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The View From Entropy Hall #26 for APA-Q 431,
6 March 1999, from Ed Meskys, RR #2 Box 63, 322 Whittier Hwy,
Center Harbor NH 03226-9708, ed.meskys@gsel.org, 603-253-6207.
Text online at: http://www.conknet.com/~b_thurston/entropy and
as email list. {Corrections made after APA distribution in braces.}
>WEB ACCESS
The Web location
of Entropy will be changing. Recently Brian Thurston has quit
Conknet and has signed up on Worldpath. As of about Feb 25 Entropy
was still at the old Conknet address but I am sure they will
drop it soon since Brian is no longer paying them. Meanwhile,
I have learned that Brian uses "frames" on my site,
which is difficult for blind persons to access. I have found
information on making web pages more easily accessible to blind
users and passed it on to Brian, and he will improve my new site
when he puts it up on Worldpath. Making a page accessible to
blind users does NOT mean you have to avoid visual excitement,
but merely that you have to add a few minor hooks. Julie Hoowell
of the Royal National Institute for the Blind maintains information
on how to do this. Write her at jhowell@rnib.org.uk or RNIB/224
Great Portland St./LondonW1N 6A8. Her web page says "link
to ow3c accessibility developments," though to be honest
I do not know what that means.
>SANDY RETIRED
As those
of you who got our Christmas letter already know, Sandy took
early retirement and finished up work Sept 29. We had been saving
and planning for it a year later, after Stanley finished college
and was established, but frustration at work pushed her over
the edge and she gave two weeks notice. We have to be cautious
for a while and hold back on expenses until we see how far IRAs
and the like take us. We dropped Darkover con and were not planning
on Worldcon in Australia, though we WILL do WFC in Rhode Island
just because it is so close.
On her first day home Sandy went on a cleaning
spree and broke the washing machine (which WAS 22 years old)
and the dishwasher. This week our well broke and we need a new
pump and water tank at $2.5K. Sigh.
Worst expense will be maintaining health
insurance. I am 62 and on Medicare because of disability, but
Sandy is only 51 and will have to buy quite expensive insurance
after COBRA runs out, and now they are talking about delaying
Medicare to 67 or 68. It will probably take us about two years
to establish equilibrium and know what activities we can afford
to continue.
>SPEAKING OF THE CHRISTMAS LETTER...
We owe Dick and Tamar Eney and Todd Frazier our apologies.
I wrote the letter, Sandy edited and spell-checked it, and we
took a printout and disk to "Miss Print" in Meredith.
To get it on the decorated paper they had to reformat our letter
so took the disk. they ran it through THEIR spellchecker without
telling us, and took its changes without noticing that it was
changing proper names. Most embarrassing was their change of
Eney to ennui! We apologize for this and what they did to Tamar
and Frazier.
>NIEKAS OUT, BUT BEHIND AGAIN
It
is almost half a year since the last entropy, #25 in the September
disty. The printer gave us 100 completed NIEKU to have at Worldcon,
but when we got home I had the horrid project of collating 900
copies of a 120 page zine. Sandy and Stanley, Todd and Sherwood
Frazier, Sherwood's daughter Leah, Margaret Shepard and her son
David, Rafe Folch-Pi, and Jim & Linda Zelek, all helped some
with the collation, and their help is greatly appreciated. We
delivered the copies to the printer, Andy Johnson of Laconia,
who then cut, perfect bound, and the copies a few at a time.
Brian Thurston ran off the address labels and the art credit
correction for page 99. Finally, Todd, Sandy, and I addressed
and mailed the copies. The last copy was mailed about January
7. However Andy is slow binding the remaining copies and still
owes over 600 to go.
Also, because it was so long between issues
a lot of addresses were no longer valid. I tried to keep up with
CoAs in fanzines and mailed a small newsletter to the list shortly
before mailing NIEKAS, and I no longer have addresses for the
following: name, last known zipcode, reason, expiration
Carl Aschmann, 22003, sub, #46
Robert Bauman,
90041, sub, #47
Linda Bisson, 06418, sub, #47
David Blalock, 38168, trade, #45
Mark
Bode, 01060, art, #46
Mark Bondurant, 91335, art,
#45
Craig Brownlie, 15224, sub, #46
Joseph
Cherkes, 02906, review, #51
John Erik Colton,
11797, trade, #47
Eric Leif Davin, 15213, write,
#48
Dawne de la Cruz, 02816, sub, #48
Douglas
Dudewitz, 60025, sub, #49
Expanse Magazine, 21236,
review, #47
Tom Feller, 39236, trade, #47
Paul Giguere, 02154, sub, #51
John
Harrington, 22024, art, #47
David Haugh, 97071,
trade, #46
Judy Hirst-Sanchez, 92140-5007, sub,
#47
Romas Kukalis, 03431, sub, #50
Claire
Landau, 10016, sub, #50
Mark Manning, 98144, trade,
#47
Frank Prieto, 10012, sub, #51
Greg
Reeves, 49615, trade, #46
Leland Sapiro, 75755,
trade, #47
ElizabetShaw, 02154, sub, #46
Susan
Tallmadge, 02139, sub, #45
{name changed to Murasako,
and living in Boston according to Jane Sibley}
Diane
Thome, 06776, sub, #45
Lawrence Turner, 45014,
sub, #46
Laurie Tuttle, 93101, sub, #49
Reuben
Villegas, 80204, sub, #45
David Weiner, 91401,
sub, #46
Joe Wesson, 13617, trade #45
Art
Widner, 95445, trade, #51
Frances Williams, 98223,
sub, #47
George Zebrowski, 12790, review, #50
I kept two sets of records, on Braille cards and in my database.
I was more diligent in keeping the database up to date and as
items returned as unforwardable I deleted the record and set
aside the Braille card. Thus the expiration numbers and zipcodes
listed above might be even more out of date than the addresses
used for the mailing.
I am now beginning earnest work on NIEKAS
#46, 75% of which is already in the computer. I need the last
few columns, some book reviews, Lox on #45, and any additional
thoughts on sports and fantasy and fandom for a special focus
section.
Also I need suggestions on where to send
the Dark Fantasy issue to get reviewed. Do hope to get some extra
sales to help cover the very high printing and binding costs.
Normal issues are $4.95, specials higher.
the Dark Fantasy is $9.95. Subs, which include the special issues,
are $19 for 4, $37 for 8, $50 for 12. Four ish subs can start
with #45 if desired, 8 ish with #44 or 45. As usual trades and
contributions, including substantial lox, bring an ish.
>LARRY FLINT, HERO!
I
never expected to ever have anything good to say about Larry
Flynt, publisher of HUStLER. However in the recent Washington
circus he is the ONLY one who acquitted himself honorably. Clinton
has the morals of an alley cat but that has not effected his
ability to govern. Hyde fathered a bastard, something worse than
what Clinton did, but had the nerve to pretend to be a moral
person. Flynt has cut through all the hypocrisy and has published
on the Web the peccadilloes of Washington officials, Republican
AND Democrat. A Republican backed "foundation" has
bankrolled the Jones lawsuit to embarrass the president and I
fervently hope it backfires on them in 2000. If someone downloads
Flynts Honor Roll of Shame from the Web for me I will feature
it in the next few ENTROPIES.
>THE NEXT THOUSAND YEARS
Kim
Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (RED MARS, 1993, xiv+519 pp.,
$11.95 Trade PB, GREEN MARS, 1994, 535pp., $12.95 Trade PB, BLUE
MARS, 1996, 609pp., HC, all Bantam) and Clarke's 3001 (del Rey,
1997, 263pp.) make an interesting contest. Robinson shows man's
colonization of the solar system over the next few centuries,
to the first tentative steps to the stars, step by step, invention
by invention, with a detailed look at the changes in society
with time. Clarke uses the old cliche of a man of today abruptly
presented with a distant future and then learning the intervening
history. Also, Robinson took seven times as many pages as Clarke,
so he had more room to go into specifics.
Robinson assumes that the UN makes a commitment
to establish a colony on Mars, sends one individual on the first
manned reconnaissance and return, and then sends one hundred
colonists who are well tested and prepared. There is one disconcerting
chapter set on Mars a couple of decades after the initial landing,
and then the story starts with the hundred en route. There are
a few brief flashbacks to their training in Antarctica but the
story is linear after that. That anomalous first chapter shows
one of the "first hundred" fomenting a riot in order
to kill a rival for leadership. None of this is clear on first
reading, but I only became aware of the meaning of the action
much later in the story. I guess it was there to start the story
with action and to arouse the reader's curiosity as to just what
is happening.
I took Robinson's colors to refer to the
changing colors of Mars as terraforming progresses, but it also
refers to the political movements among the colonists. Robinson
shows irony in referring to the ecological conservatives who
want to retain the unspoiled beauty of Mars as Reds, and those
who will destroy the original environment in order to make Mars
livable as Greens. Blues are the final synthesis of these movements.
I admire some other little touches in the
Mars books. A space elevator is built on Mars like that first
proposed in 1960 by Yuri Artsutanov, a Russian engineer, and
then almost simultaneously put into novels by Arthur Clarke (FOUNTAINS
OF PARADISE, 1978) AND Charles Sheffield (Web Between the Worlds,
1979). The colonists name the city at the bottom of the elevator
"Sheffield" and the one at the top "Clarke."
(Clarke, in an open letter to the SFWA, says that there were
at least four independent inventions of the idea, including one
by John Isaacs in 1966, the one Clarke saw and which inspired
FOUNTAINS.) Another city is named "Burroughs." I can't
remember with certainty but I think there was a "Bradbury"
too.
The UN's purpose in sending "the first
hundred" is never clear to me. Their job is to establish
a viable base as nearly self-sufficient as possible, and prepare
the way for others. The earth is ruled more and more by great
international corporations and they see a possible profit in
Mars, and send more people. Many come planning to only stay five
years and return, and some do that. Then individual nations start
sending loads of colonists to establish nationalistic centers.
Over the years much of the leadership comes
from the "first hundred," which includes extremist
"reds" and "greens" among its ranks. Many
of the characters are well drawn and you can understand their
drives and needs, their loves and hates, and, for some, the need
to lead. A few decades after the initialization of the colony
scientists develop a rejuvenation process which, with repeated
use, can extend the lifetime to several hundred years.
The mega-corporations on Earth see Mars
as a resource and send great numbers of workers to exploit the
world. Those already there see this flood as too much too fast,
and say that the planet cannot absorb it without problems. To
help transport people to Mars and raw materials back to earth
the corporations build a space elevator. Finally the Martians
are driven to revolution, in the course of which they destroy
the elevator, but the revolution is suppressed. Earth sets out
to exterminate the "first hundred" as the leaders of
a movement for independence.
Slowly the planet is modified and becomes
more nearly habitable without artificial means, especially in
the lower valleys. Mountains and valleys are so extreme that
mountain tops remain totally uninhabitable and retain much of
their original appearance. This eventually allows a compromise
of sorts between the reds and greens, except for the most extreme.
Perhaps a century later a fusion drive
is developed which cuts the earth-mars trip to a few weeks and
permits permanent bases from Mercury to the moons of Neptune.
Between the longevity treatment and the fusion drive, by the
end of the series expeditions take off to explore other star
systems using hollowed out asteroids.
Part of the interplanetary politics is
driven by the pollution of earth and natural disasters that occur
there, including new volcanic activity on Antarctica which causes
a great mass of ice to slide into the sea and raise the sea level
by many meters.
The long view is optimistic, but there is no clear sailing. I
like this plausible future which leaves mankind occupying the
whole solar system and beginning to conquer the stars. I find
the characters believable, the future developments of technology
plausible, and the outlook optimistic.
In 2001 Clarke and Kubjust asrik had the insane computer HAL
kill Frank Poole by setting him adrift in space. A thousand years
later he is found and revived. Most of the story is about his
learning what happened during the thousand years he was dead.
Clarke presents many marvels and wonders but without the details
of how they were developed bit by bit it is much harder to believe.
Here too the space elevators play a major role, , and as in FOUNTAINS
and WEB the tops of several are eventually connected into a globe
circling ring. However over a thousand years the elevators are
replaced by towers a mile or more wide with millions of floors.
Clarke points out that these towers alone could hold several
times the population of the future earth, so great parts are
empty. They ARE useful for people who accommodated to low or
no gravity as the natural force felt would vary from zero at
the ring to full earth normal at the bottom, and one could start
at the appropriate level-- moon, Mars, etc., and work one's way
down.
Clarke hypothesized two major breakthroughs, which I found hard
to take. One was Doc Smith's old "inertialess drive"
which permits great acceleration with no felt reaction. It is
this technology which permits travel in a reasonable period of
time from one part of the globe encircling ring and towers to
another. The other was the ability to draw on the quantum vacuum
energy of empty space, and so to have a nearly infinite source
of power. Well, it WAS Clarke who first said that science sufficiently
advanced is indistinguishable from magic. (Robert Forward has
written a non-fiction book on this theme, INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM
MAGIC, which has been recorded on talking book, and which I will
read in the next few months.)
Clarke anticipates a withering of religion. If something as hairbrained
as Asstrology can survive the space age, I expect that many conventional
religions will make it too, and will be joined by new ones. Christian
Scientists, the Mormons, and Seventh Day Adventists started out
as nut cults and have become respectable religions, and I would
not be surprised to have them joined by the Scientologists, Moonies,
and Ghu knows what else. Somewhere between these camps in respectability
are the Jehovah's Witnesses and various holy roller and funnymentalist
sects. .
Clarke speculated that the Catholic Church would dissolve the
way the Soviet Empire did. Just as Gorbachef tried to clean up
the government by opening up to scrutiny the past sins of madmen
like Stalin, which led to the disillusion of the populace, a
future Pope would open up the records of the inquisition and
cause a mass exodus of disillusioned believers. The utter corruption
of the Papacy and Curia led to the Reformation (helped by rulers
who wanted to seize church power and property), but the church
survived and reformed itself. Without calling on any supernatural
help, the church would survive any possible future shock. It
would be a DIFFERENT church, but would have a historical continuity.
What I and most Catholics believe today would have been regarded
as utter heresy as little as 40 years ago. The church will continue
to evolve, incorporating and adjusting to new knowledge. I could
NEVER accept today what I did accept then, and I anticipate as
great a change as this in the next 40 years. The biggest adjustment
will have to be made when we DO finally contact another intelligent
species. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam developed in very parochial
societies, believing their indigenous cultures were the only
ones of any value, and that only the Middle East were of any
importance to right-thinking men, and to God. The New World,
then the reality of the Solar system, of the Galaxy, and the
universe as a whole led to adjustments in world view, but man
as the only known sentient creatures still inspires a sort of
geo-centrism. When we do meet others, what beliefs will we find
out there, How will this change the belief systems of the existing
religions? Which ones will hide their heads in the sand like
the funnymentalists? What totally new religions will spring up
as a result? The first Christian missionaries in China tried
incorporating Chinese culture in the faith they preached, but
the Mediterranean-centrist hierarchy of the time balked and suppressed
the rite. How would the world differ if they had not been suppressed?
Today the Catholic church is far more open to cultural adaptation.
But what will happen when confronted with a REALLY alien culture?
I enjoyed both stories and views of the future, though I did
prefer Robinson's, but then Robinson had much more space to develop
his story and ideas, so it is hard to compare them fairly. I
do recommend both.
>THE CITY AND THE PILLAR
In
the introduction to the one-volume Riddle-Master (or Starbearer)
trilogy (Ace trade pb, 1999, 578 pp., $16) Patricia McKillip
spoke of her youthful enthusiasm for fantasy and, before discovering
Tolkien in 1967, having read everything from HAMLET to THE CITY
AND THE PILLAR. She said the latter as if it were something the
reader should recognize as a classic. Anyone here recognize it?
Can you tell me who wrote it, about when, and what it is about?
>LETTERS
From: Elemhg@home.com
While net surfing I happened
to stumble on your View from Entropy Hall #8 and found it quite
interesting.
I assume you like to get your facts straight,
so I do hope you won't be offended if I offer uninvited two very
minor correction:
1. My last name (and Judy's) is spelled
Gerjuoy, not Gerjoy.
2. These days I teach computer science at Tunxis Community-Technical
College in Farmington, Connecticut, a state two-year college.
I also teach psychology part-time at Three Rivers Community-Technical
College in Norwich, Connecticut, also a state college. This past
year I also taught computer science there. I was scheduled to
teach a social science course there too, but its enrollment was
too low. This past year I also taught computer science and mathematics
(actually statistics) part-time at Eastern Connecticut State
University, another state school.
DAVID PALTER
You made a
few alterations to my letter. Please note that the famous movie
reviewers to whom I referred are named Sisael & Ebert, not
Cisco & Ebert. David Palter
From: Friedd@pop.interport.net subj: LOOKING
FOR JOHN CLOsson
Dear Edmund: I found references to John
Closson in your recollections of Tolkien fandom. I was an old
friend of his, and was wondering if you might know what has happened
to him. David<nofill>
[I wrote back that I had heard conflicting
rumors of self commitment because of problems in dealing with
children and arrest for drugs, and that he had since passed away,
but knew nothing for sure. David replied as follows. ERM]
How sad. Actually, John was a camp counselor
of mine in the '60s and he was something of a mentor for me for
some years afterwards. A predilection for small children? I guess
I was one when I first knew him...it's quite a strange thought
that this might have been going on. I just recently started thinking
of him and wondering what had become of him.
John seems to have been around relatively recently. An AltaVista
search turns him up as part of the staff of LA con III in 1996.
So reports of his death may be exaggerated. [Anyone know if the
Closson on the LACon 3 staff is the same as the NY fan of the
'60s? ERM]
I remember meeting Dick Plotz around that time as well, in the
TSA. A small group of us came to a few meetings from Flushing,
Queens.
Thanks for the info/rumors.
David Friedlander Vector Space Inc. tel: 212-942-1636 fax: 212-569-8680
>SOME AMUSING EMAIL:
Subject:
What to do when you meet a sighted person
This
was posted on the NFB listserv.
People who use their eyes to receive information about the world
are called sighted people or "people who are sighted."
Legal "sight" means any visual acuity greater than
20/200 in the better eye without correction and an angle of vision
wider than 20 degrees. Sighted people enjoy rich full lives,
working, playing and raising families. They run businesses, hold
public office and teach your children!
HOW DO SIGHTED PEOPLE GET AROUND?!
People who
are sighted may walk or ride public transportation, but most
choose to travel long distances by operating their own motor
vehicles. They have gone through many hours of training to learn
the "rules of the road" in order to further their independence.
Once that road to freedom has been mastered, sighted people earn
a legal classification and a "Driver's License" which
allows them to operate a private vehicle safely and independently.
HOW TO ASSIST A SIGHTED PERSON
Sighted
people are accustomed to viewing the world in visual terms. This
means that in many situations, they will not be able to communicate
orally and may resort to pointing or other gesturing. Subtle
facial expressions may also be used to convey feelings in social
situations. Calmly alert the sighted person to his surroundings
by speaking slowly, in a normal tone of voice. Questions directed
at the sighted person help focus attention back on the verbal
rather than visual communication. At times, sighted people may
need help finding things, especially when operating a motor vehicle.
Your advance knowledge of routes and landmarks, particularly
bumps in the road, turns and traffic lights, will assist the
"driver" in finding the way quickly and easily. Your
knowledge of building layouts can also assist the sighted person
in navigating complex shopping malls and offices. Sighted people
tend to be very proud and will not ask directly for assistance.
Be gentle yet firm.
HOW DO SIGHTED PEOPLE USE COMPUTERS?!
The person
who is sighted relies exclusively on visual information. His
or her attention span fades quickly when reading long texts.
Computer information is presented in a "Graphical User Interface"
or GUI. Coordination of hands and eyes is often a problem for
sighted people, so the computer mouse, a handy device that slides
along the desk top, saves confusing keystrokes. With one button,
the sighted person can move around his or her computer screen
quickly and easily. People who are sighted are not accustomed
to synthetic speech and may have great difficulty understanding
even the clearest synthesizer. Be patient and prepared to explain
many times how your computer equipment works.
HOW DO SIGHTED PEOPLE READ?!
Sighted
people read through a system called "Print." this is
a series of images drawn in a two dimensional plain. People who
are sighted generally have a poorly developed sense of touch.
Braille is completely foreign to the sighted person and he or
she will take longer to learn the code and be severely limited
by his or her existing visual senses. Sighted people cannot function
well in low lighting conditions and are generally completely
helpless in total darkness. their homes are usually very brightly
lit at great expense, as are businesses that cater to the sighted
consumer.
HOW CAN I SUPPORT A SIGHTED PERSON?!
People who
are sighted do not want your charity. They want to live, work
and play along with you. The best thing you can do to support
sighted people in your community is to open yourself to their
world. These Americans are vital contributing members to society.
Take a sighted person to lunch today! Kent Ireton, Vocational
Rehabilitation Counselor Alaska Division of Vocational Rehabilitation
e- mail: kent_ireton@educ.state.ak.us webpage: http://www.educ.state.ak.us/VocRehab/blsvs.html
From: Nivapixie@aol.com
Subj:
PRESIDENTIAL ESCAPADES QUIZ
Just so you don't think Slick Willie is the only guy with low
morals who occupied the White House. See how many of these you
know, and, no, Bill Clinton is not the correct answer for all
of them.
1.Which president smoked marijuana with a nude playgirl while
he joked about being too wasted to "push the button"
in case of nuclear attack?
2.Which president allegedly had affairs
with both a winner AND a finalist in the Miss America pageant?
3. Which president had sex with one of
his secretaries stretched out atop a desk in the oval office?
4.Which president allegedly had an affair (as well as children)
with a slave who was his wife's half sister?
5.Which president called his mistress "Pookie"?
6.Which president married a woman who hadn't yet divorced her
first husband, and was branded an "adulterer" during
his re-election campaign?
7.Which future president wrote love letters to his neighbor's
wife while he was engaged to someone else?
8.Which president had a torrid affair with the first lady's personal
secretary?
9.Which president had sex with a young woman in a White House
coat closet -at one point, while a secret service agent prevented
the hysterical first lady from attacking them?
10.Which president had sex in a closet while telling his partner
about the "other" president who did the same in a closet
(the one in Question 9)?
11.Which vice president was ticked off because he felt that HIS
record of sexual conquests was more "impressive" (i.e.
numerous) than the President's?
12.Which future president, while a college student, enjoyed showing
off his penis (which he named Jumbo)
ANSWERS
1. John F. Kennedy
2. Bill Clinton
3.
Lyndon B. Johnson
4. Thomas Jefferson
5.
Bill Clinton
6. Andrew Jackson
7.
George Washington
8. Franklin D. Roosevelt
9. Warren G. Harding
10. John F. Kennedy
11. Lyndon B. Johnson
12. Lyndon B.
Johnson
This info is from an article in the Western
Legislatures magazine.
It is time to elect a world leader, and your vote counts. Here's
the scoop on the three leading candidates.
Candidate A associates with ward heelers and consults with astrologists.
He's had two mistresses. He chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis
a day.
Candidate B was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon,
used opium in college and drinks a quart of brandy every evening.
Candidate C is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't
smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any illicit affairs.
Which of these candidates is your choice??
Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Candidate B is Winston
Churchill. Candidate C is Adolph Hitler. Anybody still have a
problem with Bill Clinton? [Actually, didn't Hitler have an affair
with a half-sister or something like that? ERM]
>COMMENTS
I am picking
this up again after several months and have parts of several
Qs on tape with no indication of number, so I will put in comments
in random order as I process the tapes. These will follow the
comments already typed before I lost track. Also I have several
Qs unread or only partly read distys, and several tapes I did
not have time to process before the deadline for the March disty.
.
~BLANCMANGE (Mark Blackman).
In
your worldcon report in Q424 you commented on the large amount
of walking involved. Unfortunately many cons have been scattered.
I remember even as far back as Denvention II in 1981 the hotel
was ten blocks from the convention center. We had programming
in both and getting back and forth was a pain. Most cons since
then, except for a few like Magicon, involved substantial walking.
In Q 426 you commented to me that the closed communities in Butler's
PARABLE OF THE SOWER were more of the middle class than of the
super rich. Actually I saw two distinct types of closed communities...the
lower class, barely surviving like the one of the heroine, but
also those of the super rich which WERE truly secure. In the
book someone's boy friend got invited to work in a super rich
one and left. I understand the sequel, PARABLE OF THE TALENS,
is out and am anxious to see reviews of it. If any reader sees
one on the net, please forward it to my email address. [] I was
sorry to see the way Goetz was hounded for shooting the muggers.
The one who was crippled will never mug another innocent victem.
The mugger was anything but the innocent victem Goetz' persecutors
portrayed him as. [] I guess you are right that while in many
ways New York and San Francisco are almost equivalent culturally,
S F does lack N Y's Jewish presence. Since that is not important
to me, I had not thought of it, but it would be important to
a Jewish family like Rogow's.
~DAGON (John Boardman).
In
Q424 I am very glad you published the Scientologist creation
story. About 25 years ago (before Aug 1975 when I remember discussing
it with Bjo Trimble while in LA for Mythcon) I read INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY
by a disenchanted practitioner who had advanced very far through
the training. He described arcana like what you published but
too much time has passed for me to remember it in all its details.
I just checked with the talking book library, and it is not in
the union catalog because no copies of the old phonograph records
have survived
In Q426 you quoted the old verse
The miners came in 49
the whores in 51
and
when they got together
They produced the native
son.
I would have thought that it would be, rather than an attack
on the "Native Sons of the Golden West," an attack
on people with aristocratic pretensions. Something like the Australian
song the Clam Chowder group sings, whose refrain goes something
like
Was your grandma a whore?
Was your grandpa a thief?
If you are born of Australia I know who you be
You're the son of the son of a scoundrel like me.
The protagonist of the song shouts this
to a rich fop passing in a limo, to a judge on the bench, etc.
[] You commented that you had heard that in the latest Tom Clancey
novel the villains were environmentalists who are trying to exterminate
humanity so we would no longer damage the earth, and you dismissed
the possibility of such a group. I don't think so. Extreme wackos
of all stripes DO exist. In a recent issue of THE PLANETARY REPORT
from The Planetary Society, Michael Allaby, co-author with James
Lovelock of THE GREENING OF MARS, said, "A few years ago
I took part in a debate about the desirability of terraforming
Mars, assuming it to have no life forms of its own. Sadly environmentalists
in the audience opposed this idea bitterly on the grounds that
we should not risk harming the Martian environment even if that
means no living being ever gets to see it, and even if the word
'environment' is a trifle difficult to define in the absence
of any kind of life." This reminds me of the war between
the Greens and the Reds in K.S. Robinson's Mars trilogy. [] I
am very glad you reviewed Rogow's MISSING MISS. The book sounds
fascinating and I do hope Library of Congress puts it on talking
book. Since the plot involves the kidnapping of the prepubescent
daughter of a politician to force him to withdraw a bill he sponsored
in Parliament or she would be put into white slavery, you went
on to discuss prostitution in general. Perhaps, as you say, the
prostitute from the lower classes would initially have a better
life than her unfallen sisters, when her looks are gone she would
be worse off than ever unless she had saved for that day...and
how many would have thought ahead and done that? And what abuse
by pimps? [] You wrote about your visit to Niagara Falls after
the Columbus Day Meshkon reminds me of my last visit. I had been
there with my parents around 1950 and did most of the touristy
things, but next saw it driving home from St.Louiscon in 1969.
I was traveling with Nan Miles, who would become my first wife,
and Sandy Parker, my second and permanent wife, in Sandy's car.
We took a shortcut through Canada from Detroit to Niagara Falls,
and when we got to the falls we didn't get to see them. They
were turned off for repairs. Maybe when we go to Rochester in
May for Stanley's graduation we could make a side trip and Sandy
would get to see them turned back on. [] You spoke of the great
expense and effort it takes to bit for the "privilege"
to hold a Worldcon, and wondered what would happen if some year
no one bid. It almost happened in 1966 when Cleveland, Columbus,
and a third city were all bidding and all three dropped out.
The SMoFs gathered, and cobbled a joint bid of all three committees
to be held in Cleveland, and they called it "Tricon."
~hOW tOO (dON DEL Grande).
In
Q424 you commented to Boardman about his statement that there
is no more airmail in the US. While in Junior H S and H S I coalesced
stamps and read stamp magazines, and the change came in that
period. The Pest Office decided to ship ALL mail over 200 miles
by air and to discontinue a premium priced domestic air service
as such. The truck and railroad shippers were quite upset by
this decision. I do not know how this 200 mile transition point
has been fine-tuned since them. [] You are right about someone
in Egypt measuring the circumference of the earth by comparing
shadow lengths. On one particular date the sun was directly overhead
at noon in one city, and this person measured the length of a
shadow at the same time at a location a known distance north
on the same day. It was simple trigonometry to calculate the
angle from the vertical to the sun, which would be the same angle
as that between lines from the center of the earth to those points.
I am awful at remembering names so do not remember who did it
(I think it was something like Aristophanes) or where the two
sites were. Unfortunately for Renaissance geographers the distance
was given in "stadia" and at different times and places
this unit had different values. Columbus convinced himself that
the smaller value was the true one, so the circumference of the
earth was about 2/3 of what it really is. Almost any elementary
astronomy textbook gives the history of how the Greeks came to
realize about 350 BCE that the earth was spherical, and eventually
measured its size quite accurately (assuming the larger value
for "stadia"). A popularly written book I liked and
taught out of in a liberal-arts no math course was Isaac Asimov's
THE UNIVERSE, FROM FLAT EARTH TO QUASAR. [] Fair use of copyrighted
material has certainly liberalized over the years. In 1958 I
had a summer job at Evans Signal Labs just outside of Asbury
Park, NJ, and needed a copy of an article from a scientific journal.
Before the library could Verifax (remember wet copiers?) a copy
for me, they had to clear the copyright with the journal, causing
a delay of a week or so. [] In Q426 you talked about declining
computer prices. I first saw a talking computer at the 1982 NFB
convention. It was an Osborne #1 with an echo synthesizer and
custom talking software and the whole package was $4,000. I don't
know how much of that was the naked price of the Osborne and
how much the custom software. Avos Computer Systems of Minneapolis
was selling the package. I had just nerved myself up to buying
it when Osborne went belly up leaving Avos stranded. Then they
adapted the Zorba, a CPM machine, which they thought was safe
since the parent company had provided the computers for the space
shuttle. Again before I bought it Zorba went belly up, and IBN
and clones were the rage. Ron Hutchison of Columbus OH created
software to make ANY PC DOS program talk and I bought that for
$500, the Type & Talk synthesizer for $250, and a Leading
Edge XT clone for $1500. I used this happily with registered
shareware until three years ago when a friend upgraded and gave
me such a deal on his 386 that I couldn't turn him down! Lucky
I did for just before I finished transferring all my data to
the new machine the XT died. I think it was a problem with the
BIOS chip. Also, around 86 I bought a store demo 20 mb hard drive
on a card. The drive retailed for $900 but I paid $450 because
it had been a store demo. I still had it only half full when
the machine died. My friend is talking about upgrading again
and offering me a deal on his 60 mhz Pentium. My wife is nagging
me to do it and advance to Windows 95 for there are now two good
screen reading programs available, Window Eyes and JAWS for Windows.
(A few months ago the latter was featured on CBS TV's "60
MINUTES.") The machine could barely handle W95 but since
I would not run any heavily graphical software it should be enough.
I am reluctant to get into the heavy learning curve of a new
OS, but then could use a word processor compatible with other
NIEKAS
contributors and workers. I have bought a Braille manual on Windows
without a mouse and am slowly reading it. [] So that's what the
latest "earn money at home" scam is all about! Cleaning
up mailing lists to use for spam by deleting protective bits.
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