Your TAS Dollars at Work

[Brant Gaede]

It is not how well Will understands Perigo as how well Perigo understands Will. Since J. Valliant applauds Perigo's odyssey to TAS it is obvious Linz is the Trojan Horse to Objectivism's Troy, TAS.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You know, with all of the talk of politeness, and I think of myself as a reasonably polite guy, the one person I haven't seen a lot of politeness or courtesy to here is Ayn Rand.

Jim,

You sorely misunderstand the spirit of OL. I have tried hard to encourage those who have a love for the truth and who use their own minds to feel at home here, even when they disagree. You just made the claim that there is very little politeness or courtesy extended to Rand on OL. There are a number of problems with this:

1. It is a blatant lie, as any number of threads prove. Sure, there are some people (who speak only in their own names) who judge Rand harshly and there are others who love her. I used to think you were merely a Perigo sap taken in by him. Now I see you lying on purpose.

2. The motive behind this kind of lie is taken straight from the PARC/ARI camp. It is an attempt to control the words and actions of others through intimidation. This kind of crap will not happen on OL. I hold the right for a person to think for himself as sacred and I (and Kat) provide a platform for people of goodwill to express their thoughts, so long as I determine they are sincere and not veering off into fanaticism and cult-like crap (like what you are starting to display).

3. If you want a tribal follow-the-leader-and-worship-Rand cult, there are plenty out there, starting with SLOP. You will not find that here and you are not striking any heroic blows for Rand's honor by posting lies here about OL.

I think the highlight here for me was when there was a discussion of whether Ayn Rand admired a serial killer named Hickman when she was young.

Well she did. It's in her Journals. You should read them. I am sorry if that irritates you but there is plenty of material on record in her own hand. At least ARI did not airbrush that part out, although from your statement of irritation, I sense you would have preferred that to the truth.

The list of things I find to be annoying here could fill an encyclopedia.

Ditto about you. You are here because you want to be, not because I get particular pleasure from your presence. And as the Holy Bible says (Matthew 18:9):

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

Sound advice for Perigo people.

The people I admire on OL have both intellectual eyes (even those who disagree with me).

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

You know, with all of the talk of politeness, and I think of myself as a reasonably polite guy, the one person I haven't seen a lot of politeness or courtesy to here is Ayn Rand.

Jim,

You sorely misunderstand the spirit of OL. I have tried hard to encourage those who have a love for the truth and who use their own minds to feel at home here, even when they disagree. You just made the claim that there is very little politeness or courtesy extended to Rand on OL. There are a number of problems with this:

1. It is a blatant lie, as any number of threads prove. Sure, there are some people (who speak only in their own names) who judge Rand harshly and there are others who love her. I used to think you were merely a Perigo sap taken in by him. Now I see you lying on purpose.

2. The motive behind this kind of lie is taken straight from the PARC/ARI camp. It is an attempt to control the words and actions of others through intimidation. [....]

Michael,

That Jim's statement is blatantly wrong can be documented. [Edit: I mean the part of his statement about Rand being slighted in the politeness and courtesy department here, not the part about Jim himself being "a reasonably polite guy."] That Jim himself knows [his statement about Rand's treatment on this list is wrong] and is therefore lying can't be demonstrated -- unless you can prove that he's seen and that he's deliberately ignoring all the favorable things which have been said about Rand on this site. Can you prove that?

And even if this is one of the infrequent cases where it's possible to prove that another person is lying, that wouldn't be enough to know what his motive is.

I, too, find Jim's apparent never coming to grips with any negative facts about Rand irritating.

But it doesn't seem to me that he is lying about his feeling that Rand is demeaned on this site. He isn't the only person, you know, who feels that.

Ellen

___

Edited January 7, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

What constitutes proof of something like that to you?

Let's leave it at this. This guy gets the same crap from me that he gives. If he has some kind of so-called right to post crap on OL and insult OL members in general, I also have a right to call it crap, and dishonest crap at that.

If he doesn't like it, let him go to his comfort zone and suck-up to Perigo.

EDIT: In my humble opinion, I can see cases where he was just a sap, but recently I believe he is a big boy and knows precisely what he is doing. You are free to believe otherwise.

But it doesn't seem to me that he is lying about his feeling that Rand is demeaned on this site. He isn't the only person, you know, who feels that.

I never claimed that he was lying about his feelings. The lie is the claim that Rand is extended very little courtesy on OL. It is a factual problem and he knows it is a lie. He has read the threads honoring Rand and posted on them.

EDIT: Here's proof right off the top of my head. Rand was not only extended every courtesy possible on that thread, people gushed. Including the inconvenienced one with the encyclopedia of annoyances.

Michael,

I'd also like to thank you for a terrific report. I remember in the old days we'd try to get people to take the plunge and go to a Summer Seminar and it takes a good amount of convincing to get people to a distant Objectivist event. Reports like yours allow us to enjoy the event vicariously and also communicate to people who've never been to an Objectivist event. I'm also much more likely to attend some of TAS's shorter events in the future. I tend to like longer events because I tend not to be very sharp the first day after a travel day and I like the longer time to really get to know people.

Jim

Yep. Lie. Bare-faced.

Is that proof enough?

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

I too have heard from Will. I agree with Robert that this seems to be Will's decision.

I made no comment at the time on Jim's statement about OL treatment of Ayn Rand. I must say I don't think that everything said about on Ayn Rand is unjust. That is just not true. Just for the record I consider Ayn Rand one of the greatest people in our epoch. I think most of the people on OL would agree. She never wrote the book about the murderer.

I am still going to TAS this afternoon and will report the results.

Edited January 7, 2008 by Chris Grieb

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chris,

The following is a tangent and merely an opinion I arrived at through being an artist.

When Rand was making her notes on Hickman, she was still young, full of piss and vinegar and in her arrogant "Randroid" stage. (I happen to think she was the first Randroid in a certain manner.) She was enamored with Neitzche and questioning everything she came across. The focus of people at this age, especially if they are enormously creative and free spirits, is to think they know it all. They want to teach the world what they do not yet know. And even when they admit they don't know it, they are sure the rest of everybody, including all of recorded history, is totally wrong. They seek anything to value except what other people around them are valuing.

It's a heady time. It's also a time when being vindicated by a major philosopher on a wild ego trip carries huge emotional impact. It is blinding and it feels great. I know this feeling.

Built into this is the urge to shock people out of their complacency and be as polemical as possible—get in their faces and sneer at their pettiness. I remember loathing middle-class hypocrisy when I grew up (I still taste bile thinking about it) and I can imagine Rand feeling the same about the "girl next door" kind of mentality, especially after escaping a country built on that premise and going to hell in a handbasket.

Looking at a killer and seeing glimpses of the "ascendency" (for lack of a better word) that was surging through her would be chickenfeed in light of the certainty of that flow. The guy was a killer? So what? There was this and it made life worth living. She felt she had a mission to capture what that "this" was and put it on display for the whole world to see. The guy didn't matter. What he represented did. And if "this" came from a killer, so much the better. That would make people pay more attention and make them think more.

This is partially how I see her emotional involvement with Hickman.

Rand critics use this episode to try to paint her as a young psychotic who loved the idea of killing the helpless for the sake of killing the helpless, and possibly having no connection to reality and decency at all. This vew is false, of course. Her life is proof of that. She was grasping at something that was not clear and did become clear in baby-steps. Psychotics don't do that. Thinking people do. Rand kept working her vision over and over, refining this, getting rid of that, until she arrived at the productive heroic view we all know.

Just as I don't agree with the critics, I also don't agree with the logical pretzels the people in the orthodoxy have made to explain Rand's Hickman phase. The simple fact is that Rand knew Hickman was a despicable killer and it didn't matter on the level she was looking at. I have no doubt at all that had she come down to the level where everybody else was at, she would have roundly condemned him (as she ended up doing).

I don't really know how to convey this feeling, but I know it. Here is a try. I think each of us has moments in life where we are so involved with some thought or some act that we do not notice the simple things around us. I know that when I get like that, whether writing or explaing something important, or doing a difficult task or even making critical logical connections, someone can give me a sandwich, I will eat it and not know the next moment what I just ate. The sandwich is just not important or pertinent to what I was thinking and doing. I was in an extremely intense state. If someone nags at me to notice the sandwich at these moments, I get irritated. In the vernacular, it blows my high.

I think Rand was like this with the knowledge that the guy was a scumbag. It was an unimportant fact that she would deal with later after her story was underway, when her blinding vision of glory on earth had taken more shape.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Jim,

I also don't see how ObjectivistLiving, on the whole, is full of rudeness to Ayn Rand. How often does anyone here indulge in the invective you can see, for instance, in Greg Nyquist's book ("poor, foolish woman" and all that)?

And who here has called her any of the names that pass for routine, over in Perigo-land?

I haven't been an Objectivist (an adherent of a particular, sorely incomplete philosophical system) for quite a few years. I have been and remain an admirer of Ayn Rand.

But I don't equate giving Rand her due with worshiping her. Even less do I equate giving Rand her due with bowing down before various panjandrums who try to legitimate their status by preaching that she was perfect, and try to make a virtue out of emulating her shortcomings.

Ayn Rand would embarrass hardly any of her admirers today, were it not for the presumption that she must have been perfect. How many of those who draw on Aristotle's great legacy are embarrassed by his purported argument in favor of slavery? We point out that he wasn't perfect, he lived 2300 years ago when slavery was taken for granted, and, unlike nearly everyone else in the world at the time, he actually thought it needed a justification.

I wasn't very active on this site when the big discussion of "The Little Street" and Rand's temporary fixation on Hickman was going on. Suffice it to say that her surviving journal entries about Hickman are rather disturbing. Yet it is clear that in the end Rand thought better of it, and abandoned "The Little Street." She outgrew it. Imagine, though, that Rand had finished that book as she originally envisioned it, and then died after publishing it. How would we view her legacy today?

Michael,

I think you're being too rough on Jim here. Pointing out misremembering and ambivalence, fine. Accusing Jim of lying--I see no evidence for that. The news from TAS right now is bleak. Mr. Perigo and his cronies are crowing. But none of that is Jim's fault.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Brant,

Sorry Clemson lost to NC on that 3-pointer, but then, you weren't at the game now, were you Robert?

It's just as well I don't believe in jinxing. I watched the end of the game on TV. It seems like whenever Clemson is leading Duke or North Carolina late in the second half, the game ends up slipping away. But in this one both teams were so tired during the overtime that it really could have gone either way.

Robert

[Newberry]

Actually I do have a question you can submit to him, since I have emails from Perigo to back this up. Ask him how sending a person to sexually seduce others to get information (like he tried to do with Michael Newberry at the time) fits in with his view of an Objectivist strategy to save the world.

hahahhaha, this is news to me. I wonder which of the many seduction attempts it was?!!! (joke) I do remember one particularly annoying pest... ;)

But please, I don't want to know the details either publicly or privately. Somethings are better kept in the dark.

Michael

Edited January 7, 2008 by Newberry

[Alfonso Jones]

Jim,

I also don't see how ObjectivistLiving, on the whole, is full of rudeness to Ayn Rand. How often does anyone here indulge in the invective you can see, for instance, in Greg Nyquist's book ("poor, foolish woman" and all that)?

And who here has called her any of the names that pass for routine, over in Perigo-land?

(snip)

Robert Campbell

I certainly concur that it is a major misrepresentation to suggest that Ayn Rand is uniformly treated with rudeness and disrespect on Objectivist Living. Sample some threads at random to verify this.

Now, if Jim had said "I have read threads in which some of the participants treat Rand with rudeness and disrespect, sometimes persisting in misrepresentations of her writing even after correction (and even though they themselves admit not having read much of Rand)" then I would have had to agree. But that would be a very different claim.

So, what did Jim mean? I guess we may have to wait for him to clarify, but I think that to assume he REALLY MEANT TO SUGGEST that Rand is uniformly treated with rudeness and disrespect on OL is just unrealistic. It requires that we assume either that Jim just hasn't read many posts on OL, or that he has some severe ideological blinders on. I think it more likely that Jim meant something along the lines of my second paragraph. That at least would make sense.

Alfonso

[Philip Coates]

**civility issues, once again**

Michael,

There are errors in judgement and civility in your post #127. Ellen and Robert have pointed out some of them.

This: “a blatant lie... I see you lying on purpose... an attempt to control the words and actions of others through intimidation.” Does not help achieve this: “a platform for people of goodwill to express their thoughts”.

Nor do frequent attacks by the site owner on the character of - or expressions of withering contempt toward – some of his posters.

Moreover, with regard to this: “so long as I determine they are sincere”, do you understand the difference between someone making a MISTAKE, overstatement, or exaggeration in a post or failing to properly qualify a statement (Rand is not treated very politely or courteously), [mistakes or bad posts are made by all of us], and telling a LIE?

Jim H-N, in particular, is one of the more thoughtful and rational posters on this site.

This doesn’t help to maintain civility or an oasis for people tired of the moralistic condemnations on the other sites to repair to.

Or the attacks on people’s honesty so prevalent on those sites.

[Brant Gaede]

I have to agree with Phil on this one, Michael, not that you don't have a beef, but it needs to be cooked rare, not well done.

--Brant

[Steve Shmurak]

I also agree with Phil and Brant.

Steve

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Alright already!

So it's not a blatant lie.

It's just a run of the mill, two-faced, fuzzy-thought-out common lie.

Michael

[Jonathan]

It definitely smacks of idolatry when Objectivists get upset that people recognize that Rand had some pretty twisted opinions about the public's response to Hickman's crimes. I really don't have any gripes about a writer extracting isolated aspects of a killer's personality and contemplating how to use them in creating a heroic fictional character, but for Rand to claim that those who were outraged by Hickman were not reacting to the viciousness of his crimes, but to the fact that he dared to stand alone, borders on being delusional and is deserving of criticism.

Here are relevant paragraphs from Michael Prescott's site:

In her notes, Rand complains that poor Hickman has become the target of irrational and ugly mob psychology:

"The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal...

"This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime alone that has raised the fury of public hatred. It is the case of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been committed by one man, alone; that this man knew it was against all laws of humanity and intended that way; that he does not want to recognize it as a crime and that he feels superior to all. It is the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul."

Before we get to the meat of this statement, let us pause to consider Rand's claim that average members of the public are "beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives." Worse sins and crimes than kidnapping, murdering, and mutilating a helpless little girl? If Rand honestly believed that the average American had worse skeletons than that in his closet, then her opinion of "the average man" is even lower than I had suspected.

We get an idea of the "sins and crimes" of ordinary people when Rand discusses the jury in the case: "Average, everyday, rather stupid looking citizens. Shabbily dressed, dried, worn looking little men. Fat, overdressed, very average, 'dignified' housewives. How can they decide the fate of that boy? Or anyone's fate?"

Their sin, evidently, is that they are "average," a word that appears twice in three sentences. They are "shabbily dressed" or, conversely, "overdressed" -- in matters of fashion, Rand seems hard to please. They are "dried" and "worn," or they are "fat." They are, in short, an assault on the delicate sensibilities of the author. Anything "average" appalls her. "Extremist beyond all extreme is what we need!" she exclaims in another entry. Well, in his cruelty and psychopathic insanity, Hickman was an extremist, for sure. Nothing "average" about him!

Returning to the longer quote above, notice how briskly Rand dismisses the possibility that the public's anger might have been motivated by the crime per se. Apparently the horrendous slaying of a little girl is not enough, in Rand's mind, to justify public outrage against the murderer. No, what the public really objects to is "a daring challenge to society." I suppose this is one way of looking at Hickman's actions. By the same logic, Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy posed "a daring challenge to society." So did Adolf Hitler, only on a larger scale.

Now, of course I'm probably posting this message because I resent Rand's greatness, not because her views were nutty regarding the public's response to Hickman. But I think that my degree of Rand-hating and evil is mitigated by the fact that I strongly disagree with Pigero's accusation that Rand was a moron -- his view is that "Romantic Music Is Objectively Superior (and anyone who doesn't get it is a moron)," and, since Rand's official Objectivist Esthetics states that there is no objectively valid criterion of aesthetic judgment possible in the field of music, that our musical tastes must be treated as a subjective matter, and that no one can claim the objective superiority of his choices over the choices of others, clearly Pigero is calling Rand a moron.

Why has TAS invited such a Rand-hater to insult Rand at their seminar, and why does James Heaps-Nelson like the idea of Pigero calling Rand a moron?

J

Edited January 7, 2008 by Jonathan

[Chris Grieb]

Gene Holloway was not at TOC so no report.

It is a horrible idea to think of Ayn Rand dying after publishing the book about Hickman but it didn't happen.

Edited January 7, 2008 by Chris Grieb

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....]

Rand critics use this episode to try to paint her as a young psychotic who loved the idea of killing the helpless for the sake of killing the helpless, and possibly having no connection to reality and decency at all. This vew is false, of course. Her life is proof of that. She was grasping at something that was not clear and did become clear in baby-steps. Psychotics don't do that. Thinking people do. Rand kept working her vision over and over, refining this, getting rid of that, until she arrived at the productive heroic view we all know.

Just as I don't agree with the critics, I also don't agree with the logical pretzels the people in the orthodoxy have made to explain Rand's Hickman phase. The simple fact is that Rand knew Hickman was a despicable killer and it didn't matter on the level she was looking at. I have no doubt at all that had she come down to the level where everybody else was at, she would have roundly condemned him (as she ended up doing).

[....]

I think Rand was like this with the knowledge that the guy was a scumbag. It was an unimportant fact that she would deal with later after her story was underway, when her blinding vision of glory on earth had taken more shape.

Michael

Michael,

At the risk of deflecting further on the side-topic of Rand's attitude about Hickman, I must applaud your post attempting to project how her process went regarding the incident and her sketch for the unwritten novel. What you say is very much as I see it also.

I'll add just a couple points:

The time was February 1928; she was, as you've said, young (25), full of fire, not yet choate in her own views. Her financial circumstances were bleakly difficult; the time was that of a general financial depression. I think that many of those who would have attended the trial would have been worn-down folks looking for any kind of thrill to escape the dreariness. I expect her description of what their faces was like was pretty accurate.

Another point: The image of what Hickman represented to her, not Hickman himself, but what he represented to her, in his calm imperviousness facing the crowd gathered against him, was an image that stuck powerfully in her "image banks" and returned in both of her most mature works: The Fountainhead -- Roark at his trial -- and Atlas Shrugged -- John Galt at the 20th-Century Motorcars meeting where he rose and said he was going to put a stop to this.

I think the whole development is mighty interesting in regard to how things from life get worked into something different in the artistic process.

Ellen

___

Edited January 7, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Brant Gaede]

Ellen,

What "general financial depression"?

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen,

What "general financial depression"?

--Brant

Wasn't the general financial situation already getting bad by then, or was it later that that hapened?

Ellen

___

[James Heaps-Nelson]

**civility issues, once again**

Michael,

There are errors in judgement and civility in your post #127. Ellen and Robert have pointed out some of them.

This: “a blatant lie... I see you lying on purpose... an attempt to control the words and actions of others through intimidation.” Does not help achieve this: “a platform for people of goodwill to express their thoughts”.

Nor do frequent attacks by the site owner on the character of - or expressions of withering contempt toward – some of his posters.

Moreover, with regard to this: “so long as I determine they are sincere”, do you understand the difference between someone making a MISTAKE, overstatement, or exaggeration in a post or failing to properly qualify a statement (Rand is not treated very politely or courteously), [mistakes or bad posts are made by all of us], and telling a LIE?

Jim H-N, in particular, is one of the more thoughtful and rational posters on this site.

This doesn’t help to maintain civility or an oasis for people tired of the moralistic condemnations on the other sites to repair to.

Or the attacks on people’s honesty so prevalent on those sites.

Thanks for the good words, Phil. I'll be called worse tonight, at least this was in a language I understand

Jim

[Wolf DeVoon]

Ellen,

What "general financial depression"?

--Brant

Wasn't the general financial situation already getting bad by then, or was it later that that hapened?

Ellen

___

1930 was a bad year for investors, 31 was the start of the deflationary Great Depression.

W.

[Chris Grieb]

1928 was a pretty good year. There was fraying around the edges that started in'29. The stock market crashed in Oct of '29. Hoover ignored Mellon's advice. '30 was worse. The rest we know.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Thanks for the responses from Wolf and Chris about the financial history. Obviously, the details pertaining to the onset of the Great Depression aren't well-placed in my repository of historical info. This somewhat changes my imaginings of what AR was seeing and then imaging re the Hickman case. The crowd at the trial might not have been so downbeat as I've pictured them. I still think the general outlines, though less harsh than I imagined, are plausible as being her take on the scene.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Returning to the invitation to Linz...

Some of the folks on SOLO are reading this thread, but they probably aren't noticing Chris Grieb's Civility thread. Thus I want to cross-post here something I posted there.

Let's see if Linz says he IS planning an apology for past bad behavior and a promise to mend his ways.

Chris,

Are you saying that if Perigo advocated his views in an articulate fashion without getting angry, you would be OK with it?

Jim

Jim; That would be a great step forward.

He might also say he is sorry for some of his actions in the past. He could also promise not to name call in the future.

I think if he is sincere in all of the above actions I might attend his presentations at the Summer Seminar. Is that clear.

i believe in repentance for all. I do have "Christ" in my first name.

Chris

I think that part of the disconnect for me is that I work in a manufacturing environment. If I asked the guys that call me unprintable names to be polite, they'd laugh their asses off.

Jim

Jim,

Sometimes you really astound me with the seeming out-of-itness of things you say. A philosophy conference is not a manufacturing environment! Have you never attended a scientific conference -- which, likewise, is not a manufacturing environment? Do you think that the kind of language which Perigo makes his stock in trade would be acceptable at a scientific event?

Chris,

The plausibility of the idea of Perigo's apologizing for his past behavior and promising not to continue it, is about that of an ice cube's not melting in the Sahara. Perigo insists on his style as exhibiting "rational passion."

And a general remark, repeating something I've said already on the TAS Dollars thread:

His proposed speech about romantic music being objectively better should not be a thesis amongst the invited talks from anyone. This represents a reversion to the old days of using aesthetic response as a morals exam. It's something which should end in the O'ist world, not be accepted by a featured speaker.

And of course the sheer idea of Lindsay Perigo of all people talking about what's wrong with Objectivists...himself being one of the prime cases. Is his speech going to consist of recognizing everything of which he's been guilty? Lots of luck.

Ellen

___

Fairness in reportage: Jim replied to the above: See. I find Jim's reply "tone deaf" to the issues -- but I don't think Jim and I are going to see each other's point of view, so I'll leave it there between him and me.

Ellen

___

Edited January 8, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[william.scherk]

Michael, I think you're being too rough on Jim here. Pointing out misremembering and ambivalence, fine. Accusing Jim of lying--I see no evidence for that. The news from TAS right now is bleak. Mr. Perigo and his cronies are crowing. But none of that is Jim's fault.

I agree with toning down the jump down throats and flung "Liarrrrr!" coming from a list admin/participant/Emperor, whether Emperigo with his lashings of Pomowankero bitch liar fiend scumbag barracude yadda . . . or Michael's nasty turns from time to time. It is hard to be policeman and Emperor for Joe, Michael and Lindsay.

On the whole, Jim is a straddler, lashed both by Michael's tongue and Lindsay's cat-o-nine-tails. So my heart may lie with Jim and Michael and their blind spots (both cops on the beat for the Hands Off Rand street patrol. Indeed, Jim seems to amplify Michael's complaints if not invective regarding the evul sport of Extreme Rand Bashing). As Jim has been to the line and no further in finding moral depravity in Barbara, he exemplifies a moderate in the minefield of Randonian Wars of Succession. He's on his own Don't Slag Rand, Don't Slag Barbara fence.

But my other heart is with Ellen. The ick of revulsion at the reward given to bufoonery. The lesser ick at Jim's lack of empathy.

So, hurt and lashings and sting and regret and passion all round. Is it a circus or an intellectual movement or both? The odiously MOR RoR opinions of Jeff Perren are much more deserving of the lash, in my cynical opinion.

Blunder, Emperor Michael. My vote is with Ellen, Phil, Alonso, Robert and etc.

Fence sitting can be dangerous, Jim.

Edited January 8, 2008 by william.scherk