Oh wow.

OK, don't be jealous, but one Mr. Peter Getty, it seems, responded to SFist's little ol' post about their new business venture: web-logging for SFGate. Behold:

The decision to disable comments on our first post was terrible, and I was unaware of it until it went up. Someone at sfgate recommended it to Billy, who was entirely new to blogging, and he consented without consulting me. It remains the one and only thing I regret about our blog thus far. Comments will appear on all our future posts, and I welcome them. I haven't yet had time to read all the disparagement we've received thus far, but nothing I've yet encountered has given me any reason to question our motives, the legitimacy of our views or our purpose in sharing them. The Gawker piece, in its completely unwarranted hostility, false presumptions, blatant self-contradictions, and errors of basic spelling and vocabulary, has provided us with an excellent subject for our next post. Your piece comes across as an example of the misguided preconceptions and intellectual laziness (which is not the same thing as stupidity) that I always expected our blog would run into at first. We all say things we regret, and I believe your invocation of a widespread wish for our death will become one of yours. [Eeps! He backhands with a death threat! That, or a vicious booing at the opera like that of Glenn Close at the end of 'Dangerous Liasons'! -- SFist] It'll take us a few more posts to persuade people, but the scorn we've received thus far will, I hope and believe, diminish.

Well. How very patronizing. And defensive.

Anyway, we will fess up to wishing we hadn't told readers that they would want a Getty head on a platter after reading "What the Pool Boy Didn't See." Ignore our clearly hyperbolic headline, dear readers. Without the Gettys and their provincial fame, San Francisco would be Portland 2.0. And we wouldn't have Vanessa. Also, the world would be worse off without a cat lover. So, you know, there's that.

But intellectual laziness? Peter, intellectual laziness would be having an AOL account in 2009. Welcome to the game, guys.

Update: SFAppeal has more on the story, with an explanation of the commenting reversal brouhaha and other "Brights" who shun commentary. Catherine Bigelow at 7x7 chimes in too.