Well, we lost
another blogger. WrecklessEric
has deleted all his articles and dropped out.
In the old days,
miners would carry canaries into the mines with them as a gas meter.
The poor little feather balls were more sensitive and more quickly
subject to the effects of poison gas than their much larger human
companions. If the canary died it meant there was poison in the air
and time to beat a hasty retreat.
We've recently
seen a flux of articles about how nasty things are getting around
here, how certain individuals pollute the experience and make others
feel worthless. While there is a certain ebb and flow to this sort of
thing, I think this may be far more serious than the norm. Bloggers
are dropping like canaries. And not the toxic bloggers either.
Others have
criticized the criticizers. It's the old blame the messenger routine.
"As long as I keep my head buried in the sand, as long as you don't
rock my delusional little boat then nothing is wrong. You are
the problem! You are the problem!" Well, you know the old
saying -- "If you're not part of the solution you're part of the
problem" -- and you my ostrich feathered friends are part of the
problem. If only you were a little smaller you wouldn't find it so
easy to dismiss and dis. You'd already be laying legs up on the
bottom of your cage.
There's something
wrong here. The canaries are trying to tell us that. This is more
than just the normal comings and goings. This is death whispering in
our ears. These aren't people leaving because they lose interest or
find other things more pressing. These are people leaving because
of the nastiness. If the good people continue to leave while the
"evil doers" flourish things will only get nastier and nastier till
only the hateful survive.