Messages from U.S. senators

[y.r.rani at mail.utexas.edu]

Luis Gonzalez-Reimann wrote:
>Could someone explain why the Indology List is receiving messages from
>U.S. senators?

Here is my theory as to why the infamous and incorrigible senator, Jesse
Helms and others, have sent mail to Indology:

Since the subject line of the senatorial correspondence read "Re:!!!," and
the ridiculous message from Hanuman7 at aol.com, with "good luck totems," also
bore that subject line, the two are probably related.  In some mail
programs, such as Eudora, you can forward mail by "redirecting" it as an
alternative way of forwarding it.  Those on the receiving in, if they have
another mail program, such as Pine, may not be able to tell if the message
came from the person who redirected it or from the original sender.  (This
happened to me once when I redirected a list of WWW sites posted by Frank
Colon at H-ASIA to a teacher in the Dept. of Education at UT and she could
not tell that I had sent it to her. . . she had not scrolled down to the
end of the message to see my signature before firing off a reply to Frank,
thanking him.  Since he had not idea who she was, this caused some
confusion, but it alerted me that the differences between email programs
may cause this confusion when using the "redirect" command.)  This may be
why the senators are sending their automatic messages to Indology, because
either Hanuman7, who by the way lives at the Siddha Yoga Ashram in South
Fallsburg, NY.*, or another Indology member, redirected the "Re:!!!"
message to the senators. Nonetheless, Jesse Helms' message below caused me
to snicker; the Internet is not ALL that boggles his mind!!!

Jesse Helms wrote:
>        Many thanks for contacting me at my electronic mailbox address. (...)
>     I must admit, however, that for an old newspaper man
>     who still punches out letters on a manual typewriter, this innovation
>     is mind-boggling.

*BTW, I wrote to Hanuman7 off-line and told her that this was a highly
inappropriate message.  (I must point out that I object to the
appropriation of Hanuman's name by those who do not appreciate the
tradition and would use Hanuman's image for foolishness or violence such as
the militant wing of the Sangh Parivar, the Bajarang Dal.)  In her response
to me, Hanuman7 expressed her regret for sending such a stupid message.  I
would like to point out that anyone familiar with the relationship of the
Siddha Yoga Ashram and the South Fallsburg NY community, the environmental
degradation, the tax evasion, would not be surprised that this type of
thoughtless violation would be perpetrated from that address.  The story of
the take over of the Mukhtananda lineage and the controversy between
Chidvilasananda (sp?) and her brother Nityananda is filled with the same
palace intrigue and manipulations as are stories of banishment in the best
of the epics or perhaps a high drama Hindu soap opera, complete with
scandals and stories of being drugged, etc.  (I humbly assert that there is
no offense to Hindu traditions intended by this observation.)

Sasneha,
Yvette