At the Times, you see, a human screens every comment, filtering obscenity and, when need be, emailing potential corrections to editors. Since there are only so many moderators, comments on any given story are eventually closed. In the case of Gould's article and the Clinton editorial, comments were closed less than 24 hours after the story went online. Fast! In other cases, it might take a couple of days to shut down comments.

Our source knew of no cases of comments being turned off based on the content of the comments.

Adrian Foster, 32, an employee at Petland Discounts, also dreamed of stardom. “It’ll be good, once I’m on it,” he said. But he questioned the choice of neighborhood.

“Compared to other places they were living, I think this would be a downgrade,” he said. “A few bars, a few stores, that’s about it. Clubs, they have to go to Manhattan. It’s kind of rough out here. They’ve just got to keep their eyes open and ears open.”

Danny Perez, 37, works at Gallery Religious Supplies, which sells, besides the anti-jinx soap, candles and bath salts that claim to attract money or love and dispel evil. He knows the neighborhood as well as anyone, acting as a confidant to his customers, who whisper to him of some ill or want that he addresses with a special candle.

“They’d be jeopardizing their safety,” he said of the cast members. “Too many side streets.” But he promised to do his best for any of them. “I’ll help them out,” he said. “I’ll help them out.”

Gosh, it sounds like throwing a bunch of young, privileged, mostly white youths into downtown Brooklyn might produce some unexpected complications. If you think about it, it's almost as though that's what MTV wants.

[Times]

See? If W. hadn't cynically decided that the end justifies the means with regard to Iraq, Siegel would never have had to fabricate a false identity in order to defend himself. Well said, sprezzatura.

[Guardian]

He is prone to writing sentences like, “Look at M1, M2 and M3 FED money supply. They have gone parabolic for the last 6 years,” as well as sentences like, “Y’all are fucking finished and the asshole Brokers who pumped this shit up will get ass-raped!” He went through a period in March 2008 during which he promised to “reframe from using profanity.” (Short-lived.) He’s posted comments such as “First order of Business: Citigroup is planing to sell 400 Billion dollars of their assets. I find this very scary. I think they need to raise their capital base.... The upcoming Depression will prove we overstepped out boundaries. And out children will pay for our folly.”

And he’s posted comments such as, “Real Estate is fucking over!!!!! Real Estate is fucking over!!!!! Real Estate is fucking over!!!!! Real Estate is fucking over!!!!!” His posting style is so schizophrenic that one might suspect he is either (a) several very different people posting under the same name or (b) schizophrenic. He sometimes sounds like he’s locked in a basement somewhere, surrounded by newspaper clippings on all four walls.

He touches down in comment threads like a rhetorical Tasmanian devil, huffing and puffing in such a hysterical manner as to become, well, kind of hysterical—as when he wrote this (and I’ve made every effort to retain the integrity of the punctuation), in response to an item about Clinton Hill titled “Price Cuts at 936 Fulton Street”:

WHAT?!!!!! Already?!!!! NO!!!!!!! Everyone wants to live on Fulton St. This can’t be happening…… Please help me.… please.….

****Sobs into sleep*********

Chuckie getting ass-raped.

(Chuckie, for the record, appears to be The What’s generic name for the average white Brooklynite. Either that, or it’s a reference to Chuck Schumer. Or possibly Chuck E. Cheese, though it’s not clear why anyone would want to ass-rape Chuck E. Cheese.)

The writer of the article tries, and fails, to figure out who The What is, and uses him a springboard from which to raise issues of anonymity, class anxiety, sublimated anger, fame in the modern era, etc. etc., much as Emily Gould did in her piece in the Times magazine on being a blogger. Which is all well and good, but all that hand-waving is just an excuse to reprint bitchy comments from the What and other Brooklynites, not that anyone should have a problem with that.

The only truly significant issue raised by the story is who will be first to write a big article about blog lurkers. Who are they, and WHY DON'T THEY SAY ANYTHING?

[New York]

(Michael Clayton clips via 29Guide.)

[Times, LA Times]

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