i got me a new fan

well color me proud, i got me a new fan. and this little boy is just drooling over me constantly judging by his e-mail. fucking appears to be the only thing on his mind judging by the number of times he uses that word.

so we're talking about adam. the thrust of the e-mail can be boiled down to 'you're fucking stupid and c.i. is a liar.' adam has offered his opinions, so here are my opinions of adam.

adam is fucking stupid. someone, enroll him in a literacy course so he can learn to read.

unlike the e-mails to c.i., which non-careful reader adam doesn't realize i'd read at the 1st of this week, adam doesn't try to be sweet.

he starts off all bluster and passion and ... like most men of his kind, he shoots his load quickly.

he's declaring war on me.

isn't that just like a man trying to overcompensate?

what a dick.

he sat down at the computer, pulled his little noodle out, and juked all over the keyboard.

was it good for you, little boy?

i had to laugh, i know you're not supposed to laugh at men when they can't keep it up, because i've never gone to his site (does anyone?) but he comes to my site.

remember that adam, you read me, i don't read you.

that makes you my fan or stalker.

rage away adam. scream and yell and type 'fuck" this or whatever.

i love my power, adam.

i was talking to kat about this (among other people, we all enjoyed your e-mail) and she slid me the thing she wrote wednesday night. she'd just finished her kat's korner, there was supposed to be a second 1, when ava asked her to read what c.i. had just finished.

c.i. had managed to just let it go. and rise above it.

adam can't do that. are we suprised he can't rise? i mean, limp noodle and all.

but kat said she decided not to post her piece on limp noodles because she felt c.i. had really achieved something and that the kat's korner would be a set back. she told me to use anything i wanted from it. so thank you, kat. bless you, kat. you are always supremely gifted and wise and in a world with an adam in it, that's even more important.

we need our strong voices and our wise ones. or else we'll be left to the adam boys of the world. god help us all if that day comes.

the only thing any of us learned from adam's e-mail (it was heavily circulated today, especially to my female bloggers) was that indeed adam was apparently trying to mock c.i.'s health.

what a big strong man!

ladies, is he taken?

i'm sure he is and my heart goes out to the woman.

abusive and rude, adam thinks i care about his opinion.

let me repeat adam, and hold onto little adam cause he's about to shrink even smaller, i don't read you. i've never visited your site.

never would.

never linked to it.

never will.

but i'm touched that you come to my site. maybe you'll learn something here?

probably not because you need to enroll in adult literacy course 1st.

reading and comprehension isn't adam's strong suit.

but what is? besides screaming and yelling?

no wonder, as sherry noted, 'no 1 even knows who he is.' no, they don't. and sherry, they never will.

as kat wrote in her hilarious never posted entry (which may go up in full here) he's a little fish trying to play it like a big 1. kat has this whole hysterical thing about men who stand like boys in the locker room, if you get my point, and it's about little limp noodle adam.

'you try so hard to be like the big boys.'

poor adam.

adam apparently wants to fuck me judging by his constant use of the word. well, adam, keep dreaming. not going to happen, but i've often been the fantasy and it's fine that i'm your new pin up.

why don't you buy a strap on and start wearing that so you can get an idea of what the big boys pack?

and maybe at some point, you can deal with my mind?

probably not. boys like you are so angry at women that it's impossible for you to see us as anything other than slaves to order around.

adam, i ain't your slave. i ain't your whore. and you ain't going to score.

so keep jerking off on your keyboard like the nasty little boy you are.

sherry asked me if i was going to quote adam and of course not.

he's a nothing. you don't quote a nothing.

remember how he tried to marshall his "fans" to bombard c.i. with e-mails? no 1 did. days later, c.i. gets a copy and paste of adam's plea for activism from community member dallas and is shocked because adam hadn't acted that way in e-mails. how was c.i. to know? no 1 reads adam.

apparently he thought i'd give him a strong write up and maybe send some readers his way.

adam i care about my readers, i would never inflict harm on them by sending them to you.

kat had a funny line about how he's a madonna ballad gone wrong. that was so true, kat.

i also love adam's attempts at spelling and how he never seems to know which word he's trying to use.

okay, let me stop laughing because adult illiteracy is a serious concern.

and reading adam's e-mail it was as though he was robert de niro running up to the bus and screaming to jane fonda, 'teach me to read!'

i don't know where adam lives, where the rock he crawls out from under each morning is. but in my general area we have the adult literacy resource and i strongly support their work. so maybe adam can go there? or maybe he can find something in whatever circle of hell he occupies?

i don't know. but he's a joke. he's a nasty, mean spirited, little boy of a joke, but a joke none the less.

and if he thinks he can bully me around, he's also a stupid joke.

women are getting tired of this and adam should realize his act is tired and old.

if he has something to say, he can blog on at his site. now granted, no 1 will ever see it, but he does have his own site.

he's just a hateful little thing. kat compared him to a little sharpie barking and growling until a medium size dog came along, then adam runs off, tail between legs - the largest thing ever hanging between those legs probably - whimpering.

adam appears to think that he's going to p.r. his hate speech into a career.

oh adam, you are so very laughable. and this time, you didn't have to drop your pants before the laughs started!

attack me all you want adam. i won't cower. i won't even blink. i will laugh at you.

you and your little dick don't impress me.

somewhere, someone told you that when you didn't get your way, the answer was to scream and yell. that doesn't let you get your way. it just makes you a screamer with a little dick.

as readers who can comprehend (and my normal readers can) know, i don't take this shit from you guys (and why is it allways the guys?). i don't play it.

i'm no damsel in distress, little adam. plan your attack strategy. i don't give a shit.

declare war all you want. as kat pointed out in her piece, nixon had to bomb cambodia to get it up. apparently you have to beat up on female bloggers.

i don't do 'high road' so adam is going to be even more frustrated than he normally is on a friday night.

unless his thing is a 'ball buster special.' some guys are actually into it. usually they can't be honest with their wives so they go to a prostitute or sex worker, but they really seem to get off on it.

one hand down his pee-stained fruit of the looms, the other at the keyboard, imagine the damage he could do! why he might ... piss himself?

i don't know what he thinks i'm going to cower.

but it's past time that these men who think they can scream abuse at women got called on it.

and, as one female blogger told me on the phone today, 'rebecca, you are our cat woman!' you know it.

trash me on your site, adam. maybe someone looking for information on a cartoon character will accidentally stumble across your site? if so, they'll learn about the woman who didn't back down to you. who won't back down to you.

adam thinks he knows everything. don't men like that always think that? i'm told by shirley (who's never been to his site either but heard this from c.i. who heard it from ron - getting the idea that he's about as popular as a show airing on the pax network?) that he has an issue he works on but his 'work' doesn't compare with krista's on the same subject. see, even passionate, adam peters out.

ain't that the way, ladies? the biggest mouths are always the most disappointing in the sack. i know i've blogged on that before but it bears repeating.

adam, keep e-mailing. i can always use a good chuckle.

and when you dream about me tonight, and you will, remember it's only in your dreams.

in real life, not only would i not sleep with you, i'd throw a drink in your face.

now adam probably would see that as a sign that he was 'in.' you know how those guys are. ladies, you feel me on this?

adam, i'm so above anything you're even qualified to dream about.

i made the mistake of telling my ex about it. i thought he'd find it funny. he didn't. he offered to kick your ass. i told him you weren't worth it and that your nasty little e-mail full of anger and rage didn't effect me in the least. but keep writing. maybe you'll manage to get it up and cross the line? if so, my ex is 6ft 3 inches. how big are you, little one?

no, not there. we all know you've got an inch and half there. we all know your mind is blown and your mouth drooling as you picture my ex. 'over 6 feet! he must be hung!' penis envy is such a sad trait especially from little boys who fancy themselves the blog equivalent of a cute little cartoon.

i wonder if he has the cartoon character on his p.j.s?

sexual analysis: adam it the little boy who couldn't score throughout high school and was overly keen and friendly in the locker room. ron, don't drop the soap!

sexual analysis: adam is frustrated. he questions his own manhood. he knows he comes up short so he bullies women and, when not doing that, wonders if just maybe he should consider being with men but lacks the guts to.

if adam continues to e-mail, i'll offer a more detailed analysis. i can do that. these are my opinions, adam. now go to your blog and write for yourself (because you're probably the only 1 reading it) what you think of me. i don't shy from controversy, adam.

give me all the publicity you can muster (which won't be much because boys like you can't muster much).

but he'll need time to compose his reply because my guess is that on some level he was looking for a ball buster special. he was looking to be called on his actions and put in his place. mommy issues. on the 1 hand, he can't deal with women due to mommy, on the other, he still wants a woman to play mommy and let the little boy feel safe and diapered.

now adam will probably feel i have said awful things about him.

i can do that. i can offer my opinions on any thing i want. he brought it on himself by e-mailing me and trying to intimidate me. keep writing adam, i'll keep commenting.

this actually goes to the theme i've been dealing with. abusive men who want to scream and yell and bully women. tonight we focused on little adam. he'll determine how often we continue to focus on him. and honestly, he probably loves the attention.

don't go to his site. not even to find out his response to me.

little boys always think a pissing match will get them attention. that was a concern 5 women bloggers had. that he was getting attention and his behaviors were attention seeking.

but see, i love all my fans. even the stupid 1s.

besides circulating his e-mail, i also printed it put it in the notebook i keep that i call 'stupid men who can't get it up.'

adam is a nothing. he's a nobody. he wants to ride a feud into fame. so readers, continue to avoid him. i won't call him a fucking liar only because i think he's stupid. he claims c.i. lied and i've read all of adam's e-mails to c.i. c.i. didn't lie. did adam? i think adam has a functional literacy problem.

that's why he thinks he said something that he never said.

i want to thank sherry who's encouraged me to share adam's e-mail. she's right that it is important that women see what he is really like. if he'd written me this months ago i could have shared it with c.i. and prevented c.i. from taking the high road.

as readers here know, i know c.i. we have a mutual friend. she's a psychologist. i passed adam's e-mail on to her and she told me that he was 'nuts.' that's the technical term? we both laughed.
'becky, he's seeing things that aren't written, he's like a sociopath.'

just my luck to get a nut job for a fan!

but we need to be nice to the nut jobs. they're one climb away from a clock tower at any given second.

any time you can get it up long enough to rage at me, adam, please do so because your e-mail is just too funny. we've all laughed about you today, every 1 i've shared the e-mail with. send more! please!

i won't always be able to read them because i do have a lot of readers who write (sorry, didn't mean to bring up a sore subject with you there, adam, honest, wasn't trying to put you into another size competition you could only lose). that's why i didn't read your e-mail until late in the morning.

except for elaine who thinks you're nuts (and is trained to recognize nuts) and my ex who really, really wants to kick your ass (don't wet yourself adam - too late? - i told him to leave you alone), the rest of us just registered shock at how stupid you were, how threatening you were and how sad you were. while laughing, granted. but women, and any man who's been next to you in a locker room, have no doubt been laughing at you for years.

so juke on your keyboard the next time little adam goes rigid (it does happen more than once a month, doesn't it? have you considered viagra?). and keep coming back to my site, you may learn something. even the stupidist man can learn something.

on blog betty, jane fonda, maureen dowd and yes, guys, you should read this too

no, you aren't missing anything. there wasn't another post last night. i had gone to the e-mail to write shirley and after i sent that, i found an e-mail from betty.

there was no entry at thomas friedman is a good man yesterday. betty's really upset.

for those of you who don't know, besides working full time, betty has 3 kids. so there are a lot of times when i wouldn't think twice of e-mailing c.i, or folding star, or jim or ty or dona or jess or ava, or kat but i know on my end i don't pick up the phone to call betty unless it's a friday night (and of course we talk on saturday).

so the end result was that this whole thing caught betty by surprise. she'd been in the circle this weekend but this started breaking on sunday. she knew most people's opinion of ron but c.i. was taking the high road and betty had no idea how bad it was.

she read about it on the common ills and here and she got some e-mails from community members. she is just disgusted that when 2 people (ron and tas) knew c.i. was ill they would conduct themselves in this way.

betty said if thomas friedman announced tomorrow that he was ill, she'd stop her site with a note for him to get well. she really wonders about the integrity and character of some people online because 'they claim to be left and yet they go out of their way to hurt and mock and bully some 1 who is ill.'

she had a post from herself that she kept almost posting. but she's not 'broken character' on the site and felt that it would throw a lot of people. 'but,' she said, 'i just don't feel like being light and funny right now because i am so angry.'

i don't blame betty for feeling the way she did. it is disgusting what those 2 did to c.i.

a part of me wants to ask 'how were they raised?' but another part of me realizes that a certain age, you're responsible for your own actions.

i'm not dismissing child abuse or rape or any thing like that. but in terms of what is just basic common decency, at a certain age, even if you weren't taught it as a child, you either teach yourself or you take the blame.

ron and tas are adults and it's really saying a lot about them that they pulled this nonsense.

i told betty that most people aren't like that. i get a lot of e-mails from really great people. some of them are regular readers. some of them are other bloggers. and i get a lot of support from female bloggers which i really apprecite.

there's a woman who is just so smart and so amazing and runs this really great site. it's not political but she'll make a comment every now and then and you'll know she's smart when it comes to politics as well.

and i've been telling her that if she wants to write about politics in detail she should because she's e-mailed to say 'way to go' and how she wanted to address some issues. she e-mailed today to say that this shit thrown at c.i. is exactly why she has focused on other topics.

she did a post on the patriot act 2 years ago and 2 bloggers who are on the left (i'd never heard of them but i don't jump blog to blog) started e-mailing her telling her 'nice but here is what you should have written.'

and she couldn't believe it because they had their own sites. she did a post that had a lot about the patriot act in it because she cared about it. when she replied, 1 ignored her reply and kept telling her what she needed to go back and write instead. now she wasn't wrong with what she said, i've read her post, but what she emphasized wasn't what this dick felt she should emphasize. so for 2 weeks she got daily e-mails from her telling her what she needed to write and that was from the 1 dick.

she replied to the other guy and he wrote back this nasty little thing about how 'if you can't take constructive criticism, you bitch, write about cats and the wb!'

i told her she should go public with it. or give me permission to. but she just didn't want to deal with it. i understand that.

i also understand that a lot of male bloggers (believe me, i understand this!) get off on arguing.
and they really have this 'last word' attitude.

i've heard from some very nice male bloggers in e-mails. not every male blogger is a dick.
but there's not a week that goes by where some male bloggers aren't strutting up to my inbox, pulling out their dicks and wanting to take a piss.

i wonder if they do that with other males?

i doubt it. i mean ron will go postal on a male and then real quick back down. he'll do that to atrios or some other guy and then back down real quick.

but there is something that makes some guys think they can do that.

they're usually little bloggers in a small pond, judging by my e-mails.

and it's so shocking to me that male bloggers on the right can write and disagree with me strongly but not tell me 'you wrote that wrong!'

like the social security post i did. i got 6 little bloggers screaming at me over that. 'you are stupid!' was the basic opening. then they'd tell me that i was an idiot for not explaining the numbers.

if you're a common ills member, you probably remember when former member frank in orlando went off on columnist ellen goodman saying 'how dare she write that!'

she was writing about social security and sticking up for the program but she didn't pull out the charts and statistics.

i don't know if it's the sports mentality or what, but the little boys really love their numbers. even though i often get the impression they don't understand them. but they've memorized them and they spit them out and if you don't do the same they think they can tear into you.

some man taking a piss of anger and rage thinks he's just letting it all hang out ('all' ain't that much from my experience with real life bullies). a woman who's using her blog to share and talk about what she's thinking and what matters to her, reads that hateful e-mail and may think, 'i'll just shut up.'

that's not the case for everyone. and i talked to betty about this on the phone last night. my advice is don't ever high road it. c.i. tried that and ron just bullied and bullied more and then his boy blunder (to use kat's phrase) joins him with some sort of 'see ron, i got balls too' attitude.

i've been asked by kenny from time to time why i touch on this topic so much? i do write about men who try to bully a lot.

it's an important topic.

but it needs to be talked about. will it change the way some men behave? no, it won't.

they'll go being dicks.

but it is an important topic to women bloggers judging by e-mails. and i know from the high school females who read my stuff that they appreciate it as well and take it out and apply it to their own lives.

maureen dowd offered that women didn't do as many op-eds and needed to be mentored by men. that's why maureen dowd can attack jane fonda like she did in the book review.

women love jane fonda. you've got some crazy right winging gals who don't. but if you're a woman and you're left or completely non political, you look at what jane fonda's been through in her life and what she's done with her life and you just think, 'way to go.'

if dowd had gotten some female mentoring or just some sound boarding from a female peer group (or even from men who aren't total dicks), she wouldn't have the need to trash jane fonda to please all those idiotic men. she'd have more self-respect. she'd also address issues like reproductive rights which she doesn't.

dowd's often funny. she usually does a good pop-cultural blend in her columns. but she's not a feminist and it shows in column after column.

she's the type of woman who will always try to win male approval.

now for most of us, that's probably a given and let's not kid. (i'm speaking to the women here, guys.) if you're a lesbian that may not effect you. (though there are 2 readers who've shared that even though they have no desire to sleep with men, they often find themselves seeking male approval.)

i don't buy into biology arguments. by that i'm saying that i don't believe for a moment that there's some genetic need for a woman to 'please daddy.' i do think that we're raised in a world where men were held in higher esteem. we grew up seeing that. it's cultural.

which means it's a pattern and we can address it. it may take a lifetime for some of us, for others, we may be able to deal with immediately.

but the answer isn't turning into maureen dowd and always trying to prove to the boys that you can think just like them. or get that 'you think like a man' bullshit.

i think women who fought battles when i was a child and before did so much to change the world.
and i think there's still a great deal to do.

i hear from some young girls that they don't get feminism because aren't we all equal now?
i don't mock them because they are asking serious questions and they are young. no, we aren't all equal. you can see that when you compare the pay of women. and you can see it on the op-ed pages, as susan estrich pointed out. you can see it on tv where you can be fat and overweight and not funny and get to be a star in a tv show. you can see it all around you.

are things better for me because an alice walker or jane fonda or gloria steinem or robin morgan or sandra cisneros exists and blazed trails? hell yes. but none of those women are saying the field is equal. things are damn better because of the women who have fought. but we're going to be in a lot of trouble if we don't continue to speak out and apply actions to our lives.

just because you can walk down the street with your ass hanging out of your jeans doesn't mean we reached equality. think about it, a second. women should be able to dress any way that you like. but in this country, most straight men aren't whining about it. they're happy to check out any skin you want to flash. don't mistake that for equality and the end of the struggle.

they'll let you display your body. they don't seem to want you to display your mind, but they'll let you display your body. they don't want you to control it.

that's why you get rape and date rape and attempts to tell you that you have no privacy rights.
the battle for choice and the battle for access to birth control is about them deciding on your bodies. don't forget that.

and don't forget that if you mimick them in your statements they'll love you. but if you write in your own voice, they'll rush on over to tell you that it was an attempt but what you should have said was ...

i'm really impressed with my young female readers because no matter where they are starting at when they 1st write me, they do start seeing connections once you give them some information.

betty was so disgusted by two men attacking c.i. that she just couldn't get unblocked enough to write in character. i told her, don't force it. take your time and then it will come. now if i was 1 of those men maureen dowd wants to assign all us gals as mentors, i might have told betty that but more likely i would have said, 'well they're right.'

we need mentors, all of us, male and female. we need role models. but we don't need bad 1s. and we don't need them to be a certain sex. in the review of jane fonda's my life so far, maureen dowd called jane fonda a broken doll. if she's broken, what is maureen?

maybe maureen doesn't give a damn about reproductive rights? she might not for all i know. but maybe she also doesn't seriously address this topic because of the fact that she knows she got into the boys club on a pass and that playing the reproductive rights card would lead to flack? if that's the case, it blows her 'we need men to mentor us!' plea right out of the water.
who's the broken doll? i don't think it's jane fonda who is a woman who never stops exploring and questioning. i think it's the woman who silences herself so that she can stay in the boys club.
i'm going to keep coming back to this topic because it's important.

i copyrighted lower case so hand over your damn money!

this is the post i wrote last night and saved when c.i. pulled the addendum to give tas a chance to respond. tas is fast loose and with the truth (my opinion!). he's got a lot to say on his blog but he's not telling the truth. c.i. says an entry is in the works at the request of members who want to deal with tas (who my readers call a 'nobody' and i'd agree with that opinion! opinion! i can have any opinion i want! here's my post from last night. enjoy. i intend to post again tonight.)

no, i didn't copyright lower case and i'll get to that in a moment.

c.i. is responding to the attack on the common ills community tonight. c.i.'s been working on that post. i stated i would wait until that post went up to blog tonight.

the post almost went up some time ago. it was delayed when community member dallas found out that the common ills had been slammed by someone else besides ron.

i'll get to that in a moment.

so what c.i. is doing now (and i've said, don't do it) is waiting to give the person c.i. just found out slammed the site a chance to respond. c.i.'s willing to not note the reality on that 1 person if they'll make their statements to the community.

i think it's bullshit but c.i.'s far nicer than i am.

as you all know ron attacked the common ills community in his now deleted and infamous post 'how do you sleep' or whatever he was flaming on about that time.

what you do not know is how sick c.i. is. c.i.'s dealing with that in the post. ron knew it. i had told ron. ron also knew c.i. had been in the hospital the day ron attacked the community.

sweet guy, huh?

aren't some men just so fucking sweet?

and guess what 2 men love to do best, why get together and gossip about me!

i'm so flattered, except when i consider the 2 men and then i'm just repulsed.

tas and ron, like the courtship of eddie's father. 'people let me tell you about my best friend'
walking hand and hand as they scheme and plot. what big tough guys.

well when the 2 yentas get together, let me tell you the fur does fly.

see tas attacked the common ills in a post. he didn't have his facts straight but is that really a surprise?

and some 1 responded. tas is convinced it was me. tas, i didn't even know your damn name until today. i certainly haven't been to your site. does any 1 even check ron's? why would we want to check out ron junior?

any of my readers know that i'm more apt to pick up the phone or write about something in a magazine then surf the net. i'm sorry they confused me for 1 of their followers.

well little boys need their fantasies, how else do you explain pamela anderson's latest attempt at a tv show?

so the little boys are convinced it's me. why? in the round table i used the term 'high road' which is a term that the poster uses. okay, i coined that and copyrighted it! people start paying up. (any 1 who's ever listened to the al franken show has heard that term over and over and since i supposedly coined it, i want my money!)

also the post is in lower case. it's not the way i would write it, but it's in lower case and 'high road' is used. i'm not even sure i'm the only 1 who used it. i know elaine and c.i. used it on the phone before the roundtable because i had been talking to her and she wanted to talk to c.i. i'd told her of the call earlier that day to c.i. that said stop taking the 'high road.' better sue the woman that said that too because she owes me money!

pay up, everyone. now!

as bad as it is that the 2 little boys want to spread rumors, tas also posted an attack on his site (thanks community member dallas!) (i asked c.i. for a copy of it but don't have it yet, so i e-mailed dallas who i know is always copy and pasting things in e-mail and he sent it to me right away). pillow talk, pillow talk, talk-talk-talk.

phone!

it was c.i. the post is going up. tas was given time to respond. 30 minutes. tas said quote him. c.i. went into detail about health issues by the way. tas already knew c.i. was sick. that doesn't stop big brave men from attacking people.

c.i's my friend. i make no apologies for defending. but when you read c.i.'s post, i think you'll agree that ron and tas went way too far.

both knew c.i. was sick. both have been less than honest.

c.i. would say maybe tas doesn't know the full story. did you e-mail tas that? yes. did tas bother to reply? no.

and guys and gals, c.i. e-mailed tas early this morning and tas didn't bother to reply until over 10 hours later. (i'm sure c.i. will have the exact hour, i'm going by what c.i. e-mailed me this morning which was at 7 am.)

let's talk about tas since he likes to beat up on sick people with lies. he claims at his site that he took the time to outline his problems with c.i. and ask for clarification. because none was given, c.i. is a liar!

a liar!

c.i. read me both of the e-mails that came in from tas and they didn't ask for any such thing. they moaned and bitched about how every body tracks. and tas says 'get better' or some such shit in 1.

tas's concern about c.i.'s health is so touching, no?

concerned on the 13th, calling some 1 a liar on the 18th. when you never asked for a correction or clarification. get real tas, you stupid dummy. you bitched and moaned about how other people track and' i'm not a big corporation so why don't people trust me?'

why don't they trust you? because you call sick people liars because they don't post something from you that you never wrote or asked to be posted.

when some 1 writes you to say that they are sick and were in the hospital all day being poked and prodded and can't really follow your e-mail you then turn around and call them a liar?

am i protective of c.i.? damn fucking straight.

read the post when it goes up, you'll realize what some of us have known for some time. what i warned ron about a week before he slammed the community. they'll probably try to whine 'i didn't know it was that bad.' yeah, you did quit being such little bitches.

so that's your sweet blogsphere kiddos, 2 big bully men who want to beat up on the sick. aren't they tough guys. aren't they swell?

don't you wish there were more like them in the world?

i'll have more to say when c.i.'s post is up. i haven't read it. i've heard the addendum. the addenedum was written at the last minute after dallas e-mailed the post from tas to c.i.
at this point, c.i. knew nothing of it and had just written a post that goes over what went down and in what order.

we've all told c.i. quit taking up for ron, quit defending him. c.i. can be too kind hearted. hearing the voice on the phone though, tas may not get any slack cut for him. i hope that's the case.

i've shared here many times that men think they can bully and push around. i don't stand for it.
i don't put up with that shit and i don't think any 1 else should.

2 little merry maids have gossiped about me and want to play big tough guys, hey bitches, bring it to me if you're so brave and tough.

oh wait, you know i'm not sick. you know i'll call you on your shit.

it's more fun for you 2 to beat up on someone who's seriously ill.

what sick fucks are you?

ronno, let me toss your stolen question from john lennon back to you: how do you sleep?

phone!

tas wants time to reply. tas isn't going to reply. he'll say tomorrow 'just quote what i put on my blog' and that will be that. mark my words on this people, mark my words.

c.i.'s too damn trustworthy and wants to see good in people. if you're reading this tomorrow it's because my save to draft for when tas stabbed c.i. in the back was right.

no post, go to the common ills

i just finished a post and was about to publish when c.i. phoned.

i've saved to draft and depending on the way things go, i will either post it tomorrow or do a new entry.

when you read c.i.'s post, you will realize that c.i. is ill. i'm very upset about that. and i've made clear that i will not allow any 1 to trash c.i. and get away with it. (you may have to scroll around to find it. it will be the long thing and it will talk about the attack on the community.)

the post i had for tonight went after those who attacked c.i. i will post it tomorrow depending on the behavior of 1 of 2 men. (isn't it always men?)

c.i. has taken the 'high road' (a phrase i apparently coined, but we'll go into that tomorrow -- in the meantime, pay up if you're using it because there's a delicious rumor going around about me, don't worry, i'm not shy about dishing).

the result has been that ron of why are we back in iraq has been bullying and abusive.

i don't stand for that. i don't give bully men (whether they beat up on the sick or just the well) a pass. and what ron did with the slam against the common ills community was disgusting. when you realize that he knew c.i. was ill, it's even more disgusting.

when you know that c.i.'s been bullied repeatedly in e-mails by ron on sunday and monday you know what kind of person you're dealing with.

c.i. hasn't let me read the post. i'm sure c.i. will have the oprah moments and every thing else in the post. but you're going to hear from c.i. on what went down.

and it wasn't pretty and ron can rewrite anything he wants but i'll be damned if i'll shut my mouth and take the high road.

high road, high road, high road! go spread some more rumors, ron.

there is a 2nd person involved in this. c.i. feels that the 2nd person doesn't know the facts. i think c.i.'s going to get screwed over for not going with everything all at once. i hope i'm wrong.

c.i. spent all night on that post. i know because i was asked to hold my posts until that was going up. (and i'm happy to do it and would do anything for c.i. except look the other way when some bully's attacking.)

at the last minute, information was passed on by community member dallas and c.i. attempted an addendum to deal with that. 'in fairness,' it's going up without it. c.i. was trashed by this person. i say ditch the 'in fairness' and go for the jugular. but that's me.

me, i wouldn't give some 1 a chance to reply when they've already replied with things that i will call, generously, half-truths. but i'm out for blood. maybe the person was misinformed by ron.

and maybe i'll be surprised by the 2nd person's actions. i hope i'm surprised.

clarification on e-mail that might have been a post and maureen dowd poses to go gunning for jane fonda

let me start off by saying that a story i told you last week has an addition to it. i told you of a blogger who has a tracker of some kind at his site. and how he'd told a tale of being able to read an e-mail that 1 visitor to his site was composing from either another screen or from when the visitor moved on from the guy's site.

the guy advised me that it might have not been an e-mail. he might have just been able to view the person composing a post to leave at another site.

it didn't matter to me. it still doesn't. i'm only including it here because i've spent an hour on the phone with a friend who said it was an issue with the guy.

so there it is. maybe he didn't see an e-mail. maybe he only saw a message that some 1 was composing -- as they composed it -- for another site.

that detail was added to the story after i posted my entry and it's a 'maybe.' i don't think it effects the story and i don't think it really matters.

we're a site that talks about sex from time to time. and i have readers who have some less than standard sexual techniques. (which i'm cool with, to each their own.) so would it matter 1 of you if you went to folding star's a winding road and either while there or after you left, you were composing a message on a site saying you were looking for some 1 interested in ___? does it make a difference to you if it's an e-mail or post? i don't think it does. (folding star does not have a tracker or a counter that fs has access to. i was using folding star as an example before every 1 e-mails asking if i was trying to offer a hint.)

it's a scary story. and i don't think it matters that after the fact the person wants to add to the story that maybe it wasn't an e-mail, maybe it was a post the person was leaving at another site.

do you want some 1 staring over your shoulder? i don't. i don't like it if, on the ferry, some 1's reading my paper or magazine over my shoulder.

but as a favor to the friend who called and asked that i put this up i am putting it up.

and to the guy involved, e-mail me. my address is sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com and i do check the e-mail. don't put my friend in a difficult position and don't assume that i'm against you when i've stated otherwise to you.

now we're going to move on to what i wanted to write about tonight, something that i got 16 e-mails on. i'm talking about maureen dowd's review of jane fonda's book my life so far.

you hate the review and i don't blame you. i made calls and spoke to many people about this.
c.i. is on the record as some 1 i spoke to about this yesterday. (c.i. said to put that in.)

we'll start with c.i. because that was the most moderate reaction and i'm going from my notes here. maureen dowd is not a liberal, she's a contrarian. she has to be funny. her way of being funny is to mock. people have mistakenly thought because she's ridiculing bully boy that she's a liberal. she directs that same attitude at whomever holds the office and always will. on the plus side, she read the book. it's not surprising that a hollywood actress would be criticized by maureen dowd who attempts to toss out her working class roots for sympathy and then to act as so many of her set by looking down on hollywood. it's doubtful she'd take a similar attitude with a man from hollywood, and surely not 1 she'd slept with.

now we're pulling from others. the thing, and even c.i. agreed here, that shocked the people i spoke to the most was dowd's little puritanical jab at a three some. maureen dowd hasn't lived a life in the nunnery. if some 1 were to write of maureen dowd's sexcapades, it would be quite interesting. i spoke to a woman who has slept with a man, we'll call him mr. famous, that dowd's been involved with (in the way, way back past). mr. famous standard's m.o. when in heat is apparently to tell the woman he's with at that moment (mo do knows whom i mean) 'you _____
better than ____' (the second blank is a name). he does that throughout listing many, many names. mr. famous has been with many, many women.

dowd may have drawn the veil in the last few years, but if she wants to strike a pose as puritan, she might have chosen some of her romances a little better. and here's a tip for mo do before she gets into another affair with a high profile man, if he's listing what you do better than previous women, when he's done with you, your name will make the list.

i don't give her the pass for being a contrarian. i've read the book. (and was read chapters of it before it came out from c.i.) if there's a broken doll, it may be mo do.

jane fonda is a survivor and she cops to what she did. dowd, in a nasty little review, wants to strike poses. that really wasn't honest, mo do. and again, you didn't spend the last decade in a nunnery.

c.i.'s going to take a pass on you because, unlike janet maslin, you read the book. c.i. feels that you're entitled to your opinion and only questioned your puritanical pose. the others i spoke with were far less nice (and far more forthcoming on the dish about mo do's 90s activities).

now maybe it's necessary for you to hate everything to write about it. when you wrote about organ donation, for instance, you had no voice at all. you cared about that and couldn't find a way to offer your usual pith when it was something you cared about. the column was flat and amateurish. so if you have to pull out the scorn, then that's what you have to do.

but don't kid youself that you offered a valid review.

the link for jane fonda's my life so far takes you to powell's books which, as noted on the laura flanders show, doesn't track what you're viewing and compile a mini-portfolio on you. there you can find reviews written without a need to scorn whatever topic 1 is writing about:

"To hold this book in your hands is to be astonished by how much living can be packed into 60-plus years..." Los Angeles Times

"My Life So Far is perhaps the most frank memoir by a seminal cultural figure in modern memory....[Fonda's] prose is refreshing and direct....Her honesty...is a force." Philadelphia Inquirer

don't miss the publisher's weekly review (which is quite lengthy). but you'll be able to find out what people who wanted to review a book had to say, as opposed to people who felt the need to strike a pose.

i will add 'in fairness' to dowd that the people dishing on her (c.i. didn't dish) were going by 'the talk' and possibly maureen dowd is a virgin and nasty wags just tag her with rumors. but at her age and with what she's seen, if not what she's allegedly lived, the puritan pose was a false note.

but, as 1 wag noted, 'she certainly made poppy proud.'

talking 'bout the third estate sunday review

yes, there is a post on sunday. yes, it is late. i just got off the phone with dona and she says even jim is exhausted for a change. usually jim's the one who most enjoys the marathon all night session that goes into the third estate sunday review. i think everyone was pushed to the limit this time.

a number of you have asked about the process and what goes on. so that will be the entry for tonight.

the third estate sunday review is a group of common ills community members. they are ava, ty, jess, jim and dona. they are college students and, as was revealed in the roundtable this week, jim and dona are an item.

they do a sunday blog only. it is a variety of stories that usually includes an editorial and TV review among other things.

common ills community members who blog frequently assist. this includes folding star of a winding road, betty of thomas friedman is a great man, kat of kat's korner (musical reviews at the common ills), c.i. of the common ills and myself.

the tv review is done by ava and c.i. that is there own little corner. initially, others would add input and work on various drafts but ava and c.i. do an incredible job on it and when others work on it as well, it tends to muck the whole thing up.

if you've never been to the third estate sunday review and are trying to get some fix on it from my description, think of it as a paper that only comes out on sunday.

they may cover a book, poetry, music or art. they may do a feature on an issue effecting college students. they have a great sense of humor and one feature is 'dear third estate sunday review' which is an advice column with smart ass answers.

this week, there was a humor feature on john cloud who wrote the cover story for time on ann coulter. it's based on post-its that might be found on his desk.

working on that were jim, ty, jess, dona and myself. betty had rightly bailed due to the late hour and ava and c.i. were working on their tv review and doing a joint entry over at the common ills covering this morning's new york times.

i think there are some funny jokes in that feature (we all do) but 1 thing we learned is that when we do a humorous piece without ava, c.i. and betty, we're really forcing it. which isn't to say that we aren't funny people. but there was some block, and it may have been the all nighter, that led to it feeling very hard to think of anything funny. ava and c.i. riff off each other and aren't afraid to toss out a joke that might bomb. if that happens, 1 of them picks up a piece of that joke and takes it somewhere else. i think our biggest problem on the post-its piece was that no 1 wanted to be the 1 bombing.

ava and c.i. are fearless there. that's why i said last week that they are creative people. they understand the process a great deal better than we do.

in the roundtable this go round, we addressed a number of issues and i think you'll enjoy reading it. after it was done, it turned out ty had a topic that hadn't been addressed. so in the next roundtable, it will be picked up. i think we all enjoy doing that.

the editorial has been the main reason/excuse for throwing it all together at the last minute. 1 time, a wonderful editorial had been written early in the week, probably no later than thursday, but by the time sunday rolled around, there were more pressing issues so it got tossed aside.

dona said on the phone that she's setting down a schedule for this week. starting tomorrow, a draft will be begun on jane fonda comedy film and it will circultate via e-mail all week (monster in law, starring jane fonda, jennifer lopez and the hottie michael vartan opens may 13th). dona wants tuesday to be devoted to 'dear third estate sunday review' and so on.

every 1 is wiped out from last night and so dona's taking the lead to make sure that at least this coming week, we're all done long before the sun's shining.

each edition, the third estate sunday review does a blog spotlight. this week it's c.i.'s entry on why ann coulter isn't a cover. i read that piece last night when ty said he thought it was the 1 he wanted to highlight. we were all in agreement with it (except c.i. who had 4 other posts, from other blogs to suggest).

i think it's an amazing piece. as some 1 who worked in public relations, i will say 'what c.i. said.'
the cover is the biggest decision for a magazine and it's not made lightly. time is a general interest magazine and when it does a celebrity cover, it is a big deal with a big discussion. c.i. goes over the general rules for celebrity covers, and is correct, so check it out and scratch your head as you try to figure out what time was thinking when it decided to break every rule by running ann coulter on the cover when she's not a cover of a general interest magazine.

do not miss the editorial which evaluates daniel okrent's take on the new york times' coverage of israel and palestine. after 17 months, goofy boy finally weighs in and he can't even get the basics, no surprise.

and don't miss ava and c.i.'s review of the simple life. it will make you laugh and you'll understand why the tv review has become the most consistently popular feature of each edition.

each edition has 'a note to our readers' and the skinny there is jim types it and fits in what people are shouting out or wanting tossed in. jim's the editor of the note to the readers.

how does something get written is the question most of the e-mail asks? well there's no 1 way. jess might write 3 paragraphs on something, ty might be next to work on piece and rearrange what jess just wrote or trash all of it but 1 sentence and add new things. then it's passed around and the process repeats. which is why it can take so long if the first drafts are starting saturday night and that's why dona's trying to get some things started long before this saturday.

hopefully, that gives you a look into the process as well as into the third estate sunday review.
i urge everyone to check it out. and i'll add this, though i can't imagine any of my readers doing this, if you don't like ava and c.i.'s take on a tv show, that's fine. you can rant, you can rage. but there are a lot of threatening e-mails coming in. specific threats of a violent nature. they don't deserve that. so i hope that no one who visits this site would ever feel the need to write such an e-mail. if you have, please stop.

listen to the rachel maddow show if you haven't already

if you're listening to the rachel maddow show, you're hearing some strong radio. if you're not, and it's on very early, consider listening to it via air america place.

this morning, i got up and got online early. read the common ills which, to be honest, is my must read in the morning. the new york times just lays out on the porch in it's little baggie.

here's what i read this morning at the common ills:

And let's give credit where it's due, Rachel Maddow stressed this story this morning on The Rachel Maddow Show. Remember, if the show is on too early for you, you can listen to it online at Air America Place. Also on this morning's show, you'll hear clips of Henry Hyde admitting that the impeachment of Bill Clinton was probably motivated by a need for 'payback' for the attempted impeachment of Richard Nixon.

i read that and my mouth just dropped. it's so petty, and so true to the nature of people like henry hyde. richard nixon was run out of office and for good reason but there they were planning and plotting their revenge. so a consensual sex affair and trying to bring down a president over it becomes 'payback.'

isn't it just typical of their petty mind set?

i rushed over to air america place to listen to rachel maddow's reporting on it and was really glad i did. and of course, now it's the talk of the web. but i wonder how many others bothered to give rachel maddow credit? that's 1 of the many things i love about the common ills, c.i. is no glory hog and is more than happy to credit others. you'd be surprised how rare that is online.

if you want to read about it, via buzzflash, go to abc7chicago. have to keep it short tonight due to company.

brian williams and the need for a new sensation

joe hagan has a wonderful article in the latest new york observer. c.i. passed it on knowing i would especially appreciate one item:

Tonight on NBC, the original Apprentice—that is, Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News. Is it just us, or does Mr. Williams seem like the genetic result of crossing Jimmy Stewart, Paul Lynde and a tangerine?

no, joe, it's not just you. there is something truly creepy about brian williams. why? i think joe's gotten close to the issue, there is nothing authentic or genuine about brian williams as he comes off on television.

when he's 'anchoring,' you never for a moment forget that he is reading the news. there's no substance, there's nothing. you just watch (if you must) and think, 'oh, he's reading the teleprompter.' he's done nothing to earn the viewers trust or respect.

but to watch nightly news, you'd never know that. he operates, not unlike the bully boy, as though he has a mandate. he doesn't. to the average nightly news reader, brian williams is a big shrug, a big huh?

it's not just that he's bland, it's, as joe points out, that he's not quite right. there's just something there that doesn't fit. it's as though there's no person sitting behind the desk.
it's disturbing.

i want to quote something else that was forwarded to me, this time by sherry:

The new American militarism also manifests itself through an increased propensity to use force, leading, in effect, to the normalization of war. There was a time in recent memory, most notably while the so-called Vietnam Syndrome infected the American body politic, when Republican and Democratic administrations alike viewed with real trepidation the prospect of sending U.S. troops into action abroad. Since the advent of the new Wilsonianism, however, self-restraint regarding the use of force has all but disappeared. During the entire Cold War era, from 1945 through 1988, large-scale U.S. military actions abroad totaled a scant six. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, they have become almost annual events. The brief period extending from 1989's Operation Just Cause (the overthrow of Manuel Noriega) to 2003's Operation Iraqi Freedom (the overthrow of Saddam Hussein) featured nine major military interventions. And that count does not include innumerable lesser actions such as Bill Clinton's signature cruise missile attacks against obscure targets in obscure places, the almost daily bombing of Iraq throughout the late 1990s, or the quasi-combat missions that have seen GIs dispatched to Rwanda, Colombia, East Timor, and the Philippines. Altogether, the tempo of U.S. military interventionism has become nothing short of frenetic.
As this roster of incidents lengthened, Americans grew accustomed to -- perhaps even comfortable with -- reading in their morning newspapers the latest reports of U.S. soldiers responding to some crisis somewhere on the other side of the globe. As crisis became a seemingly permanent condition so too did war. The Bush administration has tacitly acknowledged as much in describing the global campaign against terror as a conflict likely to last decades and in promulgating -- and in Iraq implementing -- a doctrine of preventive war.
that's from andrew j. bacevich's 'the normalization of war' and i think we need to be thinking about this.

when we all get together on saturday nights (ava, dona, jess, ty and jim of the 3rd estate sunday review, c.i., betty, sometimes kat and/or folding star of a winding road), we discuss a number of issues that never make it into the third estate sunday review. we're all rushing to read through this or add a thought about that and we get into some really free wheeling conversations.

of late, one of them has been about our nation's responses. it seems more and more that the bully boy has set the agenda and our only response to any problem, crisis, tragedy is a military response. there are more responses than sending in the marines and i think we need to break from the knee jerk reaction to always resort to sending in troops (which risks their lives). grown ups can do that, they can find other solutions. but the bully boy can only think war, war, war! and it's hurting our country.

we need to move beyond thinking there 'oh send in the troops.' mad maddie albright (as c.i. calls her) is infamous for wanting to send in troops during clinton's administration against the opinions of colin powell. when he objected, mad maddie replied basically with what is the point of having this military if you don't use it?

mad maddie, we have vaccines for small pox, what are you suggesting?

because that sort of limited thinking does suggest somethings. (no mad maddie wasn't suggesting small pox.) we need to move beyond the idea that 'we're mad and we're going to kick your ass!'

these are conversations we have on saturday nights and pull from what we see in our activist circles and it's obvious that this is a dialogue that's going on nation wide even though it's not getting a lot of attention and even though it doesn't have everyone's ear.

but this is a point when we need to start asking, how do we deal with these things?

and i also think we need to move beyond dualism. granted the 'carrot' would be an improvement over the bully boy's little stick - which must be red and raw from over use by now.
but i do think that we need to be actively considering what our government could be doing.
i think we've accepted the idea that because this is how our country responds to x, then that is just the way it should be now and forever.

so if you have time tomorrow, put yourself in the oval office and think of a situation. think of sudan or nepal or any area and ask yourself, 'what could i do?'

if you're nervous, don't be.

if the bully boy can do his bad job and get away with it, could you really do worse?

attitudes are being bred across the world, anger at us over our government's policies. that anger will be there long after the bully boy's term ends. we need to figure out how we're going to address it. in 3 more years, bully boy's stick will be a small, bloody stump. we're going to need to have some new tools to work with. think about it.

in the words of inxs:

A new sensation
Hate baby hate
When there's nothing left for you
You're only human, what can you do?
It'll soon be over
Don't let your pain take over you
Love baby love
It's written all over your face
There's nothing better we could do
Than live forever
Well that's all we've got to do
Hey nowI'm gonna take you over, a new sensation, a new sensation
Right now
Gotta hold on you a new sensation, a new sensation
A new sensation, a new sensation

brian montopoli can still kiss my ass but no i am not upset with ava or c.i.

to those asking, yes, brian montopoli can still kiss my ass. no, i am not upset about by ava and c.i.'s post.

they have a right to state an opinion. i disagree with it regarding brian montopoli but i do understand where they are coming from. even if i didn't understand, i'd still back and support them.

i was given a heads up as was jim, jess, ty and dona of the third estate sunday review. none of us needed a heads up because they stated very clearly at the start that they were speaking for themselves.

here's the basics. a joke they came up with in passing may or may not have hurt brian montopoli on a personal level because it may or may not have had some truth in it. they came up with the joke and they felt responsible.

they had alerted all of us to what was going on and why by mid-day and they were going to be taking notes for a review last night. since none of us objected, nor would we ever object to them saying what they wanted to, they went ahead and did that last night.

c.i. was already going to right about boy nags (i like that better than nag boy, by the way so i hope they continue to use boy nags) and the washington post thing which is no surprise because a) community member brad had asked for some comments and b) boy nags was a part of the outing of "george" and that is a topic c.i.'s addressed before.

so with no objections and talking about brian montopoli, they went ahead and wrote the thing they were thinking of writing later.

my personal feelings are that brian montopoli, young or not, is open season the way any 1 is but they felt it was similar to when they write a tv review and attempt to not critique child actors too strongly. check out their review of hope & faith and you'll see that they pin the problems with the daughters on the writing. that's because the daughters are played by young actresses who are not yet 18 and are not the stars of the show.

there thinking with brian is that if this came in about some 1 at the times, tough titty, they're grown up and they're established. but with brian montopoli he is still early in his journalism career and they'd much prefer to go after more 'worthy targets.'

i understand where they are coming from and i respect it. i disagree but i'm not upset.

my attitude is that brian montopoli is not a 'young journalist,' he is a journalist who is an adult.
and he is fair game the way any other journalist is.

but i also realize that candy perfume boy is their creation. they've created an entire character out of candy perfume boy and it's larger than life. when 1 aspect of the joke might have really upset brian montopoli, they felt very bad because they had been aiming the guns at that. if they upset montopoli it was the result of cross fire because they had not been trying to touch an issue that they had no idea of.

i'd also argue that having created candy perfume boy, they feel very loyal to their creation and see it as a commentary for good and the fact that it could cause harm in a non-journalistic criticism manner bothered them. this was a humorous way to do criticism of the press and the idea that it might have gone beyond that bothered them.

they're not worried that brian montopoli feels 'candy perfume boy is an embarrassment to me' and they aren't dropping the character. they love the character. but let's say brian was allergic to bananas and didn't want people to know and that, without knowing, they wrote a thing where candy perfume boy is rushed to the hospital after eating a banana, they would feel bad about that. they were just riffing and coming up with jokes and had no idea he was allergic to bananas.
now this detail that they came up with was causing him embarrassment and revealing something he'd prefer to keep private that has nothing to do with journalism.

that's what their statements regarding brian were about.

and they were aware the e-mail from the person claiming to be brian could be a crank.

jim wondered if a private e-mail to brian might not be the better way to go but c.i. and ava both felt that to do a private e-mail to him without telling readers could be compromising.

candy perfume boy is their creation. so if there was a problem with it, they wanted to deal with that and not run off to the safety of a private e-mail that readers or community members never knew of.

if it's nothing, and it may be nothing, they've noted it and noted that this is a joke and that they are actually fond of brian montopoli. or that they have grown fond of him which may be confusing their creation of candy perfume boy with brian montopoli himself. if that's the case, it happens with creative people and ava and c.i. are very creative.

they also are the 2 least jaded of all of us.

they do believe that most people can change. and with regards to brian montopoli they feel that he really just needs to focus on his true priorities and he won't fall into the fluff crowd.

again, i disagree. i think he's shown his true nature and don't give him a pass for being politically unaware. but i do understand why c.i. and ava do and i don't fault either of them for that. and with 2 degrees in poli sci, c.i.'s a better judge of politically unaware than am i.

jodi wilgoren got serious about her job. i see that as the exception. i'm a bit more pessimistic than c.i. or ava.

but this was their creation and they were using it to criticize journalism and rounding it out, with no knowledge of brian montopoli, to create this wonderful, funny character (which it is) and in the process some 1 e-mails that brian was truly upset by something that they created to flesh out the character because it happens to be true.

that's why they said that they can easily drop that. it's not central to the character. but they don't intend to drop the character.

a cokie roberts or some 1 on that level has spent their lives being irrelevant and making a mockery of "news." they could care less what cokie roberts thought of 1 of their jokes. but they see brian montopoli as a young journalist attempting to make his way and as such they felt bad that something they wrote might have been not just a joke but something very personal to brian montopoli.

if he responds will they note it? that's the 2nd biggest question i've gotten today. and i'm guessing it's payback for being lazy and having e-mail go to c.i.'s e-mail for so long and letting c.i. forward it to me lol.

if brian wanted to say something to the community they would note it. if he wrote a private e-mail it would be as private as any thing any 1 else wrote so it wouldn't be mentioned.

they are the creative 1s of all of us. they did their replies to e-mail last saturday in 1 hour and the bulk of that hour was waiting on replies from people they quoted to get permission. and in their e-mails they noted that they would be replying in a sarcastic manner.

there was a great reply they had to 1 crank but that crank didn't give permission so they cut that out. but i'd be surprised if they spent more than 15 minutes on it and yet it is funny and to the point. that's what creative people can do. and even with that, they wanted to be sure that every 1 who was quoted knew that if they were quoted, they'd be getting a smart remark back.

or look at the media roundtable where some 1 said, maybe it was me (it was ty, i just read over it), that randy cohen told us that daniel okrent was censured and c.i. had to correct that with cohen said he believed that or thought that.

sherry worried that the post might mean that c.i. was going to stop going after elisabeth bumiller or others. don't worry, sherry. those are professional, established journalists. it's the difference between nicole kidman and the kids on life with jim. they aren't going to go after kids. and that's how they see brian montopoli, as someone attempting to establish himself as a journalist. as such when they intentionally joke about something, they are joking about the writing, not the person. candy perfume boy is their creation and it is a means to criticize brian montopoli but it is not meant to be the inside dope on brian montopoli as a person.

laura was the only 1 who picked up on the most important point of the piece, or most important to me. c.i. has never outed the times reporter that screamed in an e-mail 'you are destroying my life!' but when the e-mail came in on smallville and ava noted it and how the e-mailer said 'that's the kind of writing you should be doing' c.i.'s face gave away that this was the person.
to me that's the point of the entry, the main point.

professional journalists want to whine, and did to howard kurtz, but when you are writing about a tv show in the same manner, they think that's fine. they think it's funny.

professional journalists are not above criticism and as c.i. and ava noted, that's the same sort of criticism they've long run in papers on authors, film makers, singers, etc. but when that same treatment is aimed at them, they want to cry foul.

i don't like barry manilow. but papers have felt no reason to criticize his work on a 'higher ground' plane. they've trashed him relentlessly. but somehow when adam nagourney is turned into the barry manilow of his profession, that's a 'foul.'

so when some reporter wants to say 'that was so cruel' about something about them but wants to go off and praise a smallville review that rips the show apart, in a very funny way, then what we're seeing is that the reporter feels there are 2 kinds of criticism, the kind for him and the kind for others.

it doesn't work that way.

1 line that got caught from the roundtable, or 1 section that got cut, had kat saying that journalists were once again becoming the new rock stars and c.i. replied that no, a few were becoming the new rock stars or rap stars and the rest of them were churning out easy listening crap.

i don't remember why that got cut. it was a very long transcript. we all worked on the 1st cut and it was in there then. ava and c.i. went off to write their review and the rest of kept working on shaping it and making it flow. a lot was left on the cutting floor. and when you're re-reading something for the 12th time, you're not noticing what's gone, just if it flows.

if i'd noticed that the section had dropped out, i would have argued for it to be put back in. i thought it went to the topic and i thought it was appropriate.

if you do your job well or even half-way and you write for the new york times main section, your byline has been mentioned. when people write me they say things like 'amy waldman wrote' or 'marc lacey wrote' and readers know the writers bylines. that's great and any writer should be excited by that. c.i. was making the point that we could probably list all the writers who regularly contribute to the times. could we have done that 10 months ago? no. but we can now and members of the common ills community can as well.

by the same token, if you're the journalistic equivalent of barry manilow, middle of the road, the way adam nagourney is, you're known for that. if you're the debby boone of the journalistic set, then elisabeth bumiller, that's what your known for.

if you're not happy with the image your work has created, that's your own fault. you don't get to be jimi hendrix (robert parry) or bob dylan (bob somerby) or aretha franklin (amy goodman), etc. without having dug deep.

a robert taylor e-mails me to say that we should all 'just shut up already!' mr. taylor feels that when honest mistakes are made, 'you all pile on like a pack of mad dogs.' i disagree. john f. burns has gotten sloppy and c.i. has noted that but c.i. has not piled on john f. burns like a pack of mad dogs. there is sloppy and then there is outright malpractice and those are the 1s that c.i. goes after. although juan forero gives c.i. a headache to c.i. usually avoids juan unless members are asking for comments. i'll bring that up in the next roundtable and hopefully it will make the final draft.

and let me repeat this since so many e-mails asked, i am not upset with ava and c.i. they addressed a concern in a manner they felt was ethical. jim, jess, dona and ty aren't upset. i doubt kat is but i haven't heard from her. (she really pours herself into those reviews and it can be hell trying to reach her immediately after she finishes one. and wasn't the tapestry review something?) but for those wondering, yes, brian montopoli can still kiss my ass.

our bendy buddy harry reid

this evening, i want to draw your attention to the third estate sunday review's "Harry Reid: Determined to lead us to the promissory note land?" which, disclosure, i helped on.

if you missed it, after all the 'fight the social security battle' talk, after everyone stood firmly on the left, some dems are now ready to sell us out.

that's no real surprise. and maybe it's why bully boy's recent staged events re: social security get less and less attention.

who'll cave next? i have no idea. but we need to seriously address the issue of minority leadership in the senate because harry reid is doing a lousy job.

what issues won't he cave on? that's the basic thrust of the third estate sunday review's humorous piece so please read it.

it's becoming really disgusting. and i've got three letters asking me to donate money to the democratic party that piled up this weekend. one is telling me what 'nancy' needs. that would be nancy pelosi. i'll mark her higher than i will harry reid, but here's a hint, start addressing the needs of the party membership and stop begging for money.

anti-choice harry reid was never the right choice to begin with. he's been badgered into standing up bill scher of liberal oasis has done an especially good job on that from day 1. but unless we're planning on embedding bill scher into harry reid's life 24 hours a day 7 days a week, it's time we start thinking about this.

i don't think the democrats have the guts to remove harry reid before the 2006 elections.

they should, but they won't.

so we need to figure out what qualifies for leadership in the future. harry reid isn't it. little wimpy, corporate invested, anti-choice whining harry reid who bends from the waist everytime the wind blows isn't a brave leader. the democrats can do better.

send suggestions into sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com.

and the tracking goes on

sherry e-mailed me friday about an article in last sunday's new york times magazine.

i had to attend a wedding this weekend and that entailed traveling so no posts for friday and when i got back on saturday evening, i was helping the third estate sunday review.

but i hadn't yet tossed out last week's sunday paper so i still had it around. (the times makes articles available online for free.)

the article is headlined 'our ratings, ourselves.' it's by jon gertner and nobody freak if you missed it because i'll give you a basic summary.

to track who's watching what and listening to what better, arbitron is trying an experiment in houston, texas. you basically wear something the size of a beeper and it allows recording of what you watch and listen to. the author notes that a small chip could be implanted on a page that would also, at some point in the future, allow what you read to be monitored - including how long you spend reading it, what pages you turned, etc.

this article runs over six pages of text. triple columns on each page, magazine style of text.

and in all this excess wordage, jon gertner never once raises any issues of privacy concern.

he's doing a great job marketing, but i don't think i'd call this reporting.

it's a puff piece for new technology. i don't see any print ads that are tied in with the article, but why run print ads when the story itself is one long advertisement?

arbitron should be thrilled (nielsen less so) because this is a writer firmly in arbitron's camp.

that arbitron managed to place ad copy in the form of an article in the new york times, lengthy ad copy at that with high gloss photos including 1 that's two pages, is a victory for arbitron.
whomever set us this article should be promoted. tremendous public relations victory.

but it's not a news story because a news story requires something other than 'let's brag about tracking.' the article notes that houston radio stations have been talking into changing their feed so that arbitron could track and that they were talked into doing this at their own expense. the author of this ad copy notes that arbitron basically has some 'way awesome salesmen.'

while i'll hope that arbitron has sales women as well, the fact is they sold to jon gertner as well.
whether he bought it blindly or willingly, i have no idea.

i keep waiting for some 1 to do the brave defense of privacy. i'm still waiting.

right now arbitron is testing this in the houston market. that sentence is intentional because that's what we're reduced to, markets. did you think you lived in a city? think again as you can become less and less a citizen and more and more a consumer.

i'm glad sherry called my attention to this article. it's ad copy and that needs to be noted. arbitron is in competition with nielsen and this is a p.r. victory for arbitron. but this wasn't a story or an article. c.i. wrote a wonderful thing about the difference between hard news and feature stories. this isn't even a feature story. this is rah-rah-rah arbitron and people tracking.
it should have been labeled as an advertisement because it's certainly not journalism.

again, congratulations to the people who set up this article. it's a marvelous press relations coup. it's just an article that belongs in the new york times without being labeld "advertisement."

blind item -- the he thing

so last night i'm in the middle of sexual olympics and win the gold many times over but, in the process, i miss out on all the drama so many of you caught yesterday.

the post you saw elsewhere has been pulled and and i'll call the person mr. blank because it's not really about 1 person, it's about an attitude that i want to address.

here are the basics. mr. blank co-sets up a new blog on an issue that really means something to him. he's wanting people to help out. though he knows a tracking device is anathema to many, he proceeds to refer them and any 1 else who visits the new site over to 1 with a counter.

then he explodes in a post that's now been deleted.

fuck this and fuck that, throwing out the title of john lennon's 'how do you sleep?' (which kat says he completely misread by the way.) (angry men have been tossing out titles of john lennon a lot this week, haven't they? from all sides.) telling people they are full of shit and on and on and on and on. the way that only a man is really comfortable running on off at the mouth and yelling at people who failed to come to his party.

coz that's what it was. an invitation.

and the invitation was declined.

a good host/ess might trash some 1 in private for failing to show. a good host/ess doesn't leap to the soap box and trash every 1 who failed to party down.

(i didn't party down. i was busy having sex all day yesterday except when posting. truly it was a sexual olympics.)

i read a draft of a response that was passed on to me. i'll quote the part where i'm mentioned:
'and he, as rebecca says, "isn't it always a he?" . . .'

well isn't it?

for all the drag kings like ann coulter, this sort of over the top reaction really is a male thing still.
call it the he thing.

i'm guessing that mr. blank's party either didn't fair to well with other guests or mr. blank is unable to take joy in the fact that some people did show.

but this attitude of i will scream and bellow at people i've courted for not compromising their own beliefs and attending my party is an attitude that goes beyond who's dick is bigger.

mr. blank, we get it. you got a big hairy pair.

now put 'em back in your pants and back the fuck off.

reading that now deleted post (thank you dallas), i was appalled.

this wasn't 'i'm going to try to make a point.' this wasn't 'i'm going to be funny and snide.' this wasn't even 'i'm just going to be bitchy.' this was a full on attack at people who mr. blanks claims to like. if this had happened in my kitchen, i would have grabbed mr. blank's arm, pulled him away from whatever woman he was yelling out while he got red in the face, and told him, 'you need to take a walk.'

there's not an excuse for it.

it was flat about abusive.

i showed it to elaine for her input (due to her medical training) and, no surprise, she'd already seen it. she gave me a 30 minute analysis of it. but what it boils down to, besides control issues and fear of abandonment (among other things) was that nobody is going to have the last word with da big man.

oh hell no. oh fuck no.

i'm truly tired of men who pass themselves off as your friend and then tell you what to do. and if you don't do it, they think they can scream at you.

that's probably why i'm able to remain on good terms with my ex-husband, he never pulled that shit.

elaine didn't attend mr. blank's party. but elaine had already registered her opinions re: the case loudly and clearly. as did many others because the people who were screamed at are resourceful 1s. and if you throw up a road block, they'll find another way to do what needs to be done.

but because it wasn't done via mr. blank's party, it's not good enough. his party, his rules.

you know, al from thinks he can tell us all what to do. and that he can browbeat us and rage at us when we blow him off.

mr. blank did the same thing.


it's the crazy uncle who got drunk at the family picnic and started getting abusive.

no 1 respects that. no 1 wants to be around that.

and i'm damn tired of boys who have to play with their little wenuses thinking they're proving how manly they are when pissed off by pissing on some 1.

the he thing is so destructive because the men involved never want to admit what's it really about which is that because they are such goddamn important men, what they say goes and everybody else better fall the fuck in line.

when i choose my target, as i've noted before, i choose it wisely. i confirm with others that this person who's pushing false notions of democrats is indeed a creep and then i let hurl.

mr. blank chose to tar and feather and entire community not because they didn't care about an issue but because they didn't want to go to a site with counters.

i've heard the arugments from bloggers who write in defending the counters. i've also heard, and maybe the blogger was lying, that thanks to the trackers, not only could he (it's always a he) follow where you came from and where you went after but he also saw an e-mail being composed by someone visiting his site.

so excuse the fuck out of the community is they want to avoid counters and trackers.

third estate sunday review had a good comment that goes something like this: justifying tracking with the comments that corporations do it means that you should now start dumping in the hudson river too.

it's no big deal? then why the fuck doesn't any 1 address it?

while losing my soul to public relations, elaine steered me towards volunteering. i helped out a women's shelter (more than just money) and i didn't need that to open my eyes.

big tough ballsy men who can't leave their own little zone of existence will never know what a woman who's been battered has been through. a visit to your site shouldn't leave them fearful.

ms., years ago, did a story about the warranty cards and how some businesses wouldn't take out ads in ms. ('sex, lies & advertising' by gloria stenimen) because, the business argued, women must not buy their products because they didn't send the cards in.

well women grasp that promises and reality are two different things.

too many of us have gone home with too many loud mouths only to find out that all the action was in their mouth. (and sadly they usually don't do oral -- though of course they expect it to be done to them.)

so a card full of promises that probably won't bear out don't cause women to turn over their personal information.

check with some women outside of 1 of the huge cities, where 2 story apartment complexes are the norm, and ask them 'do you live on the 1st floor or the 2nd floor?' that's a thought that never enters into a big balls brain because they don't usually worry that some 1 is going to break in and rape them.

only a man would demand that you surrender a part of yourself to help them and then turn around and scream at you when you refuse to do so. and to not grasp the power of no is truly a man thing.

women have said no more friday nights than we can count. we realize that we can just lie there and be invaded by some drunken asshole or we can excercise our no.

maybe it wasn't a party we were all invited to? maybe it was an orgy and while pulling out their big hairy balls, certain men were also erect (viagra?) and they had to go home with blue balls because we didn't participate?

like a frustrated teenager who thought he was going to break off a piece, mr. blank needs to realize that he doesn't set the rules. and that we can say no any damn time we want.

these testostroni flashes of rage aren't becoming. and men in the blog world need to realize that no matter how they set themselves up as leaders, we'll decide what we do.

that's women and that's men because thankfully more and more men today realize that no means no.

but drunk, horny and feeling rejected and emasculated, certain men think they can rage and scream and attack and abuse.

it's not appropriate and it's not something that should ever happen again.

know your resources that are out there: danny schechter's news dissector & the rachel maddow show

personal note at the start to some 1 who had a difficult day (medically), hope you're feeling okay and let me know if there's anything i can do.

so let's talk about resources. danny schechter does the news dissector blog over at media channel. if you haven't checked it out, you should. you get a nice overview of the day. not just the day domestically but globally.

and by globally, i don't just mean iraq. there are other countries in this world besides iraq and the united states though sometimes you'd have to wonder by how little is covered online.

maybe that's a reflection of what's happening with our media which has seen non-stop cuts in international coverage. with the tsunami, it looked as though we might be turning a corner and going back to showing some interest in the world. but that really hasn't happened.

if you watch democracy now, you get the world. but tell me how much you know about nepal from anywhere else? pick a country, any country. did you hear about the outbreak and who?
if so, name the country.

as a common ills community member, i can cheat and say 'well i know people can go there for international coverage.' but it's not like i'm commenting on any thing other than iraq here so don't think i'm pointing fingers and unaware of my own failings.

but danny schechter does a strong job of covering the world around us.

i'll also note that if you haven't yet seen his film wmd, you should make a point to.

in the roundtable, over at the third estate sunday review, we were talking and i made this comment:

Fox "News" is bullshit but I think it was Danny Schechter who made the point about how easy it was to dog pile on them and to avoid dealing with the realities at other media outlets.

if you didn't get that, you haven't seen wmd. fox 'news' lies, big surprise. but they were far from the only cheerleaders in this war that's cost the lives of over 1500 americans, an untold number of iraqis, as well as the lives of many whose country decided to be part of the coalition.

the buck doesn't stop with fox 'news.' and it wasn't on fox 'news' that cokie roberts made her idiotic 'none that matter' statement.

for those concerned with privacy, you can sign up for e-mails and never need to visit the site.
just go to the main page and sign up and then you'll get the news dissector e-mailed to you.

i also want to remind you that tomorrow on air america, the rachel maddow show debuts.

she's trying to do a front page of items that should be on the front page and it should be interesting so listen if you have the opportunity. visit the rachel maddow show for more information. you can also go to this entry that c.i. did over at the common ills.

let's talk about social security

just yesterday in the new york times, paul krugman wrote about our ailing health care system and he wasn't talking about medicare. judging by the letters sections of monday's paper, the bully boy's 'nothing but paper' scam didn't play out with readers of the new york times.

so yesterday i'm on the ferry and i'm standing there when a woman with 1 of those mcpapers comes over to chat.

after she's done talking about the pope, she wasn't catholic, and michael jackson, she gets around to social security. and i ask her what she thinks.

she responds 'well the president says social security is in trouble.'

freeze frame right there.

bully boy wins via a lack of information.

this is an important point.

this doesn't mean that she's in need of talking points.

when i addressed social security awhile back, i did it without talking points.

i'm not a social security expert, i've never pretended to be.

but at the time, if you'll remember, we were being flooded with facts, numbers and factoids.

now in advertising, you get 1 fact or 'fact.' for instance, '4 out of 5 dentists.' that's about all some 1 new to the discussion can handle.

so when people were listing off facts, which hopefully they'd come to on their own and weren't cribbing from some 1 else, i was watching that play out and thinking, 'they are going to lose a lot of people.'

here, i'm communicating. i keep it basic and simple which may be a reflection of my knowledge base but it is a reflection of what i learned doing public relations.

there's a phrase we've all heard: keep it simple, stupid.

there's a reason we've all heard it.

people listing facts and factoids (people on the left) did a great job reaching out to people who were able to conceptualize what was being discussed. but readers at this site often complained about feeling like those presentations were beating them over the head or over their heads.

the early battle was won, but if the left wants to win this war bully boy has declared on social security, they might move on to other methods. and i was thinking about that on the ferry.

remember where we left off? let's roll tape.

the friendly woman in her mid-to-late 30s has said to me that the bully boy says there's a problem with social security. i'm about to ask her a question when some 1 invites themselves in (butts in) on our conversation.

pushy man starts lecturing her (hectoring her?) with various facts and figures.

on the 1 hand i'm thinking 'uh, who invited you into this conversation?'; on the other hand i'm thinking, 'you are losing her.'

i don't know if pushy was an economist or if he'd just learned the talking points but you couldn't look over at the woman and not notice her eyes glazing over.

pushy finished his lecture and then stormed off looking quite pleased with himself.

i asked her what she thought of what pushy had said.

'my head is spinning,' was her response.

the left needs to realize what the bully boy already does. the 'it's just paper!' stunt wasn't aimed at the people following the details, it was aimed at the people who haven't paid attention or who
weren't able to follow the ins and outs of economic theory.

think about it a minute and you'll realize most people in this country didn't take economics. if you're lucky, you'll find some that took accounting in high school.

i'm calling on my readers not to deliver talking points or speeches but to sound the people out.
a lot of them are interested but you're going to need to tie it into their own lives or find some other way that they can relate.

this woman, like many of us, couldn't visualize trillions and you're going to lose her if you're not careful.

krugman's column was fresh on my mind because i'd just read it that morning. and i'd read his other columns where the topic was social security. so it would have been really easy to just launch into that.

do yourself and our country a favor, sound people out.

i spoke with her and the thing she got from pushy's lecture, the only thing, was that at some point in the future (2042) social security will face a 'shortfall.'

here's the first tip, don't use 'shortfall.' if your average person knows that term, they know it as something they hear from their municipal government or their state government whenever it's time to raise taxes or cut services.

put it in simple terms. for every dollar that social security pays now, if nothing's done, then by 2042, they'd be paying 75 cents instead of a dollar.

3 quarters she understood. she grasped that. 'so this isn't a crisis, just belt tightening.'

from there, you can talk about how reversing the tax cuts for the very rich will take care of the problem right away.

but you're not going to get to that point by overwhelming people with figures.

and we need to be working on putting a face on the issue if we're wanting to expand beyond the people who are already in the know.

we have won the first battle. but bully boy knows that. what was laughable to many of us was
serious to people who have been left out the conversation. lecturing won't work, you need to engage and you need to use a method other than reeling off facts and figures.

right now we've probably got a slight lead in the debate and it would be very easy to grow overconfident or think we don't need to reach people who haven't been paying attention. but bully boy's doing p.r. 101. and while we laugh about it because we know the 'facts' we need to realize that others don't.

if you think about it, some of our biggest mistakes have come from expecting that every 1 would grasp the facts. afterwards, we're left scratching our heads and wondering how so many people could have fallen for whatever lie.

we have to move the conversation to an area that includes every 1. a defeat for the bully boy is great. an overwhelming 1 would damage his future proposals. so put on your thinking caps and if you find something that works, e-mail me at sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com. tomorrow we'll talk about danny schechter and media channel but if you've got a story you want to share, we can do that too. friday, we'll talk some more about the patriot act and i'm leaving thursday open right now.

i'll add that if you haven't read the common ills this morning, don't miss c.i.'s post on how the times still can't bring themselves to inform readers of the full truth about what happened at the protests against the gop convention.