From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: Apology for insults
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Distribution: na
Date: 21 Jan 93 15:44:06 GMT

In <1993Jan20.205951.22928@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> decay@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (dean.kaflowitz) writes:

>In article <nyikos.727480463@milo.math.scarolina.edu>, nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>> In <1993Jan19.125449.14515@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> decay@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (dean.kaflowitz) writes:
>> 
>> >In article <nyikos.727395926@milo.math.scarolina.edu>, nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>> >> In <1993Jan14.153213.4884@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> decay@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (dean.kaflowitz) writes:
>> >> 
>> >> >In article <nyikos.726772763@milo.math.scarolina.edu>, nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:

>If the email you posted was posted as you claim, "Doctor," then I am
>in error and apologize.  I am sure you will not be surprised to know
>that I doubt your veracity, but that's the best I can do.  You
>are what you are.

Apology accepted.  I won't bother to ask for one for putting "Doctor"
in quotes.  I can tolerate the buzzing of mosquitoes. 

>  You are, after all, the fellow who posted
>those articles about doctors who had been accused of various crimes,
>but didn't bother to post the fact that the charges were either
>dropped or dismissed or the doctor found not guilty.  That tends
>to reflect badly on one's credibility.

No, Dean.  I have yet to receive documentation that these things happened.
Unlike you, I think it diminishes my credibility to repeat things from
a source as unreliable as Chris Lyman, and say they are facts.  I did
say to Larry Margolis, "Well, it's good to have the suspense over,"
and asked him how what address to write to in order to obtain documentation
of Chris's claims.  Larry, who gives considerable evidence, albeit 
circumstantial, of being in regular touch with Chris, claimed I should
have no trouble finding out the address myself.  I told him I was familiar
with the situation here in South Carolina, but Minnesota might be a whole
different ball of wax.  Larry let the matter drop, and I left things at
that.

Now, if Chris Lyman were to read this, and send me the right address
to write to, I would be suitably grateful and would acknowledge the
correctness of what he said to everyone once the documentation arrived.

I would be even more grateful if he could obtain the documentation 
himself and mail me a copy.  I'd pay $1.00 for it, the same price
I charge for providing documentation to y'all.

>> >I see "Doctor" Nyikos' sense of morality is relative.  If you're
>> >not as bad as some others, then you are good, is that it?
>> I never claimed to be a saint.

>Not claiming to be a saint is a bit different from what I said.
>Claiming that you're not so bad because other's are worse is not
>an impressive claim at all, "Doctor."

How much worse, Dean?  

>> You on the other hand bellyache about
>> me letting Lebow know what you have done in the past, so that he can
>> see that your solicitous comments towards him are just so much 
>> hypocritical posturing.

>Lebow can read what I wrote and make up his own mind.  But
>"bellyaching?"  This from the little fellow who got all upset and
>screamed sexual harrassment because someone addressed him as
>"Petey honey" in a posting?

No, but because I took fisting offers as sexual harassment and decided
to kill two birds with one stone and say I would *take* that appellation
as sexual harassment as well.  I never said I'd *do* anything about it,
because I won't: I merely *perceive* it as such and want people to
know I perceive it that way.  That's all.

>You have very little credibility, "Doctor."  Go post another
>little attempt at character assassination about me. 

I back up what I say.  Your complaint about me dredging up your past
misdeeds is an insicere attempt to take away from me the ability
to support the claims I make, and lower myself to your level.

> One thing
>I am very confident of is that you are a complete failure at persuading
>people to your viewpoint, and actually have the opposite affect.

Yeah, why should anyone believe a person who is so anal-retentive,
he actually takes the trouble to document what he says?  Better to 
be a free spirit, like you are, and continue the world's most 
advanced exercise in deconstruction, a.k.a. talk.abortion.  That
would restore my credibility, no doubt.

{Note to the irony-impaired:        }

{Note to the severely irony-impaired:  The above two paragraphs
are a touch of irony, to persuade Ron Bense that at least the
very shallowest levels of irony are not *completely* lost on me. }

{Note to the terminally irony-impaired: the preceding paragraph
is a feeble attempt at Socratic irony.}

Would Chris Lyman label the above four paragraphs a case of severe
anal-retention?

Would Chris Lyman label the above five paragraphs a terminal case
of anal-retention?

I wonder what Douglas Hofstadter might have to say about the above
six paragraphs.

>> I will say this for you, though.  You did not take major umbrage at
>> my "Feigning" post.  That cuts both ways, though.  It suggests to
>> me that you are stuck on what Kierkegaard calls the aesthetic stage
>> of human psychic development and have very little knowledge of the
>> ethical stage.  A person with more moral fiber than you would have
>> been deeply offended by some of the accusations I leveled at you and
>> would have been much more forceful in combatting some of the more
>> damaging ones.

>What it really suggests is that I don't get all hot under the
>collar when a mosquito bites me.  I may acknowledge the mosquito.
>I might even trouble myself to swat it, but I don't get "deeply
>offended."  Most of the time I don't even notice it.

Of course, if you consider talk.abortion to be one big game, or one
big exercise in deconstruction, that is exactly the kind of response
that is appropriate.

Come to think of it, I see you posting material on abortion almost
as infrequently as I do Patrick Humphrey.

Peter Nyikos


Newsgroups: talk.abortion