Be careful what you write and where you write it.

Dear cyber-buddies,

A couple of days ago a friend sent me a link to a blog-site where a caution for all of us bloggers, facebookers and youtube types had been posted. It pointed out that Google keeps everything you post forever, even if you delete it. This is not sinister in itself, just part of how they provide an exhaustive and efficient search engine, but it does mean that things can come back to bite you for a long time.

It's a worthwhile heads up. Web-postings are a new thing and we need to be mindful that they’re not quite as fleeting as private conversations, which are, themselves, not quite as fleeting or private as we tend to imagine. As a preacher I’ve always had to keep in mind that a sermon is very public, but once you start transferring your thoughts to an enduring medium like published print, it does get a bit more consequentsitive. (In fact you might even start making up words.)

I'm always very careful about what I post anyway, but it's good to be reminded that THE GREAT GOOG ALMIGHTY never sleeps. And, even if you're careful not to post anything too humiliating, you're still not out of the woods. Opinions that seemed pretty obvious, and even enlightened at one point, can look pretty ridiculous later on.

When I'm frustrated by someone who's expounding a particularly stupid opinion the Lord, in his mercy, often reminds me of my initial response to the movement to make public buildings accessible to the disabled. I fulminated for months, if not years, about what a silly waste of money it was. I don't know whether I just had no idea how many people we were talking about - in those days the disabled didn't get out much because there were so few places they could go - or whether I was simply being a complete idiot. Regardless, I've often thought how glad I am that I wasn't blogging back then.

But, no matter how careful we are, times and minds tend to change over the years, and things go in and out of fashion. When I was a kid Louis Riel was a bad guy, then he was a good guy, then a bad guy again for a while, and now he's a hero once more, though I don't know if he's received his Order of Canada yet. And, speaking of OCs, Henry Morgentaler was an alleged criminal for quite some time before he got his Order of Canada, and the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney has become one since he got his. The past is almost as hard to predict as the future.

Moral: When we foolishly write our names in pee, it's a good thing we do it in the snow. But, even so, it might be wiser to write someone else's name.

Sincerely,

Alexander McKenzie

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS

Well, I seem to have become a periodic blogger. Don’t know why this has happened, but bad habits are rarely improved by empty promises, so I hesitate to suggest I’m going to change. For the next while I’ll blog only when I’m moved to do so. Feel free to check in on the same basis. If I do a special series, for Christmas, the vernal equinox, or Sadie Hawkins Day for example, I’ll send out an email notice.

World Cup – Soccer really is a beautiful thing, BUT THE VUVUZELA IS NOT. I understand that some people insist that it’s traditional, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Fruit cake’s traditional, which only means that some people still like making it despite the fact that no one likes eating it. One fruit cake, therefore, is socially acceptable at a wedding, or as many as half a dozen at the inauguration of a president or the crowning of a king, but thirty-thousand fruit cakes, consumed continually for nine hours a day over a two week period, is... well... excessive.

And besides, do we really know where this vuvuzela “tradition” comes from? I’ve heard that the name comes from the Zulu word “vuvu” meaning to fart in the direction of your enemies, or perhaps from the old Dutch Afrikaner word “fuzala” to fart back. Is this really the tone FIFA wants to import into “The Beautiful Game” on the international stage? And what about the old British tradition of drunken brawling, mayhem, and setting fire to cars and public buildings? At least that tradition needs no explanation. Who doesn’t understand a punch in the head?

Parliament – I was relieved this morning when I heard that Parliament is shutting down for the summer. Or are they just taking a break to print more money?. Regardless, we won’t have to listen to the caterwauling of question period for a while. Now that’s where a few thousand vuvuzela might come in handy.

Shocked and Appalled – Long-time and legendary White House Press Corps reporter, Helen Thomas, has been dismissed from her post for suggesting that the Jews in Israel should “go home... to Poland, Germany,... America and everywhere else.”. And the much less legendary NDP Member of Parliament, Libby Davies, is facing demands for her dismissal for saying the same thing as Thomas, though any fair minded observer can see she did not. Perhaps one of the reasons this Middle East mess has gone on for generations is that no one in their right mind will think aloud about the matter for fear of being vilified as an anti-Semitic bigot. Thus the conversation is turned over to the wrong-minded and those who don’t care about being called bigots because they are.

I have never been a fan of Libby Davies, but it is quite clear that she was questioning Israel’s boycott of Gaza, not its right to exist. And, though Helen Thomas was challenging Israel’s legitimacy, she was clearly expressing frustration over the boycott, not seriously calling on Jews to “go home”. It’s like someone, in the context of a First Nations protest over the residential schools, saying that Europeans in Canada should go back to Europe. Not a useful idea, but a quite legitimate and understandable sentiment.

The serious concern here, however, is not the comments of Thomas or Davies, but all this “I’m offended” nonsense. It’s simply a rhetorical trick, like a soccer player rolling all over the pitch, trying to draw a penalty, when everyone can see that he’s not really injured. Being “shocked and appalled” is a way of controlling the debate and intimidating opponents. It works, but at the cost of shutting down legitimate discussion. Then all we have left to us is hostility and genuine offence.

People need to grow up and learn the value of free speech and expression. We must allow opponents to speak their minds, even if we honestly feel insulted from time to time. If people cannot throw out their ideas because they are continually received as insults, eventually someone is going to throw a rock. Let’s keep the conversations going.