I am of the age where I can recall the awe and wonder of listening to the radio for hours on end, music and local news, and of course, Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story program. I never bought into the television being a fad simply because I could hear more readily than the need to see. That makes me an auditory person, a fact that causes great dissension with my wife, a visual person, simply because I don’t need to see you, or even be in the same room, when you’re talking to me, like she does.
While a
picture may be worth a thousand words, a spoken word is worth a thousand pictures. We live in an age where a thousand pictures are bombarding us regularly all in an attempt to win a battle of the mind, our mind, to fulfill an agenda, deliver a late breaking report, soothe erectile dysfunction despite serious side effects, control or accelerate our appetite for food, wealth, clothing, cars or exotic vacations to far-away lands, or insure us that we are in good hands when chaos strikes. Turn the sound off and it becomes very evident that these pictures are smoke and mirrors which, in and of themselves, mean absolutely nothing. A word must accompany them to convey meaning, a word must give them descriptive value to promote a cause.
How many of you remember this little childhood ditty? Sticks and stone may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. We’re grown-ups now so let’s put this piece of BS where it belongs. Those damn words hurt us greatly, and for a lot longer than the battering we encountered with the sticks and stones. Our identity, in many instances, is attached to those words, words which have images attached to them, images which ravage our mind and cause doubt when belief is demanded.
Grandma use to tell me, “…if you can’t say anything nice about someone you shouldn’t say anything at all.” She never liked to watch the news for that very reason. Accusation, fault finding, bickering, resistance and slander are the stock and trade of news. Nice doesn’t sell.
An entire generation has grown up under the domain of publicized accusation. It has spawned an entirely new industry, a home-grown news empire known as social media. All of us are now given the air space to act like investigative reporters and provide late-breaking news to our community of sycophantic friends. My words matter, damn it; I don’t give a tweet what you think, or even if you do think for that matter. I have the right of free speech to say, or act, in any fashion that I want. This right also means I don’t have to tolerate anything you feel needs your response. I can piss into the wind and you cannot stop me – it is my right.
In a land and a time far, far away, an accusation, a slanderous intention had a name which anyone could employ. We don’t employ it as effectively today as they did then since we somehow have relegated it to the realm of mythology. But I’m all for bringing the name back into its rightful use. Back then, people could justify that they were inspired, stimulated or stirred to hurl accusations and resist the actions of another. Today, I see this festering, quivering mass of putrid, vile, dehumanizing form of public discourse overflowing the air waves and net waves. So, I think it’s time to resurrect the proper term for these antics.
Henceforth, if you want to verbally accost, criticize, disparage or revile someone for something you disagree with, your words, your dialogue, your actions shall be known as: the satan, or for a more modern interpretation: the devil.
That folks, is the rest of my story.
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