It is interesting what people get upset about. For the record, I didn’t call her “the elderly lady” I called her the victim throughout the story. The elderly reference was in the quote. I used the quote because it perfectly described the moment. Paraphrasing it wouldn’t have the same effect.

I believe people who are insecure would worry about such remarks. As you said, age is subjective. A confident person of any age would not be bothered by innocent remarks such as the one that appeared in my quote. When I say innocent, the source didn’t say it to demean the victim.

Thanks for starting the blog. I see that some people disagree with your point of view. Some of them like the odds of two strangers facing one another in the act of crime, which was the focus of the story. By creating this debate, it means I did my job.

Take care,
Mirsada [Buric]

It seems that she feels she put me in my place, and that she “created a debate”. I see her “creation” as inadvertent, as I was the one that posed the point of contention. Even before I had sent my email, I noticed this comment below the article:

From reader kenkaykeel: Maybe we can attribute this to the need to be descriptive when someone is a writer … but is 59 really elderly?

I still feel Buric was careless…

Bernarda, I thought that “all’s fair in love, war and 21st-century politics!”

What curious specimens GOP/neocons/fundies are! They hate Hollywood. Yet they love the celebrities! I suppose there’s a stat for this statement: a high-percentage of tabloid-readers are semi-regular church-goers.

One way to chart the readership is to check out the ads; any mag that pushes “angel” and/or “patriotism” plates, figurines, and charms knows their audience well. Plus the “snake-oil diet pills” from an unregulated industry that, like religion, can say anything it dares!

Add HarleyDavidson and NASCAR to the list…