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December 29, 2005

Depends on Whom You ask

I'm sorry, but are we bloggers just a bunch of pajama-clad yahoos or the potential downfall of all mankind as we know it?

Kathleen Parker, hack columnist extraordinaire, believes bloggers are the latter.

I remember a few years ago, before blogs took off, Ms. Parker had a forum on her now-defunct personal website. It was a fine, fine place for sycophantic nitwits to come out and praise every word of wisdom that dripped from her pen, probably in the hope she'd post some cheesecake shots in return (hey, could be worse, imagine if Ann Coulter posted topless pics - *urgle!*). So, yes, 'twas a fine forum.

So fine that it didn't take long for her detractors to find it, particularly after she wrote an ignorant anti-atheist piece in the aftermath of 9/11.

One can't help notice the silence of atheists these days. Suddenly ''God'' is everywhere, as ubiquitous as American flags, spreading -- as Dan Rather said in a spasm of simile-rapture to describe rumors following the Sept. 11 attacks -- ''like mildew in a damp basement.''

War has that effect. There are no atheists in foxholes, we've always known. There were none in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, we can guess. And now there are none anywhere to be found. America today is about God and country, but then it always has been. We just lost track.

A number of atheists and secularists visited her little piece of the internet landscape, myself included, to correct her. For the most part, the feedback she received was polite, yet obviously stern, as should be expected when one willfully misrepresents a segment of the population.

Her response? Close down the forum because her website was a "family" place. Apparently families revolve around toeing the line of Ms. Parker's particular brand of God-fearing kookery.

I'm hardly shocked that the open nature of the blogosphere would strike fear into her crusty lil' heart. But, hey, maybe this time we'll get some cheesecake.

(via Wizbang)

Tags: Kathleen Parker, blogs, idiot.