Swift Reactions

Because I think my esteemed commenters don't get enough recognition for the contributions they make to this modest blog, I have decided to start a new weekly feature, "Swift Reactions," which will focus on some of the more interesting comments, emails and mentions of my blog in the blogosphere that you may have missed. So, without further ado, here is this week's inaugural edition of "Swift Reactions":

Lest you think I am only going to feature comments from people who agree with me, the first comment comes from my most frequent commenter, Anonymous, who writes in reference to my piece "John Kerry Goes Nucular": "Just a bit of advice, you f---ing idiot. You might want to do a spell check before posting your moronic opinions on the web. It's spelled nuclear, buttf---!" As always, thank you very much for your helpful comment, Anonymous.

Although some readers agreed with me that we are not tasering people enough, Stan was so upset with my piece that he wrote, "I swear I thought this was a parody" and called my post "obnoxious," implying that I deserve tasering myself. Then he apparently had second thoughts and awarded himself the "idiot of the day award." It takes a big man to admit when you are wrong, Stan. Of course, my pieces are not parody as you originally thought and I am glad you corrected yourself.

LoneWacko makes a too rare appearance at my blog, writing, "It wouldn't be a classic Jon Swift post without at least a couple lies." I must say I am touched that anyone believes there is even such a thing as "a classic Jon Swift post," as classic is an adjective I thought only applied to very old and boring books and rock music.

Unfortunately, my piece offering MoveOn.org and other traitors adspace on my blog at the discounted price of $65,000 seems to have brought out the worst in some of my commenters. My dear friend Kathleen Maher, whose delightful fiction blog Diary of a Heretic recalls the days when writers like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins serialized their stories in magazines, tries to hit me up for a free ad. As Lou Grant once told Mary Tyler Moore: "You've got spunk … I hate spunk." I do appreciate the backhanded compliment, however, she gave me on her own blog. Even worse MW at Divided We Stand, United We Fall not only tries to sell ads for his own site, he undercuts my price by $15,000.01! I would seriously consider reporting him to the Blogger Ethics Board if I did not think it would just give him the attention he so desperately craves.

Around the blogosphere, I was very relieved to discover that some Warcraft 2 players do not spend all 24 hours a day online playing games. Apparently, they spend some hours in the day reading blogs such as mine. Quite a debate ensued over the merits of my work.

And I was very flattered to find out that a teacher in Hawaii had assigned my blog to his high school class. Of course, it was very humbling to know that impressionable young minds were being exposed to my ideas and would soon resent being forced to read my writing the way I resented having to read The Old Man in the Sea and The Scarlet Letter when I was in high school. "The assignment is difficult and will require better reading than the classes have shown so far," the teacher scolded, words that I hope some of my readers will take to heart. Apparently, the students did not do very well at all on the assignment and were forced to read my blog yet again, no doubt making them hate me even more. "All three classes agreed that the blog of Jon Swift on second look was far more like a research paper than it looked when they studied," the teacher reports. I think having my work compared to a high school research paper may be the highest accolade I have ever received. Your homework assignment for tonight, dear readers, is to read my blog again.

I can't feature every comment here so I hope none of you will be disappointed if I haven't cited one of your comments this time. I'm sure I will get to you in a future edition of this roundup. Of course, all of my commenters are very special to me and I wouldn't want anyone to think otherwise.