Re: RAT THE SUPERBOWL?

[Chris Jeffries <cjeffries@seanet.com>]

>also something they may not have in england...it's called freedom of speech. 
>  in this country, we use it.  we use it on this list serve.  you see 
>something you don't like, delete it.  pretty goddamned simple.

Ah, but Sharon, it's not quite that simple.  You have to read at least a 
bit of something before you can decide to delete it.  And when that 
something is 50 emails in a day, 49 of which pertain to nothing in 
particular, it still takes a while to delete them all, if you're like me 
and don't want to risk missing something great.

Most of us fall into two email camps.  Some are online at work and get 
new email in dribs and drabs, all day long -- I remember new email was 
always a welcome diversion, whatever it was.  And the rest go home and 
night and log on, once a day or every other day, and have to go through 
all that email at once  They are far more likely to be frustrated when 
the bulk of what they slog through wasn't worth the effort -- and more 
likely to have that frustration build up over time until they hit "Reply" 
and start screaming.

Those people (I'm one of them) aren't "right" just because they're fed 
up, and of course no one has any business pronouncing anathema on what 
others post.  On the other hand, interesting people have left the list 
because they feel the ratio of "good read" to "waste of time" is way 
off-kilter and they can't take it anymore.  (I do not include the people 
who left the list because they are assholes.  We all know who they are.  
If you don't, ask someone offlist.)

This list is a part of our theatre work, and questions of quality and 
quantity apply as much to this as to any other aspect of our theatre 
work, or of our lives.  We can't police what is or isn't worth posting, 
and we can't always converse from the standpoint of the Sublime (what a 
crashing bore if we did!).  But we can, individually, exercise the 
generosity of honoring each other's time and attention.  Through this 
resource, we can get the ear of hundreds of theatre people, whenever we 
like, as often as we like.  That's a great privilege, and yes, great 
privileges were made to be frittered away, but not, I hope, the huge 
majority of the time....

"Freedom of speech" has nothing to do with it.  If we have the right to 
post what we want, then that includes the right to post a reply saying 
"goddammit, shut up or change the subject."  If there was a squad car or 
helicopter heading toward your home to arrest your ass for what you've 
been posting here, then I would agree that your free speech rights were 
at issue.

Email's a blood sport; we ourselves prove it over and over, and as 
someone said, it's fun.  Email can also partake of what Nick sent us 
yesterday -- the signal fire glinting in the murk; the thud of shovel 
hitting buried chest.  It can be cheap laughs and box wine too, all night 
if we want, I'm in -- let's just not take it for granted. 

CJ