Evening everyone.  I was wandering around the old Fire Shelby archives (primarily because I have so much work to do and it was a great diversion) and found the following post by LVN, -posted as we were closing down the Fire Shelby web site.  Hope she/he doesn't mind if I wax a bit sentimental --(Crosby, Stills, Nash and  Young play on..)

LVN
Date: May 24, 2004
Views: 518

This board is like a private home.  The owner, Fire Shelby, has decided to hold open house for the neighborhood.  The front door is left open.  People come and go from the house, laugh, have serious discussions, disagree with one another, and all sorts of conversations and interactions.  Most of the people who come to the house have some common goals and interests; some bring their friends to meet the others.  Every now and then, people barge in bent on causing a ruckus, and get escorted off the property.  Sometimes the friends get too loud or strident and others calm them down, or Fire Shelby calls them a cab and sends them home for a while. 

What it is NOT is a public building, even though the front door is open. It is not "free" -- all the guests are there on Fire Shelby's sufferance.  It is Fire Shelby's house.  Fire Shelby fixes the roof and weeds the garden and does all the maintenance.  Fire Shelby is responsible for the house, and gets to decide who is welcome and who needs to leave, or even who is a danger to the other guests.  People who don't like Fire Shelby's house are free to build and maintain their own houses and make their own rules and have their own party. LVN   May 24, 2004

I am unsure why I am feeling more hopeful this weekend--actually all week-- maybe it’s the promise (or threat) of finals next week or the improvement in my allergies--whatever, I will take it over the malaise and dark abyss of the winter.  Just wanted to say thanks to everyone on this Board for your wonderful sense of community--- LVN's metaphor of the "house" that we have created on the message board over the past two or so years seemed right on today, even more so now than when it was written May 26, 2004.  Our academic community has always been a fairly small circle and what I cherish most about USM, but I could never have imagined this evolving "created" NEW community through the Board.  But then again, could any of us old fat cat professors have imagined the events of 2003 unfold, watching our own locked out of their offices, treated as dissidents, worried that we would be next, then worried that we wouldn't be next...stunned, then slowly but surely reacting, in anger, in frustration, and, in my case lately, sad resignation that I might not be able to outlast the despot. As I was reading over all those messages on the old FS site, I was struck by how much we have endured collectively, beyond our own personal pain and damage.  And yet, most of us are still here—yes, some of us have left USM for other positions, some have cut ties, and some have stayed, tentatively waiting and waiting for some sign that IHL has finally woken up.  Yes, few have spoken up. Many more among us have chosen to remain silent.  And at the end of this regime, we will all have to live with the daily choices we have made:  our silence, our apathy, our ambivalences-- about speaking out or pulling back and hoping “they” wouldn’t come for us the next go round.  I have no idea who most of you are (nor does it matter, the cloak of anonymity is strangely comforting to many of us oft called ‘egomaniacal intellectuals’, go figure). I am just honored to share this Board with you, thank you for listening to my longwinded diatribes, the dark rambling ones and this somewhat maniacal, sentimental one.  I am ready for the "coming out of the closet" party, I have my t shirt printed with all my monikers, and cannot wait to meet everyone, out in the open.  This Board has sustained me...we have truly evolved -- as LVN has so eloquently evoked (as always!)well, into OUR own big house.  We created this house out of desperation and tragedy, but it is OUR house.  Maybe our dark days are not truly behind us, who knows.. But at least I always have my strangely comforting, blinking computer screen to come ‘home’ to no matter what THIS May brings—  .

Whatsamatta U.

PS Thanks to LVN, wherever and whoever you are, for the inspiration; and to Robert Campbell for your provocative and confirming seminar on academic freedom. Oops, have I said too much?