Last week, I had a post that had to be removed--it was meant for the Bull Manure section and COMPLETELY inappropriate for anywhere else, but ended up in the Paint thread. Nutshell, I tripped on my own grenade, and you guys got caught in the blast. While my delayed response started with a "24-hour rule for cooldown," I'm typing this from a viewpoint of "choose your next words carefully for they could be your last," and wanted to take the time to choose them with great deliberation accordingly.
One does not simply mock certain sectors of society, especially ones that have a disturbing number of them gaslighting themselves into violent psychosis and having Big Tech, Big Academia and Big Gov egging them on, without doing it in a safe harbor, which the PBM/Anything Goes section is meant to be here. "Misconduct vs Misadventure" is a distinction without a difference when it's a Genie cooking off on the ramp, and I own the consequences of that misfire.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
At the time of the post in question, I was on a bus approaching my stop when the meme in said post popped up in my politics chat, and I thought I'd share it before it got lost in the Swiss-cheese holes in my memory like way too many other things. Unfortunately, when I was trying to hit Reply on "Felt the Need To Share This" in the Recent Posts page, I appear to have hit the Paint thread by mistake. By the time I was able to get reconnected to a network and see that I'd had a misfire, the damage was done and Mr. Perry's nastygram already sent.
Let's rewind the tape from last Wednesday, see how things could have played out differently...
1. Instead of skipping it, I stop at my usual breakfast spot enroute to the weekly mail run (the very table where I'm typing this) for coffee, sandwich and checking email to see if anybody at the office needs a Drill Sergeanting as they frequently do. Good chance that I see what's happened and clean it up before the damage is done. Grenade still goes off, but blast is contained.
2. I make my post two minutes earlier, allowing time for my usual "after-post checks." At this point I would see the misfire, remove and relocate. Grenade defused.
3. I open the thread I'm replying to and reply to it directly. At this point I would have seen "this ain't where I was going to post," and shelve the post for later.
Any one of those things done differently, and we wouldn't have had me responsible for a large mess to clean up and we wouldn't be here. But it happened, and this is where we are. I have a few other thoughts, but I will be sending them to Mr. Perry via private message and CC'ing Pat McGee by email--there has already been too much drama over this matter, and I'd rather not add more to it.
I don't know what remediation will be deemed necessary. Perhaps I no longer have a place in this community, and just in case that's where we are I feel obligated that for the past almost two decades now if memory serves, it's been a privilege to know almost all of you and have the benefit of your fellowship and mentorship, even when it has required "elevating my perspective via toe of boot." I know not when or if my meanderings will bring me back to this corner of the internet--could be a few days, a few weeks or indefinite--so I'll just note that if anyone wants or needs to get a hold of me for anything my email is in my profaile and your best bet, and close with four simple yet pithy words.
"Until We Meet Again."