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After five years of lively community conversations, the It’s Your Times site has been retired, but the passion, conviction and conversation continues. The new commenting tools available on tampabay.com make it easier than ever to share your views on local news and events, including features that you’ve asked for.

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Comments

[Change Sux]

I understand remaining fluid. I don't appreciate hanging in a balance. Who stays and who doesn't?

[Allan]

Great. So now, the space limitations on www.tampabay.com will insure everything posted can be dumbed down even more, and nothing remotely resembling some effort to address issues in more than a sound bite fashion will prevail.

Wonderful. Thank you, SPT.

[Allan]

Maybe those overseeing this change ought to read Susan Jacoby's book, "The Age of American Unreason," particularly her chapter in there on the dumbing down of this country by junk thought, which prevails more and more in the media.

But, of course, nothing longer than a sound bite is conventionally read by people who make these decisions.

Sorry for the rational suggestion.

[Allan]

I suppose the philosophy behind this change is, can't allow anything like subtlety, nuance, qualified statements, caveats, and efforts to carefully explain, to be posted.

Additionally, I am also noticing that the sorts of topics on which readers are to post have been increasingly limited to fare which makes it near to impossible to bring up significant issues.

Perhaps, for instance, notions of printing media stories which might enable a reader to actually post significantly on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, or, for example, the irrationalism and unreason and factsless and evidenceless bases for the making of claims in media stories, are increasingly excluded as "topics for discussion," I'm noticing.

Instead, we get increasing fare about murders, assaults, robberies, rapes, and all this does is bring the psychopaths out of the woodwork to enthuse over the prospect of the government's possibly killing someone in some execution.

That's the dumbing down of everything.

It seems as if that's the direction this paper is going in, like most other media in this country.

Dumb down, dumb down, dumb down, adapt to the lowest common denominator, don't look at whether facts or evidence underly claims made, breathlessly retail any evidenceless claim or any factsless claim or any evidenceless notion or belief as if it stood on the same level of credibility as, say, an authentically evidentarily-based claim.

It's a tidal wave of unreason, illogic, contempt for facts and evidence, and just generally junk thought.

Again, anyone interested in having some idea of what I'm talking about, consult Susan Jacoby's interesting book, "The Age of American Unreason." It's one of the more interesting and fascinating contemporary books and you will learn something from it.

I didn't agree with everything in it.

But that's not the point.

The point is, she's onto something.

And all the SPT is doing is, going precisely in the same direction about which she's warning.

Dumbing down everything.

Thank you SPT.

[politically incorrect]

probably just as well since they could not control all of the spamming that has plagued it the past year. I think I have made 5 comments in the last 8 months because everything is some spam originated content.
What will Captain Al do now that he is limited to 250 words???

[CarolBe]

Regarding space limitations, more is not better. Also, better to be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.

[Allan]

Those of us who posted over the past 5 years on the "It's Your Times" site and took the trouble to seriously post sometimes posts of serious length, based on serious reading of serious books ought to have the time and opportunity to copy and paste the posts we posted, whether as "created content," or as letters in response to other posts, into our own word documents, rather than such posts being eliminated.

There was some genuinely good stuff posted on "It's Your Times" by many diverse writers.

It's immoral, evil, and unethical to destroy what is good simply because there was also a lot of c*ap posted there as well.

That's kind of like saying, well, burn down the library because there's some worthless books in it, and don't discriminate between books by Aristotle, Marx, Goethe, Darwin, Dostoevsky, Mark Twain, etc., and, on the other hand, the worthless books; just burn it all.

That's what the Nazis did.

I urge the editor of the www.tampabay.com to keep the www.itsyourtimes.com site up long enough for those of us who posted for years on that site to copy and paste what we posted into word documents on our own computers, for purposes of what Susan Jacoby in her book, The Age of American Unreason, called, cultural conservation.

It's immoral, unethical, wrong, not to allow us to do that and to simply destroy everything that has been posted there over the past 5 years.

And what, by the way, has happened to all the letters in response to the created content posted there over the past 5 years? I posted letters over there in response to many diverse instances of created content over there before I ever got around to posting "created content" over there.

Was all that material simply destroyed?

That's evil.

--Allan

[Mark in NYC]

I will miss the posters of the "It's Your Times" forum. they were a fine group of people with diverse points of view, and I have learned a lot from them. More, I dare say than I learned from reading the times itself. I will miss the opportunity for us to participate as community, discussing the issues of the day that affect us all, and in the process, being exposed to thoughts and ideas broader than our own.
Sadly, the "retirement" of the "It's Your Times" forum was a short sited decision, and one the community as a whole will suffer for. I hope the decision might be rethought, and a better solution be found.

[Karen McAllister]

Thanks all for your involvement with It's Your Times and your comments here. Of course, we hope you'll continue to offer your feedback and join discussions on Let's Talk and on tampabay.com stories and blogs.
Please let me know if you have any problems with your registration on tampabay.com.

[Allan Greene]

I urge readers to read Susan Jacoby's book, "The Age of American Unreason." Then I urge readers to read her earlier book, "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism."

I think there's no objective criterion for what constitutes "abuse" and what does not.

Right-wing religious extremist nuts would, by their own faith-based, non-facts-based, non-evidence-based criteria, call some of what American founding father Thomas Jefferson, or American founding father John Adams, or American founding father George Washington, or American founding father Benjamin Franklin, or American founding father Thomas Paine, or American founding father James Madison, said on the subject of religion "abuse" if any of those men were alive today and tried to post on the now retired www.itsyourtimes.com site, or the new www.tampabay.com site.

White racist fascists would call the attack on the notion there's any biological validity to the concept of race "abuse," because attacking the notion there's any biological validity to the concept of race undermines and subverts the fascist white racist viewpoint of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis.

Sexist bigots against women would attack notions that women are equals of men, because it undermines these bigots' notions that women are as capable as men of doing anything, particularly anything in the intellectual or mind-based realm.

Also, religious and sexist bigots against gay and transgender people would, likewise, consider attacks on the notion there is something innately and inherently immoral or unethical in the nature-made makeup of being gay or being transgender "abuse" because that sort of attack undermines their own bigoted crusade against the rights of gay and transgender people.

Opponents of the right of gun ownership would attack the notion that most gun owners are levelheaded, responsible, and not prone to do the sorts of evil and crazy actions that the murderer of Dr. George Tiller did, or the murderer of Dr. Barnett Slepian did, or other murderers do, because saying most gun owners are levelheaded and responsible undermines the bigotry against responsible and levelheaded gun owners.

Crusaders against cigarette smoking and against the group of humans called, cigarette smokers, would call those who point out that the late occupational oncologist, Dr. Samuel Epstein, in his book, "The Politics of Cancer," himself did meticulous and well-controlled scientific work making clear that cancers and other serious illnesses occurred primarily among humans in geographical areas in proximity to industries environmentally polluting with chemicals, and that it basically whether or not one smoked didn't matter in the equation, from Dr. Epstein's meticulously scientifically controlled work in the field of occupational oncology -- those who want to, in a bigoted way, turn the 15 percent to 25 percent of the American population who smoke cigarettes into a pariah group, would call bringing up the late Dr. Epstein's findings in his great book, "The Politics of Cancer," "abuse," because it undermines their bigoted crusade against that group of humans who smoke cigarettes.

Anti-abortion terrorist bigots and murderers and would-be murderers would undoubtedly call anybody who uncompromisingly defend womankind's right to abortion and go so far as to call, even, for free abortion on demand in combination with free quality health care for all, "abusive," because those of us who defend womankind's right to abortion and, more basically, defend woman's right to own and control her own body, point out consistently that abortion is, in the strictest possible sense, purely a medical procedure, and that, moreover, the fetus cannot in a legal or moral sense be equated to a grown and developed human being, i.e., in this case, to a woman, in moral and legal status. We would be called "abusive" for pointing out that the opposition to abortion is, basically, faith-based, not facts-based, and, as a faith-based viewpoint, and not a facts-based viewpoint, trying to legislate against abortion subverts the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which, Jefferson and Madison stipulated, establishes a wall of separation between church and state, and also violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as it tramples on personal right of privacy of women, and also violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, as it violates and tramples on the rights of that class of citizens called, women.

So a lot of us might be called "abusive" because we are uncompromising in our defense of rights of many diverse segments of the population -- blacks, women, gays, transgender people, gun owners, cigarette smokers -- but, more than that, we realize that to defend rights, it's necessary to fight the false ideas and false forms of consciousness which lie at the basis of the bigots' and racists' and sexists' various and sundry faith-based agendas.

Race is a kind of faith-based myth with no scientific basis in biology insofar as the species called, homo sapiens (namely: us, humans) are concerned. That means that race is only and primarily and fundamentally a political construct exploited by racists to subjugate one sort of people they don't like because of that sort of people's skin color or that sort of people's status as immigrants.

Sex is no sort of basis in biology for stipulating some class of people ought to be subjugated to another class of people of a different sex, because it is now realized beyond the shadow of a doubt that womankind are entirely and fully equally capable with mankind for innumerable pursuits which historically have traditionally been relegated to mankind for no reason save a faith-based ignorance and save a sort of material institution, the patriarchal monogamous nuclear family, on the basis of which that faith-based ignorance with its collateral assumptions was based.

Additionally, notions of morality and ethics have to do simply and primarily speaking with humankind's disposition to nurture and care for each other and help each other. Evolution implies and implied not that the life within a given species was simply always and at all times "red in tooth and claw," with each always and at all times trying to get the best of everybody else in a given species. That notion is an essentially political, not biological, distortion of the theory of evolution by means of natural selection, because one of the very biologically and naturally fruitful ways in which given species do, indeed, survive is precisely by cooperating as a key species trait facilitating survivability. Darwin knew that. Other important evolutionists knew that and know that. It is a distortion of the theory of evolution by means of natural selection to impute to Darwin or other evolutionists the essentially socially pseudo-scientific notions of Herbert Spencer that evolution had to translate into nothing but everybody trying to get the best of everybody else, for it is precisely the ability of species to cooperate which has led to aiding diverse species' survival, and cooperation is, indeed, a survival trait, if you will.

The best in notions of morality and ethics insofar as our species, homo sapiens (contemporary people, contemporary humans) recognize that.

Those who would have readers believe that the theory of evolution supports Nazi mass murder or Stalinist mass murder or fascist mass murder or notions of allegedly "inherent" "superiority" or "inferiority" of one class of humans over some other class of humans are either ignorant of what the actual thing called, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection, actually means, or else, they know what it means, and don't care, because they cynically aim to subvert the actual science itself in pursuit of their organically faith-based, and not facts-based, agenda.

And when someone defends the perspective that evolution does not mean what these anti-science bigots say it means, they will undoubtedly call the person pointing out what these bigots are doing "abusive."

So it is necessary, for the management and ownership of a site like www.itsyourtimes.com or www.tampabay.com to, as Susan Jacoby suggests in her fine book, "The Age of American Unreason" (and I do not by any means agree with everything Susan Jacoby writes in there; but, by and large, she is onto something, and so, her book ought to be read and read seriously), to realize that when many call those of us who head-on attack the false and anti-science and anti-facts bases of so much bigotry, sexism, racism, and try to illuminate with knowledge the darker corners of social life that up to now have been benighted with ignorance, those of us who do this are seeking to make such sites as the www.itsyourtimes.com site and the www.tampabay.com site sites in which knowledge and facts-based ways of approaching reality and reality-based ways of approaching reality triumph ultimately in public discourse over ignorance-based ways of approaching reality and faith-based ways of approaching reality.

We are compelled if knowledge is to triumph and ignorance to be defeated to attack head-on the presuppositions of the faith-based, and to show that faith, ultimately, means you can justify anything. Faith, ultimately, means you can justify flying airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Faith, ultimately, means you can justify bombing abortion clinics. Faith, ultimately, means you can justify beating up and murdering gay and transgender people. Faith, ultimately, means you can justify walking into a church and murdering an abortion doctor. Faith, ultimately, means you can justify dressing up in white sheets and white hoods and going out and lynching a black person.

I prefer facts and knowledge gotten by hard, painstaking work over centuries by the work of a very admirable and decent and knowledge-seeking class of people, scientists, who have been slandered and libeled and besmirched in popular media far too much and far too long, and I prefer facts and knowledge and the scientific method, which is based in its fundamental way of getting knowledge of facts and of reality on the notion of hypothesizing, and then having to confirm or deny a given hypothesis, which in principle, must be testable ("falsifiable," as some philosophers of science have put it), and if not testable, must be consigned to the realm of faith -- that is, to the innately and organically non-testable realm. For a hypothesis in science to rise to the level of becoming a genuine scientific theory (which basically means, a model better capable of explaining reality), it must pass the "deniability-falsifiability" test, and do so many, many, many, many times, and it must be put to that test by independent scientists and researchers operating in different places and different parts of the world and not known to each other. Then, and only then, does a hunch or hypothesis rise from the level of being a hunch to a true scientific theory (i.e., to the level of becoming a model better capable of explaining reality). And such a model is not only a theory. It is simultaneously a fact.

That is the truth the faith-based liars would have you not realize, readers. The faith-based hardcore ideological liars would have you believe that a theory in the way they are using it is the way a true scientist uses that word, theory. But a true scientific theory is in no sense a "hunch." It's passed innumerable tests, experiments, observations, and in doing so, has then risen from the status of "hunch" to true scientific theory -- that is, to the status of a model better capable of explaining reality, and also of a fact.

In that sense, evolution is both a theory and a fact. Plate tectonics in geology is both a theory and a fact. The big bang theory in astronomy is both a theory and a fact. The cell theory in biology is both a theory and a fact.

But in that sense, race and the collateral ideology of racism are neither scientific theories or scientific facts. In that sense, the notion of the alleged biological "inferiority" of women intellectually to men is neither a scientific theory, nor a scientific fact. In that sense, the notion of homosexuality or transgenderness being "deviance" is neither a scientific theory or a scientific fact. All these notions are faith-based myths, not facts-based or biology-based scientific theories or scientific facts. Neither race, nor sex, nor sexual orientation, are bases for deciding social policy and governmental policy, and to the degree that social or governmental policy is decided according to these mythical notions, social and governmental policy reverts backwards to terrible and horrible times past when blacks were enslaved and women were enslaved or subjugated or when gay people and transgender people were kept in closets and told they could not come out for fear of being attacked simply for who and what they were.

That is why that there is true "abuse," and false "abuse."

And it must be realized that there are objective, factual, scientifically based criteria for assessing and adducing and deciding whether something truly is "abuse" or whether, on the other hand, it is being called "abuse" simply for no reason save the faith-based and myth-based agenda of some particular class of bigots.

--Allan

[Allan Greene]

I wrote in my last post there was no objective criterion for what constitutes abuse and what doesn't. Actually, that's not precisely right. Rather, in my view, the point I was trying to make is, there's no objective and scientifically based criterion and no objectively facts-based criterion that's sometimes been used for deciding what to ban or keep in given sites like the "It's Your Times" or "www.tampbay.com" site.

There should be. That's my point and that was the point I was trying to make in my posting.

--Allan

[Allan Greene]

I wrote in my last post there was no objective criterion for what constitutes abuse and what doesn't. Actually, that's not precisely right. Rather, in my view, the point I was trying to make is, there's no objective and scientifically based criterion and no objectively facts-based criterion that's sometimes been used for deciding what to ban or keep in given sites like the "It's Your Times" or "www.tampbay.com" site.

There should be. That's my point and that was the point I was trying to make in my posting.

--Allan

[Allan Greene]

Again, I typed too fast. I typed this:

"Sexist bigots against women would attack notions that women are equals of men, because it undermines these bigots' notions that women are as capable as men of doing anything, particularly anything in the intellectual or mind-based realm."

I should not have written "as capable as men," but "incapable equally with men," because that is the bigots' notion, and reading back my post, I was suggesting in this piece the bigots held that women were as capable as men, when, in fact, it was precisely my point that they don't hold to that view. I do. I hold women and men are equally capable (Heck, I sometimes think women are superior to men in a number of ways).

But I typed too fast.

Sorry.

--Allan

[Allan Greene]

March 6, 2010
Saturday

The supervisors a/k/a managers a/k/a OWNERSHIP of The St. Petersburg Times "alleged" "newspaper" stipulated that IF you were NOT of the aforesaid OWNERSHIP of said THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES Newspaper, THEN you were NOT, ipso facto, of SAID DECISION-MAKING Elite.

[Allan Greene]

WHY are ALLAN'S COMMENTS stipulated as occurring as IN SQUARES? Could it, perchance, have something to do with, PERCHANCE, being SQUARED, dear friends?

[Allan]

Thank you, overseers of "It's Your Times," for stripping every single link out of innumerably diverse posts I posted on the "It's Your Times" site.

Thank you, overseers of "It's Your Times," for eliminating every single letter I posted over the past five to six (5 to 6) years in the "It's Your Times" site out of said site so I could not "copy and paste" said content into my own word processing document.

Thank you, overseers of "It's Your Times," for acting like those right-wing Christian fanatics who burned down the Alexandria (Egypt) library in ancient times, destroying, apparently literally, all the five (5) to six (6) years of meticulously done posts I posted on the "It's Your Times" site there.

Thank you, overseers of the "It's Your Times" site, for pretending to favor "non-censorship" while literally destroying what I'd posted there over a 5-6-year period.

Thank you for your hypocrisy, overseers of the "It's Your Times" site.

Thank you for wishing me "good-bye" in my own email address, obviously hoping against hope I would not perpetually and repeatedly bring up the issue of your "censoring by destroying" all kinds of entirely interesting content created by both readers and creators on the "It's Your Times" site. You're wrong. I'll perpetually bring it up and perpetually talk about it and perpetually remind you about it and perpetually remind the public of your hypocrisy in this matter.

--Allan

[moonwalks]

But, of course, nothing longer than a sound bite is conventionally read by people who make these decisions.

[Piluz]

I just wanted to say a quick thank whit this article. Very interesting and thoughtful points.

[digital camera guide]

Thanks for this post. I am glad to hear that you will be transferring it all to tampabay.com because this way I will feel more community-fied if that makes sense.. :)

[megan Russon]

Hello there, maybe u might be able to assist me? I see u are using Drupal on ur website. I recently have decided to create a blog for myself and i am presently trying to use one of the free blog services that are in my country, however i would very like to make my own hosted blog using my personal site name. I lately read about Drupal and i was wondering if you know where i could find very good tutorials or videos on how to use drupal properly? Thanks alot.

[Flatshare]

tampa bay news has always been a kind of a favourite of mine :)

[Spain Villas]

Hi Allan ,

Can you explain to me what you mean by saying I suppose the philosophy behind this change?

[bloggerman58]

Keep the faith

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So, is this site is the same management with It's Your Time? Since I also have account in that place.