Right.

Jesus Fuck I hope that's all over now.

The post I wrote yesterday morning, before any real details were known about the terror plot, was the first "political" post I've allowed on this site, mostly because I honestly feel politics are best aired on a one-to-one basis, not on the internet. With a link from Michelle Malkin yesterday, my day was complete. Michelle-allegedly a journalist, according to her bio-posted a nice little paragraph about me being a "moonbat" (which is not in my Oxford Dictionary of English, but there you have it) and the gist of it, really, seemed to imply that I'm busy single-handedly arming terrorists in my study over here/dancing among the daisies while grown-ups try to solve a Big Bad Problem. She's also the second highest ranked blog of all the hundreds of millions of blogs so her little nasty link to me (and as to the "Hap-tip reader Susan"? Yeah, Susan? I hope we never meet, babe. You could have emailed me directly, but you didn't. Coward.) sent my blog into overdrive, at several points receiving something like 8,000 hits an hour.

Fox News America contacted me, requesting an interview. When I asked if it was a witch hunt and what the context was and told them I wasn't interested in the partaking of a grill fest they disappeared, and a little research showed that the news program they wanted me on was one in which I do suspect I would've been set-up as the hippy trippy beatnik.

The link also got me lots of hate mail. All comments on all posts had to be closed. My inbox saw a steady stream of emails-most of them offensive. I was staggered by some of the emails-it's one thing to disagree with me, which hey-this is free speech. Disagree with me, that's ok. It's another thing entirely to assault someone. In one mail my dog got attacked (you feel really good about yourself, mate? Attacking a 9 month-old rescue puppy? Is that how tough you are, you pick on a puppy? Jesus Christ.) On a website my right to reproduce got charged-apparently because I have an opinion, I'm going to be an unfit mother and do I really "deserve" to be allowed to be a mother?

But it didn't stop there. The worst of the emails was the one in which the guy threatened to kill me. I post about how I ask why the airports weren't already prepared and I get a death threat. I didn't keep the email, mostly because emails where people intone about slitting my throat aren't ones I want to print out, frame, and exclaim over.

And here I'd thought the "You've Made It In Blogging!" prize was given after the first troll (which I had many years ago actually). The truth is, it's after the first person who threatens to top you.

It's as Mac said-truly someone is able to have a hate site.

Vilifying blog posts cropped up. But I don't understand it, really-most of the nasty ones (I won't link to them here, but if you do a technorati search then believe me-you'll find them. Hope you don't mind MySpace, either there are several of those) are word for word copies of Michelle's post. Now if I write a post and someone likes it enough to write about it, no problem. If they copy bits of it to support their own post, I don't mind. If they copied it all word for word and then expected comments? Weird...and plagiaristic. And what's perhaps even stranger is that hardly anyone comments on not only those blog posts, but on those blogs as a whole.

So I presume no one's reading them.

But then the tide turned-support started coming in. Some of Michelle's readers even emailed me (the more literate ones, not like Howard from Tennessee, who had about the worst grammar in an email I've seen in a long time in the email where he said that people would have to "scrape my stupid ass off a sidewalk") and said they actually supported me. And for every nasty blog post that blogland threw up about me, a supportive one came up.

Angus asked me: Do you want to enable comments again now?

I replied: The slitting the throat thing? Kinda put me off it for now.

Anyway, I just wanted to air my opinion. If you've come here today hoping for a political post, well...once bitten and all that. I'm a personal blogger. I will be sticking to that, and if I want to vent about politics then I'll be talking to a friend. It's not that I mind if people disagree with me-I think that's normal, I think it's ok. People disagreed with me on Villainous Company's post but you know what? They were grown-ups about it. There were no death threats, no throwing around of the "moonbat" word (Wikipedia enlightened me to its origins). They have an educated and considerate discussion going on in the comments-proof it can be done, if the blog author is methodical, clear, and actually reads the post they're trackbacking to.

Anyway, hopefully no new hate mail comies in, I hope something else will have people circle jerking now. I'm disappointed in someone who is supposed to be a journalist and (I agree perhaps I'm being an idealist here) I thought journalists would have higher standards than to be ok with people making illegal death threats and would, you know, actually read something before linking it and de-crying to the world that the author is sad and "a moonbat" (and this is the only post I am using that word on this site, I promise you.) Journalists have a responsibility, but maybe that responsibility ends when a piece of work is done on a blog, which has no libellous powers that have to be answered to.

The comments will remain closed until I am sure the madness is over, then they will open back again. Because you know what? I love my readers and my commenters. I love my blog. I still stand by what I wrote yesterday and still disagree that it makes me "un-American"-I am simply saddened by what travelling has come to, and I want to know why the airports/we weren't prepared for this. This does not make me a supporter of terrorists. This does not make me un-American.

But then, the America I'm from doesn't come with illegal death threats based on a blogger stating their opinion.

Now I'm going to go pet my maligned dog. I'm going to get ready for my stepkids to visit-we're going to Wales for a few days on Sunday and I hope it'll help us all unwind. I've got a lot of work to do and some tidying up to do as well. This whole furore will end for me, because I'm tired of it. I won't fuel the fire anymore.

End of discussion.

And to those who emailed me, thank you.

To those who posted in support of me or in support of my right to an opinion, I love you too. If you want to say hi to them, go for it. If you want to leave death threats for them, well...You can just leave those for me instead. I've adjusted. The bloggers are:

Sir Henry
Statia
CalTech Girl's World
Ilyka Damen
She Who Will Be Obeyed
John of Argghhh!
Villainous Company
CrabApple Lane

And I'm going to be making Ilyka's Sad Moonbat Salad. I know just the communists to serve it up to, hopefully I can get them to put their Manifesto and their berets down long enough to pick up a plate. Those guys, whew! So fucking stubborn.

Have a good weekend, I'll see you mid-next week.

-H.

**UPDATED** Fox News did actually contact me back, their mail was simply caught in my server, which was dealing with the maelstrom, and I didn't receive it until about 1 pm today GMT. My apologies.

**UPDATED AGAIN** I will indeed be doing the interview on Fox News America Radio tonight after all. Fox Across America is broadcast from 2-5 pm ET, and I think my piece is on at 420 320 or so (oh hell, I dunno what time zone this is in. It's at 820 pm my time, GMT). There is apparently a link to listen to it streaming here. So...um...talk to you then. It's maybe a bad idea, but we'll see. Wish me luck.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 05:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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