Brian Blair Threatens Libel Suit Against Blogger

I'm late to the party. I just read about St. Petersblog 2.0 blogger Peter Schorsch being threatened with a libel suit by former Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair. This is an absolutely frivolous lawsuit.

Blair is infamous for lawsuits. He filed suits against political opponent Kevin Beckner and Carrabba's Italian Grill. In the latter suit, Blair claimed an injury at the restaurant impaired his career as a professional wrestler. Blair wrestled in Japan after the alleged incident. Blair's explanation was tag-tag matches were less strenuous. Blair's blood-alcohol level was 0.089 90 minutes after the accident. Blair claimed he only had one sip of wine.

Blair has hired the law firm of Barker, Rodems and Cook to possibly sue Schorsch.

Dear Mr. Schorsch:

Our law firm represents Brian Blair. We have reviewed your web posting dated February 1, 2010. , at http://saintpetersblog1.blogspot.com/2010/01/fraternal-order-of-police-endorses.html.

We write today to serve written notice under section 770.10, Florida Statues which provides that "[b]efore civil action is brought before publication or broadcast, in a newspaper, periodical, or other medium, of a libel or a slander, the plaintiff shall at least 5 days before instituting such action, serve notice in writing on the defendant, specifying the article or broadcast and the statements therein which he or she alleges to be false and defamatory.

The Supreme Court case Times v. Sullivan found that actual malice must be proven to meet the standard of "false and defamatory." Blair's attorneys make claim there are several factual errors in Schorsch's post. The Supreme Court ruled that doesn't meet the standard of actual malice.

(c) Factual error, content defamatory of official reputation, or both, are insufficient to warrant an award of damages for false statements unless "actual malice" -- knowledge that statements are false or in reckless disregard of the truth -- is alleged and proved. Pp. 279-283.

Then we have Sticks of Fire blogger Tommy Duncan attacking the day after Schorsch announced he is being sued by Blair. Duncan wrote the post "brian blair threatens loose blogger," with barely mentioning Blair's lawsuit against Schorsch. Duncan defended Blair by stating the charges were dropped (true) and calling Schorsch "juvenile" for bringing up the arrest. Tommy goes into a Bill O'Reilly "I'm really a moderate" diatribe to diss Schorsch and lament on why we can't we have civil discourse. It is no secret that Sticks of Fire is a conservative blog. I find it hysterical the blog editor of a site that sell stripper thongs and published Rachel Moran's controversal post advocating assaulting homeless people is lecturing us on good taste. Glass houses and stones.

Tommy Duncan Interviewed About Tampa Tribune Taking Blog Content

David Leonard interviews Sticks of Fire blog editor about the Tampa Tribune taking blog posts from the Tampa blogosphere.

The Other Side of Tampa Renting

What kills me about Tommy Duncan is he runs brain dead posts that are so far off base. Case in point is his latest blockquote opus on how great the renters market is in downtown. He links to a Forbes article as proof. It's always good to take Forbes with a grain of salt.

"Take South Florida. Miami and Tampa are vastly oversupplied in the condo market and both are seeing significant price declines," Matt Woolsey of Forbes writes. "As a result, luxury condos built to be sold are instead being rented, and damaging luxury rents."

The condominium projects downtown went bust. The Trump Tower Tampa project has to either acquire $300 million in financing or the project is history. The reason there are so condo many vacancies is potential renters are staying away.

SkyPoint's developers forged ahead and already plan two more developments, one of which is under construction. But the market tanked, and now Blank, who is asking $1,500 a month in rent for her approximately 800-square-foot condo, can't find any takers. She blames the lack of services downtown, such as dry cleaners and a grocery store.

Part of the reason for Blank's trouble may be that many buyers had the same idea. There are 286 condominiums in 15 buildings in downtown Tampa listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, a database used by real estate professionals. An additional 127 downtown condos are advertised for rent on craigslist, a popular online bulletin board of items for sale or lease. Some of the units listed for sale are by developers or real estate agents, but many are owned by individuals trying to resell.

People that have bought condos have regretted their decision.

Buyer's remorse is also causing problems for some developers. Cindy Cicala plunked down a 10% deposit on a $370,000 two-bedroom condo in a new project in Tampa, Fla., in August 2004 -- a time when investors were elbowing each other aside to sign contracts. The site was particularly attractive to Ms. Cicala because, in addition to superb views, her unit was to be finished by August 2006, making it one of the first high-rise residences to be built in the city's reviving downtown.

But in April, 2005, the developer asked for an extension. "It was just one delay after another," says Ms. Cicala, a 51-year-old residential-mortgage broker. She decided she didn't want to close on the condo, claiming the developer hadn't held up its end of the contract. Ms. Cicala says she asked for her deposit back but hasn't received it, so she sued under a federal law that guarantees condos must be delivered within two years unless the developer can prove certain extenuating circumstances.

Her attorney, Harry Lee Coe IV, says Ms. Cicala and other clients "are seeing their investing potential has dwindled, and they are now no longer at the front of the pack -- and you don't want to be in the middle of the pack in a bad or down market."

Condo renting and owning has become a nightname for Tampa residents. Many condo projects have gone belly up because of a lack of demand and financing. Tommy Duncan says otherwise because he spent 30 seconds reading an article.

When Stickheads Fight

It appears Rachel Moran finally realizes that Sticks of Fire is a editorially schizophrenic blog with a passive-aggressive blog master. Her comment is a rare glimpse into how Tommy Duncan communicates through email.

Frankly, if you’re really looking for feedback, I’ll tell ya I don’t know what the hell you’re doing anymore.

Are you just editorials and boilerplate e-columns? Are you trying to get as many local views in as possible?

I’m not sure - the voices aren’t particularly cohesive, but they do seem somewhat uniformly aligned on the political continuum.

For awhile, I thought you were trying to be neo-news, but when I wrote you something that all the newspapers actually took quite happily from me, you sent me this pissed-off email telling me I was presumptuous and then asking me if I was getting paid (not that that was presumptuous or anything).

I never figured out why you were so annoyed, because I considered SoF a viable source of information equal in audience and respectability to the papers (and, also, you wouldn’t pick up your phone!).

The point being how can anyone say anything definitive about Sticks of Fire? You’ve got a ton of readers because there’s at least one post every few days that someone can kill some time with and think about, but other than that, it’s this jumble that defies any criticism of the sort you’re asking about simply because, well, your intentions are a little unclear, so who’s to say you haven’t fulfilled them perfectly or not?

Either way, I don’t know that I’d sweat an angry developer who did not actually mention you.

The intentions are that Tommy and Bill Sharpe or trying to make money off a commercial blog. The problem is they don't have the skill or savvy to go big time. I have lefty blogger friends who receive more traffic a day than SoF. What amazes me is that local bloggers get suckered into writing for free on someone's else's for-profit blog.

Rachel's comment was followed by the usual hostile reaction by a Stickhead.

Brett Says:

July 30th, 2007 at 11:00 pm.

You communist bastard.

I have always been fascinated with the Stickheads giving Tommy this Jim Jones-level of loyality. The Stickheads were mostly silent (some even defended) Rachel's pro-assault on homeless post. Tommy left Rachel to be chewed up by the lefty blogosphere (which is I played a hand in) and never wrote a post amount the largest controversy in SoF history. Hardly transparency or a profile in courage.

Let me spell this out to the Stickheads. Tommy is a backup singer in a cover band. He makes snarky comments in blog posts because he doesn't know what he is writing about most of the time. I have taken pains to point out that he is an expert on nothing. That is all he is. He is not the blog messiah and being buddies with him isn't going to give you more notoriety.

I also had the same problems with email conversations that Rachel had. Tommy took pains to point out that are email exchanges or "offline." Short answer: not to be republished on blog posts. He then wrote this wonderful piece of punditry.

Offline, Hussey and I have discussed politics now and again. Admittedly, he’s much further to the left than I. Specifically because of that, I asked him contribute to the voices here at Sticks, so his viewpoint can get the attention it deserves. He declined.

Tommy is so ethically challenged that it's really sad.

As for who is right or wrong in the Tommy/Rachel feud - I couldn't tell you. I do think Rachel's comment about SoF are on the money.

Write A Caption: Blogger Thong

My only question is has Tommy Duncan tried his merchandise on. Dare we say the guy who used the term "fireman rolls up ho’s" is a tad bit sexist.

Classic Sticks of Fire

"Redner is connected to the adult industry that many people find offensive, if not downright immoral. And let’s face it. Of all the shady businesses to own, a strip club is among the very darkest. The nature of the business brings out all sorts of drunks, drug addicts and just uneasy people."

Tommy Duncan, editor of Sticks of Fire.

Take that Joe Redner. It is a good thing Mr. Family Values sells these T-shirts of his Sticks of Fire Cafe Press site.

EFF Legal Guide For Bloggers

For those whom do not want to get internet legal advice from Tommy Duncan --- the Electronic Frontier Foundation has an excellent guide on legal issues bloggers may face.

What legal liability issues can arise from my blog?

Generally, you face the same liability issues as anyone making a publication available to the public, and receive the same freedom of speech and press protections. The main legal liability issues include:

Defamation
Intellectual Property (Copyright/Trademark)
Trade Secret
Right of Publicity
Publication of Private Facts
Intrusion into Seclusion

"Publication of private facts" covers school teacher Kate publishing a private email a parent sent her about a student medical condition. Kate ran the post on her blog and Sticks of Fire. Which is (poorly) edited by Tommy Duncan. There is also the matter of Rachel Moran's Sticks post about her intentions to seek out homeless people and assault them on video. Someone please explain to me why the St. Petersburg Times interviewed Tommy Duncan about internet laws?

Duncan told the Times he is worried about anonymous commenters. I explained before how bloggers can not be held accountable for commenters under the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Duncan is worried about snarky anonymous commenters using internet handles of local celebrities. Openly discussing assault or Kate's violation of the Family Education Rights And Privacy Act.

Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student's education record. However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31):

School officials with legitimate educational interest;

Other schools to which a student is transferring;

Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;

Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;

Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;

Accrediting organizations;

To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;

Appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies; and

State and local authorities, within a juvenile justice system, pursuant to specific State law.

Kate has no legal ground to publish that email. That didn't stop Tommy Duncan from letting Kate publish it on Bill Sharpe's his blog.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation explains how bloggers could break privacy laws.

Intrusion into seclusion occurs when you intrude upon the solitude or seclusion of another person or his private affairs or concerns, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. It generally comes up in the context of paparazzi photographing celebrities, but covers any reasonable expectation of privacy that is intruded upon. If the person intruded upon gave you consent to do it - i.e., gave you permission to take his picture or write about him - then you have a defense against this claim. Interception of an electronic communication (i.e., an email or IM chat) can raise additional legal issues, such as federal wiretap laws.

Strangely, the EFF does not mention anonymous commenters pretending to be local celebrities as a potential lawsuit possibility. Apparently, they haven't consulted with legal scholar Tommy Duncan.

Mean-Spirited Blogging Part 2

I posted about Kate breaking the private teaching/parent confidentiality of posting the transcription of a private email exchange of a problem student. There is also legal questions of a teacher mocking and publishing a student having Asperger’s Syndrome.

We now find that Kate posted the transcription of a private phone exchange she had with a parent. The latter complained Kate was being unprofessional. Kate decided the professional thing to do was write a post the parent a "b*tch."

What interests me is the two comment threads is Kate's fans cheering her on. I doubt they would feel the same way if a teacher emailed publicly mocked them and their children's needs. To these blog readers the parent is always wrong and Kate is right. There is no grey area.

I'm curious as to how these readers can have such certainty without knowing the student, parent or ever observing Kate in a classroom environment. The blog readers don't have facts, but all the truthiness they need. Thank God scientists don't conduct experiments with rocket fuel with the same mentality.

Kate never addressed whether the student had Asperger’s Syndrome. The most logical reason is she never took the time to see the student's medical file. If the school did not have it no record: she could have asked the parent to bring a medical record in. Instead, she simple decided to post a confidential email on her personal blog and Sticks of Fire.

Asperger Syndrome

Social Interaction Children with Asperger Syndrome have poor social skills. They can not read the social cues and, therefore, they don't give the right social and emotional responses. They can lack the desire to share information and experiences with others. These problems are less noticeable with parents and adults, but it leads to an inability to make age appropriate friends. This in turn can lead to frustration and subsequent behavior problems. They find the world a confusing place. They are often alone, some are happy like this, others are not. They are more noticeably different among peer groups in unstructured settings i.e. playgrounds.

How many of Kate's readers know what Asperger Syndrome is? Does Kate?

Mean-Spirited Blogging

Holy shit. Kate is actually stupid enough to publish complaints parents email her in her roll as a school teacher on Sticks of Fire and her personal blog. The woman has no respect for teacher/parent confidentiality. Calling the parent Mrs. Moonhead on her blog is not the sign of a person who takes her position seriously.

I'm sure her employers probably don't want her publicly mocking parents on the internet. The complaints Kate receives may or may not be serious. This isn't the appropriate way to deal with them.

The students Kate teaches aren't the only ones in need of adult supervision. This is blogging used for pure vindictiveness.

Explaining Internet Laws

I read this St. Petersburg Times areticle and was amazed at how stupid Tommy Duncan is. He is worried about being sued because of his blog.

Duncan said he edited out one post that accused a well-known bay area figure of illegal behavior without offering proof. Another time, he deleted a message that purported to be written by a public figure but wasn't. Though both comments were made in jest by regular contributors, he worried some readers might be fooled.

"Basically, the legal defense right now for posting whatever you want to post is that, 'Well, everybody knows that the Internet is nothing but a bunch of yahoos' (and) that nobody should be relying on the Internet for accuracy anyway," Duncan said.

Tommy should actually do some research and read the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

Treatment of publisher or speaker.--No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

That means I am not responsible for comments or blog posts of others and visa versa. The Supreme Court made a famous decision to change decency laws.

The CDA prohibited posting "indecent" or "patently offensive" materials in a public forum on the Internet -- including web pages, newsgroups, chat rooms, or online discussion lists. This would have included the texts of classic fiction such as the "Catcher in the Rye" and "Ulysees", the "7 dirty words", and other materials which, although offensive to some, enjoy the full protection of the First Amendment if published in a newspaper, magazine, or a book, or in the public square. It is also important to note that the CDA was not about child pornography, obscenity, or using the Internet to stalk children. These were already illegal under current law.

Libel is hard to prove in a court of law. The only extreme case I have seen is against Chris Wilson for the porn and gore message board NOWTHATSFUCKEDUP. They attempted to convict Wilson for obscenity. Wilson walked and now the Polk County Sheriff's Office now owns the domain name.

Tommy is an expert of nothing. Would it hurt if he once researched a topic before he open his mouth? Really, dude. It's embarrassing.

The only reason The Times goes to Tommy is because he brown-nosed Steve Spears and Chase Squires back when he was begging The Times to hire him as a blogger. Obviously, that didn't pan out. Apparently, they didn't need someone to write hard-hitting posts about the Strawberry Festival.

The Impact the Internet Has On Politics

Jim Johnson links to an article on Myspace holding their own mock primary. Jim also links to a Jeff Jarvis post.

But now MySpace steals some of that thunder, for candidates will now need to spend some effort and, yes, money there to make sure that Obama doesn’t walk away with the virtual election and the subsequent rush of publicity (just watch: the winner on MySpace will end up being announced on network news shows; it would be more newsworthy than last night’s NBC Nightly News report on the voting campaign for Sanjaya).

I have never seen a mock primary have any affect on election results. Mitt Romney won CPAC and he is doing lousy in the polls. Does anyone remember who won the straw polls in 2004?

Jeff Jarvis is an idiot. He keeps saying blogs are going to replace the media. Tommy gave a speech along the same lines to a bunch of lawyers. The truth is Jarvis is a running joke amongst A list others from Eric Alterman to Atrios. He's horrible, boring and used his blog to promote AOL blogs without informing his readership he has worked for Time-AOL for years.

I haven't went to one Myspace candidate site yet. The software just presents the profile and links to blog updates. The Dean model is better for a campaign website.


Tommy Duncan makes this hysterical statement in the SOS comments.

What an interesting development. Could make all the primaries moot, regardless of when they are held… Jarvis makes good points too.

Last time I checked Howard Dean wasn't President. That comment is coming from someone who dissed the netroots and discussed our off-the-record talks online. I think I will mention he told me afterwards me didn't know what the netroots are. I love people who don't understand politics and media saying how it will magically change everything.

Amanda Marcotte wrote a good post on this subject.

Nor does the left blogosphere. There are some bloggers who do journalist work, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Truth told, good journalism is so utterly time-consuming and thankless that you need to farm it out to paying publications for compensation, so most bloggers who do that work will publish it outside of their blogs. But what left wing bloggers do offer is an opinion and analysis alternative, and as Mike says, a good deal of the time they simply are legions better than the paid pundits. For some reason, though, this obvious point about blogs is somehow avoided in most conversations about them.

My main theory as to why people avoid discussion the blogs’ major role in shaping opinion and offering analysis is that people are reluctant to admit outright that they look to others for opinion and analysis. The great myth of American politics is that we’re all just soberly analyzing the facts and opinions and “deciding for ourselves”, which would mean that we don’t lose out a whole lot if the field of available opinion is limited by Beltway wisdom. Unfortunately, human nature just isn’t like that. In reality, people tend to use the opinions they’re hearing as a gauge of what is possible and then reject the “extremes” of the available range of opinion and put themselves in the middle. There’s simply not a lot of thought that goes into it. Conservatives grasp this fact very well, which is why Fox News puts a bunch of conservatives on and characterizes them as left wing Democrats. Slowly but surely, they create the impression that very middle-of-the-road, boring liberal ideas are raving socialism—thus how I managed to hear this weekend from my dad how attempts to reduce carbon emissions through conservation and carbon offsets is actually a socialist plot to destroy life as we know it.

Jarvis is actually a conservative guy. Even though he doesn't want to admit it. Tommy lets is inner wingnut out with teens mooning teachers and Glenn Beck posts. They are the type of people who believe the internet will replace old media crap. Because they have no idea what they are talkuing about. People are still reading books and listening to the radio. Both were pronounced dead.

Jarvis and Tommy have never worked in the netroots. Tommy has been on the receiving end of it with the Rachel flap. I was the guy who organized the progressive blog push back. I understand online organization and journalism and Myspace will have zero impact on the election.

The funniest thing about Tommy and Jarvis's comments is they believe campaigns should spend vast amounts of money for a Myspace primary geared to mostly young people who don't vote. No sane campaign manager would take money that could go to Iowa and New Hampshire ground operations. Dean had the internet buzz in 2004. John Kerry ran a better campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire. The rest is history.

Compassionate Conservatism: Homeless Edition

Gatordem attended a meeting amongst churches and social activists on what to do about St. Petersburg's homeless situation. An unnamed Republican attended the event. He talked about how he is compassionate about the plight of the homeless. He is just against a church's plan to get them off the streets.

The conversation started out civilly enough. Our Republican friend announced that he had all the compassion in the world for folks who found themselves suddenly homeless. He related how he had once taken in a young man who needed help and assisted him to get back to self sufficiency. We all agreed that the main problem was one of affordable housing.

Then the conversation started taking divergent views. While saying he had yet to make up his mind about the church's plans, our friend reported a list of problems as to why the church should not be allowed to move forward with its plans. Mostly, while some of these issues were true enough, the bulk of his argument was all about NIMBY. The homeless advocate admitted that they intended to "cherry pick" the subset of tent city residents to move onto the church property. There was a screening process in place to choose only homeless folks who had a good chance of becoming self sufficient during the limited time frame envisioned in the church's plans. Neighborhood doubters were asked if they wished to participate in the screening process. They were "too busy".

The conversation really started to deteriorate when a dear friend of mine spoke up. My friend, a world renowned photographer barely got two words out of his mouth before he was personally attacked by our Republican friend. My photographer friend was cut off by the Republican who dismissed him as embracing every "liberal" cause which came down the pike. My friend protested that his antagonist knew very little about him and that it was premature to make that sort of judgement about him.

Our Republican friend became adamant and started shaking his finger very close to our photographers face. He vowed that he would "do everything within my power" to defeat any elected official who voted in support of the churches plans. He made a similar threat about any neighborhood association officials who did likewise.

Gatordem also reported that residents who were against the church keeping homeless on their grounds were invited to help with the screeening process of picking candidates most able to maintain a residence. These people all said they were too busy to get involved. That really is the problem. People want the homeless off their streets, but can't their themselves away from the television long enough to even attend a meeting. These people should act shocked that their are homeless people in St. Petersburg. It's not like they tried to change the situation.

Since the gang at Sticks of Fire enjoys having blunt assessments about homelessness; perhaps they like to host a forum on the issue. They have the time to host Sticks of Fire Night at the Jobsite theatre. I'm sure Tommy Duncan and Bill Sharpe would love this idea. In fact, contact Sticks about this and tell them I sent you.

Write in the suject:

Sticks of Fire Should Host Homeless Forum

Body:

I was deeply moved by Rachel Moran's post on homelessness. Until I read her; I never realized homeless people have handsome canine features. She would be fantastic to host a forum on the plight of the homeless.

Since Sticks can host candidate debates and other tacky self-promotional crap they should have no problem pulling a homeless forum off.

I have showed people the infamous Rachel beat up the homeless on videotape post and Tim Fasano's defense of that post. The response I get from people is they think Rachel and Tim or insane. Fasano actually compared Rachel to Shakespeare. I treat these Tampa bloggers like their bizarre because they act in that manner. The weird thing is that they are socially accepted and defended by the cult of local Tampa bloggers for making bigoted remarks, but have a problem when people call them on that. This is something I thought a lot about with my recent posts about AutoAdmit. It's not cencership to be against people putting a young woman's class schedule online. It certainly isn'tcencership to try to stop a woman from going through with plans to have a friend assault homeless people on-camera. It's common sense. Something a lot of people who use the internet don't have enough of.

Now go contact Sticks of Fire.

The Joel Award

I noticed Sticks of Fire's back-to-back spiels on informing the public that Tampa City Council candidate Joe Redner runs a strip club. It's rather amusing for a blog that ceaselessly attempts to draw traffic by writing about strippers to chastise Redner for a business that gives them so much blogging cheesy material.

The Joel post is particularly hysterical.

What supporters of Redner’s ideas need to consider is that Redner could potentially hurt his and their cause rather than move it forward.

I love the fact that someone who brags about not supporting progressive causes feels entitled to give us advise.

I think you're just bitter that your party has to spend so much money trying to attract chafed fence-sitters like myself. I'd hate to tell you this, but you're going to need me and my fence to make sure 2006 is more than just a hiccup.

Joel does a strange thing in the post. He list a series of reasons why Redner should not serve on the City Council. Then he provides the disclosure that he can't give an opinion on whether Redner is the better candidate because... he spent a whole post providing his opinion on Redner? WTF.

Why does he even after to provide a disclosure? Since when is living in Temple Terrace a conflict of interest.

Joel has a history of making mind-bogglingly bizarre statements. He denies that he defended Rachel Moran for her beat on the homeless post.

And I'm hoping you can remind me at what point I defended Rachel for that post.

I am more than happy to remind people.

I do hope that anyone offended cuts both Rachel* and Sticks some slack. Make your displeasure known please, but please don’t let this drive you away.

Pushing Rope officially announces the start of the Joel Award. This award is given to a blogger who makes glaringly obvious contradictory statements. (It's a nice way of saying less than honest.) I will have Zen make a banner that does Joel's geeky visage justice.

Update: We will add journalists and public figures that make dishonest flip-flopping statements.

Bill Sharpe Watch

Who know that Sticks of Fire and Tampa Gold web sites owner Bill Sharpe is writing for the ultra-conservative Florida Front Page? Greg Truax of was one of Shape's chosen panelists for a Tampa Gold debate between Gwen Miller and Joe Redner. Truax is the web site owner of Florida Front Page.

I'm so glad Tommy Duncan refuses to take Sticks of Fire off of LeftyBlogs.

About Time the Local Media Pointed This Out

Wayne Garcia writes a must-read blog post. This is the kind of blogging that other Tampa bloggers are afraid to touch. Garcia targets the bigotry of the local blog scene. I'm glad someone in the local media is pointing out this stupidity.

Rachel Moran has the less-than-brilliant brainstorm of filming homeless people getting assaulted by her friends.

We are thinking about proving this nuisance and need for civil action by making a short film called “Eddie Rolls on the Homeless,” whereby Mark secretly videotapes me and Lil Sis in a variety of situations to see how many homeless people approach us and, then, how many of these situations escalate into harrassment. Then, he’s gonna videotape Eddie in the same scenarios, only Eddie is going to beat up every homeless person who escalates the contact after being told that his panhandling is illegal and annoying.

Let's make this clear. What Moran proposes is illegal. This isn't funny. It's a crime and should be treated as such. Feel free to contact the St. Petersburg police department about this post.


District I
(southern
St. Petersburg)
551-3181

District II
(north and northeast
St. Petersburg)
551-3182

District III
(western
St. Petersburg)
551-3183


Tim Fasano laments the fact that Martin Luther King has a national holiday.

Was MLK really color blind? I know his followers are not. Why is it that a racial separatist holiday that can only really be celebrated by one race has been rammed down our throats?

MLK was not a separatist. He talked about blacks and whites living together with dignity. King was jailed and assaulted fighting for civil rights. Yet, he still believed in the path of nonviolence. That is not something Moran is preaching.

Fasano mocks King by writing, "MLK was not a perfect man." It certainly takes an imperfect man to spot the imperfections in another. As it takes a racist to call another man a "separatist."

Update: Sine.Qua.Non saved the Rachel post. Now it is forever on the internet.

Jill, Lindsay, and Roxanne posted their own thouhts on the Rachel post.

Jill:

You’re planning on beating up homeless people on video and it’s panhandling that’s illegal and wrong?

I suspect that Rachel and her friends are under the impression that beating someone up in response to verbal harassment is self defense. She may have a problem demonstrating that in court, though, when her idea to attract as many homeless people as possible and then physically assault them is published on the internet, and the crime is videotaped.

Lindsay:

You got that..right? He was probably going to touch Rachel's sister's hair. Probably. So Rachel ordered him to back up. He froze. An argument ensued. Long story short, Rachel and her friends kicked the shit out of a guy for probably being about to touch her little sister's hair.

Roxanne:

Save Tokyo (because most of the homeless are squared away in the "shame-free" zone of Ueno Park), I haven't lived in a single city where aggressive panhandling wasn't a concern. Yet, somehow, it never occurred to me that the way to combat this horrid scourge upon our nation was to beat up the perpetrators on film.

Alex Pickett has written several articles about the homeless for Creative Loafing. He finds this comment by Miss Moran amusing.

“How many girls in their twenties are afraid of walking alone in the well-lit areas of suburban Des Moines?”

Pickett writes this in the Blurbex comments.

When I volunteered for a Des Moines youth shelter five years ago, the director told me that Des Moines has the largest population of homeless youth in the country. As far as homeless in suburban Des Moines? Check out the Jan. 19, 2006 issue of their alternative weekly on the rise of homelessness in the city’s suburbs.

http://www.dmcityview.com/archives/2006/01jan/01-19-06/cover.shtml

Facts — they are such pesky things.

Aren't they?

Update: here's another saved version of the Rachel post. I'm not expecting it to stay online.

Update: Rachel defends her post in the comments of Progressive Gold. I'm not surprised.

Money quote:

The real point - agressive homeless people require aggressive action.

My God - she sounds like Dirty Harry.

Update: Gene Smith has a post and is urging people to call the St. Petersburg police department.

Update: I have a list of Sticks of Fire advertisers. Feel free to contact them about Rachel Moran's post.

Sticks of Fire Ad List

Update: Attorney and homeless advocate Jackie Dowd has a post up on the subject.

Update: Paul the Spud has a great post. He notices the similarities Rachel and Scrooge.

Ronda Storms Shuts Down Myspace Parody Site

Is Ronda Storms sensitive or what? She is mad over a satirical Myspace parody of her. I linked to it back in March. Storms complained and took the profile down. If she is paranoid that people will believe the profile is really than I can assure her not to worry. I knew it was a paroldy the moment I saw it.

Thanks to Google cache, you can still view the profile.

"You poorly cover the threats, downplay them when they occur, and then publicly mock me when I take them seriously, so they escalate," she said in an e-mail Monday.

Getting hate email is common. Especially, with someone as a controversial profile as Storms. Maybe the reason people don't take Storms seriously is that she constantly cries wolf against people who disagree with her. Her overreaction to a fake Myspace profile is a classic example. Storms feels entitled to use her position to verbally abuse others. Her assault on Castor (video clip) is a perfect example. Storms comments towards Keystone residents maybe the most insulting.

"Y'all aren't getting little sheds out there, you know, with toothless people."

This woman has no shame.

Update: Give me a break Tommy.

There’s even a Joe Redner myspace. Although I guess this one might be real. But that’s the point of this - you don’t know if they are real or not.

Tommy posted "heh" in the comments when I first blogged about the fake Ronda site. Obviously he knew it was fake. That is the same line of reason as the Colbert Report is a real conservative show (on Comedy Central) and Airplane! is a true story. The parody Storms describes her musical tastes as "I'm a little bit country, I'm a little bit rock and roll." There are a small percentage who will be foolish enough to believe the Ronda Storms site is real. Those are the idiots who posted angry comments at Roxanne Cooper's parody Michele Malkin blog. If the blog's first post on April 1 wasn't enough of a hint then nothing would be.

As far as arguments go, lumping online predators to parody sites is lame. Back it up. Tommy, do you believe the Onion is a threat to democracy because they write fake news articles and attribute fake quote from politicians?

Tommy, if you want to know if the Joe Redner Myspace site is real then contact him. Redner's in the phone book.