More Local Victims

A dificult week, indeed. As a good friend of mine says, "Learn from yesterday, live for today and hope for tomorrow."

This life is not a dress rehearsal - truly live every moment of it, and never miss an opportunity to tell the important people in your life how much they mean to you.

Debbie,

Thanks for the kind words, putting this week in perspective is worth remembering.

For some, myself included, I type and smile, never once writing what I wouldn't say in public. Really.

But I wouldn't dismiss the "hacking" so quickly, that folks come back tells me there is something here.

Something fulfilled.

If this site were all love and ads, I wouldn't waste my time.

Reading/writing varied opinions, arguments, and light-hearted jabbing is not hacking.

(As for the graphic here-- the sideways frown- it seems better suited for a missed lunch date and not the great losses of the past week. A wonderful photo from Fran would have worked well with your last paragraph.)

Kim- Recently, in my blog, I re-printed a poem by Kalidasa that expands on your friends great saying. http://stumbling-towards-enlightenment.blogspot.com/2009/02/ch-ch-ch-changes.html

Debbie,

We write comments like you write headlines. Sarcastic and nasty.

When you start just reporting the facts and actually producing journalism here you'll get a different set of commnetors here. Don't expect to sell many ads or have quite so many hits!

Big difference, MM. I sign my name.

"Refine your journalistic skills or you won't have so many hits!", says the woman who obviously reads every headline and visits frequently.

Let's face it. Many of you are addicts and can't back up your words with actions. If things are so horrible here, grow a spine, back up your words, and stop coming. Otherwise your words sound like the inane mumblings of a heroin addict insisting that his supplier stop selling drugs because they're so bad for him.

We live, we die, the wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round.

I love it all. I felt real emotion from your sad heartfelt post. I laughed at the comment of your sarcastic headlines. (Which are great and yet also make me cringe for those involved...but also remind us of perspective and lightening up.) Baristanet. Its multi-personality... it's brave attempt at something maybe impossible...creative community journalism. And yes, very hard local news recently-

Montclair Mommy,
I'm not presumptious enough to dare speak for the Barista Team...i'm merely offering an opinion. You don't seem to get it. This is a community blog where we engage in the free and open exchange of ideas. Madam Barista and staff provide topics and news bites from the surrounding environs and we react. What are you looking to get our of your visits?

John L. Farrell (aka Iceman)

How dare randomness and coincidence interfere with our celebration of a manufactured holiday! I'm outraged that I feel so powerless! Good thing that writing an overwrought and sentimental post will help put everything right again. Now, if only everyone would just believe everything exactly as I do, the world would be such a better place!

It is so hard to understand the way things play out...I too know of another sad story ( one that I held back from Barista because there was just too much in the news )....My good friend Jefferson Newman, who is a local music performer ( has played at Montclair Center Stage, and many, many benefits ) told me of his sister and husband, who passed away in yet another plane crash.

He was to be a guest on a new show I'm hosting for tv-34 called Montclair Music Connection.

I couldn't believe this news, with all that had happened last week, it was just too much to handle, and report.

But Debbie is So right...it makes one hold a little tighter their loved one's...and to appreciate all the more what we have, and how fast it could be gone.

This forum is like a family..packed with the same kind of relatives we all have..the ones who talk too much, the one's who say cool things, and the one's we only 'see' at Holiday's...But we love them all anyway, would miss them terribly should something happen to them.

Lets respect our Barista family, and all those that come here..we would miss them too should they no longer be part of our group.

It's a time for hugs..not for kicks in the pants.

There was definitely something of Uriah Heep in your post above, Debbie. You're trying way too hard, and too suddenly, to be "umble." Yet while blaming others for simply following in your original wake. That's a ploy no newspaper would dare risk in its own treatment of its readers via its editorials.

And on a week when you can hide behind the unfortunately convenient rationale of an series of tragedies within the local community, no less. Is this sort of teeth-grinding response to your own fairly dedicated posters by way of the Jeff Jarvis playbook too?

If you wish to celebrate the ties that bind us, then you might start by showing greater respect, and understanding, for both your critics and for other posters who hew closer to the "line" you seem to wish them to toe.

This post, unfortunately, is really poorly written. Debbie so badly needs an editor that it's not even funny anymore. No self-respecting editor would have let such drivel get published.

Also, I'm still waiting for my buddy hansmeier to get unbanned but I'm not holding my breath. The owners and moderators of this site have clearly shown over and over again that they simply do not care about the community they have built here.

I don't have much choice in the matter. MWC is a more pathetic place than Baristanet, so I can't take my opinions there. Patch doesn't have a Montclair site (yet?), so I can't go there. The local newspapers do such a terrible job of building online community that it's practically non-existent, so I can't go hang out in their sites.

If only there were a Montclair-specific online community where the owners aren't idiots, the moderators aren't thin-skinned automatons and the list owners aren't narrow-minded twits. If only!

As a relative newcomer to this site, but not to the planet, an observation that we should all b enicer to each other because life is indeed fleeting. The screeching we hear is not so much speaking our truths as it is the tearing of our social fabric. That's my opinion.

Franzschulz or whatever you name is: What's stopping you from building your own blog?

?Ubi vitae communitas, ibi sacra aedes ?: ?Where there is a community, there is a sanctuary?.[A place of refuge or asylum]
Personally, I find no sanctuary in extreme negative dialogue..
Enjoy this beautiful day, people!

Franzschulz,
Here's hoping you can find inner peace today. Your insides must be churning from the hate and your shoulders must be sore from the holding up that giant chip.

Personally, I think it's a hard week of random tragedy for us with so many local connections. I had no ties with any of them except being familiar with the music of two, yet anyone not devoid of empathy has to feel when this many sad things happen at once within a community, and that would hopefully lead to restraint.

Maybe not perfect (that would bring its own criticisms eh?), I think this was thread of overwhelment, meant for the overwhelmed.

The self promotion, critique of the site, and quite frankly what else can you say, fucking jackass trying to hijack it are in this particular thread misplaced at best. I hope going forward they are just ignored.

To all those feeling a loss I wish you at least one thing soon that can make you smile, the hurt and sincerity will not be insulted, but the going on will begin.

debbie, it's a beautiful post and i share your thoughts. thank you.

It's definitely Obama's fault.

Tough crowd. Never let 'em see you sweat. Or cry. It's a beautiful day, enjoy.

Thanks for trying to be positive, Debbie. Takes more guts and effort.

Yes Debbie, you sign your posts and you also post sarcastic nasty headlines and then boohoohoo that the rest of us follow your lead.

And the lurkers come to see what the resident poster have to say in their comments.

You revel in it!

Mont. Mom,

Not sure we follow any lead from the Baristas.

In fact, for some of us, we critique Debbie, et. al. when we find the need (see my first post here regarding the sad face, or cathar's frequent comments).

I think you miss the fun of some our posts and jabs at one another.

But a quick look will often see support and, yes, love directed at folks.

I think Debbie probably took a look at this past week and wrote something heartfelt.

No need to beat her up for that.

JBS - I visited your blog and read the beautiful poem you referenced above. Thank you for pointing me toward it!

baristanet,
many of the regular posters think that they contribute to some sort of draw the site has which is laughable. the truth is that the negative commentators prevent others from both reading the posts and contributing.
there is freedom of speech and there is junk speech, and we all know this site could be so much better.

would i have ever known about the hanged man if i hadn't read about it here? no...
but there was something about learning about it here on this site that stopped me in my tracks. i even went to the park even though i had never been there and wondered which tree and felt sad that there was no evidence of the hanging, no flowers, nothing.

and i was most touched by the posts that day that were from real people, not these people so proud of their little baristanet personalities built on insults and what they think of as smart word-play.

new jersey has some of the most densely populated areas in this country i have read, and ironically, it is difficult to feel a sense of connection with others in just going about one's errands. this site can provide some textural nuances that can fool us into thinking that we are part of a community, but it takes a lot to make this geographical area a warmer place...

i think it can be done, but i think you will have to limit the postings of the raving ego-maniacs...it's like any school class, the loud kids dominate and dumb down the discussion...

I think Debbie is right on the mark, as is prof williams about the heartfelt posts, it seems montclair mom must have had a bad cup of latte' last night. If you could do better, I'm sure we'd love to see it "Montclair mom". By the way,,as usual Cathar missed the point completly, and is a usual a total bummer to read.

There is Freedom of Speech, and then there is Abuse of Freedom of Speech, such as here...

Thanks Kim.

Nice thoughts, Debbie. Too bad that even a thread that pretty much begs for a truce just can't produce one.

It's strange, my wife and I knew none of the people involved in any of the past week's tragedies, but we still feel dumbstruck by it all. So helpless, so sad.

Thanks for this, Debbie.

Wait, did I miss something awful that Debbie said? Because all I got out of that was appreciate what and who you have, live your life, and let's at least try to get along.

Come on, guys. Really. There are some people here who have to come into a perfectly innocent or pleasant discussion and just bring everyone down with their superior intelligence, writing skills, and clever insults. Why all the hating? I'm not someone who follows the whole "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" rule, but I'm most definitely not for "if you don't have anything mean to say, make something up" either.

My heart goes out to everyone who has lost someone in these past weeks.

prof,

We all know that if there had been a video of the hanging that debbie would have posted the link here.

Nothing for 24 hours?

"sheer exhaustion, barely able to keep up with the accumulation of local tragedies ...Worlds have fallen into chaos. Local households are reeling. "

Zoloft is needed! And maybe some one-on-one counseling

this looks good:
Schema Therapy (or more properly, Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy)is an integrative approach to treatment that combines the best aspects of cognitive-behavioral, experiential, interpersonal and psychoanalytic therapies into one unified model. Schema-Focused Therapy has shown remarkable results in helping people to change negative (?maladaptive?) patterns which they have lived with for a long time, even when other methods and efforts they have tried before have been largely unsuccessful.

Debbie, thank goodness you don't live in other parts of the world...high drama!

"finally sheer exhaustion, barely able to keep up with the accumulation of local tragedies ...Worlds have fallen into chaos. Local households are reeling."

I think some zoloft is needed and maybe some one-on-one therapy.

This looks good:
Schema Therapy (or more properly, Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy)is an integrative approach to treatment that combines the best aspects of cognitive-behavioral, experiential, interpersonal and psychoanalytic therapies into one unified model. Schema-Focused Therapy has shown remarkable results in helping people to change negative (?maladaptive?) patterns which they have lived with for a long time, even when other methods and efforts they have tried before have been largely unsuccessful.

I am a builder, not a destroyer. Life is way to short to complain and waste time with folks who are negative. Be positive, love your family and friends. As my friend Mary always said, BE JOYFUL.

Catseye, Well said! Thanks for your post.

i think it can be done, but i think you will have to limit the postings of the raving ego-maniacs...it's like any school class, the loud kids dominate and dumb down the discussion...

Posted by catseye | February 15, 2009 6:49 PM

I'm going to take a bath after reading this because I feel so dirty!

Chickee (Catseye)-- Get a life! Where are you from? West Virginia? Take off the mom jeans and put on some hip huggers!

If anyone would like to watch something positive, I rather liked this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA

Thank you, Debbie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtX8nswnUKU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs