NP: WILD ROVERS

(P.S. Please excuse my excess of high spirits ... let's just say the last few days have been VERY good to me, and the rest of the week looks even better ... even Ellen [Gold]smith's beautifully mournful cover of "Texas Rangers" can't depress me today! )

if you wanna ban people, edit post and whatnot, create your own site. PeterK is doing a great job and still keeping his sanity. If it was me, I would have hired a hit man on some people a long time ago.(That's why I don't have a site).

Now back to soundtracks...

Scott

Scott--I'll bet when we go to the polls we vote for different people.

Everyone--I'd just as soon talk about film music. I'm as tired of this subject as anyone. I realize I'm sounding shrill and becoming unpopular. I'm here though aren't I? That means I have some respect for what Pete has created. I just disagree with things he's done. I left. I returned. It meets a need or is an addiction to post my mind. That's my weakness. But I still dislike Pete's methods even if you don't care or think he's doing just fine. You don't want Ford around, maybe me too, fine, but how are you going to feel when it's your turn?

I agree, we probably would vote for different people...but that's ok. I do however think you are portrait of PeterK is quite misleading. We are allowed to wobble into many different subjects and issues on this board. It's just when things get out of hand and personal that Peter pulls the plug...as he should (my opinion). Heck, I consider myself quite well behaved and I got pulled as well. After e-mailing PeterK I understood his reasons for it even though I didn't agree. Yet, I said it before and I say it again, this is HIS site. We are guests. I have tremendous respect for him and I know he has for me and the rest of the memebers here the same amount of respect as well (well, maybe not Ford but he did make his own bed I'm afraid).

Tell me something, why is civility and mutual respect such a bad thing? Why is discipline and control a curse word these days? Without rules, supervision and values the people run amock, LA proved that years ago.

I tell ya, even I know sites we all can go on and act like unbehaved children.

As far as people leaving is concerned, I would be that if Peter were not trying to keep things here civilized many more (if not the majority) of folks would have gone a long time ago.

Scott

There is a lot wrong with civility if it's imposed on you and you have no other option. There are other free-for-all sites but I like this one and so I complain about the things that strike me as obviously out-of-line here. Pete ignores me and you wonder why I grouse. You ran afowl of the board. I can't imagine you did anything to justify it. Why aren't you up in arms?

In any case, this isn't about me or Ford or you. It's about an underlying principle, that Pete's site or not, his ideas of keeping the peace and my ideas of expression are at odds.

I don't think anyone should be bounced here for any reason. After all, it's just talk. I think the **** in place of swears is childish. I don't like topics being closed, moved around, deleted. I like the site/church he created, but now he should back off and not play god.

I'm not threatened by freedom, only the opposite. I don't see a freer place as the Fall of Rome that others do. When Pete goes along with me then I'll stop making a fuss. Until then, I'm just here as, possibly, the lone reminder of member discontent.

If I don't like it why don't I leave? Well, I did for a short while. But I like the format of this place as opposed to a digest format, I like the people here, and I don't feel like hanging out at FSM for the time being. That means staying here and pushing for reform (just like Sisyphus).

If you still want to make a fuss with me over my positions, OK, but I'm pretty entrenched so most don't even bother any more. Instead of taking me seriously, if you don't agree, just think of me as some boozy street person muttering to himself ("Sheep. They're all sheep I said. That's what I said I said. Sheep. I said. They are."), and just let me talk and go about your business.

I for one do appreciate the **** instead of curse words for my nephs sometimes visit this site (am trying to get them into scores) and I don't want them exposed to certain kind of languages all the time (especially the young ones) and I believe someone said that cursing is the action of a lazy mind.

Lastly, I do take you seriously, and don't discount your opinion just because I don't agree. I believe in communication. I am trying to understand where exactly you are coming from and why and would never think of you any less than a very intelligent human being who deserves all the respect deemed fitting to all of us albeit one I don't agree with in certain matters.

Scott

LOL.

L-O freakin'-L

my point exaclty.

Scott

Too many people are watering down what adults can do in the name of making society safe for children.

People are primates, animals, civilization is a veneer, a fragile construction, and the real world isn't a safe place and never will be.

Protecting kids with **** means sheltering them and making them vulnerable to being victimized later by a darker side of human nature they haven't been prepared for. To really protect kids means to teach them what's really out there early and to avoid it.

Kids need to learn self-defence and survival skills--martial arts and later marksmenship. They need to know that people's emotions are a source of happiness but that they can also be messy, that they and others can breakdown into frustration, jealousy, self-righteousness, anger, manipulation, madness, and violence. That people swear is really minor in comparison.

They need to know rules for proper behavior, learn a sense of helping other people, but also know that there is sex, perversity, neurosis, hypocricy, and worst of all, intimidation, suppression, and prohibition (Censors are particularly vile creatures, Pete).

I'm not saying that your children should hold out at Ruby Ridge, only realize that life isn't Disneyland. Life is great but one must see it without illusions. Kids should have great childhoods, and I can understand many people saying, well, they'll have to deal with all that someday, let's hold that off and give them an idyll, but all it means is that they'll have to make up for lost time later on, though it may give them an ideal to try to re-create in their adult lives.

Most of us who love films and the arts are ostriches burying our heads in the sand of fantasy just because the real world is both so bland and trecherous. The dark cinema theater is a return to the womb or the comfort of childhood. Of course one learns and connects to culture and events through the cinema and TV.

Still, there is a fascist side to me that hates cinema and finds it a decadence, a waste of time, an impractical regression, a falsification of what is, an opium keeping us numb. But thank god I've learned to jettison the superego and enjoy things for the pleasure they bring. But how would I know what is happiness and how to pursue it and drop the things that keep me from it if I didn't have a supporting culture and an unlimited base of information? Given the constraints on us, it amazes me how free, witty, productive, and imaginative most people turn out. All I can think is, despite the fussbudgets, god must want people to soar.

While I don't agree that people are animals, I do acknowledgy the lack of safty in this world.

Protecting kids with **** means sheltering them and making them vulnerable to being victimized later by a darker side of human nature they haven't been prepared for. To really protect kids means to teach them what's really out there early and to avoid it.

How early is early, Lou? 12...7...5...as soon as they are born and slapped on the butt? Sheltering is not such a bad thing. I was sheltered, yet I left when I was 18. Came to California with just $50.00 in my pocket and no family or friends to think of. I survived. I learned. While the ugliness of the world invaded itself into my life during differnet periods, I am thankful and glad that I was sheltered. I believe I am the better for it. Our kids here know about the uglinesss of life. The neighborhood we live in is quite a mess (and if you don't believe me, ask Jeron and Aaron, they have seen it). They know about drugs, prostitution and so one. The 11 year old one knows about the dangers out there. My little niece doesn't know all that much with 9 years, but she realizes that things are not all to safe out there. The older they get, the more they learn, both from us and from life. I am here to both protect them and coach them. I talk with them an awful lot, and I answer all the questions, yet I do not push issues they are not ready for. It works, Lou. For although they live in this neighborhood, they do not take drugs, they are well behaved and respectful, they don't get into a lot of thins others might get into. Yes they are sheltered, but they are also happy, which is something I do not wittness all too much in some kids in this area.

Kids need to learn self-defence and survival skills...

Sure they do, but again it seems you want it to happen immediately. There is a time and place. You don't try to teach a toddler about algebra. Why would you teach a little child about all the ugliness of life. You know what happens when you teach children certain things too soon...they have orgies at young ages as young as 7 as happened about a year ago in an elementary class in Washgington DC. I don't see the value in that at all.

Good luck with where there's a will there's a way, but just remember that if you push to hard and get a backlash, I'll be there to give them drugs when they give sexual favors to my friends.

Good one Lou, but just remember...I'll be there to give you hell on earth if you do

Scott

I don't agree with gun control but wouldn't put a gun in a child's hands either.

I believe sexuality begins at puberty (as should the age of consent) but certainly not before.

Teaching children about the dark side is still educating them and oddly enough provides them with the information they need to recognize the difference and feel the safety that is necessary for their development.

Chances are your neighborhood is a mess because the parents there aren't teaching them anything just abandoning their children to the streets.

Subsequently, children have to know about this both to understand the streets with compassion and defend against the streets should they break into their home.

Just when they need to know some of this has to be early because there are kidnappers and sexual predators around that they need to look out for from the moment they first walk outside the house. Other things can come in time.

You may see your sheltering as a benefit to you. I can't argue with that. Raising children does involve imposing rules, order, and other things that should be removed from them when they reach maturity. But we mustn't confuse the two. Discipline and myopia have different effects. I'm an introvert, so I shelter myself, but I'm glad I got a taste of things early so I could find out how I felt about them and go on from there. And I still feel I'm a babe in the woods when it comes to the way things work. Even knowing some things can't prevent them--I often feel like the hapless protagonist of Edith Wharton novels, especially when following the political scene.

You can never be sure how things will turn out or if your plans are beneficial. I just finished a bio of Jean Seberg (Played Out by David Richards). Seberg's parents from a small town in Iowa were very disaproving of her Hollywood lifestyle. They pressured her to conform before she became famous and continued to do so afterwards. The contradiction between those values she was raised with and who she was and what her life became eventually led her to insanity and suicide at the age of 40.

Suicide, drugs, prostitution, crime, and mental instability are all seething there in opposition to middle class hopes. You may give someone hell if they help your kids fall down those holes but it could turn out that someone is you.

I'm not a fatalist, but I'm often reminded of Oedipus Rex and Douglas Sirk's Sign of the Pagan where the two protagonists do everything they can to avoid a prophesized punishment--and it's the very actions they take to escape the fate that lead to it.

Hey! What do you know, I mentioned some film references so it isn't entirely off-topic. Not that I really care, except that someone here still thinks we're all two year olds instead of adults. Now there's a guy you should give hell to Scott.

Congratulations on your many eloquent statements of 'common sense', such as -

"People are primates, animals, civilization is a veneer, a fragile construction, and the real world isn't a safe place.....Protecting kids with **** means sheltering them and making them vulnerable to being victimized later by a darker side of human nature they haven't been prepared for. To really protect kids means to teach them what's really out there early and to avoid it.....They (kids) need to know that people's emotions are a source of happiness but that they can also be messy.....That people swear is really minor in comparison....Life is great but one must see it without illusions....Chances are your neighborhood is a mess because the parents there aren't teaching them (kids) anything......"

Such Victorian attitudes as Scott's (laudable though they may be in principle), provide just the right conditions in which child molesters, back-street abortionists, blackmailers and drug-pushers thrive.

Society isn't a 'bed of roses', but it is only in recent years that the majority of people are fully recognizing that fact, and not brushing such evils as child abuse under the rug with such infantile and blinkered thinking as '....that sort of thing doesn't happen in my neighbourhood'. As you said Lou, by pretending that such 'evils' don't exist, and depriving our children of knowledge, we are setting them up to be victimized and abused.

The only way to tackle the menace of drug-abuse, paedophilia, unwanted pregnancies and HIV is to fully educate our children from a very early age, and for everyone in society (including the 'people aren't animals' Scotts of this world) to extricate their heads from the sand.

Both you, Lou, and the ever amazing Daniel2, automatically assume that because of our sheltering of our children they are easy prey for child molestors, kidnappers, drug pushers and the likes of you (that last statement in italic was a very sarcastic joke). Not so. Our kids know what to do when they are being approached by someone they dont know. I go even as far as having a friend they do not know trying to get them to go with them in my name. We go very far here.

The other day my 11 year old came to me, being a little upset. He told me that while on the net, researching some things for school, a whole bunch of porno sites popped up. He immediately closed them, but he didn't feel good about it, because he didn't want me to think that he intentially went into those sites. Now, granted, knowing a little about the two of you, I can imagine you seeing me as the villian here, depriving this little kids of the joy of casual sex and the greatness of the ever popular porno industry, but I for one am very happy and satisfied in this example. I am proud of all my nephs and nieces. We have been blessed. They are by no means perfect, (who among us are...well...Daniel2 perhaps ), yet they are becoming responsable adults.

While all of this does not gurantee that they will aopt the values we tried to instill in them, or will simply abandon them for whatever values they choose to adhere to once they are adults, I know one thing for sure. We gave them lots of love, lots of reasons, lots of respect and we taught them about our faith...above all, we did our best. Once it is all said and done, really, that is all that counts...that we all (no matter what side of the fence we live on), did our very best.

"Hey! What do you know, I mentioned some film references so it isn't entirely off-topic. Not that I really care, except that someone here still thinks we're all two year olds instead of adults."

You mean me, don't you? Why not say my name. Look, Mr. Lou, this ENTIRE thread is off-topic. Has it been deleted? No. I've let up on deleting off topic stuff because everyone's asked for it, yet here still are all the same old, boring complaints! A no win situation for me. You asked me to move on, I did. Will you not join me? The stuff you talk about is nearly ONE YEAR OLD already. Let it go?

Scott

If we are indeed a "community', this sometimes difficult (for PeterK) discussion HAD to happen.

Peter, I know that you've only been married for a short while. I've been married for nearly 27 years, so I have a little more experience with the institution.
Difficult and hurtful discussions are a necessary ingredient of growth. Two people becoming ONE requires some painful adjustments from both parties over time. The end result is far more than worth every painful moment required to get there.

Peter, this forum is your personal creation, and in a manner of speaking, you are indeed married to it.
I know you to be a mature, good-hearted person.
You WANT to do good, and you want to do the right thing for everyone here.

If there is any flaw in your character, it is only that you work too hard, police too hard, regulate too hard. Your heart is in the right place, I know. But because you care about this PLACE so passionately, you have often forgotten that WE are this place.

WE, the people... (Oh, God...I'm sounding like that horrible Star Trek episode...).

I have complained most vocally in the past about having my wrists slapped over totally benign posts being deleted, or threads being scuttled or moved to Siberia.

I pretty much agree with Lou, and nearly everything that he has said, but have long since realized that I have no power here.

The realization that "I have no power here" is very liberating!

WHY?

Because I finally see the truth at face value.

I have no power here.
The only freedom that I think I may have is merely an illusion.
This realization has totally altered my daily internet habit. I spend far less time here than I once did. I devote far less of my precious time at this, or any other internet message board.

Oddly enough, Peter...your tendancy toward over-regulation, which drives Lou out of his mind, has actually LIBERATED me, and caused me to realize that I have been placing far too much importance upon this "virtual" internet community.
All along there have been real flesh-and-blood people right here next to me, people who I can fill my hands with, people who need my attention, love and wisdom, far, far MORE than any of my internet "friends".

When I pass away, nobody here will even think about it.
Howard L will probably post a moving tribute to my presence here, which will drop from sight after five or six other notes are added to it.
In the end, none of you will really matter, because by and large, we don't really consider each other as people who we CARE about.
Not really.
We all come here for amusement.

I have finally realized how very little amusement I really crave.

This is a great party...I'm glad to be here.
Finally, the host has relaxed enough to let a few of us drag some mud on his carpet.

Peter...I'll pay the cleaning bill for the carpet, OK?

Yes, flesh and blood friends and family are more immediate and important than "virtual" ones, but in the two or so years I've been online (there was that interruption), I've often been impressed by how close people CAN get. The concert in Detroit? No strangers, we, hanging out there.

It is a sad fact of the world we live in that friends and family are commonly long-distance in nature, but a happy fact of the nature of the Internet itself, and the presence of sites like this one, that we're able to feel THAT MUCH CLOSER. Would I ever have met pretty much ANY of these people otherwise? Including YOURSELF? Very unlikely.

P.S. If you die before me, Christopher, and there's an afterlife, will you send me a sign? (Kudos to anyone who understands this reference.)

P.P.S. Howard, I think Chris has just inadvertantly given you an idea for the climax of your current play!

P.P.P.S. ONE DAY LATER: I'm leaving up everything I said in the paragraphs above, as I dislike editing messages, except at the very spur of the moment when I realize I've forgotten something, but must point out that since Chris edited his message as seen above (originally in a somewhat different form), some of what I've addressed may no longer make sense to the casual reader. Read on, however, things get better! (Whoops, does that comprise a SPOILER??? )

We've had telephone conversations, and have even met one another, albeit briefly.

But I cannot say your REAL NAME here, can I?

If what I said (above) is TRULY all nonsense, then please explain to me WHY I must call you "H ROCCO" at this place...but if we are speaking together in person, I am FREE to use your real name.

Sorry, Rocco, but this damned inpersonal internet "community" is, to my way of thinking, TOTALLY UNNATURAL!

Yes, I have encountered a number of individuals here who I would call "friends"...among them, Dennis Logsden (logied), Howard L, H Rocco, Shaun Rutherford, Dana Wilcox, Joan Hue, Shiela (She WANTS YOU, Howard!), Michael Ware, Mark Olivarez, Mark Hatfield, Scott, John Takis (Wedge), and others who escape my mind just now...

Rocco....I can care and I can feel and I can PRAY for each and every one of you...

But unless YOU tell me something different, the ONLY RESULTS that I SEE are RIGHT HERE WITH ME!

Thank you, PeterK.

I poured out my very heart for you.

Peter, to the extent that I am right, and you are wrong, YOU have LOST the contributions that I might have made by my hand.

Who WINS?

(Just a HINT: I DO!)

At first, Lou seemed to me to be far too intolerant...however, YOU, PeterK, are WINNING ME TO THE OTHER SIDE!