He refuses to apologize. It's his right to act like somebody else we know who can't recall any mistakes he made. It's our job to see how we should respond to it.

Come waste your time at NewPairodimes.

Everybody's missing the point (19+ / 0-)

Kos didn't call Kathy Sierra a hysterical female or overly sensitive or cowardly, or say that women don't live in worse danger than men.

He impugned her honesty.

By citing her statement that she received death threats, then saying "the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said "death threats," he was saying she was lying, that there was no real death threat.

Considering that law enforcement is involved, I think in this case she's telling the truth.

If you want to stay on good terms with her, Kos, then a retraction and a public apology is in order.

The Art of Karen Wehrstein

by Karen Wehrstein on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 10:35:36 AM PDT

Thank you, Karen Wehrstein.

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Which is EXACTLY what he wants them to do.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

The REAL issue is that Kos had his facts wrong about the nature and manner of the threats made to Kathy Sierra, about the type of blogging she does (non-controversial and definitely apolitical), and was belittling and dismissive (and practically called her a liar, saying that he doubted she could produce these "death threats" if challenged to do so!).

These comments are typical Kool Aid drinking by the Kossacks sycophants:

 A good clarification. (8+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
    maryb2004, Caldonia, Fabian, ek hornbeck, kestrel9000, kck, Pager, pioneer111

...and a good point.

It was easy to lose that point in your earlier post.

by zhimbo on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 09:47:17 AM PDT

    *
       It shouldn't have been easy (11+ / 0-)

      Recommended by:
          GoKeever, SallyCat, Loquatrix, Miss Blue, michael1104, Chamonix, ek hornbeck, Luetta, kestrel9000, Richard Lyon, KansasLiberal

      to lose that point. kos stated the point very clearly - his point was not "lost" but was distorted to score a point.

      by dannyinla on Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 09:49:21 AM PDT

There's one reason Kos doesn't have to change himself or his site:  he's surrounded by sycophants (like a certain President) who tell him that his shit tastes like ice cream.

Here's the BIG reason Kos doesn't have to change himself or his site:  because excellent writers will protest Kos' misogyny and the misogynistic, anti-progressive atmosphere that now pervades DailyKos, but at the end of the day, they're going to give their wonderful writing for free to Mr. Markos Moulitsas so he can profit from their efforts.

As long as Kos is making money and getting good writers to contribute content for free, why should he change one damn thing?  From Kos' point of view, everything is A-OK and this latest storm of controversy will soon blow by, leaving him untouched.

Know what?  He's right, because a lot of people in the blogosphere have made their deals with the Devil, i.e.:

1. I don't agree with Kos or his misogyny, but I post on his site because I need the audience;

2. We can't press for an advertising boycott of DailyKos because we bloggers have to remain united to fight the evil right-wingers;

3. Insert excuse here.

It can't.  But that doesn't excuse posting original diaries (much of it well-researched, well-written material, unlike Kos' typically ill-informed rants) that further the profitability of Mr. Moulitsas' site.

If there's a rationale for continuing to post diaries on DailyKos, I'm willing to be persuaded.  But it will take some real convincing....

Visit me at The Blogging Curmudgeon

Here's how it works:

1. Research and write original, brilliant diary;

2. Give it to Kos for free;

3. Kos charges advertisers $100,000 for 3 months of the "premium" slot and rakes in the bucks.

4. Kos looks around and says, "Hey, pageviews are fine, advertising dollars are good, and good writers are still contributing free content by the bucketful.  And I should change why, exactly?"

I very rarely ever bothered to cross-post it over at dKos in the past, and never now. Too many really good diaries get ignored there anyways.

I wouldn't mind the "herding cats" aspect if it were herding LIBERAL cats. A political breed that is on the verge of extinction there.

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his basic problem is that he is exceptionally lazy, and will comment on an issue without researching it.

If so, why refuse to apologize? A less charitable but more plausible explanation is that he is callous scum.

The world's northernmost desert wind.

Take down DailyKos and you take down a huge source of referrals for the other A-List bloggers.

Can't have that.

Never mind that DailyKos is a force for Republican lite politics inserted into the Democratic Party under the guise of "big tentism"; never mind that DailyKos is a place where progressives are belittled and demeaned before being banned or told to leave (and don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out).

DailyKos is good for the business of the other A-List blogs.  

Hey, it's America.  Nothing gets in the way of making a buck.  Surely not a silly little thing like principles.

Visit me at The Blogging Curmudgeon

Kos didn't even get the basic facts of the case correct.  Kos said that Kathy Sierra was a "crying blogger" and doubted the existence of the threats--but Sierra received graphic threats, including photos, and her home address and Social Security number was posted online.

Kos also claimed the threats were emailed, but they were posted online.

Here's what Kathy Sierra wrote:

As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I'm not. I'm at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I've been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that's not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs... blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers.

Kos also wrote that even if the death threats were real, Kathy Sierra should just suck it up--implying that if she can't take the abuse, then she should stop blogging.

What's happened is that Kos has dismissed another person's pain and genuine fear, and now neither he nor his enablers are willing to admit the mistake.  But that's part of a long-standing behaviour pattern with Kos, and it's his pattern of misogyny, of which this latest incident is only a part, that has helped stir this outrage in the blogosphere.

Visit me at The Blogging Curmudgeon

But death threats against female bloggers are extremely frequent.  Kos is a full time blogger; he should know this.  The fact that Kos got one dorky death threat means nothing, just like the contents of your or my email box mean nothing directly.  So the idea that they  "always" fail to produce "death threats" is utter crap.  Lindsay Beyerstein routinely turns death threats over to the FBI and the servers of the stalker.  Forget what Marcotte and McEwen put up with after Donohue.

It's kind of like sexual harassment.  I, a straight male, have very rarely been hit on by gay men, in each time when I was in a predominantly gay neighborhood.  The approaches were probably over-the-line, but not a big deal.  I walked away, big yawn.  What I did not do was drive from Baltimore's gay neighborhood to a rape crisis center 3 zip codes away and tell the people there that their claims of rape don't even exist and that rape victims "always" failed to produce evidence of rape, because some awkward gay man in Mount Vernon made an awkward come-on to a breeder like me.

But more than that, Kos' abject refusal in his further statement to clarify how he never meant to slap any blogger, political or not, crying or not, woman or not, and how he takes online predation seriously means that he DID mean to slap her and every other crying blogger (wherever they may be), DID mean to alienate the feminist element of the community he is trying to build for fun and profit and DID intend to play for the men's locker room, circa age 15 in maturity.  He told us all to get lost.  Done.

Please check out Crablaw's Maryland Weekly for your Maryland commentary and snark needs.

But he used the phrase "most of the time", so clearly, he believes there are some times when the death threats are legitimate.

He may have used the phrase "most of the time" as a get out of jail card, since any individual case can easily be in the "part of the time" part of it. "Most of the time" could be 2/3 of the time, it could be 9/10 of the time, it could be 99/100 of the time ... but that 1/3, 1/10, or 1/100 time would still represent a serious problem.

A bona fide indication that some times death threats require serious attention would be:

I do not know whether or not these are legitimate death threats. If they are, they should be reported to the police; and if they have been reported, that increases the credibility of the story substantially.

The problem with the "most times" as a get out of jail card is that a 1 in 20 chance that a death threat is serious applying to 1 in a 1,000 death threats ... is still a serious risk if that death threat is among one of the ones that you have received. Downplaying that risk simply to win an online argument is evidence of seriously misplaced priorities.

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