Sparky2
04-18-2008, 10:26 PM
The time has come for me to say goodbye to my allforums friends.
Life’s circumstances have brought me to a place where I have to make a choice between sustaining tenuous alliances with distant internet acquaintances, and dealing with the risky & hazardous business of real life with nearby friends and family.
Flawed as they are, my family and friends have been held at arms length for far too long.
It’s time for me to mend some fences and expend some energy toward undoing the estrangements and complications that have kept us all in an emotional holding pattern for the past few years.
I thank you for your friendship, and wish you all nothing but the best.
You are a weird and wonderful bunch of people.
I have enjoyed sharing just a bit of myself, and I must confess that (although I have probably taken more than I have given) you have made that giving & taking feel uniquely right and proper. The allforums family is a community, and I am proud to say that I have been a member of that community.
The internet is a funny thing.
It allows us to express ourselves, and affords us opportunities to reach out and connect with those who we might not have ever in a single lifetime met in person.
Also on the internet, we can be larger than life, we can be charming, we can be more attractive than we probably are in real life, and we have the benefit of ‘time-to-compose’ and Spell Check.
On these forums, we can also vent our spleens, and be the hell-raisers and confrontational heroes & nonconformists that we probably never would or could be in real life.
And although I can cop to the occasional hubris of the creative writer, and the swagger of a man who has lived a life well-sated, I can honestly say that with me, you have experienced the real deal. I don’t deal in artifice, and I have tended to wear my heart on my sleeve.
I would ask that you consider this one thing, and this is not only my one request, it is my most sincere admonition:
Stop with the insulting polarizing and generalizing.
Not everybody is either a Liberal or a Conservative.
Not everybody is either an atheist or a Christian.
Not everyone is violently pro-abortion, anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, anti-death penalty, (please insert your favorite topic du jour).
It doesn’t have to be one thing or the other,
and not everyone fits neatly into your convenient and insulting black or white view of things.
There are the grays. The uncomfortable, disconcerting grays.
Humans are complicated, and they can be deep and conflicted.
(Granted, some humans are not at all complicated OR deep. Witness the perplexing popularity of the grocery store checkout line magazines, rap music, Jerry Springer, and Paris Hilton.)
Admins and Mods.
Please IP-Ban the obvious serial spammers.
I have personally banned well over two thousand porno spammers, pharm spammers, myspace spammers, and get-rich-quick spammers since I have been a Moderator.
This isn’t rocket science. If some asshole with a user ID of ‘dnxxlfxxraday’ registers, and they’ve got the same IP Address as a gazillion other banned porno spammers with similarly-incomprehensible stage names, chances are they are the same guy.
Ban the suspect IP addresses, and be done with the nuisance.
Friends, (and I’ll be careful not to ID you by name, for fear of offending anybody that I may have left out) please email me if you ever want to keep in touch. I have enjoyed your friendship, and even though we have not always agreed, I have learned and grown immensely from the experience.
Two special young friends I must mention by name.
Both of you are young men in pivotal and critical crossroads in your lives.
I have faith in both of you, Evakian and Napsterbator.
You are going to set the world on fire, I suspect.
(Just give me ample warning, so that I may don the appropriate asbestos garments, and save myself from harm.)
OK, what the hell. Sal, Imp, Mikezilla, The Dude, Frogger, Foolsworth, Freethinker, Dharmabum, Borghunter, Rendova, Darkfantasy, Jester, MichelleG, Scumby, Sedan, Decka, Paulc, MeskDBX, Brooks, GMSisco, SMW, shorty, Phyrex, Imagineer, Oldphart, Pendragon, Angel, Tiger, Overdose, etc etc. I’ll miss you. One of you is my son. I’ll leave you to figure that out for yourselves.
Two very special old friends, you know that it goes without saying that I will look forward to morning IM’ing over coffee and weather reports.
es347fan and Vilepagan, you are true gentlemen.
If there are any two allforums members who are as close to in real life as they are as they present themselves on these boards, it is you two.
I am honored to be your friend, and look forward to many years of cheerful correspondence and (hopefully) the occasional personal gathering over beers and good food.
OK, gotta go.
This train is rolling on, and I must hop on now.
It’s been great knowing you all.
Please be good to each other.
Much love,
John Sparkman
email: john@sparkman.name
:) :drive: :thumbs:
Life’s circumstances have brought me to a place where I have to make a choice between sustaining tenuous alliances with distant internet acquaintances, and dealing with the risky & hazardous business of real life with nearby friends and family.
Flawed as they are, my family and friends have been held at arms length for far too long.
It’s time for me to mend some fences and expend some energy toward undoing the estrangements and complications that have kept us all in an emotional holding pattern for the past few years.
I thank you for your friendship, and wish you all nothing but the best.
You are a weird and wonderful bunch of people.
I have enjoyed sharing just a bit of myself, and I must confess that (although I have probably taken more than I have given) you have made that giving & taking feel uniquely right and proper. The allforums family is a community, and I am proud to say that I have been a member of that community.
The internet is a funny thing.
It allows us to express ourselves, and affords us opportunities to reach out and connect with those who we might not have ever in a single lifetime met in person.
Also on the internet, we can be larger than life, we can be charming, we can be more attractive than we probably are in real life, and we have the benefit of ‘time-to-compose’ and Spell Check.
On these forums, we can also vent our spleens, and be the hell-raisers and confrontational heroes & nonconformists that we probably never would or could be in real life.
And although I can cop to the occasional hubris of the creative writer, and the swagger of a man who has lived a life well-sated, I can honestly say that with me, you have experienced the real deal. I don’t deal in artifice, and I have tended to wear my heart on my sleeve.
I would ask that you consider this one thing, and this is not only my one request, it is my most sincere admonition:
Stop with the insulting polarizing and generalizing.
Not everybody is either a Liberal or a Conservative.
Not everybody is either an atheist or a Christian.
Not everyone is violently pro-abortion, anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, anti-death penalty, (please insert your favorite topic du jour).
It doesn’t have to be one thing or the other,
and not everyone fits neatly into your convenient and insulting black or white view of things.
There are the grays. The uncomfortable, disconcerting grays.
Humans are complicated, and they can be deep and conflicted.
(Granted, some humans are not at all complicated OR deep. Witness the perplexing popularity of the grocery store checkout line magazines, rap music, Jerry Springer, and Paris Hilton.)
Admins and Mods.
Please IP-Ban the obvious serial spammers.
I have personally banned well over two thousand porno spammers, pharm spammers, myspace spammers, and get-rich-quick spammers since I have been a Moderator.
This isn’t rocket science. If some asshole with a user ID of ‘dnxxlfxxraday’ registers, and they’ve got the same IP Address as a gazillion other banned porno spammers with similarly-incomprehensible stage names, chances are they are the same guy.
Ban the suspect IP addresses, and be done with the nuisance.
Friends, (and I’ll be careful not to ID you by name, for fear of offending anybody that I may have left out) please email me if you ever want to keep in touch. I have enjoyed your friendship, and even though we have not always agreed, I have learned and grown immensely from the experience.
Two special young friends I must mention by name.
Both of you are young men in pivotal and critical crossroads in your lives.
I have faith in both of you, Evakian and Napsterbator.
You are going to set the world on fire, I suspect.
(Just give me ample warning, so that I may don the appropriate asbestos garments, and save myself from harm.)
OK, what the hell. Sal, Imp, Mikezilla, The Dude, Frogger, Foolsworth, Freethinker, Dharmabum, Borghunter, Rendova, Darkfantasy, Jester, MichelleG, Scumby, Sedan, Decka, Paulc, MeskDBX, Brooks, GMSisco, SMW, shorty, Phyrex, Imagineer, Oldphart, Pendragon, Angel, Tiger, Overdose, etc etc. I’ll miss you. One of you is my son. I’ll leave you to figure that out for yourselves.
Two very special old friends, you know that it goes without saying that I will look forward to morning IM’ing over coffee and weather reports.
es347fan and Vilepagan, you are true gentlemen.
If there are any two allforums members who are as close to in real life as they are as they present themselves on these boards, it is you two.
I am honored to be your friend, and look forward to many years of cheerful correspondence and (hopefully) the occasional personal gathering over beers and good food.
OK, gotta go.
This train is rolling on, and I must hop on now.
It’s been great knowing you all.
Please be good to each other.
Much love,
John Sparkman
email: john@sparkman.name
:) :drive: :thumbs: