Remember the old advice about avoiding politics and religion in conversation and sticking instead to the safe topics of one's health and the weather? The days when that was good advice are long gone. "Thanks, Obama," some might Tweet.
If you look at social media postings, from Tweets to comments sections on media websites, you'll see that even casual chat about the weather now quickly zooms toward the politics of climate change, global warming, deniers of same, carbon footprints and exchanges, Al Gore lore, and more, ad infinitum. Any talk about health matters, from measles outbreaks to obesity or from influenza to cancer, quickly plunges into a pool of invective about Obamacare, death panels, lifestyle choices, anti-vaccine choice, and euthanasia rights.
Is there any topic of conversation that cannot quickly be pinned to the ground by angry political discord? It makes me start to think of puppies, kittens, rainbows, butterflies flapping their wings, and the delight of international conspirators at the deep divide among Americans--there, pinned to the ground in less than one sentence by my own futile search for serenity.
In the interest of serenity, I shall be fasting from online postings for the next forty days.
If you look at social media postings, from Tweets to comments sections on media websites, you'll see that even casual chat about the weather now quickly zooms toward the politics of climate change, global warming, deniers of same, carbon footprints and exchanges, Al Gore lore, and more, ad infinitum. Any talk about health matters, from measles outbreaks to obesity or from influenza to cancer, quickly plunges into a pool of invective about Obamacare, death panels, lifestyle choices, anti-vaccine choice, and euthanasia rights.
Is there any topic of conversation that cannot quickly be pinned to the ground by angry political discord? It makes me start to think of puppies, kittens, rainbows, butterflies flapping their wings, and the delight of international conspirators at the deep divide among Americans--there, pinned to the ground in less than one sentence by my own futile search for serenity.
In the interest of serenity, I shall be fasting from online postings for the next forty days.