Beloved mother, wife, grandmother, great-grandmother.

She was an anchor in my life. A hard worker. A working woman who had to take over providing for her family at a time most didn't. Proud. Strong. A giver of gifts, a naturally lucky woman. She liked to play lotto and play bingo and she won quite a bit at both, then handed it over to her children. A patient teacher. A fun seeker. A woman without much education but a wealth of common sense. A giving woman who took care of us all. Even when she couldn't take care of herself.

I can't imagine the changes she saw in her lifetime. I see her in this photo, an awkward bride of 16. She taught me much about myth and my gypsy heritage. About sacrifice and rewards. About heartbreak and the love that can overcome it.

My life. My world got darker today.

God Bless you Baba. I will always, always remember you.

This morning I found a rather peevish post by artappraiser denouncing the recent troll roasting of Fred Dobbs.

I'm afraid I really must take issue with the following statement:

Meanwhile, what could have been a very good thread for the TPMCafe archive has been ruined; the only links to it may end up being another example of "troll feeding" for some internet forum primer. It's no wonder main contributors in the Book Club tend to talk to each other in posts and seem loathe to jump into the comments.

Now considering those of us that amused ourselves at Freds expense 1.) are not long-time frequent posters, indeed most are fairly recent contributors, and 2.) never encountered a troll anywhere on TPM before, it strikes me as particularly disingenuous and silly to blame the lack of response from "main contributors" on any of us. I'd suggest that the reason for that could be the lack of any contentious debate, but I really wouldn't know. It seems to me the few times I have seen a "main contributor" moved to respond to a comment, it is due to the contentious nature of those comments they are responding to.

As for the food fight that resulted from "feeding the troll" I will agree it's not really up to TPM Cafe standards, but I also wonder if the response had been merely to allow these trolls to make their silly comments without a hard response, that it wouldn't have encouraged more of them to stick around and be disruptive.

Given the nature of these Trolls, (cowardly at best,) it seems to me the proper response is to fight fire with fire and discourage them from sticking around. Most of them prefer environments were they can congregate and reinforce each others nonsense.

There is a case to be made that they are also motivated to "shut down discussion boards" by invading in large numbers and hijacking the conversation. It happened at CNN, CSPAN, Salon, and Atlantic. The former two closed, the latter became pay to play.

I'd hate to see that happen here.

So my question to artappraiser, and others here, is what type of strategy do you want to employ here? I'd prefer thoughtful comments to knee-jerk reactions, so please think it over. I'll happily abide by whatever the consensus is.

Thanks.

Once upon a time there were two men, Bill and Bob, living in the Southwestern United States. Bill decided to open up an Inn with his modest savings and hired his family to help run the place. They offered modest accomodations to other hard working American Families and made a modest living at it. Bob got a Loan from his Dad the Banker and opened up Bob's Swanky Hotel, offering unprecidented luxury to other bankers and Oil Company American Families and others that could afford to pay for the best.

As the area was a beauty spot both establishments were popular with their respective clientele.

Bill and his family worked hard and managed a modest income and were content. Bob liked to hobnob with his wealthy guests and although he made a comfortable living, he decided he wanted to be one of the swanky folk that frequented his establishment, so he began to look at ways to increase his personal profit.

He fired all his American Labor and brought in a Mexican staff to do the work. Aside from the difference in wages, Bob also got the benefit of not paying payroll taxes and lied to the government about his real profit and loss. He didn't put up with complaints from his staff. He'd just go across the Border and replace any who dared question their status and wages.

One young woman he hired was pregnant, when it became obvious he replaced her and told her to go home.

Alone and indisposed the woman walked toward home and fainted within sight of Bill over at his Inn. He put her in a room, called a doctor, and after the baby was born, he hired the woman to help at the Inn and got her a Green Card so she could stay with her baby and eventually become a citizen.

The woman, delighted with the kindness and generousity of her childs rightful country called all her relatives in Mexico. They came and lived with her at Bill's motel, and worked for Bob up at the swanky Inn for slave wages.

Now Bill was starting to have financial problems, in order to accomdate the woman and her family, he was losing the use of a few rooms which ate up his modest profit.

He went to visit Bob to see if he would at least get the relatives Green Cards so that they could work legally and get better wages and move out of his Inn.

Bob, enjoying a large profit and not interested in giving any up laughed in Bill's face.

Bill filed Chapter 11 and went to work at WalMart. The woman lost her sponser, and so was deported along with her relatives, the child was put in foster care.

Bob replaced his illegal Mexican workers with Illegal Guatamalen workers because they worked even cheaper.

The End.