Quoting Michael Loo to Nancy Backus on 07-19-18 03:24 <=-

Friedrich der Gross in many ways wasn't as gross as many think.
It wasn't his fault that the Nazis adopted him as an ancestor.

Wasn't he also a musician and composer....? I was reading something, somewhere (of some scholarly merit) that went on at some length about
how both the Nazis and their opponents claimed the great man as their ancestor and all... Not a clue what it might have been, other than some book.... ;)

It's like people of all persuasions wrapping themselves in
the George Washington banner. Doesn't matter what the guy
actually thought, just that he is an icon. The reality has
little or nothing to do with it. I admit that in Frederick's,
there were some parallels, but it is silly to ascribe beliefs
of one's adoptive descendants to an unknowing ancestor.
There's no indication (to take two examples from Drew Pearson)
that John Birch would have endorsed the John Birch Society
or W.E.B. Du Bois the Du Bois Club.

Indeed. And people, even icons, being human and complex, to say nothing
of being contradictory at times, there is always some aspect that just
about anyone might grab onto and run with...

a post might be long enough to require two posts in return.

One of my guidelines is to try not to have messages get too long
(especially with Ruth, where hers will split and make things more
confusing potentially)...

Those messages would be easier to answer if
the algorithm were set to do the splitting at
a more manageable (say) 70 or 80 lines. In
Ruth's case, it seems that she self-limits to
a certain number, and the program's rule is
maybe 10 or 20 lines less, so we end up with a
message with the gist of the conversation and
another message consisting of a paragraph or two.
I don't know what the easiest or best fix is,
otherwise I'd suggest it.

Dunno if she's really self-limiting,,, I'm not sure what the point
program editor's limit is, it seems to be about 120, maybe 110, lines,
so I try to not let my messages to her go more than 100 lines, so she
has room to add the reply... When hers do split, I've on occasion moved
stuff from the first part into the reply to the second part, so that
things still make sense... Otherwise, I just try to keep things under
200 lines, wherever... and will manually break a reply message at some reasonable place, sense-wise, to make two messages out of it, if I can't otherwise prune it down and still make sense... :)

I never was a phone person, and the evolution of
cellphones into a universal guide-monitor-policeman
seems fishy to me. Real life talking is fine, but
talking without being in your interlocutor's actual
presence is somehow unsatisfying and odd.

I'll agree that cellphones have evolved into something much less satisfactory to me, too... I much prefer to talk face to face rather
than phone, but sometimes the phone is a good substitute, and
occasionally a better choice, depending on the situation itself... some counseling situations are better from the phone, although you lose out
on the body language interaction....

But it's worthwhile not to have to invest in body armor.

It can be... ;)

ttyl neb

... If we had some bread we could have ham sandwiches...if only we had ham

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