…which is absolutely brilliant and which I will get to shortly. All this came about when, on Facebook, yet another of those smarmy opinionated “status updates” came around, this one in particular, for the fourth time in three days:
“Shame on you America: the only country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment – yet we have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations. 99% of people won’t have the guts to copy and repost this as their status…”
I have no strong feelings on what’s expressed here — donate or not as suits you; makes no more difference to me than whether you put ketchup on your baked potatoes and dip your fries in sour cream. But the arrogance contained therein — shame on everyone in the country who had nothing to do with producing or airing that telethon? Piss off, mate! — galls me just to the point of my sending this out on Facebook:
“Shame on you, Facebook users: far too few of you are composing semi-thought-out positions on potentially divisive issues and force-feeding them to your friends list on a daily basis. 94.7% of people won’t have the temerity to copy and paste this, or be able to define ‘temerity’ without looking it up.”
Which, if you care to look (my Facebook profile is the first under “Links” in the right sidebar here and I will friend anyone who tells me in their request that they got there from here), got more than a few humorous responses. The best of these came from the also brilliant Lairbo, who instead of being humorous himself merely said, “You might like this.”
That link will take you to the aforementioned brilliant blog post, authored by Chris Clarke, which in my opinion is the best thing I’ve read this decade (yes, I’m aware of the date). Make sure you read at least a portion of the dozens (hundreds?) of comments — many are as good as the post itself! By the way, Lairbo says the credit for the find goes to his friend Ed Hall. And since it was “frontpaged” on Fark last night, you may be seeing it elsewhere.
I think I’ll be buying Chris Clarke’s book on the basis of that post alone.
(Finally, a footnote: Also gleaned from Mr. Clarke’s blog was knowledge of a blog traffic counter that is new to me, and now to this blog, and which is — now — visible to you fine folks. It’s down at the bottom of the right sidebar.)
