From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #260 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, July 9 2003 Volume 12 : Number 260 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: once more into the placenta [Eb ] Re: once more into the placenta [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: everything else [Eb ] RE: everything else ["Brian Huddell" ] Cheese Mites vs. Placenta: Disgustingness Smackdown! ["Rex.Broome" ] Re: even more childbirth cheese [Tom Clark ] Re: even more childbirth stuff [tanter@tarleton.edu] Re: even more childbirth stuff [Tom Clark ] Re: even more childbirth stuff [Marcy Tanter ] Re: even more childbirth stuff ["Jason R. Thornton" ] Hamlet was a small-town boy... [crowbar.joe@btopenworld.com] Byrdfeggiax ["Rex.Broome" ] RE: Hamlet was a small-town boy... ["Michael Wells" ] too much to reply to, part 1 [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 14:39:24 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: once more into the placenta > >So is taking a dump after eating or puking after getting drunk or jerking > >off into your girlfriend's hair after a blowjob, but those things don't > >ever seem to come up in everyday conversation. Why is that? What's more, it's *really* rare to hear a guy talk about taking a dump in his girlfriend's hair, or even simply puking in it. People are so repressed, nowadays. Eb np: Placenta Domingo/Live at Carnegie ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 16:46:50 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: once more into the placenta On Wed, 9 Jul 2003, Eb wrote: > What's more, it's *really* rare to hear a guy talk about taking a > dump in his girlfriend's hair, or even simply puking in it. People > are so repressed, nowadays. So you're obviously unfamiliar with _The Communists Are Coming to Kill Us!_ by John Trubee and The Ugly Janitors of America... "The everlasting candy bar of life..." - --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:: ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 17:13:18 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: everything else Eb: Scrolling back through the old list mail, catching up on the kidney stone thing. I hate it for you. I've had some understanding of the kidney stone experience ever since reading Asimov's autobiography when I was a teen, but since then, my uncle and his son have both developed problems with them, so while I don't feel your pain, I certainly sympathize. Hope things are more comfortable now. Actual Quoted Eb: >> >So is taking a dump after eating or puking after getting drunk or jerking >> >off into your girlfriend's hair after a blowjob, but those things don't >> >ever seem to come up in everyday conversation. Why is that? > >What's more, it's *really* rare to hear a guy talk about taking a >dump in his girlfriend's hair, or even simply puking in it. People >are so repressed, nowadays. This cracked me up. Eb, between that and the Scott Miller post, you've been on a roll today! Rex: >Flash Light! > >This was a really important record for me. It might sound very dated to >1987production-wise at this point, and the songs are more compact and poppy >than Television, but they're also great, and, you know, the guitar-playing >is pretty okay, too. And it's got at least two tunes that should've been >huge among the college-rock crowd at the time but went nowhere-- see >especially "A Town Called Walker". Blah blah blah... but anyway, it's one >of my own personal favorite records of all time. And people think Rex is negative all the time? Sheesh! :-) I, on the other hand, will don the Necktie of Negativity and declare Verlaine's solo stuff to be incredibly boring and invariably disappointing. It was like he followed the Clapton "I don't want to be a guitar hero" m.o. (Clapton is overrated, sure, but most of his playing in Creem and on LAYLA is damn fine) and proceeded to make some of the most somnambulistic records known to mankind. TOM VERLAINE, DREAMTIME, WORDS FROM THE FRONT, COVER - there was always some CREEM or MUSICIAN or Christgau review that would rave about the latest one, and I'd pay my money, thinking "cool, this is the one where he moves on to an interesting post-Television synthesis," and three plays later, I'd feel like a dupe for shelling out money for another Verlaine solo album. FLASH LIGHT is more active and tuneful than its predecessors, but it pretty much shines (pun intended) only by comparison to them. I'm saying this despite being in the midst of a massive '80s kick where I've been systematically filling out my '80s CD collection (replacing old stolen CDs, getting odds and ends that I never got on CD, exploring catalogs of artists I didn't follow closely enough at the time), so I think that makes my indifference to Verlaine The Solo Artist even more credible. :-) But knowing that Rex likes FLASH LIGHT somehow makes his fondness for Ride more explicable to me... >Subject: No one famous ever came from here, except John Kruk and the guy > who wrote the music for Frosty the Snowman, or was it Rudolph? While the world is not overflowing with Famous West Virginians, there's a bit of disingenuity goin' on here, and the place to find other Famous West Virginians besides me 'n' Rex is: (Actually, my name is there, but only as a contributor. For now.) >James: >>>Not sure what a 7-11 or a fred myers is, so I can't comment on them. There >is >>a Starbucks some four miles from here, but I've never been in it. > >Well, 7-11 is the largest chain (and the original model, I'd figure) of >franchised "covenience stores" in the US. I was sorta surprised that someone *wouldn't* know what a 7-11 was, but then it made sense when I realized that it was James who was asking. Rex pretty much covered it. The 7-11s themselves used to be way more ubiquitous, but they've sold out of a lot of markets (including back home in southern WV, Rex). There's not a single one in Nashville, but you can't go a block without tripping over at least one convenience store. This makes it even funnier when people here panic and buy out grocery stores on the mere threat of snow - they'd be starving, I guess, if the half-inch of snow kept them from trudging to the convenience store for a Slim Jim and a Slurpee. I realize that I learned a lot of names of regional chains and products, especially ones from California, from Johnny Carson monologues and game shows. Marcia Wallace giving clues on PASSWORD ("Wonder..." "BREAD!"), Carson making Taco Bell and Carl's Jr. jokes, all of it long before Wonder Bread and Taco Bell made their way to anywhere within driving distance. You could get what they were from context. But I didn't know what a Fred Myers was, until Rex exclaimed and Glen U. replied thusly: >> And I have no idea what the hell Fred Myers is. > >Fred Meyers is a chain of superstores along the lines of K-Mart or >Target in the U.S. Northwest (Oregon, Washington). In terms of quality >of inventory, it's a bit better than, say, Mall-Wart, but not on the >level of a Sears. I think most of them have clothing, camping >equipment, books, and food. Glen, another question so I can peg it better: I'd never put K-Mart and Target in the same sentence, because to me K-Mart is in the same "overcrowded, junky, clutter-ridden, poor-quality goods" category as Wal-Mart, whereas Melissa and I are big Target fans. They just seem cleaner and to have better stuff (especially in their store brands), and it's a much more pleasant experience, so if we can get our dept. store-type needs met at Target, we do. So is Fred Meyers more like K-Mart or more like Wal-Mart? I thought I mentioned West Virginia way too much in my posts, but if Rex is gonna be the only guy who gets asked Feg questions about our home state, I guess I'm going to have to step it up. later, Miles, whose friend Dan is a sportswriter for the Beckley paper ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 15:27:27 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: everything else >Miles: >Eb: Scrolling back through the old list mail, catching up on the >kidney stone thing. I hate it for you. I've had some understanding >of the kidney stone experience ever since reading Asimov's >autobiography when I was a teen, Did Asimov have notorious troubles with them? (Thanks for your empathy.) I haven't had any notable problems in recent days, despite continuing my running regime. Maybe the gory incident of last Monday was a one-time thing. Hopefully. But as I think I already posted, the doctor delayed giving me a final analysis of my IVP results because there is "some question" (??) about an area on the left side. He's older and in half-retirement, so I have to wait until next Tuesday to call him again for a conclusive opinion. >I, on the other hand, will don the Necktie of Negativity and declare >Verlaine's solo stuff to be incredibly boring and invariably >disappointing. I don't own Words From the Front and Cover for much reason beyond completism, but Flash Light and the first two are certainly worthwhile. I never knew about these aborted sessions which Rex recently posted about -- that definitely makes me curious to hear them. I really loved that "Scientist Writes a Letter" song on Flash Light, when it was new. And as I said before, I knew practically nothing about Television at the time. Kinda like how I was turned on by Richard Thompson's Daring Adventures fresh out of the box, before having any knowledge of his background and Fairport Convention pedigree. I landed another Mrs. Miller album via the Web this week, so I'm stoked. Two more to go! Eb ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 17:27:44 -0500 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: RE: everything else Miles: > While the world is not overflowing with Famous West > Virginians, there's a bit of disingenuity goin' on here, and > the place to find other Famous West Virginians besides me 'n' > Rex is: Brad Dourif! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 15:51:03 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Cheese Mites vs. Placenta: Disgustingness Smackdown! Tom C: >>The last limerick had something to do with cheese mites or something. Whoa. I'm kind of alarmed that things called "cheese mites" exist, much less that they're well know enough to have limericks written about them. Sounds ucky. ____ Mike G: >>Hillman claims that his 'Time Between' was the first country rock song. He may have a point. Probably better to specify "Post-British-Invasion-Country-Rock" song... Elvis did do "Blue Moon of Kentucky" quite early on. Not quite clear on the chronology of "Younger Than Yesterday" vs. the Buffalo Sprinfield debut other than that they're the same year, but "Go and Say Goodbye" and a few others on that record deserve consideration. This may be a more controversial thread than the "Raga Rock" one. But "Time Between" is awesome. Conversely: >>songs about wanking. >>"Love the One You're With" Stephen Stills Arguably any Stephen Stills song after 1969 is about wanking, or, failing that, embodies the same. Oh, and should we count "Pink Thing" by XTC? "Pink Thing, spit it my face, I'll love you for it." ______ Glen: >>Rex, do you know where Beckley is? Yup. But I couldn't drive ya there. Miles is the Mountaineer* with the sense of direction. Speaking of whom: >>but if you're watching TRADING SPACES and in the commercial break >>there's Fresh Hot Innards A-Go-Go, that ain't right. A) that's usually the way we encounter them and I bet it's more jarring in that context than during Junkyard Wars, if only marginally so, and B) hey, there's a swell new title for the Feggy Song Comp. On the other hand I'll always be able to slog through ER as long as Maura Tierney's on it. And I don't mind me some Alex Kingston, although she's practically disappeared... >>(unless it was a Rex daughter #2 "whoosh!" sorta deal, and you probably >>can't predict those things) No, but second children usually come faster, and often *much* faster. >>Rex, I'm worried that you actually *did* feel maligned by my original >>placenta post, even though I thought I had provided sufficient qualifications >>to keep that from happening. No, not at all! It was more like, having thrown my hat in the ring as a past-placenta-viewer, I thought it behooved me to put some distance between myself and the natural-childbirth-or-else zealots, and at the same time throw a little light on some of the things I learned from the process and what I (personally and along with my wife) made of them. Quick sketch of how you can synthesize various perspectives. Or something. And again, my wife had a pair of what many would consider very easy**, very healthy pregnancies and births so we had very few difficult choices to make. >>When my aunt was pregnant in '88, I learned one thing from the thousand- >>and-one strange women who thought my aunt's swelling belly gave them >>free reign to walk up to her and touch her stomach (...) It's weird. But your perspective on pregnant people does change after you've been there. I used to not understand at all the fascination with a newborn's weight (or more precisely, I had no idea what was big, small, average, or what the various sizes might mean the child would look like) and now I've been fully indoctrinated. Oddly few people made predictions about my wife's pregnancy, but that might've been because once they found out she never got morning sickness, all bets were off. ___ Congratulations, Natalie! Sorry the list probably sounds just like the classes you just finished, but there you go. - -Rex *I'm hoping I'm still allowed to use this to mean "native West Virginiain", although it seems more and more to mean "WVU student/alumni". No such offense was intended! **My wife would never characterize it as "easy" but would concede that it was so compared to many of the other pregnancies we've seen or heard about lately. And she would also have to admit that she was pretty damned good at being pregnant and having kids. Just built well for it, I guess. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 15:40:51 -0700 From: "Natalie Jane" Subject: even more childbirth stuff >OK, I'll admit I know close to nothing about these particular medical >procedures, but I can't believe you wouldn't want something, be it drugs or >surgery, if you were to give birth to one of these: > >http://apnews.myway.com/article/20030709/D7S64D300.html I think those kids got big later on... :) But in my obstetrics textbook there's a picture of a kid born to a diabetic mother who looks rather like that... those babies get big because there's so much sugar in the mom's blood. The kid was probably born by cesarean. My obstetrics textbook is filled with such unbearably disgusting color photographs that I hesitate to leaf through it at random. But there was one picture of... a two-headed boy!! It wasn't floating in glass... actually, I'm not sure if it was a boy, but it was definitely two-headed, and definitely dead. >As far as I'm concerned, you can see all the placenta(s?) you wanna. :-) >As others have said (and I'm about to quote some of 'em), just because it's >natural doesn't mean that everyone wants to see it. Placentas are icky, there's no doubt about that. I happen to find them fascinating as well as icky - I can explain to you exactly how they work, if you want... but you probably don't. :) >Wife going through awful pain, blood and fluids and parts everywhere (hey, >Romero and Craven had to be inspired by something, to go back to the jbj >comment) Well, there's no parts... but yeah, blood and various bodily fluids... I'm looking forward to many fond years of being puked on by clients. >I thought Natalie's posts were *very* well-balanced on the whole subject. >Very well thought-out! Thank you! > So no doubt you're armed with more facts, but putting together the "we >turned out OK" factor (wife and I were '66 and '67 babies who came into the >world via the au courant methods of the day) with the "use common sense" >realistic approaches described by Natalie and especially Jeffrey (regarding >his sister's laborious labor), and, well, I'm a wee bit more inclined to >think that natural childbirth uber alles is just as dicey a proposition as >the pump-'em-full-o'-dope side of the spectrum. I can marshall various arguments to the contrary, but my main one would be that a birth with many medical interventions is far more likely to lead to major abdominal surgery (i.e., a cesarean) than a birth with fewer interventions. Also, again, the long-term effects on the child and the mother are unknown. I'm not for "natural childbirth uber alles" by any means, although there are many people who are. Forcing a woman to have an intervention-free birth is just as bad as forcing interventions on her ("do you want your baby to die??"). There's a time and a place for interventions. Sometimes they're absolutely necessary, like if the baby is in a bad position (e.g., lying sideways) and can't get out vaginally. But it also seems to me, from what little I know, that many interventions (e.g., routine episiotomies) are unneccessary. >they all had a "honey, you're gonna have [craving X] and [side effect Y], >and when it comes, it's going to be [condidtion Z]" bunch of stories, and >you know what? My aunt's pregnancy didn't go like *any* of them, so I >concluded that no two pregnancies were alike. Well, yeah - they not only vary from woman to woman but between one woman's different pregnancies. My mom's pregnancy and labor with my sister was very different from her pregnancy and labor with me. Next term I'm taking my intrapartum (labor) class, so I'll be able to spout off facts more efficiently. Stay tuned. :) n. now watching: the Sonic Youth webcam in hopes of getting a peek at Jim O'Rourke like I did yesterday. (Did I mention that Jim is my boyfriend? It's true.) _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 15:54:28 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: even more childbirth cheese on 7/9/03 3:40 PM, Natalie Jane at emma_blowgun@hotmail.com wrote: > now watching: the Sonic Youth webcam in hopes of getting a peek at Jim > O'Rourke like I did yesterday. (Did I mention that Jim is my boyfriend? > It's true.) I can vouch for that. on 7/9/03 3:51 PM, Rex.Broome at Rex.Broome@preferredmedia.com wrote: > Tom C: >>> The last limerick had something to do with cheese mites or something. > > Whoa. I'm kind of alarmed that things called "cheese mites" exist, much > less that they're well know enough to have limericks written about them. > Sounds ucky. The limerick was about the first film controversy in Englannd, circa 1898. Apparently some industrious filmmaker thought it would be cool to attach a microscope of some sort to his camera and film the mites that lived in the cheese in those days. The local dairy board had a shit fit and lobbied to have the film banned. Aha, from the Wait Wait... Web site: The dairy board's hard to appease. They call our film uncultured sleaze. What's got their blood curdled Is not straps and girdles But bacterial action in cheese. - -tc, coincedentally eating a slice of cheesecake at the moment ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 17:57:06 -0500 (CDT) From: tanter@tarleton.edu Subject: Re: even more childbirth stuff Natalie is so right about each pregnancy and labor being different. All 3 of mine were different and the deliveries were vastly different. But seriously guys, if it was really so terrible, would any of us exist and would any of us have siblings? Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 16:07:31 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: even more childbirth stuff on 7/9/03 3:57 PM, tanter@tarleton.edu at tanter@tarleton.edu wrote: > Natalie is so right about each pregnancy and labor being different. All 3 > of mine were different and the deliveries were vastly different. But > seriously guys, if it was really so terrible, would any of us exist and > would any of us have siblings? > 'cuz we can't stop screwing! - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 18:15:10 -0500 From: Marcy Tanter Subject: Re: even more childbirth stuff At 04:07 PM 7/9/2003 -0700, Tom Clark wrote: >'cuz we can't stop screwing! > >-tc But we CAN stop having babies if we want to..... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 16:15:52 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: even more childbirth stuff At 04:07 PM 7/9/2003 -0700, Tom Clark wrote: >on 7/9/03 3:57 PM, tanter@tarleton.edu at tanter@tarleton.edu wrote: > > > Natalie is so right about each pregnancy and labor being different. All 3 > > of mine were different and the deliveries were vastly different. But > > seriously guys, if it was really so terrible, would any of us exist and > > would any of us have siblings? > > > >'cuz we can't stop screwing! Yeah, and given all the horror stories about the birthing process that have been floating around, I'm surprised more women wouldn't prefer a shot in the hair compared to more conventional locations. And Gaelic? That word slays me every time. That's an even funnier language than Hohmohsukken. - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 00:16:17 +0100 (BST) From: crowbar.joe@btopenworld.com Subject: Hamlet was a small-town boy... >I grew up in an unincorporated town of 1,000 max (as per the >1980 census - population was down to 500 Don't Americans ever use the word 'village'! Crowbar Joe Getting to like Luxor... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 16:34:39 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Byrdfeggiax Tom C: >>The Byrds already recorded Bells of Rhymney, right? Isn't it a Pete Seeger >>song? Yeah, and yeah, although I'm fairly sure it's an adapted melody even in Seeger's version. Winnowing down the list of Byrds-influenced songs and artists to one CD of stuff would be damned hard and probably not wildly revelatory. But I did once put together a disc of actual Byrds covers for a friend containing various tracks from my disc collection, and it was easily as long as the "Time Between" compilation. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 18:23:49 -0500 From: "Michael Wells" Subject: RE: Hamlet was a small-town boy... > Don't Americans ever use the word 'village'! Oh yes. "The Village People," "Santa's Village," "It Takes a Village to Ghostwrite a Book and Still Claim It's Yours," etc... And Milwaukee, a suburb of Chicago, can be described as a "village." Michael "was that helpful?" Wells ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 17:37:29 -0700 From: "Glen Uber" Subject: Re: everything else Miles earnestly scribbled: >Glen, another question so I can peg it better: I'd never put K-Mart and >Target in the same sentence, because to me K-Mart is in the same >"overcrowded, junky, clutter-ridden, poor-quality goods" category as Wal- >Mart, whereas Melissa and I are big Target fans. They just seem cleaner >and to have better stuff (especially in their store brands), and it's a >much more pleasant experience, so if we can get our dept. store-type >needs met at Target, we do. So is Fred Meyers more like K-Mart or more >like Wal-Mart? I actually agree with your assessment of K-Mart vs. Target. K-Mart is closer to Squall-Mart than Target. Carol and I go to Target several times a week, but I haven't been to K-Mart since I stopped working there in early 1991. I have seen the belly of the beast and don't really care to feed it if I can help it. That is one f'd up company. I went to Wal-Mart around Christmas of last year to try to find a cheapo television/DVD combo for a friend of ours. I was appalled at the place. It looked like a war zone, I couldn't find any employee who knew anything and there was this icky, sour-milk smell that seemingly emanated from the air ducts. It was too gross and after only 10 minutes or so in the store, I headed for the door as quickly as possible. I haven't been back since. Target, on the other hand, is usually pretty good. They generally have what I need at a fair price and I don't ever have to wait to long at the checkstand. Fred Meyer, from what I remember, in terms of cleanliness, selection, quality, is closer to Target. I think the thing that surprised me is everyone I talked to had wanted to know if I had been to Fred Meyer. I felt like I was missing something somehow because I didn't view it as a holy grail of a store the same way others had. Of course, I can't stand Costco, either, so what do I know? I guess if I had to rank the various stores, here's how they'd fall: Target Fred Meyer K-Mart Wal-Mart Hope that helps. - -- Cheers! - -g- "Work is the curse of the drinking class." - --Oscar Wilde ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 13:19:43 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: too much to reply to, part 1 >> I lived for six years in a small town (pop 2k). Perhaps existed is a better >> word. No-one "lived" in that town. It was the traditional one-horse town >> where the horse had died. Access to any form of mass entertainment work >> its snuff required the use of a vehicle to get you there, and at my age >> that was unavailable. > >these are all advantages. maybe, if you're a loner who hates people, dislikes being able to mix with people with whom you can hold any sort of sensible conversation, were happy with the ideas that it would take over an hour for any form of emergency medical help to arrive, that you'd be subject to more intense official scrutiny because you're in a lowly populated area, and are subject to occasional lack of water or electricity (often with a wait of days before it comes back online), then it's perfect. The smaller the place you live, the worse it is, with the extreme being reached if you live in total isolation on a farm or station of some kind. >to me it sounds like an oppurtunity that you decided was better to run >away from. maybe an abandonement of family and country in search of >temporary comfort. i don't remember your story so that may not be correct. Moved to there from the UK to be with extended family. Moved away when I went to university. >i find it hard to believe that in a town of 120k you don't have grocery >stores/convenience stores, coffee shops, hair salons and at least a tire >and battery garage, along with aroma therapists and foot massagers. Most of them are there, sure. But even a small town will have a hairdressers and coffee shop. As for grocery stores/convenience stores, I prefer to go to the local corner dairy, which is more like a small town store. Most small towns would have a combination autoelectrician/tyre retailer. As for foot massagers and aromatherapists, they may well exist here - I've no idea, never having used either. And this isn't the same as arguing from the availability of mega-chains. >> And I am very happy thank you. > >and that is what it is all about. but remember, you are easier to >monitor and therefore much easier to control. In small towns you're a larger proportion of the population and therefore stand out more. Which is why more officialdom is involved in small towns - and more still if you're not in a town at all. Your movements are far more likely to be under scrutiny on a farm than in a medium city, f'rinstance. You're just easier to cater to in a city, that's all. >the herd mentality helps soothe the waiting period along with simple >repetative jingles, advertising panaoramas and pretty girls. only realised what you probably meant by this when I read others' comments. Do you mean you have advertising blasting at you if you queue for things in the US? Weird. >you don't have cerfews at your city parks? that's hard to believe. No curfews in city parks. Actually, that's not true - there is one park in Dunedin which is closed after dark - the botanical gardens. All the others are open 24 hours a day, though. Not many people go there at night, mainly for safety reasons, but it can be fun to kick a soccer ball around by moonlight. >and >>it's ok to mow your lawn at 2:00am? that's also hard to believe, but >>if you insist. common courtesy applies wherever you live, even - presumably - in Texas. >> And if you lived in a small town you'd probably have run out of water >> completely by that time. > >what makes you think that? it is the large cities that run out of water >and electricity. ever watched that happen? no. I've seen rural areas have to have water shipped in in a drought, and there's one rural; area in the country at the moment that's having problems with its electricity supply due to the recent snow, but that's all. Auckland did run out of power once, about five years ago (due to the pathetic mismanaging of the city), but in the 20 years I've lived in Dunedin I've never known it happen here or ion any other city in NZ apart from that. >> Are smaller cities really that bad in the US, or is Greg having his usual >> wind-up? > >all cities are bad and you don't read well. Your argument seemed to be that all cities are bad (the bigger, the worse), that towns were better, but still bad, and that rural living was better than either. Your statement that cities were "only for people who can't live without a starbucks, 7-11, fred myers or super wal-mart within 1.26147 miles" also seemed to suggest that the culture of fast-food, fast-service, fast-product was the only reason anyone would want to live in a city. If that is not what your argument was, then I am mistaken. But remember the first rule of writing a thesis: if an argument can be misunderstood by the reader, then it hasn't been written well enough. Maybe it's just that you don't write logically or clearly enough to be read well. 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") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #260 ********************************