X-Message-Number: 810 Date: 06 May 92 08:29:42 EDT From: Steve Bridge <> Subject: Michael Paulle rantings TO: Kevin Response to #802, Alcor Board Games Okay, Michael, we'll make this one public. Three times now you have done something that deeply offends my sensibilities as a writer, as a former English teacher, and as a cryonicist on this net. You have editorialized on events which no one has actually reported and you fail to clearly report them yourself. In all three cases, you have acted as if everyone on the net has already -- by some supernatural means, I suppose -- heard the same information or attended the same events as you. This is not only insulting in implying that if we don't already know, we must be completely out of it; but is also deeply confusing to most of the readers on this network who don't personally know the participants and can't read between your tangled lines. #1. Message #699 - The Bold Beat The Cold. Your initial letter about the possible move to Phoenix/Scottsdale. You failed to note that this was at the regularly scheduled monthly open meeting of the Alcor Board of Directors in Riverside, and not at some local meeting in New York. Many of the people on this network are not Alcor members or are not on "the inside" and do not automatically know what your travel plans are. Shortly into your editorial you state >The board listened for several hours to repeated expressed concerns about >a quick decision to offer on the new building. Since this was the first mention on the network that Alcor was even LOOKING at a new building, I'm sure that many people were confused. Sure, current Alcor members had just received a mailing about the Scottsdale building a few days before, but this net is not just for Alcor members. Many people are just becoming interested in cryonics and trying to figure out what is going on. #2. Message #759. You begin with: >Now that the building in Scottsdale is gone, it's obvious how right Keith >Henson was. I guess you assumed that Dave Pizer simultaneously called everyone on the net to explain that "the building was gone" and how it happened. YOU certainly did not explain it and most people were left wondering, "What the hell is he talking about?" I was a bit stunned myself. When you are the FIRST to report on something, you owe it to the rest of us to actually do some reportage. What, when, where, who, how. Basic journalism, basic high school paper writing. It is very bad form to editorialize on an event which has not yet been reported, and it blurs whatever message you have. Your messages are already blurred enough by your purple prose and meandering introductions. #3. Your most recent gem, #802. You start out by calling it "Another View" when we haven't had a first view yet. At least you mention (half way through the message) that this was the monthly Alcor meeting. That is minor progress. But the reportage still fails in the face of your onslaught of insults and stereotypes. I often have disagreements with Alcor's Board as a whole and with individual Board members, including Carlos. But your apparent division of Alcor into sneaks, wimps, and the occasional champion of justice (Don Quixote de la Paulle) misses any understanding of not just cryonicists but of human beings in general. It IS possible for people to disagree without being either sneaks or champions. It is possible for people to lose political fights without being wimps. Michael, you who constantly berate cryonicists for not being cooperative, do you not witness your own divisiveness, your own unwillingness to compromise or be cooperative? Cryonicists, even more than most humans, tend to be political, egotistical (at least to the point of always assuming their own position is correct), and outspoken. You fit right in. However, the cryonicists on the Board of Directors and many others in leadership roles have also learned to consider the needs of the membership as a whole and the needs of the patients in their custody. This does not prevent some political maneuvering or even power plays any more than it does in any other organization dedicated to change. But it does allow us to keep going in the face of disagreement and to maintain some semblance of civilized discussion in public. Your disagreements with Board decisions or with Carlos's decisions deserve to be discussed. But the STYLE of your writing does disservice to the cause of truth, to the individuals involved, to the readers of this network, and to your own ideas. Steve Bridge Alcor Indiana Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=810