[at-l] ATC Pledges (Warning: Highly Inflammatory)

[rickboudrie@hotmail.com (rick boudrie)]

>The purpose of this forum is discussion, not charity.-- rafe

Indeed.  The donation thing was simply a good tool to get people to stop and 
think about what they were posting before getting caught up in the heat of 
the moment.

Sometimes thats easy to do.  One poster just said that the windmills didn't 
matter much because they were in Yankee territory, for example.  My first 
reaction was to send something off about that person being such an 
inflamatory idiot.  Then I paused and figured out he was just trying to be 
funny.  And you know what, he was.  Even if he didn't put a simily face.  
;-).  I'm not sure, but I think the donation program may have influenced the 
amount of time I took to reply.  Too often on a list like this, I type 
faster than I am thinking.

As for charity, everyone has to make his own decisions about that.  Jim Owen 
asked what he should do with his money, and I resisted the temtation to 
offer my suggestion.  I am glad I did because it seem like he found a better 
place to put it than what I was thinking.  (Yes, there is ment to be some 
vieled humor and commentary in there).  Point is, those are important and 
personal decisions, IMO.  If one really wants to leverage the AT-L donation 
program to help shape the tone of the list, it can be done far more gently 
and effectively than by getting up on a soap box and shouting. I applaud 
Chainsaw in his attempt to effect such a change in tone, in the way he did.  
I could have worked had everyone listened...

While some of the discussion of the ESA did seem off topic to hiking and the 
Trail and bordering on political bombast, that wasn't the source of the 
anger behind some of the more stidant pronouncements, IMO.  Don't take them 
personally. It had to do with personalities.

Whoever wrote those two lines about giving and getting respect was right on 
target.

Rick Boudrie














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