Languish Not, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? This mailing list is a neat method of making our thoughts, experiences, and hopes come to life on our computer screens. Some of us are contributors, some are critics, and some others are lurkers. In addition some are only occasional visitors who may have a word or two to say when there appears on the list a post that touches them personally. They respond in a manner that satisfys them. I have received a few emails from list folks who have a fear of posting because they cannot stand the dread of criticism that they feel is insulting, often irrelevant, and sprinkled heavily with insults to their intelligence, moral character and on and on . . . In addressing these folks who fear posting because of the consequences they deem unacceptable, please let me urge them to ramp up their gumption and let fly. Don't let those who'd crucify you keep you away from posting to this list. Express yourself with mucho gusto (A little bit of Spanish lingo there) and let the rose petals fall where they may. Your rights are sacred and are supported by the majority of folks on this list. Your contribution may be just what somebody else has wondered about for years. So let's hear from you, so you can develop a rhinoceros's thick and impenetrable hide and ward off all those barbs and spears from the unwashed. Some of us, and I can think of one person in particular, who stimulates the unwashed, well maybe the washed too, and posts messages that sometimes seem deliberately designed to stir the sodden hearts of the fence sitters to come down to earth, on one side or the other. We can flush out the Nazis, the Holier-Than-Thou's, and perhaps those whose greater fear than death is the fear of being shown to be wrong. I, Edward Lipinski, don't like it very much either, to be shown that I'm wrong. But what the heck, I learn from the bitter pill of ignorance. I'll not make that mistake twice. So come on out, post, and be an inspiration to all of us. It only hurts for a little while, but I know that you can improve the Ferret Mailing List with you here amid us all. Speaking of list improvement, I have a suggestion that might work to do just that. Let us who care to do so, contribute some $ on a regular basis, sort of a donated subscription payment to add to this list the capability of posting pictures with our messages. Those who don't care to donate don't have to and they will be equal to those who do donate. My hope is that some day soon, Bill Gruber could use the donated funds to do whatever he has to do to permit us to post pictures with our messages. I'm sure most of you would receive this improvement with great joy. I certainly would - 'cause of my ulterior motive. My confession: At Christmas I received a gift that I could not get out of Germany, because of the German government's absolute ban on war materials. What I wanted is priced between $500 to $7,500, depending upon condition, and is a historical relic of the Prussian/German governments, circa 1895 to about 1914. This historical item is a helmet that goes by the German name of picklehaube. In English it has been translated to mean, spiked helmet. It was standard army issue up until the time air burst artillery was developed, at which time is was abandoned for the steel helmet. Hopefully if'n we get the privilege of posting pictures on the FML, before I assume room temperature, I'd like to be viewed wearing my picklehaube with a frettchen on each shoulder. Ahh, yes . . . I will have achieved my purpose in life. Achtung! Long Live the Kaiser, yes siree! Edward Lipinski [Moderator's note: I could easily opt to allow pictures on the FML. It is not a financial issue and only somewhat a technical issue (some e-mail programs don't know how to handle pictures embedded in a digest as opposed to single e-mails). In other words the server and host used to distribue the FML both allow pictures but I CHOOSE not to enable the feature. I like people to know the FML does not allow attachements so it is virus-free and downloads very quickly. A single picture would be larger than the entire FML. Now, I realize the nature of e-mail has changed over the years and connection speeds are much less of an issue than years ago. And the FML is also a lot less critical than years ago. So perhaps one day I'll reconsider. But probably not anytime soon. The FML is lean, fast, safe and is primarily about newsy items, not pictures of Slinky in a neon harness wearing a football helmet. I like cute pictures as much as the next reader, but the FML isn't the place for them. For now, as in the past, if a picture is really critical, people can post link(s) to it. And if for some reason they don't have a place to put the picture then they can e-mail it to me so I can store it on my own server and post the link to it. And Ed, your picture of a picklehaube with your and your weasels is neither critical nor related, so please don't ask. BIG] [Posted in FML 6233]