qui s'excuse
Scottie Bowman (bowman@mail.indigo.ie)
Mon, 12 Jan 1998 21:29:15 +0000
My post was, OF COURSE, intended light heartedly.
It was in response to a post in which someone using the
pseudonym `ecas' asked for advice on how best to restrain
his ego. I assumed this was a tease - since in a list devoted
to the creator of Holden Caulfield - I could not seriously imagine
it to be anything other.
Xerxes (? another pseudonym ?) then complains that I offend
him in referring to `yellow faces'. Would it help if I freely
admitted to my own being a dull, pinkish grey ? Are the
Japanese really such a tender people & their culture so
exiguous that when someone speaks of oriental rubbish they
feel crushed ? Until now, that had not been my impression
of them. When someone makes reference to the miserliness
& aggressive drunkenness of my fellow Scots, shall I be entitled
to cry `racism' ? That really does seem to me to be rubbish.
If the ethos of a mailing list places the avoidance of offense
above the wish to divert & engage then I'm obviously in the
wrong place. I wonder would J.D. Salinger - or young master
Caulfield - feel any more at home ?
Scottie B.