Steph

The starting bid on this one was $23. That's what I got it for. No competition, so maybe they usually sell for less. But I'm very happy with this one. Oh Edna, I'm torn. I'm probably going to open it. There's at least a couple in there I want to see closer, and I don't get that many chances to find loose ones! arrgggh

I have something which I feel is of value to say about the things which happen on sites dedicated to lampooning others in a vulgar manner. People can turn anything they want into a joke. Joking is easy. Ethics and responsiblity and logic and standing up for virtue, these may be boring to some, but they're not easy. To live principles well, and reap the benefits thereof, is a challenge and a worthy one. At that 'wonderful' site which we've been discussing of late, Steve K. said, To which Lloyd's response was: I'm not going to use any fancy words to say which type of fallacy that is. It's enough that it is one. Lloyd is patting Steve on the back as if Steve were clever. Steve is not being clever tho'. He is making the case for the exact opposite point to the one he seems to intend. If he is correct that 3/4 of school kids are "sexting" (sending sexually explicit messages on their i-phones and such), and if as he seems to imply this is a problem which needs to be addressed and not merely the set up for a joke, then think about it. It doesn't take above-average brain power to see how related the problem of sexting is to the problem of shock-value humor and language demeaning women for the sake of laughs. To put it more bluntly, how the heck can teenagers be expected to avoid such temptations when the "adults" don't lead by example? Yeah, "wholesome" principles can be boring, or old-fashioned, or however people might want to write them off, and it's easy to fall short. But they beat the alternative. IN MY OPINION

It was in today's mail. Before it arrived I was sure I was going to open it. But at 9 inches tall, it's a little smaller in hand - meaning cuter - than I expected a bag with so many marbles to be. Now I don't know!

Neither did the people the marbles were made for! Just think of yourself as a traditionalist.

Let's get one thing straight. Griff is the man! Griff wasn't digging in fast or hard, but he was digging in firmly. He was doing it Griff-style. His objections to the c-word were clear and they had nothing to do with Mr. Wilcox. Galen's post just gave Griff another chance to make his point about not using the word about women. Griff had started making the point in this post from 3 days before. (asterisks added) Griff is the man!

oh wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 Wow! That's pretty live alright! Fingers crossed for Whitney!!!!!

#1. Who first started calling corkscrews corkscrews?

oh no ... I read too far ... sad news :-( Kansas City's largest marble tournament record of 677 players, set last August, was beaten last month by an elementary school in Oregon. Over 750 players. Well, maybe it's not too sad. Means there are people playing marbles! Will KC try for the record again? More anticipation!

Marble Tournament news via Google :-) Anyone have a more "live" source? .... looks like some neat marble things might come up through Google's video search but nothing current about Wildwood. :-) (this video of a British boy is quite cool)

Edna, I was impressed by your Davis. That you have 'em! 'course they look like other mibs. but they're Davis! kewl.

Bump! He had gotten into the 80's for awhile. Back into the 90's now. Obviously a contender! Don't give up!

1986? and from Europe? oh my. I wonder what different perspectives that offers ....

Here's an adorable little group I bought last year. I think some of you got to see it at the Columbus marble show before Marblealan listed it. I noticed it in a show thread pic.

Hi Ray. There was a BIN of $45 I think but I put in the minimum bid of $23. No one outbid me. I didn't know whether to be surprised or not.

kewl! I mean, sorry for your paint loss! but kewl, someone has seen 'em before ! When I saw it in the lot I was hoping to buy, I was so excited. I thought it might be really special. But hey, I still like it, still treat it nice even though it's just a painted marble.

Next! C'mon, let me have it.

Yeah it does, Derrick! LOL I told 'em it would happen!

Okay guys, and you know who you are LOL, are you sorry yet that you asked me to get involved?! I am! There's no winning this one. Just let them keep showing what gets them off and let's us enjoy some marbles. Now how about bumping Jess' thread?! Again!

One more thing. One day the truth MIGHT be known about all the so-called provocations I made. One day that evidence MIGHT be put on the table and it will be seen how rumors and b.s. can snowball when good people look the other way. This is the most absurd, surreal situation. Everytime people started to see that I was okay, a certain someone and then later a couple of that someone's friends would jump in to stir crap up. I opened myself up for it by keeping on posting no matter what. So I stayed visible. I was an easy target. I remember the day though when hrjane commented on how to an outsider the people pouncing on all my marble-related threads would look like trolls, not me. And that's when lies started to be told about things I had done behind the scenes in emails. It had to be behind the scenes because it was not on the boards. But still no one could produce any evidence of me doing horrible things even behind the scenes, because it hadn't happened. But I was much less assertive then. Except in how I tried to just maintain and never give up and continue to act like things were normal. I had a lot more faith in other people's decency. I wasn't caustic even in email, not back then. I was trying so hard to get along and being laughed at for the effort. Anymore, I do get a little caustic. I'm so tired of being treated like a bad guy that now I answer back sometimes. But I still don't have a vendetta. I just hope that if I keep plugging, people will see me for who I am. In spite of the fun a FEW still have in keeping the fires burning. I'll wait 'em out.

I don't have a vendetta. . . Sami, you have no idea who I am. I have been telling people all day long not to go on a vendetta against Galen. That was the exact word I used and asked people not to pursue. How many emails did you count today David which you were carboned, of me asking that not to happen? And how many did I write yesterday to you, David? This wasn't supposed to be about Galen. It was about the "men" at MKA and the behavior they wink at. Even then I wasn't on a vendetta connected with myself. I did not care what was said about me at MKA. I was just sick to my gut that the men over there would not stand up and object when Edna was called the c-word and other perverted things were said about her. I wrote to Yuku about it. I only included anything about myself because it helped show the pattern of behavior, since I was one of 3 who got the c-word. I had contacted two men I thought were "gentlemen" to ask them why they would post at a place like that. One told me I didn't understand. One didn't respond. But it continued to grate on my sense of right and wrong and I finally went to Yuku. That's all. I was going through formal channels. I wasn't going to post anything here. Then when Griff stood up against it, it was awesome. I still was antsy about David starting this thread, but it was truly gutsy of Griff to write what he did. He deserved the praise. I definitely was not going to get involved in this because of attitudes like yours. Ask Lou what I said to him last night if you don't believe me. If I'm involved, it won't matter how awful a lie is or how atrocious anyone else's behavior is, because I am a horrible person. Well, I wasn't gonna let anyone let those men off the hook that easy. Yet I was finally persuaded to post here. Why me? Because as you know, I have a lot of facts at my disposal. When Galen involved himself as he did, the opportunity availed itself to put some facts on the table. Facts which he invited by repeating lies about how tolerant he is. His supposed "credibility" lets him get away with making fun of people here. Well, the people here have a right to defend themselves against that kind of attack, and if Galen gives them a defense on a platter, they have a right to use it. I was asked to help present their defense. Perhaps you should have advised your friend to quit lying.

lol ololol i'll take that under advisement .....

*slurp* :Cartoon_177: :Emoticon-jawdrop:

There are whole courses taught to help identify and understand these. But people don't care about the mechanics of it. If it entertains 'em they watch. If it bores 'em they move on. If it gives 'em a headache, they get grumpy.

Here are some of my most recent treasures .... I picked up this H from Glass Addiction's Alphabet auction. wHooo wHooooo! And this Anacortes bag .... do I open it or not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :Evil_1: And I picked up a Ravenswood history book also. Here's a little bitty screenshot of one of the pages. (as you might be able to see, David Chamberlain was a contributor. :-) It also has a copy of the famous Ravenswood catalog. I've been outbid on the Gropper box. Darn! I was so close to winning too .... NOT! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=270410040322

I have been invited to post in this thread. Frankly I didn't want to touch it because I know how my presence is likely to be made a distraction from the facts of the case. But here goes: In answer to an allusion made at MKA last night, I didn't send Edna a list of women who have been badmouthed at MKA in inappropropriately sexual terms. My list would have been different from the one she posted. It would have had names in it of people whom I doubt would want to be mentioned in this thread. Abusive talk toward women is par for the course over there. Yuku usually requires a court order to remove material on bulletin boards, but the material viewable to the public at MKA is so bad that they have acknowledged it doesn't need a court order. Some has been removed. But Yuku's present stand is that each individual has to report the threads targetting themselves. And I don't personally recommend anyone stay there long enough to find all the places they've been attacked. Gary's response was the best. And Galen bringing that over word for word out of context was like someone taking a story told strictly in the men's room and telling it at the dinner table. It used to go without saying that this was wrong. Times have obviously changed. I don't want to get into a list of all the offenses Galen or anyone has made. I could back my list up better than Galen can. Yes, Galen has a "minion". LOL. And they play immature tag team insult games. It doesn't matter what real points are made. They will just pick the funniest word they think they can get traction with and play it up for all it is worth. If it doesn't get traction, they'll try again with something else. Throw it out and see what sticks. If I were going to take apart and laugh out loud at any one thing Galen has said, it would be this refrain of what he has posted at more than one site where he is protected from rebuttal by people who claim to care about free speech but who have banned or failed to approve for posting more people than Lou has. Galen's gem: At LOM, Galen once deleted a post of mine and threatened to ban me if I ever contradicted him again when he said a set of four marbles were WV swirls and I said I thought they looked like Jabo. He had responded first. I replied 2nd. There was no other response. He deleted my post and locked the thread. The owner of the marbles had to repost the pictures in a new unlocked thread to get an ID. Guess what the ID turned out to be. That's not the only post of mine he deleted. I just point out that one because it was so funny. He didn't only delete my posts. He didn't threaten only me with bans and time-outs. And it wasn't just people I knew, so it can't be all hung on my ooooh scarrrrry influence. ROTFLMAO. . . There was one particular occasion where someone had disagreed loudly with Galen and other board members but he'd calmed down and was waiting for evidence to support Galen's claim. And then while I was looking for the evidence, the man was suddenly banned. As I said, he'd calmed down on the board. He had not committed a bannable offense there. My best guess is that Galen sent him one of the letters of the sort Galen regularly sent me for a time telling me that I had better shut up or I'd be out of there. And my best guess is that the man who received his email wasn't able to turn the other cheek the way I was. He probably popped off to Galen in PM and that's probably why he was banned. Of course I cannot know this, but I do know what Galen said to me in private, and if that man got what I got .... According to Galen, I should only ask simple questions and only about my own marbles. And according to him, I shouldn't try to help out with ID's "for a few years". By Galen's arbitrary rules I STILL wouldn't be helping with ID's. Pete had no idea at the time how much deleting and banning and threatening to ban or to give "time outs" was going on. Much less how slanted the application of the threats were. Pete did not know that while some people were being threatened for accurately id-ing Jabos ROFL, "valued" friends could say whatever they wanted no matter how provocative, and a person reporting it was made to feel they had hassled the moderator and the moderator was doing them a favor to ask the friend to back off a little. When it was finally brought to Pete's attention, rules were changed. Why is deletion of board members' posts now against the rules at LOM? Because Galen did so much of it. Why did Pete take over the reins and make himself the only one who was allowed to ban? Because of how Galen had been using that power in the past. Galen is free to say whatever he wants at MKA, but it ain't all true. Rumors hurt. And they can snowball into something monstrous and totally unrelated to truth. Now what can we do about it? Arguing with 'em doesn't seem to be the answer. The snowball makers laugh. Arguing gives 'em little twigs and sharp rocks to put into their growing snowball. It doesn't matter what the truth is. They'll twist it to however they want. Galen and others will still get backslapped for generosity when they share their happiness over their marble drops in playgrounds. Edna and those on the favored target list will still be called hypocrites for doing the same. A Kodak moment with a grandson turned into fodder for vulgarity. WTF? And the most hateful thing of all is that Edna got on the target list for standing up to violations of the non-abuse rules of posting at one particular board. Unfortunately the person being abused at that board was #1 on that board's list of approved targets, and Edna had to pay for it. (One guess who favored target #1 is. ;-) A wise woman once told me: It can be hard advice to remember. I slip. But it's some of the best advice I ever received. And it was a godsend at the time. (Thanks lady. :-)