[B5JMS] Message to JMS about ASM #511

[b5jms at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: Adam Cadre <see-website-for-address at adamcadre.ac>
Lines: 30
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 17:41:10 GMT

JMS wrote:
 > [...] Like the kid in school that [sic] was slower than everyone else
 > [...] Oh, look, a pony!

Wow, yet another nasty, demeaning post.  And once again in response to
a post that was quite civil.

I know that in the past you've complained that there's a double standard
in that random posters can write negative things about you and your work
and yet people look askance when you bring out the verbal flamethrower
(which seems to appear at the drop of a hat).  This seems to me akin to
the man who says, "That six-year-old kid threw a ROCK through my window!
And you're telling me that I'm not allowed to shoot his dog and throttle
him to death?  You want to arrest ME now?  What a double standard!"

Except in this case the kid hadn't even thrown the rock.  He'd, at
worst, said that the trim of your house was an ugly color.

These vicious posts have alienated at least one potential reader - I
was fully intending to pick up the Supreme Power trades, but when I
saw the first one in my local store a week or two ago, I saw the name
"Straczynski" on the cover and I flashed back to these posts and
decided, "Nah... I can't support this man's career."

Feel free to flame me now.  Perhaps I am a retard?  Or the sky on my
world is not the correct color?

   -----
  Adam Cadre, Holyoke, MA
  http://adamcadre.ac

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Lines: 30
From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 28 Aug 2004 22:37:36 GMT

>Except in this case the kid hadn't even thrown the rock.  He'd, at
>worst, said that the trim of your house was an ugly color.

Except that after having message after message after message posted about how I
got it wrong, when I didn't get it wrong, when the other person *clearly* has
no idea what actual scientific method involves, and takes me to task repeatedly
for his own lack of understanding, after a while it starts to wear.  I am,
after all, only human.

And I choose not to be a punching bag for someone else's misconceptions past a
certain point.  You may say that the post was vicious, I say it was made with
some degree of fun...and that it comes nowhere NEAR the viciousness of your
note, and we've hardly met.

So clearly you expect me to sit still and be a punching bag...but I don't play
that way.  And I was being just as human in my reply as you were probably being
in *yours* which was far worse.

You really shouldn't desire in others a level of perfection you are unwilling
to subscribe to yourself.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2004 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)