From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #290 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, September 16 2002 Volume 11 : Number 290 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Ugly Americans and stuff [Aaron Mandel ] A tout is a tout ["Michael Wells" ] RE: I can't resist ["Terrence Marks" ] tiny soft boys press [Thomas Rodebaugh ] iBush [Ken Weingold ] Re: Iraq [gSs ] Re: Back to politics [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: Iraq and Afghanistan and stuff [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] inheritance [guapo stick ] Re: Stewart, have you seen this? [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] a new low and a good show [Dolph Chaney ] Re: a new low and a good show ["Maximilian Lang" ] Re: Man arrested for having sex with a TRAFFIC CONE ["Mike O'Connor" ] Re: Ugly Americans and stuff [gSs ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 11:30:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: Ugly Americans and stuff On Sat, 14 Sep 2002, Christopher Gross wrote: > But hatred aside, you didn't feel just a moment of *anger*? You didn't > think "those fucking al-Qaeda bastards!" just once? Oh, sure. Lots of times. But, again, I was trying to read what you said in a reasonable light. If you literally think there were a lot of people who didn't even *care* about al-Qaida (and who hated *America* as opposed to some of the people claiming to act on its behalf), then no, I don't actually agree with you that there are many of these people swimming around, or that they are "leftists". > Okay, that's exactly the attitude I was talking about. I don't like it > any better now that you've elaborated on it. You don't get emotional > when a group of "violent motherfuckers" attacks your country and kills > thousands of people, but your fellow citizens who disagree with you > politically or follow policies you don't like -- they really make your > blood boil. Well, now, hang on a minute. This isn't part of my main gist, but the "policies I don't like" are directly related to the attacks on our country. I'm talking about people misusing the power they had on my behalf to DO something about the attacks. If there's vengeance to be had, they're taking it for me. If there's justice, ditto. If there's forgiveness -- well, I'm not sure a government can forgive things, but it can certainly forbear. (I don't much want it to forbear, but the US government doesn't just have bigger guns than me; it is empowered to react to terrorist attack better than I am no matter what the reaction is.) Your phrasing makes it sound like I'd go into a misguided rage over local zoning disputes. Anyway... Emotions are actions, not opinions -- they aren't always voluntary, but they are things you *do*, not things you *are*. I wouldn't say that hate is really there when you aren't thinking about it. If I dwell on hatred for al-Qaida, what happens? Nothing much good. Maybe my blood pressure rises. But you seem to want me to call up this anger over and over again and display it so that you can see a resemblance between you and me, and I'm not usually into that. I mean, again, you were talking about what you saw over (it seemed to me) many months late last year. I wasn't talking about Sep. 12 here, though perhaps you were. So your impressions were based not just on what people thought or felt, but what they did. If you give me two buttons, one to kill off al-Qaida and the Taliban and one to depose the whole Bush administration from office, I'd push the first one in a split-second. Doesn't much matter when or where I am when you present me with the choice; I always esteem the former people much less than the latter. But likes and dislikes, no matter how massive, don't control all of someone's participation in society -- or else every post to Fegmaniax would be about the poster's favorite album, Robyn Hitchcock be damned. See what I'm saying? As I walk down the street to work, I still dislike al-Qaida more than American jingoists. I just don't think it's emotionally accurate to say that I hate *either* of them at that moment. I'm thinking about work, and the weather, and humming a song to myself, and wondering how my date that night will go. So, like maybe a lot of people did, I ended up spending more *time* hating Ashcroft than Mullah Omar (maybe for no better reason than that he just kept doing things that were in the paper -- not a good reason! but maybe true), and what rang your alarms was duration of hate, not depth. There was a confessional atmosphere around some of the post-9/11 opinion writing (still is), as though the significant thing was to display feelings, display likes and dislikes, rather than participating in a civic process. I'm not saying that confessionalism is bad, but it shouldn't be *assumed* on the part of any one writer. If you zip through this month's batch of lefty periodicals and you see 20 editorials about monkeys in the White House and 1 about how much Islamic extremism sucks, you can draw some conclusions about how the writers are spending their time and emotional effort these days. But you can't draw any conclusions about which button they would press in my little fantasy scenario from a few paragraphs ago. > You have a right to feel however you want, and to express your feelings, > and I'm not saying you don't; but these particular feelings disturb and > alienate me. I'm sorry to hear that. I admit that I'm still elaborating on this in the hope that there's been a misunderstanding (probably, if there has been, because I'm using "hate" in a different way than you) but maybe there hasn't been. Bummer. And even if there is, I can see how you might find my explanation of "hate" alienating. But I'm not being perverse; I'm trying to describe how I think people actually *work*. (Now that I think about it, my 'two buttons' example has the complication that if I were put in that situation, I would of course start THINKING about both al-Qaida and the Bushies and so on, with the result that very shortly I *would* be busy hating people -- maybe both of them at once, albeit to different degrees, which almost never happens -- and so I'd punch that "kill al-Qaida" button with extreme righteous fury. Take that! But one is not usually in that situation.) (I think part of the problem may be that there's a false parallelism between American flag-wavers and al-Qaida, as though one needs to choose which to dislike permanently in the same way that one needs to momentarily choose which to focus on when discussing politics. I've spent far more time over the past year actively enjoying Aesop Rock's music than I have hating American politicians, but if you rewrite this whole debate in terms of *those* two things... well, I think it's pretty silly, right? I mean, that's not a sign of having no sense of proportion; it's an irrelevant comparison made possible by the fact that indeed, life went on after the terrorist attacks.) a ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 10:49:00 -0500 From: "Michael Wells" Subject: A tout is a tout It may only be one sentence, and a short one at that, but the SB's made mention in the Chicago Tribune's Fall Preview today as one of the affordable '10 things to watch if you don't have $400 to splurge on a mega-event like the Stones'... "9. Soft Boys: The band's first album in 20 years brings back the ringing guitar interplay of Robyn Hitchcock and Kimberley Rew. Monday at Metro; $20; 312-549-4140" Outstanding. Some more powerhouse promotion like that, and these guys just might catch on. Others included Super Furry Animals, Beck & The Flaming Lips, Acid Mothers Temple, The Fall and Bob Dylan (I do see that Uncle Bobby is playing a 16,000 seat hockey arena and charging $34 for the cheapest seat, so your definition of 'mega-event' and 'affordable' may come into play). Also, a link to Greg Kot's review of last years UM show at Metro is at http://metromix.com/top/1,1419,M-Metromix-Home-X!ArticleDetail-11375,00.html Michael "I saw the Stones in college, and I thought they were old then" Wells ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 12:13:11 -0400 From: "Terrence Marks" Subject: RE: I can't resist > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org [mailto:owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org]On > Behalf Of steve > Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2002 10:17 AM > To: fegmaniax@smoe.org > Cc: loud-fans@smoe.org > Subject: I can't resist > > > Spirited Away clips and featurette, in English - > > http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1808405164&cf=trailer > Note: I saw Spirited Away. It's meets or exceeds Ghibli's standards. If you get a chance, please see it. Thank you Terrence Marks ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 15:12:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Thomas Rodebaugh Subject: tiny soft boys press no, that's not like a garlic press. . . just meant there's a blurb today in the philly inquirer (can be seen online at http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/music/4080883.htm)--but i warned you, it's short! very positive. i wonder if that reviewer is on the list? cheers, tom *************************** *Tom Rodebaugh * *Graduate Student, UNC-CH * *tlr3@email.unc.edu * *************************** ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 16:05:10 -0400 From: Ken Weingold Subject: iBush Hah. For those running Mac OS X, check out . iBush. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 17:05:38 -0500 (CDT) From: gSs Subject: Re: Iraq Stewart wrote: > only on environmental grounds, surely? We can't say we have a right to > intervene in another country's resource usage if it doesn't affect > anyone else. if would affect practically everyone directly or at least indirectly. and so we would just watch as another forced famine was being attempted? we could send lots of food and tents, and water and then possibly gasoline. The Great Quail wrote: > In short, the modern world needs oil. You can debate how good or bad that is > until the cows come home. But as long as that remains a fact, it will be a > major factor that governs global politics. The powerful protect themselves > to remain powerful. If all the Arab states suddenly decided that they would > only sell their oil to China, do you really think the US would allow that to > happen? and from another angle so often over looked, how the hell could the economies of the Arab states, Iraq in particular be supported by oils sales solely to China, for instance? gSs ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 18:10:58 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: Back to politics On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, The Great Quail wrote: > Jon "Hymenoptera" Fetter writes, > > > Oil consumption has become a national security issue, for which I > > think the government has said it was interested in being responsible. > > I think that it's 100% our fault. If no one bought SUVs, there'd be less of > a problem. The majority of Americans enjoy a gas-guzzling, high-wattage, > high-environmental-impact lifestyle, and so we have the government that we > deserve. I'm joining us late, having been out of town since last Thursday, but a few words: While I think Q is right about American lifestyles and obliviousness, the fact is that govt. policy can make a large difference in what options are plausible or even available. The oil industry - and with it, automobiles and roadways - have been heavily subsidized and favored for decades. Other modes of transportation have been comparatively underfunded. You can't take a bus to work if there's no bus, you can't ship goods via train if there's no train, etc. etc. And even if there is a bus or a train, their generally underfunded situations (in combination w/the power of, say, the trucking industry) means that using them is both more costly and less convenient. It's not a coincidence the huge percentage of high-level govt. personnel with ties to the oil industry. Somebody else may have said this - but I haven't read all 300 pieces of mail in my inbox... - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::glibby glop gloopy nibby nobby noopy la la la la lo:: np: Wire _Read & Burn 02_ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 19:34:27 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: Iraq and Afghanistan and stuff On Sat, 14 Sep 2002, Aaron Mandel wrote - and thereby saved the rest of you from having to read my post on the same subject. Thank you. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::[clever or pithy quote]:: __[source of quote]__ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 20:21:00 -0700 (PDT) From: bayard Subject: Stewart, have you seen this? First "d'oh", now this! i thought this was an ENGLISH dictionary, not an american one! http://www.nypost.com/living/22418.htm - -- http://glasshotel.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 23:16:55 -0700 From: guapo stick Subject: inheritance just noticed this buried on the new page at robynhitchcock.com: Inheritance, the first feature-length film by Kris Kristensen, features several songs by Robyn and is being screened at the Seattle Art Museum, Seatle, WA at 6.45 on October 8th. Tickets are $7. fegs with memories (i.e., not me) will recall that this film was formerly titled "mrs. baker" and that we knew robyn had contributed some tunes to the production. for more information about the film (including a scan of a letter from robyn about it), check out http://www.scotopiapictures.com/Current/current.html or http://www.scotopiapictures.com/News/news_2002_08_15_newname.html (if you want to find out why the name was changed). woj ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 23:33:03 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: Stewart, have you seen this? On Sun, 15 Sep 2002, bayard wrote: > First "d'oh", now this! i thought this was an ENGLISH dictionary, not an > american one! > > http://www.nypost.com/living/22418.htm Why do you assume all of the slang terms included are American? (The ones in the article, from an American paper, yes - but we don't know about the overall spread of new terms.) And the "English" in the dictionary's name refers to the language, not the nationality. And surely, a dictionary's task (among other things) is to record and define terms in broad, consistent usage. And I'm taking you far more seriously than you probably intended. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey, who wonders at the inclusion of "bogart," as he's only ever heard it in the phrase "don't bogart that joint," and that phrase only in contexts that demand quotation marks. J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::To be the center of the universe, don't orbit things:: __Scott Miller__ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 10:02:01 +0100 From: "matt sewell" Subject: Re: More soace junk Yes, sad news indeed - the bassist in the band told me this and suggested we name the band Lost Rocket Theory, but I think we're going to stick with The New Moon and keep watching the skies, just in case... Cheers Matt >From: "Golden Hind" > >Alas Matt, space junk it seems to be: >http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/2253385.stm > > > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: >http://messenger.msn.com - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. Click Here ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 06:00:24 -0500 From: Dolph Chaney Subject: a new low and a good show I just got pornographic spam where the sender's name was Sandy Denny. Gah. In other tangents, I saw Wire on Saturday night and they were fantastic. All new stuff in the main set, encoring with "Advantage In Height" from SNAKEDRILL and "Lowdown" and the title track from PINK FLAG. A certain Mr. Doxtator found it a bit like seeing the Ramones -- basically one tempo, flat out. Not enough Lewis for my taste, either. But definitely something you should go to if you own ANY Wire albums. dolph ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 08:34:57 -0400 From: "Maximilian Lang" Subject: Re: a new low and a good show >From: Dolph Chaney > >In other tangents, I saw Wire on Saturday night and they were fantastic. >definitely something you should go to if you own ANY Wire albums. > >dolph Bummed out here. I am about to leave for a 4 day vacation to Marco Island Florida. In a year in which I got to see Love and Brian Wilson and will see The Chameleons and The Soft Boys I will miss that other surprise, Wire. They play Philly the night before I get back! Is anyone planning on recording them on this tour? Max _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 10:05:18 -0400 (EDT) From: "Mike O'Connor" Subject: Re: Man arrested for having sex with a TRAFFIC CONE I really hope this guy doesn't show up to a Robyn Hitchcock concert. I'm sure the hetero residents have a hard enough time living in a town named Gayfield. :) :Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities,alt.showbiz.gossip :Subject: Man arrested for having sex with a TRAFFIC CONE :Lines: 25 :X-Priority: 3 :X-MSMail-Priority: Normal :X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 :X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 :Message-ID: <99sf9.664$cH2.56204583@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com> :NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.174.112.98 :X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net :X-Trace: newssvr21.news.prodigy.com 1031687877 ST000 64.174.112.98 (Tue, 10 Sep 2002 15:57:57 EDT) :NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 15:57:57 EDT :Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com :X-UserInfo1: SCSYASBDFJWORTT[]BCD^VX@WB]^PCPDLXUNNHLIWIWTEPIB_NVUAH_[BL[\IRKIANGGJBFNJF_DOLSCENSY^U@FRFUEXR@KFXYDBPWBCDQJA@X_DCBHXR[C@\EOKCJLED_SZ@RMWYXYWE_P@\\GOIW^@SYFFSWHFIXMADO@^[ADPRPETLBJ]RDGENSKQQZN :Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 19:57:57 GMT :To: undisclosed-recipients:; : :A MAN caught performing an indecent act on a traffic cone has been :charged by police. : :The 33-year-old has been charged with breach of the peace after police :received reports that the man was engaging in a sexual act with the :cone at the bottom of Calton Hill on Tuesday night. Alarmed passers-by :called police and said they had seen a man trying to have sex with a :traffic cone. : :Officers from Gayfield police station attended and found the :33-year-old committing the offence. : :A police spokesman confirmed police had been called to an incident at :Calton Road on Tuesday evening and said a report has been submitted to :the procurator fiscal. : :The area around Calton Hill has caused controversy in recent years :after becoming notorious as a venue for open air sex. : :Residents' groups, councillors and health activists have joined calls :for people to have more respect for the area. - -- Michael J. O'Connor | WWW: http://dojo.mi.org/~mjo/ | Email: mjo@dojo.mi.org Royal Oak, Michigan | (has my PGP & Geek Code info) | Phone: +1 248 427 4481 =--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--= "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line." -Vizzini ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 09:46:23 -0500 (CDT) From: gSs Subject: Re: Man arrested for having sex with a TRAFFIC CONE On Mon, 16 Sep 2002, Mike O'Connor wrote: > :A MAN caught performing an indecent act on a traffic cone has been > :charged by police. exactly what was he doing with the cone? was he giving or taking? what if it was a sexually frustrated cone or does that make any difference? do you think the defense could use that? how old was the cone? and was it a boy cone or a girl cone? gSs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 14:55:51 +0000 From: "Golden Hind" Subject: Man arrested for having sex with a TRAFFIC CONE Greg: >and was it a boy cone or a girl cone? I was a koan cone;-). Perhaps the perpetrator was Dali's ghost? Kay _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 11:27:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Ugly Americans and stuff On Sun, 15 Sep 2002, Aaron Mandel wrote: > Oh, sure. Lots of times. But, again, I was trying to read what you said in > a reasonable light. If you literally think there were a lot of people who > didn't even *care* about al-Qaida (and who hated *America* as opposed to > some of the people claiming to act on its behalf), then no, I don't > actually agree with you that there are many of these people swimming > around, or that they are "leftists". I don't want to make a big deal about this, but I think there IS a misunderstanding here ... and I think it's you who are misunderstanding me. (Which is probably my fault for not writing better.) Look again at my exact words: "I'm glad we all agree there. I don't know if I ever said so in so many words, but the thing that most upset me about leftist reactions to Sept. 11 was that they seemed to reserve all their anger for the American response. Sure, most of them condemned the al Qaeda attacks, but without a tithe of the passion and fervor with which they condemned America." I meant that literally. (Though in retrospect I should have said "many, but far from all, leftists"). I really don't see how I can put it more simply and clearly than that, but I'll add some commentary. I was NOT saying these people hated America or didn't care about al Qaeda; I WAS saying that they seemed to care *more* about America's supposed crimes than al Qaeda's. I'm thinking of those whose first and only reaction to 9/11 was to talk about how America provoked it and how America's military response would be evil. If you REALLY want, I'm sure I can find some examples for you. And -- maybe this is the source of our misunderstanding? -- I was only talking about the content of people's spoken or published comments about 9/11, NOT about how they live the rest of their lives. > Emotions are actions, not opinions -- they aren't always voluntary, but > they are things you *do*, not things you *are*. I wouldn't say that hate > is really there when you aren't thinking about it. If I dwell on hatred > for al-Qaida, what happens? Nothing much good. Maybe my blood pressure > rises. But you seem to want me to call up this anger over and over again > and display it so that you can see a resemblance between you and me, and > I'm not usually into that. I'm uncertain why you think I want to you to dwell constantly on hatred for al Qaeda. Are you sure you aren't just slotting me into some pre-existing "right wing jingoist" category instead of reading what I actually wrote? My comment concerned people who, in interviews, articles, Feg posts, etc. responding to 9/11, dwelt on evil Bush rather than evil bin Laden. I was not thinking about the private lives or unexpressed thoughts or non-9/11-related thoughts of these people or anyone else. > I mean, again, you were talking about what you saw over (it seemed to me) > many months late last year. I wasn't talking about Sep. 12 here, though > perhaps you were. So your impressions were based not just on what people > thought or felt, but what they did. Well, if "did" includes "said," then yes! That is exactly what my impressions are based on, and exactly what I was responding to. I didn't say I was bothered by people who fail to make hating al Qaeda the center of their lives. I said I was bothered by people who, in their comments on 9/11, showed much more anger towards America than al Qaeda. > I'm sorry to hear that. I admit that I'm still elaborating on this in the > hope that there's been a misunderstanding (probably, if there has been, > because I'm using "hate" in a different way than you) but maybe there > hasn't been. Bummer. Whether or not there's been any misunderstanding, I think we just disagree, and no amount of explication or understanding is going to change that. - --Chris np: Dr. Know, "Life Returns" ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 10:50:22 -0500 (CDT) From: gSs Subject: Re: Ugly Americans and stuff On Mon, 16 Sep 2002, Christopher Gross wrote: > Whether or not there's been any misunderstanding, I think we just > disagree, and no amount of explication or understanding is going to change > that. you could take acid or psilocin and then maybe swap partners for the weekend. that might at least stop the misunderstandings. gSs ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #290 ********************************