I sent Joanie a message Friday hoping she would delete the comment and nip it all in the bud. My message to Joanie was along the lines that she should delete the comment at her site, that I knew Kate’s daughter had made it, and that I was on an AIM chat with Kate until an hour or so before the daughter made the comment. In the past I had urged Kate to remain silent when the whole “those poor kids” thing started.
Joanie had the power to end this by deleting the comment, yet she and Greg played it to the hilt, which finally drove me over the edge and off the sidelines. This has been very painful for me, because I like both of these women. Honestly I wish the would both ban each other from each others sites and move on, but the situation did go “off the Internet” and just because you didn’t make the call doesn’t absolve you of some level of responsibility.
I believe that Joanie was not involved in the call, but she damn sure bears responsibility for not taking an apology and deleting a comment. I knew the whole story about Kate’s daughter finally fessing up to reading her e-mail all summer, but was not at liberty to share it.
Either way she (and Crazy Tracy) have been reading things into Kate’s posts for months. I challenge you to find a site that mentions Kate where she does not show up in the comments… They’ve been advocating just this kind of hairbrained call by spreading gossip and untruths. The fact that she publicized this whole blowup and hosted the incendiary comments is sort of telling, don’t you think?
She could have easily stopped this before it started. She would not, so she is guilty at a minimum of flame fanning. Only CPS knows who called. Again, I take Joanie at her word that she was not involved in the call, but as the listing below shows it’s not hard for a nutjob to connect the dots as to her hatred for Kate.
I’ve collected a sampling of DaGoddess collection of Kate bashing, as they are more powerful when viewed as a whole. You decide if she had it in for Kate, and if the fuel for a nutjob was spread. Note the frequent presence of another health professional “Tracy”.
I’ll let her comments (and those of a few others) speak for themselves…
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Wow. Viewed like that, all mashed together, it isn’t a very flattering picture. At the very least, it is poor sportsmanship and sour grapes.
Poor Kevin, you’re probably scrubbing up after having to deal with all of that foulness.
Thank you for taking the time to put all of that together. Makes it easier to see the whole picture.
Good morning, Kevin…Great job. I’ve been watching this mess unfold over the last couple of days and I’ve had the same thought from the beginning….karma. This is what a person gets, and deserves, when they pull this kind of ‘holier-than-thou’ crap on people. Which DG does constantly.
Does the name Zander mean anything to anybody?
Briefly: Zander was (still is..password protected now) a blogger. He blogged about having cancer, among other things. I have no idea, because I’ve never met, or even emailed him, whether or not his story was true. I also do not know what, exactly, got DG stuck up his butt, but she took it off line. She posted a lot about how she ‘researched’ this guy…even said she (or one of her fellow ‘researchers’) called the hospital he went to for treatments to find out whether or not his story was true. Now, what is that? The exact same kind of privacy invasion Kate has just been put through. Hmmm. For the same reason: DG decided she didn’t like the person anymore for whatever reason. Hmmm.
She already doesn’t like me, apparently. I got called ‘troll’ by her in a blog’s comments. Mind you, I have never insulted, trolled, or in any impugned her, personally or any other way. And, the comment I left that she felt compelled to comment on herself, was just pointing out an article to the author of the blog that I thought she’d like.
The only two things I can think of that may have caused her to decide I suck are the fact that I hang out (or did) way too much at one particular blog. I admit it…I did. I was…what’s the word?….intensely interested in, hooked on, a big ‘ol butt kissin’ fan of….a moon-eyed dipstick over (however you want to put it) this blog. It was the first one I’d ever read. I was fascinated. I learned a LOT from the guy. (His blog is what gave me the cajones to start my own.) I had been reading him for months, so I knew of the history between the author and DG. This one time, he posted something I really wanted to respond to, but I was scared to death because I had barely even commented at his blog, let alone ever emailed anybody like this…plus, I had made a HUGE mistake at an entirely different blog within the first month that I ever even knew what they were. I acted like a troll and an asshole because I felt that that author had unfairly picked on the author of my favorite blog. I felt bad about it, figured out a few things from it and didn’t want to ever do it again. (And, I haven’t.) So, between my fear of what reaction I might get from the person I wanted to email and my fear of inadvertantly doing something stupid again, I emailed DG first to explain myself and ask about emailing the guy. Her first response was pleasant, but I had a couple of follow up questions. Her responses got progressively colder. She said that if I wrote to this guy, he’d either just delete it without ever reading it or if he did, he’d probably just fisk it in a post. Then she said that if I was going to be all infatuated with him, there was nothing else she would be able to do for me. (?) Oookaaay.
Well, I wrote to the guy, after all. He neither ignored or fisked me and I’ve had several very nice email exchanges with him since.
The other thing was when my favorite author had guest bloggers. I rather bluntly agreed with another commenter that the blog was much better with the original author than the guests. Well…sigh. I later re-read my original comment and wanted to hide under the computer desk because it was so raw. Not obscene..just blunt. So, I went back and apologised to all the guest bloggers and explained myself. DG was one of those guest bloggers. Her response to the original comment was for me (and the other commenter) to get over ourselves. (For the record, it wasn’t myself I needed to get over..it was the author of the blog.) Her response to my apology was to say it wasn’t good enough (it was called ‘ass-kissing’, I believe) and to post a picture of a models butt. Again…oookaaay.
So, due to her past history of prying into people’s personal lives and my own history of being unfairly (and unsuccessfully) bitch-slapped by her, I tend to be on Kate’s side.
I firmly believe that if ANYONE needs to get over themselves, it’s DG.
Whoa. Kevin, I’m sorry that was so long. I wanted to make sure I kept it straight.
I have to wonder why…if she really wants this to end, that Kate provided a link to this page. If it were me, I would want to put this whole, ugly episode behind me, not add fuel to the fire.
P.S. I am not a troll…I read blogs, but don’t have one. Leaving my name would mean nothing to anyone because I rarely comment on anything I read.
Lurker, in all fairness, this is Kevin’s blog and he’s welcome to post what he likes.
Stevie, the other person who’d been involved in the Zander ordeal was Kate.
For all others, as I told Kevin in an e-mail, assembled as he’s done here, my comments are snarkier and meaner than I’d like to believe I was capable of ever sounding. But, there’s also no comparison. When arranged as they are here, I can see that it does appear that I “have it in” for Kate.
The truth is – it doesn’t matter. Not in the great big (edited out “online” per an e-mail conversation) outside world. I also don’t believe that I should have to sit idly by and NOT say anything in my defense on my own site. Just as Kevin is free to post his thoughts here and as Kate is free to post on her site, I too should have that right. Kevin says I should have taken responsibility and not allowed the comments to continue. If that’s the case, the same should have been asked of Kate. And, it should hold true here as well. There aren’t different standards for behavior based on who’s backing who, are there?
My site is where I bitch and rant. Or muse and wax melancholic. If I write something that others feel the need to comment upon….that’s what comments are for. I chose not to delete the original offending comment because I don’t normally censor my visitors unless it directly advocates something illegal. (I’ve done that ONCE) My entry defending my right to post what I want on my site was to let people know I wasn’t expecting others to fight my battles. I’m a big girl and I take care of things on my own. I don’t, and haven’t, advocated ANY action against Kate on- or offline – not personally or otherwise. It’s totally unnecessary.
Joanie:
You have the right to post whatever you want.
You also have the responsibility to accept the consequences. Free speech means you are free to speak, not that you are absolved of responsibility for your actions.
You have deliberately gone to and fro on a myriad of blogs, inciting other people with inflammatory commentary, making “diagnoses” about a person whom you have never met face-to-face. You have encouraged others –including other health care professionals, who should also have known better–when THEY made such “diagnoses”, sight unseen.
Your breach of professional canons and your abuse of your calling as a nurse is beneath mere contempt. Your lack of interest in accepting any measure of responsibility for this debacle, despite your deliberate attempts to provoke such a response with your unprofessional public “diagnoses”, is…
predictable, I suppose.
I agree with you completely, Bill. I only hope that Kate has the venom necessary to follow this up with the appropriate legal action before Da Goddess and Tracie leave another victim behind.
Brenda,
I don’t know if legal action is going to accomplish anything.
I don’t think Joanie has done anything to warrant legal action, likewise Tracie.
If you think they have done something wrong they only thing you can do is tell them.
Let me clarify my comment…
I simply meant to say that if Kate really wanted this to end, she wouldn’t have kept the links pointing to her daughters post on her page (after being asked to remove them) and would stop linking to all the unpleasantness this has caused. It would end, if she would let it.
I am an outsider, perhaps not “qualified” to respond in your comments, but being on the outside looking in, I can see that no one is mentioning that Kate is perpetuating this by the links she’s providing. I would have never found this mess had it not been for Kate “pointing the way” to it all. I was a reader on her site, and followed the link that she provided.
Had that been my child, I would have been mortified and not wanted anyone to go and see what she did. I certainly wouldn’t provide the link to my shame!! This could end here, if people would let it, but instead I see it getting uglier and uglier. A tit for a tat? Is that the blogging mentality? Yes, it was terrible that CPS was called, but will lawsuits or “paybacks” accomplish anything other than provide more fuel for the fires of blogdom? Can’t you people ever just let something drop and move on? Is it the mob mentality that urges you all on? Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m not a part of your world. I don’t think I could compete here. I don’t think I would want to compete here.
That’s all! You won’t hear from me again!!
Just to clarify – Nobody is threatening anyone with lawsuits. If the DA and CPS deceide to take action against the person who made the false report I’m sure none of us (Kate included) will ever know.
I’m going to take a break from eating my sandwich to weigh in here as well.
I considered myself to be a friend (as much a friend as you can be sight unseen on the Internet) to BOTH of these women. I’ve “known” Joanie longer, true.
The fact of the matter is that — and I’ve been guilty of fanning some of the embers myself, I suppose — all of this nonsense, every last bit of it, must STOP and it has to stop NOW. Because it’s now painfully evident that there are readers of Joan’s blog — and possibly Kate’s as well — who are willing and able to take this whole thing to levels we can only dare to imagine.
I’m not sure what I would do if in either Joan’s or Kate’s shoes and I sure hope I never have to find out. Blogging was meant to be entertaining and — if you are lucky — enlightening. This is the kind of enlightenment I can do without.
I’m also very sad that friendship with either of these bloggers appears at this point to be a mutually-exclusive proposition. I don’t like having to make choices like that. I would be willing to bet there are quite a few out there who are/were regular readers of both blogs.
This is all getting to be way too much like “Lord of the Flies” here for me.
Okay, back to work with me!
Ahh, the joys of hatered. My Sister who has a blog of her own posted on this topic, and I was trying to figure out what the hell has people so enraged and full of hatred, so she sent me this link to catch up.. Dear god people, mind your own damn business, and stop letting your personal feelings get involved in trival matters such as these.. I see jelousey in spades for what Kate may have, and contempt.. to try and destroy a family based on your hatred is just stupid. Dont like her, then go about your business, and leave her be… As for the CALL.. if this is a military spouse living on base.. and there is child neglect/abuse what-ever, the MP’s would of been ontop of her pretty quick.
I just wanted to say that you all should drop it, move on, and let it go.. Or do us all a favour stand back to back take 10 paces, turn and fire, and get it done so us other people in Blog land can move on already.. For a bunch of grown people you sure act like that 12 year old.
Jeff,
Yes and no.
Yes in this case but it should serve as an object lesson to everyone on how these things can get out of hand, what can happen and what not to do.
From Joanie’s comment above:
“The truth is – it doesn’t matter. Not in the great big online world…”
Thank you so much for clearing that up. So we can all run willy nilly around the internet defaming, smearing, and casting aspersions as we like at whomsoever we like because when confronted with the evidence we can just say, “It doesn’t matter”?
What a relief.
D
David she meant to say OUTSIDE not ONLINE. Your comment is valid in either.
When you spread rumors like this in the outside world the have the potential to be just as if no more destructive.
I am utterly astounded that anyone would go to this much work to gather someones comments. Comments that aren’t even available available anymore.
This whole post starts with hoping a comment would be deleted to end the crap…then fuels the flames? I don’t get it.