Wow.

Just had to put this in another blog.

I have a lot of friends whom I have never met. One of those is a famous writer, whom I met in 1999 on the Internet. She is completely warped and too funny. We don't send specious emails or cartoons back and forth - nope. We are serious about what we write and speak. We ultimately collaborated on a book together - one of my deepest darkest secrets, part of my secret life exposed. My name isn't on it, but it is there, on the 'Net, for all to see. No one needs to know that I contributed to it. No one needs to worry about royalties or other things - we did it for free, after many hours of long hard work and fighting, too. I can fight with friends when we never lose sight of our goals and purpose - I don't respect a friend who is so unprincipled that they will not fight with me.

Another old friend who used to be a famous (in Columbia) reporter and radio personality hooked up with me again. Turned out he knew my father, another famous SC newsman, and their lives had taken similar paths; John's in Columbia, Dad's in Charleston. We are tight, old buddies, and he has a daily webpage that he posts radical things on - things like fiscal responsibility and returning to the gold standard, and his reasoned responses to insanity in the news. We fell in with each other, and even though we have never met (we've tried, but it always fell through) we enjoy each other's writings. I've responded to his posts, and he's posted them right next to his own. Again, he is someone with whom I take pride in arguing.

We corresponded back and forth for awhile, and then he... he offered me space on his server. He wanted me to post future things on his website. Wow. To have someone whom you respect, almost revere, for his intelligence and brain function, for his toughness, his solidity, his firm, adamant, reasonable, confident truths, for his refusal to be swayed by either the fanatics of Conspiracy Theory or the emotional, passionate seduction of the "It's all right, we can fix it if we elect the right guy!" crowd; offer you space to share on his server, linked to his (nationally read) webpage is a very great honor. I'm floored. Overwhelmed. Not kidding. I know of no one else in the 15 years I've known him to have that honor - and there are a few who would be furious that it was proffered to me and not them. Ah, well.

All that said, isn't it funny that he and I have never had to sit down and share a real table, a real meal, a real conversation in "meat space", to know and understand and to respect each other?