great, I didn’t even get to see any postings even vaguely related to grey’s OP.

I know it’s a lot to ask, Les, and I’m not suggesting that you recreate what you already composed, but can you at least give a brief summation to those of us who didn’t get to see your additions?

I don’t need to see grey’s again.  I went to his site and read it.

I second that.  I wanna hear. 

Me too.  No fair that I’m on MEZ and asleep while this is going on.

Although i by no means sympathize with intent of his post, i did think it a bit odd and over-the-top to see an addendum to his original post.  It didn’t seem very wise and, well, i can see why he took exception to it.  Anyone could have easily anticipated that some level of political fire-fight might ensue.

Either delete the post out-right, email the author why, or save extra-author corrections, addendums, and whatnot for the comments.

It seemed an over-use of authority that would’ve been best done in the comments section.

It doesn’t look like the entry is my browser’s cache, but whoever is pulling an RSS 2 or Atom feed may well have a copy.

Just saying.

.rob, you may be confused as to who’s blog this is. Making entries here is a privilege, not a right.

I say find it and put it back. It was da bomb! Les’ response was so appropriate, pertinent, justified etc.

Guess this shows how much grey really wants to discuss all aspects of an issue.

Maybe Grey realized how badly he was going to get flak over it and retreated.  I didn’t get to the whole thing, just reading through what was on the index page before it disappeared.  That’s what I get for taking off for a few hours before finishing reading!

Les, I thought your rebuttal was great. I wonder, though: why waste space addressing an obvious chain email, when the poster hasn’t even taken the time to verify it via snopes.com or other simple checks?

The “this-is-my-turf” arguement never struck me as reasoned.  From my perspective, the addendum to his post lacked grace and good political sense.

Call me crazy and overly liberal, go ahead:  But, i think free expression (within our culture’s normal social confines) is a good, wise idea for this forum in the context of equality.  I, previously, thought it a fantastic development—until i saw the post in question.  I’m dismayed to think its practice here is anything less than free when it doesn’t match an owner’s ideology (or the majority’s) and therefore when such is the case somehow gives moral license to the siteowner to add comments and addendums within the original text beyond the author’s original words. Truth isn’t so weak to need such assistance.

There’s a place for refutations and comments and questions: Everyone in turn, on equal footing.

It’s always best to let people speak, without injecting comments, and then speak once the conch shell has been passed the listeners’ way.  It’s a fundamental lesson of forums, be you a visitor or owner.  But, alas, we do seem to live in a less-than-civilised era of forums, especially on the web.

As to whose turf this is, yes, yes, i know. (Ownership is incredibly important, i know.) I do remember, trust me.  I regularly see his face pearing over my screen as i type my waiting-in-turn-comments.  It often sparks my memory of Honecker or Breshnev’s omnipresent portraits at the market or classroom.  I had hoped the above picture was a portrait of a more authority-restrained and fair character.  I still do.

Might never makes right.
It just makes messes (like this situation).

I regularly see his face pearing over my screen as i type my waiting-in-turn-comments.  It often sparks my memory of Honecker or Breshnev’s omnipresent portraits at the market or classroom.

Now that’s below the belt, Rob.  Les looks a lot better than Breshnev, and a lot smarter than Honecker.

My original text referred to Castro and Kim Jong-Il, but i decided to use non-living figures.  I have enough enemies here as it is, no reason to add a PRK or Cuban hitsquad to the list.

Would PolPot and Mao read better ?
(and i admire HoChiMinh too much to uuse his name)

;-]

rob- not having seen grey’s emended entry here, only what he posted on his own blog, I can’t judge the way Les treated it.  I’m all for free speech and fairness too.  But you have to keep in mind
1)this is indeed Les’s blog, not a public service; and
2)grey has a history here of making wild claims with no substantiation, and not responding to questions; and at some point enough is enough.
Maybe Les made a tactical error in altering grey’s entry itself rather than commenting on it- I don’t know.  But if you read lots of threads here, you can see for yourself that Les is fair and not arbitrary in his control over his creation.  True, he does not suffer fools graciously, but why should he?  If you don’t draw the line somewhere, no serious discussion can take place.

So, .rob, are you saying that grey was justified in pulling his entry?

The point I’m trying to make is that Les allows others to make guest entries and once they have done so it seems to me the entry should stay, no matter the scope of responses they get to it.
Pulling it because the editor placed a rebuttal to it seems the height of hypocrisy. His post after all concerned true intent of the “enemy” and some need nothing more than a separation of entry and comment to accept all that the entry contained as absolute and final fact.

grey makes a habit of presenting half-formed opinion as proven fact and every opinion he has seems to warrant further investigation. In this case we received both point and counterpoint in the same entry. It made for intriguing reading and more of what I come to SEB for.

Do you come here thinking it is something other than one man’s opinions (or the individual opinions of those who make entries available)?

grey should put his entry back, if he has the sack to, and then we can rightly discuss in comments whether his entry should have been allowed to sit separate from Les’ editorializing.

Tomorrow, leave the windows open.

I am conflicted about this.

To begin with, I wonder what prompted grey to submit the entry in the first place - on second thought, never mind. I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

To keep with the theme of a personal blog, it is appropriate to unambiguously flag a submission that takes a contrarian view; editorial comments are one way to achieve this.

On the other hand, I can see Rob’s point. However, it assumes a reasoned debate, a dubious premise in this case.

Perhaps Les should have rejected the submission, but commented on grey’s blog entry instead… A subtle difference, but it would have observed all niceties, whether such courtesy is justified or not.

And perhaps it would be appropriate to copy his blog entry and to reconstruct Les’s rebuttal. Then again, perhaps not.

Damn, I saw that at work yesterday - with Les’ addendum - and thought; “It looks really interesting!  I will read it tomorrow after breakfast.“ 

Let me first try and destroy any beliefs that .rob is against the site Owner; I am decidely NOT.  That said, understand that i always, ALWAYS, severely admonish such cras use of power (e.g., by injecting comments and opinions throughout the user’s original text) regardless of where i am, or what site.  It’s a core belief i have.

I believe that the *free* exchange of ideas will, one day soon, eliminate much of our civilisation’s evils.

That said, i do GREATLY admire the site Owner’s work, and especially the Owner’s desire to open posts to visitors.  More people should do this.  In short, the Owner has done an excellent, an admirable! job that typifies the Zen-n-MotorCycle level of Quality when it comes to this site.  Really, the Owner has done just that.

I’m serious when i say the above.

But, sometimes great leaders, such as the Owner, stumble and fall short of their own ideals—and their audience’s expectations.  Sometimes face flat in the groun.  Such is the case when i read Grey’s hopelessly editorialized-to-death, injected-throughout-with-another’s-opinions post regarding Islam-v-Jesus-in-Prison.  It was ugly.  It was very ugly.  It was WRONG.

It was a cras use of authority and power.
Shame on the Owner.

Yes, i agree, Grey isn’t so much interested in Truth as he is in some Republican-party branded version of christianity.

NOTE: Grey is an ugly soul—when it comes to the value of Truth and its proper excercise.

But, i think his (albeit unstated) right to post here free of over-adulteration and over-editorialization was breached.  Actually, for anyone who saw the post, Grey’s original text was often lost in and amongst the Owner’s rather lengthy editorialization and comments.  It was like reading Talmud, minus the beautiful tractate style of layout.  So, not only was it morally bad, but also aesthetically so.

Maybe the Owner should issue permits-to-post amongst those that meet certain, albeit unstated, criteria.  This might limit the desires to be so brash—and unrestrained—when certain Problem People post on his site.

One day ownership won’t be a part of any law.

What Elwed said.

.rob does make some good points, then again, I know that grey has made it a habit of trying to get under Les’ skin.  Also, this isn’t the first time where Les has made editorial comments to a submission, just the first time that he has done a full blown rebuttal.  I suppose a more delicate approach would have been to post the entry and with a editorial note to read Les’ rebuttal in the very first comment.

I’m just happy that .rob appears to have returned to earth.

But, sometimes great leaders, such as the Owner, stumble and fall short of their own ideals

If you think that with the phrase “great leader” you’ve inoculated yourself from a trip to the re-education camp, you are oh, so wrong. 

Perhaps you’ll keep a more civil tongue in your head after a couple of years shivering away your nights on a thin layer of straw… serf!

(now where’d I put that knout?)

The only thing that come to mind about this in reference to Grey’s deletion of the thread….  the word ‘cowardly’

If you’re going to run something up the flagpole to see who salutes, you’ld best be prepared for getting the finger as well.

Kudos to Les for putting in the time & effort to call out a bunch of obvious hate-mongering drivel with intelligent, thought out rebuttal.

Oh, and .rob adams?  Yes, you are crazy and over liberal.

Nowiser - LOL!

I did get a look at how the entry was done, though as I said earlier I’d hoped to read it all today.  It seemed odd to weave the rebuttal in with the original post, but having open-submissions is an emerging standard so there are still things to be worked out.

Maybe a good compromise would be to post the original as-is, and then post the first comment below it with the rebuttal.  That would keep the distinctiveness of the two thoughts intact.

(...and also clearly show that using an email forward as a post, isn’t exactly distinctive thought.)  I went to Grey’s site to read the original and it just doesn’t ring true.  Can you picture an accomplished minister of any faith “hanging his head in shame” when confronted with criticism?  I can’t. But maybe I lack imagination, which was clearly used by whoever created the original story.

I did not catch the first piece. But following you link I saw the opinion. This piece was discussed about in urban legends snopes page and the event did not really occur. And the
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/allah.asp

It is my opinion that religion is merely culture in written and codified form. For example, while there are some Christians against homosexuality there are others who feel Chirstianity is not only not against it but that Jesus gave his blessings and protection.

Comments relating to Islam seems to have the problem of the inability to separate Arab/Middle East culture and the religion. An example is where some people claim that Islam is against women’s rights. But if you go to South East Asia, Indonesia, the world’s largest Islamic country, had until recent election had a female President (Megawati). She lost because of among other reasons, failure in tackling corruption and improving economic development. The US has yet to have a female leader. Also in Indonesia, one of their religious ruling councils had 7 females in 30 person council. Or in China, they have female religious scholars and leaders too. Let us recall the fit thrown up by some Christians (Catholics) relating to a female religious leader.

That’s funny. I could have sworn the entry was laid out like this:

> Les stating that he would have something to say about the entry afterward.

> grey’s entry itself.

> Les’ rebuttal that included pointing to a source of the source to put it in perspective and hand grey his ass in a sling.*

I love the way these things become distorted after the fact and in the retelling. It’s my understanding now that grey defeated Islam and as such, we can now bring the boys home from the wrong war.

* Giving grey’s ass back to him was above and beyond what should be considered fair; Les should have kept it for a trophy. I would have but then you guys would have assumed I kept it for a different reason.

I would have but then you guys would have assumed I kept it for a different reason

(nowiser, scratching head in befoozlement—)

“Uh, a fricasee?  A pincushion?  a rather pale and hairy footpillow?“

(mumbling incoherently to self “no, that doesn’t make any sense at all.  He can’t possibly mean it that way!  That would be just, well, wrong—in so many different ways.  Besides, after about three days, it’s gonna be distinctly aromatic.  nah, that can’t be it.“)

“I got it!  You could turn it upside down and use it as a fruit bowl!“

Ragman wrote: Maybe Grey realized how badly he was going to get flak over it and retreated.

What do you mean “was going!?“ The first person who replied (I’m sorry I forgot who that was) had already produced anecdotal evidence that there is no global jihad commanded upon all Muslims. That poster mentioned that they had talked to some Sunni Muslim acquaintances who said the exact opposite of the claim made in grey’s “proof” (which we all know is a stupid forwarded email, and should have been written off as a fictional work by its very nature.) My post pointed out that infidel is an English word and the Quranic verse so often quoted to prove that Muslims must kill infidels, does not, in fact, say that. (insert boring discussion of Islamic history, fiqh, tafsir, and Quranic interpretation here.)  I also pointed out that Tariq Ramadan (a scholar hailed as a Muslim Martin Luther) was banned from the US even though Notre Dame wanted him to teach and he most certainly would be willing to sing “God Bless America” like mentioned in the chain letter. Between Les’s rebuttal and the first two posts (mostly Les’s rebuttal), grey had already had his ass handed to him.