JMS on Usenet

Message

Subject: Re: LOL at JMS' comments on ASM #36
Date: 06 Jan 2002 06:23:43 GMT
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe

> And Bin Laden
>could very well be rational. I haven't seen him do anything that hasn't
>served *his* goals.

To be rational is not the same thing as following goals.

Mike, the dictionary is our friend.  Words mean what they mean, not what we
wish them to mean.

I quote to you from Webster's Dictionary: 

"RATIONAL Agreeable to reason; not absurd, preposterous, extravagant, foolish,
fanciful, or the like; wise; judicious; as, rational conduct; a rational man."

Neither Bin Laden nor Hitler fit that definition.  Period.

I'm a writer, Mike...and I respect the fact that words mean what they mean.  We
can wish that rational meant the same thing as, say, "determined," or
"sentient," but it doesn't.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2001 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)