Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Saturday 10-12-2002 5:00 P.M. EDT
The Juveniles — How to Teach Them?
Here Begins The Discussion Log
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group Chat.”
AGplusone has entered the room.
AGplusone: HI, I’m back, Jani
siannon prime: You’ve lost the bits 🙂
aggirlj has entered the room.
AGplusone: Good. I also lost the “new” version of AIM.
AGplusone: Jani (siannon) meet Jane.
aggirlj: We seem to be having interesting computer probs.
aggirlj: Hi Jani.
AGplusone: Jane (aggirlj) meet Jani.
AGplusone: Jane is my sister, Jani
AGplusone: Dave? Are you here, or just signed on … ?
siannon prime: David, I’m not your sister. really *g
siannon prime: Hi Jane 🙂
AGplusone: :-PLucky you!!!
aggirlj: Hi Jani. 🙂
AGplusone: Jani’s in Shropshire. Of the famous “Jani’s Bar” on AFH.
aggirlj: Been to the place.
siannon prime: *chuckle* I did that well enough that others took it on, didn’t I?
AGplusone: Jane’s in Colorado Springs. Tried to get farther away from me but ran out of money and had to stop there.
aggirlj: 😛
siannon prime: Is that still in CA? (you know my lack of geography 🙂
aggirlj: Colorado.
AGplusone: No, in Colorado. About 1,900 miles away.
siannon prime: South west?
aggirlj: Yes in the Rockies.
siannon prime: I got it. (Not my fault you have such a big country *g)
AGplusone: T’other side of the Rockies. On the edge of the great plains.
aggirlj: You can see Kansas for miles and miles at the top of Pikes Peak.
AGplusone: Western edge of the Plains … Injuns and stuff. Goat-ropers, and all that.
siannon prime: Now, to a Brit, seeing for miles and miles is scary *g
AGplusone: “goat-ropers” are what we call wanna be cowboys
siannon prime: LOL! because they ain’t big enough to rope a steer?
aggirlj: Yep. Big boots though.
AGplusone: their ropes aren’t big enough … ain’t the only thing not big enough either. Big hats, some of ’em. Like Dub-yah.
AGplusone: Jani
siannon prime: Jane, there is a horrible joke about that ..
aggirlj: I know.
AGplusone: Jani’s the resident pagan liberal (whatever else it is) …
siannon prime: You know Welsh jokes? Eeek!
aggirlj: I think, if we’re on the same joke, it’s universal.
siannon prime: I am not pagan, sir, I suscribe to no codified belief system. *sniff*
siannon prime: Jane, you’re right *g
AGplusone: Sorry ma’am. Please don’t turn me into a toad!
siannon prime: I’ll try not to *g
AGplusone: [ . . . waiting . . . I just fed you a straight line, Jane]
aggirlj: Okay, tell me what *g means.
siannon prime: I don’t think that was the feed .. *g means grin
AGplusone: :-)smaller than this?
aggirlj: Okay. Straight line, not a frog?
AGplusone: Okay, how ’bout “You can’t be a toad, you’re already one.”
siannon prime: According to Mr Dick, toads are a role model.
AGplusone: How’s Stephen doing, Jani
AGplusone: Philip Dick?
siannon prime: He says, he’s fine. Watching Red Dwarf atm, in the next room. Sends greetings 🙂
AGplusone: Tell him we miss him.
AGplusone: How old’s he now?
siannon prime: 17. He says he might have time to pop back in soon, but no promises.
AGplusone: We’ll enjoy it if he does.
siannon prime: (he lives what many afhers only talk about, so he’s busy *smile)
siannon prime: I just realised that could be taken the wrong way, heheh
AGplusone: What is Red Dwarf ATM?
AGplusone: A television show? Or is he watching something on Internet?
siannon prime: Satire, SF, Britcom
AGplusone: Ah … we haven’t got it yet on PBS, I suppose.
aggirlj: We got one here from BBC space cadets with a black cat, anything like that?
siannon prime: 90s Britcom, very good
AGplusone: They started a new Forsythe Saga last week on PBS.
AGplusone: Didn’t see it.
KultsiKN has entered the room.
KultsiKN: Hi, guys!
siannon prime: Jane, was it Sabrina?
aggirlj: Hi Sabrina.
AGplusone: Hi, Kultsi. How’s Finlandia doing?
AGplusone: aggirlj = Jane
aggirlj: Sorry about that, Kultsi, misread.
KultsiKN: Just had the first mall bomb 🙁
AGplusone: NO!
siannon prime: Jane, I meant, was the TV show Sabrina
siannon prime: Kultsi *hug*
AGplusone: Any clue who the madman is?
KultsiKN: Last night, about the largest in FI; seven dead, including bomber
aggirlj: Not sure, crazy funny show, on a huge spaceship, all interesting but very funny.
KultsiKN: ((((Jani))))
siannon prime: Jane, sorry, no idea, are you sure it’s Brit? sounds funny
siannon prime: (((kultsi))))
AGplusone: Interesting thing happened to that oil tanker last week. The French-Belgium (it’s been reported as both) one.
siannon prime: Sorry, I haven’t seen him for ages *g
AGplusone: They’re hugging.
aggirlj: Thanks.
siannon prime: Sick, innit *g*
AGplusone: So long as they don’t scare the livestock … it’s okay.
siannon prime: *chuckle*
aggirlj: Hugs are good.
AGplusone: Bob’s not scared …. I just checked.
KultsiKN: Me and Jani have known each other for ages
AGplusone: Bob’s doing what he does best: sleeping on my bed.
siannon prime: Kultsi and I have known each other before we met, in many ways ..
siannon prime: Which reminds me, do we have a topic for tonight?
AGplusone: I got it. Used to be in the “ship sinking business” together, eh?
KultsiKN: Silver-Girl-Jane, I’m Kultsi, and I hail from Finland (as you p’raps figured already); nice to meet ya!
aggirlj: Very nice to meet you too. Simon and Garfunkel.
AGplusone: Yes, Rocket Ship Galileo. We’re going through them looking for teaching points.
siannon prime: David, it’s a pagan thang .. 😉
aggirlj: Right on 😉
AGplusone: But … I had fun rereading it for one reason … [sinking ships always was, dear] … I got to read Haggard’s When the World Shook
siannon prime: I don’t really know RSG at all, what teaching points are we looking at?
AGplusone: kept wondering why the good Dr. kept reading it.
KultsiKN: As in: what can be used by teachers in school.
AGplusone: Anything RAH put into the story … the standard info dumps as well as the unusual ones. Fer example: the boys go to a “progressive” high school, heavy in maths, sciences, and actual shops (machine shops) which lets them make some
AGplusone: of the stuff they use for their rocket experiments.
siannon prime: Ok, can I take this one and run with it?
aggirlj: Go.
AGplusone: A high school that probably never existed in the US, since the “progressive” movement in teaching fell apart about five years after he wrote about it.
AGplusone: Yes, GA/
siannon prime: There was a news item or a ng post, I forget which, about a lad who’d made a nuclear bomb in a shed because
siannon prime: he had access to the info, and no guidance as to the consequences
siannon prime: What I think we should be promoting with RAH is the responsibility, not the cabalability to blow oneself up
siannon prime: capability, sorry
siannon prime: because in RAH the two are always linked.
KultsiKN: Cabal-ability is useful as well, sometimes 😉
siannon prime: and it’s more important now to emphasise that because the science-tech aspect is so freely available, the ethics aren’t.
siannon prime: ok done.
AGplusone: so then, if in Cpts 1-2 when RAH describes the rocket clubhouse, the test stand, the notes, the wire fence to keep people out, etc., you’d say there was a point to all the description, eh?
siannon prime: Yes, but would the teen reader take that on board?
AGplusone: The fact the boys know first aid and apply it and call for an ambulance when there seems to be an accident ….
aggirlj: These young men had supervision and responsibility for what happens. Family was involved and aware.
AGplusone: Maybe the idea could be developed in class discussion review of the chapters
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
KultsiKN: Hello, Bill!
AGplusone: Hi, Bill, Jani was mentioning the development of responsibility for experimention taken by the 3 boys in RSG and how to teach it.
siannon prime: Yes, David, that’s the point I’m making – stress the involvement, not so much the science
siannon prime: Hi Bill :0
AGplusone: safety factors, etc.
BPRAL22169: Hello, Kultsi — and others. I was wondering whether nobody was saying anything or I hadn’t completely finished loading yet.
aggirlj: Hi Bill, Jane David’s sister.
BPRAL22169: Hi, jane — yes, I remember.
siannon prime: I was talking 🙁
aggirlj: I haven’t yet put names to sign on’s yet.
AGplusone: The story opens with an experiment going on at their test stand, and there’s almost immediately an accident …
BPRAL22169: You might want to bring in design theory — human factors engineering — as a subject that bears on this.
BPRAL22169: (Andy will be along shortly, Iunderstand)
AGplusone: and a near-accident when one of the boys ignores the shielding and looks over it while a rocket stress test is going on …
AGplusone: one of the other boys knocks him down when he ignores warnings. Shortly, the rocket motor explodes
BPRAL22169: Heinlein did that quite a lot — show the adolescent tempted to ignore things like safety factors.
BPRAL22169: I think it must have been something he was particularly interested in getting across.
EBATNM has entered the room.
siannon prime: Isn’t that – oh, you beat me to it.
AGplusone: And the consequences …
AGplusone: Hi, Andy.
EBATNM: Hello, I must be going
AGplusone: We’re talking about how Heinlein portrayed the consequences of experimentation, safety, consequences
AGplusone: of ignorning safety, etc.
BPRAL22169: Andy, I just sent you the last several exchanges so you’ll be up to speed.
EBATNM: thank you
siannon prime: Isn’t it also set in a context where the Darwinian stupidity comes in, though?
EBATNM: in my opinion his basic position is “What you don’t know CAN kill you”
BPRAL22169: Reality Bites.
siannon prime: And is iot that much of a big deal if the stupid are weeded out?
AGplusone: The classic don’t let your excitement cause you to forget the basics.
AGplusone: Well, in Tunnel in the Sky, there is actual weeding of the stupid.
AGplusone: The unteachable, like Johan Braun
BPRAL22169: It’s a matter of the values of your society — there is a middle course that has to be steered somewhere; if you set the “safety net” too low, you get a society of mushheads.
AGplusone: The “I know better than my teacher”
BPRAL22169: Very much a complexology kind of thing.
siannon prime: This is what I’m saying, that RAH has no compunction about letting the thickoes go to the wall, but my position is, why are they thickoes in the first place?
siannon prime: Bill, what’s a complexology?
aggirlj: Color.
BPRAL22169: Why are they thickoes in the first place? A society has a spread; Gaussian Curves usually describe the distribution; somebody has to be on the ends.
AGplusone: Yet, here in RSG, when the boys ask their parents permission to go (they are 18, but) there’s that scene in which the mother of one: Ross Jenkins, sez: “Let him go. I’d hate to think I’d let the pioneer blood run thin.
siannon prime: Jane, huh?
aggirlj: Thickoes are what?
BPRAL22169: Complexology: the study of complex, interactive systems. Complexologists vary the amount of change in a system from none (static) to constant (chaotic). all the interesting things happen at the “edge of chaos.”
KultsiKN: Like increasing the amount of positive feedback?
AGplusone: So long as they’re licensed by the same folk who license hairdressers I think we’re probably safe, Bill 😉
BPRAL22169: And I’m not so sure Heinlein is so much “willing to let the thickoes go to the wall” as he is extremely aware that if someone is bound and determined to commit suicide using reality
BPRAL22169: as his weapon of choice, there is very, very little one can do about it.
siannon prime: (Jane) the ones who won’t listen because they think they know best, with no information. I don’t see what colour has to do with it.
aggirlj: Doesn’t.
BPRAL22169: Kind of, Kultsi — chaotic systems come about when positive feedback predominates over feedback.
AGplusone: The boy in “Misfit” who immediately wants, on landing, to go out and explore (sans pressure suit). “Com’on, Fellas, let’s go see what’s out there!”
EBATNM: Hi Kultsi – sorry to hear about your problems over there
BPRAL22169: Complex interacting systems tend to spontaneously organize themselves around feedback loops.
siannon prime: (Bill) commiting suicide using reality assumes that you know what reality *is*
BPRAL22169: LOL
BPRAL22169: Not really, though — if your head is kept tucked inside your fantasy world but your body is in what we laughingly call “consensus reality,” it WILL get you eventually.
siannon prime: Gods, someone log that, I made Bill laugh *g
EBATNM: Most of the characters I can think of that died usually did so because of accidents
AGplusone: logged forever
KultsiKN: Well, sickos sometimes want to take a honor guard with them… but children… that’s a bit much.
siannon prime: Yes, consensus reality is the cause of much self-inflicted mortality, we ain’t arguin there *g
AGplusone: simple murderers … like the one shooting people in Maryland and Virginia …
AGplusone: find ’em, fix ’em, kill ’em
siannon prime: Why should he not? He can do it and he has no reason not to.
siannon prime: Give him a reason not to, and he won’t do it.
aggirlj: Reason is the key word of lack thereof
AGplusone: he has no reason
aggirlj: Are we twins or what.
BPRAL22169: Difficult to say at this point — about having a reason.
AGplusone: his head is in the classic fantasy world … little is real to him I’d suspect
BPRAL22169: Did the shooters at Columbine HS for example have “reason”? I think they did.
AGplusone: or the one in the Finland Mall
siannon prime: “I see no reason, and there is no reason, what reason do you need”
AGplusone: reason as in fantasy?
siannon prime: About 1980, I think. This is not new.
EBATNM: two neurons randomly fired?
siannon prime: Popular song, of the time, David. Written by the man who later ran Live Aid.
aggirlj: Another clue?
AGplusone: I went to the recent remake of Red Dragon last week. Left midway through. It made no sense to watch it.
siannon prime: Geldof, Boomtown Rats, ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’
aggirlj: Thanks.
siannon prime: Written about one of the US school shootings, they’re still fairly new, here.
aggirlj: Columbine was on my birthday, also Hitlers.
BPRAL22169: I’m sorry to hear that. The one made in the mid Eighties with William Peterson was moderately dull; I had hoped they could spice it up a bit witha first-class actor like Hopkins.
AGplusone: Felt as if my pruient blood lust was being assaulted. As if I’d entered one of the video games where the object is to rape, murder and torture.
siannon prime: That’s an interesting perspective.
AGplusone: for the sake of rapine, genocide, and mayhem
BPRAL22169: Actually, I’d say thats a fair assessment of the book. He refined his conception greatly after Silence of the Lambs
EBATNM: How far we have come from Roman days. Now we only pretend to kill people.
aggirlj: Philip wrote in the newsgroups about the violence in Wales and people’s lust for stories about serial killers and such. Mindboggling.
AGplusone: Even Fienes and Hopkins couldn’t save it.
siannon prime: Jane, what was that?
AGplusone: I’d read the book and seen the earlier movie years ago.
aggirlj: I started a thread, I Will Fear No Evil, last comment before my thanks.
siannon prime: Wales isn’t violent, who on earth said it was?
aggirlj: 😛
aggirlj: If you’re serious it was Philip, newsman and editor.
AGplusone: So, back to RSG, violence does pay a part of the story. When they slaughter the crew of the Nazi base.
AGplusone: What about that usage?
siannon prime: You mean Phil Brown?
aggirlj: Yes.
siannon prime: Ohh, that was the thing about concealed carry or I’m not going?
aggirlj: Ys.
siannon prime: Hehehe. We welcome Americans and Christians in Wales, oh yeeersss *rubbing hands*
AGplusone: Actually Phil said it was far less violent than the fellow, whomever it was, who said he wanted to be able to carry if he ever went back to the land of his forebears.
AGplusone: Need Christians for rituals, right, Jani?
siannon prime: It amazes me that you guys work on such automatic aggression and confrontation. Most Brits don’t.
AGplusone: It’s called “doin’ the dozens” Jani? A game.
siannon prime: (David) only the small, unbaptised, barbeque-able ones *g
AGplusone: Yes, that’s what I meant.
AGplusone: We use them in Masonic ritual occasionally.
siannon prime: Yeah, I know. I’ve met JMA, after all
EBATNM: the amount of militaristic propaganda one has to deal with on a daily basis takes its toll
siannon prime: Tsk, David, your lot are mere dilutions of Crowley’s original ideas *g
siannon prime: (Bill) Well, I just don’t let it, otherwise I’d go mad. I prefer not to.
AGplusone: Remember the scene in Full Metal Jacket when the journalist confronts “Animal Mother” and they exchange John Wayne imitations, more or less seriously.
AGplusone: “Wa’al, pilgrim, Ah see ya can talk the talk, but kin ya walk the walk”
siannon prime: I think the problem is defining ‘the walk’
AGplusone: Uh-hah!
AGplusone: Light
siannon prime: Sheesh, is that not obvious?
AGplusone: course
siannon prime: You can have military sheeple, same as religious ones. Talkers, not walkers.
AGplusone: Why then, however, was it necessary for Morrie to kill off all the Nazis in Rocket Ship Galileo … how did that ever get by Scribner’s editor?
EBATNM: Letover attitudes from WW2?
siannon prime: I was generalising, I really don’t know the book that well, But being RAH, the point stands, as universal if not particular.
AGplusone: Possibly.
EBATNM: er – “leftover”
AGplusone: Does anything like that ever happen in another juvenile?
EBATNM: Killing off the Wormfaces in “Space Suit”.
aggirlj: The way it’s presented, no rocket, minimal shelter, outnumbered . . what choice?
AGplusone: Also, Don Harvey’s Little David that sails on after encapsulating the opposing ships …
AGplusone: When the Martians go into the office after the headmaster in Red Planet … come out and there’s nothing left
AGplusone: The crew of the trader in Space Cadet that the Venusians massacre all except “Stinky” … after they do whatever they did.
BPRAL22169: I think in all these instances there’s a difference in the temperature of the blood.
AGplusone: Howso?
BPRAL22169: The killing of the raiders in Citizen might come closer.
AGplusone: Yes.
siannon prime: Blood temp as in insectoid?
AGplusone: Eradicate them — they’re slavers.
BPRAL22169: i.e., it was utterly necessary because of the circumstances, but they did not do it dispassionately the way the tri-galactic council did the wormfacers.
aggirlj: There is, however an noble aspect with regard to saving the earth from nuclear waste.
EBATNM: Perhaps a more general attitude is: you do what has to be done
BPRAL22169: no, Jani, I meant hot-blooded blood-lust as opposed to removing an obstacle in cold blood.
EBATNM: and sometimes that means causing the deaths of others
AGplusone: The raid on the Skinnies … flame those interfering with the raid almost incidentally
AGplusone: in Troopers
siannon prime: Oh, right. But how far does rationality impinge on even cold-blooded warfare?
BPRAL22169: Yes.
EBATNM: crud, I’ve got to go as we have a dinner engagement bye all *poof*
EBATNM has left the room.
BPRAL22169: That’s a real problem — ideally the General Staff needs to be completely dispassionate
AGplusone: The Skinnie raid was to make a point to the Skinnie government or leadership
BPRAL22169: But they want the rank and file to be crazed with lust for the blood of the enemy.
AGplusone: We could really smash you flat, but this is “for the encouragement of others” however that phrase in French is said.
BPRAL22169: berserkergang
siannon prime: (Bill) Yep. And does that equate with individuality, or teaching people to *be* individual?
BPRAL22169: I’m sorry — which “that” is to be either equated with individuality in action or teaching individuality?
BPRAL22169: So far as I know the General Staff concept has no use for the concept of individuality.
AGplusone: Part of the problem is whether ‘rationality’ and ‘law’ is the same thing.
siannon prime: The generals being impartial and rational, and the engendered blood lust of the troops, does not seem to equate with the concept of armies in which soldiers are thinking people, as in ST
AGplusone: law being the anthesis of war
siannon prime: Law is what the current culture thinks as interpreting ethics.
AGplusone: war being what happens when law breaks down
AGplusone: that’s a particular form of law: “Law of the fang and claw”
AGplusone: maybe peculiar would be better
BPRAL22169: I wouldn’t say “dispassionate” is the same as “rational.”
AGplusone: but it exists
siannon prime: Rubbish. War is what happens when the sheeple are run by the brainless.
AGplusone: sometimes
BPRAL22169: One of the madnesses we seem to think the French have excelled at is insane rationality.
AGplusone: and sometimes it occurs when the people run by themselves must defend themselves from the sheeple run by the brainless or the insane
BPRAL22169: Lex talionis?
AGplusone: Yes, that’s the phrase used.
AGplusone: Law of the talon
siannon prime: (david) yes, but you have to have a bunch of people who are a numerical majority and with some vested interest in mediating.
AGplusone: only works if the sheeple are interested in mediation
AGplusone: or, even, recognize mediation as a concept
AGplusone: sometimes you have to kill snakes
AGplusone: when you find them in the outhouse
siannon prime: No, your sheeple are lower class. You need a middle class with vested interest and a modicum of intelligence.
siannon prime: Which you have’y got, and neither do we.
AGplusone: sure, and if there is no middle class … then what?
AGplusone: Or if only one side has a “middle class … etc.”
siannon prime: Then you hope to all the gods that be that the intelligentsia won’t mess it up *this time
AGplusone: yeah
siannon prime: I ain’t jere for the good of my health, yanno. This worries me.
siannon prime: here not jere, dammit
AGplusone: Logic has proven time after time that war is impossible
aggirlj: Is war logical…………
siannon prime: *chuckle* you can prove anything by logic
AGplusone: So, what’s the lesson you teach when they kill the Nazis?
siannon prime: Usually you end up proving it in Samhain conversations with people who are, most decidedly, dead
KultsiKN: But the bullies have no logic, and sometimes they are pretty good in raising the sheeple…
siannon prime: Kill Nazis? No, kill the ideology, not the people.
AGplusone: Well, in RSG, there were a few people left over ….
AGplusone: even if the ideology was dead.
AGplusone: And it was in 1947, more or less …
AGplusone: of course, I understand there’s an interesting group of folk in a political party in Germany these days we hear about occasionally
AGplusone: And who were those guys who marched on Skokie a few years back?
aggirlj: That’s a tough one David. How do you teach about why someone would have to be killed.
AGplusone: Home sap. “It’s our nature”?
AGplusone: Short-lived, no time to convert?
BPRAL22169: The ideology doesn’t really matter.
AGplusone: yes, it really doesn’t
AGplusone: We don’t have a mind warp that works
BPRAL22169: It’s the underlying ideas, not the specific structure of notions. Eradicate the idea that you can seize someone else’s property and you take care of the problem, not just put a bandaid on symptoms.
AGplusone: Some, like the one potting the folk in Maryland and Virginia have to be killed if they cannot be stopped otherwise.
KultsiKN: 2×4, David — works every time
AGplusone: or life
AGplusone: or seize someone’s life
BPRAL22169: Heinlein is right: imprisonment is no solution at all — it just lets the sick teach the slightly ill how to be sicker.
siannon prime: So many people see their own lives as worthless, now, though.
KultsiKN: Too broad a brush, Bill.
siannon prime: Nihilistic attitudes don’t help, in a majority culture which is preservative (if that’s the right word)
AGplusone: I doubt whether that’s really changed since Sargon’s foot-sloggers started slogging against whomever Sargon’s ‘enemies’ were.
AGplusone: Most people learn not to worry about their “worth” …
AGplusone: and ‘seize the day’
AGplusone: others use opiates
aggirlj: You have to have a great imagination . . and alcohol.
AGplusone: like Marx’s opiate of the masses
bozilingus has entered the room.
AGplusone: Evenin’ Bozilingus, welcome
siannon prime: You think so? Pageants, anorexia, suicides – is this a gender thing, David, that men subscribe to carpe diem and women don’t?
AGplusone: Dunno. I’m not a woman. If I were a woman … you’d all be unsafe.
bozilingus: Hello, everyone. I’ll just lurk for a while to get a feel for the discussion.
siannon prime: ROFL, we’re all scared anyway, you’re a lawyer *g
AGplusone: We’re actually talking about a lesson to be taught from the incident toward the end of Rocket Ship Galileo when most of the Nazi crew are killed. Question is: what lesson is taught from that?
AGplusone: . . . or learned?
AGplusone: Or was it just simply a residue from the late WW II.
siannon prime: S says he doesn’t remember it that well, and the lesson was ‘it is ok to kill the bad guys’. Luckily he’s read enough RAH that he doesn’t take that as gospel.
aggirlj: As mentioned Thursday, it might have been residue, the other more interesting area was no detail on the moon caves.
AGplusone: Okay. Stephen believes that was the lesson.
siannon prime: Bearing in mind there are other texts which had more impact on him *g
BPRAL22169: Something occurs to me that RAH told Poul Anderson: All moral dilemmas solve themselves if you are clear on your moral values — then you decide what has to be done, and do it; no regrets.
siannon prime: Oh, well, yes, thank you.
AGplusone: Davy Crockett: “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.” That was actually taught as a good precept when I was about ten or so …
AGplusone: as good as any
KultsiKN: All villains are not villains in their own eyes…
KultsiKN: Isn’t that the other side of the same coin?
siannon prime: I asked S about this, and got Xeno’s paradox. You do the best you can with what you have.
AGplusone: One reason, I think, that most Heinlein juveniles do not have ‘alien villains’ or really an extraordinarily large number of XTs is his belief that the “enemy” mostly is us … and not necessarily a to-be-killed enemy, just one
AGplusone: to avoid.
siannon prime: Probably why he hit a glass ceiling about religion. Religion and ‘morality’ is just us, and SiasL nests are no more than people who get sidetracked into hippie-dom and pseudo-poly.
AGplusone: Or, in Job:ACOJ (or “If This Goes On . . .), into bigotry and persecution
BPRAL22169: “pseudo-poly”?
AGplusone: petty power plays seems to be the more common skulduggery
siannon prime: Job still stayed within parameters 😉
siannon prime: (Bill) screwing around as opposed to multiple commitment, basically .. the easy option.
AGplusone: But Alex Hergensheimer was awaiting the word, not necessary the Trump …
BPRAL22169: Ah, got it. Not actually committed relationships.
AGplusone: the word that it’s the day to fall upon the unbelievers.
BPRAL22169: Philandering masquerading as multiple committed relationships.
AGplusone: It’s mid-point. suggest a ten minute break?
KultsiKN: Second
AGplusone: return to topic at 40 past the hour?
AGplusone: Jani: you have the conn, Ma’am.
siannon prime: Yep, and I liked the run-on from that in Friday where it went into family economics *g
AGplusone: don’t sacrifice any Xian babies on the bowsprint.
siannon prime: What, me?
AGplusone: Please.
bozilingus: Sounds good to me, need to check on how my dinner is cooking.
AGplusone: afk
KultsiKN: Jani, how’s life, how are kids?
siannon prime: I was fine until the Cap’n decided Guinan ought to take the conn, *g*
KultsiKN: So take it, dammit! You’ve got it in you, and you know it!
AGplusone: LN Collier gave everyone shore leave Thursday, Jani
siannon prime: LOL. You mean the troll?
siannon prime: I’m getting my head around this. LNC .. saw that .. Thurs .. is a religious holiday?
KultsiKN: Was he around?
AGplusone: Ex-troll
siannon prime: You mean we beat him?
AGplusone: He’s actually human, yes. And I think we just wore him down.
siannon prime: *chuckle* I know he is, I just didn’t have the time or the patience.
AGplusone: Probably a nice guy … done a couple favors for us with research in the Kansas City area regarding Heinlein
siannon prime: Besides, he was rude to me once.
AGplusone: True of everyone, I suspect.
AGplusone: Probably reminded me of me … so I worked on him a bit.
siannon prime: Ah, but I don’t forget *g
AGplusone: I warned him you’d turn him into a toad, actually. I think that was what made him mend his ways. 😛
siannon prime: Naw, it was when I threatened to take him on in DC. I don’t think he ever saw the post that said I’d re scheduled, he’s probably still waiting ..
AGplusone: He’d have to catch a plane to DC.
AGplusone: He’s just outside KC, Mo.
AGplusone: I’m sipping wine now, and some very nice broth that’s been slow-cooking all day.
siannon prime: Is broth soup, or stew?
AGplusone: Amazing what you can do with a chicken and a large bottle of green olives.
siannon prime: keyboard ..
AGplusone: In this case it’s the juice from a stew.
AGplusone: Try it sometime. A chicken and a bottle of green olives in a stew pot.
KultsiKN: Ahh… Good bread and good cheese on the side…
AGplusone: With juice.
AGplusone: A big bottle, of the kind with pimentos
siannon prime: Oh, stock, then. I cook chicken to make stock (which is what you call juice, I think) to use in other dishes
AGplusone: We keep the chicken in the pot and eat it along with the rest.
AGplusone: Basically a stewed chicken in olives
siannon prime: Isn’t there a jewish one which uses the stock as soup, and the chicken meat as the main dish?
KultsiKN: Olives are an acquired taste…
AGplusone: probably …
aggirlj: Yes. Chicken, carrots, celery, onion and water.
AGplusone: but my Irish-Italian mother didn’t make it probably, unless grandmother taught her
TreetopAngelRN has entered the room.
siannon prime: (kultsi) I love olives. The girls don’t though 🙁
AGplusone: Ah, I stand corrected. I remember it now. Grandma did teach her
AGplusone: Hi, Elizabeth.
siannon prime: Hi Liz
aggirlj: Hi Elizabeth. Get my mail?
AGplusone: New folk in room. “bozilingus” is John.
TreetopAngelRN: Hi, everyone, thought I would stop by before heading to work
KultsiKN: Hi, Elizabeth!
siannon prime: (Jane) yes, that’s the one 🙂
TreetopAngelRN: No Jane, I didn’t not yet anyway
siannon prime: Um, who’s John?
aggirlj: Having problems, reinstalling Netscape.
AGplusone: “bozilingus” new lurker on AFH
AGplusone: a couple of months he said.
KultsiKN: (Jane) Ain’t that the one that’s as good as antibiotics? 🙂
siannon prime: Oh ok, is he one of us? *g
bozilingus: Just a “lurker” in Orlando, FL.
aggirlj: Dunno. 😉
AGplusone: Good place. That’s fairly close to Mrs. H.
TreetopAngelRN: I am still trying to become human.
AGplusone: [and if you’re very good with computers, you may find yourself helping her.)
aggirlj: Passing the torch heh.
siannon prime: (Liz) Why? heheh
AGplusone: Well, I’m on a Mac. She sometimes gets into windoz where I don’t want to go.
KultsiKN: She’s in need of help _right_now_, I learned from Dee..
AGplusone: Yes.
AGplusone: She’s having trouble reinstalling AIM.
TreetopAngelRN: Just woke up, am at “ogre” stage right now.
AGplusone: Which is why she wasn’t here today. Her regrets to you all.
KultsiKN: BOO! Liz?
TreetopAngelRN: that’s one up from “vegetable”
AGplusone: If you get real good you get to be a “mineral” as I am.
TreetopAngelRN: Yes, Kultsi?
siannon prime: (Liz) gotcha, I have a mate who also works at 4 am, sometimes we’re the only people on the planet *g
TreetopAngelRN: I am just hoping for upright and verbal at this point.
KultsiKN: Did I scare ya to wakefulness?
AGplusone: End of vacation, Elizabeth?
TreetopAngelRN: Not, quite, all my reflexes are in downtime:-D
TreetopAngelRN: Second week back David!
siannon prime: *snicker*
AGplusone: Uggh
TreetopAngelRN: will be taking a second week next monthe
TreetopAngelRN: cain’t smell
AGplusone: Better
TreetopAngelRN: Siannon, do I know you better with a different name?
AGplusone: We were struggling with a question before we went on break, Elizabeth. What do you teach juveniles from the passages where Morrie and the rest kill most of the Nazis?
siannon prime: OK, David, can I hand the conn back to you? I really need to get some sleep (those who work shifts will appreciate this)
AGplusone: Siannon = Jani
EBATNM has entered the room.
TreetopAngelRN: Gotcha!
AGplusone: Thank you, Jani. Say hi to Stephen again.
AGplusone: Sleep well.
aggirlj: Bye Jani.
EBATNM:
TreetopAngelRN: Night Jani!
siannon prime: Done, best wishes to everyone, g’night 😉
siannon prime has left the room.
bozilingus: David was kind enough to send a log of the discussion I had missed. Is there any reason to allow people such as the sniper in the Washington, DC are to live? IIRC, in ST these people are refered to as “mad dogs”
KultsiKN: Jani, sleep tight!
bozilingus: with a sickness that could not be cured.
AGplusone: as were the Nazis in Rocket Ship Galileo …
TreetopAngelRN: teaching….the nature of overzealousness? How could the situation be handled differently? Were the boys morally or ethically right in what they did in that situation. At what price self-defense.
AGplusone: they were the Odessa
AGplusone: that never materialized
TreetopAngelRN: just some thoughts
AGplusone: Okay, and they are all points ….
aggirlj: Open for discussion, great social study.
TreetopAngelRN: ( and I didn’t have to look at my notes8-))
AGplusone: when do you or when must we counter zealotry?
AGplusone: when we have no other reasonably or safe choice?
BPRAL22169: And when we work that out, we can apply the solution to the fundamentalist Middle East.-
AGplusone: I dunno. It’s one of the “big questions” for a social studies class, but we do have one of those big questions going today … on big and an small scales
Dehede011 has entered the room.
EBATNM: you pays your money, takes your choice, & live with the consequences
Dehede011: Howdy folks
AGplusone: How early do teachers teach that big questions?
bozilingus: Re: Nazis; if the boys had not killed them, there was a strong possibility that more people would be in danger (i.e. Earth’s free citizens).
KultsiKN: Never.
AGplusone: Hi, Ron. bozilingus is John. Rest you know I think.
Dehede011: Thanks Dave, Hi John
TreetopAngelRN: I feel the boys were acting on fear and adrenalin. I see the need for what they did, but how do you teach that to kids these days.
BPRAL22169: I think this was a couple of years before he developed the concept of earth orbit and subsequently the Moon as being the “high ground” for purposes of warfare.
AGplusone: What’s the date of the article he did with Cal?
AGplusone: 47?
BPRAL22169: 1948, I think.
BPRAL22169: Written in 1948 and published in 49, I believe.
aggirlj: My copyright is 1947.
AGplusone: RSG was written 46
AGplusone: published the next year
bozilingus: Hi Dehede011
TreetopAngelRN: (OT for Jane) my e-mail is
Dehede011: I’ve often tried to reconstruct when I first read RSG. My best guess was 47
aggirlj: Thanks.
AGplusone: How old were you then, Ron?
Dehede011: 8th grade as I remember
AGplusone: 13-14?
AGplusone: So you remembered WW2 pretty clearly
Dehede011: Something like that — Jeez the same year I started boxing
TreetopAngelRN:
AGplusone: Your reaction to the killing of the Nazis? Anything at all?
BPRAL22169: I think I had the dates wrong. Gifford has it written July 47 (which I think is off by several months). I’ll continue checking.
Dehede011: Just doing what came naturally
AGplusone: Yes. My impression in 54, even if I didn’t have much of a memery of WW2 I knew my family had fought in it.
Dehede011: I remember the fear on Dec 7 very vividly
bozilingus: Re: the progressive schools in the “world” of RSG. Does anyone think there could be a day when our children may be able to learn in that type of environment?
AGplusone: And that was what it was all about, killing Nazis, etc.
TreetopAngelRN: I don’t have the WWII memories and I just simply thought of them as the “bad guys.”
AGplusone: Depends on what Progressive means. I think the idea went bonkers in the 30s.
TreetopAngelRN: I think kids would learn better in that environment
Dehede011: That and having a vivid understanding of both Nanking and the concentration camps
aggirlj: Montessori is supposed to be progressive.
BPRAL22169: I see what the problem was. “Flight into the Future” was mid-1947; “Billion Dollar Eye” was mid-1948
AGplusone: Was perverted. My school thought it taught progressive at least as late as the 50’s. I graduated in 60
AGplusone: Montressori was a part of the movement
TreetopAngelRN: I believ e kids must be taught at their level and with whatever tools help them. I hate the little robots being churned out now, whether they earn the grade or not.
AGplusone: When the idea became politicized, it got diverted into twaddle …
AGplusone: and diffused
Dehede011: Has anyone read John Taylor Gatto??
AGplusone: into whatever makes your boat float
AGplusone: No, who’s Gatto?
Dehede011: If you do a search on his name you will find he has a book on line called
Dehede011: The underground history of education
Dehede011: He has 50 years in ed and was New York Teacher of the Year either once or twice
AGplusone: A lot of what I found re “Progressive” education on-line, today, is the reaction to perversions of the movement. I wonder what Dewey would say about most of what I’ve read.
TreetopAngelRN: I must get going, I have graduated to resembling a human and must become “supernurse” within the next hour. Have a good chat!
AGplusone: A lot of people jumped on a bandwagon that became little more than a label.
aggirlj: Bye Elizabeth 🙂
Dehede011: Have a good evening Treetop
BPRAL22169: James invented the “Factory School” concept after reading Peirce and Dewey — the Jamesian school was in competition with the Montessori model in the 1910’s — the Jamesian won out because it could be quantified,
AGplusone: and they brought the most inept tools to bear on the problems. Bye Elizabeth
TreetopAngelRN: Bye all
BPRAL22169: whereas the Montessori model is skill-acquisition oriented rather than results-oriented.
TreetopAngelRN has left the room.
AGplusone: “testing”
AGplusone: vs. ?????
Dehede011: Bill, I love to hear your take on Taylor
Dehede011: I would love
BPRAL22169: Taylor?
Dehede011: John Taylor Gatto, sorry
AGplusone: When did James’ notions become ‘qualified’ as you say, Bill?
BPRAL22169: Sounds like something I would like to read. It’s been awhile since I did any reading in education criticism — quite awhile. I read Holt when his stuff was coming out.
Dehede011: I have tried to find Holt, the Home Ed guy??
AGplusone: I remmber reading someone named James Connant (sp?) many years ago.
BPRAL22169: “quantified” rather than “qualified.” James set things up so there were distinct tests that could be measured — it fit much better with the top-down funding for schools that the u.S. was embracing.
AGplusone: Yes, I noticed that. But if he ‘won out’ then he became qualified, didn’t he, i.e., accepted.
AGplusone: Could score by machine …. not by oral exam.
BPRAL22169: Ah, wordplay. I don’t recall — it was a gradual process. The factory school was mostly in place by the 1930’s
Dehede011: Probably earlier as I remember Gatto
BPRAL22169: Could well be.
Dehede011: Gatto seems to think the schools have been designed since back in the 1800s to produce a 3 tiered product
AGplusone: So how do you quantify the lessons to be taught in a “Heinlein juvenile” curriculum, if at all
EBATNM: turn of the (last) century in Boston and then spread-out until fully in-place by early 50’s
Dehede011: In terms of Gatto, Dave??
AGplusone: In terms of anything.
BPRAL22169: Yes, Andy, I think that was one of the rationales for having the television show on now BOSTON PUBLIC.
BPRAL22169: I refuse to think like a Jamesian.
Dehede011: Gatto would say, I think, that the schools were set up to produce the bottom two tiers
AGplusone: Yeah, but … to persuade the ‘inimy’ you have to outthink them on their terms.
Dehede011: Heinlein would be all out to gain a 1st tier education
AGplusone: Define the tiers
EBATNM: the Boston School system was designed to “Produce good Americans” which, in Boston terms meant “Shut Up & labor in my factory”
AGplusone: go on
Dehede011: Oh, first is the Brahmin level, 2nd is the techs and managers, 3rd is the proles
Dehede011: or workers
BPRAL22169: Don’t forget to note: it was also designed to cope with the absolute flood of non-English speaking immigrants going on at the time.
AGplusone: James called this Dewey’s Progressive Education?
AGplusone: I’d think this was what Dewey fought against.
Dehede011: And turn those immigrants into workers with the occasional tech or manager
BPRAL22169: The self-education and Mechanics Institute movements were going great guns at the end of the 19th century.
AGplusone: Referring to the stuff Phil Owenby noted in his Ph.D dissertation?
Dehede011: Gatto points out an interesting factoid about self education
EBATNM: and the unions were continuing the effort in the union halls & *SURPRISE* all of a sudden the Brahmins got _real_ interested in public education
Dehede011: Up to the Civil War you mostly couldn’t get into grammar school unless you could read
Dehede011: and do arithmetic to the rule of three
Dehede011: I see RAH as pushing a Brahmin education for us
Dehede011: Sorry, pushing us to a Brahmin ed
BPRAL22169: No, I think he’s got a different tier system.
AGplusone: So, going back to John’s original question: could we ever have a progressive education system? Do you, any of you, think we have one now?
Dehede011: Who??
BPRAL22169: The “Brahmin” education was oriented to fine arts and letters.
EBATNM: Exactly, Bill, the standard “Classical” education
BPRAL22169: What do you mean by “progressive”?
Dehede011: No, in Gatto’s terms to leading the society
AGplusone: The gentleman’s Liberal Education. Newman.
Dehede011: brb
AGplusone: What did Dewey mean?
BPRAL22169: Yes, exactly, Ron: you learned arts and letters and history instead of operating a lathe or double-entry accounting.
AGplusone: Classics + Science + Technical + Practical
EBATNM: In broad terms the “English” system instead of the “German” system.
AGplusone: The so-called “Comprehensive” school
BPRAL22169: Now, Heinlein’s idea is that you conn a ship, plan a revolution, read and enjoy Shakespeare, do a crossword puzzle and then make one up for the next person to come along.
AGplusone: Don’t forget about being able to Dig a Latrine.
AGplusone: Downstream.
EBATNM: and die gallantly
BPRAL22169: And measure the distance from your water source! Trig and ditchdigging in one fell swoop.
AGplusone: So the soup tastes better.
EBATNM: and separate the latrine from the well!
KultsiKN: Yup, and the school system _should_ teach us those simple tasks, right?
AGplusone: I think it should
Dehede011: Oh, and Gatto thinks the English system, and the American, came from the Indian
EBATNM: at least give the kids a chance to do so
AGplusone: God knows there’s some parents out there these days who are unable to
BPRAL22169: Yeah — if you have ot label Heinlein’s notion of what education should do, it should leave the attentive ordinary student capable of that list he put in TEFL.
BPRAL22169: Aha! Gatto and the Law of Manu!
KultsiKN: And I agree with RAH
Dehede011: Bill, you have me on Manu?
BPRAL22169: I’m trying to remember the three tiers in that system — priests, farmers, soldiers, I think.
Dehede011: five tiers but in effect three
BPRAL22169: The Law of Manu is that Indo-European system on which Indian societies are (generally) based.
BPRAL22169: Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, I think.
Dehede011: Brahmin, soldiers and merchants, workers & untouchables, I think
BPRAL22169: The untouchables were outside the system.
Dehede011: I don’t know — Gatto gives them as the 5th tier I believe
EBATNM: Brahmins, soldiers, merchants, farmers, untouchables
EBATNM: and the rest of us don’t count
AGplusone: So. What do we educate in an equalitarian society?
Dehede011: Gatto says the Indian system in three tiers
AGplusone: Gatto’s an engineer.
Dehede011: But the Brahmin is not in our public system
AGplusone: And that’s not a compliment.
Dehede011: No, Gatto was in Ed for 50 years
Dehede011: 20 yrs a student, 30 yrs a teacher
AGplusone: Should have stayed an engneer. Blowing the whistle on the locomotive at crossings would have been a better contribution to society. Toooot-toot.
EBATNM: What about the education system in “Space Patrol”? There the kids had to, mostly, educate themselves but with help and a supporting enviornment
Dehede011: What do you mean Dave??
AGplusone: Space Cadet?
BPRAL22169: I think that’s a direct reflection of the USNA.
EBATNM: er, um (yeah) Space Cadet ….
AGplusone: Self-starters.
AGplusone: Already selected out. Kop Russells
BPRAL22169: I had a long interview with a 1933 graduate, and he said the Academy didn’t even try to provide a finished education — they just gave you the basics and you’d pick up finish as you went along.
AGplusone: Kip
EBATNM: the major problem today is that the kids who WANT to be educated are mushed in with blockheads who do not wish to be so
BPRAL22169: So you got an exposure to the fundamentals of everything including how to dance and not disgrace yourself once you got your sword.
Dehede011: Interesting Bill, Flight School gave you the basics of the Fourth Way and sent you on your way
BPRAL22169: LOL. that’s interesting.
BPRAL22169: Did they have a Gurdjieffan on staff there?
Dehede011: I’ve noticed the same thing at West Point and West Point Prep
AGplusone: So, under a comprehensive system you give them the basics so they can catch up later and you spend your time teaching them skills they wish to learn.
Dehede011: No, he showed up as a methodist preacher turned Chaplain
BPRAL22169: Actually, I can see that, Ron: the fundamentals of Fourth Way is “Wake-the-hell-up.”
AGplusone: One size doesn’t fit all.
AGplusone: At all times. Unfortuately for some, time runs out.
AGplusone: Here’s the menu. Either take typing or take math analysis.
BPRAL22169: Trouble is, typing became as basic to modern life as analysis is to engineering!
EBATNM: at the Hunter School in NYC they have a dance program. The kids get at dance class at 6:30 AM, dance for 2 hours, then have regular school, have a 20 minute break and at 3:45 dance for another 2 hours. On Saturdays they dance from
AGplusone: And you give different degrees. General, Trade, Business, Academic.
EBATNM: 9 to 4. On sundays they rest. And they have a multi-year waiting list. If the kid wants to do something he/she WILL do it
AGplusone: Not a “high school diploma” …
BPRAL22169: Yes, Andy — a real fact.
EBATNM: I try not to deal with unreal facts 🙂
AGplusone: What do they give now? Unreal education?
BPRAL22169: As opposed to a “factoid,” Nimrod.
EBATNM: In our local (rural) high school they teach football
AGplusone: I.e., “if you’re late we’ll make you sit in detention all day”
AGplusone: They taught football when I attended. I learned it pretty well.
AGplusone: I also learned math analysis.
AGplusone: And Latin.
aggirlj: And all the words to “Officer Krupke.”
AGplusone: And architectural drafting
AGplusone: and all the words to various Tom Lehrer songs
KultsiKN: Huh?
aggirlj: West Side Story.
AGplusone: and how to make a zip gun
BPRAL22169: “All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon when you’re poisoning pigeons in the park.”
KultsiKN: Now, that’s practical!
EBATNM: “when they see me the birdies all try & hide”
AGplusone: yeah, but I didn’t exactly learn it all in class
EBATNM: “but they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide”
BPRAL22169: I keep toying with the idea that nobody ever really learns anything in class.
bozilingus: My high school was a “factory”. Move ’em out as quickly as possible.
BPRAL22169: That’s one of my favorite rhymes, Andy.
AGplusone: I’d disagree. I had teachers.
AGplusone: Sometimes the lessons they taught weren’t in the books, however.
bozilingus: “My pulse will be quickenin’ with each drop of strychinine we feed to a pigeon”
KultsiKN: I also had some. My German and some of my English come from them.
BPRAL22169: “When the shades of night are falling…”
aggirlj: Blue Indigo.
AGplusone: ‘… comes the old dope peddlar’
BPRAL22169: Yes, exactly.
AGplusone: we actually had very little dope peddling in the 50s
BPRAL22169: I’m having a hard time with the melodies on those Tom Lehrer songs because Messiah is playing in my ear right now.
AGplusone: two three guys who smoked pot
KultsiKN: During the last six months I’ve come to hate the pigeons with a passion…
BPRAL22169: No, there was plenty of dope peddling — just not included in your circle.
Dehede011: I guess in the mid 20s in KC they had plenty
aggirlj: Exactly, my high school was a drop and I didn’t even know it.
AGplusone: You have no clue what my circle was at various times Bill
BPRAL22169: If you think there was very little dope peddling, I think you have pretty well described your circle.
BPRAL22169: this is LA in the 1950’s.
BPRAL22169: The history is pretty well documented.
AGplusone: this is LA in the 50s
bozilingus: There seemed to be a ratio of one “concerned” teacher for 20 who were collecting a check. I would like to have been taught “how” to think and not just fact-gathering.
aggirlj: LA in the 60s
AGplusone: not even heavy in Watts until early 60s
Dehede011: That isn’t the Southern California boys I met in the Navy
AGplusone: MJ?
AGplusone: I suppose ‘heavy’ is relative.
KultsiKN: Ganja?
aggirlj: Yes. A word I recently learned from a song.
BPRAL22169: Have we recentlytaken to listening to reggae?
aggirlj: Some.
AGplusone: In the 60s the southern league schools went to substantially more than just pot
AGplusone: but before then … no way.
EBATNM: as the old saying goes “There wasn’t a drug problem in my school, you could get whatever you wanted” that’s Washington state 1969 – 1971
BPRAL22169: Let’s put it this way: the dope trade in its very nature is a market economy; it is always substantial enough to supply the demand for its product — or else it is trying to get there.
AGplusone: Big difference in ten years, Andy.
EBATNM: and not for the better
BPRAL22169: What happened in the 1960’s is that the public became generally aware of it.
AGplusone: The product was available. Just wasn’t a big market.
BPRAL22169: i.e., what happened with drugs in the 1960’s is just the same as what happeneed with sex in the 1920’s. No more, no less.
bozilingus: Should all “illegal” drugs be legalized? Or maybe at least a few?
AGplusone: Hell, I ran with gangs in high school. It was always there. Just wasn’t generally used is all.
KultsiKN: Not all; some, yes.
aggirlj: The 70’s it took off. There was a saying when I was living in the valley that if everyone who smoked pot lit a match at night you would need no ligts. And the Valley was very conservative.
AGplusone: But back to teaching and teachers …
AGplusone: the attitude of teachers was important …
bozilingus: Seems our culture (in the USA) puts more effort in fighting a “drug war” than is necessary. Money could be put to better use in other “societal problems”.
AGplusone: they started feeling futile in the 60s
AGplusone: and not solely because of drugs
aggirlj: They got hamstrung. Remember Mr. Bogel, no one goofed off in his class.
BPRAL22169: Isn’t that when “Why Johnny Can’t Read” came out?
bozilingus: “they started feeling futile in the 60s” may explain the education I received.
Dehede011: What happened in the 60s, Dave? Every curve I’ve seen turned downward at that time
AGplusone: Blackboard Jungle was written in the 50s, but the attitude of “sitting on the trashcan to keep the garbage from overflowing into the street” wasn’t common at all.
AGplusone: It was aberrant
AGplusone: The teachers all thought they were Glen Ford
EBATNM: Elaine’s (my SO) mother taught from the 1930’s to the 1980 and she was glad to leave at the end. “The kids got worse each year”
AGplusone: But in the 60s I think a generation died out and I still haven’t figured out what took their place.
EBATNM: she said at the end was just a babysitter
Dehede011: If I got his numbers right, I graduated with the last class that Allan Bloom said came to college to learn
BPRAL22169: Heinlein points to the curriculum being weak in 1958
Dehede011: Yes,
AGplusone: It obviously was, some places, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to write HSSWT
AGplusone: Teachers teaching about family democracies
Dehede011: But I remember how, at the time, I thought that was kind of far out
AGplusone: My parents never heard about family democracies, and my father would have laughed himself silly.
AGplusone: I thought it was far out in 58 and I was in high school.
Dehede011: My Pop would have seen that idea as a challenge to family order
BPRAL22169: I think it traces back to some kind of abrupt failure of parenting early in the last century.
AGplusone: When? How? the “our kids have to have it better than we did” ethic?
AGplusone: Or the mom went to work? Or what?
BPRAL22169: the mid-century curriculum reflects adolescents teaching adolescents. Adults disappeared.
AGplusone: Well, my teachers were all pretty “old” … forties at least.
Dehede011: Gatto sees all that as a planned result
Dehede011: The goals were to present a tiered education, to delay adulthood, to produce followers
BPRAL22169: Yes, I can see that is very consistent with adolescent psychology — stay with the peer group.
AGplusone: Maybe it came as a result of ‘administrative training’ and the introduction of psychologists.
BPRAL22169: Ah, yes: school psychologists, “the good and the just”
AGplusone: I recall the ‘counselors’ we had were all failed teachers.
Dehede011: But that is the great thing about Heinlein — he taught us to think as Brahmin
AGplusone: Kept them out of classrooms …
bozilingus: ” to produce followers”, could that be the underlying problem with our schools now?
Dehede011: Yes,
aggirlj: Behavior modification!!
Dehede011: Exactly AGG
BPRAL22169: I think the “underlying” problem with the schools is that they aren’t really concerned with schooling.
Dehede011: According to Gatto they are very concerned with their agenda, it just isnt the agenda we
BPRAL22169: If they actually paid attention to schooling-type-activity instead of jailing/babysitting-type activity there might be a different output.
Dehede011: think it is
AGplusone: schooling is exactly what they are concerned with. Well-schooled dogs and horses.
BPRAL22169: I think that is unequivocally true: education is not the agenda of an American school
Dehede011: Training whereas RAH wanted us to be educated
EBATNM: not the American public school, certainly
BPRAL22169: And that is the underlying problem.
BPRAL22169: Which, incidentally, means its moderately possible to change it, at least on a local scale.
Dehede011: Exactly Bill
AGplusone: Maybe we should call the profession “schoolers” instead of teachers
Dehede011: Gatto seems to see the solution in homeschooling
AGplusone: Gatto is an engineer.
Dehede011: Didn’t Holt also??
KultsiKN: Who’s got the time?
BPRAL22169: ISTR
AGplusone: Who’s got the ability
BPRAL22169: A surprising number of people are makign the time.
Dehede011: Home schooling is a growing concern
aggirlj: Most home schoolers feel it’s safer, not better.
AGplusone: The guy who insisted his wife continue to have children is your typical homeschooler … the one who killed them all one day
aggirlj: Well forget my last comment.
BPRAL22169: It’s certainly psychologically safer.
Dehede011: No Dave, I have a girl cousin that just graduated — that characterization doesn’t fit
AGplusone: for whom: the parents
EBATNM: Here in New Mexico you can walk into any fairly well stocked bookshop & buy any class you want up to university level
bozilingus: Is it safe to say that the majority of parents aren’t concerned about their children’s education? That school is a necessary “evil” and is mainly to be used as a babysitter while the parents work?
BPRAL22169: My sister’s kids go to a run-of-the-mill elementary school in Glendora, and the experiences are horrifying.
aggirlj: I think that’s a fair assesment.
AGplusone: Run for school board in Glendora
AGplusone: Of course, you’ll be termed out after two terms.
Dehede011: Heck, it has gotten so bad we see reports that the latest Miss America was severely bullied in school
AGplusone: Just about the time you learn what’s really going on.
BPRAL22169: Yes, that’s the down side of term limits.
AGplusone: D’oh!
AGplusone: And the up side is . . . ?
Dehede011: None
BPRAL22169: No, I think everything should have a sunset clause.
KultsiKN: No more Bill — not BPR…
AGplusone: It does. You die.
EBATNM: the same idiots who are running everything now would be running them for the next zillion years
BPRAL22169: Kultsi, I don’t understand that remark. Could you expand it?
Dehede011: What we are really saying is that we don’t want to be voters so we want laws that do the job for us
BPRAL22169: Term limits is a bandaid to stop political machines from becoming entrenched.
KultsiKN: He has a spouse called Hillary…
aggirlj: We have completely volunteer city council here. Term limits are set. A good friend of mine is currently in council and, yes there are idiots, but you hope for a majority of intelligence. It gets very interesting in the meetings.
BPRAL22169: Ah. Got it.
EBATNM: Kansas City had schools that were the envy of the nation, under the Pendergast machine
AGplusone: Yes, and we knew about what RAH’s solution to political machines was. How to be a Politician.
BPRAL22169: Yes, there were up sides to the Pendergast machine, as RAH tells us directly.
AGplusone: Harry Truman came up out of the Pendergast machine.
BPRAL22169: But the down sides were strong enough to support reform movements that destroyed them.
AGplusone: “reformists” …
EBATNM: Of course the Chicago machine produced the Chicago school system
BPRAL22169: Hey, Heinlein was a reform politician.
AGplusone: And he had a dim view of them, didn’t he?
EBATNM: in an EPIC manner, too
BPRAL22169: California was solidly Republican before the 1940’s.
AGplusone: All that waste energy.
AGplusone: And afterwards . . .
BPRAL22169: Oh, How many Republican senators do we have now?
AGplusone: Dunno. What’s Feinstein really?
BPRAL22169: a suck-up.
AGplusone: LOL
EBATNM: a tool of the Real Estate moguls of San Francisco
BPRAL22169: You have to remember: I lived in SF under the reign of Queen Dianne.
bozilingus: Could the current election system used in the USA be looked upon as an educational system? You start out locally and then progress to state then national office. Term limits would “enforce” growth.
AGplusone: take away her anti-gun because of Harvey Milk and Moscone’s assassination and what have you got.
AGplusone: Not much difference from Pete Wilson
BPRAL22169: I don’t know — it’s true that all the strong personalities got removed from SF politics and that let her come up, but with her husband’s Real Estate interests, she was a pretty good candidate for office anyway.
EBATNM: no, no, Wilson was the tool of the Southern California Real Estate and Aero-space industries …. totally different :0
BPRAL22169: Much the same thing was going on in LA at the same time — the real estate interests in LA have destroyed the downtown and created a vast ring of slums for miles from city center.
AGplusone: Still and all … we could have another Max Rafferty
BPRAL22169: Have you noticed that ALL the alternatives were equally unpalatable? This past presidential election was not unique in Am. politics — just more vicious than usual.
AGplusone: And as everyone knows we gave the world Ronnie Raygun and Dick Nixon!
Dehede011: What was the purpose of that Bill
BPRAL22169: What do you mean?
Dehede011: i.e., destroying downtown LA
aggirlj: It’s never over until your brother counts the votes.
EBATNM: Nixon started as a Reform Politician, don’t cha know?
AGplusone: It was the classic choice when I got to choose between B-1 Bob Dornan and Hayden.
AGplusone: wadda cerce choice!
BPRAL22169: The purpose was not to destroy the city center — the purpose was to funnel city infrastructure resources into the real estate developments they owned; the destructino of the city center
BPRAL22169: was a side effect.
Dehede011: okay
AGplusone: Pushing twelve minutes over. Shall we adjourn?
BPRAL22169: so it is. Well, folks, it’s been real.
EBATNM: at your command, Sir!
BPRAL22169: Get out!
aggirlj: Okay by me. Was cherce(spellling intentional.)
KultsiKN: why? the going’s strong.
Dehede011: We had a section like that in St. Louis called Hiroshima Flats. I think the purpose was to get the property
AGplusone: log closed 1712 PM PDT
aggirlj: Bye
aggirlj has left the room.
bozilingus: Pleasure to meet all of you.
BPRAL22169: It happened all over the country in the 1960’s and onward.
DavidWrightSr: I got it all dave
Dehede011: Yep
AGplusone: twas a pleasure, John
EBATNM: pleasure
AGplusone: Thanks David
AGplusone: Good night from New York …
bozilingus has left the room.
Dehede011: And the northern suburbs of Chicago
BPRAL22169: There was a realtor in Hollywood who found out that if he carved a little city out of the Hollywood district he got all the graft and control of real estate developments. So West Hollywood came into being in 1984.
EBATNM: are we continuing or ?
AGplusone: When we first moved into Santa Monica, the entire city council was real estate brokers.
AGplusone: off log
BPRAL22169: 1950’s?
AGplusone: 1966
BPRAL22169: ISTR you grew up in the area north and west of downtown.
AGplusone: The big push by the “Renters Rights” bunch came about four years later.
BPRAL22169: Yes, that sounds about right.
Dehede011: Dave, when I moved into my first house in 1967 I came to learn the local RE developer was the boss
Dehede011: I mean nothing happened unless he approved
AGplusone: LOL
Dehede011: What I couldn’t figure out was that the voters were solidly against him
Dehede011: But in the short run that didn’t matter
BPRAL22169: Sounds like a traditional city machine.
AGplusone: Time for me to leave … wife just got home.
Dehede011: see you dave
BPRAL22169: I think I’ll take off too and see if I can get some work done today.
KultsiKN: Cya, Dave!
Dehede011: How is it going?
BPRAL22169: Have fun one and all.
AGplusone: Whereas the Renters Rights bunch in Santa mOnica took about 20 years to become a standard machine that it is today
EBATNM: bye everyone see you next time *poof*
AGplusone: bye
BPRAL22169: I’m about to write the chapter on the EPIC movement
EBATNM has left the room.
AGplusone has left the room.
Dehede011: sounds great. You are still in the 30s then??
BPRAL22169: I’ve got one huge chunk of exposition to do about what “socialism” meant then as opposed to what it means now.
Dehede011: Right. and it was different
BPRAL22169: Yes. I’m trying to write the expository chunk while I’m waiting for an important piece of reference material to arrive.
Dehede011: Is Ginny’s retirement affecting you??
BPRAL22169: Yes — there were two lines of socialism that were still living and active at the same time back then
BPRAL22169: Not so much at the moment.
Dehede011: Just liberalism up to 69
Dehede011: within the Democrat party
BPRAL22169: She did a major data dump in 2000 and 2001, and I’m still working off that.
Dehede011: It isn’t all in the Archives??
BPRAL22169: The liberals took on the basic attitudes of Marxism
BPRAL22169: “It” what?
Dehede011: Yes, I always refer to myself as a classic liberal and find myself closer to the Republicans
BPRAL22169: The archives has the correspondence. Ginny gave me about 20+ hours of overview material and context-setting.
Dehede011: Okay, now I understand
Dehede011: The intersticial material.
Dehede011: I misspelled that
BPRAL22169: Liberalism starts in the 18th century and spawned socialism as one of its main branches. But there were from the time of the French Revolution two very different strains of socialism: utopian socialism (saint-simon, fourier, Owens
BPRAL22169: Noyes, Wells, Sinclair) versus the class-warfare line from Babeuf to Marx.
Dehede011: I liked throwing that mini bomb into the chat — it is surprising about the parellel
BPRAL22169: Yes, it was quite interesting.
Dehede011: between the 4th way and officer training
BPRAL22169: I wonder how many of the people at the chat even knew what “Fourth Way” means?
Dehede011: Probably not many — you taught me that esoteric isn’t secret just unnoticed by most
KultsiKN: So, educate me.
BPRAL22169: I think that’s right. It’s always so far as I can tell, been right out in the open for those who have eyes to see it.
Dehede011: The 4th way is a rejection of the three classic approaches to enlightenment
Dehede011: The 3 classics train either the body, mind or soul
BPRAL22169: I think the basic material is in IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS
Dehede011: The 4th way trains us to be conscious and to use our 3 servants the body, mind and soul
KultsiKN: eye C
Dehede011: but conscious comes down to being our own leader.
Dehede011: The basic RAH message as I see it
KultsiKN: Very much so.
BPRAL22169: And by consciousness G meant — it’s easier to describe it by a negative: According to G most people go through life in a state akin to sleep
Dehede011: But then he was probably taught the system, in embryo, at USNA
BPRAL22169: I’m not sure — teaching was pretty primitive in 1925 at the USNA
Dehede011: I can’t argue with G on that
BPRAL22169: essentially, the Admiral I talked to said the Navy regarded it as a dumping ground for the worn out.
Dehede011: I read a detailed description of how it is done at West Point and West Point Prep
BPRAL22169: There has been a lot of change at the military academies since 1925
Dehede011: I’ll bet they had the basic system at USNA but de facto not a taught theory
BPRAL22169: Back to consciousness, RAH talks about “thinking clearly and consistently” and he’s talking about that state of consciousness.
Dehede011: And not everyone got it
Dehede011: Yes, he is also talking about GS
Dehede011: General semantics
BPRAL22169: He only talked about one or two teachers at the academy — his swordmaster was one.
Dehede011: The swordmaster taught him body
Dehede011: and probably some consciousness as well
BPRAL22169: I think Heinlein adopted General Semantics because it fit in with these other ideas. He apparently came to GS fairly late — 1938 through Stuart Chase’s book.
Dehede011: Right
BPRAL22169: I think he gets the basic framework from a combination of Huxley and Wells.
Dehede011: Okay, I don’t see the connection but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there
BPRAL22169: With Huxley he gets a model for, he says, how much an unimpeded intellect can achieve on its own.
KultsiKN: I don’t see it either —
Dehede011: Huxley — any particular sources for that
BPRAL22169: From Wells he gets the model of scientific approach to a world that has a spiritual dimension
BPRAL22169: He just mentions reading “the essays” of TH HUxley as a teenager and being profoundly affected by them. The one he mentions is the one on the “Gadarene Swine.”
Dehede011: I get the idea that RAH was fairly spiritual but kept that off page
Dehede011: I read a couple of Huxley’s essay and was very impressed by the man
BPRAL22169: So he is simultaneously exploring the scientific aspects and the spiritual aspects of reality using tools that work with each.
KultsiKN: Oh, a Huxley a generation earlier that I was aware of…
Dehede011: I don’t quite follow but it sounds interesting
BPRAL22169: Yes, T.H. Huxley was one of Darwin’s great defenders — he was the one who debated Wilberforce.
BPRAL22169: Also a teacher of Wells for a semester.
Dehede011: Wilberforce was an ass even if he was of my faith
BPRAL22169: I think Aldous Huxley was a grand-nephew or some similar relationship.
Dehede011: That would be a great essay, how the defeat of Wilberforce depressed the Anglicans for a 100 years
Dehede011: LOL
BPRAL22169: So that places T.H. Huxley as being at his active peak in the last quarter of the 19th century.
BPRAL22169: Actually, the impression of the people who were at the debate was that Wilberforce “won” it.
Dehede011: T. H. said we should study 3 languages, English, German & Latin
BPRAL22169: That would give you a nice derangement of experience.
Dehede011: I can imagine they would agree with W. They walked in agreeing with him
BPRAL22169: I studied English, Latin, then Greek, then German.
BPRAL22169: Very likely you are correct about that. He did represent the “majority” opinion.
Dehede011: Then T. H. would approve.
BPRAL22169: So nice to be validated by a dead man!
Dehede011: Wilberforce was and still is entirely typical of a segment of our society
Dehede011: But he and they are asses
BPRAL22169: Yes, a classic case of “the good and the just.”
Dehede011: Once I really started to understanding Bell Curve and Gulf I wanted to write a series about
Dehede011: how that all played out
BPRAL22169: That would make an interesting thing to see — in outline if you never write it up.
BPRAL22169: But, you know, the science of The Bell Curve is faulty — they don’t understand the actual mechanisms of evolution.
Dehede011: Opus 2 is written. Opus three is in development.
BPRAL22169: When are you going to start showing them?
Dehede011: I have to do some more work on op2 to see if my latest learnings are consistant with the story
BPRAL22169: ah, fiddling!
Dehede011: I will send op2 out about the new year
BPRAL22169: Well, I must sign off. Have a good one.
Dehede011: No, I don’t want to screw up
BPRAL22169: Kultsi- you, too.
BPRAL22169: Have fun.
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
Dehede011: Kultsi, Bill have a good one
KultsiKN: You too, Ron, Cya!
Dehede011: Bill, I am on to something good and I want it to be good
Dehede011: nite
Dehede011 has left the room.
KultsiKN has left the room.
Final End of Discussion Log
