A blog, I think, is like a shark, it has to constantly move forward or it dies. So I’m kind of happy about ClosedCommentsGate. When I show up here and the comments for the day are all about how cute the pet pictures are or how we all agree that Nick Gillespie is an idiot, it makes me nervous. When it’s a bunch of people screaming at each other about race or teh ghey or hipsters or Israel, I smile.
No one asked me, but I’ll say two things about ClosedCommentsGate. One is that getting trashed in the comments does hurt one’s fee fees. I now avoid certain topics — hipsters, Israel, Washington Post reporter chats — because they bring out the haters. I’ve come very close to banning a few commenters who bug me.
The other is that tribalism and prejudice are a complicated stew. I’ve always been comfortable writing about race, because I know I’m not racist. That’s not for any awesome reason about myself, it’s probably because all the black people I know well are high-achieving types I met in college and grad school, or are people I now do research with. I did grow up around a lot of rural, white poverty and I used phrases like “trailer trash” and “white trash” in the past, and I feel very bad about that, because it really did come out of prejudice that I had.
I don’t think ABL’s post was about calling anyone “white trash”, I think it was about the absurdity of Donald Trump supporter types claiming Obama’s not an American, that he shouldn’t have gotten into Columbia, and so on. But there is one place near to that post that I don’t want any of us to go — and, to reiterate, I don’t think ABL went there — and that’s a place where we say “Obama is an intelligent, educated man and you haters are lower class trash”. Just remember that the guy leading the birtherism charge is a privately educated billionaire highly-leveraged and serially bankrupt son of a multimillionaire.
Anyway, that’s all.
Johnny Coelacanth
Will we be jumping the sandwich?
Bobby Thomson
FTFY. Like easy money makes him any less fucking stupid.
Corner Stone
Are some your best friends?
Doug Harlan J
@Bobby Thomson:
Thanks, that is better. I changed it.
alwhite
I guess I’m lucky – I took a couple days off of the juice & missed all the drama. I feel better for it. Normally I would worry I might miss something valuable.
Mark S.
Fuck you, Doug.
(I’m just trying to bring a smile to your face)
Doug Harlan J
@Mark S.:
You did.
Southern Beale
I was aware that there was some kind of issue because ABL was seemingly doing a happy dance about it but I am completely unaware of what “ClosedCommentsGate” is about, so if anyone can give me the Clif’s Notes version I’d be curious to know what the hell happened.
I guess I was busy that day.
The Republic of Stupidity
Awwwwwwww geez…
I missed that thread completely…
That’s what I get for having a job, or two, to work…
I allus miss the good stuff…
Short Bus Bully
Drama on the interwebz? Say it ain’t so.
Yay ABL!
Just Some Fuckhead
There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys. There’s only you and me and we just disagree.
How long til Lil Bobby Lob is let out of the shark tank? We were gonna derail some threads later on and now our plans are out the window.
MikeJ
I always thought ABL was DougJ’s greatest triumph in pseudonymous trolling.
tbogg
Like Donald Trump, Doug has a “great relationship with The Blacks”.
Time to change your name to Doug E. Fresh J.
JPL
OT… Head of I.M.F. Arrested in New York and Accused of Sexual Attack
According to the behind the paywall paper.
Just Some Fuckhead
@MikeJ:
Not even DougJ could pull that off.
Amir_Khalid
I envy you, Doug Harlan J. I’ve looked high and low, and never found that particular Spinal Tap album …
jeff
@ Doug
What do the items in this list have in common? Are you trying to put everybody in the same boat as hipsters?
Doug Harlan J
@tbogg:
Ha!
aisce
no offense, dougj, because i like your style a lot, but isn’t deliberately hurting fee fees like 80% of your entire body of work? mcardle, david brooks, sullivan, halperin, the wapo op-ed people, whoever?
this conflict, between using the freedom of the internet to say things you can’t in real life while simultaneously reacting to what is said exactly as you would if it was said to your face, is what it’s all about right?
either we should consciously try to maintain the same social norms we use in person online, or we have to all become a lot more unemotional and detached to what is said to us/about us on the internet. the latter might be fun, but the former is probably the better choice.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: DougJ is the undisputed Master. But that…that’s a little beyond even his ken.
Violet
@Southern Beale:
Yeah, me too. My computer was acting up and I could hardly do anything on it, let alone reading blogs. What was it all about?
@Amir_Khalid:
I’ve got the original Black Album. In vinyl. With liner notes and photos of all their other album covers.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: It seemed almost like she had been waiting…a little gleeful, in fact.
Seems to be a pattern.
And I could be wrong but it looks like the #boobwhisperer also got the hook again.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
….and Jon Stewart? (Do they still do WaPo reporters’ chats?)
R-Jud
Hmmm. I’m glad you’re certain of that, DougJ, and I’ll take your word for it, but… are you sure? I’ve been one of two white teachers in an all-black public school, had classmates, teammates, and co-workers of many racial backgrounds, and even a black foster brother, and I wouldn’t be comfortable saying “I know I’m not racist.”
Don’t get me wrong, I despise and reject racism, I try to speak up when I encounter it in others, but even so I’ve caught myself thinking racist things sometimes. More “soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations” type things, but still racist. This isn’t because of fear or hate, just programming.
Our culture is racist. We’re soaking in it. I think it takes permanent vigilance to make sure you’re continuing to behave in a not-racist way. Your mileage may vary.
ETA: I may, very likely, have missed some snark up there in the OP. I am drunk, it’s 1 am, I’m running a fever, and honestly, I’m not that bright.
Doug Harlan J
@aisce:
Yeah, I do it because I know it hurts their fee fees. That’s why I do it. That’s why they would ban me if they could.
MattF
OT: Galtian overlord has an oopsie.
Doug Harlan J
@R-Jud:
Let me say this, I don’t feel like some fucked up part of me will come out when I discuss race. I do feel like some fucked up part of me may come out when I discuss some other topics. That’s all I mean.
Corner Stone
@JPL:
Damn! Who will give Tom Cruise his next assignment?
Allan
The problem with your decision to forgo the term “trailer trash” because it reeks of classism is that Donald Trump is trailer trash, and his existence proves that “trash” is a status that transcends economic boundaries.
Doug Harlan J
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I do the Jon Stewart stuff deliberately to get flamed, so it’s slightly different.
Doug Harlan J
@Amir_Khalid:
People should envy me. I envy me.
Johnny Coelacanth
@Corner Stone: “that’s a little beyond even his ken.”
To say nothing of his Barbie.
Corner Stone
BTW DougJ, didn’t know if you had seen this:
Washington Post Shorts Triple as Declining Newspaper Loses Kaplan Bulwark
“Investor bets against the stock of the Washington Post Co. (WPO) have more than tripled over the past year, as the government investigated the for-profit education business and the company’s earnings dropped.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
What exactly was the reason? I didn’t read the thread because I didn’t buy her reason for closing comments down. She’s a hothead and she closed comments down because she can in much the same way as she bans people because she can.
Corner Stone
@Johnny Coelacanth: Hmmm…Hmmm…
Doug Harlan J
@Corner Stone:
I knew the for profit education scam wasn’t going well, but I didn’t know it was going that badly. Thanks for the link.
JonF
Biggest. blog. comment controversy. since Ann Althouse cruised for dick on her comment section.
Keith G
I so agree. I love/need the diversion of the lifestyle posts here, but I miss serious posts about important topics. By serious, I do not include the “Man, Are they stupid” type of posts, but ones that dig into complicated issues from a point of inquiry.
Oh please gods of B-J, hear my cry.
R-Jud
@Doug Harlan J: Fair enough.
Josie
DougJ: You say you’ve come close to banning a couple of haters. What kept you from doing so? Seriously, I don’t understand the front pagers reluctance to pull the plug on a commenter who is not contributing anything of value to the discussion. I don’t mean on a permanent basis, just for that thread. As the blog gets to be more and more popular, you are going to attract more people who just want to stir the shit.
R-Jud
@Keith G:
Well, there’s Kay.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: Lil Bob L0b made the mistake of making his comment on her thread.
No better or worse than anything he’s said for months.
Maybe he capitalized too many words in the sentence?
“Thank you. I’ve been wanting to do this for months. See ya later, jerk. -ABL “
hilts
Doug,
Would you consider making an exception when referring to Sarah Palin? If not, what do you think would be a suitable alternative to describe her?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: All the assholes here and the brown Muslim dude gets banned by the only blogger of color.
Ain’t America a great place?
Doug Harlan J
@Josie:
Candidly, it’s because the people who really piss me off are people who are relatively articulate. I’m never tempted to ban, say, Church Lady or Joe Beese, because they only amuse me most of the time. When I want to ban someone it is usually because they have made their insulting, aggravating point very well. That shouldn’t be grounds for banning.
JPL
ABL can take care of herself. She proved that by shutting off the comments.
gbear
That’s nitpicking, isn’t it?
Yutsano
@MattF:
Heh. Git ‘im Benson and Stabler.
(mmm…Christopher Meloni. Excuse me, I need a minute.)
aisce
@Doug Harlan J:
right. so why would you, a man of great renown in the field of trolling, get “bugged” when you get trolled in turn? it seems like it should be a live by the sword, die by the sword sort of deal, no?
LT
This shit is dragging this good blog down.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Doug Harlan J: I’d think someone with your history of trolling would have to recuse themselves in most cases, eh?
General Stuck
I do realize that front pagers are out there by themselves when they post something, especially something controversial and thought provoking. That is why I don’t mess with them a lot and give a lot of leeway about attacking them directly, unless they post something really stupid, which rarely happens around here. The exception is sometimes the blog owner needs his cage rattled because he sets the general tone of discourse on his blog.
I like ABL’s style of provocation, and pretty well expected the reception she would get, having already come to the conclusion that a lot of what I think is mostly unconscious racist, or quasi racist speech and means of dissent about Obama, laced not only through the BJ comment section, but even worse on other liberal blogs.
I am not, nor ever have been a big pro active anti racist warrior, other than trying to keep my own head straight on that shit. But have become something of one, because we have the first black dem president, and some warring is necessary from white folk like me, to keep that shit from damaging this presidency.
And though it was hard to first believe what I was reading coming out of some liberal circles, and even more to accept it and speak out against it, I just don’t care anymore , whose fee fees get hurt.
I want to keep a dem in the WH, and Obama will be the one to keep that as the case. I intend to make a nuisance of myself on any bullshit coming from anywhere on the race issue, and I firmly reject calls to just ignore race baiting wherever it comes from, or outright racism. It would be easy to take that tact, but easy is not the best way on this issue right now, imo.
And what ABL is doing with her recent posting is to drive into thick white liberal skulls, that there is a difference between heated political speech, and personal attacks between debaters, and that is tripled when it involves that persons very identity as a sentient American, especially with race and our history. Be a good white liberal, and listen for a change. You are not immune from harboring racist thought/speech, and neither am I.
Violet
@hilts:
Grifter
Snowbilly Snooki
Caribou Barbie
JPL
@LT: no shit
Doug Harlan J
@aisce:
The whole point is that it is supposed to bug you. That’s like telling a boxer “you like to hit people, why don’t you like to get hit hard”.
R-Jud
@JonF:
If only it were that simple here.
JPL
@R-Jud: How’s the little one and hubby?
Doug Harlan J
@General Stuck:
Just to be clear, I am personally on the “white people are acting like idiots” side of this one. I’m trying to listen to the other side — among our commenters — as well.
Stillwater
@Josie:
Yeah, I went there.
General Stuck
@Doug Harlan J:
I know you are
Bill Murray
@Josie: sheez, if you banned everybody that didn’t always contribute anything of value to a thread there wouldn’t be anyone left
R-Jud
@JPL: Thanks for asking. They’re both pretty miserable. Bean’s woken up six or seven times tonight. I was finally able to give her more medicine about twenty minutes ago. She’s lying on the couch right now with one of the cats. Once she’s asleep, I’ll go too.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Doug Harlan J:
I think making assumptions about who is white and liberal in a completely unmoderated pseudonymous forum is an exercise in ridiculousness. That is why you should restrict yourself to the merits of what is being said and not who you think is saying it.
mclaren
Angry Black Lady has a perfect right to close comments if she feels like it. By doing so, of course, she knows full well that she’s going to get even more attention. Which tickles me pink, frankly.
Let the exploding heads explode. I disagreed with her and said my piece, but she’s still the best writer on this blog, and she’s got chutzpah to spare. So more power to her.
Stillwater
@Corner Stone: Bob Lob deleted? Really? Too much centralized power at play here.
I gotta write a passionate email to Cole…
Doug Harlan J
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That’s not what I mean, I mean I agree with ABL’s basic point, but I am listening to the criticism too. I don’t who is male or female or black or white or whatever in the comments.
MikeJ
@Doug Harlan J: I’m on the “all of them are full of shit” side. I think it’s entirely possible to dislike ABL without being a racist, but the first thing I read about the whole brouhaha was a guy complaining in dialect that he hated her.
So in the manner of the “you don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps” cartoon taped in countless cubicles across the land, “you don’t have to be a blithering racist fuckstick to hate ABL, but it helps.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Stillwater:
Make sure you sign it “Love, Allan” if you want some action. :)
Stillwater
@Just Some Fuckhead: All the assholes here and the brown Muslim dude gets banned by the only blogger of color.
loolz.
JPL
@Yutsano: The Port Authority officers were acting on information from the New York Police Department, whose detectives had been investigating a brutal attack of a woman employee at the hotel Sofitel New York, at 45 West 44th Street, in the heart of the city’s theater district.
I hope the employee is okay. I doubt that he will challenge Sarkozy.
BGinCHI
I really thought by now Jeffrey would have raced to the market, grilled a piece of mako or blacktip, put it on a nice French roll, and posted a pic of his shark sandwich.
What the fuck.
/this is a closed comment
Keith G
@R-Jud: I love her work, especially since she posts from the area where I grew up. Still, much of her stuff is focused on Ohio politics and I am not in Ohio any more.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@General Stuck: Yeah, you might think liberals would be a bit more open minded about the possibility. I suspect some of it, though, is doing it through the internet. I would also think that a lot of liberals should know better than “just ignore it, it will go away.”
NobodySpecial
@Just Some Fuckhead: Eh, disagree. The internet is overwhemingly white and upper class, they’ve done enough studies on it to prove it.
That said, I wonder what people’s reactions would have been had E.D. Kain started banning people instead of leaving it to the blog owner like he did.
Josie
@Stillwater: I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you equating the rights of a commenter on a blog to those of a U.S. citizen?
parsimon
DougJ:
I don’t know; I’m not convinced that screaming at each other moves anything forward. Sometimes it amounts to going around in circles.
MonkeyBoy
re: Shark Sandwich
While fresh shark can be very tasty it can rapidly go bad which produces a strong ammonia taste. This may be one reason that there is not a large US market in frozen shark because it is not as forgiving to a sloppy thawing process as the boney fish that make up fish sticks. I doubt that McDonalds will ever sell a McShark sandwich.
Most all the fish sandwiches I have ever heard of involve breaded and deep fried whitish fish (that is except for the old working man’s lunch pail standard of a can of sardines and some slices of white bread).
Some may say that tacos are really sandwiches and I advocate that a grilled shark taco is the only way that shark can approach a sandwich.
Comrade Javamanphil
I agree that Nick Gillespie is an idiot and Doug Harlan J is dreamy. Also. Too. This blog sucks.
NobodySpecial
@Josie: I won’t speak for him, but Cole’s been pretty upfront on this blog that he would allow commentary, allow disagreeable commentary, and it would take a virtual Act of God to get banned, so much so that you can count the number of public bannings on one hand by him.
Now we’ve had two banned in one thread by a front pager, in an era where I can’t remember a front pager ever banning anyone. Maybe someone can point out a commenter who DID get banned that way, but I don’t remember it.
Anyways, there’s an expectation here that you DO get to voice your opinion, and if someone thinks you’re an asshat, they tell you themselves, or Cole tells everyone to go fuck themselves. Closed commenting is against the culture here.
Hunter Gathers
This tasteless post is a good indication of the lack of
intellectual invention within. The intellectual growth rate of this blog cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded animal pictures and bad political insight. This pretentious ponderous collection of political punditry is enough to prompt the question: “What day did the Lord create Balloon Juice and couldn’t he have rested on that day too?”
Corner Stone
@BGinCHI:
How dare you? How fuckin’ dare you, sir!?
R-Jud
@BGinCHI: Hee hee hee hee.
@Keith G: It’s true she has an Ohio slant, but I think in most of her posts there’s something that can be applied to other things. And I would love to see the other posters here spending more shoe leather on stuff the way she does, rather than another “OMG Sully said this!1!” post. But it’s not my blog.
Anyway, I’ve been able to start a lot of good conversations with people in my circle thanks to Kay. My mother lurks here now thanks to her.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
How did you do that? Wouldn’t let me reply to his comment, kept saying “This is a closed comment. You may not reply”
M-Pop
Living in a southern city where the population is still very segregated, I tend to be very prejudiced of white people and I’ve had to reign that in because I realize that calling white folks “trailer trash” is just as bad as any other salvo I could launch at anyone else. I learned this when I was slinging the phrase “trailer trash” in front of a dear person I used to work with and she told me that she lived in a trailer park with her grandmother. I was a lot younger then but I carry that lesson and realize that the racial slurs cut all ways and I have to be mindful of that.
Corner Stone
@NobodySpecial: Joe Bee$e got canned for tangential, too. By Cole though.
Josie
@NobodySpecial: I’ve been reading here long enough to get that, but it seems that he has somewhat moderated his position in that he backs up the actions taken recently.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: I’m really Michael D., and I still have the keys.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@Just Some Fuckhead:
This isn’t just about “who’s” saying it, though. It’s about who’s gone through experiences to give them wisdom and knowledge about those experiences. In that way, it’s no different than kicking someone who babbles about military matters who shows ignorance AND has never served a day, like the ol’ 101st Fighting Keyboardists.
So yeah, if you’re spouting about racial matters, what your skin color is matters, because it 100% informs your knowledge on the topic. Doesn’t make you perfect, or unable to be questioned. The fact that people want to insist their experiences equal mine, their opinions of inherently equal weight, sound about as trollish as the guys who insist their inability to use women’s restrooms is some kind of discrimination.
Your opinions might be right. I could be wrong, blind, etc. But if you’re going to bring it, you’d better come with something more than “my utter lack of experience engaging with systemic racism trumps your years of living neck-deep in it.”
The Republic of Stupidity
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yes to that…
IM
@Violet:
Bible Spice
a tbogg creation, I think.
demkat620
Jesus Christ! What did I miss? Take a few days to, you know, interact with the kids, and a hell breaks loose.
Damn.
magurakurin
why bother to “close comments?” A blog thread only has a half life of about 2 or 3 hours. If it gets a big burst to 100 comments in three hours you might get 50 more in the next three and then 25 and then even the most radioactive isotope of a comment thread is all but gone. If you start a melt down with a front page post, just wait a day. The initial post, all the comments and most memory of it will be flushed down past the bottom of the scroll line.
Stillwater
@Josie: Yup.
Maude
@Corner Stone:
Thanks for the info on the fish in that thread. Sounds like heaven. I love that combination.
R-Jud
@Maude: I can’t stand most fish, but damn if I don’t want to make macaroni and cheese right now.
Yutsano
@R-Jud: Mac & cheese at 2 AM? Sounds like college life to me. I’d throw in mushrooms and bacon but I’m sick and twisted like that.
Also got some English cheddar at the store the other day. SERIOUS. NOM.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
Josie
@Stillwater: That is an interesting thought. I would have thought that a blog is more like a benevolent dictatorship than a democracy, but I am older than most of you and probably not up to date with such things.
Lurleen
I grew up in a small community in the south which had a KKK headquarters. It was considered a “white” town, despite all of the Latinos living there. “At least there were no BLACKS.”
In high school, my bus drove past the white men in pointy white hats and white robs every morning and afternoon. My classmates in high school laughed about having “Nigger Shooting Passes”.
I don’t have any black friends, except on the internet. I finally have a couple of black colleagues in my predominantly white and female work situation.
I learned the racism lesson without have met a single black person — when I was a teenager. It’s a pretty simple lesson. That adults who have the ability to purchase a machine and find a way to connect to this blog still need to learn it is depressing.
And DougJ, I have to admit, you missed the mark on this one badly. Rolling out the tired “I have” tripe is just tired. And to see two FPer’s get owned in the comments and then not own up to being owned is also pathetic. (Looking at Dennis and Sarah)
Just Some Fuckhead
@demkat620:
We’re exploring the merits of the Imperialist Blogger. Some like it, some don’t.
Amir_Khalid
@magurakurin:
A few days ago there was a thread (not one of ABL’s) that went to more than 700 comments over three days.
max hats
But I loved those Washington Post reporter chats!
Corner Stone
@R-Jud: I am really not a fish person either. But this is light, white fish (not that there is anything wrong with fish of color!) and it’s fried to awesome perfection. It’s just delicious, I don’t know what else to say.
handy
@mclaren:
Good Lord mclaren! Talk about jumping the shark sammich. How can you say that when this blog has such top-rate FPers.
Let’s just start with this blog’s owner, the great John Cole, who…often hits “Send” before he fact-checks himself.
Okay, forget Cole. Whaddabout the mastermixer mistermix, whose posts…inevitably end up turning into flame fests between Apple fanbois and other assorted tech geeks.
Fine, nevermind mixermix. Truly one of the great bloggers of our age, Doug Harlan Disco DeeJ–wow, did I just type that?
You know what, I take it back. You’re right. ABL in a landslide.
MikeJ
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Why wasn’t Beese captured alive and tried? John Cole is the Jack Ruby of blog wars.
handy
@NobodySpecial:
Mike Kay and Nick got iced a few times (temporarily). AFAIK B.O.B. seems to be in semi-permanent banishment.
PeakVT
I now avoid certain topics – hipsters, Israel, Washington Post reporter chats – because they bring out the haters.
I was wondering what happened to the WaPo chat posts. I thought you had simply gotten bored with the chats.
Fuck you, WaPo chat haters! Also, hipsters, too.
Southern Beale
Here’s my rant against Libertarians. Bonus: comments from people trying to defend Rand Paul’s “healthcare is not a right” position.
Corner Stone
These Waste Management recycle bin talking to a trash can commercials really irk the shit outta me.
Just awful.
R-Jud
@Yutsano: English cheddar is marvellous. I wasn’t even aware there was a place called “Cheddar” until I moved here and we went hiking down there. However, at the moment my favorite cheddar is Welsh.
I’m sorely tempted to get cooking, but the pans clanking would wake the Bean. I should probably crash.
Just Some Fuckhead
@handy:
I don’t remember Nick getting banned. AFAIK, he just slunk off in shame when he was caught using other handles to attack people that were arguing with him.
magurakurin
@Amir_Khalid:
well, occasionally you get some plutonium released. But it’s still a pretty goddamn short life span. People are free to do whatever they please, but it seems to me that the best way to approach a toxic comment thread is to stop commenting in it and let it burn out.
That being said, I also feel there are people who deserve banning, but in my opinion those are the people who do things like spam the same 10 paragraph rant on every thread regardless of the topic.
But, you know, whatever. I read this blog for the jokes…
MikeJ
@PeakVT: Recently I suggested that there was a WaPo chat that DougJ should troll, and he *promised* he would jump right on it. It was to be held on a Monday, discussing the Press dinner.
Obama had to kill bin Laden just to stop DougJ.
Maude
@Corner Stone:
You can’t make it like that at home. Lo melt for fryers can get really hot.
@R-Jud:
I make it once in awhile with that wonderful cheese crust. It takes time to make it. It is so satisfying. Hope you get some good sleep.
@JPL:
The NYPD had the Port Authority pull the guy off an Air France plane. He left his cell phone and other personal stuff at the hotel room when he ran for it.
JC
I would make a declaration that I’m tired of ABL navel gazing, but that’s contradicting by me declaring it in a comment.
So, maybe I’m close to tired of ABL meta.
For me, in the plus ABL column –
1. I like her writing,
2. it makes me laugh,
3. and often think.
4. She brings the information,
5. and gives voice to a perspective that is well-informed and I don’t read enough of, in my daily life.
6. The fact she’s hot and we have a pretty lady, who is smart and passionate on a nerdy political blog, well that’s just cake.
In the negative column –
1. and i think this is a lawyer thing, partially, Greenwald has it too – there never is any demonstrated learning, or ‘that’s a fair point’, but just more argument for her points. I think it’s death for lawyers to give anything away, and ABL has been trained that way, as have all lawyers.
2. The ‘white racist’ tag is often too easy, given the now polyglot nature of my life, at least. If your co-workers include more races and nationalities than I can count on two hands (much more like a smart geek version of Fast Five), then the ‘white racist’ is simplistic. I can see class issues in nearly all the people I work with (tech company in Bay Area), and lots of prejudice from that, but I hesitate to call a lot of it racism.
Neutral column
ABL likes starting shit. This has it’s pluses, in the main, but sometimes it isn’t acknowledged.
At any rate, that’s my last ABL meta-analysis…I sure effing HOPE!
3.
Southern Beale
@JPL:
I read that he raped a hotel housekeeper.
What is with the IMF? Remember that Bush neocon, the creepy guy who had a torrid affair with an employee, gave her a huge reaise … can’t remember his name, he was super creepy. Wasn’t he head of the IMF? Paul Wolfowitz? Or was he head of the World Bank?
Southern Beale
@Corner Stone:
Pretty much all of the commercials on TV irk me. I think the worst ones are the auto insurance ones. The people freaking out in the street after they find out how much money they save. Those snarky rip-offs of “The Office.” And I hate Flo. Hate her.
I am not talking about the ABL thing because I have no idea what the controversy was about to begin with.
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: No means no.
/fingers in ears, la la la la la
Yutsano
@Just Some Fuckhead: I don’t recall a banning of Nick either. I had assumed his was, as you said, a voluntary retreat. Did we miss something somewhere?
@R-Jud: My dad has a cheese dip recipe that is a long family favorite (that he won’t show me how to make, basta) that involves sharp cheddar. This cheese would fit that marvelously. And there is a cheese shop just up the road from my work. I might have to go see if I can get some Welsh goodies.
Just Some Fuckhead
There once was a blogger named ABL
Who liked to light it up and give ’em hell
But racists and derailers
Would throw it right back at her
And find themselves in permanent comment jail
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: Is a “tangential” like a reach-around or a Hot Carla?
Cuz Beese could bring love.
/open comment
JPL
Another OT.. Has anyone seen Country Strong? I’m watching it now and might not finish.
Southern Beale
Here’s the goods on the head of the IMF’s arrest:
Damn. Did he really think he could get away with that?
Just Some Fuckhead
@BGinCHI: This closed/open comment shit is pissing me off.
BGinCHI
@Just Some Fuckhead: Don’t scan. You fix.
/comment close to prosody cross chat
Josie
@JC: This is the best summation I have seen so far.
BGinCHI
@Just Some Fuckhead: I think it’s sell-by date is in like 20 minutes.
It’s mock-worthy but in the end not really very interesting.
But I digress into the GOP presidential candidate field….
Phoebe
@M-Pop: Exactly right. It’s the “trailer” part. My mother-in-law lived in a trailer, a trailer she worked hard at a cannery to buy, the only place she’s ever lived in that she owned. She was not remotely trash. I get extremely defensive over that term when I think of her, and some others I know, especially kids, who have to hear that.
handy
@Just Some Fuckhead:
@Yutsano:
I must have misremembered the circumstances around Nick’s disappearance. Forgives.
jibeaux
@R-Jud:
I gotta say, I missed ClosedCommentsGate, but frankly that sounds WAAAAY more interesting.
parsimon
@JC: I agree with the items in the negative column, though in my experience, while the “lawyer thing” makes for digging in one’s heels, there’s usually a bit more space for hearing the counter-argument and providing a further developed counter-argument in return.
Corner Stone
@BGinCHI: {whispering}
we’re not supposed to talk about it
magurakurin
To me words like “white trash” or “trailer trash” are not only race or class based, which makes them prejudicial, they are unneeded. “Asshole” works perfectly well and affords any assumptions about race, creed or economic status. So, saying “Donald Trump is an asshole,” avoids any problems.
fasteddie9318
This blog now has its head so far up its own ass there’s a chance that it could burst out of its own chest cavity like the Cirque do Soleil version of Alien.
mr. whipple
@MikeJ:
LOL. Long overdue, IMO.
BethanyAnne
@NobodySpecial: Thank you. I wanted to say something like that in ABL’s thread, but it was pretty clear to me that she was just banning whoever she fucking felt like. Theoretically, she isn’t going to come into this thread to ban folk.
I don’t comment here often, but I don’t particularly like the thought of having that privilege taken away from me. I mean, what the fuck? She has a blog called “Angry Black Lady” trolls the fuck out of this blog, and then bans folk for taking the bait? The amount of shit BOB and m_c had to do to get banned was massive. Tim and BobLob, not so much. Hell, even BOB’s first banning was temporary.
Now we have a front pager banning people and deleting comments. Some of the deletions are being noted, I guess? Maybe all. I dunno. It just seems shitty to troll a blog, then delete folk that respond in a way you don’t like.
Citizen_X
It’s totally Obama’s fault that we have to eat this shark sandwich!
BGinCHI
@fasteddie9318: I’ll buy tix unless it’s TicketMaster.
eemom
@fasteddie9318:
This. Dear God, this.
I can’t even tell what’s being argued about anymore.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: You realize fasteddie is One Of *Our* Own, right?
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Christ, the slow news week continues.
Yes, and that of course goes both ways.
Christ.
One of ABL’s epic rants was about a post at FDL (surprise!) that contained the phrase “house nigger”. Now, was I personally offended by the term? No, I was not the aggrieved party. Am I offended by the Washington Redskins? No, I am not the aggrieved party. Am I offended by beer ads on football games? No, I am not the aggrieved party.
It is elementary, outside of high-schoolish cliques, that is, that aggrieved parties get to decide what they find offensive. I doubt that the FDL backpager meant to cause racial offense, but he did. I don’t presume that ABL meant to offend, but she did. That’s just the way it is, and here we are.
There’s a sort of laughable pretense going on right now that when a certain individual takes offense at something that individual is completely within her rights to be offended (true enough), but that when that individual dishes up some offense to other parties then those parties are to blame for being offended. Feel free to explain this in rational, coherent terms at your leisure.
Anna
I made a comment on ABL’s post that agreed with Tim (who was later thrown out) and it never came out of moderation. So maybe comments were “banned” in other ways….
I don’t think ABL’s confrontational stuff is really ever about a particular issue. I believe it’s just a need to stir things up. I wish ABL would take the time and energy she wastes in pointless confrontation and apprentice herself to Kay.
Kay is an adult doing useful, important things. Maybe she could help ABL use her passion to do something constructive.
parsimon
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
The last paragraph there gets it right.
Corner Stone
@BethanyAnne:
I guess I missed this? Deleting and/or editing? Where did that happen?
(and I know if they’re deleted you can’t to point them, just in general)
BethanyAnne
@Corner Stone: Read through the 400+ comment monstrosity of ABL’s.
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/05/14/on-closing-comments/#comment-2585242
deleted
No clue if any are being deleted totally, or if there is editing beyond the deletion of the comments.
dollared
@Southern Beale: World Bank. But you beat me to it. I was going to suggest that he’s available, has relevant experience, and has raped an entire country.
Joel
@Josie: Why do you want to ban me?
General Stuck
Head against wall
hamletta
@dollared: I was going to ask if the housekeeper was Greek, but that would be in bad taste.
In other news: The “culture” on this blog is whatever John Cole says it is. If he wants to give his FPers the banhammer, so be it.
I may be a bleeding-heart liberal, but I have a hard time seeing a closed comment section as evidence of oppression.
If you’re still worked about the recent kerfuffle, I would suggest you seek the help of a caring professional. Your mental hygiene is in need of some Lysol.
hamletta
@BethanyAnne:
Some People Say it’s happening, though.
Fuck you, “BethanyAnne.”
eemom
Jeezus H.Q. Christ on a Crackerjack.
Please take notice that, on Monday morning at 9 a.m. or as soon thereafter as counsel may be heard, I shall move the Court to have this blog involuntarily committed.
BethanyAnne
@hamletta: Be pissy with me if it helps – I don’t know what mix of banning editing and deletion she did.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@hamletta: Good thing nobody claimed that closing the comments was oppression then.
Plenty of people are calling it a dick move, and some people call it stupid, but nobody called it oppression. For fucksake. Aren’t there enough things that actually happened for you to grouse about?
The most amusing thing about yesterday’s DUHRAMA OMG were the people who refused to believe that comments were closed. That moron Honus in particular was linked to the closed thread a half dozen times, in the thread directly above the closed one on the front page, and he still kept insisting that no thread had been closed and calling people idiots for thinking it was. Good times.
Still, if this whole thing leads to more Wu-Tang Clan on this site, it was all for the best. And I say that as a proven overprivileged racist derailing whining h8tr. Ain’t a damn thing changed, boy. Protec ya neck.
Doug Harlan J
@M-Pop:
Yes, I agree with you.
Yutsano
@Anna: Did you address it to Tim directly? That would do it.
Corner Stone
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire: Hater.
Corner Stone
@Anna:
Oohhhh…snap?
Corner Stone
T,I made the god damned mistake of one day remarking on something someone was waiting for him to remark on. And then when he did remark on that something, he got his ass handed to him.
And since such time as the ass handing he’s on hair trigger watch. I guess.
Because I ain’t never figured out anything else the kid has done sideways.
Corner Stone
@BethanyAnne: Man, Bethany I was there. That should asploded all around me. I kept my wits about me and kept refreshing to figure out where the land mines were. Because, blammo! There goes some poor bastard. And then the next thing you know, kersplewey! Some other sombitch got it right in the guts.
It was awful I’m here to tell you. Blog war is hell.
Jewish Steel
@Doug Harlan J:
That could be the punk rockest thing I’ve ever read here.
Except for the “fee fees” part. Let’s call it a TKO.
BGinCHI
@Jewish Steel: About to call it a night, my IL bro, but I just wanted to comment on our current Feb weather. What a fucking bummer. I feel for the folks getting flooded out, and I’m ready for summer.
When you coming up to Chi to start a Balloonapallooza?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
lolz
BethanyAnne
@Corner Stone: heh :) Honestly, I just feel sorry for the few kids who like to chat and got on the wrong side of the drama bomber. it’s tired, and I’m late, so i’ma head to bed.
Jewish Steel
@BGinCHI: If only it were Feb, my basement wouldn’t have as much standing water as it does.
If you mean bringing my band north, that’s probably not going to happen for a while. The drummer’s pregnant (his wife, really) and grounded for the foreseeable future. Currently working up some solo stuff.
But if you mean some kind of Juicer meet-up at, say, Hopleaf or something, I’d be down.
Corner Stone
@BethanyAnne:
Um…good luck? Congrats? I guess?
Ghanima Atreides
@Doug Harlan J:
oh please let one of them be me. it would be the greatest honor imaginable to be banned by the master troll.
;)
LT
@JC: “there never is any demonstrated learning, or ‘that’s a fair point’”
I don’t think it’s the most terrible thing in the world, and ABL might say, and anyone could argue rightly, that a comedian on stage isn’t there for learning either – but I don’t come here for the comedians. Hmmph. Maybe I’ll adjust. (And I’m not sure it’s what ABL would say in the first place.)
johnny walker
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire: Ehh, let’s be frank: the funniest thing about that thread was my massive (and still inexplicable even to myself) self-immolation on the Ensign thing. The only explanation I can offer there is that I was piss-drunk, +however many are in 2 bottles of wine, etc. That’s not an excuse — I’m an adult, I’m responsible for my own actions and I can normally handle my liquor a lot better than that. Near as I can tell, I was trying to argue some parliamentary technicality that I thought made sense, but mostly I was just a raging drunk asshole pissed off at being called a racist for being offended at what I believe is a patently-racist image.
Things that were completely shitty and I had no right to do, and am deservedly catching a bunch of shit for:
)) “Raycess” thing — terrible. I was trying to convey some kind’ve shorthand/meme/whatever to indicate that I felt like I was being assigned racism unfairly, but that wasn’t the right way to do so.
)) Ensign crap: Not particularly egregious in my mind, but a rather hilarious example of refusing to accept you’re wrong / confused / drunk / whatever / I still don’t know what happened but I sure made a fool of myself.
)) Taking over the Ensign thread: worse. Shouldn’t have happened. I do believe at some point I was openly acknowledging that I felt like I was being egged on to continue, but it’s still on me to step away from the keys.
)) Emailing Cole. Major weakage.
)) I believe I also gave ABL shit on Twitter. Also weak. I can’t actually remember what I said, and I deleted my twitter outta a combination of shame and the simple fact that I probably don’t need a way to spew drunk bullshit that easily at people. But I have a general sense that it was excessively vicious.
)) Probably some other shit that I forgot because I was basically blacked out.
)) The level of viciousness in attacking ABL’s writing. It was gratuitous and unnecessary.
Now that said, I believed, and continue to believe, that I had a couple very valid points, my absolute failure to be a quality advocate for those points notwithstanding:
)) That “all fat white dudes hate minorities etc” picture was fucking gross and I don’t see how it’s even remotely defensible. I remember there being a discussion of satire, etc — after thinking about it some more I just don’t see anything satirical about it. It was just flat-out mean. That’s basically a picture of me: a fat, slobby, stupid-looking white dude. That is the only qualification that picture offers: “This guy is white, therefore he hates educated women, hates minorities, has a bad relationship with his wife,” etc etc. Take it to the abstract, and you have a picture that says, “All members of group x hold belief y and engage in behavior z.” That’s racist as shit, and frankly downright hateful. Do we really think having whatever level of white privilege I/we/whoever do enjoy doesn’t make that picture hurtful? Or is it that it’s ok to hurt people as long as you see them as part of the privileged group?
I look at that picture, and I see someone saying that they know who I am and what I think based on the way I look. We can have a conversation about whether, absent any real context of what the particular individual’s life is like, it’s more acceptable to be racist and hateful toward members of privileged groups, but that’s a seperate issue. If we go there, we’re talking why and how. I’m talking is, as in: the fact that that picture was racist as hell is plain as day, and posting that picture while simultaneously expressing puzzlement as to why white people might feel threatened or adopt an us-vs-them mentality after seeing something like that is mind-boggling. Forget whether or not it’s accurate, correct, right, etc. Can we at least see how coming at someone with a “Oh, I already know all about you, you racist misogynist,” might be upsetting?
)) As far as why I spelled out exactly what I didn’t like about ABL’s writing, it was in response to being told something to the effect that I couldn’t handle her being black, couldn’t handle her being an educated woman, or etc. Well, that’s not true, so what are my options? Do I go, “Oh, you’re right! I’m a total racist! I see it now!” or do I tell the truth? Probably pointless either way, because this stuff was coming from the segments of the threadosphere that love arbitrarily assigning shit in order to win arguments anyway, but that’s where I was coming from.
)) On the white privilege, etc. level — I remember saying something about how we could talk about ethnic group x, ethnic group y, etc. in the aggregate if we wanted, but at the individual level you have a writer who (to my estimation) repeatedly flaunts her JD, recently posted something about how she could just bail on the country and get a great job somewhere else, etc. Well, I don’t have those things. I don’t have that option. Personally, I’m on SSI, I get about $850 a month, blah blah, it sucks, it’s hard, yadda yadda. And that includes being part of a group that is described as “mentally ill” at best, and “fucking crazy” at worst. As I said before, I’m not equating the level of shit that being a little off in the head brings me to the level of shit that a woman of color would have to deal with. But just because you see, “Oh, white guy” doesn’t mean it’s fair to automatically assign that person to the privileged class and assume you know so much about them that it’s fair to write them off wholesale.
Folks can feel free to lavel this a “whinge” or etc. I could give a fuck. It informs where I’m coming from, and if you can’t handle hearing that not every white dude is firmly middle-class, etc. that’s your issue. I believe Cole did a post about this awhile back when Jim Webb mentioned that, hey, there’s a serious poverty problem among white folks in certain areas of the Virginias, and being lumped in with all the WASPy tortoiseshell-glasses-and-fangs crowd as though there’s some giant white monolith soooooorta makes people who’re struggling to get by furious. Maybe that helps you understand where I’m coming from.
My family doesn’t live high on the hog — dad lives in a 1 bedroom apartment, mom and stepdad have recently stepped up to a grand-ol 2 bedroom. In short, we’re dirt fucking poor, scratched and clawed for everything we have, and I’ve watched my relatives’ heads get filled with this bullshit about how they wouldn’t have to live this way if it wasn’t for affirmative action, and etc. I know better, but the rest of ’em are too far gone on that shit. So what’s the point? Well, #1, that other than a few scattered details and the obvious fact that I become an inexcusably-belligerent asshole when I drink two bottles of wine in 3 hours, you don’t know me and shouldn’t pretend to. And I’ll do my best to extend the same courtesy. I’ve looked over the derailing for dummies site, I see the stuff about, “Well, that happens to me too!” and etc. Well, sometimes that’s accurate and sometimes it’s a cop-out. When I’m presented with this hateful picture and then told the only reason I have a problem with it is that I hate minorities and women, well, I don’t know what part of the DFD website I’m supposed to link people to for that, but I’d hope they could realize that’s some fucking bullshit without the visual aid.
)) And I do think ABL engages in some grossly unfair rhetorical tactics regarding her pseudonym, ethnicity, gender, etc. When you have a pseudonymous blogger whom we only know to refer to as ABL or Angry Black Lady, and then people who refer to her that way are accused of reinforcing stereotypes, then what the fuck? How are people supposed to address you? I remember seeing a post where you said Joan Walsh was perpetuating the stereotype simply because she didn’t edit your screen-name out of one of her tweets in a post on Salon. Was she supposed to replace @AngryBlackLady with an ellipsis? Include everyone else’s SN, but then add “…and others” so she doesn’t accidentally reinforce stereotypes by acknowledging the screen name that you’ve chosen for yourself? How else should people refer to you? Maybe I’m missing something, but this is what I meant when I referred to this as a “neat trick.”
So in short, I apologize for the level of viciousness, I apologize for the parts where I slipped into some quasi-racist bullshit of my own (I hope that’s not really me, but this bears further reflection), and I apologize for stepping into Anne’s thread / Cole’s living room and flinging my poo all over the place. At the same time, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to ask what was up with that picture, to point out that even if you rationalize and mock people for being offended it was still quite hurtful, and to tell anyone who wants to assign me bigotry and “Well you just can’t handle an educated woman” to take a hike. I made a disgusting spectacle of myself the other night, and I get that a lot of people are happy to point at that and say, “Ah, see! That picture isn’t racist after all!” No, sorry. These are distinct issues. I could drink 8 bottles of wine, 37 bottles of wine, 947 bottles of wine, and none of that would excuse anyone’s rhetorical excesses — mine or anyone else’s.
So whatever. Have at me. I can take it, and in large part I deserve it. Still, I can admit where I fucked up. How about you?
Corner Stone
Jeebus cracker.
johnny walker
@Corner Stone: Yeah, TLDR and stuff. I get how tedious that thing must be to look at, but given the large role I played in shitting up the place the other night it was kinda hard to make it brief.
Better this than nothing I figure.
Corner Stone
@johnny walker: No, I meant holy shit I can’t believe I’m still awake.
Ghanima Atreides
@johnny walker: i get it.
you are fat.
parsimon
Actually, I rather liked Johnny’s explanation with mea culpa.
Comrade Kevin
I have a two word review of this post:
Shit sandwich.