Well, first journal entry. Let's start with something near and dear to my heart: debate

I love to argue. Even when I don't know jack about what I'm arguing, I just love it!

However, a recent trend in America has seemed to lean towards outyelling your opponent rather than outwitting them.

Case in point: every so-called 'debate' show on Fox News, the epitome of the bunch being the defunct 'Crossfire', a nuanced debate show named for the stray bullets that kill innocent people in gang shoot-outs.

It seems we've replaced 'mutual respect of opinion' with 'mutual respect of opinion, even though yours is completely wrong'. It's not the same, not the same at all.

What got me thinking about the possibility that we're not ALL screwed is a recent incident in the DrunkDuck universe.

A certain other established artist- SpANGRE, author of the God of Arr-Kelaan- e-mailed me within the DD mail system to irately inform me that I had stolen his avatar.

Said avatar was a parody of the Tenacious D song "Tribute", specifically the lines "This is not the greatest song (avatar) in the world, no no/ This is just a tribute", followed by the famous scene in which Jack Black blinds the devil with his inner light.

Anyway, SpANGRE made bad comments on BOTH my comics and e-mailed me, calling me ignorant and rude.

Mind you, I don't quite remember where I got that avatar. Good ones travel quickly around the internet.

So I told him straight up- simply coming to me in a calm and rational manner and bringing up the matter without insulting me would have resolved the situation without much hassle.

What surprised me was that he didn't insist on continuing in his asshattery. He apologized for being a little terse and I got a new avatar.

I suppose I'm wrong to expect the worst out of humanity, but being a historian, I can't help but see how the infinite loop keeps repeating itself.

Hopefully there are more people out there like SpANGRE.