The google instructions related the 2 search practices as to equate them. But going by the different results, I’m going to have to accept your explanation.
The instructions you are looking at are to get around the fact that google disregards common words:
Google ignores common words and characters such as “where” and “how”, as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Google will indicate if a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box.
If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a “+” sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the “+” sign.)
Another method for doing this is conducting a phrase search, which simply means putting quotation marks around two or more words. Common words in a phrase search (e.g., “where are you”) are included in the search.
Neither “rocket” or “surgery” are the kind of common word excluded.
What you needed to do was look further own in the google basics help section:
Sometimes you’ll only want results that include an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms.
Thanks, Bill. The truth of anything else I’ve said does not depend on pretending mistakes pointed out to me aren’t mistakes. I’m glad you don’t disagree.
Thanks, Bill. The truth of anything else I’ve said does not depend on pretending mistakes pointed out to me aren’t mistakes.
You’re welcome. Google is invaluable but it has it’s limitations (above and beyond what seems to be disturbing trends within the google corporation itself)
“Thanks, Bill. The truth of anything else I’ve said doesn’t depend on pretending mistakes pointed out to me aren’t mistakes.”
Mike, you have pretended that virtually every mistake pointed out to you isn’t a mistake. That’s about 50% of what angers many of us. (Faulty reasoning is the other 50%.)
Mike – for the record, I can and do find many things wrong with what you say. Non-arbitrarily, I am telling you that I find your redefinition of vocabulary to mean whatever you want it to [mean?] in each sentence detestable, whether done arbitrarily or with a purpose peculiar to your fevered brain.
…such as?
Mike, just to be clear, I condemn you – very specifically you and not someone else – for what you say and do. At present it does not bother me that other people make use of the same alphabet and a few of the same words as you. Many of them speak English fluently. Of them, a respectable number are sane. Of that number, relatively many (more than half, possibly) are not jáçkáššëš. If that weren’t the case, I’d criticize them, rather than just you.
Thank you for continuing to demonstrate you can’t find anything wrong with what I say — by not finding anything wrong with what I say.
I do not like it when you use a word, are called on its absolute stupidity; redefine it to mean something else; are told that – yes, that is different, but it is also still stupid; redefine it again; still make no sense….
…like when?
…The truth of anything else I’ve said doesn’t depend on pretending mistakes pointed out to me aren’t mistakes.
Mike, you have pretended that virtually every mistake pointed out to you isn’t a mistake. That’s about 50% of what angers many of us. (Faulty reasoning is the other 50%.)
For example?
Jeffrey, I’m certainly not going to tell you not to argue with Mike. But it seems clear that you’ve reached a dead end. He will keep asking for specific examples (including copies of the relevant passages), and then use the same techniques you are complaining about to dismiss the examples you provide. You should probably redefine to objective of the conversation to fit the kind of conversation you’re engaged in 🙂
Our great friend Mike wanted some examples of his failings. I am very happy to be of assistance.
Mike: “People are not machines who adapt their judgments in the same sequence in which they are formed.”
No? What sequence do you prefer? As a rule, sane people do not skip forward in the manual and adopt judgments they have not formed. For the most part, they believe what they believe at the time they believe it, and come to another judgment at another time. Perhaps you were confused, because you believe what you do not believe, and come to the seventh in a sequence before the third. If you are that unfettered by chronology, argument with us mere mortals must be tedious. I will stipulate that “people are not machines,” which is fortunate for Mike, because he has said nothing to prove it himself.
Mike: “But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself.”
Besides the questionable grammar of this sentence, it cannot mean anything like what Mike wanted it to. In this formulation, one must qualify to be an idiot by misreading some text. That’s fine enough: If tests are given, some will certainly pass them. Mike, however, suggests that Bill Mulligan has taken and failed the test to be an idiot. Perhaps Bill and I can agree that this is accurate: Bill is not an idiot (or at the very least has not been found out by Mike). I wonder, though: Did Mike really intend to acknowledge that Bill, who had excoriated him, is a comparatively wise fellow? Although I would agree (at least in judging this two horse race), I doubt Mike did. If I may offer some advice: Only make accusations in language you yourself can follow; If you are able to do that, next see if you are also able to express yourself so that your meaning is comprehensible to others.
Micha: You are right, of course. I’ve made one final stab, playing by Mike’s rules, but I do not expect him to be satisfied.
Wisely or not, the only restraint I am using is to avoid posting when I am truly angry. Doing that can really get one into trouble. If I may be (more) pompous for a moment, that and “playful” references to violence are the two most sure ways of destroying a thread.
I didn’t bother commenting on Mike’s example of my own “idocy” since I could not remember for the life of me what he was talking about. As I now recall it was something like he accused me of having a dead mouse in my hand and I thought he meant the last scene in Charly (the film version of Flowers for Algernon and one of the best unjustly ignored science fiction movies of all time) but he was actually referring to Of Mice and Men, as usual.
Not being able to read Mike’s mind doesn’t seem to me to be on the same level as getting a number wrong by a mere 336 million but who’s counting? Personally I feel worse about getting the release dates of Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars reversed.
All this idiot talk reminds me of a post I made in 2005. I quote it only because it still makes me giggle: I’m surprised that nobody has tried to claim that all of our uses of the word “idiot” are, um, idiotic since, by the old use of the word, it referred to someone having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech. Whereas an imbecile was a person with a mental age of from 3 to 7 years. If an idiot studied really hard they might hope to become a imbecile. They might even make it all the way to moron, though this usually required some graduate work.
People are not machines who adapt their judgments in the same sequence in which they are formed.
As a rule, sane people do not skip forward in the manual and adopt judgments they have not formed. For the most part, they believe what they believe at the time they believe it…
I wish you had brought this up earlier if you thought it was wrong — there’s a typo. I meant to say, “People are not machines who adopt their judgments in the same sequence in which they are formed.”
Take, for example, the fight or flight experience. A firefighter will tell you he led a crew into a kitchen then told them to evacuate immediately, admitting that he would have been unable to explain what about the situation alarmed him. If he or the other crewmember had waited for him to justify his decision verbally (which would require him to form his judgment sequentially) they would have stuck around long enough to die in the explosion. (He later claimed it was the heat and lack of flames that led him to believe their was an immediate danger of explosion.)
But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself — or have you conveniently forgotten being corrected a dead mouse is featured in Of Mice Of Men.
In this formulation, one must qualify to be an idiot by misreading some text. That’s fine enough: If tests are given, some will certainly pass them. Mike, however, suggests that Bill Mulligan has taken and failed the test to be an idiot.
Jeffrey, are you so fragile you need to quote me with no indication you revised my text?
I didn’t bother commenting on Mike’s example of my own “idocy” since I could not remember for the life of me what he was talking about.
Even trying to impeach Bush is the one thing that will almost certainly increase his popularity and fire up his base.
Americans weren’t interested that Clinton was covering up a bløwjøb. That doesn’t mean they disapprove of presidential impeachments. Again, Bill Mulligan, you’re weighing a penny of democratic lapses the same as a thousand dollars of republican corruption. The dead mouse in your hand is showing.
Nice to see you’re switched from lame Of Mice and Men analogies to lame Flowers for Algernon ones. At this rate you’ll have zipped through the average 11th grade reading list by 2012.
Is the book not titled Of Mice and Men?
Dude, my paperback copy is 107 pages long. Don’t hold me to the 11th grade reading list when you haven’t even finished it yourself.
Er, yes, I’ve been hanging my head in shame since then. Friends and family snicker behind my back. Scoff, scoff, they scoff, you thought Mike was making an analogy to Flowers for Algernon when he was plainly doing it to Of Mice And Men, something that would have been obvious to a planarian worm!
I am crestfallen but my faith will sustain me.
“Jeffrey, are you so fragile you need to quote me with no indication you revised my text?”
Strange. Jeffrey didn’t revise the text at all.
Well, not on our planet, Micha, but then who knows how those texts read on his.
Bill: Scoff, Snicker (Mars Bar even). At least you have the testicular fortitude to admit your error when it’s pointed out to you.
BLOG THREAD RIPS HOLE IN UNIVERSE
Unbelievably Massive Thread at PeterDavid.net Undergoes Gravitational Collapse
May 28, 2007
By Bill Myers
A thread within the blog of Peter David, Writer of Stuff, became so massive today it collapsed in on itself, forming a singularity that ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time. Governments throughout the Earth and elsewhere are struggling to mount a response.
During an emergency press conference, President George W. Bush admitted, “This is definitely a tough one. Captain Picard can’t save our collective ášš ’cause he won’t be born for about another three hundred years.”
MIT Professor Bartholomew Gerschwingiess, the world’s foremost expert on temporal physics, painted a no less dire picture. Said Gerschwingiess, “There is little I can say, primarily because little is known about ‘temporal physics’ and I don’t actually exist.”
Little is known about the true nature of the space-time continuum. One current theory is that cybernetic five-dimensional monkey space-aliens will fly out of the rift and subjugate all living beings in this universe. Critics of that theory point out that it originates from the mind of Bill Myers, who struggled with science classes in high school and frequently talks out of his ášš.
When asked for comment, Peter David simply sighed and said, “Ðámņ kids.”
On the basis of the last post, Bill Myers gets two free passes from my somewhat suspect critical eye. (Micha has already earned many more, but probably won’t need them.)
Being serious for a moment, Micha’s posts have been extraordinary, in that they speak with a respect for common sense, rather than coming from any particular loyalties. Unlike me, and I think many others, he has kept a cool head.
Jeffrey, you are too kind. Thanks.
In this spirit of keepiing a cool head and not being dependant on any particular loyalty, I willingly submit myself to the authority of our new cybernetic five-dimensional monkey space-aliens overlords. I’m ready to do your biding masters.
Speaking as the cybernetic five-dimensional monkey space-alien overlord (C5-DMS-AO) assigned to this district, you are bid to wire 4.032 million Shekels to a bank account whose numbers I will wire separately.
Thank You
Your friendly C5-DMS-AO (Earth District)
Jeffrey, only one problem with playing by Mike’s rules.
They change according to either his mood or the placement of the sun in the sky or which huge tome his is repeatedly smacking against his noggin while engaging in Gregorian chant.
And if you see me crawling out of Megamaid’s nose, don’t sell the planet TOO cheaply.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that Mike, the whizkid, managed to both stupidly forget to use quotation marks and somehow thought that 337,000,000 was actually 337,000. No, that can’t be right…you’d have to be an idiot.
…misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself — or have you conveniently forgotten being corrected a dead mouse is featured in Of Mice Of Men.
Not being able to read Mike’s mind doesn’t seem to me to be on the same level as getting a number wrong by a mere 336 million but who’s counting?
Nice to see you’re switched from lame Of Mice and Men analogies to lame Flowers for Algernon ones. At this rate you’ll have zipped through the average 11th grade reading list by 2012.
Is the book not titled Of Mice and Men?
Dude, my paperback copy is 107 pages long. Don’t hold me to the 11th grade reading list when you haven’t even finished it yourself.
Er, yes, I’ve been hanging my head in shame since then. Friends and family snicker behind my back. Scoff, scoff, they scoff, you thought Mike was making an analogy to Flowers for Algernon when he was plainly doing it to Of Mice And Men, something that would have been obvious to a planarian worm!
The more obvious target they scoff at would be your hypocrisy.
Strange. Jeffrey didn’t revise the text at all.
He quoted half a sentence and, by adding a period, presented it as a complete one. Like you did in this very same post, and you didn’t deny it when I pointed it out then.
Posted by: Bill Myers at May 28, 2007 12:25 PM BLOG THREAD RIPS HOLE IN UNIVERSE
Isn’t that the event that heralds in the coming of the Age of Byrne, the alternate reality where a time travelling Rob Liefeld kills a young Peter David before disappearing in a puff of his own mediocrity, and where we are all warped images of ourselves, some ragtag rebels led by a reformed Todd McFarlane, some serving John Byrne, who, unopposed by Peter David, has now risen to complete world domination?
-Rex Hondo-
Ðámņ, Rex, you’re gonna give me nightmares for a week. Some kinda Back to the Future II paradox meets the book club meets the something or other. Probably a zombie movie.
And warped images of ourselves? You mean, we’re not warped NOW? All this work for NOTHING!
Posted by: Sean Scullion at May 28, 2007 11:21 PM Ðámņ, Rex, you’re gonna give me nightmares for a week.
Heh… And I didn’t even go into possibilities as to who might be Byrne’s Horsemen.
And warped images of ourselves? You mean, we’re not warped NOW? All this work for NOTHING!
Who knows, in another reality, some of us might actually be somewhat normal. Comparatively, of course.
-Rex Hondo-
I wrote: “Strange. Jeffrey didn’t revise the text at all.”
Mike replied: “He quoted half a sentence and, by adding a period, presented it as a complete one.”
Mike is correct. Jeffrey made that change. But does that change affect in any way the meaning of the sentence or Jeffrey’s point? And if Mike believes that it did make a difference in the meaning of the sentence, shouldn’t he have explained that instead of replying by a snarky stock sentence?
It seems to me to be another case of Mike’s disability to process sentences, paying attention to sytax instead of meaning and context, which has also caused the mistake in working Google, by the way.
I am therefore going to think of him hence forward as Captain Context.
Here is how it happened in Jeffrey’s case:
Mike wrote:
“But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself — or have you conveniently forgotten being corrected a dead mouse is featured in Of Mice Of Men.”
Jeffrey wrote:
“Mike: “But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself.”
Besides the questionable grammar of this sentence, it cannot mean anything like what Mike wanted it to. In this formulation, one must qualify to be an idiot by misreading some text. That’s fine enough: If tests are given, some will certainly pass them. Mike, however, suggests that Bill Mulligan has taken and failed the test to be an idiot. Perhaps Bill and I can agree that this is accurate: Bill is not an idiot (or at the very least has not been found out by Mike). I wonder, though: Did Mike really intend to acknowledge that Bill, who had excoriated him, is a comparatively wise fellow? Although I would agree (at least in judging this two horse race), I doubt Mike did. If I may offer some advice: Only make accusations in language you yourself can follow; If you are able to do that, next see if you are also able to express yourself so that your meaning is comprehensible to others.”
Mike replied:
“”But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself — or have you conveniently forgotten being corrected a dead mouse is featured in Of Mice Of Men.
In this formulation, one must qualify to be an idiot by misreading some text. That’s fine enough: If tests are given, some will certainly pass them. Mike, however, suggests that Bill Mulligan has taken and failed the test to be an idiot.”
Jeffrey, are you so fragile you need to quote me with no indication you revised my text?”
—————-
Mike: “Like you did in this very same post, and you didn’t deny it when I pointed it out then.”
Mike, not every time people do not reply to a statement you make in one of your posts it means that they agree with it. In fact, most of the time they don’t agree with you but don’t want to bother arguing about it.
If I replied to every sillyness you wrote in your posts, I wouldn’t have the time for anything. I reply only to some, and most people here think I shouldn’t do even that. Therefore do not consider my not replying to your next post as acceptance of your reply, but rather my part in attempting to prevent a hole in the fabric of the universen and an invasion of cybranetic 5th dimentional alien space monkeys.
Strange. Jeffrey didn’t revise the text at all.
Well, not on our planet, Micha, but then who knows how those texts read on his.
Mike is correct. Jeffrey made that change.
Yes, Jerry, do whatever it takes to build that smoldering tension that can only be relieved by explosively giving into our passions.
But does that change affect in any way the meaning of the sentence or Jeffrey’s point?
What was the virtue of attributing falses quotes to me, by leaving no indication he actively revised my text?
Like you did in this very same post, and you didn’t deny it when I pointed it out then.
Mike, not every time people do not reply to a statement you make in one of your posts it means that they agree with it.
I didn’t say you agreed with me. I said you didn’t deny giving no indication you revised my text — attributing a false quote to me.
Mike, My quotation of you is correct, and the period ending the sentence is just that: a period ending my sentence (but not yours). I don’t see any change in meaning, but if you would be happier to have your entire sentence quoted, fine: “But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself – or have you conveniently forgotten being corrected a dead mouse is featured in Of Mice and Men.” There. You have your quote. It is a bad, run-on sentence which assumes there is one and only one dead mouse in literature. By its phrasing, it also declares that there is a test for idiocy which Bill Mulligan has taken and failed – meaning you certify him as a non-idiot. I suspect he is not an idiot, but also that you didn’t mean to say so. You can search all of Bill’s postings and never find a denial that there is a dead mouse featured in “Of Mice and Men,” so any suggestion otherwise would be a lie.
Mike, I, Micha, find something wrong with what you say. I deny that the the change Jeffrey made to your sentence by putting a period altered the meaning of the sentence. I deny that by adding the period he has attributed a false quote to you. Moreover I accuse you of showing intellectual dishonesty by claiming Jeffrey has attributed a false quote to you rather than address his point.
And similarly I deny that I changed the meaning of your words in the case you mentioned above, and similarly accuse you of intellectual dishonesty in that case for trying to evade what I said by pretending I falsly quoted you. Furthermore, I find something wrong with what you said in most of the instances pertaining to the discussion on hëll and Dante, and accuse you of quoting segments out of context, misinterpreting others, ignoring ones that did not fit your thesis, speaking on medieval culture without bothering to do any real research, presenting your case in such warped language that you failed to present even the good point that was buried deep down in your argument, and for posting with such a snarky attitude as to lower the quality of the discussion on this thread and on this serious and interesting subject specifically. As example I cite all your posts and mine on this issue in this thread.
Likewise I find something wrong with your your snarky reply to the serious reply I gave to your question concerning biblical law, roman law, and their attitude to capital punishment. As am example I cite your post and mine on this subject, to be found above on this same thread.
Moreover, I accuse you of using the same aforementioned intellectual dishonesty and snarkiness in many of your prior posts on prior threads. I find something wrong in all of them, and cite all of them as an example of this pattern, starting with your accusations that Bill Mulligan was racist that was followed by your playing around with the meaning of the word Genocide, and ending with your misinterpretation of the positions held by PAD and the NABJ in the thread on this subject.
So, Micha, it IS possible to raise your blood pressure! I have not read Dante in at least 15 years, and “The Divine Comedy” much further back than that, so I don’t have anything to add on that topic, except that Dante’s theology, contemporary Catholic doctrine, 13th Century folk religion, present-day dogma and Mike’s prejudices are five different things.
“So, Micha, it IS possible to raise your blood pressure!”
It is quite possible. But not in this case. I started by addressing the issue of your post and the claim that you falsly quoted Mike, and then I enjoyed so much the legalistic medieval language I was using that I got carried away and also decided to use the opportunity and cover some other things while I was on a role.
“I have not read Dante in at least 15 years, and “The Divine Comedy” much further back than that, so I don’t have anything to add on that topic, except that Dante’s theology, contemporary Catholic doctrine, 13th Century folk religion, present-day dogma and Mike’s prejudices are five different things.”
I have only read the first third of Dante. Nor can I claim to be an expert on 13th century Europe in general or theology in particular. I did most of my work on the 11th and 12th century, and I won’t claim to be an expert of that time period either. In fact, I would be hesitant to claim to be an expert on anything. I’ll always be cautious and prefer to study more, which is probably why I stopped being a student of medieval history. Also, The professors I studied with were very pedantic. You came in to class and read a bit of a document, you had bettter gone before hand to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd edition) and read up on all the saints mentioned, and checked latin words in the lexicon of medieval latin. One guy once said that Charlemagne was charismatic and we all had to go to the encyclopedia to check up the exact meaning of the word and write half a page about it for the next class.
However, all this in not that important. Even with our limited knowledge of the subject we could have had a reasonably pleasant layman discussion about dante and hëll and so forth, maybe did some quick internet search, maybe admitted we’re not certain, maybe talked about the differences and similarities between folk religion, theology and Dante, maybe agreed to disagree. But we didn’t and we couldn’t, because this was a discussion with Mike, who is more interested in playing games than mutual study, who pretends to be learned and profound while being as shallow as a puddle. So of course I was annoyed that Mike was making baseless proclamations about this complex subject as if they were facts, and playing his usual games when I questioned his proclamations.
“I don’t have anything to add on that topic, except that Dante’s theology, contemporary Catholic doctrine, 13th Century folk religion, present-day dogma and Mike’s prejudices are five different things.”
That’s not very helpful if we were interested in a serious discussion about the subject of Hëll and Dante. Obviously they are different things. but how are they different. What changes were made between current Catholic concepts of Hëll and Medieval ones? What’s the relation between Dante’s work, the theology of his time, and contemporary folk religion? If you could elaborate on these issues it would be very helpful. I can’t answer these questions with certainty without doing more research, probably more than is available for free on the internet, and I don’t want to go to the university library for this unless we are really engaged in a serious discussion. At present all I can say is that the concept of hëll in medieval times, both by the theologists and by the people, was as a physical place of punishment for the dámņëd; That to the best of my knowledge Dante’s work did not repudiate the theology or folk religion of his time (or at least I haven’t read anywhere that he has); that to the best of my knowledge modern Catholic dogma is indebted to medieval times on this subject; that whatever Mike said on this subject, he was not able to substatiate in any meaningful way, although i did find an article that addresses a similar consideration; and that, from his posts on this subject it was clear that Mike was at no time engaged in a serious discussion about this subject.
Micha: Yes, you are correct about most of this. The point I was getting at was not that a layman’s discussion could not take place, but that any attempt at a conclusive answer is unlikely to be successful. Asking “How did Dante depict Heaven, Purgatory and Paradise?” can be answered with a close reading of “The Divine Comedy.” Asking “What was the most typical folk belief about Heaven and Hëll in 13th Century Florence?” would be more difficult to answer, but a broad reading of documents might suffice. Asking “What did Popes Clement V and John XXII believe about Heaven and Hëll?” could be answered through the same kind of research, although it might be easier to find the relevant documents. It’s very easy to determine the positions of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as they both wrote prolifically and the documents are available. The problem comes when one believes the answer to any one of these questions is necessarily the answer to any of the others. For example, Clement V, John XXII and Dante presumably all believe in Purgatory; How well the concept was understood at the village level I don’t know; and John Paul II never denied its existence, but may not have confirmed it either; while Benedict XVI has made a definitive statement that it does not exist, and never did. As long as one understands what one is referring to and does not presume that theology has been of one substance always, the subject is a fine one to discuss.
“long as one understands what one is referring to and does not presume that theology has been of one substance always, the subject is a fine one to discuss.”
Do you feel I didn’t follow this principle?
“Asking “How did Dante depict Heaven, Purgatory and Paradise?” can be answered with a close reading of “The Divine Comedy.””
People who study Dante seem to do so by comparing and contrasting his depictions with contemporary theology and philosophy.
“How well the concept was understood at the village level I don’t know.”
There’s research on that too.
Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogue of Miracles from the early 13th century was written by a monk, but contains a lot of folk tales and anecdotes. It also contains at least one description of hëll I read, and I think a few others I didn’t.
Micha: No, my cautions were of a more general nature – Although you drew the appropriate distinctions it is very easy for someone else not to. The approach to Dante you indicate is a good one, I’m sure; It recognizes the differing viewpoints of the present and past. We have no viewpoints and points of reference other than those of our own time and experience, so of course we understand Dante, or any other writer, using those viewpoints and points of reference. This is healthy so long as we don’t ascribe our own views to the ancients.
But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself — or have you conveniently forgotten being corrected a dead mouse is featured in Of Mice Of Men
It is a bad, run-on sentence which assumes there is one and only one dead mouse in literature.
It’s a bad run on sentence, but the other dead mice in literature do not disqualify it.
Strange. Jeffrey didn’t revise the text at all.
He quoted half a sentence and, by adding a period, presented it as a complete one. Like you did in this very same post, and you didn’t deny it when I pointed it out then.
Mike is correct. Jeffrey made that change….
Mike, I, Micha, find something wrong with what you say. I deny that the the change Jeffrey made to your sentence by putting a period altered the meaning of the sentence. I deny that by adding the period he has attributed a false quote to you. Moreover I accuse you of showing intellectual dishonesty by claiming Jeffrey has attributed a false quote to you rather than address his point….
If Jeffrey’s accusation has any merit, let him make whatever the hëll accusation he wants to make independent of attributing false quotes to me. As far as he can’t, his accusation has no merit.
Micha, you’re doing what I accused Jeffrey of doing, which is to argue so badly as to discredit yourself. By all means, keep going.
Moreover, I accuse you of using the same aforementioned intellectual dishonesty and snarkiness in many of your prior posts on prior threads. I find something wrong in all of them, and cite all of them as an example of this pattern, starting with your accusations that Bill Mulligan was racist that was followed by your playing around with the meaning of the word Genocide, and ending with your misinterpretation of the positions held by PAD and the NABJ in the thread on this subject.
1. I’m pretty sure you aren’t going to find a quote by me before I cited the Lemkin definition of genocide calling anyone a racist.
I might have explicitely referred to Bill having a racist agenda when he joined Jerry in venting disgust on me — a skill perhaps honed in their professional roles as authority figures — but Jerry refused to dismiss the possibility of his posting contact information like my address of phone number, so I’m not sorry for taking steps to preserve my privacy.
Since then, I had been saying that Bill’s hypocrisy has no apparent virtue other than sheltering a predatory agenda. Otherwise, I don’t think you’re going to find a quote of me accusing Bill of deliberately being a racist, unless he said something I can’t remember demonstrating he was so. I just don’t think race as a topic has come up all that much. (Like Bill’s introduction here of the word “fág” it just might be a case of y’all hearing it regardless of whether or not it’s been said.)
2. I can start citing Lemkin’s plainly worded definition of genocide — which includes wording paid-writer Sean Scullion admitted matched “any racially motivated murder” — again anytime you need the reminder.
3. The quotes demonstrating Peter cited absolute free speech as a journalistic virtue are just sitting in that thread, collected in one of any number of my post. Again, I can rehash them anytime you need the reminder.
So what’s the difference between “intellectual dishonesty” and “dishonesty?”
So of course I was annoyed that Mike was making baseless proclamations about this complex subject as if they were facts, and playing his usual games when I questioned his proclamations…. whatever Mike said on this subject, he was not able to substatiate in any meaningful way…
This whole thing (in this thread) started when you challenged “[Dante] presented the dámņëd suffering more from their own compulsive behavior than the disapproval of some divine parole arbiter” — that there was no divine punitive agenda in the establishment of hëll — by saying I was “attributing to medievals concepts that were not their own.”
My position boils down to the following quotes, one of which you provided yourself:
On the contrary, Gregory says [The quotation is from St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei i, 8)]: “Even as in the same fire gold glistens and straw smokes, so in the same fire the sinner burns and the elect is cleansed.” Therefore the fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of hëll: and hence they are in the same place.
And a handful from the article — which explicitly credits Calvin for first citing a divine punitive agenda in the establishment of hëll — you felt free to cite yourself:
It is interesting to examine the Greek word for “divine”, it is from the Greek “theion”, which could also mean “divine being”, but also means “sulfur’, or in Old English “brimstone” [lit. ‘burning stone’]….
Yet the word ‘theion’ is translated as “brimstone” or “sulfur” in Luke 17:29, Rev. 9:17, 14:10, 20:10, 21:8, which is where ‘fire and brimstone’ comes out of heaven, but it is equally interchange with the words “divine fire”. Since this did not fit the translators’ preconceived ideas, it is rendered always as brimstone in this context….
Elsewhere in Revelation it states that the “heat comes out of heaven” and burns the enemies of God, yet does not harm the ones with God’s seal on their foreheads. So the same heat, the heat that is the very life and light that comes from God, burns the sinners, and does not harm the ones that love God.
And so on and so forth. These quotes demonstrate the medievals nurtured the concept that there was no divine punitive agenda in the establishment of hëll, because the fire in which the dámņëd languish is the same light in which the virtuous exult — all the dead are treatment the same.
I’m not asking anyone to take my word on anything.
“Since then I have been saying that Bill’s hypocrisy has no apparent virtue other than sheltering a predatory agenda.”
1. This assumes Bill’s hypocrisy without establishing its existence.
2. “(N)o apparent virtue other than sheltering a predatory agenda” assumes that “sheltering a predatory agenda” is a virtue. The question of whether Bill’s other supposed hypocrisies have virtues of some sort becomes secondary to the question [these are my words, Mike, not yours, so take heed] “If Mike believes that ‘sheltering a predatory agenda’ is a virtuous thing, why should anyone care about any other example of his judgment?”
‘”Even as in the same fire gold glistens and straw smokes, so in the same fire the sinner burns and the elect is cleansed.” Therefore the fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of hëll: and hence they are in the same place.’
“(S)ame fire” is an ambiguous term. It could mean the exact same fire, in the same place, or it could mean the same sort of fire. Your assumption it must mean the first leads to this:
Gasoline poured on Mike while he is barbecuing hurts; Gasoline poured into my gas tank lets me drive to Baltimore: Therefore, Mike is barbecuing in my car (so he ought to stop that foolishness, right now).
I’ve looked in the front seat, backseat, trunk and under the hood. Mike isn’t there.
(Like Bill’s introduction here of the word “fág” it just might be a case of y’all hearing it regardless of whether or not it’s been said.)
Oh it’s pretty clear that you consider gay baiting–and it is gay baiting even if the targets are not, in fact, gay–is one of you favorite tactics against those who best you on a regular basis. Jerry seems to be your favorite target in this regard for reasons we could only wonder about if it were worth the time to do so. A therapist might be convinced to look intro it. Check the yellow pages.
In as much as your constant variations on “that smoldering tension that can only be relieved by explosively giving into our passions” have no apparent virtue other than exploiting prejudice against homosexuals to (weakly) argue with your betters, I think my characterization of your mindset is spot on.
Did you check the glove compartment? Or under the kid’s carseat; I’ve had some right nasty surprises there, lemme tell ya.
Micha and Jeffrey–if I could toss a question in here–speaking of the general populace’s perceptions of Hëll versus the written records of the time in the 11th and 12th centuries, do you think there would be a huge difference between the text and the lay idea? As I understand it, not many were literate in this period in Europe(if I’m wrong about that, let me know) so when the people were being preached to, wouldn’t the diction and emphasis of the pundit form the idea? How closely did copies of the same text, when copied by hand, stick with each other? Or did the copyist occasionally either get writer’s cramp or think to himself, “What the hëll is this guy Mike writing about? I’m not copying that.” Are you both, since you’ve obviously studied this far more than I can claim to have, comfortable that the written record of ideas reflects the actual prevalent view or just what the individual writers thought?
(just check out the descriptions of some of these films!)
EXILED – (2006, Hong Kong) Imagine every action movie made in the last 20 years compressed into a hyper-condensed, super heavy particle that’s shot into your eyes at 24 frames per second and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what watching Johnnie To’s latest film is like. Feel your testosterone start pumping as this spaghetti Western fills the island of Macau with enough lead to sink it.
DEATH NOTE and DEATH NOTE: THE LAST NAME – (2006, Japan) Japan’s massive 2006 blockbusters based on the best-selling manga, are epic horror thrillers that move so fast you’ll finish them both before you remember to breathe. A disaffected law student discovers the Devil’s notebook that gives him the power to kill anyone he wants just by writing down their name. He sets out to clean up society but winds up leading a death cult and being hunted by the strangest twist on Sherlock Holmes to ever hit the big screen: a sleepy-eyed, genius teenager constantly noshing on junk food. (Co-presented with Japan Society as part of their JAPAN CUTS – Festival of New Japanese Film). Director Shusuke Kaneko will be attending.
DYNAMITE WARRIOR – (2006, Thailand) Panna Rittikrai (Tony Jaa’s teacher and mentor) does the action on this jaw-dropping hunk of kuh-razy action set in ancient Thailand. A plot to increase tractor sales by destroying all the water buffalo runs afoul of a high-kicking hero who rides wooden rockets. A wizard is hired to defeat him, then a giant enters the scene, and finally everything comes down to the magical powers of a virgin’s menstrual blood. This is the most fun you’ll have in a movie theater all summer.
Booyah! Lucky NYC bášŧárdš!
Medieval European folk belief always incorporated some pre-Christian elements – carryovers from Celtic, Teutonic, Slavic and other ancient religions. Today we would see many of the remnants as superstitions and folklore – vampires, giants, werewolves and the like. The mass celebrated in the villages would have been likely to conform with official doctrine, but not express the whole of it: “Then Jesus did such and such a thing…” but not the scholarly conclusions of exactly what the dimensions of Heaven and Hëll must be. Much of what was decided at conferences and conclaves would have been too esoteric for the common man to understand, had it figured in a sermon.
That’s what I think, anyway!
Come along, Micha, and give them the REAL story!
Since then I have been saying that Bill’s hypocrisy has no apparent virtue other than sheltering a predatory agenda.
1. This assumes Bill’s hypocrisy without establishing its existence.
2. If Mike believes that ‘sheltering a predatory agenda’ is a virtuous thing, why should anyone care about any other example of his judgment?
1. No, saying “Since then I have been saying that Bill’s hypocrisy has no apparent virtue other than sheltering a predatory agenda,” is telling you what I’ve done — this statement of what I’ve done is independent of what Bill has or has not done.
2. Who disagrees the preservation of a privilege is a virtue to those who indulge it?
‘”Even as in the same fire gold glistens and straw smokes, so in the same fire the sinner burns and the elect is cleansed.” Therefore the fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of hëll: and hence they are in the same place.
“(S)ame fire” is an ambiguous term. It could mean the exact same fire, in the same place, or it could mean the same sort of fire. Your assumption it must mean the first leads to this:
Gasoline poured on Mike while he is barbecuing hurts; Gasoline poured into my gas tank lets me drive to Baltimore: Therefore, Mike is barbecuing in my car (so he ought to stop that foolishness, right now).
I’ve looked in the front seat, backseat, trunk and under the hood. Mike isn’t there.
No. The Aquinas citation of Augustine does not lead to any conclusions remotely analogous to the conclusion of your fantasy of burning people — so much so you can apparently provide no such conclusion for the cited medieval premise and depend on a strawman to make an absurd point.
Again, you continue to argue as to discredit whatever point you are trying to make. By all means, keep going.
I just don’t think race as a topic has come up all that much. (Like Bill’s introduction here of the word “fág” it just might be a case of y’all hearing it regardless of whether or not it’s been said.)
Oh it’s pretty clear that you consider gay baiting–and it is gay baiting even if the targets are not, in fact, gay–is one of you favorite tactics against those who best you on a regular basis. Jerry seems to be your favorite target in this regard for reasons we could only wonder about if it were worth the time to do so. A therapist might be convinced to look intro it. Check the yellow pages.
I’m not gay-baiting, I’m obsessive-baiting, and there is simply no portrayal of a same-sex obsession as anything other than gay. My reasons for calling Jerry on his obsessive fixation on me is his obsessive fixation on me:
If someone comes back and makes clear or tries to make clear what they were saying or meant to say and you just want to keep pounding away on the statement that they and others have left behind… Well, you’re a Mike.
Jerry, you could make it a first for one of your accusations [against] me, and cite a time when I’ve persisted to drive home a conceded point.
People can do what they want, but Mike debates have long ago lost their luster for me. There may be an academic interest in them for some who have a fascination with advanced mental disorders or the effects of extreme delusional paranoia, but I ain’t one of them. For me, Mike Posts are like poorly designed speed-bumps erected on the enjoyment super-highway.
Jerry, when are you going to realize everyone else reading this has started a pool on when we’re going to give into our passions, and finally rent the room.
Besides, let him spew that intolerance and hatred. It never bothered me before and it doesn’t now. I’m secure enough in the knowledge of my hetero-ness and I just can’t get myself to view being called gay as an insult because too many of the gay friends I have are pretty good people. If nothing else, it says a world about Mike’s own repressed bigotry and self doubts that he so often feels that others will feel the way he does when that label is tossed their way by him. Rather small, sad and pathetic really.
Well, good. So you won’t feel bad when your gay friends ask you when we’re going to give into our passions and finally rent the room.
[Posted by Jerry Chandler at May 22, 2007 01:39 PM]
Sigh, I’ll make one and only one post directly to Mike. And I mean just this one. I won’t respond to any other post of yours, Mike…. This is the ONLY POST HERE that I will make that directly responds to you in any way, shape or form…..
[Posted by Jerry Chandler at May 25, 2007 11:31 AM with no sense of irony]
Mike is equating a call to grassroots political action against the government of the Bush Era with lurking around PAD’s blog, misreading posters intents and expressed ideas, applying his own twisted view or reality to others statements and then championing a counter position to a position that usually never existed in the first place. In Mike’s world, the two compare. In the real world, it’s like saying five $1 bills = one $50 bill….
And Jerry, I’m taking the simian references against me to establish that when we do give into our passions and finally rent the hotel room, you are the Blanche DuBois to my Stanley Kowalski.
We have a blog that is regularly visited by Mike () who makes many and varied observations (O) about the others here and about life in general. It’s been pointed out by just about everybody here that Mike’s observations are, to be polite, reality opposed (RO) at best. This is because of the huge number of nonsensical ideas (NI)…
…and, as Bill Myers pointed out, that whole “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers” is so not me…
[Micha] Strange. Jeffrey didn’t revise the text at all.
Well, not on our planet, Micha, but then who knows how those texts read on his.
[Micha] Mike is correct. Jeffrey made that change.
Yes, Jerry, do whatever it takes to build that smoldering tension that can only be relieved by explosively giving into our passions.
If Jerry wanted to dismiss as arbitrary my portrayal of him obsessing on someone of same sex, he should simply avoid obsessing on someone of the same sex.
Mike: “I’m not asking anyone to take my word on anything.”
and
“…this statement of what I’ve done is independent of what Bill has or has not done.”
So far as his statement of his actions is independant of anything verifiable, Mike actually IS asking all of us to take his word for quite a lot of things.
Mike: I would disagree that preserving a privilege is a virtue to those who indulge it. Do you know what virtue is? Virtue is defined as “the quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong” or “merit: any admirable quality or attribute.” You seem to be confusing “virtue” with “self-interest.” They are different concepts. Looking out for one’s own interests is desirable, but not virtuous.
We will have to disagree about the applicability of my analogy. To me, “same fire” can just as easily mean “the same sort of fire” as “the same specific fire, identical in time, place and duration.” If you said “I lost my dog” and I replied “The same thing happened to me” would you assume we were talking about the same dog lost at the same time, or would you see that we had merely experienced analogous events?
I’m not gay-baiting, I’m obsessive-baiting, and there is simply no portrayal of a same-sex obsession as anything other than gay.
Simply untrue. You may not be creative enough to do so but your inabilities are not the rule.
In fact, there are so many ways that one could do it that your reliance on cheap gay-baiting is convincing evidence of a deeper animus toward homosexuals. My characterization of you grows stronger with every repetition of your schoolboy taunts. (indeed, one might, if one were of a conspiratorial frame of mind, offer the conjecture that by pointing out Mike’s gay-baiting I am almost forcing him to keep on doing it, since we all know that he can’t help but double down when backed into a corner…but surely, such thinking must be fantasy! I mean, Mike’s not THAT predictable, right? He’s not our little troll puppet, right?)
One can only imagine how Mike would react if someone else made the satement to the effect that he (mike) would be the Blanche DuBois to (the other guy’s) Stanley Kowalski. (Hey, Mike knows about A Streetcar Named Desire! Oooooo, he’s so literate!) I mean, Stanley rapes Blanche. Cripes! Mike would be theatening to call CNN or something!
(And Stanley seems an…odd character to identify with. Crass, vulger, a bully, unmannered, selfish, chauvinistic, a rapist…interesting choice. Interesting.)
Sean and Jeffrey. I’m a little busy for a day or so, but afterwards I’ll try to answer.
Just thought I’d chime in and remind you all that the last time we played an interminable game of “Pound on Mike,” it resulted in PAD locking down a thread and admonishing us. I can’t speak for PAD but it appears to me that this thread has become exactly what he asked us to avoid. This may be a case of discretion being the better part of valor.
Before anyone jumps on me for raining on their parade, I reiterate: it ain’t my blog and you can do as you wish. I’m just making an observation is all…
You’re probably right…
Bill Myers: I expect you’re right. I’ll see if I have any self-control to exert (until we get to another string, anyway).
I still vote for dis-emvoweling mike
A) Sean Scullion asked: “Micha and Jeffrey–if I could toss a question in here–speaking of the general populace’s perceptions of Hëll versus the written records of the time in the 11th and 12th centuries, do you think there would be a huge difference between the text and the lay idea? As I understand it, not many were literate in this period in Europe(if I’m wrong about that, let me know) so when the people were being preached to, wouldn’t the diction and emphasis of the pundit form the idea?”
I answer:
1) The simple answer is that ideas filtered from the top (the religious thinksers in this case) to the bottom (the common people), while folk beliefs filtered from the bottom to the top, and ideas also filter between different sub-groups. In all cases it was processed and adapted and mixed with the ideas and perceptions of the people on each level. Theological ideas became folk beliefs, and folk beliefs were turned into theology. Look for example at he crusades and the idea of the knight templars: here you have a mixure of religious ideology, monastic concepts, and ideals that come from the culture of knighthood.
Similarly, you have stories of common people using the eucraist for folk magic — to bless their fields for example. So here you have an example of common people processing the idea of the eucarist. Sometimes the pressure of thecommon people, their belief that a certain (dead) person performed miracles would cause him to become a saint.
There is also contact between the varios groups: knights, learned clerics, and monks came from the same famiilies and interacted with each other. So monks might sometimes adapt aspects of the culture of knights to the world of the monastery.
2) The theologians couldn’t control how the common people processed their theology, but they wanted the theology to reach the people. Look at the magnificent gothic cathedrals: they tell religious and political stories to the people in pictures and statues. Look at the gargoyles. On the fron door you usually have an image of Judgement day, with devils dragging sinners to hëll. You also have pilgrimages (Caterbury Tales), parades, sermons, passion plays.
3) During the late 12th century and the 13th century a heresy became popular with people, especially in the South of France known as the Catharian heresy. The concern about this led to the creation of the inquisition in order to stamp down ideas among the common people that deviated from orthodoxy. At the same time the orders of the mendicants were formed, who focused on preaching to the people (as opposed to monks who sought to remain isolated). Records of the inquisition were used by historians as a source about folk religion.
* Did you know that the word ‘pagan’ originally refered to people who live in the country (pagus), because Christianity started in the Roman cities.
B) Sean also asked: “How closely did copies of the same text, when copied by hand, stick with each other? Or did the copyist occasionally either get writer’s cramp or think to himself, “What the hëll is this guy Mike writing about? I’m not copying that.”
Part of the work of medieval historians (not me) is to locate different manuscripts of the same text, decipher them, figure out the date in which they were written and the relationship between each other. They then publish critical edition that contain different variations of the text as a result of copying mistakes or changes, or misunderstandings because a text was attributed to the wrong person.
C) Sean also asked: “Are you… comfortable that the written record of ideas reflects the actual prevalent view or just what the individual writers thought?”
There are indications of how the writings of different writers were received by their audiences. There were also consequences for people who wrote things that were too controversial. The 12th century philosopher Abelard was condemned for writing things that were perceived as close to heresy.
D) Jeffrey mentioned werewolves. I remember reading somewhere that werewolves were invented by Hollywood in the 30’s, I think to compete with Dracula movies. But I’m not certain about this.
Jeffrey mentioned werewolves. I remember reading somewhere that werewolves were invented by Hollywood in the 30’s, I think to compete with Dracula movies. But I’m not certain about this.
Werewolf legends have existed since Ancient Greece; what Hollywood did is consolidate them into an easily-digested form, the same way Bram Stoker did with vampires. (Much like vampires, werewolf legends arose in a lot of different cultures and as such were subject to wide variation. The Hollywood narrative keeps the accessible and useful parts of the legend, over elements such as “someone who drinks out of a wolf’s footprint becomes a werewolf.)
• 
The google instructions related the 2 search practices as to equate them. But going by the different results, I’m going to have to accept your explanation.
The instructions you are looking at are to get around the fact that google disregards common words:
Google ignores common words and characters such as “where” and “how”, as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Google will indicate if a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box.
If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a “+” sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the “+” sign.)
Another method for doing this is conducting a phrase search, which simply means putting quotation marks around two or more words. Common words in a phrase search (e.g., “where are you”) are included in the search.
Neither “rocket” or “surgery” are the kind of common word excluded.
What you needed to do was look further own in the google basics help section:
Sometimes you’ll only want results that include an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms.
Thanks, Bill. The truth of anything else I’ve said does not depend on pretending mistakes pointed out to me aren’t mistakes. I’m glad you don’t disagree.
Thanks, Bill. The truth of anything else I’ve said does not depend on pretending mistakes pointed out to me aren’t mistakes.
You’re welcome. Google is invaluable but it has it’s limitations (above and beyond what seems to be disturbing trends within the google corporation itself)
“Thanks, Bill. The truth of anything else I’ve said doesn’t depend on pretending mistakes pointed out to me aren’t mistakes.”
Mike, you have pretended that virtually every mistake pointed out to you isn’t a mistake. That’s about 50% of what angers many of us. (Faulty reasoning is the other 50%.)
For example?
Jeffrey, I’m certainly not going to tell you not to argue with Mike. But it seems clear that you’ve reached a dead end. He will keep asking for specific examples (including copies of the relevant passages), and then use the same techniques you are complaining about to dismiss the examples you provide. You should probably redefine to objective of the conversation to fit the kind of conversation you’re engaged in 🙂
Our great friend Mike wanted some examples of his failings. I am very happy to be of assistance.
Mike: “People are not machines who adapt their judgments in the same sequence in which they are formed.”
No? What sequence do you prefer? As a rule, sane people do not skip forward in the manual and adopt judgments they have not formed. For the most part, they believe what they believe at the time they believe it, and come to another judgment at another time. Perhaps you were confused, because you believe what you do not believe, and come to the seventh in a sequence before the third. If you are that unfettered by chronology, argument with us mere mortals must be tedious. I will stipulate that “people are not machines,” which is fortunate for Mike, because he has said nothing to prove it himself.
Mike: “But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself.”
Besides the questionable grammar of this sentence, it cannot mean anything like what Mike wanted it to. In this formulation, one must qualify to be an idiot by misreading some text. That’s fine enough: If tests are given, some will certainly pass them. Mike, however, suggests that Bill Mulligan has taken and failed the test to be an idiot. Perhaps Bill and I can agree that this is accurate: Bill is not an idiot (or at the very least has not been found out by Mike). I wonder, though: Did Mike really intend to acknowledge that Bill, who had excoriated him, is a comparatively wise fellow? Although I would agree (at least in judging this two horse race), I doubt Mike did. If I may offer some advice: Only make accusations in language you yourself can follow; If you are able to do that, next see if you are also able to express yourself so that your meaning is comprehensible to others.
Micha: You are right, of course. I’ve made one final stab, playing by Mike’s rules, but I do not expect him to be satisfied.
Wisely or not, the only restraint I am using is to avoid posting when I am truly angry. Doing that can really get one into trouble. If I may be (more) pompous for a moment, that and “playful” references to violence are the two most sure ways of destroying a thread.
I didn’t bother commenting on Mike’s example of my own “idocy” since I could not remember for the life of me what he was talking about. As I now recall it was something like he accused me of having a dead mouse in my hand and I thought he meant the last scene in Charly (the film version of Flowers for Algernon and one of the best unjustly ignored science fiction movies of all time) but he was actually referring to Of Mice and Men, as usual.
Not being able to read Mike’s mind doesn’t seem to me to be on the same level as getting a number wrong by a mere 336 million but who’s counting? Personally I feel worse about getting the release dates of Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars reversed.
All this idiot talk reminds me of a post I made in 2005. I quote it only because it still makes me giggle: I’m surprised that nobody has tried to claim that all of our uses of the word “idiot” are, um, idiotic since, by the old use of the word, it referred to someone having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech. Whereas an imbecile was a person with a mental age of from 3 to 7 years. If an idiot studied really hard they might hope to become a imbecile. They might even make it all the way to moron, though this usually required some graduate work.
I wish you had brought this up earlier if you thought it was wrong — there’s a typo. I meant to say, “People are not machines who adopt their judgments in the same sequence in which they are formed.”
Take, for example, the fight or flight experience. A firefighter will tell you he led a crew into a kitchen then told them to evacuate immediately, admitting that he would have been unable to explain what about the situation alarmed him. If he or the other crewmember had waited for him to justify his decision verbally (which would require him to form his judgment sequentially) they would have stuck around long enough to die in the explosion. (He later claimed it was the heat and lack of flames that led him to believe their was an immediate danger of explosion.)
Jeffrey, are you so fragile you need to quote me with no indication you revised my text?
Who could blame you for trying to forget this from 6 months ago?
Er, yes, I’ve been hanging my head in shame since then. Friends and family snicker behind my back. Scoff, scoff, they scoff, you thought Mike was making an analogy to Flowers for Algernon when he was plainly doing it to Of Mice And Men, something that would have been obvious to a planarian worm!
I am crestfallen but my faith will sustain me.
“Jeffrey, are you so fragile you need to quote me with no indication you revised my text?”
Strange. Jeffrey didn’t revise the text at all.
Well, not on our planet, Micha, but then who knows how those texts read on his.
Bill: Scoff, Snicker (Mars Bar even). At least you have the testicular fortitude to admit your error when it’s pointed out to you.
BLOG THREAD RIPS HOLE IN UNIVERSE
Unbelievably Massive Thread at PeterDavid.net Undergoes Gravitational Collapse
May 28, 2007
By Bill Myers
A thread within the blog of Peter David, Writer of Stuff, became so massive today it collapsed in on itself, forming a singularity that ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time. Governments throughout the Earth and elsewhere are struggling to mount a response.
During an emergency press conference, President George W. Bush admitted, “This is definitely a tough one. Captain Picard can’t save our collective ášš ’cause he won’t be born for about another three hundred years.”
MIT Professor Bartholomew Gerschwingiess, the world’s foremost expert on temporal physics, painted a no less dire picture. Said Gerschwingiess, “There is little I can say, primarily because little is known about ‘temporal physics’ and I don’t actually exist.”
Little is known about the true nature of the space-time continuum. One current theory is that cybernetic five-dimensional monkey space-aliens will fly out of the rift and subjugate all living beings in this universe. Critics of that theory point out that it originates from the mind of Bill Myers, who struggled with science classes in high school and frequently talks out of his ášš.
When asked for comment, Peter David simply sighed and said, “Ðámņ kids.”
On the basis of the last post, Bill Myers gets two free passes from my somewhat suspect critical eye. (Micha has already earned many more, but probably won’t need them.)
Being serious for a moment, Micha’s posts have been extraordinary, in that they speak with a respect for common sense, rather than coming from any particular loyalties. Unlike me, and I think many others, he has kept a cool head.
Jeffrey, you are too kind. Thanks.
In this spirit of keepiing a cool head and not being dependant on any particular loyalty, I willingly submit myself to the authority of our new cybernetic five-dimensional monkey space-aliens overlords. I’m ready to do your biding masters.
Speaking as the cybernetic five-dimensional monkey space-alien overlord (C5-DMS-AO) assigned to this district, you are bid to wire 4.032 million Shekels to a bank account whose numbers I will wire separately.
Thank You
Your friendly C5-DMS-AO (Earth District)
Jeffrey, only one problem with playing by Mike’s rules.
They change according to either his mood or the placement of the sun in the sky or which huge tome his is repeatedly smacking against his noggin while engaging in Gregorian chant.
And if you see me crawling out of Megamaid’s nose, don’t sell the planet TOO cheaply.
The more obvious target they scoff at would be your hypocrisy.
He quoted half a sentence and, by adding a period, presented it as a complete one. Like you did in this very same post, and you didn’t deny it when I pointed it out then.
Posted by: Bill Myers at May 28, 2007 12:25 PM
BLOG THREAD RIPS HOLE IN UNIVERSE
Isn’t that the event that heralds in the coming of the Age of Byrne, the alternate reality where a time travelling Rob Liefeld kills a young Peter David before disappearing in a puff of his own mediocrity, and where we are all warped images of ourselves, some ragtag rebels led by a reformed Todd McFarlane, some serving John Byrne, who, unopposed by Peter David, has now risen to complete world domination?
-Rex Hondo-
Ðámņ, Rex, you’re gonna give me nightmares for a week. Some kinda Back to the Future II paradox meets the book club meets the something or other. Probably a zombie movie.
And warped images of ourselves? You mean, we’re not warped NOW? All this work for NOTHING!
Posted by: Sean Scullion at May 28, 2007 11:21 PM
Ðámņ, Rex, you’re gonna give me nightmares for a week.
Heh… And I didn’t even go into possibilities as to who might be Byrne’s Horsemen.
And warped images of ourselves? You mean, we’re not warped NOW? All this work for NOTHING!
Who knows, in another reality, some of us might actually be somewhat normal. Comparatively, of course.
-Rex Hondo-
I wrote: “Strange. Jeffrey didn’t revise the text at all.”
Mike replied: “He quoted half a sentence and, by adding a period, presented it as a complete one.”
Mike is correct. Jeffrey made that change. But does that change affect in any way the meaning of the sentence or Jeffrey’s point? And if Mike believes that it did make a difference in the meaning of the sentence, shouldn’t he have explained that instead of replying by a snarky stock sentence?
It seems to me to be another case of Mike’s disability to process sentences, paying attention to sytax instead of meaning and context, which has also caused the mistake in working Google, by the way.
I am therefore going to think of him hence forward as Captain Context.
Here is how it happened in Jeffrey’s case:
Mike wrote:
“But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself — or have you conveniently forgotten being corrected a dead mouse is featured in Of Mice Of Men.”
Jeffrey wrote:
“Mike: “But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself.”
Besides the questionable grammar of this sentence, it cannot mean anything like what Mike wanted it to. In this formulation, one must qualify to be an idiot by misreading some text. That’s fine enough: If tests are given, some will certainly pass them. Mike, however, suggests that Bill Mulligan has taken and failed the test to be an idiot. Perhaps Bill and I can agree that this is accurate: Bill is not an idiot (or at the very least has not been found out by Mike). I wonder, though: Did Mike really intend to acknowledge that Bill, who had excoriated him, is a comparatively wise fellow? Although I would agree (at least in judging this two horse race), I doubt Mike did. If I may offer some advice: Only make accusations in language you yourself can follow; If you are able to do that, next see if you are also able to express yourself so that your meaning is comprehensible to others.”
Mike replied:
“”But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself — or have you conveniently forgotten being corrected a dead mouse is featured in Of Mice Of Men.
In this formulation, one must qualify to be an idiot by misreading some text. That’s fine enough: If tests are given, some will certainly pass them. Mike, however, suggests that Bill Mulligan has taken and failed the test to be an idiot.”
Jeffrey, are you so fragile you need to quote me with no indication you revised my text?”
—————-
Mike: “Like you did in this very same post, and you didn’t deny it when I pointed it out then.”
Mike, not every time people do not reply to a statement you make in one of your posts it means that they agree with it. In fact, most of the time they don’t agree with you but don’t want to bother arguing about it.
If I replied to every sillyness you wrote in your posts, I wouldn’t have the time for anything. I reply only to some, and most people here think I shouldn’t do even that. Therefore do not consider my not replying to your next post as acceptance of your reply, but rather my part in attempting to prevent a hole in the fabric of the universen and an invasion of cybranetic 5th dimentional alien space monkeys.
Yes, Jerry, do whatever it takes to build that smoldering tension that can only be relieved by explosively giving into our passions.
What was the virtue of attributing falses quotes to me, by leaving no indication he actively revised my text?
I didn’t say you agreed with me. I said you didn’t deny giving no indication you revised my text — attributing a false quote to me.
Mike, My quotation of you is correct, and the period ending the sentence is just that: a period ending my sentence (but not yours). I don’t see any change in meaning, but if you would be happier to have your entire sentence quoted, fine: “But misreading some text is a qualification for idiot you have failed yourself – or have you conveniently forgotten being corrected a dead mouse is featured in Of Mice and Men.” There. You have your quote. It is a bad, run-on sentence which assumes there is one and only one dead mouse in literature. By its phrasing, it also declares that there is a test for idiocy which Bill Mulligan has taken and failed – meaning you certify him as a non-idiot. I suspect he is not an idiot, but also that you didn’t mean to say so. You can search all of Bill’s postings and never find a denial that there is a dead mouse featured in “Of Mice and Men,” so any suggestion otherwise would be a lie.
Mike, I, Micha, find something wrong with what you say. I deny that the the change Jeffrey made to your sentence by putting a period altered the meaning of the sentence. I deny that by adding the period he has attributed a false quote to you. Moreover I accuse you of showing intellectual dishonesty by claiming Jeffrey has attributed a false quote to you rather than address his point.
And similarly I deny that I changed the meaning of your words in the case you mentioned above, and similarly accuse you of intellectual dishonesty in that case for trying to evade what I said by pretending I falsly quoted you. Furthermore, I find something wrong with what you said in most of the instances pertaining to the discussion on hëll and Dante, and accuse you of quoting segments out of context, misinterpreting others, ignoring ones that did not fit your thesis, speaking on medieval culture without bothering to do any real research, presenting your case in such warped language that you failed to present even the good point that was buried deep down in your argument, and for posting with such a snarky attitude as to lower the quality of the discussion on this thread and on this serious and interesting subject specifically. As example I cite all your posts and mine on this issue in this thread.
Likewise I find something wrong with your your snarky reply to the serious reply I gave to your question concerning biblical law, roman law, and their attitude to capital punishment. As am example I cite your post and mine on this subject, to be found above on this same thread.
Moreover, I accuse you of using the same aforementioned intellectual dishonesty and snarkiness in many of your prior posts on prior threads. I find something wrong in all of them, and cite all of them as an example of this pattern, starting with your accusations that Bill Mulligan was racist that was followed by your playing around with the meaning of the word Genocide, and ending with your misinterpretation of the positions held by PAD and the NABJ in the thread on this subject.
So, Micha, it IS possible to raise your blood pressure! I have not read Dante in at least 15 years, and “The Divine Comedy” much further back than that, so I don’t have anything to add on that topic, except that Dante’s theology, contemporary Catholic doctrine, 13th Century folk religion, present-day dogma and Mike’s prejudices are five different things.
“So, Micha, it IS possible to raise your blood pressure!”
It is quite possible. But not in this case. I started by addressing the issue of your post and the claim that you falsly quoted Mike, and then I enjoyed so much the legalistic medieval language I was using that I got carried away and also decided to use the opportunity and cover some other things while I was on a role.
“I have not read Dante in at least 15 years, and “The Divine Comedy” much further back than that, so I don’t have anything to add on that topic, except that Dante’s theology, contemporary Catholic doctrine, 13th Century folk religion, present-day dogma and Mike’s prejudices are five different things.”
I have only read the first third of Dante. Nor can I claim to be an expert on 13th century Europe in general or theology in particular. I did most of my work on the 11th and 12th century, and I won’t claim to be an expert of that time period either. In fact, I would be hesitant to claim to be an expert on anything. I’ll always be cautious and prefer to study more, which is probably why I stopped being a student of medieval history. Also, The professors I studied with were very pedantic. You came in to class and read a bit of a document, you had bettter gone before hand to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd edition) and read up on all the saints mentioned, and checked latin words in the lexicon of medieval latin. One guy once said that Charlemagne was charismatic and we all had to go to the encyclopedia to check up the exact meaning of the word and write half a page about it for the next class.
However, all this in not that important. Even with our limited knowledge of the subject we could have had a reasonably pleasant layman discussion about dante and hëll and so forth, maybe did some quick internet search, maybe admitted we’re not certain, maybe talked about the differences and similarities between folk religion, theology and Dante, maybe agreed to disagree. But we didn’t and we couldn’t, because this was a discussion with Mike, who is more interested in playing games than mutual study, who pretends to be learned and profound while being as shallow as a puddle. So of course I was annoyed that Mike was making baseless proclamations about this complex subject as if they were facts, and playing his usual games when I questioned his proclamations.
“I don’t have anything to add on that topic, except that Dante’s theology, contemporary Catholic doctrine, 13th Century folk religion, present-day dogma and Mike’s prejudices are five different things.”
That’s not very helpful if we were interested in a serious discussion about the subject of Hëll and Dante. Obviously they are different things. but how are they different. What changes were made between current Catholic concepts of Hëll and Medieval ones? What’s the relation between Dante’s work, the theology of his time, and contemporary folk religion? If you could elaborate on these issues it would be very helpful. I can’t answer these questions with certainty without doing more research, probably more than is available for free on the internet, and I don’t want to go to the university library for this unless we are really engaged in a serious discussion. At present all I can say is that the concept of hëll in medieval times, both by the theologists and by the people, was as a physical place of punishment for the dámņëd; That to the best of my knowledge Dante’s work did not repudiate the theology or folk religion of his time (or at least I haven’t read anywhere that he has); that to the best of my knowledge modern Catholic dogma is indebted to medieval times on this subject; that whatever Mike said on this subject, he was not able to substatiate in any meaningful way, although i did find an article that addresses a similar consideration; and that, from his posts on this subject it was clear that Mike was at no time engaged in a serious discussion about this subject.
Here is a link
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1998_March/ai_20463713
Micha: Yes, you are correct about most of this. The point I was getting at was not that a layman’s discussion could not take place, but that any attempt at a conclusive answer is unlikely to be successful. Asking “How did Dante depict Heaven, Purgatory and Paradise?” can be answered with a close reading of “The Divine Comedy.” Asking “What was the most typical folk belief about Heaven and Hëll in 13th Century Florence?” would be more difficult to answer, but a broad reading of documents might suffice. Asking “What did Popes Clement V and John XXII believe about Heaven and Hëll?” could be answered through the same kind of research, although it might be easier to find the relevant documents. It’s very easy to determine the positions of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as they both wrote prolifically and the documents are available. The problem comes when one believes the answer to any one of these questions is necessarily the answer to any of the others. For example, Clement V, John XXII and Dante presumably all believe in Purgatory; How well the concept was understood at the village level I don’t know; and John Paul II never denied its existence, but may not have confirmed it either; while Benedict XVI has made a definitive statement that it does not exist, and never did. As long as one understands what one is referring to and does not presume that theology has been of one substance always, the subject is a fine one to discuss.
“long as one understands what one is referring to and does not presume that theology has been of one substance always, the subject is a fine one to discuss.”
Do you feel I didn’t follow this principle?
“Asking “How did Dante depict Heaven, Purgatory and Paradise?” can be answered with a close reading of “The Divine Comedy.””
People who study Dante seem to do so by comparing and contrasting his depictions with contemporary theology and philosophy.
“How well the concept was understood at the village level I don’t know.”
There’s research on that too.
Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogue of Miracles from the early 13th century was written by a monk, but contains a lot of folk tales and anecdotes. It also contains at least one description of hëll I read, and I think a few others I didn’t.
Micha: No, my cautions were of a more general nature – Although you drew the appropriate distinctions it is very easy for someone else not to. The approach to Dante you indicate is a good one, I’m sure; It recognizes the differing viewpoints of the present and past. We have no viewpoints and points of reference other than those of our own time and experience, so of course we understand Dante, or any other writer, using those viewpoints and points of reference. This is healthy so long as we don’t ascribe our own views to the ancients.
It’s a bad run on sentence, but the other dead mice in literature do not disqualify it.
If Jeffrey’s accusation has any merit, let him make whatever the hëll accusation he wants to make independent of attributing false quotes to me. As far as he can’t, his accusation has no merit.
Micha, you’re doing what I accused Jeffrey of doing, which is to argue so badly as to discredit yourself. By all means, keep going.
1. I’m pretty sure you aren’t going to find a quote by me before I cited the Lemkin definition of genocide calling anyone a racist.
I might have explicitely referred to Bill having a racist agenda when he joined Jerry in venting disgust on me — a skill perhaps honed in their professional roles as authority figures — but Jerry refused to dismiss the possibility of his posting contact information like my address of phone number, so I’m not sorry for taking steps to preserve my privacy.
Since then, I had been saying that Bill’s hypocrisy has no apparent virtue other than sheltering a predatory agenda. Otherwise, I don’t think you’re going to find a quote of me accusing Bill of deliberately being a racist, unless he said something I can’t remember demonstrating he was so. I just don’t think race as a topic has come up all that much. (Like Bill’s introduction here of the word “fág” it just might be a case of y’all hearing it regardless of whether or not it’s been said.)
2. I can start citing Lemkin’s plainly worded definition of genocide — which includes wording paid-writer Sean Scullion admitted matched “any racially motivated murder” — again anytime you need the reminder.
3. The quotes demonstrating Peter cited absolute free speech as a journalistic virtue are just sitting in that thread, collected in one of any number of my post. Again, I can rehash them anytime you need the reminder.
So what’s the difference between “intellectual dishonesty” and “dishonesty?”
This whole thing (in this thread) started when you challenged “[Dante] presented the dámņëd suffering more from their own compulsive behavior than the disapproval of some divine parole arbiter” — that there was no divine punitive agenda in the establishment of hëll — by saying I was “attributing to medievals concepts that were not their own.”
My position boils down to the following quotes, one of which you provided yourself:
And a handful from the article — which explicitly credits Calvin for first citing a divine punitive agenda in the establishment of hëll — you felt free to cite yourself:
And so on and so forth. These quotes demonstrate the medievals nurtured the concept that there was no divine punitive agenda in the establishment of hëll, because the fire in which the dámņëd languish is the same light in which the virtuous exult — all the dead are treatment the same.
I’m not asking anyone to take my word on anything.
“Since then I have been saying that Bill’s hypocrisy has no apparent virtue other than sheltering a predatory agenda.”
1. This assumes Bill’s hypocrisy without establishing its existence.
2. “(N)o apparent virtue other than sheltering a predatory agenda” assumes that “sheltering a predatory agenda” is a virtue. The question of whether Bill’s other supposed hypocrisies have virtues of some sort becomes secondary to the question [these are my words, Mike, not yours, so take heed] “If Mike believes that ‘sheltering a predatory agenda’ is a virtuous thing, why should anyone care about any other example of his judgment?”
‘”Even as in the same fire gold glistens and straw smokes, so in the same fire the sinner burns and the elect is cleansed.” Therefore the fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of hëll: and hence they are in the same place.’
“(S)ame fire” is an ambiguous term. It could mean the exact same fire, in the same place, or it could mean the same sort of fire. Your assumption it must mean the first leads to this:
Gasoline poured on Mike while he is barbecuing hurts; Gasoline poured into my gas tank lets me drive to Baltimore: Therefore, Mike is barbecuing in my car (so he ought to stop that foolishness, right now).
I’ve looked in the front seat, backseat, trunk and under the hood. Mike isn’t there.
(Like Bill’s introduction here of the word “fág” it just might be a case of y’all hearing it regardless of whether or not it’s been said.)
Oh it’s pretty clear that you consider gay baiting–and it is gay baiting even if the targets are not, in fact, gay–is one of you favorite tactics against those who best you on a regular basis. Jerry seems to be your favorite target in this regard for reasons we could only wonder about if it were worth the time to do so. A therapist might be convinced to look intro it. Check the yellow pages.
In as much as your constant variations on “that smoldering tension that can only be relieved by explosively giving into our passions” have no apparent virtue other than exploiting prejudice against homosexuals to (weakly) argue with your betters, I think my characterization of your mindset is spot on.
Did you check the glove compartment? Or under the kid’s carseat; I’ve had some right nasty surprises there, lemme tell ya.
Micha and Jeffrey–if I could toss a question in here–speaking of the general populace’s perceptions of Hëll versus the written records of the time in the 11th and 12th centuries, do you think there would be a huge difference between the text and the lay idea? As I understand it, not many were literate in this period in Europe(if I’m wrong about that, let me know) so when the people were being preached to, wouldn’t the diction and emphasis of the pundit form the idea? How closely did copies of the same text, when copied by hand, stick with each other? Or did the copyist occasionally either get writer’s cramp or think to himself, “What the hëll is this guy Mike writing about? I’m not copying that.” Are you both, since you’ve obviously studied this far more than I can claim to have, comfortable that the written record of ideas reflects the actual prevalent view or just what the individual writers thought?
Places I’d like to be: http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=10476
THE NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL
(just check out the descriptions of some of these films!)
EXILED – (2006, Hong Kong) Imagine every action movie made in the last 20 years compressed into a hyper-condensed, super heavy particle that’s shot into your eyes at 24 frames per second and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what watching Johnnie To’s latest film is like. Feel your testosterone start pumping as this spaghetti Western fills the island of Macau with enough lead to sink it.
DEATH NOTE and DEATH NOTE: THE LAST NAME – (2006, Japan) Japan’s massive 2006 blockbusters based on the best-selling manga, are epic horror thrillers that move so fast you’ll finish them both before you remember to breathe. A disaffected law student discovers the Devil’s notebook that gives him the power to kill anyone he wants just by writing down their name. He sets out to clean up society but winds up leading a death cult and being hunted by the strangest twist on Sherlock Holmes to ever hit the big screen: a sleepy-eyed, genius teenager constantly noshing on junk food. (Co-presented with Japan Society as part of their JAPAN CUTS – Festival of New Japanese Film). Director Shusuke Kaneko will be attending.
DYNAMITE WARRIOR – (2006, Thailand) Panna Rittikrai (Tony Jaa’s teacher and mentor) does the action on this jaw-dropping hunk of kuh-razy action set in ancient Thailand. A plot to increase tractor sales by destroying all the water buffalo runs afoul of a high-kicking hero who rides wooden rockets. A wizard is hired to defeat him, then a giant enters the scene, and finally everything comes down to the magical powers of a virgin’s menstrual blood. This is the most fun you’ll have in a movie theater all summer.
Booyah! Lucky NYC bášŧárdš!
Medieval European folk belief always incorporated some pre-Christian elements – carryovers from Celtic, Teutonic, Slavic and other ancient religions. Today we would see many of the remnants as superstitions and folklore – vampires, giants, werewolves and the like. The mass celebrated in the villages would have been likely to conform with official doctrine, but not express the whole of it: “Then Jesus did such and such a thing…” but not the scholarly conclusions of exactly what the dimensions of Heaven and Hëll must be. Much of what was decided at conferences and conclaves would have been too esoteric for the common man to understand, had it figured in a sermon.
That’s what I think, anyway!
Come along, Micha, and give them the REAL story!
1. No, saying “Since then I have been saying that Bill’s hypocrisy has no apparent virtue other than sheltering a predatory agenda,” is telling you what I’ve done — this statement of what I’ve done is independent of what Bill has or has not done.
2. Who disagrees the preservation of a privilege is a virtue to those who indulge it?
No. The Aquinas citation of Augustine does not lead to any conclusions remotely analogous to the conclusion of your fantasy of burning people — so much so you can apparently provide no such conclusion for the cited medieval premise and depend on a strawman to make an absurd point.
Again, you continue to argue as to discredit whatever point you are trying to make. By all means, keep going.
I’m not gay-baiting, I’m obsessive-baiting, and there is simply no portrayal of a same-sex obsession as anything other than gay. My reasons for calling Jerry on his obsessive fixation on me is his obsessive fixation on me:
If Jerry wanted to dismiss as arbitrary my portrayal of him obsessing on someone of same sex, he should simply avoid obsessing on someone of the same sex.
Mike: “I’m not asking anyone to take my word on anything.”
and
“…this statement of what I’ve done is independent of what Bill has or has not done.”
So far as his statement of his actions is independant of anything verifiable, Mike actually IS asking all of us to take his word for quite a lot of things.
Mike: I would disagree that preserving a privilege is a virtue to those who indulge it. Do you know what virtue is? Virtue is defined as “the quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong” or “merit: any admirable quality or attribute.” You seem to be confusing “virtue” with “self-interest.” They are different concepts. Looking out for one’s own interests is desirable, but not virtuous.
We will have to disagree about the applicability of my analogy. To me, “same fire” can just as easily mean “the same sort of fire” as “the same specific fire, identical in time, place and duration.” If you said “I lost my dog” and I replied “The same thing happened to me” would you assume we were talking about the same dog lost at the same time, or would you see that we had merely experienced analogous events?
I’m not gay-baiting, I’m obsessive-baiting, and there is simply no portrayal of a same-sex obsession as anything other than gay.
Simply untrue. You may not be creative enough to do so but your inabilities are not the rule.
In fact, there are so many ways that one could do it that your reliance on cheap gay-baiting is convincing evidence of a deeper animus toward homosexuals. My characterization of you grows stronger with every repetition of your schoolboy taunts. (indeed, one might, if one were of a conspiratorial frame of mind, offer the conjecture that by pointing out Mike’s gay-baiting I am almost forcing him to keep on doing it, since we all know that he can’t help but double down when backed into a corner…but surely, such thinking must be fantasy! I mean, Mike’s not THAT predictable, right? He’s not our little troll puppet, right?)
One can only imagine how Mike would react if someone else made the satement to the effect that he (mike) would be the Blanche DuBois to (the other guy’s) Stanley Kowalski. (Hey, Mike knows about A Streetcar Named Desire! Oooooo, he’s so literate!) I mean, Stanley rapes Blanche. Cripes! Mike would be theatening to call CNN or something!
(And Stanley seems an…odd character to identify with. Crass, vulger, a bully, unmannered, selfish, chauvinistic, a rapist…interesting choice. Interesting.)
Sean and Jeffrey. I’m a little busy for a day or so, but afterwards I’ll try to answer.
Just thought I’d chime in and remind you all that the last time we played an interminable game of “Pound on Mike,” it resulted in PAD locking down a thread and admonishing us. I can’t speak for PAD but it appears to me that this thread has become exactly what he asked us to avoid. This may be a case of discretion being the better part of valor.
Before anyone jumps on me for raining on their parade, I reiterate: it ain’t my blog and you can do as you wish. I’m just making an observation is all…
You’re probably right…
Bill Myers: I expect you’re right. I’ll see if I have any self-control to exert (until we get to another string, anyway).
I still vote for dis-emvoweling mike
A) Sean Scullion asked: “Micha and Jeffrey–if I could toss a question in here–speaking of the general populace’s perceptions of Hëll versus the written records of the time in the 11th and 12th centuries, do you think there would be a huge difference between the text and the lay idea? As I understand it, not many were literate in this period in Europe(if I’m wrong about that, let me know) so when the people were being preached to, wouldn’t the diction and emphasis of the pundit form the idea?”
I answer:
1) The simple answer is that ideas filtered from the top (the religious thinksers in this case) to the bottom (the common people), while folk beliefs filtered from the bottom to the top, and ideas also filter between different sub-groups. In all cases it was processed and adapted and mixed with the ideas and perceptions of the people on each level. Theological ideas became folk beliefs, and folk beliefs were turned into theology. Look for example at he crusades and the idea of the knight templars: here you have a mixure of religious ideology, monastic concepts, and ideals that come from the culture of knighthood.
Similarly, you have stories of common people using the eucraist for folk magic — to bless their fields for example. So here you have an example of common people processing the idea of the eucarist. Sometimes the pressure of thecommon people, their belief that a certain (dead) person performed miracles would cause him to become a saint.
There is also contact between the varios groups: knights, learned clerics, and monks came from the same famiilies and interacted with each other. So monks might sometimes adapt aspects of the culture of knights to the world of the monastery.
2) The theologians couldn’t control how the common people processed their theology, but they wanted the theology to reach the people. Look at the magnificent gothic cathedrals: they tell religious and political stories to the people in pictures and statues. Look at the gargoyles. On the fron door you usually have an image of Judgement day, with devils dragging sinners to hëll. You also have pilgrimages (Caterbury Tales), parades, sermons, passion plays.
3) During the late 12th century and the 13th century a heresy became popular with people, especially in the South of France known as the Catharian heresy. The concern about this led to the creation of the inquisition in order to stamp down ideas among the common people that deviated from orthodoxy. At the same time the orders of the mendicants were formed, who focused on preaching to the people (as opposed to monks who sought to remain isolated). Records of the inquisition were used by historians as a source about folk religion.
* Did you know that the word ‘pagan’ originally refered to people who live in the country (pagus), because Christianity started in the Roman cities.
B) Sean also asked: “How closely did copies of the same text, when copied by hand, stick with each other? Or did the copyist occasionally either get writer’s cramp or think to himself, “What the hëll is this guy Mike writing about? I’m not copying that.”
Part of the work of medieval historians (not me) is to locate different manuscripts of the same text, decipher them, figure out the date in which they were written and the relationship between each other. They then publish critical edition that contain different variations of the text as a result of copying mistakes or changes, or misunderstandings because a text was attributed to the wrong person.
C) Sean also asked: “Are you… comfortable that the written record of ideas reflects the actual prevalent view or just what the individual writers thought?”
There are indications of how the writings of different writers were received by their audiences. There were also consequences for people who wrote things that were too controversial. The 12th century philosopher Abelard was condemned for writing things that were perceived as close to heresy.
D) Jeffrey mentioned werewolves. I remember reading somewhere that werewolves were invented by Hollywood in the 30’s, I think to compete with Dracula movies. But I’m not certain about this.
Jeffrey mentioned werewolves. I remember reading somewhere that werewolves were invented by Hollywood in the 30’s, I think to compete with Dracula movies. But I’m not certain about this.
Werewolf legends have existed since Ancient Greece; what Hollywood did is consolidate them into an easily-digested form, the same way Bram Stoker did with vampires. (Much like vampires, werewolf legends arose in a lot of different cultures and as such were subject to wide variation. The Hollywood narrative keeps the accessible and useful parts of the legend, over elements such as “someone who drinks out of a wolf’s footprint becomes a werewolf.)