Something For The King Of The Greensboro Blogosphere's Petulant Children To Chew On

I really haven't had the time for this. We in Eastern N.C. are under the iron-grip of a deadly Nor'easter blustering over the entire middle-eastern seaboard. A cold rain has been coming down in sheets for 2 days, the wind is howling, creeks and basements and low-lying areas are flooded, the weather/situation is fore-casted to get much worse by nightfall, and I spent this morning at the hospital getting babies out as fast as we could.

In short, this "lunatic" physician has more important things to do than engage the king of the GSO Blogosphere's "petulant children" in an online pissing-contest. But, when I am called out, I come out.

And it's always been my curse not to hit like a girl.

Let me also say that I/others have been more than properly provoked. I intend to answer here but not return-fire-in-kind. I'm not interested in a blog-war. But, God help me, I'm not the sainted Joe Guarino either.

I left Fec's (aka Jeff Martin) blog a short while ago, and resolved not to go back. And except for commenting on one of his posts relevant to my on-going battle to hold the liars and cheats running Randolph Hospital accountable for their criminal actions (i.e. writing Congressman Howard Coble and expecting a quick/straight answer is pretty much a HUGE waste of time), I have not played the head games at Vie De Malchance.

For if it were in my nature to "behave", I would not be in the blogosphere.

Nor does "cheap grace" and/or "peace" at any price cut it. My beef with the News & Record's John Robinson and Edward Cone-of-THE-Cones is based on YEARS of empty rhetoric, broken promises, hidden agendas, determined/well-practiced ignorance, oftentimes cruel abuse and in-your-face journalistic malpractice. What's more, Jeff Martin knows it.

And, as far as "the game" stands now, until I see a front-page above-the-fold investigative journalism piece in the News & Record (writting by someone other than Lorraine Ahearn) detailing how a local Pediatrician in government service to a "non-profit" was done way-beyond-wrong, Fec can bleed with them or he can bleed with me.

I was drawn back in at Fec's by his recent way-beyond-mean-spirited attack on local blogger, Mike Baron (for more on Mike, read on).

It's not my fight, really. I just despise people stomping on others (as if it were some kind of sport) when they're obviously down. I REALLY despise it.

Of course, it's a signature behavior of the more "progressive" types in the Greensboro blogosphere.

Now, Fec's really not all that progressive and he's been down before. That's how (despite behaving like a total ass in the beginning) he ultimately crawled into that soft spot in my heart that I have for wounded souls and strays. Having felt the chilly embrace of the-darkness-that-is-visible himself, you'd think he'd tread more carefully.

I guess not.

Mike Baron worked as Greensboro's only water conservation manager back in the late nineties. He was "green" before "green" became cool. He was fired when his award-winning water conservation efforts became too successful and it began to cost the city money . . . and threatened future/imagined mega-profits from the proposed dam.

Apparently agreeing with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (about costs vs. benefit) was bad form . . . and justified the destruction of his career.

Mike, who now has terminal cancer (it's always worked for Elizabeth Edwards), has a blog/website which raises a number of legitimate criticisms of the Randleman Dam project.

For this, Fec (with Lex Alexander, ex-N&R reporter & "medical-blogger", chiming in) dubbed Mike "criminally insane".

And that, friends & neighbors, ranks right up there with Edward Cone dubbing a woman with brain cancer "bat-shit crazy".

[No, I've not forgotten how ugly partisianship got before the current genius-who-isn't became President (thanks for the link, Spag).]

God forbid that anyone really try to tell the truth or educate the public/shake it out of its generally-ignorant stupor. If they do, they simply must be showered with what Cone likes to call "invective" (of course, it's only invective when someone is firing back at him).

It's bad enough that Fec pulls stunts like this. Worse still that when it happens, the so-called blogging elite do not intervene to stop it. Yet the blogging-geniuses-wanting-so-badly-to-be-relevant in Greensboro cannot figure out why more people aren't rushing to join their little "community".

What prompted Fec's latest rant, one might ask? Well, in classic, transplanted-Randolph-County-Good-Ole-Boy fashion, Fec has known the guy who runs the Randleman Dam project since childhood.

Ergo Mike's criticisms cannot be tolerated.

Fec's friend apparently has degrees from West Point and Duke (mine are from UNC-G and Bowman Gray . . . maybe we can thumb-wrestle . . . but only if he wears his uniform).

Moreover, as Fec spewed, he asserted that established facts and the specifics of Mike's case are not important. The "sloppy process" that ruined a man's life is of no consequence as long as city leaders did not really mean to be mean, and the Greensboro of 2075 gets its potatble water (no doubt at a fair price).

Cuz it ain't gettin it now.

It's apparently a far, far better thing to do a poor impression of that portulent gasbag Al Gore (for the record, Fec, if you wanna see polar bears all you'll ever have to do is come on down to Asheboro . . . as long as you buy a beer while you're here . . . it's for the economy).

Like I said, it wasn't my fight. I wasn't planning to do more than drop a couple of comments supportive of Mike. But Fec would not let up.

And it was making my skin crawl.

And/so I was compelled to drop a little bomb I've been holding in reserve about some ugly goings-on at Asheboro's city lake. Of course, in dropping it at Fec's, the story was unlikely to waft back and stain the pants of anyone at Asheboro's city hall. So I'm actually kinda grateful for the opportunity to drop it again here.

Randolph Hospital drops by at least once a day. So I know it will get back to someone.

You see, a few years back, right after I debuted the Asheboro Pediatrics website in 2004, a young man contacted me and asked for help. He told me that he lived on leased property near the lake and had witnessed the dumping of dead cows (where they could flavor our drinking water) . . . something that you'd think would make the hairs on our latest-convert-to-the-religion-of-global-warming's arm stand on-end.

The people who did the dumping knew that the young man knew, they wanted him GONE (not to mention quiet), and had resorted to all kinds of nasty retaliatory tactics. The young man told me he was terrified someone would hurt - or even kill - his wife & children.

I believed him because I could hear the fear in his voice (it was really my first personal encounter with domestic terrorism). He also told me that the Randolph County Sheriff's Department was in on some of the intimidation (on behalf of the people leasing his property to him . . . all "right people" types, I'm sure). As I was a "local" (not that being a local has lent me any kind of advantage), the young man wanted to know if there was anyone else to whom he might turn for help.

Alas, deeply mired in my own muck at the time, I didn't have much to offer him. God knows, you can't just pick up the phone and call Roy Cooper.

I did some minor poking round . . . talked to a few trusted confidants about it. They all agreed that I'd have to let it go.

As far as I know, the young man and his family wound up leaving the area (fortunately not in a pine box).

I'm fairly certain I could pull up e-mails and names of the principals from three computers ago if pressed to do so. But really, what's the point?

After all, I don't live in Lincolnton. Why names the names, and make myself a target, and risk spending another decade in a Court venue that has already done me way-beyond-dirty . . . a jurisdiction that that still sees fit to employ a rail-roading/witness-intimidating ADA who lied to defense attorneys and was disciplined by the State Bar?

Besides, here's an idea for anyone who wants to check out the veracity of what the young man told me: Maybe instead of secretly sending city employees over to Dave's Mountain to sample our ground water (the fairly transparent scheme being to "prove" we "need" sewer lines, ergo we must be annexed), Asheboro City Manager, John Ogburn, should get his minions to stake out the lake . . . or dredge up the rotting cow carcases.

The sad fact is (and Fec knows it) that right folks and wrong folks here in Asheboro/Greensboro drape sleaze and corruption around their shoulders like a comfortable old coat. And we for sure don't have any local newspapers that are going to buck the powers-that-be, and cut through the layers of dirty ooze.

As of yesterday afternoon, I am apparently banned at Fec's. Big whup. In true JohnRobinsonian fashion, he has deleted the comment for which I was banned. It seems I made some personal observations that hit too close to home.

Never mind the ragged heel-prints he freely leaves on everyone else's psyche.

After he deleted the comment, Fec also dropped me an e-mail.

"All comments will be deleted", it said (as if I'm going to try after he deleted the first one).

Of course, deleting comments he provoked totally fits the old cliche about dishing it out but not being able to take it.

I'm supposed to "chew on that".

I responded to Fec's e-mail and told him that deleting my comment was fine with me IF he deleted the entire post. Otherwise it was cowardice And I told him to chew on that.

Moderation after the fact does not ever sit well with me . . . just as it hasn't sat well with Fec in the past.

Alas, I did not copy/paste/save the comment-for-which-I-was-banned, and I have no idea how I might otherwise pull a snapshot of the very short-lived web-page off Google (or indeed my own computer files). It's a shame, because I worked on the comment for a while and it was a thing of beauty. I am incorporating some of what I can remember here.

I did try to find the comment. But Google kept booting me back to the current page of Vie De Malchance.

No thanks.

Unlike Ed Cone. I am not sorry. There isn't going to be an apology.

I am sick and fricking tired of working all day doing what I do (especially after having been put through the royal medico-legal cluster-screw at the hands of the blood-sucking carpet-baggers that now think they own my hometown), and coming home to read a fellow-blogger's increasingly mean-spirited, disjointed rants (which harbor NONE of the writing talent I know lies underneath) . . . calling me (and others in our local ether) names like (like "lunatic" and "evil" and "whack-job" and "racist" and "booger-eater").

The entire GSO blogosphere seems to live in fear of what Jeff Martin might say or do next . . . how they might be negatively splattered all over the Internet if they take him on.

I honestly don't care anymore.

Besides, Ed Cone & company have already done most of the heavy-lifting there.

As it stands right now, the grown-up, professional targets of this latest signature Jeff Martin verbal spew have more-than-enough grounds to sue him for libel (come to think of it, that might be another great way to get old Court documents proving perjury on the record in a venue outside of Randolph County).

But again, what's the point of that? It's so not worth it.

For someone who wails and moans so much over the apathy and lack of civility/community in our local blogosphere . . . not to mention its abject failure to be "relevant" in terms of righting wrongs or stamping out corruption (although Joe Guarino & company might finally be off to a good start) . . . Fec himself, for all of his bloviating about leading revolutions, has recently set a very poor example.

Wanna talk about "evil"? Let's talk about evil.

Government/"non-profit" corruption is evil in one of its truest, albeit most insidious forms. It hides behind charity and the public good. It is hard to expose and almost impossible to bring down. That effort . . . "revolution", if you will . . . takes people of courage, conviction and dedication . . . people driven to persevere despite great adversity . . . people who are not always well-behaved . . .. people who are just a little bit crazy.

Mealy-mouthed, politically-correct fence-sitters need not apply.

That's why it's my theory that, in the evil department, government/"non-profit" corruption takes SECOND PLACE to the apathy and silence that allows it.

That's the kind of evil that buries stories like mine . . . and Mike Baron's . . . and endeavors to assasinate our characters and kill our will.

The success of any operation to bring down corruption also depends upon numbers . . . and amongst those numbers, strong allies who are reliable and willing to take one another's back.

It certainly helps to have the ear of principled local newspapers that are not afraid to take on the status quo.

And that's why the folks at Lake Norman Bath have been so successful. The people of Lincolnton rallied around the truth and the bloggers-telling-it. It didn't hurt that the underlying story . . . that of a Father determined to help his little-girl-done-wrong . . . tugs at the heartstrings. The bloggers , in turn, rallied around one another (instead of slamming and banning each other). Together, these people together were not afraid to charge in and take on the big guns (literally).

The effort crossed lines of political ideology and spoke to simple right and wrong.

Their cause has been buoyed by local newspapermen (one of whom was kind enough to e-mail me and offer empathy/advice) . . . real journalists who have not sold their souls to the highest bidder on the theory that economic development and/or sucking up to their big advertisers trumps all.

It's basically the idea that I thought the N&R's John Robinson was promoting when I accepted his invitation to jump into Greensboro's "citizen journalism" pool in February 2005 . . . the day after my Father died . . . a full two years after I had reported as yet un-investigated/un-prosecuted perjury, contempt and fraud to the Randolph County DA's office.

All wide-eyed and naive, I arrived in the blogosphere with bells on and the original sworn documents-proving-perjury-in-hand (documents that, in four years, a local journalist has yet to look at) to take on both Randolph and Cone Hospitals (one "non-profit" institution having fired me for saving the life of a newborn baby whose life was endangered and care was mismanaged by a doctor employed by the other).

Simple right and wrong. One would think it would tug on hearts.

But in Asheboro-Greensboro, we simply cannot take on the big money or the hallowed name of Cone.

And/so, my hoped-for vindication via Greensboro's brand of "citizen journalism" is an idea that has since died a very ugly death.

The reason it died was beautifully evidenced by Fec's ugly/vicious/despicable/warped post on Mike Baron.

As he spewed, Fec reasoned that if Mike Baron's allegations (as a whistle-blower) were true, the government had mechanism in place to protect him.

Now, that is not just a lie, it's A DAMNED LIE. In the comment Fec deleted, I suggested that, in the wake of Fort Hood, Fec should ask his West Point-educated Randleman Dam buddy how eager folks in the military and public service are to pucker-up and blow. In the alternative, after Fec stops slurping down his own boogers, maybe he should take up a cause and try it sometime.

He'd only get a nose-bleed.

Mr. Martin, for all of his obvious vast intelligence, doesn't seem to grasp a few simple points. Turning to the fledgling blogosphere wasn't an option when all of these ugly things went down over a decade ago - for Mike Baron or for me. And the applicable statutes of limitations ran out for Mike Baron long ago. Being without a job, he could not afford the lawyers that might have pressed his case (the practice of law being nothing like the practice of medicine). The only hope of vindication he has now is for someone somewhere to take note of his blog and give the story its due.

And despite Fec's lame premise that the end always justifies the means, in this case, the truth is way past due.

If perjury had a statute of limitations, legally, I would be in the same boat. But my case has some technical twists and turns which provide opportunity that Mike's does not. I can also demonstrate a broader pattern of determined/on-going negligence on the part of various medical regulatory agencies (like the Medical Board, like JCAHO, like DHHS) . . . agencies that just didn't care enough to lift a finger and protect a doctor-in-public-service doing the right thing by a dying-patient-not-even-her-own eleven years ago . . . agencies that, since that time, have not bothered to modify the antiquated/ineffectual laws that her case more-than-demonstrates need serious tweaking.

The state and Federal governments cannot move to fix problems BEFORE they blow up in someone's face. And/so this "lunatic" knows she is shortly gonna have to sue somebody. I should have done it long ago. I just wanted so badly for the *&^%$#@! system to work . . . and was crazy enough to believe that it would.

Heavy sigh.

The North Carolina Medical Board, in fact, has had to fend off a couple of such lawsuits in recent years. If I do say so myself, the lawsuit I file will make all others pale in comparison. Filing it in the midst of our beyond-clueless President's push for socialism-&-physician-indentured-servitude-in-the-guise-of healthcare-reform should make for interesting headlines . . . written, of course, by newspapers other than the Greensboro News & Record or Courier Tribune.

They missed their chance at a Pulitzer. But a few watered-down beers at the Flying Pig should drown their sorrows.

The sad truth (which Fec well knows) is that Lincolnton is NOT Greensboro or Asheboro . . . and it's comparative-newborn-baby-bloggers have put the much-longer-in-the-blogging-tooth-crowd-a-few-counties-away (a crowd that doesnt' know it all after all) to shame.

Cue Ed Cone jumping up and down whining, "Are we relevant yet? Why aren't we relevant yet?"

In my case, and Mike's, our lack of relative success (compared to LNB) comes down to location, location, location . . . AND the agendas of the blogger-elite we've been pleading our cases to. For Fec to compare the two situations (as if our cases have no merit because we have not been able to get what his useless buddy Cone calls "traction") . . . except as a study in stark contrasts . . . is to compare apples to oranges.

Like I said. I'm not interested in a flame-throwing blog war. This is all I plan to say. But some things just don't get to stand.

The thing that saddens me most about all of this is that I know and very much like Fec's wife (who by his own admission, does not read his blog). She is a warm and engaging woman who loves her husband very much and would like to see him find a better outlet for his writing . . . his gift . . . the one bubbling under the dark slime of ad-hominems and cruel invective he indiscriminately hurls into the ether. I have done business with her, and I know she would be genuinely horrified by a lot of what her husband says and does at Vie De Malchance.

As a local businesswoman ("the wife, I mean), I have to wonder if some of what Jeff has said/done online has hurt her. I wonder if he even thinks about it as he hurls.

Moreover, lectures on "hatred" from a man who lately does nothing but spew hate (unless he's grovelling to Edward Cone-of-the-Cones or pandering to the race-baiting "ngee") hold no water (Get it? Water? Dam?) for me.

Apart from the fact that my efforts over the years have been primarily/specifically/consistently directed against the non-profiteers who professionally eviscerated me . . . and the institutions/regulatory/law enforcement mechanisms (and so-called journalists) that failed me . . . the biggest difference between Jeff Martin and I is that my family and my friends read this blog EVERY day.

The Department of Homeland Security pops in occasionally too;).

And you know what? My family and friends are far from embarrassed. For you see, what happened to me did not happen in a vacuum. I was not the only person deeply hurt when Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin worked their evil magic. And everyone I know is DELIGHTED that I've found this outlet to give Randolph Hospital hell, keep other young/naive doctors from drinking the same Koolaid I did, and maybe even one day get that vindication . . . and thereby help change a small portion of what is wrong with medicine for the better.

My loved ones are very proud me . . . especially when I defy the warrior in my nature and decline to return unfriendly fire in kind.

Chew on that.

Late Evening Addendum: For the reader's further consideration, I present Dr. Joe Guarino's kinder and gentler rebuttal to Fec's work. It's a wicked (or should I say, "evil"?) post.

Friday The 13th Addendum: This post has been editied and tweaked this morning. I was tired yesterday when I got back to the apartment.

Home being in Asheboro and all.