For those of you who haven’t seen it, there is apparently a call to, in essence, pretend that Sarah Palin doesn’t exist for a month. While I am enamoured of the concept, I strongly suspect that it won’t work. I’d love for it to – I’d love for her to get the point that she doesn’t matter in the scheme of things, that she is NOT Queen of the Universe. But I don’t think it’s going to work – there will always be people who acknowledge her, and so, job not done. And you know, it’s not even just her specifically, but all the self-important little so-and-sos out there; there are a LOT of people that could stand a stiff dose of being blanked. *chuckles*

And that’s kind of the point – I don’t think you can completely blank someone, even if ‘everyone’ in the entire world wanted to. We are all so interconnected now that this very porous nature of society means there’s always a way for someone to get out or in, or for the trolls to get fed the attention they need to thrive and survive. That’s not even taking into consideration that there will always be someone who wants to be ‘nice’, and not ’cause drama’, and therefore, will just give in to the trolls’ demands for attention. And, perhaps, because communication is so cheap and easy right now, we undercut the value of all our relationships based on the fact that we can have so many. If Friendship X fails, well, Friendship Y is still over here… oh wait, that failed too – I don’t know wwwwhhhhhhy! *giggles* But then, there are those that argue that our leaps in technology have dumbed us down and made us less capable of socializing, and there might be some validity to that argument. Certainly, we all need to step back and evaluate the meaning of friendship on a personal level; the word is too watered down now, much like ‘I love you!’ my childhood home was.

I think that part of the problem is obvious – there is a lack of respect and proper etiquette in this modern day and age. People are too ‘busy’ to be polite; please and thank you look quaint, antiquated. There was an excellent magazine piece on the BBC in this vein; it was a discussion on whether or not ‘Dear’ was appropriate in e-mails. While I am undecided as to my opinion about that specific bit (I cannot remember the last time I wrote Dear anyone; I usually ignore preambles *blush*), I can understand the concern that we’re rushing the English language into its early grave. Text speak, for example, has no place anywhere; I know I can immediately discount someone who is so disrespectful so to send me such a lazy missive. And it’s not like I’m calling for anyone to be hung and quartered over it, but when browsers have built-in spell-check, you’d think that taking half a minute to click squiggly red lines wouldn’t be too much to ask! Because really, in the net-iverse, when all you have to represent yourself is your words, why wouldn’t you want to make them sparkle…

Anyhoos, I am rambling and meandering and all that, so I shall take a moment to say that my story for this week is a weekend showcase for The Chrysalis Experiment. I’m pleased, even if I think that it’s a bit week compliments of my life circumstances this week. But that’s okay – I’ll just have to keep trying to improve and all of that jazz.

And now – off to digest a ball of lard! 😀