How Dumb Does Dumbing Down Go?

I don't know what Mr Diraimondo's first name is.  He uses Luigi, Louis, and Louie.  I don't know the correct spelling of his last name.  Having learned some Italian years ago, I would have thought Di Raimondo, or at least DiRaimondo.  But he spells it Diraimondo.  I already know he can't read and he can't write, so maybe he can't spell, either.  Even his own name.

Whatever his name is has had a very bad effect on discourse around here.  I'm told he's been thrown off Nextdoor.  I can guess what for, because he's been horribly badly behaved in comments to this blog, and I thought I had an agreement with him that he would leave the blog alone, too.  I agreed not to mention him (that's what he wanted), and he agreed not to make any comments (that's what I wanted).  But he didn't keep his end of the agreement.  Maybe he's not honest, either.

Anyway, I wrote a short post that was sort of about this week's Commission meeting, and I said that Mac Kennedy reads this blog, and he would add or correct, if he was so inclined.  Well, I just got a text message from Mac this morning saying that he would indeed have commented, but he doesn't want the blowback from Mr Diraimondo.  And Mac specified that that blowback would consist of "a never-ending firestorm of inane replies and e-mails," including "five to 10 e-mails to every employee and elected official in the Village as soon as [Mac posts] something."

And I know for a fact that Mac is exactly right.  Not only do the posts I publish stimulate from Mr Diraimondo an uncontrolled succession of comments that usually have nothing at all to do with the topic of the post ("inane," just as Mac said), but I, too, also get private rants and ramblings from Mr Diraimondo, and there is commonly an additional and unexplained extension of the circulation to the kinds of people Mac referenced.

What makes all of this a bit more bizarre than it already is (it couldn't get much more bizarre) is that Mr Diraimondo is at this point more or less the only person who comments to blog posts.  Either everyone else has coincidentally lost interest, or they're all as disgusted, and given up, as is Mac.  And I don't even know Mr Diraimondo.  I remember his name from when I was campaigning last fall, so I know I was at his house, but I don't remember him personally.  I think he lives with one of his daughters, so maybe it was she who answered the door.  And he's not on my new post announcement circulation.  So I don't even know how he knows when there's a new post.  (I never knew how David Hernandez knew there was a new post, either -- and he knew instantly -- so maybe there's some other mechanism of alerting to new posts to this blog, and I just don't know about it.)

Anyway, it's gotten about as dumb as it's going to get.  The next thing that will happen, once I conclude that I'm only talking to myself (and Mr Diraimondo), is that I'll just end the blog.  If this isn't stimulating, and maybe fun, for all of us, then it has no purpose.

PS: There's no mechanism to block people from commenting here.  Normally, I would say I wouldn't block anyone, even if I could.  But at this point, it's very possible, and maybe likely, that I'd block Mr Diraimondo.  He's sort of a disease.  I got vaccinated against the coronavirus, and I might well make us all immune, or insensitive, to Mr Diraimondo.