Bus Crash?

Faithful Reader,

Never one to take sincere criticism lightly, Your Friend and Humble Narrator recognizes the need to bring those unfamiliar with the bus, up to speed.

In all truthfulness, I was beginning to think the bit was becoming a tad worn. And certainly had degraded into a form of "low" humor at best. Perhaps it is time to put that dog to bed.

Opinions welcome.

If you are new to ars, it behooves me to explain the origin of the joke. In the beginning it was quite pertinent to a discussion of the cult.

Here's how it started:

Months ago while Jack Farmer and his none too polite wife, Truckstop Sally, were still deluging the newsgroup with "hahaha" and crudity, for lack of understanding, Sally accused the newsgroup's participants of waiting for instructions from yours truly. This PR tack was similar to the one now being displayed by Peckerwoody, claiming that we are all brainwashed culties of The Me [tm], and arev being incited, like a mob, to persecute the poor defenseless scienos.

The absurdity was quickly picked up and ridiculed by Syrillyn (sp), a french-canadian, who replied something on the order of "Yes, we wait for Dennis. He is our Godot. He is our Crosstown Bus."

It was clear from the satire that the scienos could only think in terms of leaders, gurus, brainwashing and followers. This is what they have been exposed to and this is the way they view reality.

The bus had its own dynamics, much like the cult. I was the driver. I set the rules. Those in back simply rode along. Justin the Blue tried to bring his bicycle onboard. When this was not allowed, he threatened to start up his Own Way crosstown. He was quickly declared a "rodent" and told to keep his bike out of the path of the One True Way Crosstown. Or else. Syrillyn threatened to sue me for taking his idea.

Various other exchanges with Martin, Ricki and a few other verged on clever. I was surprised to see the thing catch on. Much as I amazed at most of what goes on in ars and the fascinating dynamics of the newsgroup.

You probably, as they say, had to be there.

Inasmuch as people kept the bit alive, I thought it would be rude to kill it, and continued to respond to the story.

Put perhaps, as our recent delurk pointed out, enough is enough.

Perhaps only serious, meaningful discussion, with Woody, Vera and Milne, of the subject of the cult should be encouraged. Maybe if we just buckled down and debated the issues of slavery, fraud, barratry, kidnapping, imprisonment, child abuse, exorcism, science of clam spores, and money laundering with them, we could bring about an understanding and reach a mutually acceptable middle ground agreement where the scienos would admit their crimes, pay their taxes, send the criminals running the cult to jail and behave like any other non-profit organization is expected.

Maybe ... but I doubt it.

Hence the poorly crafted levity and light distraction in the midst of all this seriousness seemed to me to have some small and relevant purpose.

But it can be dropped if you like. Afterall, we ain't married to it.