Permit me to play devil's advocate for a moment.

There is *no* rule that says a writer has to uphold standards of grammar,
spelling, punctuation, etc.  There is no rule that says a writer has to
write *well*, or has to meet any standards of quality.  As Natalie
Goldberg put it in _Wild Mind_, "You are free to write the worst junk in
America." (Or in Canada, or Australia, or your city, or the world, or the
universe.
	So why are so many people taking off after Dr. Thinker? Goodness
knows *I* wrote a fairly scathing critique of one of his pieces, but since
then I've just let it go. Dr. Thinker's writing is, by most objective and
subjective standards, anywhere from bad to rotten to horrid to
(unprintable - no pun intended).
	*But that doesn't mean he has to fix it.*
	Let me offer three names for you to consider: Alan Ginsberg, e. e.
cummings, and James Joyce. How did these three writers become famous?
	They broke the 'rules.' Alan Ginsberg's "Howl" was written with
the intent of breaking established rules about poetry; e. e. cummings
wrote without capitalization (and frequently without any punctuation, as I
recall). And James Joyce? He wrote two books which I am sure most of you
have heard of - or at least one, anyway: _Ulysses_ and _Finnegans Wake_.
_Ulysses_ was banned for obscenity; _Finnegans Wake_ is practically
written in another language.
	And the three of them are famous for it.
	So what's the difference between them and Dr. Thinker? I won't
speculate.

My point is that Dr. Thinker doesn't have to write well. We're all telling
him to get a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a grammar handbook - maybe he
has them after all, and writes in his "mangled" style for a *reason*.
	He doesn't have to "fix" the way he writes unless he wants to.
	And the rest of us don't have to like it, although we're certainly
welcome to.
	Having said this . . . I intend to read Dr. Thinker's next piece
of writing with an open mind, and I encourage the brave among you to do
the same - without flaming his writing afterwards.
	And if you don't like it, you don't have to read anything else he
does write. Just keep an open mind, and remember that there really *are*
no unbreakable rules of writing - except one: to write. It doesn't have to
be good.

				Tim Miller
					trmiller@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us
ENSEN MUYOU!
(No need for Flamewars)