It's nice not to have to exert myself dumping this stuff in the recycle bin. Well, I love you guys, but when I started doing opinion journalism I adopted the conscientious philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, that anyone who takes the trouble to write to me deserves the courtesy of a reply. This is morally satisfying, but awfully time-consuming. An average web piece brings 40 or 50 e-mails in. Things get really out of control if I say anything slighting about homosexuals, which I sometimes do.
Homosexuals are the most diligent and persistent writers of letters to the editor nowadays.
The merest remark opens the floodgates. Hey, this makes me sound important . I mean, try e-mailing somebody who is important, and half the time that's what you get. There's a certain status about it, a cachet. Of course, I have a private line for things I regard as really interesting, but I can only suffer so much e-mail from hoi polloi, and right now I've got all I can handle, thanks very much.