Caine Blog

I belong to a certain educational institution’s parent e-mail list, designed for parents to communicate about school-related stuff with one another.  It is a guilty pleasure, because these parents are often bored and have little to do besides fret over the least significant things and otherwise live vicariously through their children.

BUT: Recently the parents list has been engaged in war.  One parent - who claims, undoubtedly without merit, that he works for the BBC (but who actually banned from the entire Indymedia network for trolling) - has begun to enrage all the other parents on the list with his inane commenting, spamming, and accusations of racism.  The parents’ collective sense of restraint and good taste has been brutally tested, and finally some parents are talking back, instead of just ignoring the problem parent’s e-mails.  One parent writes:

I don’t think it’s necessary to use foul language (such as that below) or to imply that the rest of us are stupid (again, see below) or to call us names (the previous email where Biodun accused the list of being racist).

We shall see how this unfolds.  All I know is that it’s wonderful to have a Blackberry, because I can get updates on the situation in real time.  It’s amazing how one person can create such a firestorm, particularly such a wonderful, fun-to-follow firestorm as this one.