Dear Santa and Dear John Crawford Letter

Dear Santa,

Please let John Crawford read my letter.

Lady Elizabeth Wistar

 

Dear John Crawford,

Please stop bullying people on your Sierra Madre Tattler blog. I am not a professional blogger. My blog is NOT my life. I do not spend twelve (16?) hours a day on it. I am impressed by your dedication. You really have to give up your life for something like this. I wish that your goal was genuinely to serve for the betterment of Sierra Madre and to provide a venue for political discussion, but your treatment of the Matheson situation shows that this is not the case. I think you started out with good intentions, but somewhere along the way you got lost. You care more about hits for your blog than you do about fellow Sierra Madreans. The worst part is that you WANT there to be more than one child pornography sicko in our town. Not only do you want there to be another one, you want there to be a whole ring of them. How can you want this for Sierra Madre? How can this be good? How many more children do you want to have been hurt? Do you want the number of hits your site would get from your article to be greater than or equal to the number of kids hurt in a child pornography ring?

You are ruining other people's lives by what you are doing on your blog. And if you are not ruining their lives, you are slowly chipping away at them. I hope you are not smiling when I say that. It is nothing to smile about. Is a cyberbullying blog really what you want to be known for? Is that the legacy you want to leave behind? Someday your kids are going to be old enough to understand what you are writing and what you are doing. They are going to fully grasp the intention of your blog, and they will wonder, "Why didn't my dad use his blog for the power of good?" What if one of your kids was Joe Mosca? How would you feel reading the Tattler? How would your mother feel if she were Toni Moran reading what you write about Josh Moran? It is very apparent you hate realtors, but are you going to begrudge a working single mother of four her livelihood that helped put her kids through the same school that your kids go to? What if your wife was Teri Buchanan? Sickened by the snickering that goes on in the audience at City Hall DURING city council meetings, and the altogether unproductive smearing of John Buchanan.

Besides, don't you miss life? I have only had this blog for a few days, and I'm exhausted. And I'm doing it half-heartedly, posting my readers’ comments only twice - maybe three times per day. My partner said, "I don't like the new blogger person you've become. Stop looking at the computer. Come and live life." I've seen you at t-ball games staring the whole time at your phone frantically clicking away at it. Are the Tattlers really more important than your own kids? Can't you put your phone down for one inning? I am guessing that your kids are out of school for winter break, why aren't you playing with them?  Why aren't you showing them what this season is for? You mentioned to me through your blog that you are married. I was shocked to hear this. I thought for sure that you were divorced simply because of the fact that you work on your blog so many hours of your life. Don't you miss your wife? Doesn't she miss you? Don't you want to enjoy Sierra Madre in person for all that it is rather than bashing it on your computer screen through your blog?

John Crawford, I extend an offer to join me on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/LadyElizabethWistar

I will welcome your comments and input, residents of Sierra Madre will know who is posting what, and that's where I will now be focusing my efforts. (BTW, for your readers who are trying to shut down my Facebook page: Facebook is worried that computer programs or machines are spamming people on their site - not that a Lady Elizabeth Wistar movement is spreading on its platform. Facebook knows that I am a human and not a machine, so in the spirit of the season, I wanted to let you and your readers know not to waste their time trying to shut down my FB page and miss out on this fleeting and magical time of year.) May you find peace and joy with your family in the coming week.

Please stop the bullying. I truly believe you can be a better person, John Crawford.

Sincerely,

Lady Elizabeth Wistar

John Crawford of Sierra Madre Tattler: I think he is a Cyberbully

The city of Sierra Madre has been rocked by the Matheson story. It is a tragic story in and of itself, but John Crawford has made it just that much more tragic by creating additional victims using his cyberbullying techniques.

John Crawford through the Sierra Madre Tattler is trying to link Matheson to the former mayor and two current city councilmen. People who try to defend the former mayor and the current councilmen are mocked, comments not posted, or then "linked" to the pornographer as well. The blog author claims he is offering a venue for political discourse, but I think he is actively taking part in cyberbullying, encouraging cyberbullying, and enabling other cyberbullies. These are techniques I think he uses:

- Misinforming - John Crawford's Sierra Madre Tattler includes contextually inaccurate reporting, lying, lying by omission, and repeating of rumors.

- Magnifying - John Crawford's Sierra Madre Tattler finds the smallest error and takes the most negative spin and magnifies it to become the whole story - damaging a victim's reputation.

- Using passive aggression - John Crawford's Sierra Madre Tattler appears not to be aggressive but uses passive means to be antagonistic and hostile. John Crawford posts anonymously on his own blog and multiple newspapers. He has a sympathetic ear at the Pasadena Star News who he has been feeding information.

- Creating an audience - John Crawford's Sierra Madre Tattler builds an entourage of followers to incite.

- Persisting - John Crawford's Sierra Madre Tattler is constantly digging at rather than fighting one-off battles.

- Using sarcasm - John Crawford's Sierra Madre Tattler uses sarcasm to humiliate and belittle.

- Being sneaky - John Crawford's Sierra Madre Tattler uses behind the back politicking to ensure a supportive audience when bullying more openly with less risk of exposure.

- Dividing and conquering - John Crawford's Sierra Madre Tattler uses a strategy of "you are with me or with him." You are either with me or a child pornographer. You are either with me or you are a defender of a child pornographer. John Crawford makes the supporters of bullying victims feel fearful of openly supporting the victim. He sends the message, "There is no way you can support Joe Mosca, John Buchanan, Josh Moran, or Nancy Walsh unless you are a supporter of child pornography or a child pornographer yourself."

- Aiding and abetting - John Crawford's Sierra Madre Tattler encourages anonymous attacks, and hides/supports their identity, and lack of responsibility.

I am going to take a stand against cyberbullying by pulling down the wisteriawonderland YouTube link of John Crawford. It was acerbic, and I should not have provided a link to it. I am going to make the transition to Facebook where anonymous posting is impossible, and it forces people to have real courage to attach their names to their comments. And I will take suggestions from the audience regarding anti-cyberbullying techniques because I am being genuine in my real desire to stop cyberbullying.


Cheers to taking a stand against cyberbullying! Happy Hanukkah!

New Class at Sierra Madre City College

This just listed on the Sierra Madre Patch: (http://sierramadre.patch.com/events/website-analytics-how-to-accurately-report-the-number-of-people-reading-your-blog)
 

Lady Elizabeth Wistar will be teaching a class at the Sierra Madre City College on website analytics. It does involve math, but she will take small steps so everyone can follow. Here are some of the topics that will be covered:

 -       The number of hits on a website does not equal the number of unique visitors. This basic topic will be used to address such claims as, “Already over 2,200 hits on today's post. What is that, 1 out of every 4 Sierra Madre residents?” The short answer is, “No.”

-       Definition of a “Hit” (from Wikipedia) – “The number of hits received by a website is frequently cited to assert its popularity, but this number is extremely misleading and dramatically over-estimates popularity.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics

-       In addition, “modern” (as in post-1989) web design elements will highlight why including a counter on a website is so 1990s.

-       How every time a person refreshes a website it counts not only as one hit, but as multiple hits counted for every file on that page.

-       The ethics of using the number of hits your blog receives to inflate your data (which might lead to a falsely inflated ego)

Lady Elizabeth will show that even though her blog has received a bazillion hits, this means NOTHING.

For those who want a more advanced class, you can attend the class on Geolocation offered early in 2012. The course description is as follows:

-IP geolocation sometimes referred to as geotargeting. This is used to trace comments on a blog to a specific address. It’s very easy to do, and can be used to track slanderous remarks about an individual. These files are quite easy to hack into, and blog commenters should be made aware how easily this information can be used against them in a court of law.

Rainbows and Unicorns

Somebody asked me if I can promise rainbows and unicorns 24/7. Here is my answer:

Sometimes the world doesn't give me both rain AND sun. Sometimes it's just sun, in which case I head over to the Sierra Madre Pool. What a great amenity the City provides for us! (I read on The Tattler that they want to cut the Parks and Recreation Department. Please don't, City of Sierra Madre. What would I do with my days when there is only sun?)

Other days the world provides me with only rain. Those are the days that I like to go to the Sierra Madre Library. Another great Sierra Madre treasure! (The Tattlers REALLY want to cut the library budget. Please don't, City of Sierra Madre. What would I do with my days when there is only rain?)

Only Dallas Raines knows if there is going to be the magical combination of both sun and rain to make rainbows over our beautiful mountains. I heart Dallas Raines! (Dallas Raines' son took full advantage of both the pool and the rec center. I am pretty sure he would be really sad if the Parks and Rec budget were slashed. Don't know that for a fact, so I'll have to ask him...)

As for unicorns? I'll see what I can do about that. I like little projects like that :)

Post Away!

I have made several comments on The Tattler that John Crawford does not post. I believe that his form of censorship leads his readers to believe that all the commenters agree with him and gives the Tattlers a false sense of numbers and sway. This is neither fair nor ethical. Nor is it becoming of a knight -- or a Sierra Madrean for that matter.

Please post some insightful comments on The Sierra Madre Tattler's site that might be of a different opinion of the Tattlers, or praising someone that the site is slandering... or is just funny.

Try to post I LOVE JOHN BUCHANAN and see if John Crawford puts it up. Tell a nice story about Josh Moran. Or maybe compose an ode to Nancy Walsh and attempt to post it. Try to disparage MaryAnn MacGillivray, and my guess is, it wont get posted.

To be fair, please give John Crawford at least a few hours or maybe even a day or so to post it. Note the time and date of when you posted it and detail how long you waited for it to be posted. (Take a screenshot if you can.) I know he must be working really hard to "moderate" the comments he disagrees with and keep them off his blog.

Please mind your manners, refrain from belittling language, and try to create something positive for Sierra Madre.

When John Crawford inevitably does not post your comment, please post it here under the comments.

I feel the Tattler squeezes out any joy there is in serving Sierra Madre. It is an acrid misery urn (appropriate anagram of Sir Eric Maundry) into which John Crawford allows people to dump all sorts of maliciously polluted water. Well, the solution to pollution is dilution! Let's inundate him with happiness and affirmations of love for our city and the things that our city officials are doing right.

BTW, have you seen www.sierramadretattler.com? Brilliant.


Thanks and happy posting.


Lady Elizabeth Wistar