China in "Starship Troopers"
Bruce
happened to the Chinese in "Starship Troopers"? IIRC, the Terran
Federation was originally formed by veterans taking over the western
countries that were defeated in a war with the Chinese (Chinese
Hegenomy?): is there any indication what happened to China afterwards?
Joined the Federation and adopted it's franchise method? Destroyed in
a later war? Isolated North Korea in the Large Economy Size?
I ask because I had a notion for a little fanficlet for my own
amusement: a Chinese infantryman heads off to Inevitable Doom on a Bug
planet, because the Chinese Hegemony (which has joined the war effort
in exchange for an end to the Federation blockade and access to
planets of its own to colonize) does not want to be just a military
hardware manufacturer and provider of second-echelon troops to hold
down Skinny planets after the Mobile Infantry have got finished: it
want to put boots on the ground to establish some claims of its own to
captured planets, and never mind if their troops don't have the
training and are using cheap knock-offs of Mobile Infantry armor. If
there is any real evidence in the book for what happened to the
Chinese Hegemony, I'd be grateful for the info.
best,
Bruce
W. Citoan
> Does anyone happen to recall any references in the book to what
> happened to the Chinese in "Starship Troopers"? IIRC, the Terran
> Federation was originally formed by veterans taking over the western
> countries that were defeated in a war with the Chinese (Chinese
> Hegenomy?): is there any indication what happened to China
> afterwards? Joined the Federation and adopted it's franchise method?
> Destroyed in a later war? Isolated North Korea in the Large Economy
> Size?
My interpretation was that all the primary nations imploded and that
when the Federation arose from the ashes, it became the sole world
power. I don't think Heinlein gave any real details about that, though.
Wikipedia has this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terran_Federation_%28Starship_Troopers%29
Didn't read it in detail so don't know if I agree with it or not...
- W. Citoan
--
His mind his kingdom, and his will his law.
-- Cowper
Bruce
Hmm - from the novel, it appears that the West was already collapsing
due to crime
"Mr. Dubois was talking about the disorders that preceded
the breakup of the North American republic, back in the XXth century.
According to him, there was a time just before they went down the
drain when
such crimes as Dillinger's were as common as dogfights. The Terror had
not
been just in North America -- Russia and the British Isles had it,
too, as
well as other places. But it reached its peak in North America
shortly
before things went to pieces.
"Law-abiding people," Dubois had told us, "hardly dared go into a
public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of
children,
armed with chains, knives, homemade guns, bludgeons . . . to be hurt
at
least, robbed most certainly, injured for life probably -- or even
killed.
This went on for years, right up to the war between the Russo-Anglo-
American
Alliance and the Chinese Hegemony. Murder, drug addiction, larceny,
assault,
and vandalism were commonplace. Nor were parks the only places --
these
things happened also on the streets in daylight, on school grounds,
even
inside school buildings. But parks were so notoriously unsafe that
honest
people stayed clear of them after dark." "
Which apparently was due to insufficient corporal punishment
""Many. I'm raising a dachshund now -- by your methods. Let's get back
to those juvenile criminals. The most vicious averaged somewhat
younger than
you here in this class . . . and they often started their lawless
careers
much younger. Let us never forget that puppy. These children were
often
caught; police arrested batches each day. Were they scolded? Yes,
often
scathingly. Were their noses rubbed in it? Rarely. News organs and
officials
usually kept their names secret -- in many places the law so required
for
criminals under eighteen. Were they spanked? Indeed not! Many had
never been
spanked even as small children; there was a widespread belief that
spanking,
or any punishment involving pain, did a child permanent psychic
damage."
(I had reflected that my father must never have heard of that theory.)
"Corporal punishment in schools was forbidden by law," he had gone on.
"Flogging was lawful as sentence of court only in one small province,
Delaware, and there only for a few crimes and was rarely invoked; it
was
regarded as `cruel and unusual punishment.' " Dubois had mused aloud,
"I do
not understand objections to `cruel and unusual' punishment. While a
judge
should be benevolent in purpose, his awards should cause the criminal
to
suffer, else there is no punishment -- and pain is the basic mechanism
built
into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by
warning
when something threatens our survival. Why should society refuse to
use such
a highly perfected survival mechanism? However, that period was loaded
with
pre-scientific pseudo-psychological nonsense.
"As for `unusual,' punishment must be unusual or it serves no
purpose."
He then pointed his stump at another boy. "What would happen if a
puppy were
spanked every hour?"
"Uh . . . probably drive him crazy!"
"Probably. It certainly will not teach him anything. How long has it
been since the principal of this school last had to switch a pupil?"
"Uh, I'm not sure. About two years. The kid that swiped -- "
"Never mind. Long enough. It means that such punishment is so unusual
as to be significant, to deter, to instruct. Back to these young
criminals
-- They probably were not spanked as babies; they certainly were not
flogged
for their crimes. The usual sequence was: for a first offense, a
warning --
a scolding, often without trial. After several offenses a sentence of
confinement but with sentence suspended and the youngster placed on
probation. A boy might be arrested many times and convicted several
times
before he was punished -- and then it would be merely confinement,
with
others like him from whom he learned still more criminal habits. If he
kept
out of major trouble while confined, he could usually evade most of
even
that mild punishment, be given probation -- `paroled' in the jargon of
the
times.
"This incredible sequence could go on for years while his crimes
increased in frequency and viciousness, with no punishment whatever
save
rare dull-but-comfortable confinements. Then suddenly, usually by law
on his
eighteenth birthday, this so-called `juvenile delinquent' becomes an
adult
criminal -- and sometimes wound up in only weeks or months in a death
cell
awaiting execution for murder. You -- " "
Given that the Chinese Hegomony was apparently a Communist
totalitarianism
"We were learning, expensively, just how efficient
a total communism can be when used by a people actually adapted to it
by
evolution; the Bug commissars didn't care any more about expending
soldiers
than we cared about expending ammo. Perhaps we could have figured this
out
about the Bugs by noting the grief the Chinese Hegemony gave the
Russo-Anglo-American Alliance; however the trouble with "lessons from
history" is that we usually read them best after falling flat on our
chins."
And that 1.) such regimes are happy to shoot troublemakers of whatever
age (I have trouble imagine Heinlein thinking that a Stalinist Chinese
dictatorship was going to coddle juvenile delinquents), and 2.) that
they won the war, that they collapsed the same way the Western
governments did seems unlikely: the question remains open.
Bruce
W. Citoan
> On Dec 2, 5:50�pm, "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Bruce wrote:
> > > Does anyone happen to recall any references in the book to what
> > > happened to the Chinese in "Starship Troopers"? IIRC, the Terran
> > > Federation was originally formed by veterans taking over the western
> > > countries that were defeated in a war with the Chinese (Chinese
> > > Hegenomy?): is there any indication what happened to China
> > > afterwards? Joined the Federation and adopted it's franchise method?
> > > Destroyed in a later war? Isolated North Korea in the Large Economy
> > > Size?
> >
> > My interpretation was that all the primary nations imploded and that
> > when the Federation arose from the ashes, it became the sole world
> > power. I don't think Heinlein gave any real details about that, though.
> >
> > Wikipedia has this article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terran_Federation_%28Starship_Troopers%29
> > Didn't read it in detail so don't know if I agree with it or not...
>
>
> due to crime
Yes, but the war finished it off.
> And that 1.) such regimes are happy to shoot troublemakers of whatever
> age (I have trouble imagine Heinlein thinking that a Stalinist Chinese
> dictatorship was going to coddle juvenile delinquents), and 2.) that
> they won the war, that they collapsed the same way the Western
> governments did seems unlikely:
"Didn't collapse the same way" is not the same thing as "didn't
collapse".
> the question remains open.
Of course it does. In the lack of a definitive authorial statement,
there is no answer. However it happened, it's clear the Hegemony is
gone by the time of the novel and the Federation is the sole world
power.
Bruce
> Bruce wrote:
>
> "Didn't collapse the same way" is not the same thing as "didn't
> collapse".
And "didn't collapse the same way" is not the same as "no mention of
collapse at all"
>
> > the question remains open.
>
> Of course it does. In the lack of a definitive authorial statement,
> there is no answer. However it happened, it's clear the Hegemony is
> gone by the time of the novel and the Federation is the sole world
> power.
>
Absence of evidence isn't the same as evidence of absence. (:))
China is noted as a major power in other Heinlein novels ("Tunnel in
the Sky", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"), and of course "Fourth
Column", although it can be argued that the last owes more to
Campbell: it's total absence in this story is probably explicable in
terms of the author deciding to carefully dodge the problem of what to
_do_ about the Chinese Hegemony, but for the purposes of world-
building there is nothing in the novel that explicitly makes it clear
the Hegemony is no longer around, just no longer a major player. SF
writers have long disregarded most of humanity in their stories: Eric
Frank Russell's future in "Men, Martians and Machines" didn't seem to
have any non-American inhabitants (although he was progressive enough
to have a black doctor aboard. Because blacks don't get the Space
Madness, or whatever it was.)
Bruce
William F. Adams
Wasn't there a list of cities bombed by the bugs which included some
in China?
Given the global attitude of the citizens and the lack of importance
given to nation of origin, I can't imagine China not being part of the
Federation.
William
Greg Goss
>Wasn't there a list of cities bombed by the bugs which included some
>in China?
The central character's father joined after the bugs bombed Buenos
Aires. I don't remember any other cities being mentioned.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
David Johnston
wrote:
>Does anyone happen to recall any references in the book to what
>happened to the Chinese in "Starship Troopers"? IIRC, the Terran
>Federation was originally formed by veterans taking over the western
>countries that were defeated in a war with the Chinese (Chinese
>Hegenomy?):
I had the impression they won, but the world was in ruins.
Spider Jerusalem
@mid.individual.net:
> "William F. Adams" <will...@aol.com> wrote:
>>Wasn't there a list of cities bombed by the bugs which included some
>>in China?
>
> The central character's father joined after the bugs bombed Buenos
> Aires. I don't remember any other cities being mentioned.
>
Buenos Aires always seems to get smudged in Heinlein novels.
Am wondering if he hated it there for some reason, and this was his
revenge...
Quadibloc
<SpamMeHardAndCallMe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Buenos Aires always seems to get smudged in Heinlein novels.
The only other novel I can think of in which this even _could_ have
happened was Space Cadet.
John Savard
Quadibloc
I see that the city there was indicated as the hometown of a crewman
with an Hispanic name, and as the capital of his country, but it was
apparently unnamed. However, Buenos Aires was mentioned by name in
Friday and Time for the Stars, and in at least one of them, apparently
it was indeed destroyed.
John Savard
Bruce
>
> Wasn't there a list of cities bombed by the bugs which included some
> in China?
>
> Given the global attitude of the citizens and the lack of importance
> given to nation of origin, I can't imagine China not being part of the
> Federation.
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
I don't want to go through the whole book, but as far as I am aware
only BA was mentioned as a destroyed city. Do you have a quote or
reference?
Bruce
Bruce
>
> Given the global attitude of the citizens and the lack of importance
> given to nation of origin, I can't imagine China not being part of the
> Federation.
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
But what if they don't want to be? (:))
Bruce
David Johnston
wrote:
>
>>
This is a Heinleinian macho state. What China wants doesn't matter.
W. Citoan
>
> I don't want to go through the whole book, but as far as I am aware
> only BA was mentioned as a destroyed city. Do you have a quote or
> reference?
San Fransisco is destroyed as well. It's mentioned while he's at OCS.
- W. Citoan
--
A faithful friend is a strong defense: and he that hath found such an one
hath found a treasure.
-- Ecclesiasticus (Book of Sirach)
W. Citoan
>
> China is noted as a major power in other Heinlein novels ("Tunnel in
> the Sky", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"), and of course "Fourth
> Column", although it can be argued that the last owes more to
> Campbell: it's total absence in this story is probably explicable in
> terms of the author deciding to carefully dodge the problem of what to
> _do_ about the Chinese Hegemony,
It's absence in this story is also explicable in terms of it simply not
existing any more.
> but for the purposes of world- building there is nothing in the novel
> that explicitly makes it clear the Hegemony is no longer around, just
> no longer a major player.
The only way the Hegemony could still be around is if Heinlein's world
is even more unrealistic than usually portrayed. If the West had
disintegrated to the extent Heinlein portrays and the Hegemony still
maintained coherency, there is no way that the world would have ended up
being dominated by a what started as a small group in Aberdeen. The
Hegemony would have come out on top.
Nigel
> Bruce wrote:
>
> > China is noted as a major power in other Heinlein novels ("Tunnel in
> > the Sky", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"), and of course "Fourth
> > Column", although it can be argued that the last owes more to
> > Campbell: it's total absence in this story is probably explicable in
> > terms of the author deciding to carefully dodge the problem of what to
> > _do_ about the Chinese Hegemony,
>
> It's absence in this story is also explicable in terms of it simply not
> existing any more.
>
> > but for the purposes of world- building there is nothing in the novel
> > that explicitly makes it clear the Hegemony is no longer around, just
> > no longer a major player.
>
> The only way the Hegemony could still be around is if Heinlein's world
> is even more unrealistic than usually portrayed. If the West had
> disintegrated to the extent Heinlein portrays and the Hegemony still
> maintained coherency, there is no way that the world would have ended up
> being dominated by a what started as a small group in Aberdeen. The
> Hegemony would have come out on top.
>
Quite right. OTOH, if it had been a small group from Glasgow ...
"See You, Hegemony !"
Cheers,
Nigel.
William F. Adams
> On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 15:18:29 -0800 (PST), Bruce <bam1...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Does anyone happen to recall any references in the book to what
> >happened to the Chinese in "Starship Troopers"? IIRC, the Terran
> >Federation was originally formed by veterans taking over the western
> >countries that were defeated in a war with the Chinese (Chinese
> >Hegenomy?):
>
> I had the impression they won, but the world was in ruins.
I didn't get the Chinese having won out of the novel --- no mention of
them, no one speaks Chinese --- seems more like _everything_ collapsed
and groups of veterans _everywhere_ coallesced into a world government
which only admitted veterans.
Another indication for China no longer being a power --- at the end of
the book, Rico meets a young new Trooper who is from American Samoa
and who doesn't seem to speak Chinese --- I can't imagine China not
doing a land grab for everything w/in reach.
William
Nigel
Including the Philippines, which is where Rico seems to come from.
Cheers,
Nigel.
Dimensional Traveler
--
"Dude. They've gone fractal."
William F. Adams
But some significant portion of his family comes from the Phillipines
--- hence the family speaking Tagalog at home.
William
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Says who? His mother was visiting Buenos Aires, but the family speaks
Tagalog and Rico refers to Magsaysay as his national hero. That's the
Philippines.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Michael Stemper
>Nigel wrote:
>> Including the Philippines, which is where Rico seems to come from.
>>
>Rico was from South America.
No, he was from the Philipines. He speaks Tagalog and reveres Magsaysay,
as stated in Chapter XIII. This information comes out in a conversation
between him and a shipmate, Bennie. Since Bennie considers Simon Bolivar
a cultural icon, Bennie could be from South America.
Before you say "but his mother died when the bugs hit Buenos Aires, so
he must be from South America," examine the following statements from
his thoughts in Chapter X:
"But B. A. wasn't my home [...]"
" [...] whether she felt my mother had made a trip to Buenos
Aires because I wasn't home [...]"
" [...] Father would never send Mother on a trip that long by herself."
So we see that:
1. He explicitly states that he's not from Buenos Aires.
2. His mother was there on a trip.
3. It was a long trip to Buenos Aires.
So, the fact that his mother died in Buenos Aires does *not* provide
evidence that he's from South America. Neither does anything else in
the story.
--
Michael F. Stemper
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.
W. Citoan
> In article <4b195168$0$1612$742e...@news.sonic.net>, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> writes:
> >Nigel wrote:
>
> >> Including the Philippines, which is where Rico seems to come from.
> >>
> >Rico was from South America.
>
> No, he was from the Philipines. He speaks Tagalog and reveres Magsaysay,
> as stated in Chapter XIII. This information comes out in a conversation
> between him and a shipmate, Bennie. Since Bennie considers Simon Bolivar
> a cultural icon, Bennie could be from South America.
All that actually proves is that he's of Philippines decent. Heinlein
avoided names for many of the ancillary characters (his best friend's
last name isn't mentioned that I can recall), but one neighbor is
referred to be last name and it's German.
> " [...] Father would never send Mother on a trip that long by herself."
> 3. It was a long trip to Buenos Aires.
The statement "that long" is relative to the person. I know people for
whom a 2 hour trip is not one they'd normally do on their own.
While I'd vote for the Philippines myself, it's certainly not a given.
- W. Citoan
--
The middle of the road is where the white line is - and that's the worst
place to drive.
-- Robert Frost
Kurt Busiek
On the other hand, the same arguments that he's from South America
apply to him being from, say, Manitoba. Or Stuttgart.
If you're going to ask, "What's within the realm of possibility," then
the only requirement is that he's from Earth. Nothing else is "a
given."
If you're going to ask, "what's most likely depending on the
preponderance of the evidence," he's a Filipino, and there's no
evidence whatsoever to suggest that he's not from the Philippines. Is
it possible that he lives somewhere else? Sure. Is there any evidence
for it? No.
So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
Philippines, is pretty well supported. No one claimed it was a given,
just that he seems to be from there.
He's clearly not from Buenos Aires, and once you eliminate that,
there's no evidence for him being from South America.
kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!
Michael Stemper
>On 2009-12-04 14:09:36 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>>> In article <4b195168$0$1612$742e...@news.sonic.net>, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> writes:
>>>> Rico was from South America.
>>>
>>> No, he was from the Philipines. He speaks Tagalog and reveres Magsaysay,
>>> as stated in Chapter XIII. This information comes out in a conversation
>>> between him and a shipmate, Bennie. Since Bennie considers Simon Bolivar
>>> a cultural icon, Bennie could be from South America.
>>
>> All that actually proves is that he's of Philippines decent. Heinlein
>> avoided names for many of the ancillary characters (his best friend's
>> last name isn't mentioned that I can recall), but one neighbor is
>> referred to be last name and it's German.
The only neighbor-like entity that I can recall was Carmencita Ibanez.
>>> " [...] Father would never send Mother on a trip that long by herself."
>>
>>> 3. It was a long trip to Buenos Aires.
>>
>> The statement "that long" is relative to the person. I know people for
>> whom a 2 hour trip is not one they'd normally do on their own.
>>
>> While I'd vote for the Philippines myself, it's certainly not a given.
The point of these three items was, as Kurt points out, to demolish
the only possible source of a belief in textev for South America. I'm
aware that these three don't show that he's from the Philipines.
>On the other hand, the same arguments that he's from South America
>apply to him being from, say, Manitoba.
Another item that applies equally to South America and Manitoba is
the fact that Camp Currie, in the Canadian Rockies, is many time
zones away from home, contributing to his general fatigue when he
first arrives there for Basic. (Unfortunately, I don't have a direct
citation at my fingertips.)
>If you're going to ask, "What's within the realm of possibility," then
>the only requirement is that he's from Earth. Nothing else is "a
>given."
Ayup.
>If you're going to ask, "what's most likely depending on the
>preponderance of the evidence," he's a Filipino, and there's no
>evidence whatsoever to suggest that he's not from the Philippines.
A concise summary.
> Is
>it possible that he lives somewhere else? Sure. Is there any evidence
>for it? No.
>He's clearly not from Buenos Aires, and once you eliminate that,
>there's no evidence for him being from South America.
You hit the nail on the head.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding;
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
Dr. Rufo
Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> Nigel wrote:
>> On 4 Dec, 13:48, "William F. Adams" <willad...@aol.com> wrote:
>>> On Dec 3, 11:10 am, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 15:18:29 -0800 (PST), Bruce <bam1...@yahoo.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> Does anyone happen to recall any references in the book to what
>>>>> happened to the Chinese in "Starship Troopers"? IIRC, the Terran
>>>>> Federation was originally formed by veterans taking over the western
>>>>> countries that were defeated in a war with the Chinese (Chinese
>>>>> Hegenomy?):
>>>> I had the impression they won, but the world was in ruins.
>>> I didn't get the Chinese having won out of the novel --- no mention of
>>> them, no one speaks Chinese --- seems more like _everything_ collapsed
>>> and groups of veterans _everywhere_ coalesced into a world government
>>> which only admitted veterans.
>>>
>>> Another indication for China no longer being a power --- at the end of
>>> the book, Rico meets a young new Trooper who is from American Samoa
>>> and who doesn't seem to speak Chinese --- I can't imagine China not
>>> doing a land grab for everything w/in reach.
>>>
>>
>> Including the Philippines, which is where Rico seems to come from.
>>
> Rico was from South America.
>
Sorry, no.
Juan (Johnny) Rico was from Manila/the Philippine Islands as the
references to Ramon Magsaysay
and to Tagalog (one of the languages of the P.I.) in the last pages of
the novel indicate.
It was Johnny's Mother who was visiting relatives in Buenos Aires when
the Bugs destroyed it.
Pax,
Dr. Rufo
Kurt Busiek
Stemper) said:
> In article <hfc28s$i0h$1...@solani.org>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> writes:
>> On 2009-12-04 14:09:36 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>>>> In article <4b195168$0$1612$742e...@news.sonic.net>, Dimensional
>>>> Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> writes:
>
>>>>> Rico was from South America.
>>>>
>>>> No, he was from the Philipines. He speaks Tagalog and reveres Magsaysay,
>>>> as stated in Chapter XIII. This information comes out in a conversation
>>>> between him and a shipmate, Bennie. Since Bennie considers Simon Bolivar
>>>> a cultural icon, Bennie could be from South America.
>>>
>>> All that actually proves is that he's of Philippines decent. Heinlein
>>> avoided names for many of the ancillary characters (his best friend's
>>> last name isn't mentioned that I can recall), but one neighbor is
>>> referred to be last name and it's German.
>
> The only neighbor-like entity that I can recall was Carmencita Ibanez.
Could be thinking of Mr. Weiss, the placement officer, but he's not a neighbor.
>>>> " [...] Father would never send Mother on a trip that long by herself."
>>>
>>>> 3. It was a long trip to Buenos Aires.
>>>
>>> The statement "that long" is relative to the person. I know people for
>>> whom a 2 hour trip is not one they'd normally do on their own.
>>>
>>> While I'd vote for the Philippines myself, it's certainly not a given.
>
> The point of these three items was, as Kurt points out, to demolish
> the only possible source of a belief in textev for South America. I'm
> aware that these three don't show that he's from the Philipines.
>
>> On the other hand, the same arguments that he's from South America
>> apply to him being from, say, Manitoba.
>
> Another item that applies equally to South America and Manitoba is
> the fact that Camp Currie, in the Canadian Rockies, is many time
> zones away from home, contributing to his general fatigue when he
> first arrives there for Basic. (Unfortunately, I don't have a direct
> citation at my fingertips.)
Actually, that doesn't quite apply equally. Manitoba is one, maybe two
time zones away from the Canadian Rockies. Parts of South America are
four-to-five time zones away. The Philippines, naturally, are more.
But actually, Camp Currie is in "the northern prairies," making it
potentially even closer to Manitoba, and all he says about time zones
is "I had trouble sleeping because of the change in time zones," so we
don't know ho many. It's Camp Sergeant Spooky Smith that's in the
Rockies.
Kurt Busiek
> On 2009-12-04 14:43:54 -0800, mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael
> Stemper) said:
>
>> In article <hfc28s$i0h$1...@solani.org>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> writes:
>>> On 2009-12-04 14:09:36 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>>>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>>>>> In article <4b195168$0$1612$742e...@news.sonic.net>, Dimensional
>>>>> Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> writes:
>>
>>>>>> Rico was from South America.
>>>>>
>>>>> No, he was from the Philipines. He speaks Tagalog and reveres Magsaysay,
>>>>> as stated in Chapter XIII. This information comes out in a conversation
>>>>> between him and a shipmate, Bennie. Since Bennie considers Simon Bolivar
>>>>> a cultural icon, Bennie could be from South America.
>>>>
>>>> All that actually proves is that he's of Philippines decent. Heinlein
>>>> avoided names for many of the ancillary characters (his best friend's
>>>> last name isn't mentioned that I can recall), but one neighbor is
>>>> referred to be last name and it's German.
>>
>> The only neighbor-like entity that I can recall was Carmencita Ibanez.
>
> Could be thinking of Mr. Weiss, the placement officer, but he's not a neighbor.
There's also a "Madame Ruitman" who's a family friend.
Kurt Busiek
Is she? I don't think the text ever says why she went to B.A.
W. Citoan
>
> > Michael Stemper wrote:
> >>
> >> No, he was from the Philipines.
> So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
> Philippines, is pretty well supported. No one claimed it was a
> given, just that he seems to be from there.
Michael certainly stated it as given.
Kurt Busiek
> Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>
>>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>>>>
>>>> No, he was from the Philipines.
>
>> So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
>> Philippines, is pretty well supported. No one claimed it was a
>> given, just that he seems to be from there.
>
> Michael certainly stated it as given.
Let's kick the shit out of him.
W. Citoan
> In article <hfc28s$i0h$1...@solani.org>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> writes:
> >On 2009-12-04 14:09:36 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
> >> Michael Stemper wrote:
> >>> No, he was from the Philipines.
> >> but one neighbor is referred to be last name and it's German.
>
> The only neighbor-like entity that I can recall was Carmencita
> Ibanez.
The father refers to a "Madame Ruitman."
> The point of these three items was, as Kurt points out, to demolish
> the only possible source of a belief in textev for South America. I'm
> aware that these three don't show that he's from the Philipines.
Yet you stated it as a given above.
> >If you're going to ask, "what's most likely depending on the
> >preponderance of the evidence," he's a Filipino, and there's no
> >evidence whatsoever to suggest that he's not from the Philippines.
There is little evidence to suggest he lives in the Philippines; only
that he (& probably Carmen as well) is of Philippine descent.
> A concise summary.
>
> > Is it possible that he lives somewhere else? Sure. Is there any
> > evidence for it? No.
Heinlein seems to be striving for an ethical mixed environment. That is
the only evidence presented at all. That fits both Rico living outside
the Philippines and non-Filipinos living in the Philippines.
> > He's clearly not from Buenos Aires, and once you eliminate that,
> > there's no evidence for him being from South America.
>
> You hit the nail on the head.
Which I wasn't arguing so that's immaterial.
W. Citoan
> On 2009-12-04 15:36:06 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>
> > Kurt Busiek wrote:
> >>
> >>> Michael Stemper wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> No, he was from the Philipines.
> >
> >> So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
> >> Philippines, is pretty well supported. No one claimed it was a
> >> given, just that he seems to be from there.
> >
> > Michael certainly stated it as given.
>
> Let's kick the shit out of him.
Good grief. We're having a discussion about what the text states;
nothing more. If you think that's inappropriate, feel free to go
find a off-topic thread to participate in.
Kurt Busiek
> Kurt Busiek wrote:
>> On 2009-12-04 15:36:06 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>>
>>> Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> No, he was from the Philipines.
>>>
>>>> So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
>>>> Philippines, is pretty well supported. No one claimed it was a
>>>> given, just that he seems to be from there.
>>>
>>> Michael certainly stated it as given.
>>
>> Let's kick the shit out of him.
>
> Good grief. We're having a discussion about what the text states;
> nothing more.
To which I've contributed, with examples from the text.
> If you think that's inappropriate, feel free to go
> find a off-topic thread to participate in.
So you don't want to kick the shit out of him?
Carl Dershem
It seems clear to me she was there because the Writer wanted to kill her.
But you know how writers are. ;>
cd
djinn
> Does anyone happen to recall any references in the book to what
> happened to the Chinese in "Starship Troopers"? IIRC, the Terran
> Federation was originally formed by veterans taking over the western
> countries that were defeated in a war with the Chinese (Chinese
> Joined the Federation and adopted it's franchise method? Destroyed in
> a later war? Isolated North Korea in the Large Economy Size?
>
> I ask because I had a notion for a little fanficlet for my own
> amusement: a Chinese infantryman heads off to Inevitable Doom on a Bug
> planet, because the Chinese Hegemony (which has joined the war effort
> in exchange for an end to the Federation blockade and access to
> planets of its own to colonize) does not want to be just a military
> hardware manufacturer and provider of second-echelon troops to hold
> down Skinny planets after the Mobile Infantry have got finished: it
> want to put boots on the ground to establish some claims of its own to
> captured planets, and never mind if their troops don't have the
> training and are using cheap knock-offs of Mobile Infantry armor. If
> there is any real evidence in the book for what happened to the
> Chinese Hegemony, I'd be grateful for the info.
>
> best,
> Bruce
Fleet Sergeant Ho sure sounds Chinese, altho it's at best a mild
indication. I'd say that the best indication that it no longer exists
as separate from the Federation is that it's not mentioned except as a
historical entity.
Kurt Busiek
> It seems clear to me she was there because the Writer wanted to kill her.
>
> But you know how writers are. ;>
I'd suggest we go kick the shit out of him, but it might be taken as
inappropriate to the lofty tone of the discussion.
Plus, it's a little late.
MajorOz
> On 2009-12-04 17:54:46 -0800, Carl Dershem <ders...@cox.net> said:
>
>
>
> > Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote innews:hfc69j$mpd$2...@solani.org:
oh.....go ahead........
oz, not from the Phillipines
Robert A. Woodward
<slrnhhj774....@wcitoan-via.eternal-september.org>,
"W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
> Kurt Busiek wrote:
> >
> > > Michael Stemper wrote:
> > >>
> > >> No, he was from the Philipines.
>
> > So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
> > Philippines, is pretty well supported. No one claimed it was a
> > given, just that he seems to be from there.
>
> Michael certainly stated it as given.
>
Well, I never thought that Juan Rico had to be from the Philippines
(but it was probable). In fact, because of the high school name
(Douglas McArthur), the only real alternative is the United States
of America. South America is just wrong.
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
Butch Malahide
>
> China is noted as a major power in other Heinlein novels ("Tunnel in
> the Sky", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"), and of course "Fourth
> Column", although it can be argued that the last owes more to
> Campbell:
Could you kindly provide bibliographic data for "Fourth Column", as
the ISFDB doesn't seem to have it.
> Eric Frank Russell's future in "Men, Martians and Machines" didn't seem to
> have any non-American inhabitants
Remarkable (if true) seeing as Russell was a non-American, but I
suppose it was necessary because he was writing for the American
market.
Szymon Sokół
> Fleet Sergeant Ho sure sounds Chinese, altho it's at best a mild
> indication.
Ho Chi Minh was Vietnamese (yes, I know it is a pseudonym rather than his
real name).
--
Szymon Sokół (SS316-RIPE) -- Network Manager B
Computer Center, AGH - University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland O
http://home.agh.edu.pl/szymon/ PGP key id: RSA: 0x2ABE016B, DSS: 0xF9289982 F
Free speech includes the right not to listen, if not interested -- Heinlein H
djinn
wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Dec 2009 18:38:05 -0800 (PST), djinn wrote:
> > Fleet Sergeant Ho sure sounds Chinese, altho it's at best a mild
> > indication.
>
> Ho Chi Minh was Vietnamese (yes, I know it is a pseudonym rather than his
> real name).
>
though, so the F/Sgt may have been Vietnamese or Chinese. Or
descendant of 'overseas Chinese' or Vietnamese from nearly anywhere.
Would Vietnam be part of a Chinese Hegemony? The Vietnamese
historically have had a Very Strong Opinion on that(No) , but I guess
it depends on how strong the hegemony is. When SST was written it was
probably a good guess that Vietnam would be part of a Chinese led
political and cultural group.
My feeling about the Federation is that Heinlein intended a world-wide
government, so that it was an 'us or them' - Humans vs Bugs -
situation. Since he neglected to specify it, we can't very well know
for sure.
DouhetSukd
<lots of interesting stuff lifted out of Starship Troopers>
Well, that settles it. From the little I remember reading, I was
never too keen on Heinlein and esp. not Starship Troopers. Juvenile
romantic libertarianism to me.
But if you now add an alarmist, and in hindsight, quite mistaken
concern with crime rates and a yearning for more coercive punishment
then... count me out for sure.
No bleeding heart social concerns motivate me in this case. If high
incarceration rates delivered value, I'd support them. I still do,
for some types of crimes. But by and large they cost huge amounts of
money and don't deliver, if you compare incarceration rates to crime
across developed countries.
Since I don't remember him touching much on economics, sounds like we
have all the tediousness of holier-than-thou libertarianism without
any of the useful meat.
James Nicoll
DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Dec 2, 5:49�pm, "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>
><lots of interesting stuff lifted out of Starship Troopers>
>
>Well, that settles it. From the little I remember reading, I was
>never too keen on Heinlein and esp. not Starship Troopers. Juvenile
>romantic libertarianism to me.
There's really not much in SST that's libertarian and
I say this as someone who uses an "everything is worse with libertarians"
tag on LJ. When I say "not much", I'll point not just at the extremely
limited franchise* but the huge % of the economy we see that is run
by the government. In a libertopia, Venus would have been terraformed
by Lance Jawstrong's band of free-thinking terraformanists and their
large-bosomed red-haired girlfriends and they would have made a profit.
In SST, the government is handling it. It's this >< close to the WPA
or the communistic extremes of the TVA, may all its accomplishments be
swept from the face of the Earth.
* Well, OK, it's not that hard to find loonietrians in favor of a more
limited franchises, although curiously never limited in such a way as
to exclude them. Case in point, Theordore "Vox Day" Beale:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2005/04/why-women-shouldnt-vote-reason-345-346.html
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
David Johnston
<douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Dec 2, 5:49�pm, "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>
><lots of interesting stuff lifted out of Starship Troopers>
>
>Well, that settles it. From the little I remember reading, I was
>never too keen on Heinlein and esp. not Starship Troopers. Juvenile
>romantic libertarianism to me.
>
>But if you now add an alarmist, and in hindsight, quite mistaken
>concern with crime rates and a yearning for more coercive punishment
>then... count me out for sure.
>
>No bleeding heart social concerns motivate me in this case. If high
>incarceration rates delivered value, I'd support them. I still do,
>for some types of crimes. But by and large they cost huge amounts of
>money and don't deliver, if you compare incarceration rates to crime
>across developed countries.
Heinlein's soapbox characters were not in favour of increased
incarceration. He had a habit of proposing corporal punishment and
exile as responses to crime.
David Johnston
<szy...@bastard.operator.from.hell.pl> wrote:
>On Fri, 4 Dec 2009 18:38:05 -0800 (PST), djinn wrote:
>
>> Fleet Sergeant Ho sure sounds Chinese, altho it's at best a mild
>> indication.
>
>Ho Chi Minh was Vietnamese (yes, I know it is a pseudonym rather than his
>real name).
I'm pretty sure Vietnam would have been under the control of the
Chinese Hegemony before it fell.
Bill Patterson
> Michael Stemper wrote:
Almost all the names of Rico's friends and classmates, plus various
local place names are Spanish with a bit of German mixed in (e.g., his
best friend Carl). That would have been very typical of South America
by 1959, but revering Magsaysay works against that. I concur with the
conclusion that the Philippines are not "a given," but I think the
weight of evidence tends in that direction.
Bill Patterson
>
> - Show quoted text -
Well, strictly speaking that only evidences/suggests that his FAMILY
was from the Philippines at one time in the not too distant past. I
have to agree with the upthread conclusion that it's not definitively
answerable question, though I think the evidence does lean in the
direction of the Philippines.
Bill Patterson
> On 2009-12-04 15:36:06 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>
> > Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
> >>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>
> >>>> No, he was from the Philipines.
>
> >> So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
> >> Philippines, is pretty well supported. �No one claimed it was a
> >> given, just that he seems to be from there.
>
> > Michael certainly stated it as given.
>
> Let's kick the shit out of him.
>
> kdb
> --
What? Is this Kick a Flip day? I didn't get the memo.
Bill Patterson
Are you high?
David DeLaney
>In a libertopia, Venus would have been terraformed
>by Lance Jawstrong's band of free-thinking terraformanists and their
>large-bosomed red-haired girlfriends and they would have made a profit.
>In SST, the government is handling it. It's this >< close to the WPA
>or the communistic extremes of the TVA, may all its accomplishments be
>swept from the face of the Earth.
Can we, er, sweep them VERY SLOWLY, so that the people downstream of the dams
have a chance to move themselves and their historical-overlay buildings, and
so that the ash pools can be drained before their containing walls disappear?
Just sayin'.
Dave "also, I think my posting electricity comes from them" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> * Well, OK, it's not that hard to find loonietrians in favor of a more
> limited franchises, although curiously never limited in such a way as
> to exclude them. Case in point, Theordore "Vox Day" Beale:
That's a bit unfair, though, since I cannot offhand think of anyone
espousing any major change in government, etc., who comes up with
criteria that they believe will exclude them. Whether they're
Libertarians, Neo-Nazis, Social Darwinists, etc., etc., all of them
believe THEY are in the 3l33+.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
James Nicoll
David DeLaney <d...@vic.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>In a libertopia, Venus would have been terraformed
>>by Lance Jawstrong's band of free-thinking terraformanists and their
>>large-bosomed red-haired girlfriends and they would have made a profit.
>>In SST, the government is handling it. It's this >< close to the WPA
>>or the communistic extremes of the TVA, may all its accomplishments be
>>swept from the face of the Earth.
>
>Can we, er, sweep them VERY SLOWLY, so that the people downstream of the dams
>have a chance to move themselves and their historical-overlay buildings, and
>so that the ash pools can be drained before their containing walls disappear?
>Just sayin'.
Presumably the knowledge that their present economy is build on a
foundation of pure-quill state intereventionist communism is so painful
a knowledge as to make death a sweet release.
Dimensional Traveler
> On Dec 4, 3:42�pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-12-04 15:36:06 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>>
>>> Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>>>>>> No, he was from the Philipines.
>>>> So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
>>>> Philippines, is pretty well supported. �No one claimed it was a
>>>> given, just that he seems to be from there.
>>> Michael certainly stated it as given.
>> Let's kick the shit out of him.
>>
>
The memo got the shit kicked out of it.
--
"Dude. They've gone fractal."
Lawrence Watt-Evans
><lots of interesting stuff lifted out of Starship Troopers>
>
>But if you now add an alarmist, and in hindsight, quite mistaken
>concern with crime rates and a yearning for more coercive punishment
>then... count me out for sure.
>
>No bleeding heart social concerns motivate me in this case. If high
>incarceration rates delivered value, I'd support them. I still do,
>for some types of crimes. But by and large they cost huge amounts of
>money and don't deliver, if you compare incarceration rates to crime
>across developed countries.
But Heinlein didn't suggest high incarceration rates; in Starship
Troopers the common penalties for crime are flogging and execution,
not incarceration.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Kurt Busiek
What?! And I missed it?
Heck, I didn't even know Michael was Filipino. This modern world,
rushing by so fast.
kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!
Mike Ash
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> James Nicoll wrote:
>
> > * Well, OK, it's not that hard to find loonietrians in favor of a more
> > limited franchises, although curiously never limited in such a way as
> > to exclude them. Case in point, Theordore "Vox Day" Beale:
>
> That's a bit unfair, though, since I cannot offhand think of anyone
> espousing any major change in government, etc., who comes up with
> criteria that they believe will exclude them. Whether they're
> Libertarians, Neo-Nazis, Social Darwinists, etc., etc., all of them
> believe THEY are in the 3l33+.
I recall reading in an RAH book wherein he didn't bother to cover up his
political exposition with story (ooh, flame war!), possibly _Grumbles
from the Grave_, wherein he had a section talking about the benefits of
only allowing mothers to vote. I don't know how serious he was, but it
didn't look like satire, and definitely wasn't fiction.
--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
DouhetSukd
> But Heinlein didn't suggest high incarceration rates; in Starship
> Troopers the common penalties for crime are flogging and execution,
> not incarceration.
AFAIK the death penalty is far from a free ride for taxpayers in the
US, wishfulness aside. All those appeals cost and so do the death
rows. And those appeals are necessary - executions have happened
without cause and death row inmates sometimes start out with shabby
state appointed lawyers defending them.
Now, floggings ... those were the good ol' days.
DouhetSukd
>
> Are you high?
Nope. You offering, Mr. Libertarian?
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Ah, but that's in the U.S. "Starship Troopers" is not set in the U.S.
Heinlein's world state doesn't appear to allow appeals. They just
hang 'em right after the trial.
>Now, floggings ... those were the good ol' days.
It's been sixty years since the last legal flogging in the U.S.
They're still used a lot of places, though.
David Johnston
<douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Dec 5, 12:25�pm, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>> But Heinlein didn't suggest high incarceration rates; in Starship
>> Troopers the common penalties for crime are flogging and execution,
>> not incarceration.
>
>AFAIK the death penalty is far from a free ride for taxpayers in the
>US, wishfulness aside. All those appeals cost and so do the death
>rows.
Heinleinian macho states don't have appeals. It's more important to
be decisive than right.
Wayne Throop
: Well, strictly speaking that only evidences/suggests that his FAMILY
: was from the Philippines at one time in the not too distant past. I
: have to agree with the upthread conclusion that it's not definitively
: answerable question, though I think the evidence does lean in the
: direction of the Philippines.
The name of the high school seems significant to me.
But yes, I'd agree not definitively answerable.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Michael Stemper
>On 2009-12-05 12:05:47 -0800, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> said:
>> Bill Patterson wrote:
>>> On Dec 4, 3:42�pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote:
>>>> On 2009-12-04 15:36:06 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>>>>> Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>>>>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>>>>>>>> No, he was from the Philipines.
>>>>>> So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
>>>>>> Philippines, is pretty well supported. �No one claimed it was a
>>>>>> given, just that he seems to be from there.
>>>>> Michael certainly stated it as given.
>>>> Let's kick the shit out of him.
>>>
>>> What? Is this Kick a Flip day? I didn't get the memo.
>>
>> The memo got the shit kicked out of it.
>
>What?! And I missed it?
>
>Heck, I didn't even know Michael was Filipino.
No, I'm not Filipino, I'm just visiting there. I live in Buenos Aires.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
The name of the story is "A Sound of Thunder".
It was written by Ray Bradbury. You're welcome.
Carl Dershem
news:hfgk0j$8eg$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
> In article <hfefmn$52t$1...@solani.org>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com>
> writes:
>>On 2009-12-05 12:05:47 -0800, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net>
>>said:
>>> Bill Patterson wrote:
>>>> On Dec 4, 3:42�pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 2009-12-04 15:36:06 -0800, "W. Citoan"
>>>>> <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>>>>>> Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>>>>>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>>>>>>>>> No, he was from the Philipines.
>>>>>>> So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
>>>>>>> Philippines, is pretty well supported. �No one claimed it was
>>>>>>> a given, just that he seems to be from there.
>>>>>> Michael certainly stated it as given.
>>>>> Let's kick the shit out of him.
>>>>
>>>> What? Is this Kick a Flip day? I didn't get the memo.
>>>
>>> The memo got the shit kicked out of it.
>>
>>What?! And I missed it?
>>
>>Heck, I didn't even know Michael was Filipino.
>
> No, I'm not Filipino, I'm just visiting there. I live in Buenos Aires.
Stock up on RAID - just in case.
cd
--
My life is an open book, and I want a re-write!
Kurt Busiek
Stemper) said:
> In article <hfefmn$52t$1...@solani.org>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> writes:
>> On 2009-12-05 12:05:47 -0800, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> said:
>>> Bill Patterson wrote:
>>>> On Dec 4, 3:42�pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 2009-12-04 15:36:06 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>>>>>> Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>>>>>> Michael Stemper wrote:
>>>>>>>>> No, he was from the Philipines.
>>>>>>> So the original statement, that he "seems to come from" the
>>>>>>> Philippines, is pretty well supported. �No one claimed it was a
>>>>>>> given, just that he seems to be from there.
>>>>>> Michael certainly stated it as given.
>>>>> Let's kick the shit out of him.
>>>>
>>>> What? Is this Kick a Flip day? I didn't get the memo.
>>>
>>> The memo got the shit kicked out of it.
>>
>> What?! And I missed it?
>>
>> Heck, I didn't even know Michael was Filipino.
>
> No, I'm not Filipino, I'm just visiting there. I live in Buenos Aires.
Stand back! They oughta know what they gonna get in you.
Michael Stemper
>On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 06:52:14 -0800 (PST), DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>No bleeding heart social concerns motivate me in this case. If high
>>incarceration rates delivered value, I'd support them. I still do,
>>for some types of crimes. But by and large they cost huge amounts of
>>money and don't deliver, if you compare incarceration rates to crime
>>across developed countries.
>
>But Heinlein didn't suggest high incarceration rates; in Starship
>Troopers the common penalties for crime are flogging and execution,
>not incarceration.
I believe that the value of immediacy of punishment was also held
up, wasn't it? There's some merit to that, as anybody who's ever
raised a kid (or housebroken a dog) knows.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Reunite Gondwanaland!
Bill Patterson
>
> ><lots of interesting stuff lifted out of Starship Troopers>
>
> >But if you now add an alarmist, and in hindsight, quite mistaken
> >concern with crime rates and a yearning for more coercive punishment
> >then... count me out for sure.
>
> >No bleeding heart social concerns motivate me in this case. �If high
> >incarceration rates delivered value, I'd support them. �I still do,
> >for some types of crimes. �But by and large they cost huge amounts of
> >money and don't deliver, if you compare incarceration rates to crime
> >across developed countries.
>
> But Heinlein didn't suggest high incarceration rates; in Starship
> Troopers the common penalties for crime are flogging and execution,
> not incarceration.
>
> --
> I'm selling my comic collection -- seehttp://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
> I'm serializing a novel athttp://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
There appears to be NO incarceration in ST except for temporary
detainment: flogging and execution are there _in place of
incarceration_. This is in fact his argument, that immediate and
scaled corporal punishment are on net better for the individual and
for society than the practice of long-term incarceration. Agree or
disagree, its one of the minor polemical points in what is on the
whole a philosophical rather than polemical novel -- specifically
intended (IMO) to spark debate.
At one point in one of the letters (that will be published in the
Virginia Edition -- I don't think it's in Grumbles), Heinlein talks
about the world of Starship Troopers as a kind of utopia, by which I
take it he means he's cleared out the problems that were social
concerns at the time of the writing), forced to confront an implacable
enemy. I think this is what he meant by saying that ST was a partial
examination of the question of why a society can send its youth
willingly to war (or more precisely, why those youth would be willing
to place their frail bodies between home and war's desolation).
Bill Patterson
> In article <hfec3h$t5...@news.eternal-september.org>,
I think that was in the middle of a passage about different ways of
organizing franchise. I think also he started off by recommending
Twain's "Curious Republic of Gondour," which proposes that the wealthy
could purchase additional franchises (not all that different from
America in the 19th century - or now for that matter).
He has had quite scathing things to say about "Gold Star mothers" in
other places, so I think we are fairly safe in concluding extending
the franchise only to mothers was a serious political proposition.
The multiplicity of proposals comes in part out of a very longstanding
debate in American political writings about the franchise; these are
not all things Heinlein made up. But by putting up a number of
possibilities, he's trying to provoke debate, not trying to propose a
solution to a political problem. That is, his goal is to counter the
tendency to accept what is as what must be -- a very long term goal in
his writing, that pops up over and over. (Cf. Prof's last speech(es)
in TMIAHM).
Gene Wirchenko
wrote:
>: Bill Patterson <whpat...@gmail.com>
>: Well, strictly speaking that only evidences/suggests that his FAMILY
>: was from the Philippines at one time in the not too distant past. I
>: have to agree with the upthread conclusion that it's not definitively
>: answerable question, though I think the evidence does lean in the
>: direction of the Philippines.
>
>The name of the high school seems significant to me.
I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
OTOH, naming conventions could be different in ST. Perhaps in
ST, it is common to name schools after past military figures.
>But yes, I'd agree not definitively answerable.
Agreed.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
David Johnston
wrote:
>On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:49:27 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
>wrote:
>
>>: Bill Patterson <whpat...@gmail.com>
>>: Well, strictly speaking that only evidences/suggests that his FAMILY
>>: was from the Philippines at one time in the not too distant past. I
>>: have to agree with the upthread conclusion that it's not definitively
>>: answerable question, though I think the evidence does lean in the
>>: direction of the Philippines.
>>
>>The name of the high school seems significant to me.
>
> I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
>I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
>
Probably because the Phillipines are less grateful to Douglas
Macarthur for returning after he said he'd return than Heinlein
speculated they would be.
MajorOz
> On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:07:12 -0800, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net>
> wrote:
>
> >wrote:
>
> >>: Bill Patterson <whpatter...@gmail.com>
> >>: Well, strictly speaking that only evidences/suggests that his FAMILY
> >>: was from the Philippines at one time in the not too distant past. I
> >>: have to agree with the upthread conclusion that it's not definitively
> >>: answerable question, though I think the evidence does lean in the
> >>: direction of the Philippines.
>
> >>The name of the high school seems significant to me.
>
> > I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
> >I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
>
> Probably because the Phillipines are less grateful to Douglas
> Macarthur for returning after he said he'd return than Heinlein
> speculated they would be.
Not according to the many residents I know.
cheers
oz
Tim McDaniel
Bill Patterson <whpat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>[Heinlein] has had quite scathing things to say about "Gold Star
>mothers" in other places, so I think we are fairly safe in concluding
>extending the franchise only to mothers was a serious political
>proposition.
Heinlein had "scathing" things to say about "Gold Star mothers"?!
[Googling] The tiny excerpt of _For Us, The Living_ that Google Books
allows me is
much more easily stampeded than men. What's on your mind, son?
You look thoughtful."
"I was thinking of an organization that used to give me the cold
shiver, the Gold Star Mothers. They were formed after the World
War and a woman had to have had a son killed in the war to be
eligible. The had meetings and officers and conventions
But that's it, so I don't know what his problem was with it. But that
passage criticizes "an organization" named "Gold Star Mothers", a
corporation named American Gold Star Mothers Inc. I think you made an
error in capitalization, confusing the proper name "Gold Star Mothers"
with the concept of Gold Star mothers. I find it inconceivable that
Heinlein would be scathing of mothers who had lost sons in combat!
I also don't see the connection between the two clauses in
>[Heinlein] has had quite scathing things to say about "Gold Star
>mothers" in other places, so I think we are fairly safe in concluding
>extending the franchise only to mothers was a serious political
>proposition.
Why would objections to one class of [Mm]others lead to support in
another essay for votes only for mothers?
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Kurt Busiek
I expect he left out a "not" in that final sentence.
Bill Patterson
> In article <19f55b27-9087-4132-9ebf-34f176fb3...@u8g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
Heinlein, like Philip Wylie (and H,.L. Mencken and quite a number of
others), was revolted by the political capital Gold Star mothers made
of their childrens' martyrdom. A feeling many of us experienced at
the unending antics of a more recent Gold Star mother now gratefully
no longer in the daily news. ISTR there were similar remarks but
fairly subdued ones, in Take Back Your Government! (which is now going
to be republished in its "unedited" and title-restored form)
Bill Patterson
> On 2009-12-07 17:55:40 -0800, t...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) said:
>
>
>
>
>
> > In article <19f55b27-9087-4132-9ebf-34f176fb3...@u8g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yes, you're right. It wasn't a utopian-progressive solution, saying
this leads to the best possible outcome, but rather an alternative
possibility among many others.
The target was less franchise per say than the rigid notion that the
way we do it is the way it has to be. ISTR he was rationalizing Other
Ways to show there were colorable rationalizations (for some values of
"colorable" of course).
djinn
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 16:21:46 -0800 (PST), DouhetSukd
>
> >On Dec 5, 12:25 pm, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
> >> But Heinlein didn't suggest high incarceration rates; in Starship
> >> Troopers the common penalties for crime are flogging and execution,
> >> not incarceration.
>
> >AFAIK the death penalty is far from a free ride for taxpayers in the
> >US, wishfulness aside. All those appeals cost and so do the death
> >rows.
>
> Heinleinian macho states don't have appeals. It's more important to
> be decisive than right.
More than one state in the real world carries out sentences, including
executions, right after sentencing. If you think about it, it doesn't
make much sense to do it another way. If there's doubt, the sentence
should reflect it. If not, what's the point in in waiting.
djinn
They seem to have been grateful enough to name two towns, a highway,
and a bridge in Manila after him, at least.
Gene Wirchenko
wrote:
>On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:07:12 -0800, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:49:27 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>: Bill Patterson <whpat...@gmail.com>
>>>: Well, strictly speaking that only evidences/suggests that his FAMILY
>>>: was from the Philippines at one time in the not too distant past. I
>>>: have to agree with the upthread conclusion that it's not definitively
>>>: answerable question, though I think the evidence does lean in the
>>>: direction of the Philippines.
>>>
>>>The name of the high school seems significant to me.
>>
>> I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
>>I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is not equal to "in the Phillipines".
>Probably because the Phillipines are less grateful to Douglas
>Macarthur for returning after he said he'd return than Heinlein
>speculated they would be.
Your statement only follows if everything outside of the U.S.A.
is part of the Phillipines.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Mike Ash
Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:17:57 GMT, David Johnston <da...@block.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:07:12 -0800, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:49:27 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >>>: Bill Patterson <whpat...@gmail.com>
> >>>: Well, strictly speaking that only evidences/suggests that his FAMILY
> >>>: was from the Philippines at one time in the not too distant past. I
> >>>: have to agree with the upthread conclusion that it's not definitively
> >>>: answerable question, though I think the evidence does lean in the
> >>>: direction of the Philippines.
> >>>
> >>>The name of the high school seems significant to me.
> >>
> >> I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
> >>I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> This is not equal to "in the Phillipines".
>
> >Probably because the Phillipines are less grateful to Douglas
> >Macarthur for returning after he said he'd return than Heinlein
> >speculated they would be.
>
> Your statement only follows if everything outside of the U.S.A.
> is part of the Phillipines.
Have some coffee and try again. "There is nothing outside X", combined
with "Y is outside X" implied "There is nothing in Y". You have confused
a positive with a negative.
Kurt Busiek
Ah, but the statement isn't "There is nothing outside X," it was "There
was nothing in the first fifty results taken from a very wide sample."
That doesn't imply that there's nothing to be found, merely that it's
not there in the first 50 results. Depending on how many hits crop up
in the US, and how soon one might start seeing things elsewhere, there
might be quite a bit elsewhere, and Gene simply hadn't gotten to it yet.
Plus, as noted elsewhere, there are other things in the Phillipines
named after MacArthur -- including two towns, as it happens -- and the
school is fictional, from a fictional future. Surely all one needs to
support the idea is things in the Phillipines named after MacArthur,
not specifically schools.
Mike Ash
wrote:
He specifically states, "Your statement only follows if everything
outside of the U.S.A. is part of the Phillipines." This clearly implies
that his problem is with the set logic, not with the limited number of
search results used in the survey.
> Plus, as noted elsewhere, there are other things in the Phillipines
> named after MacArthur -- including two towns, as it happens -- and the
> school is fictional, from a fictional future. Surely all one needs to
> support the idea is things in the Phillipines named after MacArthur,
> not specifically schools.
I agree. I'm just addressing the illogical notion that David's statement
does not allow for countries other than the US and the Phillipines.
Kurt Busiek
And the statement it refers to is about the Phillipines being less
grateful to MacArthur.
> This clearly implies
> that his problem is with the set logic, not with the limited number of
> search results used in the survey.
And I can understand that problem -- if you don't get any international
hits, does it indicate something specific about the Phillipines, or
does it indicate something general?
The statement is about the conclusion drawn. I don't know if he was
taking into account the limited number of answers; he doesn't say one
way or the other. Frankly, I don't think the search, which seems to
suggest that the first fifty results were all US-specific, says
anything about the international community, but even had there been one
or two international results -- say, one in Germany, one in Nepal --
that still wouldn't say much about the Phillipines.
Perhaps he'll clarify what he meant.
David Johnston
wrote:
>On Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:17:57 GMT, David Johnston <da...@block.net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:07:12 -0800, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:49:27 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>: Bill Patterson <whpat...@gmail.com>
>>>>: Well, strictly speaking that only evidences/suggests that his FAMILY
>>>>: was from the Philippines at one time in the not too distant past. I
>>>>: have to agree with the upthread conclusion that it's not definitively
>>>>: answerable question, though I think the evidence does lean in the
>>>>: direction of the Philippines.
>>>>
>>>>The name of the high school seems significant to me.
>>>
>>> I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
>>>I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> This is not equal to "in the Phillipines".
>
>>Probably because the Phillipines are less grateful to Douglas
>>Macarthur for returning after he said he'd return than Heinlein
>>speculated they would be.
>
> Your statement only follows if everything outside of the U.S.A.
>is part of the Phillipines.
It follows just fine if the Phillipines are outside of the U.S.A.
MajorOz
> On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:51:39 -0800, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> >On Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:17:57 GMT, David Johnston <da...@block.net>
> >wrote:
>
> >>On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:07:12 -0800, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net>
> >>wrote:
>
> >>>wrote:
>
> >>>>: Bill Patterson <whpatter...@gmail.com>
> >>>>: Well, strictly speaking that only evidences/suggests that his FAMILY
> >>>>: was from the Philippines at one time in the not too distant past. I
> >>>>: have to agree with the upthread conclusion that it's not definitively
> >>>>: answerable question, though I think the evidence does lean in the
> >>>>: direction of the Philippines.
>
> >>>>The name of the high school seems significant to me.
>
> >>> I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
> >>>I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > This is not equal to "in the Phillipines".
>
> >>Probably because the Phillipines are less grateful to Douglas
> >>Macarthur for returning after he said he'd return than Heinlein
> >>speculated they would be.
>
> > Your statement only follows if everything outside of the U.S.A.
> >is part of the Phillipines.
>
> It follows just fine if the Phillipines are outside of the U.S.A.
What did you say he said that was said about what he said about what
was said ?
Other than that, I think I get the drift.
cheers
oz, who always has trouble spelling Philipines.
Barath
> I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
> I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
>
On the other hand, google for "macarthur school philippines" brings up
results in the top 5.
I put it to you that this search is more relevant than just sampling
the top 50 of a general search, especially when it is a given that US
high schools are more connected to the net than say philippines.
Barath
Mike Stone
"Quadibloc" <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in message
news:ce217358-d3c2-4d2b...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
>. However, Buenos Aires was mentioned by name in
>Friday and Time for the Stars, and in at least one of them, apparently
>it was indeed destroyed.
In TFTS.
IIrc, Friday had Acapulco getting nuked by terrorists.
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
"Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of
Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work
strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby in the
reservoir, he turns to the cupboard only to find the vodka bottle empty".
P G Wodehouse - Jill the Reckless
Gene Wirchenko
wrote:
[snip]
>And I can understand that problem -- if you don't get any international
>hits, does it indicate something specific about the Phillipines, or
>does it indicate something general?
Probably general, but it could be sampling bias, too. For all I
know, Google clicked on the name and everything Usonian was put at the
top of the results.
>The statement is about the conclusion drawn. I don't know if he was
>taking into account the limited number of answers; he doesn't say one
>way or the other. Frankly, I don't think the search, which seems to
>suggest that the first fifty results were all US-specific, says
They were. I did not check all of the 50 in detail (but did
check many), but I did see duplicate community names (for presumably
the same school). There were about six schools in the mix. All were
in the U.S.A.
>anything about the international community, but even had there been one
>or two international results -- say, one in Germany, one in Nepal --
>that still wouldn't say much about the Phillipines.
I did not see any, and I was specifically looking for them.
>Perhaps he'll clarify what he meant.
Or maybe, this will muddy it more.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Gene Wirchenko
<barath...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> � � �I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
>> I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
>On the other hand, google for "macarthur school philippines" brings up
>results in the top 5.
Oh, I blindsided myself, I thought, but when I did the search
just now, it brought up just one result, a reference to this thread.
>I put it to you that this search is more relevant than just sampling
>the top 50 of a general search, especially when it is a given that US
>high schools are more connected to the net than say philippines.
With your results, yes. I am in Canada. I do not know how
Google results vary among different countries.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Kurt Busiek
> On Tue, 8 Dec 2009 19:37:41 -0800 (PST), Barath
> <barath...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
>>> I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
>
>> On the other hand, google for "macarthur school philippines" brings up
>> results in the top 5.
>
> Oh, I blindsided myself, I thought, but when I did the search
> just now, it brought up just one result, a reference to this thread.
Wow. Different Googles for different nations, I guess.
I just did it, and got 325,000 results, including a profile from a guy
who went to MacArthur Elementary School in Pampanga, Phillipines, and
an alumni registry for MacArthur High School in Leyte. Naturally, most
of the results mention MacArthur's link to the Phillipines and then say
"school" somewhere, but that's two actual schools right there.
Wait. You left the quotes around it, didn't you? Do that, and it's
searching for that specific phrase -- when I did that, I got one
result, too.
W. Citoan
> > On Tue, 8 Dec 2009 19:37:41 -0800 (PST), Barath
> > <barath...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>> I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
> >>> I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
> >
> >> On the other hand, google for "macarthur school philippines" brings up
> >> results in the top 5.
> I just did it, and got 325,000 results, including a profile from a guy
> who went to MacArthur Elementary School in Pampanga, Phillipines, and
> an alumni registry for MacArthur High School in Leyte. Naturally, most
> of the results mention MacArthur's link to the Phillipines and then say
> "school" somewhere, but that's two actual schools right there.
The elementary school is on a US military base so it would've been named
by the US. The high school is in MacArthur, Leyte so it could have been
named after the town vs. after him directly.
However, I don't think "how many schools did they name after him" is a
useful metric.
- W. Citoan
--
Calvin: "People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never
children."
-- Bill Watterson from Calvin & Hobbes
Kurt Busiek
> Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>> On Tue, 8 Dec 2009 19:37:41 -0800 (PST), Barath
>>> <barath...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
>>>>> I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
>>>
>>>> On the other hand, google for "macarthur school philippines" brings up
>>>> results in the top 5.
>
>> I just did it, and got 325,000 results, including a profile from a guy
>> who went to MacArthur Elementary School in Pampanga, Phillipines, and
>> an alumni registry for MacArthur High School in Leyte. Naturally, most
>> of the results mention MacArthur's link to the Phillipines and then say
>> "school" somewhere, but that's two actual schools right there.
>
> The elementary school is on a US military base so it would've been named
> by the US. The high school is in MacArthur, Leyte so it could have been
> named after the town vs. after him directly.
>
> However, I don't think "how many schools did they name after him" is a
> useful metric.
Particularly since it turns out to be a theater, and not a school,
that's named Macarthur in the book.
But the idea being advanced was that the use of the name was a
potential indicator that Rico is from the Phillipines, given
Macarthur's importance there. So the question, "Is naming things
Macarthur something that happens in the Phillipines?" would seem to be
useful, and the answer does seem to be yes.
The next question might be, "Is naming things Macarthur something
likely in one of the other places Rico might be from?" Except that
there aren't any specific other choice. He might be from somewhere
else in the world, and given the details, there aren't all that many
places definitively ruled out. But given the number of indicators
there are that point at Phillipine ancestry and cultural pride for
Rico, and given that Heinlein knew who Macarthur was and his importance
to the Phillipines, it doesn't seem like something he'd have named by
coincidence.
It may not be convincing to everyone, but I'm ready to conclude the
Heinlein set out to make Juan Rico a Filipino but never actually
mention it concretely, to play with audience expectations. Is there a
smoking gun? No, he seems to have avoided them. Is there evidence
that any other specific place is more likely or even as likely? Not
that I can tell.
Bill Patterson
>
> - Show quoted text -
I think you've overstated your case. The evidence is fairly
substantial that Rico is of filipino heritage; the fact that we don't
know where his domicile was located at the time of the start of the
story is immaterial.
Kurt Busiek
> On Dec 10, 2:24�pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote:
>> It may not be convincing to everyone, but I'm ready to conclude the
>> Heinlein set out to make Juan Rico a Filipino but never actually
>> mention it concretely, to play with audience expectations. Is there a
>> smoking gun? No, he seems to have avoided them. Is there evidence
>> that any other specific place is more likely or even as likely? Not
>> that I can tell.
>
> I think you've overstated your case. The evidence is fairly
> substantial that Rico is of filipino heritage; the fact that we don't
> know where his domicile was located at the time of the start of the
> story is immaterial.
Frankly, his heritage is pretty immaterial, too -- there's one scene
where it comes up, and you could replace Magsaysay with Daniel Boone
and make Rico a Texan and it wouldn't affect the story any.
But the mention of the MacArthur Theater isn't something Heinlein would
have done as an error, nor do I think he'd have a Filipino encounter a
MacArthur Theater outside of the Phillipines without a reason for doing
so. It just makes the most sense to me as an indicator that the
MacArthur Theater is part of the Filipino context, and that points to
setting as well as heritage.
But like I said, it may not be convincing to everyone, and if it isn't
for you, no sweat. It's enough to tip me into an assumption that
Rico's home, not just his heritage, is in the Phillipines.
James Nicoll
>On 2009-12-10 18:35:17 -0800, Bill Patterson <whpat...@gmail.com> said:
>
>> On Dec 10, 2:24�pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote:
>>> It may not be convincing to everyone, but I'm ready to conclude the
>>> Heinlein set out to make Juan Rico a Filipino but never actually
>>> mention it concretely, to play with audience expectations. Is there a
>>> smoking gun? No, he seems to have avoided them. Is there evidence
>>> that any other specific place is more likely or even as likely? Not
>>> that I can tell.
>>
>> I think you've overstated your case. The evidence is fairly
>> substantial that Rico is of filipino heritage; the fact that we don't
>> know where his domicile was located at the time of the start of the
>> story is immaterial.
>
>Frankly, his heritage is pretty immaterial, too -- there's one scene
>where it comes up, and you could replace Magsaysay with Daniel Boone
>and make Rico a Texan and it wouldn't affect the story any.
>
In the 1950s there weren't a lot of non-white protagonists
around and picking Filipino in particular is meaningful because
of things like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescission_Act_of_1946
I also seem to recall the USN tended to restrict Filipinos
to stewart duties during WWII.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Kurt Busiek
> In article <hfsc46$v14$1...@solani.org>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-12-10 18:35:17 -0800, Bill Patterson <whpat...@gmail.com> said:
>>
>>> On Dec 10, 2:24�pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote:
>>>> It may not be convincing to everyone, but I'm ready to conclude the
>>>> Heinlein set out to make Juan Rico a Filipino but never actually
>>>> mention it concretely, to play with audience expectations. Is there a
>>>> smoking gun? No, he seems to have avoided them. Is there evidence
>>>> that any other specific place is more likely or even as likely? Not
>>>> that I can tell.
>>>
>>> I think you've overstated your case. The evidence is fairly
>>> substantial that Rico is of filipino heritage; the fact that we don't
>>> know where his domicile was located at the time of the start of the
>>> story is immaterial.
>>
>> Frankly, his heritage is pretty immaterial, too -- there's one scene
>> where it comes up, and you could replace Magsaysay with Daniel Boone
>> and make Rico a Texan and it wouldn't affect the story any.
>>
> Now.
> In the 1950s there weren't a lot of non-white protagonists
> around and picking Filipino in particular is meaningful because
> of things like this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescission_Act_of_1946
> I also seem to recall the USN tended to restrict Filipinos
> to stewart duties during WWII.
I understand that, but that's about the effect the reveal has on the
reader, not he effect Rico's cultural heritage has on the story. His
cultural heritage isn't revealed until late in the book, and it doesn't
lead to him making different choices that he'd have made were he not
Filipino.
As such, it's not unimportant, but it doesn't affect the story. Juan
Rico could be of any race or heritage, and he'd still be a grunt
fighting for his people -- which is pretty much Heinlein's point in
making him Filipino. So if you made him Texan, it'd change the way
some of the audience react, but it wouldn't affect what Rico does, or
why, or how the plot unfolds, or what the character issues are.
I'm not saying it's a meaningless choice; I'm saying it doesn't mean
Rico acts differently than he would with a different heritage. He's
proud of what Magsaysay did in the same way that a Texan might have
been proud of the Alamo, but he joins up, trains, fights and succeeds
for universal reasons, not culture-specific ones.
Rico, after all, isn't in the 1950s, so the effect you're talking about
is an effect on the audience, not on the story.
David Johnston
wrote:
>On Tue, 8 Dec 2009 19:37:41 -0800 (PST), Barath
><barath...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> � � �I Googled for "douglas macarthur school" and in the first fifty,
>>> I saw nothing outside the U.S.A.
>
>>On the other hand, google for "macarthur school philippines" brings up
>>results in the top 5.
>
> Oh, I blindsided myself, I thought, but when I did the search
>just now, it brought up just one result, a reference to this thread.
Here's what I got.
http://www.alumni.net/Asia/Philippines/Leyte/MacArthur/MacArthur_High_School/
Greg Goss
>
>"Quadibloc" <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in message
>news:ce217358-d3c2-4d2b...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
>>. However, Buenos Aires was mentioned by name in
>>Friday and Time for the Stars, and in at least one of them, apparently
>>it was indeed destroyed.
>
>
>
>In TFTS.
>
>IIrc, Friday had Acapulco getting nuked by terrorists.
I thought it was a transnational megacorp. Acting as terrorists.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
W. Citoan
> On 2009-12-10 14:04:18 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
> >
> > However, I don't think "how many schools did they name after him" is a
> > useful metric.
Well, to clarify just in case it's needed, that was a reference to it as
a metric on how the Philippines regards MacArthur; not as the likelihood
of the Philippines being Rico's country of origin.
> It may not be convincing to everyone, but I'm ready to conclude the
> Heinlein set out to make Juan Rico a Filipino but never actually
> mention it concretely, to play with audience expectations.
I always assumed it was done to help portray a world where which country
you were from was no longer relevant. Instead, it was a single world
government; plus the all humans against the bugs thing. Granted, that's
not contradictory to playing with audience expectations.
- W. Citoan
--
The Consultant's Curse: When the customer has beaten upon you long enough,
give him what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong
medicine, and is normally only required once.
-- Anonymous
Kurt Busiek
> Kurt Busiek wrote:
>> On 2009-12-10 14:04:18 -0800, "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> said:
>>>
>>> However, I don't think "how many schools did they name after him" is a
>>> useful metric.
>
> Well, to clarify just in case it's needed, that was a reference to it as
> a metric on how the Philippines regards MacArthur; not as the likelihood
> of the Philippines being Rico's country of origin.
>
>> It may not be convincing to everyone, but I'm ready to conclude the
>> Heinlein set out to make Juan Rico a Filipino but never actually
>> mention it concretely, to play with audience expectations.
>
> I always assumed it was done to help portray a world where which country
> you were from was no longer relevant. Instead, it was a single world
> government; plus the all humans against the bugs thing. Granted, that's
> not contradictory to playing with audience expectations.
Yeah, it's the fact that he waits so long to reveal it that makes me
think it's meant to make the reader reassess his or her image of Rico.
It's at the end of Chapter 13, and the final chapter, 14, is short.
Some more info that suggests that Rico's not merely of Filipino
heritage: He calls Tagalog his native language, and says they talk
Standard English for business and school but talk the old speech at
home a little. That's in response to a question about "where you come
from," so I take it to mean that he's describing how people where he
comes from act at home, not merely how people act in his specific home.
It's certainly possible to imagine workarounds that would make
everything he says true without his home actually being in the
Phillipines, but it does require workarounds, and Heinlein doesn't
indicate any are needed. On the face of it, Occam's Razor suggests he
calls Tagalog his native language because he was born where Tagalog is
spoken, and it's still spoken around people's homes there even though
Standard English has taken over as a lingua franca.
Sure, he could be from a Filipino enclave in some other nation, but in
the absence of anything that would suggest that, I think Rico being
from the Phillipines is what RAH was indicating.