To my critics:

Since the inception of this website about two years ago, it has received over 500 hits. I grant you that this is not a great number but, since I do not advertise the site or promote it in anyway other than through a few links from other nearly equally obscure sites, I think 500 is a pretty good amount. The number could be zero, so for the minimal effort I put into it, it is rewarding to know that anyone is seeing the site at all.

Of those 500 or so hits, some of which I assume are repeats, I have received a total of 31 emails. Of those all but 3 were supportive and complimentary. All 31 emails offered advice on how to improve the site. I appreciate all the compliments criticism and advice, particularly the technical advice, but since I am using a rather limited program, and since my point is to present my views as simply as possible, I do not really want to spend much time developing the esthetics and technical aspects of the site. I am an artist so I know that it is fairly dull in terms of eye candy but, again, I really would rather expend what little time I have for this on my essays and cartoons than web layout. Which brings up a criticism common to my three detractors: Why am I wasting my time on such drivel?

First, by the fact that you three disagree with my political and philosophical views, I presume that you really do not care that much about me to worry about how I spend my time. So those comments are disingenuous. If you wish to engage me in a debate, or at minimum, critique my views, by all means let it fly but please do not try to suggest that what I do is a waste of my time or anyone else’s. Should I ask why you wasted your time looking at the Saganista site in the first place, or why you should have more important things to do than write irate emails to me? Of course not. Do what you want with your time and I will do the same with mine.

Also you three seem to have the same view of humor (are you really all just one lonely bitter person, with nothing to do but grumble about what I do?). You think that my cartoons aren’t funny, and you assume that I am nothing but a disgruntled liberal. Let me assure you, the cartoons are all certifiably hysterically funny. All the Bush/Cheney ads are funny, and the “Faulty GPS” cartoon is so funny that it will become a classic someday. Archeaologists will dig it up out of a tomb 10,000 years from now and die laughing. What is wrong with you people???!!!

I will grant that the essays are not particularly funny, although they are all extremely witty. But my purpose in the essays is not to make you laugh but to make you think. But if it is not obvious to you by now, I do not hold out too much hope in ever making anyone think. Which brings me to your not so subtle challenge; Why don’t I do something more worthy of my talents? Why don’t I do something constructive?

Well, dear antagonists, what makes you think I don’t? What makes you think that I am not spending my days as a volunteer in the local hospice, or at the local soup kitchen? What makes you think that I am not a volunteer firefighter? You may think you know what kind of person I am but how could you? I could be doing all these socially notable and heroic deeds but I will confess I am not. Despite the fact that I do not do this kind of community service, most people who know me consider me a kind, considerate, and loving person. Despite the fact that I have strong critical views on virtually all aspects of human society and culture, I consider myself very tolerant of individual people. But this does not explain why I made this website.

I made this website precisely because I have such strong views, and that because expressing those opinions to friends and acquaintances – especially to friends and acquaintances who haven’t considered the issue to the extent that I have – sometimes causes a conflict with those people. Even if we have the same general viewpoint, the fact that I often have spent more time developing my opinion makes coming to an understanding very difficult. Of course, this is not to say that my opinion is right, but only that when I have an opinion about something, it is because I have actually thought about it, researched it, weighed my knowledge and experience, and allowed the opinion to evolve over time. My opinion is always tentative, in that it will change in the light of new facts. More often than not, the conflicts I have are not over the substance of an issue but the depth of an issue. I believe that when someone states an opinion they are, by virtue of that fact, inviting a debate – or a least inviting the question, “How did you arrive at this opinion?”

That question is seen as an attack by some people who seem to like to make a statement as if it was fact, call the statement their opinion, claim they have a right to that opinion, then insist that I have to respect it – meaning, I can not question it. This is lunacy. And I do not respect any declarative statement of any kind unless the person making it can substantiate it OR, at least, explain how they arrived at it. If someone says, “The Pope is infallible”, I don’t imagine they can site any proof other than Catholic dogma to back up the claim. Because so few Catholics actually have ever studied Catholicism, it is more likely that they will make this statement based on their parents’ or possibly their Priest’s word that the claim about the Pope is indeed Catholic dogma. But whatever the root of their opinion, can’t you agree that they ought to be able to say, “This is my opinion because my mother told me it is true” ? Why is it too much to ask someone to acknowledge that? Why is it confrontational to refuse to accept something as true just because you say it is so, or because your mother or the Pope says it is so?

I made this website so I can say what I want without immediate, personal repercussions. In a way it is a big cop out (although in my defense most of the essays have been submitted for publication in one form or another – usually as letters to the editor). I can vent and proselytize and be sarcastic or even express my love simply because I feel like it. If no one ever saw the site it would be a little demoralizing but the good it does for my mental health would remain. I put out my thoughts and feelings, and I do not have to fear rejection, I do not have to anticipate scorn, I do not have to worry about what the other person thinks. I get my ideas out, and that is all that matters.

You see, my loyal opposition, that is what I do. That is what I have always done, and will always do. Some people define themselves by volunteering at a soup kitchen – it is valuable and emotionally rewarding work – I define myself by what I think and feel. Usually it begins with feeling. I feel a certain way and ask myself why. If the feeling is negative I first look at myself then I look out at the world. I see ugliness, I see injustice, I see hypocrisy. So I critique. But I do more. I create. I see things that I perceive as wrong or bad and I try to come with solutions. I try to offer alternatives. I try to fix it. That is why I am a good artist, I have a critical eye and a passion and patience to try to make something that is crooked into something that is straight.

With art it is easy. People like art. But it is not so easy with ideas. I think things and imagine things that sometimes make people uncomfortable. This website is a place for those people to go, if they wish, at their own leisure, to absorb what I have to convey. It is a lot easier and more courteous to hand someone like you my Saganista web address than to try to engage in a debate face to face. The fact that you have now seen my website means that, if we ever were to meet, we might share a good respectful debate rather than a fight, and you might find, as you obviously have already, that I am not the cookie cutter liberal you may have originally assumed.

So, in closing; please continue to check the site and write me. I encourage your criticisms but, and here you will forgive me for coming across as arrogant, please actually formulate an Opinion before making such grand statements about the world or about me. When you do so, you come across as shrill and vindictive as an old, embittered lover, or as fatuous as an automaton of the Far Right – in either case it is beneath your dignity, I am sure, to be considered thusly.