Some midwinter cleaning in the house of blog.

Every once in a while, I feel the need to do some blog house-cleaning. 

Let’s start with the windows.

The blog has been getting a lot of comments lately, so I thought I should tell readers how we handle them:  My assistant Colette reviews each comment and then posts all except those which are pornography (rare so far) or bald-faced advertisements (often).  I don’t care if the comments are derogatory of my blog entries, nor if the language is vulgar: if someone took the time to write it, we will post it.

Sometimes I will respond to the person who posted the comment. I prefer to send a private and almost always short email rather than clog up the blogosphere by commenting on the comment in the public blog space.

Sometimes I will publish the comment and my response to it in a blog, which brings us to the stove, still a bit hot from a boiling controversy…

Yesterday, “Stacie” responded to one of my two blogs advocating negative population growth with the following comment: “so basically you’re a eugenicist? fuck you man, my husband and I are going to have all kinds of brilliant babies!!”

Stacie may not know what a eugenicist is or maybe she does and is trying to throw some mud at me with a big word.  So let’s clear the air: A eugenicist is interested in improving the hereditary characteristics of future generations through selective breeding.  I did not advocate that at all, nor mention anything that even came close to talking about it.  What I was proposing was birth control across the board, not selectively.  There’s a whiff of Nazism about applying eugenics to humans, so I want to make sure my position is clearly understood.    

Finally, some vacuuming in the basement: On February 11, I ripped Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times for beginning an article with an assertion of factual news and then never proving it; not even discussing it, just taking it for granted.  The assertion was that many (most) Germans are sorry that their country switched to the Euro.

Kulish went to the German EU well again, but not so deep, and this time his pail didn’t leak because he cited a survey.  Just a few days later, On February 15, Kulish wrote an article, which was not the lead article on the front page, reporting that opposition to the European Market bailout of Greece was growing in Germany.  In the new article he does cite a survey.  (Of course it’s a long way from being opposed to a bailout to regretting the switch to the Euro, which is unmentioned in the new article.)

I have no idea if he read my blog on his first German EU piece or not.  I’m just delighted that Nick has decided to return to the land of the reputable journalists.  Let’s hope he remains there.