[LMB] Habits

[nikohl laurel]

>
> To me, the suggestion to change your sig sounds a lot like "gee, maybe
> you should shave off that beard, because you know after 9/11 people with
> beards and mustaches look suspicious to a lot of people." Not sure if
> that's a clear analogy, but all I'm trying to say is that there's a line
> between trying to live comfortably in society without upsetting people,
> and self-censoring yourself to avoid ruffling anybody's feathers. And I
> think there are times when you just have to ruffle those feathers.
>
> Elvi
>
>
ouch ouch ouch! that wasn't what i was going for at all.  my suggestion was
not to try to avoid ruffled feathers (wouldn't that be an impractical
suggestion! can you imagine if we tried to keep everyone happy and
unoffended all at once?!) ... i'm just pointing out that the sig no longer
functions "properly" because it calls more attention to the extraneous
element (the thread) than to its content. even rewording or typing up a new
sig with all of the same content might "fix" this issue, so that the sig can
once again refer to itself and not principally the argument around it.
i am not advocating that william erase/suppress/censor the content of his
sig any more than i would dream of telling people to shave their facial hair
post 9/11. and it's certainly not because the content might make people
uncomfortable. and i only mentioned that he ought to consider changing the
sig because it calls more attention to the debate it ended up sparking than
to the message it's trying to carry. note, i asked him to think about it.
and, based on his recent post, that's precisely what he did. thanks for
considering it, william, whatever you end up doing.
as for me, i'm moving on. :-)

peace, all
~nikohl