Your humble Blog Goliard has apparently got his letter-writing mojo working this week. The following note was just sent to NBC News and MSNBC TV.

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to you to protest in the strongest terms your decision to rush to broadcast the pictures and rantings sent to you by the mass-murderer who struck at Virginia Tech on Monday. (I, unlike you, am opposed to furthering his post-mortem glorification…to the point where I refuse to even speak or write his name.)

The images in particular, which more than anything resembled rough drafts of posters for a Tarantino movie, are sure to inspire and embolden other disturbed persons. Well done. The blood of their future victims is now at least partly on your hands.

This issue has a particular impact on me because I work at a large public university, and deal with many students face-to-face each day. What’s more, not a few of them have reason to be frustrated and unhappy with my department on a regular basis. What you have done to glorify this killer, to give him his final victory, and to inspire others to do the same, is something I take very personal offense to.

I am finished watching NBC News, or indeed anything broadcast on the NBC network apart from sports (yes, I admit, I am too weak to give up football), or anything at all that may appear on MSNBC.

This—a promise not to watch from just one unknown person—may be a trivial thing in your eyes, but it is done in earnest. I can assure you of that. I sent a similar letter to CBS News when they broadcast their reports on the fraudulent National Guard memos, and refused to come clean about their mistake and bad faith. Though at the time a Survivor and The Amazing Race addict, I thereafter did not watch a single minute of anything broadcast on CBS (except, again, for football) until Mary Mapes, Dan Rather, and Andrew Heyward had all left CBS News. And, do you know, I still turn to that channel very rarely. Guess I’m out of the habit now.

Congratulations on joining their ranks.

I urge the regular readers of this not-quite-regular blog (all three or four or five of you) to consider writing similar letters of protest. What NBC News has done is low and disgusting and simply unconscionable.

I read a lot of columns and blogs and other bloviating on the Web in a typical day, so I’m used to the frequent glitches and oversights one encounters, even on websites of respected dead-tree publications.

But Tony Blankley’s gaffe in yesterday’s Washington Times column was a real jaw-dropper nonetheless.

In Europe, citizens can be — and have been — criminally prosecuted for calling elements of Islam violence-prone. The great crusading journalist Camille Paglia was forced to live out her last cancer-ridden days in exile to avoid paying the penal price for her honest (and accurate) expressions on that topic.

(Emphasis added.)

Ouch.

I can almost imagine conflating the late Oriana Fallaci with some other European anti-Islamist crusader…but with the author of Sexual Personae (who is, of course, very much alive)? How do those two become interchangeable in one’s mind?

I also don’t understand how neither Mr. Blankley nor any of his editors didn’t pause to double-check the reference. I myself tend to be incredibly fussy over what I publish, even if it only ever reaches a half-dozen readers. You’d think that someone would at least have taken fifteen seconds to Google or Wikipedia the spelling…and that even a cursory glance at the results of the search would have set off alarm bells.

Those who earn a living from writing and opining on the issues of the day, and see those writings and opinings disseminated to millions weekly, have a privileged and enviable position. Is it too much to ask that they write and edit and proofread with great care?

I can’t stand sloppy, not in areas like this.

I sent the following note to NPR this evening.

As I drove home last night, I heard you start to relate some of the names and stories belonging to those murdered in Blacksburg. I was shocked when you reached the name Liviu Librescu, and glided right past it without a word about the heroism he displayed. Professor Librescu’s actions provided one of the desperately few bright spots of inspiration in an awful, heartbreaking story; and his example deserves to be talked about, meditated on, and followed. Is NPR somehow embarrassed by such heroic resistance to evil, even when non-violent like Librescu’s?

Way to make me regret signing up as a member just three days earlier, guys.