James Kosub/Sam Hawken Is A Real Keeper
I almost forgot about 1018 Press but when the owner posted a comment to this post--also, refer to this post--I just have to respond. You will notice that Sam, whose real name is James Kosub, has blocked the link from my site to 1018. Typical. This is the behavior that sparked this whole thing to begin with. See, James doesn’t get along well with criticism, even if it’s delivered in a civil and friendly manner. In fact if anyone links to his sites with ANY criticism, he blocks the link.
Anyway, his comment goes:
Daniel, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve taken a dislike to something on the forum, though I should point out that accusing some of intellectual dishonesty and outsized ego without evidence is pure troll behavior.
Please note that this is a comment to a post over two months old. See, James looked at his stats today and followed the link back to here. Also, note that I’ve made a total of, perhaps, five or six posts to the 1018 forum in the few months that I was active. Hardly trollish behavior. In fact, I’d go so far as to opine that his digging up old news as it were to be rather trollish.
He’s right when he says without evidence simply because he deleted the evidence. No worries though, I’ll tell it like it happened. On the 1018 forum, James Kosub posted a little missive that pointed to some bogus news release stating that the Bush administration was baring National Park Service employees from stating the real age of the Grand Canyon. I thought it rather interesting, but found out that it was false. I pointed this out in a friendly manner and used it as an attempted jumping point to a discussion about how people with an ideological bent--both left and right--can be duped into believing false information from both sides. I also pointed out examples of those on the right doing this. I find it an interesting topic in and of its self. Anyway, James didn’t like it. He took it personally and attacked me on his forum. I thought it rather bizarre behavior, and was quite shocked really. Though judging by the number of e-mails that I received from those pointing out that this is nothing new for James Kosub, I shouldn’t be shocked.
So, I private messaged James Kosub and apologized for somehow setting him off. There was no reply. His response was then to, on the same post, attack me some more and then close the post so that I could not respond. Now, that’s some intellectual honesty there, James. During this whole time I received several e-mails from people who had experience with James Kosub informing me that this was his typical “control freak” behavior.
Anyway, I was rather shocked at the outright absurdity of it all and posted a couple of posts about it--I link to both of them up top--stopped going to the 1018 Press forums, and forgot about it. That was over two months ago and now James Kosub found the posts and he left the comment and blocked links to 1018 Press from this site.
James, I do accuse you of intellectual dishonesty. I’ll also add intellectual cowardice as well.
James Kosub continued with:
Further, posting such baseless attacks after receiving a rejection isn’t a great way to improve your own reputation. Editors and publishers in the small-press realm do communicate with one another.
I’m assuming that this veiled threat is in response to my posting on this blog:
He replied with a snide, childish remark fueled by ego rather than common sense, and within three minutes, yes three minutes I got an e-mail rejection for the piece I had sent in.
Coincidence? Perhaps. In fact, I’m going to go on the record with it was coincidence.
Oh, James Kosub, I’m sure editors and publisher in the small press realm do communicate with each other, but I’m sure you’re not part of that circle. Even if you are, I still wouldn’t change a thing. You have your own rep to worry about. Oh yeah.