Rebel Without Applause

In the past two months, Erik and I have had a string of e-mails from a person who disagreed with us, and from her posse. See “Dear Persons …” on 10/6/03, below. We declined to post her opinions, then changed our minds, as Erik explained on 10/6. We also have opinions. We posted hers, we posted ours. But we are still hearing from her, now through her sister, demanding that we explain ourselves. I thought Erik did a great job of that on Monday.

Apparently, they expected we would post Kerry's opinions, and not post our own. This is getting weird. And ever the fan of the absurd, I thought I’d play Kafka and share it with our friends. Take it to the people, in the spirit of our new governor-elect. My thoughts:

• It's our personal blog - we get to put stuff on it. And decide what goes up.

• If you want to know why we disagreed, read our blog. That's what it's for.

• I never understood why Kerry wanted to be on our Web site in the first place. She's not going to change our minds about that prevaricating pretender in the White House or his flying monkeys. I don't mean that in a bad way. I say it with all due respect.

• I don't know how many people are reading our site, but I think it's basically just our friends and relatives. A few random surfers. If Kerry thinks she’s getting her opinion out to a big audience on All That Arises, she’s mistaken. Our readers are few, but we love them. Saying so probably won’t get me a beer, but it’s worth a try.

• What’s most bizarre, why does Kerry care what we think about her opinions? Why are our opinions of her opinions of any value to her at all? She obviously has no respect for us or our thoughts, and we’ve been clear the feeling is mutual.

• As I've told Kerry three times now, she can get her own free blog. On every blog, you will find a link that takes you to the company that hosts it. Click it, and go and sign up and Viola! You're a published Internet writer just like us. It's easy.

• Or you can send your opinions to the newspaper, or cnn.com, or time.com, or www.whitehouse.gov. Be creative. Hey, I'll bet Rush Limbaugh would love to get letters in rehab.

• Now that we have this person’s problem solved, I don't seen any need for her and her sister, their mother and friends to write to us anymore. They don't need us to get published. And I don't think we're gonna be friends and go our for coffee and stuff. So it's better if we just break this off now. Don't feel bad, it's not you, it's us. We just can’t make the commitment to a protracted dialog with fascism incarnate right now. Another blog will come along and make you all forget all about our little personal web site. Thanks for understanding. Be happy, and have a good life.

• BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED!