Be nice, dammit!
Sarah Palin came to town tonight and I was the “live blogger” in the office. People called in vignettes and scene setters to me and I posted them and monitored the comments.
Since I was in charge of which comments got posted, I laid down the ground rules pretty early. I told people I would not post nasty comments from either side, that this was a blog about the event and not about negative comments.
For that I was attacked by both sides, called a redneck, right-wing nut and a biased liberal. I guess that means I managed to be fair. I bent over backwards not to take sides, and not to allow anything mean-spirited to get onto the blog.
The Grandma in me meant it, and no matter how mean people got — and there were some personal attacks against me by people who don’t even know who I am — I maintained civility on the blog. It wasn’t easy.
I didn’t expect such hateful crap. I can’t believe how mean these comments were — about me, about both candidates, about the paper I work for. It was shameful.
As a lifelong Democrat, I was particularly offended when somebody suggested I must be a right-wing facist because I wouldn’t let him call Sarah Palin a rude name in public. I wanted to tell him he was giving his side a bad name.
But both sides did it. The attacks were personal, vitriolic and really, really mean. Most of them weren’t even clever.
How do people sit down and talk to each other after behaving like that? And we do need to sit down and talk to each other if we’re going to solve this health care mess — and all the other messes we have on our hands.
I’m so sick of the mean-spirited crap. Shame on all of you who took part in it in Asheville tonight.
Patient Pals & Family Friends
Life o' Mike has a peer support program for people with one or more serious or chronic medical issues or disabilities.
We aim to reduce isolation and fear among people who have conditions, including psychiatric illness, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, mild dementia or other cognitive disorder or disability, thereby reducing depression and complications as people learn to improve self-management of their medical conditions.
Patient Pals help alleviate feelings of isolation and frustration. They can help people develop a list of questions to ask the doctor and then accompany the person to the doctor to make sure all the questions are answered, taking notes to be sure the person understands the doctor’s answers.
Our trained volunteers also accompany their “Pals” to art exhibits, movies and walks outdoors, meet for coffee, call to check in and more.
Our Pals have experienced weight loss, improvement in diabetes, HIV, psoriasis, depression and more, just because they have someone who cares about them. Some relationships develop into longer-term friendships; other Pals move on to more independent lives.
Family Friends are there to help caregivers and other family members grow into their new role.
We need volunteers, who are asked to donate a minimum of one hour a week. Training is free and includes information on active listening, ways to help and when to know more help is needed.
And of course, we need funding.
To learn more, call Leslie Boyd at 828-243-6712 or e-mail lifeomike@gmail.com.
I know this is going to sound awful of me, and very un-patriotic, but for as long as I could understand what politics were about, I’ve chosen to remain more or less apathetic towards them because of the behaviors it brings out in people like you described in your post, Leslie. I’ve always said that politicians remind me of little children on a playground fighting over the four-square ball. I have my own beliefs, but I’m careful on who to discuss them with, if ever, simply because politics are such a personal issue that more often than not, if a discussion were to ensue, it would more than likely come down to “who has the bigger set of *****” and I don’t like that. I don’t like being told that my views on gay marriage, abortion, and the dealth penalty are wrong, just as much as I’m sure someone else wouldn’t like ME telling them that their views on gay marriage, abortion, and the dealth penalty are wrong. I have a “friend” who is very political, an army wife, and she dedicates a lot of her time on her MySpace blog, basically putting one political party on a pedastle and demeaning the other, how one presidential prospect is likely to bring us peace and a stable economy while the other will rip this country apart and we’ll all be doomed to whatever. I don’t have a problem with people standing firm in their belief systems, and I’m not going to sit there and tell them they are wrong simply because they don’t agree with mine. But when my inbox is inundated with “so and so posted a blog” and it’s all so negative and one sided, it feels like it’s being shoved down my throat and I don’t like that.
When the presidential debates were televised, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution had message boards set up for people to discuss the debates, and all anyone wrote was “you are such a *explicative explicative” for believing in so and so.” Nothing productive about the debates, nothing remotely resembling mature conversation. It was sad and aggravating that people feel that they need to resort to using such harsh language and demeaning words to try and get their point across. Sorry people, it doesn’t work that way.