A cherry short of a Schwarzwalderkirschtorte?...

Hello to anyone still reading; sorry for the radio silence since the glorious Obama-dawn broke in America. I needed a break from the internet after the election madness, it all got a bit OCD, poll-checking every half hour, and I've started a new contract job. And in my spare time I've been over in Vienna with 35 amazing women who've been launching a new global anti-extremism network initiative, of which more later. And what with one thing and another there hasn't been time to blog.

However. An issue has come up of importance to UK bloggers and I believe the parties concerned deserve support. So I had an overpowering urge to postpone the Merlot for 15 minutes and say something.

Like - for God's sake. And - oh, get over yourself.
And - what is it with some people? Because it's awfully vexatious when this sort of thing happens, and it can drag on and on, and we all know how tiresome and timewasting that can be.

So. Here is a Schwarzwalderkirschtorte.

It has, you will see, the full complement of cherries.

It is nothing like Johanna Kaschke.

No, absolutely nothing like Johanna Kaschke at all.

What am I going on about? Well, it's hard to go into any detail because there is a threatened court case. Court cases do take up time, energy and money. You have to be pretty dedicated to go through with it all.

And if I were to think of a word to describe Johanna Kaschke, having spent some time reading about her today, the word that repeatedly springs to mind is ''committed''.

So I suggest that anyone curious about the imminently- legally-verifiable and almost-certainly-certifiable point that Johanna Kaschke is nothing like a Schwartzwalderkirschtorte with a full complement of cherries consults Google or Google Blog search.

And having done so, that you make no comments at all. Because the whole thing makes your brain want to explode.

I'm off to the pub - have a great weekend.

SPCK-up

'Over at the Wardman Wire, Matt is currently presiding over yet another ‘Spartacus Action’, this time relating to a ‘cease and desist’ letter issued by the Texas-based owner of what used to be a chain of Anglican bookshops to a British blogger/cartoonist, Dave Walker, which led to the removal of 75 posts from Dave’s blog....'

Find out more from Ministry of Truth

March 30 Stop CyberBullying Day

Following the widely-blogged furore over a prominent US tech-blogger getting death threats, US bloggers have declared today Stop CyberBullying Day and are inviting bloggers to link and tag and write about the subject. I have already written quite a lot on the subject recently ( see here and here), so I will simply add my small voice of support, sprinkle a few useful links and say thanks to US reader Barbara for letting me know about the initiative to raise awareness.

Wikipedia
BullyOnline ( excellent site and covers a lot of the psychology of bullying, harassment and personality disorders )
Stalking Research
WiredSafety
Cyberstalking ( behaviour), more on cyberstalking

'Blog death threats spark debate'

Helen, one of the blog readers has kindly sent me a link to this BBC story about a respected female blogger who has been the victim of death threats. ( Death threats against bloggers are not protected speech)'. The blogger in question is Kathy Sierra, of the tech-blog ' Creating Passionate Users'. Many of the threats and abuse she recieved are too explicit for me to want to reprint them here, since my mother reads this blog, but they included:

'f**k off you boring slut... i hope someone slits your throat and c*ms down your gob'.

And worse.

A few bloggers in the US have remarked that this furore and re-opening of the 'blogging code of conduct' discussion is 'not good for free speech', well, no, it isn't, but this is not 'free speech'. Free speech, famously, does not extend to shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre. Free speech does not include threatening, defaming, libelling, stalking, bullying, and abusing other people, any more than 'freedom of expression' extends to slapping someone's face, or 'free love' extends to drugging and raping someone because you fancy them.

Helen says: 'Free speech? Well, when we talk about 'freedom' we have to be careful to be clear about whether we mean 'freedom from' or 'freedom to', but in this case it seems fairly plain that someone simply airing their views on a public blog (and isn't she American, freedom of speech, etc) should not have to suffer death threats. If what she says is litigious, then use the damn law. If not, and you don't like it, start your own blog. But violence - and/or the threat of - is not acceptable, full stop'. Quite.

I agree that people can publish what they like - as long as it is lawful - but I've also said that as a blogger I don't have any obligation to host nasty comments on my personal blog. And there is a line which can be crossed where cyber-communication and free speech can become abuse and harassment, and quickly run foul of the law.

Just because it is the internet, doesn't mean it's not 'malicious communications' or harrassment - hate email and threatening anonymous comments are no different in law to posted hatemail and anonymous threatening phone calls.

As in... I have a letter box in the front door of my flat. I am able, and happy to recieve mail sent to my address. But simply having a working letter box does not mean I consent to having dog poo posted through my mail box, or a stream of poison pen letters plopping onto my door mat on a daily basis. Anyone does that to you, you go to the police a.s.a.p.

Similarly, I am all for people freely expressing themselves, but if someone decided to go about my town posting up flyers that falsely and publicly claimed I was a malicious criminal, a sick liar, an abuser and in dire need of urgent psychiatric assistance, I would first ask them to stop, and if they did not stop, report it, and take legal action.

If someone went to the police and made a malicious false complaint about me, I would contact the police immediately to explain and prove why it was false and make a complaint myself. And so on.

And if I got the sort of death threats and threats of sexual violence that Kathy Sierra has been getting I, too, would be afraid to leave my house and would cancel public speaking engagements.
If the abuse was published or distributed or sent electronically, it would make no damn difference at all. It would still be abuse. And there are laws to protect people from this sort of thing. Happily, the US police have launched an investigation into Kathy Sierra's case, and many bloggers are coming out in support.

But it still makes me sigh. I have touched on this issue before, in a post about bullying and blogging, and have recently temporarily turned off the anonymous comment facility to stop trolling, since there seems to be something about having anonymity that encourages stupid abuse to spew forth from some troubled souls. This latest tale is particularly grim though, and what is really creepy is the misogynistic and extreme nature of the violent threats. Kathy Sierra is highly successful as a technology writer in what's traditionally a 'man's world' - and jealousy is often at the heart of such attacks. The abuse here is clearly sent by men - or boys - and is graphically, violently sexual. It's had a horrible impact on her life - she has cancelled her appearance at a conference and writes that she is 'afraid to leave her yard'. However, despite this, she says

'I would never be for censoring speech--these people can say all the misogynistic, vile, tasteless things they like-but we must preserve that line where words and images become threats of violence. Freedom of speech--however distasteful and rude the speech may be, is crucial. But when those words contain threats of harm or death, they can destroy a life.'

There was something about this on the Guardian's Comment is Free site, though I can't find it anymore, about why women writers seem to get torrents of vile hatemail. CIF is less of a zoo these days, though flame wars still break out. (However, more and more CIF site users now seem to 'get' that disagreement is more powerful when expressed via a smart riposte than a personal insult. I've hit keyboards in anger, I guess all of us have, but the level of vitriol displayed a by a few on the internet can be truly frightening, especially when a personality disorder meets a broadband connection.)

Indigo Jo picked up on the subject a while back and quoted Maureen Dowd of The New York Times discussing reactions to female opinion in her column last year.

"While a man writing a column taking on the powerful may be seen as authoritative, a woman doing the same thing may be seen as castrating." She went on to say she called Alan Dundes, a renowned folklorist, to ask about it. "Women are supposed to take it, not dish it out," Dundes told her.

See also 'Female pundits could use help with hate mail'.

'I believe women can take the heat of opinion journalism as well as any man; the problem is that the heat we take and the reasons why are very different.'

And that comment, in the twenty first century, when words can be freely published and ideas move across continents at the speed of thought, when we can write without boundaries or borders (or genders), and publish and share the sum of human knowledge and experience for the sheer interest and pleasure of it on this marvellous medium of the world wide web - is very sad indeed.

This blog's comment policy

A boring housekeeping post follows. When you come on here and post comments please be aware of the blog comment policy.

1. No spam
2. No hate-comments

3. No cut n' paste conspiraloonery
4. No obnoxious personal abuse

That should be quite clear, and if you don't like it or agree with it, tough luck. Start your own blog with your own comment policy, or go to places where the comment policy is different.

For me, blogging's a hobby, it's creative expression, its a discipline - a way of writing every day - and it's something that I and millions of others do, freely and happily, because we just like doing it. Recently, I have been enjoying it less and less.

I have been thinking of stopping blogging for a while. I am also thinking about taking all the posts down, saving them as unpublished drafts offline, and re-publishing them again when I feel like I want to re-engage. For now, whilst I mull it over, I am taking steps that I think will make me feel happier and more safe when I blog. I am looking after myself and setting some much-needed boundaries.

I have been honest and open on this blog since I started it, writing freely about personal and political matters which I care passionately about. For the most part I have loved it, it has been a roller-coaster ride and the support, advice, feedback, comments, suggestions, debate from readers has been fantastic. There have been times when I have been seriously under the cosh and coming here and writing has been life-saving. It has helped me deal with depression. It has helped me deal with PTSD. It has allowed me to campaign about issues I feel strongly about. It has allowed me to link to the blogs of others. I have made friends in real life through this blog, and it has been a privilege and a pleasure to have a window into other people's worlds, and to share some of my life and thoughts with you all.

There is a downside to blogging. There have been times when I have felt exposed, vulnerable, and under vicious and relentless personal attack, simply for writing what I think and feel on here. There have been times when this blog has invited the wrong sort of attention, to the extent that I have felt extremely afraid and very distressed. It has got to the point that the police have had to get involved, with repeated instances of harassment from one individual. It's one thing to disagree, it's another thing entirely to send streams of venomous abuse, directed at me or other commenters on this blog. I really don't enjoy blogging when I get sent abusive emails or comments, or threats. I don't publish them, but I still have to read them.

I realise some of you may feel strongly about what I have written, or what other commenters have written sometimes, but I still don't think that gives you the automatic sacred right to be abusive, obnoxious, threatening, obscene, baiting, bullying, harassing, or whatever, and to expect me to give your views a platform on my personal blog.

If you want to say something, you can always start your own blog. Then I can choose whether or not I read it, and so can others. That's freedom of speech, that's freedom of expression.
You have that freedom; nobody is taking it away from you, least of all me. Blogger.com, from what I can gather will let you publish pretty much anything, unless it is stomach-churning ( images of torture, child porn or so on which are internationally unlawful). There are plenty of blogs which are defamatory, libellous, malicious, hateful, untruthful and delusional out there. I choose not to read them and not to link to them.

Despite me reiterating and explaining my comment policy several times recently, I have still been getting a steady trickle of obnoxious, aggressive comments sent in. I am now completely fed up with it.

I am not going to publish them, and from now on, I am not going to read them either. Most of the people who send such abuse do so anonymously. Personally, I think this is cowardly, as well as rude. Why expect me to give you a public platform if you will not allow me to know who you are, or to respond personally to you? Would you say such things to my face, in public? I doubt it.

Well, from now on, nobody will be able to post anonymous comments. The anonymous comment facility has been removed. In order to comment. you will have to go to blogger.com, ( click 'create blog' at the top of this blog), and set up a blog which has a profile, so you can be identified with whatever name, number or nickname you have chosen to give yourself. You don't need to post on your blog account once you have set it up, but you will need to provide a valid email address to set up a blog and get a profile. The whole process will take you less than two minutes. If you can't do it, email me and I will try and help.

I realise this is a bit of a pain, and that some of you want to be anonymous on here because you are sharing something that may be personal and private. For example, there have been men and women who are survivors of violence and rape commenting anonymously here. I am sorry that because of the behaviour of a few, I am no longer able to offer you total anonymity.

As an experiment, and as a gesture of trust, I am taking comment moderator off whilst we move to this new policy, so once you have registered and set up a profile, you will be able to comment freely. Hopefully this will make comment discussions more meaningful and easier to conduct because other commenters will know who you are and can address their points to you rather than 'anonymous', which is particularly confusing if there is more than one anonymous commenter in action.

If my blog traffic goes down as a result of my comments policy, I don't care. I don't validate myself by looking at my blog traffic. And I would rather know who I am talking to.
If people abuse the no-moderation policy, then I will switch comment moderator back on, and delete obnoxious comments. I repeat, I am under no obligation to host such stuff.

And if it STILL continues, then I am taking the blog offline. Finito. There's no point continuing with a hobby you no longer enjoy out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

I am addressing this to a few people; they know who they are and hopefully they will now go away and leave me in peace. To everyone else, thank you for dropping in, I appreciate you and I would like to thank you for visiting.

Right. It's a gorgeous spring day and I am going to switch off my computer and go for a walk in the park and look at the daffodils and all the signs of new life springing up which remind me that there's a big, beautiful world out there and that I want to spend more time in it.

Take care and see you soon.

Patrick Mercer, who resigned today...

...is the one Tory MP whom I know and like. I have met him several times, spent quite a bit of time with him over the last 12 months, and I have found always him to be a compassionate, thoughtful, principled man. I am genuinely sorry that he has resigned. He was not your normal Tory MP, he had a life before politics, he had been a journalist and a soldier and it showed.

David Cameron, you nasty, pursed-lips, spinning, sanctimonious little sneak. You washed your hands of a good man, who said something stupidly truthful - that in the army, everyone insults each other all the time. ''You ginger bastard! You fat bastard! You black bastard!''. It's not very nice, but it is how it is.

As you damn well know, Cameron, as anyone who knows Patrick knows, he is not a racist. You sacrificed a good, talented man for a headline. Nice.

Patrick commanded the respect of his men in the army, serving in Northern Ireland and he was also respected and liked in the party.

Leroy Hutchinson, a black former corporal who served with Mr Mercer for 12 years, said: "He never tolerated racism in the battalion and not a single one of his men would consider him to be racist."
He added: "In the forces... name-calling - whether you be black, white, ginger, red, brown - it is part of the establishment."
He went on: "It's not meant and it doesn't come across from an individual as a racist comment. It's just part of the culture.
"When you wear that uniform, it is what goes on and it's been happening for a long, long time." ( BBC)

Yes, some squaddies are racists, and some are bullies, and everyone banters and is insulting and...well, you've heard the expression '' the language of the barracks''. It's robust and rough, and it would shock the W.I. Patrick's mistake was saying what really goes on.

UPDATE: Soldiers discuss it and come out for Patrick. Typical comment: 'He's right, we all know what he is saying is true. The fact that this sort of language isn't necessarily a reflection of racism within the forces but a demonstration of the environment we work in. Merciless piss taking is part of the parcel within Army life.'

UPDATE 2: BBC viewers come out for Patrick

UPDATE 3: Patrick and me in action

Well, the Conservative leader's reaction to his naive but not harmful comments does nothing to endear the Tory party to me. I hope Patrick comes back soon, as the party is poorer without him. He was the one Tory who made me think the party might had some decent people in it, lurking somewhere - and I have voted against the Tory party since I was old enough to vote.

And glib, ruthless, shallow, cycling-with a-car-behind-do-you-think-we-are-stupid huskie-cuddler and saddo wannabe-Blairalike Cameron made him go. Typical.

Patrick was, and is very close to David Davis, who lost the leadership race to Cameron, and Cameron didn't like that, I bet. Pontius Bloody Pilate.

(Yeah, and I don't care if people wave their handbags at me for supporting a Tory. People, above politics. He's not a racist. So he should not have been asked to go. Own goal.)