Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Saturday 11-11-2000 5:00 P.M. EST
Women In Heinlein
Here Begins The Discussion Log
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”
SAcademy has entered the room.
AGplusone: G’day again, Ginny
SAcademy: Hello, David.
SAcademy: We seem to be the only ones here now.
AGplusone: Just catching up on my posts and waiting for 2 PM, EST
SAcademy: It’s almost 6 PM here.
SAcademy: 5 sorry.
SAcademy: I suppose that a lot of people are watching to see what happens here in Florida.
AGplusone: I’m always confused about time … my mind thinks PST, and I type EST. ONLY about 200 million or so.
SAcademy: Someone in the Gore camp is supposed to be on TV soon–can’t remember who.
AGplusone: That was my signal to click on the idiot box.
KultsiKN has entered the room.
AGplusone: Somebody’s trying to make a putt.
AGplusone: Hi, Kultsi, LTNC.
SAcademy: Oh, then will you let me know, and I will go and look.
KultsiKN: Hi, all!
AGplusone: Sure will.
SAcademy: Hello, we’re having a wonderful time with politics here.
AGplusone: OTOH, Kultsi’s doing important things like making sure there’s enough fuel oil for the winter.
Gaeltachta has entered the room.
SAcademy: Hello Mr. Kennedy
Gaeltachta: Good Morning good lady.
SAcademy: How are all the koalas today?
AGplusone: When does the ice freeze sufficiently to drive to Helsinki … or do they have bridges too.
Gaeltachta: 🙂 They are great thanks. And yourself?
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
SAcademy: I’m in good health. Thank you.
KultsiKN: Never, nowadays. Ferries to and from Sweden, Estonia…
AGplusone: Was reading something about Helsinki in the late ’30s. Author implied most of Helsinki was on an island and ferry was only way to get to many homes until winter and the ice got thick enough.
FraSprea has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, Bill.
BPRAL22169: Yo.
FraSprea: Hello everybody
BPRAL22169: You may be certain this is I; the shortcut isn’t on my laptop.
SAcademy: Hello.
AGplusone: Francesco, hello. You’ve met Kultsi and Sean?
FraSprea: No, how do you do
Gaeltachta: G’day all. Hi Francesco.
KultsiKN: Don’t know about that time — the only place nowadays is an ancient fortress which is served by a ferry.
BPRAL22169: We had one of those in San Francisco — Alcatraz.
KultsiKN: Nice to meet ya, Francesco!
BPRAL22169: Except for the “ancient” part.
AGplusone: Ancient for California …
SAcademy: Oh, come on. Bill. Alcatraz is (or was) a prison.
KultsiKN: So is part of ours 🙂
AGplusone: But originally it was an artillery battery in the bay, part of the port defenses.
SAcademy: We have one of those here, too. St. Augustine.
SAcademy: Old Spanish fortress.
AGplusone: Probably exactly the same here ….
BPRAL22169: So I stretched things slightly. It’s a fortress, too.
AGplusone: “here” advisedly meaning San Francisco …
KultsiKN: And then time moves on and they become obsolete as fortresses…
BPRAL22169: In the broad sense.
AGplusone: We have an old port defense fort called Fort MacArthur (after Douglas’s father) down in San Pedro … these days it’s mostly a park.
AGplusone: On a point of land overlooking Pedro and Long Beach.
SAcademy: So is the one in St. Augustine a park
AGplusone: So’s the one in San Juan, Puerto Rico … next to Old Town.
BPRAL22169: There is an actual fort in SF — Fort Point (a twin to Ft. Sumpter), but it isn’t serviced by Ferry (and it didn’t get pounded to sand)
BPRAL22169: And Ft. Mason isn’t a fort.
SAcademy: Wasn’t that one originally Russian?
AGplusone: “Point” or “Mason”?
SAcademy: Point.
BPRAL22169: I don’t recall offhand — have to look it up. There wasn’t much Russian presence in SF — more in northern parts of California.
SAcademy: Mendocino?
BPRAL22169: Mason, I believe she meant. It is about midway between the Presidio (the Spanish fortification) and the village of Yerba Buena out of which SF grew.
AGplusone: There are a few points further south. Something around Carmel or Monterey iirc
Gaeltachta: How long ago were the Russians in CA?
SAcademy: Not around Carmel or Monterey.
AGplusone: ? When did Bering establish the fur trade.
BPRAL22169: There were trading posts as late as 1846, but mostly inactive by that time. The Russian influence had faded away by the time of the American conquest.
AGplusone: There’s an old church down there somewhere, Ginny. I’ve visited it … Los Osos maybe.
SAcademy: Dunno. Although I’ve been to the Priobiloffs.
AGplusone: A little tiny state park.
SAcademy: I don’t know that one.
AGplusone: Probably about the furthest they got south.
BPRAL22169: Washington Bartlett, the first American Alcalde of Yerba Buena, bought a couple of old Russian vessels for the inland trade to the Sacramento River.
SAcademy: I don’t recognize the word as Russian.
AGplusone: No, Los Osos is the location of the valley where the Spanish stocked up on bears for the missions and later built a mission there
KultsiKN has left the room.
KultsiKN has entered the room.
AGplusone: They killed a couple thousand bears a year there, salted them down and shipped the meat to other missions … regular bear farm.
SAcademy: CA brown bears?
SAcademy: Or is it golden bears?
AGplusone: Kept people alive during a couple seasons when the crops failed. Probably Grizzly
SAcademy: Do grizzlies get that far south?
AGplusone: Heck yes, then. We had grizzly in Big Bear until the 1910s or so.
SAcademy: Really? I never heard that.
AGplusone: Big Bear just north of San Bernardino
SAcademy: What is happening with the election stuff?
AGplusone: Nothin’ on the tube.
SAcademy: Which channel?
BPRAL22169: I’ll be back in about 10 minutes.
AGplusone: I’m looking at ABC
SAcademy: I don’t have a TV in here–no connection for cable.
AGplusone: Tiger Woods is hitting an approach to the green.
KultsiKN: If I had an election going like that, I wouldn’t do it on the TV, either
SAcademy: I’m thrilled.
AGplusone: I’d be surprised if anything happened today … concerning the election.
SAcademy: Golf with a tied election, for Pete’s sake!
AGplusone: Football’s probably on the others … keep things in proportion.
SAcademy: Do you have Fox channel?
AGplusone: Well, Filly’s not going to be here until last hour (yes, but I rarely watch anything owned by Murdoch including the Dodgers these days) … and I dunno whether to expect Randi P or Jane … so, let’s start with “Wimmen in Heinlein.” folks?
KultsiKN: GA
AGplusone: [but CBS and NBC have football, and FOX has some early morning series on].
SAcademy: CNN said that Daley would be speaking soon.
AGplusone: Okay … can anyone generalize about the main female characters in Heinlein other than to say that they all show some admirable characteristics … ? Or do something admirable … relating to the story or theme in the story.
SAcademy: How about Grace Farnham?
AGplusone: Even Grace … before the beginning, backstage … the wreck of a good woman seems the way she fits.
AGplusone: Driven by ennui (or something else) into alcohol?
Gaeltachta: Grace retrieved some of her earlier proficiency, when in adversity.
AGplusone: The clubwoman … like those mentioned to be avoided by political parties in _Take Back Your Government-How To Be a Politician_AGplusone:She did … fragile tho it was …
AGplusone: Even people like Mrs. Grew or Mrs. Keithly (Podkayne and “Gulf”) are admirable villains
AGplusone: The only exceptions I can really think about are Eleanor Johnson and Mrs. John Stuart Thomas the elder ….
Dehede011 has entered the room.
Dehede011: Howdy folks.
AGplusone: Hello Ron … and each of them are set up to contrast … to make some point.
FraSprea: John Stuart’s mother most definitely
AGplusone: All we see about JS’s mother is her interference with the growth of her son … possessiveness or over-interest in the child.
Dehede011: And her interest in the local lawman
AGplusone: But isn’t the situtation truly extraordinary? How many kids have a pet that turns out like Lummie?
FraSprea: few I guess 🙂 But it was her husband’s pet after all.. she should have been prepared
AGplusone: Perhaps Mrs. JS would do just fine, not seem abnormal, not even be challenged, absent Lummie?
AGplusone: After all … today, anyway … few 18 year olds are really competent to leave home, are they?
FraSprea: Yes, I’m 25 and haven’t left yet
AGplusone: Which I suspect, btw, is how Grace treated Dukie in Farnham’s Freehold … probably went to school locally until he left for Law School ….
AGplusone: Lots of children like that today.
AGplusone: Is it mothers who are to blame for the extension of childhood?
AGplusone: Is that a theme that we find in discussion of women in Heinlein?
SAcademy: I pointed out to Robert now and then that the plains herre were crossed by seventeen-year-olds and their 14 year old wives.
AGplusone: Eleanor Johnson, a way back, is trying to keep Hubert in the cradle long after he should have been pushed out.
Gaeltachta: I’m thinking of RAH mother characters in general. They all seem a a bit possessive. Rico, Walker etc. (Not sure about Fries)
Dehede011: Yes, SA, the comment I made the other night, “A woman to go to Kentucky with.”
AGplusone: And Robert had that lady in Rocket Ship Galileo point out that fact when they discussed whether her son should go on the space flight, didn’t he?
AGplusone: Have you found that yet, Francesco?
FraSprea: no, that’s still the only novel I haven’t read yet
AGplusone: There’s a discussion whether the three boys should accompany one of their uncles on a space flight … rather far-fetched, but written in 47, in which one mother points out exactly what Ginny said to her husband, except that it’s their own grandparents “who crossed the wide Missouri …”
AGplusone: By contrast, consider Space Family Stone (as Jane keeps calling it) or the Rolling Stones, and Castor and Pollux … and Edith Stone’s attitude … is it really very different?
FraSprea: you’re right.
AGplusone: I remember reading Rolling Stones and thinking that those two really got to do a “lot” for their age back when I first read it.
SAcademy: the Brits had to change the title (apologetically) because of the rock group
AGplusone: But it wasn’t too unusual for the kind of book I read then. Victor Appleton had Tom Swift pulling Swifties rather young IIRC …
Dehede011: Dave that seems to be a feature of RAH’s younger characters
SAcademy: Ah, yes, I grew up on Tom Swift–borrowed them from the boy next door.
AGplusone: Today, is there anything like that in currently-written juvenile stories … Jim Hawkins isn’t going to sea at a very young age anymore, is he?
Dehede011: The American Indians had sons that were fully trained warriors at 14 or 15
AGplusone: The Boy Scouts aren’t riding out like Young Indiana Jones either, are they?
SAcademy: Is there a tendency to keep young folks young too long these days?
Dehede011: Yes, but we can’t afford fully trained 14 or 15 year old warriors anymore.
AGplusone: Bible: 13 years old and “you’re a man” literally …
FraSprea: Maybe it depends on the place too. Different cultures…
AGplusone: But is the civilized approach we take to our children’s maturity dumbing down the school curricula too?
Dehede011: That is it – we have had this conversation before – I basically made my “first crop” at fifteen and that wasn’t thought too unusal.
AGplusone: If you read To Sail, Maureen’s last two seem pretty dumb compared to her others.
AGplusone: And of course, they are contemporaries of ours … or older now.
Dehede011: But Dave isn’t that realistic?
Dehede011: There were always that never grew up to become competent
AGplusone: It’s a criticism being made.
Dehede011: were always those
AGplusone: Probably of a generation of mothers.
AGplusone: [and fathers]
Dehede011: Or the raw material in many cases
AGplusone: Marion Hardy must have been a modern mother for her time. She raised Pricilla and what’zname, Donald
Dehede011: Me and a friend married sisters. My friend became a multi-thousand acre farmer. His older brother ended up shooting himself in dispair over his own incompetence.
AGplusone: But we never see her, just the effects of her off-stage presence
KultsiKN: Spare the rod and spoil the child?
Dehede011: No, they had equal chances Kult
AGplusone: … which like the effects on Dukie Farnham produce someone ill-equipped for what came.
AGplusone: Dukie got thermonuclear war and Pricilla and Donald got the drug culture
SAcademy: Can anyone equip kids for everything or anything? I doubt that.
Dehede011: I agree
AGplusone: My point, I guess, is if child-rearing is a part of a ‘woman’s job never done’ then the critique of the mid 20th century western woman is they aren’t doing that too well, are they …. ?
SAcademy: They have to learn self-reliance.
AGplusone: Judging only from the few examples we have here …
Gaeltachta: I always tell my kids (14 & 12) to “think” for themselves. Wonder where that came from? 🙂
SAcademy: I bet we kmow.
AGplusone: Contrasting the Stones, the Marlowes …. the widower Jones on Farmer in the Sky …
AGplusone: All near future families in juveniles, in space … the critique seems applicable to Podkayne’s mother … too busy being an engineer to pay attention to the children Poddy and Clark
Major oz has entered the room.
Major oz: hi, all
AGplusone: Afternoon Oz
Dehede011: Hi Major
FraSprea: hello
KultsiKN: Hi!
SAcademy: David, that was the whole point of the story.
SAcademy: Most people miss it.
selfgovguy has entered the room.
Dehede011: And in Sail the same point was being made about Priscilla and Donald with their step mother?
selfgovguy: Howdy folks!
SAcademy: Yes.
Dehede011: Howdy
selfgovguy: This is Bill Dennis, BTW.
SAcademy: Hello.
Major oz: welcome aboard
Gaeltachta: Hi Bill.
FraSprea: Hello
Dehede011: So a parent can’t make a child more than it is but a bad parent can ruin a child??
selfgovguy: Hello, De, SA, Major, Gael, Fra, and David Silver, who finally noticed my IM …
selfgovguy: 😉
AGplusone:
AGplusone: We’re discussing the parenting skills of Heinlein’s women … are they competent?
selfgovguy: Was it the screams of outrage from Florida Democrats, David?
selfgovguy: I am reading Podkayne of Mars right now …
Dehede011: Sound like RAH’s mother characters run the gamut
AGplusone: Haven’t heard a thing. Nuthin on here except football and Tiger Woods putting
Major oz: Has Grace Farnham been discussed in that light?
selfgovguy: and I have to agree with the assessment of Poddy’s and Clark’s mother … she didn’t raise ’em right.
AGplusone: We sorta eased into the discussion by looking for women who do not do exemplary jobs, Grace and a few others turned up and–guess what?–what they didn’t do in an exemplary manner was raise their kids.
AGplusone: … so far.
Major oz: hokay
Dehede011: And I have to agree with my assessment that RAH was even more multi-faceted than I realized for many years.
SAcademy: I know we’re discussing the women, but what aabout the fathers, too?
Dehede011: But in some cases ended with good children never the less
Major oz: ……based on the discovering the issue of parenting, De?
Berllan5UD has entered the room.
Berllan5UD: evening all
Dehede011: ??? major
selfgovguy: The fathers seem more “lovable” if that is the word, then the protagonist is a female, I have noticed.
Major oz: I meant: was His writing to the parenting skills one of the new facets you discovered somewhat later?
AGplusone: In Farham, Hugh seems to have abdicated the raising of little Dukie to Grace … in Podkayne, Mr. Fries is just as busy and as involved in his ‘profession’ as his wife, neither are responsible
selfgovguy: When the main character is a man, the “father” seems sterner than otherwise.
Dehede011: More the subtlety of the presentation – but yes.
Major oz: hokay
AGplusone: Contrast by example, Mr. Jones in Farmer in the Sky, once he becomes a widower.
Major oz: re: fathers…….we get LL’s noble pronouncements, but, usually fathers are remote figures.
AGplusone: It is Jones, right?
AGplusone: Bill Jones’ dad?
selfgovguy: Brian Smith senior was certainly remote, IMHO.
Dehede011: Yes, but even Mr. Jones seems IMHO to be an “absent” father.
AGplusone: Sure, always out of town looking down mine shafts …
selfgovguy: I didn’t like him almost from the start.
Major oz: The only ones that I recall being “active parents” are in Manny’s line marriage on Luna.
AGplusone: But Mr. Jones had a wife ‘on the job’ until Anne died.
Dehede011: You see the model all the time – the father so busy building a profession that he is “absent” for his children
selfgovguy: Much is made of parenting in TEFL, but this is all done off camera.
AGplusone: And probably doesn’t really realize that his son still needs parenting until he makes the fuss about (1) the remarriage, and (2) emigration …
AGplusone: then he seems to take charge of the teenaged boy.
Dehede011: SGG let me go back to subtlety. My own father was much like LL. Somewhat off page but very engaged in our lives.
AGplusone: Also in Moon … Will.
selfgovguy: Teenagers resent being “taken charge of” after being essentially free agents for many years
Dehede011: RAH was perceptive to pick up that model for fathers.
Dehede011: perceptive enough…….
AGplusone: But need it … vide Dr. Stone when he puts his foot down on their throats. That’s the lesson in Stones I always thought. A leetle too much freedom that nearly kills Buster and Hazel.
selfgovguy: Again, Heinlein’s works are deeper than they seem on their face.
Dehede011: Right
ddavitt has entered the room.
AGplusone: Even very bright kids with two parents and a grandmother watching need close watching.
Gaeltachta: Hi Jane.
Major oz: Congrats, Jane !!!!!!!!!!
ddavitt: Hi, can’t stay, just popped in to say hi. Hi!
AGplusone: Hi, Jane, welcome!
selfgovguy: Hello Jane
SAcademy: Hello, Jane. How are you these days?
FraSprea: hello!
BPRAL22169:Congratulations, Jane.
Dehede011: This is what keeps yanking my chain about RAH. At thirty he was so fully developed that I have to remind myself that he continued growing even after.
KultsiKN:Hello, Jane; congrats!
ddavitt: Sorry I missed Thursday; had to go back into hospital with Lauren; jaundice
selfgovguy: Jane we are discussing the raising of children. Any thoughts?
ddavitt: Thank you all for the good wishes
Dehede011: Hi Jane.
ddavitt: Don’t have ’em!!
ddavitt: 🙂
ddavitt: I’m tired…
ddavitt: I think some of the rules Maureen sets out are good
Dehede011: Is your husband still alive – did you decide to let him live. 🙂
ddavitt: But she has babies way too easy; in a bridge game and carries on playing?
ddavitt: He’s cooking supper for us.
selfgovguy: Yeah, that is a little unrealistic.
AGplusone: Maureen made her own, didn’t she, to a large extent … she was lucky … but she also adopted her mother’s rules.
Dehede011: Then he must be alive.
ddavitt: He’s tired too.
AGplusone: How do those rules really work for a small one or two child family?
AGplusone: Maureen wrote she really didn’t have them all in place when there were only one or two.
ddavitt: Eleanor is 5 so I haven’t had much practice; I’m firm when needed (car seat belts fastened, etc and don’t fuss over little things like blue socks or black. Pick your grounds for an argument.
selfgovguy: Maureen was determined to NOT become one of those shrill harpy mothers.
AGplusone: Eleanor will get better because now she’ll have someone to help take care of ….
selfgovguy: You run into those alot. They usually get in line in front of me at the supermarket.
ddavitt: I encourage her lots but I don’t let her whine and if we play a game I make sure she doesn’t always win. She beat David at checkers last night fair and square!
ddavitt: Yes, she is guarding L from the cats; Mac keeps trying to jump up.
selfgovguy: That’s how my dad taught me chess!
ddavitt: She tries chess but it’s a bit much for her; she’s not Woodie 🙂
AGplusone: Our one-child or two-child family really doesn’t afford the opportunities for responsibility training our grandparents had …
selfgovguy: He also taught my nephew, now the little sucker beats be consistantly.
Dehede011: My grandfather played checkers. Chess requires high intellect but it is more important to have low animal cunning as in checkers. 🙂
selfgovguy: beats me, I mean.
ddavitt: And the grandparents aren’t as likely to be round the corner when needed any more. Or even in the same house as used to happen
AGplusone: That’s very important, I think … grandparents, aunts and uncles … and all that.
ddavitt: Children being born to older parenst means they don’t get chance to meet grandparents as much; I knew my great grandmother well for instance
AGplusone: Cousins who will keep you in line or help your other relatives to keep you in line.
selfgovguy: My parents and all my fellow siblings live within a few miles. We
visit constantly. All adults have universal ass-whipping priviledges.
ddavitt: E has one g’grand mother living but she’s 4,000 miles away and a total waste of space 🙁
selfgovguy: I usually don’t unless they are sticking metal objects into power sockets.
BPRAL22169: Back in 10 minutes
ddavitt: I grew up surrounded by cousins, aunts etc; I am sorry my children will miss that now we’ve emigrated
Major oz: I was once stationed at Edwards, in the Mojave Desert. Everyone lived on base. We were all “active duty age”. It was a community with very few over 40. When a grandparent visited, he was mobbed by all the kids in the neighborhood.
AGplusone: Me either … but usually you don’t have to whip … just the tone of voice is enough … “Uncle David said don’t do that, you know what comes next! He’s mean. Ask his daughter.”
selfgovguy: Kids have a natural desire to be grandparented, IMHO.
Dehede011: I had aunts just old enough most thought they were my big sisters. Two of them would just as soon put me over their knee as if they were my mother. Couldn’t get away with nothing.
govguy: Well, with universl ass-whipping priviledges in place, there is naturally very little spanking necessary.
Major oz: agreed
ddavitt: Hmm..never spanked E…she gets put in play room with the door shut for 2 mins in really bad cases.
AGplusone: I had a great aunt and uncle, who helped raise my mother … and they became substitute grandparents when we moved across the continent.
ddavitt: The fact I say she has to stay there turns it into a place of doom
ddavitt: Doesn’t happen much; pretty well behaved if I say so myself
selfgovguy: Of couse, you are an
objective observer, huh, Jane? 😉
ddavitt: Point; we’ve gone from women to mothers; is that significant? Would a discussion of Heinlein’s men turn into a discussion of their parental abilities?
selfgovguy:
ddavitt: Oh yes !:-)
AGplusone: But the problem is evident: too few families with close in relatives in too many places … too few children for many to do what is necessary.
Major oz: probably not
AGplusone: I think a discussion of Heinlein’s fathers might well.
ddavitt: So why?
selfgovguy: Well, women WERE put on Earth to give birth to babies ….
ddavitt: Where’s Randi btw?
AGplusone: We’ve done ‘parents’ before and criticized the fathers alongside the mums.
selfgovguy:< —- ducking now. 😉
ddavitt: Is she not able to host?
AGplusone: I dunno … didn’t hear from her.
ddavitt: You can duck but you can’t hide
Major oz: we (the BIG “we”) associate motherhood more directly with child rearing than fatherhood.
Dehede011: Why?
Major oz: for better or worse.
ddavitt: Is it because H placed such a lot of emphasis on the importance of that ability of women; reproduction?
AGplusone: Well, when you’re working sixteen hours a day like Brian and out of town two nights a week …
Major oz: Because, before the two-worker family, that’s the way it was.
selfgovguy: I think that is universal across all human
cultures. I am not aware of any culture in which men to the primary child raising.
ddavitt: It seemed to be the ultimate ability, yet look at Friday. The book ends with her virtually sterile
AGplusone: hunters hunt … men are bigger, they hunt …
ddavitt: Is that significant?
Dehede011: Or is the father’s role just different and hence not noticed as parenting?
AGplusone: for starters they also cannot give milk
ddavitt: Not the hunters bit; though look at Caroline
ddavitt: And Jackie hunted better with Rod than Jimmy
selfgovguy: Women have the breasts, so they raise the
babies. it could be no other way …
ddavitt: Don’t mention that!! Having probles with her latching on and am expressing like mad
Dehede011: When I was teen and sub-teen my father took me to the field to work. Partly that was to help but it was also to parent – but I doubt folks noticed the parenting much
AGplusone: yes, but Ron couldn’t have given milk if his life depended on it … look at what happened tin Farnham’s Freehold to Hugh’s grandson.
selfgovguy: I am speaking from a sociobiological standpoint, of course.
ddavitt: father’s role is important but not as noticeable maybe
Berllan5UD has left the room.
Major oz: Exceptions are nice, but, as a norm, mothers raise kids and fathers provide an environment in which it can be done.
ddavitt: D tends to be the one who plays with E; I do all the routine stuff 🙁
Dehede011: Is that true of farmers and hunters.
Dehede011:Farmers take both sons and daughters into the field
SAcademy has left the room.
ddavitt: Once a baby is weaned sex of caregiver is not important though?
ddavitt: Solid foods from 4 months remember
AGplusone: And occasionally, fathers teach their daughters how to shoot like Maureen …
ddavitt: Time when only mum will do it fairly short
Dehede011: True, fathers can’t bear or suckle children but past that.
AGplusone: but it’s a rarity
Dehede011: In modern society only
Major oz: True, Jane; if culture plays no part.
AGplusone: Even among the Amerinds … few women used bows.
selfgovguy: Teaching to women to use firearms is just as ill-conceived as letting them wear shoes or vote, IMHO.
selfgovguy:
Dehede011: True enough, but the girls/women had a full time job
ddavitt: Do I know you selfgov guy?
selfgovguy: Oh, sorry!selfgovguy:
AGplusone:< —-problem Kadafi has with his Amazon Guard is one of these days, one of ’em will think she’d like to take over.
ddavitt: I was a member of a rifle club for several years and a fair shot.
Dehede011: The boys were first taught to keep the camp by their mothers until about eight
ddavitt: Ha! An alias!selfgovguy:I introduced myself before you entered, Jane, Sorry
Major oz: …..speaking of Major oz: Amazon Guards
AGplusone: You’re a rarity, Jane.
ddavitt: S’Ok, now I know I know you I can be rude :-):-)
selfgovguy: That never stopped ME Jane!!!
Major oz: Did you notice who the NCOIC of H. Norman’s bodyguard detachment was?
ddavitt: No, lots of females in the club and the men weren’t any better.
AGplusone: In England?
ddavitt: Target shooting is different than hunting or warfare tho
Major oz: In the Gulf
ddavitt:Yes. Based on the grounds of david’s company; some members shot at Bisley
Major oz: She was a 6+ ft Blonde with grey eyes
selfgovguy: Alll ERB’s heroes were very tall with cold, grey eyes. Tarzan for example.
SAcademy has entered the room.
selfgovguy: Welcome back SA
Major oz: wb, SA
SAcademy: Thank you. I was booted.
AGplusone: There’s always going to be an exception. Closest they can/could then/ get to a combat branch is MPs … so the ones who are disposed that way, go in the Ps, Oz.
Gaeltachta: brb
ddavitt: I just logged on and was told I don’t have permission to read afh!!
Gaeltachta has left the room.
ddavitt: Computers….
selfgovguy: eek!
Dehede011:Gotta go folks, love talking to you. Bye Good luck Jane.
Dehede011 has left the room.
selfgovguy: I read alt-fan-heinlein through a free news server.
ddavitt: I’m sure switching off and restarting will solve the problem.
AGplusone: I’m not saying my sister wasn’t as good as I was originally with that .22 we were trained on back when we were 14 and 13, just that it was unusual even then for her to get the training.
ddavitt: Bye Ron, I will too; tea is ready soon. Nice to see you all again. I’ll be back to normal soon….
Major oz: My daughter is the hottest shot I know (other than myself)
AGplusone: A culture thing … eeek, you let Jane handle a gun, Frances? (My sister is a Jane too, Jane)
ddavitt has left the room.
Major oz: My sons have no interest, whatsoever
selfgovguy: I support private gun ownership, but I have no gun personally.
selfgovguy: Of course, if things get worse, I may have to go get one before doing so becomes illegal.
AGplusone: We happened to know a family who hunted … so one summer we both got trained so we could have licenses and go ‘hunting’ with them (meaning they had extra deer tickets if they ran into enough to shoot).
Major oz: In my will is a particular 22 for my daughter that she and I have used together since she was 5 (25 years ago)
Major oz: Dora seemed to shoot well.
Major oz: I dont remember……did Star have occassion to shoot?
AGplusone: Some of the things that seem to go with earlier ends of childhood, and greater responsibility at a younger age, no longer exist. My great aunt kept a .38 in her bedside table. My aunts and my mother never handled a firearm to my knowledge.
AGplusone: Yes, at the ambush when they landed.
Major oz: ah….yes
AGplusone: But my great aunt was born
before the beginning of the twentieth century …
AGplusone: in Michigan where there were still a few Sioux running around loose
Major oz: Sioux in MI ???
Gaeltachta has entered the room.
AGplusone: yep … they’d drift over from Minnesota … upper penn
AGplusone: Northern Wisconsin too
Major oz: hokay
AGplusone: Years later, in the 30s grandma made sure all the guns were gone from the house after her son got shot in the back out at the tannery one day when the boys were shooting rats. Her house. Grandfather agreed.
AGplusone: But boys found ways to learn to shoot .22s and such back then.
AGplusone: Even if they weren’t in their own home.
selfgovguy: Any other comments about women in Heinlein?
AGplusone: In the 30s no one expected to go to college. You left home when you graduated high school, if you got that far. Today …. not unusual for boys 30 years old to still be living at home, as ‘students’ …
Major oz:…….how ’bout them mets…….
selfgovguy: I was under the impression children stayed in the home longer BEFORE the norm was to send children off to college.
Major oz: 😀
Major oz: Actually, it was before massive, induced guilt.
AGplusone: Well, I suppose that depended on families. Working families … they probably left around 13 or 14 when they finished eight years of school.
selfgovguy: 13 or 14? I find that hard to believe.
AGplusone: Unless they were kept on the farm … then they stayed forever as labor …
Major oz: in the teens and twenties…..very common
selfgovguy: Maybe they started working at that age, but I don’t see ’em leaving home that young.
AGplusone: My father did. When he was apprenticed he left home for good.
AGplusone: That was 1921
Major oz: “work for myself, not the family”
Major oz: BE someone
AGplusone: He went back for visits, of course …
AGplusone: But he lived with the master’s family to which he had been apprenticed.
AGplusone: Until he finished his seven years.
BPRAL22169: I’m afraid I have errands to run today, so I will not be staying to the end of this session. It’s been fun.
selfgovguy: They still have apprenticeships in the trade unions ….
AGplusone: Yes, they do …
Major oz: very few, however
selfgovguy: It’s very formalized and structured.
AGplusone: And usually involves trade schools for classroom …
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
Major oz: conflict with minimum wage, union, and productivity
selfgovguy: Say what you want about the unions … skilled trade union workers have got the scabs beat all to heck in terms of quality work. Esp. carpentry, plumbing and electrical work.
AGplusone: Unions frequently administer them … and do well …
Major oz: Hottest (no pun intended) job going today is HVAC tech.
AGplusone: it’s in their interest to do so.
selfgovguy :Of course, it is very, very hard to get into one. You practically have to be the son of the union president to get into one.
AGplusone: If they get the apprentices they indoctrinate them as well.
AGplusone: Not true that much anymore, Will.
AGplusone: Was in the 1950s and perhaps the 60s.
Major oz:…..another of the reasons they (the unions) are dying out……
AGplusone: Most trades apprenticeship programs today are established under state law
AGplusone: and strictly scrutinized under federal statutes and state ones as well
Major oz: But tech/trade schools are replacing them
selfgovguy : Private organizations like unions shouldn’t have state of federal authorities making rules for them to follow, IMHO
AGplusone: Some tech/trade schools teach classes for union apprenticeship programs …
Major oz: but only in the socialist states……..
AGplusone: and if the unions abuse the programs as they once did, the remedy becomes state and federal rules.
Major oz: and they, too, are decreasing
selfgovguy: Nope AG.
selfgovguy: These are private organizations. They should sink or swim on their own. If the union is corrupt, don’t join. Or work to make it not corrupt.
Major oz:…..how ’bout them mets…….
AGplusone: Take an example: in 1927, when my dad got his journeyman ticket, the only jobs available to him were working for master plumbers who were jewish. There were two of those in the entire city of Philadelphia ….
selfgovguy: The state shouldn’t baby sit private organizations
AGplusone: suffice it to say, he was a leetle ahead of his time in that trade …
AGplusone: so after starving for a while … he paid for another apprenticeship for himself as a hatter where he knew he could get employed. A wasted seven years.
selfgovguy: have to go now. see you later.
selfgovguy: bye
AGplusone: Well, sorry you’re leaving.
selfgovguy: see ye later. Sorry to cause an argument, then leave!
selfgovguy has left the room.
AGplusone: ’twasn’t an argument ….
AGplusone: What else do we have on Heinlein’s women? Friday?
KultsiKN: Friday, of course, and on her the opinions differ.
Gaeltachta: Ok. I’m awake now. Friday is on my re-read list (it’s been a few years). Why was she named Friday again?
Major oz: I am disappointed that so few women showed up here and last Thursday. From the postings in afh, I expected a larger representation.
AGplusone: Do you consider her to have wasted everything, as some do, when she settles down on the farm.
AGplusone: Yes, and I … but that’s the breaks, Oz …
Major oz: Depends on (as slick willy would say) what is meant by “wasted” and by “everything”
AGplusone:Maybe they’re all waiting for the last hour.
Major oz: IMO, she saw family as the greatest “thing” she could be involved with.
AGplusone: I tried to suggest to some in an e mail I sent that they show up to help the discussion, sadly … no one showed, except Filly, Jane today, and of course Ginny.
AGplusone: Friday is looking for something to belong to throughout … is that abnormal?
Gaeltachta: Well, for a start there are not *that* many females in AFH. So, not surprising.
Major oz: Routine
AGplusone: I never felt she was terribly obsessed … although it was a concern of hers.
Major oz: But she obsesses on her artificiality
AGplusone: Not because she’s female, because she’s artificial, an orphan by law.
Major oz:….as though she were silicone, rather than carbon, based.
AGplusone: orphaned from all humanity
AGplusone: yes
Gaeltachta: OK. I have guests, and will have to go.
Major oz: Artificial by law, orphan by result.
AGplusone: Sean, thanks for coming …. give our best to your
guests.
Gaeltachta: Will do.
Gaeltachta has left the room.
AGplusone: Any suggestions on a next theme before you go …..
oh ….
Major oz: I contend that, in the absense of her obsessing, she should “get on with it”.
Major oz:….and be a “real” person.
AGplusone: It’s not really a level of obsession greater than what many people have …
AGplusone: she’s not incapble of functioning
AGplusone: she’s just terribly vulnerable
Major oz: It’s like the difference between natural and artificial vitamins. There IS NO difference. The chem structure is identical.
Major oz: so…….duh
AGplusone: like a child in a way in vulnerability … an adolescent
Major oz: She causes her own vulnerability
AGplusone: society had a little to do with that
Major oz: at the start
AGplusone: Imagine being a run-away slave or a fugitive … a felon
KultsiKN: She could resent just as easily, yet she does not
Major oz: that was then….this is now
Major oz: doesn’t parallel
AGplusone: or once of those ‘commies’ the HUAC was looking for in the 1950s ….
Major oz: neither does that
AGplusone: to lay a subpoena on
AGplusone: why not
Major oz: Who knows but her?
Major oz: and KBB
Major oz: and who can TELL but her and KBB
AGplusone: She has to watch herself … and of course, there’s the “evil flea”
Major oz: nobody
Major oz: therefore she ain’t what she fears
SAcademy has left the room.
AGplusone: … when no one pursueth”
Major oz: she is just she
Major oz: qed
Major oz: she makes her own vulnerability
AGplusone:They all do. We do.
Major oz: What’s this “we” s**t, Kemosabe?
AGplusone: Friday’s the study in vulnerability that everyone who was a critic professed to want.
Major oz: Now we see it
Major oz: The critics
Major oz: Who H hated most
Major oz: Why did he write to them?
SAcademy has entered the room.
AGplusone: Instead of having her become a ‘hero’ he made her become a happy mum … tending her own garden. A joke. I think.
SAcademy: Sorry. Bumped again.
AGplusone: Every hour … happens.
Major oz: I didn’t see it as a joke…….rather as her finally getting on with reality and quit whining about her sorry state.
Major oz: Victimhood
AGplusone: A joke on the critics … and feminists!
Major oz: so prevalent in today’s culture
Major oz:…..in that regard, perhaps I can agree…….
AGplusone: Why I think he modeled it on Voltaire’s Candide.
AGplusone: Which was a joke by Voltaire
Major oz: hokay
AGplusone: a minor rather than a major satire …
Major oz: I am the only Major satire extant.
AGplusone: And there’s nothing like the Wizard of Oz, as a satire.
Major oz: I ain’t never red vol-tare
AGplusone: You oughta … it’s not bad.
AGplusone: Rather broad humor
Major oz: Too much thought……I’m retired
AGplusone: Nothing very subtle
Major oz: OT question
AGplusone: Voltaire populates the novel with lunatics in positions of authority … go OT
OT POLITICAL DISCUSSION CUT BY AGREEMENT OF THOSE PRESENT
END OFF-TOPIC PORTION OMITTED BY AGREEMENT
SAcademy: In any case, we’re agreed on that.
KultsiKN: The great AIM can’t keep a DUN connection alive 🙁
AGplusone:” … so we’ll muddle on through”
AGplusone: What’s a DUN connection, K?
KultsiKN: Dial-up Networking
SAcademy: Can you read the posted log, Kultsi?
KultsiKN: Yes.
AGplusone: Any other suggestions for a topic, maybe for four weeks off, rather than two?
SAcademy: But we agreed that it wouldn’t be posted, didn’t we?
AGplusone: That OT part … we’ll edit it out.
SAcademy: What happened to visiting writers?
KultsiKN: I can always make my own log…
AGplusone: Haven’t received any suggestions … I’ll simply write and ask them to decide what they think we should hear.
SAcademy: So you can. I hope you enjoy revisiting it!
Major oz: Is Take Back Your Gov still on the table?
AGplusone: I always do … the official log and the entire log … yes, Take Back is on.
KultsiKN: A bit left-pondian
Major oz: OH, I see…….thanksgiving is in 2 weeks
* * * * *
AGplusone: Hmmm … do we want to meet?
AGplusone: Or just go with Saturday?
Major oz: I don’t think anyone would show up
Major oz: Just sat sounds OK
SAcademy: On Thanksgiving? I won’t be home.
AGplusone: Okay, we’ll go with Saturday only. * * * * *
Major oz: I will be on the road all weekend, but maybe an audience would respond.
AGplusone: Going up north for family Turkey Oz?
Major oz: most likely……grandkids are screaming for me (and we are giving one of our vehicles to daughter)
AGplusone: Hope you enjoy it! 🙂
Major oz: If a deer walks by the place, will be taking that back up too.
AGplusone: Right! Feed him popcorn, right?
SAcademy: A raindeer?
Major oz:
AGplusone: That’s nice. Try to avoid shooting any Guernsey cows
SAcademy: You’ve been listening to Tom Lehrer.
AGplusone: I’ve been listening to Tom Lehrer for thirty years.
KultsiKN: Xplain, pls.
AGplusone: “And I shot the limit that the game laws would allow ….
SAcademy: He was a professor at Harvard who sang songs of his own in night clubs.
AGplusone: Seven hunters, three game wardens and a pure
bred Guernsey COW …”
AGplusone: A line from one of his songs, K … they’re very funny.
KultsiKN: So I see.
AGplusone: Parodies
SAcademy: Make a tape for Kultsi while you’re at it.
AGplusone: I will.
KultsiKN: TIA
Major oz has left the room.
AGplusone: And I’ll send him the website addresses
KultsiKN: Now Oz saw one already…
SAcademy: Does he have a website?
AGplusone: Jani, Ginny, Doc and I are Lehrer fans
Major oz has entered the room.
AGplusone: There’s a site that has all the words to all the songs, and one other that apparently plays the tunes … altho I’ve never tried listening to them.
KultsiKN: Did you nail ‘im, Oz?
Major oz:…changing bottles again
Major oz: good one, K
AGplusone: We figured a deer looking stupid walked by …
AGplusone: Well, ’tis that time again. Thank you all for coming. I enjoyed it … hope you all did.
Major oz: As I was telling SA: I have 63 acres of deer, turkey, quail, coon, lots of critteers, etc.
KultsiKN: Dave, have you got the URLs, by any chance?
AGplusone: You may have an unwelcome visitor if I
ever pass by that way. I’ll e mail them K, gotta dig them out.
Major oz: So next time is Sat, 25 Nov ?
AGplusone: Sometime this evening.
KultsiKN: Hookay.
AGplusone: Yep, that’s the date. Happy Thanksgiving …
SAcademy: Nite all. See you
AGplusone: Nite.
SAcademy has left the room.
Major oz: He will be welcome, David…..incidently, the pond (next to the house) is filling nicely and the bass go in this spring.
AGplusone: Ooooooh!
Major oz: happy turkey and to all a good night
FraSprea: Good night all!
AGplusone: I’ve never caught a freshwater bass.
AGplusone: Good night!
Major oz: On a fly from my patio
Major oz has left the room.FraSprea has left the room.
AGplusone: Jeez ….
AGplusone: that’s tempting. Do you fish, K?
KultsiKN: GREEN with envy…
KultsiKN: Not much any more — a bit far from waters w. fish.
AGplusone: Where are you exactly in Finland?
AGplusone: Edit this part out too.
AGplusone: As you wish …
KultsiKN: I don’t mind, really — not scared of unwelcome visitors About 40 mi east of Helsinki, 10 mi north of Porvoo, the second oldest town in Finland.
AGplusone: Expect the urls in about five hours. I can see it on the map.
KultsiKN: How good are the maps?
AGplusone: So you’re about ten miles north of the bay Porvoo’s on. Not really good. 1:450,000
AGplusone: 1 centimeter to 45 kilometers
KultsiKN: That’s not too bad. Can you locate Askola on them?
KultsiKN has left the room.
KultsiKN has entered the room.
KultsiKN: This is the Millennium buggy version…
AGplusone: Doesn’t appear. First town north of you is something beginning with Mytskji … something
AGplusone: Need a bright light.
KultsiKN: Myrskyla?
KultsiKN: Mantsala?
AGplusone: Myrskyla … with something above the ‘a’
KultsiKN: umlaut
AGplusone: Then further north “Orinatilla” or something.
AGplusone: Very small letters
KultsiKN: A bit to the west from Myrskyla
AGplusone: Just a bit.
KultsiKN: 10 mi
AGplusone: Then Lahti further north and west
AGplusone: Looks like you’re in the mountains
KultsiKN: It’s the adjoining community, and yes, Lahti is further north and west
KultsiKN: Very small mountains, 100 yds max.
AGplusone: LOL like our coast range in California
KultsiKN: Well, any cliffs are 10 yds max, rest just raises kind of slow.
AGplusone: Give me an old artillery map anytime … 1:25,000 and I’ll tell you how many trees you have around you.
KultsiKN: Our base maps are 1:20,000, so I know what you are talking about.
AGplusone: It’s fun to read maps … at that scale.
KultsiKN: Orienteering’s been a hobby in the family.
KultsiKN: And my dad was in the artillery.
AGplusone: Only way I’ll go into the woods … me, we used mortars … long ago.
AGplusone: Well, enjoy the sunrise, Kultsi …. 🙂
AGplusone: in what, about two hours?
KultsiKN: Three or four.
AGplusone: Yeah, much later in the year … how short’s your day in midwinter?
KultsiKN: About six hours.
AGplusone: I’ve been in Anchorage about that time. I hate it.
KultsiKN: Me too. Depressing.
AGplusone:They have a celebration in Anchorage, when the ice breaks up on the rivers. Go crazy with happiness.
KultsiKN: It’s better after we get snow, but what with the greenhouse effects….
AGplusone: Is it getting heavier, or lighter?
KultsiKN: we haven’t got much of a winter any more
AGplusone: lighter obviously
KultsiKN: Not much snow until February
AGplusone: hmmm … December 21st must suck
KultsiKN: and even then only about 1.5 feet
AGplusone: Want to sacrifice the Green Man under those conditions
AGplusone: You’ve read the mid English Gawayne and the Greene Man?
KultsiKN: It it not the low point — the light will be coming back!
KultsiKN: No, I haven’t.
AGplusone: Exactly … starting as soon as we kill the Greene Man … you should get a copy. Enjoy it, probably.
AGplusone: Read it on December 21st …
AGplusone: English alliterative poetry … with a few little romance influences. 14th Century NW midlands.
AGplusone: Between Anglo Saxon and ‘modern’ English ….
KultsiKN: Jani would surely know about it as well…
AGplusone: Old Norse will help … Old German too.
AGplusone: Perhaps … it’s one of two that survive from back then, alongside Chaucer in London … slightly different than Chaucer.
AGplusone: And a little earlier, perhaps …
AGplusone: If you’ve read Hopkins you’ll see where he came up with some of his ideas.
KultsiKN: I’m savvy with both nodern German and Swedish — once in Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) I studied letters from the Swedish kings…
AGplusone: Gerald Manley Hopkins
KultsiKN: to their Dutch weapons supliers.
AGplusone: What, they didn’t use dwarves then … ?
AGplusone: 😉
KultsiKN: Oh Yes! They were just called Finns.
KultsiKN: Oh, you mean as supliers!
AGplusone::-D I know, but it was tough, you couldn’t transport them by sea … the
ships would sink.
AGplusone: Blame my Lapp Norwegian wife …. 🙂
KultsiKN: She knows what she’s talking about… 😉
AGplusone: The spells were relatively simple, eh?
AGplusone: Lots of Vikings didn’t make it home.
KultsiKN: Indeed, they did not.
AGplusone: Always that way …. gotta go, sorry … dinner time here.
KultsiKN: OK, see ya!
AGplusone: And Norwegian Lapp wife just sweetly said, “Come and get it or I’ll feed it to the cat.”
AGplusone: Okay see ya.
KultsiKN has left the room.
LOG ENDS Saturday, November 11, 2000, at 5:43 PM, PST
Final End Of Discussion Log
