Re paranoia: Just listened to Mykeru on The Angry Atheist. (LOL at the sealant analogy.) Mykeru, I shook a finger at you on twitter yesterday but now may be "helping" here, if inadvertently and reluctantly.
I'd like to point out that I did not bring up anything at Ophelia's about my background & whether it might add something to my impression about her reaction to the news about Justin planning to attend the Dublin conference.
She alluded to knowing my profession,
after which I said that maybe that helped explain my concern.
Re the email: It was mostly a repeat of the communication that occurred in public view on her blog, where she had the power of moderation (& approved my 1st 3 or so posts, then round-filed my last one). It looks like she basically micro-stalked me (found out my email address, apparently from some source other than my recent posts at her blog, and she initiated non-public contact with me) to insist that Justin going to 2 conferences means he really is stalking her? WTF. And looking at the time stamps, it seems that she sent this between my 2nd & 3rd posts on her site (all of which she let through). I hadn't seen the email till later, in part because (I kid you not) I was driving a lady with kidney failure to her dialysis appointment and taking dinner to a man with end-stage cancer. (Not my patients, just people I and others help out.)
Ophelia Benson, in unsolicited email commenting on blog posts she had let through moderation, wrote:Really? Really, Dr [Lastname]? You really want to go with that? Vacula gives me endless shit and goes to not one but two conferences where I'm a speaker? And you want to accuse ME of paranoia? Because what, I'm imagining all the endless shit Vacula gives me?
And why do you use a pseudonym to do all this? Is it to avoid the kind of shit I get?
It's contemptible.
Re Vacula & Dublin: I'm pretty sure I'd posted a line in one of my posts on her blog saying that he wasn't the one who proposed he go to Dublin. That might have been too subtle. I'll say it more plainly: I'm the one who proposed that Justin go to the conference in Dublin, and I didn't do it so that he could follow Ophelia Benson from conference to conference. (No offense to her or anyone, but I keep forgetting which speakers will be there.)
Re use of pseudonym: I'm not worried about losing my job. I use a pseudonym to stay low-ish key in public spaces online because there are
patients who seem to assume that an atheist doctor = agent of Satan. It's in large part to assuage their angst in that regard, when they're feeling vulnerable, that I smile noncommittally and make reassuring sounds when religion comes up at work.
It seems unlikely that one atheist, or a group of atheists, would try to whip
that aspect up into a frenzy, or if they did it would presumably only backfire against them. Picturing here a blog post about how awful it is that an atheist would be a doctor? That an atheist doctor would seek to reassure patients even if it means keeping an area of the doctor's life & beliefs private? That an atheist doctor would read much less post in (*gasp*) the Slyme pit?
Re references to Ms Benson: I don't like the way she (and others) are referred to here in a negative way by, or with emphasis on, body parts, as in some of the last couple of posts. I don't believe I've ever done that, and of course my behavior is the only behavior I control directly (not having mod powers here). I suspect that in part its use is a way people let off frustration, and of course one thing that's clear about the Pit is that we aren't responsible for each others' posts.