Of the drawings this one is dearest to my heart, I think.

Of our readership, I sometimes wish we had more, but then I remember how frustrating readers can be. Questions like this (which Greg K-B got) “Is it your belief that the United States should have sat back and done nothing while Hitler and his regime rolled over Europe and tortured and killed millions of Jews? Or do you think it was our responsibility to try and do something about that?” are what too many conversations devolve into. Odd how I was able to keep a classroom above this level of banality (or sometimes below it) but writing online it has been difficult to muster. Some writers don’t comment on their own posts after they’ve published them. If we had a slew of readers, I might take that tack.

I might add, though, that we’ve had a lot of lookers lately, if few stayers. Most are dropping by to see how we’re using Textpattern… And I think Malibu Librarian himself managed his way here this afternoon….

by greg—Oct 14, 06:14 PM

i submit the following for consideration as a potential “general rule”:
If Hitler makes an appearance in the comments, the discussion is probably not going well.

by chris—Oct 14, 06:56 PM

That is a very, very good rule.

by greg—Oct 14, 07:48 PM

Aside: reading site logs/statistics is a bit creepy. We can know everyone who comes by Hermits and everyone who links to us, and everyone we link to knows likewise—I’m certain, for example, that J.A. and Greg Kendall-Ball discovered us last night by noticing the links above. If someone clicks a link from another site to come here, we can see the same. I’ve become quite addicted to looking at those logs. Of course it’s impossible to know exactly who any person is, but our corner of the Internet has so few roads leading here, if someone from pepperdine.edu stops by, for example, it’s pretty easy to guess who that person is. But because I can guess, I feel a tad voyeuristic, as if I’m sneaking a peek in a window or reading over somebody else’s shoulder.

by greg—Oct 15, 07:58 AM

i actually don’t visit certain sites from my university-networked computer b/c other people can figure out who i am.

by chris—Oct 15, 08:18 AM

i just checked the kendall-ball thread linked above, and it has “progressed” from hitler to the your-wife-is-violently-raped hypothetical.

two questions:
at what point do the author and commentators just put down their guns and walk away? is anyone gaining anything from that debate at this point? no one is going to “win,” although some of the commentators seem to be trying.

what, if any, responsibility should the author bear for the 24-hours-of-bitterness ensuing from such an obviously provocative posting?

by chris—Oct 15, 08:31 AM

That’s very smart—and paranoid—of you! Y’know, there are ways to disguise who yourself if you wanted, like with SurfAnonymous. But then, I’m sure you got plenty to do when on campus, so being self-limited probably keeps you saner.

by greg—Oct 15, 08:35 AM

[Poorly thought reply] As far as the author’s responsibility for being a provocateur, only so much. It’s an editorialist’s right to poke, I think, and in that thread at least, GKB has made himself an editorialist. (I might add that I believe most bloggers are editorialists in some fashion, even if they may write more and respond more readily than a newspaper editorial writer. This begs the question between the difference between someone like GKB and Ann Coulter—but I’m not prepared to go there!) So I’m sure GKB knew he was poking at some people when he wrote. He probably knew who he was poking at, too.

In this respect, there’s value in writing in print. Letters in reply to provocative editorials take more time to compose, and their writers (often, not always) take time to make sure they’re good. In contrast, E-mails/comments are spouted off as fast as cliches like Hitler can be remembered. In that sense, “debates” like that are over before they can begin because “readers” become “writers” without so much as a second’s thought…

by greg—Oct 15, 08:59 AM

boy, reading that over again a few hours later, and what I wrote didn’t make any sense at all. I’ll blame it on being ill.

Anyway let me put it more bluntly: I think the provocateur has some responsibility, but those who are provoked let themselves get provoked too much. So I tend to blame readers more than writers for the bitter feelings they own.

by greg—Oct 15, 02:15 PM

it is so easy to work yourself up to posting something that you know will push someone’s buttons, and it is hard to click away from someone who has pushed your buttons. if you can learn to avoid getting worked up over what you write and read, you will have reached a higher state of mindfulness than i have reached.

by chris—Oct 15, 07:18 PM

i would respond to chris’s statement…but that would mean that i haven’t reach true enlightenment

by hermit x—Oct 15, 09:51 PM

Still searching for that enlightenment thing…

As far as being the provocateur, I take full responsibility for stirring up the occasiona hornet’s nest. After all, I did choose “sacred-cow tipping” as my tagline for a reason!

Call me crazy, but I tend to gravitate toward the “editorial” type blogs much more than the 14-year old “my life in electronic form” Xanga types… :D

by Greg K-B—Oct 15, 10:30 PM

I hate being sick. (The only time anyone loves it is when it’s an excuse to stay home from school or work. Being unemployed sucks.) It’s 5 AM. I’m avoiding sleep because if I like down, I spasm in a fit of coughing. At 4 I woke up and finished reading The Chamber of Secrets. At 6 I’ll probably start The Prisoner of Azkaban. For now, I’m staring blankly at a Powerbook wanting it to give me sympathy. But Powerbooks, while good, are notoriously unsympathetic.

The conference whores among us (if I could, I would look J squarely in the eye) know that there’s always the possibility that what they might say may provoke ire. Sure, academic audiences can be tame, but then a friend of ours witnessed a smack-down when, on a panel she was moderating, a woman read a paper about a “little-known” Victorian woman who traveled and kept a diary. Afterwards, an attendee stood up and said, “I don’t know why you call her little-known. She’s famous. Wrote a ton of books, and everyone knew her. You are talking about x, aren’t you?” (I forget her name, of course.) The attendee stuck with her story, and I don’t remember if the presenter was appropriately abashed, but if she wasn’t she should’ve been.

Of course, that’s not debate, that’s smackdown. A few minutes ago, it seemed apropos, but as minutes tick by, I wonder.

by greg—Oct 16, 04:28 AM

greg kb: thanks for stopping by. you are skilled in the ways of stirring up baron, mick, et al. you have caused the increase of much blood pressure across the land (including yours), and i hope, as long as you perceive some benefit, you continue to do so! however, for several years, we used to have similar arguments with an analogous cast of characters around here, until we kind of burned out on vitriol. now we have adopted the xanga-with-sporadic-fits-of-social-commentary (or commentary-with-sporadic-fits-of-xanga) model.

other greg: hope your sleep and sickness improve asap! i’ve now got to convince our two-year-old that we need to go to church this morning. she thinks we should go for a walk instead.

by chris—Oct 16, 07:03 AM

Thank you, Chris, and I hope that Rose is not too disappointed that she does not get her walk this morning. No walk for me today, either, sadly. Nor church. Instead I intend to sit and watch birds.

GKB: I am amazed at the readership you have amassed lo these few months. I think your site has become an unofficial measurer for a pulse of the CoC and of many HU alumni. (I haven’t seen anything comparable out of Nashville, anyway; but I haven’t looked very hard.) That’s quite impressive. Moreover, you have managed to stay sane. That’s also impressive. Maybe someday Richard Hughes’s successor will write about you following in the tradition of the Grand Editor. That’ll always be a contentious place to be; as I see it, you manage it well.

by greg—Oct 16, 08:04 AM

Thanks for the glowing compliments about my sanity, and my ability to stir the pot. I just hope that I can continue to do so, but in ways that are redemptive. I approached a little known minister here in Abilene today after services, and related my sad saga. He told me that it was his experience that in many CoC’s, you could attack the incarnation or the crucifixion with less backlash than if you attack the idea that the United States is the greatest show on earth.

I guess we keep finding out about new landmines all the time!

And by the way, just because I am drawn more to editorial blogs I do not fully abstain from the Xanga-type posts myself…I feel that if I am to participate in editorializing, I should at least let people know what I had for breakfast sometimes!

Keep up the excellent work here!
Until the next major storm,
Greg KB

by Greg K-B—Oct 16, 06:43 PM

this is a test to see how the comment thingy works.

though, i would have to say that the only person doing excellent work is greg and his programing

by hermit x—Oct 17, 03:54 PM

in reply to the test:

the only thing I don’t like about the recent-comments is how they look. I wish I could get it to output only the title of the most-recent post that was commented-upon, rather than

name (title)

That’s the automatic format, unfortunately. Meanwhile, I’m working on devising some apropos bullets or something…

Also, I’ll set up the del.icio.us links this evening. I’m thinking 2 sets of 5 links: one set run by txp (= good sites) + one run by del.icio.us (= good articles)

by greg—Oct 17, 04:04 PM

this is not related to greg’s hard work

so, i went over to j.a.’s place and really liked it.

i even liked the observations of an old hermit poster notorious (i refrain from using his current handle and only use the first part of his first handle). he seemed much less combative in those posts.

were we that anarobic an environment? or was it that since we consistently disagreed with him he turned sour?

there was another former haunter of this space…he was the same old, same old vitriolic self…incapable of anything but mocking those who disagree with him.

i rejoice that we are nothing but fluff.

by hermit x—Oct 17, 07:20 PM

perhaps most of us mellow as we age?
maybe the more things change, the more things really do change.

by chris—Oct 17, 08:00 PM

I want to comment on chris’s new post, but I’ll probably be better off going to bed and broaching it in the morning. Meanwhile, these quick notes:

1) del.icio.us bookmarks are now working. They’re setup generically as “articles” since I assume we’ll be linking to those as we’re doing other things. When saving links, the first “description” = link title; the second “description” = the desc. you get when you hover.
2) I think our fluff is more than airy candy, like cotton candy. We’re at least as good as cheez balls, and that’s saying a lot.
3) Good news: I have an interview. Bad news: I lost my voice thanks to this cold. Does this mean I can’t interview?

by greg—Oct 17, 08:35 PM

Good luck on your interview!

Thanks for setting up the bookmarks! Can you give a concrete example of how one inserts the two descriptions?

by chris—Oct 17, 09:54 PM

yes, may your voice find its melifluous center…may your mind be clear without the aid of scientology

by hermit x—Oct 17, 10:18 PM

Just wanted to point out that the “Hitler rule” proposed by chris is similar to Godwin’s Law which states:

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

If we interpret Chris’s rule that a comparison with Hitler means that a discussion is “not going well” to mean that the discussion is becoming pointless, we can postulate a new rule:

“As a discussion grows longer, there is an increased probability that it is becoming pointless.”

Possibly this new rule is proving itself by extending the very thread which contains it.

PS- how come I can’t get the textile tags to work?

by Neil—Oct 25, 02:07 PM

I believe your postulate to be correct.

(To me, the textile tags might as well be sanskrit.)

by chris—Oct 25, 02:26 PM

I like that rule. Neil’s law sounds well

Which tags? Some are more accommodating than others. In comments, textpattern strips all block-level tags. Have you tried bold, Italic, or ^superscript?

by greg—Oct 25, 03:16 PM