Two Questions for the Readers

I could use a good solid opinion or two here, or even more.

I’ve begun receiving “hate” mail in the form of comments on my blogs and citizen journalism articles. The writer of this mails refers to himself—I assume the person is of a masculine persuasion—variously as “herbie,” “ herbster,” “herb ert,” “herbisism,” “ashan,” “proceed with caution,” “herbert slobodow,” and “herbie the jew,” among an assortment of other things.

The writer—sorry, but the seventh-grade teacher in me can’t help noticing this—seems unable to spell or capitalize his way out of a paper bag! Now that fact would make me consider the possibility that the writer is not Herbie Slobodow--Elsa Newman’s intelligent, kind, loving, gentle, musician and athletic son, now fifteen years old--but some other person who pretends to be “Herbert” or “Herbster.” I don’t know.

However I cannot imagine any son speaking thus about his mother: “Your not my fucking mother, just a nasty place i crawled out of….” or “Shut the fuck up mom….you are a crazy bitch and you need some help, but your to crazy to get it, yeah make these bullshit blogs…,” “…my mom and her hitler way of the world….” And these are not the only such things he says. Nevertheless the person who leaves comments for me under these names, says these things about Elsa Newman. If this is indeed a child speaking about his mother, it is a strange thing indeed.

The only possibilities I see are these:

1) Herbert Slobodow has grown to hate his mother and does, indeed, spew such filth about her without conscience and without concern for the picture of himself that he is creating around the world;

2) the material is written, not by Herbie, but by his father, Arlen. Now you understand, Arlen Slobodow is a man who would very possibly consider himself well justified in referring to his former wife as a hole out of which his son had crawled. In addition to that, I have a certain feel for a writer that comes from all those years of teaching language arts. After years spent grading well over a hundred student papers per week, I find myself noticing small mannerisms, points of style, spelling techniques and inconsistencies, punctuation (or lack thereof) capitalization (or lack thereof), a certain turn of phrase typical of a particular writer—whether said writer is a student or a literary personage. And here are some things I know of Arlen Slobodow: he is a writer of scripts, which means that he is quite familiar with the process of putting words into other people’s mouths; is it just possible it could be this father himself, the accused pedophile, who is doing this writing? Arlen tends to write without capitals, without particular concern for punctuation and with little care for correct spelling. That is the second possibility I see.

3) Or there is a third possibility: the material could be written by some friend of Arlen Slobodow or some member of his family other than his older son. I have no particular reason to think this. However, I must acknowledge it as a possibility.

Soooo…what I’m asking here is that if you have read any of these comments, lend me a response. Tell me who you think is writing this garbage about Elsa Newman.

Garbage? Perhaps that is too high-class a name for what this person is spouting--as if Newman did not have enough suffering to do on her own, unjustly imprisoned for a crime committed by someone else, and partly for believing her sons when they said they were being molested by their father…for believing the physical signs of abuse physicians found on their young bodies. When a boy’s anus is stretched and broken and bleeding, Herbie, Herbster, Ashan, Herbie the Jew or whoever you are, it is a clear and documentable sign of sexual molestation, whether or not you choose now to admit that.

And at the time that doctors verified this abuse, you, yourself, were clinging to tables or doorways or your mother—begging not to have to go visit your father, and being forced to leave your mother and go to your father anyhow. People who supervised visits can bear witness to that, Herbster or Herbert or sheepsunion, whoever you are.

And now…although I hate to break it to my readers…I have to tell you that that whole shebang above is merely a lead in to a different question. And that question is about slander.

If the person who calls himself by many names , also calls me many names, is that slander? Let me give you some examples, straight from comments left by the (young?) man(?) of many names.

1. “Ann brocken is just mom’s hired writer and so all these articles come from my mom and her hitler way of the world….” [Gee, I hate it when he says that! I have spent hours virtually every day for the past year working on getting to the truth of the matter, and the kid(?) says I’m being paid to write this.] As if Elsa Newman had some source of money when Arlen Slobodow has a judgement against her for something like two million dollars. Guess again, folks! Besides that, you couldn’t pay me for all this work. I write because I believe in Elsa Newman, because I believe Elsa Newman, because I believe the two little boys who said their father was molesting them and abusing them in other ways, because I believe the physical evidence from these boys’ past, and because I believe that this whole mess has been a horrible miscarriage of justice.

2. [Aine O’Brocken] “is just a sick sellout my mom pays to write articles for her. Oh, that’s a name for me, all right—sick sellout. Ptooie!

3. “by the way annie post a blog about why you choose to copy and paste stuff mom writes to you on the internet.” I can hardly do a blog on that, since your mother/ex-wife (or whatever she is to you, depending on who is writing this crud) has no access to the internet and cannot write to me except by snail mail.

4. “Shut the fuck up and leave my dad alone What about Washington dc, a bitch named anne cyber bullying, libel, and slander.” Bullying, libel and slander—hmmmmm. Sound more like I’m the recipient than the bullier.

5. “You are fucking discusting.”

6. [You are] “a psychopathic sexist working for a manipulative insane bitch.”

7. “ And don’t lie about yourself, your not little, you fat hell!” This, I suppose as a response to my calling myself a little, old lady. And as virtually anyone knows, being a little, old lady has absolutely nothing to do with being little or old or a lady; it’s a state of mind. I’ve been here for years.”

8. “Your one sick shit, no matter how much she pays you, look at what your writing! It’s fucking discusting. You know none of that shit exists.” Quite the contrary, actually. The more time I spend on this case, the more I believe Elsa Newman is telling the truth about everything.

9. “you are a sellout and a sexist…your are a sexist nutjob who has some crazy ideas of female supremacy.” Naw. Anybody knows that women are just a hole for the real humans to crawl out of, don’t they? NOT!

Anyhow, to sum it all up, I am asking two questions of my readers, if any of you will be so kind as to comment.

Question one: who do you think is writing this abusive material about Elsa Newman?

Question two: has herbie/herbster/ashan/herb ert/herbie slobodow (or whoever this writer is) has this person yet crossed the line into slander in his/her name-calling and vicious approach to this writer.

Thanks. I'll be waiting to hear from you.