Was the most interesting response to my comments on Rappaport really staticwarp's flat "NO U"?

I could easily be wrong, but as far a I remember, Static's comment was the only one I received that specifically referenced your comments. I just now went back and re-read Static's response, left on C-Realm.com and pasted here:

it gets pretty old hearing people dismiss "conspiracy theories" out of hand just because an idea may fall into that category. the "conspiracy theorist" is inevitably impugned as well, and the name itself has derogatory meaning for many, which tends to cause peoples minds to either open or close completely, neither of which is conducive to greater knowledge or expanded consciousness. "aggravating blind optimism and aggravating blind pessimism" strikes me as a comment from an individual who is aggravatingly closed off to new ideas and aggravatingly confident in their own superior knowledge, both of which can be hallmarks of insanity, making the commenter mentioned in the previous episode just as much of a "crazy person" as the guest he disagrees with.

i continue to enjoy the c-realm's level and honest dialog, which does not create unhelpful arguments with its guests, but neither does it let them off the hook. i enjoyed the last guest, and i will continue to enjoy the podcast. thanks kmo.

I do think you let Rappoport off the hook in that interview, and that the interview was less interesting for it.

I asked him on a couple of occasions to be more specific about where he gets his information, and then I edited the conversation so that it sounded as if he offered up that information without prompting. Even so, I knew that it would not satisfy skeptics.

All I can say is that, in my opinion, if I'd been as doggedly confrontational as some of the people who really hated the interview thought I should have been (see the FB Friends of the C-Realm thread), then the flow of the conversation would have turned confrontational and antagonistic and would have left no opportunity to re-visit those topics with Jon on some future occasion. I think that establishing and maintaining rapport with a guest provides a far more valuable service for the listeners than demonstrating to them that I'm a stalwart champion for their belief system or set of preferences.

Edited at 2012-03-09 02:49 pm (UTC)

I guess that editing explains my sense that there was something odd about the structure of the interview.

I could get a pretty decent Skype connection here at the ETC for a time, and I recorded several interviews from my cabin. Then things degraded, but because it had worked consistently for a time, I kept at it. The interview with Jon was the last one I attempted from the ETC. The call dropped repeatedly, and he had to re-establish his flow from a stand-still twice. That probably contributed to the oddness of the structure as much as anything. I'm moving to NYC at the end of the month, so for the next few shows I'm just biting the bullet and driving to Hohenwald to record Skype calls from a coffee shop with wifi.