Online and offline, I've been called "whore," "slut," "bitch." It's never bothered me. Call me "stupid," I don't care. And if you write that or speak of me on a broadcast, I'll hear about it and won't give it a second thought.
What does bother is what happened today.
It doesn't bother me because my feelings are "hurt" (I'm too angry to be hurt), it bothers me because I had to tell my children something by phone that I intended to tell them in person on Labor Day weekend.
Well, see, I didn't have to tell all three. I only had to tell two. One had already learned of it.
Which is why, instead of explaining to my children that the cancer was back in a face-to-face setting, I had to dump that news over the phone.
Now again, you can insult me and I really don't care.
You may be right, you may be wrong. It's your opinion and I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
But that's not what happened. Well I was trashed.
But what happened was my medical issues were made known on the internet.
By a liar with a "peace" group.
Why she felt the need to post about my having gone undergone medical exams is a question she'll try to justify and try to excuse and maybe even play dumb on. But there's no excuse for what she did.
And whether I see a doctor or not, it's none of her damn business.
More importantly, it doesn't have a damn thing to do with peace.
Now she could have listed my lovers (and added a number of men to the list -- like many women of my generation, I'm portrayed as a "slut" while the men we slept with -- in their write-ups -- are just "studs"). She could have ripped apart my statements, she could have distorted them. I wouldn't give a damn about that piss ant, too many stand ahead of her who actually have semi-names.
But it wasn't her right to force me to tell my children that the cancer was back. And it certainly wasn't fair or "peaceful" for her to throw my medical issues up at her trashy site. Three decades ago, she would have carried a camera, had a black eye or two and several restraining orders.
That's all she is: gutter trash.
She wants attention.
She lies on her blog about what she did.
But here's the basic breakdown. And, no, we're not going to help her be famous by naming her.
Back in 2007, she got into a heated e-mail exchange with Rebecca (at her blog she only offers up one e-mail to Rebecca -- she leaves out Rebecca's response, then her own response to Rebecca and what followed). Whenever I learned of that in 2007 (my mind is elsewhere tonight), I found out that she'd done something similar to Mike. At which point, we stopped linking to her. She has nothing to offer. There's no reason to link to her. I didn't say a word about her actions here, I didn't attempt to run off whatever 'traffic' she might have.
I just moved on.
Then this week, she decides to write the public account.
She wrote one of her usual 'let me pretend I'm paying a compliment and then, when you reply, attack you' e-mails. We all knew about her. Jess certainly did.
Jess worked on a reply which he toned down because she wasn't writing as herself, she was presenting herself as a representative of a 'peace' organization.
Jess made it to clear to her that she didn't know what she was talking about (she didn't) and that we didn't need to hear from her and have the back and forth that she'd already had with Mike and Rebecca. He explained the public account wasn't for her. He stated if the organization had something they would like noted, she could e-mail to inform on that but otherwise, don't bother e-mailing.
She then e-mailed repeatedly the next day. Over and over.
Now I don't know what other sites do. I don't read most of the e-mails that come here. The ones I read are put into a folder for me entitled "MUST READ." That would include any journalist named here wanting to criticize me (in whatever terms they wanted). It also includes important e-mails. Today there were several Congressional candidate staffers needing help regarding information on Congressional hearings in 2008. As always, there were the people looking for attorneys and the women in abusive relationship needing help finding assistance (the latter was going to be the topic tonight until ____ pulled her stunt). That's all that ever gets put in my folder.
The public account gets a ton of e-mails every day. Some of it is people wanting things noted. When it can be worked in, I work in every request that comes in.
But the e-mails I focus on have to do with the issues above.
The exceptions being on the weekends when I quickly read the top incoming e-mails in the public account.
In their own way, I'm sure that the bulk of what comes in here is worth reading. I don't have the time. That's why so many people help with the public account and -- when the e-mails from members to the private accounts starts backing up -- sometimes everyone gets pulled off the public account just to focus on members.
That would be a week like this week where members are offended by what went down at the DNC. It is a stressful time and when we know it's going to be like that, one person is assigned to the public account each day and everyone else is working the members's accounts.
So Dona this week did not need repeated nasty e-mails from ____ to sift through on the day when she was reading the e-mails to the public account. Because ____ represented herself as speaking on behalf of a 'peace' group, Dona had to go through every one of that LUNATIC's e-mails in case there was something happening that needed to be noted.
At the end of all that nastiness, Dona thought, "I'll write her back, I'll will go through everything slowly so she will understand that we do not have time for her nonsense."
Dona did that.
She explained in great detail why none of us have the time for ___'s nonsense.
That didn't stop ____ from writing again and again and again . . .
Jim saw she'd e-mailed the next day when he was working the public account.
She'd already insulted Dona and Jess and he told her do not write the public account again unless you have something you want highlighted. He told her that we all laugh at her (which we do) because she's one of those COWARDS who said, "If Bush is elected, I'm moving to Canada!" And, coward that she is, she moved.
On her end, she leaves all of that out. But she does manage to respost about my medical exams. She certainly knows what's important.
And here's the thing, she was posting those e-mails as she received them.
She wanted to pull the stunts she pulled with Mike and Rebecca. Had she not represented herself as the spokesperson for that 'peace' organization, she would have been ignored throughout or told to go ____ herself in strong language.
But because we tried (note the past tense) to be supportive of that organization, everyone of her rants in the last four days had to be read because something might be happening to war resisters in Canada and that might be why she was writing.
It was never why she was writing.
She wanted to pull the stunts she did with Mike and Rebecca. She's a woman with problems.
And as soon as she got Jess' e-mail, she posted it at her site claiming she had been abused and she was the wronged party. Then she kept writing and writing and writing. And never saying in her abusive e-mails, "I've already posted your last response."
You need to ask why?
On our end, no one had any idea she'd posted Jess' e-mail. (I didn't know anything about any of this until this afternoon, I'll get to it.)
So why is she still writing?
Because she wants to stir up ____.
She screams like an insane woman in her multitude of e-mails that she forgets to post at her site -- the e-mails that led to Dona finally replying to her -- and she's just trying to get attention for her vain self.
So we're speaking, Wally, Kat, Rebecca, Ava and I, and we leave an afternoon meeting and one of my cells (the one that I'm trying to keep the number private) is filled with friends and family on the voice mail.
Someone saw her nonsense online and asked my son, "Is the cancer back? Why was your mother doing a week's worth of medical exams?"
That would be my son who didn't kow the cancer was back and didn't even know I'd spent the last week of July doing repeated tests.
He calls the house when he can't get me on the phone (again, we were speaking, our phones are off during that) and speaks to Ty who knew about the exams but didn't know the results.
He calls his uncle to find out and his uncle doesn't know anything (I only told Ava and Elaine the results of the exams) and pretty soon, a whole host of friends and family are being brought into it as he tries to find out what's going on thanks to ____'s b.s.
And, on our end, we've got a full speaking schedule by the time I get to Ty's message saying, "Call me ASAP." I'm wondering what's going on as I hear "Are you okay? Call me" over and over and over on the voice mails.
So I call Ty who explains the call with my son and how he was told there was something online about my doing exams for a week which had everyone wondering what that was about and fearing that it was yet again the cancer.
So I call him not knowing what to say because the plan was I would tell them all when we were together for the holiday. I had no plans to call my children on the phone and chirp, "Mommy's got cancer again!"
But thanks to ____, that's exactly what I had to do. Because after I got off the phone with him, I knew I had to do it with my other son and daughter because they might hear about it the same way he had.
None of this has to do with peace, none of it has to do with war resistance.
____ had no business posting a damn thing at her site about my seeing doctors or not seeing doctors or how often or when.
I am not mad at Dona who wants to apologize for this. Dona walked the woman through slowly in her e-mail to her to ask her (as Jess had) to stop e-mailing her garbage to us. (And currently, some woman -- her lover -- is e-mailing Third repeatedly and we all assume, despite the woman calling ___ a "drama queen," that it's ____'s lover.)
At some point, before the calls to my two other children child (and all my children are adults, to be clear), I grabbed the laptop and wrote the organization in question to ask what the hell was going on?
The 'peace' organization's reply? They don't know anything about it. But they're forwarding it to ___ and she's a great volunteer.
No, she's not a great volunteer. A great volunteer for a 'peace' organization is not putting my personal, medical information online.
If that's to hard for them to grasp, they can visualize that they were the ones who had to call my children and tell them the cancer was back.
And the organization? When your reply is "I've forwarded it" -- not a "I'm so sorry." Not a "I'll get to the bottom of this," then you're not a peace organization, and you're not an organization period because this is a disaster and you're damn lucky I'm not naming you here. (Though community members already know all about it. The whole thing spread like wildfire in a matter of hours. So thanks, too, for telling the community something that was very private to me and that I hadn't planned on disclosing for several weeks and then only in a community newsletter.)
Everyone knows in the community at this point but Mike. Wally called Mike and invented a problem (lying at my request) to keep him (a) out of tonight's roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin (the first one I haven't participated in ever) because this was surely going to be brought up by someone and (b) to keep him occuppied so he wouldn't go into his e-mails.
Mike, like Rebecca, doesn't handle things like this well. Elaine's in her group session, as soon as she finishes that, Wally will ask to speak to her and explain to her that the news is out and she needs to tell Mike. Whenever she's reached some reasonable point with that, she'll call me and at that point I will go from angry to breaking down.
I can't do that with Rebecca. She'll start crying, I'll cry more, it just won't work. That's why I told Elaine back in July. It wasn't anything against Rebecca (who is my best friend, along with Elaine, of so many decades), it's just that she can't handle the news and also my breaking down. The news has already been hard enough for her.
And thank you for that ___ and 'peace' organization because it's not like we didn't have a full schedule all day and all night. Or that we don't tomorrow.
There's a half-assed snapshot that goes up when Wally nods to me indicating he's talking to Elaine. I didn't want Mike to find out about this online. It's a half-assed snapshot but it's the best I could manage today. Thanks to ____. And the peace 'organization.'
Seems to me when you're a 'peace' organization and this ___ goes down, you're not saying, "I've forwarded your e-mail."
You're addressing the damn situation.
That organization is not being noted again.
Not for any reason.
That isn't to whine, "They hurt my feelings!" I haven't had time to be personally hurt yet. I've had to focus on meetings where we discussed Iraq and war resisters after I had the joy of breaking the news to my kids over the phone.
So the plan was we'd be home on Saturday. My kids were flying in and would be there then as well. We'd have a little bit of fun and I'd begin easing them into the latest news slowly. For me, that meant Sunday night. They had to leave Tuesday morning, this would give them all time to have a little bit of hopefully fun memories as well as time to be upset (with the results, with me, with whatever) and that was how I planned to break what was my personal news.
But they didn't get it like that. Instead they had to hear it over the phone. And for that I cry.
And there is no apology, there is no excuse that that woman or that organization can ever offer me that will take back those phone calls.
It was my news and it was my choice when to break it to my children. Until a pushy ___ wanting to start something had to decide that she'd post about me online.
Until today, I never wrote her. Sometime late today, after I first learned the news, I e-mailed her asking her to please take it down. Though she's gotten my e-mail forwarded from the 'organization' and though she's gotten my e-mail to her, she's refused to do either.
In those moments when I was first learning what was up online, all I could think was, "If it goes down, I won't have to tell all the kids. I'll just tell ___ and explain that we'll tell his brother and sister on Sunday."
That's all I could think of.
____ never wrote back. I'm sure she'll have some lovely blog post painting herself yet again as the victim tomorrow.
I'm not the victim in this. My kids are.
And for that, I will never forgive that ___.
It wasn't her business.
Had she not represented herself as the spokesperson for the 'peace' organization, no one would have read her after she started e-mailing non-stop. Had she said, "I'm posting these e-mails," we would have complained to the 'organization' earlier.
But she wanted to start something because her own life's so damn pathetic. Well congratulations to you. Because of you, three children had to learn that their mother (their only parent, I am a widow) has cancer again.
I will never forgive her for that. I will never forget that my children had to hear that over the phone. Had to hear it cold with no easing into.
I know how they handled their father's death. I hate that woman.
I will not note her organization -- an organization that doesn't deserve to be noted anyway.
They're gone from the links.
They think she's a, quote, "well respected volunteer." She is gutter trash.
They think telling me "I've already replied to your e-mail" (they hadn't, they'd replied to an e-mail Dona wrote and we both signed our e-mails) and saying, "I hope this can be worked out" and "I've forwarded your e-mail" to ___ makes them anything other than gutter trash. They are mistaken. They are gutter trash as well.
Gutter trash was why my daughter was crying on the phone.
There is no excuse for what happened.
There is no, "Oh, I'm/we're sorry, didn't realize you had cancer." If you google you should find "cancer scare" or "health scare" up here very often. There is no, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize posting about your medical checkups was a problem."
There is no out for what happened. There is no excuse for it.
My children deserved better.
Especially if you think I'm asshole (and you could be right), you should grasp that my children deserved better.
But thanks to ____ and the 'organization,' they didn't get that, now did they?
If you read the snapshot, you'll see that what it all boiled down to was ____ didn't like Robin Long being said to be extradited. She never likes anything. Which is why, before the coward ran to Canada (cowards are people who leave a country due to who the ruler is instead of fighting -- cowards are not war resisters whose very resistance makes a difference), she had to write one letter after another to the editor of the New York Times over and over which Dona says ___ denies at her site. Dumb ass, NYT is online now. Their archives are online for those who pay or subscribe to the paper. Plus, you really got a repuation at the paper because you couldn't stop writing.
Jim's summary of members' e-mails is that everyone's worried. Don't be. Whatever happens happens. However, don't assume something bad has happened if I don't post tomorrow morning. When Elaine and I are on the phone, I will fall apart. And I can't promise that I will be posting tomorrow morning. I would like to. I hope to. But I had planned to deal with my own feelings after I broke the news to my children. Which I did today -- not by choice. But the plan was to focus on them first. Now it's out there. At another site. (Which few read. Dona says the bulk of the comment's at ___'s site are from ___ herself as she tries to stir her five or six readers up.) And that isn't something that I was prepared for, even me, notorious for always planning for the worst.
Repeating, call me stupid, insult me, I don't care. And I'm not even going to argue that point with you. I won't even read what you write.
But that's not what happened. Someone thought she could post my medical information at her site to attack me (even though I'd never written her) to try to get a little attention to her pathetic life. And there's no comeback for that, there's no excuse.
There are three children who had to hear the news over the phone because of ___'s actions. There is no excuse for that. There will never be an excuse for that.
For any drive-bys who are pleased with news, have at it. It was never planned to be noted here. For any who think this will become the cancer site or that I will go 'soft,' you're wrong. Especially on the latter. I knew/feared what was coming before the tests. I don't go soft. I'll fall apart on the phone tonight with Elaine. But we'll remain the same site we were before ____ decided to hurt my children and, yes, that is how I will always see what she did and, no, there is no excuse in the world for it.
Seven hours ago, I e-mailed ____. She didn't have the guts to e-mail me back. The Coward who destroyed my children tonight, doesn't have the guts. She'll no doubt invent some lovely little excuse for herself tomorrow at her site. Maybe she's offer an apology of how she just didn't realize what was and wasn't acceptable. Maybe she'll justify exposing my health with the claim that I wronged her. (Again, I never wrote one word about her here until this post and she's alluded to in the snapshot that's not up yet.) Maybe she'll claim she didn't check her e-mail for seven hours?
To buy that ___, you'd have to believe that the organization received my e-mail (and Dona's) and forwarded it (and Dona's) to her without even bothering to call her and say, "Uh, I think there's a problem." Believe that while you believe that Rebecca's response to her, left in a comment at ____'s site, just vanished into thin air.
She knew what she was doing. She is responsible. She's too busy enjoying the pain she's inflicted or she's too much of a Coward to apologize for the harm she's caused. And there's no excuse for it and Wally's just told Elaine so I'm sending the snapshot and posting this.
