From: Mary J
Date: 05/24/2002
Subj: Ohio Drivers

Funny, real funny… being from Ohio, I thought this article was pretty funn. Surprisingly, I wasn’t offended. You must have had a bad experience driving through Ohio, or maybe you ARE from Ohio… but, I will tell you one thing. We AREN’T the worst drivers in the country… TEXAS is! If you haven’t driven through Houston, I suggest you don’t. They are the absolute worst!!!

I got the piece from an Ohio resident. There are many places in the country that are proud of their bad drivers. For many years I lived in Massachusetts; Boston drivers pride themselves on their horrid driving habits (with good reason, I might add.) I always explained the difference between New York drivers and Boston drivers with the explanation that New York drivers were more agressive but Boston drivers were more unpredicatably stupid.

I was in Houston thirty years ago. I see that it has not changed in its fundamental characteristics.

From: Nonie Rider
Date: 05/16/2002
Subj: Loved the Freudian analysis!

Loved the Freudian analysis, including opening and closing paragraphs.

But I do have one objection. Galadriel is not the virgin next door but a mother–Arwen’s grandmother, in fact, though I guess the movie doesn’t mention it.

Clearly, she’s therefore the Mother figure–both infinitely desirable and dangerously unattainable. Her perilous favors, given or withheld, can help Aragorn towards his limited manhood or turn a sword-wielding Real Man like Boromir into a Ring-whipped weakling.

You’re quite right. “Ring-whipped weakling”. Snort. I must incorporate your analysis into the paper.

And this too is material that clearly should be present.

So, lemme see, Sauron’s the only one who really gets laid, even if it’s only by himself, when his feminine ring-half is finally reunited with his thrusting tower-half in an explosive act of consummation.

Considered as the ultimate act of auto-eroticism, the consummation can only be regarded as a really bad hairy palm day.

I may rewrite the thing, giving you credit.

From: Sally Lavery
Date: 05/23/2002
Subj: A Friendship Poem

I really loved your friendship poem – do you have any similar ones regarding friendship on the website.?

The friendship poem isn’t mine -it circulates. You might like “The Perfect Man” You might also check out my poetry pages.

From: Mike
Date: 05/02/2002
Subj: cold equations

I agree, the stowaway is a story full of holes. You sort of sound like a tort attorney arguing why the story is lame, but I remember reading the story as a class assignment in either grammar school or high school(I couldn’t have been more than fourteen) and I always thought, from the very moment I perceived the details of the situation in the story, a mental protest in my mind “there must be something wrong here- there simply has to be a way to solve this problem without killing a person- this is just impossible” and I was right, no civilization would tolerate a situation like that. The story is good reading, but it is full of holes.

But that (… no civilization would tolerate …) isn’t true; civilizations regularly tolerate needlessly killing people to solve problems. Terms such as “collateral damage” and “acceptable risk” are there to provide a gloss over what is really going on. What the story does is to sharpen the impact of the incidental killing by bringing the victim up front, putting a human face on her, and putting a face on the person acting on the killing instrument. It is this personalization that makes the situation and its “solution” unacceptable.

… continued on next rock …

collateral damage is a far cry from having a person in custody and deciding that this individual must be sacrificed. Nowhere in America is that kind of situation considered acceptable or practiced or tolerated. When I was in the Army they had an alleged procedure that they wanted to use for determining if a battlefield area was safe from chemical warfare agents(nerve gas). The procedure called for all these tests to bedone and finally for a testing party led by an officer to order the lowest ranking soldier to open their gas mask and see if it was safe for the others to remove their masks. Even this protocol, which was loaded with safeguards and tentative steps to maximize the chances of saving the test soldier if their was any poison in the air was clearly not going to be able to be used- the soldiers just would not tolerate the deliberate sacrifice of a man, especially based on his rank. I don’t know what other units thought of it, but in my unit there was no shortage of soldiers who stated they would not,allow the command to sacrifice anyone in this way. I think this is because this type of thing is against human nature. I also think the fact that it is against human nature to throw a switch on an innocent person is why that story was so popular- it hit a truly controversial subject- even in a situation where it is necessary, people don’t find this type of thing acceptable. Anyway, I just wanted to say, dropping bombs knowing that sooner or later someone is going to die who is not an enemy is a lot different from having an innocent person in your hands and saying ‘we are going to kill THIS here person” THAT is what people don’t want to do, and won’t tolerate.

It is not, perhaps, at all different to the people who are killed.

It is scarcely correct to say that people don’t want to do and won’t tolerate having an innocent person in their hands and saying “we are going to kill THIS here person” – it happens as a regular thing. The trick is to dehumanize the persons being killed. Human beings are very good at that. Once we admit the humanity of the potential victim then it is as you say – we object.

Hi Richard. Greetings from Sydney, Australia. I’ve just found your very comprehensive and interesting website, and look forward to spending a pleasant hour or two looking through its many pages.

I am certain it will improve your mind – if not that, then it will do something horrid to your mind.

Sorry, can’t help you with that one. I have a very vague recollection of having seen something like it long before the internet became popular. I wouldn’t be surprised if it appeared in The Reader’s Digest a long time ago.

Return to index of contributors From: Eric Shackle
Date: 04/26/2002
Subj: That andy character

Hi Richard. I’ve just enjoyed reading your story about Forrest Gump. Laughed aloud, and so did my wife, when I read it to her.

You may be interested to learn that Andy is also the name of the swagman (hobo to you), the antihero in Australia’s best-known song. Cheers, Eric.

Waltzing Matilda
‘Banjo’ (A.B.) Patterson, c. 1890

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree
ANDY sang as he watched and waited ’til his billy boiled
You’ll come a-waltzing matilda with me

Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me.
ANDY sang as he watched and waited ’til his billy boiled
You’ll come a-waltzing matilda with me

Down came a jumbuck to dri-ink at that billabong
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee
ANDY sang as he stuffed that jumbuck in his tucker-bag
You’ll come a-waltzing matilda with me

Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred
Up rode the troopers, one, two, three
“Where’s that jolly jumbuck you’ve got in your tucker-bag?
You’ll come a-waltzing matilda with me.”

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into that billabong
“You’ll never take me alive!”, said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pa-ass by that billabong
You’ll come a-waltzing matilda with me

Return to index of contributors

I’m sorry but I don’t have that one. You might be thinking of the following:

BAD TIMING IS TWELVE YEARS
A fourth-year dental student and his friends decided to rob a bank. When they arrived at the bank with their masks and guns, the police and FBI were already there. Someone had tried to rob the same bank a half hour earlier. He did twelve years in Walpole, Massachusetts’ maximum security pen.