It’s been a tough weekend. My old dog is taking her final lap. Her bodily functions are starting to fail. She wanders aimlessly in the kitchen at night, sniffing a pair a slippers, walking away and then coming back to the exact same spot and sniffing again. She’ll do this for twenty minutes…or longer. I know the end is nigh, but making the call as to when to actually pull the plug is gut wrenching. We’ve been together for over thirteen years.
Anyway, I haven’t been really been thinking about the blog this weekend. That is until I received a rather scathing comment yesterday from someone who identified themselves as “Radicalexplicittruth.” Radicalexplicittruth took issue with this post about the developing controversy of Annie Burton-Byrd and the Domestic Violence Center
“It amazes me that you have the audacity to write a Blog in regards to Ms. Burton based on hearsay. I would advise you to get all your facts straight before you Blog and put anything on the interenet.”
Until Friday afternoon I had never even heard of Annie Burton Byrd. Before every podcast Paul and I grab lunch to go over what HoCo loco news stories we are going to cover in the show. Paul had the same Annie Burton-Byrd story that Lindsey McPherson reported in The Flier later that day. He also told me that his firm had been previously involved in action with her. His take was that the board of the Domestic Violence Center
Later I did a quick check on the Maryland Judiciary website and saw that there were five recorded judgments against her totaling over $800,000.00. I decided I had enough to write that she had been in “hot water.” I also wrote that she had been accused of being a slumlord and provided a link to the site that made this accusation. I just figured I'd get to the rest before the weekend was over…or not. The point had really been made already.
Radicalexplicittruth took me further to task.
“This is very irresponsible reporting and any reporter should investigate everything themselves and not listen to hearsay if you are really a Professional.”
In fact I am not a professional reporter. I am a commercial real estate broker with a social media problem. That being said I stood behind what I wrote and I intended to respond to Radicalexplicittruth, later. Right now I was dealing with canine hospice issues.
That’s where Jason Reddish came in. Within a few hours he took up Radicalexplicittruth’s challenge to investigate and found plenty of fire beneath the smoke. I am always appreciative when a Tales of Two Cities netizen takes up some of my slack. Thanks Jason.
My dog thanks you too.
