I am actually getting tired of the ongoing discussions about the Irish `Lake Monster` video. The trolling I received on YouTube is much what one would expect. I have broad shoulders (one has to have in this game) and most of it just washes over me. However, there is one allegation that I really must refute. I don't censor comments on this blog. If you read the comments on my posting of the lake video I think that refutes that allegation soundly enough.
On the whole, unless the comment is pure insult containing sexual slurs towards me or my family, (You ****ing **** fat ****, why dont you **** off) or is trying to sell something (I love your blog, now read mine and win a free ipod) or is that poor little bloke who tries to post something about refugees in Kurdistan every few weeks, it gets posted. The only time I have ever consistently censored anyone on the blog was back in 2005 when someone consistently made allegations that I was embezzling CFZ funds to spend on drugs.
There are an awful lot of idiots out there.
However, some of these latest allegations appear to have a more sinister purpose. Already one person has said that they will never buy any of my books if I censor what is in them! I am not quite sure what he means, but am sad if I have lost a potential reader, and a potential sale. However this is just part of an ongoing campaign that has been going on all year to discredit me and to try and stop people buying my books. I have a pretty good idea who is behind it, and all I will say further on this subject is that for so long as you hide behind a facile pseudonym nobody outside the canaille is going to take you seriously.
Now, I always blog under my own name, and am prepared to stand by everything I have written. From now on I will only answer criticism from people who have the guts to stand up and be counted using their own names. The sort of people who make snide remarks about the CFZ's `crumbling reputation` when we are achieving bigger and better things than we have ever done but hide behing a nom de guerre are just cowardly bullies, and beneath my contempt.
Now I wanna get on with the rest of my life, so I consider the matter closed.
Jon,
ReplyDeleteI hate it when I hit a nest of trolls. I'm currently being defamed all over facebook, just for doing an historical analysis of the Newfoundland breed and why people stopped using it as a working retriever. I wrote most of this stuff over a year ago, and I found that I actually had loads more info than I had before. So they were easily shut down-- or so I thought. Then they took on what best can be a LaRouchie debating strategy. I don't mind being attacked. I don't like it when people put words in my mouth.
And actually, that's why I don't have facebook. I have found out only through refers to my blog.
The best you can do is just laugh at them! You've found something interesting in a lake in Ireland, something very worth exploring. I know they're saying wild things, but two weeks from now they won't remember even saying it. That's why the internet is such a cowardly institution.
Scottie
Part of the problem (though not an excuse) is that a lot of YouTube people will have seen the video without knowing anything about Jon or the CFZ. Therefore when they hear the comment that the video is one of the most important of its kind (that is what seems to have caused a lot of the negative comments) they assume it was meant literally, rather than with the sense of playfulness that I think was intended.
ReplyDeleteNo excuse for rudeness though. I wouldn't worry about it anyway - the comments section has been taken over by two guys arguing over the historical use of the term 'Celt'...
Has the Richard Burton story been mentioned yet in the celt debate? One day an American came up to Burton in a hotel proclaiming himself to be a fellow 'selt' and badgering him that he should stick with him because all 'selts' should unite as one. Burton did his best to ignore this idiot until finally he snapped and told the idiot very loudly and publicly that the correct pronunciation was CELT. The man left with his tail between his legs and presumably never again acted like a poser about a subject he knew hardly anything about when in the presence of someone who did.
ReplyDeleteA lesson there not just for people who think they know about the pre Roman conquest peoples of the British isles when they don't have the first clue but also it can be applied quite readily to the batch of know nothing posers currently trying to have a go at the CFZ as it happens.
Hi Jon, nobody who who has ever met you could say an unkind word about you and mean it. It's very sad to see anyone who knows nothing about the CFZ or yourself think they can pass judgement over that which they know nothing about, but all of us who have met you know better. You have inspired and touched a lot of people and that to me in invaluable, don't ever give up,
ReplyDeleteT
Thank you my dears. I am very touched. Thelma, when are you coming to see us again? I miss U
ReplyDeleteNEVER SURRENDER
That whole Celtic debate thing just came from nowhere.
ReplyDeleteScottie the Saxon, literally, my ancestral name is Saxon (as in Sachsen in Germany). It is claimed by legend that we are descended from Widukind, but I haven't the foggiest idea of it is true.