I have previously characterized certain prolific Inhabitants of this Zone (but especially the Current Events Board) as "knee-jerk" reactionaries; here on the Flame Board I will invoke a truer image: circle-jerk. Smug; self-righteously swift to judge all persons and issues by the narrowest of criteria; not merely ignorant but noisily proud and deliberate in their pursuit of ignorance, whose best attempt at support of their delusion of paranoid rectitude has been no better than a list of others' opinions they parrot; who deride and insult any holders of another perspective, regardless of how well-stated and based upon fact, and who mock the very concept of alternative viewpoints. Arrogant fools, hypocrites, Pharisees, moneychangers in the Temple...

Tonight, two of the founding members of this collecton of BBSs have elected not to return. [Justin, if no one else, will soon recall that they were instrumental in persuading him to expand his BBS after Al Staley's infantile tantrums, so that all of us would still have a community in which to speak and interact.] One of them is (regrettably, was) the most eloquent, thoughtful, and well-researched of us all, who spoke in a way intended to make readers think, rather than simply react - whose posts here have rivalled, and in many cases surpassed, editorials in the professional press.

If it were in my nature to undulge in the same sort of smugness so characteristic of the mutual masturbation society these boards have become, I would revel just a little in the fact that those who remain - with the exception of three, and they ought to know who they are - are and shall remain as ineffectual as the opinions with which they're so very proud of bludgeoning others into silence.

With honest regret (but not much),

E'telekeli