However, I did notice that you managed to characterize people you associate with here as vandals and people who pee on things. Nice.

It's all very fine to be high-minded and shake one's finger at someone who's just put a fishhook in one's eye, but hardly effective.

You were the one who said you don't let such things get to you. Wha' happened?

Oh, go ahead. Suppress one. It's called "tact" in some circles. (OK, so that was a little flame. But, oh boy, the disclaimer just kills me: "I don't want to do this, but someone is twisting my inner arm, so I will anyway." Sheesh.)

This is the power of the word. It can change the world, even if some minds are so closed that they will never be changed. How does swallowing one's real feelings and beliefs and saying nothing, the embodiment of carpethood, help one to grow?

I was talking about expressing feelings. You were talking about supressing them. In the same post I dissected. You were giving me directions on how to be. You don't especially like it when somebody does the same with your syooperior self, do you?

But we have diversity here. If we start to eliminate the weeds and their unpleasant effects, we will lose the birds, and the aromatics, and the rest of their benefits. We will create a neat and tidy monoculture that will dry up and blow away the minute that the rain patterns are disturbed.

OK, I'll take your word for it.

Thank you.

If there is a dearly held principle involved, or if the other person has made a scurrilous remark or unsubstantiated slur, not to come out with at least some show of force is not courtesy but cowardice.

OK, I'll take your word for it.

Thank you again, and see your own repackaging of my words, at the top of this post or your previous one, for a reference to how unbelievably inconsistent you are.

Your beliefs, when presented as science, infuriate most people here (and embarrass the rest) because the one thing that most of us have in common is an understanding and a reverence for the scientific method. We know that it has limits and rules, and that your beliefs are not pertinent to any of them.

Was there a poll I missed?

Ah, I see: you said "always...some folks" and not "most". Mea culpa. That would explain the stunned silence when you launch into one of your Lord of the Vortices orations. It must be agreement, as in the rules of debate.

You all agree with Tech's version of physics, don't you, guys? (The question is rhetorical, so please don't feel constrained to reply unless it would be fun. I understand silence; I use it myself.)

It's especially galling for me to see you apply scientific accessories to your beliefs in the area of social relationships to allow you to make moral judgments with legal applications based on "scientific" evidence, because so much evil has been done in precisely that way to so many people for centuries. I have given up expecting you to recognize this either: emotional denseness, however, is not to be confused with innocence.

This is the power of the word. It can change the world, even if some minds are so closed that they will never be changed. How does swallowing one's real feelings and beliefs and saying nothing, the embodiment of carpethood, help one to grow?

See alcaray's reply, above. You can try to make your beliefs into facts all you want. It doesn't make it so.

Thank you Mary Anne. Mine eyes have been opened and I've tried to take your words to heart. You may want to throw some lawn seed around though...what with soil erosion and the environment and all?

Clover is better here. Grass is only good in its environmental niche, not here. Besides, the bottled fertilizer for the grass contributes to the run-off pollution choking the life out of Chesapeake Bay.

;-)

PS
I'm not trying to be too cute here, despite what Fox may think. Despite my straightlaced reputation, I'm still entitled to have fun some fun at the HZ too!

Oh, but you can't help being cute, Pookums. ;-) As you yourself have said, "I must be cute almost all the time then ;-)". ;-)

;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

Didja ever notice how overuse of a symbol, or its inappropriate use, can tend to rob it of its original meaning? ;-)

Everyone is entitled to have fun at the Zone. Your idea of fun is preening and sqwawking and telling people how to behave. ;-) My idea of fun is sticking a cracker through the bars of your Gilded cage once in a while. ;-)