Right On The Mark

After receiving an Email from the online editor of my local newspaper, where my blog was previously published, I wrote the following blog posting titled "My Last Blog Posting." However, it only posted for about an hour before it & my entire blog was removed. I think it's fitting to start my blogging here with that posting.

----------------------------------------------

Regretfully I must conclude my blogging days with this last posting.

I was alerted via Email...

YOU NEED TO REMOVE THIS LINE FROM YOUR BLOG IMMEDIATELY. You need to remove the comments regarding it as well, and you must leave a comment to the effect: "This blog post has been edited and some comments have been removed."

This Email was in reference to my use of "douche bag" to describe pirates who had attacked a commercial ship with U.S. citizens aboard & had taken the captain hostage. While some folks might disagree with the use of such words I don't believe it was vulgar & certainly not any worse than other uses of language on this blog & others.

Just a week later I had the words "dumb bitch" in the title. Then I thought maybe it's not because the words were vulgar but because they attacked a person or a group of people. However, in October of 2007 I called Senator Craig a moron with no demand to remove that attack.

Other uses of harsh language passed without any fanfare. In some of these cases the language wasn't printed in its entirety. Instead, curse words were simulated to show anger over a situation. Simulated cursing also came in another blog as well with #*&% YOU! to show anger & frustration. Some simulated cursing simply replaced certain letters with *** leaving the curse word to your imagination. However, those simulations didn't fool anyone to thinking of a nicer sounding word. Some cursing wasn't even simulated in the case of talking about an "ass-kicking."

I have come to the conclusion that my use of "douche bag" might have been accepted if I had written it "d**che b**." Or, had I used it to describe a disgraced republican politician. Either way, censorship for the slang use of the word in question seems a bit ridiculous considering what has been allowed up to this point.

It truly has been a pleasure sharing my thoughts with you as well as reading yours. However, rather than be unnecessarily censored (in my opinion) I'll have to discontinue my blog.