There was a rude wake-up call posted on CJ Laity's blog a few days ago, wherein he claimed that woman poet and publisher was using her body as a crutch to get away with encroaching on what he perceived to be his internet domain. (You're thinking to yourself, What? Those two things have nothing to do with each other! And you're right.)
I'm deleting the text of his post from this post now, in the name of removing this slander from the internet, which was my original request. The rest of the text of my initial post is below.
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I'm pretty sure there's only one person acting like he's in high school -- er, more like 7th grade.
Base, low, pitiful, pathetic, cruel.
I hope others will join me in asking that CJ Laity remove this post from his blog and offer up an apology in its place.
JOIN THE RANKS OF PROTEST:
Jenny Boully
Daniela Olszewska
Kate Durbin
Matt Walker
These Socks Are the Best Present EVER!
3 hours ago
39 comments:
I've never even heard of this idiot. Here's my favorite part:
"her's"
Unbelievable. Unbelievable douchebag, that is.
Yeah, tells you something about how reliable his word is. I was so blown away by the UNBELIEVABLE IMMATURITY AND CRUELTY that I didn't even notice the grammatical errors!
Oh, blah, blah, blah already. The bottom line is that Kristy Bowen is using the fact that she is a young overweight woman to steal from and to do really mean things to another person in her community (namesly me). She thinks that just because she is a young overweight woman she can steal from an older man and that older man will be afraid to criticize her for it for this very reason, that some other younger woman will accuse him of being everything including the kitchen sink. Kristy Bowen and her friends have no problem making fun of my alcoholism or insinuating that I have mental problems, but calling attention to the fact that she is overweight is out of line, huh? Just stop it, hypocrites!!
The bottom line is Kristy Bowen is stealing the domain name ChicagoPoetry and is tricking people with her anymous site in order to steal the audience I have worked for ten years to develop. There are infinite names that she can call her site that wouldn't infringe upon my domain name, yet she purposely uses my domain name and not only that, signs others who have stolen from me in the past up as members. What she is doing is intentional and is no accident. And it hurts, because I've supported Bowen for years before she apparently aligned herself with the rest of the creeps that are always badmouthing me. She gives her press a bad name by stealing from me. She gives the poets published by her press a bad name. And she's not immune to criticism just because she happens to be an overweight young woman. She should show others respect if she wants respect in return.
Dude, the fact you bring her weight into it at all is proof you're full of shit. And as for your mental problems, I think the brazen cruelty of your comments is evidence enough.
Dude, the only reason I brought her weight into it was to get you guys talking. Believe me, I'd much rather live in a world where I could inspire some conversation with a "Please, could you stop infringing upon my domain name," but my attempts at that have so far failed.
Insulting someone's body -- a man or a woman's -- for shock value is absolutely uncalled for, CJ. You should be ashamed, and you should apologize.
I would like to hear the evidence behind your claim that "Kristy Bowen is using the fact that she is a young overweight woman to steal from and to do really mean things to another person in her community."
I suspect there is none. That's a dangerous, cruel assumption.
So this is about "infringing on a domain name"...great, wonderful. Your precious fucking domain name...that's so important. God...you're acting like she killed somebody. Get a life.
I'm NOT ashamed. First of all, what is wrong with calling Kristy Bowen overweight, I mean, it's the truth isn't it? I don't subscribe to your philosophy of shoving uncomfortable truths under the carpet. Why did Kristy call me "crazy"? Why aren't you just as concerned that she was insulting my mental health? Because she's your friend, right? If you were my friend instead, you'd be sticking up for me and saying Kristy is in the wrong, stealing from me and insulting me all the time. So your view is biased. Before I can give you any "evidence" about how Kristy Bowen is stealing from me, you'll have to first admit that she is stealing from me. I own ChicagoPoetry.com, .net, .org, I run the Chicago Poetry Fest, my username EVERYWHERE is chicagopoetry, and I've run the Chicago Poetry Calendar FOR TEN YEARS. The ONLY reason you think it is okay that Kristy has commandeered the name Chicago Poetry Calendar is because she is your friend, period.
Her domain name is http://www.chicagopoetrycalendar.org/
HELLO? That's not one of yours.
And what's wrong with your insult is that it's not even worthy of a 12-year-old.
It seems like anyone wanting to start a website about poetry in Chicago has to check with you first. Is that how it works? It's a big town, you know.
"your philosophy of shoving uncomfortable truths under the carpet"
I'm pretty sure the only "philosophy" I've put forth here is that you should treat people with kindness and dignity.
"Before I can give you any "evidence" about how Kristy Bowen is stealing from me, you'll have to first admit that she is stealing from me."
This is not the evidence I requested. Please read more carefully.
My concern here has nothing to do with the backstory of your fight -- I honestly don't really know what it is, nor do I care -- and has everything to do with your malicious act.
It doesn't matter whether or not Kristy and I are friends. Are we? You have no idea. I'm calling foul where I see it, end of story. It may be hard for you to believe that some people are interested in fighting cruelty for the sake of the greater good, but believe it.
And I'm starting to get the idea that you think you own the phrase "Chicago Poetry" as a concept?!
Matt, you nuts. You work on something for ten years and then watch someone try to take credit for it, and then come back when you know what you are talking about.
"I'm pretty sure the only "philosophy" I've put forth here is that you should treat people with kindness and dignity."
Fine, ask you friend Kristy to do the same for me and I'd be happy to do the same for her.
"This is not the evidence I requested. Please read more carefully."
Fine, I will rephrase, "It is my opinion that Kristy Bowen blah blah blah"
"My concern here has nothing to do with the backstory of your fight"
Well maybe you should be concerned, because that's what this is all about.
"and has everything to do with your malicious act."
Oh, stop exaggerating. If I called Ann Coulter ugly would you also be upset. Once again you avoid dealing with the issue of Bowen's malicious acts toward me.
"It may be hard for you to believe that some people are interested in fighting cruelty for the sake of the greater good, but believe it."
Fine, ask you friend Bowen to stop being cruel to me.
"And I'm starting to get the idea that you think you own the phrase "Chicago Poetry" as a concept?!"
No, I have no problem with Poetry Foundation's Chicago Poetry Tour, or the Chicago Poetry Project, or Chicago Poetry Center, but when someone sets up a website that does exactly what I'm doing with members that include the general "I hate CJ" club and calls it ChicagoPoetry: DON'T ACT STUPID!!!
"Before I can give you any "evidence" about how Kristy Bowen is stealing from me, you'll have to first admit that she is stealing from me."
Ultimate facepalm comment if ever there was one.
It's like a prosecutor saying, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, before I can give you any evidence that the defendant committed this crime, you'll have to first admit that the defendant committed this crime."
The inanity is breathtaking.
Matt, once again, you are nuts. I have nothing to say to you. You are just talking nonsense and helping the others avoid the REAL issue at hand, which of course is not Kristy Bowen's weight, but the theft of my domain name.
I'm nuts. Yeah.
We have now officially entered Bizarro World. Up is down! Black is white! Day is night!
Matt, I know why I'm here on this gorgeous day wasting my time on the internet: why are you here?
I don't know Kristy or CJ or Becca, but I know a sick argument when I see one. I refuse to be silent, even at the risk of CJ trying to shout me down with more names. Folks, speak up! Let CJ know his hate speech is unacceptable!
Here's my initial response posted on other blogs --
CJ, your proprietariness is the antithesis of poetry. Poets simply aren't buying it. And certainly you don't think there is anything unique about the name "Chicago Poetry"?
I posted the following on Daniela's blog, but twice can't hurt anymore than the misogynistic spirit CJ's promoting here (and annihilating his own argument with):
Huh? How does anyone "own" chicago poetry? That's like saying someone owns atlanta poetry or new york poetry or new york fiction or chicago fiction or new york politics or chicago art or, MOREOVER, the right to say nasty things without expecting to be held accountable. How did you get to be so proprietary anyway? Shouldn't we applaud any and everyone who attempts to disseminate and promote poetry in its various mediums? You know, get the word out? Whatever your answer, know that:
Bashing anyone's appearance is such a debased way of getting your point across, CJ, that I can't even find an actual, legitimate argument due to the glaring hate speech you're putting forth. You want sympathy? Try making a constructive argument for your case instead of mucking it all up with hate. HATE. Your hate has overshadowed any legitimacy you could have established.
I may have listened openly to your points initially, but now I'm totally biased: I immediately don't like you for resorting to such hateful tactics and cannot truly be open to your position now. It's the same as being a racist or a homophobe. You really don't get it?
You perceive that someone was not nice to you in the past? You think being not nice back works? Only if you're twelve and haven't learned that throwing rocks just doesn't get your way.
Good luck with your hate campaign. You're not getting any sympathizers with this kind of attack.
Uh oh , the new "bottom line" --Look, I'm "stealing your audience of ten years":
ChicagoPoetry
ChicagoPoetry
ChicagoPoetry
Poetry Readings in Chicago
Poems Chicago
Chicago Poets
Chicago Poetry
Chicago Poetry
ad nauseum...
Whatever. Stop stealing from me. All of you make yourselves look bad. Aren't you satisfied with your own accomplishments? You have to steal from others? Whatever. I'm not finished. I'm only beginning. Kristy Bowen can call her site PoetryChicago or WindyCityPoetry or ChicagolandPoetry or a million other variations. She is intentionally calling it ChicagoPoetry to piggyback off all the work I did. She's a thief. That's all there is to it.
Kirsty has all of my support.
CJ, you make me want to retch; or more truthfully, expel waste violently from every orifice in my body, and more besides.
*Kristy. My bad. Hung over.
I just created Chicago's Poetry Calendar, the official site of Chicago poetry:
http://officialchicagopoetry.blogspot.com/
I second (and third, fourth, etc) Matt's, Becca's, Amy's, and Ross's comments.
And CJ: two words. AD HOMINEM.
Yawn. Just watched a Jet Li film, fell asleep, woke up, watched the rest of it, and came back here to find you guys still wasting each other's time. Tell Kristy Bowen to stop being thieving if you are really her friend.
"Tell Kristy Bowen to stop being thieving if you are really her friend."
If you reread the responses above, you'll find that we don't believe she is thieving. We don't believe she has done anything wrong in using that domain name. Hence the only person who has done wrong is you in your use of hate speech against her.
The thing I find really great here is that Kristy is the one doing productive, wonderful stuff. From the brief glances I've had at both sites hers is far better, and has had a far better graphic designer; DGP is a fantastic press publishing consistently great poets, and the little of her work I've read has been great.
Whereas with regards to CJ I have to echo Matt: "I've never even heard of this idiot".
It seems spilling vitriol can get in the way of writing good poetry at times.
C.J. pull it together man, take a few deep breaths. Going after a poet for what they look like or weigh is going to put you in a corner and you know this but don't care because you feel you got cheated.
But listen to me, you didn't get cheated, you don't have a large amount of poetry in circulation (who are you? ) you don't own poetry in Chicago, you help poetry in Chicago. Your a citizen in the poetry world and like all citizens everywhere you have to be cordial even the face of people you don't care for, trust me on this point. The work is what's going to save you and this is not the work.
You got about twenty years left if your lucky. That's my guess from your photo maybe less.
You simply don't have time to put people down or watch Jet Li-
Take care and nice to meet you-
Gary
PS
C.J. your taking a beating today, take it, everybody takes a beating sometime.
I had to stop laughing before I could post this. I was doing poetry in Chicago when a lot of you were in diapers, so the last thing I have to do is prove myself to you. I can remember back in the early 90s when an issue flared that made the front page of the Chicago Reader. I seem to remember someone back then claiming that I was "taking a beating" too. Funny stuff. I think it's cute that you guys are sticking up for your friend and all, but if you really care about her you'll give her some advice and tell her to do the right thing and stop stealing from other people. Yes, her site looks okay, so what, does that mean she can steal from me? Does that mean if I put up some fancy graphics I can launch a Switchback Calendar or a featherproof calendar? And don't tell me it's not the same thing. I have been publishing ChicagoPoetry.com for ten years, so, no, I don't claim to own the concept, but yes, as a web publication that reports the poetry news I claim some rights to it. Sorry, it is not negotiable. Kristy Bowen needs to stop stealing from me. She's making herself look bad and you all are making yourselves look bad with your double standard of crying about how I attacked someone WHILE you attack me.
Putting aside the issue of "stealing" a domain name(which clearly is baloney), I've looked at both calendars, and frankly, the "World Famous Chicago Poetry News Blog" is simply much less usable than ChicagoPoetryCalendar.org.
For one thing, it is so crapped up with text, it's really hard to read. For another, there are so many links, the page looks cluttered. Finally, there is almost no white space, so that the eye is barraged, making clarity an issue.
I've worked in the field and have taught technical writing, and Laity's blog is so poorly designed, I can't imagine anyone would willingly choose to visit that site for poetry information in Chicago.
I would choose ChicagoPoetryCalendar.org merely because it is much more effectively designed.
And, by the way, calling anyone fat and using that to discredit a person for the hell of it is a cheap shot.
Aisha, I don't care what you think about the design of my site. I get half a million visitors every year so I think I must be doing something right. The issue is not whose site is prettier, the issue is the theft of my domain name. If Kristy's site is so wonderfully designed and so easy to use, then people will like it no matter what she calls it, so why does she need to piggyback off my domain in hopes of tricking people like that?
"Chicago Poetry Calendar" is NOT your domain name, If it was, you'd own it. If you were so invested in it, you would have paid the ten dollars a year to register it.
When bands and films register domain names, they register all permutations of the name because they want to make money. If you were so invested in truly trademarking and holding onto Chicago Poetry and Chicago Poetry Calendar as your exclusive site (god, what a fucking thought), you would have spent forty bucks a year to register Chicagopoetry.com, dot net, dot org, and then Chigaopoetrycalendar.com, dot net and dot org, since you seem to think they belong to you.
I registered amyking.org because dot net and dot com were taken. But oh my god -- does that mean that I have stolen the other two Amy Kings' identities? Will they scream and call me too thin?
If your site were so wonderful, CJ, you wouldn't be threatened at all. You see, a site only rises in search engines based on how well it's designed and how many hits it gets each day. If your site is truly the premier reference site for where to go to hear Chicago poets read, then you'd have no worries! The other two Amy Kings don't do much with their sites, so mine is at the top of search engines. Now if your site really was so wonderful and was firmly ensconced in ten years of audience referrals, then you wouldn't even have noticed chicagopoetrycalendar.com or org or whatever it is because it wouldn't be making a dent in your site hits. But somehow, the dude doth protest too much .... you feel your "territory" is being "stolen"! This would be laughable if you weren't such a fucking woman hater!
Posted elsewhere:
CJ,
The sad fact that continues to rise to the surface here and out you for the MISOGYNIST that you are is that you keep citing a woman's appearance in a matter that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SITUATION.
Screaming over and over that she did this and she did that and she is overweight simply outs you for the woman hating prick that you certainly are and continue to prove, tirelessly, over and over. Saying it isn't so, over and over, and then referring to this woman's body over and over is just blatant hypocrisy, and certainly doesn't make you a victim.
But keep screaming. Keep pimping yourself as the victim. No one will hear since your arguments continue to drown in your woman-hating rhetoric.
Here, let me do it for you, though you'll be at the reply in one second because you seem to think being dogmatic in your woman-hating is somehow effective: "Boo hoo, Chicago Poetry was mine! She stole it! Boo hoo! Boooooooo hoooooo! They did this, they did that, I am me, I made Chicago Poetry what it is today, ten years at it, boooooo hoooooo! It's all gone overnight! Booo hooooooooo! Sniffle."
You're still a WOMAN HATING ASS who deserves every little bit of fallout you get. As you'll see, the only ones who will support you will be other insecure woman-haters -- and they'll only take the opportunity to bash women's bodies as you have. Your "cause" is a thin farce that you've used to mock this woman's appearance, and you're gonna get karmic hell for it.
And now we're off to make Kristy and her friends' calendar rise to the top off all searches on the internet -- you've done yourself in, dude. Your "campaign" has backfired, and we're going to make sure your site really does lose it's "premier" and "exclusive" status as *the* chicago poetry calendar.
Oh god. Oh no. How will you ever carry on? Your identity as a poetry calendar is truly threatened! Who will you become? A real person might be an option to consider....
Thanks for the lecture on google ranking. ChicagoPoetry.com enjoys a number one google ranking when it comes to Chicago Poetry. Also, thanks for the lecture about registering domain names, but of course it's not about that. Why should we worry about having to register every variation of our domain name? The only reason we should have to do that is to protect us from the thieves who would otherwise piggyback off our name, right? So what you are saying it, too bad, Kristy Bowen stole from me fair and squre. Well, that still makes her a big thief. It's about ethics. It's about me not setting up Switchback Calendar even though I could. It's about me not doing that because I have respect for others in my community. But Bowen didn't only register a variation of my domain name, but she posted crap on her blog trying to sabotage the real ChicagoPoetry. This I don't understand. She is a very talented poet, a published poet, an award winning poet, yet she needs to bad mouth me and then try to steal my domain name? Something is wrong with Bowen if she has to do that.
And, like I said at your other post. I'm overweight myself, so calling Kristy overweight is like a black man using the n-word.
And now I will delete the offending post at chicagopoetry.org. I do this for Jenny Boully, KateDurbin, Becca Klaver, and Daniela Olszewska, who showed great maturity in letting me post my opinions uncensored. They could have deleted my posts or not allowed me to post, but they didn't. Even though they disagree with me, they allowed me my basic freedom of speech. That showed maturity. So in return, I will also act mature.
And, yes, I apologize to Kristy Bowen and to all women. Peace out.
"What it's about" is you mocking another person's experience as though that's a valid argument.
As for your very thin "premise" that anyone has stolen a domain name from you: not possible. That's why there's Google ranking and domain name registration. I explained it to you since you seem unfamiliar with what true theft is. I hope those other Amy Kings don't follow your brand of logic! Who am I? Dot org. I am not dot net - don't get confused! Duh.
**What the hell are you so scared of anyway? Someone will find out about an event on someone else's calendar and not yours? They'll enter the event and not think "CJ told me about this reading on the internet." Who even thinks like that? What the hell are you really afraid of?
I know -- you're afraid some woman will usurp your mythical status as the head of the Chicago poetry scene. So you attack her appearance. Ad hominem, much, you woman hater?
No one cares about your "cause" now that you've turned ugly and misogynistic. I care about outing such blatant hate. Period. Your "cause" be damned. We've got a new cause, spurred by your rank, vapid misogyny: to ruin your self image as the magical "king of Chicago poetry".
Spread the word: your hate speech will not be tolerated. I know logic won't work with you, esp after reading all that you've written. But making an example of you, that's got it's charm. I don't give a shit what you look like. You truly have done something wrong. That's the difference.
I meant:
"What it's about" is you mocking another person's APPEARANCE as though that's a valid argument.
And now I will delete the offending post at chicagopoetry.org. I do this for Jenny Boully, KateDurbin, Becca Klaver, and Daniela Olszewska, who showed great maturity in letting me post my opinions uncensored. They could have deleted my posts or not allowed me to post, but they didn't. Even though they disagree with me, they allowed me my basic freedom of speech. That showed maturity. So in return, I will also act mature.
And, yes, I apologize to Kristy Bowen and to all women. Peace out.
As a PPP (Pleasingly Plump Poet) myself, I do hope no one is judging the quality of my work by the quantity of my cellulite.
Okay, a lot of people are asking you guys to please spread the word that Printers Ball is off limits. There is a lot of hostility going on right now, and the Ball is worried someone might act it out during their event. You have my word I plan on being completely respectful to everyone at the Printers Ball. We hope that you will also remain civil and that you will spread the word to those who you know who might have been incited by all of this, that the Printers Ball is not the time nor place for confrontation. I am sincere when I say "please" for all our sakes.
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