Thursday, February 10, 2005
War war war!
Labna Takruri of the blasphemous World and Us has attempted to strike at the heart of our uprising by writing an e-mail of complaint. I'd love to publish it here, but it's really, really, really long. I'll just excerpt out of context and respond.
Dear Beetle,
The outright lie of even the salutation should be enough to dismiss this creature from our minds. There is, I gather, nothing about me that Takruri finds dear.
What exactly is the point of your flame war upon an experimental blog that comes out of an academic setting? In your 'war' post you overtly state your intent of an unnecessary warpath. Why?
Because, unlike certain enemies, I believe in honesty. Technically, I never said the warpath was unnecessary. If you think I'm just being finicky, it is only a defense in response to equally technical defenses of Takruri's comments. Further, Takruri callously tosses around words like "flame war" which have real meanings. Flame wars occur in online forums, and the suffering of those innocents unfortunately caught in flame wars is cheapened by Takruri's nonchalant use of the term in blog warfare.
Blogs escape any definition or single purpose and are dynamic and individual ways to approach topical materials. When I refer to an article I find, I say what I read into it. I have license to do so, doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong or how you or others see it.
Indeed it doesn't. As I have license to declare a jihad against World and Us's blasphemy. This foolish notion of total acceptance only furthers our decline towards a decadent LiveJournal community.
I also was not "whining" about what the Cal Patriots wrote at all - just stating it.
Whines are statements. Stating something is often a form of whining, as this post demostrates. Further, "the Cal Patriots" is a poor designation, and continues to demean and taunt various California football fans who had no team to cheer for this season. It is the duty of all of us bloggers to protect our fellow statesmen and stateswomen from Takruri's derision.
How can you rant about your problems with the way I state or interpret things when your interpretation is all wrong?
I respond: How can you rant about your problems with the way I state or interpret things when your interpretation is all wrong?
I don't have any agenda involving making the world look like it hates the United States. What would I gain by doing so?
Come, now, this is academia. We aren't into doing things for personal gain. What do I have to gain by defending poor flame war victims, despondent football fans, and the local blogsphere? Nothing.
Not only that, but your wishes of "jihad" and silencing the blog go beyond any ethical line-crossing our blog may have committed in your view. You are suddenly the master and keeper of local blogging and you can decide what is and is not acceptable?
Yes.
And does "worldandus" have all of Berkeley's cyberspace in our evil clutches because of the topic on which we choose to blog? And you must free them from us? I hardly think there is such constriction upon how many blogs there can be within a geographical space and you need to eliminate us for everyone else to exist.
Now the enemy is merely trying to trivialize our cause. A blogsphere is not a physical space. It is a concept. It is a group of blogs tied together by a topic and by an approach to that topic. World and Us has no place in this Berkeley blogsphere. It is tainted. For it to now try to bring its taint into our blogsphere, we are left with no choice but to fight for our way of life.
Specifically my quote: "Indeed, here is another example of the conservative American right tooting the horn of so-called 'anti-Americanism." What is there about this to disagree with? Bill O'Reilly and Fox News made a WHOLE PROGRAM about anti-americanism. So, then, my comments were not inaccurate. From where were the words anti-americanism emanating in this particular instance? From Fox News. So how was I wrong? I wasn't - just calling it like I see it, with some of my own personal spice.
Technical accuracy does not justify all tones, especially in the context of academic discourse. By dismissing anti-Americanism as "so-called," by referring to it as something invented by some fringe group, "the conservative American right" (more adjectives implies more fringiness), comments such as this put a damper on free academic discourse. Stop, and consider what other words could have been used, and what other tones could be used, while still giving the same amount of information.
And to say that that this mistake (impopular) will warrant some punishment upon us if we ever mock Bush's malapropisms is further testament to your unnecessarily malicious intentions.
I don't remember that one. Perhaps she is referring to the comment by Apeneck Sweeney, a fellow believer. Her refusal to distinguish between various critics is just more evidence of the infidel's attempt to dehumanize us. We must not stand for it. We must fight such disrespect.
What I'd really like to know is why malice must be involved when your efforts could be diverted to constructive criticism or even support for this blog's immenent growth.
We have no desire to promote the growth of such vile, victim-demeaning entities. It must be dismantled for a new, truer, more just entity to rise in its place.
There was also some complaining about how I mocked Najla Benmbarek for her poor English, but the last line of Takruri's e-mail was (after the sig):
“Let each man exercise the art he knows" --Aristophanes
It probably has some real meaning, but I feel like interpreting it to mean don't do things when you don't know what you're doing, because that's most convenient for my point.
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