Return of the Angry Middle

Wow, it's been a while, been doing genealogical research, combing through primary sources on line, etc. Having kids, growing tomatoes, working etc. Going to give it another try, to discipline myself to write a little again.

I've been thinking about it for a while, as I watch this political mess. Any dream that I would be anywhere in the middle, a moderate is odd. The right just keeps moving further to the right, so much that what were once plain vanilla liberals are labeled as "socialists", ideas that the Republicans had 20 years ago are now labeled leftist. All but two of the major candidates at this point for the Republican nomination would have been laughed out of any big money GOP events even 10 years ago for their extreme views.

But ultimately the person who got me to sign back in was Matt Noyes. Yup, the NECN weatherman. Recently during Tropical Storm/Hurricane Irene, Matt continued to give the most measured forecasts, using this crazy thing called science. For many in New England, outside of Vermont which suffered greatly and week long power outages in other places, the storm led to mostly inconvenience and the usual grumbling about it being malpredicted and hyped. Matt Noyes on the Braude show commented on the Narccisistic nature of Americans, if it didn't affect them than what was the big deal, he attacked his own profession for engaging in the same Narcissitic behavior when they overhyped aspects of the storm and fear mongered. But what was most impressive about Mr. Noyes is how he illustrated the science of meteorology, the progress in the prediction of weather, yet how much still needs to be learned.

So what impressed, me and affected me the most is that people have become hyper selfish, arrogant and meanspirited, particularly with the anonymity and ubiquity of the Internet. Read the comments on any news article on the Internet, listen to political talk radio and there is a diatribe of hate everywhere. Thinly veiled racism, homophobia, sexism, and just general meanspiritedness fill the electronic packets and airwaves.

That being said, it's in my nature to make fun of people and things. I don't want to come of as a hypocrite, but occasionally I'm going to poke fun at someone's lack of intelligence, funny shirt or comment, etc. So bear with me, I'm going to give this another shot.