Response

[Pepi Plowman]

Yegads, this is getting way out of hand!

I’m not sure if it’s simply testosterone, or the dog
days of August, but all this bickering and back and
forth heckling is for the birds! Like, if you want to
fight, fight, but not at everyone else’s expense! 

What’s truly amazing to me is that everyone finds
fault with everyone—-there doesn’t seem to be any
recognizable thread, other than that folks tend to get
on each other’s nerves—-the “he’s just an asshole”
syndrome.   So what else is new?!  Is it like, when in
doubt, diss? Can’t we aspire to greater heights as
humans in allowing each other our little
eccentricities?  When it gets hot, go inside! Level
out the bumps and dents with some sane activity, and
the recognition that now is now, but not forever. 
Otherwise the dishes would never get done!

And cleaning out the pot isn’t such a bad thing to do,
both literally and figuratively, on occasion.  Get it
out, let it hang—-better than rank hypocrisy.  But
this constant altercation is wearing on the nerves.  

For starters, I’m not really interested in other
people’s fights, unless I consider them worthy of my
advocacy.  Generally, those are people who can’t stand
up for themselves and could use my help.  In your
cases, I feel you are adequately secure on your turf
(relative to many) as educated humans to enable you to
articulate with intelligence what you feel.  Yet there
is so much willingness to offend and to be offended!
C’mon!

Mike, you remind me of Don Quixote, fighting
windmills! You want to pick a fight whether there’s
one there or not! Is this a late midlife crisis, or
what?  You send a blip out of the blue talking about
how you were insulted by an e-mail sent by Jim Strong,
but you don’t forward the e-mail.  There’s no way to
know what Jim meant without seeing it, albeit he
rightly figured it was personal.  You seek to elicit
sympathy and outrage for overt hostilities directed at
you (you poor thing), yet I’ve seen you give as good
as you get! And you’re not the only one engaged in
this strife! Others on the list routinely find fault
with each other as though it were their only chance to
tell it like it is, but come back just because they
like to see themselves talk.  Is this all life is
about? Fighting??!!! Perhaps what we really seek is
reconciliation and the only way to do it is to pick a
fight.

Or perhaps we could read with equanimity each others'
posts and stay the course whether we agreed with each
other or not.  The amazing thing about the Ghetto list
is that people are COMMUNICATING

In any case, all this talk about ethnicism and racism
is just that—talk.  The truth is in the pudding, and
you’ll know that when you taste it.  But you, Mike, 
imagine it.  You see a shadow behind every post.  Many
of those shadows are just that--figments induced by an
imaginative perception.  Perhaps we don’t control
every aspect of our reality, but our attitude pretty
much defines how we react to it.  We’ve been dealing
with people through e-mails as entities out in the
ether, on a not-so-real band of reality.  There is a
screen of insubstantiality in e-mails, unlike the
snail mail.  It’s as though you’ve got the radio on
and there’s a persistent hum of people’s minds making
their gerbil rounds in their cages.  Perhaps we all
need to come back into the world of human beings! 
   
And for your information, Mike, and perhaps to bring
you back up or down from whatever perch you’re
occupying, you are not a constant subject on the G2
list, other than as an occasional forward from “your”
list.  Know this from a perennial lurker.  You are
developing paranoid conceptualizations, as ever, as
you enumerate at length friends and acquaintances in
consideration of their possible view of you.  Get
real! Unless they have a lot of time on their hands
(which some of them may, lucky them), they don’t have
time to think about you! Come home, E.T., come home!

Pepi

--- Wayne Johnson <cadaobh@shentel.net> wrote:

> Let it be said once again, for all and any who might
> be interested, that I
> am a firm believer in the idea or concept of Jewish
> Sovereignty in their
> historic homeland.  Just as in this country, there
> are those who hold
> extremely conservative and/or racist views.  It goes
> without saying that
> there must be an incredible test of goodwill and
> patience for anyone living
> in Israel these days to *not* develop a simmering
> hatred for all things
> Arabic or Palestinian.  How would I resist this?  I
> do not know.
> Nevertheless, there are many who do and who try,
> within the legal means left
> to them, to ameliorate the extreme policies of the
> Likkud and others with a
> narrow (and possibly racist) view of Palestinian
> rights.  This is a sad, sad
> situation because they too have a right to a "home
> land".  Sadder still, in
> my opinion, is the way these poor (literally and
> figuratively) people have
> become pawns in Arabic (read oil) politics.  The
> richers "kingdoms" have
> spent next to nothing on these people and that is
> shameful beyond words.  So
> much for "Arab Unity" a phrase, even T.E. Lawrence
> learned was oxymoronic.
> 
> For those with any lingering doubts, I will state
> yet again my loathing for
> all things anti-Semitic.  It is with the gravest
> sorrow that I learn how
> many Jewish patrons and politicians and back-stage
> manipulators are immersed
> in the wretchedly run U.S. State Department.  I am,
> of course, referring to
> Perle and Wolfowitz.  However, in the next breath,
> it must be noted that
> there are a prominent number of African-Americans
> with equally loathsome
> political leanings: Rice, Thomas and Powell.   And
> so it goes.  Sometimes a
> Chinese or Korean spokesperson chimes in with the
> latest American Facist
> cant.  No group is immune from the personal
> ambitions or greed or poor
> character of its citizens....especially when they
> become "politicians."  The
> Kennedy family was roundly hated in Boston, even by
> other Irish Catholic
> Democratic voters because of their heavy-handedness
> and lust for power.  As
> I said, every basket seems to have some bad apples.
> 
> Now.  As for Jon's wife, whom I have never
> met....although Honor and I did
> have a brief dinner meeting with Jon once in Palo
> Alto some years ago,  I
> would never wittingly hurt, insult, defame or want
> to cause her any grief or
> embaressment.  (Well, unless she was an ardent
> Cheney supporter....then????)
> Jon is correct in defending her.  I would do the
> same.  Have done the same.
> I wouldn't expect a physical dust-up over anything
> that passed between Jon
> and myself, but should one or the other insult the
> other's wife, well
> then.........a man's got to do what a man should do.
> 
> I am pleased that Mike understands my often wierd
> reactions but then our
> mutual wierdness goes back a long way.  It is safe
> to say, that from time to
> time, both of us can be major pains in the ass (pain
> in the asses?) but that
> we have some redeeming qualities.  All of us do. 
> Jon, whom I have grown to
> dislike (for personal grieveances) contributed to
> one of the SF Bay's best
> literary (poetry) ventures.  He can write a damn
> good poem and many times
> his comments and observations are droll, funny and
> quite on the mark.  I
> understand how he can take umbrage with some of the
> things Gerry says.
> Heaven knows, I do too.  Jon thinks I am a Jerk;
> Gerry thinks I am a Fool.
> Fontaine thinks I am some kind of childish
> gunslinger.  Jeff thought and may
> still think that I am a bore or boor.  So it goes.
> 
> But gee, all I ever really wanted was to be the
> Class Clown.
> 
> Sigh.
> 
> wayneJ
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Eisenstadt" <michaele@HotPOP.com>
> To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
> Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 10:34 AM
> Subject: Re: I had told Jim Strong that he was full
> of it but the expression
> seemed so anodyne and unlikely to give offense
> 
> 
> >
> > Jon Ford wrote:
> >
> > > Wayne and Gerry: Since you don't read my posts,
> I can feel free to call
> > you
> > > a couple of jerks. Cowards too. If Mike got such
> an email as he
> describes
> > > here, insulting his wife, etc., he would clearly
> have a right to be
> upset.
> > > The cowards on the Jim Strong list consistently
> insult Mike behind his
> > back,
> > > calling him insane, etc. I used to think Mike
> was a bit rash, but he
> > > certainly is no more vicious, belittling, and
> wacko than you two!
> >
> > Jon,
> >
> > Thanks for defending me. But I don't think you
> have ever
> > even met Wayne Johnson and may never have met
> Gerry
> > Storm likewise.
> >
> > Wayne is an old and dear and respectful friend of
> mine
> > and my wife and his fictional "explanations" or
> spoofs of
> > me and other things are consistently amusing. As
> for
> > how heavy handed he has been in speaking of me in
> > a forum to which I am not subscribed, I doubt that
> it is
> > much different from the way he writes when he
> knows
> > I will read it.
> >
> > Jim Baldauf was introduced to ghettoites by Roger.
> > Once he forgot himself and was rather nasty about
> > me in a spoof posted to agl where I could read it.
> > When I wrote to him off list in remonstrance, he
> > apologized profusely. So I can well imagine that
> > he let's himself go full tilt on Jim Strong's
> doppelgaenger
> > maillist ghetto2. I've met him a few times at
> reunions
> > and face to face he has been unfailingly polite.
> If
> > that's not the case behind my back, well it's a
> free
> > country.
> >
> > I did not know Gerry very well at all but we were
> > fellow patrons of Fletcher Boone's Raw Deal, that
> > being the west Sixth street branch of Fletcher's
> > bar empire. If he laughs at Wayne's revelation of
> > the LEGUME conspiracy, he may well. I did. I don't
> > remember him ever taking up cudgels against
> > one of my viewpoints on agl. Some subscribers
> > gave him a hard enough time so as to drive him
> > away for awhile but eventually he came back.
> > I miss his vivid descriptions of events in the
> back
> > country in New Mexico which he used to post here,
> > I dont miss his advice what diet and drug regimen
> > everyone should follow which advice no doubt he is
> > dispensing without a license on JSDGMLG2.
> >
> > I dont know if Gerry has been speaking bad of me
> > behind my back. Maybe, maybe not.
> >
> > As for Jim Strong, Simmons, Ted Samsel, they
> > really REALLY do not like me one little bit.
> Likewise
> > Fontaine which I think may have something to do
> > with my having been taken to California by her
> > mother Terrelita in 1983 and what a trip that was!
> >
> > And Jon, as for your posts being blocked by
> > other subscribers, this may have been threatened
> > but it is hard to do with maillists, since your
> mail
> > comes from the maillist's address, not yours.
> > Depends on how the maillist is set up.
> >
> > Mike
> >
> 
=== message truncated ===



	
		
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