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Hi all! I have been following the actions & reactions around the new list with interest, interspaced with a mild sense of humour, a mild sense of concern and a hefty dose of patience. I belong to the list, I read and write about all the things that concerns me, I read and write reaction to such things (while enjoying all the humour), and I disregard the rest. (This is similar to being a good friend - you listen & react and you forget about the negatives) Nobody else on the list knows me from a bar of soap - I did not send anyone a doctor's report to declare that I am a PWP, in order to qualify for the list. I could have been acting & reacting without even being a PWP, and most of you good people would not have known. I was wondering if some of the medication that we all use does not create a strong sense of Paranoia about our situation and how to protect us from the 'evil man' out there somewhere. Why are we so incredibly concerned about the other webcrawlers reading our discussions? Are we trying to hide something? Do we want only censored material reaching the non-Parkies out there? What I fail to understand (maybe it needs to be explained to me very slowly) is the fact that the same people who are concerned about the open list wants to go militant about 'not sugar-coating our Parkinsons', 'getting the message out to the people', etc. Do we not WANT the people out there to see what problems we face and the situation that we find ourselves in? Should we not carry on as always - discussing all the things, personal et all, to share with the list-family - knowing that there will be "OTHERS" looking in? (I always was one of the OTHERS before I became one of US, and likewise will there still be a percentage of OTHERS who will become members of US) When the ordinary man-in-the-street becomes the man-on-the-Internet he will be able to stumble onto our camp site and should be invited closer to the fire. Yes, there might be some of the OTHERS who will not react the way we might want them to, but will this be the majority? I believe that 95% of Websurfers accessing our open list will react in a responsible and mature fashion. They will respect us for whom/what we are, and this will assist in all our other endeavours to take the message to the man in the street. Furthermore - when these people access our 'private' discussions with one another they will see the true picture - not a sweetened, romanticised and edited one. I would want to give John our blessing to carry on with his mission - he could maybe (if he has not yet) add a visitor counter to the site for statistics. We should not concern ourselves about "our innermost secrets" being opened to all - we have been doing that anyway with subscribers, most whom we have never met, and whose care-givers, kids, friends etc have heard the stories anyway. I for one have been collating a lot of the shared material to use as ammunition in my attempts to be declared medicially disabled from my current employment. The fact that our communication is available for general consumption will not change the value of that what we share with one another. Please tell me if I am very wrong, but I see more positive than negative in this. (You all know that a pessimist is someone who says the glass is half-empty while he KNOWS it is half full) Regards. Gerrit Kleynscheldt PS: I want to share what I found in a recent Readers Digest: "The difference between success and happiness is that success is having what you want, while happiness is liking what you have" Tel: 021 947 8918 (International +27 21 947 8918) Fax: 021 947 1521 (International +27 21 947 1521) Please note the following: Because e-mail can be altered electronically, the integrity of this communication cannot be guaranteed