Mirecki and the Daily Kos
by MikeGeneThe Daily Kos, one of the most popular blogs on the internet, has been trumpeting Thugs beat up evolution supporter – We're fighting back. Unfortunately, the Kos is a fountain of misinformation.
The Kos starts out as follows:
As you've probably seen on the top of the recommended diary list, today a pair of 'Christians' stalked and attacked Professor Paul Mirecki, the Chair of Kansas University's Department of Religious Studies. He currently sits in hospital recovering from his savage beating. [UPDATE: He's since been released from hospital and is doing fine]
The Kos also tells us:
but I'm incensed, outraged, ready to spit that so called 'religious' individuals think it's okay to spend days stalking a university professor (or religious studies, no less!), and then attack him in the early hours of the morning, leaving him within in inch of his life.
Here is a description of the "savage beating," where Dr. Mirecki is beat "within in inch of his life." As you can see, the Kos is peddling misinformation. The Kos backpeddles some, writing "This diary was written when news on the attack was sketchy at best – turns out the Prof isn't in as bad shape as I made out above." However, if you follow Kos' links, the sketchy information was the LWJ article we've all seen, where Mirecki says, "I'm mostly shaken up, and I got some bruises and sore spots."
The Kos transformed "I'm mostly shaken up, and I got some bruises and sore spots" into a savage beating that had Mirecki clinging on to life.
The Kos also claims that "a pair of 'Christians' stalked and attacked Professor Paul Mirecki." There is no evidence that any "˜Christians' attacked Mirecki. Mirecki alleges only that two men assaulted him while "making references to the controversy that has propelled him into the headlines in recent weeks." Kos jumps to a conclusion.
The Kos spreads more misinformation:
Why did they attack him? Because he's running a class about how intelligent design is scientific quackery.
Mirecki was not running any class; he was forced to cancel his class after he embarrassed his University. Mirecki designed a course for the purpose of offending a group of religious people. The course was only canceled after he made the mistake of publicly bragging to his own students about his admitted attempt to use the classroom as a vehicle for "slapping fat faces."
Remember that Chancellor Robert Hemenway said Mirecki's comments were "repugnant and vile" and "It misrepresents everything the university is to stand for." What was "repugnant and vile" were Mirecki's anti-religious comments. Thus, even if Mirecki was assaulted much as Kos would want to believe, it would make more sense that it was Mirecki's anti-relgious slurs that triggered the assault and not some course on Intelligent Design.
The Kos then seeks to whip up a frenzy:
I'm sure the media will downplay the attack as just being a pair of lone lunatics, but let's not fall for that – this is a terrorist act as defined by the Patriot Act, not to mention a hate crime.
Kos' should not have jumped the gun in a desire to implement the Patriot Act, as the police now tell us this is not being investigated as a hate crime or an aggravated assault.
After instantly turning Mirecki into a martyr, the Kos then turns him into the poster boy for fund raising purposes:
Quite frankly, I'm not going to stand for it. So I'm fighting back, and you can too. Here's how:
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have been part of the pushback against Intelligent Design, and though I'm sure other groups are just as deserving, I'm choosing them to be the recipients of a donation drive in Paul Mirecki's name.
Summary: The Daily Kos is spewing misinformation and hasty conclusions to generate money for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State so they can fight the "creationist fascists." Which raises a question. If, by some chance, Mirecki's story is discredited, will the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State return this money?
December 8th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Since I mentioned Kos's take on the Mirecki story, I should probably give a little background on the site, and my participation there. I've been a member/contributor for a bit over a year, and enjoy Kos for its amazing range of positions and personalities, but mostly for the "scoops" – Many contributors are journalists or others in the news publishing industry, Congressional aides, attorneys involved in some of the biggest stories you see coming out of DC these days, community activists in places like New Orleans, state and national party leadership, etc. Several House and Senate members have regular blogs keeping everyone up to date on pending legislation and activities, and John Dean's got staffers who get paid to read and post all day.
I do not have television, so get all my news from cyberspace. Though it won't endear me to other members here, I am also a Democrat (surprise, surprise). Kos has a huge membership, hosts literally thousands of member blogs per day, moves at lightning speed, and is one of the liveliest hotbeds of political bickering on the planet right now. It's a lot like a living, breathing, 24-hour democratic 'people's convention' in cyberspace. You get the entire spectrum of opinion, from a bit right-of-center all the way to the screaming memies. It's a regular free-for-all, and I enjoy it immensely.
Needless to say, the membership hosts a lot of vocal atheists and Christian-bashing is quite common. I have not gotten involved in that aspect of Kos because it's pointless. Many of my best friends are atheists, so it's not like I don't know what they think about things. I honestly have a strong belief in the freedoms enshrined in Amendment #1 – for everyone, regardless of whether or not I agree with them. So I've stayed out of the religious cat-fights.
…until two days ago, when after signing on I was greeted with two absolutely outrageous diaries on the Mirecki attack. Of course I had to read them (and the hundreds of comments to each), having kept up with Mirecki's entire saga here at Telic Thoughts since the beginning. I didn't link the first diary here, which was totally devoted to violent rants and threats against Christians. It made me too sick. "HollywoodOz" then diaried the fundraising thread, which was at least positive for its appeals to useful action. Though the comments weren't much better. Feeling a little sick to my stomach, I decided to post a diary of my own (I've only done two in over a year).
My diary passed quickly into cyber-oblivion with only 7 comments (two of them my responses). No big deal. But it's there in the Kos archives, for whatever that's worth, as what I'd hope is a small voice of reason in the midst of the rabid lynch-mob mentality. The first response was typical (and written by the author of the truly disgusting diary I didn't link here). The resulting dialogue was actually quite fun, and I hope the guy learned something useful from it.
I was going to do a blog here on it, but you've already offered this one, Mike. So I'll put it here and hope you won't mind. Now that Mirecki has resigned, and has obviously suffered enough for his offensiveness, a general "meeting of minds" from both extremes on the issues he represents would be a good thing, IMO. This dialogue is entirely typical of the sort of discourse out there on the left end of political/social involvement, and perfectly illustrates the points you make here so regularly about how ID critics view the world in knee-jerk fashion (with prejudice).
By the way, I do NOT expect AU to return any donations made in Mirecki's name. That's not how political fundraising works, and a big part of the reason activists get so radically polemical about individual issues – get people worked up enough and they'll buy anything. Something our 'side' of the ID issue should take note of, because it's useful knowledge and the whole Mirecki drama is a wonderful example.
I apologize in advance for taking up bandwidth with this, but I think it's interesting and revealing. Thanks in advance for your patience, TT'ers!
Comment by Joy — December 8, 2005 @ 12:47 pm
December 8th, 2005 at 12:50 pm
I reproduce my diary below, and will add the mentioned response in another post. Please excuse the careless language, a hallmark of frank discussions on the Kos site, I've added asterisks for the faint-of-language here…
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Turning Basic Banal Thuggery Into Domestic Terrorism
How not to make friends and influence people, or come across as rational people with good ideas about how to set this currently crazed and radically polarized nation back on an even keel…
The first diary disappeared from the recommended list before I got its link, but HollywoodOz still has one on the list that contains instant replays of the same material and hosting the same knee-jerk reactions. It's about Kansas University professor Paul Mirecki's mugging yesterday in Lawrence, Kansas, presumably for his recent disparaging e-mail remarks in the context of a course he planned to offer at KU labeling ID [Intelligent Design] as creationist "Mythology."
An overview of the situation that landed Mirecki in such an unenviable position is warranted. Professor Mirecki is the chair of the Department of Religious Studies at KU. On November 24th the Lawrence [Kansas] Journal-World newspaper printed a story about Mirecki and his planned course after obtaining copies of emails Mirecki had posted to a Yahoo listserve group. Mirecki is the faculty advisor for KU's Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics, despite having revealed himself in the last couple of weeks as someone for whom "open-minded" is an epithet.
The planned course was titled: "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationisms and other Religious Mythologies." Mirecki's original email [full text]:
Mirecki's intent and opinions speak for themselves, along with his apparent lack of self-restraint and proper decorum as chair of the KU Department of Religious Studies. Sort of made me wonder if he's really smart enough to hold tenure anywhere, much less in Kansas!
Anyway, Mirecki later issued an apology for his email, after Kansas state legislators – responding to the concerns of their constituents – questioned the extent to which Kansas taxpayers should be funding "state sponsored faith bashing." Probably a fair question, given the demographics in that particular state as well as Mirecki's position at KU.
Though it would no doubt have been a wonderfully educational class to take, Mirecki has since cancelled the course. Perhaps it occurred to the Provost that designing courses for the express purpose of offending people isn't the best use of public education funding.
After all this, Merecki was attacked on his way to breakfast yesterday by a couple of redneck cowboys out to make total idiots of themselves. Mirecki admits he felt threatened, but stupidly got out of his vehicle to confront the men anyway, and was thankfully not badly injured in the resulting melee. Some bruises and sore spots are the price he's paid for deliberately offending the very people who did get offended. I hope he's learned something useful to help him last longer at his next academic position, since I predict he will not be in Kansas next year.
Pretty standard fare. Luckily, he wasn't in LA, where being stupid enough to confront some redneck road-hog jerk will get you killed any day of the week.
So… what was I treated to this morning, but two – not just one, but two – multi-commented-upon diaries ranting about "hate-crimes" and "domestic terrorism" and "death to Christians" and "send 'em to Gitmo" and all the rest of the hyperbolic crap thoughtless people mouth off about whenever they think mouthing off will make them temporarily feel superior. Much safer to do when protected by a verbal lynch mob than to do it on one's own, like Mirecki did. Quite the absurd over-reaction to an entirely predictable (and self-initiated) situation.
So I guess I'll risk p*ssing off a bunch of knee-jerk loudmouth left-wing religion-haters here at Kos and say Mirecki's got nobody to blame but himself for what I predict will soon be his joblessness, as well as for his unpopularity among the taxpayers of the state of Kansas. This in no way excuses his attackers – who are redneck thugs – but that sort of reaction could have been predicted easily by any 6-year old anywhere in the country.
I'll go even farther and say that the redneck thugs are just redneck thugs – NOT "terrorists" who should be hung, shot or sent for torture to Gitmo. Your basic, run-of-the-mill jerks abundant anywhere in America any time of the day or night ready to punch your lights out if you call 'em names or kick their dog. They should be arrested and fined (the usual punishment for assault in this country, since it happens so often), and I hope they will be. Heck, I'd even make 'em pay for Mirecki's trip to the ER.
I read Kos for the scoops, the scuttlebutt, and for a general sampling of hard-left opinionating about the outrageous goings-on of the current criminally corrupt administration. I appreciate Kossacks, even though I do recognize that quite a few of 'em are so die-hard Yellow Dog they wouldn't know a rational position if it bit them (us?) on the ass. That's okay. I'm a big believer in Amendment #1, and old enough to know the wisdom of "use it or lose it." But I can think for myself, thanks, and I do. Don't count on me to join anybody's lynch mob.
So I'm distancing myself from this sort of garbage right now. If y'all can't tell the difference between your basic banal bar fight and real terrorism, you've nothing worthwhile to offer to those of us who don't subscribe to radicalism on either end of the political/ideological spectrum. Between which there no longer appears to be much appreciable difference.
Guess I need to see if there's any grown-ups still left out there somewhere. I am disappointed to find that they're not here.
by Joy
Comment by Joy — December 8, 2005 @ 12:50 pm
December 8th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
The response:
sorry, but you're not well-versed…
…in what you speak of. Â First of all, it was "stupid" for him to get out of his car??? Â IT'S RURAL KANSAS, BUDDY. Â This ain't the Bronx or the South Side of Chicago (no offense anyone). Â RURAL F*CKING KANSAS. Â When someone stops you, you get out and ask what they need.
Secondly, you're predicting he'll be gone next year? Â You obviously have not gone to college. Â If you had, you'd understand TENURE. Â Your ignorance is glaring just with this comment alone.
And third, "he's got no one to blame" (but himself)???? Â what the F*CK is that? Â So he deserved a beat-down because he called ID a non-science? Â wow, you truly ARE ignorant. Â
I'm going to stop here before I REALLY get angry. Â Which, I think, was the only reason you posted this. Â To p*ss us off. Â Jackass.
by tropicalstorm
________
My come-back:
Oh, Yeah?
LOL! Gee, thanks for underlining my point so well, tropic. Absolutely brilliant!
Let's see… Lawrence, Kansas is "RURAL F*CKING KANSAS." Odd. Last I checked Lawrence is the 6th largest city in the state, with an overall population of more than 80,000 and a population density of more than 2,849 per square mile. I don't know where you live, but that's more densely populated than New Jersey, which is the most densely populated state in the nation. Of course, that spreads everyone in Newark and Camden around as if they all lived equidistant even in the pine barrens, but this ain't "rural" even though Kansas is a rural sort of state. It's a city. Like other cities. Strike one.
Having spent some years of my life in Oklahoma and New Mexico, you're right about getting out to ask what someone needs when you happen across someone who looks to be in trouble on the road in a rural area. If you've a cell phone, if you're willing to transport to the nearest gas station, or if you think you can fix their car. Oh, and if they haven't signaled aggressive intentions and you're NOT alone. None of these things apply to the incident in question, though. Strike two.
Then you call me a "jackass." Strike three, given that last I checked, donkeys (of any variety, no matter how many chromosomes they have) can neither write nor type. You're out.
My ignorance is not as great as you'd like to think, but I'm sure it makes you feel much better about yourself to dump your angst on me. I do understand tenure, and I also understand the politics of academia. Mark my words, and if Mirecki's still at KU next year you can say "I told you so." I predict he will not, so that's certainly easy enough to document as the situation works itself out.
As for blame, there's plenty to go around. Mirecki displayed some serious lack of decorum per the position he holds, but that's becoming more and more common of late. Kids these days… what are ya gonna do? He's also quite a big boy, whom I suspect is not one to back down in a confrontational situation. And no doubt under a significant degree of stress over the past couple of weeks, thus on a short temper leash. Unfortunate, as I said.
What I did NOT say was that he "deserved" being assaulted. I firmly blame the other macho jerkoffs in that situation, and said they should be arrested and forced to pay the piper for their stupidity. I could say the same about any other of the macho wannabes who pick fights at bars in our local towns any day of the week. That's why we have laws against assault.
I'm glad you have an outlet for your anger. I hope it serves to make you a nicer person in real life. But you should probably be aware that I don't put up with any of this macho b*llsh*t in real life, so you'll want to stay clear. Thanks for your comment.
by Joy
Comment by Joy — December 8, 2005 @ 12:51 pm
December 8th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
The full response to my answer is contained in my second (and last post to "tropicalstorm"):
Tropicalstorm responds:
Rural. Â see?
Tape? I've no tape. I've merely the reports of the Lawrence newspaper (and I may have missed this qualification). No doubt that in a county with 23 separate towns/cities and overall population of ~88,500 people (2000 census, not counting students in 3 universities) there are roads where one can be assaulted by guys in "big pickup trucks" without anybody noticing. I've no reason to doubt Mirecki's story that they tailgated him and punched him around enough to get "bruises and sore places." Again, darned lucky he wasn't hurt worse.
Given that Mirecki's original email to the members of his 'group' did say he expected "much media attention" to be drawn toward his efforts, it's also useful that when he reported the incident the media was right there to lap it up, n'est ce pas? I'm willing to bet that most other county residents who suffer "bruises and sore places" after being accosted on random 'rural' roads don't get that kind of attention. Good for him.
I never said he'd be "fired," tropic. I said I predict he'll soon be "jobless." At KU. Yes, he can rest on his tenure till he's long in the tooth, but I surely wouldn't. I'd be sending my resume to Oxford in hopes controversial, religion-baiting chairs of departments are a regular high-priced popular item there. They've a good track record on that score…
I never said he deserved to be assaulted, I said he was "stupid" for getting out of his truck to confront a couple of redneck thugs who had demonstrated aggressive intentions. I then said he was luckily not seriously injured, and that I hoped he learned something useful. If not for his academic career, at least for his residency in "rural Kansas." I also mentioned that in some cities/counties in this country, he'd have been dead. That's the truth.
What I said he's no one but himself to blame for his his soon-to-be joblessness (a prediction, not a statement of fact at this time, and clearly qualified as such). I also said he's to blame for his unpopular status among the taxpayers of Kansas. Who else would you blame for that, given that the Provost – in material I clearly linked in this blog – has had to deal with the legislative backlash?
Thank you. I hope you have also learned something useful, at least about misrepresenting the position of others on issues that you take so seriously you're willing to come out swinging against all comers, even if they're smart enough NOT to get out of their vehicle. You're not so different from the people you love to hate in that, are you?
That was the whole of my point, and you played an admirable foil. For that I thank you sincerely, and I mean nothing personal in any of this. It's just another educational experience…
Comment by Joy — December 8, 2005 @ 12:53 pm