For the most part, the purpose of this column is not draw out singular perpetrators of Macrimination, as they are all over the place, not worth the time it takes to argue with them and for the most part, as set in their ways as we are.

But every once in awhile, you come across someone who needs a big dose of the reality stick. I couldn’t help it this week — this guy needs a Mac Smackdown.

Last week, on one of the Mac-oriented e-mail lists I belong to, someone wrote to point out a column written in her local student newspaper, The Oklahoma Daily at the University of Oklahoma. I was not prepared for what I found when I clicked the link to Farhan Shakeel’s column, "Macs: great paperweights, bad computers."

Here’s just a taste of the words of wisdom Mr. Shakeel spouts forth:

"The once-proud bastion of personal computing superiority has today been reduced to the mediocrity of wonderfully designed heavy paperweights. Founded on principles of user-friendly and simplicity, the Macintosh has become too simple for the modern world that demands more than just attractive cases for its computing needs."

The rest of the column is similar, and the only backup he gives for his opinion is the fact that he allegedly sees Mac users who are "red with discontent" in his school’s computer labs, while the PC users "move about their tasks in an efficient, no-nonsense manner."

Well, I know a little about journalism, and even columnists with controversial opinions must still back up their facts if they want anyone to believe their musings. Sure, it’s just a student paper, but it was still unsettling.

But the Mac Smackdown was on the way. Just a couple of days after that column, one of Mr. Shakeel’s colleagues, Ryan Fulda, wrote his own column: "It’s not PC to make fun of Macs." Apparently, Mr. Fulda found that after the earlier Mac-bashing column, the paper received more letters to the editor than it normally does. "The paper has received literally dozens more, from states as far away as Montana and Washington," he wrote.

Mr. Fulda also said he was surprised to see such a reaction to such an "apparently trivial subject." It just goes to show that most people outside of our little world don’t really understand us Mac people very well. It’s like men trying to understand women, or women trying to understand men — to get along our only choice is to celebrate our differences.

While it may seem trivial to PC users, we take these matters seriously over in the Mac world. Not because we’re insecure, not because we want to convince them that we are right and they are wrong, but because we are creative and productive computer users who have little patience for ignorance.

I would go more into Mr. Shakeel’s column and how I could refute his points, but apparently many of our fellow Mac users have already done it for me. Just check out the bottom of the page his column is on. As of this writing, there were already more than 75 comments attached to the piece doing a much better job of it than I could here. For example, one person, identified only as ZKinney.

Every once in awhile, it’s good to be reminded that such Macrimination still exists.