From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #339 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, September 17 2007 Volume 16 : Number 339 Today's Subjects: ----------------- It's always freaky to see your own name in a subject line (at least it is to me). [Christopher Gross ] RE: Something for Jill ["Bachman, Michael" ] Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! [Capuchin ] RE: Christopher Gross - please explain! [Michael Sweeney ] Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! [Michael Sweeney ] RE: Christopher Gross - please explain! ["Brian Huddell" ] Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! [2fs ] Buphymaniax spoilers ["MARK GLOSTER" ] Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! [2fs ] Re: Something for Jill [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! [2fs ] Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! [grutness@slingshot.co.nz] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:39:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: It's always freaky to see your own name in a subject line (at least it is to me). Lots of stuff to reply to, but I'll try to keep it brief.... 2fs wrote: > > character interesting. Even after Spike gets his soul back, he's not > > entirely heroic. > > I agree almost entirely with the rest of what you said...but to me, > "entirely heroic" is not at all the same as "entirely a good man." I think > Spike *was* heroic: not because he was perfect, not because he did the right > thing always, not after the chip, not after ensouling - but because he often > tried to do the right thing even at great cost to himself. Definitely agreed that I didn't explain myself well in that bit. I was thinking more of a "good guy" in the moral sense. "Hero" is more a description of a character's role in the story than his moral quality; it's closer to "protagonist" than to "good guy." Spike certainly does some heroic stuff. However, I'd add that until S7 his good acts were based on personal considerations, above all his love for Buffy, more than on any strong dislike for evil in general. That's actually one of the things I (being immune to his cheekbones) like best about Spike: he joins the forces of good before he's actually good himself. lep: > (btw, i believe it was jason who played the resident dead milkman geek > in the last round of "Christopher Gross - please explain!", not > jeff.) Whoops, you're right. Sorry Jason! I don't really think all you people whose names start with J look alike, honest.... > this is an interesting point. spike makes a choice much more than > e.g. buffy or angel (mind that i haven't seen past angel season 1 > yet.) angel and buffy both have a fate that happens to them whereas > spike makes a deliberate choice. angel, for instance, has no option > other than to be evil or to not be evil, depending on the status of > the Curse Bit. if the Curse Bit is off, he does have a choice to > actually do more than "not be evil", but it's not on the same level as > spike's choice. I think Capuchin answered this pretty well, so I'll just "me too" him, and re-emphasize that *all* the characters have to make a deliberate choice. Or rather, a lot of choices over and over again throughout the series; it's more than just a one-time choice of which side to join. Fate just determines the circumstances, and it does that as much with Spike as with Angel or anyone else. If Spike had never lost Drusilla and gained a chip, would he ever have fallen in love with Buffy and switched teams? And yes, it's pretty clear that falling for Buffy *is* what made Spike switch; he didn't see the need for a moral compass, ie a soul, until he saw the lack of it ruining any chance that Buffy would love him back. (I'd also add that Spike doesn't really seem to have *really* understood on a gut level what getting his soul back would mean.) I know your summer break is over now, but if you can find the time to watch Angel S2 and later, you'll find a lot more material relating to this question to mull over. I'll just rip this one line of Angel's out of context: "Even with a soul I've done things I've wished a thousand times I could take back." Also, just in the episodes you've seen, look at Faith's story! Cap: > If it weren't for that one little thing with Sweet and his belief that > Buffy wouldn't have the guts to do in Angel if she thought he might be > re-cursed, Xander is pretty much unblemished, morally. So he and Dawn > are the "good guys". And you'll note that even those two, though they never went evil, are not exactly saints. Lauren mentions Xander leaving Anya at the altar; I'd say his mistake rather was in pressing on until the wedding day despite his doubts. He's also prone to snap judgements and losing his temper. Likewise Dawn is prone to anger and selfishness (though hey, teenager). Every character in the Buffyverse is flawed, whether or not they go bad. And many, though not all, villains have a sympathetic side. Shades of grey on Joss's show go way beyond simple points like "hey, that one vampire got his soul back!" Kevin: >> Man's true nature is that he is capable of both good and evil. Whether >> this is the wrong question depends on the purpose of the question, >> which was not given here. > > Of course it's also been argued that good and evil are social constructs > with no intrinsic meaning. Which raises the larger point that we're discussing good and evil without defining them. I'm happy with the notion that good and evil are human judgements, rather than independent entities that exist outside of us. That doesn't in any way mean that good and evil are meaningless. But it still doesn't tell us exactly what they do mean, either. >> And chiseled >cheekbones, a macho strut and a cool long black coat do >> not add up to a >perfect man. > > Not a bad place to start, though. If I had my druthers I'd prefer to > look like Spike as opposed to the big ol' Scandahoovian squarehead model > I was issued. Either one would be an improvement on me. I am taller than Spike, though, and I cling to that. Oh, and I've never ripped anyone's throat out. - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:42:18 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Something for Jill Ya gotta love the Yankees! http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1031894 - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:03:45 -0400 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Something for Jill tc: > Ya gotta love the Yankees! http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1031894 If the red hot Tigers sweep the Cleveland Indians the next three games, they will only be 1 1/2 games behind the tribe and might not have to worry about passing the friggin' Yankees for the wild card. Now that they have most of there injured players back, it could well happen. Michael B. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:20:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Something for Jill Tom Clark wrote: > Ya gotta love the Yankees! > http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1031894 I can't believe I'm almost defending a Yankee, but given the rivalry between Yanks and Sawx, Duncan could have just assumed that the kid would prefer an autograph that reflected the rivalry. It's hard to tell without seeing how the kid and Duncan interacted, but it could easily have been a playfully inteded "Red Sox Suck" instead of nastily intended and that the kid was only upset after him mother informed him he was upset and offended. "Children have always enjoyed my movies. They are just not allowed to watch many of them." -- John Waters . ____________________________________________________________________________________ Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha! Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games. http://get.games.yahoo.com/proddesc?gamekey=monopolyherenow ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:21:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, kevin wrote: > conduct that gets you put in prison in one social context can earn you a > Presidential Medal Of Freedom in another. I'm just sayin'. And yet, they're both wrong. Go figure. As Jeffrey was pointing out, everything word is culturally defined and so hopping onto that train is just dooming your whole argument to semantic nonsense. Every time you turn to the argument that your opponent's view is dependent on cultural context, you are simultaneously tying yourself to the same lead weight and dragging your own side down into the unreasonable depths of impossible analysis. Moving forward, however, we can see that universally acts of destruction are only justified when they can be interpreted as acts of creation or preservation. In other words, creation and preservation are universal values and destruction is, in general, to be avoided. Hence any policy or action that optimizes creation and preservation while avoiding destruction is good and any policy or action that is destructive has aspects of evil. Then our goal should be to develop policies and take actions that create a world in which destruction is unappealling and allows all creatures to take their favorite creative action while ensuring the preservation of others. While there is some subtlety missing from this explanation, that is basically the idea behind a universal good and evil. > PS. Who's hoping OJ will really go to jail this time? Um, only the people who are sympathetic to murderers, kidnappers, and torturers. Frankly, I frown on all of the above. J. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:14:46 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: RE: Christopher Gross - please explain! Jeff wrote: >On 9/17/07, kevin wrote: > >>>...and, IMO, that "caught between the moon and New York City" line may well be >>>up there with Axl's "Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place / Where as a >>>child I'd hide" for worst line / couplet EVAR... >>>>"Newspaper taxis appear on the shore/Waiting to take me away" > >Yeah, but Lennon was trying to be imagistic and surreal...the other two lines seem >to want to be realistic but metaphoric...and fail miserably. The GnR line is much >worse, in being laughably incongruous... 1. Jeff hits the point well on the difference between surreal imagery (that may well, in the opinion of some, come off as laughable) and just horrible, poorly thought-out writing. 2. Yeah, there's a fairly onsiderable gulf between the Arthur tune line (merely an over-reaching grab) and the GnR one (really -- there are stoned 10th-graders in "Winger" t-shirts writing better couplets than that one...prob. MANY of them, actually). I was just bootstrapping the C. Cross reference (1980, "Tusk" tour, worst opening act EVAR) into getting to trot out the "Sweet Child" line, which just fascinates me in its own universe of badness. Not even Leonard Pinth-Garnell could properly explain how bad it is... Michael Sweeney ...bonus "not sure how I even know this" trivia: W. Axl Rose's real name is...Bill Bailey (won't you come home!) _________________________________________________________________ Kick back and relax with hot games and cool activities at the Messenger Cafi. http://www.cafemessenger.com?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_SeptWLtagline ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:08:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, lep wrote: > xander not showing at anya's wedding: -5. So now it's ANYA'S wedding?!? It takes two to tango. And you gotta admit, that was a pretty convincing ruse that kept him away. He had the tux on and everything. Anya totally overreacted to his explanation afterward as well. But that's what Anya IS. Except for a couple of glimmers of depth of understanding (notably in The Body and Chosen), Anya's whole purpose is to come to terms with humanity by only attaching herself to the most superficial and meaningless social rites. Her love of money and desire to be married and buy a boat (no wait, a dog!) reflect her station as "newly human". So when Xander expressed a more complex set of desires (which absolutely did not include ending or even slowing his relationship with Anya), she couldn't fit it into her scheme and flew off on her false assumption of a love=marriage/no marriage=no love dichotomy. The ending of their relationship is the tragedy of the morass of human emotion over reason -- no more and no less. Both Anya and Xander were swept along by culture and Anya just didn't have a braking mechanism (both had doubt and misgivings that they'll never tell). Essentially, the demon that intervened in order to ruin Anya's day was, like most of the demons in the show, just a hyper-realized personification of the harshest reality that attempts to shatter human ideals. Those ideals define the good, of course, and the evil is all of those things that get in the way. Anya's attachment to the ceremony overrided her attachment to Xander himself just as Xander's attachment to Anya overrided his attachment to himself and almost lead to him doing something he didn't really want to do. I don't blame Xander for either his attempt to please Anya or his ultimate decision to be true to himself. Indeed, I believe his ongoing commitment to her despite their history and her reversion is the stuff of heroics. J. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:38:29 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! Lauren spiked: >buffy spoilers to follow, and sweeney, just go now while you have the chance. Thanx for the warning, but I (generally; until my eyes glaze over, at least) try to read the Buffy-related posts -- it's kinda like spying into someone's personal communications about a bunch of people I have slightly heard of but don't really know...somewhat like reading your SO's old letters from college friends or somesuch. It's just when the digests go kinda "All Buffy, All the Time!" skeezy that I start wondering when we're gonna get back to talking about that Phil McCarthy (isn't he the one who was in the Chinese jail for awhile over trying to smuggle in batches of spoiled vegetarian lasagna?)... Michael "Not the Urban Spaceman (but, then again, who is?)" Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Kick back and relax with hot games and cool activities at the Messenger Cafi. http://www.cafemessenger.com?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_SeptWLtagline ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:15:01 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: REAP "Dumb Dora was so dumb..." [audience] "How dumb was she?" "...she was so dumb that she didn't know that BLANK died Saturday at age 83....that BLANK died Saturday." "Richard Dawson?" "She didn't know that MY CAREER died..." "Probably correct, but, no, not a match." "Charles Nelson Reilly?" [crickets] "Oh, sorry, Chaz, that's right -- you're dead, too." "Brett Somers?" "She didn't know that I died?" "Correct! She was so dumb, she didn't know that Brett Somers died Saturday." http://tinyurl.com/yvfomy Michael "Gene Rayburn? Dead! Bert Convy? Dead! Gary Burghoff? Uh, doing community theater in Iowa?" Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Can you find the hidden words? Take a break and play Seekadoo! http://club.live.com/seekadoo.aspx?icid=seek_wlmailtextlink ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:11:50 -0500 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: RE: Christopher Gross - please explain! > > PS. Who's hoping OJ will really go to jail this time? > > Um, only the people who are sympathetic to murderers, kidnappers, and > torturers. Well, this should be fun. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:35:13 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Something for Jill On 9/17/07, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > > Tom Clark wrote: > > Ya gotta love the Yankees! > > > http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1031894 > > I can't believe I'm almost defending a Yankee, but given the rivalry > between Yanks and Sawx, Duncan could have just assumed that the kid > would prefer an autograph that reflected the rivalry. It's hard to > tell without seeing how the kid and Duncan interacted, but it could > easily have been a playfully inteded "Red Sox Suck" instead of > nastily intended and that the kid was only upset after him mother > informed him he was upset and offended. It's possible...but for an adult male to make such assumptions regarding tone, and even that the kid's parents wouldn't have a problem with "Red Sox Suck," displays rather poor judgment. IT would have been one thing for Duncan to jokingly *say* to the kid, hey you know the Red Sox suck - another to put it in writing, as he did. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:49:21 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! On 9/17/07, Capuchin wrote: > > On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, lep wrote: > > xander not showing at anya's wedding: -5. > > So now it's ANYA'S wedding?!? It takes two to tango. > > And you gotta admit, that was a pretty convincing ruse that kept him away. > He had the tux on and everything. > > Anya totally overreacted to his explanation afterward as well. > > But that's what Anya IS. > Perfectly viable analysis of Anya and her roles omitted, but... Still, Xander should've handled it better. Just disappearing is, well, a cowardly way to handle it. Yes, he shouldn't have agreed to marry her in the first place given his misgivings (then again, if everyone waited until they'd settled all misgivings before making momentous decisions, no one would ever make a momentous decision: there's *always* something unsettled - hell, I'd argue that's one reason *why* such decisions are momentous: you're being asked to commit to something regardless of huge, towering uncertainty), but almost any action *at that moment* would have been preferable to just disappearing. *Telling* her he can't do it; even agreeing to go through with the wedding and telling her about his misgivings; even agreeing to go through with the wedding to save her humiliation even after telling her he was going to get out ASAP: any of these would have hurt Anya tremendously in themselves but not added also the hurt of uncertainty and of growing realization that Xander had, indeed, just left without a goddamned word. The issue of Xander's behavior is separate from the question of whether they should have gotten married in the first place. Xander's behavior was inexcusable because it was motivated primarily by fear and secondarily by selfishness (that he wouldn't turn into a drunken, abusive lout like his father if he didn't marry) and only thirdly by a desire not to hurt Anya...or he wouldn't have hurt Anya *more* in trying to avoid hurting her in the first place. Regardless, Chris was right that Whedon's characters are almost invariably painted in shades of gray: no one is wholly evil, or wholly good, just because of who they are. Their goodness or evilness (still not defining those terms, are we...) come from *their decisions*. And I still think that that's one of the main things Whedon emphasizes in his entire oeuvre. That doesn't mean he's some raving Randian individualist; it just means he recognizes that decisions *about* social responsibility still take place, each time, with each person. It's interesting that in two places where Whedon directly addresses the idea of, essentially, compelling everyone to be "good" at the cost of ridding them of agency, he very storngly comes down on the side of agency: in _Serenity_ (that's how I read the Pax thing, anyway) and in S4 of _Angel_ (no spoilers - but his decision re Jasmine). Oh: this good/evil thing? I'll go along with Kurt Vonnegut: "Goddamn it, you've got to be kind." Of course, figuring out what actually *is* kind can be difficult...but it's a useful rubric all the same. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:35:10 GMT From: "MARK GLOSTER" Subject: Buphymaniax spoilers I'm a little disappointed in the shows so far. Buffy just keeps kicking the crap out of the band Gwar or possibly the = cast of HR Puff'n'Stuff every show, but she never turns into the promised = rock band Slayer.=20 The only reason we were tuning in was to see that, 'cause it would totally = rock our world. = ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:54:28 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! On 9/17/07, Brian Huddell wrote: > > > > PS. Who's hoping OJ will really go to jail this time? > > > > Um, only the people who are sympathetic to murderers, kidnappers, and > > torturers. > > Well, this should be fun. I don't quite follow: pretty clearly, anyone who wants OJ to go to jail feels that way because they think that, despite the criminal verdict (and in accord with the civil judgment and his gorram fucking obscenity of a book), he himself is a murderer. So how is wanting him to go to jail being "sympathetic" to murderers, kidnappers, and torturers? Okay - I think I know where this is going: jail itself is an inhumane form of punishment. I would tend to agree, with the exception that some people pretty clearly are an imminent threat to others and certainly need to be prevented from harming others, however that might be accomplished. But in context, I think the question really is, "how many people are happy that OJ's finally going to get some sort of punishment more appropriate than having a few less million dollars to play golf with?" - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:58:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Something for Jill 2fs wrote: > On 9/17/07, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > > Tom Clark wrote: > > > Ya gotta love the Yankees! > > > > > > http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1031894 > > > > I can't believe I'm almost defending a Yankee, but given the > > rivalry between Yanks and Sawx, Duncan could have just assumed > > that the kid would prefer an autograph that reflected the > > rivalry. It's hard to tell without seeing how the kid and Duncan > > interacted, but it could easily have been a playfully > > inteded "Red Sox Suck" instead of nastily intended and that the > > kid was only upset after him mother informed him he was upset > > and offended. > > It's possible...but for an adult male to make such assumptions > regarding tone, and even that the kid's parents wouldn't have a > problem with "Red Sox Suck," displays rather poor judgment. IT > would have been one thing for Duncan to jokingly *say* to the kid, > hey you know the Red Sox suck - another > to put it in writing, as he did. Absolutely, even for a someone in a profession of arrested development. Of course, the kid was at a game where 30K+ were all chanting "Yankees Suck" so it's not like the kid wasn't familiar with the language. I also wonder if it had been a Devil Ray instead of a Yankee who wrote if the Boston Herald would have given a crap. "Children have always enjoyed my movies. They are just not allowed to watch many of them." -- John Waters . ____________________________________________________________________________________ Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:56:22 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! On 9/17/07, Michael Sweeney wrote: > > > friends or somesuch. It's just when the digests go kinda "All Buffy, All > the > Time!" skeezy that I start wondering when we're gonna get back to talking > about that Phil McCarthy (isn't he the one who was in the Chinese jail for > awhile over trying to smuggle in batches of spoiled vegetarian > lasagna?)... Remember the time Jim Lemmon spent like a whole week eating breakfast in a bag with his new wife Yugo Pwner? (Okay, we're heading deep into Rutles territory here...) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:01:32 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! - -- 2fs is rumored to have mumbled on 17. September 2007 16:54:28 -0500 regarding Re: Christopher Gross - please explain!: > I don't quite follow: pretty clearly, anyone who wants OJ to go to jail > feels that way because they think that, despite the criminal verdict (and > in accord with the civil judgment and his gorram fucking obscenity of a > book), he himself is a murderer. I know it's a cliche, but: two wrongs don't make a right. Of course that partly depends on what really happened in Vegas, but from what I've read so far it's not exactly clear. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 22:16:37 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: RE: Christopher Gross - please explain! Jeff wrote: >On 9/17/07, Michael Sweeney wrote: > >>friends or somesuch. It's just when the digests go kinda "All Buffy, All the >>Time!" skeezy that I start wondering when we're gonna get back to talking >>about that Phil McCarthy (isn't he the one who was in the Chinese jail for >>awhile over trying to smuggle in batches of spoiled vegetarian lasagna?)... > >Remember the time Jim Lemmon spent like a whole week eating breakfast in a >bag with his new wife Yugo Pwner? ...or when Jerry Hairston stole his best friend Rikki's dog and Rikki wrote a song about it? (think it was called "I Lost the Mastiff") Michael Sweeney ...OK - "Lemmon" triggered this (and I may have told this before...but won't again after this): 1986, I'm in NYC...I take the Gray Line boat tour around Manhattan, narrated by a middle-aged woman. Blah, blah - Battery Park; blah, Grant's Tomb; etc. (Overall, a nice tour.) Then, seemingly apropos to nothing, she says the following (almost verbatim -- it's friggin' burned into my memory): "The number one thing we get asked on this tour is 'Can we see the Dakota Building from here?' No, we cannot. The reason people ask me about that is because of what happened to Jack Lemmon there..." 20 years later, and I'm _still_ trying to figger out what happened to Jack Lemmon at the Dakota... _________________________________________________________________ Kick back and relax with hot games and cool activities at the Messenger Cafi. http://www.cafemessenger.com?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_SeptWLtagline ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:41:23 -0400 (EDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, 2fs wrote: > On 9/17/07, Brian Huddell wrote: >>>> PS. Who's hoping OJ will really go to jail this time? >>> Um, only the people who are sympathetic to murderers, kidnappers, and >>> torturers. >> Well, this should be fun. > > I don't quite follow: pretty clearly, anyone who wants OJ to go to jail > feels that way because they think that, despite the criminal verdict > (and in accord with the civil judgment and his gorram fucking obscenity > of a book), he himself is a murderer. > > So how is wanting him to go to jail being "sympathetic" to murderers, > kidnappers, and torturers? > > Okay - I think I know where this is going: jail itself is an inhumane > form of punishment. That's about halfway toward an accurate reading of my intention. There's no such thing as "humane punishment". The whole idea of punishment is to inflict evil upon someone. You can try to justify it by saying your evil is for a "greater good", but everyone who ever did evil thought that at the time. > I would tend to agree, with the exception that some people pretty > clearly are an imminent threat to others and certainly need to be > prevented from harming others, however that might be accomplished. Ah, the "he needed killin'" argument. Again, that's a matter of point of view. And a world in which violence and threat of violence is an appropriate response to unwanted behavior is a clearly not a world that considers violence to be unwanted behavior. It's a paradoxical cycle. > But in context, I think the question really is, "how many people are > happy that OJ's finally going to get some sort of punishment more > appropriate than having a few less million dollars to play golf with?" What kind of people do you think we are? Those who relish the suffering of others? That's insane... or at least sociopathic. J. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:47:45 +1200 From: grutness@slingshot.co.nz Subject: Re: Christopher Gross - please explain! Lauren wrote: >actually, not at all, "ass" just had a nicer ring in that sentence. I don't think anyone needs to comment further. 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 V16 #339 ********************************