Our self-critique of our theme edition and a reply to what Ron saw as homophobia

Two weeks ago, we did a "Tripping Point" issue where we went back in time with various features. Ava and C.I. did a sixties perspective that worked for today as well with their review of Law & Order: Trial by Jury. We did a fairy tale on the blog world. We highlighted recordings from the sixites in "10 CDs, 10 Minutes." We did an essay on the press where we mixed observation and song to attempt to get a feel of some of what we read in the class where we studied the alternative newspapers of the sixties. And even our blog spotlight, C.I.'s Rudith Miller, lent to the sixties "tipping point/tripping point."

We'd started to grade ourselves last week but weren't able to finish the article in time.

How successful were we?


About half and half. We knew it would be a learning experience and it was one.

Anytime we can step outside of our own boxes, it's always good. There are things we've learned that we'll go with next time. For instance, the "tripping point" contained only one overt reference to drugs (the fairy tale had an implied one). That was Ava and C.I.'s TV review. They hit drugs, the generation gap, the slogans, you name it. When those two get together (they're writing the current TV review right now and will object to this when they read it but we'll have posted it by then), they go for it. Which is ironic because they were the two who had to be persuaded on the theme. "How are we going to write a TV review in that frame?" they both asked repeatedly. "Are we going to review The Flying Nun? Room 222? The Mod Squad?"

So it's surprising that they're piece is the one we all agree best carried out the theme. We expected it to be much easier than it was. They expected it to be a pain in the ass and had to be dragged along by the rest of us. It's not just that they're the funniest in the group, they are, it's also that they'll go full out. Whatever they do tonight, you'll be reading a rough draft because glitches and delays prevented us from finishing much earlier.

It may be a case of their TV reviews not being written by committee. It's their voice and their voice alone. We write everything else by committee. Add a line, take out a line, it's a group effort.

But that's a cop out, to use sixties lingo, because we didn't pull a great deal.

What we did do was spend a lot of time debating whether or not to include a drug reference here or use a Lily Tomlin joke (one that was originally censored -- for content, not language -- by CBS) there. And in both cases, as well as others, we may have pulled back to avoid offending our readers. The whole point of theme issue is to execute the theme and we think the point we missed was carrying it far enough, taking it to the limit.

When we read Ava and C.I.'s review it was while we were indexing it, it had already gone up. And we laughed and were also shocked because the two who didn't want to do this theme had ended up executing it the best.

So the biggest lesson was "Go for it." And we think that will work with two upcoming theme issues we have planned.

As a learning experience, we think it was a huge breakthrough.

That's our evaluation.

There were a few readers who disagreed. Some loved the entire thing and while we praise you and say, "What good taste you have," there were others who didn't like it. Some objected to Ava and C.I. beginning their TV review with them in a bedroom getting stoned. "You're promoting drugs!" e-mailed Karen from Idaho. No, we were being funny. And we'll go full out next time.

But the biggest surprise was an e-mail that came in from someone we know who felt the need to rake us over the coals for our alleged homophobia. Jess had the misfortune of opening that e-mail and it really did a number on him.

Did you know that a fairy tale was, in it's very form, homophobic?

That's what we were told. Ruth, Jess' parents and others who lived during that time said, "What the hell is he talking about?" Ruth came up with the idea of a fairy tale setting because they were so popular in the sixties. But in Ron's eyes a fairy tale was, in and of itself, homophobic.

In addition, the fairy tale was homophobic because a man wore women clothes. For the record (to pull a C.I.), no man wore women's clothes in the fairy tale. But, as Rebecca noted, cross dressing doesn't mean someone is gay (or lesbian). There is a difference between cross dressers and transvestites.

Ron also felt the need to bring up Rebecca's joke several issues back of "Don't drop the soap!" In the piece that appeared in, it was a joke about the devotion of one male to another but we don't see it as homophobic. It might have been in poor taste if it was implying rape. If indeed it implied rape. (We saw it as implying that one of the two had strong, romantic feelings for the other who might or might not have been aware of it.) But we fail to see how it was homophobic unless homophobia means noting that two males can have sex and that many do.

Ruth felt the e-mail was loaded with cheap shots and distortions and certainly Ron is miffed at us (to put it mildly). We also felt Ron was overreaching and straining to find something to criticize. (There's much to criticize, but he wanted to play "more left than thou" so he created an issue that didn't exist.)

We don't know why that e-mail came in from someone who hasn't bothered to write us in some time but felt the sudden need to tell us we were homophobic and that Rebecca was basically god awful in everything she posts at her site.

Arriving when it did, at a time when Rebecca was dealing with a wanna be leading Democratic "centrist" who had read her and needed to respond so help him while he also contacted C.I. and the same week that a Times reporter finally had the desire to go on the record at The Common Ills, we wondered if the person wasn't trying to create some waves to get attention?

We are going to say we looked over the pieces very carefully and we don't see any homophobia so we feel you are overreaching.

We will note that your friend XYZ has called C.I. a liar and you aren't overly concerned about that.

We are. (And we'll hear about including this from C.I. when it's read.) In one night, on a day when C.I. had been at the hospital having tests, XYZ writes two e-mails to disagree with comments by members of The Common Ills community. C.I. replies and notes (we've read the e-mails) that this isn't a good time after the poking and prodding of the day so following XYZ's e-mails isn't easy. (It wasn't easy for us to follow either but that has to do with XYZ's writing "style.") XYZ's reply was not to worry about it. Never once, in either e-mail, did XYZ ask to be quoted.

XYZ never contacted C.I. again before slamming the community at his site at which point someone posted something at XYZ's blog and suddenly it had to be Rebecca because it was "lower case." Which led to XYZ trashing the community again and calling C.I. a "liar."

XYZ never asked to be quoted. To say C.I.'s a liar because XYZ wasn't quoted when XYZ never asked to be quoted is a lie. You don't seem to upset about that.

During that time period, you were e-mailing C.I. and you never gave a heads up to that. C.I. had no idea because no one really reads XYZ. You knew that the community was enraged over a post you later deleted that trashed them. You knew that C.I. was avoiding the topic to allow people to cool off before addressing it. But somehow, while the community's being asked to wait two weeks to calm down before it's addressed, you seem to think that XYZ, who is not a member of the community, has some right to have his thoughts posted when he never even asked for that?

When C.I. was made aware of being called a "liar," there were numerous attempts to contact XYZ. Rebecca was on the phone with C.I. both nights and we've all seen the e-mails. XYZ finally started replying. In the early ones, he notes that maybe he'll have something to say. So C.I.'s waiting and waiting on the post that addresses this issue. Then XYZ e-mails that it's not a big deal and he'll come up with something tomorrow. Rebecca told C.I. that XYZ was going to launch a trashing the next day and wasn't being sincere. But C.I. elected to believe XYZ.

And what happened? XYZ posted a post that mocked C.I.'s illness and mocked C.I.

Cancer's not funny. For someone so concerned about what we wrote and what we didn't, we're having a real hard time understanding how you can justify XYZ, who you brought into the circle, making fun of C.I. having cancer.

After that low blow, C.I. could have trashed XYZ but instead found a way to wish XYZ well and let it go. And what was XYZ's reaction?

"Or, to put it another way, Common Ills is a chicken shit. :). I suspect CI is female, or a very feminine guy (You can tell by the catfight style CI has ..."

Who was chicken shit, Ron?

The person who told C.I. not to worry about it and then went on to slam C.I. the next day? To mock C.I. having cancer? And what's with "I suspect CI is female, or a very feminine guy (You can tell by the catfight style CI has . . ."?

For someone so quick to see homophobia, you don't seem able to look at your own circle.

Catfight? C.I. never got into a fight, cat or otherwise, with XYZ.

XYZ called C.I. a liar because C.I. didn't quote him even though the policy is you have to say you want to be quoted. That's in every automated e-mail that goes out. That's always been the policy at The Common Ills. (Unless, as Wally has noted, you lie, then all bets are off.) XYZ never told C.I. in an e-mail, "Hey I called you a liar." And you never did either though you were e-maling C.I. all the time at that point. After calling C.I. a liar, XYZ chooses to attack C.I. by mocking cancer. And then XYZ wants to go on and on with remarks that are both sexist ("catfight") and potentially homophobic.

So let's be clear, Ron, you're the drunk uncle who spoiled Christmas. We don't see you as"on the wagon." You came in and shit on the Christmas tree. You blew your stack over remarks C.I. made that were kind to you. "You never said I apologized!" You attacked the community that C.I. built and still C.I. was able to say something about how it was an issue you were passionate about and in another time, you'd probably handle it differently. "It" being the posted attack on The Common Ills community.

If you've forgotten, here is the discussion that was published here. Here is what you felt the need to scream at C.I. via e-mails for, where C.I., in your mind, was just so awful to you:


Ava: Let's go back to Rebecca's earlier comments about how some feel they can attack. You're talking about playing gatekeeper, right?
Rebecca: Yeah. You don't get your way, so you think you can stomp your feet and scream and yell. Or try to bully. And then when called on it, you can't be honest about what you did. I'm being vague here because I know C.I. doesn't want to discuss this and wants to take the high road. But to slap down C.I. or the Common Ills community because they didn't want to come to your party is just nonsense. And I attempted to respond one on one to that nonsense and got some sort of snide remark posted about me. I haven't read it. But if you're focusing on one aspect of something that is a part of a larger issue, maybe you're the one who needs to look at yourself. And if you're only doing seven entries a week, I get seven in a good week myself, maybe the last thing you need to do is to try to slap down a community that addresses more issues than you ever do.
C.I.: I'm going to jump in here because I do appreciate what Rebecca's saying. At The Common Ills, we didn't comment on this. And just today on the phone, I had a friend telling me, "You need to comment on it!" She works for a magazine and is a private friend, so I won't out her. But her line of reasoning was that we need to defend ourselves. And I get her point. But my issue on this is that a blog fight, from two factions on the left, is the last thing anyone needs. The person wrote their feelings. The community is displeased with that, the e-mails continue to come in on that, but there are real issues to address and turning over limited time and limited space to this means we, at The Common Ills, are going to miss something else that we should be talking about. We're obviously speaking of Ron of Why Are We Back In Iraq? and I'm looking at it as he was very passionate about an issue, had pulled all nighters and would normally choose a different tactic or different wording. It happens when you're passionate about something and I don't feel that it needs to be dwelled on. I did work on a reply that I saved to draft because I wanted to avoid responding in similar terms. And I really think, today, that the whole thing was worthy of a shrug at best. Others can, and many do, feel differently.
Kat: "I guess in times like these, you know who you're friends are." Tori Amos. "Taxi Ride" from Scarlet's Walk. And I do feel that way still. I feel like a wonderful community that is concerned with so many important issues got slapped down and I'm still very upset about it.
C.I.: And this is a perfect example of how we're not playing gatekeeper because everyone here knows my feelings on the subject, how I'd prefer to avoid this entire topic, but here we are addressing it.
Jess: Well Jim's silent.
Jim: Because that made me so furious and I'm still angry over it.
[. . .]

That was one section of a roundtable dealing with a host of issues. C.I. didn't bring up it up. C.I. didn't rush to slam you. Considering your posted attack on the community, I don't know many people who, when they finally commented on it, wouldn't have attacked you back. This was the statement on what went down. C.I. was very kind to you and intended this to be the only statement. But you were enraged and screaming how unfair it was. How you were named, you who always wants to be linked and like everyone reading it wouldn't have know whom C.I. was speaking of? Though none of us knew it at the time, XYZ had already posted that C.I. was a "liar." Trust us, if we'd known that, we would have followed up C.I.'s comments by ripping into both of you.

Don't write us again. Jess doesn't need one of your head trips and that you had the nerve to charge us with homophobia while your buddy XYZ has posted sexist and potentially homophobic remarks and mocked someone with cancer is disgusting.

Rebecca tried to be nice to you last week. C.I. even linked to you twice last week to take the high road and, honestly, out of pity because other bloggers are e-mailing to laugh about you embarrassing yourself with your attacks on Atrios, people think you finally went too far, and e-mailing to laugh about your post requesting money because you lost your job, were unemployed and a month and a half behind in your rent. With all that went down and all the trouble you dropped on everyone's doorstep, C.I. still felt sorry for you and was planning to send you rent money until Rebecca found out from Elaine and told C.I. "Don't you dare after what went down."

No one knew XYZ -- that's us, that's C.I., that's the community. You brought him along, you asked for him to be linked. We think you'll understand why we don't say thank you for introducing XYZ into the circle. Then you attacked the community for not wanting to participate in one of your activities. They didn't have to participate. That was their choice. Yes, they're a huge community and you needed all the people you could get. We understand your disappointment. But it was their choice. And you posted that "How Do You Sleep?" post calling them hypocrites. Yeah, you deleted it but not before most of the community had seen it, via visits to your site or via the copy and paste e-mail that went out to the community on it by one member.

The members wanted to respond loud and immediately. It wouldn't have been pretty for you, Ron. C.I. tried to high road it and asked everyone to wait two weeks to cool off before the issue was addressed. And during that time, unbeknownst to anyone, XYZ is posting that C.I. is a liar.

You brought XYZ into the community so you bear responsibility for that. You vouced for him, that made him your responsibility.

XYZ has tried to ride this into blogger fame. It hasn't worked. Talk to some bloggers, Ron, you'll find out that the mocking of C.I.'s cancer didn't play well.

Now maybe you can be friends with someone like that. That's your choice. But don't ever write us again about how you see homophobia because we see it in XYZ, we see sexism and we see a disgustingly vile human being in someone who would choose to mock someone having cancer.

That's disgusting Ron.

With all the above, we don't really trust your judgement. We don't hate you. But that e-mail destroyed the chance that we could end up forgetting what went down.

So don't write us anymore with what you think we did wrong. Get your own house in order because while you stand with someone who mocks a cancer patient who's on chemo and sick most mornings (still is sick most mornings but getting better, we're sure much to XYZ's disappointment since XYZ probably has a million "jokes" about cancer patients), you've got no right to judge. Post about us, trash us, we don't care.

We were hoping that maybe we could move beyond this with regards to you because we know you get angry and say things you don't mean. But what happened this week with Jess was an exact copy of how you started with C.I. You started griping about things that weren't there and making baseless accusations. It really threw Jess off balance. Ty or Dona or Jim would have e-mailed back, "Fuck off." Jess reads it and thinks, "Ron's seeing this, is it valid?" We would have known better instantly, we would have known you make these baseless attacks all the time.

We're in a better place with our site and with our writing since we stopped having contact with you. Your anger fed our anger. There are things that if we did then that we wouldn't do now or that we'd do differently. But we believed your observations and thought they were straight forward. Ron, in the fairy tale, the bloggers at the looking pool, the angry people who could only look at their own reflections while cursing Kos and Atrios, that was you. That's how it was intended.

We wish you luck and we wish you peace. Rebecca e-mailed you about your anger last week and expressed serious concern over it. She offered that you could let it out with her if you had no one else. She meant that. She saw someone, and we agree, who has only one emotion, anger.

Last week, you finally got your big link but forgive us for not congratulating you on it. Michelle Malkin? Maybe she'll send some of her crowd your way. But considering your mash note to a woman who's justified the internment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII we're not real sure that the mash note was the way to for someone who wants to not only be a left blogger but question our committment to the left was the way to go.

Rebecca told you that your e-mail this week requried an apology. We checked before writing this. If there'd been one, we might have been willing to write it off as another anger episode of your's. There was no apology and you really screwed over Jess with that e-mail. Knowing how you started that with C.I. before things got really ugly, we're cutting you off now. If you write again, we won't read it. We don't have time for it.

And we don't have time for you when you're like this. XYZ wants to trash people behind their back while writing friendly e-mails. You want to get a reaction. Our only reaction is sadness because you're never going to achieve anything while you attack anyone who lets you get close.

You need to do some work on yourself to break the cycle. We wish you luck but we can't be part of your cycles. You can hurt yourself, that's your choice, but we we won't let you hurt us.
Good luck to you.