Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Thursday 11-14-2002 8:00 P.M. EST
Space Cadet..Not exactly a ‘Space Cadet’
Here Begin The A.F.H. postings
From: David M. Silver Subject: Re: [TONIGHT!] RAH Reading Group chats Date: Thursday, November 14, 2002 2:35 PM “David M. Silver” wrote:
>”David M. Silver” wrote:
>
>>RAH Reading Group Chat
>>Back To School, Part II,
>>Topic: “Not exactly a ‘Space Cadet'”
>>Time and Place: Thursday, October 31,* 2002, from 8 to 11* PM, ET
>> and Saturday, November 2, 2002, from 5 to 8 PM, ET
>> AIM chatroom “Heinlein Readers Group chat”
>>
>
>[snip] Since I’ve been a little ill (nothing serious) the past two weeks and have been
>unable to read for that period or prepare for this chat, scheduled for tomorrow and
>next Saturday, I believe I’ll postpone it two weeks, until Thursday, November 14, and
>Saturday, November 16.
>
>Sorry if this inconveniences anyone.
Just a reminder: November 14th is tonight. At 8 PM, EST [adjust please for your timezone], we’ll resume the reading group chats.
One simple question: what was the most overlooked by teachers and students alike of the teaching points about education in Space Cadet over the past fifty or so years?
And a second “simple question,” we should know about John Ezra Dalquist — “The Long Watch” is his story for those of you who haven’t read it — but what is there to know about the untaught lesson of Rivera?
See you tonight.
DMS
>
>>Regards,
>>
>>–
>> David M. Silver
>> https://www.heinleinsociety.org
>> http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm
>> “The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
>> Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
>> Lt (jg)., USN R’td (1907-1988)
Go To Postings
Here Begins The Discussion Log
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”
aggirlj has entered the room.
aggirlj: Howdja’ do. David’s on his way.
DavidWrightSr: Hi jane
aggirlj: How are you feeling?
AGplusone has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, Dave, Jane. 🙂
DavidWrightSr: Did David say we were starting at 8:00 my time?
AGplusone: yes
aggirlj: yes. We’re early.
DavidWrightSr: I just realized that we are starting earlier. That’s good, I don’t know if I could make it midnight.
DavidWrightSr: to midnight
AGplusone: One advantage to starting at 5 PM for me
aggirlj: 6:00 for me
AGplusone: If it gets David the Elder to bed at the right time. 🙂
DavidWrightSr: This is the first day, that I’ve gone without having an afternoon nap in the last two or three weeks
AGplusone: 😛
aggirlj: Elizabeth is taking a nap so she can be here for a while.
DavidWrightSr: I’ve only been working a half day.
AGplusone: You and Ginny. You take it easy, David. Half a day is fine.
AGplusone: She is getting stronger slowly.
DavidWrightSr: There are times when I feel I could use a little extra myself.
AGplusone: Yeah, I remember how good I felt after coming out of recovery from surgery
AGplusone: about ten years ago.
TreetopAngelRN2 has entered the room.
aggirlj: Hi Elizabeth {{{{{**}}}}}
AGplusone: Of course, the morphine might have had something to do with that. Hi, Elizabeth.
DavidWrightSr: Hi Angel
TreetopAngelRN2: Hi Jane and David and David!
AGplusone: We were talking about Ginny. She promised she’ll be here Saturday.
AGplusone: With bells on …
aggirlj: I’ll be there if you can promise everyone won’t go way over my head like last time.
TreetopAngelRN2: I am sorry I will miss her.
AGplusone: What’s your shift Saturdays, Elizabeth?
mertide has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, Stephanie!
AGplusone: {{{{{hug}}}}}}
aggirlj: Hi Stephanie, {{{{}}}}
TreetopAngelRN2: Jane, they go over my head, too! 7pm-7 am, i get up about 4 pm…and sometimes can stick my head in
AGplusone: Stephanie, aggirlj is my sister Jane.
TreetopAngelRN2: Hi Stephanie!
mertide: hmmm
AGplusone: poor girl
mertide: who’s stephanie?
AGplusone: 😉
AGplusone: Ooops.
aggirlj: A friend. 🙂
mertide: hahahahha
AGplusone: I must be confused
mertide: I’m Carolyn from Brisbane, Oz
AGplusone: ah, merfilly …. d’oh.
aggirlj: Okay, identify.
aggirlj: Never mind.
AGplusone: Yes. I’m confused. Nice to see you Carolyn.
TreetopAngelRN2: Hi Carolyn! :-\
aggirlj: What’s Oz?
TreetopAngelRN2: Australia
aggirlj: Okay, thanks.
mertide: hi all
aggirlj: Hi again.
DavidWrightSr: I thought she was a munchkin 🙂
TreetopAngelRN2: 😀
mertide: I’m out of the loop, is there a topic for this chat?
AGplusone: Stephanie uses “Merfilly” and I wrote her an email suggesting she come tonight.
TreetopAngelRN2: “Space Cadet”
mertide: been screamingly busy graduating a high schooler
AGplusone: Space Cadet … “Not exactly a Space Cadet”
AGplusone: Hoorah!
DavidWrightSr: Congrats to him/her
aggirlj: You know they use that as a efamism for being way out there.
mertide: ooh, I haven’t read that for a while
AGplusone: Does that mean it goes to university soon?
mertide: him
TreetopAngelRN2: it’s good to get them all finished
AGplusone: Dat’s okay.
mertide: no, he’s taking a year as a student exchange in Sweden next year, Uni the year after that
TreetopAngelRN2: Jane…still no baby
mertide: that’s one down, two to go
aggirlj: Oh boy, long haul.
DavidWrightSr: I’ve still got one in school at 34. Finished everything but his doctoral dissertation.
TreetopAngelRN2: an all nighter I think
AGplusone: It was good to get ours finished. Our question to her, however, was: okay, does this mean we get to turn your room into a library? went unanswered.
mertide: not still living at home hopefully at 34?
AGplusone: Uh, actually she is …
TreetopAngelRN2: Dad kicked us all out and changed the whole house into a library
DavidWrightSr: Nope. He’s in Louisiana
mertide: we’re working on him not coming home after sweden, move into a flat or something
mertide: I have a brother in law still at home at 46, bad genes
DavidWrightSr: Although both of mine have lived here off and on since leaving college. Hard days out there
AGplusone: She’s been out and back. We’re used to having her around now.
aggirlj: Very hard days out there.
AGplusone: Actually my mom chased me down the street with a broom … wonder why?
aggirlj: You forgot the javelin through of the broom or did you.
mertide: sounds like a technique I’ll put on the plan 🙂
aggirlj: throw.
AGplusone: Well, mom musta had a plan in mind: it worked.
aggirlj: We all got kicked out, was to comfy otherwise.
mertide: gotta let the little chicks fly from the nest
mertide: by force if necessary
TreetopAngelRN2: kicking ’em out of the nest…
AGplusone: yep. Best thing for them. Best thing she ever did. “Time to Go!” as they say.
AGplusone: Of course we had uncle Shelby to take us in back then, didn’t we, David?
mertide: hey, they can come visit like humans, but not with their dirty washing 🙂
TreetopAngelRN2: LOL
aggirlj: Oh, you’ll change your tune and love doing the laundry.
mertide: ha!
AGplusone: And you can look forward to “baby sitting” joys!
TreetopAngelRN2: if they are old enough to leave home…they are old enough to do their own laundry
AGplusone: Mom told us she was going to move away and change her name, frequently.
mertide: I still have two teenagers at home, I’m not short of laundry when I get those cravings lol
aggirlj: LOL
TreetopAngelRN2: Mom just changed the locks on the doors
mertide: works for me 🙂
aggirlj: So where’s Bill?
mertide: spent my whole adult life raising this young’un, now it’s time he entered the real world
AGplusone: Okay, so what we got is this kid named Matt Dodson … sorta going away to school, like ‘plucky little Tom’ whatizname in the Thomas Hardy book, the one who gets roasted by the Upper Form boys.
AGplusone: Do they have anything like the “public schools” of England in Oz, Carolyn?
mertide: quite a lot like actually 🙂
AGplusone: Charles went to one, didn’t he?
DavidWrightSr: The first thing that struck me when I read this as a teenager in 195? was the phone. I thought that was really neat.
AGplusone: I did too.
aggirlj: Yes, amazing.
TreetopAngelRN2: Now everyone has one.
mertide: he spent a term in one here, in the bush
aggirlj: I delayed getting one until I was traveling back and forth to CA.
mertide: we’ve come a way from Maxwell Smart too 🙂
AGplusone: Did you think that was a train they arrived upon? I didn’t. I thought it was some sort of tube, or other form of ground transportation.
TreetopAngelRN2: I didn’t think of it as a train, not sure what I thought
DavidWrightSr: Never really thought about that one.
aggirlj: Me either.
AGplusone: Maybe the ringed ships that come in in Starman Jones?
TreetopAngelRN2: I guess I thought it was like an airborne shuttle
DavidWrightSr: No. I think that they were a much later development, even though the universes are not necessarily the same.
AGplusone: The rocking back of the seats when it decelerated was what made me think it was something different. and I wanted to know where Tex had been if he arrived on the same train as Matt from Iowa?
TreetopAngelRN2: Denver??
AGplusone: They’d both have to go through Denver or maybe St. Louis …
DavidWrightSr: In Between Planets, a lot of the traffic went through Chicago to various areas.
aggirlj: Chicago has always been a hub.
AGplusone: Anyway, it was a little hole that I didn’t notice until I read it this time . . .
aggirlj: Trains and planes.
TreetopAngelRN2: I was thinking a common Denver connection for Texas and Iowa
AGplusone: Probably so …
AGplusone: What’s the first lesson you see in the story? Anyone?
aggirlj: Honesty and integrity.
TreetopAngelRN2: Martyrs
aggirlj: Well yes, but the fellow who knows it all.
AGplusone: It’s a little earlier than both those, common to many things . . .
DavidWrightSr: racial tolerance.
AGplusone: maybe just “politeness in meeting strangers” but that too,
David.
AGplusone: “Pipe the cowboy . . . ”
TreetopAngelRN2: true
aggirlj: Right.
AGplusone: Two kinds of Texans. Ones who will joke while they decide to kill you, and the other kills you right away.
AGplusone: Tex turned out to be the second one.
aggirlj: Like the former.
AGplusone: And then decided the boy wasn’t yet worth the trouble.
aggirlj: A thinking man.
DavidWrightSr: Noting the variety of people there was one of the things that made me sit up and think. Remember this was early 50’s and I was a white southern boy who had just moved from a neighborhood which went from black to white.
AGplusone: But the racial tolerance is important. Incredibly ahead of its time.
DavidWrightSr: sorry white to black
DavidWrightSr: that’s what I meant
AGplusone: Jane and I grew up in a similar neighborhood in Cleveland that was turning before we came to California …
AGplusone: and I recall the adults mentioning it, occasionally.
aggirlj: I was too young.
AGplusone: Some of them resented it although we were a little young for adults to express their resentment much.
TreetopAngelRN2: I grew up on Air Force bases…never saw much intolerance
aggirlj: Neither did I.
DavidWrightSr: I attended some rallys where everyone protested and said ‘we’ll keep the n…s out’
mertide: is that a population pressure thing? or the black population becoming wealthier?
AGplusone: Cleveland is a “neighborhood” town. There’s a Jewish neighborhood, and an Irish neighborhood, a Polish neighborhood, and they didn’t mix well in the 1940s and 50s.
TreetopAngelRN2: Ahh!
AGplusone: Both probably in the 40s and 50s.
DavidWrightSr: In my case, it was primarily population pressure. There weren’t simply enough decent housing available. They had to spread out.
AGplusone: We had a lot of ‘northern migration’ after WW 2 in the US, and then followed the economic prosperity where blacks began to be able to afford good homes.
mertide: ok, I suppose our big cities have some ethnic neoighbourhoods, but they tend to have gentrified first, become trendy
DavidWrightSr: The neighborhood we moved to at that time is fully integrated now.
aggirlj: What did you think of Heinlein’s term for the Venusian leader, “Mother.”
AGplusone: In Los Angeles in the 1950s and 60s a lot of folk moved out of places like Watts. Racial covenants were broken and declared illegal.
AGplusone: So Heinlein was really ahead of his time.
mertide: I don’t think we ever had those in writing at least
mertide: understood perhaps, but never on the title
DavidWrightSr: That was another zinger of RAH’s. Showing a society which was a matriarch. Not exactly common or acceptable.
AGplusone: You mean the martriarchy aspect?
aggirlj: Yep.
DavidWrightSr: Right
AGplusone: Or the “mebbe the males are too weak” to be allowed outside, part?
aggirlj: LOL
mertide: anyway, sorry to hit and run, but the maternal taxi service is in demand again. Perhaps Stephanie will show up soon 🙂
AGplusone: That’s what Oscar says, doesn’t he?
AGplusone: Rather have you come back too, Carolyn.
mertide: I’ll try, see how I go
AGplusone: Please do.
mertide: maybe next time, long summer holidays now 🙂
AGplusone: Ginny should be in Saturday. She’s planning on it.
aggirlj: Brrrrrr, it’s cold here 🙂
TreetopAngelRN2: Hope to see you again later, Carolyn
mertide: I’ll work on that then
mertide: me too 🙂
AGplusone: “Just a nother perfect day in L.A.”
mertide has left the room.
TreetopAngelRN2: many cultures are based on matriarchy, many of them here in the US, but as a nation were are a patriarchy
aggirlj: Good ole boys, yep.
AGplusone: There’s a ‘nother little lesson early on …. remind me to discuss it later; but Heinlein considered, actually wrote, he believed the US really was a matriarchy.
aggirlj: Woman behind power?
AGplusone: Where was that, Dave. I’m trying to remember.
DavidWrightSr: Were you asking me a question? I didn’t understand it
AGplusone: I think it’s in one of the essay in EU (Expanded Universe) or in How To Be a Politician — aka Take Back Your Government.
AGplusone: Yes. Trying to remember exactly where has me stumped.
TreetopAngelRN2: women are in charge…just not out in public
AGplusone: Heinlein wrote he thought the US really was a disguised matriarchy.
aggirlj: Smart, devious and effective perhaps.
AGplusone: I wonder if it was the “Big Nanny” aspect he was talking about or something else?
aggirlj: Subtlety is a prerequisite.
AGplusone: Because the matriarchy he portrays in Space Cadet isn’t particularly weak or overly protective. That “Mother” runs a very tight ship.
AGplusone: “Curb thy tongue thou impious wretch . . . ” etc.
aggirlj: Very flowery and with certain formalities. I liked it very much.
TreetopAngelRN2: She did exert her will upon her charges
AGplusone: A lot of very interesting cultural aspects in phraselogy of a culture.
aggirlj: The sparring.
AGplusone: What is that like: Hindu India, perhaps?
AGplusone: Or where else?
aggirlj: God/goddes.
aggirlj: goddess.
AGplusone: Japan?
aggirlj: Pagan.
AGplusone: Seems very oriental somehow. Altho that perhaps is unfair.
TreetopAngelRN2: perhaps Asian…American Indian
aggirlj: Very definately American Indian.
AGplusone: But there’s the old saying that “thank you” in Japanese literally translates as various forms of resentment in states from high to mild resentment.
aggirlj: Smiling is a no-no also.
AGplusone: Very formalized and ‘alien’ anyway, but human alien, not X-tee
aggirlj: Wjat
aggirlj: What’s X-tee?
AGplusone: extra terrestrial
aggirlj: Sorry.
AGplusone: Like E-Tee
TreetopAngelRN2: “Thank you” is a way of saying “I am indebted to you.” Nobody likes feeling indebted to anyone else
AGplusone: so underlaying it is obligation even in English cultures …
aggirlj: Gotta get over it. Thank you to me is a good way of not arguing.
TreetopAngelRN2: OTOH, I like Thank you’s just fine
AGplusone: we’re accliminated to it … it’s sometimes mere politeness.
TreetopAngelRN2: yes, I think it incurs a certain amount of obligation
AGplusone: How do you say, “excuse me” in French, for example:
aggirlj: Excusmi wai?
TreetopAngelRN2: French???
AGplusone: forgot the most important part, ” . . . si voux plai”
aggirlj: right.
AGplusone: If you please!
AGplusone: Which means exactly what?
aggirlj: Got to h***
TreetopAngelRN2: if you will do this for me…
AGplusone: “If you would be so kind . . . ” or “get out of my way, dammit!”
TreetopAngelRN2: LOL
AGplusone: Depends on tone, I suppose.
TreetopAngelRN2: oh yeah!
aggirlj: Right, and the French have a great tone.
AGplusone: A little lesson: remember the boy with all the craps to carry?
aggirlj: craps?
aggirlj: He got help.
aggirlj: From Tex.
DavidWrightSr: In German, it is ‘Thanks, prettily’ or ‘beautifully’
AGplusone: everything including a “fancy portable refresher”
AGplusone: Actually I don’t think he did … I think he got told to get help or junk it.
TreetopAngelRN2: yes, he did get help from Tex
TreetopAngelRN2: I’ll have to look
AGplusone: The upperclassman said, “If you’re going to be a cadet, Mr., you’ll have to learn to solve these little problems yourself.”
aggirlj: I sent the book back, dumb, should have kept it for reference.
TreetopAngelRN2: He was told to take it back to the station and ship it home or throw it away
AGplusone: What did you think about his reaching out and tugging on the upperclassman’s arm to get his attention, when he asked, Dave? Can you imagine even trying that on a Sergeant.
AGplusone: I mean, my cat does that to get my attention, but . . .
TreetopAngelRN2: pg 13 there abouts
aggirlj: Loose an arm, see the world.
DavidWrightSr: I got the impression that most of these youngsters simply weren’t very knowledgeable about a lot of things, even though they appeared to be advanced in school studies.
AGplusone: try that on a West Point kaydet your first day, and the blast would kill him in his boots. He’d never get out of the front leaning rest.
AGplusone: I did too.
aggirlj: They were all kind of naive.
TreetopAngelRN2: but, they hadn’t much learning in military ettiquette
AGplusone: “front leaning rest” is the push up position.
aggirlj: I figured it was tough.
TreetopAngelRN2: first day of boot has to ne rough
AGplusone: “now give me another fifty mister dumbsquat!”
TreetopAngelRN2: be rough
aggirlj: Actually, most of the upper crust were pretty nice.
AGplusone: But there wasn’t hardly any of that in Space Cadet. Why do you suppose Heinlein junked the harassment, the hazing?
TreetopAngelRN2: I think he didn’t like it when he went through it
AGplusone: Except at the dinning table . . .
aggirlj: Not necessary.
DavidWrightSr: Too much to learn and too little time, and he probably didn’t think much of it from his own experience. 🙂
AGplusone: But they didn’t even have a Beast Barracks.
TreetopAngelRN2: Beast Barracks?
aggirlj: No the lowest was the initial housing.
DavidWrightSr: Remember how David Lamb figured it all out, ‘what to avoid, what must be endured etc’
AGplusone: They swear you in in June. From June to September they put you thru hell and call it Beast Barracks.
TreetopAngelRN2: okay
AGplusone: Then they let you come out and live with the rest of the Academy when it comes back from Summer Cruise.
DavidWrightSr: And remember that Lt. Wong said that a patrol officer was different in outlook from the typical military type.
TreetopAngelRN2: place to put the animals until they learn manners
aggirlj: Right, the marines.
AGplusone: So, it’s quite different. It’s basically, “basic” training.
TreetopAngelRN2: LOL
AGplusone: But you don’t have that, except table manners … and that’s orientated to “don’t eat pie with your hands” isn’t it? Interesting?
DavidWrightSr: The ‘basic’ idea is to tear down the individual and rebuild him into a ‘team worker’, This was not what the Patrol required.
TreetopAngelRN2: I understand the Patrol was NOT military, but they had some of the same aspects
aggirlj: No, the patrol required thinkers and doers.
TreetopAngelRN2: They wanted men who could think for themselves
aggirlj: They also were peacemakers.
TreetopAngelRN2: I liked the game of “Doubt” which is similar to what we do on AFH
AGplusone: I betcha the Space Marines still started with a few weeks at
Sand Flea heaven, and so did the troopers of Starship Troopers.
DavidWrightSr: That’s what I think of whenever I hear some idjut saying RAH was a military fascist.
AGplusone: So do I, Elizabeth … Doubt is what we do.
JudyjediJudy has entered the room.
aggirlj: Hi Judi.
JudyjediJudy: Hi Everyone
aggirlj: Judy.
TreetopAngelRN2: Hi Judy
AGplusone: Hi, Judi …. how’s your dad and mom?
JudyjediJudy: Dad’s okay. He’s kind of tired after getting back from hunting.
AGplusone: We’re talking about Space Cadet tonight.
aggirlj: Get anything.
AGplusone: Catch anything?
AGplusone: You’re in Minnesota, right?
TreetopAngelRN2: catch?
JudyjediJudy: Yep. He caught his first doe and his first ever deer
aggirlj: Venison, num num.
AGplusone: I don’t know your first name. I suppose Judy is what you prefer?
AGplusone: I’m David. aggirl is Jane. Treetop is Elizabeth. David is David the Elder.
AGplusone: 🙂
DavidWrightSr: Hi Judy
JudyjediJudy has left the room.
aggirlj: Oh whoops!
AGplusone: Whoops is right.
TreetopAngelRN2: slipped out the door
aggirlj: I would expect that at AOL.
DavidWrightSr: She must be having some problems. I issued another invite, but no response so far
AGplusone: I hope that’s it. Wouldn’t want to have frighened or offended her.
aggirlj: So, anyway, how about the fact that they could reconstitute anything needed, the Venusians.
JudyjediJudy has entered the room.
aggirlj: Like in the maple syrup and jet fuel.
TreetopAngelRN2: amazing ability
AGplusone: Nice. but I wonder about one thing … what does the kind of training they have for the “cadets” and the lesson they teach the boy with all the baggage have in common, here, if anything. WB Judy.
JudyjediJudy: thanks
TreetopAngelRN2: that they need to rely on themselves and not the next guy
AGplusone: If you’re worried about the name I used, Dave will edit that out, Judy.
aggirlj: Loose the baggage.
AGplusone: No military baggage, eh?
AGplusone: No prep school harassment?
TreetopAngelRN2: loss of emotional baggage
AGplusone: No push-ups until you drop exercise.
aggirlj: You got it.
AGplusone: What kinds of emotion, and what kinds of anything else?
DavidWrightSr: A lot of psychological testing and pressures, even if not to the extent that Stinky thought
AGplusone: nationalism, patriotism, sense of smaller community, desire for wealth . . . ?
JudyjediJudy has left the room.
aggirlj: As in when, and it must be the hormones ’cause I can’t remember hisname, the main character goes home again and finds he doesn’t fit.
TreetopAngelRN2: they lost their connections with “home”
DavidWrightSr: BTW, Has anyone ever gotten a proof for that gate/light puzzle?
aggirlj: Hummm?
AGplusone: I worked it out once. Algebraically. It is set up impossible.
AGplusone: Cannot be done.
TreetopAngelRN2: I don’t even know how he figured it out! not enough fingers and toes
aggirlj: Oh, you mean the tests.
aggirlj: I thought it was great that he said the same thing, can’t be done.
aggirlj: That was the test.
DavidWrightSr: I’ve never really tried, but I don’t see any easy way to solve it in spite of 30 years of programming and boolean logic.
AGplusone: You can also set it up as a logic puzzle. I’ve seen it … maybe way back in AFH.
TreetopAngelRN2: I would have been sitting there slapping buttons
aggirlj: Why not, might work.
aggirlj: LOL
AGplusone: It’s a matter of laying out the IF and THEN until you eliminate all possibilities.
AGplusone: There’s a finite number of combinations and probabilities.
aggirlj: In your mind!!!!
AGplusone: Once you got through them all, you find they all eliminate.
aggirlj: That’s one hellava mind.
TreetopAngelRN2: the same type of problem that gave me grief on the GRE
AGplusone: Exactly.
AGplusone: They’re on the SAT. Or used to be.
TreetopAngelRN2: I have to really work at it
DavidWrightSr: I’ve just been too lazy to really put the effort into it.
AGplusone: Phrased another way, I believe.
TreetopAngelRN2: I never took an SAT
AGplusone: Look at it as a “combination” problem. It solves to have no solution.
aggirlj: I guess I could do it in accounting.
DavidWrightSr: Judy had to go do homework.
TreetopAngelRN2: I will try it again, later with a notebook and lots of pencils
AGplusone: That’ll do it.
AGplusone: What are they creating with these ‘cadets’ exactly? Do we know?
aggirlj: A police force?
TreetopAngelRN2: Men who can think on their feet, under duress, and don’t need someone else to tell them what to do
AGplusone: An incredibily impartial judge, jury and executioner I’d say! Does anyone know, for example, where Heinlein had a model laid out for him?
TreetopAngelRN2: men not afraid to make those types of decisions
aggirlj: A concience.
aggirlj: John Wayne.
DavidWrightSr: ‘Control of weapons and military technology too dangerous to leave in the hands of military people’ or something like that.
AGplusone: They’re “Supermen” aren’t they?
AGplusone: Just like the ones in “Gulf” (another Heinlein story, not a juvenile, Jane), aren’t they?
DavidWrightSr: Not really, just trained professional types.
TreetopAngelRN2: Fair Witnesses
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
TreetopAngelRN2: Hi Bill
aggirlj: He Bill how ya doin?
BPRAL22169: Sorry to be late.
AGplusone: I dunno. Look at Rivera. Goes down, leaves orders to bomb if they hold him hostage, and then they execute his orders by bombing his own home town.
BPRAL22169: Doing fine — had a sudden opportunity to go shopping and thought I should take it.
AGplusone: We’re discussing the training of the cadets, what they’re being trained for. Haven’t mentioned Wells yet.
aggirlj: Whoa, when did that happen?
AGplusone: My thesis is they’re training executioners.
TreetopAngelRN2: a chance he knew could happen, or he would not have left orders for it!
BPRAL22169: I think the Samurai concept is pretty much in the background.
aggirlj: Nice, David thought it was Japanese.
AGplusone: Guardian angels to put at the gates of Paradise (life) to drive out with the fiery sword the sinners if need be.
BPRAL22169: Or did you mean the radio speech suggesting an air patrol that was the basis for the Patrol?
AGplusone: No, I’m talking about Wells’ Samuri.
DavidWrightSr: But they knew that such people as Rivera and the other four went well beyond what most people could actually do. They just knew that they had to strive for such.
AGplusone: Tell them about it, please, Bill.
BPRAL22169: Ok. I think they probably had something a little more “generalized” in mind than executioners. Most of the work they do seems general stuff — like the federal service in Starship Troopers.
AGplusone: H.G. Wells wrote a Utopia of a sorts.
TreetopAngelRN2: I got the feeling it was a last resort type of thing…
BPRAL22169: Ok, brief version is in Wells’ 1905 Modern Utopia he envisions a world state made up of 3 classes. The administrative-engineer class he calls “Samurai”
BPRAL22169: because like the Meiji Shogunate Samurai, they have an inflexible code of duty.
BPRAL22169: The classes are self-selected, but essentially the Samurai do everything that is important to keep the society running.
BPRAL22169: That’s the short version.
aggirlj: ‘Kay sounds right.
AGplusone: Can you imagine Rivera going down to Buenos Aires today, saying: “I want records of all your WMD research right now, or else that little rocket up there will come down on you, whether I’m here with you or not?
TreetopAngelRN2: alright
BPRAL22169: Heinlein seems to have seen the traditions of the military academies as training Samurai for his Future History.
aggirlj: High ideals, tradition, no quarter.
AGplusone: Or maybe a patrol officer named Mohammed Ali doing the same in Bagdad.
AGplusone: Where, in humanity, do you find such men (or women)?
TreetopAngelRN2:
BPRAL22169: Or in the Aristotelian ethical tradition, they are the social class that has the virtue of fortitude — doing the difficult good, which Rivera’s story is an example of.
aggirlj: Doing the difficult good, hmmmmm.
TreetopAngelRN2: being able to do one’s duty no matter what the cost
AGplusone: Otherwise, why so much focus on it. Matt’s argument with him Mom about it . . . ?
AGplusone: his Mom
AGplusone: and his Dad …. “it’s our Patrol, son. They wouldn’t do that to us.”
aggirlj: Or would they?
BPRAL22169: That argument kind of says WHY they have to train people to do that, if necessary. Somebody has to keep the big picture in mind, the master goals of the society.
TreetopAngelRN2: but if it needed to be done, for all the right reasons…could they do it, for that matter could I?
AGplusone: And Wong saying to Matt, well, if you were on the watch we’d see it wasn’t you who dropped it on Des Moines.
BPRAL22169: After all, in terms of the assumptions, it’s “our” Patrol to bomb the hell out ofo us if we disturb the world’s peace.
aggirlj: Scarey.
AGplusone: Your CO would probably lock you up in your room when they did it. Uh-huh.
TreetopAngelRN2: they would have to
BPRAL22169: True — you don’t want to put that ultimate responsibility in someone’s hands unless it’s absolutely necessary.
AGplusone: like Rivera
DavidWrightSr: One inconsistency that has always bothered me. If officers were retired at 35, how did Commodore Arkwright stay in. In fact, the whole business of such early retirement bothers me, although in reality, 37 or so isn’t uncommon for ..
DavidWrightSr: military personel
AGplusone: Perhaps like the commodant in Troopers, Wing General called back to active duty as a Colonel to run the OCS?
aggirlj: You need age to temper.
TreetopAngelRN2: Commodore Arkwright only had the Patrol, he would not be able to function anywhere else…
DavidWrightSr: My brother-in-law could have retired at 36, but decided to go for 30. Unfortunately, his heart gave out when he was 39.
AGplusone: Herb Gililland, the Navy Academy English prof we met in San Jose is a retired Captain, USNR. I suspect he’s in at least his early fifties. Possibly older.
TreetopAngelRN2: you keep the best
TreetopAngelRN2: regardless of age
AGplusone: Or call them back and let them train
BPRAL22169: I thought Arkwright was probably an exception like Pershing.
TreetopAngelRN2: yeah
AGplusone: Richhover
AGplusone: He was 70 when they finally retired him
aggirlj: He obviously became a “Problem”.
AGplusone: Still teaching nuc submariners
DavidWrightSr: What’s her name. The creator of COBOL was quite elderly when she either died in the service or retired. I don’t remember which.
BPRAL22169: Possibly that’s also part of the reason the military is always extremely well prepared to fight the more recent war.
AGplusone: Imagine what happened when all the retired Captains and Admirals were recalled to active duty for WW 2 … I remember him when he was just a junior Lieutenant and a not too bright one, either!
AGplusone: But he’s senior to you now, Admiral.
TreetopAngelRN2: ick!
BPRAL22169: I don’t know that there was much of that. They promoted up from the active ranks quite a lot. I don’t know for sure.
AGplusone: I do. It was a problem for a while, but they got told to shut up and sail the desks they were given, and they either did, or they were released from active duty.
BPRAL22169: But imagine how Robert Heinlein, Academy graduate with rank of Lt. J.G. felt as a civilian engineer in a naval facility — De Camp ranked higher than he after a 1 month traning.
AGplusone: re-retired
aggirlj: Go with the flow, wait in the background.
AGplusone: In Space Cadet, what’s the point of Aransa’s quitting?
aggirlj: Too long, too late.
BPRAL22169: It’s the same virtue, though — on a smaller scale. Doing the difficult good irrespective of your feelings.
TreetopAngelRN2: Didn’t he quit because he couldn’t do it anymore?
TreetopAngelRN2: He felt he wasn’t as effective
AGplusone: He concluded he couldn’t pull the trigger, basically, and never would.
BPRAL22169: Or put it another way “shut up and soldier.”
BPRAL22169: Aransa’s resignation is another of those — he realized he couldn’t meet the standards and so took himself out of the line of command.
aggirlj: Got to feed the dog. Be back in flash.
BPRAL22169: So the secondary lesson is that “duty” is not a rigid and inflexible set of “thou shalts”
TreetopAngelRN2: there are different layers of “duty”
AGplusone: He became one of those regretted by Arkwright, that they would “forever change” so to speak, but now he will never be fish, or fowl, or good red meat. Just another fellow who once aspired but didn’t get there?
DavidWrightSr: Yeah. I liked that speech about precedent vs tradition that Oscar made to Stinky
BPRAL22169: So, going to the Forrestal Lecture — Arensa realized he did’nt have what it took to put the good of the whole of humanity ahead of the good of some smaller group.
AGplusone: I did too. Heinlein actually understood that point very well.
TreetopAngelRN2: admitting that you can no longer do your job or reach the level you expected is a *good* thing
AGplusone: Or, put another way, he didn’t want to unlease the peasants on the hoarding kulaks, eh?
BPRAL22169: But difficult.
DavidWrightSr: Similar to what the captain said to another Stinky in ‘Citizen’. about the Baslim conditioned reflex hitting him when the occasion came about.
AGplusone: [playing Doubt as we do . . . here]
BPRAL22169: Possibly. This points to a certain softheadedness we have far too much experience of latterly.
AGplusone: Go on . . .
TreetopAngelRN2: of course it’s difficult, but I think more of the person who admits defeat than someone who holds on no matter what and brings everything down
AGplusone: I think very highly of Arensa. He didn’t decide to ‘fake it’ …
BPRAL22169: I didn’t really have anything to add to that. It’s the problem with modern, post-New Deal liberalism
TreetopAngelRN2: Exactly, David
BPRAL22169: Arensa was playing for keeps.
AGplusone: he wasn’t a taker or a faker
AGplusone: so he hopefully went somewhere else and became a maker
BPRAL22169: So it was an honorable decision.
TreetopAngelRN2: he also knew the game was for keeps…
AGplusone: It’s so easy to be ‘political’ and mouth what you’ve been taught is expected.
BPRAL22169: Someone refresh my memory — wasn’t Arensa the Cadet who spooned on Matt?
AGplusone: Especially after the investment.
DavidWrightSr: spooned?
AGplusone: The one who led the Hog Alley
aggirlj: He was the big personality, right.
BPRAL22169: Sorry. USNA slang.
AGplusone: mentored?
aggirlj: Right.
aggirlj: With the guitar.
BPRAL22169: Subtler than that — special favor.
AGplusone: took all of them under his wing so to speak
BPRAL22169: Yes.
BPRAL22169: I wonder if that might reflect on something that happened to him at the academy.
BPRAL22169: No way of telling, of course.
TreetopAngelRN2: I think he saw potential and helped it along
SageMerlin has entered the room.
aggirlj: He spent a lot of time in Hog Alley.
BPRAL22169: There were quite a number of Midshipmen who resigned before graduation — some after graduation, too.
AGplusone: I think there’s always an upperclassman who opts out.
AGplusone: one they admire and wonder why he did that
aggirlj: Hi Sage, forget your “real” name.
TreetopAngelRN2: he was a good mentor…maybe he should have stayed and kept company with the new cadets
AGplusone: Hi, Alan, how’s it going. We’re talking about Arensa’s decision to opt out of the Academy when he realized he would never be able to pull the trigger.
TreetopAngelRN2: Hi Alan
SageMerlin: Keep it up. I am multi tasking for a few minutes
AGplusone: the upperclassman they all admired
aggirlj: The party animal.
SageMerlin: Read SC about a year ago
AGplusone: Not unless they had a job for a civilian up there. Otherwise he’s occupying space that should be devoted to someone who is still trying to get through. He didn’t hang around for the degree, did he?
DavidWrightSr: Did they get a degree. Don’t recall any mention of it.
AGplusone: I always wondered about the ones who decline the commission ….
AGplusone: no, they didn’t. they used a system our own Navy used pre-1900.
TreetopAngelRN2: I guess they would go back dirtside and try to get on with the Marines
DavidWrightSr: or sell used helicopters
TreetopAngelRN2: LOL
aggirlj: LOL
AGplusone: You became a “passed Midshipman” then went on cruises for two years, after which they decided whether to give you a real commission.
BPRAL22169: From RAH’s class, there were a number of First Class resignees who went into business — in June of 1929!
aggirlj: Not a good year to go into business.
AGplusone: Same as the British Navy, with some modifications. Read the Hornblower series.
TreetopAngelRN2: just in time for the crash
AGplusone: There were no degrees awarded originally by our military or naval academies. That came much later.
BPRAL22169: There was a set of strenuous examinations for promotion from Ensign to Lieutenant. And in the meantime, they were still undergoing schooling.
BPRAL22169: Degrees in the 1930’s. I interviewed Adm. Gallantin for the biography, and he said the USNA started giving degrees when they decided in 1933 to commission only the top half of the class as a Depression economy measure.
aggirlj: For what purpose.
AGplusone: The degree was a consolation prize, then?
aggirlj: LOL
BPRAL22169: Well, not quite a “consolation prize” — it would enable them to compete on the job market with a college degree.
DavidWrightSr: That must have tough on some of them. To make it through 4years of the academy and not get commissioned.
BPRAL22169: But then the academy had to raise its academic standards, too.
AGplusone: So Heinlein, who graduated, in 29, received no degree, unless retroactive.
BPRAL22169: That’s right. No retroactive degrees were awarded.
TreetopAngelRN2: ,break time>
DavidWrightSr: I wonder if any of them were commissioned at the outbreak of war?
AGplusone: Happens every year. Many fail of commission because they fail medical standards. Heinlein had eye problems.
BPRAL22169: At that time the Navy required perfect 20/20 vision for ALL line officers.
AGplusone: He had to take exercise to ensure he’d pass.
BPRAL22169: His brother had failed the eye exam in 27.
AGplusone: Break’s a good idea. How about until 50 past the hour?
DavidWrightSr: I know that situation. I would have gone into the Air Force from ROTC, except that my teeth were ‘severely malocluted(sp)’
TreetopAngelRN2: yeah…good idea
aggirlj: Me too!!!11
AGplusone: go water your cat Elizabeth. Bill’s got the conn.
BPRAL22169: OK. I WAS going to go AFK and put groceries away — but the perishables are in the refrigerator already and the rest can wait.
BPRAL22169: So who’s left hanging around for “free chat”?
TreetopAngelRN2: I’m back
aggirlj: Me three.
TreetopAngelRN2: Still no baby, just cjecked
TreetopAngelRN2: checked
aggirlj: It’ll be in the wee hours.
TreetopAngelRN2: I’ll be up!
DavidWrightSr: Who’s having a baby?
aggirlj: How far away are they?
TreetopAngelRN2: My niece
TreetopAngelRN2: her hubby has a laptop in the L&D room and the whole fam damily are connected in chat
TreetopAngelRN2: she is in Illinois
BPRAL22169: I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s a very good idea — and relieves some of the Daddy tensions.
aggirlj: Okay, a hop skip and a jump.
TreetopAngelRN2: and Auntie and Granny and Granpa tensions, not to mention Mom who is in Colorado
aggirlj: Do we know the sex?
TreetopAngelRN2: when I heard they had a laptop and a wireless connection…It’s a girl, her name is Jade Alexis
aggirlj: Interesting name, significance?
TreetopAngelRN2: I think I am more nervous about this one than any of the others
TreetopAngelRN2: no significance, that I know of
aggirlj: First child?
AGplusone: b
TreetopAngelRN2: yes
aggirlj: Ah, it will take some time.
aggirlj: :b
TreetopAngelRN2: they took her of the meds to stop contractions on my birthday…it’s been a long couple of weeks
aggirlj: Not a good thing, too much anticipation.
TreetopAngelRN2: yeah, we are all crawling the walls
TreetopAngelRN2: of course I feel like I HAVE to be there
aggirlj: Not possible.
AGplusone: ’tis nearly 50 past … how ’bout this question? What don’t you like about Space Cadet?
TreetopAngelRN2: The cover art
AGplusone: lol
AGplusone: anything else?
aggirlj: Can’t think of anything.
TreetopAngelRN2: never getting to meet Uncle Bodie
AGplusone: How about the ‘Stinky Burke lives up to expectations and gets his just deserts’ plot?
aggirlj: That was good.
AGplusone: desserts
TreetopAngelRN2: he should have been sent to the Sahara
aggirlj: I liked that they wanted to open up his head in order to know what to do for the Captain.
AGplusone: Yeah, but it’s trite. Flashman gets drunk and gets thrown out of Rugby.
TreetopAngelRN2: I liked that part, too!
BPRAL22169: The Venerians are good.
AGplusone: I thought they were too, but we didn’t deserve the formulaic Burke
AGplusone: too trite for Heinlein
aggirlj: Oh, well it was a foregone conclusion.
DavidWrightSr: Hey, It was only his second juvenile 🙂
AGplusone: I like good old Smitty the Scondrel in Red Planent.
DavidWrightSr: and much better than Galilelo
AGplusone: Planet
SageMerlin: customer problelms
BPRAL22169: I don’t know if Icould say I “dont’ like” this aspect, but it was a little “loose” because of the long time frame.
AGplusone: Smitty was Stinkey improved on and made a human\
AGplusone: “Guess I’ll come along to protect my investment . . . ”
BPRAL22169: ISTR it was panned in the fan press because it was too simpleminded for Astounding.
AGplusone: [which transititions into what we’ll read next]
aggirlj: But then, they didn’t let them open up his head.
AGplusone: Well, in ways it was a *juvenile*
TreetopAngelRN2: he would have served a better purpose if they had let them open his head
AGplusone: But could you have written an adult novel with the frame, by say, changing the second part to something else?
aggirlj: That would have been a whole ‘nother story.
TreetopAngelRN2: I know…I’m bloodthirsty
DavidWrightSr: I always liked the concept that Heinlein had that secondary school students could and should be learning more advanced stuff that they actually did
TreetopAngelRN2: Yes, I like that , too
aggirlj: Striving ever onward.
AGplusone: Like Stinky Burke starts interplanetary war, the swamp people come out of the swamps and dissolve all the colonies because of Stinkey’s acts?
DavidWrightSr: If I had a more sound education in math, I might have made it in physics when I got to college.
AGplusone: Dont need to expose themselves, just use that crazy chemistry they know ….
TreetopAngelRN2: Why would that have to be an ‘adult’ novel…it could work as a juvenile
BPRAL22169: I wonder if Ginny suggested the catalytic chemistry notion, or whether he got it out of Furnas’ The nest Hundred Years.
AGplusone: It did, didn’t it? Red Planet has the Martians doing almost exactly that, and Starman Jones has the horses coming to get them too.
AGplusone: I don’t know Bill, but we could ask her Saturday. She’s making a special effort to be here.
BPRAL22169: I’ll keep the question in mind, then.
TreetopAngelRN2 has left the room.
aggirlj: Geeze Elizabeth.
BPRAL22169: Before I got here, did you discuss the tease question — what was the secondary lesson?
AGplusone: Not yet.
AGplusone: But we can start it up now . . . what is the lesson do we think?
BPRAL22169: Is there only one?
DavidWrightSr: What do you mean by the ‘tease’ question
AGplusone: One overall lesson I think amid all the examples.
aggirlj: Stay the course.
BPRAL22169: By “tease” I meant In the thing David posted today reminding us the chat was tonight.
DavidWrightSr: I didn’t get a chance to read that.
aggirlj: So?
BPRAL22169: “One simple question: what was the most overlooked by teachers and students alike of theteaching points about education in Space Cadet over the past fifty or so years?”
aggirlj: Remains the same, stay the course?
DavidWrightSr: The only thing that I can think of is what I said above about students being more capable than they are given credit for
aggirlj: Pundits.
AGplusone: What, aside from ‘alienating’ or ‘purifying’ the cadets at the academy, is the lesson of their education?
DavidWrightSr: Must be one of those ‘too obvious’ to see things
aggirlj: I’m at a loss.
AGplusone: Why learn to eat pie with a fork, why learn stuff beside “Reading and ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic”?
aggirlj: You’re wringing it out of us. A certain way of doing things?
AGplusone: See, for example, p.72
AGplusone: yep
aggirlj: I get a star.
BPRAL22169: Cosmopolitanism
AGplusone: Why Introduction to Lunar Archeology — they’ve been dead for millions of years?
aggirlj: But they point the way.. Hmmmm.
DavidWrightSr: learning to understand any environment you might find yourself in.
AGplusone: “modern French music”? Is it music, really?
AGplusone: And what good is it anyway, assuming for the sake of argument, it is?
aggirlj: Oh Lord, what are you drinking. Grand Marnier for me.
AGplusone: What does Wong tell Matt he does about his education?
DavidWrightSr: To learn how to learn
AGplusone: closer
aggirlj: To let it go.
AGplusone: No, what is the last question of the book, Commandant Arkwright asks Matt?
AGplusone: And what is Matt’s answer?
BPRAL22169: You know, I’m getting a lot of resonances with Starship Troopers from this discussion that I never got before.
aggirlj: Ah, well, I would be able to tell you if I hadn’t returned Space Cadet to the library.
AGplusone: “When will you be ready to be commissioned, Mr. Dodson?” I agree, Bill.
AGplusone: And Dodson’s answer, “I don’t know, sir. Three or four years.”
AGplusone: He recognizes what?
AGplusone: Perhaps, that he’s still got to keep learning?
aggirlj: That time will tell. And that he doesn’t think it’s time yet.
AGplusone: . . . forever?
BPRAL22169: And that he’s the one who has to judge it; it’s not external to himself.
aggirlj: Right.
DavidWrightSr: As I recall the commodore asked that of the cadet who led Matt’s first muster.
BPRAL22169: Oh, literary symmetry.
AGplusone: We know there’s isn’t a degree granted here, just some vague indefined time when the Passed Cadet gets to become a ‘full member’ of the Patrol.
AGplusone: When Ackwright feels he’s ready.
aggirlj: They keep you hopping. On your toes as it were. Good concept.
AGplusone: And some are Passed Cadets for several years … some like Arunsa decide, finally, okay, I don’t have it.
aggirlj: The one thing I missed was the washout of Burke.
AGplusone: Wong tells him as much about education. It’s never over. And so does his first Captain, by example. The tests he gives are tougher.
AGplusone: Probably much the same as Heinlein’s first Captain, Ernest King, on the Lexington.
AGplusone: King relieved two commanders who were his navigators during the time Heinlein was an Ensign. Can you imagine what happened to their careers after King relieved them for not being able to navigate to his standards. Mess kit repair
AGplusone: battalion in Barstow was probably their next assignment while they put in their retirement papers if they had enough time in.
SageMerlin: Has anyone ever speculated on the odd haromonisms in the name Ernest King?
SageMerlin: I think about this every time his name gets mentioned.
AGplusone: I’m sure his crew did.
aggirlj: As in Ernest Martin Luther?
AGplusone: Did you ever notice the name of the Captain they select in Methuselah’s Children. Rufus “Ruthless” King.
AGplusone: Did King have red hair?
SageMerlin: Does this have anything to do with the Importance of Being Earnest?
aggirlj: LOL!!!!!
AGplusone: Okay, free pun time … 🙂
SageMerlin: “He’s doing it again. My evil genius is back
AGplusone: You guys realize I have a steak waiting for me . . .[Wife came home and grinned at me about ten minutes ago.]
aggirlj: So keep it away from the keyboard.
SageMerlin: And when David’s wife grins at you, you know you’ve been grinnned at
aggirlj: 😉
AGplusone: What other questions?
SageMerlin: Hey, my father just spent 10 minutes extolling the virtues of Baby Back Ribs obtained at Friday’s for God’s sake. and I am starving.
AGplusone: Your dad’s eating. Wonderful!
aggirlj: No questions on SC, what’s the next reading.
AGplusone: Red Planet!
AGplusone: Welcome to Willis, you all!
SageMerlin: Actually, he just drove his car through the garage wall, but it needed to be painted anyway.
SageMerlin: Actually I did have one serious point about SC.
aggirlj: Good point of view 😛
AGplusone: Go, please.
SageMerlin: Is SC an earlier version of Starship Trooper?
AGplusone: maybe a rougher one … ?
SageMerlin: Heinlein returns to his Academy experiences in both novels, but shows us different aspects
SageMerlin: Clearly the version of Academy in SC is more akin to what really happens at Anapolis
DavidWrightSr: I think that they are the two sides of the training issue. The Patrol type vs the Marine type
AGplusone: Do you think “Doubt” is analogous to “History & Moral Philosophy”?
DavidWrightSr: the two personality types. and the difference in missions
SageMerlin: More the untried teenaged boy being molded into a semblance of a fighting man, than a finishing school for well trained killers.
aggirlj: And the Marine type is non-thinking, go for it with gusto.
SageMerlin: Ah, I have a friend who was a general out of Force Recon….he has two Phds.
AGplusone: But to the same end. The ‘professors’ vs. we guys wit’ da axe.’
SageMerlin: I don’t think he can be described as non-thinking./
DavidWrightSr: No. Never non-thinking. Heinlein just didn’t believe that I blieve
aggirlj: They’re not all dumb.
SageMerlin: A marine corps general, in my experience, is a very sophisticated human being, far more so in fact that most other general ranks I have met.
AGplusone: That was an annoying part in Space Cadet. The silly notion that you couldn’t lead above a certain IQ difference. Wonder what Maxwell Taylor thought of that?
aggirlj: It’s where I’m coming from in this discussion. What he presented.
aggirlj: As you know, in our family, we have a Marine who was very very bright.
AGplusone: Yes, and we often play a little game here, called “Doubt” which is Heinlein’s game, e.g., challenge what I wrote. Don’t care if you believe it, I just want to get you thinking about it.
aggirlj: But you needs the grunts.
AGplusone: So was Bill Manchester, who was on the same island.
SageMerlin: IF the ranks are smarter than you are, yes, it is difficult to lead them
AGplusone: That’s true. Anyhow … what else do we have?
BPRAL22169: I think I agree with Alan, that Heinlein was returning to someof the same questions with Starship Troopers. It’s built around a different question, though.
AGplusone: That’s why some sergeants acquire guile!
aggirlj: If you’re a sergeant you must have guile and creative accounting.
SageMerlin: Not to mention some strange notions about addition and subtraction
aggirlj: With you.
BPRAL22169: As to the IQ difference — I think Heinlein believed the leader has to be able to put himself empathically in the shoes of his cadre, and when the separation in IQ gets too great, the two people are living in
BPRAL22169: essentially different worlds. empathy becomes harder.
SageMerlin: On the other hand, thinking about my staff, if they are a lot stupider, it’s even harder.
BPRAL22169: RAH also knew how hard he had to work at it, of course.
AGplusone: I got a letter from Bart Kemper, btw. Said he survived his tour as commander of his company in the reserve without having to buy anything that went missing. Now he’s waiting for the callup.
SageMerlin: Besides which, I prefer a man who puts his shoulder to the wheel and gets it moving through the mud to the one who sits about thinking on how to repave the road.
AGplusone: I agree with that point, Bill. You have to work at it better.
aggirlj: Sage, Sage.
SageMerlin: Sorry, I forgot myself
AGplusone: Bart’s the fellow who was on the Heinlein 101 panel. The combat engineer reserve Captain.
aggirlj: Bart=Sage?
AGplusone: No. ‘nother guy, Jane.
aggirlj: Okay.
SageMerlin: No way…I don’t get shot at any more for a living
AGplusone: Alan = Sage
aggirlj: I’ll remember.
SageMerlin: Sometimes….occasionally I am Yehude
aggirlj: Menuin.
SageMerlin: good catcvh
SageMerlin: catch
SageMerlin: or it could be a good kvetch
aggirlj: Latkes and all.
AGplusone: free puns
SageMerlin: I bough some yiddish flash cards. Oy gavoult. You should hear me talking the yidden sprech
AGplusone: hard to kvetch latkes, they fall apart in the air
AGplusone: and you need soft hands
aggirlj: LOL
SageMerlin: Speaking about returning to the scene of the crime, what time on Sunday?
AGplusone: standard time. 1 PM your time.
SageMerlin: I have to go encounter some food somewhere
aggirlj: 12:00 mine
aggirlj: 2:00 mine, never mind.
AGplusone: 10 am west coast. Sunday is the Board meeting.
AGplusone: Saturday is the reading group
DavidWrightSr: 5:00 EST?
aggirlj: Yeah, sounds right.
SageMerlin: Saturday, I have tickets to see Bob Dylan….I will be a no show
AGplusone: Yes.
aggirlj: Oh well, will miss you.
SageMerlin: And I was going skeet shooting on Sunday, but I guess the skeets will have to live to die another day
DavidWrightSr: I’ll be able to attend Sunday, since I won’t be going back to church for a number of weeks yet.
AGplusone: my wife is drooling at my steak. she already finished hers. Bob the Cat is drooling at my steak.
SageMerlin: Now, David, it was your nephew who was acting out of church
aggirlj: Okay, I should go too.
AGplusone: I hope you get much better soon, dave.
SageMerlin: I missed my meditation group tonight for T
SageMerlin: THIS?
aggirlj: Wasn’t it better?
SageMerlin: I don’t know. I fall asleep in meditationm
SageMerlin: have for years
DavidWrightSr: I should have the entire log posted by tomorrow night.
AGplusone: was it as good for you as it was for me?
aggirlj: Kept you awake, hah!
AGplusone: Great!
SageMerlin: Okay, I have disrupted the universe enough for one night. See you all when I see you. David, PROTECT YOUR STEAK
AGplusone:
SageMerlin: So long folks
SageMerlin has left the room.
aggirlj: This is me going poof, trying not to go too soon.
AGplusone: night Alan
aggirlj: Nighty night.
AGplusone: Bill ….
BPRAL22169: Good discussion. See you Saturday. Yes, David?
DavidWrightSr: Got it
AGplusone: Good night, sir.
aggirlj has left the room.
AGplusone: Good night from New York, David
DavidWrightSr: Log officially closed at 10:45 P.M.
AGplusone: I don’t think much of it matters but maybe she’d prefer not to have it appear.
AGplusone: G’night.
DavidWrightSr: Night all
AGplusone has left the room.
Final End of Discussion Log
