Independents

ThomasM
[PuristS]
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Al, clearly you are articulate and rational. You are betrayed by your words

and by your eloquence.

As such, I am sure you are aware that you are fully as guilty, maybe more so, of what you are accusing us of - that of trying to "discredit" anyone.

By simply making the public accusation, you have branded us. We (I) did no such thing, until this whole damned thread veered so wildly off course.

You have read what you want, were pre-disposed to want, to read into our comments (we=me and Andrew) and unlike my original post, instead of keeping "suspicions" to yourself and simply asking for more clarification, you shot first, aimed later.

You did this again with the reading of an agenda (how ironic, I was thinking the same thing about some of the subsequent posts) into my new post on HoMe, which was a meta-topic and very simple and literal - it was a question about opinions, context, and meaning - and thus further makes your own point, about your own "predisposition."  Again, I do not excuse myself from this syndrome either; as noted, in my previous post, I did make a little leap from your literal words to my summarized conclusion. Reasonable, in my opinion (and to those who have emailed me, but chose not to wade into the public melee) but a leap nonetheless. Mea Culpa.

You write about granting benefits of the doubt, but I find it ironic that you withhold that from your hosts here.

I invite you to give this topic a little breath and revisit it a few days/weeks later. I particularly invite you to read, in sequential order, Riley's first post, and my first follow up to him.

I know Riley; we have interacted in person, by email, and on the boards, quite regularly, in fact, for over a year. We've had our tensions, and as Riley well knows, we've given each other more than reasonable "benefits of the doubt." But frankly, Al, this is irrelevent even within the public context of Riley's initial comments and my initial reply to him asking simply for more details or clarifications - our original exchange was about what he saw, how he felt about what he saw, and my request, without impugning Riley, his ability to see or conclude anything, to clarify so I could understand better what he saw, so I might "learn" additional data points.  Knowing Riley, I knew there was a range of possibilities, and he might actually benefit from the resulting discussion; certainly I knew I would if it proceeded the way we hope discussions develop here - on point, substantive, and not overly fraught with ego baggage and the posturing usually following.

His "wounded rabbit" sulk reply to Andrew is what brought all the other (I'm assuming well intentioned and kindness inspired) posts out of the woodworks, causing the entire discussion to veer way the hell off point and bordering on the personal and ad hominem. Yet the meta topic itself I found interesting enough to search for broader commentary and "opinions" from HoMe; why the heck would you want to read into that some sort of broader, nefarious agenda!?!

Again, you don't read an agenda into Riley's comments (I'm not saying he had, or intended, any) yet read an agenda into mine/ours?

The perverse irony rears its ugly head again - it's okay, even encouraged, to disagree with the "conventional wisdom" (I personally agree that a certain, well founded degree of iconoclasm is good and healthy, if grounded in substance and not just iconoclasm for the sake of iconoclasm) but it is not okay to disagree with the disagreement, even if only to ask for clarification.

Huh?!?

Personally, I'd rather have seen the discussion and thread stick to the original topic - what was actually seen by Riley, what the context was, and if indeed there was anything to learn ABOUT WATCHMAKING AND WATCH APPRECIATION, rather than watch commentary.

Ironically, you are right, we are probably closer in ideology than my last words might imply, but alas, I'm not, and wasn't, accusing you of anything that impugns your public character and conduct; you now have done so twice to mine (implying some sort of agenda latterly, and something else equally unpleasant formerly)

Anyway, this subject has been beaten to death and beyond; I'll not comment further.

Cheers,

TM