Over the weekend, a new reader emailed me about a recent story that outraged him.  He wanted me to write about it, asking whether it disturbed me as much as him.  It was an absurd story, about an 11-year-old arrested for a stick drawing that suggested some significant anger issues, that occurred a mere 18 miles down the road from Columbine.

But I didn’t write about it.  There was nothing to add, other than the sad fact of its occurrence.  That’s not enough.

The popularity of a blawg is, in part, based upon creating a community of people who find something of value to read.  The easiest way in which the popularity of Simple Justice could be promoted is to sate the desire of those who share my sensibilities.  Feed the crowd what they want.

It’s easy to enough to do, as there is a never-ending supply of stories of injustice.  For those of you who are unaware, Packratt at  Injustice Everywhere does a daily summary.  Just last Friday, he  provides 18 reports of police misconduct, some with videos.  You can get them on a running basis at his National Police Misconduct News Feed.  If you want to feel the outrage, this is the perfect place for you.

It’s not my purpose to harp on the same issue, writing and rewriting the same heart-wrenching words about anger, frustration and outrage.  Over the weekend, Tom Kirkendall at  Houston’s Clear Thinkers  twitted how Norm Pattis’  is “writing the best material in the blogosphere about the injustice of over-inclusive sex offender laws” with this post. Tom’s a smart fellow, so I take his word for it.

Having read the same post in any one of 100 variations, however, there’s nothing new about sex offender registries being over-inclusive and harmful.  I’m happy to hear that Norm is writing about it, but I have no interest in writing about it myself.  There is nothing new to be said and no reason, other than to please the audience, for me to say it again.  If it pleases you to read about it again, Norm is there for you.

I write because I have something to say about a particular issue or situation, not to please or feed anyone’s desire to be outraged.  This is increasingly difficult over time, as posts begin to haunt me.  Haven’t I said this already?  Didn’t I already make this point?  The answer increasingly is not only “yes,” but numerous times.

There’s an interest in discussing issues and situations, but, this being my blawg, my interest is in what I think is a worthwhile discussion.  More often than not, non-lawyers have little to contribute, expressing their overwhelming feelings of anger and frustration with little nuance and less understanding of how it fits within the scheme of things.  You’re filled with hate and anger? Great. Next.

I was informed the other day by  some guy I don’t know on twitter that he disagrees with how I handle comments.  Putting aside the humor in his presumption that his view is relevant, He thinks I’m silly and over the top.  He favors handling thinks differently at Simple Justice.  He has no blog of his own, but writes for HuffPo. He wants to please the crowd, and thinks I should too.  He thinks I should please him.

This morning, there were a few things I considered writing about.  One was an article in the  New York Times magazine about mommy blogger, Heather Armstrong.

Typically, there are 100,000 visitors daily to her site, Dooce.com, where she writes about her kids, her husband, her pets, her treatment for depression and her life as a liberal ex-Mormon living in Utah. As she points out, a sizable number also follow her on Twitter (in the year and a half since she threatened Maytag, she has added a half-million more). She is the only blogger on the latest Forbes list of the Most Influential Women in Media, coming in at No. 26, which is 25 slots behind Oprah, but just one slot behind Tina Brown. Her site brings in an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 a month or more — and that’s not even counting the revenue from her two books, healthy speaking fees and the contracts she signed to promote Verizon and appear on HGTV. She won’t confirm her income (“We’re a privately held company and don’t reveal our financials”). But the sales rep for Federated Media, the agency that sells ads for Dooce, calls Armstrong “one of our most successful bloggers,” then notes a few beats later in our conversation that “our most successful bloggers can gross $1 million.”

Her mommy blog brings in $30 to $50k a month?  Holy crap. What am I doing wrong, I wondered as I read those words.  Dr. SJ said the same thing to me, with even greater emphasis.  Needless to say, no one from HGTV called yesterday to inquire as to my availability.

Many others have parlayed their efforts blogging into a new gig on the internet. Among law bloggers, most have transitioned into social media and marketing for lawyers, or legal technology prophets.  A few have set their sights on coaching lawyers to go solo, usually in conjunction with marketing.  These things interest me only in their reflection of professional and ethical failings.  I’ve got no plans to teach anyone how to blog for profit.  And given what Heather Armstrong is doing, I clearly have no qualifications to do so.

I appreciate people sending me links to interesting stories. It doesn’t mean I’ll have anything to say about them, or that they will end up in a post.  Some people get angry with me for that, letting me know that they think the story is important and that their time in sending it to me has been wasted by my not respecting their effort enough to write about it.  They’re angry that I haven’t served them well.

Maybe the upshot is that my failure to please any crowd is the cohesive aspect of Simple Justice.  Maybe it’s cost me $50,000 a month in advertising revenue and a shot at hosting an HGTV show.  Maybe I won’t be the foremost blawger at much of anything, with a coterie of people I don’t know on twitter criticizing my comment policies.

It’s likely that there will be a substantive story or two that I feel compelled to write about in an hour, but for the moment, the only thing that wants to come out of my keyboard is that I’ve got no plans to please the crowd.  And to those of you who are angered by this, get the hell off my lawn.