Ernie Lane of POLITICS wrote the following yesterday,
and I must confess my first response was a blast at
him because he so often only has negative things to
say, especially about my writing (these days, he
remains my most persistant critic). But, as I was
awaking this morning, I was in the midst of a dream
writing a short essay with the above title, attempting
to address some of the below statements, so hence
this response.

"Just wondering -- are you ever concise? This is, basically,
a newsgroup, you know. I don't know what you do, but
I presume it's something where you can have diarrhea of
the mouth and get away with it. You are often right on,
but always pretentious."

I teach, which is why many of the things I write come
forth on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

"I read only the first and last paragraphs of your posts, as
I've learned that everything else isn't important. I wonder
if others have come to the same conclusion."

I do not know what "conclusion" readers have come to
about what I write, and while I fuss when a piece gets
_no_ response (at home, usually not online), I rarely
really worry any more about people's reactions. I've been
online almost seventeen years (in July). When I first came
to the Net, I was using a dumb terninal off a mainframe
that was connected by 1200 baud modems, and we were
constantly being lectured about not "wasting bandwidth"
with frivolous crap and one-line responses.

Ernie claims I'm not concise, and accuses me of pompous
pretentiousness. I decided way back in 1989 that I would
_not_ write one or two sentence comments, I would _not_
reply to every Tom, Dick or Jane with a thrust or an attack
of one or two lines (in fact have tried to cleave to a position
of non-attack 98% of the time), and I would write "with
substance" (what Ernie objects to, because he believes
I go on and on and don't say anything). In those days,
when I could count lines on a the mainframe editor (VAX
system), I rarely wrote _anything_ under 50 lines (56
counting paragraph separation lines) or roughly five
paragraphs. Now, occasionally, I'll write only two paragraphs,
but each will have 5-7 sentences if I do. I still adhere to
the idea of substance if I'm going to post online, and
regardless of critics like Ernie (although these days, he's
the only reader who constantly and consistently complains),
and I try to make sure that whatever subject I'm covering,
I do so with some range and depth.

You, the readers, are totally going to read or not, which a
writer has to accept. But, it seemed from my dream state
that I should attempt to explain my philosophy of writing,
and why I almost never write one line responses or
fail "to be concise" to use Ernie's phrase. Maybe I _am_
being pretentious in daring to believe I have something to
say, but isn't that the flaw (or arrogance?) of _any_
writer? VMS