The two main characters in Brokeback Mountain are regular guys who shared an experience while alone in an isolated environment. They didn’t expect it. They didn’t think of themselves as homosexuals. There was self-deception. There was concern about acceptance from society, and that concern was ultimately shown to be justified. Letting some people know one is a homosexual can be deadly in some places. It is dangerous.

Many stories about love end in tragedy. There are parallels between Brokeback Mountain and Romeo and Juliet or The Great Gatsby. It’s the forbidden love syndrome. People try to pursue goals which will get them in trouble. They have to keep secrets, and those secrets sometimes backfire. It’s sad.

There have been homosexuals in philosophy who didn’t know how to handle it. Alan Turing was one. He was persecuted and ultimately committed suicide. The world lost a great mind.

There is a lot of hatred out there, even if one is not a homosexual. I hate it. I wouldn't mind being isolated in a mountain wilderness, as those cowboys were. It was beautiful country. However, I'd still need to have my internet connection to communicate with other people once in awhile, even if it is to be criticised and abused by jerks and faced again and again with disappointment.

bis bald,

Nick

Nick,

I don't think you will ever see the role you play in determining how people treat you and in determining how you interpret their intentions. The locus of control for our social dynamics is very much inside ourselves whether we see it, and choose to use it, or not. I don't know what you know about quantum field dynamics but the causation is the same for social dynamics. The nature and actions of the particle affects the field as a whole and, in reciprocation, the field as a whole affects the nature and actions of the particle. You tend to have a negative effect on the social field. The social field tends to reciprocate by having a negative effect on you. Just an observation and a hypothesis. We can change the effect of the social field on ourselves by changing how we act on the social field. We do not have to resign ourselves to social inefficacy as in your above statement.

Paul

Well said, Paul.

Barbara

Whatever.

I am aware that some people try to control me in various ways. They should read the "I" speech from "Anthem" or my post on Prufrock and Henley.

I am not unhappy with myself or the image I project. I'm not really bothered by other people who disapprove of me, and I do not live my life to please them.

Have a good day.

bis bald,

Nick

Fascinating how so many people have NO problem criticizing others, specifically or generically, yet show a BIG prob when they get criticized...especially about the validity or worthwhileness of their stated criticisms.

LLAP
J:D

P.S: Given this is a short missive from moi, I'll bet THIS one get's through!

P.P.S: HA! I was right!

A gay man came onto me once at one of my own openings. He liked my art, but I had to turn him down. I told him I'm into She-Males.

...but, seriously folks!

John, I don't know if you saw what I posted up in tech support about disappearing posts, but it is a good idea to copy your post before submitting it just in case things get funky.

btw - I never saw Brokeback Mountain so I won't comment on it. According to Nick everyone is a bigot anyway and he is such a victim, so I simply ignore his ramblings. He no longer posts here anyway.

Kat

This was the last thread started by this poster Nick Otani on OL. Since I have been doing some major housecleaning, I suppose I should state the reasons Otani no longer is welcome at OL and this seems to be as good a place as any to post it. He has presently found a new forum outlet that has a small audience (SOLOP) where he can bait people and bitch for a while. I predict a short stay, but maybe he has mellowed. Anyway, he likes to complain about his treatment here on OL wherever he posts (SOLOP, RoR, TAS forum, etc.). However, his version is incomplete and misleading.

Part of his game is to challenge authority wherever he goes, try to set the policies of the site owners and indirectly—or sometimes directly—accuse them (and other members) of being bigots or worse. He formally objected to the posting policies of OL and became upset when I told him, by email, to stop violating them (I even deleted a post or two). He insisted on making more infringing posts and I started deleting them and parts of them that were in violation as he made them, sending the texts back to him with explanation.

Then he went on a search and destroy mission to delete all of his OL posts going backwards in chronological order in an attempt to make hash out of the discussions he participated in. He had no automatic control for this, so he had to do it one-by-one. Fortunately, I was online at the time and was able to catch him before too many posts were deleted. Back then, neither Kat nor I had set the timing control for altering posts (we did not know we had the function). Because of this episode, we set it. Now, after a couple of days or so, posters cannot edit their posts any longer, but back then they could. So in order to stop Otani, I simply interrupted his posting privileges in mid mission.

He immediately went to RoR and went on a crusade against the unfairness of it all on OL, and me in particular (see here and here for a couple of instances among several others), so I kinda let the suspension stay in place rather than restore posting capacity after the technical solution was found. I never formally banned him. I merely stopped him from disfiguring the OL forum and let it ride because he went elsewhere and bitched up a storm (especially on the TAS forum).

Later, after Kat read some of his ranting on RoR and TAS, she deleted a few of his OL articles that had been up a while, but ones that contained no discussion. I sill have these articles on file. I am still unsure of what to do with them because they have been posted everywhere he has gone on the Internet (both before and after OL). They were part of OL's history so I don't think they should be erased (I am strongly against rewriting history), but their value and impact were practically nonexistent. I'm still thinking about this, but it is really low on my priority scale. Don't expect anything soon.

Those are the facts and they now are online for anyone interested. I don't expect I will discuss this guy much anymore in public.

Michael

~ I just finished reading your latest thread here about Pross, as well as the (latest) end of the Catfight 'twixt Mrs. Hsieh and Speicher (even had to start reading OO to keep up with it all), and now this. All I can think of is: why does anyone want to be a 'moderator'? Yeah, yeah, "to get The Message out and provide a 'public' place for like-mindeds (r-i-g-h-t!) having an interest in this msg to discuss it amongst themselves and moi." --- Prob: how to keep 'discussion' from becoming a 'flame-war.' Whew! NO, Thank you; not for me, though I was tempted to start one...once. Glad I had another drink and came to my senses.

~ Where flame-wars were once merely intra-forum, they've now become INTER-forum. Talk about Hatfields and McCoys (as I 1st pointed out on SOLO-P, before I was 'squiggly'-moderated after challenging the fickly-'objective' moderator.)

~ Gotta give ya one thing, MSK: you show a lot of 'fighting'-Toleration, (like Dagny!) and I'm still working out if it's a 'virtue.'

LLAP
J:D

Addendum:

~ Oh, about your real prob: 'deleting' (Sorry 'bout the tangent) posts, for whatever 'reasons' determined by the moderator. From what I've read, it's clear that THAT is a good rationale (rationalization)/excuse, as has been so oft used lately by too many, for some to keep a flame-war going, one way or another (as, in this case of Otani), though in their case a flame-war in terms of collective-groups, rather than one-on-one (or one-vs-'THAT group.')

~ Even apart from that aspect, in WebSite 'forums' it now appears to me a bad idea merely because of, as you say, disjointedness in understanding the rest of what's left of a kept thread. --- And even apart from that, is such really the primary stuff to dwell on re O'ism? -> "Who's the worst, most evil, most corrupt [the recently more popular denigrating 'buzz-word', I've noticed] person/group betraying O'ism?"

~ I agree about the distastefulness of it (nm the problematic above consequences.) So, what to do if not interested in a Hat-Mac continuance?

2Bcont
LLAP
J:D

John,

Pardon my French, but it is a fucking headache.

There.

That was serious, but I'm done complaining.

Michael

Addendum-II:

~ I once suggested something about 'flagging' a name with a colored asterisk/star/whatever to let other readers know that 'here' there be a problem-poster.

~ If such is beyond the forum's format (algorithmic?) capabilities, then may I suggest one (all I can think of) last thing: move (not 'delete') the post to another SPECIAL 'forum' (not to allowed for anyone to 'comment' within! Ie: 'locked') which may have varied 'sub' groups according to poster-name, and, replace the post in the original thread with a 'refer to' icon-of-some-sort.

~ The UFC (real, but diluted now) crossed with the WWE (fake, but with real accidents), and coupled with 'RealityTV' seems to be what most O'ist forums have degenerated into re fault-finding who started which perceived 'insults' to whom (including Rand and either Branden). Don't let your forum slide into that...even via threads.

GL
MTFBWY
LLAP
J:D

John,

The problem is that all kinds of things can be done, but there will always be those who seek the unearned and they find ways to get around all kinds of limitations. Anytime there is an audience, some people are simply going to show up and start playing power games and trying to hog the public attention. And some cut up in all kinds of childish manners. That's the nature of doing anything in public.

I shouldn't have complained. I knew this going in. (I have had years of experience on stage.)

We are actually doing some really good work on OL. It is turning into a wonderful reference site for several things. And, of course, there are many wonderful and intelligent posters, so ideas do get discussed on a high level.

Michael

MSK:

~ I took 2 yrs of French in high school. Barely remember distinguishing 'rouge' from 'noir.'

~ I don't remember the term 'headache.' How do you pronounce that? "eedASHeh"? (Wait a minute: that's not French!)

LLAP
J:D

PS: re your end-comment: "...there are many wonderful and intelligent posters, so ideas do get discussed on a high level": I kinda noticed that, believe it or not. Indeed, sorry to see some others elsewheres haven't shown up.

PPS: Getting back to thread's topic: haven't seen "Beast-with-2-Male-Backs Mounting" yet.