From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V9 #374 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, December 19 2000 Volume 09 : Number 374 Today's Subjects: ----------------- beep! [Christopher Gross ] need quarters [Michael Brage ] Fucking as usual business [The Great Quail ] RE: REAP (Kirsty MacColl) ["Bachman, Michael" ] the usual business of fucking [Viv Lyon ] Re: Business as fuckin' usual [Ken Ostrander ] Re: REAP - Kirsty MacColl [grutness@surf4nix.com] Re: that was the year that nothing changed [grutness@surf4nix.com] Re: Fucking as usual business [Aaron Mandel ] Re: that was the year that nothing changed [Viv Lyon ] Re: that was the year that nothing changed [Terrence Marks ] blimey ["jbranscombe@compuserve.com" ] business as fuckin' usual ["jbranscombe@compuserve.com" ] Re: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Fremen [Jon Fetter Subject: beep! On Tue, 19 Dec 2000, jbranscombe@compuserve.com wrote: > Ah yes, I remember, you were the one who actually wrote 'this great country > of ours...' with apparently no ironic intent recently! > > But the first quote above does seem rather a grim little bit of > over-reaction. Lighten up, if I may essay a little local argot. Yeah, Quail, lighten up! (Ideally you should get at *least* as light as Aaron, say, or jmbc himself.) What's the matter with you? After all, most people love to have their compatriots insulted! Most people are happy to blur the distinction between legal and moral legitimacy! And what kind of freak doesn't hate his own country? You're really coming off as a raving far-right jingoist, you know. Sheez.... - --Chris, wearing out the ol' Standard Sarcasm Generator. (Though actually the part about legitimacy wasn't sarcastic.) Beep! ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:18:17 -0800 From: Michael Brage Subject: need quarters Fegs, My kids need a quarter from Hew Hampshire, and one from Pennsylvania. Can anyone help out? Write me off list. Happy Holidays. Michael ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 16:27:06 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Fucking as usual business Hmmmm..... Regarding a few small matters.... 1. I said I was "uncomfortable" with some Naderite sentiments. In fact, when I hear a Nader voter moaning about Bush, I get actually more than a little uncomfortable, but then again, politics gets me all worked up, and I have been a card-carrying Democrat since I was 18. In fact, I was trying to be polite and civil in the last post. But Aaron jumped on me as if I were saying that the Naderites shouldn't be allowed to protest, or I wanted them to shut up, or something like that. I *knew* I would be misread. In no way at all am I suggesting that they should not be allowed to protest. I am merely offering my personal reaction. Nader helped get Bush elected (along with several other factors, including Gore's weak strategy), and I am not going to have warm fuzzy feelings about him for a long, long time. I think Aaron misread my statements and made them out to be more draconian than I certainly intended. That is common on mailing lists. 2. I must confess, I do think this country is great, and it has frequently achieved greatness. Most large nations have certainly done some good things in art, music, politics, science, etc. I am not a fool, I don't think the US is perfect, and I am shamed at many, many things we have done in the past, present, and likely future. But frankly, branscombe's comments annoyed me. I don't mind constructive criticism from the global community, but calling us all morons is just, well.... it's offense and hardly constructive. I mean, what if I called 75% of the people in *any* country morons? Don't you think that would raise the hackles of certain people around here, including me? And I think I reacted like this because it is not the first time this particular Feg has made statements like that. 3. The Feg list has been an unfriendly place lately. And I have some responsibility for that as well -- my tirades against Nader get as tiresome as any other constant axe grinding. So I hereby extend an olive branch to the Greens; I will stop calling your actions into question on this List, for at least a while. This is not a political debate list, and we are all Fegs first and foremost, and I do feel that the List has taken a downturn in the last few months, over this and several other issues. 4. I will very much miss Kirsty MacColl. - --Q ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 16:40:00 -0500 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: REAP (Kirsty MacColl) Right on Eb concerning Electric Landlady! Walking Down Madison from EL is a kick ass rocker of a song. I'll play EL tonight in memory of Kristy. Michael - -----Original Message----- From: Eb [mailto:ElBroome@earthlink.net] Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 1:52 PM To: Fgz Subject: Re: REAP (Kirsty MacColl) >Singer Kirsty MacColl has died aged 41, her record company V2 has said. WHOA! This definitely throws me. I interviewed her at IRS headquarters, around 1993...she was a tough interview (got offended at any question with the slightest relation to her private life), but jeez, whatta voice. Electric Landlady would rank among my most underrated albums of the '90s, and Kite was very good, too. And I keep hoping Tropical Brainstorm will get released domestically, so us Yanks won't have to pay import prices.... And what a horrible, stupid way to die. :( Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:59:57 -0800 From: "Andrew D. Simchik" Subject: Re: REAP (Kirsty MacColl) >From: Aaron Mandel > >Singer Kirsty MacColl has died aged 41, her record company V2 has said. >She is believed to have been killed in an accident on a diving holiday in >Mexico. Unconfirmed reports say she was hit by a speedboat while swimming. The worst news I've heard in quite a while. I'm kind of in shock. :( Drew ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 14:16:21 -0800 (PST) From: Viv Lyon Subject: the usual business of fucking On Tue, 19 Dec 2000, The Great Quail wrote: > 3. The Feg list has been an unfriendly place lately. And I have some > responsibility for that as well -- my tirades against Nader get as > tiresome as any other constant axe grinding. So I hereby extend an > olive branch to the Greens; I will stop calling your actions into > question on this List, for at least a while. This is not a political > debate list, and we are all Fegs first and foremost, and I do feel > that the List has taken a downturn in the last few months, over this > and several other issues. I don't feel that way at all. In fact, I think the list has been lively, entertaining, challenging, and while contentious, never to the point of people getting pissed and taking off. You know, I'm still here, Capuchin's still here, Eb's still here, Blatzman's still here, JH3's still here (how will we ever get _rid_ of him?).... you're still here, god bless ya. I love this list for the diversity of opinions expressed, and I love the fact that we argue and generally try to fight fair. Generally. I appreciate that a lot of folks might be peeved at the amount of political content on a music list, but....well, I don't know what to say about that. It's one of the reasons I like the list, so I don't want it to stop. Maybe if people flood my box with emails begging me to ceasefire, I'll shut up about it already. But I ain't promising nothing. Vivien ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 17:21:29 -0500 From: Ken Ostrander Subject: Re: Business as fuckin' usual >> I read over here that >> there was a poll in America that 75% of the population accepted the >> legitimacy of the election result. Huh? Where the fuck have you been you >> morons?!? someone polled 75% of the u.s. population? amazing. if only we could get that kind of voter turnout... >And finally, I don't want to kick over the can of bees again, but I >feel somewhat uncomfortable about the Naderites who are suddenly >protesting about the election results. all of a sudden? i do believe most of us have been questioning the entire process. from the fiasco that was the presidential debates to the recent farcical judicial ceremony. as i've said before, i don't bemoan the fact that bush will be president. i expected it. the fact that gore couldn't beat him is his own fault; but i'm not going to pretend that the system doesn't suck. you can't spoil a spoiled system. ken "history repeats the old conceits" the kenster np (international) noise conspiracy survival sickness ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:28:01 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com Subject: Re: REAP - Kirsty MacColl >I admit I'd have no idea who she was if she hadn't done that Pogues song, >but in doing so she made more of an impression on me than most of the >people I've barely heard of. So. do yourself a favour, then - pick up a copy of "Electric Landlady". James PS - has anyone mentioned the randy Newman song that I think is called "Christmas in Cape Town"? James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- You talk to me as if from a distance -.-=-.- And I reply with impressions chosen from another time =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:27:50 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com Subject: Re: that was the year that nothing changed >also, do you mean that gore "won" the most votes in florida? or >that he "deserves" to be president because he "won" the popular vote? >if the latter, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, given that >we've had two hundred years to change the electoral college system >if we wanted. or we still could, in the future. hm. Who'd change it? The government that's been elected using it? Hah. It took us 20 years here to get a change from Westminster first-past-the-post to proportional representation, and even then the whole process only really got going when there was a hung parliament (50 seats to one part, 48 to a second, and 2 to the party that got 18% of the vote). And I'd imagine that our electoral system was a lot less entrenched and a lot more susceptible to being voted out than yours. Remember there's a large body of people who work on the rather circular logic that if America uses something, it must be best, so even though it doesn't work it can't be improved because it hasn't been changed. >Actually, I've heard calls for a mass mooning of Bush. Surely that's >something you can get behind. ba-doom ching! Seriously, though, that is a recognised tribal protest here in NZ - the whakapohane. Just thought you wouldn't like to know that. >> Lamentable as it is, I do not >> believe that this election places us on the same level as some >> dictatorship guarding the ballot boxes with assault rifles or >> anything. There was recently an election in Ghana, West Africa. There was only one arrest - a man who held up voters with a rifle and ordered them not to vote until an electoral officer had arrived at the polling station. Now THAT's how elections should work! >BTW, here's a question for you furriners: Do parliamentary-style countries >like Canada and the UK hold local elections at the same time as national >elections? depends on what you mean by local elections. If you mean for parliamentary candidates (cf. Senators) then yes. And it takes no longer than US elections. In the UK, as many votes are counted as in California, Texas and NY put together in less time than it takes to count them in the US - at least in part because they don't have to worry about faulty machinery. If you mean city and county council elections, then no, they are done at a different time. But then again, half of the US congress wasn't elected in November either, was it - don't you stagger it in two two year stages? >(and the reason we use machine counts instead of by hand is that we >Americans vote for about twenty things at a time, which makes hand >counting prohibitively complex as a first count) well, you do vote for them on separate ballot forms, and put the completed forms into different ballot boxes, don't you. Don't you? Please tell me that logic that simple has reached the US! >We should eliminate the electoral college or at least hope the states start >splitting the votes like Maine and Nebraska. this would be a reasonable half-measure - it would make it very similar to the Westminster style electorate voting system. >In that respect I'm perfectly >fine with the election results. Especially now that there is such a shadow >cast on Bush's legitimacy! He won't get anything done! you thought maybe he would have otherwise? This IS Bushbaby you're talking about! What makes me shudder is that Cheney will likely be de facto President. > Much to my chagrin the 'massive protests' look like being yer 'fringe' 3% > bolstered by the Afro-American Democrat vote, and gosh don't they stand for > a lot in The Greatest Democracy In The World (tm). well, how many Afro-Americans are there in India? ;) James James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- You talk to me as if from a distance -.-=-.- And I reply with impressions chosen from another time =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 17:32:09 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: Fucking as usual business On Tue, 19 Dec 2000, The Great Quail wrote: > I am merely offering my personal reaction. Nader helped get Bush > elected (along with several other factors, including Gore's weak > strategy), and I am not going to have warm fuzzy feelings about him > for a long, long time. I think Aaron misread my statements and made > them out to be more draconian than I certainly intended. fair enough, but you said this in the context of them protesting the vote. if you're angry at Nader, be angry! if you'll have trouble encountering any confessed Nader voter in the next year without gnashing your teeth, so be it; i've certainly kept grudges longer for less reason. i just thought you meant that you're more annoyed to see Naderites protesting the election aftermath than you are to see them in the supermarket, which would strike me, like i said, as sort of topsy-turvy. and just in case i'm making your blood boil, i might as well add that i didn't vote for Nader. i didn't like him much. however, i look forward to working with many of his supporters on some of the issues where i found him preferable to the Democrats. a ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 14:50:48 -0800 (PST) From: Viv Lyon Subject: Re: that was the year that nothing changed On Wed, 20 Dec 2000 grutness@surf4nix.com wrote: > well, you do vote for them on separate ballot forms, and put the completed > forms into different ballot boxes, don't you. Don't you? Please tell me > that logic that simple has reached the US! > No, James, even that simple logic has not reached this Great Nation. At least, it hasn't reached Oregon, and Oregon has the most progressive voting process in the nation (mail-in voting combined with extensive voters' pamphlets). > >In that respect I'm perfectly > >fine with the election results. Especially now that there is such a shadow > >cast on Bush's legitimacy! He won't get anything done! > > you thought maybe he would have otherwise? This IS Bushbaby you're talking > about! What makes me shudder is that Cheney will likely be de facto > President. It is widely known that they wanted to run Cheney, but he's too old and infirm, so they got a supposedly good-looking, semi-young ringer (who just happens to be the son of Cheney's best buddy and collaborator). I mean, do you really think anyone in America thinks W. is going to call the shots? All I'm saying is that Bush's grand viziers will have a damned difficult time getting anything done, once the democrats forget all this bipartisan bullshit. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 17:52:24 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: this may be relevant - lj, note ending (from the American Diabetes Association website) Drinking Beer Provides Some Health Benefits New York Times Syndicate - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beer drinkers raise your mugs - a beer a day may help ward off cataracts and reduce the risk of heart disease, according to preliminary studies released Monday. A UCLA graduate student and her Canadian chemist father have concluded dark beer shares the same antioxidant qualities as wine when consumed in moderation. Researchers in Pennsylvania also concluded that light beer reduced the risk of heart disease in hamsters - a benefit that may or may not translate to humans. ``Beer is chock full of antioxidants, and antioxidants are really good for you,'' said Colleen Trevithick, 23, a second-year Ph.D. candidate in chemistry at UCLA who read the results of her work Monday at the International Chemical Congress in Honolulu, Hawaii. ``They reduce aging and slow down age-related problems with heart disease,'' she said. Trevithick and her father, Professor John Trevithick of the University of Western Ontario, investigated whether antioxidants in beer can prevent cataracts, especially in diabetics. Their study was partly funded by a grant from the Labatt Brewing Co. of Canada. The researchers say lenses of rats and cows normally damaged by high levels of glucose appear to be shielded by the type of antioxidants found in beer. The antioxidants, higher in dark beers, destroy oxygen molecules that kill valuable cell membranes and body proteins. But they also cautioned that health benefits of more than one beer decreases with each extra bottle of suds. ``We found out most of the beers have just as much antioxidants as red or white wine, which ties in with older studies,'' said the senior Trevithick, at the Hawaii conference. ``The take-home lesson from all of this is it might be good to drink one drink a day.'' Here here!, beer makers say. ``I just accept the `everything in moderation' thing,'' said Ramon G. Navarro, 26, a brewer for Gordon-Biersch in Burbank as he completed a 600-gallon batch of Blond Boch beer. ``I know it'll do a tap dance on your liver if you overdo it.'' Beer drinkers were equally enthusiastic about the studies. ``It makes perfect sense, '' said Dennis Fuire, a 40-year-old Angeleno. ``Beer is good - it makes you relax, it tastes good, it ought to be good for you. ``But if you're going to drink beer, drink the good stuff and stay away from the watered-down lights.'' But it was the lighter beers, not the dark beer higher in antioxidants, that worked best against atherosclerosis, researchers said. Joe Vinson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, fed hamsters a high-cholesterol, high-fat diet for 10 weeks until they contracted atherosclerosis - a fatty buildup in blood vessels. Then, in a controlled study, the researchers poured hamsters the human equivalent of one beer - light or dark - a day. The light won. ``There was a 50 percent reduction in atherosclerosis, this is what causes heart disease,'' Vinson said from the Hawaii conference. ``Beer and wine, they really work.'' Both researchers are studying whether beer combats cataracts and heart disease in humans. But will eggnog - and even a martini - produce the same health benefits as beer? Maybe, the younger Trevithick said. ``Rum is a reasonable antioxidant, but beer tends to be a lot better. ``Martinis are excellent. We actually did a study, which came out last Christmas in the British Medical Journal, on shaken vs. stirred martinis - and James Bond has it right: Shaken is better. ``Dry martinis aren't as good - all the good stuff is in the vermouth.'' (The Los Angeles Daily News Web site is at http://www.DailyNews.com c.2000 Los Angeles Daily News (this is just to try and dilute the damn politics! cheers everyone!) =b ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 18:00:53 -0500 (EST) From: Terrence Marks Subject: Re: that was the year that nothing changed On Wed, 20 Dec 2000 grutness@surf4nix.com wrote: > >(and the reason we use machine counts instead of by hand is that we > >Americans vote for about twenty things at a time, which makes hand > >counting prohibitively complex as a first count) > > well, you do vote for them on separate ballot forms, and put the completed > forms into different ballot boxes, don't you. Don't you? Please tell me > that logic that simple has reached the US! Nope. One big form with everything from city treasurer to US president on it. Normally (ie. most every other time), the vote is considerably outside the margin of error. Terrence Marks Unlike Minerva (a comic strip) http://www.unlikeminerva.com HCF (another comic strip) http://www.mpog.com/hcf normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 18:27:37 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: mostly factual, opinion-free political stuff On Wed, 20 Dec 2000 grutness@surf4nix.com wrote: > ba-doom ching! Seriously, though, that is a recognised tribal protest here > in NZ - the whakapohane. Just thought you wouldn't like to know that. At first I read that as "whackaphone." I imagined a big foam-rubber trumpet, say three feet (~1 m) long and available in day-glo green, orange and pink, that you could both shout through and whack people over the head with. Is the whakapohane anything like that? Please? > >BTW, here's a question for you furriners: Do parliamentary-style countries > >like Canada and the UK hold local elections at the same time as national > >elections? > > depends on what you mean by local elections. If you mean for parliamentary > candidates (cf. Senators) then yes. And it takes no longer than US > elections. In the UK, as many votes are counted as in California, Texas and > NY put together in less time than it takes to count them in the US - at > least in part because they don't have to worry about faulty machinery. If > you mean city and county council elections, then no, they are done at a > different time. But then again, half of the US congress wasn't elected in > November either, was it - don't you stagger it in two two year stages? Basically, I was wondering if people in these countries vote for more than one thing at the same time. I only mentioned local elections because I figured that in a parliamentary system that might only happen if you voted for, say, city council at the same time as the parliamentary election. In the US you almost always vote for more than one thing on the same ballot. The president is up for election every four years, all members of the House of Representatives every two years, and Senators every six years, with one-third of the Senate being elected every two years. Thus there is a Congressional election every other year, and every second Congressional election coincides with a Presidential election. In addition, most states hold state and local elections on the same day as the national election (a few do it in the spring). For example, on November 7 my ballot included races for President/VP, Senator, Representative, county council members, school board members, a judge or two, and I think six referenda. (Everything except the referenda was on a single ballot paper.) If I keep living in the same district, I can expect to vote for Congressional Representative and state Governor in 2002, Representative and President in 2004, and Representative, Senator and Governor in 2006, with various state and local offices thrown in each year. With elections like that, I think you *have* to count by machine if you want results by the next day. One idea would be to put the national elections and state/local elections on separate ballot papers, then count the national ones first so no one keeps the rest of the country waiting. - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 16:38:49 -0700 From: "The Rooneys" Subject: A Quail in the hand is worth two of Bush >PS Aren't there a couple of States which split their electoral college >votes proportionately? Why not extend that system? Had that been done (Electoral votes split in each state proportional to votes) Bush would have won by a larger margin and we would not have gotten involved in messy court battles. Assuming only Whole Votes can be cast: Bush - 272 Gore - 257 Nader - 9 Saw a bumper sticker today (Bush? Gore? I'd rather Ralph!) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 17:51:47 -0500 (CDT) From: GSS Subject: Re: that was the year that was... On Mon, 18 Dec 2000, JH3 wrote: > (However, that doesn't mean I'd necessarily want to have sex with them.) Jeez, you won't be forced to have sex with them, at least not all of them, normally. But I bet you'll appreciate the cheap, clean power. gss ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 18:57:50 -0500 From: "jbranscombe@compuserve.com" Subject: blimey Viv wrote >No, James, even that simple logic has not reached this Great Nation. Careful Viv, that sounds Un-American to me... jm 'not the first time' bc ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 20:20:23 -0500 From: "jbranscombe@compuserve.com" Subject: business as fuckin' usual 'My religion is Man, and my country is the world' Thomas Paine. There's another one from Dr Johnson, but that might be a little too inflammatory in the current circs. Look under 'patriotism' those of you with a Dic. Of Quotes. >but calling us all morons is >just, well.... it's offense and hardly constructive. I mean, what if >I called 75% of the people in *any* country morons? Don't you think >that would raise the hackles of certain people around here, including >me? And I think I reacted like this because it is not the first time >this particular Feg has made statements like that. a) 'All' and '75%' (or three-thirds ;-)) are not the same thing. b) I understand that a poll is a simulacrum - I thought, wrongheadedly, people might have taken this into consideration. I am not calling '75%' or 'all' or 'three-thirds' of Americans morons forever more, whatever they do with the rest of their lives. c) Then we really head off for Non-Sequitur City with this strange little bit of chopped logic about calling 75% of *any* country morons. Yes, I hereby call 75% of French morons....Wha' !?! I made the initial comment in a very specific context...Do you think I make a habit of going around abusing a majority of a country's population without linking it to something they've done (Though in this case I admit my basis was an almost certainly inaccurate opinion poll. Mea culpa) However I think my point about Quail's over-reaction stands. As does my heavily implied point that there are a vast number of Americans, as there are British, who believe that their nation is 'Great' in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I find it hard to understand when someone who is obviously intelligent gets into such a boiling rage about this. d) Apparently I have a track record - Chapter and verse please. To end with another rummage around the quote box. I haven't got this one to hand so I'll paraphrase, and Stewart might give you the proper version... ' I would some power the giftie gie us, To see ourselves as others see us.' Robert Burns And I really do include myself in that. I may come across as a pompous git sometimes but I try and look at what I say and put it into context. Americans blethering about being a great country and being victimised really does look a trifle silly from here... jmbc. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 18:24:14 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: RIP Pops Staples. Take me to the river, - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 21:54:01 -0500 From: Jon Fetter Subject: Re: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Fremen "Cooking Chicken, Having Noodles" has taken forever to get to the US!!! My wife saw it in Taiwan way back in June. She saw it twice and so could give it two thumbs up. This film and the first fifteen minutes of "Gladiator" are all I've had any interest in going to the theater for this year. I just hope "Crunchy Apple, Hungry Kitten" will be playing somewhere in this nape of the central Pennyslvanian woods. Re: Sci Fi's "Dune"--I just watched it on video since we don't have the Sci Fi channel. It wasn't that horrible, and I'd like to see them do "Dune Messiah," which fortunately should have fewer explosions-with-flying-bodies-effects than "Dune." One thing I thought was odd about this production of "Dune" (and I can hardly remember Lynch's) was the lack of racial diversity in the future. I don't believe there was a single non-caucasian in the whole show. Herbert's vision included the whole human race. If anything, there should be even more diversity in human appearances (like prosthetic facial ridges right above the nose) due to the reproductive isolation of the original human settlers on planets like Dune or Geidi prime. The only diversity found in this production was in the accents. Jon >Crouching Tiger... is the only movie left that I want to see this year. I >think Ang Lee is pretty fantastic. And Action Film fans should check out >John Woo's MASTERPIECE Hard Boiled. You'll see why John Woo really is the >king of Action Films > >Crouching Tiger expands to 150 theaters next Friday, so look for it! It's >not in Phoenix yet, but it's supposed to be here friday... ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V9 #374 *******************************