"You owe me an apology"

Question

Damn. You people are sounding like Olive Oyl in the Altman "Popeye."Joe Myers"You ain't man enoughto be a mother."

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]****. You people are sounding like Olive Oyl in the Altman "Popeye."[/nq]
I don't get it.
All I really remember from that movie is the creepy too-fake-to-be-cartoony set.
Blair

Usenet · Answer

Yeah, Joe, I'm aware that this isn't something that makes me look great.

But I'm really sick of people making up outright lies about me.

I know I shouldn't care if someone like Paulo wants to slander me (or, as I suspect is the case, if he's simply incapable of understanding the significant difference between what I wrote and what he says I wrote).

It's making me seriously consider withdrawing from MWSM, to me honest.

-Ron

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]****. You people are sounding like Olive Oyl in the Altman "Popeye." Joe Myers "You ain't man enough to be a mother."[/nq]
That would be Olive's dad (Cole?) as I recall.

Mark Cipra
"Pile it high, sell it cheap" - Sir Jack Cohen (grocery store pioneer/magnate)
Play Indiana Jones! Hide the "ark" in my address to reply by email.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]****. You people are sounding like Olive Oyl in the Altman "Popeye."[/nq]
Top 10 reasons why usenet is the last refuge of the poor debater:
1. You can take all the time you want to respond. Bring me yourslow-witted, your half-witted, your huddled massing yearning to blither on... In real life you'd still be staring down into your empty pint while the rest of the debaters had moved onto the next pub. But on usenet you're still in there punching even though that witty riposte took three days to craft.
2. Everyone's an expert! You never have to admit how hard you worked Googleto find your evidence ("Surely you're not citing F.C. William & David Bowler's counterfeited 1937 work on the Balinese monkfish parasite? As everyone knows..."). Suddenly, everyone has a brain as wide as the internet, and exactly one electron deep.
3. You can ignore the main line of argument and score all your points onside issues. This is a beautiful thing because in real life you'd be stared at silently just long enough for your stupidity to be generally acknowledged, but on usenet you can just keep typing and nobody can stop you. With sufficient time and energy you can convince yourself and maybe others that the side issue was the issue.
4. There's no time limit on raising old arguments. In a normal, healthyrelationship you let bygones be bygones. You forgive and forget. But moving on is not necessary on usenet. You can snipe forever on somebody's slip of the tongue, their slightly exaggerated credentials or their 1993 bout of name-dropping. Google substitutes for your own long-term memory, cut-and-paste substitutes for articulation.
5. Your whole persona can be invented, so if you ever really embarrassyourself, you simply disappear and re-incarnate as Yves Rothschild, Blond James Blond, Clive Hawthorne or, I dunno... Scott Drake. You could have pretend celebrity friendships! A pretend industry job! You can even invent friends and supporters who will cheer you on, ignore your lapses, applaud your points and provide props. These friends will be even better than those morons your mom paid to play with you in third grade. Why be Bobby Dimbulb when you can be Team Bobby Dimbulb?
6. Forget Smith & Wesson, usenet is the great equalizer: One person's 10year experience translating Sanskrit documents with Buddhist monks in the Himalayans has equal weight with your subscription to "National Geographic". A pixel is a pixel is a pixel (with apologies to Gertrude Stein): your pixels are no better than my pixels.
7. You can use language that, in the real world, would get you beat up. Infact, in many ways, the very boorishness that would (and did!) lose you all your friends, can be your long-term strategy for usenet success. Foul language, cheap shots, and a nagging insistence on a response to your momomania which in the real world would earn you a disinvite to every block party in your neighborhood, can be your daily bread.
8. In the real world you get the respect you earn. But because there's noeffective feedback on usenet, you can imagine you've gained the respect that you imagine you deserve.
9. No matter how badly you were embarrassed in the actual argument you canalways claim you won.
And finally:
10. On usenet nobody can make you apologize.

Seriously, this group and most other groups would be much better if each of use pretended we were sitting down with our fellow posters in front of us, and applied the general rules of good etiquette to the conversation. I'll start holding my breath on this issue as soon as I hear the present administration admit they made a mistake on WMD in Iraq.

Alan Brooks

A with an Underwood
Everything I need to know I
learned at the California Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and in
private conversation with
other Nobel Laureates.
MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html
Filtering Trolls: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/trolls.html

Usenet · Answer

@reader2.panix.com:
[nq:1]It's making me seriously consider withdrawing from MWSM, to me honest.[/nq]
Don't leave, Ron. But if you must, can I have your key to the executive washroom and the **** cabinet?
jaybee

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Seriously, this group and most other groups would be much better if each of use pretended we were sitting down with our fellow posters in front of us, and applied the general rules of good etiquette to the conversation.[/nq]
Ok, I will.
...
All right, who's groping me under the table?
jaybee

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]10. On usenet nobody can make you apologize. Seriously, this group and most other groups would be much better if ... issue as soon as I hear the present administration admit they made a mistake on WMD in Iraq. Alan Brooks[/nq]
They weren't in Iraq. They got sent to Syria.
Which is where I wish some people here were.
;-)

"You owe me an apology"

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