Billy, Under My Skin

My Mama always said I was a fool for strays and underdogs. Don't know where I get it.

This post from The Poet disturbed me on so many levels . . . especially recalling something Fec said in commentary on a recent blog post here . . . but even more so because I don't see much on-line evidence from the GSO blogosphere's "old guard" (with notable exceptions) of that loving, supportive and concerned "community" everybody keeps talking about.

When someone is down . . . be it me . . . or Billy . . . or I don't know, a local ex-police chief (who, it's becoming clearer and clearer, was trashed and raked through the mud for all of the wrong reasons) . . . the hits just keep coming. It's a gleeful cluster-stomp for the sake of the stomp. Nobody, when they're just wrong (and/or their worlds are nearly-perfect), can put themselves in someone else's less-than-perfect world shoes . . . or so much as flip the neurons necessary to change an opinion. And God knows, no one can apologize. Even advanced degrees in psychology and a good family pedigree don't stop it.

For the record, JR, you showed your true stripes here. If I were a publisher reading what you, as an Editor, were saying to the (largely disgusted) readers of a blog hosted by my newspaper I'd be seriously re-considering your status as Editor. I've always had the feeling that you embraced the local blogging scene, not to tell stories that wouldn't otherwise get told, but to manipulate and shape the opinions of the gullible masses. The masses turned out to be not-so-gullible. Of course, I did not get to say these things on the thread because you decided that (let's hold hands and recite the well-honed excuse all together) things had "reached the point of diminishing returns", and closed the post to new commentary. So I say them here.

One thing I do know (from my view in the cheap seats - reserved for female "whack-jobs"): Diminished returns were reached long ago. And it's crystal clear no lessons have been learned.

I gotta ask. Is is going to take something like this, to get the powers-that-be in Piedmont, North Carolina to wake up and remember that the "ordinary" guys and girls matter?

Billy, please do not give up. Do not do anything stupid. Stay in safety of the light . . . and the up & up.

And, from many hundreds of miles away (because I know what it's like to feel like giving up on "home") . . . I'm sending the "angry old man" a great big hug.

10/6 Update: Dale on JR and the N&R's "coverage" of the Wray fray.