From: banerjee@hsc.usc.edu (Samit Banerjee)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Welcome to SCI....where xenophobia and hypocrisy rule the netwaves
Date: 29 Dec 1992 15:42:15 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: hsc.usc.edu

While I try my best to stay out of a shootout between a less than favourably
inclined netter and my systems administrator, this time I was caught
right smack in the midlle. Mr.Asthana set the ball rolling by sending a copy
to my SA of the letter that he dashed off to a few other network supervisors.

My initial, admittedly acerbic, attempts to point out the fallacy in his
arguments regarding alleged abuses of USENET priviledges from my account
resulted in a less than productive exchange of correspondence. And while 
I had no pretensions that such a difference of opinion could be resolved
mutually, I nonetheless persisted in the forlorn hope that maybe, just
maybe, Mr.Asthana could be persuaded to see the light of reason. Instead,
my comment that "no action has been taken against my account" caused
him to send a second, somewhat vindictive, note to my systems administrator 
which was also (thankfully!!) ignored.    

Whatever opinions Mr.Asthana has about my alledged misuse of USENET
priviledges, I will neither refute nor corroborate. It is not my intention
to justify any or all of my postings that have been called into
question and I have neither the inclination nor the purpose to do so.
Suffice it to say, that I do not regret having said anything that appeared 
under my name on SCI and to the best of my knowledge, I have not violated
any of the University of Southern California accounting policies. 

On the question of profanity, that one other person also raised, 
it seems appropiate to point out for whatever it's worth, that neither
Ed Crick nor myself have made use of any obscenities in any form and 
although we may have at times walked a mighty fine line, we have not strayed
into the realm of vulgarity. To perpetuate such an impression would be
a travesty of justice. And while our postings have been largely dominated
by allegorical and often metaphorical refernces, I doubt if such an usage
could be construed as obscene, even from a very conservative stand point.
The deliberate inability to distingiush the two often leads
to the kind of sermonising from a "holier than thou" platform that is
seen on SCI.  
   
Ed Crick in his usual brilliant style has touched upon all the points that 
needed to be addressed and short of saying that I concur with him, I have 
nothing further to add on the subject. I have no desire or overwelming urge 
to curb my style or adopt a less confrontational attitude even while 
running the risk of a similar complaint in the future. I will take my 
chances rather than be gagged. 

The matter is closed as far as I am concerned.


Samit


P.S. Considering that Mr.Asthana joins a long and growing list of people
complaining to the University of Minnesota system administrator, leads me 
to wonder if Ed Crick should adopt the subject line of this article
as his standard disclaimer while posting to SCI.

Any comments?



-- 
Samit Banerjee,			    |  
University of Southern California   |  A man who smiles when things go wrong,
Internet: banerjee@scf.usc.edu      |  has found somebody to blame it on.
Bellnet : (213) 342-1401            |