#34150
07/02/2001 10:49 PM
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Nowdays, a small town is connected to the world....
(embrace change!)Wise and beautiful, o pelopenesian princess 
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#34151
07/02/2001 11:57 PM
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Dear of troy: Most talk about the good old days is bovine grass nutrients. I remember seeing cemeteries with rows of tiny stones telling of several children dying in one week, probably of diphtheria. Of reading of such things as Teddy Roosevelt's father dying after two weeks agony from an intestinal problem that could probably been cured by today's surgery. If such a well to do man died like that, think of the multitude of poor ones who also did. Childhood always seems wonderful in retrospect "Make me a child again, just for tonight."
I just wish some freedoms had not been taken away for such loathsome reasons. Schools with barbed wire on top of chainlink fence,and parks closed at night because of druggies. Dentists having to wear rubber gloves because of AIDS.Old values discarded, with no worthwhile replacements.
These are not "some of my favorite things." Actually I think I have been very lucky to have had the best of the old days, and the benefits of progress so far.
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#34152
07/03/2001 12:02 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Also wisdom, Dr B. OK, the revised creed now reads: Embrace change (but wear gloves)
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#34153
07/03/2001 2:25 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
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Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my new sig line: Embrace change (but wear gloves)Thank you Mav! We have a winner! 
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#34154
07/03/2001 2:20 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
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the Northener in a way that would be perfectly accepted at Harvard interrupted the Virginian to save time
Well, I was going to let this one go by, but I had to come back. How unutterably rude that guy was! It is my unshakable opinion that you owe people the respect of listening to what they have to say, unless there are extenuating circumstances. GRR-RR!
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#34155
07/03/2001 2:47 PM
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How unutterably rude that guy was!
Oh, dear! Now I have a cultural clash with dear Jackie! Jackie, perhaps I should have explained that after a long careful briefing of the Virginian patent attorney, he had completely misunderstood several important points, and was in his best FFV languid manner going way off on a tangent, at about twenty bucks a minute. In that situation, a delay in ensuring mutual comprehension would have been disastrous. I can assure you that the young man who interrupted the Virginian was very well brought up by two highly cultured professors. And the Virginian was more than a bit of a windbag, but was in the position of having few competitors.This was not a social occasion, it was business, and la-di-da manners have no place in business. Common courtesy yes, but comprehension delayed, no.
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#34156
07/04/2001 11:29 AM
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Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444
addict
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addict
Joined: Jun 2000
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IF this is a YART, sorry, I've been away for a long time. To me the best-known and currently most controversial semantic warfare about wars is taking place in Japanese history textbooks. What the rest of the world knows as the Nanjing Massacre is officially recognised as the 'Nanjing Incident'. ..as for that war where the US and Britain parted ways, I've never understood why the British don't celebrate 4 July as much as the Americans 
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#34157
07/04/2001 1:16 PM
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" I've never understood why the British don't celebrate 4 July as much as the Americans "
They don't need to, they have sent a lot of very fine people over to help us celebrate.
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#34158
07/04/2001 2:45 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Bridget has never understood why the British don't celebrate 4 July as much as the Americans
As your King George III said so eloquently in his diary for July 4, 1776, "Nothing important happened today".
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#34159
07/04/2001 2:53 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
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As your King George III said so eloquently in his diary for July 4, 1776, "Nothing important happened today".
Not surprising. No instant communication in 1776.
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#34160
07/04/2001 7:18 PM
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What George III actually wrote was : "Es gibt im Westen nichts neues zu berichten."
This is of course, a canard.
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#34161
07/05/2001 12:04 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
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> A canard.
Why? Did he actually write:
"Im Westen nichts Neues."
..or what?
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#34162
07/05/2001 12:09 PM
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This is of course, a canard
What's ducks got to do with it?
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#34163
07/05/2001 12:21 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
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> What's ducks got to do with it?
vendre un canard à moitié
..smart ar.... aleck
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#34164
07/05/2001 12:52 PM
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To tease Bridget for her mildly anti-American jest, I was pretending George III did not speak English, as was the case with Georges I and II. So, "canard" meant a lie. I paraphrased the last line in Im Westen Nichts Neues, an anti-war novel of the thirties.
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#34165
07/05/2001 1:06 PM
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Posts: 13,803
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What's ducks got to do with it,
Got to do with it?
What's ducks but a second hand commotion?
What's ducks got to do with it,
Who needs the smart
With the smart in Hoboken?
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#34166
07/05/2001 1:30 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
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> To tease Bridget for her mildly anti-American jest, I was pretending George III did not speak English, as was the case with Georges I and II. So, "canard" meant a lie. I paraphrased the last line in Im Westen Nichts Neues, an anti-war novel of the thirties.
You have a very active, if abstract mind, Bill.
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#34167
07/05/2001 2:20 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
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Dear belligerent youth. My mind is not abstract, my cerebral cortex is obstructed with senile plaques. A total body scan actually showed them. Thanks for pretending otherwise.
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#34168
07/05/2001 6:46 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
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wwh > my cerebral cortex is obstructed with senile plaques. A total body scan actually showed them.
Good heavens, if your this intelligent *with senile plaques ... well !!!!
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#34169
07/07/2001 9:30 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
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Why do the nations so furiously rage together?
Why do the people imagine a vain thang? *
--
*apologies to Hændel and his Biblical librettist
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#34170
07/07/2001 11:13 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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#34171
07/07/2001 11:49 PM
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"War - what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!"
But all too good for the merchants of death.
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#34172
07/09/2001 12:18 AM
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Posts: 4,757
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all too good for the merchants of deathYes, intersting thought that some of my tax dollars even now go to the USA to pay for the First World War, let alone the Second! You can understand how the poorest nations on earth must feel about this modern yoke of colonialism. Love you, Uncle Sam
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#34173
07/09/2001 12:29 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
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Here! Here! Dr. Bill! I was just thinking of posting the same quote! Somebody had to say it!
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#34174
07/09/2001 12:32 AM
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Posts: 13,858
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Great minds run in the same channel. (Let none counter, and small minds in the same creek.)
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#34175
07/09/2001 1:39 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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#34176
07/09/2001 12:43 PM
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stone cold...just like the film
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#34177
07/09/2001 4:24 PM
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Got it Max - Sly and the Family Stone, right ? Am'n't I? Not so good on them thar new groups.
I think I'll just go sit in front of the air conditioner and muse ... it's one of those days. As I said in a PM, my brain seems to have gone on vacation without notifing me.
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#34178
07/09/2001 4:25 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
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#34179
07/09/2001 9:09 PM
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Posts: 3,409
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#34180
07/10/2001 1:29 AM
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Speaking of the songs excerpted for the lyrics: "War" (what is it good for?) was first recorded by Edwin Starr circa late 60's/early 70's (anybody have a more specific date?) and Bruce Springsteen covered the song in '88 largely to spite the Reagan/Bush camp, I presume, for "co-opting" his song (as Bruce put it), "Born in the USA," out of context as a jingoistic rallying cry to gain their re-election on the votes of the defections of working-people in '84...this really pissed Bruce off by the way. "Born in the USA" was actually an anti-war anthem set against the Viet Nam War.
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#34181
07/10/2001 2:13 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
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Thought this thread would be incomplete without asking for a personal listing of, say, the top three war books (fiction or non-fiction) you've ever read. Here's mine:
1. All Quiet on the Western Front -- Erich Maria Remarque -- I must've read this astounding novel 4 times by the time I was 14! Having the common WWI German foot soldier presented as a vulnerable human being who despised war as much as anybody (and from their viewpoint yet!) totally negated all the war-is-cool garbage we saw growing up in post WWII America...John Wayne movies, TV show fluff like "Combat!" (a good show for what it was however) and "The Gallant Men." And, of course, Remarque's powers as a novelist and wordsmith surpassed my infatuation with an anti-war message from a German point of view, and the grisly details of war life and combat that made war uncool for me very early. This book should be required reading for all middle-schoolers...then no one would ever have a notion that war was cool, again!
2. Brave Men -- Ernie Pyle; non-fiction -- More than a journalist, Pyle was able to put a human face on the WWII infantryman, showing all the foibles and courage of daily combat existence in the European theatre.. Affectionately known as "G. I. Joe" to US servicemen he met his fate at Okinawa, ambushed in a jeep on the small island if Ie Shima a few weeks before the war's end. And his last ship was my father's (a Navy corspman with the 1st Marine Division) troop transport, an LST named the U.S.S Charles Carroll. My Dad took some of Pyle's last shipside photographs after meeting him, and still has them. Ernie Pyle will finally get some of his due when he's featured on a C-SPAN American Writers segment in a few months...watch for it!
3. The Killer Angels -- Michael Shaara; novelization. -- A moving and poignant account of the battle of Gettysburg from a Southern point of view. And it was also the basis for the TNT film, "Gettysburg."
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#34182
07/10/2001 2:49 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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#34183
07/10/2001 10:19 AM
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Yes, All Quiet was a similar formative experience for me. Next and equally important came Catch 22. Think it's about time to re-read that This has got me pondering... curious that the experience of war has left us with a legacy of much great poetry, but little extended writing of other kinds... But now that's made me think, of course, of Sebastian Faulkes and his wonderful novels including Girl at the Lion D'or - novels set in wartime rather than war novels are a richer field, perhaps.
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#34184
07/10/2001 9:19 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
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the experience of war has left us with a legacy of much great poetry
Not the least of which is Walt Whitman's work of Civil War poems, Drum Taps, from "Leaves of Grass."
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