11/25/2009

The truth slips and slides away ... but who cares? (corrected)

These are just little things, and mostly I say, "Why bother." But it ticks me off when people who know better, are better and could be best, mess with my brain cells in such obvious but sloppy ways. I am of course NOT speaking of spelling or grammar! I am from the school that contends that we, after all, are professionals and screwing around with the language is our right.

But little things irk me.

Religious Intelligence posts a number of articles by George Conger. Reading what George writes is an important part of my daily run through Anglican / Episcopal blogland. Sometimes George gets to the news or to some part of the core of the news more quickly and with greater depth than do other writers. So I find it irking when he writes, in a recent article in Religious Intelligence, "In California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno, briefs were filed last week in the case of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin v the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin. In June a lower court granted summary judgment to the Episcopal diocese in its bid to seize the assets of the Anglican diocese." (bold mine)

The reality is that The Episcopal diocese wishes to retrieve (not seize) the assets taken by certain persons who then constituted the Anglican diocese. From the realignment perspective the officers of the Diocese retained those assets rightfully. From the Episcopal Church perspective the departing officers wrongfully took the silver with the, or foolishly believed they were entitled to do so. So a more fair minded writer would have said, "the Episcopal diocese in its dispute with the Anglican diocese over the ownership of certain assets." That does not make as good press as claiming that the Episcopal diocese is out to seize.
 

(this next section corrected 5/11/13)

And it irks me when a blogger from the Diocese of Central New York  whose blog is titled DCNY, even though it has nothing to do with the Diocese of Central New York, posts the whole of a recent blog of mine with a new heading, "another power grab in pecusa leadership?" on the blog DCNY, and closing with the footer from my site, "POSTED BY MARK HARRIS AT 11/24/2009 10:11:00 AM." Nowhere in the DCNY blog post is there any link to my blog and including my footer on his blog leave the assumption that I posted my essay there. I did not, and I certainly did not in any way agree with his headline, "another power grab in pecusa leadership?" I am glad the DCNY blogger found my essay interesting. I am not so glad that it was posted with a different headline an with the footer from my blog indicating that I posted it.

There is a lot of sloppy work out there on the information highway. I ought to know, being responsible for some of it. But maybe a bit of care could be taken to keep the streets clean.

12 comments:

  1. Not even a link? Maybe he doesn't know how to link. Was the first little sentence there to begin with?

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  2.      I had the same reaction when Mr. Conger put out the following headline a couple weeks ago: “Backing Starts to Grow for the Anglican Covenant”. I reacted in my blog on this subject too: ricksgreengrass. It's not being picky. The headlines advocate a point of view.

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  3. It's an outright lie.

    Conger does this constantly and still is allowed to speak for the "conservative" wing. He's caught lying and those lies exposed, and nothing is done about it.

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  4. consider the source, people who do that really just thieves, David Virtue does the same thing - never a link - acts as tho he wrote stuff that is word for word from somewhere else.

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  5. As a general rule I find truth to be very interpretive while facts are less so. But, stringing a bunch of facts together still doesn't make truth.

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  6. Conger is a journalist in precisely the same way that Tokyo Rose was.

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  7. I suppose you can post some of what you have written here at Tony's blog.

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  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  9. Don't bother to post at Tony's blog. The man hasn't been able to speak the truth in years.

    The fact that he uses DCNY makes him SOUND like he is from the Diocese of Central NY. But he fled TEC when he couldn't have his way. To his credit, he and his ilk left the silver but I am told they trashed the building when they left TEC.

    Mark, my suggestion is to ignore the Binghamton trash talkers like Seel and Kennedys. It is like talking to junk yard dogs.

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  10. I'm remembering a "back in the day" sequence that went something like [1] Bishop Fred Borsch said something about hoping liberals and conservative could find enough common groud to come to the table together in spite of their differences but recognized there might be some who chose to leave; [2] David Anderson said what +Fred really meant was conservatives should leave; [3] David Virtue reported +Fred said conservaties should leave.

    And on it goes.

    Bless you, Poet Mark. Your voice in the wilderness means a lot to many!

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  11. What I find interesting about the Borsch-Anderson story is the back story: Bp. Borsch named Anderson a canon of the cathedral, perhaps as a way to affirm his own hope that conservatives and progressives could remain in communion in the Diocese of LA. Borsch is a gentleman, but I don't think the same can be said about Anderson.

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  12. They've snatched the churches,...Walk Away?!?

    Ha!! Tis yours as you see fit!!

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