[news.misc] The Revenge of the JEDR

weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) (11/17/88)

In article <8011@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, richmond@athena (Jonathan E. D. Richmond) writes:

>[from s.c.jewish: very offended at some jokes in rec.humor.funny]

>I am having some friends in Waterloo do some investigations into
>Looking Glass Software, where Templeton works, their operations and
>their clients.  I am in the mood to take some "affirmative action" on
>this individual.

Does anyone at MIT consider himself a friend of Brad's, and is willing
to return the favor and tell us all about J E D Richmond?

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

richmond@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan E. D. Richmond) (11/17/88)

In article <17117@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>
>Does anyone at MIT consider himself a friend of Brad's, and is willing
>to return the favor and tell us all about J E D Richmond?
>
>ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720


Please tell me what you would like to know, Mr. Wiener.

Jonathan Richmond

rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (11/18/88)

In <8011@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> richmond@athena.mit.edu writes
>I am having some friends in Waterloo do some investigations into
>Looking Glass Software, where Templeton works, their operations and their
>clients.  I am in the mood to take some "affirmative action" on this
>individual.

>In <17117@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu writes:
>Does anyone at MIT consider himself a friend of Brad's, and is willing
>to return the favor and tell us all about J E D Richmond?

In <8016@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> richmond@athena.mit.edu writes:
>Please tell me what you would like to know, Mr. Wiener.

I'm not Matt, but I would appreciate it if you would post a followup
that answered the following questions.  It would be most useful if
included the list and responded point-by-point, perhaps with an epilog
or prolog of your own.
     1.  What information do you want to know about Looking Glass Software?
     2.  Who are your "friends", how long have you known them, what actions
	 do you anticipate that that they will perform in the course of
	 their investigation, and how qualified are they to perform it?
     3.  What do you plan to do with this information?  In particular,
	 what does "affirmative action" mean?
     4.  What is your ultimate goal:  the removal of Brad as moderator,
	 a commitment that he will not post any more "racist" jokes
	 (how do you define this term?), do you wish some kind of
	 punative action, or what?
     5.  Have you informed Brad and/or Looking Glass about this investigation
	 and possible "affirmative action", and why or why not?
     6.  Why did you remove weemba's quote of message 8011? (I retrieved
	 it for this article)
     7.  Was the threat and initimidation in article 8011 intentional,
	 or did you not realize it, or do you not believe that the
	 article is threatening?
     8.  Would you have let the Nazi's march in Skokie?
     9.  Does one person have the the right to silence what another is
	 saying, even if thousands want to hear it, and if so, how
	 do you reconcile this with the First Amendment of the US
	 Constitution?  (You can ignore the second part of this question,
	 as neither you nor Brad are American citizens.)

(It will be interesting if there is no public reply to these questions,
as I sent email to richmond telling him about this article.)
-- 
Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net.

davidm@ihlpa.ATT.COM (Makowsky) (11/18/88)

In article <17117@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:

> In article <8011@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, richmond@athena (Jonathan E. D. Richmond) writes:
 
> >[from s.c.jewish: very offended at some jokes in rec.humor.funny]
 
> >I am having some friends in Waterloo do some investigations into
> >Looking Glass Software, where Templeton works, their operations and
> >their clients.  I am in the mood to take some "affirmative action" on
> >this individual.
 
> Does anyone at MIT consider himself a friend of Brad's, and is willing
> to return the favor and tell us all about J E D Richmond?

To use YOUR own terminology, your whole attitude towards this topic
is a twenty gigabite "gilly".
-- 
David Makowsky  (312) 979 - 6211
UUCP: att!ihlpa!davidm  ARPANET/INTERNET: davidm@ihlpa.ATT.COM
BITNET, try: davidm%ihlpa@att.arpa   or  davidm%ihlpa@research.att.com
Disclaimer: These opinions are mine alone.  Sharing requires written permission!

weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) (11/18/88)

In article <10489@ihlpa.ATT.COM>, davidm@ihlpa (Makowsky) writes:
>To use YOUR own terminology, your whole attitude towards this topic
>is a twenty gigabite "gilly".

Sigh.  I introduce new net.terminology and already people can't get it
right.  A gilly is a measure of *analogical* bogosity.  As I made no
analogies, I committed no analogical bogosities.  Simple, no?

If that's too confusing an explanation, ask your rabbi.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Patricia Roberts) (11/19/88)

All-right, I'll settle this.  You tell me the jokes and I'll tell you if
they're racist or not.

After all, we all know that racism in jokes is
an objectively measurable thing.  And we also know that the first thing
to do if a moderator messes up is to attempt to intimidate them through
their place of work.  

(But really, folks, what were the jokes?)

-- 
====================================================================
-Trish 					 "No one ever told us
					  we had to study our lives..."
skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu                                    -A. Rich

brian@radio.astro.utoronto.ca (Brian Glendenning) (11/20/88)

In article <5877@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>, skyler@ecsvax (Patricia Roberts) writes:
>
>[...]
>(But really, folks, what were the jokes?)
>[...]

[NOTE: I am posting the text of the joke in this note, proceed accordingly]

This is what happened (apparently, I only became aware of the debate with
the recent rec.humour.funny posting).

A couple of months ago I posted a note to rec.humour asking for Scottish jokes
to give to my wife, who works at a hospital, ammunition against a
recently-arrived Scottish doctor who is fond of telling "north american" type
jokes. I collected jokes for a week or two and then posted a summary.

Included in the summary was the joke:

----------

A Scotsman and a Jew went to a restaurant. After a hearty meal,
the waitress came by with the inevitable check. To the amazement
of all, the Scotsman was heard to say, "I'll pay it!", and he actually
did.

The next morning's newspaper carried the news item:

	"JEWISH VENTRILOQUIST FOUND MURDERED IN BLIND ALLEY".

----------
(this is from my copy of the summary, I didn't save the r.h.f posting
 but presume it is identical)

Brad Templeton apparently found the joke amusing, culled it, and posted it
unrotated to r.h.f. This is what started the ruckus.

My own opinion is that this joke is mildly offensive and mildly amusing.  My
initial posting to rec.humour drew no angry replies (it did induce a few more
jokes). (I got no response from the r.h.f article, but my .signature may not
have been at the end, and at the time the From: header generated a useless
address.)
-- 
	  Brian Glendenning - Radio astronomy, University of Toronto
brian@radio.astro.utoronto.ca uunet!utai!radio!brian  glendenn@utorphys.bitnet