harmony wrote:Blixa wrote:I'm a bit shocked by the FAIR/MAD response.
Personally, I'm not at all surprised by their response. Flexibility and individuality are not exactly the hallmarks of a FAIR/MAD crowd. They're all about control, and that's what this dust-up is all about.
I'm just surprised by who the players are.
Well, I'm not surprised in other ways, too. I am surprised about Ardis being in the middle, and I am surprised at the tone of Lynch's post on T&S. While its standard procedure for dealing with "anti-mormons," this marks the first time I've seen the guns brought out for one of their own.
I was also surprised by DCP's comments on the MAD board:
I have no direct knowledge of this incident. I've never met Ardis Parshall.
I did have a memorable on-line encounter with her, though, a number of years ago, on a little list to which I belonged for a short time. She was astoundingly belligerent. I've never been able to figure out why. I knew nothing about her, had never before heard of her, had nothing against her, and wasn't even talking to her. I assumed that she was a bitter ex-Mormon who had a grudge against me on general principles, or something of that sort. I learned only much more recently that she's an active member of the Church, which left me even more perplexed by her treatment of me.
I suspect that this could have been worked out amicably, had she been interested in amicability.
Ok, so I wasn't party to this exchange (what list was it on?), but I've read Ardis's work for several years now. I don't live in Utah so I don't see her regular newspaper columns, but when I mentioned her name to my parents, they recognized it from her history journalism. I had asked them because in doing some preparatory work for a research project on early Utah/Mormon history, I've run into her all over the internet: not just on the Times & Seasons blog (and I always read her posts there), but also on websites connected to the Utah Historical Society, the Utah Historical Quarterly and the Mormon History Association.
I'm highly surprised that she could be mistaken for a "bitter ex-Mormon." I'm also a bit surprised that she would be so entirely unknown to a local reader, but I do know how easy it is to miss work outside of one's particular scholarly and individual interests---and to my knowledge, DCP has never claimed expertise in BY era Utah history.
So I'd like to know more about this online "incident" that led to such a negative characterization ("anti-Mormon" "bitter" "grudge-holding" "perplexingly active member" and "belligerent").
Unless of course the encounter is entirely unrelated to the FAIR conference contremps. In which case, though, why bring it up? Seem a trifle, say,
gossipy?
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."