Florida: Really? Grief?

Tom in Nevada asks, “Given the amount of grief you give the well deserved Floridians, is there an disproportionate number of subscribers from Florida or maybe a disproportionately low number that might be turned off from the constant, once again well deserved, coverage of their exploits? Just curious.”

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Unusual Unsubscribes

When people unsubscribe from This is True, they have the opportunity to leave comments. Most don’t, and oddly some think they “have to” (I mean really: “No comment.”?) And of course some use it as an opportunity to protest — like when I tell the truth that they don’t want to hear.

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Walmart Hostage Situation

A tagline on a story this week was designed to provoke. I even talked about the tagline and said it was to provoke. Yet it still brought complaints and “disagreement” — even though it’s impossible to agree or disagree with my thoughts, since the tag didn’t reveal my thoughts.

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Provoking Thought: Child Support Division

It’s nice when someone else goes on a rant, so I don’t have to!

A story by Mike Straw in last week’s (30 December 2012) issue went for the laugh in the tagline. A reader — Wayne, in the U.S. military and deployed to Afghanistan — thought Mike should have gone more for “thought-provoking.” Let’s start with the story:

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Asking the Right Questions

After my previous blog post, the response from readers was fantastic — the clarity, the different ideas, the stating the problem without blaming or exonerating guns. But Rob in Sydney Australia didn’t seem to “get” what I was saying that in the national “debate” about mass shootings, we’re asking the wrong questions. It came to a head after this comment, by Tyler in Massachusetts:

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Sorry You Weren’t Offended

This is True has tackled the issue of people choosing to be offended on a number of occasions (such as in the tagline of this story).

Most times, of course, the offended are complaining about a story, not embracing it. On most of those occasions, when someone is writing to complain how they’ve chosen to be offended by something I said (or, often, didn’t say!), I’ll often get an amusing response from other readers — the ones who don’t unsubscribe in protest.

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“Gay-Baiting”

I’ve made no secret that I’m pretty much 100 percent egalitarian. I’ve defended the religious, the non-religous, the “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” and many others in True’s stories. I’m interested in whether people walk their talk, not whether they’re religious, gay, atheist, pagan, Muslim, employed, educated — whatever.

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True’s Focus

When readers unsubscribe from True they have the opportunity to send a comment. Many give the “reason” they’re unsubscribing, and some even apologize (not necessary — really!)

The two most-common reasons people give for unsubscribing is “I’ve upgraded to Premium” (woo hoo!) and “I’m just too busy to read it” (bummer! Life is too short not to have some fun!) This weekend, one woman put in a rather startling reason:

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