Anonymous

This post is for Minivan Mom.

I love the internet. I love being able to Google some bit of flotsam floating around in my head and get the lowdown on the dates and why's & wherefore's. I love looking at people's pictures on Flickr and being able to post my own. I love the blogosphere and have made new friends and gotten to know old friends even better because of it.

I love Facebook and Twitter and social networking and playing word games and catching the top headlines at the New York Times.

What has taken some getting used to, is how freely some people use the anonymity of the internet to spread ignorance and bitterness and hatred. And also bad spelling. (Not so much bad grammar - as you can see, I'm pretty good at that myself). If you want a scary dose of it, check out the comments section on any Yahoo obituary. You will always find a few assholes who gleefully stink up the world with their hate-filled, hurtful comments about someone who is no longer around to protest.

I'm sure it would be really freeing to anonymously comment - to say the evil things that occasionally pop into my head at times. Wicked things like "Oh YEAH?!" and "well, that's just stupid" and "your MAMA!" But then I remember my Lutheran background, and I realize that even though I don't really believe it any more, I MIGHT just burn in hell for all eternity. Or I ponder Karma, and can just imagine spending an entire afternoon with toilet paper on my shoe while my co-workers giggle behind my back.

Or maybe I'd just wake up one day and look in the mirror and see myself for what I was: a cowardly, small-minded person with no other way to feel good about myself than to think up clever snark and shit all over someone else's life.

So, please feel free to say what you need to say about this post. I understand that everyone has an opinion. But unless you are willing to sign your name, it's not an opinion that carries any weight. At least on my blog.