Letters from an inbox full of %#@*!

By Ana Menendez - The Miami Herald
amenendez@MiamiHerald.com

I will be on vacation for a few weeks, a happy occasion that gives me the strength to finally discuss the embarrassing matter of my e-mail inbox.

When I left journalism in 1997, ''hate mail,'' as a genre, was still in its infancy. Sure, there was the occasional hand-scrawled letter. And I still remember the 7 a.m. voice mail message I received from an unidentified caller informing me that the ``only money I'm paying to ease school crowding is to hire a bus to send you and your wetback relatives back to Mexico.''

But extreme suggestions from readers were still a rarity back then. When I returned to daily journalism last July, I was amused to discover the BlackBerry, digital cameras and a new breed of uninhibited readers thriving in that space where technology meets lunacy.

INITIAL SHOCK

Within weeks of beginning this Miami Herald column, I had been called a ''%$@,'' a ''#@!)&'' and a stupid ''$%&@,'' ``($ #$)!''

My first reaction was that I had spent far too much time in academia, where insults tend to be more deft and syllable-rich. But the truth is, I was also crushed. I am, like most writers, a tender creature if not when it comes to others, then certainly when it comes to the far more important subject of myself.

I had traveled the world and broken bread with the Taliban. But, frankly, I was unprepared for the perfect stranger who wrote: ``You are too stupid to be an editorial writer.''

With time, however, I came to appreciate hate mail for what it is: a nascent art form just waiting for its own school of criticism, marking not only its maturity but its eventual ossification and decline.

Having sifted through a year's worth of creative output, I now feel as qualified as any other over-educated hack to comment on the dominant trends and common misconceptions in what we'll call ``Micro-Literature of The Deranged.''

GENDER TROUBLE

First, a profile of the artist. More than 90 percent of the angry mail I get is from men, the majority of it directed at my gender and/or ''youth.'' The most creative of the bunch combines the added appeal of racism with a dash of illiteracy, as in this gem: ''I'd rather have Mr. Inhofe looking out for the Country's interest that some young Latino opinion writer who is probably here illegal.'' ESOL classes anyone?

Letters like this initially made me believe that girl columnists were the most likely targets. ''No wonder there are so few of us!'' I thought. ''Who would put up with this *C@!?'' But after reading a few brilliant examples contributed by boy colleagues, I've changed my mind.

I've also learned that being a mild-mannered reporter won't protect you from the wrath of mutants. A colleague at another paper who, until recently, wrote about buildings, says he's been called ``every name in the book.''

''It's the age of hate mail,'' he said. Then, in the spirit of the times, he called me a ''baby'' for complaining about it. I called him an *@$!

I used to believe that, in the art of scary personal attacks, no one could beat conservatives. I can't print the more vehement examples that led to this belief, but one of the mild ones began like this: ''Ms. Menendez: You are typical, left-wing, radical, hysterical hypocrite.'' Come to think of it, maybe someone in my family wrote that one.

At any rate, turns out angry artists live on every fringe. When I wrote a piece critical of Cuba's Ricardo Alarcon, I received an unprintable missive from a self-described left-wing ''kook'' instructing me to comfort ''The Empire'' in a way that can best be described as ``strictly impossible.''

Yes, I will miss all you kind readers. But don't stop writing: I'll be back in August, eager to go through my inbox again. I've worked out a deal where the paper pays me $100 for each piece of hate mail. It's called ''research.'' So write on, dudes. It's a great country. God bless all us %#@&! idiots.