Considering the hail of invective that has been address at many nice people on this thread, all coming from one person, I beg your indulgence for a brief side-issue.

My apologies, oddly enough, to Martin Gibson and others. I was in error (a rare and unusual occurrence—it happened once before, in 1954, when I thought I had made an error, but upon re-examination, it turned out I had not, so the fact that I thought I had made an error was, in itself, the error). I find I do have a morbid interest in what it writes, and I quite probably will read what it posts, depending on how morbid I'm feeling when I encounter such deposits.

First of all, a few posts back, I momentarily lost touch with my sense of the absurd. Since my parents were civilized and cultured people, I was raised to grant all persons respect as a matter of course, and not to withdraw that respect from a particular person unless I determined that he or she, by their behavior, was not worthy of it. When I encounter someone who takes the opposite view—that all people are to be regarded with contempt and treated with rudeness and abuse, regardless of how respectable they may actually be—I tend, quite naturally enough, to become indignant. Thus, I lost touch with my sense of the absurd. And Martin Gibson, as all can readily see, is absurd.

In truth, I find Marty quite fascinating. Encountering Marty is rather like when you are walking in the deep forest and come upon a strange insect. The thing has more wings and legs than it can possibly control with its minuscule ganglia. It's attempts to fly are pathetic, and it manages only to hop a few inches at a time, landing in a heap of tangled legs and antennae. It then has to struggle for several minutes to right itself. When it walks, it staggers here and there, totally unable to maintain a straight line, manages to get its legs all braided up, and once again, it topples over, lying there helpless and struggling. And someplace, as you are observing this scatter-footed chimera, you notice that, despite its small size, it emits a foul odor. You wonder: did this diminutive nightmare come about by some outlandish side-trip in the process of evolution? Or is it the grotesque product of a bizarre mutation? You wonder if you should leave it alone, or put it out of its obvious misery by mercifully crushing it under your heel. But with a fundamental reverence for life (and wondering if this thing actually qualifies as a life-form), you shudder, shrug your shoulders, and walk off, leaving it to whatever its fate might be.

When someone acts in a manner that even a slobbering, unwashed, flea-bitten barbarian would find shameful and disgusting, I feel I would be abdicating my responsibility as a cultured and enlightened member of the human race not to call that someone on it and attempt (undoubtedly in vain) to point out a more civilized path.

So, Marty, you don't get off that easy. I will be following your career. Some threads back, as a result of my pointing out where you transgressed the mores of civilized conduct, I had you whining for mercy, and I wasn't even trying then. I'm on your six, buster!

Don Firth