Who's afraid of Virginia Postrel?

We can see the salt of the earth from our front porch in Chelsea-by-the-Sea.

Here we thought it was a brilliant, pithy (140-or-fewer characters) philosophical insight into the way of the world, but intellectual icon Virginia Postrel was not amused with our twitter response to her intriguing demise-of-The-New-Republic question:

Now that articles float free of their publications, can magazines still play the role in catalyzing sensibilities that @CoreyRobin suggests?

— Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) December 8, 2014

Our first response was harmless, bloodless:

@vpostrel @CoreyRobin Online it’s individual great minds, rather than publications as a whole, that develop followings, I think.

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) December 8, 2014

 Then we stepped in it:

@LeroyWhitby @vpostrel @CoreyRobin Increasingly dishonorable means used to justify increasingly discredited ends #leftproject

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) December 8, 2014

"Increasingly dishonorabble means used to justify increasingy discredited ends." That little tweet expresses the world view of a lifetime of observation and analysis in 140 or fewer, but Postrel was not amused:

@sissywillis @leroywhitby @coreyrobin Please spare me these general rants about politics in a discussion about what magazines do.

— Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) December 8, 2014

A touch of elitism there? Our reply:

@vpostrel @leroywhitby @coreyrobin Consider yourself spared from here on in ~ General Rant pic.twitter.com/s5sRdJvz29

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) December 8, 2014

Update: Our sincere apologies to the divine Miss Postrel, who clarifies:

@sissywillis You & your pal still hijacked the thread. That someone would was entirely predictable. Sorry it was you.

— Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) December 9, 2014