I respectfully disagree with you. The message was clear: If an unrelated third party triggers someone’s PTSD I am neither required to care or to act. That was what she wrote; that’s what I responded to. I disagree with her and I disagree with you.

Disagreement is not condemnation, nor is it judgment. It is simply a different perspective on the same topic or issue.

I’m truly at a loss here, since I’m pretty much by myself, online and off.

Of course you removed Jeneane’s words from context. You removed a phrase from a post of a warm and obviously hurting/unwell woman … as if it weren’t a phrase that people use everyday …And you took it, instead, as her Universal Statement, and ran with it.

I would say a good 99% of the bloggers who’ve played judge and jury over all this have no idea how wrong or without facts they are. But this is one sleeping dog we oughtta all let lie!

Zo

Excuse me, but it wasn’t removed from context and more to the point, “I don’t give a shit” was posted on a public blog that invited: a) comments; b) trackbacks; and c) pingbacks in a very public conversation that involves a larger issue than the people involved in this very public altercation. That’s who the fuck asked me.

Of course, if you’d bothered to read anything posted here before pronouncing judgment you’d likely have figured out that links are not something I worry about.

If you don’t like it don’t read it. Right? Isn’t that the mantra of your group? Ignore the shit, plow right through it?

Bert? Give it a rest. Truly. Kindly meant: give it all–including yourself–the gift of time.

Zo

(oh sorry you may not know tara emailed me saying kathy was planning a ’sexual harrassment suit)

I emailed a plea to Jeneane to talk to her friends (as I think she may have influence over them) and said there were a few of us gathering evidence for a “potential sexual harassment suit”. Not Kathy. Actually, as much as we urged Kathy, she didn’t. We still have the records, though.

I normally don’t spend a lot of time in the “blogosphere” but recently I have
been forced to : ) I have to say that you have made several posts in the last
few weeks that have really stood out, in a positive way.

Thanks,

Bert

I don’t know either one of you beyond what I read on your blogs and what others say. Jeneane, when this whole thing blew up I spent about four hours on your blog, going back to the early days and reading through to the present. Not every post, but I tried to hit on enough of them to have a sense of who you are, what you care about, and how it could come to pass that your name was associated with all of this.

I think I have a fairly good idea of where you’re coming from, and I’m certainly not oblivious to the fact that you’ve been ill and hospitalized during a substantial part of this.

I also know that whatever association you had was with the MeanKids site and not the one following, at least from what I’ve been able to discern from the incomplete Google cache, your own blog, and what you and others have said.

What compelled me to respond to your post and point number three was this: If we decide we don’t need to give a shit (whether on the sidewalk or the internet or our own backyard or our kids’ schools), then I believe we’re at least passively complicit. This has been my biggest criticism of the whole idea of the meankids.org site — that the purpose for which it was originally created went off-track, and everyone stood back and said ‘it wasn’t me, I didn’t write it’ while the train wreck barreled down the track taking lots of bystanders with it.

It could be that your own circumstances dictated that you couldn’t really give it any attention. That’s different. That I could understand, given the proximity of your hospitalization to the series of events that led things to where they are now. But that’s not how I read your post, which is what led to the response.

In my perfect world, the real culprit would be identified and dealt with. It bothers me that on both sides of the debate there is so much aligning behind people and personalities instead of looking at the real issues that brought this to the fore.

I don’t believe Kathy Sierra (who I don’t know either beyond reading her blog and liking her posts) came out and posted what she did because she felt like being mean and taking a few high-profile bloggers out in the process. I do think her reaction was genuine (just as I believe yours to be) and real. I have walked in her shoes a couple of times and there comes a point where you feel like there is no option but to just come out with what’s going on before descending to the bunker. It’s her perception of the situation and she’s entitled, just as you are.

Yet, the so-called blogstorm centered around personalities instead of issues, with people lining up behind friends, friends of friends, and they made it personal. At this point it’s like sound caught in an echo chamber, gaining intensity with each bounce off the next wall but always saying the same thing.

Hopefully there will be a point where reconciliation (or at least a cease-fire) of personality can happen and the larger issues can be addressed without sheriffs’ badges and a couple of virtual AK-47s.

Regards to you both.

My thanks, Bert

Jeneane,

Where can we have this conversation? email? your blog?