<long drawn out sustained keening sound>

Zee

Apparently zee must had had a bad experience with firewalls and now
condemns the whole industry (see a pattern here?).

[OT]: As someone who was involved in the computer industry for 12 years
(before retiring at around 50) I can tell you that firewall software and
antivirus software works and works well and anyone who is connected to the
internet without those protections is a fool.

L.

In her original post Sharon also used metaphor. Zee

Metaphor

(Redirected from Metaphors)

In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope where a comparison is
made between two seemingly unrelated subjects. Typically, a first
object is described as being a second object. In this way, the first
object can be economically described because implicit and explicit
attributes from the second object can be used to fill in the
description of the first. Some (particularly in cognitive linguistics)
see metaphor as a basic cognitive function, while others prefer the
term analogy for this concept. However, metaphor is not always used for
practical description and understanding; sometimes it is used for
purely aesthetic reasons.

metaphor in literature:
http://www6.semo.edu/cfs/TFN_online/hearn.htm

Teaching Faulkner: Meaning through Metaphor
Pamela Hindman Hearn, Southeast Missouri State University

"Fiction and the Human Experience" is one of the popular literature
courses our University offers sophomores. Many of those who take this
course haven't read much, not even popular literature. (One student
confessed last spring that he had never read anything other than
textbooks.) Others, especially those who have had "college prep"
courses, have read some worthwhile works, although they often know
little more than the plot of these pieces, if that. It's a real
teaching thrill, then, to introduce them to some of the more
sophisticated techniques of William Faulkner, especially his method of
conveying meaning through metaphor and imagery.* This idea is an
interesting concept to them, and they begin to look forward to studying
the Faulkner stories because their themes are expressed subtly, and the
reader is often seduced into sympathy with questionable characters and
actions.

Consider the three short stories, "Barn Burning," "Dry September," and
"A Rose For Emily," for instance. In "Barn Burning" a young son
"betrays" his father for abstract principles. In "Dry September" a
lonely woman indirectly causes the murder of a totally innocent man.In
"A Rose for Emily" the main character murders her lover.  Yet, through
the use of metaphor and imagery, Faulkner manages to make the reader
feel that these acts are totally understandable.

In "Barn Burning" a ten-year old boy, Sarty Snopes, is cruelly caught
between his yearning for peace and justice and his loyalty to his
father, Abner, who relies on the retaliation of barn burning to rectify
any and all "wrongs" done him, imaginary or otherwise. Anyone who has
grown up in a farming community can appreciate the viciousness of barn
burning; a farming family's barn is often more important than their
home, in that it houses farm animals, machinery, stores of hay and next
season's seeds-in short, the barn protects the family's way of making a
living as well as its possessions. Abner appreciates this reality very
well and exploits it to get even with a world which he perceives as
unjust to him.

Still, betrayal of a father is no light matter, and the reader must be
convinced that Sarty, at ten years of age, has the strength to resist
becoming like his father and his older brother, Flem. (Although Flem is
unnamed in this story, his despicable character is further developed in
such pieces as "Spotted Horses.")

How does Faulkner accomplish the readers' sympathy for Sarty's point
of view? From the beginning of the story, Abner is associated with
ominous images such as a "stiff black coat" (5) and a "stiff and
ruthless limp . . . where a Confederate provost's man's musket ball had
taken him in the heel on a stolen horse thirty years ago" (5). He is
also described as a worshipper of fire as a weapon with which to strike
back at an unjust society:

         . . . the element of fire spoke to some deep mainspring of
his father's being, as the

         element of steel or of powder spoke to other men, as the one
weapon for the preservation

         of integrity, else breath were not worth the breathing, and
hence to be regarded with respect

         and used with discretion. (7)

Through Sarty's young eyes, the reader sees Abner "without face or
depth? a shape black, flat, and bloodless as though cut from tin in the
iron folds of the frockcoat . . . [his] voice harsh like tin and
without heat like tin" (8). It was "as though, [Abner] sidewise to the
sun .... would cast no shadow"(10).

All of this imagery adds up to a very satanic portrayal indeed. The
devil, as the old ballads remind us, casts no shadow, and the words
"stiff," "black," and "bloodless" confirm the reader's impression that
Abner is not merely a bad person, but may be likened to a demonic
worshipper of fire and the dark forces of the earth-a sort of latter
day Zoroastrian or Vulcan. When Abner takes Sarty to Major DeSpain's
elegant home, Faulkner describes Abner's black hat and coat ("which had
now that friction-glazed greenish cast of the bodies of old house
flies") and his hand, knocking at the door as a "curled claw"(11).

In contrast to these descriptions of Abner, Faulkner dramatizes Sarty's
dilemma as one of "terror and grief, the being pulled two ways like
between two teams of horses"(17). And when Abner and Sarty walk up to
the DeSpain mansion, Sarty's first impression is that "Hit's big as a
courthouse," and he feels "a surge of peace and joy whose reason he
could not have thought into words, being too young for that"(10). The
word "courthouse" is weighted with meaning. It is as if, for the first
time in his life, Sarty experiences a world where there is protection
from the viciousness and cold rage epitomized by his father, a place
where there are "people whose lives are a part of this peace and
dignity . . . beyond his [father's] touch"(10).

Though some students might sympathize with Abner's lashing out at an
unjust world, most are persuaded by the imagery and metaphor in the
story that Abner is an evil and destructive man, and that Sarty, though
only ten, is right in his decision to side with "peace and joy" and
justice. After studying "Barn Burning," the students become much more
aware of the meaning of Faulkner's metaphors and imagery.

In "Dry September" Faulkner uses metaphor and imagery to both induce
sympathy for and incriminate the main characters. Minnie Cooper is a
"thirty-eight or thirty-nine" (173) year-old, unmarried woman who lives
with an invalid mother and housekeeper aunt. Her purposeless life
revolves around sitting in the porch swing until noon, taking naps,
going "downtown" with the other ladies to "handle the goods and haggle
over the prices in cold, immediate voices, without any intention of
buying" (173), and going to the picture show where life unfolds
"beautiful and passionate and sad" (181), while young men and girls
enter, "their slim, quick bodies . . . divinely young" (181).

Minnie has lost her chance for a husband and family because of the
town's class consciousness, jealously, and her own pride. At nearly
forty, desperate for attention (The men "did not even follow her with
their eyes any more" [175]), she allows the town to think that she has
been assaulted and raped by an innocent Negro, Will Mayes. The result
is that the barbershop crowd, led by the town bully, McLendon, takes
the rumor for an excuse to murder the innocent Black man.

Minnie could be seen as a very unsympathetic character, except that
Faulkner seems to empathize with her. In describing her first
realizations that her popularity was, for some reason, on the wane, he
says: "That was when her face began to wear that bright, haggard look.
She still carried it to parties on shadowy porticoes and summer lawns,
like a mask or a flag, with that bafflement of furious repudiation of
truth in her eyes" (174); and besides social ostracism, the town finds
other ways of torturing Minnie. For awhile she has enjoyed the company
of a man with the first automobile in town. Of course their rides
together make the town jealous, and the townspeople relegate Minnie
"into adultery by public opinion" (175). When he leaves town to live in
Memphis, it is clear that Minnie has "lost" her chance at marriage.
After he moves, he makes it a practice to come "home" for one day at
Christmas, and all her neighbors enjoy telling "her about him, about
how well he looked, and how they heard that he was prospering in the
city, watching with bright, secret eyes her haggard, bright face"
(175).

After the supposed rape and Will Mayes' murder, when Minnie goes to the
picture show with her lady friends, Faulkner describes her journey as
the center of attention: "She walked slower and slower, as children eat
ice cream, her head up and her eyes bright in the haggard banner of her
face" (180). In these descriptions, the words "flag" and "banner"
suggest a sort of heroism in the face of hopelessness and injustice.

To prejudice the reader against the barbershop hangers-on and McLendon,
Faulkner uses other kinds of imagery.

One of the men getting a "frothy" shave in the barbershop, who is eager
to protect white womanhood from Black rapists, is described as looking
"like a desert rat in the moving pictures" (170). When McLendon is
introduced into the barbershop scene, Faulkner ironically mentions that
as a commander of troups in France, he had been decorated for valor. As
McLendon instigates the barbershop crowd to come with him to murder
Will Mayes, one barber suggests restraint-doing things the right
way-getting the sheriff. Faulkner continues, "McLendon whirled upon him
his furious, rigid face . . . They looked like men of difference races"
(172).

After the cruel and senseless murder of Mayes, when McLendon returns
home to his "birdcage" (183) small house, where he strikes his wife and
flings her across a chair for waiting up, he goes "through the house,
ripping off his shirt, and on the dark, screened porch at the rear,"
stands "with his body pressed against the dusty screen . . . panting"
(183). The imagery used in this passage clearly suggests that McLendon
is little more than an ape, caged in by his hatred for Blacks, women,
and perhaps, ultimately for himself.

In this story, as in "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner thoroughly indicts
small town meanness as a cause for individual tragedy. He describes how
Minnie's friends, "eyes darkly aglitter, secret and passionate," want
to know every detail of the "rape," while their hands are "smoothing
her hair, examining it for gray" (182).

"A Rose for Emily" is possibly one of Faulkner's strongest criticisms
of small-town meanness and the pettiness and cruelty of the small-town
mind. The author creates a first-person plural narrator who speaks for
the town throughout the story, a very unusual technique, and the
imagery he uses to describe Emily Grierson is quite different than that
used to portray the defeated Minnie Cooper. Miss Emily is described as
a "fallen monument . . . a tradition, a duty, and a care" (119), "an
upright torso motionless as that of an idol" (123), and "like the
carven torso of an idol in a niche" (128). When Miss Emily begins
seeing Homer Barron, a construction worker, and worse still, a "Yankee"
(124), "she demands more than ever the recognition of her dignity as
the last Grierson" (125). She makes a trip to the druggist to buy
poison, and Faulkner describes her "cold, haughty black eyes in a face
the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the
eye-sockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper's face ought to look"
(125). The image of the lighthouse-keeper's face effectively suggests
the years of Emily's desperate loneliness and isolation. The druggist
explains to her that the law requires her to say what she is going to
use the arsenic for, but she simply stares him down and says nothing.
Nevertheless, the druggist fetches the arsenic marked "For Rats," and
both the author and reader must enjoy the irony, since the poison is,
of course, for Homer.

Miss Emily triumphs over the townspeople every time they confront her
and try to make her follow their rules. She lives in poverty, and, at
one point, is even reduced to giving lessons in china-painting, but the
town's interference in her life never seems to faze her. One example of
the town's defeat is when they send for her relatives to break up her
"affair" with Homer Barron; unfortunately they find that the relatives
are "even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been" and are very
relieved to see them leave (127). When the town's ladies force the
Baptist minister to call on Miss Emily and remind her of noblesse
oblige, he never explains what happened during the interview, but
refuses to ever go back to Miss Emily's.

The shocking end of the story reveals that Miss Emily is a murderess,
willing to go to any length to hold onto someone she loves. By this
time, however, the readers have been so influenced by the imagery
describing Miss Emily's lonely existence, frustrated youth, and
unfailing dignity that they, as well as the author, wish to give Miss
Emily a rose.

Once the students grasp the notion that theme and a great deal of
meaning may be conveyed through imagery and metaphor in Faulkner's
writing, they begin to enjoy the richness of his fiction very much.

Notes *Quotations from Faulkner's stories are taken from Collected
Stories (New York: Vintage Books, 1950). My appreciation of the
importance of metaphor and imagery in Faulkner's writing was
considerably heightened by an analysis of "Spotted Horses" in John
Gardner and Lennis Dunlap (eds.), The Forms of Fiction (New York:
Random House, 1962).

<Hawk...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

I cannot speak for the poeple mentioned, but I imagine they, like I,
have long since burned through the "rainy day" fund. In my case it was
considerably in excess of $25,000.

Zee

Once again, per the titular topic.

How much of that, if any, was due to adverse effects?  I know that in the
first year off Lipitor all 52 diagnostic appointments and tests (several of
which were well over $10K each), and the 3 years of cognitive rehabilitation
therapy was ALL due to adverse effects.

The point is that there are more than just the patient affected - and not
all effects are physical.  They can run the gamut from loss of productivity
to higher taxes to higher insurance rates (with more exemptions, higher
deductions, and more difficulty getting and keeping coverage), later
retirement qualifications (remember when 65 was retirement age?), loss of
income, loss of home, loss of opportunity to yes, loss of life.

What absurd line of reasoning is it that causes this group to argue AGAINST
giving more attention to drug safety?

You know, not everyone has a computer for chatting on the internet, and not
everyone has a $11,854 rainy day savings - do you realize that is 25% of the
median household income?

Take a look at this from the US Census bureau and count your blessings, and
maybe, just maybe, think about some tolerance for your fellow Americans:

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/002484.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THURSDAY, AUG. 26, 2004, AT 10:15 A.M. EDT

     Income Stable, Poverty Up, Numbers of Americans With and Without
     Health Insurance Rise, Census Bureau Reports

           Real median household income remained unchanged between 2002 and
2003 at $43,318, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census
Bureau. At the same time, the nation's official poverty rate rose from 12.1
percent in 2002 to 12.5 percent in 2003. The number of people with health
insurance increased by 1.0 million to 243.3 million between 2002 and 2003,
and the number without such coverage rose by 1.4 million to 45.0 million.
The percentage of the nation's population without coverage grew from 15.2
percent in 2002 to 15.6 percent in 2003.

Sure, saving is a good thing to do.  But we went from a dismissive faulty
assumption that the statistic was for people with no insurance, to yes, 75%
had insurance.  Now we treat 1/4 of a median HOUSEHOLD income as trivial,
because you happen to have the good fortune to be able to shell out $25K?
Lucky you.

Again, how much of these costs, yours and others, are due to adverse effects
fo the drugs?  I would put that amount into a PREVENTABLE category, IF there
were more attention to drug safety - with a screening developed to prevent
those who would be harmed from taking the drug, thereby making it available
to those who can benefit from it.

Is that such a difficult concept to embrace?