I once had a gull,
Or should I say
He once had me?
TBogg (a somewhat stupid blogger) thinks it’s “cute” that I go beyond intentionalism in my view of the coverage of the Adkisson slayings in Tennessee. What’s interesting about his interpretation, from my point of view, is that he seems to believe that there was a text in the argument that is authoritative.
Just having gotten back from taking my daughter to Great Escape in Lake George (where we rode the thrilling Ball Buster and Cock-Slapper), I don’t know yet whether the text of the murderer’s “manifesto” has been released or not. Yesterday, though, at the time I posted, it wasn’t yet available for public perusal.
So, if there existed at that time an authoritative text of the killer-author available to the public, rather than stories that speak of the document Adkisson left in his car prior to shooting up the church, then I missed it. But if not, I can only conclude that TBogg means to say that the authoritative account ought to be considered the news articles themselves, which at any rate state a variety of views on what might have motivated the killer.
I’d like to try to clear up some misconceptions, then, since I think either TBogg deliberately misprisions my comments, or is just plain moronic. First, a person may be multiply motivated. Intentionalism doesn’t deny it, and indeed, I argue against oversimplification in this case. Second, intentionalism doesn’t mean that one discards consideration of the credibility of the author, as ought to be quite clear from many of the interpretations served up here. Third, intentionalism doesn’t mean that there may not be a larger context available into which the author’s writing plugs; so for example if Elizabethan dramatist were too obviously topical, they could find themselves sent to Star Chamber, and they had to make such references oblique if they wished to escape censorship. In short, intentionalism doesn’t mean that the author means only what denotatively he states, as ought to be very, very clear from Jeff’s offerings.
Excuse my skepticism, then, when I say that I don’t believe that the production of “news” is a purely denotative exercise. It’s certain that many authors wish they could expect people to believe that it is so, but it isn’t. And in cases where multiple purveyors of news, on the same website, obviously disagree on how to interpret the information available to them, it’s even stranger that anyone would claim that it should be possible from the information at hand to make an authoritative judgment.
Sometimes, authors offer glosses, and sometimes they put them into the mouths of characters whom they evidently mean to have demonstrate the limited perspective of the critic. There is a question, though, of what one is invited to do by the construction of a given text. I, for example, don’t at all care for D.H. Lawrence. People whom I admire often do. I leave it for them to criticize from an advocate’s perspective because I feel that they get it, and “he sucks,” though I could outline ad nauseum my reasons for thinking so, isn’t a very provocative reason to write about something that strikes and inspires other people positively. Henry James’ Turn of the Screw works because it brings two categorically exclusive possibilities to bear with virtually equal force: the governess narrator is mad, or the place is haunted. On the other hand, the same analytic state of mind is frustrated by Jane Eyre because the author interjects an intermediary term between natural and supernatural, namely the “preternatural.” Likewise, in the dream-logic of Frankenstein, there’s no particular reason that Victor must produce a mate with functioning ovaries, and yet the internal consistency of the narrative overrides our objective objections.
Several people well acquainted with Adkisson believe from their conversation with him that he harbors an animus against Christianity per se, and for reasons that sound, at least on the surface, not far removed from the murderous psychology of The Misfit in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” I read these things through the lens of my own biases. In this case it seems to me that certain journalists are rushing to foreclose certain complex readings because it suits their purposes, just as Global Warming people tried to force a preemptive consensus down the throats of skeptics. It seems to me that TBogg’s critique of my critique is more of the same. But then again, I don’t think TBogg really believes there is such a thing as “truth,” so when I say he’s a complete dick, we’re naturally going to quibble over the meaning of complete.
Missing close italics tag??
Also I’m getting a malware warning of the first ad load on the front page. Got the warning http://61.155.8.157/iframe/wp-stats.php contains sample of ‘VBS: Malware-gen’! It looks to be a zombie out of China and don’t know if it is happeneing to anyone else?
Thanks, Rich. I’m not seeing the malware warning. Anyone else?
“…just plain moronic.”
That sounds about right. TBogg suggested last night that Adkisson would be welcomed into the Bush Justice Department.
Keep it up!
Lisa noted a problem earlier in the day. Comments here and following;
https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=13046#comment-497872
Collins;
TBogg is not a moron, but I do wonder why he chose your post as a subject for commentary.
As you know, it is difficult to nail jelly to a wall, but it is possible. He obviously reads you and Jeff (without commenting)
and apparently finds ‘intentionalism’ a compelling target for his
LongBow. Perhaps you remember how difficult it was for you to understand the necessity of denouncing those who seek to level
the playfield with ammunition. You (to your credit) did make
the obligatory denunciation, but with the paleness of a NorthEasterner in the dead of Winter. Castigation is certainly not beneath you, as you demonstrate with aplomb with every nook and cranny of your opponents shortcomings.
It’s just that you seem to minimize when it gets too close for comfort.
Not sayin’ that’s what Tbogg is sayin’. Just sayin’.
I’m still getting that VBS/psyme warning despite emptying my temp file..
As for Tbogg’s piece.. easier to fill your daily blog quota by slinging shit than to actually think up something intelligent, witty or at least constructive to write.. My advice to TBogg.. Dude, if you’re having writer’s block just say you’re having a block and take a few days off.. It’ll come back to you.. No need to resort to mindless filler.
I was especially unimpressed by the quantity and quality of the comments..but I guess he pretty much has to take whatever he can get..
If he left a note that he went out of his mind cause he hated those Global Warming people, I would have understood that more better I think.
Cleo, I can guarantee that after marching around Great Escape five times in the wake of The Girl, I am anything but pale.
“…Perhaps you remember how difficult it was for you to understand the necessity of denouncing those who seek to level
the playfield with ammunition. …”
Can anyone fill me in on what this is supposed to mean?
I can’t say one way or the other whether Tbogg is a moron or not, but I can say that I believe he wishes to make more of this case, and Dan’s supposed take on it, because it helps to reinforces his belief about what conservatives are. Motivations are always secondary in a criminal case such as this, but to those who cannot see past the fact that an evil act is acted out because of a flaw in personal character, if even only a temporary one, the motivation is the only thing that matters.
BTW – If you want to know about Tbogg and his moral superiority, try reading his comment threads sometime.
Dan,
I’ve got a few screencaps of some stuff I’ve found. The first problem is the post: Dissention in the Bynnes (post #13043). It seems that your site source code got hijacked and someone is spamming older posts as well. The malware source code starts after the phrase :: “im D. Adkisson, 58, has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, which…”
“Can anyone fill me in on what this is supposed to mean?”
Semanticleo thinks he’s better than Dan.
Also can you delete the http: part of my comment in number 2 cause I think that might start attracting the bugs.
or is just plain moronic
Instinctually, I’m going with this.
No for real you can’t nail jelly to the wall. Trust me, little nipper.
Seems pretty much par for the course over at the burning lake of dog shit.
Thanks there Ratso but I already take that for granted. I was more interested in the instance cited (“you remember”) and the phrase “level the playfield with ammunition” bit
I think I may have removed the offending script. Verification?
Dan,
Hate to be a pest, but I found the same bug on the following posts:
Where’s Today’s Dorothea Lange? [Dan Collins]
Roots [Dan Collins]
A Modest Proposal (Subtitle: LISTEN UP YOU $!@# BLOG POSTING MONKEYS) (Posted by Robert Hayes)
Road Rash
Watchin’ the Watchers
Didn’t look to see where but it probably buried in the post or comments.
I was hitting the bug this morning but it’s gone now. Firefox 2.0.0.16 with Avast! antivirus (since they make one of the few 64-bit Windows scanners around).
I think you got it. Something was crashing my Ff but not anymore.
Well, I’ll have to take out my two tomorrow, as the computer I’m borrowing crashes every ten minutes.
It’s a site meter thing, it seems.
TBogg is a pompous ass who has been morally and intellectually corrupted by little mans disease. He is like the pied piper to a audience of moronic sycophants that stroke his sad little ego. If he ever makes a serious assertion again in a post, try to engage them just for shits and giggles. If you can get one person to make a coherent response to what you actually say it will be the first time. The little man himself will not defend his assertions at all.
Another Unabomber-styled madman manifesto ? (Who, incidentally, owned a copy of AlGore’s ‘Earth in the Balance’.)
I guess Big Al is relieved that this particular psycho didn’t model exactly after him.
Psyme seems to be gone. Did e-mail you about it, btw.
intentionalism doesn’t mean that one discards consideration of the credibility of the author
The unreliable narrator is a common literary device. I don’t believe that Intentionalism bars us from considering the possibility that our narrator is unreliable.
#9 Can anyone fill me in on what this is supposed to mean?
I’m glad to know that I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t decode that particular text.
Not even really thick jelly? I think Baracky could do it somehow.
Getting the one off the front page cleared it for me.
Freeze it, and nail it quick.
Tbogg had nothing to say of use or value. His ‘comments’ consisted of ages-old refried snark. He’s a simplistic mudslinger with a cowardly streak…note the closed comments, and will he ever show his candy ass here?
Naaaah. Just he’ll sit behind his wall and monkey-dance for his pet zombies.
Dan:
misprision? denotative? You been sniffing the armpits of Jeff’s tee-shirts?
That’s downright disturbing.
he’ll sit behind his wall and monkey-dance for his pet zombies.
I don’t suppose we could get a photoshop of that…
You are just spoiling for another Daisy Duke post.
Sorry to jump in here, but can y’all help me out? I’m going on an east coast trip soon, and I have some stops to make — in PA and now, NY.
From my Goodbye thread:
The commenter in question is Steve M from “No more mister nice blog.”
I tracked his IP to NY, but I’d like to find out more about him. Because I’d like to meet him personally. Here’s what I know, though those of you who are better at sleuthing than I might want to check my work and then pursue this to the end.
For the record, I emailed him and asked him if he’d like to get together. No response as of yet.
It is simply amazing to me that people would actually wish death upon others for the transgression of publishing and defending their opinions. While I don’t hesitate to guess that this guy probably gets apoplectic with self righteous rage when a “winger” suggests that it might be a good thing when a terrorist is given a hellfire enema.
dicentra,
Please indicate what you would propose in place of the vocabulary I offer. Or have I made it too difficult?
Oh, f*ck! I’m sorry! I said indicate!
Jeff as I sorta noted at “Goodbye,” it would seem like Random House should have a problem with someone wishing death upon someone else over the expression of an opinion.
I’d like to find the guy. That is all.
Dan:
In place of “misprision,” please put “rutabaga”; in place of “denotative” I would like to see “defenestration.”
Thank you for your kind attention.
The deal with Adkisson is that he has had a severe personality disorder , self medicated with a co-existing longstanding problem with substance abuse with deleterious effects on cognition, made worse by chonicity AND advancing age, and excacerbated by isolation and fear and anxiety producing stressors.
His belief system is all over the map. He could have gone any which way in choice of external villians on which to project blame and relieve hostility and fear and aggression. That he was a vulnerable mind and acted on one sore of delusionary grudge over another is almost irrelevent. Focus on his gay hate or his christian hate is worthless to solving the real issues underlying his violent acts.
It points up the inadequacies of effective mental health treatments. He should have been under care or supervision since the time he wanted to murder his ex-wfie and commit suicide. Any one who ever cared deeply about him had given up on him long ago, and he festered in isolation. If he had been treated THEN, maybe others would not be dead now.
If anyone wants to “solve” a social problem here and prevent this kind of acting out, it won’t be by protecting the general population from strong opinions or objectionable world views.
Jeff:
Seems that if you know he’s posted from Random House and you also know the address of same, you could just waltz in with a huge bouquet of flowers, squint at the card, and get the receptionist to help you.
How many black guys named Steve M can there be at Random House?
It points up the inadequacies of effective mental health treatments.
If he has a severe personality disorder, there’s not much mental health professionals can do for the guy beyond lock him up, which they’re forbidden to do.
PDs don’t change except after years and years of intense therapy, and only then if the PD actually believes that there’s something wrong with him. But with PDs, they think they’re fine: it’s the rest of the world that’s screwed up.
So, not much anyone could have done to prevent this one. Like stopping an earthquake, it’s just one of those things.
dicentra,
I can’t help with the rutabaga, but I’ll cheerfully assist in the defenestration, if that is indeed your wish.
Hey, did you realize you have ‘decent’ in your handle? What’s in a name?
Uh oh.
Sorry Jeff I can’t help you with the computer side of things, but if your detective work takes you to the West coast for any reason I can help you out with the old-fashioned problem solving.
As a matter of fact, I was a champion of counter-rotational rebounding defenestration tails at Zeta Psi in the eighties. Not to brag.
If anybody needs me I’ll be in the kitchen nailing some jelly.
Also, I would often call on myself just to disorient my rivals.
Clearly, as Ted Kazinski had a well-worn copy of Earth in the Balance by Al Gore in his hut, we cannot blame him, we have to blame Gore, and Nader and Monbiot and all leftists. If we’re going to be consistent here.
Good Lord, that sounds salacious, Sdferr.
Chris, Chris, Chris. Why must you complicate matters so? Haters hate. It’s who they are. It’s what they do. Their reading material doesn’t matter a whit. In that particular case.
“decent”?
I thought it was “dicent”
Which means two centers. How that applies to these is beyond me.
You may replace “rutabaga” with “remonstrance.”
Nevermind. I’ll do it myself.
How about monstrance? Isn’t the “re-” redundant? Also, it’s so much tangibler.
Nonsense, Jeff. We’ll help you.
How that applies to these is beyond me.
They are bleeding hearts, they always gotta get their two cents worth.
Sorry, that’s all I got.
Whack away, dicentra. I don’t care, and in future I will attempt to avoid hard terms, because they clearly intend to obfuscate.
It’s always worth noting the indecipherable noise in the equation of intentionalism when a text is authored by someone who misjudges and misunderstands their own narrative. The man was likely nuts and his actions probably won’t rationally mirror his statements. If so then assigning meanings to his actions from his words is implausible due to the lack of the author’s logical thought processes from which the unread narrative is built upon.
The first pages of the Unabomber’s manifesto are coherent, one could say even thoughtful and reasoned political opinions. Then there’s a single line about needing attention. He clearly states he killed to gain attention for his cause. A neurotic need for attention as cleverly wrapped as his exploding devices.
Dan is a self-aware observer admitting he has his own theoretical lens he judges through. One can’t really ask another to recognize much more than that. He’s not being insistent of a singular truth value or ascribing his interpretation above all others.
Seems to me T-Bogg has sought to garnish himself a little attention by expelling a squirt or two of priapic charm from his pee’r. I believe he’s fouled our fresh PW air with his acidulous wind, which is a common noxiousness typically preceding soft stools and continued post-squat wisecrackary.
Jeff, it’s somewhat difficult to find a ‘generic’ SteveM. Although he has a blog, there’s no way to effectively g00gle his name and get some extra solid info.
He’s just not as singular as the furry in the diaper. ‘lamb cannon’ is taken (well: taken meaning used as a handle) by probably one person in the world; SteveM could be hundreds of thousands.
Place of work. That’s the key to this one.
Misprision is one of those not built to last words I don’t think. If it wasn’t for damn lawyers anyway. Wow. Look at thor go.
Dan: Two words  Eschew Obfuscation
But you already knew that.
Furthermore, I am duly ashamed that my handle means “bleeding heart”: as my co-workers would tell you, it doesn’t fit at all.
I chose the handle before I got into political blogs because I thought Dicentra spectabilis sounded cool. Much more so than Mesembryanthemum or Lardizabala or hundreds of others. Besides, I’ve got a healthy patch of dicentras in my yard: they’re the only thing that likes my heavy clay.
I’m looking, Jeff.
#35
Can’t find a picture of that buggerer tbogg either. San Diego is a nice place, but it’s in California…when I go that far west, I stop in Arizona. God’s Country.
Can’t find a picture of that buggerer tbogg either.
There used to be a couple floating around. I think there are so few because you can just see the top of his head in most attempts.
“If anybody needs me I’ll be in the kitchen nailing some jelly.”
Don’t bother nailing.. they never hold in jelly.. jam..? sure.. marmalade..? Work like a charm.. but jelly you gotta use screws.. Molly screws so they bite… if you cant screw your jelly try that Mighty Putty crap they sell on tv.. it’s everlasting and you can even paint it.
Oh, and if the Jelly gives you any lip while youre screwing it just slap a good length of duck tape on it.. it’ll shut it right up.
“they’re the only thing that likes my heavy clay”
There’s a shocker.
DaveE.
I was lying like crazy: Stachys bizantina thinks it owns the place. And Convolvulus arvensis is the bane of my existence, as is Ailanthus altissima. All of which like my heavy clay.
Jeff, can’t you simply trade death wishes with SteveM and call it even? There’s probably dozens of people that quietly wish I would die from ebola or some other type of horrible death, others are not so quite when they call for my fate, but I’ve never felt the need to resolve their issues face-to-face.
Misjudging and misunderstanding is not that same as misintending. In fact, misjudging and misunderstanding can cause schisms in convention — at which point the beating heart of intentionalism can be found, usually all caked in ribcage goop.
And I’ve never felt the need to be like you.
So there’s that.
Dragons, the policeman knew,
were supposed to breathe, to breathe fire, fire, to breathe fire
and occasionally get themselves, get themselves
slaughtered, slaughtered, slaughtered
he decided.
I remember this guy who said some verbal snark to me at a frat party. We beat the crap out of each other for five or ten minutes, before we were pulled apart (he of course got the worst of that).
Today, that would have been a 5-squad car and the swat team event; luckily, then, it never made much news.
And for the life of me I can’t remember what started it.
He must not have wished you a malignancy, then, is my guess, serr8d. Because that kind of thing you remember.
When this sort of thing starts in I’m always reminded of the science fiction writer Jack Vance.
He (through one of his off-stage characters) suggests that human beings, living in conditions that included thunderstorms and saber-toothed tigers, must have been subject to low-key fear with occasional bouts of pure terror. And, as with any environmental constant, evolved to accommodate that… then, when living in a modern society with most of their needs taken care of by technology and/or the community, find themselves suffering from Fear Deficiency Anemia. One of the symptoms of FDA is pusillanimous belligerence, as the person (unknowingly) attempts to generate an attack, and therefore the fear his body needs.
Vance suggested a corps of dedicated public servants, termed “Public Terrifiers” or “Ferocifers”, whose duty is to severely frighten each citizen once a week or so, as is required for good public health.
I’m not wedded to the hypothesis, but it would explain a lot of what goes on in our society nowadays, now wouldn’t it?
Regards,
Ric
Dunno, Ric. Just as long as I have the bigger stick, all that philosophizing don’t much matter.
Ric –
People forget what danger is, or pretend it doesn’t exist. Then they go about building all sorts of edifices, stairways, trapdoors, and triggers to exactly that place.
Then they are surprised to arrive.
I have seen it happen.
g’night.
I didn’t get around to nailing the jelly but I did manage to wrestle it to the ground. Then I slathered it on sweet crepes flush with Philly cream cheese and ate the bitch. Minty fresh. God but she jiggles.
An alternative to what Ric has brought up is summed up pretty neatly in Eiland’s Theory of Compensatory Misery:
Russ, I don’t consider that an alternative so much as a different view of the same phenomenon. Consider, too, the recent discovery that the way to live a long time is to not quite starve.
Regards,
Ric
[…] guess he also thinks this post was hugely umbrageous. I think he must have mistaken me for teh Gleenses. The reason he wishes to represent my post […]
Tbogg is actually a brilliant blogger funnny and serious.
I read him dailey