The Smoking Gun

A Note From the Founder of Barsoom Tork Associates
This page contains some harsh criticism and satire, some of it written to discharge anger. Injustice is not an easy issue to grapple with. The anger turned first to a lingering depression and then to mania. The manic phase is my favorite. That's when I'm most creative.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead


Please visit our newest innovation, Far Out Theater. We have boxcars full of wicked parodies.

Don Rickles Meets Rodney Dangerfield

Far Out Theater

Reflections on a DyingMarch

Mediation Madness

Work in Progress

Tell Me Why


Reading List

Deborah Tannen, The Argument Culture: From Debate to Dialogue

Hyde Tanner, The Taunting Culture: From Insults to Recursion Wars

Sun-Moon Ban'd, The Mimetic Culture: From Boxcars Full of Gibberish to Boxcars Full of Neurotics

S. I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action

Essenem Hayacaca, Anguish in Taunt and Reaction

Barsoom Tork, Eggbert and Me: Two Second-Rate Strands in Search of a Third Braider

Oliver J. Socks, The Man Who Mistook His Life For a Chat

Belarney Z. Bov, The Hamartian Chronicles


FEBRUARY 24, 1999 - Truth and Reconciliation
Truth has a way of coming out. Last summer, a small group of hosts and managers on several VCs mounted a secret E-Mail campaign to get individuals they didn't like banned from other online communities. While there was indirect evidence of such a secret backchannel campaign, and while it was easy to guess who some of the participants were, there was no hard evidence to prove the charge.

Now the truth can be told. Now the public can examine limited portions of the Archives of the Secret E-Mail Cabal. I publish this archive in a spirit of truth and reconciliation. I seek no sanctions against those who collaborated. Rather I call upon the conscience of the community to express their disapproval of the practices of the secret cabal and to call upon them to adopt more civil and appropriate means of handling conflicts and grievances.


Welcome to the Smoking Gun site, home of Utnebury Performance Art and Disinfotainment Network. From time to time, items here will be made available for a limited time for your edutainment and disinfotainment pleasure.


Goes great to the tune of Black Diamond Bay, Dylan - Desire

Up on the stage of Meta,
He bares a pleading for a scheme that is near.
His opus paints a race from
Another cyber space, it looks nothing like here.
And all the notions from his
Recent posts are lighting up the freeze game
He clicks back on his hot list link
Where a note in the Warning room reveals a booted name.
He smiles, ignoring what they say.
As the last meme fails and Meta fades away,
In Utne Cafe.

While the topics quickly open,
The host sneaks out and he looks for help, but can't find anyone.
Oh don't you know there's people out there
Who want to see this Meta repaired, it's lost all its fun.
And as the voice of discord peaks
The host stands firm though he fears he's bought the war.
They pass some notes in a closed chat room
Making up why Meta should be no more.
He makes a call while the others play.
As the posts stay hot in the topics all day
At Utne Cafe.

A hacker plans to get back in, trading
Passwords with a booted fan who works for the press
The place slows down, a post blinks out
The help desk freaks they begin to shout, who's making this mess.
Then the crowd responds from a made up threat as the
Meta host claims we ain't over this yet
While the archive in a background room
Points to a cabal the stressed host's gonna regret
But the rulers say posting email isn't okay
As the bull piles up and the threats fly away
In Utne Cafe.

A patron makes a lurker laugh as he
Pokes a joke in the Meta path of a host hidden post
He clicks to view the offensive lines
Said it's a hoot they look just fine, even better than most
So he goes off line to use the can where he
Does his finest thinking on the man
He flushed the thought of a Meta dump as he
Came up with a master purchase plan,
And T-shirts could even pay the whole way.
If a buy goes down then Meta could stay
On Utne Cafe.

I've got to talk to someone quick but the
Host said go away and kicked the thought out the door
He gave the air of a cavalier and I
Cried crap there's madness here please think about it more
Then the whole thing got distracted and the
Email showed the host lied in posts above
The hacker and the booted patron were
Locked in a chat room linking up the bloody glove
The lurker sees it happen every day
As the lies fall down and the spin burns away
In Utne Cafe.

As the secret slowly leaks the
Host's anxiety really peaks in the conference room
A patron says it's too late now, you can
Erase your posts but I don't know how you'll change any tunes
The patron clicked the hackers link and a
Page came up of a trail from the email crew
He views the lot from a cabal plot where a
Lurker tells him this kind of stuff will never do
He hits return and goes about his day
As the net slows down and respect slips away
In Utne Cafe.

I was sitting home online one night in
Meta aglow from yellow screen light catching up on the news
It seems there was a conflict there
Left nothing but a lot of bad air and host tap dancing shoes
Wondered how the place can stand it then I
Realized patrons were having their fun here
Seems like hostly lies and bootings work
As a way to help make Meta be so dear
And what's really something, no one has to pay
Still I'd like to buy into Meta some day
At Utne Cafe.


Editorial
Problems on Cafe Utne began back in February 1998, when several Utne hosts initiated an unthinking policy of recriminations against selected participants with whom they had personal differences. The policy of recriminations spread like a virus and was fueled by
Martin Booda, a newly appointed Host known for his use of sarcastic barbs and verbal abuse, thinly disguised as humor. Cafe Utne Uber-Host, Kai Hagen, with his characteristic hands-off policy, did nothing to arrest the mindless out-of control behavior of his hand-picked Hosts.

The campaign of recriminations was carried out by a reactionary crowd which attacked and decapitated the leading change agents who had called for systemic reforms -- especially the introduction of a community covenent to prevent and handle disruptions arising from continual low-grade interpersonal and intertribal warfare.

One consequence of the failure to institute systemic reforms was a serious fracturing of the community into open hostilities between the reactionary unthinking elements and the small but ineffective group of deep thinkers led by Dr. Kort, Janet Abbey, Lorelei Kring, and others. Over time, Utne gradually began to lose the contributions of its best thinkers, and devolved into a fractious community that resembled classical patterns of middle school playground squables, with no working mechanism for the resolution of conflict or the mending of tears in the social fabric. In the end, the totalitarian practices of the Cafe management carried the day, but at a high cost. Intelligent patrons quietly voted with their feet, moving on to more enlightened communities, leaving Utne with a reputation of oppressive governance reminiscent of notorious regimes of an earlier time in world history.

This reporter views the Machiavellian practices of the management and hosts of Cafe Utne as ungracious, uncongenial, unseemly, and lacking in human decency. Dr. Kort's legal counsel considered them illegal and actionable. Kort has decided not to sue Hagen and the others in Federal Court, observing that the courts are a poor substitute for education in how to become human. Instead Kort has called for public prayer for the souls of those devastated by the mindless wreckage wrought by the foolish and unthinking actions of Hagen and his followers. May God have mercy on their souls.

What Utne needs is a set of intelligent practices to replace the mindless and childish behavior of Machiavellian hosts who repeatedly shoot from the hip, imposing unjust and foolish sanctions, without hearing, without due process, and without bothering to determine the facts. Now that Utne has decapitated and sanctioned its best thinkers, it will be even more difficult for them to clearly think their way to a better, wiser solution.


Colophon
Barsoom Tork, Music Director.
Setarcos, Apostrophic Dialogue Manager
Toxanna, Pogrom Manager,
Hoarse Minour, Battle Axe Swinger, Judge, Jury and Executioner
Kaibosh, Chief SpinMeister

Today's feature presentation is called Anatomy of an Injustice.

Check out our archives, too. See Common Ground and Betrayal.


Kaibosh Get Angry, sung by Toxanna

Kaibosh get angry,
Kaibosh get mad,
Give Nan the biggest sanction
She's ever had

I want a grave man,
I want a caveman,
Kaibosh show me that you care
Really care for me

OK, OK. Vogon Poetry. Let's try again...

Bye, bye, Miss Jujube Pie,
Took a snapshot with my laptop,
But the laptop was dry,
Them Good Ole Grrrls were playing Scrabble on high,
Singin' This will be the way that I die...
This will be the day that I cry



The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down

Barsoom Tork is my name, and I drove on the Chutney train,
Til so much rivalry came and tore up the tracks again.
In the spring of '98, we were rollin, just trollin for bait.
I took the train to Meta, that hell, it was a time I remember, oh so well.

The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the people were stingin'.
They went
Na,
Na, na, na, na, na,
Blah, blah, buh blah,
Buh blah blah, blah blah

Back with Moonbeam at GTE, and one day she said to me,
"Moulton, quick, come see, a-there goes Phillip K. Lee!"
Now I don't mind choppin' wood, and I don't care if Toxanna's no good.
Just take what ya need and erase the rest,
But they should never have wiped out the very best.

The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the people were stingin'.
They went
Na,
Na, na, na, na, na,
Blah, blah, buh blah,
Buh blah blah, blah blah

Like my father before me, I'm a working man,
And like McDee before me, I took a rebel stand.
Well, he was just pissed off, proud and brave,
But a Kaibosh laid him in his grave,
I swear by the verse below my feet,
You can't raise the Torkel back up when its in defeat.

The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the people were stingin'.
They went
Na,
Na, na, na, na, na,
Blah, blah, buh blah,
Buh blah blah, blah blah



ARTIST: Barsoom Tork
TITLE: You're So Mean


You waltzed into the Cafe
Like you were walking onto a yacht
Your words pretending to be so kind
Your background was apricot
You had one eye on the hotlist
As you watched yourself get caught
And you dreamed you'd be everyone's partner
They'd be your partner, and...

You're so mean
You probably think this post is about you
You're so mean
I'll bet you think this post is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

You rebuked me several months ago
When I was still quite naive
Well, you said that we made such a nasty pair
And that you would never leave
But you threw away the things they loved
And one of them was me
I had some dreams there were clods in the Cafe
Clods in the Cafe, and...

You're so mean
You probably think this post is about you
You're so mean
I'll bet you think this post is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

I had some dreams there were clods in the Cafe
Clods in the Cafe, and...

You're so mean
You probably think this post is about you
You're so mean
I'll bet you think this post is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

Well, I hear you went up to Brainstorms
And your house naturally won
Then you sent darkmail in confidence
To see what total harm could be done
Well, you're left there, reading justinthyme
And when you're not, you're with
Some utneworld spy or the strife of a close friend
Strife of a close friend, and

You're so mean
You probably think this post is about you
You're so mean
I'll bet you think this post is about you
Don't you? Don't you?


All lyrics Copyright 1998 by Barsoom Tork Associates, publishers of Rhyming Back to Jak6Pak.


"It is my own belief that the only power which can resist the power of fear is the power of love. It's a weak thing and a tender thing; men despise and deride it. But I look for the day when... we shall realize that the only lasting and worthwhile solution of our grave and profound problems lies not in the use of power, but in that understanding and compassion without which human life is an intolerable bondage, condemning us all to an existence of violence, misery and fear." --Alan Paton, author of Cry The Beloved Country, 1949.