Time to set aside politics
Kelly Everitt

Danger - Internet ahead

Posted Tuesday, November 13, 2007, at 5:28 PM
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  • One thing about blogs, and which actually gets me to respectfully consider another point of view, is being able to read the heartfelt words, rather than see sad/angry faces or hear the harsh voices, and where the thoughts are in their entirety without being interrupted by others who feel just as strongly.

    I guess some folks didn't care for some things that were said about ex-Chief Berry -- or, may I respectfully submit, about the news coverage of his situation -- but agree or not, the blogs seem sincere, very heart-felt. I still stand up for the MHN but even I have to say I don't understand why the coverage was so limited, and I'm disappointed.

    On the whole, I have to say I actually like the Mountain Home News, and I very often agree with the editorials.

    -- Posted by senior lady on Wed, Nov 14, 2007, at 4:01 PM
  • I find it interesting that Kelly uses his own blog to warn people about the dangers of blogs.

    :-)

    Keep up the good fight, brotha!

    -- Posted by mrfresh28 on Fri, Nov 16, 2007, at 10:33 AM
  • the second sentence in your article is what needs to be expanded upon: take the web site you are visiting as the credentials and believability. if it ends in ".gov", it's likely factual and authentic. the rest can be balderdash, eh?

    -- Posted by dragon08 on Fri, Nov 16, 2007, at 5:06 PM
  • Great post, and fairly well reasoned in my opinion. Blogs do, however, circumvent one's ability to control what's reported to some extent. When it's your blog, you have the "delete" power.

    They also tend to put a hitch in the "...lengthy and complicated rules for writing news stories..."

    -- Posted by BruceGibson on Sat, Nov 17, 2007, at 10:53 AM
  • I really have to disagree with the majority of this blog. People have an absolute right to express their honest and sincere feelings, thoughts and opinions. They are not required to have special training or rules in order to do so, nor should they be given that requirement. Your statements on blogs are basically the equivalent of saying that because too many people are writing things in notebooks that they're not being held accountable for, people should be more careful about making notebooks so easily accessible (likewise for typewriters and copy paper, or word processing software and printers).

    I quite appreciate the opportunity to communicate with my friends worldwide using such an open and free literary source. As an aside, some of these worldwide friends are people that I met while growing up in Mountain Home, yet have since relocated as the natural result of having lived in a military town. However, yes, some of these worldwide friends are people I've met online. The fact that proximity keeps us from being able to get together in my livingroom or other physical locale make these people no less valuable to me.

    I also wish to include that I honestly prefer to voice myself in writing on blogging and social networking sites over voicing myself by writing letters to your paper. I don't mean that to be a bash. It's just an honest statement. I simply don't like being editorialized. I do understand that sometimes it's necessary because of space restrictions. However, I've seen my own letters editorialized in a manner that I really have to refer to as butchering. By that, I mean that the person editing did so in a way that did not maintain the basic grammatical and punctuational requirements that Mrs. Mims would have required in a student's junior research paper.

    I think I'd generally prefer to stick to a written medium that doesn't have such space restrictions and editorializing, even if it means I have to sometimes deal with authors whose obvious lack of education sometimes makes me cringe.

    In closing, yes, I do agree that people behave very foolishly on the internet when it comes to their safety. However, I don't know that it requires a seminar on internet safety to fix that. They simply need to use some common sense and stop to think for a moment that if they wouldn't buy something in person, be it statements, information or products, then they'd be well advised to also not buy it online.

    -- Posted by gcs on Fri, Dec 21, 2007, at 10:43 PM
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