Another Anonymous Observer Hits the Web

My son asked me tonight what I liked about grade five. He was sitting with his pencil poised to answer his "Question of the Week" for school and I must admit I was stumped.

Even with Jeff Foxworthy's homage to new dimensions in torpidity "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader", I admit there was nothing I could remember about the fifth grade that stuck with me in any meaningful way. I'm hard pressed even to remember my fifth grade teacher. I'm sure they were another of the public education system's finest. If you taught fifth grade in Tsawwassen, British Columbia in 1970, one of your students was clearly not paying attention. Fortunately we are probably paying your pension.

I bring up grade five, Jeff Foxworthy and the public education system in the same paragraph because I finally succumbed to reading the "comments" section in the Chronicle Herald.

The Herald, for the uninitiated, is arguably the most cynical, negative newspaper in Canada. Without any competition in the province, this curmudgeonly stain on the fourth estate spreads its message of economic and political doom and gloom from Meat Cove to Tusket without benefit of a single mainstream critical body to challenge its authority. Sad.

That's not to say there aren't a few bright lights glimmering through the sludge. Managing editor Dan Leger seems to maintain some sense of dignity about the profession and occasionally has a flash of brilliant prose. Marilla Stephenson appears aware of what is ACTUALLY happening (or at least she guesses better than most) and from time to time Stephen Maher manages to shine a light in an already illuminated crevice of Ottawa.

I would however like to take this opportunity to note that Pat Jollimore, the new editorial cartoonist can not sharpen the pencil of those who've shared that page. Given time he may develop but his ideas are sophomoric and rather stupid. It feels like they have hired a junior high student to write political editorials.

It isn't so much the personnel of the paper that I take umbrage with, it's the overall tone. Politics in Nova Scotia has been a horrid cesspool of influence peddling in years past and perhaps this "tone" is just an unjustifiably long hangover from a period when newspapers should've pulled down politician's britches and given them a good caning just on principle. But for the love of God people, can we give the poor wretches who throw themselves at the mercy of the electorate a break for at least long enough to attract some decent talent.

The level of accountability on politicos has risen to the point that even suggesting someone might be hired because they helped in an election campaign is grounds for a public flogging. Every expense is poured over, every activity monitored to ensure it is motivated by the purest of intentions. Gee, I wonder why participation in the electoral process is waning. These people who are on call 24-7 and at the beck and call of every whack job from Digby to Glace Bay now can't get the same perks offered to first-year pharmaceutical sales reps.

Emboldened by a two year journalism degree the "enlightened" (those who would never immerse themselves in the dark side of the political arena) provide commentary or "reportage" on those who are struggling to manage our listless bureaucracy. They do so with with at least some level of civility. Delve below the line in the "Comment" section and there lives an ignorance almost beyond comprehension. This is the hunting ground for the adult participants on Jeff Foxworthy's show. Political nescience has penetrated into a deep, unexplored abyss.

These comment sections are "moderated" on the Herald website, presumably by some "moderator" whose job I would liken to licking cat food tins clean at the waste recycling plant. If the stuff that is published is the stuff that makes it through this filter, what mind numbing twaddle must be deleted.

I was going to provide an example but I didn't feel it appropriate to deride the intellectually challenged.

Here's a challenge I put forward to anyone who wants to make anonymous comment on political stories in the newspaper. Stop. Relax. Think for a moment. Think that your opinion about another individual may have consequence.

Let them ask themself, "Would I if given the opportunity voice the same opinion face-to-face with the individual I'm criticising?

Let them ask themselves, "Do I know what the fuck I'm talking about? Have I spent more than 10 seconds thinking about this issue or doing anything to make life better for the people around me by moving this issue forward?"

Let them ask themselves, "What am I doing to improve the life of those in my community in regard to this issue or is there something I can do other than prattling off like some benighted twat in the comment section underneath a story on the Chronicle Herald website?"

It's good to know the Herald values the opinion of its readers, but someone should let the editors at the paper know that the value of those anonymous bits of catharsis is questionable at best.

Ten second blurbs from indignant partisans and putzes with an axe to grind adds little or nothing to the public debate.

Free speech is our beloved right in this country, but let's not devalue it to the point that "free" means worthless.