From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: some thoughts
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 05:12:46 GMT


In article <1993Jan22.012830.13579@midway.uchicago.edu>
jcav@kimbark.uchicago.edu (John Cavallino) writes:

>[exchange with Walter Smith]

>I'm posting it here now because it meant a lot to me to
>write it, and because I've not (until now) been able muster
>the courage to submit to this forum anything terribly
>substantive.

To you and to any others who find themselves for whatever
reason reluctant to post, and most especially to those
for whom ...

>The eloquence of Joe Francis, Brent Capps, Jess Anderson,
>Bob Donahue, Nelson Minar, Melinda Shore, Owen Rowley, Ellen
>Seebacher (I'll stop now, even though I've left out so many
>people) and others do intimidate one just a wee bit.

... please, *please* do not let such jitters affect you,
and especially don't let such thoughts dissuade you from
posting here.  Every single one of us had a first time, and
we wouldn't be here yet if we'd let any such concern stop
us.

In your letter to Walter (which I won't comment specifically
about other than to say it was clear and entirely to the
point), you mention, wisely, that we are not a monolith.
Each of us is, no matter what our commonalities, a sovereign
individual.  Over time, you will see from any one of us,
including the ones you didn't mention, both our group-
oriented manifestations and our separate, unique ones.  It's
hard to see how it could be otherwise.

Our political spectrum lies between the slightly left of
center and the fairly far right of center.  That mirrors US
society quite closely.  Our denizens of other countries tend
to be more liberal, as a group, than the Americans here,
though the Canadians (treading softly, because it's a point
of some delicacy) are not so very differently placed on this
spectrum from the Americans (fewer rightists up there, seems
to me).

Others may feel differently, but I think the closest we come
to community here is in our political selves.  Apart from
that, and despite the obvious influence of computing in the
lives of many of us, we are as disparate as any group of
people could possibly be.  Sexuality not really being a
well-understood or properly definable thing, we're probably
not even all that similar along that axis.

But we probably all have one or more aspects of the things
you were trying to explain to Walter (I doubt he'll answer,
by the way, because I don't think he could without
completely turning his closed world upside down) in our
personal kit of experiences, and what provides the political
glue is our common oppression, more than any other thing.

Yet as recent threads about coming out and parental
reactions, responses to the first few days of the Clinton
presidency, opinions about what coffee is or isn't,
characters on Deep Space Nine, bygone pop music, and the
like amply display, there are dozens of ways to begin to be
engaged in these pursuits.

Don't be shy, just jump in.

Your name, by the way, reminds me of an old boyfriend, Nino
Cavallini, and it was he who first said right into my
mother's face, "I love him and he loves me and I'm taking
him away from here." I was 18.  I went off to college about
a month later and that was that.  Wonder what ever happened
to him, haven't heard a word of him in nearly 40 years.

<> Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.
<> -- Charles F. Kettering
-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
[Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888]
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