Am I the only one who loves and hates the Internet with equal fervor? For every spectacular new photo that Osiris REx sends from Bennu (I’ll pause while you Google that) there are two or three hateful posts, videos and comments; and news stories about New York newspapers sticking their @#$& noses in Texas politics. Makes me wonder why Bennu doesn’t just land in the middle of Main Street. (That’s funny if you actually looked it up earlier.)
This same Internet lets me share precious photos of my precious baby to all of my family members across the nation, and allows me to bond and validate my strengths and weaknesses with thousands of other Moms who constantly feel like they’re Mom-ing wrong too. Cool.
The same Internet that—absolutely true story here—when I Googled “family fun video” showed, in the #1 spot, a link to a Russian porn film of people who were supposedly related. Yes, there was even a thumbnail. (Please don’t Google that.) It’s just too bad there isn’t a website that will sell me a product to gouge out my mind’s eye. Come to think of it, I could check Amazon for that.
I suppose, because it’s almost time for elections, the web is all atwitter with opinions and fake news and spin and protesting. Are we really better off in this world now that we know what everyone is thinking at any given moment no matter how negative it is? I’ll admit, it is nice to know that when we say “public” opinion, it really is. But I am unfollowing people every day because they are so unhappy and they “public” all over my Facebook feed.
I get it, you dislike my candidates. Your voice will be loudest in the voting booth so just save it, get off your high horse and post something with a puppy in it.
Simply put, you don’t have to like who I like. You don’t even have to agree with why it’s okay for me to like who I like. But I’m not voting for any personalities any more. That stopped with Reagan, I think.
I’m just going to vote for the people who are going to steer the world in the direction that makes sense to me. Yell and post
memes all you want, America, but that works for me because none of our candidates are perfect. None got through adolescence and young adulthood without doing something stupid. No one can go a whole day without saying something that offends someone.
But I have a particular set of values and they match up pretty well with what some candidates do and represent. It’s that simple. If a candidate wants to put on a Darth Vader outfit and cake-walk through a parking lot while binging on pork rinds and beat-boxing… I don’t care, as long as he/she sticks to his/her principles regarding rights, protections and freedoms I identify with. That’s how it works.
I do draw the line at criminal behavior but, full transparency, I probably couldn’t win an office if I had been brought up in the YouTube generation either.
There’s a t-shirt out there somewhere that says “Well-behaved women rarely make history.” While I do think feminism has lately lost its mind, I agree with that statement. I also think it applies to men. There is a certain level of confidence that makes a leader. Sometimes it’s arrogance and sometimes it’s downright obnoxious. But I don’t find myself drawn to people who are meek when I need social change. People like Alan Shephard, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are known for having notoriously challenging personalities. Well all right then, perhaps the first colony on Mars won’t be polite, but thanks to those jerks, we will have one. Right on.
We, the meek and the nice, are do-ers. I will leave it to the loud and the crazy to be the deciders. And when I don’t like what they decide, I will *decide* to give someone else their job; i.e., vote for someone else. It’s that simple.
So I’m taking a break from the Bad Internet for a while; the social feeds and the news sites. The remaining happy side of the Internet is a good place to make money. I have a friend who makes so much money on Internet businesses; he wrote me a check with a comma in it to write eight press releases for his business. Heck, if I got paid that kind of money regularly, I’d write blogs for Russian porn stars. Thank you, Good Internet.
As for the rest of it, I don’t care if My President insulted a reporter and it was edited out of context to make him look like a jerk. He’ll probably do it again tomorrow and I will have missed nothing. But I am also fairly certain that he won’t allow North Korea to drop a bomb on my kid’s school today either, and I prefer that to good manners and bowing.
I’m sure some readers and friends will want to come burn down my house because I don’t sortie on the #metoo battlements and flame the President. I bet they’ll even post about it and add weight to the cosmic scale of negativity. Still, despite his flaws, what no one can take away from Mr. Trump is that he’s fearless, and I wish I was too.
Besides, according to the web, our 56th President, Jaynou Beck, was just born (Sept 12). He’s going to prove the existence of God, then unite us all as non-haters before he is assassinated in 2085. And it must be true – I read it on the Internet.
