[shemp]

I haven't read all of the ZJ material, but the evocations of an "angry mob" amuse me. Adverting to the sins of some unnamed crowd is unconvincing.

Those of you who refer to and heroically oppose the angry mob: Who is in the Angry Mob? Please list the posters. I'd be surprised if the list got any longer than a handful of people who were either attempting to be funny or are clearly monkeys and not worth responding to. Some people do appear to feel actual anger towards ZJ or think that his punishment was light and the mockery of him is somehow fitting, but what have such people done or said to indicate that they haven't arrived at their opinion on their own and that they express it as their own? -- it doesn't make them mob sheep or mob leaders. Instead we may simply be witnessing that they have a different view or sense of humour from you, and that you don't like that there are more of them than you -- so you call them a mob.

As far as being crucified, disemboweled, etc. Again, empty rhetoric. Yes, ZJ is the target of ridicule -- some of it clever and amusing. I suspect most of the ridiculers to actually enjoy the opportunity to display their cleverness as opposed to having genuine ill will towards ZJ. I know I've enjoyed some of their efforts. This insensitivity to the object of ridicule may speak negatively in some cases of the ridiculer but it is fairly fundamental to humor, and it is fairly fundamental to many internet fora. Personally I don't see much of it as a cruel or overly harsh response under the circumstances.

By all means, please continue the heroic fight for civility on the internet and charity in this instance -- I say this not because I don't value such things, but because for some odd reason the people propounding them so often entertain.