If you prick us, do we not bleed?

I sometimes talk about how I'm not pleased with my writing and I wish I was more creative and I wish I could compose something longer than would fill a brochure but that's me talking. That's what the voice in my head tells me and I share it with you because it makes me feel better. It makes that voice be quiet for a while.

Fortunately, I have not experienced having someone else criticise my writing style, my political beliefs or my life. There are others who have and, for some reason, they keep getting slammed. Maybe it's because she came into the public eye as "that girl who got fired for her blog" - that's how I first found her - and random people think they have a right to say mean things about her.

I would never be so pretentious.

I have been reading her blog on a regular basis for the better part of a year now and I find her to be not only a good writer but also an interesting person. To her, I say thank you for sharing your life with us and thank you for continuing. As I was reading, I was seriously concerned that it was a goodbye post. That would truly be a loss.

Here's the thing. (I've wanted to blog about this for a few days now and I never thought it would take this form.) A little while ago, blogger added some sort of tool bar to the top of all of their blogs. On the right side of the toolbar is a button that reads "next blog" that takes you to a random blogger-hosted blog. When I first saw it, I took it for a test drive. For some reason, click after click, I came across blogs that I just couldn't translate. The language was something barely recognizeable as English. The writing was such that you would figure these people were paying Blogger by the letter and were desperately trying to conserve resources. To give you an idea, on two different blogs they referred to school as "sch." It was like reading the classifieds - "1 bdr apt, 1 bd, 1 bth, 3 czy rmts, 4 wd nbrs, no pets." (I know what I put there now but chances are I'll give it a WTF? in less than 48 hours)

My point is this, I guess. I have visited blogs that are poorly written, others I do not agree with, some that I felt totally missed the point, and still others that just plain pissed me off. Did I post hateful comments on their site or mine? No. They have a right to their opinions and writing styles and I have a right to ignore them and never re-visit their site. If you don't like what someone has to say, you do have a right to express your opinion - either through words or actions - but you should ALWAYS remain respectful. They have feelings, too.