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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Open Letter to New FIG President
Message-ID: <2457.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 4 Mar 91 13:20:11 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 77

Category 8,  Topic 4
Message 1         Sun Mar 03, 1991
JAX                          at 18:03 PST
 
  
  Dear Mr. President,

  Congratulations on your elevation to the presidency of the Forth
  Interest Group. Few other individuals, if any, have had as great
  a hand in shaping our fraternal organization of Forth programmers
  and afficionados. The installation of Dr. Ting as vice-president
  further fills me with hope that FIG's slide into perdition may
  yet be reversed.

  Your selection along with that of your colleague and the change
  in composition of the Forth Interest Group board of directors
  gives FIG an opportunity to move promptly to erase a blot from
  the history of the organization. I refer, you surely understand,
  to my dismissal as Forth Interest Group chapter coordinator for
  having brought to members' attentions the sorry financial state
  of the Forth Interest Group.

  It might have been expected that the year intervening since the
  events in question would have sufficed to still that controversy;
  it happens rather that the recently-announced increase in FIG dues
  has been taken by some, (the writer included), as confirmation
  that my diagnosis, somewhat undiplomatically expressed, that
  "FIG is financially f***ed" was essentially complete and correct.

  Dennis Ruffer, in postings to the ForthNet, has further succeeded
  in casting napalm upon troubled waters by levelling previously-
  unheard false charges against my tenure as chapter coordinator,
  stating that "no new chapters were added to FIG" while I held
  that office. On the contrary, while no new cities were added to
  FIG, two entire new *countries* were added (Spain and Finland)
  utilizing my personal email account on the WELL to make the
  necessary approaches and arrangements.

  Dennis's attempt to justify the star-chamber proceedings which
  terminated my officeholding have succeeded only in enraging
  FIG members past and present who previously had taken little
  interest in that event. Mitch Bradley of X3J14 has posted on
  the international USENET a one-sentence description of Dennis's
  arguments: "That's a lot of crap." I can add no more to this
  concise epigram. Ray Duncan's reaction to the controversy is
  that "it is too late for FIG to die gracefully." Frank Sargeant,
  winner of the Harris RealTime Express contest, has spoken in
  qualified support of my position, along with virtually every
  other person posting to ForthNet who has taken note of the
  issue.

  The real enemy of FIG is not Jack Woehr or Dennis Ruffer or
  any other member of our fraternity; the Enemy is the inability
  of FORTH Dimensions magazine to turn a profit. Please excuse
  me for having the hubris to remind you that this critique comes
  from the keyboard of one of the most widely-read Forth journalists
  in the world today.

  Mr. President, the only step that will truly excise this divisive
  controversy is an apology from the FIG leadership in the form of
  my re-instatement as chapter coordinator. This is nearly more easily
  done than said. Those on the Board (if any) who support my position
  will rejoice in justice deferred being performed at last. Those who
  oppose me may take the philosophical consolation that Lyndon Baines
  Johnson took when explaining why he did not fire J. Edgar Hoover:
  "I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the
  tent pissing in."

  Trusting in your favorable reply, I remain,
  Yours truly,
  Jack Woehr

-----
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