It's been quite a while since I was able to last update, I've been blessed with an enormous workload the last few weeks and haven't had time. I'm lucky to be so busy in this recession.

Which brings me to the topic of this post: Online parenting - but probably not in the sense you were thinking. Being one of the professional geeks around here, I have the "pleasure" of monitoring comments on five community news sites as one of my many tasks. Hands down, this is the thing I dislike most about my job (my boss doesn't read this, right??). I pretty much babysit grown people on the web. There's something about the anonymity of the internet that brings out the worst in some people. They take that as a free pass to say and do things that they know their mother would not approve of. Things they wouldn't sign their real name to, or say to someone's face. And that's cowardice, plain and simple.

I've been compared to the KKK, been called all kinds of names in anonymous e-mails (complete with missing punctuation and creative new ways to misspell common words). But what amuses me the most is when people ask me, "What about my freedom of speech?!?". Being American grants you the right to say stupid things on the internet, but it also gives me the right to delete it.

If you're that worried about the preservation of your freedom of speech, all you have to do is follow these simple steps; Build yourself a website, pay to host it, hire a salty web girl to maintain it, and become 100% liable for the content posted to it. Congratulations! You're now free to make an anonymous fool of yourself online!

But until you are able to do so, you're going to have to learn to follow the rules to keep this website a civilized community discussion forum. An old teacher of mine once told me, "Dignity is defined by how you behave when no one else is looking". These people are your neighbors, and just because they can't see your face doesn't mean they don't deserve your respect.