Well, I stirred up another shitstorm on the CRBC list.  You know, the one I was quitting?  I tried, but for some reason, the removal request hasn’t been going through.

The CRBC recently penned a letter to a government official to lambaste her for declaring that federal transportation projects should not be used to fund anything friendly to bicycling.  This riled the CRBC who responded by accusing said official of changing her stance due to her close proximity to a “cadre of oilmen”.

That’s not usually the best way to convince somebody to change their mind again and another CRBC lister pointed that out.  That person was then accused of being out of touch with reality, at which point I stepped in to not only defend that person but to also add that I, too, thought the “cadre” comment was inappropriate and ineffective.  Then the mailing list exploded for a few days.

But I’ve not read any of the responses.

See, there are some times when I want to get my opinion out there but then not deal with any of the fallout.  This was one of those times.  I’ve done the same elsewhere, but not all that frequently.  I usually wait a few days, go back, and see what the responses were, but I almost never just wholesale delete the responses sitting in my inbox, destroying messages of both agreement and disagreement before even opening them to see which they are.

When I know that I might be starting a flame war, I have little desire to come back in to be burned in turn.  And that’s why I’m an internet coward.