David:

This is getting extremely tedious. My response to your original mail
this morning put a question to you. I don't see much point in
continuing this exchange if, as has so often been the case in the
past, you simply refuse to answer while raising a swarm of
irrelevancies to hide that avoidance.

However, one last time:

>  >>Where, for instance, did I say anything about Anny 'cursing' anybody? Why
>>does she introduce that term?<<
>
>>I don't see any suggestion by Anny that you were 'cursing' anybody.<
>
>No, quite so, Anny suddenly brings in a statement that she doesn't curse
>people and I have no idea why she brings it in.

So, because you don't understand why negative terms are introduced
into an exchange, you assume it may be an underhand way of applying
them to you without having to defend the application. That's the
point I understand you to be making here. If I'm right, a little
further reflection might bring you to realize why others sometimes
take offence at your own frequently unfocused and abusive
generalizations. ("I think Anny has taken my post to be about people
on lists, no, no and no")

To the substantive point: Anny's phrase was "And besides that it is
not my style to curse anybody. . ." We are both aware that Anny's
English, while more than competent, is not her first language. I take
her phrase (perhaps you can correct me here if I'm wrong, Anny)
simply to mean "And apart from the fact that it is not my style to
curse anybody. . ."

>  >As I read this section of her mail, Anny is asking you (by extension
>of my question) to distinguish the tone and content of your original
>mail from, among other things, 'victimism'. Though that is her
>extension of the terms of the question rather than my own, I can see
>her point of view.<
>
>It's somewhat transparent from the tenor of her post that Anny's remarks
>+are+ personalised,:
>
>>To which one could add increased victimism, blind criticism, selfish
>accusation of others, ...
>David, didn't you say that I sent advances to you, and when I asked you for
>an explanation it was never given?<
>
>To which I can only say: huh? What advances? And where does selfish
>accusation of others come, my original post contains no specific references
>to anyone, it does talk about things being unwittingly released by people.

This is exactly the sort of personal material I had in mind when I
wrote Anny b/c earlier. My memory is that this relates to references
which you made f/c here some months ago, before you were put on
review. As I have no idea what was being talked about, or whether
each of you accurately understood the other, I'm not going to let
this continue f/c. It might (or might not) be as well for the two of
you to clear the air between you, but if so, it'll happen b/c. I'm
quite willing to mediate, if required, and I'd guess that cris, if
he's around, would be willing to do likewise.

One point, however, I will make f/c: personal details and smalltalk
do much to create the unique atmosphere of this list. But where
personal details overwhelm any trace of interest in poetry, they're
out of place here. I would suggest that you, David, have been the
primary offender in relation to this. Almost the only offender, I'd
say, and as a result I'm not inclined to be oversympathetic when you
find yourself at the wrong end of the barrel when the gun goes off.
(Please excuse my militaristic metaphor, all; I'm thinking of Warner
Brother cartoons.)

>As for paranoia, well I could crack the old joke: just because you're
>paranoid it doesn't people aren't out get you. But, seriously, there's a lot
>of stuff around that is psychologically dangerous, someone I know has of
>late developed an interest in the Necromicon, I rapidly change the subject
>if it comes up in conversation. This individual, as curses have been
>mentioned, believes he has revenge killed three members of the West
>Yorkshire Police by placing curses on them. Unpleasant, yes, but obviously
>deluded. But the power of language to project hate is undoubted. A
>sorcerer's curses of course work if the victim believes them but the same
>psychology, but backed by physical force, lies behind the maledictions of
>the law. Mal-edicts, mal-diction. Which where poetry falls into dangerous
>terrains at a time when mal-dictions are rife, I continually notice here in
>Leicester, a city which has long had a reputation for racial tolerance, how
>the demonising of others that has risen since 'global terrorism' has altered
>the language of the streets, people say things more and more that are so
>right-wing as to have the whiff of proto Nazism about them, it also applies
>to perceptions of the homeless or the less well-off so:

Refer to my earlier remarks about introducing a swarm of irrelevancies.

>  >On the other hand, your attempt here to deflect that question by
>rhetorically aligning yourself with "the poor" <
>
>would leave say Neruda or Vallejo defenestrated well and true!

Ah! So you've been actively opposing the Fascists in Spain, and
risking your life in the process? In that case I withdraw the point
which you've truncated to this travesty.

Otherwise, I'm still waiting for you to distinguish your original
remarks from the characterisation which you profess to find so
objectionable. Because if you can't make that distinction, then I'd
suggest your mail was out of place here.

Trevor.

(To anybody else who's struggled through so far: I'm trying, whether
well or badly, to clear the air here of some matters which have been
souring the list, quenching discussion, and driving listees away for
some years. If you have an opinion on this which you want heard,
please mail myself and/or my fellow list-owner cris cheek (
[log in to unmask] ) and let us know what you think.)
--
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http://www.soundeye.org/trevorjoyce