Re: lead, kindly light...

erespess@inil.com
Sat, 07 Aug 1999 08:55:05 -0400

>    But if I'M exasperated by posts with remorselessly lower case
>    sentences & the practice strikes me as an affectation employed
>    only by unoriginal & self-congratulatory writers how do I express
>    this exasperation without being 'personal' about those who *do*
>    employ it?  Anti-semitism bad, sloppy writing all right, right?

gee scottie, i really wonder if you might need to talk to someone about
your obsession with the inappropriateness of lower case letters at the
beginning of sentences and proper nouns.  you don't like it.  we know that.
consider your exasperation expressed.  you've made it abundantly clear,
expressing your feelings at every possible moment, whether it relates to
the conversation or not.  it seems as if you can't post without dropping
little hints about it.  what would freud say about this?

if you don't like my posts, don't read them.  filter them out, and you
won't even have to know of their existence.  i don't have a problem with
the way i type informal mail.  if there are others on the list who also
neglet their capitals, i am not aware of them.  i am not a writer, and have
never claimed to be.  the writing i do is largely confined to grocery lists
and phone numbers on scraps of paper, email to friends, and posts on this
list.

>    Anyway, why all this demand for kindness?   It's frightfully bad
>    for one.   The soul strengthens & flourishes in a chill climate.
>    I'm sure my own cheerful equanimity is largely thanks to all
>    the unkind treatment I've received over the years - not least
>    on this list.  I'm endlessly grateful.

thank you for your concern for my soul.  i greatly appreciate the
consideration and i will be forever in your debt, except that if God is
anything like you, i will be damned to hell for my typing despite your
efforts.  as for people's demands for kindness, if nothing else it might
make you feel a little better.  but i see no reason to argue with you about
the benefits of it.  as a matter of fact, i haven't argued about it.  after
my first message or two to you, i dropped it.  i have continued to respond
to posts from you that i felt i had something to say about.  otherwise i
leave you alone.

>    Do we really want the primary consideration
>    of the list to be a pernickety care for the sensibilities of
>    the most delicate, the most touchy, the most 'correct'?
>    (Because I suspect you were really smarting from my mockery
>    of your finding 'Star Wars' racist.)

on the contrary, i think the coddling on this list is not to those who
might be sensitive or touchy.  i think you,scottie, are being coddled.  how
does it feel?  no one is now asking you to take your greivances with me
off-line.  in fact it seems most people feel that it is completely
acceptable for you to berate the capitalizationally challenged 8) publicly,
while those who might suggest to you a different tone (perfectly fair
turnabout, given your tendency to offer your suggestions to others) are put
on the defensive.   you are the one who cannot take criticism, assuming
colin would find fault with your behavior only because he was lashing out
after having his feelings hurt in stead of having a legitimate complaint.

whatever.  if this is the kind of list we have so be it.  i can't make
scottie be nice.  he can't make me capitalize.  i beleive we have reached
an impass.

elizabeth