To Prof Betsy Darken:


        You will I hope pardon my taking exception to some of your
definitions, but to equate, as you describe them, such elements of
behavior, linguistic or otherwise, as "pushy, wrong, off-the-wall or--worst
of all--not in agreement with our own opinions" with the tolerant attitude
of freethinking does strain one's sense of that term--unless of course you
intended those comments to be the judgment of one who is a "freethinker."
        As the American Heritage Dictionary puts it, a "freethinker" is
"one who has rejected authority and dogma, especially in religious
thinking, in favor of rational inquiry and speculation."

        tcw