A: I read that a soap actor threatened a fan on Twitter. What's the deal? — Sharon, Austin, Texas

Q: Ah, Twitter — the social medium that drives PR folks to weep, gives columnists lots of copy and, of course, usually spurs mea culpas after misguided tweets. Before we get to our soap star, here is the latest tweet that may have cost a legend his job (and at least got him suspended). Baseball's former pitching great Curt Schilling tweeted a message comparing Muslims to Hitler. Talk about a wild pitch. ESPN has suspended him from hosting his Little League baseball show. Schilling apologized and took down the post.

As a little girl my grandfather told me, "Once you say something, you cannot get the words back. It is like letting feathers out of a pillow: you cannot retrieve them all." Tweeting is even worse. Once you tweet it, it is out there. It can be taken down but be assured someone has a copy and they are posting it.

Now for the soapy side of the story. A hater on Twitter (sadly, there are many of those) named Chris has been especially critical of Morgan on "General Hospital" and of Bryan Craig, the actor who portrays Morgan. When Chris' messages got personal, Bryan suggested he was a hater. Like any good mother, Bryan's mom defended her son on twitter. Chris retorted with a nasty Tweet. Making it a family affair, Bryan's dad then replied. "Hey, this is Bryan Craig's daddy. How about you slither from behind your keyboard and have a face to face with me. Please!"

Chris decided to go mano a mano. "Appears to be a family full of trash. Guess that's where he gets it from."

OK. Do you think Craig let that slide?

Nope.

"Look you can talk badly about me all you want...when it comes to my family keep your mouth shut, that's way too far." Craig went on to say that if Chris kept talking about his family like that, he would do his best to find him and break his fingers. There were a few expletives in the post.

Bryan did delete his "breaking fingers" tweet after he realized how bad that was. He swiftly apologized to his fans for the exchange stating that he was just trying to defend his family.

"I appreciate everyone's support, I'm no different than any of you, people saying bad things about my family I don't take kind (to)."

As for his character Morgan, the new head-writers are giving him a great story line. Son of the bipolar Sonny, Morgan may be afflicted with the same condition.

For once this is not a stupid soap opera mischaracterization of mental illness. Children who have one parent with the disorder have about a 10- to 25-percent chance of developing the disorder themselves; children with two parents with the disorder have a 10- to 50-percent chance. If a non-identical twin sibling has the disorder, the chance that another sibling will have it is between 10 and 25 percent.

To find out more about Lynda Hirsch and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.