>I was in a weird mood when I responded to Doug and Yoshie over Oscar
>Wilde. Doug was thanking god, whom of course he couldn't care less
>about in terms of approval, and Yoshie was yukking it up about how
>Doug reminded her of Wilde.
A very flattering association, I've got to say, though I'm still a bit disturbed (and mystified) about the "backhanded" part of it. You're right about the god part; if there is a god, or gods, then I'd like his, her, or their approval, but I have no position on the existence or nonexistence of god, so that was just a figure of speech. But I am deeply grateful that fate or accident or whatever allowed me to pursue work that I find interesting and may at times even be construed as a positive social contribution. I'm very grateful that I don't have to spend my life digging ditches or cleaning bedpans, both of which are socially useful but which I'd find as pretty indistinguishable from a prison sentence if I had to do them 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. Maybe it's just my decadent petit bourgeois temperament speaking.
Doug