Another
week of just-short-of-armed-warfare in "The Fray." And the winners are ...
Hot
Threads
Testifying to just how
moribund the debate over Kenneth Starr's investigation has become, the regular
combatants in things political shuffled back to the "Politics '98" thread
and ... welfare reform. One fraygrant's observation that "welfare folks receive
a constellation of benefits" was torn limb from limb--after the gales of
laughter subsided, that is. The Internal Revenue Service's doings provoked some
debate and soon disintegrated into personal attacks among the fraygrants.
The
"Religion"
thread showcased the international flavor of the Fray this week. A missionary
in Africa and a fraygrant from India argued about the effects of missionary
activity. And a participant from the Far East weighed in on Confucianism: Was
it really a religion, or was Confucius simply to Chinese morality what Plato
was to Greek philosophy? The most interesting post of the week, however,
emerged in a of the Crusades that took on a little-known tribe called the
Cathars and their 13 th century Inquisition.
New
Threads
What is the key to a lasting
marriage? Some choices proffered in the new "Marriage and Family"
thread: friendship, mutual respect, honesty, humor, and variety. Where does
this leave sex and children? One long-married fraygrant says, "We are still in
love, still fuck our brains out on a fairly frequent basis." Another's "basic
point": "I don't think it's realistic to expect most relationships to be
sexually monogamous and to last a lifetime." A third offered a reason why
people stay together: "Isn't it possible that a lot of long-lasting marriages
are long-lasting because of inertia created by the absence of alternatives to
that arrangement?" Most contributors agree that sex and children are desirable
but not necessary within the relationship; all agreed children should be the
primary consideration in cases of divorce.
Privacy
was the topic this week in "Law and Order." Contributors--several of them
lawyers--discussed an employer's right to drug test employees and the
government's right to monitor our lives. One particularly invoked George
Orwell's 1984 . Other issues: child porn on the Net, on-the-scene news on
television, and whether parents who leave children to suffocate in a hot car
should be charged with manslaughter.
Getting
Serious
William Faulkner's The
Sound and the Fury remains the focus in the "Reading" thread. This
week's subject: the second of the book's four chapters, which is written from
the viewpoint of Quentin, a tormented Harvard student who eventually kills
himself. This week's burning questions: Was Quentin a classic suicide? Who was
the father of Caddy's baby? Next week the Fray will take on the "Jason"
chapter. Jump in, and examine the mind of a misanthrope.
The
"Person of the
Century" thread hosted a humorous and articulate exchange on the importance
of M.K. Gandhi. Was he a "sheeted ascetic & do-gooder" or a "major
influence" on mass movements everywhere? In addition to this series of posts
('s a sample), the thread also saw a spirited defense of Simone de Beauvoir
("the Man of the Century is a woman") and Walt Disney (nominated in the culture
section of the ballot). Computer pioneers John Von Neumann and Alan Turing were
also mentioned--big surprise that their names should crop up in an Internet
forum. First-round
voting closes today, May 6, and
Slate
subscribers should vote
while they can.
Post of
the Week
An
interesting exchange in the new "Marriage and Family" thread on what a marriage
is all about inspired one veteran fraygrant to his thoughts on some of the
unexpected benefits of marriage.
