Comparable objection to the "editorial" tendencies of Jennifer Deseo over at Silver Spring Penguin have been voiced:
It’s funny that the moderator relishes setting out the rules for everyone, but seems unable to follow them herself. You just told Eric not to make any personal swipes and go on to call him a troll.
Generally, I really like this blog, but this whole gestapo approach might be putting a little damper on the free speech thing. Just a thought. Peace. (ThayerD, Feb 13, 2009)
But we must give "props" to Jennifer Deseo for providing this link to the memo from County Executive Isiah "Ike" Leggett to Chief of Police J. Thomas Manger outlining changes in policy for checking immigration status of certain criminal-offender suspects
Still, all of this "house organ" and "astroturfing" (astroturf is fake "grassroots") going around in the Montgomery County blogspace, one has to wonder who has any integrity left around here. Oh, there's me, but I assure you it's all self-serving, though in general the best interests of Montgomery are also my best self-interest; I do live here, ya know. Other than me, there's the most-excellent and deeply possessed of integrity blog of Dan Reed at Just Up the Pike and various others, notably Life in Scenic Wheaton and the new, and sparsely populated, blog of Sleepless in Slumburbia.
The thing is, I tend to be all over the map (and the blogosphere) with my commenting and postings, and "Just Up the Pike" is pretty much on-point as an Urban Planning and Revitalization blog with a focus on District 4 and everything along US-29 ("Columbia Pike"). "Life in Scenic Wheaton" is more about life, and the life is lived in Wheaton, but it's more about life than about Wheaton. Given the writer's ability to focus in on things, it's probably better for Wheaton that the author hasn't given full scrutiny and focus to Wheaton because Wheaton might find itself forced into a level of introspection and self-reconstruction that could, I dunno, make it a much better place. "Sleepless in Slumburbia" doesn't quite bring the focus down to neighborhood problems near the intersection of Randolph and Veirs Mill Roads, possibly because some things you can't look at without wanting to just run around screaming "what were they thinking when they let it come to this". I'd run around screaming here in Aspen Hill except that there are people here who get very controllingly psychotic when you run around screaming about how controllingly psychotic they are, and considering that there is an unfortunately large segment of the population here that likes to play with weapons, you almost can't blame the controllingly psychotic folks unless they start being less self-controlling, and more psychotic. Anyone not quite getting the references should try reading award-winning author Philip K Dick's seminal novel, "Clans of the Alphane Moon".
4 comments:
“…and the new, and sparsely populated, blog of Sleepless in Slumburbia.”
Hey hey, now, Hardman. Being a tortured soul is a weighty $ICONIC_SYMBOL to bear.
At any given time I am working on about five potential posts concurrently.
Subjects include bipolar disorder, G/T & magnet program culture, Facebook and its relationship to narcissistic Gen X and Y culture, theocracy in Maryland, and just plain semi-coherent nonsense that zings around in seven different directions.
Which of these things would pique your interest, by the way, as you are likely my most loyal reader? Hell, you probably know more about me than my spouse does at this point.
Unfortunately many of these drafts fester and ferment and otherwise don’t make it up there in a timely fashion.
I like to blame my overzealous English teachers as well as the bipolarity brain circus here. My mood has been thrashing around rather violently as of late.
Theocracy in Maryland! Now that's a worthy subject. Other than to attend civic-group meetings at church facilities (or wandering in incidental to something completely non-religious, I haven't been inside of one in probably 30 years. I keep telling people that I'm non-gregarious and they keep not getting it. "Congregation" is about the exact opposite of "non-gregarious", and the idea of sitting in a crowd so that I can pay to be told what to believe strikes a note of horror deep into my soul.
If you can write a nice article that explains "mega-churches" in a way that doesn't deepen that note of horror, my hat's off to you.
G/T & magnet program culture? G/T being sort of like GLBT? I think that Dan Reed over at JUTP has a fairly good article on that.
And if you're just zinging around, that's really natural at this time of year. If your body is in tune with the seasons, and you're northern-euro in ancestry, this is the season when you're supposed to be sorting out your seeds for planting and making sure your tools are all in order.
As for me, I probably need to trot out to the Arts and Crafts store and get some yarn for bird nests -- the robins are back in force, if clearly a bit early -- and maybe some other stuff along those lines of celebrating the return of the green seasons.
I wrote a very long response to this but I decided that it was too damaged to post here. It sure was brutally honest, though.
Angry? Agitated? Down in the dumps and feeling like crap?
Just visit your local fast-food store and the invaders behind the counter will cheerfully dose the living shit out of your food!
And it doesn't even cost you extra!
When you're so doped up that you start wanting to vote for a Montgomery Party Machine Democrat once again, they'll know you're drugged enough to do as you're told, hell, they won't have to tell you anything, they can just make Suggestions to the Suggestible.
Dissidence is Dopable.
And don't forget to eat out at Fastfood's the night before voting day, they'll double dose you so that you can sleep in all day and contribute to the low turnout! Unless, of course, you are declared to be voting for their candidate, in which case they'll give you a free bag of Methburgers so you can vote early, vote often, and harangue everyone you think will listen and have endless energy to shout down over everyone you can't censor.
Well, I'm feeling a little politically active today, which means it's time for Wendy's On the Pike!
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