This a traditional letter column.
You are encouraged to write a letter of comment on anything that you
find worthy of comment. It will (may) be published in this column along
with my reply. As editor I reserve the right to delete material;
however I will not alter the undeleted material. E-mail to me that solely
references the contents of this site will be assumed to be publishable
mail. All other e-mail is assumed to be private. And, of course, anything
marked not for publication is not for publication. Oh yes, letters of
appreciation for the scholarly resources provided by this site will be
handled very discreetly. This page contains the correspondence for
October 2004.
Some of it is a little ancient; I’m slowly catching up – very slowly.
From: Brandon Young
I just read a column on your site regarding Sidious/Palpatine plotting to
take over the Galaxy. I must say, I agree with you 95% of the way and
have fought this belief to several non-believers of the Palpatine/Sith
connection. I guess I would say it’s more 99% of the way, because there
basically is no proving yet, what it is I am concerned with:
My concern is basically this: Whose to say that Darth Maul was just a
sacrifice? Couldn’t have Darth Maul, as angry and bitter towards the Jedi
as he is be a helpful hand to Sidious with the rest of his plans? I ask
this because during the Qui-Gon funeral, Palpatine doesn’t seem too happy
even though he has been elected Chancellor. He has to start over trying
to find a new apprentice, while yes thinking that this new young Skywalker
is in fact a good choice for one- but he needs to start working on his
plans now in order for everything to turn out in his favor.
Then of course, he converts a very powerful Jedi named Count Dooku who
will eventually join Sidious as a Sith Lord named Darth Tyranus. I feel
that Tyranus is more of a sacrifice because he knows from the first time
he meets Anakin ( age 9 ) that he wants him for an apprentice ( I will
watch your career with great interest! ). He just needs Dooku to
convince Jango Fett to become the template for a clone army and to rally
systems to the belief that the Republic is corrupt and who will eventually
lead the Republic to war.
Again, couldn’t have Darth Maul done these things? He could have either
A) convinced Jango Fett to become the template of a clone army, or B) been
the template of the clone army himself. As far as creating a separatist
group, he could have easily convinced The Trade Federation to lead the
systems to war against the Republic while using Darth Maul as a weapon of
fear in the eyes of the Federation and the Confederacy of Independent
Systems.
The interesting thing about Palpatine / Sidious is that he always
manages to think in almost every possible direction. Surely if
Darth Maul didn’t die, he could have used him for something else-
getting Dooku as his apprentice was just a backup plan.
While I agree that Palpatine/Sidious has plans for (almost) every possible
contingency, I opine that Darth Maul’s death is foreordained in all of them.
Darth Maul’s training, his very being, revolves around revenge against the
Jedi. At some point he says, “At last we will show ourselves. At last
we will have our revenge.” Darth Maul is too innocent, too forthright,
too honest to succeed in the duplicitous double dealing that Palpatine’s
path to the throne requires. Moreover there is no reason not to sacrifice
him. Sith masters necessarily have an ambiguous relationship with their
apprentices. The Sith, being on the dark side of the Force, deal in lies,
deception, ambition, corruption, and betrayal. A Sith apprentice always
is a danger to his master, and apparently is held in check only by the
most rigorous domination. An apprentice is a valuable but treacherous
tool.
As you say, Dooku is the real sacrifice. Yet, there is something strange
about the Dooku business. Dooku is far too powerful and independent to
be a proper apprentice. They act more as colleagues. Dooku may be the
junior partner – no cowering subservience for him.
Palpatine knows he will have to destroy Dooku before Dooku destroys him.
Presumably Dooku also knows this. Why, then, does they collaborate?
I opine that each believes that they are the superior, that their plots
are more devious. On this reading Palpatine has snared Dooku with Dooku’s
ambition and arrogance, concealing from Dooku his true strength.
From: petert2
man, answer me ASAP. Or you will have big problems!
From: THETRUEHARTS
This was a disgusting story. I don’t see what the point of it is
and just who is supposed to enjoy it. You obviously have missed
out on one of the great joys of pet ownership-sharing your home with
an intelligent, loving and loyal house bunny. If you had, you
certaining wouldn’t be so ignorant in thinking there’s any amusement
in your pet brutally killing an innocent animal and then dragging
its carcass into your home. And then sharing it with everyone! Get real!
P.S. I’ve had cats before. Yes, they are great. But if one of mine
were to bring home a dead rabbit, it would be a sad thing, certaining
nothing to find enjoyment in or brag about.
I regret, of course, that you did not find that little story (not mine
by the way) just to your taste. I daresay that there is nothing I can
say in its defence that will change your opinion. That said, I will say
that your focus is a bit off; the theme of the story is the baffled
emotions of a hapless householder as she deals with a cat doing what
cats do and offspring and husband as they do what offspring and husband
do.
From: Jessica
Hello, I have just found your site while doing a search for
articles on Daniel Defoe. I am in a graduate course entitled
“Masterpieces of Nonfiction.” In the course, we read several
novels and then we are to write papers that emulate the style of the
author. The first book is Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague
Year.” I am in a technical writing program, and the writing expected
of this particular course is very different from what I am used to. I have
looked through your site and gleaned a few tips on how to go about
emulating a writer, but I am writing to find out whether you can point me
toward any other sources (online or in print) that might help me. Your site
is extensive, and I am not sure if I was able to find all of the topics
there that might help. I just need to come up with some sort of guideline
for emulating Defoe, because I don’t think it is going to come
naturally to me!
From: Angie Berg
Dear Abby,
I believe you have the wrong email address. However your advice is
excellent, and I will post it in my correspondence column.
My condolences on your loss.
From: Peter Neilson
Mr. Harter, Sir!
You have stated that a particular disk was, “back in Highmore,
50 rather odd miles away.”
Allow me to suggest that in my copious attempts at studying
mathematics I have always found 50 to be even. Your discovery
of an odd value for this number is remarkable, and allows 50
to be placed in the set of “interesting” numbers. It also
allows 50 to be infinite. For further discussion of this latter
thought see various proofs in “Stress Analysis of a Strapless
Evening Gown”, an erudite tome you undoubtedly have read.
It follows of course that 5280 is infinite for reasons outlined
in the venerable tome that you reference. One can carry the matter
further, however, and ask whether 5280 is an ordinal infinity or
a cardinal infinity. In this regard we observe that numbers are
not birds and that therefore 5280 must be a ordinal infinity.
… continued on next rock
We have large numbers of cardinals here in North Carolina.
They fly around in sufficient quantity to give pause to
anyone who might think that they are not numbers. It’s
hard to tell whether they are infinite, but they truly seem
beyond counting. On the other hand, some mathematicians
claim that infinity is not a number, thus invalidating your
proof and changing my birds (not to mention your feet) to
ordinals.
I believe that my cardinals are uneducated, and have no
understanding of even and odd, let alone infinity. There
is a College for them in Rome, but they never go there.
Would South Dakota accept them?
From: Tom Speziale
Okay – so when are you going to release it? 🙂
Index of contributors
Other Correspondence Pages
Date: 10/16/2004
Subj: Sith
The analysis that you refer to was not written by me, and it was written
before episode II came out. However it holds up surprisingly well;
events in “The Attack of the Clones” follow the course Ross predicted.
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Date: 10/15/2004
Subj: what the fuck is going on ?
Trolling for email addresses, are we?
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Date: 10/16/2004
Subj: The Great Rabbit Massacre
Dear Angie
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Date: 10/6/2004
Subj: Emulating Defoe’s Writing Style
This is not a topic that had previously occurred to me. (The preceding
sentence, by the by, is in the style of dialogue appearing in a Georgette
Heyer regency romance novel.) My general advice would be to read a bit of
Defoe and look for those elements of his style that are idiosyncratic.
As a starting point here is a quotation from an introduction to “Robinson
Crusoe” by a professor of English:
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“Another aspect of Defoe’s style that creates a strong impression of
formlessness, especially when the reader confronts it in its original text
rather than in a modernized version, is his syntax. In its extension and
lack of rhythic pauses, its reliance on repeated phrases and clauses, and
the tendency to drop connective words denoting causal relationships, it seems
to present reality as an undifferentiated continuum and to pay no heed to
fine distinctions and ironic nuances of meaning. His rambling sentences, often
paragraph-long, create a sense of authentic life by seeming to render
Crusoe’s experiences precisely at the moment he lives them …”
There you have some of the elements of Defoe’s style. As a suggestion you
might take some of Defoe’s work and rewrite it your own native style. Then
you could go back to Defoe and see more clearly how he does things.
Date: 10/7/2004
Subj: addresses for thank-you notes
My mother passed away 3 weeks ago yesterday while were there
(in Illinois). While going thru the cards on the flowers and plant
arrangements we came upon a problem I am sure other readers have had.
There were names of the people that sent them, but if you don’t have
addresses, where do you send the Thank-you notes? It would help others
during this very trying time if the florists would get addresses and put
them on ALL cards. It would make a sad time so much easier! Thank-you,
Sad in Alabama
Dear Angie
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Date: 10/4/2004
Subj: Pierre to Highmore
Your observation is acute and yet it is not quite precise. The
passage you quote affirms that “miles” are odd rather than that
“50” is odd. Can miles be odd? Indeed they can. Consider.
One mile = 5280 feet, so one mile, being the product of 5280 and
feet, is odd if and only if both 5280 and feet are both odd.
It is well known that my feet are odd. Indeed they are rather
odd which accounts for the observation “50 rather odd miles”.
So it follows that one mile is odd if and only if 5280 is odd.
Since my authority on odd matters is unimpeachable (there being
no provision in the constitution for impeaching my authority)
there is no basis for disputing my affirmation that miles are
odd. Instead we have established that 5280 is odd, rather than
that 50 is odd.
I don’t know. I would have supposed that cardinals, being red,
would be communist or at least socialist and thus quite
unacceptable in South Dakota. However the political geographers
insist that the Republican states are red and that the Democratic
states are blue. I can only conclude from this that Republicans
are communists.
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Date: 9/20/2004
Subj: SAN programming language
Good question. I figure that I will complete the
spec by October 15 and have a first implementation
of an interpreter by Mar 2005.
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This page was last updated November 21, 2004.