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A town square, please, not a back alley

The letters to the editor blog has added a new dimension to reader discussion and interaction.
It also brings new challenges.

As the person who ultimately is in charge of letters, I appreciate and encourage spirited discussion.

But if your goal is merely to shout or call names, please save your voice for talk radio.

That concern arises with a particularly lengthy thread that has taken a decided twist toward meanness.
Noted one plaintive comment from "Chewie" amid all the verbal broadsides:

So this is the public square. It looks an awful lot like what's on my TV, and sounds an awful lot like what's on my radio these days.
If comments were enabled in the print version of the Letters, I would ask JR for my 50 cents back.

Amen. Blogs present a perfect opportunity to defend and challenge ideas and to back arguments with links to factual sources.

That way, we can keep the discussion from devolving into a cyberversion of insulting one another's mamas.

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