> Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Harry
> Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 7:05 PM
> Subject: Re: RANT & Three basic realms
> 
> > Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
> > >
> > > I may be dumb about this but to me all of your descriptions are
> connotative.
> > > How about a good denotative definition or two?
> > [snip]
> Brad answered:
> > I would argue that there is no such thing as a denotative definition
> > simpliciter.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> So much for that attempt at some kind of clarity.    Also 400 years of
> poetry
> just went down the drain.   Here is something that came to me today.

How curious.  I would have thought my hypothesis would
be very *pro*-poetry, since it seems to me that poetry
really "pushes" words to their limits, so that the "spectrum" between
denotation and connotation becomes instead a 2-dimensional space,
and it is not just the case that some words get used in
more emotional and others in more factual ways, but also
that some words get used [in poetry] in ways that are
both more factual and more emotional.

> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> From the Internet:
> 
>  French Intellectuals to be Deployed to Afghanistan
> > to Convince Taliban
> > of Non-Existence
> > of God:
> >
> >
> > The ground war in Afghanistan heated up yesterday
> > when the Allies
> > revealed plans to airdrop a platoon
> > of crack French existentialist philosophers into the
> > country to destroy
> > the morale of Taliban zealots by
> > proving the non-existence of God.

I disagree.  The more likely effect will be to make the
Taliban even more resolute: They will decide that
even if Allah does not exist or want them to do
wnat they are doing, they still *will* themselves
to do it, in a gratuitous gesture of freedom.
I believe the word for it is "act gratuit".

> >
> > Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade,
> > or "Black Berets",
> > will be parachuted into the combat
> > zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential
> > anomie among the
> > enemy. Hardened by numerous
> > intellectual battles fought during their long
> > occupation of Paris' Left
> > Bank, their first action will be to
> > establish a number of pavement cafes at strategic
> > points near the fro! nt
> > lines.
> >
> > There, they will drink coffee and talk animatedly
> > about the absurd
> > nature of life and man's lonely
> > isolation in the universe. They will be accompanied
> > by a number of
> > heartbreakingly beautiful girlfriends
> > who will further spread dismay by sticking their
> > tongues in the
> > philosophers' ears every five minutes while
> > looking remote and unattainable to everyone else.

[It should be noted that some Afghan commanders prefer
young boys....]

> >
> > Their leader, Colonel Marc-Ange Belmondo, spoke
> > yesterday of his
> > confidence in the success of their
> > mission. Sorbonne graduate Belmondo, a very intense
> > and unshaven young
> > man in a black pullover,
> > gesticulated wildly and said, "The Taliban are
> > caught in a logical
> > fallacy of the most ridiculous sort There
> > is no God and I can prove it. Take your tongue out
> > of my ear, Juliet
> > darling, I am talking."

"There is no God? therefore everything is permitted!
I will be a suicide bomber!  It will be a work of art!"

> >
> > ! Marc-Ange plans to deliver an impassioned thesis on
> > man's nauseating
> > freedom of action with special
> > reference to the work of Foucault and the films of
> > Alfred Hitchcock.
> > However, humanitarian agencies have
> > been quick to condemn the operation as inhumane,
> > pointing out that the
> > effects of passive smoking
> > from the Frenchmen's' endless Gitanes could wreak a
> > terrible toll on
> > civilians in the area.

This is a problem.  But I thought it was Gauloises (isn't
everything truly french "gaul" something or other,
like Charles de.... ?

> >
> > Speculation was mounting last night that Britain may
> > also contribute to
> > the effort by dropping Professor
> > Stephen Hawking into Afghanistan to propagate his
> > non-deistic theory of
> > the creation of the universe.

They will pass Hawking on to Saddam Hussein and
see if he has any use for his ideas in his weapons
program.

> >
> > Other tactics to demonstrate the non-existence of
> > God will include the
> > dropping of leaflets pointing out
> > the fact that Michael Jackson has a new album out
> > and Jesse Helms has
> > not died y! et. This is only one of
> > several Psy-Ops operations mounted by the Allies.
> anonymous:

They will send Jacques Derrida and he will talk the
Talibans into epileptic seizures.  If Paul de Man was still
around, he'd steal some of Mullah Omar's furniture and
at least one of his Toyota Land Cruisers.

CHeers!

\brad mccormick

> 
> 
> Maybe we should add a few FW members to that list as well.
> 
> REH

-- 
  Let your light so shine before men, 
              that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)

  Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)

<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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