I have received some supportive
I have received some supportive mail regarding the whole Harriet thing. I suppose that I should post some sort of note about how I treat incoming mail--this is the most I've ever gotten on a subject, so I haven't really had to think much about it until now.
It seems to make the most sense to say that I may post, in whole or in part, notes I receive here at Astonished Head. I will do so anonymously, which I think makes things easier all around: no muss, no fuss, no lawsuits, etc. When I get Moveable Type up and running, I'll get a proper comments section, which will solve most of these issues.
That being said, a reader generously offers the following:
"I have to disagree with the writer [of 10/1]. This was a business transaction, not a political discussion. I have written letters like yours myself, and I have mailed them, for much more "dispassionate" reasons, i.e. when I felt I received poor customer service. In this case, from a business standpoint, the employee was doing her employer a disservice by alienating customers and losing potential repeat business. Anyone who has ever worked in direct contact with customers should know better. It would have been different if you had solicited her opinion, but at the very least, her comments were insensitive and offensive. Who knows how many other customers has she offended with her comments.
I commend you for not mailing the letter in order to spare a fellow human being an uncomfortable situation. I don't know that I would have been as kind."
Well...it may have been more due to the fact that I now live in a small town where everybody knows everybody else, rather than any intrinsic kindness in my nature, but I will take the compliment anyway. Compliments are soothing.
Another reader from somewhere in the middle of America makes the following point:
"[...] anyone who says that the attack was 'brilliant' or 'ingenious' or any other such, while condemning the US on our past problems, policies, etc.... is a hypocrite. Any such dispassionate observation about attacks we receive needs to be then leveled upon those that we dish out. If terrorist attacks against us are fine and dandy by moral equivalence standards, any attacks we dish out are also just fine and dandy using the same standards. This does not enter into their heads [...]
About Harriet, she is a representative of the winery, her job is to serve the customers and to make them want to come back and bring further patronage to the winery. Her actions are doing the opposite of that...you should inform the winery of your treatment, as you are most likely not the only one receiving said treatment.
PS. Many sympathies from the heartland, and assurances that not everyone out there is as nutty as Harriet."
That's certainly good to know.
I am also reminded of a point that Lileks (I think) made not too long ago regarding the "violence just breeds more violence" stance taken by so many anti-war folks: why is it that only American violence breeds more violence? Why isn't the Islamic violence of September 11 regarded as breeding "more violence?" Like a BLU-118/B down Bin laden's snout?
The answer is, of course, that only America can do evil in the world. Everybody else is just oppressed.
