Re: [Cal_Boats] Trolls? Really?

Fellow sailors, I've now four or five letters I wrote regarding our sailing environment, but they are sitting in my draft file, so as not to offend someone. It's a shame people are getting upset about essential environmental issues that now spell life or death for many species on our little blue island in the vast vacuum of space. The subjects in each post are plain as day in the subject line, if your not interested, just delete them. As the owner of a small Cal with an OB aux. there's lots of stuff posted that are irrelevant to my boat, but do I protest? I never thought of pollution as a political subject, but for some folks it is. Maybe a lot of people here are not old enough to remember falling overboard into water that made your skin stink from noxious chemicals for days afterwards (Rutgers University, Raritan River, the same river once extolled for it's purity by Indians and Colonialists but dyed tea brown and lifeless from American Cyanamid's chemical waste when I was an undergraduate from 1964 to 1968), or, when you could count the number of seabirds (other than sea gulls) you'd see in a whole sailing season on one hand, or when there were NO dolphins, NO seals, or NO whales in view for years and years on end, but such was the case in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's and much of the 1980's all along the California and New Jersey coastlines. All I can see is, I never saw any. Nowadays most times I sail I see them, and they are a joy to behold. The very fact we are sailors means we must be keenly aware of solar energy (wind and waves) so very different from our fellow sail-less boaters that depend on those big noisy, smelly, wake disturbance nuisance creating and space wasting power plants that consume expensive, often dangerous* fuel at the rate of hundreds of dollars a cruise. ( *We had one big power boat explode and burn three miles off the coast recently, my recollection was the victims weren't recovered) The fuel dock here in Marina del Rey is now shut down for the next six months for remodeling. I guess many of those stink potters and inconsiderate giant wake makers are going to be siting at their docks in the mean time, unless they are going to be going ten miles down the coast to King Harbor to fuel up. Things are going to be a mite bit more peaceful here in the meantime. I'm going to enjoy it. Meanwhile, how do we, who are interested Cal owners, have a mature discussion about subjects many of us are keenly interested in without some of us crying 'fowl!'? or 'foul'! or 'fool!" Do we need to just set up another list, or file, or what? I have no intention of leaving the group unless I get thrown out...I'm not going to call people names (like..TROLL!!), throw a tantrum, gather up my marbles or tiddly winks, and storm out. Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KCct4RwLNM&feature=related Jerry --- On Fri, 12/11/09, Allen Edwards <al… [at] PaloAltoPhoto.com> wrote: From: Allen Edwards <al… [at] PaloAltoPhoto.com> Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats] Trolls To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Date: Friday, December 11, 2009, 11:05 PM Nick, Just a small clarification. The description of this list is: "A list for the exchange of sailing and boating information for Cal owners and lovers/admirers of Bill Lapworth's legacy and great sailcraft designs." Let me make sure I have this straight. What is it? "A list for the exchange of sailing and boating information" Who is it for? " Cal owners and lovers/admirers of Bill Lapworth's legacy and great sailcraft designs". And from your email how should we act? "(with) mutual respect, and the avoidance of giving offense...(with) courtesy" If I have that wrong please let me know. It is my opinion that the "what" is reasonably broad as is the "who" but the acting with mutual respect is something we should all understand. I for one respect every person I have had the pleasure to correspond with on this list and thank you for including me. AllenLapworth-36 #5 On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 10:04 PM, Nick <qgold.77@shaw. ca> wrote: Hi Folks I would like to remind us that the longevity & value of any group depends not only on the direct benefits, but on mutual respect, and the avoidance of giving offense. That also includes in a list group avoidance of posts that we know are likely to offend others. In particular a special interest group such as ours requires reasonable adherence to the topic of special interest; disagreement and debate is necessary, but so is courtesy - otherwise the participants may be required to withdraw. Respectfully yours - Nick List owner.