Holy Buck, Fatman!

It seems the assholeosphere has been leading the attack on the young boy who delivered the Democratic radio address concerning SCHIP and it’s benefits to a family struggling to make ends meet. The wingnuts got all up in arms about a family taking a *gasp* government handout that they went as far as to post the Frosts address on the website. This led Michelle Malkin to take a drive over to check out the neighborhood of Butchers Hill and come back with a report for her hordes. Quoth MM:

Why did I take the time to go to Baltimore? Because bloggers raised questions about the Frosts’ financial situation and made specific reference to these pieces of real estate. I did not “harass” the Frosts. I simply reported what the tenant told me and described what I saw after driving by their home. My basic reporting rebutted some impressions left by other bloggers on the right who haven’t been to these sites and assumed they were high-end luxury properties. They’re not. Moreover, I corrected the mistake that some of these bloggers made in overvaluing the house at $400,000-plus. It’s closer to $300,000.

Well, Miss Malkin, you have ventured into *MY* neighborhood and now it’s personal. MM wanted to see Butchers Hill/Fells Point for herself. Well, she failed to talk to some MORE residents.

What the wingnutosphere forgets to mention is that the Frosts bought their home in 1990 for $55,000. According to the Baltimore Sun. What they ALSO forget is how the the Mess that Greenspan Made has given way to inflated prices, which gave way to inflated property tax assessments in 2006. Although the State of Maryland has agreed to revalue certain assessments that were appealed, most in my neighborhood were denied. I was, and I suspect the Frost’s were, too. Butchers Hill and Fells Point are the cash cow of Baltimore city. To reassess us would be denying themselves much needed funding in a city striggling to attract more homeowners among a growing crime problem.

The right has also failed to acknowledge the stagnant–even decline in median income for the City of Baltimore. I know this to be fairly true simply because I cannot work in Baltimore City and draw a salary that will pay my mortgage. I have no choice but to commute two hours a day to make a living wage and to keep my home. I suspect that being away from her children is not an option for Mrs. Frost. I have one child and must chose between a long commute or a job near home. To keep my home, I commute. My husband works in the neighborhood. To be fair, I only have one child–and she is a teenager.

The Right also failed to acknowledge the rising cost of energy. Of course, no one wants to mention that in order to heat your home, you should set aside 5-600$ a month just to be safe. I conserve as much as possible, installed timers on the Thermostat, installed energy saving lights and kept them off as much as I could. My electric bill *STILL* went up. I suspect the Frosts pay a bit more. Their house is slightly larger then my own.

And finally, healthcare. I know a little something about this. A short time ago, I was a contractor as explained here. because my services were contracted, I was elgible to purchase a policy as a small business owner. It was priced at $1200 for one plus a child—in 2003. I had a choice: Starve or pay for healthcare. I shouldn’t have had to make such a choice!

The truth is this: NO ONE WANTS TO REMAIN POOR! The fact that the Frosts took advantage of MCHIP shouldn’t be the big issue. What needs to be addressed is the rising cost of living that has stagnated an otherwise vibrant business owner to the point where his only choice to save his children was to enter into the program. $55,000 a year with six children is nearly impossible these days. I tried to make it on  that with ONE child.

The Frosts should be a GOP wet dream. They’ve been married for many years, have six beautiful children, own their own home and abide by the laws of the land. They follow what many Goppers tout as the path to financial freedom: entrepreneurship. They have one fatal flaw, though. They haven’t earned the millions that most GOP supporters expect small business owners to achieve. Mr. frost has failed to grow his business at a rapid rate. The debate is about a program that helped the family in a time of dire need. Now we need to start asking some very serious questions: Middle class families are without affordable healthcare. WHY? It’s the economy STUPID!
Now, back to Ms. Malkin and the rest of her Ilk: I want you to come back to Baltimore and sit down to have a beer with me, a former MCHIP recipient, a former single mother and resident of Fells Point/Butchers Hill. I’ll show you homes that are over 400K and some that are still no more then 80K. I’ll show her what NCLB has done to Baltimore City schools and WHY the frosts chose the Park school. I’ll show her a Real Estate situation that has homes on the market for years. Hell, I’ll even chose a bar! Butts & Betty’s on the Corner of Gough and Collington. MM is pretty familiar with Collington. Why, she’s already been down that road already.

Child abuse or not?

I wouldn’t characterize it as “child abuse” when a family, struggling to make ends meet, on government assistance and already has children to GO AHEAD AND HAVE MORE—I believe it’s more selfishness, irresponsibilty and plan stupidity. Once again, VA inflammed the Mommyblogosphere with her interesting and rather harsh opinions. I may not always agree with what she has to say, but I certainly can see where she is coming from.

I’ve always maintained that government assistance is there for when you really need it. Sometimes, things don’t always go as planned and you are faced with a time in your life that assistance might be the best short term solution. However, it seems that some believe that it is now a long term solution to their stupid, selfish decisions. Having a fourth child while you can’t afford all three because you *want* one? This is what gives the entire welfare system a bad name. This is why people who really need the help while they recover from a catastrophe that throws them a giant curve ball and hits them below the belt, financially. Those who tell you that they simply “cannot get off assistance because it’s impossible!” are full of shit. And I’m calling bullshit on them right now.

Why? Because I have been there. I made a poor choice in husbands back when Short Round was born. He was an abusive assclown with a major lazy streak. I was his meal ticket and he knew it. Despite my making a shitty decision to marry a poor example of a man, I knew I had to feed my daughter. I did what I needed to do: working 70 plus hours a day, budgeting my money and doing the best I could to improve my job situation any chance I got. Anyone who was willing to give me a job, I was willing to work for them. I was going to learn a little something from anyone I could and apply that to my job search.

The Assclown I was married too was constantly pushing for me to apply for benefits. I refused. I could work, I was capable. There was NO way that I could allow myself to be on assistance when I could work. Why would I do that? Wass I protecting myself against anymore unwanted pregnancies? hell yeah. Did I have cable? No. I could barely afford heat, but I did.

I divorced the Assclown, went back to school on the “ten year ” plan, got myself a good job, landed myself a good second husband, bought a home and finally, after 12 years of struggling through what was some of the worse times in my life–I am in a good financial place. I am not, by any means, rich. Neither myself or mister fatman believe that we could afford a second child as I am here to tell you that kids get WAYY MORE EXPENSIVE as they grow up. Do we want more children? Hell NO. We’re realistic and understand that it would be a financial burden.

There are people who may argue that you can make ends meet any way when you decide to have a child. I’m here to say that I would never willingly put myself into a position that would jeopardize my new found financial stability. Nor would I decide to ruin the chances my daughter has at a decent high school education.

And, contrary to popular belief, it is possible to feed your children healthy food on a limited budget. We do it right now, local produce at the farmers market, cooking everything by hand, etc etc. It can be done. Laziness is the only excuse for those who simply don’t want to cook.

So, In the interest of beating a dead horse, I’ll have to call bullshit on a blogging whiner who says, who is paying for a high speed internet connection instead of budgeting, moving to affordable housing and getting her shit together.

I’ve been reading the book “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10,2001″

It’s a captivating read and I am just amazed why this story hasn’t been discussed more. I would assume, since the goal of involvement in Afghanistan was to bankrupt the Soviet Union, that we haven’t learned from that bit of history.
My favorite part in the book so far is on page 149. on the bottom of the page the writer tells us that President Reagan was not much of a reader. He preferred movies to those long, boring briefing memos used to keep the President up to date. This turned the worker bees at the CIA into movie editors, often producing “distilled bits of intelligence” for President Reagan to watch. Key word: Distilled.
When I read this, I nearly shit my pants. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me? I couldn’t help but envision this man that has been elevated to some kind of patriotic god status giddy over a new movie he gets to watch. It begs the question: Does our current C average leader warrant the same kind of briefings? We all know he can’t be arsed with actually reading,either. It vailidated what I had already suspected. Americans can aspire to be…….MEDIOCRE!
It’s quite obvious that mediocrity is celebrated . Just surfing through the right wing blogosphere and you can bet that you’ll find “reporters” who post vicious half truths about women bloggers who accepted work on a politcal campaign, without even calling the subjects of their attacks for comment on their “Investigative findings”. Screw it, we can just make the shit up and they will listen! These attacks were coming from people who call themselves “professional journalist”? Frightening.
Even more frightening is the memo distributed by a member of the Texas State House of Representatives touting that the earth doesn’t revolve around the sun because God said so. Warning,though: if you visit this website your brains cells might actually die. However, if you really want a brain vacation, please—go right ahead. I’m still baffled.

Americans embrace mediocrity and it leads all the way to our congress. Since when does quoting a really dumb comedian’s tagline in a seemingly important debate against a troop surge? Trashy Pop culture references are now in the congressional record. I cringed when I heard that.

Amazing. I’m just glad that I am teaching my child to use reason and critical thinking….

Stephen Colbert was on the O’Reilly Factor the other night. I wasn’t sure that O’Reilly was actually going to get the joke, but when I watched the segment, I realized he was in on it.  While I discussed it with my husband, he said something that I had to digest for a bit before I accepted it.

He said that Bill O’Reilly was the one who had the last laugh. Even though he spews some of the most ignorant and vile stuff on Television, he has the last laugh. We all know that Stephen Colbert is a parody character but has anyone entertained the thought that Bill O’Reilly is also a parody character?  He is so hated because he says the most outrageous things, yet at the same time, he is insanely popular.  I’ve begun to notice a pattern.  Sometimes, It’s not the love that make people popular, it’s the hate.

I keep tabs on some of the more entertaining sites and started to notice this on the internet as well. Violent Acres wrote a piece about  a boy “she” wronged in high school. It’s a well known fact that most teenage girls are not exactly the most experienced when it comes to romantic relationships. Most women can relate to the story and even conjure up their own “John”, despite their best efforts to forget the entire episode. The story gets crucified on digg. Why? Because her initial stories were some of the most scathing pieces. By intentionally being a meanie, she got the attention she needed and started her entries on her journey to self actualization. Despite anyone knowing if there is an ounce of truth to any of them, each one presents a journey.  Why do people hate this blogger now? VA tends to rub people the wrong way because  “she” apparently has gotten to the point that she can not give a damn about anything. And that pisses people off because they aren’t there yet.

And we have the blog war between Heaven Nose and Trainwrecks. HN was apparently successful in destroying a website that was popular because it was hated. Now, the hate has turned onto HN and they’re suddenly experiencing heightened popularity.  Trainwrecks was mean. It was hated. It was popular. HN was also mean. It is now hated. Now it is popular.

It’s obvious that being mean is what people secretly want. They want mean behavior and subsequent drama that follows. If we all didn’t secretly crave it, reality television shows and celebrity gossip would not be popular. Face the facts: we *ALL* have our guilty pleasures. We either want to watch drama or being directly involved in it. Drama is created by people being mean. Meanness sells.

This is why sites like Trainwrecks will always be reincarnated in some form. VA’s self actualized posts will go on being hated because they all pick that one part in us that we refuse to admit to. Heaven Nose will continue to crusade against meanies by–you guessed it, being mean.

The question is: Do you want to be popular and are you willing to do the things needed to gain the attention? Does the end justify the means?

Maybe…..

From The Jawa Report:

Let’s keep this thing on track. What is the real reason HN wanted TW gone?

Heaven Nose: Heaven Nose is a democracy. We had a poll up that gave our readers the choice between a passive approach or an aggressive Machiavellistic approach. They chose the latter which meant they were willing to fight fire with fire. The goal justified the means. It wouldn’t be the first time in history that such a drastic deed was needed to make this world a better place.The trainwreck site claimed that they just posted information up about a blog and were not responsible nor did they condone it if their readers went to harass that blogger. So in turn,when someone posted their personal information in our comment section, we just left it there and are not responsible for what our readers may have done with it. A lot of people’s confidence was undermined by Trainwrecks

Let me ask readers this question: If alot of people’s confidence was undermined by TW, then what if someone surfs to their site, and leaves a comment that isn’t very nice? Are we turning into a culture of people who cannot take criticism and lash out when someone disagrees with our opinion? Will someone write a review of another blog that is less then glowing and, since Heaven Nose has set the standard on taking on people who are deemed “mean”, what is stopping others from entertaining the same tactics on their own blog? The argument is not about petty flame wars on the internet. It’s about Net Etiquette and responsibilty.
Name, Address and Phone number are not “private” information since it can be published in the phone book. However, being party to passive encouragement of harrassment is the real problem. It was the responsibilty of the blog owner to understand that personal information was posted on their blog and the blog owner should have taken action to immediately distance themselves. A disclaimer, perhaps. “We do not condone directly contacting…” ect etc…
The difference between TW’s claim and HN’s explaination of it is TW posted information about a blog, not the owner.

It can also be argued that HN’s crusade against people they deem “mean” can be misinterpreted and used against people who aren’t really “mean” persay, they just have a different opinion. If we all started doing this blogs would be taken down everyday.
But Why? WHY was it so important for HN to actively take down a website they didn’t agree with? Why? There is something deeper, as I stated before. It makes me wonder what kind of people are actually behind HN. Someone has a problem with self esteem and when they read anything with a less then glowing review of their content, they are probably found in the bathroom crying.
The internet allows anyone to publish anything. It’s not a therapy group and there are no rules saying that anyone has to be nice. There are rules–Laws, infact, that state that being a party to harrassment is a big no no. Who was wrong? A bunch of bored at work people snarking on the internet or a bunch of angry people who passively encouraged harrassment outside of the internet?
And GOOD GOD. Whomever is behind Jawa Report: you are HEARBY STRIPPED of your status of “Star Wars Geek” for wayyy to much republicanism. Ewww.

Trainwrecks.net has bitten the dust

Heaven Nose is taking a lot of the credit
Now, let the conjecture begin.

I was a trainwrecks reader. It was snark. The bloggers who were trainwrecked were done because they chose to publicly discuss their problems with anyone who had an internet access. Sometimes, the content published was found by some to be TMI, a little over the top, or WTF? In short, a few people who shared opinions were brought together because of their voyerism.

Trainwrecked sites were both loved and hated. That’s what happens on the internets. You are loved and hated. You get nice comments and bad ones. If you can’t handle the bad ones, you have a “members only” blog, “Comments Moderated” blog, or just no comments accepted at all. Sometimes, you are hated so much that that someone might start a “Troll Blog” and you can either fight back, ignore or delete your blog and lick your wounds in the corner.

The Trainwreck admins decided that ignoring the exsistance of Heaven Nose was the high road. The people at Heaven Nose obviously didn’t like that, so they ramped it up. Allegedly, Heaven Nosers had somehow mined the personal data of the Trainwrecks admins and published it, actively encouraging harrassment by e mailing this information to trainwrecked victims.

Any normal person can see that the biggest trainwreck of all is Heaven Nose.

If it truly was a Blog review/satire site then trainwrecks would have gotten a post, some comments and the blogger/bloggers would have moved on. No, Heaven Nose was much more. Heaven Nose and it’s creators, posters and everything else had a personal vendetta against trainwrecks. The posts make that plainly obvious. They were obvious trainwrecked victims and they lashed out in the most juvenile of ways. Ladies and gentleman, the common Troll, v2.0: The Troll Blog.

The Heaven Nose Bloggers seemed desperate to be the snark masters of the internet. They started a “blog review” site turned troll blog . Here is the funny thing, if you take a look at the comments over at the Zero Boss, You’ll see a few comments with a bunch of blackslashes from a commenter who, other then masking herself (it’s obvious that HN is a women. Who else would react so violently?) as several commenters, defends heaven nose taking down Trainwrecks as “Those meanies were mean and could potenially cause someone to be passed over for a job!” Really? if you were featured on Trainwrecks, chances are you would be passed over for a job before a potential employer even had a chance to google you.
So, who asked the self proclaimed superheros of the blogosphere to act on behalf of those profiled on Trainwrecks? The entire time I read Trainwrecks, i never once saw the admins encourage flaming trainwrecked blogs, stalking, trolling or anything beyond a few comments ON THE TRAINWRECKS SITE and some humorous discussion following. If a victim wanted to defend themselves on trainwrecks, they weren’t blocked or censored. If a commenter on trainwrecks got out of hand, The admins were quick to delete and/or deliver a smackdown. The only thing that was hurt was the precious ego of a few bloggers. Did they have it coming? That’s subjective.

This entire thing raises the question of ‘net ethics. This is, of course, the United States and we do have freedom of expression. I have the right to say that your blog sucks. Anything past that starts to become a bit creepy. Is it ethical to actively engage in tactics that intentially harass people? No. The Heaven Nose crew (or person) crossed the line by intentially e mailing personal information to persons featured on trainwrecks. Although they claim to be from a different country, I’m not buying that argument . I suspect a few vitcims of trainwrecks are potentially behind this. The posts are too personal and to angry not to have been a widely discussed trainwreck of some sort. The magic of the internet is that you can be anyone you want in the fourth demension we call cyberspace. If you have a geek friend with some knowledge, you have ways to mask yourself. If you have a laptop, you have a public IP in any coffee house.
Can saying someone’s blog sucks and discussing it with other people who share the same opinion constitute as harassment? Not in the least. It’s within my right to say that I hate someones blog anywhere on the internet, where it doesn’t violate the websites terms of serivce. It’s not my right to intentionally violate that persons privacy and publish their personal information. It’s not funny, witty, intelligent or clever. Crossing a line from an opinion holder to a stalker is insane. Anyone who condones such behavior is a fucking trainwreck, plain and simple. Again, I never once saw the admins of Trainwrecks condone harrassment. Having an opinion on a blog/open forum is not harrassment.
Lastly, telling people that you don’t care about a site that you exclusively started a troll blog for? Puhhleasse. This is yet another clue telling me that the heaven nose is not some liberating superhero armchair warrior, but a bruised blogger who had no life.

a little snarky corner of the internet has gone bye bye and it’s a damn shame. Sure, some people might not agree with ripping certain websites apart but that is why we can chose not to click on certain sites. Trainwrecks will eventually be reincarnated by someone else. I hope all the regulars find its return in whatever form that might be.