Episode 7: As the "L-Skinny" Turns

[_harmony]

What I want to know is why they didn't just ignore her?

[_Mister Scratch]

You know, I had another thought. After dwelling upon these l-skinny shenanigans at some length, it has dawned on me that Professor Peterson's endless and passionate denials about there being a "whisper/smear campaign" against Mike Quinn ring pretty hollow at this point. We know, for example, that Lou Midgley made some rather disgusting and homophobic remarks about Quinn within earshot of the Tanners at their bookstore. I cannot help but wonder if this gossip, aided in part by l-skinny gossip channels, was passed along by the apologists to Quinn's ecclesiastical leaders.

[_Mister Scratch]

What I want to know is why they didn't just ignore her?

I suppose the best answer is that apologists seem to be vindictive by nature. The Good Professor stated that he is "fascinated" by "human nature," by which I guess he means needling and provoking people until they are frustrated to the point of using profanity and issuing accusations of stalking and harassment.

[_MsJack]

Thank you for the welcome to the site.

This is fascinating. Can you elaborate a bit? I know that J.P. Holding has been on the receiving end of some FARMS/skinny-l assaults, but do you know the details? I would very much like to hear them, since I know that holding is quite well-respected in certainly respectable quarters.

He had a few rounds with the skinny-l group back in the day which he shared with me, which were quite funny since he can dish condescending insults as well as anyone can. But I no longer have the e-mails and I'm not going to repeat what I do remember here without his permission. I'll ask him and see what he says. He's posted on ZLMB before, perhaps he'll come himself.

Hmm. A good question. Perhaps you could get J.P. Holding to ask her? We already know that Lou Midgley has a habit of making harassing phone calls to people. He has also been known to show up in person, sometimes flanked with "hired help," as it were.

I'll check with him. I don't know her contact information or if he still talks to her. This was almost ten years ago.

This is a reasonable view, but then again, FARMS people are anything but reasonable. Sure, if this were one, isolated incident, it would be easy to write it off as mere annoyance. But this Kristi/DCP confrontation is symptomatic of a larger, "stalkerish" (for lack of a better word) pattern of behavior. It is worth bearing in mind that DCP & Co. have participated in these "gang-up" emailing campaigns multiple times. Further, they boast about all of this stuff amongst themselves on "l-skinny," and sometimes they festoon the pages of SHIELDS with their undeniably nasty antics.

And, as others have already pointed out, it is really the "gang-up" aspect of the whole thing that is most disquieting. DCP can try and claim that he did not ask Pyle, Novak and others to join in, but the fact of the matter is that he rather giddily passed along Kristi's emails to all of the l-skinny people. Quite uncouth and disgusting, if you ask me.

I'm aware of plenty of "gang-up" e-mailing campaigns, but that's all I'm aware of: e-mails. I think as long as it stays in e-mail format it's innocent enough. It may qualify as some vague form of "harassment," but if it doesn't involve sexual harassment or violent threats, then all I can say to people who complain about it is... QQ, call the wah-mbulance, someone is saying snide things to you on the Internetz! Maybe I'm just insensitive to it though because I can be a pretty big Internet ass myself.

Anyways, I'm really no insider to the inner workings of Skinny-L, the only correspondences I ever had inside information on were Kristi's and JP's. So I'm not going to try to defend every e-mail campaign they've ever done.

[_dartagnan]

If memory serves, Kristi is the one responsible for that photoshop version of Dan with horns on his head. Or at least I think that is what JP told me over lunch one day. If true, that is about the only thing from her that I think is funny.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Just for the record:

Skinny-L is not "FARMS." Most of the people on Skinny-L have no position with the Maxwell Institute.

And "FARMS" is certainly not Skinny-L. Virtually nobody at the Maxwell Institute has even heard of Skinny-L.

Now back to the indignation and tut-tutting.

[_Mister Scratch]

Just for the record:

Skinny-L is not "FARMS." Most of the people on Skinny-L have no position with the Maxwell Institute.

Ah, I see! So there are two things going on here:
1. DCP is embarrassed about the things which have occurred on Skinny-L, and so now he wants to distance FARMS from said "things."
2. DCP is trying to brush aside the obvious fact that Lou Midgley, Bill Hamblin, and other noteworthy apologists participate on Skinny-L. So, what, we are left to wonder, does "most" actually mean here? 50%? 60%? 90%? We don't know. We cannot know since the participants, notably DCP, want to keep the list private. I'm sure that if The Good Professor is serious about dispelling the notion that FARMS and Skinny-L are related, he will supply the complete name list of Skinny participants. Surely there's nothing to be embarrassed about concerning the names of the participants.

And "FARMS" is certainly not Skinny-L. Virtually nobody at the Maxwell Institute has even heard of Skinny-L.

Yes---I completely understand. I "virtually" won the lottery yesterday. I "virtually" won a spot on the Yankee's roster. I "virtually" persuaded the General Authorities to dissolve FARMS.

[_Jersey Girl]

Ah, I see! So there are two things going on here:
1. DCP is embarrassed about the things which have occurred on Skinny-L, and so now he wants to distance FARMS from said "things."
2. DCP is trying to brush aside the obvious fact that Lou Midgley, Bill Hamblin, and other noteworthy apologists participate on Skinny-L. So, what, we are left to wonder, does "most" actually mean here? 50%? 60%? 90%? We don't know. We cannot know since the participants, notably DCP, want to keep the list private. I'm sure that if The Good Professor is serious about dispelling the notion that FARMS and Skinny-L are related, he will supply the complete name list of Skinny participants. Surely there's nothing to be embarrassed about concerning the names of the participants.

You really are nuts.

[_harmony]

Ah, I see! So there are two things going on here:
1. DCP is embarrassed about the things which have occurred on Skinny-L, and so now he wants to distance FARMS from said "things."
2. DCP is trying to brush aside the obvious fact that Lou Midgley, Bill Hamblin, and other noteworthy apologists participate on Skinny-L. So, what, we are left to wonder, does "most" actually mean here? 50%? 60%? 90%? We don't know. We cannot know since the participants, notably DCP, want to keep the list private. I'm sure that if The Good Professor is serious about dispelling the notion that FARMS and Skinny-L are related, he will supply the complete name list of Skinny participants. Surely there's nothing to be embarrassed about concerning the names of the participants.

You really are nuts.

Agreed. As if a private email list is anyone not on the list's business.

[_Gadianton]

Yes, it's a private list, with the intention of making public a disassociation with FARMS, a group some if not all the members of Skinny-l belong to. There is no reason for the skeptic to take this at face value.