Calhouns Can(n)ons

Was It The Full Moon?



Every so often the various handful (same ones mostly) of people posting comments on this site, get all Looney-Tune and have to be spanked -- threatened with being 86'd or having their over-the- top comments dumped. I understand some of the Tribune's blogs have also been dumped or shut down for the same reason. Clearly, some of these posters just lose it.



And there are a few of issues that some these sophomoric posters keep whining about that may need clarification.



First, accessing a blogsite is a privilege not a right. My Blog, My Rules. Don't like it? Go get your own blog. It's not a "free speech" issue. The uglier your comments, the tighter the rules will get. This blogsite used to allow anyone to comment. A lot of "anyones" got Ugly On A Stick, so I changed the site so people would have to go to the trouble to get an free account and sign on. A lot of the Uglies did that and continued their often sophomoric Neener-Neering. Short of shutting down all comment, I started using the little garbage can icon to dump some of the worst of their posted comments. Or I also would have to step in to play Mommy and spank. I know. It's pathetic. But it does indicate the level some of these folks are operating on, including some people who actually use their real names. Jeeze, you'd think . . . . ?



Second, I am not a "journalist." I write an Opinion Column. Been doing that for about 12 years or so. Opinion Columns go on the Opinion Page of the paper. Opinion columns are supposed to be biased. That's what makes them . . . Opinion Columns. If an Opinion Column didn't have a bias, it would be, oh, say, a Time/Tide Table, or the Stock Market listings, or something. Amazingly, some people don't get that.



Third, and most interesting of all, many of the posters keep claiming that this is a deeply polarized commuity, and if you read the comment section you might think that's so. Worse, that it's a community full of Furies at each others' throats. Ron Crawford, who's been gleefully reporting on the Sewer Wars for years now, has just posted a very cogent Opinion piece on his website, http://www.sewerwatch.blogspot.com/. Worth a read.



While his numbers are guestimates, his point is well taken. I opinied a similar notion in my previous Can(n)on, "Bye-Bye Big Lie." This is not and never was a "deeply" divided community. (Hard to be deeply divided when 30-40% are permenantly out to lunch.) But it was a community lied to and lied about and very nearly destroyed because of that lie, a community that is now trying to re-set itself on a path and a process that should have been taken years ago.



Still, there's plenty of room for spirited debate and . . . Opinions. . . But on this blogsite, I ask that those posting comments, Get a Grip. Or check the phases of the moon on the Tide Charts and maybe stay away from your computer during those Looney Tune times.