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Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 22:59:39 EST
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: fiat iustitia pereat omnes

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 59
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 94 23:16:25 EST
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: who is jewish is the least of it, less than that even
To: Eva M Armstrong <evarmst@>
Message-Id: <940128.231625.EST.DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>

Frankly, speaking for myself, I do not care who is Jewish at all. Nor, best
I can tell, is anyone else. There exists here or there, mainly there, the
odd third party inordinately preoccupied with the notional existence of a
fourth party to whom the third party's ethnicity does matter, withconjectural
malign consequences; the seriousness of such concerns is open to doubt.

What is of profound concern, however, is the surfeit of seriousness in
which the list is awash. This condition is to my mind shameful. Theoffending
"gainesville" post I wrote, now by convention a Very Serious Politico-Moral
Crime, was written as *farce* on the night of Jan 20-21; and quite broad and
hard-to-miss farce it was, too. Even the "defense of the honour" of the
personage called "Doctress Neutopia" get gales of laughs when shown to test
readers in this room.

The hour was 3 am, conducive to lightheaded fancies in a windowlesscomputer
room. I made this bit of fluff more complicated than it looks, since therewas
a hidden message to Steve Mizrach included, and that was *not* to throw him
off the list (farce is full of mock-"threatening" gestures): It was, infact,
that if one wishes to be "frankly countercultural," this necessarily entails
violating a few sensibilities without actually hurting anybody. Therationale
for doing *that*, in turn, is the expansion or enhancement of the boundaries
of the possible.

Consider that, throughout the long Republican Ascendancy, 1981-1993, and
*still continuing*, the Liberals and well-meaning people generally have been
*hunkered down in rigidly defensive postures*, fearful of their allies; more
fearful of "giving away their position," that is, stating forthrightly what
they in fact stand for, to their aggressive opponents; and most fearful of
all of making more demands for change on a society which has renegged onwhat
had been grudgingly conceded before.

Take a good long hard look at your country, if you are an armenian on
i are an armenian day. Your country is lousy. This is an objective fact.
Time to loosen up, say, I am proud and unafraid enough to say, "My country
is lousy." Become a harder marker. Give it a C Minus, then if it doesn't
reform itself, flunk it. Palsied defensive paralysis is what makes a Clinton
look good doing next to nothing considering when Bush was in he did lessthan
nothing. Frozen fear disguised as good manners is not the way forward. Don't
fear your multicultural friends; have a good time with them.

Throw the odd or occasional custard pie. Whatever isn't hungry deserves
it all over their face, anyhow. Take it easy.

Sincerely,
Daniel A. Foss
--------------------------------------------
The writer, whose signature appears above,
herewith gives blanket permission to the
recipient to forward this letter without
excerpting to anyone whatsoever. It is
the policy of the present writer to refrain
from additional posting to ANTHRO-L@UBVM.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 23:23:12 CST
From: <U28550%UICVM@>
To: <dfoss@ccvm.sunysb.edu>
Subject: reply


Dan,
I'm dog tired after a very long day with the Chancellor, class,colleagues,
and the kids (the best part of the day). I have read your post with some
alarm, and I'm too tired to give it the answer it deserves. I have to be up
early to take #1 son to a scholarship examination and then register bothboys
for little league--as middle class as it gets (and worse, but I won't boreyou)
with the details. Expect a longer reply on the morrow. I would say from a
first reading that you have blown these exchanges way beyond what any of the
rest of us perceive. I don't know what the story is between you andStephanie,
but an Einstein she ain't, nor does she have the capabilities for subtletythat
one would envy. What else your relationship includes, I don't know, buthaving
read what she writes, I wouldn't lose sleep at having her angry at me. Asfor
Alvarado, he is obviously a very bright person who takes himself veryseriously
and probably knows that there's no way he can meet you on your own ground.I
wouldn't worry much about what he thinks, either. Your decision to get offthe
Net is, of course, your own business, but from where I type, I see no
compelling reason to do so. In particular, there is no reason for you tothink
or feel or act like a dog with its tail among its legs. Like any family, we
get into squabbles and get pissed at each other and call each other names,but
we get over it. We apologize when we have to or need to, and among adults,one
apology is enough. If it isn't, then intercourse 'em. You are one of usand
will continue to be one of us until you say that you are not. Without the
Cubbies, there is no Chicago, and without dfoss@sunysb, there is noANTHRO-L,
at least not one worth reading. I, like many on this NET, wait for yournext
post. I will continue to do so. More tomorrow.
Mike
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 23:06:41 -0800 (PST)
From: Eva M Armstrong <evarmst@>
Subject: Re: who is jewish is the least of it, less than that even
To: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.sunysb.edu>

Huh? Way over my head, but thank you anyway. So, are you Armenian?







------------------------------------------------------------------------ 59
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 94 02:09:49 EST
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: lets take the politics out and try again
To: "Eva M. Armstrong" <evarmst@>
Message-Id: <940129.020949.EST.DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>

Dear Eva M. Armstrong:

All right, I'll dispense with the grandiose political vision and trythis:
I maintain the right and freedom to parody, ridicule the idiocies of ethnic
stereotyping, not merely of one's own ethnic group, but in general. These
things, and the related ones which poison gender and class relations even
worse than mere social-structural constraints could do by themselves, are
everywhere; left alone, the sky's the limit. Which is the point of ascrewball
tirade like:

> Before the Jews got hold of this place, this USA was a savage
>sinkhole of tribal wars and exclusive obsession with money. Look aroundyou.
>Thanks to the Jews, it's now a world-class civilization, manufacturing
>millions of people a year who can act intelligent, maintain coolness,exude
>class; obsessed not with money but with Socioeconomic Status,Occupational
>Prestige, and Professional Reputation;...

You've now I hope caught what's crazy about "manufacturing millions of
people a year" which slides into "who can act intelligent,..." One last
example, "obsessed not with money but with Socioeconomic Status,..." Tribal
chauvinism which self-destructs.

Had this been on Real Television, where humor, or would-be humor, is
"socially framed" for laughing at it by those playing the audience role,
maybe you might have laughed. Better than a lot of stuff on "realtelevision."
Difference between ANTRHO-L and other kinds of television is, you have asmall
cast of regulars and a much larger studio audience/viewing audience,reprodu-
cing the social relations of the TV series. Only the regulars are also the
writers. You, as a member of the studio audience, get confused and jump up
out of your seat into the performers' space because, possibly, something's
appeared on your screen which you've been habituated to anticipate would not
be there. Ethnic jokes, for instance. Only fake ethnic jokes intended to
wipe out ethnic jokes.

Tell you a secret. I do not own a television set. I do not, actually, own
anything electrical other than my home and office alarm clocks. Insulated
thus from electronic portions of mediated culture, I may not be aware of the
conventions which exist to be ridiculed.

Sincerely,
Daniel A. Foss
<bloody and bowed; however, defiantly unmodernized and unwesternized>
[Note to reader: The usage "armenia" as previously stated comes from a
1970 one-liner by a comedy act called The Firesign Theater: "Beautify
armenia, get a harelip."][Subsequently, I have used the device of suggesting
that the USA is a very strange country, designated by "armenia," whichappears
as the USA due to the massive impact of media, advertising, propaganda, and
ideological influence of every sort. Even the physical surface of your local
area is ideology: Until a few days ago, for example, you had freeways. The
freeways called out to you yearningly, "Please, I need you to buy a car to
ride on me with; a newer better car; how can you hold your head up and face
me, freeway, driving that disgusting car you own."]
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 200
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 94 02:44:47 EST
From: DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: one absolutely correct point which SJN exploits cleverly
To: Mike Lieber <U28550@>
Resent-Message-Id: <940129.024447.EST.DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>

[* Sorry, you will have to imagine a Thing you cannot imagine sitting here*]
[* having to do this as the leastest evil. *]

The following is true in excelsis:

>with the details. Expect a longer reply on the morrow. I would say froma
>first reading that you have blown these exchanges way beyond what any ofthe
>rest of us perceive. I don't know what the story is between you andStephanie,

You do not perceive "these exchanges" as having existence over and above
neglible exhibitions of behavior, as *perceived*. The latter word iscritical,
and I turn to Goffman's essay on Normal Appearances for a clue as to whyit's
critical, to find a starting point. (What some folks, to their endless
irkedness, find themselves Dealing With is an organism that livessociological
abstractions 24 hours a day, next train is 5:15am; which is inexplicable.
But it's not. You learn microbehavior, interaction ritual, and all the
undetected-to-conscious-awareness little things you acquire to *not look
bizarre*. How this works is, in very rare instances, not installed at the
factory, so one knows one is bizarre; where to go to stick out least.)

The rules of normal appearances are violated; yet you, most of you, and
not always, set them in abeyance. Which in person you wouldn't dare do. The
unconscious part of the *perceptions* remains. Any attacker is a priori the
Normal. If she calls me racist, this blows the farce off the farce, and the
incident is transmuted into a Very Serious Crime.

There is no question that having to be aware of this aberration on my
part, as well as the vulnerability whereto it gives rise, is by applicable
convention Paranoid-and-a-Half. (Consciosness of that wherefor awareness is
counternormative is Paranoid or Delusional or elsewise PathologicalIdeation;
endless everydaylife commonplaces will be cited at some future date when I'm
writing about something else.)

The cleverness of the wording of SJN's "Angry Jewish Men" post is so
impressive one suspects in the last paragraph a blank space after "racist"
to be filled for the occasion.

I haven't done a line-by-line before, but here it is.

>This routine is becoming tiresome:

Comment: usage of "tiresome" or "tedious" or both in conjunction isdeadly.
Actually, most writing is characterizable as such, leaving the unattacked
somewhat egoenhanced for being just a mite better than the victim of the
moment. It's also the verbiage attuned to people who read Arts & Leisure
sections in serious newspapers.

The next sentence is a real killer, autonomous of any actual behavior in
the particular instance or over time, actually empirically observable, yet
*has the ring of truth* for the reasons to be listed later:

>Dan Foss invents an insult out of (perhaps) sloppy scholarship and elevatesit
>into either a racial slur or a professional one, then commits character
>assassination and issues an ultimatum for either a groveling apologia orexit
>from the list.

Here an entire capital indictment is constructed out of suggested (not
stated or insinuated). This practice presupposes her self-evident liberty to
indicate incontestable moral turpitude, incompetence, and the invariabilityof
my comission of aggression against arbitrary victims. While conversely, the
contempt, insults, sneers, and condescensions of the Upper Middles andgonnabe
upper middles are ruled out of possibility.

This derives plausibility from:
1. The social incompetence is real, global, and irremediable.
2. The sloppy scholarship, which is permitted in this e-mail medium to
those who, generally, possess the universal - in academia - capacity to do
the nonsloppy scholarship, is quite real and likewise irremediable, elsewise
I could absent myself to a place where I could practice workaholism in non-
sloppy scholarship. As it happens, this list, ANTHRO-L, has become my sole
and exclusive means of contacting the rest of the species. (Movements are
constricted by necessity to refrain from entering or being found in spaces
where young women, indeed, any women whatever, are present. Also, reading
requires absolute silence and isolation. Also, social interaction with
factory members and even graduate students past the initial year is taboo
by reason of social distance, rules pertaining thereto governing social
interaction, and visible aversion or loathing on the part of faculty members
or graduate students who remind me by such usages as "BUSY!" of my actual
social construction, i.e., Derelict.[Note: just got first SSD check.])
3. My social deviance in every detail has been mentioned in one postafter
another. Social constructions of behavior of deviants follow the following
rules:
--- A deviant is incapable of exhibiting behavior inseparable from the
deviance, which is essential.
--- A deviant may not be imputed nondeviant, non-malign, or even neutral
motives.
--- A deviant exhibiting behavior ostensibly similar to that ofnondeviants
in the environment is doing so for deviant purposes; i.e., as a cover.
--- A known deviant may for reasons of prudence be subjected toanticipatory
monitoring. Any complaint or sign of suspicion on the part of the deviant is
to be chastised as Paranoid.
--- The deviant's guilt of serious offenses is permitted to be construed
as potential; hence the anticipatory monitoring as, "there's no telling what
he's likely to do," and irregularities betoken "just the kind of thing he's
likely to do."

Lots more, but that's why I am here at 3:30am; anyway, cannot risk taking
earlier trains. Gets worse with aging. Think ugly. Think uglier. You still
aint nowhere near it.

4. "...and elevates it into either a racial slur or a professional one."
It remains plausible to me that the controversial post was farce.

> Before the Jews got hold of this place, this USA was a savage
>sinkhole of tribal wars and exclusive obsession with money. Look aroundyou.
>Thanks to the Jews, it's now a world-class civilization, manufacturing
>millions of people a year who can act intelligent, maintain coolness,exude
>Prestige, and Professional Reputation;...

Idea is, it's the same place with other words. ("...manufacturingmillions
of people a year who can act intelligent,..." do I really have to putitalics
on the "act"? How else but farce should they make out "manufacturingmillions,"
etc.?)

Now, where I foolishly allowed Seriousness into this mishmash, the charge
made, viz, that Dan Foss - subhuman; Doctress Neutopia - subhuman isentirely
valid as a depiction of social evaluation by the modal subscribers toANTRHO-L
*and* the non-intersecting set of modal subscribers toLeri@gossip.pyramid.com.
This charge is entirely arcane but entirely *True*. I am thin-skinned, with
no life other than in front of this idiot box. This gives any insultwhatever
an undue, and impossible-to-ignore, importance. The reason is, the following
categories are socially constructed Mindless: Derelicts, Junkies,Psychos,...
including only those I'm put in. Recall, I'm unemployable, present onpremises
exclusively out of Liberal charity. To get words out of my head, via mouthor
fingers, requires Dexedrine, as substance with a reputation as morally evil
tantamount to that of cocaine. And, to outward appearances I am walking
stereotype Psycho on sight; only a suit costing in excess of $300 mitigated
this; the suit would have to cost more now. To overcome internalizedselfimage
of Mindless it is necessary to deliberately induce reality impairment. That
is, to get Drugged sufficiently to generate the delusion of being an
intellectual. (Extraordinarily thinskinned and vulnerable to social
constructions of whatever kind, from whomever as observer. And be very clear
that for vast majority on ANTHRO-L I write exclusively "gibberish,""drivel,"
and "babble.")

[Note: There are 3 Leri people on ANTHRO-L; and whether they believe that
E.N. Hubbard or myself are subhuman or not is not relevant given thetreatment
each is accorded on the relevant network.]

Character assassination is what is principally done by me on myself. I
have nothing to hide; and the attempt to hide it would be exposed
humiliatingly. Hints or allusions by others are difficult for me to ignore,
but easy for everyone else. When I blow up, inevitably, since what is atissue
is the core of my social existence, what a joke, the fault is entirely mine.

5. When I sleep it off and look at the disaster on hard copy, I willindeed
usually grovel and abase myself. The guilt is genuine. There is profound
sorrow at having caused hurt to anyone. The wording, however, does make my
blood boil in the accusation, "and issues an ultimatum for either agroveling
apologia or exit from the list."

-----------------------------
OK, I'll confine myself to the ending:
>And cut the racist Jew thing too. All kinds of races and religions havemade
>this country what it is, for better or worse. The last thing we need on
>this list is racist chest-beating. For shame,

Never have I seen a piece of farce I wrote so completely reframed asracist
slime. This is no insipid smear. This is a brilliantly executed dirty lying
smear of the hightest caliber, which is worthy only of the two mediacapitals,
NYC or LA. (Her father wrote TV series, week in, week out. What I call the
Gen. Schwartzkopf Syndrome: The latter was inspired to become the GreatWarlord
in later life from listening to his father weekly as the narrator of Gang
Busters. [As Commander of the New Jersey State Police, his duties were the
unromantic routinization of bootlegging.])

You have them backwards. Alvarado is the nitwit. You should catchNelson's
performance as a Regular on DERRIDA@CFRVM. What she does on ANTHRO-L is low-
grade stuff.

There is no disputing her, because there is no epistemological
correspondence between the utterance of the deviant and that of the Normal.
What I have to say for myself, and cannot under any circumstances, say it
well, is epistemologically UNDEFINED, a priori discredited; can be and have
been accused of physically impossible acts or intents. No defense except in
part hiding.
No disputing *any of you*, given the consensual ontological triviality of
what the listmembership, including yourself, have observed. The ontological
reality of any occurrence is proportional to the importance of the person in
whose life it occurs. Who cares, what difference does it make, except interms
of those who *have other things to do* and this is just a pastime. *Which is
entirely fair*.

You want racism? Here's racism. A real white racist dialect joke:

"Don't never mess wid nobody whut got epistemological inferenceheuristics
on dere side, boy, dem gon' whup you ev'y time!"

There has been popular demand for fumigation; and fumigation has been
successfully applied. Monoclassal subcultures are in the nature of things,
whaddaya expect.

Daniel A. Foss
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 09:53:11 CST
From: <U28550%UICVM@>
To: <dfoss@ccvm.sunysb.edu>
Subject: reply


Dan,
If you insist that you're ugly and incorrigibly X (you fill it in), Iwill
have to take you at your word. On the other hand, you ain't dead, and aslong
as you're among the living and an anthropologist to boot, then you are not
excused from all obligations that other living people have, on the Net or
elsewhere. In fact, obligations weigh a good deal heavier on you than theydo
than they do on most others on this Net, since you know more than most of us
(myself included). The problem is, that your functional peers constitute a
small minority of the folks on the Net. Internet is democratized, and as an
unmonitored list, Anth-L is particularly so. This puts the level of
understanding of anthropological issues (anything that's interesting) at
somewhere between the National Enquirer and USA Today. Eva Armstrong'sposts
stand as Exhibit A. What do you say to an airhead? I will agree that Evaand
S. Nelson are not in the same class. But they share an important feature--
neither has the reading comprehension skills to know when discursiveness has
been transformed into parody and from parody to farce.
Now, if you disagree with my characterization of S. Nelson's reading
comprehension problem, then you are implying that she knew it was a farceand
decided for her own nefarious purposes to act as if it were not a farce. Why
should that be? Following the "paranoid" logic, there is a ready answer (at
least to me). Take the person who is totally commited to an identification
with the latest fad (like pomo) and who takes themselves (herself) totally
seriously. Then why fool around on the anthro net? Career management-image
management strategy, probably. It doesn't hurt to be thought of as a
silverback. Now, to someone like that, there is no posting so profoundly
offensive as your several recent postings on the explanation industry. You
broke the therapeudic contract, which is "You don't pull my covers and I
won't pull yours." You pulled a lot of people's covers with those posts,which
were in fact a bit nicer than anything I would write on the subject. Having
spent time in Synanon in the 1960s, I know quite a bit about thosecontracts,
and I especially know how it feels to have the covers pulled. If I were
S. Nelson, I would have been looking for a chance to do you in, too. If she
can discredit the messenger, then she won't have to deal with the message.
How's that for paranoia? Do you honestly believe that I'm wrong about this?
And do you honestly believe that she couldn't have known exactly whichbuttons
to press, given that you take such pains to make them clear and visible?And
do you really intend to let the career managers win? THAT, dfoss, would be
unforgiveable.

My one hero in this motley field of image managers is Gregory Bateson,who,
as he became famous enough to make a difference, saw his mission asspreading
clear thinking. You do the same job differently than he did. I guess youare
our Voltaire. But even so, that doesn't mean that you have to die fromeating
your own shit.
Anyone who does what you do is going to make enemies. The people who
understand you are going to be few but growing (by small increments--it tookme
several months to catch on to your madness and your method). I empathizewith
your pain, though I cannot feel it. If you choose to make us your life,then
you have to accept that (a) us is pretty motley, (b) that us includes some
really cynical people, (c) that you will never cease negotiating your way
through the messes, and (d) the biggest mistake you can make is obsessing on
the inevitable consequences of being Voltaire. It ain't always pretty(though
there are some supreme moments, which is the best that most of us ever get),
but that's the way it is. So enough on S. Nelson. She got your numberbecause
you let her get your number. But you got her number all on your own.
Meanwhile, there is a growing cancer of Sociobiology on ANTHRO-L--three
posts in the last two days. That has to be dealt with. This is no time to
leave us, Lucille.
Mike
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 11:42:50 -0700
Reply-To: Reed D Riner <rdr@>
Sender: General Anthropology Bulletin Board<ANTHRO-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: Reed D Riner <rdr@>
Subject: UNSUB ANTHRO-L
X-To: anthro-l@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list ANTHRO-L<ANTHRO-L@UBVM.BITNET>

UNSUB Reed D. riner
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 10:39:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: scott lesser <LESSER>
Subject: etc
To: dfoss@ccvm.sunysb.edu

sorry (i think) to see the situation you're going through with members ofthe
academy over on ANTHRO-L, though it's almost to be expected with that crowd,
eh? but, then, what do they know? first, i haven't seen many pre-eminentnames
from the field on that list, and second, they all read the same academicdreck
and then 50-70 pages of michael crichton before turning off the light andgoing
to bed. none of them even come close to your eclectic scholarship, let alone
well-developed, individual STYLE. still, i can tell they've really pissedyou
off: i've never seen you so factually self-referential in one post. it tookme
two years to pull together all details you laid out for them in fiveminutes.

their consciousnes programS limit what input can be accepted and integrated;
too bad for them. on the other hand, if it's any consolation, the brightest
individuals i've met online, including those aspiring to academia and those
consciously outside of it (read "the hip kids"), revere you as an avatar.hope
you realize the relative importance of that. you're still relatively young,
daniel, with this crop of potential future celebritIEs, you're almost
guaranteed william s. burroughs status before retirement age. (tee-hee)

so, fuck the rest of 'em. they'll be forgotten in a few years.

but, to quote bill anderson, that's not why i called.

now that i'm going to be in boston for longer than i expected to be(seemingly
damned here forever), i can be a bit more flexible in my plans to visit
stonybrook. however, the woman i was planning to go with, well, that won'tbe
happening. did "talk" over the internet with barbara hall the other day,
her to make me scream her new
moniker
in passionate abandon (she quoted de sade first, is my defense), and she
mentioned an interest in meeting you. perhaps i'll try to talk her intomaking
a plan for both of us to get together and see you, as i would like to meether,
also. between what you've had to rave about her, and zeek's praises (andhe's
met her in new mexico), i want to get to know her. too interesting not to.

did i mention i met rob holder? quite a character. he's in europe for a few
weeks; was hoping to meet brid while he's over there. he and i hit it offquite
well. actually, so well that we discussed the idea of him coming up toboston
and living with me for a while, now that he and janice are separated. got a
postcard from amsterdam with just the words "Dear Scott Lesser, You have a
beautiful smile. Love, Rob Holder. *Be careful*." rather freaked out my
loftmate who picked up the mail, i think.

am kicking around ideas of a rip-off jack kerouac meets bret easton ellis
travelling along the electronic highway novel. between travel, e-mail, andthe
bizarre relationships and interesting people, this is a scene just waiting
to be fictionalized...


scott


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 13:49:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Eva M Armstrong <evarmst@>
Subject: Re: lets take the politics out and try again
To: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.sunysb.edu>
In-Reply-To: <940129.020949.EST.DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>

well, you've gone over my head. However, there's a really good
discussion in the Soc. Culture Sri Lanka. They meaning the Sinhalese and
Tamil are fruitless arguing about racism and discrimination. I wrote
something in there called shame. Well, I did get 2 burn letters, from
obviously those sypathizers of teh Tamil Tiger persuasion. Take a look
at at. Because of your intellect, how do I answer one with such
statements regarding terrorism? I erroneously equated it with gangsters
in the US. I meant to say it's stupid LIKE gangsters. Gangland wars and
Bosnia wars are not the same as terrorism. These guys come over here for
a n american education and STILL adhere to the age old thing us vs.
them. They are also all Sri Lankan. There is no racial differences. If
you have had some anthro (phisical), then the latest teaching is that
therer are ony human variation. Anyway, the just about told me to take it
and shove it. What do you think. I want real critical thinking. Do you
have access to the conferences where you are. I don't know what they're
called "out there", but they could be newsnet or something like that.
Look it up. thanks for your reply.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 23:09:05 EST
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: fiat iustitia pereat mundus

Variant of preceding sentiment in dead language, "Let me win my case lest
the whole world gets fucked up the middle." This expresses the highestideals
of Roman Civilization, in so far as there is no suggestion to this pointthat
beheadings, the usual practice among friends, or out and out civil war, be
resorted to, with the consequences following the rule, "Post proelium,
praemium." (After the victory comes the loot sack pillage rapine.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 150
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 94 21:20:53 EST
From: DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: one good turn and a few corkscrews
To: "Stephanie J. Nelson" <NELSON@>
Resent-Message-Id: <940129.212053.EST.DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>

First, let me say, there were two minor interruptions to the work at hand
last night. (1) My best friend, Gail, was raped, according to a letter in
my mailbox. More precisely, "assaulted by a man with a knife." Without a
roll of quarters, and stranded in the building till 5am, I was perforce left
with the agonizing wait till I could call her at 8am from NYC. (2) The
acute angle made by Pico Boulevard with the Alvardo post was dealt with
at great analytic depth; so out of its depth it might as well have been
eaten in Jaws III.

For the record, we review *in nauseating detail* the mass of data touching
upon this part of the case:
1. In the course of our correspondence on Thursday, with its sadisticovertones
of bullying of Panama by the USA circa 1898 for extortion of the primitive-
accumulatory crime of extorting the Panama Canal Concession (even Hitler was
nicer to Czechoslovakia circum-Munich), you complained in your letter ofThu,
27 Jan 94 16:08:41 PST of my failure hitherto to have included Alvarado in
my Apology List, i.e., ~(Enemies List) intended to satisfy your demands for
my craven abject surrender to your Great Power Chauvinism, as extracted from
the full transcript. The text following the dashed line is cited from an
excerpt of the same length from my reply of Thu, 27 Jan 94 19:24:16 EST,
whereof the full transcript likewise exists in plural copies for security:
--------------------

>It is interesting that your "preliminary results" left out one very bigone
>on you from Rafael Candido, where he basically said, "there he goesagain
>with character assassination and irrational anger, which is why I don'tread
>his posts anymore." Very interesting you would forget that one. Or doyou
>not read his posts either? I agree with him, by the way--at least withhis
>charges, if not yet with his related decision. You might want to dig thatone
>out of your files, Dan.
> Stephanie
>------------------------------------------------------------------------53
I've been going through the laserprintout, and have given priority to
writing letters to, most recently Dave Heller, those most pained oranguished
by their own mixed feelings, intellectual contradictions, or just plain
incomprehension. I do indeed have the post sent by R. C. Alvarado, and shall
put him on the recipient list, with perhaps a query anent why he did not
simply delete that one also, thereby saving me the trouble of composing the
present missive etc etc.
--------------------------
The ensuing time was consumed with reading, rereading, and rotememorization
of Alvarado's MISANTHRO-L post of Sat, 22 Jan 1994 15:23:34 -0500. Myfindings,
based on those labors, are that, indeed, Mr Alvarado did indeed habitually
delete all my posts; and in these *WAS INCLUDED THE POST HE AFFECTED TO HAVE
BEEN CRITICIZING*. The mention in the body of the post exclusively of the
*SUBJECT LINE* does not warrant any inference whatever that he read anything
other than the subject line in writing the post; nor does any content appear
to have been before him whilst composing his text. Assuming that hepossessed
the slightest sense of humor, whose ontological status in my position lies
somewhere in the twillight zone between The Seven Dwarfs and the ToothFairy,
I would without fear of contradiction accuse Mr Alvarado of smear, fraud,and
misrepresentation in playing fast and loose with objects of his apoplexy.
As the evidence for refutation of the above has been destroyed by the
elapsed time available for Mr Alvarado to jog his nonexistent memory (ofwhat
he did not in the first place read) to affect actually having read what he
did not, I suggest that his sentencing and chastisement be handed over tothe
Lesbian Gay Bisexual Association of <Leri@gossip.pyramid.com>. Iherewith
wash my hands of contact with the keyboard keys wherewith I typed that<ugh>.

Other business:
I should really thank you, unequivocably, for having been on thereceiving
end of a letter, nothing further was necessary, both vilely flattering and
adolescent-crush adulatory; whereby I contrived, in strict accordance with
my position taken up till the posting-hiatus still in effect for ANTHRO-L,
to induce the subjective experience corresponding to the words,notwithstanding
the interpersonal circumstances prevailing in the ongoing interaction: The
latter framed the, uh, *self-generated* or *inner-induced* Experience as,
insturumentally speaking, self-destructive behavior [disorder];inappropriate
affect; and a host of synonymous epithets among which one may include"Chris-
tianity," something to us unfamiliar to a degree that its pathalogical
character is a priori assumed; said pathology mitigated solely by emergent
counternorms anent *abuse*. G.B. Shaw is alleged to have said, "The trouble
with Christianity is that it's never been tried," a gross exaggeration yet
valid for 19th century bourgeois society. More concretely, "If a woman kick
thee in the teeth, show her likewise the other jaw." (One of my "objective
evaluators" inferred, "I don't have any idea what went on between you and
Stephanie,...")

The service this rendered me was this: If I was capable of psychically
fabricating the feeling in question, it was that much more probable that
the almost equally sudden affective upsurge pertaining to Elizabeth N.
Hubbard/Doctress Neutopia was substantively spurious, an invention of
necessity; as had been true of my disastrous amenability to selection *by*
women in the past (this in turn logically ensuing from Shrinko injunctions
to "make productive use of your time"). The worst of these was Jane Linda
Lowenkron, Wife #2, junkie, violent, and a host of other things. (Accepted
as Divine Retribution, Revealed on an acid trip, for what the Revelation
accused me of doing to Wife #1. The Californian one.) Generalizations
formulated from results of both studies are: 1. Mixed marriages never work.
2. The other kind never work even worse.

If Elizabeth N. Hubbard was an invention of necessity, the obvious method
of obtaining Evidence was, as you know with your womanly ways (deliberate
gender role stereotype, studio audience), to get Elizabeth N. Hubbard to
blurt out something so laden with humiliating implications, correction, make
that *humiliating* period, that not even True Love could survive, when she'd
been caught in a state of *utmost haste to hang up the phone*.

Which, having been evaluated at Headquarters, we resumed 100% allocation
of resources to present study. Initial problem encountered with the blue
ribbon objective evaluation committee was, "We think this entire incident is
trivial." The weight of the supporting documentation, in association withthe
argument, "Who am I, you should think what goes wrong on me has ontological
reality?" or, as Ralph Larkin would tell me, over and over again, in former
times, "*Nobody* is interested in *your* problems," at length elicited a
weary concession: Ya know, "something is going on here, but we don't know
what it is, do we, Mr Jones." [= Name disguised.]

Of the remaining implausibilities representing irreducible stickingpoints,
the most intractable was, "ok, it says she did it; but *how* could anyone do
any such thing, it is too off the wall." One member of the expert blueribbon
investigating panel states:

>stand as Exhibit A. What do you say to an airhead? I will agree that Evaand
>S. Nelson are not in the same class. But they share an importantfeature--
>neither has the reading comprehension skills to know when discursivenesshas
>been transformed into parody and from parody to farce.
> Now, if you disagree with my characterization of S. Nelson'sreading
>comprehension problem, then you are implying that she knew it was a farceand
>decided for her own nefarious purposes to act as if it were not a farce.Why
>should that be? Following the "paranoid" logic, there is a ready answer(at
>least to me). Take the person who is totally commited to anidentification
>with the latest fad (like pomo) and who takes themselves (herself)totally
>seriously. Then why fool around on the anthro net? Careermanagement-image

My lifelong favorite answer is, nothing provokes or draws free-floating
Nasties like looking weak. Why I stayed out of bars even during the brief
period when I drank. Same goes with driving a tinny little car, of the sort
Wife #1 won by handing in a sheet of paper at a Gulf station in the Valley,
which in LA was then called a "pinnow." (And down will come freeway,station,
and all, with a little help from TIAMMAT! Ask your neighborhood Sumerian.)

I have renounced screwing around in any sense for any reason. Should this
matter pursue, and the Nihilist community persist in doing Nothing, whichis,
after all, their Meaning & Purpose Of Existence, on the solemn moralprinciple
that "An injury to one is an injury to him, at most," then I shoulder my
Springfield, soldier on, Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory, and I revere the
sainted memory of history's most successful TERRORIST: "John Brown's body
Lies a mouldering in the grave/ His Truth keeps marching on." Observe that
Lies, not Truth, get to lie out at the beach doing nothing, AWOL, while
Truth gets nothing from nothing. So be it.

Daniel A. Foss
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 22:38:52 -0600
Sender: New Ways of Thinking List <FNORD-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: moores7518
Subject: Re: one last comment on jesusfuck

The Anti-JESUSFUCK writes:

> If you were to come out and call yourself NIGGERFUCK or JEWFUCK or
> HANDICAPFUCK or WHITESUPREMACY or something like that you'd have everyperson
> on this list jumping on your ass.


Not me! Yeehah! Whoopee!

> I think the evidence speaks for itself.

Somebody better tell that evidence to SHUT THE FUCK UP! Whoopee! Wahoo!

Your pal from rec.humor,
Scotto

---

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