Wallismarsh -- Part II

It's my understanding that last week's column created quite a stir. I say "it's my understanding" because I write my columns the same way a football coach prepares for and coaches a game. Most coaches don't read their press clippings and neither do I. They're not going to change the way they coach and I'm not going to change the way I write. I pick my subjects carefully, write what I feel or believe and then do it all over again the next week.

However, a couple of weeks ago I DID read the comments made about one of my columns. As it turns out, I should have stuck to my policy.

That week I had written about Drugs and Doctors and stated the obvious. Not all doctors are created equal and not all drugs work. In reading the Web site comments that week, I noticed that they were generally favorable except for the comment by Wallismarsh who drew some conclusions about my column I disagreed with because his conclusions weren't supported by what I had written. I decided to write last week's column about anonymous posts using Wallismarsh as an example. As it turned out, Wallis Marsh is actually the person's name.

So of all the critics who hide behind their screen names, I picked the one critic who was actually using his real name. Even though I had no way of knowing that at the time, I was in error using the term "coward" in referring to him and apologize to Mr. Marsh for doing that. When I'm wrong about an obvious fact, I will always admit that and, in this case, I WAS wrong.

As it turns out, Mr. Marsh is graduated from McCook High School and now lives in Houston, Texas. He keeps tabs on his home town via his home town newspaper and it appears I'm one of the few people in McCook who doesn't know who he is.

It has also been rumored around town that he had sent me an anonymous letter and my column was actually in response to the letter rather than his Web site post. The curious thing about this is that I haven't received ANY anonymous letters in the mail and, even if I had, the fact that it was anonymous certainly wouldn't have led me to guess that it was Mr. Marsh. Most people understand that anonymous means you don't know who the person is. So we can lay that rumor to rest.

Rumors usually have at least SOME basis in truth but this one didn't; the same as the rumor that spread around town a couple of weeks ago that a student at McCook Community College had been murdered in the alley on West 10th Street. I heard this from several different people who had very specific details. The person had allegedly been stabbed to death and his body was shipped out of state so a complete post-mortem workup could be done.

I contacted the editor of this newspaper about the rumor who in turn contacted law enforcement. No such murder took place. In fact, in the words of one high ranking law enforcement official, "We haven't even investigated a fight in the past week." So another example of a rumor that had no basis in fact at all took wings and spread all over town.

I will continue to oppose anonymous postings, especially when they are critical of a post made by an identified person and I think, by using his real name as his screen name, Mr. Marsh probably does too. He and I obviously have our political differences and that's fine. We should be able to discuss those differences in a public forum openly and honestly as long as everyone involved in the conversation is identified.

I only have a problem when someone hides behind a screen name in order to not only criticize a perspective but to demean and degrade the person who wrote it because they disagree with his ideas.

It just so happens that the anonymous person I chose to criticize for hiding behind a screen name wasn't really anonymous at all and I regret my error.