You have exercised your First Amendment right and posted numerous potentially libelous statements about me on international USENET forum. I respect your Constitutional right and would like to excursive same of my own, by sending letters about what happened to Temple University Press and Temple University Public Radio who appeared to be interested in the subject. This is just a letter or courtesy, you are free to answer or not answer it in any way you find appropriate. I am also planning to contact Drexel as soon as I figure out how their media works. I have not yet figured out what other publications and media resources would be interested in such a subject but I am doing my research as you read this letter.
As you rejected my offer to resolve this issue with the remedy I proposed and never offered a different one or a public retraction with a proper apology, I will seek satisfaction the way I see fit.
So now what are we suppose to think? We'll say something else that will trip your hot button and threaten us with punitive actions. Calling someone in Usenet a Liar is like calling them a Troll. It is meaningless and used for dramatic punctuation. If the accused suspects you of tall tales and calls them a lie that's her opinion. Usenet is nothing more than opinions that barely rise above the background noice of slurs and innuendos. I'd be more concerned about what this community thinks than the media. I hound the guy and he's still here. He has a thick hide. You need one in Usenet. It ain't for the sensitive or squeemish. I think you have it in for us liberals. I'm the only liberal between here and Chinatown.
And you are entitled to your opinion. But the fact that you use the word "never" shows who is naive here.
Why don't you read what I said before you post? I do not seek legal remedy. I am not interested in legal remedy. I think there are other remedies (societal, corporate, cultural) that can be capable of making certain people civil more so than rude intimidation of the punishment by law.
Would somebody who cares enough PLEASE write a short synopsis of the Rebecca controversy. I don't want to sift through 2000 posts, but I'm curious to know what's going down. An executive summary, please. Thanks much. Michael
Space snipped-for-privacy@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com6/23/05
One of the problems of jumping into a flame war is that the person being attacked (kuri and Sasha were the main people saying the undefensible things) doesn't tend to at that point distinguish between people offering polite suggestions and people trying to score points. Mydnight withdrew at that point. Sasha tried to continue the attack like the person he has appeared to be all through this -- someone whose own stories about his travels in China and his experiences with the captured Japanese tea person sound to this teacher of English like stories that he made up. I am willing to call him a liar until proven otherwise. ======================================================= Sasha: She also added in another message the same day:
(I know some of you have met Sasha and like him, but I think of him as a ne-kulturni vez umni malchik c deneg, if I'm remembering my russki yazik correctly. You guys are free to have another opinion).
I mostly ignore him unless he's trying to wrangle up support for his unverifiable stories (and for me, his own word isn't good enough). ================================================================= Sasha: To which I answered a month later after I came back from Asia:
I have been traveling and working during this priceless exchange and missed these peals of Rebecca's wisdom. I am willing to prove the provable (my travel and work in ex-military formerly closed territories in China) of what I was claiming with plane tickets, original work agreements, official films of local TV stations (featuring yours truly) about opening of our offices in rural towns just south of Inner Mongolia and other things. But she has to step up to the plate and put her money where her mouth is. We both shell send a money order for say $5,000 to Michael Plant, Lew or DogMa (or any other well known member of the group) and let him or some other group of judges decide if I ever lied about my travel and work in China. The winning side will gets the money. Until she does that, her baseless accusations remain what they are - empty barkings. But as Turks say "It khurer, karavan kecher" - "The bitch barks, but the caravan goes". So be it in our case too.
Certainly I cannot prove what happened almost 30 years ago on the shores of Olenek river in Northern Siberia. And I do not intend to. This was my personal experience and I do not give a flying puer cake if some self-absorbed, yet another "professor" from CUNY believes me or not. But not believing me is one thing and calling me a liar - another. Notice how this "teacher of English" and an American, I presume, throws away ever so easily the time honored Western tradition of presuming innocence until proven guilty. She calls me a liar "until proven otherwise"! She feels that she has a right to call a person a liar and demand that the only way she would retract from that accusation if I "prove" myself to be right? No, lady, you will have to risk some money on the table if you want proof. Until you do that, your empty accusations only show others what you are made of. I leave it to the public on this forum to judge why she would be so angry at someone who she never met in her life? May be some of my remarks on her ridiculous posts had something to do with it? But there were several posters who ridiculed her "educated" opinion and she never attacked them... Eureka! May be she had a Russian boyfriend who run away from her self-absorbed attitude? That would at least explain her awful, louty Russian.
I think that she does have some alternative motives (like assuming in her other post that I am rich, which I guess in CUNY's world is the biggest sin in the universe). I have to disappoint her - I am not rich (moneywise) at all - by any standards (unfortunately). However I lived a very rich life filled with love, friendship, adventures and love again. And I think I have done it honorably. I made a lot of lifetime friends (God bless them) and certainly some envious enemies, (God bless them too). And that is why all I feel toward the poor "linguist" is a deep sense of pity.
Sasha. ========================================================= To which she answered next day:
I have no doubt that you have more money than sense.
I don't believe you. Live with it. I don't want to meet you, don't want to play games with you.
I don't care if you aren't lying, either. It sure sounds like bullshit to me.
======================================================== The rest is in recent threads that I started with hre name in the subject line.
I said I didn't believe half of what he said and he took serious exception to that, offered a wager to prove he did travel in places forbidden to other Westerners. I said I didn't really care. He Googled, found my resume on line and decided to contact my employers to tell them what a bad bad person I was to have said I didn't believe him in a Usenet group.
Or at least he says he did.
Alex thought because I was a published writer, I had tons of money and could put up $5,000 to have his friends verify this proof that he'd travelled where no Westerner had gone before, etc. At least once other person observed that this wasn't an offer that I was likely to take him up on, whether or not I had a spare $5K to send to have one of his friends say that his proof was good.
His honor has been deeply and grievously offended by a female who only makes $25K a year as an adjunct instructor of English. I didn't realize earlier that he was that much of a crank (Google him; I should have done that earlier).
I'm sure he did indeed travel in China, just not sure how one would prove that he travelled in China in places previously forbidden to Westerners and knew that the level of literacy there was higher than what Mydnight was reporting from the areas of China where he was visiting.
I apologize to the group for calling Alex a person who embellishes both reality and his importance. I'm genuinely sorry I did this and stuff.
You called me a liar EXPLICITLY. I quote:"I am willing to call him a liar until proven otherwise." You should at least be truthful about these things if you believe them to be true. I would not ever even pay attention at you not believing me (I truly do not care) having seen your record of being banned on other forums. Please, do not hide behind that pathetic girlish "His honor has been deeply and grievously offended by a female who only makes $25K a year as an adjunct instructor of English" and stop playing poor old lady who was robbed on the streets by a big bad Russian guy! How can you sink to this level? You are a well-known feminist, for God's sake, have some pride in it!
Hiding behind your low salary is beyond pathetic. It has nothing to do with the subject. Does you low salary makes you rude? Or it forces you to insult others? Retract, apologize and go about your life. That is how easy it is. Believe or not believe anything you want, but be careful calling people liars.
In the Empire of Zee, They grew tea. And in the Yalek State, Their biscuits were great. And so a great war had to be Over teatime supremacy. They fought with knife and gun and bomb They fought most hard, they fought most long. So now a wasteland is all you see Where once was Yalek and was Zee. And merchants from the land of Zotz Find no sales for their teapots.
I didn't know his history before. Google on him. He's quite the cantankerous fellow.
I came here to get away from fuckheads and trolls. If I'm being one now or contributing to the noise, I should unsubscribe the group. I don't find braggart blowhards worth reading and since I appear to be egging the problem on, I'll leave.
oh christ - don't martyr yourself. coming here to get away from trolls and 'fuckheads' and then calling someone a liar in stark and vehement terms - rightly or wrongly - is not probably the best way to foster good will. and look what's happened - a big fight, with you smack dab in the middle of it.
And this justifies your behavior how, exactly? He's cantankerous, so you get to make unsubstantiated accusations?
No one is forcing you to read his posts. If you doubt their veracity, don't read them. But don't try to play the innocent victim who's been forced from the group.
You chose your words, and you chose to state your opinions. If you don't like the response you've gotten, perhaps you should consider learning to choose your words more carefully.
The only reason I keep coming back is where else are you going to find kindred spirits interested in sharing their experiences with tea. I'll put up with the crap because it is a wasteland trying to connect with others in the real world. I made a run to Chinatown yesterday to pick up some roasted duck for a get together today. All I'll do is reheat it on a grill. I'm going to make some Yunnan Black Gold for ice tea. I think the wonderful smoky vanilla flavor will go great with the duck plus sooth the stomach. I found a box with 48 green Xiao(mini) tuocha. It was packed in HongKong and $4 for the total weight of 8 ounces. You can peel the tuocha by hand. It isn't the best cheap green pu'rh I've tasted. I've noticed the grindstone tuochas has the best taste.
Nobody should leave. Just cut the crap and get back to the business at hand: Leaves. Michael Speaking of which I'm drinking from a 3 gram button (little tuocha) of old tree Pu'erh from 101 Plantation, which started out as nothing, but developed with the third steep into something almost pleasant. Still not much to recommend it. It is the most beautiful little tuocha I've ever seen, though.
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