Where I'd like to be...

Yelapa Beach
Originally uploaded by Other Lisa.

I was all steamed up to write a rant about the treatment of Jill Carroll by some members of the media and the right-wing blogosphere. I'd gone, accidentally, to a website where the blogger had put up a post insulting Carroll (though he says this was not his intent), and I just went ballistic. I flipped out. Some combination of cumulative outrage and the very real emotion I'd invested in this particular story. I was going to talk about why Carroll's story resonated so much with me - (short version - I relate to a female journalist who took the time to learn the local language and customs to cover the story the right way; what happened to her in Iraq seemed to encapsulate so much of the wretched waste of Bush's war, the death of her intepreter, her being terrorized and threatened with murder even though she tried to do the right thing. And oh yes, the sexism of it - those awful outfits her fundamentalist captors dressed her in for the videos, the howling, vicious nastiness of many right-wing bloggers, and the more subtle character assassination of WaPo's Howard Kurtz, blaming her for the propaganda video she was forced to make at gunpoint...and that's as short a version as I can make).

Anway, I was all set to write a blow-by-blow of my flip-out on this blog, complete with the best of my scathing, shot-gun blast and pretty nasty comments...except then I somehow ended up in an email exchange with the site owner. And though I still think he's totally wrong, connecting issues that shouldn't be connected and politically deluded...well, we had a civil conversation on email. And that takes the steam right out of my anger.

Not about what was done to Jill Carroll. Not about what the right wing has done to this country. But towards this particular person, who took the time to try and articulate his position in a polite way.

Make of this what you will about its relevance to the state of contemporary political discourse and effects of the Blogosphere thereupon...

I'll still disagree, but I'm not going to hate. At least, not right now.

(NOTE: New "Buddha Nature" does not apply to violent religious fundamentalists, the Bush Administration or Bill Napoli. Other restrictions may apply)