Burningbird

I wanted to point out a wonderful cross-blog between Mike Golby and Jonathon Delacour. Mike is starting a series of weblog postings on how he has re-affirmed his own religious beliefs, as well as gained appreciation for others. This is in response to a posting Jonathon did on his loss of faith.

In his posting, Mike said:

• That said, let’s get stuck into Jung, his meeting with the Pueblo and perhaps, sometime in the next week or so, Jonathon’s sad and desperate plight.

My take on this was that Mike was using humor, primarily because I believe that he and Jonathon have a deep and abiding respect for each other. This was confirmed by Jonathon’s reaction, if his response is anything to go by:

• I can imagine other people might be affronted by Mike’s referring to their “sad and desperate plight.” There’s no shortage of thin-skinned inhabitants in Blogville. But not this little brown duck. I’m curious. Anyway, if I choose to become upset and reject Mike’s observation out of hand, I’m giving up the opportunity to learn something about myself. Mike may be correct, or he may be mistaken. I trust my own ability to decide. Either way I win.

Little brown duck. I loved that.

I hope I don’t sound condescending or maudlin when I say how proud I am to share weblogging space with you two. I learn from you both. At least — I hope to learn from you. Mike, Jonathon, you all aren’t going to get nasty with each other on me and ruin my poor, naive, innocent trust in you both, are you? I’ll shed tears. Real ones. Salty, even. Buckets and buckets of salty tears, and red-rimmed green eyes. What a picture that makes.

Other than pointing out what looks to be a particularly good set of weblog postings for the next week or so, I also wanted to mention this interchange for another reason — as a lead in to an apology.

Mike Sanders, I should not have mentioned your request to drop mutual weblog links this morning. That’s not the issue. What you say in your weblog posting of today is of issue, and I should have responded to that, rather than the personal interchange. My apologies for making your request public and and then responding to it within a public forum.

This morning, I forgot the first rule one must hold when communicating with another — show respect for yourself if you can’t respect what the other person is saying, and react to the words, not the person; to do otherwise, demeans youself, not them.

Update Steve Himmer also also had his weblog link pulled from Mike Sander’s weblog. Steve, being more reasonable than I (or less pissed, or less sick), has provided an excellent response to Mike’s posting today.

I was surprised when I saw that Steve’s link was pulled (well, I was surprised when I got my email about my link being pulled). I think he’s probably one of the most reasonable people I know of — calm, quiet, caring, and definitely balanced as to viewpoint. He’s concerned that he somehow gave the impression of being a pro-terrorist sympathizer with his writing.

Steve, I read everything you write, and even though I have been painted with the same brush as you, I’ve never seen anything but calm, quiet, and intelligent discourse. Consider this — I believe I was labeled thus because of my discussions last week and a link as far as I know of; Mike wouldn’t explain the details other than what you see in the comments, and that seems to be more along the line of being pro-Israel than anything. I am confused about the “understanding” part myself. Because I point to Ord, I am a sympathizer? Is that the key?

I would say that it’s up to Mike to provide detailed understanding of his point of view at this time rather than forcing all of us to explain ours.

P.S. Yes, it is anyone’s right to pull a weblog link. However, when a person does so with words such as terrorist sympathizer attached to the action, and the weblogs can be easily deduced by anyone who can view before and after pictures of his blogroll, then this person has stepped beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior. And yes, this is my opinion.

Before getting into the meat of this posting — my abject terror of that cherry lollipop foot stompin’ nasty, Captain Blowtorch — I did want to chat with you all first.

I’ve been very angry today. Probably more angry than I have been in a long time. By implication, Mike Sanders has called me a terrorist sympathizer. The implication is based on his message associated with the weblogs he pulled, mine being one of them. This is not something you can call a person and they maintain any mask of reasonableness — because the charge itself is so heinous. And in this country and in this day, dangerous. There are people out there in our government and without that will jump on the possibility of anyone being a sympathizer to terrorism.

However, I have been very angry in most of the comments today, and that’s something I have been trying very hard not to do in previous postings. I value you, my readers. I value what you say. And I always want you to feel comfortable speaking your mind in this weblog. Forgive me my ire. I am very, very, very sick today — but that’s only partially responsible for my words. My temper is responsible for the rest. My apologies.

Now, on to fun stuff.

That dastardly devil of the Marketing Anti-Market, Captain Blowtorch is seeking an oath of allegiance from Happy tutor’s former friends. I, however, have been excluded from amnesty, because the flame that floofed, Torchie, himself, knows that I prefer the wise and noble brow of that arch-enemy of the marketing proletariat — Happy Tutor.

Tutor, Tutor — wherefore art thou, Tutor! Come, sit beside me, munch a cherry lollipop or two or three.

Anyway, Torchie — you’re hairy and you smell, you spit when you talk and you wear polyester — and I still won’t cooperate with you, or your little Free Market minions, too. hahahahahahahahah!

(However, I heard that John Anthony is ready to cut a deal. Send in RageBoy, and JA will fold like a wet paper towel…)

And in case any of you happen to see Mr. John Dvorak hanging around, I think you can safely point him to my postings from the last several days, as well as postings elsewhere in this vicinity. He’ll be able to see all the weblogger disagreement he could possibly want. And discussions of matters a lot weightier than Tubcat or “Which household appliance am I”.

And maybe out of all of this today, that’s one of the positives we can take away from the conversations we’ve had — that we are strong, we are opinionated, we’re pretty articulate when we’re engaged, we care passionately for those things we believe in — and we’re sure as heck not talking about obese cats.

Maybe we’d even impress Mr. Dvorak. However, I have a feeling this crew could care less about that.