http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books?hl=en
rec.arts.books@googlegroups.com
Today's topics:
* Simone Weil's _Gravity and Grace_ - 4 messages, 2 authors
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/5a96581e9b147ac7?hl=en
* "Hellraisers" by Robert Sellers - no rehab, no regrets - 1 messages, 1
author
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/3285a5e826df3e38?hl=en
* "Mark, the ugliest creep I've ever had arrested" - 3 messages, 3 authors
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/5e0afeacbd710c9e?hl=en
* The Twilight Saga: New Moon - 3 messages, 3 authors
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/4e3f992747f7c3b8?hl=en
==============================================================================
TOPIC: Simone Weil's _Gravity and Grace_
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/5a96581e9b147ac7?hl=en
==============================================================================
== 1 of 4 ==
Date: Fri, Dec 4 2009 11:27 pm
From: "Marko Amnell"
"Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
frlSm.60316$ze1.36024@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
> news:7nu1p5F3n880hU1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>> "Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
>> 1xjSm.60294$ze1.30744@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>>
>>> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
>>> news:7nqjbjF3n9driU1@mid.individual.net...
>>>>
>>>> In her book _Gravity and Grace_, published in 1947,
>>>> Simone Weil makes some interesting comments about
>>>> algebra, the pursuit of her famous brother Andr� Weil.
>>>> The section entitled "Algebra" is two pages long and
>>>> starts out:
>>>>
>>>> "Money, mechanization, algebra. The three monsters
>>>> of contemporary civilization. Complete analogy.
>>>> "Algebra and money are essentially levellers, the first
>>>> intellectually, the second effectively.
>>>
>>> I suppose some levelling action occurs when loose change
>>> is obtained by beggars.
>>
>> Heh. She's talking about the levelling away of class
>> differences.
>
> She is a communist, then. Not quite of the Mao/Stalin/Pol Pot
> variety, I suppose.
Not at all. The word "grace" in her title refers after all
to the religious sense of the word, not "grace" � la Coco Chanel.
In her book, she defends the role of spirituality in life.
> In a society where money measures the
>> value of everything, an untouchable with a million
>> dollars need not feel socially inferior to a Brahmin.
>
> Why should anyone with a million dollars feel socially inferior to a poor
> Brahmin? Chaps with money patronise brahmins
> (priest/scholar/chef/minister/teller_of_truth/narrator_of_stories), if
> they will be so kind. Brahmins used to go way way way to seek such
> patronage - in those days when varna differences meant something. These
> days, in our atheistic+hedonistic+materialistic world without heart or
> soul, idealism or nobility, kindness or morality, poetry or music - who
> cares? It is the Abominable GARG, that rules!
She is speaking about the dying away of the old social
order with the rise of the bourgeoisie. As she writes:
"About fifty years ago the life of the Provencal peasants
ceased to be like that of the Greek peasants described by
Hesiod." That puts her back to at least 1897. Of course
feeling socially inferior is much less important than the
fact that in the past, the law was different for members of
different estates and castes.
Just to be clear. I'm not endorsing Simone Weil's ideas.
I said I found them interesting. The initial aphorisms are
the best, just as memorable aphorisms about algebra:
"Money, mechanization, algebra. The three monsters
of contemporary civilization. Complete analogy.
"Algebra and money are essentially levellers, the first
intellectually, the second effectively."
> And yes, this raises the question - what is money???
>
>> The bourgeoisie seize power from the landed nobility.
>> And anyone with enough money can join the bourgeoisie.
>
> With the landed nobility (and much less) long murdered-off, the present
> bourgeoisie is finding increasingly interesting methods to rob the working
> classes.
== 2 of 4 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 3:45 am
From: "Arindam Banerjee"
"Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
news:7nugb4F3lv044U1@mid.individual.net...
>
> "Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
> frlSm.60316$ze1.36024@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>
>> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
>> news:7nu1p5F3n880hU1@mid.individual.net...
>>>
>>> "Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
>>> 1xjSm.60294$ze1.30744@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>>>
>>>> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
>>>> news:7nqjbjF3n9driU1@mid.individual.net...
>>>>>
>>>>> In her book _Gravity and Grace_, published in 1947,
>>>>> Simone Weil makes some interesting comments about
>>>>> algebra, the pursuit of her famous brother André Weil.
>>>>> The section entitled "Algebra" is two pages long and
>>>>> starts out:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Money, mechanization, algebra. The three monsters
>>>>> of contemporary civilization. Complete analogy.
>>>>> "Algebra and money are essentially levellers, the first
>>>>> intellectually, the second effectively.
>>>>
>>>> I suppose some levelling action occurs when loose change
>>>> is obtained by beggars.
>>>
>>> Heh. She's talking about the levelling away of class
>>> differences.
>>
>> She is a communist, then. Not quite of the Mao/Stalin/Pol Pot
>> variety, I suppose.
>
> Not at all. The word "grace" in her title refers after all
> to the religious sense of the word, not "grace" à la Coco Chanel.
> In her book, she defends the role of spirituality in life.
A spiritual communist! How modern.
>> In a society where money measures the
>>> value of everything, an untouchable with a million
>>> dollars need not feel socially inferior to a Brahmin.
>>
>> Why should anyone with a million dollars feel socially inferior to a poor
>> Brahmin? Chaps with money patronise brahmins
>> (priest/scholar/chef/minister/teller_of_truth/narrator_of_stories), if
>> they will be so kind. Brahmins used to go way way way to seek such
>> patronage - in those days when varna differences meant something. These
>> days, in our atheistic+hedonistic+materialistic world without heart or
>> soul, idealism or nobility, kindness or morality, poetry or music - who
>> cares? It is the Abominable GARG, that rules!
>
> She is speaking about the dying away of the old social
> order with the rise of the bourgeoisie. As she writes:
> "About fifty years ago the life of the Provencal peasants
> ceased to be like that of the Greek peasants described by
> Hesiod." That puts her back to at least 1897. Of course
> feeling socially inferior is much less important than the
> fact that in the past, the law was different for members of
> different estates and castes.
Was that a great bother? Or very different from the overall present
situation - taking the different worlds (firstworld, thirdworld,
fourthworld, etc.), religions, skin colouration, etc. ?
> Just to be clear. I'm not endorsing Simone Weil's ideas.
> I said I found them interesting. The initial aphorisms are
> the best, just as memorable aphorisms about algebra:
>
> "Money, mechanization, algebra. The three monsters
> of contemporary civilization. Complete analogy.
> "Algebra and money are essentially levellers, the first
> intellectually, the second effectively."
I don't know what you find interesting about that total bullshit. But then,
I am a professional engineer/computer scientist. Contemporary civilisation
means HDTV and who does not want it? You cannot get that without money,
mechanisation and algebra.
== 3 of 4 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 9:34 am
From: "Marko Amnell"
"Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
eJrSm.60364$ze1.16257@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
> news:7nugb4F3lv044U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>> "Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
>> frlSm.60316$ze1.36024@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>>
>>> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
>>> news:7nu1p5F3n880hU1@mid.individual.net...
>>>>
>>>> "Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
>>>> 1xjSm.60294$ze1.30744@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>>>>
>>>>> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
>>>>> news:7nqjbjF3n9driU1@mid.individual.net...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In her book _Gravity and Grace_, published in 1947,
>>>>>> Simone Weil makes some interesting comments about
>>>>>> algebra, the pursuit of her famous brother André Weil.
>>>>>> The section entitled "Algebra" is two pages long and
>>>>>> starts out:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Money, mechanization, algebra. The three monsters
>>>>>> of contemporary civilization. Complete analogy.
>>>>>> "Algebra and money are essentially levellers, the first
>>>>>> intellectually, the second effectively.
>>>>>
>>>>> I suppose some levelling action occurs when loose change
>>>>> is obtained by beggars.
>>>>
>>>> Heh. She's talking about the levelling away of class
>>>> differences.
>>>
>>> She is a communist, then. Not quite of the Mao/Stalin/Pol Pot
>>> variety, I suppose.
>>
>> Not at all. The word "grace" in her title refers after all
>> to the religious sense of the word, not "grace" à la Coco Chanel.
>> In her book, she defends the role of spirituality in life.
>
> A spiritual communist! How modern.
So everyone who criticizes capitalism is a communist?
There are no conservative critics of capitalism? They
are all really crypto-communists? G.H. Hardy was a
communist because he wrote: "A science is said to be
useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing
inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly
promotes the destruction of human life."
And Matthew Arnold was a communist because he wrote:
"Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for material
advantage are directed,--the commonest of commonplaces tells us how
men are always apt to regard wealth as a precious end in itself; and
certainly they have never been so apt thus to regard it as they are
in England at the present time. Never did people believe anything
more firmly, than nine Englishmen out of ten at the present day
believe that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being so
very rich. Now, the use of culture is that it helps us, by means of
its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but
machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we regard
wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is
so. If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by
culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would
inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe most
that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very
rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich,
are just the very people whom we call the Philistines. Culture says:
'Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their
manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively;
observe the literature they read, the things which give them
pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the
thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of
wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just
like these people by having it?' And thus culture begets a
dissatisfaction which is of the highest possible value in stemming
the common tide of men's thoughts in a wealthy and industrial
community, and which saves the future, as one may hope, from being
vulgarised, even if it cannot save the present."
Simone Weil was critical of both capitalism and socialism.
She did support the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War
but called herself an anarchist. She was critical of Marxism.
She was a Christian mystic. She also learned Sanskrit after
reading the Bhagavad Gita.
== 4 of 4 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 2:19 pm
From: "Arindam Banerjee"
"Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
news:7nvjtgF3m8eq6U1@mid.individual.net...
>
> "Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
> eJrSm.60364$ze1.16257@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>
>> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
>> news:7nugb4F3lv044U1@mid.individual.net...
>>>
>>> "Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
>>> frlSm.60316$ze1.36024@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>>>
>>>> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
>>>> news:7nu1p5F3n880hU1@mid.individual.net...
>>>>>
>>>>> "Arindam Banerjee" <adda1234@bigpond.com> wrote in message
>>>>> 1xjSm.60294$ze1.30744@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Marko Amnell" <marko.amnell@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:7nqjbjF3n9driU1@mid.individual.net...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In her book _Gravity and Grace_, published in 1947,
>>>>>>> Simone Weil makes some interesting comments about
>>>>>>> algebra, the pursuit of her famous brother André Weil.
>>>>>>> The section entitled "Algebra" is two pages long and
>>>>>>> starts out:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Money, mechanization, algebra. The three monsters
>>>>>>> of contemporary civilization. Complete analogy.
>>>>>>> "Algebra and money are essentially levellers, the first
>>>>>>> intellectually, the second effectively.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I suppose some levelling action occurs when loose change
>>>>>> is obtained by beggars.
>>>>>
>>>>> Heh. She's talking about the levelling away of class
>>>>> differences.
>>>>
>>>> She is a communist, then. Not quite of the Mao/Stalin/Pol Pot
>>>> variety, I suppose.
>>>
>>> Not at all. The word "grace" in her title refers after all
>>> to the religious sense of the word, not "grace" à la Coco Chanel.
>>> In her book, she defends the role of spirituality in life.
>>
>> A spiritual communist! How modern.
>
> So everyone who criticizes capitalism is a communist?
One who wishes to do away with existing social classes, is more communist
than anything else. It may be that this attitude is for all other
classes/cultures other that what they relate to. Thus Soviet communism in
practice amounted to Russian imperialism, Chinese communism amounted to
Chinese imperialism, and so on.
One who criticizes capitalism (I define it as the way of the cannibal
swine - it has to grow and grow, anyhow, till it bursts or splits and is
consequently devoured by smaller and hungrier swine who must also grow
similarly) need not be a communist. He could be a romantic, a socialist, an
ascetic, a nature-lover, a non-swine capitalist with a conscience - that is,
he wants growth on moral and environmentally friendly basis ONLY.
> There are no conservative critics of capitalism? They
> are all really crypto-communists?
That I don't know. I suppose socialists are neither capitalists nor
crypto-commmunists, so they are very popular in poor and lazy countries.
G.H. Hardy was a
> communist because he wrote: "A science is said to be
> useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing
> inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly
> promotes the destruction of human life."
No, he was not a communist, just an ass. I wasn't taught anything like that
in the Soviet commune I grew up in my formative years. I was taught that
science and technology liberated humans from oppression.
Will talk more later, Marko, on what you have written below. Lots of work
to do, now. Bye.
Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee.
> And Matthew Arnold was a communist because he wrote:
> "Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for material
> advantage are directed,--the commonest of commonplaces tells us how
> men are always apt to regard wealth as a precious end in itself; and
> certainly they have never been so apt thus to regard it as they are
> in England at the present time. Never did people believe anything
> more firmly, than nine Englishmen out of ten at the present day
> believe that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being so
> very rich. Now, the use of culture is that it helps us, by means of
> its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but
> machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we regard
> wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is
> so. If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by
> culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would
> inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe most
> that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very
> rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich,
> are just the very people whom we call the Philistines. Culture says:
> 'Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their
> manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively;
> observe the literature they read, the things which give them
> pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the
> thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of
> wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just
> like these people by having it?' And thus culture begets a
> dissatisfaction which is of the highest possible value in stemming
> the common tide of men's thoughts in a wealthy and industrial
> community, and which saves the future, as one may hope, from being
> vulgarised, even if it cannot save the present."
>
> Simone Weil was critical of both capitalism and socialism.
> She did support the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War
> but called herself an anarchist. She was critical of Marxism.
> She was a Christian mystic. She also learned Sanskrit after
> reading the Bhagavad Gita.
>
>
>
==============================================================================
TOPIC: "Hellraisers" by Robert Sellers - no rehab, no regrets
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/3285a5e826df3e38?hl=en
==============================================================================
== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 10:24 am
From: Dave U. Random
(Wall Street Journal) - A book celebrating famously unrepentant drunks is a welcome surprise. Like the rejuvenating martinis and blurry haze of cigarettes in "Mad Men," Robert Sellers's nostalgic "Hellraisers" — subtitled "The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole and Oliver Reed" (Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/HellRaisers ) — amounts to an unapologetic celebration of the plastered and the damned in our sanctimonious "Oprah" age of public confession and easy redemption...
Continued: http://bit.ly/HellR2
==============================================================================
TOPIC: "Mark, the ugliest creep I've ever had arrested"
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/5e0afeacbd710c9e?hl=en
==============================================================================
== 1 of 3 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 2:30 pm
From: Jeffrey Bloss
On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 14:08:42 -0800 (PST), Koolchicki@smurfsareus.xxx
wrote:
> On Dec 4, 5:21 pm, "Koolchi...@smurfsareus.xxx"
> <john.kulczy...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> Well, its been a few hour now and no posts yet to this subject line.
>>
>> Just to mak sure the rules are clear:
>>
>> "Given that there are just six degrees of seperation, I am sure that
>> one one of these poor unfortunate females wha has spent time with you
>> must be a memeber of misc.writing.
>>
>> So any male, female or other who has spent time with the asshole who
>> calls himself "Mark", please tell us of your ordeal.
>>
>> Of course if there are no posts to this news group on the subject of
>> "Mark, the ugliest creep I've ever had arrested" we'll all know that
>> your post here is pure bullshit. "
>>
>> Thanks.
>
> More than 24 hours now and still no posts.
Here's what he Mark(ie) is hiding from. Partial list, words from the
mouth of a Nutzoid K00k.
Retired aka lazy, bored and too stupid to do shit anymore - "I've since
moved on to guitars, turbojets, alternative energy, and Victory
gardens."
Obese - "I have my own weight issues" ~misc.internet.news.discuss
Philosopher - "Most people live lives of quiet desperation."
~alt.support.depression.manic
BiPolar FukkNutzoid - "Its really less about how we got this way, and
more about who we're going to become." ~alt.support.depression.manic
Troll/Forger - exposed in at least three other newsgroups.
More coming....................
--
http://tr.im/1f95
== 2 of 3 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 6:01 pm
From: "Dr. HotSalt"
On Dec 5, 2:30 pm, Jeffrey Bloss <jeffreybl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 14:08:42 -0800 (PST), Koolchi...@smurfsareus.xxx
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 4, 5:21 pm, "Koolchi...@smurfsareus.xxx"
> > <john.kulczy...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >> Well, its been a few hour now and no posts yet to this subject line.
>
> >> Just to mak sure the rules are clear:
>
> >> "Given that there are just six degrees of seperation, I am sure that
> >> one one of these poor unfortunate females wha has spent time with you
> >> must be a memeber of misc.writing.
>
> >> So any male, female or other who has spent time with the asshole who
> >> calls himself "Mark", please tell us of your ordeal.
>
> >> Of course if there are no posts to this news group on the subject of
> >> "Mark, the ugliest creep I've ever had arrested" we'll all know that
> >> your post here is pure bullshit. "
>
> >> Thanks.
>
> > More than 24 hours now and still no posts.
>
> Here's what he Mark(ie) is hiding from. Partial list, words from the
> mouth of a Nutzoid K00k.
While you are obviously a completely normal, well-adjusted
individual with nothing to do but stalk Usenetters.
> Retired aka lazy, bored and too stupid to do shit anymore - "I've since
> moved on to guitars, turbojets, alternative energy, and Victory
> gardens."
> Obese - "I have my own weight issues" ~misc.internet.news.discuss
> Philosopher - "Most people live lives of quiet desperation."
> ~alt.support.depression.manic
> BiPolar FukkNutzoid - "Its really less about how we got this way, and
> more about who we're going to become." ~alt.support.depression.manic
> Troll/Forger - exposed in at least three other newsgroups.
>
> More coming....................
Yeah, please don't bother. One of the Official Policies of ark is
that You're Allowed, but nobody is required to listen to you:
http://www.penney.org/ggkiller.html
By bye, now!
Dr. HotSalt
== 3 of 3 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 6:41 pm
From: Mark Edwards
No cluons were harmed when Dr. HotSalt wrote:
> While you are obviously a completely normal, well-adjusted
>individual with nothing to do but stalk Usenetters.
I am reminded of a couple of pin-on buttons I have:
"This is so exciting! I've never walked through an emotional mine field
before!"
and
"I'm sure this will turn out to be bizarrely therapeutic for both of us."
Mark-what-if-the-Hokey-Pokey-really-IS-what-it's-all-about-Edwards
--
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
==============================================================================
TOPIC: The Twilight Saga: New Moon
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books/t/4e3f992747f7c3b8?hl=en
==============================================================================
== 1 of 3 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 4:52 pm
From: GoodBuiss
Hi everyone.
What do you say about this price:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316024961?ie=UTF8&tag=almogmarket-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0316024961
== 2 of 3 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 8:19 pm
From: Steve Hayes
On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 16:52:15 -0800 (PST), GoodBuiss <almogmarket@gmail.com>
wrote:
>Hi everyone.
>What do you say about this price:
>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316024961?ie=UTF8&tag=almogmarket-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0316024961
Nothing.
It's not a price, it's a URL.
--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/litmain.htm
http://www.goodreads.com/hayesstw
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
== 3 of 3 ==
Date: Sat, Dec 5 2009 8:14 pm
From: "michael"
Whatever the crappy books are priced at is too much. They should give them
away for firewood.
"GoodBuiss" <almogmarket@gmail.com> skrev i melding
news:7153e598-fc70-4328-bb74-cfd61581aee7@f20g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...
> Hi everyone.
> What do you say about this price:
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316024961?ie=UTF8&tag=almogmarket-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0316024961
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