Right now, you have every right in the world to wonder "what on earth is going on?" I'm sorry you're in that position.
Sally's membership on a mailing list (that I happen to run) was suspended. She got in the habit of asking the same questions over and over, and expecting me to answer the same questions over and over, indefinitely. Apparently, until she heard the answer she wanted. I'm sure we've all heard of the assertiveness training concept of "the broken record technique".
This practice is maddening in real life (and deliberately so), and even worse in print. As the person running the list, I had to put a halt to it before the list became unreadably dull, and the rest of the list either rebelled or left. Or, maybe both. So, she was asked if she could accept the rule that once a question was answered, it was answered. Counterarguments against the answer or arguments for other possible answers would be just fine. But tests of will, where one attempts to prevail through sheer persistance, would not be accepted on the list.
Now, please do not misunderstand me. I had not thrown her out of the group. I basically just took her into a corner and asked her if she could stop doing something. If she would have been willing to behave in a reasonable fashion, I would have been more than happy to return her to the list. Which, I have to admit, in retrospect, was a reflection of weakness of spirit and poor judgment on my part, at that point.
That was part of what the temper tantrum, masquerading as a proposal, you just saw, was about. Now, we're discussing the starting of a newsletter. Sally persistantly asks if random outsiders coming in from the community will be allowed to take part in the putting together of this publication. I tell her that this does not seem to me to be a very prudent idea, and certainly, it would have been an unprecedented one. If the Palace of God had sent a horde of its followers over to a Metaphysical Gazette meeting, would Frank and Bob have been expected to hand over control of the M.G. to them in the name of Democracy, or would it have been understood that a newsletter is run by its own staff ?
Let's point out that Sally was even given a warning before her suspension. I really didn't want to do it. In her last pre-suspension letter (and this gets us to the alleged 'tactlessness'), in addition to the usual repetitive questions, she offered the argument that many people want to do something for the community without belonging to an organization. To this, I responded that I had REPEATEDLY said that submissions from those outside the organization would be welcome. But, if somebody was saying that they wanted to be on the staff for the newsletter, but they didn't want to be part of an organization, that wouldn't make a lot of sense because the staff is an organization. One is, as the cliche goes, asking to have one's cake and eat it, too, at that point. Adding that, as the Council was a loose association of Pagan writers with no dues collected, I didn't really see what the issue was.
Should we put people on one of our projects without getting to know them first? Is there anyone here who thinks that this would make sense?
I wish that this was as strange as it was going to get.
Somebody named Harriet, started campaigning vigorously for an administrative position within the Council - that of copy editor for the newsletter. Now, she was a little odd from the beginning. She was on the mailing list because, well, she signed a sheet on which it said "sign here if you'd like to be on our mailing list". Let's add, that this was on my table at the Con, right between the sign saying "Shrine of the Sleeping Gods" and "The Council for Pagan Liberty and Interfaith Cooperation". So, it wasn't a real big mystery what one was signing up for. Harriet began by screaming about how she wasn't being given enough power, in a post she didn't even hold, yet.
But, stranger things were to come. As I'm sure all reading this know far better than I, there isn't much money to be made in running a Pagan newsletter. So, imagine my astonishment and disgust when Harriet, having gone out to whip up excitment in the group about her candidacy, telling all who will listen about her alleged half century of professional editorial experience - well, imagine seeing her then turn around, after a week of this and pull a bait and switch on us, as she suddenly demanded $40 / hour for her unsolicited services to be! Going on, as if this wasn't astounding enough, to complain about being associated with an organization that she was demanding a $40/hour position in. One of her many letters is included below.
Her complaint, among others, equally incomprehensible? I had indicated that while I was proposing that once a project was staffed and going, it should run autonomously, I certainly was not going to ask people to accept an arrangment where they would get no say in how their funds were going to be administered. The project staff, given its freedom of action, would be responsible for raising its own funds. If it wanted funds from the rest of the council, it would have to make a pitch for them and persuade people to freely give.
Did I mention that we don't collect dues? Well, as you can see, below, Harriet had quite the issue with that. That is to say, with the project being run the way almost every project, either corporate, or institutional, has been run since the time of Pharoah.
One thing I found interesting, was the craft name Harriet claimed for herself. "Nocturne". You know, as in the Temple of Prima Nocturne? Sally's temple? I'm wondering if I've been had, a little, here, and the two women, are one and the same? Nobody seems to have heard of Harriet before her appearance on this list, and it is a matter of her own assertion that Sally is an Erisian. Raising the qauestion of whether or not this has all been a very elaborate and tiresome prank on somebody's part, done at our expense, on our time.
So, if you folks want to take these two women (or one woman, as the case may be) off our hands, please do so with my most fervant blessings and eternal gratitude. If you wish to take the whimsical Sally up on her offer to join in on a project with her, mazel tov. And don't say that you weren't warned.
..................... ..... Yours in respect, however exasperated,
..................... ..................... ..................... .................... ..... ..... AntistoicusClick here, if you're especially desperate to read Sally's letter, or here to simply return.