As the person who composes the Living Room Slate, I am threatened with legal action by Joe O'Donoghue unless I comply with the demand to retract a certain statement and to expunge those words from the Living Room Slate web site.
It is standard journalistic practice to stand by a story and offer concession by publishing the letter of complaint itself. In this tradition, I include a link to the correspondence to me, expecting all parties to be satisfied that the matter has thus been dealt with sufficiently. As an additional courtesy, I have taken the extreme step of replacing the sensitive words in the website text with an ellipsis. I fervently hope others will not follow this precedent and require other changes in the Living Room Slate.
To see the actual letters of complaint, click on the link below:
Mr O'Donohue was very helpful to me, a stranger, when I need advice about building a home for my family. I emailed him some time ago to ask about his support for Mr. Gonzalez, as I found it puzzling. I have not heard back from him as yet.
Posted by: Tom McIntyre at December 5, 2003 07:48 AMCan I buy you each a beer?....on the condition that you drink it at the same table, in either Mayor Noisome's pub, or Mayor Gonadzalez' art gallery?
Posted by: jack barry at December 5, 2003 10:18 AMO'Donoghue's letter is priceless. He should hire a lawyer who knows how to spell "liable."
Posted by: Peter Bull at December 5, 2003 10:46 AMAnother of Joe's usual attempts to bully and intimidate. It's sad that someone with such a talent for language and wit puts it to such hurtful and destructive use. Sadder still that such an accomplished and genuinely good attorney feels that he must write such silliness. Let's hope that both recover and listen to their better angels.
Posted by: Ian Berke at December 5, 2003 11:27 AM
I am dismayed that Mr. O'Donoghue would refer to my sister as "a narrow minded provincial", a "vicious obsessive" and an "imbalanced troubled warped psychopath". My sister is not provincial.
Why, when she resided here in New York City, she virtually ran this town.
Furthermore, I object to Mr. Morgan refering to my sister as a journalist. There is no need for that type of character assassination.
Prof. Kent Kirshenbaum
Dept. of Chemistry
New York University
Hey, "Kirschenbaum" ! Hah, it was the word "quaint" that he objected to.
Mary Anne Miller
Posted by: at December 5, 2003 12:04 PMIf I have learned anything in my now considerable years on this planet,it is that our task here is to embrace life as it is with as much wisdom, kindness, and grace as we can manage. Mr. ODonoghue's vitriolic and assaultive overreaction to "Kirschenbaum's" relatively benign statements does not speak well for his success in this regard. Again, I am reminded that justice is always done, in that people of his nasty ilk are condemned to live out their lives being who they are. Quite a harsh sentence, in Mr. O'Donoghue's case. "let's get it on, now?" Please. Let's get over it.
Posted by: David Mann at December 5, 2003 12:50 PMCan't we all just get along? Or, in the words of the good book, Love Thy Journalist As Thyself.
Posted by: Perl at December 5, 2003 08:16 PMAs one learns in medical school, the glans of the penis is always easily identifiable.
Posted by: Jeff Ward at December 6, 2003 05:07 PM