BLACKBALLING & CENSORING

To: The Rittenhouse Review
From: Richard Ames [ Semarla@cs.com ]
Date: November 26, 2002

You wrote regarding your blackballing of LGF the following: >>>the site’s unwillingness to tolerate comments that deviate from the house line and its active and aggressive deletion of comments from readers that it deems objectionable -- and the “bright line” test involved is almost totalitarian in nature and scope -- is nothing less than a disgrace.<<<

Well, are you not now “unwilling to tolerate comments that deviate from the house line.”? Hey, if you don’t agree with him, challenge him. But please don’t start censoring.

Signed,
Richard Ames
Pittsburgh

Jim Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review responds:

I made my position clear with respect to LGF on Friday, November 22. If that post did not, in your mind, constitute a “challenge,” I assure you that LGF and its allies have interpreted it to be exactly that.

I am censoring no one, not even LGF. I have not visited LGF since last week, so I cannot say this with absolute certainty, but I suspect LGF has continued to publish since November 22 just as it did before.

Moreover, I hope the links to the nearly 600 publications from the U.S. and abroad, ranging in perspective from far left to far right, to which The Rittenhouse Review has linked under its blogroll will persuade you, if only slightly, that I have no intention of standing in the way of the free flow of information.

AH, THE POORLY SERVED YOUTH OF AMERICA
Yet Another “Professor” Who Can’t Write

To: The Rittenhouse Review
From: JR [ bueducom@yahoo.com ]
Date: November 26, 2002

Perhaps this can be added to your fatuous self-promotion list on right (top!) of blog: ‘you are a moron’ or “this is the worst blog I’ve ever read.” And “god, you are pompous, self-important and stupid.” The trifecta of blogging. Imagine you, so judgmental and superior...over LGF??!! Yipes, another desperate Dem faced with the overwhelming evidence of your lost cause.

Do you know how many visitors LGF and the like get compared to you?

Signed,
Professor J

UM, THANKS

To: The Rittenhouse Review
From: K.R.D.
Date: November 25, 2002

I don’t know where the hell that article, “Al Gore and the Alpha Girls”, came from but that was some awesome s***.

I need to start doing stuff like that. I wrote some stuff when I was in college that some of my friends liked. If I find it I can send it to you.

Signed,
K.R.D.

Jim Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review responds:

Thanks, K.R.D. Actually, I normally ask that readers not send e-mail while they are intoxicated or otherwise not in full possession of their faculties. However, given the crap that lately has been coming in over the transom -- or, more accurately, oozing under the door -- I’ll not only take what I can get, I will say, happily, I suppose, that your message easily surpasses the quality of at least the last dozen I have received.

MISSING THE POINT ENTIRELY

To: The Rittenhouse Review
From: Aron Mellich [greenblusea@yahoo.com]
Date: November 25, 2002

Thanks for turning me on to the weblog known as Little Green Footballs.

Your mention of it made me curious, of course, so I checked it out. I found information and commentary at the site to be mostly grounded in empirical evidence coming directly from its targets of criticism -- such as translations from Arabic found at the Middle East Media Research Institute -- as well as conventional media reports.

Typical headlines at LGF are “Religion of Peace Gets Busy” and “Religion of Peace at it Again.” The substance of LGF’s sarcasm has to do with the deliberate killing of innocents and the untruthful rationales that are given by the (mainly Muslim) terrorists for their actions.

Now I haven’t looked much into the reader comments, but the posts on the front page are fairly tame -- hardly “a vile cesspool of racism, bigotry, prejudice, ignorance, and hate.” Are you sure about that?

Signed,
Aron Mellich
Seattle

Jim Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review responds:

It’s interesting that Mr. Mellich appears not to have noticed that my criticism of LGF was directed almost entirely at the site’s tolerance for odious commentary -- and intolerance for incompatible commentary -- the feature of the site he says he hasn’t “looked much into.”

STRIKEN FROM THE ROLL

To: The Rittenhouse Review
From: Kevin Skjei [kskjei@sbcglobal.net]
Date: November 22, 2002

I completely disagree with your article on LGF. I’ve been reading it for some time, and I simply don’t see the level of discourse there rising to what you cite as: “a vile cesspool of racism, bigotry, prejudice, ignorance, and hate.”

In fact, your characterization as such makes your own credibility suspect. I took a quick scan of your own blog.

I agree with your assessment that it is time to take a stand: accordingly, you are removed from my blog roll.

Respectfully,
Kevin Skjei

Jim Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review responds:

One might well argue LGF has a long way to travel before the level of discourse there rises to that of racism, bigotry, prejudice, ignorance, and hate.

Needless to say, I’m crushed, wounded, and heart broken to learn I have been dropped from the blogroll at your unnamed and unidentified weblog.

I’m surprised, however, that you say you needed to take “a quick scan” of The Rittenhouse Review before eliminating the link. I would have thought you would have taken the time to familiarize yourself with the Review before adding it in the first place.

Moreover, if my low regard for LGF is so distressing to you, I wonder why you didn’t remove the link on October 23 in response to the Review’s comments about the site in an article entitled “Daily Howler Blows it on Sniper Coverage.”

YOUR EGO

To: The Rittenhouse Review
From: R.P. Pharmeter [pharmeter@yahoo.com]
Date: November 25, 2002

LGF couldn’t buy the publicity that your blog has given it today.

In as much [sic] as your “stand” is so counterproductive to your alleged goal, one might reasonably wonder whether the issue is more about LGF or more about your ego.

Do you hold your readers in such low regard that they shouldn’t be trusted to read and form their own opinions about LGF?

Signed,
R. P. Pharmeter