Dave Winer killed a blog post last night related to his feud with Loren Feldman, creator of a Winer puppet that mocks the shit out of him:
Shel got a reprieve
Saturday, June 28, 2008 by Dave Winer.Well, it worked.
They let Shel Israel off the hook. He gets his name back, the puppet is retired. The mock trial they were planning for the TechCrunch summer party, that I learned of this morning, is cancelled. I don’t know what Heather and Mike were thinking, or if they were even in the loop, but people need to be a lot more careful with each others’ reputations, if we ever want to get anywhere.
Maybe after a breathing period we can resume some of our friendships.
Lately Winer has been complaining about the treatment of Israel, another butt of Feldman’s jokes who has been turned into a puppet. Winer’s comments on FriendFeed show why:
Do you think they would be doing this if Shel’s name was Kathy Sierra? Why is it funny to destroy a middle-aged Jewish guy?
It amazes me the people who just stand by and do and say nothing.
I don’t just think his Jewishness has anything to do with it, I’m sure of it.
Israel is, of course, a stand-in for Winer’s own beef with Feldman — the poor middle-aged Jewish tech blogger that the Nazi puppetmaster and his anti-Semitic thugs wants to destroy. First they came for the A listers, but I did not complain, for I was a B-lister …
The notion that anti-Semitism is at play here is deranged. As J. Michael Arrington pointed out on that FriendFeed discussion, Winer praised the puppets (including the Israel one) as recently as June 28 — Twitter messages he has since deleted.
In a discussion on Feldman’s site, Winer pleaded with Feldman to “cancel the vendetta against me”:
I just heard today what you think I said to or about your girlfriend. Loren, listen to this carefully — it never happened. Think about it. What if you got this wrong. How the fuck are you ever going to make it up.
Accusing a man of abusing women is the worst thing you can say about him. You really have fucked up here big time. And if you feel like a mensch, you should apologize, cause you really wronged me. Swear to god.
PS: I heard about it from a woman friend who knows your girlfriend. I asked her to let her know that what you said about me is absolutely untrue.
Winer has so little self-knowledge that he can’t understand how his actions might make him a rich target for mockery. In his head, the only reason Feldman could possibly be going after him is some personal slight involving Feldman’s girlfriend.
Feldman, who has to be loving Winer’s overwrought hysterics, has big plans for Puppet Dave:
Im preparing a documentary with puppets of course about Dave Winer. Please email me all Winer Incidents, all replies in strict confidence.
hmmm talk about ignorance does Dave Winer know that Loren may be Jewish?
Anonymous:
Jewish people can single out other Jewish people for ridicule.
Dave probably has a good point on this one… Loren Feldman has a huge dose of bully in his “comedy” with the puppet videos. He could create a puppet that is just as funny and forget about them being based upon a real person: like Triumph the Insult Comic (dog).
If Loren is Jewish then he may also have a dose of self-hating that makes him want to target middle-age Jews and align with non-Jews.
I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be one of Loren’s targets. So, he has to pick out someone that has already offended a lot of people or the backlash would be greater.
I’m hoping Loren passes on targeting Winer. He’s too easily hurt by being made the brunt of jokes. Pick on someone that can take it.
I’m not sure I follow, McD. Just because the target is Jewish doesn’t make the attack anti-semitic.
Maybe not. But it can mean that the target is sensitive to attack and people should respect that sensitivity.
For me it’s like making fun of someone with a handicap. It’s cruel. Loren Feldman’s humor can be cruel. That’s my point. That’s also Dave’s point.
Stop being an enabler, McD. Dave’s an asshole who occasionally runs into another one of his own kind and gets what he deserves. That’s why Jason Calacanis has been roughing him up for the last year, why Loren Feldman is now taking his turn, and why Eye on Winer has an audience. The idea we should all “respect [his] sensitivity” is comic. Fuck that, and fuck Winer.
I think Puppet Dave was better than Puppet Israel:
http://www.1938media.com/dave-winer-and-jason-calacanis-talk-it-out/
What you’re describing, McD, is something called a “victim mentality”, and I’m not sure I support the idea of pandering to it.