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Thursday 06-20-2002 9:00 P.M. EDT
Heinlein's Travel
Return to Index
Here Begin The A.F.H. postings
Tramp Royale and "'Pravda' means 'Truth'" from Expanded Universe give us a very personal glimpse into the life of the Heinleins as travellers. Tramp has sometimes been criticised as outdated as a travel guide, but in some ways that may be part of it's charm, as a time capsule of the experience of travel in the 50's, when to a great extent the 'tourist industry' was very limited.
Those of us familiar with some of the places in the book can enjoy the contrasts with our experiences of them in more recent years. Some of us get to see our own hometowns from the point of view of an outsider, and certainly I contemplated whether a tourist couple would find a greater or lesser welcome on our streets today than the thankfully positive experience the Heinleins had in Brisbane in '53.
Personally, though, apart from seeing some wonderful sights through Heinlein's eyes, the greatest joy was the autobiographical nature of the works, seeing the dynamics of the Heinlein's lives together, and the deep respect and friendship that was the basis of their partnership.
[Carolyn Evans]
>The topic for the chats for June 20/22 will be Heinlein's travel writings, >particularly Tramp Royale. > >Tramp Royale and "'Pravda' means 'Truth'" from Expanded Universe give us a >very personal glimpse into the life of the Heinleins as travellers. Tramp >has sometimes been criticised as outdated as a travel guide, but in some >ways that may be part of it's charm, as a time capsule of the experience of >travel in the 50's, when to a great extent the 'tourist industry' was very >limited. > >Those of us familiar with some of the places in the book can enjoy the >contrasts with our experiences of them in more recent years. Some of us get >to see our own hometowns from the point of view of an outsider, and >certainly I contemplated whether a tourist couple would find a greater or >lesser welcome on our streets today than the thankfully positive experience >the Heinleins had in Brisbane in '53. > >Personally, though, apart from seeing some wonderful sights through >Heinlein's eyes, the greatest joy was the autobiographical nature of the >works, seeing the dynamics of the Heinlein's lives together, and the deep >respect and friendship that was the basis of their partnership. >I'm delighted with this topic. Carolyn deserves thanks for proposing it and agreeing to start the pre-meeting posts. Aside from the items noted by her, there are character portrayals of note and incidents described in Tramp Royale we may find "high-graded" elsewhere into RAH's writings; and, to those who have it, a chapter in Grumbles From the Grave that describes other Heinlein travels to the far northern and far southern ends of this world we might discuss. There may even be writings elsewhere describing some travel during RAH's naval service we might be able to note.
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
Are there any people here who know more about Moscow in the 50's/early60's that could shed light on this? Was Heinlein basing his analysis on a Western standard of living perhaps, overestimating transport requirements for the low consumer good levels in the USSR at the time, or might there be at least an element of truth in a Russian overestimation of population for sake of national pride?
[Carolyn Evans]
>Aside from the items noted >by her, there are character portrayals of note and incidents described >in Tramp Royale we may find "high-graded" elsewhere into RAH's writings; >and, to those who have it, a chapter in Grumbles From the Grave that >describes other Heinlein travels to the far northern and far southern >ends of this world we might discuss. There may even be writings >elsewhere describing some travel during RAH's naval service we might be >able to note. >I actually went through TR looking for high graded material and wrote a post about it once. I dug through Google and here it is from January 2000.
"I just read Tramp Royale again. The other two times I just read it
but this time I was giving it a keen, eagle eyed once over in search
of an on topic thread subject
Heinlein wrote it on his return from a trip around the world in 1953/54 but it didn't get published and was shelved. In the introduction, Virginia Heinlein says that, "It was then put in the files and sent to the library at the University of california at Santa Cruz and forgotten."
Maybe, but not by Heinlein. After all, this was a book he had written. No matter how fast he wrote it (I'm thinking of Farnham's Freehold; first draft in 25 days) it was his baby and no right thinking parent neglects a child. Scattered throughout the book are incidents, names and phrases which all seem very familiar. This is not really a shock; most authors hate wasting words they've committed to paper and the material provided by the trip was too good to waste, so naturally he incorporated it into later books. The fun part is spotting the references.
Some I spotted were;
Ticky going through the customs and being asked if she had anything to declare,
"Ticky had looked him in the eye and said, "Two pounds of heroin."
It was passed off as a joke but Heinlein pointed out to her that he could have kept them and,
" Subjected us and our baggage to a probe search. How would you like to be stripped to the skin?"
Anyone remember Clark trying the same thing but with worse consequences as he leaves Mars in Podkayne of Mars?
" Sure" he piped...."Two kilos of happy dust!"......
"I think we'll take this smart boy and search him to the skin and X ray him."
The Dutch ship MV Ruys on which the Heinleins travel turns up as the Konge Knut in Job. The Dutch skipper in Job is similar to the one in Friday if it comes to that. They all seem to share a happy go lucky attitude to life and alcohol.
Being a writer is an ideal way to reward and punish; a friendly owner of a dairy in Santiago, Senor Quirogo, becomes Supreme Minister Quiroga of the Humanity party in Double Star......and on the flip side, Heinlein pays back New Zealand by making Friday's family there some of the most unsympathetic bunch in his writing. ( Cat killers!!!)
He also works in the Maoris and their history by making Uncle Tom and Poddy have Maori ancestors. Remember Poddy picking her teeth in a very vulgar way?
"We Maori have a very bloodthirsty history and I won't even hint at what it is we are supposed to be picking out of our teeth."
In TR he says that the Maori of the past were, " The mad dog of Polynesian peoples. They were not simply barbarous, they were bloodthirsty savages, perhaps the worst this wicked planet has seen. Physical courage and family loyalty were their only virtues. They exterminated the unwarlike aboriginal inhabitants of New Zealand, then turned their attention to eating each other, a practise to which they were addicted......." Hmm...Poddy has hidden depths!
In 1957 Heinlein introduced us to Mr Jenkins, a "little grey burro," one of the imaginary animals in The Man Who Travelled In Elephants. He also says in EU that he wanted to write a Puddin story about a donkey with the same name, who kept, "Looking at me with mournful eyes."
This is pure guilt because on the trip he wouldn't let Ticky buy a donkey. They cost 35 cents so he gave her the money and said he'd see her back home, after she'd managed to get the donkey through immigration, quarantine etc. She did what any wife would do; kept the money, refused to spend it and referred to it as "money for the donkey" . Quite right too......
Finally, the pivotal incident in SIASL where Mike watches a bigger monkey steal from a smaller one, who then goes and steals from a tiny one, is presaged in TR where Ticky is amazed that despite her attempts to deal out food equally to a crowd of monkeys, one monkey comes up behind her and steals the lot.
Heinlein, being man not Martian, comments,
"In two years they will have to let those monks vote"; dishonesty being a step up the evolutionary ladder I assume. OK, I'm done; can anyone think of any more? It really is fun seeing how he took real life incidents and fictionalised them. Sorry this seems to be pretty long but I can't snip *before* I post <g>"
Jane -- http://www.heinleinsociety.org
<giant snip of an excellent post, even if it is a bit old!>
Thanks for some ideas on what to look for Jane! I think TR is one Heinlein I have not re-read and am looking forward to reading again. So, I will be pencil and notebook in hand, reading quickly in time for the next chat!
Elizabeth
(happened to have Expanded Universe in the 'Library' and bookmarked at "Pravda" Means "Truth" when the new Reader's Group subject was announced)
[TreeTopAngel]
>David Silver wrote: > (snip) >Ticky going through the customs and being asked if she had anything >to declare, >"Ticky had looked him in the eye and said, "Two pounds of heroin." >It was passed off as a joke but Heinlein pointed out to her that he >could have kept them and, >" Subjected us and our baggage to a probe search. How would you like >to be stripped to the skin?" > >Anyone remember Clark trying the same thing but with worse >consequences as he leaves Mars in Podkayne of Mars? >" Sure" he piped...."Two kilos of happy dust!"...... >"I think we'll take this smart boy and search him to the skin and X >ray him."I also recall the 'reverse' of what happened here in NOTB. When they were being scanned by the Lensman, Hilda did an unauthorized return to Martian orbit because she *was* carrying '2(?) pounds of extract of Martian Cannabis' or something to that effect.
David Wright
(snip)
>Heinlein pays back New Zealand by making Friday's >family there some of the most unsympathetic bunch in his writing. ( >Cat killers!!!) >He also works in the Maoris and their history by making Uncle Tom >and Poddy have Maori ancestors. Remember Poddy picking her teeth in >a very vulgar way? > >"We Maori have a very bloodthirsty history and I won't even hint at >what it is we are supposed to be picking out of our teeth." > >In TR he says that the Maori of the past were, >" The mad dog of Polynesian peoples. They were not simply barbarous, >they were bloodthirsty savages, perhaps the worst this wicked planet >has seen. Physical courage and family loyalty were their only >virtues. They exterminated the unwarlike aboriginal inhabitants of >New Zealand, then turned their attention to eating each other, a >practise to which they were addicted......." >Hmm...Poddy has hidden depths! > >JaneHuh? I'm presently ploughing my way through an over-earnest history of New Zealand, it so happens, and it states quite clearly (as I'd always assumed anyway) that the Maori *were* the aboriginal inhabitants.
His assessment of Maori character doesn't quite gel with what I'm reading, either. Not gentle, cannibal in certain strictly defined circumstances, but quite definitely civilised (like a certain Martian we know;-)).
>From: Jane Davitt >Finally, the pivotal incident in SIASL where Mike watches a bigger >monkey steal from a smaller one, who then goes and steals from a >tiny one, is presaged in TR where Ticky is amazed that despite her >attempts to deal out food equally to a crowd of monkeys, one monkey >comes up behind her and steals the lot.Apropos of nothing:
When I was a kid my family and I visited Sea World in Florida. They had a tourist trap where you could buy fish to feed to two sea lions in a tank. One of them was very agressive and getting all of the fish. We finally saw an opportunity to get at least one fish to the timid one, or at least so we thought. It was directly underneath us while the agressive one was swimming around the other side of the tank. We dropped a fish directly down to the timid one. The other one immediately swept across the tank, leaped over the timid one, and grabbed the fish as it fell.
[LV Poker Player] -- Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc. - from 1984 by George Orwell
[snip]If you've recently started reading Heinlein, or been away a while, and returned, you might be wondering what books we're talking about here.
_Tramp Royale_ (Ace Science Fiction/Autobiography, hardbound edition/April 1992, trade edition/November 1996, was published posthumously by arrangement with the author's estate) trade paper ISBN 0-441-00409-1.
You are as likely to find it in travel sections of the bookstore as in autobiography or shelved with science fiction. In large chains check with the clerk's computer. They can usually order it in two days or so.
_Expanded Universe_ (full name: The _New_ Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein: Expanded Universe) (Ace Books, @1980, first hardcover printing October 1980, first trade paperback printing February 1981) trade paper ISBN 0-441-21883-0. There is also a mass market paper printing.
Again, you are likely to find it on shelves other than science fiction, although less so than with Tramp Royale, because it contains, also, some short stories. It, probably the mass market paper, can also be ordered in about the same time.
Expanded Universe is an expansion, about twice the size, of the former "The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein," (G. 160, 1966).
_Grumbles From the Grave_ (edited by Virginia Heinlein, @ 1989 by the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Trust, UDT 20 June 1983, A Del Rey Book, Ballantine Books, first hardcover edition January 1990, first mass market paperback edition December 1990) mass market paper ISBN 0-345-36941-6. This is a collection of letters, photographs, and editorial notes, some by Robert and some by Virginia. It can probably be ordered, used if not new, by various chains and online used sources, and you may yet encounter new (or possibly used) copies in various really good stores, usually in the science-fiction section, but also check autobiography and biography.
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
... >I'm presently ploughing my way through an over-earnest history of >New Zealand, it so happens, and it states quite clearly (as I'd always >assumed anyway) that the Maori *were* the aboriginal inhabitants.I think your book is mistaken. I recall an article some years back, about a particular Maori tribe that claimed to be descended from the pre-Maori inhabitants of New Zealand. DNA testing showed preodminantly Maori genes, but also lots of genes that didn't turn up anywhere else - enough to convince the researchers that this tribe had assimilated the aboriginals, rather than wiping them out.
>His assessment of Maori character doesn't quite gel with what I'm >reading, either. Not gentle, cannibal in certain strictly defined >circumstances, but quite definitely civilised (like a certain Martian >we know;-)).Billy Connolly used to tell a story (supposedly true) that illustrated the Maori character: a pitched battle was being fought between Maori and British troops (both sides had firearms). Eventually, the British stopped shooting, and a Maori popped up to ask them why. "We've run out of ammo."
"That's no problem" said the Maori, "you can have some of ours."
And the battle carried on as before.
[Simon Jester]
.Snip comments about TR influences appearing in RAH's fiction. >OK, I'm done; can anyone think of any more? It really is fun seeing >how he took real life incidents and fictionalised them. Sorry this >seems to be pretty long but I can't snip *before* I postHow about the description of Singapore in GR? *Very* different to today's Singapore."
[Simon Jester]
Dear Carolyn,
I hope you won't mind me sending you a peronal reply to your post on AFH.
We were in Moscow in 1960. I asked Robert whether the population figure that the Russians were giving out could possibly be correct? He thought about it and answered that it did not seem possible.
When we got home, a classmate of his called on us. He was a specialist in logistics (supply of materiel and food etc. to where it would be needed). So Robert asked him about our estimates. He thought about the matter for a short while, and then answered that the figures could not possibly be correct, since the transportation system could not suppport that many people. He knew exactly the number of railroad tracks going into the city, and the number of roads for transport of food etc.
He figured the railroads, and trucking routes and decided that there simply weren't enough of those to feed as many people as the Russians had told us there were in Moscow. I was inclined to take his word for it, because while there were a lot of cars and trucks in Moscow, the roads outside there were not very heavily trafficked, and few in number.
We found that Russians are inclined to exaggerate the size of almost everything when they give you a figure. Perhaps that is because they just don't know the answer, but for example, the "great department store. GUM" in Moscow is simply a collection of small shops, under one roof.
One thing, I especially noticed was that, at that time, there were not any frozen foods avaiable in most parts of the S. U.; we saw them only in the "captive countries" of the north. Latvia in particular.
So I concluded that our observation was correct--but there is no way of proving it one way or the other.
Ginny Virginia Heinlein Astyanax12@aol.com
>David Silver wrote: > >Aside from the items noted > >>by her, there are character portrayals of note and incidents described >>in Tramp Royale we may find "high-graded" elsewhere into RAH's >>writings; and, to those who have it, a chapter in Grumbles From the >>Grave that describes other Heinlein travels to the far northern and >>far southern ends of this world we might discuss. There may even be >>writings elsewhere describing some travel during RAH's naval service >>we might be able to note. >> >I actually went through TR looking for high graded material and wrote a post > >about it once. [snip] >OK, I'm done; can anyone think of any more? It really is fun seeing >how he took real life incidents and fictionalised them. Sorry this >seems to be pretty long but I can't snip *before* I postI think there's two sorts of mining terminology that can be applied to the author's-eye view we can see in a work such as _Trampe Royal_. High grading, when the raw ore is transplanted without change, and ore refining, a little more complicated.
One of the later sort may appear in the second chapter, "South to the Southern Cross," at pages 31-2. Robert and "Ticky," his "anarchist-individualist" wife we know as Ginny start the trip by train from Colorado Springs to New Orleans, from which they expect to leave by ship, the S.S. Gulf Shipper, to South America. But the departure date of the Gulf Shipper is postponed three days, leaving the Heinleins with a "couple of days to kill" in New Orleans where, among other things, they spend an evening, a long evening, in a nightclub, the Old French Opera House (OFOH) at prices Heinlein assures us results in his having bought and paid for the place, although through "some oversight the deed has not yet been sent to me; however, we have been travelling; it may be awaiting us in the States."
After one show, while preparing to leave, the Heinleins are joined by the first act's M.C., his relief having taken over for the second show, who they invite to have a drink. Three hours later they are still buying drinks for him and a "little blonde stripper named Pam."
Ignore for the moment the portrait of the M.C. who so nicely helped the Heinleins with their Purchase of OFOH. Consider the portrait of Pam:
"
Pam, the little blonde stripper who joined us presently, was suffering from a hangover and love. She and the trap drummer planned to get married, but would have to wait a bit as he was buying a set of traps. She assured us that she could cook. It seemed that everyone in the show was suffering from a hangover, the preceding night (Saturday) having been very drunk out, including among other things, Pam having had her bar bill cut off by the manager and retaliating by taking off her shoes and throwing them at him. One of the girls had threatened suicide and Paul [the M.C.] had had to go into their dressing room and quash it. There was no general agreement as to which girl was threatening suicide but all agreed that someone had.
"
We were supplying the hair of the dog--at house prices.
"
I don't know how I got out without paying the French War debt as well, but I did, eventually. Actually, both Paul and Pam were nice kids; Ticky and I liked both of them. Pam was 21 and had been a striper since she was 13, at which time her mother used to take her to and from work. Ticky asked her if she wasn't scared when she started. Oh, yes! but now it was just a job, a better paying job than working in an office. The girls make $75 to $90 a week. There is no real future in it, of course, and it is inclined to turn them all into habitual drinkers, if not alcoholics. I haven't the slightest idea how many of them end up in bagnios--probably most of them get married. If stripping damages their moral fibre, I was unable to discern it."
I'm taking nominations for how many times Pam appears in later stories written by RAH. And how refined she becomes. I think I see her three times in IWFNE alone. Any others?
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
<simonjester@freeuk.com>held forth, saying:
>Jane Davitt wrote: >.Snip comments about TR influences appearing in RAH's fiction. >>OK, I'm done; can anyone think of any more? It really is fun seeing >>how he took real life incidents and fictionalised them. Sorry this >>seems to be pretty long but I can't snip *before* I postGR was written how many decades ago?" > >How about the description of Singapore in GR? *Very* different to today's >Singapore.
--aside: can you imagine RAH's reaction to a soccer riot in Red Square?
-- -denny- nocturnal curmudgeon, editor Never try to outstubborn a cat. - Lazarus Long
<simonjester@freeuk.com>wrote:
>Philip Brown wrote: >... >>I'm presently ploughing my way through an over-earnest history of >>New Zealand, it so happens, and it states quite clearly (as I'd always >>assumed anyway) that the Maori *were* the aboriginal inhabitants. > >I think your book is mistaken. I recall an article some years back, about a >particular Maori tribe that claimed to be descended from the pre-Maori >inhabitants of New Zealand. DNA testing showed preodminantly Maori genes, >but also lots of genes that didn't turn up anywhere else - enough to >convince the researchers that this tribe had assimilated the aboriginals, >rather than wiping them out. >According to my Googling this evening, the academic consensus is that there is no worthwhile evidence for pre-Maori inhabitants of New Zealand. The notion goes back to a 19th-century misunderstanding of Maori myth and a coincidence in tribal names with inhabitants of the Chatham Islands...
http://www.culture.co.nz/moriori/moriori5.htm
The mainstream verdict is that it was a handy way for the British to excuse their appalling treatment of the Maori (they were no better themselves, you see...)
On the other hand, there are some truly bizarre websites out there devoted to the idea that there were indeed pre-Maoris. These sites denounce the Politically Correct Academic fear of upsetting the Maori and call up a splendid jumble of evidence (Velikovsky is in there somewhere).
One or two such go beyond fruitcake to plain racist, but my favourite has to be the one which insists that the pre-Maori were Ancient Celts.
I kid you not....
http://www.celticnz.co.nz/
snip >One or two such go beyond fruitcake to plain racist, but my favourite >has to be the one which insists that the pre-Maori were Ancient Celts. > >I kid you not.... >http://www.celticnz.co.nz/ >Musta been those Welsh after they left Mobile.....
[snip] > >I think there's two sorts of mining terminology that can be applied to >the author's-eye view we can see in a work such as _Trampe Royal_. High >grading, when the raw ore is transplanted without change, and ore >refining, a little more complicated. > [snip the excerpt about Pam the stripper] > >I'm taking nominations for how many times Pam appears in later stories >written by RAH. And how refined she becomes. I think I see her three >times in IWFNE alone. Any others? >Here's maybe another example: In _Tramp Royale_, Chapter IV, "The Land of 'Papá'," at pg. 105:
The Heinleins are in Buenos Aires, Argentina (remember in 1953, General Perón is still Dictator, er, President), and the Heinleins are being shown the sites by a paid individual guide recommended by their hotel whose name is Herman.
" That afternoon Herman took us to see a very special sort of school, Escuela Pedro de Mendoza. It is the home and studio of Maestro Benito Quinquela Martín, possibly the greatest living Argentino painter; it is also an art museum, a grammar school, and an art school. Señor Quinquela was a very poor boy in the waterfront neighborhood where he grew up. The _escuela_ is a beautiful modern six-story building by the water; the Maestro owns it, pays the expenses, pays the salaries of the staff of teachers. The poor children of the neighborhood attend free. " A child who attends is not especially likely to bcome an artist; it is in most respects simply a well-run grammar school. But a pupil there who happens to display artistic talent has every opportunity to study under a renowed master. Señor Quinquela named the school for the artist who gae him his chance, Maestro Pedro de Mendoza. "[I'll omit the rest of the passage pertaining to this artist for you to read yourself] . . . ."
Heinlein was quite impressed by what this artist had done, even though he never met the man who was out of the city when the Heinleins visited.
The thing is: if you are an Arthor you can take a person, age him or reduce his age, give him attributes you admire or detest to fit with what you know about him even if you've never met him, and put him in a book.
I've suggested elsewhere that Joe Branca in IWFNE is the sympathetic portrait of an "artist as a young man," and I'll suggest here that some of Joe Branca is a tribute to an "artist as a much older man" whom the Author found evidence of in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1953.
What do you think? Anyone see any more of these 'characters' in Tramp Royale, or the other travel writings?
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
>Jane Davitt wrote: > (snip) >I think there's two sorts of mining terminology that can be applied to >the author's-eye view we can see in a work such as _Trampe Royal_. High >grading, when the raw ore is transplanted without change, and ore >refining, a little more complicated. > Tramp Royale - p. 108 We heard of one other custom much more wildly exotic. I was not able to check on it as it referred to Paraguay, a country we were not able to visit. But here it is: it is alleged that Paraguay has no law against murder, killing being considered a private matter; either the deceased is a no-good and everyone is glad he is dead, or the friends and relatives of the departed can be depended on to avenge the matter themselves. TMIAHM - p. 168 "Mannie, you're telling me that I can murder a man here and settle the matter merely with money?" "Oh, not at all! But eliminating isn't against some law; are no laws-except Warden's regulations-and Warden doesn't care what one Loonie does to another. But we figure this way: If a man is killed, either he had it coming and everybody knows it -usual case-or his friends will take care of it by eliminating man who did it. Either way, no problem. Nor many eliminations. Even set duels aren't common."
David Wright
>I think there's two sorts of mining terminology that can be applied to >the author's-eye view we can see in a work such as _Tramp Royale_. High >grading, when the raw ore is transplanted without change, and ore >refining, a little more complicated. >Here's another for you, skipping over a few since the last two noted by David the Elder and me:
The Heinleins are now in the Union of South Africa, Cp. VIII, "The Country With a Problem," pp. 151, ff, at 163-4: " After we left the factory at Sam's firm he dropped us downtown; we set out to do some sightseeing. Time being limited I hired a taxi--a licensed guide and tour car seemed unnecessary since this was an English-speaking city. Taxis park in the middle of the street in Cape Town; I located one and asked the driver for a rate by the hour. " The was no rate by the hour, only by the mile . . . so I told him what we wanted to do and asked approximately how much it would cost by the hour. His answer indicated it would probably cover twenty to thirty miles in the city driving in an hour, which seemed reasonable, so I hired, telling him to drive us around the city and point out the sights to us. " Thereafter we got just one piece of 'information' out of him; I asked him how many people there were in Cape Town. He said he didn't know exactly but it was somewhere between eight and nine million. I did not agree but contemplated the beauty of it. Cape Town is actually a little over half a million and looks smaller, as much of the city is spread out down the Cape peninsula in formerly independent communities. The downtown part in front of Table Mountain has a lazy, sleepy quality more suited to a much smaller community, and the suburbs are garden villages--the whole city is lovely. " Our driver immediately thereafter lost all command of the English language. Instead of driving us inside the main city he hunched over his wheel and tooled his car out into the open country as quickly as possible; once on the open road he stepped his speed up to about sixty or better and held it there. Protests had no effect. * * * * * . . . having accomplished the maximum mileage possible without a fatal accident. I paid the exact amount without a tip. But I was unable to be really angry at the trick he had played on us; by pouring on the gas and running up the mileage he had managed to take us all around Table Mountain and far down the Cape on a tour we had reluctantly decided to forgo through lack of time. As it was we saw almost everything usually covered in a leisurely full-day tour. " But the scenery certainly whizzed past." Compare, of course: " I told the driver in English what landing I wanted, repeated it in memorized Cantonese (not too well; it's a nine-toned language, and French and German are all I had in school), and showed him a map with the landing marked and its name printed in English and drawn in Chinese. * * * * * " My cabbie listened, glanced at the map, and said, 'Okay, Mac. I dig it,' and took off and rounded the corner with tires squealing while shouting at peddle cabs, coolies, children, dogs. I relaxed, happy at having found this cabbie among thousands. " Suddenly I sat up and shouted for him to stop. " I must explain something: I can't get lost. * * * * * "I had shouted because the driver had swung right when he should have swung left and was about to cut back on his own track. " He speeded up. " I yelled again. He no longer dug English. . . . " --Glory Road, of course. Cp. I, pp. 21-2 [hardbound edition].Hi, Evelyn Cyril. Meet Bob.
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
>On Tue, 11 Jun 2002 11:33:25 +0100, "Simon Jester" ><simonjester@freeuk.com>held forth, saying: > > >>Jane Davitt wrote: [snip] >>How about the description of Singapore in GR? *Very* different to today's >>Singapore. >> > >GR was written how many decades ago? > >--aside: can you imagine RAH's reaction to a soccer riot in Red >Square? >Dunno. Ginny? There was a riot in Red Square after Japan defeated Russia in the World Cup Soccer tournament, a couple days ago. Soccer holligans, not apparently political, although they went looking for oriental restaurants, among other things. The Russian police evidentally did not expect one, anticipating only around 8,000 soccer fans, instead of a substantial multiple of that which is what they got and sufficient reinforcements didn't arrived until two hours after it started.
What would you say: cynicism or a bewildered elation -- the tolitarian regime has loosened the screw so much that it's not ready to control the mob even when, presumably, it would wish affirmatively to do so -- mixed with a little sadness that holliganism is everywhere?
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
>The topic for the chats for June 20/22 will be Heinlein's travel writings, >particularly Tramp Royale. >There's a very interesting passage contained in the last five pages of Tramp Royale, beginning at page 366, with:
" The most important thing that I believe I learned from a trip around our planet . . . "What follows is an essay containing several points, noteably among them Heinlein's stated that the trip "cured me of One-Worldism." But there are other points to it.
Anyone wish to discuss these most important thing[s] learned?
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
> >There's a very interesting passage contained in the last five pages of >Tramp Royale, beginning at page 366, with: > >" The most important thing that I believe I learned from a trip around >our planet . . . " > >What follows is an essay containing several points, noteably among them >Heinlein's [statement] that the trip "cured me of One-Worldism." But there >are other points to it. > >Anyone wish to discuss these most important thing[s] learned?Aw, com'on, I promise I won't bite. ;-)= <---two very small teeth
It contains such nuggets as:
" . . . no progress whatsoever is being made on the prime problem facing the human race, that the problem is bigger than I had dreamed, and that, most tragically, it probably has no solution. * * * * * " . . . [the following is in all italics] The only place left for the billion people in China and the Indian subcontinent to spill over is into areas already occupied by the white Western nations. [end italics]" And there follow predictions of World War III [who said it had to be with Soviet Russia? I ask]. And various questions about whether we are our brother's keepers, intermixed with the Mathusian Solution, the inadvisability of paying Danegeld, England's example "in the days of her strength" and the note that even if the game is rigged "it is the only game in town." Finally, a conclusion that we, as the United States, should not be afraid of choosing from among the various unsafe courses, "not even of our friends."Does all of that possibly have some application today?
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
>David Silver wrote: > > >> >>There's a very interesting passage contained in the last five pages of >>Tramp Royale, beginning at page 366, with: >> >>" The most important thing that I believe I learned from a trip around >>our planet . . . " >> >>What follows is an essay containing several points, noteably among them >>Heinlein's [statement] that the trip "cured me of One-Worldism." But there >>are other points to it. >> >>Anyone wish to discuss these most important thing[s] learned? > > >Aw, com'on, I promise I won't bite. ;-)= <---two very small teethHmm, we're being trampled in the rush on this one. :) I wonder if it's a lack of familiarity with the books by the group, or a lack of interest in general in the topic. Perhaps it would be a good idea to go back to the tried and true discussions, like "was Eunice a pain in the ass" or "did Lazarus really have all the answers to Life, the Universe and Everything".
>. . . [the following is in all italics] The only place left for the >billion people in China and the Indian subcontinent to spill over is >into areas already occupied by the white Western nations. [end italics]"As for the India question, we've seen a slightly different answer, religious partition, nationalism, and Indian politicians suggesting that the loss of 25 million Indians in a nuclear exchange wouldn't hurt the country at all. I truly fear that within 25 years, either we will see a glow in the dark subcontinent, or Pakistan (and possibly Bangladesh) will simply cease to exist as an independent nation. One way or another.
The interesting question for "the white Western nations" is what we intend to do when refugee/economic migrant flight from war zones and totalitarian regimes becomes a wholesale rather than retail phenomenon. At the moment, we have enough angst about a few boats of Afghanis and Iraqis, and in the case of the US Haitians and Cubans. But what could/would we do if say China loaded up a few freighters with tens of thousands of their people from a famine zone, plus assorted gunboats to ensure their safe passage, and simply dumped them here or in say Alaska. Or Canada.
The problem is the same Heinlein saw in the 50's but much greater numbers are involved now, and so far no solutions have been found.
> >-- > David M. Silver > http://www.heinleinsociety.org > http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm > "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" > Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 > Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988) >[Carolyn Evans]
>"David Silver" <ag.plusone@verizon.net>wrote in message >news:3D0FDB90.6080106@verizon.net... >[snip] >> >>It contains such nuggets as: >> >>". . . no progress whatsoever is being made on the prime problem facing >>the human race, that the problem is bigger than I had dreamed, and that, >>most tragically, it probably has no solution. >>* * * * * >> > >An old man's handwringing's not all that exciting a topic, Dave. So, he goes >to Asia and sees the magnitude of the Yellow Peril and all hope is lost. Big >deal. He was out of touch then and it's a non-issue now. Further, it smacks >of Slobodan Milosovic's ethnic cleansing more than just a little. >Which is a problem even discussing it. Yet I think he faces up to the problem as when he writes:
" . . . My own ancestors came to this continent, pushed the Indians aside--or killed them--and made far better use of the land for far more people. I feel no special qualms about it now. But suppose the teeming crowds of Asia now give us the same treatment, seeing that we are making something less than maximum use of the land for maximum population. Have I a right to feel indignant? " I will not duck the issue. I have always believed that a man who accepts capital punishment should not be too squeamish to serve his term as hangman. The tail goes with the hide. I have not been able to find a moral answer which pleases me; nevertheless I know my answer--precisely that of Australians. I'll fight before I'll let the spawning millions of Asia roll over Colorado and turn it into the sort of horizontal slum that Java is. Maybe this decision damns my soul; if so, so must it be. I don't see any solution to the problem of Asia at all, for they won't stop breeding ... in fact, the psychological truth is almost certainly they _can't_. But I am not willing to move over and give them room here to breed another hundred million--or half a billion. We have a pretty good nation, at least for the time being; I will not willingly see it turned into a slum." _Tramp Royale_ at 367-8Earlier, in what I have abovethread called "the essay" he writes he believes the Anzacs will fight themselves, "to the last digger, to the last Kiwi," before they similiarly turn over their continent; and they, of course, are first in line geographically.
The trip took place in '53-'54. The next year, the novel _Tunnel in the Sky_ was published; and it begins with the chapter, "The Marching Hoards."
So if we're looking for thematic inspiration, here it is: or rather we can supplement our look in the chapter on Java he referred to, Chapter X, "The Underside of the Orient," where the density of population then was one thousand to a square mile. Djakarta's canal best exemplified what the Heinlein's saw there:
" Our guide pointed out the swarms of people bathing in the canal and said proudly that people here were very clean; they were likely to come down to the canal for a bath three or four times a day. I could understand how it could be an endless process, since bathing in that filth would leave a person dirtier than ever. The so-called bath was rendered less efficient for females by the fact that they bathed with their sarongs on, whereas the men just stripped naked and went in--through I don't suppose it mattered either way; filth is filth. " People stopped to drink, housewives dipped up pans from it to take home for cooking, and at one point we saw a woman dipping a toothbrush in the canal to scrub her teeth--an unexpected refinement. Just upstream of her the canal was currently being put to use in its aspect as a sewer; the guide glanced at both activities and said happily, 'People never get any disease from the canal. The sunlight, beating down all day, kills the germs.'" _Tramp Royale_, at 235I dunno, L.N.; for I see the same hint of Spenglerism, the sort of things Teddy Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling believed, about so-called 'white' nations; and we all know just as well as we know our hands where the excess of that belief led. I don't need to be Albanian to know about what we call today ethnic cleansing; sixty-two of sixty-three of my father's European relatives--in the so-called 'Russian Pale,' cousins, uncles, aunts, and in-laws vanished into the camps circa 1939-45. Lucky my grandmother and grandfather got on that boat in Danzig in 1884, eh?
Yet, is it excessive, or is it racism, simply to note:
" Nevertheless that minority of the human race called loosely the Western democratic peoples and consisting mostly of Caucausians even though not identical with the Caucausian race has added twenty, eighty, a hundred times as much to human wealth, human knowledge, human dignity and freedom, as all the rest of the human race put together. Sanitation, scientific farming, mass production, civil liberties--these are _our_ inventions, not theirs. We have shared them, what they would accept, and that is good--but we _do_ _not_ owe the teeming rest of the world a living!" _Tramp Royale_, at 368
>>" >>. . . [the following is in all italics] The only place left for the >>billion people in China and the Indian subcontinent to spill over is >>into areas already occupied by the white Western nations. [end italics]" >> > >So, what? They pour over the borders, marry our daughters and after thirty >years you won't be able to find a competent caucasian septegenarian >doomsayer anywhere? What a loss. > >That's one scenario. But what makes you think "we want to marry your daughters, kemo sabe?" I don't particularly care whether Asians marry our daughters. My daughter already is one-quarter Asian, her mother is half-Filipina, as a matter of fact. I'm not particularly worried about her grandfather who came here in 1927 or so and spent his life serving train passengers on the Great Northern.
In "The Marching Hoardes," Chapter I, in _Tunnel in the Sky_, esp. at pp. 14-18 [Scribner's hardbound edition], our attention is directed to Gate Five on forty-eight hour loan to the "Australasian Republic" where hyperfolded to a point in central Australia in the Arunta Desert, a great encampment for emigration has been mounting for the past several weeks, in excess of two million people to pass through in forty-eight hours, more than forty thousand per hour.
And our attention is directed to the "removal of the remnants of the former Australian population to New Zealand, pursuant to the Peiping Peace Treaty" etc. . . .
Ever figure out how you get that many doggies to march into the chute, let alone how you get them to keep moving out there in the Arunta Desert to keep entering the chute? After a while I imagine the sand was turned to red mud.
>>And there follow predictions of World War III [who said it had to be >>with Soviet Russia? I ask]. And various questions about whether we are >>our brother's keepers, intermixed with the Mathusian Solution, the >>inadvisability of paying Danegeld, England's example "in the days of her >>strength" and the note that even if the game is rigged "it is the only >>game in town." >> > >Even if the old man's glib, it doesn't hide that he wants to play politics >with his prejudices. I don't see the problem. To me, it's a chance to learn >Mandarin or Cantonese or Spanish, things I should have learned years ago >anyway. > >What is politics? A substitute for a real war? What would you rather have? In Korean, the year before, they were using jeep-mounted quad fifties, designed to shoot at aircraft, in 'weapons platoons' on the so-called 38th parallel, to stop CCA human wave attacks, and often they were unsuccessful.
>>Finally, a conclusion that we, as the United States, should not be >>afraid of choosing from among the various unsafe courses, "not even of >>our friends." >> > >Here, the old man really loses it. What, team up with the other white guys, >even if they're commies, so the coloreds won't outnumber us?Read it again. What he says is he doubts whether the U.S. will get any support from Europe, the 'other white guys' as you call them.
He urges emulation of England, "in the days of her strengh" as England stood alone in her own best interests and ignorned world opinion. Have you read it indeed?
>Really, Dave, >the lesson is "no matter who you are and how many people think you can write >real nice and how much homespun, plaintalking, space-opera situated >cracker-barrelling you can do, you're still just the stiff-necked ShowMe >bigot they raised you." >I'm afraid you're not 'showing me' anything other than an assumption you've made arguendo.
>>Does all of that possibly have some application today? >> > >Yes. It's business as usual behind a facade of pretend individualism. He's >full of high-sounding, fictional ideals--when they sell. He's a boy who >hates a critic because he wants you not to look at the cup under which he's >hiding the ball but the critic's pointing at it. >But I think I'm a critic fairly looking at the words, not what I infer to be behind them. There's no substantial evidence of what you argue you see on the record as a whole; and, even though I appreciate your argument techniques, I have to say you're trying to make a large quantity of soup out of the very small amount of library bindery paste that holds this book together. I think you'll need to call upon a much more substantial supplement from your cousin L.C., L.N. And a lot more potatoes to thicken it. Nothing in there about ganging up with the rest of the white guys against the Yellow Peril. There was an awful lot about standing alone, however.
>They say travel broadens the mind. Apparently, not always. >I wonder if anyone has recently been to Djakarta. Is the canal still used the same way? That was fifty years ago. What's the population density per square mile today?
[Someone has noted the changes in Singapore . . . .]
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
>cmaj7dmin7 wrote: > >>"David Silver" <ag.plusone@verizon.net>wrote in message >>news:3D0FDB90.6080106@verizon.net... >>[snip] >>> >>>It contains such nuggets as: >>> >>>". . . no progress whatsoever is being made on the prime problem facing >>>the human race, that the problem is bigger than I had dreamed, and that, >>>most tragically, it probably has no solution. >>>* * * * * >>> >> >>An old man's handwringing's not all that exciting a topic, Dave. So, he goes >>to Asia and sees the magnitude of the Yellow Peril and all hope is lost Big >>deal. He was out of touch then and it's a non-issue now. Further, it smacks >>of Slobodan Milosovic's ethnic cleansing more than just a little. >> > > >Which is a problem even discussing it. Yet I think he faces up to the >problem as when he writes: > >" >. . . My own ancestors came to this continent, pushed the Indians >aside--or killed them--and made far better use of the land for far more >people. I feel no special qualms about it now. But suppose the teeming >crowds of Asia now give us the same treatment, seeing that we are making >something less than maximum use of the land for maximum population. Have >I a right to feel indignant? >" >I will not duck the issue. I have always believed that a man who accepts >capital punishment should not be too squeamish to serve his term as >hangman. The tail goes with the hide. I have not been able to find a >moral answer which pleases me; nevertheless I know my answer--precisely >that of Australians. I'll fight before I'll let the spawning millions of >Asia roll over Colorado and turn it into the sort of horizontal slum >that Java is. Maybe this decision damns my soul; if so, so must it be. I >don't see any solution to the problem of Asia at all, for they won't >stop breeding ... in fact, the psychological truth is almost certainly >they _can't_. But I am not willing to move over and give them room here >to breed another hundred million--or half a billion. We have a pretty >good nation, at least for the time being; I will not willingly see it >turned into a slum." >_Tramp Royale_ at 367-8 > >Earlier, in what I have abovethread called "the essay" he writes he >believes the Anzacs will fight themselves, "to the last digger, to the >last Kiwi," before they similiarly turn over their continent; and they, >of course, are first in line geographically. > >The trip took place in '53-'54. The next year, the novel _Tunnel in the >Sky_ was published; and it begins with the chapter, "The Marching Hoards." > > So if we're looking for thematic inspiration, here it is: or rather we >can supplement our look in the chapter on Java he referred to, Chapter >X, "The Underside of the Orient," where the density of population then >was one thousand to a square mile. Djakarta's canal best exemplified >what the Heinlein's saw there: > >" >Our guide pointed out the swarms of people bathing in the canal and said >proudly that people here were very clean; they were likely to come down >to the canal for a bath three or four times a day. I could understand >how it could be an endless process, since bathing in that filth would >leave a person dirtier than ever. The so-called bath was rendered less >efficient for females by the fact that they bathed with their sarongs >on, whereas the men just stripped naked and went in--through I don't >suppose it mattered either way; filth is filth. >" >People stopped to drink, housewives dipped up pans from it to take home >for cooking, and at one point we saw a woman dipping a toothbrush in the >canal to scrub her teeth--an unexpected refinement. Just upstream of her >the canal was currently being put to use in its aspect as a sewer; the >guide glanced at both activities and said happily, 'People never get any >disease from the canal. The sunlight, beating down all day, kills the >germs.'" >_Tramp Royale_, at 235 > >I dunno, L.N.; for I see the same hint of Spenglerism, the sort of >things Teddy Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling believed, about so-called >'white' nations; and we all know just as well as we know our hands where >the excess of that belief led. I don't need to be Albanian to know about > what we call today ethnic cleansing; sixty-two of sixty-three of my >father's European relatives--in the so-called 'Russian Pale,' cousins, >uncles, aunts, and in-laws vanished into the camps circa 1939-45. Lucky >my grandmother and grandfather got on that boat in Danzig in 1884, eh? > >Yet, is it excessive, or is it racism, simply to note: > >" >Nevertheless that minority of the human race called loosely the Western >democratic peoples and consisting mostly of Caucausians even though not >identical with the Caucausian race has added twenty, eighty, a hundred >times as much to human wealth, human knowledge, human dignity and >freedom, as all the rest of the human race put together. Sanitation, >scientific farming, mass production, civil liberties--these are _our_ >inventions, not theirs. We have shared them, what they would accept, and >that is good--but we _do_ _not_ owe the teeming rest of the world a living!" >_Tramp Royale_, at 368 > > > >>>" >>>. . . [the following is in all italics] The only place left for the >>>billion people in China and the Indian subcontinent to spill over is >>>into areas already occupied by the white Western nations. [end italics]" >>> >> >>So, what? They pour over the borders, marry our daughters and after thirty >>years you won't be able to find a competent caucasian septegenarian >>doomsayer anywhere? What a loss. >> >> > > >That's one scenario. But what makes you think "we want to marry your >daughters, kemo sabe?" I don't particularly care whether Asians marry >our daughters. My daughter already is one-quarter Asian, her mother is >half-Filipina, as a matter of fact. I'm not particularly worried about >her grandfather who came here in 1927 or so and spent his life serving >train passengers on the Great Northern. > >In "The Marching Hoardes," Chapter I, in _Tunnel in the Sky_, esp. at >pp. 14-18 [Scribner's hardbound edition], our attention is directed to >Gate Five on forty-eight hour loan to the "Australasian Republic" where >hyperfolded to a point in central Australia in the Arunta Desert, a >great encampment for emigration has been mounting for the past several >weeks, in excess of two million people to pass through in forty-eight >hours, more than forty thousand per hour. > >And our attention is directed to the "removal of the remnants of the >former Australian population to New Zealand, pursuant to the Peiping >Peace Treaty" etc. . . . > >Ever figure out how you get that many doggies to march into the chute, >let alone how you get them to keep moving out there in the Arunta Desert >to keep entering the chute? After a while I imagine the sand was turned >to red mud. > > >>>And there follow predictions of World War III [who said it had to be >>>with Soviet Russia? I ask]. And various questions about whether we are >>>our brother's keepers, intermixed with the Mathusian Solution, the >>>inadvisability of paying Danegeld, England's example "in the days of her >>>strength" and the note that even if the game is rigged "it is the only >>>game in town." >>> >> >>Even if the old man's glib, it doesn't hide that he wants to play politics >>with his prejudices. I don't see the problem. To me, it's a chance to learn >>Mandarin or Cantonese or Spanish, things I should have learned years ago >>anyway. >> >> > > >What is politics? A substitute for a real war? What would you rather >have? In Korean, the year before, they were using jeep-mounted quad >fifties, designed to shoot at aircraft, in 'weapons platoons' on the >so-called 38th parallel, to stop CCA human wave attacks, and often they >were unsuccessful. > > >>>Finally, a conclusion that we, as the United States, should not be >>>afraid of choosing from among the various unsafe courses, "not even of >>>our friends." >>> >> >>Here, the old man really loses it. What, team up with the other white guys, >>even if they're commies, so the coloreds won't outnumber us? > > >Read it again. What he says is he doubts whether the U.S. will get any >support from Europe, the 'other white guys' as you call them. > >He urges emulation of England, "in the days of her strengh" as England >stood alone in her own best interests and ignorned world opinion. Have >you read it indeed? > >>Really, Dave, >>the lesson is "no matter who you are and how many people think you can write >>real nice and how much homespun, plaintalking, space-opera situated >>cracker-barrelling you can do, you're still just the stiff-necked ShowMe >>bigot they raised you." >> > > >I'm afraid you're not 'showing me' anything other than an assumption >you've made arguendo. > > >>>Does all of that possibly have some application today? >>> >> >>Yes. It's business as usual behind a facade of pretend individualism. He's >>full of high-sounding, fictional ideals--when they sell. He's a boy who >>hates a critic because he wants you not to look at the cup under which he's >>hiding the ball but the critic's pointing at it. >> > > >But I think I'm a critic fairly looking at the words, not what I infer >to be behind them. There's no substantial evidence of what you argue you >see on the record as a whole; and, even though I appreciate your >argument techniques, I have to say you're trying to make a large >quantity of soup out of the very small amount of library bindery paste >that holds this book together. I think you'll need to call upon a much >more substantial supplement from your cousin L.C., L.N. And a lot more >potatoes to thicken it. Nothing in there about ganging up with the rest >of the white guys against the Yellow Peril. There was an awful lot about >standing alone, however. > > >>They say travel broadens the mind. Apparently, not always. >> > > >I wonder if anyone has recently been to Djakarta. Is the canal still >used the same way? That was fifty years ago. What's the population >density per square mile today? > >[Someone has noted the changes in Singapore . . . .] > >-- > David M. Silver > http://www.heinleinsociety.org > http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm > "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" > Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 > Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988) >http://www.demographia.com/db-intluadens-rank.htm gives some demographics on Jakarta. It is the 4th most populous nation in the world at 180 million, though it seems to get much less attention from the US and Europe in particular than would be expected from it's size.
The population of Jakarta is over 8 million, and the population density is over 44000/sq mile. Say to compare Tokyo at 18000, and New York at 5400.
The Asia Times from this year says of Jakarta "Governor Sutiyoso controls a city that swims in filth every year during the wet season, from October to February. "
http://www.atimes.com/se-asia/DB02Ae01.html, so it doesn't seem the problems there are quite under control yet.
http://www.environmentprobe.org/enviroprobe/pubs/ev542.html#Asiasays of Indonesia as a whole "Only 50 per cent of urban residents have a safe source of water, and only 20 per cent have it piped to their homes. Of the remaining city dwellers, 44 per cent draw their water straight from unprotected wells while 10 per cent resort to water vendors. Water losses, primarily due to leaky pipes, are as high as 40 per cent nationwide. The sewage system is even worse, reaching only 5 per cent of urban residents. No more than 40 per cent have any sort of on-site sanitation facility, such as a drainage pit or a septic tank. The rest discharge their raw wastes directly into surface drainage systems." These data relate to the 1990 census.
[Carolyn Evans]
>"David Silver" <ag.plusone@verizon.net>wrote in message [snip] >>The trip took place in '53-'54. The next year, the novel _Tunnel in the >>Sky_ was published; and it begins with the chapter, "The Marching Hoards." >> >>So if we're looking for thematic inspiration, here it is: or rather we >>can supplement our look in the chapter on Java he referred to, Chapter >>X, "The Underside of the Orient," where the density of population then >>was one thousand to a square mile. Djakarta's canal best exemplified >>what the Heinlein's saw there: >> >>" >>Our guide pointed out the swarms of people bathing in the canal and said >>proudly that people here were very clean; they were likely to come down >>to the canal for a bath three or four times a day. I could understand >>how it could be an endless process, since bathing in that filth would >>leave a person dirtier than ever. The so-called bath was rendered less >>efficient for females by the fact that they bathed with their sarongs >>on, whereas the men just stripped naked and went in--through I don't >>suppose it mattered either way; filth is filth. >>" >>People stopped to drink, housewives dipped up pans from it to take home >>for cooking, and at one point we saw a woman dipping a toothbrush in the >>canal to scrub her teeth--an unexpected refinement. Just upstream of her >>the canal was currently being put to use in its aspect as a sewer; the >>guide glanced at both activities and said happily, 'People never get any >>disease from the canal. The sunlight, beating down all day, kills the >>germs.'" >>_Tramp Royale_, at 235 >> [snip] >>I wonder if anyone has recently been to Djakarta. Is the canal still >>used the same way? That was fifty years ago. What's the population >>density per square mile today? >> >>[Someone has noted the changes in Singapore . . . .]In light of what's below, I really was whistling while passing through the cemetary, wasn't I?
>> >> >http://www.demographia.com/db-intluadens-rank.htm >gives some demographics on Jakarta. It is the 4th most populous nation in >the world at 180 million, though it seems to get much less attention from >the US and Europe in particular than would be expected from it's size. > >The population of Jakarta is over 8 million, and the population density is >over 44000/sq mile. Say to compare Tokyo at 18000, and New York at 5400. >That's what? A forty-four fold increase in fifty years. Graph that curve! I wonder if it's still three stories high, most everywhere. Couldn't be, could it? I keep thinking about that "chinee" representative who told Mannie, in Moon, that engineers can be reeducated so they *do* understand ice. Can't say I appreciate him much more, but I understand him pretty clearly. Wouldn't want to be an engineer being reeducated, however. Failing an exam could be a real downer.
>The Asia Times from this year says of Jakarta "Governor Sutiyoso controls a >city that swims in filth every year during the wet season, from October to >February. " >http://www.atimes.com/se-asia/DB02Ae01.html , so it doesn't seem the >problems there are quite under control yet. >Shame on you for the understatement! lol, almost . . . educate us, a bit will you, Carolyn. How far away is Jakarta from the island that Aussie and Ghurka peace-keeping troops were sent last year?
>http://www.environmentprobe.org/enviroprobe/pubs/ev542.html#Asia says of >Indonesia as a whole "Only 50 per cent of urban residents have a safe source >of water, and only 20 per cent have it piped to their homes. Of the >remaining city dwellers, 44 per cent draw their water straight from >unprotected wells while 10 per cent resort to water vendors.What does that mean? Half the unprotected wells are polluted? During what times of the year, between October and February? I wish I'd reread this book a couple years ago. Delightfully bright young lady from Indonesia spent about three years living with a friend of ours while studying here in Southern California. She's taking graduate work now back east [at Princeton]. I would have loved to have a conversation with her about these problems, now.
>Water losses, >primarily due to leaky pipes, are as high as 40 per cent nationwide. The >sewage system is even worse, reaching only 5 per cent of urban residents. No >more than 40 per cent have any sort of on-site sanitation facility, such as >a drainage pit or a septic tank. The rest discharge their raw wastes >directly into surface drainage systems."The same canals I suppose. Thanks, Carolyn. [Hint: please snip the heck out of my verbiage, next
time, even if I think it's brilliant, reading it a second time palls.]
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
<big snip>:) >Shame on you for the understatement! lol, almost . . . educate us, a bit >will you, Carolyn. How far away is Jakarta from the island that Aussie >and Ghurka peace-keeping troops were sent last year?As the crow flies, about 1200 miles to East Timor from Jakarta. Culturally, much greater distance than that. East Timor was one of the most neglected provinces, with hardly any people with more than a basic education, and what services there were mostly didn't survive the independence war. The people are an unusual mix of Melanesian and Portuguese mostly, except for recent Indonesian immigrants. The religion is mostly Roman Catholic with an animist flavour. In fact they have next to nothing in common with the Javan people.
Still, Indonesia may yet become a much smaller nation. The independence movement in Irian Jaya (West Papua) in particular seems like it has a good chance of success in the long term, and West Timor is by no means dedicated to national unity. Unless the economy holds together, we could see a massive USSR style disintegration there.
[Carolyn Evans]
>David Silver wrote: > > >> >>There's a very interesting passage contained in the last five pages of >>Tramp Royale, beginning at page 366, with: >> >>" The most important thing that I believe I learned from a trip around >>our planet . . . " >> >>What follows is an essay containing several points, noteably among them >>Heinlein's [statement] that the trip "cured me of One-Worldism." But there >>are other points to it. >> >>Anyone wish to discuss these most important thing[s] learned? > > >Aw, com'on, I promise I won't bite. ;-)= <---two very small teeth > >It contains such nuggets as: > >" >. . . no progress whatsoever is being made on the prime problem facing >the human race, that the problem is bigger than I had dreamed, and that, >most tragically, it probably has no solution. >* * * * *An old man's handwringing's not all that exciting a topic, Dave. So, he goes to Asia and sees the magnitude of the Yellow Peril and all hope is lost. Big deal. He was out of touch then and it's a non-issue now. Further, it smacks of Slobodan Milosovic's ethnic cleansing more than just a little.
>" >. . . [the following is in all italics] The only place left for the >billion people in China and the Indian subcontinent to spill over is >into areas already occupied by the white Western nations. [end italics]"So, what? They pour over the borders, marry our daughters and after thirty years you won't be able to find a competent caucasian septegenarian doomsayer anywhere? What a loss.
> >And there follow predictions of World War III [who said it had to be >with Soviet Russia? I ask]. And various questions about whether we are >our brother's keepers, intermixed with the Mathusian Solution, the >inadvisability of paying Danegeld, England's example "in the days of her >strength" and the note that even if the game is rigged "it is the only >game in town."Even if the old man's glib, it doesn't hide that he wants to play politics with his prejudices. I don't see the problem. To me, it's a chance to learn Mandarin or Cantonese or Spanish, things I should have learned years ago anyway.
> >Finally, a conclusion that we, as the United States, should not be >afraid of choosing from among the various unsafe courses, "not even of >our friends."Here, the old man really loses it. What, team up with the other white guys, even if they're commies, so the coloreds won't outnumber us? Really, Dave, the lesson is "no matter who you are and how many people think you can write real nice and how much homespun, plaintalking, space-opera situated cracker-barrelling you can do, you're still just the stiff-necked ShowMe bigot they raised you."
> >Does all of that possibly have some application today?Yes. It's business as usual behind a facade of pretend individualism. He's full of high-sounding, fictional ideals--when they sell. He's a boy who hates a critic because he wants you not to look at the cup under which he's hiding the ball but the critic's pointing at it.
> > >-- > David M. Silver > http://www.heinleinsociety.org They say travel broadens the mind. Apparently, not always.LNC
>>. . . [the following is in all italics] The only place left for the >>billion people in China and the Indian subcontinent to spill over is >>into areas already occupied by the white Western nations. [end italics]" > >So, what? They pour over the borders, marry our daughters and after thirty >years you won't be able to find a competent caucasian septegenarian >doomsayer anywhere? What a loss.Well...maybe. It could work the other way too. I think Asian women are among the most beutiful in the world, and I certainly would not object to marrying one.
It does not always work this way when too cultures clash though. The Europeans spilling over into the Americas did not quite work out the way you describe. The Romans spilling over into North Africa also did not work out exactly that way.
[LV Poker Player] -- Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc. - from 1984 by George Orwell
>Hmm, we're being trampled in the rush on this one. :) I wonder if it's a >lack of familiarity with the books by the group,I've not only not read "Tramp Royale"--I've never seen a copy. Makes it kinda out of my grasp to try discussing it. (also, I don't do the AIM chats)
-- -denny- nocturnal curmudgeon, editor Never try to outstubborn a cat. - Lazarus Long
>On Wed, 19 Jun 2002 13:10:52 +1000, "Carolyn Evans" ><pcevans@ozemail.com.au>held forth, saying: > > >>Hmm, we're being trampled in the rush on this one. :) I wonder if it's a >>lack of familiarity with the books by the group, >> > >I've not only not read "Tramp Royale"--I've never seen a copy.It's pretty easy to order, Denny; and not too bad a read.
>Makes >it kinda out of my grasp to try discussing it.I'm trying rather hard to fix that by a few 'cherce' quotations, and perhaps if you're here to keep me on the ball I'll remember to spell hordes some way other than h-o-a-r-d-s.
>(also, I don't do the AIM chats) >-- >-denny- >nocturnal curmudgeon, editorPerhaps you oughta. We allow all sorts of curmudgeons, even including me ;)
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
That day and thereafter, we took "showers" by ordering in cases of drinking water. We would soap ourselves down using one bottle and soap and then the other would "rinse" him/her by sprinkling on more bottles of fresh clean drinking water. The waiter who delivered each case would snicker when he delivered it.
Ginny Virginia Heinlein Astyanax12@aol.com
>I don't recall whether this was in that book or not, but I started to run a >bath for myself at the hotel in Bangkok, only to find it a pale brown. The >water must have come directly out of the klongs there. > >That day and thereafter, we took "showers" by ordering in cases of drinking >water. We would soap ourselves down using one bottle and soap and then the >other would "rinse" him/her by sprinkling on more bottles of fresh clean >drinking water. The waiter who delivered each case would snicker when he >delivered it.I can just hear it now: "Stoopid furriners. Bathe in water meant to *drink*. Heehee!"
I don't know what a "klong" is, but brown water out of the tap would drive me to do exactly what you did, if "klong" is what I *think* it is. Bleeh.
--
~teresa~
^..^ "Never try to outstubborn a cat." Robert A. Heinlein ^..^
http://rahbooks.virtualave.net/ http://www.heinleinsociety.org/
msn messenger: pixelmeow@passport.com AIM: pixelmeow
"David Silver" <ag.plusone@verizon.net>wrote in message news:3D1023A0.7030904@verizon.net...
>cmaj7dmin7 wrote: > >>"David Silver" <ag.plusone@verizon.net>wrote in message >>news:3D0FDB90.6080106@verizon.net... >>[snip] >>> >>>It contains such nuggets as: >>> >>>". . . no progress whatsoever is being made on the prime problem facing >>>the human race, that the problem is bigger than I had dreamed, and that, >>>most tragically, it probably has no solution. >>>* * * * * >>> >> >>An old man's handwringing's not all that exciting a topic, Dave. So, he goes >>to Asia and sees the magnitude of the Yellow Peril and all hope is lost. Big >>deal. He was out of touch then and it's a non-issue now. Further, it smacks >>of Slobodan Milosovic's ethnic cleansing more than just a little. >> > > >Which is a problem even discussing it. Yet I think he faces up to the >problem as when he writes: > >" >. . . My own ancestors came to this continent, pushed the Indians >aside--or killed them--and made far better use of the land for far more >people. I feel no special qualms about it now. But suppose the teeming >crowds of Asia now give us the same treatment, seeing that we are making >something less than maximum use of the land for maximum population. Have >I a right to feel indignant? >" >I will not duck the issue. I have always believed that a man who accepts >capital punishment should not be too squeamish to serve his term as >hangman. The tail goes with the hide. I have not been able to find a >moral answer which pleases me; nevertheless I know my answer--precisely >that of Australians. I'll fight before I'll let the spawning millions of >Asia roll over Colorado and turn it into the sort of horizontal slum >that Java is. Maybe this decision damns my soul; if so, so must it be. I >don't see any solution to the problem of Asia at all, for they won't >stop breeding ... in fact, the psychological truth is almost certainly >they _can't_. But I am not willing to move over and give them room here >to breed another hundred million--or half a billion. We have a pretty >good nation, at least for the time being; I will not willingly see it >turned into a slum." >_Tramp Royale_ at 367-8 > >Earlier, in what I have abovethread called "the essay" he writes he >believes the Anzacs will fight themselves, "to the last digger, to the >last Kiwi," before they similiarly turn over their continent; and they, >of course, are first in line geographically. > >The trip took place in '53-'54. The next year, the novel _Tunnel in the >Sky_ was published; and it begins with the chapter, "The Marching Hoards." > > So if we're looking for thematic inspiration, here it is: or rather we >can supplement our look in the chapter on Java he referred to, Chapter >X, "The Underside of the Orient," where the density of population then >was one thousand to a square mile. Djakarta's canal best exemplified >what the Heinlein's saw there: > >" >Our guide pointed out the swarms of people bathing in the canal and said >proudly that people here were very clean; they were likely to come down >to the canal for a bath three or four times a day. I could understand >how it could be an endless process, since bathing in that filth would >leave a person dirtier than ever. The so-called bath was rendered less >efficient for females by the fact that they bathed with their sarongs >on, whereas the men just stripped naked and went in--through I don't >suppose it mattered either way; filth is filth. >" >People stopped to drink, housewives dipped up pans from it to take home >for cooking, and at one point we saw a woman dipping a toothbrush in the >canal to scrub her teeth--an unexpected refinement. Just upstream of her >the canal was currently being put to use in its aspect as a sewer; the >guide glanced at both activities and said happily, 'People never get any >disease from the canal. The sunlight, beating down all day, kills the >germs.'" >_Tramp Royale_, at 235 > >I dunno, L.N.; for I see the same hint of Spenglerism, the sort of >things Teddy Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling believed, about so-called >'white' nations; and we all know just as well as we know our hands where >the excess of that belief led. I don't need to be Albanian to know about > what we call today ethnic cleansing; sixty-two of sixty-three of my >father's European relatives--in the so-called 'Russian Pale,' cousins, >uncles, aunts, and in-laws vanished into the camps circa 1939-45. Lucky >my grandmother and grandfather got on that boat in Danzig in 1884, eh? > >Yet, is it excessive, or is it racism, simply to note: > >" >Nevertheless that minority of the human race called loosely the Western >democratic peoples and consisting mostly of Caucausians even though not >identical with the Caucausian race has added twenty, eighty, a hundred >times as much to human wealth, human knowledge, human dignity and >freedom, as all the rest of the human race put together. Sanitation, >scientific farming, mass production, civil liberties--these are _our_ >inventions, not theirs. We have shared them, what they would accept, and >that is good--but we _do_ _not_ owe the teeming rest of the world a living!" >_Tramp Royale_, at 368Fine rhetoric, Dave. Damn fine rhetoric and rationalized isolationism. I particularly like the "sharing" part. He makes it sound like through the generosity of our hearts we invented the horseless carriage and rushed over to Thailand to give them to them. Whoever "we" are. Oh, yeah, the white boys. The white boys over here who are about the only nation of white boys still killing criminals. That's us. The "inventors" of civil liberties. The ones who invented the damn notion but can't decide whether executions are consistent with it or not.
No, nobody's owed a living (what I tell my late-paying clie notwithstanding) but it's only a mark who'll swallow that we ever "gave" anything to anybody, gratis.
Here, we'll show you how to farm scientifically. All we want are your souls. Repeat after me: "Hail Mary" or pick your missionary's central figure. Want some modern sanitation, well, just take this container-load of old 486dx's and reclaim the mercury for us and we'll show you how to buy your own. Mass production, apparently we don't need to teach you that anymore: Honda's not an import but Ford is. Finally, you want to turn downtown Colorado into a highrise slum? More power to you. We've been trying for 200 years to get the building permits to do it but couldn't. There are those among us who wouldn't flinch at using caribou bones as bits if it'd suck more oil out of the tundra. You're just like we are, aren't you?
>>>" >>>. . . [the following is in all italics] The only place left for the >>>billion people in China and the Indian subcontinent to spill over is >>>into areas already occupied by the white Western nations. [end italics]" >>> >> >>So, what? They pour over the borders, marry our daughters and after thirty >>years you won't be able to find a competent caucasian septegenarian >>doomsayer anywhere? What a loss. > >That's one scenario. But what makes you think "we want to marry your >daughters, kemo sabe?" I don't particularly care whether Asians marry >our daughters. My daughter already is one-quarter Asian, her mother is >half-Filipina, as a matter of fact. I'm not particularly worried about >her grandfather who came here in 1927 or so and spent his life serving >train passengers on the Great Northern.We agree. This is a non-issue. People are people. The Bell Curvers can whine until the cowed go home.
>In "The Marching Hoardes," Chapter I, in _Tunnel in the Sky_, esp. at >pp. 14-18 [Scribner's hardbound edition], our attention is directed to >Gate Five on forty-eight hour loan to the "Australasian Republic" where >hyperfolded to a point in central Australia in the Arunta Desert, a >great encampment for emigration has been mounting for the past several >weeks, in excess of two million people to pass through in forty-eight >hours, more than forty thousand per hour. > >And our attention is directed to the "removal of the remnants of the >former Australian population to New Zealand, pursuant to the Peiping >Peace Treaty" etc. . . . > >Ever figure out how you get that many doggies to march into the chute, >let alone how you get them to keep moving out there in the Arunta Desert >to keep entering the chute? After a while I imagine the sand was turned >to red mud.Who were the trail hands on this drive? Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates with Frankie Lane crooning in the background? All white boys roping strays and shooting the ones holding up the slow lope to Abilene? Yeah, but the thing is in Bob's vision they're not going to market; they're being herded out because of his hysterical imagining of a fictional treaty struck to appease the residential needs of a huge population you could proverbially march ten abreast into the ocean and the first billion would build a highway for the last two billion to walk across and swarm over you.
Look, I'm not really impressed with the word pictures he paints of the ignorant and uneducated gargling with feces instead of Listerine down on the banks of the Ganges. By and large, they're just like us but with a higher infant mortality rate. (See, http://www.bartleby.com/151/a28.html ) He could be describing a visit to parts of Kansas not that long ago. Yes, overpopulation's a problem as are famine and disease which, if you remedy them, leaves you with a healthy overabundance of people poised to procreate. So, why'd we heal them in the first place if we're afraid they'll turn on us and demand we give them Death Valley? It's schizo. It's almost enough to drive you to complete isolationism but then you start to get antsy about what they're doing on the other side of the wall and how many there are now and maybe whether you should start the Zyclon B works up just in case...?
> > >>>And there follow predictions of World War III [who said it had to be >>>with Soviet Russia? I ask]. And various questions about whether we are >>>our brother's keepers, intermixed with the Mathusian Solution, the >>>inadvisability of paying Danegeld, England's example "in the days of her >>>strength" and the note that even if the game is rigged "it is the only >>>game in town." >>> >> >>Even if the old man's glib, it doesn't hide that he wants to play politics >>with his prejudices. I don't see the problem. To me, it's a chance to learn >>Mandarin or Cantonese or Spanish, things I should have learned years ago >>anyway. > >What is politics? A substitute for a real war? What would you rather >have? In Korean, the year before, they were using jeep-mounted quad >fifties, designed to shoot at aircraft, in 'weapons platoons' on the >so-called 38th parallel, to stop CCA human wave attacks, and often they >were unsuccessful.I just can't imagine why those people would be mad at the poor old U. S. of A. Nowadays, the domino theory is "thirty minutes deliver or it's free." Now is when it's pretty clear that we've seen the enemy and he is us. Communism is the laughing stock and sham it always was: just another name for social organization of a sort that fell flat on its face when the real merits of capitalism became clear. Chinese slave labor making plastic geegaws sold in WalMarts in Bumfuck, Egypt to people who throw them away faster than human gestation takes to articulate and the "Party" leaders masterminding the purest form of rapacious capitalism ever conceived, fueled by a limitless supply of labor. All the while, over here, we're whining about not being able to get this and how much more that costs than when I was a kid and look where it's being made, too. It's like the two old ladies in the Catskills and the one says, "The food here is terrible." The other's reply, "yeah, and the portions are so small," whooshes over the heads of the listeners, too busy doing their own agreeing with the absurd.
>>>Finally, a conclusion that we, as the United States, should not be >>>afraid of choosing from among the various unsafe courses, "not even of >>>our friends." >>> >> >>Here, the old man really loses it. What, team up with the other white guys, >>even if they're commies, so the coloreds won't outnumber us? > > >Read it again. What he says is he doubts whether the U.S. will get any >support from Europe, the 'other white guys' as you call them. > >He urges emulation of England, "in the days of her strengh" as England >stood alone in her own best interests and ignorned world opinion. Have >you read it indeed?It's been years since I've opened the book and don't remember any more than you graciously word-processed for me. I remember, picking it up, thinking about the title and how it ought to be homage to Twain if he's going to swipe trampism, then being chagrinned at his grim, comparatively humorless, paternalistic reporting. Oh, well. An actor's life for me.
> >>Really, Dave, >>the lesson is "no matter who you are and how many people think you can write >>real nice and how much homespun, plaintalking, space-opera situated >>cracker-barrelling you can do, you're still just the stiff-necked ShowMe >>bigot they raised you." >> > > >I'm afraid you're not 'showing me' anything other than an assumption >you've made arguendo.I'll repeat the competing versions of how Missouri got that name: one, the one Missouians prefer, is that they're called that because of their native skepticism and requiring proof; the other is that during the California gold rush, when midwesterners flocked to Sutter's Mill, the plain, flat dumbest were from Missouri. They didn't know how to do squat and their repeated entreaties of "show me this and show me that" got them the appellation. Now, it's "show me how to manufacture methamphetimine" but Kansas has the same problem. Ad astra per ammonium hydrate et pseudophed.
My assuming's predicated on being raised in the same geographic area and reading what you typed that he wrote. Even he, Lazarus Long himself, admitted repeatedly in his fictional musings that he still carried the taint of that place and those times. I'd cite but I don't have the time to dig through pages. Maybe I will later.
> > >>>Does all of that possibly have some application today? >>> >> >>Yes. It's business as usual behind a facade of pretend individualism. He's >>full of high-sounding, fictional ideals--when they sell. He's a boy who >>hates a critic because he wants you not to look at the cup under which he's >>hiding the ball but the critic's pointing at it. >> > > >But I think I'm a critic fairly looking at the words, not what I infer >to be behind them. There's no substantial evidence of what you argue you >see on the record as a whole; and, even though I appreciate your >argument techniques, I have to say you're trying to make a large >quantity of soup out of the very small amount of library bindery paste >that holds this book together. I think you'll need to call upon a much >more substantial supplement from your cousin L.C., L.N. And a lot more >potatoes to thicken it. Nothing in there about ganging up with the rest >of the white guys against the Yellow Peril. There was an awful lot about >standing alone, however.If I read it through and put in context the quotes you provided and if I agreed with your conclusion does that make him right? Didn't I at least lob back the serve you got in the court? Go ahead, smash that overhead into the corner. 15-love or 5-love, as we used to say. If you're looking for definitve answers out of me or anybody, though, Usenet's not where it's at. Nobody believes anything they don't pay too much to get.
> > >>They say travel broadens the mind. Apparently, not always. >I wonder if anyone has recently been to Djakarta. Is the canal still >used the same way? That was fifty years ago. What's the population >density per square mile today? > >[Someone has noted the changes in Singapore . . . .] > >-- > David M. Silver > http://www.heinleinsociety.orgI was in Juarez in November and it was huge and it was densely populated and it looked like here but in Spanish in most places and a sprinkling of snow absolutely cleared even the busiest streets. I say control the weather, make it hail if the invaders show up. Tornados. They'll never have seen such a thing and will leave in pure disgust that we could have ever populated such an area. Give them some of that Missouri weather that if you don't like it, stick around and it'll change in ten minutes. If that doesn't put a damper on your procreation I don't know what will.
LNC
> > >I can just hear it now: "Stoopid furriners. Bathe in water meant to >*drink*. Heehee!" > >I don't know what a "klong" is, but brown water out of the tap would >drive me to do exactly what you did, if "klong" is what I *think* it >is. Bleeh. >klong = canal The canals usually (surely in that time) double as sewers.
Bleeh is right.
[Dave Jennings]
>This is why nobody can afford to play with you, Dave. You come back with >enough material that it takes a day to read it and another to dream up some >extrapolation of previously half-formed opinion; but I'll give it a shot... >Sorry, bad habits are hard to break. You shoulda seen some Rule 65 motions I useta file. Shudder. I'll try to be briefer. And, as usual, your 'shot' isn't wholly, or even largely, misdirected. I'm going to break up replies into different categories -- priority on what I really think ought to be noted before the chat, first.
> "David Silver" <ag.plusone@verizon.net> wrote in message > news:3D1023A0.7030904@verizon.net... >[snip mucho] > >It's been years since I've opened the book and don't remember any more than >you graciously word-processed for me. I remember, picking it up, thinking >about the title and how it ought to be homage to Twain if he's going to >swipe trampism, then being chagrinned at his grim, comparatively humorless, >paternalistic reporting. Oh, well. An actor's life for me. > [snip]Actually, I'd *really* hoped to find someone to discuss and point out the similiarities and dissimiliarities between Tramp Royale and Twain's Tramp Abroad (as well as the other writings of other authors who have tried the 'travel' genre, e.g., Dickens, Stevenson, Kipling, to name a few). I've some thoughts on it that you'll find in a bit in another post downthread. I hope others who might be thinking along those lines chime in without waiting for my poor musings.
I rather thought it might have been a while since you'd read it; and for that reason, and the fact that I know most habitees of this newsgroup may not have ever seen the book, I quoted some relevant to discussion portions, extensively. The problem is: taking one topic out of the book results in an overview a bit like one of the proverbial blind men describing the elephant.
>> >>But I think I'm a critic fairly looking at the words, not what I infer >>to be behind them. There's no substantial evidence of what you argue you >>see on the record as a whole; and, even though I appreciate your >>argument techniques, I have to say you're trying to make a large >>quantity of soup out of the very small amount of library bindery paste >>that holds this book together. I think you'll need to call upon a much >>more substantial supplement from your cousin L.C., L.N. And a lot more >>potatoes to thicken it. Nothing in there about ganging up with the rest >>of the white guys against the Yellow Peril. There was an awful lot about >>standing alone, however. >> > >If I read it through and put in context the quotes you provided and if I >agreed with your conclusion does that make him right?I think we both agree history's jury is still out on that view. How long can this planet dodge Malthus' bullets? Or even, is Malthus shooting blanks?
>Didn't I at least lob >back the serve you got in the court? Go ahead, smash that overhead into the >corner. 15-love or 5-love, as we used to say. If you're looking for >definitve answers out of me or anybody, though, Usenet's not where it's at. >Nobody believes anything they don't pay too much to get. >Actually, I greatfully appreciated the response which I noted was tempered to permit discussion of what are, for Heinlein, rather strident statements, important ones which I was afraid might go undiscussed pre-chat. I think there are several interesting reasons discernible from the text for this tone. More later, elsewhere in this thread. Thank you.
The search for definitive answers from this book is a bit vague as well. He admits he's not satisfied morally with his answers on the issue we've been discussing. Overhead smashes are something I used to try when I filed Rule 65 motions. I'm retired from that, thankfully; and I've noticed I haven't had any sharp pains in my upper left arm in years.
But, with respect to your assessment of whether this author ever rose above the curious notions on race and racial superiority of his time and community, I'd note others from the same rearing have: noteably Twain, of course. And, you might refresh your reading on the chapter in Tramp Royale on South Africa in assessing overall the author's viewpoints on the alleged superiority of the white race. More on why I think we find a jarring tone on the so-called "yellow peril" elsethread.
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
> cmaj7dmin7 wrote: > >>[snip] I remember, picking it up, thinking >>about the title and how it ought to be homage to Twain if he's going to >>swipe trampism, then being chagrinned at his grim, comparatively >>humorless, >>paternalistic reporting. Oh, well. An actor's life for me. >> > [snip] > > >Actually, I'd *really* hoped to find someone to discuss and point out >the similiarities and dissimiliarities between Tramp Royale and Twain's >Tramp Abroad (as well as the other writings of other authors who have >tried the 'travel' genre, e.g., Dickens, Stevenson, Kipling, to name a >few). I've some thoughts on it that you'll find in a bit in another post >downthread. I hope others who might be thinking along those lines chime >in without waiting for my poor musings. >I hope what follows isn't too long.
Travel writings are usually dull writings. For example, from the 1880 Scranton Free Press, in a review of Twain's _A Tramp Abroad_ this: "People do not like to read a volume of travels because it is dry and prosy, but when all this knowledge is combined with sparkling wit the reading becomes a pleasure instead of a task." Closer to Sam Clemens' home, from the Tolland County Leader [I think this paper is mentioned To Sail by Maureen, btw], echoes its 1880 opinion on Tramp Abroad that factual material "which if given by other writers would be dry and uninteresting is here fairly 'sugar-coated,' as none by Clemens knows how to do.
I think we've seen a pattern in Heinlein's writing before, when he approached new forms, e.g., when writing his first juvenile, he looked to models such as Appleton's Tom Swift or the Rover Boys [whoever wrote them], or the boy goes away to boarding school sort of story, such as Hughes' Tom Brown or Kipling's Stakley & Co, or the Light That Failed, etc., or possibly the old Dick Prescott goes to West Point, Dave Dawson goes to Annapolis series, as a model for his first efforts (_Rocket Ship Galileo_ and _Space Cadet_). Heinlein obviously improved after these imitative first efforts.
Kipling wrote some travel writings as well, particularly the issues he wrote on visiting the U.S. (in which, incidently, he paid a visit to pay homage to Twain). More on them later.
I am indebted to the introduction [Robert Gray Bruce and Hamlin Hill, Texas A & M] to my copy of A Tramp Abroad [Penguin Classics, 1997] for much of which follows:
Twain's _A Tramp Abroad_ wasn't his first travel effort, _Innocents Abroad_ ten years earlier in 1870 was; but by the 1880 Twain had formulated and firmed up his technique for travel narratives. He considered writing them as an analogy to crafting a plank or board for the reader, just as he crafted lectures, writing to his wife in 1871, for example:
"Any lecture of mine ought to be a running narrative plank with square holes in it, six inches apart, all the length of it, & then in my mental shop I ought to have plugs (half marked 'serious' and the other half marked 'humorous') to select from & jam into these holes according to the temper of the audience."He wrote newspaper friend William Wright that the duller the material used in the running narrative, the better, because the reader would more appreciate the humorous plugs when they arrived in his walk down the plank.
Twain's 'humorous plugs' were notoriously exaggerated. Sometimes the 'humor' was so incredibly vicious that the reader gapes while reading it. Consider one well known humorous plug in A Tramp Abroad, often anthologized in secondary texts, until at least recently. It is incredibly 'incorrect' politically, as we say, today. I refer to his essay "The Awful German Language." You all probably at least glanced at it once. It's damned funny; but it's also damned insulting to Germany and German speakers. Only Twain, in English, could write this. And it's terribly hard to emulate.
And has anyone read "The French and the Comanches," a humorous plug omitted from the published A Tramp Abroad? [see, DeVoto's Mark Twain: Letters from the Earth, 1962]. It is so vile an insult that Twain, had it been published during his lifetime, should have been well-advised to avoid French restaurants forever.
Whether Heinlein was aware of Twain's written analysis or not, I think he generally perceived its form. In Tramp Royal, the serious plugs alternate with humorous ones.
The question to examine is how well did Heinlein emulate Twain's success in this first effort. What do we (anyone) think?
And we might compare Kipling's efforts. It's pretty plain both Kipling and Heinlein admired Twain.
-- David M. Silver http://www.heinleinsociety.org http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm "The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!" Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29 Lt (jg)., USN R'td (1907-1988)
>I hope what follows isn't too long.I don't think any of your posts are too long. "Informative, well thought out and occasionally funny" now that's a description I can live with. You are a TEACHER, at least that is what you have been to me and I appreciate it!
Thanks David!
Elizabeth (agplusone sending me on another search for things to read)
You have just entered room "Heinlein Readers Group chat."
AGplusone has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hello, Dave
DavidWrightSr: Greetings
AGplusone: Nice to see you today.
DavidWrightSr: Same Here. I have to apologize again. Meant to get a notice out this morning and all of the afh messages posted prior to tonight, but had problems with computer and didn't get it out.
AGplusone: Don't worry about it. How have you been otherwise?
DavidWrightSr: Good. Snowed under. It's end of Fiscal Year and there is always a ton of work to do, besides having to deal with all of our budget cuts.
AGplusone: I know the feeling, fortunately, haven't known it personally for a few years, although I was getting there for a while when Ginny got sick earlier this year.
AGplusone: When does the end come for your office, Dave?
DavidWrightSr: 6/30. We are a state agency and the state has cut our money seriously.
AGplusone: That's a tough thing to get around. This year, in California, because of the loss of the budget surplus to the energy thieves, every one of ours is really in the same crunch. I don't envy anyone of you guys this year.
AGplusone: How's your son and wife?
DavidWrightSr: We'll squeak by. All doing well. My second son was here a couple of weeks ago with his fiance and my oldest son just arrived in Felton, CA day before yesterday. We are hoping that he will do well there.
DavidWrightSr: I know things are not the best in CA also, but I would prefer him being there as opposed to New York city where he was going to go.
AGplusone: I thought you had too, 1. the teacher, and 2. the young boy whose photo you sent me, but I wasn't sure I wasn't looking at just one kid (with an old photo you sent me).
AGplusone: I'm happy he's going to be in Cal ... where's Felton?
AGplusone: too = two
DavidWrightSr: Neither are precisely young anymore. Constantine, my oldest, is 35 and John is 33.
AGplusone: Okay, which is the teacher. I'll get it straight.
DavidWrightSr: Felton is on north side of Monterey bay near Santa Cruz, I believe
AGplusone: Oh, that's great! Any chance he might be interested in a visit around Labor Day?
DavidWrightSr: They both had stints as teachers. John taught in Pasadena at Westbridge School for Girls, before he went to work on his Ph.D and Constantine taught a couple of years in public high schools.
AGplusone: And which is in Felton? John?
AGplusone: No, that's gotta be Constantine, the oldest
DavidWrightSr: Labor Day might be possible. I'll talk to him. No it's Constantine who is Felton, John is in Baton Rouge, LA at LSU
DavidWrightSr: Constantine is the MAC user of the family. Has an original and a powerbook
AGplusone: He's the one that went back to school. Okay, got it now. John's the one whose photo you sent me.
AGplusone: Constantine have any interest in sci-fi?
DavidWrightSr: Did I?. I must be getting senile. Don't remember. All of our photos are on our web page under Family Photos. www.alltel.net/~dwrighsr/
Copycat669 has entered the room.
Copycat669: hiya
AGplusone: Yeah, I kept it. Looked like a little boy about to have a bar mitzvah
DavidWrightSr: Both like SF. and Heinlein Naturally.
AGplusone: Hi, Tam
DavidWrightSr: Hi Tam.
AGplusone: Nice photo ...
Copycat669: I'm officially moved but half my stuff's in CR and half's here. But I have INTERNET! Anything can be tolerated with access, right?
AGplusone: brb
AGplusone: right
Copycat669: What photo?
DavidWrightSr: Both want to write. John writes plays and Constantine writes religious stuff.
DavidWrightSr: David and I were talking about my sons
Copycat669: ah. cool. :-)
DavidWrightSr: I had sent him a photo of my younger son a while back.
AGplusone: That's a great web page. I've got to take the time to go over it.
DavidWrightSr: Thanks. I haven't had time to update it lately.
AGplusone: Where's CR, Tam
Copycat669: Cedar Rapids Iowa
AGplusone: Ah,
AGplusone: Move within the state?
AGplusone: I hope .... <g>
Copycat669: Yeah. Newton is about 20 minutes outside of Des Moines. I'm about 1 and a half hours from Cedar RApids.
AGplusone: I dunno what I'd do with all the junk we've acquired in the past 30 years if we had to move.
Keythong has entered the room.
Copycat669: I had to find out quickly. :-)
AGplusone: G'evening Keythong
Keythong: evening
Doc4Kidz has entered the room.
Copycat669: So I checked Job out of the library. New town, no fines at the libary. hehehe
AGplusone: Hi, Barry
Copycat669: Job is FREAKING me out
Doc4Kidz: hello group
mertide has entered the room.
Keythong: I don't recall anything from Job
AGplusone: nice to see you, Barry, ltnc
AGplusone: Keythong, I'm David too, but you can call me AG to avoid confusing me and Dave Wright
Doc4Kidz: yeah, ditto
Keythong: ok AG, I'm a mike, but I answer to KEY
AGplusone: welcome!
Keythong: thank you
fgherman has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, Felicia
Doc4Kidz: you know the one about the one-armed paperhanger...?
Doc4Kidz: what;s the topic?
fgherman: Hi all
KultsiKN has entered the room.
mertide: Hi everyone
DavidWrightSr: Hi Felicia, Kultsi, and all
AGplusone: Yeah, Dave Wright was just telling me. His office is preparing its budget for year end
AGplusone: 'lo Kultsi
KultsiKN: Good morning, all!
Copycat669: hi all
AGplusone: We had a series of posts on Tramp Royal, Doc
AGplusone: but generally on any of the Heinleins travel
fgherman: Ginny is welcome in Minneapolis anytime.
AGplusone: such as the bit to Russia in Expanded Universe, the trip to Anartica in Grumbles, or whatever.
Doc4Kidz: My son loves maps and globes, and I always