Xref: utzoo talk.politics.misc:6911 misc.legal:3583 alt.flame:1521
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!ames!elroy!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!mayville
From: mayville@tybalt.caltech.edu (Kevin J. Mayville)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,misc.legal,alt.flame
Subject: Re: The lawsuit of the year!
Keywords: about time, train engineer's revenge
Message-ID: <5353@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 28 Jan 88 11:20:58 GMT
References: <2832@killer.UUCP> <1606@mind.UUCP> <11143@sri-spam.istc.sri.com> <1409@vaxwaller.UUCP> <354@genghis.UUCP> <8801241321.AA05248@ragu>
Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu
Reply-To: mayville@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Kevin J. Mayville)
Distribution: na
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 60

In article <8801241321.AA05248@ragu> ragu!gsmith (Gene Ward Smith) writes:
>In article <354@genghis.UUCP> sns@genghis.UUCP (Sam Southard) writes:
>
>>A martyr must have an ideal he was being sacrificed for.  The other people you
>>mentioned were sacrificed for their views on justice.  Wilson was sacrificed
>>for his ignorance of physics.
>
>  Can someone explain to me why so many of the hate-Willson
>postings reek of this kind of profound ignorance and stupidity?

Perhaps because the posters think that what Willson did was profoundly
ignorant and stupid??

>Obviously this Sam Southard is a spamhead, but it is usually
>assumed something which passes for a brain is a requirement for a
>school like Cal Tech.

Well, Sam is only occasionally a spamhead.  However, brains are only
nominally required to get in here, and common sense is almost forbidden.

  I can only conclude that it somehow makes

>people like Sam feel better to believe, contrary to any logic or
>evidence, that Willson thought he could stop a train with his
>legs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what he tried to do??  He put
his legs on the track in order to stop a train, didn't he??  Granted,
this is a rather twisted view of the event, but I'm willing to stretch
in order to poke fun at mindless drivel like this....

 But *why*? Does Willson make these people feel morally
>insecure, or what?

I personally do not know many details of what happened, but I think that
Brian Willson should immediately be pronounced an honorary vice-president
of DENSA, for pulling one of the most idiotic stunts I've ever heard of.
If he did not announce considerably in advance that he was planning on
lying down on the track with some friends, then he's crazy.  Granted, he
and the others would have been arrested as soon as they got near the
tracks, and the train would have gone through, but Willson and his cause
would have gotten lots of free publicity.  I am appalled by the fact that
he could have a possibility even of receiving compensation from anyone
else.  The only person I could imagine him getting an award from would
be the engineer of the train, and  only then if it could be shown that
he didn't try to stop the train before hitting Brian.

>ucbvax!brahms!gsmith    Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
>        Fifty flippant frogs / Walked by on flippered feet
>    And with their slime they made the time / Unnaturally fleet.



Kevin
mayville@tybalt.caltech.edu


Heavy, adj:

	Seduced by the chocolate side of the Force.