Snowed In vs. Burnout, Part 2

Over the past couple of years (as seen here...), I've grown more and more burned out on the whole world of politics.  This is not because I don't think that my political ideas are important, or worth defending, or whatever, but rather because I just have not had time to properly engage in that world.

As my regular reader* knows, I have a day job and a family.  (I don't just blog full time, or I'd be in serious trouble at this point.)  The job and the family demand and, yes, deserve a lot more of my time than writing a sixth-rate political blog best known for breaking a scandal in Austin almost six years ago.  I just don't have time to write a lot of deep thoughts about political issues, or at least I don't have time to do so in a timely manner.  (The reader is at this point directed to my timely post about the Chick-Fil-A situation in Aug--er, September 2012.)

I mean, good grief, I don't even have the time to put forth the amount of effort required to leave comments on news articles (comments which, I had hoped at one point, I would stop reading owing to the large number of uninformed and/or rude comments that can easily be found on any political post) because, from my observations, there seem to be many people who have nothing better to do than comment on news articles all day.  It doesn't matter if I made a better point then they have; they can simply bury my comment, and others like it, in a heap of other comments supporting their point.  These people don't want to have a discussion; they simply want those who disagree with them to shut up.  Sadly, because they have nothing better to do than comment all day, people like me don't want to take the trouble to engage them in discussion, and thus they get what they want.

And really, does anyone really want to have a discussion anyway?  Someone, and I don't remember who at this point, pointed out online (it might have been on Facebook, but it doesn't really matter) that most of the political tweets or blogs seem to revolve around the outrage of the day.  So much shouting, so much finger-pointing, but not nearly enough real dialogue.  And I'm certainly not going to assert that I've never participated in such a thing...a quick perusal of this blog's Facebook page (which, thankfully, is more active than this blog itself) shows a few links to articles on the topic du jour, but in most cases, I have also expressed hope for a dialogue about whatever it is I'm posting about.**

And so it was that I asked--ten (!!) months ago--on my Facebook page whether it was worth it to continue political blogging.  The answers I got (yes, an actual dialogue, almost!) were a mixed bag.  Some said that blogging on our side of the aisle was necessary simply to continue to get our side's message out.  Others said it wasn't worth it to keep it up and to concentrate on other passions.***  Both sides have a point.

That's another point: in many political discussions (and religious discussions, and even sports discussions, though there are few rational sports discussions), both sides have a point worth consideration.  I am trying not to discount people's opinions too quickly (though I will still discount someone's opinions fairly quickly if that someone cannot make a point without insulting the other side) these days.  Blogging, for too long, at least for me, was about trying to be right and proving the other side wrong.

With all that said, though, I would very much like to restart the sharing of my thoughts on this blog.  However, I am most likely not going to jump into nearly as many of the news-of-the-day stories.  I will, though, strive harder even that I did before to keep my thoughts civil.  I might, for example, scrutinize someone's public record, but I will not make assumptions about that person's character.  (If you're looking for insulting comments about public figures--or worse, pictures--there are plenty of other blogs on either side of the aisle that will accommodate you.)

Will I be able to accomplish my goal of sharing overtly political thoughts in both a civil and timely manner?  Obviously that remains to be seen.  But here's hoping.

*The author here accounts for the possibility that he does have more than one regular reader at this point, although a several-month hiatus has almost certainly done nothing to add to that number.

**There is something to be said, however, for the truth that I do that partly so that Facebook's weird algorithms will cause my posts to be displayed on more people's pages.

***For example, did you know I have a blog about unfairly forgotten songs?  Music has been a constant companion to me for longer than I have had political opinions.

Challenged to Civility, Part 2

In one of the very, very few posts that have appeared on this blog this year, I happened to mention that I had stopped paying much, if any, attention to Ann Coulter for her use of a pejorative term that I would prefer for people not to use.  Now, thanks to Bill Maher (to whom I pay little attention, though others seem to give him as much ego stroking as he desires), that word is being discussed yet again, thanks to Mr. Maher's reported use of it to describe Trig Palin.

Yes, Trig Palin, the five-year-old son of Sarah Palin. 

And then to see some of the women of "The View" trying to justify it...well, all I can do is shake my head and get further burned out on the political process.  When someone says it's okay to insult a child just because of who his mother happens to be, that person is not a helpful component of any political discussion.  Ever.  (It's amazing that "The View" never had an hour-long celebration of that purveyor of eloquence, Jack Stuef.)

Thankfully, others have responded in a much better manner.  Take, for example, this video:



I don't recognize who this is in the video, but what he says is well put, and simply put.

Just for the record, this is not in any way an attempt or a desire for anyone's speech to be regulated.  You have every right to use that word, just as I have every right to discount your opinion for thinking that word is acceptable.

And one last thing:  Adrienne Ross, an online friend who writes a blog called MotivationTruth, wrote recently on her Facebook page:

And I would say, as I've said many times, putting "tard" after "Lib' is also not acceptable, conservatives.

Very true.  It's not helping.

I'm sure I've said something like this before, but here goes:  yes, we can debate on the ideas.  Yes, I'm sure I don't agree with some of yours, and I'm sure you don't agree with some of mine.  But if we cannot have political discussions without throwing around words like "retard" (may this be the last time I ever write it on this blog), then we've lost a lot more than an argument.

Challenged to Civility

As I said last year (when I basically made a New Year's resolution), I don't usually make New Year's resolutions.  I generally break them, just as I broke last year's resolution not to read comments on articles.  Instead, I repeatedly found myself looking at ignorant, ill-thought-out opinions about whatever topic had interested me on that day.  Usually, it was the presidential race (which has come awfully close to burning me out on politics) or sports (in which there was lots of conjecturing regarding my pro football team of choice, which typically found new and exciting ways to lose games at the final second) that sucked me in to reading the dreaded comments once again.

So, I am not making any resolutions this year.  I don't need to be reminded of my failures to live up to my own high standards for yet another year.

Instead, this year I just want to challenge myself to be a better person, online and offline.  Perhaps that is part of the reason that I have been blogging less, seeing as there are four other people in this household who would like to spend time with me, and vice versa.  And so, in that respect, being a better person means being offline more.

When I am online, though, I feel called to be more civil, especially toward those with whom I disagree (and obviously there are many such people).  I've kinda been moving in that direction already with my posts (see, for example, here and here).  And I have grown so tired, from having seen it from both sides over the past two years, of seeing so many people think that to make their point, they have to tear down whoever is on the other side of the issue.

(Aside:  it's somewhat sad that the spellchecker in my browser isn't flagging "kinda".)

Of course, as usual, I'm not the first, or the most eloquent, to point this sort of thing out.  Kathleen McKinley addressed it very well a few weeks ago, stating "we go after each other".  The best paragraph of the whole piece:

I know there is much frustration. One side believes something completely different than the other, but as a civil society we sit down and we talk it out. We don’t resort to Junior High meanness.

Or, at least, we shouldn't, but we certainly do.  And that's why the other way I am challenging myself is by trying not to immerse myself in media that is built around tearing down the other side.

Now, I suppose I'll need some sort of measure that will determine to whom I give my attention, and to whom I don't.  For example, I've really not paid much attention to Ann Coulter in recent months, since her use of the term "retard" to describe our president, as her shtick has generally tended toward the acerbic anyway, and this pushed me past my limits of tolerance.  By my new measure, Ann Coulter does not deserve my attention.  (I'm sure she'll be terribly broken up over this, but this is more for my benefit that I ignore her, not hers.)

Now, I was not quite as concerned when Sarah Palin made use of the phrase "shuck and jive"--partially because others, including his present press secretary, have done so, partially because some people, including a good portion of the mainstream media, are actively trying to twist anything anyone says in opposition to President Obama into a racist statement (something that has been going on for quite a while now), and partially because, having paid a fair amount of attention to the things that Governor Palin has said over the past four-and-a-half years, I don't believe her to be a racist.  And thus, by my measure, I believe that Sarah Palin is still worth my attention.

And, in this paragraph, I intended to talk about someone else not worth my attention, specifically, a long-time late-night talk-show host who hasn't been mentioned in this blog for almost four years, but anyone who has read this blog for very long already knows that I haven't watched him since then anyway, so I'll just move on.

I'll just say that I have set standards (There's that dreaded word again!  I can't get away from it even when I don't make resolutions.) to which I intend to hold myself when I deal with people with whom I disagree, but I would like others to hold themselves to that same standard.  When they don't, I limit contact with them.  It's happened on Facebook and Twitter a few times, but, thankfully, it hasn't happened in face-to-face relationships.

So what do I ask from you, gentle reader?  One, keep your comments civil, regardless of whether you agree with me or not.  And two, keep me honest here.  If I'm not being civil, call me out.  You may not agree with me, but you deserve to be treated like a human being.

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.

(1 Peter 2:1, Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.  Courtesy Biblica, Inc./Biblegateway.com under Fair Use clause)

May we always do so.

In which some nasty hate-filled writers are called out

In a recent treatise on my dealings with burnout with regard to blogging, I asked whether my continuing to write was worth it.  I think I have a new answer to that question.  My writing is definitely worth it, if only to counterbalance some other people's attempts at writing.  There are some people out there who seem to be filled with hatred, which seems to cause them to write some of the nastiest things I've seen in a while.

And what appears to be the common thread tying many of these writings together?  Trig Paxson Van Palin.  Yes, the youngest child of Todd and Sarah Palin, who infuriates many "progressives" simply by existing, it seems.

Some of them, not having any writing talents (as if I have any room to talk there...) use the rather pedestrian tactic of making fun of his name.  Now, it's obvious to most people in America that Todd and Sarah used rather, well, unorthodox names for their children, but so what?  I've lost count of the number of times I've heard their precious little boy referred to as "Twig".  Seriously, that's incredibly lame.

(But Snowed, your side makes fun of Obama's name!  Do I?  Have I?  Ever?  I don't think so.)

And then, of course, there are the people who are bent on finding some long-lost proof that Trig is not Sarah's son (spoken about previously in this blog here, so now I don't have to mention a certain former editor of The Atlantic).  Most recently, this mantle has been taken up by some professor at Northern Kentucky University named Brad Scharlott.  This guy, fueled, it seems, by a few Palin-hating blogs in Alaska read by about the same number of people as read mine, has tried to beat the dead horse of Trig Palin's parentage using the same old thought that Bristol Palin must have been Trig's real mother, even though she had a child of her own just over eight months later.  John at Verum Serum gives this idea all the attention it deserves:

The fatal flaw with this theory is that back on September 1, 2008 Bristol Palin was announced to be five months pregnant with a baby who would eventually be known as Tripp Palin. Tripp was born December 28th. Even liberal bloggers noticed that it would be difficult for any woman to give birth to Trig on April 18th and then give birth again on December 28th. How does Dr. Brad Scharlott explain this problem away:

The validity of the logic that Bristol could not have been Trig’s mother depended on two unsupported suppositions – first, that Bristol was indeed five months pregnant at the convention,and second, that Trig was in fact born on April 18. Concerning Trig’s date of birth, the Mat-Su hospital will not confirm whether Trig was born there, let alone when. (Blogger Andrew Sullivan called the hospital and was told there would be no comment regarding Trig Palin.) And no evidence was offered concerning Bristol’s stage of pregnancy. Thus, if Trig was born, say, in January, and if Bristol was only four months pregnant at the convention, not five as alleged, then the logic of the argument that she could not be Trig’s mother falls apart.

So there are two “unsupported suppositions” at work here. Let’s look at those. First, was Bristol really five months pregnant in September 2008? Well, we know she gave birth on December 28th to a health baby which many press outlets reported weighed over 7 lbs. Babies this size are not born at six or seven months of pregnancy, only at term or very close to term.

John goes on, showing photos of proud grandparents, Chuck and Sally Heath, holding what appears to be a newborn Trig on April 18 (for that matter, even People Magazine had, and still has, a birth announcement page for Trig, and that page very clearly was created on April 18, 2008) , so one would think that Dr. Scharlott would give up at this point, but no, he responded:

I am going to revise paper and explicitly say I am not pushing her as the mother. I don’t know who is.

If there was a hoax, ANYTHING is possible.

John entitled his post "Spiral of Stupid", which appears to sum it up nicely.  (Now, for those concerned about my tone, I'm not saying Dr. Scharlott is stupid.  His theory, however, seems to fit the bill.  Honestly, who ever said there are no stupid questions was just wrong.)

(Just a reminder:  this isn't even the worst of it for this week.  That comes later.)

"Uffda" at Barbaric Thoughts had a few things to say about the esteemed Dr. Scharlott as well:

This is what he teaches:

Dr. Scharlott has taught in Journalism at NKU since 1991. He teaches journalism and mass communication courses.

His research focus is on the relationship between communication technology and society. Additionally, he serves the department by coordinating the journalism department and directing the journalism lab…

Dr. Scharlott has been teaching here at NKU since 1994 and teaches courses such as photojournalism, research methods and news writing.

And this is where he found his info and who he was in contact with. And I assume he trolled the other Palin-hating, Trig-truthing blogs populated by losers with pea-sized brains as well.

This guy teaches other people about journalism and journalistic research. Murrow is spinning in his grave.

He goes on to take aim at all the other rumors about Sarah Palin, pointing out that there are also a lot of rumors about President Obama, yet no one takes those seriously, so why are the Palin rumors given any credence whatsoever?

Oh, I remember, it's because it's Sarah Palin, she who must be destroyed.

(Sidenote:  I take no responsibility for Uffda's comments about "pea-sized brains".  I do not presume to speak to that point, but I will yet again point out that they certainly do have a lot of hatred seething inside them.)

But what really crossed the line this week was a beyond-the-pale post at Wonkette titled "Greatest Living American: A Children’s Treasury of Trig Crap On His Birthday" by some guy named Jack Stuef.

This is Jack Stuef:

As to what Mr. Stuef presents in his piece:  before a single word appears, he starts with a sexually explicit picture as part of a collage in which Trig Palin appears.  The words aren't much better:

Today is the day we come together to celebrate the snowbilly grifter’s magical journey from Texas to Alaska to deliver to the America the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.) 

Believe it or not, it gets worse:

What’s he dreaming about? Nothing. He’s retarded. 

Yes, that is an exact quote.  (There was previously a link in that quote, to a video by a known Palin-hater claiming that Sarah Palin regularly used that word to describe her own son.  I took it out because this discussion is already pretty lousy without adding another unsubstantiated, probably untrue, rumor into the mix.)

So, why should I write?  Because I have to be better at it than some of these haters are.

Snowed In vs. Burnout

I suppose I owe the few regular readers I have (who usually say things like "you write Snowed In?" when they see me in person...hopefully they continue to visit after that, but who knows) an explanation for the incredible slowdown in posting frequency in recent months.  In addition to the decisions that weighed on the Snowed family, 2011 has given me pause to think about things, and as most people know, thinking and blogging don't always go hand-in-hand.  At least not around this blog.

See, 2011 started in the worst way possible.  Ten minutes into the new year, I learned that one of my best friends from high school* passed away very unexpectedly.  He was a good friend in days when good friends were hard to come by.  We still tried to get together with my friend every time we visited the old country.**

My friend had had a really, really lousy 2010.  His marriage was in the process of ending non-amicably, and his sister had died unexpectedly in almost the same manner in which he would die several months later.  We tried to reach out to him the one time we visited the old country last year, but we never could get hold of him.  I guess when one is going through hell, one does not always want company.

Anyway, my friend's death put things in perspective for me.  It reminded me that we really aren't promised a tomorrow, at least in this life.  And it made me think about how much time I spend in front of a computer when I could be spending it with family and/or friends.***  Is staying up late writing blog entries that are read by as many as ten people in a day really worth it?  Is tweeting?

And then, a few days later, Gabby Giffords and a bunch of other people were shot, and a dialogue started calling for a "new tone".  Or so we thought at the time.  In one of my very few blog postings in 2011, I wrote about that here.  And so, between the death of my friend and this, I have been asking myself quite often if spreading my cynicism around the interwebs is the best use of my time.  (Given that I am writing this portion of the entry at 11:00pm, the answer to that question, at this exact moment, is definitely no.)

And since then, I've watched as people have thrown the "new tone" right out the window, be they Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians****, or whatever.  Meanwhile, I've kept to tweeting, and determining whether I've embraced any new tone myself is an exercise to the reader, and good luck to you, as I'm about to hit 20,000 tweets (and possibly as many as four of them were really meaningful).  I'd like to think that I'm not perpetuating any hatred toward those with whom I am politically opposed; if nothing else, I'm definitely self-censoring myself a lot more.

But I have gotten a better idea of what the teacher meant when he said not to cast one's pearls before swine.  I made the mistake of assuming that the Twitter bio of someone with whom I was unfamiliar, when it read "church-goer", meant that he might respond positively to a scriptural reference...see, he was raining all sorts of hatred on a couple of people with whom I was familiar because they're in my twitstream.  And, as a "church-goer", that made him my brother, right?  Scripture says "if your brother sins, rebuke him", and so I pointed out, quite gently IMO, that "church-goers", aka Christians, are not to hate their enemies.  And what did I get for this?  I was told, by the aforementioned "church-goer", that I am going to hell, where, he hopes, I will be sodomized for all eternity by Rush Limbaugh.  (The actual quote is much, much rougher, and will not be repeated here.)  Where that expectoration of bile that he wrote came from, I have no idea, but it certainly made me wonder even further what the point is of even trying to have a political conversation with other people.  Is it worth it to tweet or blog political ideas?  Does anyone really want to hear what I think, or is everyone looking for their own personal echo chamber?  I don't really know anymore.

(No, I'm not giving this guy a link; why would you even ask?)

For those who've been around here for a little while, you might have seen the first seeds of this line of thought in entries here, here, and here, in which a former friend flushed a friendship with me over political differences.  (As of this writing, that friend has never responded to me, though I changed my privacy settings on those entries so that the friend would see them when I posted them on Facebook.  I no longer expect to hear from that person.  Ever.)

I could go on about the unending antipathy toward all things conservative in some Austin publications and/or websites, or the continuing use of certain disparaging terms to describe Tea Party members, or the aforementioned decisions affecting the future of the Snowed family, or whatever, but I won't today.  Regardless, it all adds up to the question:  is writing still worth it?

I don't know that that question has a simple answer.  I suppose it's cathartic in some sense for me, but catharsis does not necessarily make for an A-list blog.  (For those asking, I believe my blog is somewhere around V.)  I do believe that I have, at times, put more priority on writing than on things than I should; there are many more important things that should take a higher priority.  (Like, say, sleep.)  I'd still like to post the occasional blog entry, but I can't guarantee that I will be able to post in as timely a manner as...well, actually, from looking back over the history of this blog, timeliness has almost never been a trait found around here.  I guess that's not change...that's more of the same.

So no real answers, just more questions here.  And, in a repeat of my last post, a request for prayers for wisdom.  For all of us.

Good night, one and all.

* No, gentle readers, I'm not still in high school, though the mentality seen in a few posts here might fit in well there.

** "Old country" should be read as "the place where I used to live which is not going to be named here".   

*** This is not to say that I don't have online friends as well, but honestly, family takes precedence. 

**** Had to include them because there is one person in my twitstream who definitely has libertarian leanings who has what can only be termed an unhealthy obesssion with one Sarah Palin.  Ooh, she ran a yellow light?  That's worth at least seven tweets and a 13-paragraph post!