Subject: Re: Dead Wood
Date: Jul 30 01:21:14 1998
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets,

Denny Granstrand writes:

>I think it is unnecessary to make disparaging remarks about the next ELECTED
>President of the United States.

Interesting political opinion-- perhaps he'll be your next President sooner
than that, by current protocols of succession. Besides, it was a *joke*,
Denny, a *joke*--and a bloody funny one at that. And even *Al Gore* makes
jokes about Al Gore's public stiffness and lack of folksiness. Maybe you
should write Deadwood Al to take himself more seriously. Besides,
politicians aren't God, not even when they're President. It's only in
countries where monarchs have power that you still have to go down on one
knee when the King passes.

>Tweeters is not a forum for political
>dialog.

Except, it seems, when you offer a political opinion, as above. If you can,
we can.

>People who persist is this vein can "walk west until their hat
>floats". (I got this incredible line from our pleonastic friend from
>Vancouver. I have used it many times since he suggested I do that)!

Great line, isn't it, Denny? You're entirely welcome, though odd you choose
to appropriate and use something from someone you've just characterised as
being linguistically defective. Easily pleased, I guess. Besides that, a
couple of things, then--

First, while your bird-related posts are both useful and appreciated, your
complaints about what you find acceptable and unacceptable indicate you
disapprove strongly about much of certain people like myself discuss--even
those of us who contribute far more directly- or indirectly-related birding
posts than you do-- since it tends not be directly about birds-- and thank
heavens you don't have a Rare Bird Alert you can yank to retaliate and
punish us for not running the kind of list of which you approve, cutting off
nose to spite face-- so here's another line from your old pal in Vancouver
BC you may find apposite: the reason a dog's got fleas is to take his mind
off being a dog.

But where a dog can only scratch, Denny, you possess the highest achievement
of human technology: the delete button. It would be an insult to the efforts
of all the generations of great scientists and thinkers which led to its
development to let it get dusty and rusty with non-use.

Second, since you seem to have assumed the uniform of ListPolizei (Dan
Victor, would you be kind enough to hand over the Tweeters keys to Denny on
your way out?), to make everything simpler for you, me and everyone else,
would you be courteous enough to furnish the rest of us with: A) the list of
subjects which you would forbid if you were running the list or, B) the much
shorter list of subjects you would permit the rest of us to discuss?

Not a rhetorical question: I for one would actually like to see those two
lists publicly expressed. Tweeters is changing, as is natural, and at the
risk of sounding like any other Old Fart Golden-Ager, what used to be a
fairly freewheeling, honest, friendly and mostly-tolerant list that was as
much community as regional news has clearly become no longer so. The recent
'debates' on slang and molt-terminology brought a new and disturbing level
of personal vengefulness and personal attacks on people propounding more
liberal views on these issues I'd not seen before on Tweeters however
familiar they were locally: that was a real wake-up call. Personally I mourn
the passing: it was a wonderful home for a few years, and actually was the
only thing that kept me in birding after what they did to me in Vancouver
BC, but it may be time to bring this stuff out into the open and talk about
it honestly instead of indulging in these kinds of bitchy, nasty,
intellectually dishonest and--worst--*unkind* attacks on one another.

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)