Would you like a chance to chew my ass a little without being married to me?

[Bill Cady]

COMMENTS & potential snarkiness

More than likely this will identify me as a member of a dying breed, but far worse things have been said about me over the years, so I’ll deal with it. I still get the printed version of my local newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune, seven days per week. I’ve read one every day of my life since before my age had two digits. While I can’t recall the exact age I started, I do know I’ve been able to read since I was two years old. Somewhere in that eight-year period I picked up my first newspaper.

In the beginning it was the Lansing State Journal there in Lansing, Michigan, where I grew up. On Sundays I also read the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press. In my early years my residence was in Lansing but, when I became an adult, I began moving in a circuitous route around the city, as you can see by clicking here. Eventually, I ended up in California, the greatest blessing of my life.

That’s when I shifted to the U-T, although I had the State Journal mailed to me for a year. It was difficult to let go. While I still faithfully subscribe to the U-T printed version, I also read the on-line version each day, http://www.utsandiego.com/. That’s the item that now catches my attention.

There are comments galore in the U-T on a wide variety of articles. They often get bitter, a lengthy series of disagreements and even attacks on someone who leaves an opinion the others don’t like. It’s proof positive of the wisdom the people of the on-line newspaper use by not releasing e-mail addresses. The viciousness of the attacks is so bad at times I can’t even read ‘em.

Some of that occurs on FaceBook, albeit more subdued. There are some extremely hostile people on that site, too, but not nearly as voluminous as can be found other places. For that, I’m very grateful. There are very few bad-natured comments on this blog. So few, as a matter of fact, they’re in the 1-2% range. Sure, the blog gets spam remarks every day, as many as 100+ one day a few months ago. Normally, 15-20 is an average day. My spam filters catch ‘em, so I can delete that crap every couple hours when I check the site.

To be more precise, if there are any “problems” on this blog insofar as comments from you, the readers, it would be there aren’t as many as I’d like. I want to hear from you. It’s much the same as I tell the reader-editors of the novels I write. I send ‘em a chapter every day. Their job is to tell me what they like, what they don’t like, and why.

You can participate in this blog that way, and I really hope you do. It’s important to have you read the posts I put up, and just as significant to hear your reactions. Everything a reader lists as a comment on something I write doesn’t necessarily need to agree with me. More to the point, disagreement is good. It promotes discussion. That’s always a good thing.

Either way, agree, disagree, feel I gave too much or too little information, please let me hear from you. Your opinion matters.

I’m just sayin’.

If you like these blogs, subscribe here. You’ll get a free copy of my novel, “The Shimmering Image” and help the 4,500,000 homeless in our country. Ad revenues from this site go to help the homeless community. To see what’s coming next, click here.