I don't know how I ended up in an epic back and forth with Meade this morning but so it goes. He was very feisty. I guess the missus was hung over or something so he didn't have to make the pancakes until later in the day. So he had time to fuss about nonsense.
Cameo appearances by icepick, rcommal and The Crack Emcee as the Negro.
30 comments:
I considered more rude responses but soon realized that nothing I could write would approach the horror that he faces each morning upon regaining consciousness.
*cue Marlon Brando*
Meade always has struck me as the Ted Bundy type.
Meade made one very odd comment in that thread:
But I really don't understand your obsession with her. And by your I mean you and Trooper and Crack and everyone else who just can't seem to stop thinking about her.
Funny how it's obsessive to comment on a very public meltdown, but it's not obsessive to patrol the comments made about her on a variety of blogs.
I caught his reference to the "lemmings" post here, so I'm pretty sure he'll read this comment. And so I'll go on to explain things to him as I see them:
Lots of people (myself included) truly bought into the idea of an "Althouse commenter community". When she turned so viciously on her "beloved" commenters, it was a shock to the naïfs among us. (Even those of us who barely participated at all in the threads that triggered the end of commenting.) We were left to wonder what had happened to cause such a reaction, since no explanation was given ("you drove me to it" doesn't constitute an explanation). So a number of people (far fewer than all the regular commenters, btw) spent some time discussing various explanations.
My own curiosity got satisfied by reading Ronald Bailey's Reason article and the subsequent (2006) discussion of it at TOP, which took place long before my time there. I concluded that my previous admiration of AA for her open mind and commitment to rough-and-tumble free expression had been misplaced. So I haven't been moved to participate in any more of the postmortems at Lem's or ELB's or anywhere else.
Lots of us former TOP commenters are not "obsessed" at all. We certainly miss the regular opportunities for freewheeling debate that defined TOP, and have experienced some withdrawal pains in the last few days. But that's already subsiding for many of us, as it will for most of us soon enough.
I still appreciate the work AA put into providing what was often an informative and entertaining forum, and I always will. Just as I appreciate the lively forum that TY provides right here.
It's too bad things ended so badly, but it does seem like it was the inevitable consequence of a fundamental mismatch b/w AA's personality and the forum she presided over.
I hope that this will be my last statement on the subject. I'd like to move on to snarking about Derek Jeter's STDs!
What's the obsession with beta males? Where'd that come from?
Surely an alpha male doesn't marry a woman 5+ years his senior? I mean, not a 50-something alpha male. (An 18yo alpha male is a different story.)
And does he really think it's a profitable line of attack that you run a profitable business?
I guess real men leech off their wives' health plans?
Chip S, are you talking about this?
I can't tell you two apart sometimes.
Icepick: Yes.
I would have not bothered with Ann's latest (since I do not comment at her site), but for Meade being such an annoying lying jerk off in blaming Fred4Pres for his trolls and then not admitting he was wrong and apologizing when he was shown to be wrong. So she can blame him.
It's nice the way you stand up for Fred4Pres, Evi.
I'm not going to read that piece (I vaguely recall that pissing contest), but I'm struck at all the commenters who aren't around any more. I have to get down to Palladian to see someone that is/was current. (And Palladian had a comment get axed by Althhouse, BTW.)
Also, anonymous comments were still allowed back then.
Well that's the thing Evi. You were minding your own business with your blog and only occasionally taking a shot at them. So they went nuclear and are surprised when you started to fire back.
Wow, all those old commenters that dropped off the face of the Earth. Hell, even Steve Sailer made an appearance on that Ron Bailey bit.
I can't remember if I skipped commenting on that on just because, or if I was taking one of my periodic breaks from commenting. But dang, it was like a friggin' reunion.
The Reason article is instructive for one main reason that I have stated before. The evil blogger lady is just not that bright. Oh I bet she can pass a test and memorize shit but when the talk is fast and the allusions are flying and ironic comments are tossed about....her eyes glaze over. She just doesn't get it. A couple of times Palladian and Mort Brezney and Trooper York all looked at each other and shrugged.
And she was very vicious to commenters in a personal way. It is just lately that she has let it slip. She had been doing it to me for a long time but that is fine since I can give as good as it gets. So no problem. But when she starts to rough up Fred4Pres who was minding his own business and then leads an attack on a poor retard like edutcher....well that's when a bunch of people started to understand why I call her the evil blogger lady.
Don't kid yourself. They are going to keep at this. They live for it.
It is all a big smoke screen to cover up the fight with Instapundit. That has been swept under the rug now. They have changed the subject.
The comments will be back. Wait and see. I just hope they limit it to selected people. By the people they choose you will get the final answer there Regis.
The En Vino Veritas is also instructive in the Reason article. You've mentioned she's a nasty drunk, I believe.
You are correct sir!
To some extent I feel guilty, no, I was guilty of commenting at TOP with the express intent of zinging her majesty. Anyhow, if you're going to have frank discussions there are going to be heated comments, that's just the way it is. And what's the point of a site that gets into vital social and political issues if the discussions aren't frank? Which is to say that a tough hide goes with the territory. The shock to me is it turns out she didn't have a tough hide.
Here's a great comment from the past:
I don't think diagnosing them as crazy or non-crazy is helpful. Those who are behaving like assholes need to be called on it. Plain and simple.
Plain and simple!
So far, really good evaluations of the situation from blake, Chip S., and, of course, Trooper. Others have done their bit as well, and EBL's Führer rant is hilarious.
So, there's a pretty good sense of the meeting. Althouse is amazingly thin-skinned, and doesn't know how or care to treat people decently.
In my case, in only a couple of e-mails, she offended the hell out of me with judgmental pop-psychologizing enclosed in superficial politeness. And in the end a bullying comment against my son was allowed to stand that took on an institutional life of its own, completely outside of anything anyone could do. Thank God my son didn't go to Lord of the Flies Choir School, and was the alpha kid of the bunch anyway. But this proves that shit people write on the internet can have real-world consequences, perhaps unintended, but that anybody brighter than the inside of a moose might anticipate. Althouse didn't or wouldn't because she was lazy and/or too in love with herself as a "performance artist."
Such disregard for her commenters was indeed a shock to this former "beloved commenter" and naïf.
Well, I've been shocked enough to learn a lesson. I've also done my best to ignore Althouse and all her works these past three years, despite having had to deal with the institutional memory of the attack on my son.
I'm very torn in another sense, because I've met a lot of interesting people among the commenters, more than I have elsewhere on the internet in all these years. So, I go to Lem's, and it looks like old home week, but I'm afraid I need a break from old home week. Tempting as Lem's blog is, I'm just not going to hang out there. In fact, no offense to any other bloggers here, but I'm going to vanish from the old group for a while. Gotta clear my mind and decide what to do with blogging.
So, I may hang out here occasionally, and maybe even say something, but I really need to purge my system of Althouse and all her works.
That's find Tim.
You should do what works for you.
Just know that you are always welcome here and that I look forward to your comments.
I mean that's fine.
Where else can you go and get such consistent misspelling?
Well except for the Crack Emcees resume.
I have to thank Meade for making my week. Really sir, great party.
Troop summed it up well, they start mixing it up and are surprised that the we fight back. I bet Meade used to cow tip in his youth.
And Freeman Hunt has been sanctimonious over at Lem's place. You were right on that Troop too.
I concur - I hadn't noticed it, and I hope sanctimonious is not a bad word, but it sure fits.
Meade is displaying his cowardly ways over there. I wonder how many of the anonymous posts are his. He played the race card on me and ran away, since he couldn't defend it. Spineless, dickless, and a bigger cunt than the bitch he serves.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail...Dennis and the watery tart...
That sums up Althouse. In the scene, the hoity toity king has no idea what is going on around him or anything about real life. All knows is the realm of his ivory tower. The peasants--ignorant in his estimation--understand the nitty gritty of life, politics, and work, because they have to grasp it or starve.
Althouse revealed herself as Arthur as reported by Reason. She can sit and spew theoretical dung, but becomes bitterly abusive and hysterical when confronted with practical challenges to her dead and empty theories.
Just like Arthur did. And she acts just as entitled as Arthur did.
Someone wrote this in Lem's current open thread in response to speculation that AA might be a sociopath:
This is the second time you've brought this up. Freeman Hunt told you that you were probably wrong the first time you put it out there IIRC.
OK, I understand that people I respect completely have a very high regard for FH. I myself have never written a critical word about her, unless a jokey portrayal of her as AA's loyal friend is considered criticism. Hell, even "J", who insulted everyone else at TOP, called her "Miss Hunt". But I didn't realize that there were some who considered her to be infallible.
I find this fascinating in its own right. Not sure it can be discussed here or anywhere else on the internet w/o violating a critical taboo, but I can't recall ever seeing a phenomenon like this before.
(I don't think this comment violates my intention to stop talking about TOP. If it does, then I retract it in its entirety, and denounce myself.)
blake said...
What's the obsession with beta males? Where'd that come from?
Misandrists want beta males. Why? Because they are easily cowed, influenced, henpecked, and manipulated. A beta male won't tolerate conflict and therefore will acquiesce to whoever is in charge or seek other ways of escape. Meade has simply become a stooge and not even a sploog stooge at that. He's like a mini-me to Althouse's Dr. Evil. A minion. It is sad to see and watch. I suppose either love or loneliness will do that to you.
windbag said...
Althouse revealed herself as Arthur as reported by Reason. She can sit and spew theoretical dung,
How do you think she became a professor. Someone believed her bullshit.
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