WARNING: Midsouthcon webmaster Michael Landis is a convicted child molester
Michele Landis Dauber
We are posting to science fiction fan newsgroups in order to warn
members of the fan community about a convicted child molester who has
insinuated himself into the sf convention network. Michael Landis, who
is one of the organizers of Midsouthcon held every year in Memphis and
a frequent participant in other cons, molested our daughter in 1987.
He was convicted of three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault
in Cook County, Illinois. He was incarcerated in the Illinois
penitentiary for eight years and was released after four. Since his
release he has relocated to the state of Mississippi, where he now
works at a large Internet service provider, Water Valley Interchange
(www.watervalley.net), which hosts Midsouthcon's Web page.
Landis is, unfortunately, a member of our family (where most
abusers are found). We have kept tabs on him over the Internet. In
1995 we discovered that he was actively involved in a number of
organizations involving children such as a martial arts school and
science fiction fan organizations and cons. He even posted pictures of
young children at Midsouthcon and other cons on one of his Web pages
at watervalley.net.
When we discovered that Landis is involved with kids at sf cons
we were frightened and attempted to warn the organizers of
Midsouthcon. We were amazed and profoundly disturbed when we received
angry e-mail defending the child molester and accusing us, the parents
of his victim, of wrongdoing. For example, Sylvia Cox, the chair of
the Midsouthcon organizing committee for the 1997 meeting held last
March, assured us after much argument that Landis would not attend the
con. He apparently did so despite Cox's assurances to us. Other
organizers told us to mind our own business, that they would run their
con as they saw fit and that Landis was their friend.
This reaction convinced us that it is necessary to warn parents
who might take their children to events at which Landis is present
about his past and the risk that he might pose. We have placed on a
Web site a full account of Landis' crimes and his involvement in sf
conventions and other activities involving children. Our hope in
disseminating this information is that parents will now be able to
make informed decisions about their children's safety.
Our site:
http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~landis/landis.html
Morgan Gallagher
In article <33fbc082...@news.acns.nwu.edu>, Michele Landis Dauber
<lan...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> writes
>He was convicted of three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault
>in Cook County, Illinois. He was incarcerated in the Illinois
>penitentiary for eight years and was released after four.
Before this becomes the ugliest flame war of the century...
Could someone Stateside, who has the access to confirm the legitimacy of
these comments, please do so for the benefit of those of us who can't?
I'm not suggesting they are false, I'd just like to have independent
confirmatin, since I'm not is a position to check them myself.
--
Morgan
"Nunc demum intellego," dixit Winnie ille Pu. "Stultus et
delusus fui," dixit "et ursus sine ullo cerebro sum."
Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604
From: dave...@bigfoot.com (Dave Locke)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom,rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.tv
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 18:14:59 GMT
This is all rumor level stuff, as yet.
Even if there is any substantiation of these charges, Jeremy is right.
jha...@bu.edu (Jeremy Hallum) set words in phosphor:
>He SHOULD BE free of all stigma attached to his crime. [...] Legally,
>IT IS OVER. LET IT DIE.
Never heard of Megan's Law?
Which has caused worse witch hunts than HUAC. It's a crock.
>Posted and mailed
Do one or the other, not both.
It's useful to do both, since some people post without reading, and
others don't keep up on their reading.
Letting the recipient of the email know is a good idea, as Gary has
told us so many times.
doug
Jeremy Hallum
Dave Locke (dave...@bigfoot.com) wrote:
: jha...@bu.edu (Jeremy Hallum) set words in phosphor:
:
: >He SHOULD BE free of all stigma attached to his crime. [...] Legally,
: >IT IS OVER. LET IT DIE.
:
: Never heard of Megan's Law?
Sure have. Mostly agreed to it, too, until I read something like
this. Now I wonder why it was allowed to pass. Criminals who have
served their time should not be treated as second hand citizens. The
prisons are supposed to serve to rehabilitate criminals. What does a law
like this say about our prison system?
:
: >Posted and mailed
:
: Do one or the other, not both.
I figured the person who posted this wasn't likely to stick
around and repost. I wanted to make sure she read it. Also, posting
this gives her a chance to respond publicly.
-jeremy "maybe forwards to alt.flame are a bit much, but
the others work well"
+=====================================================================+
# grad student, Boston U. # "Lots of people go to college for seven #
# Boston, MA 02134 # years." #
# Astronomy # "Yeah, they're called doctors." #
#<*> Jeremy Hallum <*># --Tommy Boy #
#<*> jha...@bu.edu <*># Vikings Fan since 1979 #
#<*>jha...@dreamt.org <*># http://bu-ast.bu.edu/~jhallum/ #
+=====================================================================+
Joshua Jasper
In article <5ti6m0$h6m$1...@news1.bu.edu>, Jeremy Hallum <jha...@bu.edu> wrote:
>Dave Locke (dave...@bigfoot.com) wrote:
>: jha...@bu.edu (Jeremy Hallum) set words in phosphor:
>:
>: >He SHOULD BE free of all stigma attached to his crime. [...] Legally,
>: >IT IS OVER. LET IT DIE.
>:
>: Never heard of Megan's Law?
>
> Sure have. Mostly agreed to it, too, until I read something like
>this. Now I wonder why it was allowed to pass. Criminals who have
>served their time should not be treated as second hand citizens. The
>prisons are supposed to serve to rehabilitate criminals. What does a law
>like this say about our prison system?
>
are problems to Megan's law, and criminals who've served thier time
_don't_ deserve to be treated like second hand citizens, but you relay
can't fault people for speaking out as individuals against someone who
raped thier child. Such a thing is an incredibly traumatic event, and
despite the fact that the man served his time, theres a chance he'll
repeat offend, as child molestors are apt to do. If I were a parent
atending such a convention, I'd want my child as far away from this
fellow as possible (presuming that the first post was true, otherwise
it's slander and the orriginal poster ought to get sued).
IMO the penalty for rape and especialy child abuse if far to
mild. As for prisons serving and rehabilitating, nope, prisons are today
effectivley serve as punishment and housing. I doubt a pedophile is going
to be 'cured' of his disease there, or in alot of cases, _can_ be cured
of such a thing. My doubts that such people are going to be effectivley
cured or detered by the prison system are well founded. Yes it's wrong
to treat people who've served time for such things as second ahnd
citizens, but it's _also_ a serious danger to have these people be free
to move wherever they want. In a utilitarian sense, it's better to err on
the child's side, but I'm not a utilitarian, it hurts me that these
people are treated as second class citizens, even after what they've
done . Not because of any love for them but out of a love for the ideals
of liberty and justice in general. Honestly, I can't say that there _is_
a good solution here, but don't blame the parents for what they did. If
it was me, I might have killed the bastard (again presuming that he did
do it) .
Sinboy
Michele Landis Dauber
sin...@netcom.com (Joshua Jasper) wrote:
> If it was _your_ child molested, what would you do? Yeah, there
>are problems to Megan's law, and criminals who've served thier time
>_don't_ deserve to be treated like second hand citizens, but you relay
>can't fault people for speaking out as individuals against someone who
>raped thier child. Such a thing is an incredibly traumatic event, and
>despite the fact that the man served his time, theres a chance he'll
>repeat offend, as child molestors are apt to do. If I were a parent
>atending such a convention, I'd want my child as far away from this
>fellow as possible (presuming that the first post was true, otherwise
>it's slander and the orriginal poster ought to get sued).
Everything is, unfortunately, true. Please visit our web site
(address in our first posting) where we have posted extensive
documentation, including a certified copy of his conviction and
sentencing reports, and the official transcript of his sentencing
hearing, and other documents. We will also send photocopies to anyone
requesting them for the purposes of protecting children. We are
completely in earnest in our desire to help parents keep their
children away from Michael. Believe us, after what we've been through
with our daughter, we never want to see anyone else suffer this way.
> IMO the penalty for rape and especialy child abuse if far to
>mild. As for prisons serving and rehabilitating, nope, prisons are today
>effectivley serve as punishment and housing. I doubt a pedophile is going
>to be 'cured' of his disease there, or in alot of cases, _can_ be cured
>of such a thing. My doubts that such people are going to be effectivley
>cured or detered by the prison system are well founded. Yes it's wrong
>to treat people who've served time for such things as second ahnd
>citizens, but it's _also_ a serious danger to have these people be free
>to move wherever they want. In a utilitarian sense, it's better to err on
>the child's side, but I'm not a utilitarian, it hurts me that these
>people are treated as second class citizens, even after what they've
>done . Not because of any love for them but out of a love for the ideals
>of liberty and justice in general. Honestly, I can't say that there _is_
>a good solution here, but don't blame the parents for what they did. If
>it was me, I might have killed the bastard (again presuming that he did
>do it) .
> Sinboy
>
>>:
I am positive that my brother was not cured or fixed in any way by his
incarceration. His interest in joining activities (like yours) which
involve children speaks volumes about his state of mind. He also is
not in any treatment or therapy program. No one wants to treat any
person as "second class," however, this is not about retribution--it
is about prevention--preventing him from ruining more young lives. If
that causes some embarassment, so be it.
Thank you for your support
Ken and Michele
Ed Dravecky III
Michele Landis Dauber (lan...@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
> I suggest that you check our site:
> http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~landis/landis.html
<snip>
Is there something here that prevents Lynx from seeing
anything buyt an empty document? The page Landis has
at the Midsouthcon site displays just fine, for example.
--
Ed Dravecky * Dallas Texas = This sigfile has been constructed
dsheldon(at)netcom(dot)com = of post-consumer recycled photons
David Stinson
The only concern I have with regard to this is that people should be
ABSOLUTELY certain that the person referred to is the person from the
convention.
Names are not unique. And it would be a very serious problem if a mistake
had been made.
--
David A. Stinson Web Page: http://www.procom.com/~daves/index.html
Personal E-Mail : dast...@zaol.com or dsti...@ix.netcomz.com
Remove 'Z' from addresses to send E-mail.
** No electrons were harmed during the production of this message **
Steve Sloan
David Stinson wrote:
>
> The only concern I have with regard to this is that people should
> be ABSOLUTELY certain that the person referred to is the person
> from the convention.
>
> Names are not unique. And it would be a very serious problem if a
> mistake had been made.
Not in this case. IIRC, the people who posted the original message
are the Michael Landis's family. They would probably know whether he
was working with the Con.
_____________________________________________________________________
Steve Sloan E-mail: sl...@geosim.msfc.nasa.gov
Computer Science graduate at the University of Alabama in Huntsville
Science fiction and raytracing pictures and links:
http://mars.cs.uah.edu/cs/students/ssloan/
C++: a language that allows your friends to access your private parts
"In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!" Homer J. Simpson
Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604
From: Steve Sloan <sl...@geosim.msfc.nasa.gov>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom,rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.tv
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 15:43:21 -0500
David Stinson wrote:
>
> The only concern I have with regard to this is that people should
> be ABSOLUTELY certain that the person referred to is the person
> from the convention.
>
> Names are not unique. And it would be a very serious problem if a
> mistake had been made.
Not in this case. IIRC, the people who posted the original message
are the Michael Landis's family. They would probably know whether he
was working with the Con.
I think you have to qualify that. They CLAIM to be in his family.
M. Landis doesn't deny they are, or that he's the one they're talking
about. This is a moot point.
It's still a witch hunt.
73, doug
Danny Low
Jeremy Hallum says...
>: Never heard of Megan's Law?
> Sure have. Mostly agreed to it, too, until I read something like
>this. Now I wonder why it was allowed to pass. Criminals who have
>served their time should not be treated as second hand citizens. The
>prisons are supposed to serve to rehabilitate criminals. What does a law
>like this say about our prison system?
Megan's murderer HAD served his time for child molestation. He was NOT treated
as a second hand (sic) citizen. That was how he was able to murder again. No
one knew he was a convicted child molestor. Therefore no one treated him any
differently from any other citizen. So he was free to murder again and did so.
You can say all you want about what the prison system SHOULD do. That will not
change what the prison actually does. What they actually do is NOT
rehabilitation but incarceration. People have to live with that fact and Megan
had to die because of that fact.
The conseqence of your position is children will be murdered as a result. If
you can live with that fact and accept that your children may be one of the
dead then go ahead and fight for your position. You are the one who must live
with yourself.
--
Danny Low
HP NSD
Dann...@hp.com
"The only good vampire is a dead vampire"
Robert Holland
David Stinson wrote:
>
> The only concern I have with regard to this is that people should be
> ABSOLUTELY certain that the person referred to is the person from the
> convention.
>
> Names are not unique. And it would be a very serious problem if a mistake
> had been made.
Guess it depends on who makes the accusations.
I'd believe your concern for justice if only you had
expressed a similar sentiment in the great hunt for
Bob of Eddore.
--RH
Loren MacGregor
In rec.arts.sf.fandom on 22 Aug 1997 22:54:33 GMT,
dl...@ppg01.sc.hp.com (Danny Low) said:
>The conseqence of your position is children will be murdered as a result. If
>you can live with that fact and accept that your children may be one of the
>dead then go ahead and fight for your position. You are the one who must live
>with yourself.
I hate to say this, but Grow Up. Yes, some people who have been
incarcerated and released to commit other crimes. Many don't. Many
people who are *not* incarcerated commit crimes. *Any* way of dealing
with crime and criminals that says, "This is the way it shall be,
always and forever," is ludicrously and dangerously limited. All such
an attitude does is to encourage people who have that mentality to be
safely self-righteous.
-- LJM
Loren MacGregor
lmac...@efn.org
Joshua Jasper
In article <FAUNT.97A...@netcom16.netcom.com>,
Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 <fa...@netcom16.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> From: Steve Sloan <sl...@geosim.msfc.nasa.gov>
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom,rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.tv
> Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 15:43:21 -0500
> >
> > The only concern I have with regard to this is that people should
> > be ABSOLUTELY certain that the person referred to is the person
> > from the convention.
> >
> > Names are not unique. And it would be a very serious problem if a
> > mistake had been made.
>
> are the Michael Landis's family. They would probably know whether he
> was working with the Con.
>
>I think you have to qualify that. They CLAIM to be in his family.
>M. Landis doesn't deny they are, or that he's the one they're talking
>about. This is a moot point.
>
>It's still a witch hunt.
>73, doug
Actualy, it's a hunt for someone (assuming he did it) who raped a
small child. The object of the hunt is to prevent the possibility of
other children from getting raped. As I'm neither a parent, nor going to
westercon, I'm not going to bother checking up on the stuff, _bu_
assuming the facts stated are true, which is potentialy worse, this mans
past following him, or the possibility of another child getting raped
because no-one knew he's dangerous? I'm not saure there _is_ a right
answer, but condemning the parents (which people running the con have
done, according to the first post) certainly isn't any answer.
Sinboy
Jason Stokes
> We are posting to science fiction fan newsgroups in order to warn
>members of the fan community about a convicted child molester who has
>insinuated himself into the sf convention network. Michael Landis, who
>is one of the organizers of Midsouthcon held every year in Memphis and
>a frequent participant in other cons, molested our daughter in 1987.
>He was convicted of three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault
>in Cook County, Illinois. He was incarcerated in the Illinois
>penitentiary for eight years and was released after four.
>
>[snip]
>
> When we discovered that Landis is involved with kids at sf cons
>we were frightened and attempted to warn the organizers of
>Midsouthcon. We were amazed and profoundly disturbed when we received
>angry e-mail defending the child molester and accusing us, the parents
>of his victim, of wrongdoing. For example, Sylvia Cox, the chair of
>the Midsouthcon organizing committee for the 1997 meeting held last
>March, assured us after much argument that Landis would not attend the
>con. He apparently did so despite Cox's assurances to us. Other
>organizers told us to mind our own business, that they would run their
>con as they saw fit and that Landis was their friend.
[etc.]
You have someone who has been released back in the community after doing
time for sexual assualt. You want to stop them from offending ever again,
and you do that by attempting to marginalise and isolate him from the rest
of society as much as is humanly possible, even demanding that he can't
attend or organise science fiction conventions. You portray him as a
ticking time bomb waiting to go off, a threat so large he can't even be
allowed in any situation where children might show up, harrassing and
demeaning his reputation in any enterprise he involves himself in.
I mean, forgetting morality and just talking from the standpoint of tactics,
isn't such marginalisation just an encouragement to re-offend again? After
all, if your offense ensures that you have become a social leper that will
never be allowed to fully participate in society again, what is there to
lose?
--
Jason Stokes: j.stokes (at) bohm.anu.edu.au
I use a spam block (annoying but effective.)
Replace (at) with @ to discover my email address.
.sigvert:
Linux, the free operating system -- <http://www.linux.org>
Michele Landis Dauber
dsti...@ix.netcomz.com (David Stinson) wrote:
>
>The only concern I have with regard to this is that people should be
>ABSOLUTELY certain that the person referred to is the person from the
>convention.
>
>Names are not unique. And it would be a very serious problem if a mistake
>had been made.
>
If you visit our homepage at :
http:\\pubweb.acns.nwu.edu\~landis\landis.html
you will see that it provides links to his own pages on the web in
which he has photos of himself--and I do know what he looks like since
he is my brother--at cons, and pictures of children that he took at
those cons. Many of these are his pages you see when you click on the
links, so it is very clear that it is the right person. I understand
your concern, but believe me, this is my brother the child molester
and he is putting himself into contact with children through the
science fiction convention network. For more documentation, visit his
pages at watervalley.net.
Michele Landis Dauber
Morgan Gallagher
In article <34046269...@news.acns.nwu.edu>, Michele Landis Dauber
<lan...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> writes
> Michael's conduct I understand. He's a jerk. But these other
>people--why? I cannot understand. They threatened us, told us to
>leave them alone, showed no concern whatsoever, then lied to us. Next
>year, I'll just go to where their meeting is and pass out pictures of
>him with a big red flyer that says "Stay away---child molester."
Have you considered he fact that you're making all this so much worse?
You've informed everyone. Everyone knows.
It seems that you not only want everyone to know, you want everyone to
act in the the way *you* think they should act?
You're not going to like this - but child molesters have rights, just
like everyone else. They are not sub human. They are not slaves of the
society they inhabit. they have a right to walk the streets, attend
conventions and mingle with the rest of us. More importantly, they have
the right to socialisation, support and understanding. otherwise we
just keep creating more problems.
Their rights are less important than the rights of the molested child,
certainly. But this isn't about your child, or other people's children
- it appears to be about your hurt, your outrage, and your feelings that
you have not been served by the system. You appear to want to acheive a
situation where this person is living in rags, in a hut, at the edge of
a great forest, with 'Monster, Stone three times a day' written on the
door.
You say yourself it's been a decade since your five year old was
attacked. Is this sort of obsessive behaviour on your part helping your
child? Is it healthy for your child to return home everyday and find
you tired, weary, dispirited and angry from yet another day of trying to
make the world *react* to this information, in a way you feel is
appropriate?
You've told everyone. As you said in your first post, we can now make
an informed decision.
Self reflect on the issue that if having reflected, we come to different
decisions about how to proceed. Self reflect, that in making those
decisions, we act from the power of the human being to develop past out
prejudices, regrets, fears and nightmares.
Self reflect on the issue that knowing someone was once a convicted
child molester, we can decide to let them stand as a human being who did
something terribly wrong, but who may just deserve the chance to
recover. Self reflect that we know his history, and can protect
children at the same time. Self reflect that the issue isn't that a
child may be at risk, but that you don't want this person in normal
society.
And self reflect, most importantly, on why you need to see blood
dripping off the walls, to prove that what he did was wrong, and that
you are right in your actions.
Then ask how your child is going to recover, with these daily reminders
of the past.
Michele Landis Dauber
j.st...@bogus-address.anu.edu.au (Jason Stokes) wrote:
>
>You have someone who has been released back in the community after doing
>time for sexual assualt. You want to stop them from offending ever again,
>and you do that by attempting to marginalise and isolate him from the rest
>of society as much as is humanly possible, even demanding that he can't
>attend or organise science fiction conventions. You portray him as a
>ticking time bomb waiting to go off, a threat so large he can't even be
>allowed in any situation where children might show up, harrassing and
>demeaning his reputation in any enterprise he involves himself in.
>
>I mean, forgetting morality and just talking from the standpoint of tactics,
>isn't such marginalisation just an encouragement to re-offend again? After
>all, if your offense ensures that you have become a social leper that will
>never be allowed to fully participate in society again, what is there to
>lose?
>
I frankly am unconcerned about the effect of warning parents and
community members on Michael. When Michael decided to have sex with
my five year old, he gave up forever the right to the sort of privacy
that non-molesters have because sometimes the good of the many
outweigh the good of the few or the one. It was his bad decision that
placed his privacy in jeopardy, not mine, and I am not responsible for
anyone but myself--certainly not him.
I am not trying to punish Michael. There is no punishment bad
enough to exact retribution for what he did to our family. I am
interested in preventing future harm. If that has an effect on him,
it is a consequence of his actions. No one would have to be warned
about him if he never raped a child.
You are awfully sanguine about what he actually did -- and the
chance that he might do it again. What if you were the only person
who knew what he did, and you watched him get involved with children?
You could warn their parents but didn't. Could you live with
yourself? Are you sure? I have no regrets. He should have some.
Michele Landis Dauber
Michele Landis Dauber
sin...@netcom.com (Joshua Jasper) wrote:
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Huh? like my what?
>
>
>
Sorry. Like science fiction conventions and fan groups. I thought
would be clear due to the NG. I think that he particularly is
attracted to sf groups because it is one place where it is not at all
unusual for children and adults to interact and the children are often
very smart and talkative. They have been in these cons around a lot
of adults and so have come to trust the people there. Also, from my
limited experience, many children at these cons are not too tightly
supervised because their parents think of this as a community where
they know and trust everyone. And they are held in hotels, where
there is a lot of opportunity to offend. So there are a lot of
reasons a pedophile like Michael would find this arrangement very
attractive, and he certainly has wormed his way right in. I think
this is very scary, and I hope that people listen when I say that he
is, in my opinion, still a threat.
Theron Fuller
Michele Landis Dauber wrote in article
<34066a56...@news.acns.nwu.edu>...
I don't know who you are, or what tragedies you and your family have
suffered in the past, if anything. I do not know the individual you are
posting about, or what he has done, if anything
What I do is that the Internet is not a very good forum for you to use to
request or demand action that may cause irreparable damage to an individual.
And I know it is definitely a very bad forum for anybody to use in deciding
to take adverse action against an individual.
I know from first-hand experience what can happen from Internet "calls to
action" against individuals. I never cease to be amazed at what otherwise
perfectly rational individuals will do in response to some accusation they
read in a newsgroup message. Imagine the situation if Joe Straczynski
walked up to the average Babylon 5 fan at a con and said, "I don't like what
Theron Fuller's been saying about me Why don't you go out in the parking
lot and break the windshield of his car to show your support of me."
However, Joe Straczynski can post on a Usenet newsgroup, "Ford Thaxton has
been stalking me. If you feel Ford's actions have been inappropriate, why
don't you contact America On Line and demand that his service be
terminated," and hundreds of individuals will immediately fire off an e-mail
to AOL demanding just that. The Internet makes it easy for an individual to
take irrational action and to be insulated from the consequences of that
irrational action. The Internet has a multiplicative effect, with thousands
of individuals taking small, seemingly innocuous actions that build to
terrible consequences.
Some idiot can post on Usenet a "news account" he read about Mexican health
inspectors discovering that workers in the Corona Brewery plant had been
pissing in the vats of beer that were going to the U.S. because they didn't
like Americans. Now you may not particularly put any stock in this "news
account," but you'll consider maybe ordering a Dos Eques instead of a Corona
the next time you're in that Tex Mex restaurant. If thousands or hundreds
of thousands of individuals make the same simple decision based on that "
news account," the brewers of Corona have been dealt a substantial financial
blow.
What's even worse, is that the Internet makes it possible for individuals
and groups to take malicious actions in total anonymity, or even to blame
those actions on someone else. Anyone can post messages in the name of
"Theron Fuller," or "Joe Straczynski." And any half-assed hacker can do a
little address spoofing and leave an audit trail that points directly back
to Theron Fuller's or Joe Straczynski's service provider.
I don't know if the individual posting these accusations is who they claim
to be or not. Furthermore, I have neither the time, the resources, or any
real need to find out. I wouldn't take any negative actions against the
individual named even if I was able to verify the identity of the poster. I
recommend you take the same position against all such posts and all such
Internet appeals.
As the old saying goes, "Believe none of what you hear and only half of what
you see."
Regards,
Theron Fuller
Jason Stokes
In article <3405682e...@news.acns.nwu.edu>, Michele Landis Dauber
<lan...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
> You are awfully sanguine about what he actually did -- and the
>chance that he might do it again.
I'm sure if I was in your position I'd be a lot more sympathetic, and I'm
truly sorry and distressed about what Michael did. But Micheal isn't
running a daycare centre, Michael isn't running a boy scout troop, he isn't
involved in any of those activities where close involvement with kids means
a background check. All he is doing is participating in normal social
activities. Of course he's going to meet kids, that's because kids are part
of society. What if Michael started turning up at school fetes? Or sunday
in the park? He's been let in society, that entails a certain amount of
risk, and saying "look, he has the opportunity to hurt kids" is trivial,
because he has that opportunity any place he goes.
You say that you are not interested in punishing him any further, but
unfortunately I can't believe you. You are doing your best to deny him
employment for one thing, (you know you are employing A CONVICTED CHILD
MOLESTER!), to pursue him in whatever activities he involves him in. It's
quite clear that your "warning to parents" has the goal of pressuring
midsouthcon to prevent him from participating in the con. I mean, what do
you want Michael to do, be forced to wear a pink triangle with the words
CHILD MOLESTER branded across it every place he goes? (Come to think of it,
that mightn't be so far fetched.) Michael may have been let loose from
prison, but it seems you will do your best to make sure prison isn't let
loose from Michael. And I doubt it's doing either of you any good.
>What if you were the only person who knew what he did, and you watched him
>get involved with children? You could warn their parents but didn't. Could
>you live with yourself? Are you sure? I have no regrets. He should have
>some.
Oh sure. Michael may offend again. He definitely has the potential. And
however emotionally the danger he poses grabs me, my stubborn adherence to a
lingering sense of Christian principle forces me to maintain that people can
be entitled to forgiveness. I'm sorry for that, it means we will be divided
along a line of principle, but I have my ideals.
David B.
Sorry, we live in the real world. Her web page, although one sided,
tends to show he did his TIME but shows no remorse, and no sign he was
cured of his problem.
Recidivism for this crime is a HORRIBLE statistic. She is doing what
every good victim should, warn the public of a potential future crime.
I applaud your belief of giving criminals a second chance, and think
people should do that. But you should be a little extra careful with
ex-cons to make sure you aren't the next victim.
David B.
Healed, I don't know how you could do this in this instance.
I would be mortified to know a person I knew most of my life was out
on the streets going to commit this crime again. He WILL do it.
Why do you think he moved?
The ONLY thing that may stop him is this woman's good work.
I say keep it up. Put the pressure on the local Mississip people so
they watch out for him.
If Michael Landis wants to be cured, he must MUST stay away from
children. He has NO REASON to be near them with his problem.
On Fri, 22 Aug 1997 15:10:38 GMT, sin...@netcom.com (Joshua Jasper)
wrote:
> Support? I support you and your family getting healed from a
>horible thing, and I suport children getting protected, but I'm still not
>100% sure I support constant monitoring and reporting of someone's
>wherabouts and activitys. It's a real moral dillema. In a way it's just,
>but OTOH, keeping up on this fellow for the rest of your lives might give
>his actions permanent power over you. See what I mean? This is not only a
>moral question, but a question about the psychological impact on you and
>your daughter, the healing of a deep wound in the psyche. Your prime
>concern is your family's wellness, don't let your protective instincts
>about your family block recovery. Heal and be well. Make _sure_ your
>daughter heals the best she can. She's the one who needs the most
>attention in this ordeal.
> Josh
Lawrence Watt-Evans
On 23 Aug 1997 07:55:31 -0400, hla...@panix.com (Arthur Hlavaty)
wrote:
>I agree completely, adding only that these laws often include "molesters"
>who had 17-year-old lovers when they were 18.
I would quibble with your choice of the word "often." It's happened,
yeah, but it's not that common.
TOUCHED BY THE GODS: Hardcover, Tor Books, November 1997, $24.95
The Misenchanted Page: http://www.sff.net/people/LWE/ Updated 8/5/97
Loren MacGregor
In rec.arts.sf.fandom on Sun, 24 Aug 1997 04:14:19 GMT,
lawr...@clark.net (Lawrence Watt-Evans) said:
>On 23 Aug 1997 07:55:31 -0400, hla...@panix.com (Arthur Hlavaty)
>wrote:
>
>>I agree completely, adding only that these laws often include "molesters"
>>who had 17-year-old lovers when they were 18.
>
>I would quibble with your choice of the word "often." It's happened,
>yeah, but it's not that common.
It may not be as widespread as it once was. As a side note, several
years ago I worked indirectly for a mental hospital which had at least
two patients who were incarcerated because their parents thought they
were mentally ill, and in each case found a doctor to agree. The
evidence of their illness, outlined in the charts -- with no other
reasons given -- was that both patients had been caught having sex
when they were under age.
I started having sex when I was 12. It was my idea. I may be crazy,
but that's not the reason.
Robert Sneddon
In article <3B231DD730E6F4E7.8B058649FC8975CC.10D
d...@water.SPAM.emich.edu "David B." writes:
> Healed, I don't know how you could do this in this instance.
> I would be mortified to know a person I knew most of my life was out
> on the streets going to commit this crime again. He WILL do it.
>
> Why do you think he moved?
Because of the posters put up by vigilante groups in his neighbourhood,
the bricks thrown through the windows at night, the beatings, the
anonymous threatening phone calls saying "Get out of town, you pervert"?
Two single guys living on a housing estate in the UK were firebombed
recently because the locals had "heard" they were paedophiles. They weren't,
but that didn't matter to the mob. Luckily the other families in the
same building were unhurt.
We have modern demons, and they are called paedophiles. In past times
they were Catholics, or Communists, or Jews, or saboteurs or... They are
a convenient focus for hate, but understand that it is hatred, not
concern for the "victims" that causes the relentless hounding of
Communists/Catholics/Jews in any milieu.
--
To reply via email, remove the string "_nospam_" from my address.
Robert (nojay) Sneddon
Theron Fuller
David B. wrote in article
<501215D3363720F7.7C7098A0...@library-proxy.airnews.ne
t>...
>Sorry, we live in the real world. Her web page, although one sided,
>tends to show he did his TIME but shows no remorse, and no sign he was
>cured of his problem.
Let me again emphasize that I have no knowledge that any of the principals
in this rerun-season soap opera actually exist. Or if they do, whether
whoever is doing the posting is either one side or the other in this
conflict. Or, if the people posting are actually who they represent
themselves to be, whether either side is giving anything that comes close to
being either an accurate or a true representation of either the past
situation or the current situation. For all I know this is some jokers
bored with all the reruns pulling an elaborate hoax on the rest of us.
And I would suggest to the rest of you reading this thread, that if you are
so bored or so socially isolated that you feel you must take some sort of
action based on what you read on this or some other newsgroup, I suggest you
do so in the "real world." Find out about the actual problem of child abuse
in your own community, for example. Volunteer to work with the Big Brothers
and Big Sisters program. Call the Salvation Army and ask how you can help a
family in crisis. Your rewards also will be real, and you won't be running
the very real risk of becoming part of a "virtual mob," doing something
stupid, and contributing to hurting a real human being.
That being out of the way, let me again emphasize that judging people by
what somebody else posts about them on a Usenet newsgroup is one of the
stupidest actions an individual can take. It's sheer bullshit to take real
actions that hurt real people based on what you read on a newsgroup.
>
>Recidivism for this crime is a HORRIBLE statistic. She is doing what
>every good victim should, warn the public of a potential future crime.
Again, let me qualify my statements: assuming any part of this thread is
either true or accurate, you have a situation where 10 years after a very
traumatic event happened to this family's daughter, they spend a major
portion of the family's time and resources tracking and attempting to punish
the individual responsible.
If you were 15 years old, would you want the details of sexual abuse
committed against you when you were 5 continually publicized and published
for all the world to read about on a Web page and in Usenet newsgroups?
Would you want your parents to continually remind you of that incident by
spending all their time tracking and talking about the guy who did it?
>
>I applaud your belief of giving criminals a second chance, and think
>people should do that. But you should be a little extra careful with
>ex-cons to make sure you aren't the next victim.
Yours is the very dangerous kind of statement that makes these sorts of
actions so dangerous on the Internet. " We don't know if it's true or not,
but it surely won't hurt to keep the kids away from this individual when we
go to the con." "That story about Mexican workers pissing in the Corona
beer is probably bullshit, but I'll just switch to Dos Equis just in case."
"That young Black man walking towards me most likely isn't a gang member who
intends to mug me, but I'll cross the street to avoid him, just to make
sure."
"Ex con" is a label. "Child molester" is a label. Folks like you get so
used to trolling and flaming on these newsgroups using labels and cliches,
that you don't know where to draw the line. You're making a very serious
statement about a real individual. A statement that potentially has real,
serious consequences.
Again, my suggestion. Spend your time and effort on Internet discussing
t.v. series, movies and such. Flame and troll away at everybody here,
because we all know the rules and we know all this stuff ain't real nohow.
Don't get involved, especially emotionally involved in threads like this.
The rules appear to be the same, but they aren't. At best you're being
taken for a sucker by some jokers bored with reruns. At worst, you're
participating in somebody else's tragedy, and taking actions that harm
another person.
Regards,
Theron Fuller
Joshua Jasper
In article <872344...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk>,
David G. Bell <db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>I've looked at the web sites produced on both side of this.
>
>There is more to this than the sf convention business, much more.
>
>But the way that the victim's family has taken what we would regard as
>commonplace behaviour, and presented it as evidence of pedophilia, is
>quite disturbing.
>
>For instance:
>
>A picture of a young girl, in what appears to be some sort of masquerade
>costume. Other people around. In the con report, it's one of many
>pictures. In the accusation, it is one big picture. A 3k .gif in the
>con report becomes a 69k .jpg in the accusation.
>
>For instance:
>
>Landis is a web page designer. He has a digital camera. And the
>accusation is made by rhetorically asking why a pedophile would want a
>camera which didn't need the film to be sent to a lab to be processed.
>
>Well, there is an obvious answer, but there are such things as Polaroid
>cameras, and it isn't difficult to process your own film. Does having a
>developing tank, and a thermometer, and an E-6 processing kit, make _me_
>a potential criminal?
>
>
>
>The web sites do show why the victim's family are worried. The reply
>from Michael Landis has some worrying features. There are other
>accusations which indicate a disturbing pattern of behaviour.
>
>But the details I can check suggest that the victim's family need not be
>telling the whole story. At several points they mention reporting
>Landis to ths police, and add that the police are investigating (which
>is a proper response) but accusations are easy. Where is the proof?
>
>
>The accusations:
>
>http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~landis/landis.html
>
>
>The response:
>
>http://www.watervalley.net/midscon/disclaimer
>
Wre I taking kids to midsouthcon (which I'm not) I'd check with
the police. OH, BTW, he did actualy serve time, didn't he? or was the
orriginal post a lie
Joshua Jasper
In article <dsheldonE...@netcom.com>,
Ed Dravecky III <dshe...@netcom.com> wrote:>I dunno, for the reason MOST Americans move every few years, a
>job? Heck, I've moved three times in the last seven years but
>I'm hardly in line to be featured on "America's Most Wanted" any
>time soon. (Of course, I've never gotten so much as a speeding
>ticket so that might be the *other* reason the cops aren't after
>me...)
>
>> The ONLY thing that may stop him is this woman's good work. I
>> say keep it up. Put the pressure on the local Mississip people so
>> they watch out for him.
>
>DO YOU. You might know that the sister has posted and you might
>know what Mr. Landis has posted but you don't know the FACTS.
>(Both websites are self-serving and they are JUST websites, not
>official documents. If you're willing to take websites at face
>value, some can put you in touch with Elvis and Santa Claus and
>one can even give you control of the Mars Sojourner rover for a
>while...)
Well, still, I I were going to westercon with kids, I'd check
with the atoritys and with the westercon staff.
Sinboy
Ray Radlein
David G. Bell wrote:
>
> Ever put your own name into a search engine query?
With the exception of my Uncle Ray in Chicago, I'd be surprised to
discover that there's another "Raymond Radlein" anywhere on the planet.
OTOH, every so often, I check AltaVista to see if my name turns up under
"Radlein" more often on the web than does my sister's name. Since the
"Spenser: For Hire" web site appears to be MIA, Robin's sort of ahead at
the moment (my name made it into someone's .sig, but I'm not sure that
would count). On the gripping hand, I'm ahead of her on newsgroups by a
couple thousand to none.
- Ray R.
--
*********************************************************************
"What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to RULE THE SEVAGRAM!"
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
*********************************************************************
Richard Newsome
lan...@merle.acns.nwu.edu (Michele Landis Dauber) writes:
>
> We were very unhappy when we initially tried to communicate with
> the Midsouthcon organizers. [...]
> Michael's conduct I understand. He's a jerk. But these other
> people--why? I cannot understand. They threatened us, told us to
> leave them alone, showed no concern whatsoever, then lied to us.
Writing to people you don't know to warn them that their new friend
is a leper isn't going to have much effect if the people you are
writing to are his fellow patients in the leper colony.
Richard Newsome
new...@panix.com
Michele Landis Dauber
j.st...@bogus-address.anu.edu.au (Jason Stokes) wrote:
I respect your principles. And, of course, it's a lot easier to talk
about forgiveness when it's not your child, and when you haven't
witnessed the devastation that his conduct caused first-hand. But you
say that you know what you would do in our position, and I will not
say that you are wrong. Perhaps for you, that would be the right
choice. But for me, I felt that it was important to try to warn
people in order to live with myself. I am sorry you think it is about
revenge. It seems to me that I could get revenge without bringing all
this criticism upon myself--without exposing myself to this sort of
judgment. I really must maintain that I am not out to get even--there
is no way to EVER even this score. I merely want him to voluntarily
stay away from children. His conduct indicates that he refuses to do
so. Threrefore, I have to warn the children. That is what I have
attempted to do.
Michele
Keith Lynch
In article <3B231DD730E6F4E7.8B058649...@library-proxy.airnews.net>,
> If Michael Landis wants to be cured, he must MUST stay away from
> children. He has NO REASON to be near them with his problem.
There seems to be a perception in this thread that SF cons are
children's events. They aren't. They are primarily of interest to
adults and mature teenagers. Any children brought along will usually
be at the parents' side, and will only be there because it wasn't
convenient to get a babysitter.
If Michael should never be at any location where there are sometimes a
few children, then he should never have been let out of prison in the
first place.
There's also a hidden (or not-so-hidden) assumption in your message
that he suffers from some disease which forces him to molest. If
this were true, then he should never have been in prison in the first
place. Someone can't morally be held guilty of a crime they were
physically unable not to commit. That would be like arresting a
motorist for inadvertantly running over a pedestrian when he had a
stroke while driving.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of criminals commit crimes
because they choose to do so, not because they are forced to do so.
--
Keith Lynch, k...@clark.net
http://www.clark.net/pub/kfl/
I boycott all spammers.
Cally Soukup
Ray Radlein (r...@learnlink.emory.edu) wrote:
: David G. Bell wrote:
: >
: > Ever put your own name into a search engine query?
: With the exception of my Uncle Ray in Chicago, I'd be surprised to
: discover that there's another "Raymond Radlein" anywhere on the planet.
My father has the improbable name of Vernon Soukup. Neither of these names
is at all common (though Soukup is not hopelessly uncommon in the Czech
Republic, I understand) and the combination seems unique. Especially since
"Vernon" isn't a Czech name, AFAIK. When he was a boy, in the thirties, he
heard Walter Winchell, the great radio commentator, say something like,
"No matter what your name is, I'll bet that there is someone else with the
same name. I know of 6 other Walter Winchells...", and my dad, lying in
front of the radio, sneered, and knew he had to be the only Vernon Soukup in
the world.
Flash forward 50 years. My dad now owns and operates a hardware store in a
suburb of Chicago, population maybe 30,000 people. Vernon Soukup, a plumber,
opens his business in the same suburb. As far as I know, there's no
relation, although some second cousins of mine, once removed, also are
plumbers.
Joshua Jasper
In article <5tvdg2$1...@clarknet.clark.net>, Keith Lynch <k...@clark.net> wrote:
>In article <3B231DD730E6F4E7.8B058649...@library-proxy.airnews.net>,
>> If Michael Landis wants to be cured, he must MUST stay away from
>> children. He has NO REASON to be near them with his problem.
>
>There seems to be a perception in this thread that SF cons are
>children's events. They aren't. They are primarily of interest to
>adults and mature teenagers. Any children brought along will usually
>be at the parents' side, and will only be there because it wasn't
>convenient to get a babysitter.
Obviously, we've been to some very different cons. I've seen
plenty of unatended or partialy atended children running up and down the
halls. The were brought by the parents, not due to lack of babysitter,
but because the kids _wanted_ to come.
>
>If Michael should never be at any location where there are sometimes a
>few children, then he should never have been let out of prison in the
>first place.
>
>There's also a hidden (or not-so-hidden) assumption in your message
>that he suffers from some disease which forces him to molest.
It _is_ a disease.
If
>this were true, then he should never have been in prison in the first
>place. Someone can't morally be held guilty of a crime they were
>physically unable not to commit. That would be like arresting a
>motorist for inadvertantly running over a pedestrian when he had a
>stroke while driving.
>
One can have a mental ilness and still have some reasoning. As
for wether he should/shouldn't have been in jail, I'm not sure.
>In fact, the overwhelming majority of criminals commit crimes
>because they choose to do so, not because they are forced to do so.
The insanity defence is realy not all it's cracked up to be on
TV. In alot of cases, it depends on how persuasive one's defence
psychologist was. If the original poster is reading this, did Landis
plead insanity? If not, that's either his lawyers fault, or his own.
Sinboy
Lawrence Watt-Evans
On 27 Aug 1997 01:42:52 -0400, gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) wrote:
>I don't mean to be cranky, but most of you are too young to recall the
>last major child-molesting-accusation-con-expulsion debate, which
>overwhelmed nearly all of fandom for a couple of years, had hundreds of
>thousands of useless words published on the topic, destroyed the leading
>fanzines of the day, broke up lifelong friendships, and which remains the
>greatest and most destructive feud to ever come through fandom in its
>entire seventy-year-history, bar none; some people still don't speak to
>each other because of that feud, thirty-five years later, and it's still
>nearly impossible to debate that one rationally in public.
That wasn't the last, Gary. You missed at least one, about twelve
years ago, which was long and messy but nowhere near as disastrous as
the one you refer to.
piranha
In article <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>,
Joshua Jasper <sin...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> Well, still, I I were going to westercon with kids, I'd check
>with the atoritys and with the westercon staff.
> Sinboy
regardless of the facts of this case (i am not interested
in getting into "did too", "no proof" arguments), megan's
law is IMO something that provides anxious people with the
illusion of greater safety, and nothing else. which makes
me dislike it, tho i can understand people's unwillingness
to just forget about a child molestor, even after the jail
term is up. i despise child molestors with a passion, and
as far as i am concerned, their punishment should be death.
but i am not mollified by megan's law; i consider it a poor
bandaid.
so you know the name of one child molester, and maybe his
or her whereabouts, and that makes you feel safer. big
deal, frankly -- you don't know the name and the intentions
of most strangers, and many child molesters go unknown for
long periods of time, and your child isn't safe from them
while you're getting worked up over this particular guy.
you'd be much better off teaching your child generic habits
that might provide protection from such people; that is to
a much greater degree under your control than the where-
abouts of known child molesters.
obSF -- westercon wasn't the con in question, so you'd be
SOL conferring with any authorities and staff. :-)
-piranha
------------------------------------------------------------------------
please help fight spam -- http://www.cauce.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross Cunniff
Stevens R. Miller (l...@interport.net) wrote:
> Chuck Lipsig wrote:
> >
> > sin...@netcom.com (Joshua Jasper) wrote:
> >
> > > If it was _your_ child molested, what would you do?
> >
> > Kill the molester and serve whatever time I got. Assuming Patti didn't
> > beat me to it.
> Here is a question in all sincerity: Given that the above view
> is almost universally expressed, and that molestation is a
> woefully frequent thing, why doesn't the above sequence occur
> more often?
Probably because it is mostly beloved family members doing the
molestation, which leads to a cycle of denial about the molestation
itself. Human beings are really good at molding their perception of
reality to fit their expectations.
Ross Cunniff
Hewlett-Packard Graphics Products Lab
cun...@fc.hp.com
Dan Goodman
In article <34053415...@news.pipeline.com>,
Dave Locke <dave...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) set words in phosphor:
>
>>I don't mean to be cranky, but most of you are too young to recall the
>>last major child-molesting-accusation-con-expulsion debate, which
>>overwhelmed nearly all of fandom for a couple of years, had hundreds of
>>thousands of useless words published on the topic, destroyed the leading
>>fanzines of the day, broke up lifelong friendships, and which remains the
>>greatest and most destructive feud to ever come through fandom in its
>>entire seventy-year-history, bar none; some people still don't speak to
>>each other because of that feud, thirty-five years later, and it's still
>>nearly impossible to debate that one rationally in public.
>
>an attempt to bar him from a convention, which is the instance you're
>referring to. The attempt was very divisive to fandom and to this day
>is generally looked upon as having been a bad move. This, despite the
>fact that the known child molester later got nailed for child
>molestation and died while serving a prison term. Go figure.
Very simply: 1) the evidence presented was not convincing to everyone in
fandom. 2) Some of the people most in favor of the barring _could not, or
would not, acknowledge that it was possible for someone to not be
convinced_. They took it for granted that the people who said they didn't
believe it were lying.
There would still have been people who were unconvinced, no matter how
strong the evidence had been. (And conversely, people who would have been
convinced no matter how weak the evidence had been.)
But taking it for granted that everyone who claimed not to be convinced
was lying was _not_ the way to go.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Dave Locke
dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) set words in phosphor:
>Dave Locke <dave...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>>Back in the 60s there was a known but unconvicted child molester and
>>an attempt to bar him from a convention, which is the instance you're
>>referring to. The attempt was very divisive to fandom and to this day
>>is generally looked upon as having been a bad move. This, despite the
>>fact that the known child molester later got nailed for child
>>molestation and died while serving a prison term. Go figure.
>
>Very simply: 1) the evidence presented was not convincing to everyone in
>fandom.
True, but I don't know of anything which is convincing to everyone in
fandom.
>2) Some of the people most in favor of the barring _could not, or
>would not, acknowledge that it was possible for someone to not be
>convinced_. They took it for granted that the people who said they didn't
>believe it were lying.
Some people will always adopt a position which makes their more
moderate cohorts cringe, and wish the "some" weren't on their side.
>There would still have been people who were unconvinced, no matter how
>strong the evidence had been. (And conversely, people who would have been
>convinced no matter how weak the evidence had been.)
These crazy fans. There's just no whipping them into line...
>But taking it for granted that everyone who claimed not to be convinced
>was lying was _not_ the way to go.
You're talking about the "some" again. Of course. Not "everyone",
and not even most, were lying about that.
I don't think it would be legal to bar someone from a con for
something they haven't been convicted of, or to bar someone from a con
for something they'd served their time for even if that time were
ridiculously short because they needed the cell for a mandatory
three-time-loser who'd been caught nabbing his third loaf of bread.
Though overboard to attempt such barring, history has shown that it
was a good-hearted move with a solid moral base. Neither side was all
right or all wrong. As is often the case.
All you can do is warn people.
--
Dave dave...@bigfoot.com
Slow Djinn - Dave Locke's Back Road Off The Information Highway
http://www.angelfire.com/oh/slowdjin
Dan Goodman
In article <340a696e...@news.pipeline.com>,
Dave Locke <dave...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) set words in phosphor:
>
>>Dave Locke <dave...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>>>Back in the 60s there was a known but unconvicted child molester and
>>>an attempt to bar him from a convention, which is the instance you're
>>>referring to. The attempt was very divisive to fandom and to this day
>>>is generally looked upon as having been a bad move. This, despite the
>>>fact that the known child molester later got nailed for child
>>>molestation and died while serving a prison term. Go figure.
>>
>>Very simply: 1) the evidence presented was not convincing to everyone in
>>fandom.
>
>True, but I don't know of anything which is convincing to everyone in
>fandom.
>
>>2) Some of the people most in favor of the barring _could not, or
>>would not, acknowledge that it was possible for someone to not be
>>convinced_. They took it for granted that the people who said they didn't
>>believe it were lying.
>
>Some people will always adopt a position which makes their more
>moderate cohorts cringe, and wish the "some" weren't on their side.
But it's _not_ always that some of those people are in official positions.
To get specific -- in this case, on the concom. At least one person who
cancelled a worldcon membership got a letter back which said -"We don't
want people who condone child molestation. Goodby, and good riddance!"-
Joshua Jasper
In article <01bcb255$405afb80$df9b0b26@usbgrw7130>,
Richard Millward <r...@mcs.com> wrote:
>Michele Landis Dauber <lan...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote in article
><34056a8e...@news.acns.nwu.edu>...
>> dshe...@netcom.com (Ed Dravecky III) wrote:
>>
>> >
>>
>> PLEASE---you don't have to believe us. But this is not a he said/she
>> said matter. This man is a child molester who has been convicted of a
>> terrible crime, which I believe that he will repeat given the
>> opportunity. If you are a parent, the stakes are too high to gamble
>> with. Don't take any chances. Get the facts. If you don't believe
>> me, then call the above sources or email me an address to send the
>> xeroxes. Please.
>
>On what basis to you make the blanket claim that "HE WILL REPEAT GIVEN THE
>OPPORTUNITY"? That is only your opinion - but then, why start letting the
>FACTS get in your way now? Since his release from incarceration, what has
>he done, other than move to a new town, get a job, find some new friends,
>date a little and, basically, try to get on with the rest of his life.
>HE'S COMMITTED NO CRIME and your continued pursuit and harrassment of him
>is despicable.
Ah, if you look closely, it's " I believe that he will repeat".
And IIRC, he's working with children, in a karate class (again IIRC).
Don't you think it's reasonable to assume that child molestors once
released stand a chance of repeating thier crime? If he kept away from
children, there'd probably be no debate here.
>
>================
>Richard Millward
>r...@mcs.com
>
Joshua Jasper
In article <5u1mpe$i...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:
>In article <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>,
>Joshua Jasper <sin...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>> Well, still, I I were going to westercon with kids, I'd check
>>with the atoritys and with the westercon staff.
>> Sinboy
>
> regardless of the facts of this case (i am not interested
> in getting into "did too", "no proof" arguments), megan's
> law is IMO something that provides anxious people with the
> illusion of greater safety, and nothing else. which makes
> me dislike it, tho i can understand people's unwillingness
> term is up. i despise child molesters with a passion, and
> as far as i am concerned, their punishment should be death.
> but i am not mollified by megan's law; i consider it a poor
> bandaid.
>
> so you know the name of one child molester, and maybe his
> or her whereabouts, and that makes you feel safer. big
> deal, frankly -- you don't know the name and the intentions
> of most strangers, and many child molesters go unknown for
> long periods of time, and your child isn't safe from them
> while you're getting worked up over this particular guy.
>
> you'd be much better off teaching your child generic habits
> that might provide protection from such people; that is to
> a much greater degree under your control than the where-
> abouts of known child molesters.
>
> obSF -- westercon wasn't the con in question, so you'd be
> SOL conferring with any authorities and staff. :-)
Yah, I made a later correction. BTW, is there something wrong
with your caps lock/shift key? It's kinda hard to tell where your
sentences begin and end if you don't start off sentences with a capital
letter. I've noticed this alot on usenet. Either there's a whole heck of
alot of T.S. Eliot fans online (It was him, right?) or this means
something I'm not knowledgable of.
Doug Tricarico
In <5u1i3k$q0p$1...@nnrp1.crl.com> grif...@crl.com (Dave Griffith)
writes:
>Stevens R. Miller (l...@interport.net) wrote:
>: Chuck Lipsig wrote:
>: >
>: > sin...@netcom.com (Joshua Jasper) wrote:
>: >
>: > > If it was _your_ child molested, what would you do?
>: >
>: > Kill the molester and serve whatever time I got. Assuming
Patti didn't
>: > beat me to it.
>
>: Here is a question in all sincerity: Given that the above view
>: is almost universally expressed, and that molestation is a
>: woefully frequent thing, why doesn't the above sequence occur
>: more often?
>
>
>1) Molestation is woefully frequent. Molestation by strangers
>is comparatively quite rare. It's real easy to express vicious
>sentiments about hypothetical gutter trash. It's a lot tougher
>to kill Uncle Jack or Pastor Bob in cold blood.
Wouldn't be for me... must be my Italian heritage.
>2) Killing in cold blood, even killing strangers in cold blood, is
>extremely difficult for the vast majority of people. It just doesn't
>happen that often, and most cases where it does happen involve
>testosterone-drunk young men, too young to be taking part in the
>above mentioned activity.
I never thought it'd be that tough... must be my German heritage.
>3) It happens more often than we think, and we simply don't hear about
it.
>If you kill someone, no matter how vile, in broad daylight on a public
>street, the police and prosecutors have little choice but to take
notice.
>If you kill someone known to be vile in private without leaving great
>huge heaps of evidence lying around, the case just isn't likely to get
>much priority at an overworked, big-city police department.
>
>4) It is safer and much more convenient to leave the killing to the
>tender mercies of the penal system, albeit less sure. If convicted,
>the life of a child molester has historically been expected to be
>nasty, brutish, and short, as he finds himself locked up with violent
>gentlemen with personal reasons to dislike child molestation and very
>little to lose. How accurate this perception is is a very interesting
>question to which I have no answer.
An interesting misconception. Certainly some prisoners react this way,
but they are the minority. Child molesters aren't specifically
disliked by other types of criminals for their crimes, but are, rather,
seen as weak and therefore easy prey.
Aside from that, killings in prison are relatively rare, though one's
odds increase in certain institutions.
As an aside, I find it more worrisome that there are more than 60,000
prison escapees per year. Check the locks on your doors.
>5)Anonymity. Child molestors who survive the legal system tend to
drop out
>of their old lives completely, out of justified fear of precisely the
>actions you describe as well as lesser sanctions. With Megan's Laws
>being enacted requiring community notification, this is getting more
>difficult. Unsurprisingly, we _are_ starting to see ad-hoc executions
>of child molestors whose locations are made public knowlege due to
>Megan's Laws, at least four in the last year if I remember correctly.
>
>ObSF: The most recent Callahan's book by Spider Robinson includes a
>little piece on this topic.
>--
>--Dave Griffith, grif...@crl.com
Rick Keir
In article <34041D...@interport.net>, "Stevens R. Miller"
<l...@interport.net> wrote:
> Chuck Lipsig wrote:
> > Kill the molester and serve whatever time I got. Assuming Patti didn't
> > beat me to it.
>
> Here is a question in all sincerity: Given that the above view
> is almost universally expressed, and that molestation is a
> woefully frequent thing, why doesn't the above sequence occur
> more often?
Apart from the obvious answer that talk is cheap?
Karen Traviss
> Probably because it is mostly beloved family members doing the
> molestation, which leads to a cycle of denial about the molestation
> itself. Human beings are really good at molding their perception of
> reality to fit their expectations.
>
My pals in Social Services confirm this as the most likely reason. We
spend all this time and effort in warning kids about "stranger danger"
but it's the familiar they have most reason to fear, statistically
speaking. The media don't help, and I say that as a journalist: I don't
know about US law, but it's easier to report a case on a genuine
stranger abusing a child than it is their parent or other family member,
because of the identification laws here. (You can say Mr X abused a
child, but not say it's his son: or you can say it's his son, but you
can't name the man. That's assuming it ever gets to open court
anyway...) Add that to the general blind-spot on familial abuse, and
you've got yourself not only an urban myth but an attitude.
Franklin Hummel
>plenty of unatended or partialy atended children running up and down the
>halls. The were brought by the parents, not due to lack of babysitter,
>but because the kids _wanted_ to come.
not offer babysitting services, and most do not, and makes it clear they
do not, should then not be expected to babysit.
Don't blame a con for a parent's irresponsibility.
-- Franklin Hummel [ hum...@world.std.com ]
--
====================================================================
* NecronomiCon, 4th Edition: The Cthulhu Mythos Convention *
August 1999, Providence, RI * Guests: Fred Chappell & T.E.D. Klein
Visit our web site at: http://www.necropress.com/necronomicon
Jaeger T. Cat
In article <3404445C...@fantasylink.com>,
Sphere Online Publications <mas...@fantasylink.com> wrote:
>Because there are lawyer who defend molesters...
>
>
Yeah, god _damn_ that fucking Constitution. Hateful document, it is.
Not.
Arthur Hlavaty
In article <3404445C...@fantasylink.com>,
Sphere Online Publications <mas...@fantasylink.com> wrote:
>Because there are lawyer who defend molesters...
>
>
>
>> Chuck Lipsig wrote:
>> >
>> > sin...@netcom.com (Joshua Jasper) wrote:
>> >
>> > > If it was _your_ child molested, what would you do?
>> >
>> didn't
>> > beat me to it.
>>
>> Here is a question in all sincerity: Given that the above view
>> is almost universally expressed, and that molestation is a
>> woefully frequent thing, why doesn't the above sequence occur
>> more often?
>>
Nobody kills molesters because lawyers defend them? That makes even less
sense than I've come to expect of you.
--
Arthur D. Hlavaty hla...@panix.com
Church of the SuperGenius In Wile E. We Trust
\\\ E-zine available on request. ///
John Edw. Bartley
In article <5thv51$ble$1...@news1.bu.edu>,
Jeremy Hallum <jha...@bu.edu> wrote:
>Michele Landis Dauber (lan...@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
>: We are posting to science fiction fan newsgroups in order to warn
>: members of the fan community about a convicted child molester who has
>: insinuated himself into the sf convention network. Michael Landis, who
>: is one of the organizers of Midsouthcon held every year in Memphis and
>: a frequent participant in other cons, molested our daughter in 1987.
>: He was convicted of three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault
>: in Cook County, Illinois. He was incarcerated in the Illinois
>: penitentiary for eight years and was released after four. Since his
>: release he has relocated to the state of Mississippi, where he now
>: works at a large Internet service provider, Water Valley Interchange
>: (www.watervalley.net), which hosts Midsouthcon's Web page.
> Good, he's done his time for whatever he did. That is
>important.
Unfortunately, not as important as with other crimes, for child
abusers have a recividism rate of worse than 90%. The odds are
worse than 9 out of 10 that any convicted abuser will abuse again,
which is radically worse than the innocent expect.
>: Landis is, unfortunately, a member of our family (where most
>: abusers are found). We have kept tabs on him over the Internet. In
>: 1995 we discovered that he was actively involved in a number of
>: organizations involving children such as a martial arts school and
>: science fiction fan organizations and cons. He even posted pictures of
>: young children at Midsouthcon and other cons on one of his Web pages
>: at watervalley.net.
> Ok...So?
Given the recividism of offenders, the only decent way to be sure they
will not repeat and consign more kids to decades of mental pain is
that they stay away from kids. If he is not staying away from kids,
then he may be a very serious risk to their mental health, and the
mental health of their parents.
> As they should. This whole flaming post is full of
>irrationalities. You should listen to yourself, and how you sound like
>some Nazi. He has done his time. Let it go. You are harassing this guy
>illegally. I'm surprised he hasn't taken you to court yet.
As an officer of the court, I may assure you, the fact of conviction
is always public record unless that record is sealed by the court.
>: This reaction convinced us that it is necessary to warn parents
>: who might take their children to events at which Landis is present
>: about his past and the risk that he might pose. We have placed on a
>: Web site a full account of Landis' crimes and his involvement in sf
>: conventions and other activities involving children. Our hope in
>: disseminating this information is that parents will now be able to
>: make informed decisions about their children's safety.
>: Our site:
>: http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~landis/landis.html
It's tough to deal with this issue; a Friends meeting I attend
agonized for months about whether to accept a man with a similar
history, and ultimately decided not to (very rare with Quakers)
because he concealed his past.
Let's all be open about this, wherever we find abuse, to assure
the innocent of safety.
Rick Cook
Joshua Jasper wrote:
> Ah, if you look closely, it's " I believe that he will repeat".
>And IIRC, he's working with children, in a karate class (again IIRC).
>Don't you think it's reasonable to assume that child molestors once
>released stand a chance of repeating thier crime? If he kept away from
>children, there'd probably be no debate here.
>
their crime. As much as 75 percent for some types, according to some
studies. Offhand I can't think of a single study that puts the recidivism
rate for child molesters at less than about 50 percent.
So there is cause for concern.
But concern -- and informing people -- is not at all the same as conducting
a vendetta against someone and doing your damnedest to ruin that person's
life. In my opinion that's what's happening here.
The case is interesting in a science fiction sense because it gives us a
foretaste of what it is like to live in a truly information-rich society.
It's a point which has been insufficently appreciated by most of us.
I'm working on a near-future 'detective novel' and watching this situation
has led me to revise a couple of scenes and sharpen a plot device.
--RC
Doug Berry
On Wed, 27 Aug 1997 08:28:12 -0400, "Stevens R. Miller"
<l...@interport.net> wrote:
>Chuck Lipsig wrote:
>>
>> sin...@netcom.com (Joshua Jasper) wrote:
>>
>> > If it was _your_ child molested, what would you do?
>>
>> Kill the molester and serve whatever time I got. Assuming Patti didn't
>> beat me to it.
>
>Here is a question in all sincerity: Given that the above view
>is almost universally expressed, and that molestation is a
>woefully frequent thing, why doesn't the above sequence occur
>more often?
Because usually the only time the parent sees the molester after the
incident is in court. This makes it hard to exact revenge, although
we had a lady do it here in NorCal a few years ago.. she's up for
parole now.
Also, I don't think most people really understand how difficult it is
to kill another human being. I was an Army sniper, and have shot
other people. It is hard, changes you forever, and something that is,
for our culture, morally wrong. I'm sure that many folks who would
say "I'd kill him" would not be able to pull the trigger.
--
+-------------------------------------------+
| Doug Berry dbe...@nospam.hooked.net |
| http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/index.html |
| (remove "nospam" to reply by mail) |
|-------------------------------------------|
| Gamer, Filker, Costumer.. I'm not a fan, |
| I'm just a pile of Fringe... |
+-------------------------------------------+
Morgan Gallagher
In article <3404BE93...@fantasylink.com>, Sphere Online
Publications <mas...@fantasylink.com> writes
>The point is that there are scummy lawyers who will defend anyone, sue
>anyone
>if they are paid enough money. While I would not label the whole
>profession
>this way, there are always a few bad apple (ie, ambulance chasers,
>extortionists)
>etc, who take advantage of the system to help line their pockets, no
>matter who they
>effect or damage.
Ehm, no.
The point is that everyone is entitled to a proper defense, regardless
of their actions, thoughts, words or feelings.
Without it, the law is utterly worthless.
--
Morgan
"Nunc demum intellego," dixit Winnie ille Pu. "Stultus et
delusus fui," dixit "et ursus sine ullo cerebro sum."
Hernan Espinoza
Sphere Online Publications <mas...@fantasylink.com> writes:
>The point is that there are scummy lawyers who will defend anyone, sue
>anyone if they are paid enough money. While I would not label the
>whole profession this way, there are always a few bad apple (ie,
>abulance chasers, extortionists) etc, who take advantage of the system to
>help line their pockets, no matter who they effect or damage.
By the same token, there are also many good defense lawyers
who sincerely believe in the concept of "innocent until proven
guilty in a court of law" and their _duty_ to defend their clients
to the best of their abilities.
-Hernan, let's not forget all those good apples
OBsf - What do people think is the most interesting presentation of
an alien legal system?
John Moreno
Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote:
] Chuck Lipsig wrote:
] >
] > sin...@netcom.com (Joshua Jasper) wrote:
] >
] > > If it was _your_ child molested, what would you do?
] >
] > Kill the molester and serve whatever time I got. Assuming Patti
] > didn't beat me to it.
]
] Here is a question in all sincerity: Given that the above view
] is almost universally expressed, and that molestation is a
] woefully frequent thing, why doesn't the above sequence occur
] more often?
Because that's not what they WOULD do it's what they would LIKE to do.
In most cases this sentiment is mainly self-delusion. Probably combined
with the fact that most molesters are either family or friends and it's
easier to say Kill Chester the Molester than it is to say Kill Bill the
Neighbor (not to mention the cases of brother / husbands / sons / wives
/ sisters / daughters / cousins of all sorts).
--
John Moreno
Joshua Jasper
In article <EFLGB...@world.std.com>,
Franklin Hummel <hum...@world.std.com> wrote:
>In article <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>,
>Joshua Jasper <sin...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>> Obviously, we've been to some very different cons. I've seen
>>plenty of unatended or partialy atended children running up and down the
>>halls. The were brought by the parents, not due to lack of babysitter,
>>but because the kids _wanted_ to come.
>
>
> Then their parents SHOULD attend to them. A convention which does
>not offer babysitting services, and most do not, and makes it clear they
>do not, should then not be expected to babysit.
>
> Don't blame a con for a parent's irresponsibility.
I never did blame the cons. There are more often annoying adults
than annoying kids running unatended around the halls.
Sinboy
Joshua Jasper
In article <5u227h$g...@panix2.panix.com>,
Gary Farber <gfa...@panix.com> wrote:
>In rec.arts.sf.fandom <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>
>Joshua Jasper <sin...@netcom.com> wrote:
>[. . .]
>
>: Yah, I made a later correction. BTW, is there something wrong
>: sentences begin and end if you don't start off sentences with a capital
>: letter.
>
>as using two spaces after a period, a feat you seem unable to manage. The
>fact that piranha writes entirely grammatically and clearly, in the years
>I've been reading the fish's posts to Usenet, has also prevented me from
>ever having the slightest confusion over alix's posts.
Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in writing.
>
>: I've noticed this alot on usenet. Either there's a whole heck of
>: alot of T.S. Eliot fans online (It was him, right?) or this means
>: something I'm not knowledgable of.
>
>don marquis, maybe? piranha has also never had the delusion that there
>is such a word as "alot," nor misspelled "knowledgeable."
>--
OK, so I'm a lousy speller, I knew that, you knew that. Anyone in
usenet who reads my posts knows that. I wasn't flaming him, I was just
asking a question. BTW, it was EE Cummings, as someone pointed out to me.
All I wanted to know was what the deal was with the lack of
capitalization. No offence intended.
Sinboy
>-- Gary Farber gfa...@panix.com
>Copyright 1997 Brooklyn, NY, USA
Gary Farber
In rec.arts.sf.written <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>
[. . .]
: Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in writing.
On a computer system, one could decide to follow either copyediting style
or typesetting style. Traditions also vary between the US and other
English-speaking countries, and like all stylistic issues, there are
always competing authorities one can cite. But in general, most US
punctuation/style authorities still call for two spaces after the end of a
sentence to distinguish this from other uses of the period.
It's not a law; it's a recommended usage, and one I endorse. :-)
[. . .]
: OK, so I'm a lousy speller, I knew that, you knew that. Anyone in
: usenet who reads my posts knows that. I wasn't flaming him, I was just
: asking a question. BTW, it was EE Cummings, as someone pointed out to me.
: All I wanted to know was what the deal was with the lack of
: capitalization. No offence intended.
Okay; sorry if I jumped on you exceedingly hard; I did read an implicit
criticism in your post, and a somewhat ignorant one, at that. My
apologies for landing on you so emphatically.
--
Joshua Jasper
In article <5u46cm$e...@panix2.panix.com>,
Gary Farber <gfa...@panix.com> wrote:
>In rec.arts.sf.written <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>
>Joshua Jasper <sin...@netcom.com> wrote:
>[. . .]
>
>: Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in writing.
>
>On a computer system, one could decide to follow either copyediting style
>or typesetting style. Traditions also vary between the US and other
>English-speaking countries, and like all stylistic issues, there are
>always competing authorities one can cite. But in general, most US
>punctuation/style authorities still call for two spaces after the end of a
>sentence to distinguish this from other uses of the period.
>
>It's not a law; it's a recommended usage, and one I endorse. :-)
Hmm, hard habit to break. Most of my typing on computers tends to
stem from my typiing for class papers and such. I always figured a
period and a capital letter was enough.
>
>[. . .]
>
>: OK, so I'm a lousy speller, I knew that, you knew that. Anyone in
>: usenet who reads my posts knows that. I wasn't flaming him, I was just
>: asking a question. BTW, it was EE Cummings, as someone pointed out to me.
>: All I wanted to know was what the deal was with the lack of
>: capitalization. No offence intended.
>
>Okay; sorry if I jumped on you exceedingly hard; I did read an implicit
>criticism in your post, and a somewhat ignorant one, at that. My
>apologies for landing on you so emphatically.
Nah, that wasn't so bad. My spelling _does_ suck.
Graydon
In article <5u46cm$e...@panix2.panix.com>,
Gary Farber <gfa...@panix.com> wrote:
>In rec.arts.sf.written <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>
>Joshua Jasper <sin...@netcom.com> wrote:
>[. . .]
>: Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in writing.
>
>On a computer system, one could decide to follow either copyediting style
>or typesetting style. Traditions also vary between the US and other
Or you can get someone using keypunch conventions, which is what I suspect
piranha of doing.
There are a fair number of unix-tradition programmers out there who never,
ever use upper case, as well, because in context it's a bad habit to use
mixed case and if they used all upper case no one could tell them from
FORTRAN programmers.
--
gra...@gooroos.com | Praise ice when it is crossed,
is bouncing again Ale when it is drunk,
try pir...@pobox.com The day at evening-time,
with 'for graydon' in the subject line Domain service when it works.
Carole Ashmore
> >anyone
>
> guilty, *must* have a proper defense, lest the innocent be denied the
> same. Justice has no in-betweens.
>
Thank you.
Gary Farber
In rec.arts.sf.fandom <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>
[. . .]
: It's the ZOG, MIB, and the Gnomes of Zurich, what, am I, the only
: card carying member here? Sheesh.
The Fowler manual members of the Stylish Elders of Chicago, actually. But
if we confess our further sources, we'll have to put your Words Into Type,
and Strunk you until you're White.
Andy Mulhearn
On Thu, 28 Aug 1997 14:51:51 -0500, Carole Ashmore
<car...@mn.uswest.net> rendered unto us these pearls of wisdom:
Would sort of support the "innocent until proven guilty line". But
then perhaps that has gone out of favour with some people.
Andy
Morgan Gallagher
>>Funny, I find that noting where the period is works really well, as well
>>as using two spaces after a period, a feat you seem unable to manage.
> Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in writing.
That's how I was taught. Full stop. two spaces before the capital of
the next sentance.
WooF
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
O Morgan:
What's taught in typing school or business-letter-preparation isn't
exactly how to prepare a manuscript for typesetting. One of the first
steps in preparing a story-file for typesetting is to convert all those
duoble-spaces to single spaces. Luckily for us editors, this is a very
easy step with most word-processors.
George Scithers
owls...@netaxs.com
Graydon
In article <Pine.SUN.3.95.970828...@unix2.netaxs.com>,
WooF <owls...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>What's taught in typing school or business-letter-preparation isn't
>exactly how to prepare a manuscript for typesetting. One of the first
>steps in preparing a story-file for typesetting is to convert all those
>duoble-spaces to single spaces. Luckily for us editors, this is a very
>easy step with most word-processors.
Do typesetters try to put larger spaces between sentences than between
words on average? I've just squinted at a couple of books and it looks
like they don't, but I didn't measure.
piranha
[i've set the follow-up to rasfw, since i can't believe the
original three groups are all interested in further discussion
of my spelling habits, and that's the group i read -- better
yet, if you want to carry this on for some reason, let's do it
in email.]
In article <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>,
Joshua Jasper <sin...@netcom.com> wrote:
[we _were_ discussing megan's law or so i thought. *snicker*. seems
joshua has more important fish to fry:]
>
>[...] BTW, is there something wrong with your caps lock/shift key?
no, all three of my caps-related keys are fine, and thank you
for your kind interest. i'm storing them in a time capsule
which i plan to open on the dawn of the new millenium.
(ok, not really -- they're actually in the freezer because
they last longer that way.)
>It's kinda hard to tell where your
>sentences begin and end if you don't start off sentences with a capital
>letter. I've noticed this alot on usenet. Either there's a whole heck of
>alot of T.S
sorry -- was that the beginning of a new sentence? i couldn't
tell, what with the capital and all. *wink*.
>. Eliot fans online (It was him, right?)
no, it was e.e. cummings. you were close, both have two ini-
tials. it has nothing to do with either, but i am flattered.
>or this means something I'm not knowledgable of.
that would appear to be it. :-)
i'll be kind and tell you: it's nothing but a bit of histo-
rical idiosyncrasy, born from using a system 20+ years ago
where shifted characters counted as two characters, and each
post was limited to 120 (computer)words. not using caps
meant verbose folks like me could squeeze in a bit more con-
tent.
i began to actually like the way it looked, how it doesn't
emphasize the beginning of sentences and the personal pro-
noun 'i' unduly (i do use caps for acronyms and when i do
want to emphasize heavily), and so i've carried the habit
with me (besides, i have sentimental ties to that old sys-
tem). yes, i am weird, why do you ask?
other people do it for other reasons (being unix users can
be all it takes, or not being able to touch-type and finding
it a bother to hold down a shift key). i don't find it any
harder to read, but maybe my pattern recognition algorithm
is a lot more forgiving than yours (a good thing, and no, i
am not gonna flame you for your copious spelling errors, be-
cause that would cause spelling errors to appear instantly
in my own posts... the horror).
there you have it. even less connection to SF than megan's
law, and i am hard pressed to do a fake obligatory reference
that doesn't outright reek. :-)
Gary Farber
In <Pine.SUN.3.95.970828...@unix2.netaxs.com>
WooF <owls...@netaxs.com> wrote:
[. . .]
: What's taught in typing school or business-letter-preparation isn't
: exactly how to prepare a manuscript for typesetting. One of the first
: steps in preparing a story-file for typesetting is to convert all those
: duoble-spaces to single spaces. Luckily for us editors, this is a very
: easy step with most word-processors.
That's not punctuation for writers, George; that's copyediting. As you
well know. Writers aren't required to write for typesetters.
Gary "done all three" Farber
John Moreno
Dave Locke <dave...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
] mid...@enteractNOSPAM.com (Evan Middleton) set words in phosphor:
]
] >sin...@netcom.com (Joshua Jasper) wrote:
] >
] >>Gary Farber <gfa...@panix.com> wrote:
] >>>Funny, I find that noting where the period is works really well, as
] >>>well as using two spaces after a period, a feat you seem unable to
] >>>manage.
] >>
] >> Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in writing.
] >
] > This is one of the situations of writing changing over time. I
] >understand that two spaces to being a sentance has been considered
] >the norm for many years. However, at least ten years ago (by
] >experience) sme schools were teaching one space to begin the sentance
] >as the standard.
] > Rules change. I wish that I could find out who gets to decide
] >those changes... I've got some questions to ask them.
]
] When I was last participating in Apanage (an amateur press
] association) about five years ago, there was a big discussion on that.
] There was definitely an age split between those insisting it should be
] two spaces and those insisting it should be one space, with a few
] changing from two to one because something about the 'puter made them
] think it made sense to change.
]
] Not much caring, I stuck with two because I like the looks of it
] better.
Well the reason for using only one space with text written on computers
is because of kerning and justification of non monospaced fonts. Two
spaces can really get stretched all out of proportion, especially when
using full justification.
--
John Moreno
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
John Edw. Bartley (jbar...@kelly.teleport.com) wrote:
> Jeremy Hallum <jha...@bu.edu> wrote:
> [snip]
> > Good, he's done his time for whatever he did. That is
> >important.
>
> Unfortunately, not as important as with other crimes, for child
> abusers have a recividism rate of worse than 90%. The odds are
> worse than 9 out of 10 that any convicted abuser will abuse again,
Would you happen to have a cite handy?
--
Ahasuerus http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/, including:
FAQs: rec.arts.sf.written, alt.pulp, the Liaden Universe
Biblios: how to write SF, the Wandering Jew
David Johnston
Whoever this guy is, I'm real sick of hearing about him.
Elspeth Kovar Burgess
Morgan Gallagher wrote:
> In article <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>, Joshua Jasper
> <sin...@netcom.com> writes
> >>Funny, I find that noting where the period is works really
> well, as well
> >>as using two spaces after a period, a feat you seem unable to
> manage.
>
> > Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in
> writing.
>
> That's how I was taught. Full stop. two spaces before the
> capital of
> the next sentance.
For anyone who is interested, Strunk & White's classic _The
Elements of Style_ is available at
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/strunk . I just found out
about it being there today, so I've yet to look at it.
Elspeth
Matthew Murray
On Thu, 28 Aug 1997, Morgan Gallagher wrote:
> In article <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>, Joshua Jasper
> <sin...@netcom.com> writes
> >>Funny, I find that noting where the period is works really well, as well
> >>as using two spaces after a period, a feat you seem unable to manage.
>
> > Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in writing.
>
> That's how I was taught. Full stop. two spaces before the capital of
> the next sentance.
Yup. That's absolutely correct. It's harder to notice in
proportional fonts, where a space isn't a full character. In that case,
two spaces often look like just one character space. But, notice when I
type (as I always use two spaces after periods), how it does make a
difference.
===============================================================================
Matthew Murray - mmu...@cc.wwu.edu - http://www.wwu.edu/~mmurray
===============================================================================
The script calls for fusing and using our smarts,
And greatness can come of the sum of our parts.
From now on, I'm with you--and with you is where I belong!
-David Zippel, City of Angels
===============================================================================
Dave Goldman
In article <aIAijLA$fcB0...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>, Morgan Gallagher
<Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <sinboyEF...@netcom.com>, Joshua Jasper
> <sin...@netcom.com> writes
> >>Funny, I find that noting where the period is works really well, as well
> >>as using two spaces after a period, a feat you seem unable to manage.
>
> > Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in writing.
>
>
> That's how I was taught. Full stop. two spaces before the capital of
> the next sentance.
Yeesh! Will this information never become public knowledge?
Typesetters (using traditional proportionally-spaced fonts): one space
after the period
Typewriters (using traditional Courier or Pica font): two spaces after the
period
Post-Macintosh computers (using proportionally-spaced fonts): one space
after the period
In other words, typesetters devote very little horizontal space to a
period, so a normal space character following the period provides
appropriate spacing between the period and the following capital. For
monospaced typewriters, the rule has been to add an extra space, since the
period was already centered in a full-width horizontal space and the extra
space was necessary to produce an appropriate break between sentences. In
the Macintosh era, we're back to typesetting, where inserting an extra
space introduces an unattractive amount of excess space.
The only problem with all this is that I'm currently using a Mac to type
this article, which most of you (and I) will read in a monospaced font! So
logically I should be using two spaces after my periods. But I'm damned if
I'm going to type differently for e-mail and Usenet than I do for all my
word processing!
-- Dave Goldman
Portland, OR
Joshua Jasper
In article <01bcb3fd$2b0559c0$592403c7@usbgrw7130>,
Richard Millward <r...@mcs.com> wrote:
>Joshua Jasper <sin...@netcom.com> wrote in article
><sinboyEF...@netcom.com>...
>> In article <01bcb255$405afb80$df9b0b26@usbgrw7130>,
>> Richard Millward <r...@mcs.com> wrote:
>> >Michele Landis Dauber <lan...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote in article
>> ><34056a8e...@news.acns.nwu.edu>...
>> >> dshe...@netcom.com (Ed Dravecky III) wrote:
>> >>
>
>We're juggling words here: the point I was trying to make is that she
>BELIEVES he will repeat this and she has NO evidence of that, only her
>belief, motivated by her need for vengeance. The fact that x% of criminal
>offenders may in fact commit the same crime again is immaterial to my
>argument: he was tried, convicted, sentenced and freed. Our system of
>justice says that is what punishment is. (And yes, I do believe the "Megan
>laws" are inherently unconstitutional because they punish an offender TWICE
>for the same crime, something we allow ONLY in this tiny category of
>criminal activities...). If you don't agree with that system of punishment,
>WORK TO HAVE IT CHANGED. Singling out an individual for continued
>harassment because you have a problem with the punishment they were given
>is simple vengeance.
>
>================
>Richard Millward
>r...@mcs.com
>
>
How do you know it's vengance, and not simply concern for others
possibly having this happen to them?
BTW, what's your solution to child molestors?
Sinboy
Ray Radlein
Dave Locke wrote:
>
> There was definitely an age split between those insisting it should be
> two spaces and those insisting it should be one space, with a few
> changing from two to one because something about the 'puter made them
> think it made sense to change.
Proportional fonts. When using proportional fonts, your best bet is to
let the computer decide how much space to leave between the period and
the start of the next sentence; hence, just using one space. This is
especially true if you are using Full (aka Newspaper) Justification.
> One of the interesting things about English fanwriting, since we don't
> get paid for it, is that we can accept the best, or the worst, that
> the English-speaking world has to offer. For example, I detest the
> American practice of putting punctuation within quotes where that
> punctuation was *not* a part of what was being quoted. I don't think
> anything should be within quotation marks which wasn't originally
> there.
I actually tend to agree with you on this, although I will still usually
put the punctuation inside, especially if it's a comma. The obvious
exceptions are when doing so might *cause* trouble. For instance, if I
am writing something like:
When prompted for your login ID, type "guest".
It seems to me that putting the "." inside the quote there could really
cause some problems.
- Ray R.
--
*********************************************************************
"What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to RULE THE SEVAGRAM!"
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
*********************************************************************
Gary Farber
In rec.arts.sf.fandom <5u4slt$s...@panix2.panix.com>
Pierre Jelenc <rc...@panix.com> wrote:
: Richard Millward <r...@mcs.com> writes:
: > (And yes, I do believe the "Megan
: > laws" are inherently unconstitutional because they punish an offender TWICE
: > for the same crime, something we allow ONLY in this tiny category of
: > criminal activities...). If you don't agree with that system of punishment,
: > WORK TO HAVE IT CHANGED.
: But that is precisely what has been done: X years in jail plus supervision
: for life. The terms of the sentence have been changed, that's all. There
: is no double punishment, it's two phases of the same sentence.
But, Pierre, "Megan's Law" is ex post facto; said punishment was not part
of the law when all these people were convicted. Such laws have always
been considered unconstitutional, though apparently the Supreme Court
doesn't feel this one is. And since this additional punishment is being
applied ex post facto, it *is* double punishment. It can't be part of
"the same sentence" when no one had even proposed such a law when these
people committed their crimes, underwent trial, and were convicted. If it
is, why can't we make up some exciting new punishments now, and add *them*
retroactively to all sorts of criminals' sentences? I'm sure lots of them
deserve it, after all.
Mike Hussey
<snip>
>
>
>Nahh, FORTRAN's OK, but believe me we try real hard not to be confused
>with COBOL programmers. Or are the inhabitants of this group too
>innocent to know about COBOL?
>
>Pearlman
>
Don't worry, most COBOL programmers are happy not to be confused with
pointy-headed geeks :-)
Please remove asterisks if replying by e-mail.
Mike Hussey
Chuck Lipsig
phe...@interpath.com (John Moreno) wrote:
Except that most murders are among people who know each other. Mind
you, that's in part because people generally have more contact with people
they know than people they don't know. But, still, cases of people
killing family and neighbors for much less than child molesting are
legion.
There have been a few stranger-molester killings I can remember. About
five years ago, out in California, a woman shot the man who had molested
her son as they sat in court. The whole community came to her aid. IIRC,
she got a minimal sentence.
I can remember a case from about twenty years ago, where a man was being
transported by plane to face child molestation charges. As the molester
was escorted through the airport with a local news program filming, a man
suddenly turned from a bank of pay phones and fired on the molester from
nearly point-blank range, killing him.
The man turned out to be the molested boy's father. IIRC, the local
prosecutor thought about the case for several months, then decided not to
prosecute the father. Happened somewhere down south, again, IIRC.
I don't know if these are rare exceptions in that the molesters were
killed by parents or in that they happened publically enough to get wide
publicity.
Chuck Lipsig lip...@atlantic.net
Gainesville, FL http://members.tripod.com/~lipsig/
"If you don't like it, you go invent civilization."
-Patti Lipsig
Joshua Jasper
In article <5u6jsp$kv9$3...@news1.atlantic.net>,
Hmm, this concurs with my though tht this is one case where the
'temporary insanity' defence would be usefull, much like the infamous
Bobbit (sp?) case
>
> I don't know if these are rare exceptions in that the molesters were
>killed by parents or in that they happened publically enough to get wide
>publicity.
>
Sinboy
Joshua Jasper
In article <5u1ag9$7...@lotho.delphi.com>, Rick Cook <rc...@BIX.com> wrote:
>Joshua Jasper wrote:
>> Ah, if you look closely, it's " I believe that he will repeat".
>>And IIRC, he's working with children, in a karate class (again IIRC).
>>Don't you think it's reasonable to assume that child molestors once
>>released stand a chance of repeating thier crime? If he kept away from
>>children, there'd probably be no debate here.
>>
>Actually, there's a very high probability that child molesters will repeat
>their crime. As much as 75 percent for some types, according to some
>studies. Offhand I can't think of a single study that puts the recidivism
>rate for child molesters at less than about 50 percent.
>
>So there is cause for concern.
>
>But concern -- and informing people -- is not at all the same as conducting
>a vendetta against someone and doing your damnedest to ruin that person's
>life. In my opinion that's what's happening here.
>
>The case is interesting in a science fiction sense because it gives us a
>foretaste of what it is like to live in a truly information-rich society.
>It's a point which has been insufficently appreciated by most of us.
>
>I'm working on a near-future 'detective novel' and watching this situation
>has led me to revise a couple of scenes and sharpen a plot device.
>
>--RC
Have you read Niven's Gil The Arm SF Detective storys? There's a
section in a compliation book on the trials of such writing.
Sinboy
John Moreno
In rec.arts.sf.written Gary Farber <gfa...@panix.com> wrote:
] In rec.arts.sf.fandom <5u4slt$s...@panix2.panix.com>
You know, this makes sense (not the making up new punishments for
everybody but the rest). I've never liked "Megan's Law" - it always
seemed like double jeopardy. Lengthening the jail term associated with
the crime (and changing the way parole is handled so that it's much
easier to get people back inside) seems more straightforward. This of
course wouldn't do any good with people already convicted (except for
changing the way parole is handled, that can be changed or even
eliminated without violating the constitution), but there is never a
perfect solution.
Of course if they just let loose everybody that was only in on drug or
gun possession they'd probably have enough room so that they wouldn't
need to be paroling so many people.
--
John Moreno
James C. Ellis
Joshua Jasper wrote:
>
> And likley, you'd warn everyone else you knew who had kids and
> might come into contact with said pedophile, right? The trouble is,
> there's a thin line between warning and harrasment. IMO, the orriginal
> poster hasn't crossed that line yet.
Well, here I would disagree with you. It is one thing to warn those
whose kids might come into contact with him (ie by putting up a flyer at
the dojo). It is another matter entirely to put up an All-Caps
WARNING!!!! about it on a newsgroup frequented by thousands of people,
most of whom will _never_ come into direct or indirect contact with the
paedophile.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Kozlowski
In article <5u4va5$m...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
Graydon <pir...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>Do typesetters try to put larger spaces between sentences than between
>words on average? I've just squinted at a couple of books and it looks
>like they don't, but I didn't measure.
LaTeX does by default, but I don't know about other packages.
--
Michael Kozlowski m...@cs.wisc.edu
Recommended SF Reading at: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~mlk/sfbooks.html
"Ghost of Carl Sagan Warns Against Dangers of Superstition" -The Onion
Olaf Weber
Graydon writes:
> Do typesetters try to put larger spaces between sentences than between
> words on average? I've just squinted at a couple of books and it looks
> like they don't, but I didn't measure.
It depends. The larger spacing between sentences is very visible in
one edition of The Lord of the Rings (three boxed hardcovers) but
absent in the paperback editions that I've seen. A recent book that
uses the convention is /Le Ton beau de Marot/ by Douglas Hofstadter.
The convention tends to turn up in books on mathematics or computer
science because it is the default of a typesetting package that is
popular with people in those fields.
--
Olaf Weber
Troy-...@psu.edu
In article <340659...@learnlink.emory.edu>,
Ray Radlein <r...@learnlink.emory.edu> wrote:
>
> Dave Locke wrote:
> >
> > There was definitely an age split between those insisting it should be
> > two spaces and those insisting it should be one space, with a few
> > changing from two to one because something about the 'puter made them
> > think it made sense to change.
>
> Proportional fonts. When using proportional fonts, your best bet is to
> let the computer decide how much space to leave between the period and
> the start of the next sentence; hence, just using one space. This is
> especially true if you are using Full (aka Newspaper) Justification.
As I understand it, the purpose of double-spacing after a period is to
make it clearer where a sentence starts and ends. That purpose, to
clearly divide one sentence from the next, remains the same whether you
are using proportional or non-proportional fonts. OR non-justification
and full-justification.
> > One of the interesting things about English fanwriting, since we don't
> > get paid for it, is that we can accept the best, or the worst, that
> > the English-speaking world has to offer. For example, I detest the
> > American practice of putting punctuation within quotes where that
> > punctuation was *not* a part of what was being quoted. I don't think
> > anything should be within quotation marks which wasn't originally
> > there.
>
> I actually tend to agree with you on this, although I will still usually
> put the punctuation inside, especially if it's a comma. The obvious
> exceptions are when doing so might *cause* trouble. For instance, if I
> am writing something like:
>
> When prompted for your login ID, type "guest".
>
> It seems to me that putting the "." inside the quote there could really
> cause some problems.
Good point. And useful when writing manuals. But what about in a
sentences such as:
"You are a lazy bum," Tom said. Mary replied, "No worse than you."
Troy
________
| _____] Space Core Directive 34124:
| | ___ "No officer with false teeth
|__|[_ \ should attempt oral sex
B A _B Y\ L\ O N in zero gravity."
( \__/ |
\______/ 2262: "Empire Builders"
A TV NOVEL (TNT: January 4)
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
David B.
hAy duDZ, dunt bE sLapPin On mY HOMEY's faSe bouts gRamAticls !?
wE ALL bE sPeekSin dIffNt L8tr-------------------------------
On 28 Aug 1997 16:01:42 GMT, etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu (tomlinson)
wrote:
>Joshua Jasper (sin...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>: Two spaces? I've never noticed that as mandatory in writing.
>
>No rule is "mandatory", strictly speaking; certainly it is now
>fashionable to deride rules of English orthography, grammar, and
>the like. "Primitive throwbacks! half of them cribbed from Latin
>by 19th-century grammarians! The language marches on!" and so
>forth. I am reminded of one moron who, posting to one of the comp.sys.*
>newsgroups, defended his spelling of "lose" as "loose" by suggesting
>that "loose" is now "accepted Usenet spelling" of the word.
>
>In typescript and on Usenet, where fixed-width typefaces are still
>predominant, the "two spaces" rule makes eminent sense. The division
>between sentences set of by the double-space is clear and obvious.
>
>-et
Joel Polowin
Cally Soukup wrote:
> You seem
> to be arguing that pediphiles are COMPELLED to have sex with children by
> virtue of their pediphilia. [...]
> I ought to know better than to post this, especially since it's late, and
> my spelling has gone away.
Very possibly. Someone who's sexually attracted to L\a\z\&\L\o\r\
children
is a "pedophile". A "pediphile" is someone with a foot fetish. :-)
--
Joel Polowin
jpol...@cyberus.ca.ca.ca but trim address back to one ".ca"
(Spam searchers can fill their address lists with .ca.ca .)
Jim Partridge
Rick Cook <rc...@BIX.com> wrote:
>Joshua Jasper wrote:
>> Ah, if you look closely, it's " I believe that he will repeat".
>>And IIRC, he's working with children, in a karate class (again IIRC).
>>Don't you think it's reasonable to assume that child molestors once
>>released stand a chance of repeating thier crime? If he kept away from
>>children, there'd probably be no debate here.
>>
[snip]
>The case is interesting in a science fiction sense because it gives us a
>foretaste of what it is like to live in a truly information-rich society.
>It's a point which has been insufficently appreciated by most of us.
>I'm working on a near-future 'detective novel' and watching this situation
>has led me to revise a couple of scenes and sharpen a plot device.
I wonder how much the "information-rich society" (I like the term BTW)
will actually be susceptable to such abuse. It seems to me that
people are going to have to have some pretty high strength filters to
avoid being drowned by the noise - the future equivilent of spammers
and kill-files. *Getting* the information might not be the problem.
Getting someone else to give a damn about what you're saying might be
a real job.
Jim.
Morgan Gallagher
In article <5u765u$2if$1...@despair.u-net.com>, Paul Vincent
<pvin...@jellystone.u-net.com> writes
>Morgan Gallagher <Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>That's how I was taught. Full stop. two spaces before the capital of
>>the next sentance.
>
>but in handwriting terms "two spaces" is meaningless, there are just
>long spaces and short spaces. Which leads me to conclude that you were
>taught this in a *typing* class, yes? Now most of us dashing off
>emails and postings with merry abandon were never taught typing
>formally, so now I'm wondering what other typograhical conventions
>used to get taught on typing courses. Unless I'm barking up wrong
>trees again...
Yes, I was indeed taught this in *typing* class. Not that I was taking
formal classes, in the sense that I'd opted for taking courses that led
to an exam, which were part of our curriculum, in exactly the same way
physics and biology and french was. But that it was compulsory for
everyone in our school (both my senior schools actually) to take basic
competency in typing - well, in office skills. Just like we were taught
to boil eggs, make clothes, housekeeping, mouth to nose ressucitation,
basic hygiene, baby care (including using dolls to give babies a bath
and using terry nappies afterwards) and to climb knotted ropes in the
gym (easily the most redundant lesson of all). Oh yes, and we all did a
basic food hygience course as well - certificate and all.
I was taught, to be precise, basic formating - two spaces, indenting
paragraphs (six spaces IIRC), where to put headers, addresses,
reference, dates, formatting memos. How to address letters (yours
sincerely versus yours faithfully sort of thing) how to load a
typewriter correctly (remember how tricky carbon paper used to be?) how
to clean and maintain typewriters, how to use correction stuff (remember
typewriter rubbers? Ehmm...erazers!) the fine art of duplicator use
was resered for thsoe who had elected to take Office Skills as a real
class - shorthand, touch typing, how to use triffic office machines. I
used to eye the gestener machine in the corner of the room with a
misture of distate and fascination. On one hand, it was an 'office'
thing, and was for girls too stupid to take *real* subjects like physics
and chemistry, like wot I did, and on the other hand, it was a printing
machine. Little did I know how intimately my life would becomeinvolved
with said duplicating machines.
(I also remember my family's horror at my attitude to taking real office
exams, and was well warned that I was ignoring the notion that 'typing
and stuff' was a real career at my peril. Now, I realise that my school
was turning out highly qualified personal assistants, mostly bi-lingual
as languages were almost compulsory if you took on board the 'real'
office courses. Serves me right for being so stuckup!)
Handwriting was taught at primary school. From the age of about seven,
every Friday afternoon you put pens and pencils away, and out came the
fountain pens with real nibs and real ink. You had to use them all
afternoon - to learn to use one without destroying the nib.
At eleven, the year before we went on to secondary, they took away our
lined jotters (notebooks) and made us use unlined, so we could learn to
take notes in straight lines. This got messy on Friday afternoons!
At my first year in secondary school (12-13) I also did Classical
Studies, which moved onto Latin in the second year. Grammar, we learnt
down to the basics, including splitting sentances on those long line
diagrams that I have thankfully blanked out of my mind. Which was
interesting, as I did it again in my first year of University in
Linguistics, and had trouble convincing my lecturer that yes, we really
did do this in school in Scotland. and this was in the 70s.
It's, its and its' - we did excessivley from about the age of six, all
the way through to 18. I can actually use them correctly. I just don't
have the time to screen properly on newsgroups and email. Sloppy, I
know, but then I was always sloppy, and my jotters were littered with
those little pink stickers that said 'Could Do Better!'.
but then... had we *known* then I was severely dyslexic, I might not
have had such red wrists. On the other hand, when I was finally assesed
as an adult, and we discovered I have the reading of a nine year old and
the listenign capacities of a five year old, my asseser put forth the
theory that if reading and writing hadn't actually been physically
beaten into me, I probably never would have managed to learn in the
first place!
Oh - and BTW, the notion of two spaces was not redundant in writing
class either. I well remember that in primary two (I was 5 and a half
to six and a half), when were were being taught to write in sentances,
we had to make the space between the end of the sentance and the
beginning of the next one twice as large as the space between words. We
were taught to use our index fingers as a guide - you put your index
finger on the page at the full stop, and started the next sentance on
the other edge of your finger - to give proper spacing! I remember this
well, because my finger was invariably grubby and I was always in
trouble for leaving smudged 'pawmarks' on the page...
I was, in fact *always* in trouble!
:-)
Richard D. Latham
Paul Vincent wrote:
>
> Morgan Gallagher <Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >That's how I was taught. Full stop. two spaces before the capital of
> >the next sentance.
>
> Now this is intriguing me... we were all taught to *write* at school,
> but in handwriting terms "two spaces" is meaningless, there are just
> long spaces and short spaces. Which leads me to conclude that you were
> taught this in a *typing* class, yes? Now most of us dashing off
> emails and postings with merry abandon were never taught typing
> formally, so now I'm wondering what other typograhical conventions
> used to get taught on typing courses. Unless I'm barking up wrong
> trees again...
>
> http://www.jellystone.u-net.com/
> --------------------------------------------
> "I want to die peacefully in my sleep,
> like my father - not screaming in terror,
> like his passengers..."
Surely someone who is knowledgable about typesetting will chime in here
and tell us more than we ever wanted to know about em and en spaces ?
I had been told (long ago) that the convention of using two spaces after
the period at sentence's end was a laughably feeble attempt to
replicate the spacing (about 1 1/2 times as long as the normal
inter-word space) that professional typesetters created back in the good
old days, when all that stuff was done "by hand".
Kerning is the techincal term that is used by document processing
software programmers (that I've worked with) to describe the juggling
done to minimize the number of broken words in a paragraph. Its a
"Robbing Peter to pay Paul" sort of activity where you go back and
diddle the inter-word and sentence spacings of (potentially) every word
in the paragraph to make things come out "pretty", where the precise
algoritmic defination of pretty is a subject for some entertainingly
complex arguments. "Pleasing to the eye" is difficult thing to quantify
:-)
Kerning is something that few word-processros do a great job of, since
it eats MIPs like crazy ... being a software performance analyst, I've
been "professionlly involved" on this topic in the past.
--
#include <disclaimer.std> /* I don't speak for IBM ... */
/* Heck, I don't even speak for myself */
/* Don't beleive me ? Ask my wife :-) */
Richard D. Latham lat...@us.ibm.com
Jim Partridge
lip...@atlantic.net (Chuck Lipsig) wrote:
[snip]
> There have been a few stranger-molester killings I can remember. About
>five years ago, out in California, a woman shot the man who had molested
>her son as they sat in court. The whole community came to her aid. IIRC,
>she got a minimal sentence.
This would be Ellie Nestler (sp?), in a rural northern California
county. She was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, IIRC, and
sentenced to, what was it? 20 years? Anyway, she's served 5 or 6, and
now has breast cancer. On that basis, she's trying to get released on
parol so she can get adequate treatment. As I recall the debate, many
were arguing that she should get a minimal sentence, and were somewhat
displeased at the length of the sentence.
Jim.
James C. Allison
Richard D. Latham wrote:
Morgan Gallagher wrote:
> > >That's how I was taught. Full stop. two spaces before the capital of
> > >the next sentance.
To which Richard D. Latham added:
> Surely someone who is knowledgable about typesetting will chime in here
> and tell us more than we ever wanted to know about em and en spaces?
> I had been told (long ago) that the convention of using two spaces after
> the period at sentence's end was a laughably feeble attempt to
> replicate the spacing (about 1 1/2 times as long as the normal
> inter-word space) that professional typesetters created back in the good
> old days, when all that stuff was done "by hand".
> Kerning is the techincal term that is used by document processing
> software programmers (that I've worked with) to describe the juggling
> done to minimize the number of broken words in a paragraph. Its a
> "Robbing Peter to pay Paul" sort of activity where you go back and
> diddle the inter-word and sentence spacings of (potentially) every word
> in the paragraph to make things come out "pretty", where the precise
> algoritmic defination of pretty is a subject for some entertainingly
> complex arguments. "Pleasing to the eye" is difficult thing to quantify
> :-)
It is even more basic than that! Kerning in its most basic form has a
formula that constitutes "pleasing to the eye" and makes it so that it
becomes obvious to those who know about such things whether or not the
one doing the lettering knows what s/he is doing. More frequently the
situation is that those who don't know the difference, they can't tell
the difference. Yet they see that properly kerned letters do, in fact,
look better even if they don't know the reason.
Let me describe the way that is the basic method used by the sign
painting industry of which I spent 4 years in apprenticeship. Imagine
that the letters we are going to be using is 1" thick. The combination
of letters that go to make up the word are lined up with a common base
line which is a floor to the letters. The letters are positioned between
two plates of glass. Sand is then poured into the spaces between the
letters. When the volume of sand between each letter is equal, the
relationship between the letters will be "pleasing to the eye. The
spacing has nothing to do with percentages of stroke widths, nor
distance between the closest parts. The quantifying of the volume
between the letters makes it possible to properly kern words.
And you are correct that the typesetting systems such as the
Compugraphic 8600 system is capable of producing even the most
sophisticated kerning where ligatures connect letters that are half a
word away and all kinds of distortional effects.
I have a CorelDRAW5 and it is neat, broader in ability, but for
specialization of beautifully done type when beautifully done, nothing
beats an artist with a good typesetting system. Alas, it really doesn't
matter anymore and so the typesetting industry has died or evolved. The
equipment is obsolete. Doorstops and boat anchors!
--
Hang in there!
Regards and sincere best wishes
AllisonWonderland
---
CHECK OUT THE WEBPAGE AT
http://www.livingston.net/allison/home.htm
Comments welcome.
Doug Berry
On Fri, 29 Aug 1997 19:00:45 GMT, pvin...@jellystone.u-net.com (Paul
Vincent) wrote:
>Morgan Gallagher <Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>That's how I was taught. Full stop. two spaces before the capital of
>>the next sentance.
>
>Now this is intriguing me... we were all taught to *write* at school,
>but in handwriting terms "two spaces" is meaningless, there are just
>long spaces and short spaces. Which leads me to conclude that you were
>taught this in a *typing* class, yes? Now most of us dashing off
>emails and postings with merry abandon were never taught typing
>formally, so now I'm wondering what other typograhical conventions
>used to get taught on typing courses. Unless I'm barking up wrong
>trees again...
I picked up from *reading*. All of the SF zines and novels had two
spaces at the end of sentences.
--
+-------------------------------------------+
| Doug Berry dbe...@nospam.hooked.net |
| http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/index.html |
| (remove "nospam" to reply by mail) |
|-------------------------------------------|
| Gamer, Filker, Costumer.. I'm not a fan, |
| I'm just a pile of Fringe... |
+-------------------------------------------+
Joshua Jasper
In article <1997082910...@roxboro-175.interpath.net>,
Unfortunatley, lengthening the jail term is tricky. Our prisons
are already overcrowded. I'd like to agree with the change of parole.
It could be done in a much more just manner than the current Megan's Law
system. Of course, it discourages the vengance effect, which is what alot
of voters like, otherwise we wouldn't have had so many people cheering
when Michael Fay got his ass whacked in Singapore.
>
>Of course if they just let loose everybody that was only in on drug or
>gun possession they'd probably have enough room so that they wouldn't
>need to be paroling so many people.
>
Ah, but the 'war on drugs' takes priority over keeping molestors
in jail. After all, the government makes a tidy profit of RICO, and
nothing off molestors.
>--
>John Moreno
Sinboy
Joshua Jasper
In article <5u073n$4...@root.two14.lan>, Cally Soukup <ma...@mcs.com> wrote:
>Tom Galloway (t...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>: I recall reading several times that child molesters have a high rate
>: of recidivism. And, based on a particular line of argument, this'd seem
>: to be likely.
>
>: After all, how frequently does one hear from homosexuals "We don't have
>: a choice in the matter. For whatever reason, we're sexually attracted to
>: people of the same sex, and that's how it is. We can't change this."?
>: (And, to make sure that people realize it, I'm not anti-gay or gaybashing
>: here. I'm just pointing out that this line of argument, that people
>: are compelled to do what in many time/spaces is a very unpopular attitude
>: towards who they are sexually attracted to, is used as an argument about
>: why they can't be heterosexual and is generally accepted).
>
>Well, I went for 10 years without any sexual activity, and it neither killed
>me, nor greatly inconvenienced me. Of course, I'm not a pediphile. You seem
>to be arguing that pediphiles are COMPELLED to have sex with children by
>have sex at all. There are thousands of people who are voluntarily celibate,
>after all. They could also choose to have consentual sex with adults, while
>fantasizing about children. Thoughts aren't against the law, just actions.
>Note: I have never met, nor do I have personal knowledge of, any of the
>people being discussed in this thread.
>
>I ought to know better than to post this, especially since it's late, and my
>spelling has gone away.
Pedophilia is IIRC, a disorder, although not a one caused by a
brain chemistry disorder. It's something like pathological lying or
OCD. People who chose celibacy or simply fantasize about kids are not
mentaly ill. The fantasizing about kids is, IMO, pretty sick, though.
Kleptomaniacs, pathological liars, people with other mental diseases
_are_, in fact compelled. They can resist the compulsions through
training, though. By contrast, and going back to the gay analogy, a gay
man can become celibate, because it's an orientation, not an obsession,
as it is the case in pedophiles. Obsessions are lots harder to break
than orientations.
Sinboy
rdc...@erols.com.deletethispart
On Thu, 28 Aug 1997 16:26:18 GMT, dave...@bigfoot.com (Dave Locke)
wrote:
>Not much caring, I stuck with two because I like the looks of it
>better.
Once upon a time, typesetting equipment capable of producing
proportional faces was never used for casual correspondence, except
possibly by professional typesetters with time on their hands.
Therefore this question never arose.
When typing was taught, prior to the advent of desktop publishing,
"two spaces after a period" was the rule. It became the rule because
one space made it hard to tell where new sentences began. In other
words, a matter of practicality.
Simultaneously, however, typsetters routinely removed one of those
spaces when transcribing typewritten manuscripts for publication. When
using proportional fonts -- which usually use an "n-space" (a space
three times wider than the space occupied by an i, an l, or a period,
but two-thirds as wide as the space occupied by an m) when the
spacebar is typed -- two spaces appear as an unnaturally wide gap,
which tends to break up the flow of text.
But when using a monospaced font, where every character is centered in
a space of the same width, a single space after a period looks like
every other single space, and one's eye tends to not stop at the ends
of sentences.
Today, we must consider the output device and try to consider how our
words will be seen by the intended audience. Many newsreaders allow
the user to select the display font (I'm looking at proportional Arial
right now, but in Newsgroups where people often post tables I use
monospaced Courier). So we can't know what the reader will see.
I learned to type in high school in the early Sixties, and the "two
spaces" rule was drilled into me. But I've been writing for output
with proportional fonts for more than ten years, and have developed
the habit of using a single space. It looks better when I print my
text, and typesetters don't care. (Yet I still sometimes find myself
typing two spaces, and that's why my "print" macro in Word starts by
combing the text for "period-space-space" and changes them all to
"period-space.")
There are a lot of people like me. And there are a lot of people of
the old school who've never had reason to change their habits. There
are kids like mine who learned to type in schools where the only
keyboards in the building are connected to Macintoshes, and where
"period-space" is what's taught from Day One. What's unreasonable is
to expect everyone to stop at the end of every sentence and think
about what output device they're writing for, and decide how many
spaces to type.
Writers are obligated to follow their publishers' rules when preparing
manuscripts, but this is Usenet. We are our own publishers here.
*-------------real e-mail addresses below-------------*
| | |
|-RDC...@erols.com | Interfacing is Easy;-|
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*-----------------------------------------------------*
David E Romm
In article <340ba33b...@news.pipeline.com>, dave...@bigfoot.com wrote:
> > This is one of the situations of writing changing over time. I
> >understand that two spaces to being a sentance has been considered the
> >norm for many years. However, at least ten years ago (by experience)
> >sme schools were teaching one space to begin the sentance as the
> >standard.
Two spaces vs. one was a big debate in Desktop publishing circles a decade
ago. Now, it's hardly mentioned. I suspect that the debate ended because
of the same reason it started: Computer power. It used to be that the
Word Processing program made the spaces proportional (in proportional
fonts), and one was okay. Now, layout programs such as PageMaker or Quark
are so powerful that a good one will pay less attention to spacing and
concentrate on tracking and kerning. On Usenet, which is not much of a WP
program, the spaces matter, but not to me. I still use two spaces, out of
force of habit. And, like you, I think it looks better.
So there.
> When I was last participating in Apanage (an amateur press
> association) about five years ago,
I was in Apanage nearly two decades ago. Wonder if the same people are
still around...
> For example, I detest the
> American practice of putting punctuation within quotes where that
> punctuation was *not* a part of what was being quoted. I don't think
> anything should be within quotation marks which wasn't originally
> there.
As I always say sometimes, "Me too". As Ray mentions, computer manuals
were a big impetus for this shift. Putting extraneous punctuation where it
wasn't originally has bothered me since grade school. Never did get a
good answer as to why they were placed inside the quotes in the first
place.
--
Shockwave radio: Science Fiction/Science Fact/Weirdness Unbound
http://www.visi.com/~romm
Now eating Emu Jerky, from the MN State Fair
Ray Radlein
Joshua Jasper wrote:
>
> Chuck Lipsig <lip...@atlantic.net> wrote:
> >
> > I can remember a case from about twenty years ago, where a man was
> >being transported by plane to face child molestation charges. As the
> >molester was escorted through the airport with a local news program
> >filming, a man suddenly turned from a bank of pay phones and fired on
> >the molester from nearly point-blank range, killing him.
> >
> > The man turned out to be the molested boy's father. IIRC, the local
> >prosecutor thought about the case for several months, then decided not
> >to prosecute the father. Happened somewhere down south, again, IIRC.
>
> Hmm, this concurs with my though tht this is one case where the
> 'temporary insanity' defence would be usefull, much like the infamous
> Bobbit (sp?) case
Finding out the details of a specific prisoner transport, travelling to
a different city, carrying a loaded gun into an airport, and lying in
wait, hidden by a bank of pay phones, to do a Jack Ruby: This does not
seem particularly "temporary" to me. "Irresistable impulse" my ass --
this screams premeditation to me, at least.
And isn't shooting up an airport some kind of federal offense, anyway?
Ray Radlein
Troy-...@psu.edu wrote:
>
> Ray Radlein <r...@learnlink.emory.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Proportional fonts. When using proportional fonts, your best bet is to
> > let the computer decide how much space to leave between the period and
> > the start of the next sentence; hence, just using one space. This is
> > especially true if you are using Full (aka Newspaper) Justification.
>
> As I understand it, the purpose of double-spacing after a period is to
> make it clearer where a sentence starts and ends. That purpose, to
> clearly divide one sentence from the next, remains the same whether you
> are using proportional or non-proportional fonts. OR non-justification
> and full-justification.
But the computer will have no trouble telling where one sentence ends
and the next begins. And it will space the letters out on the page
accordingly. That's its job. The Computer Is Your Friend. Trust The
Computer.
Two spaces will not signify anything different to it than one space
will, and may sometimes serve to confuse its kerning and justification
algorithms.