Well, Eva was chosen by her parents, (her mom’s my sister), Mara was chosen by me, and Emma was chosen by her godfather, her daddy’s brother
thanks for the compliment, I’ll pass it on
I’m in a similar situation. My uncle is very anti-war. His emails go way past the whole conspiracy theory in his diatribes.
When I get an email from him, I quickly see if it is a joke or personal email. If not, DELETE. I don’t read another word or give it another thought.
Good luck.
Welcome. I’m tired of hearing opinions about the war, it does get extremely annoying. Do people really think that they have original ideas about this? Some do, but not the ones who email en mass.
Update: I am reproducing today’s exchange, in hopes that maybe y’all will understand why this guy annoys the crap out of me…and why sometimes dogged persistence will not help a guy get laid. Really, it won’t. (His annoying multiple daily e-mails have continued, by the way.)
[forwarded e-mail from Pain in the Ass (hereafter PITA)]:
Have you heard that Jacques-Fuck Chirac said that French people are elated by Saddam’s ouster???
[I’m not sure of **PITA’s** original source, and I have no patience to waste any more time on him, so I’ve snipped most of the article]
Look at this:
“We have got to rein in the hardline policy of Chirac and (foreign minister) de Villepin,” said Claude Goasguen, who is a member of the president’s Union for Popular Majority (UMP) party. “It is time for French diplomacy to moderate the violence of some of its remarks towards the Americans and to reconsider some of the staggering and uncontrolled statements it has made,” he said.
From the French’s President website:
US victory places France in awkward spot
PARIS, April 10 (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday welcomed the collapse of the regime of Saddam Hussein, but the clear success of the US-led invasion of Iraq leaves the leader of the pre-war “peace” camp in a highly exposed international position. Despite insisting from the start that the war is illegal because unsanctioned by the United Nations, Chirac could not avoid hailing its outcome – the collapse of a universally-reviled dictator – and his statement sought to place France clearly on the side of the victors.
“France, like all democracies, is delighted at the fall of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and hopes for a quick and effective end to the fighting,” Chirac’s office quoted him as saying.
But the damage to France’s relations with Washington is already so severe
that gestures of this nature are unlikely to receive anything more than
scorn on the other side of the Atlantic.
The US accuses France of giving succour to Saddam Hussein by blocking UN authorisation for its offensive; it was angry at Paris’s refusal to say unequivocally that it wanted an allied victory; and it regards Chirac’s ceaseless insistence on a “central” role for the UN as effrontery.
Relations are not so bad with the other major combattant – Britain –
Which largely shares France’s desire for UN involvement in post-war Iraq, but there too it will be a long time before the contempt with which Chirac’s name has been bandied about is forgotten.
[very large section of forwarded article deleted]
My response:
PITA,
I give up. If you want, you can consider that you and the right-wingers have won; I really don’t care.
I think Bush has been ridiculously short-sighted; you obviously don’t. It will be a good 50 years or so, at a bare minimum, before it makes any sense to judge whether the U.S. and/or the French have acted correctly in this situation, and there is no point in this stupid name-calling.
All you are accomplishing when you forward me these articles on the Middle East situation is giving me a splitting headache, and I simply don’t have the time to address them in enough detail to be useful. Please stop.
PITA’s response to my response [spelling and other obvious mistakes left unedited, so y’all can appreciate the true flavor of the original]:
**Eva, **,
Thank you for letting me know. I stop.
Unlike for you, for me it’s not about win/loose. It’s about finding what’s correct, what’s make sense, what ultimately saves lives. Remember how you (and most of my liberal friends) were saying that Israel’s policies against terrorism do not work? Now when the atacks went from few a day to one in a few months, would any of you guys have courage to admit?
I agree with you that only time will show. However, the telling thing is that you somehow do not consider that in 50 years you may actually realize that Bush was right. As, for example, Kerensky would have been right by shooting 1000 poorly armed Bolsheviks. He did not. 20 million innocent civilians, including my grandfather, died in peaceful times. Would you ever say that Kerensky was wrong? Or, paraphrasing my professor of accounting, is liberals only ever right or otherwise “get headache and don’t want to discuss?”
As of splitting headache, I am concerned.
Hope you feel better!
P.S. Another very interesting thing is your reaction to the article from the French President website!
My retort to PITA:
You just had to get in the last word, didn’t you, even after I politely asked you to stop?
PITA,, it’s not about the “courage to admit” anything. Believe me, If I am wrong about Iraq when I look back 50 years from now, I will freely admit it. Can’t you just manage somehow to agree to disagree?
Also, not all liberals share 100% of the same opinions, nor do all conservatives; neither group is right 100% of the time. Why can’t you seem to comprehend that you and I can toss historical examples back and forth ad nauseam, and it still won’t resolve anything? (That was a rhetorical question, by the way; I don’t at all expect you to answer it.)
Really, it has nothing to do with me admitting whether I was wrong. It has to do with the fact that I have a job, and therefore limited time to debate this stuff, especially with someone who constantly refuses to concede the smallest factual point, even in the face of overwhelming conflicting information.
The whole Middle East situation gets me very upset. I have my cousin in the fucking middle of Baghdad right now, and I can’t even watch his reports on TV because it gets me too upset. I’ve really made a concerted effort to keep away from the blow-by-blow news coverage at all, especially TV coverage, so when I see your messages pop up on my screen as I’m trying to work, they get me upset and ruin my concentration. That’s why I have a headache.
If you really want me to feel better, then stop forwarding me this stuff. If you really feel that strongly about it, then fine, knock yourself out in some constructive way; just leave me out of it.
Enough…I have to get some work done now.
** Eva Luna**
Eva, I understand your frustration but I think there is a better way. Whether you realize it or not, any response you give is an encouragement to a person like that and the most effective discouragement is silence. Just ignore a few emails and they will slowly stop coming. If you do not want to totally ignore them, then after a few you can respond but ignore totally the substance of his messages. Don’t bite. Just say something like “I am sorry I do not have time to write much” and “please restrict your use of this email address to the minimum as it is a work account and I prefer to use it that way”. Don’t take the hook of addressing the substance of the matter and he will soon get tired. There is nothing more discouraging than no response.
Well, I’ve historically ignored probably 95% of his e-mails anyway. Ignoring things that upset me has never been one of my strong suits, but in his case it doesn’t even work very well.
Eva, you need to use the Lotus Notes function called Delete. Really… you see his name, hover your finger over the delete key while reading the subject line. If it appears war related or political, Delete, F9, it’s GONE, baby!
If it appears neutral, open it, but keep that finger ready for an emergency trashing. Note that the Esc key will close an email instantly, just in case it was camoflaged.
Just because he sends you this crap, doesn’t mean you have to read it. Work on this skill, it will reduce your stress level immensely. Don’t argue, ignore.