Shedding light on a three-month suspension

( Tail end of Brett and Tim clarifying meaning and intent using actual quotes. Hmm, there’s an idea, should see more of that) :bulb:

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In Memoriam

When @gussis (Lorene Walden) first posted, I was delighted. A fresh voice without an apparent axe to grind, someone who actually checked facts before pontificating, and who gently corrected factual errors in other posts. I liked her at once, and was one of (just) a couple dozen who gave a heart to her careful posts.

Turns out there’s s reason: I knew her! In fact we had been best friends for decades, and met for dinner every day. In fact, she was my last surviving sister.

But I didn’t know at first. She’s wasn’t a computer person, and never used Python. As she said, she did give the PSF some money in the early days, trusting that her brother wouldn’t steer her wrong. This wasn’t easy for her. She and her husband weren’t driven by money, and were poor. They were about real-life community action, based on principles. Money, words, and posturing didn’t impress them.

Anyway, she found this forum on her own, dug into the messages on her own, set up an account here on her own, and posted on her own, without breathing a word of it to me.

Her educational background was in social psychology, and she presented the most profound mix of wisdom and kindness of anyone I’ve ever known. I was proud she was my sister. She was proud I was her brother.

She died unexpectedly late last month, so won’t be posting again. I’m still devastated by the loss.

She didn’t hang out in any online forums (this is, best I know, the only one she graced), so I wanted to leave this here in her memory before “the system” relegates the topic to the eternally silenced graveyard of failed attempts at communication

Why didn’t she use her “real name” here? She told me she did at first, but quickly switched to a pseudonym because she didn’t feel safe here. I don’t blame her. This wasn’t her community, and she had nothing to gain here but grief for her efforts. I do want to thank those who showed her some respect. I know she was genuinely pleased to see some hearts. She appreciated them. She wanted to help by injecting some calm sanity.

What would she say if she were still alive? I suspect she would echo a social psychologist who enjoyed more worldly success, Miles K. Davis. It needn’t be complicated unless you’re trying to obscure the issues:

You can tell a bully from a leader by how they treat people who disagree with them.

That was the heart of it for her. She could explicate at length on various conceptions of justice, morality, ethics, and “fair play”, but her bottom line was plain old decent behavior. “The Golden Rule rules” apparently runs in my family :wink:.

Thanks for trying, Sue!

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I am so sorry for your loss. May her memory be a blessing.

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