Apparently, the one thing you haven't noticed is your tendency to label anyone who refuses to agree with you a liar.
For the record, I remain opposed to your reinstatement. I think your paranoiac resort to insult and accusation poisons our community.
There have been moments when I believed you and I made some authentic human contact across the gulf of our disparate personal philosophies, but that has been far outweighed by your other, toxic behaviors.
The question of admins acting in threads in which they participate is a red herring. Just because the deputy sherrif shops at the Stop & Shop as a private citizen does not mean she cannot act to stop a robbery in progress.
You prefer to portray yourself as a victm. But, invariably, it is you that launches the downward spiral of each imploding thread in which you participate.
I will be watching you like a hawk. Insult another member, and you're gone, whether I am participating in that thread or not: I don't need a nonparticipant's remove to recognize transgressive invective.
Let me tell you a story, Rand. I like stories because they have built-in context. This is a story about truth and lying.
A month ago I lay close to dying in the hospital, running a temp of 105, packed in ice, and beginning to convulse. I had already refused surgical intervention. I had spent a fevered night talking to my dead parents, siblings, and friends. The anti-inflammatories I use (no longer) to alleviate spinal injuries had eaten a hole in my colon, and the fecal matter that spilled into my abdominal cavity was trying to kill me with massive peritonitis.
The surgeon came to my room and told me, "Mr. Omni, after 3 days of the strongest IV antibiotics we have, you're getting dangerously worse. We have to go to the OR."
Going to the OR would have meant open abdominal surgery with the surgeon working, in his words, "in a sea of pus." It would also have meant a double-barreled colostomy--jeez, just shoot me.
But life is sweet. "Okay," I told the surgeon, "you're the pro."
He left to call the surgical team (it was a Sunday) and complete paperwork. The anesthesiologist came and completed her pre-op ritual.
I stared at the ceiling, and thought, with fevered conviction, "If I go to the OR, I'll die." My dead agreed. So I focused on lowering my fever--images of ice and sky, water and wind. It worked. I buzzed the nurses' station and told them to page the surgeon because the OR was no longer necessary.
He came, put a thermometer in my rectum, and examined my abdomen, pressing firmly where before I had been exquisitely tender, and asked me if it hurt like before. "No," I replied, "it hardly hurts at all."
He looked at me sharply and asked, "Are you lying to me to avoid surgery?"
"No," I answered, "and when the time comes that you can't believe what I tell you, you're fired."
He looked at the thermometer, shook his head, and told me, "Your temp is down several degrees. Your abdominal exam is dramatically improved. You must have connections."
He canceled the surgery. I lived. My dead mother came to my dreams again that night and pressed a cold hand to my forehead. My suicidal sister still stood silent in the shadows but seemed pleased.
I wouldn't lie to save my life. I can't--I'd rather die. I think that love of truth is shared by many here--evo and creo--and your accusations are obscene in the face of it.
If you can't believe other posters here say what they mean and mean what they say, go somewhere else. Darken someone else's town.
This message has been edited by AdminOmni, 04-01-2006 08:28 PM
Trust me.
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