(Other than a major piece I researched for Dean more than six years ago about my conversations with the original pilot of the B-17 bomber “Memphis Belle”, this is my first post as a contributing editor on Dean’s World. And yes, to me, it always will be Dean’s World.)
—
My first posting after all these years with Dean’s World will be devoted to two things.
First, there is a great need to achieve nationwide understanding of what caused a commissioned field-rank officer of the United States Army to gun down more than a dozen of his fellow american soldiers on a stateside training base, until he in turn was gunned down by a policewoman assigned to the base, and who took three wounds of her own until she disabled the shooter with her own steadied and well-trained gunfire.
Second, there is an equally great need to achieve this nationwide understanding without twisting the national mood into a witch-hunt that tags all american Muslims as actual or potential traitors.
I might have gone for such a witch-hunt as recent as a few months ago. But I have thought very carefully about the potential damage that could be caused to our own way of life and to the social rules of the road that have enabled scores people from scores of differing cultures to come to this country and to take part in the process of growing the culture of the american nation. That’s a process still ongoing, and which in fact may never be fully completed. Because maybe part of the story of America is that it is always such to such social modification. And the more I think about that, the more I think it could be something not to fear but to celebrate.
Information I saw written by David Johnston and Eric Schmitt in the weekend New York Times at one of the EVP Coffee Shops in Madison, Wisconsin this morning indicated that:
“After two days of inquiry into the mass shooting at Fort Hood,investigators have tentatively concluded that it was not part of a terrorist plot.”
“Rather, they have come to believe that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the shootings,acted out under a welter of emotional, ideological and religious pressures, according to interviews with federal officials who have been briefed on the inquiry.”
“Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that Major Hasan believed he was carrying out an extremist’s suicide mission.”
“But the investigators, working with behavioral experts, suggested that he might have long suffered from emotional problems that were exacerbated by the tensions of his work with veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who returned home with serious psychiatric problems.”
“They said his counseling activities with the veterans appear to have further fueled his anger and hardened his increasingly militant views as he was seeming to move toward more extreme religious beliefs, all of which boiled over as he faced being shipped overseas, an assignment he bitterly opposed.”
But that hardly implies that he was involved in a widespread plot involving large number of american Muslims. Indeed, there seems to be no evidence at this point that anybody other than the major knew exactly what he intended to do that deadly morning on the Ft Hood training base.
It’s easy to dream up conspiracy theories. I remember hundreds of them that began the moment Lee Harvey Oswald was murdered on network television by Jack Ruby on national television, a couple of days after Oswald assassinated President John F Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963. Most of these conspiracy theories were as crazy as hell, and about on a par with a new such theory being cooked up on a Jew/Zionist/Israel-hating blogsite, the Ugly Truth, which now claims that Major Hasan was an unwitting dupe of the israeli Mossad intelligence agency.
There is no doubt that significant number of Muslims have shown unusual proclivity toward suicide bombings and other attacks against non-Muslims or, for reasons of internal islamic struggles, against Moslems of opposing sects, such as the seemingly endless Sunn’a-Shi’a blood feud ignited in the 7th century by the martyrdom of the great Imam Hussein ibm Ali, grandchild of the prophet Muhamad.
But if we foster a climate of opinion in this country which treats all Muslims as potential crazed murderers, we will set in motion a process that one day will be practiced against other Americans, for reasons that we cannot imagine now, but which can easily be created in an age of instant mass communications bulwarked by the narrow-casting facilities of the internet and email.
I also have a personal reason for this, which has to do with friendship and hospitality. Both of which are important to me.
I expect to sit down for lunch sometime this coming week or the week after with Aziz Poonawalla, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, This is something we have talked about for some time, considering we have known each other online on Dean’s World for some years now, and that we both live in Dane County, Wisconsin. Aziz, whom I understand was born in the United States, is a member of the Dahwoodi Bohra muslim community, a branch of the shi’a fatima tradition of Islam. We are quite different kinds of people. He is a believer; I am not. He seems to be a liberal on most issues; I am a radical on many issues, and I tend to ignore most issues about which I have little knowledge or interest.
But I shall reserve the right to treat him as a friend unless he gives me reason to treat him otherwise. That mean’s Aziz Poonawalla personally. Not his family. Not his sect. Not indian Islam. Not shi’a Islam. Not Islam in general.
And I cannot honestly do that if I harbor suspicions that he might want to pull out a firearm, shout “Allahu Akhbar!”, and shoot me dead over a cup of coffee and possibly a pair of almond bear claw sweet rolls.
And that, more or less, is the direction in which I see a not-insignificant part of the national push moving over the past few days. Not good for us as people, and not good for us as a society.
I have written before, and will not unsay, that I wanted immigration to this country limited more or less to Europeans of the same traditions of western civilization of which our country is a major part. But that does not mean we should contribute to turning the national mood in this country in the direction of treating all Muslims in this country as potential terrorists, and possibly folllowing up by establishing concentration camps for american citizens of islamic faith. Endgames such as that have been played out in one country after another. We cannot permit it to happen here.
So. Aziz, I promise to park at the door of the Memorial Union as many as possible of my natural and numerous hostilities. Just so you won’t get the idea that I set you up for a bad trip.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
{ 21 comments }
The basic problem, Arnold, is mathematical. One person says, “The extremists are a miniscule minority of Muslims.” Another says “There are millions of Muslim extremists.” And even when they know better, they seem to forget that those two statements are mathematically identical, or close to it. 0.1% of Muslims in the world — and 0.1% is a very miniscule minority — is still 1.5 million extremists. We can’t really quantify the precise percentage; but a very small percentage and a very large number of individuals are effectively the same, just viewed from different perspectives.
And I don’t think those perspectives are a problem in themselves. The problems are the people you describe, the ones prone to equate “millions” with “all” or “miniscule minority” with “insignificant”. And that can go both ways:
* A Muslim-hating bigot can equate “millions” with “all”.
* A person who knows that the number is a miniscule minority can hear someone who’s trying to analyze security risks say “millions”, and interpret that as proof of Muslim-hating bigotry.
* A terrorism apologist can intentionally use “miniscule minority” to persuade people of “insignificant”.
* A person who’s concerned about millions of potential threats can hear someone say miniscule minority and interpret that as proof that the speaker is a terrorism apologist.
So these two mathematically identical statements can lead to radical miscommunication. People don’t hear the statements: they hear their own preconceptions and agendas; and they hear implications and motives that the speaker may never have intended.
If this were an abstract study of communication, it would be fascinating. Sadly, it’s much more serious than that. Too many real lives are on the line.
In the mean time, I’m not sure who I envy more: you, because you get to meet with Aziz Poonawalla; or Aziz, because he gets to meet with Arnold Harris.
Well. Martin,
How long of a drive is it from where you live to the Memorial Union building on Lake Mendota on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Unfortunately, my current contract is in San Diego. I think that makes it about 4 days one way. At least, that’s what it took me to drive here from Michigan.
Arnold, I have to confess that when my wife got her residency match in Wisconsin, one of teh very first things I thought was “I wonder how far Mt Horeb is from Madison?” :)
I have a huge deadline tuesday night for submissions to a conference but then I should finally be able to actually eat lunch somewhere other than the UW hospital cafeteria. I have your email from before when i was househunting in teh area and i asked you for some tips, if you recall, so ill email or call you. Looking forward to it – and I expect to learn a thing or two.
Martin, your analysis is quantitative, which is something that is rare in the blogsphere. But your estimates are flawed. First of all, the best estimates of our own national security agencies is that Al Qaeda has at most a few hundred members. The number of muslims who are members of extremist groups like Al Shabab or the actual armed wing of the Taliban number at most a few tens of thousands in total. Factor in the hardliners in autocratic states and various ulema and I think you’d get to maybe a hundred thousand people at best. Now, for the sake of argument, multiply by a factor of ten. NOW you have around a million people, but these are mostly in the muslim world, as part of the power elite and autocractic regimes, or various bands of thugs.
In other words, not next to you at teh cafe about to shot you over a bearclaw.
the people YOu are worried about Martin are not the violent muslim extremists or political hardliners. the likelihood fo you encountering one of those is ridiculously small; far smaller than it is for me, as I have personally traveled (and by traveled, I dont mean “passed thru the airport”, I mean, “actually stayed and lived there for a few days” to Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, the UAE, India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka.
The people like Maj. Hasan are ones who threaten you, but if you want to try and identify a common theme to “people who snap and go on a killing rampage” then religion isnt it. After all, the same day as Maj. Hasan went on his rampae, a certain Mr Rodriguez went on a similar spree in Orlando. And if you want to be really quantitative, tally up every incident of armed rampage with date, casualties, wounded, faith and ethnicity of the shooter, and see what patterns emerge. I havent done this, but I am 99% certain I know what the result will be. Or rather, what it wont.
What I am saying is, show me the data. I’ll help (after Tuesday. big deadline). it would be worth looking into (and might already be n wikipedia in nice tabular form for all I nkow)
I think you are missing a BIG piece of what generates the witch hunt attitude.
After 9/11 there was not a large and mjor hue and cry from the Muslim community against the terrorists. There was dancing in the streets of Palestine. Within days, Muslim representatives came forward with condemnation that universially ended with “But these guys are coming from a place repressed by Israel, backed by the U.S, so you should understand…” They seemed congenitally unable to say the actions were just plain wrong, period, if not down right evil and clearly against the writing in the Koran (sp?). The U.S. based Muslim population has unarguably provided support for terrorist organizations. The Palestinians given the choice elected a terrorist organization to run Palestine.
I don’t believe a vast Muslim conspiracy out to get the U.S., but I do believe there are Muslim organizations that fit the description. And oddly, I can’t exactly tell which are the bad guys and which aren’t in the absence of some kind of up-front, ownable, differentiable philosophy between the two camps.
I was EXTREMELY pleased to see major Muslim representatives state unequivocally that the Fort Hood event was completely wrong and not justifiable. That’s the kind of attitude that will put the stake through the heart of the witch-hunt bent.
And BTW, I haven’t seen any evidence of a real witch hunt, just people scared of it.
After 9/11 there was not a large and mjor hue and cry from the Muslim community against the terrorists.
that is a LIE. In fact it is what I call the “silence libel”.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/cityofbrass/2008/09/muslims-condemn-terror-again-a.html
““But these guys are coming from a place repressed by Israel, backed by the U.S, so you should understand…” ”
BULLSHIT. the VAST majority of muslims said no such thing.
In England, they banned hot cross buns in certain school cafeterias. They were viewed as insensitive to muslims by well meaning PC left wingers. The muslims were not consulted in advance and viewed the ban in astonishment and no doubt reaped a good bit of ill will because of the disappearance of a classic english food.
I view the PC reaction to Maj. Hasan’s actions in a similar light. They are running forward and saying objectionable, stupid things to close down lines of inquiry far in advance of what is proper in order to ‘avoid a backlash’. In doing so, they generate the conditions of a backlash because nothing angers people more than justice distorted to protect some favored minority.
I suspect that most reasonable muslims are not in favor of reflexively distorting justice to create some plaster saint version of Islam. There are people who are doing this and they need to be called out. If I do that, I’m a christian bigot. If a muslim does that, dismissing his criticism is harder.
I stand corrected, and offer instead:
(1) After 9/11 the U.S. mainstream media did not publicize a trend of hue and cry from the Muslim community against the terrorists, and
(2) In my personal experience (not plugged into Muslim media) the most negative I heard Muslims saying in the press, “Yea they shouldn’t have done it, but those guys are coming from a repressed society and are acting out of frustration.” The worst I heard was, “America should have expected it because… I can’t say it was American Muslims, I can’t say how representative American Muslims are of Muslims in the world.
(3) In my personal experience, a local Islamic leader was unable to uneqivocally disassociate the actions without adding, “but you’ve got to understand where these poor repressed…” It was the olny call-in show I’ve ever called, I specifically asked if the actions could be called just plain wrong without some kind of mitigation.
(4) London’s Sunday Telegraph: Hasan had attended the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church during Awlaki’s tenure in 2001. Officials told U.S. media outlets investigators were looking into possible links between Awlaki and Hasan. Alaki praised Hasan Monday, calling him “a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people,” and criticizing U.S. Muslim organizations for condemning the shooting attack, calling them hypocrites and – quoting from the Koran – saying “painful punishment” awaited them.
(5) And in the for what it’s worth department — Ahmad, aka Omar Yehia, this year abruptly stepped down from CAIR’s national board after U.S. prosecutors named him an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal plot led by the Holy Land Foundation charity to underwrite Palestinian terrorism. The trial, which ended in convictions on all 108 felony counts, marked the largest terror-financing case in U.S. history. OK, I admit, I did a googel news search to see if there are stories indicating condemenation and also support for terrorism by US Muslim groups.
thanks
The most interesting pieces I found were:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20091105_The_Elephant_in_the_Room__A_war_of_ideas_within_Islam.html
in which there is a notion of conflict in the ideas that Western Isalmism is fundamentally different than tradiaional without Western Is. acknowleding the difference
and
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/11/01/commentary/op-eds/doc4aed0a3a179aa892082712.txt
wherein deliberate ignorance of the Islamic connection to Islamic based terrorism is noted as counterproductive to safety and productive for Islamic terrorists. The line between sanity and witch-hunting is small. Once upon a time I was pulled over in Mississippi and a cop approached my car with his hand on his gun; turns out he ran the plates & the name came back on guy with my name (which is an unusual one) who had an outstanding warrant and also a habit of traveling with a large snake which he had used as a weapon in a previous brush with the law.
Nonetheless,
Major Hasan is still a serving officer of the United States Army. He deserves a fair trail under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ); which is precisely what he will get, if he is not judged mentally incapable of understanding the criminal charges that have been filed against him. If he is permanently paralyzed, that may also affect the way any such trial is conducted, if it is conducted. I served for a while in 1953-1955 as an enlisted clerical staffer on an courts and boards unit of and artillery group (the artillery equivalent of a regiment) at Ft Carson, Colorado; so I have some experienced sensabilities about the way these matters are carried out.
I trust none of us would want this trial to move forward into the same kind of three-ring circus as characterized the trail of O J Simpson in California. And if justice is denied the accused in this case, it affects the rights of all Americans on into the future.
An entire ethnic group or religion cannot be charged with high crimes and misdemeanors merely on the grounds that one — or even a relatively small number — of the sons or daughters of that group or religion committed mass murder, premeditated or otherwise., or plotted against the public peace or our national security.
I have said before that my preference would have been to admit for permanent residence and citizenship here only Europeans and other peoples whose cultures can be considered part of the western civilization for which this country was founded. Nor would I have permitted large numbers of Muslims to come here and establish what may prove to be separate and hostile sub-societies within our commonwealth. But that kind of advice has not been listened to for a long time, and all America must now abide by what will sometimes be the grossly negative outcomes of questionable decisionmaking in national policy.
Unless the citizens and their elected representatives want to modify the Constitution of the United States, that is precisely the situation this country faces. If so, we all ought to do everything possible to socially and culturally integrate everybody into the same national framework. The USA began life as a multiracial society, the limitations of which we have not overcome to this very day. If matters are left unchecked, we shall one day be a multicultural society as well, and nothing is more certain to cause the horrors of a real civil war once again, one day.
Can Muslims of the United States be americanized to our common culture? I would say that this process is going on all the time, in big and little ways. Diaspora connections and attitudes in our society have tended to melt away within about three generations. Ask almost any italian American, jewish American, irish American, german American, japanese American, chinese American, polish American, etc, et al. Ask the parents of that muslim girl in Ohio, who ran off to Florida to become an instant Christian, and who apparently has made her decision stick.
But what I am hoping — and what I think can be achieved — is that Islam in America will wind up like just another american religious sect — sort of like the myriad of protestant church groups. And maybe — just maybe — the islamic diaspora over here on our side of the water will be willing and able to induce radical changes in the practice if not the theory of islam in the countries where that religion prevails. In other words, a lot more democracy and consideration of human liberty, and a lot less jihad and culturally conditioned hatred.
In which case, if I could live another 75 years, I would be able to look at my 150 year old self in the mirror, smile, and say:
“Arnold, they proved to be just as good Americans as your English mother, your Croatian wife, or anybody else who came here from overseas, proved to be in the end.”
Think on it.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Can Muslims of the United States be americanized to our common culture? I would say that this process is going on all the time, in big and little ways.
btw Arnold, this reminds me, I have a book suggestion for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Mullahs-Mainframe-Islam-Modernity-Bohras/dp/0226056775/talkislam-20
I reviewed it (with conflict of interest in mind) here:
http://cityofbrass.blogspot.com/2002/11/review-mullahs-on-mainframe.html
P Mike,
I’ve been saying this for almost 10 years! The Islam practiced in the West isn’t the same practiced in the Middle East. There’s a disconnect between the religion of peace, as it’s adherents and defenders call it, here in the West and that same faith as practiced in the Middle East. Common sense tells us that! We need only look.
It’s not just Al-Qaeda or Hamas. Look at the nations where Islam is the largest religion. There isn’t a one that I’d ever wish to visit, let alone compare to the values Christianity instilled in the West. Which is the real religion of peace? There is simply no comparison.
There is a disconnect and Westernized, liberalized (dare I say Christianized) Muslims refuse to see. They’re not practicing the same religion as the super-majority of their “brothers” in the world. The things we see happening in the Middle East, at the hands of Muslims, we do not see happening in the Christian West, where Islam is a minority faith. Why? Where’s the disconnect? Why are these acts of violence acceptable in the Middle East by, I must say, most Muslims but decried, and rightfully so, by many Muslims in the West?
I want this disconnect explained to me: If Islam is the religion of peace, why is there so much violence and death in the regions it’s most prevalent? Whereas in the areas it’s not, in the West, we see no such violence by its practitioners?
UPDATE:
Or let’s ask it this way:
Christianity is the largest religion in the world with between 1.5 – 2.1 billion adherents. Islam has around 1.5 billion.
Even if those that commit violence in the name of Islam are in the minority, why do we see so many more radicals doing violence in the name of that religion than we do in the largest faith in the world?
There must be an answer. Is there something about Islam that attracts those with a predisposition toward violence? If so, what?
And if it’s just religion that makes people crazy, why don’t we see this kind of behavior in Christians or Jews? Yes, (and it’s ridiculous I have to even say this) people have done violence in the name of these two faiths but it’s nowhere near to the extent of the damage done in the name of Islam nor is it endorsed by so many. It’s always the product of a fringe sect of a few individuals working alone. Not a globe-spanning network of cells with access to money, technology, weaponry, and support infrastructures.
There must be an answer. Why Islam and not anyone else?
Seems to me the discussion isn’t about how many christians there are on the planet.
Apparently, the new rulers around here are free to change the subject matter of a thread/post.
Arnold,
At the moment the biggest threat to the conspiracy theory around here is the fact that Major Hasan has lawyered up as they say, even while he lies in a hospital bed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
One could possibly believe, the gentleman, possibly might be a source of factual evidence based data to support such a conspiracy. And of course he will get a very fair trial especially if he brings his Capt Queeg balls to court while a dozen or more psychiatrists testify regarding his possible paranoid personality disorder that seemingly initiated his sudden jihad syndrome, an as yet unclassified disorder in the DSM-IV.
I don’t feel comfortable here, Arnold. The Major walked into the Ft. Hood deployment center and carefully placed bullets in some 44 innocent people. He planned it, he wasn’t anxious about it. He didn’t act like a crazy. He was calm.
And ya’ll are praying it doesn’t affect the national mood with political uncorrectedness.
I know full well you don’t feel comfortable about any of this, McK. Nor do I. My goal is to have a United States of America with basically a single culture oriented that of the European nations whose pioneers and early settlers took, settled and organized our great country on this continent.
I have been repeating that message more or less endlessly on this blogsite for some years. Not in the interests of racism, but certainly that of culturalism. Because I am convinced that the basis of national identity and its concurrent systems of common belief, economic development, child-bearing, education and even national defense, are all based on a common culture. And I think that if we cannot achieve that, we can never be and shall never be
‘…one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all’.
I am seeking out ways that might be achieved with the present population mix. Hopefully, through peaceful means. Because non-peaceful means will spell the end of most of our civil liberties.
So I want neither that the american nation is tied to the yoke of political correctness in dealing with this country’s moslem population, nor the emotion-laden hysteria that could in fact signal the coming of dictatorship and incarcement in concentration camps, or even worse.
And don’t tell me it could not happen here because of our national constitution. The experiences of a lot of other settled societies in times of troubles have taught me that when an entire nation begins development that kind of nervousness, constitutions, laws and judicial restraint go right down the toilet; and that organized gangs of thugs take on police powers.
To be certain, there will be major national investigations about the activities of all kinds of islamic groups — including mosques — and their relations to jihadi terrorist operations in the moslem world in general. My advice to loyal american Moslems, if and when that happens, is just to cooperate honestly and quietlywith all legally established investigative agencies.
Because this particular national boil needs to be lanced, and this should be done expeditiously. I sniff around the web and I see evidence of distrust and outright rage growing against the present federal administration. Anything that shuts off such inquiry will be considered a conspiracy against the american people by our own government. And that would be extremely unwise.
In other words, get angry if you want. But keep it under control and channel it into pursuit of useful outcomes.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
McK,
If that’s what you took away from my comment then there’s nothing I can do to help you.
Do you actually try to pay attention? Do you have a form of ADD? I’m serious because you do this a lot. At least whenever I write anything. I put down countless words and you focus in on a single sentence and comment on it as if what you say has any meaning beyond whatever it is you put in it.
It’s the very definition of missing the forest for the trees.
Really, do you have ADD? Have you talked to a doctor about it?
McK,
I think Kevin’s main point in his comment was that worldwide Islam as a whole is voilent, intolerant and in frequent or even continuous armed struggles against followers of other belief systems. His statement about missing the forest for the trees accurately decribed your response, even if the way he in turn responded to you was unacceptable.
Kevin,
Insulting statements that another commenter has ‘ADD’ (attention deficit disorder?) and implies that he my be in need of psychiatric care, are seen as fighting words by most people, and win you no friends at all. You are not the only commenter who has been “fisked” in blogsite discussions. Yes, it is annoying. No, it doesn’t justify nasty name calling. Sarcasm Lite is an easier brew to drink than Sarcasm Bock.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold,
I’m sure you were writing for effect, possibly did not mean the statement in the way it appears, however please note ADD treatment is not linked to psychiatric care. Not dissing psychiatric treatment in any way, just sayin. Niether ADD nor psych. treatment are perjorative.
Mike,
I’m sure you are correct. In my six years of university studies, not a single academic course in which I ever enrolled dealt in psychology. So I know diddlysquat about the fine points of that topic.
In fact, the nearest I ever came to observing treatment for ADD was when I was a common soldier in the US Army, back 56 years ago. When some trainee exhibited signs of this malady, he found himself doing extra rounds of peeling potatoes in the kitchen, or midnight to early morning guard duty, or swabbing toilets; sometimes all of them together. And if the ADD afflictee got really pissy about it, the ultimate cure was that the biggest, toughest bad-ass First Sergeant would take him out behind the barracks and do a job on him.
It worked like a charm, as it has done in every army of the world since the advent of the finely trained legions of Rome.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold,
If you re-read comment —number 13 — you will perhaps notice that my comment was devoted to your two intended concerns coupled with others changing the subject as in moving the goal posts so to speak.
Note your words:
“My first posting after all these years with Dean’s World will be devoted to TWO things:
First, there is a great need to achieve nationwide understanding of what caused a commissioned field-rank officer of the United States Army to gun down more than a dozen of his fellow american soldiers…
Second, there is an equally great need to achieve this nationwide understanding without twisting the national mood into a witch-hunt…”
My comment addresses those concerns with the added concern of others changing the subject to different explorations.
Note my words, read both sentences please:
“Seems to me the discussion isn’t about how many christians there are on the planet.
Apparently, the new rulers around here are free to change the subject matter of a thread/post.
(And then I continued with)
Arnold,
At the moment the biggest threat to the conspiracy theory around here is the fact that Major Hasan has lawyered up as they say …”
To continue:
At no time did I specifically address Kevin D and I did not quote him.
He chose to change the subject and then go on a rant about my comment as though it was a personal attack on him. He is wrong. It wasn’t an attack against him. But he chose to read it that way.
And your statement about “His statement about missing the forest for the trees accurately described your response” IS inaccurate and I challenge your conclusion.
Think about it. It’s all right there in its utter simplicity.
http://deanesmay.com/2009/11/08/lets-all-skip-the-expected-witch-hunt-this-time/#comment-179575
It addresses precisely what I describe in this comment.
Okay, McK.
I guess I didn’t read your comment and more thoroughly that Kevin apparently did. So give me the lapel button for ADD. I will strive to do better next time I comment on a comment.
My excuse is that I’m having a superbusy day with local and regional land use and environmental issues around Dane County, Wisconsion, and remodeling one of our bathrooms. Not very good excuses, I admit, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles for guys like me on days like these.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold,
It wasn’t sarcasm on my part. But, I understand your point.
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