Bernie X- The Borges collection is now out in pb for 16.95. Beats the $40 hb tag.
My fave Borges story is *August 25, 1983*. It's one of those dream thingies. It's really fab & gear & harladelic to the max. But the only book that contains it is a big fat recent anthology called *Collected Fictions*.
I'm glad that Ursula LeGuin & Brian Attebery included *Strange Wine* in that Norton anthology. *Strange Wine* is arguably the single greatest story ever written in the history of this particular galaxy-cluster. And I'm not even much of an Ellison fan.
Here's one of my fave pet-peeves: I hate it when writers use the same title for both a single piece and a collection. Because it creates a confusion between the two in regard to which one you're referring to. For example: *Strange Wine* is the title of a story by Ellison. But *Strange Wine* is also the title of a story collection by Ellison. What I'm trying to say to all you entertainers out there is simply this: Fer pete's sake, don't be so goddam lazy. Don't just name the collection after one item that's contained in the collection. Think up a separate title for the collection.
SHANE & ALL REST: re your comments below. Dove is also issuing an Ellison recording entitled, "THE VOICE FROM THE EDGE, VOL 1: I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM." It will include that story, plus "A Boy and His Dog," "'Repent Harlequin!'...," "Grail," "Laugh Track," "The Time of the Eye," "Paladin of the Lost Hour," "The Very Last Day of a Good Woman," and "The Lingering Scent of Woodsmoke." It'll include introductory material as well. Comes out around September 16th, I believe. ISBN for ordering is, 0-7871-2266-1. Happy listening. Out here, DTS.
Peter: If you enjoy Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker books, you might be interested to know that Harlan will be doing a reading of Card's ENDERS GAME that will be released by DOVE AUDIO.
DTS- Thanks for the comments and recommendation. I'll check out Willis' book.
CHARLIE: one more thing! Connie Willis will have a new book of short stories out in November, MIRACLE and OTHER CHRISTMAS STORIES. I've already started reading bits of it -- it's great, as usual (there's a reason she wins all of those writing awards). In fact, it looks like it'll be the second Christmas book (in as many years) that I'll actually buy and recommend for family and friends (the last one, last year, was SANTA STEPS OUT by Charles Devereaux, in which Santa and the tooth fairy have an extended affair -- don't even ask about the Easter bunny or Mrs. Claus and the elves -- it's a great tract about sexuality and myths...pagan and otherwise). Out here, DTS.
CHARLIE: Yes, I've read TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG -- it's hilarious! (don't go to it looking for a retread version of DOOMSDAY BOOK, like other readers, and you'll be greatly rewarded). Great time travel adventures, and great fun -- especially with the stuffy English characters. Mrs. Willis also advised (for a "Bloomsbury Review" piece a couple years ago) that she is hard at work on WORKING CAPE RACE, a book about life after death that includes "characters" and situations from that famous 1912 shipwreck which provides the title. As for Simmons, yeah, the story he is writing with Ellison is for the White Wolf reissue of PARTNERS IN WONDER -- I just didn't mention the title cause the publication date might change, depending on when all the stories are finished (in addition to Ellison's full schedule, Simmons just finished a screenplay and another novel, due in April 2000, DARWIN'S BLADE, has begun work on a new book, THE HOUNDS OF WINTER, a sort-of-sequel to SUMMER OF NIGHT, and has yet another in the research stages [that one will feature Charles Dickens as a main character]). Out here, DTS
BARNEY: tried to email you (after copying the address from one of you postings here), but got a message back saying the address was incorrect. Anyway, to condense my message: Got the surprise package in the mail! Many thanks. The "Con" book was especially great (with the L&D Dillon artwork from SHATTERDAY), but the rest of it was pretty cool, too. I owe you. If I'm ever in a position to repay you in kind, I will. Till then, let me know there's anything I can do to help garner any needed information for your forthcoming Ellison bio. Thanks again. Out here, DTS.
SHeriff Buck: regarding HE and Borges -- obviously Ellison has developed his own unique style, but if you are looking for similarities, that is, prose that shows signs of influence, check out MIND FIELDS, "From A to Z in the Chocolate Alphabet" (and, in a future publication, "From A to Z in the Sarsaparilla Alphabet"), "Eidolons," and at least half of the stories in SLIPPAGE. Out here, DTS.
Now for a moment of reflection as I step back into the merciless arms of academia. Tonight is my last night for pleasureable reading without the pressure of "having to do something else." I just found Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker books, and am quite enjoying them. Of course, I read the first four in about a week's time. I'm going to finish off the last one tonight before I plunge my hand into the waiting vat of liquid nitrogen called education.
---Peter
Charlie - I'd also heard that there was a HE/Bradbury collaboration in the offing for the re-release of "Partners In Wonder".
Alejandro - I'm currently rotating "Ficciones" with a few others, including the annotated complete Sherlock Holmes, so I haven't read enough to converse intelligently. But I've liked both "The Secret Miracle" and "Three Versions of Judas" - two for two so far.
All - For those of you looking for quality stocking stuffers (hey, it's never too early), the Edgeworks 2 trade paperback has been sighted on the shelves.
That thar post is me, not some mechanized clone. I got careless and typed in the 1st half of my email instead of my handle. These things wouldn't happen if I'd just use my real name like a good boy.
alejandro:
My favorite Borges stories (keep in mind, I haven't gotten around to reading any more than the first 15 or so stories in Labyrinths) are "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" and "The Lottery in Babylon."
I, too, have read HE mention Borges as one of his greatest influences on many occasions, but I must confess I don't see many similarities. Maybe I just haven't read enough Borges; maybe I just don't understand what's meant by "influencing." Obviously HE's not going to simply tread the same ground as JLB, but I fail to see any characteristics whatsoever that the two share (apart from--arguably--genre). That includes style, ideas, topics of interest--they just seem completely different to me. Can anyone shed light? Am I just being ignorant?
There's an interview w/Dan Simmons in latest Bloomsbury Review and he mentions that he's writing a short story with HE to be included, I'm assuming, in Edgeworks Partners in Wonder. So, now the list includes C. Willis, N. Gaiman, M. Moorcock, and D. Simmons. Did I leave anyone out? Speaking of C. Willis, has anyone read To Say Nothing of the Dog? Wondering if worth picking up.
In the hopes of changing the thread a little bit, here's a peice of news that may not have reached your neck of the woods. Jorge Luis Borges was born 100 years today. And even though I have some major catch up to do in regards to his work (I last read Ficciones a decada ago) and considering that Borges has been such a strong influence on Harlan's work, I would like to ask, what are some of your favorite Borges' stories, poems or piece of nonfiction?
Rick: any chance that Harlan may share his thoughts on Borges in this site?
You're right. I have some pet peeves that resist logic. For instance the words "like" and "you know what I'm sayin' " after every few words when someone is talking, make me nuts.
But, as a whole, if I let spelling mistakes mess with my head too much, I'd lose my mind. My husband and son are both dyslexic. I know it's now called "reading disabled", but people never know what I mean by that. It's so severe that my husband is not allowed to touch the checkbook and my son, who is eight, sees "e" as the universal vowel that belongs in every word as many times as possible.
other Chris,
Yes, you're right. I have no idea why I latched onto the one word. I just got a little bit of the bulldog in me, I guess.
Am I sometimes surprised by the lack of basic communication skills people have? Absolutely. I'm shocked at the general knowledge many people don't possess. I saw a game show with 14-16 year old contestants and they were rendered helpless by questions I think any 6th grader should have known.
One example: "If Tommy Lee only served 2/3 of his 6 month sentence,how long will he be in jail?" Not only did the two 15 year olds asked this question not know, they produced these stunned glances and didn't even try as if they thought, "Hell, nobody knows something like that!"
At the same time, I also don't get too upset about spelling mistakes as long as they aren't too egregious.
I'd rather see people writing with lousy spelling than not writing at all.
You are right. I give. I was talking about the usage of the word when refering to a group. However, in the form you are defending, it can be a noun or adverb. But, I can't believe that when I was talking about the sweeping illiteracy in this country, all you could comment on was one word. Do you not see examples of this illiteracy all around you?
In regards to Sherriff Buck's query about the upcoming Sandman project......Sandman: The Dream Hunters is the book in question with art by Yoshitaka Amano. It is a $29.95 HC and is supposed to be similar in format to Stardust. For more information check out the blurb at http://www.holycow.com/dreaming/
Yeah, but "altogether" is a word, plain and simple. It's not slang or a substitue for "all together." It's simply a word in its own right. I've got it in a dictionary that's 20 years old so it's been accepted for at least that long.
My God, what's wrong with me? Why would I debate such matters?
-chris
We all have to have some genetic imperfections to keep us humble. I can't seem to walk across a perfectly clean floor without tripping over the invisible object that seems to hover near my feet at all times.
Also: the use of 'alot' and 'altogether' instead of ' a lot' and 'all together' are simply pet peeves left over from journalism school. We all have things that make us roll our eyes.
HELP!! I'M DOOMED I SAY!
That should be "You're doomed." Not your. I am abjectly sorry. Again, I can only say that this is all my Grandma's fault. Bad genes...
YUP! Your screwed now Barney! ;-)
Yeah, my Dad is very bright too. I'm telling you, it's genetic and I'm doomed. I fight it and fight it. .
Hey, if you want to get peeved about something, why not the destruction of a perfectly good swear word? Have posted a rant yet about the abuse and destruction of the great English swear words? Just really irritates me when I'm on the bus and there's somebody using fuck as if it were an adjective instead of one of the most perfect swear words ever invented - hey, have you ever heard what passes for a swear word in France?!?! These people have a great public transportation system. They eat so much better than your average American that we're practically a different species, but their swear words are totally lame. No power in them. No punch. No good hard explosive "k" sound that you can really get behind when you're good and angry. And some idiot children with no vocabulary and even less imagination are turning our perfect swear words (I count shit in this. Not quite as perfect as fuck, but you can still get a good explosive out of it) into everyday speech. Just irate!
Women can vote? Oh crap.
Actually, "altogether" is a word, at least according to all of my dictionaries.
"Alot" may not be in the dictionary but it has become common usage and I have no problem with it. Language evolves. The dead white guys don't get the final say on what is and what isn't "proper" English.
I have this wild desire to comment on the grammar and spelling issue. As a ex retail manager for many years, I must say that people are definitely paying less attention to spelling and grammar. A sixteen year old employee asked me to proofread a term paper for her. When I told her that there was no such words as "altogether" or "alot" she told me that her teacher had told her to spell them like that. These were not her only errors, but when she showed me the graded version of her paper, no spelling errors were addressed. I just threw up my hands in disgust.
Also, I would like to point out that my father is a brilliant man. However, when he writes a letter it looks as if it was written by a third grader. His spelling is that terrible.
Hiya! Yes, I am back live and direct! I would just like to say thanks to Shane for copying all of this stuff and sending it to me periodically so that I could keep in touch vicariously! Kept me from completely running amok in this here looney bin.
So - a few thoughts that I meant to post last week when we first on line before I was felled by the allergy aggravated cold turned sinus infection from hell -
On the evil that is known as "political correctness" - I have to say that I am about the least politically correct human being on earth (oh ask me some time about the brouhaha last fall when I dared to firmly and rather loudly participate in a bunch of stupid crap celebrating the local bashers, aka Vikings football. Yikes!), but I don't spend that much time on PC, and I don't think that it's the beginning of the end of civilisation. On the contrary, it seems a rather hopeful, if irritating thing - rather like an itchy scab. I like to read history (among other things) and it seems to me that anytime something comes along that shakes things up, there is a penduluum swing to things before they settle down. For instance, women's rights. The suffrage movement built for a long time before we, FINALLY, got the right to vote. Then nothing else big happened, and in some ways, it even looked like we were going back wards. Then the 60's came along and ERA. Didn't pass, we have even gone through a bit of back lash, which seems to be fading a bit. In it's wake, things have changed for women substantially. Same thing with this PC crap. People aren't going to put up with it forever. Eventually, commonsense is going to rear it's head and people are going to find a middle ground. On the plus side however, I think that it's a good thing that people are actually thinking about the fact that different people have different sensibilities. It's not the end of the road, just a step in the right direction. Eventually, people will find a consensus.
As to the evil spelling/grammar issue - I have to say right here that I have a genetic predisposition to wretched spelling and grammar. Trust me on this. My Grandmother has been sending me letters with the exact same spelling and grammar errors as the ones my father sends me ever since I went off to college, nigh on 20 years ago. Until recently, I thought that I had evaded that particular genetic bomb. My Dad and my Grandma both email me now and both have spell check and it doesn't help a bit. I just keep battling this particular gene. Still cranky about that damn sneaky farmer gene....
Happy to be back!
ALL- There is all sorts of juicy news in latest issue of Rabbit Hole #22. Enuf to whet your appetite for weeks on end. Ellison in Estonian-hmmmm.
OK, I get it now. Jim's one of those performance artists. Otherwise, the laughable number of spelling and/or grammatical errors in his last message would just be too ironic for words.
However, I believe sherrif buck has it right. The only way to deal with the trolls is to ignore them.
As for my favorite HE stories, "Jeffty is Five" is, by far, my favorite. I also like "Paladin" and "Prowler." And "Christopher Columbus" and "Mephisto in Onyx" and and and... well, a whole lot.
-chris
One final thought on the matter and then I am off to do something else (Interesting? Meaningful? Possessing purpose? Who knows? It matters to me, and a handful of others.): Harlan Ellison has spent his writing life thus trying with great effort and energy to make writing and the Writer credible and respectable. To do this means taking to task those who apparently don't give a damn about what makes up writing--things like spelling, which worsen with each passing day owing to the ever increasing presence of computers and spellchecks that don't know and don't care about the difference between such words as "to" and "too". For his efforts, troubles, and sacrifices Harlan Ellison has been branded a pain in the ass, Le Enfant Terrible, a Bad Boy of literature, etc. Better to branded such for trying to do a good job than to slog through life making excuses and being narrow-minded pinheads who think, because they have a year or two of college behind them, they know everything. Unfortunately, based on the exchanges here of late, HE's writing life, his efforts, his attempts to make writing and the Writer something meaningful and worthy, have been for nought. If--god forbid--he died tomorrow he would die knowing that he has failed, based much on the remarks here. Man, you people must be proud of yourselves. Until next time. . . .
RE: Sheriff Buck's remark that I assume a HE-like persona. To suggest so is to insult Harlan Ellison. Of course, the fact you need to categorize, stereotype, quantify others in terms of others begs the asking of a question. Which I won't do. Y'all have fun, now. Until next time. . .
Allow a correction: "I must people" should be "I must suffer people. . ." See? I found my mistake and learned from it. Until next time. . .
RE: Chris's remarks: "get a life". Actually, I do have a life. A wonderful life. Unfortunately, with a certain regularity, I must people like you. Until next time. . .
Let's start with Chris: No. I do not have personal issues. No. I do not need--as you say--"professional therapy". Yes. I do have loved ones. That you would feel compelled to use the word "unlucky" in association with this makes me wonder about you. But that is what makes the world go 'round'. Until next time. . .
*** Sherrif Buck *** The real name deal [modified to Rick Wyatt being able to get in touch with the poster or the posters ISP] was something that I lobbied for. I understand peoples reservations about this but what prompted this was sort of over the top. Awhile back somebody anonymously posted a one-liner here under a former regular guests name that the subject of Webderland had suddenly passed away. When I opened the board up to that it was only up about 10 minutes and I just about had a seizure until I realized this was someones sick joke. Having a nom de plume is one thing. Taking pot shots at us from the hills while we stand in someones electronic equivalent of a living room with a big bay window is something else. I think using your real name adds credibility, especially if your going to say something that flys in the face of a common perception, but I understand the average net users hesitation to do so.
Does anyone know anything about the upcoming Neil Gaiman Sandman project? I read that it was to be a short novel with illustrations, much like "Stardust," and that it had a hardcover release date of Oct. However, I read these things in a none-too-reliable periodical. Has one of y'all heard of this book?
Also, kindly excise one "then" from my previous post, lest I have a third asshole ripped for me. And I meant "superior" in its most basic sense, ie. "best," not "haughty."
Oh my god.
It's clear that every time I post here (on anything but the most banal and uninflammatory topics, like blues-rock albums) I somehow transform JH from his generally snide, curmudgeonly, vaguely HE-like persona into a poopy-head of unfathomable magnitude. I didn't mean _anything_ except to point out that you were being a little rude, Jim. I even included a disclaimer of sorts about my intentions!
It's clear that the rest of the board isn't keen on Jim's infuriated responses. Some months ago, he informed me on this board that it was his right, in this age of unprecedented violence and worldwide internet phone "books," to know my real name when I posted. If anyone here did not then then understand my argument to the contrary, hopefully Hess's recent, confrontational posts serve as a poignant illustration. You never know who's reading, fellas.
It's clear, to me, that Finder has taken the superior attitude toward all this. Thanks for setting the example; I will now follow it.
Mr. SA - Fave stories include "Grail", "Paladin of the Lost Hour" and "Go Toward The Light" - but then, I'm sentimental at heart...
DTS - I haven't had the chance yet, but I was e-mailed an article a couple months ago on the Harry Potter series, which clued me in. I simply haven't had the finances to pick up any of the books yet (a few weeks back, I did notice the three in the series were the top three sellers at Amazon.com, even though the third was still pre-order). What I've been able to skim in passing has been an enjoyable read, though, and I'm looking forward an honest read down the road.
Jim,
You should also review this phrase you recently posted:
one must first find and correct faults and mistakes
with themselves and what they do or say.
Please analyze it for errors and post the corrected version.
Or you could consider getting a life.
Either one.
-chris
Jim,
You have some serious personal issues and I urge you to seek professional therapy immediately. I fear you could be a danger to yourself and those who love you (if there are any such unlucky persons.)
And you still can't figure out how to spell "grammar" correctly.
-chris
Jim. You claim that you are not the standard by which to judge other people's writing, but you are so quick to disparage others on the board. That is the high horse from which I ask you to dismount. I think that people on this board do a rather excellent job in spelling and grammar, especially when you consider the almost abysmal state of our teaching institutions and the fact that most people are left to their own devices when they actively attempt to improve their writing abilities. However, what I do not appreciate is someone coming on this board and saying "But given the spelling mistakes found
_here_ since my last post I just sigh and roll my eyes as a form of sadness and dismay over the laziness that pollutes and contaminates the English language today." You don't hold yourself as a benchmark? Fine. But do not presume to make comment unless you are willing to hold yourself up to the same standards that you wish to impose on other people. I take pride in my ability as a writer and I take pride in my attempts to master the written word. I don't take kindly to people who assume an attitude of holy-than-thou, especially under the auspices of "hey I'm just a regular joe." Either you are disgusted by the corruption of the english language and wish to do something about it by writing in clean, grammatically correct prose, or you are just blowing smoke and contributing to what you think of as the problem. A man who doesn't hold himself to his own standards is no sort of man I can respect.
I apologize to everyone for my unseemly outburst. But in an effort to correct my horrible use of grammar, I must say, "I is pissed off."
---Peter (three days and I'm back in the daily academic grind)
Tell you what, folks: Since you people know just every GD thing why don't you just get Harlan Ellison (HE) on the telephone and tell him something like "Hey, old man. Congrats. You have managed to waste your writing life thus far because we, snot-nosed f***s, know better than you when it comes to spelling, grammer, mechanics, etc. And your constant rantings and ravings and the rantings and ravings of those who stand with you on this, demanding that we straighten up and fly right (pun intended) is just breaking wind. So, run along, old man. You're wrong. We're right. Kiss off." I'd love to see you tell Harlan Ellison or Stephen King or Dan Simmons or Ed Bryant or any other writer (which you little turds obviously aren't) worth their salt that you know better than they do. Go on. I would buy a ticket to see you say this to Harlan Ellison. I would buy two tickets to see what Harlan Ellison would do to you after you said this to him. Until next time. . .
*JIM*, yikes! It's so hard to convey good-natured gibing electronically; I tried, I really did. That's why I tacked on the parenthetical (sorry, couldn't resist) at the end. But I guess the tone was lost in the translation to keystrokes. But hey, how were we to know in a serious post containing "sigh and roll my eyes as a form of sadness and dismay over the laziness that
pollutes and contaminates the English language today" that we were supposed to pick up on the intentional Mzspelling of one word? By the way, if anyone's looking for pollution of the English language, search no further than the US Declaration of Independence. I don't think Unalienable was any more a word in 1776 than irregardless is today. -- Billy D.
Peter, with his remarks, goes to reinforce what I have said all along. Incidentally, Mr. Wonderful, _if_ you had been reading along you might have found an interesting fact, which I repeat now: I do _not_ hold myself up as a benchmark or standard. Thereby going to prove your 'high horse' remarks are false. It is because of _your_ high horse horseshit that things are the way they are. _If_ you had any measure of self-respect or pride in your writing you would make a solid effort to check for mistakes before posting. Failing that you would admit to and learn from mistakes that make their way into print. Gawd. What's the damn point with pinheads like this? My god, it must be wonderful to be so GD perfect. As for those of us who are _not_, well, I'm off. Guess this site is just for gods the likes of Peter. Let me know, would you, oh-so perfect one, when the book burning is, huh? Until next time. . .
Uh, how did this argument about the way we write turn personal? Sheesh. Jim, get off your high horse. So wat, weze all gotz som mizerble gramma n speling. There is a vast difference between honest spelling and grammatical errors, and the type of sputum you find floating around the world because people just don't know any better. And as for purposeful mismellings (yeah that was on purpose). Exaggeration will clue people in that a mispelling is on porpoise, otherwise it looks just like a tiepoe.
Everyone else. Uh, let us go back to the days when we either ignored our idiosyncratic diction and grammar shifts, or correct them ourselves. Please?
---Peter
'Mispell' in my previous post, incidentally, is correct for my purposes. It should not have been 'misspelled'. I do that all the time. Just to check to see if A) anyone gives a damn, and b)anyone knows the difference from one to another. Feel free not to comment on it with implicitly snide remarks. Until next time. . .
Yes, I misspell a certain word. I did it on purpose, incidentally. But doing so goes to my point originally: Everyone--generally speaking--here seems so quick to find fault with others, but, by god, _you_ are above making mistakes and if _you_ do make mistakes, well. . . it isn't your fault you don't have a spellcheck or a dictionary. And you were in such a hurry to run off and pass judgement elsewhere on god knows what you didn't have the time to check your remarks. Let me make this as simple as possible: To achieve credibility, respectability, credence, respect, etc. as a writing type with aspirations of being a Writer one must first find and correct faults and mistakes with themselves and what they do or say. Until such time that this occurs one does not have credence, credibility, respectability. I make mistakes. I admit to my mistakes--deliberate or otherwise. I make all efforts to learn from these mistakes. And I think, once more trying to drag this thread back to the topic of this site--Harlan Ellison, that HE teaches well, through his writings and speakings and whatnot, that life is an ongoing learning process. Failure on your part _not_ to learn ongoing is to hand over the world to heaven knows what. Until next time. . .
Okay, I just reread my last post for grammar, spelling and typos. Perhaps it should read, "giving each ITS own planet." And "visiting" should be "visited" near the end. -- Billy D.
*JIM*, I will accept your confession that you are not a benchmark for grammar, since you spelled the word incorrectly in your post (sorry, couldn't resist). *ALL*, regarding the separation of races, we need to take a step back and realize that we've been misled into believing that there are "races" at all, especially the ones we've been told about. It was a white man's categorization to begin with. What defines a "race?" Skin color? Then where's the cutoff point; there are "Negroids" in Africa with lighter skin than I. Facial features? Susceptibility to certain diseases? There's more genetic diversity WITHIN a tribal community than there is between people from two different continents. There used to be a GREAT satire television show called "TV Nation," with Michael Moore. In one installment, they went to a white supremacist church in Idaho, where the prevailing belief is that God will come and separate the races, giving each their own planet. The interviewer, a British chap, asked, "Well, let's say I'm on the white planet, and I find out that the black planet is having more fun. Will I be allowed to emigrate?" That was the same episode where they visiting another church claiming that the Book of Isaiah prophesied that the Second Coming would occur 381 days after the bombing of the World Trade Center. On the alleged day, the interviewer, wearing a bomb shelter helmet, phoned the church from New York City to ask what the delay was. -- Billy D.
For those who don't have a King James handy, the passage I refer
to reads, approximately, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
the same today and forever..."
Okay, been away for a while, here 'tis:
1. Dr. Laura = bonehead.
2. PC is from hunger, and anyone thinking differently *is*
welcome to their own opinion; they are also welcome to go
shit in a hat.
3. On the "cat-strangling" thing, I commend interested parties
to Hebrews 13:8. I understand pet-love; so does Harlan. If
his attitude offends your precious sensabilities, I suggest
you are taking the matter *far* too personally.
4. THE HAUNTING was a travesty of filmmaking. I expected to be
disappointed; I did not expect to be actively offended. Jan
Debont should have his jodpurs and megaphone taken away, and
much as I hate to rain on a fellow Jew, we are nevertheless
advised to correct our brothers where they are wrong: Steve,
bubie> DO NOT call your director and command scene-inserts
just because something cute happened that "inspired" you;
and by the way, ET stank. As for THE (non)HAUNTING, I'm glad
I sneaked in from something else in the Evil Sony Googleplex.
5. Yes, THE SIXTH SENSE is good -- see it.
6. MYSTERY MEN is only terrific, worth even full-price
admission, see it at once. Seldom have I enjoyed myself so
and the ensemble work,... hell, just go.
7. BWP is tremendous, not without flaws. Outstanding psycho-
logical study. A landmark '90s film -- mark my words.
8. Kristian Bland was lookin' for a fight when she walked in --
why is anyone surprised at how things went (and went)(and
went)(and....).
That's all I got for now. I'm charging boldly into chapter 9;
no, not bankruptcy, I'm talking about my novel, SURVIVING
FOOTAGE, which should benefit, deservedly or otherwise, from the
resurrgence of the "horror" (or as I prefer, "macabre fantasy")
field. Rick, the review is on the way, I **SWEAR**...
Cheers,
Doc
Sheriff Buck,
I try to mind my own P's & Q's (I really do), but you misspelled "woolly".
Mr. S.A.: My favorite HE stories are "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore," "Base," "Ernest and the Machine God," and "The Cheese Stands Alone."
Jim: Were we to give the roaches dominion over the earth, and to ensure that their rule lasted as long as the earth itself was capable of sustaining life, I do not believe they would ever reach the point at which "you guys'" is easily confused with "your guys," or at which punctuation is often placed on the incorrect side of the quotation mark.
Then again, they probably wouldn't develop such wooly mammoth-sized egos that such errors would cause them to lament, sarcastically or otherwise, their species' existence.
P.S. Please, do not take this as anything other than the friendly japing it's intended to be. I feel ridiculous placing what amounts to a disclaimer on a post here, but I don't want to repeat that mean business between us a while back.
Incidentally, you misspelled "grammar."
Well, if a person even _had_ a spellchecker I would allow some tolerance. But given the spelling mistakes found _here_ since my last post I just sigh and roll my eyes as a form of sadness and dismay over the laziness that pollutes and contaminates the English language today. FYI: I do not hold myself up as a benchmark of what is right or wrong when it comes to grammer, mechanics, spelling, etc. I do the best I can do. Which is what I expect of others--do the best you can. But apparently _that_ even is too much to ask. Oh, well. Like Harlan wrote once or twice: Well, we had our shot at it. Give over and let the roaches have their shot. Until next time. . .
ALL: How many of you guys have picked up (and read) the Harry Potter books? My daughter and I just finished the third (HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN -- got a galley copy for review purposes), and we cant wait until next July for the fourth installment. These books are terrific! J.K. Rowling is the best thing to hit children's literature since Roald Dahl. She deserves the success she stumbled into a couple of years ago (her rags-to-riches story has been written up in "Time," "Newsweek" [twice now], and several major newspapers throughout America). If you guys haven't tried these books (the first two are, HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE and HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS), run out to you local book store and pick 'em up now (number 3 comes out September 8th). That way you won't be standing in the corner, scratching your head at the next party you attend, because everyone else is talking about "muggles," "quidditch," and "Lord Voldemort," while you're trying to decipher the code. Out here, DTS.
*** Jim *** Re: typo Hell - I've been reading Microsoft press RFC's and White papers lately [essentially, papers written by geeks, for geeks] and I can't believe the typos that get through. These arn't beta editions, these are THE NEW WORD FROM GATES. You'd think they could do more than run it through a spell checker that accepts "fad" when "and" was the word they were looking for. Logical line breaks, hyphenation, and widows? Don't ask.
*** Mr. S.A. *** All time, it would have to be "Jefty Is Five". Stuff in "Mind Fields" is looking stronger every year. But it's a mugs game. It's like picking favorite relatives or children.
*** Joe *** Too vague, man. There are currently 3 editions. The Ziesing, the Houghton-Mifflin, and whoever did the TPB. If your talking fonts, I think different fonts were used for different parts [ie. intro/story/etc.]. That information sometimes appears on the indicia page or in a typesetting/binding page toward the back, but with the prevalence of a lot of off-shore proofreading/computer typography you may be S.O.L.
Ziesing press could tell you. He's on-line and a fairly personable fellow. If it's the HM edition, they won't give you the time of day.
Anybody know which typeface SLIPPAGE was printed in?
Quick Question: What are your guys favorite Ellsion stories? I have to go with "The Deathbird", "A Boy and His Dog", and "Mefisto in Onyx".
RE: Reading/writing scores I won't question. Given what I have seen of late when it comes to the news media and just your average Joe, supposedly a college graduate, I believe the numbers crunched on these test scores. Jeez. . . no wonder Harlan is always cranky on such matters. Here's a shining example of recent days from one of my local rags: "For vereficatio letters to the edtor must include. . ." No jokes here, folks. I present it to you as it appears and has appeared for weeks now in the newspaper. Until next time. . .
Jim, if you feel like wading through the muck and mire of data tables, the National Center for Education Statistics can be found at
http://nces.ed.gov/
Although I haven't found any tables organized by rank, I have found some state and national averages for reading and math proficiencies. California seems to tie for lowest scoring state, and is below the national average when it comes to reading proficiency. Whether or not the difference is a significant one is another matter.
---Peter
Before someone here gets the idea to break out the tar and feathers for Yours Truly, let me lay a basic notion on y'all: I ask this question because I have yet to see _any_ state listed as number one. A 'fact' that makes me wonder if these low ratings in the overall scheme of things is just an attempt to get more money into the public schools. Especially at a time, like in Colorado, when the number of students moving from the public education system to the charter schools, private schools, and home schooling is about 40,000 per year. Until next time. . .
As a product of the California Public Education system, I'd tend to side with Peter. Some CA schools are top notch - those would be the ones in rich neighborhoods with lots of local property taxes to support them. The rest scrape along. And consider that So Cal has a huge population of struggling immigrant or EOSL students, not to mention those schools in the big cities with large crime elements.... (not prejudice against them, but those students have a harder time learning, get lower test scores, etc., which are some of the measures for ranking).
I don't have test scores or numbers, but I remember what it was like. 49th may be low, but I'd be surprised if it's higher than 35th.
Peg
My figures could be old, but I seem to remember a study based on performance and standardized test scores which placed Mississippi , California, and Hawaii in the last three spots in the education rankings. But I could be wrong, or working from old data.
---Peter (who wants George Romero to direct a sequel to Romeo and Juliet)
California is 49th in education? Hey, now. I thought Colorado was. Right behind Arkansas. I would like to know how these numbers get crunched. I suspect sumpin' aint right here. Thoughts, folks? Until next time. . .
Peter - You and Barney are both absolutely right, and I hide my red face in embarassment. A dot of research I should do/Before I sink my cents of two. (Never, never let me post in the wee small hours when I'm short on sleep, bereft of desire, and just plain-old mad at the world in general and my world in particular.)
Actually Finder, I think Barney was right. The Lorax was a conservation statement. I think the sneetches were about how deep down we are all the same. The Butter Battle Book was also about how people are more alike than they care to think and how differences are merely which side of the bread we spread out butter.
In other thoughts however, I think we should totally throw away any issue of what is deemed "appropriate" attire for school children by making them all wear dull grey jumpsuits. Then, in the interest of safety and attendence, we should barcode their foreheads, and attach lojacks to their ankles. That way, we keep people out of the schools who don't belong, and keep the ones who do in their classes. Truant children will be hunted by teams of cybernetically enhanced beagles, whose tracking systems have a direct link up to GPS sattelite systems. First offense, the child is sent back to school. Second, they are beaten by officers and then sent back to school. Third, the dogs get to have their way with them. Fourth, the children are shot and schools get reimbursed for lost attendence money.
To say that most school districts are inherently stupid is an understatement. I'm just surprised more of their idiocies don't get printed. How about in my own home town. The new Superintendent of schools has just cut the fourth grade science classes so as to funnel more money to performing arts. I'm all for performing arts. I was a band geek throughout highschool (actually, my first two years. The second two years I played jazz trombone which had a certain respectability in its school wide anonymity. Hey we did paying gigs.) But, to cut science? To fund an already highly funded and highly successful performing arts program? That's ludicrous. It is only made worse by the fact that the superintendent's goal is not to improve the education of the children, but to increase budget on an annual district wide show called Marching On that has been her baby since she was the assistant superintendent fifteen years ago. She doesn't give a hairy rat's ass about the kids. Only about her two days in the spotlight. If she had her druthers, the continuation school which gives kids a second chance to get their diploma after having been removed from the normal highschool would be slashed and burned, with the students still inside.
And people wonder why California is in 49th place in terms of education. But I rant.
---Peter (starting classes next week. should be fun)
Barney - You're thinking of "The Lorax", one of the good Doctor's best social messages in the form of rhyming couplets. My college actually kept a copy for loan. I hadn't heard about the poll until you mentioned it here - obviously the success of the Blair Witch Project is more newsworthy than road signs that society is falling apart...the bees in my bonnet have been the State of Kansas' recent decision to eliminate evolution as a required scientific teaching and embrace a more creationist stance, and the Mississippi school board that recently barred a student from wearing a Star of David pin because in their wisdom, there was at least one gang that used the six-pointed star in their gang symbol. Mind you, the nearest known gang that uses such a symbol is some seventy miles from the school in question. And while there was discussion about certain types of crosses for the same reason, it was only the star that was restricted. The inevitable lawsuit is already in the works.
You're not alone in your anger, Barney. The inmates are slowly taking over the asylum, one wing at a time, and the whimper of whipped dogs has never been more profoundly evident.
Well, folks. It's official: I'm outta the e-mail business for, oh, say, a few weeks. Finally managed to get a human (if that, indeed, was what it was) to answer the phone over at Compuserve and laid it on him as to what he could do with the e-mail account in my name. Of course, he did the Bill Clinton bit--I'm sorry but screw YOU. So. Until the new domain goes on line The Best Friend-type Person and I are off to do creel counts for the Department of Wildlife and enjoy a life free of technology. (Maybe Harlan IS on to something with this attitude about computers and whatnot.) Incidentally, if you should experience something crashing through the underbrush, it is NOT Bigfoot. Just Muddy Ass and his faithful companion. Until next time. . .
*** Jeff *** Thanks for the extra information on that story. ...Pause...Man, no matter how I look at that, no matter what spin I imagine on the phrasing, or how you define your terms, that puts us back about 100 years from where I hoped we were. That's not just pre Martin Luther King that's pre W.E.B. Dubois. Shit. Now, I'm no saint. I've said some harsh things about my HUD housing neighbors and have had a few other lapses but I think of them as lapses. If that story is the least credible I'm gonna have to start handing out copies of, oh crap, what's the title? The Star Belly Sneetches? That Dr. Seuss book. Didn't anybody but me read Kozol's "Death At An Early Age" and "Savage Inequities". Man, I'm depressed.
Harlan Ellison is one of the narrators of the following:
The Business & Other Stories
by Jay McInerney, Joe Barrett (Narrator), Richard Cox (Narrator), Harlan Ellison
Amazon.Com
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Audio Cassette (April 1999)
Dove Entertainment Inc; ISBN: 0787118664
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 930,032
Two abridged audio books performed by Harlan Ellison:
MARS and RETURN TO MARS.
Both are available at Amazon.Com and Barnes and Noble, but they are each $2.50 cheaper at B&N. The B&N information follows:
Mars
Ben Bova Performed by Harlan Ellison
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Our Price: $17.50 You Save: $7.50 (30%)
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ISBN: 0787118583
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Pub. Date: July 1999
Edition Desc: ABBRIDGED
Return to Mars
Ben Bova Performed by Harlan Ellison
Retail Price: $25.00
Our Price: $17.50 You Save: $7.50 (30%)
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Format: Audio
ISBN: 0787118591
Publisher: Dove Audio
Pub. Date: June 1999
Edition Desc: ABRIDGED
Just to put a finer point on it, the complete wording was: "It's OK if the races are basically separate from one another as long as everyone has equal opportunities." Respondents were asked if they strongly or somewhat agreed/disagred.
Barney, the poll asked respondents aged 18 to 29 whether "it's OK if races are basically seperate" from one another. It didn't define the term "basically separate." No doubt the results are dismaying news for race relations, but that's still a pretty vague way to phrase the question.
Story was in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times.
The dead cat thread again, eh? Personally, if your LOOKING for things to offend - CNN did a "story" about a NAACP sponsored poll that determined that in 1999 [ie. 40 some years after Brown vs. Board of Education] 52% of Americans thought that seperation of the races would be OK as long as equal job opportunities [and presumably educational opportunities] were available. Yeah, that wacky Constitution. It's not just a good idea... By the way, I put "story" in quotes because they couldn't bother actually quoting the poll question/s , they just summed up. More time to cover the making of some Geena Davis film. Tickle your sense of outrage?
How about the fact that at least 2000 people are dead and 10's of thousands homeless, because the government of Turkey is to stupid/short-sighted/corrupt/cheap to adopt a building code that acknowledges that their country is built on a fault line.
Ask me tomorrow and I'm sure I'll have more valid things to be pissed off about. Once again, no metaphorical cats were strangled in the creation of these remarks. Sincerely,
Barney Dannelke
[who has nothing against cats, but did assist in "putting down" about 350 in one day for the Washington,D.C. branch of the Humane Society because someone has to do it when about 2,000 come through the door every month and far fewer are adopted. I probably should have taken them all home with me.]
I'm sorry to hear you were upset by the title.
And considering how deeply it seemed to hurt you, I am trying my best to pick my words carefully.
Some people respond well to black humor, others don't. I've seen a lot of death in recent years. The night my mom died, I watched the Monty Python episode which includes a skit about a man who goes to funeral home, carrying his dead mother in a sack. After some discussion, they decide it would be better to eat her than bury her.
I'm sure some folks would have been offended by that joke at that time or, indeed, at any other time. For me, it was just what I needed.
I admit I found the title extremely funny. I hate cats too. That doesn't mean I'd ever dream of hurting one but I can get a real chuckle out of anti-cat jokes. I can also get a real chuckle out of some viciously racist or sexist jokes. It all depends on the context.
I sincerely doubt Harlan is advocating the strangulation of cats.
In other words, it's a joke. It's not your kind of joke and I am truly sorry it hurt you. But, at the same time, I hope you'll be able to put it into a little perspective as time passes and the sting from the death of your beloved pet fades to just a dull pain (it never goes away completely.)
While I personally decry the abuse or loss of any life form (human, animal, or otherwise), I must question the underlying assault on Harlan (I suppose I can call him that as opposed to "Mister"). Awhile back I was asked to give, like, Harlan, a talk. I was annoyed at the intrusion into my life (as if it ain't crazy enough, what with _five_ canines, usually reeking of god knows what, padding through it regular-like), and although I was honored to be asked to speak, I had to wonder about my capabilities to do it. Anyway, long story short, I was asked for a title to my eventual speech. I offered up "Everything Thing I Need To Know (about writing) I Learned In The Whorehouse". Would you believe, when the promotions, such as fliers, were made up, two words were conspcious by their absence: "About Writing". Well, anyway, when I showed up to give my little babble session, a small group with aspirations of being a mob was waiting to curse me for such remarks. All was eventually explained, most in the would-be mob stayed to hear my remarks, and all lived mostly happily ever after. The point here is this: Given what I know of Harlan, there is mostly like a very human, emotion-driven explanation to this title. You would do well to go to the talk if you can and find out before damning him for crimes possibly never committed. On another note, folks, I might be checking out of cyberspace for, oh, say a month. I've been having this running feud with Compuserve, my e-mail provider, and since I am getting ready to launch a domain of my own, well, I might be without a cyberspace net of sort for a day or night. Patience. And remember: The machine is always on and the postal mail still works. Until next time. . .
Lynne,
You have my sympathies on your cat's demise; the loss of any friend of such a long standing is devastating.
Unfortunately your timing here couldn't have been worse - I don't think Rick posted that listing until the last day or two. Harlan is a notorious and unabashed cat hater, so the title doesn't surprise me in the least. I'm only sorry it hit home for you at such an inappropriate time.
Take care, *hug* Peg
I just stopped in here at webderland after a long absence (it's been a tough summer) to find something very disturbing over in the "News - Recent and Upcoming Appearances" section. I'm talking about the title of HE's upcoming talk in LA - "Cat Strangling and Other Amusements". Under normal circumstances I find the whole cat-hatred thing mildly annoying. But having gone through the recent loss of my beloved feline companion of nearly 14 years, who had cancer and at the end had so much fluid in his chest that he was gasping for breath, I'm very upset. The title isn't clever, it isn't amusing, it's just tastless and cruel. It's re-opened the canyon-sized wound in me that really hasn't even begun to heal. And to make things worse, I know that I'm not going to be able to pick up a book by HE now without thinking of it, which means I won't be reading any more HE for a good long time. Thanks, thanks a whole bunch.
Gee, Barney. The bloodletting and bloodshed here in "Mr.Rogers'" neighbor is down (so sayeth the guvmnet). I was hoping ta take muh popcorn and sodee to sumpin' interesting. Okay. Guess it's gots to the teevee tonight. So hope that there Vanna White centerpunchs ol' smiley boy, Pat, into a week past oblivion. Until next time. . .
*** All *** Anybody who would care to be further brought up to speed regarding what Charles Platt would care to be known regarding this situation and a few reactions should go check out the discussion on alt.fan.ellison. The alternative would be to cut and paste it here and that would truly be more trouble than it's worth. Alternately, if there is a traffic accident or fire in your neighborhood, well, I recommend that for entertainment instead. Regards...
Hi all -- Just wondering if any of you saw the delicious news item in August's Locus ("the newspaper of the science fiction field"), recounting the trials and tribulations of one Charles Platt, infamous enemy of Ellison (a story which is documented in R. Cusick's Gauntlet piece housed on this very website). In case you missed it, let me retype it here, verbatim: "Charles Platt was arrested in Jerome AZ for providing alcohol to minors at a party at which one girl claimed to have been given a date-rape drug. He spent one evening in jail, but is now out on bail and staying out of town to avoid villagers with torches and pitchforks. The police seized his car and its contents, including laptop computers. The city and county have separately filed a total of four charges that could result, if he is convicted, in a sentence of over 10 years in prison. Platt's most recent fiction has been under his 'Charlotte Prentiss' pseudonym for Harper/Collins and Penguin/Onyx." .....Whoa, villagers with torches and pitchforks?! That's almost as good as what HE might have dreamed up for him....hee, hee.
Mr. Clinton has won. I have first-hand knowledge of it. But I will visit the site you suggest. Until next time. . .
Tracy, as I understand, HE is making extensive footnotes as well as an index, which is a huge undertaking. Charlie
jim: If the guys at Zero-Knowledge can do what they say they can do then Mr. Clinton's attack on internet privacy has already been out-flanked by technology. If not, I'm glad I live 60 miles
north of Lake Erie.
Anyone who is concerned about internet privacy should check out http://www.zeroknowledge.com/
MOVIES: I took my kids to see "The Iron Gian" today and I absolutely loved it. The reviews I've seen of the movie, while complimentary, don't go far enough. I thought it was a great movie. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a story set in Maine in the '50s (which is a lot like what Maine was like in the '70s) and with a jazz listening, java drinking Beatnik as a hip adult sidekick to the child hero of the story.
No. It was more than that. The STORY got to my soul. That's where any resemblance to ET ends, really. This is a very different alien. This one does not have the power to heal and he doesn't raise the dead. The Iron guy has the power to kill and the dilemma of choice.
I would really like to read Ted Hughes's book and see how close they got. I loved this movie so much, that my brain is drooling for the book (ooh! that's a pretty disgusting image if you think about it.....)
Edgeworks #5 - will it ever be a reality?
Amazon has Edgeworks #6 available for pre-purchase/order, but it's been over a year since I first signed up to receive #5 and still nothing. :(
Well, not completely true, I received this yesterday from Amazon:
------------------------------------------
Greetings from Amazon.com!
We have contacted the publisher by phone concerning the status of our order for "The Glass Teat, the Other Glass Teat (Edgeworks , Vol 5)."
The representative that we spoke with indicated that this book has not been published and there is no projected release date. Release dates tend to fluctuate; if we receive additional information about this, we will let you know.
--------------------------------------------------------
For your reference, here is a summary of order 002-xxxxx-xxxxxxx:
1 of "Edgeworks : Glass Teat & the Other Glass Teat (Edgeworks , Vol 5)"
Harlan Ellison
Item #: 1565049683
Order time availability: Not yet published
Current status: Ordered from supplier
-------------------------------------------------
Does anybody know anything? What is going on? Why is it taking so long for this book to be published?
thanks much,
- t
I seem to recall rumors a while back that HE had expressed interest in writing an X Files ep; of course, it was nothing more detailed or tangible than that. Didn't he write a two-page article about the series for the magazine of that pseudo science fiction cable station?
FEMA. . . oh, dear. Have we wandered into The X-Files territory? Hmm. Here's a question (trying with Herculean effort to bring the convo back to HARLAN ELLISON): How comes unca Harlan ain't neber written for THE X-FILES? Stephen King did it. Chris Carter knows Harlan. Seems like a perfect match. But what do _I_ know? Until next time. . .
Jim - I'm not surprised. I figure personal freedoms have been in jeopardy since Carter signed Exec Order 11490 on 7/20/79 (creating and giving FEMA free reign over everything - including the registration of American citizens - in the event of a national emergency). But how many Americans are going to wade through the thousands upon thousands of pages of public law and executive orders that are issued every year to see if their liberty is in peril?
Sheryl,
I gotta agree with Finder - I think the main flaw in your premise is that you give too much credit to the public en masse as to their ability to be discerning of the news.
Also, slight point of clarification - there are a number of reasons I tend to not watch the news. It's depressing and tends to report many topics on which I can have little or no effect and which, in and of themselves, may make me feel bad but have almost no effect on me. Sensationalism and unreliability are also reasons I tend to not watch. I cannot STAND to see smiling "news"casters speak about the wretched state of Kosovo refugees.
This is not to say I never see, hear, or read about current events. I do check out the local paper online, listen to the radio, etc. I just don't make it a routine. [My hubby is much more current with national and world affairs, and frankly I usually hear as much as I need through him. And I can *trust* him to be a decent filter against sensationalism and general crap. Hey, everyone oughta have one, I just found him first *smile*.].
Oh, and way back I promised to comment on the ever-twisting discussion of struggle vs value, but I see it's kinda died down. Anyone still interested, or shall I in better judgement leave it where it lay?
Peg
Well. . . I was trying to be diplomatic, owing much to the new system imposed by Clinton and his drones with regards to the Internet. Didja know ('cos the "objective" news media has yet to mention it) that Clinton, by way of executive order, wetted in the dark of the night, signed into being a group that can now police the Internet and World Wide Web, and, if they don't like what they read, can track said info back to point of entry--you, your home--and seize, without warrant or legal force, everything in said entity in relation to what was burped on sites like this? So much for freedom of speech. But, hey, he is a liberal and they know best. Right? Until next time. . .
Doesn't look like Nick is showing "Memos From Purgatory" in their Hitchcock marathon - though tomorrow night's prime-time segments are some good viewing, including "Lamb To The Slaughter" (8 pm), for anyone who may need a break from ABC's TGIF line-up.
Sheryl - I don't think you came off like a crazed Oliver Stone conspiracy theorist. Being one myself, I didn't see that kind of slant in your thinking. :)
I think there are several components in addition to the almighty dollar and the holy ratings share:
1) a big part of the equation is that the news media, because it KNOWS that it has the power to shape - or set - public opinion, simply chooses to flex it - and they don't care who gets trampled in the process. They get a crusade in their heads, and rather than present an unbiased report, they choose a side and pursue it with an unholy zeal. The debacle with NBC and the assisted detonation of a pick-up truck to support a story about the vehicle's safety (or lack thereof) springs to mind. Or the time the media expended on trying to figure out who all the Jane Does who had things to say about Clinton in various depositions really were. This is something that goes back to William Randolph Hearst, who used a news publishing empire as a throne for his kingdom, and who liked the news to be on his terms.
2) The media sees a need to compete with entertainment shows for audience. This doesn't so much plague the nightly news programs that air outside of prime-time, but it certainly shapes the news magazines, which rarely delve into newsworthy items, but vie instead for the sensationalistic story. The single worst example of this, I think, was CBS' decision to air Jack Kavorkian's snuff film, which was the factual occurrence of something spec fiction writers have often written of: the televisied demise of another human being. Necessary for a story on the Kavorkian trial? Not even close. But it generated a lot of publicity for CBS.
3) The news media does a little lemming dance with what they cover; they see what the competition is doing, and they'll run competitively against each other to see who stays with the story longest, even if there's nothing new to report for hours. Witness JFK Jr.'s plan crash: ten minutes of news wrapped several hours of analysis, biography, commentary and the ghoulish deathwatches at the Kennedy compound and John's New York apartment. With breaking stories, watch how the networks react, and how their coverage compares time-wise to each other, and you'll see a pattern.
I don't think there's a preconceived agenda on the part of anyone to use the media per se; in many regards, it's manipulated by people every day with a drum to beat - and let's face it, good news rarely sells, nor does it suck in the viewers. But I feel the media itself is the biggest abuser of its power, and it counts on a faith that a majority of the viewers will simply watch without questioning, without raising their hand and protesting. The people who look at the news and see it's so much sound byte and ghostly "unnamed sources" would appear to be in the minority - or NBC wouldn't have Dateline on at least three nights a week. They only cut their own throats if people start searching for alternate methods of getting their information,and let's face it: a very large segment of the population simply accepts and trust, whether out of laziness, ignorance, apathy, or honest belief that the media would never, ever mislead them on something critical.
There are still elements of integrity inside the Fourth Estate. But you'll be hard pressed to find them outside of mid-sized local markets. Idealism has a hard time standing up to the kind of pressure to dance that comes within the news division located in a major metro or inside the Beltway.
ravings of an insomniac, part two(it's 4am)
Sheryl: Eleminating "4" from the list of possible answers to the question, "what is 2 +2?" does not improve your odds of arriving at the correct answer.(not trying to be smartass, just illustrating a point)
I honestly believe that the press have become a gang of cheap whores(thanks jim) for the same reason that anyone else takes up prostitution as an occupation. Money. The underlying reasons would be........more money.
To deny this in faour of a conspiracy theory that suggests the press is cutting it's own throat flies in the face of reason. They are not cutting their own throats. They are selling a product and it is selling very well indeed. It sells so well for one simple reason. It's what we want to buy!(that we refers to the majority of folks out there.............WWFers, Springer fans etc............you know who you are.)
The popular press merely reflects the tastes and morals of society.(god.....that's depressing)
You want the press to have higher ideals and morals than the society that supports it. So do I, but as long as the journalists are conrolled by the bean counters and network exec's we're
going to get bread and circuses.
Remember.........It was Deep Throat in All The President's Men who coined the phrase, "follow the money."
.....now if you'll excuse me I have a date with a stout length of hemp rope and a rickety chair.
Jim: No, dearest, that would be The White House;)
Al: It's precisely because it seems like the obvious answer that I wanted to eliminate greed from the answers--because I don't think that it's the whole story, and by eliminating it to start with, I think there's a better opportunity to explore what may be underlying power issues.
OK, let's see if I can say this without sounding like some crazed Oliver Stone conspiracy theorist--
Consider the premise that at least since the inception of writing, there have been 'reporters.' At some points, they've been historians, sometimes bards, sometimes priests, sometimes spies-- a lot of different titles, but their function has been to inform certain populations of people (some large, some very small) of the state of things around them, and in other places. In the last 300 or so years, a particular kind of these 'reporters' have created a niche for themselves, and have established something we've come to call the popular press, Here in the USA, that popular press arrived with the earliest colonists. It played so active a part in the early evolution of this nation that the dreaded Founding Fathers (don'tcha just love those caps???) gave the press special dispensation to be free from regulation by the government.
However, from my reading of history over the years, that dispensation was based in great part on a belief in the proposition that a 'free press' would have the ability to discern and report to the world at large a more honest, realistic, potentially more truthful version, and in all likelihood wider picture of events in the world than a state-sponsored popular/propoganda press would ever be able to. I think that Chris' point about "All the President's Men" is illustrative of this trust. Clearly, there has been a shift since then; the question is why? Because on its face, it seems to me that they're cutting their own throats.
The news business--I have some reservations about calling it a free press at this point--has been trading on this trust for at least the last 200 years. The belief of most people that the news is objective, (except on opinion pages and talk shows) is what has kept them in business. Inaccurate and clearly biased reporting--again, illustrated by the examples I gave you earlier--strains that credibility every time it occurs. And no matter what retraction, correction, clarification comes down the pipe later, each time that strain occurs, the credibility in that trust is weakened. In a great many instances--Peg, wasn't it you who said you didn't watch the news anymore?--they have simply stopped paying any attention to what the 'reporters' have to say, because they can't trust it. And the audience shrinks, and shrinks and shrinks.
I question whether it's believable that the entire news industry is so short sighted that they can't see that they're engineering their own demise with this behavior.
Not only is it short sighted on the part of the news industry, it appears to me to be potentially dangerous to democracy at its base. Jefferson supported a free press because he believed an educated populace is the best defense against tyranny; but without correct information on public issues, it's impossible to exercise citizenship (in the form of voting, attending public hearings, etc.) And the more of this untrustable 'news' that circulates, whether it be via tv, radio, print, or on the 'Net, the greater the breakdown it perpetrates. I think it's this breakdown that's responsible for most of the apathy on public issues. You can't really care much about something you're uninformed of; you don't care what the outcome is, either. If you don't care what the outcome is, someone else determines your destiny. Who is it that wants to be in control?
It seems clear to me that 'bias' has turned into 'agenda;' whose and why are the points of curiosity to me. It doesn't seem to be the political machine, on either side of the spectrum, because a huge number of people are simply ignoring politics because they know what they're being told by the press is most likely not anywhere near the truth. Who's going to profit from this media engendered apathy and what's the follow up? And how do we find out, since we know that the 'free press' isn't going to tell us?
If I read "1984" too many times in my teaching career, tell me now, please......
Final aside to Kristian: I've seen any number of invitations on this board by people to the group to go check out what they've written and posted elsewhere. Invitation isn't self promotion. (You really should have gone there, it would have been more appropriate.) Self promotion, sir, is when you try to batter other people over the head with an idea--oh, excuse me, An Idea--that has little to recommend it except that you're the one presenting it.
In point of fact, if you were serious about actually discussing, rather than simply discoursing, you would have responded to Otto's terribly pertinent point on the Native American populations. Except it seems that you didn't want to discuss actual genocides, just throw in the closest near-miss for a cheap point.
On the matter of the Fourth Estate: Now is that the big fancy Victorian mansion called a 'brothel' where the sycophants and whores posing as objective (cough-cough) journalists reside? Until next time. . .
***All *** It looks like TV Land is showing the hour long "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" but the TV Land site isn't too helpful. From the episode description it would seem the Friday 2AM - 5AM & 6AM slots feature other unnamed episodes. After that they list air times on Friday for the hour long episodes as 9AM , 10AM , and 1:30PM. However they don't even describe aired episodes that far off. Any episode description would probably mention kid gangs, juvenile delinquency, etc. and might mention Walter Koenig, who, I believe got his 1st shot on that show. If anybody has more information [TV Guide?] post here or drop me a line.
If it weren't for these tornadoes, earthquakes and geneological shooting sprees, Salt Lake here wouldn't be too bad a place to live. The twister tore by about two blocks from our office, changing from "wow, look at these cool clouds" to "ohmygod get away from the windows" in about 15 seconds. LifeFlight helicopters moving to and from downtown in almost a constant stream now. *KEEGAN* Yeah, that's Henley. One of my all-time favorite songs. A biting message and a foot-tapping dance number all in one package. Who could ask for more? -- Billy D.
Mike: Go to tvland.com and click on "tomorrow's schedule" and keep scrolling down. It will show you which Hitchcock episodes they are showing. Unfortunately, they are listed by plot description and episode number not name.
Cable station TVLand is running a Hitchcock Marathon this weekend, but I can't seem to locate whether they will be running the first of the hour-long shows, "Memo From Purgatory". Anyone out there have a copy?
Chris: Right on.
I was scanning the airwaves on the way home from a jazz gig couple weeks ago and heard the song "Dirty Laundry". Who is that? Henley? Anyway, that song is so true and what journalism has become. Makes me wish I could cover the song in my act.
If you want to see the difference between what the fourth estate was and what it is now, you should read "All The Presidents Men" . You will see reporters verifying their facts with a confirming source and not being allowed to report rumours and innuendo as fact.
We have reached the point where the line between "Legitimate Press" and "Yellow Press" is so blurred as to be almost non existent. This is especially true in television journalism where it isn't just about greed, but , also oneupmanship. I guess this is a by- product of greed since ratings make the tv world go round. But, please remember that CNN has even been caught reporting rumours and heresay as fact.
Sheryl: I've been avoiding the serious stuff and just dropping in occasionally for fun and frolic but you hit one of my pet peeves.
Trying to discuss what's gone wrong with the fourth estate without mentioning greed is like trying to determine what motivates vampires without talking about blood lust.
Sensationalism and pandering to peoples prejudices and pre-conceptions boosts ratings and, just like any other sit-com, news shows are ratings driven.
It's a competitive, cut-throat business with far too many players all competing for a shrinking viewership. It has become the job of the news media to sell commercial time for their sponsors or face cancellation.
Hey.........maybe you were right. Maybe greed isn't the motivator. Maybe it's fear.
......sorry about simply stating the obvious, but sometimes the obvious answer is the correct one.
Damn I hate this serious shit........anybody wanna talk about Chuck Barris's crayons?
Hey All - Does anyone have the low-down on the dedication to HE in Andre Norton's The Stars Are Ours? Just a tad curious. Also, Locus reports e-reads has the rights to some of HE's out of print titles. A web site to be up soon: e-reads.com.
Sheryl -
"...that you're more interesting in self-promotion than in joining in."
Hrmm, I have to say I'm a bit confused on this one. In what way have I come close to attempting to "promote" myself? I feel I've actually taken steps to NOT promote myself, such as NOT listing the places I write for. Seems odd to me that I would be interested in self-promotion and not try and promote myself. If you could somehow elaborate on this, I'm sure I'd see your point.
"Does anyone have anything more interesting to discuss in the spirit of honest EXCHANGE of ideas? [Kristian, you're exempt from that invitation, because you're oppressing me with your boring topic;)]"
Not inviting me to your reindeer games won't make me stop "boring" everyone. When I get tired, I'll move on. As it is, though, I enjoy discussing with some of the folks here.
"Hush up for awhile."
Ok, I'll sink to the appropriate kiddie retort. *Make me.* ;)
Honestly, folks - if you don't feel the need to take part in the discussion, or are tired of it, then simply stop talking about it (or never start.) I don't much like talking to myself. However, these silly little "you're boring" or "you're self promoting" or "you are " are just a wee bit more pointless than you think my topic is. Anyway, sleep becons.
Kristian Bland
It's presumptous me again.
You know, when my modem went wonky 3 weeks ago, I thought I'd be missing all KINDS of really interesting stuff. Thanks, Kristian, for dominating the board with your simplistic view of humanity. Oppression as the primary fuel of change? Oh, please. And what, exactly, is this Platonic conceit of "Ideas"? Really, do you think even the TOPIC merits that /I/?? It's seems to me, after reading your whole INTERMINABLE string, that you're more interesting in self-promotion than in joining in. Hush up for awhile.
Does anyone have anything more interesting to discuss in the spirit of honest EXCHANGE of ideas? [Kristian, you're exempt from that invitation, because you're oppressing me with your boring topic;)]
If not, I've got one.
There was a shooting here today, as I'm sure most of you heard on one of the news media; 3 kids, a teenage junior counselor, and an older staff member were shot up very badly by, according to the 'latest' description, a 40-year old bald white guy with an Uzi.
Before ANY real information was available (before they even had the correct descriptions!) all the real-time media people on TV and radio were attributing this to the 'skinhead/Neo-Nazi hate group' people. No evidence, mind you. Just a supposition that this was a 'Hate Crime.'
I find this reactionary behavior in the media appalling. Do any of you recall when the Murrow Building (I think that's how you spell it, help me out if not) was bombed in Oklahoma City? Do you remember the instant blame placed on 'Arab Terrorists?' Poor Richard Jewel in Atlanta?
Now, I have my own theories, but would be curious to hear yours first:
What has gone wrong with the Fourth Estate (besides simple greed, I mean, leave ratings and the $$$$ out of it) that they've abdicated the idea of finding out what might have actually happened before they start working people's nerves over some stereotype?
--------------------
By the way, thanks to those of you who responded on the Kennedy thing. I checked out a couple of the references, and it seemed to clarify some of what was confusing to me, at least on an intellectual level. If it's really about the 'cult of personality' I guess I'm doomed to not get it....
"Long-winded"? Is that what it's called? Time was, for women, anyway, "Vapors" and for men, "The dog barking". The times, they's a'changin'. Until next time. . .
Felicitations, all. Anybody have videotape of HE on Politically Incorrect ? Dates were Jan. 4 and May 26 of 1999. Willing to trade, etc.
Maggie -
"...it hasn't happened to you, therefore it doesn't exist
or isn't justified."
While I can understand your position, you're making a pretty big assumption there. As an essayist who spends most of his writing time in the devoted act of debunking technology and those who embrace it - posting my real name and location with every piece I write is a wee bit "dangerous." Ya see, the audience that usually takes most offense to what I write is also the same audience that has the most ability to cause harm electronically. I've had the phone calls, the threats, the published street address of my home, the calls to my job, postal mail letters and threats, etc. I'm no stranger to it. Fact is, though, it is my belief that if you're gonna stand up and say something - then you need to have the guts to back it up with your name. After all, if you really wanted to be safe you would never have commented at all. Commenting on something and using an alias (without also providing your name) is chickenshit, in my opinion. Now, I completely understand not listing your name for no reason on the internet. That's just plain common sense. But, like I said, if you're going to say something that you know is bound to piss some group off - you need to be prepared to pay the price of your words, or just don't speak at all.
"don't seem to be able to say anything in less
than 1000 words"
I can't argue with that. I do tend to be long winded in my posts.
"As cultural values are derived from individuals, not some vague
amorphous mass, I feel comfortable with that statement"
Ah, but here ya go. *We* were aculturated through individual relationships with long standing members of whatever culture we were a part of. Today, however, for the kids - we don't sit down at the dinner table. They go to McDonald's with their friends, they talk about the latest episode of 90210 and what just happened on "The Real World" on Mtv. They are being aculturated through a diluted and marketed teacher. All the "Big Helps" Nickelodean dreams of, while at the same time marketting their ideals with nice bits of fluffed-up mechandise - doesn't teach our kids distinction. Sure, the kids will see special "ethnic" bits on their favorite trendy program. They'll see a nicely cleaned up, ordered, and "updated" version that can fit in for about twenty-five minutes of an hour long program. (Which, if you count the real meat of the show, the thing ain't an hour long. Commercials.) This is *exactly* the type of thing I don't want to see continue. People need to learn their heritage from someone who lived it. They must learn their distinctness from the oozing ball of puss that is the "popular" culture. Live history - don't buy commercials.
As for the American value of Nature - it's a pretty laughable concept. Sure, we have a nice little national park system, but like so many things in our society, they are separate from the whole. We allocate a certain SMALL percentage of land, and that somehow makes up for the MASSIVE percentage of Earth that we chop up, pollute, and destroy. Now, I eat off styrofoam at times, and my trash can's made of plastic. I'm not a bleeding heart environmentalist, but I'm also not an extreme waster. Could I waste less? Sure. Will I? Probably not. My personal habits aside, the fact remains that we like to put common sense obligations into niche areas to make ourselves feel better. We're all nice to each other on Christmas (except when someone steals our parking space or the last Elmo-Furby on the shelf.) We all like to give a pittance of our salary to some charity. Some of us will help serve food to the homeless at Thanksgiving. I find this revolting. I find this same application of cultural niche areas disgusting.
As for value placed on love, I agree with you. Value does not HAVE to come from struggle. However, I would like to challenge you to list me examples, outside of accidental love, of when this is true. I love my grandparents not because it was hard to love them, but because I was born into their family. Just as the mother of a murderer loves her child, I love my grandparents. If they teach me value of character, I will respect it yet - but I will not value it as much as I would if I had to struggle to maintain it. This, of course, is what makes character valuable - it's difficult to hold on to. It's not the love of your grandfather that gives you the value you place on the character he gave you. It's your ability to preserve and exhibit that character regularly in the face of anything that should oppose or belittle it that does that trick.
Nice comments. I hope to hear from you more soon.
Kristian Bland
You want a frightening movie? I saw Polanski's Repulsion, and it was damn good. I just picked up EDGEWORKS 1, and was delighted to see Ellisons commentary on Repulsion. If you can ignore the motive problem, which im sure you can if you like The Haunting, Blair Witch, and Sixth Sense, then you will love Repulsion.
Adam Webb, as to your comment:
>I was wondering if any of you might know if there's been any >sort of update on when his newest collection, Edgeworks5 will >be released. Again, I hope I'm in the right place.
Well, I dont know about Edgeworks 5, but there is a book called THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON: A 35 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE, and it is very good, if you havent read it yet.
Please bear with me here. I have several points I'd like to make, but I've
only got 15 minutes before I have to dash out of here for my mile walk to my
two hour bus ride and I'm tired! So, here goes, please forgive me for being
scattered. . .
First - Kristian - I'm sorry that you despise anonymity on the internet.
Having been the victim of a large variety of obscene and harassing phone
calls, strange lurkers, and at least one reported to the police death
threat, you'll have to forgive me if I think that your attitude is simply a
matter of privilege - it hasn't happened to you, therefore it doesn't exist
or isn't justified. I don't know any women who haven't had some experience
along the lines that I have reported to you, and I think that any woman
living alone who willing lists her whole name in the phone book or out on
the internet is braver than I am. I have listed it here, but not until I
had a very good feel for the kinds of people who show up here.
Second - I think that you and Syz should seriously consider taking this
conversation off line. It's not that I don't enjoy a good discussion, it's
just that the two of you just don't seem to be able to say anything in less
than 1000 words. You don't need to refute every single word that anybody
says. Breathe my friend, you'll live longer.
And finally, to get to your thesis, I think that the following small quote
sums it up best, feel free to correct me if wrong -
"Value only comes through struggle. To place value on one's culture, real
value mind you, it had to be difficult to not only acquire - but to hold on
to."
While I do agree that struggle can and does add to the value placed on a
thing (if I didn't think so, I wouldn't be investing so much of my life
trying to pry my nearly 22 year old sister out of her room in my parent's
basement), to state that value is only acquired through struggle is to paint
with a very wide brush. In short, your thesis is seriously flawed. If you
truly only value what you have struggled to acquire, then I feel very sorry
for you. As cultural values are derived from individuals, not some vague
amorphous mass, I feel comfortable with that statement. So, I loved my
Grandfather. I didn't have to struggle to love him, I just did, over time.
I have his last name and his drafting tools. Both are precious to me, carry
value to me because of the love that I bear for my Grandfather. The
cultural and moral legacy that he left to me have value to me because I love
him. There's no struggle involved in that. I think that a lot of cultural
traditions have value because of love. Because we loved the people who
taught them to us. Not because somebody tried to deny them to us. If value
and change only come about through oppression, then please explain to me how
it is that the Danes defied the Nazis (sorry, I told you I'm rushed and they
are such a BIG beast in our collective cultural memories) in the matter of
the Jews being forced to wear stars of David? Their European neighbors
share very similar histories and struggles and not a single one of them made
the same stand. The stand was made based on beliefs that had been held
prior to the oppression, irrespective of the oppression. Yes, the
oppression brought their values into the light of day and held them up for
admiration, at least to us now, but they weren't forged by the Nazis, just
illuminated. Also, one last example, the American national parks system.
Please explain how our value for nature was oppressed into being? Perhaps I
am missing serious chunks of history, but there you go. I'm tired and have
to catch the bus.
***Alex*** Quit whining. Suck it up man. Cheers,
Barney Dannelke
[22,000 books and 47,000 comics down and only a few hundred thousand to go...]
Ellison? Who's that then? As for Edgeworks... I think the best answer for that little packet of papers would be "when it's ready." You really cannot ask for much more than that.
As for movies.
Blair was good, and there were some really frightening things, however, I think that the hype that has been pressed behind the movie has ruined it for the jaded among us. If I had seen Blair at Sundance, with absolutely no idea as to what I was getting into, I think it might have been better than it was. As it turned out, I found myself looking at my watch during one of the interim "scary noises at night, let's get out our DAT and video equipment" scenes. I will give it my thumbs up by saying that just before and when they find the house, there is a real sense of terror which I found lacking in previous scenes. Someone wrote that the Blair Witch Project was about reverting into childhood and all of its terrors. The fact that the three documentarians start out acting like children doesn't make for a lot of development. Also the fate of the map was a bit cheesy.
The Sixth Sense, on the other hand, is genuinely scary. I'll respect the wishes of this board and not say anything other than that it was on the whole more satisfying than Blair. But that's just my heart's opinion, which it let me know every time it leapt into my throat while beating at a rabbits pace.
---Peter
Based on the current conversations, I'm not quite sure if I'm in the right place. There's this author that I'm fond of, you may have heard of him: Harlan Ellison. I was wondering if any of you might know if there's been any sort of update on when his newest collection, Edgeworks5 will be released. Again, I hope I'm in the right place.
On movies, I just gotta post a brief note disagreeing with Todd M.
The Blair Witch Project is, hands down, the most frightening movie I have ever seen. I say that without a trace of hyperbole. I was genuinely terrified while watching this movie and haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since I saw it.
It's a film lovers' film. If you're a casual film-goer, I don't think you'll care for it. It's the sort of film that requires you to surrender yourself completely to the world the film has created.
Anyway, I think it's brilliant and a true masterpiece of horror.
-chris
I'm glad somebody brought The Haunting back up, so I could throw in a couple of pennies . . . I had the misfortune to be entranced with both the book and the orginal movie, and so felt the need to see the remake. You know for sure that a horror movie is bad when it becomes unintentionally funny. My favorite was one of Liam Neeson's speeches, when his accent interfered with a statement and it seemed that he was "studying group fear in the wisteria."
Bland -- (sorry if that's rude, but for the nonce I can't recall your first name, and the last one stuck out because I've just re-watched "Eating Raoul") What would you say about the tragedy of the American Indian? Is this an exception to your rule of solidarity through struggle? It seems, to me at least, that their oppression hasn't brought them much.
A request considering "The Sixth Sense"--the film is supposed to have a HUGE surprise ending; if I may, I'd like to ask that no one here give it away.
This is likely a movie (filmed right here in Philly by an area native) that I'm actually going to see--which in itself is something of a surprise, considering how rarely I hit the theaters (as an illustration, I can only remember seeing two movies in the last year or two--"Life Is Beautiful" and "South Park". Granted, both were excellent movies about freedoms, but ... nevermind.).
So can we not give it away? I was impressed that the Philly Inquirer's reviewer stuck to his guns and DIDN'T give it away, as often reviewers will.
In other news--Harlan and his colleaugues are killing me--I'm all set to move into my new apartment, and am ready to foot the bills for furnishing it all, but people like Harlan, Paul DiFillippo, Dan Simmons, Pat Cadigan, Fred Pohl, and many others are costing me beaucoup buks, simply through the fact that, with the closing of Encore Books and my snapping up great books at rock-bottom prices is going to make me get ANOTHER huge bookcase (I'd already budgeted for two tall seventy-dollar [I hate particleboard and plastic; wood for me, thanks] with eighteen feet of shelf space each) with all the books I'm getting (I'm closing in on six or seven hundred books now.
On the good side, for the first time in my life, I have a surfeit of books I've not read--I figure it'll be a year or so before I have to resort again to rereading and rerereading my stuff ...
Ah, well ... two weeks and I'm an apartment dweller--albeit one drowned in great books ...
ALL: since the subject of movies has come up recently...it may not play well since it isn't a balls-to-the-wall type action/adventure/thriller, but "The Sixth Sense" is a dynamite movie (with at least a handful of jump in your seat, drop your popcorn mmoments) that has the perfect ending (the kind that makes your think back through everything you've seen to figure out if the screenwriter really did do what he did to make that final twist work the way it did). Go see this one ASAP! - Out here, DTS.
Well, I'm back. Dressed out in my new hairshirt (from The Banana Republic, $79.99, plus a tax or two). Me? Bad? Not at all. Yes, I do remember HE's wandering through THE DATING GAME. Guess it could have sumpin' to do with me having copies of THE GLASS TEAT AND THE OTHER GLASS TEAT, as in original paperbacks, signed by Himself, none other than HARLAN ELLISON. As to HE and THE GONG SHOW, well, -if- you had been paying attention you would be able to find out the so-called mystery about this had you followed the instructions I laid on y'all about -my- column, twice-weekly. Geez. Must I smack you up side the head with the unabridged? No wonder college students are such wads nowadays. Until next time. . .
Well...Jim Hess, it was bad of you to leave the Chuck Barris/Harlan Ellison connection a mystery, and then add the "clue" that MTV has something to do with it (readers of THE GLASS TEAT or was it THE OTHER GLASS TEAT will remember Ellison's adventure on THE DATING GAME, a Barris entity, if I remember correctly, which I may well not).
Hey, Keegan, good for you. Much better you grouse on line than at them, and congratulations on having more time for that closer to your heart's desire...hope the finances are holding up.
Finder, in re your note about the repackage of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and the mistaken notion of some unfortunates that the book is based on the (utterly atrocious) script, alas this kind of nonsense is not new...more copies of BLADE RUNNER by Phillip K. Dick were probably printed, with DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP in small print and parentheses, than ever saw light under the (original?) title. PSYCHO, by Robert Bloch, is in my two copies of the early '60s edition graced by two bad photographs of Janet Leigh screaming and cowering and Hitchcock's name in larger letters than Bloch's. The more recent edition had the cover graphics from the insulting remake of the movie, which had the temerity to give Bloch credit only in the closing credits, while giving Joseph Stefano a full screen openining credit (the PSYCHO remake, btw, is about as bad as THE HAUNTING remake, and for similar reasons, among them a lack of respect for the written word...something which, with less disrespect intended, afflicts current phenom THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, which has dull stretches in the middle that are no surprise once your suspicions, as you watch, that all the dialog has been improvised are confirmed). PSYCHO and THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE were both published in 1959, making the eventual retro-Stoker, if any, likely to be a tie unless someone wants to annoy a lot of folks. They were both the most famous books of their authors' careers, they were both made into low-budget films directed by two of the best craftsmen (I hesitate to call them fully-realized artists) in the field (your charity in forgiving Robert Wise for STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE would be similar to forgiving Hitchcock for some of his lesser work) which have taken on an iconic status...and now they're both sullied by atrocious color tributes to overweaning directorial egos and the idiots who abet them. Oh, well, enough of that.
Speech codes in universities, of course, are there largely so that the administration can pretend to care about the students, and have some legal arse-coverage. Nothing more. All the nattering about PC, the nature of which "correctness" depends on who's premises we're accepting at any given time (and the phrase itself was first used by lefties being nagged by more annoying lefties), is usually unfocused; this is part of what makes Bill Maher's show so dull so much of the time. (Sorry to be redundant, if so...don't have time right now to do more than skim the discussion that's been unfolding here, but I do commend everyone's attention to the "free speech vs. workplace quality of life" debate (as if the two were genuinely at odds) generated around the recent Califonia case...
Peg -
You're right. Another of my flaws is that I do tend to get a little insulting at times. I don't usually mean it, though - it's just my nature. However, I do know how people react to it and I should take this to heart whenever I feel myself slipping into the Mode. I'll double up my efforts.
Kristian Bland
I don't know if anyone posted this allready(or if anyone cares), but in the latest issue of Wizard:The Comics Magazine there was an interview with Harlan Ellison.
Wow. Go away for only 2 days and look what happens. Goodness gracious me oh my.
Uh, I was originally inspired to write a few comments, but it's late, and after wading through umpteen pages, I just ain't up to it. More tomorrow on values, satanism, society, security, oppression and other assorted topics. Or maybe this weekend. Or next week (not skipping out, just have to get an internal application done by Monday for a possible job in the UK).
Kristian - Let me offer this observation as someone currently uninvolved with the discussion and having read all the posts to date in one big sitting (or is that reading...) - I gotta say some of your comments did come across to me as defensive; and that some ways in which you addressed other posters seemed insulting or maybe just condenscending. While I will grant you may have done so unintendedly, that wouldn't be my personal interpretation of your posts and their (occasional) tone. You certainly have a right to if you choose, but then you shouldn't be surprised by some of the reactions as a result. [just a comment, not an insult]
Peg
Sue -
I'm sorry to hear that you're taking your toys and going home. I wish you could stay and contribute, but if you're not willing to first accept that my views are logical, to myself, then you will never be able to counter them with any real "meat" of your own. Again, sorry to see you go.
Kristian Bland
keegan -
I think you "got" what I was trying to say. However, now that you've "got" it, let's explore it. I agree with you - you cannot endorse freedom of speech and expression while, on the other hand, seek to deny any segment of the population those freedoms. But, at the same time, you can. And you must. It's not quite a paradox, but it comes close. Because we have free speech is the reason we have multiple cultural identities all competing for influence. However, because any one cultural identity can come into "power" at any time - you have the threat, and the actuality, of oppression present as a constant. I'm looking for a better way, as I think we all are. We just have to see the problem before we can create a new solution.
Kristian Bland
Syzygy -
Again, you impress me. This is the type of discussion I was looking for. I must say, that stepping back and looking at my argument when presented with your observations, that you are pretty much on the money. There are, of course, a few minor speculations of yours that I must address - but on the whole, you're absolutely right. I'm looking at things from an analytical standpoint via a cause and effect relationship. More on this in a minute. Let me get the nastiness of commenting on those few points that I must.
The Holocaust
I've admitted that the procedure of genocide is, in fact, oppression. However, I also went on to say that I cannot find a "silver lining" in the act of genocide because of its end result. I see now that that was a bit short-sighted on my part. Without an example of completed genocide to cite, then you're right - all we have is uncompleted genocide which is, in the end, nothing more than extreme oppression.
Quantum Physics
As an avid "student" of QP, I have to say that you're analogy set me to thought. If taken as a whole, or the atom, then mankind follows very predictable patterns. However, when viewed at the individual, or quantum, level - there exists a level of uncertainty that makes it impossible to predict anything. I have a tendancy to generalize my thoughts about everything - including people. It's a flaw in my character, and I have to offer that up. That said, however, since American society must be, by definition, a collective - then my ideas hold ground. However, if I went on an individual basis and spoke with people, much like I'm doing now, I would find very different reactions that I could not anticipate nor predict in any fashion. The act reeks of Chaotic elements, and it should. No complex system can be explained by such general cause and effect events that I have put forth. Generalizations can be made, and relatively safe and certain predications can be made as to the nature of the Beast - but when it comes down to it, there is always the possibility that you'll encounter a Quantum Shift. An individual will arise that will alter the course of events in a manner that you could never have anticipated. I can see this more clearly now, and I applaud you for bringing it to my attention. (Also, a terrific analogy)
Ethics And Morality
This is really the only gripe I have against your post. It's my fault, of course, for not explaining myself fully. In my thoughts, I'm not allowing my personal ethics and morality to come into play. What I am attempting to do is simply illustrate how you cannot have Oil and Water blend into one happy unit. Substitute Oil and Water for opposing ethical beliefs, and I think you'll see why I ever mentioned ethics. I, in no way, wish to belittle or insult - or praise - anyone's personal belief system. I merely wished to point out that a true homogenous society cannot exist if you, at the same time, wish to permit all unique cultural identities that wish to live in it. At least, I don't think we can - yet. I hope this helps you to see my inclusion of ethics as less "absurd" now.
Again, I have to thank you for your insight. Now, though, I have to ask you to take it further. Offer up some possibilities for that "quantum shift". What could happen to change how the system - on the whole - works? What mechanisms can we employ to change the whole of our society to where we can get past oppression of opposing belief systems, yet still have those systems present and influential? To find the answers to these questions is the only reason that I wrote the essay. I believe you are exactly the type of person that can see all the sides that need to be seen in order to come up with the New Idea.
Kristian Bland
[in his best Rodney King voice] Kin't we'ahl git along? Oh, well. Guess I'm shuffling off to more ignorant, er, interesting territory. If y'all wanna to subscribe to my on-line, twice-weekly column, drop me a line. Until next time. . .
Kristian -
"Anyway, of all the remarks to the essay, I have to say that this post was the most unremarkable piece of slight personal attacks that went nowhere to further help illustrate an alternative viewpoint to my own."
Well, that's the problem you have, isn't it? You defined "intelligence" as whatever it takes to agree with you - and make accusations of personal attacks (where there were none - read it again) to gain some fictional moral highground when you can't think of a real response to an obvious truth - no one here CARES to be enlightened by you. That does not make everyone else intolerant - it makes you an object lesson for the everyone reading of just how nasty your theory that Opression is good really is..
I'm with finder on this one - outa here, and on with life..
Life is struggle. It was a struggle for your mother to give birth to you. It was a struggle for you to be born. I can kind of get with Kristian on the point that some people need to lighten up. Remember Lenny Bruce? He couldn't play some campuses today.
That doesn't mean that you have to *create* a problem or tolerate those who do. The problem is that sometimes people think they are contributing to the solution, when in actuality, they're just creating a deeper problem.
The PC speech prohibitions do not foster dialogue, they stifle it. I think it is the beginning of the end for many of the personal freedoms we are guaranteed under the Bill of Rights (at least here in the US of A).
Racist oppresive acts and speech are evil, but we have to support the rights of individuals to act or speak as free humans. Gun-control and decency laws are all well and good, but what if somehow THEY get into power and inflict our laws on US?
Is that close?
Another problem: people are much more willing to exercise their freedom of speech (often without fully exercising their freedom to think first) than they are willing to exercise their right to shut up. I mean, I do have a right to shut up,right?
Shuttin' up.
Kristian,
Please permit me to qualify my initial knee-jerk reaction with a more lucid response to your current argument. All too often I tend to lose myself to a callow 'venting of the spleen' before taking into account the slowly metered tempo of my own limited and ineffectual mind. I assure you, obscurantism is not my preferred mode of expression. However, any time I come in contact with a keyboard, I find myself rushing carelessly forward with breakneck speed. A psychological failing I haven't quite gotten control of yet. Anyway...
In regard to your comments:
The main thrust of your argument, as I understand it---and tell me if I am wrong---is that all societal change is the by-product of struggle. Further, you go on to say that only struggle unites people in a common goal, and that only true value can be placed on things which are obtained through struggle. In my estimation, all of these high-level propositions can certainly be used to describe the simple movement by which society exhibits change. However, these propositions fail to give any real indication as to what motivates individual people toward struggle in the first place. Is the measure of personal value always a proportion generated by the degree to which one struggles? Not always. Do common goals truly only come into being as products of opposition? Sure. But, again, not always. Is man merely a pawn in your observational system? Or is man, at bottom, an indeterminate entity which is too complex to be fitted naturally into the confines of the rigid observational system from which you mark your perspective? And if so, why would the abstract laws of struggle necessarily have validity with regard to societal change? Allow me to elaborate...
It seems to me that you mention things such as 'common goal' and 'value' as one might declare a set of variables in a computer program: as a priori puzzle pieces which serve only to support a gestalt perception of some elaborate game of cause and effect. The conflict inherent in the presentation of your argument is that you are attempting to define the vagaries of discreet human motivation in terms of observed mechanical change, where such vague, systemic constants as "oppression" and "struggle" merely exist as causative entities as subsumed by a much larger theory. You propose a relativistic description of mankind that takes into account only the visible effects of change. My contention, in response to this, is that man, as an entity, is too indeterminate a subject to be fully defined by any abstract system of observation, due mainly to the complexities of human morality, ethics, psychological conditioning, sociological disposition, acculturation, etc. In your argument you observe mankind through an all inclusive lens, in much the same way as classically trained physicists employed the laws of Newtonian Relativity to view the atom. Held to their rigid laws of high-level observation, it wasn't until years later that Quantum Mechanics gained a rightful foothold in the academic establishment-quantum mechanics being those set of scientific laws and observations which proved that the atom, at discreet levels of observation, exhibited movement that, though invisible to general perception, nevertheless effected the general nature of any atomic composition. Man, like the atom, exhibits movements and motivations which are far more complex than the larger, 'Newtonian' concepts of struggle and oppression. Unless you agree to look at man from the 'Quantum' perspective, any contentions made about value and motivation can only be viewed as gross approximations, and therefore lack any real validity.
To say that some kind of tension or oppression is a causative factor for change says very little; it is akin to saying that clouds change shape due to wind current or transverse heat accumulation. Okay. Sure. But why? Why must wind and meteorological effects alter the shape of clouds? Why must weather systems change with respect to the Lorenz model? Does it really matter how clouds change? Do we really care? We don't ask these questions of clouds because they exist as part of a physical system in which only inanimate forces are active. We say that the shape of clouds change in response to the laws of nature, and we leave it at that. Now, it seems to me that you are treating the change which is exhibited by society in much the same way. You view human struggle, oppression, and the subsequent change which they produce as one would view the a priori, inanimate forces which act upon the shape of any given cloud. You make mankind a physical piece of your elaborate puzzle. And you leave it at that.
In regard to the holocaust: You say that the holocaust is not a mode of oppression because it did not allow for a 'cause and effect' reciprocity. Is this really true? If the holocaust took place all at once, that is to say, if all Jews were murdered at the same time, then this line of logic might be tenable. However, because the holocaust took time-because not all Jews were murdered simultaneously, and because many Jews were able to join resistance groups (as in Rouen, France, for instance) then the concept of 'oppression' most assuredly applies. Sure, the final goal of the Nazis was the extermination of the Jews, certainly an act of genocide, as you have stated. But up until the point at which genocide actually happens, the Jews are persecuted by nothing but cold, heartless oppression. Oppression is a process, genocide is a final result. To say that the Holocaust is not a valid form of oppression because it must exhibit an unrealized potentia for reciprocation is, for you, a frenetic fence-shift back into the abstract safety of your observational system. You disregard it because the rules you have set up for yourself preclude you from perceiving the Holocaust as concrete fact in support of oppression. All I can say is: Either call a spade a spade or let others in on your private thought experiment.
Why have I included discourse on ethics and morality, etc? You said yourself, in response to Finder's heartfelt post that "You cannot be fully tolerant of all ways of life and still maintain your own ethics." A discreet view of mankind? Absolutely. And yet, in my opinion, the observational system from which you make your plea for the 'virtues' of oppression and struggle define man as being nothing more than the mindless product of an abstract cultural ideology that is neither right nor wrong. In your observational system there are no absolutes: all cultures are subject to being right or wrong at any given moment, depending upon which perspective you choose to view them from. Morality and ethics play no part in hypothesis at this level; and yet, at various points in your argument, you make reference to ethics and morality, almost as though, when needed, it makes no difference that your proposition began as a general, prescriptive ideology. This, to me, seems absurd. Such mental casting about for relativity amid the abstract and the concrete might be interesting for you. Most people couldn't care less, I think. All I can say is, "Knock yourself out" and "You go with your bad self!". Also, you might want to try a reading of Kierkegaard's Either/Or; it would be invaluable for you, I think.
Finder-- I applaud your decision to stay out of the fray. I, too, find this pretty pointless since such strongly held opinions are rarely changed.
finder -
Hrmmm, I don't remember ever engaging in a grand experiement. I was not satisfied with how the technoheads reacted to the essay. I expected more literary minded people to react differently. In your last post, I felt I was correct. Of course, with this latest "I'm taking my toys and going home" post of yours, I suppose I was wrong.
To those of you still willing to engage in a discussion, I really do welcome your comments. Present to me a different Idea for the mechanics of where cherished value comes from, and we can discuss it. So far, no one has even attempted that. I sincerely hope all of you aren't the run-away in the "I don't have the time" cliche type of way. If you tire of the discussion, then just stop discussing. However, I can understand the need for an occasional jobbernowl to think he has some need to "save face", so he must make some great "last stand" type of comment. It's ok, I've dealt with children (of all ages) before. To those adults out there with the maturity level to have your worldviews challenged, and the desire to challenge mine, I really do want to hear from you. Thanks.
Kristian Bland
Seeing as this truly will be the endless argument, and I actually do have things to do that have a point, a purpose, and an ultimate goal, you'll all have to excuse me while I go on indefinite hiatus. I didn't sign on to be a lab rat in someone's experiment of how the Word people respond to stimuli versus the Technological people - and certainly not to get the "I'm impressed with your comments, and welcome more" with the forehand and the "pilgrim", "chief" and "sport" condescensions with the backhand. Someone else can be the happy recipient of the talking down. That's an all-too familiar behavior I think we all can recall from past encounters... Laters!
Sue -
"Geez - so if it can be said in 25 words or less, it isn't as valid as an essay??"
Um, where exactly did this come from and what are you referencing?
""Leap in logic"?? There are no leaps in logic - it's the direct derivation of truth from truth that defines logic.. "
I agree - what I'm saying isn't a leap in logic. It's an obvious cause and affect situation. However, I wasn't talking about my mind - I was talking about the leap people have to make in the concept of value from struggle. Look back at when I used the phrase - I was responding to a question of how value placed on monetary gain relates to cultural value. Look at the context before you go half cocked and make no sense. Just a thought.
"Count me out of this tired old retread of darn near every theology ever written, and a good many spec fiction works.."
I can't even begin to guess what theology I've written out here. Maybe you meant to use some other word?
"I read the origonals, they were better written, and more clearly defined in logical terms."
Ok, you're entitled to your opinion. However, since I haven't written out any theology here, I'm a bit confused by which "originals" you mean but don't reference.
"Join an Ashram Kristian... They can teach you a LOT about "your" thesis.."
Heh. The "your" quotation is a little silly, don'tcha think? Are you so egocentric that you cannot accept the fact that I've stated time and time again that I don't believe my Ideas are original or unique to me in any way? I just want to have a discussion about the subject in order to help everyone involved understand it better. You seem more interested in attempting to make thinly veiled insults toward my character, talent, or station. In an effort to ease your mind, though, let me just say - I don't write professionally, I never will, and I'm not interested in recognition of any sort. Of course, I can't blame you. It would seem most "writers" are obsessed with their "image", and some strange fascination with themselves. I can only venture to assume that you believed I fit in with that lot. I only write because I'm interested in discussions with a wide variety of people on various topics of Truth.
Anyway, of all the remarks to the essay, I have to say that this post was the most unremarkable piece of slight personal attacks that went nowhere to further help illustrate an alternative viewpoint to my own. As I've said before - show me a better way, and I'll embrace it. Tell me I'm writing pseudo-philosophical "theology", and I just have to snicker.
Kristian Bland
Geez - so if it can be said in 25 words or less, it isn't as valid as an essay?? "Leap in logic"?? There are no leaps in logic - it's the direct derivation of truth from truth that defines logic.. Count me out of this tired old retread of darn near every theology ever written, and a good many spec fiction works.. I read the origonals, they were better written, and more clearly defined in logical terms. Join an Ashram Kristian... They can teach you a LOT about "your" thesis..
finder -
"The Holocaust reference is very well founded, thank you - for what is Genocide but the ultimate form of oppression?"
You're welcome. I can see your point here, and it is valid. However, I never once have said that I think the oppressors oppress for the sake of strengthening those whom they oppress. That just plain don't make sense, pilgrim. Yes, genocide would be considered the ultimate form of oppression because you are obliterating the culture you find offensive. However, there is no getting around the fact that I'm talking about cause and effect in terms of the mechanics of how our society works. Since genocide has not taken place in our American society, and since the act of destroying an entire culture in no way relates to my argument - I would still have to say it was pretty much unfounded. Sorry, chief.
"...since the ONLY possible outcome is that peaceful acceptance leads to a totally homogenous culture...And as such, there can be no evolution because of the lack of conflict?"
Yep, that's pretty much what I'm saying. You cannot openly embrace all cultures and not have oppression. I'm not having a philosophical argument here - I'm talking about the cold hard logic of how we work right now. The only problem with your statement there is this idea of evolution. I'm not talking about the betterment of society or the advancement of anything. I'm talking ONLY about the value placed on cultural identity. Value only comes through struggle. To place value on one's culture, real value mind you, it had to be difficult to not only acquire - but to hold on to.
"I might just as easily have chosen Militant Feminists, Luddites, Druids, the Star Trek Fan Club, or Barney the dinosaur"
You could have - but ya didn't. Maybe in the future, when you would like to convey a sense of abstract random choices you should actually use abstract random choices. Just a thought.
"So I'll thank you to not read into the core of my being, or to presume to understand my world view. Be presumptuous with someone else."
Why? You're having fun being presumptuous with me, I'm only obliged to return the favor.
"RE: Falwell - You can admire the "guts and determination" you see in the man all you want. You choose to turn a blind eye to his manipulation of culture..."
Ah, so Falwell shouldn't be allowed to speak. Or, maybe he should, but you should speak out against him. You don't agree with what he stands for. You don't agree with his culture. (Which, of course, is nothing more than an acquired sense of values and behavior. You don't have to be white to like cornbread. But, if you were raised in the South, chances are ya do.) Anyway, since you are ethically opposed to what he stands for, you are at the same time ethically bound to stand against him. This is, even if you don't want to see or admit it, oppression. It amazes me how you keep saying acceptance is possible and that I'm completely off base with my Ideas. Yet, in the same breath, you'll validate my claims by citing an example of your own implementations of the mechanisms that I'm talking about.
"You chose to take my statement to mean that I feel law is an absolute, that it should be used to punish the truly wicked and the innocent alike. ERRRRRRT. Wrong answer, but thanks for playing."
Actually, I chose to take your statement for what it said. Which pretty much said, "And to throw a fact out, Oliver North's arming people isn't an agree/disagree situation. It was, under existing laws, a criminal act." This more or less says to me, that the North example is a no brainer. It's not an issue you can agree or disagree on because he broke a law and that's just that. Again, in the future if you would say what you actually mean then we can avoid confusions such as this one.
"And since you've gone to that well: I personally believe unjust laws should be challenged."
Exactly. But your new laws that are "just" in your eyes are going to be conversely "unjust" in the eyes of the supporters of the laws you just got replaced. Who's just? Who's actually right? Who cares, as long as the "I" gets to make the decision based on ethnocentricty of the "I". You can't have a society that allows "unjust" laws to be questioned and changed if you have a society in which everyone accepts and tolerates everyone unconditionally. It would fail both logically and in practice.
"RE: "the final stab" - you really need to stop reading in tone. You'll go farther, faster."
You're making the assumption that I'm "going" somewhere. I'm just discussing - not impressing.
"I was simply making a statement regarding the quality of your title with regards to its resonance with the Ellison title. Typically, there's needs to be a little more that indicates an origin..."
Blah, blah, blah. Sorry, sport. I can be inspired to constructed a title and not use the exact grammar of the title that inspired me. This is silly, and I vote ya just let it go and get back to arguing the Ideas presented in the essay, and not where the title came from.
"And I'm so very sorry that my woefully inadequate intellect didn't live up to your expectations of a dialogue. I guess my best years of discourse were left behind at good ol' SUNY B ....***SIGH***"
This is curious, as I believe I thanked your for your good comments and said that they were very solid and that I appreciated them. I can't see how you can read into this that I think your intellect is woefully inadequate, but I apologize for your misread implication. This time, let me try and make it clear: I'm impressed with your comments, and welcome more - please continue. There - howzzat?
Kristian Bland
Kristian:
The Holocaust reference is very well founded, thank you - for what is Genocide but the ultimate form of oppression? Not just stealing the voice of a culture, or the freedom of a culture, but the very life of a culture. You argue this point as if the oppressor CARES if there's a benefit from the oppression, which it obviously doesn't since by its definition, oppression is self-serving.
RE slavery: so what you're saying is that while slavery was wrong, it was better for us to beat, burn, torture and maim people into a sense of cultural identity than it would have been to simply welcome their culture into our own? And naturally, if this was done peacefully, they would have retained no sense of their heritage, since the ONLY possible outcome is that peaceful acceptance leads to a totally homogenous culture, in which all identity and history is surrendered? And as such, there can be no evolution because of the lack of conflict?
Actually, in choosing white supremacists, southern secessionists and Satanists, I was aiming for three groups I saw as fringe groups within society. I might just as easily have chosen Militant Feminists, Luddites, Druids, the Star Trek Fan Club, or Barney the dinosaur. So I'll thank you to not read into the core of my being, or to presume to understand my world view. Be presumptuous with someone else.
RE: Falwell - You can admire the "guts and determination" you see in the man all you want. You choose to turn a blind eye to his manipulation of culture (and there are no other words for using people's religious beliefs to fleece them), his impiety, his outright personal inability to tell the truth, and his placement of his image ahead of all else at your own peril. And if you think he's only turned into a bad, bad man since getting his position, I'd say you should question how he ascended in the first place.
RE: North - My purpose here was to identify the orange in your apples/oranges example; your other three were matters of expression of opinion; North's was a case of an action contrary to law. You chose to take my statement to mean that I feel law is an absolute, that it should be used to punish the truly wicked and the innocent alike. ERRRRRRT. Wrong answer, but thanks for playing. I was actually trying to indicate that throwing down with someone in a matter of legality is a very different thing than in the matter of Ricki Lake challenging insensitive people who tell fat jokes. Perhaps my intent did not come through in my phraseology.
And since you've gone to that well: I personally believe unjust laws should be challenged. Not a very favorable stance in my household, given dad was a cop and mom worked for the court, but a very rational one. No governing body can see what the future holds. Society changes. Law must change with society. And law is not absolute, nor is it infallible. But it does exist for a purpose. Without it, there would be chaos, and a would believe a good bit of devolution.
RE: "the final stab" - you really need to stop reading in tone. You'll go farther, faster. I was simply making a statement regarding the quality of your title with regards to its resonance with the Ellison title. Typically, there's needs to be a little more that indicates an origin when you do a derivative or inspired title. I'm sorry if it wounded your pride that it wasn't evident to me. Had you titled it ""Die, Whitey!" Said The Nigger", you'd have had a similar noun/verb placement to the Ellison title, along with the quote becoming the first half of a dialogue exchange, as opposed to a random shout to no one in particular. And then, it would have been more evident. But hey, to each their own. After all, You don't tell me how to write my short stories...
And I'm so very sorry that my woefully inadequate intellect didn't live up to your expectations of a dialogue. I guess my best years of discourse were left behind at good ol' SUNY B ....***SIGH***
Syzygy -
Thank you! I see now that my hopes for this group were right on the money. I'm seeing highly thought out arguments presented in an intelligent manner. Now, to get to your wonderful post and respond to some of the highlights. (Oh, and Peter - I'll honor your request and keep the quotes as short as possible.)
"Also, comparing the application of monetary value with the propensities of cultural morality is a curious--if somewhat flawed--way to provide example to your argument. "
I don't see it that way. True, there are vast differences in the actual details of the monetary vs. "morality" (I put the term in quotes as I've not once discussed morality, and I'm a bit puzzled as to how you've drawn that conclusion). The basic Idea of the concept is the same, however. There is no "want of a new computer", per sey. The Idea here is that the difficulty in attaining a goal makes the goal much more worthwhile. Look at the Gulf War. Forget about your personal ideas about whether it was a just war or not, and step back to look on the relative ease at which it was won. Who really knows much about it, thinks about it, or cares about it today? Sure, there are going to be intelligent individuals that give a damn, but the majority of society doesn't care - it's old news. We remember WWII with films like Schindler's List. We remember the Gulf War with Pauly Shore movies.
"You speak of ethics, yet I doubt you fully grasp the idea; at least insofar as it relates to something beyond a light sense of 'right and wrong'."
Again, I'm curious as to how you've formed this opinion. I've not once spoken of ethics. My entire argument is based upon that fact that different cultural groups can have vastly different ethics - and it is that fact that leads to the oppression that we're talking about. The thing is, one culture may value something that another thinks is ethically wrong. Therefore, the culture that opposes the "wrong" is going to fight to keep the "bad" culture from rising to any sort of power. Oppression ensues.
"Incidentally, playing the Nietzsche card was a mistake on your part; Nietzsche was a highly moral thinker, and not...."
In the context in which I used Nietzche's name, I believe I made no mistake at all. I'm not calling into question or invoking Nietzche's moral beliefs. However, one of his basic ideas was that Christianity came and turned people's ideas of what was good and what was bad on their ears. This fit in perfectly well with the point I was making at the time.
"To speak of cultural struggle is nothing new."
I never presumed to claim that it was.
"You claim too much for the process of evolutionary dialectic, which embraces the notion of advancement-by-struggle..."
Nope. I've never made any claim about advancement of any sort. I've claimed that value comes through struggle - not advancement (whatever that might be).
"To contend that all progress is born of struggle is to claim but one view of life only--the biological/evolutionary view..."
See above. This has nothing to do with progress or advancement. It has to do with preserving cultural heritage and placing value on that heritage because it was difficult to hold on to in the face of oppression.
"I do not accept Satanism and cannibalism--not because I am not tolerant--but because these are modes of living which are morally repugnant to me."
And so you oppress them. You would not sit by while a Satanist was elected to public office. You would, if you've half the amount of passion as you've displayed here, actively lobby against him. This is my point. You can't allow the non-threatening cultures without also welcoming the ones whos' ideas are totally repugnant both morally and ethically to you.
"As a human being, I prefer to live in accordance with the immutable truths which are set forth in the most basic code of life: the simple recognition of my own human morality."
How is the recognition of your own human morality a basic code of life? Could not some other person decide that - because he is mortal and has a finite amount of time on this Earth - that he should make the most of it, at whatever cost? Could this person not also employ mechanisms to achieve this goal that you find morally reprehensible?
"If the Nazis had gained the Reichstag earlier..."
Ah, the Nazi thing again. If no one had opposed to Nazi's, then surely what you said *might* have come true. Then again, the Nazi's might have built an industrial-scientific complex that could have produced far more "results" than we have seen today. The fact is, we'll never know. Someone fought them because they believed what they were doing was wrong. I believe what they were doing is wrong - and I would fight them. I would oppress them, as would you, and we would be engaging in the very act that I am speaking of. Cultural differences lead to cultural oppression by whatever group is able to gain power at any given time. Sometimes this group will help "advance" (to use your terminology) the society, sometimes it will use its power for "evil". It's a cycle that, for now, we just have to live with. Hopefully in the future, someone will come up with a better way. It just ain't happened yet, I'm afraid.
"Also, the Holocaust--to cite but one more example, albeit an extreme one--is responsible for snuffing out countless artisans, intellectuals, humanitarians, etc., that to say Nazi oppression was a 'good' thing for the advancement of culture is not only stupid, wrong-headed and idiotic--but simply sadistic. That is, if you're human..." (sorry Peter, long quote....but I needed to put it here)
This is a wholly unfounded attack. I have already responded to the Holocaust reference from finder's post. The Holocaust was about genocide. I clearly said that, in the act of genocide, you're attempting to wipe out a population. If you were to meet that goal, then nothing good could come from that for that culture - they'd all be gone. The rest of your post to this point was very impressive. The oversight and bull-headed accusation that I endorse genocide is not only unfounded, but also ignorant in the sense that I have already explained this. Perhaps you didn't read that post, and if this is the case then I apologize for being rash.
"No matter what the aim or goal might be, struggle caused by oppression always leaves in its wake the crippling of man's artistic and intellectual spirit..."
Does it? Much of DaVinci's greatest works were direct responses to cultural oppression (in the form of subtle jabs at some aspects of the accepted thought of the Christian Church in some of his most revered "religious" work). The Blues grew out of slavery. The Blues led to jazz, which - combined - led to rock and roll. (Granted, looking at today's pop music scene I'm led to believe that this isn't always a good thing, but still - you know what I mean). Some of our best art was created in the face of the adversity. It was created in reaction to it. Insofar as science is concerned, I will have to agree with you - to a point. In today's world, if a group rose to power then that group would undoubtedly invest large amounts of time, manpower, money, and energy into scientific advancement. A couple of centuries back, though, I'd have to say you're right.
"Culture is not just defined by the biggest and the strongest; after all, with the passing of time..."
There you go! This is the Idea. Our society isn't defined by the biggest and the strongest. Our society allows for a small group to rise to a station of influence which brings about a change in the accepted status quo of the time. We, I think, agree on this. However people start to have problems with what I'm saying when I begin to speculate on exactly how this occurs. Culturally speaking, I believe that it has to be born from struggle. If America were the melting pot, then there would be no clear elements of different cultures. We would all be more or less the same in terms of our worldviews. We would stagnate, and we would decline. However, since we allow for cultural diversity we can change how our society looks at the world and at others. Of course, since any given culture's ideas of ethics and morality and, basically, their entire worldview can directly oppose those same aspects of another culture present in the society - then the two are going to lock horns and attempt to subdue the other. If one of these groups happens to be the one in power at the time, then they're more than likely going to win and the loser is going to either have to give up or take up the "wait and build" position, which is obviously the best choice. This allows the culture that is being oppressed to strengthen its resolve, to form a strong idea of what it is and what it stands for, and to gather the influence needed to change the accepted thought of the time. Slavery was ended this way. The Civil Rights movement was born out of this Idea.
Ok, that's it for the point to point part of this post. I just want to try and make one thing clear. If I knew of another - a better - way to guarantee societal change that preserves individual cultures, I would embrace it in a heartbeat. The fact is, though, that I have no idea of what would work. However, no one ever will get the Idea if we don't first realize that this is how it works now, and how it has worked in the past. Once we take it apart, maybe some good soul out there will have a spark of genius go off that allows them to find the Better Way. Until then, all we can do is plod along and try to figure things out one by one. Sometimes what we see will be ugly, and we as a society will not want to accept it, but the Truth isn't always what we're taught it is. We're not always who we think we are. But we'll never get anywhere if we don't try and hash things out.
Kristian Bland
(By the way, I sign my name not out of some egomaniacal fascination. I simply despise anonymity on the internet.)
Kristian - Maybe if you stopped confusing the fundamental concept of human 'morality' with that of applied 'value', as shown in their basic relation to culture--be it modern, medieval, classical, Periclean, or what not--you're argument, for what it's worth, just might be tenable. Throwing around concept spheres (a la Hegel) for the sake of bolstering first this Idea then that Idea accomplishes nothing for what, I suspect, is the central 'telos' of your pseudo-philosophical monologue. Also, comparing the application of monetary value with the propensities of cultural morality is a curious--if somewhat flawed--way to provide example to your argument. (The want of a new computer vs. inhumane oppression?) Just my opinion, of course. :)
I staunchly believe in certain immutable truths, of which (I think) all 'enlightened' individuals (to use your terminology) strive to achieve, at least in part, in their own lives. You speak of ethics, yet I doubt you fully grasp the idea; at least insofar as it relates to something beyond a light sense of 'right and wrong'. (Incidentally, playing the Nietzsche card was a mistake on your part; Nietzsche was a highly moral thinker, and not the misanthropic Uber-Grautze that the myopia of a sensational posterity will have you believe; your invocation of him makes no sense to me.)
To speak of cultural struggle is nothing new. Your argument is reminiscent of a Marx/Engels essay, but without the stiffly erudite panache. You claim too much for the process of evolutionary dialectic, which embraces the notion of advancement-by-struggle, whereas Marx and Engels only proposed a general 'class' theory---one which has been summarily bludgeoned, hanged and quartered over the years...from the likes of Durkheim to Weltch to even the kitsch maunderings of Ayn Rand. (And no, I won't infect the integrity of this board with citations culled from this Russian idea-thief.)
To contend that all progress is born of struggle is to claim but one view of life only--the biological/evolutionary view (a la Herbert Spencer). It is a view that says nothing for human consciousness. Most people do not accept certain questionable aspects of culture because they are 'morally' reprehensible, not because they are intolerant people unable to look beyond their own comfortable provinces. To think otherwise is to narrow your view of humanity for the sake of argument.
I do not accept Satanism and cannibalism--not because I am not tolerant--but because these are modes of living which are morally repugnant to me. As a human being, I prefer to live in accordance with the immutable truths which are set forth in the most basic code of life: the simple recognition of my own human morality.
Struggle and conflict does not always lead to the betterment of culture. Again, a myopic view. If the Nazis had gained the Reichstag earlier, say, in 1912, instead of 1933, Einstein's Special Theory and the General Theory of Relativity would not have been made clear to the world--unless you think Heisenberg or Planck could have propounded such advanced theories--as anti-semitism would have had a stronger foothold in Switzerland, and would have ushered good ol' Albert along a different course altogether. Attendance at the first Solvay Congress would certainly have been out of the question, thus preemtping his growing frienships with Rutherford and H.A. Lorentz. A 'gain' for world culture? I hardly think so. Also, the Holocaust--to cite but one more example, albeit an extreme one--is responsible for snuffing out countless artisans, intellectuals, humanitarians, etc., that to say Nazi oppression was a 'good' thing for the advancement of culture is not only stupid, wrong-headed and idiotic--but simply sadistic. That is, if you're human...
No matter what the aim or goal might be, struggle caused by oppression always leaves in its wake the crippling of man's artistic and intellectual spirit, two centers of humanity which, in my opinion, are apt to define culture much more readily than the fanfare seen in the struggle staged at a WWF wrestling match. Culture is not just defined by the biggest and the strongest; after all, with the passing of time the political and socio-economic convolutions of any given era are left to decay and change with the indeterminacy of man's struggle, not with himself, but with life in general. Only those new ideas which mankind happens to come by have any lasting value. The rest is chimera; stage antics; sound and fury...blah, blah, blah.
alright, this one is in full swing without my aid. However, I do want to interject one thing... a request, really. For the sake of brevity, can we please limit how much of someone else's post we copy? That's a newsgroup trend and it really irks me. Only a request, for everyone's sake. Besides, it isn't as if we can't scroll down to see what the other person said...
---Peter (standing back on this one)
Sue - What exact logical path did they follow? I didn't see alternate explanations of the reason for a changing society presented at all. Maybe I missed them. Also, I don't remember ever calling this concept earth-shaking - nor did I imply it at any point. I sincerely believe that I cannot be the only one that realizes that the ONLY thing that gives ANYTHING its meaning is struggle. Traditionally - and currently - societal meaning comes from cultural struggle. I hardly think I'm the only one that "gets it", but I am coming to realize that I do, at times, give far too much credit to people than I should. I'm not the only one that gets it, but there are just too many people that don't.
Chris - "I can't believe that you would claim that oppression and racism are good things under any circumstances. This presupposes that we need only the negative forces to bring us together as a people."
You're exactly right. That is the leap in logic I'm making. I don't like it any more than you, but the fact is - in today's American society - the only things that unite people in a common goal are struggles. These can be struggles with oppression, with money, even with the forces of Nature. The only time we place value on anything is when it is difficult for us to acquire it. Think about the rich kid who's given anything she wants all of her life. Now think about a poor kid who's always wanted a computer, but who's parents could never afford to buy one. Since rich gal has been given a new updated computer every year, she doesn't think much of it. However, when the poor kid's folks manage to scrape enough together to buy him an old Apple ][, he's going to cherish it. It's the same way if a kid's given a car or if he is made to work for the money, save it up, and buy it his own damned self. Why is it so easy to acknowledge this fact in these terms, but put it in the context of culture struggle gains cultural rewards that it becomes unspeakable?
"Preconcieved notions ARE a fact of life, it is true, but we are supposed to be evolved enough to acknowledge those notions and look past them."
The key word there is "supposed". We would love to think we're this enlightened society that is tolerant of all ways of life, but we're not. We're not for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it's not possible. You cannot be fully tolerant of all ways of life and still maintain your own ethics. If you hold people to a standard of behavior, which I'm sure you do, then you're being exclusive. If the opposing standard of behavior happens to be "evil" or "dangerous" to you, then you're likely to rally with other like minded individuals and fight against it. The English thought we were pretty gawd-awful when we revolted against them. The Catholic Church thought scientific thought was heretical and evil, and they pretty much had a bit of a problem with the whole thing. They invented something called the Inquisition, though, and that seemed to clear things right up.
"Also, it is ridiculous to assume that any one thing is responsible for the violence in schools. The people who have the most influence in children's lives need to teach those children that some things in this society are simply not disposable. Too many people pass that particular buck to others."
I never presented any indication of any one thing that is responsible for the violence in schools in this essay. It was a starting point for the cultural acceptance policy we're being force fed everyday. I agree with you on your point, though. I don't think it's a matter of people being disposable, though. The big problem here, I think, is that maybe the parents *are* doing a good job. (At least, they think they are.) They shelter their kids from the "evils" of the media for most of their lives. However, once these kids reach a certain age - or have an opportunity - they *will* be exposed to the media and all it has to offer. By this time, of course, they won't know how to handle it. I say parents need to sit their kids down with the latest tits and ass horror flick and explain it to their children. They need to be exposed to what is really out there, what is worth paying attention to, and what isn't worth wasting your time on. Instead of hear no evil, see no evil, we must expose our children to the vile that's out there and educated them. Ignorance is no way to handle this situation. Sadly, though, this means that childhood must again be cut a little shorter. Anyway, I've covered this topic in detail in another essay so I won't go further into it right now.
Thanks for all your comments, and keep them coming. I will say that personal attacks have been pretty subdued so far, which is something different about this audience than the other. All I ask is that comments made are made in reference either to something directly presented in the essay or in some post I've made along the line. I don't do much implying in my work, so if you read something into what I've written that isn't actually in the words, then it's a safe bet that you're reading things that aren't there. So far, you good people are encouraging. I just wish there were more people talking.
Kristian Bland
Kristian-- I can't believe that you would claim that oppression and racism are good things under any circumstances. This presupposes that we need only the negative forces to bring us together as a people. Preconcieved notions ARE a fact of life, it is true, but we are supposed to be evolved enough to acknowledge those notions and look past them.
Also, it is ridiculous to assume that any one thing is responsible for the violence in schools. The people who have the most influence in children's lives need to teach those children that some things in this society are simply not disposable. Too many people pass that particular buck to others.
oops - sorry... make that finder, not Peter..
Kristian - So far, you are batting 0.. I understand what Keegan, Peter, and Syz said - it followed a logical path. The only one who seems to understand your earth-shaking new concept is you. That doesn't shake a lot of ground, no matter how loooooong you make the arguement last in word count. So why do you assume if you are the only one to "get it", it means everyone *else* is slow/wrong??
I appreciate your thoughts on the essay, finder. Let me answer, or at least address, some of your points.
"To say that oppression and racism have good points in that "They bring about social discontent, group unification, and revolt against the accepted status quo" is simply wrong. Under that assertion, slavery can be seen as good because it brought the African-American people together, and got them to lobby for more rights...the Holocaust, then, must have strengthened the faith of the Jewish community as a whole...those are some real cold comfort benefits of keeping masses of people under one's thumb, huh?"
I'm not saying it's a good thing. Oppression is, by its very nature, evil and self-serving to those with power. What I'm saying is it does have its good points. Kinda a cloud with the silver lining. The holocaust reference is completely unfounded, however, as that was genocide. When you wipe out a "race", then you lose any "benefit" that could possibly come from a group growing in strength from being oppressed. If you succeeded in your genocidal quest, there would be no more of those folk around at all. As for slavery, no the act of slavery wasn't good. However, let's look at the whole picture for a brief moment. Yes, we brought and sold slaves. Yes, we worked them in horrible condition. Yes, many were tortured and murdered. Was any of this good? Hell no - it was all horribly wrong. However, say we got some of these blokes from Africa to jump on a ship and come to America. Let's have them completely accepted and embraced by the population as equals. Let's let them ooze into the great melting pot and become One with America. Would they have any identity today? Would they have a shared and united history? Would there be a strength in them that us white folks can't begin to comprehend? I, for one - and probably the only one - don't think so. Do I wish there was another way for differences in society to exist, and for that society to constantly evolve, devolve, and change without some sort of prejudice or discrimination? Of course I do. I just live in the real world, and the happy little ideals of peace and brotherhood and harmony with vastly different and expressive cultures in it just plain don't exist yet. One day, I sincerely hope it will. Until then, I just look for the Truth in what's going on today, and what has happened in the past. I can hope for a better future, but I have to put whatever comes tomorrow in the context of today - and I don't see us becoming right decent folk at any point in my lifetime.
"But the whole game is already lost when you start saying "I don't condone it...but I don't actively oppose it, either, because it has benefits to somebody." Because by not actively opposing something you don't believe in, you are by default supporting it, by allowing it to go on unchecked."
Ah, but I didn't say I don't actively oppose it. I do oppose it. I do fight against it. I am not allowing it to go unchecked - I am simply trying to bring people's attentions to it. I'm saying, hey! look here! Sure, we have a working civilization that far eclipses the scope of anything of the past - but at what cost? Why do we have what we have? How does the whole thing work? Telling someone how the light bulb works removes the ignorance from their minds and the magic from their adorations. You can't build a better mousetrap without first knowing how the current rodent-catchers work.
""The tides of acceptance should wax and wane according to whatever group has the most rallied and effective force behind it at the time." -- What??? So then if the white supremacists or the southern secessionists or the Satanists all manage to build effective forces behind them and find positions of power and influence, we should simply roll with it until we're oppressed by one or all of them - which will make us stronger - at which time we should revolt?"
The answer is - you shouldn't simply roll with it. You should revolt against it the entire time. The thing is, those southern secessionists and those Satanists are revolting against what's accepted at the time as well. Look at your own response here, by the way. You - at the core of your being - believe that Satanists are wrong. That they should never be allowed to come into power. Why? Because their ideals and their worldviews clash horribly with yours. This is my point. You can't have differences in culture without some other culture within the society being pissed about the whole thing, or thinking less of it, or actively opposing it. Think about the stereotype of the poor black man who drives a $50,000 car but lives in a shack. Yes, it's a stereotype - but it's also true in some cases. Now, I'm not saying this is "black culture" - it's not. It's simply the culture of these people that value image over actual conditions. The rich white WASP folks are going to look down their noses at him, gripe about his welfare checks, and demand that he not be allowed to squander his money on such luxuries. Right there you have some slight oppression - because at the heart of a culture lies beliefs that differ from yours. If one culture embraces a Godless world where the only path to redemption lies in acquiring at the expense of others - that is a culture. It's not one you agree with, or one that you think should be allowed to flourish - but it's still a viable form of life. (Just ask Nietzche.) Now, you can go about a tourist idea of culture. Let the Mexican's make their pots. Let the Indians make their beads. Let the Irish make their jewelery. Let's just not have any of the "nasty" stuff. Leave out those parts of the culture we don't agree with. Give us the Disney version. I say give me the Truth.
"Jerry Fallwell's attack on the Teletubbie had nothing to do with his guts to speak up. He's not about mox..."
Ok, you don't like Fallwell. Neither do I. Still, it takes guts and determination to reach a position with as much influence as he has. I can admit that. I can admire that. I can respect that. I'm sorry if you can't.
"And to throw a fact out, Oliver North's arming people isn't an agree/disagree situation. It was, under existing laws, a criminal act."
So one cannot agree or disagree with someone breaking a law? If I saw a man steal a hamburger to feed his child who was starving in the alley (yes, a hokey and fairly unrealistic analogy, but allow me the latitude) - I couldn't agree with that because it's technically against the law? If my brother was one of the men rescued by North's (or whoever's) dealings, I still couldn't agree with him because he violated a governmental law? By that logic, the civil rights movement - and all those that participated in it - we wrong, deserved to be jailed, and should never have been allowed to affect the existing laws at that time. Do you see my confusion here?
"To your title - a final quibble. Without your telling me, I wouldn't have made the leap between "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said The Ticktockman"..."
Ah, the final stab. Sorry if I insulted your intelligence in someway with telling you about the title. Fact is, I used the title because of Harlan's story - which bears a lot of the same Ideas that I am trying to get across. Stagnation versus change, and what brings about change. Make the leap. Take the plunge.
All in all, your comments were solid and I appreciate them. I've defended the same points in the essay before, and I hoped that I would get a different reaction from a group of real honest-to-goodness readers but I guess that's not gonna happen just yet. Hopefully people just need to have a few basic knee-jerk concerns addressed before they can really start to dissect the argument. I don't care if you think about the essay - just think about the Idea behind it. That's what it's all about, anyway. Again, I thank you for your comments.
Kristian Bland
(By Reading This You Are Required By Law To Forgive Any Grammatical, Spelling, Or Typographical Errors. Thank You.)
Grrrrr . . . G'noth dur Krasse auf und Teslau . . . drag me kicking and screaming . . . sqinting . . . who is it?
Kristian: Excellent fence riding. By praising the virtues of oppression and prejudice with a thin argument against PC (as though PC were the backbone of all culture and not the abstract nit-picking you describe) and then offering world-wide ecclecticism and free speech as your "brainy" solution(s)--a solution which precludes the notions of oppression and prejudice in the first place--seems to be nothing more than a personal act of mental onanism . . . for the benefit of what obscure focus, who knows?
On a different note, and while I'm visiting . . . .
The following URL address was given to me by Mr. Nelson Bond. The website to which it refers, Waystation Central (links page), seems to accord reasonably well with the general interest of this board. For those unfamiliar with the website: Enjoy.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/5792/linkspp.html#7
Rick: If you see this, "Thanks, but no thanks." :) I need your new print bid by next week. I have only one copy left. (Also, let me know if you're still experiencing difficulties with e-mail.)
FINDER: What you said, man. Good refutation.
Kristian's piece reminded me of a guy I know who claims, "I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally." Not hip.
Kristian - I set out to write a response to your post (and just to quibble: the URL would have been good - I, too, don't like to be preached to, especially in a place I go to relax and unwind, and the option might have been nice), but try as I might, I can't get past the sheer madness and utter disjointedness of it to dissertate fully on it.
To say that oppression and racism have good points in that "They bring about social discontent, group unification, and revolt against the accepted status quo" is simply wrong. Under that assertion, slavery can be seen as good because it brought the African-American people together, and got them to lobby for more rights...the Holocaust, then, must have strengthened the faith of the Jewish community as a whole...those are some real cold comfort benefits of keeping masses of people under one's thumb, huh? I can't endorse the belief that we should bomb the hell out of a third world nation because their country will emerge stronger, with more modern facilities and technology, when they rebuild. You don't condone these things - great. But the whole game is already lost when you start saying "I don't condone it...but I don't actively oppose it, either, because it has benefits to somebody." Because by not actively opposing something you don't believe in, you are by default supporting it, by allowing it to go on unchecked.
"The tides of acceptance should wax and wane according to whatever group has the most rallied and effective force behind it at the time." -- What??? So then if the white supremacists or the southern secessionists or the Satanists all manage to build effective forces behind them and find positions of power and influence, we should simply roll with it until we're oppressed by one or all of them - which will make us stronger - at which time we should revolt? Am I the only one that sees a sheer lack of logic and total waste of social effort in this?
Jerry Fallwell's attack on the Teletubbie had nothing to do with his guts to speak up. He's not about mox, he's about grandstanding, posturing, grabbing some attention, and reminding us that God, unfortunately, hasn't called him home yet. And for someone who has it in for stupid people, to applaud Fallwell of all people (even while saying he was completely off base) makes me wonder if your definition of "stupid people" needs to be shored up a little.
And to throw a fact out, Oliver North's arming people isn't an agree/disagree situation. It was, under existing laws, a criminal act. And he was nothing more than a fall guy anyway, because the situation required one. Ultimately, there was no way George Bush, who coordinated everything from his Vice President's office and used his old CIA contacts from his days as chief of the Agency, was going to take the fall.
To your title - a final quibble. Without your telling me, I wouldn't have made the leap between "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said The Ticktockman" and ""Kill Whitey!" The Nigger Shouted". Aside from it having a quote to open, it bears no real resemblance. It could just as easily be a riff on Philip Dick's "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said".
To keep the introduction short, let me just say that I've read through most of the posts of late here - and most of you folks seem to have pretty good little heads on your shoulders. So, rather than jump in with nothing of any substance to say (I hate starting conversations), I thought I would share something with you. I wrote the following essay for an industry watchdog type site which primarily deals with technology and interactive entertainment. The essay was in reaction to lawsuits being filed by the relatives of those killed in school shootings. The suits I was reacting to were against game companies, film studios, record companies, etc. It gets a bit into the PC hysteria of the world, and our seemingly limitless capacity to want to rewrite history in a sanitized form. Anyway, I'd like to hear the thoughts of some folks out there that are more in tune with the Word, and less mezmerized by technology (as are most of the readers of the site this was written for.) When, and if, a good discussion springs forth, I'll post the URL for the original home of the essay where there are comments from the readers of that site. Call me curious, but I would like to see how - if at all - opinions of the different audiences contrast each other. Humor me. Anyway, here goes. (I'm sure most of you will recognize the Ellison-esque title. Harlequin? Not one of the original audience got it.) :)
"Kill Whitey!" The Nigger Shouted
With all the recent debate and discussion about schoolkids shooting schoolkids and the role of the media in such events, I've begun to question just what the hell is the matter with America. Now, I don't have years to dedicate to writing this, and we have a limited amount of bandwidth to use - so, I'll just touch on one thing that caught my attention. I'm going to be talking about offensive material. Start your engines.
Here in America today, we're obsessed with what has come to be known as "political correctness". Now, for all you schoolkiddies out there, you probably only have a vague idea of how far reaching the tentacles of this concept are. At work recently, I had to endure "sensitivity" training. An entire day of work and productivity was lost to clever presentations of common sense topics. We learned how to be sensitive to the needs of others. We learned how not to offend. We learned exactly what sexual harassment was, and how evil of a thing it is. At this time, I feel it is my obligation to state clearly my stance on all of these issues. Listen up, Sparky. Two words. Exquisite bullshit.
We are so concerned with not offending others, that we have begun to force the oppression of individual prejudice. Yes, I said prejudice. It's not an evil word. It doesn't mean I hate black folk. Or African-American folk. Or those of the deep tan persuasion. All it means is that people, no matter how high their ideals of blind acceptance are, have some amount of prejudice in their lives. I, for instance, am prejudice against stupid people. I hate the entire lot of you, and I wish you would all die quickly - for the good of all mankind. Does this make me a bad person? Nyah. Elistist, maybe, but I can deal with that.
Journalists today live in fear of saying anything that could be even remotely offending to some segment of their viewing audience. There is a whole new jargon out there today. There are words that replace other words that have replaced other words because the word that they replaced hurt too many feelings. In journalism, though, I believe a certain amount of social appeal is both good and necessary. Journalists should strive to be non-biased, and their word choices and sentance structures play a heavy role in this area. If Bob the Anchorman said something like, "A small kike is accused of manslaughter. Victims names are being withheld at this time, but we can tell you that they were all niggers", then people would have a right to grab a torch and pitchfork and head on down to Channel 13 to do a little barbequeing.
In the realm of fantasy, though, the replacing of one's words is a horrible thing. When I say fantasy, of course, I'm speaking of all forms of fictional entertainment. Whether you're reading a book, (those dusty old things with paper in them), or running through the Land of the Dead as a travel agent in a computer game - you are, in some degree, looking directly into the mind of whoever wrote whatever it is that you're looking at. You should, and need to, see their prejudice. You need to see whatever pains, stuggles, comedies, or dramas that they are allowing you to see. You need to look closely at what it all means, and avoid any knee jerk reactions when the author uses a word you take offense to.
So, to all you gooks, kikes, niggers, and honkeys out there - two more words. Lighten the fuck up. (Ok, four.) I'm not just talking about race here. Let's talk about the faggots. I liked Ellen before it turned into an every episode soapbox for gay rights. Does this mean I hate homosexuals? Nope. I just hate being preached to. Is there oppression in the world? Yes, of course there is. Is it a bad thing? Yes, of course it is. Is it also a good thing? Yes, dumbass - it is.
Oppression is good? What the hell am I smoking now? Well, here's the thing. Once we have a society where everyone is so afraid or conditioned so as not to offend anyone, then everyone might actually start to like everyone. This is a very, very bad thing, kiddos. While I don't endorse or condone oppression or racism, or anything of the sort - they do have their good points. They bring about social discontent, group unification, and revolt against the accepted status quo.
When you have a society where everyone simply accepts what everyone else does, even if they believe it to be wrong, then the whole thing is about to turn to shit the likes of which would make even Kasey Kasam long for the good old days. It is only when people demand change against a force that they unite. It is only when they unite that a change becomes possible. It is only through change that a society can grow.
I hate the religious right as much as the next sinner, but I admire their tenacity and bemoan the non-believers lack of commitment. At least Jerry Fallwell has the balls to say that the purple teletubbie enjoys balls in a none too sexual way, even if he is incredibly off target. Most people who say the religious right is wrong are the same people that demand we accept others unconditionally. Sorry, but you can wear whatever color ribbon you want and it still won't cause me to like you.
As I said earlier, my main beef is with stupid people. I enjoy the company of any person who is fun and interesting to interact with. If they happen to be gay or black or white or straight or hispanic or bisexual, I really don't give a rat's ass. Dennis Miller once said, "Why hate your neighbor simply because he's black? When, if you would take the time to get to know him, you could find a million better reasons to hate him." No, I personally don't think someone should judge another based on their skin color or sexual preference or political beliefs. This behaviour is just plain stupid. Yet, the act of forming a basic opinion of someone based on their outward appearance is not, in itself, a terrible thing. This is unless, of course, if their ideals call for the harming of any who don't subscribe to them.
However, I don't condemn those that do demand that others live up to their own standards. While some call this prejudice or oppression, I call it belief. Standing up for what you believe in is a good thing, and we need to encourage it. Let old Jerry talk about kiddie shows. Let Rikki Lake condemn anyone who's every made a fat joke. Let Dr. King deliever his speeches of elevation. Let Ollie North arm an army in exchange for American soldiers. If you don't agree with any of them, then you have just as much right to stand up and be heard. They will let you have your say, and you should let them have theirs.
In the end, our society should be an ecclectic mix of beliefs and differences. Each group should have an identity all its own, and it should take every step that it can to make sure that people are educated about it. The tides of acceptance should wax and wane according to whatever group has the most rallied and effective force behind it at the time. We should revolt, on occassion. We should always demand something better and different. We should never become stagnat. Once you reach stagnation, there is nowhere to go but down. Guess which part of the water slide we're on right now, folks.
More "Haunting" notes - I see the new reprint of Shirley Jackson's novel is now titled "The Haunting", with only the merest notation that the book is actually titled "The Haunting Of Hill House" on the copyright page. And given the wretched quality of the film (imagine every haunted house cliche for the last, say, hundred years...now imagine them with Liam Neeson...I've had more frightening experiences clipping my toenails), I'm disheartened that a whole new group of readers that might have investigated the Shirley Jackson novel (had it been reprinted as originally published with a "the basis for the film" notation on the cover) will simply bypass the book because it appears to be just another novelization of a crappy film.
*** Peter *** Is dead on about "The Haunting". Now if Neil Gaiman can lick the script for "We Have Always Lived In the Castle", well, then we might have something....
here is another movie don't bother ... the Haunting. First off, the great thing about the book, and to an extent, the original movie was the subtlety and suspense. Indeed, when he directed the first movie, Robert Wise was looking to do a movie in the tradition of his mentor, Val Lewton. However, the new version of the Haunting runs as if it will explode should it go slower than 55. There is no suspense, the CG images, while nice, are about as frightening as Casper the ghost, and the story changes are almost laughable. My vote? Don't bother. Read the book.
---Peter
Speaking of colorful items, our own HE, if you haven't heard, is interviewed in latest (September) issue of Wizard. Has some cool recent photos. He's not listed on the cover, but on the spine of the magazine.
Oh, and by way of completism - the other color name change by Crayola was "Prussian Blue", which got the heave-ho in the late fifties not because Prussian people were unhappy about being depicted as unhappy, but because it was thought school children couldn't relate to Prussian history. I forget which blue it became.
Oh, and by way of completism - the other color name change by Crayola was "Prussian Blue", which got the heave-ho in the late fifties not because Prussian people were unhappy about being depicted as unhappy, but because it was thought school children couldn't relate to Prussian history. I forget which blue it became.
Bill - "flesh" was changed to "peach" back in 1962, because it was a misnomer in terms of skin color.
Is there still a "Flesh" Crayola? If they're doing PC, I'd think that should be one first to go. Then again, I never met anyone whose flesh tone it matched anyway. -- Billy D.
I don't post too often (feel like I don't have too much to say/offer), but I do keep up on the postings. Anyhows, here's a link to an Ellison-related story that I knew absolutely nothing about. http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=4060
Enjoy!
Finder, the situation you describe is just one of the reasons I purposely do *not* watch the news in any form. Yes, I'm ignorant and proud of it. I read a paper on the weekends, but that's it. Most of what's reported on TV, and to a lesser extent, news print, is useless, biased, depressing, and something I have near no influence over anyway. If it's big enough, I generally end up hearing about it anyway.
And *pooh pooh* on Crayola for succumbing to PC pressures and changing the name....(if that's what happened).
Peg
Since we _are_ kinda sorta on the subject of Big Head Todd and The Monsters, here's a wonky thought: What say to Harlan Ellison writing a story inspired by or based on one of the tracks from BEAUTIFUL WORLD? Keep it simple, eh. Let's say it has to be the track "Boom Boom", "Please Don't Tell Her", or "Resignation Superman". Hey, here's a thought: What if HE wrote the opening and closing sections of this story and had other big boys (not moi, since I ain't even close ta bein' big) such as Dan Simmons or Stephen King or Ed Bryant write the middle section(s). Then it gets published in a limited signed edition (signed by all involved), auctioned at the highest price, with the proceeds going to a literacy program or scholarship. Hey, now. Put that tar and feathers down. I can dream, can't I? Until next time. . .
Okay, am I just cranky from the heat, or
a) is the renaming of a Crayola crayon from 'indian red' to 'chestnut' because the moniker 'indian red' could be misconstrued as a slur against Native Americans the absolute height of Politically Correct foolishness;
b) is the news media so hard up for things to report that the renaming of a Crayola crayon constitutes "news" for my morning headlines; and finally
c) should a Crayola crayon really be more important to me than another round of missle strikes on Iraqi targets, which DIDN'T make my morning headlines?
I wonder if there were Roman citizens who could see the empire was in decline while it was in progress...
Hey Tracey - HE's Watching is currently on the schedule as Volume 10 in the Edgeworks series. Which actually raises a question: when White Wolf gets to "Watching", will it be expanded to include the F&SF columns that weren't in the original volume? Seems a logical step, but logic and publishing don't always skip down the garden path hand in hand...
I just found this quote from Phil Sophy of Miscatoon, New Hampshire. "I don't care what you say about my spelling, but leave my Grammar out of it. She ain't never harmed a fly"
---Peter
Goody! The most thorough HE website I've found so far.
Suggestion: Harlan would probably spank your bottom until it goes purple for your spelling (check "philsophy") and grammar (check use of "quote" as a noun). Otherwise very good!
Any word on whether or not publisher will ever reprint Harlan Ellison's Watching?
I'm popping on after a long silence to second Jim's recommendation of Big Head Todd and the Monsters in general, of the album "Beautiful World" in particular, and of the track "Boom Boom" in particularer. Miss at your own detriment, fellas.
Buck
Canadian, eh? Love that AIR FARCE. Until next time. . .
jim:
The answer to the Palisades Park mystery is waiting for you at:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Palace/2602/palisades.html
--not spawn of MTV
--never even watched MTV
--bloody CRTC won't let Canadian cable networks carry it.
--so much for free trade.
--besides, I'm old enough for MTV to be spawn of me.
Actually, the Beach Boys did record a rather lackluster cover version of "Palisades Park" which I believe appeared on their mostly-covers album from the mid-seventies, "Fifteen Big Ones". But I too am drawing a blank on the songwriter.
If we doing the blues and jazz by-way-of-HE may I suggest one of my favs: Big Head Todd and The Monsters (BHT). Their cover with the mighty, the legendary John Lee Hooker is worth the price of the CD. (No. I don't know if there is a single on this; but skip it and go straight for the entire cd entitled "Beautiful World". Methinks that since ol' Todd hisself is such a reader of fine literature he wandered onto Harlan Ellison and, hence, the inspiration for the cut "Resignation Superman" (Doesn't that sound like a Harlan piece?))Until next time. . .
Hello Webderlanders. Just popping in for a bit. I know you all missed me; try a shotgun next time. As for the 'Palisades Park' issue, it was recorded by Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon, not the Beach Boys. Dunno who wrote it, though.
For those of you who would like your minds professionally blown, I heartily recommend Blue Man Group. Now performing in Boston, Manhattan and Chicago. Redefining theatre in a metropolis near you. Viscerally funny and intellectually intriguing, at the SAME TIME! The Twinkies! The music! The marshmallows! And the crepe paper! Good God in Heaven, the crepe paper!!!
Well, s'long...
Mitch
*DRANAAN*, given the laws of entropy, even the most tightly-focused discussions about Harlan Ellison (often abbreviated HE hereabouts) tend to drift off in tangential directions, as has the current topic you mentioned. If there's a new Ellison-related thread you'd like to start, I'm sure we'd all be happy to join in. -- Billy D.
Maggie - Thanks for keeping me honest. Being more of a student of the multitude of JFK assassination theories and misinformation, I'm a little soft on the other historical knowledge of those four days - and I need a polite boot in the butt to keep my opinions from overriding the facts every now and again.
Umm, thanks, but *I* get the Kennedy thing. I'm an Irish-American Democrat from New England. Believe me, I get it. Thanks anyway.
Finder - I saw a thing on one of the ever present newstertainment shows last
night where Diane Sawyer was interviewing the Secret Service guards who were
responsible for the Kennedy children in the White House. One of the guards
told a story about the JFK's funeral - he said that Jackie asked him to John
out as he was getting fidgety (Hey, he was 3) and they went into a room at
the back of the church. There was a military man there who helped the guard
tell some stories to John. When the man left, the guard told John to say
goodbye, John apparently saluted with the left hand. The military man
(truly, I don't remember the rank involved here, you could probably get off
of the website - bet there's a transcript or some such) told him that you
don't say goodbye that way, that you do it with your right hand. The Secret
Service guard said that what Jackie actually told John to do that day, was
say goodbye to his father. John, apparently in the way of children, did as
he had so recently been instructed to do, and saluted. The really sad thing
was that the guard said he didn't ever wear the suit he had worn to the
funeral ever again, and that years later, he was going through the coat
pockets and found John's gloves from that day. He pulled them out and
showed them to the camera. Personally, given the way that Jackie protected
the privacy of herself and her children, I find it unlikely that she would
have coached John to salute. Then again, what do I know about it? I wasn't
even born yet - boy, I love this board. I actually get to feel young again.
Here at work, I'm really old comparatively speaking!
Keegan - as to the Kennedy mystique - it is like the Di thing, and I think
that I am going to have to refer you to good old Joe Campbell. I think that
the public is looking for unifying myths, and there are certainly a lot of
mythic overtones to the whole Kennedy saga from a Campbell-esque point of
view. I've watched a number of Campbell's shows on PBS, and it seems to me
that he actually referred to the Kennedy myth at one point in time. Not
completely sure. Anybody know for sure?
M
Dunno on that 'Chuck Barris'. Dunno if it was one and the same. Suppose it could be. I found this collection of writings--one of which was Harlan's--and Billy Crystal was listed among the credits as a 'writer'. Urmmmmm. . . yeah. Okay. Whatever. Anyway, stayed tuned on this little ditty when it comes to HE and Chuck Barris of THE GONG SHOW. Until next time. . .
Didn't Chuck Barris write "Palisades Park", a song covered by the Beach Boys? What's the HE connection? The latest Locus mentioned that HE's suit against the deluvian FJAckerman was dismissed without prejudice (it can be refiled or amended, whatever the case may be). Picked up a neat book having to do with the original stories which were teleplayed for the New Twilight Zone. It contains three (I think) HE stories, the King story, and a bunch of other good ones. There's a nice intro. re: HE's involvement. Found it at Books a Trillion for about $3 in the remainder bin.
Thank you. I knew it was Chuck somethingornother. Yes, why did you remember that? Surely youse aint spawn of MTV (he asked, lashing his tail and rolling his big blues). Until next time. . .
jim:
Chuck Barris was the host of the Gong Show. A more significant question would be "why in the name of heaven
do I remember that?"
Odd question time: What was the name of the host of THE GONG SHOW? (Believe or not, this actually is related to Harlan). Until next time. . .
***Sheryl*** It's the Princess Di thing all over again. You're either part of the cult of personality who assigns this a greater importance than your average death by misadventure or you tilt your head to one side and go, "wow, that's a lot of CNN coverage." The unspoken tragedy is that it was John Jr. and not some other members of the Kennedy clan who even though they are royal screwups, will probably live longer than Rose. I won't mention any names but their initials are Bobby's kids. Oh, and before the FAA signs off on this one, let me just say that flying on a cloudy night over water with a bum leg and no flight plan is misadventure in my book even if the thing was shot down by Lebanese terrorists. Watch this show up in some book, Chinese whispers style, 2 years from now because they got it off the internet. Of course, I'm a fine one to talk about "cult of personality". And moving back to our topic...
***Peg*** While I would like to say that everything that people want is coming out this month it just ain't to be. The next story is a reprinting of the "Objects In the Mirror..." story from the Dangerous Visions signing which is slated for the 50th Ann. issue of F&SF. That's real soon now I think. It's a "reprinting" only if you bought the overpriced lmtd. "Crow" anthology as it was not in the trade HC ed. By the way, if anybody has details on that particular object [ie. ISBN #'s, page numbers, etc.] drop me a line, as a friend needs it for his bibliography. Other then that, you had to purchase it from Dangerous Visions last year. I know he was going to write a story around some recently resurfaced Vaughan Bode cover art with a cover date for F&SF painted right into the art. I got that from Harlan and Mark Bode last year at Dragon*Con. He did do 16 hous in Charlotte and 19 hours at Reader*Con which means you start talking at 9:00AM and stop around midnight. Nobody counts this as work for some odd reason but I see it differently. Try it on your 65th birthday. Then fly across the country and do it again.
Regarding Edgeworks 5, Harlan is still footnoting and you can't do a proper index until the footnotes are in place. Barry Hunter said he talked to White Wolf staff on the 4th and somebody said to him "sometime next year". Now that's third hand information so I'd say call White Wolf if this is keeping you up nights. Does this mean they'll bump up one of the others? I dunno. They won't bump up "Partners In Wonder" as there's even more work to do on that one. I do know that John K. Snyder is at work on his next cover for the series, and if you like his stuff, check out his Dr. Midnight series from D.C. comics. I'm given to understand he has another East coast speaking gig in the pipe for this year but details have not been finalized. Oh, he's working on a script for a D.C. comics "Real World:Superman" story with Peter David but I don't think it's the 1st one out of the box anymore. Also, there is some anecdotal material in a couple of upcoming Paul Krassner books to be released later this year and he has a gig doing intros for some cheesy video library. I hope they don't dress him up like Elvira. An now you know...
Sheryl.
There have been substantial tomes written about the Kennedy mystique, the whole Camelot thing, etc., but from everything I've read, it boils down to a combination of things: primarily that the Kennedys were a financially and socially well-to-do family; John was younger than any president for generations, he was handsome and charismatic, he had a beautiful wife, he was associated with the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, he was the first President to have young children in the White House in decades. But he was able to connect with a whole generation that felt government was about old codgers like Ike and give-em-hell Harry and America's grandfather, FDR, and make those young people feel they belonged, because in many ways he was just an average guy who happened to run the country. So it was an indelible tragedy for many people who felt that connection when JFK was assassinated, and they've clung to the memory and the unfulfilled dream he left behind. (And when Bobby was killed, they clung even more tightly.) A lot of people have the memory of John Jr. saluting his father's casket (which I think was a really unfair thing for Jackie to tell him to do, knowing the press would leap on it like a rabid wolf), and that image increases the feeling of tragedy. A lot of people felt John Jr. would have been a very popular political figure had he entered the arena, for many of the same reasons his father was popular with people: handsome, articulate and able to connect with people. He was just an average guy who rode the subway and failed the Bar exam his first two times.
Unfortunately, assassination wackos will now zero in on John Jr. and start looking for reasons for him to have been killed (I've already had someone ask me if I thought it was odd that all three bodies were quickly cremated and are being scattered at sea today). Which is the downside to the Kennedy mystique. That, and Ted Kennedy. No mystique there. Just a nose that can smell 20 year old scotch in Georgetown all the way from the Capitol building.
keegan: Five and seven? I really doubt you're a monster; monsters normally aren't as articulate as you are. (I think that's a dangling participle, sorry!) I'll bet you're just a very stressed mom; I have to tell you, though, in my experience, most of the best moms wish they'd never done it.
I have an awesomely great mom, and for a long time, SHE wished she'd never done it. We've discussed this particular issue a lot over the years. It was more responsibility that she'd ever wanted, once she got into it; my friends who are good parents it tell me much the same thing. I believe them. (I have noticed that among my circle of acquaintences, though, that most of the people who 'love being a parent' don't usually have kids that are as good/nice/appropriate/well-behaved as the people who wish they hadn't had any.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can I be presumptuous now (I'm sure most of you will have noticed at this point that it's my normal state) and ask someone wiser than I out there to elucidate the whole Kennedy mystique thing to me? It is a tragedy that these 3 by-all-accounts lovely, relatively young people were killed, and I feel for the families, but no more so than for the families of the guys who crashed their plane out here in the Angeles mountains a couple of months ago. I'm afraid that I'm just lost where this whole emotional "Camelot" thing is concerned. Having been a pre-schooler in a very rural area when the whole sixties thing was going on, I seem to have missed something really culturally significant. Any comparisions you might have or other assistance you could provide me in understanding this phenomenon would be greatly appreciated.
Barney,
I know this is dangerous, but you seem to be on the ball with what Harlan's projects are these days. I know the dude's always got a lot goin' on, I'm just curious which project is likely to be the next to hit the public. Got any tidbits for the wolves?
Ciao baby, you know I luv' ya. Peg
Dranaan - Stomp on toes? Pshaw. A graceful entrance. Welcome!
Peg - That's a very good, straight-forward intro to the landscape - well said. That, and - ohmigod, YOU DUSTED MY FAVORITE CHAIR!?! The bunnies - where are the bunnies? George? Peg got rid of the bunnies, George. OH the HUMANITY!
Sorry - waaaay too much caffeine today...
Oh good gracious I already misspelled your name! Sorry!
Drannan,
Welcome, come on in, just let us move these dirty dishes out of the way, oops need to dust off that chair..
An FAQ is available via a link on the main page (it's at harlanellison.com/text/webfaq.txt).
As for how it's done on the board, well, seems like you got it down already. The discussion's been going on a while (we might be reaching for a record, folks) and it's just that Rick (the webmeister here) has already archived a lot of the previous material. You can find that in the archive link at the top of the board page.
We've a nice home here, it's comfy but not too fancy. We encourage a good discussion or argument, even of the heated variety. [if you've read some of the posts you've already got a good example]. Friends are welcome, even enemies too. We don't mind folks who disagree, just those that are disagreeable, if you know what I mean. Flamers not welcome. Use fightin' words, well, don't be surprised if you get what you want. If it gets too personal, just do it by email and save the rest of the denizens the bandwidth.
Glad to have ya, grab a cup of coffee and sit a bit...
Peg
well, how do I do this gracefully?
Hi, brand new to the message board. Anyone care to direct me to a FAQ or give me a quick explanation on how this is done? There seems to be only one discussion going on right now, or at least that is all my computer is letting me see. Anyone want to hold my hand for a walk-through?
Hoping I did not stomp on toes,
Dranaan
Xan...old buddy...old pal...you're driving poor Finder bugfuck with this insistence that in the litigious, politically correct society we've grown into that in matters of individual comfort, taste or preference that the majority is in any stronger than the minority. When several individuals can put the screws to a School Superintendent and, over the dozens of protesting voices of students AND parents AND school faculty get a book removed from the school on the grounds that the handful perceive it offensive because it's "anti-white", that isn't "majority rules". When Bruce Jennings, owner of a Nevada gun manufacturing company, can get his Federal firearms license renewed (IN SPITE of a felony battery conviction (for breaking his wife's jaw while beating the snot out of her) that should have made him ineligible for said license) because heaven forbid we actually step on the toes of the gun lobby, that's not "majority rules". When Dr. Laura gets Toys R Us to say "screw you" to libraries that already have a hard enough time finding funding, instead of taking the fight directly to the ALA or to the web sites or to the lawmakers to voice her opinion on the problem, that's not "majority rules". We live in a society where many things are decided by a majority. But many more are the result of representative samples, demographic studies, special interest groups and, yes, even individual rabble. Because we live in a day and age where a lot of people want what they want, and damn whoever gets in their way - and the people who stand in their way will let them go every time, even in the face of overwhelming opposition, simply because they don't want to be named in the lawsuit. You can't tell me that the possibility of being the Pivot Boy in a lawsuit brought by a mother who felt Maya Anglou's depiction of white people was offensive didn't weigh on the School Superintendent's mind in Maryland as he decided to toss the book off a pair of reading lists. Fear is a bigger motivator than any majority in the land. After which I would say is the okie-doke. (What, I ask, was the repeal of prohibition except the ultimate okie-doke, the concession not that the law was in opposition to the majority, but that the law could not be successfully enforced, the criminal element controlled, nor the tide of illegal booze stemmed?)
From a practicality standpoint, you simply can't accomplish things by bringing more and more voices into the mix. More often than better defining the line, it causes the line to never be drawn. Examine the business world: everyone has an agenda, everyone has an ultimate goal. And you can run yourself to death trying to accommodate every viewpoint, incorporate every want, examine the impact of every divergent opinion. And in the end, because you can't stop to have a vote on every single line item (because nothing will ever get done), there is simply no practical way to involve everyone who wants to have a say. As someone who can accomplish nothing on days with three or more meetings, trust me on this.
And as for the fairness of life, true - life often isn't fair. But to assert that "to say something isn't fair is just whining..." is lackadaisical and overly-simplified, especially given your other arguments later in your post. Part of the improvement process is identifying the inequity - in fact, wouldn't it be the one that precedes the jumping up on your chair to raise your voice to the heavens about said inequity? So which point are you preaching: should we speak up when we believe something is unfair, or should we just shrug and stop all our pissing and moaning and get over it?
Keegan - I saw "Mr. X" in Borders as early as last week, so you may not have to wait until August if you're interested.
KEEGAN: Who knows, you may have the makings of another Jazz great living with you in your home...all you have to do is survive the growing pains along with him. Those beautiful moments do make the trying times worth it, don't they? I'll remember to ask you what you thought of Straub's knowledge of Jazz (singing and playing) sometime in October or November, after you've had time to read the book. Till then, keep on keepin' on. Kind Regards. Out here, DTS.
Todd: (sigh) Unfortunately, the truth is often ugly and difficult to look at. My children are beautiful. My husband and I figure this is an evolutionary survival thing. Good thing, too.
I gotta tell you, I'm actually enjoying having a little more time with the spawn this summer. It was frustrating devoting my life to other people's children when I hardly saw my own kids. We're having a pretty good time. My oldest actually let me give him an honest to God piano lesson (I allow him to play "free" on the Fender Rhodes because he is thoughtful and doesn't pound. I began teaching him the names of keys and some simple fingering for the the sol-mi chant song. "Rain, rain, go away.")/
Anyway, I occasionally have to take some time out from the bitchin' to count my blessings. The kid catches on quickly and it was really a marvelous moment.
Neither here nor there and going WAAY afield.
DTS: Thanks for heads up on Straub book!
DTS: Thanks, man. You nailed it. "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans." I know that's in a Lennon song, but I wonder whether it's original. I dunno.
Anyway, yeah. We deal. The first clue anybody should get that "life ain't fair" is that you DON'T get to choose your parents. Fortunately, if they do even a halfway decent job, you CAN choose your own paths and choose your own mentors to help illuminate those paths.
Still, we occasionally take a wrong turn. What're you gonna do? You navigate by the lay of the land.
KEEGAN--Honesty in such matters, except around the kids themselves, no more makes you a monster than Wiliam V. is a martyr. Good luck to you all.
BARNEY--For what little help it provides, check the Locus website (locusmag betwixt the w's and com) for at least the right issue and perhaps pages.
Chris: I was gonna stop posting on this, but your last post forced my hand...
>(I)s it fair to deny them access to that information in a library...?
Life ain't fair - no way, no how - in not the slightest iota. (If it were, Ted would've been in the drink and not John John.) So to say something isn't fair is just whining...
>it's not easy to do with the "dumb" filtering technology we have
But the technology will get better, and just because a technology is crude, doesn't mean it can't have it's uses.
>that hoary old problem of who gets to decide...
It is a hoary old problem - and it won't go away, no matter how hard you might wish it... my personal theory , one last time, in perhaps clearer language: The more people you get involved in drawing the line - the better placed that line will be. The reverse is also true, the fewer people involved, the poorer the placement will be. (There are always exceptions, and sometimes outright problems - but if you get enough parents involved, things like the Qu'ran WON'T go away.....) (That is a call to all parents in school districts, or library systems faced with a "banning" you don't like, DO/SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT - LOUDLY! Don't think to yourself that the idea of banning this book is too absurd, and it can't happen - if the only voices raised are the ones against the book, it's gone... Majority rules... the majority of opinions those who implement policy hear. (In any case, if my local library banned a book I felt was wrong to ban, believe me when I say I would immediately make it available to my children, and offer it to be available to other's children.) (I guess there is a use for those super-box bookstores after all.)
>Kids can get hurt by seeing inappropriate material
I agree with this so strongly, you can't imagine.
>and they can get hurt by being unable to access material that could benefit them.
Problem: as defined, this argument is a completely unresolvable hypothetical. Since they haven't been exposed to the material - we can't judge it's benefit to them. (This might be applied to the opposite argument above - but I would argue that detrimental effects are more broadly applicable - benefits are usually case-specific. Not always, just usually.)
>I happen to think the latter is the far greater problem so I would always want to err on the side of openness because I think that's the least of two evils.
That is a fine and noble ideal... in abstraction - and I applaud it. But I got two kids, in reality. And sometimes, where the rubber meets the road - the fine and noble ideal doesn't do the trick. And in the face of parental ennui, or just plain non-performance, kids have to be protected from what just about everyone considers "bad stuff". And if that means we use the libraries to implement that strategy, so be it. And if that means some kiddy doesn't get to see whatever undefined beneficial site might be similarly blocked, so be that. The internet is merely the latest, greatest, brand new, ultra-spiffy, hoozie-jig piece of technology. ((gasp!) How did we ever live without it?) You see, I personally think there is very little that kids NEED to have access to that our school/library system isn't already set up to let them have access to in physical reality. Blocking the potential "badness" of the internet is a far more real and tangible gain than the loss of access is a detriment. But that's just my opinion. One voice. And without other voices in concert, it's only a voice.
BARNEY: Thanks for remembering. I look forward to it.
IMPORTANT HE NEED - we're looking for mint foreign editions of the I HAVE NO MOUTH, AND I MUST SCREAM computer game. Details on the "Stuff Harlan is looking for" link off the main news page.
Also, great discussion guys, and fantastic post, William.
KEEGAN: I don't think what you said below (about kids and parenting) makes you a monster. It does, however, group you into that majority who act without thinking...rush into situations to soon, as it were. I'm convinced that most folks get married or have children (and sometimes, attend college) way too soon. Most of us don't even know what we want for ourselves before we are say, twenty-five (give or take a few), and I mean what we want in the way of lovers, careers, homes, etc. So when we marry young and/or have childrend young, we end up prolonging our emotional and intellectual immaturity (some of us, to a greater degree than others). And to try and be a parent under those circumstances (especially in the past ten or 15 years, when the economy has required that both of the parents of most families hold down full-time jobs) is unfair to the children -- after all we have them, not vice-versa. I was lucky enough to not have kids during my first marriage (when I was too young and birth control wasn't foremost on the minds of myself or my spouse). So when my daughter was born during my second marriage, just before I turned 31, I was much more mature in a lot of ways. And I don't mind sacrificing my own weekend "party-type" pleasures to spend time with her (in fact, it's usually more enjoyable, recreation-wise). It's still tough, sometimes. But (hope I don't sound too corny) I wouldn't trade it for a NY Times bestseller with my name on it. (By the way, KEEGAN: Peter Straub has a new novel out entitled Mr. X, a horror novel in which Jazz plays a very big role -- and Straub seems pretty knowledgeable about the subject -- it comes out in August). Out here, DTS.
My kids are five and seven and I don't even let them cross the street alone because they are completely irresponsible.
Whatever.
I'm so glad you worship children. I hate parenting. Worst decision I ever made. 'Course, admitting that truth makes me a monster....
Sheryl,
Nice post. I'm glad to see we agree a lot more than it originally appeared.
I never stated I was flatly against Intenet filtering for kids. Keep in mind that this conversation turned to other area such as the suggestion that it was all right for a library to keep kids from reading the Qu'ran but letting them read the Bible as long as that's what most parents "voted" for. That was the sort of thing I was responding most negatively to.
I have no problem with maintaining certain rudimentary standards in limiting children's access to information on the Net. But I see two main problems with that: 1) it's not easy to do with the "dumb" filtering technology we have and 2) that hoary old problem of who gets to decide what's appropriate and what isn't.
Some parents don't want their kids to have access to sites which contain advice on safe sex. Yet what about the kids of those negligent parents you mention? If they aren't gonna get anyone else to talk to them about it, is it fair to deny them access to that information in a public library? And who gets to decide whether it's fair or not.
I suppose the main thrust of my argument is that you run two risks. Kids can get hurt by seeing inappropriate material and they can get hurt by being unable to access material that could benefit them.
I happen to think the latter is the far greater problem so I would always want to err on the side of openness because I think that's the least of two evils.
-chris
keegan: My own kids? No. Kids I've been responsible for for most of their waking hours? Oh, yeah. I nannied for a family a two houses down the street from the time I was in the 8th grade until my sister took over when I was working my way through college. Both their parents worked a 'swing' type shift at their respective jobs. I came home from school, picked up the kids from the neighbor next door (she watched them along with her own 4 anklebiters for about 30 minutes between the time their parents left and the time I got there) and stayed with them until one or the other of their parents got home, between 10 and midnight most weekdays; also was usually there at least half the day on Saturday. When I was 14 and started this little adventure in earning a paycheck, the kids were 5, 3 and 19 months. When my sister took over, they were 10, 8, and 6. So small kids, I know. All through high school, I came home from school, picked them up, went down two houses so my mom could drive us all back to the high school for whatever activities I was involved in. (You think 2 in a grocery store is bad?? Try 3 in a high school auditorium! And the library--save me!) I fed them, bathed them, helped them with their homework while I did mine, potty-trained one... Their parents, who were home with them every morning from wake up until 2 or so were very involved and very good parents, but I still did a whole lot of parenting as the only 'adult' there. And I was quite good at it, actually.
Will I have kids of my own? Only if I've got the means to be home with them full-time. I love the kids I took care of, and one of the hardest things I ever had to do was separate myself from them; I know it was even harder on the other side. The kids would show up at my door regularly, looking for me to help them with stuff from the time I stopped watching them every day until I started teaching and moved 100 miles away. I'd never put my own kids in the position of having to go through that separation anxiety for any reason but my death. Never.
On the topic of autonomy: Are you telling me that you would let your 10 year old wander around Disneyland with 4 of his friends as long as he/she checked in with you at lunch, dinner and time to go home? Or that you'd leave your 12 year at the mall with his/her best friend all day, as long as they promised not to leave the premises?
How old ARE your kids? Because I may be scared....
Chris: I agree with you about parental responsibility. But it seems that society as a whole is less willing to force that issue than they are the issue of filtering public access to the 'Net. I'm afraid, that under our current societal conditions that, as great a personal blasphemy as it is, I'm going to have to agree with Hillary Clinton. (Please pray for me now.) It really does take a village, particularly when parents don't parent. And I'm not talking about teaching anybody anything--just saying, "Sorry, you can't go there without an adult present." I'm afraid I must be too provincial and conservative to see how saying no to a kid constitutes teaching them morals. I used to say it all the time to my students, and I never noticed any differential in their moral codes, even with repeated exposure to the word.
You're right that without parental involvement, you've got little if any chance of getting a good kid. Once in a while, a miracle happens--maybe 1 in 100,000. So the library--or the movie, or the whatever--isn't going to make them better without having a parent there, no matter what sort of 'program' you put in place. I just don't want to see it make them worse! When I was teaching, I had to function as part of the filter, and some of the violent, racist, bullsh** these kids were trying to access made me want to vomit! (..."It's my research paper, honest!"..."Really? Explain to me how you're getting information on chloroflurocarbons from a KKK site, Joey...." A real conversation!)
Let me go back to the car analogy for a minute, and see if I can be clearer about my position.
Most of us have cars. These cars will all go places. Many of them will exceed speeds of 100 mph, no matter what your speedometer tells you. You CAN, by pressing your foot to the accelerator, go as fast as the car will let you, anywhere, at anytime, unless of course you live in LA and try to drive on the freeway. You also have brakes on this car, which you may use at your sole discretion. You don't even have to use a road. The car will go on sidewalks, over lawns, through fields....Cars are powerful machines that will do a lot of stuff.
But we invented traffic laws, didn't we? About how fast to go, where to go drive, where to stop--Why did we do this? Because going anywhere, anytime, at any speed, stopping only at your discretion, caused accidents, and people and property got damaged. We decided that the individual's right to do as he/she pleased was outweighed by the group's need to remain undamaged. To steal a line: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few..."
The Internet allows anyone who accesses it to go places, at whatever speed your modem will download, anytime, etc. I maintain that we need some traffic laws on the Information Superhighway about where you go, and how you're allowed to get there--or if you're allowed to get there, if you're a kid and your parental unit isn't right there with you.
I think that's a reasonable compromise between your "let them have it all, anytime" position, and my real "don't give them anything at all unless their mother's with them" position. Reasonable compromise between extremists is how the social contract evolves, right?
Just read that the movie rights to Asimov's "The End of Eternity" have been bought and that the movie is in the planning stages. Might be awesomely cool if HE got a stab at writing a draft of the screenplay, don't you think? But then again, remembering what a thought-provoking and exceptional job he'd do on it (cf: "I, Robot"), maybe that would doom it from the start. And speaking of movies, my advice on Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" is "don't bother." (Though others among you might have a different opinion.) If you do go, watch for the red pool ball in the film's penultimate scene with Sydney Pollack; it's in a different location in every shot (yes, that's how bored I was). -- Billy D.
***William*** That was a terrific post. In fact that was a brilliant and masterful post and somebody ought to publish or reprint it. Coming as it does , on the heels of the release of the "Summer of Sam" film it's a wonderful reminder of how interconnected we all are. Of course, being inteconnected to monsters is something we'd all like to not think about.
*** Everybody*** This is my semi-annual shout out for a couple of things I am looking for. I don't need originals [although they are always nice] - photocopies would do.
LOCUS- Last year [?] there was an article about Daniel Keyes that referred to Harlan that I am trying to track down. A copy of that or issue # /page # would be helpful.
COMIC BUYERS GUIDE - Recently, Peter David wrote a "But I Digress" column in which he describes the dreaded "guava paste is PEOPLE!!" in which I was an active participant. Fame, however fleeting. If anybody has this...
E.O.E. / V.O.E. stuff - While this is a dead horse and I gather all of the participants are at a point where this thing would more or less just go away, I'm trying to put together a chronology of events and related activities. To this end I am looking for copies of any of the E.O.E/ V.O.E. material. I am told there were only two published newsheets or broadsides or pamphlets or whatever but I may be wrong about this. I would also be interested in any related material that I may have missed in CBG, the Comics Journal, LOCUS, the SF Chronicle, THRUST or any FAPA/APA fanzine - prozine publication. I am also looking for copies of or publication details of "The Last Deadloss Visions" and how this may have differed from the Fantagraphics version. Part of this is for long term research and the rest is for the miscelaneous section of a bibliography. About a year ago somebody was able to hook me up with some of the public exchanges on GENIE that were archived. Unfortunately I was never able to unzip these files and that was a computer database ago. If anybody still has access to that material and wants to transfer [unzipped] this information to floppy, well, I would be in your debt.
Because of the "can of worms" nature of this request, please contact me off list.
*** Shane*** I now have a another new VCR and I have not forgotten. Tape goes in the mail this week.
Thanks gang. Barney.
*** Peg *** Actually, the movie rating system isn't a "law" anywhere. It's a self imposed industry standard to keep congress off their back which is rarely enforced. The demographics skew so strongly to 17 and under that if everybody who could get to a cineplex who wanted to see an R rated movie were denied access because they didn't have an attending adult or good enough fake ID the whole movie industry would go belly up. I can't deny a movie like "Lake Placid" to kids when I grew up watching Hammer Films and Vicent Price as the Abominable Dr. Phibes. The gore level aint much higher and the language, well, let's just say I have a real Lenny bruce, George Carlin attitude about language. So where do I draw the line? Well, in my case I'm not going to take my daughter to the South Park movie. Why? Special Dad hypocrisy exemption. I think South Park is [usually] as funny as hell. I let my daughter watch the show although I have occasionally squirmed with Too Much Information Syndrome. But at the point where I have to sit in a theatre next to my daughter while the boys go on a quest for a talking clitoris? Pass. TMFI. But I still think the idea is funny. Sue me.
Sheryl - point taken. I was drawing from my limited experience when I worked at a video store for a couple of summers (the Video Library chain in San Diego, later bought out by Blockbuster). Not only would we not let kids rent R-rated video, we didn't let 'em have PG-13s. In fact, we rarely rented to kids at all (this being 10-15 years ago, when videos were much more expensive to lose); there had to be a note in the computer file stating specifically which children could rent. And the topper - we would only play PG or G rated movies in the store.
Anymore, I only rent at Blockbuster (they're about all we have besides the mom-n-pop places in Anchorage) and as you say, they do enforce the rule. Just to be clear, though, those stores that do rent R movies to kids under 17 are probably breaking a law, unenforced as it is. And yes, it's the kids who fill the theaters and pick the videos (though most moviehouses/theaters at least *claim* to not let kids under 17 into R rated movies without an adult/parent.)
Cheers,
Peg
Lennon-Chapman-Valles: Parallel Worlds and the Monsters Within Us All
I’ve been thinking about John Lennon lately. You remember? The former Beatle? Gunned down in the prime of his life by a psychopath by the name of Mark David Chapman. Yeah, ole Marky-boy is still in New York locked up in the booby-hatch and probably always will be. John was buried and mourned years ago. The legacy of Lennon’s music and life lives on.
I’ll tell ya’ll something about my connection with Mr. Chapman. We grew up in the same neighborhood in Decatur, Georgia. In fact, he and his family lived about eleven houses down the street from our home. I was a year older than his sister and sometimes, I would walk her home from school because most of my friends lived down Green Forrest Drive and the elementary school was two doors down from my house. We lived in a medium sized subdivision on the south-side of DeKalb County where kids could wander and play without too much worry from the big city traffic which was a good ten miles away in a mythical place called Atlanta. That is, of course, when ten miles to a kid could just as well be a million miles and Atlanta is a place you’ve heard of but never been.
I really hadn’t thought about Mark Chapman for years and years. Didn’t need to. Then one day in December of 1980, he shows up in New York and shoots John Lennon. Of course it made news all over the world. I thought about him at that time. It sent shivers down my spine then. He was older than most of my friends and seemed to always be a little bit alone. He was always, to us, more like the Hippies we had seen on TV back then in the early 70’s. You see, there just wasn’t a whole bunch of hippies walking around our neighborhood like there might have been in California or New York back then, either. Sure, everybody dressed kind of grungy and bell-bottoms were the thing and long, stringy hair was cool and people actually said shit like "groovy" and "far-out" and "peace" and it was okay. Back then. So, Mark kind of stood out a bit and so we smaller kids just stayed away from him for the most part.
On another occasion, I remembered seeing him walking up the street in his ratty army jacket, bell-bottoms, and carrying a guitar case in one hand and what looked like a Bible in the other. He kept his head down as he walked. And that was mainly how I remembered him. There was another time I saw him peering out at me from the window in his bedroom while I was walking down the street that passed in front of his house. I knew that he knew me by association with his sister. But we never really talked. And that was pretty much my memories about Mark David Chapman.
Or so I thought.
I found out later there was something I had forgotten. There was an incident that I had almost put out of my mind it was so insignificant to me. That is until Mark Chapman reminded me of it.
Years after the murder of John Lennon, a friend gave me a copy of a biography about Mark Chapman. The book was entitled, Let Me Take You Down : Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon by Jack Jones, and I curiously began to read about Mark’s life to try and understand what was wrong with that poor twisted child.
Through interviews with family, friends, and most of all, Mark Chapman himself, Mr. Jones produced a chilling portrait of a man obsessed and pathetically in search of his own identity. At one point, Mark Chapman was trying to explain why it was that he shot John Lennon in the back rather than facing his victim. A creepy portion of the book, to be sure. But it got creepier for me. Mark related an incident that happened outside his home in the parking lot of Green Forrest Baptist Church. As I read, the memory of his own recollection converged suddenly with my own. I broke out in a cold sweat. Chapman claimed this incident was the reason he waited until his victim's back was turned before shooting.It had to do with an issue of confrontation.
It is a strange thing to realize that we touch the lives of so many people and in that touch, we rarely know just how deeply we affect the other. Mark’s memory and my own memory crossed paths at that moment. This is basically what he described and this is what I remember:
My best friend in the whole wide world at that time was a guy by the name of Art Webster. He, along with another friend and myself were casually bouncing a basketball and shooting hoops in the parking lot of Green Forrest Baptist Church one warm, sunny afternoon. A typical summer day. It could have been anywhere. We could have been any one of a hundred million kids our age anywhere. But on that day, we were about to be confronted by a monster wearing the face of a man and we had no way of knowing it. Mark Chapman came walking down the street and up to where we were playing. He was belligerent and what would be considered bullying in his behavior from the offset. He grabbed the basketball away from my best friend in the whole wide world, Art Webster. Things started to get pretty verbal at that point. Something was building up.
Before I go on, let me part from this telling and open your understanding, gentle reader, to something that only I can explain. Something about my friend, Art Webster.
When I first met Art, my family had just moved to Georgia after spending four years of our lives in Japan. My parents bought the house there in Decatur back in 1955 and rented it out until my father retired from the Air Force in 1969. Art was a kind of short, dumpy, klutzy kid when we first got together in elementary school. I introduced my new found friend to something that I had learned during my exposure to Japanese culture--the ancient art of Karate. Art Webster was never quite the same after this.
I believe the boy, through me, found his calling in life. He would become a Karate Man. From that moment on, Art ate, drank, breathed, slept, and shat karate. He soon was no longer clumsy and dumpy. What awoke in Art was a warrior spirit. He learned the gentle ways of peace and non-aggression through his study of karate and I never ever saw him abuse the knowledge and skills he gained from it. The last time I saw Art, he was a 7th Degree Black Belt and still climbing. Even now, that was many years ago. God only knows where that little Zen Master is now.
But before that, at that moment on the asphalt of Green Forrest Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia, when three friends saw the birthing of a monster standing in front of us, mouthing obscenities and holding our basketball, my friend Art Webster was ready. Art assumed a defensive pose and, confronting this thing that was attempting to rise out of Mark Chapman, he let fly his small fist into the face of the beast.
Chapman was thrown backwards. I don’t know if the look on his face was more pained or surprised. Whatever it was, it had been enough to drive him and the thing that was growing inside of him away from our small company and back up the street into his house. We never saw him nor did he attempt to bother any of us again after that.
This seemingly insignificant event left my mind probably a few days after it happened. I was in fights all the time as a kid. This had been just one of many that I had experienced before growing up in that neighborhood and elsewhere as I followed the track of my own life. Since I was more or less a spectator in that particular incident rather than a combatant, it is even less surprising that I had forgotten about it after all that time.
But here it was. In the pages of a book that I had never seen before was that very incident from the perspective of the monster himself. He talked about how he had gone down there to the parking lot of Green Forrest Baptist Church and started harassing some younger kids in the neighborhood. Chapman recalled my friend Art as "Arty" and, although he could not seem to remember my name, he correctly identified me as that "little Indian boy" who lived up the street. We were all there in his memory.
By his own admission, we were all there with him when he pulled his weapon and opened fire as John Lennon turned his back after graciously signing an autograph for him.
I don’t know why that incident stayed with Chapman for so long. We had no way of knowing that he would grow up to do what he did. We were just kids on a playground for God’s Sake. But I can’t help feeling responsible somehow.
I know, I know. It can’t possibly be my fault or anyone’s fault. There was nothing we could have done. But then, my head starts swirling into bad places thinking about it since I read Chapman’s biography. So what? Would it have made an ounce of difference if I had never met Art Webster or taught him the first fundamental karate moves that shaped his life? Would he have discovered it on his own eventually? If I hadn’t, would Art still have struck Chapman? Would it mean that Chapman would have just shot Lennon from the front rather than the back? Would Lennon have had a chance if Chapman hadn’t shot him from the back? Might Lennon have talked Chapman down, brought him in to the Dakota and given him a nice cup of tea and a good talking to?
Too many questions without any possible right answers. Yet, I still think about it sometimes.
How can we learn to recognize the monsters among us in the future? How can we stop the next Chapman from emerging from the shadows with a cowardly weapon in their hand?
I suppose that wherever Chapman is, the doctors have poked and prodded, tested and analyzed and filed their reports. We don’t normally execute crazy people who kill in this country. We just catch them, lock them up, and study them. Turn them into psychological lab rats. No matter the width and length of the blood trail that they might have left behind them in their wake; no matter the lives that they have ruined and taken; no matter the pain and agony they might have caused the survivors of their escapades-it is still considered unethical to execute warped, twisted, inhuman monsters who still wear their human masks.
But I still think about it sometimes.
And even though I know that it wasn’t our fault on the playground that day, I still feel guilty of something. I guess all I can finally say is this:
I’m sorry, Mr. Lennon. I’m sorry that the monster slipped by the three of us all of those years ago. I’m sorry that we didn’t see him coming so we could warn you. I know that you know, and we know, and everybody knows that there are monsters lurking out there in the shadows and in the bright light of day. And the most dangerous and evil ones are the one’s inside of us. I’m sorry we weren’t there to watch your back, John. I wish that my best friend in the whole wide world, Art Webster, Karate Man, had been there to stop that son-of-a-bitch one more time.
Now go away. I don’t want to talk anymore.
Just go away.
--William Valles 1999
Sheryl,
While I have no idea whether the figures you actually quote are accurate or not, I will not dispute the point that there are parents who neglect their children.
You seem to think the answer then if for the government o become surrogate parents to all the children in the country, to set all the moral standards and to teach us all what is right and wrong.
I'm sorry but I don't agree. The responsibility still lies with the parents. There is no answer available to us in raising good kids without the involvement of the parents.
If a parent isn't going to raise a child, how is the library going to do it? And why on earth would you want them to?
No matter how you try to spin it, Sheryl, there's just no way around the fact that we're all responsible for our own actions. Personal accountability is the key here.
It's the parents' job to take care of their kids. Nobody else can do that job for them.
-chris
Sheryl, I'm curious: do you actually have kids? I'm asking because while I agree with you that people could parent their kids better (I teach public school, too), I also think you are missing the element of parents granting a certain amount of autonomy and freedom to their children. A lone child is in far more danger of being snatched even if mom's just 'round the corner because there's only one. A pair or a group of children may be doing something "on their own" with express instructions to check in at an appointed time and place. Of course, this sort of autonomy should be introduced when it is developmentally appropriate and expectations must be made clear from the outset.
I don't doubt that some children are just plain unattended, but perhaps you are being too judgemental of people you don't even know. Ever try to wrangle two little boys in a grocery store? If yes, we can talk.
OK, this is a novella. Arrogant after 1 post, I know. But anyway.
Chris: I went back and looked, and I think I read what you put on the screen pretty clearly. However, since I've only looked at maybe the last 3 months or so of archives as I've been lurking and learning, maybe I've missed some of your personal philosophical bent, which I probably need to be familiar with to understand you as you would wish me to. If that's the case, the fault lies with me.
However, in looking back over everything, I have to wonder just where this rosy picture of parents came from?
Just who out there has experienced what parents really do to their kids these days? The crap that the majority of parents put their children through is the reason I had to quit teaching, or become an infamous mass murderer some Parent Conference Night.
Most of you have been speaking as if parents were ACTUALLY PAYING ATTENTION TO THEIR CHILDREN. I assure you that most of them are not, and that those of you parents who are posting to this board are an exception to a rule that grieves me deeply. According to the last statistics I saw from the NEA, 1 in 4 children under the age of 18 is being ACTIVELY abused in their home. That statistic doesn't include neglected latch-key kids, kids who are simply emotionally deprived, kids who are 'big enough to take care of themselves' and left at the library/mall/amusement park/you choose the next venue alone or in a pack of other kids just like them for hours at a time....I could go on for another 50 lines, here, but the point is PARENTS ARE NOT PART OF THE MIX MOST OF THE TIME. And somebody has to pay attention to what that unattended kid is up to, Chris, whether it suits your Utopian desire for free access or not.
And don't anyone think that I'm exaggerating. Our benificent CEO got some very good news form our federal regulators today, and consequently gave our entire company the entire afternoon off. (I almost passed out. What a guy! To actually reward employees...can you believe it?) And having read part of what you responded, I decided to go out and see if things had changed before I came back here. Was there a whole new crop of parents out there paying attention to their kids? So I went to 2 places: Disneyland, and a local mall. At both places, I spent about an hour walking, and I counted how many bunches of kids who -appeared- to be under14 -appeared- to be running around unattended.
I quit counting at Disneyland, after I hit 42 pairs/groups between the Main Gate and the Arcade--a 5 minute excursion. Lazy, I know, but I was trying to get my exercise in, and I still wanted to hit the mall...
At the mall, I counted while I was shopping, so I missed some groups while I was looking over the 'Hardbacks at Paperback Prices' in B Dalton's and trying out some of the cool new toddler toys for my nephew, checking out the new foot energizer at The Body Shop... Nevertheless, I came up with 113 pairs/groups of kids that appeared to be without any adult supervision in the mall. (I didn't count any single loners, I gave their parents the benefit of the doubt; maybe they were around the corner in the shoe store....)
Now, if parents are going to leave completely unattended kids at a mall or at Disneyland, just what.....under the sun.....makes you think that they're going to go with them to the library, much less pay any attention to what they're accessing at that library? Or anywhere else, for that mattter? And I'm sorry, but if parents won't do it someone has to; and IMHO, the more restrictive a filter is, the better. I personally wouldn't even let a kid ON the 'Net without a parent present, so a 'dumb filter' would be better than my rule, now wouldn't it?
Peg: You've got to be joking about "R" rated movies not being rented to kids. The only video store I'm aware of (and I've patronized several) that regularly looks at a rating before taking the cash from whatever hand it's in is Blockbuster. Kids are the ones who choose the videos that go into a home 75% of the time; and particularly in the summertime, their parents haven't a clue what they're renting. Never mind renting! Do you really think the huge numbers that movies like "Pulp Fiction" and "Lethal Weapon 982" pull down are the result of responsible parents attending the movie with their kids??? It's mathematically impossible!
Sue: Congratulations. But I'll bet that your kids weren't nearly as unfettered as you're representing. 'Permissive' parenting or not, you still made sure that your kids didn't play on the train tracks or eat toadstools, didn't you? And I'll bet that when one of them stole gum, you made them go back to the store and you made them pay a consequence for that small theft, didn't you? I'll also bet that when one of them got in a fight, there was a consequence at your house. And I will also bet that like my own mother did when she found a library copy of "The Exorcist" in my 9 year old hands, or when I brought home the German Shepherd that was frothing at the mouth (no, she wasn't rabid, just dehydrated and she was a great dog) that when your kids came home with something that you didn't think was appropriate/safe for them at that time, you made them justify why they should be allowed to have it before you let them keep it. However wide you made them, you set healthy boundaries, or you wouldn't have great kids.
David: Clearly, you have no children or you would understand the concept of age-dependent boundaries. (And I have to wonder just how 'over it' you really got when you still remember the nightmares so clearly.) As for your 1970's studies on the impact of porn or violent visual media.....Well, I'll tell you what I used to tell my juniors about sources for their semester research papers. Sources more than 5 years old are not valid for argumentation, except as points of comparison to more recent work. ; ) Give me some recent results with validated criterion to back them up, and I'll consider the point. However:
On the question of viewing violence at a young age, let me say this. I grew up in a house with a news junkie. The evening news was absolutely sacred in our house; thank God CNN wasn't around then. I was exposed to every horror of the Vietnam War as it appeared on the news; I remember clearly the footage of Kent State, though it wasn't until I was in college and saw it again that I knew what the memory meant; everything that happened on the news, I watched from the safety of my daddy's lap. And my daddy explained to small me that all those people were fighting for what they thought was right. And so, despite my mother's best efforts, I grew up into a child who believed that fighting for 'right' was the thing you were supposed to do, and I did it regularly. I was an absolute bully. I must have been 8 or10 years old before I understood that you were supposed to talk to someone before you hit them. I was probably 12 before I actually stopped hitting people before they hit me first. And a lot of the time, even now, my first reaction to people who annoy me is that I'd like to smack the hell out of them. So, don't tell me that what kids watch all the time doesn't affect them for the rest of their lives. I wish that my mother had been more successful at "regulating [my] access" to the evening news. I would have been a far less problematic child if she had, and I'd probably still be teaching.
So--now that I've completely outraged everyone with my narrow-minded views, I'm going to go wrap up my nephew's new Legos...
Hmm, more on Harlan at Readercon ... The saddest tale (for me) of his concerned William Tenn - identifying one of his heros (and a great writer of the 50s/60s) as the source of one of the continuing false Bad Harlan stories.
There were several tapes going at the time, and H asked someone to transcribe the whole thing and post it here.
One guy he kept mentioning - which confused me - was former friend Andrew Porter - got no idea what their falling out was, since Porter edited a rather interesting Book on/of Ellison. Not sure I want to know.
He gave a stirring rendition of how he finally one-upped his sister's insistance that he was a thief who would end up in the gutter, by yelling back at her that indeed he was, worse than she could possibly imagine (I cannot do this justice)
Off-stage, Harlan was as pleasant as ever - I get in trouble a lot with folks who gode Ellison into a rant and say "look at mean old Harlan he's as bad as they say he is" but, sorry guys, treat him like a human being and he is a decent human being, show him some respect and he's a genuine nice guy.
I finally got to clear *my* conscience a bit by telling Harlan a story that was meant for Stan Asimov, Isaac's brother. Before Isaac's death, aproaching Stanley, publisher of Newsday, with the tale, would have made it appear I was pushing the envelope in trying to score a job there - I'm a reporter in the real world.
After Isaac died, and Stanley retired, I wanted to wait a while before contacting him. Then Stanley died and it was too late.
(now that I've got everyone in suspense)
Many years ago, Stanley Asimov wrote a two-page spread in his paper (the only time he ever did such a thing) called My Brother Isaac, ending something to the effect that 'just once I'd like someone to ask him what's it like being the brother of that famous publisher.'
Well, Isaac was keynote speaker at the University of Connecticut Centennial ceremonies a few years later. About four of us were interviewing him, wrapped things up and I piped in with, "just one more question....."
Isaac was stunned.
He recovered quickly
"It was a good thing it worked out that way" Isaac said, pointing out the size of his ego and his brother's modesty.
Then he asked me why I asked the question.
"You don't know?" sez I
"You know, that essay Stanley wrote, My Brother Isaac?"
Isaac was floored - said he had never seen nor heard about Stanley's Mss.
-----------------------
Anyway, Susan was pleasant and lovely as usual - the two were surrounded by folks who know them far better than I, who know them in passing and through Harlan's words, which have made me feel like a damned family member since they shaped my life, possibly even saving it, or at least reducing the pain a little over many years.
I hope the folks with the tapes will come through and post long transcripts which will do justice to that which Harlan wrought upon Readercon and a rapt audience of hundreds.
RE: Sex, violence and the Tarzan loin-cloth issue (what's really in that thing? My money says 'lufa, scrubbing rock'.): My local newspaper, now under the direction of a brand-spanking new managing editor who thinks hisself god, thrills at the movie SOUTH PARK but takes offense to Harlan Ellison's writing and the likes. I suppose a reason--if not THE reason--sex and violence and the issue of Tarzan (and TARZAN) continue to swirl about in the swamp of the pop culture is that publications such as this one and the morons running them end such mix messages. My thought: Ignore them. With the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web and their own self-importance, they will eventually die out like the dinosaur did and the issue will become moot. To some extent. Until next time. . .
Boy Howdie!! Leave for 3 weeks vacation, and look at all the heavy stuff that is discussed! ..wonder if you wait for me to leave... naahhh..
On homo/heterosexualism - sure seems like there has been homosexuality as long as there has been civilisation, since homosexuality has been the target of denouncement and punishment since the earliest recorded histories (usually religious tracts).. Appealing to religious traditions to support punitive moral judgements is not logical, since the homosexuality obviously predated the traditional bans cited, or there wouldn't be anything *to* decry and punish. As for what is natural, I could make a good case for any physical interaction at all being aberrant, since most species of life don't require sexual contact to reproduce (as in all plants, and a great many animals). Heck, most of the species that do require sexual contact to reproduce tend to be indiscriminate, very few have any form of life-long bonding of any sort, and sexual contact is even used as a social dominance behaviour. Anyone who thinks otherwise never owned a dog.. OK, so we don't know what makes some people gay and other people not - doesn't mean it's aberrant - just means that we don't know. As far as not enough time for evolution to have affected human beings, I have to wonder why does melanin (skin color) change with climate, causing the 'racial' differences that are also such a big problem? Seems self-evident that evolution *has* been at work on a longer time frame than we can perceive, and homosexualism is not a real threat to survival of the species, or to individual heterosexuals.
On kids and censorship - huh? If the goal is to teach your children life skills they will need to thrive in the real world, there is no place for censorship. They need to experience the world as it is, and learn successful ways of dealing with it. It means parents have to be honest with their children, discussing things that make them uncomfortable, being forced to see their own biases in the confused face of a non-comprehending child, and having to admit you aren't always right. It means teaching your child by example that no one is perfect, and that's OK - it's what forgiveness is for. It means letting your children make mistakes, and learn from the experience while the mistakes are still small, and can be remedied. Yeah, that is a tough job for a parent. I speak from experience on kids. I have 4 kids, all grown and independent, self-sufficient, good people - all given free reign to discover, fail, and learn as children. I took a lot of crap for being permissive as a parent - but it resulted in kids that are now the envy of my less open-minded peers.. Not a sex offender, substance abuser, criminal, or moocher in the bunch.. Go figure..
On "majority rules" - sort of.. you mean the majority of the minority that vote.. The squeaky wheels.. The 25% of the 30% that registered to vote and actually *did*.. Don't forget that this country was founded mainly by persecuted minorities fleeing oppression and our Constitution reflects that in it's staunch protections of minority rights.
Wylie - Boz Skaggs - it came to him in Arizona :-)
Doc - wooOOOOooo...
Xanadu: What's scary about rule by majority? Enough that the Constitution was created to protect us from the tyranny of the majority. What if everyone gets together and votes they don't like your girlfriend/wife? Do you have to leave her then?
I know that's ridiculous but the point is we have certain rights protected by the Constitution and it doesn't matter one whit what a whole bunch of people want to do if it violates those rights. Therefore, the majority of people can get together and vote they don't want the local public library to carry books by Jews or blacks and it doesn't matter. They don't get to make that decision. The minority view (not to mention minorities) is protected in this country.
Yes, we could vote to change all that but we have a lot of protections in place to make that awfully, awfully difficult to do.
Thanks for a good discussion!
-chris
Chris: You and I are not as far apart on this as our recent posts might suggest. To take up Barney's movie, "Schindler's List" - you asked the question whether it should be the parent or the library making the decision. It will and should always be the parent. But as you stated in your own argument - parents need help. We can't do it all... So I ask, is it so far beyond the pale to suggest that we limit certain access __for children__ in a public institution? Like I have stated more than once - if a parent feels that such a limit is incorrect, than they can take steps to reset those limits elsewhere. They can go get the offending books - or bring the child to an unfiltered terminal and search there with them. (In fact as I type this now, that might be the bridge between our POV's - Have filtered terminals for unaccompanied children, but allow children access to the unfiltered ones if accompanied by an adult. We then almost _force_ parents to take an active role in their children's access.)
And lastly, (I can hear the hurrahs now.... a short post.) Exactly what is so disturbing about the principle of majority rules? Is the idea of minority rules so much better or, more extravagently, no rules at all? (And yes, I do believe a majority of Americans believed in desergregation, even if a majority of Southerners might not have.) Because the fun thing about laws is that we can always repeal them if we find they don't do the job... (Re: Amendments 18 and 21, US Constitution.)
Barney: On who should watch Schindler's List - I would consider it for my 12 year old - she has the maturity and language skills to discuss what she saw - heck - I'd even show it to my two year old, but I suspect she doesn't have the attention span to sit through the opening credits. (A hint to all those poised to correct me... I know it doesn't have any opening credits.) However, I believe I made a grevious error when I recommended it to my father of 50 some years. You see, he lived through the work camps as a boy. The movie affected him so deeply and traumatically - a don't think he's sat through 8 movies since.... (The one scene/recollection he has related to me was his ability to smell the sulfur when the train came through the gate...)
Keegan: Color me grateful that all I have to do is complain...
I won't pretend to have read the entire board in detail, but on the topic of shielding kids from sex and violence. I have been watching the stories about Kosovo, reading the reports of the atrocities. Here I am looking at children whose limbs are blown off by land mines, whose families were raped, murdered and generally destroyed in front of them.
I think about those kids who through no fault of their own have the bad luck to be born into a war zone.
And then I think about the letter I read on the op-ed page of the local paper wherein a middle-class mother decries the violence inherent in the Disney version of "TARZAN." I'm so sorry for her little one, but compared to the atrocities some children live through, Disney movies are truly a walk in the park.
But, I guess that's what happens when you're relatively affluent and living in a peaceful State. You complain. If you're living in a real war, you deal.
DAVID: Re IHNMAIMS video game -- if I recall correctly, you have to go to a DOS format (I believe) and then start the the game up. Out Here, DTS.
DAVID: I'd be interested to hear more about your observations on Harlan at ReaderCon. Thanks.
Re: Censorship, Schindler's, etc.
I remember seeing much more graphic Holocaust footage at a very young age - the Nazi's own films as edited into the French documentary Night in Fog. It's a horrible film to watch, but one everyone should see - it made clear to me, for instance, when the first reports came out of Kosovo exactly what was going on there. Also watched as my grandparents shook during a broadcast (early '60s) of a dramatized trial of Mengele, containing some of the most "graphic" descriptions of the most terrible horrors we've ever managed to inflict on one another ever to air.
Their reaction shook me more than the words - because of the relatives - thir contemporaries - I never got to know.
Parents may wish to regulate their kids' access to various things - that's their problem, and they'll probably end up raising a problem kid.
I oppose any form of blanket age discrimination on material access. Most of the studies I have read (admittedly during my college days in the late 1970s) concerning attitude changes caused by exposure to porn or violent visual media show that the effects fade after HOURS.
The long-term studies comparing hours kids spend watching violent visual media and their behavior in school/life that have recently been published disturb me because they ignore the nature half of the nature/nurture argument. Someone who is predisposed to fall into a pattern of resolution by violence, either due to genetics or omnipresent factors like home life *may* be drawn to violent films, rahter than the media inducing the violent behavior.
My parents were good enough to give me carte blanche when it came to choosing reading and vewing material - and about the only thing that may have "hurt" me was reading Ballard's Crash at about puberty. It seriously disturbed me in the sense of nightmares - probably stronger ones than JB even had in mind. But it didn't turn me into a newt, someone turned on by auto wrecks or anything else beyond a shocked 11/12-year-old. I got better ... rather quickly.
As for the current rants that the *new* films, arcade games, music, etc. are "worse" than those the kid's parents had, it's sort of like the argument that pot was good for them, but not their kids because it's stronger these days (given the stuff on the market then, the new stuff must be pure THC). Ask any music lyric attacker how many Alice Cooper records s/he owned at the same age. Ask about their violent comic books, etc.
As the late Phil Ochs sang:
"Oh once I was young and impulsive/Wore every conceivable pin/Even went to Socialist meetings/Learned all the old union hymns./But now I am older and wiser/And that's why I'm turning you in ...."
HELP! - picked up a copy of IHNMAIMS computer game from Harlan and Susan at Readercon last weekend - and can't get the blasted thing to run under Win95 - get an out of environmental space message, audio but no video. Suggestions????
(please e-mail me direct on this one - david.razler@worldnet.att.net)
Notes from the 'con: Harlan spent most of Readercon talking about the Gang Who Has Made Life Miserable, gossips, malicious gossips, et. al., an entertaining rap. The more interesting portions of his talks concerned how desperate he is these days to get his stories properly edited (actually, he misuses the term, he's looking for what them of us in the news biz would call a writing coach or high editor willing to say this works/that doesn't - an editor should be someone who cleans up the little things, not the big ones).
Otherwise, he worked himself to the bone, giving his all - I'm sure others will be posting longer pieces and, perhaps, as HE wishes, transcripts of some of his talks about those who have attacked or explouted him, van Vought and Bloch for personal gain.
More if desired./ dmr
Barney,
Great point about Schindler's List.
Let me use it to make my point.
Who do you want making the decision of whether that's appropriater your kids to read in the library? You or the library?
That's really the crux of the matter.
-chris
Sheryl,
With all due respect, I don't think you were paying very much attention to the discussion that was going on and perhaps had made up your mind ahead of time about what was being said rather than actually reading it.
I certainly agree there is plenty of material not appropriate for children. We have R rated movies, after all. Kids need tobe protected from material like that.
There are two difficult questions, however. Who does the shielding? Where do you draw the line?
The Internet is not perfectly analagous to a library. If they had porn magazines in the library, they can just keep them out of the reach of kids.
The only way to do that on the Internet is with a filter and that filter is going to be "dumb." To protect kids, you'll have to do something like block access to sites with the words "breast." This could easily block access to sites with info on breast cancer or a site which contains the quote "music has charm to soothe the savage breast."
Furthermore, the question becomes where you draw the line. Xanadu thinks anything a lot of people complain about should be censored from children. I find that notion absolutely frightening and I find Xanadu's rather odd concept of how society works or should work equally disturbing. We have a whole passel of laws and concepts that are not endorsed by the majority. Do you think the majority was in favor of desegregation?
I think parents should absolutely shield their kids from inappropriate material. I also think parents can use help in doing so. But I don't think the appropriate place to do that is the public library which is funded by public tax dollars. I don't see any "right" to protection in such a place. Free access to information is far more important.
If you could just lock access to porn sites witout blocking anything else, that might be just fine. But you can't. Xanadu doesn't want his kids to even be able to access information about sex. Again, that's a parent's prerogative and I don't debate that. But I would think that's awfully important information to have available and I think kids should have access to it.
So who "wins?"
See the problems?
-chris
***Sheryl*** That was refreshing. I think the School/library distinction is an important one and I'm glad you took the time to make it. This reminds me of a conversation I had with Harlan the year after "Schindler's List" [the movie] came out. I was relating an anecdote about a woman sitting in front of me who was shielding her daughters face during the scenes which contained frontal nudity [the daughter may have been 8 or 9] but allowed her to take in all the rest. Dumbest example of a parental filter I had ever seen. My question to Harlan was, what would be an appropriate age to see that particular movie. He opined for "any age after 2". I thought this was a dumb/smartass answer motivated primarily by the fact that it had been a long tiring day and a sort of "we must never forget" kneejerk response. But being a sort of information-ought-to-be-for-everybody sort of guy I didn't have a cogent response to this at the time. I was also very tired. Later, I was talking to a child psychologist who does pro bono social work and she explained to me that this was a dumb response because children can't assimilate information the way adults can. All kinds of basic information regarding time and scale and perspective have to be learned before you can dump something like the holocaust on a kid. Or so she said. I drag up "Schindler" because I'm tired of the Internet being the only argumentative whipping boy around here. I throw this back into play. I'm not Jewish and it occurs to me that I would be curious if anybody out there had the holocaust laid on them at, what they felt was too early an age. Like telling a 4 year old about the birds and the bees. Any thoughts?
DOC and anyone else interested in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT:
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue117/screen.html
http://www.blairwitch.com/
I've been lurking here in the ether for a while, went on vacation and came back to find all of this. Let me weigh in for a moment or two as a former teacher, if you don't mind.
Those of you comparing public schools and public libraries have neglected a salient point. The schools are required by a legal concept known as in loco parentis to control to a great extent, via filters, supervision or whatever, the materials that minors are able to access on the 'Net via school district systems and school district libraries. Schools to libraries is an apples to oranges analogy. Stop it, please.
Exactly what is it that some of your are arguing here, anyway? That nobody should be paying any attention to what children do outside the presence of their supervising adults? That the only people who should concern themselves with what unformed minds are digging into are those who are legally responsible for them? That anyone, regardless of age, should be able to access anything? Because that's what it reads like....
And it's preposterous. Children do not grow up in a vacuum, with only their parents for guidance. Children are impacted by everything and everyone around them, and it's up to every adult in the room with the kid to make sure that the kid gets damaged as little as possible. That isn't interference, either, it's just plain enlightened self-interest--the less damaged they are as kids, the less likely they are to damage you or yours when they grow up. We've learned that in LA in long, bloody battles with the gang culture. Too many people 'left it up to the parents' and a bunch of those parents blew it. Now there are literally tens of thousands of dead kids, hundreds of thousands of damaged people in jail, and millions of victims of the violence and chaos that the damaged ones have perpetrated.
The issue isn't censorship, it isn't morality, it isn't religion, it isn't majority rule, it isn't even really 'protecting our children.' The issue is whether individuals are willing to step up to the plate and scarifice a little to do what's best for the whole, instead of just doing the tawdry little thing that gratifies them. The simple fact is that it does not serve the best interests of the whole, children and adults included, to leave access to the Internet unrestricted in a public forum.
I'm pretty sure it was on Tom Snyder a year or so ago that I heard HE say that Sturgeon's Rule applied to the Internet. HE understated the case badly, probably because he's not been here much. Kids don't know enough to distinguish the 90% from the 10%.
The truth is that kids need to have the WORLD filtered for them, and the 'Net is part of that world. In the educational world, we called this concept 'age-appropriateness'. Age-appropriateness doesn't mean that you never get to see something, but that you need to be of a sufficient level of maturity (usually corresponding to your age) to get to see/do certain things. It also means that you don't leave the inappropriate stuff lying around in public to be tripped over.
Would you leave your car keys in front of an 6 year old and tell him if he picks them up, he can try driving the LA freeway at rush hour? It doesn't make any better sense to leave an unfiltered Internet connection available to that 6 year old, and tell him he can surf anywhere he wants. He's just as likely to end up getting damaged. (You just won't know it till he shoots you.)
I hate summer classes and I hate being sick. (test tomorrow)
Okay, I'm going to try and say something even though my mental faculties are current on ebb (as demonstrated by my current need to look up the spellings of faculties and ebb). I think the problem inherent in the use of the word abberation has been that the implicit judgement that word conjures up also conjures up an image of a rather forced tolerance. Not, tolerance in a live and let live sense (as most people would want) but tolerance as in I'm standing at attention and I've got an itch on my nose that just won't quit, except I'm standing at attention and if I try and scratch that itch then I'm in for some serious disciplinary action, except I've got this gosh darn itch, and I really want to scratch it cause it itches so gosh darned much, but I can't or else I'm going to be running twelve miles in the freezing sleet while doing push ups against a moving truck, but I've got this itch... And that kind of tolerance tends to give off a slinky vibe to those who are of the live and let live category of tolerance. And as for the argument that it's tolerable as long as it's between consenting adults, well, those adults were once teens, confused, and probably alone, so I wouldn't want to cut an internet avenue to someone whom nature (or nurture, or both) has deemed to "go that way."
------warning the following is a self serving plug-----------
On a happier note. To those few of you whose cable (or satellite) service offers ZDTV, I've just had an animated short I created be nominated in the short story category of their "Cam Film Festival" (a festival of digitally created short films). So, if you do get ZDTV and watch it on occasion, keep an eye out for when they show the nominated films, and more specifically, CANTO: THE HUMAN COMEDY, which is mine. Also, next week they will have the shorts available for viewing online at (www.zdtv.com) and voting for the best of each category (best of the show is done by a panel).
-------------------End of self serving plug---------
May my brain find healing sanctuary in the halls of sleep.
---Peter
Chris:
What I keep saying is that the idea of majority rules is the basic foundation of our society. It's how the system works. A library is a public institution - it must respond to the public. Doing so does not mean the library is making a comment or drawing a judgment, just that it's providing the service asked of it. By insisting that we cannot place any restrictions our our institutions, you create a tyranny of freedom. One in which there can be no judgment of right, wrong, dangerous, or innocent - because, by golly we gotta have it all there because limits are by definition bad...
I cannot agree... We must have the ability to judge ideas - and contain the dangerous, wrong, or merely stupid ones. If we don't, we have anarchy.
Not placing a book in the children's section isn't censorship... If it is available to adults, they can get it, and they can give it to their children. The idea that we cannot withold anything because we don't know what positive effect might occur is an overly ambitious concept - because even now, as an adult, I'm never going to read even a small percentage of what's out there. My gosh, what if that green book over there was the slim volume that would change my life completely and for the better? What if...what if...what if.... we would all grow very old and weary playing the what if game...
And my final comments on this for the moment... The deed is already being done. Someone is already making decisions about what is placed in the children's section - because last time I checked the whole of the library was not filed under Children's. What you and I are arguing about are the books on the edge - the ones that could go either way - and in the end, they are unimportant details in a larger concept - if parents instill or at least nurture a respect for knowledge and the skills to research it, they will have freed to child to grow beyond any limits placed on them in the beginning. They will overcome not reading the Qu'ran, or A Wrinkle in Time, or Tom Sawyer, or Maya Angelou or anyhting else our society deemed unfit for children.
Rick:
Point on genetics is well taken - the part about all aberrant behaviour having equal protection is not. All behaviour is judged and those practices too far out of the mainstream will be repressed. I will never support pedophilia in any form.
I am working on a theory - one which had it's origin way back in the Elia Kazan discussion back in March. The short form involves the fact that there is a "mainstream" of ideas, morals, and values. When an individual or group proposes and idea, moral or value outside of the "mainstream" they face a certain level of resistance and hostility. The strength of the resistance and hostility are directly proportional to distance from "mainstream" the idea sits, the size or power of the group proposing it, and the intensity with which it is presented. A really wacky idea proposed by one individual will be laughed at and ignored. A slightly askew idea championed by a larger group will feel a bit more pressure. And a concept rammed down our throats by a minority will face intense hostility in return.
Rick, you're right when you suggest that my choice of terms represents an implicit judgment. And I will powerfully defend my right to judge such things. (See the relevant argument above) But you are wrong if you believe this automatically means I won't tolerate such behaviour. Frankly it don't matter a hill of beans to me what anyone does with their plumbing - it isn't my business. But, I do feel that "gay rights" are being rammed down my throat. They are asking for more than tolerance from me, they are trying to equate all interpersonal relationships, saying there is no difference. I, at this time, cannot accept that idea. And since it is still not a mainstream concept, it is receiving a hostile reception around the country, given the vehemence with which it is being championed.
The mainstream shifts with time, and formerly outside ideas are encompassed, and perhaps this particular argument will too. But until then, it is exactly this give and take - this presentation of all sides that will eventually reach a consensus.
America was set up to allow much freedom, but we have never allowed all ideas or practices - because that too would lead only to anarchy.
-Xanadu (who is starting to hope this particular thread is losing steam, because he is feeling awfully lonely in the spotlight...)
Alex, going back a bit, thanks for recommending Lawrence Block. I just found SPIDER, SPIN ME A WEB at a used book store and am finding it to be one of the best books on writing I have come across. Certainly one of the few that hasn't attempted to speak down to me, or in some cases, sell me sea front property in Montana.
That same day I picked up a copy of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE for twenty cents. Ain't used books stores great?
Again, thanks.
---Peter
Greta post, Rick.
To follow up, there's a big problem (well, several) with Xanadu's belief that if a majority of parents complain about something, it should be removed from the children's section.
Say most of the parents in the neighborhood decide that they don't want their kids reading the Qu'ran but they have no objection to the Bible. So the library makes the Qu'ran off-limits to kids without permission but lets them read the Bible as they wish.
If this library is publicly funded, guess where the problem is? You can't have the library deciding one religion is more acceptable than another one. Not on my tax dollars, I'll tell you that much.
And the same is true of a book like "Heather Has Two Mommies." You cannot have the library taking the moral stance that homosexuality is less acceptable than heterosexuality. Not on the public dime.
If it's a private library then it's a whole different story and I say they can discriminate however they please.
So I don't think the library has the choice to take a book like the Qu'ran or Heather Has Two Mommies and singling them out as off-limits based on religion or sexual orientation. I think they either have to make them available or they have to make every book off-limits.
I suppose that's an option. Kids can't read ANYTHING without their parents permission. But I don't think it's a particularly palatable one.
Geez, I wonder what would have happened to me? I grew up fascinated by Madeleine L'Engle's books and also Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. Now Narnia may not have gotten censored but there's a lot of people out there slavering at the chance to get A Wrinkle in Time banned or declared off-limits to kids because of the witches.
Then when I got a little older, I got hooked on Piers Anthony's books, specifically the Xanth series and the Apprentice Adept series. Xanth had lots of magic and some occasional sexual content (pretty light fare). And Apprentice Adept? My God, man, all the people in that world were naked!!!
If not for those books, I wouldn't have discovered other great speculative fiction that I loved and which has become an important part of my life.
And if it was off-limits to me, how the heck would I have even know to ask my parents if I could read them?
What if enough people got together and decided they didn't want the library to carry anything written by Jewish authors or Black authors? Should the majority be allowed to rule in that case?
I will not tell anyone how to raise their children as it would be hypocritical of a devoted bachelor like myself to do so. But I will tell you that you can't rely on surrogate parenting from me, your government or the local library.
If you're being a good parent, and I think most parents are, do you really think you have that much to fear from your kids reading something that might be inappropriate for them?
Or perhaps I should word that better. What do you fear more? That your kids will read something inappropriate or that they won't get to read something that could change their lives in a positive way?
IMHO, by far and away, the greater dangers and potential for abuse lies with censorship.
But I could be wrong. It's bound to happen eventually. :)
-chris
-chris
Nice discussion, guys and gals. I am going to archive the board so it starts with Xanadu's original post tonight for easier loading.
Other than that, I have a couple of comments on the ongoing discusttion. The first is that it's kind of silly, regardless of your opinion on the matter, to be arguing about evolution or natural selection affecting the homosexual population. The evolutionary process can only be observed over spans of thousands, and sometimes millions, of years - and that's even IF we accept that evolution can sometimes run in spurts! Additionally, as a tool-using species with no natural predators, the human race should if anything evolve LESS slowly than this. So over, say, the next thousand years we should expect evolution to have negligible impact on any facet of our existence. It's simply not valid to inject evolution into any argument about the existence or prevalence of homosexuality in the human race.
Also, correct, me if I'm wrong, but wasn't America founded precisely to allow the existence of aberrant, abnormal, unpopular beliefs and practices? Aren't we SUPPOSED to protect those people whose beliefs and views are not supported by the majority of people from being victimized and oppressed by members of that majority?
Regardless of how much you care to qualify and marginalize it, when you state that you do not wish to be "forced to celebrate" the "wholesomeness" of an "aberrant" sexual orientation, you are implicitly making a moral judgement. And when you state you do not feel someone who wants to practice that orientation should not have the right to do so (and that right is EXACTLY what asking for equal protection under the law MEANS), you're still practicing bigotry and intolerance.
And that abhorrent (although unfortunately not aberrant these days) behavior deserves the outraged reception it rightfully receives.
Yesterday, I had an experience with a weird Harlan resonance.
I frequent the misc.writing newsgroup, and have made quite a few friends and acquaintances there.
One of those good acquaintances, Jacey Bedford, is a member of the British a capella group Artisan, whom I had the pleasure of seeing when they came to the Philadelphia area a few months back.
Much enriched by the performance, I wrote and posted a minireview for the group; it was, admittedly, a bit more lyrical than the average newsgroup post.
Anyway, in a thread dealing with my moving into my first apartment and Jacey and Artisan coming back to the area, I asked at the end of a post what the other group members thought of my review.
Apparently, they liked it a lot, and Jacey had this to say as well: "And I showed it to the organiser of the concert and her
exact words were. Hey this guy can really write."
This immediately reminded me of what Benny Goodman said about the liner notes Harlan wrote for his album.
Now, Jacey and Artisan are a hell of a group, but they're not a musical idol--but still, the resonance was there.
She went on to say that they would like to quote what I'd written for their promotion pack, so could I edit it a bit to take out the newsgroup references?
I took about three seconds to agree, and set about punching it up for her.
The interesting thing is that I realized that, without being conscious of it, I had almost cribbed Harlan's "Jeeezus, she sings like an angel," from the Hornbook installment about the singer he'd seen.
(another interesting point is that Jacey is herself a sf/f author, who has been published in, among other places, Warrior Princesses, an anthology edited by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)
Just weird, you know?
Oh--and I just want to weigh in that what Dr. Laura did was wrong, wrong, wrongheaded in the extreme.
Hmm.
No filters?
Take away your funding, boys! If the library has things we object to, why, let's just make it harder to educate our kids!
How hard; how much thought would have had to go into getting Toys R'Us to tell the library system, "Unless you install filters on your computers, we will be forced to withdraw funding ..."? How hard would it have been to make a call for anyone to donate the services of NetNanny, SurfWatch, or any of a number of like programs?
These things weren't even considered--better to cripple a child's chance at learning rather than expose him or her to things we don't want, I suppose ...
Moron.