h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I enjoyed the irony, I didn't see the harm, and I would like to echo much of what Ben said.

x x Fenny (UT)

Excuse me for thinking it was hilariously funny. And anyone that joined in obviously did as well.

People that have been on the receiving end of hate mail have no reason to feel guilty about enjoying it.

Ben, I apologise. Mina, I apologise. Whisky, I apologise. Hoovooloo, I apologise. h2g2, I apologise. LeKZ/TNG/Girl, I apologise. I am not fit to be here. I would have liked to be banned, just for the notoriety, but I'm too contrite to deserve it and too obsessive to leave it alone. I'm a bad person and I should be stopped. Maybe someone could put up a "Jesus Chris!" page to parody me, then I can cower under the shame and ignominy of being myself. Thank god for old money, puff, parties and casual sex.

There's no side I can take on this without feeling guilty for offending the other. I'll just have to let you all come to some brilliant workable definition of morality and take my leave.

Two cents in a bucket

Just another small note, this time in response to the posting on the first page which suggests that only a select few may have had access to the group email, and thus the search for the parodist may be narrowed down. Those notes were copied to upwards of fifteen or twenty people, and sometimes blind-copied to more. I was on the FolKZ list, but not on the TrusT list, and I still received plenty of updates.

I'm not the parodist, however, I can't claim that level of comedic talent. Unfortunately.

And I really do apologise for causing anyone unhappiness or pain.

x x Fenny (UT)

Chris,

I have disliked being on the opposite side of the fence from you on this one.

I absolutely respect your right to your opinions. Sure, I disagree with a lot of what you said further up the thread, but you were entitled to think it and to say it.

You should know that I have always thought that 'my enemy's friend is another human being'. I have always had difficulty taking sides.

One of the things which is upsetting about falling out with LeKZ is that you lose touch with some intelligent witty and thoughtful people. Unfortunately there is a tendency among her supporters to follow the line and cast the former friends into the outer darkness.

There are some notable exeptions to this, (to whom I am grateful), and I take individuals as I find them.

I respect what you said, the warmth of feeling, the honesty, the passion. You have no need to apologise to me, though I have to say that it is nice that you have - it means I can write this now, which says things that I have been wanting to say for a couple of hours.

For the record, I do not regard LeKZ as my enemy, and I would be perfectly happy to have continued a friendship with her, if I had not been the reciever of alternating good-LeKZ bad-LeKZ emails. But since I concluded that nothing I could say or do would do any good, then I would say and do nothing.

Which reminds me that I said I would not discuss her publicly or privately again.

Damn!

'Nuff said, I hope.

Ben

In response to agcBen's: "On a more personal note, I am aware that I am in an untenable position: espousing peace and tolerance, but failing to take LeKZ's pain seriously. Perhaps I would take it more seriously if she stopped banging her head against the brick wall."

...Gnomon wrote: "Well said, Ben!"


Well said? I dunno, I could have phrased it more directly. "I only have compassion for people who are just hurting a little. Really mind-alteringly significant pain earns my contempt."

Sorry Ben, but that's what I'm hearing you say. Convince me otherwise. Please.


I'd like to second what Inanna said, somewhere on the last page. I think that what is going on here is basically the equivalent of the funny "parodist," no doubt, who sent an attached wav file of a gunshot to the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder email support group. Maybe we should round that person up and put them in a thread here called "Mock the disabled, to death if we can". (S)he would find a lot of support at h2g2, it seems.


I'd also like to reply to some people who've said that they think mean-spirited, hurtful parody is justified on the grounds that LeKZ has harassed others here. Would it be fair to paraphrase that as "revenge is good"? I mean, if someone lashes out, because they're in pain, then the correct response is to do your level best to put them in more pain? Someone please explain to me how I'm misunderstanding what's being said here.


As far as the parody being funny... I know some really funny racist jokes, and child-abuse jokes, and wife-beating jokes, and... I mean they really parody those phenomena brilliantly. You just have to laugh. What did AGB say on page 1? About mocking the afflicted? Well, whatever it was, I agree. Thanks, AGB.


I have every confidence that the site management will set all of this right; I just hope they find the time to do it soon. Until then, where's the thread for baby-rape humour?

This is a small one too - hoping it doesn't end up hopelessly out of context like the last one did

Just to echo what Fenny said - I wasn't even on the FolkZ list and didn't even want to know but they were blind-copied to me.
For all I know they're still spamming me - I don't bother logging into the email accounts they know about any more.

Besides, the parodist(s) didn't seem to have any esoteric knowledge.

Invalid Account (Chris?) are you being ironic?
If you're not please don't feel that way. Why should anyone be offended by your opinions? Aren't we all entitled to our own opinion?
(Officially at least )

(If you are, you're quite welcome to laugh at my naïveté - as long as you let me know so I can join in)

(That reminds me - Gnomon(?), why do you privileged white males have to be so PC? Don't you realise we po' downtrodden s have a sense of humour too? - go watch Goodness Gracious Me, No. 42 or anything by Lenny Henry..)

Ben wrote: "Oh, and by the way, she can't have it both ways. Not 'mentally-ill obsessive' but 'disabled'... "

As I'm sure many people are aware, the terms "mentally ill" and "obsessive" are both technical, psychiatric terms, with specific meanings.

The term "obsessive" in this context refers to "obsessive compulsive disorder" and "obsessive compulsive personality disorder", neither of which LeKZ has ever been diagnosed with.

The term "mentally ill" is rarely used to describe all people who have ever been diagnosed with a DSM diagnosis, but is more commonly used to describe those who have been diagnosed with a condition that includes psychotic symptoms, such as schizophrenia.

As I'm sure even more people are aware, depression is now one of the leading causes of worldwide morbidity and disability (this, according to the World Health Organization, which would be the experts). Depression is a psychiatric diagnosis, but those with depression are not classified as "mentally ill", although they *are* classified as disabled.

Throwing about psychiatric terms as insults is generally not a good idea, for two reasons -- 1) it's insulting to those who truly are mentally ill, and 2) it often highlights your ignorance of the subject.


Mikey

OK. Not being in the loop regarding offsite stuff, I'd assumed that the original mention implied that the list of suspects would be rather smaller than those involved in the previous banning threads.

The use of multiple 'parody' accounts does seem like a really dumb idea to me. While an 'obvious' parody may appear in one account, some people may start by seeing a different and less obvious account with rather tenuous linkage to the first.
People don't generally expect to have to go to other user spaces to work out what's happening in the new one they're looking at.

I do think it would have been better if this hadn't happened. Not particularly for Lekz, as my sympathy in that direction was reduced from significant to virtually nothing by the Quincy business, but I know there are still people onsite who have sympathy left, and the Quincy affair wasn't painless for them either.

The results of the postings from fbb into "Ask h2g2" could have been easily misread by loads of uninvolved people. In-jokes, whether cruel, deserved, or otherwise really should be kept somewhere obscure.

Specifically, posting the 'fake' entries in conversations involving people known to be have sympathy for LeKZ does seem unfair and provocative.

GTBacchus thought he heard me say: "I only have compassion for people who are just hurting a little. Really mind-alteringly significant pain earns my contempt."

No. That is not what I mean.

What I mean is that while I do still unbelievably and incredibly feel compassion for LeKZ's pain, my patience with *the way she behaves* has snapped.

And one of the reasons it has snapped is the fact that she *will* keep returning to this site, which apparently causes her nothing but more pain.

Another is the sheer vituperation of the emails she has sent me (among many others), alternated with overtures of friendship. Sorry, my friends don't insult me, and follow it up by asking for my friendship, and *then* insult me and follow it up by asking for my friendship, and THEN insult me and follow it up by asking for my friendship. I think it is three times now, it may be four. Oh and then after all that blame me (vituperitively, to third parties) for rejecting them.

And a third reason it has snapped is because I am sick of being lied to, and having the lies denied, and then being lied to, and having the lies denied, and then being lied to again, and again, and again.

And the final reason it has snapped? The fact that there is a justification as long and as complicated as your arm for every single action she takes, and every single thing she does. And no-one else is ever right. Ever.

So yes - I have compassion for the person who has been so wounded that this is the only way that they know how to interact with the world. How could I not feel compassion for them?

But no - I know I am not skilled or competent, or indeed compassionate enough, to take the repeated vituperation and lies and to say "no, no, it is ok really, come on baby, do it to me one more time".

Damn. I have done it again.

Ben

"asking for my friendship" in the previous post should read "offering friendship" each time. To her credit, she offers friendship, she does not ask for it. Hmmm.

Mikey, you are right, I show up my ignorance of clinical terms. On the other hand, each of those terms has a non-clinical usage too.

As I said I am not competent to deal with her, and I am one of the few people on the site who admits that publicly.

On the other hand, neither of those terms is mine. I was quoting.

Ben

Drat drat and tirple dart!
Dyslexics of the world untie and force all the non- disabled to write at our speed (or at least wait long enough between postings just in case we might want to say summat)

No Tony - what ben probably means is that wallowing in self-pity and refusing to accept anything else isn't something other people find it easy to deal with.
(On the other hand - correct me if I'm wrong, but if someone were to lose their "disabled" status would they not lose certain privileges, or possibly even income - as well as other people's admiration for their "specialness")

Oops. Sorry. What I was trying to say was, I'd love to hear those really funny racist jokes, and child-abuse jokes, and wife-beating jokes, and...
They probably wouldn't let you post them here and I daren't give you any of my email addys but you could post them at [broken link removed by moderator]
Those of us over there who have been subjected to racism, sexism, child-abuse and wife-beating would really enjoy hearing them.

Don't worry - the ultra-pc bleeding hearts all left last time one of our group mocked his own religion.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/n2g2/

OR

[email protected]

NOT a barstewardisation of the two

Well, gosh Ben, it sounds like you're just as human as she is. As are the others in this thread at whom I lashed out. As am I, who lashed out, a very few hours after saying to you how much I dislike all lashing out. Who knew?

Let's all just admire those whose patience hasn't yet snapped (they must be around here somewhere), and hope that they aren't pushed over the edge, to join the rest of us out here in the mean sea.

I hope that you don't consider my last post an insult to you. I appreciate your frank reply. It's entirely possible that you'll consider *this* post to be me offering friendship after throwing abuse, and justifying my actions in a way that I can't be wrong. I hope you don't see it that way.

I would still suggest that, for those who have been pushed too far by LeKZ' behaviour, the best way for them to make the world a better place would be to do their best to refrain from adding to the general level of vitriol, but as long as we're all weak, let's all try to be patient with each other. I will also send this advice to myself, receive it, and read it over at least twice, and then I'll probably still come back and screw up, hypocrite that I am.

I don't apologize for getting ticked off. That happens. I just hope that the effects of my actions are more good than bad.

Tefkat, LOL!

Maybe I'll see you there, although I really don't think I can cope with the backlog of *another* mailing list. RL has been turning it up lately, and then all of this comes along...

anyway. Bless you for your sense of humour, a trait which, I believe, is ultimately born of kind compassion. If only it didn't have the potential to hurt as well as to heal... well then it probably wouldn't have the potential to do anything.

*signing off for the night, in the hopes that this will be all cleared up in the morning *

Tony/GTBacchus

Go on - increase the world's store of laughter - let's hear those jokes

(Know any good dead baby, or even dead cat, jokes?)

Hi Tony

You did not insult me, and as I said to Chris further up this thread, I have no problems with people who say what they think, or with people maintaining friendships with someone I am not able to be friends with.

And your comment about not spreading the vitriol is a good one.

Ben

Tefkat

I may well be subscribing to that group, especially if we're going to be getting into sick jokes.

But ...

I would not tell dead baby jokes to a mother whose baby had just died.

I would not tell child abuse jokes to a friend who's just dealing with memories of her own abuse, and denial of it from her parents.

Likewise, I would not write parody webpages of a person who is under a large amount of emotional stress, and feels as if a whole community is persecuting her.

It's about context.

We've discussed previously the use of humour on controversial topics - specifically a joke (or 'joke') that somebody made regarding suicide. The general consensus seemed to be that it was probably acceptable, though a number of people expressed strong disagreement.

F55683?thread=154198 - "The boundaries of satire"

I'm not sure to what extent that applies to satire of individuals, rather than disabilities or other shared characteristics. Of course, if [insert name of your favourite Italic here] had been the object of this satire, I get the feeling that reaction might be slightly different. Just a hunch.

Oh, in response to Tefkat's appeal, David Blunkett could never be prime minister. He just doesn't have the vision. (for balance, I'm reliably informed that William Hague looks like a foetus...)

GTB. Thanks for your advice elsewhere. I got a little carried away in other places over this issue, (up way too late) and am now trying to keep myself more controlled.

I think part of the problem is that patience and tolerance are still a little frayed or strained from events of a few weeks ago. The timing of this latest stuff is a unfortunate.

I'm sure that even the people who have run out of forgiveness for LeKZ still have a degree of understanding, and despite what a couple of researchers leaving in the Quincy aftermath may think, not everyone who disagreed with their point of view was motivated by hatred.

The worst outcome of the last month would be continuing polarisation of researchers here, or yet more people leaving.