At first furrow of the brow, I thought it was just New York that was
the “land of experts.” I began noticing
it cropping-up when our newspaper fizzled out and they put a substitute
newspaper online. 101 Ignorant people
began adding their comments to every single article. Bear in mind that the newspaper is, at best,
written at a 6th grade reading level …. No one would confuse it with
the Wall Street Journal. In its online
or occasional printed form, it is also quite depressing: murder, abuse, corruption, violence are its
leading stories… every single day. Norman Vincent Peale would probably suggest
lining your birdcage with it … which I do already (weekend edition). There is not a shred of feel-good that you
can find on any given day. In fact, you
may find yourself reading the classified
just for a sense of the familiar things of life that are not related to
hospitals or courtroom proceedings or jails.
But in order for someone to want to respond to an article aimed at the
middle school reading level, it might indicate they’ve set their sights a bit
low…. just sayin’. There’s one guy who
was mean as hell on wheels every time he wrote.
I’d look for his user name, just to skip over reading the overt
nastiness. People add their comments not
to provide constructive detail for the story – they are just typing to hear
themselves spout-off. And after the
spout, comes the torrent of other commentators who, of the same ilk, name-call
and fly their uneducated opinions back as if anything they say will change the
facts.
Note to all: “Your opinion is
only as good as the data that supports it.”
I began to think of these people’s comments with the same eagerness of
having sand in a wet bathing suit: if
you want to be in the ocean, you’re going to get wet and unfortunately, some
sand might be involved. Truly they chafe
me. They chafe me because none of them
seem to have gainful occupations that could lend expertise to an opinion. They are just armchair quarterbacks saying
how something “should have” played-out.
They act like they know better than the cop, than the lawyer, than the
professional person who is out there just trying to fight crime and put in a
good day’s work like the rest of us.
Again, I thought it was just the online commentators who thought they
were experts. Then I stepped back and widened
the lens of the social kaleidoscope. Oh
no, there are more of them! And then I
watched the role models: the talking
heads.
By “talking head” I reference anyone who has a talk show that chews the
fat of current political and sociological issues. Naturally, they stack the deck of whom they
invite for guests. And they don’t treat
guests with differing opinions with much respect, as a general rule. I heard just last night that one of the more
famous talk show hosts, a former actress, invited a reality TV Judge to her
show…. only to foster an environment of shouting-her-down when the disagreeable
opinion was voiced by the Judge. The
talk show host, as later explained by the Judge, followed said guest out the
door telling her incessantly to F-off.
Wow. And this is the way we treat
guests on our tv shows? I just changed
my mind: I don’t want to be on tv
anymore.
Where are the mothers of society that would rise up and say: “I don’t care that you have your own TV Show
and are 55+ years old! If I hear you
cuss out a Judge and dishonor our family the way you did, ever again, you’re
going to be very sorry indeed. I’m your
mother, y’hear now? And wipe that smirk
off your face or I’ll take it off for you!”
And the smirk would be gone, because we don’t mess with Mad Mothers.
I am wondering how anyone on the extremes – far left or far right –
think we can unify our country if we cannot speak to each other like civilized
human beings. Take Maxine Waters, for
instance, please take her. Anywhere… preferably to another planet or across the
ocean. For her to insist that her
political followers shout-down people who disagree smacks of removing first
amendment rights by – dare I say it – bullying
behavior. Why do we insist on
anti-bullying programs in school, and yet tolerate the role modeling of
bullying in the public arena? Is that
what we want to teach our young women to be:
angry, disrespectful high-profile bullies? I think not.
Ms. Waters also said for certain people to be denied service in
restaurants. I am appalled. I believe Dr. King is rolling in his grave at
this suggestion. He was a man of change,
yes, but also a man of peace…. And I read it once in a very revered book that
said: “There is a future for the man of
peace.” What is the opposite of that
statement? There is NO FUTURE for the
man/woman of discord.
It used to be a liberating experience in the classroom to be able to
intellectually debate two points of view on an issue with respect and proofs
and good data. It was like a good
fencing match. On guarde! Now to try to do that in this culture is to invite mayhem. People don’t know enough to subject their
emotions to legitimate expressions of disagreement. There needs to be no room for name calling. And that goes for the Senate and the House as
well. Sometimes I wonder if the Land of
Experts includes a very large population of beauticians because so many people
make negative comments about and cartoons of a certain president’s hair. Come on now, really.
I have encountered this know-it-all mentality in the common things of
life as well. Last week I spent the day
at a beach on Lake Ontario. Enroute
home, I swung into one of the country communities of the north to a pleasant
little ice cream shop. I reviewed my
choices and selected: coffee-chocolate
hard ice cream on a sugar cone. The smiling
young woman handed me an ice cream cone with two very generous scoops of ….
White ice cream …. And I went to my car and sat down. The first two preliminary bites were followed
by mental notes: “um… not chocolate.” And:
“um… not coffee.” I tried to
figure out what it was, perhaps a sweet cream base? And it was this very non-descript ice cream
flavor that left me staring at my ice cream cone asking if I even WANTED to
finish it. It was like eating the flavor
“Nothing.” Now, it’s gotta be pretty darn
low on the approval scale if me, the Queen of Ice Cream, is asking this
question: Do I still want this cone? I struggled between just driving off and
dealing with sub-par, or going back and making a scene, which I do not look
forward to doing.
I re-approached the window with a bit of reserve. “Hi. I
just wanted you to know this is neither chocolate, nor coffee. I don’t know what it is. I can’t tell.” Response:
“It’s coffee.” “No, it’s not.” “Yes.
It’s coffee.” “Girls. I drink coffee every SINGLE day. I know what coffee tastes like; it’s NOT
coffee.” A girl from the background
steps up and says brightly: “How can I
make this right for you?” YES. PERFECT CUSTOMER SERVICE! She adds, “Would you like another flavor?” I smirk and reply, “I wish you had coffee…. But
I will take German chocolate.” (By the
way, German chocolate is supposed to be a very light chocolate with a hint of
coconut in it.) She hands me a chocolate
ice cream that has these giant almond-shaped chocolate pieces …. which is not a
nut of any kind, nor is it a caramel or fudge center. Again, I couldn’t make it out. Now I know that I am aging, but in my ice
cream discernment, I do not falter. They
will be putting my body in a casket someday and they can ask me who has the
best Crazee Coffee ice cream ever …. and the very last thing they will see
before they close the lid on me is a thumbs-up for Gannon’s in the Valley.
And, to round this out, just a few minutes ago, a complete stranger
sent me a message online. I am re-homing
a parrot that I suggested in the advertisement may be used for breeding. The bird just came of maturity LAST YEAR by
laying some eggs. Huh. All this time I thought it was a male bird. So this bird has lived 50% of its anticipated
life expectancy and has just shown signs of propagation. I think it is reasonable to offer it as a
breeder. This complete stranger wrote to
me suggesting that this was the equivalent of “why don’t you just KILL this
bird?”
My response to this particular resident of the Land of Experts was not
patient. I told her if she had no
interest in buying the bird she should reserve her ignorant comments to
herself. But at least I didn’t say she
was ugly and her mother dresses her funny.
I wanted to, even though I have never seen her. Without having that data, my sarcasm was
curtailed and I had to be a hair more civil.
Imagine.
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