Badmovies.org Forum

"THE CIVIL WAR" reruns... the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War is this week (April 12 firing on Fort Sumter) Anybody else looking at them?  I caught a couple of episodes last week on PBS channel 13 New York.  Tonight I watched part of what must have been episode one on WLIW channel 21 which might be Long Island.  Fine television.  I have the soundtrack CD for I guess 20 years now, and the book, too, a gift I had given to my brother back at Christmas probably 1991 (my sister-in-law gave it back to me) but I've not looked at the program in at least a few years.  It's a wonderful program.  


********
Read in the documentary: Historical Document: Sullivan Ballou Letter

July 14, 1861
Camp Clark, Washington

My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more . . .

I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt . . .

Sarah my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the battle field.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood, around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness . . .

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights . . . always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again . . .

http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/ballou_letter.html (http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/ballou_letter.html)

That letter never fails to choke me up.
Ken Burns did a great service to the country in creating that magnificent series.
I love it!

Boo!

I will never understand you, Lester.

I guess you're booing because the North won?

I'm guessing it's because of the letter's potential for propaganda use, and/or just to stir s**t up.

But that's just a guess.

The south had every right to sucede. 600,000 people, most of whom had nothing to do with slavery or the slave trade, dead.  terrible.

??

I was mistaken.

 :lookingup:

Even if secession was a constitutional right - and both the Supreme Court and the President had already established, during the Jackson administration, that it was NOT - what gave the South the right to break away?  I mean, really?  Their guy lost a Presidential election after they deliberately split the Democratic party to ensure a Republican victory.  And so they throw a hissy and try to split the country in two?

And, if you read their ordinances of secession, and the "Cornerstone" inaugural speech by Alexander Stephens, it becomes very obvious their SOLE purpose for doing so was to eliminate a perceived threat to slavery.  Forget state's rights, liberty, tariff issues, and all else.  The South seceded so they could hang onto their slaves.

And you're OK with that?

(Lest anyone berate me as a Yankee sympathizer, let me say that I am a sixth generation Texan and a tenth generation Southerner.  I have kinfolk buried on nearly every battle field of the Civil War.  I honor their courage . . . but I firmly believe they were on the wrong side of history.

Yes.

http://www.jameswebb.com/speeches/speeches-confedmem.htm

Whatever. I just find the Civil War boring. Don't get me wrong, I recognize the historical significance, and in the past I've been a fan of some documentary and film portrayals of that period. For whatever reason, I just start yawning when the Civil War comes up.

And what's up with all the Civil War reenacting? I kind of equate it with Rennaissance Faires and the like, which is cool, and I've got nothing against it, but I've known Civil War reenactors and it's like an obssession with them, almost like a cult.

Wow, you don't find that quote offensive---comparing a shift in the balance of federal/state power to the actual ownership of human beings?

I think the federal government has too much power, but they don't whip me, make me pick cotton 16 hours a day, rape my wife, take away my children and sell them... To me, Alexander Stephens sounds like an incredibly evil man, brilliant attorney or not.  He truly didn't "get it." 

I love the part where he said, in his inaugural address "all men are NOT created equal . . . ours is the first Confederacy in the history of the world based on this timeless and eternal truth."

I like Lester, I've batted this back and forth with him for years, and my impression of him is this:

He doesn't give a tinker's damn if evil conquers the entire world, as long as he is left alone.  And if the government tries to resist evil and tyranny anywhere, and this inconvenience's him, it's OUR government that is in the wrong.

I have known many libertarians who seem to think along similar lines; it's one reason (among many) that I will never be one.

I watched the whole series last week. My second veiwing. Incredible-the BEST documentary I've ever seen.

Oh-and Lester- are you f#cking INSANE? The civil war was worth fighting. Slavery was plain EVIL. I'll bet you would whistle a different tune if you were a black man. It amazes me that you could say the South had the right to do so and so-they lost their rights when they choose to deny others the very basic of human rights...to be human.

Bravo, RC!  You are the man!  :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
(Since I can't give you karma!)

They lived there. The northerners lived in the north.



if that's what they want to do what business is it of anyone elses? for whatever reason. If Hawaii decided they didn't want to be part of the US anymore then okay, bye bye. If it benefits them they stay if not they leave.  



thanks! Actually I am trying to stop evil from conquering the world with every fibre of my being. the state is evil as they have demonstrated in everything from wars, forced sterilization, imprisoning people for smoking joints to patting down 6 yeard old girls at airports.






Slavery was a dying institution. It was being ended all over the world. It was being replaced by more efficient and humane labor practices.  I don't think 600,000 human beings who would have remained alive had to die for something that itself was on its death bed.

At any rate it shouldn't even be called the civil war. The south had no desire to take over the north and have slavery there.

The result was of course great. Slavery being over is at least tangible.

I like this article http://takimag.com/article/robert_e_lee_forever

"What I learn as I get older is that like most wars, the Civil War was pursued by so-called Honest Abe because big Northern business wanted to conduct big business in the Union. They wanted to build railroads and wanted interstate roads and access to markets. The South wished to remain sleepy and agricultural. Lincoln did not make slavery an issue until two years after the first shots over Fort Sumter. "

So to some of us, it's a little more nuanced is all.

Lester and I agree on some fundamental principles, and may differ on some fine points. In general, I leave lester to his own devices, and he seems to leave me to mine. We don't "team up" of spend any amount of time defending one another. I get the feeling he is just fine with that.

It is extremely unfair to say that he doesn't care about evil prevailing in the world. I think he is highly principled, whether you agree with him or not. He clearly thinks of America first and has demonstrated so on many occasions. Just because he is largely a non-interventionist doesn't mean he agrees with leaving the world open for the evil to conquer it. That is just extremely narrow-minded.

 I don't normally get into defending lester but I felt a rare need to. People who think for themselves or go out on a limb often get ostracized, alienated, and called a kook. Don't fall into that trap. If you don't agree with him, fine. Disagree with him all you want.  But don't say he doesn't care. If he didn't he wouldn't make a point to get involved as much as he does.

Nuance doesn't require you to overlook the obvious.

That Greek guy cites no authority for his proposition that "the Civil War was pursued by so-called Honest Abe because big Northern business wanted to conduct big business in the Union. They wanted to build railroads and wanted interstate roads and access to markets."  Maybe there's something to it, but he sounds crazy to me. 

He also speaks of "one of the loveliest societies that ever existed, the antebellum South."  I can't see how anyone could call a society built on slavery one of the loveliest ones that ever existed.  Maybe he's thinking along the same lines as the Mississippi legislature:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world," proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. "Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."  From an article I like: Five myths about why the South seceded (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010703178.html)

Rev-  he's referring to the morril tariff. a very steep one that aimed to send much of the prosperity of the south the norths way.


flick - thanks.

Sure there were tariffs the South didn't like (and legislation the North didn't like introduced by Southerners).  But the author says that the Civil War was fought for economic reasons by a predatory North and implies the slavery issue was only a pretext.  That's the part of his claim that's unsupported and sounds crazy to me. 

The "five myths" guy I linked addresses the contention that the Civil War was really about taxes and tariffs.  There were dozens of conflicts between states and the federal government before 1860, but no state every tried to secede over anything but precious slavery.

I admire you for thinking differently and going out on a limb here, but I think this particular limb is rotten.  I don't think that you don't care, I just think your priorities seem mixed up in this case.  The Confederacy is an odd horse to back for someone who doesn't believe in state power.  They claimed the most extensive and dangerous power any government could ever try to claim for itself: the power to define who is human and who is not. 

I was referring specifically to Indy's post, not yours, Rev. Indy likes to think lester doesn't care, and that bugs me. I happen to disagree with Indy on a number of issues, but I would NEVER suggest he doesn't care, and I think he is a little out of line suggesting the same of lester.

there is actually a direct response (http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo199.html) to that column which not surprisingly WaPo did not run. I'll leave it to those two experts to really hash it out but I would note that his information on the tariff is not correct. The tariff of 1857 was 15% and it was then the Morril tariff that doubled it.

The author of that article, Thomas di Lorenzo, actually taught at my undergrad college (University of Dallas) when I attended.  I don't believe I ever took a class from him, though.  There were a lot of anti-Lincoln folks in the politics department at that time, including Mel Bradford, whom I may have taken a class from over the summer.   

His background is economics not history so it may have been more along those lines.

The idea that Lincoln did not recognize slavery as the cause of the war, or make it an issue until the mid-point, is demonstrably false. He wrote before he assumed office: "Half the country thinks slavery is right and ought to be extended, the other half thinks it is wrong and ought to be restricted.  That is the sum total of our differences."

The South seceded to protect slavery, and said so at the time.  Slavery was the one issue on which they were utterly unwilling to compromise, and more than willing to destroy the country.

Slavery might have been a dying institution worldwide, but NOT in the American South.  The number of slaves had increased steadily with every single census since 1800.  Slaves also were the largest economic force in the country, representing about 4.5 BILLION in 1860 dollars - more wealth than all the factories and railroads in the North combined!  Som much for the myth of the impoverished South!

What was the impetus for the morril tariff?

The purpose of a tariff is to raise revenue and protect domestic industries.

But the Morril tariff is just a Civil War footnote.  Tariff rates rose or fell all the time in the 1800s depending on the balance of power in the legislature.  The North never considered seceding because the South got its way with the Tariff of 1857.

If the South hadn't seceded and removed their anti-tariff votes before the bill was passed by the Senate, they could have possibly defeated the bill, negotiated a compromise, or bode their time and reversed it in a later session.  This is not a source I usually like to cite, but it seems Karl Marx was right on the money: "Naturally, in America everyone knew that from 1846 to 1861 a free trade system prevailed, and that Representative Morrill carried his protectionist tariff through Congress only in 1861, after the rebellion had already broken out. Secession, therefore, did not take place because the Morrill tariff had gone through Congress, but, at most, the Morrill tariff went through Congress because secession had taken place."

as usual and as always very glad to be on the opposite side of MR Marx.

from dilorenzo above


So it was perhaps in anticipation of the raising of the tariff in conjunction with other issues that led to sucession?



exactly. THat's because they relied on the South. The south was happy to have free trade, the north demanded protectionism. The north wouldn't be the one to sucede in that scenerio.



the result here was CLEARLY going to benefit the north at the expense of the south.


Why if Lincoln was intent on having the south remain in the union did he raise tariffs so drastically ??? That makes NO sense.

Lester: Marx thought the sky was blue, are you on the opposite side?  :wink: (just a joke, no need to respond)

Tariffs were certainly a grievance of the South, but I firmly believe no one would be willing to spill blood over a tariff bill.  I can't think of any case in history where such a minor, temporary piece of legislation was considered worth starting a Civil War over.  You just can't mobilize people's hearts and minds to give up their lives over issues like that.  Slavery was the only issue powerful enough to mobilize people and tear the country apart.       

The most I would say in favor of DiLorenzo's position is that possibly the fact that the South perceived they were going to lose on the tariff (they seceded before the Senate had a chance to vote on the bill) meant they saw the writing on the wall; that they no longer had the votes to guarantee slavery.  That might have provoked them to break away immediately, before the Republicans introduced legislation to outlaw slavery outright.  In that sense, insisting on the legislation would have been a mistake by the North and the Republicans, but that's only looking at it in hindsight through the eyes of the 20th Century.  You think Lincoln believed that insisting on enforcing the tariff would force the South to secede and that he deliberately provoked them?  I believe no one imagined Southern states would take such an unprecedented act. 

Anyway, no need to go back and forth.  You hold a minority position, and that's fine, if you really believe it on the basis of the evidence and not just because you think it serves some larger anti-Federalism agenda.  I was only drawn into this debate in the first place because of that unfortunate quote from Alexander Stephens, and we've gone way off the topic of the documentary. 

I just don't get why if he was insistent that the country stay unified, would he redouble his efforts to make that option as unpalatable as possible by doubling the tariff.

I just don't see how he can have these pure moral motives while also doing that.

Why not call the south's bluff and say fine, I'll LOWER the tariff to 7%?

It just doesn't add up.



Does "no taxation without representation" ring a bell? wars are fought over money all the time.



in some quarters

I'll send you a PM, I don't think we should clog up this topic anymore.

I was going to say that Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War was the most watched documentary ever shown on PBS, and I believe it continues to be the most watched documentary ever shown on PBS, but this thread has gone beyond that. What it does show, the interest that Americans have in the Civil War, and which I concur. Of all the wars fought so far to date, the Civil War is the one that I find the most interesting to study.

And a good place to start is a book by Burke Davis, which was originally published in 1960 under the title "Our Incredible Civil War," then was republished in 1982 under the title "The Civil War: Strange & Fascinating Facts." A collection of anecdotes about the war.

That may not seem like much of a subject, but it does show that many of the weapons, which we associate with modern warfare, from the machinegun to the first successful submarine, actually got their start 150 years ago.

That the war was a young man's war. At one time or the other, the Union had 2.700,00 men under arms. Of those, when the voting age was 21, almost 75% were not old enough to vote, when they enlisted, including the youngest general in U.S. Army history. Brevet Major General Pennypacker, who could not vote till the last year of the war. Old enough to lead, but too young to vote.

No one knows who was the youngest soldier in the Union Army, but he is thought to have been around nine or ten.

It was a foreigner's war. A large number of men who fought for the Union were born somewhere besides the U.S. Including almost thirty of the generals in the army. The men coming from almost every country then in existance.

While there was not as many foreigners in the Confederate army, there were alot of foreigners who fought for the Confederacy, including almost a dozen generals.

It was a bloody affair. No American war before or since, has incurred that number of casualities or percentage of casualities incured on both sides in the Civil War. Some regiments, on both sides, losing more than 67% of their men in only one battle.

It was indeed an uncivil Civil War. Not only neighbors fighting neighbors, but whole families divided in their loyalities between the North and the South.

And it is a war which no one knows what to call. One chapter in the book lists almost thirty different tiles by which the war is known. From the War for Constitutional Libery to the War for the Union.

And ending with myself, the most interesting aspects of the war are not the best known battles, but some of the of the more obscure battles, such as Pea Ridge/Elkhorn Tavern,  Allatoona Pass, Franklin, etc. I have also the good fortune to visit the battlefields of both Pea Ridge/Elkhorn Tavern and Franklin. Thus, I would sugggest that with the next four years, if you live or pass near one of the Civil War battlefields, you stop and pay it a visit. As it should give you a better understanding of the war.

A dying institution.Dam. I dont think the people who were enslaved felt that way. "A couple more years....and you'll be free,boy." Bulls**t. One more f**king DAY is too long. Yeah,Lincoln fudged on the issue,but when it came down to the wire,he did the right thing. And it gave the insanity of the Civil War a purpose. Yes-lots of people died. Some things are worth dying for. If I  was alive back then,I'd more than likey be a radical little basterd. I'd of went down with John Brown.

 :cheers:  That's why we love you, RC!

What's this?

Okay!  Thank you leenaz!  At least you got this thread back on track - who cares if that certain amusingly individualistic someone doesn't see the deep implications of what you're all saying - again?   :question:   :wink:   A good discussion guys, I completely missed it...  Again.   :bluesad:  But I read it all!  :thumbup:  

Nauseating.


The point of the letter, Lester, is the fact that when the letter was delivered to Sullivan Ballou's wife, she was a widow; he had written:  
But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights . . . always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again . . .

We don't care about this long-dead soldier's politics.  It's poetry, Lester.  I admire your individuality, but, grow a heart.  

Well, some people DO care about the long-dead soldier's politics, hence why the thread turned political. It wasn't just lester. But, you do make a good point. Letter writing, in particular, expressions of the heart on paper is a virtually dead form, and very sad really. I recently found the travel journal my wife and I did jointly while on our honeymoon in Italy, and there's just something about the way the heart communicates when putting ink to paper that is sublime.

The first time I heard that letter read, it put a huge lump in my throat.  We have dumbed down our language so much in the last 60 years that the average teenager can't even comprehend the words in one of Lincoln's speeches, much less engage in discussion of the ideas they contain.

  I do get impatient with what I perceive as Lester's blindness on moral issues in wartime.  He is an interesting person, and I respect him, but I just can't see the world through his eyes.  Lincoln is one of my heroes, both as a person and as a President, and I hate to see him trashed.

But I think it goes a bit deeper.  I'm a sixth generation Texan and a tenth generation southerner.  I HATE slavery with a passion because it took everything that was good and decent and Godly about the South and twisted and corrupted it.  Every single social institution was warped to meet the demands of the peculiar institution, including Christianity and democracy itself.  I simply don't understand how my ancestors could call their war a 'struggle for Southern liberty" when they regarded that liberty as inherently including the right to buy and sell little children at the auction block, to separate husbands and wives at estate sales, and to rape their female slaves whenever they darn well felt like it.

   But, my personal emotions aside, Ken Burns' documentary series is truly amazing.  If you've never watched it, take the opportunity to do so.

Don't misunderstand my "good point".  Lester picked out a small portion of the letter to quibble over, instead of appreciating its poetry.  Don't kid yourself about Lester's coarseness.  I've grown to like Lester, but there is a reason he's the most smited person on this forum.  Some time in the past I had posted a thread about an FDR program I had watched on PBS, and Lester hurried in with a political tirade about the evils of FDR.  Don't make excuses - the thread turned political because y'all wanted to talk politics (which I don't object to, but won't sit still for subtle suggestions that I'm responsible for.) 

The letter illustrates the perspective of one individual, naive and old-fashioned as it may seem to us.  Hindsight and knowledge of his death in the war only makes it more poignant.  I realize you are referring to the politics of that time, but I was referring to the personal politics of SULLIVAN BALLOU, if he had any.  He obviously had faith in his federal government.  But, that is not the bulk of the content.  This letter is an example of the sublime of which you write.  

 just fyi  virtually ALL of those negatives were before you had to sign your name to it. Since then there has been virtually nothing but pluses.

That's disappointing, lester. I like to think of you as a perpetual rogue.

 :wink:

Y'know what?  I don't think it was ever once, me knockin' Lester, but I haven't checked Lester's karma.  I only knock those who knock me, or the rare type that everybody denounces.  Once Lester and I crossed swords in a thread he started about THE OTHER which we didn't agree on.  I still chuckle when I think about it, though I suspect Lester has probably long forgotten about it.  That's my curse: Elephant's Memory.   :teddyr:   

Lester even not so long ago trumpeted leaving me karma (the first time!) and I chuckled and seemed to remember Lester long ago proclaiming: "Karma is for babies!"   :question:   :bouncegiggle:  I think AHNOLD: "MILK is for babies!!"

This is why I love karma: I went back and peeked at a few early pages of Lester's karma (y'know I left that guy a lot of karma) and found the below youtube.  The below is one of my favorite youtubes and it was Lester who pointed it out.  If you have NOT seen this SMOKEY ROBINSON youtube, you are missing the most perfectly worded rant I have yet heard, passionate, blunt, but never rude: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_KKyw8V-l0&feature=player_embedded

allhallows- I follow a guy named Wilton Alston on twitter http://twitter.com/Wiltster He was one of the first people I followed and he rarely tweets. He's black and also a highly respected economics guy of your modern post right wing anarchist variety and he tweeted that I believe.

I remember our disagreement about The Other. I think you felt I didn't respect it but that's not true. I was just attempting to make sense of it in a sarcastic sort of way.

I should give out more karma. I don't know. Another board I go to has a version of it but I don't really look at it.

That SMOKEY ROBINSON clip is awesome.  

THE OTHER?  No, it wasn't a respect thing ('cept maybe your lack of any towards me...  :teddyr:)  Done now.  

Milk is for babies.  

here's the thread

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,115927.0.html

it looks like we had a disagreement over it, but I think I recall I took offense at



and just sort of defended myself. I would probably handle it differently now but at the time it just seemed like someone I didn't know telling me I was stupid and you know what was I gonna do be like "oh yeah my opinion is s**t, tell me what I should think random guy"

Oh yes, thanks for reminding me!   :bouncegiggle:  
My grasp of film!  My grasp of history!  My common conundrum!  My common conundrum!!   :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle:  That's still worth two good laughs.   :bouncegiggle:  Make it three.  The whole thrust of the '80s!

well for example I'd say Madonna's "Like a prayer" video was alot edgier than, say, Linda Ronstadt or something. If you prefer the 70's to the 80's that's fine but I don't know that one can say point blank that the 70's were good and the 80's were bad. That sort of assessment is totaly subjective. There were crazy ballsy movies and things in the 80's and really rote , brain dead stuff in the 70's and vice versa.

as for the the "thrust of the 80's," yeah, it was an era that had a feel and style to it. Gremlins, Top Gun, rap, I don't know. It's just a casual discussion board I wasn't writing a novel there.

:bouncegiggle:  Who said any of that?  I don't think you get the insults you so casually dropped on me way back when for whatever reason.  It's cool but whatever you wrote then can't be any better explained now.   :wink:

well okay



so the point you seem to be making is that the 70's were kind of crazier and better than the 80's or that the 80's were a step backwards. Well yeah , I suppose Taxi Driver is sort of edgier than say Romancing the Stone. My point was basically that there were things that ended in the 70's. variety shows for example were big in the 70's and had been earlier and had fallen out of fashion in the 80's. So whatever american traditions that spawned the variety show were put to the side when the 80's came.  and of course you got the twist on traditions as in  the afformentioned madonna hit, which was 50's in it's popness but modern in it's controversial video and lyrics.



I never said it wasn't twisted. part of the reason it was twisted was its inital wholesome appearence. and again, it was you who began the negativity by saying I didn't get the movie. I was just defending myself. If you had just said "I disagree" and stated why I doubt we would be having this discussion.

If I think you don't get something, I may point such out just like I did then.  Your comments make less sense now than they did then, and you flip flop mid stream.  You are a sensitive lad to be picking this up exactly where you left off 4 years ago.  I was direct, but you were rude.  I'll paraphrase:  I said you don't get the film and then explained why I found your remarks perplexing.  You stated that I don't get film, I don't get history, and that must be my  common conundrum. And you now still insist I was "negative".   :lookingup: Better to leave well enough alone.   
Y'know Lester, I don't care about that old discussion or strange rationalizations.  Now I remember why I didn't like ya.   You acted like a troll.  :thumbup:

Dude, I'm just trying to get to the bottom of our disagreement. look, forget it. I'm sorry if I offended you in regards to The Other. Again, it was just a generic sort of comeback to a perceived attack.

and I'm a sensitive lad? You were OFFENDED that I called John Ritter Jack Tripper.

well this was great . at any rate we can both agree it has nothing to do with the civil war and I doubt either of us has any interest in continuing this exchange in private so there ya go. You may have the last word if you wish.

So, how about those The Civil War reruns?

 :lookingup: