Trial by Website – Part 7 - Internet Inquiries and followup news

I received an eMail today through the kind offices of HubPages from someone who claims to be a fan of Andrew Totolos, the guy who beats on the drums for the musical group, "The Giraffes." As those who write here on HubPages know, those eMails do not divulge our personal eMail addresses to the eMail senders, but, if we reply directly to the senders, they get to know our addresses. For the most part, that would be just fine and dandy if the sender is another writer here, but once in a while the sender finds our writing and, thus, our HubPages pen name by way of some non-HubPages source. They are unknowns to us, to our many friends here, and to HubPages administration. Although most of those eMailers are fine people, devoid of mischievous motivation, and very worthy of trust and friendship, we don’t know that. Therefore it is probably unwise to reply to their welcome eMails using our own eMail addresses.

"H.B.R. (the provided return eMail address will not be shown here...)has sent you this message.(email address not verified)

Howdy Gus the Redneck!

I just read your blog titled "Trial by Website - Part 3 (How to be had – just believe every eMail you receive)". I am a huge fan of the Giraffes and didn't know about this crazy eMail until now! Can you please tell me the name of the "Rival" Liberty County Blog that posted that eMail that Louis Guthrie torn down? Is there is any way possible I can SEE a copy of the email and if you still have it? I PROMISE that I don't ever want to repost the eMail anywhere on the internet, but ONLY want to verify for myself if it 100% matches this "Press Release" located here (http://www.myspace.com/sixsixes/blog/374131760)? My BIG GUESS is that someone just created that eMail from this Press Release and sent it to that "Rival" Liberty County Blog? I'm wondering if I am Right or Not?

If you have any help on the name of that "Rival" Blog that published the Giraffes' eMail and if it 100% matches that Press Release I found at the link above will help me solve this Big Giraffe Mystery?

Thank you Gus for any help on this and website Trial Work!"

"Dear H.B.R." – Thank you for contacting me about the once-published Totolos article concerning the song composed by Totolos, et al, entitled "Louis Gutherie wants to kill me." Thank you, too, for including a link to that Year-2008 blog relating the tale of Totolos and a person named Guthrie in the Humble High School.

You asked me to identify the "Rival Liberty County Blog" that had posted a supposed eMail about that matter and had removed their article following a complaint about it from Liberty County Deputy Sheriff, Louis Guthrie. This is the matter I discussed in my earlier article, "Trial by Website – Part 3..."

The Website on which that information (or misinformation) had very briefly appeared was "i-dineout.com." Their article was promptly removed, and any comments by their readers concerning the piece were also removed. I do have a copy of their article, but I do not supply my library copies to others.

I followed the blog link you supplied and the wording of that copy and the Liberty County blog copy are virtually identical as to the Totolos tale. However, that tale did not comprise the entire i-dineout.com blog copy.

Be it known that there are large political matters involved in this Totolos tale stuff. There are on going civil and criminal undertakings at work, and the deputy sheriff whose name is similar to that in the title of the "Giraffe/Totolos" song is very much involved. Who knows who might be using all of this fuss for their own purposes and with the intent to influence the outcomes of whatever it is they may be attempting – if indeed there may be something like that going on."

That old saying, "What is good for the goose is good for the gander" does not necessarily apply to what is going on in Liberty County, Texas. This may be evidenced by the blog war battles essentially initiated by the Weblog, "Liberty Dispatch." The people who operate that Weblog, although some or all of them hide behind anonymity of their ownership of the site, have long since received felony criminal indictment for several serious crimes. They have gone through their district court docket hearing, and are now scheduled for trial on February 27, 2012. They continue with their "trial by website" approach to their situation, striking out at anyone and everyone they believe to be in opposition. (It is hard to fault anyone who does not want to be tried for a felony and perhaps be put in jail.) As a dispassionate outsider, I can look at their various utterances and slamming of perceived enemies (anyone not 100% in agreement with them) and conjecture about what they are up to. While I do sympathize with their likely motivations, my own beliefs about their situation and both their past and current actions are witnessed by this "Trial by Website" series.

Many of the players are not part of the Liberty Dispatch Weblog group. Think of those other players as stray ganders. Ganders are not like their goose counterparts. Ganders are not supposed to lay eggs. So, while the Liberty Dispatch Weblog people are busy writing mean, anti-"enemy" propaganda, the people who operate other local Weblogs, such as the i-dineout.com site, should really not be slapping back with unverified input that tends to make Liberty Dispatch and its seeming allies look evil. "Part 3" was to remind folks that it is all right to suppose, to conjecture, to theorize, and so forth, but to assert the unverifiable as being factual is a big mistake. That supposed Totolos tale did not come from Andrew Totolos to i-dineout.com. It came on the wings of the gander who was trying to out-do the goose in egg laying.

There is a large publishing chain that produces a truly enormous number of local newspapers and, now, has branched out into operating a comparable number of news Websites on the Internet. Each of these many news outlets caters to the locale it is designed to serve. For example, there are several of their Websites and newspapers in and around Liberty County, Texas. Recently, the editor of three of those newspapers was promoted to be editor of eight of the Websites. This was, of course, a big promotion, with more pay, better hours, and a whole lot more responsibility. (Talk about falling into a bowl of happy-salad...)

Right away, Liberty Dispatch ran articles slamming this fine editor, a family lady who was totally out of the Liberty Dispatch factotums’ affairs as to accusations of crime and potential punishment for various misdeeds. Why this editor-slamming?

The news is the news, right? Not so to the Liberty Dispatch Weblog people. News about their legal problems is something they do not consider to be publishable news, not in Liberty County and surrounds. To write about such matters is to invite publication of mean and scurrilous stuff in Liberty Dispatch.

Articles and attached comments to articles frequently refer to this nice editor lady’s weight, her age, her family, her "demotion," her lack of writing skill, and so on. It is mean. It is personal. It is totally off base. This, of course, does not sit well with the editor. I spoke with her right after she attended the court docket hearing for one of the Liberty Dispatch Weblog principals, a Mr. Akins. She told me that her presence as a non-participating observer in the courtroom seemed to really bother both Akins and his attorney, Evans by name. Then she told me that she expected there to be a scurrilous article about her to appear soon in Liberty Dispatch.

She was correct.

Today I spotted a two-page piece on Liberty Dispatch with the title, "Brashier in the Tank to Help the D. A." It seemed to be saying that the editor was tailoring news stories to help the county district attorney keep his longtime assistant from prosecution in an old, already closed, neighbor squabble – the case against him being the one for which he had been cleared more than a year ago. He has just very recently been served with an "out-of-the-blue" arrest warrant based on an affidavit prepared by Sheriff Deputy Louis Guthrie. The Liberty Dispatch Weblog objection seemed to be that editor Brashier had described the issuance of the arrest warrant by a judge outside of the county when no local judge would sign the arrest warrant. The Weblog declared that Editor Brashier’s description was unfair because, while all of the local judges were willing to sit in judgment (Who said so?), they wanted an outside judge to actually issue the arrest warrant to insure a fair trial. (The fact is that judges issue arrest warrants and go on to try the arrested persons thereafter.)

The Liberty Dispatch story goes on and on about how Editor Brashier "twists the facts" by telling the facts as they really are. I wondered about the truth of that, and so I visited the archives of the news organization of which Editor Brashier is a part. After every article covering the relevant stories, there is a comment section. In all of those stories I reviewed, I did not find a single complaint from readers about the accuracy or the tone of the related article. So much for fact twisting. Everything was plain vanilla reporting and I could see no bias evident – none in any direction.

Then I read through the several comments by Liberty Dispatch "readers" that followed after the Liberty Dispatch Weblog’s Brashier-knocking story. They were disgusting in their insulting of Editor Brashier.

How Akins and his companions believe that they are advancing their own cause by all of this is a mystery to me. It is enough of a mystery to me that I really wonder if, indeed, it is also a mystery to the people who produce Liberty Dispatch. When I sit here and think about that, I think, "Surely, they cannot be so ignorant and stupid to believe that what they are writing on their Weblog can do them a lick of good."

Before I forget to mention it, the Liberty County Grand Jury is to hear the case against Assistant District Attorney, Joe Warren, on September 21st. The prosecutor in his case is a "special prosecutor," Kelly Siegler, who is a skilled attorney selected from the ranks of attorneys in nearby Harris County.

That's the best way to handle an old neighbor squabble. Get an out of county judge to cooperate by issuing an "anonymous witness" type arrest warrant that no local authority would sign and hire a costly and renowned criminal attorney as special prosecutor to try to indict the accused. Way to go!

The "Trial by Website" story continues...

Trial by Website - Part 1 http://hubpages.com/t/2629ab

Trial by Website – Part 2 http://hubpages.com/t/2739b0

Trial by Website – Part 3 http://hubpages.com/t/2752e4

Trial by Website – Part 4 http://hubpages.com/t/27c4f2

Trial by Website – Part 5 http://hubpages.com/t/27f8c9

Trial by Website - Part 6 http://hubpages.com/t/282a09

Trial by Website - Part 8 http://hubpages.com/t/2b46f3