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Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 2009 06:56:56 -0400
Reply-To:     David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Re: PLEASE READ -- MOD Re: Fryeday threads
Comments: To: Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Comments: cc: BenT Syncro <syncro@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To:  <6e95da690909010306r22014447xe31a7e91f7f153a4@mail.gmail.co m>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 06:06 AM 9/1/2009, Joy Hecht wrote: >I didn't object to it being closed, but having originated it, it was no more >political than if I'd posted about the death of a family member. It was >very much an expression of sadness to a community of friends, Friday or no >Friday.

Hi Joy -- I understand what you're saying. The trouble is that half your friends think the man walked on water, half of them spit when they hear his name and so forth, and so it's intrinsically and inescapably political even though you don't want it to be; and discussing politics and politicians is often divisive and nasty, and people forget to be civil and say things that they certainly ought to be ashamed of later but often aren't.

So therefor since we are a list that values civility very highly, we simply don't talk about politics, ever (or sex, or religion, for the same reason).

Every once in a while a statesman comes along who is so respected that even his enemies will say "A great man died today we have suffered a great loss," but it's pretty rare, and this certainly wasn't one of those times.

I understand that you grieve for the man and had no political ax to grind at the time; but in a group of 800 people *someone* is going to pick it up and run with it and then it gets ugly very quickly. I happened to be looking when you posted and I didn't say anything because it was almost midnight. John's post made me wince a little bit but I let it pass; but when Karl posted I knew that the cat was among the pigeons for sure, so I officially shut it down because even though Karl's post had nothing to do with Mr. Kennedy some people would be guaranteed not to think so.

Do you understand?

Cheers, David

-- David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/ '89 Po' White Star "Scamp"


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