Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Readers get their say on e-mailbag day

WHILE A columnist is lobbing sentences from his foxhole, he never knows which ones score direct hits. So the reactions he braces for are rarely the ones he receives. Our monthly dip into the e-mailbag bears this out.

When I recently urged critics of the risque cartoon "South Park" to chill out, to fret a bit less about kid viewers, I expected a few bared teeth, some hissing and spitting, the rrroowww of a good ethical cat fight. Instead, to my amazement, I was greeted with a hooray chorus, led by e-mailer Mike Shields, who lauded me -- and people who know me will get a hoot out of this -- for my "common sense."

It's simple, he writes. "Parents: If you don't want your kids to watch/do/listen to something, tell them. Kids: If you really want to check it out, you'll find a way!" Way to bet on both horses, Mike!

But he's correct, of course. Pop culture is a tug-of-war, and both sides are right. Parents are supposed to draw boundaries and kids are supposed to chafe at them; it's what makes the generation gap so entertaining. "It was like that with rock 'n' roll when I was a kid," Shields writes. If you're looking for a lesson in that, I suppose you could a.) sigh with relief because rock 'n' roll didn't destroy Western Civ, or b.) shiver in dread because rock 'n' roll destroyed Western Civ. Shields takes a firm the-kids-are-all-right stance.

"My parents were cool, as were a lot of my teachers. They laid it out for me. Here are the choices. Here are the consequenses. It was clearly my decision and my consequences to deal with."

Tammy Johnson writes in to say that she never writes in -- "I just rant and rave and never write that letter. Well, today I'm actually sending this e-mail." Egads, Tammy, why? "South Park," of course. "I agree 100 percent about 'the virtue cops,"' she writes. Keep 'em away from her niece, whom Tammy is helping raise. In fact, perhaps virtue cops should stop staking out TV and patrol the school yard: "I have a much harder time overriding some of the behavior or things she learns at school. That is certainly the place those self-appointed moral and virtue cops should be looking to correct."

She closes on a kind note: "You are one of the few I can agree with and not feel like I am all alone in my opinions." Be afraid, Tammy, be very afraid.

An April column about my grandmother's death didn't generate the response I expected -- that it was too maudlin, too sentimental, too personal. In fact, I received a tremendous bouquet of sympathetic e- and voice-mail. "Nice tribute to your grandmother," wrote one woman. "Brought tears to my eyes." Wrote another, "She sounded like a wonderful person. Rest assured that we will remember her in our prayers." There were many messages like that, small kindnesses from complete strangers, and not for the first time I wondered if people might be worth a damn after all.

Naturally, among the back-patting in my e-mail queue there was a bit of wrist-slapping. That I expect! "Please check the grammatical usages of the pronouns 'I' and 'me,' as you had a couple of slips," one reader gently chides. "'I' is used as a subject and 'me' is used as the object. You never say 'between you and I' or 'with John and I.' Never, never, never! "

She's right, of course; me always gets that mixed up.

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