micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Friday, July 12, 2002
Return of the FReepers Last year, on September 26, I wrote "anger, rage and destruction of various sorts" as a way of expressing what was going on in my life and, more specifically, how I felt powerless to prevent the United States military from continuing it practices. It was also a way of me trying to clarify why I cared so much when, as white citizen of the U.S., I have the ability to say to hell with the rest of the world without it negatively impacting my life. The following evening I wrote: Last night's entry wasn't the most eloquent or profound thing that I have written in these pages but it was the most heartfelt. I laid out exactly how I had been feeling and didn't pull any punches. It wasn't meant as a political tract or anything like that but rather was just me trying to come to grips with a lot of what I was feeling. To a large extent I did that and felt better because of it.I agree with everything I said above but the readers at Free Republic weren't exactly supportive. "american arnie james" -who is now banned from the site although my guess is he could sign in under a different name- posted "anger, rage and destruction of various sorts" onto to that discussion site and a lot of very critical comments were made made both about the piece and micah holmquist the person, some of which are contained in this entry. I was called "a wanta-be Timothy McVeigh" by a poster whose handle I didn't record. "micah holmquist is a true enemy and hater of America, Americans, and what we stand for!," said "Grampa Dave." I wasn't in one of my better periods at the time -it would be fair to say I was depressed- but I guess I can't say that these responses brought me down. They were from people I didn't know and quite frankly I don't really care what they think of me as a person. Besides it lead to a lot of hits on my site, although no long term readers. As October rolled on and I continued to write out against the war, "american arnie james" posted things that I had written a few more times and that lead to more comments and hatemail. On October 19 "Burton, Charles" emailed me to say: To be a liberal, is to commit treason against the United States of America.In another email from October 19, "Barbara J. Harris" told me, "Young man, get help before it is too late. I mean this in all sincerity. You're link to earth is stretched about as far as it can go." I wrote what I believe was a thoughtful response to Ms. Harris where I said: Although I can't help but believe that Ms. Harris is coming from a patriotic perspecitive, she is right about my need for help. As she may or may not know, and regular readers of micah holmquist's thoughts and links will know, I do see a therapist and that is quite helpful to me, or at least it feels that way...Another guy sent a lengthy email to me on October 20, basically saying that I needed to get some religion, specifically the Christian religion. I didn't reprint his emails at micahth.diaryland.com both because he asked me not to and because his was clear from what he said that he was sincerely trying to help me. I didn't respond to him and I don't intend to, but I have kept the message and I do appreciate his effort One thing that I found funny, and I did mention it on October 20, was how so many FReepers -that is, the denizens of Free Republic- assumed I was pacifist when I had said no such thing and am not a pacifist. IIRC, nothing of mine was posted on Free Republic during November but that changed on December 6 when "proud patriot" -who also since been banned- "Eleven Questions for George W. Bush" -one of my all time favorite blog entries- was posted. and the responses and hits started flying in. Actually the FReeper responses to this piece, which I have chronicled here, were by far the most entertaining I have ever received for anything I've written. At Free Republic, "Jadge" wrote, "Micah sits down when he pees." "Please go help your taliban friends - John Walker did it so can you. Come now put up or shut up," wrote "Jim Spangler." "Ed Hamilton" wrote: Your 'eleven questions' posting was very thought provoking, my thought is, How can you be provoked into shooting yourself and making this world a better place?Well what I can I possibly say? For better or worse, over seven months -seven months that included such entries as "Dear President Bush," "note on 'There will be no Christmas in Iraq this year,' "Speaking of The Simpsons" and "How was your Fourth?"- passed and yet I got no response from FReepers until yesterday when I sardonically wrote that all the talk of war had inspired me to read War Junkie -a collection of stories by cartoonist Joe Sacco that takes its name from a couple stories that focus on Sacco's own obsession with the Persian Gulf War- and listen to Machine Gun -a landmark 1968 recording by the great saxist Peter Brotzmann. Neither is a strident anti-war tract but both do explore war in thoughtful and moving ways and I felt inspired to engross myself in them due to the world situation. (Regretably I wasn't able to do so last night as life got in the way.) A FReeper named "Conservative Chicagoan" suspected something sinster, however and made a post out of the entry titled "What does this mean? Is it some kind of terrorist signal?" Almost all of the other FReepers who responded to the thread, to their credit, didn't see any threat. "Shermy" was the first to respond and wrote, "May I be the first to say 'What the heck are you talking about?'"
Nobody said anything better than the neatly named "hellinahandcart" who wrote: In a later post "hellinahandcart" wrote: I just did a quick search on Micah Holmquist and it turns out he voted for Nader.Well I voted in Michigan, a state that Gore won and quite frankly I wouldn't have voted for Gore if Nader hadn't been running so I guess I'm not of much electoral use to you. "hellinahandcart"'s first comment basically killed the thread in terms of discussion relevant to me but there was a neat thread about the name "micah," which actually began slightly before the first post by "hellinahandcart." "conservative chicagoan" actually appears to have some interest in what I write. Yesterday morning he posted the indymedia.org version of "Illogical Warmongering with Ken Adelman.That post has only generated five comments, so far at least although quite likely that is all it will end up getting, probably in part because the white font that indymedia.org doesn't show up well on a white background. (Joke all you want.) That said, I have to love "conservative chicagoan"'s first comment, "Can somebody explain to me how exactly we benefit from letting traitors like this spew their anti-American garbage?" He also posted" Dave Douglas at the HotHouse!," which I did for jazzreview.com. (I have no way of knowing for sure but I wonder if "conservative chicagoan" became aware of this piece due to yesterday's second entry. This thread only got three responses -two of which are from "conservative chicagoan," but opened with him asking: What do FReepers know about this "musician" (read terrorist supporter)? Do patriotic people protest his concerts or try to have them shut down?"Cable225" sensibly responded although it appears "conservative chicagoan" didn't get the message. Although the posting of "What does this mean? Is it some kind of terrorist signal?" on Free Republic did lead to 76 hits yesterday, making it the best day ever for mth.blogspot.com, I find it interesting that I didn't get any hatemail and no FReeper left a comment on this site. I also find it interesting that more FReepers appear to be expressing rational opinions than they did last year. This wasn't true for everybody, however. I looked through "conservative chicagoan"'s posting history and it appears he likes to use the words "communist," "leftist," "scum," "terrorist" and "traitor" a lot. He called me "leftist perhaps terrorist scum" and has labeled Allen Iverson a terrorist. During an exchange on a thread regarding a column by Charley Reese, "conservative chicagoan" described Reese by saying, "The man is a traitor." "Charlie Reese? I didn't know that. I knew he was a bad writer, and from the looks of it, not too bright, but I didn't know he was a traitor," replied "Huck." You know, Ralph, that is ha ha funny. |