From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V9 #208 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Thursday, July 27 2000 Volume 09 : Number 208 Today's Subjects: ----------------- damn you mindf*cking bastids [Eb ] a whole mess of crumbs [Ken Ostrander ] 41 minutes left, and still no sale [Eb ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V9 #207 [DDerosa5@aol.com] Re: fegmaniax-digest V9 #206 [DDerosa5@aol.com] Re: green politics [digja611@student.otago.ac.nz] Re: Nader natterings [digja611@student.otago.ac.nz] It's not easy being you-know-what [Christopher Gross ] Re: 1876 [ultraconformist ] Re: polite tics [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: Nader natterings [steve ] Re: Taxi Driver (0% Robyn Content) ["(The Arch-Villain) West" ] greedy napsters no more? [Bayard ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 14:07:10 -0700 From: Eb Subject: damn you mindf*cking bastids Well, after over three years on the list, I finally succumbed to a "Robyn dream" last night. Oh, the humiliation. It was something about RH driving an old, black Model T-type car, and him needing my help to back out of a long driveway. Then I dinged another parked car while backing out, as he watched. Oops.... So...I guess I won't be the one to nudge Robyn out of his creative rut. ;) Eb np: Marshmallow Coast (passable, but not much more) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 17:55:30 -0400 From: Ken Ostrander Subject: a whole mess of crumbs hey, i just got back from my vacation yesterday. i went to canada with my family. we saw niagara falls and toronto. a week travelling in a van together and we're still on speaking terms. amazing. even more amazing is the fact that i was actually able to get through the more than thirteen hundred e-mails i had waiting for me here at work. >thanks to the secret Feg handshake enlighten me please. >The top music moments on television, as selected by VH1 and Entertainment >Weekly magazine: what! no partridge family? actually, though some of these don't excite me, they all seem historically significant in one way or another. >I think that everything that happened after the shootout is what >Travis *imagined* would happen. it does seem like a fantasy; but whether it's post-mortum dream, delirium, or reality, it represents a redemption for mr. bickle. >Too bad he's in prison now. He was a great actor. all of those wacked out characters seem so lifelike in retrospect. >anyone else like x-men as much as i did? i thoroughly enjoyed it. i think they did a great job of throwing together several divergent plot threads from the comic. hugh jackman deserves top billing. >>> tired of seeing the same twenty Hollywood-approved >>> 'good-looking' people in every damn movie. >>> >> magazine publishers tell us what beauty is and we're supposed to buy >> into that based on the person's looks and nothing else. > > i'm so fucking sick of the stereotype > of beautiful women pushed on men and women by E! and Glamour and > whatnot. give me Kate Winslet or Janeane Garafalo any day. Anjelina > Jolie, Ashley Judd, and Cindy Crawford can take their anorexic > "beauty" and stick it where the sun don't shine. oof. there's some validity to the criticism of the fashion industry and their imposed ideas of beauty; but saying that all the skinny bitches aren't actually beautiful is a bit short sighted. i like ladies of all shapes and sizes and colors and predilections. don't ask me to choose. i'd give you a list of lovely ladies; but i keep thinking of that episode of 'friends' where ross takes isabella rossalini off his list of five and misses out. by the way, has anyone seen the offensively sexist preview for what promises to be the really lame film of the summer, 'coyote ugly'? who are they fooling? >>He is in the business >>of documenting/creating modern American folklore, not shooting >>documentaries, and I think that is a lot more interesting > >I have never seen an Oliver Stone film which didn't leave me feeling raped, >at the end. Even the two or three which I marginally enjoyed. It's as >simple as that. And I'm not alone in that view. i weigh in for ollie on this one. love him or hate him, you've gotta admit that his films are more interesting than most of the crap hollywood cranks out. leaving one of his films feeling violated may be just how he wants you to feel. he tends to deal with the darker side of things and often films ugly people. 'jfk' and 'platoon' are the two generally acknowledged masterworks; but every one of his films that i've seen has been impressive: 'nbk', 'fourth of july', 'wallstreet', 'doors', 'talk radio', 'nixon'. it's difficult to miss whatever his point may be for any given film; but at least there is one. a lot of the criticisms i've read here have been pretty superficial. >>I'm reasonably sure that Bush will be getting the comedy >>writers' votes in the upcoming us election. It could spur >>an almost QuaYlian political comedy revolution. > >Oh, I'm pretty sure the guy named BUSH has solidified the comedy writers' >vote by picking a guy named DICK as his running mate. He'll probably sweep >the bumper sticker manufacturer and t-shirt maker votes as well. oh the horror! i've spoken with all kinds of people in my attempts to get signatures to put nader on the ballot here in massachusetts; but i think the most frightening reason to support "dubya" was: "i think it'd be great to have george w. bush as president because it would be another father and son president like when john adams' son john quincy adams was elected." >Chait's point is that Nader is concentrating entirely on his >anti-corporate policies and ignoring environmentalism (not to mention the >Greens' loonier positions). Of course you may think that any >anti-corporate measure is necessarily, ipso facto, a pro-environment >measure, but I disagree. Life ain't that simple. You have to look at the >specific policies and estimate what their effects would be. One example >cited in the article is Nader's claim that fighting the big oil >monopolists would result in lower gas prices. Since when is lowering gas >prices, and thus increasing gas consumption, an environmentalist goal? the goal there is to fight big oil monopolists. lowering gas prices would be an incidental effect that might rope in voters; which is why it is even mentioned. i believe that fighting the corporate influence in government can only help environmental concerns. of course, individuals pollute and affect the environment; but the corporations exploit on a much larger level with profit as their motivation, not communities or sustainablity. i think privatization is evil. >He's independent, but the Green Party isn't; they're stuck with him until >November. And until then, he'll be using *their* money and *their* >activists to advance *his* agenda. i'd just like to say that we greens don't have any money. the green party stands for: 1. grassroots democracy 2. social justice and equal opportunity 3. ecological wisdom 4. non-violence 5. decentralization 6. community based economics 7. feminism 8. respect for diversity 9. personal and global responsiblity 10. future focus pretty "looney" eh? environmentalists of the world run and hide! oh the shame. ralph nader stands for: 1. strengthenintg democracy and citizen's rights 2. public control over societal assets the public owns (such as land, pension funds, airwaves, etc.) 3. civic power over big business and big government 4. voter power, easier registration, state level binding initatives and referendums, public campaign finance 5. voter power in the courts, to combat corruption 6. citizen access to all goverment information 7. workers' rights to denounce their employers 8. workers' control over all pension money 9. sharholder democracy to direct companies 10. children must be taught democratic principles, citizen skills, and a desire to use them i don't think these two platforms are mutually exclusive. if anything, nader's seems more practical while the green's is more sweeping. i maintain that curtailing corporations is the best way to bring about any kind of change in environmental policy and reality. it's as simple as that. ken "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure." the kenster np. ben folds five the unauthorized biography of reinhold messner nr. agents of repression: the FBI's secret wars against the black panther party and the american indian movement (today in history 1908: Attorney General Charles Bonaparte constituted a force now known as the FBI.) nd. dark and stormy (slurp) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 15:13:06 -0700 From: Eb Subject: 41 minutes left, and still no sale http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=386859719 Didn't our collection plate turn up $500,000 yet? Eb ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 18:19:04 EDT From: DDerosa5@aol.com Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V9 #207 james offered: << while we're on the subject of excellent films with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, can I put in a vote for "The wrong box" >> Wow, I've never seen this...is it base on the Robert Louis Stevenson book? Not his best, but a vry funny book... dave ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 18:29:49 EDT From: DDerosa5@aol.com Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V9 #206 Russ (?) asked: << Do you remember where you were when that Buggles video played? >> pathetically enough, I actually was one of the dozens who saw it....admittedly, a friend's dad worked at the cable station, so I had advance notice, AND it was a little late, so I had to watch static for a while... Who else remembers when MTV hadn't sold most of its ad time, and ran instrumental songs over video that I don't think was from the band. Maybe my fovrite Rush song is YYZ (is that the title?) cause it seemed to run every time they had a slot open. boy did a lot of those early videos suck. unlike today, when a lot of the later videos suck. dave ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 10:29:38 +1200 From: digja611@student.otago.ac.nz Subject: Re: green politics >Chait's point is that Nader is concentrating entirely on his >anti-corporate policies and ignoring environmentalism (not to mention the >Greens' loonier positions). Of course you may think that any >anti-corporate measure is necessarily, ipso facto, a pro-environment >measure, but I disagree. Life ain't that simple. You have to look at the >specific policies and estimate what their effects would be. agreed.Here in NZ the Green party basically holds the balance of power (not quite as simple as that, but it's close to that [1]). And while it panicked a lot of big businesses having them there, their policies are not automatically anti-corporate. One big area of concern here was the timber industry, which is a big employer in many parts of the country, and government has moved towards working with both conservationists and timber companies to hammer out regulations that allow for both to be relatively happy with what's being done in forestry. Similarly, new industries are being set up that would not have otherwise got the go ahead (it looks likely, for instance, that re-wording of drug laws will finally allow for the production of industrial-grade hemp in NZ - which is likely to be alucrative industry). James [1] The Labour-Alliance coalition government have 60 out of 120 seats. Since the Alliance is itself an amalgam of several smaller groups, the government usually needs one or more extra votes to make sure its policies go through. The greens have six seats and they are the most likely other party to support legislation. James Dignan___________________________________ You talk to me Deptmt of Psychology, Otago University As if from a distance ya zhivu v 50 Norfolk Street And I reply. . . . . . . . . . Dunedin, New Zealand with impressions chosen from another time steam megaphone (03) 455-7807 (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 10:45:53 +1200 From: digja611@student.otago.ac.nz Subject: Re: Nader natterings >I've thought about this also, but I feel kind of sick about the bind >that puts us in. No one doubts that a one-party system equals no >choice, but I tend to feel that way about a two-party system as well. >Even if we get a viable third-party Presidential candidate we're >stuck because Congress is still locked up in two-party hell. What's >the best way to break this cycle (and I think we need to)? not really wanting to put myself in danger of flames by spearing an American istitution, but: get rid of the electoral college! The system of voting in the US is as dumb as. If 5,000,000 Californians vote Democrat, and 5,000,001 vote Republican, then all of California's electoral college votes count as Republican. How fair is that? The 'Westminster model' is similar, although a little more fair (eachcongressperson represents a specific constituency, e.g. one for San Diego, one for San Francisco, one for North LA, one for South LA, one for Southern rural California, one for Northern California, one for Sacramento etc etc), and then whichever party has the most people in congress have their leader named president). But you're still likely to end up with predominantly a two party system. NZ used toi use this, but about six years ago went to a proprtional representation system, where half our parliament was made up from electorates (as in the Westminster model) , and the rest of the parliament was made up with individuals nominated by the parties, who were elected according to the proportion of the vote over the whole country. Thus, in the US, if 55% of people voted Democrat, 40% voted Republican, and 5% voted Green, the Greens would still get to have their say (albeit a small one) in Congress. Sure, we've had some teething problems with proportional representation, but it still works a hell of a lot better than other systems, and it's the mainstay of a lot of European parliaments (Ireland and Germany, to give two examples). James James Dignan___________________________________ You talk to me Deptmt of Psychology, Otago University As if from a distance ya zhivu v 50 Norfolk Street And I reply. . . . . . . . . . Dunedin, New Zealand with impressions chosen from another time steam megaphone (03) 455-7807 (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 20:15:24 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: It's not easy being you-know-what On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Ken "he really is the Kenster" Ostrander wrote: > the green party stands for: > > 1. grassroots democracy > 2. social justice and equal opportunity > 3. ecological wisdom > 4. non-violence > 5. decentralization > 6. community based economics > 7. feminism > 8. respect for diversity > 9. personal and global responsiblity > 10. future focus > > pretty "looney" eh? > environmentalists of the world run and hide! > oh the shame. First of all, I hope neither you nor anyone else took the loony comment personally. Secondly: sure, the ideals you listed above sound great. So do the Republican's professed ideals of "prosperity, freedom and personal liberty." *Anyone* can have great-sounding ideals, and most political parties do. But the practical programs they propose to realize those ideals are another story. I think most Americans, if they read the Green Party platform, would consider it "loony," and would henceforward be more likely to consider all environmentalists loony. I, personally, also find parts of the party platform "loony," or at least impractical. (Said platform is online at .) Some examples? First off, the idea of an enforced maximum income would be anathema to most Americans. Most would also oppose the idea of a guaranteed income from Uncle Sam to each and every American, as well as a free college education to everyone who "wants it" (not, you'll note, "is qualified for it"), and I expect a smaller majority, but still a majority, would oppose guaranteed employment for all. People might also have doubts about how high their own taxes will have to be to fund all this from tax revenues once the punitive taxes on the rich have run their course and Bill Gates's pockets are empty. And an end to limited-liability corporations? So if you invest $1000 in Jones Industries, which goes bankrupt, you not only lose your investment but are liable for JI's debts down to your last dollar. THAT will go over well with everyone who's bought a few stocks for their retirement! But I guess stock ownership will be irrelevent, because as much business as possible will be converted to "worker, consumer, or public" ownership. How will this be done? Will the worker/consumer/public owners buy them from the current owners (meaning higher taxes for everyone, including the former owners (who thus won't get much benefit from the purchase)) or simply seize them (which would also be a tad unpopular, as well as unconstitutional). A unilateral 75% cut in defense spending would also strike most Americans as a bad idea, and the Cooperative Security scheme seems hopelessly naive. Most white Americans think, rightly or wrongly, that reparations for African Americans is a loopy idea; and many of all races would suspect, rightly or wrongly, that the Restorative Justice plank is a sign that the Greens would be "soft on crime." The Ecological Conversion section says nothing about developing new alternatives for fossil fuels and synthetic chemicals, as if they were all up and running already; most Americans would start imagining themselves stuck riding horse-drawn buses to candle-lit jobs. The idea of proportional representation in Congress would probably scare a lot of people afraid of Italian-style government instability. In general, the whole thing implies a large degree of "social engineering," traditionally unpopular among Americans. And so on. (This is just what I suspect the average American would think is "loony," but I myself agree with with this hypothetical AA on at least 3/4 of these points.) Mind you, there are a lot of points in the Green Party's platform that I would agree with; and a lot more that I would agree with in theory but think impractical unless phased in over a looong period of time. But the objections outweigh them. I'm all for ecological wisdom, social justice, and those other happy-sounding ideals you mentioned. However, the Green Party doesn't just stand for those ideals but for certain specific programs to realize them, and many of those programs strike me as a bad idea. I would not vote for the Green Party under its current program. - --Chris, thinking of joining a Ted Nugent mailing list so he can find right-wingers to argue with ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 17:04:48 -0700 (PDT) From: John Barrington-Jones Subject: When Robyn Gets To Be Huge... http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/bigh/bigh/intropage.htm =jbj= __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 20:36:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Nader natterings On Thu, 27 Jul 2000 digja611@student.otago.ac.nz wrote: > not really wanting to put myself in danger of flames by spearing an > American istitution, but: get rid of the electoral college! The system of > voting in the US is as dumb as. If 5,000,000 Californians vote Democrat, > and 5,000,001 vote Republican, then all of California's electoral college > votes count as Republican. How fair is that? Not very. But rather than adopt a parliamentary approach, we could reform the Electoral College simply by ending the rule that each state's Electoral votes are counted en bloc. If each district was counted separately, then each person's vote would become more equal; candidates would be unable to focus on key states and would have to appeal to the nation as a whole; and third parties would at least show up in the results, giving them more ability to influence the final result (if not actually win), more publicity, and thus more of a chance to grow into a major party. Reforming Congress is another story. One idea would be to keep a bicameral Congress, but replace the current Senate with a chamber elected on a proportional, party-list basis; kind of like the NZ parliament, but bicameral and with a separately elected President. However, getting rid of the current Senate is virtually impossible under our Constitution. BTW, the election of 1876 was the only one where the candidate who got the most popular votes failed to win the most Electoral votes (although 1960 came close). - --Chris ps: I can't believe I wrote "Republican's" instead of "Republicans'" in my last post! Obviously it's time to log off for the day. ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 19:54:35 -0700 From: ultraconformist Subject: Re: 1876 Chris G: >BTW, the election of 1876 was the only one where the candidate who got >the most popular votes failed to win the most Electoral votes (although >1960 came close). Just a side comment: Anyone who really digs historical fiction should check out Gore Vidal's "1876" for a very entertaining and insightful account of this election and the associated skullduggery. Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 18:26:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: polite tics Christopher Gross wrote: > (Admittedly you can't always rely on these > general rules. For example, the old "every president since 1840 > elected in a year evenly divisible by 20 has died in office" rule > certainly let us down with Reagan.) which reminds me, and i know it's in really bad taste, but does anyone know where i can find a "John Hinckley Jr. -- Misunderstood Patriot" bumper sticker? I know i saw one once and was incredibly envious of it's owner..... ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 23:38:59 -0500 From: steve Subject: Re: Nader natterings digja611@student.otago.ac.nz: >not really wanting to put myself in danger of flames by spearing an >American istitution, but: get rid of the electoral college! The system of >voting in the US is as dumb as. Madison and the other writers of our constitution didn't much care care for "the mob" or political parties. What the EC does is make relatively narrow victories seem larger, giving the winner a better chance to govern. We could do without it, but people don't like change. Maybe if we have a president or two that come in second in the popular vote. >Sure, we've had some teething problems with proportional representation, >but it still works a hell of a lot better than other systems, and it's the >mainstay of a lot of European parliaments (Ireland and Germany, to give two >examples). I see you didn't mention Italy or Israel. - - Steve __________ Iąd sit down and meditate but my ass is on fire. - Bill Nelson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 00:30:37 -0700 From: "(The Arch-Villain) West" Subject: Re: Taxi Driver (0% Robyn Content) I hope this is not coming too late, but I would like to address your question. The climax of Taxi Driver is not a figment of Travis Bickle's imagination. The overhead shot traveling slowly over the slaughter was meant to evoke the birds-eye diagrams of crime scenes that they used to put in New York tabloid newspapers in lieu of actually showing the crime scene itself, something the media once had the taste to avoid doing. What follows is, more or less, irony, albeit a kinda frightening irony. Yes, Travis does indeed survive the slaughter, and he is hailed as a hero in the press. Iris is returned to her parents (the picture of the parents in the news article on the wall, incidentally, is a picture of Martin Scorsese's parents), but if you listen carefully, you hear her father in the voice-over saying that he and Iris' mother had "taken steps to see she never has cause to run away again". What exactly does this mean? Considering the fact that Iris felt she had to run away from home to begin with, one feels that perhaps her parents aren't the most understanding people, and these "steps" take on a somewhat more ominous tone as a result. The fact that the voice-overs of Travis and Iris' father are eerily similar in tone reinforce this notion. As for Travis himself, remember that we know something that everyone else in the movie does not know: HE WAS GOING TO ASSASSINATE A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE!!! The only reason he ended up in a situation in which he could be hailed as a hero is because the situation in which he would be vilified as a psycho didn't pan out! And he is a psycho. Make no mistake about it. The slaughter was only the temporary release of his pent-up rage and frustration, but his problems remain. His colleagues at the cab stand may think he's a stand-up guy, and Betsy may have been fooled into believing that Travis is a hero (which makes her seem all the more shallow and silly, when you consider her overwhelming evidence to the contrary), but the rain that Travis hopes "will come and wash all this scum off the streets" is nowhere to be seen. The rage and frustration is building up again. Take a look at that final scene, after he drops Betsy off at the curb and drives off. Do you hear the funny backwards noise accompanied by Travis lunging forward at some unseen vision in the rear view mirror? That's your clue. And your warning. Finally, let me leave you with the quote that Paul Schrader used to preface his screenplay: "The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence." Thomas Wolfe, "God's Lonely Man" I hope this helps you. Pleasant dreams. Somethingly, West. Paul Christian Glenn wrote: > My question is this: what's the deal with the ending? Is it supposed to be real? > Given that creepy floating overhead shot that pans the scene of Travis Bickles' > killing spree at the end, I got the distinct impression that he was dead. He was > shot in the *neck*, fercryinoutloud! The movie could have ended right there. > > But then we get the newspaper articles about the "hero cabby" and the letter from > Iris' parents thanking Travis for saving her and bringing her back to them. Then > we see him back in his cab, smiling, with his hair back to normal and no visible > scars, and all is well. > > Here's my take: I think that everything that happened after the shootout is what > Travis *imagined* would happen. It is what he envisioned while he was planning > to go out and kill the "scum" - he imagined himself emerging as a nonchalant > hero, celebrated by the city who has ignored him, admired by the woman who > scorned him, and worshipped by a good ol' American family - a normal, healthy, > happy guy at last. Didja notice that when the letter from Iris' parents is being > narrated by her father, it is read in the same strange staccato that Travis uses > when he's narrating the birthday card to his parents? > > Now, perhaps I'm completely lost or maybe the ending's meaning is common > knowledge among it's fans, but I'm curious. Either way, this movie, I thought, > was a brilliant and touching look at those marginalized people who don't quite > seem to fit in. I know so many of them myself, those people who desperately want > to have normal relationships, who try too hard to have friends, etc. Great > movie. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 12:51:43 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: comics On Fri, 21 Jul 2000, hbrandt wrote: > > And Carl Barks. Can't forget Carl Barks. Seconded. I haven't seen that one where Scrooge has to deliver the crate of horseradish for years; or the one where they are transported to old California to meet characters like Don Porco de Lardo; or the Lost Cities of Cibola ... My nomination: B Kliban - - Mike "Quick as a flash, the sly cat had snitched Monroe's cheese sandwich" Godwin n.p. original Bat Chain Puller ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 10:39:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Bayard Subject: greedy napsters no more? please pass the gnutella... http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/current/napster.htx?source=htx/http2_mw ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V9 #208 *******************************