From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V10 #360 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, September 17 2001 Volume 10 : Number 360 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: Israel [Capuchin ] Re: Islam [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] Re: Airport security [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] Fw: Deepak Chopra on Sept 11 tragedy [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Digna] Re: wtf is wrong with people? [Capuchin ] RE: Israel [Christopher Gross ] RE: Israel [Capuchin ] Re: Islam [Capuchin ] RE: hey rube [Viv Lyon ] RE: wtf is wrong with people? ["Brian Huddell" ] "The middle east? What, you mean Virginia?" [grutness@surf4nix.com (James] re: Ebay ["victorian squid" ] Sept. 17th in the Financial District ["s.mary" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:15:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: Israel On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Poole, R. Edward wrote: > JEME: > >That is meant to mean that any given Israeli probably hasn't done anything > >wrong. I'm sure there are some Israeli people whose lives and lifestyles > >SHOULD be destroyed, just as there are some Americans who deserve the > >same. > > >There are criminals and sociopaths everywhere... even Israel. > > >And destroying a person doesn't necessarily mean ripping them to shreds > >or even killing them at all. > > I challenge you to demonstrate how the casual -- or meticulous -- > reader of your phrase "the PEOPLE of Israel probably should not [be > destroyed]" could understand all this stuff about criminals and > sociopaths. I understand how writing "THE israeli people probably..." created the impression that I was talking about the people as a single entity. I probably should have been more careful. And, as Viv so rightly pointed out, it was mostly for semantic symmetry that I used the word "probably" at all. > Plus, saying "destroyed" doesn't, necessarily, mean "killing" strikes > me as Clintonian at best, Orwellian more likely. Well, I don't really believe in capital punishment, but I do believe in removing people from society that have shown they have no ability to participate without doing damage (by that society's standards). Banishment would be great, but isn't really an option in these days of border-to-border nations. I did particularly say "life or lifestyle", but, again, I was merely justifying the particular language I used. It certainly wasn't the best language to express the idea. > I think you need to read what you write before you hit "send." I'm not > twisting your words here -- you are twisting what you said originally when > you get called on it. You do it every time, and not just with me. You're either twisting my words or assuming ideas not in evidence. You cop to it later. > I think you can factor in thousands of years of persecution and the > Holocaust into the "deserve" equation. There's nothing that can be done for the modern generation to make up for the sins against previous generations. As with the blacks and slavery, the best hand we can offer the modern jew is tolerance and equality. No amount of land or arms is going to make up for the troubles of the past. > I'm no fan of religious nation-states, but Israel is a special case, > given historical persecution based on religion and the desire for a > homeland for a "people" connected by religious, but not ethnic ties. There's no special case. Do you argue that Israel has a right to eject any non-jewish people? What happens to a person raised in Israel that rejects Judaism as an adult? Or even as a teen? You're just taking the persecuted and giving them a place to do their own persecuting. > >[irrelevant historical bits snipped] > > Gee, I thought the history was precisely the point. I guess if you > can excise 4000 years of history, the "Palestinian Question" becomes > much simpler. Well, I began the message to simply refute the ideas misattributed to me, so the historical bits were irrelevant to the purpose of the message. I did slip a bit at the end. > >When people say "Palestinian people" they mean the arabs leaving under > >jewish persecution in modern Israel. > > That's just stupid. You are defining a group that you claim has a > better claim to this land, not by their intrinsic definition as a > group, but only in relation to the dispute they have with Israel. Did I EVER say the Palestinians had a BETTER claim to the land? I said they are being persecuted by a religious state they did not create. We need to have a name for those arab people that do not wish to live under jewish law but have a right to live where they are. "Palestinians" is as good a word as any. Perhaps better than most. "Specula" strikes me as particularly ill-suited. > My point was that "Palestinians" as a group entitled to THIS land as > the "Palestinian" state is nonsensical because they never existed as > such before 1948. You are just agreeing with me, though you feel the > need to flavor the argument with your name calling. I'm not the one that said "stupid". What name calling are you writing about? I DID say it was racism, while technically many jews and arabs are of the same race (though I'm not completely sure what makes one race distinct from another). Pick a more apt word for it and I'll use it forever, I promise. > >When did I ever call for the "restoration of the State of Palestine" or > >any other such nonsense? > >I just believe there's a statute of limitations on land claims after, say, > >a thousand years and that a religious state cannot also claim to be > >democratic. > > I'm sorry; I misunderstood. I thought that you had a plan for AFTER the > "destruction of the State of Israel" that would include the formation of a > "Palestinian" sovereignty. I should not have made such an assumption. Yes, you DID misunderstand. Too bad you didn't go back and rewrite this response after gleaning that knowledge and realizing you were speaking more from your preconceived biases than from a thoughtful response to my ideas. > >You know, there's no big reset button. We can't just go back and say > >"OK... who can show that they're the descendants of the person with the > >oldest historical claim on this land?" and give everything back. > > ...and I never said there was. I wish merely to put into some > perspective the claim made by some (though perhaps not you, I cannot > tell what your positions are anymore) I wish you'd realized that going into this. VERY often I'm plagued by people that assume there is only one reason that others disagree... the term "false dichotomy" isn't used enough. Pick an issue with two sides, I'm usually on the third. > that the Jewish Israelis are modern-day settlers of Arab land that > illegally ejected the Arabs from "their" land because the West felt > guilty about the Holocaust. Even if you don't share this view, it is > common among people who, like you, feel the State of Israel should be > "Destroyed." I don't care about those people. They're wrong. > >The ancient history is just nice fat for the fire. > > Right. But to the Jews and Arabs, the Unionists and Republicans in > Ireland, the Serbs and Croats and Bosnians, etc etc etc "ancient > history" is very much alive in the present day. I don't think the Unionists and Republicans are looking back 2000 years for their justification for ruling the land. And if we just had a clear separation of church and state and localized, democratic elections, I'm sure much of this conflict simply wouldn't exist. It is exactly one group's will to dominate another without respect for the other's humanity and inherent equality (both the jews and the arabs are guilty of this in Israel at one time or another) that such conflict arises. > My wife likes to tell the story that growing up, she thought Oliver > Cromwell had lived in the 20th Century because her immigrant relatives > spoke of him in the present tense so often. "Ancient history" is very > much the issue in the Middle East. Um, I do believe the fall of Judea would be categorized as happening in "ancient times", whereas the Cromwell rebellion was simply a long-ass time ago. > Well, not exactly. Jewish settlement in Israel dates back to the > 1800s, Zionism to the early 20th century, the British partition of > Palestine for use as a Jewish Homeland to WWI. I don't have any reference for this, but Noam Chomsky spoke of belonging to a Zionist youth organization when he was young and pre-1940, Zionists were OPPOSED to a "jewish homeland" precisely because it meant more separation and intolerance. (as in, "go back to your homeland, jew!") > The political creation of Israel was enabled by the aftermath of WWII > and the revelation of the full horrors of the Holocaust. I'm just wondering what happens when the number of arab dead at Israeli hands hits 6 million. Do we blow a whistle and switch sides? > And it's all our fault, right??? Well, shipping in weapons certainly isn't any way to make peace. > Our "war-machine" is more to blame than all that "ancient history" I > presume. The hatred comes from history, the killing comes from our war machine. We feed the hatred, we don't dissuade the people from carrying it. J - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:18:07 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Re: Islam >Ancient Egyptian monuments often show the >Egyptians capturing people who are recognisably Semitic and are often >called the p-l-s-t ("peleset" similar to "Palestine"). The Arab-Israeli >conflict is religious, not racial. >Irrelevant PS: Apparently the first King of Israel or Judah for whom we >have documented evidence apart from the Bible is Omri I, father of Ahab. >No Egyptian or Hittite source seems to have noticed Saul, David or >Solomon, and [even odder] no contemporary inscriptions mentioning their >names have so far been found by Israeli archaeologists (facts from Magnus >Magnusson's 'Archaeology of the Bible lands'). as for the length of the conflict, and given the innaccuracy/unknowability of what vowels were used for many ancient middle eastern words, it's worth remembering that as early as the book of Samuel, Israelites (under Saul, IIRC) were fighting against Philistines. P-l-s-t? >>this list is hardly your typical cross-section of the US, > >Stand assured of that. Im conservative for this list but a lefto freak in >the eyes of most of this country. a question for youse US fegs. Abouth what percentage of your country knows that Allah is simply the Islamic name for the same God that is known to the rest of us as God (only the prophets have been changed, to protect the devout), and the same with the deity worshipped by Jewish believers (with slightly different rules)? Or that Jesus is one of the most important prophets in the Koran? Is it above 5%? 2%? 0.1%? >I love Middle Eastern food and have never been to a goat(as a Cap would >eating goat make me a cannible? Great, a new taboo to break!) roast. May I >be virtually present? I promise not to talk conservative Northeastern >politics;O). me too! (makes it easier to be virtually present for me, too, since I'm allergic to tomato) >St Cecelia was the patron saint of music and Dryden(who normally I dont like >much) wrote a wonderful ode in praise of music with her name in the title. >Ode to St Cecelia's Day??? this was also the reason why Paul Simon chose it as the name in the Simon and Garfunkel hit of that title. James James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- You talk to me as if from a distance -.-=-.- And I reply with impressions chosen from another time =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:18:19 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Re: Airport security >How many hijackings have taken place on commercial flights originating in >the United States in the past thirty years? at least four too many James ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:18:57 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Fw: Deepak Chopra on Sept 11 tragedy Don't think I've seen this one here yet: >Subject: Deepak Chopra on Sept 11 tragedy > > > >The Deeper Wound > >As fate would have it, I was leaving New York on a jet flight that took off >45 minutes before the unthinkable happened. By the time we landed in >Detroit, chaos had broken out. When I grasped the fact that American >security had broken down so tragically, I couldn't respond at first. My wife >and son were also in the air on separate flights, one to Los Angeles, one to >San Diego. My body went absolutely rigid with fear. All I could think about >was their safety, and it took several hours before I found out that their >flights had been diverted and both were safe. > >Strangely, when the good news came, my body still felt that it had been hit >by a truck. Of its own accord it seemed to feel a far greater trauma that >reached out to the thousands who would not survive and the tens of thousands >who would survive only to live through months and years of hell. >And I asked myself, Why didn't I feel this way last week? Why didn't my body >go stiff during the bombing of Iraq or Bosnia? Around the world my horror >and worry are experienced every day. Mothers weep over horrendous loss, >civilians are bombed mercilessly, refugees are ripped from any sense of home >or homeland. Why did I not feel their anguish enough to call a halt to it? > >As we hear the calls for tightened American security and a fierce >military response to terrorism, it is obvious that none of us has any answers. >However, we feel compelled to ask some questions. > >Everything has a cause, so we have to ask, What was the root cause of this >evil? We must find out not superficially but at the deepest level. There is >no doubt that such evil is alive all around the world and is even celebrated. > >Does this evil grow from the suffering and anguish felt by people we don't >know and therefore ignore? Have they lived in this condition for a long >time? > >One assumes that whoever did this attack feels implacable hatred for >America. Why were we selected to be the focus of suffering around the >world? > >All this hatred and anguish seems to have religion at its basis. Isn't >something terribly wrong when jihads and wars develop in the name of God? >Isn't God invoked with hatred in Ireland, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan,Israel, >Palestine, and even among the intolerant sects of America? > >Can any military response make the slightest difference in the underlying >cause? Is there not a deep wound at the heart of humanity? > >If there is a deep wound, doesn't it affect everyone? > >When generations of suffering respond with bombs, suicidal attacks, and >biological warfare, who first developed these weapons? Who sells them? >Who gave birth to the satanic technologies now being turned against us? > >If all of us are wounded, will revenge work? Will punishment in any form >toward anyone solve the wound or aggravate it? Will an eye for an eye, a >tooth for a tooth, and limb for a limb, leave us all blind, toothless and >crippled? > >Tribal warfare has been going on for two thousand years and has now been >magnified globally. Can tribal warfare be brought to an end? Is patriotism >and nationalism even relevant anymore, or is this another form of tribalism? > >What are you and I as persons going to do about what is happening? Can we >afford to let the deeper wound fester any longer? > >Everyone is calling this an attack on America, but is it not a rift in our >collective soul? Isn't this an attack on civilization from without that is >also from within? > >When we have secured our safety once more and cared for the wounded, >after the period of shock and mourning is over, it will be time for soul >searching. I only hope that these questions are confronted with the deepest >spiritual intent. None of us will feel safe again behind the shield of >military might and stockpiled arsenals. There can be no safety until the >root cause is faced. In this moment of shock I don't think anyone of us has >the answers. It is imperative that we pray and offer solace and help to each >other. But if you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred >against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the >wounding of the world. > >Love, >Deepak > > > > >"Chaos and confusion are daily increasing in the world. They will attain >such intensity as to render the frame of mankind unable to bear them. Then >will men be awakened and become aware that religion is the impregnable >stronghold and the manifest light of the world, and its laws, exhortations >and teachings, the source of life on earth." >Baha'i Writings > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- You talk to me as if from a distance -.-=-.- And I reply with impressions chosen from another time =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:26:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: wtf is wrong with people? On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, victorian squid wrote: > Did you guys hear about Ebay? They've been pulling all sales of stuff > like rubble from the building and newspapers from the day. And not > lackadaisically the way they often do. Aggressively. Before they got > on it there were people running up HUGE bids on stuff with nicks like > "you_will_not_profit_from_carnage" and > "you_suck_you_profiteering_loser". You know, I'm a firm believer in letting sick fuckers be sick fuckers. In moments like these, I always remember the words of A. Whitney Brown: Only a miserable, ingrateful asshole would burn an American flag... but I'm proud to live in a country where it's not illegal to be a miserable, ingrateful asshole. And, to my way of thinking, a country that allows its people to burn its flag is just taking cues from a God that would let his people murder his son. That said, I totally agree that the people buying and selling this crap are pretty sick and fucked-up, but making it harder for them to find a venue isn't going to make it go away. That was the thinking behind alcoholic prohibition and the church's battle against homosexuality. We know how successful those have been. The real solution is, of course, to educate and inform and make it so that there is no market for this shit and, even if there were, nobody would dirty their hands with selling it. But then again, I would hope that people would learn not to watch Walker, Texas Ranger or The 700 Club. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:22:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: RE: Israel On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Capuchin wrote: > Do you argue that Israel has a right to eject any non-jewish people? What > happens to a person raised in Israel that rejects Judaism as an adult? Or > even as a teen? What happens to them? Well, usually they finish school, after which most serve two years in the Army. Then they generally get jobs, get married, have kids, and spend their Saturdays on the beach instead of in a synagogue. Why, what did you think happens to them? > I don't have any reference for this, but Noam Chomsky spoke of belonging > to a Zionist youth organization when he was young and pre-1940, Zionists > were OPPOSED to a "jewish homeland" precisely because it meant more > separation and intolerance. (as in, "go back to your homeland, jew!") Ah, yes, Saint Noam the Infallible.... Zionists, by definition, are in favor as many Jews as possible moving to (or back to, if you prefer) Palestine/Israel. Some of them might have supported having them just live there without having a separate state, I guess. But if they didn't see The Land That Is Now the State of Israel as a Jewish homeland, then they weren't Zionists. Perhaps Chomsky was simply talking about a non-Zionist Jewish youth group? - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:40:50 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: Israel On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Christopher Gross wrote: > On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Capuchin wrote: > > Do you argue that Israel has a right to eject any non-jewish people? What > > happens to a person raised in Israel that rejects Judaism as an adult? Or > > even as a teen? > > What happens to them? Well, usually they finish school, after which > most serve two years in the Army. Then they generally get jobs, get > married, have kids, and spend their Saturdays on the beach instead of > in a synagogue. Why, what did you think happens to them? Are you saying there is no law or policy in Israel that is particularly jewish? Is one not REQUIRED to keep the Sabbath and so on? Conscription in a religious state is an intolerable notion to me. > > I don't have any reference for this, but Noam Chomsky spoke of belonging > > to a Zionist youth organization when he was young and pre-1940, Zionists > > were OPPOSED to a "jewish homeland" precisely because it meant more > > separation and intolerance. (as in, "go back to your homeland, jew!") > > Ah, yes, Saint Noam the Infallible.... You'll note that I particularly stated that I had no reference for this... I mean, I could refer you to the particular interview (or talk, I forget) in which he makes the statement, I don't have an external reference. I certainly wouldn't just say "Yeah, Chomsky SAID SO!" and expect it to mean a damn. > Zionists, by definition, are in favor as many Jews as possible moving > to (or back to, if you prefer) Palestine/Israel. Some of them might > have supported having them just live there without having a separate > state, I guess. But if they didn't see The Land That Is Now the State > of Israel as a Jewish homeland, then they weren't Zionists. Perhaps > Chomsky was simply talking about a non-Zionist Jewish youth group? No, he was talking about Zionists and how the idea changed c. 1940. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:44:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Islam On Tue, 18 Sep 2001, James Dignan wrote: > a question for youse US fegs. Abouth what percentage of your country > knows that Allah is simply the Islamic name for the same God that is > known to the rest of us as God (only the prophets have been changed, > to protect the devout), and the same with the deity worshipped by > Jewish believers (with slightly different rules)? Or that Jesus is one > of the most important prophets in the Koran? Is it above 5%? 2%? 0.1%? Are you kidding me? I get people (some reasonably EDUCATED people) who disagree with I call Catholicism Christian. I actually have to say, "A Christian belief is one that depends on the divine origin of Jesus Christ." And in reply, I either get a "Wull... yeah... but..." and a trail of mumbles or simply, "Oh." J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:44:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Viv Lyon Subject: RE: hey rube On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Poole, R. Edward wrote: > Nice of you to point that out -- I think Jeme does himself the greatest > disservice by the language that he uses. But, I do not believe that most of > the people arguing with him "are quite content to interpret everything you > say in the worst way possible" -- I think far more of the responsibility > falls to Jeme. What's more, much of the time, it's not a matter of > "interpretation," but just differing viewpoints. Well, first of all I actually intended that to go only to Jeme. I'm sneaking in my list-reading between classes, and I have to post much more hastily these days. Not that extra time has helped me much in the past, I grant you. At any rate, what I meant by that was not that Jeme is innocent of writing things in, shall we say, an inflammatory and easily misinterpreted way, but that people seem eager to rush to the absolute worst interpretation of something that might be quite ambiguous...not just of his statements, but others as well. For instance, there are people on the list that seemingly desire to paint Quail as frothingly sympathetic to the IRA's actions, when he has stated again and again that he deplores their tactics. Vivien ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:41:06 -0500 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: RE: wtf is wrong with people? > That said, I totally agree that the people buying and selling > this crap are pretty sick and fucked-up, but making it harder > for them to find a venue isn't going to make it go away. > That was the thinking behind alcoholic prohibition and the > church's battle against homosexuality. We know how > successful those have been. Attention Edward R. Poole: I feel quite certain that Jeme is *not* lamenting the church's failure to wipe out homosexuality. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:59:32 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: "The middle east? What, you mean Virginia?" Max, Jeme, everyone - to your corners! We don't want this list splitting and people leaving because of this. This has been one hell of a week, and understandably it has exposed some raw nerves and peeped of some layers of protective skin. If you want to argue, fine. Offlist is just as good a place as anywhere. If you want to debate calmly in well reasoned argument, then *think before you post*, then feel free to post. But be damn sure that you are writing something that isn't likely to be misinterpreted in a negative way. Jeme, if I had written "the people of the US should probably not be destroyed" would you have interpreted it to mean "they should all be allowed to live except for the few really bad ones"? What's more, if one side wants to stop the argument, then LET IT DROP. We've been talking all week about how one person saying 'enough' might be what is needed to bring some sobriety back to this Icarus civilisation we are living in - perhaps it's time to practice what we preach. You want a world where it's safe to have whatever religion you want, to hold whatever views you want without impinging on the same rights in others, a world without wars or feuds? Then start small. Here. Now. If you want to be "good citizens", I suggest that you could do far worse than read the preamble to your own national constitution, that talks about a perfect union with justice and trqnauillity (erm...make that tranquillity), with the promotion of the welfare of all. >You know, there's no big reset button. We can't just go back and say >"OK... who can show that they're the descendants of the person with the >oldest historical claim on this land?" and give everything back. Give Hungary back to the Irish? No. So what land do you suggest we give the Israeli people, or the Palestinians for that matter (who now definitely regard themselves as a nation). Reminds me of a comment I heard three years ago - that the UK could do really well if it got a deal with China... Britain could keep Hong Kong, and Northern Ireland could go to the Chinese. James James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- You talk to me as if from a distance -.-=-.- And I reply with impressions chosen from another time =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:35:24 -0700 From: "victorian squid" Subject: re: Ebay (I've already deleted Jeme's post, but I tink I got the gist of it pretty well. ) Here's what I would say to your argument. Yes, people are gonna go ahead and sell September 12th newspapers as "collectables". Yes people will auction off rubble, and not even care that it might well be coated with ash from human bodies, same same. Do I think there oughta be a law? No, I do not. BUT I do know that if I owned a business like Ebay, I would not want to facilitate these sorts of transactions, I would not feel comfortable making a profit on such transactions, and would have done the exact same thing if it were my business. Ebay is NOT the only way to buy and sell, last I checked. As long as there's no specific law forbidding this these people will find a way. There are plenty of memorabilia dealers who'd probably be willing to pick up what Ebay has dropped here, happy even. We all know that and it should be that way. I agree that you cannot and should not try to legislate against assholeism. But I see no problem with slapping their hand a bit and reminding them (and potential buyers) that not everyone thinks it's peachy keen. As a private business Ebay has the right to decide to do that. loveonya, susan Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:50:30 -0500 From: "s.mary" Subject: Sept. 17th in the Financial District I wrote up a short piece about my trip back to the Financial district today. I've also included some pictures. http://www.loona.net/shh/917.htm Since the attack on Tuesday I've been going through some big mood swings. One moment I'll be fine but then my brain starts going over everything I saw and I feel such dread. Then I'll be fine again but I start thinking about what's to come in the days ahead. I think going back down to the scene of the crime has helped me out some. Of course this is only the first day back. Who knows what the upcoming weeks will bring. I hope all is well with you, your family and friends. Once again, thanks to all of you for the the kind words and thoughts. If anyone is interested, my friend Judie and I spent Sunday in a local cemetery. I've put up some new pictures that I took. http://www.loona.net/shh/galcem20.htm s.Mary n.p. Radiohead Amnesiac ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V10 #360 ********************************