Why is Soaring declining

'Violence is the last resort of the incompetent' No,
not a personal attack, a quote attributed to Salvor
Hardin or Isacc Assimov, but true nevertherless.

Avoiding issues and favouring attacking those who perhaps
identify a problem is not the answer to anything. Lennie
may be everything you say but should we ignore everything
he says?
Is there not the remotest chance he may be right? If
he is wrong perhaps reasoned argument is a better way
to show this than hurling abuse.

In my experience a lawyer with a poor case will always
stoop to attacking personalities. A lawyer with a good
case does not need to.


At 13:36 20 April 2004, Bill Gribble wrote: (Snip)
Don Johnstone writes
and is this not exactly the reason why soaring is declining,
Violence of any sort is the last resort of the
imcompetent.

Uh, incompetent? I'm quite sure Mr Flewett can fight
his own battles,
but in any case, now who's getting personal? And,
for that matter, who

Ben Flewett wrote:
Lennie,

Given that you have quit gliding, why don't you quit
'contributing' to this site? I don't understand why
you persist in partaking of discussions on a subject
you are no longer interested in.

We don't have to understand it to realize his comments have value to us.
Most people that are disappointed with soaring just leave and we never
learn why. Some of the responses to Lennie's comments certainly
illustrate what he is talking about, and I'm beginning to think it's
more of a problem than I realized. It's not soaring's only problem,
probably not even it's worst problem, but it seems such a shame that it
is a problem at all.

--
-----
change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Don Johnstone writes
'Violence is the last resort of the incompetent' No, not a personal
attack, a quote attributed to Salvor Hardin or Isacc Assimov, but true
nevertherless.

Sorry, I was being flippant, in that I found the word "incompetent" an
ironic and amusing word on your part to mis-spell. Should have made
myself clearer, though I should have also made it clear that I meant no
offence in pointing the typo out.

Your picking that quote in the context that you did, however, seemed to
suggest that the previous writer was incompetent as demonstrated through
their stooping to "verbal violence", thus my suggestion to the effect
that he could fight his own battles if he so wished.

Avoiding issues and favouring attacking those who perhaps identify a
problem is not the answer to anything. Lennie may be everything you say
but should we ignore everything he says? Is there not the remotest
chance he may be right? If he is wrong perhaps reasoned argument is a
better way to show this than hurling abuse.

"Lennie the Lurker" may or may not be everything I say, and I'm sure
we'll all use our own judgement on that. I would point out (perhaps
belatedly and after the fact on my part, however) that the *person*
behind Lennie the Lurker could be anything, and of any quality or
otherwise. I really am not one to judge. The Internet by its very nature
creates a Lord of the Flies effect that encourages some of us to behave
and communicate in a manner that we wouldn't dream of doing in real life
because of the reduced accountability the anonymity of the net provides.

However, the somewhat verbose point of my previous post was to
illustrate my opposition to your suggestion that he might be right. I
tried to propose a "reasoned argument" by the counterpoint of my own
experiences in contrast to his. I don't believe Lennie's experiences are
typical of the majority that find themselves drawn to gliding, and I
don't believe the previous writer's reaction to the way that Lennie
portrays his views to be endemic of any problem particular to this
community.



--
Bill Gribble

/---------------------------------------\
| http://www.cotswoldgliding.co.uk |
| http://www.scapegoatsanon.demon.co.uk |
\---------------------------------------/

Ben Flewett wrote in message ...
Lennie,

Given that you have quit gliding, why don't you quit
'contributing' to this site? I don't understand why
you persist in partaking of discussions on a subject
you are no longer interested in. However, I strongly
suspect it because you do not require assistance from
other persons in obtaining sexual gratification.

Ok, since you chose to go to the low inuendo, you should well know
that I am very comfortable there too. Such as, I firmly suspect that
the joystick in your hand most of the time is not connected to your
aircraft.

That out of the way now, I know, not believe, KNOW, that your reaction
to anything I have said has been "Lennie said it, so it must be
wrong." I KNOW that you have not opened your unseeing eyes or your
firmly closed mind to look and see if just maybe some of these things
are happening where you are. LIke most of the others, you're sitting
on your haunches waiting for some mythical "national organization" to
come up with all the magic bullets, that require you to do nothing but
go about your own way and change nothing. I'm just ****ing sorry, but
that isn't going to do it, and I've said so many times. It's going to
take INDIVIDUAL effort, and a lot of it on a lot of levels to make any
change. Getting new people is only one part of the problem, bringing
them in the front and watching them go out the back isn't doing
anything. If you're going to look at "What's wrong with the world"
and ignore "What are we doing wrong", you might as well not look at
anything. If you look, and see something, and say nothing, you are
the problem. If you're going to ignore anything that might show you
as not the model of perfection, don't even bother looking.

If you find that you can't have any fun in anything less than a $50k+
ship with at least 40+:1, and others are having a ball with a 23:1
1-26, then I'd say that maybe the problem is in the man, not the
machine. IF the lower performance doesn't meet your interests, it
might behoove you to realize that for many others, it's perfectly
satisfactory. Realize that while for you a $100K ship may be no
strain, but for many others, a $10k ship might be a very expensive
toy.

Now, to ask you to do the extremely difficult task of drawing a mental
parallel, mentally substitute "megabuck german glass" for "Hardinge
lathe" and (Insert favorite plane of derision) for "$300 Speedway
lathe". I know people that have the Hardinge lathes, and on these
very expensive machines, the finest made in the world, they
consistantly do lower quality work than I get from my Speedway. Are
they having more fun with their toys than I am with mine? No. Do
they get more satisfaction from what they do than I? No. Do they
badmouth the Speedway? Damn right, they do. It's a POS that they
can't do anything with, and don't see how anyone could possibly enjoy
running it. Do you see the parallel? Or is your mind so firmly
closed, your belief that soaring has nothing in common with other
hobbies that you WON'T see? I don't have a Hardinge, I would love to
have a Hardinge, but $30k for a hobby machine doesn't make any sense
at all. Any lathe is better than no lathe, make that, any glider is
better than no glider. Are you now exhausted from the mental effort
required? Good, read on.

LIke any other hobby in decline, soaring doesn't have one problem, it
has many. Unless soaring looks at ALL of the problems, finds the ones
that are the most damaging, and makes what changes are needed to
correct those first, the end can be easily predicted. I've said it
before, and now again, sitting on your ass waiting for someone to do
it on a national level will get you exactly squat. Stand facing
north. Point your index finger south. You are now pointing to the
person that has to do something if you don't want to continue to watch
the decline.

Bill Gribble wrote in message ...

Hack!

"Lennie the Lurker" may or may not be everything I say, and I'm sure
we'll all use our own judgement on that. I would point out (perhaps
belatedly and after the fact on my part, however) that the *person*
behind Lennie the Lurker could be anything, and of any quality or
otherwise.

Hack!

I don't believe Lennie's experiences are
typical of the majority that find themselves drawn to gliding, and I
don't believe the previous writer's reaction to the way that Lennie
portrays his views to be endemic of any problem particular to this
community.

First point, this is rapidly degenerating into a discussion of "Lennie
the Lurker", and away from what I would rather see, that of people
starting to open their eyes and minds, looking to see if the same or
similar things are happening in their locations. If you don't find
anything there, and aren't just ignoring it if there is, great. Then
look for something else that needs addressing. If you can't find
something, however small, to improve things, then you aren't looking
very hard. Even if it's nothing more than seeing some small bit of
trash laying around and picking it up when everyone else is walking
over or around it. It won't break your back, but might make someone's
first impression a little more favorable.

Second point, neither do I. I'm well aware that because of things
that happened many years ago, I'm far more sensitive to things than
most people are. However, if I was the only one, AlAnon would not
exist. You don't know who else is going to be that way, neither do I,
most of the time our faces are totally deadpan, and there is no way
you can read anything from them, until it's too late. My own father
could not read my face, I highly doubt anyone else could unless I was
expressing displeasure. With a small fraction of people, you do not
know if you're hurting or depressing them, but with soaring being a
very small fraction of the people, you also can't afford to drive them
off and not know it. No, you don't have to ask, they won't tell you
anyhow. We might walk off in a boiling rage, but you'll have no
indication of it whatsoever. The point is, you don't know. It
doesn't take much to ask yourself if a comment might hurt, and if the
answer is maybe, don't say it. In the first place, his or her choice
of aircraft doesn't affect you, and, as I was, he or she might be
somewhat proud of even owning any aircraft. And again, you have no
way of telling, because that person's face will tell you exactly
nothing.

So what kind of person am I really? Dunno. You'll have to find
someone that really knows me to ask. The only problem there, is there
are none.

In article , ADP
writes
I find it interesting that almost no one has mentioned what I believe to be
the real problem with soaring.
It is a pain in the butt to go soaring.
Here in the US where most soaring is done at commercial sites vs. clubs,
commercial operations make it almost impossible
for a newcomer to say "I want to take a lesson and learn how to soar". Or,
for that matter, a oldcomer to rent a glider for a time.

Commercial operations in the US are good-old-boy networks. They may be run
by nice folks but good businessmen they are not.
Reserve a glider for 10:00 and arrive at 09:30.

At that time you will find:

1. The glider is out of annual and nobody called.
2. The glider needs to be deiced and won't be ready for 3 hours.
3. The glider crashed just yesterday and nobody called.
4. The tow plane is down.
5. The tow plane pilot is late/won't be here today.
6. The tow plane needs to be refueled so can you wait an hour or two?
7. We have to use the glider for a ride, you don't mind do you?
8. Oh were you on the schedule for today?
9. Sorry you can't go right away .... (fill in your reason here.)

We retired folk can put up with it, though we may not like it. The younger
person with job, family and other obligations runs on a tight
schedule. Get put off once or twice when you still have to take the kids to
a soccer game ar mow the lawn on one of your two days
off and you are not likely to go back.

Frankly, despite the good social environment, waiting for 3 hours to fly for
1 just isn't worth my time.

You don't say where you live, Allan, but I can tell you from personal
experience that there's at least one commercial gliding operation that
isn't like that at all.

It is the only place I have flown gliders in the USA, so it may be that
all the others are as yo describe, but it seems unlikely.

The place I went to was the absolute tops in every way, the people were
friendly, helpful, and delivered the service their brochure promised.
If I didn't live 8000 miles away I'd be there every week end.

So, you may ask, where is this paradise? Soar Minden, of course.
--
Mike Lindsay

I stand dejected

At 15:54 20 April 2004, Bill Gribble wrote:
Don Johnstone writes
'Violence is the last resort of the incompetent' No,
not a personal
attack, a quote attributed to Salvor Hardin or Isacc
Assimov, but true
nevertherless.

Sorry, I was being flippant, in that I found the word
'incompetent' an
ironic and amusing word on your part to mis-spell.
Should have made
myself clearer, though I should have also made it clear
that I meant no
offence in pointing the typo out.

Your picking that quote in the context that you did,
however, seemed to
suggest that the previous writer was incompetent as
demonstrated through
their stooping to 'verbal violence', thus my suggestion
to the effect
that he could fight his own battles if he so wished.

Avoiding issues and favouring attacking those who perhaps
identify a
problem is not the answer to anything. Lennie may be
everything you say
but should we ignore everything he says? Is there not
the remotest
chance he may be right? If he is wrong perhaps reasoned
argument is a
better way to show this than hurling abuse.

'Lennie the Lurker' may or may not be everything I
say, and I'm sure
we'll all use our own judgement on that. I would point
out (perhaps
belatedly and after the fact on my part, however) that
the *person*
behind Lennie the Lurker could be anything, and of
any quality or
otherwise. I really am not one to judge. The Internet
by its very nature
creates a Lord of the Flies effect that encourages
some of us to behave
and communicate in a manner that we wouldn't dream
of doing in real life
because of the reduced accountability the anonymity
of the net provides.

However, the somewhat verbose point of my previous
post was to
illustrate my opposition to your suggestion that he
might be right. I
tried to propose a 'reasoned argument' by the counterpoint
of my own
experiences in contrast to his. I don't believe Lennie's
experiences are
typical of the majority that find themselves drawn
to gliding, and I
don't believe the previous writer's reaction to the
way that Lennie
portrays his views to be endemic of any problem particular
to this
community.



--
Bill Gribble

/---------------------------------------\
| http://www.cotswoldgliding.co.uk |
| http://www.scapegoatsanon.demon.co.uk |
\---------------------------------------/

Don Johnstone writes
I stand dejected

*grin*


-Bill

Eric Greenwell wrote in message ...
Ben Flewett wrote:
Lennie,

Given that you have quit gliding, why don't you quit
'contributing' to this site? I don't understand why
you persist in partaking of discussions on a subject
you are no longer interested in.

We don't have to understand it to realize his comments have value to us.
Most people that are disappointed with soaring just leave and we never
learn why. Some of the responses to Lennie's comments certainly
illustrate what he is talking about, and I'm beginning to think it's
more of a problem than I realized. It's not soaring's only problem,
probably not even it's worst problem, but it seems such a shame that it
is a problem at all.

Soaring may indeed have many problems, but it's inability to satisfy a
mildly retarded lathe-obsessed sociopath is not one of them. Unless
you think the future of the sport lies in attracting large numbers of
mildly retarded lathe-obsessed sociopaths, in which case Lennie's
rambling thoughts are pure gold.

Eric,
Lennie's posts may have some value to you but please don't put us all in the
same category.
I have successfully excluded him from my allowed list and I wish that anyone
replying to Lennie not quote
his post in your reply.

Please....

Thanks,

Allan





We don't have to understand it to realize his comments have value to us.
Most people that are disappointed with soaring just leave and we never
learn why. Some of the responses to Lennie's comments certainly illustrate
what he is talking about, and I'm beginning to think it's more of a
problem than I realized. It's not soaring's only problem, probably not
even it's worst problem, but it seems such a shame that it is a problem at
all.

--
-----

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA