Banning

One thing that is sure to get your ass banned from Culture Kitchen is hate speech. Not only is it disgusting and contrary to our policies, but it is also pathetic and labels you as a complete and total loser.

We just had a Nazi anti-Semite come and post some crap about Jews and Jewish conspiracies. Sadly, in the process he used a book that is perfectly innocent of his intolerance yet is too easily used by people with small minds for a purpose its author never intended. The Thirteenth Tribe, by Koestler (a Hungarian who was, like me, a borderline atheist, moderately Zionist Jew). This was a very interesting and speculative book that suggests that the kingdom of the Khazars, the ruling elite of which had converted to Judaism, is one of the origins of Ashkenazi Jews. It is an outdated and largely disproven hypothesis that is nevertheless well worth a read. But narrow-minded Nazi sympathizers use it to claim that Jews do not have ancient roots but are, rather, merely Europeans with no link to the Middle East. The evidence for a Middle Eastern link for Jews is overwhelming, and, in a huge irony, points to a common origin for both Jews and Palestinians. Extremist Jews and extremist Palestinians tend to deny each other's validity, despite this clearly common origin.

But that isn't even my point. My point is, Nazism, racism, anti-Semitism and pretty much every kind of hate speech is nothing but a disgusting sign of deep insecurities. I consider the use of hate speech to be symptomatic of a very small intelligence, a small penis, or some other deep deficiency that a person cannot face up to, so has to create a myth of superiority that requires the denigration of others. A person with a modicum of intelligence and self-confidence can cope with their deficiencies and live happy, productive lives despite whatever problems or handicaps they might have. But some people cannot face the fact that they aren't some kind of super-person, and, in a perpetuation of adolescent self-importance, has to believe that they are always right and anyone who is different from them must be sub-human.

Over the past year and a half, Liza's little blog empire has been growing remarkably. Daily Gotham really took off thanks to several highly contentious Brooklyn issues (development issues, arson issues, race issues, and some particularly divisive primaries). For me it was a pretty dizzying rise that included quite a few heated exchanges between the DG editors/writers and other bloggers, political organizations and partisans of particular campaigns. At the end of it, we were credited with (perhaps given TOO much credit) defeating a Congressional candidate who raised $1.8 million and had assumed he would win as the only white candidate in a majority black district where the black vote was split among several black candidates. At the end of it we also had earned the respect of many who at first hated us. The president of one local club we took on who coined the phrase "I'd rather be flogged than blogged" after we took her club to task for disenfranchising a large group of new members recently welcomed me onto the board of the same club. Gatemouth, a local NYC blogger who really slammed us at first, wound up having us as his defenders when he was attacked. One State Senator we have slammed claims to be a loyal reader.

So, somehow, and I really am somewhat clueless how we did it, we became noticed on DG in a very short period of time. Put another way, we were successful.

During that whole time I spent far more time on DG than Culture Kitchen. But Liza asked me to be a managing editor for CK. Since then, through the efforts of Liza and the editors, CK has been growing as well. And has been noticed.

Use the comments section to add any questions you think we should FAQ you.