A note for some posters here, present or not (long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

sigh

IMO, this WTC/Terrorism thing is really getting out of hand. There are at least three posters who I regularly communicate with on the boards who are deliberately not here or have deliberately removed themselves from the current WTC/Terrorism threads.

There are a series of schisms appearing, with sides being taken. It never seems to be exactly clear which side I am on, but for some reason I can always ferret out which side my opponents are on. :rolleyes: I am not alone in this, as recent pit threads have demonstrated.

We’re not debating much, it seems, but trying to box opponents into opinions we make for them. GD (and the pit) is turing into a giant fucking cornfield full of strawmen, with posters saying “that’s a strawman, I didn’t say that!” and then proceeding to build one for their current opponent.

Well, I’m not leaving the boards over this. But I am going to state my new intentions. I’m not going to the pit over the WTC incident and its implications anymore. Tempers are high enough, and fuses short enough, already for me to make things any more viscious in the pit. I am also not going to directly attack posters’ comments, as this super-complicated topic is too large to grasp by critiquing individual comments.

I am simply going to ask you all, if ew meet in GD, to clarify your position on points I seem to be unclear on. That is it. If I see something that seems to be in error, I will show you why I think so, and then ask you if you agree.

If not, I will drop it.

I’ve made too many friends and have too much respect for so many posters here to let this incident get in the way of what should otherwise be civil debate on an interesting and pressing topic.

some specific posters I would like to address, but the list is by no means exhaustive:

jshore, I have been a dutiful reader of your pretty sound economic arguments. You are normally far less agressive than I have seen you be lately. I want to return to that. We are both normally not very hostile people. This is no good reason to change that. I will see you outside of the pit.

xenophon, dunno if you are still reading the boards, but you know my feelings about you. Those haven’t changed. I’ll see you in GD again, my friend.

Spiritus, as corny as it sounds you are one of my two favorite posters and your presence is something that I am sorely missing right now. We’ve often haggled on more abstract topics, and your personal insight in this one is sorely missed by me. Your clear demonstrations of opinion have always been a guiding light toward being able to calmly debate topics that can have personal reprocussions, and have definitely made me rethink a hell of a lot of things (unfortunately sometimes at the expense of your patience ;)). Your absence here is not without due cause, and it-- among other things-- is seriously making me reconsider debating this topic at all.

kabbes, my friend, I know you stopped in for the IRA thread and left it at that. Perhaps I should have taken the same initiative. Your perspective is always fresh and honest, and I sorely miss it in these trying times.

Olentzero, there’s a dichotomy between us that is normally amusing to me, but lately it has personally taken a more serious tone. I don’t like that, (I don’t think it is necessarily reciprocated, though) so I’m going to say that I do respect your opinion even though I cannot-- for the life of me-- get my mind around it. I am going to work on non-aggressively asking for more thorough explanations of it, and if we agree to disagree then that, as they say, is that.

Guinastasia, if I have to listen to you say one more thing about Central America I am going to demand that you give me your general perspective on it in its own thread. handy you ain’t. I like your input, and these recent drive-by’s have been cheating yourself, I think.

I want to tell Kimstu and collounsbury that I am also missing their perspectives (I know kimstu has had some other things that were a bit more pressing, so I understand-- dunno about c tho :().

This list isn’t exhaustive, and anyone involved as of late in debating about the WTC just know that similar things apply. I can’t ramble on forever about all the people I respect on these boards and still have people read the damn thread ! :wink:

Everyone, I am seriously realizing how much I love the SDMB community, and the feuds that are even still developing are really making me realize how much I don’t want it to get fucked up because we are misrepresenting each other, attacking each other, and otherwise making a mess of this. We are a community of fucking interesting people, and I’ve been subjected to perspectives here that I don’t know I could get anywhere else. I don’t want to piss anyone else off over this… and I – I don’t want to be pissed off anymore over this.

Your,
~erl

2

Thanks for saying this, Eris. As I expressed to a few of these people privately, I feel the same way.

3

You bet your ass it isn’t you son of a bitch. If you aren’t going to mention me BY NAME INSTEAD OR IMPLICATION then I will meet you in the PIT! :wink:

Yeah, I’m pretty sick of it, too. If dlgirl (Ask The Horny Virgin) weren’t young enough to be my daughter I’d be over there hitting on her.

4

I never get included in these things. :frowning:

stoid
making some worm stew

5

Just a note to say that Kabbes is travelling around Europe for the next month or so and then is moving house directly afterwards, so his absence is explainable in other terms.

6

Awww!

{{{{{Stoid}}}}}

Chin up! You know perfectly well that we hated you BEFORE 9/11 and the events of the past couple weeks aren’t going to change that! :wink:

7

Kabbes is a ** he? ** :eek:

8

Errr… thanks, ** drop **, I feel ever so much better now. :wally:

9

Just tryin’ to help!

Real Virtual Hug: {{{{{Stoid}}}}}

10

:smiley: I just knew I was gonna get a ribbing from people for not naming them. LOL

I hope it is clear that I like and respect a ton of dopers here, even if I only named a smattering. “We’re good people!” :slight_smile: :slight_smile: [sub][sup](actually, I don’t mention some because I’m not sure they really think of me when they think of SDMB posters :eek: I don’t leave GD much)[/sup][/sub]

I’m not big on the hug thing, but I can pass a :wink: Stoid’s way.

dropzone deserves the spanking machine for his first post, hahaha.

Props to Cranky :slight_smile:

11

Hey! My first RVH!

Well, then I guess it’s only polite…

{{{ ** dropzone ** }}}
And ** Eris,** I hope you don’t mind that we’ve hijacked your thread into silliness. For my own part, I’ve been trying to spread PLU (peace, love and understanding) since the 11th, with a few small sidetracks that I have tried to make it a point not to pursue into an angry place. ( I had to work out SOME anger, though, so I let myself cut loose on Dr.Laura instead. )

The whole thing has just been way too real, too painful, and too important for me to allow myself to get into shouting matches about it. Knowing full well that it is in exercise in frustration, I have elected not to abuse myself any more than the situation has abused me, and just keep my damn mouth (mostly) shut for now, and focus on what really matters. Which certainly isn’t trying to convince my fellow Dopers of how wrong they are.

At least, not today. :wink:
stoid

12

Thanks for your post, ERL. I agree that we should try to keep it more civil. And, after I exploded a bit in a thread of Scylla’s a couple nights ago (although I don’t think I meant what I said as harshly as it seemed to sound to some), I have resolved to try to be more civil, at least among us. (I did have fairly harsh words in xeno’s Pit Thread for that Michael Kelly fellow that Milo linked to because I really think Kelly deserved them for his hateful and imflammatory rhetoric.)

At any rate, I’ve got a busy weekend here, so I am not sure I will be posting much in the next few days. But see ya in a few.

J

13

Works for me. I agree the dichotomy has taken a more serious tone - I’d be surprised if it didn’t because of such an event as this - but as I remember it our differences haven’t spilled over into serious personal acrimony. Which is absolutely cool with me.

14

Sorry, erislover, I didn’t get a chance to check out your link till this morning.

I came in late to the Pit thread and I think I’ve somehow managed to avoid the more acrimonious “great debates.” But things may not be as bad as they appear. I actually offered to kiss Milossarian in the Pit thread and he hasn’t yet taken up my offer. :frowning:

15

I missed that! Where did you offer to kiss Milo?

16

I think it’s still the very last post on xeno’s Pit thread, though possibly no longer on the first page. It follows a long reply to Jodi so maybe Milo himself hasn’t even seen it.

17

I havent been posting much…

I dont know that I have a right to.

I am not American, and you all seem to be in this huge club of emotional distress. I feel really bad about what happened. I cried many times while watching the news, but I dont have nighmares about it, I dont really think about it when I am not watching the news. Its not my whole life.

I just feel like I have no right to be here anymore, I miss being able to talk about regular stuff. I dont even like to complain about anything,because when you compare my troubles to the WTC, they are trivial.

I think this Bin Laden guy succeeded in bringing the states to its collective knees…it the cross section here is any indication, the country is crippled in its greif, emotionally broken.

He must be giggling himself to sleep every night. Sad.

18

Collounsbury posted shortly after the attack that was back in the States, briefly, for a visit, had a lot of stuff to deal with, and would be retiring from the MB. (I don’t recall that he indicated a permanent or temporary absence.)

(He also seemed to imply that his family might have suffered directly from the WTC attack, but I can’t find the post, so I may have read more into that than I should have.)

Kelli, look around. There is more going on, here, than responses to terrorism. Certainly, it was the event, but if we let it dominate our entire lives, bin Laden wins, so we have already begun carping about other issues, goofing on each other and acting silly, and griping about people/posters we dislike.

Stick around. We’re getting back to “normal.” (As if we could be normal.)

19

Yeah, I’ve been posting more in the last month or so than I have for a long time, and hardly any of it is WTC-related. There are many many non-terrorism discussions going on, although I admit that especially at first there, the number of threads that were about terrorism were pretty overwhelming.

But we can talk about other things! We can! I promise! :slight_smile:

20

kelli, don’t you dare! These guys are not going to move us off of our center. That includes you.

Look, you might see more of the greiving and discussion and whatnot on the SD in part because that is the way this online community works. But rest assured that we are getting on with our lives, and you should too.

This thing isn’t my whole life, either. I went to a funeral this morning, but tomorrow I’m going to a wedding! And on Monday, I’m going to see the Jets lose to the horrible 49ers.

I’ll be bringing a sign thanking the SFFD for sending out a search and rescue team, but I’m there to watch the game.

You have every right to be here. Now go start an oral sex thread or something! :wink: