Who Wants To Be The First To Be The Bigger Person?

Why can't we all just get along? Nobody likes a good argument more than I, but what's going on in Briarcliff is beyond what even I can stand - and when that happens, you know something is terribly wrong. When did it become unacceptable to have different opinions? When did it become okay to turn a difference of opinion into a personal attack? When I made a comment on Patch that it was terrible for a person using a pseudonym to opine on Mr. Wasserman's psychological competence , the person responded, "What about the horrible things Mr. Wasserman said during his campaign?" Doesn't that sound just a little bit like what we hear our children say when we try to break up a fight? "He hit me." "He hit me first." "He called me a name, so I hit him." "I called him a name because he took my seat." This could go on forever. As parents, we realize we will never get to the bottom of it, so we finally say that it has to end here. As a community, I think it is time to say that this all has to end here. As Mr. O'Reilly pointed out in his blog, members of the current Board of Education have used the "bully pulpit" to criticize Mr. Linder and Mr. Wasserman. A member of the community was allowed to use her allotted three minutes of speaking time to publicly berate Mr. Wasserman. Is this the purpose of our Board of Education meetings? People go on Patch and say horrible things about other people. People go on Patch and actually make fun of other people's names. Are these the adults of this community? If my house were to be vandalized, I wouldn't be sure if it was a prank by one of my children's friends, or done by an adult in the community with whom I disagreed. Isn't this a very sad state of affairs? I admit that there is one person I have criticized on Patch, but, hey, he criticized me first. I'm willing to call it quits and make a promise never to turn a difference of opinion into a personal attack. Who's next?