And you have the example of two members of the BatCave exchanging insults over what amounts to the definition of a falsehood compared to an exaggeration.

For the record, Red Mountain and I were having a good laugh in PMs as we gave each other a heads-up on what we had just submitted to Chris. The edited versions don’t capture the conspiratorial spirit of our exchange. Chris had us delete references to Joan’s bad poetry tattooed across my backside and Red’s use of Debrah’s breasts as his screen saver.

The events of the past few weeks have definitely acquainted strange bedfellows. At DIW, Debrah just posted a link to the BatCave. She enjoyed a joke about Joan so much she steered KC’s readers to our cavern of obscenity.

That comment indeed a strange-bedfellow moment.

This comment misses the mark. I would say Robert is more like a summer camp councilor who prevents his campers from inflicting more than minor rhetorical flesh wounds on each other.

You see the difference don’t you?

Hmmmm. My daughter’s getting to summer camp age and I’m not sure that I want to be thinking about this crowd when she’s taking off for her big week away from home.

Yeah, you’d think a person would want to claim authorship of a think like that.

The only consistent thing taking place is change. Some changes may be good and some could turn out badly.

Are we looking at signs of the apocalypse?

Oddly, it does sometimes feel like I’m dabbling in family therapy.

During the course of following the case I’ve spoken to six or seven other commenters on the phone. My experience was that every one of them were exactly the way I expected the to be. Remarkably so, even down to the cadence with which they spoke. I was struck by it so much I even emailed Robert a short comment when three of the people i spoke to popped up in the same thread.

If I try to apply my sense of how well I know someone to the principals of this blog and DIW I would say this. I agree with KC’s opinions much more but if the President offered me an opportunity to have a beer with one or the other I would pick Robert.

PS For the record my favorite beer is Molsen Canadian.

I believe that all you’ve proven is that you don’t even understand what kind of understanding it is that you lack. Neither do I, of course. Setting aside the ineffable qualities of Divahood, in this big flurry of commenting that’s centered on View-from-Wilmington and JinC and spread here and elsewhere there’s some strong personalities, and I think you’re right that we’re getting a pretty clear picture of the people behind the comments.

As to the other thing, I’m a suspicious looking person, so maybe you can arrange to arrest me for breaking into my house. I assume that Canadian stuff makes its way down here…

In her off-the-record harangues (and her latest puts it on the record) Debrah is as quick as some other commenters here to point out Joan’s own selective outrage. She thinks I really ought to confront Joan about the shabby treatment that gay blogger Pam Spaulding got on Liestoppers. I don’t need to, though — Michael Gustafson did it for me last summer. Joan, who appears in the Liestoppers thread as “deleted user” (but not, I think, the “deleted user” who started the thread), was not complacent about the nastiness, though she wasn’t irate about it, either. Wayne Fontes pops up with objections that are especially direct and cogent, which in my book is better than irate. Liestoppers has shed a whole lot of collective credibility as it’s become more insular and more vehemently right wing.

The “deleted user”, who started the LS thread you reference, is the moderator of the board, Lodge Pro 345/Tony Soprano. This particular thread is mild in comparison to some of the Pam Spaulding threads that were on the old LS discussion board.

To Joan’s credit, in the past, she has spoken out against some of LieStopper’s resident racists…

http://s1.zetaboards.com/Liestoppers_meeting/topic/907361/3/

I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect Joan to condemn every outlandish, offensive and/or ignorant comment posted on LieStoppers. It would be a full-time job due to the sheer number of them.

As for LieStopper’s credibility…what credibility?

Check out the 18 page deep, birthers’ thread…

http://s1.zetaboards.com/Liestoppers_meeting/topic/1959390/1/

Some “LieStoppers” are peddling the conspiracy theory that President Obama is not a natural born citizen even though there is no evidence to support their theory. Nothing at all. Their “credible” sources for this information comes from theObamafile.com, World Net Daily (WND), Phillip Berg (9/11 truther, turned birther), and dentist/real estate agent/lawyer, Dr. Orly Taitz. This is a lot like citing justice4nifong.com, The Herald Sun, Irving Joyner, and Crystal’s cousin, Jakki, to support the theory that “something happened” at 610 N. Buchanan, on March 13, 2006.

At one point in time, LieStoppers did not tolerate unfounded, ridiculous accusations. That time has passed.

This comment was actually left before I posted mine asking folks to write about themselves — I adjusted the timestamp on mine so that it would come right after Debrah’s. And anyway, it’s tangential to Debrah v. Joan.

I don’t know whether she’s inclined to criticize people merely because of who they are, but when she’s inclined to criticize someone, who and what they are is all-important. Judging from my recent sample, anyway, ad hominem is the norm for her. That’s nothing to stop her from accusing others of outrageous ad homimen — to be “the Diva” is to be free from the standards that the rest of us plebes are supposed to live up to.

Even considering all that, I’m amazed by what I found when I followed the DivaWorld link in the most recent comment she left here:

The dishonest manipulative filth never ends.

After harassing Professor Halkides like she tried to harass KC, this church lady act is almost mental, IMO.

When will this busy-body insanity end?

The comment left at JinC has been brought to this page along with commentary from me concerning what I know really took place.

The problem is Joan’s conciliatory comment urging John in Carolina to “respect Chris’ wishes and actions” and “show him kindness” now that Chris Halkides has announced that’s he’s taking a break from blogging. This is, for Debrah, absolutely intolerable coming from a “filthy piece of phony scum” like Joan, a woman who had just “sent Chris two ‘vile’ emails.” I guess basic etiquette is another thing that’s for plebes but not for Divas. Otherwise, why are we hearing about these emails from Debrah but not from Chris?

What passes between Joan and Chris is not my concern — they’re both grownups and they’ll work it out or not. The dynamic is interesting, though. There’s the professorial blogger who admonishes commenters about the “difference between saying that person X did a bad thing and person X is a bad person.” And then there’s the leak, acting as if on the blogger’s behalf, denouncing person X as a “bloviating harpy” who’s “filthy,” “phony” and “creepy,” which I believe is a fancy way of saying that she’s a bad person. Funny, isn’t it — that’s just the dynamic that “the woman who uses the pseudonym ‘Joan Foster’” has been complaining about. Debrah seems to be the crucial ingredient, doesn’t she?

The Diva schtick is in full flower in her slow-speaking to Wayne. For Debrah, divahood is about saying the right things, looking the right way, and being associated with the right people. On the flip side, it’s about obsessively deriding the wrong sort of people for, among other things, how they look and who they hang out with, and then being gratified that they’re still paying attention, in spite of all that condescension and hatefulness. What other explanation could there be but plebeian jealousy?

That’s the high school cheerleader kind of diva — an older and more venemous version of Sharpay. But the term is from the world of opera, and as an antidote to Debrah’s trashtalking there’s nothing like the real thing — a woman who inspires reverence because of her supreme talent and the way she lays it on the line, and of course beauty and style are a plus, too. I’m not sure if I’d find the movie Diva as great now as I did when I saw it in 1982, but I know they got this part right — Wilhelmenia Fernandez singing “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana”, from Alfredo Catalani’s opera La Wally:

As far as the battle of Debrah and Joan, if anyone has something to say on their own behalf and they can say it without attacking anyone else, I’ll probably post it. Otherwise I probably won’t. Write about yourself, in other words.

Let me try to explain…..very s-l-o-w-l-y……that my interest in you as a commenter has never been as keen as your interest has always obviously been in following the Diva.

Anything I read on another blog, and you happened to have been there, was just a case of coincidence or bad luck.

I don’t know you.

I have never attacked you without provocation and always wonder about people who go to other blogs and try to instruct the author of that blog.

For instance, I don’t agree with Zimmerman about much; however, I realize that this is his blog and when he makes a decision, I don’t spend days fighting with him and demanding that he yield to my views.

I don’t email him and tell him that he should….how did you put it over at Liestoppers?…..”stomp” on someone?

People like you and your ilk are alien to me….and yes, idle……to believe that you can direct traffic on another blog.

And “Mr. Fontes”, there is much you do not understand about the Diva…..even as you seem to follow her every move, as well as in “buddy Foster fashion”, gossip and relive every episode of the Diva mystery as you wait for someone to hand you a new drool cup.

What on earth does a man find so intriguing about keeping track of a stranger or strangers on blogs and what relationship they might have with another blogger?

For me, people like you are just plain….odd.

Did you really—-even in your wildest dreams—-expect KC to listen to your advice about how he runs his own blog?

[snip…]

Lastly, a keen observer might ask, “Why are some so caught up inside the Diva and KC issues? If KC isn’t bothered by anything, why are they?”

Good question!

It looks to me, “Mr. Fontes,” like you’re trying to squeeze blood from a turnip, and this particular turnip seems to enjoy the attention.

I snipped out the part about “the Diva breast shot” and how proud she is of it. The whole thing is on the extras page, which is the best way I have of letting Debrah say her piece and also signaling that in this thread this particular aspect is a dead end, even if the material is solid gold.

Let me try to explain…..very s-l-o-w-l-y……that my interest in you as a commenter has never been as keen as your interest has always obviously been in following the Diva.

Anything I read on another blog, and you happened to have been there, was just a case of coincidence or bad luck.

I don’t know you.

I have never attacked you without provocation and always wonder about people who go to other blogs and try to instruct the author of that blog.

For instance, I don’t agree with Zimmerman about much; however, I realize that this is his blog and when he makes a decision, I don’t spend days fighting with him and demanding that he yield to my views.

I don’t email him and tell him that he should….how did you put it over at Liestoppers?…..”stomp” on someone?

People like you and your ilk are alien to me….and yes, idle……to believe that you can direct traffic on another blog.

And “Mr. Fontes”, there is much you do not understand about the Diva…..even as you seem to follow her every move, as well as in “buddy Foster fashion”, gossip and relive every episode of the Diva mystery as you wait for someone to hand you a new drool cup.

What on earth does a man find so intriguing about keeping track of a stranger or strangers on blogs and what relationship they might have with another blogger?

For me, people like you are just plain….odd.

Did you really—-even in your wildest dreams—-expect KC to listen to your advice about how he runs his own blog?

And just so you won’t continue in ignorance, I am intensely proud of the Diva breast shot. It was a serendipity shot.

Although I had rather others wouldn’t use it on their blogs, but I do realize how compelled they are to view it.

You see, Kitty Diva and I—-(before she went to Rainbow Bridge)—-were on the IMAC on Valentine’s Day last year and I was trying on necklaces….when we both began posing for IPhoto Booth.

The breast shot was the result of playing around and it turned out so well—-similar to something taken by a professional photographer, I’m told—-that I decided to keep it inside the IPhoto cache.

So don’t bother yourself with your notions.

Anyone downloading that shot is exhibiting pure lust for the Diva magic!

Try not to be bothered by such trivia…….(unless you’re vying for an autographed glossy copy.)

I realize the way in which your friends lifted it from the Diva video doesn’t offer a true and clear rendering. Hope that hasn’t put a damper on your viewing experience.

Lastly, a keen observer might ask, “Why are some so caught up inside the Diva and KC issues? If KC isn’t bothered by anything, why are they?”

Good question!