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In light of all these recent developments, I would like to apologize to all the readers here for Laurie's bad behaviours. I know that it has led to some very uncomfortable reading for you. As you know, it is all quite evident what has been occurring. Again, I only hope you will understand that I am sincerely sorry for how she's been acting.

I hope that no one out there will be so upset by it so as to ruin it for the authors of the Short Story Comp. I know that I am looking forward to reading and enjoying all of them, as I always have enjoyed the poetry. I've always been of a mind to encourage the poets and poetry writers we have here. Of course, none of my natural inclinations have wavered in that, even though those and other writers will now be plying their skills with a short story. I hope that you will join me in my objectivity and kindness toward these writers, as Laurie is very concerned on their behalf.

I regret having to write this disclaimer, on Laurie's behalf. I hope you will be able to locate past it. If she does anything to hurt you, whether you are a short story writer, or merely a participant here, please accept my apologies in advance.

Thank you for your understanding regarding Laurie's sanguin cous behaviour.

~ Lizzy

There are days on a forum like this...

Unlike Lizzy I won't apologize for other persons. But I don't see a reason to apologize for my own words. After all, what happened as far as I was concerned?

I noticed Laurie was approaching her post #1000, and I thought it appropriate to congratulate her. Looking at the recent fights, I gave room to the thought she might feel that not all four-digit-posters would join me in the congratulations, but nonetheless I believed, and still do, that the majority would.

What followed has proven that one poster, one of long standing, one approaching the day she will enter the five-digit-ranks, certainly wasn't ready to congratulate Laurie. (Lizzy, you don't have to congratulate Laurie, but you should be able to allow for someone else doing so, and there's no reason to get that angry, aggressive, hurting.)

Again I congratulate you, Laurie, though I would have wished that your #1000 could have been one of your beautiful poems. And if my speaking up should have made things worse, I'm sorry. (It seems I'm not very good when it comes to organizing a party...)

One final word to you, Lizzy: I'm not on any side fighting you. But the malicious person that wrote

< * Tom and Kush will be right there ~ I hope. Tom!?! Kush!?! Over here! Laurie needs a hug! Are you busy? Yes ~ Victim Line #1. Can't miss her. * >

doesn't seem to be the same Elizabeth that once has been attacked by some nefarious starfish with very much the same vileness.

Maybe I could've PM'd you, but I doubt that this would've made you withdraw the post in question. So an immediate reaction seemed indispensable. I wish you could reconsider at least some of your wordings of today.

Reading your exchange of words with Byron made me sad. Maybe some day you'll realize that not those who maybe in PMs support your current crucible are your real friends, but those who warn you against it.

With these words I'll opt out of this debate. I've discussed the issue briefly with a friend, and he suggested that I shouldn't get mixed up in those fights, but rather concentrate on writing poems. Maybe he's right. And there's so much to do...

tom

Tom ~

As your vision was clouded regarding the intent of my clear compliment, your vision is clouded regarding my exchanges regarding congratulations on 1000. Her needing a hug was unrelated to her number of postings, but as a way of highlighting how picked-upon she was feeling, despite taking into account her own behaviours. I don't care how many postings she has and how many people congratulate her. I do care how she acts with me. I did not object to your reminding her of her upcoming numbers. I would not have commented upon any congratulations you had given or how she used her 1000th, had it not involved me. If you think the comments surrounding her thousandth had anything remotely or whatsoever to do with its being that, precise number, other than the hypocrisy itself, then you're missing the long-term, ongoing dynamic here, and all of its components.

I had no problem at all with your upcoming congratulations or her positive usage of such a post. I had a distinct problem with someone pretending to not notice the numbers of postings, and claiming to always being surprised by comments relating to that, when they are the same, singular person who pronounced to the 'world' that I was flooding the Forum [when it was but a single thread, which I myself had initiated] with my postings, as per my pattern. It's this kind of hypocrisy that I objected to.

No one has PM'd me telling me to stop or to continue, either one. As for the example I cited, the person came asking regarding my feelings and showing genuine concern at that level [concern, not in the sense of "you need to calm down, I'm concerned" but simple, genuine, unknowing concern and wanting to know how I was feeling].

You, yourself, bypassed the opportunity to 'stay out of it,' when an obvious oasis-like exchange had occurred in the midst of the madness, when Vince had apologized, I accepted, and we agreed to rest, after we had each had our own, admittedly hard day. You waited [apparently] to see that no one had added to it, and came to add your own, mocking remark that, "and they lived happily ever after."

For now, I need to leave, so I won't be late for work. I'll reread your posting later, and continue my answer.

~ Elizabeth

I'm back now. I apologized for other persons because other persons seemed to feel it was their duty/right/whatever to apologize for me. Returning that favour, as so often some people cannot sense the inappropriateness of their own actions, unless/until they experience reading the words on the screen themselves, directed at them. An in-the-moment kind of an exercise. As I believe the person is responsible for apologizing for their own actions, I believe any apologies for my actions, are mine to give.

The person has taken liberties not hers to take ~

* to pronounce [in psychobabble fashion] that enough postings have been made regarding a Hurricane Katrina, and that the nature of those postings were self-indulgent flagellation;

* to pronounce that I did not have the right to pursue my genuine concern, regarding a particular individual and member of this community, in my own fashion, determined by my own reasons;

* to pronounce that "we all watched" that hurricane coming and felt badly about it [so it was not necessary that I relay my own feelings here], to which I dare say she did not experience the hurricane in at all the same experientially- or emotionally-hued way that I did, and if tragedy, due to catastrophic weather conditions in Alaska, was unfolding in Alaska, I dare say she would experience it in a more intense way than I;

* to pronounce in warning form that I am not to be trusted in the PM realm [a character attack], as one day a person may PM me, and the next, they may see the content their PM plastered on the Forum [the two immediate examples she cited were wholly erroneous ~ and despite her hyperbolic allegation that I do this "continuously," the only other example she could have cited, that would have been accurate, was the result of Partisan's attacks here, whilst making high-and-holy, false claims that he's never been insulting or rude to me, at the same time that he was PMing me with vitriolic messages.

After having enough of his false claims and insults, I simply copied-and-pasted the proof here, rather than argue. As I've said before [and will repeat], the PM option is not a free and protected zone for poison to be delivered. If a person wants to speak with me, privately, that's one thing, but you don't get to be abusive to me behind closed doors and delude yourself that I'm going to just sit and take it because you locked the door behind you.

There is nothing to dictate that I cannot handle my problems, myself, and that I am obliged to go to Jarkko to ask for his intervention. I can use the methods that I deem most effective to put a stop to it. What I did with Partisan, I would do again, in a New York minute, and do not feel apologetic for having done. I waited and addressed obliquely, in hopes of resolution, the e-mails I fully believed to be Linda's, prior to bringing them here.

So, I guess I would say be warned ~ if you intend to use my PM box for hate mail, do not be surprized to see your PM here one day, for everyone to look at, one day.

* to pronounce what can and cannot be discussed regarding the Short Story Comp and when;

* to pronounce that I am some kind of boogey-man danger to the writers of the stories

* to continue to pronounce ~ repeatedly ~ that I am some kind of boogey-man danger to the writers of the stories

* to pronounce . . ; to pronounce . . . ; to pronounce . . . ~ as though she were the moderator of this and the News section. The list of more of the pronouncements would more easily be done through reviewing the threads. Ironically, however, her moderator duties and focus are overwhelmingly centered on me. Due to this self-assigned role, much discord has arisen.

I will continue in another posting.

Please don't.



YdF

Your own interferences, Tom, have been almost-exclusively one-sided. A cardinal rule for 'intervening' is that if you, an uninvolved outsider, are going to jump in, supposedly to make things 'better,' then if you cite a positive action regarding one, a person taking the self-assigned role of 'mediator,' also cites a positive action regarding the other; if you cite a negative action regarding one, you cite a negative action regarding the other. That maintains a certain equilibrium and balance with the dynamics of what is already in process.

After all, what happened as far as I was concerned?

Exactly my point.

I noticed Laurie was approaching her post #1000, and I thought it appropriate to congratulate her. Looking at the recent fights, I gave room to the thought she might feel that not all four-digit-posters

A separate thread would have been appropriate for this occasion.
". . . not all four-digit-posters" ~ it's much more honest, if you'll simply say "Elizabeth."

"I gave room to the thought she might feel that not all four-digit-posters would join me in the congratulations, . . . What followed has proven that one poster, one of long standing, one approaching the day she will enter the five-digit-ranks, certainly wasn't ready to congratulate Laurie."

If it weren't for this being a no-brainer, I would applaud your insight.

After condemning me for "flooding the Forum" [again, I repeat, I was flooding but one thread, one which I started, stating my reasons; and then, again, stated my reasons for what I knew would probably be a heavier influx of my postings related to the approaching Hurricane Katrina]. In the midst of warning all readers, against me, in two different ways, did it really take a whole room, dedicated to the thought that I might not wish to congratulate her for reaching a posting milestone, herself?

(Lizzy, you don't have to congratulate Laurie, but you should be able to allow for someone else doing so, and there's no reason to get that angry, aggressive, hurting.)

My "anger, aggressiveness, and hurting" had absolute nothing to do with the number of her postings [totally unrelated], your impending congratulations, or her usage of that 1000th space [I didn't even notice that her plea for a hug landed in that slot]. So, don't verbally chastise me as though I were a child, and trying to 'spoil the party for my sister.' It's a conceptual leap you've made, and this needs to go careen down into the ravine that separates where you started, from where you ended up.

But the malicious person that wrote

This is known as villification, Tom. You are calling me a malicious person, and I resent it. You have deemed a character trait for me. You have said absolutely nothing regarding the malicious/vindictive things that Laurie has said to me. Why have you failed to isolate those things and comment that, "the malicious/vindictive person that wrote . . . "? I am not a malicious person. I have taken the things Laurie has hurled in my direction and been ascerbically, perhaps even caustically, mocking of them, as she has had no right to do them in the first place. From the onset, her goal has been to villify me, and in her own words, she has set her sights on someone who is "not going to take it laying down." Even so, in the midst of all that, I have even broken away, to be complimentary to Laurie.

Maybe I could've PM'd you, but I doubt that this would've made you withdraw the post in question.

In this particular case, you're right, as that post was totally unrelated to her number of postings or your congratulations of same; but, in Leonard's words, "I thought it was there for good, so I never tried." Whose fault is that? You have intermittently been jumping in to purportedly try to make things better [though it comes across as schitt stirring] ~ so, with that high level of ongoing concern, a genuine concern might have found its way to my PM box. Of course, as in this case, it would have only been regarding your concern on Laurie's behalf. Apparently, you must be PM'ing with other members, regarding all of this, enough to make definitive statements as to how "the majority" here feel. I see your having posted, regarding my own postings, as just another opportunity to publicly point your finger at me, in support of one of many of Lauries * proclamations.

Likewise, with Byron's "hear! hear!" in support of what you said, bears no resemblance to "friendship," but is rather a circus-like, joining in on the admonishment and character assault. When he himself has made such a judicious list of all of his abilities, the question is beggared as to why he could but manage only a "hear! hear!" I've seen, the same as you have, serious and sincere expositions on any number of topics. If the issues of "friendship" and kindness to one another are to be flagged as being so crucial in the midst of this discord, the evidence is pretty scanty that he was interested in demonstrating or following his own advice.

In your feeling sad for Byron, have you even once considered how I might have felt, seeing a mocking, grocery list ~ i.e. to mockingly underscore what he considered to be the 'mundaneness' of an exchange between me and another person, an exchange that in no way involved him; and to see him, in hawker-style, reenforce your own insulting of me...."a malicious person" and the suggestion that I am the villain here?

As your jumping in has historically, since this began [not with Laurie's 1000th post, by the way], been primarily, only one-sided [not specific to who the other person was, but as long as long as the other person wasn't me ~ i.e. Laurie, Byron, Bee, Linda, etc. ], I think your focusing on writing poems is an excellent idea.

Thanks for your input.

~ Lizzy / Same Elizabeth

P.S. Tom ~

Maybe some day you'll realize that not those who maybe in PMs support your current crucible are your real friends, but those who warn you against it.

Not only do you speak to me patronizingly, as though I'm naieve and in the cavernous dark of clouded perception [see italics] regarding potential motives of PMs, but you misunderstood my comment on this. These things are what have not occurred in my PM world.

And, of course, wouldn't you just know it, I forgot to include that Laurie, in her dictatorial behaviours of what people should and should not say or do here, ordered Vince to "sit down and shut up" and me to "shove your emoticons up your a . . .". It's amazing to me the nature of things said that you simply [uhmm] miss[?].

Please don't.



YdF

YdF ~

Please don't read.

Go back to where you might be useful.

~ Lizzy

YdF ~

Please don't read.

I can't help it. I can't turn my eyes away. This is the biggest train wreck the forum has ever had.

Bodies are everywhere.




YdF

one wrong word
to this lady ...
and you'll be one of them.

What word would that be?

YdF

I think it's time to end this thread, take a beer or glass of wine and relax a bit.