As Teresa Neilsen Hayden said at our place, I think it's legalese for "we can prove the posts came from Siegel's account, but we can't literally prove that he personally typed them." Given the prose, though, I don't think there's any serious doubt about who wrote them...
I'm pretty unforgiving as far as offensive political views, but I can't help feel a bit bad for Siegel. He's just too weird for you to hold him accountable for his actions.
TNR is the magazine equivalent of the UNC basketball program of a few years ago: its proud history and excellent recruits are being mocked by the present crap management. Maybe they can find a Roy Williams (perhaps a Kinsley protege, or, better, a Hertzberg protege) to right the program.
I honestly can't see the logic of sockpuppeting at all. I mean, if I'm taking a beating in a thread, I might IM a sympathetic friend and say, "Boy, I'm taking a beating over there" and a friend might happen to come by and back me up. Does Siegel seriously have no fans or friends at all that could be called on when it's apparent no one agrees with him?
Honestly, I'm with Scott; I've never ever been tempted to change my handle so I could praise myself. Ezra is being way too nice here. There's simply no reason to pretend to be (how sad!) a big-time NYC editor who lives to jerk you off. And in your own prose style, too!
Sorry, that was two "honestly"s in as many paragraphs. It's a word I use when someone for whom I have extremely low expectations does not even meet those expectations.
Yeah, isn't every single person on earth disagreeing with you a sign of something? And it's not that you're an übermensch beyond the comprehension of all?
I've also been trying to think of a name of a "big NYC editor" whose identity would make me "crap my pants." That's like me saying, "You guys, if you seriously knew which eighteenth-century scholar you were talking to right now, you would lose your mind and run into the sea. Seriously."
What I don't get about this is why people sockpuppet. Does the sockpuppeteer/author 1) actually think that the sockpuppet's arguments are going to change the minds of the people who disagree with you, 2) think that even though the sockpuppet won't change people's opinions, his detractors will be impressed or their ire will be mitigated by seeing that he has a fan, or 3) live in some weird daydream world about what a hypothetical fan might say about him, and just wants to see those daydreams writ large in comments?
The thing is, you can't manufacture trust. For example, if there was some person posting something I vehemently disagreed with, and someone whose opinion I trust, say LB or ogged, showed up and was like "hey, wait, this kind of makes sense," I would probably give a second look at my opinion, but that's only because I already trust those people. The same thing coming from someone I don't know, or someone who claims to be someone I should trust (like, e.g. the "NYC editor" thing) just isn't going to have any effect.
I'm pretty sure that Lee Siegel -- who likes to stand in front of the bathroom mirror saying Lee Siegel, Lee Siegel, Lee Siegel to himself -- mostly falls into your category (3).
Siegel didn't get canned for sockpuppetry; he got canned for asshattery. The decision to suspend the blog came before the magazine compared the IP addresses, apparently. But the sockpuppetry is probably what got him canned in addition from writing in the print.
Farberesquely I say that the art bloggers have been complaining about Siegel for far longer than the rest, and that his Slate pieces did worse injustice to artists (in particular Cy Twombly) than his rants did to Ezra.
Those Slate pieces are some of the most terrifying things I've ever read. He desperately wants someone to come along and say, "Wow, it's as if he ripped his prose style off of Fitzgerald. What a beautiful, tortured mind." I'm with 3. Because he can't believe no one's said it already, he has to do it himself.
As I noted on my blog, there's something unintentionally hilarious about the handle sprezzatura. Castiglione defined it:
It is an art which does not seem to be an art. One must avoid affectation and practice in all things a certain sprezzatura, disdain or carelessness, so as to conceal art, and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it . . . obvious effort is the antithesis of grace.
Eh. I'm already feeling a little bad for him. It's a bit like the dog-poop guy (woman?) whose photograph was on the Internet: yes, an ass, but he's been punished, and he'll always be part of the argument when someone argues that TNR sucks.
Farberesquely I say that the art bloggers have been complaining about Siegel for far longer than the rest, and that his Slate pieces did worse injustice to artists (in particular Cy Twombly) than his rants did to Ezra.
Both points true, but Cy Twombly's reputation lies beyond the likes of Lee Siegel to really affect. Ezra Klein isn't exactly in the same category. In fact, I'd guess that one reason Siegel picked Klein out wasn't so much that he had any particular animus against him, but because he thought he could get away with it. Bullies are like that.
I don't feel sorry for him at all--maybe I could be convinced to do so in time, but this is entirely self-inflected. And while his flameout occured in part because of his massively wrongheaded move into political blogging, the sort of nasty, belittling characterizations of others that played a part in his downfall rang true to his practice as an art critic as well.
Yeah, I can't really feel sorry for him, though it is embarrassing. His writing, even aside from the insane Sprezzatura stuff, reminds me of bourgeois white dude composition-student crap, full of horrible bombast and entitlement. His sense of privilege must have gotten overwrought because no one along his ascent to professional-writerdom ever stopped him and said, "You're a terrible, terrible writer, not because you don't know several words, which you clearly do, but because you have no subject, nothing to complain about, nothing to discuss, no ideas or innovations, nothing at all except a possibly-autistic inability to discern the difference between the value you place on your thoughts and their potential worth for anyone outside yourself."
This is the duty of every writing instructor and editor in the world, to recognize people like this and say these words to them. I've done it (in a much gentler way, of course) to many a young creative writing student as it was done to me once. It is a lie to let our students think that good writing is not a product of good thinking.
I don't feel sorry for him. I'm privy to some e-mails Siegel sent to another art critic in the hopes of intimidating him, after the critic responded to what Siegel said about Twombly. Not to mention his cowardly attacks against Ezra. Siegel's a bully who deserves a "Hah, hah."
You know, it's not like he misspoke or slipped just once. I don't get feeling sorry for him, unless you just don't believe in people getting what's coming to them.
Is there also a category of poor black chick composition-student crap? Rich lesbian composition-student crap? Middle-class Latino guy composition-student crap?
And I think Ezra is just being gracious. It would be too easy to be him right now jumping up and down, yelling, "Eat shit, motherfucker!" I like that he's being gracious in that it's moderated the tone of most of the responses, I think.
I'm privy to some e-mails Siegel sent to another art critic in the hopes of intimidating him, after the critic responded to what Siegel
Damn, he didn't show those to me--now I want to see them. On reflection, I think he mentioned them, but I definitely haven't read them. Sort of would like to, sort of would not.
I'm not sure I've mentioned this to you, Armsmasher, though you probably already know, but A/rt/net's Wal/ter Ro./bins/on is also known for trolling the internets. He did it to me once, and I know of other instances as well. Of course, since he's the editor of a vanity publication attached to an auction database, he can probably do what he likes without fear of losing his job.
This, from the diary Siegel did for Slate, is now pretty funny.
There are plenty of dark stories about the Internet dating services being used as field operations for adultery—mostly men cheating on their wives. A friend of mine in New York, whom I'll call Diane, met a guy named Warren on the Internet. After a while she started to see him, fell in love, and began making plans to move in with him. Then one day she got a phone call from a distraught enraged helpless woman. It turns out that Warren had a wife and another life; in fact, he was a newlywed, married less than a year. He even had a newborn baby. More and more, people seem to be lying in both directions, to the official partner and to the unofficial adventure. Psychiatrists call that personality "splitting"; pop culture calls it "compartmentalizing." I call it selfishness and greed.
I don't get feeling sorry for him, unless you just don't believe in people getting what's coming to them.
In America, Fitzgerald notwithstanding, people are supposed to get second acts (and third acts, and fourth acts, and on). If you tried adopting the attitude of your country, Shi'a, instead of the head-cutting ethos of your ethnicity, this might be more clear. I feel like this is going to linger for Siegel, and I feel bad for him; that's all. And, yes, Siegel is a pretty big fuck, insofar as he seemed to call someone else a pe/do/phile, so he deserves what he gets. I suppose, in the end, I don't believe in people getting what's coming to them; but you already knew that I was a Democrat.
Siegel must be around 46. Klein referenced a piece Siegel wrote about a 16 year-old Uma Thurman hitting on him when he was 26.
He’s got good comic timing, a penchant for understatement and—a rarity for men of letters in his generation—an inability to take himself too seriously.
38: Who says Siegel won't get a second, third, or even fourth act? He's embarrassing now, of course, but he still has connections, and actual self-examination, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, might be attractive to an editor in due time, and then he's back, baby. What he needs to do is start playing his cards right, though I admit the grandiosity and nastiness of his recent work argues against his ability to do so.
As as lifelong Democrat, I've always thought that people deserve what's coming to them; it's the question of who deserves what that is decisive.
He has a book coming out any day now; unless his publishers pull it from the shelves (n00b pwn3d by l337 b10gz0rz!!1), Siegel's doing better than he ought to be, act wise.
27: No doubt, this story made me think of W4lter's sockpuppetry. It's odder in his case, seeing as how he makes his bread and butter off a Web-only publication. He and Siegel could start a sockpuppet revue!
(And ask about those e-mails. They're raving mad.)
24: No, there isn't. Because middle-class white guys outnumber everyone else. Even though affirmative action has made it impossible to get into college.
41: I think the difference is that W4lter is management, at least in part, at his site, and so safe, to a certain degree; and that I figure the real money at the site comes from selling subscriptions to the auction database, as well as the ads and listings from galleries. We pay attention to the articles, but--as with most art publications past, present, and future--those paying the bills don't.
I'll definitely demand some of those emails--can't wait.
44:You bet there is. I don't spend my time at Pandagon, feministe, and I Blame the Patriarchy studying and trying to develop the exact tone and language that can express my thoughts honestly without getting quickly banned for nothing.
Actually, it may in part be about trying to change the way I think.
Ah, it is. Haven't been able to post from Firefox most of the day.
*ahem*
None of the posters at any of those blogs actually fit into any of the categories in 24, do they? Unless Pam is rich or poor (and actually I don't know much about the new feministe posters). But IBtP would be cancer-patient composition-student crap, wouldn't it?
48:Oh, they be categories of their very own, of course, as is each and every blog unique. And blogs, I estimate, only get about a third of their character from the posters, and at least two thirds from the commentariat. And it is often the commentariat that enforces standards and styles.
Unfogged is quite challenging. The blogosphere is fascinating in the wide variety of social groups one can observe. I never would have had a chance to see perfessors in informal conversation. Now I now what goes on in faculty lounges. Cock jokes.
a possibly-autistic inability to discern the difference between the value you place on your thoughts and their potential worth for anyone outside yourself.
Huh. I never really thought about those sorts of thought complexes as typical of autism. Getting most of the autistics I know (and, mind you, both of the women I'm current dating are (lightly) autistic) to believe that I care about what they're thinking is Sysiphean.
Ezra must just be being polite, because who could possibly imagine this?
I imagine him, tonight, pacing in his New York apartment, face hot every time he thinks of his suspension, sleep elusive as the recent weeks replay through his mind. It's not a pretty picture, and I've no wish to make it worse.
The person who wrote what Lee/Sprezzatura wrote, in the manner written, wouldn't react like this, he'd just become more convinced of his own greatness somehow.
"And blogs, I estimate, only get about a third of their character from the posters, and at least two thirds from the commentariat."
Well, I'd definitely say that only about a third is evident from the reading the posts, but the the three factors of topic, writing style, and moderation practice (and the history of all those) determine at least 4/5 of the content and atmosphere of the comments threads, with the rest determined by who links to the blog.
What are these faculty lounges anyway? None of the three departments I've taught in has one -- the dumb jokes happen in the corridor, or in each other's offices, or in the department lounge where the students hang out too.
Unless they just didn't tell me where it is! The bastards!
"An all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts. Five (or more) of the following criteria must be met:
Feels grandiose and self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion
Firmaly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation -or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (narcissistic supply).
Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favourable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her expectations
Is "interpersonally exploitative", i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends
Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with or acknowledge the feelings and needs of others
Constantly envious of others or believes that they feel the same about him or her
Arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes coupled with rage when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted."
blogs, I estimate, only get about a third of their character from the posters, and at least two thirds from the commentariat
Depends on the blog. I mean, sure, I read comments on this blog, where reading the threads is pretty much the whole point, but on Kevin Drum's site? Or, heaven forfend, Eschaton's? The comment sections of those blogs are nothing but rubbish piles accumulating around utterly unrelated posts. The result is that those blogs effectively have no comments, since I never read them. There are other sites where a handful of trolls consistently manage to wreck any comment thread they participate in (Ezra Klein's, for instance), and others with long comment sections which seem on-topic yet horribly dysfunctional (Obsidian Wings). To the extent that these blogs train me to avoid reading their comments at all in the first place, their comments aren't affecting me much at all.
62: Y'all are a mere visitor at Drum's or Atrios; what do those who hang, who live in the comment threads think of the places? I cannot handle Eschaton, and FDL is approaching Eschaton, but Drum has plenty of substantive comments.
62 cont:Wow. As someone who hangs at Ezra's and ObsWi, that strikes me as so wrong. Both have excellent and qualified commenters;ObsWi has jackmormon and charleycarp for two and others who visit here that I have unforgivably overlooked.
Comment sections must be sifted and winnowed, the wheat from the chaff. Unfogged is no exception, following the sunstantive parts of threads can be a challenge. Do you never wonder how these threads look to lurkers?
Here's Ben Domenech at Boundless, the magazine for post-college people who call themselves Christians (I think). Paired with an article wondering "wondering if these bloggers didn't have something better to do with their time than tear apart a fellow follower of Jesus." Wonder if that extends to calling Coretta Scott King a communist. At least I'm fair game!
So, if you have enough connections, you'll be sure to fall on your feet. And Siegel doesn't seem to have got where he was on merit. (And, I don't think sock-puppeting should disqualify him from future gigs. The groundless accusations of pedophilia, and the insane vindictiveness shown toward Klein, Kincaid, and apparently this art critic, should.)
I have never understood this hostility toward comment threads, except to the extent I could be insulting to the judgemental. Eschaton and FDL are playpens and cheering sections. It is what the commenters want.
It is like visiting a town hall or tribal meeting in Kandahar; the idiot cousin chimes in once in a while, the children rush thru with riddles; great-granny bitches about the way things used to be; every half-hour breaks are taken for tea and horse-trading discussions...and the observer says this is worthless, get these folks Robert's Rules of Order.
Anyone seriously interested in politics should pay attention to the various ways the sausage is actually made.
68: All you're saying is that people complaining about comment sections are themselves saying, "This isn't the way a discussion I'd participate in should proceed." I think you're correct, but I don't see what's wrong about saying it.
Wow. As someone who hangs at Ezra's and ObsWi, that strikes me as so wrong. Both have excellent and qualified commenters;ObsWi has jackmormon and charleycarp for two and others who visit here that I have unforgivably overlooked.
Bob, I realize you spend a lot of time at all those places, but however many smart commenters hang out at ObWi, it doesn't change the fact that a huge chunk of its threads consist of Conservative Commenter X saying Stupid Thing Y, followed by umpteen zillion commenters with the exact same refutation of Y, followed by demands of apologies for Y, followed by X's bitter non-apology apology for Y, followed by angry comments directed at the non-apology apology, followed by threats of banning the angry commenters, followed by another post by X with a restatement of Y. We're talking about the blog with the comment section so dysfunctional it spun off an entirely separate blog devoted to how dysfunctional its comment section was.
John once wrote that blogs get the comments sections they deserve. Something about how they belied the pretensions of faux civil, or faux intellectual wingnut blogs, among other things. I remember it because he singled out fistful as one of a handful of exceptions to the rule, which I thought was unfair to our unusually decent comments section.
66: Given what I wrote in 40 above, I basically agree. But wow on the Domenech link. It brings a whole new mental image to mind: Siegel seething, Mr. Burns-style, muttering, "Patience, Lee--climb the ladder." This replaces the earlier one I had of him screaming at his computer screen, "Don't worry about me, Ezra! Don't worry about me! I'm Lee fucking Siegel!"
72: Just wanted to add that I didn't really mean to single out Obsidian Wings with that last one. Most blogs have pretty poor comment sections, or at the very least comment sections not really worth reading. I can think of maybe a handful, but there's a very small space between getting little to no comments at all and getting a monstrous glut of webarrhea in which a comment section can function as a genuine asset to a blog.
At this point I think comments are seen as an obligation more than anything; I've seen more than one commenter deride commentless blogs as indicators of elitism or or antidemocratic sentiment. So even if comments add nothing substantive to the site, or actively detract from the quality of the blog, heaven forbid you fail to include them in the bold, interactive medium of the future! "You won't let us write all over your stuff? How dare you!"
I've seen more than one commenter deride commentless blogs
Rightly so. It's worth having a space for criticism with the post. Even if comments generally suck, it decreases the likelihood that a poster will go entirely off the rails, at least by the readers' lights.
I purposefully didn't include either of those terms in the quoted material. To the extent that TPM makes arguments, those arguments are crappier than they would be if TPM had comments. The same argument might apply to the provision of news, but I'm not certain that e-mail doesn't function equally effectively as a policing mechanism for that service.
75: I agree that there seems to be in most cases a point at which comments sections offer rapidly diminishing returns. But for the vast majority of sites not at that point, rather then being a nuisance, comments (aside from the rude ones) are often the best part in the eyes of the blogger. Getting an email in response to a post is just not as good--there's no chance to develop a broader conversation. Which itself doesn't happen as often as one likes, but sometimes still does.
Since I seem to be quoting Armsmasher a lot this weekend, here goes another one: "Every once in a while you write something that you consider great, something that changes everything or sheds new light or brings new thoughts to bear, and you can't help but see that (0) and think, Well, fuck me." That's exactly right.
I find it fucking hilarious that the only comment to the linked G.p post is "Hello,
Good work, and I agree with your opinion.
Thank you for it!
Kisses,
viavia"
72:Nah, it's ok to single out Drum or ObsWi. Or Tapped recently with Specialist. I think I have had arguments with Emerson about trolls. Blogs are communities with dynamics, if an aggressive commenter feels duty bound to drive strong dissent away, the entire comment section can pile on and the thread become tiresome. Emerson thinks trolls must be driven off. I think what is not useful can be ignored.
I visit a lot of blogs. The Nielson Haydens have a good active comment section. It is way too nice for my tastes. What is the point of a conversation without an argument? Me, right on, sing it sister.
A blog is a complicated thing, and every blogger is different. Without offense intended, hilzoy, being a brilliant academic, is capable of writing posts like submittable papers, deliberately designed to be impervious save by the equally brilliant. And I am sitting there:"What can I say?" Yglesias is a superstar, I think in part because he deliberately leaves spaces for readers to fill in. Epigrammatic maybe.
Comments sections are hard. I keep thinking about ways to expand my audience, but why would I? I'm lucky to have a very small, very smart and kind commentariat. Unfogged is lucky to have developed that on such a broad scale. Almost any other big blog will be one-offs by random people, plagued by those who don't get it and don't know they don't get it, or trolls who see it as a valid substratum for their whining.
It's hard, in that the blogosphere is somewhat about the size of the audience; it makes your writing somehow automatically more valid or important if everyone's reading it, but seriously, who wants to be read by everyone?
82: Lots of comment sections suck, and there seems to be a higher proportion of sucky comment sections among the well-trafficked blogs than among the general group of blogs. But, for example, Yglesias actually has a pretty good comment section.
I think it sort of has to do with the seed commenters. If your initial commenters are smart, generally reasonable, inclined to value fairness over partisan position, and a little bit mean, I think you're likely to get a pretty good comment section. I think ogged has described Unfogged's success that way, claiming that the very early commenters established the tone.
84:72 is exactly wrong. Just got back from ObsWi, where Farber has shown up with his usual epic, subtly qualified, cautious psuedo-candid biographical rants. 4 of them. Anyone is welcome to visit the place right now, and see if the top two comment threads fit stras's description.
They don't, and that tells us much about stras. Many people see a couple conservatives posting or commenting at a blog, and say the place is dysfunctional. We understand.
I don't read ObWi and don't have a dog in this fight, but I think 85 gets SJ wrong; 72 reads to me more like an objection to the way liberal commenters react to crazy conservative ideas in comment threads than an objection to conservatives being there at all. As for whether it's accurate about ObWi, again, I don't know, but CÆ seems to agree. And SJ didn't say all threads were like that, just "a huge chunk," which is totally consistent with the top two threads right now being different.
I agree with 86, but I don''t know if stras does. He will have to speak for himself. I tend to ignore Charles and not engage in the bashing in the threads.
Hypo:If ogged were to invite Josh Trevino to become a regular poster at unfogged, and all the Trevino threads became mudfights, would stras blame bitchphd and LB et al for wrecking the place?
Would we move to ban those liberals who could not maintain civil discourse?
As I said, I ignore Charles and the rightie commenters, so I have creds. I herewith say stras was not taking the position described in 86, ot if he was, it was insincere.
I think that one weakness of liberal blogs is that they won't admit that they really don't want to hear the "conservative perspective" on things, because the "conservative perspective" is so completely formulaic that it's easy to guess. When conservatives complaint that their voices are being silenced, liberals get all defensive about how "no, you're just a fucking asshole," when instead they should be saying: "Yes, I'm silencing your voice. I don't want to hear it. Go the fuck away."
More time for liberals to talk amongst themselves without conservatives gumming up the works would be fucking great. The biggest problem the so-called "left" has is that they assume that conservative views should somehow be taken into account and respected. That's absurd, though, and we all know it.
How come Adam's not the go-to guy when someone wants to make an unprovoked accusation of incivility and blog-wrecking? Look, he even used the word "fuck" and variations of it three times!
Isn't Bob defending you and LB from the hypothetical accusation of blogwrecking and incivility? I'm not sure actually.
FWIW I agree with stras and especially with 92. There are issues on which the conservative viewpoint is worth hearing, but too much of the 'conservative' (i.e., Republican) viewpoint these days comes from an alternate reality. And ignoring the conservatives often doesn't work, because then there are all these lies in the comment thread, and anyone who happened by might think that they had some sort of point. So well-meaning liberals engage the conservatives, trying to point out the flaws in their arguments, and you get train-wreck threads like the one where the conservatives argued that Donald Rumsfeld wasn't actually attacking war critics.
The problem is not Republican commenters, it's commenters posting from the Gamma Quadrant. Unfortunately the Gamma Quadrant is GOP HQ these days.
(And don't get me started on Ron Gre/nier, Cap/tain To/ke, and Fre/d J/ones.)
96:If stras had pointed a finger, specifically at one poster and/or commenter, my response wqould have been different. And the qualifier may be there in his opening, but the last sentence of 72 was not so qualified. Waving a dismissive hand rather than pointing a finger it was.
I will not apologize. His comment was directed at a blog that has hilzoy as a dominant poster, and Katherine as an occasional poster and frequent commenter. I will not have the place generally condemned.
102:b, it was intended as a random sample. I will not deny that I seem to remember female posters and commenters more clearly than the males, and they are the first to come to mind. Eszter amd Maria and umm, another lady are not the dominant voices at Crooked Timber, but I can name them more quickly than the males.
103: I am so totally not accepting that rationalization. I'm sticking with the "sexist" argument. Unless you want to substitute the "personal animus" argument, which works too.
Re: "Lots of comment sections suck, and there seems to be a higher proportion of sucky comment sections among the well-trafficked blogs than among the general group of blogs..."
You can keep your comments section non-sucky--but it requires virtue... and terror... fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and a fanatical devotion to the Pope...
105:A) it was not intended as a criticism, or at least as a particular criticism or directed criticism. I would not expect Josh Trevino to thrive at Unfogged. That is not a wrong choice. It is simply not the choice of ObsWi, and I respect their decision, and am very tired of the years I have spent defending it.
B) the "et al" should have given a clue as to simply being the first names out of my head, for reasons that
c) Are not rationalizations. Next Hurrah has posters emptywheel and sistersaralou...and some guys.
I will cop ro noticing and remembering the names of female blog participants more than males, which may indicate sexism. Lord, I don't know. It does seem important who a comment comes from, and I shouldn't merely look at content and be blind to the source.
"anne" incidentally, is a reason I read DeLong. She also visits Mark Thoma and Setser sometimes.
95:, Weiner, I don't think that Ron Greiner is a Republican troll. I've watched him at the Health Care blog for a while. His behavior is definitely trollish, and he loves Jeb Bush, but, really it's all about the damn HSA! HSA's will solve everything. He's a real loon, but it's not exactly conservative lunacy. He's an insurance salesman, and he loves anything that he thinks he can sell. The scary part is that he thinks his trolling will help him sell insurance policies.
I rather agree with the others who suggested that one of the problems at ObWi are the liberal commenters who twist themselves into knots responding to some of the less, uh, useful conservative comments. I'm still fond of the place.
Wait, is 111 just an invitation to make jokes about the creation of HoCB (without casting aspersions on its current form)?
Let's say I've taken it into my head to celebrate Labor Day as more than just Day Off Day, and want to do something actually related to celebrating organized labor tomorrow. Other than thanking people who supply me with goods and services more profusely than usual, how can I do this?
w/d, my plan was more subtle than may be obvious to the common observer.
I'm going to celebrate Labor Day with manual labor. That sounds charitable and appropriate, except that I have to fucking pack these books before the movers come on Tuesday. I vote you go to one of our bizillion fine city parks and throw a frisbee around.
Oh, if you want to be earnest, there's a ton of labor-related museums around. There's a history of trains museum, a police museum (I want to go to that one some time; it's way downtown somewhere)....but I'm guessing that a lot of these places will be closed.
Or, if you like, you can come to my place and pick up a couple dozen books on labor and NYC history, as long as you promise to return them to my new apartment. Read 'em in one of our fine city parks if you like.
Or alternatively, spend money at a store that treats it's workers well or something. I hear Samuel Adams is a good company to work for, so drink yourself into oblivion on Sam Adams. Or maybe get something at Starbucks.
Starbucks fires employees who try to unionize. Even if they objectively treat their employees well, supporting them specifically because of their labor practices seems wrong headed -- Labor Day is about workers banding together and gaining some control of their own situation, not about corporations arbitrarily deciding to be generous.
bg @ 109: I used to think RG was just an HSA monomaniac, but his comments on this thread looked like GOP trollery to me. Though I see that they were building up to some Jeb! puffery, so you could be right. (Anyway, his HSA trolling would be bad enough.)
I think 89 is right in a way, in that there's a certain brand of conservative perspective on things (that would be the movementarian Bush-partisan brand) that has long since ceased to deserve a polite hearing-out. Which is why, pace Bob's 101, I think it's perfectly understandable why some people find ObWi pretty much intolerable. I'd read a solo blog by hilzoy any day, but a blog that continues to countenance the presence of an asshat like Charles Bird (and his coterie of RedState fans) is something else again.
Being from Austin, I'm more aware of and sensitive to WF's efforts to stifle employee organization, but I'd believe that WF and SB have similar practices.
124: They are like family, man. If hilzoy wants to, she can explain why she doesn't start her own blog. Or the, I lack adequate adjectives, Katherine can explain why she spends more time at ObsWi than other blogs. If she does.
Look I hate the ideology, and I would literally ban the Party, constitution be damned. But in some sense, I suspect Republicans remain human beings, and I do not want to forget that. So I would follow hilzoy into heaven or hell, but I would continue to visit ObsWi without her. As I continue to lurk at Tacitus.org.
124:And I simply admire Charles' courage. He takes hell from the commenters, yet returns again and again. He knows it is no longer a receptive audience. I suspect he continues for reasons not far from hilzoy's or Katherines's, be it inertia, gratitude, nostalgia, affection. So there is something there to appreciate, something that transcends ideology, something human. OK?
Charles Bird is barely welcome at RedState anymore. Just tolerated, as is von.
128 / 130: Yeah, you know, I did sort of suspect the Other Guys are technically "human," but thanks for the reminder. What I'm saying is I understand why folks don't feel the need to be treated to what passes for their thoughts in blog form, on ObWi or anywhere else.
You are of course free to see "courage" in the BirdDawg as you see fit. I won't exactly join you but I can hardly stop you.
Even if they objectively treat their employees well, supporting them specifically because of their labor practices seems wrong headed -- Labor Day is about workers banding together and gaining some control of their own situation, not about corporations arbitrarily deciding to be generous.
Utah's a "right to work" state. Hardly anything unionized around here, so a bit difficult to spend money at unionized places. I figure "treats employees well" is the next best thing.
Just saw eb's 118 - Totally recommend the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. I've taken my father and my brothers on separate visits and we all enjoyed it. If you go, make sure you reserve tickets online ahead of time or you could end up waiting around for a few hours. Also, if you're in the neighborhood, it's worth checking out Guss' Pickles and il Laboratorio del Gelato. Seriously - best gelato anywhere.
Charles Bird has been My Adopted Conservative for over a year now.
I'm not entirely sure that my efforts at engaging him have been successful. I've tried everything: empathy, defense, rational engagement, disagreement, condemnation, nastily phrased open theads.
What's (vaguely) interesting is that he almost never responds to me. Once, when I whined about that, he admitted that he respects me and agrees with me more often than he's comfortable with.
His writing has improved, that much I can take some professional pride in, and the knocks he's taking at RedState make me, well, want to help him put together better arguments for engaging the crazies.
It's been a couple of months since I've had the mental energy for the positive vision of the project. The drainage and diversion project, however, is proceeding exactly according to plan.
No, no fun for me -- I've got a lot of remorse about all this. Siegel, I've since learned, is not just a blockheaded critic, but a genuine complete and utter loon. I wouldn't have ridden him so hard if I'd understood that. I certainly didn't think "sock-puppetry" was a firing offense, or that the crazy sh*t he wrote as "sprezzatura" would be blazoned all over the place.
Posted by: jhschwartz on September 4, 2006 10:23 PM"
I don't know what he refers to, but I feel vindicated or something. Dude seems to have too serious issues for me to feel schadenfreude. I'm all for being unforgiving, normally.
Liberals ruin all of the conservative blogs that encourage debate. Tacitus.org must have been a bit of an embarrasment to Tac when many of the posts and most of the comments where denouncing Bush and praising Kerry in the lead up to 2004.
At ObWi, Maurice was drivin mad with intellectual disonance as he tried to defend his conservative proclivities in the face of a pouring torrent of stubborn facts.
But who wants to read comments at Delong's or Crooked Timber? Those places have people that really know things and are therefore incomprehensible. Plus, I get ignored and I worry about spelling...
I just like to go to comment sections that have Bob McManus or John Emerson on them because they are usually entertaining, Bob's horndog sexism notwithstanding.
137: I feel bad, too--for jhschwartz. TNR's pretense that sockpuppetry was the firing offense has made him feel like he's the guy who pulled the trigger. He wasn't.
141 is right. Maybe we can have a congressional investigation into why the masthead at this site suggests that there are people named "Unf" and "Bob" who start threads here.
I wonder if he'll start up a blogspot now, or a Kos diary.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 12:05 PM
"What's that about, I wonder?"
As Teresa Neilsen Hayden said at our place, I think it's legalese for "we can prove the posts came from Siegel's account, but we can't literally prove that he personally typed them." Given the prose, though, I don't think there's any serious doubt about who wrote them...
Posted by Scott Lemieux | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 12:07 PM
I'm pretty unforgiving as far as offensive political views, but I can't help feel a bit bad for Siegel. He's just too weird for you to hold him accountable for his actions.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 12:09 PM
TNR is the magazine equivalent of the UNC basketball program of a few years ago: its proud history and excellent recruits are being mocked by the present crap management. Maybe they can find a Roy Williams (perhaps a Kinsley protege, or, better, a Hertzberg protege) to right the program.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 12:23 PM
People don't hate on Kinsley as much as they should.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 12:27 PM
I honestly can't see the logic of sockpuppeting at all. I mean, if I'm taking a beating in a thread, I might IM a sympathetic friend and say, "Boy, I'm taking a beating over there" and a friend might happen to come by and back me up. Does Siegel seriously have no fans or friends at all that could be called on when it's apparent no one agrees with him?
Honestly, I'm with Scott; I've never ever been tempted to change my handle so I could praise myself. Ezra is being way too nice here. There's simply no reason to pretend to be (how sad!) a big-time NYC editor who lives to jerk you off. And in your own prose style, too!
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 12:54 PM
Sorry, that was two "honestly"s in as many paragraphs. It's a word I use when someone for whom I have extremely low expectations does not even meet those expectations.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 1:01 PM
6 is completely right. I thought that part of Ezra's post was weird. (But maybe Ezra's not being nice; maybe Ezra's just weird.)
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 1:05 PM
Yeah, isn't every single person on earth disagreeing with you a sign of something? And it's not that you're an übermensch beyond the comprehension of all?
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 1:07 PM
I've also been trying to think of a name of a "big NYC editor" whose identity would make me "crap my pants." That's like me saying, "You guys, if you seriously knew which eighteenth-century scholar you were talking to right now, you would lose your mind and run into the sea. Seriously."
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 1:09 PM
What I don't get about this is why people sockpuppet. Does the sockpuppeteer/author 1) actually think that the sockpuppet's arguments are going to change the minds of the people who disagree with you, 2) think that even though the sockpuppet won't change people's opinions, his detractors will be impressed or their ire will be mitigated by seeing that he has a fan, or 3) live in some weird daydream world about what a hypothetical fan might say about him, and just wants to see those daydreams writ large in comments?
The thing is, you can't manufacture trust. For example, if there was some person posting something I vehemently disagreed with, and someone whose opinion I trust, say LB or ogged, showed up and was like "hey, wait, this kind of makes sense," I would probably give a second look at my opinion, but that's only because I already trust those people. The same thing coming from someone I don't know, or someone who claims to be someone I should trust (like, e.g. the "NYC editor" thing) just isn't going to have any effect.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 1:51 PM
I'm pretty sure that Lee Siegel -- who likes to stand in front of the bathroom mirror saying Lee Siegel, Lee Siegel, Lee Siegel to himself -- mostly falls into your category (3).
Posted by Felix | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 2:09 PM
Siegel didn't get canned for sockpuppetry; he got canned for asshattery. The decision to suspend the blog came before the magazine compared the IP addresses, apparently. But the sockpuppetry is probably what got him canned in addition from writing in the print.
Farberesquely I say that the art bloggers have been complaining about Siegel for far longer than the rest, and that his Slate pieces did worse injustice to artists (in particular Cy Twombly) than his rants did to Ezra.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 2:14 PM
Those Slate pieces are some of the most terrifying things I've ever read. He desperately wants someone to come along and say, "Wow, it's as if he ripped his prose style off of Fitzgerald. What a beautiful, tortured mind." I'm with 3. Because he can't believe no one's said it already, he has to do it himself.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 2:14 PM
As I noted on my blog, there's something unintentionally hilarious about the handle sprezzatura. Castiglione defined it:
(from Book of the Courtier)Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 2:20 PM
Eh. I'm already feeling a little bad for him. It's a bit like the dog-poop guy (woman?) whose photograph was on the Internet: yes, an ass, but he's been punished, and he'll always be part of the argument when someone argues that TNR sucks.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 2:25 PM
Farberesquely I say that the art bloggers have been complaining about Siegel for far longer than the rest, and that his Slate pieces did worse injustice to artists (in particular Cy Twombly) than his rants did to Ezra.
Both points true, but Cy Twombly's reputation lies beyond the likes of Lee Siegel to really affect. Ezra Klein isn't exactly in the same category. In fact, I'd guess that one reason Siegel picked Klein out wasn't so much that he had any particular animus against him, but because he thought he could get away with it. Bullies are like that.
I don't feel sorry for him at all--maybe I could be convinced to do so in time, but this is entirely self-inflected. And while his flameout occured in part because of his massively wrongheaded move into political blogging, the sort of nasty, belittling characterizations of others that played a part in his downfall rang true to his practice as an art critic as well.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 2:57 PM
Yeah, I can't really feel sorry for him, though it is embarrassing. His writing, even aside from the insane Sprezzatura stuff, reminds me of bourgeois white dude composition-student crap, full of horrible bombast and entitlement. His sense of privilege must have gotten overwrought because no one along his ascent to professional-writerdom ever stopped him and said, "You're a terrible, terrible writer, not because you don't know several words, which you clearly do, but because you have no subject, nothing to complain about, nothing to discuss, no ideas or innovations, nothing at all except a possibly-autistic inability to discern the difference between the value you place on your thoughts and their potential worth for anyone outside yourself."
This is the duty of every writing instructor and editor in the world, to recognize people like this and say these words to them. I've done it (in a much gentler way, of course) to many a young creative writing student as it was done to me once. It is a lie to let our students think that good writing is not a product of good thinking.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 3:19 PM
I don't feel sorry for him. I'm privy to some e-mails Siegel sent to another art critic in the hopes of intimidating him, after the critic responded to what Siegel said about Twombly. Not to mention his cowardly attacks against Ezra. Siegel's a bully who deserves a "Hah, hah."
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:02 PM
So interesting. I haven't read
muchanything of Siegel's, but it's kind of funny that he's written on Twombly, the embodiment of sprezzatura.Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:10 PM
You know, it's not like he misspoke or slipped just once. I don't get feeling sorry for him, unless you just don't believe in people getting what's coming to them.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:13 PM
Does anyone know how old-ish Siegel is?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:19 PM
His picture looks mid-40's. I think it says somewhere, but all the TNR stuff has been taken down.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:26 PM
bourgeois white dude composition-student crap
Is there also a category of poor black chick composition-student crap? Rich lesbian composition-student crap? Middle-class Latino guy composition-student crap?
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:27 PM
Picture?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:28 PM
And I think Ezra is just being gracious. It would be too easy to be him right now jumping up and down, yelling, "Eat shit, motherfucker!" I like that he's being gracious in that it's moderated the tone of most of the responses, I think.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:30 PM
I'm privy to some e-mails Siegel sent to another art critic in the hopes of intimidating him, after the critic responded to what Siegel
Damn, he didn't show those to me--now I want to see them. On reflection, I think he mentioned them, but I definitely haven't read them. Sort of would like to, sort of would not.
I'm not sure I've mentioned this to you, Armsmasher, though you probably already know, but A/rt/net's Wal/ter Ro./bins/on is also known for trolling the internets. He did it to me once, and I know of other instances as well. Of course, since he's the editor of a vanity publication attached to an auction database, he can probably do what he likes without fear of losing his job.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:31 PM
24: yes. We're all frighteningly categorizable by our prose at age 18.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:31 PM
25: There is one up somewhere at LGM, but I forget who/when and I'm on my way out the door.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:35 PM
Ah, ok. Thanks, Bear.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:38 PM
These comments were produced with the participation of Jackmormon.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:44 PM
This post used to contain a picture of Siegel which has now mysteriously vanished. He looks Jewish, if that's any help.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:49 PM
A Google image search for his name is amusing.
Is he the same Lee Siegel who wrote an introduction to the re-issue of Scholem's book on Benjamin? Because if so, that's a travesty.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:58 PM
This, from the diary Siegel did for Slate, is now pretty funny.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 4:59 PM
I think he is, Adam.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 5:00 PM
The first google hit is the one that was at LGM.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 5:01 PM
But I'm not sure that's the same Siegel. I don't think it is.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 5:04 PM
I don't get feeling sorry for him, unless you just don't believe in people getting what's coming to them.
In America, Fitzgerald notwithstanding, people are supposed to get second acts (and third acts, and fourth acts, and on). If you tried adopting the attitude of your country, Shi'a, instead of the head-cutting ethos of your ethnicity, this might be more clear. I feel like this is going to linger for Siegel, and I feel bad for him; that's all. And, yes, Siegel is a pretty big fuck, insofar as he seemed to call someone else a pe/do/phile, so he deserves what he gets. I suppose, in the end, I don't believe in people getting what's coming to them; but you already knew that I was a Democrat.
Siegel must be around 46. Klein referenced a piece Siegel wrote about a 16 year-old Uma Thurman hitting on him when he was 26.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 5:06 PM
He’s got good comic timing, a penchant for understatement and—a rarity for men of letters in his generation—an inability to take himself too seriously.
Yeah, probably not the same guy.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 5:07 PM
38: Who says Siegel won't get a second, third, or even fourth act? He's embarrassing now, of course, but he still has connections, and actual self-examination, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, might be attractive to an editor in due time, and then he's back, baby. What he needs to do is start playing his cards right, though I admit the grandiosity and nastiness of his recent work argues against his ability to do so.
As as lifelong Democrat, I've always thought that people deserve what's coming to them; it's the question of who deserves what that is decisive.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 5:25 PM
He has a book coming out any day now; unless his publishers pull it from the shelves (n00b pwn3d by l337 b10gz0rz!!1), Siegel's doing better than he ought to be, act wise.
27: No doubt, this story made me think of W4lter's sockpuppetry. It's odder in his case, seeing as how he makes his bread and butter off a Web-only publication. He and Siegel could start a sockpuppet revue!
(And ask about those e-mails. They're raving mad.)
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 5:58 PM
24: No, there isn't. Because middle-class white guys outnumber everyone else. Even though affirmative action has made it impossible to get into college.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 6:22 PM
41: I think the difference is that W4lter is management, at least in part, at his site, and so safe, to a certain degree; and that I figure the real money at the site comes from selling subscriptions to the auction database, as well as the ads and listings from galleries. We pay attention to the articles, but--as with most art publications past, present, and future--those paying the bills don't.
I'll definitely demand some of those emails--can't wait.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 6:24 PM
24: don't let B mislead you, Idealist; there really is.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 6:37 PM
44:You bet there is. I don't spend my time at Pandagon, feministe, and I Blame the Patriarchy studying and trying to develop the exact tone and language that can express my thoughts honestly without getting quickly banned for nothing.
Actually, it may in part be about trying to change the way I think.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 7:01 PM
Those woulde definitely be the places to find it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 7:24 PM
Ok, let's see if it's a browser issue....
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 7:38 PM
Ah, it is. Haven't been able to post from Firefox most of the day.
*ahem*
None of the posters at any of those blogs actually fit into any of the categories in 24, do they? Unless Pam is rich or poor (and actually I don't know much about the new feministe posters). But IBtP would be cancer-patient composition-student crap, wouldn't it?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 7:40 PM
Fucking Davies.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 7:47 PM
48:Oh, they be categories of their very own, of course, as is each and every blog unique. And blogs, I estimate, only get about a third of their character from the posters, and at least two thirds from the commentariat. And it is often the commentariat that enforces standards and styles.
Unfogged is quite challenging. The blogosphere is fascinating in the wide variety of social groups one can observe. I never would have had a chance to see perfessors in informal conversation. Now I now what goes on in faculty lounges. Cock jokes.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 8:42 PM
"in faculty lounges" s/b "when the faculty lounges"
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 8:46 PM
"produced with Siegel's participation" means he had his buddy write 'em and he edited them for foofiness.
Posted by Guest | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 8:54 PM
48: I'm not sure to whom you are addressing the question, but I was just being snarky for its own sake.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 9:12 PM
So, are people going to stop printing John Lott's op-eds?
Posted by Matthew McIrvin | Link to this comment | 09- 2-06 9:47 PM
50: You give faculty lounges way too much credit.
As for Siegel: couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 2:03 AM
a possibly-autistic inability to discern the difference between the value you place on your thoughts and their potential worth for anyone outside yourself.
Huh. I never really thought about those sorts of thought complexes as typical of autism. Getting most of the autistics I know (and, mind you, both of the women I'm current dating are (lightly) autistic) to believe that I care about what they're thinking is Sysiphean.
Posted by NBarnes | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 5:14 AM
Ezra must just be being polite, because who could possibly imagine this?
I imagine him, tonight, pacing in his New York apartment, face hot every time he thinks of his suspension, sleep elusive as the recent weeks replay through his mind. It's not a pretty picture, and I've no wish to make it worse.
The person who wrote what Lee/Sprezzatura wrote, in the manner written, wouldn't react like this, he'd just become more convinced of his own greatness somehow.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 6:24 AM
"And blogs, I estimate, only get about a third of their character from the posters, and at least two thirds from the commentariat."
Well, I'd definitely say that only about a third is evident from the reading the posts, but the the three factors of topic, writing style, and moderation practice (and the history of all those) determine at least 4/5 of the content and atmosphere of the comments threads, with the rest determined by who links to the blog.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:40 AM
What are these faculty lounges anyway? None of the three departments I've taught in has one -- the dumb jokes happen in the corridor, or in each other's offices, or in the department lounge where the students hang out too.
Unless they just didn't tell me where it is! The bastards!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:45 AM
That is, I think Berube gets it right. (See also.)
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:02 AM
Autistic? Nah. I go with narcissism:
"An all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts. Five (or more) of the following criteria must be met:
Feels grandiose and self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion
Firmaly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation -or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (narcissistic supply).
Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favourable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her expectations
Is "interpersonally exploitative", i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends
Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with or acknowledge the feelings and needs of others
Constantly envious of others or believes that they feel the same about him or her
Arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes coupled with rage when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted."
Posted by hilzoy | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:07 AM
blogs, I estimate, only get about a third of their character from the posters, and at least two thirds from the commentariat
Depends on the blog. I mean, sure, I read comments on this blog, where reading the threads is pretty much the whole point, but on Kevin Drum's site? Or, heaven forfend, Eschaton's? The comment sections of those blogs are nothing but rubbish piles accumulating around utterly unrelated posts. The result is that those blogs effectively have no comments, since I never read them. There are other sites where a handful of trolls consistently manage to wreck any comment thread they participate in (Ezra Klein's, for instance), and others with long comment sections which seem on-topic yet horribly dysfunctional (Obsidian Wings). To the extent that these blogs train me to avoid reading their comments at all in the first place, their comments aren't affecting me much at all.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:44 AM
wow, hilzoy has totally met my dad before and I didn't know!? small fucking world, man.
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:57 AM
59: see 51 or perhaps "where faculty lounges"
62: Y'all are a mere visitor at Drum's or Atrios; what do those who hang, who live in the comment threads think of the places? I cannot handle Eschaton, and FDL is approaching Eschaton, but Drum has plenty of substantive comments.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 9:09 AM
62 cont:Wow. As someone who hangs at Ezra's and ObsWi, that strikes me as so wrong. Both have excellent and qualified commenters;ObsWi has jackmormon and charleycarp for two and others who visit here that I have unforgivably overlooked.
Comment sections must be sifted and winnowed, the wheat from the chaff. Unfogged is no exception, following the sunstantive parts of threads can be a challenge. Do you never wonder how these threads look to lurkers?
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 9:15 AM
Here's Ben Domenech at Boundless, the magazine for post-college people who call themselves Christians (I think). Paired with an article wondering "wondering if these bloggers didn't have something better to do with their time than tear apart a fellow follower of Jesus." Wonder if that extends to calling Coretta Scott King a communist. At least I'm fair game!
So, if you have enough connections, you'll be sure to fall on your feet. And Siegel doesn't seem to have got where he was on merit. (And, I don't think sock-puppeting should disqualify him from future gigs. The groundless accusations of pedophilia, and the insane vindictiveness shown toward Klein, Kincaid, and apparently this art critic, should.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 9:20 AM
Wait, what?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 9:22 AM
I have never understood this hostility toward comment threads, except to the extent I could be insulting to the judgemental. Eschaton and FDL are playpens and cheering sections. It is what the commenters want.
It is like visiting a town hall or tribal meeting in Kandahar; the idiot cousin chimes in once in a while, the children rush thru with riddles; great-granny bitches about the way things used to be; every half-hour breaks are taken for tea and horse-trading discussions...and the observer says this is worthless, get these folks Robert's Rules of Order.
Anyone seriously interested in politics should pay attention to the various ways the sausage is actually made.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 9:47 AM
68: All you're saying is that people complaining about comment sections are themselves saying, "This isn't the way a discussion I'd participate in should proceed." I think you're correct, but I don't see what's wrong about saying it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 9:57 AM
The picture of Siegel that Rob posted at our site wasn't the same guy.
Posted by Scott Lemieux | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 9:58 AM
The problem is that getting good commenters is incredibly fucking hard to do.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 10:00 AM
Wow. As someone who hangs at Ezra's and ObsWi, that strikes me as so wrong. Both have excellent and qualified commenters;ObsWi has jackmormon and charleycarp for two and others who visit here that I have unforgivably overlooked.
Bob, I realize you spend a lot of time at all those places, but however many smart commenters hang out at ObWi, it doesn't change the fact that a huge chunk of its threads consist of Conservative Commenter X saying Stupid Thing Y, followed by umpteen zillion commenters with the exact same refutation of Y, followed by demands of apologies for Y, followed by X's bitter non-apology apology for Y, followed by angry comments directed at the non-apology apology, followed by threats of banning the angry commenters, followed by another post by X with a restatement of Y. We're talking about the blog with the comment section so dysfunctional it spun off an entirely separate blog devoted to how dysfunctional its comment section was.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 10:00 AM
John once wrote that blogs get the comments sections they deserve. Something about how they belied the pretensions of faux civil, or faux intellectual wingnut blogs, among other things. I remember it because he singled out fistful as one of a handful of exceptions to the rule, which I thought was unfair to our unusually decent comments section.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 10:12 AM
66: Given what I wrote in 40 above, I basically agree. But wow on the Domenech link. It brings a whole new mental image to mind: Siegel seething, Mr. Burns-style, muttering, "Patience, Lee--climb the ladder." This replaces the earlier one I had of him screaming at his computer screen, "Don't worry about me, Ezra! Don't worry about me! I'm Lee fucking Siegel!"
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 10:21 AM
72: Just wanted to add that I didn't really mean to single out Obsidian Wings with that last one. Most blogs have pretty poor comment sections, or at the very least comment sections not really worth reading. I can think of maybe a handful, but there's a very small space between getting little to no comments at all and getting a monstrous glut of webarrhea in which a comment section can function as a genuine asset to a blog.
At this point I think comments are seen as an obligation more than anything; I've seen more than one commenter deride commentless blogs as indicators of elitism or or antidemocratic sentiment. So even if comments add nothing substantive to the site, or actively detract from the quality of the blog, heaven forbid you fail to include them in the bold, interactive medium of the future! "You won't let us write all over your stuff? How dare you!"
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 10:44 AM
I've seen more than one commenter deride commentless blogs
Rightly so. It's worth having a space for criticism with the post. Even if comments generally suck, it decreases the likelihood that a poster will go entirely off the rails, at least by the readers' lights.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 11:14 AM
76: Is Talking Points Memo therefore less democratic/more elitist than Redstate?
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 11:22 AM
I purposefully didn't include either of those terms in the quoted material. To the extent that TPM makes arguments, those arguments are crappier than they would be if TPM had comments. The same argument might apply to the provision of news, but I'm not certain that e-mail doesn't function equally effectively as a policing mechanism for that service.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 11:30 AM
75: I agree that there seems to be in most cases a point at which comments sections offer rapidly diminishing returns. But for the vast majority of sites not at that point, rather then being a nuisance, comments (aside from the rude ones) are often the best part in the eyes of the blogger. Getting an email in response to a post is just not as good--there's no chance to develop a broader conversation. Which itself doesn't happen as often as one likes, but sometimes still does.
Since I seem to be quoting Armsmasher a lot this weekend, here goes another one: "Every once in a while you write something that you consider great, something that changes everything or sheds new light or brings new thoughts to bear, and you can't help but see that (0) and think, Well, fuck me." That's exactly right.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 11:58 AM
I find it fucking hilarious that the only comment to the linked G.p post is "Hello,
Good work, and I agree with your opinion.
Thank you for it!
Kisses,
viavia"
Awesome. Even the spammers feel 'Smasher's pain.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 12:16 PM
72:Nah, it's ok to single out Drum or ObsWi. Or Tapped recently with Specialist. I think I have had arguments with Emerson about trolls. Blogs are communities with dynamics, if an aggressive commenter feels duty bound to drive strong dissent away, the entire comment section can pile on and the thread become tiresome. Emerson thinks trolls must be driven off. I think what is not useful can be ignored.
I visit a lot of blogs. The Nielson Haydens have a good active comment section. It is way too nice for my tastes. What is the point of a conversation without an argument? Me, right on, sing it sister.
A blog is a complicated thing, and every blogger is different. Without offense intended, hilzoy, being a brilliant academic, is capable of writing posts like submittable papers, deliberately designed to be impervious save by the equally brilliant. And I am sitting there:"What can I say?" Yglesias is a superstar, I think in part because he deliberately leaves spaces for readers to fill in. Epigrammatic maybe.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 12:28 PM
Comments sections are hard. I keep thinking about ways to expand my audience, but why would I? I'm lucky to have a very small, very smart and kind commentariat. Unfogged is lucky to have developed that on such a broad scale. Almost any other big blog will be one-offs by random people, plagued by those who don't get it and don't know they don't get it, or trolls who see it as a valid substratum for their whining.
It's hard, in that the blogosphere is somewhat about the size of the audience; it makes your writing somehow automatically more valid or important if everyone's reading it, but seriously, who wants to be read by everyone?
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 12:54 PM
82: Lots of comment sections suck, and there seems to be a higher proportion of sucky comment sections among the well-trafficked blogs than among the general group of blogs. But, for example, Yglesias actually has a pretty good comment section.
I think it sort of has to do with the seed commenters. If your initial commenters are smart, generally reasonable, inclined to value fairness over partisan position, and a little bit mean, I think you're likely to get a pretty good comment section. I think ogged has described Unfogged's success that way, claiming that the very early commenters established the tone.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 1:36 PM
72 gets it exactly right. Well stated, Mr. Jones!
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 1:57 PM
84:72 is exactly wrong. Just got back from ObsWi, where Farber has shown up with his usual epic, subtly qualified, cautious psuedo-candid biographical rants. 4 of them. Anyone is welcome to visit the place right now, and see if the top two comment threads fit stras's description.
They don't, and that tells us much about stras. Many people see a couple conservatives posting or commenting at a blog, and say the place is dysfunctional. We understand.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 6:20 PM
I don't read ObWi and don't have a dog in this fight, but I think 85 gets SJ wrong; 72 reads to me more like an objection to the way liberal commenters react to crazy conservative ideas in comment threads than an objection to conservatives being there at all. As for whether it's accurate about ObWi, again, I don't know, but CÆ seems to agree. And SJ didn't say all threads were like that, just "a huge chunk," which is totally consistent with the top two threads right now being different.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 6:35 PM
I agree with 86, but I don''t know if stras does. He will have to speak for himself. I tend to ignore Charles and not engage in the bashing in the threads.
Hypo:If ogged were to invite Josh Trevino to become a regular poster at unfogged, and all the Trevino threads became mudfights, would stras blame bitchphd and LB et al for wrecking the place?
Would we move to ban those liberals who could not maintain civil discourse?
As I said, I ignore Charles and the rightie commenters, so I have creds. I herewith say stras was not taking the position described in 86, ot if he was, it was insincere.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:06 PM
Do hypothetical ad hominems constitute civil discourse?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:13 PM
I think that one weakness of liberal blogs is that they won't admit that they really don't want to hear the "conservative perspective" on things, because the "conservative perspective" is so completely formulaic that it's easy to guess. When conservatives complaint that their voices are being silenced, liberals get all defensive about how "no, you're just a fucking asshole," when instead they should be saying: "Yes, I'm silencing your voice. I don't want to hear it. Go the fuck away."
More time for liberals to talk amongst themselves without conservatives gumming up the works would be fucking great. The biggest problem the so-called "left" has is that they assume that conservative views should somehow be taken into account and respected. That's absurd, though, and we all know it.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:17 PM
88:My homies are being seriously dissed by strangers. I defended them against Newberry, I will defend them against all comers.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:19 PM
How come Adam's not the go-to guy when someone wants to make an unprovoked accusation of incivility and blog-wrecking? Look, he even used the word "fuck" and variations of it three times!
I think Bob's being sexist.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:20 PM
Hasn't Adam's incivility become a running joke?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:23 PM
92: Die, bourgeois pig!
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:24 PM
If ogged were to invite Josh Trevino to become a regular poster at unfogged
This would totally fucking rule. An idea whose time has come.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:36 PM
Isn't Bob defending you and LB from the hypothetical accusation of blogwrecking and incivility? I'm not sure actually.
FWIW I agree with stras and especially with 92. There are issues on which the conservative viewpoint is worth hearing, but too much of the 'conservative' (i.e., Republican) viewpoint these days comes from an alternate reality. And ignoring the conservatives often doesn't work, because then there are all these lies in the comment thread, and anyone who happened by might think that they had some sort of point. So well-meaning liberals engage the conservatives, trying to point out the flaws in their arguments, and you get train-wreck threads like the one where the conservatives argued that Donald Rumsfeld wasn't actually attacking war critics.
The problem is not Republican commenters, it's commenters posting from the Gamma Quadrant. Unfortunately the Gamma Quadrant is GOP HQ these days.
(And don't get me started on Ron Gre/nier, Cap/tain To/ke, and Fre/d J/ones.)
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:38 PM
90, 92: Whatever. My point is, I may be incivil, but I don't go pointing fingers at people. Jeez.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:42 PM
Whatever.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:43 PM
95 was me.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:47 PM
Did you really mean to "especially" agree with 92?
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 7:50 PM
No, with 89.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:05 PM
96:If stras had pointed a finger, specifically at one poster and/or commenter, my response wqould have been different. And the qualifier may be there in his opening, but the last sentence of 72 was not so qualified. Waving a dismissive hand rather than pointing a finger it was.
I will not apologize. His comment was directed at a blog that has hilzoy as a dominant poster, and Katherine as an occasional poster and frequent commenter. I will not have the place generally condemned.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:11 PM
Dude, defend ObWi all you want, but I don't see why you gotta drag me and LB into it, that's all I'm saying.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:14 PM
102:b, it was intended as a random sample. I will not deny that I seem to remember female posters and commenters more clearly than the males, and they are the first to come to mind. Eszter amd Maria and umm, another lady are not the dominant voices at Crooked Timber, but I can name them more quickly than the males.
I don't know what it means.
Posted by 102: | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:19 PM
It means you're a giant horndog Mcmanus.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:22 PM
103: I am so totally not accepting that rationalization. I'm sticking with the "sexist" argument. Unless you want to substitute the "personal animus" argument, which works too.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:27 PM
Re: "Lots of comment sections suck, and there seems to be a higher proportion of sucky comment sections among the well-trafficked blogs than among the general group of blogs..."
You can keep your comments section non-sucky--but it requires virtue... and terror... fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and a fanatical devotion to the Pope...
Posted by Bradford DeLong | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:31 PM
105:A) it was not intended as a criticism, or at least as a particular criticism or directed criticism. I would not expect Josh Trevino to thrive at Unfogged. That is not a wrong choice. It is simply not the choice of ObsWi, and I respect their decision, and am very tired of the years I have spent defending it.
B) the "et al" should have given a clue as to simply being the first names out of my head, for reasons that
c) Are not rationalizations. Next Hurrah has posters emptywheel and sistersaralou...and some guys.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:36 PM
I will cop ro noticing and remembering the names of female blog participants more than males, which may indicate sexism. Lord, I don't know. It does seem important who a comment comes from, and I shouldn't merely look at content and be blind to the source.
"anne" incidentally, is a reason I read DeLong. She also visits Mark Thoma and Setser sometimes.
I may be a pig.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 8:45 PM
95:, Weiner, I don't think that Ron Greiner is a Republican troll. I've watched him at the Health Care blog for a while. His behavior is definitely trollish, and he loves Jeb Bush, but, really it's all about the damn HSA! HSA's will solve everything. He's a real loon, but it's not exactly conservative lunacy. He's an insurance salesman, and he loves anything that he thinks he can sell. The scary part is that he thinks his trolling will help him sell insurance policies.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 9:02 PM
Bob, relax. Mostly I was just yanking your chain.
(Although I really do! object to being the "uncivil" poster girl. I'm totally civl. Anyone who disagrees can go fuck themselves.)
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 3-06 9:41 PM
I rather agree with the others who suggested that one of the problems at ObWi are the liberal commenters who twist themselves into knots responding to some of the less, uh, useful conservative comments. I'm still fond of the place.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 12:23 AM
Wait, is 111 just an invitation to make jokes about the creation of HoCB (without casting aspersions on its current form)?
Let's say I've taken it into my head to celebrate Labor Day as more than just Day Off Day, and want to do something actually related to celebrating organized labor tomorrow. Other than thanking people who supply me with goods and services more profusely than usual, how can I do this?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 12:33 AM
w/d, my plan was more subtle than may be obvious to the common observer.
I'm going to celebrate Labor Day with manual labor. That sounds charitable and appropriate, except that I have to fucking pack these books before the movers come on Tuesday. I vote you go to one of our bizillion fine city parks and throw a frisbee around.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 12:56 AM
Was on The Great Lawn for several hours today, failed to throw frisbee or anything else.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 1:01 AM
Just noticed misplaced modifier in 112.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 1:01 AM
115: The misplacement of which has you coming across as a capitalist oppressor, rather than a pro-labor man of the people. For shame.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 1:06 AM
Oh, if you want to be earnest, there's a ton of labor-related museums around. There's a history of trains museum, a police museum (I want to go to that one some time; it's way downtown somewhere)....but I'm guessing that a lot of these places will be closed.
Or, if you like, you can come to my place and pick up a couple dozen books on labor and NYC history, as long as you promise to return them to my new apartment. Read 'em in one of our fine city parks if you like.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 1:21 AM
It's not exactly labor-related, but have any of you checked out the Lower East Side Tenement Museum?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 1:31 AM
Or alternatively, spend money at a store that treats it's workers well or something. I hear Samuel Adams is a good company to work for, so drink yourself into oblivion on Sam Adams. Or maybe get something at Starbucks.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 2:42 AM
Starbucks fires employees who try to unionize. Even if they objectively treat their employees well, supporting them specifically because of their labor practices seems wrong headed -- Labor Day is about workers banding together and gaining some control of their own situation, not about corporations arbitrarily deciding to be generous.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 7:10 AM
JM, how about I tell you my plan for labor day, which is to tell you that movers are going to pack my books? Bwahaha.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 7:18 AM
Bitch.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 7:31 AM
bg @ 109: I used to think RG was just an HSA monomaniac, but his comments on this thread looked like GOP trollery to me. Though I see that they were building up to some Jeb! puffery, so you could be right. (Anyway, his HSA trolling would be bad enough.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 9:02 AM
I think 89 is right in a way, in that there's a certain brand of conservative perspective on things (that would be the movementarian Bush-partisan brand) that has long since ceased to deserve a polite hearing-out. Which is why, pace Bob's 101, I think it's perfectly understandable why some people find ObWi pretty much intolerable. I'd read a solo blog by hilzoy any day, but a blog that continues to countenance the presence of an asshat like Charles Bird (and his coterie of RedState fans) is something else again.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 9:52 AM
Buy your grocery supplies from some place other than Whole Foods today.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 10:42 AM
Whole Foods is in the same category as Starbucks, right?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 10:47 AM
Being from Austin, I'm more aware of and sensitive to WF's efforts to stifle employee organization, but I'd believe that WF and SB have similar practices.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 10:54 AM
124: They are like family, man. If hilzoy wants to, she can explain why she doesn't start her own blog. Or the, I lack adequate adjectives, Katherine can explain why she spends more time at ObsWi than other blogs. If she does.
Look I hate the ideology, and I would literally ban the Party, constitution be damned. But in some sense, I suspect Republicans remain human beings, and I do not want to forget that. So I would follow hilzoy into heaven or hell, but I would continue to visit ObsWi without her. As I continue to lurk at Tacitus.org.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 11:04 AM
I suspect Republicans remain human beings, and I do not want to forget that.
I knew you were going soft.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 11:13 AM
124:And I simply admire Charles' courage. He takes hell from the commenters, yet returns again and again. He knows it is no longer a receptive audience. I suspect he continues for reasons not far from hilzoy's or Katherines's, be it inertia, gratitude, nostalgia, affection. So there is something there to appreciate, something that transcends ideology, something human. OK?
Charles Bird is barely welcome at RedState anymore. Just tolerated, as is von.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 11:13 AM
re: 129
Yeah. Clearly.
Posted by nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 11:15 AM
128 / 130: Yeah, you know, I did sort of suspect the Other Guys are technically "human," but thanks for the reminder. What I'm saying is I understand why folks don't feel the need to be treated to what passes for their thoughts in blog form, on ObWi or anywhere else.
You are of course free to see "courage" in the BirdDawg as you see fit. I won't exactly join you but I can hardly stop you.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 11:26 AM
Even if they objectively treat their employees well, supporting them specifically because of their labor practices seems wrong headed -- Labor Day is about workers banding together and gaining some control of their own situation, not about corporations arbitrarily deciding to be generous.
Utah's a "right to work" state. Hardly anything unionized around here, so a bit difficult to spend money at unionized places. I figure "treats employees well" is the next best thing.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 2:16 PM
Just saw eb's 118 - Totally recommend the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. I've taken my father and my brothers on separate visits and we all enjoyed it. If you go, make sure you reserve tickets online ahead of time or you could end up waiting around for a few hours. Also, if you're in the neighborhood, it's worth checking out Guss' Pickles and il Laboratorio del Gelato. Seriously - best gelato anywhere.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 9:58 PM
65: limpid
Posted by aa | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 10:21 PM
Charles Bird has been My Adopted Conservative for over a year now.
I'm not entirely sure that my efforts at engaging him have been successful. I've tried everything: empathy, defense, rational engagement, disagreement, condemnation, nastily phrased open theads.
What's (vaguely) interesting is that he almost never responds to me. Once, when I whined about that, he admitted that he respects me and agrees with me more often than he's comfortable with.
His writing has improved, that much I can take some professional pride in, and the knocks he's taking at RedState make me, well, want to help him put together better arguments for engaging the crazies.
It's been a couple of months since I've had the mental energy for the positive vision of the project. The drainage and diversion project, however, is proceeding exactly according to plan.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09- 4-06 10:43 PM
On MY's site: "Yeah, C4.
No, no fun for me -- I've got a lot of remorse about all this. Siegel, I've since learned, is not just a blockheaded critic, but a genuine complete and utter loon. I wouldn't have ridden him so hard if I'd understood that. I certainly didn't think "sock-puppetry" was a firing offense, or that the crazy sh*t he wrote as "sprezzatura" would be blazoned all over the place.
Posted by: jhschwartz on September 4, 2006 10:23 PM"
I don't know what he refers to, but I feel vindicated or something. Dude seems to have too serious issues for me to feel schadenfreude. I'm all for being unforgiving, normally.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 09- 5-06 2:46 AM
Liberals ruin all of the conservative blogs that encourage debate. Tacitus.org must have been a bit of an embarrasment to Tac when many of the posts and most of the comments where denouncing Bush and praising Kerry in the lead up to 2004.
At ObWi, Maurice was drivin mad with intellectual disonance as he tried to defend his conservative proclivities in the face of a pouring torrent of stubborn facts.
But who wants to read comments at Delong's or Crooked Timber? Those places have people that really know things and are therefore incomprehensible. Plus, I get ignored and I worry about spelling...
I just like to go to comment sections that have Bob McManus or John Emerson on them because they are usually entertaining, Bob's horndog sexism notwithstanding.
Posted by LowLife | Link to this comment | 09- 5-06 5:44 AM
137: I feel bad, too--for jhschwartz. TNR's pretense that sockpuppetry was the firing offense has made him feel like he's the guy who pulled the trigger. He wasn't.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09- 5-06 6:58 AM
LowLife, both McManus and Emerson comment at DeLong's and Crooked Timber, so happen tha's missin' out on t'fun, lad (or lass).
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 09- 5-06 7:05 AM
Off topic, but this totally rules.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09- 5-06 7:26 AM
141 is right. Maybe we can have a congressional investigation into why the masthead at this site suggests that there are people named "Unf" and "Bob" who start threads here.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09- 5-06 7:32 AM
I really, really want Bob to show up. Unf I've seem posts from, but I'm fascinated by Bob.
(And that is cool. I'm always foolishly pleased that people find this place entertaining.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09- 5-06 7:39 AM
OneFatEnglichman - you have answered my rhetorical question. Who wants to read comments at Delong's or Crooked Timber? Why, I do.
Posted by LowLife | Link to this comment | 09- 5-06 7:43 AM
I'm always foolishly pleased that people find this place entertaining.
Or, in the case of that commentator, utterly baffling.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09- 5-06 7:52 AM