Althouse is encouraging us to travel on our own... I'm not doing her words justice. I just got up and I haven't brushed my teeth yet.
"As Henry said in his email to me, sharing that first link, above, it was perfectly easy to set up a Blogger blog. It might take one minute, and then you're off. Don't sit there in that old broken-down bus wondering when it will start up again. Climb out, stick out your thumb, and Google will whiz by presently and give you a ride."
Please go and read it and maybe you will say for yourself, in other words, something similar. Here or wherever your final destination might be. Like they say on the plane after it lands. Final destination sounds ominous but sometimes there is no subtle way of saying the obvious. I've said my piece on the comments here (not as eloquently as I could have perhaps) but I harbor no rancor. If I ever do, and I do because I'm human, it doesn't last more than a few days. But, in the end, w/o much fanfare.... I need to go to work soon and I need to finish this.
The Doors - The End
247 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 247 of 247He didn't shoot her dead.
Nested comments made sense at Climate Etc. in which there was much technical give-and-take on particular points, but in free-wheeling conversation it's not a good fit imo.
Well, I have a blog....actually two blogs that are sadly being ignored. I go in spurts and post things and then life happens and I don't. The main reason for my first blog Dust Bunnies of the Mind was to just be able to vent, clear my mind of the fluff that gathers in the corners. I really don't expect anyone to read it, but if people do and either enjoy or learn something...fine.
The other blog Recipe Junkie was just my way of sharing some of my favorite recipes and thoughts about one of my favorite hobbies. Cooking and then EATING. I do actually have more people reading that than the other.
Neither are really that important to me other than a creative outlet.
The monetization (sp?) of the blog at Althouse, is understandable. Why not? But the crass crowing about how many pennies each sale was making was just off putting and tasteless. We all KNOW you are going to benefit if people buy through the portal. You don't need to shove it in our faces. It was as if you went to a person's house for a party and all they did was tell everyone how much money they made and what each item in their home costs. Crass and crude. But that was just the way I was raised. You don't talk about your income or crow about how expensive your things may be.
Lem is a class act and has never participated in the pillorying of other commenters and I'm glad to see many of the commenters here that I enjoyed reading and interacting with.
The big comment shutdown happened while I was enjoying Saturday with a friend. I can't say I was all that surprised.
Her July 4th outburst read like a meltdown to me, that she had crossed some threshold and just didn't care about consequences. It made no sense otherwise.
I thought it might possibly be temporary, but it's been almost a week, so I doubt anything's going to change anytime soon.
"Althouse went on the attack because she thought she was going after pseudo-manly men. She saw herself as defending the other two types of classical man."
Seriously? By calling them Beta Men, splooge stooges, losers, whiners? If she had actually made the point that you say she did, I would have had some respect for her opinion.
Instead she was trying to crush the valid opinion of those men who, legitimately, were pointing out the inequities in the legal and social system that we have which put men at a distinct DIS-advantage and especially in the family court system.
THAT would have been an interesting discussion and Althouse could have used her lawyerly reasoning skills to persuade people to her viewpoint. Instead she called names and threw a giant hissy fit.
My theory is she waited until the SSM decision came down to speak her true feelings. It probably hurt her deeply to hear her commenters say very ugly things about her son, herself as his mother and finally comments about her intelligence. The over the top reaction to the story about the woman who got pregnant by deceit, and the rank misogyny that it brought to the surface by extremely nasty commenters, such as Methadras, President Mom Jeans, Jay, Baron Zemo and finally Mary brought the House down on our collective heads. People such as Crack MC and others she considered friends of hers and Meade's, stabbing her n the back the way they did, probably pushed her over the edge and she no longer cared what her commentariat thought or said. They were no longer on her side and treated her the way they did any hapless liberals that wandered over there. Just my musings.
It's good to see you all again. I have bookmarked this place. I hope you all stay. I seldom comment but always read.
This will of necessity be in two comments due to length.
I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me about this thread. Certainly not Lem posting it. I guess some of us want to work out our frustrations and disappointments about the no comment direction Ann is going and those last couple of pre-no-comment-threads. It’s not even the comments here and the trying to psychoanalyze Ann, Meade, their marriage, her career which has become something akin to the old Kremlin watching that the CIA used to do (ask Ronald Reagan how effective they were at that). That’s not what bothers me.
I appreciate that we are agreed that Meadehouse can do what they want. It’s their blog and as conservatives and libertarians who hold individual property rights very dear, we all get that. So before I say what’s bothering me, I’d like to make a few observations:
Nobody here is in Ann’s league as a blogger. I’m not talking about the 50,000,000 site visits; I’m not talking about the unbroken string of blogs going into nine years or so. I’m talking about her ability to think, write and find interesting material. I’m talking about the ability to attract an incredible range and mix (I refuse to use the word diversity) of commenters and to keep them for years at a time. I’m talking about the ability to take thousands of cheap shots, loathsome accusations, canards against her family and in all that to suffer fools gladly for the most part. How she has lasted this long, not with perfection, but with good humor, grace and class is actually quite remarkable. I am surprised that she lasted this long.
The nature of the internet and the blogasphere tends to breed a certain kind of tone. Most of us would say it has to do with the anonymity phenomenon which seems to give people a license to write things that they would never say in public or to another person’s face. In fact people aren’t “persons” and human beings on the internet; they are avatars, pseudonyms and that Gmail account you keep only for commenting to disguise true identities. I would venture to say that the blogasphere in many ways has taken on the ethos of the video game: it’s not good enough to beat your opponent you must destroy and humiliate them! Unfortunately (or fortunately) we aren’t avatars and pseudonyms we are people, “persons”, and human beings. So are Ann and Meade. As such they deserve respect and decency; not because of perfection but because they are just one of us mere mortals. There’s two reasons Freeman is held in such high esteem by the Althouse commentariat: First she has wisdom and you know it when you hear it. It was a gift given to her by God himself and she uses it well. Second, she speaks to people with respect and accords them the dignity they deserve as “persons.”
Now, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I have not lived up to that myself and for that I ask forgiveness of anyone that has felt I have crossed the line from good natured in-your-face arguing to toxic, demeaning screed. For a fact as I have been writing this I realize the last paragraph I had in mind will not be written, indeed, should not be written.
So here is my new “last paragraph”: this thread and some earlier ones have begun to remind me of a middle school lunchroom where the “B” level girls talk about the “A” level girls. She did this and then she said this. Oh-My-God! (inhale for effect and roll eyes). Seriously, folks who haven’t communicated with Althouse Blog in years are still trying to vent their frustration from something Ann said, wrote, did way back when. I mean the woman apparently has an ability to live in people’s heads, especially men, that defies understanding. And in my opinion the Alpha Male chest pounding that is going on for some only looks like pathetic insecurity. The blogasphere is really quite adolescent in it’s behaviors. Man, I have really toned this down. Jesus is watching! (Sorry Crack, but he is).
I have been a pastor for thirty-five years. My last church, from which I had hoped to retire had become too much like the middle school lunch room for far too long. I gave them my talents and my love for eighteen and a half years but in they end I had to leave them in the lunch room, doing their adolescent things, in their adolescent way and I resigned. I had nothing else to go to and since January I have been without work, but for my own sake I had to get out of the middle school lunch room.
I am truly disappointed that Ann and Meade have taken this direction but maybe they needed to get out of the lunch room. Without asking them, I can’t know. I’m not disappointed in them, I am just disappointed in not having what I have had with so many of you and others and with them over the years (I’m in almost from the get go). It’s her blog (and the congregation says, “Amen”). I am not alone in that disappointment and maybe I’ll ask them privately what part I played negatively or failed to play positively in our little blog world. I rather think I will trust their judgment. There are so many of you that have helped me think better, see other sides and extended to me that quirky camaraderie of the Althouse Blog that I am even now feeling a little adrift in my sadness.
If I am welcome I’ll come back in a couple of weeks when the he said/she said pick on Ann stuff is done with and see how it works. That’s a big “if” because it’s Lem’s blog and he can do what he wants with it and he can guard the door like a bouncer at a club. Lem, this could be good place and I have some ideas to share with you if you feel like hearing them, but my Brother, I admire you for starting this blog. I’m too chicken or too lazy to have my own, so God speed.
God’s Peace and Blessing
Caplight45
Well, I guess I'm not welcome since both of my posts have disappeared.
Bye.
Au revoir.
"Anonymous" - Lem's boring troll. Every site's got one. Lem, you need to get rid of "Anonysmous" comments cause no one can keep track of who they are. Or don't, its your site.
Ok. I confess it. I've been an Althouse fan for years. Still am. While I strongly disagree with her about some important things, I admire her process and the remarkable scope of her interests. If I had 3 days to do the work, I couldn't post the material she routinely offers in one day.
While I don't ordinarily struggle with words, I've never quite been able to articulate my fascination with her struggle to free herself of her basic baked-in librul notions. Most lefties haven't had an original or new thought in decades. Not true of Ann. You can clearly tell that she works to shake off the yoke. I admire that.
Still, she's not entirely successful....and although I root for her, it's frustrating sometimes. Still, she has a lot going against her. She a white lady of a certain age surrounded as she is by the suffocating influence of the faculty lounge of one of the most leftie institutions in the country going back to before it was fashionable.
When you consider that, as tenured faculty, there is no part of her day that tracks the concerns that the rest of us deal with as a matter of course, in many respects, real life is somewhat theoretical to her. In spite of this handicap, she still has had success in shrugging off the lib blinders. She has an exceptionally strong mind, and her tools are sharp. What's not to admire?
But this business over the last few weeks has been baffling. I hope she can find a satisfying equilibrium, because this current crazy cat lady thing she has going is not attractive, and I can't shake the feeling that she has turned on her readers.
- Krumhorn
You are master in your own house Lem.
I'm waaay late to this thread, and as I stated before I was a lurker at Althouse so no one would know me anyway... I commented maybe twice with thoroughly forgettable comments so no need for me to reveal *me* - hence the "anonymous" . And no, I am not Inga. I just want to second, second IHMMP and FH. This is like old home week seeing all the familiar commenteERS Gives me a warm and fuzzy. Yay the gang's mostly all here. Thanks, Lem.
Better put than anyone has put it yet.
I believe it's an accurate summary of Althouse's rationalization, but not an excuse or even an explanation.
Absent from this is an acknowledgment of the sheer nastiness and cruelty of her counter-attacks. Sure, some commenters were way out of line, but two wrongs don't make a right, especially coming from the blog owner, who is more than anyone else responsible for the overall tone of a blog. She was throwing gasoline onto the fire and she did it twice that week.
Althouse is not some anonymous out-of-control commenter. She is a law professor at a top law school, presumably with some understanding of group dynamics. Her behavior was disgraceful.
She who lives by cruel neutrality dies by it, or at least the cruelty part.
DBQ: Don't give up! I enjoy your comments too much.
Also -- I think there's something buggy going on. I could swear I've seen some of my comments disappear then spontaneously regenerate five minutes later.
This.
Meade didn't bother the tell Lem to delete my comments. Meade did not defend his "wife's" honor.
That tells me that he knows she is dishonorable, as he is, and that he has learned through the years that she is indeed a cunt.
For better or worse, Meade, you have made your bed and now you must lie in it. I guess it is easy when you live a life of luxury using money taken by force from the people of Wisconsin.
As I say, no honor, no integrity. Just Meade and ol' Dusty, growing old. To quote another Althouse commenter, one at least as smart as Caplight, enjoy the decline, bitches.
The Professor's issues center on procreation. Start with the "splooge stooge" threads. Examine the denials. What is it exactly that she refuses to believe? In several cases she refuses to accept evidence that women's desire for children motivates them to resort to deception. To hear her tell it, that kind of desire is the stuff of urban legends, or the delusions of one or two of shameful souls who could never be trusted in any case.
Recall her disdain for Naomi Wolf's Vagina. Has the vagina jumped the shark?
Next consider her failure to recognize a crucial distinction between her own father and Adolf Hitler. This argument was presented in terms of what causes people to be born. "No Hitler, no Althouse," was her pithy summation.
Next I'm going to pull an Althouse and ask you all to consider her aversion to men who wear short pants.
Next think of Bob Dylan. Dylan would seem to be as splooge stoogey as they come, yet the Professor and a million other feminists refuse to hold him to the standards for responsible splooging they spell out for their partners or for public consumption. It's not merely a question of adoring fans being blinded by hormones. In truth the negative characterization of male sexuality has all the qualities of a projection. It's the shadow of a repressed desire.
At a deep level, the splooge stooge is not despised but envied. He is the ultimate sexual Fuehrer, a prophet of rapturous anger. He is pure shock and awe. He sublimates nothing. He even wears short pants.
Some people do not understand the word integrity, much less honor.
Any woman that would call this man friend, has issues.
Clearly.
Sixty Grit, whatever Althouse did to you, is it worth the hatred you show to her? You act like a lover spurned, or you have lost your faculties.You have a tremendous (overblown) amount of animosity toward someone you have never met in real life.
Meade, is that you?
Dust Bunny Queen - I agree with creeley. Something buggy going on. Even though I am posting anon - because I was an Althouse lurker and no one would know who I was - I've had a couple of comments disappear. And I'm NOT that trolling anon. You were one of the commentariat that I held in high regard and enjoyed reading. Please keep trying. I don't believe Lem is disappearing anybody at this point, although there are already a couple that are traipsing into ugly land.
Echoing Freeman.
Precisely. (eventually)
This.
DBQ On this set up you might have to go all the way down to the bottom of the comments and hit "Load More" when there are a lot of comments. It is possible that you posted and it was just beyond that cut off point when you went to look for it.
Go fuck yourself.
caplight45: Yes, good posts. However, I must beg to differ.
If Althouse is so all-singing, all-dancing brilliant, and miles ahead of the rest of us, how did she come to behave so viciously, then kill off comments in an eyeblink without any attempt to head off such a drastic measure and no decent explanation?
Granted, there was much nasty commenting from commenters, but that's been standard in the blog for some time. She could have done something about that in the past but never did. Instead she often went tit-for-tat, and then went on to boasting about her "cruel neutrality."
You and Freeman are good people who want to believe good things about Althouse, but neither of you are confronting how badly she has behaved.
Althouse is a bright person who writes well, but she is also a nasty piece of work and she has shown us that. I don't hold it against her as long as the good outweighs the bad and I can protect myself, but I'm not going to pretend Althouse is something she isn't.
Thank you caplight45. I guess this IS the case with these nested comments. I apologize to Lem. Couldn't figure out why I would be banned since I have always had the highest respect for Lem, who I have perceived as a gentleman in every sense of the word.
Yes, that was another weird blind spot for Althouse -- her inability to notice the value commenters added to her blog.
Then there was that near-constant condescension that fairly oozed from her posts and comments, that of course she was the superior person who was doing us all a favor by telling us poor readers what's what and what to do, as in the post Lem links here:
Don't sit there in that old broken-down bus wondering when it will start up again. Climb out, stick out your thumb, and Google will whiz by presently and give you a ride."
Geez, Teach, I'd have never figured that out for myself.
Joe: Who in the world is what they seem...?
Jimmy: People aren't that complicated, Joe. Good people, bad people, they generally look like what they are.
Joe: Then why are so many people having difficulty?
Jimmy: That's what baffles me.
This is a bit of dialog from a Mamet film, "The Spanish Prisoner." In Mamet's usual levels-within-levels approach, Jimmy is actually a con artist who is deceiving Joe.
Nonetheless, people generally look like what they are, but you have to look to see them.
Althouse displayed her contempt and cruelty openly, proudly even. She made bad situations worse. Then she axed the comments without trying to avoid it and blamed it on others.
What sort of person does that?
What? Reread the July 4th and July 7th brouhahas for a start.
Then man up. Althouse will tell you how.
Meade: You admit I'm right and then demand specifics?
However, perhaps you can explain what happened.
I've hosted all sorts of online groups, as well as participated in them, since the 80s. There is no excuse for Althouse's behavior.
She is not a hapless, helpless person in over her head. She could have headed off this collapse at any number of points. There were many commenters including myself who would have jumped in to push for more civilized discussion if she had asked, but she never did. Or she could have called a timeout.
But instead she came out slinging her own brand of abuse and reigniting the flamewars, when it was obvious what would happen.
No. Someone as smart and savvy as Althouse knew what she was doing and at some level wanted the result she got.
As to cruelty, google "athouse cruel neutrality."
That's enough deflection and baiting.
I take it, then, you have no sensible, honest explanation for Althouse's actions.
I didn't expect any.
Meade - you sound just like Titus. I know your wife's poisoned womb only produced guy males, maybe her cunt only accepts faggots like you, too. Makes sense.
In any case, ask Ann, she is an expert with strap-ons, as you well know.
(Yet another anonymous who hasn't commented as anonymous before and will only make this comment.)
Can't speak for creeley, but I'll say this. I skimmed or skipped the more inflamed threads of the last few weeks. The only thing that really struck me as "cruel" was Althouse openly-- and more than once-- mocking edutcher. Belittling, disparaging him, in kind of a shocking way (to me).
(edutcher who, whatever his faults as a commenter-- sure he has them, who doesn't-- has always demonstrated respect, courtesy, admiration for Althouse.)
Which gave other commenters-- especially one of the more irritating ones-- material and encouragement for their own childish taunting.
edutcher took this remarkably well; he can and did defend himself (and I'm not saying any of this to defend him).
But that was the one surprising instance I saw of Althouse being needlessly "cruel": singling out one particular commenter by name for her scorn, who didn't deserve that from her. And I think that mockery from the hostess worsened the childish behavior from other commenters, which in turn inflamed other commenters, etc. etc.
NB I really valued the Althouse blog and miss commenting there.
The ravens play the role of commenters.
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