[ykboo] Tonight's Talking Earth

[Jeffrey Kopp]

On Thu, 9 Dec 1999 10:53:05 -0800, Aron Faegre <faegre at TELEPORT.COM>
wrote:

>Robert and Tony,
>
>As another shy person, who first posted a notice of the book on this site, could I
>ask you to expand on your comments a little further:

I was tempted to stick my toe into this cauldron myself, but also a
more than bit "shy." Thanks for making an opener.  Well, here goes,
and I think I'd better duck:

The only way to combat misinformation or hackneyed information is
with better information.  Indignation and criticism won't cut it.
Help get a book written.  Get a good bibliography on-line.  Send me
links to post.

The price of holding back is the risk of being forgotten.

I get an email a month from somebody who found the Jargon Web site
and wants to know more about Indians, especially the Chinooks.  I'd
like to help, but simply don't know to what or where to refer them.
I can find very little in a historical context on-line (other than
from the pioneer/explorer perspective).  It's particularly
heartbreaking to turn away the schoolkids.  (They ask me, What did
they wear?  What did they eat?  What did their homes look like?  They
have a homework assignment.  And so forth.  One mother telephoned
from Florida a couple of weeks ago.)

This began to bother me so much I actually considered taking down my
Web site and just leaving the Tenas Wawa articles and the
dictionaries by themselves as a finished package.  But I couldn't
bear to do that, either.  The Jargon page is the place where many of
us found each other.  So instead, I shuffled all the "email us"
buttons on both Web sites around so they lead first to a gently
discouraging page which explains that I can't help much at present,
as I simply don't know enough yet myself.

(I can't put much more time into it.  My health is improving and I'm
currently in Voc Rehab preparing to return to work.  Barring any
gifts of presentable new material, the Web site is basically
completed.)

I do encourage most of the adults who email me to join this list, but
so far none that I know of have turned up here.  Maybe some are here
lurking.  I do reassure them that it's a pretty casual group, and
send them links to the archive and subscription pages.  Perhaps many
of them use email at work or a library and just can't subscribe to
lists.

More and more books are turning up mentioned in emails here on the
list.  It's a start.  Perhaps I can get a hand with compiling them.

Regards,

Jeff