Jessica Takes a Cheap Shot:

Misogyny in our midst

By Jessica Valenti

Last week I wrote an article for The Guardian (UK) about online misogyny, using Kathy Sierra's experience as a jumping off point.

One of the things I wrote in detail about in the article was the unbelievable responses to Sierra's story. . . . Sadly, I expected to find these kinds of reactions in certain places on the internet. What I didn't expect was to find them so close to home, and from a progressive "leader" in the blogosphere, no less!

Kos on Kathy Sierra and female bloggers being harassed and getting death threats:

Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial sh*t, you'll get idiotic emails. Most of the time, said "death threats" don't even exist -- evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said "death threats" ...Email makes it easy for stupid people to send stupid emails to public figures. If they can't handle a little heat in their email inbox, then really, they should try another line of work.

. . . Seriously though, it's one thing to argue--as Markos does--that a blogger code of conduct would be ineffective. Fine. But dismissing online misogyny and Sierra's experience (without even bothering to do any research on the subject, to boot) is reprehensible. Though predictable given the source.

Jessica accuses Markos of misogyny for not writing about the misogny issues regarding the Kathy Sierra issue? As Jessica noted, Markos' point is a code of conduct ain't gonna stop it.

As always, speaking for me only.

Via Yglesias, Eric Alterman describes in stark terms what the MSM punditry dislikes about blogs:

Back in the pre-Internet days of yore, political punditry was the best job in journalism and one of the best anywhere. You could spout off on anything you wanted, and almost nobody would call you on it, much less find a place to publish and prove you wrong. . . . The advent of the Internet--particularly the blogosphere--has changed all that. Now, not only are the things pundits say and write preserved for posterity; there are legions of folks who track pundit pronouncements, fact-check their statements and compare them with previous utterances on the same and similar topics. . . .

All true, and brilliantly stated. But I worry about the same type of process happening with the blogs. Most Left bloggers are indeed quite good. Some, like Digby and Glenn Greenwald, are consistently brilliant. But no one should be immune from questioning and disagreement. I hope we can avoid the logrolling nature that became, and still is, the MSM punditry.

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It's time for the Tuesday Open Thread.

I've been looking for a place to post this photo of my cousin Max, taken on his cell phone last week. He's the same age as the TL kid. What a cutie. He's given me permission to post it, with the caveat, "I dont mind as long as its not used to shed any negative light on Paris herself. After meeting her I would have nothing but positive nice things to say."

So please, no Paris insults in the comments.

And now, for your news and thoughts of the day.

I can only chuckle at stories like this:

Is it too late to bring civility to the Web? The conversational free-for-all on the Internet known as the blogosphere can be a prickly and unpleasant place. Now, a few high-profile figures in high-tech are proposing a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse. Last week, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.

The irony of Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, whose online project has been used innumerable times in the most uncivil and unethical ways, preaching civility and control is the funniest thing I have read all day. I read the article and NO MENTION of Wikipedia's role in outing, false vicious attacks and general misbehaving is discussed. Here's my suggestion for Mr. Jimmy Wales, take care of the huge mess in your own house before you start doling out advice please.

Update: The photos.

Bump and Update: Please welcome to the planet earth, Elisandra Elexy Zuniga-Battista:

Markos has phoned in the following report:

Mother and daughter are doing great. Baby weighed in at 8 lbs, 15 ounces, born at 5:01 PM. She's 20.5 inches, and Dad reports, "She looks just like us! With dark, curly hair!"

Elisa's labor was about six hours, things went smoothly and -- needless to say -- both parents are ecstatic.

Original Post: Markos Baby Watch and Open Thread

Markos of Daily Kos and Elisa are off to the hospital. Contractions are six minutes apart.

I can't wait to be a tia again.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Via a lot of people (check the trackback), Mark Thoma hosts a discussion on economics that includes comments from Paul Krugman, Bruce Bartlett and a lot of people who seem to know what they are talking about and seem to have honest differences of opinion while trying to stick to the facts.

Very refreshing. I hope we law types can emulate this.

Chris Bowers, writing about the stupid blogrolling dispute (easy for me to say right? TalkLeft is linked, thanks to J.), actually stumbles into interesting ground:

What are individual bloggers trying to accomplish? What is the blogosphere in general trying to accomplish? . . . I am not saying I know the answer to those questions. I'm just saying that before anyone is accused of anything, people should explain their motives for blogging, ask others to explain their motives, and then see if those motives intersect.

Explaining motives, disclosure of conflicts, etc., is all important stuff and something the Netroots need to do better, but I am still much more interested, in another part of what Chris writes:

[A]s an activist blogger, I seek ways to help make progressive political machinery more effective.

Does that describe how the "Netroots leadership" generally have functioned on Iraq and the Iraq supplemental funding bill? I think the answer is obviously no. I have written a lot on why I think so but I will remind everyone on the flip.

Update [2007-4-3 12:44:16 by Big Tent Democrat]: See also Glenn Greenwald on Dictator Rudy, who also believes the President has the power to imprison American citizens without due process. A dangerous lunatic is Giuliani.

Via Matt Yglesias, Rich Lowry describes Rudy Giuliani endorsing dictatorship:

Rudy . . . began to muse about, after a veto, "would the president have the constitutional authority to support them [the troops], anyway?" . . . He seemed to suggest that Bush could fund the Iraq war without Congress providing funding. . . [He] said, since the war had been authorized by Congress, the president has "the inherent authority to support the troops." But he added, "You have to ask a constitutional lawyer." . . . I asked Rudy whether he was saying Bush could veto the supplemental and, in the absence of a deal with Congress, fund the troops in Iraq under his own authority. "If he vetoes it, he's going to have to find a way to support the troops," Rudy said. "They have given him the authorization to fight the war," and "Bush has the power to redirect the money and time to work something out" with Congress. . . .

This is blatantly unconstitutional. It advocates for dictatorship in wartime. It is a great example of what Rudy Giuliani is.

I'm at the airport, heading back to Denver (slowly, having to change planes in Chicago) from rural Connecticut where I've spent the last five days with Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and her three big poodles, Kobe, Lucy and Katie.

Jane is amazing. She is an eternal optimist and determined to get as much joy out of every day as she can, despite her cancer, which I'm convinced she is going to beat. We walked up and down the long winding hilly road to her house for 60 minutes every day. We cooked and ate only the freshest fish, greens, fruits and vegetables. She looks as gorgeous as always, has a strong appetite, laughs a lot and was great company. If I didn't have a day job, I would have stayed longer.

The dogs are incredibly smart, sensitive, respectful and loving. I'm going to miss them.

We didn't see much news, the days just kind of flew by, so here's another open thread to bring us all up to speed.

I should be back to regular blogging Tuesday or Wednesday.

There's good news over at Captain's Quarters. Ed's wife (the First Mate) has had a successful kidney transplant. She and the donor are doing fine. Ed's been blogging through the surgery to relieve the stress. Go on over and send some good wishes.

Hillary Clinton raked it in this quarter.

Shattering previous records, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton collected $26 million for her presidential campaign during the first three months of the year and transferred an additional $10 million from her Senate fundraising account, aides said Sunday. The New York senator's total included $4.2 million raised through the Internet.

The amount outdistanced past presidential election records and set a high bar by which to measure the fundraising abilities of her chief rivals.

I wonder how Rudy Giuliani did.

Update: John Edwards raised $14 million.

I'm still hanging out with Jane in Connecticut. I don't know where the hours go, but there hasn't been much time for blogging. We're just now sitting on the couch for the first time all day, turning the tv on to see the news, and logging on to check our e-mails. The poodles are great. By the time I leave on Monday, I'll be able to tell Lucy from Katie (Kobe's easier, he's taller.)

As always, thanks to Big Tent and TChris for blogging while I'm away. And say hello to two new blogs:

• JusticeLA

A new social justice site with a (nominal) grant from the USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism and

• Sparkmeter:

The concept of the site is that users submit news and everyone ranks the recent news as having a left-leaning bias, right-leaning bias, or objective. The most active news rises to the top. Users are also given the ability to rate other users as left, right, or objective. (think digg/reddit but for political news)

This is also an open thread.

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