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zadojla

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About zadojla

  • Birthday 03/16/1950

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  • Location
    New Jersey
  • Occupation
    Production Support Manager

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  1. zadojla

    Children

    I have one daughter (Beccareb on these forums), whom I just delivered to college today for the first time. She is the best.
  2. Like Turtle, I lost interest in SF decades ago, but I still read the occasional novel. I've read nearly every book already mentioned, and agree that they are all remarkable. We All Died at Breakaway Station was by Richard Meredeth. His book At the Narrow Passage was also good. No one has yet mention John Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, Schockwave Rider, Stand on Zanzibar. And what about David Brin, Startide Rising and Roger Zelazny(a very variable author), Lord of Light or Creatures of Light and Darkness?
  3. zadojla

    India Quiz

    Seems OK.
  4. English is a Germanic language that has had a couple traumatic changes. It has somehow lost its inflections (those pesky endings on adjectives, etc.), and about half its vocabulary comes from Latin. Both English and German have changed a lot over the maybe 1200 years since they split apart. One of the major changes in English was the Great Vowel Shift, which makes our pronounciation of vowels different than other European languages, and not match with our spelling.
  5. Irish - I am not a veteran, but I am of the age to have been a Vietnam veteran. My three half-brothers and my mother are/were WW2 veterans, but no one was killed, or even saw combat. During the Vietnam War, most soldiers were drafted. Most people did what I did. I used the rules to avoid service as long as possible. If I had been drafted, I would have fought. I believe that if you join the military (voluntarily or involuntarily), there is an implicit acceptance of the possibility of fighting and dying. If you cannot accept that, then you must become a conscientious objector, flee the country, or go to prison. The problem with the current Iraq war is that it appears to have been started for the wrong reasons, without a workable plan for getting out, and that we have been lied to throughout. I believe most people are much more patriotic now that they were 35 years, but all it will take to turn Iraq into another Vietnam (in terms of domestic unrest) is the institution of a draft. It might actually be worse now, because people my age were trying to protect themselves then, and now they would be protecting their children.
  6. zadojla

    Nothing

    What's going on here?
  7. It was a quiet birthday for Becca. Dinner out with the family and Dave, and then ice cream cake. An early night because band camp starts tomorrow.
  8. By the way, my understanding is that public education initially developed in the 19th century to Americanize the children of immigrants.
  9. I'm curious. It would seem consistant that you would also view paying mandatory taxes to support police, fire departments, public hospitals as stealing. Do you? I have one child. She goes to public school, and she loves to learn. So do most of her friends. I went to public school. I have 3,000 books, most of which I have actually read, and I know many things I was never taught in school.
  10. Interesting. Since "tinfoil" is really aluminum, could this be related to the urban legend that cooking in aluminum pots leads to Alzheimer's?
  11. Steal from whom, how, and give to whom?
  12. If it is not, why not? What would you propose to take its place?
  13. 1. Yes 2. Not always possible. I work nights, for instance. 3. Agreed 4. Agreed 5. What if there is no school for disorderly children? This is a rural area. 6. Agreed 7. See number 2 8. Agreed 9. Agreed (although there is almost no "diversity " here, so it is moot.)
  14. zadojla

    Pope

    Consistent, actually, but yes. In Nazi Germany, I understand the usual fate of conscientious objectors was to be sent to a concentration camp, a rather different adminstrative process than you or Tormod endured. My point is that most people try to get through difficult times by keeping a low profile, which means doing what's expected but only the minimum. Doing so may be cowardly or lazy, but is not necessarily evil. To make this even, I should say I cannot be a conscientious objector or a pacifist. I can easily imagine circumstances where I would kill someone, even premeditated. However, the war I would have fought in, Vietnam, was a bad, stupid, war. I resisted by manipulating the rules as much as I could to avoid military service. I was successful, partly by luck. I also think Iraq is a bad, stupid, war, as do nearly half of Americans.
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