Daily Pilot Blogs and Right Wing Ideologues

Once again we turn our attention to the "wonderful world" of blogmania. Those of you reading this are already attuned to this process and will undoubtedly have an opinion on what follows. As always, I'm interested in your views as long as you don't use the name "Anonymous". My preference is for you to use your own name, but if you can't, then show us your creativity and make up something clever.

This whole blog thing is fascinating, particularly when I consider what's been happening on the Daily Pilot blog over the past few months. As many of your know, I've been a very active participant on that blog. Most of the articles covered by that fine local newspaper are of interest to me and, as a result, I usually have an opinion or two - or three - to share.

The editors of the Daily Pilot have imposed a 100 word limit to each entry, which gave some of us pause until we figured out we can just submit chain entries to complete a thought - or lack thereof. Once we figured this out the dialogue threads tended to present a greater number of carefully crafted views on the issue at hand. Not always, though. There are still plenty of those folks posting comments who seem more than willing to display their ignorance for all to see. Usually, these folks post anonymously by selecting any number of pen names. In fact, it's likely that a few people post under multiple names and end up having debates with themselves.

One very disconcerting element of the Daily Pilot blog is the eagerness with which many anonymous bloggers defame and ridicule others who post their views. It's not unusual at all for the first couple comments posted on any article, column, editorial or commentary to be relevant to the subject of the piece. From that point, though, the comment threads typically devolve into spitting matches, not at all unlike elementary school squabbles. In one recent comment thread of over 100 entries attached to an article about the performance of a couple local schools, fully two thirds of the comments criticized other posters - usually those who attempted to keep the debate on point. There are a few folks who seem to try to keep the debate of issues at a high level despite the jibes and cat-calls by others. As hard as they try to keep the debate on course, the yapping hyenas, whose only goal is ridicule and invective, keep trying to shout them down.

One particularly pathetic fellow - he will likely recognize my description - boldly posts comments using his own name despite the fact that he has a very hard time completing a thought. I guess his anger at his neighbor, a female city council member, clouds his judgment and gives him a brain freeze. He's now transferred some of that anger and frustration to me as he makes feeble efforts to provoke comments from me. Sorry, my friend - you lose. When you dither away saying nothing of relevance it's difficult not to be sorry for you. Just keep it up, though - practice makes perfect or, in your case, mediocre.

Recently, as part of the comment thread dangling from Byron de Arakal's commentary published last Thursday in the Daily Pilot, a person posted a two-part entry that advocated a race war in this country to resolve the issue of illegal aliens. He was quite specific about how his ideas would work - it was a clear, unequivocal, call to war. This kind of comment, in my view, has no place in the online version of a respected newspaper. The editors of the Daily Pilot certainly would not have published his comments as a letter to the editor - why should they publish them online? This person is entitled to his opinion, but he should create his own forum for them - as I did with this blog - if he wants to foment the violent overthrow of our government. I don't know how many comments the editors of the Pilot reject, but those two never should have made the cut. Based on some of the subsequent comments posted, I'm not the only person around here who feels this way.

In another part of town an insidious guy, who very much resembles my theoretical character, Your Neighbor, continues to rant on his own blog. Based on the comments posted on the Daily Pilot, he has many sycophants in this town - those without the mental acuity to develop their own train of thought, so they just read from his songbook. Among those are a couple of our elected "leaders" who seem unable to frame an issue without his specific guidance. They, and others, continue posting entries straight from this guy's far-right wing manifestos. Of interest is the fact that one of his recent blog entries appeared, within a day, almost verbatim in not one, but two far right-wing online sites. This poor guy posted an entry recently whining about attention recently bestowed on him by a Daily Pilot blog commentor and went on denying any kind of influence over our municipal court jester, Mayor Pro Tem Eric Bever, and praised him for the "great Councilperson he has become". Give me a break! Bever is a joke and continues to display his ineptitude and disregard for proper decorum practically every time he opens his mouth.

So, we'll just keep going along, providing a forum for rational debate on important issues and invite those who choose to do so to join us here.