I am so VERY disappointed in today's FML. 70K, twice as big as yesterday's, and fully half of it regards Matan. Well, now I just CAN'T let you guys have ALL the fun, can I? Time to put in my two cents. First, I have never seen such obvious distrust and paranoia. Normally, I am rather fond of Ms. Frye's posts, occasionally I find myself having to take them with a grain of salt. But I find this latest almost laughable. No offense is meant to Ms Frye, or those who agree with her. From where I sit, it seems pretty obvious why a person of another language would be able to spell a word like "pregnancy" and not the simple mono-syllabic words he misspells. It is called a dictionary. If you are speaking a language other than your own, what words are you most likely to look up? The tough ones. Combine that with his obvious use of common internet shorts "u" and "r" and the fact that Hebrew shares no common roots with English, and it is pretty obvious why he writes the way he does. Also, I seem to recall a number of times in the past, reading of people who HAVE contacted him IN Israel, as Bev at the Jerusalem Zoo's post today has proven. Unless you think Bev at the Zoo is also a fraud, meant only to make us think that Matan is real. That would be quite the complicated hoax, wouldn't it? Frankly, I have no interest in ever finding out whether Matan contacts Ms. Frye or not, I find it silly, paranoid, and pretty much just plain mean. This is a good point to mention how generally insulted I often am by Ms Frye's obvious suspicion of anyone with more computer knowledge than she has. Frankly if I were out to get someone, though I have the knowledge to use a computer, I would use more conventional methods. Second, Matan's differing views may be almost purely cultural, and how dare anyone on this list condemn him for them. Certainly we may feel free to disagree, and certainly we are ALL worried for the health of his jill. And certainly we have reason to be. But I am reading the same people who usually demand tolerance, and the right to hold opinions without being condemned, doing just that to Matan. I remember thinking how silly Mr Fowler (I believe it was Mr Fowler,) was, back when he accused the negative responses to one of his posts of being geographically based, a kind of patritism. But perhaps Mr Fowler hit on something that actually IS a problem. While I have noticed that Matan may or may not pay much attention to what advice is given him, how likely do you think it is that he will listen to a post which says, in essence, "Get your jill spayed you idiot!" Would you? I wouldn't. I guess I'm just irritated in general with the seemingly total lack of anything better to talk about, and with the meanness directed at Matan. But I have thought from Matan's first post that many posters responded with more venom than was neccessary. *sigh* Melissa Barnes [Posted in FML issue 3453]