WE'RE BACK!

After a day of not being able to access anyone's Voy Forum, Voy.com has evidently found the problem and put a patch on it. No user or Forum owner has the slightest idea what went wrong, and, after reading the Voy news update, I don't think they do either. The forum was working fine up until approximately 10:46 AM yesterday, Monday, October 6, 2003, when everything just disappeared. It is living proof that whatever could go wrong pre-computer days, still can go wrong, but it does it more efficiently and rapidly with a computer.

Read on and enjoy the posts that made the pre-outage cut. If you find something that elicits a comment from you, please add to the thread as you see fit. If there is nothing here that fancies your tickle, please feel free to start a new thread on whatever subject floats your boat. That's what this place is supposed to be for.

Just as many feel no desire to participate in open discussions already posted, do not whine and whimper to us if no one else responds to your post. Everyone here has the same right to post or not post, as they see fit. All Secretary Sage and I can do is to encourage visitors to post here. We offer the access to other thinking, thoughtful Internet citizens. It is entirely up to you to challenge those brain cells and emotions.

We both read the Hit Counter statistics and know who has visited, from which ISP and IP they arrive and the time of that visit. We know now who most regular visitors are because we have become familiar with their ISPS and IP addresses, but there are still many new visitors who come here. Many are from foreign IP addresses. Most of these are "bots" attempting to harvest e-mail addresses and we ignore them, hoping tehy fall prey to the minature cyber landmines we have left strewn about for them, but a few are legitimate. We can learn much from them and their viewpoints.

The general rule applies here for them as it does for all the regulars. Your person is sacrosanct. Your ideas are open targets in a free fire zone, however. If you cannot back up your beliefs with documentable fact and rational debate, your ideas are going to face a challenge from someone. That's what FREE SPEECH is all about. The Constitutionally protected rght to "freedom of speech" we celebrate here has an equally powerful obverse right to speak freely in opposition to anything said here by ANYONE - including Secretary Sage and by me. We wouldn't have it any other way. "Freedom of Speech is not now, nor has it ever been, under our COnstitution, a right to say whatever one wishes without having to be confronted by another, exercising those same rights to confront those holding converse ideas.

I have noticed in the Hit Counter Statistics that we have had many visitors from locations around the globe, including France, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, New Zealand, Japan and other nations. Almost every poster here reads voraciously and pays attention to news coverage of foreign reaction to the actions and political positions of our government and people. We will never have an opportunity to clarify some of those misconceptions (as we see them) unless those foreign visitors speak out. They need not worry about limitations of language, spellling errors or improper American English grammar. We don't deductpoints for poor spelling or grammar skills. Many of our statesides posters are equally challenged. We here overlook those flaws and attempt to understand the thoughts and the concepts behind the posts for these are the things that count most here... thoughts, not linguistic acuity and prowess. Some of our posts are often downright silly and meant strictly to entertain similarly minded adults. Others are, I hope, thought-provoking treatises on philosophical subject matter. Others are simply expamples of the writing and tale-telling skills of the posters. We are, if nothing else, an esoteric group and we invite you to join our worldwide exchange of thoughts, talents and philosophies.

This is especially significant to me for I count numerous accesses by ISPs affiliated with educational institutions. Don't just march in the streets and mouth cliched slogans. Come here and try to present your ideas to those who may disagree with you. Both sides can learn from such exchanges.

If you are accessing this forum from such an educational institution, we would truly value your input for we can offer something dearly missing in your educatinal process - a open, free-wheeling dialogue with those of us who have gone beyond our days of cloistered access to thinking represented by university classes. Those subjects of which your professors speak only from a an academic background, we have lived, experienced and have a knowledge of they usually lack. If your goal is truly learning, perhaps we can present alternative thinking to the limited intellectual fare you receive in your institutions of "higher learning." We are also open to new ideas and ways of thinking.

Who knows, you may even enlighten us and wouldn't that be a much better use of your time than simply reading here and dismissing what is said?

As for those accessing this forum with military ISPs, wherever you are in the world, you have my special invitation to speak up, though I know the UCMJ limits your free speech rights. Let's push that envelope together. We NEED and WANT to hear what you think or have to say!

We have been accessed by many with Palestinian and Israeli ISPs. WOuldn't your lives be better served if you opened a dialogue here rather than strapping on bombs and killing innocents? WOuldn't your cause be better represented by open, frank and brutally honest discussions here than by raids by IDF young men and women in occupied territories?