Check out Jim Carty’s blog Paper Tiger No More this morning for a real gem. JC received his share of nice emails (and the occasional call if you recall our interview) when he was a columnist for the Ann Arbor News. Of course most of that was friendly (at least local) fire from Wolverine fans.
Well, although Carty has hung ’em up at the News for quite a while now apparently he still gets the love. Today he posts an absolute beauty of an email he recently received, blasting him for his sweet 2002 ‘Green Giant’ column (predicting Tommy Amaker’s rise). Jim openly admits how horrible the column was and of course Carty later became one of Amaker’s harshest critics, to the point where he was advised by News brass to tone it down.
The email from reader Ben starts off with “Hey Queer,” and rocks out from there. Don’t mess with a blogger, man!
4 Comments
BiggieMunn
“I’m just going to say it. I’m gay. Does that surprise you that I’m gay? You know what gay is, don’t you?”
“Not funny ‘ha-ha’, funny queer.”
Chris
I understand there are a lot of knuckleheads out there that act like they are 6’4″ and 240 from behind the anonymity of keyboard. But I really I don’t get Carty’s take here.
Carty has to know that his position at the News and the remarks he makes, “to stir the pot”, makes him a bit of a public persona. Carty even acknowledges that receiving email like this went with the job. But then in the next breath, Carty decides to call out one of the knuckleheads publicly? That just doesn’t make sense. And publishing the guy’s email address like that is just plain bush league!
Greg (MVictors)
Chris – I agree with Carty, this was over the line. Maybe it’s not as bad as making racist remarks but it’s close. It’s not about acting tough behind a keyboard–it was about the words he used.
Jim Carty
I’ve told him that if he feels it was a mistake and wants to apologize, I’d post the apology on the blog and remove all identifying info from the original post. He’s not interested.