Rev Vince posted this in a recent digest:
<< That no one jumped up and said, "hey, Vince is not anti-anyone" between
the time that the post was made and the time that I read it, that says
something to me about where I fit into this community. Either I am not
worth speaking up for because you as a group perceive me as being
anti-people, or because no one values me enough to say a word on my
behalf, or because you think that I am so tough that I can laugh this
stuff off.
No, No, No! Please do not think that! For myself, I am on digest and for the
past few months have only skimmed them. Heck I spend more time clipping out
lima bean recipes than I do reading the digest.
Let me say it right here, right now: Vince is not anti-anyone.
I've gone through the past few digests now and have frankly enjoyed the
exchange of ideas and thoughts. I'm in awe of the intellectual power on this
list: Kakki, Mary P, Kate B, Vince and more. My Belleville High School roots
don't stand a chance in this company.
But then something happens. The exchanges go from being simply that to these
yelps of "hey don't pick on Kakki!" or "you can't make judgements like that
about people you haven't met." and I'm thinking: Jesus, Mary and Joseph, give
it a break.
I've been a member of the JMDL since close to the beginning and believe me,
I've seen flame wars. Mean, rotten, nasty postings that do nothing more than
rub those treadmarks in deeper. The back and forth Catholic stuff has not
been anything more than fact, conjecture, opinion, fact and back and forth
some more. Frankly, I enjoyed reading them.
Why is it so easy to get bent out of shape? And now some of our best list
ambassadors, Vince, Paz and a few others have left. And frankly, I don't
think that they are leaving because people disagree with them, I think that
the quick to see insult finally ends up cutting too deep.
If there's any message in here at all that I want to say it's this: "Vince,
get your butt back here on the list." Really. We sure won't forget you in a
month or more and you make us all the more rich because of who you are.
Lastly, I for one, enjoy the various threads of debates. I find them awfully
educational and wish that there would be a way to weed out the perceived
insults. WTC tragedy notwithstanding, we do operate at a higher velocity of
feelings here over just about everything. Maybe we just need to pretend we
are talking about GAAP. At the very least, we'll be asleep before the next
post hits the inbasket.
MG
As for the last. I hurt, too, I bleed as easily as any other
wounded person. And as for the others, that confirms this is not a
community for me.
