Revitalizing Brookline: An Apology

Many of you here (a great many, judging by the fact that I got an e-mail from the Patch naming my blogs as some of the most-read) have been following my Revitalizing Brookline series of blogs.

I'd like to take a moment to post an apology--in both definitions of the word: a defense and a plea for forgiveness.

A few days ago I posted, in anger, a blog that in retrospect was somewhat petulant. While I stand by the things I said in that blog, they could have been voiced better. I want to explain my actions, though please do not take this as an excuse. My words were very badly chosen and the points could've been far better expressed.

The truth is, there is indeed a retiree here in Brookline who is on at least one community council, who has made it his personal mission to pursue a vendetta against me because I'm pointing out things that he finds uncomfortable.

His attacks against me have been public, ruthless, and brutish, though he does his level best to couch them in "intellectual" terms, and always ends them with a non-sincere comment like, "Peace." He has enraged me to the point of un-reason, and I expect that's his goal. He's on a vendetta and he gets a charge out of angering me.

In short, dear readers, he's a troll, which is an impressive Internet skill for a person well past retirement age to adopt. And to clarify, I'm not using that in a name-calling, "he's gross and warty," kind of way. I'm using it per the definition of "Internet Troll."

That he seems to have leveraged his pull in the community to actively reduce the number of folks who would read my opinions, is one of the most despicable things to which I've been subjected, and I flew off the handle because of it. 

I learned something today about the new features on the Patch. What I learned is this: I don't have to war with him. I don't have to let him hide behind the safe anonymity of the Internet, hurling barbs at me because he has nothing better to do with his life. I can, in fact, moderate comments on my blog so that I can ensure trollish posts don't show up, and we can continue to have actual, constructive conversations. So he's pretty much done here. His vendetta has failed and he's lost. I see his name, I hit "Delete" without reading a single word.

So basically, folks, what I'm apologizing for is the fact that I allowed this to incite me into a war of words to begin with. Going back and reading his comments has revealed to me that he's really got no points to make against me other than I don't show up at meetings so he can dismiss me in person, and that I don't have the 30 to 300 grand it takes to open a small business of my own.

Somehow, I let those sorts of things push my buttons. What can I say? I'm sometimes too easily riled and baited. It happened to me on facebook for awhile, too, till I made friends with the "unfollow" and "block" buttons. I'm going to take the same tactic here.

That's not to say in the future I won't permit disagreement. On the contrary; so long as comments are actually constructive and respectful, I won't delete them. But it's nice to know I don't have to suffer trolls here.

It seems a common theme on my blogs for folks to encourage me to start attending community meetings. I'd love to be involved on that level, but unfortunately, again, the troll is on those committees and I am self-aware enough to know that I cannot have a meaningful discourse with him, nor is he willing to hear anything I have to say.

I also can't waste my time bringing ideas to archaic, outdated committees who have no desire to hear a thing I have to say short of being able to dismiss it out of hand. The makeup of these committees is, in my opinion, in dire need of a major overhaul and housecleaning.

I will, however, continue to encourage discussion here, and I will continue to patronize local businesses to do my part to keep Brookline thriving, in hopes that one day we see the kind of revitalization that places like East Liberty have.

So there it is--my defense and my request for forgiveness of the community here. I'm sorry I let things get nasty. I'll do my best not to let it happen again.