Re: [Paddlewise] black hulls

On Mon, Sep 30, 2002 at 04:03:46AM -0700, Peter Staehling wrote:

> If you get excited enough to type that many heated
> lines over someones comments about a few scratches,
> perhaps you need psychiatric help, or maybe just some
> time paddling!
> :)

While I rarely pander to the politically correct crowd, there are areas
where one best not tread unless they like a blindfolded stroll through a
minefield.  Suggesting someone needs psychiatric care, and then couching
it in a smiley so as to make it oh so innocuous, is just such an area.
Joke about it if you feel you must, but you're nothing but an absolute
ass if you do.

Psychiatric help suggests psychiatric illness, a legitimate (in every
sense of the word) class of diseases of the body, just like heart
disease, cancer, and diabetes.  Yet the propensity in the western world,
particularly within the American quarter, to make light of it at every
opportunity, is a major reason the majority of the those that suffer
from a diagnosable psychiatric condition (and today's best estimates are
that 1 in 4 American adults will suffer such a condition during the
course of their adult lives) never seek treatment.  The joking,
trivialization, and stigmatization represented by callous and clueless
comments such as yours, rest in (very large) part at the heart of why
this is the case.

And, FWIW, these aren't my words, stats, or arguments, but those of
family, friends, and colleagues who work in various aspects of
psychiatric care and research.  Do yourself a favor, put down your copy
of "Sea Kayaker's Deep Trouble" for a bit and pick up Andrew Solomon's
"The Noonday Demon" (the 2001 National Book Award winner in Nonfiction,
if an NBA stamp of approval might persuade you).  I can't imagine you
wouldn't learn something, even if only that some things, except on the
very rarest of occasions, aren't ever funny.

As to time paddling, I would love a bit more than I've managed of late.
But a shattered tibial plateau followed by a messed up ACL took care of
much of this season.  But that only fuels my determination to paddle
longer into the season of short, cold days to come than I otherwise
might.  But it hasn't much of anything to do with tolerance for fools
and their remarks.  I've never suffered either gladly.

> LONG rant about someone's comments on boat scratches deleted.

One person's rant is another's cogent discourse.  If you despise the
former, learn to use the <delete> function in your mail software.
You'll be happier, so too will I, and I suspect others just might be as
well.  Heck, maybe you'll get good enough at it you can give lessons :-)

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

WARNING: Stop reading right here if you don't wish to read a (as brief
as I can make it) rehash of my objection to the turn this thread took.

On various occasions over the last several months, messages were posted
to PaddleWise regarding cosmetic issues relating to kayaks, particularly
hull and deck damage (scratches, gouges, cracks, etc.) and how to go
about repairing such things.  Several subscribers, myself among them,
have posted repsonse containing either specific advice on how to fix
such things or provided pointers to off-list information that would help
in the repair process.  The questions were legitimate, well meaning, and
within the province of the list.  So too were the answers.

Often, far too often, the thread was high-jacked by subscribers hell
bent on sending the message to the original poster, that scratches and
other cosmetic damage (or wear, if you prefer) are an essential part of
kayaking, and that only tyros and idiots don't understand that
fundamental *truth*.  The poor soul posting gets dumped upon them the
proverbial ton of bricks, when all they wanted to know how to do was fix
this or that bit of wear that bothered them on their boat.  The message
being sent them wasn't just "here is another point of view you might
wish to consider," but one of "here is THE point of view, learn it or
remain forever ignorant."

On at least two such occasions this summer, I received private email
from the seed poster of such threads, a) thanking me for information
provided and b) asking me what unwritten list etiquette they'd run afoul
of that warranted the harsh response belittling their caring about their
boat's cosmetics.

This behavior does nothing to help those new to the sport or to the
list, and everything to give both a tarnished name.  I didn't say much,
if anything, then, when it might have contributed to a lessening of the
knee jerk, stomping propensity sketched out above.  I got sick of it all
this time around and opted to contribute my two pence.

I accept both points of view (cosmetics matter and should be addressed,
and that cosmetic damage is really wear and every bit a part of the
sport as is getting wet now and again).  I don't accept the supremacy of
one over the other.  And I flatly refuse to tolerate the view that one
is *truth* the and the other *foolishness*.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Maybe now we can get back to more interesting, less disagreeable
paddling discussion.  Then again, maybe not.

-- 
James W. Durkin
jwd_at_phonogram.net

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