Talk:Leonard Horowitz
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This article was nominated for deletion on 29 April 2008. The result of the discussion was keep. |
A casual glance of the Web seems to indicate that this man is a conspiracy nut and a quack. This page is far too charitable; it sounds like the man wrote it himself. I'd fix it but I don't have the patience. CronoDAS (talk) 03:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh - very much agree with CronoDas. This article should be marked for deletion.Jason (talk) 17:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with CronoDas (to an extent, anyway -- there does seem to be some attempt at NPOV in the wording), but I disgree with CaseCoB, who seems to be jumping to a conclusion from false premises: "This guy's a nutcase, therefore not notable." CronoDAS said it should be fixed, not deleted, and I think he's right. This article would be a candidate for deletion if Horowitz were not notable. However, for better or worse, Horowitz is notable. Conspiracy theories about a germ-warfare origin for AIDS (and to a lesser extent, Ebola) have been a more-or-less constant feature of HIV/AIDS controversies (albeit a feature relegated to the margins, for obvious reasons), and Horowitz is AFAIK the most cited "authority" on this particular theory. Rev. Jeremiah Wright mentioned Horowitz's book, Emerging Viruses during the now-notorious Q&A at the Washington Press Club. At worst, I think this article might be a candidate for merging somewhere, but not for outright deletion. Yakushima (talk) 06:02, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Emerging Virus Reception
Rentir, in deleting the entire section "Reception of Emerging Viruses", complained This section reads like a PR piece for Horowitz. Nothing notable about being on public access cable channel or reference to obscure local meeting 11 years ago.
First, let me point out that I mentioned these obscure events precisely to underscore how obscure Emerging Viruses was at first. Then I mentioned the book's long-term sales performance--but not to promote it. The book's sales performance was noted in the AfD discussion (and by someone apparently not too happy about Horowitz). To me, it's ridiculous that Emerging Viruses would sell on par with The Hot Zone and The Coming Plague -- the latter is perhaps alarmist, but at least it's not conspiracy theory. How Horowitz managed to sell so many copies of this book despite its being self-published, and in such a suspect genre, and without mainstream press reviews, is certainly a testament to ... something. Not anything good, mind you, but something. Perhaps it's that American trust in mainstream media is in general decline [1], and probably at a post WW II low. Whatever the reasons for that, it probably improves the market for conspiracy theories and quackery.
I have since restored the section and expanded it. I will try to maintain NPOV. It's not easy for me. This guy's a quack and conspiracy theorist -- either crazy or repulsively exploitative (or some mixture thereof.) But he's been noted, over the years, and appears to be notable. Do you think I like it? I don't like it one bit. That's not the point. Maybe I try to bring to the fore certain elements of his story that could be interpreted as positive just to counterbalance my negative feelings on this subject.
Anyway, don't go deleting a section just because you think I'm PR flacking for Horowitz. Come here and discuss it. Yakushima (talk) 06:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Neutrality Dispute
Ewenss tagged Leonard Horowitz for disputable neutrality, but hasn't appeared on the discussion page for the article to say why and to discuss it. His absence might be in part because of a recent one-day ban he was under for not observing revert rules on another (related) topic. I'll give it a couple days, and if he doesn't show up and give reasons, I'll take the notice down and consider the dispute resolved. Unless of course somebody puts up another one. :-( (Copy of this statement left at his User_talk:Ewenss Yakushima (talk) 06:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Calling it "Snake Oil", etc.
User:Dr. B. R. Lang inserted a section heading "Internet Snake oil sales, and other dubious enterprises==" at the head of a paragraph in the introduction. I reverted this change for several reasons:
- "Snake oil" and "dubious" are obviously not NPOV.
- The section heading was not clearly appropriate for the paragraph following the one Dr. Lang tagged with the new section heading, which concluded the introduction to the article; adding such a section heading violated the structure of the article.
- There is already a section heading for the relevant part of the article that expands on the introductory paragraph Dr. Lang tagged.
To the extent possible given my own feelings about Dr. Horowitz, I try let the more conspicuous facts him about speak to issues of his character, especially where he himself has energetically made those facts conspicuous. I merely try (and necessarily sometimes fail) to put those facts in some coherent order and context.
I don't see much point in doing otherwise. Most reasonable people will read those facts and come to what I believe are the obvious conclusions. The more gullible and those predisposed toward Dr. Horowitz's claims might weight the balance pans differently and might be more likely to come to different conclusions. Should we not "help" them? Yes, but only by editing for clarity, digestibility, etc. Personal attacks on Dr. Horowitz in Wikipedia articles are only likely to (further) prejudice such people against Wikipedia itself. The outright paranoids in the audience will, of course, cite such attacks as evidence of that Wikipedia is run by the Bilderberg Group, the CIA, the World Health Organization, the Trilateral Commission, the FDA, or the International Jewish Banking Conspiracy. Don't Feed the Trolls, it says here. (Note to those organizations: my rate is now up to $0.75USD per word, dollars preferred though I will accept payment in gold. Please send me an address for purposes of sending you an invoice.)
In short: I'm trying help make the facts speak what needs to be said about Dr. Horowitz. I am willing to collaborate closely with anyone else willing to do the same. Just cruising by and sniping at Dr. Horowitz while only doing damage to the flow and the credibility of the Wikipedia article about him isn't what I'd call "collaboration"; it doesn't even move toward any outcome the sniper himself would desire. Yakushima (talk) 03:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Remaining Notability Issues
It looks like this article will be kept. This section is for remaining notability issues until the discussion is formally closed.
Not to drag this out, but I'll admit that there could still be some residual issues of notability here (my previous screeches notwithstanding). I'm probably the in-house expert on this guy now, so you gotta listen to me ;-) I'm not a seasoned Wikipedian, so consider this more of a plea for advice and clarification than a reversal of my Keep vote.
Horowitz has become notable (if at all) mainly by seeking attention, but I'm not sure Horowitz has even gotten as much as 15 minutes of Warhol's prophesied redistribution of fame (if infamy counts as well). And I mean that in a certain literal (if overgenerous) sense: the sum of the minutes it would take to carefully read every mention of him in every mainstream newspaper, magazine, book or website with a readership of more than, say, 200,000, might not exceed 15. (I don't think The Final Call is up there.) Rev. Jeremiah Wright's actual comments have received far more media attention than any sources he's mentioned to support them.
Horowitz has gotten noticed over the years, here and there, by multiple, independent, reliable sources. But what does it add up to, by measures other than minutes in our lives we can never get back? Is the coverage what the general notability guidelines call "significant"? A page and half here, a page and a half there; multiple, independent mentions, in some books outside the conspiracy/quackery genres -- though as far as I can see, he's only discussed at length in reliable sources to the extent that the discussion is about conspiracy theorists. Enough? I think so. But I can see how some might reasonably differ. In certain capsule formulations of the notability guidelines, I see wording like "the subject must ...." As far as I know, Horowitz has not been the subject in any source I would consider reliable -- he might be mentioned a lot in an article or get a whole section in a book, but the article or chapter always seems to be about some larger category, like SARS-cure touts, or medical conspiracy theories, or U.S. vaccination policy dissidents, or narratives of HIV origins.
Is Horowitz's notability very likely to grow--i.e., is the article tracking a trend toward permanent notability? Not clear, but in any case, "Could Become Permanently Notable Real Soon Now" is disallowed under WP:NTEMP.
Now here's another issue: MastCell has become convinced that a "good biography" can be written, with more and better sources. "Good"? I'm not convinced. And that could be used as a case for not having a Wikipedia biography right now.
I could attempt escape, arguing that the article for conspiracy theorist and hoax-hawker Richard Hoagland is, as a biography, now inferior to Leonard Horowitz, because the article Leonard Horowitz actually has slightly more biographical detail. AFAIK, nobody is proposing deletion of Hoagland's "biography" on Wikipedia even though it has almost no detail about his life (and contains at least one unsourced statement where it does have detail); in fact, the Hoagland bio probably wouldn't be substantively different if Richard Hoagland's theories and publications were the (equally notable) product of a group called "Richer Hoaxland". But I'm not going there -- this is the Talk page for this article.
The annoying fact about Horowitz is, the biographical sources I have so far don't seem very reliable, because they all seem to originate ultimately from him, and they conflict at points. I could tweezer something together, and make it sound plausible. For example, Horowitz calls himself a "Messianic Jew", and I could probably pin down his first on-line mention of that. He has said he used to consider himself something like a regular liberal when he lived in Massachussetts. I doubt I'd find WP:V sources for that, but it's not the kind of thing even those of his ilk would lie about, and, taken together with a chronology of his work, it would say something about how he has changed over the years. I think he has moved from Massachusetts to Florida to Idaho to Hawaii, and I can document a little of that from reliable sources, though precise dates might be hard. But then there's his family. Wikipedia BLP guidelines: "do no harm". My stomach churns at the thought of mentioning Horowitz's daughter, because of local press notes about her in relation to her father's resistance to TB vaccination policy in Hawaiian schools. Maybe she's a blameless pawn?
Anyway, that's it: I think the remaining objections come down to (1) relatively low notability and (2) skimpy biography apart from his controversies and tangles with regulatory authorities. Yakushima (talk) 12:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Rentir's edits
Rentir is making edits that look very questionable to me, he/she has no Talk page, so I must attempt to communicate with this person here, before calling for a block if there are any policy violations. I'll discuss as I undo. Yakushima (talk) 13:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] "No evidence he is an "entrepreneur, Removal of Press Release-style language."
Uh, actually, there is a ridiculous amount of evidence that he's an entrepreneur. Just Google on variations on "Leonard Horowitz". We'll be lucky if anybody even notices the Wikipedia article.
More specifically, this article already points out details, in footnotes, of Dr. Horowitz's domain name registration activities (a small fraction of them, I'm sure --- he has, or is responsible for, a lot of websites.). He registers domain names, for his own companies and business partners, and he sells his products and services on the Web. Like it or not, that's an entrepreneurial thing to do. [ADDED later: i.e., walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, ducks like a quack -- he's quack entrepreneur, but still an entrepreneur]. And like it or not, he's in the "health industry" -- just not a very savory branch of it IMHO, and with other obvious problems.
"Press release language"? Is "entrepreneur" necessarily good? As a former employee of almost a dozen startups, let me tell you: "entrepreneur" -- not necessarily good. Sometimes very bad indeed. For all I know, Horowitz is a great guy to work for, compared to some of the entrepreneurs I've been under. Maybe he pays well, pays on time, doesn't work you half to death, doesn't yell, apologizes when he's wrong, cuts you fair equity, etc. Just a boss who doesn't like the FDA, the FTC, the WHO, the CIA ....
Anyway, next time use a "fact" tag, don't just delete without fact-checking a little. Yakushima (talk) 13:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] "Removal of Press Release-style language"
Actually, Rentir, as you leave it, it's suddenly unclear that Horowitz wrote the first book mentioned. As for "better known", almost all of his books are quite obscure, but at least two of them got noticed, and one of them, Emerging Viruses has gotten very noticed -- in case you didn't notice. (Obama/Wright HIV=genocide controversy). Perhaps I'm too gentle here, but ... try a "fact" tag next time? Or rewrite so as not to obscure an important fact, like Horowitz's authorship of the book mentioned?
As for "claims" (yours) vs. "advances the theory" (mine), I chose the latter partly because it sounded more ambiguous to me, and I needed to be ambiguous for a reason. This particular book's language, from what I've seen so far of it, seems carefully couched to suggest he's not actually claiming any intentional-virus-engineering theories or release-as-genocide theories are true. (Elsewhere and afterward I'm sure he does claim something like that, and repeatedly, even stridently, but I'll have to check carefully.) Note the secondary subtitle after "AIDS and Ebola", which includes three different, possibly mutually exclusive, hypotheses about the origins of AIDS and Ebola. Appearing balanced and skeptical seems to have at one point been Horowitz's stock in trade in AIDS conspiracy theory.
In short, I'm not going to say he claimed something in a book until I can see where he made the claim in that book, or until I have persuasive evidence, like a direct quote that he never challenged, perhaps on his own websites. Nor should you make any such claim, before you know. The book is searchable on Amazon, maybe you could check this one yourself? Yakushima (talk) 14:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] "Nothing notable or significant about an unsubstantiated claim supposedly on some Horowitz web site that someone for some unstated reason thought he should get a Nobel Prize
As I understand policy, Rentir (and please correct me if I'm wrong), not all Wikipedia information about a notable person has to be notable or "significant" in itself. Please cite policy explicitly -- I'm not very experienced yet, maybe I missed something.
In any case, Bo Gritz isn't just "someone", he's practically an industry in the U.S. "militia" and survivalist circles, famous for his stellar war record but also quite controversial himself because of the conspiracy theories he has endorsed and promulgated, and because of his associations with adherents.
Is the quote source suspect? Good question. However, Gritz is almost certainly very protective of his celebrity image; the quotes endorsing Horowitz can be found on quite a few websites, including some not run by Horowitz; so I think if Gritz objected to the quotes, he could get them taken down overnight. (From what I know of him, it's all too easy to imagine him doing it at gunpoint. ;-) Those quotes are still up there, and it's vanishingly unlikely that the reason we can see them is only because none of them have come to his attention. Mr. Gritz travels and lectures in a circuit that overlaps Horowitz's, appears on some of the same radio shows, etc. Perhaps as the biography gets filled out a little more, such associations will become clearer.
Perhaps you don't like what Dr. Horowitz does (from the pattern of your edits, I suspect you don't; well, neither do I). If so, consider that his association with Bo Gritz, while it may please the fans of either or both Dr. Horowitz and Mr. Gritz (well, maybe not the virulently anti-semitic fans of Gritz) does not particularly recommend Dr. Horowitz to level-headed, rational people. I try let the facts and the associations speak for themselves. I implore you to do the same. I further implore you to try to make those facts and association speak more clearly, where you believe you can; simply suppressing relevant facts, especially under a mere assumption of irrelevance, serves no purpose.
That said, I was never particularly happy with the sentence you deleted. I know it should be rewritten, and I would appreciate some advice about how to improve it. I happen to think the context is already very interesting: Horowitz's audience includes not only rural White groups on the far Right, many with racial separatist tendencies, but also urban Black groups who are also very (morally) conservative, and who also feature racial separatism (or a history of it anyway). Both are notorious for rattling their arms. Both are dismayingly frequent sources of suspiciously anti-semitic-sounding diatribes -- except where individual members might be flatly overt in their anti-semitism. And Horowitz gets audiences with both despite being Jewish!? I'd say, ironically, but we're not supposed to use that word. ;-) Contextualizing him politically in this manner makes the use of "ironically" redundant, anyway.
Do a bit of fact-checking? Read between the lines a little? Try tagging more than deleting? Try asking questions here if you're unsure of something? Please? Yakushima (talk) 14:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] (Nothing notable about appearing on public access television more than 10 years ago. Nothing notable about sales rank of about 5,900 on Amazon.)
Why do I mention his measly little cable TV appearance? I already discussed the reason, above: in part to underscore how little attention Emerging Viruses received at publication date. That's important context, I think, for what follows: online sales for Emerging Viruses have been better than some other mainstream titles with AIDS/Ebola disease-panic themes, titles with advantages like positive reviews in the mainstream media, mainstream publishers, etc. This book has done a lot better than I would have thought, and it hasn't sunk without a trace, obviously. The reasons for that are not necessarily good (I happen to think it's a bit alarming, actually). Why you think this is not worth pointing out mystifies me. Somebody who was no fan of Horowitz pointed it out as a significant factor in favor of keeping the article, in the AfD discussion. Could you explain why you think it's not relevant?
As for "nothing notable" about the book's sales rank -- look at the context, as described above. (Twice, now, come to think of it. I'd appreciate a response.) Yakushima (talk) 15:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] There is no evidence that the movie "I am Legend" is related to Horowitz. Even the Horowitz web site only claims the book allegedly appeared in the movie.)
This is two issues.
(1): No evidence of relationship (2): Horowitz claims the book appeared in the movie.
One at a time.
[edit] No evidence of relationship
I have provided citations, but you're right: I have no direct evidence, only Dr. Horowitz's claim so far. And direct evidence might be difficult in this case, since it's hard to "quote" a film accurately, and it's unlikely there are any trailers that include any relevant scene, and if there was any agreement of any kind, part of it might involve nondisclosure of details. (That last is unlikely, since what Horowitz then published would put him at considerable litigation risk.)
However, as it happens (there are no coincidences ;-), I had rented this on DVD hardly a day before I started work on this article. I live in Japan, so I get the Japanese subtitles with the spoken English as an option. I remember at least one brief flash of subtitles without a line being spoken, and I vaguely remember that it was at at eye-level in the scene, so possibly a book at the head of a shelf.
So (if I'm remembering correctly), there was some screen-readable text that the translators felt was worth rendering (or, for all I know, that they were legally required to render as part of Warner Brothers' agreements with foreign distributors.) And what I saw flash in Japanese (which I can read to some extent, but often not at subtitle speed depending on what it says) might have been a translation of the title of Emerging Viruses,.
On the other hand, at the IMDb entry there is a trivia question about why infected dogs don't start smoldering like the Dark Seekers/hemocytes (infected humans) do when exposed to even indirect sunlight. The answer is that ... well, that's the way it is (it's a movie, dummy ;-) but also that there's a scene with an old newspaper clipping with screen-readable text, a story from back when the epidemic was still raging, explaining this difference between infected dogs and infected humans. And that's what I might have seen translated in Japanese subtitles.
I plan to rent the video again to check this out -- and to scan for any untranslated appearance of a copy of Emerging Viruses. If I don't find anything, I wouldn't be surprised -- there might have been a scene that got cut. Or there might have been an agreement with Horowitz that the book might be used, and he exaggerated what he was already exaggerating. Or he might have been simply lying: maybe there was no such agreement for an appearance of a copy in the film. That doesn't mean there was no agreement between him and Warner Brothers, however. Maybe to the lawyers for the film, Horowitz looked like a litigation risk, so they bought him off. If you look at the history of whacky IP claims against successful Hollywood movies, you can see that if this was paranoia on their part, it's because so many people have actually been out to get them.
I'd like to know the ground truth of the matter. For now, however, I'll revert your edit and take a look at how what I wrote might be made more accurate, or trimmed, or possibly deleted. Tonight. (Though I probably won't watch I Am Legend again tonight.)
[edit] "web site only claims the book allegedly appeared in the movie"
Rentir, for an apparent accuracy-stickler, you're surprisingly inaccurate yourself, in this particular edit description.
Horowitz's website doesn't claim that the book "allegedly appeared"; it doesn't even claim that it "appeared". It says the book was "procured" by Warner brothers and would be "filmed".
(But his wording then somewhat contradicts itself with the use of the word "complements". Go look again at Horowitz's actual wording, what he emphasizes and where. It's quite artful, in its way. I'd say "deceptive," but who knows what Horowitz might have thought about whatever agreement he might have signed with Warners? Maybe he was deceived. If so, well, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy ;-)
- OK, you got me on this one. It says "purchased ... for I Am Legend" then (I missed this) "permission ... in a scene of I Am Legend" a little later. I've changed the section, but I'll agree this section is now a much better candidate for deletion than it was before, since I can find only one person who seems to have been fooled, and so far see no evidence the book was actually used in the movie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakushima (talk • contribs) 16:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
