"Do Not Do Anything on the Internet That You Would Not Do in the Streets!"

"You Can Be A Butt Sometimes."

OR:  "Confessions of A Hothead"

http://www.uso.org/

Admit it: the World Wide Web is a Walk on the Wild Side.

I've been around social media in fits and starts since 1995.  I have gone from being witlessly afraid of computers to carrying conversations with friends I've met on the internet around in the front of my brain so that I can pick them up where we left off when I return to the Fifth Dimension.  As with any lively social exchange, somebody's always gotta bring the dip.

Yesterday was Veteran's Day.  The preceding day (or was it the day before that?) was Remembrance Day.  It was really patriotic, and patriotism is one of the things that is near the top of my bag.  I am a patriot.  I love my country.  I think it is the greatest place.  I don't want our nation to be left out of the Technological Revolution we started when we sent man to the moon.  I also don't want our precious freedoms leached away by the free-for-all that is the internet.  There is much uncharted territory being mapped here in the Fifth Dimension!  From the arcane to the mundane, the sum of human knowledge is being aggregated, calculated, disseminated, and evaluated.  It is also being hacked, cracked, jacked and gobsmacked.

SO DO NOT DO ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET THAT YOU WOULD NOT DO ON THE STREET.

Which brings me to the guy who wasted two minutes of my precious existence telling me why Veteran's Day is "stupid."  I vented, counted the few thousand or so human souls who saw my one-word-epithet post cognizant enough to realize that my characterization referred to him and not to me fortunate, and deleted it. When I was confronted with the same video as a reshare, I commented to his face what I had posted behind his back.  Now why did I not quietly uncircle this man?  Why did I respond to his oafish rant at all?

Don would be so proud!

http://www.uso.org/

Sgt. Donald M. Gordon, USAF 1968 - 1973

Because I am an American. I am a patriot. The man in this painting was a patriot. He instilled that quality in me without ever realizing it.
He wanted to fly.
Oh, how he wanted to fly!
Circumstances being what they were, he became instead the finest, bravest airplane mechanic any fly-boy could ask for.  He was known for fearlessness.  So well-known for it, in fact, that I have a clear memory of quiet man-talk; astonishing tales of his calm pre-flight checks, undertaken in a howling maelstrom of shrapnel and materiel debris.  The injuries he sustained included microscopic metal forced into his tear ducts.  This man returned stateside weeping blood for our nation.

Tiny needles of aluminum and steel riddled his body.  In a warm room, or if he became excited, ribbons of bright red blood would begin to well up, just bubble and spurt in random places on his person.  The more agitated he became, the worse it got.  This man also sweated blood for our country.  How can a being live like that?  He did not, not for long.  He died of a heart attack at 49.  Last month, I turned 49.  I never lay eyes on him again after that terrible afternoon in our living room on Long Island, the awful day I beheld with a child's eyes and psyche the true cost of war.  I was seven years old.

Freedom is not free.  Freedom of speech is not free.  Freedom of expression is not free.
Freedom of assembly is not free.

Liberty costs.

Somebody paid a heavy price so that you can exist dumb as a dirt sandwich in America, dude.
I ain't sorry I cussed you; not in the mood to falsely repent.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

#GodBlessAmerica