The Golden Rule:

'Don't bite the ice cream man's hand and expect him to give you more free ice cream.'

That's JU's golden rule.  That's the creed bloggers here should try and adhere to.  Dissent is fine, the Ice Cream Man likes a good debate, but when it becomes a personal attack (or what he feels to be a personal attack).....that's where he draws the line.

In the 2 years I've been blogging here I've seen a few people get exiled.  Not a lot, just a few...and those few had to work really hard to get banned.  The Ice Cream Man is very forgiving; you have to be completely obnoxious and utterly contemptuous in order to be exiled - in other words, you have to bite the hand that's doling out the free ice cream, and you have to bite it hard.

I've watched what's gone down in the past few days with sadness.  I don't like to see anyone leave, and I especially don't like to see people I like and have respect for get exiled.

However, I also don't like to see the Ice Cream Man get bitten.  I watched the exchange of words and saw the bite coming; I saw the bared teeth and knew that blood would be drawn before long.  It was painful to watch because I knew I couldn't do anything about it, I couldn't warn anyone to move their hand or put their teeth away.

I'm sad today.  Sad because people forgot about the Golden Rule.  Sad because the Ice Cream Man got bitten.  Sad because people are leaving. The whole situation is sad.

The Golden Rule of blogging isn't that hard.  I guess I don't understand why people can't abide by it.