Showing Us the Love

As we have oft remarked, this humble “weblog” is seemingly a lodestone for Internet hate mail. To be sure, manifold kindly readers offer all kinds of kindly e-letters to us, so our mailbox is not chock-a-block with excoriations. All the same, something about our humble animadversions inspires an awful lot of ire.

We suppose this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. After all, our humble “weblog” is entitled “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly.” What did we expect—buckets of lusty love letters?

A “comment” on the luminous Dan Riehl’s “weblog” is a perfect case-in-point. Mr. Riehl, whose delightful musings have long been a hot ticket on Al Gore’s World-Wide Web, recently mentioned our two-year anniversary. It was a pleasant “post,” designed to send his sundry e-readers to our less perambulated redoubt.

Yet it inspired a fit of pique from one of these readers. In response to Mr. Riehl’s humorous reference to our “ignominious prose,” a “commenter” curiously named Phoenix offered the following “thoughts” (all of the errors are his/hers):

"...ignominious prose..." ? It's not even that. It's little phrases interrupted by "The Crack Young Staff..." It's as if no one is willing to take credit for their drivel so they have to stick 'the crack young staff' into every sentence so no one person takes the heat for being a cretin.

Whyn't they change it to 'cracked young staff'? That sounds like a Chinese take-out dish. "I'll have an odure of cracked-yon-staff an sum chikin waings, Thankye."

Holy vituperations, Batman! We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have never elicited such an enraged review. And, Phoenix’s manifest difficulties with the English language notwithstanding, we’re darned proud of this kind of obloquy.

We mean, let’s hear it for this guy (we’re assuming that a lady wouldn’t waste her time ridiculing us). Of course, his “comment” is replete with obvious nonsense. Does “cracked young staff” truly sound like a “Chinese take-out dish”? Only, we think, to a complete imbecile. And how, exactly, does one become “trashed” by “idiocy”? For some reason, we have the sneaking suspicion that this dolt knows from experience.

But, come on: This is precisely the kind of angry venting in which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” should take great pride. Clearly, we’ve been a great influence on lil’ Phoenix’s mindset.

Now, if we could only influence his writing—then he’d be mad and literate.