NOTEBOOK: The forest is burning, so quit arguing about single trees

By David McElroy · September 26, 2013

Cleaning out the notebook again…

Watching the bloody and useless battles over the funding of ObamaCare confirms for me once again that getting out of the system is the best choice for sanity and long-term logic. The forest is burning and it’s too late to put out the fire. The smart thing is to figure out how to escape the doomed forest, not fight over who gets to control certain trees. The whole thing is going to burn.

I’m frustrated by the utter lack of regard for the truth that I see in so many posts on Facebook and Twitter these days. Just because someone posted something and you’re reposting it doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for spreading lies. Show respect for the truth and your own credibility. Use some basic common sense before spreading obvious idiocy that can be debunked in 30 seconds. You’re making yourself look foolish when you do that. It seems that people are willing to post anything that appears to support their viewpoint, whether it’s credible or not.

For the last three months, I’ve waited through various delays for the person who had agreed to do the special effects makeup for my next short film. The continued delays in getting certain supplies were frustrating, but I thought everything would be on track once she finally got those supplies. She told me about two weeks ago that she would be ready to go in two weeks, but she sent me an email out of the blue last Thursday to say she was quitting because of “work and personal matters.” So I’ve wasted three months on this project and now I have to find someone else who can do the same effects or else switch to a different project. I’m frustrated, because I thought we’d have a finished film by now. I’m trying to find someone who can do the same effects, because I really want to make this film.

I have a Facebook friend who just had to endure a criminal trial in which his brother was prosecuted for killing their parents. The brother was convicted earlier this week and sentenced to life without parole Wednesday. Sometimes when I look at his situation — and the situations of others who’ve endured very difficult circumstances — it makes me feel as though I have less to complain about than I sometimes feel that I do. I know that you can’t really compare people’s heartaches, but I do feel fortunate that I haven’t had to endure what some others have had to endure. I don’t know how well I could deal with some of what I see friends deal with. In many respects, I have it pretty good.

I know that social media allow many people to have public voices that otherwise wouldn’t be heard. But when I look at what’s actually said on Facebook and Twitter, I’m not sure we’ve really gained much more than a cacophony of nonsense.

There was a time when bad news-writing was unusual enough for me to point out and make fun of. But now it’s the norm. It’s almost everywhere. It’s not even worth pointing out, and I’m not sure how many people care. As an ex-editor, I’m ashamed of what’s become of professional standards. (And one of the worst offenders is my local newspaper. It was a very good newspaper at one time, but it’s pathetic today.)

There are times when you know what you’re going to do about a difficult decision, but you’re just working up the courage to tell the person or people who you think will be hurt by what you need to do. There are also times when you lose the chance you need to take because you didn’t take difficult steps sooner. I’ve been watching several people lately who are in this situation, and it reminds me of what I’ve done something similar. It seems as though most of our wounds in life are self-inflicted in one way or another.

If your opinions invariably match those of almost everyone in your chosen political group — about everything — you’re probably not thinking for yourself. I see so many people today who seem to find out what their group is supposed to believe about something before expressing an opinion — and then defending the opinion as though it was really their own.

In the last week, one of my cats has figured out how to turn the lights off in the bedroom. When it’s getting to be dinner time and Bessie wants to complain about not having been fed is the only time she does it. I’m pretty sure it’s just to get my attention, but I hope she doesn’t decide to trying turning the light on in the middle of the night.

It frustrates me that people make up explanations for things they don’t understand — and they’re not interested in the simple truth when it doesn’t confirm their dark conspiratorial speculations. I see that from more and more people today. The world is complex and it’s OK to admit that we don’t understand everything. Some people can’t accept that, though, so they make up explanations that confirm their existing biases. Once again, it’s essentially about a lack of respect for truth.

And, finally, mornings are wonderful, but they come at such an inconvenient time of the day.

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I received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine Monday — and I’m happy to report that I’m neither dead nor a zombie controlled by Bill Gates and Co. Eligibility was recently opened in Alabama to everyone who’s 16 or older, so I signed up for the Pfizer vaccine at a site run by a local university. I know this is a political issue for a lot of people, but that honestly baffles me. We can disagree about whether such a vaccine should be mandatory — which I’m against — but as a voluntary choice, it seems like an easy choice now that it’s been safely given to millions of people. Is it a perfect preventative? Of course not. But the decision seemed obvious to me when looking at the statistics and evidence. I haven’t had any of the side effects that some people have experienced, but that’s supposed to be more of an issue after the second dose, which I’ll get on May 3. In the meantime, I’ll let you know if I grow a third arm — or if the secret microchip kicks in and someone starts trying to control me remotely. All kidding aside, getting the vaccine seems like a rational voluntary choice to me.

I get a lot of email from readers. Some of it is fascinating and useful. Some of it is full of confessions that people want to share with a stranger. Some people write to ask advice. What’s really surprising, though, is the small percentage that seems to come from mentally unbalanced people. When I started using the metaphor about being an alien — the tagline at the top of each page here — it never occurred to me that I’d start hearing from people who took it seriously. But every few months, I get a strange email — such as the one above from a few months back — from someone who seems to think I’m claiming to be an actual alien. The first time it happened, I laughed. By the time it became a semi-regular thing, I was simply appalled. For the record, I can provide no proof that I’m an alien, because … well … it’s just a metaphor. I do feel like an alien among human beings, but as far as I know, I’m just as earthbound as you are. It’s just a metaphor. Honest. Or at least, that’s what my lizard-beast overlords told me to say.

After Tampa Bay, Fla., musician Colt Clark had all of his gigs canceled last year for months on end, the entire family felt trapped at home as most of the world was on quarantine lockdown. His wife, Aubree, had an idea that would let Colt make music and involve the whole family in making music videos to share with their friends and family on Facebook. Aubree is a photographer and homeschooling mom to a daughter and two sons, who range in age from 6 to 11. After their friends started asking to share the videos, they made the performances public — and a few of them are now on YouTube, where they go by the name of Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids. The younger son, Becket, is on drums. The older boy, Cash, plays keyboards, strings and guitars. Dad supplies lead vocals and plays guitar, while 6-year-old Bellamy mostly dances but sometimes does backup vocals. There’s even a dog who makes an occasional appearance. The Clark family has just raised the bar for what I need to create with my future children. And best of all, they seem to be having a great time together. I hope they make you as happy as they make me.

Have you ever wondered how the social media world works for so-called “influencers”? I find it comical, so I thought I’d share with you. I frequently get offers such as what I’m about to describe. And if I’m getting such offers — as a relative nobody in the online world — you can only imagine what people with huge audiences are offered. It starts with an email appealing to my ego: “We came across your online presence and we LOVE your style. We’d love to have you as one of our Brand Ambassadors. To celebrate our new [Brand Name] collection, we want to give you a FREE Watch so you can post a picture of you wearing it and drive more exposure to our brand.” Did you hear that? They love me. They want me to be seen wearing their cheap $59 watch so other people will think, “If this amazing influencer wears that, surely I should buy one.” They even offer me commissions on the watches sold from people clicking from my site. So the next time you see some alleged “influencer” touting something online or on social media, remember that this is what it’s probably all about. It’s laughable.

Modern culture is going insane. The latest evidence comes from the effort to redefine children’s author Dr. Seuss as a racist whose books should be banned. Why? Because a few images in those books don’t meet modern political standards. The drawing you see here is one of those “dangerously racist images,” and it comes from the Dr. Seuss classic, “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” The book catalogs all the wild diversity seen by a child on one street, including the offending drawing of a Chinese boy. What’s racist about it? Apparently, it was racist to show the boy eating rice, wearing a funny hat, using chopsticks and (worst of all) having eyes represented by a slit. (The bearded man near him has dots for eyes, but that’s apparently OK.) In other words, the stereotypes are considered racist today. (Oddly, the culture warriors who fret over such things are never concerned if a white southerner is depicted as ignorant trash living in a trailer. Some stereotypes are great, especially if the left hates those people anyway.) Theodore Geisel — the name of the real-life Dr. Seuss — was a product of his time and nobody at that time would have seen any of this as racist. Using stereotypes and exaggerations is how artists depict differences in simple ways. You can argue that it’s better to achieve the end result in a different way, but it’s insane to pretend that everybody from the past should have his work erased because it doesn’t match the preferences of modern leftists. Unfortunately, the company that publishes Dr. Seuss books has caved to the insane people — and six of his popular works will no longer be published. The world has simply gone insane.

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