h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Each evening for the last while I find myself reading aloud from Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Wonder Book for Boys and Girls' at bed time. This evening I came across a passage which sums up my reaction to those who claim exclusive rights to works of literature, be those works the Bible, the Qu'ran, the novels of the Bronte sisters, or anything else:

'"I described the giant as he appeared to me," replied the student, rather piqued. "And, sir, if you would only bring your mind into such a relation with these fables as is necessary in order to remodel them, you would see at once that an old Greek had no more exclusive right to them than a modern Yankee has. They are the common property of the world, and of all time. The ancient poets remodelled them at pleasure, and held them plastic in their hands; and why should they not be plastic in my hands as well?" '

-- From the afterbit at the Tanglewood Fireside of the Three Golden Apples story in Hawthorne's Wonder Book.

(Beyond the rights protected by international copyright legislation and convention) I do not in any way accept that any individual or group has the right to claim exclusive ownership of any piece of literature, folklore, mythology, religion, etc. It is all the common heritage of humanity, and each individual is free to do with it what he will, from the paintings of el Greco to the internet cartoons of Mohammed Jones.








But I kind of have a feeling the Elgin Marbles should be shipped back to Greece.

tanglewood boys are a mafiosso crew in CSI New York

I am stunned by both the rapidity and the vapidity of your reply.

i am a mine of useless information

as am I.



but my mine is far deeper.

i get your drift

and will cast an open mind about it

I must run. It is past my bed time, but I have so much to read. I'm off to Emily Montague: http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=619

The cartoons of Mohammed Jones are rather good, aren't they?

TRiG.

I'm posting a link to this thread to the supernatural thread I created. The explanation for why will be found there.

oh look. A troll. And a troll without even the decency to start their own troll thread.

Well, since you are still at this stream: My stepfather did his Ph.D. on Hawthorne's sense of time, this thread started on my birthday, and its revitalization came just in time for me to find it when I was done checking to see if you really pulled out of the other thread. Not only that, but someone just posted about his sense of time in the thread I am referring to.

I really, really, really hate having to unsubscribe to my own journal threads because some uninvited troll gets it into their head to crash my journal because they don't like being told that they have quite strongly insulted me on another thread.

This is the last time:

Julzes: I do not want to have any sort of discussion with you under any circumstances. You have insulted me in a very personal way and then tried to hide behind a person with a disability to pretend that knowing and working with a person with a disability is somehow an excuse to be insultingly rude to others. You have absolutely no conception, I'm quite sure, of what my situation is in relation to persons with disabilities, and, frankly, I don't want someone who would try to hide their rudeness behind persons with disabilities to know a single bloody thing about me. I do not wish to converse with such a person. I will unsubscribe from any thread in which I encounter such a person. If such a person posts to this thread again, I guess I'll have to unsubscribe from my own journal.

Please, Julzes, do not post to this thread and unsubscribe immediately if you have any small shred of human decency.