quote:

Originally posted by Ronald Rutherford:
I feel it is inappropriate for pointing out differences that are only in some peoples fantasy land.

**Well, now we're getting closer to an answer to my question. It's your 'opinion' that it's inappropriate, which means according to your personal beliefs it's inappropriate. Here's the problem with your assessment of the statement in question - the original statement Ren made was merely a suggestion that your comment, which Loganthor thought was "dead on", was consistent with Lakoff's characterization of Conservatives.

Whether that's accurate or not isn't the issue. The statement is merely the expression of a view. If we call the expression of a view inappropriate, then that pretty much applies to any expression of any opinion and makes the word meaningless.

quote:

but I feel it is inappropriate to take traits that may or may not be part of a group and say an individual has that trait.

**Then we simply have a difference in opinions. If one person who has right-leaning views tells another person with right-leaning views that what they said was "dead on", in the middle of an open discussion, and the statement in question reflects something Lakoff or some other well known person has suggested to someone participating in the conversation, I see nothing inappropriate about pointing out the similarities. Calling it inappropriate simply deflects attention away from exploring the possible accuracy of the suggestion...it seems to me.

quote:

quote:

'If' the 'intention' is to facilitate learning and understanding, than nurturing is the superior approach. (Ask most any teacher if you doubt this, or better still, observe how humans actually tend to learn)

I think the verdict is still out on that. It may be in some environments but not necessarily all.

**The statement I made, like most statements I make here, is a 'general statement'. There's no "all" involved in it. The jury isn't still out for most people in the educational field.


[QUOTE] Do you consider that grades and assignments are forms of authoritarianism? [QUOTE]

**No.


Regarding your critical mass piece, I'll make another 'general statement' which as usual is not meant to be taken as an "always" statement. You may have heard this one before: "Two heads are better than one."

In general, when you add more 'sets of eyes' observing something and offering their views, the chance of a more complete picture goes up accordingly.

-----------------------------

quote:

Would it be more compelling if I moved it out to the free section?

Sorry to butt in, but I think you ought to move it to the open section. there may be someone out there who cannot or will not pay to participate, and their voice won't contribute if the thread is hidden. Just my $.02 worth. Also, I like the way you've broken it into smaller bits to digest. That is an easier method for me to understand.

Lisa,

Your story made perfectly good sense to me. The blackberries have their inherent rules and we have ours. In our case we have some choice of how to play our rules out, the blackberries are somewhat at the mercy of our choices and we at the mercy of their nature. I don't know if that's the way you see it.

I also appreciate your effort to explain the situation to Ronald. It's beyond me. As you said, he knows what's up. The example I used was from the one situation where I know it was clarified. From that point on I felt pretty sure he was intentionally harassing me, in that I explained to him clearly in that exchange (which went further) I saw it as harassment. It appears to be some form of punishment on his part, which he appears to think he has the right to perform. Or you figure it out. It's the kind of thing that leads to violence because there's no solution. I don't see who could have known that the example I used was his (the only one of its kind between me an anyone on this board, but only someone with intent interest in everything I say would know that) without his and Loganthor's help saying it was.

As it stands, he clearly intends to keep doing what he knows I don't want. That's his choice. So be it.

About moving the ecopsychology thread, ok, I'll duplicate it here in the Open forum.

Ren,

I going to try and make a thoughtful response, but I must warn you I am not nearly as skilled at separating the person from the word as you. That and I a sporting a nasty long island iced tea hangover.

As I said before, My title was more the physical bait to draw into a discussion the issues I wanted to address. “whiny” was the best word I could think of at the time. Sure the word could be misconstrued, but considering the target audience and the past interplay, what did I have to lose. Anything nicer or more clinical would have gone overlooked, ignored or dismissed and considering my state of mind at the time. So it was a chance I was willing to take. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

quote:

If you truly are interested in something new, then the cultural differences that may or may not be in place need to be recognized and understood, I would think, if we are to move past the knee jerk reactions to personal perceptions of one another.

I would think so far that my demeanor on this thread should serve as the ground based indication that I have tempered my knee-jerk reactions.

quote:

In a sense you've raised this question with your declarative assessment of Kate and me holding our anger from the past. What of the possibility we are not angry? What if there are other explanations for our behavior? Are you really interested in exploring the issue?

At the moment I think my compiled evidence of a anger towards me/us still has some semblance of validity. While my interaction with Kate far outnumber my interactions with you. Kate has made in fairly clear she still harbors resentment. Since no opportunity has ever arisen to explore it more deeply. I am merely left with want evidence I have collected. So if this is one of those opportunities I am currently mellow and all ears/ eyes.

quote:

While ignoring is an option, perhaps it's really not the best one. For me it's not, it violates certain imbedded protocals of behavior I have internalized, and those violations of my internalized protocols seem to invoke reaction and thus I have to employ a conscious over ride. I can do it, yes. But I do have emotional responses, feelings of irritation and so forth. I learn from them. I've learned a lot from them.

So basically your no different them anybody else here. Human.

Ok. Now on the subject of “respect” and Boundaries. I have already explained my take on our non-binding verbal understanding. Your pub analogy doesn’t quite work for me either, I really liked LisaP Blackberry analogy, I find it more fitting. The last place I would want to take a friend for a nice quite conversation is a Pub. Pubs by their nature are noisy, smelly, chaotic, Music usually starts a 9PM, You generally hear more of the conversation from the table next to you then the person your trying to listen to, There is always some drunk guy bumping into you try to bum a cigarette and the girl at the other table winking at you is just trying to make her 6’4’ bouncer boyfriend jealous. Even if you do manage you get the bouncer to talk to you to seeing if he will kick the annoying drunk guy bumming cigarettes from you, he just informs you that he is a regular that spends a lot of money at the bar and is generally liked for the personality he brings to the bar.

In essence I like LisaP analogy better and find it more fitting. Even the most thorny people here have the occasional sweet, nutritious nugget of berry to offer. If you ignore it, it veins will overtake the garden, if you kill it you will never know what a homemade blackberry pie has to offer. But in either case, distance and protective gear is needed in dealing with the thorns.

Hi, Howard and thanks for your considerate post.
I will try to address some of your points but first I would like to talk about what I want.

I want to be able to discuss any issue and any topic on any thread without boundaries. I want my assumptions challenged on every level. But I do not want rhetoric about what people think things are but tangible things that can build on the best information possible. I want my hypothesis either considered or not, but not interpreted into some orwellian speak and explained in some grand conspiracy. I want honesty from others, just as am honest with all others I discuss with. I want to be ignored or treated with respect. Just because a person does not understand my hypothesis does not mean I do not know what I am talking about.

I expect to be forgiven if I do not know everything, but given a chance to learn. Many times I was challenged and had to find for myself the information. Other times people that had knowledge treated it like a precious commodity that they only used to belittle me.

As far as this thread is concerned, I still have no reason why this thread was created. I went along for the ride because it did touch on some things that are of interest to me. Like the ignore button and old friends and economist quiz.

quote:

Polycarp: Ignore buttons are dangerous. My dear mother, when confronted with a new idea or differing opinion would state, "I don't want to hear it!" At 50, she was wearing a hearing aid and is stone deaf without it.

Like the above passage was very important also. I have seen someone have me on ignore and then when issues were raised that I brought up, they were completely in the dark about them.

quote:

Pubs by their nature are noisy, smelly, chaotic, Music usually starts a 9PM, You generally hear more of the conversation from the table next to you then the person your trying to listen to, There is always some drunk guy bumping into you try to bum a cigarette and the girl at the other table winking at you is just trying to make her 6’4’ bouncer boyfriend jealous.

There appear to be many pubs you haven't been to. Pacific Coast Brewery brewpub in Oakland, CA; Anderson Valley Brewing Company brewpub in Booneville, CA; Porky's Cafe & Lounge in Longview, WA; A couple of different places on Telegraph just off the campus at UC Berkeley, I can't remember the names; and many, many more. Any place like the places you described are places I immediatelyy turn and walk back out of. Once again perhaps illustrates significant differences in style and taste.

quote:

At the moment I think my compiled evidence of a anger towards me/us still has some semblance of validity. While my interaction with Kate far outnumber my interactions with you. Kate has made in fairly clear she still harbors resentment. Since no opportunity has ever arisen to explore it more deeply. I am merely left with want evidence I have collected. So if this is one of those opportunities I am currently mellow and all ears/ eyes.

What you have are compiled words. You have no evidence of intent or of what anyone's internal feelings are unless you have ESP, and if you do, you have no way of convincing me of it because I don't. As far as I'm able to ascertain you are limited to guessing. Just like I am. In this message board environment every word is suspect to being contrived, the work of someone creating a fictional character (my neice used to run two or three of them convincingly in chat rooms) or perhaps created by a bot. One has perhaps better information in real life, depending on how good people can be at projecting real or disguised body language. Professional actors can be very convincing on stage or screen.

quote:

So basically your no different them anybody else here. Human.

I could be different, I could be a bot, I could be a cold, calculating sociopath trying to manipulate you. How could you know through this medium of words? The point I'm trying to stress is we make assumptions and we don't really know. If we could stay clear on that it might be helpful to keep from starting with one erroneous assumption and going from there to compile further errors based on the first false assumption. I do consider myself human, though I also think we have different ways of seeing the world.


The nice thing about parables like Lisa's is they can be like a Rorschach inkblot test. You can supposedly learn a lot about people by the way they interpret them because the forms we see with in our own mind recognize and interpret forms in the inkblots. I think the criticism of the inkblots about the problems with subjective projectiveness are maybe more valuable than the belief of psychologists that the meanings people find are useful to them in psych evaluation.

While you indicate you don't like my analogy, I have no idea if you or anyone but Lisa understands yet what I mean by mutual respect. I only am guessing that she understands because I felt she explained what I meant to Ronald, much as I've been trying to. I have a somewhat functional idea what everyone else thinks of respect from their perspective though. If it helps you to understand my analogy, think of a coffee place, something like Starbucks, only not Starbucks because I haven't gone to more than one or two since they franchised. I used to enjoy one down near Pike Place Market back in the Seventies.

quote:

I used to enjoy one down near Pike Place Market back in the Seventies.

I used to go there too! Before I developed an aversion to crowds and cities. I loved that place, and they didn't just sell coffee, but it was the one place you could find the whole roasted beans, whole tea leaves too. If I recall, didn't they also sell spices?

I'm really lucky, there's a great place down the road from me that sells organic goods. They have a little coffee corner, even with a drive thru window. It's an old farm, and the old barns and outbuildings have been converted into open air type markets. They sell their own produce but also that of other local growers. That's where I buy my raw honey too. In the winter the only part open is the coffee area and the small shop with the honey, jams, jellies, candles, etc. Still, it's pretty cool. In the autumn they have a u-pick pumpkin patch with hayrides for the kids, and a small animal petting area and also a free story circle for kids. I hope they make it.

Well let me try this again Howard.

quote:

Well, now we're getting closer to an answer to my question. It's your 'opinion' that it's inappropriate, which means according to your personal beliefs it's inappropriate. Here's the problem with your assessment of the statement in question - the original statement Ren made was merely a suggestion that your comment, which Loganthor thought was "dead on", was consistent with Lakoff's characterization of Conservatives.

And it is Ren's opinion that it was appropriate. And if all is opinion then why get upset at my opinion? I am not upset at any person's opinion of elitist or condescension toward me.
Do you understand if I scream out my suggestions that I would be swiftly kicked off the island? But place some opinions in some nice words and all is glossed over.
From NYC Letter: Liberal Speak I could easily pick out a couple of choice attributes and label them to people here. Would that be considerate of others?

quote:

**No.
Regarding your critical mass piece, I'll make another 'general statement' which as usual is not meant to be taken as an "always" statement. You may have heard this one before: "Two heads are better than one."

In general, when you add more 'sets of eyes' observing something and offering their views, the chance of a more complete picture goes up accordingly.

Actually Yes. It creates a hierarchy that some forms of liberalism despises.

Yes, two heads are better than one, but only if they have a difference of opinions. Why do you think "peer review" fails as often as it does? Science that is taught in one fashion tends to get a group think mentality. I guess that is why it is healthy that Economics has not been static like some of the other disciplines appear to have gone into.

And that is why I am here. As my post earlier pointed out, I want a critical analysis of my hypothesis.

quote:

There appear to be many pubs you haven't been to.

Then One could say there are as many different pubs as there is internet chat rooms. I generally prefer restaurant bars if I want quite discussion. Although most McMenamins are quite nice.

quote:

You have no evidence of intent or of what anyone's internal feelings are.

True, but in absense of that, All I have are the words to convey a message. All I have is guessing since clearly no one had any intention of inviting me/us into a dialog meant to delve deeper. In essence what this thread was designed to do.

quote:

I could be different, I could be a bot, I could be a cold, calculating sociopath trying to manipulate you. How could you know? The point I'm trying to stress is we make assumptions and we don't really know. If we could stay clear on that it might be helpful to keep from starting with one erroneous assumption and going from there to compile further errors based on the first false assumption. I do consider myself human, though I also think we have different ways of seeing the world.

We all have a bit of sociopath within us, but for the sake of this we’ll all start off a human. We all in our own way try to manipulate discussion. Some are more overt then others. Even within the act of learning there is a influence of manipulation whether to see something in a different light, consider a point or just tell them their head is up their ass. All is a form of manipulation. I think it still a bit early in my development for me to distinguish between false assumption and correct assumption. That is why I’m here. To challenge my held assumption. Time will prove them false or correct.

quote:

While you indicate you don't like my analogy, I have no idea if you or anyone but Lisa understands yet what I mean by mutual respect.

I understand what your form of mutual respect entails. Unfortunately I think it is destructive and does work in this environment. Your desire to not be talked to by certain people runs counter to the spirit and intention of this environment. Your rule has no appeal, no method of negotiating, no signs of lessening if conditions improved, No flexibility that an incentive would be considered if conditions improved. I’m sorry the rule just doesn’t work, If by chance you were a passing through newbie that say’s stupid shit on every post, this would not even be an issue. But the fact remains you are an active member here that say more time then not interesting things that require responses. You not only remain in area’s that people like me find boring and uninteresting but you travel into conversations that we do have interests in. You might expect that your rule to be honored, but it wont be if you want to engage in topic we find interesting. So from my perspective you were just as much at fault of breaking your own rule even though you don’t directly, by name exchange with us. I leave gapping holes in discussion that I have interest in, hence destructive. One of the large reason I will no longer honor it. Do I respect you less because of it. No. Am I going to bother you on topics I have no clue what your talking about. NO. If you are going to work on your topic of Peak Oil without acknowledging the coming technology of Shoal Oil and Shoal oil reserves. Well, I going to bring it up. I would hope you would read it and give a sliver of consideration before the emotional " I cant believe their talking to me again" feeling surface. At that point there are any host of option for you, I not even going to try listing them, I am sure you can come up with more the me.

So take it with a grain of salt, merely from my perspective.

quote:

I want to be able to discuss any issue and any topic on any thread without boundaries... I want to be ignored or treated with respect.

I expect to be forgiven if I do not know everything, but given a chance to learn....

Ronald, please know that I'm not picking on you and that I don't intentionally hurt anyone. You said you "want [no] boundaries', so the question begs, and it's been asked before; what if another does want that? How does one handle his wants when another does not want it (whatever "it" might be)? You also have said something akin to respect is earned, not inherent. From there it follows that respect can be un-earned? if so, how? and if so, can it be re-earned and how might that happen?

Expecting forgiveness places the power of forgiveness outside of yourself. That's probably not a good way to go, IMHO. You hold the power to forgive, yourself and/or others, but you hold no power over others to forgive you. I'm not Catholic nor particularly religious, but I do admire St Francis of Assisi's prayer, this part is relevant:
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned

quote:

Just because a person does not understand my hypothesis does not mean I do not know what I am talking about.

You are right, it does not mean that you do not know what you are talking about. You may or may not. The most logical assumption is that one doesn't understand your hypothesis. Sometimes it's worth re-phrasing it in a more understandable way, and sometimes it's not even worth the effort to get someone to understand. Sometimes it could be that it's understood, but is not agreed upon as the truth in that many hypothesis' are put forward in that way.

Drat, that reminds me I've got some statistics homework to do. I've got to perform a simple random survey to test the hypothesis that women like chocolate, more so than men do.

quote:

I used to go there too! Before I developed an aversion to crowds and cities. I loved that place, and they didn't just sell coffee, but it was the one place you could find the whole roasted beans, whole tea leaves too. If I recall, didn't they also sell spices?

I don't recall the spices. The funny thing, Starbucks copied a similar coffee roasting place in the East Bay, Peet's. Peet's was first in a place east of the Berkeley Campus, Walnut and Vine in 1966, a place I've been to many, many times, and then they branched out, all company owned still I think.

So Starbucks is the copy made by someone back maybe early Seventies, and they started to franchise in the late eighties I believe. Now Starbucks is the national icon a kind of style that they copied, Peet's is still considered the originator of that style, but is mostly confined to a few metropolitan areas from what I can find. Peet's

I had to do an in depth report on a public corporation, for a business class I was taking back in the early 90's and I chose Starbucks, so I learned a little about it's history. It was started by three college students, who were interested in mythology and a good cup of real coffee. They may have been inspired by Peets, but if so, that is kept on the low down. The one at the Pike Place Market was the original store. The college boy mythology connection is also how the Starbucks siren logo came into being. Howard Schultz was hired by these three guys to manage their store, which was showing modest success for a start up. He went on vacation to Italy and came back with the concept of small neighborhood coffee bars like what he'd experienced throughout Italy. The three original guys weren't crazy about that idea. Schultz eventually bought them out, went public, and open the coffee bar concept first around the Seattle area, then around the nation and then around the world. It was a huge success. Right now, Asia is their fastest growing market. I don't even remember the name of the three original guys. I do remember the original store, and I miss it because of it's uniqueness. There's nothing unique from one modern Starbucks to the next. Well, I take that back. The one down in Tukwila has open poetry mike night and also live music on Friday nights. Simple one, two or three piece acoustical only. I guess they've got to do something to bring in the afternoon and evening crowd; 99% of their sales happen before 11:00 a.m.

NP, Lisa.
I had a chance today to look as some older threads from last year. And maybe I just never noticed your even handed desire to see what people actually think on the issues. A true desire to learn from different points of view. Good.

quote:

Ronald, please know that I'm not picking on you and that I don't intentionally hurt anyone. You said you "want [no] boundaries', so the question begs, and it's been asked before; what if another does want that? How does one handle his wants when another does not want it (whatever "it" might be)?

I hope that you realize that I was talking about information and ideas on boundaries. There is no private room where one click can hang out and talk. I had a post earlier and then erased it to not offend anyone. And I believe I am with the rules on this. Again (note only my personal opinion) I am not bothered by others that follow the rules but still want to make personal criticisms/attack of myself. Sunrise comes to mind for many personal attacks, but I felt they were his opinion and only some little bits on a computer screen. Now when someone posted personal information about me that is not readily public information then that is a problem. And I promise to never break that rule.

So if someone wants boundaries (aside from information and ideas) then that is fine, but then that person must not mention anything that might be interpreted as personal attacks also against me. You can't have it both ways.

quote:

You also have said something akin to respect is earned, not inherent. From there it follows that respect can be un-earned? if so, how? and if so, can it be re-earned and how might that happen?

Yes, you inherit indifference or ambivalence. And thus you could earn disrespect or disgust. Unearning I guess by showing little respect in return. Of course it can be re-earned, only it seems that many spotted leopards here can not change their spots. By showing respect to me, and that seems easy enough to do. I am not that hard to please.

NP, good luck.

quote:

I understand what your form of mutual respect entails. Unfortunately I think it is destructive and does work in this environment. Your desire to not be talked to by certain people runs counter to the spirit and intention of this environment. Your rule has no appeal, no method of negotiating, no signs of lessening if conditions improved, No flexibility that an incentive would be considered if conditions improved. I’m sorry the rule just doesn’t work, If by chance you were a passing through newbie that say’s stupid shit on every post, this would not even be an issue. But the fact remains you are an active member here that say more time then not interesting things that require responses. You not only remain in area’s that people like me find boring and uninteresting but you travel into conversations that we do have interests in. You might expect that your rule to be honored, but it wont be if you want to engage in topic we find interesting. So from my perspective you were just as much at fault of breaking your own rule even though you don’t directly, by name exchange with us. I leave gapping holes in discussion that I have interest in, hence destructive. One of the large reason I will no longer honor it. Do I respect you less because of it. No. Am I going to bother you on topics I have no clue what your talking about. NO. If you are going to work on your topic of Peak Oil without acknowledging the coming technology of Shoal Oil and Shoal oil reserves. Well, I going to bring it up. I would hope you would read it and give a sliver of consideration before the emotional " I cant believe their talking to me again" feeling surface. At that point there are any host of option for you, I not even going to try listing them, I am sure you can come up with more the me.

I think you may understand that I don't want to be addressed, but I'm not clear from all that I just read if you understand the underlying reason of mutual respect that goes into my discussions. Again, I have no problems even if I don't want to be addressed with you discussing whatever I am interested in. I have never run across this situation before in my life, so I'm still trying to figure out how to work it out. In 3D, from what everyone tells me, if I don't want to be talked to just about everyone figures that much out and leaves me the hell alone. I have a sense of boundaries. They are important to me. When they are violated all sorts of alarm bells go off in my mind. Many people here recognize that and have similar alarms going off it seems to me. And we all seem to happily understand each other. With those folks it's very easy to communicate. With people who don't have that reaction, it's pricklier and often a strain. I keep coming up with all kinds of analogies for what I mean by formal but nothing seems to be coming across.

About the gaping holes in your conversations that feel destructive. Maybe that's in some way akin to my feeling of violation or intrusion I'm trying to describe, in the sense that both are destructive feeling. In your case, it's a destructiveness because someone is not willing to provide the information, whereas in my case it's destructive because someone is putting me in a postion where I feel a need to respond but don't want to. I don't know, maybe that's two sides of a single thing, that's the best I can come up with.

this is very difficult for me to understand:

quote:

You might expect that your rule to be honored, but it wont be if you want to engage in topic we find interesting. So from my perspective you were just as much at fault of breaking your own rule even though you don’t directly, by name exchange with us.

I've never said I don't want you to talk about or discuss anything I'm interested in. What I'm trying to reach is a way to limit a sense of familiarity towards me because of the way that has got out of hand for me. I gave indications that was happening as it went along and it just kept right on going over the border I was trying to set up. So then I probably got harsh from your perspective. I could not find a balance that was comfortable for me, so I put up a wall. I can only say that lots of people seem to understand what I mean with almost no effort on my part. It really doesn't have anything to do with being conservative or otherwise. Those are only intellectual explanatory devices, and at best not very good ones, as far as I'm concerned. In fact, what it seems to me is I can find no way to explain what I mean. It really feels like being in a completely foreign culture and not knowing the language. I've been talking with Don (Sawdust) for more than three years and we understand these issues of formality and space from all I can tell, he's as conservative as anyone I know. So far Slabmaster seems the same way about it. I'm just tossing out some examples of conservatives that seem to understand, there are also so-called liberals who don't get it. Somehow you managed to cross a line, I don't know how to explain it any better. What I'll say is you have been relatively respectful about trying to stay on the other side of that line or this conversation would not be taking place.

I get a feeling you are probably an extraverted person who can find it easy to talk to people in public places. My experience with that is that people like me are hard for some extraverts to understand, which could simply be a lack of experience with my personality type.

That's the best I can do with that one.

quote:

Originally posted by LisaP:
I had to do an in depth report on a public corporation, for a business class I was taking back in the early 90's and I chose Starbucks, so I learned a little about it's history. It was started by three college students, who were interested in mythology and a good cup of real coffee. They may have been inspired by Peets, but if so, that is kept on the low down. The one at the Pike Place Market was the original store. The college boy mythology connection is also how the Starbucks siren logo came into being. Howard Schultz was hired by these three guys to manage their store, which was showing modest success for a start up. He went on vacation to Italy and came back with the concept of small neighborhood coffee bars like what he'd experienced throughout Italy. The three original guys weren't crazy about that idea. Schultz eventually bought them out, went public, and open the coffee bar concept first around the Seattle area, then around the nation and then around the world. It was a huge success. Right now, Asia is their fastest growing market. I don't even remember the name of the three original guys. I do remember the original store, and I miss it because of it's uniqueness. There's nothing unique from one modern Starbucks to the next. Well, I take that back. The one down in Tukwila has open poetry mike night and also live music on Friday nights. Simple one, two or three piece acoustical only. I guess they've got to do something to bring in the afternoon and evening crowd; 99% of their sales happen before 11:00 a.m.

I'd lay odds at least one of them hung out in Berkeley, if not Shultz. I may have got the idea from talking to someone in the original store. I've had it a very long time. At any rate, Peet's does lay claim to the original concept, whether true or not. Nobody likes to admit who they copy. Cody's Bookstore in Berkely is also a primary to some West Coast copies, though not Powell's in Portland, which is a different concept out the gate, but still not a corporate chain.

Hello all.

Brian invited me into this thread. I apologize ahead of time, but I don't really have the time to read the whole thing to get up to speed on the direction of the thread. I have read the original post, and skimmed through the rest.

My take is this: no one is here for dialog. At least not dialog with those that have opposing opinions. Sorry Brian, but not even you. What we do want, in my opinion, is to have the chance to process our pre-determined opinions, and make our case to others in hopes of changing *their* minds. If, in the process any of us just happen to change our own minds, that's great. But let's just all call a spade a spade, none of us intend to change our minds all that much (at least not in the way others want us to).

I'll be the first to admit that this is true of me. Although I must also say that my political beliefs have changed quite a bit since I first came here in 2004. While that's a good thing, I'm not going to lie and say I really intended it.

That's my 2 cents.