Suddenly I’m getting dozens of hits on a post I withdrew last week mere hours after it appeared because Jason Sanford put up a link to the Google cache file. Well, I knew people were going to look at that — Google guarantees our words have those seven-league boots we were warned about. Therefore I made a point of annoucing that I’d withdrawn it at the same time I deleted the post.
Jason Sanford’s supposed to be a smart guy. Why does he insist on repeating my mistake?
Yes, Jason, it had occurred to me, too, that Andrew Porter was secretary of NyCon 3 and might have a basis for his claim. But once Ted White, convention chair and the person featured in Porter’s claim, denied the story I decided that kind of story couldn’t remain without corroboration.
If Sanford wants he can tell his readers “I’m Jason Sanford. I stand behind Andrew Porter’s story one hundred percent.” But he hasn’t done that. His approach is, “I pulled this story out of Mike Glyer’s dumpster, so this somehow excuses me from any responsibility for its truthfulness.”
Please do better than that Jason.
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Hi, Mike:
Yup, Andy Porter is capable of occasional assholery. So is Ted White, So are you. So am I. I regret that I didn’t either read or download that bit immediately.; But hey, in the Fandom I used to know & love that bit would have remained, along with Ted’s denial, and we’d have made up our own minds about it, rather than having you do it for us, I seem to be getting too old to adjust well to changes like this.
Mike published a potentially libellous statement and then thought better of it.
Don: In fact that was my editorial policy back in the 80s til I got burned often enough running stuff Jack Chalker made up. Then I decided to move over to doing journalism. I still make mistakes.But I try to stick to credible stories and identify facts and claims as such. I’ve also learned fannish memories of 50 year old events may be unreliable. If all the principals don’t agree, I really need contemporaneous source material to work with.
Mike you were better toward Ted White than Richard E. Geis was in the late ’70s in his The Alien Critic / Science Fiction Review.
Maybe it’s because we’re Old Fans And Tired, but the urge to plunge All Fandom Into War is not nearly so strong these days.
The time to have made the issue known should have been done when it was happening, not xyz years later.
How kind of you to mention this, nearly 10 years after Jack could no longer defend himself. As we used to sing at Mass, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
Jack was fully aware his versions were publicly called to account when it happened in the 1970s and 1980s and made (or didn’t make) whatever response he wanted at the time. Don’t act like this just came up yesterday. It’s history.