Mercury Station and Rehash-o-rama

So I was perusing through AstroDispatch today, which I usually avoid doing but am Mercury-stationing bored so I thought "what the hell," when I noticed another astrology blogger had posted about an incident that happened involving me in March.

I'm debating whether to even address this, since I wrote about it at the time, but the tone of the post makes me think I should.

Basically, this blogger claims that I came onto her blog and out of the blue made a "viscous [sic] attack" on one of her "regulars." She claims I made three vicious attacks against this person, actually.

Which just didn't happen.

To read about what did happen (from my perspective), here's the post from March called: Venus in Aries Ain't Wasting No Time

I'm not a regular frequenter of this lady's blog. I was drawn into her larger project AstroDispatch not of my own volition about a year ago. My blog showed up on the feed one day, which brought me into the world of astrology bloggers (of which I was previously ignorant), for good or ill.

Anyway, in her recent post on the incident, this lady is painting me as a rabid, maniacal troll who needed to be shot on sight by her. (hahahaha...Jesus.)

What really happened was that I was cheekily refuting a New Agey statement made by a commenter who was basically claiming that astrology is something only "unenlightened" people would need, and it turned into a pissing match. Common enough scene on the internet, I must say.

The commenter was doing the same thing many people who have adopted this ideology do - repeating idioms they've read somewhere that some guru-type once said. Specifically, the one about how an enlightened person has no need for the astrological birth chart.

What I was doing was defending astrology as a valuable practise and denouncing the B.S. claim that, once reaching that ever-elusive New Age definition of "enlightened," people have no use for it or for the birth chart.

(There's that mix of astrology with New Age beliefs again.)

Now, to me, if I were making such a claim about astrology in an astrology-based forum, I would expect some opposition to my statement. But here is this touchy-feely New Agey vibe where any form of opposition or critique (no matter how outlandish the claim) is met with claims of abuse and harassment.

Ummm...pretty sure one online message board comment does not connote "harassment."

Anyway...

The telling thing I think (as Mercury goes direct in Virgo and conjuncts Saturn) is the lack of details this blogger offered about the incident. She didn't talk about the original comment ("astrology is not for the enlightened"), nor did she give details of what my rebuttal to this comment actually was.

Instead, she just repeats her claim that I viciously attacked one of her regular commenters. Again, that's a pretty namby-pamby definition of "vicious attack" in my books.

I was trained on tribe.net astrology forums which, at that time, had a strong intellectual bent and level of debate, and my comment would be considered extremely tame by the standards set out there.

Now, each blogger is obviously able to set the tone for his/her blog. That's fine. And if my form of critique was not within those standards, that's fine, too.

But to paint me as a vicious troll who came out of nowhere, with no context, and "attacked" someone repeatedly is a little on the ridiculous side to me.

This blogger also doesn't mention that after my initial "pomegranate-sipping" comment, the commenter responded not by defending the argument she was making, but by launching into a four-paragraph, expletive-laden diatribe calling me an unenlightened troll, among other things.

This troll-labelling is a very convenient and often-used method on the internet of deflecting critique. My follow-up comment, rather than being an attack, just pointed this out.

I had no idea the commenter was a regular poster. That really had nothing to do with my comment and still doesn't. Nor was it a personal attack. I was refuting a New Age claim re: astrology that this commenter was making.

But the blogger just lays it out with no real understanding of the incident...and then has her team of yes-people who regularly post comments on her blog pat her on the back about how fantabulous she is and how awesome it is that she slayed that mean, old troll.

Pretty lazy commentary.