So by now, everyone knows about Steve Irwin’s death.  I didn’t write anything here because it’s been mentioned and discussed in so many other places where I visit, and I wrote responses all over.

So in one place, someone had mentioned how sad it was that Terri Irwin was off in the wilds of Tasmania, doing a walking tour (for more wildlife shoots, I’d hazard a guess) and couldn’t be contacted right away, so the whole world knew about her husband’s death before she did.  We all thought that was a pretty sad thing.  I popped on over to Orac’s (Respectful Insolence, in blogrolls on the right) and made mention of this, but because of my problem with remembering first letters of things and sometimes not the rest, I wrote “Tanzania” instead of “Tasmania”.

So a few comments down, some person wrote a very snarky comment that Tanzania is a country in Africa, Tasmania is a state in Australia.

Well, duh.

That’s not the problem.  I know full well which is which, I could even point them out to you on a map.  Phonetically, they’re similar, and it’s not like two famous wildlife experts who travel the globe couldn’t possibly be in different areas of the world.  If my brain had supplied “Tucson” the alarms would have gone right off – Tucson has plenty of telephones and internet, and is not a likely spot for an Animal Planet special, so Terri wouldn’t have been there and incommunicado.  But Tanzania. . .well, there’s nothing inconceivable about that, so that’s what came out of my fingers.

I thought for a while about going back and responding or correcting, but after thinking about it, there were more negatives than positives.  First of all, Respectul Insolence is a site about medicine, science, and truth (besides being Orac’s personal blog on occasion, as well) and most of the people who post rants are the loons and people with unsupportable positions.  Do I want to get all personally offended there and risk slipping even a smidge closer to those people?  Heck, not.  Second, Mr. Snark doesn’t even deserve a response.  People who ignore the gist of a well-intentioned post (that poor Terri didn’t find out about her husband’s death until after everyone else in the world) and zoom right in on a mistake, pouncing to point out that the person who posted is a moron, >want< you to react so they can keep going, showing their moral or intellectual superiority by pointing out the shortcomings of others.  Third, I have my own blog.  I can say what I want, get it out of my system if I need to, and not worry about ruining someone else’s site with off-topic personal stuff.  So there ya go.  I feel much better now.