Too little, too late

"Free speech, civility aren't lethal enemies." That was the headline of the CDA PRESS editorial (http://www.cdapress.com) on this day of the 11th of April 2007. The editorial discussed a lot of hot-heads going on-line to make their cases heard against Hispanics migrating into Kootenai County. And apparently got a bit out of control, and thus the editorial. We are going to control the content of the comment section after this, so said the editorial. And guarantee that only civility in speech and conduct will be allowed. Apparently, Mike Patrick editor of the CDA Press got a bit upset that not only did his press poll get mentioned on other blogs including http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/hbo--
Huckleberries, but probably others as well. I do know that up and until very recently, Mr. Patrick did publish a ton of letters that were often hostile, in your face and truly personal in how individuals would attack other people, even people that they probably never met in their lives. Given the fact that such hot-headed and hostile comments would routinely show up in a public paper, and could easily be downloaded into any computer anywhere in the country by people surfing the web, if such truly ugly letters can be an embarrassment to print today, and given the fact that they come from the same source as the ugly comments found posted anonymously on cdapress.com's "comments section," well, they should have been an embarrassment to publish before. Given the fact that the paper can be picked up and read through by tourists who end up wondering about some of the people here. (Kootenai County, Idaho)

A final note, the Press does not wish to publish everyone's letter; just the letters of people they favor no matter what. No matter how whiny, vicious, etc. those letters get. That is until the editor finds out that the internet has blogs and people can comment, not always favorably about it. That's editor@cdapress.com to tell him about it.