Why Dave Winer Hates Nashville
October 8th, 2008 by Bullshit MancusoBack in 2005, Dave Winer got into a bizarre raging argument with other bloggers at the BlogNashville conference while he was moderating a panel on blog civility. That’s not sarcasm. The topic really was civility. Stan Brown, one of the people in attendance, described Winer’s meltdown:
As others have noted, he (Winer) got into a ridiculous exchange with John Cox that got really heated and went on and on and on to the point that people in the room began to get really uncomfortable. At that point, someone wondered if Dave was trying to conduct some kind of encounter group. As others have noted, his treatment of Robin Burk was totally out of line. He was rude quite often. About a third of the way through, he took a deep breath, slowed everything down and mentioned we still had another hour to go. I was actually feeling sympathy for him at this point. It occurred to me that perhaps he was taking medications that he had forgotten to bring with him on this trip.
That’s the back story for today’s gratuitous insult against Nashville on Scripting News, in case you were curious. Winer’s hatred has grown from one roomful of bloggers to the entire city.
Given this, it’s funny to read the recent weblog post by Rex Hammock, a friend who’s been coming to Winer’s defense for years and years:
I know that most of the people who read this blog are not from Nashville. However, my style of blogging has always been to keep it personal. And one of the most personal things about me is my love of a place I call home, Nashville, Tennessee.
Hammock’s attempt back in ‘05 to rationalize Winer’s obnoxious behavior at BlogNashville is still a pungent example of asskissery:
From what I’ve observed, Dave is a designer of (a visionary of?) and defender of common grounds. … Like Real Simple Syndication (RSS), one of Dave’s earlier battles for common ground, we’re now struggling to discover the protocols of what I would call Real Simple Values.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Dave’s original comment stated that he hated tennessee and that if they succeeded again we should let them go. Either I can’t find it or he changed it.
Look, dave hates the south, period. He’ll bash them anytime he gets the chance.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Here’s the comment he deleted: “I’ve been to an event at Belmont University, and concur, totally. What a nasty place. You can keep Nashville and Tennessee, and if they ever decide to secede again, we should say YES quickly before they change their mind.”
October 8th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Thank you. I thought I was seeing things.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:36 am
And hide his problems behind religion, anti-semitism, and so forth. He’s right, because we already know that Dave is smarter and better than everyone else in the world, so the problems must lie with Nashville, Tennessee, Belmont, the South, Republicans, and other people.