Sinister: A vain attempt, but I have to try.

[honey at xxx.org]

I just wanted really to make one comment, in response to a mail from
Kimberly Girton:

> To the host: If there is too much about the latest events being posted,
> I understand your right to not pass on some posts.  I know my second
> post may sound like I am beating a dead horse, but after sharing the
> comments on the Sinister list with others, I don't feel that people of
> similar mind to myself have been fairly represented.  So I have written
> one more, and after I submit this for possible post, I will remain
> quiet on the public board.  Thank you sincerely for your time.

I'm not sure I quite understand, but this list is unmoderated for
content other than in respect to the list rules, which are there for
our ultimate survival, and our continuing ability to talk here.  I
don't review posts for content before sending them on to the list.
Aside from this being inhibitive to what most of you are here for, it
would be incredibly time-consuming, and as anyone who's waited for a
response from me to a list problem will know, you'd never see posts
until three weeks after they'd been sent.

So: for the few to whom this might not be clear: you hit send, and,
other than a few traps that catch things for approval like attempts to
unsubscribe sent to the wrong address, HTML mails, and a couple of
people a few years ago who dedicated a few precious weeks of their
lives to tell us all repeatedly to fuck off, your mail gets sent out
instantaneously to all recipients.  No invisible hand is influencing
the representation of views in this forum in any way, and what you see
is what's being sent.  The only hand you will be see will be when the
list itself is in danger of imploding.  This list is as good, bad,
informative, boring, dynamic, crass or life-enhancing as you all make
it, and there's no filter in place to change that other than the sound
of open debate and the occasionally gentle nudge to you all from list
mum.

There will come a time when a gentle call may go out to give oxygen to
things other than this topic on the list, but I don't think that time
is here yet, unashamed as you should all feel to raise other things and
allow new shoots of life to sprout.  I'm sure most of the mailing lists
in the world, be they dedicated to spoons, taoism or hedgehogs will be
discussing this right now, and I thank you all that it hasn't turned
into the kind Rambo flag-waving scrap on both sides I see in a few
other places.  It's a brute fact that this terrible thing is in part so
much more present in our minds than other atrocities because of the
power of the media, because it happened to the one remaining
super-power in the world, and specially because of, by the very
existence of this list, many of us know and love many many more people
in other nations than would have been imaginable a few years ago.

It feels pointless to say it, but my greatest sympathies to everyone,
American or otherwise who has been hurt by this, or those innocents in
every nation who might be hurt as a consequence.  If anything, a list
like this to my mind demonstrates a lesson we've learnt ahead of our
own world leaders, and that they will take some time to catch up on: we
are citizens of the world, and though such an event may tempt us to
close ranks, I can only echo David Stankin's eloquent plea: all of
you, please don't change.

honey x
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
        +---+  Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list  +---+
     To send to the list mail sinister at missprint.org. To unsubscribe
     send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
     majordomo at missprint.org.  WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister
 +-+       "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper           +-+
 +-+  "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
 +-+    "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000     +-+
 +-+  "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000  +-+
 +-+  "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001   +-+
 +-+               Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa                 +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+