Dear "Ron Jeremy"

[sean]

Dear "Ron Jeremy",

 

You've declared "tao war" on Tao Bums, my girlfriend Lezlie, my personal friend Lozen and me.

 

You've stolen a copyrighted article Lezlie wrote from an online magazine, hosted it illegally on taobum.com, and defaced it with insulting comments.

 

You've taken a de facto copyrighted photograph of Lezlie and myself out of the Tao Bums gallery and defaced it with insults, writing the words "whore" across Lezlie's forehead.

 

If you are curious, all these things have actually hurt my feelings. I'm serious.

 

I've done nothing with Tao Bums the last few months other than try to somehow creatively accomodate your growing abrasiveness and lack of even basic respect for other forum members. I've tried everything I could think of besides just simply banning you, despite suggestions from several other Tao Bums to do just that. I've created special threads to house your flames, frequently having to move your inappropriate, racist, homophobic and misogynist rants. I restructured the entire Personal Practice discussion so that forum members could have the power to remove these types of posts themselves. I created a "Pit", a subforum in Off Topic for posts containing personal insults, not even realizing at first that the only posts truly matching this criteria would be yours alone. These measures only made you act more and more insensitive, finally erupting in your latest tirade.

 

You've left me no choice but to require all your posts be approved by me or another Concierge. You are on full moderation. If you abuse even this, you'll just be banned.

 

As for your "war", it's in your mind. No one is fighting with you.

 

Ron, this is the kind of man I am. I am a man with the guts to use my real full name. I am a man who prefers transparency and openness to games, who strives to harm no one. I am a man struggling with just barely enough courage to keep my heart open, despite how much it hurts sometimes to move through life like this. And behind even this; behind my words, behind my avatar, I am just a regular human being like you. And I really did consider you my friend. Even told you I loved you like a brother once. I feel foolish for being so trusting and naive now. It will take me time to learn and heal from this. You've betrayed me terribly. You could have easily chosen to communicate simply and directly about any issues you were having here; with the forum, with me, and or any of it's members. I would have done everything in my power to hear you out and help you. Instead you chose to act alone, spitefully and in complete disproportion to any injustice you've been victim to.

 

Again, please stop.

 

 

Sean.

[lezlie]

Wait.. I'm confused. Am I frigid or am I a whore?

[peter falk]

Wait.. I'm confused. Am I frigid or am I a whore?

6383[/snapback]

 

neither. yer the no. 1 taobabe.

 

btw, ron, i'm with sean on this decision. i've stuck up for you before. in this case however you're neither adolescent, childish, funny, or raunchy. just plain malicious and mean-spirited. no one digs that. you'll never achieve tao as long as you remain so self-absorbed.

[sean]

Probably not to anyone's surprise, but it took "Ron" less than two hours from the above post to get banned. He took my post to taobum.com for another laugh and then began using the PM system to harrass other users.

 

Best of luck Ron. If you ever want to be a user here again you'll need to meet a set of requirements I honestly doubt you will ever be what I consider man enough for. Apologize to the board as a whole, Lezlie, Lozen, Spyrelx, Cam, ..., Peter Falk and me specifically, and take down the article, inflamatory images and insulting statements off of taobum.com. (The article and image will come down either way).

 

Oh, oops, you can't see this post now that you are banned.

 

Sean.

[voice]

Ron, this is the kind of man I am. I am a man with the guts to use my real full name. I am a man who prefers transparency and openness to games, who strives to harm no one. I am a man struggling with just barely enough courage to keep my heart open, despite how much it hurts sometimes to move through life like this.

 

 

Nicely put Sean. There is a point when something is no longer play, and it is serious. Friends recognize that and back off.

[Yoda]

I'll definitely miss him. I can't quite follow what's up on taobum.com--it looks like it's even encrypted or something. And it doesn't appear to be worth wading into. Plato and Max still post on HT. Ron still does, but not in a conversational tone.

 

So that's it, I'll have to say goodbye to my pal, Ron. I'll still preach his message before he went insane. I really do owe a debt of knowledge to the guy.

 

He did seem to be losing his marbles though. Sean had a tough call to make, but it made sense. I think it makes sense to love somebody as your brother but not want to deal with them.

 

In the unlikely event that I find myself in LA, I'll hang out at the observatory and look for a jogger wearing a rasta hat and introduce myself and see if I can get invited over to have tea with Ron and Mrs. Jeremy.

 

May you find victory over chemtrails, dude.

 

-Yoda

[Cameron]

I have gradually learned to have a sense of humor about this stuff since I really don't know any of these people personally .For all I know they are in need of genuine medical or phychiatric help. That said, there comes a time in a comminity that a person may become more of a threat to the harmony and peacfulness of a community than a help. I have been friends with the 'outsider' the troublemaker, the 'bad guy' and when you are friends with this type of person it does give you a bit of a different insight into the matter.

 

One of my best friends for some reason just loved to cause drama at the first Dojo I practiced at. He just couldn't make other people uncomfortable or angry enough. It was true from one perspective that he kept things exciting and brought a kind of unpredictability to the environment but it was also true that he just made too many people uncomrfortable and some downright miserable.

 

the bottom line is you have to have some kind of awarness about WHO you are communicating with. What is considered offensive or threating in one circle is accepted or considered good humor in another. It's not so much what you say or do but your awareness of lack of awareness of WHO you are comminicating with. This is how it works in life. You may be the star with some people and generally distained with others .You cant' please veryone. That said, having a higher level of awareness about WHO it is your communicating with is something worth cultivating to be successful with people. Somone who lacks this is just limiting thmselves to a very small group of like minded people with like minded sensibilities.

 

It's about LISTENING. Without this your missing out on a lot. Of course internet discussion boards are all about the written word so it involves a different type of listening but the same pricnciples apply. Really basic stuff but somehow a big challenge for some.

[spyrelx]

To be honest I missed most of the drama because I almost never read any of Ron's posts. But just reading through the above I get a pretty good sense of what's been going on.

 

I mean if guys like Yoda, Peter Falk and Sean are in agreement on banning someone, it's a pretty good bet he's crossed a REALLY BIG LINE.

 

As I've said before Seam, I appreciate that you put your heart and soul into this site, and I completely support your decision.

[thelerner]

The best revenge is leading a long happy productive life.

 

That said, what I've read on taobum.com is a guess Ron, posting using most of names to print bullshit. Childish, tilting at wind mills. It has all the wit of his latest posting on the HT board. He's pissed away people who should be his friends and allies. Sad.

 

Taobum started w/ the good idea of a no hold barred site of all things taoist. Now its a joke for 2 or 3 people who get off insulting others in the most witless way.

 

 

Michael

[GrandTrinity]

I think what made this guy go over the edge:

He realized that its almost impossible to do retention without having a harem of woman, like the emporers, and he hadnt attained that level, so he got real angry and his liver accumulated mad sick chi.

 

This dude was attached to some really fucked-up astral entities.

 

May he rest in peace.

[Yoda]

I hope there's a way... one of us will find it, no doubt. -Yoda