Dr. Oetker Baking Powder Invention Dispute: Tearfree has been saving this for a slow blogging day and today's it. Over at Wikipedia on Dr. Oetker's talk page, a concerned Wiki reader asks: "Did he actually invent baking powder (which Wikipedia otherwise attributes to Alfred Bird) or simply popularise it in Germany?" Please, please don't tell us that the Oetker family's billions were built on some kind of intellectual property violation.
Mummy Blogging Wars (again): Looks like Tearfree is being blamed for a Mummy Blogger's "frustration with blogging induced by a confusing comment tussle." Geez, said comment tussle was about as mild-mannered as you can get but take a look yourselves if you don't entirely trust Tearfree's judgment yet and report back on what you think. (Here is the background on Tearfree's long, complicated and inharmonious relationship with Mummy Bloggers.)
9 comments:
these women need to relax.
I can't believe Dr. Oetker would have stolen the baking powder formula. He seems like such a good guy.
Re the Mummy Bloggers. I can't believe I'm being blamed again. I was the model of politeness.
who cares. honestly. this catfight is soooooo old now. you both need to GET OVER IT! BLEH!
I'm torn AnonymASS. On the one hand, I can see your point of view. On the other hand, a lot of my readers have headed off to check this catfight out. Say what you will about catfights, they have a certain appeal.
As I never did elaborate on my 'frustration', I *suppose* that I can't blame you for imposing your own meaning onto it. There was no catfight. Get over it.
My statement about feeling frustrated about a 'tussle' had nothing to do with feeling attacked; you were indeed entirely polite. It was frustrating because our comment exchange had, to my mind, little to do with the post at hand (much of what you said repeated themes from an earlier post of mine) and that we seemed to be talking over each others' heads. It was frustrating because I couldn't figure out whether I was, in the post and in the comments, unclear or whether you were being thick. It was frustrating because I chose to not retreat to the easy conclusion that you are just stupid or myopic, and so had to consider whether my own communication was lacking. That led to some self-reflection that, combined with heat and illness, gave me a headache. That's all. Nothing more.
My conclusion now, however, is that my communication was not lacking. You read into things what you want to read into things, and you take it from there. Not so conducive to dialogue.
But, hey, if I gave you some blog fodder, great. Glad to help.
Aaaargh. Ok, here it is in a nutshell, HBM .You are constantly going on about civility and the evil of blogtards, bla, bla, bla. But you're quite happy to be uncivil (fight dirty) yourself or revel in the incivility of others around you -- defending it as “honest zeal and righteous indignation” (thanks JSM) -- as long as you share that same opinion.
That's why I think your whole "fight like a girl" post was highly problematic.
What you're really against -- as I said in my very first comment on that post -- is arguments you don't like, which you unilaterally deem "extreme" or "polarizing" or “demonizing.” But take a look at the commenters on my Mummy Wars post, many of whom don't find Flanagan or Hirshman extreme at all and don't get what's got some women so exorcized.
http://byekoolaidmoms.blogspot.com/2006/07/mummy-wars.html
I’ll let our readers decide if I’m “stupid,” “myopic” or “thick” and if it isn’t just a little too convenient that when someone disagrees with you, they’re a demonizer, polarizer or extremist.
Aargh right back at you. The whole point of that post was to figure out the space between civility and 'fighting dirty,' to work out the contradictions, if there were any. That post had nothing to do with me being 'against' arguments that I disagree with (I don't even know how to make sense of that); it was about how I treat arguments that I disagree with, and whether and why I treat arguments from 'talking heads' like Hirshman et. al. and bloggers differently.
And - I took pains in that post to explain that even though I disagree with Hirshman (as I do Flanaga, tho' those were not the posts under discussion), I felt it important to take her ideas seriously and approach them carefully, rather than simply smack them down.
But again - WASN'T THE POINT. The post was about unpacking norms of civility and considering when, why and how we (women, bloggers, whomever) take the gloves off.
But you don't seem to have gotten that (still) and that was and is what caused/causes the headache. Are you not listening, or am I not speaking clearly? You constantly seem to be referring to arguments that I am not making and have not made. So I don't know what it is that you're reading, or if you are just imposing your own shit onto the words that you see on my page.
And, and... I really don't know who you're quoting on 'righteous indignation' or what is or is not 'polarizing' but it's not me. I've never, ever said or suggested that anyone who disagrees with me is an extremist.
Big sigh.
OK, I'm off on vacation so I'm dropping this, which should make anonymASS happy.
Be sure to spread the word about RTK at Blogher.
All is forgiven.
Post a Comment