(urth) Lee Berman and Hotmail

[Jeff Wilson]

On 1/10/2011 8:27 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>
>> LB: Sorry for the misquote. All my fault..carelessness I think. Still I like my way of
>> quoting. WOrks best for me and avoids a lot of clutter.
>
>> Jeff Wilson: Your stated philosophy of communication is that it is primarily for the
>> convenience of the sender? As one of your receivers, I find that repugnant, insulting,
>> and exploitative, not unlike the attitudes of spammers or demonstrative racists. But as a member
>> of what is left of the first family of the Confederacy, I'm used to it, and I regret that
>> it obscures the other, more humane qualities you may have.
>
> I'm not sure I understand what you are saying Jeff. Especially about the COnfederacy family. Are there
> racial or religious issues I am unaware of?[...]

> Perhaps the confusion is in my use of the vernacular "works for me". This does not imply convenience
> on my part.  It is actually more trouble for me to type out people's name, eschew email addresses and
> cut and past only the specific parts of a post I am addressing. I do it for what I perceive as clarity.
> Again I apologize for the mistaken attribution but I don't want to add clutter to my posts just to avoid
> the occcasional error such as that. If it really did cause pain I'm sorry. (not to imply that I have any
> humane qualities, let's not go TOO far! You're gonna ruin my reputation with that crap)

The Confederacy reference is to establish that I am very familiar with 
people that cannot or choose not to consider how what they have to say 
will be received by the person whom they address.  The N-word, negro, 
and colored are in their ears a series of ascending terms from contempt 
through indifference to regard for a black person but while most black 
people today seem to prefer being called "black", my relatives have make 
it plain to me that the only reason they use "black" is to avoid 
offending *white* people who might overhear and complain.

I am glad to hear this is not the sort of thing you intended to convey, 
but I don't see how the commonly understood meaning of "[It] works best 
for me" is supposed to be a constructive way of saying that.

> Am I being told to drop what works for me and start using
> what works for Jeff Wilson? I really am confused here.

I am asking you to consider moving toward what will work better for the 
majority of the dozen or so active list members, including me, even if 
it is more effort for the single person of your self, since this 
discussion list is alleged to be a mutually useful undertaking. I 
believe that there is good possibility that you can find an arrangement 
that will be less effort for you to meaningfully send *and* less effort 
for the receivers to understand and in the interests of mutual gain, I 
am willing to invest some additional effort to help you get there.

This is an effort not just on the level of post formatting and 
composition, but also on the methodology of presenting your hypotheses 
of interpretation. I think there very well could be some truth to the 
Dionysian notions you have on the BOTNS, for instance, but it's not 
enough to be right, one needs to be convincing or one risks making not 
only no progress but negative progress by discrediting the right answer 
by association.

I realize I am asking a lot for someone to modify their years-ingrained 
habits. But I think it's more likely for one person to toe the line of 
mutual agreement than to expect the rest to mutually agree to move the 
line at the one person's pleasure. Unless it's a cult thing, I guess.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >