Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group

Thursday 08-02-2001 9:00 P.M. EDT

Spies, Sneaks and Finks

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Here Begin The A.F.H. postings
Jane wrote:

“August 2 and 4; Dave Silver returns in triumph as a guest host to discuss the topic of spies and finks. An interesting theme when compared to the recent discussion on villains. You can have a villain with honour but never a renegade…..you’ll be surprised at how many Heinlein books feature traitors, turncoats and similar low lives.”

I don’t feel particularly triumphant — I wonder where she got that idea? I keep waiting for someone else to propose topics and lead us hither and yon. It’s easy … watch me prattle on here for a bit.

I don’t know about ‘honor’ being reposed exclusively in one or the other variety, either; but let’s start this one off by simply saying Snotty Fascett was the most remarkable character I noticed in Heinlein’s first adult novel length story _”If This Goes On … “_ and Maureen Johnson Smith the most remarkable character I noted in Heinlein’s last _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_, both were certainly spies, both in ways sneaks, but so far as I can tell, only one a ‘fink.’ What was that?

Let’s talk about ‘finks’ for a second. Twain is said to have had a lot in common with Heinlein, aside from being an influential source for his writing, both Missouri boys, both wrote heavy satire from choice, both wrote for newspapers and were passionately interested in politics. The first novel of Mark Twain I read was about age six when I picked up a (probably abridged) version of _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ and the first significant episode in that story I noted was the time Sid finked on Tom about the black vs. white thread Aunt Polly used to sew up Tom’s collar so he couldn’t removed his shirt from his body and go swimming.

Funny thing: that was a ‘juvenile’ or at least ’tis so considered (and are there ‘spies, sneaks and finks’ in Heinlein’s juveniles to any extent — if so, why, or if not, why not?).

Is that all there is to it? Twain didn’t like ’em, so Heinlein didn’t like ’em. Missouri boys don’t like finks? How do we feel about finks today? Has there been a sea change since “Deepthroat”? Does that, if so, say something about a difference between our society and that Heinlein and Twain grew up in?

How many spies, sneaks and finks can we name in Heinlein? Once we find most of them, what generalities, if any, can we make?

I think we’ll find an amazing total of spies, sneaks and finks … let’s start at the beginning.

What can you say? As many of you as possible, this time … after all, August 4th is my birthday; and if I can host a chat on that day, you can dash your two centavos in here.

—

—

David M. Silver

“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt (jg)., USN R’td (1907-1988)

David M. Silverwrote in message news:…

 

>>I think we’ll find an amazing total of spies, sneaks and finks >… let’s start at the beginning. >>What can you say? As many of you as possible, this time … after >all, August 4th is my birthday; and if I can host a chat on that >day, you can dash your two centavos in here.

I’m currently separated from my bookshelves (long story), but from memory:

‘Good’ characters:

——————

Friday was a spy.

Manny (TMIAHM) was both renegade and spy (ok, he was a convict, but he was also a ‘trustee’ iirc).

Baslim (Citizen of the Galaxy) was a spy.

‘Bad’ characters:

—————–

Prof N.O.Brain (TNOTB) was a spy.

It’s late and I’m tired so that’ll so, hopefully a seed for a much longer list from the rest.
“David M. Silver”wrote in message news:…
>How many spies, sneaks and finks can we name in Heinlein? Once we
>find most of them, what generalities, if any, can we make?
>>I think we’ll find an amazing total of spies, sneaks and finks
>… let’s start at the beginning.
>>What can you say? As many of you as possible, this time … after
>all, August 4th is my birthday; and if I can host a chat on that
>day, you can dash your two centavos in here.

I think Bill, from Cat, was a fink. He was a lousy, stinkin’ fink!

I’ve seen what I think of as a similarity, finks like the woman in Friday who made a mess of handling the Boss’s death (tried to take Friday’s credit card), the manager of the thingy that Gwen and Richard lived in in Cat, bank people like the one in Cat who didn’t want to let Maureen have her money and the one in Friday who wanted to make her go through filling out an application for the credit card that the upper guy had already given her…

That’s all I can think of right now, at work, with an Oracle installation going (those of you familiar with that know what I’m going through…).

[Teresa Redmond]
“David M. Silver” wrote:

>
>I don’t know about ‘honor’ being reposed exclusively in one or
>the other variety, either; but let’s start this one off by simply
>saying Snotty Fascett was the most remarkable character I noticed
>in Heinlein’s first adult novel length story _”If This Goes On
>… “_ and Maureen Johnson Smith the most remarkable character I
>noted in Heinlein’s last _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_, both were
>certainly spies, both in ways sneaks, but so far as I can tell,
>only one a ‘fink.’ What was that?

Actually, a spy can be honourable…but they aren’t seen that way. I recall a novel where a man who admits to being a spy in WW2 is shunned as being not quite quite by the upper class of the neighborhood. Yet he had saved countless lives by pretending to be a waiter and picking up on scraps of conversation as he waited tables.I don’t know how much of that was for the purposes of the plot but there’s no denying that someone who, for whatever reasons, pretends to be your friend and then knives you in the back ( literally or metaphorically) is rarely admired. Circumstances alter cases; can we agree that a wartime spy is honourable but someone who sneaks to get industrial secrets for money is not? Or how about the low end of the scale, the schoolchild who sneaks to teacher as exemplified in that Disney cartoon, “Recess”? They do it for extra privileges, motivated by pure self interest. Is that never to be admired or excused?

Going from the theoretical to the examples in Heinlein, Friday and her parents were all spies, with varying degrees of altruism governing their actions. Friday less so than Joe I’d say, as she did what Boss told her and was never really aware of the bigger picture. She was a courier not exactly a spy perhaps…..

The most loathsome have to be the renegades in Puppet Masters, the ones who were not hag ridden because the slugs had mounted them, read the slimy depths of their souls and figured that they would cooperate without needing to be possessed. As Sam says, he hates slugs but he would turn from killing a slug to burn down one of those ultimate traitors.

This theme is a recurring one; an enemy invades; the country or the planet, doesn’t matter, and some people help them instead of fighting back or at least being passively non cooperative. The short story Free Men has an example of this, Joe in FF could possibly be included too. He ‘goes over’ to the enemy but his motivations are less clear cut or rather, we find it hard to judge him out of recognition that it is his turn to be on top and he isn’t strong enough to reject the temptation.

OK, lots more I’m sure…back soon.

Jane
“Jane Davitt”wrote in message news:…

>
>Going from the theoretical to the examples in Heinlein, Friday and her
>parents were all spies, with varying degrees of altruism governing their
>actions. Friday less so than Joe I’d say, as she did what Boss told her
>and was never really aware of the bigger picture. She was a courier not
>exactly a spy perhaps…..
>>The most loathsome have to be the renegades in Puppet Masters, the ones
>who were not hag ridden because the slugs had mounted them, read the
>slimy depths of their souls and figured that they would cooperate
>without needing to be possessed. As Sam says, he hates slugs but he
>would turn from killing a slug to burn down one of those ultimate
>traitors.
>>This theme is a recurring one; an enemy invades; the country or the
>planet, doesn’t matter, and some people help them instead of fighting
>back or at least being passively non cooperative. The short story Free
>Men has an example of this, Joe in FF could possibly be included too. He
>’goes over’ to the enemy but his motivations are less clear cut or
>rather, we find it hard to judge him out of recognition that it is his
>turn to be on top and he isn’t strong enough to reject the temptation.

I forgot about Joe. He’s a fink, too. He really went over to the other side, and I never could figure his motivation. I really disliked his attitude towards Hugh, his condescension (i have no idea how to spell that… ) and holier than thou attitude. I didn’t think he had been treated that way by Hugh, maybe Joe felt he had been? I don’t know, I just know that when he got to be part of the crowd on top, he showed his true colors, and not just to “keep out of trouble”. He bought into their philosophy. Fink!

—
~teresa~

^..^ “Never try to outstubborn a cat.” Robert A. Heinlein ^..^
https://www.heinleinsociety.org/ &
http://hometown.aol.com/pixelmeow/index.htm
“Blert!” quoth Pixel, a small, yellow cat.

“Teresa Redmond”wrote in message news:9jl7ie$ol46m$…

>”Jane Davitt” wrote in message
>news:…
>>>>Going from the theoretical to the examples in Heinlein, Friday and her
>>parents were all spies, with varying degrees of altruism governing their
>>actions. Friday less so than Joe I’d say, as she did what Boss told her
>>and was never really aware of the bigger picture. She was a courier not
>>exactly a spy perhaps…..
>>>>The most loathsome have to be the renegades in Puppet Masters, the ones
>>who were not hag ridden because the slugs had mounted them, read the
>>slimy depths of their souls and figured that they would cooperate
>>without needing to be possessed. As Sam says, he hates slugs but he
>>would turn from killing a slug to burn down one of those ultimate
>>traitors.
>>>>This theme is a recurring one; an enemy invades; the country or the
>>planet, doesn’t matter, and some people help them instead of fighting
>>back or at least being passively non cooperative. The short story Free
>>Men has an example of this, Joe in FF could possibly be included too. He
>>’goes over’ to the enemy but his motivations are less clear cut or
>>rather, we find it hard to judge him out of recognition that it is his
>>turn to be on top and he isn’t strong enough to reject the temptation.
>>I forgot about Joe. He’s a fink, too. He really went over to the other
>side, and I never could figure his motivation.

I think Joe figured the Black overlords WERE his side.

>I really disliked his
>attitude towards Hugh, his condescension (i have no idea how to spell
>that… ) and holier than thou attitude. I didn’t think he had been treated
>that way by Hugh, maybe Joe felt he had been? I don’t know, I just know
>that when he got to be part of the crowd on top, he showed his true colors,
>and not just to “keep out of trouble”. He bought into their philosophy.
>Fink!
>>–
>~teresa~
>

On Tue, 24 Jul 2001 22:34:51 +1200, “Julian Treadwell”

wrote:

>
>Manny (TMIAHM) was both renegade and spy

Hi, Julian, thanks for your two centavos! He was indeed; but remember the first question Wyoh asked upon Shorty’s introduction of Manny to her: “You fink for authority?” IIRC. Merely being employed as a contractor to repair computers for the Authority placed Manny, a ‘free’ inhabitant of Luna, never a convict himself, but son of convicts, in her mind, in the category of ‘fink.’

Are all government contractors (and employees) finks for government. to judge from some coments in some ‘libertarian-orientated’ thread we have, it seems some consider them so automatically; but isn’t that an unusual attitude reserved for those who hate all government activites (except possibly the most minimal — national defense, public safety and little else.); or is it unusual?

Is there any government employee position that isn’t, at one time or another, or under some circumstances however strained they may be, required to provide information to the ‘gubmit’ about the activities of its citizenry or non-citizen inhabitants? I can think of some unusual perhaps extreme circumstances: in California by refererendum following passage of recent anti-immigration laws, even teachers and health care workers were placed under that obligation.

Is Wyoh’s first inclination to consider Manny merely by association a fink for authority so unusual?

Are there other Heinlein stories in which the same first inclination is found? Or is a different preconception possessed elsewhere?

Look for example at The Star Beast. Is it the same or different? Why?

—
David M. Silver

“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29 (1907-88)
Lt.(jg), USN R’td

“William B. Dennis 2nd” wrote:

>
>I think Joe figured the Black overlords WERE his side.
>>

But he shouldn’t have IMO because the only reason he could think that was that they had the same skin colour as he did. Ethically, morally, by culture and society they were alien to him. Hugh and the rest were his next of kin; not Ponse and pals.

Jane

—

Julian Treadwellwrote in message news:9jjj0l$qno$…

>>David M. Silver wrote in message
>news:…
>>>I think we’ll find an amazing total of spies, sneaks and finks
>>… let’s start at the beginning.
>>>>What can you say? As many of you as possible, this time … after
>>all, August 4th is my birthday; and if I can host a chat on that
>>day, you can dash your two centavos in here.
>>I’m currently separated from my bookshelves (long story), but from memory:
>>’Good’ characters:
>——————
>>Friday was a spy.
>Manny (TMIAHM) was both renegade and spy (ok, he was a convict, but he was
>also a ‘trustee’ iirc).

Mannie was a free “client-employee” born in Luna of transportee parents (or grandparents?). His only time in jail was when he was arrested during the trip to Terra with Prof de la Paz.

>Baslim (Citizen of the Galaxy) was a spy.
>>’Bad’ characters:
>—————–
>>Prof N.O.Brain (TNOTB) was a spy.

Do we actually know what he was? His full name is an anagram of Robert H. Heinlein.

— Mike Dworetsky

jeanette wolf wrote:

>David–You ask how people feel about finks today.
>
>Easy answer–Linda Tripp.
>
>Jeanette–who thinks RAH enjoyed sneaks as long as they kept the
>eleventh commandment (a least in his fiction–don’t know how he would
>have felt in real life, especially if he was on the wrong side of the
>”sneak”).

You may have put your finger on something essential here, Jeanette, as you often do; but let me ask the question this way: Assuming Robert did enjoy sneaks, are there any class exceptions, or general categories, shown in his writings, that reflect his disapproval of their activities on a wholesale scale?

Can we categorize the ‘wrong side’ of the “sneak”?

—
—
David M. Silver

“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt (jg)., USN R’td (1907-1988)

“Jane Davitt”wrote in message news:…

>”William B. Dennis 2nd” wrote:
>
>>
>>I think Joe figured the Black overlords WERE his side.
>>
>>
>
>But he shouldn’t have IMO because the only reason he could think that was
that
>they had the same skin colour as he did. Ethically, morally, by culture
and
>society they were alien to him. Hugh and the rest were his next of kin;
not
>Ponse and pals.

But obviously Joe didn’t believe that way. Hugh only assumed that Joe did. See how sneaky Mr. Heinlein is. No matter how warmly Hugh felt about Joe, Joe believed himself a second class citizen.

Hugh saw nothing wrong with a society that had white people running the show. NO matter how well Joe was treated, Joe was still a second class citizen. Hugh never saw that.

>Jane
>
>
>
>–
>https://www.heinleinsociety.org
>
>

“David M. Silver”wrote in message news:…

>jeanette wolf wrote:
>
>>David–You ask how people feel about finks today.
>>
>>Easy answer–Linda Tripp.
>>
>>Jeanette–who thinks RAH enjoyed sneaks as long as they kept the
>>eleventh commandment (a least in his fiction–don’t know how he would
>>have felt in real life, especially if he was on the wrong side of the
>>”sneak”).
>
>You may have put your finger on something essential here, Jeanette, as
>you often do; but let me ask the question this way: Assuming Robert did
>enjoy sneaks, are there any class exceptions, or general categories,
>shown in his writings, that reflect his disapproval of their activities
>on a wholesale scale?
>
>Can we categorize the ‘wrong side’ of the “sneak”?
>
>

Yes. Sneaks are on the wrong side when they spy on us. When they spy for them, they are on the dark side. The people who gave the Soviet Union the plans for the nuclear bomb are on the wrong side. The Soviets who supplied us with inside dope on the Kremlin are on the right side.

—
William B. Dennis 2nd
http://billscontent.tripod.com and
http://heinlein-libertarian.tripod.com

Jane Davitt wrote:

>
>”David M. Silver” wrote:
>
>>
>>I don’t know about ‘honor’ being reposed exclusively in one or
>>the other variety, either; but let’s start this one off by simply
>>saying Snotty Fascett was the most remarkable character I noticed
>>in Heinlein’s first adult novel length story _”If This Goes On
>>… “_ and Maureen Johnson Smith the most remarkable character I
>>noted in Heinlein’s last _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_, both were
>>certainly spies, both in ways sneaks, but so far as I can tell,
>>only one a ‘fink.’ What was that?
>
>Actually, a spy can be honourable…but they aren’t seen that way. I
>recall a novel where a man who admits to being a spy in WW2 is shunned
>as being not quite quite by the upper class of the neighborhood. Yet he
>had saved countless lives by pretending to be a waiter and picking up on
>scraps of conversation as he waited tables.I don’t know how much of that
>was for the purposes of the plot but there’s no denying that someone
>who, for whatever reasons, pretends to be your friend and then knives
>you in the back ( literally or metaphorically) is rarely admired.
>Circumstances alter cases; can we agree that a wartime spy is honourable
>but someone who sneaks to get industrial secrets for money is not? Or
>how about the low end of the scale, the schoolchild who sneaks to
>teacher as exemplified in that Disney cartoon, “Recess”? They do it for
>extra privileges, motivated by pure self interest. Is that never to be
>admired or excused?
>
>Going from the theoretical to the examples in Heinlein, Friday and her
>parents were all spies, with varying degrees of altruism governing their
>actions. Friday less so than Joe I’d say, as she did what Boss told her
>and was never really aware of the bigger picture. She was a courier not
>exactly a spy perhaps…..
>
>The most loathsome have to be the renegades in Puppet Masters, the ones
>who were not hag ridden because the slugs had mounted them, read the
>slimy depths of their souls and figured that they would cooperate
>without needing to be possessed. As Sam says, he hates slugs but he
>would turn from killing a slug to burn down one of those ultimate
>traitors.
>
>This theme is a recurring one; an enemy invades; the country or the
>planet, doesn’t matter, and some people help them instead of fighting
>back or at least being passively non cooperative. The short story Free
>Men has an example of this, Joe in FF could possibly be included too. He
>’goes over’ to the enemy but his motivations are less clear cut or
>rather, we find it hard to judge him out of recognition that it is his
>turn to be on top and he isn’t strong enough to reject the temptation.
>
>OK, lots more I’m sure…back soon.
>
>Jane

Hmm. Better distinguish what you mean by “spy,” since your bound here includes spies, operators (-tives), informers, Fifth-Columnists, and quislings, each of which is a rather different fish in the same kettle belly.

While Wye Knott and Prof de le Paz were revolutionaries, possibly Fifth-Columnists, Manny Davis and Mike Holmes were spies in the strict sense, saboteurs (operatives) without question, even traitors (a revolutionary who loses is always a traitor).,

Kettle Belly and Friday are operatives, the latter primarily a secure courier, though K.B. has a history elsewhere of spying and apparently has spies under his command by the time of /Friday/.

“Lazarus Long” is a spy, operative, informer when it suits /his/ purpose, occasionally a Fifth-Columnist (depending on who’s writing the article), and would kill a quisling on sight — all as he dam’ well sees fit. The point is that these names are all applied by groups, and change regarding the same person and act depeding on which group is naming them. And L.L. is (though no book called /him/ so) a “Small-Mouthed Anarchist,” fitting no group at all.

—
>^,,^< Pardon my driving, I’m reloading. http://t-independent.com/scrawlmark-press/ “David M. Silver” wrote: >
>On Tue, 24 Jul 2001 22:34:51 +1200, “Julian Treadwell”
>wrote:
>
>>
>>Manny (TMIAHM) was both renegade and spy
>
>Hi, Julian, thanks for your two centavos! He was indeed; but remember
>the first question Wyoh asked upon Shorty’s introduction of Manny to
>her: “You fink for authority?” IIRC. Merely being employed as a
>contractor to repair computers for the Authority placed Manny, a
>’free’ inhabitant of Luna, never a convict himself, but son of
>convicts, in her mind, in the category of ‘fink.’
>
>Are all government contractors (and employees) finks for government.
>to judge from some coments in some ‘libertarian-orientated’ thread we
>have, it seems some consider them so automatically; but isn’t that an
>unusual attitude reserved for those who hate all government activites
>(except possibly the most minimal — national defense, public safety
>and little else.); or is it unusual?
>
>Is there any government employee position that isn’t, at one time or
>another, or under some circumstances however strained they may be,
>required to provide information to the ‘gubmit’ about the activities
>of its citizenry or non-citizen inhabitants? I can think of some
>unusual perhaps extreme circumstances: in California by refererendum
>following passage of recent anti-immigration laws, even teachers and
>health care workers were placed under that obligation.
>
>Is Wyoh’s first inclination to consider Manny merely by association a
>fink for authority so unusual?

No. And /correct/ — so long as he had /no other information/. Which, in that scene, she didn’t, until Manny fixed her computer with Shorty’s backing. Consider uniforms, passwords, etc., as a function of “response time,” that itself a function of just how hot the war is at the moment.

>
>Are there other Heinlein stories in which the same first inclination
>is found? Or is a different preconception possessed elsewhere?
Most of them, with most first impressions borne out. And the
“yes-no-yes” response sequence, when a putative friend fails a
shibboleth, later corrected.
>
>Look for example at The Star Beast. Is it the same or different? Why?
>
>–
>David M. Silver
>https://www.heinleinsociety.org
>”The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
>Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29 (1907-88)
>Lt.(jg), USN R’td

—
>^,,^<
Pardon my driving,
I’m reloading.
http://t-independent.com/scrawlmark-press/

“David M. Silver”wrote in message news:…

>Jane wrote:
>

(snip)

>I think we’ll find an amazing total of spies, sneaks and finks
>… let’s start at the beginning.

Spies:

Baslim (COTG)

Jeff (Sixth Column against the Pan Asians)

Sam (PM against the invaders)

Hamilton Felix (BTH in the Survivor’s Club for the govt.)

Fader McGee (Coventry for the US govt.)

Valentine Michael Smith (SIASL for the Martian Old ones)

Snotty Fassett (ITGO against the Cabal)

I’ll have to think a while about the other categories.

David Wright
“William B. Dennis 2nd”wrote in message news:ABE77.179571$…

>
>”Jane Davitt” wrote in message
>news:…
>>”William B. Dennis 2nd” wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>I think Joe figured the Black overlords WERE his side.
>>
>>But he shouldn’t have IMO because the only reason he could think that
was
>that
>>they had the same skin colour as he did. Ethically, morally, by culture
>and
>>society they were alien to him. Hugh and the rest were his next of kin;
>not
>>Ponse and pals.

Exactly.

>But obviously Joe didn’t believe that way. Hugh only assumed that Joe did.
>See how sneaky Mr. Heinlein is. No matter how warmly Hugh felt about Joe,
>Joe believed himself a second class citizen.

“believed himself” is the key phrase. I never saw Hugh treat Joe that way.

>Hugh saw nothing wrong with a society that had white people running the
>show. NO matter how well Joe was treated, Joe was still a second class
>citizen. Hugh never saw that.

You are correct, and I did think of that, but my main thought was that Hugh never treated Joe as second class. He even trusted Joe as his “second”, in lifeboat rules!

It’s been a while since I read this one, Karen’s death really hurts to read. But from memory, I don’t recall Hugh thinking that it was wrong for the Black people to rule, as opposed to White. Hell, there are a lot of things that we think of today as natural, that may be wrong 20 years from now. Who knows? So Hugh saw nothing wrong with how things were in his lifetime: at least he didn’t treat Joe poorly. And look how Joe returns the favor. Even if Joe thought turnaround was fair play, did he have to be cruel to Hugh et al? (okay, I don’t like Duke or Grace, but that’s another story altogether…)

—

~teresa~

^..^ “Never try to outstubborn a cat.” Robert A. Heinlein ^..^
https://www.heinleinsociety.org/ &
http://hometown.aol.com/pixelmeow/index.htm
“Blert!” quoth Pixel, a small, yellow cat.

“Teresa Redmond”wrote in message news:9jn8nc$abhv$…

>”William B. Dennis 2nd” wrote in message
>news:ABE77.179571$…
>>
>>”Jane Davitt” wrote in message
>>news:…
>>>”William B. Dennis 2nd” wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>I think Joe figured the Black overlords WERE his side.
>>>
>>>But he shouldn’t have IMO because the only reason he could think that
>was
>>that
>>>they had the same skin colour as he did. Ethically, morally, by
culture
>>and
>>>society they were alien to him. Hugh and the rest were his next of
kin;
>>not
>>>Ponse and pals.
>
>Exactly.
>
>>But obviously Joe didn’t believe that way. Hugh only assumed that Joe
did.
>>See how sneaky Mr. Heinlein is. No matter how warmly Hugh felt about
Joe,
>>Joe believed himself a second class citizen.
>
>”believed himself” is the key phrase. I never saw Hugh treat Joe that
way.
>
>>Hugh saw nothing wrong with a society that had white people running the
>>show. NO matter how well Joe was treated, Joe was still a second class
>>citizen. Hugh never saw that.
>
>You are correct, and I did think of that, but my main thought was that
Hugh
>never treated Joe as second class. He even trusted Joe as his “second”,
in
>lifeboat rules!

Maybe it never occured to Hugh that he was thinking of Joe as second class.

>
>It’s been a while since I read this one, Karen’s death really hurts to
read.
>But from memory, I don’t recall Hugh thinking that it was wrong for the
>Black people to rule, as opposed to White. Hell, there are a lot of
things
>that we think of today as natural, that may be wrong 20 years from now.
Who
>knows? So Hugh saw nothing wrong with how things were in his lifetime: at
>least he didn’t treat Joe poorly. And look how Joe returns the favor.
Even
>if Joe thought turnaround was fair play, did he have to be cruel to Hugh
et
>al? (okay, I don’t like Duke or Grace, but that’s another story
>altogether…)
>
>–
>~teresa~
>
>^..^ “Never try to outstubborn a cat.” Robert A. Heinlein ^..^
>https://www.heinleinsociety.org/ &
>http://hometown.aol.com/pixelmeow/index.htm
>”Blert!” quoth Pixel, a small, yellow cat.
>
>
>

Bill Dennis:

>>Can we categorize the ‘wrong side’ of the “sneak”?
>>
>>
>
>Yes. Sneaks are on the wrong side when they spy on us. When they spy for
>them, they are on the dark side. The people who gave the Soviet Union the
>plans for the nuclear bomb are on the wrong side. The Soviets who supplied
>us with inside dope on the Kremlin are on the right side.

Absolutely right as to the examples you give so long as “we” is “us” and “they” is “them.” But let’s take it out of the geopolitical arena and think about it in terms of Lippmans and Winchells. How about there?

[don’t you dare tell me a lippman is a better donut than a winchell, either!]

—
David M. Silver

“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
–Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29, (1907-88)
Lt.(jg) USN R’td

“William B. Dennis 2nd” wrote:

>
>Yes. Sneaks are on the wrong side when they spy on us. When they spy for
>them, they are on the dark side. The people who gave the Soviet Union the
>plans for the nuclear bomb are on the wrong side. The Soviets who supplied
>us with inside dope on the Kremlin are on the right side.
>

Are you serious about this Bill? I can’t decide. No smileys….and some people could really believe it but..do you?

Jane

—

“Jane Davitt”wrote in message news:…

>”William B. Dennis 2nd” wrote:
>
>>
>>Yes. Sneaks are on the wrong side when they spy on us. When they spy for
>>them, they are on the dark side. The people who gave the Soviet Union the
>>plans for the nuclear bomb are on the wrong side. The Soviets who supplied
>>us with inside dope on the Kremlin are on the right side.
>>
>
>Are you serious about this Bill? I can’t decide. No smileys….and some people
>could really believe it but..do you?
>

Well, it is a sorta smiley.

A sneak who provides the U.S. with information on how far China is progression in missile technology is, by my subjective standards, on the good side. Contrariwise, a sneak who provides China with information about how to build missiles is on the bad side. Both these people may have the same personal qualities and may be doing it for the same reason (be it money or personal convictions), but one of these is a hero and the other isn’t. Of course, a member of the government in China may have a different opinion.

Everybody spies.

Mike Dworetskywrote in message news:8JD77.398$…

>>Manny (TMIAHM) was both renegade and spy (ok, he was a convict, but he was
>>also a ‘trustee’ iirc).
>
>Mannie was a free “client-employee” born in Luna of transportee parents (or
>grandparents?). His only time in jail was when he was arrested during the
>trip to Terra with Prof de la Paz.

Woops – thanks. Guess it’s past time I re-read that book.

>>Baslim (Citizen of the Galaxy) was a spy.
>>
>>’Bad’ characters:
>>—————–
>>
>>Prof N.O.Brain (TNOTB) was a spy.
>
>Do we actually know what he was? His full name is an anagram of Robert H.
>Heinlein.

Well, he was an alien var. Black Hat, no? That makes him a mole in my view. “William B. Dennis 2nd”wrote in message news:tUG77.179739$…

>
>”Teresa Redmond” wrote in message
>news:9jn8nc$abhv$…

>>
>>>Hugh saw nothing wrong with a society that had white people running
the
>>>show. NO matter how well Joe was treated, Joe was still a second class
>>>citizen. Hugh never saw that.
>>
>>You are correct, and I did think of that, but my main thought was that
>Hugh
>>never treated Joe as second class. He even trusted Joe as his “second”,
>in
>>lifeboat rules!
>
>Maybe it never occured to Hugh that he was thinking of Joe as second
class.

I agree, but I still don’t think he treated Joe that way. He wasn’t condescending to him, AFAIRemember…

—

~teresa~

^..^ “Never try to outstubborn a cat.” Robert A. Heinlein ^..^
https://www.heinleinsociety.org/ &
http://hometown.aol.com/pixelmeow/index.htm
“Blert!” quoth Pixel, a small, yellow cat.

David–I have been getting about eight posts a day for the last few days (your first one and mine are the only two that showed up on this thread, I only got three on the “heavy heart” thread). I figured that everybody was hiding out until the unpleasant visitors left. Then I went to goggle and found I was wrong. I find goggle hard to follow especially since there are so many post that do not interest me at the moment. I know that I am missing good stuff by ignoring posts and unfamiliar posters. I do find goggle easier for me to use than deja which took me way too long to get anything.

Anyway, regarding the “wrong side of the sneak”, I was thinking of the practical joker who can dish it out but can’t take it. I suspect that Mr. Heinlein, in real life would have enjoyed the story of an employee or junior ranked person in the military getting the best of superiors–in finding a way to sleep while on duty or removing supplies for their own use. (I am not talking about doing it in a way that lives would have been in danger–although I realize that even the most innocent action can have bad consequences). I believe that if HE were the employer or the superior officer he would not have liked it at all. He probably would have thought some person buying fancy art that turned out to be fake would be funny, but not if he was the one who bought the art.

Jeanette–who asks that anyone who wants me to follow-up on anything in the next few days, please e-mail.

Go To Postings

Here Begins The Discussion Log

You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”

fgherman has entered the room.

fgherman: Good evening

DavidWrightSr: Hi Felicia. you are early. I don’t expect things to get started for another 40 mins or so.

DavidWrightSr: Although there are a lot of people already online.

fgherman: I got fooled that way

DavidWrightSr: Because of the number of people?

DavidWrightSr: I always try to set up early so I can make sure I get the whole log.

fgherman: For future reference, when you announce the Chat time, please put in a time zone.

DavidWrightSr: I’m sorry. Did I forget? I apologize,

fgherman: I wasn’t sure whether to add or subtract

fgherman: I’ll come back later.

fgherman has left the room.

AGplusone has entered the room.

AGplusone: Hi, Dave.

AGplusone: afk getting something to drink

DavidWrightSr: Hi David.

AGplusone: tea’s in microwave … how’ve you been?

DavidWrightSr: I’ve been better.

DavidWrightSr: So, I won’t be saying much this evening. just logging

——

[Editor’s Note: Linking computer had to be rebooted so that part of log was lost]

—— part of conversation missed

AGplusone: WB Dave’s alter ego

rjjusu: Kirtland AFB is in Albuquerque, which is in the northern part of the state.

AGplusone: Okay, up by Gallup sorta?

rjjusu: Actually, due east, ~ 140 mi. I will be going through there on my way back UT in a few weeks

AGplusone: I know, it’s where Bugs Bunny takes the wrong turn when he tunnels …

AGplusone: We came down from Carson on a maneuver in ’64 through Albuguerque then Gallup

rjjusu: So far I’ve managed to avoid that, but there are a lot of Daffy Ducks on the road here…

AGplusone: an entire mechanized division

AGplusone: stopped all the traffic in Gallup

DavidWrightSr: When I saw Carson in the early 50’s it had mules and horses as I recall

AGplusone: heading for three corners near Hoover Dam

rjjusu: Sounds like you came down I-25 to ABQ then west on I-40 to Gallup.

AGplusone: It was maybe called 70-75 back then?

AGplusone: We turned at old 66

rjjusu: Might have been. 66 parallels/overlays part of I-40.

AGplusone: 2 lanes going each direction … fun!

AGplusone: sometimes only one

rjjusu: I’ll bet, since that armor really enjoys sharing the road!

AGplusone: in jeeps that were governed at 50 mph …. real fun to pass long chains of trucks dragging tanks

AGplusone: scared the heck out of some civilians coming the other way

rjjusu: Ahhh, the good ol’ days….. usually much gooder the older the days.

AGplusone: much older now

AGplusone: than gooder

AGplusone: I had a very terse converation with a deputy sheriff in Gallup. Went: “You can’t stop all this traffic

AGplusone: to which I replied: “Call your governor”

rjjusu: 🙂

DavidWrightSr has entered the room.

rjjusu: I saw David’s post about Poul Anderson. Very sad.

AGplusone: After a while he came back and we worked out a deal … big gap, I let his car cross 66

rjjusu: Another light goes out…..

AGplusone: Very much so. He gave us so much time that six hours he and Karen chatted with us.

rjjusu: Makes me appreciate my own mortality, when the giants are going away…

AGplusone: Took a photo of him and her outside the LA SFS Clubhouse, in front of a sign saying the one parking

AGplusone: spot out there is reserved for RAH …

rjjusu: Seems like an entire generation is passing away, which it is…..

AGplusone: Clarke’s left, but who else?

rjjusu: Bad Weather David W?

DavidWrightSr: No. Flaky machine.

rjjusu: Bradbury?

AGplusone: Younger but about that generation from our perspective

rjjusu: Yes, I guess he was in the transition from the Old Gods to the New Gods.

AGplusone: Silverberg is how old?

AGplusone: Over 65 … but I don’t know how much older

rjjusu: Must be in his late 60’s, at least.

rjjusu: Jane should be showing up momentarily

AGplusone: Got a nice letter from him and Kondo … they’re both willing to help with the drive too

ddavitt has entered the room.

AGplusone: So we got Haldeman, Benford, Sheffield Silverberg and Kondo now.

ddavitt: Hi all

AGplusone: Hi, Jane

rjjusu: I found a couple of Yoji’s books yesterday, so I’m going to be sending out a post soon.

AGplusone: Good!

ddavitt: Look forward to that

AGplusone: Anyone read Sheffield?

SAcademy has entered the room.

AGplusone: Hi, Ginny, welcome

DavidWrightSr: Laying on my back all week let me read all four of his that I have.

rjjusu: Hi Jane. The real ddavitt!

ddavitt: Hi Ginny

ddavitt: The one and only !:-)

rjjusu: Good evening Mrs Heinlein.

SAcademy: Good evening all.

DavidWrightSr: Hi Jane and Ginny. Are you sure Jane 🙂

ddavitt: Ask me a Heinlein triv question; that should sort out an imposter

rjjusu: You spelled his name correctly, so that is a good start. 😉

DavidWrightSr: Hey that’s neat. Didn’t think of it

AGplusone: Who first said, “bug that bites me dies?

rjjusu: LL

DavidWrightSr: LL

ddavitt: Hilda

DavidWrightSr: Wait. I’m not Jane

AGplusone: What’s the date of Farmer?

ddavitt: In NOTB when Zeb shouts

ddavitt: at her

ddavitt: Er…57?

AGplusone: Date of Starman Jones?

ddavitt: Not so good on dates

DJedPar has entered the room.

ddavitt: But I have ARC right here!

DavidWrightSr: Hi Denis

ddavitt: Hi Denis

AGplusone: Hi, Denis

SAcademy: Earlier than that 1950 written

SAcademy: Hi Denis

ddavitt: They are just teasing me Ginny

ddavitt: As I was impersonated on afh last week

rjjusu: Hi Denis

ddavitt: It’s me, honest

rjjusu: We believe you, Jane.

ddavitt: I know.

SAcademy: Okay, Jane, I always bite on those things. Just a sucker.

ddavitt: Me too….

rjjusu: No, that’s a fish ……

ddavitt: We are too sweet and nice for them Ginny

SAcademy: Seems so. What do we do about it?

rjjusu: Too refined is more likely.

ddavitt: Hmm….good question

ddavitt: Hard to do much in cyber space

ddavitt: Tickles don’t translate well

rjjusu: But your presence allows the “average” attendee here to claim to be civilized.

SAcademy: Shall we have a moment of silence for Poul?

DavidWrightSr: Amen to that

ddavitt: ga

AGplusone: that would be appropriate ….

rjjusu: si

BPRAL22169 has entered the room.

[Pause for a minute or so]

AGplusone: We need to think of something nice to do for Karen, if we can, now that the moment of silence is over

BPRAL22169: 2 minutes before the hour, and we have 8 people.

ddavitt: So many posts showing how he will be missed Ginny.

rjjusu: Welcome Bill…. observing a moment of silence for Poul

ddavitt: He was much loved and respected.

BPRAL22169: More appropriate to hoist a Loewenbraue

DavidWrightSr: Felicia was here earlier, said she’ll be back

AGplusone: Very much so … good, be nice to see her again.

ddavitt: Yes it will.

DavidWrightSr: She mentioned that I failed to put the time zone on my notice. mea culpa

SAcademy: Yes, I wonder whether it’s possible to send them to Karen and Astrid?

rjjusu: No reason why not

ddavitt: I have seen them all over the net

ddavitt: Mybe could go to Google and select some of them?

geeairmoe2 has entered the room.

ddavitt: Some are from people who actually met or knew Poul

BPRAL22169: Might be a good project — collect the lamentations and memorializations into a file for them.

ddavitt: Hi Will

BPRAL22169: Poul was very accessible.

SAcademy: Good idea. But will they fit on a page?

ddavitt: No reason why not

BPRAL22169: Very big page.

ddavitt: Some are just one liners

rjjusu: Maybe put them on a web site – an annex on the THS webpage?

geeairmoe2: Howdy, all.

AGplusone: Hi, Will.

SAcademy: I’m thinking of how broad the lines are on Google

DavidWrightSr: Someone did that for Robert and edited it. I have a big notebook full of them

AGplusone: We’re having a discussion about Poul Anderson’

ddavitt: I would like to see that Dave

ddavitt: Or is it not online?

DavidWrightSr: I’ll try to find out where I got it. It’s been a couple of years since I found it

AGplusone: But, …. scheduled tonight is a discussion about “spies, sneaks, and finks … etc.” in RAH .

AGplusone: So, we’ll start in about three minutes, everyone ….

ddavitt: Some good posts about it…

ddavitt: got submerged under the silliness

SAcademy: The only one I can think of is Kettle Belly Baldwin

ddavitt: The Kopter King!

AGplusone: I was intrigued by something Jeanette Wolfe posted …. the thought that RAH would have enjoyed

AGplusone: people beating the system, more or less, IIRC, as she put it.

ddavitt: An element of that runs through the books

DavidWrightSr: I am going to be AFK for the most part. I’ll just be getting up to save the log periodically.

ddavitt: OK Dave

geeairmoe2: Just dropped in to Groucho Marx: “Hello, I must be going.” Relatives visiting.

ddavitt: I will leave when David gets back from the airport

AGplusone: Brings to mind “The Thirteenth Commandant” … but under what circumstances do you think RAH would

AGplusone: enjoyed people beating the system?

ddavitt: Just returning a relative

rjjusu: lot of that going around…. G

AGplusone: anyone?

rjjusu: When the system doesn’t “make sense”

ddavitt: If it was a bureaucratic rule

ddavitt: Hatred of petty red tape

AGplusone: This is the author, remember, who was proud to have graduated from a system where people were

ddavitt: Rules for the sake of it

AGplusone: cashiered over stealing a pair of stockings.

geeairmoe2: I may be back later.

BPRAL22169: But that wasn’t a matter of “rules” — it was a matter of honor.

SAcademy: Well, there’s Friday

geeairmoe2 has left the room.

AGplusone: As he told Campbell in that December ’41 letter

rjjusu: The point to remember is that those rules were often generated for a good reason

AGplusone: Maybe it was ‘rules’ Bill, if they are for the purpose of Honor5

NuclearWasteUSN has entered the room.

rjjusu: but then the circumstances changed but the rules didn’t

AGplusone: Hi, Jim.

ddavitt: Hi Jim.

BPRAL22169: The rules were incidental; the honor was the important thing.

NuclearWasteUSN: Good evening 🙂

SAcademy: Good evening Jim

BPRAL22169: One neither does nor refrains from doing things because of rules.

AGplusone: E.g., an officer doesn’t lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate the presence of anyone who does …

NuclearWasteUSN: Hello Ginny

BPRAL22169: One does or refrains because they belong to or don’t belong in the strategy you’re pursuing.

ddavitt: But was he proud of that? David lamb didn’t seem to be

rjjusu: There is a very good example of this that I am sure that the ex-military types would appreciate.

AGplusone: I think he was intensely proud of it, Jane. Doesn’t he tell the middies in that Forrestal

AGplusone: lecture you just bought that he always considered himself a Navy officer just in disagreement

AGplusone: with the doctors over whether he was fit for duty?

AGplusone: [great tape, btw, so much more in it than the part in Extended U]

ddavitt: Haven’t had chance to listen yet

ddavitt: Looking forward to it

AGplusone: What situation, Randy, would an officer enjoy seeing someone beat the system?

AGplusone: Or, when might an officer be duty bound to see that someone beats the system?

NuclearWasteUSN: What do you mean by beating the system?

AGplusone: Suppose you, a Petty Officer were before a courts martial?

ddavitt: David lamb beat it in spades but was always honourable by their rules

AGplusone: Is there a situation there where an officer might be duty bound to see you beat it?

rjjusu: When the rules are applied “too strictly” – only to follow form instead of function

NuclearWasteUSN: I can think of one.

AGplusone: Which is?

NuclearWasteUSN: Striking a superior officer.

SAcademy: Senior officer, please.

AGplusone: Not that exactly … isn’t there an officer who is duty bound to see that you, as a defendant in a

rjjusu: Under which circumstances, Jim?

AGplusone: court martial does indeed beat the system?

NuclearWasteUSN: It is situational though. He was going to do something that would endanger the ship. (Open a red ta

ddavitt: But does this come under spies, finks etc? Aren’t they a special case? What rules apply that they

ddavitt: might be considered to transgress?

NuclearWasteUSN: tagged valve)

AGplusone: Isn

BPRAL22169: He’s talking about lawyers — that qualifies as “finks,” I believe.

BPRAL22169: (oops, did I say that out loud?)

ddavitt: Refrain from comment

AGplusone: Isn’t the officer you select to defend you duty bound to see that just that happens?

AGplusone: rjjusu: so we are going to be insulting finks this evening, Bill?

ddavitt: libby and the explosive charge situation you mean Jim?

BPRAL22169: Same as the civilian bar

ddavitt: In Misfit

NuclearWasteUSN: Same thing, yes Jane.

AGplusone: Do you happen to know, Ginny, whether Robert ever served as defense counsel in a CourtsMartial?

BPRAL22169: No, the defending officer is duty-bound to uphold the system — and give you the best

BPRAL22169: defense available under the system.

AGplusone: NOOOOO!

AGplusone: He’s duty bound to get you off.

BPRAL22169: Nope.

AGplusone: If he can, legally.

ddavitt: Even if you are guilty?

SAcademy: Yes, he defended a lot of guilty men. There’s a story about that.

rjjusu: Not under UCMJ

BPRAL22169: If he can, legally, yes.

AGplusone: Uphold the system means nothing

ddavitt: ga Ginny

BPRAL22169: There is a whole code of what he can and cannot do — and that’s the system.

BPRAL22169: A military counsel does not have some of the options a civilian counselor has, I believe.

SageMerlin has entered the room.

rjjusu: Correct, Bill

AGplusone: ‘uphold’ means nothing. He’s bound to get you off if he can by any legal means.

AGplusone: Even if you’re guilty as sin

BPRAL22169: But that “legal means” IS the system.

SAcademy: He was inspecting the brig one day, when he noticed his name on a list with a lot of stars after it.

AGplusone: go on, Ginny ….

ddavitt: Hi Sage

NuclearWasteUSN: I believe Military counsel is constrained to tell the whole truth, not just those parts of it that ref

NuclearWasteUSN: reflect well upon his client.

AGplusone: NO>

SAcademy: So he asked about it, and each nname and star meant he’d got one guilty man off. So he took his erase

AGplusone: Military counsel as defense counsel has no duty to tell the whole truth unless he’s stupid enough to

AGplusone: let himself be called to the stand

SAcademy: and erased his name, and that was the end of his legal practice.

AGplusone: But do you happen to know how many defendants he got off, Ginny?

BPRAL22169: Thank you, Ginny. I guess it doesn’t do to get that kind of a “rep.”

ddavitt: Now that’s more honourable than what you suggest AG

AGplusone: before he erased himself …

ddavitt: Hiding the truth to get a guilty man off is finky all right

SAcademy: He was forever getting asked to defend someone before he erased his name.

BPRAL22169: How about the Sons of the Bird as a race of finks?

AGplusone: that what the system is based on, Jane. The prosecution is put to the burden of proving it

ddavitt: Because he was a good debator type?

ddavitt: It’s a game, that’s all.

AGplusone: I was able, recently, to read a letter in which he said he won every case he was assigned

SAcademy: Well, yes, Jane.

ddavitt: makes sense.

AGplusone: as defense counsel, except one, and in every case, his client was guilty

ddavitt: He was very persuasive as a writer!

SAcademy: Evening Sage.

BPRAL22169: And he had great sincerity in his personal presentation.

ddavitt: Sons seemed to be outside the system

ddavitt: have to be human.

NuclearWasteUSN: And this was before the changes in interpretation made being guilty easier.

AGplusone: So, when Jeanette said she felt that RAH would enjoy seeing someone beat the system, I thought of this

AGplusone: but only this ….

AGplusone: ‘within a system’ but beating the system ….

ddavitt: I think she meant something else…have to ask her

ddavitt: before saturday maybe

BPRAL22169: I think he thought you could save someone if they weren’t broken — but after their broken,

ddavitt: She seems to have had trouble getting posts

BPRAL22169: that’s it.

rjjusu: Here is a question – since the whole concept of finks, traitors, etc. depends on what side you are on.

AGplusone: I think she may have meant something else too …

rjjusu: Is debating the validity of ones choice of actions the same as debating the difference

SageMerlin: Good evening

ddavitt: As was pointed out on afh

rjjusu: between situational ethics and “fixed” ethics?

NuclearWasteUSN: In my experience with Aviators, they take almost a childlike glory in beating the system in minor ways

ddavitt: Not sure about that Randy.

fgherman has entered the room.

ddavitt: Do you mean that there are somethings everyone can agree is sneaky?

rjjusu: If the British had won, would Benedict Arnold have been a hero and Washington a traitor?

ddavitt: Hi felicia

SAcademy: Hello, Felicia.

NuclearWasteUSN: Winner write history.

ddavitt: Probably to some

rjjusu: I think so, Jane.

SageMerlin: You mean the British lost?

AGplusone: Benedict Arnold was a hero. British retired him in honor.

ddavitt: But bottom line is betrayal

fgherman: Hello All

ddavitt: A spy has given loyalties to one side

NuclearWasteUSN: However, would Washington’s case against the crown and absentee landlords still have been valid?

ddavitt: All he does as a spy is OK

ddavitt: If he becomes a double agent THEN he is a fink

rjjusu: When is a violation of trust acceptable? That, I think, might begin to answer the question.

ddavitt: Greater good?

SAcademy: Isn’t there a monument to Benedict Arnold’s leg? He lost it in battle.

AGplusone: At Saratoga

ddavitt: Santa Anna did too…careless chaps

rjjusu: Surely someone would have found it by now???

NuclearWasteUSN: Good question Randy.

DJedPar: There’s a monument to Benedict Arnold in Maine.

SAcademy: From the French and Indian waar?

DJedPar: I think so.

BPRAL22169: I didn’t know Santa Anna was at Saratoga!

AGplusone: Arnold had a glorious career … no, he invaded Canada in 77 … up to when he listened to his

AGplusone: wife and choose to follow her politics

ddavitt: But have to consider that people change their minds too.

SageMerlin: Actually, the Americans captured Santa Anna’s leg…only to find out that he owned a dozen of them.

NuclearWasteUSN: Violation of a trust is acceptable in the case of a soldier given an illegal order.

SAcademy: Did anyone ever read his story of taking the troops up to Montreal? Or was it Quebec?

SageMerlin: Young man named Grant did the deed itself as I recall.

AGplusone: I have …

ddavitt: Is it worse to stay in a terrorist group when you’ve come to see the error of your ways or to leave it

AGplusone: Forget the name of the other general in that force …

SAcademy: Kenneth Roberts, I think.

AGplusone: Could be … he’d been a British officer as well. A professional.

AGplusone: In any event, was Arnold a situation of ‘situational ethics’ Randy?

AGplusone: Discounting the gossip that said the real reason he went along with his wife’s family was jealosy

AGplusone: over Greene getting the credit for Saratoga

rjjusu: Guess we get to the lawyerly concept of divining “intent”

ddavitt: brb

AGplusone: Can’t do that, can you, really, unless the intender tells you what it was and tells the truth?

rjjusu: I think there are several cases that have to be considered:

rjjusu: Those that take a course of action because they believe it to be the right thing to do.

rjjusu: The honorable traitor, fink, etc.

rjjusu: Those that take a course of action because of personal gain.

rjjusu: The greedy traitor whose only guideline is what benefits himself.

rjjusu: Those that change with the wind, or are led lemming like by those around them

rjjusu: The unprincipled traitor

BPRAL22169: I’m thinking of the Snotty Fassett character in ITGO — he had a predisposition of character.

AGplusone: How do we know? Because Lyle didn’t like him?

SageMerlin: All very nicely put, but it’s really a matter of who wins, isn’t it? If the British had won,

NuclearWasteUSN: Based upon his own statements.

SageMerlin: Benedict Arnold would have been George Washington

BPRAL22169: I think both Zeb and John Lyle discussed him at one point.

NuclearWasteUSN: I hate to go, this is a wonderful topic, but I have a friend who just hit a deer. They seem to be out

AGplusone: I think they did. They didn’t like him, but because they held that opinion, how do we really know …

NuclearWasteUSN: in force this summer

BPRAL22169: But there is the “damaged goods” type of traitor/sneak/fink, as well.

NuclearWasteUSN: Please send me the log!

SageMerlin: At least salvage the tenderloin

AGplusone: Saw one yesterday on 101 south

NuclearWasteUSN: Backstraps as well.

NuclearWasteUSN has left the room.

BPRAL22169: I guess that is a “collaborator” type.

BPRAL22169: Perhaps it is people to whom motivations of honor, etc., are simply “invisible.”

SAcademy: David W. did you start a log?

rjjusu has left the room.

BPRAL22169: He may be AFK; he implied that he is keeping the log, Ginny.

rjjusu has entered the room.

AGplusone: I keep one …

ddavitt: back.

SAcademy: Thanks I’d like a copy. It’s going too fast for me.

AGplusone: ‘kay

rjjusu: Godless base phone systems…..

AGplusone: damaged goods types, such as whom?

maikoshT: I’m keeping the log

BPRAL22169: I was thinking specifically of Snotty Fassett — people who were morally crippled from the start

AGplusone: I’ll accept that by inference on his nickname …

rjjusu: So that makes you the “Log Lady”, in a Twin peaks sort of way ….

BPRAL22169: the collabos in 6th Column, etc.

BPRAL22169: Well, it’s true, the log does know…

DenvToday has entered the room.

BPRAL22169: (I have about 44 hours of Twin Peaks on tape)

SageMerlin: How lucky for you. What’s is Twin Peaks?

DenvToday: Good evening everybody!

SAcademy: Whatever for, Bill?

rjjusu: Hi, Denv.

ddavitt: Hi Denv

BPRAL22169: On the other hand, some people who look like damaged goods turn out to be ok — like the

AGplusone: as they are portrayed, what makes them any different from Mannie in Moon before he meets Wyoh and

DenvToday: Good to see you.

AGplusone: Shorty gets killed?

BPRAL22169: twerp in the helicopter in FitS

SAcademy: Twin Peaks was a TV show on the West coast.

ddavitt: But what was so bad about Snotty?

SageMerlin: Oh, Thanks.

BPRAL22169: Snotty Fassett was an internal spy.

ddavitt: He mighthave been truly devout

BPRAL22169: It was one of the very best things ever put on television —

David Lynch directed.

AGplusone: For all we know he was heroic … Herbert Philbrick, from I Led Three Lives

ddavitt: Weeding out the disloyal Cabal

ddavitt: If, like Lyle, he truly beleived in the Prophet

AGplusone: “Citizen, Communist, Counter-spy”

ddavitt: Then he was on the side of the angels

BPRAL22169: No, they are pretty clear that Snotty did what he did because he liked it. It may hav ebeen

rjjusu: So you are proposing that Lyle and Snotty were two sides of the same coin?

BPRAL22169: only their opinion, but it WAS their opinion, and we don’t have better evidence.

ddavitt: Is it what we think of ourselves that is really important, the only standard that can apply?

BPRAL22169: No. SF was morally corrupt.

maikoshT: Zeb called him an ‘agent provocateur’. He threw the first rock in stoning the ‘pariah’

AGplusone: Let’s look at the MI example for a moment, please …. from Troopers.

ddavitt: Prove it

BPRAL22169: I can’t “prove’ it — it’s a ‘given” in the story.

ddavitt: The pariah was a heathen, doomed to hell

ddavitt: ( I’m devil’s advocate here btw!)

AGplusone: They all must operate from an ethical base … H & MP, and if in OCS it’s discovered they don’t,

BPRAL22169: Dialectical Davitt. That’s you.

ddavitt: A story in the first person is always suspect

ddavitt: Hmm..has a ring to it…

AGplusone: they face a board to see whether they are even allowed to remain as Privates, no matter

ddavitt: Look at Job

SageMerlin: I’ve always thought that about Genesis

AGplusone: how good Troopers they may be.

rjjusu: Yes, David, but the assumption there is that they have put ethics on the same basis …

BPRAL22169: But, to a certain extent, the board can only examine how well they have mastered the

Reilloc has entered the room.

BPRAL22169: dialectics of their society.

rjjusu: as other mathematical sciences.

ddavitt: Alex thinks he’s so great..we go along with it and get smacked in the face by his intolerance.

ddavitt: Puts all he said in a whole new light

BPRAL22169: That was a masterful stroke in JOB.

BPRAL22169: RAH must have had a lot of fun with that.

ddavitt: I was gob smacked as we say in t’ North

ddavitt: I read it and puzzled over it for ages…couldn’t get past the idea that he was narrator and therfore

ddavitt: hero

SAcademy: I take it that Canadians don’t speak English, Jane?

ddavitt: But also a total jerk

BPRAL22169: But there are a lot of those “wait a minute, now!” moments in RAH.

ddavitt: Not proper English Ginny

BPRAL22169: Stranger has several of them.

ddavitt: But I can translate for all of you

DJedPar: Headmaster Howe was quite a fink in Red Planet. Wasn’t he? Thanks, Jane.

ddavitt: That is North of UK

BPRAL22169: Oooh — a Canadian to English dictionary, now there’s material for a religious conversion!

SAcademy: Do please.

rjjusu: That’s great, Jane. eh?

ddavitt: Gob smacked is stunned, taken aback

ddavitt: gob is mouth

ddavitt: hit in the face by it

ddavitt: Howe was yes

ddavitt: He had a duty to the students

ddavitt: He put his employer first

Dehede03 has entered the room.

ddavitt: And his own interests then took over even that

DJedPar: Look what he wanted to do to Willys..

ddavitt: loyalty

ddavitt: Hi Ron

Dehede03: Howdy Y’all

AGplusone: Howe falls into the category of always looking for his own self-interest

BPRAL22169: Yo, Famous Author.

Dehede03: Howdy, Jane

ddavitt: Why? What have you written Ron?

SAcademy: Hello, Ron

Dehede03: Infamous, Bill??

Dehede03: Hi, Ginny.

ddavitt: That sounds tactless…duh!

BPRAL22169: You can’t be infamous until you publish. But you can be famous before you publish.

Dehede03: The first draft of my first attempt at a novel.

ddavitt: Great!

fgherman: There’s always a first one

SageMerlin: Like that first drink

rjjusu: I suspect that if we were in a H&MP class, we would all be failing…

AGplusone: But we don’t know for certain that Fascett always put his own self-interest first, do we?

ddavitt: Why?

BPRAL22169: No, it’s novels all the way down…

Dehede03: No one can say whether it will be successful but I won’t be embarrassed.

rjjusu: since we are not “proving” our positions.

ddavitt: I look forward to reading it

Dehede03: Thank you.

ddavitt: What are we saying anyway?

Dehede03: ??

ddavitt: Have we decided on a ground rule definition yet?

ddavitt: For a spy/fink

AGplusone: I thought we were on Randy’s definition, Jane?

ddavitt: What IS a fink anyhow?

rjjusu: We haven’t agreed on terms – how can we determine if what we are saying means anything

SageMerlin: Fink is a labor term

ddavitt: Oh, a scab?

BPRAL22169: There are people who are so crooked they can’t even follow their own interests.

SageMerlin: Turn of the century unionists used it to describe someone who ratted out the labor movement to the

SageMerlin: the bosses

AGplusone: No. Fink is a spy. A scab is someone who crosses the line.

ddavitt: scab is someone who crosses picket line of a strike

SageMerlin: Wrong David

BPRAL22169: I have met more of these types than ever I wanted to.

AGplusone: He’s a spy in that he volunteers to make himself one … not employed to be one.

SageMerlin: Okay, I will accept that.

BPRAL22169: The usages of “fink” I have seen were informing — telling the strikebusters of strategy.

ddavitt: Are we agreed about the renegades in PM being true finks?

AGplusone: Not a Pinkerton for example employed to infiltrate

ddavitt: Working voluntarily for the slugs

AGplusone: Like Dashiel Hammett

SageMerlin: PM ?????????

ddavitt: Against their own kind

SageMerlin: Puppet Masters

ddavitt: Puppet masters

BPRAL22169: Puppet Masters

ddavitt: sorry

SageMerlin: I haven’t been around much.

ddavitt: get used to acronyms on afh

ddavitt: too lazy to type it all out

rjjusu: I think we are using several words that have different denotations, but lumping them all

BPRAL22169: Sage IS an acronym

AGplusone: The renegades in PM who are not ‘hosted’ of course, Jane?

ddavitt: yes

rjjusu: together from a conotation standpoint

SageMerlin: No, its not.

ddavitt: slugs ride them, realsie they’re scum, get off and let them roam free

SageMerlin: Its an herb

AGplusone: We never really see one of those, do we, just hear about them.

BPRAL22169: What’s the word for that?

BPRAL22169: You’re right —

ddavitt: Sam sees one and kills him later

ddavitt: Wrestling host

ddavitt: Not in the cut version; very gory bit

BPRAL22169: *sigh*

AGplusone: Is this renegade a bit like “Bill” in Walks Through Walls?

BPRAL22169: Hmmm– you know, it occurs to me that the same kind of treatment you gave Red Planet

AGplusone: a true fink

ddavitt: No; we don’t know enough about Bill

BPRAL22169: might be very useful in re PM.

ddavitt: I started it Bill; lauren arrived

ddavitt: I have about 3 pages of notes

AGplusone: We know he returns kindness and help with disloyalty

BPRAL22169: Ah. Yes, that would interrupt it, wouldn’t it?

BPRAL22169: But I have the impression CAT’s Bill was simply weak.

ddavitt: But isn’t he working for scene changers/ THEY have his prime loyalty

AGplusone: But he was in their corner from the first moment wasn’t he …? The zip gun?

ddavitt: He is a Black hat

ddavitt: Why should the condescension of Richard and the bossiness of Gwen make him like them?

SAcademy: Sorry people, I have to get to bed. I’m falling asleep.

SAcademy: Nite.

ddavitt: Night Ginny. Sleep well

BPRAL22169: I had the impression he was just a morally weak human used by the adversaries because of

AGplusone: So he’s a POW who is coerced into giving an informal parole … and seizes the chance to escape

fgherman: Good night Ginny

rjjusu: Good night and pleasant dreams, Ginny.

BPRAL22169: his weakness.

SAcademy has left the room.

Dehede03: Wasn’t Bill also careless of hygene as the alien ridden were in PM?

BPRAL22169: Good night, Ginny

Dehede03: Night, Ginny

ddavitt: I am totally confused by cat

ddavitt: I don’t know who the enemy is and what their motives are

BPRAL22169: I think we are supposed to be.

ddavitt: seem to have moved beyond Black hats of Number

rjjusu: Foreshadowing of what is to come in NOTB?

ddavitt: So i can’t judge Bill

ddavitt: No; written after

ddavitt: And set after too

rjjusu: Aftershadowing????

ddavitt: Bill may not be human

BPRAL22169: I get best results thinking about CAT as an episode in a longer work

ddavitt: Umm…my mistake, grovel

AGplusone: But isn’t Bill just a simple portrayal of a weak human trapped by circumstances

AGplusone: Rosenstein and Guilderstern?

SageMerlin: Is there anyone who isn’t

ddavitt: He is in the attack near the end isn’t he?

SageMerlin: a weak human trapped by circumstances

BPRAL22169: Remember the subtitle of CAT; he may be there for contrast with the main characters.

SageMerlin: Heroes are just those who couldn’t get out of the line of fire afterward

AGplusone: A Comedy of Manners

SageMerlin: fast enough

Dehede03: David, isn’t he also the example of a caged animal that refuses to leave his cage?

ddavitt: What does that mean exactly?

BPRAL22169: What were Bill’s manners; what were theirs.

ddavitt: He was common; they were upper class…but it goes deeper than class

SageMerlin: Actually, Bill is one of the most mysterious characters in any Heinlein novel.

ddavitt: It was a whole difference in world view

ddavitt: He was a socialsit

ddavitt: socialist even..

BPRAL22169: Heinlein is writing as an American; there is no “upper class” and “common” distinction.

ddavitt: They didn’t like that

SageMerlin: Precisely because he snoookers Richard and Gwen all the way.

Dehede03: Yes, when he has the chance to leave his cage he refuses the chance.

AGplusone: I agree, Sage: you keep thinking he’s going to develop into someone on “our” side, but why should he?

rjjusu: So we get back to perspective again. What one sees depends on where one stands

ddavitt: But I am an Englsih reader; I have to use my own world view

BPRAL22169: At least, not in the same way.

SageMerlin: The point is that he was never on their side….he was a very subtle agent

ddavitt: I agree with that randy

AGplusone: Why? I can see Benedict Arnold as a hero in his own mind, to his family.

ddavitt: To the BH’s, Bill may have been on hazardous undercover duty

BPRAL22169: One is always a hero when one is certaint hat one has followed his conscience.

ddavitt: Or, a weakling they subverted ..who knows?

SageMerlin: Which goes back to what I said before…..whether you are a fink or not depends on which side wins

ddavitt: No!

ddavitt: Depends on what you honestly think

SageMerlin: YES

rjjusu: but remember the comment about a “foolish consistency” …

AGplusone: If RAH says, in the Forrestal lecture, that first order of duty is to family, then outward, how can

AGplusone: you fault Arnold?

SageMerlin: His only fault was losing

AGplusone: He marries into them, and then changes his allegiance to that which they favor

ddavitt: Not the betrayal?

SageMerlin: No, that’s our perception, not his

ddavitt: Are you allowed to chage allegiance?

ddavitt: I think you are

rjjusu: But WHY the betrayal?

AGplusone: Why not: Colonel Washington did.

SageMerlin: No traitor sees himself as anything but a patriot.

ddavitt: But you must not use prior knowledge against former allies

SageMerlin: with a different allegiance

SageMerlin: Who says?

ddavitt: Though that may be impossible….

AGplusone: He became General Washinton, and won, and, therefore, a hero. Now R E Lee is a slightly

AGplusone: different story. He lost, and therefore not a hero.

SageMerlin: I think the Civil War is dangerous territory for this discussion

AGplusone: Washington used prior knowledge. He used everything he’d learned as a British officer

rjjusu: But he is a principled “traitor”, and one therefore worthy of respect.

SageMerlin: Precisely because both sides were both right and wrong at the same time

SageMerlin: Only because he won

ddavitt: I still don’t think eventual victory can whitewash actions Sage

SageMerlin: Of course it does, results count. Intentions are lost in the haze of history

rjjusu: So, Jane’s comment is getting to the heart of the matter. Do the ends justify the means?

Dehede03: Because Washington pitched a fit for his rights as an Englishman first

rjjusu: Or do the means “color” the ends?

rjjusu: Said color fading with time and distance.

Dehede03: So did the Revolutionists as a group

BPRAL22169: I don’t think Heinlein was at all equivocal on that point.

SageMerlin: Let’s take a man who is raised most in Germany, an upper class patrician, who in the end pitches his

SageMerlin: lot with the British….and loses his life.

SageMerlin: The British extol him as a patriot….and the Germans hate his guts. Who’s right and who’s wrong?

SageMerlin: He pays the ultimate prices, plays the great game, sets the stage for the invasion of Europe, all by

SageMerlin: trading off his knowledge of the German character.

ddavitt: I don’t know…but it shouldn;t change according to the result of the war

ddavitt: It is an absolute

SageMerlin: The man was Leslie Howard.

rjjusu: Is the branding of the action based on what one does and why, or the end results?

SageMerlin: If the Germans had won, Howard would be regarded as a traitor because he was raised among them and

ddavitt: Ends justify the means…?

BPRAL22169: I don’t know — it seems to me there is a lot more “wiggle room” than that interpretation

ddavitt: Bit dodgy that

SageMerlin: they consequently felt they had a right to expect loyalty from him…

BPRAL22169: allows, Sage — RELee is not goign to be considered a traitor i nthe judgment of history

ddavitt: But who writes history?

BPRAL22169: We do occasionally respect a principled resistance to our aims.

SageMerlin: The Civil War is just about the only war in which the losers remain heros

ddavitt: It is individuals with opinions

AGplusone: You can argue they changed the rules on RELee …. but they still took Arlington away from him

Dehede03: But R. E. Lee went with his homeland.

BPRAL22169: Yes — but it shatters your model.

SageMerlin: But the CW shatters just about every model

Dehede03: And I believe Lee wrestled with his decision publicly before hand.

BPRAL22169: So there are important exceptions — my point.

AGplusone: and never let him vote again, because, simplistically, he was an oath breaker

SageMerlin: The men who led the armies of both sides had grown up as friends, West Point classmates, students of

SageMerlin: Winfield Scott.

BPRAL22169: That

SageMerlin: Scott told him he was making the biggest mistake of his life, but they remained friends nonetheless.

BPRAL22169: is true — happens quite a lot in civil wars. Sulla trained with marius.

Dehede03: Yes, and that fact is the means by which Grant defeated Lee

BPRAL22169: There are “honorable enemies” throughout history.

AGplusone: Difference between him and Arnold was he resigned publicly and joined the Army of Northern Virginia

AGplusone: and Arnold had to run because they found out what he was doing.

SageMerlin: So if you declare yourself openly, you can be a good guy while you are being a bad gjy

AGplusone: But they both broke an oath …

Dehede03: Yes, it reminds me of the old southern expression, “Sir, declare yourself.’

SageMerlin: guy….but if you operate covertly, you are a traitor.

SageMerlin: I can buy that.

SageMerlin: Under this definition, Bill is as traitor because he never declares himself.

Dehede03: As was Arnold

ddavitt: spies can’t go around blowing their cover though

AGplusone: Honorable men have been covert operators … the one in Sixth Column who stays under cover

ddavitt: kind of defeats the purpose

AGplusone: as a private in the PanAm Army

ddavitt: Yes, good example

AGplusone: PanAsian

BPRAL22169: There were very few honorable men as spies in Heinlein — the Japanese undercover officer

ddavitt: Suppose he had to kill an American to keep cover going?

SageMerlin: But he’s not one of them….they just think he is

Dehede03: But a true spy accepts his position going in

ddavitt: Is that an honourable action?

BPRAL22169: in 6th Col. And another in “Magic, inc.,” I think. Any more?

AGplusone: He probably did

SageMerlin: It has happened more than once, Jane

ddavitt: greater good I suppose

rjjusu: That’s the problem with ethical absolutes –

rjjusu: they can change if circumstances change enough to make the assumptions invalid

ddavitt: cabal had men in the Prophet’s organisation

AGplusone: “I vas yust followink orders”

BPRAL22169: RAH may not have been comfortable with the idea, though he may have thought it pragmatically

BPRAL22169: necessary.

BPRAL22169: The honorable man is a danger to the state because he follows a higher law.

BPRAL22169: and as Augustine tells us: “An unjust law is no law at all.”

ddavitt: And to you if he decides you’re not worthy

AGplusone: Consider this: when RAH graduated, it was ’29, prohibition in full swing, and under the volstead

BPRAL22169: Very good point.

AGplusone: act it was what: a misdemeanor to possess alcohol?

Dehede03: Yet everything including drugs were available within one block of his JC in Kansas City.

AGplusone: Do you think the Class of ’29 were teetotal?

Dehede03: hard drugs

BPRAL22169: Civil disobedience ‘r’ us.

AGplusone: Do you think the Navy served alcohol about ships then?

fgherman: Good night all, bed calls.

fgherman has left the room.

ddavitt: Night Felicia

AGplusone: Nite, felicia

Dehede03: not aboard ship

ddavitt: no rum ration?

ddavitt:

Dehede03: I believe that was gone years earlier

AGplusone: He writes that he was invited aboard a battleship in ’29 where the officers mess did exactly that.

BPRAL22169: No, I think the rum ration was not discontinued until the late 90’s.

AGplusone: Wine and hard liquor with dinner

Dehede03: I was served wine in the officer’s mess aboard a land station in 57

BPRAL22169: Well — there is also the fact that naval officers considered themselves aristos above the law.

SageMerlin: Ah, remember, folks, we’re talking about the navy….three miles out and the laws change

AGplusone: In Pearl?

BPRAL22169: Very good point, Sage.

SageMerlin: You can be three miles off Pearl

SageMerlin: Its a big ocean

ddavitt: Yes, not in US territorial waters

AGplusone: This was a dinner when the ships were tied up and inviting officers of other ships aboard

SageMerlin: Besides, half the navy is always visiting some foreign port or other.

BPRAL22169: Oh, a little navigation error in the Pearl Harbor OC?

ddavitt: Would the laws still count if the captain didn’t agree with them?

SageMerlin: Besides, it was never illegal in Hawaii.

Dehede03: There is liquor aboard all ships but not legally

ddavitt: state, not federal law?

BPRAL22169: It was a Constitutional Amendment.

SageMerlin: Prohibition did not affect protectorates

AGplusone: There is liquor aboard all ships in officer cabins and unless they are stupid enough to drink on duty

SageMerlin: Still didn’t affect Hawaii.

ddavitt: I don’t know much about it. We British were never that dumb

AGplusone: or leave it out when the Captain or XO comes around, it’s ignored

Dehede03: We have some of the most innovative bootleggers in the world brewing aboard our ships

BPRAL22169: Oh, there is so MUCH that could be said about that . . .

SageMerlin: Unless its the Captain’s brand

AGplusone: And in the chief’s quarters ….

ddavitt: Heh, heh…

SageMerlin: Not to mention the Chef’s quarters

Dehede03: But never legally and the old man will have the culprits head

BPRAL22169: What’s a poor cook to do?

ddavitt: crepes suzette need that little something…

AGplusone: He has to … have their heads, for stupidity

SageMerlin: or not sharing

rjjusu: if they break the 11th commandment, then they are guilty by definition

SageMerlin: How did we get here? I mean, just asking.

AGplusone: adultry and fornification were felonies in most states in ’29 … do you think the Ensigns of ’29 were

AGplusone: virgins?

BPRAL22169: Somethign that complicates the traitor question is that in a democracy, there are certain circum-

BPRAL22169: stances in which oen is morally bound to disobey a law.

SageMerlin: Adultery is still illegal in Boston. Ask any Kennedy

ddavitt: Are there?

BPRAL22169: And the right to overturn the government is specifically reserved in the Declaration

Dehede03: I had my first white lightening aboard base

Dehede03: I was in my bunk at Norfolk

SageMerlin: The New Hampshire state constitution has a specific article in it called The Right of Revolution.

ddavitt: Is that like moonshine?

Dehede03: Yes

SageMerlin: There are always towns in NH trying to break away. One tried to join canada once.

ddavitt: I’ve had Polish spirit

AGplusone: Back to ‘beating the system’ a moment … do things like alcohol aboard ships really count.

Dehede03: I was sicker than a dog with flue and my buddy thought it would cure me

AGplusone: Isn’t that what everyone does?

ddavitt: or kill you

ddavitt: We all speed, yes?

BPRAL22169: If you base your polity on natural moral law, then revolution is an inalienable right.

AGplusone: It’s not lying cheating or stealing is it?

AGplusone: or tolerating someone who does …

BPRAL22169: Jane! I’m shocked!

ddavitt: We set our own judgement of our driving skills against an agreed upon limit

SageMerlin: In Britian, with those roads, speeding is a self-correcting sin.,

ddavitt: I’m sorry Bill but I do.

rjjusu: One of the most difficult things in life is learning how to think for oneself.

rjjusu: The next most difficult thing is finding the right balance …

rjjusu: between obedience and independence

SageMerlin: I have been thinking for myself all my life…..can’t seem to find anyone to do it for me.

ddavitt: I understand if you never visit Ontario out of fear of meeting me in a car

SageMerlin: And believe me, I have tried.

BPRAL22169: (You just don’t hang out wth the right crowd, Sage)

rjjusu: So, you aren’t married, then???

SageMerlin: Well, I did once, but I had to shoot him.

Dehede03: Toronto — the world’s greatest party town

SageMerlin: Married. Well, yes.

SageMerlin: For twentry years.

ddavitt: I object to that statement as a married person myself 🙂

rjjusu: Well there you go…..

BPRAL22169: You see — no matter where you go, there you are.

SageMerlin: Thankfully, we haven’t lived together for 12

AGplusone: Why don’t we take ten … then resume at 25 past the hour ….

SageMerlin: So there you go.

ddavitt: OK.

SageMerlin: Hoist on your own petard.

Dehede03: ok

BPRAL22169: Yes, indeed; there you are.

rjjusu: And here we are…

SageMerlin: Denv….

AGplusone: afk

SageMerlin: Sidebar?

BPRAL22169: And we are all together

ddavitt: This is getting too deep for me…

BPRAL22169: Get out your hip waders.

rjjusu: That’s what snorkels are for…

ddavitt: And I’m not in the alltogether; i have a dressing gown on

SageMerlin: thank goodness.

ddavitt: Or is that more Brit slang you don’t know?

SageMerlin: Otherwise, my god, I might have a coron…a stroke

ddavitt: 😉

BPRAL22169: Oooh — this is the internet, isn’t it?!

ddavitt: We’re on a break.

BPRAL22169: I’ve hear things about these here chat rooms.

SageMerlin: Here Here

ddavitt: And I have a reputation to live down to

BPRAL22169: Pardon me — I was wrong. “I done heer things.”

rjjusu: Bill, you’re still only taking checks for THJ right?

ddavitt: That’s better…

BPRAL22169: That’s right — I don’t have anything like paypal yet.

SageMerlin: Hey, Ron…are you out there?

SageMerlin: Dead silence.

BPRAL22169: I sent him an IM on AOL; he seems to have left the room.

ddavitt: I had an idea about using Amazon to pay the dues

ddavitt: There is an honour system

SageMerlin: I am going to be in Denver next week and I thought I would say hello

AGplusone: afk means he might be pouring a drink, a stiff one ….

ddavitt: Where you pay for a site you visit to help maintain it

rjjusu: Now that I finally have a new permanent address, I need to send it to you

BPRAL22169: That’s cute.

ddavitt: Amazon take cards I’m sure

rjjusu: with a check after I get back from Montreal.

ddavitt: It was when i was looking at the links

ddavitt: I spotted it

BPRAL22169: Better do it quick — #9 is about to go to press, so I’ll be

mailing within a week or two.

ddavitt: Just a thought. But we could get donations that way if we link to it as well as a simple book search

Dehede03: Yeah I am back

ddavitt: For THS

BPRAL22169: I meant to ask earlier — will that library that burned down take library discards?

rjjusu: can you send me your address again and I’ll try to get it in the

mail tomorrow from here.

ddavitt: I think they should if they are a library

ddavitt: I have three paperbacks to send

ddavitt: But I will have to take them off the afh book swap apge first

BPRAL22169: Easiest is for you to e-mail me your address, then follow up with a check

BPRAL22169: I have to make the labels within the next couple of days.

BPRAL22169: I thought they didn’t want paperbacks, Jane?

ddavitt: Did you change my post code

ddavitt: They want durable…

ddavitt: but pb’s can be laminated

AGplusone: Okay: 25 past. You mentioned the twerp in Farmer as an example, Bill, of what?

BPRAL22169: Ah. Well, I’ve got two boxes of duplicates I keep on hand to have giveaways.

BPRAL22169: let’s talk later about that.

ddavitt: OK

rjjusu: Okay, Bill. I have your address at home, but not here with me on reserve duty.

BPRAL22169: Ok – in FitS, the twerp in the helicopter shows up later in the Mayflower.

ddavitt: Yes he does

BPRAL22169: And he turns out to be an okay guy.

AGplusone: “twerp” is one who later turns out to be Lermer’s best friend, maybe excepting Sergi

ddavitt: Another eg of first person narration being suspect?

BPRAL22169: He was “inconvenient” to Bill Jones at the start, but not a creep otherwise.

ddavitt: But he is a bit of a jerk

ddavitt: Or is Bill just uptight?

BPRAL22169: Heinlein tries to say within the boundaries of what his voice character could see and know.

ddavitt: Well, yes, he has to really

BPRAL22169: A bit of both, I think.

AGplusone: Naw, just a high-spirited kid, not stogey like Bill who is rigid as the rock they break down on G

rjjusu: Sorry I wasn’t more specific, Bill. Can you email your snailmail address to ?

BPRAL22169: He’s a jerk (a little bit) AND Bill Lermer is a bit of a prig.

ddavitt: He breaks a rule tho; a safety rule

AGplusone: Lermer is immature ….

ddavitt: Not a silly rule

AGplusone: goes by all the rules, all the time ….

BPRAL22169: (ok — sorry I misunderstood. That is on the old copies you have, so I didn’t twig to it)

AGplusone: in the beginning, because he has no judgment to depend on …

ddavitt: Does he?

rjjusu: And with true maturity, and self-discipline, one can make a reasoned decision to break a rule?

ddavitt: I felt sorry for Noisy when he goes for the meals…they let him go and he gets punished

AGplusone: Perfect little boy, eagle scout, patrol leader …. (I think so)

ddavitt: And hero on the ship David

ddavitt: Would the other lad have reacted so fast? Was it Hank?

AGplusone: right place, right time, had a boy scout uniform to stuff in the hole

ddavitt: Can’t dismiss it that easily!

AGplusone: Sure they would have … if they’d been there.

ddavitt: He did well

BPRAL22169: “it”?

AGplusone: Not everyone.

AGplusone: But possibly Hank would have

ddavitt: You don’t like him do you?

AGplusone: He does the right thing on getting Bill back from the cave.

BPRAL22169: I try to resist pulling out the books to check stuff like this — I wind up with a pile of books

ddavitt: I have argued this before with you I think.

ddavitt: Well, we all know who we mean

AGplusone: Who, Bill? I like him, but he’s just too young in the beginning too rigid …. like the rocks they

ddavitt: fairly sure it was hank

AGplusone: have to break down on Ganymede to make into useful soil.

BPRAL22169: It occurs to me there are several buddy-pairs in RAH juveniles that help each other grow.

ddavitt: You think he reacts badly to the marriage?

AGplusone: Extremely so

BPRAL22169: The Red Planet pair, too.

rjjusu: how about the Greens?

ddavitt: No, I don’t you see…I think his dad is way culpable

ddavitt: But this is OT I suppose

ddavitt: Neither are finks

BPRAL22169: OT but interesting.

ddavitt: Nor is Noisy

Dehede03: BRB

AGplusone: Too kind and too hesitant to break the fragile and rigid world of merit badges his son creates

ddavitt: Buddy pairs; yes, Frank is a guide for Jim

AGplusone: for himself to deal with lose of the mother.

ddavitt: Isable for Don?

AGplusone: loss

ddavitt: Isabel

ddavitt: Ellie for max as well as Sam

BPRAL22169: I’m not sure Isabel — he winds up separated from her too much of th ebook.

ddavitt: He tells him he’s ggeting married the next day! That’s so cruel

BPRAL22169: I would say Sam and Max fall better into that.

rjjusu: Notice that Jim’s dad didn’t trust him to know about the upcoming marriage, unsure of his reaction

BPRAL22169: Max gives Sam the opportunity to rehabilitate himself.

ddavitt: He is with her for a while before the attack; she may form his thinking on Venus indeoendence

AGplusone: All Heinlein heros get married the next day. What do you want? One year engagements?

rjjusu: 3 days for blood tests?

ddavitt: Oh come on! He doesn’t have time to choose a tie to wear!

ddavitt: Let alone a gift

AGplusone: So what? he’s a kid. He can stay on Earth if he doesn’t like it.

ddavitt: No, it was cruel and motives aside, it was wrong way to deal with a difficult situation

ddavitt: I said you didn’t like him…

BPRAL22169: It was the wrong way — but it may have been the only way to do it.

rjjusu: That’s not the point, David. If they were going to be true partners – as they were portrayed

AGplusone: Who? Bill and daddy?

rjjusu: then he should have been told about things affecting the partnership.

BPRAL22169: Bill was segueing into the wife role for his father. Not healthy.

ddavitt: Must have been lots of behind the back meetings to have got to the proposal point too

AGplusone: Daddy never should have let his son even think they were partners.

ddavitt: Why not?

AGplusone: See BPRAL above

ddavitt: He was old enough to be responsible

BPRAL22169: This was in 1949, too — the readers would have been cued that there was something

BPRAL22169: drastically wrong with their relationship.

ddavitt: Wife; you mean he cooked so that makes him the wife?

ddavitt: dangerous ground here…

rjjusu: No, because he treated him as if he were equal in the decision making process.

ddavitt: Hid dad was a dreamer; he was practical

AGplusone: You’ve overstated the case, Jane. You have to admit it’s present

BPRAL22169: Dammit

BPRAL22169: He thinks about his father in the way literary conventions of 1949

BPRAL22169: portray wives thinking about their helplessly impractical husbands.

ddavitt: I never saw it that way David

ddavitt: Different POV’s maybe.

AGplusone: In 1949 no son that age ever called his father by his first name … does that give you a hint.

AGplusone: ?

rjjusu: I still don’t

BPRAL22169: yes, taht was the point I was trying to bring out.

ddavitt: I just felt for Bill and his grief over his mother

ddavitt: Yes, they did

Dehede03: I thought the first name was to make it strange

ddavitt: In lots of US books they do

ddavitt: Written then i mean

AGplusone: Grief too long … play games with merit badges too long … time to grow and if that means breaking

ddavitt: It seemed to be a fashion

BPRAL22169: No, it was a cue to the readers that there was something wrong.

AGplusone: eggshell mentality, then that’s what has to be done.

AGplusone: Too much indulgence of Bill before the beginning of story

ddavitt: We don’t know how long it’s been

BPRAL22169: Right. George may not have had the options others might have.

AGplusone: Doesn’t matter how long …

AGplusone: it plainly wasn’t yesterday

rjjusu: can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs? and the chick can’t escape without breaking the shell

ddavitt: Side note; Anne’s Farewell is mentioned; another new religion?

AGplusone: that’s what I believe ….

BPRAL22169: But George also wasn’t forthright about seeing the other woman. The lack of forthrightness

ddavitt: Does matter. If a year, natural to grieve.

rjjusu: Custom? Formalized wake?

BPRAL22169: also cues us that there was somethign wrong.

ddavitt: Yes but unfamilar term. like Rod’s family in Tunnel

AGplusone: Yes, I agree. George isn’t perfect ….

BPRAL22169: There are many cues that the relationship is in need of healing.

AGplusone: he coddled Bill too much too long and finally realizes he has to break the egg

ddavitt: maybe..

BPRAL22169: And, of course, the healing takes place when Bill goes through his individuation crisis.

AGplusone: Maybe his new wife helped him see that

BPRAL22169: Maybe his new wife counseled him to handle it more gently than he wanted to?

ddavitt: It does work out for the best, I don’t think the marriage is bad, just the way it happened

BPRAL22169: We get so little of her it’s hard to form any real opinion.

ddavitt: Peggy….now that was a loss

AGplusone: Could be, George says he originally thought to leave Bill on Earth to finish school

ddavitt: Like a Peewee type but weaker

rjjusu: I think the marriage was an opportunity to make a clear break from the stasis that George was in

BPRAL22169: It would have been an easy way to handle the problem.

SageMerlin: I am suffering computer melt down…I have to pull over and look under the hood of this thing bye

SageMerlin has left the room.

BPRAL22169: ciao.

ddavitt: Interesting post on afh by Ginny about her death

Dehede03: bye

ddavitt: Night

AGplusone: Besides if he’d been left on earth, it would have lost the metaphore of breaking down the rock

rjjusu: The one thing that Bill could never give George was a perspective tempered by experience.

ddavitt: It’s true too; lots of juveniles have deaths in first part of last century

AGplusone: equals breaking down Bill’s inhibitions in character and immaturity

ddavitt: That’s a good analogy AG; not thought of it like that

ddavitt: I’m the literal type 🙂

AGplusone: everyone knows I’m poetic type, etheral in the heavens

rjjusu: We all need time enough for love, and time enough to gain experience.

ddavitt: Blowing up the skull rock just seemed a victory over the planet, not themselves

Dehede03: David, I am wearing short pants and a good thing too.

ddavitt: I will remember that and make allowances david

ddavitt: keyboard time huh?

AGplusone: Have to clean your cuffs if you weren’t, right Ron?

Dehede03: I reckon

ddavitt: brb; baby alert

AGplusone: Incidentally, there’s two panels on Farmer on Thursday, Sept 1 at PhilCon

rjjusu: Why do suppose Jane considers her baby a “lert”? I just don’t understand mothers!

ddavitt: OK, i have to go now. night all, enjoyed the chat.

ddavitt: I read that!

AGplusone: What about “Smitty” as a sneak, fink, etc., in Red Planet ….? Or is he just more mature?

ddavitt: She needs a bottle

Dehede03: night jane

DJedPar: Bye Jane

ddavitt: teething. Bye

rjjusu: Of course you did!

Dehede03: how old now”

ddavitt has left the room.

AGplusone: An adult among boys …

BPRAL22169: “Roads Must Roll”

BPRAL22169: I’m trying to think of other finks, spies, etc.

BPRAL22169: A classic opportunity for a fink.

AGplusone: hard to find in the juveniles …

BPRAL22169: But instead we get a megalomaniac.

rjjusu: If you decide to “be responsible”, does that make you more mature or a fink?

rjjusu: Again, it depends on perspective

rjjusu: and experience

Dehede03: Guys, I have to move along now. But I enjoyed the stay.

Reilloc: Motive.

AGplusone: all three I think

Dehede03: Have a good evening

Reilloc: If the motive is personal gain the character’s a fink.

Dehede03 has left the room.

AGplusone: Okay, that’s along the lines of what Randy mentioned just before you came in LN

AGplusone: What if it’s a mixed motive situation, tho ….

AGplusone: generally it will be

Reilloc: Such as…?

AGplusone: John Dahlquist in “Long Watch”

rjjusu: And what if one is “fooling” ones self?

BPRAL22169: You have the perfect opportunity to introduce hypocrisy as a reason for despising the character.

Reilloc: I don’t remember Long Watch

AGplusone: doesn’t want his wife and child growing up under the threat of nuclear destruction

Reilloc: So, what’s the do?

AGplusone: and really thinks he’ll figure out a way out until he realizes he’s become radioactive

rjjusu: and becomes the situational hero

AGplusone: He locks himself in the vault with the bombs and destroys them, and is a traitor to his ‘superior

Reilloc: I’ll have to find and re-read it.

AGplusone: officers’ who led the coup

NuclearWasteUSN has entered the room.

Reilloc: Oh, I remember that now.

rjjusu: wb Jim

AGplusone: short story in Man Who Sold the Moon

NuclearWasteUSN: Thank you Randy

Reilloc: That wasn’t personal gain.

AGplusone: In a sense it was ….

Reilloc: It was greater good.

Reilloc: Personal is absolutely personal to the character.

AGplusone: but greater good, he thought, could be obtained with personal gain as well

rjjusu: Yes, he selfishly wanted to protect his family, but it mapped into the good of all

AGplusone: Okay, if you restrict it that way, then I agree

Reilloc: I so restrict it.

Reilloc: Next topic.

AGplusone: totally personal, no other gain to anyone or thing

DavidWrightSr: s

DavidWrightSr has left the room.

AGplusone: but my questions was, what if it’s mixed motive?

Reilloc: s for spies?

NuclearWasteUSN: No man is an island. I don’t think that that is possible.

rjjusu: But, no man is an island – our choices always affect others.

NuclearWasteUSN: GMTA

Reilloc: John Donne notwithstanding, what’s the point?

rjjusu: 🙂

AGplusone: Do you have to judge predominate, or incidental motives …

NuclearWasteUSN: Any person’s decisions and actions will affect others.

Reilloc: If “he” did it to make a buck, he’s a fink.

AGplusone: Lee, for example, had lots of slaves ….

Reilloc: Lee was a traitor

rjjusu: There will always be a calculation made in making choices. Costs and benefits

AGplusone: all that loyalty to Virginia could have been rationalization…

AGplusone: Hancock was getting killed by the restrictive trade laws

rjjusu: What are the costs and who benefits? Answer those questions and you gain some

AGplusone: Richest trader in Boston

rjjusu: insight into why the choice was made.

NuclearWasteUSN: True, but those costs and benefits also involve intangibles such as personal notions of honor.

BPRAL22169: Sometimes the conflict of interests is the heart of the story — consider “1776.”

rjjusu: And that is a major point Jim. How do you quantify the “true” costs and benefits?

Reilloc: Begging the question.

BPRAL22169: Told as a triumph with the seed of tragedy left in it.

Reilloc: Heinlein heros have pure motives.

NuclearWasteUSN: We all quantify them on the subconscious level.

NuclearWasteUSN: Something very automatic.

AGplusone: Morris goes broke … Hancock doesn’t …. I think some Heinlein heros might not have true motives

AGplusone: If for example, Gwen is a hero …

Reilloc: I said pure

NuclearWasteUSN: Such as Thorby?

rjjusu: Heinleins heros were “real” people – their motives were rarely pure

Reilloc: Heinlein heros are cardboard, their motives are always pure.

AGplusone: what exactly is pure about her motives …. turns out she killed Tallifero in the beginning

NuclearWasteUSN: It has always struck me that his decision to remain as Rudbek of Rudbeck smelled of rationalization.

AGplusone: which starts Colin Campbell in his road that could have led to ruin

Reilloc: Reminds me of a movie I saw recently with my daughter.

AGplusone: and leaves him dying next to the computer

AGplusone: She’s a user of the ‘hero,’ not very heroic.

AGplusone: What movie

Reilloc: New Disney movie called “Princess Diaries”

rjjusu: If Heinlein’s heroes are cardboard, it is the cardboard of a standup figure,

Reilloc: She’s 11 and I’m her father.

AGplusone: Thor remains a slave … now a slave to his empire.

rjjusu: and they look pretty real from a little distance

Reilloc: So, we go to things like “Princess Diaries”

NuclearWasteUSN: True, the irony being that he was freer as a slave.

rjjusu: The shackles of responsibility?

AGplusone: Yes, the sixteen hours he’ll work daily now …. but he will enjoy it, he thinks

NuclearWasteUSN: I believe Dr. Mader points that out for him while he is on the Sisu

NuclearWasteUSN: In

rjjusu: Placed on oneself for whatever reason, conscious or unconscious

Reilloc: Unconscious?

AGplusone: Maybe it was planted in his skull along with the message to the Captain of the Sisu

AGplusone: by Baslim.

rjjusu: Many people can NOT tell you why the really do certain things. They may rationalize

Reilloc: Many people are innately inarticulate

rjjusu: but they won’t always admit consciously why they did something.

AGplusone: we twig from our conditioning

NuclearWasteUSN: Does not sound like Col. Richard Baslim. Implanting suggestion under hypnosis was not something he

AGplusone: if we are raised to beleive ‘duty, honor, country’ we probably always will

NuclearWasteUSN: would approve of

Reilloc: We can’t always put into words what made a decision come.

AGplusone: True, but even without the hypno, he conditioned Thorby by his example

Reilloc: Classical or operant?

rjjusu: True, but there is a reason why “to know oneself” is good advice.

NuclearWasteUSN: And a swift kick when needed.

NuclearWasteUSN: operant.

Reilloc: It’s glib to tell somebody to “know oneself”

AGplusone: Just as Ziggy would have conditioned Thorby to be a thief

NuclearWasteUSN: If we look at it that way, is not all childrearing conditioning?

AGplusone: not lately

rjjusu: Not glib, rather a lifelong process that should be undertaken in a deliberate fashion.

Reilloc: NOthing but glib if you can’t tell the recipient of the advice how.

AGplusone: doesn’t seem to be a consistent message of conditioning in child rearing practiced among

AGplusone: the intellectuals lately

Reilloc: It’s like my dead dad saying he wanted his kids to “know the value of a dollar”

Reilloc: I still don’t know exactly what he meant by that.

NuclearWasteUSN: You can make a 20 minute call…

Reilloc: Particularly how since a buck’s a ’63 nickel.

AGplusone: An enigma … but he meant, I suspect, whatever his culture meant. And then one main thing

NuclearWasteUSN: How was it that Heinlein defined an intellectual?

AGplusone: was it meant “It has to be earned by work, struggle, sacrifice … etc.”

Reilloc: Nope.

Reilloc: Not dad.

Reilloc: It was either what it represented or what it could do.

AGplusone: Oh, yes …. well …. that’s another subculture meaning

NuclearWasteUSN: Generally when I hear someone make that statement they mean “I sure hope my kid manages money better

NuclearWasteUSN: than I do. ”

Reilloc: Nope, not dad.

Reilloc: He could pinch them until the eagle grinned.

AGplusone: We could probably piece together one heck of a complex meaning for that saying

AGplusone: ‘value of a dollar’

Reilloc: Value of a dollar is know thyself.

rjjusu: So did you ever ask him “What in hell do you mean by that?”

Reilloc: Nope.

Reilloc: He wasn’t tempted to glib.

AGplusone: No, because he always explained to me … my dad said the same thing to me.

AGplusone: And he used it to fit my age and situation.

AGplusone: Mostly he meant, then, get out and do something useful.

BPRAL22169: Ah. The 2×4 approach.

AGplusone: Gentle two by four

NuclearWasteUSN: Dad used to have us pull fence and set posts for much less than the minimum wage. This taught us the

rjjusu: Amazing what can be learned once one

Reilloc: More like the “if you’re not busy doing something you’re just taking up space” attitude.

NuclearWasteUSN: value of a dollar both to him, and to us.

rjjusu: s attention is focused. A Baslim approach indeed.

AGplusone: . . . and I won’t be around forever to give you dollars …

Reilloc: The old man couldn’t renshaw upholstery into me, though.

Reilloc: I wish he had.

rjjusu: Why would you want to remember naugahyde?

Reilloc: Because that’s what he did.

AGplusone: Aren’t subculture meanings subsumed into an overall understanding, tho?

Reilloc: He was a man of the cloth but raised us in the material world.

AGplusone: Commonly, value of dollar might me the value of earning through work, but could mean other things

Reilloc: Where are the hip boots?

BPRAL22169: Bakhtin says those subculture meanings are placed in ‘dialog’ with the principal meanings.

AGplusone: easily recognized by someone when the correct referent is applied

NuclearWasteUSN: Yes, but the plurality of those meanings gives rise to the confusion over just what was meant.

Reilloc: Subsumed into an overall understanding and you complain about modern intellectual parents?

rjjusu: ahhhh, bless the beasts and the naugas…..

AGplusone: Didn’t say anything about agreeing with the understanding, just said understanding

Reilloc: If I possessed this “common” understanding…

Reilloc: …and, to me, that smacks of “common wisdom” which, of course, is provervially always wrong…

Reilloc: I wouldn’t ask what he meant.

AGplusone: you need not agree with it either, just be aware of the belief that’s it’s a common understanding

Reilloc: 100 pennies?

Reilloc: 20 nickles?

NuclearWasteUSN: Are you saying that the ideas put forth on the subject are all new to you?

Reilloc: Sufficient lucre to induce X to change his position materially to my advantage?

AGplusone: I don’t think he’s saying that, Jim. I think he’s driving to a point about characters in Heinlein

AGplusone: or at least springboarding off one

Reilloc: All the RAH chars know the value of a dollar.

NuclearWasteUSN: OK I will shut up and watch him weave his web.

rjjusu: how does one sift the connotations out of the denotations? What basis is used to make the decision

Reilloc: All the RAH fans know it to when they see it but they can’t articulate it.

AGplusone: lovely old Potter Stewart

Reilloc: Give me Brennan any day.

AGplusone: I’d take him too, but Stewart made the point nicely

Reilloc: There’ll never be another Bill Brennan.

NuclearWasteUSN: Belle Darkin and Miles Gentry?

Reilloc: Hey, David…?

NuclearWasteUSN: Or did you mean to limit that to protagonists?

Reilloc: Is Scalia a fink?

Reilloc: I think he is.

Reilloc: If he were in a new RAH, let’s call it something like…

AGplusone: Miles might be an example (not to himself … he was put up there to do exactly whatever is necessary)

Reilloc: “Menace from the Bench,” not a reader would fail to properly identify him as one.

AGplusone: Miles sells out one set of responsibilities, to his partner, step daughter, friends

Reilloc: Why? He does what he does for personal gain.

AGplusone: etc. for lucre

AGplusone: Absolutely …

AGplusone: but he was appointed because he was bought and paid for, even if he paid himself

Reilloc: But it’s disguised, better than they did to D.B. Davis, under copious logisms.

NuclearWasteUSN: Cas and Pol did not seem to “know the value of a dollar”

AGplusone: he picked his side … and stays on it.

AGplusone: No surprise in result … ever, with him. while Miles Darkin is surprising

NuclearWasteUSN: Seems he cheated Belle in the end, and gave everything to Ricky.

NuclearWasteUSN: So I don’t think I agree with that statement either.

rjjusu: But they thought they did, and based their decisions on that understanding.

Reilloc: Cheated the cheater?

Reilloc: That’s bad?

AGplusone: surprising in many ways … the last one was on Belle

NuclearWasteUSN: No, not bad, just showing that he did not stay bought.

Reilloc: Miles?

Reilloc: He stayed bought.

Reilloc: Evil bought him and he went more evil.

NuclearWasteUSN: Acyually, ISTR a reference to Belle using the zombie drug on him, but I could be wrong.

AGplusone: bought by himself

AGplusone: There was a hint that DB believed that possible

AGplusone: but that’s DB Davis being a mensch

NuclearWasteUSN: I think it was while Dan was under, she said something to Miles about he should know the drug works.

AGplusone: trying to figure out how evil could have occurred

AGplusone: But I agree he bought evil (sold his soul, if you will) and stayed evil until the end, and maybe just

AGplusone: out of pique screwed Belle at the end.

Reilloc: Nah, it’s what the evil do.

Reilloc: If you’re bad you either stay bad or get redeemed by dying.

AGplusone: “It’s my nature ….”

AGplusone: The scorpion getting carried across the river

Reilloc: Who was the Swede kid in TITS who went armed to the teeth and died first?

AGplusone: Thor

Reilloc: He wasn’t “evil” in the malevolent sense; he was dumb evil.

AGplusone: Maybe … I always figured he planned to survive by poaching the unwary

maikoshT: Message is too long or too complex

AGplusone: ‘no rules’

Reilloc: If you’re right, he’s evil to the nth.

Reilloc: Either way, he got the alternative redemption.

AGplusone: agreed, as bad as the two brothers, Mcgowens

Reilloc: I know those guys.

Reilloc: They’re clients.

rjjusu: I’ll get you my pretty, and your “little” dog, too ….

AGplusone: lol

AGplusone: I also figured he planned to let the dog eat the bodies of those he poached

AGplusone: cut down on inventory

rjjusu: Kibbles and bits on the hoof …..

Reilloc: This group ever discussed stobor?

AGplusone: as in robots?

Reilloc: As in “beware of the…”

AGplusone: spelled backwards …. at times

Reilloc: No?

rjjusu: or as in the unstated threat that can focus one’s mind, or paralyze it if overanalyzed?

AGplusone: At times, no reason why we can’t now … No, I don’t think we have ever gone that far, but

Reilloc: Either way but I like the backwards better.

AGplusone: it’s a point of view that might be fun

AGplusone: to look at.

Reilloc: My theory is that RAH saw the development of that area of the genre as a threat to character developme

Reilloc: nt

rjjusu: elucidate please?

NuclearWasteUSN: Daneel had more character developed than most of Isaac’a other characters.

Reilloc: It’s a tacit anti-Asimov warning.

AGplusone: And, therefore, a reason not to have BEMs often?

AGplusone: Robots … amount to same thing

Reilloc: There was no Daneel before the trilogy and the trilogy was all character development.

AGplusone: †aking me back thirty years or so …

NuclearWasteUSN: Yes, Hober Mallow is written deep in the collective subconscience.

DJedPar: Wasn’t Stobor in Tunnel in The Sky? Wherefore the robots?

NuclearWasteUSN: Stobor backwards

Reilloc: I sure can’t see yellow very well on this screen.

AGplusone: Point is: a subtle warning against Asimov’s use of all-wise supra human characters?

Reilloc: Yes.

AGplusone: Who’s yellow? Me?

Reilloc: Not all that subtle.

AGplusone: True, but nothing we’ve really picked up before this LN, because we haven’t considered Asimov together

AGplusone: with Tunnel

Reilloc: If I’m out of order I withdraw the topid.

AGplusone: Most of our considerations of Tunnel are vis-a-vis Golding’s story

Reilloc: topic

NuclearWasteUSN: I don’t buy that. If he felt that way then Mike (SiaSL TMiaHM) would not have been written

AGplusone: No, it’s interesting and we’re winding down … anything’s fair

Reilloc: Mike’s a robot?

NuclearWasteUSN: All wise supra human character

NuclearWasteUSN: Either Mike

AGplusone: Except Mike’s an angel and the story’s a satire rather than whatever Tunnel is

Reilloc: I don’t follow.

maikoshT: Mike in TMIAH

NuclearWasteUSN: Mycroft Holmes

Reilloc: All RAH protags are all-wise and superhuman.

AGplusone: We’re not supposed to follow Mike into his Nine Circles

NuclearWasteUSN: Or Valentine Micheal Smith

Reilloc: But they

Reilloc: are human.

AGplusone: or at least we’re not supposed to stay there after the ride

NuclearWasteUSN: Reilloc, you tend to paint with a very wide brush.

AGplusone: We all do, though ….

Reilloc: I avoid yellow, though.

Reilloc: Too hard to see at my age.

NuclearWasteUSN: So you do have redeeming qualities

Reilloc: I’m tolerant of the young and inexperienced.

NuclearWasteUSN: This is a virtue?

Reilloc: It’s a living.

rjjusu: Why, then you could be a god, with redeeming qualities! 😉

AGplusone: Aren’t we all?

Reilloc: Or she could be me.

NuclearWasteUSN: I have conclusive proof that God is not female.

AGplusone: My idea of the real god was this big fat lady …. but I better not go on.

rjjusu: Best claim the patent then, before She rakes in the benefits of being you.

Reilloc: God lives in a trailer in Montana and has 329487 cats.

NuclearWasteUSN: We have heard nothing from God in 2000 years.

NuclearWasteUSN: No woman could be quiet that long.

NuclearWasteUSN: Please erase this from the log

AGplusone: 🙂

DJedPar: GOD according to Cohen is Generator of Diversity.

AGplusone: really … great joke, NW

rjjusu: And that begs the question, “Why Montana?” 🙂

NuclearWasteUSN: My wife has just slapped me.

Reilloc: Wy Knot?

AGplusone: Tell Jani she can pick on me instead of you.

rjjusu: Wyoming?

Reilloc: Ask her.

rjjusu: I don’t thinks She can hear me over the sound of neverending Friskies….

rjjusu: rustling in thousands of bowls.

AGplusone: Running down with fifteen minutes to go …. Cat crunchies out here.

Reilloc: So, who’s a fink?

DJedPar: Send me some.

Reilloc: The Old Man in Puppet Masters?

Reilloc: Who’s he working for, by the way?

rjjusu: No, he was totally justified in his own mind.

Reilloc: Some deity in Montana with lots of cats?

AGplusone: He goes over to the other side, but was that volitional ….

Reilloc: No, before the invasion.

Reilloc: What had he become?

AGplusone: he certainly takes Sam to the top of the mountain top at the end ….

AGplusone: Unnecessary

AGplusone: he needs a crisis

Reilloc: No…unchecked in his decision making.

rjjusu: He used who and what was available to meet the ends that he thought were best.

Reilloc: No notions of right and wrong anymore.

rjjusu: Is that finkdom or being hard-nosed to the nth degree?

AGplusone: He had that authority, but, did he have occasion to use it before

Reilloc: Obviously he had…

Reilloc: Look at his reputation.

Reilloc: If he told you that this was the tree of liberty and you needed to jump in and fertilize it…

Reilloc: You better leap and start to rot.

AGplusone: Yes, Sam agreed

NuclearWasteUSN has left the room.

Reilloc: So, he was a fink?

Reilloc: I still don’t know to whom he reported.

AGplusone: Did he act from a basis of ethics outside himself?

AGplusone: Presumably the Prez, and the oath to preserve, protect and defend

Reilloc: Maybe once but he’d become super J. Edgar.

rjjusu: No, he didn’t blow his wad early in the game …

rjjusu: But when the invasion came, then all bets were off.

Reilloc: I don’t think he was meant to come off fink.

AGplusone: Could be …. but we don’t know that he had become that …. he may merely have assumed

AGplusone: the authority and, being successful, was ratified instead of shot.

Reilloc: (Too powerful to shoot before you know where the files all are)

AGplusone: Well, that’s J. Edgar

rjjusu: Like refusing an unlawful order – you better be right or you are cat food for Her many cats….

AGplusone: or shot in combat

Reilloc: He was, to me, obviously not meant to be a fink but in retrospect…

AGplusone: he could easily have been … the character type … what was the name of the Matt Helm

AGplusone: boss in those novels by ….. ????

rjjusu: But being correct brings forgiveness for many sins.

AGplusone: back again to end justifies

Reilloc: Zeb in NOTB

rjjusu: the mean-ies?

AGplusone: the boss he seems to have followed was ‘preservation of humanity against external threat’

Reilloc: Was he a fink in some ways?

Reilloc: What was the title of his doctoral dissertation?

Reilloc: “How to skin a roomful of weasels and have them make you one with weaseldom without ever trying?”

rjjusu: we certainly shouldn’t consider that finkhood is mutally exclusive with ….

rjjusu: doing the right thing under the right circumstances

Reilloc: Uhhh….

Reilloc: Wanna buy a bridge in New York?

Reilloc: I really need the money and can let it go cheap.

rjjusu: I have two already. Have the papers right here.

Reilloc: Upper and lower?

AGplusone: The system allowed him to do that … he was marking time making money by winning at poker

AGplusone: and being a grad ed student was a good cover

AGplusone: everyone knows they are dumber than rocks

Reilloc: He deceived gayly.

AGplusone: He did indeed

AGplusone: He becomes deceitful as a way of life ….

rjjusu: Being a grad ed student is good for being ground cover

Reilloc: But you know why he’s not a fink?

AGplusone: down to the hidden ordnance in Gay Deceiver herself

rjjusu: And teaches Gay Deceiver to be a gay deceiver.

Reilloc: Because they’re all marks he’s deceiving.

AGplusone: how can you tell one way or t’other. He’s loyal to his friends?

AGplusone: Yes

Reilloc: He’s true to his friends.

Reilloc: Everyone else is a mark.

AGplusone: Sure

AGplusone: We and they

BPRAL22169: Night all.

Reilloc: Me too.

AGplusone: Night Bill. It’s time for me too.

BPRAL22169 has left the room.

Reilloc: Brush needs to rest.

rjjusu: Which makes sense for him to major in education, since he is always putting down the marks

AGplusone: End ???

AGplusone: LOL

maikoshT: I’m glad that I am not that cynical. I think you guys read far too much into some of these characters.

DJedPar: Night Bill. Night All. Yes

AGplusone: nice pun

AGplusone: See you Saturday, any of you.

Reilloc: What time?

rjjusu: okay

AGplusone: End Log …. 855 PM PDT

maikoshT: 5:00 P.M. EDT Saturday

Reilloc: 10:55 CDT

Reilloc: That’s, like, 4 here in Kansas?

DJedPar has left the room.

rjjusu: yes

Reilloc: I’m just getting up then.

maikoshT: 4:00 Central

AGplusone: g’nite

AGplusone has left the room.

Reilloc: NIght, all.

Reilloc has left the room.

maikoshT: Night Guys. I’m gone. Sorry I couldn’t contribute more.
Final End Of Discussion Log

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