GRGR 31 Shit'n'Shinola

[Paul Mackin]

About misunderstandings, misquotings, misrepresentations, it's good to
remember that mailing lists are a fairly new medium that we are all
still just getting used to. They are good in that they are like
traditional publishing and of course we must all publish or
perish. However they are completely unlike the traditional process of
getting your ideas out to an audience in that they are FREE in both the
monetary sense and in the sense of being free from silly things like
having to answer to a stodgy old editor and publisher who has a
repudation and a considerable investment to protect. This type freedom is
all to the good  so long as we don't confuse the two essentially different
processes and don't worry too much about now and then (probably more
often than not) being misunderstood or misquoted or 
misinterpreted--that we accept this sort of eventuality as something that
just goes with this new territory. Although it may sometimes be hard I
firmly believe most graceful thing to do when such happens is to just
restate the idea. To twist slightly Cole Porter's (or was it Noel 
Coward) rule: Explain but never complain.

The original was: Never explain, never complain. This would be the ideal
but is not for us mortals.

			P.