In article , ospam
(Larry Roll K3LT) writes:

In article , Alun Palmer
writes:


You mean like becoming president despite a lack of talent, for example?



Let's leave Jimmy Carter out of this.


You mean the only president to forge a sucessful, lasting Middle East peace
agreement?

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

Alun Palmer wrote:

(Len Over 21) wrote in

I think some of you have wigged-out too far and need investigation
for Illegal substance abuse...

LHA


Exactly my point, although more eloquently stated

Care to put your accusations in writing and signed, guys?

Pretty pleeze?

ANY time you PCTA get off your respective high horses, acting like
god-given superiors in radio just because you took a morse test and
passed.

Amateur radio is a HOBBY, Mike. It isn't professional radio nor
military radio, is NOT a "service to the nation" like the military or
government or charity organizations.

You don't get special dispensation for acting boorish and arrogant and
judgemental about others that disagree with your opinions.

All your callsign enables you to do is to transmit RF energy on certain
allocated frequencies using a limited number of allocated modes of
communication. It does not give you godhood or royal title or any
measure of intelligence. Some of you think you are entitled to act like
assholes...then get very put off when others object.

Use some tissue and wipe yourself off...

LHA

In article , Leo
writes:

Alun,

Interesting points - my responses are below:

On 21 Sep 2003 04:51:33 GMT, Alun Palmer wrote:

Leo wrote in
m:

Very well said, Dee - anything is possible if you want to do it badly
enough..

And if you want to do it badly enough you may end up doing it so badly
that it would have been better if you had not tried!

Alun, a defeatist attitude only condemns one to failure. Have
confidence in yourself - look at the things that you have done in your
life - if you had not tried, where would you be now? Maybe you will
try and fail - but to never try is to fail anyway....

No one says that you have to be an expert at everything - competent is
good enough!

I am certainly no prodigy at morse, electronics, martial
arts, cooking, business management or anything else - but I have
always been able to accomplish the things that I was motivated to do.
Mind you, it took me until I was 45 to become motivated enough to
learn morse code - but I wanted to get on HF, focused on the goal,
bought some training software online and passed the 5 wpm test four
weeks later. Conversely, I have wanted to learn to play the guitar
since I was a teenager - not sufficiently enough, though, as I never
did do it. Which, in retrospect, is probably a good thing....

Talent has very little to do with accomplishment (it does relate to
the level of excellence that one can attain

Indeed it does. There are some things that I will never be excellent at,
and Morse code is one of them.

Me too - good enough to pass the required exam, but that's about it!
But, passing the exam was the goal (as required by law - the "price of
admission" to HF) - and I achieved that 100 percent! (with my 10
percent morse skills, which may never be used again - they served
their purpose! God rest my morse skills.)

, but to become reasonably
proficient in anything talent is not a factor), especially in ventures
based primarily on rote repetition like morse, Karate, or learning a
language. Aptitude and motivation, yes, but not talent. Otherwise,
I'd have accomplished nothing so far

Blaming a lack of talent for failure to accomplish something reflects
on a persons' own inability to accept responsibility for their own
actions

So you can do anything can you? Do you beat up on yourself whenever you
fail at something? That doesn't sound very healthy to me.

No, but I do strive to achieve those goals that I set for myself. If
I fail, then fine, if I know that I put in the best effort that I
could, I'll accept it - but that doesn't happen often. I suspect
that, if you do a quick review of your past goals and achievements,
you'll come up with a similar success rate.....

- successful people, quite simply, go out and get what they
want. Or, in the words of Albert Gray:

"Successful people are successful because they form the habits of
doing those things that failures don't like to do"

73, Leo


Fine qualities for a chairman of a Fortune 500 company maybe, but as a
condition for admission into a hobby???

Fine qualities for anyone, actually (my posting had nothing at all to
do with the admission requirements into this or any other hobby,
simply the innate ability of people to accomplish whatever they set
their minds to. (Based on their abilities, of course - reality check
time). For example, I'm sure that you have developed the self
discipline to do what needs to be done in your life, even if
occasionally difficult or distasteful, haven't you? Therein lies the
meaning of the quote. Failures always have an excuse why they
couldn't get things completed.

A failure usually engineers their own fate. In my career as a
manager, I have never considered anyone who gave something their best
shot to have failed! The mark of a true loser is someone who gives up
before he tries.....and has a dozen reasons why it wouldn't have been
possible anyway......

A "manager?!?"

At Anonymous Electronics, Inc., no doubt.

As a career electronics design engineer I never had a Real manager
who wanted to hold on to the past for dear life...or make either work
or life experience some kind of "test" for "moral qualities." Do the
assigned work successfully and one gets paid...a test every week.
I passed all of those. Took some doing but it was done.

At NO company was there a willingness to hold on to the PAST in
methods, standards, or behavior. If there was a BETTER way to do
something, we tried to do it. That took much more work, but was very
satisfying when we did it.

Amateur radio is NOT professional radio, true, but I fail to see all the
moral indignation over those not caring to learn morse code for a ham
license. Sorry "Leo" but a half century ago I did 3 years of military
radio communications on HF, trans-Pacific, without ever having to use
morse code or be required to know it. It wasn't needed then, it isn't
needed now to communicate on HF radio.

WRC-03 removed the old S25.5 requirement...at the urging of the IARU
and several countries. ARRL still refuses to take a stand on the code
test. Seven or eight nations of the world have dropped code testing for
ham licenses. More will follow as COMMON SENSE dawns on ham
radio regulation.

If you start cackling about "traditional values" and other homilies about
code testing "always a part of amateur radio," then YOU lost it, not the
NCTAs. You cannot be some kind of moral superior for demanding that
"everyone else has to do it like you did."

Leonard H. Anderson
not anonymous, mailing address the same as in HR magazine bylines

In article , Alun Palmer
writes:

St Paul experienced an epiphany on the road to Damascus, so we are told.
However, although we are both in the Amateur Radio Service, of the two of
us only you are in the Morse Code Religion. My 'problem', which is no
problem for me, is only that I have not seen the light.

Alun, I saw the light.

Many years ago.

A small light, flickering in the growing wind of many other faster, better,
easier-to-use modes.

It went out.

LHA

In article , "Dee D. Flint"
writes:

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article ,

(Larry Roll K3LT) writes:

In article , Alun Palmer
writes:


You mean like becoming president despite a lack of talent, for example?



Let's leave Jimmy Carter out of this.


You mean the only president to forge a sucessful, lasting Middle East
peace
agreement?

73 de Jim, N2EY


You're kidding I hope.

Not at all.

Have you forgotten the Camp David accords? They cost Anwar Sadat his life.

The Middle East hasn't been at peace before, during,
or since.

Not the whole region. But Israel and Egypt, former enemies and combatants, have
not fought each other at *any* time I know of since those accords were signed.
Almost 25 years now, I think. And he did it without using American military
forces.

What other president can you say any of that about?

Jimmy Carter may not have been the greatest president this country ever had but
he did do some good things.

73 de Jim, N2EY

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
Jimmy Carter may not have been the greatest president this country ever
had but
he did do some good things.

....and he's continued to do good things as an ex-president.

--
73 de Bert
WA2SI

Brian wrote:
Alun Palmer wrote in message . ..


You are now quoting me out of context, snipping everything I agreed with,
leaving in the inane joke at the end, and leaving in my apparently
agreeing only to that.


I wonder if that's what jack-booted thugs do, if there were such a thing?


Missed your other post Alun.

So I'll comment here.

You should have snipped that out, man. It was immediately above your
comment. It wasn't an inane joke. It was over the line, and you repeated it.

Maybe you *don't think PCTA's abuse drugs. Then you should say it.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Bert Craig wrote:
"N2EY" wrote in message
...

Jimmy Carter may not have been the greatest president this country ever

had but

he did do some good things.


...and he's continued to do good things as an ex-president.

But that doesn't fit with the way we are "supposed" to think, Bert! ;^)
PC swings both ways.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Leo wrote:
So sad.

To rephrase - the technical abilities of Farnsworth, the gentle
persuasive manner of Mike Tyson, and...well, just old. Old and tired
- highly trained on a generation of once high-tech equipment that long
ago was sold off as surplus. And to have endured the indignity of
becoming 'surplus' as well. But here, in this forum, a giant - full of
wisdom, and lord over all. Important, once again - and with (probably
for the first time in years) - an audience. Folks to disagree with.
Folks to control. Folks willing to ask for his advice. Folks willing
to submit to his wrath. Power. Vitality. Youth. Importance. Just like
long ago. Just the same!

Sad, old man - it's merely a figment of your own creation, not
reality, not tangible, and can never bring back the past glory of your
career. Or days gone by. But, in here, in the security of this Usenet
group, it feels so real....and so much better than the reality of
advancing age, and the lifestyle changes that they will ultimately
bring.....

Be well, OM

Be well.

Leo


Bravo, Bravo! Wonderful post, Leo! This is sheer poetry

- Mike KB3EIA -

Thanks, Mike.

It is indeed unfortunate that this gentleman is in a situation where
he needs to behave like this. However, he is a product of our great
society - we place a very high value on education, training, and
youth, and retire folks out of the mainstream when they get old. Men
work hard all of their lives to become experts in their field, then
retirement hits and - well, nothing. No job, no responsibility, and
for many, no sense of value. Especially in the technical fields,
where equipment and software becomes obsolete in under a year - it
doesn't take long before one's knowledge is outdated, today. Browse
through Fair Radio's catalog, and you will see a vast array of
equipment that was once state-of-the-art. Years ago, thousands of men
trained for countlesss thousands of hours on the maintenance and
installation of this gear. Now, it's suitable only for anateurs,
collectors, experimenters or parts. And, the men who maintained it
are no longer required either - in effect, they have become surplus
too.

On Retirement Day, and for the rest of our lives past that point, our
realm of control is very small. Society has surplussed us, too - and
we sit idle. With the knowledge that it will never be as it was again.
And the future? Just the end of life's road, looming in the distance,
ever closer. A lifetime of knowledge and abilities begins to decay
with lack of use, as does mental capacity, reading comprehension,
eyesight and even the ability to get up and move around freely.
Frustration and despair begin to set in - after all, it's not going to
get any better....there is no Fountain of Youth to wash away the
years.

So, what is the man to do? Visit with relatives, hang out at the
Legion, or the Y, or find a Senior's group, and wait - for the end. A
lot of folks quietly do just that, and accept the reality of the
autumn years. Some, like our friend, become bitter and annoyed, and
believe that, since they have 'paid their dues' (military service,
career, taxpayer, etc.), that the world 'owes' them something. You
see this type of senior citizen at your local grocery store -
impatient, butting in line, handling the vegetables then putting them
back - you know. This sort of behaviour only alienates them further
(would you want him over for dinner on Thanksgiving? - that would be
fun! "Hey, @#$%^%+&, pass the #$%^^%$ potatoes, you #$%^&*$), and
thereby decreases the number of friends in an already diminished pool.
Death and illness take care of other old friends - and new ones sure
aren't easy to make when you're bitter and angry.

Enter Walter Mitty - remember that story, about an average guy who
found release in his daydreams of being a hero? Our friend has found
that, through the medium of Usenet, he can become anything he wants -
if he says he is, then he is. De facto. Here, he can regale us with
tales of working on vast classified electronic communications
networks, spaceflight systems, or anything else that he chooses - and
who can dispute it? Maybe he did. Maybe he sat in the back of a Jeep
operating a GRC-14 for four years at Pendleton, or sorted boots -
here, in the wonderful world of Usenet, he could be the guy who showed
John Glenn how to realign the radios on Friendship 7 with an old
toothbrush and some tinfoil. Who can disagree? Who is this guy? Who
knows?

Next, comes aggression. A big personality needs aggression - Natures'
own defense against those who challenge authority, and risk exposure
of the real person within - like the Wizard, in the Wizard of Oz (big
aggression, great curtain - little guy!). In the military, boot camp
DI's use this technique to the exclusion of all others, controlling by
intimidation alone. It works - one can deal with logic and reason, but
raw power and agression create fear - which cannot be dealt with
using intelligence alone. This technique serves well here too, as an
insulator against those who would probe and question. Here, the best
defense is a good offense - vigourously and frequently applied.

There are two ways to argue a point - argue the subject, or attack the
person that you are argiung with (the latter is called "ad hominem" -
as old as time itself. Often used during political campaigns ).
Arguing the subject is easily done when sufficient knowledge is
available to make points and counterpoints. It is best done calmly,
civilly and in the true interest of learning the other guy's point
(and maybe adopting it, or modifying your own stance a bit - after
all, rarely is anyone 100% correct!). When you are being overwhelmed,
however, and your self esteem is being threatened by a strong opponent
with a solid arguement, you have three choices: agree, agree to
disagree, or fight. Rational, educated people usually choose from the
first two options. Fight is the mechanism that you see here - attack
everything that you can about the person themselves, in the hope that
they will back down and stop arguing altogether. Victory by
acclamation - no more arguer, no more arguement. This takes a strong
man to go in person, and one need only visit the local bar late on a
Friday night to see it in action.

On Usenet, though, a small, old man can become larger than life by
just pushing the keys on his keyboard, and letting his imagination go
wild. Instant hero. Or expert. Or genius and inventor. One need only
visit this newsgroup, as I did, to observe this phenomenon! And, if
you check the group, you will see in his reply to my posting below
that he is lashing out at what he thinks that he knows about me -
'manager', Northerner, youth ("old before my time") - like a
punch-drunk boxer, swinging wildly at anything. "Raging Bull" - type
stuff. But, he knows absolutely nothing about me, so all he can do is
bellow and rage. Very frustrating, I'm sure....swinging wildly at
shadows....

So, what's the Defense? None required. Why argue with the guy?
Sure, he needs the confrontation to feed his ego, but that's not going
to happen at my expense. He can say anything he wants, but he cannot
get to me unless I let him. In this way, I remain in control.
Intelllect always triumphs over agression when physical violence is
removed from the equation. For example - a 130-pound Lieutenant
controlling a platoon of armed grunts - if they could attack him
physically whenever they diagreed with him, his authority over them
would be negated. But, that's not an option, (or a good one, anyway -
some heavy penalties to think about there....) so they do what they're
told, without question.

Feel sorry for our friend instead - but for the grace of God, that
could be you, or me, or someone we care about someday in the future!

73, Leo

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 04:08:43 GMT, Mike Coslo
wrote:

Leo wrote:
So sad.

To rephrase - the technical abilities of Farnsworth, the gentle
persuasive manner of Mike Tyson, and...well, just old. Old and tired
- highly trained on a generation of once high-tech equipment that long
ago was sold off as surplus. And to have endured the indignity of
becoming 'surplus' as well. But here, in this forum, a giant - full of
wisdom, and lord over all. Important, once again - and with (probably
for the first time in years) - an audience. Folks to disagree with.
Folks to control. Folks willing to ask for his advice. Folks willing
to submit to his wrath. Power. Vitality. Youth. Importance. Just like
long ago. Just the same!

Sad, old man - it's merely a figment of your own creation, not
reality, not tangible, and can never bring back the past glory of your
career. Or days gone by. But, in here, in the security of this Usenet
group, it feels so real....and so much better than the reality of
advancing age, and the lifestyle changes that they will ultimately
bring.....

Be well, OM

Be well.

Leo


Bravo, Bravo! Wonderful post, Leo! This is sheer poetry

- Mike KB3EIA -