OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT!
One of my fondest memories of adolescence was staying home on a Saturday night and watching Garrett Morris do his politically incorrect riff on SNL*. He would cup his hands around his mouth and yell the top stories on the news--for those who might be hard of hearing.
Sometimes bloggers need to do the same thing.
We assume that our readers have been around for a while, understand our metaphors, our shorthands, the shortcuts we use to make a point.
Bad idea.
When I wrote my Akron post I suspected I'd get flack for it, but I had no idea how personal the attacks would be. Basically, they begin with, "I've never read anything you've ever written..." and conclude with, "Because of your poor judgment, I won't ever read anything you write ever again, or buy your books either."
Of course, given the first sentence, the closing sentence isn't much of a threat, but it also represents a common human trait and one that more careful writing could probably avoid. Regular readers know that I wasn't making any comment at all about Akron... merely a comment about a few of the people who live there. Just as I wasn't criticizing every struggling dot com company, just the group I was interacting with.
Organizations are nothing but people, and their attitudes have a lot to do with their future.
Not in all caps, but I think that makes it more clear.
As for those that will never read my blog again, you're probably not reading this either, and I hope that a friend who still does will let you know that I'm officially apologizing to anyone who thought that I had issued an edict re Akron. I haven't, I'm not and I won't.
*and now, in the interest of my new, ever more clear and complete description of my point, I was only using the Garrett Morris riff as a metaphor, not as a reflection of any kind on those with a hearing disability.
