GeeGuy Plays Detective

On Christmas Eve morning, my 'blog received the following comment:

From reading the tripe that passes for posts on this site and the idiots
that leave their silly responses...
If you make up the electorate in Great Falls, perhaps it is good that Mr.
Gray lost...he seems like a bright and dedicated leader. Good luck with your
"community activist."
My lord you people need to stop drinking the water there...

The longer I have this 'blog, the less those sorts of comments bother me. This is especially true when the person who trashes my writing apparently believes there is a grammatical rule that requires periods to come in threes. (It's called an ellipsis, my fine posting friend. It is used to indicate the omission of quoted material. Since you did not quote any materials in your post it was, in your case, misused.)

Anyway, this anonymous stinkbomb got my goat a little bit. It attacked me, my writing, my friend Dona Stebbins, and my hometown. So I thought I would dig a little deeper.

First, the comment was made at about 2:14, a.m., on December 24. Using my usage software, I determined that the comment was made through XO Communications (www.xo.net) and originated in San Jose, California. The user came to my site from Wulfgar's contest page. The poster returned to my site at 8:30 the following morning, apparently to see if there had been a response to his or her comment. He (Let's use the masculine for the sake of convenience. By doing so I am, of course, not trying to imply any special favor with the ladies.) has not been back since.

He called my writing "tripe." Assuming, safely I think, that he did not mean to state literally that electronic words on his computer screen are actually made from a cow's stomach, I can only assume he used the word figuratively, or a slang, to mean "rubbish, ...something of little value, or nonsense." (Note the correct usage of the ellipsis.)

Blogshares notwithstanding, very few blogs have any actual monetary value, and even fewer have any literary value, so I think it is safe to assume the reader was implying that my writing is nonsense or rubbish. 10 or 15 years ago, this might have bothered me. But I have achieved a relatively decent amount of success in a profession that is 80% writing, so even though one might disagree with me, I know that I can at least understand and articulate a point of logic.

Therefore, I deduce that our hit and run friend simply disagrees with my comments about Mayor Gray. I think this is supported by the ad hominem attack on all those who apparently agree with me ("you people need to stop drinking the water there.")

So why does someone living in San Jose, California, care enough about mayoral politics in Great Falls, Montana, to read and make a post? If we assume, on the one hand, that this person is wholly unfamiliar with Mayor Gray and/or Great Falls, I think we can conclude that the poster has really confirmed my point about the Great Falls Tribune. If he is getting his news about our mayor from the Tribune, then of course Mayor Gray "seems like a bright and dedicated leader." I think it is a stretch, though, to think that a complete stranger would follow our politics and then track down a weblog and then make a post.

Plus, while the name of it escapes me, the writer uses a tool of argument to try and make his point. Have you ever noticed how people will call talk radio to slam on President Bush, but will first say, "I'm usually a Republican?" Or, "I don't usually follow politics, but in this case what the GOP did was sooo bad, I had to call in." It is a way of trying to give yourself credibility by removing your views from the partisan, adopting a cloak of neutrality.

In our poster's case, he said Mayor Gray "seems like a bright and dedicated leader." Not that he is one, but he seems like one. This smells like someone who is trying to sound neutral. And this, once again, would indicate someone in San Jose, California who has, for some reason, taken a sudden interest in small town mayoral politics. I doubt it.

Nope, my bet is this. Some friend or relative of Randy Gray lives in California. He found the site, and couldn't help but come in and give me a little poke. But he lacks the cojones to state his relationship to our Mayor.

By the way, despite the length of this post, the deduction made was made in a few seconds. I don't want our ellipses-challenged friend to think I'm obsessed with him!