Googled and Strafed...

My friend Lis Riba got quoted in a Yahoo news summary this week. She referred to one David Winer (a web blog provider who abruptly got out of the business to the chagrin of his clients) as an "egotistical blowhard".
The response was immediate, the "Riba Rambles" blog lit up with brutal insults from the usual anonymous assholes who make Yahoo's message boards such an enduring monument to retro-zoology.
The lesson here seems obvious, that in an internet that is full of people who derive a bullying sort power from anonymity, there is sometimes no percentage in "going public" or being honest.
No matter how good your intentions the usual cybergoths will come crashing in spewing obscenities and making the usual threats.
Well at any rate, Lis can defend herself pretty well....that much is certain.
This is in part why I don't host a message board here at Chimes at Midnight (that and I'm cheapskate).
I value other people's opinions it is just that within the anonymous confines of the internet the prospects for free and polite dialogue are limited.
You are as free as you make yourself, but that doesn't come with a guarantee of civility.

Blooz Clooz:

I ran into my old Sifu, Brother Blue outside the American Repertory Theater in Harvard Square last night.
That man is a PRODIGY!
I remember with the simplest nostalgia sitting at his feet on Brattle Street back in 1978 as he sang and rendered up stories in his patented syncopated blues-jazz idiom.
He hasn't changed a bit since then and I hope to God he never does.
Otherwise the man seems to hardly aged in 26 years, his dance moves are impeccable and his timing a study in perfection.
He did his "King Lear" for a friend and I, it took a lean twenty minutes all told. Sure it made us almost late for our movie, but I'd be in shit shape indeed if I couldn't still make time for Brother Blue.
He is as always, the Commonwealth's good friend.