From: shore@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Melinda Shore)
Subject: Hate mail
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 16:47:28 GMT

[]
I get a lot of mail from friends and foes, people I know
and people I don't.  I enjoy almost all of it (even though
I don't respond to much) and am particularly interested
in articulate, thoughtful mail disagreeing with things
I say.  We all need things to think about.  Some of the
mail I get is just silly (Alan Williams recently suggested
that I'm the person calling Clayton - what a twit!) and
some is touching, and some is outright funny (someone once
wrote asking if I were Rita Mae Brown writing under a
pseudonym - I wasn't quite sure how to take that, not being
a RMB fan).

Today I received a particularly nasty note from someone at
Syracuse University, and I thought I'd share.  The content
of the note, such as it is, could be occasion for excellent
sport (he takes me to task for working in academia, yet is
writing from Syracuse University - this suggests to me that
SU is, perhaps, not an educational institution after all,
something I had long suspected [sorry, Henry]), yet it does
bring to mind all sorts of questions about the nature of
the medium.  I tend to be nasty, or at least flip, on the
net, and being a private person generally avoid being too
introspective in such a public forum.  In person I tend to
be somewhat tacit, and in email, which I view as falling
somewhere between the privacy of personal interactions and
the publicness of the net, I tend to write long, dull
anecdotes.  Here, on the other hand, we have a person who
doesn't post at all and could well be reasonable in the
flesh (repulsive politics aside), yet uses the semi-privacy
of email as a screen behind which he can hide his own
incoherence of thought, limitedness of expression, and
paucity of decorum.  Which is worse, to be an idiot in
public or to be an idiot in private?  Are ad hominem attacks
more cowardly in email or on the net?  Is Usenet really more
anonymous than email, and what does that anonymity provide?
And aren't anonymity and privacy orthogonal constructs?

Anyway, here, for your reading pleasure, I bring you 
Okechukwu C. Echeruo.  Okechukwu, if you're in the audience,
will you please take a bow?
--------

From: oecheruo@sugrfx.acs.syr.edu (okechukwu c. echeruo)
Message-Id: <9209090106.AA10465@sugrfx.acs.syr.edu>
To: shore@theory.TC.CORNELL.EDU
Subject: Re: The Harrassing Phone Calls Can Stop NOW!

I would like to pass on a message to you in case you have been plugged
up there in your cornell towers. Certain indivduals (steve,andy & others)
have show an utter lack of ethics or manners on this net. Even worse,
they are the same people who whine all day long about oppression and hate.
I have had you say horrible things about  people and others.

yet, you are probably living in your comfortable appartment enjoying the
spoils of your society. Last time I heard from a bitch was the "beating a
horse" crap from cornell. 

"theory" ? was sort of knowledge do you seek at cornell. You are not a 
communist, you are not a liberal but some unsightly miscegnation of 
facist & liberal. Every once in  a while you open you academic orifice to
eject some putrid hate at someone. Then like the crab you crawl back into
your nest. Of course, like the sterotypical "bitch" you despise you scream
"help me, help me!" when anyone takes you up on your words. This you do 
on a daily basis. In fact, I have almost never seen a positive (non-hateful,
non-judgemental) article come from shore@theory.cornell.edu

so, I hope you will realise that you are not some goddess, up there in your
nest. You are just an internet user. an academic bitch. If there is 
*anything* in  that hateful mind of yours,please take the time to state them
in a peaceful, non-hateful manner. catfights are best left at home.

If however, you an indeed not a spiteful, person (as my experince with you
tells me), you are invited to respond to my accusations.

Of course, if you are an intelluctual coward (or a moral one at that), you 
could always MAILBOMB my account (as some of your friends like doing).


This is in response to your condoning and supporting of the written & verbal
harrasment of certain usenet personalities and users.

-- 
       Melinda Shore - Cornell Theory Center - shore@tc.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: soc.motss