Hi Tweets,

Jerry Converse writes:

>I have a suggestion---when someone gets really upset about something
>that is detramental to birds ie. loss of habitat or whatever: I think
>they should do like a mad dog and bite themselves. Or go bang their head
>against a concrete wall until they calm down. THEN post a message to
>tweeters. I didn't think I would have to censor tweeters before my wife,
>friends or grandchildren read the messages.

You actually filter what your wife reads? Oh well, none of my business.

Censoring what *I* read is, though.

Don't. Not even to think about it.

>I think
>they should do like a mad dog and bite themselves. Or go bang their head
>against a concrete wall until they calm down.

This is in reaction to another writer not for the issue on which he was
writing so impassionedly but for using one vulgarity once of which you don't
approve, and makes it sound like he did a terrible, awful, weird, disgusting
thing. Which he didn't. He just used a curseword in use outside the little
town of Tweetersville about three hundred billion times a day. Big deal.
Let's ignore the question of who you are to judge, and look a little more
reasonably at this.

With respect, adults have been cursing (a truth) a long time, and then
pretending to their children that they don't (a lie) for an equally long
time, &/or that cursing is an adult privilege (another lie), or that cursing
will destroy a child's innocence (yet another lie). Also, many adults have
the happy illusion that their children have never heard profanity and don't
use profanity, an illusion which contributes to the same children's
conception of adults as idiots of varying degrees of amiability being in the
world but not of it, if their beliefs about what their children are up to is
anything to go by. The result? The one side censors, which, if you look at
it carefully, is another type of lying, while the other is forced into a lie
to maintain the adult's illusions of what constitutes their child's
'innocence' and 'purity'. A very unhealthy, corrupting process for everyone,
adult and child alike.

That extreme profanity is an integral part of our children's lives is
evident: simply listen to them speak to and among each other when they think
you're not listening. Other than a repetitive vulgarity, there's not much
harm done, and it's not a big deal to them nor to most of the adults who
understand them. The hypocritical lie that it is perverting them when they
do it as children but not us when we do it as adults is much more damaging,
teaching children to hide it and deny and to present a mask to their
parents. Much more useful to ignore it and concentrate on the important
things which *do* need changing.

I'll also add as a personal observation that the word 'fuck' and its various
forms has entered common usage to the extent that even many daily newspapers
and massmarket magazines now reproduce it as-is, without either masking or
abbreviation. It is used in TV news without bleeping, it is in an increasing
number of 'adult' dramas and comedies on television. It has entered the
language as a simple everyday vulgarity and conversational strophe rather
than the God-will-strike-you-dead whomper it used to be twenty years ago. It
is in common usage in conversation everywhere by almost everyone at some
time. I don't care for it, personally, but that's clearly the direction
common speech is headed and I can't remember the last time society asked my
permission for anything, especially the direction it decides to head in.

As to where the level of diction --not decency; discerning that is a mug's
game-- of the list should be pitched, that is a subject open to discussion.
Personally, having to forego filet mignon, especially occasionally sprinkled
with a pungent spice, because the baby can't eat it seems wasteful and silly
to me: this list is mostly comprised of adults, and I don't mind explicit
language. My world doesn't shudder or collapse at the utterance of a
curseword; it's just a word, so I don't mind it as much as some: to me the
thought behind it is far more important.

In that tone, then, I'd like to propose a regime wherein there is no
censorship but voluntary self-editing for clarity of style (I myself am no
stranger to self-censorship, frequently editing out brontosaurian thumpers
like 'sequipedalian' from any first draft of a post to Tweeters. You're
welcome.) where people choose more effective alternatives to vulgarity
because they're more effective rather than because they're trying to follow
a moral code which attempts to censor what a child hears in the real world.
If someone is so impassioned about an issue that he or she uses a vulgarism
as emphasis, treat it as emphasis.

Main thing is, it ain't a big deal unless you make it one. As the Immortal
Bart once said, "Don't have a cow, man." Sorry, I meant the Immortal *Bard*,
my mistake; "The quality of mercy is not strain'd,/It droppeth like the
gentle rain from Heaven..."

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery, and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)