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Message no. 1
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 10:33:01 -0400
It eventually ties in with SR

>What do you guys get taught about world geography - let alone common sense
>(referring to the air question).

It gets taught. But students haven't paid attention for so long, high
school instructors have to use the BOOK to point out minor things like
Australia.
The education system in America has been taken over by a cult that
believes that "self empowerment" and making learning "fun" is more
important that "facts and figures". An example is math- in America, in
most elementary and high-schools, it is possible to get 85%+ credit on a
math test without getting a SINGLE answer right, but showing "all your
work". (I will never be invited to work as a substitute teacher in my area
again, becuase I got dumped with the "brite" 8th graders, who had an
algebra class and could not answer "x" for 8X$ in MAY(!) and I kinda
insulted them, thier intelligence and the copitency of thier regular
teacher.) You aren't given respect. You earn it. That is where
empowerment comes from. And life isn't always fun. Calculus sucks. So
does death and being born, but they are part of life
The problem is spoiled Boomers and thier brain-damaged kids who think that
they should have everything handed to them on a silver platter is small,
easy-to-digest bits without doing any real work. I've gone to school board
meeting and watch parents and boardmembers berate the teachers and aids
because they aren't doing the kids work for them! (And some of what was
said would have been grounds to demand satisfaction by duel.) The idiots
are also deluded into thinking that every kid will be a genius and make
100K a year. Most of them won't, especially a 14 year old who works at a
1st grade level. The students don't do homework, or even personal research
on thier own, becuase they are too lazy and thier parents don't expect it
of them. As a result, I see kids doing work a grade-level or two behind
where they were a decade ago, with the truely smart kids struggling to keep
from loosing thier minds from boredom and trying to learn on thier own what
they should be learning.
In most colleges, the first year is spent teaching kids stuff that they
should have learned by the time they should have learned in high school.
And everyone is very quick to jump on teachers. I don't understand this.
There are two kinds of teachers- those who are great, and those that suck.
There is no middle ground. For those who are great, they are there becuase
it like a holy calling for them. For those that suck, it is just a job.
And there are more and more of them every year. Teachers aren't
appreciated by most people, who blame them for everything from Little
Johnny's inability to read to Little Suzie's third pregnancy at age 14 to
Little Mikey's pipe bomb stuffed locker. No other branch of public service
has seen such skimpy raises or has been expected to toss 10% of it back
into thier job for basic supplies. (In my area, the last pack of crappy
yellow penmaship paper is gone in Febuary, right around the same time as
the last roll of toilet paper.) Teachers don't want to get saddled with
sex-ed, and "self esteem building", and drug prevention, and all the other
crap that society has dumped on them beacause no one else is willing to do
it. This isn't their job. (If the polis wants that in schools, fine, they
need to expand the school building, lengthen the day, and bring in some
overly perky nitwit to do it.)
There is an ancient, and not at all funny joke: "Those who can do, those
who can't teach." I've seen it attributed to the Romans, so it explains
why the hatred of teachers is so ingrained with our culture. But is also
becomeing true that those that "can't" teach in public school. Becuase the
people who "can" either teach in private schools or get a job that pays
well and the boss is willing to give them what they need.

If you value your kids (or those you haven't had yet), I give four pieces
of advise:
1) Send them to a private school, at least for high school.
2) Send them to a good college that isn't afraid to throw someone with
less than a 1.0 (or <2.0 for two semester in a row) out, especially if the
average professor took a pay CUT to leave the private sector and become a
professor.
3) Be a PARENT, not a friend. This sometimes means saying "no", which you
should get used to (if you've never heard this word before, think about
getting your tubes tied), applying appropriate disapline (standing in the
corner is NOT suitable for trying to light the cat on fire) and having
tough discussions (like the "birds and the bees"). Be fair, but also
expect nothing but the best from them. If they aren't giving thier all, it
is a sign of trouble.
4) If they need help, provide it or pay someone to help them, don't rely
on the schools to do everything.

This may seem redundent, even demening, to some of you, and if you are
doing all of the above, I appologize. But remember, your kids will be
paying for you when you are 90 years old. Do you want to spend you last
days at home? Or in a warehouse of the dying with a numbered tag attached
to your bed all filled out for when you croak.

It also isn't fair to dump it all on the parents (but they deserve most of
it, eventually). Look at the new schools that are being built. One, maybe
two, entrances, with metal detectors. Random searches of lockers and bags.
Armed gaurds, with heavier weapons is the office. Bars on the windows
that can't be opened. Cameras everywhere. Every room and fifty-foot
section of hall can be remotely sealed off. Shutting off the lights
requires a lock-out key, in the few areas they can be shut off. The
perimeter is fenced in, fully lit at night, and monitored with more
cameras, many of these with aural pickups and low-light modes.
Maybe this is just me, but the only things missing is individualized
accomidations and razor wire, to make it a max-sec facility. Like the one
at Pelican Bay or formerly at Alcatraz. What makes people think that this
level of "safety" will change a single goddamn digit in the
"juevenile" (To
most of the world's point of view, during 14 or 15 makes you an adult. Only
the Euro-Americentric world and some parts of the Orient think otherwise.)
crime rates or the quality of education, is totally beyond me. All it is
going to do (based off the data developed from studies in the eighties
after they first started retrofitting this stuff into old schools, but were
buried because the finding weren't popular) is (a) make the meek meeker,
and thus greater targets, and (b) make the section of the population who
are little more than rabid animals, more antagonistic and increase thier
"pack instinct". For everyone, is going to increase the feeling of being
constantly monitored. I know a number of GOOD teachers (the ones for whom
it is a semi-religious calling) who have stated that they will quit and
work for McDonalds before they work in a "school" that is built like that.

>The basic game is based in seattle.. so whats changed in the education
system by

See above. There have been numerous references to "icon literacy" in
Shadowrun. This is used to a limited degree in American education already,
with mentally retarded students and pavlovian conditioning of animals. It
basically, if the red circle is shown, push button "A", but throw switch
"1" if the circle is green or pull cord "a" if the circle is actually
a
triangle.
Math is taught as punching buttons on a calculator. Composition is voice
recognition into a computer, and clicking the "grammer and spell correct"
icon. Literature isn't taught. Arts aren't taught. Only the most basic
history and geography. For foreign languages, there are chips.
Even in the technical fields, it is monkey learning assissted by brilliant
systems. For example, in electronics Ohms law and the calculation of
capacitors and so forth are taught as a bunch of readings from a meter to
be punched into a computer, and what that result means. OK, but they
aren't learning how that happens or how to figure that out themselves, such
as how to use a reference table and a pencil to figure out what a cable is
made out of by knowing the voltage and amperage at each end and the length
of the wire.

If you really want to learn, then you need to be rich enough to go to a
private school, not a public, corporate-run, school. That is being done
for a reason- it sponsers fuedalism, with a truely literate and educated
technocracy ruling over the barely literate middle managers and national
leaders, and in turn, the iconerate semi-drones of the peasant class.

>2060? Are UCAS citizens (even the smart ones) still not taught about the
rest of
>the world?

Only those who have a need to know according to thier destiny, as
calcualted by the finest corporate accountanting software money can buy.

BE A SHADOWRUNNER- FIDDLE WITH THE BOOKS!


CyberRaven Kevin Dole
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 2
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 13:55:30 -0400
Aaron asked:
>> What do you guys get taught about world geography - let alone
>> Common sense(referring to the air question).

IronRaven responded:
> It gets taught. But students haven't paid attention for so
> long, high school instructors have to use the BOOK to point out
> minor things like Australia.
> The education system in America has been taken over by a cult that
> believes that "self empowerment" and making learning "fun" is
more
> important that "facts and figures".

And the problem is that _both_ of these methods are wrong. The basic flaw of
the American school system is that students are not taught how to think. In
the best of cases, they are taught a bunch of facts about something, but no
attempt is made to link these facts together or give a wider picture. For
example, in teaching about, say, the Civil War, we learn a bunch of dates
and battles and a bit of politics, but nothing is said about what the rest
of the world is doing at that same time in history. Often, this is extremely
important about understanding the _meaning_ of what is being learned.

For example, most Americans cannot answer this question correctly (without
guessing):

Did Columbus "discover" the New World before or after Shakespeare wrote
Hamlet?

Granted, this is not the deepest or most crucial question on Earth, but the
point is that Americans are taught in an unnessessarily compartmentalized
way: Columbus is in this little box and Shakespeare is in this little box,
and the boxes have nothing to do with each other.

Another example about what I mean can be illustrated by the following math
problem:

1999 + 1999 = ?

The way I was taught to solve this was: add the two nines in the ones place
together to get 18, carry the one. Add the carry to the next to numbers and
carry and so on.

Why did I have to learn myself that the best way to answer this is to
realize the meaning of the numbers and use it? Doing this lets you realize
that this problem is really 2000 + 2000 - 2. You can do that in your head in
about a second, while the mechanical way I was taught is both lengthy and
error prone.

Teaching facts over meaning does not yeild education. It yeilds someone who
knows facts.

> If you value your kids (or those you haven't had yet), I
> give four pieces of advise:
> 1) Send them to a private school, at least for high school.

Ug. I haven't met many people from private school that I didn't want to
smack within the first five minutes. If you want them sociall maladjusted,
send them to private school. If you want them to have some inkling of how
people in the real world act, send them to public school.
Message no. 3
From: MC23 mc23@**********.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 14:05:28 -0400
Once upon a time, Wordman wrote;

>Why did I have to learn myself that the best way to answer this is to
>realize the meaning of the numbers and use it? Doing this lets you realize
>that this problem is really 2000 + 2000 - 2. You can do that in your head in
>about a second, while the mechanical way I was taught is both lengthy and
>error prone.

<grrrrr> don't get me started on new math.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"I have never been this angry in my entire life.
...
Hey, I feel great. I enjoy being angry!"
-Ren Hoek, Ren & Stimpy

I am MC23
Message no. 4
From: Scott Wheelock iscottw@*****.nb.ca
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:40:47 -0300
"And now, a Channel 6 editorial reply to Wordman."
<snip school rant>

] Ug. I haven't met many people from private school that I didn't want to
] smack within the first five minutes. If you want them sociall maladjusted,
] send them to private school. If you want them to have some inkling of how
] people in the real world act, send them to public school.

You know, you were doing just fine up until this point. Try not to
let your prejudices show, 'kay?

-Murder of One
Message no. 5
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:25:24 -0400
>] Ug. I haven't met many people from private school that I didn't want to
>] smack within the first five minutes.

> You know, you were doing just fine up until this point. Try not to
> let your prejudices show, 'kay?

An acknowledged, public prejudice is, in my opinion, preferable to a hidden
one; it lets you know where the person stands.

For the record, I don't judge people based on background, appearance or
schooling, only on action. In my experience (especially during school), the
great majority of the people whose actions indicated to me that they were
wastes of skin turned out to be from private school. Maybe it was a
coincidence.

Wordman
Message no. 6
From: Snake Eyes snake.eyes@********.att.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 17:01:02 -0700
At 03:25 PM 7/12/99 -0400, Wordman wrote:

>For the record, I don't judge people based on background, appearance or
>schooling, only on action. In my experience (especially during school), the
>great majority of the people whose actions indicated to me that they were
>wastes of skin turned out to be from private school. Maybe it was a
>coincidence.

Congratulations on achieving and maintaining the ability to make the
judgmental delineation between appearance and behavior. It is an important
skill that is becoming increasingly rare in our society of entitlements and
alleged enlightenment. I've had similar experience with more than a couple
private school snots, but that begs a couple of questions:

1. Is it *really* private school that makes kids turn out that way?

1a. If so, how?

2. Didn't you go to Harvard?

~ Snake Eyes
Message no. 7
From: Iridios iridios@*********.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 22:03:02 -0400
Wordman wrote:

> And the problem is that _both_ of these methods are wrong. The basic flaw of
> the American school system is that students are not taught how to think.

Agreed, especially if you add "...for themselves."



> Did Columbus "discover" the New World before or after Shakespeare wrote
> Hamlet?

I admit, I do not know the answer to this. Partly my fault, but I
feel that the damned religious private school I went to had something
to do with it. They didn't have us read the classics unless it was
accepted "religious" classics. :(

(BTW, if anyone decides to send their kids to private school, try to
send them to a secular one.)


> Another example about what I mean can be illustrated by the following math
> problem:
>
> 1999 + 1999 = ?
>
> The way I was taught to solve this was: add the two nines in the ones place
> together to get 18, carry the one. Add the carry to the next to numbers and
> carry and so on.
>
> Why did I have to learn myself that the best way to answer this is to
> realize the meaning of the numbers and use it? Doing this lets you realize
> that this problem is really 2000 + 2000 - 2. You can do that in your head in
> about a second,...

Not everyone is capable of even doing that one easily. I know for a
fact, that my sister would refuse to do "2000 + 2000 - 2" on the
grounds that it is too hard. (I am dead serious here.) My S.O. is
significantly more accepting of math but refuses to believe in
imaginary numbers.



>... while the mechanical way I was taught is both lengthy and
> error prone.
>
> Teaching facts over meaning does not yeild education. It yeilds someone who
> knows facts.
>
> > If you value your kids (or those you haven't had yet), I
> > give four pieces of advise:
> > 1) Send them to a private school, at least for high school.
>
> Ug. I haven't met many people from private school that I didn't want to
> smack within the first five minutes. If you want them sociall maladjusted,
> send them to private school. If you want them to have some inkling of how
> people in the real world act, send them to public school.

--
Iridios
"Accept what you cannot avoid,
Avoid what you cannot accept."
Message no. 8
From: Ereskanti@***.com Ereskanti@***.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 22:36:53 EDT
In a message dated 7/12/1999 9:42:46 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
cyberraven@********.net writes:


<SNIP HUGE RANT!>

> >2060? Are UCAS citizens (even the smart ones) still not taught about the
> rest of
> >the world?
>
> Only those who have a need to know according to thier destiny, as
> calcualted by the finest corporate accountanting software money can buy.
>
> BE A SHADOWRUNNER- FIDDLE WITH THE BOOKS!

(*HOOTS HOLLARS ROARS OF APPLAUSE!!!!!*)
Message no. 9
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 23:20:17 -0400
> (BTW, if anyone decides to send their kids to private school, try to
> send them to a secular one.)

Amen.


Er... you know what I mean.
Message no. 10
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 23:20:18 -0400
> Congratulations on achieving and maintaining the ability to make the
> judgmental delineation between appearance and behavior.

Thank you. It was a dream, I made it happen.

> 1. Is it *really* private school that makes kids turn out that way?

There is never a single thing that affects behavior; it is always a mix. But
it does seem to me that private school did have a great deal to do with it.

> 1a. If so, how?

I'm not sure, since I went to public school. I think part of it is a kind of
insulation from aspects of the real world. For example, I'd wager that most
private school students don't give much thought to being shot or stabbed by
a fellow student. Not that I dwelled much on that as a student, but it
crossed my mind once in a while. Being forced to deal with that kind of
thing is better preparation for the real world, where not everything exists
just for you. Private school students that I knew seemed to have trouble
adapting to activities that were not terribly complicated, like doing your
own laundry or navigating a subway system.

In Shadowrun terms, they had a very low Street Etiquette skill, which seems
to me a huge disadvantage for someone living in America.

Also, how diverse is your average private school? Being from Colorado, my
schools were fairly mixed between Hispanic and white students, with a
handful of Black, Asian and Jewish students. I'm not sure you get that at a
private school. The thing is, when you go to a school like that, you don't
realize that most of the country isn't mixed like that. It didn't even seem
like an issue to me until after I left.

It also seems to me that public school students (Americans, anyway)
generally treat other people the same way regardless of who they are.
Private school students that I knew seemed to reserve politeness and respect
for their peers and those who they perceived as above them in some way,
while distaining everyone else. Public school students didn't mix it like
that; they either were polite to everyone or distained everyone, regardless
of "status".

> 2. Didn't you go to Harvard?

Yes. Maybe that is the source of my bias; Harvard probably had more snobbish
morons than the average college. I was very surprised at the number of total
idiots who were at Harvard. To be sure, there were true geniuses there
(enough to let me know that I am not one), and a great deal of pretty nice
people, but, man, there were sure some dolts. And by this, I don't really
mean stupid. It was a strange kind of dolt. They would have 1600 SAT scores,
but would sit on benches that had Wet Paint signs on them, or ask questions
in class that the professor had answered not 30 seconds before.
Message no. 11
From: Scott Wheelock iscottw@*****.nb.ca
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 01:40:07 -0300
"And now, a Channel 6 editorial reply to Wordman."

Okay, this is only from my experience, so maybe I'm just as biased as
Wordman, but I'd like to give my side of the story, being a private
school alumnus.

] > 1. Is it *really* private school that makes kids turn out that way?
]
] There is never a single thing that affects behavior; it is always a mix. But
] it does seem to me that private school did have a great deal to do with it.
]
] > 1a. If so, how?
]
] I'm not sure, since I went to public school. I think part of it is a kind of
] insulation from aspects of the real world. For example, I'd wager that most
] private school students don't give much thought to being shot or stabbed by
] a fellow student.

Garbage. Violence happens regardless of where you go to school, you
just have to look to Littleton and Taber to see that. They're both
small towns where guns should be hard to get right, not like inner
cities? Obviously wrong. At my school there was plenty of fighting,
and I knew of plenty of kids with knives. That no-one got killed at my
school is luck, since the means and motives (weak as they always are)
were there.

] Private school students that I knew seemed to have trouble
] adapting to activities that were not terribly complicated, like doing your
] own laundry or navigating a subway system.

Geez...at most private schools around two-thirds to half of the
students are coming from away, and living basically on their own. You
get to do your own laundry (goodness!), manage your own studies (oh
my!), and get sick without mommy to hug you. For Pete's sake, private
schools certainly don't have a monopoly on inept, sheltered individuals.

] Also, how diverse is your average private school?

Very. We had kids from Hong Kong, Japan, Spain, Bermuda, Jamaica,
Mexico, Guatemala, The Dominican Republic, Switzerland, and even New
Jersey. And kids of other ethnicities from Canada, England, and the
U.S.A.. Not just WASPS. And this is the Maritimes, where non-white
people really are a minority.

] It also seems to me that public school students (Americans, anyway)
] generally treat other people the same way regardless of who they are.

That is one hell of a silly statement to make. Many, many divisions
exist in public school just as in private school. For instance, public
school kids tend to see private school alumni as rich snobs. Sound familiar?

] Private school students that I knew seemed to reserve politeness and respect
] for their peers and those who they perceived as above them in some way,
] while distaining everyone else. Public school students didn't mix it like
] that; they either were polite to everyone or distained everyone, regardless
] of "status".

Garbage. Sure, there are lots and lots of people who can treat
others nicely based on that person's behaviour, but to say there are
none in private schools is pretty damned ignorant.

] > 2. Didn't you go to Harvard?
]
] Yes. Maybe that is the source of my bias; Harvard probably had more snobbish
] morons than the average college.

It's nice to see you can admit you have a bias, I have plenty myself,
that's natural. What's wrong and stupid is people excusing their
biased actions or statements on the grounds that they recognize their
bias. If you've got nothing nice to say, keep it to yourself. If you
admit you have a bias, try to work on correcting it, and in the
meantime, try not to offend others.

Anyway, this is obviously heavily OT, so I won't respond to this
thread anymore, but I really felt I had to say something. Apologies to
the list.

Scott Wheelock
Message no. 12
From: Aaron Binns sparrow@***.net.au
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 16:37:01 +1000
IronRaven wrote:

> It eventually ties in with SR
>
> >What do you guys get taught about world geography - let alone common sense
> >(referring to the air question).
>
> It gets taught. But students haven't paid attention for so long, high
> school instructors have to use the BOOK to point out minor things like
> Australia.

<snippity Snip / snip>

> BE A SHADOWRUNNER- FIDDLE WITH THE BOOKS!
>
> CyberRaven Kevin Dole

Wow.. guess thats one bit of america that isnt publicised by the great media giant too
often?

Thanks for that CyberRaven. I appreciate the rundown both from the view of SR and the
view of american education too. :)

Cheers,
The GreyWolf
Message no. 13
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 22:30:22 -0400
At 17.01 07-12-99 -0700, you wrote:
>1. Is it *really* private school that makes kids turn out that way?

Nope. It is bad private schools that teach people that becuase they have
money they are better that make it that way.
I went to a private high school at was totally secular, and was very
middle class. I recommend private high schools that are non-religious and
not overly concerned with how much money your parents own for a few reaons.
There was only one admissions test- could you respond to your own name. No
scholastics, no thousand word essays, no second morgage to pay for tuition
(about 3 grand this year for my little brother), no uniforms, none of that
crap. It was even used by several area towns as a standard high school.

As to why I recommend privates:
One, they don't have to play the patty-cake games that public schools do.
If a student doesn't want to be there, they can be (at my old school, were)
shown the door. If a student is having a problem, they get help, not a
place in line.
Private schools also don't HAVE to hire certified teachers in most states,
and becoming certified as a teacher is all to often dependant on your
politics. As a result, you often grab folks who've taken a pay cut to
teach becuase they want to teach, and were chosen to do so becuase they are
good, not becuase of favors owed and senority. If a teacher gets let go,
it is becuase they can't meet the level set for performance. No nonsense
about the union protecting unskilled hacks. (I do think that teachers need
unions, but I also feel that they need to do a better job of policing thier
own.) This gets really nice when you start doing technical courses.
They also don't have the school board and school district politics to play.

I know I got lucky with my high school. But I've looked at a lot of
private high schools in New York and New England. They either fit into the
class that mine does (although they are usually military or perocial), or
they are a bunch of snobs that teach that what pattern your tie has and the
size of your bank account are more important than your mind and heart.
I've also looked at a lot of public schools. They are almost universally
stuffed with teachers who either don't care, are burnt out, have thier
hands tied by the mediocre, or are so perky and inexperinced that they make
you sick, and students who are in the same spot. One of my mother's
friends teaches history in one of my area's public high schools, and asked
me to talk to an senior honors class about the way warefare shapes
technology and society. Half of them didn't get it. A quarter of them
were belligerent, either becuase they are staunchly pacifistic and refuse
to believe that anyting good can come from the military, or just to be
rude. Several slept. I asked the regualr teacher about afterwards, and he
said that it was normal. When I asked him why these morons were honors
students, he told me that the standards had been lowered so that anyone
with 60% average could take honors courses, becuase parents had complained
that "needlessly high standards" were in violation of the Americans with
Disabilites Act clauses concerning the mentally handicapped. From what
I've seen, this school is pretty normal for a public school. I had lifted
much of the presentation from an old high school instructor, and it would
not have been above the standards of my old school. For a normal, sophmore
class.


CyberRaven Kevin Dole
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 14
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 08:04:16 -0400
> (BTW, if anyone decides to send their kids to private school, try to
> send them to a secular one.)

Or at least a libral religous school (no hour of prayers a day, no
memorising long passages of scripture), yes.


CyberRaven Kevin Dole
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 15
From: Rori Steel cullyn@*****.com.au
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 13:41:39 +0000 (GMT)
On Tue, 13 Jul 1999 08:04:16 -0400, CyberRaven wrote:
>> (BTW, if anyone decides to send their kids to private school, try to
>> send them to a secular one.)
>
> Or at least a libral religous school (no hour of prayers a day, no
>memorising long passages of scripture), yes.

Hehe.. i went to a 'Christian' school for my final year, ALL students
in year 11 and 12 were required to have the 1 Unit Christian Living in
the Modern World as one of their subjects. Thankfully, since i didnt
do it in year 11 (different school) i didnt have to do it there...
although it took a lot of sweet talking and bullshit to get out of it.

Seriously, CyberRaven has a point. Unless both you and your kids agree
to that sort of schooling, i'd recommend steering clear.

Then again... we are roleplayers.. the scum of mankind, and the soft
squishy bits that get squashed under toes. We dont marry... and if we
do it SHOULD BE ILLEGAL to have children. Why are we discussing this?
(Please dont be offended.. i am joking.. go.. try to make kids.. ;)

Cullyn
cullyn@*****.com.au
Message no. 16
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 09:56:24 -0400
> "And now, a Channel 6 editorial reply to Wordman."
>
> Okay, this is only from my experience, so maybe I'm just as biased as
> Wordman, but I'd like to give my side of the story, being a private
> school alumnus.

Good points. And food for thought.

However...

> Garbage. Violence happens regardless of where you go to school, you
> just have to look to Littleton and Taber to see that.

Um... Littleton and Taber are public schools. I went to a school very much
like Littleton.

> For instance, public
> school kids tend to see private school alumni as rich snobs.
> Sound familiar?

Sort of. For the record, my bias is that most of the private school alumni
I've met personally strike me as clueless, not snobby.

> If you've got nothing nice to say, keep it to yourself.

This is a common attitude in America, but I think this is one of America's
big problems. In 1776, a group of white men had nothing nice to say about
England. They did not keep it to themselves, instead they rejected it
vocally and in writing. They went to war and here we are. I think the
attitude of "If you've got nothing nice to say, keep it to yourself" is
another way of saying "don't disturb the status quo", and just a short step
to "shut up and take what we give you". This is killing America, turning us
into sheep that are easily duped.

On a more personal level, "if you've got nothing nice to say, keep it to
yourself" is equally troublesome, especially on the Internet, especially on
a discussion list. While hate and flaming are bad, honest voicing of
conflicting opinion is very healthy (and so far, this discussion has been
civilized). Conflict is interesting. Conflict is a very quick way to learn.

> If you
> admit you have a bias, try to work on correcting it, and in the
> meantime, try not to offend others.

I never _try_ to offend others. And I am working on correcting my bias.
Actually, Mr. Wheelock has helped me realize that my bias may be deeper than
I realized and started me rethinking my position. On the other hand, his
suggestion to keep my opinion to myself offends me.

Wordman

"I never gave them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was
hell."
-- Harry Truman
Message no. 17
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 09:59:22 -0400
At 01.40 07-13-99 -0300, you wrote:
>small towns where guns should be hard to get right, not like inner

Small town by who's definition. I live in a county with a population of
about 40 thousand. The largest two high schools are only about 800 student
each. In either of those, I have not, in ten years, heard of a fight were
knives came out, much less firearms, yet they were both readily available.
And by readily available, I mean out in the parking lot.

>cities? Obviously wrong. At my school there was plenty of fighting,
>and I knew of plenty of kids with knives. That no-one got killed at my

Hell, there are kids who openly carry folding knives at both of the above
schools, and they've not been used in anger in years. Last time a knife
got pulled at my alamater (sp is not my strong point) was in 1972.


CyberRaven Kevin Dole
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 18
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 13:59:22 -0400
At 01.40 07-13-99 -0300, you wrote:
>small towns where guns should be hard to get right, not like inner

Small town by who's definition. I live in a county with a population of
about 40 thousand. The largest two high schools are only about 800 student
each. In either of those, I have not, in ten years, heard of a fight were
knives came out, much less firearms, yet they were both readily available.
And by readily available, I mean out in the parking lot.

>cities? Obviously wrong. At my school there was plenty of fighting,
>and I knew of plenty of kids with knives. That no-one got killed at my

Hell, there are kids who openly carry folding knives at both of the above
schools, and they've not been used in anger in years. Last time a knife
got pulled at my alamater (sp is not my strong point) was in 1972.


CyberRaven Kevin Dole
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 19
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 09:59:35 -0400
At 16.37 07-13-99 +1000, you wrote:
>Wow.. guess thats one bit of america that isnt publicised by the great
media >giant too often?

Of course not. Who do you think pushed for the "personal fulfillment" and
"esteem building" BS we are drowning in?


CyberRaven Kevin Dole
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 20
From: James Dening james@************.force9.co.uk
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 15:39:55 +0100
>>An acknowledged, public prejudice is, in my opinion, preferable to a hidden
>>one; it lets you know where the person stands.

Yeah, well, people like you *always* say that! ;-)

Anyway, whaddya mean public school?

"I went to public school and would like to say it didn't affect me in the
slightest....I'd like to say that, but in fact I was unable to walk properly
for several years afterwards....." tee hee..

Oh, and one other thing:
"If you want them sociall (sic) maladjusted, send them to private school. "
and
"For the record, I don't judge people based on background, appearance or
schooling, only on action. "

So, which direct quote do you stand by, and which don't you? Enquirin' minds
and all that.

God, I hate bigots.....Anyway, off such things....talking of public schools
(which, as you should all know, you pay to go to... ;-) ), I'm sure there
used to be a decent UK online source book - is it still around? I can't find
hide nor hair of it...

J.
Message no. 21
From: Geoffrey Haacke knight_errant30@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 09:28:55 CST
>An acknowledged, public prejudice is, in my opinion, preferable to a hidden
>one; it lets you know where the person stands.
>
>For the record, I don't judge people based on background, appearance or
>schooling, only on action. In my experience (especially during school), the
>great majority of the people whose actions indicated to me that they were
>wastes of skin turned out to be from private school. Maybe it was a
>coincidence.

Now, now, there are plenty of wastes of skin that went to public school! :)
:) :)

>
>Wordman
>
>
>


Geoff Haacke
"If you not part of the solution then you are part of the precipitate."
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Message no. 22
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 12:32:29 -0400
At 09.56 07-13-99 -0400, you wrote:
>Um... Littleton and Taber are public schools. I went to a school very much
>like Littleton.

And both were over a thousand, right? I mentioned some studies done inthe
early-mid 80s concerning schools and the impact of increased security. The
also found that schools over a thousand were at a statistically higher risk
than those below, as were schools that had more than 20 students in the
average class.

>I've met personally strike me as clueless, not snobby.

I would not consider myself "clueless". Maybe lacking a complete
aculturalization database, but not "clueless".

>to "shut up and take what we give you". This is killing America, turning us
>into sheep that are easily duped.

How many sheep truely appreciate the dogs that protect them? WOOF!

>"I never gave them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was
>hell."
> -- Harry Truman

I've observed that most humans can not tell the difference.


CyberRaven Kevin Dole
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 23
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 14:55:21 -0400
> Oh, and one other thing:
> "If you want them sociall (sic) maladjusted, send them to private
> school. "
> and
> "For the record, I don't judge people based on background, appearance or
> schooling, only on action. "
>
> So, which direct quote do you stand by, and which don't you?

"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."
- Proudon

> God, I hate bigots....

So, bigotry against bigots is OK? And "hate" at that? This is something that
interested me about Harvard: they claim to be accepting of all races,
creeds, and ideals, but were extremely intolerant of anything which did not
share this belief. The above quote applies here as well.

> Anyway, off such things....talking of public schools
> (which, as you should all know, you pay to go to... ;-) ), I'm
> sure there used to be a decent UK online source book - is it still
> around?

On my Sixth World site, I have a link to the following:
http://www.shalako.free-online.co.uk/uk/index.htm

Is that the one you were looking for? I think it is a resurrection of what
that used to be at another URL.

Wordman
Message no. 24
From: Michael & Linda Frankl mlfrankl@*****.msn.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 17:50:18 -0400
Wordman noted:
>This is a common attitude in America, but I think this is one of America's
>big problems. In 1776, a group of white men had nothing nice to say about
>England. They did not keep it to themselves, instead they rejected it
>vocally and in writing. They went to war and here we are. I think the
>attitude of "If you've got nothing nice to say, keep it to yourself" is
>another way of saying "don't disturb the status quo", and just a short step
>to "shut up and take what we give you". This is killing America, turning us
>into sheep that are easily duped.
>
>On a more personal level, "if you've got nothing nice to say, keep it to
>yourself" is equally troublesome, especially on the Internet, especially on
>a discussion list. While hate and flaming are bad, honest voicing of
>conflicting opinion is very healthy (and so far, this discussion has been
>civilized). Conflict is interesting. Conflict is a very quick way to learn.


I recently read a comment by Jeff Cooper (writes in Guns & Ammo) that
pointed out an interesting fact. You can be very easily categorized as a
dangerous citizen these days by merely repeating the very phrases used by
our founding fathers during their struggle for independence.

Mike, aka Smilin' Jack
--------------------------------
"Those who are willing to sacrifice personal freedoms for personal security
deserve neither." -- Benjamin Franklin
Message no. 25
From: Arclight arclight@**************.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 01:46:46 +0200
And finally, Michael and Linda Frankl expressed themselves by writing:

> I recently read a comment by Jeff Cooper (writes in Guns & Ammo) that
> pointed out an interesting fact. You can be very easily categorized as a
> dangerous citizen these days by merely repeating the very phrases used by
> our founding fathers during their struggle for independence.

Hmh, just as a sidenote:

If you have problems with your goverment, it's the wrong way to get
yourself a load of guns, practice guerilla warfare and stock explosives.
What about going to vote for another party?

arclight
Message no. 26
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 20:14:07 -0400
At 01.46 07-14-99 +0200, you wrote:
>What about going to vote for another party?

That ensures that you live in a nation that is (a) a semi-democracy, and
(b) isn't effectively limited to oneo r two politcal parties. Once martial
law is declared, that all flies out the window. I've seen
almost-but-not-quite martial law in action after natural disasters, and
seen/heard/read enough accounts about being under true martial law.
I'd rather work by ballot, but there are times I wonder if the entire
planet is amout to implode under the weight of the beuracrats.


CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 27
From: Snake Eyes snake.eyes@********.att.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 17:49:45 -0700
At 01:46 AM 7/14/99 +0200, Arclight wrote:

> > I recently read a comment by Jeff Cooper (writes in Guns & Ammo) that
> > pointed out an interesting fact. You can be very easily categorized as a
> > dangerous citizen these days by merely repeating the very phrases used by
> > our founding fathers during their struggle for independence.
>
>Hmh, just as a sidenote:
>
>If you have problems with your goverment, it's the wrong way to get
>yourself a load of guns, practice guerilla warfare and stock explosives.
>What about going to vote for another party?

If one can, in fact, actually effect true change through universal suffrage
and the electoral process, than that is indeed the correct route,
especially in a so-called "enlightened" democracy. But when the
disenfranchised are left with no other option, there are some things worth
blowing up a building over.

America's founding fathers were all traitors to the Crown. Remember that
the only difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is whose side
you are on. I'm talking about true oppression here -- not your standard
Republican vs. Democrat, special-interest, entitlement crap. Passive
resistance, although quaint, is a crock of sh*t and flies in the face of
morality.

I defer to Thomas Jefferson:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of
patriots and tyrants."

Don't fool yourself into thinking it can't happen again.

~ Snake Eyes
Message no. 28
From: Michael & Linda Frankl mlfrankl@*****.msn.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 21:31:04 -0400
Arclight commented:
>Hmh, just as a sidenote:
>
>If you have problems with your goverment, it's the wrong way to get
>yourself a load of guns, practice guerilla warfare and stock explosives.
>What about going to vote for another party?
>
>arclight

I'm not really interested in a load of guns. Where I get concerned is in the
amount of laws that can be changed or implemented by a knee-jerk political
reaction before you can vote the guy out. Things like the school shootings,
where the people who committed the crimes broke 18 some odd laws and they
want to pass more laws (which won't work).

As demonstrated by most of our SR character concepts (who are actually more
moral than your average criminal), laws only affect the law-abiding. Making
it harder on people who obey the rules won't do a damn thing to change how
the people who don't follow the system will act. I've always believed that
the drug dealer with 100kg of cocaine in the belly of a speed boat never
really thought twice about the extra 2-5 years having an illegal automatic
rifle would get him.

Please also do not assume people that are pro-gun or pro-self-defense are
all nutcases in the woods. A great many people on this planet owe the nice
lifestyle they live in to people who were willing to fight to defend their
people and way of life. My concern is that when there are no wolves the
sheep tend to turn their noses up at the sheep dogs.

Mike, aka Smilin' Jack
Message no. 29
From: Twist0059@***.com Twist0059@***.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 23:17:51 EDT
In a message dated 7/13/99 9:34:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
mlfrankl@*****.msn.com writes:

> As demonstrated by most of our SR character concepts (who are actually more
> moral than your average criminal), laws only affect the law-abiding. Making
> it harder on people who obey the rules won't do a damn thing to change how
> the people who don't follow the system will act. I've always believed that
> the drug dealer with 100kg of cocaine in the belly of a speed boat never
> really thought twice about the extra 2-5 years having an illegal automatic
> rifle would get him.
>


You know, it is funny that I've never seen player characters shoot a bunch of
innocent kids, and they're supposed to be criminals! :-) On the school
shootings topic, normally I'd say that gun laws don't do squat as far as
crime is concerned, but that's when you're talking of organized crime or even
quasi-criminals (low level career criminals) who have some sort of access to
the grey or black markets. Those kids who killed their classmates either got
their guns from their parents' collections or from gun shows which require no
background checks.




-Twist
Message no. 30
From: Allen Versfeld moe@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 08:32:39 +0200
Arclight wrote:
>
>
> If you have problems with your goverment, it's the wrong way to get
> yourself a load of guns, practice guerilla warfare and stock explosives.
> What about going to vote for another party?
>
> arclight

Hmmm... Ok, I will change my vote, so that the winning pary now get
1,432,452 votes whereas before, they would have had a whole 1,432,453.
The individual has bugger-all power in a democracy. Anybody who manages
to empower themselves is either in a priviledged position (vast wodges
of cash to spend on lobbying, or electoral campaigns), or is classified
as a terrorist. The rich man automatically has a whole slew of other
interests, most of which will center around *staying* rich.

Of course, the Freedom Fighter tends also to have other things on his
mind, like not getting killed ;-)
--
Allen Versfeld
moe@*******.com
Wandata

QVANTI CANICVLA ILLA IN FENESTRA
Message no. 31
From: Allen Versfeld moe@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 08:44:54 +0200
Michael & Linda Frankl wrote:
>
>
> Please also do not assume people that are pro-gun or pro-self-defense are
> all nutcases in the woods. A great many people on this planet owe the nice
> lifestyle they live in to people who were willing to fight to defend their
> people and way of life. My concern is that when there are no wolves the
> sheep tend to turn their noses up at the sheep dogs.
>
In my ideal world, there are no guns at all. Not likely to ever happen,
though.I can dream, can't I? :-)
Hell, you should come over to Sunny SA, where anybody who knows who to
talkto, and doesn't look like a cop can buy an AK-47 assault rifle
(favourite weapon of the Struggle) for R50. This converts to about, oh,
US$10...

So far, *everybody* that I have met, with two exceptions, who owns a
gun, falls into one of two categories. They are either the macho,
swaggering, gun-on-your-belt-pull-it-out-at-the-slightest-provocation "I
am a big man with a big gun" types, or the type who own a weapon which
sits at home all day, everyday, so that it's never on hand when it is
needed.

And if you let it be known that you own a gun, you actually increase
your chances of being robbed! Guess what they're looking for...

--
Allen Versfeld
moe@*******.com
Wandata

QVANTI CANICVLA ILLA IN FENESTRA
Message no. 32
From: Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 17:21:25 +1000
IronRaven writes:
> And both were over a thousand, right? I mentioned some
> studies done inthe
> early-mid 80s concerning schools and the impact of increased
> security. The
> also found that schools over a thousand were at a statistically
> higher risk
> than those below, as were schools that had more than 20 students in the
> average class.

Schools with large numbers of students are more likely to have incidents of
violence, but that's because there is a large number of students. :) More
kids, more chances of violence.

The biggest correlating factor with school violence (aside from the
socioeconomic background of the kids) is actually the student-teacher ratio.
Schools with a high student-teacher ratio have a statistically higher
violence factor, per capita. It may or may not be a coincidence that big
schools tend towards the megaclass syndrome that the high student-teacher
ratio causes.

The accepted "ideal" ratio of students to a single teacher is about 15 to a
class. Given an equally accepted value of four classes per teacher on
average, that gives a student-teacher ratio of about 4. Most western schools
are _funded_ at a ratio of about 8, given class sizes in the high twenties
to low thirties range. Funded doesn't mean there's a teacher, though: some
funded positions don't get filled, others are administrative rather than
teaching, and so on.

In 1995, when I actually worked for an education department, I read an
American study indicating that many schools were being funded at a ratio in
excess of 10, giving a class size of forty or more (the national average was
between 7 and 8). In addition, many schools had problems attracting
teachers, especially schools perceived as violent, and their effective
student-teacher ratio was a lot higher. The report went on to say that, in
order to restore class sizes to the ideal, the education budget of all
states would have to be quadrupled. Can't see that happening, can you?

(Oh, for the Aussies on the list: the Federal Department of Education
recommends a student-teacher ratio of 6. Most Australian schools vary
between 4 and 8).

The advantage a really exclusive private school has over the public system
is that the student-teacher ratio is a lot lower.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 33
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 11:51:09 +0200
According to Arclight, at 1:46 on 14 Jul 99, the word on
the street was...

> What about going to vote for another party?

How can you vote for another party in the US? ;)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Cooking with the devil, frying down in hell.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 34
From: David Hinkley dhinkley@***.org
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 03:05:14 -0700
Date sent: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 17:49:45 -0700
To: shadowrn@*********.org
From: Snake Eyes <snake.eyes@********.att.net>
Subject: RE: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Send reply to: shadowrn@*********.org

> At 01:46 AM 7/14/99 +0200, Arclight wrote:
>
> > > I recently read a comment by Jeff Cooper (writes in Guns & Ammo) that
> > > pointed out an interesting fact. You can be very easily categorized as a
> > > dangerous citizen these days by merely repeating the very phrases used by
> > > our founding fathers during their struggle for independence.

A few years ago a public interest group put the American Declaration of
Independence on a petition form and circulated it. The number of people who
refused to sign such a subversive document was amazing. Also the small
number that recognized it.

> >
> >Hmh, just as a sidenote:
> >
> >If you have problems with your goverment, it's the wrong way to get
> >yourself a load of guns, practice guerilla warfare and stock explosives.
> >What about going to vote for another party?
>
> If one can, in fact, actually effect true change through universal suffrage
> and the electoral process, than that is indeed the correct route,
> especially in a so-called "enlightened" democracy. But when the
> disenfranchised are left with no other option, there are some things worth
> blowing up a building over.
>
> America's founding fathers were all traitors to the Crown. Remember that
> the only difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is whose side
> you are on.

Nope, the difference is whether you win or lose. The winner gets to write the
first batch of history books. Of course the revisionist historians will come
along several years later and trash all the heros.

>I'm talking about true oppression here -- not your standard
> Republican vs. Democrat, special-interest, entitlement crap. Passive
> resistance, although quaint, is a crock of sh*t and flies in the face of
> morality.
Passive resistance when done properly against the correct type of target has
been extremely effective. Gandhi in India and King in US. Against the wrong
type of target it is ineffective and fatal. Chinese Students vs Chinese Army
The Key element is Shame...if your target population can and will feel shame
it works other wise..........
>
> I defer to Thomas Jefferson:
>
> "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of
> patriots and tyrants."
>
> Don't fool yourself into thinking it can't happen again.
>
> ~ Snake Eyes
>
>
>




David Hinkley
dhinkley@***.org

===================================================Those who are too intelligent to engage
in politics
are punished by being governed by those who are not
--Plato
Message no. 35
From: Arclight arclight@**************.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 13:31:31 +0200
And finally, Allan Versfeld expressed himself by writing:

> Hmmm... Ok, I will change my vote, so that the winning pary now get
> 1,432,452 votes whereas before, they would have had a whole 1,432,453.

That is like "It won't make the ozon layer any better if I stop using
FCKW...
Sorry, but "I'm so small and alone, I won't change anything" is just
stupid.
If everybody would behave like this, India would nowadays belong to the
British Empire, there would be Apartheid in SA, the German resistance
in WW2 had never existed, and there are thousands of these examples I could
add. It all starts on an individual level, right down to a single person.

> The individual has bugger-all power in a democracy. Anybody who manages
> to empower themselves is either in a priviledged position (vast wodges
> of cash to spend on lobbying, or electoral campaigns), or is classified
> as a terrorist. The rich man automatically has a whole slew of other
> interests, most of which will center around *staying* rich.

I don't think so. The real power always is the majority of the people.
I admit that it may be need a tremendous effort to get them in line,
but without them, nothing will work.

--
[arclight@*********.de]<><><><><><>[ICQ14322211]
All suspects are guilty, serious. Otherwise they
wouldn't be suspects, would they?
<><><><[http://www.datahaven.de/arclight]><><><>;
Message no. 36
From: Arclight arclight@**************.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 13:31:49 +0200
And finally, Snake Eyes expressed himself by writing:

> >If you have problems with your goverment, it's the wrong way to get
> >yourself a load of guns, practice guerilla warfare and stock explosives.
> >What about going to vote for another party?
>
> If one can, in fact, actually effect true change through
> universal suffrage
> and the electoral process, than that is indeed the correct route,
> especially in a so-called "enlightened" democracy. But when the
> disenfranchised are left with no other option, there are some
> things worth
> blowing up a building over.

But you should try voting first. With about 40% of the people
going to vote in the US last time, IIRC, I don't think they tried.

> America's founding fathers were all traitors to the Crown.

I know that :)

> Remember that
> the only difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is
> whose side
> you are on.

From their POV, yes. But to get a more objective opinion, ask
a third party.
Arkan (a serb militia leader who apparently killed many Muslim
in Bosnia) thinks of himself as a freedom fighter. Is he?
(note: I in no way want to compare this miserable chunk of flesh
with US militias!)

> I defer to Thomas Jefferson:
>
> "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with
> the blood of
> patriots and tyrants."

But are the tyrants Saddam Hussain and Slobodan Milosevic,
or FBI agents in Oklahoma?

--
[arclight@*********.de]<><><><><><>[ICQ14322211]
All suspects are guilty, serious. Otherwise they
wouldn't be suspects, would they?
<><><><[http://www.datahaven.de/arclight]><><><>;
Message no. 37
From: Arclight arclight@**************.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 13:31:47 +0200
And finally, Michael and Linda Frankl expressed themselves by writing:

> I'm not really interested in a load of guns. Where I get
> concerned is in the
> amount of laws that can be changed or implemented by a knee-jerk
> political
> reaction before you can vote the guy out. Things like the school
> shootings,
> where the people who committed the crimes broke 18 some odd laws and they
> want to pass more laws (which won't work).

Most politicians only behold to actions that are accepted by the
majority of the population. I can't quote something ATM, but I
gained the impression that most people in the US are in favor
of the coming anti-gun laws...

> As demonstrated by most of our SR character concepts (who are
> actually more
> moral than your average criminal), laws only affect the
> law-abiding. Making
> it harder on people who obey the rules won't do a damn thing to
> change how
> the people who don't follow the system will act. I've always
> believed that
> the drug dealer with 100kg of cocaine in the belly of a speed boat never
> really thought twice about the extra 2-5 years having an illegal
> automatic
> rifle would get him.

This is the exact argument I use against the german gun laws,
who are a) really stupid b) generalize gun-owners into suspected
criminals. I agree that banning weapons is wrong, but effective
controls won't hurt anybody.

> Please also do not assume people that are pro-gun or pro-self-defense are
> all nutcases in the woods.

Not at all.

--
[arclight@*********.de]<><><><><><>[ICQ14322211]
"It may not be war, but it sure as hell ain't peace"
Major General Steven Arnold - On Somalia
<><><><[http://www.datahaven.de/arclight]><><><>;
Message no. 38
From: Allen Versfeld moe@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 13:54:15 +0200
Arclight wrote:
>

<statement on the importance of the individual vote snipped>

> > The individual has bugger-all power in a democracy. Anybody who manages
> > to empower themselves is either in a priviledged position (vast wodges
> > of cash to spend on lobbying, or electoral campaigns), or is classified
> > as a terrorist. The rich man automatically has a whole slew of other
> > interests, most of which will center around *staying* rich.
>
> I don't think so. The real power always is the majority of the people.
> I admit that it may be need a tremendous effort to get them in line,
> but without them, nothing will work.

But I was talking about an *individual* making a change. Democracy
doesn't take the individual into account. If an individual wants to
ensure that certain changes take place, he'd better be good enough at PR
to persuade a majority to vote in his favour. Not many people have that
gift (or the money to hire those that do) and so resort to guns, bombs,
etc.

Incidentally, (and I'm sticking my neck out here, hoping that those more
knowledgable of recent South African history won't axe me) apartheid was
not killed by a vote - the referendum would never have happened if it
weren't for +-20 years of terrorism, bombings, protest marches, riots,
trade sanctions, etc. (I don't believe terrorists should be called
freedom fighters, nevermind which side they were on). The government
were starting to lose their grip in the natives, and realised that the
only way they could avoid a full-scale insurrection would be to stop
shooting and start talking. That was when they had the National
Referendum, asking the (white voting age) public whether the various
race laws should be reconsidered. I seem to remember the majority not
being that high...

Of course, my perspective is slanted in that I wasn't even in
high-school when all that happened.

--
Allen Versfeld
moe@*******.com
Wandata

QVANTI CANICVLA ILLA IN FENESTRA
Message no. 39
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 08:09:11 -0400
At 23.17 07-13-99 EDT, you wrote:
>shootings topic, normally I'd say that gun laws don't do squat as far as
>crime is concerned, but that's when you're talking of organized crime or
even

Any kind of crime. Look up the definition of "criminal". If they fit the
job description, they don't give a damn about laws to begin with.

>the grey or black markets. Those kids who killed their classmates either
got

I'd arguee that point. I'm fairly rural, but if you know the people to
talk to, you can get a hold of weapons (including a few rare
fully-automatics, mostly compliments of China and the US NAtional Gaurd,
but the prices are inflated right out of orbit) and civilian explosives in
about 12 hours, any form of narcotics you care to name in about two, and
fake ID that is TOO good in about six. It doesn't mater who you are, or
where you are. The underground market is everywhere, you just have to look
for it.

Don't kid yourselves, folks. All that needs to happen is a major leap in
VR and mechanical-biological interface technology, and we will have
Shadowrun sans magic.


CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 40
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 08:37:25 -0400
At 11.51 07-14-99 +0200, you wrote:
>How can you vote for another party in the US? ;)

There is actually a couple score, if not hundred, official parties
registered with the national election folks (they watch to make sure that
donation money is clean and voting booths are rigged to favor thier boss).
However, "third party" (an all-inclusive term that covers everyone but the
Reps and Dems) vote is only a 1 or 2 percent "market share"- even less than
Mac.

> Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

I've been meaning to ask- what is the "Sqooshy Ball"?


CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 41
From: Marc Renouf renouf@********.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 14:23:03 -0400 (EDT)
On Tue, 13 Jul 1999 Twist0059@***.com wrote:

> Those kids who killed their classmates either got their guns from their
> parents' collections or from gun shows which require no background
> checks.

Actually, no. Even at gun shows you need to be of a certain age
to purchase a firearm (though it varies by state). No ticky, no washy.
Further, even if background checks were required, the people involved had
no prior criminal record, and as such would have been able to get the guns
anyway. In the case of Columbine, the majority of the guns were purchased
by the girlfriend of one of the kids, who happened to be old enough to do
so (i.e. 18 or over). Further, all of the guns used had been in their
possession for some time, so the "waiting period to cool down" argument is
also crap.
Get it straight. Guns don't kill people. People kill people.
Anyone who says differently is fooling themselves. You will never
eliminate the part of our society that turns kids into killers by simply
banning guns.

Marc
Message no. 42
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 18:51:12 -0400
At 17.21 07-14-99 +1000, you wrote:
>Schools with large numbers of students are more likely to have incidents of
>violence, but that's because there is a large number of students. :) More

No, I'm not talking raw incidnets. I'm talking per capita incidents.

There is something called crowding psychosis that has been purposfully
left unstudied by the AMA and related groups. Basically, pack too many
people into an area, and they become unhinged. Increase the strees level
and prior antagonism, and that threshhold number starts to drop.

Also, look at the recent high-school shootings- they are largely during
the prom season. Unfortunately, most of these nuts shoot themselves, so
they can't be interrogated later on.

If you are also looking for border line paranoia (I won't deny that what
I'm about to say looks it), look at what is before state and/or federal
legislators and the courts when some maggot kills a number of people and
then himself. There is a pattern, but is one that has some really, really
nasty implications, particularly when you know something about the level of
"impulse direction and control" technology. <brrrr>

>violence factor, per capita. It may or may not be a coincidence that big
>schools tend towards the megaclass syndrome that the high student-teacher

I won't arguee that. It may be that the big schools need to higher more
teachers, and it isn't crowding psychosis at all, simply because expanding
schools and highering more teachers (to do that, you need to raise the pay
though) is feasible, although it would be expensive. (Still cheaper than
prisons.)


CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 43
From: Michael & Linda Frankl mlfrankl@*****.msn.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 21:29:46 -0400
Allen responded:
>In my ideal world, there are no guns at all. Not likely to ever happen,
>though.I can dream, can't I? :-)
>Hell, you should come over to Sunny SA, where anybody who knows who to
>talkto, and doesn't look like a cop can buy an AK-47 assault rifle
>(favourite weapon of the Struggle) for R50. This converts to about, oh,
>US$10...


As with any technological weapon that requires little or no learned ability
to perform basic operation, once discovered the Genie is out of the bottle.

>So far, *everybody* that I have met, with two exceptions, who owns a
>gun, falls into one of two categories. They are either the macho,
>swaggering, gun-on-your-belt-pull-it-out-at-the-slightest-provocation "I
>am a big man with a big gun" types, or the type who own a weapon which
>sits at home all day, everyday, so that it's never on hand when it is
>needed.


Well then I guess I fall into the second category. I wouldn't consider it as
you do though. My main reason for getting a pistol was watching a bob-cat
trot across my front yard one day. I feel no need to carry it in day to day
activities as my life is not that of a typical Shadowrunner. I am well
versed in a martial art style and know full well that if someone pulls a
gun/knife and I am leaving as fast as my body will propel me. First rule, to
avoid a fight is the optimum method of victory.

In my home, where my pistol is, it is another story. In the street it isn't
initially personal. If I avoid an encounter of the dangerous sort then my
life continues as normal and the would-be assailant doesn't know me from
Adam. If someone breaks into my home then it has become personal. I can no
longer retain my anonymity and this person for sure knows where I live.
That's where I want the option of using a gun if I need it.

Don't think that guns are the problem, there were lots of death dealing
devices before they came along. People are people, some good and some bad.
Ireland is a good example, first they threw rocks then lead. The weapon
isn't the source of the problem it's just a manifestation of it.

;)

Mike, aka Smilin' Jack
Message no. 44
From: Allen Versfeld moe@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 08:40:47 +0200
Michael & Linda Frankl wrote:
>
[snip]
> activities as my life is not that of a typical Shadowrunner. I am well
> versed in a martial art style and know full well that if someone pulls a
> gun/knife and I am leaving as fast as my body will propel me. First rule, to
> avoid a fight is the optimum method of victory.
>
Yes, I've always relied on those 2 most sublime of weapons - a swift
pair of legs ;-)

>
> Don't think that guns are the problem, there were lots of death dealing
> devices before they came along. People are people, some good and some bad.
> Ireland is a good example, first they threw rocks then lead. The weapon
> isn't the source of the problem it's just a manifestation of it.
>
Too true... Of course, my ideal society would then have to expand the
definition of gun to include *all* weapons. Which means, of course,
that anybody who owns a knife is breaking the law. Including anybody
who wants to eat with a knife and fork, hehe.

sigh. Looks like I can't win :-(

--
Allen Versfeld
moe@*******.com
Wandata

QVANTI CANICVLA ILLA IN FENESTRA
Message no. 45
From: Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 16:49:15 +1000
Allen Versfeld writes:
> Too true... Of course, my ideal society would then have to expand the
> definition of gun to include *all* weapons. Which means, of course,
> that anybody who owns a knife is breaking the law. Including anybody
> who wants to eat with a knife and fork, hehe.

No, you can't... The Chinese tried that, historically. That's why they a)
eat with chopsticks, and b) invented numerous methods of inflicting grievous
bodily harm with "weapons" that are better used as agricultural tools.

> sigh. Looks like I can't win :-(

1) You can't win.
2) You can't break even.
3) You can't even quit the game.

The laws of life, chummer... :)

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 46
From: Arcady arcady@***.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 00:08:38 -0700
> Allen Versfeld writes:
> > Too true... Of course, my ideal society would then have to expand the
> > definition of gun to include *all* weapons. Which means, of course,
> > that anybody who owns a knife is breaking the law. Including anybody
> > who wants to eat with a knife and fork, hehe.
>
> No, you can't... The Chinese tried that, historically. That's why they a)
> eat with chopsticks, and b) invented numerous methods of
> inflicting grievous
> bodily harm with "weapons" that are better used as agricultural tools.

Hmmm...

You seem to have overlooked the presence of kitchen knives. Which have
always been there and always been legal. Meat cleavers, vegetable cutting
knives, and so on.
The Chopstick's history lies in it's simple intuitive design and usage.
Message no. 47
From: Allen Versfeld moe@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 09:27:12 +0200
Robert Watkins wrote:
>
>
> 1) You can't win.
> 2) You can't break even.
> 3) You can't even quit the game.
>
> The laws of life, chummer... :)
>

More than just life, buddy, those are the simplified laws of
thermodynamics. They rule the Universe.

--
Allen Versfeld
moe@*******.com
Wandata

QVANTI CANICVLA ILLA IN FENESTRA
Message no. 48
From: Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 17:42:22 +1000
Arcady writes:
> Hmmm...
>
> You seem to have overlooked the presence of kitchen knives. Which have
> always been there and always been legal. Meat cleavers, vegetable cutting
> knives, and so on.

And you have overlooked the fact that a typical village had maybe three of
those between all the occupants, for most of China's history. Knives and
similar tools are made out of _metal_, and metal cost. Your typical dirt
poor villager didn't have much of it, and it would have been used where it
would have been of the most benefit.

> The Chopstick's history lies in it's simple intuitive
> design and usage.

Which pales in comparison to the knife and fork, the most intuitive and
easy-to-use eating tools ever designed since the fingers and teeth.

Consider the problem. Obviously, fire is needed, as the main point of eating
tools is to eat food that is too hot to comfortably hold. Fire (and cooking)
imply the availability of cutting utensils, as it is pretty hard to cook a
whole cow/chicken/typical meat animal at a time and eat it. So obviously
some sort of tool is available to cut the meat up.

The eating knife evolved from the dagger. Typically, in the west, most men
(and women, for that matter) possessed a belt knife at least. With two, you
can pin the food down while you cut it to eat it. Some bright spark came
along with the idea of giving the holding "knife" more than one point, and
you have the fork. Meanwhile, the knife you use to cut meat is evolving into
a shape better suited for that: the cleaver and carving knife. You can't
readily use a cleaver to eat your meal, but it's great for chopping it up
into easy to cook portions.

To evolve the chopstick, first you must have the knives taken away, probably
at a stage in the development where the eating knife is also the person's
main utility knife. A dagger is a weapon, and seen as such, even if it's
mainly used to cut bread. A cleaver isn't seen as a weapon, even though you
can use it as such.

So now you have a group of people who can still prepare food to cook, but
have no easy way of eating it while hot. They don't want it eat the food
raw, and they don't want it cold. They need some way of picking it up while
it's hot.

They probably tried to use sticks to spear the food (Remember, they can
still cut it up into cooking-size portions, so they cut it into bite-size
portions instead). Pretty awkward, though. Somebody starts to use two sticks
to pick it up with, as substitute fingers. After a lot of practise, the
chopstick is born.

It's also worth noting that spoons wouldn't have been invented or readily
available at this point in history. If they had, the eating method would
have become a spoon to hold the food, and a scraper to put the food onto it
(again, given bite-size pieces). This is essentially what the fork evolved
into: a spearing surface to allow food to be held while cutting (and to lift
bite size pieces), plus a flat surface to pick up collections of smaller
objects like a spoon would.

Chopsticks are bloody hard to learn. Anyone with a minimal amount of
dexterity can learn to use a knife and fork. Chopsticks take a lot of
practise.

{The above comments have been written by a person who has used chopsticks
regularly for the last 14 years)

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 49
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 07:48:25 -0400
At 08.40 07-15-99 +0200, you wrote:
>Too true... Of course, my ideal society would then have to expand the
>definition of gun to include *all* weapons. Which means, of course,

And I suppose that your society would be peaceful, caring and totally
united in quest to better themselves through passive nelightenment?

There is a term for people like that- live stock. As in sheep and cows.
You do know what happens to sheep and cows, right?
There were a number of societies that held the belive of total passifism.
None of them lasted longer than a couple centuries. Those that weren't
invaded and destroyed were shredded by homegrown psychopaths and sociopaths
that they had no way of dealing with other than prettending that they
didn't have a homicidal maniac in thier mids.

As for "all weapons", in the hands of a person who is desperate enough,
anything can be used as a weapon (as defined as "a tool that assists in
causeing physical harm to another"). Trust me- ANYTHING can be used to
inflict harm or to distract (if someone is within ten feet, give them a
window, and they will take it). And I won't even ask what you would want
to do with people who's education and training makes them, in the eyes of
the law, living weapons.




CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 50
From: Allen Versfeld moe@*******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 14:18:39 +0200
IronRaven wrote:
>
> At 08.40 07-15-99 +0200, you wrote:
> >Too true... Of course, my ideal society would then have to expand the
> >definition of gun to include *all* weapons. Which means, of course,
>
> And I suppose that your society would be peaceful, caring and totally
> united in quest to better themselves through passive nelightenment?

Perhaps I should have made it clear that even I don't consider that to
be anything more than a nice fluffy "wouldn't it be nice?" idea. I am a
pacifist by nature, but I'm far too cynical to ever expect such a utopia
to even approach a brief semblance of practicality. It would have to
rely completely on the goodwill and kindly nature of all its citizens.
You couldn't police it because "no weapons". Ditto for defending it.

> There is a term for people like that- live stock. As in sheep and cows.
> You do know what happens to sheep and cows, right?
> There were a number of societies that held the belive of total passifism.
> None of them lasted longer than a couple centuries. Those that weren't
> invaded and destroyed were shredded by homegrown psychopaths and sociopaths
> that they had no way of dealing with other than prettending that they
> didn't have a homicidal maniac in thier mids.

I never realised that such societies had existed before.

>
> As for "all weapons", in the hands of a person who is desperate
enough,
> anything can be used as a weapon (as defined as "a tool that assists in
> causeing physical harm to another"). Trust me- ANYTHING can be used to
> inflict harm or to distract (if someone is within ten feet, give them a
> window, and they will take it). And I won't even ask what you would want
> to do with people who's education and training makes them, in the eyes of
> the law, living weapons.
>

I did mention kitchen utensils... It's a short step from there to using
a chair as a club, a car (obvious), slam somebody in a door, shove them
when they're standing on a patch of ice, garotte them with fishing line,
mince them with a powertool, pour drain cleaner over them as they sleep,
burn their house down around them...

hmmm... I seem to be a psychopath trapped in a pacifist's body... Help
me out, I promise I'll be nice >:->

--
Allen Versfeld
moe@*******.com
Wandata

QVANTI CANICVLA ILLA IN FENESTRA
Message no. 51
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 09:14:20 -0400
At 14.18 07-15-99 +0200, you wrote:
>I never realised that such societies had existed before.

There was on that I know of for sure somewhere in the Med, but I don't
remember thier name and am to comfortable to dig out my books. They
survived for about a century and half of so becuase they gave raiders
whatever they wanted. (nothing too perminant was built except for temples)
Fortunatley, their area of the Med was plentiful with fish, or they would
have starved.
Then (IIRC) the Greeks wiped them out for religious reasons.

>hmmm... I seem to be a psychopath trapped in a pacifist's body... Help
>me out, I promise I'll be nice >:->

There is a term for that- a person. (Which is differenct from being human.)


CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 52
From: Michael & Linda Frankl mlfrankl@*****.msn.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 17:21:12 -0400
Allen sighed:
>Too true... Of course, my ideal society would then have to expand the
>definition of gun to include *all* weapons. Which means, of course,
>that anybody who owns a knife is breaking the law. Including anybody
>who wants to eat with a knife and fork, hehe.
>
>sigh. Looks like I can't win :-(


Hope springs eternal. I think that you'll find that we will come together
when we learn a little more about things beyond our planet. People will
start thinking in terms of Terrans/Earthlings rather than Australian or
American, etc.

I can dream too.

:)

Mike, aka Smilin' Jack
Message no. 53
From: Michael & Linda Frankl mlfrankl@*****.msn.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 17:33:34 -0400
Ironraven wrote:
>window, and they will take it). And I won't even ask what you would want
>to do with people who's education and training makes them, in the eyes of
>the law, living weapons.


Kinda gives ya a warm fuzzy. Hmmmm... living weapon.

;)

Mike, aka Smilin Jack
Message no. 54
From: arcady@***.net arcady@***.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 99 15:24:13 +700
>> You seem to have overlooked the presence of kitchen knives. Which have
>> always been there and always been legal. Meat cleavers, vegetable cutting

>> knives, and so on.
>
>And you have overlooked the fact that a typical village had maybe three of

>those between all the occupants, for most of China's history. Knives and
>similar tools are made out of _metal_, and metal cost. Your typical dirt
>poor villager didn't have much of it, and it would have been used where it

>would have been of the most benefit.

Even in the poorest of regions there's two things nearly every Chinese family
has almost always owned for the last few thousand years:

An metal wok (iron or whatever was available) and a meat cleaver: a large square
blade with a handle on one end.


>> The Chopstick's history lies in it's simple intuitive
>> design and usage.
>
>Which pales in comparison to the knife and fork, the most intuitive and
>easy-to-use eating tools ever designed since the fingers and teeth.

This is pure cultural eletism speaking. A chopstick is very much like an extended
finger. A fork is like grabbing your food with a miniature pitchfork.

The truth of the matter is that it is all a matter of cultural perspective and
upbringing.

Here's a good link:
http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/utensil/chpstck.htm

Which is a subset of:
http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/utensil/intro.htm


>To evolve the chopstick, first you must have the knives taken away, probably

>at a stage in the development where the eating knife is also the person's
>main utility knife. A dagger is a weapon, and seen as such, even if it's
>mainly used to cut bread. A cleaver isn't seen as a weapon, even though you

>can use it as such.

To evolve the Chopstick all you had to do was realize that grabbing the food
with your fingers is messy or sometimes painful when hot. So get longer fingers.
Hey; there's a stick lying over there... End of discovery.

>
>It's also worth noting that spoons wouldn't have been invented or readily
>available at this point in history. If they had, the eating method would
>have become a spoon to hold the food, and a scraper to put the food onto it


You've never been in a Chinese household and seen people eat have you? I have,
I'm 1/4 Chinese on my father's side. I was raised with chopsticks. I then lived
in Korea where the two tools used at the table are a spoon and chopsticks.

And people have always had knives. If not metal then stone, wood, or bone.

>Chopsticks are bloody hard to learn. Anyone with a minimal amount of
>dexterity can learn to use a knife and fork. Chopsticks take a lot of
>practise.

No they don't. Personally I still can't use a fork without stabbing myself every
now and then. Picked up the sticks as young ling though. It's all a matter of
what you start with.
Message no. 55
From: Mark A Shieh SHODAN+@***.EDU
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 19:14:15 -0400 (EDT)
arcady@***.net writes:
> The truth of the matter is that it is all a matter of cultural
> perspective and upbringing.

It's a real shame I can't tie this back into SR somehow. :(
Cultural ettiquette is such a handwavable aspect of RPGing. I was
pleasantly surprised on Tuesday when my players actually figured out
that their Johnson is happier if they wait for him to bring up
business and just assume he'll pick up the bill instead of repeatedly
cutting the meal short and leaving early so they don't get stuck with
the dinner bill. :) It's also amusing describing a dim sum as
background scenery and seeing how players react.

> >It's also worth noting that spoons wouldn't have been invented or readily
> >available at this point in history. If they had, the eating method would
> >have become a spoon to hold the food, and a scraper to put the food onto it
>
> >Chopsticks are bloody hard to learn. Anyone with a minimal amount of
> >dexterity can learn to use a knife and fork. Chopsticks take a lot of
> >practise.

Talking as someone with decades of knife/fork experience, and
probably minutes of chopstick experience... I think your view is
overly subjective. Have you actually spent a lot of time learning, or
did you have a couple bad experiences and just start asking the waiter
for a knife and fork when it didn't work out? My first guess is that
you've just accepted chopstick usage as a skill not worth the effort
learning, so naturally you aren't proficient.

Have you seen parents trying to teach their kids how to use a
knife and fork? It sucks. They keep throwing their food everywhere.
Small round vegetables (peas and carrots) are especially difficult.
But give them a year or so, and they figure it out. Back in (Chinese)
school, I was the only 7 year old who had to eat a lot slower with
chopsticks than with a fork and knife, and I've figured it out since
then. I also hated Chinese food and usually ate with a fork and
knife. It's really not that hard, especially if you start them at the
appropriate age. It's definitely easier than teaching someone how to
write, and anyone with a minimal amount of dexterity can do that. My
grandmother, OTOH, tried to learn very late in life and never did
figure out how to sign her name without help.

Also, there are things you can do when eating with chopsticks
that you can't do at a western table setting. It took me a while to
get used to "proper" table manners. I still like to eat with my bowl
in my left hand and bring it up to my face, unless I'm in a restaurant
or someplace formal.

Mark
Message no. 56
From: Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 09:28:02 +1000
Arcady writes:
> Even in the poorest of regions there's two things nearly every
> Chinese family
> has almost always owned for the last few thousand years:
>
> An metal wok (iron or whatever was available) and a meat cleaver:
> a large square
> blade with a handle on one end.

These were not owned by single families. One was shared between extended
families and villages. Eating utensils are _personal_.

> >> The Chopstick's history lies in it's simple intuitive
> >> design and usage.
> >
> >Which pales in comparison to the knife and fork, the most intuitive and
> >easy-to-use eating tools ever designed since the fingers and teeth.
>
> This is pure cultural eletism speaking. A chopstick is very much
> like an extended
> finger. A fork is like grabbing your food with a miniature pitchfork.

No, it's not... you can teach someone who has used chopsticks all their life
to use a knife and fork. They might _prefer_ chopsticks, but they know how
to use the knife and fork. The reverse is not true.

And a fork is not like grabbing your food. It is a device to spear it (a
concept people grasp easily) and hold it in place while you cut it.

> >To evolve the chopstick, first you must have the knives taken
> away, probably
>
> >at a stage in the development where the eating knife is also the person's
> >main utility knife. A dagger is a weapon, and seen as such, even if it's
> >mainly used to cut bread. A cleaver isn't seen as a weapon, even
> though you
>
> >can use it as such.
>
> To evolve the Chopstick all you had to do was realize that
> grabbing the food
> with your fingers is messy or sometimes painful when hot. So get
> longer fingers.
> Hey; there's a stick lying over there... End of discovery.

Messy doesn't count. Messy food only happens when a culture learns more
about cooking.

"Painful when hot" implies you can cook it, which implies you can cut it up,
which implies you already have a knife available for you. So you have a
knife at hand before you go looking for that stick over there (which is
covered with bark which probably doesn't taste nice, anyway).

> >It's also worth noting that spoons wouldn't have been invented or readily
> >available at this point in history. If they had, the eating method would
> >have become a spoon to hold the food, and a scraper to put the
> food onto it
>
> You've never been in a Chinese household and seen people eat have
> you? I have,
> I'm 1/4 Chinese on my father's side. I was raised with
> chopsticks. I then lived
> in Korea where the two tools used at the table are a spoon and chopsticks.

Yes. I have. A close friend of mine in high school was Chinese (and
culturally so), and I stayed at his place fairly often. And the spoon in
Chinese history was developed a lot later, AFTER the chopstick was set in
place. :)

Spoons are a very recent invention, comparatively.

Further more, I spent four years studying the Chinese language and culture.
I'm not speaking out of ignorance here.

> And people have always had knives. If not metal then stone, wood, or bone.

I said that they had knives originally. I also said that they had devices
classed as weapons (as the traditional eating knife would have been) taken
away.

Finally, the archaeological evidence for the description I gave is there:
primitive man in China had eating utensils similar to the knife and fork (a
general purpose knife, and a two-pronged mini-spear, basically), much like
primitive man in Europe and Africa. So they developed the knife and fork
_first_. Then, some 5,000 years ago, chopsticks entered the picture. Given
that chopsticks would not have displaced the knife and fork all that easily,
the logical conclusion to take is that someone banned the eating knife. And
banning of anything traditionally seen as a weapon was something undertaken
by virtually every Chinese regime (we know this thanks to the fact that
China's history is fairly well documented by the Chinese themselves).

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 57
From: Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 09:33:43 +1000
Mark A Shieh writes:
> > >Chopsticks are bloody hard to learn. Anyone with a minimal amount of
> > >dexterity can learn to use a knife and fork. Chopsticks take a lot of
> > >practise.
>
> Talking as someone with decades of knife/fork experience, and
> probably minutes of chopstick experience... I think your view is
> overly subjective. Have you actually spent a lot of time learning, or
> did you have a couple bad experiences and just start asking the waiter
> for a knife and fork when it didn't work out? My first guess is that
> you've just accepted chopstick usage as a skill not worth the effort
> learning, so naturally you aren't proficient.

When you reply to my comments, you should read my message, Mark, not just
Arcady's cut down version. :) I said there that I've been using chopsticks
readily for the last 14 years or so. I learnt when I was 12, when I started
learning the Chinese language, and I had used them before that as well (just
not very well). When I eat Asian food, I will use chopsticks in preference,
largely 'cause my friends don't know how and I like to rub it into them. :)

> Have you seen parents trying to teach their kids how to use a
> knife and fork? It sucks. They keep throwing their food everywhere.
> Small round vegetables (peas and carrots) are especially difficult.
> But give them a year or so, and they figure it out. Back in (Chinese)
> school, I was the only 7 year old who had to eat a lot slower with
> chopsticks than with a fork and knife, and I've figured it out since
> then. I also hated Chinese food and usually ate with a fork and
> knife. It's really not that hard, especially if you start them at the
> appropriate age. It's definitely easier than teaching someone how to
> write, and anyone with a minimal amount of dexterity can do that. My
> grandmother, OTOH, tried to learn very late in life and never did
> figure out how to sign her name without help.

Parents try to teach kids to use a knife and fork when the children do not
have sufficent manual dexterity. Asking them to pick up small items with
them is asking for a headache. They should start them out on food that's a
lot more manageable.

> Also, there are things you can do when eating with chopsticks
> that you can't do at a western table setting. It took me a while to
> get used to "proper" table manners. I still like to eat with my bowl
> in my left hand and bring it up to my face, unless I'm in a restaurant
> or someplace formal.

Yeah, I know... eating rice with chopsticks is just plain disgusting by
Western standards. You really shouldn't shovel food into your mouth like
that. :)

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 58
From: kawaii kawaii@********.org
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 19:45:40 -0400 (EDT)
On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Robert Watkins wrote:

> Arcady writes:
> > Even in the poorest of regions there's two things nearly every
> > Chinese family
> > has almost always owned for the last few thousand years:
> >
> > An metal wok (iron or whatever was available) and a meat cleaver:
> > a large square
> > blade with a handle on one end.
>
> These were not owned by single families. One was shared between extended
> families and villages. Eating utensils are _personal_.
>

Actually, the kitchen and the cooking implements within it was shared
between extended families and villages.

> > >> The Chopstick's history lies in it's simple intuitive
> > >> design and usage.
> > >
> > >Which pales in comparison to the knife and fork, the most intuitive and
> > >easy-to-use eating tools ever designed since the fingers and teeth.
> >
> > This is pure cultural eletism speaking. A chopstick is very much
> > like an extended
> > finger. A fork is like grabbing your food with a miniature pitchfork.
>
> No, it's not... you can teach someone who has used chopsticks all their life
> to use a knife and fork. They might _prefer_ chopsticks, but they know how
> to use the knife and fork. The reverse is not true.
>
> And a fork is not like grabbing your food. It is a device to spear it (a
> concept people grasp easily) and hold it in place while you cut it.
>

I don't understand how difficult learning to use a knife and fork can
possibly be. You stab, cut and bring to your mouth. =P

But, as a Chinese, I think chopsticks are far more elegant. =) This is
cultural more than anything else, but it is common to mock those who can't
use chopsticks within a family, as I do to my brother. He can use
chopsticks but prefers spoon or knife and fork. We tell him he gets
stupider each day because he isn't practicing using the right side of his
brain. (which is what you use when you use chopsticks, apparently.) <--
this may just be a myth chinese parents made up to scare kids, I dunno. =)


> > >To evolve the chopstick, first you must have the knives taken
> > away, probably
> >
> > >at a stage in the development where the eating knife is also the person's
> > >main utility knife. A dagger is a weapon, and seen as such, even if it's
> > >mainly used to cut bread. A cleaver isn't seen as a weapon, even
> > though you
> >
> > >can use it as such.
> >
> > To evolve the Chopstick all you had to do was realize that
> > grabbing the food
> > with your fingers is messy or sometimes painful when hot. So get
> > longer fingers.
> > Hey; there's a stick lying over there... End of discovery.
>
> Messy doesn't count. Messy food only happens when a culture learns more
> about cooking.

A deer just went down. You skin it first and start eating. Blood
everywhere. Messy. See?

>
> "Painful when hot" implies you can cook it, which implies you can cut it
up,
> which implies you already have a knife available for you. So you have a
> knife at hand before you go looking for that stick over there (which is
> covered with bark which probably doesn't taste nice, anyway).
>

Agree on this part. =)

> > >It's also worth noting that spoons wouldn't have been invented or readily
> > >available at this point in history. If they had, the eating method would
> > >have become a spoon to hold the food, and a scraper to put the
> > food onto it
> >
> > You've never been in a Chinese household and seen people eat have
> > you? I have,
> > I'm 1/4 Chinese on my father's side. I was raised with
> > chopsticks. I then lived
> > in Korea where the two tools used at the table are a spoon and chopsticks.
>
> Yes. I have. A close friend of mine in high school was Chinese (and
> culturally so), and I stayed at his place fairly often. And the spoon in
> Chinese history was developed a lot later, AFTER the chopstick was set in
> place. :)
>

I don't see what this has to do with anything...?

> Spoons are a very recent invention, comparatively.
>
> Further more, I spent four years studying the Chinese language and culture.
> I'm not speaking out of ignorance here.

Just as a case in point: Chinese culture is over three thousand years old,
and the language has that much time to develop. How much can an outsider
really learn in four years? =)

>
> > And people have always had knives. If not metal then stone, wood, or bone.
>
> I said that they had knives originally. I also said that they had devices
> classed as weapons (as the traditional eating knife would have been) taken
> away.
>
> Finally, the archaeological evidence for the description I gave is there:
> primitive man in China had eating utensils similar to the knife and fork (a
> general purpose knife, and a two-pronged mini-spear, basically), much like
> primitive man in Europe and Africa. So they developed the knife and fork
> _first_. Then, some 5,000 years ago, chopsticks entered the picture. Given
> that chopsticks would not have displaced the knife and fork all that easily,
> the logical conclusion to take is that someone banned the eating knife. And
> banning of anything traditionally seen as a weapon was something undertaken
> by virtually every Chinese regime (we know this thanks to the fact that
> China's history is fairly well documented by the Chinese themselves).
>

This is why the various forms of martial arts were developed in China.
They had to learn to fight an oppressive government withou the benfits of
the weapons that the army had.

Ever lovable and always scrappy,
kawaii
Message no. 59
From: Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 10:19:59 +1000
Kawaii writes:
> > Messy doesn't count. Messy food only happens when a culture learns more
> > about cooking.
>
> A deer just went down. You skin it first and start eating. Blood
> everywhere. Messy. See?

How do chopsticks help?

Messy food in the sense I meant was stuff like food covered with sauces,
etc. I.e., after cooking, it was still messy to eat with fingers.

Furthermore, messy only comes into it if the culture is fastiduous.

> This is why the various forms of martial arts were developed in China.
> They had to learn to fight an oppressive government withou the benfits of
> the weapons that the army had.

And THAT's the very point that I made that started this whole argument. :)

I said: Chinese people had all the weapons taken away. That's why they
invented chopsticks and martial arts. :)

The argument then started as to what chopsticks had to do with anything. :)

Anyway, 'nuff said for now.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 60
From: Mark A Shieh SHODAN+@***.EDU
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 20:51:14 -0400 (EDT)
"Robert Watkins" <robert.watkins@******.com> writes:
> And THAT's the very point that I made that started this whole argument. :)

My ability to remember more than a couple posts back drops
rapidly when I participate in a discussion during compiles. :)

> I said: Chinese people had all the weapons taken away. That's why they
> invented chopsticks and martial arts. :)

It might be why chopsticks showed up, but I'm convinced that
they would have stuck around after being invented even if people had
been given their knives back.

> The argument then started as to what chopsticks had to do with anything. :)

Why, chopsticks make the world go 'round. You're like SO
unenlightened. Can't you read a subject header?

Mark
Message no. 61
From: Arcady arcady@***.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:35:24 -0700
> > > Messy doesn't count. Messy food only happens when a culture learns
more
> > > about cooking.
> >
> > A deer just went down. You skin it first and start eating. Blood
> > everywhere. Messy. See?
>
> How do chopsticks help?
>

I'm actually quite shocked that no one is able to understand why I mentioned
messy in my original posting.

It's really rather simple. Let me state it again and then break it down.

To evolve the Chopstick all you had to do was realize that grabbing the
food
with your fingers is messy or sometimes painful when hot. So get longer
fingers.
Hey; there's a stick lying over there... End of discovery.


Ok...

If you eat food with your fingers it tends to get all over them. This is
called messy. Easy enough so far?

One day you decide you'd rather not get the food all over you. This is the
day man decided to invent the eating utensil. Whatever it may have been for
the particular culture.

In China, somebody just realized about 5000 thousand years ago that if you
grab a nearby stick and poke the food it stays off your fingers and is easy
to eat. Over time a second stick got added for better grasping ability and
so on and then it became a process of holding them like extended fingers and
grabbing things.

Here's a good link:
http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/utensil/chpstck.htm

Which is a subset of:
http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/utensil/intro.htm


> I said: Chinese people had all the weapons taken away. That's why they
> invented chopsticks and martial arts. :)

And I say that makes no more sense for chopsticks than saying that forks
came about because the military in Europe took away everyone's weapons and
they had to eat with pitchforks; which someone realized could be made much
smaller to easier hold the food. Considered the fork as we know it came to
western Europe in the 1500's (after taking over 700 years to get there from
the middle east yet starting back further with the Greeks) this makes little
sense to me.

http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/utensil/forks.htm


Anyway, this is really no longer relevant to Shadowrun. You can't say which
is easier to learn unless you take two totally untrained children of
completely identical ability and remove them completely from any outside
influences and try to teach each one one method. Personally I think both
have their 'obvious and intuitive' reasons for existing.

But there's about as much reason for us to be debating this subject as there
is for the gun control/pro gun people to be debating their issue. Their both
off topic. So I suppose my sending this allows for the counter side to have
it's final say as well, but beyond that I'm out on this one.
Message no. 62
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 22:28:45 -0400
At 19.14 07-15-99 -0400, you wrote:
>Cultural ettiquette is such a handwavable aspect of RPGing. I was

It isn't handwavable, not if you are a GM from Hell who has NPCs react
blankly to dice rolls, and requires that folks ROLE play.

>for a knife and fork when it didn't work out? My first guess is that
>you've just accepted chopstick usage as a skill not worth the effort

Bingo. The physical stuff isn't hard, so long as all the peices work and
you WANT to learn. I think that we just isolated a cuase for much of the
world's problems. <g>


CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 63
From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 22:57:22 -0400
At 19.45 07-15-99 -0400, you wrote:
>I don't understand how difficult learning to use a knife and fork can
>possibly be. You stab, cut and bring to your mouth. =P

I agree. You can teach a chimp or three year old to use a fork in about
a hlf-hour.

>But, as a Chinese, I think chopsticks are far more elegant. =) This is

Don't have to be Chinese. A lot of people use that simple test to
determine how open minded you are, how well you adapt and how much exposure
to the greater world you have. I don't hold it against someone for not
being abe to use chopsticks, but I do hold it against them if they see only
sticks and immediately demand (not ask politley, but demand) a fork.

>They had to learn to fight an oppressive government withou the benfits of
>the weapons that the army had.

And they did a fairly good job of holding thier own, right? (retorical,
no need to answer)


CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"
Message no. 64
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: the value of education (OT-rant, long)
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 04:02:58 -0400 (EDT)
> Allen sighed:
> >Too true... Of course, my ideal society would then have to expand
the definition of gun to include *all* weapons. Which means, of
course, that anybody who owns a knife is breaking the law. Including
anybody who wants to eat with a knife and fork, hehe.
> >sigh. Looks like I can't win :-(
>
> Hope springs eternal. I think that you'll find that we will come
together when we learn a little more about things beyond our planet.
People will start thinking in terms of Terrans/Earthlings rather than
Australian or American, etc.
>
> I can dream too.
>
> :)
>
> Mike, aka Smilin' Jack

What, in the same way that people will start thinking in terms of
"Humans" and "Mutant Scum" when UGE occurs?

Scary thought, neh?

*"There will always be someone to hate. It's just that who the target
of people's hatred is will change as the neighbourhood grows."
DocWagon, 1999*
==Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow)

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