[net.origins] An incomplete disappearing act

ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (11/08/85)

Matt Crawford, Oct. 25:

>In article <435@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes:
>>
>>My apologies to anyone who has seen this article more than once.

>I think you should extend the apologies to those who see your
>articles even one time.  The amusement value is gone, and no
>other value has replaced it.  I'm going to look into the "rn"
>manual to find out about "local kill files".  Hasta la bye-bye.



>Matt Crawford, Nov 7:

>Just when I have the automatic article-rejection figured out,
>somebody tells me there's another doozy from Ted:

>In article <449@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes:
>>      I can't believe some of what I'm seeing on the net these days.  I
>>mean, I try not to let it get to me, but...  He spends one entire page,
>>something like eighty lines, making the point that EVERY BODY in the ancient
>>world knew how large the earth was, and that it was round, and then, in
>>Chapter II, we read the following:
>>
>>>Remember Homer?  His was
>>>an age when it was still a big deal to sail from Greece to Sicily!

>Is this beyond your comprehension?  Think:  We know how far away
>Pluto is, and the shape of its orbit, but we live in an age when
>it is still a big deal to travel from the Earth to the Moon.
>Give yourself a vacation, Ted.  The strain is showing.

    This one takes me back a long ways, folks.  I know I've seen this act
before..... 1966 I believe it was:

   " ...and you people won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more...."

   Unfortunately, these guys never really mean it.  Aside from being
short one "poof" however, as the Wizard of Id would say, Crawford has failed
to understand what the argument is about;  it isn't about the difference between
knowing how large the earth is and being able to travese it quickly.  It is,
to paraphrase something once asked of Crawford's mentor, "how much did the
ancients know and when did they know it?".  If, as I claim, the ancients knew
perfectly well how large the earth was (regardless of whether they could
traverse it easily), then the ancient legends of GLOBAL disasters of cosmic
origin cannot be discounted as children's tales, as modern science likes to
do.  McNeil was simply trying to have it both ways.