And it helps if you bring a bottle, it's Friday!

Adelante! To me this place is like a beautiful organic garden you are growing and nurturing with care, love and respect. I like to stop by and see what's being cultivated or harvested each day....and I come knowing that ignorance and ugliness will be SMACKED down. I feel way more balanced here than I do in the "real world".

"In here is reasonable discussion, respectful disagreement, thoughtful wandering, friendship, and humanity, play, passion, and clarity of thought. If we don't begin there, we work to get there. But there will be no platform for willful ignorance and attempts to sow confusion. There's plenty of Real Life in real life."

Perfect. I wish I had written that.

K. Villa expressed my own feelings.

Perhaps some of those who don't get the message might enjoy meeting your nice robot friend?

"You get to foist off your general emotional malaise or mental agitation on others, pleasing yourself with the radioactive nature of the transmission, you get to confuse the issue, and then move on with your life, and in your wake, the village is talking about the film's disruption for years."

I've seen this happen in so many forums. Radioactive is a good word. Or even toxic. It's good that you nip that in the bud.

Your writing is poetic, Nez. Even if I don't always agree, I enjoy reading your thoughts. It always makes me think as well. ;)

Yeah, Rick, a bottle is a very good idea.

"There is no guilt here to grab on to."

This is a great way to put it, too.

This is my warm and welcoming kitchen, and I freeload and sleep on the cot next to the stove.

(good lookin' out tellin' folks to stop breathin' over my food)

thank you all so much. i'[ve always taken pride in making my room comfortable for people who stop in. even as a teenager it was a point of pride for me that my guests would feel okay taking their shoes off in my place. i guess it's the hobbit blood in me or something.

Your space, your time. After all you might decide tomorrow to erase this place from existence (hard to do with Google cache but you could try) and the world would not come to an end (I would be very sad, but that's about it! :-). So rock on my brother. And expect an answer to your question by the end of the weekend.

I do not know where this urge to introduce some synthetic "balance" came from (FOX?), but life balances itself, so I need not play God.

You see, I think people's inclinations to "play God" is exactly where that synthetic need for balance comes from. I think it's an inclination towards people having time to flex their power muscles, and so they think, "Powerful people permit X and prohibit Y." Or they've been jaded from another, more restrictive space turning away from them and they think, "If I had my own space, I'd let everyone speak." It's only when you start blogging and you run head up with the vitriol firsthand that you realize not all types of expression are tolerated, nor does free speech require that you tolerate all types of speech. Free speech doesn't mandate that you go out and listen to the street preacher or that you bring your Mandatory Folding Chair to the white supremacist rally. Free speech just means that they cannot be prohibited from having a forum if they're contributing to the marketplace of ideas in a peaceful manner. And even then, there are limitations. (end ramble)

P.S. You guys, I think Nez is trying to tell us he secretly has Hobbit Feet(TM).

Maybe when folks want to play lawyer, we should ask them whether the 21st Amendment guarantees them the right to drink & drive. Except I'm not sure I want to hear the answers to that one.

Shh, Tom; we don't want to tell them all their "rights" at the same time!

I've only been visiting su Cuarto for a week, but I heard something in the voice here that was familiar. I, too, studied psychology and then film, but left the schools pretty quickly with no degrees and just moved into Real Life.

I very seldom see the "editing" statements on the blogs and I appreciate your pointing this "reality" out. Media is never reality. With or without cameras.

I often try to explain this concept to friends, but they don't get it.

I was a documentary film maker, also an editor, also a film lab worker and so on.

None of it is real. I never watch any images anymore unless they are truly real and breathing. I quit looking at all the image machines {TV, Film} in 1973. On the computer I never bother with the videos. Maybe I have overreacted, but I like it this way.

Thanks for showing what is really real.

I appreciate that, RC. And if you've overreacted, well...I guess that's like choking on poisonous smoke, right? It's a healthy reaction.

Thank you for this place of sanity. I lurk, but I just had to speak this one time. Thank you for this place and for your words and for your work.

thank you, Binty. thank you for speaking up to let me know.

Sylvia, I love your line: "Free speech doesn't mandate that...you bring your Mandatory Folding Chair to the white supremacist rally." Whether in the blogosphere or face-to-face, I remove myself from spaces I consider unsafe and I try, really try, to make sure that people who may not feel safe elsewhere (those who are more typically oppressed in this society) will feel the difference when they're around me. This means that I must first recognize the Ugly when I hear it, no matter how subtle it may be and then I must get my broom and boldly chase whatever it is out of my house (yes, Nez, MY house. I love that -- I first learned to respect this idea when I was in the prison movement and prisoners would call their cells "my house" with great responsibility and expectation of respect toward themselves and their space.)

BTW, Nez, I like this so post so much that I'm going to link to it. You are a poet and very clear in your grasp of things. Thank you.

gracias, changeseeker. i do appreciate that.

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rafa, not that pieces of "this world" wouldn't exist anyway, in various places, if i took down the site. but i'm not sure google's cache would be one of them. that is, if you find a page cached by google of my site, throw me a link. what i mean is, i dare you. ;)