Hi,
Justus has problems sending this message to the forum (problems I'll look
into) so has asked me to forward it.
----
au revoir
niall johnson
Email: [log in to unmask]
Department of Geography and Sidney Sussex College
University of Cambridge Cambridge
United Kingdom CB2 3EN United Kingdom CB2 3HU
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 16:28:44 +0100
From: "Justus L. Uitermark" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Dear list-owners,
could you forward the message below to the cfg?
Justus
_____________
After reading my e-mail in the weekend, I wrote the message below.
Apparantly, I did not succeed in sending it properly because in am not
registered under this account with the cgf. In any case, it is one more call
(in line line with Graham's) to keep debate open, even if that distracts
people from their work for a second (that's how long it takes to delete a
message).
Justus
___________________
I did not want to get involved in this discussion, but I would like to make
a couple of remarks to counterbalance the tendency of some to overreact on
filled mailboxes in general and postings by Paul Treanor in particular.
Even if Paul's messages are sometimes rude and offensive, I think that
should not be a reason to reject them altogether. Paul Treanor's postings
clearly have had some positive effects. The number of reactions shows that
he provoked the thoughts of many. Some may argue that this is not the
'right' way to stimulate debate, but I think that there are enough places
(academic journals) in which formal rules and codes of conduct prevent
people from saying something shocking or annoying. In a way, the informal,
ad hoc and provoking comments by Paul make this list a good supplement to
the established and more formal institutions. Furthermore, after the posting
of the 'complaints of critical geographers list', the efforts of some
members of this list (Paul included) contributed to a somewhat more
constructive discussion. It seems to me that pressing Paul and others to
engage in debate in such a way as to prevent people from becoming immune for
postings is a more worthy cause than asking them to go to some other list or
refrain from any discussion at all. I feel that if Paul would refer more
often to the pieces in which his thoughts are presented in full would help a
lot; often we see only the tip of the iceberg. I don't want to say that the
rest of the iceberg will look any better to most, but at least the number of
postings could be limited and it is clear that responses to only half of the
argument is a source of irritation for both Paul and his critics.
I have to say that the reactionary attitude by some members of this list
made me more worried about the state of affairs in critical geography than
the allegations made by Paul himself.
Justus
___________________
>From: Graham Gardner <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Graham Gardner <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: (Fwd) Re: Suggestion
>Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 18:50:27 +0000
>
>With all due respect to the sentiments expressed below, it seems that in
>the absence of one 'strong' figure provoking debate, very few contributions
>are made to the critical geography forum, apart from job notifications
>(which are extremely valuable, but are available on other lists) and
>notifications of anti-WTO demonstrations and the like(which again are
>valuable, but are often available on other lists). I think that some
>important issues have been raised and aired by _both_ 'sides' in the
>ongoing 'Paul Treanor' issue, and that yes, things have got too personal -
>I'm afraid I stand guilty here, although I don't stand alone - but that
>this is, after all, supposed to be the 'critical' side of geography. I'm
>not sure where any lines should be drawn, and I'd welcome comments from
>anyone else on the list regarding what they actually feel about the last
>few days - I'm not going to presume to speak for others.
>
>Graham Gardner
>
>At 04:35 PM 2/23/01 GMT0BST, you wrote:
> >Vera Chouinard has asked me to forward the following to the list.
> >
> >On 22 Feb 2001, at 11:49, Vera Chouinard wrote:
> >
> >I'm with Rebekah on establishing a 'people who wish to respond to Paul
> >Treanor' sub-group or entirely separate list. I have become so tired of
> >seemingly endless and quite frankly mind-numbing re-hashing of the same
>(and
> >personalised) issues that I now simply delete all cgf messages pretty
>much
> >automatically. I would bet most listmembers are doing the same which
>means
> >that the ab-use of this list by a few is making the list useless for
>most.
> >
> >This is obviously unfair as well as a waste of many people's time.
> >Sincerely, Vera Chouinard
> >
> >Dr Rebekah Widdowfield
> >Department of City and Regional Planning
> >Cardiff University
> >Glamorgan Building
> >King Edward VII Avenue
> >Cardiff
> >CF10 3WA
> >
> >
>Graham Gardner
>Institute of Geography & Earth Sciences
>University of Wales
>Aberystwyth
>Ceredigion
>SY23 3DB
>Wales
>UK
>
>Tel: 0044 (0)1970 622606
>Fax: 0044 (0)1970 622659
>E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
|