To the editor:

I attended junior high school many years ago, but I still remember a particularly vile form of amusement from those days – the “slam book.” The slam book was a spiral notebook in which we could write (and read) demeaning, belittling, cruel and false things about our classmates – anonymously, of course. These days, whenever I miss my long-ago adolescence I just look at the online discussions on your Web site to get my fix of ignorant, mean-spirited comments about my friends and neighbors. I especially enjoy the extremely comical observations about accident victims and crime victims. And please folks, continue, in your dark basements, free from prying eyes, safe behind your online identities, to engage in biting satire about any teenagers who are mentioned or photographed by the newspaper. These kids need to learn that, for some people, junior high never ends.

Debra Wilson,

Lawrence