The Guardian Blog Awards

In response to my recent posting in Punditmaina on the - in my opinion - very poor recent Guardian blog awards, I received the following commentary by e-mail (the identity of the writer is not divulged since this e-mail was sent to me personally):

Having followed a link ... I was interested to read your less than glowing comments of a number of the sites recommended for awards by the Guardian...." Clearly, the Guardian were looking for originality, common interest, insight or maybe just plain humorous. This was contained in some of these sites in abundance, which is more than can be said for the parts I read of your site. All you have been able to do is to churn out your own opinion (often very negative) of other peoples efforts. I am not in the market to trash other peoples attempts to lighten life or educate the masses, but I feel your attempts are banal and uninformative. If you feel others blogs are not worth visiting, I would suggest you keep it to yourself. At least most of them have done something worthwhile, which is more than can be said for your sad effort."

Here was the general tenor of my general answer to that e-mail, taking out some items that might identify its sender:

When the Guardian - a newspaper read throughout the world - makes blog award selections to be read by the public - they better be good - or they should expect PUBLISHED criticism. The fact that you suggest that people having a different opinion than the Guardian should have no right to publish THEIR opinion - but only that the Guardian's opinion should be published - says some very negative things about your state of mind concerning people's freedom of speech - other than your own, of course."

Is it not remarkable that some people truly think that their opinions should be published and others' not, simply because they disagree with them. What is this world coming to?