Chasing ... Cutting

[Dave Monroe]

Know very well that a few of these people have published on the subject.  Can't say
I've read 'em all, but I've been out of the industry for at least a decade, just
catching up, so ... but I've also noted that they--as well as the presumed
nonacademics--don't seem to have bothered with all the nastiness that, say, you and
Millison and Mackin and MichaelB (a..k.a. ...) and, of late, myself (I plead
self-defense, Yr Honor, esp. as I've not only been insulted, but ridiculed,
parodied, even) have been engaging in, outright, specifically addressed, or
otherwise (sorry if I caught anyone in the crossfire, should have been more
specific, but I assume y'all knew who I was talking about).  Do not play innocent
here, sir, I do believe the jury can see through that borrowed suit and
lawyer-bought haircut.  You an "academic"?  Not sure, guess I don't much care, but I
have noticed a certain strange anti-academicism 'round here, that (preterite?) pride
in outsidership.  I mistakenly exiled myself, but ... But I've neither the patience
nor the inclination to Present my Case to th' Court, as any evidence has been,
indeed, self-evident, so ...

But I do rather stand by my reading of that von Braun epigraph, am glad to see you
implicating yrself in that "we" there, we are both (at LEAST) indeed doing much work
to sustain our readings, and my reading does rather BEGIN with that epigraph, as yr
average go-through would.  Still not sure why you're so intent on redeeming von
Braun and/or Blicero, which is why I'm running that full-court press for you to
present yr Reading, because going over and over th' Text, I STILL am not Convinced.
"... some formal, rationalized version of what, outside, proceeds without form or
decent limit day and night, the summary executions, the roustings, beatings,
subterfuge, paranoia, shame";  "their preserving routine" (V96/B111); "Major
Weissman was one of several gray eminences around the rocket field ....  All things
to all men, a brand-new military type, part salesman, part scientist" (V401/B467;
here, by the way, is where a demotion might be indicated, from Major to Captain--why
so?).  Not quite the charismatic romanticized ubermensch I've been reading you to be
making him out to be, but already that incipient military-industrial routinized
bureaucrat.

jbor wrote:

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