10/12/2005

no apologies and isaiah resource




first off, c.i. did not bother me by including me last night. if you missed it, there was a big pow-wow among members of the community who have their own sites, gina & krista and beth. gina & krista's round-robin poll was very clear that members felt some sites were not helpful to the community. it wasn't the vote that convinced c.i. but the examples offered. so you saw a lot of them dropped last night.

i was glad to participate in that especially since the non-linking to me was 1 of the things that pissed c.i. off the most. i didn't bring the issue up to c.i. because i didn't want c.i. to feel caught in the middle. i had told elaine about for weeks before i went on vacation. while i was on vacation, elaine cleaned up my blog roll and i appreciate that. i didn't ask her to. but i appreciate that she did it.

elaine also explained to c.i. why it happened.

i was happy to promote any 1 and to listen to their problems but this 'please link to me!!!!' with no return links after i did. and every 3rd reply to an e-mail i would say, 'hey lady, what happened with the link' and at 1st it would be 'oh i'm going to do it' and then after awhile it would be 'well you're not really the sort of blog that i link to.' oh excuse the hell out of me.

here i am being supportive and listening to whines about how mean male bloggers are and wasting time reassuring you that you should keep blogging and the whole time you just want a link but don't want to give 1 because i'm not your sort of blog.

so elaine pulled them while i was on vacation and thank you to elaine for that.

i didn't want to deal with it. i didn't ask her to pull them but she's always got my back.

and she told c.i. who waited until i was back and settled in to bring it up because i went through a depressing period, as you all know, over roberts' confirmation. c.i. would just be silly on the phone then and try to cheer me up. but when i was back to my old self, c.i. asked what the hell happened. i read the e-mails to c.i.

c.i. was already dealing with 1 jerk who had insulted isaiah and hurt isaiah's feelings. isaiah never did a thing to this jerk and actually visited the jerk's site. then 1 day he goes there and the jerk's trashing isaiah. if that had been a stranger and not some 1 who always wanted to play 'friend of the community' it wouldn't have mattered.

but it bothered isaiah and it should have. isaiah's not paid to do those illustrations, he does them to contribute to the community. i think they're great. and isaiah would have been fine with people not liking them. but to go to a site that's supposedly a friend of the community and read that your stuff not's that great and the guy says he doesn't usually even like them but here's one he'll post. of course he'd post it, he steals from every site. the common ills has their own cartoonist and so of course he'll swipe that too. all he knew was that it was drawn by a member. he didn't know that the member's favorite site outside the community was this guy's site.

the world today just nuts is funny. but i guess it made someone feel important to trash isaiah.

it would be like being a big fan of the rolling stones and then going to a concert and hearing mick jagger dis you on stage. i talked to isaiah about it and so did betty (and betty delinked from the jerk immediately she knows how hard the creative process is) and we kept saying, 'tell c.i. how you're feeling.' but isaiah kept it inside and it got to the point that he couldn't even draw 1 for a bit and that's when i spoke to c.i. and said 'isaiah is not okay with that and that's why there's no cartoon.'

it had nothing to do with isaiah it had to do with some 1 trying to play both sides. so publicly at their site they would say they didn't like isaiah or the common ills or just ignore the common ills and then they'd write into c.i. 'great post and i have something on it too' and people in the community noticed especially natalie who had enjoyed the site before that nonsense.

c.i. never goes to sites, there's not any time. so when the e-mails started coming in on it, c.i. was thinking people were taking offense to something that was really minor. then billie and another member did their survey of the site to see how often the common ills was mentioned there? not at all. but every week or every other it was send in an e-mail with 'great post and i've got this and could you link to it' and not only that, a common ills member gave data for a report that person was working on. and that member was so offended by this nonsense that he asked that that the data go to mike which is why it started popping up there instead.

c.i. could care less and left the matter to isaiah. if isaiah wanted it gone, it would be gone. isaiah tried to blow it off but it really did bother him that some 1 who played like they were a friend of the community would then make a point to slam him.

in the end, he told c.i. not to pull the link but that he'd just stop drawing the comic. c.i. said that was bullshit, that the site was gone and for isaiah to keep drawing the world today just nuts. the person wanted links from the community but then wanted to play like he didn't read the common ills at his own site. he also made the mistake of laughing at another blogger's problems to c.i. and c.i. didn't care for that. i got a call when that came in because there were a number of people doing that. c.i. asked me what i thought and explained that there was no friendship between them and it seemed like it crossed a line. c.i. was not trashing the person in question and was wondering why the jerk thought an e-mail trashing the person would be funny?

(i've just put isaiah's take on john bolton at the top of this post. it's one of my many favorites.)
so c.i. did the generic response that went out to all the people laughing that said 'i'm sorry if __ is having problems and i don't with ___ any harm.' but that was probably the beginning of the end for the guy. c.i. stopped noting the guy except when the guy would e-mail and then c.i. would do the cheerful, high road pose and note it but the guy is creepy.

on another topic, i got 15 e-mails today from people i've never heard from before all asking who the friend is that c.i. wrote the note to. oh yeah guys, they were all men, i'm going to tell. and like dates from hell, not even a compliment or a bit of blogger foreplay. no 'i really like your site.'
not even a hello. just 'i think it's ____ am i right?'

but for my real readers, i do have the results of the poll. that's what i was going to write about yesterday and was in the middle of when c.i. called. that's why i posted the photos yesterday.

if you'll remember beatrice had a question and i'll do 2 entries tonight 1 that's just the results of the polling we did for beatrice's questions. i've had a lot of fun with this post, going through all of isaiah's the world today just nuts comics i could find. i had no idea he'd done so many. he really is talented. and makes a huge contribution to the community so thank you isaiah. you can read an interview with him that the third estate sunday review did by clicking here.







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