At last, an intelligent Letter to the Editor

I’ve purposely stayed away from the SJ-R.com message boards lately, for several reasons.

It’s all the posts full of nothing but run-on sentences, misspelled words, punctuation errors and omissions, and other mistakes in grammar and spelling that the average 3rd grader usually doesn’t commit. It’s all the high-fallutin’ hoidy-toidy hypocritical preach-tolerance-but- condemn-everybody pissy-ness that most posters have. It’s all the ridiculous arguments (from all “sides”- pro, con, both, neither, up, down, in, out, back, front, whichever) on even more ridiculous topics. It’s all the juvenile name-calling and pissing back and forth that the people do that winds up spinning things so far out of control that nobody remembers what they were all bitching about in the first place.

Basically, 95% of the posters on SJ-R.com are complete imbeciles.

And it’s the fact that SJ-R.com’s Censorship Nazis has these “Reader Comment Guidelines” that they claim will get your post deleted with the fury of a thousand demons if you don’t adhere to these guidelines, yet probably 80% or more of the posts do exactly what it says in the “Guidelines” not to do. You’re basically at the mercy of whatever SJ-R staffer happens to be monitoring the message boards at that given time, and they and they alone have the ultimate power to decide what does and does not get posted. If they agree with your rant, they’ll post it. If they don’t, they won’t. The same way letter writing works, except this is much more instantaneous- a necessity in our ADD society. But I find it rather ironic (hypocritical, stupid, whatever you want to call it) how a newspaper, one who preaches and survives off of freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and promotes the whole “everybody deserves to know everything about everybody all the time” BULLSHIT, feels it is okay to censor its readers’ online comments. If they want to kick out the offensive and vulgar posts, that’s one thing. But holy crap, are they fickle (almost to the point of being schizo about it) about what they’ll post and what they won’t. But that’s another issue.

And then the SJ-R server being down earlier in the week helped me stay away as well. Other than not being able to verify that Unpainted Huffhines is still AWOL, I really hadn’t missed the website at all.

Then for some inexplicable reason, I deliberately set myself up for an ulcer this morning by going to SJ-R.com and reading some of the tripe that is passed off as “intelligent” comments from supposedly educated people. Or as most of them would say, “supposably” educated people.

You have your people continuing to argue who sucks worse, the Cubs or Cardinals- months before it even begins to matter who is in 1st place and who isn’t.

You have your people blaming Bush for everything that has ever happened anywhere in history EVER. I haven’t found it yet- YET- but I imagine there’s someone who has blamed Bush for the cyclones in Burma. Why not- they blamed him for Hurricane Katrina. But then, they’re dumbasses.

You have your people spouting off about why Obama’s better than Clinton, why Clinton’s better than Obama, why either is better than McCain, why neither is better than McCain, etc.

You have your people saying that putting a Super Wal-Mart on every corner is somehow a good thing.

You have your people inexplicably STILL backing Governor Blowjobovich, no matter how much he continues to screw over every community in Illinois not named Chicago.

You have your people knitting conspiracies out of nothing, playing race cards for no reason other than because they can, condemning this person while making excuses for another person that did or does the same thing, things like that.

Then you have your people that just like to argue. I know of a few bloggers and their respective cliques of “yeeeaaaaaahhhhhh, what he said” commenters that are like that- they’d argue they were never born, just for the argument. I got verbally gang-banged over mayonnaise at one site. MAYONNAISE! Apparently, the author and most frequenters of that blog don’t care for mayonnaise and anyone who reads the blog had better not like it either or keep their fuggin’ mouth shut, ain’t dat right, Spike?! Hey, I’m all for debates, even in {supposed} jest. There is a point, however, where it gets to be a bit much. I can’t stand it when people argue for no other reason than to argue. Yeah, you have every right to do so, but you’re still a friggin’ idiot. Kinda like most people on the message boards. (See, at least I eventually come back to my topic!)

But at last, the clouds parted e’er so briefly today. There was a Letter to the Editor in today’s paper- the paper paper, no less- that actually made sense.

Child’s tragic death not fault of the city

As I was reading the letter to the editor on April 29, I was dumfounded by the ludicrous accusations of Elaine Boardman (“Timing for fixing of streetlights seems odd”).

Boardman states that the guilt for this child’s death lies totally (her words) with the city of Springfield. No, Ms. Boardman, I must disagree.

The guilt for this child’s death lies totally with his parents. This was a tragic accident and my heart grieves for this child’s parents and family and for the ambulance driver. My prayers go out to them.

However, to blame the city of Springfield is not justified. I myself am the mother of two children (ages 6 and 12). Responsible parents would not allow their 6-year-old child to be riding his bicycle, unsupervised, at 8:30 p.m. on 11th Street. The safety of children lies solely with the parents.

Denise Beauman

Springfield

I am possibly slightly biased here, since I happen to know this particular letter writer extremely, extremely well, but regardless, it is a brilliant letter.

This child’s death was, indeed, a tragedy. One that possibly could have been avoided had any number of circumstances been different. However, as Ms. Beauman stated, the “blame” here belongs solely with the child’s parents. I would never, EVER wish what happened to this poor child upon anyone, but Jesse H. Chrysler, what in the hell do you expect?! Have you ever seen the way people drive in this town, especially the dragster track that is 11th Street?

The child was 6. SIX. Folks, I live on the west side of town, and as most idiots people in this town will try to make you believe, the west side is where the sun always shines, the west side always gets preferential treatment from the police and from city snow and tree limb-removal crews, and the west side also, apparently, routinely has cross-burning parties. Yeah, yeah, bite me. This has nothing to do with in which area of town this incident occurred. As I said, I live on the west side, and I still get nervous when my kids play in my fenced-in back yard unsupervised. I sure as hell am not going to let them bicycle unsupervised up and down a busy street, especially one on which the speed limits are totally ignored- like 11th Street- and especially not at 8:30 at night.

A street light was out. It should have been replaced immediately, that is true. But then, you can’t blame the City for that, either. If you have a streetlight out in your neighborhood, call Public Works and request that it be replaced. They don’t just drive around looking for burnt-out streetlights, and if they did, most of you would bitch about “what a waste of taxpayer dollars” it is. Chalk another one in the I Want Things My Way But I Still Gotta Be Able To Bitch About It column.

Echoing Ms. Beauman, my heart goes out to the family of the child and to the ambulance driver. But if you’re looking to “blame” someone, blame the child’s parents. As parents, you and you alone are responsible for your children. (Keyword: RESPONSIBLE.) You can’t let them run amok unsupervised and then start doling out blame when they get into trouble, or hurt, or worse- it doesn’t work that way. True, there are circumstances where something happens to a child that not even the best, most attentive and most diligent parents can prevent. But at least in this case, the only reason that child died is because he was allowed to ride his bicycle on 11th Street unsupervised. Period.

Take some responsibility for your actions, or, in this case, lack thereof. It is nobody else’s job to raise your children, regardless of what certain female presidential hopefuls try to convince you. Not teachers, not clergy, not government officials, not the neighbors, not your relatives, but YOURS. Most people seem to have no problem taking all the credit for their children succeeding; why, then, is it always someone else’s fault when your child fails or when, heaven forbid, something happens to them?

Bravo to you, Ms. Beauman, for your letter, and congratulations on somehow getting it printed in the paper.

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