Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 14:08:51 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Fifth Friday (was Re: I will NOT calm down )(was
  Re: Extremely  offensive...)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 12:22 PM 9/30/2005, N Lynch wrote:

><dry humor alert>I'm guessing all this means there
>will be NO Fifth Friday movie party. </dry humor
>alert> I wasn't planning on it as, well I just wasn't,
>but someone asked me and it reminded me.

I hadn't even thought of this.

>If this hasn't occurred to everyone, let it be stated
>- we are royally screwed, people.  There are no
>winners in this and we are all losers.  ALL.
>EVERYONE.  Does that work for you?

Not at all.  And I've know since this happened that we are royally screwed.

>If ever there was a no win (lose-lose) situation, this
>is it.

The whole club has already lost.

We've already lost at least two members because of Lee and I know of three
others, for whom WSFA has been home for many years and is a valuable and
important part of their life, and who have contributed enormously to WSFA,
who are seriously considering leaving.

But we've lost much more than people, and we've let fear in instead.

Here or someplace else someone said that we are all afraid to cross Lee
because of the results of doing so.  None of us know when or to what she's
going to take exception; it often happens when the situation or what is
said is completely innocuous.  Many of us have been constantly braced for
it and for the resulting days of having to drop everything else to deal
with it.  For at least some of us there's the ever-present tension of being
in contact with her in any way, including at WSFA meetings, because we
never know when the bomb laden with nails is going to suddenly go off.

>If fandom does have all this massive brain power, how
>about putting it to work to solve this?

People have been, and have been since Lee's first blowup at Keith.  I think
that everyone who was here at the time recalls that, recalls all the effort
made to give her the basic facts that what she was accusing him of was
impossible, and recalls the lack of result.

Since then there has been a great deal of effort, plus Keith being asked
again and again to just hang in there and he managing to do so solely on
the basis of the request and for the good of the entire club.  But nothing
has worded and the blowups, not just at Keith but at a number of people,
have only increased.

I like Lee.  There are times when I enjoy her company tremendously.  And I
worry about her and Alexis very much.

Elspeth