Sarah...you have to understand that I am in a no-win situation on this
end of the modem. I have to be *extremely* careful not to let my presence
here, or things that I say, limit or appear to limit the freedom of people to
say what they want. If I told people to lay off because some (not all) cast
members were reading this...I would get broasted, roasted and toasted, and
deservedly so. On the other hand, if I say nothing, then people can say that
I'm being unfair in the other direction.

So I tend to err in the direction that I think will encourage the
greatest degree of open speech. It's the only thing that I can do. I only
referred (after it had already been broached by others) this part of it well
AFTER the fact, not during it, because I think that serves as a better
benchmark, or point to consider, than to drag it in DURING the conversation.

(In one or two occasions, I've offered to post something for one or
another of the folks who've seen what's said here, but have always been asked
not to, again on the grounds of not inhibiting the conversation. I now have a
third obligation to do as I'm asked, and respect that decision while the
conversation is ongoing.)

Finally, often I didn't know about some of this until well after the
fact. I recently tried -- simply as an intellectual exercise -- to backtrack
where some of the excerpts have come from, and it's like trying to trace the
Watergate money. They just sorta get handed around; some see them but most
don't. It's catch-as-catch-can, and I have no problem with any member of my
cast or crew doing so. I encourage them to come on-line directly. And I have
no problem with the discussion going on here; I just think that a general
sense of awareness that words have meaning, and should be used with precision,
and that we are not writing into a vacuum...these are things worth knowing.
And now, between seasons, seems a good time to acknowledge that.

And that said (and at risk of being perceived as trying to lead the
conversation, which is *always* the danger, as mentioned above)...I think
we've more or less exhausted this subject, and moving on would be a true
wonderfulness.

Maybe this'll work.

I just finished revising the opening narration for Year Two; it's much
briefer than before, and now leaves room to show the characters/actors faces
in quick shots under their names. Though now abridged, there has been one
added line in the narration.

"It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind...the year the Great War
came upon us all."

jms