We Need More Civility in the Land of Lord Zuckerberg

This post is about civility in Facebook – or rather, the lack of it in some quarters.

I noticed an interesting meme in a Facebook group yesterday:

As I read the comments below the post, I felt compelled to disagree with those who found the meme offensive and untrue. All I said was, “I disagree. I find the meme provocative and sadly accurate.”

Well, you’d think I called the original poster a Nazi and his mother a whore. He instantly went into attack mode, telling me I knew nothing about the Holocaust and ridiculing my use of the word “provocative.” Another Facebooker weighed in, agreeing with me, but Original Poster would have none of it. He reverted to the habit of shouting – AKA TYPING IN ALL CAPS – which should have been my cue to exit the “conversation.” Instead, I stuck around to see him post an educational video clip and accuse me of “slandering the living hell out of Holocaust victims.” How he got from “I disagree” to “Holocaust victims were ugly, unscrupulous jackasses who didn’t have the sense God gave a goose” is beyond me.

I too was guilty of degrading the quality of the exchange. I called the guy a “dickhead” and became acerbic, telling him I was confident in my knowledge of history and suggesting that he take a typing class.

Fortunately, Other Facebooker who I mentioned above posted the following summative comment:

"One of most appalling lessons to be learned from that nightmare is that seemingly good people are capable of allowing horrendous things to be done to their neighbors and friends without batting an eye or intervening."

I ended up being blocked by Original Poster – who also blocked Other Facebooker and deleted the entire exchange, meme included – and gaining a new virtual friend (Other Facebooker). After Original Poster erased all traces of our reasoned debate, another friend pointed out that shutting people up and removing all traces of them was in fact something that Hitler also tried. Is that ironic or what?

I’m not sure why courtesy in behavior and speech is lacking online and in real life. (Studies have been done on this, I know, but who has the time to read those?) Maybe it’s a side effect of Groupthink. Maybe some folks just can’t handle being challenged or consider any viewpoints other than their own. Maybe it’s Obama’s fault. Or maybe it's my fault. As I’ve aged, I’ve embraced the idea – right or wrong – that I’ve earned the right to speak my piece without caring if others like me or not. I really should temper my temper and remind myself that I’m probably not going to change any minds in the Land of Lord Zuckerberg. But it’s just so aggravating when people are wrong.

At least I never type IN ALL CAPS.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967 - 2014)

And Now For Something Completely Different

I'm straying from my normal routine of posting a music clip because I think this ad - which supposedly aired during last night's Super Bowl XLVIII although I missed it - is really well-done and needs to be seen.  I'm doing my part.

Update: I'm told the ad was from last year's game.  It's still good.

Poor Pelosi Surely Steamed at Stewart

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nancy Pelosi refused to appear on Comedy Central’s Emmy Award-winning “The Daily Show” again anytime soon.

Ms. Pelosi, the top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, appeared...er, let’s just say “out of touch” during her interview with Jon Stewart last Thursday night. It was so bad, in fact, that I wanted to fly to the Big Apple, barge into the studio on 11th Avenue, sneak onto the set, take her hand and gently guide her offstage before she could look any worse. Lucky I remembered the show was taped and I was watching it two days later.

I vacillated between thinking Stewart was being a disrespectful dick – he seemed downright obstinate and at one point he actually laughed in her face – and thinking the 73-year-old Pelosi, who’s currently the highest-ranking female politician in American history, needs to hang it up and head back to the City by the Bay where she can play with the grandkids and rest on her considerable laurels.

She appeared scattered and confused during much of the interview (see below); although it was obvious that she had a great deal of knowledge and wisdom stored in her cranium, she wasn’t successful at sharing it with the Comedy Central audience. I was on her side when she took exception to Stewart insisting that Democrats have been just as corrupted by money in politics as Republicans. I thought she was right to point out that the important thing is not to pass legislation just to pass it; rather, it should be crafted in such a way as to actually be implementable. And I agreed with her that progressives seem to care more about clean air and water and public health, housing and transportation than conservatives.

But I thought her decision to actually say, “That’s not my responsibility” when Stewart asked why the Democrats’ rollout of Obamacare was executed so poorly was ill-advised. When Stewart claimed that her own former employees were among those who left to work for lobbying firms and government contractors – the “revolving door” process that makes Congressional watchdogs uncomfortable – she repeatedly insisted that she didn’t know and appeared truly flustered. (According to Open Secrets, almost 30 current and former Pelosi staff members have gone through the “revolving door.”) And her insistence that conservative politicians were responsible for Congress’s lack of productivity, while true, came across as juvenile.

I’m not familiar enough with the former Speaker of the House to know if this feeble performance was the norm or the exception but given her achievements, I expected more from her. (I imagine she didn’t expect the more-liberal-than-conservative Stewart to prove as challenging as he did. He may have been responding to criticism that he’s not sufficiently hard-hitting when interviewing politicians.) What pleased me most was Ms. Pelosi’s quick acknowledgement that both legislative and executive branch Democrats suck at messaging. That’s been one of their biggest flaws for years in my opinion.

The House minority leader’s voting record is a mixed bag. I like how she supports increased background checks for potential gun owners and an assault weapons ban. She supports raising the minimum wage, medical marijuana and Obamacare. (She was an early and instrumental supporter of health care reform.) Back in 2002, she opposed the Iraq War resolution authorizing George W. Bush to use military force against that country. (She was no fan of Dubya.) And she voted against allowing oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Curie, Corrie and Thomas

But I'm not happy that she voted to keep restricting the ability of Americans to travel to Cuba. She supported the Patriot Act back in 2001. She said last year that she thinks whistle-blower Edward Snowden is a criminal. And she’s way too pro-Israel for my taste. (Not to engage in class warfare but given that she’s worth an estimated $58 million, I’m not sure how well she can relate to income inequality and the plight of poor people either.)

I was sad that her appearance was so wince-worthy because as stepdad to three girls, I’m always looking for female role models to introduce to Nikita, Maya and Devina. If she’s not careful, Ms. Pelosi will fall below Marie Curie, Rachel Corrie and Helen Thomas on my “Women I Dig” list. Who wants that?

Sources: Center for Responsive Politics, TheBlaze.com, Mediaite.com, Washington Times, Comedy Central.

Black Monopoly

Supersonic - J.J. Fad

Sunday poetry

Watching Football on TV

I

It used to be only Sunday afternoons,
But people have got more devoted now
And maybe three or four times a week retire
To their gloomy living room to sit before
The polished box alive with silver light
And moving shadows, that incessantly
Gives voice, even when pausing for this message.
The colored shadows made of moving light,
The voice that ritually recites the sense
Of what they do, enter a myriad minds.
Down on the field, massed bands perform the anthem
Sung by a soprano invisible elsewhere;
Sometimes a somewhat neutral public prayer.
For in the locker rooms already both
Sides have prayed to God to give them victory.

II

Totemic scarabs, exoskeletal,
Nipped in at the thorax, bulky above and below,
With turreted hard heads and jutting masks
And emblems of the lightning or the beast;
About the size of beetles in our sight,
Save for the closeup and the distant view,
Yet these are men, our representatives
More formidable than ourselves in speed and strength
And preparation, and more injured, too;
Bandage and cast exhibit breakages
Incurred in wars before us played before:
Hard plaster makes a weapon of an arm,
A calf becomes a club. Now solemnly
They take up their positions in the light,
And now their agon will begin again.

~ Howard Nemerov