Joe Starck wrote:
Charles,
Creating a "straw man or straw men," is a literary technique emplowed by a single author, who both creates the straw-man and blows it away; it's not a two-author activity.
all of
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A straw-man is being offered when a person gives a refutation for an argument no-one has actually made.
We see it all the time in our politics, especially lately, seems like.
I experienced a couple of things in Kevin's post as classic straw-men. The one that was most obvious to me was his comment about file-marks. I have never proposed that pressed-lugs are neato because they have file-marks on them. But Kevin suggested exactly that (in general, referring as he did, by implication, to all of us who like the early Masis best) in his post...then he went on to refute this never-made argument by suggesting if we like file marks, then we'd love some anonymous frame he has, that is apparently has some file marks on it.
That is a classic straw-man argument, and this was what prompted my initial comment. There were others, but I won't waste our time with them.
I, and most people I know who like pressed-lugs, are not especially charmed by file-marks, or other crudities. To suggest that we *do* like such things is a straw-man.
As for the rest of the comments in your post, I can see I touched a nerve, something I didn't really intend. I was simply offering an opinion, and a couple of facts, to counter a couple of things in Kevin's post.
Most of this involves matters of taste...things we discuss a lot on this list, although I don't think we're going to argue each other around to agreement on matters of taste.
I will say this much: some early Masis are pretty crude. I've owned a few, and seen more. They ride just as nicely as the pretty ones. Some early Masis I find exceedingly pretty, mainly the early Carlsbad frames, because of all the careful hand-work that went into them. They ride as nicely as the crude ones. I'm not a fan of the cookie-cutter look of the later cast-lugs. Lots of people like them. I just don't happen to.
Charles Andrews
SoCal