Fred Ward's earlier posting.

[Gary J Toop <gtoop@uoguelph.ca>]

	I wish that I had kept a copy of the posting that Fred sent that 
started all the haggling:  when I read it, I found nothing offensive in 
it and found it to be very much as he described it in his posting today, 
that is, as a relatively inoffensive attempt to voice some opinions on 
the direction that the discussion had been taking concerning the best 
of Leica's best equipment.  It seemed to me to contain all of the 
appropriate qualifications, noting that these were only his own 
opinions.  I was, quite frankly, stunned by the amount of vituperation 
that followed and which seems to me to have been based on a real 
misunderstanding of his original posting. 

	I have no interest in bashing those who attacked him:  as someone 
who works in the Arts at a university, I am well aware how difficult it 
can be to be sure that you have properly grasped the implications of 
something that someone else has written.  EVERYONE gets such things 
wrong sometimes.  While his posting today tells me that I seem to have 
grasped his original intentions and sentiments accurately, there may well 
have been ambiguities in the way things were phrased that neither I 
nor Fred noticed. 

	Still, after all the bashing, I think that it is important to 
say publicly what I gather many people, including myself, have been 
saying privately to Fred:  I did not find that his original posting 
expressed any of the unpleasant views attributed to him.  I really think 
that those who were angered by his comments misunderstood them:  they 
were, in philosophical lingo, attacking a "Straw Man".  I, for one, 
hope that Fred will continue to participate in the group.


Let's try to keep it friendly, eh! 
Gary Toop