hi all

joan snyder writes re greg wasson's milly condracke award
which was presented to him at the pan forum in wash dc by mjf
(see my post 'congratulations to greg wasson!')
and the subsequent personal attacks on greg in a 'pd support' forum:

cross-posted
on 05-29-2002 03:55 PM jes123 wrote, in part:
>hello dear lil! you know what, you are so right
>about the being tired. i know that i am beat, not
>because of the event that i just hosted...but sick
>and tired - of beating my head against a brick wall.
>i know that you were there with everyone at the Udall
>dinner when Greg won his award and i know also what
>a magic moment that was. i also know the exhuberance
>and the exhileration that hangs on for days after
>because greg called me to tell me all about his
>feelings. and if you could have seen him as he entered
>my house on thursday evening-it made my heart glad
>just to hear him relive the wonder of that night. he
>barely had to speak because i knew just what he was
>experiencing to a smaller degree after winning the
>2001 Sidney Dorros award. so we sat; surrounded by
>friends, sipping homemade Irish Cream and throwing
>out phrases like: "and Jupiter aliagns with Mars" and
>"for one shining moment - Camelot" and how we could
>each go to our grave thinking that we had indeed
>accomplished something. it was the best of times.
>but to wake up and walk into my computer room the
>next morning - it was as if the sun had quit shining.
>i knew ahout this, also from experience and my heart
>ached for greg and aj and everyone else. i had even
>warned him that this was a possibility. i knew the
>pain that ripped through his soul - to have a perfect
>moment dragged into a mud pit and ripped apart. i cried
>for 3 days when it happened to me. but i eventually put
>that event behind me and came back - but changed in a
>basic way. the trust that i had believed in was gone
>and the way that i would relate to people was with
>caution - always looking behind me so as never to be
>caught with my guard down again. it's a dreadfully
>hard lesson to learn; especially when you are used
>to wearing your feelings openly like i did. but life
>returns to normal eventually, you find that you live
>and you learn and you find different fish to fry.
>right now, i'm sick of the nastiness that goes on
>not just in here but all over the internet. it seems
>as if we have been handed this wonderful gift and we
>don't know how to use it with the graciousness and
>the compassion that this gift requires. i know that
>greg will survive and will go on to win other awards
>for his wonderful work for all of us - i'm not sure
>if he'll ever come back here. i get so tired sometimes
>that i question my own self-proclaimed mission in the
>cause and i wonder if it all is worthwhile - but then
>i think of Joan of Arc (my patron saint) and remember
>that even she got tired and sick and was beaten down
>but she got back on the horse, raised her banner and
>kept on keeping on.
>------------------
>"Hang tough..no way thru it but to do it."
>Chris-in-the-morning on Northern Exposure
>Jes
>http://neuro-mancer.mgh.harvard.edu/ubb/Forum71/HTML/006329.html

i can't think of any way to end the personal attack 'thing'
in an unmoderated forum; there seems to be a 'mob' mentality
involved in the anonymity of most internet group interaction

by moderation i mean where the moderator vets every single message
before it gets posted or within hours of its posting
and pulls any that are non-compliant

it would be an incredible amount of work and brain power

would anyone here want that kind of responsibility?
for a 'volunteer' job?

the unkindest kerfuffle atttacks seem to be at the times
when we are celebrating someone's pd cause efforts
and the public recognition of that effort

viz when barb patterson was awarded 'woman of the year'
by her hometown of hamilton ontario

viz when joan snyder was awarded the 'dorros memorial award'
last year at this time

why do some of us
apparently fill with bile or jealous rage or something (?!?)
when one of us gets 'rewarded' for their hard work on behalf of pd?

i'm afraid my amateur shrinkological mulling doesn't extend this far

maybe part of the answer is contained somewhere in the pd org conundrum

if we can't hang together as parky patients
how can we expect the parky orgs to hang together?

do we need real pd list police and moderation before
we learn to be tolerant of one another
and truly support each other
in whatever pd work we do?

do we need real pd org police and monitoring before
they learn to tolerate and support each other,
(and our preferences as well)
in the pd work that they do?

and then today there was this:

>>gloria steinem once said something like
>>the most important benefit being offered
>>to us by the explosion in technology was
>>the mapping of the living brain ...
>
>That would have been Gloria Steinem, the noted
>neurologist, cross-appointed to a chair in the
>history of medicine and technology? michael J.
>Fox and Muhammed Ali testifying about PD I can
>understand, but the attention we give to all of
>these celebrities popping off about things they
>really know nothing about is a symptom of how
>sick our society is. just my $0.02 ...

can we not even read a comment about the miracle of modern technology
without someone making a disparaging and sacrcastic crack
about the source of the comment?

how is that supportive?
and why should the source of the comment matter?
is not the miracle enough?
or is the miracle itself the cause for bile?

hmmm
maybe there's a clue there - "the attention we give ..."
could someone be jealous of attention to others?
what else could it be?

if this is the way we as human beans operate
when we consciously and actively join a supposed 'support group'
i.e. the lowest common denominator of ignorance and unkindess
then those of us who earnestly want to work for the pd cause
had best get used to it and grow thick skins

(my skin is at least a foot thick now
after seven years of pd list kerfuffling
- makes finding flattering clothing a bit tricky!
hey peg, yer not gaining weight -
yer gaining a teflon derma layer!)

if our motive for working is to gain recognition
we might get it in spades

if our motive for working is to help each other
then the recognition and the awards become
just the (sometimes indigestible) icing
on the already savoured cake

(hey greg - yer not gaining weight -...!)

the anticipation of the awards did not provide
barb's or joan's or greg's motivation for doing what they do

so where does their motivation really come from?
`
is that source dependent on
'attagirl' pats and 'how arrogant' scoldings
in order to stay the course?

i think we are each one of us stronger than we think
and capable of much more than we realize

maybe the whiff of that possible reality
causes some of us to recoil in fear and loathing

???

i don't know

but it's the conundrum we've been given
all we have to do is find the solution inside it

as the pasta sauce folks say
'it's IN there!'

ono another food metaphor - i must be hungry

janet
a new voice







janet paterson: an akinetic rigid subtype, albeit primarily perky, parky
pd: 55/41/37 cd: 55/44/43 tel: 613 256 8340 email: [log in to unmask]
smail: 375 Country Street, Almonte, Ontario, Canada, K0A 1A0
a new voice website: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/

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