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by · February 22, 2012

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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46 Responses

  1. A Teacher says:
    February 22, 2012 at 10:45 am

    Well done.

    The problem we’ve got now is that we’ve got so many different forms of social media that to “get the word out” you practically have to be a professional in just that field.  Then there’s the “how many pages should you have?”

    I’ve got one as an author, one for my novel, I’ll have another for my next writing project and then have to start working on figuring out which pages to promote…Report

  2. E.D.Kain says:
    February 22, 2012 at 10:47 am

    Yes, it can be very time consuming.Report

  3. Rufus F. says:
    February 22, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    What’s a twitter?Report

  4. joey jo jo says:
    February 23, 2012 at 1:11 pm

    hi E.D.

    i’m curious, why do you X post your American Times pieces to Balloon Juice and not the League?Report

  5. joey jo jo says:
    February 23, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    interesting.  do you target the cross posting depending on the nature of the post to appeal to the different constituencies of the sites?Report

  6. BSK says:
    February 23, 2012 at 4:29 pm

    E.D.-

    Off-topic, can you explain Baloon Juice?  People seem to think of it as a joke, but you apparently still post there.  And who is the Freddy guy so many people talk about?  I don’t know how important this history is to know, but they seem to come up often.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to BSK says:
      February 23, 2012 at 4:31 pm

      Balloon Juice is a highly trafficked liberal blog. Freddie is a left-leaning blogger who used to write here, sometimes writes there, and writes his own blog. Not a lot to explain, I’m afraid, on either count.Report

    • Will Truman in reply to BSK says:
      February 23, 2012 at 4:58 pm

      Balloon Juice is the sort of blog where people show up in battle armor and swinging maces. So when we get people from BJ over here, they often come with a different mentality than we have. Most Balloon Juice jokes refer to the culture clash.

      Not much to add to EDK’s description about Freddie Deboer other than his last name and that one of his big issues (from what I recall) is the lack of a genuine left-wing in this country. He can be extraordinarily insightful and thought provoking (I mean that. Seriously.), but he can also fall into the tendency to believe that he takes the position he does because he cares and others take the opposing position because they don’t care like he does.Report

    • North in reply to BSK says:
      February 23, 2012 at 5:07 pm

      To elaborate on E.D.’s information:

      Balloon Juice is a highly trafficked liberal blog. It’s also known for a highly intemperate and shouty liberal commentariate. Some consider it somewhat of a Mordor to the League’s Gondor (with places like Redstate being a Mordor in the other political direction). When new angry and somewhat belligerent liberal commenter’s show up here; Balloon Juice is often credited/blamed.  All that being said I believe several Balloon Juice commenter’s have become perfectly respectable League regulars.  

      Freddie is definitely a left leaning blogger who used to write here but he’s a lot more than that as well. He was (is) a very capable and gifted writer who can pour blazing passion and eloquence into his prose in a remarkable manner. When reading Freddie you may not agree with him but you often get the very solid impression that he really really believes what he writes. In addition to being a capable writer Freddie is also a somewhat notorious commenter far and wide across the blogosphere. I’ve seen him pop up in places like Theatlantic and here of course as well as Balloon Juice and other more conservative locales. He often is a very assertive and emotional commenter and often has had a tendency to very easily fall into a position of asserting pronouncing and then getting riles up when questioned or debated with.

      In the League context he’s very well known for flying in, dropping a sternly worded judgmental pronouncement, and then winging off again into the ether.

      All that said he’s an amazing writer and a powerful voice from the (some would say far) left. He also scaled back on blogging a lot to pursue an academic career.Report

  7. Matthew says:
    February 23, 2012 at 8:19 pm

    For E.D., in the wrong thread since I don’t feel like registering at Forbes:

    If you want stories of the girl who’d rather be a knight than a princess, you might be interested in <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_the_Lioness”The Song of the Lioness</a> series.  The details have faded, but I have impressionistic memories of enjoying it as a child.Report

  8. Tod Kelly says:
    February 23, 2012 at 8:56 pm

    Also, this.Report

  9. rtod says:
    February 24, 2012 at 1:59 am

    test?Report

  10. Erik Kain says:
    February 24, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    So…the site is working but nobody can log in. I wish I had an answer at this point, but I don’t. I can’t get in either and I have no idea what to do. Working on it.Report

  11. Kenneth says:
    February 26, 2012 at 9:42 am

    Well, since none can comment there, allow me to sum up your dishonest disgrace’s comment found here: https://ordinary-times.com/blog/2012/02/25/the-14th-amendment-vs-plato/#comment-243210

    “Hi folks, I’ve horrendously lost the debate and my initial points were fishing stupid. So rather than admit it, I’ve closed comments on the post and am hoping that a few hours from now after no discussion, nobody will even remember the post’s there to try to comment or question it.”

    In other words… more of TVD’s 1000% pure weapons-grade bolognium.

     Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Kenneth says:
      February 26, 2012 at 9:44 am

      So you have nothing to back up your assertions re: bans I see.Report

      • Kenneth in reply to E.D. Kain says:
        February 26, 2012 at 10:05 am

        Did you even BOTHER to read my comments in the appropriate place? No, I see you did not.Report

        • E.D. Kain in reply to Kenneth says:
          February 26, 2012 at 10:14 am

          I asked you for specifics and links to the comments in question. You provided nothing but assertions once again. Claims that I chastised James for something about rape which, to be quite honest, I have no recollection of whatsoever (so it was likely not me.) You need to do better than make claims. You need to provide proof.  This is not difficult. We have banned four people. I almost never show up in the comments to yell at people. The person I’ve yelled at most is probably Bob Cheeks. I’ve banned people on both sides of the political spectrum and will continue to do so if need be.Report

    • BSK in reply to Kenneth says:
      February 26, 2012 at 9:52 am

      Kenneth-

      I was initially botherd by Tom’s action here, for a number of reasons. It seemed to squash an opportunity for critique, assumed that the only dialogues going on were between he and commenters, and was a step I had never seen taken by another author here. I then saw his update in the OP and remembered some of Jaybird’s words and gave a second thought to it. Would I have been as bothered had this been another author? Bothered, yes. As much so, probably not. I was, in part, responding to Tom as much as Tom’s actions. I felt somewhat justified in this, because the messenger does matter to an extent, but not as much as I was allowing for. I also considered that Tom seemed to be responding to some of the criticisms of him made in the aforementioned exchange with JB, namely that he disengages when strongly challeneged. To criticize him for that AND criticize him for taking a step to address that creates a no-win situation which is obviously unfair. I do think some of the language used in the OP update was a bit of a dig at those who disagree with him, but I am willing to let that slide if he does ndeed return and engages honestly the critiques put forward.
      So, yea, I didn’t love the move, in part becuase it risks playing into a larger pattern of Tom manipulating the flow of conversation. But lets see what happens first before making that determination. I think Tom might have been better served to simply say he was signing off for the night, would return when he could, and would engage as much as possible with the caveat that it would be hard if the comments section was overrun. That would have allowed others to continue dialoguing and allowed Tom to deal with RL without it beingheld against him. But that’s me.

      Let’s see how this plays out before we crucify Tom again who very well may have been, and who I will assume was, acting in good faith.Report

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