Don't mean to come off as sanctimonious. Glad you were joking. I have received no instructions from AOL, my editor, his editor or anyone at all to whip up or promote the controversy that swirls. I am amazed and dismayed that it has the legs and the staying power that it has. I prefer to write about different topics. The sooner it (the controversy) is over, the happier I'll be.

Thanks for the explanation. My sarcasm was intended as a shot at the thinly-veiled anti-white racism I've seen here lately, but I take the point that I'm not improving the problem.

Having said that, I do have this observation. Patch has been covering the Whole Foods story extensively. As a business, you benefit from keeping this controversy brewing. Indeed, it really seems like this story has made this site in JP, and I'm sure your page views go way way up whenever Whole Foods is in the headline. I guess I'd ask this: you guys are pretty quick to insist on neighborliness, but you represent a non-local company with a bottom line to satisfy. I'm sure AOL is quite pleased with all you've done to drive traffic to the site. Controversy is good for Patch's (and AOL's) bottom line. But is it good for JP?

I understand that you probably have pretty clear instructions from AOL to build a brand around neighborliness, but you are a for-profit entity owned by a national corporation and you benefit from stirring up the very controversy you are quick to condemn when it gets out of hand.

You need to get paid for your work, and I very much like having another hyper-local news outlet with timely stories. But given the reality of what Patch is, I wonder if you guys could check your sanctimony a bit.

Boz, this morning I deleted a racial epithet that was included in a quip attributed to you in a comment under the Census Story. I thought the comment could have been interpreted in any number of ways, some harmless, but it lacked enough context to be clearly not delivered with ill intent. I have never deleted a non-spam comment before, but I was very concerned that yours could have been inflammatory and extremely provocative, whatever its intent. I felt that your use of the W word was tantamount to use of the N word, usually not a very good idea and sometimes downright dangerous. If it had been the N word, I would have deleted it even more quickly.
I know from my own experience, that it's easy to be a little more glib when the faces of the people you are talking to aren't really right in front of you, but after you've been here for a while, you'll realize that we are real people. I hope you respect my decision.

Hi Boz, I hear you about shutting down the comments on that thread. It's something I never like to do. Controversy and sharp-elbowed arguments are welcome. What was over the line was a pretty vicious personal attack.