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I emailed him and Tom Fiedler over a month ago regarding this. The comments section of Corral's blog was, to use a vulgar Cubanism, a bayu. I don't think The Herald wants commenters calling Cubans and Jews "pigs", or screeds on transsexual rights in the comments section anymore...

BTW, Corral responded, Fiedler did not. Here is the text of the letter:

Mr. Corral,

My name is George Moneo and I am one of the contributing writers on Babalu Blog. I am not writing this at the behest of Val or of any of the other writers on the blog. This email is my two cents.

I am more than a little appalled by the comments left on your blog -- some purporting to be from writers of BabaluBlog -- that are, at minimum, slanderous and libelous. I am nobody to tell you or The Miami Herald (a publication I do not hold in high regard) what you can or cannot publish. Your posts offer straightforward information and have done so with a minimum of controversy.

Whether I agree with your point of view or not is not the issue; you and I can agree to disagree as long as we both follow the ground rules of civility. That should be the nature of debate on the blogosphere.

But to allow the filth published as comments on your blog is disgraceful. At BabaluBlog.com we installed a moderated comment system with TypeKey authentication, not to stifle disagreement, but to prevent precisely the kind of filth (slanderous, libelous, political, or otherwise) that has been routinely published on your blog. A few weeks ago one commenter on your blog wrote that Cubans and Jews were "pigs" -- among other choice appellations. I can send you the exact quote if you'd like so you can search for it in your archives. Comments are an integral part of posts; they are not separate from the posts.

Mr. Corral, this is wholly unacceptable for a host of reasons.

I would appreciate a response whereby you can explain (and justify) how these slanderous comments add to the informed debate that your posts should inspire. I need to know how commenters like "John Longfellow AKA Lou Dobbs" and some of the other anonymous commenters hijacking other person's names and identities can write what they write with impunity -- without so much as a simple comment from you in response, for or against, or a note indicating you deleted it for whatever reason.

After all, Mr. Corral, the blog may belong to The Miami Herald, but it's your picture and email address on the front page.

Thanking you in advance, I remain

Sincerely yours,

George L. Moneo
spectator@babalublog.com
editor@universalspectator.org

Here is Oscar Corral's response:

Hi George, thanks for your email. This is not the first note I receive complaining about the comments in my blog. I know that some of the comments are unacceptable, and so I encourage all readers to write to me whenever they want me to remove a specific comment or comments. In that way, the comments section polices itself. Being a busy reporter, I do not have the time to edit and monitor the comments. In fact, i don't always read the comments because many times they are long-winded and time consuming to peruse. Today I deleted several comments at the request of another reader. I will gladly remove comments that are insulting to a specific person that is named. Please tell me exactly who made the comments, what date they were made, and under what blog entry. That makes is easier for me. Without such specifics, I can't guarantee I'll get to it right away. As for the policy on comments, it may change in the future so that comments are more closely filtered and monitored. It's something we are talking about at the Herald. Hopefully we'll find a way to keep the filth out of the comments without stifling the discourse. Feel free to contact me any time you see a comment that insults someone by name. Thanks again for your interest. Take care, Oscar Corral

Nice George, I too was the recipient of some pretty disgusting remarks over there. I also emailed him several times, and finally requested that he remove the link to my blog. To date I have not received a response from him. I'll refrain from saying exactly what I think of that traitorous bastard.

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