Sharon Cobb

She has no idea I'm writing this, and would probably beg me not to. But I'm in that quasi-arsey mood that means I'm gonna write it anyway.

Sharon and I agree on almost nothing politically. She's Jewish. I'm not. She rarely eats meat. I love steak. She tries to keep kosher. I'm a slob who loves cheeseburgers.

But Sharon is my friend. She's a nice person who means well, even when her methods don't take the path I would take. She's had an interesting life that has brought her into contact with more varied people than you could ever imagine. I encouraged her to write some of those stories because they are far and away more interesting than the typical "should we pull out of Iraq" bloviating that the rest of us do. We all have opinions, and that's what drew many of us into blogging. This whole post is an opinion. But not all of us are willing to take the step of sharing our vulnerable selves with everyone on a daily basis. That's completely fine, because not everyone feels they should do that.

But when someone does, it is perhaps not cricket to mock them. I know there's a fine line between disagreement and mocking. I try not to cross it, although I sometimes have and for that I apologize.

When people are sitting around in a bar and arguing over opinions that's one thing, and that's what we've got in blogland on a daily basis. But when someone is quite obviously crying and you kick them, that's bullying. It doesn't say much about the victim, but it says a whole lot about the jerk doing the kicking.