Apollo BBS Archive - March 1991

Apollo BBS Archive - March 10, 1991

Message: 73641
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Politics
Subject: CNN
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 05:56:43

What follows is the text of a letter I am going to send to CNN.  I doubt it
will get published, since it is critical but does not sound like something
a redneck scribbled between cross-burnings.

Message: 73642
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Politics
Subject: A Letter to CNN
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 05:57:42

Is there any difference between objectively reporting the news and 
uncritically disseminating enemy propaganda during time of war?  CNN 
speculated freely about the nature of U.S. actions during the war, that is, 
whether or not they were U.S. propaganda tools designed to deceive or 
intimidate Saddam Hussein, yet CNN demonstrated considerable circumspection 
when reporting Iraqi claims of deliberate U.S. targeting of civilians, and 
other obvious lies.
 
Did CNN, in its role as "world news organization," feel that it needed to 
establish its objectivity among third world nations, and that by exposing 
Iraqi propaganda, it might tarnish its image among those who suspect any 
U.S. based news agency to be an arm of the U.S. government?  If so, it 
forgot that "objectivity" means reporting the facts as best as they can be
established, not uncritically repeating the statements of the Iraqi Ministry
of Information, widely acknowledged even in the Arab world as the "mother of
all liars," under the impression that equal time and objectivity are 
synonymous.
 
Finally, why did certain CNN desk reporters, when reading viewer mail, read 
letters supporting CNN in tones suggesting measured reason, while reading 
letters critical of CNN in tones and with facial expressions suggesting that
their authors were bombastic louts?  

Message: 73643
Author: $ Paul Savage
Category: Question?
Subject: Gordon
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 06:23:32

Where's Lake Prescott?
=

Message: 73644
Author: $ Bill Burkett
Category: Joke
Subject: Gordon/Errata
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 07:30:17

> They tell you to go to Scottsdale, and shop at the Arizona
> Biltmore...
 
I'm not sure there's any place to shop at the Biltmore, other than the usual
hotel gift shop.  Perhaps you meant Biltmore Fashion Park, which is across
24th Street from the Biltmore, and in Phoenix, by the way.
 
> We've got the OK Corral down in Tucson...
 
Actually it's in Tombstone.
 
> People take boats out on Lake Prescott and water-ski and 
> everything.
 
Paul already mentioned this, but where the heck is Lake Prescott.  Do you
mean Lake Pleasant?
 
        It really irks me when snowbirds move here, then try to change
everything around to their liking.  Giving the Biltmore to Scottsdale;
moving the OK Corral to Tucson, home of Terry Goddard; inventing Lake
Prescott.
        On the other hand, perhaps you were TRYING to give these visitors
bad directions, frustrating them so badly they'd refuse to move here.  In
that case, "Good job, Gordon!"  :)

Message: 73645
Author: $ Beauregard Dog
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Phone call
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 10:15:42

Did someone try to call me at work yesterday?  All I heard on the phone
message was "Beau?"

Message: 73646
Author: $ Beauregard Dog
Category: Answer!
Subject: Jeff/CNN
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 10:21:40

Perhaps because most of the letter-writer{ critical of CNN _were_ bombastic
louts?

Message: 73647
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Thanks
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 13:53:55

Oh, I must thank everybody who liked my piece on age.  I did enjoy reading
people's own reflections afterwards.  And regarding "experimentation at ten
years old", yes, it was more along the lines of gadgets and chemicals.  The
other kind of experimentation doesn't happen until a few years later.

I asked the Department of Justice about becoming an unnaturalized citizen,
but they said I wasn't *quite* unnatural enough, and I would have to do
something to make myself look a bit weirder, like growing my hair longer.  I
told them this is as long as it grows.  They said too bad, try again in your
next incarnation.

I like your Bio SIG idea, Cliff.  I'll be contributing something to it
myself, just as soon as I can remember who I am, where I came from and what
I'm doing here in the first place...

Message: 73648
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Jeff/Uncle Bob
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 13:55:18

I haven't heard anyone say "Bob's your uncle" for years, but we certainly
used to say it in England.  I remember one occasion in particular.  It
doesn't mean "everything's fine", exactly.  It's more an expression of
surprise when you're about to relate something that happened suddenly or
unexpectedly, as if by magic -- like "abracadabra!", or "quicker than you
can say 'knife'".

When I was a child, my father did photography in a little darkroom upstairs.
He had a heater device for keeping developing and fixing solutions at the
right temperature.  The heat was supplied by two electric light bulbs
inside.  I was poking around in this gadget one evening; my memory tells me
I was six years old.  One of the light bulbs was missing, and I stuck my
finger in the empty socket -- with very predictable results since the heater
was plugged in.  I should add that the electricity supply in England is 240
volts, not 115 as it is here.  Anyway, I let out a loud yell and promptly
burst into tears.  I ran downstairs and my parents asked me what on earth
had happened.  So when I'd recovered a bit I told them.  "I was looking at
Dad's developer thing and I stuck my finger in the socket -- and Bob's your
uncle!  I got a shock!"  I have no idea where I picked up the expression
from, but they thought it was so funny coming out of the mouth of a six-
year-old that they both burst out laughing.  So I never forgot the
expression -- probably because my mother still reminds me about it from time
to time.

Message: 73649
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Cliff/backup (1/3)
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 13:56:53

  >> I hope you people who judge other people NEVER back up your car on a
  >> Glendale street or back out of your driveway as it is against the
  >> written law.

Interesting, I didn't know that.  It's also somewhat illogical.  Unless you
have a VERY wide driveway that you can turn around in (or a double carriage
sweep), then presumably if you want to avoid backing OUT of your driveway,
you will have to back INTO it beforehand.  And you can't do this without
backing at least a short distance along the street.

British law says that you mustn't reverse "more than a reasonable distance",
without defining exactly what a "reasonable distance" is.  But at least that
allows some room for commonsense interpretation.  British driving laws are
not without their own illogicalities, however.  I. D. Hill, who wrote a
wonderfully funny paper about illogicalities of all kinds, quotes from the
section entitled "The Law's Demands" in the British "Highway Code":

     Before driving, MAKE SURE THAT...  your speedometer is in working order

Hill then asks: "Can anybody suggest *how*?"

Actually the Glendale law would be a very good thing if people tried to take
notice of it more often.

Message: 73650
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Cliff/backup (2/3)
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 13:58:36

It's funny how Americans invariably drive nose-first into driveways and
parking spaces, whereas I persist in the British habit of backing in.  You
back into the pub car park before you go in for a drink, because the
trickier task of backing is best done while you're sober.  When you come out
of the pub you only have to drive out forwards, which is a lot easier.  This
is a joke, of course, but there are serious advantages to doing it this way
round.  First of all, it's easier to get into a tight space by reversing
than by driving in forwards; in fact, some spaces are so tight you can't get
into them any other way except backwards.  Secondly, it's when you drive
*out* into a street or the aisle of a parking lot that you're likely to hit
passing traffic or pedestrians, so it's a good idea to drive out forwards,
which gives you a much better view.  Lastly, you can drive out forwards more
quicly than you can backwards, and you're more likely to be in a hurry
coming *out* of your driveway to go to work in the morning than when you're
coming home at night.  So it annoys me to hell when I come across occasional
signs in parking lots actually *telling* people to drive into the spaces
forwards, thus reinforcing what I think is a bad habit.  I don't know why
they do this.  It may be because they think people are too incompetent to
back in without hitting a car, a wall or a pedestrian, but I don't see how
this is very different from hitting a car, a wall or a pedestrian while
backing *out*.  Or it may be so that some little minion of authority can
read (rear) license plates easily while walking down the outside of a row of
parked cars.  I don't see that I have any duty to make it easier for some
bureaucratic twerp to keep surveillance on my car.

Message: 73651
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Cliff/backup (3/3)
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 13:59:38

I don't know why it is that people here always drive into parking places
forwards.  I do have some theories, though.  One is that they may not be
*trained* to back in.  The British driving test specifically includes things
like backing around a corner, whereas not all American states even include
parallel parking as part of the driving test.  (Arizona does, for example,
but Massachusetts doesn't.)  A second theory is that since this country is
generally more spacious, parking places are often more generous in
dimensions and there is less need to squeeze in backwards.  (Tight parallel
parking is a frequently needed skill in Europe.)  A third theory is simply
the lower standard of skill in many American drivers, encouraged
unfortunately by the lower standards of the driving tests.  If people see
backing up as a "difficult" thing to do, they will put it off as long as
possible, instead of tackling the hard part right away so that everything is
plain sailing later.  (Just another human trait!)  The last theory is that
people here might be more aggressive about grabbing parking places.  About
the only time I drive into a parking place forwards is when I see someone
else making for the same spot, so I have to grab it as quickly as possible.
If I drive past it and back up, then I'll lose it.  It's possible that
British people might be better about queuing up politely for scarce
resources, having gotten used to doing it during two world wars.  But I
don't attach too much importance to this last theory.  Competition and
polite cooperation both work as systems.  The only important thing is to
remember where you are and play by the house rules.

Message: 73652
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Answer!
Subject: Bill/errata (1/2)
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 14:56:55

You're quite right, there *is* a Lake Pleasant (and a Bartlett Reservoir
besides), but no Lake Prescott.  You have to remember that this was an
extemporaneous speech, and I couldn't very well ask my listeners to wait
around while I checked the map of Arizona for a name that had momentarily
escaped me.  It was much quicker to grab whatever name came to mind.  We do
*have* a Prescott, but it lacks a lake.  So what?  As you pointed out,
they're all snowbirds anyway, so they ain't gonna know any different.

I hope that sixteen years of living in Massachusetts hasn't branded *me* a
"snowbird".  Where I really come from, we only get a couple or three inches
of snow a year.  Besides, I *live* in Phoenix now, summer and all, and I'm
not complaining about it.  Better to sweep a swimming pool than to shovel
snow.

Yes, it was the Biltmore Fashion Park I had in mind.  Again, a matter of
artistic license and telescoping ideas together.  All this stuff written for
out-of-towners seems to push Scottsdale.  That sentence, by the way, didn't
*literally* place the Biltmore in Scottsdale.  "They tell you to go to
Scottsdale, and [also, in a similar vein] to shop at the Biltmore..."

And yes, I do know that the OK Corral is in Tombstone.  I could even tell
you who fought there, given a moment's thought.  Though if I had to do it in
the middle of a speech, I would probably blurt out that it was the Clancy
Brothers, a well-known singing group from Ireland.

Message: 73653
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Answer!
Subject: Bill/errata (2/2)
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 14:58:12

But this was not an error so much as following the common practice of
assigning a location to the nearest large city that everybody knows, instead
of saying precisely where it is.  Again, this will mean more in fewer words
to ignorant out-of-towners than saying "it's in Tombstone", which only makes
people ask themselves "where the hell is Tombstone?", thus losing their
attention.  It's expedient at times, but as a matter of fact I concur with
you in not liking this practice very much.  Bull HN has offices in
Billerica, Massachusetts, but everybody here refers to it as "the Boston
office", although it's pushing thirty miles away from Boston.  People would
say to me "you used to work in Boston (or live in Boston), didn't you?"  To
which I would respond: "No.  I worked in Billerica, and I lived in Westford,
just south of the New Hampshire state line."  I never lived *in* Boston, nor
did I have any wish to.  As usual, when I have an irrational dislike of some
habit, there's usually a deeper motive underlying it.  In this case it's a
dislike of people being lumped together as if they were all the same; or of
large cities trying to take control of everything and everybody around them,
regardless of their independent identities.

Speaking of Ireland again, I visited there with a girlfriend in 1968.  When
people there asked where we came from, she followed this obnoxious habit and
told them we lived "in London".  I suppose she thought they wouldn't have
heard of "Hemel Hempstead", twenty-five miles from London.  The trouble was
that these people, used to small villages, would follow up with questions
like "Oh, I have some friends in London named Murphy.  Do you know them?"

Message: 73654
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Gordon/traffic
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 17:37:14

Another thing which annoys ME to hell are the stoplights you occasionally
find at the on-ramps to I-17.  What kind of moron engineer decided that only
one car at a time should be allowed to enter the freeway, and from a full
stop, at that?  Cars should be accelerated to freeway speed BEFORE they
enter the freeway.

Message: 73655
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Question?
Subject: Beau Dog/CNN letters
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 17:39:35

How do you know that?  

Message: 73656
Author: $ Apro Poet
Category: Politics
Subject: Trumbo
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 22:24:00

  You can always hear the people who are willing to 
sacrifice somebody else's life.  They're plenty loud and 
they talk all the time.  You can find them in churches and 
schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress.  
That's their business.  They sound wonderful.  Death before
dishonor.  This ground sanctified by blood.  These men who 
died so gloriously.  They shall not have died in vain.  Our
noble dead.
  Hmmmm.
  But what do the dead say?
  Did anybody ever come back from the dead any single one of
the millions who got killed did any one of them ever come 
back and say by god I'm glad I'm dead because death is 
always better than dishonor?  Did they say I'm glad I died 
to make the world safe for democracy?  Did they say I like
death better than losing liberty?  Did any of them ever say
it's good to think I got my guts blown out for the honor of
my country?  Did any of them ever say look at me I'm dead 
but I died for decency and that's better than being alive?
Did any of them ever say here I am I've been rotting for two
years in a foreign grave but it's wonderful to die for your
native land?  Did any of them say hurray I died for 
womanhood and I'm happy see how I sing even though my mouth 
is choked with worms?

Message: 73657
Author: $ Apro Poet
Category: Politics
Subject: Trumbo
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 22:35:31

  Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people 
talk about are worth dying for or not.  And the dead can't
talk.  So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and
honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers 
and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead.  If a man
says death before dishonor he is either a fool or a liar
because he doesn't know what death is.  He isn't able to 
judge.  He only knows about living.  He doesn't know 
anything about dying.  If he is a fool and believes in death
before dishonor let him go ahead and die.  But all the 
little guys who are too busy to fight should be left alone.
And all the guys who say death before dishonor is pure bull
the important thing is life before death they should be left
alone too.  Because the guys who say life isn't worth living
without some principle so important you're willing to die 
for it they are all nuts.  And the guys who say you'll see
there'll come a time you can't escape you're going to have 
to fight and die because it'll mean your very life why they
are also nuts.  They are talking like fools.  They are 
saying that two and two make nothing.  They are saying that
a man will have to die in order to protect his life.  If you
agree to fight you agree to die.  Now if you die to protect 
your life you aren't alive anyhow so how is there any sense
in a thing like that?  A man doesn't say I will starve myself

Message: 73658
Author: $ Apro Poet
Category: Politics
Subject: Trumbo
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 22:39:47

to death to keep from starving.  He doesn't say I will spend
all my money in order to save my money.  He doesn't say I 
will burn my house down in order to keep it from burning.
Why then should he be willing to die for the privilege of
living?  There ought to be at least as much common sense
about living and dying as there is about going to the 
grocery store and buying a loaf of bread.

Message: 73659
Author: $ Beauregard Dog
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: JB/CNN letters
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 23:00:49

Well, they certainly sounded like that type of person, given the way the
letters were read...

Message: 73661
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: My Dinner with...
Subject: Crystal R.
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 05:39:22

Is that the same Crystal R. who's here with me right now?

...oh, sorry, I don't think she wanted me to say that...

Message: 73662
Author: $ Paul Savage
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Gordon/geography, et
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 05:54:56

 Actually Gordon, Prescott does have a lake, just within the city limits.
It's called Lynx Lake. Water skiing would be rather difficult, though, since
the only motors allowed are electric trolling motors. Nice little lake, but
a bit too crowded to suit me.
 Strange, but when you mentioned the Clancy Brothers in your post, it
reminded me of that old Irish tune of Clancy lowered the boom, boom boom
boom.........How these old minds work some mornings!

Message: 73663
Author: $ Paul Savage
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Jeff/entry speed
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 05:59:03

Indeed a car should be up to speed upon entering a freeway. That's why
there's a long enough entry lane at the on ramps. The on ramps are metered
only at rush hours, when there are a large number of cars trying to enter at
once. It does help to space them out a bit, at least if those cars already
in the right hand lane give them enough room to meld into traffic.

Message: 73664
Author: $ Bill Burkett
Category: Answer!
Subject: Jeff/Traffic
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 06:21:58

I see Paul's already touched on this but...

> Another thing which annoys ME to hell are the stoplights you
> occasionally find at the on-ramps to I-17.
 
        Actually, Jeff, those are designed to help traffic flow onto the
freeway more smoothly.  The idea is that during rush hour, when the signals
are programmed to be active, traffic on the freeway has slowed anyway, so
it's not necessary to accelerate on the ramp quite as much.  Making cars
enter the freeway one at a time spaces them out, making the merge go much
more smoothly.
        I suppose the fault in this scheme is that the signals come on at
inappropriate times, preventing you from accelerating when you sometimes
need to.  All in all, though, I was working for the Highway Patrol (as a
dispatcher) when those things first went into operation and we saw a
dramatic decrease in rush hour accidents.

Message: 73665
Author: $ Bill Burkett
Category: War!
Subject: Gordon/Snowbirds
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 06:22:32

> You have to remember that this was an extemporaneous speech...
 
Ah!  I don't think you mentioned that before.  In that case you did quite
well -- for a snowbird (see below).
 
> I hope that sixteen years of living in Massachusetts hasn't
> branded *me* a "snowbird".
 
As a true Arizona native (one of four left in the state, I believe), I can
assure you that anyone not born in Arizona is a snowbird.  A friend from
Florida used to insist she was not a snowbird, but she was.  Another friend
was brought here when he was six months old.  It was easy to tell, though,
that he was a snowbird, too.
 
> All this stuff written for out-of-towners seems to push
> Scottsdale.
 
Scottsdale.  Ha!  Everything east of about 32nd Street (until you get back
into the desert) might as well be in California.  Except for Cubs spring
training and that railroad park.  They're okay.

Message: 73666
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Answer!
Subject: Paul/ent speed
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 06:54:55

Sure they're long enough...if you own a Porche!  Otherwise, you end up stuck
behind things like 1972 Ford Galaxy's, which make about 40 (if they're
lucky) by the time it's time to merge.

Message: 73667
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Answer!
Subject: Bill/traffic
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 06:58:38

Bill, your naivete is nearly infantile (just kidding).  They don't help
traffic flow onto the freeway more smoothly: they slow traffic trying to
access the freeway, creating lines of a dozen or more cars, which often back
up far enough to block the other lanes of the service road, thereby further
inhibiting traffic, and they also impede traffic already on the freeway by
forcing them to slow or change lanes to avoid cars entering the freeway at
sub-freeway speeds..
 
As for a "dramatic decrease in rush hour accidents," who says so, and how do
they know?

Message: 73668
Author: $ Mike Carter
Category: Answer!
Subject: Jeff / Freeways
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 09:10:55

We all know that 3 lanes of I-17 isn't nearly enough. In fact, it's like
trying to drink a milkshake from a hypodermic needle. So what is truly
amazing to me at this point is people *still* try to take I-17 anywhere
during the week at say, 4-6pm. Jeff, it's not the traffic light, it's the
_cars_ that make the traffic jams. All those doddering buffoons in a rush
hour mass free-for-all demolition derby who leave work ** DAILY ** and
willingly, with prior knowledge, go sit in line and cuss at the next guy
for being there in front of him.
 
A telling factor into the traffic problems Phoenix faces is this new
chain of freeways. Already the silly things are at max capacity. It just
goes to show you that our traffic engineering department is more than
likely comprised of snowbirds from Deluth Minn. 
 
No, the only _real_ answer to our traffic problems is getting rid of the
single driver and replacing his / her selfish carcass with multi passenger
car pools and work vans. Mass transit in this fashion can work without the
atypical Liberalist method of throwing money at a problem. 
     So the folks driving those '72 Galaxies and the rest of you single
rider types can ease your own problem...car pool. I drive one week out
of three..it saves me gas money, wear and tear on the vehicle and I can
look at other things on the way home, than just the guys bumper in front
of me. 
        -Mike

Message: 73669
Author: $ Apro Poet
Category: Politics
Subject: Trumbo
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 14:10:04

  And all the guys who died all the five million or seven
million or ten million who went out and died to make the 
world safe for democracy to make the world safe for words
without meaning how did they feel about it just before they
died?  How did they feel as they watched their blood pump 
out into the mud?  How did they feel when the gas hit their 
lungs and began eating them away?  How did they feel as they
lay crazed in hospitals and looked death straight in the face
and saw him come and take them?  If the thing they were
fighting for was important enough to die for then it was 
also important enough for them to be thinking about it in 
the last minutes of their lives.  That stood to reason.  
Life is awfully important so if you've given it away you'd 
ought to think with all your mind in the last moments of 
your life about the thing you traded it for.  So did all 
those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty
and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and 
stripes forever?
  You're goddam right they didn't.
  They died crying in their minds like little babies.  They
forgot the thing they were fighting for the things they were
dying for.  They thought about things a man can understand.
They died yearning for the face of a friend.  They died
whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child.

Message: 73670
Author: $ Apro Poet
Category: Politics
Subject: Trumbo
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 14:19:48

They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the 
place where they were born please god just one more look.
They died moaning and sighing for life.  They knew what was
important.  They knew that life was everything and they died
with screams and sobs.  They died with only one thought in
their minds and that was I want to live I want to live I 
want to live.
  He ought to know.
  He was the nearest thing to a dead man on earth.
  He was a dead man with a mind that could still think.  He
knew all the answers that the dead knew and couldn't think 
about.  He could speak for the dead because he was one of 
them.  He was the first of all the soldiers who had died 
since the beginning of time who still had a brain left to 
think with.  Nobody could dispute with him.  Nobody could
prove him wrong.  Because nobody knew but he.
  He could tell all these high-talking murdering 
sonsofbitches who screamed for blood just how wrong they 
were.  He could tell them mister there's nothing worth dying
for I know because I'm dead.  There's no word worth your 
life.  I would rather work in a coal mine deep under the 
earth and never see sunlight and eat crusts and water and
work twenty hours a day.  I would rather do that than be
dead.  I would trade democracy for life.  I would trade

Message: 73671
Author: $ Apro Poet
Category: Politics
Subject: Trumbo
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 14:30:33

independence and honor and freedom and decency for life.  I
will give you all these things and you give me the power to
walk and see and hear and breathe the air and taste my food.
You take the words.  Give me back my life.  I'm not asking
for a happy life now.  I'm not asking for a decent life or
an honorable life or a free life.  I'm beyond that.  I'm 
dead so I'm simply asking for life.  To live.  To feel.  To
be something that moves over the ground and isn't dead.  I
know what death is and all you people who talk about dying
for words don't even know what life is.
  There's nothing noble about dying.  Not even if you die 
for honor.  Not even if you die the greatest hero the world
ever saw.  Not even if you're so great your name will never
be forgotten and who's that great?  The most important thing
is your life little guys.  You're worth nothing dead except
for speeches.  Don't let them kid you any more.  Pay no
attention when they tap you on the shoulder and say come 
along we've got to fight for liberty or whatever their word
is there's always a word.
  Just say mister I'm sorry I got no time to die I'm too 
busy and then turn and run like hell.  If they say coward 
why don't pay any attention because it's your job to live 
not to die.  If they talk about dying for principles that 
are bigger than life you say mister you're a liar.  Nothing

Message: 73672
Author: $ Apro Poet
Category: Politics
Subject: Trumbo
Date: 03/10/91  Time: 14:35:19

is bigger than life.  There's nothing noble in death.  What's
noble about lying in the ground and rotting?  What's noble 
about never seeing the sunshine again?  What's noble about 
having your legs and arms blown off?  What's noble about 
being an idiot?  What's noble about being blind and deaf and
dumb?  What's noble about being dead?  Because when you're
dead mister it's all over.  It's the end.  You're less than 
a dog less than a rat less than a bee or an ant less than a
white maggot crawling around on a dungheap.  You're dead
mister and you died for nothing.
  You're dead mister.
  Dead.
...

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 5:                                        Rod
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Subject:NutraSweet & etc.

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Message: 73636
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Theory
Date: 03/08/91  Time: 23:59:34

I came upon a theory the other night, Peter Petrisko being my sounding
board.  It deals with the concept of heaven and hell, in a sense.  It goes
something like this:  There exists positive energy.
                      There exists negative energy.
                      Upon release of the energy from the body,
                      at that time we call death
                      the negative charged energy from us
                      is discharged into the earth.
                      (like a fiery devil.)
                      Positive energy is drawn into the
                      atmosphere.  (sort of like an angel.)

Thus, that which is negative goes deep into the core of the earth only to
be spewed out by some fissure later on and then as positive charged energy. 
The positive that goes into the atmosphere is later ionized into negative
charges and they strike the earth as lightening.

So, energy which is trapped in earth's atmosphere goes through constant
change.  I somehow doubt that these processes would be painful to that
which experiences them.  We are, as a planet of life, ready to go where
mother nature cares to take us.  And I suspect that there are a lot of
interesting events awaiting each of us.

Message: 73637
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: It's worth a try.
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 00:00:40

I hope there are different dimensions of reality that can be achieved by
working out the necessary sums.  I find that the more people I communicate
with the more pieces of the puzzle I can visualize.

There are many different traps which lead away from life but death is a
mighty equalizer and its recycling processes are always in evidence.

Perhaps if I were charged with enough positive energy at death I'd be able
to escape earth's atmosphere altogether.  I could then roam the universe and
meet all sorts of positive people, so to speak.

My dictionary.  DRAG:  Being aware that you are stuck on a dirt planet in
a covering of flesh.  Positive thought:  Knowing that it's only for a little
while.  Another positive thought:  Knowing that life has the capability of
being fun and rewarding.  I wonder if it is possible to change one's own
reality to reflect this?  Or will there still be a melting-pot of humanity
being set upon by organized forces?

Message: 73638
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: P.S.
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 00:02:56

Thanks for the space.   By the way, if planet earth were to shatter into
small bits and pieces would this constitute an important event in the
universe, given the size of the universe and the length of eternity?

Have a nice forever, all.
                                Rod

Message: 73640
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Rod/theory
Date: 03/09/91  Time: 05:51:07

Perhaps that finally explains geomagnetism, eh?
 
Hello again, dude!  Nice to see you again.  Not to demean the newer users,
but it is a little like tasting classic coke again after New coke.