List future

[Craig Bleakley]

I write to remind us that this list is comprised of thinking, feeling
people, who, if they're anything like me, and whatever their real or
imagined faults, would prefer not to be flayed in (cyber-)public.  Because
of the technology and space involved, some of us may slide into a frame of
mind that our words are somehow seperate from us, that when we write
something a little heated, we are merely sending words out to do battle with
the words of others.  But it doesn't work that way--check out the "kill the
police commissioner" graffiti in GR.

I'm not exactly a decorum freak but the primary purpose of a growing number
of posts here is to be spiteful.  I'm also somehow reminded of the verbal
barrages preceeding many World Wrestling Federation matches.  I expected better.

"Use the delete key" is fine advice.  But when several people with a keen
interest in Pynchon seriously consider unsubscribing from the Pyn-list,
something is wrong.  If the rebuttal is "if you can't stand the heat, get
out of the kitchen," I counter-propose this: I didn't subscribe to a kitchen.

If we must pick on someone, I propose that we as group decide upon whom to
inflict our wrath, and that it be a group rather than an individual.  My
Nominnee?  Those filthy stinkin Laplanders.

A-and, if the list becomes moderated, and the moderater is an adult, does it
then become an adulterated list? ("Yah," yells some nameless drunk from the
back, "what if Castro becomes the moderator?").

Sorry.  The unfamilliar moral high ground gives me vertigo and quickly makes
me dizzy.

Craig Bleakley,
Sensitive Guy