JUST LIKE HUMPTY DUMPTY ... fearing a great fall
Ed Conrad (edconrad@prolog.net)
3 Dec 1996 10:22:54 GMT
>George P Hrynewich <gphrynew@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote
>(to sci.bi.paleontology):
>A few days ago I posted an actual palaeontological question. I asked for
>information on Procolophons and Rauisuchids. This is to thank those of
>you who took the time to answer my queries. It is nice to see that not
>everybody here is too busy calling each other names, and slandering
>establishment etc. to help someone out.
>I must say that it does bother me to see so many people being so petty.
>There are a lot of people posting to this newsgroup, who ought to be on
>Rikki Lake or Geraldo. If you wish to plaster someone with colourful
>monikers, then please do so via private e-mail. State your views once or
>twice, take your flak, cut your losses ( or enjoy your gains) and then
>stop, until either you can provide NEW, USEFUL information on your
>subject, or you wish to express another view.
>Please, please stop peppering the majority of us with the same inane,
>comments.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By George, you're right!
I keep putting out NEW, USEFUL information about my discovery of
petrified human, hominid and animal bones; human, hominid and animal
teeth; an ax handle that has turned to coal; tusks; etc., etc. (which
I've discovered in Pennsylvania's coal region where they certainly
don't belong) and yet I continue to collect lots and lots of static
and plenty of verbal abuse.
How would you like it if you were called dimwit, low-life, moron,
imbecile and -- in the less-than-eloquent words of Paul Z. Myers of
Temple University -- ``an ungrateul pissant" and, even worse, ``one
major hypocritical asshole."
How do I face my grandchildren? What happens when they're old enough
to click on the computer? What a dreadful thought when they're old
enough to read!
By George, the kids won't understand why some folks have become so
nasty and abusive -- or why some of News Groups have begun to resemble
Monty Python and already qualify as a three-ring circus.
Maybe the kids will be figure it out when I explain that people are
writing nasty words because of their intrinsic fear that, at long
last, the very foundation of their particular discipline of science
is being subjected to long-overdue criticism in a battle where no
holds are barred.
Of course, I could explain it to the kids a lot easier by putting it
in story-book form which they'd find much easier to comprehend.
I could simply tell them that many people are annoyed and angry
because, just like Humpty Dumpty, they're scared they'll have
a great fall.
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