From: maniattb@cs.rpi.edu (Bill Maniatty)
Subject: Re: In your school?
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 05:28:36 GMT

In article <18NOV199218080800@sscvx1.ssc.gov>, godfrey@sscvx1.ssc.gov (LAURENCE GODFREY) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov18.215154.579@philmtl.philips.ca>, ray@philmtl.philips.ca (Ray Dunn)         writes...
|> >In refd article, godfrey@sscvx1.ssc.gov (LAURENCE GODFREY) writes:
|> >>I think you have it the wrong way around - the injstice comes
|> >>before the complaints, not the other way around.  On the contrary, I would
|> >>suggest that the Concordia people probably got what they deserved.
|> > 
|> >I responded to Godfrey by email on this, but I think public attention
|> >should be drawn to the fact that he believes that the four Concordia
|> >professors deserved to be murdered and the secretary deserved to be shot.
|> > 
|> >If anyone has any personal knowledge that might help to set our minds at
|> >rest on this matter, I'd appreciate it if they'd contact me.
|> >-- 
|> My mind is at rest.
|> Do you mean knowledge about Concordia shootings, knowledge about Frabrikants
|> disputes, or knowledge about Godfrey.  If the last, I would be more than
|> willing to provide details of my dispute with NRC to anyone who wants them -
|> I haven't shot anyone, threatened to do so, carried a gun etc etc. and part
|> of it is dealt with in my article in New Scioentist of 11th July, 1982
|> (Forum section) and the remainder in the Canadian press of Feb 1987
|> (all national newspapers and Ottawa Citizen, CJOH and other TV stations).
|> 
|> As for Fbrikant, I have read some of his email postings which were kindly
|> provided by a staff reporter on Gazette after Dunn refused to send me
|> copies.  My view is that his arguments are disjointed and clumsily presented,
|> that he is alternately agressive and defensive, and that he frequently
|> goes OTT, but that there is substance there and it is evident how he was
|> driven to shooting the people involved.  It is also evident that the
|> university faculty closed ranks against him, that they acted to protect
|> themselves with no regard for Frabrikant's own career, that there was
|> quite a bit of academic dishonesty abounding, partic wrt authorship
|> (one of my own complaints against NRC).
|> 
|> I don't know what's got into Dunn recently, whose previously well-argued
|> emails to me have degenerated into irrational attacks, presumably because
|> he feels rather strongly about Fabrikant.  Dunn is well aware that I
|> don't really hate all Canadians and that many of my postings are calculated
|> to be provocative but are nonetheless my real opinions.  Dunn is also
|> well aware that I do not think that victims of injustice ought to go
|> around killing people, but when you have lived in a country where such
|> behaviour is quite normal, as I have, you don't find such action quite
|> so unacceptable nor so incomprehensible.  Furthermore, I know just how
|> frustrating Canadian institutions can be when they close ranks to protect
|> themselves, particularly in response to facts that demonstrate manifest
|> injustice on their part, and I can easily understand how an unstable
|> person could be driven to violence in such circumstances.
|> 
|> Laurence
|> 

This dispute seems out of hand here.  This reply seems particularly strongly
worded, and while your dispute (and Fabrikant's) may have some merit,
this talk about killing being not so ``unacceptable nor so incomprehensible''
is pretty spooky.

If something is causing this much unhappiness, maybe it is time to give it
a rest.  It seems every time this subject comes up, it seems the emotionalism
just escalates.

Bill
-- 
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|	maniattb@cs.rpi.edu - in real life Bill Maniatty
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