The End: A Self-Liberation

I have had enough.

I have written for various Web sites for sixteen years. I’ve given my best efforts and thinking to those writings. The undertaking has consumed thousands of hours of research, analysis, writing, and editing, to say nothing of the cost of maintaining Eternity Road and The Palace of Reason before it. I asked nothing of anyone else at any time. My sole recompense was the pleasure I got from occasionally meeting a kindred spirit. In sixteen years, that happened exactly twice.

But I’ve been harassed, slandered, insulted, derided, and demeaned. I’ve had my intelligence, my erudition, my sincerity, my faith, my morals, and my ethics questioned by persons who haven’t even had enough courage to use their right names. A typical day brings me dozens, sometimes hundreds, of obscene, insulting, juvenile emails. Even flushing them out of my computer leaves me feeling soiled. And that’s not the worst of it. Both I and my wife have been threatened, and more than once at that.

So I’m calling it quits. I’m an old man, and not a well one. I’d like some peace for the conclusion of my life. I’d also like to be free of the jackasses who’ve awarded me the various crowns of thorns mentioned above. It appears that the only way I can acquire those things is to cease to write these op-eds.

To those who’ve enjoyed and appreciated my scribblings and have taken the time to say so: Thanks for the long-distance companionship. To those who’ve done their best to make me regret ever setting my fingers to the keyboard, congratulations. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You’ll have to find someone else to harass.

Good-bye.

Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
March 9, 2013

UPDATE: This site will remain a going concern as long as the others continue to post here. However, comments have been shut down permanently, as the site still bears my name and I have no further interest in moderating them.