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What I’ve Been Up To Lately
- mazel tov to @bluenatic and @grandstreet on the birth of their baby girl 2 weeks ago
- RT @JTownCrier: Tropper? Kolko? Margulies? Balkany? Dwek? Rubashkin? NO. Moetzes Gedolei Torah condemn AVI WEISS as more offensive. 2 weeks ago
- Rorschach from Watchmen is the new Freddy Krueger http://bit.ly/7s61Cj 2 weeks ago
- More updates...
In case you've been wondering
…why I took a hiatus from blogging (ie., my departure from Jewschool and my sparse posting elsewhere, including here on OA), look no further.
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.
[...]
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
When I say “y’all mothafuckaz is killin’ me,” I’m not kidding around. You know, it’s one thing when you’re blogging about industry, and another when you’re hashing out sensitive and divisive subjects that go to the very core of one’s identity, soul and even survival. Om Malik had a heart attack and he had it easy comparatively speaking.
Shortly after that lovely note arrived, one of many such notes that I receive in a given week, my inbox filled up with 12,000 spam messages. Looks like we’ve identified the culprit.
Try putting up with this sort of bullshit for four years and see where it gets you, emotionally and physically.
People want you to die. They want me to die.
The only reason I haven’t given this racket up all together is that I inexplicably feel an obligation to the the Jewish people that compels me to use my abilities for what I believe to be the community’s betterment. But at this point, even that’s starting to slip.
Thus, not only has blogging taken its toll on my health and sanity, it’s also taken its toll on my soul.
Hence the hiatus and the overwhelming awareness: When you play with fire, you get burned.
Dan, I can understand your fatigue. It’s not uncommon in my profession, where high idealism all to soon clashes with realism. There are many points I disagree on with you, but in contrast to many bloggers, you do not only ruminate on what you’ve had for breakfast, but state your points that could at least people make reflect on their positions – if they’d only admit themselves to be critical of their own stance. Alas, people don’t like their worldview to be challenged. You’ve always been civil in your responses to me, and I respect you for that. I’m aware you’re pretty good at handling a colourful vocabulary though, but from the odd examples I’ve seen, you’re counterparts weren’t any less explicit. Fair’s fair. Some people take controversies, insults and threats more to heart than others. I’ve learnt that hard way that those students that complained about my teaching weren’t complaining because my teaching was bad because I’d make them work for good grades and just wouldn’t give in to nastiness, which is nothing but emotional blackmail. People who send you messages like the one above are cowards. You give people a forum here to voice their opinions, and everybody is free to put their names where their mouth is.
too*
Sorry for the typo..
Typos actually. I’ll go take a nap.
For lack of an insightful comment, I’m really sorry this is going on. It feels like the bloggers I appreciate the most are getting silenced an awful lot lately.
i just wanna hug ya, not kill ya. i might hug you big enough that it hurts a little. like a really big hug.
just giving in my two shkalim.
Sometimes, I find it helpful to sing this mantra:
He-chalutz le’maan avodah,
Avodah le’maan he-chalutz.
“Try putting up with this”
Putting up with what? Muffti’s post on Jewlicious was not just fair, but kind. All the stuff you pointed to is ancient history. Everyone’s moved on. Yet you insist on dredging it back up. Might I suggest you try a little less victimology and try to move on as well?
I’m with you.
@ck
“Everyone’s moved on. That’s why I publicly mocked you for the gajillionth time in a post just a couple of days ago. Because I’ve moved on.”
Och kids…
Have you seen the movie TRON? You have to decide if you want to live in this cyber world or the real world. I have been severely attacked many times for my postings here. Certainly not as severely as wishing me dead, but quite harshly by you and others. When I shut down its over. The Web is not real to me. When we last met you told me that it was weird that I knew what was going on in your life in Israel, when you moved back, your job hunt, your mountain experience, all of this, without us speaking. If you chose to put it out your very deepest feelings and opinions, you have to take the shit that falls back on you. Its not a terrific life being a hate magnet but it is your choice. This obligation to the the Jewish people compelling you..well that reaks of self. Turn it off and live in the real world. You can email your friends. I asked a question once.. if an anarchist falls off the web..does it make a sound? I am a supporter of yours. I am lurking here daily but if you stopped.. I might actually call you…
Yeah, sorry if Muffti offended but the post was intended to be a nice send off. And he certainly does not want to kill you nor see you dead.
it wasn’t about your post GM, it was about the comments on your post
ah, that makes more sense. Some of those were repulsive and spoiled a good intention.
i’m fairly certain that the most hurtful comments ever written about me on jewlicious (like those by JJ on the linked thread) were written by ck under assumed identities. some of those commenters knew far too much behind-the-scenes stuff to simply be casual blog readers with a purported distaste for my antics. they also used certain uncommon phrases like “shit disturber” between them.
frankly, i think dave deliberately took advantage of my moments of emotional frailty to further drive me over the edge, but wanted to keep his hands seeming clean, so he invented other identities with which to lay into me. and while that may seem paranoid, homeboy had no problem getting my ex-girlfriend to surreptitiously blog for him, nor trying to lure other writers away from jewschool to his own.
even should it not be the case, by refusing to police his commenters and contributors, he has helped foster a culture of hatred against me among his readership that lord knows someone who is truly my friend and colleague would have never tolerated.
Dan, you know my position, and in all fairness I must say that Dave has never even tried to make me think of you in a negative way.
As for that JJ, upon reading your above claim, I checked what I could see in the comment dashboard section; I’ll not disclose details here, but, in all fairness again, it’s not Dave. As for the common use of colourful vocabulary, I’ve learnt “fucktard” from reading your blog, not at school or university, so would that translate as the two of us being great chums?
there is precisely no way through wordpress to determine whether an individual comment author is authentic or not. one can alter all details through the admin console, including the email address and IP address of the poster, so as to cover their tracks; which, in light of the fact that i had more than one friend with access to the data at the time of those comments’ posting, would have likely been a consideration on dave’s part.
i also think that you should stick to staying out of it.
They’re the retards Dan. And don’t let those bastards wear you down. The stories you recount sound awfully low. But given that it’s Abitbol, what can one expect?
I once had a friend who had been a district attorney & he described a defendant he was prosecuting as “lower than the bone belly of a cur dog.” That about sums up Abitbol.
I don’t personally know what you’ve gone through. But I get almost precisely the same type of shit that you do–though given how much of it you say you get–I get it less often. Somehow I’ve grown philosophical about it. Plus I fight back against it when I can. It makes you feel empowered. Can’t tell you how great it felt to successfully defend a libel suit filed by an L.A. Kahanist.
I’m sure you know this but the best way to fight back is to do good work, get recognition for it, & thumb your nose at them on the way to the award dais.