Rory Litwin critical of LISNews

Anonymous Patron says:

belligerence is in the eye of the beholder
My perception is that much of the belligerence originates with certain left-wing/liberal posters. If I don’t like a person’s comments then I’ll skip over their future posts, not try to shut them up. The Library Juice guy sounds like he has a real problem with democracy and free speech. This seems to be a common trait among true believers (in the Eric Hoffer sense).

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:belligerence is in the eye of the beholder
The belligerence goes both ways. I don’t think it’s limited to either side of the political spectrum.

Anonymous Patron says:

So who is objective?
LisNews is more diverse and inclusive than Library Juice will ever be. Although LJ had a global perspective when it was still a library school project…it’s now really just a personal blog focused exclusively on Rory Litwin’s and Mark Rosenweig’s exploits and whatever they consider interesting.

If dissenting views get any space, they are attacked.

LisNews is more successful and will be around alot longer than Library Juice. Perhaps some of Litwin’s bitterness (some might say jealousy?)are inpsired by his realization that LisNews has far surpassed Library Juice.

Blake’s call for more conservative contributions seemed to me to be an invitation for increasing the diversity of articles and viewpoints on LisNews…not a request for conservatives
to take control.

Instead of participating in a community where diversity of content and ideas is welcome,Litwin decides to withdraw to the safety of his own blog where he controls the universe and no one is going to disagree with him.

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Perhaps…..
Sorry. I prefer to remain one of the anonymous. It’s kind of like the concept of the secret ballot. It keeps democracy safe and I feel more secure.

Anonymous says:

‘Nuff Said
I can’t really add much that hasn’t been said already here, nor could I have said it any better myself. Rory an I have always disagreed on just about everything, so this comes as no suprise. the fact that the story is here and being discussed is a good reflection on how open things are @LISNews, as they should be.

Anonymous says:

Re:Perhaps…..
>> If people are so unhappy with the tone of comments rather than
>> the content of comments then perhaps eliminating the
>> anonymous feature would be a solution.

I’ve thought about that, and had others suggest it, but I don’t think it’s Mr. Or Mrs. Anonymous Patron who are normally the biggest trolls around here. I’ve never seen cutting off AP access as a good idea, but, I have thought about making it impossible for those without accounts to post, but to allow anyone with an account post anonymously.

>>… LISNews is not mine. Blake can do whatever he wants.

LISNews isn’t really mine, not in the same sense Juice is Rory’s. Library Juice is Rory Litwin, it’s his voice, he chooses what ends up there, and what happens. That’s not the case here, while I could do that, I don’t. There’s a couple dozen people with author powers, and anyone can add to the discussion. So while technically I can do whatever I want, I don’t. It’s rare that I delete a comment or story, and I don’t try to tell the other authors what to post. I love not knowing what I’m going to see next. Sure, everything is not a gem, especially in the comments, but the good stuff makes the crap worth it.

I could stop doing anything at LISNews tomorrow and it would move forward without me just fine, which is a good thing.

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Open letter to Rory
Can we be expected to moderate based on one quotation? The rest of the comment by Rochelle was insightful.

Anonymous Patron says:

reply
This is Rory here.

I posted a reply to Rochelle this morning and it didn’t go through. I’m hoping Blake will post it tonight.

I’m shocked at some of the accusations against me, which I find completely untrue (some of them actually factually untrue). I think some of you need to go ahead and read what I actually wrote. And please read my response to Rochelle when Blake posts it.

I believe this response to Rochelle’s posting linking to my article (and I’m glad she did it) helps me to make my point about LISNews.

I also want to correct those who refer to Library Juice as a blog. It is an online serial. The authors are diverse but it is definitely an edited publication with a point of view and not an open forum. I don’t believe a comparison to LISNews would be quite appropriate. The nature and intentions of the two things are very different.

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Good Idea
It ‘s not because I disagree with it that I don’t read it. I don’t it because the tenor of the discussion is unpleasant and the ideas are unenlightening and not very well thought out.

Take this thread. In a forum that I would want to read, people would actually take the time to address the arguments I made in my editorial. I think I made some good arguments. They have been ignored here in favor of a lot of cheap shots, innuendo, unsubstantiated assertions, attacks on my character, and unintelligent sniping back and forth. I don’t mind conservative opinion. I do mind hostility. Perhaps Blake, in making his call for more conservative posters, was hoping for a more peaceful discussion. That isn’t what has happened.

I suppose I should have distinguished the essence of my reason for no longer participating in this site a little better. I think I conflated the two separate things: conservative opinion, and the incivility of the people expressing it here. (I don’t deny that people on the left can be uncivil, and it also bothers me – just not as much as when I am personally the object of it!)

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Reply from Rory

This is Rory speaking.

I’m not trying to “discourage a free exchange of information and opinion”…
I believe Blake began to interfere with that when he decided he needed to
“adjust” the political content of this site.

The kind of people who love LISNews tend, in my opinion, are often a little bit
too enthusiastic for weblogs in general, and I would like to cut
through that blind enthusiasm to get people to focus a little more
critically on content.

Rochelle, I somewhat resent your (and other posters’) claim that I am hostile to free
expression.  I am ENGAGING in free expression.  When did speaking critically about
something become contrary to free speech?  It’s ironic to me that you say
this now, when in the same issue as my brief editorial about LISNews I have
a longer editorial about this very misconception about free speech.

Rochelle, I also want to point out that you missed an important point in my
editorial, which is to question how Blake arrived at his idea of what the
political “center” is in library discourse.  In his original posting he
claimed that he had no definition of “right and left” and would leave that
to the reader, but this was obviously false based on the fact that he felt
his site needed to be adjusted to better represent right wing library
views.  So how did he arrive at the conclusion that the site was skewed to
the left?  Why didn’t he just conclude, as most would, that librarians tend
to the liberal and the center in librarianship is a little to the left than
it is in society at large?  The answer, it seems to me, is that Blake
himself is a little to the right of the political center of librarianship,
for one, and for another, believes that the political center of society at
large represents an ideological balance point that somehow shows us the
truth, and that therefore we should make sure to maintain that balance in
our discussion (rather than aiming for a truth that is independent of what
people think).  So, I don’t accept your defense of Blake’s call for
conservative content as innocent “rumination.”

What most people here think is LISNews’s strength – the fact that it doesn’t
have a point of view except for the point of view of its audience – I think
is kind of its weakness.  I think LISNews actually is a publication with an editor who doesn’t admit that he is an editor with a publication.  He would like you to think there is NO editor and the content
depends entirely on what people post.  But if Blake believes LISNews should
be entirely driven by readers then why did he feel the need to act as an
editor and attempt to shape the ultimate content of the site by taking the
step of inviting authors with a particular ideological bent?  In fact,
Blake IS acting as an editor to shape the political face of LISNews.  I
think that’s what he SHOULD do – but only if he is open about the fact that
he is doing it, that LISNews is a publication with an editor and a range of views within a particular frame of reference, so that people who go to it (and I’m not
encouraging people to stay away!) are aware that what they are reading is
shaped by an editor with a particular point of view and don’t imagine that
it an instance of utopian “cyber democracy.”

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:’Nuff Said
Seems to me this is a pretty one sided discussion. Is that your idea of “open”?

I’d say this whole thread makes my original point rather well.

– Rory

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:belligerence is in the eye of the beholder
How do I have a problem with democracy and free speech? I am exercising it here, not trying to deny it.

What have I done to deserve being called an anti-democratic censor? I have criticized a publication. Isn’t that a the fundamental and most protected act of free expression? This is your reaction to criticism. Who are the intolerant ones here?

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:belligerence is in the eye of the beholder
And you really don’t know me at all if you think I am a “true believer” (in the Eric Hoffer sense).

What I am is a critic.

– Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:’Nuff Said
Blake, the notion that this is an open forum, that it doesn’t have a frame of reference and a political culture which you have actively shaped, is a complete myth. For you to look at such a one-sided discussion and call it an example of how open lisnews is makes my point perfectly.

For pointing this out I am called an “enemy of democracy and free speech” and attacked in rather below-the-belt ways. I’m glad you “can’t really add to that.”

– Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:You should get an account
As members of the Secret Coven of Anonymous Patrons, we demand that Mr. Litwin cease and desist from masquerading as one of us!

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:You should get an account
I haven’t been here in a long time. I came to this thread because I found it in my server logs referencing the latest issue of library juice, and saw my editorial – and me – being discussed. I came here to defend myself.

Editors criticizing each other’s publications is in the best traditions of literary and political engagement. I criticized LISNews for my readers, not to discourage them from reading LISNews, but, as I stated, to read it with a more critical eye and an awareness of a) how it has changed and b) that it is not the neutral, “open forum” that Blake claims it is, as his action of inviting more conservative bloggers attests.

– Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Incivility as the Root Issue
Regarding civility, I do want to be clear that I’m not opposed to publicly criticizing people. But when it comes to that I think it’s something people should approach with seriousness, caution, and a lot of concern for accuracy and truth (as well as relevance), as strong as their criticism might be. There’s been a lack of that concern for accuracy and truth (and relevance) in some of the posts about me and my character; some of them have just been baseless attacks that I think show that this thread and my editorial are partially in the context of something as simple as a political battle.

I wasn’t offended by anything Rochelle wrote, however; I’m not sure what she said that I called an accusation. I may have confused something she wrote with something someone else wrote in the heat of the discussion last night.

I think part of the reason this thread looks like it does is the nature of online fora, but another part of it is that in my original editorial I used somewhat rhetorical language; I was a bit provocative, and I suppose should have toned it down.

Because my responses to the attacks in this forum seem to be getting moderated down (for reasons that seem more related to that political battle than intellectual judgment, it seems to me) I am planning to write a response to this thread in the next issue of Library Juice. You can expect it to use cooler language, but also to restate a little more clearly what my criticisms are.

To some of you, apparently, criticising this site seems to be evidence of an intolerance for discussion or discomfort with dissent or opposition to free speech or democracy. It’s difficult for me to understand where this idea comes from. Editors criticizing – even attacking – each other’s publications is in the best tradition of intellectual and political discourse – exactly what intellectual freedom intends to protect. I feel that I am simply exercizing my right to free expression, which I also feel is one way of defending that right. In online fora and especially in librarianship, a lot of people are uncomfortable with criticism and very quickly equate it with “attempts to stifle debate” and call critics censors, often with calls for their sanctioning (e.g. in “listserve acceptable use policies”). This is the great irony of the culture of unreflective IF philosophy in librarianship. For pointing out how this forum is less open, free and neutral than it pretends to be – not to drive readers away but to influence the way they read it – I am called an enemy of intellectual freedom and democracy. I hope that only represents the view of a small minority of LISnews readers.

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Underlying issues
In this thread and in the article, I made some points that haven’t really been responded to. There are ways to talk about some of this issues in the abstract, aside from the political fight.

I can think of two underlying questions that I think really deserve to be debated. One is the question of how Blake determined the “political center” in deciding that the site was too far left. A question we should be able to discuss without a lot of heat is, rather than “was or is the site left or right leaning,” how do you determine the balance point? The fact that Blake somehow did this while denying that he was doing it (stating that he would leave definitions of right and left up to readers) is one of my important points and deserves more than the request to “agree or disagree” that my friend Rochelle has given me. Part of my point is that any decision about where the political center lies necessarily involves one’s own political orientation to begin with, and Blake doesn’t really acknowledge that in regard to LISNews.

The other related point that I think needs to be discussed is the extent to which an online forum like LISNews, and LISNews in particular, can really be said to be neutral and open, and the extent to which it actually has a cultural and political frame of reference. I pointed out that Blake, while claiming he was merely creating balance and greater neutrality and openness, was actively shaping that frame of reference when he called for more conservative bloggers. That is also a point that deserves more discussion than merely a request to “agree to disagree.”

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Rory responds
I recall a conversation with an intimate friend who is also an acquaintance of yours, in which we agreed that Mitch Freedman probably underestimated the help that Library Juice gave him in that election. That may be what you are thinking of and exaggerating into something quite different. I never claimed to anyone that Library Juice was “the key” to Mitch’s election or instrumental in it.

This is an example of how something very run of the mill and unobjectionable can be distorted by hate into something damning. There is a lot of that going on in this thread at my and also my friends’ expense.

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Thank You
In fact, LISNews may be the most popular site of its kind and present a more accurate reflection of librarians today than SRRT and your own Library Juice echo chamber.

Well, I agree that LISNews probably is the most popular site of its kind, a probably presents a more accurate reflection of librarians today than SRRT and Library Juice. SRRT has always been in the minority in librarianship, loses many more battles than it wins, and as far as I’m concerned should stay the course.

I’m not sure why you call Library Juice an echo chamber. It’s a newsletter that I edit from a particular perspective. I’m not sure what you say it is echoing. When I write an editorial, I’m usually saying something that hasn’t been said in print before and needs to be said. The same goes for most of the articles I publish.

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:You should get an account
Actually, there has been surprising little traffic coming from here to the original article. I generally check on any new reference to a page on my site, because I want to know what people are saying out there.

Thanks for your comments, but while I can see that it has some value for a lot of people, I don’t really like the way this format works me. I think one of the problems with the medium is the way it seems to create hotheadeness. I think a lot of the comments in this thread don’t show their authors at their best, to put it mildly. I am also vulnerable to this aspect of the medium and have certainly said things I regret in elecronic discussions. I’ve gotten in the habit of writing emails a little more slowly than I used to, but this board tends to speed up the time factor. I have other problems with the medium, as well as with this community, especially as it’s changed over time, that make me not want to participate.

Maybe in a few years things will have changed in such a way that I’m more comfortable with LISNews and feel like participating.

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Thank You
If this message appears twice pardon my repetitiveness – I posted a response and might not have finished it. Anyway, I was expecting it to appear and it hasn’t.

The problem isn’t the frame of reference of LISNews. (I say it has a frame of reference rather than a single perspective because there is a real diversity of views represented here, but all within a particular cultural and political frame that sheds a certain light on all of those views.) I think every publication (or whatever you want to call this) has a frame of reference or a perspective.

The problem that I have noted is that Blake doesn’t acknowledge that his site has a frame of reference and that frame of reference has a political aspect to it. This was always the case, in my opinion, but when Blake explicitly called for more conservatives to participate in the site – during the time that the conservative presence in the comments had grown considerably and was continuing to grow – I thought that his lack of acknowledgment that LISNews isn’t really neutral became an actual issue that I should bring up – not to drive readers away from the site, but to affect the way they read it.

Rory

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Thank You
Tomeboy, how can you say I lack fortitude? I’ve come onto a site that I never use and basically hold my own against a whole team of people who apparently hate me, with very little support from the people you mention whose politics you say overlap mine. What is the basis of your claim that I lack fortitude? If you were familiar with my publication, you would know that I am willing to express views that are truly unpopular, including views that are unpopular with people in my own community. I do it because I often find it more important to say what I think is the truth than to rest comfortably in what I know that people will accept. I do it because I have an independent mind and the courage to risk losing false friends in exchange for more commitment from my real friends, whose numbers may be fewer. Do you do that?

So where does this talk about fortitude come from? Just who do you think you are talking to? If anything, my editorial and my participating on this website of yours show fortitude, and I think it’s actually your recognition of that that put the word :fortitude” in your head in this posting of yours, because it gave you something to deny.

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Thank You
The person who said “how can you say I lack fortitute” is obviously the person whom you said lacks fortitude.

Because I was responding in the first person to something you said about me, I thought it was obvious enough who was speaking.

It is ridiculous that you make it necessary to say this.

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:I was wrong.
I was wondering when somebody was going to try that.

– The real Rory, who has already stated his reason for not logging in, and who, while he is well aware that the “debate” here is hardly honest, would still be surprised if anyone attempted a fraudulent post in a serious sense. Things aren’t quite as bad as that.

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Rory, PLG, & the Right
Tomeboy (love the nom de plume..),

Oh boy! This really intellectual now! Medications as well as the subsequent rant on Stalinism and broad brush red-baiting. Studiously avoiding the actual issues at hand (remember Rory’s original position & his reasons?) & attacking personally is classic right wing sleaziness. I don’t really expect much else – just know that I too won’t back off.

Get used to what, stupidity? Nobody is defending Stalin – as I assume you folks aren’t defending Hitler or Mussolini or Franco or Cheney (well, strike that last one). Rory’s non-account is a nonsense issue too. Do you folks lay awake at night dreaming this stuff up?

So, answer the question: why was it necessary to slap around postings as too left to get more diversity of viewpoints if that is what was felt was needed?

John Buschm

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Rory, PLG, & the Right
Tomeperson,

I think you’re caught in the same kind of tautology that you accuse PLG types of holding dear: the fact that anyone dares argue with you makes them, by definition, wrong and deserving of any & all you might feel like dishing out. That is, of course, a convenient way to avoid answering a simple question, which you’ve done consistently.

Personal attacks substitute for argumentation and reasons for you and amongst the true believers you speak for. You can call “slap” hyperbole, but its pretty clear from this long string who the attackers are, and who’s trying to argue for their position (which is different, you know).

Doing my best to make good on W’s promise to “leave no child behind”, I’ll keep corresponding as long as you wish. Sign me with my own, real name,

John Buschm

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Rory, PLG, & the Right
Person-of-Tomeness,

The names continue! I’m impressed – and you managed to do so much personal slapping around beyond even me… Come on, Tomeness, humor me just this once and try, real hard, to actually enter a debate wherein you might be thinking:

Why was it necessary in the first place for LISNews to slap the “left echo chamber” to get more diversity of views? In other words, why was it necessary to make one perspective unwelcome to foster another?

Still leaving no child behind, I am:

John Buschman (my actual, real nam

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Rory, PLG, & the Right
Tome-of-indeterminate-gender,

So, it was a “liberal echo chamber” because it was a liberal echo chamber. Now I understand! People joined & posted shudderingly liberal stuff to shut y’all out, so turn about is fair play. Nice.

Again, just actually answer the question (do you do this on the reference desk? “I told you, the population of Arkansas is what the population of Arkansas is, because that’s the population that’s in Arkansas. What part don’t you understand?”).
That question again is: why was it necessary to make a class of opinions unwelcome to broaden the field for others (more conservative in this case)?

Still leaving no conservative child behind in our attempts to educate, I am

John Buschman

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Rory, PLG, & the Right
Tome-of-righteousness,

It’s funny because it *is* funny (see, two can play the same game). You haven’t answered the question, you’re clearly not going to because you either: a, can’t; b, know that you’d be betraying a central professional principle as a librarian if you did.

As for the naming thing, y’all raked Rory over the coals but good & opened that door. Minor puns on a pretentious “handle” is pretty mild compared to what I’ve read. You can dish it out, but you can’t take it.

I refuse to quit & leave this child behind, signed

John Buschman (again, my real name…)

(Just couldn’t resist the pot-shot on “form” could you? Brave words from somebody who’s ducked a question 37 times.)

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Thank You
You call it an “opportunity to engage” but you treat it as an opportunity to fight. I see a real difference between honest debate, which is motivated by an interest in what the other side has to say and in a cooperative pursuit of truth, and a political slugfest where the goal is not to find truth but to hurt your opponent. One is civil, rational discourse, the other is not. If I don’t want to participate in a forum which is dominated by the latter type of discourse, it’s not because I can’t handle a diversity of opinion. It’s only because I think diversity of opinion should be expressed, debated and thought about in an atmosphere of peace and mutual respect rather than unruly contest where dishonest argumentation (taking things out of context, misrepresenting views, baseless personal attacks) tends to ruin the discussion.

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Rochelle, guardian of anonymous information
Having an account is no guarantee of identity. You could be sharing your login with someone, for all I know.

To me the important thing is not to be anonymous. I have signed all of my postings (where it wasn’t obvious that I was responding to something said to me directly). I don’t know your name or the names of most of the people here who use nicknames alone.

– Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Rory, PLG, & the Right
You and the others don’t leave your names – you are anonymous. Do please don’t ask me for names.

I am sure my memory isn’t failing me, but I don’t really have the time to dig up the messages that I am thinking of. They were in comments to stories that I am not sure how I would go about finding at this point. Sorry.

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Thank You
P-upchuck, His High Tomeliness, et. al.:

Y’all just can’t help yourselves can you? Rory gives & repeats a basic analysis and question, and you folks take the tone & tenor right into the gutter. Rory took exception to the “liberal echo chamber” comment, posted his analysis on LJ (& used similarly motivated language in it) and it was picked up by LISNews.

You’re all whining that “he started it”, you’ve not (& I assume, can’t) answer the basic question he raised (do I need to repeat it?), and you attack, attack attack. Meanwhile, you’re getting into these really, really small distictions as to whether the person connected to the handle “pooh-pooh bear” was the poster, or “big daddy”. Wow, its really grown up to hide behind anonymous names, meanwhile those of us on the other side are actually using our own – what a concept.

If you want a real debate over the relative merits of a self-proclaimed left outlet (LJ) vs. a self-proclaimed neutral one that was somehow “biased” then knock off the Stalin, fellow-travelers, and puppet bullshit and address the ideas. His Tomeliness has already folded his tent in a pout over punning his “handle,” so move on, or engage the ideas Rory is putting out.

Hoping for many children not to be left behind,

John Buschman (AGAIN, my real name…)

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Good Idea
Point taken. But when I came here to defend my position, I dropped the aggressive language and proceeded to try to discuss things logically (especially after the first day). Over the past week, I have elaborated my points, altered my position slightly, made it more complex, and explained a rational argument about the nature of LISNews. Rather than engaging me in a discussion at this level, I have been met with hostiliy (mainly from a few people, admittedly) from anonymous “nicknames.” There’s been very little interest here in a real intellectual discussion, and no one has really addressed the major aspects of my argument. All the while I have been rational and peaceful. The record supports my original point.

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Thank You
Just to be accurate, I think I have been the calm one in this thread. Quite a few times in this thread, liberals have been told to “calm down” and accused of being “out of control,” when if you actually read the thread they are simply responding reasonably to hostility. I consider this an underhanded tactic.

Rory Litwin

p.s. Please note for the record my calmness and equanimity.

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Thank You
What I am bothered by, “tomeboy,” whoever you are, is, as I have said to you repeatedly, not the righward-shifting political character of the culture and frame of reference of LISNews, but the continued claim by Blake and other users of the site, especially conservatives, that the site is a neutral open forum – despite the obviousness of this rightward shift and Blake’s open role in fostering it in February (at a point when it was well in progress), and despite the sheer oddness of Blake’s claim at that point that the site was a “left wing echo chamber.”

My aim in pointing this out was not to object to LISNews having become a predominantly conservative site or even Blake’s role in that change, but just to make people aware of it and to dispel the myth that the technology behind LISNews makes it neutral.

Rory

Anonymous Patron says:

Re:Perhaps…..
The problem with this idea is that requiring a login doesn’t require people to take ownership of their comments. Only requiring people to use their real names does that.

Look at this discussion. Who is identifiable by their postings and who is not? The people logging in are using nicknames. I can’t tell who they are, so they aren’t personally accountable to anyone. Only their meaningless nicknames (which can be thrown away in exchange for a new one) are accountable.

On the other hand, most of the messages in this thread that are labelled “anonymous poster” are signed with real names, which actually make us accountable.

As you would expect then, because the people who post without logging in are mostly using their real names, the tone of their comments is more civil. This is the reverse of what you are suggesting. The people who are logging in are being LESS civil, because they are actually anonymous.

I know this flies in the face of cyber-truisms, but it’s the truth. Using a nickname is a form of anonymity if you don’t sign your real name.

Rory Litwin

Anonymous Patron says:

P-Duck takes charge…
Can I just call you “P”? First, you deserve an answer: I was frankly a little disappointed in the “upchuck” thing – shoulda been more clever, but I was busy.

However, I got what I wanted: the rhetoric has calmed, folks are – with a few exceptions – actually engaging Rory’s ideas; the anonymity question (and the associated issue of intestinal fortitude y’all thought was such a winner for you previously) is at the fore; and you folks back off when you get a taste of your own medicine.

So, yes, I’m happy as a Republican wallowing in crude…

No child left behind in this debate, I’m still:

John Buschman (a real person, not a chicken nom-de-plume)