A bumper sticker spotted Monday: How would you like that cell phone shoved up your ---?
From a (Christian) blog I read occasionally: "This has all of the hallmarks of that scheming '(city) lawyer' XXX and that crooked lowdown toad XXX behind it; aided and abetted by their money-grubbing pals." (Posters to this particular site may use their real names or monikers, and most seem to be the latter.)
From "Soundoff," a regular feature on my paper's editorial pages, which allows people to make brief comments unsigned: "Garrison Keillor is a self important reprobate." (He recently did a live radio broadcast here.)
File this blog entry under mental health or community health or both.
I've read articles lately, including this one, that suggest e-mail and blogging and posting messages to blogs allows us to become, well, less civil than we might be a) in person or b) in a hand-written or typed letter. Do you agree? I think that it's so, having received such missives and read them online from people I don't know; and, let's be honest, we have all probably sent a few ourselves, either with our name attached or anonymously. The Internet allows us to vent freely and quickly which is both blessing and curse. Blessing because I can write to my mother and say, "Do you want us to bring salad for dinner?" Curse in that I can spout off to someone without really thinking through what's been written--then the next day have a post-mortum: God, did I really say that?
In my own case, do I want to vent anonymously? No. Would I say the same thing to the person's face in the same way I'm venting to them on e-mail? Probably not.
What are your experiences with this?
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