Comment Archives: stories: News & Features
Re: “The Carrillo Quandary”
Why not at least ask Mr. Carrillo what factors will weigh most heavily in his decision on Preservation Ranch?
Re: “Bedside Bankroll”
Outstanding article Rachel! As a health care professional, I'm well aware of the need for quality care for the elderly in the privacy and comfort of their own home. It's truly a shame there are people out there only too willing to exploit that need.
Re: “Reaching for the Stars”
I just saw the play today and was so moved and impressed by these actors. The work they put into the performance (using some of their personal experiences) was amazing. We can all learn about overcoming challenges from these wonderful people!
Re: “Beyond Borders”
check out the website at www.buildtuleeniahome.org
Re: “Bedside Bankroll”
Kudos to Ms. Dovey and the Bohemian for shedding important light on this very important topic. There are many different delivery models for home care services, and each have their positives and negatives. Hopefully, this article will help families decide on the safest and most reliable provider when it comes to finding assistance for their loved ones. Let's keep seniors safe at home.
Mark Winter
Hired Hands Homecare
Re: “Hot Summer Guide 2012”
Don't forget the Mendocino Music Festival, July 7-21! Get away from the heat and come to this beautiful town to hear professional musicians playing classical, jazz, bluegrass, celtic, chamber and more! Go to www.mendocinomusic.org for the full schedule.
Re: “Will Levi Ride?”
(smile) - except the pack won't touch King Ridge Road (sadly) - They hang a left in Cazadero and hit Fort Ross Road instead :-)
Re: “Campaign Veil”
it's Laurence Thomas and he's an odd person to quote as a moral authority. Here's his site. See who he likes. http://www.moralhealth.com/author/lthomas/
Re: “Campaign Veil”
I was not "SRPolitics." But thank you for revealing your true motives behind your rabid advocacy of a lack of transparency in your own politics-- your desire to lie with impunity. Cowardly.
Re: “Campaign Veil”
Wow. Who knew that posting researched facts about Stacey Lawson would create such an uproar, at least among one die-hard Lawson acolyte.
It obviously drives Prof. Boaz bonkers not knowing the identity of the WhoIsStaceyLawson nom de guerre.
A cynic might say that her protestations are nothing more than a smokescreen to obfuscate the actual facts and truth about Ms. Lawson.
Perhaps Ms. Boaz is ignorant of the longstanding tradition of anonymity and pseudonyms in politics.
She didn't seem to have a problem employing the same methods as "SRPolitics" against Debra Fudge in the 2010 Supervisor's race .
Re: “Campaign Veil”
I never said WhoIs's appalling character changed anything about the facts Jake. It just shows that someone clearly feels that the facts on their own aren't strong enough, so they must package their delivery to be more sensational.
Re: “Campaign Veil”
Cynthia, your points are well taken - er - Lawrence Thomas' points are, anyway. The anonymity of WhoIsStacey Lawson shows a lack of someone's character... We may never know who - but it doesn't change the fact that there are *inconvenient facts* about an unfortunate front-runner in this campaign. WhoIsStaceyLawson didn't invent these FACTS - nor did I.
Stacey Lawson has & continues to hide & obfuscate her past. (among other troubling facts)
Perhaps not such a big deal, were it not for how telling this is about her soft-as-mozzarella fortitude and constitution - in my opinion. (seriously? following a guru for years [or paying to have him follow her] and handing out hamburgers to the poor while being filmed? Pass the KoolAid if you don't think THAT is creepy as hell.)
She has defended hiding HuffPo articles on several occasions as an attempt to protect something that is "very private and personal" - and that's simply horse manure. HORSE MANURE.
One cannot post articles, blog entries, on the world's most popular content aggregator website and turn a 180 a year later to suggest it was only ever intended to be "private and personal". Running for Congress is not reason to hide - it's reason to HARDEN UP and TELL THE TRUTH. Stacey Lawson continues to avoid to do ANY of this.
Does it forgive "whoisstaceylawson"? No.
It doesn't change the inconvenient FACTS about Stacey Lawson, either.
Re: “Campaign Veil”
"Free speech without responsibility is none other than moral chaos. Worse, it is a form of hell on earth. The right to express unpopular opinions and to criticize others ever so forcefully is one of the great gifts of democracy. So it is, however, only if this takes place against the backdrop of responsibility. Thus, there is a very straightforward sense in which I have more respect for the white KKK person who calls me “nigger” to my face than for the black who calls me “brother” to my face but who systematically and viciously sullies my character behind my back.
I may not like where I stand with a person. Just so, there is ever so much to be said for knowing where I stand with a person. Public criticisms of another that hide behind the cloak of anonymity constitute none than a perversion of the idea of free speech. Accordingly, it is a great victory for free speech that Judge Joan Madden ruled in favor of Liskula Cohen. Judge Madden ruled that Ms. Cohen is entitled to know the identity of the blogger of “Shanks in NYC”.
The judge correctly grasped that the issue was not whether the author of “Shanks in NYC” is entitled to her opinion. Indeed, the author of the blog most certainly is so entitled. The problem was simply that if one is going to criticize another routinely and publicly, then the person whom one is criticizing is entitled to know who one is. The fact that one’s remarks are merely personal views is entirely irrelevant. Why? Not simply because mere personal views can be mistaken and entirely uninformed. Rather, it is because merely personal views can be—and often are—taken quite seriously by others. Thus, mere personal views can have enormous influence.
Nothing, then, precludes mere personal rantings on a blog from having enormous influence. This simple truth is the basis for Judge Madden’s ruling in favor of Cohen. Her ruling is perfectly consistent with free speech if one bears in mind that free speech at its best is necessarily linked responsibility. And responsibility carries in its wake accountability.
At the very minimum, accountability requires that we have made a good faith effort to get the facts right. This does not mean that we cannot get things. We all make mistakes. We all misunderstand from time to time what we see or hear. In one of my classes, I regularly have music that accompanies my lectures. Having played a clip from a song by Barry White, I remarked later in lecture “So, is my voice not Barry White enough for you?” Alas, there was some static in the microphone and what many people heard is “So, is my voice not white enough for you?”
Fortunately, I was able to clear up that confusion. But that would not have been possible had a student not asked, why did you say “So, is my voice not white enough for you?” A misunderstanding was eliminated. Among other things, free speech should contribute to that end.
When the Founding Authors introduced the idea of freedom of speech, they never so much as even imagined a world in which people could routinely express their views anonymously in a public forum. Quite the contrary, the world as they saw it was one in which it took incredible ingenuity to express one’s views anonymously in a public forum. The absence of anonymity readily carries in its wake responsibility and accountability. This is why in times past people endeavored to base their most biased views in biology or the truths of religion. This was an endeavor to be, at once, both responsible and accountable.
Responsibility and accountability are the handmaidens of free speech.
This brings me to one of the most fundamental issues with which I shall be wrestling in my forthcoming book The Fragmented Self: Technology and the Loss of Humanity (Cambridge University Press).
In the past, the environment and the state of technological development imposed serious constraints upon what people could get away with doing. Accordingly, there were natural constraints of self-discipline.
A defining feature of the present, thanks to the extraordinary developments in technology is that the natural constraints of self-discipline are disappearing. In so many areas of life, self-discipline is an option in a way that it was not at all an option just a few years back. We can easily express our views anonymously. Judge Madden’s ruling has not precluded that at all. Although the owner of the blog “Shanks in NYC” apparently used a real email address based upon her actual name, the truth of the matter is that anyone can sign up for an email account using a made-up-name.
What is more, while the author of “Shanks in NYC” regularly maligned a specific individual, it is obviously possible to do much harm without ever mentioning a given name. Judge Madden’s ruling does not at all undermine general hostile and anonymous venting against groups. Her ruling does not preclude derisive and venomous venting against groups—venting that is anonymous all the same. Blacks against whites. Whites against Blacks. Non-Jews against Jews. Jews against non-Jews. Non-Arabs against Arabs. Arabs against non-Arabs. And so on.
If in the name of freedom of speech, we should lack the self-discipline to refrain from engaging in anonymous viciousness, then democracy as we know it shall cease to exist. Either the universal affirmation of our equality shall cease to exist or the freedom of speech that makes democracy such a mellifluous ideal of excellence shall cease to exist. In either case, our humanity shall be diminished."
--Lawrence Thomas
Re: “Campaign Veil”
UncleDoug, your "guess" is insulting and uncivil and it completely ignores the fact that I have been speaking against this kind of thing for decades, with no regard for party and to the irritation of many with whom I share views on the issues. I am impassioned about process values, but I can not honestly be described as "partisan" by any reasonable person.
BTW, since WhoIsStaceyLawson represents an act of Democrat-on-Democrat violence, the term partisan doesn't even make sense here. Maybe you mean ideological or doctrinaire.
Re: “Campaign Veil”
UncleDoug, you missed the point completely. I don't believe there should be restrictions on anonymous speech, I am speaking to the perception it creates and the consequence for the quality of democracy. It is hypocritical and belies a commitment to the values of transparency and accountability.
Your comparison of WhoIsStaceyLawson to the Federalist Papers is absurd. The Papers were a sophisticated argument in defense of a new government, they weren't targeted personal attacks on an individual. The Federalist Papers authors published as "Publius" for solidarity purposes. Very different from the motive of the person in question here, whose objective is to divide. That is not the behavior of a civically virtuous person. Not to mention, also, that Publius was promoting enthusiasm for the new government, while WhoIs simply wants to degrade. The former was constructive, the latter is destructive.
And lastly, Publius wasn't truly anonymous.
Re: “Campaign Veil”
I simply don't trust that there isn't a federal crime happening here. So I dig... The "major" press agencies aren't going to do it for us, so anything You can do to help... by all means:
Domain name registrar records are compelling.
What do these domain names have in common?:
staceylawson.info
staceylawson.net
staceylawson.org
staceylawson.com (no joke)
whoisstaceylawson.com
whoisstaceylawson.org
whoisstaceylawson.net
jaredhuffman.com
They share the same registrar: enom inc.
(example: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=…)
What's that mean?
I simply don't know. But it certainly qualifies as something that should make you go hmmm...
If I was a betting man, I'd be willing to bet one of these gentlemen might know: http://www.activatedirect.com/about/
Re: “Campaign Veil”
Ummm... Dr. Boaz is a political science professor? And she's complaining about anonymous political speech? In America?
Is she not familiar with the Federalist Papers, the quintessential anonymous political writings that predate the nation itself?
Perhaps this will ring a bell:
"Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society." McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n (93-986), 514 U.S. 334 (1995).
Just guessing, but it seems rather likely that Dr. Boaz' objections are partisan rather than ethical.
Re: “Campaign Veil”
Who Is Stacey Lawson website is at http://staceylawson.info
Re: “Campaign Veil”
Technically I said that the person is likely associated with a campaign (not that a campaign is behind it). Otherwise the anonymity makes no sense. A small but important difference.
--Cynthia
This Week's Issue
Re: “The Carrillo Quandary”
Interesting that his campaign is fynded by big business?!?!