Grushkin and his vlogs, cyberbullying and the outing of Candy

There seems to be a perception issue that I was constantly bringing up my Monopoly money gag that Grushkin (or "Don G.") apparently missed. In Grushkin's infinite wisdom he had the audacity to wade into all this with his constant complaints.  And so allow me to establish a time line and links to where and the number of times I brought up the Monopoly gag versus Grushkin's claim of "many, many times." 

On June 5th, 2010, I made a gag blog about (fake) money that was donated to FB's "Deafhood? No Thanks!" which is an ad hoc "organization" by which Grushkin replied in my comment section that started it all:

I think it's sad someone is donating such a large sum of money to a group that is about doing nothing instead of to a group that is about doing SOMETHING.

Four days later seemingly upset or mad he made a vlog on June 9th "Where is our money going?" raising a ruckus about why $656 (of fake Monopoly money) was going to an "unworthy" organization and how dare they use "our" money for that (Whose money again?? "Our"? Quite presumptuous, ain't it?) so-called organization.  Note the emphasis on "our money."  A rather arrogant thing to do by going around telling people how the donated money belong to their organization and to no one else. Because it's "our money!"  What an arrogant piece.

This prompted me to make a vlog/blog "A Critical Analysis" on that same day to clarify that the donation was fake in the first place, obviously so if one had paid careful attention to it. I also posted a link to my blog in "Deafhood? No Thanks!" Facebook site where people laughed and made their comments known there for next few days.

The next time I brought up the Monopoly money gag in Facebook was on June 29, 2010 and again here that same day. And that was basically the end of it. We all had our fun.

And then a long lull began after that. 

On August 29 I made a blog "Incredible Hulk Character equals Oppression to Deaf?" about Grushkin's Hulk vlog who claimed the Hulk's example was avdism. I basically laughed at that idea and in my comment section is where he made his first "intellectual" jab at me.

I'm sorry your intelligence and vision are too limited to see the big picture and contemplate alternate possibilities.

And in that same thread I responded as a reminder to him seen at the end of my comment:

Hey, we can play this "  intelligence"   game any time you want. The only problem is you actually brought it up.

Just a little reminder for the guy.

The lull continued.

And then on Sept 13th I did a blog ("My plan is working flawlessly! *rubs hands*") and in the comment section I responded to White Ghost's comment about a satire which reminded me of my Monopoly money satire saying it was the best one I did.

WG,

Well, yeah, still I think my Monopoly money blog satire was the best one yet. Too bad it took a video for me to do and explain to those who actually believed that money took place in the fake donation effort to the "Deafhood? No Thanks" group.

And sure enough, Grushkin was watching like a hawk and he complained again about my repeating his Monopoly money mistake in that same thread just below WG's comment:

Instead, you have shown a mean streak a half-mile wide (I won't give you a full mile, because that's reserved for another of your cronies, who truly deserves not to be named, who has actively sought the destruction of our community and unity). Why do I say "mean streak"? Just look at your obsession over my lack of care in reading your "monopoly"  blog. Instead of realizing that maybe I am human and did not read carefully all the way through, (and I DID leave you a comment to that regard, but you chose to delete it) you have instead chosen to continue to mock me at every turn with that. I, on the other hand, chose to ignore you, because ultimately, it is really a minor mistake on my part, but that mean streak of yours attempted to blow it up into an indictment of my intelligence and whatever else you decided to do with it. If you did not have a mean streak, you would have had your fun and left it alone. You did not.

My obsession? I only brought it up once in a response to White Ghost's comment almost 3 months later after the last time I brought it up. Yet, Grushkin was so insecure about his own embarrassing Monopoly money gaffe all of sudden he sees my bringing up the Monopoly money fiasco one more time almost 3 months later as the equivalent of being "obsessed." Also, as a side note as seen in the Grushkin's comment above, I've not deleted any of Grushkin's comment in my blogs though I'm not sure which blog of mine he's referring to. Sometimes comments do go into my spam folder for some odd reason. I have explained this before. I do not always notice the spam flag right away and I do "unspam" them recognizing those as legitimate comments whenever I notice the spam flag. On occasion I do get spams. I believe I did ask Grushkin to resend his comment again. Not sure at this point I'm pretty darn sure I did somewhere. Maybe he thought I deleted his comment when in fact it wasn't approved yet until I returned home or had not gotten around to approving his comment until much later? I don't delete comments unless they violate one of my rules.

On September 27 I did a blog "Fried brains and yummy desserts"  about trying to appear "academic" while touching briefly about the Monopoly gag to make a point. I hadn't brought this up gag again for almost a month later on October 23 after Grushkin made his zombie video about me on October 22.

Meanwhile from September to November on Grushkin's YouTube vlog site he seem to have lost it by making a spate of videos about me indirectly or directly on September 3 ("We're just expressing our opinion!"), September 13 ("Mike McConnell's Kangaroo Court"), September 17 ("'Go to Hell, Nattering Nabobs!'?"), September 19 ("You may be addicted to v/blogging if...."), and October 8 ("A new word and sign for blogging behavior!"). Funnily enough, he did say that he chose to ignore me starting on September 13.

And then on October 22 Grushkin tried to do his coupe de grace stab at me in his Halloween satire piece about me as "Kokonut" as having "no brains" with a video titled "A Deaf zombie wanders in cyberspace" with him playing the hapless and wondering "Deaf zombie." I can only surmise that he got his zombie inspiration from an earlier blog I did on October 19 ("Zombieland!"). Coincidence? I think not. Besides, who were those so-called "brainy" people in his video satire?

Remember what I said earlier that if he continues with the intelligence jab then he should expect a response from me in kind?  I did exactly that on October 23, 2010 I did a video piece called "Zombie Monopoly" in honor of his October 22, 2010 zombie video.

Satire is met with another satire. Not bullying but....satire. Get with the program, folks.

Though not surprising, two weeks later, on November 6 in Candy's own blog Grushkin continued to complain by commenting on what I did in making my Zombie Monopoly video "bordered on cyberbullying."  And quickly on that same day, November 6th ("For xxxx xxxxxx, AKA "Candy", on Cyberbullying") he did a YouTube vlog to complain once again this whole Monopoly affair by calling it a "borderline" cyberbullying example. He said so with a straight face while using Candy's real name and not her pseudo or anonymous name  "Candy." He attacked Candy about my Monopoly money satire only because she thought it was funny and a hoot. But here's a quick little history for the readers. This blogger "Candy" was outed by a surreptitious group of Deaf people who identified her by publicly announcing her real name even though she used a pseudo name as a security precaution whenever she blogged.  Once her real name was outed several Deaf people contacted her employer in the effort to get her into trouble.

Now, back on track.

What I'm demonstrating here is that Don Grushkin was the one who continued to bring up the whole Monopoly affair again and again saying that I referred to his Monopoly money faux pas "many, many, many times." He said this in his November 6 vlog and in Candy's blog on November 6. In actuality I brought up perhaps 4 or 5 times over the course of 4 months from July to October this Monopoly gag thing and not the "many, many times" he so tried to claim as happened.  

In my opinion, Grushkin's own zombie video about my intelligence wasn't a cyberbullying vlog. Even though, ironically so, he called my own "Zombie Monopoly" video as "border line" cyberbullying in his November 6 response as seen in Candy's blog.  My video was purely satirical in nature. A bit fun just as Grushkin had his fun playing the hapless Deaf zombie in his attempt to poke fun at my intelligence as a retaliation effort.  He simply found a way to vent his anger over his own misconceptions by claiming that I was bringing up his Monopoly money gaffe repeatedly and obsessively, at every turn making it sound like it was a daily occurrence. As you can see here the time line I constructed with the links to where and when I brought up his Monopoly money gaffe, you can see that I brought up the gaffe a few times and not the "many, many times" as Grushkin's tried to characterize it as.

Those are the facts.

Grushkin's own action and continual complaints are an indictment to his own intellectual insecurity.  His own PhD can't save him from it. My time line describes exactly how things went with links and dates. This will be used as a future reference for others to see and set the record straight. Everything's here as best as I could document them. I'm not bashful about it. And I certainly am not going to constantly squeal like a stuck pig over something I don't like.

Hypocrisy on the DR boycott and "avdism"?

About a year ago people decided to boycott Deafread because of Tayler's refusal to put the "A"-word in the Deafread guideline as grounds for not accepting a blog.

Because I lack the experience, knowledge and authority, I refuse to embed the term “au****” into the guidelines. Doing so would have significant impact on the deaf community and would not be able to bear the responsibility of forcing the wrong interpretation upon the community. Until there is greater consensus on “au****”, therefore having less room for it to be abused, the guidelines will protect DeafRead by the “excessive negativity” clause and DeafVIDEO.TV by the harassment rule. Following this fiasco in which au**** was exposed to be both widely misunderstood and abused, I retracted my committment to Patti to add it to the guidelines. As Patti and I agreed more recently, I will instead work with the DeafRead team to incorporate a broader term that will offer tighter protection than that of the “excessive negativity” clause.

Note that I am censoring part of the "a" word in Tayler's comment in the above for my own personal reason. You can read here on why. I could've replaced it with "avdism" though but either way I'm making this known for you readers.

And because of Tayler's refusal to include such a word in the Deafread guidelines numerous Deaf bloggers decided to boycott Deafread and not have their blogs show up on Deafread. One of the blogger is Dr DonG where he explained why he boycotted Deafread.

I have long since been speaking against au****. I have taken a stand against a****. I believe that if you “talk the talk”, you must “walk the walk”. Au**** hurts, and it hurts worse when it comes from one of our own. But it hurts worst when one of our own allows it AND profits from it.

That is the reason that I feel I can no longer be involved in DVTV, if au**** is allowed to continue. I cannot let someone directly profit from au****. It’s bad enough when Hearing people, like at Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, profit from au****, but we Deaf should not allow it, we should not accept it.

So, people boycotted Deafread because of the "rampant" avdism seen in the aggregator list linking to blogs with attidudes of "avdism"? Right? What about Deaf Village's aggregator site, too? Now, isn't avdism seen in majority of DV's submissions include lots of stuff about how wonderful hearing and speaking is for children, CIs and their marvelous results, all technically defined as the "A"-word in all its mutations  If so then why is DonG's website listed on Deaf Village's aggregator site as seen on DV's blog contributors list? And yet the most recent submission of DonG's in DV was on September 10, 2010 with a total of 24 submissions ever since he boycotted DR over a year ago over a single word.

Regardless, I still think it's rather a petty and trivial thing to boycott over a word when Tayler made clear on why he is unable to institute such a word into Deafread's guidelines.

An intellectual exercise on "Deaf statistics".....

In Deaf Sherlock's blog he wrote "28 Deaf people arrested in a year." Now, it was the VRS scam that netted 26 arrests with many notable Deaf names like Jon and Joseph Yeh. Y ou can see the list of 26 names here. We already know what the other two separate arrests that happened this year but that's not what I want to discuss. Among the 26 names only several names are recognized as Deaf people. The other names could very well be hearing people. So, it'd be incorrect to say a total of 28 Deaf people were arrested this year. Also, some of them just received a subpoena and not arrested. Unless there is proof that each of the person in the list is in fact a Deaf person who got arrested then I have no problem with the "28 Deaf people arrested in a year." But in reality it is more likely it's much less than "28 Deaf people" arrested in a year as seen in Deaf Sherlock's example.

Now, an interesting question comes to mind here. How many Deaf people get arrested each year? Whether they get arrested for DUI, domestic abuse, failure to appear in court, rape charges whether it's campus rape or not, rioting, protests (remember DPN2 arrests?), drug possesion, trespassing, stalking, vandalism or other more serious crimes. This includes Deaf juveniles such as teens who get arrested. Whatever the reason for the arrests but it'd be nearly impossible to find the average number of Deaf people who get arrested each year because such statistics are extremely hard to find and gather.

In the Sherlock's use of "28 Deaf people arrested" cannot be used as an absolute total number of Deaf people arrested so far this year. For all we know it could be 200 Deaf people arrested. It could be 50. It could be 1,000. Or it could be 10,000! We don't know for sure exactly. And to compound that we have people who are deaf/hh and not Deaf who get arrested each year as well. Although in the past I have blogged before on Deaf prisoners but that's not helpful in what I'm trying to do here.

The number of Deaf people in the U.S. varies between 600,000 to 1,000,000. Let's take a middle number like 800,000 Deaf people in the U.S just for simplicity sake. There are 310,000,000 people in the U.S. The ratio of Deaf people to hearing would be about to 1 out of 400. The number of arrests for all offenses each year for all people using a 2005 statistics from the FBI is approximately 14,000,000 arrests. Despite this it's best to look at the rate of arrests per number of inhabitants.

Nationwide, the 2005 rate of arrests was estimated at 4,761.6 arrests per 100,000 inhabitants..

We can expect that some of 4,761 arrests per 100,000 inhabitants (or 0.047 arrest rate) which we can conclude safely that it does include Deaf people that were arrested. When one says "arrest" it doesn't mean convicted, prosecuted, and/or imprisoned. Just arrested for a crime to be booked. Many are released and not face jail time and instead be on probation or pay a penalty fine. Many, if not most, do end up in jail or incarcerated.

Since people are human and the crimes are the same regardless if a person has a hearing loss or not and that we're all equal as far as human frailty is concerned, the rate of arrests nationwide is 0.047 or 4.7 percent. That means we can expect 37,000 arrests out of a Deaf population of 800,000 every year (simple math, 0.047 times 800,000 equals 37,000). Remember, arrests can be for minor charges to the more serious. Some arrests are multiple arrests for the same person. Again, let me stress this to you folks before you go all hyper on me like you usually do. 37,000 arrests DOES NOT MEAN 37,000 Deaf people arrested each year. It means possibly that up to 37,000 arrests on average are expected each year in a Deaf population of 800,000. It'd be impossible to know exactly the average number of Deaf people that get arrested each year but we can make some assumptions on the average number of arrests in a Deaf population. A different thing here. If you are getting angry at this 37,000 arrest number then you need to either re-read what I just wrote or have someone else explain it to you.

Now, having said all that. Since the Deaf population is a recognized minority group that's quite distinct due to its uniqueness as a culture group any high profile arrests of Deaf people that gets splattered across the news headlines will probably get more notice than not. For example, the VRS scam involving many notable Deaf names. And are much more likely to have an impact on the image of the Deaf community than not simply due to its being a recognized and unique minority group.

So, it's rather a gross and rookie mistake to use the "28 Deaf people arrested in a year" to figure out the statistics on the number of Deaf people arrested in a year. Right, DonG? Doing so is nearly an impossible task to try and do in the first place since there is no database that I know of that collect that kind of rather personal and specific information.

Incredible Hulk Character equals Oppression to Deaf?

Now, I gotta laugh at this one. In DonG's blog he lamented over whether Lou Ferrigno's acting as the Incredible Hulk character who had no speaking role and did the whole "Aaarrgghh!" thing instead somehow constituted as "avdism" (purposely misspelled) just because the actor happens to be deaf? Oh, please.

So, I wonder why in the comic book, the Hulk can talk, but in the TV series, the Hulk never talks, except to say GRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! I’m thinking it is either:

The writers found the Hulk would be played by Lou Ferrigno, and assumed that he can’t talk, even though Lou was raised orally and can talk.
OR

The writers wanted to emphasize the Hulk’s lack of intelligence, so they wrote it so the Hulk can’t or doesn’t talk in order to emphasize his stupidity. That is, muteness is equated with stupidity.
Either way, that’s a*dism, right?

No, it's not. They cast him because of his size and build. He was a well known bodybuilder and was consider large for his size at the time at 6'5" and 275lbs. In fact he was one of the tallest professional bodybuilders at that time next to Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't think it was that important to have a Hulk tv character to do these simple angry one liners when an occassional "Aaaarrrgghh!" would suffice. And it did. It was all about visual effects. Not about voice.

There were five TV seasons, several TV movies and the first Incredible Hulk movie feature where the Hulk character never talked even though in comic books had him saying simple words like "Hulk smash! or "Hulk no like puny humans!" But that soon changed in the last Hulk movie a few years back by using Lou Ferrigno's voice to do the "Hulk smash!" voice over.

Hulk's verbal skills and intelligence have varied in the comics, but he's never been as mute as the TV version. So it's a little ironic that TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno will give voice to the Hulk in this film. Producer Gale Ann Hurd says Ferrigno was a last-minute addition to a panel on the movie at New York's Comic-Con. Director Leterrier invited him to "audition" onstage. "Lou did this amazing, 'Hulk smash!' " says Hurd. "And (director Louis Leterrier) said, 'Come in, we'll record you next week.' Everybody thought it was either a staged event or we wouldn't really do it. But the next week Lou came in in L.A. and his voice is the voice of the Hulk."

Satisfied?

So, let's knock off this nonsense in the attempt to find anything to do with "avdism" or the use of the a-wordism and attach that to this Hulk thing. I'm sure Lou Ferrigno would have laughed at the whole silly notion. What's next? Preferring to talk instead of ASL would be labeled as avdist for a deaf person, too? Oh, please! Such moronic thinking.

A Critical Analysis

Self explanatory.





My Response:



Insert pinky finger to lips.......

Google Posts Deafhood Warning on Search Site

I couldn't help but note the irony of this warning about a particular "Deafhood" website. Almost prophetic if you ask me. Clicking on the link to a particular discourse "may harm your computer." Isn't that a riot? This came about in a Google search where I put the word "deafhood" in and it gave me a list of links. One of them was the "deafhood discourses." We didn't need to have Google tell us on how harmful it may be for us....er, our computers if we click on it.

Also, be sure to check out, "Deafhood? No thanks." More of a good reason to click on "Deafhood? No thanks," lik than the link what Google is warning you of.