Happy 4th of July

[Rían]

We have a 2-day celebration over here. A group of us head over to a neighboring city for their annual 3rd of July fireworks in the park event. We pack a picnic dinner and have a great time. Then we have a block party on the 4th of July with loads of illegal fireworks set off by our resident firemen and cops!


I don't know what to say about the JD situation ... I feel that he was definitely baited on purpose, which is REALLY wrong and cruel, yet he is still responsible for how he responds to it, and often it was really inappropriate, IMO. And I think that if he had been able to control his response better, then he wouldn't have been baited as much. Again, that doesn't excuse the baiters, but neither should a person be excused for their response to a situation. You can choose to ignore a jerk that makes provoking comments, or just respond in a polite and dismissing way. People choose how to respond, and some ways are in line with Entmoot rules, and some aren't.

I really, really enjoyed his posts when they were not made in anger - he knows a LOT, and is often a nice and fun guy. I've enjoyed chatting with him in IMs, too. I hope he will come back.

As far as the conspiracy - I really doubt that there's a "conspiracy"; I imagine some Mooters just reached a point where they felt they needed to talk to some of the Entmoot authorities about JD's angry posts - they seemed to be escalating. And to me, the important point is that it doesn't even matter if there was a conspiracy or not, because even if there WAS a "conspiracy", it would NOT work against a poster who consistently followed the Entmoot rules, and IMO, JD did NOT follow the rules often enough. (IOW, if there was a "conspiracy" to get azalea off the Moot, it wouldn't work!)

And as far as people not being able to handle his different opinions - well, I have radically different opinions than most people in at least 3 threads - Gay/Lesbian, Creationism, and Abortion - yet people seem to handle it just fine, and I handle it just fine - I realize that people have different opinions, yet they can still be my friends. When I'm provoked on purpose by someone that disagrees with my opinion, I choose to try to defuse it, instead of attacking back, yet I still deal with it (but in a polite manner) and that seems to work well. We've been able to carry on some in-depth discussions on some VERY volatile topics in a really good manner, even tho there's RADICALLY different opinions going on.

And BTW, JD has attacked me in a mean way (IMO) in those threads a couple of times WITHOUT my provoking him first (I've NEVER provoked him intentionally), and almost brought me to tears, yet I chose to "take" the wound and yet not wound back, and the discussion was able to continue, and we worked things out, and we stayed friends.

In the last week or so, it seemed like he was doing much better, and I was really suprised and disappointed to hear he had left. I hope he can come back and join the many valuable, intelligent, funny, compassionate Entmoot members that are here.

Well, those are some of my thoughts ...