To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (19106 ) 3/20/2001 8:03:59 PM From: Walkingshadow Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 19374 JXM, It is not really salient when the he said she said took place. You miss the point. I don't mean to suggest Vendit is a saint. But still---leaving aside the question of who makes the judgement and how---what he has done speaks for itself, as does the weight of the good versus the weight of the bad. Nothing can change that. And he has done a lot of people an enormous amount of benefit, not for glory, not for money, but for fun. That makes him perhaps not a saint (whatever that might be), but somebody who I respect and admire, faults included. I am no Christian by any Christian's definition I'm sure, but I've always found it remarkable and very noteworthy that Christ seemed to make little effort to hide his human failings. There's a profound message there...... and an example to strive towards. I see many such messages in people of all sorts, who also have human failings, unavoidably.<< Vendit is the one who started harassing me and my friends on my thread on iHub. But I am sure that doesn't interest you. >> Correct. I have no interest in soap operas.<< ....is all that I have to do to get your loyalty and absolution for being the jerk that I am, is to teach a few people something about charts for Free? How many years do I need to do that to qualify for sainthood? >> Neither you nor anybody else can "get" my loyalty and absolution because I'm a bystander. It is irrelevant, and besides, trying to "get" such things is at best counterproductive. I would not advise you to try. If your gut tells you to do so, then do so, and if not, then don't. I really don't care, and it is irrelevant what I think. YOU get the results of what you do, or don't do. Thank God I don't. I get the results of what I do, and I'd be well-advised to concern myself with that. I try to, not always successfully, to be sure. That said, there are those I look up to, and try to emulate----and those I very definitely don't. But I think it important that I try as best I can to give them the freedom to be them---warts and all---for only then do I have the freedom to be me. For those I admire and look up to, I would like to one day be 1/100th the man that they are. In the meantime, I struggle, and consider it a wildly successful day when I've harmed no one, and perhaps helped someone. And if I end up dying anywhere other than a gas chamber or electric chair, and nobody shows up to spit on my grave, my life will have been a success. To attain that will require some amount of work, I can tell you, one form of which is just the sort of work that Vendit has busied himself with over the years. You are entitled to your views, of course. But my views, also, are just that: my views and I offer no apologies, excuses, or reasons for them, nor does it concern me whether you or anybody else agrees or disagrees, nor do I even require that they be constant, or consistent. It is not you, but I, who have to live with them and their consequences. I have little desire to convince anybody at all that they are correct. Personally, I just can't live anymore with my gut churning and somebody else renting space in my mind. Life's just too short, and there's been far, far too much of that already. If you don't mind doing so, that is entirely your affair, and really none of my business---unless you ask me to make it my business. But if you've got the common sense that God gave gravel, you'll think long and hard before you ever ask me that! Regards, Walkingshadow