I have been forwarded a message by Franc Hoggle aka Felch Grogan aka Victor Ivanoff. He is planning to attend the Global Atheist Convention in April, and has announced his intent to ‘stalk’ the people he doesn’t like…the “baboons” as he calls them. Looking at the speakers list, though, that seems to be just me.
Alas, if I am to accomplish any stalking, it would be foolish to make myself so readily identifiable. I will seek to surreptitiously besmirch as many baboons as possible by sitting next to them without them realising anything is amiss and then silently wandering off after a happy snap is taken.
It would be a grave disservice on my behalf to not feed their collective derangements and paranoias. They are martyrs remember? They have turned me into a hairshirt. I have obligations to live up to. PZ should keep checking his pockets too. I will deposit a strange, yet entirely innocuous and harmless, token of my affection for him in there. It’s up to him to catch me.
Doo-doo-doo-doo, they are entering the Twilight Zone… If they choose to make themselves insane, it’s entirely none of my concern.
I don’t consider myself a martyr, and I’m certainly not the insane deranged one here. Ivanoff is extraordinarily creepy: if I find him approaching me, I won’t be checking my pockets, I’ll be contacting event security.
By the way, I do know what he looks like. I’ve also been informed that he’s a heavy smoker and reeks, making identification even easier.
Mr Ivanoff: Stay away from me. I have no interest in communicating with you, and I’m definitely not interested in having you rifle through my pockets.
He seems to have a deep-seated need to feel persecuted. He should look into Christianity.
*gets the popcorn*
*I have the beer*
I suggest everyone put armed mousetraps in their pockets beforehand.
Ha-ha!
/Nelson
Yes! He finally got “outed.” That schmuck doesn’t deserve to have his pseudonymity respected. Ever since that overblown debate on Stephanie Zvan’s blog about whether it’s okay to give out the name of a person who is apparently a professional internet asshole and self-professed stalker, I knew it would come out sooner or later.
Someone pass me the popcorn.
Someone’s been reading too much Tom Brown Jr.
What a fucking douche.
I suppose if he only went places where he was wanted, he’d never go anywhere.
Bwahahaha… except I wanted to do it.
So, he smells bad. Why does that not surprise me?
*demonstrative yawn*
“I must be Franc.”
– Emperor Palpatine
The evils of cigarette smoking is worse than I thought.
Those are some very sniny fangs you have, David Marjanović.
Somebody (or some bodies) should volunteer to accompany PZ wherever he goes at the event.
I do not trust stalkers who claim to be innocuous.
We’re not going to have to change the term for self-righteous angry masturbation now, are we?
Insane in the membrane.
But, is Ivanoff really insane? Or is he just an asshole? Most insane people are a lot nicer than he is.
There’s no disputing that he is deranged.
So… his plan is to sit next to random people, and leave when a photo is taken?
What?
Holms:
This plan does seem to be his idea of victory. Pathetic all the way ’round.
Makes me think that I really should shave …
–o–
I incidentally have crisps and Christmas beer.
Somehow I don’t think that’ll be difficult.
No, Hoggling is still fine.
The, er, output of Hoggling—the greasy, smelly end product released with a spasm of shame and self-loathing that one deposits with its dirty sock tomb in the laundry basket:
That’s what you call ‘victorivanoff’.
I’m far too far away to offer any help, but I’d surely volunteer to act as a temporary bodyguard for PZ. I’m sure some ten to fifteen corpulent atheists would make this jerk think twice.
Am I advocating violence? No: I’m advocating self-defence.
there is a civil rights group named Southern Poverty Law Center. they deal with neonazi, white supremest type people and groups. perhaps the SPLC could id the person in the photo. his email sounds ominous. could be real cause for concern.
Yeah, an obsessed loon. Kinda reminds me of the Mabus.
I deal with law enforcement issues occasionally (not an LEO) and this raises concerns. Big concerns.
These are not mutually exclusive. The phrase I would use is scary.
PZ, is it possible for you to contact security at the venue? Seriously.
Why should PZ have to modify his behaviour because this unglued piece of shit has delusions of ninjahood? Fuck that.
What someone needs to do is accompany Victor Ivanoff wherever he goes at the event.
Eh, Victor Ivanoff is quite a common name. Apparently it’s the name of a fairly famous South African painter, who is either very old or recently deceased. (Yes, I just googled it.)
“Hoggle” is perfect because it’s a.) unusual b.) invented and c.) seemingly invented specifically for the purpose of giving a name to the act of masturbating while thinking angry thoughts about a relative stranger whose views you disagree with.
By the way, don’t forget to add your upvotes to the Urban Dictionary’s entry for hoggle.
If I were you I would hang with Sam Harris. He’s got the self defence thing covered and now I understand more about why.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-truth-about-violence/
If it gets nasty and there is no way out, Sam can kick ass for you.
Is DM in need of a roommate at his psychiatric facility?
“Hey, man, what’s takin’ so long? You ivan’ off in there?
At least we know what the slimy turd looks like and can keep an eye out for him.
Ah but what if he is a master of disguise?
Interesting way to “win” an argument, terrorize your opposition and sneak turds into their pocket! Isn’t this something of a religious tradition?
An elegant plan. Sit next to mortal enemy. Get picture taken. Bismirchment.
Y’all need to be careful. There is a long list of internet provoked homicides on wikipedia.
Anthony Powell, a creationist and fan of some Youtuber xian kook I can’t remember, killed Asia McGowan, most likely because she was black and an atheist. She apparently was an acquaintance, not even a girlfriend.
Back in the Darpa Dark Ages, I used to fequent a forum where people mostly used their real names. One guy was having obvious problems and then disappeared. Someone eventually found a newspaper article. He had got into a gun battle with the police during a very poorly thought out robbery and was killed.
The point is, the crazies are out there and they can do bad things. It’s best to be safe, than be sorry.
@30
You mean he may actually look like a slimy turd. Hmm good thought 99.
Ophelia Benson:
Even if he tried, the smoke smell will follow him about. He’d have to be a master of disguise and quit smoking.
Alternatively, someone could convince him that bleach will cure it.
As a smoker who smells so little of smoke that people are often surprised to learn that I do smoke, I hope Victor Ivanoff never learns the ancient secret of the shinobi: washing clothes and practicing regular hygiene.
As I read that I pictured Gollum bouncing up and down*.
What has PZ got in his pocketses?
*while hogging, of course.
Really, it’s not PZ we should be all that concerned about; Hoggle’s made it perfectly clear that he’s the sort of scumbag who’ll wait for a woman to be on her own before he ‘makes his move’; this is just his pathetic attempt at a smokescreen on the hope that it’ll increase his chances.
Brownian:
A lot depends on how much one smokes and how much they smoke outside. As people have said that Ivanoff reeks, he most likely doesn’t practice the ancient arts of the shinobi.
You_Monster:
Killer octopods?
This might keep happening.
US xianity is dying and people are leaving in the order of best, brightest, and sanest first.
Which means, more and more xianity is going to overlap with our huge lunatic fringes. One day they will just be the lunatic fringes.
It might be a good idea to develop plans now for stalkers and xian terrorists. It is probably a matter of time before some nutcase xian goes for the atheists.
Since 9/11 there have been 800 acts of violence against US Moslems or their property, including several murders. Xianity is historically been a very violent religion and that hasn’t changed.
But will they be fierce enough to fend off whatever “innocuous” trinket smelly Victor wants to implant?
You can smoke inside? ;)
That’s why he needs a ‘friend’ to accompany him wherever he goes at this conference.
Franc Hoggle aka Felch Grogan
Folks, these names are anagrams of each other.
Creep.
Seriously, you wanna rifle though people’s pockets? Leave them notes of affection? Follow them around and surprise them by taking a picture and running away? What kind of weird little fuck are you, Hoggle?
sigh
Brownian:
You can at Chez Caine.
Well when I said master of disguise I of course meant he would disguise the smell too. Disguise isn’t just visual – it’s accent, voice, posture, manner, way of moving – it’s a lotta things. Smell included.
Ophelia Benson:
I think all that might be beyond Victor. He’s not exactly a great thinker.
is exactly like “with au jus”. Sorry to nit-pick.
Less Schizophrenic (IANAD) but definitely hints of Mabus here.
Sally:
Nope. You can at Caine. wouldn’t work.
Caine – seriously? When he’s genius enough to come up with all these red-hot nyms? Of course he’s a great thinker!
Great. Now he could be anybody. Even PZ. Even Ophelia. Even…me.
[Sees reflection in mirror. Smashes it in fear.]
Update! Victor Ivanoff may or may not have a bleeding and broken hand.
That’s not what “chez” means. “Chez” includes the “at.” If you say “chez moi,” it translates to “at my place.” You don’t need to say “au chez moi,” that would sound weird.
Whatever. People say it in English all the time, since so many restauranteurs have named their restos “Chez _______” so people say, “at Chez Louis” all the time.
Probably the clearest sign he should cut back on the hoggling.
Is this guy Australian?
Because Grogan is ausie urban slang for a turd that does not break free before hitting the water.http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grogan+
And Felch – you can look that one up if you dont know it (caution here) -http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=felch
Says a lot about his self image if he chooses that name. However it is an accurate dipiction. Never forget also that Lennon was killed by a guy who had his album signed hours earlier and had pictures taken with him.
I would just alert event security and Australian Police before you head down. Make them aware ahead of time.
If it makes you feel better, SallyStrange, I never say “at Chez Louis”.
Ophelia Benson:
Yes, you’re right, his cleverness knows no bounds! Why, he’d never, ever be outed or anything. No sir.
I smoke only when I’m wearing my SmokingClothes™.
—
You can smoke outside chez Caine.
You can chez Caine.
Works pour moi.
I had Cheddar chez at lunch, does that count?
This feels a little weird to me. From what I know, this guy scares me (not for me personally to be in danger, but for others I webknow) and I wonder if open mocking may set him off even more. Another part of me realizes that, given the dimensions of the web, anyone can find something to set them off. As long as he doesn’t show up at chez the El Tovar.
A great weight has lifted from my shoulders.
Hi PZ,
It may be that the contents of the email is sufficient to secure an Intervention Order against this creep within the jurisdiction (Victoria- state)- it’s a pretty straightforward process and if successful, means that there are criminal sanctions which apply to these acts of premeditated intimidation and annoyance should he follow through. It will also make life a bit easier for event security and the local police should they be required to respond to complaints about this guy at the Convention, and means things aren’t obfuscated in grey area discussions about what’s creepy behaviour.
has some more information about this, and I’d urge you (and the convention organisers) to seek some in-jurisdiction legal advice on point. (I’m not a lawyer, just a law student/legal secretary, so [insert all the standard disclaimers about not relying on this comment as legal advice here]). It may initially seem like overkill, but the process of obtaining an intervention order really is designed to be pretty low-cost and straightforward. It won’t stop him expressing his views and being a jerk, but it will hopefully be a firm disincentive to any attempt to threaten, harass, intimidate, etc yourself and/or other Convention attendees.
Best,
Erin
One of the things I missed most upon returning from Francophone Africa was the word “chez”. There simply isn’t a good English translation, and the word is so damned versatile.
My favorite restaurant is Chez Maison de la Casa House. You should try their duck à l’orange soda pop.
http://legalaid.vic.gov.au/1829.htm
(And here’s the link that didn’t post properly the first time, sorry!)
What a dork. But seeming more like DM here, it is a bit sad.
“Besmirch”? WTF? LOL.
As we see from the bit PZ quoted, Ivanoff continues his unsanitary habit of hoggling.
I’m glad that people are looking out for each other and providing some warning. I hope that the security team at GAC takes this very seriously.
But Hoggle’s harmless. I heard it from Phil Gi*rdano.
People in Berkeley say “Meet me upstairs at Chez Panisse,” not “meet me upstairs Chez Panisse.” The latter sounds weird. We’re speaking English. I’d happily smoke inside at Chez Caine and even sort of hope to do so someday.
I vote for the Blue Ring Octopus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-ringed_octopus
Chas:
I’d be most pleased to have you here.
I think Ivanoff has just elevated it all to the level the GAC will take seriously. So no, no vigilante action will be necessary: as I said up top, any attempt by Ivanoff to play games with me will be met by calling event security.
Yes, which makes me think he not only has a need to feel persecuted, he’s run out of fodder for his little blog.
Wow, hoggle graduated from just being an asshole to actual physical threats. His mother must be so proud.
Check out his blog:
http://greylining.com/author/franchoggle/
I’d watch him if I were you. Some of the phrases he uses:
burns like acid
nigger bullshit
toilet slaves
career victims
gibbering droolers
throwing feces
This Victor sounds like a loser.
So this hoggler has publicly announced his intention to commit assault on PZ and/or other attendees. Sounds more than enough to get the police department’s attention.
Not to me. Or to ARIDS.
Well, some of us. Some of the time.
Actually we’re writing and reading English. :-þ
Yep, Mabus’ replacement is here.
I wasn’t advocating any kind of vigilante action – if I see him, and he’s hassling someone, I’ll be going straight to security.
“Meet me upstairs Chez Panisse.”
Doesn’t sound weird to me.
I’m from Western Canada™ and had French rammed down my throat when I was in school during the 1960s.
PZ. He has already said enough for Police if enquire further. Hit hard hit early.
Upstairs at Eric’s
I hope you will alert the security BEFORE anything happens, and provide them with the message and photo.
Either way, smoking inside at Caine’s is a capital idea. No matter what you’re smoking.
btw, good eye, littlejohn.
Sally:
:D All manner of smoke is fine here.
Fun is, this is one of the things that all (or so) of mainland Europe does one way and English, in splendid isolation, does another way. German bei is pretty much an exact translation of chez; in English, that word is only preserved in that meaning in by my side and byproduct and has otherwise shifted. The u of AFAIK all Slavic languages is another practically exact translation.
Off to brush my fangs and go to bed. :-)
I got to this thread as soon as I got Caine’s note in TET.
I’ve developed a special liking for Franc Hoggle. I simply cannot wait for him to show up in this thread. What kind of stupid nonsense will he spout this time? I’m all aquiver with anticipation.
Considering Hoggle is banned from Pharyngula, you’ll have a very long wait.
‘Tis:
He shows up with various nyms fairly often.
‘Tis: Oh.
*walks away dragging feet and shoulders slumped*
Which previous Global Atheism Convention was this picture taken at? (Assuming I’m reading the lanyard correctly.)
and sven means it!
This guy’s a scumbag attention-junkie.
This guy can’t be too difficult to outwit. I suggest fake PZ beards for everyone!
Ragutis
OMG!!!
I want to be at the convention where EVERYONE is issued a PZ beard with their ID tag.
If I was actually gonna show up, I’d get some rusted steel wool and make myself a fake Ivanoff beard.
or I could just tape the skin from around a possum’s asshole to my mouth.
“Yeah, an obsessed loon. Kinda reminds me of the Mabus.”
Whatever happened with him? Haven’t heard anything since the police picked him up. I had hoped to hear he was receiving the medical/psychological attention he needed, but the story just went silent.
activemargin, don’t worry, Mabus did get referred for psych treatment. I’m sure it was posted here somewhere sometime but I can’t be arsed searching.
[OT]
Yeah, Markuze went into rehab (a court-ordered drug treatment program) and was supposed to have had another court appearance on December 2nd, but I can’t find anything about that latter online.
(No news is good news, in this case)
Why issue fake PZ beards, when you could show some real commitment and grow one! Some of you had better start now.
Also, methinks this fuckwit has lost the element of surprise…
mcrotk
Some of us (waaaay over 50%) do not grow beards.
What to we do?
違う- Count yourself lucky you get to take the beards off at night. The things get itchy!
Now I’m really confused.
But this is Pharyngula! It’s a good thing!
mcrotk did say it takes real commitment to grow your own. Part of that commitment is to deal with the discomfort. Although, given the passive nature of beard cultivation, that may be the only real commitment involved.
OH. If you are looking for a way to show your own commitment, you could always hand-craft your own PZ beard! That is far more labour-intensive than just not shaving.
I knew some transmen who had beards. The hormone treatment that started that also caused their voices to have interesting timbre until it was done changing. A couple of them referred to it as their robot voice.
But I doubt that too many want to go that route. Stick to the spirit gum and yak hair.
My beard could never match the splendor of PZ’s pelage. I don’t grow facial hair all too great.
I don’t grow facial hair at all, but I could be right there with them for whoever admitted loudly enough to having some halibut good enough for Jehovah.
spirit gum and yak hair
is a great name for a band.
Aquaria, wow! You have no eyebrows at all?
Why does adding the term “band” to the phrase “spirit gum and yak hair” add 2000 more results than the phrase alone? Shouldn’t that go the other way around?
[OT]
cmv, I suspect you didn’t use those quote marks (exact phrase search) when you searched.
(I just tried:
No results found for “spirit gum and yak hair”)Without the quotes, you’re just looking for individual word combos, and
hair bandwould be a fairly common term.If you’re really stupid enough to “honestly” misunderstand what people are so obviously actually saying so often to have a person on the autism spectrum facepalming pretty much every time you start second-guessing commenters, how is it that you ever manage to turn on a computer?
@ 42 Raven
‘One day they will just be the lunatic fringes.’
What ya mean ….One day?
Seems everywhere ya look there is some jeebus drooler doing his or her bit to deeply shame humanity.
And recently there is a veritable swarm of them clogging up the machinery of reality.
[meta]
Azkyroth, either it is miraculous, or I’m snarkily facetious and people on the autism spectrum miss that. Guess which is more likely?
(You don’t think eyebrows are facial features?)
I didn’t miss it. That’s why I put “honestly” next to misunderstand in quotes, because it was a rhetorical question; you’re not misunderstanding anything, you’re simply acting the part of a snotty adolescent who’s just heard about Socrates and thinks that asking people artificially stupid questions must be the awesomist thing ever. In other words, a troll.
Performing the “listener” role of communication badly, and acting smug when you think you can pass the result off as a misunderstanding, is not cleverness.
And yes, eyebrows are facial features. That doesn’t mean they’re included in the connotation of “facial hair” in common usage.
Are you about, then, to assert that connotation doesn’t matter if the stupid-literal interpretation of a term applies?
[meta + final]
Azkyroth, your chiding and my immaturity are duly noted.
—
`:|
(To think I‘ve been called humorless)
Can we assume that this guy, by whatever name we choose to hang on him, is even more nuts than Mabus? After all, it took Mabus over a decade and a half to graduate to stalking in person, and Hoggle is doing it after, what, less than a year?
*chucks tomato*
Also, the fact that he’s a heavy smoker somehow doesn’t surprise me. I’ve heard that well over 90% of schizophrenics are smokers; evidently the nicotine calms the voices or something.
BrianX: As far as I know, he’s only THREATENED to do it so far. And kinda shot himself in the foot by doing so in the process, since everyone knows he’s coming anyways.
Kinda wonder if he’s gonna pull some kinda “That was my intention all along!”, since
makes me think he thinks he’s playing some kind of clever mind game.
Ivanoff, if you’re reading this, you disappoint me by not living up to my mental image of you: A three foot tall dwarf with an animatronic head designed by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.
This post on Ivanoff/Hoggle/Grogan/Trismegistus is also rather interesting, for those who would like to know more about his online history:
https://thatsmyphilosophy.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/victor-ivanoff-when-you-become-the-monster-you-were-fighting/
Oh, and can I just say, boo-yah for finally getting this asshat named and shamed f’realz.
Anne: Fuck yeah. Ivanoff has said some pretty disturbing shit.
But I can’t deny, in any honesty, that I enjoy taunting him. This is sure to piss him off.
I’m fully aware this makes me a bad person.
I can’t believe it.
130 posts and nobody from the slimepit has shown up to explain how this is perfectly hamless, non-creepy and totally OK?
But I really hope that police and security can step in now.
BrianX #126
I just asked The Voices and they said this was an urban legend.
“Felch Grogan”? Sounds like he has been a lurker at alt.tasteless. One hopes it was back in the old days when there was actual content and originality. I say lurker as creationists and anti-evolutionists of all stripes were quickly squicked.
there is very little in english language that sounds weird or odd. the “chez” thing here is no different.
people say “the hoi polloi” which is the the people.
“the la brea tar pits” the the tar tar pits.
english language just sucks every word in and makes use of them all.
This fixation feels a bit unhealthy.
@Sally Strange:
In the spirit of Francophone pedantry, I should point out that the proper spelling is “restaurateurs”, without the “n” – even in English.
Here’s the source for Ivanoff’s comment. You’ll also find the loons at ERV arguing that the context makes it harmless — no, it doesn’t, it’s still a plan to harrass me, and the fact that two guys were laughing about it doesn’t make it OK. You’ll also find Abbie completely losing her mind.
Woah. I’m speechless.
PZ #137
I don’t know what Abbie is complaining about. You quoted something published in her blog. How that relates to her losing weight is problematic.
It’s also bizarrely self-centered. I do not question that she has experienced a far more severe and threatening form of stalking; but somehow she’s got it in her head to set the bar for valid experience at her personal history. If it isn’t as severe as what she experienced, not only is it non-existent, but it represents an attempt to diminish her.
Using that logic, all we’d have to do is say “Ayaan Hirsi Ali” to her, and she’d have to shut up because Abbie has never experienced that level of threat.
Dear MuslimaSearch terms: australia, victor, ivanoff, shit, public records, likes music, anyone-can-google-this
{tap tap tap tap}: http://businessprofiles.com/details/VICTOR_IVANOFF/AU-28740271344
I was about to say something similar. Some people go through a traumatic experience and come out of it with more empathy for people who go through something similar. Others go through it and end up callous towards everyone else, because they think what they went through is so much worse than what anyone else could ever experience. It’s really sad when the latter happens. What surprises me is that she’s combining the latter with taking what other people go through as a personal attack against her.
There’s also the fact that “serious” level stalking usually comes after the more tame version, not out of nowhere. The idea is to halt it before it gets to the point that someone is physically shadowing you everywhere you go, not to let it get to that point and then say “oh, I guess it’s serious now”. That means that yes, you do treat the initial threats seriously enough to shut them the hell down before they show up at your doorstep.
John Morales @123
I, for one, think you are hilarious.
Whoah. I was just about to post “still proud, Abbie? Still sticking by the Monument to Everything You Hold Dear? Abbie?” Then I saw her reaction. Truly and with no exaggeration-I’m utterly gobsmacked. I nearly can’t believe it. Really? Really?
Well, if they did, it would sorta nullify their badge of honour: “We’re all banned at Pharyngula”.
Holy shit! Justicar is the one person who has a half way reasonable reaction to Hoggle’s post. SN dismisses this as Hoggle merely making the Horde react.
But what floors me is the fact that Abby thinks that Hoggle could win a lawsuit again PZ for posting his photo and name. Does she suggest that the Canadian Troll sue all of the people who posted his name and photo before he was arrested and sent to treatment?
What the fuck is wrong with her?
A couple of the slimepit denizens have already shown up at Anna C. Hanna’s blog for example to helpfully explain that Hoggle-Ivanoff is just joking and bonding with their group. No surprise, there are also the underhanded remarks from them about how dastardly it is to “misrepresent” Hoggle-Ivanoff (supposedly out of context) and without linking to the source at ERV …
So yeah, I’d say the only reason they haven’t shown up here is “banned at Pharyngula” fantasies.
Josh – yes really. A woman calling a man a cunt-rag. Gob-smacking, innit.
(MTA)
Does anyone else read ‘Hoggle-Ivanoff’ and picture some really unusual astronomica feature? “And the unusual radiation coming from a Hoggle-Ivanoff nova are . . . .”
Or am I insane?
And ‘MTA’ is actually ‘META’.
Ophelia Benson:
Oh, she’d just say (with the chorus backing her up) that proves cunt isn’t a gender-based insult.
Since Pharyngula started requiring registration, rates of appearance of slimepit denizens cannot be directly compared to pre-registration rates.
Caine – would she? I’d have thought she’d say sure it’s a gender based insult and so the fuck what.
Now that I’ve found out what “lads’ culture” is I realize she thinks she’s a lad.
My mind is boggled. Hoggle thinks its perfectly ok to threaten to stalk and harass people, and actually forwards this to PZ.
PZ of course posts them with an appropriate ranting nincompoop image.
I am happy that he has been outed. I hope he gets a letter from the GAC revoking his ticket
Abbie then claims its A. libelous, and B. nothing compared to her own stalking experience!?
O_o
She has definitely jumped the shark.
Tethys, please understand; PZ is overreacting in order to draw attention to himself and keep the acceptance of all of the puritanical feminists. And we are all toadying up in order to find acceptance in the groupthink.
Besides, all of us lack a sense of humor.
Tethys:
The shark, the boat, the pier, the parking lot, the access road, and landed somewhere in the vicinity of the dumpster of the clamshack across the street.
hotshoe, just to be clear, that’s not my blog. My blog is linked to through my name. The author of that particular blog is actually Chrys Stevenson, whom I don’t know at all. I just ran across her post at random and thought it might be of interest to the Horde.
My advice to PZ, sew all your pockets shut!
He’s clearly a simpleton who can probably be thrown off by the mildest of obstacles.
It will be quite a laugh when a stinky, oversized “woman” dressed in a floral muumuu, blonde wig and stilettos lumbers up and after an odd scuffle, drops a ziplock bag of off-white powder at PZ’s feet with magic makered words scrawled across it that reads, “Deadly Deadly Anthracks!!!!!!”
His get-away thwarted by a broken heel and emphysema.
Ophelia Benson:
At the start of Egate, I realized that Abbie went ‘out the other side’ after her experience, I’ve seen it before in many survivors*. She has a definite idea of what constitutes harassment and a definite idea of what a frightening situation is and refuses to relate to anyone who doesn’t meet those ideas, so she’s more comfortable on the other side, so to speak. A lot of the time, it’s easier to be part of the men’s club, it feels safer because you’re sure they won’t turn on you.
*I also refused to judge her for that and I still do.
Caine, I’m not sure what it means to say you won’t “judge” her. If it merely means you’re not going to say, “It’s totally unreasonable for you to have reacted this way to the threat you endured,” then I can understand it. But if it means more than that, then I don’t. Abbie is responsible for her behavior. Full stop. She is being horrible —her behavior and what she’s allowed on her blog is full-on moral obscenity. I don’t care why she does it and it the reasons, however understandable, do not alleviate her responsibility.
Josh:
^This is what I meant. Survivors can react in all sorts of ways, and I won’t judge Abbie’s taking refuge the way she has. That doesn’t mean I condone or like what she’s doing. As far as I’m concerned, she’s needlessly continued to fuel this daft obsession and yes, she should take responsibility for that. Better yet, she could stop trying to carry the grudge of the century and just knock it the fuck off.
Ah, thanks for the correction, Anna C. Hanna.
Sorry, Chrys Stevenson, I didn’t mean to miss giving you proper credit for your blog: Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear. Good stuff!
Why not carry mousetraps?
It took me a little while to realize what a terrible pun Cross-eyed Bear is.
Brother Ogvorbis
Actually, the Rorschach inkblot test association I get from seeing the names “Hoggle-Ivanoff” is “Dunning-Kruger“.
This morning, after seeing the post of PZ pointing to ERV, I did a little experience. Something on the line, “OK, what I’m afraid of, let’s go check this at the source and get the other people POV”
Holy mackerel.
Justicar has been the main one with a lot of good sense, comparatively speaking. Maybe I missed another one in the flood, I only kept reading for one hour.
All the others are just on the “oh, it’s just a joke”.
As someone who has been targeted by bullies a lot, I missed the part where I should laugh.
Not to make a mountain out of a molehill, but still. Sometimes, molehills need to be taken care of.
A few of them seem truly obsessed with PZ Myers. You sure can irritate people, professor.
David Marjanović, I noticed your foray early on, trying to point to some sexist meme – someone else elegantly shutting up a woman blogger’s opinion by saying “oh, she needs to be mounted”. I bow to your courage.
(and here, Justicar was not that good at all)
This ERV thread is full of men so full of their own intellectual superiority, there is no way they could be wrong, or missing context…
It’s painful to watch. When by miracle they talk about something else, they look educated and intelligent. And suddenly, logic and empathy jump beyond the horizon. I know that I’m not always right, and regularly miss context, but I hope I’m not like this.
Only a half-dozen posts are talking about Abbie’s initial posting. She doesn’t seem to realize that she is just providing a room for burly men to chat around a bottle of beer. Nothing wrong with that (OK, I admit, I don’t like beer), but if she believes she is part of the club, she is sadly mistaken.
I’ll do it for you. Don’t be a dick people. Life shitting on your isn’t any excuse for shitting on others.
According to the dungeon roll, yes. (12th down). That was prior to registration being mandatory though.
johngreg:
If you’re talking about ‘vincent’, eh, I didn’t care if he was banhammered or not and it was personal info about me he was posting. (Or at least thought he was, he had me confused with someone else at one point.) He showed back up again anyway. :shrug:
It’s good net etiquette to preserve people’s psuedonymity as long as they don’t cross a line. Mabus/Markuze is a good example of someone who crossed a line, and so is what Hoggle did. I’ll give him credit for not being so unaware of how people work to know that a threat of stalking wouldn’t go unnoticed. Yeah, it could be a joke, but there’s no way to guarantee it.
I have no doubt it’s just more fuel to keep his funfest going, but it’s more than a bit boring at this point.
[OT]
Heliantus,
Nah, she realises alright, encourages it, and tries very, very hard to be one of the “lads”.
(It’s quite consciously copying TET, except it’s the bizarro-world version of it)
I still don’t get why so many people feel Franc Hoggle’s behavior is entirely appropriate.
He’s intentionally threatening to follow people he doesn’t like around, snap pictures of them and even slip ‘presents’ into their pockets. He’s disregarding the expressed feelings of others, engaging in behavior he knows creeps them out because it creeps them out and has been vocal in his hate and disdain for this group.
So what? Do you really want to hold off outing until it develops to the point where they’re threatening multiple people, following them to events and sending daily death threats across years? Wouldn’t that sort of thing be better nipped early?
Besides, not only has Franc Hoggle been an insufferable ass online he’s outed people (from what I heard last this was brought up) for no reason other than disliking them. Little gnat’s been trying to push the envelope since day one and has behaved with a complete disregard for others. Now he wants to ‘jokingly’ threaten to follow people he’s been demeaning for months around at the next ‘atheist event.’
Fuck that noise.
No. Now he’s name and picture because he’s behaved like an obsessive little creep.
It’s just that crazy nut Hoggle being his usual ol’ crazy, nutty, hoggly self: wacky stunts, zany antics? That sort of thing. Harmless. Soon he’ll be off harmlessly and publicly obsessing over somebody else, you’ll see. I got it from Phil, an unimpeachable source who prefers frying larger fish than Franc’s. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
“fishes”.
damn it, much better too.
Unknown unknowns and what not.
As Phil says, “don’t we have bigger fishes to fry than Franc’s pocket threat?”
And this handicaps those efforts how?
Phil and John can’t multi-task then? And don’t like it when other people can?
Phil:
Yeah, I’ve been told how most of you see it, however, I don’t agree. (No surprise there, right?) I think Hoggle has some problems and it’s showing, however, I also think he’s plenty smart enough to know that a threat of stalking and slipping something into a person’s pocket is crossing the line.
I wouldn’t take that lightly and honestly, the whole pocket business? That’s seriously creepy, I don’t care who you are, it’s creepy. I wouldn’t want to be at the same meet-up with someone like that. (And yeah, that’s me.)
For whatever reason, Hoggle felt the need to push things farther than they needed to go. :shrug: In my view, he has to take responsibility for his own words, just as we all do. If he’d decided to rant on about baboons or his other usual stuff and left GAC out of it, this wouldn’t have happened.
I doubt PZ will give a shit. You know, if you figured out how to take a hint, you wouldn’t have been banned in the first place.
The keyword in this ^ would be threat. If you’re going to make them, you shouldn’t be surprised there are consequences. By the way, you might try that whole “don’t we have bigger fishes to fry” on Hoggle. Just sayin’.
johngreg:
I don’t read at ERV because of all the nasty things said about me by many people there. I don’t need to go looking for that kind of thing, ya know?
Thanks for letting me know there is actual discussion about this though, that’s good to know.
On a personal basis, I can tell you why I don’t take such talk/threats, whatever you want to call it, lightly. About 13 years or so ago, I acquired a net stalker. That was no fun and it was seriously no fun when I answered my phone one day and it was my net stalker. After that, he showed up in the area I was living in at the time.
People can say whatever they like and they can always pull off a “oh hey, I was joking, man” later, but there’s no way to get a view into someone’s actual mental state. In my case, things got dangerous. I don’t really have any way to take things like this lightly.
A hint? Phil couldn’t take a direct instruction from PZ to take a break from posting for a few days, thus he was banned.
I consider him the second notch on my ‘sploded troll trophy belt.
Hi Phil, still irrational?
You tell ’em, johngreg. Because posting Ivanoff’s name and picture is JUST LIKE locking him up in jail.
Or at least, the poor dear now has to stand by his words publicly, and that’s just as bad, innit?
Unwanted touching is assault, by definition. Once a person has demonstrated that he’s willing to cross that line, I no longer trust that he will refrain from crossing other lines. I don’t really understand how anyone can look at this and think, “oh it’s okay he was just joking.” I mean, finding humor in assault is pretty fucked up in the first place.
Anyway, what are these bigger fishes? Who is the we? Why does frying the bigger fishes mean we can’t fry Hoggle’s fish? I do think his threats are actionable, but that’s not really the question for “us.” That’s a question for PZ. The question for “us,” whoever “we” are, is whether this person gets to be part of the community anymore. I say no. I want Hoggle to be ostracized and publicly shamed if he insists on showing up to atheist events. People who want to keep douchebags like Hoggle around can go with him. DEEP RIFTS!
it isn’t groundless, extreme or inflated. Prof Myers, for example, has stated outright Franc Hoggle reminds him of Mabus when Mabus first began emailing him. That’s grounds. Many people view Franc Hoggle’s behavior as creepy for the same reasons Mabus’ early behavior was creepy. So it isn’t extreme. He hasn’t been described as bad as Mabus or as scary so not seeing inflated either.
There are certain things rational and mentally sound people don’t joke about, and they are jokes other people or courts could consider threats. And those who doesn’t realize that, like you, are also liars, bullshitters, and apologists for the mentally ill…
Leaving aside the comments he posts elsewhere, the Hoggler’s blog (easy enough to find) is prima facie evidence of his obsession.
(He has a septic mind)
SallyStrange:
^This, a million times over. I know that Hoggle styles himself as serious raunch, out there tasteless humour, all that, however, again, one finds themselves with a line.
For me, joking about assault, stalking, rape, that’s not only crossing the line, that’s leaping over it and yelling “I can’t be trusted.”
I’ll say it again, I do not think Hoggle is so stupid as to not understand these things. I think he understands them just fine. That’s problematic, to say the least.
johngreg:
I’d agree with you, except for the fact there is evidence – the evidence of Hoggle’s post containing the stalking and pocket threat. That is evidence, whether anyone likes it or not.
As I said, supra, if one is going to make threats, they shouldn’t be surprised by consequences. That’s what it comes down to for me.
This is not jailing or locking anyone up. This is an entirely proportional and appropriate precautionary step aimed at discouraging and impeding further behavior of this kind and informother individuals who may be arguably at risk from this individual. Franc Hoggle has not been harmed or hurt. No damage has been done to his reputation that would not have been done had he said these things under his own name. Just why are you so quick with the prison comparisons?
johngreg
Just where is your line? Hoggling wasn’t enough to show you that Ivan is displaying some obsessive behavior?
Seconded.
I’m a pedant myself. I don’t think pedantry is funny.
(…
…It’s serious business instead.)
Now that you mention it, I’m reminded of the name reactions in organic chemistry.
Meh. Next time I had the courage to look into that thread – a few days later –, it had grown enough that I simply gave up and have never come back.
BTW, it wasn’t “oh, she needs to have some (consensual) sex”. It was, unambiguously, “oh, she needs to be raped”.
The argument from slippery slopes is a logical fallacy.
Over here, stalking is a crime. We even imported this English word just so we could give that crime a name! I’m sure threats to stalk someone are actionable, too.
I generally take people at their word. If Hoggle-Ivanoff declares his intention, in remarkably specific terms, to become a stalker, I am perfectly willing to believe him. And that is exactly what he has done here.
Yes he has. He has said that if he were a girl, he would kick me in the cunt. He’s repeated it many times. Of course, he’s not a girl, but that fact doesn’t transform the threat into a harmless bit of whimsy.
Indeed not. I briefly attempted to engage with the Monument Builders at ERV in the weeks following Egate. My comments were as unprovocative as I could manage, given that I was arguing from the “Guys, don’t do that” side of things against people like BluHarmony. I stopped rather abruptly because I began to receive a large volume of emails and phone calls from various Christian Universities following up on “my requests for information about their programs”.
Just harmless fun? Maybe. A complete coincidence that had nothing at all to do with these conversations? Maybe. A subtle “I know how to find you and I could fuck with you/your family if I wanted to”? No way to tell. It was, indeed, harmless, but I was creeped out enough to back out of the conversation.
Could you explain what you are referring to here?
You are enjoying being the martyred intellectual, aren’t you, johngreg.
I do not care if a person online never did a thing to cause an other person harm in real life. You make an announcement that you will do something to a person in a public setting, you have to take precautions.
This bullshit about Twilight Zone, playing with your head does not make this instantly into some dismissible joke.
I do hope that Hoggle is masturbating in anger to all of this.
And may all of the baboons yammering in his head make him go deaf.
You’ve got some nerve, johngreg, coming in here and making declamations about how unwilling people here are to discuss things rationally. Step back for a second and pretend you don’t have any affiliations or emotional investments in one group of people over another. Then look at the disgusting, extreme and violent things said at ERV directed toward people here (including Caine). Really, please try not to identify with your “side” for the sake of argument – pretend it’s two groups of people you don’t know. Do you honestly, sincerely not see what’s going on? Really? I’m not even trying to be sarcastic, I’m honestly imploring you to look at what’s going on. People here aren’t perfect, but the behavior at ERV is depraved. It’s not “equal” to what goes on here. It’s different in degree, and in kind. And yes, I’d abandon this place in a minute if the commentariat acted that way. I wouldn’t twist my moral compass around to defend my “friends” because they wouldn’t be my friends any longer.
I SAID
Yes he has. He has said that if he were a girl, he would kick me in the cunt. He’s repeated it many times. Of course, he’s not a girl, but that fact doesn’t transform the threat into a harmless bit of whimsy.
Yes, Ophelia. Honesty does compel one to acknowledge that you put that out there, even when one very much doesn’t want to be wrong and very much doesn’t want you to be right (or to even count in the ethical sphere).
Self reflection is not one of your strong suits. Got it.
Context is completely relevant. Most people would consider public posting of the type that coined the term Hoggling to be well over the line of rational social behavior.
His further attempts to turn it up to eleven by making stalking threats are clear evidence that he feels entitled to disregard other peoples boundaries.
See also Phil Giordana @ 175.
These were not just “disagreements.” Imagine if a bunch of people here or at my place had spent the past five months “disagreeing” with Nancy Smith by calling her a nigger over 8 thousand comments or whatever the hell the proud ERV total is by now. Would Phil or John Greg be calling that “just disagreements”? I don’t know for a fact but I fucking don’t believe it. But calling women cunts and twats and slavering about kicking them there, that’s just civil disagreement.
In a pig’s eye.
They did it. We are loosely allied with them. Even if we did not know about it, we must approve of their actions.
Got it.
Fuck you, John Greg. I’m not misinterpreting anything. You’ve got the ethical sense of a cactus.
johngreg, what would Hoggle-Ivanoff have to do for you to consider it a threat?
johngreg:
I don’t think the discussion about outing him is irrelevant; I don’t think the reasons it came up in the first place are irrelevant, either. For the record, I was against outing Hoggle when it first came up, however, I was also very uncomfortable with many of the things he was doing and saying. One could take the view he’s been leading up to this stalker business for a while.
Here’s the problem though – for so many years, it was impossible to get any recourse when it came to being stalked, it’s still damn near impossible in some places. It’s taken much more seriously now, even when it’s a written threat alone.
There may be a desire to see evil on the part of some people, I’m not one of them. Again, there’s no way to magic a view into someone’s private mental state. There are plenty of cases where a stalker was a functional, highly respected person in their community, family man all that jazz. You just can’t tell. If you don’t want people thinking you’re a stalkery type, you probably shouldn’t talk about stalking people, eh?
This isn’t about labels or making labels up out of whole cloth. It’s about what Hoggle wrote and what he wrote was creepy. He might think it’s funny as all get out, however, I think he’s smart enough to know that not everyone would share his particular sense of humour.
There’s no need to bring the Skepchicks or anyone else into it. These meetings are looked forward to by a lot of people who know each other well from interaction on the net and various meetings and really enjoy getting together in meatspace. It’s a fun time. Given Hoggle’s feelings about PZ and many other pharyngulites, I can understand why they wouldn’t want to hang out with him (I don’t see why Hoggle would want to, either.) Personally, I wouldn’t want him near me and the whole stalking/pocket threat isn’t helping matters any, to say the least.
I don’t know what the law is in Australia and that’s the only law which is relevant in this case. No, a law’s existence isn’t the end all be all, however, I think most people would agree that stalking is bad and unwelcome, as is being bodily touched or handled in any manner by someone when it is not welcome.
I haven’t said Hoggle committed a crime. I don’t know that he will at GAC. However, he has threatened to do so. That’s what we’re dealing with now, a threat. (And in many places, a threat is a crime, so there we are.)
What PZ has done is to warn Hoggle off and let him know that he will call security if he’s approached. I don’t consider that unreasonable in light of what Hoggle wrote.
#213 janine:
johngreg apparently applies such logic to himself. Hoggle-Ivanoff did this. He is loosely allied with him. Therefore, he must approve.
So it’s not really a surprise that he applies it to us as well.
It is oh so difficult to twist around the meaning of the sentence, “If I were a girl, I would kick you in the cunt.”
How shall we parse that?
JenniferPhillips:
Yes, which is the point – you were effectively silenced. While many at the Slimepit may have been howling in laughter over what they considered to be a “good joke”, they refuse to see the real effect of what they are doing. Or at least they refuse to admit it.
johngreg:
You know that line I mentioned? The one people know not to cross? You just leaped over it, screaming “I can’t be trusted!”
I cannot describe just how much I have cringed (and still do) every time I read that, the sick feeling I get, the physical feeling I get. That was a prime example of Hoggle playing the douchecake and taking it much too far. It’s also impossible to know that he didn’t really mean it.
I take it you don’t have a cunt, JohnGreg. I do. I’ve been beaten. I’ve been raped. I don’t like assholes who say things like that, nor do I care for those who defend someone saying such things. If a friend of mine said something like that, they’d be told off immediately and if they didn’t get the point, we wouldn’t be friends anymore. There’s no defending the indefensible.
Phil Giordana and John Greg were banned. When they reappear under new logins, please don’t engage them.
Cleanup in progress.
Finally. This is what I’m saying.
“Finally” meaning what Caine said @208.
And the threat wasn’t just for me, it was for women as such, just as the same sort of threat directed at a “nigger” would have been for black people as such. It’s not “paranoia” to say that any more than it is for Jews or gays or immigrants or…atheists.
Ophelia:
Exactly. I am beyond tired of seeing that defended. It really hurts to see it.
If I were a lesbian, I would call you a man hater.
If I were Jewish, I would call you a money grubber.
If I were a girl, I would kick you in the cunt.
What a convenient way for a bigot to be a weasel. I am not saying it but if I could say it, this would be it.
[meta]
There’s a major sense of entitlement (narcissistic, even) at work when, knowing that one is not welcome (and, indeed, banned) at someone else’s blog, one keeps returning.
(What it evinces is neediness, insecurity and powerlessness, rather than the opposite. Pathetic, really.)
Is there even a good reason to think that not being a girl would stop him if he got an opportunity? Did he explicitly say he won’t kick you in the cunt?
I’m kind of astounded at the blindness of these kooks.
Ivanoff announces in his comment that he’s stalking me at the GAC; they get all flustered and claim I can’t accuse him of being a stalker.
Ivanoff declares that he’s going to use his supposed anonymity and our ignorance of his appearance to sneak up on us and count coup; how dare I reveal his identity!
I’m afraid that’s just plain stupid. If some announces their intent and announces that they plan to abuse the privilege of anonymity, I think they’ve lost any expectation that it will be respected.
Caine @ 208, to be fair the ‘silencing’ only applied to that blog. I continued to converse with folks at Ophelia’s and one or two other ‘friendly’ places. Probably wouldn’t have stuck it out too much longer in the slimepit anyway. The main take-home for me is that after I don’t even know how many years of having really frank online discussions about a whole host of provocative topics, this was the first time I’ve been ‘tagged’ in such a way. I speaks to the mentality of that place, I think–the threshold for emotions to spill over from the wild wild intertubes to meatspace is set *really* low in such hopped-up environments.
I’m very sorry for your cyberstalker experience, by the way. My little brush with vindictive fuckwittery didn’t approach anything like that, fortunately, and I hate it when it does. You are a brave lady.
Janine @ 213, EXACTLY. It’s such thinly veiled bigotry, the only reason to bother is surely out of cowardice. The technical ability to say ‘as I’m clearly not a girl/jew/lesbian, this is just a hypothetical laff riot’ is a pathetic shield indeed.
PZ:
It seems some think this is tantamount to putting him on the sex offender registry. Amazing, that.
I’ve said it enough already, but if you really don’t want people to think you’re a stalkery type, don’t make stalking threats. It seems very simple to me.
JenniferPhillips:
Exactly, which is why a stalking threat cannot be disregarded, whether it was meant as a joke or not.
PZ
The blindness is textbook abusive behavior. Abusive people always justify themselves by blaming the victim.
They actually think they are entitled to be abusive because the victim provoked them into acting out.
What’s harder to explain is why the cheerers-on work so hard to excuse and rationalize really horrible, disgusting behavior. People like Miranda Celeste Hale disturb me even more than Hoggle. My god. . . even if you hate PZ (or anyone) isn’t there a limit? What won’t you excuse when it’s directed at someone you don’t want to support?
Not that it will make any difference if she, as she often does, decides to go complain about a comment over at the slimepit (Hi, Miranda!), but for clarity’s sake: I expect the hideous behavior from people like Hoggle who’ve shown just what kind of people they are. But I get chilled by otherwise rational and intelligent people who make excuses for the Hoggles of the world. It’s like realizing, all of a sudden, that you can’t turn your back on someone because they don’t actually put ethical behavior at a higher premium than tribal defense.
Yes…and then there are all the masurbatory circle-jerks about whether it’s legally actionable to threaten to stuff things in people’s pockets, and how I’ve over-reacted.
I haven’t sicced the police on him. I haven’t even told the GAC to oust him. I have publicly put him on notice that he’s not going to be able to skulk around me. That’s it — and somehow I am the one overreacting? Those people are just plain nuts.
PZ, be honest, you had Hoggle make his desire to stalk you and stuff your pockets just so you can overreact and draw more attention to yourself.
Josh, Official SpokesGay #222
Hoggle-Ivanoff plays dangerous games and his buddies get all upset when he’s called on them. And we’re the ones acting irrationally.
Well, I suppose the Hoggler should retaliate and expose PZ’s secret identity.
(Oh, wait…)
Josh
Miranda seems to be a very privileged and sheltered young woman.
She took exception to being called out but I have not seen her making threats or displaying hoggling behavior.
I don’t frequent the slimepit, so I have no idea if she considers herself part of that group.
PZ:
None of which matters, you simply don’t want him hanging about you. Or your pockets.
This, I’ll admit, I just don’t get. You have very good reasons to be wary of someone who has written, publicly, about stalking you and I see no reason whatsoever to dismiss what he wrote. It seems for the majority over there, it’s defense [of Hoggle] at any cost. That’s too irrational for me.
Tethys – Miranda absolutely has gone on at ERV at length defending the misogynistic assholes of Elevatorgate and recently defending Hoggle’s stalking by putting the blame on PZ for overreacting and “questionable” blogging decisions. I didn’t say what I said out of thin air, believe me. Read up in this thread for a link.
And note that I didn’t say she made threats or Hoggled — there’s no need to “rebut” something I didn’t say. What I said was that she defends it. That’s different. I’m not trying to be snotty, but it’s important to me that you understand that.
Josh-I didn’t mean to imply that you had mischaracterized her in any way. My comment was not meant as a rebuttal but an attempt to understand why you see her as part of the same group.
From the little that I know of her she seems to be privileged and incapable of admitting a mistake. I do tend to give kids the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are acting out of ignorance more than I would someone who is over the age of 30.
She doesn’t come here and post hoggling or threats, but she cheers on those who do? Perhaps she could be classified as an enabler?
I will take your word for what she has to say in the slimepit. I refuse to give it even a single click. Getting the stench off takes way too long.
Caine (#228)
And it’s incredibly arrogant on the part of Ivanoff’s defenders to say that they can know a “jokey” threat is really, for sure, absolutely, 100% a joke. Only Ivanoff knows how serious he is.
Tethys:
Oh FFS, she is not a ‘kid’, she’s 33 years old.
Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s what I said. Nothing more or less. That in itself is a very, very bad thing. It’s its own evil; she doesn’t need to be a Hoggler to be doing very destructive, bad things all on her own. That was my point. She makes excuses for them. She has to twist and bend ethical concepts so hard they break under the strain in order to do so. And she isn’t the only one, just the one who gets under my skin the most.
I’m sorry, but she’s not getting any benefit of the doubt from me. She’s not a kid, even if she’s younger than 30. Jeezis-used to be you could expect some level of responsibility from people in their 20s (yes, way back, oh, 15 years ago when it wasn’t considered normal to live with your parents until you were 30). There’s a fucking limit. Just like there’s a limit to what Abbie can get away with.
I’m sorry – I don’t mean to rant at you, but I’m fucking sick to goddamned death of hearing justifications and excuses and indulgences for horrible evil behavior. They’re responsible for it. Hold them to it for christ’ sake. If we don’t, they won’t stop.
A. Noyd:
Yes, and I must have pointed this out at least 6 times in this thread. I don’t know what is so unclear about “we have no way to magic a view into someone’s private mentality.”
Someone can make a threat and pass it off as a joke all while being very serious about the threat.
And even honest-to-goodness children get held accountable for their behavior. That’s how they learn. They don’t just suddenly, magically understand they’re being shitheads because they reach an arbitrary age. It takes facing consequences. And Miranda is no child.
It is my understanding that she is the student who started the twitter/facebook battle with Rebecca Watson. Is this incorrect? From her pictures she appears to be about 23.
My spawn range in age from 24 to 29, so they are kids in my worldview. Really stupid, spoiled, obnoxious kids.
Tethys –
Misunderstanding. Miranda Celeste Hale is not the student whom Watson called out. That was Stef McGraw, who is in her early 20s. Miranda Celeste Hale is an entirely different person, and so far as I know, is in her 30s regardless of how she looks in pictures.
Tethys:
Yes. And don’t go making excuses for Stef McGraf, either. Especially not using the ‘mommy view’.
Hmm, my spawn are not stupid, spoiled or obnoxious.
I felt the need to clarify.
Thanks for the correction.
Stef gets no excuses from me. If I was her mother she would have been severely reprimanded for acting like a spoiled brat.
Is it possible to leave a place-holder for deleted comments?
The renumbering infuriating.
I know this has been asked before but I’ve never liked the answer.
Would you also not judge me if I were to become an MRA given the fact that 100% of the people I’ve been in a severely, traumatically abusive marriage with and many of the most vicious of the people I was traumatically bullied by in high school were women?
Or might you be infantilizing her just a tad?
Err. Middle and grade school. I have no idea why I wrote high school.
It seems the picture is of the infamous russian nationalist blogger “Egor Holmogorov”. Image googling it is not work-safe though. Here is in russian transcription – https://www.google.com/search?q=егор+холмогоров&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch which is safer.
[meta]
chigau, it’s possible, but only by PZ not deleting the comment, but rather removing the contents one post at a time*. That’s labour-intensive.
You want a permanent reference, link to the comment as I have done here; it won’t be affected by comment deletion.
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* The numbering is automatically done via CSS, and the page is also generated automatically from a comment database.
selfmade, nope.
@Tethys
Not to derail or drag up even more ancient drama but, how has Stef McGraw acted like a spoiled brat throughout this? Aside from her initial (and very unfair and borderline MRA) characterization of Rebecca Watson as anti-sex and demonizing men she hasn’t said anything. Her response to how her blog post was brought up during Rebecca Watson’s talk? Is that what you’re referring to?
Actually I don’t think she has, really. She’s been used as a pretext, but has herself stayed very quiet. So not bratty, but not standing up for Rebecca either.
Hoggle most certainly is not a simpleton.
I don’t see how anyone could argue this isn’t a real threat (meaning ERV people, not those commenting here). There is only one reason to plant an object on a person, even something as innocuous as a business card with “boo” written on it, and that’s to prove that you can get close enough to the person to have done whatever you want to that person without them realizing it. It’s saying “I was close enough to touch you, which is close enough to have harmed you if I felt like it, and I’m going to make sure you know about it.” Even the threatened photobomb serves that purpose.
I will say, that although I have in the past found absolutely nothing redeeming about Justicar, I will give him props for arguing that Hoggle went too far. I looked at the link PZ gave to see what Abbie was saying and noticed the comments around it was a lot of Justicar being the only one to argue that Hoggle was putting his foot in it, and given that I’ve trashed him a lot publicly here, I’ll give him kudos for sticking up for that.
A section of the Crimes Act of Victoria (where the conference will be) deals with stalking in all its manifestations. The whole Act is available via this page.
Actually Stef did recently sort of stand up for Rebecca, or at least for the principle that sexist misogynist name-calling is never ok, even when applied to Rebecca and in defense of Stef. I can’t remember where it was, at the moment (anyone?), but she told off some guy who was calling Rebecca the usual names. I was impressed.
Yeah, I was impressed that anyone over there recognized that this latest transgression by Hoggle was a problem, given how far gone they’ve been about everything else. If we’re doing the credit where credit is due thing, I should note that John Welch also seemed to think that Hoggle/Ivanoff shouldn’t have made the “pocket threat”. Maybe a little bit of enlightenment is finally dawning over there.
Julian
Yes, I refer to the initial twitter battle where Stef was completely lacking empathy and attacking Rebecca. A huge component of our toxic culture seems to be that having emotions is a weakness, and strong people don’t acknowledge or talk about their feelings.
It is never ok to tell someone that they are just imagining their emotions, or that how they feel is unimportant. Having emotions is pretty basic to being a human being.
It reminds of the scene in Dances with Wolves where the Chief is telling Stands with a Fist that she will remember how to make the white man words. He emerges from the tepee and his wife Pretty Shield asks if SWAF has agreed.
Chief-“I don’t know, she is being difficult.”
Pretty Shield- “She is the one who is crying, perhaps the difficulty lies with you.”
I am very pleased to see Ophelia’s comment about Stef now standing up in defense of Rebecca. It shows that she has perhaps learned a great deal from this experience.
Found it. It was bugging me, so I scrolled through Older Posts on Stef’s Facebook page. (Yes, she friended me AFTER this whole thing exploded – another indication that she’s far from being of the Party of ERV.)
http://www.unifreethought.com/2011/11/its-important-to-be-wrong-once-in-while.html
http://www.unifreethought.com/2011/11/its-important-to-be-wrong-once-in-while.html?showComment=1321426771676#c1826804351992735100
She’s absolutely right, you know – if the well hadn’t been poisoned by all this cunting and twatting, Stef herself would have gotten more of a hearing. The ERV gang has done her absolutely no favors.
Yeah, I actually thought, initially, that it wasn’t entirely unreasonable to suggest that maybe Rebecca should’ve been a little easier on Stef. It certainly would’ve been worth having a talk about the power dynamics between skeptical superstars and newbies/students, and how the superstars should maybe be a little bit careful about not completely crushing the up-and-coming youngsters when they say something wrong. But we couldn’t have that conversation at all because a bunch of insane misogynists dragged us into the one about the hidden undercurrent of insane misogyny in the skeptical community instead. Despite the way the slimepit denizens claimed to be white-knighting for Stef, all they did was ensure that her potentially legitimate grievance was almost entirely forgotten in the ensuing blowup. Yet another reason to find that whole “monument” completely contemptible.
The woman has no standards. :-þ
The Slimepit is much too busy posturing and proving their manhood to each other to actually discuss why they’re so upset with Rebecca and the whole EG situation.
From the uni article in Ophelia’s link:
QFT
Being a skeptic is impossible unless you allow the possibility that you may be wrong.
I am disgusted by the crowd at ERV equating being wrong with being weak/being an eunuch and simultaneously claiming that they aren’t sexist. The cognitive dissonance…it burns!
Ophelia, thanks for the correction.
So now it appears that ‘Victor Ivanoff’ is, or may be, another pseudonym. That or somebody called ‘sacha’ is lying. Or both. Who knows.
Abbie thinks it’s pretty funny.
If his best “out” from having been named and shamed is, “Oh, I deceived somebody who considered me to be a friend into vouching for my fake name to the GAC conference organizers last time around,” he’s making it *worse*, not better. And, honestly, it does strike me as a bit funny that he thinks that claiming this makes him somehow more righteous.
Not a single person replying to this thread knows franc hoggle in person. All of you only know him by his online rants. None of you recognize or remember that this pissing contest sprang from ethical / philosophical disagreements. Sure, he’s a bit obsessive over pz myers and Rebecca Watson. You have all been complicit in the obsessive dick wagging in regards to elevatorgate and how grey lining and pharyngula differ. None of the main participants are exempt from wallowing in the trivial, petty tete a tete.
And stalker? srsly. franc doesn’t even know how to stalk. Whomever decided to do the detective work involved in misidentifying and posting a supposed pic of him are the ones who can truly be said to stalk. He’s only guilty of slinging linguistic feces at other’s blogs. What a criminal! More like a politically incorrect cunt. He detests political correctness, yet is more polite in polite society than most.
For the record; he is not violent even when assaulted, and he loves women. I know from real life experience which none of you can claim to have. Silly, silly, petty people all of you, and that goes for franc too. Shame.
noikitti:
Thank goodness for small mercies!
(You’re admitting you don’t know him either, BTW)
Your masterly understatement is noted.
That, and self-admitted Hoggling. ;)
But you, of course, aren’t petty or silly.
<snicker>
noikitti (or is that Sacha?) — your false equivalences are noted. No one here obsessed over Hoggle the way he obsessed over me and Rebecca Watson and Ophelia Benson.
Yeah, right, he loves women…which is why he (and you) disparage people as “cunts”.
Which brings us to those “ethical/philosophical disagreements”: I think women should be respected and should not be subject to petty harrassment; Franc Hoggle disagrees.
I think we’re done.
Mr Morales,
I have watched the conversation (if it can be called that) from it’s inception. I am not among his fans. Fans are admirers from afar. I am not a groupie. I have known him for nearly 20 years. I chose this opportunity to comment because I feel the attempts to out him in order to deny him attendance at your precious global conference out of fear and disgust are phobic and petty. Free Speech is sacrosanct in the Good Ole USA, but you would deny it to someone you have never met nor will you if you have the chance to bar him. Don’t for a minute believe he wants to meet any of you. He loves simply being a provocateur. At that he has won hands down. But your peers would ban him from participating in a religious conference as you do not like what he says. If your friends were more adept at detective work it would turn up a complete lack of arrests or convictions of Mr Hoggle’s RL identity. Certainly none for violence, felonies, or even misdemeanors. Now let the hate and outing of noikitti begin. I care not for your barbs and slanders.
Who has tried to oust him?
He announced his intent to stalk and attempt to intimidate me; I have announced that I will not tolerate such stupid, bullying behavior and that I will sic event security on him if he pulls that shit.
He certainly has been exercising his free speech with many months of raving hatred, and no one is stopping him from continuing. But we will point out that he is stupid, and laugh at his defenders who claim he’s a nice guy.
You idiot.
He said he was going to.
He said it. Here were his exact words: “if I am to accomplish any stalking, it would be foolish to make myself so readily identifiable. I will seek to surreptitiously besmirch as many baboons as possible…”
OK?
Defend your bff as much as you have to, but stop lying.
Ah yes, “But he was such a nice guy!”
(Never been said, after the fact)
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noikitti:
So, your claim is that he was the provoker, not the provoked?
(Nice defence, that.)
Gotcha. My peers should do like he says. Or else.
<snicker>
As the name of Victor Ivanoff aka ‘Felch Grogan’ allegedly aka ‘Franc Hoggle’ has been prominent on this board, and as it has been pointed out in this context that he has used the word ‘Rectoplasm’ as a business name, the band Rectoplasm® wish to make the following official statement regarding their relationship, or rather non-relationship, with Victor Ivanoff.
Ivanoff is not and has never been a member of Rectoplasm®. Although one of our members did record early music with Ivanoff in a different band in the 1980s, Ivanoff has never played a note on any Rectoplasm® track or otherwise made any contribution to or been associated with us.
Ivanoff registered Rectoplasm as a business name despite being aware that we were already using it as a band name. He does not appear to have made any actual commercial use of the name as far as we can see, and any actions of his undertaken in that name have no connection whatsoever to our own.
None of the former or present members of Rectoplasm® endorse or even necessarily agree with any of Victor Ivanoff or ‘Felch Grogan’ or ‘Franc Hoggle”s actions or statements in any way whatsoever.
Zibethicus
Avant-Guano Productions
I’m so glad that has been cleared up. I was concerned.