NOTE: Ignore the email address in the column graphic to the left. MY email address is thesavorytench@yahoo.com . Don't ask me why. I think it has something to do with fish, or maybe the drummer for the group that did that 'Damn The Torpedoes' album I like so much, but honestly, a man's mind is a forest at night.

Later on, Thursday, April 8, 2004

Busy day. I posted the Chewie news that Doc passed along to me before I went to sleep last night, around 5 a.m. Since then I've gotten up and seen Hellboy and will have a review of it somewhere down below. First, though, some philosophical musings:

Doc's latest email tells me that his brother Paul showed up unannounced earlier this afternoon, with his married girlfriend Dawn in tow. Regular readers of this blog will know who Paul and Dawn are. Newbies... suffice to say, Dawn is not someone Doc likes AT ALL, for various reasons of his own, although he tolerated her and was cordial to her when necessary as he was living with Paul, while generally just trying to avoid her as much as possible.

Now, we all have unpleasant people we deal with far more pleasantly than we'd want to. Primarily these folks come down to three categories: neighbors, co-workers, and relatives. What all three groups have in common are, they are people who are in your life whether you want them to be or not, whom you will have to spend time with whether you want to or not. For these reasons, we tend to be politer to these people than we would normally be inclined to. It's what Doc calls 'necessary hypocrisy'.

For most people, having a close relative (sibling) turn up with their despised significant other in tow at one's home would be an occasion for some 'necessary hypocrisy'. You invite both of them in, sit them down, and are polite to them. Perhaps, if you feel strongly enough about it, after the (excruciatingly awkward) visit is over, you call the relative later and explain to them that you don't like their significant other and would appreciate not being put in that position again... and even that is an extreme few people would ever go to. Most people simply charge off such occasions as the price of doing business, or, in this case, maintaining well lubricated social relations.

Doc... well, Doc is himself alone. Faced with this situation, apparently, he looked Dawn straight in the eye and said "Dawn, I'm sorry to be so rude, but I don't want to invite you in".

And honestly, I don't know what to say about that, or how to feel about it.

Doc says he's aware he probably hurt her feelings badly, and hurt his brother's feelings as well, and also angered his brother no end. Doc says he regrets all that, and I believe him... I've known Doc quite a while now, and unlike most of the other people on this blog, I knew him in person for years, and Doc has never been the sort of person who hurts other people's feelings without a second thought. He rarely does it on purpose, and it always bothers him when he becomes aware that he's done it at all.

Yet, this is a case where he did it, quite deliberately, rather than be uncomfortable for half an hour or so in his own home politely tolerating an unwelcome visitor for his brother's sake.

What do we owe other people? Do we owe it to our family, or for that matter, to utter strangers, to make ourselves uncomfortable in our own homes in order to keep from hurting their feelings or bruising their egos?

If we do, for how long? What's the minimum acceptable time we have to put our own particular wants and desires aside in favor of those of unexpected, unwanted visitors? What's the minimum effort we're required to make? Doc points out that had he invited Paul and Dawn inside, one or the other of them would have inevitably asked if there was anything to drink, at which point, he would have been obligated to give each of them a glass of Pepsi from his own very limited supply of drinkables (during a pay period when Doc has very little extra money). He would have had to offer food, if he wanted anything to eat himself during their visit. Or, on the other hand, having invited them in, he could have simply said "all I have is water" when asked if there was anything to drink, which would have been taken as rude, especially if anyone ever found out he actually had a 2 liter of Pepsi in his fridge... which could happen as simply as Paul getting up and opening the refrigerator door, which could easily occur, I suppose.

It quickly becomes a tangled knot. Doc simple chose to forestall it (from one point of view) by being up front about it. Somebody he did not want in his house showed up with someone who would have been quite welcome, and Doc said flatly "I don't want this person in my house". He was directly, straightforwardly, even brutally, honest.

I reminded Doc in my return email what Heinlein once said about preferring the company of a skunk to that of a man who prides himself on being frank. Doc concurred, and added that Heinlein had also said that only a fool or a sadistic scoundrel was ever bluntly honest on social occasions. Doc didn't enjoy hurting Dawn's feelings, so, he said, that must make him a fool.

I don't know. I disagree with a lot of Heinlein's 'wisdom'. I also suspect the quote is actually 'always bluntly honest', rather than 'ever'... but my copy of the Notebooks of Lazarus Long is out on loan, so I can't check.

But, really, I just don't know. I can say this: I wouldn't have the balls to do what Doc did, I'd have invited the bitch in. I don't know if that makes Doc admirable, but it certainly makes him singular, since I don't know anyone else who would have done what he did, either, in a similar situation.

Doc is deeply troubled by the fact that he hurt another person's feelings over what is, essentially, a point of personal honor. Doc believes, and I think there's some merit to this belief, that 'wrong' is merely 'hurting someone else without sufficient good reason'. Is not wanting to be troubled to be hypocritical in one's own home sufficient reason for hurting someone else's feelings? Someone who wasn't invited? Someone you can't stand? Or at least, don't want to have to stand, for any length of time that can be avoided?

Ultimately, Doc said "I'm fussy about who I invite into my home. I do not EVER want to voluntarily invite someone into my house that I do not either like, or respect, or preferably, both."

However, he also points out that that is putting an abstract code of behavior ahead of a real person's very real feelings. He says his behavior did real hurt to someone... and he does not know if that hurt was justified.

Doc did not walk into Dawn's home, or Paul's home, and insult either of them. Doc did not under any circumstances even through implication invite Dawn over, or indicate in any way she would be welcome. So he says, and I believe him. And I'll also point out that unless Paul is a complete idiot... which I sometimes think he must be... he should have known something might happen if he brought Dawn around to Doc's house unannounced.

But then, maybe he just figured Doc would be polite... like anyone else would.

I've known Doc for slightly over ten years. Figuring Doc will be ANYTHING, 'just like anyone else would', is very nearly always a mistake.

Doc also feels that he, basically, just spat in his brother's face, and that bothers him deeply, too. He's very aware that Paul took him in when he was evicted, and he feels very badly about how he treated Dawn, not just for her sake, but for Paul's sake.

But was he wrong?

What did he owe them, in that situation?

What do we owe each other?

I don't know. This is complicated. I wouldn't have done it... I would have maintained a polite facade of tolerance, perhaps even of acceptance and approval, for the woman and the relationship. I'd have invited them both in and been cordial without being warm, and probably would not have urged Dawn, at the very least, to come back quickly when they left.

Doc spared himself an uncomfortable hour or so, and made it very clear exactly how he felt about a particular person. He probably also guaranteed his brother Paul will not be dropping by again... and as Doc put it, "Since Paul mentioned in parting that he and Dawn will be moving in together in a couple of months, and she's apparently always at his apartment now, I doubt I'll be seeing him much any more".

Was Doc wrong? Turn it around... Paul, in a way, was basically making it clear with this flying visit (or so I analyze it) that if Doc wanted to keep seeing him, he had to accept Dawn as part of the package. Doc responded with, essentially, "Homey don't play dat".

I have no idea if his behavior was socially acceptable or not. Honestly, I don't. Maybe someone else out there has something enlightening to say. Doc says he's very aware of the fact that had he invited them both in and been pleasant to them, both of them would have taken it as being approval (however grudging) for the relationship... and acceptance of Dawn as Paul's significant other. And Doc doesn't approve, nor does he accept, the relationship... and he was goddamned if he'd act differently when he did not have to. In his own house.

That puts us into other territory. I'm not sure exactly when it becomes appropriate for someone to approve, or disapprove, or accept, or not accept, someone else's personal relationships. I suppose one must grant special dispensations for parents with their children, or older siblings with their younger siblings... and in this case, Doc has mostly kept his disapproval to himself. As far as I know, he's not out following Dawn around videotaping her various indiscretions to show to Paul later, nor has he tried to get Paul to break up with her. He says he has ONLY addressed the issue of Dawn when Paul has brought it up... as Paul has more than once, seeking Doc's approval, which Doc will NOT give him.

So... well, I don't know. It seems inappropriate, to say the least... but... well, I can't be sure Doc was wrong.

I mean, we're supposed to be honest with each other, right? Isn't that what everyone says?

Okay, forget about that, let's talk about Hellboy.

I loved this movie. This movie knows how to rock.

I was charmed and enchanted from the opening. There are certain common elements that tend to recur over and over again in larger than life heroic mythologies... at least, those of our particular culture. We fantasy geeks are fascinated with World War II, and with rumors of Nazi involvement in occult experiments, and secret Aryan mystical societies. We love tales featuring these and other typical elements: the legend of the deathless Russian court sorcerer Rasputin (or, just immortal villainy in general). "Hitler's premiere assassin", a figure of fear and menace who hides his real face and who is formidable and unstoppable in combat. Hidden agendas, sinister conspiracies, colorfully clad mystics and lethal she-Nazis, hard bitten American troops who don't believe in any of that 'abracadabra shinola'. Lovecraftian nether deities slumbering since before history began, waiting to be awakened so they can lay Earth to waste. Mystically created portals, magical weapons out of ancient legends, secret histories, inescapable destinies, powerful superhuman heroes constantly fighting against their own dark, true natures.

Most of these elements are simply part and parcel, warp and woof, of heroic pulp fiction from the mid 1930s onward. They've been woven through many of our culture's most enduring and popular pop culture artifacts, from Indiana Jones movies to Roy Thomas 'retroactive continuity' World War II superhero comics to radio and movie serials from the 1930s and 1940s.

However, as I'm not at all familiar with the original Hellboy comics, what I saw in the opening moments of this movie was an entirely new mixture of these very familiar ingredients. New settings, new characters, and new presentations, often very skewed from the sort of superheroic and action adventure tales I grew up with, reading Marvel and DC's Silver Age super comics and reprints of old Doc Savage novels and watching syndicated reruns of various 50s and 60s adventure shows on cable TV. DC's Silver Age superheroes had little actual darkness to them; they were both clean limbed and cleanly limned, and most of their adventures fell into the province of good, clean, all American fun where no one ever really got hurt.

Marvel's Silver Age was a darker place, but it wasn't at all mystical or occult. There were horrors aplenty; many of its heroes were, in fact, monstrous... but it was all a consequence of technology gone wrong. Doomed space flights, cosmic rays, experimental gamma bomb blasts, irradiated insect bites, genetic abnormalities... even Dr. Strange seemed strangely antiseptic, fighting extradimensional 'demons' that could just as easily have been aliens while using a 'mastery of the mystic arts' that was pretty much indistinguishable from a mutant power.

However, this movie's heroic mythology is distinctive from the outset. Darkness is real and the supernatural is both unknown and terrifyingly unknowable. The mythological backdrop here includes all the elements I've listed above, rearranged into an entirely different mosaic. The Hellboy character himself is a twist on the Superman mythos; Hellboy is a superpowered alien raised by a human foster parent and taught human morality... but where Kal El is the last survivor of an advanced but now dead distant planet, Hellboy is a demon, sent to Earth in infant form for obscure but no doubt sinister purposes.

The film moves fast and is mostly action sequences, but the characters are developed with an economical deftness that makes them all seem three dimensional (and enjoyably, interestingly so) within moments of their initial introductions. The acting is unobtrusive and consistently convincing, the dialogue works adequately everywhere and exceptionally on a few occasions, and if the final climactic battle scene seems a little humdrum and forced, I at least had a really good time getting there. The special effects don't seem all that special in the modern era, and I have a feeling this film will come to seem dated rather quickly in those terms, but the underlying personalities of the various characters will keep it working even when the CGI effects start to look comically antiquated.

I'm looking forward to owning Hellboy on DVD, when I'll be able to slow it down, rewind it, go frame by frame, turn the volume up or down, to make sure I appreciate each little visual nuance and every bit of dialogue. Hellboy himself gets all the best lines, but all the characters are memorable and interesting. I agree with Mike Norton that it seems several interesting character development scenes must have hit the cutting room floor, and I hope a future DVD not only lets us see them, but restores them to their proper sequence (as should have been done with the DVD versions of Training Day and GalaxyQuest, since all the deleted scenes featured on both discs were quite good and would only have strengthened each movie had they been put back where they belonged).

Okay. And that's really enough outta me for one day. Other than Hellboy, and a stop for some barbecue on the way back, this has been a quiet day off for me. I feel bad for Doc... found out a dog he loves has gone to the pound, and then pissed off his baby brother, all in the same day. He must be feeling like this was a pretty lousy day off for him. He should definitely go check out Hellboy, though, I'm sure he'd like it.

Okay, here's the rest of today's entry, from about 15 hours ago...

Thursday April 8, 2004

Wouldn’t be dog gone

Doc just called me. He’s feeling pretty down. Anyone reading this who cares might drop him a line at the old email address… the one in the mail policy column to the left of this.

He usually doesn’t call, we do the email thing… he doesn’t even have long distance service, he has this prepaid calling card he picked up at his call center. (I have a few of them lying around too; you work for telecommunications companies, you get these things, they’re about the most common giveaway there is.) But tonight he’s feeling shitty, because I guess his brother Paul called him to tell him that Chewie had to go to the pound.

Doc’s pretty aggravated with Paul, because Paul never did much of anything, really, to stave this off. Just kind of, as Doc put it, sat around on his ass and waited for the universe to solve the problem. Well, the universe did, the way it always does… badly and sadly.

Doc mentioned to me that he’d dropped by Paul’s place… the old apartment where Doc used to live… and Chewie had growled at him as if he didn’t know him, and he said that Paul told him Chewie had started being aggressive and hostile with everyone… Paul’s friends, Paul’s girlfriend, even Paul himself… so Paul is using that as a justification for letting Chewie go off to get gassed.

Doc’s not happy, to say the least.

Anyway, given that the whole Chewie story more or less started here a while back, I asked Doc’s permission to print the resolution here and he said okay. (Actually, he said, kind of dismally, “Yeah, give those fucking ghouls at Portal of Evil something else to cackle about, the shitbags.” Which no doubt it will, but, well, as Doc notes, they’re shitbags, so you can’t expect much else.)

Doc also mentioned to me that ‘H’ is Hartmut Schumacher, one of Doc’s more cherished email buddies, and, to quote Doc directly, “one of only two people in the entire world demented enough to have read all my novels… and he says he liked them, too”. (By the way, I’m the other one, something I’m inordinately proud of. No doubt the rest of you slackers, and most of those puswipers who like to call Doc names anonymously at present, will climb on the bandwagon when Doc is published, rich and famous, but Hartmut and I have read everything Doc has written as of this moment, while he’s still obscure, unknown, and loathed by assholes everywhere. We’re shootin’ the curl. We put the ‘ave!’ in ‘avante garde’, by god.)

Doc wanted me to be sure to mention that of course he knows who ‘H’ is, it’s just me who’s dopey. And that’s true enough. So I apologize, Hartmut. You’re a man among men.

On my own stuff… there’s not much here to talk about, but I was interested in a story in the paper today. It seems a local 17 year old white boy ‘loaned’ his 14 year old girlfriend to three friends a while back. Two of his friends were of legal age… 18 and 19. However, apparently, as these are all young prosperous college bound white males, and the girl at first did not indicate the sex was non-consensual (her latest statement says that it was, but there seems some discrepancy between what she said at first and what she’s saying now; her first statement indicated she only wanted the 19 year old arrested, because he was the only one she didn’t personally know), all of these jolly young child molesters are going to get off with two years probation, community service, paying a share of damages to the girl’s family (totaling $20,000), and sending the girl a written apology.

This baffles me, even given that, you know, this is Louisiana, pretty much the heart of medieval Dixie-dom, and here girls still marry young, boys will be boys, and white males, especially, can do no wrong. Even with all that, it just seems awfully blatant and, well, contradictory, for the local legal system to let four young adult males, two of them legal adults as well, get away with admittedly having sex, at the very lest coercively if not non-consensually, with a 14 year old girl. 14 is by no stretch of the imagination legal here in Loozyanna, folks. And I cannot help but shudder when I try to imagine exactly what would have happened to, say, four guys caught in similar circumstances, if those four guys happened to be in their 30s, or 40s… or the same age as the malefactors in this particular incident, but, you know, considerably darker complected.

I mean, this particular incident just seems to basically come right out and say, if you’re young, affluent, male, upwardly mobile, and Caucasian, you can commit crimes with relative impunity that other people who are not all of those things will receive punishments so Draconian and harsh for that their lives will be ruined, assuming they survive the lengthy terms they will receive in maximum security prisons, which they will serve bearing the onus of child molester… not something most other inmates welcome with open arms.

The full story is, this girl and two of her friends snuck out to meet their older boyfriends. The girl who got raped… assaulted… coercively gang banged, at the very least… was given liquor (I believe the story specified Jack Daniels whiskey) and narcotics (marijuana) by her older boyfriend. He then screwed her in the minivan they were all partying in while the others watched. The girlfriends left, but the victim chose to stick around, at which point, her boyfriend offered her to several of his friends. The girl says she was afraid to say no because she feared ridicule, and losing her boyfriend’s affections, and anyway, she was drunk and high (a state deliberately induced in her by her older paramour) and pretty much alone in a mini van with four older males anyway.

As noted, at first, the girl stated she’d only wanted the oldest guy charged with anything because he was the one she didn’t know at all. However, her latest statement says quite specifically that she wasn’t willing, at all, at any point… she was raped.

Repeatedly.

By at least two men of legal adult age, who had deliberately given her alcohol and drugs.

Now, the contradictory statements, the fact that the sex started out consensual (with the boyfriend, anyway), the fact that the girl in question apparently quite willingly snuck out, partook of the booze and the drugs, and stayed in the risky environment when she had an opportunity to leave… any of this would be enough to cast an adult rape case into question and make it awfully goddam hard to get any kind of conviction, and I understand that, but holy mother of god, isn’t that what we have statutory rape laws FOR? These guys all admit they had sex with a fourteen year old girl. Why the christ aren’t they at LEAST going to have to spend the rest of their lives as registered sex offenders? I’m sorry, isn’t the reasoning behind forcing child molesters and rapists to register as sex offenders the notion that such offenders tend to repeat their crimes? Well, does anyone out there really doubt that a guy who will fuck a drunk, high 14 year old in the back of a friend’s mini-van would do it again, given the same kind of opportunity?

Once more, I can only imagine what would have happened had four white men in their 20s, 30s, or 40s been accused by a Caucasian 14 year old of exactly these same crimes… or had four black males of any age been so indicted. Much less, had any of these putative groups of four actually CONFESSED to the crime. One has to wonder just how much hysterical laughter any such hypothetical offenders would have been greeted with by prosecutors and judges had they offered to do community service and probation, write an apology, and make financial restitution… in exchange for no jail time, and nothing on their records, if they stayed out of trouble during their probationary period.

It perplexes me, it truly does.

Oh, a lot of it has to do with the girl’s family not pushing for harsher punishments. They, apparently, just want it over with. But in all honesty, how is their daughter supposed to grow up even remotely whole, with these four guys out there walking the streets with clean records? How is the community supposed to feel about it? And even if the family doesn’t want a fuss and is willing to let these guys basically walk, isn’t that what D.A.’s are for? And judges?

There’s a glimmer of hope in here somewhere… an unnamed fifth fellow apparently interrupted the gangbang while it was ongoing, got the girl dressed, and took her home. I gather his testimony is how this all came to light in the first place. I’d like to know that fifth fellow’s name (and shake his hand) since I can’t imagine barging into the middle of a scene like that and telling four of your peers that they should be ashamed of themselves was particularly easy (or, for that matter, safe). And I, personally, find it reassuring to know that apparently, decent, honest, honorable young males are not yet an entirely extinct genus.

They’re just, you know, outnumbered four or five to one.

Yeah, it’s all pretty depressing news, tonight.

I’m probably going to go see Hellboy tomorrow.

Now I’m kind of down about this fucking dog of Doc’s… well, of Doc’s brother, actually… and I don’t even know the goddam mutt.

Shit.

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RULES OF THE ROAD

In one of his many invaluable essays on life in Hollywood, Mark Evanier described his first meeting with legendary TV comic and icon Milton Berle. Upon being introduced to Uncle Miltie and shaking hands with him, Mark, who is a pretty witty guy, blurted out without even thinking about it, “Wow, I didn’t recognize you in men’s clothing”. According to Mark, this soured Uncle Miltie on him from that point forward, because Mark had broken Rule Number One When Hanging With Milton Berle, namely, Never Be Funnier Than Milton Berle.

I’m reminded of that anecdote now.

Recent experiences at Electrolite being pretty much entirely similar if not completely identical to my previous experiences at Uppity-Negro.com and TampaTantrum.com, I thought I’d take the time to extrapolate whatever wisdom there is to find in the whole mess. Here’s The Deal, as far as I can see:

If you want to make friends and influence people when you head out onto the blogging trail, at least, as regards your posting comments on other people’s blogs, you MUST NOT:

(a) seem smarter than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(b) be funnier than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(c) be a better writer than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(d) be correct when you point out some manner in which the person writing the blog you are posting comments to was wrong, and/or

(e) Upset The Wimmenfolk On The Blog.

Rule E comes mostly out of my experiences with Aaron Hawkin’s Uppity-Negro blog. He gets a lot of female posters and like any of us male geeks would be in that admirable position, he is thoroughly whipped by them. If a new reader comes along and does anything whatsoever to offend the babes on Aaron’s blog, that new reader can expect a cold shoulder from Aaron roughly the size of the Greenland glacier. I don’t really blame Aaron for this; for a male geek, positive female attention is a jewel beyond price, and if I ever had any women posting to my blog who weren’t related to me by marriage, I’d most likely dance and sing like a puppet on a string when they cracked the lash, too.

I should add to this that I’ve learned, from Electrolite, that one Must Not Be Whimsical, Oblique, or Overly Geeky When Posting To A Big Important Political Marketplace of Ideas Type Blog, because those guys just have no time for Theodore Marley Brooks or Cornelus van Lunt references, regardless of how amusing or entertaining you and some others may find them.

Now, I am posting this to point out that while these may be the universal Rules of the Road on other blogs (and as far as I can see, they are, indeed, pretty much universal) you can ignore them here. I don’t care if you:

(a) seem smarter than I am, I like people who are smarter than I am, as long as they’re not jerks about it;

(b) are funnier than I am, then I get to laugh at your witty remarks, and hey, that’s all good;

(c) are a better writer than I am. Although I’m in a peculiar place as regards writing skills; good enough to be better than nearly all the amateurs out there, not good or lucky enough to be a professional at it. So if you are a better writer than I am, you are probably a professional writer and therefore do not have time to post comments on other people’s blogs, so this probably doesn’t matter, as relates to this blog;

(d) correct my mistakes; unlike apparently 95% of the remainder of the human race, I am under no illusions as to my own infallibility and simply don’t care if someone points out that I am wrong about something. Being wrong about things does not strike me as either a character flaw or a shameful embarrassment; we are all wrong about a lot of things every day of our lives, and that’s just how that works;

(e) Upset My Wimmenfolk. Well, actually, I shouldn’t say I don’t care if you upset my wimmenfolk, I do, the very thought deeply offends me. However, it’s just that the wimmenfolk at this point on this blog are my mom, my cuz in law, and my sister in law, and if you do something to upset them, I strongly doubt the authorities finding what’s left of you will be able to identify you without a DNA comparison. My mom, and any woman who marries any of the males in this family and stays married to him for any length of time, are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. So offend them all you want; it’s a self correcting problem.

Oh, and I like geeky references and would just adore whimsical, cleverly elliptical posts to my comment threads, although I suspect I’d get annoyed if someone started posting a whole lot of Harry Potter-speak here, just for one example.

If there is a universal rule on this blog, it is quite simply, Do Not Be A Bigger Asshole Than The Blogger. In fact, if you can avoid it (and most of my small number of regular posters avoid it with style and panache) Don’t Be An Asshole At All. I am quite a big enough asshole myself to supply all the assholiness necessary for any blog, and I will continue to keep this blog well furnished with stupid remarks, doltish mistakes, whiney rationalizations, and defensive recriminations by the ton lot, there can be no doubt. You need bring none of your own asshole nature with you, I have plenty and am always willing to share.

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THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.

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