Sorry to hear you are getting calls that is a bit much for posting on a local blog site. Is there something more?

How much truth is there to the stories that the firefighters tried to do as much damage as possible to Mayor elect Gilbert's campaign by spreading rumours and lies? It didn't work but I would be interested in what you all did. It turns out the voting community did not agree in any case.

Indeed, anyone who would call you up semi-anonymously and criticize you over a blog post ... without a really clear and specific complaint ... well, it's like they say about lending $20 to someone and never seeing them again, that it was probably a small price to pay. I'd probably say what R.Crumb had said, which I think was something about being called an Evil Genius by whole cities of a-HEM, but that he knew who they were and where they lived.

wait, no, maybe I wouldn't say that. but I would say that the opinions of such people are worth about as much as that of a random wino who might accost you in a Toronto park, and while some of them sure do have a point, the bulk of them, well, if there's a point, it's very very blurry.

Now, rather than a pint, which only solves things in movies and Irish history (so there goes that point) I say let them take out a simple free membership here and place their case next to yours and the rest can see both in the quiet of their homes. Everyone is then free to sit back and read it over and over again, and hit on Google, or hit the library, or the newspaper morgues, or go tell Aunt Mary about Uncle John who said she said that they said that ... oh bother. The fuzzy point being: when the stories are here, we can compare our mythologies (to paraphrase Leonard Cohen) and we can Fact Check and check those facts and place it all here on the table where all can see. Like Wayne says here, he's not afraid to sign his opinion, and while some here do prefer a handle to a name, well, that's the internet, you can take them, leave them, or you can fact check their b-hind and post the real goods in the very next forum thread and that begets what we all need: discussion.

Disagreement is not a crime. Neither is having a different set of data or a different interpretation of the data. The Russian mystic philosopher P.D.Ouspensky pointed out that if we understand someone's point of view then we agree with them, and that is the great challenge of discourse, and that is why we need discourse and discussion -- just as an aircraft auto-pilot spends most of its operational time off course, communities steer themselves by the balance struck between opposing points of view. That these opinions are voicefully presented is only because we care, and that ain't no crime neither.

Now, I've had that experience of people calling me up to discuss what I've written online, not just here, but also in the Internet Society and other forums, and while sometimes it is to impart information that I am not officially privy to know, other times it is just passions getting out of line; I tell them to chill a bit, put it down, put it in writing, post it online where it's not just ill-prepared and ill-informed me who will weigh it, but the whole congregation of the community who will weigh those words against their own personal timelines of knowledge, experience and intuition. That's how it works, that's how humanity works, and it may not be perfect all the time, but it's the best we've invented to date.

I am not going to wade in any deeper but I would like to tell you how when my son was very young he couldnt grasp the concept of hide and seek. After a while I found this worked..What I did was as he was standiing there looking at me and not closing his eyes I would yell "Look it is thomas the tank engine over in the trees ,or some other lovable character" and he would run off looking merrily for the distraction I baited him with. Now I had lots of time to run off and hide somewhere until he realized there was nothing to be found in the trees and again turned his attention back to the game and come looking for me. But by this time I was having a little siesta in the hammock. He was happy and eventually he learned the value of the game of hide and seek
Anybody getting this, bub let me know if this is another convulded "tannerism"
( and no did not leave my child unattended so I could sleep so dont go there :)

Got my own taste of this phenomenon this evening, and ironically of all places as my welcome to the first-annual Christmas Tree Lighting, an event of peace and goodwill, one would think. Only, let's be fair, this wasn't any kind full on attack or even a veiled threat, but it was straight up, the first person to come out of the darkness to speak to me, and it wasn't thanks for coming out, it was "How's your website?" which took me back a bit, um er ... gee how is a website supposed to be? ah ok, I guess? and then the clarification follows in quickly: "You've been disparaging the Chamber on your site"

Say wha? Although I couldn't think of a single specific post that might be called 'disparaging' directly to the chamber, I, being me, start to explain that, to those who read this rag, there are for the pickings all sorts of things about and by all sorts of people with all sorts of grades of axes to grind or references to back them up, and how the important thing was ---

I was going to say the how important thing was that we're all able to come together airing our differences on the same page, in the same threads, in the open unafraid to discuss the issues like adults, and how that is a rare and beautiful thing ... but I didn't get the chance. The lighting ceremony was being called to order, and he left me with, "we'll talk later" and while I hung around nearly the last to leave, that conversation, or any other, was never restarted.

Disparaging remarks?? Could he mean what I'd posted about the Winterfest shimmy games? Or the why of why I reformat their calendar to promote their events free of even a thanks? Or maybe is he upset by what I'd put down here extolling their Sandfest or their Oktoberfest dances? or, gee, could it be any of these thirty-two other stories where the word 'chamber' occurs that's put his skivvies in a knot?

Sure do make me wonder. I mean, I try to be accommodatin' of everyone, and ain't I the first to jump in here with comments calling for civility and just plain being decent to one another? Could it be just one little aside embedded in some other discussion that's so ticked him he never got past it to dig the context of the whole Peninsular our stories thing?

Or could it be that he's never actually typed "chamber" into the searchbox or dare say even actually read this thing or seen it for himself, but is rallying his ire on some here-say bubbling about his backwoods? One has to wonder. I mean, I never once said a word about them pushing my one and only attempt to cut the chamber a good deal in their communications costs back to the end of the meeting while milking me for intervening policy advice, only to then tell me after several hours how they'd already decided long before I got there that they didn't want any part of my services, or how my very first-ever experience as a two-week-old resident summer-stage musician volunteer was learning of bandshell prohibitions against selling band t-shirts stageside for fear of infringing on chamber member options on tourist dollars, or related how my first ever contact as a new budding entrepreneurial high-tech internet consultancy to these parts was a personal home-visit from their top directors asking if I might build them $5,000 website ... for $50.

But no, I didn't. I kept all that all to myself because I figured it was just happenstance, crossed wires, passing personalities, nothin' systemic or dare say worthy of disparaging or discredit, and besides, who needs any direct personal respect or recognition when just being a resident here I already anonymously enjoy tons of great chamber-work, more than enough to excuse any odd social or political faux pas, and anyway, I don't see any signs posted here that proclaim any us and them exclusivity in the Peninsular memberships, aside from my nasty personal quirky penchant to deny accounts to the non-stop barrage of offshore spammers.

All our stories are belong to us

All stories have many sides. That's the point; that's what makes for a good story, and sharing those sides is what makes for good communications. If the chamber or the firefighters or if anyone else thinks the media is slanted against them (I'm talkin' 'bout you Bill Murdoch) just remember our humble community jot-pad here. Yeah, there ain't no big-city car adverts screaming at you from the marginals, but there ain't no editorial pre-decision on the stance of this site either, and an edit here usually only means adding paragraph breaks; the only 'rule' is we don't allow blatent ad-copy PR, we want first-person personal seen the way you see it.

I'm serious. It's maybe my website when the bill comes in, but this is your community journal space. I don't care who you are, you get to speak your bit about what is important to you, uninterrupted. You get your say just like you maybe do for those big-time rags, only in this spot, not only are you not reduced to a soundbite, neither are your detractors! Need to have your say without being bothered by other points of view? There are loads of great free spaces online, blogger.com or MySpace to name just two, and we here at the SBP would be more than delighted to sidebar your syndicate feed. This is the Internet. You don't need permission to speak here.

And that's why folks have more fun online. Something you think doesn't hold to the facts? It only takes a click on the Comment link to jump in and clear it up and set The Record as straight as you can make it.