It all started when I saw a post from a Facebook friend who was a poet/teacher. I did not know her well. She lived in a different state and we never met. She was a friend of a friend, and it seemed like we had some stuff in common so I friended her. Well, enough distancing efforts.
Then one day, she posted that the world would be better (I’m paraphrasing the Facebook chatter here for most of the blog) place if all white men were killed. I commented back that there were good people in every gender, religion, race, and ethnic group, and I am glad I never had her as a teacher. God I hope she does not currently have male students.
She replied thanks for standing up for an oppressed group; you are a hero. She commented that if you give birth to a male baby you should leave him in the garbage.
I looked back on her previous posts and learned that she had a bad breakup with a boyfriend, but this did not fully excuse the venomous content of her posts.
Later she commented that the first male that should be put to death was Vittorio Carli. Then a man commented that he read a post in his name that he did not write. I also saw a post in my name saying some horrendous racist stuff that I did not write.
I rushed out to my apartment to delete the stuff falsely attributed to me as well as the rest of my posts: a short time later the whole conversation disappeared mysteriously. I still don’t know if she made all of or some her comments (I have a hunch that the first few were hers). If she did write all those comments then it is clear that she crossed the line into misandry. And it was completely clear that somebody hacked into my phone. I rebooted my phone and took her off my friends list. There has been no problems since then.
I am a bit leery of personal, overemotional internet exchanges because they sometimes get ugly. A few years back one of my conservative friends (most of my friends are liberal) posted something and dozens of my friends attacked her. She did not deserve all that negative attention, and she got so disgusted that she finally just quit social media (I’m not sure if we were on Facebook or Myspace.) Social media has increased the rapidity of communication, but it also has increased the frequency of chain slandering.
I also had some problems years ago on myspace. Someone made a fake page for me, and all of the people that were allegedly my friends were young people I did not know. I suspect it was a former student because he or she seemed to know some things about me including my taste in films and music (the song “Mad World” by Donnie Darko was on the fake page, and Donnie Darko is one of my favorite movies) Apparently this situation is common because myspace had a whole department devoted to fake teacher sites.
Asshole of the month and past honoree- I usually lean more to the Democratic or Green side in terms of voting, but there is a person associated with the Dems that has continually has embarrassed himself, and his name even suggests potential jokes about him, so he should be extra careful about what he says and does. I am speaking of course about infamous Anthony Wiener.
Recently, he sexted a woman who was not his wife, and he sent a photo of himself aroused in underwear while he was in bed with his infant son sleeping next to him. It turned out that he was set up by a Republican woman who wanted to smear him, but it’s still borderline child abuse.
A short time later, the NY1 publication (Weiner was a contributor) put him on indefinite leave, and the New York Times reported that Weiner and his wife were separating (surprise, surprise). For the most part I don’t I believe that private lives of politicians should stay private as long as they have no relevance to their policies (Still, I don’t feel much sympathy for Republicans who get outed after going against gay rights and calling gays degenerates), but Wiener is practically begging for negative media attention and he is selfishly jeopardizing his wife’s career. I can see why he is rubbing some people the wrong way.
Ok you got me. That ended up being a long setup to a bad joke, but that’s not what I originally intended.
Although I can’t really call her an asshole runner up (because I kind of feel sorry for her and she might be well intentioned), I just had to mention the so called alligator lady. Mary Thorne, a 55 year native in Florida, considers Rambo, the five foot plus alligator who lives in her house to be her son (she also has a human son.) She dresses Rambo in human clothes and takes pictures of him posed in cars and on motorcycles. She even kisses him on the lips and allows him to lay on the sofa, and lets him stay in the bathtub. See http://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-woman-fights-pet-alligator-wears-clothes-rides/story?id=37717980. I’ll just call her misguided person of the month.
Although I am in favor of animal rights under some circumstances, and I love to celebrate eccentricity, there is something inherently wrong and even repulsive about someone who humanizes animals to such as great extent. It’s doing the animals a great disservice by forcing them to live according to our standards. As a matter of fact I would go so far as to characterize dressing up a gator as animal mistreatment or speciesism because it assumes that the human way of life is superior to another species’ lifestyle.
It also irritates me that so many films (especially animated ones) always make animals act like humans. I don’t want to see soft and cuddly dinosaurs. But I saw a film that did this the other day that I just loved. Kubo and the Two Strings depicts the exciting tale of a young boy who has many violent adventures accompanied by a rather serious and maternal female monkey and a more frivolous male samurai beetle. There are a pair of half human half bird witches that provide much of the conflict. The film is wonderfully inventive and creates an opulent visual feast. It is far superior to most of the summer blockbusters/franchise shit that we have been subjected to this summer. I know it sounds like a dubious conflict but Kubo is as good as a Japanese film with an all American cast of voices can be.
Finally, I did not give out an asshole of the month award until this year, so I did not get a chance to honor Kendra Young, the principal of Clermont Northeastern Middle School for her outstanding contributions to ignorance and intolerance in 2015. It turned out that a student posed for a school yearbook pic and she had the word feminist on her shirt (which is not exactly a radical statement in the new millennium.)
When her pic appeared in the yearbook, the word feminist was inexplicably wiped off the shirt. It turned out that the photographer told Young about the message on the shirt, so Ms. Young ordered that the shirt be censored in the year book. When Young was asked about it, she replied, “”Some people might find it offensive.” Even though she later apologized, Young showed that she does not believe in freedom of speech, and she let her own conservative agenda cloud her administrative judgement. Therefore I think that Young should retroactively get an asshole of the month award.
