Not often do I get to say these words: Lawyers are fabulously funny people!

Okay, I am saying this with a touch of sarcasm. Surely I should have realized that the tide would come into port again sooner or later. Once Andrew’s article, ‘How to handle legal issues like a man,’ and my article, ‘Gender Crisis: handling issues like a gentlePERSON,’ had finally been picked to death, I should have bet that some lone wolf would write. What I didn’t expect was to be so poorly represented as to be completely silenced.

You would think that lawyers, especially left-leaning lawyers, would be careful about protecting their twisted misunderstanding about the First Amendment, what is widely known today as “free speech.” Most liberals pride themselves on tolerance of differing viewpoints. Unfortunately I found neither of these qualities in our trite responder.

No, sadly Andrew and I were stunned today when we learned that JHS - she does not reveal her identity online - verbally slapped my husband and implied that he sexually harassed every woman on earth by writing that men should be gentlemen. Oh yes, you heard correct. Apparently Ms. J believes that a man telling other men to behave like gentlemen and not like little boys or pigs is a terrible thing. A tragedy of society that mocks women and will cause the degradation of us all!

I still don’t follow this logic of Ms. J, though she probably considers the mere fact of my common courtesy of “Ms.” to be derogatory. Pardon your years of etiquette, Mother and Grandmother, I am sure you meant well when you were teaching me!

On top of this huge reputation blow for Andrew, we also learned that Ms. J has little need for those pesky ethics. Rather than attribute quotations to their appropriate writer, she took the worst sentences she could find on the comments section below Andrew’s article, found ones made by other writers and attributed them directly to Andrew. Of course when I say the “worst” comments, they really are not that terrible, but they certainly were not made by Andrew.

Naturally Andrew and I both pointed these errors out to our California counterpart, but to no avail. Andrew originally posted this on Ms. J’s site, but she later cut out the tidbit about the quotations being from Mark:

I am the author of the post linked to above: How to Handle Legal Issues Like a Man. I respectfully ask that you please correct your article. The two quotes that you attribute to me were actually posted by a commenter named Mark in this comment. Please correct this error. Finally, please note the very first sentence of the article that I wrote: “Unfortunately many males in our society do not handle their problems like true men.” The article was solely intended to encourage people of the male gender to conduct themselves in a well-mannered, civilized fashion.

Thank you for promptly correcting the mistakes in your article. Andrew

All of the top blog etiquette writers agree that standards of journalism should be kept in blogging as well as every effort of writers to correct erroneous errors in posts, and many of them agree that editing or deleting comments simply because they disagree with you is poor etiquette indeed. In a second attempt to ask Ms. J to correct her errors, Andrew politely emailed her the same information above. Regretfully he was met with a hostile email and has yet to see any corrections to the post copy:

From:
Date: Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 5:12 PM
Subject: Re: Inquiry from a Colloquium Reader: Your article that mentions me

I am at work and do not have time to double-check that now. If you had simply emailed me in the first place, I would not have had to edit your comment. I will deal with your issue later tonight. My recollection is that I quoted your response to a comment. If necessary, I will clarify.

By this time I began writing my own response to the day’s events. Here is what I left for Ms. JHS in her comment box:

Dear J,

I am taken aback by your post, especially in lieu of your atrocious misuse of Andrew’s character. Andrew’s article never directly said nor indirectly implied that women should “take it like a man.” Your carte blanche implication that he is sexually harassing every woman on the planet simply by asking men to be a little more decent in their daily dealings is out of line. Perhaps you read the wrong article of his, but when is a little politesse - on the part of a male, female or any other person - such a bad thing? Sorry, but it isn’t.

On a journalistic note, your post admonishes writers to be mindful that they “have a responsibility to treat our readers with respect.” Certainly you lacked that decorum in this post. You not only attributed quotations from another individual to Andrew, you also edited his commentary asking you to correct this error. Twice the journalistic no-no. Please be more careful of serious errors such as these before you attempt to ruin someone’s professional reputation. It simply does not fit with your espousal of civility, integrity, honesty and competence.

Admittedly a bit stern, but sometimes a touch of firmness is needed when boundaries are crossed; even more so when professional reputations and ethical standards are at stake. Sadly my comment was deleted without even a brief, contrite, derogatory, or ‘other’ explanation. I received no email from Ms. J as to why she rejected my comments. I do not actually care what the substance of her response is, but etiquette is just so darn polite!

I know it is simply impossible to talk to walls, but it is always fun to try. Thankfully Andrew and I are good humored about today. We have done a fair amount of laughing and eye rolling, but if a small town lawyer from Lodi, California truly desires to come across the U.S. and challenge my husband to a man-eating contest, well she better have a big mouth because he happens to be 6′3″!