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Can You Justify Dropping The N-Bomb In Anger?

The question in today’s headline should sound absurd to you because it is. There’s never an acceptable reason to use a word that’s so hurtful and hateful. And yet people justify it all the time.

Mood music:

Last week I pointed out an example: an anti-Obama bumper sticker that said “Don’t Re-nig.” I lamented that racism was alive and well, and the response was interesting.

One friend was (and probably still is) angry with me. He said my word choice suggested that anyone who dislikes Obama is a racist and that it hurt. At best, he said, I had an example of one racist idiot or a hoax.

I did research the matter before opining. The stickers were sold on a site called Stumpy Stickers — an operation that sold a variety of racist stickers. Fortunately, the furor on Facebook over a picture of the “Don’t Re-nig” sticker led to that site shutting down. The fact that there would be enough hatred out there for a company to profit from the rage told me that there’s still an undercurrent of racism out there, so I said something.

Have we come a long way since the days of Jim Crow? Absolutely. And, I honestly know of nobody in my circle of friends and family who would qualify as a racist. But it’s still out there.

It’s not just about blacks. There’s still a lot of Jew bashing out there, for example.

I also don’t see this as being about whether you like or dislike the policies of President Obama. Personally, I find a lot of fault in how Obama has done things. I prefer centrist governing and he’s too far left for my tastes, just as I felt George W. Bush was too far in the other direction. Bill Clinton was more my speed.  But that’s just my view.

Most of the time, people have good, honest disagreements about politics but still manage to be good to each other and not take it personally.

When someone puts something like a “Don’t Re-nig” sticker on their vehicle, they’ve crossed the line. It’s entirely possible — maybe even probable — that people who bought these stickers are not racist. Chances are they’re just angry as hell that their views and needs aren’t being represented. Another friend suggested just that, writing on my Facebook page:

As I don’t know the people with the car, I can’t make a real judgment – this person may indeed be a racist -but are you sure the sticker was chosen because the owner is racist or because the owner is angry and expressing his anger with mean words? Because people often use harsh, angry, hurtful language when they’re mad to express their feelings and to try to hurt the “other” person – because they feel hurt themselves. That isn’t necessarily an indication the person is racist (or a man/woman hater, or – it just indicates they are angry and hurt. Kids who yell “I hate you” at their parents don’t, but they do feel injured and are lashing out. Same thing happens to adults – it just manifests differently.

One bumper sticker, one name called in anger, one vulgarity does not offer any particular insight into the views of another human being -particularly when such words are yelled in anger.

My response was this:

I don’t disagree about that, but when someone puts a sticker on their vehicle with something that’s going to hurt a lot of people, even if only out of anger and not out of raw bigotry, it says something about the person. I see this stuff on the left and right. I thought some of the Bush-bashing bumper stickers were out of control too. But in this case the N-word has been tossed out there, which takes the discussion to a whole new level. How we express our anger is important.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when some of my more liberal friends suggested the horrendous federal response was because Bush didn’t like blacks and other minorities, I was furious. Anyone who had taken the time to study his background should have known better than to suggest that. Hell, both of his secretaries of state were African Americans. The tragically poor response to Katrina was about many things. Racism was not one of them.

I point this stuff out because I see stupidity on the left and right these days, and I’m tired of people suggesting my own positions are born from a particular political ideology.

In the final analysis, I think there’s too much hair-trigger anger in the world today. Blame politics. Blame the economy. Blame religious tensions. I think we should always be thinking about how we talk to each other. In that regard, I can’t ever think of a good reason to use the N-word or any other word that denigrates someone’s culture, faith, skin color or language.

I say this as someone who is not squeaky clean. When I was younger and dumber, I used the N-word. A lot.

I have never been a bigot. All I ever judged someone by was how they treated me and others.

But I’ve always been a button pusher. When I was a teen and early 20-something, I thought it was perfectly fine to use hurtful words to get a reaction. I worked in my father’s warehouse with Spanish-speaking guys from all over South America. They would call me names and I’d respond with something inflammatory against Latinos.

At the time I was also in a band and listening to a lot of metal-infused Hip-Hop. The main example was Ice-T’s band Body Count. These rappers dropped N-bombs like it was nothing. If blacks were doing that, I reasoned, it must be perfectly OK. I lived by that stupid belief with relish.

I eventually grew up. Looking back, using those words is one of the things I regret the most. And I have plenty of regrets.

So when I see it today — whether it’s used out of political anger or humor — I’m going to say something about it.

Get over it.

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Racism Is Alive And Well

I’d like to think those who dislike Obama simply have differences with him over economic and social policy. I’d like to think that in 2012, people don’t hate based on skin color.

Then I see something like this:

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Shame, Denial After Fatal Haverhill House Fire

A fatal house fire isn’t usually a topic for this blog. But the way people are behaving after such a tragedy in Haverhill, Mass., is a shameful case study in denial and lack of personal responsibility — human conditions that can damage us and those we love.

Mood music:

The son of the victim is lashing out at firefighters, saying their training should have been enough for them to get his mom out in time. Firefighters are blaming the mayor for the tragedy because of staff cuts to the fire department.

It’s the latter part that makes me want to hurl.

Here’s some detail from my former employer, The Eagle-Tribune:

HAVERHILL — The death of an elderly woman in an early morning inferno yesterday torched a political maelstrom, with firefighters saying she may have survived had Mayor James Fiorentini not cut two men from their rescue truck.

One firefighter went so far as to say the mayor should be “charged with murder.” Fiorentini and public safety officials maintain the $200,000 cut and the resulting loss of two firefighters to man the rescue truck played no role in the death of 84-year-old Phyllis Lamot.

“No amount of manning would have changed this tragedy,” said Public Safety Commissioner Alan DeNaro.

Firefighter Todd Guertin, a leader in the firefighters union, said Fiorentini “should be charged with murder for taking the rescue truck out of service over a dispute with the union.”

Death is always hard to deal with, especially when it comes like this. Loved ones left behind will obsess about who’s to blame and what could have been done differently until it hurts too much to think anymore.

If you’re in the business of saving lives, it has to be terrible to see someone die on your watch.

The sickening part of this case is that firefighters used a tragedy to score political points. It’s something that happens all too often in this city. I wholeheartedly agree with The Eagle-Tribune editorial on the matter:

The Haverhill firefighters union’s use of the tragic death of an elderly woman in a house fire to score a political point against the mayor is yet another black mark on the scandal-ridden organization.

At the same time, there needs to be an independent investigation into the death of Phyllis Lamot in the Wednesday morning fire at 477 Washington St.

At issue is the staffing level on a rescue truck after Mayor James Fiorentini cut $200,000 from the department to cover a shortfall in the overtime budget. The crew of the truck was reduced from three to one.

The firefighters said at a press conference yesterday afternoon that, had the rescue truck been fully staffed, firefighters could have entered the burning three-decker and saved Lamot, 84.

One firefighter in particular, Todd Guertin, a member of the union leadership, said yesterday morning that the family of the woman should sue the city for wrongful death and that Mayor Fiorentini is guilty of murder.

“This was a political move when the city has over $10 million in reserves,” Guertin said. “The mayor should be charged with murder for taking the rescue truck out of service over a dispute with the union.”

That is an appalling statement for which both the city and the union should demand an apology.

Exactly.

Grief does things to the mind. It causes reasonable, sane people to make outrageous statements. It puts people on the defensive. And we deny realities that are right in front of us.

When all is said and done, it’s pointless to place blame.

Firefighters went to the scene and did their job. Unfortunately, a woman didn’t make it out alive. It sucks, but it happens.

The city cut resources from the fire department because of a budget crunch. It sucks, but it happens.

We can never know if a couple more people would have made the difference.

The investigation The Eagle-Tribune calls for should happen. We may well learn something from it.

In the meantime, the firefighters union should stop trying to lay blame at someone else’s feet.

Death is a risk that comes with the job, whether the victim is a firefighter or someone he’s trying to save. You knew that when you signed up.

Own it.

Photo credit: PAUL BILODEAU/The Eagle-Tribune -- A firefighter continues to clean-up after a two-alarm fire at 477 Washington St. in Haverhill early Wednesday morning. One woman died and two others were taken to the hospital.
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The Hypocrisy Of This Contraception Debate

Updated March 14 with this example of outrage from the Arizona legislature.

I don’t get why the Republican Party is bogging itself down in this contraception debate. In pandering to the religious groups, they’re ignoring the economic woes people care about most. That’s especially silly because the economy if an issue that’s big trouble for President Obama.

Would it not be wise to stick to the issue your opponent is weakest on? That’s my big question. But for me, a devout Catholic who is told every day by my church leaders that contraception is against God’s plan, the debate is more about hypocrisy.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/60b7frLVoTc

When the right gets into this battle, which always involves a discussion about the lack of God in government affairs, it’s the same to me as the left suggesting government do everything for us. The right scornfully calls this socialist activism, which God supposedly frowns upon. But isn’t it also social activism to tell us whether we should have prayer in school, a law against gay marriage or a ban on contraception?

I always try to hold true to my Catholic beliefs. Among other things, I oppose abortion. But that’s what I choose to believe.

Religious freedom to me doesn’t mean the right for one religious denomination to control what everyone does. It’s really about the right for people to practice their religious beliefs regardless of whether it’s Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Atheism without fear of government punishment.

I have the freedom to try to be the best Catholic I can be, but in the end it’s my responsibility, not the government’s. I agree with my friend Lori MacVittie, who said “Never confuse the will of the majority with the will of God.” She’ll probably disagree with much of this post, but that’s fine by me. I like when the truly smart people disagree.

As for contraception, the Catholic Church doesn’t believe in it. But it’s not forbidden in every religion. So why are Republicans going at it as if it were?

This debate has turned mean. I’ve never really cared for Rush Limbaugh. He’s a blowhard who throws bombs because his ratings go up whenever he does. That’s why he called Georgetown Law Student Sandra Fluke a slut for testifying before Congress in favor of birth control as part of health care coverage. Calling someone a slut is ratings gold. Those who advocate a boycott of his sponsors miss the point. The only way to silence this asshat is to get people to stop listening to him. When people stop showing up, that’s when the sponsors walk away.

Rush knows this. He also knows there are enough mean-spirited people in the country to keep his career coasting along.

Where does God stand on the matter? A lot of people think they know the answer, but they don’t, really. They are not God, and neither am I.

All I know is that people are mean in how they choose to stand up for their beliefs. As a Catholic, I fail to see where the Christian love and grace is in that.

This is not a defense of the Obama Administration or the left.

This is simply the lament of a guy who believes in God and in pragmatic government.

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Obama Killed Andrew Breitbart? You People Are Stupid

Many of us are shocked this morning to hear that Internet publishing giant Andrew Breitbart is dead. He’s had plenty of haters over the years because of his conservative zeal.

But when folks start suggesting he was murdered by the “liberal,” “socialist” President Obama, I find myself contemplating the idea that the human race may not be smart enough to survive. Also revolting is that some people are celebrating his death because they simply don’t share his ideology.

Mood music:

Personally, I’ve always been indifferent about Breitbart. He passionately expressed his opinions and that was his right. When passion oozes from a person’s pores, someone will inevitably get uptight about the smell. I have my own haters, and I know that’s just the way it is.

But the suggestion in this article that Obama had him offed is human idiocy at its worst. The post displays 25 tweets from people convinced that this death was a White House job. Some examples, taken from the post:

“Does anyone else think this is foul play? Did Obama send his Chicago goons to murder Breitbart?”

“Andrew Breitbart must have been getting too close to the truth about Barack Obama so he was offed! Typical Obama move!”

“Andrew Breitbart threatens Obama at CPAC with a video then suddenly dies? This must be investigated as an assasination Obama. WTF?”

I won’t speculate on how he died. I’ll just wish him a peaceful rest and extend my condolences to his family. As for the conspiracy theorists, I’ll just end with this:

Being stupid on Twitter is your right. You enjoy freedom of speech like the rest of us.

But don’t think for a second that your mindless drivel makes you look like the thoughtful intellect you think you are.

That goes for those of you who think the death of a human being is worth cheering.

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The Changing, Frightening Face Of Plagiarism

Plagiarism used to be such a simple thing: If you stole someone else’s work and passed it off as your own, you were a liar and a thief. But in the cyber world, it has become something much grayer, though no less sinister.

Mood music:

In the security community I write about for a living, sites such as Attrition.org have vast sections devoted to those who plagiarize. To be called out for such an act is to be given the kiss of death. Once you’re exposed as a plagiarist, your career is pretty much over, though plenty of busted people have gone on to fool others in their new careers as “consultants.”

I was talking about all this with a friend, Dave Marcus, yesterday. Plagiarism is seen as a growing pandemic in the 21st Century, the result of everyone’s ability to post someone else’s content in their blogs without giving proper credit. In most cases, the plagiarist gets away with it because in the tidal wave of content in the digital age, it’s damn near impossible to keep track of what everyone is doing. I have a lot of respect for sites like Attrition.org for at least trying to keep watch.

But here’s the thing that scares me: These days, you can be a serial plagiarist and not even realize you’re doing it. It’s so easy to find information on sites like Wikipedia and copy and paste. Some call it research. But when you use it without sourcing it, it’s plagiarism.

I’ve been in journalism for 18-plus years and I’ve always lived in fear that at some point I might falter and forget to adequately source someone. Staying clean from that was already difficult enough before the Internet became the fast and easily-switched-on fire hose it is today.

In my day job, I write about a lot of research reports. The name of the game is to take the complex detail and break it down into language most of us can understand. In this blog, I draw from a lot of studies about mental health, addiction, etc.

I do a ton of cutting and pasting. In my security blog, I’ll use chunks straight from the horse’s mouth, first identifying who it’s from and then italicizing the borrowed passages. It’s my way of keeping it honest. I do the same thing here.

Other times I’ll copy and paste and then convert something into my own words. In those cases, I tell you where it’s coming from. But it’s also easy to see how simple the careless omissions of credit can be.

In the push to get a piece of writing finished, oversights will happen — no matter how hard the scribe tries to avoid it.

The result of all this is that plagiarism is becoming something that’s no longer black vs. white, good vs. evil. It’s becoming something more like sleepwalking. You get up in the middle of the night and walk around the house. Someone else in the house might see you and make note of it. But the next morning you wake up with no memory of it. As far as you’re concerned, you spent the entire night in bed.

It’s more forgivable when you don’t know you walked into a priceless vase in the middle of the night and sent it crashing down the stairs in a million pieces. But it’s still a sorry state of affairs.

The point of all this is that I never want to steal someone else’s work. But I’m awake to how easy it is to slip up.

If I ever do, I won’t feel evil. But I will feel terrible, all the same.

I can promise you that I’ll always do everything I can do get it right.

Pluto's_Judgement_Day_5

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A Rebellious Catholic’s Analysis Of Rick Santorum

That Rick Santorum really sets people off. He doesn’t like gays serving in the military, or women for that matter. He thinks Satan is taking over America through rock music. People either love him or want to see him vaporized.

Mood music:

Is he really THE presidential candidate for true Catholics, as some of my church friends suggest? Is he really the evil, hateful soul some of my non-Catholic friends make him out to be?

The following is my take on the former Pennsylvania senator, who is giving Mitt Romney hell in the fight for the Republican nomination for president. It’s how I, as a devout Catholic, see him.

Let me be honest up front: I never liked Rick Santorum when he was a senator. I always found his passion for mixing church with state maddening. I even hated that smirk of his.

As I’ve gotten older and found my faith, I still don’t like him much. But I don’t hate him like I used to. He’s fighting for his beliefs, which is the right of every American. I still think some of his rhetoric is zany, but he’s as free to engage in stupid talk as everyone else.

In my opinion, he would be a disaster as president. But that’s just me.

As a guy who goes to church every Sunday, takes his faith seriously and spends a lot of time with people in his church community, I see Santorum as a reflection of the people I mix with every day.

I have some close friends that are far more socially conservative than I could ever be. Mine is a much more rebellious brand of Catholicism. I refuse to view homosexuality as a disease or a lifestyle choice for two reasons: I don’t think people choose to be gay, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them for being gay. I reject the idea that your vote for president should be solely based on whether the candidate supports Roe V. Wade. If you have to label me pro-life or pro-choice, I’d have to say I’m pro-life. Abortion as birth control is evil to me. But I also think the labels are stupid. Pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion as a lot of my friends make it out to be. And hating abortion certainly doesn’t make you pro-life.

But I’m not voting for someone on that issue alone. You can share my views on abortion but be incompetent in every other way. I’m voting for president, not bishop.

Like I said, I’m a rebellious Catholic. All that matters to me is that I have Jesus in my life. The rest is politics perpetuated by human beings.

Santorum is like a lot of my church buddies. Gay people make him squirm. He also gets self righteous and points his nose down at people who are not 100 percent like-minded. But I don’t think he’s evil.

A lot of the friends I disagree with on these issues would give you the shirt off their backs. We look after each other’s children and have complete trust in one another. We even like a lot of the same music. Some of the most religiously devout people I know are Metallica fans.

We don’t really discuss politics. We talk about our jobs, our families, Boy Scout activities and cigars (though I don’t smoke them anymore). We have deep discussions about addiction and mental illness, because we all have it in our families. On the rare occasion politics enters the conversation, we bust each other’s balls, laugh and move on.

I suspect Rick Santorum is pretty much the same way when he’s not in front of the cameras. He’s probably a decent human being who would help his neighbor in a time of need.

But if any of my friends ran for office, I wouldn’t vote for them.

It’s nothing personal. I just find some of their ideas zany, and they feel the same about me.

Santorum doesn’t strike me as evil. He does, however, strike me as the wrong guy to put in the White House.

Rick Santorum (Credit: Reuters/Brian Losness)
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Screw You, Cardinal Egan

As a devout Catholic, I am outraged by Retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan’s “regrets” about apologizing for the priest sex abuse scandal. Here is a man who thinks the Church “did nothing wrong” in how it handled the crisis.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/GHbNxzi2vvQ

Countless children were sexually molested by men who had vowed to serve God. The Catholic Church decided to cover it up and move pedophile priests to other parishes where they could prey on others, instead of reporting them to the police like they should have done.

A decade after the scandal was blown wide open, the stains remain. A lot of healing and forgiveness has happened, but there are people who are never coming back. There are adults who will have nightmares for the rest of their lives because of what these priests did to them. There are a lot of good people who would make good priests who will never go down that path because of what happened.

And what does Egan have to say about all this in an interview he did with Connecticut Magazine? He regrets apologizing for the Church’s criminal behavior.

“I don’t think we did anything wrong,” he said.

He says he wasn’t obligated to report abuse claims because he inherited the cases from his predecessor. In other words, since the evil didn’t happen on his watch, he was under no obligation to do anything about it.

The problem, Cardenal Eagan, is that as a servant of God, you are obligated to do something about evil.

Here’s more from The Huffington Post:

In court documents unsealed in 2009, Egan expressed skepticism over sexual abuse allegations and said he found it “marvelous” that so few priests had been accused over the years.

In the recent interview, Egan was asked about a letter he wrote to parishioners in 2002 saying “if in hindsight we discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry.”

“First of all I should never have said that,” Egan responded, according to the magazine. “I did say if we did anything wrong, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

Egan said in the interview that he sent accused priests to treatment.

“And as a result, not one of them did a thing out of line. Those whom I could prove, I got rid of; those whom I couldn’t prove, I didn’t. But I had them under control.”

Egan also said he was not surprised that “the scandal was going to be fun in the news, not fun but the easiest thing to write about.”

As for reporting claims to authorities, he said, “I don’t think even now you’re obligated to report them in Connecticut.”

“I sound very defensive and I don’t want to because I’m very proud of how this thing was handled,” Egan said.

Pathetic.

I’ve been asked many times over the years how I could have Faith in an institution that has done so much evil in its history.

My answer is the same now as it’s always been:

I believe Jesus Christ died for our sins. Believing in Him is my lifeline in a life where I’ve made many, many mistakes.

The Christian faith is like any other good thing on this Earth: There are always flawed mortals around to distort it and use it for their own personal gain. I believe in Democracy, even if it’s crawling with corrupt politicians right now.

The idea is what I try to live by. Not the rules and politics that contradict what it’s all about.

Since Egan just set us back a few years in the healing-progress department, I’m digging up some advice I wrote last year for some people who were in the middle of becoming Catholic. Whenever charlatans like Egan talk, I always try to remember these points:

1. Don’t Succumb to “Happily-Ever-After” Syndrome.

Even though I knew deep down that it wouldn’t be the case, I approached the days leading up to my conversion in a high of sorts; feeling like it would be happy forever more once I was Baptized. In some ways that is how it turned out. But for me, things got a whole lot worse before they got better.

The sins I had accumulated up to that point were forgiven that night, but the demons remained a few steps behind me, ready to trip me into another garbage can.

I continued to suffer from the paralysis of OCD. I continued to give in to my self-destructive impulses [More on that in “The Most Uncool Addiction“].

I continued to indulge my over-sized ego and stay absorbed in all things me.

Some of my most self-destructive, addictive behavior took place AFTER my Baptism.

2. Peace IS NOT The Absence of Chaos. It’s a State of Mind (or, if you really want to get technical, a state of being in God’s Grace).

My own world used to be pure chaos. Self-loathing dripped from my pores and I had a craving for peace. I wanted all the violence and worry to go away. It didn’t.

But that’s OK.

I’ve learned that peace is a state of mind, not the absence of chaos. It’s a feeling and mental clarity that comes over you as your Faith deepens. It didn’t just smack me in the back of the head one morning. It’s a state of mind that slowly grew over time.

3. What You Get is Only As Good As What You Put In

Here is what you might call an open secret:  spiritual well-being isn’t just handed to you like an entitlement or a birthday present. You have to work hard at it everyday. Working it takes many forms.

Service is a big one. Getting to Mass every week is important.

But you have to do more. You have to go on retreats like Cursillo, which will be as life-changing an event for you as the Baptism was. I’ve been on two retreats since my conversion: Cursillo and an ACTS retreat the year before that. The soul searching and sharing you do on these weekends is priceless.

Then there are programs like Lenten Longings, where you keep studying Scripture and discussing it in a group, in context with your daily life struggles.

I’ve gotten a lot from lectoring as well. By getting up in front of everyone and doing the readings, I’m better able to actually understand what the readings mean. And when you actively participate in the Mass, you’re less likely to fall asleep.

And go to Confession often. You won’t believe how good it feels to get rid of the mental trash until you do it.

4. Don’t Let Politics Get in the Way

An active Parish community is like any other community: There are a lot of folks with strong ideas who will butt heads, especially in a Parish like ours where there’s a school attached.

You also might not like everything the priest tells you every week.

People always use these things as excuses not to practice their Faith. Don’t let it happen to you.

All that matters is your own relationship with God. You have to move beyond the politics of human nature and remember the big picture.

I like to compare it to American government. We may not like the President or the Senator in office at any given time, but most of us stay devoted to our country and way of life. So maybe you have a problem with the priest. The priest is human like the rest of us, open to making mistakes. But most of the ones I’ve known do their best and get it right more than they get it wrong.

And there will always be bad seeds out there who twist religion to fit their own sinister goals, taking a lot of people down the hellhole along the way. The Manson Family is a perfect example.

Just remember: It comes down to you and your relationship with God.

If you invest too much of your Faith in the organizational/political/administrative structure, you’re looking in the wrong place and will almost certainly be dissapointed.

5. Plan to Fight the Good Fight to Your Dying Breath

I’ve come a long way in my spiritual growth. With God’s help I’ve overcome crippling addiction and depression and I know more peace today than I ever have.

But boy, I can still screw up with the best of ‘em.

My most destructive addictive behaviors are under control, but I’m always tap dancing from one habit to another. [More on that in “Addicted to Feeling Good: A Love-Hate Story“].

There are still days where I come to church with a crappy attitude. My mind will be on everything else but God. A perfect example is in the post “Rat in the Church Pew.”

I still let my ego get the best of me, especially in my career as a Journalist. I’m easily distracted by shiny objects. 

They are all things I need to work on. I can do so much better than this. But I used to be a lot worse.

In summary, it’s a life-long journey. You’ll keep making mistakes.

But keep your heart and head in the right place and everything will be fine.

Things WILL be fine — even if people like Cardinal Egan keep trying to get in the way.

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To Those Who Can’t Stop Trollin’

“Fact: Energy powered by asshole fumes is unsustainable.” — Bill Brenner

I get self-righteous in how I look down on people for trolling — throwing cryptic statements on the social networks that beg for attention. But I’m guilty of it, too.

Mood music: 

I can’t help but think of the Stooges song “Trolling” — especially these lyrics:

You can’t tell me this is not a suave thing to do
You can’t tell me ’cause I know you’d do it too

I’m trollin’
We’re trollin’
Baby I’m trollin’
Baby we’re trollin’

When it comes to feeding the egos of people who lack self confidence — or have an overabundance that needs constant stroking — social networking is as addictive as any other narcotic.

I tend to look down on people for doing this stuff, especially when they make these kinds of statements:

“Unbelievable.”

“Well, my day just turned to shit.”

“Some people need to get a fucking life!”

The deliberate lack of information on who is sparking this emotion and why ensures that the poster will get a flood of comments from the curious. There’s some debate over whether the above statements technically fit the definition of trolling, but to me they fit the criteria of people dropping a fishing line in the water hoping someone will bite.

On further reflection, I realize that headlines are designed for the trolling effect. Since I write many headlines a day as a writer and editor, I have to take responsibility for that. Some headlines are designed to grab your attention and make you curious enough to click on the link. It’s Journalism 101 stuff. But it can be as bad as the cryptic attention-seeking posts.

Also annoying but universal are the posts that involve inflammatory, bomb-throwing statements designed to spark a furor.

Let’s stop for a second and look at some definitions. First, this definition from Wikipedia:

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

Actually, I prefer this definition from Urban Dictionary:

Being a (expletive deleted) on the internet because you can. Typically unleashing one or more cynical or sarcastic remarks on an innocent by-stander, because it’s the internet and, hey, you can.

Guy: “I just found the coolest ninja pencil in existence.”
Other Guy: “I just found the most retarded thread in existence.”

When is it useful to be a troll and when is it not? Here’s how I see it right now: Going on a tirade about a particular company or individual isn’t bad in itself. Some entities won’t do a thing to improve their behavior unless they become the focus of negative torrents of tweets. It’s sad, but that’s the reality. But trolling gets ugly when it involves name-calling and attacking a person’s character.

After reading a draft of this post, my wife noted that the dictionaries she consulted put an almost universally negative spin on the word.

The poisonous trolling is like porn: You know it when you see it.

I went looking for examples of good trolling vs. bad trolling, with the hope that we all might learn something.

I spent a long time going in and out of different forums where people opined about good trolling vs. bad trolling, but found all the usual responses. A good troll puts things out there to make us think about how to do things better. A bad troll is just someone who tears people down to get a reaction.

Those examples probably oversimplify the two sides, though.

The best “good troll vs. bad troll list” came from a site I had never heard of before. As far as I can tell, the site is about body building.

Since that’s a different topic and culture than what I cover here, I was reluctant to use their example. But despite the ridicule I’m probably opening myself up to, I like this list quite a bit, so here you have it — some of the examples from a website called Testosterone Nation:

(1) A good troll causes readers to think, or to laugh.
(2) A bad troll makes people mad for no reason.
(3) A good troll makes people mad for a good reason, usually by challenging their cherished beliefs.
(4) A bad troll never works out.
(5) A bad troll uses personal insults instead of wit.
(6) A good troll is very subtle, so that people are not quite sure if the thread/post is genuine or trolling.

This post won’t do much to change online behavior, including my own. But who knows — maybe it’ll make us think a little bit more about what we’re saying before we hit “post.”

Or it’ll just force us to admit that we’re all trolls.

Or, equally useful, it’ll make us revisit how we define all this stuff.

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Fear Plus Stupidity Gave Us The Patriot Act

My friend Mike Spinney made an interesting statement on Twitter: “If only we’d been as outspoken against the #PatriotAct as we are against #SOPA.”

Mood music:

I feel the same way, but the cause and effect is less of a mystery to me:

The Patriot Act passed at the height of our hysteria over 9-11. At the time, a lot of us thought we were seeing terrorists holding vials of smallpox and suitcase nukes at every street corner. We were so freaked out over the next potential attack that we gave government the keys to do anything it wanted if they would just keep us safe.

We get stupid when fear drives us. I can testify to that because back then I was one of the fear-laden souls who wanted the government to do whatever it took to prevent more attacks.

Fear made me refuse to get on a plane to Arizona to attend a cousin’s wedding a couple weeks after 9-11. When I finally had to get on a plane to Chicago for work in 2004, I was terrified.

Under the spell of fear, anxiety and depression, I was afraid of my own shadow. I chose staying indoors over living. I had a mental illness that was undiagnosed and out of control. But you didn’t have to have a mental illness to be in a stupor during that period of American history.

I eventually found treatment and lost the fear and anxiety. Since then I’ve been in overdrive doing the things I was too scared to do back then.

Of course, one person overcoming his demons isn’t the same as a nation undoing a bad law passed in a moment of national fear. Also, once you give any government emergency powers, it doesn’t like to give it back.

For me, given my own history, that’s probably one of the reasons I’m speaking out so loudly against SOPA and PIPA. I’m not willing to cower in the corner while Congress gives the government even more power to violate our freedom. Not again.

In fact, if we allow the current bills to become law as written, it will be worse than the circumstances that gave birth to the Patriot Act.

Back then, such a law was possible because people were in fear and wanted security.

If SOPA-PIPA passes, it will have been made possible because corporate money was more of an influence than common sense.

You tell me which motivation is worse.

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