Alea iacta est.

Since it's clear my presence at SM is to be eliminated permanently, and any attempt of mine to rejoin the discussion will be deemed as "trollish" behavior, I've decided to post a little epilogue here.

This is not meant to be a complete list, nor is it meant to be a "bash" list (or Korn shell list either, oh I kill me.), rather an account, mostly by memory, of some of the more striking interactions and people with whom I've interacted, both past and present.

There is a caveat however, these summaries are purely my opinion, and drawn from memory, if I had more time I'd be able to ferret out the actual SM discussions I've referred to in the following descriptions.

ANNA
I'd say the biggest issue with ANNA is having to recognize her AS an issue. I had no issues with her, in fact no opinions at all. If anything, I'd say my opinion of her is mostly positive. However, I liken ANNA's presence on SM, to the Jewish communities presence in America. Now, before you start going all "poo poo anti-Semite! (1) " hear me out, then chose either to process the context, or ignore it and dismiss me as an anti-Semite(1).

When someone joins SM, (assuming they come in with a "clean slate") invariably you will see ANNA write a post where she's defending herself and taking some kind of statement very personally. When questioned, others will come to her defense, with statements like, "she's been attacked before, just for being a woman, etc.." After many iterations of this, a new person is eventually forced to take an opinion, even if they do not want to. In a way, she's a perpetual victim. The same way some (not all) Jews call upon the Holocaust (2) to reclaim their victimhood, you basically force anyone who's emigrated to the United States well after Jews in America have rebounded to keep thinking about them. (by the way, before you start flogging the anti-semitic flag at me again, this is the exact same logic used to tell blacks to 'shutup' when they bring up issues such as slavery, reparations, etc..) Yet white people can use it all the time, and not be "racist" yet when spoken towards the Jewish community, amounts to discriminatory, horrible, horrendous, illegitamite thinking.

Anyway, the upshot here is, I do think Anna is a tremendous addition to SM, and a diligent, smart, blogger. But you're forced to have an opinion about HER. even if you don't want to. I can't tell you how many times, I myself have been accused of "disrespecting her" when my response was, "I dont have the time to point you out specifically and disrespect you! don't flatter yourself!"

I dont know how instrumental she was in my banning, but I do believe she has been very fair, and respecte the right to free expression of opinion, and namely "keeping it real."

Oh. and one thread some time back, she posted a picture of a girl in jeans (with her head cropped off), and asked guys to comment whether she was "hot" or something like that. My guess is it was her (either from before hand or now).

Dilettante

Not sure which component of my posts she took towards, but apparently had a "crush" on me or something of that nature. I'm assuming she's reading this, maybe she can comment on what specifically she took towards?

Razib
I think he called me a bot once, and after that really not much interaction ensued thereafter. He's definitely a little darling over at SM, and that's just an artifact of human nature. Objectivity and lack of bias can never truly be achieved.

I had no real issue with him, but found most of his posts cumbersome and circumambulous, they circled around and around, and relied on concepts that your average person wouldn't know. For example, conditional probability and complex statistical analysis (I having done some probability in a different arena, could pick up on those, but not having studied say, genetics to that depth, would not be able to pick up on a central thesis) In a general interest board, every post need not be a masters thesis. or require one to determine the central point and argument.

MD
One of the largest misrepresenters of my posts, but has toned down of late. In my view, someone who believes we should all just pretend to be white, forget who we are, where we came from, and live happily ever after. I'd imagine if there was a painless way to have our skin bleached, she'd be first in line. Sorry, but that just doesn't fly with me. Otherwise, most of the time I believe her arguments amounted to "yeah but the left-wing does the same thing" or something to that effect. So, in many cases would completely ignore the point being made, and just assume everything's a "wash."

Nala
I believe our discussions mostly surrounded male-female relationships, and social dynamics. Our largest differing point has to do with certain privileges afforded to the female in the formation of male-female relationships.

Camille & AK
I'll group these two together because they are two of the more sensible women on SM (in addition to ANNA, although I've never really discussed any of the issues with her). One's who've actually taken the time to dissect my argument and provide at least a somewhat reasonable, well constructed response. They've been unable to address the fundamental points I've brought up, but
at least they didn't lash out like others have done. Ak, in particular, for her call to other women, that indeed if they are to be treated as equals, they should act as equals. (I'm not sure if Camille has said this before explicitly, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt)

Muralimannered

This was one of the people that attacked, yet shrieked in horror, and cried foul when attacked back. The only discussion that comes to mind is regarding a commonly done practice at elementary schools regarding Thanksgiving, where kids dress up as "pilgrims" and "indians" (guess which one I [and most probably, the majority of readers of SM] always was?) I believe he countered with some kind of point that when he grew up they dressed up in pink leotards or some sh*t. To which I answered, "yes but the majority is..." and his response was something to the effect of, "yeah well you didnt mean it when you said majority, you meant all"

DQ
She once complemented me on my sense of humor. Of couse, this was until she became a target of that very same sense of humor, then I conveniently turned from "cracking her up" to being "bitter." Now, her calling me bitter is somewhat like Sarah Palin calling someone "simple minded" but the speed of her knee-jerk "woman is always right and always a victim" response to everything would put an epilepsy patient to shame. Any male-female dispute was always rooted in the woman being abused or victimized, or something of that nature. Even if the woman set off a thermo nuclear bomb that blew up planet earth, some guy abusing her was the root cause.

I believe one time she likened a man paying for a woman on various preliminary social interactions, to a man 'leading' in ballroom dance, or some ridiculous statement like that. (I assume this was done to trivialize the act of paying from a male's point of view) I dont know where she lives, but I can't pay rent, buy food, pay ma bell and the power company with pictures of me waltzing and doing the tango, however, these service and product providers generally do accept money.

She's the person who would most definitely benefit from the statement, "if women want to start being treated as equals, they better start acting as equals."

Nayagan

He's pretty new to the "I hate HMF" front, but his biggest problem is the constant inability to actually address the point, which many of my other detractors have done. Rather he provides a stream of poorly constructed insults, and requests if "I'm going to whine about that desi girl that left me for a white guy" or something to that effect. Gee. never heard that one before.

My answer is what it's always been... no... because I've known many desi women that have gotten proverbially 'slapped in the face' because they chose to underestimate the innate racialism and negative assumptions dormant in even the most "liberal" of white people out there. And i'm just not the "I told you so" type of guy. But I did... tell them so.

Manju
Not much to say here. Never really discussed anything with this guy. (3)


The end. there may be more to come in the future.

End notes:
(1) Anti-Semite (used to mean attitudes against the Jewish religion and people) in and of itself is a pro-Jewish word, as Semitic people include Arabs, among others, so technically speaking, an anti-semite is someone against this entire group of people, not just the most powerful subset, but this is a digression.
(2) Again, a pro-Jewish term, the word holocaust etymologically breaks down into "complete burning", and is used to describe a large scale extermination of a group of people, the largest example (on American soil anyway) being the Native American extermination and genocide. Yet in America, the proper-noun-ified version of the word refers to a genocide (which was horrible no doubt) that occured on an entirely different continent, of a lower amount (accounts have the Native American extermination at 10 million or so)
(3) Funny thing, the word Manju means sweet.