Lou Antonelli poses with sign outside Hugo, Oklahoma.
This BOLO story is not about sentient tanks.
Those who listened to last week’s Superversive SF Hugo livestream already know, but the rest of the world has just learned that online discussion featured Lou Antonelli’s claim to have written a letter to the Police Department of Spokane, Washington, telling them to be on the lookout for someone who may incite violence — Sasquan guest of honor David Gerrold.
Lou J. Berger asked Antonelli if he really wrote the Spokane PD. Antonelli answered –
I said I thought Gerrold’s on-line comments were so intemperate they were an incitement to violence, which is what I believe. I wanted them to know in case there were any disruptions at the convention….
I just suggested they (the PD) be aware of the controversy and possibility of people getting, uhh, maybe too enthused.
I verified Berger’s report with Antonelli myself who agreed, “That’s the way I recalled it. If I said anything stronger than that, I don’t recall and I must have been drinking some beer at the time.”
Now Jim C. Hines has published a transcript of Lou’s quote:
I’m referring to your quote at 1:00:28 in the video linked below:
“I really didn’t know much about [Gerrold] before the Hugo nominations came out. Following his discourse and his level of discourse as a result, I personally wrote a letter addressed to the police chief in Spokane and said I thought the man was insane and a public danger and needs to be watched when the convention’s going on, and I mean it. I attached my business card. I said this guy’s inciting to violence. Somebody—a weak-minded might attack somebody because of his relentless strength of abuse. I think, honestly, I think he belongs in a secure psychiatric facility.”
Update: Lou Antonelli subsequently responded to Jim C. Hines’ Facebook post with an apology for his actions.
Thanks for your polite request for an explanation. I’ve thought about what to say, which is painful to admit.
It’s become public that on July 1st I wrote a letter to the chief of the Spokane Police Department expressing some concerns over potential security issues at the upcoming Sasquan.
I’m sorry for what I did. Without looking at the big picture I reacted in a manner that I thought I was being treated. It was stupid and wrong. My subsequent participation on a podcast was also a mistake because the environment further fueled my fear and I lashed out again.
I’m sorry I bothered the Spokane PD. They probably are ready to throw the butterfly net over ME when I enter the city. And I’m sorry and apologize to David Gerrold. He probably understands why I did what I did better than I do.
I need to ponder the hurt I have caused. To give me time to think, after Sasquan I am taking a half-year hiatus from attending any conventions and/or submitting any fiction.
I think I’ve become my own crazy uncle…
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RW: Is it too late to get in on the Dog and Martial Art Show? I’ve got both!
I can confirm that RW is a mistress of the martial arts – I practice ninjutsu at the very same dojo she trains at.
She never sees me BECAUSE I AM JUST THAT GOOD!
@CPaca: I grok—the absence of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working. [nod-nod]
@Cubist, Jim Henley:
Reading comprehension is a good thing and can be your friend. You might want to try understanding what someone is saying before you respond to them. AT NO POINT HAVE I EVER SAID THAT WHITE MALE PRIVILEGE DOESN’T EXIST. I have simply pointed out (repeatedly, of little use to some of you) that it is not a universal benefit.
Cubist essentially admitted that it wasn’t a 100% advantage, so you actually agreed with what I SAID even as you were telling me I’m “wrong”. For some of you, that being white and male doesn’t confer automatic privilege seems to be as difficult a concept to grasp as it is for many Puppies to understand that there’s no “cabal” controlling the Hugos and Worldcon.
The tweet by Ms. Bradford occasioned the other round of argument referenced by Mr. Henley. Whether or not you agree with what I said, please have the courtesy to present my arguments correctly. I wasn’t arguing that WMP doesn’t exist. I argued that what she tweeted was a blanket statement directed at one particular group and that it was wrong for her to make the statement, giving my reasons why I thought she was wrong. I don’t care whether you think there’s merit in my argument, just don’t present my arguments inaccurately. That’s a Puppy trick.
Please try reading and understanding something as it is written prior to shooting from the keyboard. You won’t look as foolish if you do!
I have two dogs, a Chinese Crested and a Shih Tzu. I took karate for about a year when I was in my early twenties. You can verify the dogs, but not the karate. Too long ago.
Please try reading and understanding something as it is written prior to shooting from the keyboard. You won’t look as foolish if you do!
Having just read the rest of your comment, one might advise you that writing an incoherent screed actually makes you look fairly foolish. You should avoid doing it again.
@Robert Reynolds: If you interpret the term “white male privilege” to mean “a 100% advantage” then you’re the one who doesn’t understand the term. But Bruce Baugh explained all this with his famous patience and detail the last time, so I’m content to let the concept percolate. I recently tried to explain to my boss why it was much easier for me to have serious cancer as a white man than it would have been otherwise and he wouldn’t entertain the notion for a second, so I have lived experience of what a hard sell white-privilege is once it goes from general to personal.
I am just back from a nice three-hour workout in Dolores Park in SF-form and shuai (grappling) push hands.
You all could have come watched as it was in public as is 90% of my practice. Get up early and you can watch me defeat a hangover every morning in Spokane.
@Nick Mamatas —
1. No idea why I would want to do that. I don’t tend to think people are lying to me unless things don’t add up in some way.
2. I’m on the other side of the continent from Spokane, and can’t make it to Worldcon, so, really, kinda difficult if I did want to.
It’s the behavior associated with a screen name, not whether it’s a legal name or a pseudonym. There are lots of reasons why people use pseudonyms, and if it’s used consistently over an extended period of time, the individual is just as stuck with their past behavior in the forum I’m meeting them in, as if it were their legal name. And some of the worst behavior I’ve seen online has been from people using their real names, including the Puppies, who believe all the people whose opinions they care about will approve of it.
Taiji forms are very beautiful, even when a fat dumpling like me does them.
At any rate, there is a difference between assuming people are lying and simply having no reason to believe that they are telling the truth. Usually when someone is otherwise inoffensive I just ignore any personal details they claim. When something doesn’t add up, like delurking claiming to be in the SF industry and yet being entirely unfamiliar with standard practice do I mention it.
Beagles are great watchdogs in my experience – but terrible guard dogs (as in not-very-good and not as in having the capacity to strike terror).
Scalzi’s attempt to explain to straight white males that yes in fact privilege exists Since nobody ever said it was universal (we haven’t even really got off the planet man), RR’s
white straightstrawman is only worth pointing out.Privilege is highly contextual fer crying out loud (any sort of privilege), and it’s intersctional (i.e. since there are many axes of identity, one can have one type of privilege and lack another, *depending on context*).
@Aaron, you’re one of the very last people posting here who should be accusing anyone other than Brian of looking foolish.
@Jim Henley:
I submit to you that the black son of a dentist in LA has much better odds in a battle with cancer than the white son of a coal miner in W. VA does. You may continue to view this as a white male privilege issue, if you so choose. I wouldn’t dream of telling you to do otherwise. But, like it or not, insurance/access to medical care confers more benefits than skin color does in this instance. Green is the color which matters most.
I stipulate the following:
All other things being equal, I would rather be a white male than a female of any sub-group or a black male in the US. White males as a class have privileges that females and black males generally do not share.
All other things being equal, I would rather be the black child of a reasonably affluent professional white collar/professional or or blue collar trades person than the white child of the average coal miner/unskilled laborer.
All other things being equal, I would rather be the child of anyone living comfortably (no matter what race or gender) than I would a child of any gender or color living in poverty.
Do white males have privilege? Yes. I NEVER said otherwise. If you cannot understand my arguments, you might ask someone to explain them to you. Aaron clearly also needs someone’s tuition on that score. Neither of you has indicated to me that you’re terribly skilled at forming credible arguments on most points.
Mr. Baugh, on the other hand, has proven himself able to do so. He made his argument in response to mine and I replied to him and another poster here. Given that I don’t see much value in replying to either you, Mr. Henley, or Aaron again on this (your reading comprehension skills are unlikely to improve at this point) I will let this be my last reply to either of you on this matter.
@Cubist, in re John Scalzi’s , “playing the game of life on the lowest difficulty setting” analogy being “tried on me”. I forgot this point you raised when I made my previous reply to you, so I’ll respond here.
I have a question for you, Cubist. Do you consider being born seriously disabled as being an example of “playing the game of life on the lowest difficulty setting”?
If you do, would you please explain to me just what reasoning you use to reach that conclusion?
If you don’t, then would you please explain to me why trying that analogy on me would have much point or value?
@ rrede:
Point out where in my arguments I claimed that WMP doesn’t exist and you have a point.
You ignore the reality that the tweet I replied to in the first instance was a flat statement making an argument which automatically would exclude me from moderating a panel on minorities/marginalize people. I simply pointed out that one could be cishet white male and also be marginalized. That’s a strawman?
Ms. Bradford made a flat statement which I saw as incorrect and I pointed that out, to have people try to explain what she meant. Not being able to read Ms. Bradford’s mind, I must go by the statement she actually tweeted, as opposed to explanations by others as to what she meant.
you’re one of the very last people posting here who should be accusing anyone other than Brian of looking foolish.
Oh I see you’ve gone and made yourself look like a complete fool by posting more incoherent screeds. Must suck to be as terminally stupid as you are.
All other things being equal, I would rather be the black child of a reasonably affluent professional white collar/professional or or blue collar trades person than the white child of the average coal miner/unskilled laborer.
Because when you say things like this it just shows that you have no clue what you are talking about. Research has shown that in terms of things like college admissions, hiring numbers and so on, the children of black professionals are at a disadvantage even when compared to white felons.
@Camestros – I’ll give him this, he sounds like a horde of demon hounds when he starts baying. To hear the noise, you wouldn’t think it was one elderly 35lb dog. So he’s a pretty good deterrent.
Problem is that he’s gone increasingly deaf, so, while life is now much more peaceful–he does not need to alert us that a deer farted a mile away–he will also probably sleep through the serial killer climbing through the window.
All other things being equal, I would rather be the black child of a reasonably affluent professional white collar/professional or or blue collar trades person than the white child of the average coal miner/unskilled laborer.
I’ll get back to you on that in fifteen or so years, when my grandnieces and grandnephews get to college.
Dogs: two; they bark loudly and actually scare delivery people.
Martial arts studied: two -er, three! And, erm. Have also scared delivery people myself.
Marital arts: never married yet. If one doesn’t need to be married, then yeah, totally got that.
Pseudonyms: well, I blog under my given name, but the use of pseudonyms is just as real, and is based on a lengthy history of justification. What was Benjamin Franklin’s pseudonym?
@Cubist
No no no. The surest sign is a combination of a lack of supporting evidence as well as the presence of evidence refuting the conspiracy, because that is proof positive that the fix is in from The Cabal (TinC).
Seriously guys, this is basic Special Snowflake Thinking. Have you all lost your tinfoil hats or something?
Employers more likely to hire a white felon over a black applicant with a clean record.
A white high school dropout has the same chance of getting a job as a black college graduate.
@Nick M
You, er, “mention” it:
Far be it from me to defend Mauser, but if delurking hasn’t met any writers who announce short story sales on their blogs before they are published, than he or she has not met any writers working in this century, period.
Another unfortunate datum that shows how important it is to never believe anything a pseud says about their experiences or background.
Sorry to harp, but how does your response change if their name is Dee Lur-King? You give them the benefit of the doubt? Spend an hour trying to find where they work (or hire a college journalist to do it)? Express the same disbelief without the tacked-on lecture about “pseuds”?
Maybe you don’t doubt them later when they say they have a dog?
@Ginger:
Silence Dogood! As seen in National Treasure.
Sorry to harp
Of course you are not.
Sorry to harp, but how does your response change if their name is Dee Lur-King?
Then we can check and see if Dee L. King is actually in the “SF industry” or not. Sure, I might take an hour. More often than not, I only take 5-10 minutes. I’m pretty good at the Internet, and the telephone, after all. Why check? Because:
Some people lie.*
Some people “puff”.**
Some people are genuinely mistaken about about their own experiences.***
Some people take information from one context and bring it into another without realizing it.****
Some people are just weird outliers.*****
You know, “Video or it didn’t happen.” That way we can see if we’re dealing with 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.
*Like a person I encountered years ago who claimed that his novel was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. It wasn’t nominated, it wasn’t on the long list, it wasn’t on the recommended list. He was just bullshitting.
**Like the fellow who claimed that his fanzine was Hugo-nominated because it got a couple of votes—called “nominations” on the first ballot. I think the Hugo people ended up having to make it clear that only finalists may be called “Hugo nominees.” The Pulitzers have a similar problem—anyone can nominate a book for a Pulitzer; it’s being a finalist that matters. But we meet people who claim to be “Pulitzer nominees” occasionally because their publicist told them that their book was being nominated.
***A common issue in the early 2000s, when many people really really believed that PublishAmerica was a legitimate “traditional publisher” and not a scam, which made them published authors in the traditional publishing marketplace.
****Like the fellow on the panel who told a room full of writers at Capclave when I was Editor GoH, “Give your work away for free to get exposure!” For his sort of dashed-off non-fiction about the scholarship he was interested in, it was a good idea to give blog posts away to the Huffington Post. That doesn’t mean that science fiction writers should publish their stories on their own personal websites for free without attempting to publish them in a real venue first.
*****Like my friend who wrote a novel, sent it to an agent, was accepted by that agent, and who sold her first novel for $100,000. “Isn’t that how it worked for you?” she asked me.
@Nick:
Huh. Interesting. Thanks for all that.
Dogs: None, now, but I had a cocker spaniel who successfully deterred Jehovah’s Witnesses – she was just out of a bath and wanted to meet the nice people. They, OTOH, didn’t particularly want wet pawprints on their knees. We’d just come back from her first obedience lesson, so it was forgivable. Eventually she learned not just how to sit on command, but how to do agility. If only she weren’t in the same height class as Shelties…
Martial arts: yes. I taught it back in Texas, a long long time ago.
Real name: not so hard to find; I’ve used it on profiles. It just makes it easier to tell the work stuff from non-work stuff.
I have a yellow belt in Kodokan Judo, dammit.
I just couldn’t sit by in silence any longer.
I have seen several of the most highly regarded wuxia movies.
Another strawman by Robert: I submit to you that the black son of a dentist in LA has much better odds in a battle with cancer than the white son of a coal miner in W. VA does
Possibly. But I would bet real money that the WHITE son of a dentist in LA has better odds than a BLACK son of a dentist in LA in just about every situation. And that a BLACK son of a coal miner has worse odds than the WHITE son of a coal miner.
And that the BLACK or WHITE women in either case would probably face more discrimination.
You really don’t understand how privilege works, do you.
I have managed to master half of zui quan.
(I’ve got the ‘Drunken’ down pat. next to start work on the Kung fu half of things)
Robert: you said it existed, but it wasn’t universal. The “not universal” is the strawman. Your comments about your experience and your hypotheticals show that in fact, no, you don’t think it *really* exists because, what, some girls beat you up some time.
Uh-huh.
To Cubist but what the fuck: Do you consider being born seriously disabled as being an example of “playing the game of life on the lowest difficulty setting”?
Intersectionality! Come on, you can say it. Privilege exists on multiple axes. And is contextual.
Being “born seriously disabled” is a major difficulty: BUT straight cis white men with disabilities are not likely to suffer from racism or other systemized oppressions than, say, a black woman who is born seriously disabled.
Now off to walk dogs.
So since I only use 2/3 of my real name, am I only 2/3 believable?*
I’m with Lis Carey. I tend to believe people are who they say they are until presented with evidence otherwise. (yes, sometimes this happens in the first sentence). It sounds exhausting to me to have to doubt someone’s word without actually taking the time to research it, and to default to liar on every point if they’re not using a real name. The world where *no-one* can be believed unless there’s absolute evidence sounds very noir, and I may enjoy noir tropes in my fiction, but I’m not living that way.
*granted it’s also my nom de plume et nom d’art, so real in another way.
I find it far more exhausting to invest energy in believing someone only to find out that they were lying, puffing, mistaken, in the wrong context, or an outlier.
Mark: “It’s quite difficult to get to the bottom of Hoyt’s opinions on the matter (apart from Marxists Are Bad) because it all gets drowned out by her ranting that Marxists Are Bad.”
Thanks for the link; I remember reading it, which is precisely why Jim Henley’s comment, “Frex, Sarah Hoyt still pines for the days of the last fascist regime in Europe.”, stuck out so. To quote, “To clarify, Salazar was better than sliding into communism. That’s it. But when I say we were “poor as Job” that’s on whose head to lay it… It doesn’t mean that the previous regime was wonderful. What you get there is the equivalent of Russians pining for the tzar because what followed as so unimaginably worse. But it doesn’t mean the tzar was wonderful.” And for that matter, “Overthrowing the regime would have been a good thing…” Stridently anti-communist, certainly (which I was already quite well aware of, thank you), but “pining for the last fascist regime in Europe”? Hardly.
I’m just over here facepalming quietly over the irony that, in the same thread, we have both an argument over whether using a consistent pseudonym means you “lack the courage of your convictions” AND a report of an editor receiving rape and death threats after Lou Antonelli pointed a great big internet finger at her name and business after she declined to work with him.
Nicole: I don’t think Nick’s saying that it means you “lack the courage of your convictions”, just that it means he can’t verify any claim to life experience they might make, and that, for him, it takes more energy believing in pseudonymous people than calling them out as dubious to him and then arguing about it for hours.
Most of us are slightly more dubious about background/experience claims made by people using pseudonyms, but go with the “being skeptical about unverifiable claims” instead of kicking off an argument about unverifiable claims. OTOH, some of us will call out egregious bullshit, but you get egregious bullshit from psueds and non-psueds at similar rates.
@CPaca – “She never sees me BECAUSE I AM JUST THAT GOOD!”
So, Like Vetinari, then? Have you also failed your exams in Stealth because the teacher never saw you attending any lectures?
for him, it takes more energy believing in pseudonymous people
It would be nice if he could bring himself to believe that many people have good reasons for using them, instead of trying to hold back a tide that came in decades ago.
Lots of people do have good reasons to use them.
And lots of people have bad ones and claim that they have good ones.
Who can tell which is which?
@Nick Mamatas — Your approach to this sounds exhausting to me, and without adequate payoff in the context of online conversation. Most people are not intentionally misrepresenting themselves. Self-misperception or limited experience are more common, but that as well as intentional deception will out itself over time.
And as long as I’m not making major or risky decisions based on what the person is saying, most of the time it doesn’t matter. If something needs to be checked before I rely on it, most of the time it’s the claim itself that matters, not the identity of the person making it.
I try to invest my energy in things that merit it. Mostly, I don’t care where any of you work, unless it’s interesting or relevant. I care less about what your legal names are than what you want to be called. And if you’re lying about your background, it will become apparent.
I just can’t see a consistent stance of active skepticism as being less energy-intensive than defaulting to belief until and unless there’s evidence skepticism is warranted. (This includes, of course, the person is asking me to download something, or wants me to send money, or whatever.)
My skepticism isn’t active. I mention it only when someone makes an obvious blunder, as delurking did, or engages in very convenient disclosures (I’m ESL! I have cancer! I’m the CEO of a giant company you’ve never heard of and can’t tell you anything about! I have secret evidence I can’t share because of my sensitive government position!).
Thanks for your concern about my energy levels, but I am fine. I’m not recommending you do what I do. I’m only spelling out what I do. If someone wants to make a claim and insist that I believe it, and their claim that depends on me knowing something about their personal lives or experience, they have to show their work to me. This sort of thing saved me a lot of energy around this controversy, for example, while many friends of mine started organizing for the release of a fictional character from prison.
Lots of people do have good reasons to use them.
And lots of people have bad ones and claim that they have good ones.
Who can tell which is which?
I generally assume they’re real until they make it clear. Trolls tend to out themselves.
This isn’t rocket surgery.
Trolls tend to out themselves…unless they’re actually good at it.
MickyFinn: I don’t think Nick’s saying that it means you “lack the courage of your convictions”, just that it means he can’t verify any claim to life experience they might make, and that, for him, it takes more energy believing in pseudonymous people than calling them out as dubious to him and then arguing about it for hours.
There are two variants on the pseudonym discussion that have arisen in this thread. There’s Nick’s tiresome “I won’t believe your claims to have had oatmeal for breakfast this morning if you don’t use your legal name to say it,” and then there’s… other dude, quoted in the thread above, who’s all about “I post with my legal name at all times because *I* have the Courage of My Convictions.” The two variants have sort of conceptually dovetailed, but I was only specifically paraphrasing the latter.
In any case, arguing over the validity of pseudonyms does not pair well with a real-life example of why a policy of legal names at all times carries rather more consequences for some people than for others.
That’s all I’m trying to say.
If Carrie Cuinn operated her magazine pseudonymously, she would not have received threats? That’s highly doubtful, given that it is difficult to be a publisher—that is, someone whose business is the act of making material public—without having some line of communication available to members of the public, such as an email address or PO Box.
Carrie Cuinn needs to be reachable because she’s publishing a magazine.
People commenting on blogs, or maintaining personal Facebook pages, or any number of other online activities, don’t have the same need to be easily, real-world identifiable, if they’re not doing it in their professional capacity.
I don’t think it was the mere existence of Cuinn’s name online that’s a problem, I think it’s that Atonelli, intentionally or unintentionally, publicized it to people who’d then act in anger and malice.
Had he just said he lost a sale, and even named the magazine, but not made her e-mail on the subject public, I doubt many of the people who got her up would have bothered to look the info up. They’d just have said “Never heard of the place” and grumbled their sympathy at Lou. But give them her letter and her name, and presto, he’s given them a person to focus on, a woman to call a bitch, and some of them apparently chose to go further.
At the very least, Lou should have gotten her permission before publishing the letter. Maybe he did, for all I know, but neither of them seem to have mentioned it.
Lis: What does that have to do with Nicole’s claim, which is explicitly about Cuinn, the “real-life example” of consequences for using one’s real name?
Nicole: In that case, I’m in thorough agreement with you.
Nick: Carrie Cuinn has to use her real name on the internet, and is experiencing the more unpleasant consequences of that. Other women who don’t have the same need to do so, may choose not to precisely because her experience of the raving troll hoards being unleashed on her is not unusual.
She’s an example of what can happen when your name is out there on the web.
Lis,
Of course Carrie Cuinn need not use her real name on the Internet. Plenty of writers and some editors use pseudonyms throughout their entire careers. Some real names are more closely guarded than others, but that would just make a threat somewhat harder to carry out, not harder to make.
I’m not suggesting that she ever adopt a pseudonym, but clearly pseudonymity wouldn’t have protected her from receiving threats because of the nature of the publishing in the twenty-first century, where email and social media are all but inevitable.
If someone wanted to threaten, say, John Twelve Hawks, they’d probably have to do it in the form of an open letter.
@Ferret Buhler on August 9, 2015 at 8:18 pm said:
Stridently anti-communist, certainly (which I was already quite well aware of, thank you), but “pining for the last fascist regime in Europe”? Hardly.
As I said, it’s often difficult to get to the bottom of her opinions because Marxists, and also because she scatters them about her blogposts pretty much at random. “Pining for” was Jim’s description, so I’ll let him defend it in detail if he feels the urge, but I certainly think that her statements about Salazar not being a real fascist, and that if left alone the regime could have delivered prosperity, show at minimum real ambiguity as to whether she understands that authoritarian dictatorships are a Bad Thing, and revolutions leading to democracies are a Good Thing.
Her virulent anti-communism I could hardly object to, if it wasn’t for her personal political spectrum basically scrunching up every one to the left of her as “leftists who are insufficiently anti-Marxist and/or actual Marxists”, which leads her to to be rude and dismissive of everyone to the left of her.