Conference quark::mennotes-v1

I'll go first.  Since I started the note, obviously its happened to me.
I can also say its happened twice in the last week, but the first time
(668.234) he thought better of, deleted, and apologized.  I forgave him.

Until the second time.  See 687.21.

> p.s.
>
> In addition to being scurrilous, those comments in .14 are cowardly. I
> guessed what they might be implying, but to put those guesses in writing
> -in my opinion- provides that coward just what he wants
> 
> 		airtime with deniability

Now, my note in 687.14 is herein called scurrilous and cowardly.  Additionally,
I personally am called a coward.  Of course I have a different opinion on the
matter, and I've taken the intellectually obvious course of continuing my debate
in that note while ignoring the lowbrow.  But this is too good an opportunity to
pass up!  Here's my response to the charge of cowardice:

"Nyah, Nyah, Nyah!  tough luck, big guy!"

DougO

    <For all those who've ever been accused of cowardice for stating your
    opinions>  ...
    
    If you had been forthright enough to state your opinion, I would never
    have raised the issue of cowardice.
    
    You didn't state your opinion! 
    
    You did however intimate, in a way that I would characterize as rather
    sleezy and underhanded some unspoken but 'dark' motivations. You guided
    your audience toward an opinion -without any apparent basis of fact-
    that you are unwilling to state.   
    
    Those actions are what I describe as cowardly.
    

yee, ha!  Here we go, folks.

Herb, I stated QUESTIONS.  Until Jerry answers them, if he chooses to do so,
I haven't fully FORMED my opinions.  And that doesn't account for your earlier
outburst, wherein I certainly did state my opinion, it was amusement, remember?
And finally, YOU'RE OFF TOPIC.  This isn't a note for people to defend their
ridiculous charges, its a note for people to brag of having received them!

DougO

    I often think of the Icelandic saga (Grettir's? some baboon in a horned
    hat, anyway) which a happy-go-lucky poet livens up for a while with
    jolly repartee until Grettir gets offended and without warning (Grettir
    is a man of few words, and those words are "vodka", "reindeer fat", and
    "kill") sticks 'im with a spear, and then I think how glad I am I don't
    live in Iceland.
    
    Ray

    I think its time to get Marshal Dillon out here! Thars a shoot out
    about to happen in the livery stable. Where is Festes! Where is Doc! Need
    to patch these guys when they get to whisle in the breeze with them gun
    holes in em.
    
    
    George:)

    The heck with Festus. No one can replace Chester in my heart.
    
    Ray

Easy does it George- don't call in the marshalls.  This is a note pertaining
to men, after all; the new version, modern, homo cowardus electronicus.  In
what ways, after all, have our lives been changed by this modern day phenomenon
wherein the biggest meanest guy doesn't get to dominate the scene by threatening
the folks he doesn't like?  Does it not have bearing upon who we are as men in
the modern world?  It'll probably send Herb ballistic again, (not that I mind),
but I have to confess that his notes accusing me of cowardice and threatening
me with personal violence were a howl!  I mean, these notes of mine the last
hour or two have been a liberated dance of glee- if he can so far outstep the
rules of decorum that had heretofore prevailed, and imagine that I'm impressed
or scared, I'm gonna tapdance all OVER this issue with BIG boots on.  C'mon,
Herb, watcha gonna do?  Call me names again?  Hahahahaha!

DougO

PS- I promise I'll be normal again when its appropriate.

    I think it is possible to be just as much a bully with words as with
    deeds.
    It simply gives an opportunity for different people to bully. As an
    example It gives women opportunity to bully using a different battle
    ground. As long as the battleground is one of words only, there is the
    opportunity for a new set of victors.
    But n.b. it is not the always fine ideas that are communicated with
    clever words, sometimes it is just vicious, nasty, poison.
    It has always been sort of acknowledged that women have been practicing
    this art for thousands of years, and men don't have a snow balls chance
    in hell of winning such a confrontation on those terms.
    A woman is not worth her salt -to continue this reasoning -unless she
    knows how to emasculate a man.
    Unfortunately and sadly,  there are many, many women in the world who
    have been battered _specifically_ because of the way they lacerate men
    with their words.

    
    you gotta wonder what kind of man can be emasculated by mere words...

    Looks like you are a quick study. 
    

Oooh!  Everybody keep tabs, Herb's learning a new word: "subtlety".
Too bad one must hit him with a figurative two-by-four first.

And I was right!  He's gonna call me more names, now it's "bully".
Oy, vey, I'm such a schmoe, a bully, kvetching around the notefile
like I can maybe explain to Herb why namecalling and charges of
moral failing are not the kind of things one hurls about the file,
hoping maybe I can get across to him its not nice to do that...and out
he comes with the pitiful bullied Herb, and women do it to him, yeah,
and for thousands of years, too.  What, Herb, all these bullying women,
they are cowards, too maybe, so you get to name them in my coward note?
Do I have to remind you again to please stay on the topic!

DougO

    That's the worst NY accent I've ever heard.
    
    Ray

    q.e.d

"q.e.d", Herb, if you imagine the spanking you are being verbally administered
results in a proof of bullying then there's hope for you yet.  Of course, when
YOU do it there's nobody watching from the sidelines whouting "QED! QED!", no,
when Herb threatens to slap someone's face in or make an accusation of cowardice
there's this profound...silence.  Like, Herb, we can't believe you just said
that.  When are you going to grow up and quit whining about other people's
style?  When, Herb, when?

DougO

Oh, you don't believe its the issue??  I make mention of my amusement that
you of all people are complaining about Simpson's style, after all, you tried
to get us to shun him, and you've been on his back for a few weeks now, and
all of this amused me, so I said so in an aside at the beginning of my note 
668.232 and you went ballistic, including your first charge of cowardice.

Then, I raise some issues for Jerry to consider, and you IMMEDIATELY
(687.17-.21) question it with charges of cowardice and scurrilousness.

Herb, this note's for YOU.  This note is to expressly demonstrate what
is wrong with expressly charging people with moral failure in a notesfile, 
as you did to me twice in the last two work days.  When I made the comparison
between your style annoying people and your ire at being annoyed with Simpson's
style, it was a valid comparison, and you reacted out of picque, not justice.
I think you similarly overreacted to the questions I put to Jerry.  It is NOT
acceptable to do that.  ARE YOU GETTING THE MESSAGE YET?

DougO

>    It has always been sort of acknowledged that women have been practicing
>    this art for thousands of years, and men don't have a snow balls chance
>    in hell of winning such a confrontation on those terms.
>    A woman is not worth her salt -to continue this reasoning -unless she
>    knows how to emasculate a man.
>    Unfortunately and sadly,  there are many, many women in the world who
>    have been battered _specifically_ because of the way they lacerate men
>    with their words.
    
    Whoa... _Who_ has been acknowledging this for thousands of years? 
    (Some) men, right? 
    
    Does it make any sense for a girl to take Woman 101 where she'll learn
    how to emasculate men who will in turn beat her up?  Not much.
    
    Does it make any sense for the man who beats her up to claim that she
    was emasculating him? It sure does. 
    
    Ray

    <I make mention of my amusement that you of all people are complaining
    <about Simpson's style, after all, you tried to get us to shun him, and
    <you've been on his back for a few weeks now, and all of this amused me,
    <so I said so in an aside at the beginning of my note  668.232 and you
    <went ballistic, including your first charge of cowardice.

    Because I felt you were publicly laughing at me, and belittling me, and
    'tweaking my nose', so to speak. I didn't know how to respond to it. So
    I blew up.
    
    <Then, I raise some issues for Jerry to consider, and you IMMEDIATELY
    <(687.17-.21) question it with charges of cowardice and scurrilousness.
    
    That's correct. I felt you were doing to him a similar sort of
    thing as I had felt you had done to me. I also felt I could look at it more
    objectively since I wasn't personally involved. (But it wouldn't
    surprise me at all that my reaction was invested with some residual
    "stuff" from 668.232 etc.)
    
    I felt you were being very accusatory to Jerry. I also felt and feel
    you were doing it in a very unmanly way. And I insulted you for it. I
    feel you deserved the insult.
    
    I feel it was an attack. I feel it was both cowardly and scurrilous.
    I felt similarly about the way you treated me in 668.232.
    
    I feel that the principal difference between criticizing 
    straight-forwardly and elliptically is in the dimension of honesty. I
    feel I am on the proper side of that comparison.
    

    re .16 
    
    I don't feel up to arguing the point with you. If you don't
    agree, so be it. I think its essence is accurate, I believe its essence
    is accurate. I don't know how to defend it, if you challenge it.
    

So, Herb, when you 'feel' that my notes are 'cowardly and scurrilous' you have
no compunctions about saying so, as long as its your 'honest belief' that you
really do feel that way, have I understood you correctly?

Lets just run over the scenario from this morning.  Jerry's note is titled 
"justifiable violence?" which I take to mean, he is asking for comments upon 
whether or not the violence he dished out was justified.  He is asking us to 
give him a moral sanction, to condone the episode as unmitigated self-defense.
(Were the basenote the first and last word on the matter, as it may turn out 
to be, I may conclude that it was indeed such an episode of self-defense.)  
But before I can honestly conclude that Jerry was justified in his response,
I want to know a little bit more about what went on.  I want to know if Jerry
was in fact at the Biltmore for the purpose of seeing Gov Wilson.  I want to
know if Jerry was aware that a high-pressure political group has been dogging
Wilson ever since he vetoed some legislation.  I am aware of how Jerry feels
in general about such legislation as was vetoed; he opposes it.  In short, I
would not be at all surprised to find that Jerry was well aware of the kind
of protestors he might have been expected to encounter, and I asked questions
to establish precisely those facts.  Now, you may choose to continue to see
Jerry's incident as the black-and-white issue he painted in the basenote, with
rabid political protestors harassing an innocent citizen.  You may choose to
issue Jerry the moral sanction he seeks.  I cannot in good conscience do that
until I have established that he didn't go looking for precisely the kind of
incident he got.  Now, is that scurrilous?  Is that cowardly?  I hold that it
is not, and I laugh at your simple-minded imputation of such.  Jerry can tell
me that he didn't know what kind of people he was likely to encounter, if in
fact that is the case.  Until he does so, I will reserve my judgement.  And if
you find that to be "unmanly", Herb, then its a good thing I didn't learn my
matters of ethics and conscience from you, because you don't know the meaning
of the words.  You have issued a premature judgement, because you were still
smarting from the honest opinion I gave you last Friday.  So your pronouncements
upon my cowardice are ill-informed, even if they are 'honest'.  Do us all a
favor, Herb; keep your poorly informed opinions of other people's moral
characters to yourself, act like a grownup in the notesfiles, and maybe I'll 
quit spanking you.  Until then, you're in for some verbal bruises.

DougO

    three points
    a) with respect to the explanation of your questions...
       Thankyou, in my mind that explanation provides me with a good
       rationale for my response
    b) with respect to sanctioning Jerry's action...
       My actual opinion on the matter is somewhere near Mark Levesque's
       I consider it possible there might have been some face to face
       'body' language/communication that gets lost (almost always) in a
       retelling.
       I consider it possible that Jerry might have had some mindset the
       pre-disposed him to a more truculent stance than normal. 
       I consider it just as possible that the three pamphleteers had just
       had an interaction with somebody who was hostile. And that that
       interaction predisposed them to a more truculent stance than normal.
       I have no way of knowing whether any of those possibilities, or any
       other possibilities might be true. 
       And I would not feel comfortable posing those questions unless I had
       been able to ask the pamphleteers similar questions.
    
    c) with respect to bruises...
       I think it probably comes with the territory. Don't you?

 re: George

>Where is Doc!

 you rang? ;^)

re: Herb

>    It has always been sort of acknowledged that women have been practicing
>    this art for thousands of years, and men don't have a snow balls chance
>    in hell of winning such a confrontation on those terms.

 Speak for yourself. Some of us, particularly those of us who suffered the
physical bullying in our youth, had plenty of time to practice the fine
art of verbal jousting.

 Doc Holliday

    Doc! Gotta fetch yor doc-ta kit! Theres a shooot out at Bubba's Bar! :)

<Speak for yourself. Some of us, particularly those of us who suffered the
<physical bullying in our youth, had plenty of time to practice the fine
<art of verbal jousting.
    
    In my case, the bullying was as a result of verbal jousting.
    				      ^^^^^^
    
    
    
    No!, cummon now, it's too easy to say you're not surprised there was
    bullying in my case!
    Speaking like I do is quite new, not more than a few years old.

>    In my case, the bullying was as a result of verbal jousting.

 Yeah, I'd say the guys who picked on me would say the same thing. After all,
I _disagreed_ with them. If that doesn't deserve a good pounding, I
don't know what does...

    I saw a show the other night on how the Japanese are whipping us
    in the car and car parts industry. Watching this discussion go
    on and like discussion in other notesfiles, mostly during working
    hours, I can see we are going to give them the computer industry too!
    
    Mark (Who will watch 75 of his fellow workers walk out the door next
          week, because their work is going off-shore.)
    
    Ps. Who is on his lunch break

    When I was in boot camp in the Navy, there were a bunch of thugs from
    the hill district of Pittsburgh in the same company i was in.
    Their ring leader was a guy who was 6-4, weighed 200lbs, fullback on
    the high school football team, captain of the the swim team, also on
    the wrestling team I believe.
    In any event he took a likin' to picking on me. I had just turned 17
    three days before joining the Navy, 5-11, 150 lbs. I believe that the
    reason he enjoyed picking on _me_ in particular had to do with the fact
    that my score on the General Classification Test was two+ standard
    deviations above the mean, and my lip showed it.
    I finally turned on him with my gun and told him I would hit him upside
    the head if he bothered me again. He left me alone for about a week
    then resumed his attacks and I didn't have the balls to do anything
    else.
    Moral of the story, if you are going to sound off in front of people
    who are less bright, expect some hostility.

    Which may be a low class, lower-middle class phenomenon?

    I come from the lower middle class.  The last time I got into physical
    trouble solely because of my lip (the bottom one has a picture of Lenin
    tattooed on it) was my first week as a freshman in high school. 
    
    My lower class and lower middle class friends get as big a kick from a
    good comeback as the snooty types I met later.  Even more so, maybe;
    they don't seem to stake as much of their ego on words.
    
    Ray

    Maybe there is a generational difference
    maybe ???
    
    In my case, I think i used my being bright as a way of showing off
    (e.g. asking leading questions in class that were 'designed' to show
    how much I knew already). And I think most everybody knew it in their
    gut.

    Ah... difference in attitude more than generations, I think. I used my
    flippy-floppy tongue (such as it is) to entertain and to aid against
    the Common Enemy (i.e, the teachers and administration). 
    
    Also there's the fact that I really DON'T think of what I do as having
    more intrinsic value than what phone operators (or dishwashers) do --
    it's just different, and easier for me.  Maybe that helped reduce
    tensions?  Certainly I was much better treated in high school than most
    of the intellectual types I met in later years...
    
    On reflection, if anything, I'd call being a smartass a male trait --
    not nearly as many female smartasses out there.
    
    Ray

    Only two female smartasses come to mind. 
    
    <DON'T think ...>
    I apologize for my BULLSHIT remark, I felt you were being a
    condescending smartass.

>    On reflection, if anything, I'd call being a smartass a male trait --
>    not nearly as many female smartasses out there.
    
    On yet even further reflection, I'm not sure that's true -- it may just
    be they don't get as much recognition.
    
    In a perfect world, Roxanne Shant� would make more than Hammer and Reno
    more than Howie Mandel...
    
    Ray
    
    P.S. on the "B.S." comment -- 'Salright, I just figured you must've
    been a competent dishwasher and didn't realize how tough it could be.
    I'm told that I underestimate the difficulties of software because I'm
    competent at it. (Frankly, I always pictured myself as a shoestore
    clerk or post office dude, but it turned out programming was easier to
    get jobs in.)

    <On yet even further reflection, I'm not sure that's true -- it may just
    <be they don't get as much recognition.
    
    Depends on the conference.
    
    <P.S. on the "B.S." comment -- 'Salright, I just figured you must've
    <been a competent dishwasher and didn't realize how tough it could be.
    <I'm told that I underestimate the difficulties of software because I'm
    <competent at it. (Frankly, I always pictured myself as a shoestore
    <clerk or post office dude, but it turned out programming was easier to
    <get jobs in.)
    
    When I worked the restaurant circuit in the 1950s, most dishwashers
    that I knew were alchoholics, who used their $30.00 (minimum wage was
    .75 an hour, as I recall) a week to buy wine and a room in a rooming
    house. (Nowadays it MAY be that very recent immigrants are filling those
    jobs)
    I'm not sure it wasn't even the most physically demanding job in the
    kitchen. It was certainly the lowest paid. the sequence in a big
    kitchen.
    went something like
    	dish-washer (i think there were a couple)
    	kitchen boy (summer of 16, in a resort, 7 days a week 14 hours a day)
    		peeling potatoes
    		panning up scores of lbs of bacon for frying in the morning
    		mashing potatoes
    		choping pounds and pounds of parsely
    		boning chicken
    	salad boy (in above resort, the head salad person was a woman, the
    	only woman in the kitchen as i recall)
    .
    .
    .
    	sous chef
    	chef
    
    I used a lot more of my skills in each week of the 35 years of
    working life since then (except when running an elevator) then I used
    in the 3 or 4 years I did washing dishes (as a backup to being the
    general kitchen boy -read potato peeler- and counter man) in my
    father's 20 stool restaurant.
    There simply is minimum skill involved in washing dishes.
    If you are trying to communicate something like say ...
    "the life of a dishwasher must be very, very hard and a dishwasher
    should be paid a lot of money to compensate for the misery he/she is in"
    then I could understand and empathize with the statement.
    

>    If you are trying to communicate something like say ...
>    "the life of a dishwasher must be very, very hard and a dishwasher
>    should be paid a lot of money to compensate for the misery he/she is in"
>    then I could understand and empathize with the statement.
    
    Not to play down all the times I really AM a condescending smartass,
    but yeah, one of my points is that the difficulty of a job isn't just
    the difficulty of doing it for a half-hour (e.g., answering the phone)
    but the wear on mind and body of doing it constantly (e.g., being an
    operator -- by the way, are there any ex-operators around who can tell
    us just what they do?).  That's why I couldn't be a kitchen boy, for
    example (and I tried).
    
    Ray

    I lasted 8 days at the summer resort, until the kitchen help got me so
    drunk, I was lucky I didn't die. (Drank almost a full fifth of whiskey)

re .20, Herb-

>    a) with respect to the explanation of your questions...
>       Thankyou, in my mind that explanation provides me with a good
>       rationale for my response

Not good enough.  Herb, I'm reading this to say that you think my explanation
of why I couldn't sanction Jerry's violence without more evidence gives you a
"good rationale" for calling me a coward when I sought that evidence.  NOT.
Your 'honest belief' and your 'good rationale' are insufficient grounds for
you to condemn me and my questions without having refuted my motives.  TELL
ME why and how this "good rationale" of yours justified your charges.  Now
that you can see in that topic how Jerry's response and mine have played to
their conclusion, you are left with the evidence that I sought exactly what
I claimed I was seeking; information about what Jerry's prior information was.
You CANNOT refute it, and your accusations stand naked.  I charge YOU with
ill-informed speculations about my moral character and I'll parade your
perfidy high and wide throughout this file until you acknowledge the error.

>     b) with respect to sanctioning Jerry's action...

That is a matter for the other topic.  It was raised here only because my
motives and my character were impugned by your charges.  The other topic
has played out its issue to my satisfaction.

>    c) with respect to bruises...
>       I think it probably comes with the territory. Don't you?

There are justifiable lunmps, and there are baseless perfidious charges
such as yours.  You will be held to account for them here.

DougO

    Regardless of how Jerry ultimately chose to interpret your inquiry,
    I felt it was an attack. 
    
    If you are affirming that you had no intent to be accusing Jerry or of
    insinuating that his actions were predicated on some 'dark facets' of
    his personality, but were merely trying to gain information to form a
    conclusion then I have no option but to apologize for reacting as if
    you were slurring him. My apology is reluctant because I still do not
    believe that your motives were pure or even clean; however, I
    must accept your statement that you had no intent to be accusing Jerry.
    
    With respect to the way you chose to gather the information with
    which to make an informed judgement; I believe it was heavy-handed,
    clumsy, and rude, and left little option but to conclude you were
    challenging and insulting Jerry. I still believe that that was the
    effect of the inquiry even if not the intent.
    

>    If you are affirming that you had no intent to be accusing Jerry or of
>    insinuating that his actions were predicated on some 'dark facets' of
>    his personality, but were merely trying to gain information to form a
>    conclusion 

Approximately, yes.  I stated several times that my questions were intended
to help Jerry consider for himself just how he came to be in that situation
at that time with that result...if political factors were involved, etc.  I
did not accuse him or insinuate; I stated right up front that I needed to
know if he was looking for trouble before he found it.  He said he wasn't.
That settles it.

>               then I have no option but to apologize for reacting as if
>    you were slurring him. My apology is reluctant because I still do not
>    believe that your motives were pure or even clean; however, I
>    must accept your statement that you had no intent to be accusing Jerry.

Thank you for your apology, however reluctant.  As you indicated earlier,
I'm of the opinion that your immediate judgement and charges of me were in
no little part affected by the way I zinged you Friday. 
   
>    With respect to the way you chose to gather the information with
>    which to make an informed judgement; I believe it was heavy-handed,
>    clumsy, and rude, and left little option but to conclude you were
>    challenging and insulting Jerry. I still believe that that was the
>    effect of the inquiry even if not the intent.

Normally, I would accept a statement such as the above from you in the spirit
of noting; that people will have different opinions and I'm not out to make
everybody in the world like me.  Sometimes, I'll even tell you you haven't got
a clue.  But what I WILL NOT ACCEPT is for you to hurl unproven charges at my
moral character just because you don't have a clue about where my questions
are leading.  It is personally insulting, it violates the decorum typically
observed in the file, and it can and will be career limiting for you if you
happen to aggravate someone who doesn't feel up to publicly spanking you, but
seeks redress through official channels.  What can I say, Herb?  You've now
been forced to rethink your charges against me and apologize twice in less
than a week.  See that it doesn't happen again.

DougO

    If this is the place for keyboard fights. Then I gotta to settle one
    with Mr. Lionel. Bottom like. Get of my a$$.

Keyboard fights?  LK201s at twenty paces?  I think it would be unfair, George,
someone has scrambled all the keycaps on yours.

				Steve

    
    Hummmm..... I donno about that Steve! I think that someone has
    scrambled yours in your gray matter area. :)