This blog is dedicated to the memory of David Weintraub, who took on insidious astroturfers and won.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Annette Appollo: Death by Internet

Her name was Annette Appollo. She was a beautiful person inside and out. It appears that last December she took her life. One of the themes currently circulating is that the internet is having disturbing effects on individual bloggers. People like Von Brunn who last year shot up the Holocaust Museum and the Pentagon Shooter, J. Patrick Bedell, are two recent examples of folks going over the edge based on what they have read on the net. Perhaps Joseph Stack, the man who flew a plane into an IRS buiding, also got his emotions cranked up by a perverted zeitgeist. Annette didn't strike out at the world, however, like those cowards. And I'm in no way condoning suicide. It is still a form of violence. Nonetheless, Annette Appollo in her infinite wisdom did not physically hurt anyone else. I do believe a big part of the reason she killed herself was because of her sour experiences as a blogger at a disinfo website called Democratic Underground.

Let's first nail down why we can assume she probably took her own life.

annetteappollo.com

She made her last entry on December 15th, 2009. It was titled Last Words. She wrote about what George Carlin had wanted on his tombstone.


...Right after the table of contents, and just before Hendra’s introduction, there is this small statement:

It says “Gee, he was here a moment ago.” And underneath it, in parentheses, the words “(What George wanted on his tombstone – if he’d had one.)”

Annette then wrote a bit about Meatloaf, a rocker she had admired. She described how he was facing his own mortality, e.g. with his fading voice and body not measuring up like it once did to the task of putting on great shows. He mentioned after one of his exhausting gigs at age 59, “I tried. I tried.”

Annette finished her entry with the following, including a photo exemplifying her vivacious good looks and smile.

Of the two quotes, between Carlin and Meat Loaf, two of my rapidly-disappearing list of heroes, one is very funny and lighthearted, and the other, I think, is the best thing anyone could ever say about his or her life:

I tried. I tried.


Category: Love, Absolutely | Comments Off

Word of her death first appeared on December 28th, 2009, less than two weeks later. Do the math. I mean, it's safe to say based on her last blog entry and the time period around which she left this material world, she most probably committed suicide.

Here's my theory. I think she had health issues. Perhaps one of the things keeping her going was being perhaps the best blogger at Democratic Underground. Then back in September, she got tired of dealing with all the fake lefties and took a hiatus after a specific, unpleasant interaction with one of them. Later on she would learn that she had been banned. At that point, her blogging career felt over. She had tried her best as Tangerine LaBamba. She probably couldn't stomach trying anew with a fresh username.

Let's go back in time. She had been a prolific poster at DU many years earlier as OldLeftieLawyer. She had also been at the forefront of speaking truth to disinfo during the Jason Leopold "Karl Rove Indicted" nonsense.

DU had a 20+ page thread devoted to that. Leopold used to cowrite articles with Larisa Alexandrovna at Raw Story. He is now a thoroughly, disgraced loser. He was a member of what AnonymousArmy of Daily Kos referred to as the Lefty Liars Club, which also included Brad Friedman, Larisa, and Larry Johnson. Annette knew from the start that Leopold's bullshite story of Rove being indicted simply had no legs. Here's the link to the first page of that thread. You can get to following pages by scrolling down to the last post on each page. Annette as OldLeftieLawyer first showed up on page two and immediately got right into the faces of the disinfo crowd and their useful idiots. She did not suffer fools. In short, if we had been the same age and knew each other, I would have courted the fock out of her.

Official Truthout/Leopold/Rove Indictment Thead #1
(from page 2)
Y'all need to calm down and face reality

There is no indictment.

No one knows anything.

Fitzgerald's office doesn't leak.

The Leopold article was fiction.

There is no indictment.

There may never be an indictment of Karl Rove.

Carry on, but try to stay within the boundaries of reality. The colors are prettier here.

A little over a month later after having splashed cold water on the Leopold sycophants, Annette was banned. I tracked down the thread in which this happened. Nowhere had she written anything meriting this to have happened. DU scrubs and prunes a lot. They do that, because people get unfairly banned there all the time. Their only option is to delete many posts and subthreads and replace them with generic messages scolding the disruptors to reread the rules. Otherwise, they'd have no deniable plausibility about being an unfair forum. People would be able to see that folks do indeed get banned for no good reason.

If people research Annette's posts as both OldLeftieLawyer and Tangerine LaBamba, they will notice a few things. She was constantly being called a freeper troll with sock puppets. They will observe that her posts made a lot of sense. They will become aware that the "bloggers" who went after her never added up and were themselves the actual freeper trolls, sock puppets, or useful idiots. Here's one example from that thread. (posted by the troll Cooley Hurd)

Actually, I smelled it long before, but this was the tipper for me...

link

"I missed the Alito discussion. I did, however, manage to comfort Mrs. Alito when she broke down in tears, but that was just because she was in the next stall, and asked me if I had five ones for a five."



Ding dong, the witch is dead!

Cooley Hurd was trying to spin Appollo as having been an admirer of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. But in actuality, he had taken her comment way out of context. She was responding to the question, Where does this rank on the all-time "Hope Springs Eternal" DU issues? By chance or design, Cooley Hurd had selected an example of Annette's alleged trollness from one of the Leopold threads. Hmmm. Alito had been referenced. Here was Annette's full response.

Thanks a lot for reminding me

Kerry. Ohio. 2004. Talk about crashing. Never was there a bigger buzzkill than Kerry's caving. Well, maybe when Gore failed to ask for a statewide recount in Florida. We'll never know.

I missed the Alito discussion. I did, however, manage to comfort Mrs. Alito when she broke down in tears, but that was just because she was in the next stall, and asked me if I had five ones for a five.

You're not missing a thing, my friend. I can assure you of that.

This one ranks - I tend to go literary, but I'm old - with the Gerd Heidemann claim that he'd found "Hitler's Diaries".

I'll give one more example of how Annette Appollo would get spun as a disruptor troll, when she was actually kicking around a tomato can in debate.

Share your food with someone who is hungry and off to jail you go

She had found it ironic that Food Not Bombs, "want the government to provide "more food security," but they refuse to adhere to the local health codes." She was simply stating the truth. Perhaps she could have used a bit more tact and not referred to them as self-involved idiots. However, so what? Leftier-than-thou [/trademark Big Al Giordano from a DFQ2 appearance] or right woos left bloggers, paid or otherwise, never miss an opportunity to pigeon-hole sincere, feisty bloggers such as Annette, yours truly, and many others as being blog wreckers.

There is a disinfo website called Progressive Independent. It is run by a self-professed lefty named Tinoire who used to work for military intelligence. Yeah, that adds up. NOT!!! Anyway, someone named gnochi started a thread at PI calling out Annette for her posts on the Food Not Bombs thread. She wrote, Tangerine LaBamba calls hunger activists "self involved idiots." And another one goes in the permanent 'stupid asshole' box... I'm not saying these guys always have the best ideas, but having a puffed-up couch potato like TLB call real activists "self involved" was a bit too much to swallow.

Annette Appollo showed up at PI and responded.

What a name like "gnocchi,"
I have this odd feeling that everything looks like puffed up food to you. Even though you have never met her, have never even spoken with her, still, you are intolerant of her opinion because it doesn't happen to match yours.

What an enlightened liberated little potato dumpling you must be! So if someone doesn't agree with you, you call them names - but from a distance. You find a place far removed from DU so that you can be brave.

Listen, you cute little weenie, your opinion is valid and so is mine. There's a thing called "liberalism" - you may have heard of it;

But, for what you did here, what others did here, you're a bunch of cowards, too afraid to take on another DUer who happened not to agree with you;

People like you are the perfect reason for the falling apart of the Democratic Party - you not only don't know what it stands for, you're a narrow-minded little coward, much more suited to being a keyboard commando

And just as worthless.

Then another creepy blogger came up with this bullshite:

TlaB is the self-involved idiot, just read their #1 post as linked below. The brainwashed choir of supposedly anti-war people over there just love a good war story, never-mind that they fully support the illegal war in Afghanistan.
link

Here was Annette's response to that. She hardly sounded like she supported either of our current illegal wars.

Good call -
Not a mention of what we're doing to our kids now, how many more young girls will welcome home their playmates in metal boxes, wearing gloves because their hands are gone, or the pants filled with inflatable plastic bags because the legs are gone?

Or the metal box closed and sealed becase the face is gone?

How many Iraqi mothers lamented their dead children? We have such a nice, neat term for them -- collateral damage. It's so CLEAN, that phrase. Like something you'd wipe off a dusty desk or into a white handkerchief.

Now we'll do it even worse in Afghanistan. We'll welcome our soldiers home in their metal boxes, but no one will have the heart to tell the grieving family that "your child died for nothing."

Just like McChrystal made Pat Tillmann his glory boy, his recruiting tool, now he'll make our sons and daughters, our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters his little toy soldiers, and when they get slaughtered, he'll just reach into the box and get some more.

After all, it's only his game, and they're only pieces in the game. They're not people - they're parts and they're so replaceable, aren't they?

I hope McChrystal and McNamara have a lot to talk about when they finally meet up in Helll...........................

I believe the internet was the final dagger in Annette Appollo's spirit. Like I said before, I think she had health issues. I think being on the internet helped her get through tough days, that even though her body may have been starting to let her down, her mind was still as crisp as a cucumber. I believe she had simply run out of energy to continue kicking around the fake leftosphere. She had become a legend as OldLeftieLawyer. Ditto as Tangerine LaBamba. I think she finally lost the desire to persist at the one thing keeping her going, being a blogger. Think of athletes. At some point they are forced to retire and find something else to do with their lives. I believe Annette simply gave up. I refer to this as death by internet, the same thing that afflicted James Von Brunn, J. Patrick Bedell, and Theresa Duncan. Those posts made at PI were written two days after her Last Words entry at AnnetteAppollo.com. Think about that.

Annette must have experienced similar emotions to those Dave Weintraub did back in early 2009. These were beautiful people who had put their hearts and souls into blogging only to have been shat on by some of the lowest forms of humans in the world. No, their verbal abusers aren't mass murderers. They aren't rapists nor child abusers. Nonetheless, the people who attacked them are sadistic, sociopathic, good for nothing, self-serving creeps, paid or of the useful idiot variety. They are whom Robert Altemeyer refers to as folks afflicted with authoritarian personalities. In other words, those are the fockers who form the bedrock for the roots of fascism, an idea previously and brilliantly explored by the great thinker Wilhelm Reich in The Mass Psychology of Fascism.

We can know for sure that Appollo was also OldLeftieLawyer. In July of 2009, she provided some circumstantial evidence for that, after Leopold reemerged with a new article ironically involving again cretin Karl Rove. Here's what Annette as Tangerine LaBamba had to offer.

Jason Leopold -
I see that name, and I read no further.

The notion that that fellow is still "reporting" is unfortunate. He made his reputation, and he'll never live it down, not as far as I'm concerned.

The idea that he's once again reporting on Rove is laughable, given his breathtaking stories about the secret indictment of Rove and the "working hours" Rove had to turn himself in and the secret meetings at a downtown DC law firm - all made up. Just another chapter in Leopold's shameful employment history.

The guy's a stone liar, and can never be believed....................

Let's wrap this up by going back to the original thread written at DU passing along word that Annette had died. A troll named Greenbriar cross-posted an Appollo entry made at a dive called the Conservative Cave. Here's an excerpt.

...I was disruptive because I told the truth and cut through their nonsense. They operated on "feelings." believing all the silliness Will Pitt and Jason Leopold put out about the impending arrest of Karl Rove. Those posts were so silly, and when it was pointed out to them, the crowds with the pitchforks and torches grew ugly, and attacked the truthteller.

What a bunch of clowns. You may be all screwed up politically, but I did laugh a lot when I saw your candidates for Top Primitive of 2009. I've been Tombstoned, but I hope I'm still a viable candidate, although, possessing a finely functioning brain, I fear I'll lose out to so many other, better qualified candidates.

In the meantime, I can only commend you on your diligence, perusing DU to the point where you can quote lost-ago posts and threads. For that, though, I would recommend something perhaps a bit avant-garde, since you seem like such nice people.

I would urge you to get away from your keyboards and monitors and get a real life. You'll have a lot more, and you'll learn a lot more, and life will just expand in the most beautiful way for all of you.

Thanks again for all the smiles and laughs, and the best of luck to all of you.

Tangerine LaBamba
(not, alas, Gloria Swanson)

One can read through that Democratic Underground thread and notice a number of things. For one, a bunch of trolls were all over the place speaking badly of the dead. A fake sister even showed up trying to make Annette look bad. Here's my tinfoil again. I believe many usernames are paid trolls. I can't give a number or percentage. It's a feeling I have. One of them goes by the name of bettyellen. She was talking a lot of trash about someone who had just passed away. She was saying Annette was a troll who used sock puppets; That the death was all an act. Thankfully, a bunch of good people stepped forward with the truth. One of them is named Shakespeare.

You don't know WTF you're talking about. I KNEW Annette.
I left DU some time ago, but when I got wind of TLB's passing, I came over here to see what was being said.

And then my mind got blown when I clicked on the Amazon link to her book, because I saw her real name for the first time and realized that I knew Annette going back about 15 years, and never knew that she was posting here as OLL and then as TLB. I'm still doing a mental double-take trying to get my head around the small-worldness of that coincidence.

I've been debating whether to post in this thread, but the gravedancers and shit-talkers finally got the best of me (which tells me my initial decision to leave DU was, indeed, the correct one). So here I am, and this is what I have to say about Annette, and how I knew her.

Back in 1994, there was a small, insular and very good writers group on AOL; this was back before AOL was a behemoth, when it still created interesting and productive communities, including the hard-to-find-if-you-didn't-know-about-it Writers Cafe.

Annette was a member of that group, as was I, and as were several other writers and academics. It's how I met my eventual mentor and dear friend, the late Ed Vega (if you don't know who he is, read about him here: link). Annette was as funny and acerbic back then as she was here, and always extremely covetous of her privacy and her real-world identity. I was a newspaper reporter for years with a published byline, so I was rather more jaded about that, and have always been more open about who I am. But I digress.

Annette and Ed had a brief and fiery relationship about 10 years ago that did not end well, and I didn't hear from her after that ended--I suppose because she assumed (wrongly) that I'd take Ed's side or believe whatever vitriol he spewed about her, because, boy, was he a piece of work, too. He and Annette were more alike than either of them would have liked to admit, and it's probably what doomed their friendship.

Annette certainly knew who I was here (I now realize), and I'm both fascinated and sad that she never revealed herself to me here. We had an ongoing PM correspondence for years, and I could never quite figure out why she held such affection for me in that correspondence. And now I know. Wherever that great soul is resting, I'm sure she's laughing her ass off at me now about the mindbender revelation I'm having.

For those of you who were on the receiving end of her verbal volleys, I can understand why you'd remember her unkindly, but I assure you she was a much more complex (and good) person than anybody could ever know through this very limited virtual medium. Don't assume that you even begin to know the real Annette based strictly on what you read here. Her tall tales were true, she was a writer (and a good one), and one of the more interesting people I've ever interacted with, online or otherwise.

And with that, I'm off into the ether again.

Annette Appollo was a real person. She was published. She was a true liberal. She was too good for the fake crap that goes on at places like DU and Daily Kos. Period!

Shakespeare's post had been in response to bettyellen having written,
oooh here;s the new sockpuppet here to sell that treacly, and very poorly recieved book

best seller my ass. never wrote under that name again...... no shit who would let her?

Bettyellen is probably a paid troll. I'm sorry. There's no other explanation, imho, for what I've seen going on at DU and other websites. People cannot be that irrational and stupid. I know it's possible. Why does DU allow people like that to remain on their forum? Who in their right mind would ever donate money to that shitfest palace? I'm thinking disinfo fockers willing to pay for the enhanced likelihood of being allowed to remain. That's a successful minting press DU has established. Say you want to spread a certain form of disinfo, of let's say the Lefty Liars Club variety? You could create sock puppet regiments and donate from each of the accounts. You could then manufacture any kind of astroturfing campaign you wanted to. Say you want the world to feel that Michael Connell was threatened by Karl Rove, despite there being no evidence. All "they" need to do is create the illusion that it's probable. Then they go after anyone who calls them out on their bullshite. They then provoke their detractors into saying things against the so-called rules. They then inform moderators in their back pockets to bring out the scrub brush and banhammer. That's how it works.

A friend of Annette's posted a few personal photos of her. Annette gave each one a name. This was "Girl Talk."



This last one I'll put up was "Wine in the Rockies." This is the one that captured my heart. She was a hottie. Outside looks aren't everything, but this photo shows that she was indeed a looker. There's also nothing more attractive than a highly intelligent, liberal woman. That she was. Rest in peace, Annette Appollo.




(related reading or print it out for toilet paper:
Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators By Jason Leopold)

45 comments:

carrie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Larry said...

If anyone commits suicide because of things they read on the net, they ALREADY had a pre-existing mental illness. I dont see how anyone can refute that.

If you can blame the net, then you also have to blame movies, rock music, TV, newspapers and books. If you think the internet is so evil Socrates, then shut down your blog. Ahhhh, no, you wont do that, will you? No, of course not.

By the way, Joe Stack was a Democrat.

Tokyo Shemp said...

The first post was deleted due to excessive use of curse words. I will copy and paste it with those bleeped out. Also, I will not tolerate hate speech. No one has a right to post here saying things like they wish I had died with Annette Appollo, and that she rots in hell.


"carrie" wrote: Well, *******, how fitting that annette died when Rove's book came out. It's too bad she didn't live to see Rove write in his own book, yesterday, you stupid ****, that Fitzgerald did indict him and did give him "24 business hours." Buy the book you stupid, stupid ****** bag. The only tragedy here is that you did not die with her. turns out she was the one who was WRONG! And we all hope she rots in hell.


That is total disinformation. Fitzgerald did not indict Karl Rove. I also suggest that nobody buy this book. Hey "carrie," just curious, have you ever heard of Harrison Shepard? Ha!

Rove Recounts Tussles With Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
By Leah Nylen | March 9, 2010

(excerpts)Rove would ultimately appear before the grand jury five times before Fitzgerald decided not to indict him. According to Rove, his fourth appearance before the grand jury, on Oct. 14, 2005, was particularly brutal....

After the October grand jury testimony, Fitzgerald called Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, and said they were leaning towards an indictment, Rove wrote. Luskin arranged to fly to Chicago to talk with Fitzgerald about the case and urged the prosecutor to consult with others in the Justice Department. In particular, Luskin recommended Fitzgerald talk to David Margolis, the DOJ’s highest-ranking career official and a 45-year veteran of the department. Fitzgerald eventually decided against contacting Margolis, Rove wrote, but agreed to bring in two other lawyers in the Chicago U.S. attorney’s office who had previously been uninvolved with the case to re-examine his thinking.

In an epic five-hour meeting, Luskin and Fitzgerald hashed out the various aspects of the case against the White House adviser. At the meeting, Fitzgerald said he was bothered by Rove’s non-recollection of the conversation with Cooper. If Rove did not remember the conversation with Cooper, Fitzgerald asked, why did he ask his aides in January 2004 to go through his phone records and notes to find any evidence of contact with Cooper? Luskin had the surprising answer, Rove wrote. The lawyer had learned from a friend who worked at Time that Cooper told colleagues he had spoken with Rove about Plame. Luskin then asked Rove to find any records that might confirm the conversation took place.

“Luskin’s revelation stunned Fitzgerald,” Rove wrote. “‘You rocked my world,’ Fitzgerald told Luskin. The special prosecutor’s intention going into the meeting had been to indict me. Now he didn’t know what he would do.”

Days later, Fitzgerald called Luskin to say he would not indict Rove. When his lawyer called with the news, Rove said he was both relieved and angry....


(continued)

Tokyo Shemp said...

Anyone curious about my reference to Harrison Shepard, check out these links! You can right click to open up separate windows.

BREAKIN WIND: TO: Lauria Needs To Prove Rove Isn't Indicted

UPDATED 5x (getting serious) Jason Leopold thinks I'm ugly

SHATTERED: TO: Rove Still Indicted, Thanks to Us

Anonymous Army prempts article and outs himself as DOD-DIA employee

The funny thing about that last one is that Larisa and Leopold took AA's email address ip and reversed it leading to a DoD address. It was a similar mistake I almost made, because I had a moderator who works in the computer industry, and he convinced me it was possible to do.

Could Carrie be none other than Jason Leopold? It seems like a distinct possibility.

Someone shows up out of the blue sounding like Jason has in the past. Hmmm. It's like maybe Leopold was googling his name, found this entry, and decided to return to infamous days covered a bunch in those links. Who else would be so adamant and this quick to the punch to try to make it seem Rove had truly been indicted?

Hey, I admit I have no solid proof "carrie" is Jason, though it crossed my mind pretty darn quickly as a possiblity.

What you the good readers need to keep in mind is that I make no money at blogging, while Lefty Liar Club members have been running around the net for many years spreading unsubstantiated hogwash making the left look bad. p:>

Tokyo Shemp said...

Larry, I don't think Annette was mentally ill. I do believe the other three were in addition to Theresa Duncan.

Is everything an ideological battle in your view? Theresa Duncan was clearly a lefty. Brunn was a wingnut, despite the fact that he had neocons on his list of targets. Bedell was a libertarian type. While one might consider me a liberal, I am actually a proud, peacenik socialist. If Stack was a registered Democrat, so what? We're talking Texas, dude.

Man, you need to lighten up. Things aren't always so cut and dried. Heck, Obama may be registered Democrat, but I consider him Republican-lite. There is a spectrum. Here in Massachusetts, Brown has been making a few smart moves by not checking yes on every Republican issue. I don't like his politics in general, but I wouldn't argue he's as wingnutty as say Strom Thurmond was.

I see your general point. It's like video games or heavy metal or anything said to have potential to bring out the worst in people. The internet has turned into a definite problem. For most of us, we won't be driven over any edge by it.

Geez, I just attacked a whole "Democratic" website. Ok, say you had bad health. Say one of the only things bringing you pleasure was watching baseball. Say there was a lockout and then somehow the whole thing was wiped out. Couldn't you see yourself in that way perhaps giving up on life? That's what I think happened with Annette. Just replace baseball with blogging. Yes, the internet in some cases has become the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back. Hopefully this isn't a new trend. But it's not looking too good right now.

Larry said...

" Couldn't you see yourself in that way perhaps giving up on life?"

NO. I was living before the internet was here and believe it or not, I actually survived.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I'm done with you, Larry. I deleted your last post, because I don't have time to waste on your frat boy antics. You're not wanted here.

Anonymous said...

This is a lot like the Duncan case...sharp witted woman who rubbed some the wrong way...VERY divided posthumous opinion about her, it is eerie.

I was wondering if you ever saw any evidence that Old Lefty Lawyer ever interacted with or opposed Andy Stephenson? I am wondering in general what drew the ire of someone who would go so far as to pretend to be a sister (the account of how Annette felt about her dad is clearly wrong as a quick look at her blog reveals).

Tokyo Shemp said...

Nothing personal Anon, and thanks for the post, but I don't see too many similarities between Appollo and Duncan. Annette was a sociable blogger. Duncan for the most part didn't seem to interact too much with anybody on the net. The one time I found her doing that, she seemed abrasive and out of her elements. Annette, on the other hand, seemed to have made quite a number of friends. Unfortunately, the trolls were set on driving her off of DU, her blogging home.

If you know donkeytale, I see Appollo as having been the female version. If you're nice to them and listen and try your best to make sense, then it's a respectful dialogue. But if you're gonna post crap, they'll call you on it. I stand by my contention that places like DU and DKos are rigged fight clubs. Annette didn't deserve to be banned. I saw no proof. While I saw plenty of proof that trolls like bettyellen should be kicked to the curb. Same thing happened with me, TruthIsAll, Kathy Dopp, and many others at DU. Unfair banishment. Yet, Larisa Alexandrovna is still allowed to post there. That says it all. I captured screenshot proof that she's a troll. Same thing happened to DFQ at Daily Kos. Unfair treatment. Not American.

The big difference, I think, is that Duncan was clearly deluded, while Appollo seemed very grounded in reality.

Maybe both shared a common sense of personal failure, no matter how misplaced the notions. Duncan did all right for herself. Instead of accepting some defeats, she went conspiracy freak style and produced explanations for those perceived failures. Appollo seemed to have accepted she'd tried her best. That's why I go with the health issues theory combined with a sour ending to her DU experience.

She was obviously run off of DU for confronting the joke that is Jason Leopold. I see Appollo as simply having been unwilling to suffer fools, while Duncan turned into one. Appollo seems to have gone a Hemingway route, feeling she had nothing left in the tank. Duncan, wow, she really messed up. She had her soul mate. She had so much to live for. I think she was hallucinating most of the time. Maybe there was more to her drug use than strong weed and alcohol. And I'm not trying to spit on her grave. It is what it is.

I see your point about there having been conflicting public opinion over their reputations. Yet, I sincerely feel those are lopsided debates. The stuff put out on Duncan was pure convolution- twisted talk of alternative reality games, crap ideas being promoted by Constantine and Wells. The people going after Appollo have also had zilch for credibility. I won't hold my breath waiting for one to make any sense.

I'll do some googling and try to see if OldLeftieLawyer ever got involved with Stephenson or Wells threads at DU. That would be interesting. I admit I pretty much only know about her what was presented in this blog entry. I do remember seeing her entry on her Dad, so that is a good point. I agree. That could have been a run of the mill freeper troll pranking the thread. I feel in my gut no way that was her sister. As a day or whatever has passed, I definitely feel this blog got a visit from Leopold. That's my opinion. Anyway, that was some of the easiest troll bashing I've ever done. Karl Rove was never indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald.

As for Larry, this is the post he just left, which I deleted:

How many times now have you said youre done with me? 15? 20?

And yet you keep ******* talking to me.

Why??

You delete my posts because Joseph Goebbels was your hero. You love Nazism, it's clear.


Here's the post he left before that one that got deleted:

Now the day I stop getting erections when I see a great set of tits, I might consider suicide.


Larry, have a nice life. I gave you more than enough chances to make posts here. You are permanently banned. Anything you post will be deleted as soon as I see it.

Anti-social trolls are not welcomed on this blog.

Anonymous said...

You sort of demonstrated my point, what the two have in common is a lot of posthumous characterizations by people who did not know them. I don't think many people read Duncan's blog. I don't think, in all due respect, you did either. There is no mention of ARGs on her website at all. That was one of the posthumous interpretations. Some blogs came up that were clearly fan sites, like this one:

http://thewitcontinuum.wordpress.com/

or another one called "Children of the Staircase".

Or Raymond Doherty's site, defending Duncan agains the characterization by Kate Coe.

The main difference is that Duncan blogged and did not interact on the net, or at least not with a usernmae we know (she was a reader at RI...did she post there?) while Annette apparently interacted a lot. But both have been viciously attacked after the fact by people who did not know them.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Ok Anon, you're completely right. That was a Hello McFly moment.

Yes, all these people showed up after the fact, probably never even read either of them while they were alive, and basically became the internet stereotypes of "voyeurs and stalkers." [/donkeytale styled projection alert]

I'd never heard of either of them. I knew DaveFromQueens for less than a week. I showed up long after the zeitgeist party platter had turned to mold. I hit the archives, when it became apparent the joint needed to be aired out.

I've tried not to speak badly of the dead. Hitler? Sure, he stunk the world up bad. But even there, Wilhelm Reich explained it that it's the masses who form the bedrock of totalitarianism. It's too easy to blame it all on a few bad people. But that's a definite digression.

I thought most of the stuff on Duncan was tasteful, except for the obvious, tinfoil rubbish. I saw nothing wrong with Coe's piece, nor with the way Duncan's friend retorted that she had gotten the story wrong. It took a village of ideas to make sense out of those senseless deaths. Nonetheless, the crazier stuff shouldn't have been blogged. The asshat who spoke of args, recently he blogged that Coe is some crazy lady posting at RI. Coe seems to have a good head on her shoulders. In regards to her getting unfairly smeared, welcome to my world, sweetie. I won't give a link to that dude's website. Those people are nuts, whether paid or crazy. I'm not paid. I might have a bit of the good crazy in me. But the difference is I have never created convolution. Or there is that phrase, I don't go looking for trouble, it finds me. I admit I can be bold with my blogging. Isn't that the point, to express ourselves? The blogosphere needs more Annette Appollos to keep people grounded in reality, where she described it as prettier. Maybe someday she and I can chug some of that wine in the Rockie Mountains of Heaven. 'Cause that's where she is. Chillin with Morgan Freeman. [/Bruce Almighty]

(continued after these commercial messages)

Tokyo Shemp said...

I don't think Duncan blogged at Wells' forum. But what one can do is go back in time to DU and see how it wouldn't have been too outrageous to like his angle. Andy Stephenson too. These people were not only zeitgeist producers, they had the aura of being the majority!

Of course we now know that was all an illusion. Jason Leopold and his wicked witch Larisa have had their big meltdowns. What was pushed out in 2005 is no longer viable.

Perhaps the shite being dumped on Duncan and Appollo is akin to what Fitzgerald called the throwing up of dirt to confuse the umpire. I didn't check into these people, because I am a voyeur. I did so because they ended up in the final position of having no chance to defend themselves.

I googled a bit. I found Appollo on some of the same threads as Wells but without the two interacting.

That's how Wells, Stephenson, Leopold, Friedman, Alexandrovna, and many others rose to the top of the zeitgeist. They'd make sure to make a lot of appearances on real issues. The sane people probably totally missed the tinfoil stuff they were pumping out. I used to be a BradBlogger. I drank that kool-aid. I thought, wow, citizen journalism, mighty mouse theme song time. When you're close to that limelight and feeling part of something bigger than oneself and on the road to helping make it a better world, that false sense of glitter and meaning can obfuscate what's really going on.

It was really a sophisticated operation. It's the same kind of thing that has insulated Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. There's no other way to explain why Keith Olbermann is still posting there. He just must not be aware of who Kos truly is, an admirer of the CIA who has covered up the truth about historic death squads in El Salvador.

I think I came close to figuring out Annette Appollo in a a short amount of time. But back to one of your questions, here's a google search link of DU with the terms OldLeftieLawyer + Andy Stephenson. Maybe there's something in there. If you hit cache, then the terms get highlighted. A lot of this cybersleuthing is easier than juggling.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Ok, here's my take on Annette Appollo's awareness of the manipulated zeitgeist.

I think she was unaware of the extensive network that has been tied together. She had an inkling of it but perhaps chalked it up more to human nature.

I'll give the analogy of Dave Weintraub. It wasn't until his last year or two, when that crowd got in his face and drove him off of Daily Kos, that he took the time to cybersleuth the snot out of them. I got in a post or two at his DFQ website before he passed away. I told him about Larisa Alexandrovna, as I think he was linking to her Raw Story website.

This is what Dave said. He told me he didn't know about what I was saying, but that he'd allow me to explain my finds. That's all one can ask of anyone, a chance to tell their side of the story.

I was led to Dave by AnonymousArmy or perhaps his roommate named Number5. I still am not sure if they are one and the same. I had gotten in email contact with Number5, because he had fixed my Daily Kos tags in diaries I wrote as Prepostericity. Larisa and Fingerit (MajorFlaw) had trolled me pretty bad. That's some of my backstory to how I ended up on soapblox (DKos associated forums).

Ok, I saw one post by Annette discussing the trolling going on concerning Andy's surgical procedure. She wrote how it was human nature for people to create drama. She said if she wanted that in her life, she could watch soap operas. I saw another post of hers asking Bev Harris for her donation money back. I saw another thread in which DU owner Skinner wrote that Andy was having his surgery. He mentioned that there was a difference between people outright trolling and those asking legitimate questions. Annette praised the DU people for their efforts at helping him.

I simply don't think Annette knew how connected all the zeitgeist players have been. What she did notice was Jason Leopold being an outright fraud.

Daily Kos member exposes Jason Leopold as a sockpuppet

All these egos, backed up by nothing

All these faceless twits with keyboards, trying to be something they're not.

All the people who sadly put their faith in them.

All these rumormongerers who haven't a clue.

What a dreadful waste of time and energy.....

What indictment?

No one knows anything.

I think these people need a time out and a nap.

Maybe some nice hot chocolate later, and then solitary confinement for a couple of months, except, of course, for the daily visits from Nunzilla.


And here's the link to that DKos thread.

Jason Leopold, Sockpuppet Extraordinaire

Leopold, Alexandrovna, Friedman, Larry Johnson, and many more were tied to the hip. That's why my tinfoil radar went off thinking they could all be part of some sophisticated scam to corrupt democratic processes on the net. Alexandrovna would later come out and claim I am AnonymousArmy, troubleinwinter, and others. That's how the zeitgeist does it. They are astroturfers. They produce fake grassroots. Now what exactly the purposes are for, I don't know. Calling them self-serving grifters isn't that much of a stretch. Calling them cointelpro, while it's very possible, think Hal Turner, there's simply no outright proof of that. Nonetheless, there is plenty of stuff out there exposing these fockers. Those are the pockets of awareness.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Alright, I'm on page three of the big DU Leopold thread. Ben Burch showed up.

You know what is gonna be FUNNY?

The silence from all of the nay-sayers when we find out that Leopold was correct.

I have some inside communications on this matter, and the TO folks still believe that this was an honest scoop.


Annette responded:

Yeah, yeah, we know

Your insider information is probably incredible, and I, for one, am breathless with admiration for your special status.

An honest scoop?

More like a bent ice cream scoop.

Now, can you - or Leopold - say "triangulation"? Hard to respect a "journalist" who doesn't know how to do legwork.

But, rest assured, your "insider information" is dazzling. Just the announcement of it has caused the villagers to run into the streets. There is much gnashing of teeth, moaning, rending of garments, and they're probably going to light the torches at sundown - all in your honor.

heh heh heh

Thanks for the laugh.



You see, Ben Burch was close friends with Andy Stephenson. Ben runs something called The White Rose Society. He archives Lefty Liars Club radio shows. Andy used to do work with Brad Friedman's and the Speedway Bomber's Velvet Revolution.

Earlier in the thread, maybe page two, it was shown that Larry Johnson, Wayne Madsen, and even Joseph Wilson were confirming the Leopold story.

Brad has plugged Ben and Jason. Larisa has been buddies with Kimberlin, Johnson, Brad, Andy, and others. Jeff Wells and Andy Stephenson were close. I know part of my problem has been that all this name dropping can be too much for newbies and fence sitters. However, it isn't too difficult for anyone to see what I have seen. This is probably why Larisa has trolled me so ferociously along with Jeff Wells and others doing the same. These fockers are desperate that my stuff be ridiculed and thus ignored, because my honest take has exposed and utterly destroyed their schticks.

The problem is the rabbit hole goes down extremely far. There's tons of stuff on Burch for example. I covered a bunch of that at my Aircraft Wings forum. But now I can hear some groans out there in the blogosphere. As in, wtf is a Ben Burch?

To paraphrase Muhammad Ali, "I'm on top of the zeitgeit world. I'm a bad man!"

Anonymous said...

Her last few blog posts were affecting....."I tried. I tried."

And the tribute to her father. I'm 59 too. Where did the years go? What did I do with them?

Tragicly, depressingly wasteful seems to be the way of the online documented life.

"Back away from your computers and find a real life before its too late!"

The Christmas season blues grow more powerful with each passing season. I felt it this year more than ever, with my mom's passing a few years ago, the heartache of some bad personal decisions growing stronger, the sense that it is too late to start over again.

The Amerikkkan way is that its never too late to start over. And the Amerikkkan way itself will not be repeated.

Then my daughter announced the week after Thanksgiving that she was having a baby.....and its a girl!

The circle will be unbroken...

Tokyo Shemp said...

Your post hit the spot and rubbed it out. p:>

Life is bittersweet, donkeytale. Yup, you definitely gave yourself away in this one.

Those are darn good points you made in a lot less words than I need to to say the same things. I sometimes wonder if you end up taking as much time as I do to fix roughdrafts of posts. If you ever see a bunch of typos and wrongly spelled words, then you know that's a post I hit the enter button pretty quickly.

Regret. The song My Way perhaps says it all. I'll take the King's version over Frankie Boy's any day, but I'll try to avoid Digression City.

Maybe Annette suffered from some seasonal disorder syndrome at the end. I think it was more likely she lacked even one decent forum to go to in which to vent proper. Isn't that what's keeping us going as bloggers? The hope that the whiteysphere circle will indeed be broken?

Annette's only option was to go to a conservative dive to spill her guts about Democratic Underground. Think about that. People like us have been able to go to MLW, FSZ and then Pffugeecamp to do the same in regards to our bad experiences with DKos (yourself even had Booman Tribune). All three let us down. Eric S. is another bloke who went through the same process. Thankfully he has a clear head on his shoulders and likewise a beautiful family and appears to be getting on just fine without the internet.

Perhaps our regrets have much to do with an aching feeling we have wasted a lot of time. I don't think we have. We probably could've both written a book or two instead. That could still be done.

Congratulations on the granddaughter. There's always a reason to be happy and feel blessed, if we only get over the human nature to feel regret.

Donkeybird, take these broken flutter wings and learn to fly. You were only waiting for this moment to arise....


For anyone interested, here are some links to that conservative dive Annette showed up to as T LaBamba.

Official ballot for Top Primitive of 2009

love letter to Gloria Swanson

Tokyo Shemp said...

I'm skimming through that first Conservative Cave link. I love pure meta. Annette denied being Old Leftie Lawyer. But I stand by my claim they were one and the same. One can google "Annette Appollo attorney" and see she fits the description.

I think since she was into remaining anonymous as an internet blogger, she was trying her best to cover up that internet crumb.

I'll also give credit to both Annette and those conservative buggers for staying civil with one another and coming up with a decent thread.

Sherlock said...

Being from Sheandoah, a one mile square town, you basically know everyone, or the family!
What Yearbook is Annette Appollo's sister in?
What is the sister's name?
Frackville has a year book too.
four year's of High School and not a thing about the sister!

Tokyo Shemp said...

Ok, I responded to you on another post before reading this one. I take it that you have a yearbook with Annette in it, that you knew her at least in an informal way. This is interesting. Ok, this is cool. We know Annette grew up in Shenadoah. The person claiming to be Annette's sister in January said she's 69. I guess you could try to check out yearbooks fitting that age if available. Here's the big post Wabansia made. Perhaps you could fact check it. My hunch is this person is a fake, and thus it boggles the mind who and why such efforts would have been made to try to make Annette seem unhinged. Perhaps with a name like Sherlock, you are the right man for the job to figure out the story behind the story. Please let us know if you figure it out. Sometimes internet cybersleuthing can only take one so far. But you have access to primary sources. Thanks for posting.

Anonymous said...

Just curious as to how this website keeps going if my "Big Sis", I was her "Lil Sis", by nickname and, as she's written over the years, "If we could pick our family, you'd be mine" is dead?

I have her address and her phone numbers. We lost touch a while back when I couldn't be there for her in a time of dire need but she knows I know that we'll always be in tune.

If she's truly dead, then I guess I must change my POA?

If she's alive, she knows how to get in touch with her "little sister".

Tokyo Shemp said...

I have no clue what that last post means.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Ok, I think I understand. You're an old friend of Annette's who you lost contact with. I'm very sorry, but it appears Annette did die. I'm sorry you learned of this in such an alienating way.

I think a friend of Annette's has control of her website. Since there was personal info on it, I think that person deleted the entries.

As for why that person linked to my place, I can only guess it's because he or she felt I did honour to Annette's internet experience. I had never heard of her or her blogging at Democratic Underground until I made this entry.

I'm what is referred to as an amateur cybersleuth. I am pretty good at pouring through archives and sussing things out. I'm not 100% sure of what happened to Annette at the end, but this is how it seems to have occurred. She had serious health issues. The internet was one of the things keeping her going. Then she got abused by the one forum she had dedicated so much of her time to. From what I've seen, she was a wonderful person, very smart, compassionate, devoted to social justice, and extremely clever. She didn't suffer fools. She didn't deserve to be banned. Democratic Underground has very corrupt moderators. The people she easily beat in debate appear to have inside power at DU, and they had her banned. The same kind of thing happened to activist Dave Weintraub at Daily Kos.

Anonymous said...

Did you ever actually know Annette?

I find it interesting that sooo many people know sooo much, when they never met her??? I knew Annette for over 40 years, sick gal. Her sister's posts were right on.

I can't comprehend why she killed herself, she was weird, but I never expected this.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Thanks for showing your true colours, anonymous troll. It doesn't say much for your character to be slandering someone who's dead and can't refute your lies. One can only imagine how you'll respond when you're on your deathbed in a lot of pain. You'll be dealing with the self-awareness of being a bad person with no time to make amends. You have no proof to justify bad-mouthing Annette Appollo. Nothing. Just like that person who claimed to be her sister. That was probably you.

cigarboxbeads said...

just found this through a friend. i did know annette--she did post as oldleftielawyer- was ts-ed and came back on DU with other names, but finally settled on Tangerine.

as soon as i saw the first post by tangerine labamba, i emailed annette and said - 'you're tangerine, right?' -- her response to me---'betwatty ( one of her names for me) however did you know?')

annette was one of a kind, someone i somehow connected with because of our coal region beginnings- and stayed connected with. she was a brilliant person, great writer, who did not suffer fools gladly.

she had her 'issues' as many of us do -and i think the pain and desperation finally got to her.

i emailed admins at DU at least 3 times, asking them to remove the posts from 'wabansia', as degrading to the memory of annette- but it was not done.

'wabansia' was apparently her sister, or her brother in law--who i've been on-line acquainted with for quite a while--they held hate in their hearts for probably 30 years- knew nothing about annette's recent life and could only post hateful family issues- making annette's death seem trite.

annette tried to keep a low profile from her sister--not wanting her to 'find her'---annette shut down the comments section of her blog, because of her sister and brother in law, but, still, deep down inside, loved her sister and missed her...very conflicted.....and who was a very, very different type person from annette, and family issues always stick in the craw at times of death, etc.

annette needs to be remembered in the way that very bright,knowledgable people are remembered, with thanks that they were here with us for as long as possible- to make us think and not be afraid to speak up when we think it's needed.

( i'm also wondering if some commenters here have had issues with annette, and can't let it go- but that is and will always be their problem)

Tokyo Shemp said...

Hi cigarboxbeads,

Sorry for your loss. I am an impartial observer who learned about Annette after she passed on. She was definitely a good read.

Democratic Underground is simply bizarre. I don't get why any regular people give them money. They probably get a check cut for them regardless by the DLC's Public Relations Department. Skinner has been directly tied to the DLC by a degree of one separation. He's been on their payroll for years.

DU deletes things that shouldn't be. Say like when Will Pitt or Larisa Alexandrovna expose themselves as frauds. Then when something disgusting is posted about a regular person (Annette) as you pointed out, they leave it up. DU is controlled by very creepy people.

I'm not sure if you've heard of the infamous KosKops from Daily Kos, but their ringleader (Michael Fingerit) used to moderate at DU.

When the Michael Connell murdered by Karl Rove hoax got circulated by Jason Leopold's friends, I started a solid thread in the DU election integrity section calling them out. In a forum with next to no readers, mine had over 5,000 views, close to 100 posts, and was growing. Just because it was starting to look embarrassing for Larisa Alexandrovna and Brad Friedman, the whole thing got scrubbed, even from caches. Yet unsubstantiated slander (I guess libel) against a dead person, one who had no internet or political operative business, is allowed to remain.

I then went to DKOS and was banned from there for also no good reason. Michael Fingerit (MajorFlaw) and Larisa Alexandrovna got me banned. Fingerit is now well-known for having set up a vigilante moderating group called the UGOGs, which reported directly to top DKOS administrators. He had gone after blogging legend and real life Democratic activist David Weintraub (Davefromqueens/DFQ), because Dave had done great work exposing Sean Hannity.

I think a lot of the people that went after Annette are associated with a disinfo racket. It's kind of nerdy and pitiful that top "progressive" forums are run this way. I'm sure some run fof the mill sadists like the sister exist. But I think Annette was also getting some payback from the Leopold affiliated crowd, those consisting of grifters and disinfo writers. They control the moderating at DU. They have authoritarian personalities in regards to promoting a certain zeitgeist. I think they pump a lot of money into DU, in regards to who ends up with those gold star "donation" icons.

I guess this is what donkeytale means when he says I fight conspiracy theory with conspiracy theory. But it's the truth. I'm about to post a new diary showing yet again how undemocratic these forums truly are. Democratic Underground is definitely one of the worst.

To repeat, maybe some of her internet enemies were run of the mill sadistic freaks with too much time on their hands. But I also think Annette stepped on too many of the wrong toes such as with Jason Leopold, the sock puppet king who claimed Rove had been indicted. Annette certainly didn't suffer fools like him. Those buggers control DU and DKos, and that's why most good people have left those blogs.

Unknown said...

Hi, I run the server where Annette's website was hosted. I linked here because it seemed to tell her story for people seeking information.

I don't doubt that the person who posted is her sister. While I never met the woman, the sister sent many many abusive and insulting emails/blog comments to Annette over at least the last ten years.

It's even sadder that she would choose to spend her remaining time hunting down references to Annette and posting hurtful things.

Annette repeatedly requested my assistance to filter the email and blog comments from her sister - at one point we started blocking all traffic from an entire ISP.

The Annette I knew was a smart, funny, generous lady. I know she'd had health concerns and had spent a lot of time in the hospital over the last few years. I think that really wore her out and put her in a depressed state.

I'll miss her.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Hi Zinger,

I'm sorry you lost your friend.

I'm also sorry both you and Annette had to deal with her sister trolling on you. Sometimes things happen in the heat of the moment, fine, but when it goes on for a continued period of time, that fits the definition of cyberstalking.

Thanks for linking to this blog. I had never heard of Annette as Tangerine La Bamba until a few months ago. As I have had no dog in the hunt, what I came up with can be seen as objective. She did nothing to warrant getting banned. Democratic Underground has an unfair fight club. Annette didn't even cross any line in that way, imho. She wasn't a troll. Funny strange how the person who got banned for plagiarism was allowed back in, yet Annette was one on a now long list of people banned for no good reason.

The thing about her sister. I don't doubt that her side of the family works for Halliburton. However, I don't believe any of the other things she wrote. It sounded like sour grapes. It sounded like someone with extreme anti-social personality traits, the opposite of Annette. She's lucky she wasn't charged with a crime, since if the person trolling Annette's blog was her sister, she could have been arrested. Cyberstalking doesn't always involve high school bullies taunting someone on My Space. It can happen to adults.

That DU would allow those nasty comments to remain says it all about their website. When Will Pitt had his infamous meltdowns, he was able to get his spewage deleted. Yet, there are Wabansia's comments spitting on someone's grave still there at that fake lefty forum.

I don't believe it was just Annette's sister who was trolling her. I believe Annette had been too effective in trollbusting, whether it was Jason Leopold or the anonymous usernames such as Betty Ellen or that plagiarist I alluded to before among others. That name has slipped my memory. Anyway, that's why she got banned. DU's zietgeist is dominated by intellectual frauds. When the trolls can't beat you in debate, they get you banned.

Annette was around my Mom's age. She and my Mom would have been buddies, old-school liberals who devoted their lives to making this a better America.

My Mom had it tough her last years fighting disease too. The truth is we all have to leave at some point, and both of them don't have to endure any more pain.

I think you did the right thing deleting her blog. It seems like she wanted her personal life separate from her DU blogging. Before you pulled it, I did get to read a bit. There were pictures of her granddaughter. Obviously Annette lived a full life with much love and accomplishments. People can still check her out as Oldleftielawyer and Tangerine La Bamba and see for themselves how special her blogging was. I think Annette would have liked it for folks to do that. I doubt she'd be afraid of anything being read written by her that she'd be ashamed of. I found nothing she wrote that was out of line. Not one thing. Take care, and God bless you, your family, and friends.

Anonymous said...

Annette was a sociopath. Very little of what she said about herself was true. Yes, she did have a law degree, but she never had a law practice.

She did have health issues, and suffered a great deal in the last years.

Annette got me, and others, to believe an amazing series of stories about her financial problems. I went to college with her in Maine in 1966. I hadn't seen her since 1968, and found her novel at the Strand Bookstore in NYC. Through that I got in touch with her. We had a lively and daily e-mail relationship for several years. Eventually she told me that she was going to loose her "condominium" and got me to pay her condo fees. I did so for more than two years. I couldn't afford it, and stopped paying in July. Shortly after that I found out that I'd been paying her rent, there are no condominium apartments in that building. She would not have lost her equity. There was none. She had an amazing story that she told me about her investment manager, the investment manager for her phantom law firm, having run off with all of their money, and that the Patriot Act had made it so that the government had blocked all of their bank accounts. Several of her "partners" ran away from the US or killed themselves. It was all so fantastic that I believed her.

She only wrote to me a few times after I told her that I could no longer pay. She sent notes threatening suicide since she had been "foreclosed". In truth she had an eviction notice for non payment of rent, and was due to be evicted shortly after she killed herself. I feel that I kept her alive two more years than she would have lived had I not paid her rent for that period. I did the best I could.

She was a truly wonderful story teller. I miss her.

Gil Cohen

Tokyo Shemp said...

I don't believe "Gil Cohen."

He calls a dead person a sociopath. With no proof, he presents an elaborate smear job on a good person who can't defend herself.

Then he says, "I miss her." Hmmm. "Gil" alleges a sociopath stole money from him, yet he misses her. That's the ticket.

Anonymous said...

I wilingly gave Annette the money, she didn't steal it from me. I call Annette, and any pathological liar a sociopath. I cared a lot about Annette, and she used that.

Tokyo Shemp said...

It's bizarre as others have pointed out about people coming out of the woodwork to smear Annette. It could be one person, her sister, just googling around and making crap up as she goes.

Tokyo Shemp said...

What kind of dirtbag talks trash about the dead, with no proof to boot? Fricken trolls.

buttercup said...

I knew Annette from the Good ol AOL days in the writers chat room too.. met her during the days of her writing her book - The Last One Home.

We became quick friends and shared a lot of laughs..and even a few tears...

She gave me a copy of the final draft to test read. I had her sign it on the red checkered tablecloth over lunch at her nephews restaurant. We had a girl's weekend together and we shopped and talked and laughed..

She was smart and funny, and she was generous. She was complicated and she was simple. She was serious and she was carefree. She was sad and she was happy. She loved and was loved. She lost and she won. She hurt and she healed.

I too, am her "little sister". I know what that earlier entry means.

And my heart is broken reading all of this...

I read this for the first time tonight - searching for her on a thought...and a whim.

she had the best smile.

my heart is so heavy right now.

thank you for standing up for her.

~flora

Tokyo Shemp said...

Hi Flora, I hope you're having a glorious Sunday as I write this.

I didn't really hook into the internet until 2005, around the Plamegate topic. I started posting a bit when Huffington started.

I can only imagine how tough it was for ye who have been on this thing much farther back than that. I mean, I am completely cynical about it. I have given up on it as being a potential vehicle for people to come together and make a difference. At least at the big places. I think Annette's story is a metaphor for what is wrong with the blogosphere. She didn't deserve to be treated like she did at Democratic Underground.

No one can point to this or that and say that's why she was banned.

Thanks for sharing your feelings. There's nothing wrong with that.

She had a pretty full life. Perhaps that can help you to not be as sad. She wouldn't want you to grieve too long.

Look, the internet thing is what it is. Only a fool would think the people going after her were/are legit. They can't pinpoint where Annette allegedly trolled. She made thousands of posts, many quite worthy of one taking the time to read them.

Life can be pretty strange. Western culture seems to not like to discuss death. Other cultures appear to embrace it. I think I'm in between. I don't freak out knowing that at some point I stop breathing and thinking. I mean, what exactly can one do about that? None of us asked to be born.

I think the only people who would have trouble with Annette, if she indeed took her own life, would be hardcore, religious folks. Otherwise, I think it's fair to say that Annette was smart enough to have exhausted every chance to heal, and that she probably made a decision tough to debate. You know, the walk in someone else's shoes analogy is what I'm getting at. Or maybe it's none of our business whether she took her own life or died of illness. For what it's worth, I forgive her if it was the former.

I found nothing wrong with her. I liked looking into what she did as a blogger. Most people don't care about any of us. Flora, the guy I dedicated this forum to, DaveFromQueens, took the same kind of abuse that happened to Annette but was able to get his revenge. This isn't about me. It's about her friends like yourself, and maybe a bit of me, setting the record straight We were in her milieu. If we don't watch out for her forum legacy, then who will?

The mainstream media doesn't care about any of us. They've got theirs. Otherwise, stories like this would be published. What part of the major forums being run immorally isn't a story?

Just look at the Brad Friedman and Brett Kimberlin one. They should be exposed for the confidence players they are. They should be investigated for fraud. Just like Jason Leopold. Just like a lot of people associated with Democratic Underground. The internet's a joke. People like Annette aren't wanted. They're too honest and willing to rock the manipulated, zeitgeist boat. Colbert coined the word truthiness. It applies too much to the internet zeitgeist. It mirrors what's going on in the 'real world'. We tried. We tried.

Tokyo Shemp said...

One clever way I was able to wean myself off of these goofy blogs was to watch classic movies instead of reading stupid threads. I'm fascinated by the pre-code versus Hays Code eras. I see parallels between that censorship with what we experience on the net. If we could remove the fascist characteristics of our society, what a beautiful world this could become.

I think we are goaded into showing our ugly sides. And then before we can figure out the game is rigged, we have been banned and cybersmeared. Dave and Annette just didn't have this info until that process had personally come to fruition. It's the same cycle I experienced. I'm humbly trying to get my idea across that something very fishy is going on with the net and to warn newbies, lurkers, and sincere bloggers to be careful, to mentally prepare themselves for an inevitable letdown.

Anonymous said...

I am crying. I am worn. Annette touched my life only briefly but with the potency of a high grade narcotic. My words are an unfair dull expression of meaningless waste in a world where someone like her can no longer exist. One billion light years from now she will still ripple across the waters of space and time. I am sorry I didn't look for you sooner.

Tokyo Shemp said...

The grieving process can take a variety of time. I was hit hard by this just a few years back in 2006. It's kind of what got me onto the internet for more hours than perhaps I should have been. I was trying to escape from the sadness. It worked too well.

I believe it's true that time heals all. You'll never forget Annette, as I'll never my departed Mom. But they wouldn't want us to mourn for too long. They'd get a kick out of us talking sweet of them, but they'd basically want us to be happy. I know this for a fact.


It's cool that a bunch of Annette's cyber-friends and some from real life stuck up for her. I was just an objective observer at the right place at the right time.

I've always been intrigued about life and death. None of us asked to be born. Now we each are confronted with the sober idea that none of us get out alive, at least our material bodies. Life is both beautiful and mind-boggling.


Annette was feisty, smart, logical, and cute, from what I could see from looking through archives.

Whatever relationship you had with her, think of the experience as a blessing. I loved your imagery of how her spirit will still be making a ripple in the universe henceforth a billion light years.

I'm not sure if this place will be your cup of tea, but you're more than welcomed to join the fray. Blogger.com is where you can come up with a username account. These google blogs do very well with their search engines. I'm also open to the idea of new bloggers writing entries. I figure it really does take a village rather than those crazy, big forums dominated by meanies.

I would have loved to have been on threads with Annette or been close to her in real life. You were fortunate. Try to feel better for Annette. If she could, you know she'd give you a hug right now. She'd probably be asking who the heck am I.

I just noticed she had entered the meta-zeitgeist, same as with Dave Weintraub aka davefromqueens. I liked what I found out about each of them. Thanks for your post. You sound like a good kid. p:>

Charrie314 said...

I'd known Annette for some years starting back in the old AOL writer's Cafe days when the internet was new and we were all amazed how personalities and screen names merged into something magic. Annette was a comet, showing up and blinding everyone. She was never ignored, usually spot on, and took no prisoners. She scared me when I was new and out of my element. But, I caught on, and a couple years later, we were thrown together by circumstances. We got to know one another outside of the internet. I found in her not only the bright intellect that could cow many an internet newbie, but also a generous and staunch friend. I still have the heart paper weight she sent. Still have the pictures of the saturday market she took with her new camera. She sent me her old one. I hope she still had the tiki god kleenex box I sent her one year for xmas (what do you get someone who has everything?). I became ill and dropped out of sight for 3 +years. I went looking for her back in Jan. Her blog had some stuff about George Carlin and Meatloaf (I never knew she loved ML. Made me search for my old CDs). Then, Emails went unanswered. I tried her cell in May - some guy's vm. yeah, she was having some health issues too. And so I googled and found this. For all the negative posts on here - they never knew her. What a woman. I love you Annette. If anybody needs a kleenex, check the tiki god. As for me, maybe I'll pop in some Meatloaf. I give her credit. She always did what she wanted. That woman had balls.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Hi Charrie,

You sound absolutely delightful considering I haven't a clue who you are and wouldn't want you to reveal any of that anyway. Just saying.

Too bad that AOL writer's group thingie shut down. There was a bloke in that with you who had kind words for Annette also.

I am simply a totally objective witness after the fact. The guy running her personal blog thought I did a good job here, and he now has up the photo oi Annette chugging the wine in the Rockies and redirecting to this specific url address.

The one thing I'd say I've got in common with ye is I too like to write. I too expected a lot better ride with the internet.

I definitely saw what you mean about her being quick as a pistol or whatever the most appropriate cliche is. I think sometimes we are taken as being mean, when it's more like we're making good points and it's not our fault truth is on our side.

I mean, look at that Jason Leopold example.Annette was right there at the get-go to say it was a crock of bad stew. Now years later, we got a post added here by someone badmouthing her for having spoken up about the obvious about Jason Leopold's so-called reporting.

I've actually been going back and forth on trying to figure out moderating. I'd definitely rather have cool people like you making posts, and if that means disallowing trolls talking trash about people who are no longer able to defend themselves, then so be it.

So what if Annette was gritty with the words at times. It's not like she was out to hurt anyone. She was attacking messages, not messengers. And if she ever confronted something so immoral as in the case of someone for example plagiarising or arguing idiotic points, I think her response was tough love. It wasn't sadism.

I think you understand the difference. Sure I bet she would be intimidating to anyone new to her style. But I bet she'd give anyone the chance to see a cvonversation through, to clarify, to get over any misconceptions.

Tokyo Shemp said...

My new fad has been watching old movies. You know how some people go gaga over folks from back them, even people who aren't even in their thirties yet. I recently found out about Greta Garbo. Tonight I watched this lady named Louis Brooks. Yesterday, I learned about some dude named Robert Williams. Wow, a month or so ago I was watching Spencer Tracy movies when he was in his twenties and thirties. To cut to the chase, as someone who never knew Annette in real time, I put her up there as a legend. She might not be famous or whatever, but for someone who also got into the internet, I appreciate what she did. She was probably around the age of my Mom. Or maybe she could have been my cool aunt. Or God forbig we could have hung out on some AOL writer's forum or cafes. She was cool. Please forgive me for my indulgence. I feel I'm kind of overstepping my grounds.

If there are more of you out there and you want to take over the rest of this thread, it's all yours. I'll even delete any negative posts made about her. There's been some crazy stuff posted about her, things easily debunked as stupid slander. All because she used logic, humour, and good writing skills to outclass others in debate. You know she must have done something right for all these strange people to come out of the woodwork. What happened to her at DU happened to Dave Weintraub at DKos. They are proof positive that something reeks about those major forums.


Anyway, to repeat, time heals all wounds, and Annette would love you having a good cry over her, but then she'd want you to carry on, laugh, live, do your thing.


I'm guessing her health issues were just way beyond any chance of fighting. My Mom gave it the good fight too, but at some point, the doctors give you the run down. It turns into hospice territory. She was old enough to know the deal.

I was my Mom's cheerleader. But towards the end, a friend of her, kind of a new agey type, she told me that I had to give her my blessings, to take the pressure off, to let her find peace. I think that's what we did here for Annette. She knew friends like you would protect her reputation. She also had to figure that people like me with no dog in the hunt who might look into it would see that she was cool beans and did nothing wrong and in fact made nice contributions to the blogosphere.

It's late, so I'm not going to proofread. I apologise in advance for anything I wrote that doesn't make sense. Take care.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, we're coming up on the anniversry of Annette's death and I found this. Brought back a lot of memories reading this stuff. She was a very, very interesting lady and I still think about her and miss her. After she died I got to 'virtually' meet some of her friends and family members. I'm still in touch with one or two of them even now. Very sad ending for Annette, regardless the type of experience you had with her. She could be so funny, and damn I miss her biting wit. She really didn't take any prisoners. God love you, Killer.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I would have loved blogging with her. She simply ran up against the fake left and health problems. They didn't like her exposing Jason Leopold for being such a numbnut.

The attacks on her never let up. Yeah we need thicker skin etc., but she didn't deserve what was done.

If you don't know about Dave Weintraub, he had a similar bad experience but with the herd over at Daily Kos.

One of them was always making fun of his weight which may have led to his decision to go on a crash diet. His heart couldn't handle it.

There was Francis Holland. I also got unmercifully cybersmeared. Thankfully those people do not represent the true left no matter how much their equivalent on the right blogosphere attempts to spin them as such.

Thanks for the comment.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, Socrates, you are using this woman's death to feel sorry for yourself and "being cybersmeared"?

I have never seen a day go by without you and Ron Bryn whining about your "cybersmearing"... As if you had lost jobs, families, etc based on what some RWNJ's had said about you. You didn't. Whatever losses you had in life occurred WAY before Worthing, etc. Ron Bryn was fired from the Raw Story years and years ago.

You choose to - every single fucking time -- somehow draw your topics back to what the RWNJ's and the "fake left" did to you.

Perpetually victims, and puppets for the RWNJ's to use as ammunition against legitimate left-leaning bloggers.

Seriously, go ONE WEEK without mentioning that you and Ron were "smeared". Go one week writing about things without somehow turning yourselves back into victims and TDPK and Neal Rauhauser into boogeymen.

Re-assess your life. Realize that this woman, like so many other people, had a RICH, FULL life off the internet and chose to end that life.

It has NOTHING to do with you, or your cybersmearing, or Rin Bryanart, or Brett Kimberlin.

She was a REAL PERSON.

You should be, too. Instead of a caricature of yourselves. Look what the looney left and te RWNJ's have turned you into.

Paranoid, schizoeffective professional trolls.

Everything that happens online is ALL ABOUT YOU and Weiner's weiner. LOL

Tokyo Shemp said...

Who the hell are you to speak, one without the balls to even post with a username?

TDPK, as in "The Dread Pirate Kimberlin" phrase used by Hogewash? It's strange how you use a dumbass phrase coined by a Team Breitbart member while running interference for the numbnuts.

Maybe if you identified yourself, I'd give a shite about your opinions. Otherwise, I'm smelling desperation from an anonymous coward, one who is probably part and parcel of the twisted internet ARG which has finally petered out.

Or perhaps you're the Kid Kenoma troll or one of my other cybersmearers from the past. Whatever the case, keep it up and expect to be deleted on sight. You creep.