Just something to keep in mind before you hit Submit....
When you contribute to the internet, be it within your own blog, or in that of another, notice that the context you are carrying around with you does not become of your message. Not automagically.
Readers, as likely as not, will have taken a path quite different from yours. The first few ants will perhaps be following your scent trail, but someone will eventually hyperlink to the middle of the dialogue, and the ants that follow that trail will have missed the introductory chapters.
So when you play the ass - that's the first impression you leave behind. Sure, your tone may have be justified; after all, there comes a point when one is faced with the unpleasant truth that rational discourse is completely ineffective.
But a share of your readers won't have experienced that long, painful trail. They wander in, just as you are at your least effective, and now the best you can hope for is to win the coin toss.
March 10, 2003 8:31 AM
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