Fixed link to Genghis' comment.

Posted at July 23, 2008 6:07 PM in response to Real, Fake and Both.

(12) I have helped change that. There is some new appreciation of new people, and giving them a break. Loosening up the insider control of this place was one of my goals. And continues to be.

So which is it you always wanted to be? Svengali, Rasputin, or B.F. Skinner?

I find this ridiculously offensive, sounds awful pretentious, arrogant and manipulative to me You're the puppet master and this is your theatre, the other members all subjects you'd like to bend to your vision of this place?

Did it ever occur to you that this is not your website and perhaps a more grownup way of doing what you want to do is to start your own rather than playing with someone else's like it is a lab experiment? And to simply be straightforward at your own website and ban behavior you don't want, set up the family, society, whatever you apparently crave creating. Instead of seeking out someone else's audience and then using them to experiment like they are rats.

Simply unbelievable that you are so bold about it. The irony is you think so highly of your own content production, referring to that of others as "crapspeak." Well, did it ever occur to you that more than a few of your readers might agree with Genghis' characterization here. I thought that was spot on. Your shtick is easily labeled and it's not as hot as you think; matter of fact, you often write like a silly parody of a boomer by a Gen X er. Quit the high and mighty crap yourself, you are so full of it. Every other person commenting on this thread has put forth an intent in one way or another to use this site in good faith; you are the only one who isn't, you purposely admit to wanting to manipulate it. A naturally formed clique or gang is one thing, someone coming in with pretenses to being an all powerful manipulator of other members is another.

Posted at July 23, 2008 5:57 PM in response to Real, Fake and Both.

romanticizes

Don't know how specifically you're applying this term, but I do apply it specifically in that you can find often find many echoes of many of the themes in the Romantics' noble savage myth in many Revisionist histories of the later 20th century.

There's denigration of "the other," and then there's the flip side, hero worship of "the other," stemming from dissatifaction with your own society. Neither get you attempting accuracy and both suffer from mindsets similar to racism.

Back to topic: so someone like Diamond selling nuance and "outside the box" becoming a best seller was great news for the history trade.

Posted at July 23, 2008 2:39 PM in response to Guns, Germs, and Steel

Um, the whole thing is conveniently located in a link right above the box you typed your comment into. The link is labeled Comment Policy, and it's in red, yesiree it's right there above the place where you started typing your comment. It does address several of those things, though nothing about paid advocacy, and I believe you can be as repetitive as you like if you can take the blowback.

In addition, it clearly says all political points of view are welcome, which is why I posted it in a blog post a few weeks back, as reading that convinced me that hardly anyone here has read it.

Also when you click on "Blog Now" you get instructions which include a link reminding you of the terms of use you agreed to when you became a member here. Those are all the legal mumbo jumbo.

In my experience as a long-time member here, management has little interest in Reader Blog threads and basically lets anything happen and never enforce anything there. They have stepped in erratically when stuff happens in Contributor blog threads, to enforce the various things said in the "comments policy" link. (And that includes banning; people have been banned for behavior on Contributor threads.)

Posted at July 23, 2008 3:19 AM in response to How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The TPM Trolls

Just a minor point to add to your laundry list collection.

Did you notice that the recent Jibjab video satire of the election, which was widely played on the cable news shows, and which several people here on TPMCafe cited as a preferable form of election humor/satire on threads about the New Yorker cover, depicted Obama as Dowd's "Obambi?" People who haven't seen the Disney movie Bambi might not recognize it, but the scene of him leaping through and over a pretty sunshine and flowers landscape with all kinds of other critters surrounding, was defniitely citing Bambi. They even gave him a Bambi-like body form.

So it's definitely a sticky meme. I'm not so sure it's a total negative, though. Americans might be ready for a nice Bambi. (Especially when you throw it into the hopper of race issues like you are doing.) Heck, keep in mind even both Bush's went for the "kinder, gentler" brand. And if you think on it, W never really saber rattled like a kinda scary growly Cheney type guy, he tries to do it more like Reagan would. Bambi himself, if I remember his character correctly, is not an elitist--after all, he's just a kid-- he is a charmer, and good and fair and true, and yes, maybe naive, a sunny optimist.

Ignore the naysayers and keep posting on this kind of thing if it interests you, because you've got at least one interested reader in this.

Posted at July 23, 2008 12:01 AM in response to Man Crush: the Bitchification of Barack Obama

to go right to the Pravda piece,

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/18-07-2008/105821-george_laura_bush_divorce-0

my highlighting:

Many US tabloids have been flooded with rumors of George W. Bush’s family misfortunes recently. The latest gossip is about George and Laura Bush to divorce after November elections. George and Laura Bush to divorce after election because of Condi Rice?

Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper wrote with reference to The National Examiner tabloid that George and Laura Bush were planning a divorce after the presidential election in the USA.

According to the supermarket tabloid, George and Laura Bush hardly ever speak to each other. George feels very unhappy and does not want Laura to leave him. However, the newspaper wrote, Laura is tired of everything....

I don't see how anyone could characterize that as "The Russian news agency Pravda reports." It's fully and clearly laid out that not a single part of the story comes from them, and clearly written as a fun puff piece about what gossip is being put out by an American tabloid. It might be that they were short on Russian oligarch gossip this week.

Posted at July 22, 2008 11:27 PM in response to GWB to Divorce over Drunkenness and Infidelity

It IS a single source, The Examiner. No other source, just repetition of The Examiner's story if you actually read the Pravda piece. They are not "reporting" anything here, just repeating third hand. See my comment downthread.

Posted at July 22, 2008 11:17 PM in response to GWB to Divorce over Drunkenness and Infidelity

I agree that the story is a hoot in a fun gossip sort of way so I followed your links.

Your first line

The Russian news agency Pravda reports that George W. and Laura Bush will divorce after the upcoming 2008 elections

is quite incorrect.

They don't do that at all. The Pravda piece is reporting that this gossip is in the U.S. supermarket tabloid The Examiner. Not only that, but they report that third hand, they say they read about the Examiner piece in Italy’s La Repubblica, which was reporting what was said in The Examiner piece

Bascially what you have here is a story in Italy and Russia that says "guess what the hot gossip is in those zany American tabloids this week?! We tell you so you don't have to fly to an American supermarket to buy them."

Let me put it this way: American bloggers like to complain about the stupidity of the American public as in how they only care about what Paris Hilton and O.J. Simpson is up to. Well, the overall Italian and Russian public? Not soooo very much different; mho, in many ways, worse. Tabloid style "news" is very popular in both countries.

Posted at July 22, 2008 11:14 PM in response to GWB to Divorce over Drunkenness and Infidelity

Yes, and I believe Mr. Hartung is arguing that the New York Times should try to manipulate and affect the reality of news of the world by refusing to print a guest op-ed like this one, that they should take some advocacy responsibility in that regard. But they do do advocacy, just not with guest op-eds. That's what their own edtorial board editorials are for. Guest op-eds are there to inform the readers what movers and shakers are thinking, even if the reader considers that opinion horrible. They actually do try to affect world events with their own editorials...of course, few care about those. It's always been very clear to me that for decades, the guest op-eds are on a very news-oriented basis of "what movers and shakers are thinking," regardless of what that is. It's an adjunct, a branch of news gathering.

Posted at July 22, 2008 10:45 PM in response to Benny Morris, the Times, and Iran

Thank you.

And regarding the "perhaps arrogantly," I believe that this is not the case in this case, as all parties involved know how to work the international print media like a chess board, and yes, that includes the Iranian mullahs.

Posted at July 22, 2008 10:36 PM in response to Benny Morris, the Times, and Iran