All Posts Tagged With: "reader"

A reader named Oliver left a comment over the weekend about one of my older posts about McDonald’s iced coffee. Rather than just describing how his experience was different than the one described in the post — which, incidentally, was actually the testimony of fellow Okie blogger and friend BritGal Sarah — Oliver, in the midst of an otherwise reasonable comment, chooses to interject a disparaging remark:

Brad probably just has bad digestion and a bad metabolism from years of poor eating choices which has left him quite obviously obese.

Now, being a large man for nearly all of my life, I’m certainly not unaccustomed to insults and prejudice about being “fat” or “obese.” Certainly during my school years, other kids could be pretty cruel. But I’ve been amazed that some kids never outgrow their mean-spiritedness. Some go out of their way to insert an insult or disparaging remark into a conversation, especially when they are strangers hiding behind relative anonymity — i.e. most people don’t say it to my face; it’s been typically by email or online comments from a safe distance.

Oliver’s comment reminded me of an email I got a few years ago from a reader of a magazine that I formerly published. Continued

As a follow-up to my post a couple of days about about my “not-so-excellent adventure” during my morning commute on Wednesday, I was taken aback a bit by a comment by a reader on another blog. Oklahoma’s iconic blog dustbury linked to my post, under the much better headline “Duel on the Broadway Extension,” which led to comments on his blog and quite a few new visitors to my blog — thank you, Mr. Hill!

While I’m not immune or even adverse to critical comments, one particular commenter’s remarks caught me by surprise. Apparently, I wasn’t the victim of road rage, but rather than instigator of an understandable reaction by another driver that I egregiously inconvenienced. You see, from this commenter’s viewpoint, I was asking for it… Continued