One of the features of this new website and the WordPress software I use is that every comment someone posts is also sent to me via email. This allows me to more easily monitor the comments, get rid of spam and, should I choose, delete a particularly offensive comment.
The system does have it’s downside however. I don’t necessarily read the comments in order. Today I nearly had a heart attack when I read a comment that began thusly:
John, your concern for women and defenseless girls is truly touching…and would be more so if your blog didn’t also prominently refer to Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Joette Katz as a “heartless bitch” and go on to misogynistically rant:
“But I am only human and I can’t help but hate Justice Joette Katz. When she dies I hope she goes to Hell and is forced to relive the horrifying crimes she excused so cavalierly as a Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court over and over again.”
I really was in a state of shock for a few minutes, until I realized that the comment was in response to a different John altogether. Every once in a while a fellow named John McCommas (who has a blog of his own) drops by, sprinkles a bunch of platitudinous or otherwise inane comments, and returns to his lair, only to return a few weeks later. The comment above was in response to one of his latest, which itself consisted of a non sequitur sort of response to a post on the jury selection process in capital punishment cases.
I will confess to using intemperate language at times, particularly in the early days, but I doubt that I’ve ever wished anyone dead, even Bush or Lieberman. I was relieved no end that I had not, in fact, written something like that.
Anyway, I’m over the shock now.
By the way, the new blog has other advantages, at least for me. I seem to be getting more comments, which is sort of cool. It’s great to see little mini-debates in the comments every once in a while. Also, apparently, the blog gets more easily picked up by other sites, and I have been linked to a couple of times by sites from near and far (e.g., here and here, about the capital punishment post), something that never happened before.
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