CSotD: The risk of keeping silent and being thought a fool
Skip to comments
Might as well start with a leftover from yesterday, which is that Truth Facts is not always quite in gear with American culture, because, while I remember "Movember," I think it's almost universally called "No-Shave November" now, at least here.
It started with guys growing mustaches, hence the "M" in "Movember," but quickly turned into not shaving at all, because, well, anybody could have seen that coming.
But the rest of the cartoon is spot on, because I also forgot it was, at one time, supposed to have a purpose.
Inktober is now over, though I imagine that's an observance confined to artists, so you may not have been seeing it on your Facebook feed.
Now we're into Nanowrimo, in which prospective writers complete a novel in a month, which is not a bad thing if it ends a cycle of procrastination.
And also, thank god, they don't post their chapters to Facebook, or, at least, I'm not seeing them. Knock wood.
And also because it reminds me of my favorite Bruno strip ever.
Anyway, though it may be a distinction without a difference, I think there is a distinction between the person who sees something and says, "I must post that to Facebook!" and the person who says, "I must post to Facebook; what shall I post?" and the latter is prime for these on-line monthly events.
Now, crossing over into the realm of current events, Bug Martini raises the question of inadvertant posts, which raises the question of "What the hell were you thinking?"
This is one time when I am not only not apologetic for being an Old Fart, but have to wonder, if an Old Fart like me gets it, what's wrong with people who are presumably younger and wiser in the ways of the Internet?
I remember back in the mid-90s when we had listservs in which members with shared interests could post emails that went to everyone on the listserv, and people had to remember to distinguish what was supposed to go to one person, as well as what was supposed to go to this listserv rather than that listserv.
So we had the corporate exec who inadvertantly posted to the corporate listserv his thoughts on walking through Time Square and seeing the wretched refuse that our Lord and Saviour clearly called upon us to love and cherish, which he had meant to send to a Christian fellowship listserv.
Not so bad, though we did have some of Satan's minions in the executive tower. But most of them were probably still having someone print out all their emails for them, so perhaps it didn't get that far.
But on another business listserv, two women, separately, posted a pair of truly nasty dirty jokes, and I'm delighted to report that I'm still in touch with both of them so that, like the fellows in today's Bug Martini, I can continue to snicker over their humiliating gaffes as needed.
Point being this: A good 20 years after email became a "thing," what kind of idiot posts anything that shouldn't escape into the broader Internet?
Because, even if you do address it correctly, it's hardly secure.
Email is like that note you pass in class, knowing that, if Mrs. Tightbreeches sees it, she's going to demand you read it to the entire room, and that it could also get intercepted by someone who will pass it all around the lunchroom and that, even if that doesn't happen, the recipient might decide to use it as an instrument of torture.
Thus "Are you going to soccer practice?" is a lot safer than "Amy sure is cute. I hope she likes me!" and much, much safer than "Brian thinks he's so tough but he's just a fat, ugly bully who eats dog doo."
How can you be a grown-up in the interconnected world and not understand this?
Though, granted, there is that element of Danger some people can't resist.
Cartoonists have jumped on this topic; Jack Ohman has my favorite take so far.
Though David Fitzsimmons managed to be both very timely and very funny.
But, clownish as Comey's intervention has been, there is a serious and wider imbalance besides the obvious one that Clinton's email was old news and well-examined so long ago that Bernie denounced it as an irrelevant sideshow more than a year ago.
It is strange that Trump can get away with refusing to release his tax returns, with making Putin his pal and, perhaps, his business partner, and with the obvious intent of Wikileaks to knock Clinton's campaign off the rails, and so little is said about it.
Trump has taken the OJ Simpson approach: Simply lie in their faces and then refuse to back down despite clear and obvious facts to the contrary.
And the scary thing is, damn, it works!
It has had an impact on the polls, which the same passive-conduit media that can't quite figure out what Hillary's emails are about, and can't quite get its teeth into the Putin/Wikileaks thing, is happy to report on, because, while they don't understand math either, numbers are easy to report: The gap is narrowing!
In fact, Trump still doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of becoming president, but explaining that would be a complex, boring story and the polls — well, some of them, and only if you squint — show his victory is not only possible but increasingly likely.
Ann Telnaes captures the sense of impending doom, and my analysis is that anything that gets voters off their duffs and into the booth is a good thing, even if it's a bit overwrought, or even a lot overwrought.
Lord knows, if we started pointing out Clinton's insurmountable electoral college lead, it could turn into a sort of self-destroying prophecy, and, while I'm betting we still wouldn't end up with President Trump, it could tear up some Senate races and then we'd never get another Supreme Court Justice approved.
Now, here's your moment of reporting on the polls:
Comments
Comments are closed.