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From: jvif@spacelab.net (John Velez)
Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 14:58:41 -0500
Fwd Date: Sun, 09 Mar 1997 19:59:01 -0500
Subject: The Budd Hopkins/John Mack Event - A Review

Hello All,

Well the long awaited 'Great Debate' on Friday night, came and
went with a wheeze and a whimper! Although _that_ wasn't what it
was supposed to be.

It was good, don't get me wrong. Just not the planned debate
between the two most well known proponents of the abduction
phenom. Budd Hopkins and Dr. John Mack both gave compelling and
informative opening statements. (In spite of being handicapped by
a piss-poor sound system and crew.) And then, the moderator, one
Christopher Lydon, proceeded to 'take the elevator - right to the
basement!'

He immediately proclaimed his skepticism and informed the
audience that he proposed to have Budd and John address the
issues of proof and possibility. Although that might have been
O-K at any other time, that's not what the well informed crowd of
about 750 were there to hear. Several people expressed their
disappointment to me privately afterwards.

Mr Lydon was _supposed_ to facilitate and fuel a lively and
hopefully enlightening discussion between Budd and John regarding
their current findings and philosophies re: alien abduction.
That, didn't happen. All that Mr Lydon succeeded in doing was
uniting the two in their responses to his rather basic (and
already asked and answered a thousand times) lame questions. Mr
Lydon should have done his homework and at least familiarized
himself with the published works of the two gentlemen that he was
to moderate for. I'm a former "dropout" and at a minimum, even I
would have taken the time to do that!

Mr Lydon, who hosts a local Boston radio show, cut Budd and Johns
dialog off early so that he could loudly proclaim, (and I quote)
"Let's go to the phones!" He shortened what could have been an
informative discussion so that he could take an hour and a half
of audience questions! Not only that, but he didn't tell the
people to keep their questions concise. Folks just ambled up to
the mikes and launched into dissertations of personal philosophy
and opinion *without* fear of interruption from Mr Lydon.

All in all, Budd and John were great. They are both intelligent
and extremely articulate advocates for a subject that generates
much heated debate and emotion. It's just a shame that we lost an
opportunity to finally put the "good alien, bad alien" discussion
to bed. Budd and John are not only individually far beyond that,
but they're much closer in their individual takes on all of this
than most are led to believe by all of the peripheral hype
surrounding them.

Budd and John _are_ two of the finest human beings
I have met. Men of character.

I'll see you guys "out there!"

John Velez