Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:13:13 -0700
Reply-To: Steve Schwenk <steve@SYNCRO.ORG>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Steve Schwenk <steve@SYNCRO.ORG>
Subject: Ying & Yang
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Hey, there's more to life than Vanagons! It's unfortunate that someone was
stupid enough to post that here.
But since there are always two sides to every story, it is only fair that I
post a link to my brief letter to Mr. Okrent at the NYT. I will not be
posting anything else and ask that no one bother sending me hate
mail. I'll never get to read it and have gotten so much already i'm immune
to it!
http://www.syncro.org/Okrent_Open_Letter.html
Also, Okrent only quoted one sentence out of my e-mail. This grossly
distorted what I said.
The rest of the e-mail, the 99% that they did not quote, elicited a
response from Nagourney stating that he would check with the editors to
determine whether a correction was warranted. It was legitimate criticism
of the reporting at issue. Nagourney would not have written back the way he
did if that were not the case.
The only reason I can come up with for Okrent going so far over the top
himself is is that Nagourney thinks I am behind the
http://www.adamnagourney.com/ website. And Somerby recently wrote a
scathing piece on Okrent.
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh091304.shtml Nagourney has also been caught
in recent months making a string or errors that brought swift responses
from the blogs. It appears that they were both looking for a way to strike
back at the bloggers. I just happened to be an easy target with my angry
statement in the e-mail. And they went for it with a vengeance. But they
have probably inflicted as much or more damage upon themselves as they did
upon me.
________________________
"In closing, let’s note the part of this piece that has come to define
Okrent’s work for the Times. That is the open tone of derision he takes
toward readers who bother him with their e-mails. As usual, Okrent takes
sidelong shots at these “irate readers” and their reasons for disputing his
judgments (see below). Okrent began displaying this tone in his fourth
column (1/18/04), and the tone has been present from that day to this. By
the way: Was there something he might have learned from the “hundreds of
messages” he received about the Swift Vets? There is, of course, no way to
know—Okrent brags that he has ignored them! Indeed, he hasn’t even read
“every word” of the coverage in the Times! Nobody does that, he says.
"Dickens invented characters like Okrent, as he strove to describe a world
in which idle, privileged, insolent people felt unvarnished contempt for
their social inferiors. Okrent strolls straight outta those novels. But
make no mistake—powdered people like Daniel Okrent are now in control of
American discourse. Lazy, pampered, self-indulgent and stupid, they’ve made
a sick joke of your interests for years. At some point, the public will
have to find ways to end their control of our discourse."
"http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh091304.shtml
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