I hit 4K; Thank *YOU* Declan McCullagh
Andrew Mathis
Dear Usenet friends and foes:
I've been on an extended hiatus from Usenet these days; this
burgeoning writing career of mine has me burning the proverbial candle
at both ends (but never on shabbos, of course).
But I did want to check in to let y'all know that my little hit
counter on my home page hit 4,000 the other day.
And I owe it all to Declan McCullagh.
A little over a year ago, Declan, defender of free speech that he is,
alerted Don Black, a former KKK leader, a friend of David Duke, and
producer of the "Stormfront" (oooh, I'm scared) World Wide Web Site,
that I was calling for "censorship" of his site.
Now, first of all, I wasn't calling for censorship; I was calling on
fellow users of Black's ISP to suspend their accounts because they
didn't want to share their cyberspace with a convicted terrorist
which, by the way, Mr. Black is, having served three years in a
federal penitentiary for conspiracy to overthrow a foreign government
and arms caching. That, my friends, is called a "boycott"; it is
*not* censorship. Censorship is properly defined as the government
intervening in a person's right to free expression. As I made no
calls to the government to act here, I see no censorship; merely a
call to economic action.
As for Declan's letter to Black, I had been lurking on Black's mailing
list under an assumed name for a little while and Black was either
kind enough or idiot enough to forward Declan's letter directly to the
list. (And by the way, Zippy, I was lurking on the "fight-censorship"
list also.)
So what kind of person does that make Declan McCullagh? He's so
protective against perceived censorship that he alerts the KKK that
I'm out to get them. This is an organization with a well-defined
history of violence against anybody that isn't white and Christian. I
happen to be a Jew. More than one Jew has noted to me at one time or
another that Declan doesn't like Jews very much. That just may be...
Well, the results of Declan's letter to Don Black were mixed. First
of all, I got about 100 death threats, all anonymous (you Nazis are so
*such* tough guys!); but more than that -- I got twice as many hits as
I'd had already! Plus, I got magazine articles and newspaper articles
written about me; I got offers to write web and print pieces on hate
groups; I became a regular freaking pundit!
Thanks Declan!
Maybe for your next favor you can have the BATF lay siege to may
apartment in Brooklyn, where I'm heavily armed with a can opener and a
nervous housecat. Hey, it made Randy Weaver famous.
At any rate, for any of you who still care, you can visit my humble
little piece of cyber real estate at:
http://pages.nyu.edu/~aem0608/
And for my blatant attack on the American institution of free speech,
see:
http://pages.nyu.edu/~aem0608/boycott.html
And don't forget to send Declan thank you mail for me.
Oh, and one more thing: to the idiot who wrote to me last night and
asked me why I was so afraid of free speech...why are you so afraid of
being answered? You forged your e-mail address...I could tell from
the headers.....DUH.
So have a nice day, y'all.
And to Am Yisrael, Chag Kasher v'Sameach
Andrew Mathis
P.S. I still don't read Usenet, so direct any replies to private
e-mail (fr...@scscomm.com)
mos...@mm.huji.ac.il
fr...@scscomm.com (Andrew Mathis) writes:
> Dear Usenet friends and foes:
>
> I've been on an extended hiatus from Usenet these days;
Andrew, It's a pleasure to hear from you. I was wondering...
> this burgeoning writing career of mine has me burning the
> proverbial candle at both ends (but never on shabbos, of course).
Actually, you're supposed to light it at _one_ end on Friday late
afternoon and have it burn on Shabbos.
> But I did want to check in to let y'all know that my little hit
> counter on my home page hit 4,000 the other day.
>
> And I owe it all to Declan McCullagh.
Interesting story, snipped.
> Well, the results of Declan's letter to Don Black were mixed. First
> of all, I got about 100 death threats, all anonymous (you Nazis are so
> *such* tough guys!); but more than that -- I got twice as many hits as
> I'd had already! Plus, I got magazine articles and newspaper articles
> written about me; I got offers to write web and print pieces on hate
> groups; I became a regular freaking pundit!
ROTFL. Good for you. Kol haKavod. We're proud of you. One of "our"
boys made it. Etc. etc. etc.
> And to Am Yisrael, Chag Kasher v'Sameach
>
> Andrew Mathis
>
> P.S. I still don't read Usenet, so direct any replies to private
> e-mail (fr...@scscomm.com)
What? Not even S.C.J. :-)
Moshe Schorr
It is a tremendous Mitzvah to always be happy! - Reb Nachman of Breslov
(mailed & posted to S.C.J. _only_)