Tucker, you're makin' a few good points. Now don't get me wrong, we're probably on opposite sides of the fence on most issues, but I've been lookin' over that fence into your yard a few times and it ain't a bad yard. When I first came to the Mudcat about half a year ago, I was a little overwhelmed. Even though I shoot my mouth off, make silly jokes, and make my living in front of groups of people, I've fought big-time shyness all my life. When I'm in a comfortable environment I'm a total extrovert, but in ANY other situation...well I try like hell to AVOID other situations. I found several catters' computer expertise totally intimidating...until..I was able to be some help in an instrument selection thread. A couple of folks were SO articulate that I felt reticent to even take part in a discussion with them, (I'm a grade 10 drop out and not proud of it) until I realised that most of us rarely use first-class sentence structure. (all my stupid brackets)
Well to make a long post, short (yeah, I can be a one man thread creep) after hanging about for a couple of weeks I started to understand what a class group this is and I took the plunge. Good-bye shyness. (in these confines, anyway) Holy Cow, do I love these folks. They are so fucking generous (oops, sorry) in so many ways. I'm writing this because you put my name into the list of folks who's opinions you have to take account of. Yup, ain't it the truth? Me too. Sometimes it's difficult. My belief structure has been formed by 51 years on this planet of looking, listening, experiencing, acting, re-acting etc. and sometimes it's damn hard for me to understand why people don't feel the same as I do on a lot of issues. Good example is this thread. I thought Sapper was inflamatory in his first post and jumped in. I certainly agreed with Mick's rebuttal, but then I thought "right or wrong, both these guys have seen combat and death first hand. I haven't. Back off until it cools down". Sometimes I think Joe must have eyes in the back of his head (or a little Mighty Mouse in him) 'cause he diverted the debate in another direction that I knew, although it might get heated, it would be civil. I was also glad to see Sapper's later (and much longer) posting. Can't say I've changed my feeling on the issue, but I've gone back and read each exchange several times and that's a start.

Now what was I saying? Oh ya, Tucker, you made some good points.

rick