A Small Victory

Time to create a killfile in your email program. Or -- better yet, post all the emails so we can mock them.

At least they're admitting you're a person. I've gotten occasional bursts telling me much, much worse.

But then, according to their imams' declarations, I'm descended from monkeys, dogs, and pigs.

Would it help if I were to tell you something uncharacteristically nice, almost on the level of devastatingly positive? A eentsy-teensy little secret?

Keep up the good work.

You too, eh?

:)

What Andrea said. Post that shit for all to see. Friday Night Fights!

Do you get twenty five emails in the span of an hour telling you that your opinons are worthless, your words are stupid and invalid, that you suck as a person?

No better proof that people really care what you think.

I agree re: posting the e-mails. Airing out the laundry really helps get rid of the smell.

Allah and Andrea are right: they write to you because they care what you think. It is a backhanded compliment, although I should imagine it certainly doesn't seem that way when you're reading the letters.

Allah and Andrea are right: they write to you because they care what you think. It is a backhanded compliment, although I should imagine it certainly doesn't seem that way when you're reading the letters.

A new category:

Bitchslap Michele's e-mail

It would go great with the Rall thrashings.

Add me to the votes for "post the email". Nothing says "Friday night" like a distributed mocking-of-moonbats. (I'm stuck at work waiting for things beyond my control to happen, so I could use the entertainment anyway).

When people write and tell you how stupid you are, you gotta know you're doing something right.

Me? I thought you nailed it. Brava.

reiterate previous email here: Why I read ASV. Same sentiment, new day.

***still waits for his first piece of hatemail***

Michele,

You nailed it..and I thank you for it.

Just delete the e-mail address and let us have some fun with it. Make it a weekly event with prizes! ;-)

Well, I'm sure I'll get ripped for this one, but no, Michele, not everyone gets that reaction.

Mostly, it's the women bloggers.

Yeah, I know men get negative reactions to their opinions. But not like we do, boys. Not like we do.

If you'd like, send some of them my way. I'm much, much further to the right politically than you are, and worse yet - Canadian - which perplexes them totally.

And being involved in gasp animal research, Peta types are welcome,too, Meryl.

I don't know why people feel the need to email you and say you're wrong. if you don't like someone's opinion, move on. there's plenty of other blogs out there apparently.

Hang them out to dry Michele... I love the idea of the weekly prizes ;)

My bad - gave the wrong URL in that post... finger memory.

Man, when you walk off the reservation/plantation.....

It's onerous. Don't try to answer everyone back, or you'll burn yoursef out emotionally and then drift away from blogging for...oh, eighteen months...?

From what I've heard, I mean.

No, I've never gotten 25 e-mails in the span of an hour, period.

Of course, sticking your head out of the foxhole is bound to get it shot at (metaphorically speaking, of course). Still, I'd say it beats the alternative of saying a lot of heartfelt things and hearing crickets in return.

Keep it up.

Re-invent yourself as me, then noone will give a shit what you think. It's liberating.

"No, I've never gotten 25 e-mails in the span of an hour, period."

Not from real people, anyway. From spambots, almost certainly.

Well, Meryl, I reckon if you wimmen would herry up and gecherselves edumacted you wouldn't have that there problem. Of course what yer doin' blogging and not in the kitchen cooking is beyond me.

/extreme sarcasm

As a wise woman once told us:

"It's so easy to think you're right when you don't give people the chance to prove you wrong. Lesson Number One of blogging: People with strong opinions, who are often feisty, accusatory and belligerent and don't have comments enabled are cowards."

Take note, Jim Lileks and Glenn Reynolds.

There's hope for you yet, Michele.

Not 25, but I do get the trolls.

Post them! Post them! Post them! Let us go to work on 'em!

[/bloodthirsty chant]

Anyway, I agree with what Allah, in his infinite wisdom, said: no matter how frustrating or enraging some of the insanely nasty, unfair E-mail you receive may be, just remember that they wouldn't be dropping that crap on you unless they cared about what you said. It's a backhanded compliment in the utmost: they clearly think what you wrote was effective (even devastating) in SOME way, or else they wouldn't have bothered to denounce you. Because nobody wastes their time pouncing on amateurish blogging.

Just don't worry about responding - remember, that's what they want the most, and they're dead set on insulting and offending you, and denying you any sort of small victory in an argument with them. Just post them, Allah-style, and let us Happy Warriors do the dirty work for you!

Well, I'm sure I'll get ripped for this one, but no, Michele, not everyone gets that reaction.

Mostly, it's the women bloggers.

Yeah, I know men get negative reactions to their opinions. But not like we do, boys. Not like we do.

Meryl, maybe that's because trolls know that men aren't likely to care enough to even respond to hate mail - except by mocking an occasion one.

I believe that hormone thing. I've listened to a couple of long interviews with both male to female transexuals and female to male transexuals. They give transexuals massive overdoses of hormones to create quick visible changes. With hormone overdoeses anyway, testosterone makes people react to challenges with anger while men taking female hormones are surprised to find themselves crying in response to a challenge.

The other day I was listening to a researcher who did a long study. She was talking about how adolencent girls who were perfectly healty children twist themselves in knots and become dishonest in order to please everyone (?who, their friends?). She blamed "the patriarchy". I think that's bull - deciding to always please people who don't deserve your respect is a dumb choice and it isn't men who force girls to make that choice. It's an understandable instinct for the gender that will need help raising children - but it is an instinct and that's why it's out of proportion.

Darn this poster for refusing to continue italics across paragraphs.

I quoted Meryl for three paragraphs and it only italicized one!!!!

It would be better if it closed open italics at the end of the posting instead of at each paragraph.

Darn it the whole quoted section read:
Well, I'm sure I'll get ripped for this one, but no, Michele, not everyone gets that reaction.

Mostly, it's the women bloggers.

Yeah, I know men get negative reactions to their opinions. But not like we do, boys. Not like we do.

Michele:

Remember the old adage - "The opposite of love is indifference."

Sure, you ain't lookin' for love out here, but if they didn't care, didn't have some burning need to tell someone, anyone about their scads of degrees, if something you said didn't strike a nerve in 'em, they sure wouldn't bother commenting, or even coming here. You're getting through to people - that's what's important.

You're under no obligation to mold this weblog into anything on account of what anyone says, at least until someone starts paying up for hosting.
You put in all of the time to keep this thing going, you don't answer to anyone but yourself. However, you don't need to get sick over it, either. You have something to say, say it loud ['I'm black and I'm proud' - to those offended by this reference to "The Commitments, too bad. Hell, I grew up in Uniondale/Hempstead LI - you locals will know what I mean - so maybe I can be a black president, too.]

You're the best - getting up into the rarefied air of the top 5 on my faves list. Make that top 3. And not just because we live a couple miles apart.

Oh, by the way, Lileks and Reynolds can be reached rather easily. Lileks has so many columns in so many places that you can have your pick. But to make it real simple, there's an e-mail link right on his home page [I'd write it here, but you might even be able to get there yourself.] For Reynolds, his MSNBC blog has a window like this right after each entry. If that's not good enough, go to one of his TCS columns and click 'e-mail author' under his picture on the left side. Hope it's not too challenging.

WG

I drop in here from time to time, and generally agree with your comments and point of view. Not always though, but that's what makes us all think. On some blogs, merely posting a difference of opinion in a well-thoughtout manner will result in a parade of insulting responses by other bloggers and readers. Talk about agita. (I take it you are from the East Coast? My best friend from Mass. uses the same term.) If the e-mail you get is particularly vile in nature, it would seem that you should just discount that person's point of view. Period. However, I have noticed a tendency by some bloggers to post the most incredibly vile responses to the most mild of differences of opinion. And they seem to relish the public flogging to a degree that exposes them as infinitely more ignorant and disreputable than the person who disagreed in the first place. If a blog is not a forum for the exchange of ideas in a rational manner, and those posting cannot be guaranteed the respect demanded by those hosting the blog, that site becomes a wasteland of ignorant, egotistical ramblings of no use to anyone. On a last note, I, too, constantly get pegged as "right-wing" because of my viewpoint on Israel and the war on terrorism. But I have also been flayed as a left-winger on Dean Esmay's site for my viewpoint on over-population. It is a natural reaction to the bi-partisanship that has so totally engulfed our nation. It is an indication to me that the majority of people out there are incapable of thinking for themselves. And that scares the hell out of me. My advice to you, Michele: Don't submit to the catcalls for "Friday Night Fights". Ignore the lousy e-mail. You have proven yourself to be better than that. Keep rising above it.

Does anyone else get this shit? Do you get twenty five emails in the span of an hour telling you that your opinons are worthless, your words are stupid and invalid, that you suck as a person?

It varies, and it comes and goes. Still pisses me off sometimes, though.

Bill,

Sorry, but I won't marry you. I don't believe in same-sex heterosexual marriages either.

But you can still send me flowers.