Dr. Laura Kicks It Up A Notch
Not willing to let a sleeping dog lie, "Dr." Laura has taken on local blogs and anonymity on the Interent again today:
I got free publicity last Sunday, and The Santa Barbara Media Blog got free publicity today. Should we be happy to be in the same company as the hit tv show Law and Order? I thought that was so yesterday...
That being said, my offer to allow her a community post on BlogaBarbara still stands. Rather than not allowing me to respond to her columns by not getting my side of the story, why not get instant feedback from all of us? I will even promise to not allow any comments that aren't directly about the subject matter, use invective or name calling, etc.
My second boycott is all blogs and such which permit anonymous postings. For example, go to www.independent.com and see for yourself how, under the darkness of anonymity, people feel free to give "opinions" that often go right over the edge into slander and downright meanness. Same with the Santa Barbara blogs which spend most of their time and space on attacking everyone associated with the Santa Barbara News-Press.
I got free publicity last Sunday, and The Santa Barbara Media Blog got free publicity today. Should we be happy to be in the same company as the hit tv show Law and Order? I thought that was so yesterday...
That being said, my offer to allow her a community post on BlogaBarbara still stands. Rather than not allowing me to respond to her columns by not getting my side of the story, why not get instant feedback from all of us? I will even promise to not allow any comments that aren't directly about the subject matter, use invective or name calling, etc.
Labels: Dr. Laura, Santa Barbara News-Press
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 3/15/2007 01:41:00 PM
Our Community Guidelines ask that you use the Blogger/Open ID login or the
more private Name/URL option when making comments. Comments using "Anonymous" will not be published. For more info, see choosing an identity.
22 Comments:
Absolutely cool for both you and the Indy media blog to get free PR from the "dr" Laura. I know some people who still subscribe to the N-P who know nothing about blogs and who now will visit the Indy online and maybe blogabarbara. Thanks, LS!
As for the "downright meanness", it takes one to know one, doesn't it!
Perhaps I'll go to the local library and see what else she wrote, why "opinions", for instance, is in quotation marks as though what is written might not be opinion but fact?!
Onward - and be a barking, not sleeping dog! What say about having a topic on the recent gang violence? Not so recent, actually, been on-going. What are the schools doing --- obviously, not doing!--- that the kids are roaming the streets on a weekday afternoon! I thought the teachers just got a raise and were not out on strike.
Laura's biggest concern are children. She knows this hurts everyone. A human being with a column would even do that special one in time of need. She did a special visit to Hannity and Colmes to discuss Anna Nicole's baby.
Finally. I am so glad to see that someone of such impleccable moral superiority has taken on the threatening anonymous blog problem that is ruining our entire civilization.
I agree with 1:54, the gang problem is worth a discussion.
From the "Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Laura" file:
Let me get this straight: Laura Schlessinger opposes blogs with anonymous posts?
Then why did she announce her return to News-Press employment on Santa Barbara's Blog, which, if you read the biographical sketch, is produced by an anonymous crew of reporters and photographers with a curiously blind eye to the News-Press mess?
Laura strikes again!
I'm reminded of an old saying:
"Don't wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig likes it."
She feigns obliviousness to her own hypocrisy. She knows she'll get called to task here so why would she bother having a two way dialog. For that matter why should we bother even responding to her.
Which reminds me of another old saying that she has taken to heart:
"You can fool some of the people all the time"...and she's got the bucks to prove it.
I never received a response from Dr. Laura about the anonymous content in her columns, particularly the example described below:
So, Dr. Laura, who wrote the anonymous letter in your column, dated Nov. 23, 2006, titled, "At Thanksgiving, let's focus on gratitude."
You wrote:
"Dr. Laura's Letters: "I believe that the News-Press has become a much better, and more objective paper since the 'transition' began several months ago. The biggest improvement is your Thursday and Sunday columns. As a retired Air Force officer, there are few qualities I admire more than courage. The honest, direct manner in which you tackle politically correct dogma is courageous, particularly in liberal Santa Barbara."
"My response: I am very grateful for your comments and support."
Please, I'd like to know the name of the retired Air Force officer, just to confirm that he even exists.
As you also wrote, "writing commentary without full personal attribution did not demonstrate character, courage and conscience."
I'm figuring if that retired officer really exists, he has the character, courage and conscience to stand up and identify himself.
If you are going to publish commentary in your column, you should prove to us that the people are real, and identify them according to the rules of letters to the editor.
I would hope that you did not just make up that letter praising yourself. The last time I saw someone make up letters was on my college newspaper. A shy geek wrote a column, "Ask Richie," making up letters in which girls asked for sexual advice. He always had the answers (after all, he created the problems!) I never saw Richie walking around campus without at least two girls on his arms. They were so enthralled about being in the presence of such a wise advice columnist!
He got busted when he created a letter from a girl who "couldn't help craving sex on her lunch breaks at the school cafeteria and would do it under the tables." School administrators searched through all the registrar's records to find that girl, and discovered that Richie made her up.
We had to get a new columist, a student who wrote "Sexually Speaking," and researched his material at his older brother's porn store.
You also wrote: "I disdain media outlets which permit anonymity. If their words aren't worth standing behind, they aren't worth being heard or read."
Thus, are you saying that you disdain your own column and any newspapers that publish it for permitting anonymity?
Laura, Dr. Laura, Bueller, Bueller, Laura, Bueller, Bueller ...
I think I may have as much a chance preventing Ferris Bueller from taking a day off from school as getting Dr. Laura to confess not only to anonymity in her column, but to "embellishing" her anonymity.
OK, boys and girls, do you know what "embellishing" means? I thought you did. Welcome to my neighborhood! :)
Sara,
I probably don't have to caution you about a "Gang Thread". A quick look at the other blogs would show that you'll be spending a lot time with the delete button. Maybe we could revisit when emotions have calmed down some.
I'm off to Roswell to resurrect a dinosaur. Can I bring you back a tin foil hat? It may come in handy some days.
Now kids, don't change anything in town while I'm gone. I'll try to check in if the aura out there isn't too strong.
"Who loves you, Baby?"
As it has been said before, Laura Schlessinger does not understand blogs. The whole idea is that one can express an opinion and not be sued or harrassed. Does Ms. Schlessinger expect the entire blogosphere, the hundreds of thousands of people who post anonymously in the comments on Daily Kos or Huffington Post or Eschaton to suddenly start using their names?
The beauty of it is that all are equal in the blogosphere. Wendy or Laura can post, if they desire, but not sue or intimidate. Their ideas stand on their own, without their pr people or lawyers to help them assert dominance.
Did she actually threaten to boycott the blogs? Does she actually think she is so special that we would care? She is just another human being and free to participate or not, it is up to her, of course.
Santa Barbara is a wonderfully welcoming place to most people. Celebrities, the enormously wealthy, the extremely talented, can come here and, I believe, be regarded as individuals who are not to be bothered or ogled. There is so much money and so much talent that, I believe, there is more concern for who a person is internally, rather than their power or external trappings.
However, this is not a good fit for those who prefer to be treated with great deference and who like to always get their way because of their power. So Wendy and Laura do not like it, want to change it, to "reform" it. Perhaps to make it like all the other places where they can lord it over the peons? ..except with good weather?
As I understand it, Ayn Rand believed in some individuals being so superior that they were free to run right over everyone else. Is that how they see themselves? So superior?
The culture of Santa Barbara is not harmonious with those views and, I predict, they will have to change or leave. It is a small city, but very special and will not acquiesce readily to being bullied by the newbies.
There is a great tradition here of kind, generous philanthropists who have given to the community with quiet dignity. Those people are very appreciated and very precious.
Perhap Wendy and Laura will become people we can be proud to call Santa Barbarans.
Laura Schlessinger being upset with anyone for "downright meanness" is rich. When I think of how she talks to the poor saps who call asking for her advice....whew.
"Dr" Laura please take on us bloggers here..or get out of the kitchen.... cause we're cooking here.. lets see if she can stand the heat.... bet ya she runs off with her tail between her legs.
by the way i post as anonymoous because it is so easy to hit the button.
would like to know what the "Dr" thinks of the judges findings... what does the "Dr" think of working with NP's liars and their morality.... oh that's right it's ok cause they are her "people" that are doing the lying.
The internet has changed mass media in radical ways during the past few years. It's a two way conversation now, not just one-way preaching by those few who own or announce over media. Wendy and Laura don't like the loss of the pulpit, but everyone has a more equal voice now, and that's the new reality they will have to endure.
She doesn't like blogs which allow people to express an opinion, but yet she writes a column for the NP in which responses can be emailed to her yahoo email address?
Honestly, she should take Sara up on her offer for a community post, and let her express her view, while the public is allowed to respond and comment. But, I'm not holding my breath on this one...
A kid is killed during a gang fight on State Street and Dr. Laura writes about ... boycotting blogs?
It would be nice if the local newspaper had a real local columnist again.
I have never listened to her radio show, but I assume she has listeners call in. Are they not anonymous?
they give a name and city, but I can call myself whatever name I want.
I suggest we ignore/boycott Ms. S on this & other blogs- she is an untalentd fluff piece writer & there are far more important topics & far more intelligent people here than to be concerned with someone who has made a profession out of what is basically trolling
Good point, 8:45, that people can't verify identities of those who participate in radio shows. Too, hard to see how it would be realistic--if even possible--for SDG to confirm the identities of those who post here.
People should check Laura Schlessinger out. She was caught with "fake" guest on TV. If you listen to her radio from time to time, you wonder.... didn't I hear that voice in another call? She's very anal, the "praise" letters can be the same pattern. There are people who listened to her 1998 and before? Disussions of her shows. People who knew her during early radio, school when she snared old Lew. Bill Ballance was an old Marine radio innovator, he taught her everything, she was hot in bed for him... She has a questionable past in other ways. I've never heard that she repented? What authority does she have to do her gig? The N-P needs to explain why they take her awful and now dumb abuse? And dump it on us!
DrLaura gets an action figure-
a little humor from November on my blog...
http://www.jawfish.net/wordpress/archives/135
DrLaura... I used to think obvious frauds like her would flame out quickly. The Bush years have taught me a lesson, which I should have known already, having grown up in the South, land of Snopesism.
Joining the News-Mess seems highly appropriate.
"dr." L.? Writing about morality? Oh, I think, well zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz is exactly what happens to me, especially since she calmed down her broadcast. Most calls are from young people. She is teaching a new generation how to continue her tactics.
Her WAKE UP is her hard work and promotion for war. I'd like to know if she has addressed the medications the military gives each soldier to fight and sleep. They will return addicted and without much help. "dr." L.'s son was known to be at risk (anger&substance abuse). The army helps young men who were drop outs learn to fight and bond in that world. When they return home they can't fight and soon find out how alone they are .
"dr." L.'s son is one of the lucky ones. He and his comrades can benefit from the best&safest equipment. He can afford to travel on leave. I've heard "dr." L. tell military mom's that she ("dr." L.) has contacts (military). "dr." L. can afford to help her son if he needs medical treatment, his privileges are many. She can also afford public relations and to keep secrets.
Has anyone heard her address the lack of medical care and homelessness for the soldiers with least privilege? I'd like to know what she said about the medications the Army doses for soldiers and the problems of these addictions.
Her site is commercial. I'm not interested in her sales or charity plugs. I agree with Worker Bee, if you want to give to "the best contribution anyone can make to Operation Family Fund is to stop waging fake wars". If you want to give them money, you don't need to go through "dr." L., go direct to OFF.
"dr." L., has a questionable reputation over the foundation she started and ended. I don't know why anyone could trust her now. Her next whim is The Patriot Guard Riders. They may want her media attention. They say this is not about what position you hold on war, it's about protecting the families. If she is using this for a few photo opportunities and her same old promotions we will see. Her new Harley and those so-called "patriot" boots would be a sight. The irony is that people joke she IS LIKE REV PHELPS. It was their shared hate towards "biological errors" that glued them together. Now it is the way they are both shameless self promoters. Rev Phelps has less than 100 followers, most are his relatives. He's all flare, a total nut who is good at getting attention. He will appreciate any publicity his "dr." L. brings his way.
I remember when Dr. Laura was profiled on Dateline on NBC and told Stone Phillips she was a prophet. This was back in her "serious Jew" days, which lasted about two years.
That's funny, "told Stone Phillips she was a prophet." She claims she never said that. Typical. My frIend says "She is a PROFIT."
Post a Comment
<< Home