Puritan City recently posted a guide of sorts, entitled “how to insult your fans“–about bloggers raging on those who write in to comment on their blogs. This is, as many of you know, a topic dear to my own heart.

There’s some highflown rhetoric about how democratic the blogosphere is, and all that, but the truth is that the “delete” button is a blogger’s best friend, and not only to rid the record of those who disagree with you, but for just generally chuckleheaded comments that have the cumulative effect of wasting everybody’s time to read them. Low-quality comments devalue your blog in the end. It’s a “company you keep” type thing. He who lies down with dogs wakes up with fleas, know what I mean?

I am all for vetting comments. I have not done so on T-Rage! as of yet, but I’m certainly not for suffering fools. The main thing that starts my itchy delete finger is name-calling. I deleted several comments from my mennonno.blogspot.com blog (which contains only my Metro opeds) because I had someone cyberstalking me, and the comments were invariably more about his obsessive-compulsive disorder than about anything I had written. But there are also comments that are garbled beyond intelligibility. There are comments that are flippant, and do nothing to advance the great cause of democracy. I usually leave them in, myself, but each one I get sort of erodes my faith in humanity a little more. Familiarity does indeed breed contempt.

But all this talk of democracy cracks me up. Democracy is really not about just saying what you think and that being of inherent value to the debate or the community. If you spout hateful epithets, what value to the debate is that? If you toss out flawed assertions or assumptions as fact, what value does it have to producing a fruitful dialogue? If every time we dialogue on an issue we have to waste an hour debating again whether the earth is really round, what’s the point?

It’s absolutely true that civility is a vital part of democratic debate, and because of the anonymity of the web people are emboldened to behave badly. I don’t think bloggers should berate those who comment, or delete comments merely because they present views that differ from their own, but I don’t object in the least to bloggers moderating their comments, and removing those that are of no value or include offensive epithets. That’s not a devaluation of democratic ethics, it’s just a recognition that even in democracy–and even in the blogosphere–there is such a thing as decorum.

Wow, what a night! Here are some pics of what you missed if you were one of the few people who didn’t show up for our first annual T-Rage Beers-n-Tears Mixer:

It started out pretty tame, but once those Brazilian guys showed up in nothing but their tighty-whities things got pretty jiggy, as they say. There was something for everybody. Wasn’t that spontaneous breakdance contest fly? That and the hand-stand in your briefs competition and then the poll-dancing finals were my favorite events. And then, to cap it all off the Teletubbies showed up!

If last night was any indication of what Tuesday’s gonna be like, I’m telling you, it’s gonna be apocalyptic!

I was at work all morning trying to hash out this tjustice stuff and nonsense–the specific recommendations for reform that I would like to present to Senator Barrios and his colleagues in the legislature. I was working from home, and had a sushi date for 2PM at Jae’s in the Back Bay. Eat at Jae’s and supposedly you’ll live forever, though I don’t know if they have proof of that.

Anyway, I was working, working, working, and rushed out, knowing I’d be late, but that it would be OK with my sushi date, who’s usually running late, too. I get downstairs to the building foyer where I usually put my bike, and it’s gone.

Someone stole my friggin bike from inside my friggin building. How ya like that?

I had a flash to Holden Caulfield seeing those “fuck you”s graffitied all over everything. That’s how I felt. Like, damn, “You can’t ever find a place that is nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any.” That bike was my place. One of ‘em, at least. I’m not about to reveal my others. Not on your life.

I missed my sushi date, of course, but my friend, bless him, had a bike to lend me. It’s not mine, but it’ll do until I can replace mine.

I’m not going to get into just not understanding at all people who go into other people’s houses and take things that don’t belong to them. I mean, this is Dorchester. I consider myself lucky. They could have stolen the bike and shot me in the head, too. So I guess I should actually be happy about all this.

It certainly does not surprise me that many who read this blog pretty much agree with Chex, and are resigned to paying higher fares. They may not put it in quite the same arrestingly childish way Chex did (which should remind us all that the internet emboldens people who should remain under their rock to tentatively crawl out from under it–please, Chex, get some social skills and then get back to us) , but I think the idea of joining anyone in public protest challenges their pretensions of being utterly individual.

But, I’m sorry, the idea of being all for a 25% increase in the cost of anything is counter-intuitive, and all the blather about the cost of things in other places or the facilities available elsewhere (yes, it’s true that Paducah, Kentucky does not have a subway system–and?) does not address the issues on the table here.

It’s very important to keep your focus. It’s not about how much you hate the T (I’m a big fan of public transit myself) or how much more you hate dirty hippie protesters who hate the T.

It’s about showing you’re serious about long-term viable solutions to the problems peculiar to our public transit system, here, where we live. The simple, incontrovertible fact is that this fare hike doesn’t solve the funding problems of the T. That’s why I object to it. If they raise the fares and don’t address labor, funding, and budget issues in a real and significant way, the fares will go up again in the space of another couple of years. And it’s not always “the T needs more money!” Sure, the MBTA could always use more money, but it needs to be using the money it has much more wisely first. We need transparency, oversight, and accountability, which are all currently undermined by the unions, as well as better ways of funding the system, for which the legislature must be lobbied, and we need management that’s truly able to manage, and up to the challenge.

And blabidee-bla, right? Who cares! It’s inevitable, isn’t it? The T itself predicts it will lose up to 6% of its riders with the fare hike, at a time when it should be drawing new riders and revenue. Who are these six percent? People like me, first of all, who live and work in town, who are able-bodied, and who have alternative ways to get where they’re going. Which is fine for me. I mean, I enjoy cycling around town. And I get an extra lift from the money I save.

But there’s more to the idea of public transit than a way to get ME from point A to point B. There’s the promise of public spaces and public facilities that work because people care about the idea of a shared spaces and facilities.

And there are social justice issues that are larger than public transit, but are related. The minimum wage is currently $5.15 an hour, as it has been for nearly a decade. With this fare increase, while the minimum remains stagnant, subway fares will have doubled. This may not be a big deal to you, but there are a lot of people out there who have no transportation alternative, and no discretionary income to cover an instant 25% increase in the cost of transportation to and from work. Maybe they should move to Paducah, where the cost of living isn’t 240% the national average, with apartments ranking 48% more expensive than the national average.

Yes, we all hate haters. But pull your head out of your cyber ass long enough to see that this is not some meta thing, about critiquing the critiquers. Relax, it’s just a good, old-fashioned, pre-post-modern protest. Sometimes you just gotta get up off your duff and do a little something, make a little noise. But if all you can do is grumble about the grumblers and protest about protesters, well, then, best to just stay under your rock, where you’ll do about just as much good.

Well, you knew it was only a matter of time before the Rapturistas started praying for the bird flu. We all are, aren’t we? Secretly, I mean. (Check out Bob’s bird flu fantasy HERE.)

So we here at T-Rage, in conjunction with Back Bay Bob, have developed the sticker above to, in Bob’s words (not mine), “slap on these sadsacks schlubbing around everywhere, sucking up air. Something to indicate to infected birds who to dive-bomb first.”

What Bob means is: we hope Rapturistas will wear this badge with pride. It may even become a way for them to meet, date, and spread the deadly virus without having to resort to costly and inefficient internet services like adammeetsteve.com. It won’t be long before we hear inspirational stories from First-Wavers who found true love via avian influenza.

For others, some of them not Rapturistas at all (phlegm-spewing T-commuters who sneeze and cough without covering their pox-laden snot-holes, for example–a full list will be available soon at your local Bird Flu HQ) it will be a badge of shame. But that can’t be helped. It’s much too late for niceties: we are at war, people, and it is the End of Days.

We’re trying to get federal funding (from the Faith-based Initiatives till) to print up roughly 150 million stickers, as Doctor Tim LeHaye, author of the Left Behind series of books on the Rapture says we should not be surprised if “well over fifty percent” of the population of the US is raptured, possibly by avian influenza.

“Think about it,” he writes in his newsletter, Pre-Trib Perspectives (and, no, I am NOT making this shit up). “If 50 or more percent of the doctors, nurses, teachers, craftsmen and workers from all walks of life including military personnel from every branch of service were suddenly missing - that would be a devastating blow to the American economy and way of life. Into that leadership vacuum that the rapture may cause, the world would be vulnerable to domination by Germany and France, both socialist forms of government with weak leaders or a globalist organization that would propose equality of nations. A perfect setup for the Man of Sin to move in and take over.” Or the WOman of Sin (hint: initials HRC).

Some, like Reverend George Zeller, of the Middletown Bible Church, think Dr. LeHaye’s estimates are much too generous, pointing out that “it’s one thing to profess Christ and it’s quite another thing to possess Christ.” Reverend Zeller reminds us that “God is not saving the world.” God is grabbing up his favorites and then destroying the world.

Bird Flu is only the beginning of His glorious plan.

I refuse to applaud the MBTA for finally–FINALLY–coming into compliance with THE LAW, as regards their new PA system. As The Globe reports, “with the system, the T will finally comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law [passed in 1990] that calls for both audio and visual announcements for passengers who are visually- or hearing-impaired.” They have, as usual, done the minimum, and then tooted their own horns as loud as they can, about what a big-ass favor they’re doing us all.

But the media is aiding and abetting them. Even the article in The Globe buried the fact that this was a requirement for the T in paragraph 18 of 22.

At least The Globe mentions that “other newer major transit systems are well ahead of the T on announcing train arrivals. On the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, for instance, multicolored displays show the number of minutes remaining until trains pull into the station. In Europe, train announcements are a tradition, and at some stations, a digital clock counts down the seconds until a train arrives.”

The qualifier “newer” is key here. Even The Globe is making excuses for the T. But it’s mostly meaningless. We all know there’s scarcely an underground system older in the world. And it’s a mistake to think that older systems are of necessity poorly adapted to modern riders. The Budapest Metro, the oldest subway system in Continental Europe, and the second oldest—after London’s—in the world, and one with which I am way too intimately familiar, was inaugurated in 1896, a year before Boston’s. Yet, for decades they’ve had displays in the stations that tell you how much time has elapsed between trains, and clearly-posted, easy-to-read schedules that they’re fairly good at sticking to. I mean, at a minimum.

Please, please, please, no more excuses for the MBTA, and no more of this cynical pomp and circumstance for their shamefully slow implementation of federal law.

I was watching the news at four on four this afternoon, and they had a little story about Mayor Menino unloosing the swans in the Public Garden. They showed them waddling out of their cages, and into the water.

As a sort of postscript, the newscaster said something to the effect of, last year it was discovered that Romeo and Juilet were both females, but authorities decided not to separate them. I thought she was going to say “…to rename them,” actually. But it points out how utterly ridiculous people are, doesn’t it? I mean, why on earth would you separate them? What’s the point?

Sometimes I marvel at how Victorian we still are in our pretensions, even when we live in an unabashedly liberal-permissive society. Other times I’m sure we’re backsliding into Medievalism. I suppose we should be grateful our gay swans weren’t plucked and thrown in the pot at a public boiling. Or sent to gay recovery.

At any rate, the overheated interest in the sexuality of swans is a sign of the times. I mean, it’s adolescent on all sides, isn’t it?

It wasn’t just the margaritas talking, I really did shoot my wad on all that bitching and moaning about the fare hike. I just want to roll over and go to sleep now, and when I wake up, it will be 85¢ again. All this will have been a bad dream.

But, alas, I cannot sleep. There’s no rest for the Superfriends. Oops. Well, I’m sure many had begun to suspect something like this, anyway. Without compromising my Superhero identity, I have to tell you all… I am the one with the biggest…pompadour. But don’t ask me to divulge anything more, because if I tell you I have to feed you to Gleek.

While I wallow in stage two (blind denial) some have moved on to stage four in the Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle: bargaining. Shugars has divulged she is almost ready to roll with a website devoted to a boycott of the T. When she gets it up and running, I will pass on the url to all of you, my gentle readers. But please, don’t tell Shugars about stage five (depression). She will find out soon enough, I guess.

I was at a movie Sunday. I’ll admit it, I went to see Mission: Masturbation III. Yee-IKES. Tom Cruise IS the new Michael Jackson. But I just was not in the mood for Akeela and the Bee, and RV was all sold out.

The most relevant thing I saw–as far as this blog’s concerned–was the commercial for bed-wetting they played before the movie. It conveyed the message I would like to pass on to you tonight: “I’m not going to let it rule my life.” Not bed-wetting, per se, but, you know, the T fare hike. I’m not a bed wetter. I’m NOT.

I also saw a dead cat on the Mass Ave the other morning biking to South Bay Shopping Center. The Goya products at the new Stuper Slop-n-Shop there are twice, if not three times what they are at the Shaw’s next to the JFK/UMass T station, by the way. Both are about equidistant from my place, in opposite directions of each other, of course. But it’s easier to ride my bike to South Bay. I needed espresso coffee, and in an emergency I always head straight for the Goya aisle, because it’s, like, a buck-seventy for 8 ounces–it tastes like jet fuel, but works like it, too. I’d rather have my Illy, but I have to go Whole Foods to get it.

And lest you think I’m one of these snooty bitches with some fancy-ass Rancilio Silvia espresso machine, here is an actual picture of mine:

Keepin’ it real.

Like I said, this was an emergency, and then I see this dead cat. It looked like it was just lying there on the side of the road, but I knew it was dead. It was not until I cycled back that I saw it’s little face, twisted in a silent scream worthy of Munch. That little face has flashed in my head time and again since I saw it. Was it an omen? Some kind of punishment? That and the bed wetting have made it impossible to attend my usual weekend slumber parties. I have no place to show off my underoos.

Gawd, I hate the T.

When I was cycling this morning I encountered two cars at an intersection. One barely stopping where the other should have had the right-of-way. So the woman who was cut off blares her horn and shouts out of her window at the guy: “Hey! Have courtesy, asshole!” Well, that’s one way to spread the courtesy meme, I guess.

Man, all this raging is wearing me out.

I have to say, as for the T-raging, it’s really a matter of principle for me more than anything, because, lately at least, I haven’t been taking the T at all when I can ride my bike. And, as I’ve said, the benefits of biking extend well beyond health and beauty. It is actually quicker from where I live to where I’m bound. And of course, it’s cheaper. And, yes, even four or five bucks a day matters to me. I mean, that’s a burrito at El Pelon. Which tastes a lot better than the T.

I tell ya, there’s a lot that’s been getting on my nerves lately, and this ridiculous fare increase is just sort of the cherry on top.

Other things high up on my bullshit list this week:

● The city council voting itself and the mayor a 17% pay raise after six minutes of debate and with no roll call vote.

● This whole new Big Dig scandal. The Globe reports: “Six managers from Aggregate Industries NE Inc. were indicted in federal court on charges of running a conspiracy that delivered 5,000 truckloads of tainted concrete — 1.2 percent of the concrete used on the entire project — to the Big Dig over nine years. The managers used a web of falsified documents to cover up their ploy, federal prosecutors said.”

● A million bucks in theft of state-owned property over the past two years according to the state auditor, reports WHDH-TV.

● Believe it or not, this Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarism thing, because it exposes once again, not only the cynicism of the publishing industry, but the breathtaking cynicism and hypocrisy of Harvard and the whole Ivy League game. And there’s something about little Kaavya, whose parents paid IvyWise, an agency that specializes in getting “borderline students” into ivy league schools, twenty grand to get her into Harvard in the first place. And then it turns out she needed help even to plagiarize other people’s work! 17th Street Productions, the Morris Agency, Little, Brown, and Mama and Papa Viswanathan all kicked in to “shape” the novel. It was a team effort.

● Tom Cruise.

● Patrick Kennedy, an alcoholic and prescription drug addict, who abuses his privileges? A Kennedy? You’re kidding! It’s shocking! I mean, come on. Is this news?

Whatever. I’m going out tonight and drinking some more margaritas (I had two at lunch already), and I recommend everyone out there do the same.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! (I’m doing my coochie-coochie-coochie Charo immitation right now.)