Re: a comment on Almost Persuaded by Dovina	18-Jul-05/10:50 PM
re: "The current statements, which we call the laws of physics, may change, but I don't think the LAWS change" Yes, yes, of course. How could they? So basically by LAWS you mean a set of characteristics or tendencies that are observable in the universe?
Re: a comment on a study in blossoms and beauty by oneglove	17-Jul-05/6:37 AM
re: ant hills in sand dunes. Tons. They're about the only thing thriving here. I do hope you got my point somewhere along the line.
Re: a comment on Almost Persuaded by Dovina	17-Jul-05/6:34 AM
A: SCIENTISTS made the laws of physics in order to explain (or better, predict) what as you might say happens and has always happened. That the laws of physics seem to hold true in most cases is a sign of scientists' throroughness and exactitude, and not necessarily God's. To wit, if today, July 17, water flowed uphill in a tiny suburb of Buenos Aires, scientists wouldn't abandon their laws of gravity or throw up their hands and accept the existence of God; they'd probably just write a law saying something like "Water tends to flow downhill, except in a Buenos Aires suburb on July 17, 2005." Sounds ridiculous? Consider that if we were having this conversation 100 years ago, we would have accepted the following as "uniform laws" of physics: 1) The forces two masses exert upon each other may be calculated by the formula F = 6.67 × 10^-11 x m1 x m2 / r^2 2) Matter cannot be created or destroyed. 3) An object at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by a force, at which point it will act predictably according to the force. Ditto for an object in motion. We know now that none of these hold entirely true - especially on the subatomic level, but probably on other levels as well. What happened when we discovered these laws didn't hold? We made up more laws to accomodate the contingincies. It's even possible that science could someday be an infinite set of infinitely contingient laws, specific to the point of uselessness. This, incidentally, is what I imagine a universe "without" laws of physics being like. All of this, too, is kind of moot since our universe being as it is is what allows us to be having this conversation, and in a semi-rational or scientific manner, I might add. It's kind of like saying "I wonder what I'd think about the meaning of life if I'd been born on Pluto instead of on Earth." I do hope a topic's being moot doesn't prevent us from talking about it in the future.
Re: a comment on Almost Persuaded by Dovina	13-Jul-05/6:11 AM
Since posting the comment above, it's struck me that the world doesn't spin uniformly. Its axis wobbles a little under the influence of the moon and the earth's own unequal distribution of mass (in fact, the Christmas earthquake and tsunami almost certainly affected the world's "spin".) Further, the earth's rotation is slowing at a rate of something like 2 seconds every 10,000 years. Besides, there is no "principle of uniformity". I think I could count on any interested reader on the site to call "uniformity" negative. Also, I think your poem makes the world's "spinner" ultimately "reprehensible", so maybe you're just being tetchy. As far as earth's spinning being positive, well, we would all DIE if the planet stopped spinning. And spinning (like the earth's) is usually identified with constructive movement, continuity, and so on. I was exaggerating to rbooey. Regarding your answer to my question, is it really fair to say "something's keeping / the world spinning"? Isn't it more accurate to say, oh, something's not stopping the world from spinning? DISCUSSION TOPIC FOR THE DAY: There's some question as to what a universe would look like if there weren't uniform, unchanging, "as if planned" laws of physics holding it together. My first guess is that it's moot, because we wouldn't be here to wonder about it. But of course that's nonsense; a universe without consistent physics could look like whatever it wanted. The one sure bet is that people living in a universe without physics would probably see their universe's lack of physics as evidence of God. Thanks for the comment.
Re: There she is! by CarterTribe	13-Jul-05/5:08 AM
Is this a pop song from the early nineties?
Re: London Calling by Bluemonkey	10-Jul-05/10:51 PM
"bearded attempts" is great.
Re: Endurance by Dovina	10-Jul-05/10:27 PM
Not good.
Re: Almost Persuaded by Dovina	10-Jul-05/10:03 PM
I don't get the connection between "world spinning" (positive) and "uniformity" (negative). Just a nitpick. You probably meant "spinning" like 'dizzy and disoriented'. That's fine, it's just not the first meaning I got. Q: Does it take more work to keep an already-spinning world spinning or to stop it? Please include any relevant charts and diagrams in your answer. PS-Ace rhyme. Really.
Re: a comment on Damned by darby pyn	10-Jul-05/10:00 PM
I don't think the psychotic compulsion is to kill; I think the compulsion is to see things dead. Discuss.
Re: sad moments by rbooey	7-Jul-05/2:53 AM
Good luck to you. Personally, I imagine God being thoroughly Old Testament and all of us getting the fiery poker in the rump.
Re: A Wider Sky by elderking	7-Jul-05/2:52 AM
skies, not skys.
Re: Our Soldiers by Lenore	7-Jul-05/2:51 AM
"Their life’s the war’s ; sometimes their death is, too!" Yeah, that kind of follows logically, doesn't it? The rest is decent. Live from the desert. Over and out.
Re: The And women by INTRANSIT	7-Jul-05/2:47 AM
I still don't understand the "And" part. I love the title, but the connection is lacking.
Re: a comment on The Bastardization of Hypocrisy by Bluemonkey	7-Jul-05/2:30 AM
I'm with you. But maybe we're coming at it wrong. What's the bastard of hypocrisy? Well, depends on who's the father. Can we do tests? At a guess, I'd say the bastard of Hypocrisy (by Television, who's incidentally married to an aging stage actress) produces Bluemonkey, who hates them both and yet is hopeless heir to their various unique stupidities.
Re: Born and Fed by Dovina	7-Jul-05/2:24 AM
"concerns the calf / only for the fun of it," is bumpy. You don't (typically, in any English that's ever existed) concern something for something else in that sense. Unless by concerns you mean 'makes him concerned, worries', and mayhap you do. Anyway, it's kind of like saying "flapping my arms concerns me for feeling like a bird". Do you see what I'm saying? Otherwise, I enjoyed.
Re: a comment on WHAT KIND OF FOOL ARE YOU? by Joshua_Tree	3-Jul-05/6:50 AM
re "We'd love to have our best work come out everytime we put pen to paper, but that is unfortunately not so." Nobody's said that. Probably everybody here knows, deep down, that they'll end up simply throwing away 99% of everything they've written and afterward they'll feel bad about defending it so long to internet critics.
Re: a comment on A Righteous Prayer by Dovina	3-Jul-05/6:49 AM
Sorry, that doesn't cut it for me. Maybe it'll cut it for someone else and maybe that person will be more handsome than me or a billionaire publisher or something, but I kind of doubt it. I already said what way rotten. 1) Grant now my petitions For which I make claim is redundant, and hits me kind of like fingernails on chalkboards. Again, you wouldn't say "I make claim for my petitions". Even praying-type people don't. You do this every time you try to keep a participle from dangling and if you don't watch out you're going to get stuck in that posture. 2) I've kept With passion for religion As tools for advancement is silly, and sounds so unlike prayer that you can't even say it's supposed to be bad it's prayer. 3) The third stanza.
Re: a comment on The choices we make by darby pyn	3-Jul-05/6:42 AM
I think what they're trying to say is 'soars' means 'flies around', while 'sores' means wounds and is probably what you meant. It doesn't make sense to say "inoculate the flies around".
Re: a comment on Father’s Day by Dovina	3-Jul-05/6:40 AM
This is the part of every discussion we have, where, whatever I've objected to, you say 'no this is just about one specific person', and then I have no answer. That's how we know the conversation's over. Good.
Re: a comment on Crying Tears with No Home by TLRufener	3-Jul-05/6:37 AM
That's not the point. The point is it's grammatically incorrect the way you have it.