A taste of her own medicine

How about this for the rabbit eating its own dropping. My own blog-review of a blogger who blogs about other bloggers. I dont usually regurgitate the blogospheres own droppings but she annoyed me!

El Delilah has set herself up as gods gift to blog reviews. Every post she finds a new blogger to spit her poison at. And poison is all there is. I live by the saying "if you have nothing positive to say then don't bother to say it" and here the definition why this proverb is a good thing.

But before I descend into my rant - I have to start by saying she is a great blogger - when she hits on The Mesopotamian she is spot on. The guy deserved being pulled down a rung or two and gets his just rewards. But she has issues. Her first post was a wholly unjustified and uncalled for rant against an innocent blogger who was humbly minding his own business and creating his art in his own way. Her "review" was the blogging equivalent of the playground bully. Find someone you think is smaller and lay into him.

Let me start with the name she writes under "ĒL DELILÂH" I'm sorry but using silly accents is not big and it's not clever.

She starts with the reason for her blog:

Some blogs are just great, others are fine, and there's a good number of them that are there to reflect Iraqis' potential at being ignorants, over-bloated, ego-centered, extremists et cetera, you name it and it's there. Not that there aren't people like that everywhere else, but we're the ones that need to get their image fixed.

And why is that Ms. ĒL DELILÂH? I haven't had a conversation yet with any journalist or blogger who says that Iraqi blogs are collectively ignorants, over-bloated, or ego-centric. I just hear awed appreciation for Riverbend, Salam Pax, Zeyad, Iraq The Model, etc. When you can get your blog listed for one of the worlds most prestigious book prizes, or have your blog consistently in the top 500 blogs worldwide, or you can get a job with the Guardian and the BBC, or get published in the New York Times you have a right to say that. Until then pleased shut up.



She goes on to rant about Meemo's writing style:

Now, we Iraqis aren't normally raised speaking English, and we might not be the best writers ever in English. But this guy writes the longest overrun sentences ever, even longer than resolutions. Every post is an overrun sentence, itself, and there is no such thing as paragraphs.

Suddenly Delilah is an expert on English. There is one thing I respect the English language for and its the one thing any true expert of the English language will tell you is that English has huge room for innovation. And Meemo is one of those rare bloggers who is trying to create some thing original through his use of the language. I admit it is somewhat hard going but original nonetheless. Like a complex jazz composition - not everyone's cup of tea but still has a perfect right to its place in the blogosphere.



The rest of the post sinks into the realm of personal insults from which there is no recovery:

he goes on as though he's got ADHD ... I found it no more than "blabber" ... you just can't help thinking "Boy! Get a life!" ... he's either a metroman dying to get laid, or a plain homosexual going through denial and it's getting to his brain...if there's such a thing ...

It all just got me wondering why this venom. Meemo doesn't tell people to be like him, he is not advising others to support this war or that army, he just tells us about his life as he sees it. Then I read this:

Unfortunately, Meemo's likes are becoming the more common element in our youth. Quite a burden on society, quite sluggish and grumpy, hollow to a level where their value as human beings is not that high in a world where a person is valued by what they can produce and what they've got to offer.

Here we go, she is on a moral crusade to rid Iraq of lazy teenagers. People are getting beheaded on Meemo's doorstep and Dulilah is moaning about him to grow up. Get a perspective little girl! What is you problem? Were you potty-trained too early? Did your parents force you to study instead of playing. Are you harboring deep grudges of a lost childhood?

It is sad to see a good blogger waste her effort on personal vedettas. Especially when the Iraqi blogosphere needs more talanted people. Posts like this will just put new bloggers off. Well, Ms. Dolilah, if you want to pick on someone - have a go at my blog if you think you are big enough. Otherwise have the decensy to apologise.