🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <43snoi$pok@news.nevada.edu> amsler@nevada.edu (JOHN AMSLER) writes:
>John Fereira (fereira@isis.com) wrote:
>: In article <43lsru$44d@aadt.sdt.com> leb@sdt.com writes:
>: >fereira@isis.com (John Fereira) wrote:
>: >>Stop looking for "solutions" to the dating problem.
>: >>Just get out and meet people.
>: >
>: >I think that's a little easier said than done, in this age
>: >of possible psycopaths around every corner (real or imagined).
>
>: I never said it was easy.  Possible psychopaths around every corner?
>: Isn't that a bit paranoid?  
>
>[snip]
>
>Paranoid?  Hmmm.  You might want to ask the victims of Charles Manson,
>Richard Speck, Albert deSalvo, Jeffrey Dahmer, Henry Lee Lucas & Ottis
>Toole, or Gerald Gallego.  Unfortunately, you can't ... because they're
>all dead, viciously murdered not by ghosts or imaginary goblins, but by
>*real* psychopaths!  (Here's an idea:  Polly Klaas's parents are still
>around;  why don't you ask *them* about "paranoia" and "psychopaths?"  I'm
>sure they would have a unique perspective on the subject at which you seem
>to sneer.) In this corrupted, barbaric, morally rudderless, disintegrating
>"society," people -- especially women -- who don't adopt serious measures
>for their own self-defense and preservation are assuming an unacceptable
>risk ... attested to by the roster of any cemetery, the slabs of any
>morgue, or the blotter of any large-city police department!  For you to
>dismiss the matter as "paranoid" is quite haughty and condescending, at 
>least as I interpret it. 
>
>(No personal offense is intended, of course, I'm merely responding to the
> "Isn't that a bit paranoid?" crack.)
 
I still stand behind it.  I do not deny that there are a lot of loonies
out there and in fact was touched personally by the Polly Klaas case.  Her
body was found near a spot that was kind of a landmark for me in my
youth when we went up to visit my grandparents a hundred miles or so
north of there.  I don't deny that psychopaths exists but I don't expect
to find one around every corner either (you seemed to miss that part).  

Maybe it's where you live but I don't even lock the doors of my house or
car at night.  I'm not saying that people should not exercise a reasonable
amount of caution when they get out at night but I'm a pretty good judge
of character and am not going to put myself in a position where I might be
in danger.  For the most part I think it's reasonable safe for someone to
at least be friendly to the clerk at the 7-11 or someone you might happen
to be standing next to in the produce section of the supermarket.  Perhaps
another social skill that needs to be learned is how to make small talk
with a stranger without being threatening.  I seem to be able to do that.
If someone I've said hello to seems overly cautious about responding I'll
just leave them alone.  

> In this corrupted, barbaric, morally rudderless, disintegrating "society,"

Oh my.  Like I said, I don't know where you live but perhaps you should
consider relocating.

-- 
John Fereira
fereira@isis.com
Isis Distributed Systems - Ithaca, NY