The drawing of Crusader Piglet doesn't have much of anything to do with this blog post.But it is cute.
Stacy McCain noted earlier today the flubtastic gaffe made by Gawker’s editor (they have one? Who knew) in attempting to slap a Teh Stoopid label on Michele Bachmann for a mistake she made yesterday during a speech. Bachmann initially incorrectly identified which state was the location of a couple of battles during the Revolutionary War, later correcting her error and tossing in a quip about this being the last time she uses Barack Obama’s teleprompter. Seems Mr. Gawker managed to misspell New Hampshire, leaving out the “p” and thus generating images of Piglet hanging out with hobbits. This brings to mind what a Winnie the Pooh/Lord of the Rings mashup would look like, but I’ll leave that to folk with more time for oddball fanfic than presently at my disposal.
Anyway, Stacy and Little Miss Attila (a/k/a Joy McCann) have been firing a few written salvos at each other lately over a proper definition of feminism. I’ve steered clear of the debate, half because I can see the points each are trying to make and half because I prefer to not become involved in the inbroglio. Or embroiled in the embroglio, even.
See, although I’ve never met Stacy or Joy I’ve had positive interactions with each. Stacy has been very helpful in linking to my musings and offering tips on how to increase my readership, while Joy left a far more gracious comment than I deserved on one on my plethora of posts earlier this year about CPAC. This makes me even more reticent to enter the fray. That, and blogger battles are very seldom anything other than silly affairs meaning nothing to anyone save those directly involved. But I digress; back to the main point.
Namely, personal contact.
It means a lot to me when someone takes a moment to communicate. Whether it’s something said in response to a blog post or some such thing, or someone replying to an e-mail, the fact that person deemed it important enough, or at the least were polite enough, to make time for that communication… it does my heart good.
Conversely, I get more than a little irritated when people ignore e-mails. I don’t want to hear about how busy someone is, especially when a third party is the one making excuses on their behalf. Also, I understand busy and how it may be days, weeks or even months before someone’s schedule permits a response. That’s okay. What isn’t okay is ignoring me. I took the time to write you directly, and I’m rather busy myself. Not returning the favor is simple rudeness. It’s inexcusable.
My beloved father was fond of the saying “I’m a nice guy when people let me. Some people are determined to not let me.” Well, Stacy and Joy have been kind enough to let me be a nice guy. And nice guys steer clear when it’s not their fight.
Oh — James Wolcott is a moron.
And please hit Stacy’s, Joy’s and Dan Collins’ tip jars. They deserve support.
ADDENDUM: Thanks to Little Miss Attila for the link.
Got here from a link at POWIP. Very thoughtful post and well said. I’ve been reading TOM since before I started blogging, but only recently started reading LMA’s blog. Both are, as you say, very good writers. They just sort of got this bone in their teeth and neither one wanted to be the first to let go. It’s Human nature to want to have the last word, after all.
I reckon my blogroll just expanded again.