JUST NOTICED some of the response to my snarky exchange with Meredith Scheck about biblical scholars and their roommates last month (see comments section to this Protocols post). I didn't intend to call Meredith "stupid" but rather to say (sarcastically) that I wouldn't want to have a roommate who held the view she expressed. I think we both intended and took our exchange as a joke, but obviously I offended some people. I let my sarcasm get the better of me on this one (not the first time in my life, I regret to say) and I should not have replied in kind to Meredith's comment - which had amused rather than offended me.

I apologize to Meredith and readers.

Memo to future self: sarcasm on the web comes out worse than you intend. Write one hundred times on the blackboard.