Yes I will be that wise guy American telling it like it really is in this life or the next.

We didn't bomb Iran, we didn't all die of bird flu and further back Y2K didn't cause all of the machinery of modern life to halt. But now I see computers that could not tell dates damn sure could not calculate interest payments now could they.

The balance between good and evil is an ever changing fluid situation...Think of the best times in your life and use these in times of need.  Evil can not consume you lest you allow it, consent to it or be deceived by it.  Am I indeed "far too valuable".

Your humble servant, surfing the Apocalypse.

i remember wanting to delete a gbcw diary i wrote last winter, as i'd lost my cool in it on various occasions, and said things i really wasn't too keen on being a permanent part of ET history, but Migeru was adamant that only site admins could do that, and generally giving me the impression he felt much as you do, that it's bad manners, in some way.

personally i don't feel that strongly there's a strong case either way, but the real reason i'm posting now is too express my grief that you, Gaianne, will step back to lurking because of something one diarist does.

can it possibly be the case that this one incident should affect your decision so strongly, or was it the last straw after a chain of other factors?

maybe i'm paranoid, but i find it absolutely tragic that such a sensible, progressive, funny, wise, mature and uber-intelligent female voice is bowing out of our discussions, and i already miss de Anander so much, this is a horrible trend, if two events can a trend make...

at least it wasn't outright sexism that was the prompt, i guess, and though it's your natural right to do whatever you want for whatever reason, disclosed or not, i feel a wail of grief coming on, and would appreciate it so much if you would enlighten us more on whether the diary deletion was the only reason, or whether some other factors are in play regarding your decision.

not to rehash the discussion about female presence here at ET being such a minority we had a fortnight or so ago, i'll leave it at that, other than to heartily register my sadness at reading this last comment from one of my absolutely favourite posters here at ET.

it is gutting, unexpected, and seems wildly disproportionate to the elimination of one diary.

ergo my questions about whether that's the only cause...it doesn't add up.

of course there could be a host of other 'real-life' reasons, as simple as you have less time to do more than listen here, or that you'll move on to somewhere more attractive to your talents, but here is one case where i think a gbcw diary might be a a positive gift, seeing as i'm so puzzled and disappointed we lose a great voice and interlocutress over what seems a relatively trivial reason.

happy trails, Gaianne, it was a huge privilege to read your contributions these last years, i so hope you'll either change your mind, or at least illuminate us one last time with a clearer explanation of what was such bad netiquette.

because i have an awful feeling this is something deeper, that maybe if i weren't male, i might intuit easily.

what's next, fran, helen and metavision bailing?

are the 'others' of us not seeing something that's staring some right in the face?

gahh...

ET archives are not the tablets of Moses, after all.

btw, anyone know if Migeru is ok?

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty