hey jim, i took the liberty to browse thru this and the other mentioned thread. i’m glad i hadn’t seen them while they were ‘active’, otherwise i would have spent many a night staying up past my bedtime contemplating them (revisiting old haunts). very insightful discussion from the whistlers, a celebral bunch for sure.
Thank you. I think some remarkable things have
happened on chiffandfipple; rare but there.
P. S. There was our long battle about Galileo, too.
do tell, james…
With the original intent of this thread in mind, I just want to interject that I’m politically offended.
Carry on.
Thank you.
I just came back afer not visiting for a long time and now I’m offended too.
I’m offended that we’re so patently inoffensive! 
Here. Maybe this’ll stir things up:
Jesus freaks give me creeps, and having one as President just creeps me out completely.
I think Kerry is a putz. There are no words in the English language to convey my feelings about B**h.
Yeah, I’m afraid I have to drop my idealism and just go for the lesser of two … well, no, I won’t go nearly so far as to say Kerry’s an evil, but Bush, on the other hand …?
Yeah, putz is kind of a good description for Kerry. Anyway, I voted for Nader in the last election; guess I’d better not do THAT again!
I’ve been seriously considering the possibility of changing my citizenship because of all the crap that’s been going on, but the idea that it might be better to hold fast and work for change as a US citizen gives me mixed feelings about committing myself to such an action.
I haven’t considered such a thing since 1973, during the Viet Nam war.
truth is stranger than fiction:
http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=740
as long as i’m being “potentially offensive”, riverbend is an Iraqi woman who writes of her reaction to the mother in Farenheit 911 who’s son died in Iraq:
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
scroll down for the quote. read it all if you can.
/dan
I don’t know how others feel about this,
and I would personally prefer that this political
thread stay dormant, if possible. There’s one
on the whistle board and perhaps there’s a point
to posting political stuff there, all things being
equal. This one was created because of a blip,
in fact, a very temporary explosion,
and it hasn’t been much used, and I was
rather hoping we would err on the side of
keeping politics away from this board.
I rather like the sense that this board
is a haven from the fracas.
However this is just my personal preference.
If people on the fluteboard want to post
partisan stuff here, not on the political thread
on the whistle board–well, we’ve got the thread,
and you are entitled.
Jim, I really understand wanting to have a haven from the fracas. It is not easy these days to get away from it.
However, it seems as though there are many on this forum, especially long-time contributors who have gotten to know each other, respect each other, and consequently cannot resist trading their views on admittedly important, life-altering events, even though not related to playing wooden flutes.
I have joined just about every flute forum on the net, and can find no discussion that surpasses this one for interesting, well-considered and intelligent submissions.
As long as people identify threads as OT and don’t take themselves too seriously, I think this is an important outlet for a community–one which I will not try to define–but you know who you are!
Best wishes,
Elizabeth
darn jim! i was pretty sure i’d stopped this topic dead in its tracks w/ that last post. politics and religion and war and death all in one swell foop. as Jim Carrey’s Riddler said: “was that over the top? i can never tell.” 
cereally though, if the consensus of the flute forum community is that it’s better not to use this topic, maybe it should be removed? or reduced to a link to the whistle forum political topic and locked? or maybe the “chilling effect” of the disapproval of a senior member of the community will be sufficient to discourage further use. this newby is feeling a bit chilly anyway.
for my own part, i was having a really down day yesterday, feeling quite discouraged, and when some folks i have come to respect were commiserating i’m afraid i chose to “share” in what i thought was the place set aside for such pressure relief. i apologize if this was inappropriate.
as someone who isn’t participating in the whistle forum, i won’t ever use the political topic there. that’s not the community i’m hoping to be a good citizen of. the flute forum is. if it’s generally offensive here to use the “here be dragons” topic, then i won’t.
i’d like to understand your discomfort with this better jim. if every other topic here is as congenial as has been the almost universal case, does having one place where there are potentially offensive posts make this less a haven from the controversial? how do we distingish between appropriate controversy and inappropriate? what are the criteria for the necessary self-censoring this requires?
with great respect for your thoughtful contributions here,
/dan
(who’s not having a great day today either. if i’m out of line here, please forgive and just ignore all this.)
That’s fine. Go for it.
If the thread lives it lives.
Thanks, Glauber. I especially like the glasses.
Perhaps a less dramatic way for me
to put the point is that the best way to insure the
survival of this thread is to use it.
Hey Jim, I see that Glauber is closing in fast on the total number of posts at C & F. You have 5448 post in 40 months, and Glauber has 4127 posts in 26 months. I’m not sure whether one sentence posts should be given full weight, or not, but I calculate that at the current rate of posting, you have a deficit of about 23 posts a month. At the current rate of verbosity, Glauber is going to surpass you in total posts in August of 2009. Just thought that you would like to know, so that you can get prepared. However, there is still time to alter your game plans. 
Thank goodness. It’s lonely at the top.
“man should attempt to dwell in the largest mansion in the world, stand on the correct place and walk on the broadest street. Man’s most comfortable and secure dwelling is his own virtuous mind. He should always stand on the side of justice and live honestly and fairly.”