asking that she be removed from the mailing list. This was granted.,If you found my article offensive, you could have ignored it. You might well have chosen to return to your important housework and your son, writing me off as someone who knows not of what he speaks. Yet, you took up your pen. Therein lies the gauntlet you do not recall casting down. You could have written a letter to the editors of SIGMA expressing your views. Instead, you wrote to me, making it very personal. You could have written me a letter with polite constructive criticism. However, you wrote a memorandum, characteristic of orders and authoritarian dictates. In that I was grievously insulted.
I am not sure you realize that the words you write are not the only ideas conveyed. There are layers of meaning, sometime intentional, oftentimes not, that are hidden "between the lines." For example, in my response I highlighted the word fictional numerous time to express my belief that you were having difficulties differentiating between the fictional creation and the author. You only confirmed my initial impression by responding that "it is hard to determine where Kevin ends and Kordite begins."
Your memorandum stank of arrogant moral righteousness and, while it was veiled, contained the opinion that I had no place subjecting you or your offspring to my "offensive" article. Beginning each paragraph of my response with "how dare you" merely echoed aloud what you had hidden.
I don't expect you to come around to my way of thinking. That was not my intention. You have already made up your mind that you are right and I am wrong. No amount of explanation, no matter how reasoned or polite, can sway such zealotry. Similarly, your attempt to change my writing style, characterizations or anything else about my creative process has failed. I am unrepentant. "Dear Kordite" will continue to be written and submitted to SIGMA. They found sufficient merit in my first submission to publish it and I see no reason for them to reverse that way of thinking. Look forward to seeing more of "Dear Kordite" in the pages of SIGMA.
As for your receiving SIGMA, your subscription is not my concern. I have no right to even think that your name should be removed from the subscription list, lest I fall into the hypocrisy of censorship. Subscriptions are the purview of the PARSEC leadership.
But know this, PARSEC members pay dues to support SIGMA. The editors and others on the SIGMA staff expend a great deal of time and effort into producing SIGMA; writing, formatting, copying, folding, stapling, licking stamps and shipping. You receive the benefits of their labor and my dues without having to make any contribution whatsoever. What right have you to demand a certain quality from a publication you receive for free? You insult the editors by trying to exert editorial control through me.
Never take any written work at face value, not even the following statements:
Your memorandum angered me.
It was an offensive and personal attack.
Readers have the right to offer comment but shouldn't be surprised if their views are not immediately accepted or are summarily ignored.
If you can't tell the difference between Kordite and Kevin then that is your problem, not mine.
lt is a major element of humor that it will offend at least one person. You're it.
Any child insulated from so-called "bad" things will grow up without the tools necessary for critical thinking and will have difficulties once that parental insulation is gone.
You weren't expressing merely a literary opinion but were suggesting that, because Klingons would not write advice columns, "Dear Kordite" should never have been written in the first place. In case you didn't notice, that's censorship.
I am not sorry that I stand behind my Klingon persona. I stand behind everything I do or say with equal passion. It is called integrity.
I was being intentionally blustery.
My challenge still stands. Put your money where your mouth is. Hell, even I can afford $10 a year for a PARSEC membership. Come to a meeting, come to Confluence. You might just learn something about writing and writers.
I am done with this line of discourse. Any further letters you send me will go without a response and I will consider an invasion of my privacy. Save yourself the trouble and return to your housework and your son. I refuse to waste my time further.
(signed) Kevin A. Geiselman
I did not receive any response to this letter. The president of PARSEC at the time received a letter from Ms.
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http://www.tasigh.org/kordite/memo4.html -- Revised: 18 May 2002 Copyright © 1997, 2002 Kevin A. Geiselman |