Terran Franklin

Remember this scene recently?

Here’s ABC’s response:

And here’s Fox News’ response:

But this is my personal favorite:

You go, Steve.

ThiNot too long ago, I wrote about Glenn being wrong to say that the division of this country occurred during the late 60s, instead of the more plausible time of the 2000 Election which I claimed was the moment our country splintered. I made this statement because I believe that, even in that time, the hippie group and the group that watched the moon landings, were still in speaking terms. Sure, they may be misunderstandings, and of course there was drugs involved, but the two philosophies can still pretty much intermingle.

That’s because every generation needs in some part a counter culture for those who want to break away from the social norms of the previous generation. It’s almost expected, and in some degree, should be even welcomed.

What I don’t think I alluded to, but should, is that there really no difference between the hippies of the 1960s and the current Tea Party/9-12 movement of today.  Mainly because—Surprise—their beliefs are in fact very similar.

I refer to a recent post from Pajama Media’s Zombie, which uses a more accurate two-axis political diagram to better place the groups.  Note that this is not the Conservative-Liberal Right-Left Red-Blue scale that’s more in use.  Think of the scale of political control between Totalitarianism and Anarchy.  That’s the horizontal axis.  The vertical axis will deal with whether or not Humanity has an intrinsic value (“That we were endowed by our creator,” or as what Eric will say, “That we were endowed upon our birth…”) or something that can be built and molded into a person’s being, constructed according to the scale.

Here’s that particular scale and I’d like you to notice the lower left corner.  (The horizontal axis might need to be flipped in my book, but Zombie doesn’t do it that way.  To each his own.)  I’ve also put up some points of interests showing where various Blood and Metal characters and kingdoms lie.

Take a look at where Eric is straddling!

Tea Partiers show “A craving for independence,” and so did the Hippies.
Tea Partiers celebrate individualism, and so did the Hippies.
Tea Partiers find “Joy in the freedom offered by self-sufficiency,” away from political pressure and an over-consumerist society, and so did the Hippies.
Tea Partiers accepted a natural order of the way things are, and so did the Hippies.
Tea Partiers prefer the use of peaceful, non-violent, demonstrations.  Hippies are known to stick flowers in gun barrels.
Tea Partiers are against an out-of-control government.  It wasn’t the Republicans who got rioted on in 1968.

It also makes me wonder if there are some drug use hidden within some pockets of the Tea Party.  The group would gain more of my respect it it did.  I mean Come on, how many Tea Partiers would share a beer with Eric, scruffy fur and all?

I expect to see Teabagging Furries in the future.  I’m blabbering.

If you had a quality education—doubtful if you’ve been to that shithouse of a public school—you’ll know how far the Hippies fell from pretty much the time around the Democratic riots on.  The Soviets took the Hippies as their own and molded their socialistic beliefs into the group.  These are the beliefs that guided a good number of them to this day where ideas that would’ve been anathema during the 60s are now prevalent today.  Some might think that the world has flipped flopped when they see what some consider Conservatives turning into American-flavored Hippies dressing up as Besty Ross and Uncle Sam and saying “Down with the Man” and all that, but it’s really a correction in the Hippie movement.

The reality is, the Tea Party of 2010 is in fact the Hippie Movement of the 1960s.  They have the same influences and pretty much share the same believes.  And if by some cases you find yourself blending Tea Party and Hippie into your own personal beliefs, that’s pretty much expected, considering how close they are.  Just as how Zombie closes his passage:

Do any of these apply to you: Are you a Deadhead? Attracted to alternative spiritualties? Avoid chain stores? Love nature? Listen to ’60s music, reggae or jam bands? Smoke pot? Go to Burning Man? Wear ethnic clothing? Like world cultures? You may not be a full-on hippie, but you’ve been influenced by hippie culture. And because of that you may…assumed is hippie politics…has prevented you from embracing, or even truly acknowledging, the anti-authoritarian vim of the Tea Party…you no longer have to resist temptation. Let it all in: your newfound awareness that the Tea Party is the embodiment of the hippie ethos after all.

You’re home at last.

Let Eric share a Bud with you.  Go ahead and smoke that joint; he’ll let you….he doesn’t smoke, though.

PS:  Important Caveat:  Think of quadrants when using this scale, not halves.  People who are too stuck on Conservative/Liberal thinking and would just think of one side of one axis against the other are DOING IT WRONG!   Just because Libertarians share a side with True Anarchists…or Nazis for that matter, doesn’t mean jack shit.

I know it took me a long time to get this set up, and finally I just said, just do a beta launch and work up from there.

The new site for the Scarlet PI brand is up and running ( http://scarletpi.foxfirestudios.net ) with a new HTML5 framework and new artwork from both myself and Brian Rivers.

With this site, I have a link for all the present and future Scarlet PI titles, including first, the first book from SPI fan Joe Doe called “Adventure under the Rising Sun,” and I promise you, this story will make for a great read.  After that, the official Story series will appear, which restarts from the second comic strip and works on from there.  The first book is awaiting some killer illustrations and will be released by Christmas time, if all goes well.

Ah, I do love progress.

And now for the WTF! department:  What I heard on the radio one day this week made me do a double take…it concerns the Autism rate and how it’s being presented in the media.  And how I hate predicting shit.

When I first heard about autismspeaks.org, they had ads on the Odds having someone who’s "on the Spectrum" as Aspies like myself would say, as 1 in 166, and then raised it to 1 in 150.  The truthiness node in my brain–the node that’s connected to my guts–told me that this might go up to 1 in 100 and under.

Turns out truthiness was correct.  The ad I heard wasn’t a typo.  The sites now say that Autism hits 1 in 110 children, and 1 in 70 boys!  Double Emphasize the word ‘boys,’ people.

And I’m calling bullshit on this.  There are several reasons why someone would tip the scales like this–and someone is tipping the scales, I know it.  Someone might be putting shit in the vaccines, which is highly unlikely.  Or they might be spreading this Spectrum a bit too wide, which might be possible, but what I think is definitely happening, and I can tell because of the different rate in boys is something I’ve been dreading:  They’re doing the same thing with Autism as they’re doing with ADHD in the 90s; they’re using it to label children who can’t quite sit still in a school chair.

And God help them if they find a ‘wonder drug’ that would control the effects, and pressure people to take the drug claiming that it’s the ‘cure!’  Now, I’m not a bio-diversity activist, I would not go, "If there is a way for me to be cured of this Autism, I will not take it."  My position is based on what I’ve seen in recent history and what I currently know about how the brain works, especially with chemicals.  With ADHD, they dope up the kids with Ritalin, sometimes to get them to simmer down–usually on the more chronic cases–but more often than not just because they don’t want to deal with them in school, and then they turn in utter horror to find that those kids who were on a steady diet of these pills making the news.  (That’s what I call it when someone brings a gun in school, kills him or herself, or in some way or another becomes the classic an hero in spectacular–and usually violent–fashion.)  It was as if the ADHD was in fact keeping that crazed spree killer in check and by dealing with one nasty condition, they’ve allowed an even worse condition in that same person to come forth.  All those school shooters weren’t off their meds, they were doing all this while on their forced-upon prescription.

(This was the thinking behind Stephen, one of my characters in SPI and will also show up in the Johnny Briz script.  He was forced to take Ritalin for his school-diagnosed ADHD, but he didn’t like who he was on it, so he stood his foot down and refused.  When the pressure got too great, he ran away and joined the Straightedge Punk society.  Regardless of what his parents and some cops said, and especially the school, Steve was firm:  He’s not going back to their normal life with Ritalin in his system.  Turns out he wasn’t hyper, but the more common malady of being bored out of his skull in school.  Didn’t help his parental relations at all, judging from what happened in Murder in Main Street USA showed.)

With that in mind, I ask you:  What if it’s the same thing with us Aspies?  What kind of dark side of our psyche would rear its ugly head if it weren’t for us being on the spectrum.  What sort of monsters would be unleashed if we were ‘cured’ of our ‘condition?’  At times I could feel a wave of white hot anger and rage overtake me at times, especially if I’m emotionally stewing in something.  Sometimes I shudder at what might happen if I let that rage out.

Someone else with a less ‘political’ goal than autismspeaks.org might need to take a second look at what causes Autism and verify where this rate lies.  It’s a bad enough situation to be in without it being overshadowed by groups who might more desire a focus group for whatever goals they need–especially groups that want to keep its members in a disadvantaged status so they could press the government or even other people for funding or some sort of psudo-tolerance–which make it worse than it should be.

As for myself.  I have Autism.  Aspergers, to be exact, but I see it more as something for which Grace is Sufficient rather than some flag to pin on my shoulder.  I have this condition, but this condition is not me.  I’m a writer, and an artist, and I’m working on getting a publisher.  That’s what I want to show first and foremost.  If we can get together on the area I’m interested in, and deal with the quirkiness I show, we can get along just fine.

I haven’t been on recently because I’ve been setting up my new computer, settling into going into writing full time (since there’s no jobs in Granite City) and taking a week’s vacation with the family to an old familiar place in Kentucky Lake.  What got me back here is something that I’ve been waiting for since 11 SEP 2001:  An high-ranking Muslim condemning the attacks and taking Bin Laden to task.

And the person was someone who fought with OBL against the Russians!

Link:  http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/09/10/old-friend-challenges-bin-laden/

“I write to you as a former comrade-in-arms.  We fought together.  We were ready to die together.  Under the banner of Islam, we came to the aid of fellow Muslims in Afghanistan. To this day, I take pride in having fought against the Soviets and the Communists.  We were in the right and no enemy could have stood in our way.  This is no longer the case.  After our victory, we became a curse for the very people we sought to help

This letter has been written by someone who was once a personal guest of Osama bin Laden.  In personal and political terms, this document will trouble bin Laden because the letter asks questions that will embarrass al Qaeda and expose its failures.  Will bin Laden respond.  Time will tell.

What has the 11^th of September brought to the world except mass killings, occupations, destruction, hatred of Muslims, humiliation of Islam, and a tighter grip on the lives of ordinary Muslims by the authoritarian regimes that control Arab and Muslim states?

Your actions have harmed millions of innocent Muslims and non-Muslims alike.  How is this Islam or jihad?  For how much longer will al-Qaeda continue to bring shame on Islam, disrupt ordinary Muslims’ lives, and be the cause of global unrest?

Muslims across the world have rejected your calls for wrongful jihad and the establishment of your so-called ‘Islamic state’ when they witnessed the form this has taken in Iraq.  Even the Palestinians consider your ‘help’ to have had negative repercussions on their cause.

In New York, your un-Islamic actions have caused hurt, loss, pain and anguish to thousands of innocent people and their families.  One consequence is that those Muslims seeking to build a House of God in New York are today being compared to Nazis.  And now we hear that on the anniversary of your attack, an American preacher is even planning to burn the Koran in revenge!”

– Noman Benotman, Muslim in General, in an open letter, excerpted

I say this to Islam:  THIS is what we should have heard by sunset on September 11, 2001.  Only multiplied by 50 billion voices.  Instead all we heard was X Thousands dying, X Billions Fapping—and yes, I’ll say that some of you actually masturbated to the attacks—and half of the whole fucking world blaming America for the attacks in general and George W. Bush in particular.  No wonder we acted like a High School Shooter that past decade.

And no, Mr. Bentoman, it might not be okay to include some insane American calling a good number of Muslims snuff film addicts.  May Mr. Peace Be Upon Him have mercy on us all.

Well, it seems that I had Friday the 13th for a whole fricking week.  I knew that it was a matter of time before things get back on track, and thankfully it started today.

I finally got the replacement screen for my computer—had to send it back once because stupid me didn’t know that Lenovo 3000 N100s come in two sizes—and with some moderate surgery to put it in place, my laptop is now a laptop again!   And tomorrow, my parents are helping me get a new desktop to get fully back on track.  (Once I get all the software put into the desktop, it’ll be perfect for me.  That’ll take a couple months though.)

Hopefully my projects will speed up now that I got working tools to use.  And speaking of tools, Open Office has updated with a good one for proofreading:

Take a good look at the right side of this picture.  This is where the Notes and Comments going.  Usually they’re just little icons on the page that you have to hunt and and click.  But Microsoft Word 2010 had the interesting and very eye-appealing concept of presenting these notes on a strip outside of the page with a line leading to where you placed it.  Along with highlighting and color ink.  It was a perfect addition to your proofreading tools.

It was one of the bigger draws for Microsoft Office (the biggest one, of course, being One Note) but now Open Office 3.3 (the latest version) can do it to, which makes Open Office an excellent free alternative, and the perfect beta-reading tool.  You don’t need to buy anything or install any special programs.  I’m sure that everyone I know has some form of Open Office, and now is a perfect time to update that program for all you proofreaders out there.

And now for something completely different, a check list from:  http://fuzzyxpanda.deviantart.com/journal/34262826/

1. You’ve never met any celebrities.
2. Everyone you know has been on a "Float Trip,"
3. "Vacation" means driving to Silver Dollar City, Worlds of Fun or Six Flags.
4. You’ve seen all the biggest bands ten years AFTER they were popular..
5. You measure distance in minutes rather than miles. For example, "Well, Webb City’s only 20 minutes away."
6. Down south to you means Arkansas.
7. The phrase "I’m going to the Lake this weekend" only means one thing.
8. You know several people who have hit a deer.
9. You think Missouri is spelled with an "ah" at the end.
10. Your school classes were canceled because of cold.
11. You know what "Party Cove" is.
12. Your school classes were canceled because of heat.
13. You instinctively ask some one you’ve just met, "What High School did you go to?"
14. You’ve had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.
15. You think ethanol makes your truck "run a lot better."
16. You know what’s knee-high by the Fourth of July.
17. You see people wear bib overalls at funerals.
18. You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it, no matter what time of day.
19. You know in your heart that Mizzou can beat Nebraska in football.
20. You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. Example: "Where’s my coat at?"
21. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable or grain.
22. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
23. You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.
24. You carry jumper cables in your car and know that everyone else should.
25. You went to skating parties as a kid.
26. You only own three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup.
27. You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
28. You think sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightie.
29. The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page, but requires six pages for sports.
30. You think I-44 is spelled and pronounced "farty-far." (St. Louis only.)
    (Bonus Point:  You still know what “Highway 40” is, even though they call it I-64 now.)
31. You’ll pay for your kids to go to college unless they want to go to KU.
32. You think that "deer season" is a National Holiday.
33. You know that Concordia is halfway between Kansas City and Columbia, and Columbia is halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City, and the Warrenton Outlet Mall is halfway between Columbia and St. Louis.
34. You can’t think of anything better than sitting on the porch in the middle of the summer during a thunderstorm.
35. You know which leaves make good toilet paper.
36. You’ve said, "It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity."
37. You know all four seasons: Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer and Football.
38. You know if another Missourian is from the Boot-heel, Ozarks, Eastern, Middle or Western Missouri soon as they open their mouth.
39. You know that Harry S Truman, Walt Disney and Mark Twain are all from Missouri.
40. You failed World Geography in school because you thought Cuba, Versailles, California, Nevada, Houston, Cabool, Louisiana, Springfield, and Mexico were cities in Missouri. (And they are!)
    (Honestly!  They are, go check the map.)
41. You think a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor.
42. You know what "HOME OF THE THROWED ROLL" means.

It is not official:  I’m now running on 0.8 computers.

The main reason why I wasn’t posting so much is because my laptop is on the fritz; it’s LCD screen went blank.  Not to worry for the moment, I can put a monitor on it and it still works fine.  It’s just the matter of getting the replacement part for it.

And now I found out what that loud pop was last night:  The EMachine that I had for 4 years and I’ve recently put in some new components in it finally died.  Not that I was using it for anything more than just torrents, but I really wanted another Windows 7 machine with Microsoft word so I can use it as a home base.  I thought I could get the software with my next paycheck.

But now…I’ll just be lucky if I have a computer to log on with by that time.

And the employment prospects in this town are nil.

Needless to say I’m really going to need your help on getting a new computer.  E-Mail me at davidgonterman@foxfirestudios.net and let me know if you can help me out.

Gloat and Lulz at your own site, please.  I don’t want to hear it.

Reference Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html

I remember very fondly my College years, and my love for writing stemmed from my finally getting a decent research paper for English 102.  It was on Video Game Violence and I wished I could dig it up somewhere and show it to you.  Not only was it humorous—the quality that got my instructor there to suggest me becoming a fiction writer—but it was well referenced.  I enjoyed taking the tidbits of information and referenced materials and weaving it on the computer screen into a masterpiece.  It was where I had my first taste of actually writing—the process itself—and it was like shooting up heroin or meth.  Even better, according to some.

Some people would never feel that, because most of their creative minds only consist of two things:  Control-C and Control-V.

Plagiarism in any area—especially academia—was always prevalent.  I remember copying entries in a Funk and Wilkins Encyclopedia for my health assignments in that hell hope they call Junior High.  But back in that day it required some sort of work, and there’s always a halfway decent excuse for doing it.  (For me, it was time-economics; too many teachers think that they should devote all of their homework time for them, and all the while looking over their shoulders for two parental figures in case they want to barge in and demand a pound of flesh from you.)

Internet Rule 22:  Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality.
Internet Rule 23:  Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality.

Reference:  http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/30662

But nowadays, with the advent of the Internet, it’s almost ridiculous.  Not just in the concept but also the reasons:  In 2010, plagiarism might as well be replaced with the internet meme, “Copypasta,” because that is all you need to do.  And the reason is a clavier laziness:  The idea is that, if it’s on the internet, it’s common knowledge and acceptable in any level of communication as Public Domain.  Some people just print out Wikipedia articles and put their names on it, and then be surprised that they actually need to write something about the article.  And state the sources behind the account.

"I myself don’t feel it is stealing, because I put all the material into a completely different and unique context and from the outset consistently promoted the fact that none of that is actually by me,"  — Helene Hegemann, on her non-defense of copypastaing in Axolotl Roadkill

This form of laziness is not just in college.  Ask any Deviant.  That referenced image ended up on a T-shirt in Korea.  The designer didn’t even bother to write to the creator even to jest.  Nowadays there is a rising trend to just be like Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanilli when it comes to creativity.  They join Hegemann in raising their noses and going “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.” as they copypasta everything they ever liked into their lives a la P2P and just declare it their creativity.  News flash, folks:  That isn’t creativity.  That is Scrapbooking.  And It’s a very sad artist who looks back at their lives and sees that all they’ve ever done is scrap book their way through life, without any original thought or idea in their constantly empty heads.

And it’s more prevalent than you think:  When was the last good new song you heard, or the latest most original story you’ve really read, or watched an innovative and original television show?  I see Mexican Wrestling and Chinese cartoons for a reason:  Almost everything in America is a copy of someone else:  Everything is generated by computer and is spat out for the masses to consume with compulsion.  It is an age of Boy Bands and of Girl Bands. Of Boy and Girl Bands. Of Girl Bands with a couple of boys in them that look like girls anyway.  Nothing is left to chance, hits are scheduled years in advance.  And Queen is nowhere to be seen.  (Hint:  There’s a clever way to state your references, something I always do.  Such is the charm of HTML.)

“You’re not coming up with new ideas if you’re grabbing and mixing and matching,” said Ms. Wilensky, who took aim at Ms. Hegemann in a column in her student newspaper headlined “Generation Plagiarism.”

“It may be increasingly accepted, but there are still plenty of creative people — authors and artists and scholars — who are doing original work,” Ms. Wilensky said in an interview. “It’s kind of an insult that that ideal is gone, and now we’re left only to make collages of the work of previous generations.”

From the referenced article at top.

It even became part of how we present ourselves on the internet, which is sad by the way.  I think that the Number 1 reason why I’m such flamed on the Internet, and a good chunk of the reason why I’m the Ed Wood of the Internet, is that I present myself as an individual here.  I have an individual and unique identity online.  Granted, that identity becomes skewed into some grotesque curvature at burn sites like ED, but that’s almost expected.  Google my legal name—David Gonterman—and compare it with my Internet-born pen-name—David Foxfire—and you’ll see which one is more realistic and positive.

It’s a lot harder to do than just hide behind your Gay Fawkes mask and Tuxedo all the time,  believe me.  Which is why most people don’t do it online.  It’s mentioned in the article as well:

She contends that undergraduates are less interested in cultivating a unique and authentic identity — as their 1960s counterparts were — than in trying on many different personas, which the Web enables with social networking.

“If you are not so worried about presenting yourself as absolutely unique, then it’s O.K. if you say other people’s words, it’s O.K. if you say things you don’t believe, it’s O.K. if you write papers you couldn’t care less about because they accomplish the task, which is turning something in and getting a grade,” Ms. Blum said, voicing student attitudes. “And it’s O.K. if you put words out there without getting any credit.”

And that comes to the core of who I am, where I’m coming from, and why I have the balls to show my true self here in a place that too many people would just put on brown paper bags and call everyone else gay.  I’m more of a Woodstock type of spirit.  Not only do I believe that everyone else around me is a human being, an American, and someone who is as worthy of life, liberty, and the pursuit as I am, but I believe in creating, not collaging,  myself.  Not just in my works and projects here, but also by my identity, both online and in real life. 

I am not Anonymous.

I am not a copypasta.

I never intended to be.

Expect Me.

Referenced Link:  http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/21/liberal-journalists-suggest-government-shut-down-fox-news/print

My political position isn’t set in a solid red/blue pigeon hole.  You’ve probably seen it further down in the blog.  Where I fall on a given subject will depend on the subject itself, and it doesn’t conform to any group, even Glenn Beck fans.  For example, I’d be all for strengthening the borders, but it should also come with a Migrant Pass for those looking for work, as well as not to mess with Birthright Citizenship, fearing that changing that would only result in tragedies that the wingnuts would just harp over.  It’ll be easier for you to understand once you get inside my Aspergers-ridden mind and find out what is my basic beliefs behind how and what I believe.

One of them is “Don’t fuck with the Constitution.”  It’s the supreme law of the land for a reason.

The other will have to be my ultimate rule, the only law I follow.  It only contains four words.  But I can summarize all of the Law that needs to be made in those four words.  These four words should be printed in the red ink before Genesis 1:1.  It should’ve been spoken by Charlton Heston in his God voice.  These four words are:

Don’t Be An Asshole.

Like the guy in Woodstock said when he announced the concert to be free, we might differ in political views, but the main thing that we have to keep in mind is this:  No matter what, We’re all Americans.  We are all in this country together.  We might differ, and at times we might argue and might need to compromise, but we need to keep in mind that we are all human beings, with lives and jobs and families and kids and all.  We all have the right to exist in a more or less cordial relationship with each other.  We all have the right to be treated with at least enough common decency so that we don’t have to worry about getting shot, mugged, arrested, or killed just by sticking out necks out of our apartments.

I even have a global version of this belief that’s the basis of any international beliefs.  We might come from different countries, but we’re still humans.  Governments might argue and fight, but we as a species need not.

And that comes to the point where I picked up in the above link.  It wasn’t the desire for Liberals to get the government to shut down Fox News.  (Which in some parties is the living implementation of the Fairness Doctrine.  Such is the charm of cable:  The libs get MSNBC, the Cons get Fox News, I get YouTube.)  It was the belief that those who are on Fox News aren’t even human beings.

If you’d see someone on the street, even if it’s someone you’d don’t like (>cough<Phelps>hack<) you’d at least have the urge—and in some cases the duty—to call 911.  Even if it’s just the need to tell the EMTs to get the piece of human shit off your lawn.  It takes a certain form of coldness to just pass along the side without even noticing them and letting the cops find them on accident.  (Glares at Connecticut.)

It’s a completely different form of Asshole when you get your personal lulz out of it.  As if the proverbial Hate Machine has been removed from the Internet and installed into Real Life.

Cue Sarah Spitz, who may have done just that:

If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would.

But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio (update: Spitz was a producer for NPR affiliate KCRW for the show Left, Right & Center), that isn’t what you’d do at all.

In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.

In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.”

Spitz’s hatred for Limbaugh seems intemperate, even imbalanced. On Journolist, where conservatives are regarded not as opponents but as enemies, it barely raised an eyebrow.

I’ve been guilty of–in spite of me being a 9-12er–tuning myself out of the political debate. It tends to be that way whenever discussions that denigrate any president, be it Bush, Clinton, Ba Rock, or anything else.

I can’t ignore the tendency to turn parts of the Main Street Media into something I’d expect to see in the Encyclopedia Dramatica or 4chan’s Random (/b/) board. I’d hate to see what Sarah Spitz would do to a redhead.

At least in the places I’ve listed above, I _expect_ people to laugh and have their lulz over Rush Limbaugh dying of a coronary in front of their eyes. And they’ve done it before.

This is a scary thought which I have been following a lot along this past decade. It started with all this Bush bashing, which trickled down Regan-style to how people relate to one another. Sometimes it’s with very irritating results such as trolling that gets more and more virulent as times goes on–at times even going into Real Live areas–but in recent years it goes to the level of driving someone to suicide, boasting about it on Facebook, and then denigrating the victim as some emo BEEP who likes to cut herself. (I’m referring to Phoebe Prince, but she’s hardly the first to suffer this.)

Now the tendency to do onto others like the Mean Girls did to poor Phoebe is now becoming commonplace in political discourse. This is far from being in Goodwin’s Law territory; this might end up in a travesty far worse than anything in history, not just on display but in people’s hearts.

I quote a hippie of all people who gets what I believe in life: The one major thing you have to remember…is that the man next to you is your brother, and you’d damn well better treat each other that way because if you don’t, then we blow the whole thing, but we’ve got it right there. We might have different views, but we have to agree that, even though we differ, we are still Americans. Or rather, we are still humans.

It’s apparent that a good number of people in journalism–or bloggers for that matter–didn’t get that memo, and I fear for the world–not just America–if that’s the norm.