I try to keep it civil, both in real life and here on this blog. I try not to call names. When I got worked up and called Jindal a “nutjob” I felt compelled to apologize for it.
And I appreciate how, for the most part, people who comment on what I write here also keep it civil. People sometimes disagree with me, and I don’t mind that at all. In fact, I appreciate it, because it makes me think. Sometimes the comments might get a little sarcastic, but they don’t cross that line into outright rudeness.
With a few exceptions.
For example, yesterday Terry Wilson left a comment calling me a “know it all” and a “bleeding heart.” That provoked another reader called him an “irresponsible prick,” and the good Mr. Wilson came back this morning to ladle out another helping of scorn.
Somebody calling himself Albert Dorkland left a comment back in July saying that I’m “ripping off honest people.” He also said I wouldn’t allow his comment to be posted because I’m so dishonest. Obviously he was wrong about the last part, at least. As to the first part, I’ll leave that moral ambiguity for the reader to resolve.
Footnote: I rarely censor comments, but I made an exception after America’s Most Wanted aired a few weeks ago. Predictably, some viewers Googled my friend’s name and found my post commemorating her. One ass thought it was appropriate to leave a comment urging the police to investigate her husband, that he might be the killer. That’s so offensive I just couldn’t let it pass. Another person left a very polite comment advising everyone to arm themselves. In other contexts I wouldn’t censor such a comment, but that post has become like a shrine to the memory of my friend and it just seemed wrong there.
My unqualified apologies, B. Won’t happen again.
Actually I very much appreciated your epithet, RCS. Calling someone a prick doesn’t bother me much when it’s in my defense. I didn’t realize the hypocrisy of that position until I wrote this post. So I thank you for forcing the issue, so to speak. But I wasn’t offended in the least.
Well Dorkland (and that’s not an epithet, by the way) makes a very good point. You really should 1. know how a technical government bureaucrat functions, and 2. monitor and report his functioning to another, unspecified government agency, and 3. in doing these things, single yourself out for unique treatment from the government. He’s right. He’s right. Anything less than that is ripping off good citizens like him AND ME!
And how dare you criticize Terry Wilson?! He has given me his personal guarantee that he has done more for the city than any of us. By “city,” I think he means himself back when he was “born and raised” in this “crap hole.” See? That “crap hole” is just the customary euphamism for one’s home town. Anyway, you should do something “useful” and learn to love this “crap hole” the way good Terry Wilson did, you irresponsible prick.
I’m not offended by profanity, but it gets in the way of education and debate. I’m often put off by the mean spirited characterizations and incendiary rhetoric used in some places on the Internet. The obvious bias makes the comments suspect and legitimate criticism could be discounted.
I appreciate you effort to keep you corner of the Internet civil, I wish more people would follow your example.
BTW the reason the assessment is 10% and 15% of actual market values has roots in Louisiana’s s political past. Many years ago assessors were basically unregulated and used any old number they felt like, usually under-assessing property for everyone. Usually to make sure voters didn’t pay property tax by assessing the property for less than the homestead exemption.
When the State Constitution was amended to require the assessment be actual value and put in place some enforcement, the assessors, a powerful political force lead by Lawrence Chehardy of Jefferson Parish, forced this compromise which in effect increased the homestead exemption to $75,000, saving most homeowners from any property taxes.
Another interesting note on our system is that Municipal Property Taxes are supposed to be exempt form the Homestead Exemption, however New Orleans is not considered a municipality.
This is from memory, so I could have some of it messed up.
Hey Bart,
I’ve long been impressed with the depth and civility, in a general sense, of discussion on your blog. As a daily newspaper journalist, one of the things that I deal with on a fairly regular basis is incredibly rude, occasionally threatening, often offensive “feedback” from readers.
Most often this comes whenever I write about anything having to do with homosexuality. We’re not talking controversial stories, either. I write up the schedule of the Gay Pride weekend and put it in the paper under my byline, and I get three or four (can’t remember exactly) anonymous letters full of anti-gay vitriol and accusations about my sexuality. Even got a little of it simply for covering the news of a recent Elton John concert here. If it weren’t so sad it’d be laughably absurd.
In the blogosphere, unlike (or less-like) the daily newspaper world, what you write tends to self-select its audience. So you write civil, thoughtful stuff, and you get civil, thoughtful readers. At the town’s only daily, my readers run the gamut, from aged recluses to young kids, right-wing nutjobs to left-wing nutjobs and everything in between.
I can only hope that as you continue to grow readership in NOLA, the dialogue can stay manageably civil.
Just remember, Mr. Know it all, Bleeding Heart, blog-writing useless individual. You began the name-calling by slandering me publicly first. I don’t know you, don’t care to know you, and can only have pity for people like you who live through this ridiculous venue.
Get a life, or, at the very least, leave others alone. When you attack someone first, you should expect a response. If you can’t handle the response, I submit you are the one with issues.
people like you who live through this ridiculous venue
Mr Wilson, if the venue is so ridiculous why do you feel compelled to leave comment after comment? Here’s my guess:
defensiveness
It’s not a quality that a mature person should cultivate.
Tell ’em, Terry!