Know Your Friends

John is a synonym for toilet
I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends... they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!
- Warren Gamaliel Harding

An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse.
- Benjamin Franklin

I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you.
- Ann Richards

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.
- Woodrow Wilson


So last night, I'm surfing the web, and on AMERICAblog -- a blog I like and have linked to often -- I found the following post:

GOP Senator Pat Roberts is a big girl
by John in DC - 5/19/2006 03:00:00 PM

Of course that title pissed me off. Why oh why do people think it's acceptable to call someone a coward by calling them a girl? So I left this somewhat hysterical post (OK, I was mad, steam coming out of my ears mad).

Oh jesus fucking christ could we STOP thinking calling some[one] FEMALE is an INSULT?

Why don't you just call him, i don't know, testically challenged. insult his manhood. don't insult me. I'm sick of it. Just stop it, now.

quit hitting the tar baby of gender insults.

I'm a girl and i could kick your ass, john aravois, you name the time and the venue.
truth | Homepage | 05.19.06 - 10:34 pm | #

But the whole issue was still on my mind, so I went back and left this somewhat more considered comment:

I can't stop thinking about this. This is the second time in a week I've had to respond to a male blogger trying to insult someone by calling them female. The other one called someone a pussy, and I can't even remember the blog, but it just pisses me off no end. They weren't trying to say the guy was a cat. They were saying he was somehow less than, and therefore calling him female was the appropriate insult.

Female is not a synonym for 'less than'.

Let's say that again.

Female is not a synonym for 'less than'.

Just because male homosexuals commonly use the term 'big girl' in that way does not make it acceptable.

How would it look if I, a straight woman, called people I didn't like homos or queers, because that was common use in my community? Would that then be OK? Hell, no.

And you know what? I'm a true progressive, and I'd NEVER insult anyone by group affiliation like that.

The worst insult I have ever called anyone in my life is Bush Republican. Now that's an insult.

Why piss on your friends, for no reason?

John? John? Plate needs stepping up to, please.
truth | Homepage | 05.19.06 - 11:38 pm | #

Well, this morning I woke up to find that my comments had been deleted. That pissed me off, too, so I found a site that had archived the comment thread and re-posted them. But, you guessed it, they were deleted a second time.

Big year for me -- I've been deleted from the Washington Post blog and from AMERICAblog. (I wonder what blog will delete me next so I can hit the 2006 delete trifecta?)

So the whole kerfuffle got me interested, and I googled John Aravosis, the guy who runs the site & used the term "Big Girl". I love google, even if they are censoring shit in China. And now they own blogspot, so am I getting back at their censoring asses with my free blog? Conundrums.

Anyway, back to google.

Wow, I did not know anything about John Aravosis.

I knew he was a lawyer. I did not know that from 1989 to 1994 he was a staff attorney for .... wait, this is good .... Ted Stevens of Alaska. Mr. Pork himself! And since Stevens is a Republican -- so was Aravosis, until ... well, this is not clear. Not much biographical information about Mr. Aravosis on the 'net.

Here's his SourceWatch bio:

John Aravosis, who operates the AMERICAblog.org web site, is a "Washington DC-based writer and political consultant, specializing in using the Internet for political advocacy. He is the creator of StopDrLaura.com, Matthew Shepard Online Resources, and DearMary.com, among other activist Web sites.

"John has a joint JD and MSFS from Georgetown, where he studied under former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. He is an avid writer, and in addition to writing THE LIST (http://www.gayadvocacy.com/subscribe.html), he has worked as a stringer for the Economist magazine, and for years was the US Politics Guide at About.com.

"John's policy experience includes stints in the US Senate, the World Bank, and the Children's Defense Fund. John is also an occasional TV pundit, having appeared on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, ABCNews World News Tonight, CNN, and more. John speaks five languages and has visited or worked in 28 countries." [1]

Speaks five languages, visited 28 countries, sounds very civilized and urbane, no? This afternoon John Aravosis of AMERICAblog posted this:

Guys, anybody who isn't happy, please leave this blog and don't come back. I'm serious. Get out.

Our Constitution is on life support and you freaks, a very vocal minority of the people who visit this site and comment, have spent over 24 hours worrying about two words in a title, and you're still obsessed with it. None of us have the time to deal with your weekly fit of hysterics, whether it's over Katherine Harris' photo, Cynthia McKinney being a wackjob, commenter Miles being upset that I "made a big deal" about a hate crime that almost killed a gay couple, you being upset that I criticized Howard Dean for his insensitivity to gay issues (which I was proved right on a week later), and on and on and on.

It took me a while to realize it, but there are a minority of my readers who are never going to be happy. Rather than fight our common enemy, you'd rather sit here and beat me up because somehow you get off on that. That's fine. You're no longer welcome. Please leave. And spare me the emails about how you used to love the blog. The blog is the same it's always been. You however have become increasingly nasty and shrill. And in any case, the majority of our readers are normal people who are actuall worried about their country and want to make a difference. Please stop bothering them with your weekly crises.

I choose to spend my time fighting the enemy. You choose to spend your time fighting friends. Well, you do that. On someone else's blog. You're no longer welcome here, so get out so the rest of us, the majority of our readers and evoted advocates, can get on with trying to fix this country. JOHN
John Aravosis | 05.20.06 - 3:19 pm | #

So, I can take a hint. I removed AMERICAblog from the blogroll. I'll take his words with a healthy grain of salt from now on -- I'm a big girl, after all. I'll only call Aravosis the worst epithet I know of -- Republican. The guy was a Republican for a significant part of his conscious life. How stupider can you get than that?

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
H.L. Mencken