I am proposing an AWAD mascot-- the american porcupine--
my reasoning is based on the old joke about porcupines..
How do porcupines mate?
Carefully, Very carefully
porcupine quills are barbed, and painful-- but the little porcupine, contrary to folk myth, can't shoot them. you have to get up real close, and actually touch the animal to get stuck.
porcupine quills-->think of feathers--> in latinate languages-->plume-->which lead into pen--> which makes us think of words, and harsh word can be "sharper than a serpant's tooth, and hurt feeling..
Kieva-- dear little porcupine lover.. i wish could sooth your wounds.
and yes, the pm's could be publish here,-- and maybe-- sans the name of the poster it might help.. either i am too much the dullard to realize when ignomy is heaped on me, or i have been spared.. or maybe, i just have a warped sense of humor and total missed the point of harsh critizisms.
i hope you let the writer know-- they need to know directly.
as i have gotten older, i have come to see the wisdom of the phrase "the sins of the father are heaped on the sons"..
those of us, who have grown used to, who have become inurred to harsh critizism, might not realize how harsh we sometime are with others.. those of us, who have been raised in wisdom and kindness might not have developed the callused hides we need to protect themselves from such harsh words.
I have no doubt, that you, and Wordwind, and Jackie have been hurt.. i would like, in charity, to believe that the person who hurt you did not intend to be as cruel as they were percieved. (but, i know i can can be harsh and cruel, and i know i want charity, even if i don't deserve it!-- so some times i think i am more charitable than most.)
this thread is rift, and it threatens to rip apart our community. I don't know what can be done.. but if something can be done, i am willing to try.
kieva, can you think of no other solution--beside leaving?
