Letters to the Editor
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No such luck
Two summers via UMass in Trinity College, so I wasn't a member of the university. St. Hilda's accepted me for an M.Phil., but I needed nearly 100% fellowship, so I fell back on Harvard.
Great place, though I can't remember flirting with the dons. DRINKING with them, now...
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@Grumpus
Good grief, you're making assumptions.
I see you're still using your family as a status symbol.
If you must commoditize, stick to Porsches, not people.
The rest is beneath contempt, as are you.
Well, at least we know that now, rather than that self-gratulatory little circle jerk you were in, the first 10 or so messages of this thread.
Save your pity for people who need it. You're acting like a third-grader.
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@DurianJoe
I just wish I had Katherine Kurtz's royalties. Not DD, but you are getting closer. Try SMS.
Note to trolls: I report anyone to Amazon for the cute troll-trick of writing crap reviews without having read my stuff.
Note: I assume you couldn't get through it.
Especially Grumpus. Vonnegut survived the Dresden Firestorm. As far as I'm concerned, living through that to write about it gets him a free pass, and I'm not even crazy about a lot of his fiction.
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Malaria
If Grumpus is going to conquer malaria, I hope his scientific method is better than his logic.
His disposition, as evidenced by his name, is past praying for.
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This quesiton of "winding up"
I've been on the Internet almost 20 years now, and I've been part of Internet communities precisely that long. In fact, I've maintained my own newsgroup that's migrated from board to board and has retained many of the same people: we've seen them educated, traveled, published, retired from the service, married, divorced, out of work, back in work, and the baby and grandbaby pictures are awfully cute. We've also seen some of them buried. One was the Marine Colonel I spoke of.
One reason that the part of the group that's stayed together has stayed together is that we've had enough respect for each other to be honest: what we present ourselves as is what we are. Jokes are fine: dishonesty is destructive. Emotional and intellectual reactions are fine. Passive aggression and tricks are not.
Here, I use a netname because I'm among strangers. The use of netnames makes honesty even more necessary.
"Winding people up" is a way of attempting to get them mad dishonestly. I assure you, Grumpus, you can tick me off simply by being yourself with your double standard. You would -not- have acknowledged the privilege under which you benefit if you hadn't been hammered into doing so.
See a movie. You can use the escape, even an aspiring engineer like you. After all, as Tolkien said, there is a difference between the escape of the prisoner and the flight of the deserter. Or, shed the shell, disclose, and be a Mensch. Life's a whole lot easier that way.
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"Looks like I hit the nail on the head - you're bitter than you never had a family. Poor you."
Oh yes, Grumpus, we're both so JEALOUS of your life, what with the not going to the movies and getting your kicks by winding up feminists on salon.com to work out that resentment you feel for the women in your life.
You remind me of Laurel962 or whatever, who's obviously got some serious doubts about the choices she's made in her life, and therefore screams the loudest about how great it is to be SAHM.
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@LeCastor
Fair's fair, LeCastor. Laurel can lay it on a little thick from time to time, but when it comes down to core values, I've found myself agreeing with her more often than not.
She's not doing the applehood, motherpie, and status-symbol routine: she's doing the work she's set out to do. And if she has doubts or regrets, and is taking them out here, she's not the only one.
And she'll get lethal if anyone touches kids. With the FLDS in the news, I find that warming.
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On another subject entirey, David's work is the real deal
www.davidterryart.com
I've just come back from touring David Terry's website.
This is the real thing, people. His technique is superb, and the ideation behind the text -and- the humor are remarkable.
It's representational, non-digital, and classic.
Wow.
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Minorities aren't sexist? Are you on crack?
The Beav wrote:
"Men who belong to a minority group (Jewish, black, Hispanic, Muslim, Asian, you pick) don't have this sense of entitlement, so they don't feel as if they've been robbed of their birthright. Moreover, because they belong to the minority group, they more likely know first-hand what it's like to be discriminated against on the basis of that belonging, and thus can identify more with women's struggles."
Are you kidding? Minority men don't resent feminism? I'm sorry, but I've met plenty of minority men who feel like it is their right to dominate women, in a very non-subtle way. There is a strong machismo current in many minority cultures.
It's a bit like how the poor and working class white people often have strong racist tendencies... everyone likes to have someone to pick on.
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Oh yeah...
Most of the guys I've seen at NOW meetings or at pro-choice rallies have been white. More than the 76% that a random sampling of American men would have given you.