Run Straight Down

How do I explain this one? Carefully, I guess. In the course of hopping across the world wired web yesterday I came across a discussion on a 'dis' that may or may not have been administered as part of a comment offered by someone connected with the other evening's telecast of the Country Music Association's annual awards. This has actually NOTHING to do with the awards, the recipients or the respect and/or lack of it that was, or wasn't, offered (not sure that constitutes a full disclaimer, but I hope so).

As is so often the case these days when a service posts a story and invites visitor comment, very close to ZERO monitoring of the comments themselves happens. So after two or three (at most) reader notes that are actually about the original story, all the trolls and gnomes come out and start posting on, in this case, a variety of 'social' sites some of which read like Cougar Country and/or SugarDaddy dot ayup. I'm at an age where I shake my head in as much disbelief as embarrassment when anonymous strangers share way too much about the emotional bankruptcy by which they define themselves. By the time I read the third consecutive troll post, my brains had been thoroughly shaken but not stirred.

That may have been why as I read "...Life is so lonely, I am a gothic (sic). My friends told me about GothicConnecting.Com and ..." my mind started to dry heave. You know I had to copy the url into the web browser and see this one for myself. And it was worth it. Breathtaking-especially the self-congratulatory mention of "the...most effective dating site... for vampire singles in the world!" Talk about a time saver. Vampires only have half as much time, daylight and all that, than the rest of us so I'm sure glad someone's got their back.

I'm getting old when I wonder if this is the brave new world Al Gore envisioned when he invented the Internet back when the last Ice Age was ending. We've engineered ourselves practically out of existence and, as it happens, no one and nothing else on the planet will miss us when the last of us has gone. And some days, I worry that day may be coming sooner than we thought.
"I went walking in the wasted city,
Started thinking about entropy.
Smelled the wind from the ruined river,
Went home to watch TV.
And it's worse when I try to remember,
When I think about then and now .
I'd rather see it on the news at eleven,
Sit back, and watch it run straight down."
-bill kenny