Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Thursday April 12, 2001 9:00 P.M. EDT
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Here Begin The A.F.H. postings
Thursday April 12 and Saturday April 14, 2001
Subject: Let’s Give a Helping Hand to rec.arts.sf.written and pick up where their discussion of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress Left Off.
On one of the newsgroups recently (rec.arts.sf.written) there was a rather nasty and particularly useless thread about Heinlein’s personality, during the course of which one of the more sensible participants, Ahasuerus, mentioned that their discussion of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress some years previously had left him with some outstanding questions. This piqued the interest of other participants, who prevailed upon him to recap three questions. They all have to do with why Heinlein might have chosen to do certain things in the novel the way he did them, rather than some other way. As this is a slightly different slant on things than we usually take up, I thought it might be interesting to pick up Ahasuerus’ outstanding questions as our starting point this time.
Ahasuerus wrote:
Well, I don’t have a copy of the MISTRESS discussion that we had in May-June of 1995 here, but basically I was wondering why Heinlein chose to structure the book the way he did.
(1) We know from the book that the revolution eventually semi-failed since life on Luna is “now” (i.e. at the time the memoirs are being written) more tightly controlled by the government than before the whole mess started. Personally, I find little bits of info about what happened after the “victory” scattered throughout the text one of the more attractive things about the novel, but it is so subtle that apparently a lot of people miss that whole layer. Why did Heinlein keep it in the background? Did he underestimate his audience? Was it done on purpose?
(2) MISTRESS disposes of the whole “evolution vs. revolution” argument by pulling a deus ex machina (an obvious pun that I am sure RAH intended). Thanks to Mike, the would-be plotters *know* beyond the shadow of a doubt that Luna is doomed under the current system, that there is no time for evolution to work, and are, therefore, forced to embark on an extremely dangerous course of action that otherwise they might have hesitated to take. I have little doubt that Heinlein realized that he was “cheating”, but chose to anyway. Why?
(3) The Scarler Pimpernel stuff. Revolutions are a nasty dangerous business, they come complete with agents provocateurs, extra-legal “executions” of traitors, civil wars, dictators, etc. Sometimes they may be the lesser of two evils, but they are hardly the buffonade that we see in MISTRESS. And, indeed, Heinlein foresees these objections and neatly disposes of them with… you guessed it, Mike’s help. As soon as Prof and Co have Mike on their side, they are in effective control of Luna, the rest is just a spectacle for the benefit of the oppressed masses, who need to be convinced that they actually had something to do with the coup, and Earth, which is the only real check on Mike’s absolute authority on Luna. This isn’t objectionable in itself, since any novel is allowed one deus ex machina, but the emotional result is that Heinlein effectively glorifies revolutions as fun for the whole family, whereas in reality they are anything but. Why?
End of Ahasuerus’s remarks.
These questions prompted a longish set of exchanges which I won’t summarize because I’d like us to take a step back from the several assumptions that underly these questions, because they are, to put it bluntly, a little peculiar.
The way I read the story, the purpose of the revolution was to get out from under the absentee landlord control of the Lunar Authority, which the revolution accomplished. I can’t see a “semi-failure” if they achieved self-determination. What you do with self-determination is another issue — and another book. Self-determination achieved the ends the conspirators started out with, and that’s the entire goal of the revolution. I see this view reinforced by some significant developments toward the end: Heinlein got rid of Prof and got rid of Mycroft so the Loonies could be have control of their own destinies.
Similarly I can’t see the set up that gets the core cell together as in any sense literary “cheating.” All like core groups will be in possession of special knowledge — and in fact, both Prof and Wyoh were already conversant with the knowledge that they had a limited time to achieve the goal of lunar independence; the knowledge was widely dispersed in the underground movements at the time. Mike’s calculations simply indicated the time was shorter than they thought — so short, in fact, that the entirely unpolitical Manny was galvanized into action. Furthermore, Mike’s special status was not used to convince the rest of the Loonies of the special urgency. The cabal made use of Mike’s special abilities to catalyze and channel the existing sentiments among Loonies
This addresses the third question as well. The Loonies freed themselves. Prof and Mike did “shape the crucible” of the revolution — for example, making sure that the embargo lasted long enough that Lunar farmers knew they could do without the Authority market and opening up technical markets for services that would pull resources away from farming — but it greatly misrepresents the situation Heinlein portrayed to suppose that the Loonies were simply puppets under Mike’s control or that of the Central Cell. I think, without minimizing the special qualities of Mike, Heinlein is more likely to have thought of Prof and Mike as shaving the odds in an exceptionally intelligent way. They loom large in Manny’s story, but the Lunar revolution is larger than the story of Manny’s family (fun for the whole of it).
It was fairly obvious to me on first reading that the Lunar revolution is closely patterned on the American Revolution — which was also not won by the Cabal in Philadelphia, however frighteningly intelligent and high-Enlightenment-tech they were.
In short, I think these particular questions and objections might not be about features of the book — they might be “artifacts” of approaching the book with extraneous agendas — or artifacts of the paradigms, which is to say the readers and not the book. Certainly at least some of them disappear if you accept the premises of the book as stated rather than supposing that Heinlein must actually have meant something other than what he wrote.
Look forward to seeing you in two weeks.
Bill
On 04 Apr 2001 05:26:22 GMT, (BPRAL22169) wrote:
>Thursday April 12 and Saturday April 14, 2001
>Subject: Let’s Give a Helping Hand to rec.arts.sf.written and pick up where
>their discussion of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress Left Off.
>
>because I’d like us to take a step back from the several assumptions that
>underly these questions, because they are, to put it bluntly, a little
>peculiar.
>
>The way I read the story, the purpose of the revolution was to get out from
>under the absentee landlord control of the Lunar Authority, which the
>revolution accomplished. I can’t see a “semi-failure” if they achieved
>self-determination. What you do with self-determination is another issue —
>and another book. Self-determination achieved the ends the conspirators
>started out with, and that’s the entire goal of the revolution. I see this
>view reinforced by some significant developments toward the end: Heinlein g
ot >rid of Prof and got rid of Mycroft so the Loonies could be have control of
>their own destinies.
>
I saw it as Manny recollecting an earlier time. I caught the references to times after the revolution as showing that time had passed and the Lunar society had evolved, perhaps in ways Manny wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
>Similarly I can’t see the set up that gets the core cell together as in any
>sense literary “cheating.” All like core groups will be in possession of
>special knowledge — and in fact, both Prof and Wyoh were already conversant
>with the knowledge that they had a limited time to achieve the goal of lunar
>independence; the knowledge was widely dispersed in the underground movements
>at the time. Mike’s calculations simply indicated the time was shorter than
>they thought — so short, in fact, that the entirely unpolitical Manny was
>galvanized into action. Furthermore, Mike’s special status was not used to
>convince the rest of the Loonies of the special urgency. The cabal made use of
>Mike’s special abilities to catalyze and channel the existing sentiments among
>Loonies
>
I thought the core cell, and Mike, were used to simplify the story. A revolution would involve thousands of people, all having fairly important parts. By telling the story in the 1st person, he only needs to include the parts Manny was involved in. Mike simplifies it even more by having the ‘command and control’ system be effectively one person. So it seemed to me that besides creating an interesting character in Mike, the story was simple enough to make good reading.
To diverge slightly, I remember reading that during the coup against Gorbachev, the phone lines were disabled to keep the Soviet government from being able to coordinate opposition to the coup. They forgot data communications lines, which meant that IT folks promptly begin relaying messages using internal and internet lines for communication, which helped coordinate resistance until the coup collapsed.
So the idea is reasonable, even without an AI to control the networks.
>This addresses the third question as well. The Loonies freed themselves. Prof
>and Mike did “shape the crucible” of the revolution — for example, making sure
>that the embargo lasted long enough that Lunar farmers knew they could do
>without the Authority market and opening up technical markets for services that
>would pull resources away from farming — but it greatly misrepresents the
>situation Heinlein portrayed to suppose that the Loonies were simply puppets
>under Mike’s control or that of the Central Cell. I think, without minimizing
>the special qualities of Mike, Heinlein is more likely to have thought of Prof
>and Mike as shaving the odds in an exceptionally intelligent way. They loom
>large in Manny’s story, but the Lunar revolution is larger than the story of
>Manny’s family (fun for the whole of it).
>
Yeah, I thought since the story was told from Manny’s POV, we saw the revolution through ‘tunnel vision’. Since Manny had Mike for info, we got to see most of what happened, but only through Manny’s recollections. To me this made the story fun, rather than like reading a history textbook.
There were enough references to other Lunie communities, and other events, that we could see that there was wide popular participation.
>It was fairly obvious to me on first reading that the Lunar revolution is
>closely patterned on the American Revolution — which was also not won by the
>Cabal in Philadelphia, however frighteningly intelligent and
>high-Enlightenment-tech they were.
>
>In short, I think these particular questions and objections might not be about
>features of the book — they might be “artifacts” of approaching the book with
>extraneous agendas — or artifacts of the paradigms, which is to say the
>readers and not the book. Certainly at least some of them disappear if you
>accept the premises of the book as stated rather than supposing that Heinlein
>must actually have meant something other than what he wrote.
>
Heinleins writing seems to be able to evoke readers opinions, look at the incessant threads on ST.
>Look forward to seeing you in two weeks.
>Bill
>
[djinn]
BPRAL22169 wrote:
>Ahasuerus wrote:
>
>
>Personally, I find little bits of info about what happened after the “victory”
>scattered throughout the text one of the more attractive things about the
>novel, but it is so subtle that apparently a lot of people miss that whole
>layer. Why did Heinlein keep it in the background? Did he underestimate his
>audience? Was it done on purpose?
>
>
I started to read Moon again in preparation and I hadn’t got to the end of the first chapter before I had notes and queries…I’m not able to fully address the questions yet but I will say that Heinlein’s technique of telling the story in a long flashback is effective. Look at the very first few lines;
“I see in _Lunaya Pravda_ that Luna City Council has passed on first reading a bill to examine, license, inspect – and tax- public food vendors operating inside municipal pressure. I see also is to be mass meeting tonight to organize “Sons of Revolution” talk-talk.”
So we know, before we know anything else, that the current situation on the moon is unsatisfactory and rebellion is brewing…the first time reader might assume that the book was about to launch into the story of that revolution…we don’t know how long ago 2075 is after all. Of course, to a second time reader it is deliciously ironic that the Loonies are either never satisfied or alternatively have painted themselves into a corner once the reins of power were in their own hands ( yes, it’s a mixed metaphor; go dangle a participle! :-))
I think Heinlein was being deliberately ambiguous and wanted to keep the reader on their toes.
I also noticed ( sorry Bill, these are digressions) that Mannie has Dr Watson founding IBM; a joke? it’s not so far into the future that he could make such a slip is it? Or is this like matt getting the Kilroy thing mixed up?
I also wonder why the jokes were called Joe Millers? An American comedian?
Jane
In article, ddavitt
wrote:
>
>I also noticed ( sorry Bill, these are digressions) that Mannie has Dr Watson
>founding IBM; a joke? it’s not so far into the future that he could make such a slip
>is it? Or is this like matt getting the Kilroy thing mixed up?
RAH was probably referring to the two Watsons (father and son) who ran IBM for decades.
—
http://www.halcyon.com/robertaw/
“Robert A. Woodward”wrote:
>In article, ddavitt
>wrote:
>
>
>>
>>I also noticed ( sorry Bill, these are digressions) that Mannie has Dr
>>Watson
>>founding IBM; a joke? it’s not so far into the future that he could make
>>such a slip
>>is it? Or is this like matt getting the Kilroy thing mixed up?
>
>RAH was probably referring to the two Watsons (father and son) who ran
>IBM for decades.
The point is that he was confusing the IBM Watson with the Holmes Watson. I think the assumption is that he doesn’t know a whole lot about the relevant history–why should he–and is assuming the Holmes stories are history rather than fiction.
—
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
How many times has Leonard Nemoy’s character been referred to as Dr. Spock?
Jeanette–who had never heard of the IBM Watsons until now–so didn’t get the joke and who also appreciates the joke in Star Beast–that euphemism wasn’t used in my neck of the woods and I don’t know of anybody who read Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
[jeanette]
David Friedman wrote:
>
>The point is that he was confusing the IBM Watson with the Holmes
>Watson. I think the assumption is that he doesn’t know a whole lot abou
t >the relevant history–why should he–and is assuming the Holmes stories
>are history rather than fiction.
>
>
Ah, I didn’t know there was a Watson associated with IBM; that makes it all clear. Thanks!
I can’t believe I never spotted that before and it’s on the first page 🙂
Jane
>
>I started to read Moon again in preparation and I hadn’t got to the end of the first
>chapter before I had notes and queries…I’m not able to fully address the questions yet
>but I will say that Heinlein’s technique of telling the story in a long flashback is
>effective. Look at the very first few lines;
>
>”I see in _Lunaya Pravda_ that Luna City Council has passed on first reading a bill to
>examine, license, inspect – and tax- public food vendors operating inside municipal
>pressure. I see also is to be mass meeting tonight to organize “Sons of Revolution”
>talk-talk.”
>
>So we know, before we know anything else, that the current situation on the moon is >unsatisfactory and rebellion is brewing…
reminiscent of the Whiskey Rebellion, perhaps…the mini-revolution after the revolution, that the traitor George Washington helped put down?
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
Lee K. Gleason wrote in message …
>I started to read Moon again in preparation and I hadn’t got to the end of
the first chapter before I had notes and queries…
SNIP SNIP
. Look at the very first few lines;
>”I see in _Lunaya Pravda_ that Luna City Council has passed on first
reading a bill to examine, license, inspect – and tax- public food vendors operating inside municipal pressure. I see also is to be mass meeting tonight to organize “Sons of Revolution” talk-talk.”
>
>So we know, before we know anything else, that the current situation on the moon is unsatisfactory and rebellion is brewing…
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
***********************************
Is there any chance that mention of “Sons of Revolution” might be a reference to some organization akin to “Daughters of the American Revolution” ??
And yes, it appears as if an effort to free Luna simply imposed greater restrictions within generations. Wonder if Heinlein was taking that from a real life experience from a certain country’s history?
—Mac
Mac wrote:
>
>And yes, it appears as if an effort to free Luna simply
>imposed greater restrictions within generations.
>Wonder if Heinlein was taking that from a real life
>experience from a certain country’s history?
>—Mac
Maybe..but I have to say that from my POV some of it seems quite reasonable actions for the lunar government to take. I think a Loonie would react this way; why inspect? If the food is bad, no one will buy it and the vendor will have to shut up shop. I, OTOH, don’t see anything wrong with health inspections to ensure that there are good standards of cleanliness in the kitchen, where the customer can’t see what’s going on. Taxing them..well, yes, I can see why this is a problem. If they are paying rent for their space ( and I don’t think anyone could object to that) then I don’t think there is any justification for a tax just because they’re selling food.
Jane
“ddavitt”
wrote in message
>Maybe..but I have to say that from my POV some of it seems quite
>reasonable actions for the lunar government to take. I think a
>Loonie would react this way; why inspect? If the food is bad, no one
>will buy it and the vendor will have to shut up shop. I, OTOH, don’t
>see anything wrong with health inspections to ensure that there are
>good standards of cleanliness in the kitchen, where the customer
>can’t see what’s going on. Taxing them..well, yes, I can see why
>this is a problem. If they are paying rent for their space ( and I
>don’t think anyone could object to that) then I don’t think there is
>any justification for a tax just because they’re selling food.
OK, cobber, YOU pay for inspection. TANSTAAFL I will look in kitchen and check fryboy’s nails.
Mannie
Mac wrote:
>
>. Look at the very first few lines;
>>”I see in _Lunaya Pravda_ that Luna City Council has
>passed on first
>reading a bill to examine, license, inspect – and tax-
>public food vendors operating inside municipal pressure. I
>see also is to be mass meeting tonight to organize “Sons of
>Revolution” talk-talk.”
>>
>>So we know, before we know anything else, that the current
>situation on
>the moon is unsatisfactory and rebellion is brewing…
>Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
>***********************************
>Is there any chance that mention of “Sons of Revolution”
>might be a reference to some organization akin to
>”Daughters of the American Revolution” ??
Possibly. Sounds slightly more radical but not much to go on here. DAR tends to have a very “snooty” image, hard to imagine in average Loonie.
>
>And yes, it appears as if an effort to free Luna simply
>imposed greater restrictions within generations.
>Wonder if Heinlein was taking that from a real life
>experience from a certain country’s history?
>—Mac
I don’t think anyone actually expected Luna to adopt any of the more radical suggestions that Prof made. The point is that it is an elected sovereign Lunar government, not an outside force. They are free to decide their own rules now. And never forget that Mannie would not have got so seriously involved unless the stakes were as high as they were: win or get starvation and cannibalism in about another decade.
—
Mike Dworetsky
“Lee K. Gleason” wrote:
>>
>>So we know, before we know anything else, that the current situation on
>the moon is
>>unsatisfactory and rebellion is brewing…
>
>reminiscent of the Whiskey Rebellion, perhaps…the mini-revolution after
>the
>revolution, that the traitor George Washington helped put down?
>
>
Not heard of that before, Lee. Can you give more details? Or should I just go look it up? 🙂
Jane
On Fri, 06 Apr 2001 12:58:50 -0400, ddavitt
wrote:
>”Lee K. Gleason” wrote:
>
>>>
>>>So we know, before we know anything else, that the current situation on
>>the moon is
>>>unsatisfactory and rebellion is brewing…
>>
>>reminiscent of the Whiskey Rebellion, perhaps…the mini-revolution after
>>the
>>revolution, that the traitor George Washington helped put down?
>>
>
>Not heard of that before, Lee. Can you give more details? Or should I just go
>look it up? 🙂
The Federal Gov’t threw an excise tax on Whiskey to finance what was left of the Army and Navy. A bunch of Pennsylvania inbreds decided to take up arms. The Federal Gov’t federalized the PA State Militia, General Washington personally commanded the field force, and the farmers decided that getting into a shooting match with real live military force commanded by a real live general was a bad idea. They stood down quickly. A lot of anarchists like to make more out of it than it was.
John M. Atkinson
yahoo dot com
“The soldier is the Army. No Army is better than it’s soldiers. The soldier
is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and priviledge of citizenship
is that of bearing arms for one’s country.”
— General George S. Patton, USA
On Fri, 06 Apr 2001 17:59:32 GMT, (John M. Atkinson) insisted that the sooth was being spoken here:
>The Federal Gov’t threw an excise tax on Whiskey to finance what was
>left of the Army and Navy. A bunch of Pennsylvania inbreds decided to
>take up arms. The Federal Gov’t federalized the PA State Militia,
>General Washington personally commanded the field force, and the
>farmers decided that getting into a shooting match with real live
>military force commanded by a real live general was a bad idea. They
>stood down quickly. A lot of anarchists like to make more out of it
>than it was.
A few facts:
In 1794, the farmers in Western Pennsylvania made whiskey, using a large portion of their grain crops, because it it was much more rewarding to transport smaller amounts of a more expensive product to the markets in eastern PA. The Government’s decision to tax whiskey that did not cross a state border increased the price, and threatened the economic stability of Western PA.
The resistance to the tax was led by Albert Gallatin, later Secretary of the Treasury and diplomat. When they pointed their guns at the tax-agents and sent the ‘revenooers’ on their way, George Washington asked PA to use its militia to put down what he considered to be a rebellion. Gov. Thomas Mifflin refused and State Supreme Court Chief Justice McKean denied the Federal Government power to use force within Pennsylvania. It’s important to remember that Federal Government was in Pennsylvania back then.
When the Federal Government tried to call out the state militia, they refused to report. Nor was there any need to do so, since the more radical elements in Western PA had been superceded by moderates, including Gallatin, who was anti-tax, not pro-rebellion. They were interested in reaching a peaceful, even amicable, resolution.
However, Washington believed he needed to show that the Federal Government was strong – in order to discourage any British or Canadian thoughts about reuniting the Empire, and discourage the other states from considering their own rebellions. Therefore 13,500 troops from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New Jersey were assembled at Carlisle, PA. Washington led the troops as far as Bedford, and remained in the rear while the army invaded the peaceful town of Parkinson’s Ferry. The locals, of course, did not attempt to encounter an army of that size.
The most fiery of the rebel leaders, David Bradford, was never caught and eventually ended up in Lousianna, but 22 men were arrested. No local jury allowed itself to be convened, so the men were taken to Philadelphia for trial. All were eventually pardoned. Many historians agree that the hasty repeal of the hated tax was part of a behind-the-scenes neotiation between Gallatin and Hamilton. Except briefly during the war of 1812, the Federal Government did not choose to use the excise tax again, until Abraham Lincoln remade the constitution in his likeness.
I am unaware of any historical evidence that suggests that the yeomen of western PA were any more, or any less, inbred than the troops that invaded their state, or more inbred than the real-live general that commanded them, from so far away.
By the way, John. I laid hands on two of the Frankowski X-time Engineer books. Send me a shipping addy, and they’re yours.
—
Jon
I know some who are constantly drunk on books,
as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion.
They wander through this most diverting and stimulating
of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
H. L. Mencken
The Whiskey Rebellion – what I remember off the top of my head. But, yes, you should look it up.
Shortly after the US was formed George Washington put down a small insurrection protesting the excise tax levied by the new U.S. on whiskey — i.e., exactly the same kind of thing the Boston Tea Party was organized about. It’s a small but pivotal event in American history.
Incidentally, returnign to the thread, i don’t think Manny’s remarks indicate anything like a rebellion is brewing — sounds to me more like talk-talk is the kind of sentimental “good ol’ days when I was in the revolution” GAR kind of thing.
Bill
BPRAL22169 wrote:
>
>Incidentally, returnign to the thread, i don’t think Manny’s remarks indicate
>anything like a rebellion is brewing — sounds to me more like talk-talk is the
>kind of sentimental “good ol’ days when I was in the revolution” GAR kind of
>thing.
>
>Bill
I took it as being a warning that no revolution will ever result in a state of affairs that will satisfy all the people forever. And also a warning to the revolutionaries of yesterday that the children of today will consider them to be oppressive.
The Rolling Stones is set possibly not too much later; Mannie is, what, about 20 years older than Hazel? At the end of the book he says he’s not a hundred, which means she is less than 80; could well be describing the moon that the Stones left. Hazel was equally disgusted with the state of affairs; souvenir hunting tourists after turtles ( that’s always puzzled me..). Not quite a match though as Roger was a mayor but still seems to have evolved into a very familiar set up and nothing at all like Prof wanted.
Jane
On Fri, 06 Apr 2001 22:08:06 -0400, ddavitt
wrote:
>BPRAL22169 wrote:
>
>>
>>Incidentally, returnign to the thread, i don’t think Manny’s remarks indicate
>>anything like a rebellion is brewing — sounds to me more like talk-talk is the
>>kind of sentimental “good ol’ days when I was in the revolution” GAR kind of
>>thing.
>>
>>Bill
>
>I took it as being a warning that no revolution will ever result in a state of
>affairs that will satisfy all the people forever. And also a warning to the
>revolutionaries of yesterday that the children of today will consider them to be
>oppressive.
>The Rolling Stones is set possibly not too much later; Mannie is, what, about 20
>years older than Hazel? At the end of the book he says he’s not a hundred, which
>means she is less than 80; could well be describing the moon that the Stones left.
>Hazel was equally disgusted with the state of affairs; souvenir hunting tourists
>after turtles ( that’s always puzzled me..).
In the US about the time RS was written, a prize souvenir was a little tiny turtle with a picture painted on its back.
>Not quite a match though as Roger was
>a mayor but still seems to have evolved into a very familiar set up and nothing at
>all like Prof wanted.
>
>On Fri, 06 Apr 2001 22:08:06 -0400, ddavitt
wrote:
>>Hazel was equally disgusted with the state of affairs; souvenir hunting tourists
>>after turtles ( that’s always puzzled me..).
>In the US about the time RS was written, a prize souvenir was a
>little tiny turtle with a picture painted on its back.
Still are, although a lot of the places that used to carry all that touristy stuff [Stuckey’s comes to mind for some weird reason – don’t actually know if they ever carried the little painted turtles since I’ve never been *in* one] have disappeared.
OJ III
[Needless to say, I would assume they are non-endangered, farm-raised to be painted, leetle tiny turtles.]
On Sat, 07 Apr 2001 08:42:30 GMT, Ogden Johnson III insisted that the sooth was being spoken here:
>[Needless to say, I would assume they are non-endangered, farm-raised
>to be painted, leetle tiny turtles.]
They are no longer painted. Paint does not expand and in too many cases forced the turtle’s sheel to deform, condemning it to a slow death. Many states now forbid the sale of turtles less than 4 inches in diameter. But yes, there are lots of turtle farms in the south.
Amazing what you learn when you buy your son a turtle while on vacation, isn’t it. Other facts: turtles are ill-tempered, unaffectionate, smelly creatures who cost really big bucks to keep alive. (You can burn out a $200 filter that could cope with a 100 gallon sea-water aquarium and 50 large fish for years, in two months when it handles turtle wastes.)
—
Jon
I know some who are constantly drunk on books,
as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion.
They wander through this most diverting and stimulating
of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
H. L. Mencken
“jon ogden” &l6;>wrote in message news:…
>On Sat, 07 Apr 2001 08:42:30 GMT, Ogden Johnson III
>insisted that the sooth was being spoken here:
>
>>[Needless to say, I would assume they are non-endangered, farm-raised
>>to be painted, leetle tiny turtles.]
>
>They are no longer painted. Paint does not expand and in too many
>cases forced the turtle’s sheel to deform, condemning it to a slow
>death. Many states now forbid the sale of turtles less than 4 inches
>in diameter. But yes, there are lots of turtle farms in the south.
>
>Amazing what you learn when you buy your son a turtle while on
>vacation, isn’t it. Other facts: turtles are ill-tempered,
>unaffectionate, smelly creatures who cost really big bucks to keep
>alive. (You can burn out a $200 filter that could cope with a 100
>gallon sea-water aquarium and 50 large fish for years, in two months
>when it handles turtle wastes.)
Also — salmonella, etc. Turtles are notorious for their ability to carry unpleasant diseases (which bother them not a whit.)
(Amazing what you learn on a marine mammal stranding team. US law prohibits anyone but certified stranding teams to touch or disturb any part of a stranded sea mammal or sea turtle. There’s some amazingly tough penalties for even possess a sea turtle skull. Awful hot and smelly work, though — you usually get called out for carcasses, which have to be dragged well above the high tide mark and buried deep enough to be safe from kids and dogs while shallow enough to be reasonably dry.)
—
Richard A. Randall
Purveyor of fine piranhakeets.
(Reply is a spam dump. Try
“geodkyt” at Hotmail dot com.)
jon ogden wrote:
>Amazing what you learn when you buy your son a turtle
>while on vacation, isn’t it. Other facts: turtles are ill-
>tempered, unaffectionate, smelly creatures who cost really
>big bucks to keep alive.
I had a turtle for a while in the late 1960s, when we were living in Switzerland. The guy was about six inches across, and s/he never caused any trouble. For about a year, every time I took the guy outside, he would try to run away. One time he actually succeeded. Never noticed the smell though. We just fed him vegatables. Didn’t seem like he ate much to me. Never had a water tank for him, just a big plastic cage with a bowl of water in the corner.
Tian Harter
http://user.aol.com/tnharter
Time Magazine, 4/9/2001, page 39, bottom left corner,
in a list of things you can do to slow Global Warming:
4. Don’t Be Fuelish. (I had nothing to do with it. 🙂 )
>I took it as being a warning that no revolution will ever result in a state
>of
>>affairs that will satisfy all the people forever.
There’s a bit more, I think. Heinlein seems to have thought there was a natural dynamic for governments to grow ever more intrusive and arthritic — which certainly seems to be the case in the view we are given of Lunar society in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.
It’s quite interesting that Heinlein gives us a “before” picture that has more social “looseness” than the “after” picture. He has painted his pre-revolutionaries as living in a kind of economic paradise — which will destroy them if it’s allowed to continue.
The comments from the rec-arts.sf.written posters don’t seem to take any of these complexities into account. The “failure” of the revolution is its success. Taking up the responsibilities of self-governance is not an entry into Eden. There’s that darned flaming sword to take into account…
Bill
BPRAL22169 wrote:
>
>It’s quite interesting that Heinlein gives us a “before” picture that has more
>social “looseness” than the “after” picture. He has painted his
>pre-revolutionaries as living in a kind of economic paradise — which will
>destroy them if it’s allowed to continue.
>
>
I don’t know if it’s depicted as being paradisical exactly but the absence of any loyalty to the government allowed the colonists to cheat. Look at Mannie siphoning off free power and water; we applaud his resourcefulness but really, he’s just stealing. After the revolution I wonder if he carried on doing that?
Jane
“ddavitt”
>BPRAL22169 wrote:
>
>>
>>It’s quite interesting that Heinlein gives us a “before” picture that has more
>>social “looseness” than the “after” picture. He has painted his
>>pre-revolutionaries as living in a kind of economic paradise — which will
>>destroy them if it’s allowed to continue.
>>
>>
>
>I don’t know if it’s depicted as being paradisical exactly but the absence of any
>loyalty to the government allowed the colonists to cheat. Look at Mannie siphoning
>off free power and water; we applaud his resourcefulness but really, he’s just
>stealing.
Well, it’s not *just* stealing, I think; it’s a bit more complicated than that, because he’s being forced to pay fixed Authority prices for necessities that he can’t get any other way, and to sell his goods to the Authority for whatever they decide to pay.
>After the revolution I wonder if he carried on doing that?
>
>Jane
>
>
My answer would be: of course not.
[joel rosenberg]
Joel Rosenberg wrote:
>
>>After the revolution I wonder if he carried on doing that?
>>
>>Jane
>>
>>
>
>My answer would be: of course not.
Well, if he did, it would be reprehensible to say the least. However, he was still stealing before the revolution IMO. It was more of a Robin Hood type theft but he took for free what others paid for and what he could reasonably be expected to buy.
Fixed prices for goods (i.e., no competition) is something I grew up with when it came to phone bills for example. It can lead to a feeling of frustration on the part of the consumer but as I said, I never felt that I had the right to free phone service.
Jane
On Sat, 7 Apr 2001 15:43:30 -0500, “Joel Rosenberg”insisted that the sooth was being spoken here:
>Well, it’s not *just* stealing, I think; it’s a bit more complicated than
>that, because he’s being forced to pay fixed Authority prices for
>necessities that he can’t get any other way, and to sell his goods to the
>Authority for whatever they decide to pay.
It seems to me that the above could be interpreted to mean that you are saying it’s okay to misappropriate the property of another because you don’t like the way they do business with you. Or that you believe one can steal from the government if one thinks one pays too much in taxes.
I think I’d rather argue that a defacto state of war exist between any police state and its citizens. This would make Mannie and his family into patriotic materiels-liberators.
—
Jon
I know some who are constantly drunk on books,
as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion.
They wander through this most diverting and stimulating
of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
H. L. Mencken
“jon ogden”wrote in message
news:LZ3POn=OsC62SCkx64FN7dugKU=…
>On Sat, 7 Apr 2001 15:43:30 -0500, “Joel Rosenberg”
>insisted that the sooth was being spoken here:
>
>>Well, it’s not *just* stealing, I think; it’s a bit more complicated than
>>that, because he’s being forced to pay fixed Authority prices for
>>necessities that he can’t get any other way, and to sell his goods to the
>>Authority for whatever they decide to pay.
>
>It seems to me that the above could be interpreted to mean that you
>are saying it’s okay to misappropriate the property of another
>because you don’t like the way they do business with you.
Yes, it could be interpreted that way — but not honestly so, by anybody who has read the book.
[joel rosenberg]
>t the absence of any
>loyalty to the government allowed the colonists to cheat.
You’re only looking at one small aspect of their total economic picture. They have significant personal wealth, a stable society in which it is possible to live a challenging and rewarding life, and Heinlein makes a point of showing very low prices in effect — which implies no significant monetary interferences in the economy (i.e., if no inflationary money is being printed, the price of items goes down to reflect the higher wealth, rather than going up to reflect the greater ratio of currency to goods).
Second, what you are failing to take into account is that there was no government to be loyal to. There was only a warden and an administration which treated all inhabitants of Luna unjustly as though all were prisoners.
Personally, I fail to see how preventing a vampire from doing as much unjust and unreasonable damage as it might can be equated, morally, with dishonesty. Psychologically is another matter. What Manny and the other Loonies are doing by cheating the Authority is exhibiting prisoner psychology, the psychology of the oppressed, the psychology of the slave, who always cheated their oppressors. It’s not psychologically good to be in the pathology of master-slave psychology; that’s why Nietzsche thought so well of the sovereign individual.
Bill
BPRAL22169 wrote:
>t the absence of any
>loyalty to the government allowed the colonists to cheat.
>
You’re only looking at one small aspect of their total economic picture. They have significant personal wealth, a stable society in which it is possible to live a challenging and rewarding life, and Heinlein makes a point of showing very low prices in effect — which implies no significant monetary interferences in the economy (i.e., if no inflationary money is being printed, the price of items goes down to reflect the higher wealth, rather than going up to reflect the greater ratio of currency to goods).
>
>
But at the start the ice miner says that one Authority dollar used to buy one Hong Kong dollar; now it takes three. Doesn’t this imply a devaluation of the Authority money?
Also, Mannie himself uses the words “stealing” and “cheating” to describe his actions.
Jane
BPRAL22169 wrote:
>It’s quite interesting that Heinlein gives us a “before”
>picture that has more social “looseness” than the
>”after” picture. He has painted his pre-revolutionaries
>as living in a kind of economic paradise — which will
>destroy them if it’s allowed to continue.
Sounds like modern America to me.
Tian Harter
http://user.aol.com/tnharter
Time Magazine, 4/9/2001, page 39, bottom left corner,
in a list of things you can do to slow Global Warming:
4. Don’t Be Fuelish. (I had nothing to do with it. 🙂 )
[tian harter]
>Incidentally, returnign to the thread, i don’t think Manny’s remarks indicate
>anything like a rebellion is brewing — sounds to me more like talk-talk
>is the
>kind of sentimental “good ol’ days when I was in the revolution” GAR kind
>of
>thing.
Maybe VFW or American Legion Hall talk might be more familar, Bill, since there ain’t been a GAR Hall around in any sort of use since my daddy was a boy.
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
On 07 Apr 2001 01:30:40 GMT, (BPRAL22169) wrote:
>The Whiskey Rebellion – what I remember off the top of my head. But, yes, you
>should look it up.
>
>Shortly after the US was formed George Washington put down a small insurrection
>protesting the excise tax levied by the new U.S. on whiskey — i.e., exactly
>the same kind of thing the Boston Tea Party was organized about. It’s a small
>but pivotal event in American history.
>
>Incidentally, returnign to the thread, i don’t think Manny’s remarks indicate
>anything like a rebellion is brewing — sounds to me more like talk-talk is the
>kind of sentimental “good ol’ days when I was in the revolution” GAR kind of
>thing.
>Bill
Part of the problem here was that it cost substantially more to ship the grain out of the area, and the farmers received substantially less money for the grain than they did the whiskey….
ck
— Charles S. Krin, DO FAAFP,Member,PGBFH,KC5EVN
Email address dump file for spam: reply to ckrin at Iamerica dot net
F*S=k (Freedom times Security equals a constant: the more
security you have, the less freedom! Niven’s Fourth Law)
ddavitt
. >”Lee K. Gleason” wrote:
>
>>>
>>>So we know, before we know anything else, that the current situation on
>>the moon is
>>>unsatisfactory and rebellion is brewing…
>>
>>reminiscent of the Whiskey Rebellion, perhaps…the mini-revolution after
>>the
>>revolution, that the traitor George Washington helped put down?
>>
>>
>
>Not heard of that before, Lee. Can you give more details? Or should I just go
>look it up? 🙂
>
Well. frankly, all I know about it I learned from Alternate History stories (I learned a lot of history that way…which means I’m often misinformed about how things really happened in this timeline). It was part of the basis of a series of novels by L. Neil Smith, who, judging from the short shrift given Thomas Jefferson and other Libertarians in this newsgroup, will not be a popular name here. Anyway, I gather it was a small uprising against the government, after the Revolutionary War, that George Washington put down. In the L. Neil Smith books, the Whiskey Rebellion succeeded, and Albert Gallatin help establish a new government – George Washington went up against the wall as a counter-revolutionary.
In any case, that passage from _Mistress_ reminded me of that situation – revolutionaries chafing under the control of the new government. It made me wonder if it that passage could have been inspired by it – RAH seemed to have been a fair to middling student of the history of that period.
L. Neil Smith’s Alternate History mentions an Admiral Heinlein, BTW, who served in the naval battle of Tsushima Straits. If your’re not familiar with these stories, and you’re not allergic to Libertarians, you might want to give these books a look – the two best being _The Probability Broach_ and _The Nagasaki Vector_.
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
On Sat, 07 Apr 2001 05:28:33 GMT, “Lee K. Gleason”
> Well. frankly, all I know about it I learned from Alternate History
>stories (I learned a lot of history that way…which means I’m often
>misinformed about how things really happened in this timeline). It
>was part of the basis of a series of novels by L. Neil Smith,
>who, judging from the short shrift given Thomas Jefferson
>and other Libertarians in this newsgroup, will not be a
>popular name here. Anyway, I gather it was a small uprising
Eh? Don’t kid yourself about good ol’ TJ.
John M. Atkinson
yahoo dot com
“The soldier is the Army. No Army is better than it’s soldiers. The soldier
is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and priviledge of citizenship
is that of bearing arms for one’s country.”
— General George S. Patton, USA
Lee Gleason:
>It
>was part of the basis of a series of novels by L. Neil Smith,
>who, judging from the short shrift given Thomas Jefferson
>and other Libertarians in this newsgroup, will not be a
>popular name here
Lee, would it surprise you that a goodly number of regular posters actually consider themselves Libertarian, are registered to vote in that party, attend club functions, etc.? yet are able to distinguish their own political beliefs from their postings on Heinlein topic (i.e., don’t always wear their political beliefs on their sleeves)?
In fact, I know that efforts are being made right now to schedule L. Neil Smith as a guest author to visit this newsgroup’s chat group later this year; and we’ll give him the same welcome we give other authors we’ve had. I’ve been looking forward to reading the series of novels by him for several years time.
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
>The controlling
>authority did not take a hand in many situations but had full governmental
>power when it wished to exercise it.
I’ve for some time suspected Heinlein modeled this aspect of Lunar civilization on Hong Kong — as it was in the 1950’s and 60’s, where the British Colonial administration basically didn’t care what the locals did to each other, with a few exceptions.
Bill
On Thu, 05 Apr 2001 21:51:19 -0400, ddavitt
wrote:
>I also wonder why the jokes were called Joe Millers? An American comedian?
I learned this in High School Physics! One Joe Miller wrote the first collection of jokes.
Eddie Blasyk was a pretty good teacher, for a Zoomie Short Colonel…
Ken
>===== Original Message From “Joel Rosenberg”=====
>”ddavitt”
wrote in message
>>BPRAL22169 wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> It’s quite interesting that Heinlein gives us a “before” picture that
>has more
>>> social “looseness” than the “after” picture. He has painted his
>>> pre-revolutionaries as living in a kind of economic paradise — which
>will
>>> destroy them if it’s allowed to continue.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I don’t know if it’s depicted as being paradisical exactly but the absence
>of any
>>loyalty to the government allowed the colonists to cheat. Look at Mannie
>siphoning
>>off free power and water; we applaud his resourcefulness but really, he’s
>just
>>stealing.
>
>Well, it’s not *just* stealing, I think; it’s a bit more complicated than
>that, because he’s being forced to pay fixed Authority prices for
>necessities that he can’t get any other way, and to sell his goods to the
>Authority for whatever they decide to pay.
>
>>After the revolution I wonder if he carried on doing that?
>>
>>Jane
>>
>>
>
>My answer would be: of course not.
>
I don’t know. I know that I WOULD “steal” from the Authority under the circumstances that we encounter in the first part of the book. I don’t know what the circumstances would BE after the revoluition but I don’t imagine that they would justify continuing the practice. What the Prof would do is hard to say. I tend to think of him as doing what I would do but that is just speculation.
John’s comment that “He has painted his pre-revolutionaries as living in a kind of economic paradise — which will destroy them if it’s allowed to continue” is a perverse misunderstanding of what actually occurred. The “looseness” of that society, while attractive, was all internal. All their outside dealings, all the regulation that did exist, were the under the control of the Authority. What was going to destroy them was the policy of a “state” that was extremely authoritarian, when it chose to be so. The worst things he showed under their internal society, and it was clearly NOT a perfect society, were not going to destroy it. I guess if they were better organized they could have a standing army to resist the Authority but they were not able to BE that organized, even if they wanted to. They did not have sovereignty over themselves and the revolution, whatever the flaws of the society that followed it, gave them THAT.
—
Will, the one from New Haven
This hand will raise now.
There is no I to do this,
The cards themselves act.
BPRAL22169 wrote:
>snip. The third question is;
>
>( but the emotional result is that
>Heinlein effectively glorifies revolutions as fun for the whole family, whereas
>in reality they are anything but. Why?
>
I doubt Ludmilla’s death qualifies as fun for the whole family…..
One other point which maybe falls into question 2 as well, is the death of Marie Lyons; it sparked the revolution and was, in its own way, more of a catalyst than the threat of starvation. I wonder how it would have happened if she hadn’t died? The revolution wasn’t ready to go….yet her death did more to unify the attack than anything else could have done. That can’t be put down to Mike’s help or influence.
(Side note; we are told that her still warm body was discovered by a fellow worker who saw it and screamed and it “was her last scream”. Why? Was she killed too?)
Jane
I found a couple more Mannie mistakes; he had Jefferson freeing slaves; which prompted a wry comment from Prof about him trying to at least ( meaning the American populace I assume?) and he has the Boston Tea Party down as mythical. Hmm.
There’s also another of those glimpses of the future; Dr Chan, the Chinese politician with whom they negotiate gets assassinated eventually. I wonder why Heinlein gave him that fate?
Jane
Nuclear Waste wrote:
>
>OK, cobber, YOU pay for inspection. TANSTAAFL I will look in kitchen and
>check fryboy’s nails.
>
>Mannie
OK, I’ll make myself unpopular with the cook and look myself…though if it was a male cook he might not mind, given the attitude towards women in Moon.
Jane
A User wrote about the Whiskey Rebellion:
>This incident is what lead to Washington DC not
>being part of any state. Congress was determined
>to never again be in a position to have their defense
>in the hands of any single state government. As a
>direct result of the Whisky Rebellion DC residents
>are now placing license plates on their autos with
>the slogan “Taxation without Representation”
>printed on them.
I found out those plates existed when Clinton put one on the Presidential Limosine. I wish California would let me have that kind of opportunity to. Instead, I get opportunities like “Sesquicentennial year” Not the kind of thing that gets the blood moving.
Tian Harter
http://user.aol.com/tnharter
Time Magazine, 4/9/2001, page 39, bottom left corner,
in a list of things you can do to slow Global Warming:
4. Don’t Be Fuelish. (I had nothing to do with it. 🙂 )
Go To Postings
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rjjusu has entered the room.
ddavitt: Three questions on Moon
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ddavitt: :-(OK, then we will have to start
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SAcademy: He gave me a message–EBATNM
ddavitt: The questions were
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joelrmpls: Everybody Bring A Tank to New Mexico?
ddavitt: The details about the present day were kept in the background. Why?
ddavitt: Mike made it too easy. Was this cheating?
SAcademy: i DON’T HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT HE MESN. i’LL HAVE TO ASK HIM.
SAcademy: Sorry about the caps.
ddavitt: Revoultion was glorified as fun for the family. Why?
EBATNM has entered the room.
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DavidWrightSr: Bill asked me to invite EBATNM in.
EBATNM: Hi all, is this the Robert Heinlein discussion & Whiskey drinking society
ddavitt: Sort of….
ddavitt: change it to beverage of choice and I’ll say yes 🙂
EBATNM:Mike, Mycroft–>Mike. Not much difference IMO
rjjusu: His smarter brother…
SCIFIMUSIC: Great name for this charactor too!
ddavitt: The initials of Mike’s computer were HOLMES Four
DavidWrightSr: rjjusu: what was your disagreement?
geeairmoe2: The thing that struck me most from the first reading in my impressionable youth was how few really active and dedicated actors were needed to launch a revolution. Doesn’t seem so unusual.
rjjusu: With the idea that there is too much redundancy in today’s world to do the kind of thing that Mike was doing on the moon. The US has more vulnerabilities in its infrastructure than I like to think about.
DavidWrightSr: Good think it wasn’t a ‘Wideband-Holographic-Optical-Redundant-Extraordinary’ computer 🙂
ddavitt: That’s wicked:-)
rjjusu: Yeah, that model could really put out!
joelrmpls: It was a much more likely model in those days to keep hanging more and more stuff off a large mainframe.
rjjusu: Yes, computers back then got bigger and bigger, not decentralized.
DavidWrightSr: Yeah. Interesting what RAH would have done with the distributed model that has actually evolved
joelrmpls: I knew a fair amount about computers when I first read Moon, and found that entirely credible — that sort of thing was exactly what everybody was doing.
SCIFIMUSIC: Who knows, the Gov may have something like Mike now…
von krag: VLSI hadn’t really started to show it’s promise I guess
SageMerlin has entered the room.
joelrmpls: The futuristic model was everybody having a time-sharing terminal.
ddavitt: I mentioned on afh that the death of Marie was crucial; that gave the revolution popular appeal and speeded it up but it was unforeseen. Without it? Who knows?
DavidWrightSr: VLSI wasn’t even talked about in my experience until late 1969 or so
ddavitt: Hi Alan
joelrmpls: The idea of powerful processors being cheap enough that that wouldn’t make sense wasn’t anywhere on the horizon.
SageMerlin: Good evening crew. Sorry I’m late.
ddavitt: Mike couldn’t have forecast that…
EBATNM: The first computer I programmed was an IBM THAT ACTUALLY FIT ON A DESK! (Zounds & Gadzooks!)
ddavitt: Tho the ‘teasing’ of the dragoons, stranded and exiles made it a likely event
EBATNM: and you only had to stroke the boiler once a day!
von krag: lol, I used a IBM 360/30 🙂
DavidWrightSr: But I suspect that in the tense situation that was being built up, *something* was bound to happen and he could predict that
joelrmpls: And the teasing of the dragoons nicely parallels the sort of stuff that built up to the Boston Massacre.
ddavitt: It’s a good point in H’s favour that it was a truly shocking event, over and above our normal reaction to a rape and murder
DavidWrightSr: Did we have ‘indian maidens’?
EBATNM: he used the overtones of the American revolution quite successfully (IMHO)
SCIFIMUSIC: agree
ddavitt: here it’s sadly commonplace. On the moon, where Stu nearly died for a friendly kiss, it’s so much worse
joelrmpls: Well, he did set up a believable society based on people having to behave themselves. Which does seem to parallel a lot of situations on the frontier.
ddavitt: Well, I still have trouble with it
DavidWrightSr: What sort of trouble, Jane?
rjjusu: Yes, friction causes more than fire, it causes death when people depend on each other to live.
joelrmpls: You really do have to get along with your neighbors, and it is always very stressful for a visitor to even innocently violate a local custom.
von krag: It strikes me a bit odd that the production of arms was so limited, w/a small shop, raw materials and some good chem/eng weapons are very easy to make
ddavitt: Women in short supply so they end up in control?
joelrmpls: You don’t, for example, tug on your earlobe in an Italian cafe.
ddavitt: Hmm…
EBATNM: the western frontier was actually peacefull, mostly it was Civil War Vet’s that went west. If you lived through Shiloh a couple of morons with pistols didn’t seem all that much of an opposition
ddavitt: More likely they’d end up slaves
DavidWrightSr: What do you mean. Women *not* in short supply end up in control 🙂
ddavitt: I’ll remember that the next time i’m in venice 🙂
rjjusu: Women are in control. They just let us think we are, cuz they’re nicer….
ddavitt: Hey, just because we’re out numbered tonight ( as always) don’t think you can pick on us!:-)
DavidWrightSr: No way would they be slaves, there were too many other men around who would be willing to liberate them. I think RAH had it right on this one
DavidWrightSr: Picking? No. Complimenting. !
ddavitt: But on Venus in Logic it was the same situation but different outcome
joelrmpls: I think it could go either way.
SCIFIMUSIC: men have it much easier today…
joelrmpls: Just as I found both Lord of the Flies and Tunnel in the Sky credible.
ddavitt: true.
von krag: good point
ddavitt: OK, but going back to marie, was she a real catalyst?
rjjusu: I agree Joel, many things in life exist on the cusp, and the immediate circumstances seem to dictate what eventually happens….
joelrmpls: More like a flashpoint, I think.
joelrmpls: Which happens for any kind of mob action, good or bad.
ddavitt: And what did happen to her friend who found her and screamed?
joelrmpls: Look up the hep riots, for example.
DavidWrightSr: ?
ddavitt: They snowball I suppose, yes.
von krag: yep it was a very hypergolic sit at point in time, she was the twig that broke the camels back
ddavitt: It says, found her and screamed. Was her last scream.
ddavitt: Why?
EBATNM: implication is that she was also killed
joelrmpls: Because the rapists, presumably, didn’t want any witnesses.
DavidWrightSr: Maybe the goons killed her too?
ddavitt: Were the murderers still there and killed her too?
ddavitt: Not clear..always puzzled me
joelrmpls: That’s the clear implication.
ddavitt: So how did people find out about it being six of them?
joelrmpls: Good question.
ddavitt: Obvious it wasn’t loonies who did it of course
EBATNM: so in the same book we are shown both possibilities
von krag: it’s hard to hide in a tunnel I think
rjjusu: One of the rules of the writer – leave it up to the reader to put their own interpretation on the event, within the bounds of the story….
ddavitt: Well..minor point
rjjusu: Keeps ’em coming back for more.
joelrmpls: The retcon answer is that six goons were seen fleeing from that tunnel. (It’s not in the book, mind, but it works.)
DavidWrightSr: And RAH was the master of that technique.
von krag: agreed
ddavitt: OK, that works for me.
joelrmpls: Yup. He often doesn’t let you know who the real hero of the story is. It takes quite awhile in Star Beast to figure out who it is.
ddavitt: Joel, you said something on afh about a plot hole with the probablities going down not up
joelrmpls: Sure.
ddavitt: care to expand on that?
von krag: RAH was sparse w/his sceen setup, he gave just enough to let the reader do most of the work
ddavitt: I see it as being OK, because the risks got greater in the middle
ddavitt: more people knew about it; greater chance of leaks
joelrmpls: As the revolution keeps proceeding, as planned, the odds must be getting better.
ddavitt: I see what you mean but I still think they can get worse and still be on track
joelrmpls: If it takes n steps to get to the end, and we’ve already gotten to step n-m, it can’t be getting less likely.
ddavitt: But it isn’t linear
ddavitt: a backward step can be more productive
ddavitt: See for example when they scaled down the taunting
joelrmpls: No, it isn’t, but I think it amounts to the same thing — if the plan is working, then success is by definition more probable, rather than less.
DavidWrightSr: No. the odds at any given point are not dependant on what has gone before. only on the possible outcomes which are available at that point.
ddavitt: Because the Warden was going to crack down too hard too fast
ddavitt: Each step they took changed things.
rjjusu: But that assumes that all remaining probabilities are favorable ones, and there can be many more favorable outcomes then unfavorable outcomes, and the overall outcome potentially unfavorable because it is more heavily weighted in its effects…
ddavitt: Extras, like marie and Stu, unforseen evets must have had a big impact
joelrmpls: True. And I think it’s a stretch to say that each successful step made success less likely.
von krag: the warden just wanted the grian to ship, he didn’t care if loonies killed each other
DavidWrightSr: If you throw 10 heads in a row, what are the odds of doing it again.
rjjusu: 1/2
ddavitt: 50/50
DavidWrightSr: Precisely,
ddavitt: unless yo want the ofdds for 11 heads in a rwo of course
geeairmoe2: As long as your opponent isn’t aware of what you’re trying to accomplish, you’re ahead, even when something totally unforeseen happens because you’ve got a goal you opponent is unaware of.
ddavitt: Fingers slipping badly there:-)
rjjusu: rented fingers?
ddavitt: Feels that way..and I’m on ginger ale not G and T
geeairmoe2: You can “urge” your opponent to take a position that benefiots you.
ddavitt: True Will
SCIFIMUSIC: good point geeairmoe
joelrmpls: True. Neat discussion of that in some of the fencing stuff in Scaramouche, btw.
ddavitt: It’s so sad that they treated the moon that way
SAcademy has left the room.
ddavitt: That always kills me; they use it as a dumping ground and illtreat people.
rjjusu: so australian …..
DavidWrightSr: Same thing happened here in Jawjuh 🙂
joelrmpls: Hope it wasn’t something I said. 🙂
ddavitt: Not the way it should have happened
ddavitt: people get booted Joel
ddavitt: Usually pop back in again
joelrmpls: Give me five minutes with whoever booted Ginny, and they won’t do it again. 🙂
ddavitt: Well yes but it’s such a damn waste
ddavitt: Very gallant!
SageMerlin: Imposition of manners is never a damn waste
ddavitt: They could get there, they could live there in comfort, but they wasted it
joelrmpls: But colonial powers don’t, generally, go to all that trouble for the benefit of the colonized. When they do goo — and they often do — it’s a byproduct.
ddavitt: earth I mean
joelrmpls: good, that is, not goo.
ddavitt: They could have done all the thinbgs with it that Prof and mannie touted in their trip to earth
joelrmpls: Sure — but that would have required a huge investment.
ddavitt: Tourism, health benefits, massive living space and food production
joelrmpls: How much investment are the voters in your state willing to make to make prisons more humane and productive?
ddavitt: Most of it had already been invested tho if there were 3 million people there
SageMerlin: Sorry folks, but I can’t keep my head up. I will drop in saturday if I can
ddavitt: OK, night Alan
rjjusu: People that aren’t pionees/frontiersmen and women want benefits in the short run.
ddavitt: Not that many prisoners Joel
EBATNM: I just tried to get Bill in, but IM still thinks he can’t chat
von krag: the tech in Moon is real close to our present day, except for hot fusion we have it all I think
SageMerlin has left the room.
ddavitt: Most were either born free or had served their time
joelrmpls: We don’t have anything near as cheap ground-to-orbit.
joelrmpls: And cost is part of the tech.
ddavitt: We have 75 years to go
von krag: ummm x-30 I think
rjjusu: Yes, we still need a 100/1 reduction in current costs for putting things in a near-earth orbit.
joelrmpls: And getting to LEO is halfway to anywhere, at least in terms of energy.
rjjusu: Yep
von krag: or DC-X might do it also
ddavitt: A catapult throwing rocks seems so low tech…but I know it’s more complex than that…
rjjusu: I watched the DC-X burn up a mile from where I was working – it is still a ways away from getting us what we need.
joelrmpls: Me, I like the idea of some sort of Botany Bay for incorrigables.
SCIFIMUSIC: How much of a cost reduction to get to the moon again?
ddavitt: Really? Like Coventry?
rjjusu: If we want to go to the moon now, a LOT of things will have to be redone from scratch. We’ve lost capability that we used to have.
SAcademy has entered the room.
SCIFIMUSIC: i noticed that
joelrmpls: Welcome back, Ginny.
ddavitt: OK, we’ve been chatting for an hour; shall we break for a few minutes?
joelrmpls: Well, I need to. Got to go feed the dog.
joelrmpls: Back shortly.
EBATNM: I need to get a beer
SAcademy: Thank you. Message for Jane. Bill can’t get his laptop working on this tonight, so will Jane please stand by to sub for him on Saturday?
rjjusu: Feed the dog an incorrigable ….
SCIFIMUSIC: I need to put my son to bed
ddavitt: OK, I make it 10.09, back at 1017 is 🙂
ddavitt: OK, will do
ddavitt: Thanks Ginny
von krag: could the present day US gov postion on access to space & tech (it want’s it under it’s thumb) lead to a Moon in RL?
DavidWrightSr: BRB
SAcademy: In case he can’t get the proper connections?
SAcademy: Thank you, Jane. I’ll tell him.
SAcademy has left the room.
von krag: Hi Mrs. Heinlein, I last talked to you in 76 at KC worldcon
von krag: opps 🙁
ddavitt: Yes, I can do Saturday I think. We have visitors from Ottawa at some point but shouldbe OK
rjjusu: I think we currently don’t have the motivation to go back to the moon, because those in charge can’t see far enough ahead to realize the need and the benefits.
ddavitt: Ginny may be back; occupational hazard of these chats
rjjusu: Not us we, them we…..
EBATNM: Is Mr. Gifford on the chat?
ddavitt: Not tonight; Jim doesn’t attend usually
geeairmoe2: He would show up as NitroPress.
ddavitt: He popped in last time to say hi to Joel
EBATNM: rats, I’m supposed to send him some page cites & I need his email, oh well, Bill will have it
ddavitt: He prefers the post format to chat; lots of people do
SCIFIMUSIC: That’s the whole problem, near-sightedness!
von krag: rjjusu: we have a gov that hates and fears tech in the hands of the un-elite IMO
ddavitt: It’s on his web page
AGplusone has entered the room.
ddavitt: Hi David
AGplusone: Good evening, Jane, everyone one …
EBATNM: greetings, Sir
AGplusone: echoes ….
rjjusu: EBATNM – the email address is
von krag: BTW, I’m Anthony von Krag, a friend of Joel’s and happy to meet y’all
ddavitt: Ditto
AGplusone: pleasure ,,,
rjjusu: Hi Dave!
ddavitt: Nice to see some new faces..and always a pleasure to see the old ones too 🙂
ddavitt: We’re on a break david
ddavitt: Bill can’t make it due to laptop problems
rjjusu: von krag – not so much that they feat tech in the hands of the non-elite. More of a concern that they can’t “control” the way it is used.
SCIFIMUSIC: So true
von krag: other side of the cion?
von krag: coin
AGplusone: Hi, Randy, Will, “Ron” resting, who’s scfimusic, James … anyone ask Jani what she’s doin?
rjjusu: I’ve got to get some chocolate milk – my endorphins are dropping off and my fingers are going with them….
ddavitt: Had an email from jani in the week about the essay comp
AGplusone: Chocolate milk is good …
EBATNM: Rjjusu: thank you
rjjusu: Yes, it comes from contented chocolate cows ……
von krag: I se the the reaction of the Navy to salvage of WW2 planes is all about control rjjusu
joelrmpls: In other strange news, everybody hear about the new source of stem cells?
ddavitt: No, what are they?
joelrmpls: Fat from liposuction.
rjjusu: Yep, that’s why I’m heading to the fridge for some chocolate milk…
SCIFIMUSIC: yes, amazing
EBATNM: The politico’s I have dealt with on technical matters didn’t know a byte from a microscope
von krag: wow!
ddavitt: That is such a gross thing to do…
joelrmpls: Yup. “Excuse me, can I have another order of fries? It’s for science.”
von krag: lol
EBATNM:
rjjusu: I’m a humanitarian – that’s why I overeat!
ddavitt: That name sounds familiar.
geeairmoe2: Wondered what those who want a “fat tax” on junk food thought about it.
ddavitt: Do uo post on afh?
von krag: me?
ddavitt: Andy.
von krag: K 🙂
ddavitt: But you can answer too 🙂
EBATNM: not recently, my machine has decided that “news” doesn’t exist, I’ve written for the Heinlein Journal
ddavitt: Ah, that may be it.
EBATNM: and have posted pre “update”
ddavitt: I have too
von krag: ddavitt: I read it but I mostly post to RASFW
ddavitt: That has so many posts i can’t keep up
ddavitt: plus they’re scary:-)
EBATNM: I’m also working on a book with Bill, actually he is doing most of the work & I like it better that way
ddavitt: cunning!
geeairmoe2: RASFW is . . .?
ddavitt: rec arts sf written
rjjusu: Scary? I’ve been away from the newsgroups since moving from NM to UT. What’s up there these days?
geeairmoe2: Couldn’t figure out the “w”.
von krag: I post to a few threads that interest me ddavitt
ddavitt: Well, they all seem to know a lot
ddavitt: i have posted there but not often
joelrmpls: I think you’d find some of it congenial, Jane, and some of it idiotic.
ddavitt: afh is smaller, cosier, less threatening:-):-)
ddavitt: I read it sometimes but i just can’t cope with the volume
AGplusone: That’s my problem, the few times I’ve drifted over there I realize the number of authors I’ve never heard of … used to be simple: Heinlein, Clarke, Azimov, Kornbluth, … a few others, one shelf in the dingy corner of the public library right under westerns.
rjjusu: but still very interesting..
DavidWrightSr: Agreed, (except for the occasional idiot)
ddavitt: Well, we have those too.
EBATNM: that’s why its called Useless Net
ddavitt: OK, break over, back to the salt mines, er ice mines
joelrmpls: Sure. OTOH, there’s quite a few folks I enjoy talking with who don’t post to afh.
von krag: the last thread I posted to was on gnu/sword control and it’s real hard to breack through the myths surounding that topic
rjjusu: even the idiots provide a certain level of entertainment. You never know when you’ll be exposed to an entirely new type of idiocy….
joelrmpls: Gun control, abortion, and Heinlein seem to be three subjects that will take over a newsgroup.
DavidWrightSr: You kill gnus with swords? wow
ddavitt: Yes, i can tell I’m not a newbie; i smile rather than snarl
rjjusu: that’s gnus!
joelrmpls: In the case of rec.guns, alt.abortion, and afh, that’s not necessarily a problem.
ddavitt: Usually.
EBATNM: Heinlein …. you mean that facist author who hates women?
von krag: and loves incest also
AGplusone: anti-semite this week!
ddavitt: Anti semitic, fascist womean hater, please
joelrmpls: Yeah. My mind boggled at that one.
ddavitt: Sheesh….
ddavitt: And the idiocy of the rg people
joelrmpls: rg?
von krag: rec guns
ddavitt: The reading group whho wouldn’t do ST
joelrmpls: Ah.
AGplusone: the lady’s live reading group up in Seattle
EBATNM: does Clayton Cramer still post to rec guns?
ddavitt: Because someone THOIUGHT it was anti semitic, or H was
ddavitt: Intellectaul laziness at its worst
ddavitt: Hmm, I’m snarling again..
rjjusu: you’re allowed.
AGplusone: She was a curious reader seeking guidence: my friends won’t reading Starship Troopers because they hear he’s anti-semite
DavidWrightSr: I wonder, Can they actually read? or do they have a designated reader for them?
von krag: wow! that’s a stretch by any deffinnition
geeairmoe2: For some, stealing another’s opinion is easier than forming their own.
ddavitt: Never mind, if it wasn’t a troll, the person has been well and truly set straight
joelrmpls: Reminds me of McCarthy. “You say he’s an anticommunist? I don’t care what kind of communist he is, I want him fired.”
ddavitt: i notice no come back from the original poster so it may not have been genuine
von krag: swordfish is my answer to that Joel 🙂
joelrmpls: It didn’t feel like a troll to me, but I’m not particularly good about that.
AGplusone: Besides Jim, anyone have the old classic Back Home cartoons from 1947 et seq by Bill Mauldin?
AGplusone: during the Red Scare they were wild!
joelrmpls: And speaking of not good, I do need to get going. Later, all. Good talking with you.
ddavitt: Going back to ice mining; was that Heinlein being prophetic?
von krag: cya Joel
ddavitt: Night Joel, glad you could make it
joelrmpls has left the room.
AGplusone: bye, Joel
DavidWrightSr: Faster than a speeding bullet!
ddavitt: Did we know there was ice there then? ISTR that was a recent discovery?
rjjusu: Not prophetic, practical with a vision, but maybe they are the same.
geeairmoe2: Exit like a cat, go and don’t look back.
ddavitt: We’re like cats; never say goodbye; remember? In Tunnel?
ddavitt: GMTA
SCIFIMUSIC: It seems he’s prophetic in many of his writings (at least the few I’ve read)
von krag: I think even back then the odds were in favor of ice being on the moon … just from bombardment by astroiods
ddavitt: I have troiuble envisaging it; wouldn’t the mining melt it?
EBATNM: ice on the moon was a possibility, but they didn’t know for sure until recently
ddavitt: i have visions of Snow White type mines with people and picks and glittering ice..
EBATNM: what the heck does GMTA mean?
von krag: high probilty IMO
AGplusone: Are we certain moon never had an atmosphere?
ddavitt: great minds
geeairmoe2: Great Minds Think Alike
EBATNM: Thank U
ddavitt: happens a lot that 2 people post same thought
rjjusu: synchronicity
ddavitt: cos we’re all on the same wavelength:-)
geeairmoe2: First time I saw it I thought it had to do with time zones.
ddavitt: Funny!
rjjusu: and going in and out of phase….
von krag: I puzzel ppl w/this one “DK?”
AGplusone: Greenwich Mean Time Almost?
ddavitt: don’t know maybe?
DavidWrightSr: reminds me of my interpretation of ‘tanstaafl’
von krag: correct :-)\
ddavitt: I can see why that puzzled you Dave
ddavitt: I was the same
ddavitt: But wouldn’t the ice supply be finite?
DavidWrightSr: Bet it didn’t take you 25 years to figure it out 🙂
ddavitt: Well…
rjjusu: finite but large
ddavitt: I can’t remember
DavidWrightSr: That was explicitly mentioned that ice was getting harder to find
von krag: but w/hot fussion bringing in ice from the belt w/be trivial I think
ddavitt: For the purpsoes of the story tho it has to be accessible close to where they live
AGplusone: Where would Ice be, geologically?
ddavitt: near the poles?
von krag: under the regolith almost any where
ddavitt: I don’t really know..
ddavitt: why isn’t any of it salt?
ddavitt: water
ddavitt: or wouldn’t that matter?
AGplusone: would it matter?
von krag: but we think it’s mostly concentrated at the poles
ddavitt: the settlemets aren’t
SCIFIMUSIC: they sure used it wisely
rjjusu: where it could be protected from sublimation and abrasion via particles from solar wind.
ddavitt: they are on the side facingEarth
ddavitt: they recycled well
SCIFIMUSIC: agreed
ddavitt: had to; closed system and they punched a hole in it by exporting wheat
SCIFIMUSIC: i was amazed at RAH’s vision
ddavitt: with regard to what detail?
ddavitt: the famine and overcrowding on earth?
von krag: I need to run, I have to get the final prep ready for minicon, nice to meet y’all and cya soon
ddavitt: The world government ( sort of)
EBATNM: bye
ddavitt: Thanks for coming!
von krag has left the room.
SCIFIMUSIC: Gotta go…it’s been great talking with everyone!
rjjusu: cya
EBATNM: the world was continually on the tippy verge of starvation until that last century, now with the Green Revolution and the advances in medical science there are more people on the edge of stavation (except for the 1st World)
ddavitt: Glad you could come
rjjusu: isn’t progress wonderful!
EBATNM: bye
AGplusone: He had farmers in the dust bowl trying to make a crop on one rain per year … plowing it in right away … is there an analogy — closed cycle there?
ddavitt: Could be..
geeairmoe2: I don’t recall, how extensive were non-Earth, non-lunar settlements in “Moon”?
SCIFIMUSIC has left the room.
ddavitt: I found it hard to see sending wheat to India from the Moon
AGplusone: The farmer who makes the first crop on the first ice strike … but thereafter gets deeper and deeper in debt
ddavitt: Seems so not cost effective
EBATNM: None mentioned until then end when Manny says he is off to the Asteroid belt
ddavitt: H often mentions that bit about sending laundry to hawaii
DavidWrightSr: IT was very cost effective for the Earth, but not to the moon
ddavitt: Ti=o illustrate that point but still, if the lunar wheat was so vital, why not invest in making it easier to grow?
DavidWrightSr: Remember Earth was downhill.
ddavitt: They kept upping the quotas as if that could make wheat appear by magic
DavidWrightSr: Bureaucrats are like that
rjjusu: but that’s the point, you DON’T want to invest, if you are from earth. Just consume.
AGplusone: Soviet economy?
ddavitt: They were very stupid
EBATNM: I wonder if the wheat bit wasn’t a parallel to the Cotton-growing South and England’s dependence on it
ddavitt: Might be. i’ve read King Cotton
rjjusu: Stupidity – Largest commodity in the universe
ddavitt: Oh yes….
ddavitt: Our mill workers starved
EBATNM: gee, all those numbers! Why not just make pi = 3 and be done with it?
ddavitt: eggs in one basket problem
DavidWrightSr: I was joking before about Georgia, but there could be a lot of parallels. I’ve never thought of that
ddavitt: India would have starved too if the wheat supply had ended permanantly
ddavitt: It was a small amount overall…but made a crucial difference
ddavitt: Notice how an 1800 calories diet was supposed to be in force globally?
DavidWrightSr: instead of 3.14159265358979323846264338327……..[See Editor’s Note below]
ddavitt: Do you know that by heart dave? I’m impressed!
TAWN3 has entered the room.
ddavitt: Earth was in trouble.
ddavitt: Hi Tawn
TAWN3: Hi all
rjjusu: Actually, getting back to an earlier comment, a lot of the US’s big cities are probably only 3-5 days away from chaos under the right circumstances
DavidWrightSr: I memorized that from Starman Jones 48 years ago. Some things you never forget
[editor’s note: *almost* never forget. my original quote was off in the last 6 decimal places. Corrected here to show that it was my mistake, not Heinlein’s]
EBATNM: greetings
geeairmoe2: Cornbread are square, pie are round. Someone in Georgia ought to know that.
ddavitt: H made that point in farmer about california I think it was
AGplusone: Imagine a milk strike …
EBATNM: most major cities only have a 3-5 days supply of food
ddavitt: One earthquake and it would all go back to desert
ddavitt: Not a natural place to settle; no water
EBATNM: LA has a 4 hour water supply, if the pipelines from NoCal broke
rjjusu: yes, given a winter scenario with a major snowstorm and trucks shutting down, a lot of people would be in a world of hurt.
ddavitt: There is no real safe place
DavidWrightSr: ‘A good environment is whatever we are used to’
AGplusone: Depends on where they broke, Andi … lots of miles of “pipe” …
EBATNM: Come to Capitan, N.M We have water, sun, cows, and one-half of a dead bear
ddavitt: Which is why H always said we need to spread out and get some humans off planet
EBATNM: the Smithsonian has the other (inner) half
rjjusu: And as I said before, I’ve looked at the situation professionally, and a LOT of our distributional infrastructure has real choke points in it.
ddavitt: Lucky them
EBATNM: Smoky Bear, buried in the main intersection of town
ddavitt: i am going to have to go soon; anyone want to take over?
ddavitt: You’re logging Dave?
DavidWrightSr: I’ve got it
ddavitt: Do you need a back up?
ddavitt: OK
rjjusu: I can back up, I got here pretty early.
DavidWrightSr: No problem, I’ve got it from word one when Joel and I were here alone.
ddavitt: So, anyone want to bring up anything not discussed yet?
siannon prime has entered the room.
ddavitt: I want to leave you all arguing away:-)
AGplusone: Hi, Jani
TAWN3: Hi Jani
ddavitt: Darn it jani, I’m just going!!
DavidWrightSr: Did anyone ever respond to my question as to why libertarians consider this to be som sort of a bible?
rjjusu: Why, it’s the the motherly mistress of mayhem! Hi. Jani!
ddavitt: What time is it for you? You should be asleep:-)
siannon prime: Hi all 🙂
ddavitt: it’s 3.35 am1!!
siannon prime: I’m working … so I shant be doing much besides lurking here 🙁
AGplusone: rjjusu = Randy Jost
ddavitt: Good point dave; anyone want to tackle that?
siannon prime: Hey Randy, long time no see!
rjjusu: You know it. I’ve missed all the people here, but been buried until recently.
ddavitt: maybe it’s because Prof wanted to be a libertarian ?
ddavitt: His ideals were in tune with theirs even if it didn’t turn out that way
AGplusone: [I did the same thing you’re doing last night, Jani, stayed awake all night … just finished a catch up nap]
ddavitt: Look at the bit where he lectures the congress on how not to do things
geeairmoe2: Wasn’t the Prof a political exile?
EBATNM: yes
ddavitt: They want to divide moon up geographically into voting areas for example
ddavitt: He says, do it by age, by job, anything but the irrelevant bit of where they live
ddavitt: He was a bomb throwing revolutionary
ddavitt: AG has dark suspicions of him as I recall
AGplusone: medieval towns voted by craft, or job, in their local government
DavidWrightSr: It would seem to me that the events in Moon show the exact reverse of what libertarians want.
AGplusone: nothing new about that
ddavitt: It shows them that it will take a lot to shift people from the familiar to the new
rjjusu: I’m not sure why one would call this a libertarian bible. It has some ideas that are common sense, and some t
ddavitt: But the fact that the heroes want a lib set up must make it popular
rjjusu: that are sound good but probably aren’t practical.
AGplusone: I think Prof was a professional agent provocateur (sp?) and merely said things to shake up the pot like … someone I’m trying to think of
ddavitt: But the irony is, as you say dave, that what they had under the warden was more libertarian that after the revolution.
EBATNM: I saw a book inscribed “To Professor La Paz” at the home of Robert LeFevre. LeFevre was a Libertarian VIP during the 50’s – 70’s
AGplusone: wazisname, an old dead writer …
EBATNM: It was MIAHM
ddavitt: Asimov maybe?
DavidWrightSr: Nah, some kind of Germzn name
DavidWrightSr: German
AGplusone: naw, was recently accused of being an anti-semite
ddavitt: Hmm..I know! Clarke!
ddavitt: Am i getting close?
AGplusone: no one, in real life, could believe all the things La Paz believed in ….
Heinleinsmof has entered the room.
ddavitt: Ok, well, I’m really going now. Thanks for chatting and enjoy the rest of it:-)
Heinleinsmof: I see — I show up and you take off
ddavitt: Sorry; not linked
EBATNM: At the time, speaking of one who was around them circles, ANYTHING or ANYONE that could be grabbed as “going our way” was hailed as “One of Us”
AGplusone: That’s a great name … trying to figure out what “smof” means.
ddavitt: It’s 11.00 pm and i have a new baby
siannon prime: bye Jane
Heinleinsmof: Secret Masters of Fandom
EBATNM: secret masters of fandom
ddavitt: Night jani, catch you on AIM soon!
Heinleinsmof: AIM wouldn
EBATNM: bye
ddavitt has left the room.
AGplusone: give the baby a sip of brandy, Jane …
Heinleinsmof: t let me have my regular name because it was already taken
AGplusone: I see … I think
DavidWrightSr: What is your regular name, if I may be so bold?
EBATNM: ah, fanac, those were the day
EBATNM: er, days
Heinleinsmof: bpral22169
siannon prime: Oh hi Bill 🙂
DavidWrightSr: Well, I’ll be damned
AGplusone: I saw … I thought aright
Heinleinsmof: undoubtedly!
TAWN3: It wouldn’t let you use your name Bill?
Heinleinsmof: Hi David, Jani — it was a tortuous process
Heinleinsmof: No, it was taken — by my prior installation.
TAWN3: ah
DavidWrightSr: And the amazing thing was that we were having a play on Heinlein’s name the seconds before you showed up.
geeairmoe2: I had the same problem, hence geeairmoe2
AGplusone: system corrupted …
Heinleinsmof: My goodness
Heinleinsmof: There are no coincidences!
DavidWrightSr: Wait’ll you see the log
AGplusone: I once registered AGplus1 which was then forever lost
Heinleinsmof: *sigh* I miss allt he good stuff
AGplusone: and when I came back after the thirty day trial, had to register somethin’ else
DavidWrightSr: Jane had to leave a minute ago, leaving us leaderless also. And then there you are!
Heinleinsmof: All things work out for the good of the Heinleiners.
AGplusone: And we were asking, “How come the Libertarians think MIAHM is RAH’s declaration that he’s a Libertarian?”
Heinleinsmof: Are we substantially done?
Heinleinsmof: Ah. I have been asking myself that.
geeairmoe2: Waiting for someone to toss in a lit firecracker.
Heinleinsmof: (And I are one)
rjjusu: let’s put some gasoline down first…..
AGplusone: Not now, that we’ve got one to put in a barrel and wait for coherent sound to issue from the bunghole.
Heinleinsmof: I think it’s because the portrait of lunar society before the revolution is the best imaging of what it might be like that exists
EBATNM: they lacked economic freedom but had plenty of social freedom
rjjusu: But was it real or an illusion that the Warden let the people have?
AGplusone: Like under King Rat, by Clavell?
Heinleinsmof: Libtertarians have a whole host of problems with imaging their philosophy
Heinleinsmof: Mu, rijjusu
TAWN3: It was real
rjjusu: Mu? no, that island sank
EBATNM: the Sense-of-Life matched with what we thought (or some of us) thought life *could* be like except for the #$*! State
Heinleinsmof: Heinlein’s imaging of lunar society is like 19th century socialism: home family economics.
Heinleinsmof: Yes — sense of life.
AGplusone: all those happy cottage industries … making one pin at a time
TAWN3: Was life under the warden like life under Rome? do what Caesar saysand we’ll let you govern yourself? Just a thought.
AGplusone: And pay your taxes when the tax farmer comes by
DavidWrightSr: Life under the warden was, sell us the grain and we don’t give a hoot what else you do.
TAWN3: When there is a crime, you don’t call the warden,you pick a judge on the spot, etc.
AGplusone: Or send a telegram for Wyatt
AGplusone: … and Judge Parker
TAWN3: Exactly David.
Heinleinsmof: I always thought it was modeled on Hong Kong
EBATNM: the book doesn’t really describe, except in passing, the economic oppression – but spends a great deal of time explicating the social system
rjjusu: Or Judge Roy Bean
EBATNM: What about Botany Bay shipping all those sheep to England?
TAWN3: The main example isn’t it?
AGplusone: Yeah, ifn’ you have old Roy sitting on the porch of his bar feeding his bear
TAWN3: Australia.
DavidWrightSr: Or Georgia?
AGplusone: I still think the Prof is the Bear in Kipling’s poem, don’t let it get too close
EBATNM: any economic colony is set-up for economic domination, as long as the $ roll in who cares what they do?
Heinleinsmof: That’s more true of colonial systems since the mercantile system was invented.
AGplusone: … bites your face off.
geeairmoe2: The earth didn’t care what was going on until the goodies stopped.
rjjusu: Well, it’s clear that the founders of the moon colony didn’t start it as a social experiment. Rather, a way to deal with at situation in a fashion that they had seen before, and yet didn’t understand even with precident in front of them.
AGplusone: Neither did the Emporer …
EBATNM: It was a prison colony
Heinleinsmof: If you think about it, it’s wildly unlikely political prisoners would be shipped to the moon. The scale of distance and cost is so much greater than Botany Bay
TAWN3: Like Australia.
rjjusu: There you go with that logic stuff again, Bill
EBATNM: true, Tawn, like Australia
AGplusone: Come to think on it, neither did the Kings of England start the American colonies … so long as the charters paid revenues
Heinleinsmof: Though, if you use the scaling paradigm Heinlein invented for FITS, Botany Bay was farther in travel time than the moon is.
EBATNM: the Virginia Bay Colony started-off as a business venture
AGplusone: then, once they became crown colonies, paid taxes …
Heinleinsmof: I think most of the colonies started out as royal charters, didn’t they?
AGplusone: Most did
AGplusone: a few were spin-offs from established ones
EBATNM: The Pilgrims got lost & ended-up in Boston – I don’t know when they got their charter
AGplusone: Conneticuit, etc …
Heinleinsmof: And, ironically, the trouble with the colonies started when the chartered companies ceded the territories back to the crown.
DavidWrightSr: I am ashamed to say I don’t know my state history any better, but I do know that Georgia was used as a prison colony during part of the early days
AGplusone: The Massachusetts Bay Colony was a charter
DavidWrightSr: But I think you are right. Oglethorpe did have a charter, I believe. I’ll have to do some study on that
EBATNM: Was it granted under Cromwell or Charles II? I don’t really know
EBATNM: Maryland was a colony fer dem Papists
AGplusone: … but I’m not sure that wasn’t a grant after the original colonists made it a fait accompli
AGplusone: Lord Baltimore
DavidWrightSr: And I understood that Australia was used only after the NA colonies were no longer available.
EBATNM: Rhode Island was, of course, a religious split from Mass.
AGplusone: New York was a conquest of the existing Dutch, Swedish colonies
AGplusone: and thus a Crown colony
AGplusone: Penn was Lord Penn’s woods, a grant, or charter
EBATNM: Did the Brit’s ever send convicts to the Americas?
siannon prime: NY was Dutch then British, I think
siannon prime: I think we sent all ours to Oz
TAWN3: According to the book Molly ——— they did.
AGplusone: Georgia for certain, and a lot of emigrate or stay in gaols to most of the others
DavidWrightSr: Negative. As I said Georgia was used as penal colony.
geeairmoe2: I have among my ancestors someone who bought his Maryland land from Lord bacon.
TAWN3: Moll Flanders
Heinleinsmof: I vaguely recall somethign about a penal colony in – South Carolina?
AGplusone: Moll Flanders was an earlier example, to Virginia
TAWN3: right, I was going to say Virginia.
AGplusone: But the entire colony of Georgia was designed, at inception, to be a penal colony, like Oz, later
Heinleinsmof: That was it. Georgia
AGplusone: That’s what Dave was talking about, above, concerning Oglethorpe
AGplusone: His charter was to stock it with convicts
Heinleinsmof: I have the impression the Lunar Authority didn’t exercise a very invasive control — they just had one economic weapon: they set the price for grain at the rail head.
EBATNM: “Take your tired, your poor, yearning to breathe free — and ship ’em off to the ends of the earth”
DavidWrightSr: I agree Bill.
AGplusone: Except, I’m sure, the finks sold franchises originally
Heinleinsmof: All the other control stuff seems to have been at the interface of Authority with the Lunar society.
AGplusone: and we’re a couple generations down the road and no one is talking about how they happened to be in possession of certain things when this new generation first saw the light
DavidWrightSr: Explain Please
AGplusone: If I were a fink … with a bunch of unorganized convicts milling about …
Heinleinsmof: I have the impression the current prisoner population was a miniscule fraction of the total lunar population
AGplusone: I’d pick one, like King Rat, and start selling him contraband
AGplusone: for control
AGplusone: and let him become the founder of Hong Kong Bank
AGplusone: Two generations later, neither of us would be talking about how it really got started
DavidWrightSr: Bill, That was clear. Most of the population were no longer or had never been convicts.
AGplusone: Everyone read Clavell’s King Rat?
EBATNM: yes
AGplusone: Of Stalag 17?
TAWN3: No
Heinleinsmof: I imagine there was a certain amount of those — shall we say, “irregularities” — but they didn’t impinge on Heinlein’s story here.
AGplusone: No, because RAH picked it up after the nasty brutish beginnings
AGplusone: we just hear the legend that has been spun …
EBATNM: Manny came from the top of the Lunar heap; both socially and economically and we see everything from his POV
Heinleinsmof: He did take care to b uild in quite a number of parallels with the American revolution, though.
EBATNM: not so much in plot as in overtones
AGplusone: from Minnie, among others, about what they really want us (this generation) to believe
AGplusone: e.g., the “bride ship” …
EBATNM: and Mum as a “Peace Corp Enrollee”
Heinleinsmof: Part of the subtext of the whole revolution idea here is that people do things for people — Mike was people to Manny; Manny was people to Mike.
DavidWrightSr: Recall that Mum said that things had really been bad in the old days, iirc
rjjusu: One generation’s criminal enterprise is another generation’s family enterprise is another generations’s established position in society from which they become the arbiters of current fashion, and thus has it ever been.
AGplusone: (involuntary) … hehe
AGplusone: Exactly, as if Kidd had made it like Morgan
TAWN3: Kennedy’s
EBATNM: how does one “carve a man in suspious circumstances” anyway?
AGplusone: bunker scan
AGplusone: bunko
AGplusone: lifting his purse after he drifts off in exhaustion
Heinleinsmof: I don’t think the loonies would consider a bunko scam “suspicious”
EBATNM: Is Manny’s emphasise on family the first time this (continuing) motif is seen?
EBATNM: In Farnham’s all we see is a dysfunctional family
AGplusone: [King Rat was Clavell’s first big novel. About a Japanese POW camp in which a sergeant becomes Bill Gates, so to speak, despite RHIP, and really runs the prison, a libertarian system, sorta, Tawn]
Heinleinsmof: I had the impression it was Manny’s characterization — he was totally immersed in his family
AGplusone: [There’s a movie about it made in the 60s, you can probably rent]
Heinleinsmof: There are very tight non-family social groups in earlier stories.
TAWN3: Ah. Thank’s David. I have heard the term many times but had no frame of reference. And RHIP is what?
geeairmoe2: [A movie was made of King Rat starring George Segal]
Heinleinsmof: And then there are the Howard Families — a shaping milieu
DavidWrightSr: Hmm. that might make a good topic for a later discussion. Discuss Heinlein’s family styles.
AGplusone: yep, Will
DavidWrightSr: Rank Hath its Privileges
EBATNM: Yikes!
EBATNM: many and varied
TAWN3: Ah. Ok. Thanks
AGplusone: ‘family systems’ are pretty varied in a way
Heinleinsmof: I don’t think we’ve set the discussion topics for the next two — shall we have that as one of them?
AGplusone: only if we do Mader
Heinleinsmof: Friday would be good preparatory reading — it’s got the line marriage here plus the troika — the basic patterns of Luna recapitulated in a balkanized U.S.
Heinleinsmof: Citizen, yes — that would be good preparatory reading, too.
DavidWrightSr: Look at all of Lazurus’s families!
AGplusone: only example I can think of with a matriarchy (formal), the Mannie is de facto
Heinleinsmof: Plus the contract marriage of Beyond This HOrizon (a very Wellsian – Freethinking one)
DavidWrightSr: And all of the familys in the juvies!
Heinleinsmof: Lazarus Long’s family seems more like a clan to me.
AGplusone: or, close your ears Jani, a cl*sterf*ck
TAWN3: Matriarchy on the Sisu you mean David
AGplusone: er, I mean eyes
EBATNM: AG – I was thinking the exact same thing! LOL
Heinleinsmof: Well, I think they prob
rjjusu: Now there’s a good technical term from the military! 🙂
Heinleinsmof: ably included that in “polymorphous perverse.”
EBATNM: Charlie Fox
DavidWrightSr: Not just his Tertius family, but Dora, and all of the others through his life
geeairmoe2: Cluster flop, as the edited version of “Heartbreak Ridge” had it.
AGplusone: really? Never read Heartbreak Ridge
geeairmoe2: Clint Eastwood movie.
AGplusone: I know, saw it, didn’t read the book
Heinleinsmof: Come to think of it, organizations and structures usually come apart around Lazarus Long, don’t they?
geeairmoe2: On the now cable stations it became cluster flop.
geeairmoe2: non-cable stations.
AGplusone: Ah-ha, a true libertarian. Proof!
Heinleinsmof: how’s that?
AGplusone: 🙂
DavidWrightSr: I don’t think that’s fair Bill. Most structures and organizations have limited life spans. Lazarus just happened to out live them, (or they got bored with him)
EBATNM: “Things fall apart, the center can not hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”
AGplusone: If Laz is RAH, slowly drifting through time, and organizations come apart as you mentioned, then the movement is toward the libertarian pole
geeairmoe2: Lazarus seemed to have the attitude if it didn’t fit his own personal needs, it either needed changing, or he needed a change of scenary.
Heinleinsmof: Except for Dora, though, the groupings he is in tend to get very amorphous, no matter how they started out.
EBATNM: There’s a topic: LL
TAWN3: He stuck around until proof of identification became mandatory.
AGplusone: always packing up that there wagon and moving on to New Frontiers … small mouth variety of anarchist
geeairmoe2: You just couldn’t keep old Laz happy.
Heinleinsmof: frontiersman
Heinleinsmof: He was born under a wandering star
AGplusone: or adjusted sociopath?
rjjusu: The monkey climbing the tree to see a little farther
Heinleinsmof: Hard to make a case for sociopathy
DavidWrightSr: Counterexample: his wife in the tale of the twins dumped him.
AGplusone: so long as he’s out on the frontier, nobody puts him under close scrutiny
Heinleinsmof: Yes, with the implication it had happened before and no hu-hu
DavidWrightSr: In fact, I believe that he said that most of his wives got tired of him fairly quickly.
Heinleinsmof: Interesting comparison with Jubal: both know the conventions of Mrs. Grundyism — Jubal barricades himself in the Poconos; LL moves onward and outward.
AGplusone: odd, when he’s the voice we like him, but when someone else is the voice, Hilda, for example, we ain’t so sure
Heinleinsmof: No — I don’t like Hilda
EBATNM: He seems like a real pain-in-the-tucas
Heinleinsmof: She irritates me
AGplusone: I think the attraction between the two was mutual
rjjusu: What causes the irritation?
AGplusone: They had to become lovers or kill each other
Heinleinsmof: Hard to articulate: her personal style rubs me the wrong way
geeairmoe2: If I can’t play by my rules, I’m taking the ball to where I CAN play by my rules.
Heinleinsmof: She is more abrasive (IMO) than is necessary to achieve her ends.
EBATNM: LL always wants to dominate and sulks (or throws a tantrum) when he can’t
AGplusone: His style rubs Colin Campbell a leetle raw too
rjjusu: And rubbing you the right way would cause you to……?
AGplusone: manipulative SOB
geeairmoe2: My way … or someone (you or me) is hitting the highway.
AGplusone: cut his throat, figuratively or literally if need be …
Heinleinsmof: Yes — but he’s always been that way. You just take your own evasive maneuvers and do what you want to anyway.
EBATNM: but Hilda won’t let him get away with it
rjjusu: Was she the anti-mother figure?
AGplusone: because she’s just as manipulative herself
EBATNM: agree with that AG!
AGplusone: You don’t think she winds up Captain by mistake, do you?
Heinleinsmof: That may be it — she’s got to master him; compare the way LL sets up the circumstances to inveigle Campbell into doing what he wants.
geeairmoe2: People who REALLY know what they want tend to be impatient with people who wander between them and their goal.
Heinleinsmof: Th
rjjusu: No, it was to show that there are a variety of leadership styles, and what works in one situation may not in another.
Heinleinsmof: that’s fair — if you’re paying attention to what he’s doing you just take evasive action.
Heinleinsmof: Hilda has to boss. That’s her personal style.
AGplusone: On one level, I agree, Randy, but notice how she eliminates each of the others by encouraging, or goading them, to their weaknesses
EBATNM: but there is a way to get what you want without either stepping-on or manipulating people —
DavidWrightSr: But unless he was lying, he said that he always preferred people who didn’t knuckle under to him.
geeairmoe2: What did they used to say in the Army. There are three ways to do something: the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way.
AGplusone: until they have to step down … leaving at the end only one choice
Heinleinsmof: I’ve run into that quite a lot
AGplusone: He was mouthing a ‘bossism’ … a lie
EBATNM: the IS *gasp* such a thing as dealing from the top of the deck & honesty
Heinleinsmof: The only way to survive with Belli was to stand up for what you regarded as the right.
Heinleinsmof: And to hell with his opinion
Heinleinsmof: And I think that is the way of SElf Respect
Heinleinsmof: I do not regard this as a bad thing
AGplusone: manipulation can be as simple as letting the other guy self-destruct
Heinleinsmof: True — the very best kind, becuase they do all the work for you.
AGplusone: which Hilda did with Zeb, Deety and Jacob
EBATNM: yes, but they were in the classic “lifeboat” situation
Heinleinsmof: But I have also found that you can carefully tell people exactly what is going to happen if they continue on their course, and they will continue to do it anyway, then *bam*
AGplusone: simplified things, didn’t it
DavidWrightSr: Slava Bogu. I’m not as cynical as some people seem to be. It would lessen my enjoyment of Heinlein immensely.
rjjusu: Maybe that is why Heinlein referred to Cassandra …
Heinleinsmof: I think so. Yes
AGplusone: remind me: Cassandra?
AGplusone: prophet who no one wants to hear?
rjjusu: She who always told the truth, but no one would believe….
geeairmoe2: Isn’t she the one the people killed because her prophecies were negative?
Heinleinsmof: Yes. Was it the Orestia?
EBATNM: Trojan prophetess who told Agamenon that his wife was going to kill him when he returned from Troy.
EBATNM: He did. She did.
Heinleinsmof: One of those Greek plays
AGplusone: yeah, I thought so
geeairmoe2: Kind of “kill the messanger” type thing.
Heinleinsmof: You have to step back from that in NOTB — it’s an examination of the nature of leadership.
AGplusone: Laz: Okay, you others stand here in the middle, and we’ll go exploring another time
AGplusone: leading from behind, leaning against the wall
AGplusone: “I’m just the ‘senior’ …”
EBATNM: and then getting everyone to do what he wants
geeairmoe2: He won’t throw the firecracker, but he’ll light it.
rjjusu: Tom Sawyer anyone?
AGplusone: eventually … and if the impact isn’t what he wants, fade into the woodwork
Heinleinsmof: Well — Hilda does have one characteristic that LL also has — she’s right a lot — and always when the chils are down.
EBATNM: Good Point! (re: Tom Sawyer)
Heinleinsmof: That is the final and unarguable reason
AGplusone: yes
geeairmoe2: But if you lead too well, people start becoming too dependant on you.
AGplusone: the motto of Emperor Wilhelm … “I endure”
rjjusu: But a good leader always thinks of a successor.
EBATNM: The nature of leadership excercise Heinlein quite a lot
AGplusone: Campbell, which is why he manipulated him
Heinleinsmof: Maybe that’s the broader functional purpose of Hilda — she is the tactical leader of the Circle though LL is the Will of the group. And nobody is going to become too dependent on Hilda
Heinleinsmof: in the World as Myth, I mean.
EBATNM: LL = Zeus, Hilda = Athenia?
rjjusu: Maybe this could be related to EE Doc Smith and the L3 Lensman – each brought something to the fusion that made the whole greater than the parts.
AGplusone: Campbell=Oscar=the hundreds of trial heros who got us this far, sez Star
Heinleinsmof: Idon’t think those are the right archetypes.
siannon prime: She has some aspects of Demeter as well as Athena
EBATNM: oops, sorry for the speelingk
Heinleinsmof: Maybe something from the Ring cycle — Wotan undefeated and Siegfried
AGplusone: and if Campbell don’t pay off, we’ll have another coming along next generation ….
EBATNM: Wagner didn’t like “uppity” women
geeairmoe2: A good leader has to know when to step back and let his followers develope their skills, stronger strands make for a stronger rope.
EBATNM: as Star does for Oscar?
rjjusu: I think Heinlein admired the “Doc” and it wouldn’t surprise me that he considered the ending in the Children of the Lens. In some ways Smith was as “subversive” as Heinlein, just an earlier version.
AGplusone: She does share traits with Hilda, doesn’t she?
Heinleinsmof: He certainly seems to have thought so.
AGplusone: From the witching of the first arrow, onward …
EBATNM: Notice how all of Heinlein’s most successful leaders are (a) female and (b) willing to let nature take its course?
Heinleinsmof: I see we are coming up on 9:00 p.m. PST
AGplusone: which is why I laugh when the feminists attack him for weak females, boy-toy ideals
geeairmoe2: I have to be heading off. Good chatting.
AGplusone: Empress Catherine the Great was a great boy-toy, so thought all 200 of her palace guard
Heinleinsmof: Do we have necessary business before we close out this?
geeairmoe2 has left the room.
AGplusone: L. Neil next two weeks?
Heinleinsmof: I think a month from now.
DavidWrightSr: Neil is may 10-12
AGplusone: Okay, so what’s next two weeks, “families”?
Heinleinsmof: That’s what I thought. We are trying to space the author chats about every six weeks.
DavidWrightSr: Jane has a topic lined up for next time, but I don’t recall it offhand
DavidWrightSr: I think.
DavidWrightSr: I know. Teachers
Heinleinsmof: I didn’t know she had made a selection. We had four or five ideas on the table.
EBATNM: could someone, like Bill, email me the topic since I don’t get the newsgroup
AGplusone: ‘kay, she can tell us Saturday … oh, yeah, teachers!
AGplusone: give us your e mail andy …
Heinleinsmof: Oh, David, can you send Andy a link to alt.fan
Heinleinsmof: heinlein?
AGplusone: and you’ll get notices
Heinleinsmof: It’s not on his Netscape browser.
AGplusone: Sure, Andy, what browser do you use?
rjjusu: Teachers – something I know a little about for a change.
AGplusone: what version?
DavidWrightSr: Give us your address Andy and I’ll add you to my notification list
Heinleinsmof: OK — let’s schedule the families one for the next.
Heinleinsmof: Andy?
EBATNM: netscape, sorry
Heinleinsmof: Which version of netscape
EBATNM: 4.7
AGplusone: for Windows or Mac
EBATNM: Windows
EBATNM: with the 2000 upgrade for business
AGplusone: okay, expect to hear from
DavidWrightSr: Its not the browser that’s important but whether or not his ISP offers access to it
rjjusu: Speaking of which, if you are using Exploder 5.5 without the latest security patch, you should be updating it post haste.
AGplusone: Yeah, but OJ will handle that, unless you’d like to, David
EBATNM: I used to get it from Yahoo, but now I can’t
EBATNM: dunno why
AGplusone: That registration on the heinleinsociety.org is a valid e mail isn’t it, Andy?
EBATNM: yes
AGplusone: All right … goggle just picked it up … what’s the URL for goggle, Dave?
EBATNM: Does this mean I’m going to get spam from the Heinlein Society for the rest of my nature days?
EBATNM: darn it “natural”
AGplusone: Absolutely!
rjjusu: au natural days?
Heinleinsmof: Would it be possible, David, to echo the afh posts to the hs.org message boards?
siannon prime: Teachers, eh? I can say a bit about the education system
Heinleinsmof: Just the ones dealing with the AIM Readers Group discussion topics?
AGplusone: Let me find out from Jon how time consuming that would be
EBATNM: Swinging through the trees, swinging in the breeze
DavidWrightSr: www.deja.com will switch you into it, but I believe that www.google.com is the URL. The link on AG’s page will get you to it.
Heinleinsmof: He means Google, Andy
Heinleinsmof: Go on, try to find Goggle.com!
AGplusone: http://readinggroupsonline.com/group/robertaheinlein .html
AGplusone: is the page he refers to as my page …
DavidWrightSr: Bill. was that question about echoing posts for me?
rjjusu: Goggle.com ? Isn’t that the website of dogs that fly doghouses?
DavidWrightSr: LOL
Heinleinsmof: Sorry — that was for David Silver, who is managing the website put-together for the Society
DavidWrightSr: OK. wasn’t sure
EBATNM: I will try all of the above…. Andy vows to endeavor to continue
Heinleinsmof: Though I’m sure the listing of message posts you put togehter could be echoed too — they just wouldn’t appear until the chat was over.
AGplusone: on http://readinggroupsonline.com/group/robertaheinlein .html there’s a like says Deja.com forum:alt.fan.heinlein … use it
AGplusone: there’s a link
AGplusone: middle near the bottom
EBATNM: OK
DavidWrightSr: I was checking that when I discovered that Google was showing the alt.fan.heinlein messages
Heinleinsmof: Ok –David Wright, will you follow up with Jane to make sure we get a lead-off for the next topic? And will you and Jane and Oz get together and work out who will host the families topic two weeks after that? That will take us up to L. Neil Smith.
AGplusone: If you highlight the part you want in the screen here, and Cntl C, you can copy it, and then save it to text document so you’ll have it
EBATNM: trying to do that now
Heinleinsmof: For everyone’s general info, I am going to be moving from Los Angeles to Santa Rosa, CA two weeks from now, so I am trying to offload as much as possible in the interim.
AGplusone: anything good (old Krugerands, etc.)?
DavidWrightSr: Jon talked about moving all of the archives to the society web site, but he hasn’t gotten back to me on it. I’ll check with jane on that. I think she said that she would do a leadoff as soon as we finished with this topic.
TAWN3: Why you moving Bill?
EBATNM: did it
Heinleinsmof: The short answer is: I’m going into retreat to write
TAWN3: Ah
EBATNM: I thought authors got an advance to write.
AGplusone: Can’t stand to be closer to me than 500 miles, Tawn, the emanations get to him … :-);-)
Heinleinsmof: Heheh
Heinleinsmof: That’s right, Andy — and have you gotten yours from Gifford yet?
TAWN3: Ahhhhh That’s it.
Heinleinsmof: Can you go into seclusion on $125?
EBATNM: No, but I can get out of Jail for $200
AGplusone: He has to wear an aluminum pie plate for the next two weeks
Heinleinsmof: Is that to protect me from the pies?
AGplusone: then, it’ll be safe to take it off
AGplusone: that too
Heinleinsmof: Cream pies, please. Banana preferred
TAWN3: Aluminum foil protects you from the psychic emanations and certain eavesdropping devices.
EBATNM: I once worked with a guy who programmed with a aluminum pie plate with a coathanger sticking out of the top and a grounding trail of paper clips to “Keep the Martians from interfering with my brain”.
AGplusone: Wife just brought home Chinese chicken salad … yum!
EBATNM: Did she bring enough for everyone?
Heinleinsmof: Does sound good. Well, we’re past the hour. Thanks, all, for coming.
Heinleinsmof: Yes, Andy: here’s your virtual portion right here.
Heinleinsmof: Do you want it in the aluminum pie plate?
AGplusone: me, Danielle, and her … and if I don’t get there soon, Bob the cat gets mine.
Heinleinsmof: The paperclips are the crunchy bits.
Heinleinsmof: Thanks for coming.
EBATNM: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGH HHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
AGplusone: G’nite, all. Jani, great you came … sleep well when you finally sleep.
Heinleinsmof: *Poof*
EBATNM: bye
EBATNM has left the room.
Heinleinsmof has left the room.
TAWN3: bye all
AGplusone: ——-|
DavidWrightSr: Night
siannon prime: Bye
TAWN3 has left the room.
AGplusone: G’nite Dave
rjjusu: See ya’all later!
AGplusone: Randy …. John Boy …
AGplusone has left the room.
siannon prime has left the room.
DavidWrightSr: Log officially closed at 12:10 A.M. EDT
Final End Of Discussion Log
