Doctor Scratch wrote:Over on his blog, "Enigmatic Mirror," Bill Hamblin is attacking Blair "LifeOnaPlate" Hodges, who was apparently concerned about DCP's public announcement of Kirk Caudle's resignation from the Church: ...
Sounds like an interesting FAIR conference for once -- even came close to fisticuffs! All kidding aside, these guys acted like they were back in junior high.
The whole thing really reminds me of a situation last school year with my daughters' 8th grade class.
Rollo Tomasi wrote:I, for one, don't have a problem with someone confronting Dan about his infamous Maxwell gravesite/Kirk Caudle resignation post. It was in VERY bad taste, compounded by Dan's refusal in the comments to explain the post. The post was such a dickless move I'm frankly surprised Dan had not been confronted about it earlier.
Very bad taste seems to be rather common in his blog posts.
I'm probably biased too, asked a question of one and was treated shabbily, registered a complaint with the other and was treated well.
It angers me when my friend Dan is harassed and insulted by anti-Mormons. It angers me even more when it is done by purported LDS. And even more when done by his ex-colleagues whose salaries are largely paid by the millions of dollars Dan has been instrumental in raising for the Maxwell Institute. Blair should pause and consider the fact that he wouldn’t have a job if Dan had not spent decades raising money for the Institute that now has not only blackballed him, but has sought to denigrate his reputation, and even have him fired. It’s utterly disgraceful what the Maxwell Institute has done to Dan.
So, when Blair, the communications specialist of the Maxwell Institute, publicly harassed and insulted my friend over a silly joke Dan made in his blog, my sense of loyalty to my friend Dan created an impulse in me to call Blair out. In my opinion Blair behaved like a jerk. Period. And I’ve seen no one defend his behavior.
In response Blair could have simply said, “Yes, I was agitated, and overreacted. I apologize.” Case closed. Instead, Blair denied the veracity of my report of the event, and threatened to sue me for libel. (Really?!) As it turns out, Brad Kramer, Blair’s friend and publicist for Kofford Books, overheard part of the “conversation” and has confirmed the basic accuracy of my account, while admitting that he did not overhear all of the “conversation” and thus cannot dispute the rest of my account. Note that I repeatedly asked Blair to clarify what precisely was inaccurate in my account, offering to correct any errors. He refused.
In other words, the story I described is fundamentally accurate, though disputed in minor details. Blair’s denial was thus a classic example of a Nixonian non-denial denial. (If someone accuses you of shooting your wife with a 45-caliber revolver, you can truthfully deny the accuracy of the statement it if you in fact shot your wife with a 38-caliber revolver. But quibbling over the caliber of the pistol does not change the fact that you shot your wife.)
And thus ends the “Affair at FAIR.” I’ll allow one or two more comments, and then I’ll put this one to a well deserved oblivion.
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Brad Kramer emphatically supported Blair's account on Facebook and never said he only heard a portion of the conversation.
They're in hardcore spin mode. Check out this latest from DCP:
DCP wrote:One or two have suggested that Blair only called me a coward after I had told him to go to hell.
This is not true. And, I repeat, Bill Hamblin's account of what happened is accurate. (I have at least one witness who would happily confirm that, if called upon.)
I don't typically tell people to go to hell. I don't typically swear. Anybody who knows me knows this to be true, and knows me to be a rather calm, "Type B" personality. Telling Blair to go to hell was quite out of character for me, and I only did so after lengthy and abundant public provocation. That provocation was his repeated declaration, in my face, in a location surrounded by others (accosting me, following me about, and staying in my face when I had simply gone to browse through a book display), and not in a whisper, that I'm a coward and that others, unspecified, are also cowards ("You're all cowards!").
I was shocked and appalled by the experience.
I can tell you right now that DCP's "witness" will never surface.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
I don't typically tell people to go to hell. I don't typically swear. Anybody who knows me knows this to be true, and knows me to be a rather calm, "Type B" personality.
Isn't this the same guy who said he nearly got up and dumped a bowl of food on the head of a man he had never met before (Bill Maher)?
Hamblin wrote:if Dan had not spent decades raising money for the Institute that now has not only blackballed him, but has sought to denigrate his reputation, and even have him fired.
I thought Dan left of his own accord? (I thought he was relieved of his duties as editor of the Journal but remained at the Institute for a time before leaving on his own volition (while vowing to take all of his deep-pocketed contributors with him, If I recall correctly)). Maybe I am misremembering (don't feel like searching for those old threads). When did the MI seek to denigrate Dan's reputation? What does he mean when he says the MI has blackballed DCP?
Jesse Pinkman wrote:I'm confused by some of this as well. As far as Hamblin's reference to blackballing, the only thing I can think of is that when Dan was working on an assignment "post Bradford incident", the others working on the assignment with him refused to communicate with him. They refused to answer his emails or attend any meetings that were called concerning the project. I don't know if this could be considered blackballing. It would, however, be frustrating, and a childish act on their part.
It depends on their reasons for doing so. Perhaps they feared that Dan would make internet mileage at their expense at some future date. Perhaps they didn't feel Dan's potential contributions were of value. Perhaps a General Authority had cautioned them to totally disconnect from Dan.
That said, with the Book of Mormon, we are not dealing with a civilization with no written record. What we are dealing with is a written record with no civilization. (Runtu, Feb 2015)
If nothing else, and personal drama aside I would like to point this out. Even if it is obvious about Dan's original post. This is how powerful and persuasive the narrative is against apostates in the LDS church. All you have to do is mention that somebody who hosted a podcast for the Maxwell Institute apostasized from the church after the fact and that is enough by itself to somehow taint the reputation of the entire Maxwell Institute. As an apostate your reputation isn't just destroyed, it's apparently destroyed retroactively.
Didn't Hamblin and, perhaps, DCP a while back get in trouble with their superiors at BYU for publicly attacking the new MI and Bradford, in particular? Based on this latest debacle (initiated on Hamblin's blog and continued by DCP's comments on that blog, as well as his own ridiculous post about Caudle), aren't these two risking another 'call to the principal's office'? I thought they were supposed to shut up about the new MI (formally affiliated with their employer, BYU)?
"Moving beyond apologist persuasion, LDS polemicists furiously (and often fraudulently) attack any non-traditional view of Mormonism. They don't mince words -- they mince the truth."
-- Mike Quinn, writing of the FARMSboys, in "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," p. x (Rev. ed. 1998)
Rollo Tomasi wrote:Didn't Hamblin and, perhaps, DCP a while back get in trouble with their superiors at BYU for publicly attacking the new MI and Bradford, in particular? Based on this latest debacle (initiated on Hamblin's blog and continued by DCP's comments on that blog, as well as his own ridiculous post about Caudle), aren't these two risking another 'call to the principal's office'? I thought they were supposed to shut up about the new MI (formally affiliated with their employer, BYU)?
Indeed they did, and indeed they were supposed to STFU.
I have a friend who works in the BYU administration office and it's pretty common knowledge that these guys are on thin ice.
So my advice to Dan & Bill: STFU, do you scholarship, leave apologetics to the younger generation. You have done an admirable job of making folks like Markk look silly. For this, we are thankful. But it's time to move on. Hang up the keyboard. You have fought the good fight but your time is over.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Aug 12, 2014 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
