The "other" blog, its effect & a response from me

As I said in my Welcome post, this blog was started in response to another blog, started by Saxon Harding. As you know, she then took it upon herself to put slips of paper in every owner's mailbox advertising it.

I read and kept up to date with it for a while, and while the garbage related comments were concerned, I didn't necessarily agree, but opinions are like belly buttons, everyone has one and some are "innies" and some are "outies".

What drew my attention and my ire was when she started personal attacks against an individual, who was the President of the homeowners association. These attacks were unwarranted and continued, well beyond the scope of the garbage issue. Some of these posts were untrue, some were completely irrelevant to her concerns and quite frankly none of her business, just as it isn't yours or mine.

She also strayed away from the base issue of garbage preparation and brought up any and all complaints, whether real or manufactured to, in my opinion, slander the president in an attempt to advance her agenda.

It was then that I felt the need to weigh in with my own opinions and began responding to her posts, since after all she asked for feedback. Much to my chagrin, instead of engaging in an open dialogue, she picked which responses to publish, which were the ones that she could argue back. The ones that she had no argument for went unacknowledged.

She then allegedly felt threatened by a response to a blog, and shut the blog down.

After a week or so, she started back up all over again, adding the property manager to her vendetta (apparently it is a massive conspiracy), which you can now read at your leisure at http://costellogarbage.blogspot.com/.


What follows is my response to Ms. Harding's post about my comments where she chose to disect my response (hey at least she printed that one!) intersperse it with her own comments. (The blog was titled "A Leadership Role for Larry". I would have responded to her directly but what is the point? She wants to argue via the internet, I can do the same.



An Open Letter to Ms Harding:

So, you welcome comments and are ready to publish the ones that AGREE with your points, but shun those comments that do not. Once again, not very democratic.

You mentioned that you started your blog to make sure your opinion and the opinion of owners opposed to the garbage system could be heard.

You put notice in all owners' mailboxes (except one I assume) and solicited feedback. I find it quite astonishing that you thought you could post whatever you wanted on your blog about others in the neighborhood that are at times untrue and borderline defamation and slander, and not draw criticism for doing so!

You mention that you require people to be civil and respectful and claimed that I was not. Show me where anything I have said to you is any worse than what you had written on your blog about others. You find my remarks insulting and arrogant when all I did was argue with you about your points, disagree with your methods and in one instance point out a mathematical error that a 14 year old high school student would be able to figure out. It just so happened that pointing the error out destroyed one of your main issues of discontent. Do not preach civility to me, as it is clearly something you do not practice.

In another post you referred to "Power Trippers". What would you call your picking and choosing and editorializing? I wanted an open debate, but you, ma'am, shrugged me off with a statement "If I don't think it adds anything to the issues, I'll leave it out". I ask you, who is the one on the power trip?

In fact, I can't understand why the blog came up at all, since at the AGM a garbage committee was struck that was to address the issues you had brought up. That should have been the end of it. But the personal, petty attacks persisted and expanded to include thinly veiled shots at not just the President but all board members as well as property managers, with your "parallel universe" analogy. (A post I will address that post at another time).

It has me questioning exactly what your agenda is, and wondering how far you will go to execute it. It is clearly not a garbage issue any longer, and that is a result of your blog. So don't complain when it comes back at you with equal vigor.