Stupid

If you ever read news stories online then you're probably used to seeing the Comments Section- at the bottom of the page of any news story there will be comments from readers.

The people who leave messages are the same people who write letters to the editor, only now they get to be anonymous. These are some angry, bitter, judgemental people. They're almost all men, ranging in age from late 20s to mid 60s.

You'd think that the older guys would be the crabbiest but you'd be wrong. The guys with wives (or ex-wives) and young children are angry about everything. They have an attitude that they're being victimized by society while everyone else is getting "a free ride" or "a slap on the wrist".

And everyone else is stupid. The criminals, the lawyers, the judges, actors, athletes, coaches, the reporter who wrote the story, and of course, the other people who post comments.

I've always been bothered by people who are so quick to label any decision that they don't agree with as "stupid". It never occurs to them that people make decisions based on information that other people don't have.

Yesterday one of our local paper's music critics wrote an article listing and describing the worst concerts he had seen in 2010. He started by saying that while his job might seem like non-stop fun, it isn't always perfect and a lot of times he has to go see awful shows.

The very first reader to comment said this:

"It's pretty simple, when a show stinks walk out the door and leave. I did this once when Smashing Pumpkins played the Mullins Center and they seemed more disinterested in the show than I was so I said screw it and walked out.

"The main issue is that you went to those shows you listed at all, Sheryl Crow, Sugarland, The Bangles?? I think I'd rather spend 5 hours at the dentist getting a root canal than listen to that garbage."

As the writer said at the beginning of his article, sometimes as a music critic you have to see bands you wouldn't otherwise see and sometimes bands play badly. 'Rather be at the dentist', rather have a 'root canal', very original.

This guy is so quick to think that the music critic is stupid that he's missing the two main points- 1)the music critic doesn't get to choose which shows he reviews, and 2) he's not allowed to just walk out. His job is to watch the whole show.

There's a new "viral" video that was shot after this week's snowstorn in NYC. A tow truck was dragging a front-end loader that got stuck in the snow and in the process a parked SUV got all banged up. A man named John Knightly, 47, was watching from his apartment window and he recorded the scene with his camera phone. It's a great video and yes, the tow truck driver really fucked things up.

But the audio for the video annoys me. Knightly rants the entire time:

"Dude"
"What the fuck?"
"You that stupid?"
(Knightly is at least 3 stories up, they can't hear him.)
"Are you kidding me?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
"What are you doing?"
"THAT IS INSANE!"
"What genius!"
(The tow truck driver says he's going to call a supervisor.)
"Oh you're gonna need more than a supervisor!"

Knightly's anger builds but it's none of his business. the owner of the SUV is outside; everything is gonna get settled. Some people just look for things to get outraged over.