After the essay

Is it in bad taste to announce that I had an essay published in a Canadian newspaper yesterday?* That question is probably irrelevant: I'm already heavily invested in bad taste land because, apparently, I wear Crocs in public (am I the only one who finds them fashionable?).

The online version of the essay was open to comments. There was the imbecile who complained about product placement in the formerly “litterate” Globe & Mail; the overly health-conscious nut (or possibly epidemiologist) who went on endlessly about the low fiber and high sodium content of Campbell's soups; the motherfucker who noted it was a little Norman Rockwellian; and the usual mob drivel. There was also a smattering of good (by which I mean complimentary) comments, including a perfectly delightful one from someone named Deloney. Thanks Deloney!

As you will note from the preceding paragraph, I'm all for free speech, but someone needs to invent a dross sweeping app. When a person posts something on the internet, they should be able to attach triggers to it. Then, with the much ballyhooed intelligence computers are supposed to possess, said computers can sweep comments containing those triggers under a virtual carpet. Should the writer choose to look under the carpet, they have that option. So, for example, if I specify “sodium” as a trigger, any comments containing that word would be swept under the carpet. Any comments with misspelled words would be swept under automatically, unless they contain some note of appreciation. Anybody who posts a comment containing “it's” as a possessive will have an IP address-seeking missile launched to destroy their computer, regardless of how complimentary the comment is. Persons who use en and em dashes incorrectly will be exempt from censure however (since I had five em dashes in the piece I originally submitted and the editor removed three of them, and seemed to turn the other two into en dashes--but maybe that's because the Globe & Mail no longer employs litterate editors).

I'm not quite as disgruntled as I probably sound. It was entertaining and enlightening to read through the comments and notice how few of them concerned the essay itself. I am aware that when I comment on others' blogs, I am frequently guilty of the same thing. From now on, I promise not to use your space as a soapbox. And if I do, feel free to call me an imbecile, an overly-something-or-other nut, an epidemiologist, or a motherfucker.


*One of my coworkers (not the one who was done in by an icepick-wielding buddha) also had something (lucrative, and slightly lewd) published this week. I'll let her tell you about it here if she wishes, thereby providing her special dispensation to use my space as her soapbox.