[Leica] Re:

["Bryan Caldwell" <bcaldwell@softcom.net>]

Tim,

Please do not decide for me what is offensive and what is not. Anders posted
that he found it extremely offensive that a lawyer could be named "kindly."
I told Anders I was offended by this and he agreed. He posted an apology for
his comment and I immediately thanked him for doing so.

I'm puzzled as to how my comment about teachers' vacations could be taken as
offensive. I didn't cast any negative asperions with my comment. It was a
reference to the fact that I took a 30% pay cut to become a lawyer _without_
factoring in the fact that as a teacher I was contracted to work 181 day per
year and as a lawyer, I have two weeks vacation per year. If you pro-rate my
teacher's salary, I took substantially more than a 30% pay cut.

Public school teachers get longer vacations than many other professions.
This is a fact - unlike a statement that lawyers should not be named
"kindly" or some of the other comments to which I've taken offense.

Please understand that I've put my heart and soul into the practice of law.
I fight uphill battles everyday and receive very few rewards for it. I will
always find lawyer jokes to be cruel, offensive and no different than jokes
about religious views, etc.

Even if you don't understand my attitude, I would think that common courtesy
would cause people to refrain from jokes that they know offend others.

Think about what you are most passionate about in life. Then imagine that
everywhere you turned people who really didn't understand what you did
singled out your passion for cruel comments, snide remarks and derisive
attempts at humor. And then when you politely tried to bring this to their
attention they further derided you for being too sensitive and decided to
take the opportunity to make further comments and to encourage others to do
so.

Not a very pretty world is it?


Bryan



- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Timothy R. Kuntz" <covbldrs@usit.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 7:21 PM


> Brian, Marc (et al.) -
>
> Drive on!  Let me repeat, the best humor is that which people tell about
THEMSELVES.
>
> Could I have gotten offended at Brian's remark about teachers' long
vacations?  Sure, but I've worked most of mine to make ends meet.  And
having left education to go to manufacturing I'm still putting in over 70
hours getting paid for 40.
>
> The point is that my experience is no different than yours.
>
> We owe it to ourselves to police the tone of our comments.  Sure there
will be missunderstandings - and we've seen some awesome resolutions to
these - but let's be a little more professional by doing two things: a) cast
a few less stones, and b) not react so quickly.
>
> Thanks,
>   Tim K
>