jriggenbach

Yes, the Film Director's attempts at insults do tend to be puny. But try to understand. He's so busy analyzing the use of CGI in other people's films that he has scarcely any time left to craft his insults. Helpfully, JR

No laughably stupid sporting events to distract you? JR

It is a bit startling, by the way, to be accused by Phil of dwelling pointlessly on a "minor, trivial issue of word choice." Is this not the same Phil Coates who harps endlessly on the need to offer "precisely written" posts? Isn't one's "word choice" the way in which one says what one has to say? Isn't it one's "word choice" that determines one's meaning? What sort of answer is it (particularly coming from someone who apparently regards himself as some sort of authority on effective writing) that, in effect, "My critics shouldn't focus on my word choice in responding to what I said. They should focus on what I meant." How does one determine what a writer meant, other than by examining his word choice? Perplexedly, JR

Yes, like the fresh insights to be found in Strunk & White. Professional writers with 40 years experience at their craft are typically surprised to learn of those, having "missed" them in previous years. Good point. JR

Yes. Just what a teacher would say to a student who was learning how to write. Because you continue to refer to your original wording (apparently with a straight face) as a polite and civil request for further information. JR

Those who read with precision will note that I made no comment on "the huge literature on civility." (Nor, for that matter, did I make any comment on the huge literature on numerology, the huge literature on phrenology, or the huge literature on criminology. I tend to pay scant attention to literature, however huge, which is devoted to concepts and theories I've already long since decided are floating abstractions, conceptually incoherent package deals, or plain bunkum.) JR

I do think that a person who has done something professionally for decades and earned all or part of his living by doing it during that time period is likely to know a bit more about the subject (the subject of what he does professionally) than somebody who has done professional work in the same field maybe half a dozen times over a period of 30 or 40 years but endlessly pontificates on the subject as though he were some sort of expert on it. I'm sure this seems far-fetched to you. "You'd need to provide us with a few examples," is not a polite request for further information. It is an instruction from a teacher. JR

Michael, you must have missed a meeting. At that meeting, Phil demonstrated that because of the insults and vilification I routinely hurl at the most thoughtful posters on this forum, they have all left or quit posting. Under these circumstances, it is hardly credible that OL should have a growing audience. Please analyze your data a second time and see if you get the same results. Concernedly, JR

The problem is, of course, that none of those posts really answers Brant's question. They all begin by assuming what needs to be proved. JR

Or perhaps he wants to make it perfectly clear that he knows ever so much more than the writer he is querying about how a review ought to be written. There are several of us on this list who have published far more than you ever have, Phil, but we've all learned the hard way that you know much more about writing and how it ought to be done than any of us do. JR

Isn't every sensible person against the values of a democratic political system? Did I miss a meeting? JR

My friend lit up like a Christmas Tree. "Your psychologist friend wrote that?" "Yup" "So he actually understands that I am not a complete fuck-up?" "Yup." "I never got that kind of understanding from a shrink. They treated me like I'm an emotional cripple. Thank your friend for me." We talked for several hours in his home, as he continued guzzling beer. I confined myself to Pepsi throughout the entire evening, because I thought I might need full use of my faculties for what lay ahead. I was right, but I still wasn't able to keep things under control . Now that my friend had taken care of all the business arrangements regarding the funeral and so forth, he was confronted with the stark reality and raw emotions of his torturous relationship with his father. My friend's rambling reflections were punctuated by outbursts of sobbing that sounded like the screams of a wounded animal. It was clear that more than grieving was involved here. Decades of anger and bitterness against a father who would not comfort a guilt-stricken son, a father who once told him that the wrong son had been killed, were coming out in howling waves. And in between these waves were verbal reassurances that his father really loved him all along, and how fortunate he was to have been able to care for his father for the final three months. All I could think to do, other than listen, was to offer the standard but sound advice that he will feel complex and conflicting emotions during the grieving process, that this was entirely normal and understandable, and that he should not berate himself for any anger that might emerge. At this point my friend got belligerent with me for the first time in our friendship. Angry? Why would he be angry with his father? True, his father had said some mean things and was not really a father at all for three years after the incident. But they eventually reconciled, and though his father never spoke of the incident again, he knew that his father had forgiven him. The last three months had proven that. This obviously was not the time to mention the obvious, namely, that it was not my friend who needed to seek forgiveness, and that a father who never expressly confronted his cruelty was making his son pay for his own cowardice. The day after the father's funeral was not a good time to discuss the sins of the father, so I merely affirmed that the final three months had indeed been a remarkable conclusion to a difficult relationship, and that my friend deserved praise for how he handled everything. Then our conversation really got strange.... My friend recounted his daily routine, consisting of around two dozen steps, that made it possible for him to take care of his father's every need for three months. At 500 pounds, his father could not get around, so he shouted for his son many times each and every day. At this point my friend -- let us call him Robert -- shouted at the top of his lungs, in a raspy voice that mimicked his father's: "ROBERT! ROBERT! COME HERE! I WANT SOME FRUIT! ROBERT! ROBERT! ROBERT!" Then came a graphic, detailed, and nauseating account of "wiping the ass" of the father. "Have you ever wiped the ass of a 500-pound man, several times a day for three months?" My friend, blessed with a dark sense of humor, had joked about this before, but this time his comments had an angry edge. His father could afford a nurse or an attendant, but he didn't want one, nor would he stay in a nursing home. He wanted his son, and only his son, to take care of him -- a son who came to regard vomiting as part of his daily routine. I am sorry to get so explicit, but my friend's account of this was a Freudian goldmine -- or nightmare, depending on your perspective -- of symbolism. My friend then staggered off to a crowded and noisy bar, his familiar watering-hole. There was no way to carry on a conversation in that place on a Friday night, and he would be among friends who had not yet heard of his father's death. So I called it a night and walked home --sober, concerned. and emotionally drained. I have no illusions about being able to handle this situation on my own. I will strongly urge my friend to seek counseling during what will certainly be a volatile and complex process of grieving. Even though I don't use his name, I got my friend's explicit permission to keep this public diary, so to speak. He found my earlier posts useful as a way to get some perspective, and he welcomes any comments OLers may have. But please try to avoid the obvious, such as "He should get professional help." I am thinking of comments by people who have had similar experiences and feelings. And given that the earlier remarks by Dennis provided the only bright spot for my friend in an otherwise dark and dismal day, anything Dennis (or other professional) would care to say is welcome -- and much appreciated. Ghs Dennis is a psychologist? I had assumed he was a film director or editor or maybe a cinematographer. He knows so much about how movies should be made. JR

A Tale of Two Cities was the second Dickens novel I read (I was a freshman in high school), and I found that opening sentence both enticing and exhilirating from the moment I first laid eyes upon it. JR

I noticed that. Some others, who know much more than I, were apparently too impatient to read what they were replying to before replying to it. There is information pertinent to all these questions in Barbara Branden's biography, in Anne Heller's biography, and in Jennifer Burns's book. JR

I haven't had a "job" in the conventional sense in more than a decade. I still work for a living, of course, and I currently do better financially than I did at my last job. Having work and having a job, even if one is looking for monetary remuneration, are not the same thing. I like having work. I don't much like having a job - though I've had a couple in the past that I liked fairly well. JR

The worst president in my lifetime so far has been George W. Bush, followed by Ronald Reagan, George Bush père, and Richard Milhous Nixon. By comparison to them, Jimmy Carter looks pretty good. JR

Good grief! You mean Obama is a secret Objectivist? No, you misunderstand. The idea is that Obama is the most evil man in mankind's history (after Kant), and anything he does is evil and despicable. He writes in the first person, so writing in the first person is unimaginably evil. QED JR

I looked for an online video clip of Lyta Alexander from Babylon 5 showing her gills, but I couldn't find one in the time I had available to look around. (Even if I had, I don't have the three or four hours it would take me to figure out how to embed it in my reply.) JR

To whom? In any case, the answer doesn't matter, since George wasn't recommending a book, and I personally find lecture recommendations unsupported by more than "take my word for it" - especially by an expert - extremely persuasive. That is a mistake, I'll admit. I've always believed that a combination of vilification and ridicule is most effective. Not one or the other. Both. I for one am deeply ashamed. It took me way too long to realize that this is merely another in a long series of incidents in which (1) Someone does something. (2) Instead of treating whatever it was with "a sense of justice," Phil criticizes it for not having been done his way. (3) When no one hops on his bandwagon (because they dare to believe that there is more than one way to do something and that Phil's way is not always by definition the best way?), Phil becomes offended. It is a bit tiresome, isn't it? JR

Ignorance. JR

I know it isn't easy being green, Phil. When it starts, does it start around your gills or elsewhere? Concernedly, JR

He's trying to restrain himself. JR

Houston. JR

Um, he is an expert, Phil. JR

Well, then, I hope you're not divining my thus being "terrified." "Greybird" is closer to being unique, it has personal resonance (I'll explain if anybody gives a damn), and my real name (a boring one, unlike yours) is on my profile page anyway. Other O-sites use my real name, and the same avatar picture, but I don't use them any more. I might have changed it here, but all of the hard-coded quotations of what I've said would remain the same anyway. My Facebook page shows it. Relax, Steve. I didn't have you in mind. And I shouldn't have taken out after "Daunce" the way I did, either. Her name is on her profile page, too. I was, as I do so often, shooting from the lip. This is a pet peeve of mine, I'm afraid. One of our number here on OL, a lawyer who recently let us all know he wouldn't be around much in the near future because he had to prepare for a trial, is one of the few posters I've ever seen post a completely satisfactory explanation of why one might seek anonymity in an environment like this. Almost all the rest of those who do so are, as far as I can see, cowering behind a nom de screene for no apparent reason. JR