The Practicing Progressive

I think I understand that getting your space and showing your face are now important tools of the internet age but I’m still incomplete with the need to tweet.

What, I wonder, is the lure of communicating in a 140 character limited medium when sending an e-mail or even talking on the phone seems to provide a more satisfying and, one would think, more effective alternative? Recently, I read of tweets (an endearing name, I’ll admit) now being used to review movies, books and restaurants. One can’t help identifying with an author, director or restaurateur concerned that several years spent in developing a book, movie or menu could be enthusiastically praised or dismissively dumped in a sentence or two. It is hard to imagine how a tweeter could presume to mine the depths of a director like Coppola or even an author like Grisham, for goodness sake, without expanding his or her underpowered vehicle of verbosity by a few thousand words or more.

Nevertheless, I do believe I have found a most suitable arena for the enthusiastic tweeter: Health Care Forums. Judging from what I’ve read and seen regarding the conduct of some of the attendees at these demonstrations of democracy at work, I should think restricting the participants to pounding their PDAs might introduce a certain civility to the proceedings.

Off on a bit of a tangent here but what do you make of the outbursts of way over the top outrage that is on display at these meetings? Surely it can’t be just because a few million poor folk might get a little piece of the American dream? Something else seems to be going on here and I suspect it has less to do with the red menace of health care reform and more to do with a black man living in a white house. I can’t help but muse on such a possibility when I witness old white men going ballistic and babbling on about America becoming a Soviet satellite. My guess is these guys’ gripes are really the grief-induced result of discovering that America has dramatically changed in the course of their lifetimes. Just think what we old fogies have had to face over the past 60 years or so: feminism, multi-culturalism, Regis Philbin…

And then there are the guns. Some of these fellows are actually packing heat to these already incendiary governmental gatherings. I know its legal now to carry your six-shooter into the church or synagogue of your choice but surely taking a Smith and Wesson into the foment being stirred up in these forums seems imprudent at best, downright dangerous at worst and maybe even a little silly when you think about it.

But back to the tweets that seem to be taking up a goodly share of what once passed for conversation. I suppose it is only the natural out-growth of a couple of generations worth of “Whatevers” and “Wuzups”. When human discourse devolves into something akin to the communication between cavemen, surely tweeting is the natural result.

Speaking of primitive activities (and heading off on another tangent), one of the most primal is when we decide to abandon all discourse entirely in favor of weapons of mass and minor destruction. Violence has always been the refuge of those who choose to put an end to conversations, cordial or otherwise. Last week, the lone survivor of the horrors of World War I, Harry Patch, died at the age of 111. He had become better known in his final years as an outspoken critic of war and a strong advocate for the commonality of humankind. His tales of life in the trenches captivated his English audience and his funeral at Wells Cathedral was attended by several thousand while millions watched on TV. Although he was entitled to a military funeral with all the attendant honors, Patch requested that no guns be allowed at the service, ceremonial or otherwise. I know that such a demand from a military hero must come as sobering surprise to the hordes of holstered fanatics here in America but it was Mr. Patch’s expressed belief, after witnessing the carnage of combat, that “war isn’t worth one life.”

Come to think of it, such a sentiment would fit nicely into your next tweet.