an open letter to Dave

[Peter Cawley]

At 08:10 PM 2/8/01 -0800, Jeffrey Kopp <jeffkopp at QWEST.NET> wrote:

>Beyond that, I was disturbed when I first saw Peter's "any comments?"
>message which started this thread.  It looked like a troll to me, and
>whether or not it was, it ultimately had that effect.  Not a
>thoughtful thing to do.

How so? The quoted letter writer took exception to a CJ word. Dictionaries
offered no elucidation. A "closed-ended" question would not have been
appropriate.
BTW, the "troll" comment above, seems to be an example of "asserting
opinion as fact".

>Soliciting opinions, as well as asserting opinion as fact, disrupts
>the list and threatens to demolish it.  Please--everybody--remember
>it was started for research, education and resource sharing.

Researchers, educators and resource persons might be expected to have
opinions in their subject area that are worth considering. Exactly what is
wrong with asking people to share their research, education, resources, and
pertinent experience with an interested List? If anyone asserted opinions
as fact in the process of sharing, there is ample opportunity for correction.

As it happens, I have never previously encountered the term "siwash" in any
context outside CJ. Thanks to the people who shared painfull experiences in
the course of this discussion, I feel that I have benefited considerably in
understanding why the the word is hurtfull to so many people, and why the
original letter writer reacted to having it gratuitously forced on her
attention by a street name. I am gratefull to those who assisted the
clarification of my perceptions.

Peter



Peter Cawley
pcawley at island.net