From: Psycho Kitten
Newsgroups: alt.suicide.holiday
Subject: Re: a cheap holiday in other people's misery
Summary: Stepping over the line
Date: 12 Oct 92 23:55:15 GMT
Organization: Eternal Order of Chaos
Originator: awatson@pecan.cns.udel.edu

In article <Bw0KD8.7wG@news.cso.uiuc.edu> dennis@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Thomas A. Dennis) writes:
>1.  It wasn't terribly obvious, from the postings, that people had been 
>fingering him every couple of days.  Maybe I missed it, I don't know.  It's
>also not real obvious that some sysadmin could have logged in for him.

	You admitted in a previous post that you started sending articles
after only having read ASH for a very short time (a few days).  If you
would have bothered to wait to post until you had read a few more articles
or had asked someone in email about it, you wouldn't have been so ignorant.

	I have a hard time believing that you didn't think that a 
sysadmin (or someone else who can get the account's password) wouldn't
check a dead person's account even once.  Gee, could it be that one
of his local friends or the sysadmin are looking for clues as to why
he might have done it (or for other potential suicidal people)???  

>
>2.  When it seemed likely that he was dead, there were numerous notes on the
>subject of his existence/nonexistence; as far as I can tell, no one has
>commented on the subject since your "finger" post, until now.

	Things had pretty much quieted down (about Conibear) _before_
Graham posted his 'finger's of Conibear's accounts.  Just because something
isn't posted doesn't mean that people are not talking about it privately
in email.

>
>Yeah, I know I asked for it--still, no need to get personal. :-(

	You got personal first (or have you forgotten?)...
	Telling people that they pain they feel is a figment of their
imagination -- or worse, saying they _want_ to stay that way no matter what --
is a highly personal insult in my book.  I hope you don't honestly think
you can jump into conversations half-cocked and expect to be respected.


>
>I think that you've hit on the thing that bothers me most about some (not all)
>of the activity in this group--the suicide-as-melodrama thread running through
>some of the posts.  Maybe there should be an 'alt.suicide.serious' group for
>people like myself, whose experience with successful and attempted suicides 
>just doesn't square with the way the subject is treated--dare I say,
>romanticized--in this group.  Until then, someone--not necessarily myself--
>should still pop up from time to time to remind the more morbid a.s.h.ers that
>someone's suicide is not an occasion for "a cheap holiday in other people's 
>misery."

	[snide remark striken to prevent flame war]

	Guess you've learned that you can't absorb the personality of
an newsgroup (esp. ASH) by reading a few days worth of posts...  (sarcasm
intended)  Maybe you should quit generalizing about ASHers as a whole and
quit thinking you know what is going on in our minds.  How kind of
you  to appoint yourself the knight in shining armor to protect all ASHers
from thinking we have a clue as to how we feel (sarcasm intended).   I
think we can take care of our own quite nicely, thank you.  

	You seem to ignore the fact that ASH is for all sorts of people...
of the posters, some are here to vent, some are here as they choose to
cling to Death's warm embrace, some are here to cheer themselves up, etc.
There are many more lurkers who may or may not have considered suicide at
some point in their lives.  Some are offer private help while others
read to try to understand the parting of others.  We don't fit into the
neat&tidy groups you try to force us into.  We're certainly not here to
be preached at by some Johnny-Come-Lately (as if no one like you has
ever posted to ASH before???).                         

 
>God, I've asked for it now...

	Damn straight you did...
>
>Tom Dennis                 
>[.sig deleted]


-- 

Psycho Kitten   \ zaphodb@brahms.udel.edu    \ Check my .plan \ Just a Grim
Angela M. Watson \ awatson@pecan.cns.udel.edu \ for more info  \ Reaper wannabe