers. And give those trials the same media exposure the
celebrity got.
--KG
Mark Atwood
> No, they were in fact raped when in fact they were plain stupid.
> Getting drunk when going out is stupid, and it's not stupid enough to
> give me or you or anyone else the right to have sex with her (or him!)
> against her (or his!) will.
And if they both get drunk, and have sex with each other, why should
her next day regret equal "rape"? Unless you (and the law, the courts,
and society) are just as equally willing to call *his* next day regret
to *also* be "rape", with an equally harrowing trial and prison term
for her.
Who is raping who?
Richard Horton
<msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
>At some point, this itself becomes
>culpable (in our last election, I voted against a gubernatorial
>candidate I might otherwise have preferred because as a state's
>attorney his office had been implicated in a particularly egregious
>instance of this) but it's a different thing from cynically framing
>innocents.
Are you in Massachusetts? (Or Florida -- those being the two states I
can think of where recent gubernatorial candidates were involved in
egregious wrongdoing of that sort -- though in Florida it was a she
and she lost the primary. (And may not have been directly involved in
the prosecution -- at any rate, she certainly lost for other reasons,
i.e. her much higher profile job in between her state's attorney
position and gubernatorial race.))
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
J.B. Moreno
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) writes:
> > >
> > > Yes, but they're homosexuals, and therefore Not Like the Rest of Them.
> >
> > A good sized minority are strictly celibrate, maybe /those/ are like the
> > Rest of Them?
>
> I doubt they are *strictly* celibate. There is always Ms Rosy Palm.
Yeah, but they are religous, so they might not even want to deal with
Ms. Palm.
Joe Bernstein
Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> On 12 Feb 2004 17:15:03 GMT, "Michael S. Schiffer"
> <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
[Prosecutors sticking to their accusations well beyond the point of
reasonable doubt]
> >At some point, this itself becomes
> >culpable (in our last election, I voted against a gubernatorial
> >candidate I might otherwise have preferred because as a state's
> >attorney his office had been implicated in a particularly egregious
> >instance of this) but it's a different thing from cynically framing
> >innocents.
> Are you in Massachusetts? (Or Florida -- those being the two states I
> can think of where recent gubernatorial candidates were involved in
> egregious wrongdoing of that sort
Nope, Illinois. As you note, the Florida candidate was a woman (and
I hadn't heard about whatever you're talking about, in that case, nor
for that matter about anything involving state's attorneys running
for governor in Massachusetts).
I ranted about this briefly last year sometime; if you google for
a post of mine with "Illinois" in it that year, you'll probably find
the one. Basically, a little girl was raped and murdered, and the
cops picked up these loser guys. At least one of them confessed; I
think only one. They were convicted and went off to prison, some of
them to death row. This is in the mid-1980s.
Eventually, DNA testing came along. The non-confessors had *always*
insisted on their innocence, and the confessor(s) had started doing
so not long after getting to prison, but they hadn't gotten anywhere
for the longest time. Eventually this guy *in* prison started saying
he had information about who really did it, but he wanted to strike
a deal before he talked, and nobody would deal with him. Well, DNA
sufficed to *prove* that the deal-maker was there, and cast serious
doubt that the losers (who had always had alibis) were.
The guy who had prosecuted the case was at this point the Illinois
Attorney General, and was utterly incensed that His Conviction could
*possibly* be upset by a trivial thing like physical evidence. He
fought extremely hard, to the US Supreme Court I think, to keep the
new evidence from having any effect. After he lost, he went back
to the Illinois courts reconsidering the case with the theory that
the losers had *obviously* helped the deal-maker commit the crime,
because otherwise, whyever would any of them ever have confessed?
This case was one of the main things driving the decision by Illinois'
recent ex-governor first to declare a moratorium on executions, then
to commute all the death sentences to life in prison or less. It
wasn't the only case of innocent men on death row, and it wasn't
even the most egregious (another case, involving I think the cop
who ran a torture chamber in Chicago, had *four* men who weren't
guilty sentenced to death), but because the little girl had been
white and suburban, the original murder trial was heavily publicised,
and so was everything that followed; so it made the biggest splash.
I don't remember all the names. The little girl was Jeannine (?)
Nicarico, though; names I remember as belonging to the losers
include Rolando, Alejandro, and Cruz - I think Rolando Cruz and
Alejandro something else, but am not sure. The DA-become-Attorney
General-become-gubernatorial candidate is Jim Ryan, and this is how
Illinois managed to elect a governor owned by what's left of the
Chicago Machine, something Illinois has historically refused to do
rather consistently. (Well, it also helped that the moratorium-
commutation governor, no-relation *George* Ryan, had been massively
corrupt as a Republican, so the scales seemed evener than usual.)
Oh, and for your further search-engine pleasure, the Chicago cop who
ran a torture chamber is named Jon Burge.
The only ObSF I can think of is that the whole situation seems sfnal
to me, in a fantasy-specific way. I mean, I come from Wisconsin,
where even in these sad latter days of open corruption we haven't
gotten to *that* kind of thing; and while it's not hard to find
evidence that Illinois works differently, still, the mind reels.
Torture chambers. Dungeons, and men who work hard to make sure the
innocent stay in them. I know this is sort of how some Europeans see
America en bloc, but it's not how I'm used to seeing any of the
country, let alone a place where I was living at the time.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, bookseller and writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>
Richard Horton
<j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>Nope, Illinois. As you note, the Florida candidate was a woman (and
>I hadn't heard about whatever you're talking about, in that case, nor
>for that matter about anything involving state's attorneys running
>for governor in Massachusetts).
Oh, I remember the Illinois case -- it happened near my home town. I
can't imagine Mike Schilling even considering voting for Jim Ryan,
though.
Mark Atwood
> Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
> > > A good sized minority are strictly celibrate, maybe /those/ are like the
> > > Rest of Them?
> >
> > I doubt they are *strictly* celibate. There is always Ms Rosy Palm.
>
> Yeah, but they are religous, so they might not even want to deal with
> Ms. Palm.
If you think *that* works, I have some swampland to sell you.
Whether one is awake with a physical Ms Palm, or asleep, when a purely
mental Ms Palm visits...
Michael S. Schiffer
news:OIYWb.8962$lg6....@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com:
> On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 03:13:46 +0000 (UTC), Joe Bernstein
><j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>>Nope, Illinois. As you note, the Florida candidate was a woman
>>(and I hadn't heard about whatever you're talking about, in that
>>case, nor for that matter about anything involving state's
>>attorneys running for governor in Massachusetts).
> Oh, I remember the Illinois case -- it happened near my home
> town. I can't imagine Mike Schilling even considering voting
> for Jim Ryan, though.
Nor should you. Wrong Mike Schi*. :-)
One thing I'll add to Joe Bernstein's account is that the
wrongfully convicted guys in the Nicarico case did deliberately
insert themselves and indicate that they had information about the
case. I don't recall all the details, but IIRC they were
apparently claiming information to scam the reward. Certainly not
worthy of execution, particularly in the face of exonerating
evidence-- I don't want Jim Ryan to be involved with the carrying
out of Illinois laws anymore. But it wasn't entirely out of the
blue that they were connected with the case, and what they did was
probably worthy of some amount of jail time on its own.
J.B. Moreno
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) writes:
> > Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
> > > > A good sized minority are strictly celibrate, maybe /those/ are like the
> > > > Rest of Them?
> > >
> > > I doubt they are *strictly* celibate. There is always Ms Rosy Palm.
> >
> > Yeah, but they are religous, so they might not even want to deal with
> > Ms. Palm.
>
> If you think *that* works, I have some swampland to sell you.
>
> Whether one is awake with a physical Ms Palm, or asleep, when a purely
> mental Ms Palm visits...
Well, I meant that *some* of them might deny even Ms Palm, not that all
of them do or would.
Martin
"Michael S. Schiffer" <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote in message
news:Xns948DF0FC2980...@130.133.1.17...
I know it's a little more off topic here, but in the past I've been in
favour of the death penalty, something that was scrapped in the UK a long
time ago. However, over the years I've become far more cynical over the
Police, who in my view are often more corrupt than many of the crooks the
supposedly arrest.
For example, lets suppose a little old lady has her house broken into and
burgled. Police investigate and find your fingerprints on say a picture
frame. You don't know the woman but have had say a conviction in the past
for something so the Police have your records. They come round and ask you
for an alibi for the night of the burglary. You were at home alone watching
TV. You're now fucked. The cops will do what they can to fit you up. Yet in
reality your finger prints are on the picture frame because you picked it up
in a shop to look at it.
I wouldn't trust the British Police to catch a cold. So I'm glad we don't
execute people anymore.
If we did have the dealth penalty I'd easily stop the fitting up by the
Police. In say a murder case all Police officers invloved in the case would
sign a declaration to say that the evidence collected and statements taken
have not been altered. In the event of it turning out later on that the
Police HAD fitted up the person executed, all the Police (ALL) Offices
involved in the case would face the same penalty as the man they fitted up.
I bet that would cut out the corruption!
Martin
Richard Horton
<msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
>Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote in
>news:OIYWb.8962$lg6....@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com:
>
>> On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 03:13:46 +0000 (UTC), Joe Bernstein
>><j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>
>>>Nope, Illinois. As you note, the Florida candidate was a woman
>>>(and I hadn't heard about whatever you're talking about, in that
>>>case, nor for that matter about anything involving state's
>>>attorneys running for governor in Massachusetts).
>
>> Oh, I remember the Illinois case -- it happened near my home
>> town. I can't imagine Mike Schilling even considering voting
>> for Jim Ryan, though.
>
>Nor should you. Wrong Mike Schi*. :-)
>
Oooops! Sorry about that! I read quickly and didn't recheck.
>One thing I'll add to Joe Bernstein's account is that the
>wrongfully convicted guys in the Nicarico case did deliberately
>insert themselves and indicate that they had information about the
>case. I don't recall all the details, but IIRC they were
>apparently claiming information to scam the reward. Certainly not
>worthy of execution, particularly in the face of exonerating
>evidence-- I don't want Jim Ryan to be involved with the carrying
>out of Illinois laws anymore. But it wasn't entirely out of the
>blue that they were connected with the case, and what they did was
>probably worthy of some amount of jail time on its own.
All sensible enough to me.
Danny Sichel
>>>Yes, but they (Athosians)'re homosexuals, and therefore Not Like the Rest of Them.
>>A good sized minority are strictly celibrate, maybe /those/ are like the
>>Rest of Them?
> I doubt they are *strictly* celibate. There is always Ms Rosy Palm.
On Athos, that would be Mr Rufous Palm, I think.
Brad Sims
>
> No, they were in fact raped when in fact they were plain stupid.
> Getting drunk when going out is stupid, and it's not stupid enough to
> give me or you or anyone else the right to have sex with her (or him!)
> that, because there's no such thing as raping someone in self-defense.
More like she says yes while extremely drunk, had sex,
blacks out, comes to; relises that she just slept with a damn Yeti.
Figured that there was no way she would have said yes to that slob
and presumes she was raped.
By no means do I say date-rape doesn't happen but not every
drunken fumbling is rape; despite what NOW says.
--
Linux: The OS people choose without $200,000,000 of persuasion
Brad Sims
>
> And if they both get drunk, and have sex with each other, why should
> her next day regret equal "rape"? Unless you (and the law, the courts,
> and society) are just as equally willing to call *his* next day regret
> to *also* be "rape", with an equally harrowing trial and prison term
> for her.
Yup not every drunken fumbling is rape.
Martin
"Brad Sims" <bs...@abnt.org> wrote in message
news:slrnc2qbne...@c933657-a.insightbb.com...
That was my point in my original post. That far too much legislation is
being passed that is Gender specific. Why should a man be held responsible
for his drunken action if a woman is not?
Martin
Brandon
Omixochitl wrote:
>
>
> No, they were in fact raped when in fact they were plain stupid.
> Getting drunk when going out is stupid, and it's not stupid enough to
> give me or you or anyone else the right to have sex with her (or him!)
> against her (or his!) will. Actually, nothing's stupid enough to do
> that, because there's no such thing as raping someone in self-defense.
I may be mistaken, and I largely take your side of this
argument, but it does seem as if when two people get drunk,
meet in a bar, and go somewhere to have sex, the man is more
likely to be viewed as a criminal, and the woman as a victim.
> What I'd like to see is both the right to a public trial and the right
> to a private trial. Let each accused choose which one. Then the
> accused can be just as anonymous as the accuser, and shouldn't have to
> worry about his or her reputation still being smeared after the Not
> Guilty verdict. ;)
This seems like a good idea on the surface. The reservation
I have is that we would be depending on the state to tell us
that this person who has been accused of a crime asked to
have his identity kept secret. That makes me uneasy,
because of the obvious potential for abuse.
Brandon
Omixochitl wrote:
>
>
> > I'd rather see much more prosecution of perjurists and false
> > accusers. And give those trials the same media exposure the
> > celebrity got.
>
> Potential problem there: what if you do get attacked, and charge the
> attacker, but the attacker covered his/her tracks enough to not get
> convicted? You know that s/he attacked you, s/he knows that s/he
> attacked you, but the court still doesn't - so should it then
> automatically try you for perjury and bring on the media circus or should
> it look at any other factors first before charging you with perjury?
There would still be the requirement to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that perjury occurred or that a false
accusation was made. As the lawyer friend of mine has also
commented, just because someone was acquitted, that doesn't
mean he was innocent. That's why O.J. lost the wrongful
death suit, even though he was acquitted of the crime of murder.
Mike Schilling
"Brandon" <jch...@avalon.net> wrote in message
news:402D6779...@avalon.net...
>
>
> Omixochitl wrote:
> >
> >
> > > I'd rather see much more prosecution of perjurists and false
> > > accusers. And give those trials the same media exposure the
> > > celebrity got.
> >
> > Potential problem there: what if you do get attacked, and charge the
> > attacker, but the attacker covered his/her tracks enough to not get
> > convicted? You know that s/he attacked you, s/he knows that s/he
> > attacked you, but the court still doesn't - so should it then
> > automatically try you for perjury and bring on the media circus or
should
> > it look at any other factors first before charging you with perjury?
>
> There would still be the requirement to prove beyond a
> reasonable doubt that perjury occurred or that a false
> accusation was made. As the lawyer friend of mine has also
> commented, just because someone was acquitted, that doesn't
> mean he was innocent. That's why O.J. lost the wrongful
> death suit, even though he was acquitted of the crime of murder.
The standard for his losing was much lower in the civil suit: preponderance
of the evidence vs. beyond a reasonable doubt.
Brandon
Joe Bernstein wrote:
>
>
> Nope, Illinois. As you note, the Florida candidate was a woman (and
> I hadn't heard about whatever you're talking about, in that case, nor
> for that matter about anything involving state's attorneys running
> for governor in Massachusetts).
The candidate in Florida was Janet Reno, former U.S.
Attorney General. Not everyone approved of her performance
in that office, but more to the point, prior to being U.S.
A.G., she had served as a prosecutor in Miami, and had a
reputation for never hearing an accusation of child abuse
that she didn't believe. There are allegations that she
subjected mothers of children who were alleged to have been
abused by their fathers to tough, even humiliating
interrogations in order to obtain their testimony. And by
"humiliating" I mean leaving threatening non-citizens with
deportation if they wouldn't roll on their
husband/boyfriend, unnecessary strip searches *of the
child's presumably-innocent mother*, and the like.
Brandon
That's right. And if I make an accusation against you, and
you are acquitted, that doesn't mean that another jury will
be able to find beyond a reasonable doubt that I knowingly
made a false accusation. I could have simply been wrong, or
it could be that you really did it, but there wasn't enough
evidence to prove it.
Martin
"Omixochitl" <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:Xns948EB570...@130.133.1.17...
> Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote in
> news:m3vfmb2...@marka.linux.digeo.com:
>
> > Omixochitl <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> writes:
> >> No, they were in fact raped when in fact they were plain stupid.
> >> Getting drunk when going out is stupid, and it's not stupid enough to
> >> give me or you or anyone else the right to have sex with her (or him!)
> >> against her (or his!) will.
> >
> > And if they both get drunk, and have sex with each other, why should
> > her next day regret equal "rape"? Unless you (and the law, the courts,
> > and society) are just as equally willing to call *his* next day regret
> > to *also* be "rape", with an equally harrowing trial and prison term
> > for her.
> >
> > Who is raping who?
>
> better is guilty of raping the one who can't really consent (too drunk,
> young, comatose, whatever). If *neither* is able to know any better, then
> both are simply victims...
>
> ...then I remember that being drunk isn't an excuse for attacking people.
> For example, drunk drivers who kill still get charged with vehicular
> homicide, and even if the victim (pedestrian, passenger, whomever) was
> drunk too.
>
> So if both were too drunk and both just have next day regrets then I'd say
> neither did statutory rape - but if, say, both were too drunk and she just
> has next day regrets while he's all bruised and bleeding or whatever then
> I'd say she still did aggravated rape.
Two women were arrested in the UK a few weeks ago for sexually assaulting a
guy. They followed him out of a pub, hit him over the head them started to
perform oral sex on him. But I bet they don't get the same punishment (if it
even comes to trial, which it probably won't as the guy will be too
embarrassed) as say two guys attacking a woman in the same way.
Also a couple of years ago a guy was found in a hotel room in the UK where
he had been stripped naked and tied to a bed. He had been sexually assaulted
by two women, who had forced him to drink lots of alcohol and take Viagra.
The Police seemed to find it highly amusing, but if it had been a woman
found tied to a bed, I don't even think the police would have found it
amusing.
I often wonder how many incident like this take place to men, who just don't
report it for fear of being made to look wimps or similar. I don't know
about the USA, but in the UK we now have a minister for women or should that
be wymn who seems to spend all of her time whinging on about how women need
this law and that. She has got short hair as well funnily enough.
Martin
Martin
Hence the double jeopardy rule. In theory the Police could keep charging a
man with the same rape crime until they found enough jurors to convict. This
whole idea that someone is only ever taken to court when there is sufficient
evidence is just crazy. The Police regularly beat confessions out of people
here in the UK, they interfere with evidence and often don't disclose
evidence that could actually help the defendant (several cases have been
thrown out on appeal for this very issue)
The problem with the Police in a modern western society is that they pander
far too much to political pressure groups, the media and politicians.
Everyone wants them to solve a murder in under an hour (just like the
movies) so they do there best to comply, rather than search for the truth.
Men in particular suffer in sexual assault, rape & child abuse cases where
the police assume guilt and simply try to massage the evidence to match.
Martin
Martin
The argument against keeping the name of a rape defendant secret comes from
the Wimmins groups. They say that when a man is identified as being charged
with rape, other women will come forward who have also been "raped" by this
man. The problem here as seen in the UK is that many women come forward, not
to the police but to the papers, who pay them large amounts of money for
their story. As they never actually go to the police no case ever goes to
court so the man stands no chance of clearing his name, as trying to sue the
likes of Rupert Murdoch is impossible unless you have bucket loads of money.
Many UK professional footballers have had loads of so called rape stories
printed about them, yet not one has gone to trial. None of the men have
received any apology from the police or the media.
Interestingly, I heard on the radio that many single professional
footballers are now just not dating women as such, but simply using
professional escort girls who provide what the guys want, but don't then go
running to the police every 5 minutes crying rape, just to get a few
thousand pounds from the Sun or daily Mirror.
Martin
Martin
Janet Reno. She was one ugly bitch.
Martin
Mark Atwood
>
> I often wonder how many incident like this take place to men, who just don't
> report it for fear of being made to look wimps or similar.
I have a couple of (male) friends who are rape victims. One was
raped by a woman.
They were not reported to the police.
Martin
"Mark Atwood" <m...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:m3ad3ks...@marka.linux.digeo.com...
I don't even think a woman can be charged with rape. In the UK I think
sexual assault might be the max, even if you got the Police to take it
seriously, which they wouldn't.
In the UK the first refuge for battered men has just opened. ONe guy in the
papers had been arrested something like 100 times. His wife had beaten him
for years, but every time the Police came they arrested HIM and took him
away. Even though the neighbours knew it was his wife that was doing the
beating.
I've just been listening to an artlicle on BBC radio with some bloke
slagging off men for not doing as their women want etc. It was highly sexist
and offensive, with the female radio presenters joining in and giving their
men a good slagging as well. I've written in to complain (they never run
these stories the other way round) but I bet it will do no good.
The BBC has a large number of short haired women running many of the
departments now and man slagging has become the norm. Constant articles on
how we're all wife beaters, rapists, child molesters and not needed. And of
course just how wonderful women are.
Martin
Mike Swaim
"Martin" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:c0nlgt$u5e$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
> I don't even think a woman can be charged with rape. In the UK I think
> sexual assault might be the max, even if you got the Police to take it
> seriously, which they wouldn't.
In the US, women have been successfully prosecuted for rape.
--
Mike Swaim
sw...@hal-pc.org
Disclaimer: I sometimes lie.
http://www.hal-pc.org/~swaim
Martin
"Mike Swaim" <sw...@hal-pc.org> wrote in message
news:402fcaf6$0$32427$be86...@news.hal-mli.net...
Presumably the law is not gender specific in the USA. As far as I'm aware
here in the UK only a man can be charged with rape. If a woman was to be
prosecuted for forcing a man to have sex, I think it would just have to be
as sexual assault or something similar. This was one of my main points. No
law should be gender specific. Something becomming more common in England.
Martin
William December Starr
"Martin" <nos...@nospam.com> said:
> Not to mention the highly sexist (Government backed) bring your
> daughter to work campaigns, which have been run many times. Parents
> have even complained that because they have sons, they can't take
> part. All part of the Lesbian/Feminist domination of Town Halls,
> and Government "Think Tanks combined with spineless male
> politicians who are frightened of the harridans that are creeping
> into politics.
You know, you're really sounding like somebody with fairly serious
mental problems here.
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Christopher Adams
> Martin said:
>
>> Not to mention the highly sexist (Government backed) bring your
>> daughter to work campaigns, which have been run many times. Parents
>> have even complained that because they have sons, they can't take
>> part. All part of the Lesbian/Feminist domination of Town Halls,
>> and Government "Think Tanks combined with spineless male
>> politicians who are frightened of the harridans that are creeping
>> into politics.
>
> You know, you're really sounding like somebody with fairly serious
> mental problems here.
Gee, William, you think?
--
Christopher Adams - SUTEKH Functions Officer 2004
She's a cock-tease. He's her obsessive stalker. Together . . . they fight crime.
- Sean O'Hara on "Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones"
Chris Thompson
John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:>>news:m3r7x19...@marka.linux.digeo.com...
>>> tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) writes:
>
>>> > Well, Bujold has flipped the tropes in a different direction: In ETHAN
>>> > OF ATHOS she has a perfectly pleasant, utopian colony entirely
>>> > populated by men.
>
>>> Well, not wholly utopian. There are bandits and ungoverned men living
>>> in the mountains. But this exists as a safety valve instead of
>>> a threat, because it is physically impossible for the bandits to
>>> outbreed the city dwellers and farmers...
>
>>So how do they breed? Are they rebels from wthin the society that refuse to
>>conform or were they outcasts from the start?
>
>They don't breed at all. They are all men, and not living in the towns
>and cities they don't have access to the extremely sophisticated technology
>required for two men to make a baby.
Actually, no-one on Athos has that. It's the technology to produce babies
from one's sperm and the ovarian cultures kept in the Reproduction Centers
that they are being denied access to. There are marriage-like arrangements
on Athos involving mutual fostering of each other's children, but no genetic
interchange. Ethan and Janos, for example, are genetically step-brothers ...
... well, as regards the paternal line. But as the number of ovarian
cultures seems to be quite limited, it must actually be the case that
many Athosians unknown to each other are actually half-brothers via
the maternal line. Hmmm.
Chris Thompson
Email: cet1 [at] cam.ac.uk
Mark Atwood
>
> ... well, as regards the paternal line. But as the number of ovarian
> cultures seems to be quite limited, it must actually be the case that
> many Athosians unknown to each other are actually half-brothers via
> the maternal line. Hmmm.
In fact, *NOT* unknown.
The "ID names" of the various ovarian cultures are well known to the
Athosians-on-the-street. Recall that at the beginning of the book,
the father-to-be that Ethan was interviewing very specifically wanted
a specific ovarian culture, as it was well known for producing
doctors.
(IIRC, that culture, in fact, is from one of Miles' Betan
great^n-grandmothers.)
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
m...@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
J.B. Moreno
> No, they were in fact raped when in fact they were plain stupid.
> Getting drunk when going out is stupid, and it's not stupid enough to
> give me or you or anyone else the right to have sex with her (or him!)
> against her (or his!) will. Actually, nothing's stupid enough to do
> that, because there's no such thing as raping someone in self-defense.
Rape is being forced to engage in sexual behavior, that force can be
applied in various ways, but not resisting when some drunken slob pulls
down your pants isn't "force" on the part of the sober citizen just
because he's a guy and the drunken slob is a woman.
Drunken stupidity is not an excuse.
If you get drunk, pull out a letter opener and stab someone 20 or 30
times before passing out and then wake up and wondering where the hell
all the dried blood came from, you don't get a pat on the back told that
since you got so drunk that you don't remember doing it, and are sure
that you'd never do something like that (even though the whole thing
being on tape rather puts a dent in your certainty), you're free to go.
Why should it be any different if you get so drunk that you decide to
have sex with the entire 7th Fleet?
Either way, you voluntarily got drunk, and so you should be held
entirely responsible for anything that you do *while* drunk.
Now, if you are forced to get "drunk" -- say you're ordering OJ and the
bartender keeps serving screwdrivers and then takes advantage of you, or
someone slips you a mickey, then that's another story; that gives you no
more choice in the matter than a knife at the throat does.
This certainly means that some crimes will be harder to prove, and
others will be impossible to prove, but convicting innocent people of
crimes they didn't commit doesn't help things at all.
k...@socrates.berkeley.edu
>ce...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Chris Thompson) writes:
>>
>> But as the number of ovarian
>> cultures seems to be quite limited, it must actually be the case that
>> many Athosians unknown to each other are actually half-brothers via
>> the maternal line. Hmmm.
>
>In fact, *NOT* unknown.
>
>The "ID names" of the various ovarian cultures are well known to the
>Athosians-on-the-street. Recall that at the beginning of the book,
>the father-to-be that Ethan was interviewing very specifically wanted
>a specific ovarian culture, as it was well known for producing
>doctors.
>
>(IIRC, that culture, in fact, is from one of Miles' Betan
>great^n-grandmothers.)
No, it was not stated where Dr. Cynthia Jane Baruch (Ethan's ovarian
culture donor) came from. You're probably thinking of the scene where
Ethan reads a journal article and one of the authors is Cordelia's
mother.
Mark Atwood
Which, interestingly, was something that was almost entirely fictional
(a drug easily secretly dropped in a drink that you would not taste
while drinking but would knock you out) until only relatively
recently.
Brandon
Omixochitl wrote:
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) wrote in
> news:1g9bcq3.1ii8q6d1twaupuN%pl...@newsreaders.com:
>
>
>
>>If you get drunk, pull out a letter opener and stab someone 20 or 30
>>times before passing out and then wake up and wondering where the hell
>>all the dried blood came from, you don't get a pat on the back told
>>that since you got so drunk that you don't remember doing it, and are
>>sure that you'd never do something like that (even though the whole
>>thing being on tape rather puts a dent in your certainty), you're free
>>to go.
>
>
> That's an excellent and very relevant example, when you're talking about
> the rapist (whether a male rapist or a female rapist) being very drunk
> and the victim being sober. Another good example is running over
> pedestrians at crosswalks while drunk driving.
>
> The more relevant example, when you're talking about the rape victim
> (whether a male rape victim or a female rape victim) being very drunk and
> the rapist being sober, is that if you're sober and you pull out a letter
> opener and stab some drunk person 20 or 30 times just before he or she
> was going to pass out, you still don't get a pat on the back and told
> that since he or she got so drunk he or she deserved it so you're free to
> go. Another good example is running over drunk pedestrians at
> crosswalks.
Here's a much better example. Suppose I go out and get
potted, and while I am in my inebriated condition, I am
approached by another person who is sober, who says he's
broke and needs money for food. While in a sober state, I
might possibly stake him to enough for a meal, or give him a
lift to the food bank, but since I'm drunk I whip out my
wallet and hand him several hundred dollars.
Now: Am I entitled to have my money returned to me, once I
sober up and realize what a stupid thing I've done? If this
individual had spotted me as being drunk, and therefore an
easy mark, does that make him guilty of theft, for which he
should be arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail?
Becuase *that's* the real parallel to someone who takes
sexual advantage of a drunken person. Unless you're willing
to throw the guy I gave all my money to into the adjoining
cell, you ought not to be prosecuting guys (or gals) who
troll for potential sex partners in bars.
J.B. Moreno
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) wrote in
>
> > Omixochitl <Omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> No, they were in fact raped when in fact they were plain stupid.
-snip-
> > Rape is being forced to engage in sexual behavior, that force can be
> > applied in various ways, but not resisting when some drunken slob
> > pulls down your pants isn't "force" on the part of the sober citizen
> > just because he's a guy and the drunken slob is a woman.
>
> Of course it's not just because he's a guy!
Right, it's because he didn't *use* any force against her.
-snip-
> > Drunken stupidity is not an excuse.
>
> It's no excuse for doing a crime, *and* it's no excuse for someone else
> to do a crime to you (such as having sex with you when you're too
> incapacitated for your consent to have any meaning).
If you voluntarily reduce your capacity, then only unconsciouness should
be considered "too incapacitated".
If someone gets so drunk that they *want* to have sex with someone and
then proceed to do so, they have *not* been raped: but *YOU* are
attempting to rape them after the fact. Not physically of course, but
that's far from the most important element. What you are attempting to
do is little different from moving a girl out of her own house and bed
and into a hospital bed without waking her up, and when she does wake up
having a "doctor" tell her that she was found naked on the corner and
asking her if she had sex last night and with so whom, telling her that
the information is needed in order to test against the recovered semen
sample...
If you ran with this hoax as far as it'd go, she'd experience everything
that a real rape victim does except the actual sex-- perhaps worse than
most as she'd not remember anything at all except going to bed as usual.
You are turning a stupid mistake into a nightmarish attack, go you.
Ross TenEyck
>Here's a much better example. Suppose I go out and get
>potted, and while I am in my inebriated condition, I am
>approached by another person who is sober, who says he's
>broke and needs money for food. While in a sober state, I
>might possibly stake him to enough for a meal, or give him a
>lift to the food bank, but since I'm drunk I whip out my
>wallet and hand him several hundred dollars.
>Now: Am I entitled to have my money returned to me, once I
>sober up and realize what a stupid thing I've done? If this
>individual had spotted me as being drunk, and therefore an
>easy mark, does that make him guilty of theft, for which he
>should be arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail?
>Becuase *that's* the real parallel to someone who takes
>sexual advantage of a drunken person. Unless you're willing
>to throw the guy I gave all my money to into the adjoining
>cell, you ought not to be prosecuting guys (or gals) who
>troll for potential sex partners in bars.
Whether that's a good parallel depends on how drunk the person
who had sex was.
If they were drunk to the point of poor judgement and said Yes
to someone they would not normally have consented to go to bed
with, then I agree that it is not rape.
If they were drunk to the point of passing out, and somone had
sex with them while they were unconscious, then it IS rape. This
is a far from unknown occurence, sadly.
Now, if the victim in this case was, say, at a fraternity party and
knowingly drank so much that she (or he, but she is the more common
case) passed out, then she was an idiot. But her victimizer is still
a rapist.
The analogy that I've heard -- I forget from whom -- for this case
is that you drive down to the bad part of town, and you walk away
from your car with the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition,
and you come back and it's been stolen. Two things are true: the
person who took it is a car thief, and if caught should be punished
as such; and you are a grade A certified moron.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Chris Thompson
<k...@socrates.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>ce...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Chris Thompson) writes:
>>>
>>> But as the number of ovarian
>>> cultures seems to be quite limited, it must actually be the case that
>>> many Athosians unknown to each other are actually half-brothers via
>>> the maternal line. Hmmm.
>>
>>In fact, *NOT* unknown.
>>
>>The "ID names" of the various ovarian cultures are well known to the
>>Athosians-on-the-street. Recall that at the beginning of the book,
>>the father-to-be that Ethan was interviewing very specifically wanted
>>a specific ovarian culture, as it was well known for producing
>>doctors.
I misspoke somewhat: I didn't mean that individual Athosian's maternal
cutures are not a matter of public record, or for that matter that one
might guess them from their appearance/abilities/inclinations/etc. Just
that one wouldn't necesarily know if a casual acquaintance shared one
with you, and that if asked "does anyone in <town-the-other-side-of-Athos>
have the same culture strain as you", the average Athosian would reply
"gee, I dunno, I expect so but I've never met any of them that I know of".
>>(IIRC, that culture, in fact, is from one of Miles' Betan
>>great^n-grandmothers.)
>
>No, it was not stated where Dr. Cynthia Jane Baruch (Ethan's ovarian
>culture donor) came from. You're probably thinking of the scene where
>Ethan reads a journal article and one of the authors is Cordelia's
>mother.
I think it's only because of Ethan's involvement with the arcana of
Reproductive Technology that he knows what "CJB" stands for. Most
Athosians would probably find it intolerably squicky to be reminded
that the cutures came from real live (gulp) _women_.
Chris Thompson
Email: ce...@cam.ac.uk
Konrad Gaertner
>
> So true. Last winter in Boston a whole bunch of people did that in
> several parts of town. The idea was "I'll just rush in and get coffee or
> whatever for a minute, and leave my car idling so that it doesn't get
> cold and take forever to start up again." This one guy left his car
> idling outside a café or something close to home, came back to find it
> stolen, ran home and drove his wife's car to the police station to report
> the theft, and left *that* car idling outside the police station. He
> lost 2 cars to thieves within 15 minutes.
Around here, I believe the police would repsond by giving him a couple
of fines for leaving his car unattended with the keys in the ignition.
--KG
J.B. Moreno
> Brandon <jch...@avalon.net> writes:
>
> >Here's a much better example. Suppose I go out and get
> >potted, and while I am in my inebriated condition, I am
> >approached by another person who is sober, who says he's
> >broke and needs money for food. While in a sober state, I
> >might possibly stake him to enough for a meal, or give him a
> >lift to the food bank, but since I'm drunk I whip out my
> >wallet and hand him several hundred dollars.
-snip-
> >Becuase *that's* the real parallel to someone who takes
> >sexual advantage of a drunken person. Unless you're willing
> >to throw the guy I gave all my money to into the adjoining
> >cell, you ought not to be prosecuting guys (or gals) who
> >troll for potential sex partners in bars.
>
> Whether that's a good parallel depends on how drunk the person
> who had sex was.
Nope. [1]
> If they were drunk to the point of poor judgement and said Yes
> to someone they would not normally have consented to go to bed
> with, then I agree that it is not rape.
Right.
> If they were drunk to the point of passing out, and somone had
> sex with them while they were unconscious, then it IS rape. This
> is a far from unknown occurence, sadly.
This is where you go wrong (and hence the [1]) above). So, [1] it
doesn't matter how drunk they are, it matters that they consent, and
unconscious people don't give consent to anything (except in the case of
sleep-walking/talking, which could be another problem, but even then
it's not "rape" unless they know you're actually unconscious even though
you're not acting like it).
(Of course you're right about it being rape if they are unconscious, and
you're right about it being far from unknown, and you're right that that
fact is sad, so you're not *that* wrong).
Now, you might want to bring up the case of consent and /then/ passing
out, and on that I'd be willing to swing a bit the other way -- unless
the consent was specifically *for* while unconscious, it doesn't apply
*while* unconscious. I'd even say it doesn't cross periods of
unconsciousness (they pass out, you slap them awake, you'd better get
another "yeah, sure, whatever, might be fun" out of them).
Ross TenEyck
>Ross TenEyck <ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote:
>> Whether that's a good parallel depends on how drunk the person
>> who had sex was.
>Nope. [1]
>> If they were drunk to the point of poor judgement and said Yes
>> to someone they would not normally have consented to go to bed
>> with, then I agree that it is not rape.
>Right.
>> If they were drunk to the point of passing out, and somone had
>> sex with them while they were unconscious, then it IS rape. This
>> is a far from unknown occurence, sadly.
>This is where you go wrong (and hence the [1]) above). So, [1] it
>doesn't matter how drunk they are, it matters that they consent, and
>unconscious people don't give consent to anything (except in the case of
>sleep-walking/talking, which could be another problem, but even then
>it's not "rape" unless they know you're actually unconscious even though
>you're not acting like it).
>(Of course you're right about it being rape if they are unconscious, and
>you're right about it being far from unknown, and you're right that that
>fact is sad, so you're not *that* wrong).
I'm not seeing the part where you're actually disagreeing with me.
Given that you agree I'm right about it being rape if they're
unconscious, what is it that causes my statement to "go wrong"?
That WAS my statement.