Due to the appropriate fear of sending personal messages on a public
channel, and due to the anxiety for some people actually sending private
messages on a public channel, and then my being asked what can be done,
I offer the following:

> For future reference, is there no way to "unsend" an errant message?

No, there is not. Analogy is if you throw the message into the East
River. Though you may be able to jump in after it the consequences are
the same, terminal and irreversible. The anxiety of nuclear annihilation
at your own keyboard.

On Bullamanka-Pinheads we are archived with a publicly accessible web
site. We can always erase the record, but cannot erase the historical
event itself.

The other side of self-policing is to treat others as you would want to
be treated yourself, which is to try to ignore, or at least not make
public comments on, e-mail that looks like it was not meant for your
eyes.

This can be difficult if the things said hurt the feelings of the
reader.

The media has limitations, we are working with words. It is important to
keep in mind that the writer's intentions behind a message may not in
any way resemble your understanding of the message. Then again, why not?

Telepathic chickens leave no traces. I've had a few really juicy
bloopers of my own. I reflect back to Tom Peters saying that if you are
not pissing someone off then you must not be trying hard enough. I
believe that the benefits of open dialogue outweigh the occasional
negative. I strongly urge everyone on BP to be engaged in the dialogue,
to speak their mind, and to endeavor to understand and have empathy with
each other.

My final advice is to avoid sending any message via e-mail that you do
not want everyone in the world to read.
If you do send sensitive correspondence, make sure you check the address
before sending.

I've been reading a biography of Allen Ginsberg (Gab & Eti research).
While a student at Columbia, in 1949, Allen was in a car accident in
Bayside, Queens. Allen had been letting several people with criminal
records live at his apartment. It was his intent to move his personal
papers to his brother's house, lest his apartment be raided by the
police. Not having enough money to transport himself, he accepted a ride
from a friend. At the time the stolen car was transporting stolen goods.
Though Allen fled the scene of the accident, left behind in the car were
some of his papers, describing his up until then relatively undisclosed
homosexual inclinations, and his address. The result was Allen spending
some time at the Columbia Presbyterian Psychiatric Institute.

"very distinct sensation, slightly mystical, that all my mistakes of the
past year -- my moral indecision and my slight acquisitive nature in
some of the loot that was coming into the house -- had led in a chain to
this retribution moment where now I was going to have to pay for it."

Our e-mail on BP should not be so critical an affair that we all end in
the psyche ward worrying over it, then again, if we are not bold enough
to be honest with ourselves and endeavor to be honest in our
communication, then this is nothing more than idle blather.

][<en Follett