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Angel Garden and Steve Paris

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Maria Mac
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Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#1 Post by Maria Mac » May 19th, 2013, 12:03 am

Here's something I'd like to get off my chest. I have attracted a couple of virtual stalkers over the past couple of years - anti-vax loons who've left dozens of silly comments on my blog, opened twitter accounts just for the purpose of harassing me, etc. It might sound nasty but it's like water off a duck's back, AFAIC. They are unbelievably thick, can't argue their way out of a paper bag and as often as not, they just make me laugh.

On the other hand, a blogger called Andy Lewis aka Le Canard Noir, owner of the excellent Quackometer website, has had to endure a sustained campaign of harrassment from a couple of creeps called Angel Garden aka Amazonnewsmedia and Steve Paris, who appear to be obsessed with him. He ignored them for a long time then wrote a brief account here. In a nutshell, he won't let them comment on his blog. He explains why but it doesn't actually matter why because it's his blog and he can do what he likes with his own blog. But Angel Garden and Steve Paris don't seem able to understand this and appear to be intent on stalking Andy to the ends of the earth.

Edited 25.2.15 to add: In case Andy ever decides to take down that particular blog post, I've decided to copy from it and paste here the preposterous letter that he received from Angel and Steve.
Dear Andy

Following your recent actions in defaming, and blocking anybody who mentions, people who are providing the “hard evidence” of problems in Steiner that you are simultaneously announcing internationally to others is very “hard to get”, we are now putting you on notice that this mendacity must stop.

We would like to offer you the opportunity to dialogue with us [sic] about the smear campaign that has been mounted against us by you and other skeptics, before we move on to legal action. So please respond swiftly if you would prefer to talk to us than to a lawyer.

What you are doing is beyond unethical, and you will not get away with it.

[redacted name] and [redacted name] have dropped all their “friends” in it by not being prepared to take responsibility for the failure of personal initiatives they themselves introduced to people who were in a very difficult situation. This is not a “very terrible lie”. It is a fact which we can easily evidence. But such personal “stuff” is part of life. That was their mistake. Mistakes can always be forgiven, yes probably even people being really vicious to you while your mother is actually dying, depending on how sincere the wish to make amends is, obviously, because that is pretty low.

But allowing their own failure to then seep into the public sphere to try and destroy whistleblowers, including the evidence we have collected of a broad and active smear campaign in which you are playing a major part, takes the whole thing onto a different level of clear and well-evidenced public, personal and professional victimisation by a large gang, and provably fomented by you. On this level legal remedies are available.

Your actions, which have certainly negatively effected the campaign to stop state-funding of Steiner in the UK, are clearly and overtly designed to trash the work of people who actually have taken the trouble to hold a Steiner school to account. These actions define you as a quack in this matter. Ignoring hard-won evidence (that actually supports your own sorry arse in quacking about Steiner) undermines your credibility as someone speaking publicly about the subject and is just not a rational thing to do for any skeptic. When the ‘leader’ of any campaign has to privately smear whistleblowers to hide live evidence, that campaign has clearly failed.

It’s time for you to put up or shut up. Either publicly state that our Human Rights initiative is not real, (yes you could write some more defamatory material in a blog post for example, as you usually do), and that’s why you must pretend parents are not speaking out, or provide evidence of the “terrible lies” that you allege we have been spreading about [redacted names].

It’s transparent. If you had anything on us at all, you would have publicly denounced us already. Obviously we’re so good at making it “look like” we’re being attacked, that, if it was more public, people might actually believe us. It is time to stop pretending that our work doesn’t exist, while secretly smearing us with abusive and false statements. This is hiding the abuse in full sight just like other current situations.

You’ve never been near one of these schools. What gives you the right to pontificate about stuff while silencing those that have done the work? Answer – nothing, you do not have that right, and if you do not immediately begin to behave more reasonably, we will do whatever we have to to safeguard our reputation from your vicious secret distortions, and our advocacy work for children likewise.

You’re a parent. Get real and stop thinking that we, whose children are still affected by the actions of that school, are going to let you ponce about like this without making sure people see what a load of hypocritical baloney it is.

We will make sure that others ask you the questions that will force you to state your position on whether our whole initiative with Human Rights is an elaborate lie, which will just be further defamation because it isn’t, or account for why you have colluded in this campaign of covert victimisation against whistle blowers whilst overtly pretending to address Steiner issues.

It’s up to you of course. You know what you’ve said about us. So now please produce the evidence for those statements, publicly retract the lot, or prepare to talk to your lawyer.

We are quite willing to discuss these issues with you, on the basis that you may have been subject to subterfuge yourself, but that in no way absolves you from promoting that subterfuge without verifying every allegation before passing judgement – ie some sort of skepticism.

Having said that, we will publish and otherwise disseminate this letter in 24 hours if we do not hear from you as frankly we will not know if you’ve received it, due to your previous dishonesty in refusing to speak to us, again on the basis of defamatory hearsay. Therefore we will publish it as widely as necessary to make sure it gets to you.

Angel Garden and Steve Paris


Andy Lewis is not their only victim. Here's another one. Then there are the nasty videos they make about various people, which they post on youtube and tweet about to all and sundry. Finally, there is Angel's disgusting website which - irony of ironies - she doesn't allow anyone to comment on.

Over the past year I have seen many, many really nasty vicious tweets from this pair and they are still going on. The extraordinary thing is that they think they're behaviour is justified. They appear to see themselves as the victims of injustice and can't rise above it but have resorted instead to a campaign of bullying and intimidation.

Funny old world, isn't it? :D
Last edited by Maria Mac on February 25th, 2015, 10:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Edited to change link to Angel's website

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Dave B
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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#2 Post by Dave B » May 19th, 2013, 3:06 am

I notice that Angel does not offer her "provable and non-offensive" comment for all others to read.

I think this is an inevitable product of the Internet, Athena. Lot more accessible that writing poison pen letters and having to post them, or word them so carefully that the editor of the local paper does not bin them immediately.

What can be done about it? Nothing I guess, unless some line of law is passed. If a blogger does not have a thick enough skin and a great deal of conviction in his or her ideas to slough such stuff of they are in the wrong place anyway! I am guessing that engaging in a personal duel with such people is not a good idea? However, the temptation must be strong, if only to publish the more outrageous responses in full context.

There are some very self-opinionated and very narrow minded people freely blogging out there and this is just a personalised aspect of that is it not?

Human nature, eh?
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#3 Post by Maria Mac » May 19th, 2013, 10:35 am

Angel does post her comment at the bottom of the page linked to. There is no doubt that people attacked by this pair do have a thick enough skin and a great deal of conviction in his or her ideas to slough such stuff off if only this pair would let them. Their harassment of Andy has been going on for over a year and a few days ago they turned up at a pub where he was the guest speaker and tried to 'give him a letter'. Apparently they want to sue him for defamation, or some such thing - just another attempt to bully and intimidate him into doing whatever it is they want him to do. He quite rightly refused to engage with them and they subsequently went on the rampage on twitter, suggesting he was a coward for 'running away'.

I don't see why they should get away with their bullying behaviour but there is no space owned by them that I know of where their behaviour can be challenged. That's why I'm doing it here.

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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#4 Post by Dave B » May 19th, 2013, 10:48 am

Angel does post her comment at the bottom of the page linked to.
Oops, too early in the am and I only read enough to get the feel of Angel's piece.

Yeah, the idea of any kind of imposed discipline on the Web has both attractions and obvious problems but it is a pity that some sort of sanction system, a "yellow/red cards," "time out", cannot be applied to behaviour such as this. Who would judge though?*

How do these people acquire such obsession I wonder!

* Idea for a "future fiction" story there I think, the day comes when the Web Judges rule cyberworld!
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#5 Post by Steve Paris » May 20th, 2013, 11:08 am

Hi Skepticat_UK.

Since you linked to the comment that caused all the fuss, maybe you can enlighten me and tell me what was so wrong with it that Andy had to keep it off his first article on Steiner education.

I read it again, and obviously I'm biased, but I still find it factual and polite.

Andy never gave us a proper reason why he never allowed it. Indeed, in his post about us he claims that our issue with the treatment dished out by Steiner skeptics "is never made clear". Could it be because we weren't allowed to show how some people critical of Steiner could so viciously attack a family that had been badly damaged by that education system?

It's the only rationale that I've come up with. What's yours?

Of course, as you rightly say, Andy is at liberty to allow or disallow comments on his blog. It's just that as an evidence-based skeptic, why would he not allow evidence to be posted in his comments, especially when he himself wasn't providing it and even when later commenters were asking for the very evidence we had. Does that make sense to you?

As for us not allowing comments, managing comments is very time consuming and having been attacked online over this - a lot - we prefer to keep the hate at arms length. You can email us of course and if you look at the article you linked to, there was even a link to our email address at the end of it.

You can of course also comment on our videos via YouTube or on Angel's blog, so it's not too difficult to get in touch with us, regardless of whether there are comments on ANM or not.

People do contact us that way and articles were made thanks to those interactions, like:

http://www.amazonnewsmedia.com/ANM/ANM/Entries/2012/5/22_Is_informed_consent_missing_from_cervical_cancer_screening.html

http://www.amazonnewsmedia.com/ANM/ANM/Entries/2012/3/25_Trust_yourself%2C_youre_a_doctor..html

Oh and btw, we've never called Andy a coward. We find labelling people to be counter productive. I did say that he ran away from the Q&A session, but again, that was factual, and why put 'give him a letter' in inverted commas? That's exactly what we tried to do, in an attempt to resolve this and get him to communicate with us properly. The inverted commas imply that we were there for a different reason.

If we were there to "harass", we could have interrupted his talk, being rude, heckled, whatever. Instead we sat there through his entire speech in silence, and at the break, before the Q&A, we gave him the letter. We even said that we'd like to talk about it but understood that now may not be an appropriate time. There are several witnesses to all this, which is why we did it in public.

I know not many people click on links, so here's the comment we tried to post on Andy's blog all those moons ago, so your readers can decide for themselves.

The matter before Human Rights mentioned in our comment below has now settled, attracting significant press coverage in NZ, yet Andy doesn't mention it in his talk entitled "What every parents needs to know about Steiner", but instead disseminates the idea that it's very difficult to get Steiner into the media in anything but "a fluffy way", as he says in his talks.

This obfuscation has the power to affect children's welfare and this is why what's going on here is extremely serious.

---

Angel Garden on February 27, 2012 at 9:21 pm

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

I have decided to write a comment from my personal perspective as a parent of children who have attended, and been expelled from a Steiner school. The reason they were expelled was because one of them was being bullied, which raises further questions about the strange beliefs of Anthroposophy since the International Forum of Waldorf schools states that “pedagogical methods are used in dealing with discipline”. From our experience, which is now being followed up by the Human Rights Tribunal, that translates as “bullying is on the curriculum”.

The schools assurances that they took bullying very seriously were bunk and we, and others, witnessed them actively protecting the bullies, eventually by expelling not only the bullied child but also her sisters who were perfectly happy.

These tactics by schools along with the consequent mobbing of the general community are another fairly ubiquitous facet of Steiner schools worldwide, as in the example of Jo Sawfoot, who was acknowledged by a judge to have been ‘targeted as a whistleblower”.

Your article does not mention this aspect of provable harm, and in my opinion relies over heavily on the articles at DCs Improbable Science. Both [name removed by admin] and [name removed by admin] have blocked our initiatives to bring these matters to light because I have had the temerity to flag up the hate-speech published by a Steiner ‘critic’ which is being colluded with by all and sundry.

https://zooey.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/ ... ment-12880
There is a layer of secrecy and control operating within Steiner criticism which I believe has impoverished your article by the resulting lack of mention of current news about things that have actually happened at these schools which I believe you should also make available if you are genuinely writing to make a difference and inform people. We know that this information has actively dissuaded people both from entering and remaining in Steiner education, because we have received communications from them telling us so.

I hope you will publish this comment, which is perfectly polite and all provably true. The facts about the Human Rights matter are at http://www.titirangisteinermessenger.com. And the matter of the critics is dealt with (among other places) in our Open Letter to the critics on http://www.steinermentary.com .
It is important that those who are calling quackery are themselves seen to be above the habit of ignoring evidence that may make them feel uncomfortable – otherwise what is the difference between us and those we are attempting to expose?

I trust you will publish this comment Andy. Thanks

---
Last edited by Maria Mac on June 13th, 2013, 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#6 Post by Steve Paris » May 20th, 2013, 11:38 am

One thing I forgot to mention. You say:

"Over the past year I have seen many, many really nasty vicious tweets from this pair"

You do realise you can't just state that; you're going to have to come up with evidence to back up your claim. Since we don't delete our tweets (except to correct typos), unlike some other people, these alleged nasty vicious tweets shouldn't be too hard to find.

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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#7 Post by Tetenterre » May 20th, 2013, 12:14 pm

Steve Paris wrote: Of course, as you rightly say, Andy is at liberty to allow or disallow comments on his blog. It's just that as an evidence-based skeptic, why would he not allow evidence to be posted in his comments,
His blog, and he is under no compulsion to give you a reason.
As for us not allowing comments,
Three words lurch to mind: Sauce. Goose. Gander. Actually, no, there's a 4th. I'm sure you can work out what it is :D .
... fairly ubiquitous ...
"Ubiquitous" is an absolute; it cannot be qualified. Please make up your mind: is it ubiquitous (in which case, by your own standards of demanding evidence from others for their assertions -- e.g. in your follow-up post -- you should be providing it here) or is it not ubiquitous?
Steve

Quantum Theory: The branch of science with which people who know absolutely sod all about quantum theory can explain anything.

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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#8 Post by Steve Paris » May 20th, 2013, 2:32 pm

"His blog, and he is under no compulsion to give you a reason. "

Of course, and we're not disputing that, but can Andy be said to be an "evidence-based skeptic" if he doesn't allow evidence on his blog? Evidence that he isn't providing, that is requested by others visiting his site, and that is in line with the article's he's written?

Don't forget that at the time, Andy was saying that he published everything without moderation.

"Three words lurch to mind: Sauce. Goose. Gander. Actually, no, there's a 4th. I'm sure you can work out what it is"

I really don't understand this rationale.

Are you saying that because I happen to have a website that hasn't got comments on it, which doesn't advertise that it does publish comments, I shouldn't be asking why my comment isn't being posted on a blog that does have comments on it, and that claims to "publish everything without moderation"?

To me, it's like a shop owner not being allowed to complain about the rotten banana another shop owner has sold him, because his own shop doesn't sell bananas.

What's this got to do with anything?

""Ubiquitous" is an absolute; it cannot be qualified. Please make up your mind: is it ubiquitous (in which case, by your own standards of demanding evidence from others for their assertions -- e.g. in your follow-up post -- you should be providing it here) or is it not ubiquitous?"

That's from the comment Andy didn't approve, and you're right, we should have used a different word, maybe saying something like "there's masses of anecdotal evidence all over the web that show that Steiner schools shun and mob families"

But the reason "fairly ubiquitous" was used was because reports of it can be easily found on the web, from many different sources, but they're anecdotal, hence, we can't be certain they're all true. We did mention in that comment Jo Sawfoot though, as evidence to exactly what we were saying.

But why focus on a single word that has nothing to do with what we are actually saying here?

Are you telling me that, in your opinion, this is the crux of what was wrong with the comment?

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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#9 Post by Maria Mac » May 20th, 2013, 7:26 pm

Hi sjparis! :wave:
Steve Paris wrote:Since you linked to the comment that caused all the fuss, maybe you can enlighten me and tell me what was so wrong with it that Andy had to keep it off his first article on Steiner education.
I read it again, and obviously I'm biased, but I still find it factual and polite.
Andy never gave us a proper reason why he never allowed it.
Andy did give a proper reason. He said that you don't have the right to use his blog as a plattform to air your grievances about other people. It's his blog and, like any other blogger, he doesn't want to be drawn into squabbles that have nothing to do with him.
Indeed, in his post about us he claims that our issue with the treatment dished out by Steiner skeptics 'is never made clear'. Could it be because we weren't allowed to show how some people critical of Steiner could so viciously attack a family that had been badly damaged by that education system?

It's the only rationale that I've come up with. What's yours?
This is what Andy actually says:

They write blogs, make videos and tweet to followers of critics – continuously – about the injustice they are supposedly suffering from a gang of Steiner critics trying to silence them (for what reason, it is never made clear.)

I note you don't dispute any part of this allegation. In fact, your claim that you 'weren't allowed' to do something would seem to confirm that you believe people are trying to 'silence' you. You have your own twitter accounts, websites and youtube channel(s). Has any Steiner critic tried to get them closed down? Has any of them tried to use legal means to shut you up? Or is your beef simply that a few bloggers won't let you use their websites for your own purposes?
Of course, as you rightly say, Andy is at liberty to allow or disallow comments on his blog. It's just that as an evidence-based skeptic, why would he not allow evidence to be posted in his comments, especially when he himself wasn't providing it and even when later commenters were asking for the very evidence we had. Does that make sense to you?
You don't appear to understand the meaning of the word 'evidence'. Firstly, the comment that Andy disallowed starts with a personal anecdote, whose only connection to the topic of his blog was that it took place in a Steiner school. But there is nothing in the comment to support the suggestion that your experience happened specifically because it was a Steiner school, rather than any other small private school.

More importantly - and, as I understand it, the reason the comment was disallowed - was the paragraph criticising DC, MB and linking to what Angel called a 'hate speech' but which, to everyone except yourselves, seems like a fair comment by a blogger who has apparently been driven to distraction by your behaviour. I can't imagine what positive outcome Angel thought she could achieve by trying to drag more people into her dispute with that blogger but no reasonable person can blame Andy (or DC or anyone else) for not wanting to get involved and not wanting their personal websites to be hijacked for that purpose.

It seems to me that far from 'disallowing evidence', Andy was simply trying to stop Angel polluting his website with her personal squabbles.
As for us not allowing comments, managing comments is very time consuming and having been attacked online over this - a lot - we prefer to keep the hate at arms length.
Yes, I'm sure deciding which comments to censor must be time-consuming. So must all those nasty tweets you keep tweeting, nasty website articles you keep posting and nasty videos you keep making crtiticising other people, but somehow you manage to find time to do all those.
You can email us of course and if you look at the article you linked to, there was even a link to our email address at the end of it.
So, Angel demands the right to comment publicly beneath what someone else writes on their blog but anyone wanting to challenge what she says on her blog must do so privately. Got it. :rolleyes:
You can of course also comment on our videos via YouTube...
Well, I can't because she's banned me. It's very easy to get banned from commenting by Angel though, fair play to her, my first comment was published. But she ignored the content and referred instead to the twitter row we'd had. Here's a pic of her response together with my second comment, which never got published. Because of her ban, I could make no more comments.

Image

However, I got over it quickly. I didn't rush to my blog to attack her, or start firing emails at her or start tweeting angrily and accuse her of censorship, like she did to Andy within minutes of commenting. Way to make friends and influence people. :D

I didn't know she had another blog. What's the url?
Oh and btw, we've never called Andy a coward. We find labelling people to be counter productive. I did say that he ran away from the Q&A session, but again, that was factual..
Oh please! Let's not split hairs over the word 'coward'. Do you think what you say here is any different?

Image

In your twisted, self-obsessed view of the situation, his refusal to talk to you was because he was 'so scared'. To anyone who knows how you've been behaving towards him the last 15 months, he was being sensible not to have anything to do with you. How dare you presume to know how someone else is feeling? 'Factual', my arse!
and why put 'give him a letter' in inverted commas?
Because that's what I read. I put it in inverted commas to illustrate that it is a quote. I'm afraid I don't take your word for anything.
If we were there to "harass", we could have interrupted his talk, being rude, heckled, whatever. Instead we sat there through his entire speech in silence, and at the break, before the Q&A, we gave him the letter. We even said that we'd like to talk about it but understood that now may not be an appropriate time. There are several witnesses to all this, which is why we did it in public
.
Why put 'harass' in inverted commas? Trying to force a meeting on someone who has made it clear they want nothing to do with you is indeed harassment, regardless of how polite you are about it. That you should have gone to such lengths beggars belief.

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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#10 Post by Maria Mac » May 20th, 2013, 7:29 pm

Steve Paris wrote:One thing I forgot to mention. You say:

"Over the past year I have seen many, many really nasty vicious tweets from this pair"

You do realise you can't just state that; you're going to have to come up with evidence to back up your claim.
Really? Why's that? What ya gonna do if I don't??
Since we don't delete our tweets (except to correct typos), unlike some other people, these alleged nasty vicious tweets shouldn't be too hard to find.
Indeed. I've already posted one of yours. Here are a couple from Angel.

Image
Image

Plenty more where they came from. Have a good evening.

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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#11 Post by Dave B » May 20th, 2013, 7:35 pm

:popcorn:
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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#12 Post by animist » May 20th, 2013, 8:01 pm

Dave B wrote::popcorn:
well no, I was not feeling very popcorny about all this, more confused, as the actual issue was not that clear - I think it's Steiner schools vis-a-vis the measles controversy. But Nick's pleas for patriotism, however construed, and in another thread, are making more sense to me now, as there is a Steiner school in Forest Row near East Grinstead, which as everyone knows is the centre of the Universe
http://www.thisissussex.co.uk/Budding-s ... z2RZ30d01C

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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#13 Post by Dave B » May 20th, 2013, 9:15 pm

Well, I don't understand tennis but recognise it is a spectator sport.

I had to admit that I once thought there was something in Steiner's philosophy of education - I am all for a "holistic" approach that integrates all the innate "skills" a child posses. But his "Anthroposophy" just about wipes out everything for me.

I might cherry pick from Steiner and Montessori if I were designing an educational system I suspect, but keep it firmly earthed.
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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#14 Post by Tetenterre » May 20th, 2013, 9:54 pm

Steve Paris wrote: but can Andy be said to be an "evidence-based skeptic" if he doesn't allow evidence on his blog?
Here, let me fix that for you:
but can Andy be said to be an "evidence-based skeptic" if he doesn't allow evidence anecdote and personal grievance-platforming on his blog?
"Three words lurch to mind: Sauce. Goose. Gander. Actually, no, there's a 4th. I'm sure you can work out what it is"

I really don't understand this rationale.
Oh well, never mind.
To me, it's like a shop owner not being allowed to complain about the rotten banana another shop owner has sold him, because his own shop doesn't sell bananas.
No, it's nothing like that.
"there's masses of anecdotal evidence ..."
Hmm, I can see you're new here. We tend to distinguish between anecdote and evidence. Which do you mean?
But why focus on a single word that has nothing to do with what we are actually saying here?
Actually, it does. It points to a penchant for exaggeration.
Are you telling me that, in your opinion, this is the crux of what was wrong with the comment?
If you read again what I wrote, you will discover that I have not told you that.
Athena wrote:Really? Why's that? What ya gonna do if I don't??
I imagine it's along the lines of giving you cause to employ the Arkell v. Pressdram (1971) response. :laughter:
Dave B wrote:I had to admit that I once thought there was something in Steiner's philosophy of education
As you know, so did I. :D Totally agree with what you say about cherry-picking and staying grounded!
Steve

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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#15 Post by Dave B » May 21st, 2013, 9:59 am

For those unfamiliar with the Arkell v. Pressdram (1971) case the accused's response is:
Spoiler:
"Fuck off"
See more here under "Litigation".
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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#16 Post by Steve Paris » May 21st, 2013, 10:20 pm

I was planning a detailed response to the various points you all made, but at the end of the day, it's obvious that there's no point.

You've made up your minds and you won't change them, no matter what I bring to the table. So why bother?

It's a case of "I'm smart, you're dumb; I'm big, you're little; I'm right, you're wrong; and there's nothing you can do about it."

This thread is epitomised by what the anonymous person known as Athena/skepticat_uk said:

Alicia Hamberg, a very vocal person, highly critical of Steiner education, has written what "seems like a fair comment", according to Athena/skepticat_uk. In it, Alicia says that she "admires the principal" of our school and states that expelling my 3 kids who were all under 9 is "an elegant solution". Whereas Angel saying "why has top twitterer lecarnardnoir sunk so low?" is an example of a "really nasty vicious tweet"…

Says it all, really.

It does make me wonder though what a person who thinks this disgusting comment seems "fair" is actually doing on a humanist blog. But hey, I've been so dismayed by the actions and beliefs of so many people lately, I wonder why it still surprises me.

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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#17 Post by Maria Mac » May 22nd, 2013, 12:39 am

You might want to start another box of popcorn, Dave. :)
Steve Paris wrote:I was planning a detailed response to the various points you all made, but at the end of the day, it's obvious that there's no point. You've made up your minds and you won't change them, no matter what I bring to the table. So why bother?
You're right - there is no point. Not because we've made up our minds and won't change them; as humanists we make judgements according to standards of reason and humanity. Reason, humanity and the evidence are against you and you don't have a leg to stand on. You know you don't and that's why you're bottling it. You simply aren't big enough to admit that you are wrong.
It's a case of "I'm smart, you're dumb; I'm big, you're little; I'm right, you're wrong; and there's nothing you can do about it."
How juvenile. What work are the quotation marks doing here? Nobody has said or implied any such thing. The bottom line is that you've been waging a campaign of harassment against a blogger because he wouldn't allow your missus to post an irrelevant, shit-stirring comment on his blog. You haven't been able to justify that behaviour because you can't.
Alicia Hamberg, a very vocal person, highly critical of Steiner education, has written what "seems like a fair comment", according to Athena/skepticat_uk. In it, Alicia says that she "admires the principal" of our school and states that expelling my 3 kids who were all under 9 is "an elegant solution"
.
Liar! Alicia did not state that expelling your 3 kids was an elegant solution. Let's remind ourselves of what Alicia actually wrote:

November 8, 2011 - 7:16 pm ·

The more I experience of this utter shit, the more I admire the principal of that NZ steiner school. Imagine having to deal with these people in real life. Month after month. I would not have had the strength of mind to just walk past them silently while they were sticking their nasty cameras in my face and harrassing me and everyone else around. Maybe the school did something wrong, at some point in time (I seriously doubt even that right now — I don’t think these people should be believed about ANYTHING). But the school certainly has nothing to be ashamed of. In the circumstances, it seems they have handled it quite elegantly.

There’s clearly a pattern in the behaviour and the way these people act towards others will land them in big trouble one day if it hasn’t already, that’s for sure. The question is how much damage they will do to other people along the way. Quite a lot, is my sad guess.


See? Alicia said that it seems the school handled your nasty, harassing behaviour quite elegantly, that's all. Now, let's see what she wrote a few weeks before she wrote the above:

September 27, 2011 · by alicia hamberg ·
This is just to say that I have banned Angel Garden from commenting on this blog. She’s the second person in this blog’s history — and, intriguingly, I’ve never yet had to ban an anthroposophist or a waldorf supporter. Angel Garden now complains about having been deprived of her right to free speech. This, however, is a private blog — it is not a nation or a government authority, from whom one can legitimately expect that the right to free speech, in the legal sense of the word, is respected –, it is my personal blog, and it is not a billboard for advertisement of her and her husband’s projects, which I don’t agree with, or a place for her to launch attacks on other people. They have several websites of their own (where, by the way, although this truly is a trivial issue now, they don’t provide visitors the option of posting comments at all). I can’t control how they use their own websites — obviously, or I wouldn’t have accepted the post they posted the other day –, but I can control how, and when, they use my blog. And since Angel Garden’s behaviour has been unacceptable to me, I reserve the right not to allow her to present her ‘messages’ on my blog at all. Enough said.

Addendum, Sep 27, 2011: apparently enough wasn’t said. No comments referring to Angel Garden’s atrocious behaviour yesterday will slip through. None. And as far as I’m concerned, Steve Paris and Steve’s and Angel’s fake identitites can all go to hell. Bye bye! I was stupid and ignorant for too long when it came to you — that’s over.

Sep 28, 2011: Steve and Angel — fuck off. Your comments were pulled for good reason. It’s not your decision who I ban or which comments I don’t want here. It is my blog. It is not a venue for you to perpetuate your nasty harassment of others on. In fact, I hate to have to do this — I hate this entire situation. I hate having to moderate comments and police my visitors. But you give me no choice. You crossed the line, and my line is very liberal and generous (as you noted yourselves, when complaining about other comments (they were darkly ironic, by the way) not being pulled — you know, it is my blog, not your blog! My policies, not your policies!).

Sep 28, 2011, 2nd time: Just fuck off, Steve. I wasn’t born yesterday.

Sep 29, 2011: As I said, fuck off, Steve — I won’t email you and I want nothing to do with you or with your wife. I’m not ignorant or uninformed, in case you think so.


So, yes, Steve Paris, the comment of hers that you say is so vicious is in fact a very reasonable response to your unadulterated nastiness.

And, yes, calling someone a 'hypocritical celebrity blogger' (what was that you said about not labelling people?) who has 'sunk so low' because he didn't allow someone with their own agenda to come and shit-stir on his blog, is vicious. But I would hate to leave anyone with the impression that those tweets were the only examples of your and Angels nastiness.

These were the tweets I saw that first alerted me to the harassment of Andy Lewis - fervent, repetitive tweeting of a link to the nasty video she made about him - all because he wouldn't allow her poxy comment on his blog!

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I note with amusement that even though you are married, you choose to hold public conversations with each other on twitter. Like this one, publicly speculating about my relationship to Andy Lewis.

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(For the record, I'm not his mother; I hardly know the bloke. But please note that the people who 'find labelling people to be counter productive' call Andy a 'colossal hypocrite'. I mean like 'Hello Pot, this is the Kettle calling'....)

And here we have making the unevidenced claim that he 'practises deception' and 'calls on his gang to protect him'.

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It does make me wonder though what a person who thinks this disgusting comment seems "fair" is actually doing on a humanist blog.
Oh, didn't you know? There is a moral obligation on humanists to stand up to and challenge the behaviour of nasty, vicious, lying, bullies.

Finally, I'm not anonymous. My real name is on my blog and on this forum. It's not difficult to find and I look forward to hearing from your lawyer.
:finger:

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animist
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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#18 Post by animist » May 22nd, 2013, 7:24 am

Steve Paris wrote:I was planning a detailed response to the various points you all made, but at the end of the day, it's obvious that there's no point.

You've made up your minds and you won't change them, no matter what I bring to the table. So why bother?

It's a case of "I'm smart, you're dumb; I'm big, you're little; I'm right, you're wrong; and there's nothing you can do about it."

This thread is epitomised by what the anonymous person known as Athena/skepticat_uk said:

Alicia Hamberg, a very vocal person, highly critical of Steiner education, has written what "seems like a fair comment", according to Athena/skepticat_uk. In it, Alicia says that she "admires the principal" of our school and states that expelling my 3 kids who were all under 9 is "an elegant solution". Whereas Angel saying "why has top twitterer lecarnardnoir sunk so low?" is an example of a "really nasty vicious tweet"…

Says it all, really.

It does make me wonder though what a person who thinks this disgusting comment seems "fair" is actually doing on a humanist blog. But hey, I've been so dismayed by the actions and beliefs of so many people lately, I wonder why it still surprises me.
Steve, I assume that your aim in all this is to elicit support for some dispute you have with a NZ Steiner school? Rather than all this snarling at people not directly involved, why don't you at least try to explain the situation from your POV?

Steve Paris
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Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#19 Post by Steve Paris » May 22nd, 2013, 8:38 am

Hi Animist and thanks for your comment. I was thinking exactly the same thing, but it's going to take me a little while to gather all the info. Bear with me. :)

Steve Paris
Posts: 10
Joined: May 20th, 2013, 8:45 am

Re: Angel Garden and Steve Paris

#20 Post by Steve Paris » May 22nd, 2013, 8:44 am

Oh btw, Athena/skepticat_UK isn't directly involved you're right, but I don't think I've been snarling at her. I also don't think I've been snarling at anybody in fact, just trying to make people see what actually happened. It's sometimes hard to sift through it all because of all the insults thrown our way.

However, even though [two names removed by admin] and Andy Lewis weren't at the school, they are involved with what happened afterwards.

Hopefully, I'll be able to start the story before the weekend; pretty busy these next couple of days.

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