Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!pyramid!amdcad!decwrl!ucbvax!dewey.soe.berkeley.edu!robinson
From: robinson@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Michael Robinson)
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: Theories and hoaxes
Message-ID: <22138@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 11 Dec 87 16:35:00 GMT
References: <5909@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <1842@chinet.UUCP> <1960@chinet.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: robinson@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Michael Robinson)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
Lines: 61

In article <1960@chinet.UUCP> rhonda@chinet.UUCP (Rhonda Scribner) writes:
>
>It's nice to know our public assistance money, intended to help people who
>cannot otherwise help themselves, is being used by one such person to make
>long distance calls to post to the net!  It restores my faith in America,
>the free enterprise system, and our government agencies, knowing the money
>is going to the right places in the right amounts.  To think, there are
>people who are REALLY suffering who could use the money Mark spends on the
>"necessity" called netnews.  I thought public assistance was supposed to
>provide the NEEDY, the TRULY NEEDY, with sustenance, not provide luxuries
>to those who can work (obviously Mark is a skilled writer and not an
>incompetent).

Mark is also a skilled and competent mechanic.  However, Mark can't work.
When the Navy decided to get rid of Mark, they couldn't fire him for
incompetence or poor job performance because they had been giving him excellent
job evaluations all along.  So they kept sending him to psychiatrists until
they got one to say that Mark was emotionally disabled (whatever the hell that
means).  So the Navy was able to get rid of Mark, but the government had to 
put him on social security for them to do it.

The social security wasn't Mark's idea.  Mark would have been more than happy
to have remained employed at the Navy.  I am fairly sure that Mark would also
be more than happy to get a job as a writer that would pay for rent and food,
should you hear of any.

By the way, may we gather from your righteous indignation that you've given
up on your "Mark is a hoax" nonsense?  Or do you still refuse to believe the
ever-growing numbers of people who have claimed to have met and talked to Mark?
We've given as much verification as the net will allow.  Apparently some of
the netters have taken your advice, and have been calling Mark.  So if you 
continue with this charade, I suppose they will start crawling out of the 
woodwork as well.

>> You still claim there is a "real" Mark Ethan Smith living at the address
>> Larry gave.  Some job of breaking the truth you've done.
>
>I never made such a claim.  It seems that you are reduced to making up stories
>about what I said to discredit my evidence.  You're not doing a very good job,
>but that's to be expected, I suppose.  The information Larry provided was just
>a pointer to an area.  The phone book provided the rest of the necessary
>up-to-date data.

Well, perhaps the letter from you, saying exactly the opposite of what you
are saying now was also sent by the bitch@chinet hoaxer.  They must be running
a really loose ship there at chinet.

Furthermore, the information necessary to find Mark through directory
assistance was never a secret.  That Mark lives in Berkeley has been common
net knowledge for ages.

We still are waiting for as much information about you.  Last we heard from 
you, you were still maintaining that divulging your State of residence would
be a violation of your privacy.

Just for the record, Chicago directory assistance doesn't have any listing
for Rhonda Scribner.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Robinson                              USENET:  ucbvax!ernie!robinson
                                              ARPA: robinson@ernie.berkeley.edu