There are times I despair of the invention of the Internet. Like people needed something else to make them think less and mouth-off more. Think about it: When was the last time you actually wrote a letter? These Common Core morons think we don't even need to teach cursive writing anymore. That's stupid, but they might have a point. Why does anyone need to know how to write when few of us ever do it?
Email and Facebook were bad enough, but at least they allowed room for some rational thought. Then along comes Twitter and it all goes completely to shit. I mean, how much can you say in 140 fucking characters? It's like it was purposely designed for the stupid and semi-literate.
As for all the picture and video sharing sites, well, those just made ego trips easier than ever to share with a world that frankly couldn't give a shit.
But even a Luddite curmudgeon has to admit there are things about the Internet that are positive. The cheap and easy spread of knowledge is something to be celebrated. Call it the democratization of information. Even here, though, we run into trouble. There's so much misinformation and outright lying on the net that even the most astute consumer often gets tricked into believing and repeating false information.
Sometimes, though, good--or at least interesting--things happen, sometimes when we least expect them. I've made the acquaintance of a number of interesting people on Twitter and gotten to know some of them better than 140 characters deep.
Recently I've been exchanging messages with a woman whose Twitter home page begins thusly: "Husband and son convinced I'm a member of mossad."
Tell me that wouldn't make you curious. Especially when combined with this: "Proud Israeli, lover of fashion, the arts and a designer/party planner."
Who knows what's up with that. I think we can probably assume she's not a member of Mossad or she'd likely not say her family thinks she is. Yes, misinformation and misdirection are at the heart of spying, but would someone in the CIA write that on their Twitter home page? I think not.
But it's been fun going back and forth about it with her. I told her I knew the pic she posted for her avatar is probably really an Italian opera singer, not herself. She agreed that might be the case.
Then I told her she probably worked for Shin Bet, not Mossad, and we batted that back and forth for a while. Kind of a hoot chatting with someone in a place you've never been but have always been curious about. It's also funny trying to parse her somewhat spastic English. I'm guessing it's probably her second or third language, not her native tongue, so I'll forgive her that faux pas. After all, her English is way better than my Hebrew. And somebody must think she's the cat's pajamas since she has 12K followers.
Of course she could be a dog and I'd never know it.
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