[Leica] Re: All this 'stupidity'...

["Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>]

Sal DiMarco wrote:

>Will somebody please wake me when all this stupidity over "country of
origin" and mindless insulting by wanna or self appointed experts
stops?

At an earlier stage in the  "country of origin" discussion, Sal had
asked:
>Why do you people obsess over such trivial nonsense?

and Ted Grant added:
>It's never interesting to hear the whiners go on about twit assed
nonsense of where the equipment is made! The bottom line is, who
really cares! ... Get serious , get out, get some picture taking done
and screw this nonsense.

Are postings like this not part of the problem, with their use of
derogatory phrases such as ‘stupidity’ and ‘twit assed nonsense’?

To judge by the number of postings on the topic, there is obviously a
portion of the LUG which is interested in this subject. So for them,
it’s not an obsession, and for them it’s interesting. Who cares, asks
Ted? Well, they obviously do. For those of us who are not interested,
or who feel that the topic had become unproductive, there is a handy
‘delete’ key on the keyboard.

Personally, I’m curious to know where my cameras and lenses were
built, though I don’t get dreadfully excited about it or base my
purchasing decisions on such facts (how could I when my favourite
working camera is my Japanese-built Leica CL and the last lens I
bought for my Leicas was made in sunny Zagorsk?). But what puzzles me
is why such a prosaic subject as country of manufacture creates such
passion in some folk that it has to be rudely dismissed as “trivial
nonsense” or the writings of  ‘self-appointed experts’ and  ‘whiners’.

While some postings on the topic in question may be generating more
heat than light, the same can probably be said about our discussions
on street-shooting technique, rival theories on how to develop film X
in developer Y,  the virtues and vices of using UV filters, the merits
and demerits of work of various big-name photographers, the strengths
and weaknesses of lens A against lens B, and so on.

I'm not trying to defend some of the views currently being expressed
in the 'country of manufacture' thread - I've started using my own
Delete key pretty heavily. But I can't help wonder that if the thread
would be over by now it is had been left to those LUG members who were
interested in its content, and ignored by the rest.

Regards,

Doug Richardson