Firestorm

Screenshot by the mighty MAC.

Dave Wheeler’s Facebook photo.

“...When and how we became such a polarized society that a sizable number of people plan to pull their kids out of school when the President of the United States addresses the nation’s schools.....”
That’s the exact words posted by my friend L. David Wheeler on his Facebook®, thus precipitating a firestorm.
Wheeler is an editor at the Daily Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua, from where I retired almost four years ago. —Best job I ever had.
Last I knew, Wheeler was doing the weekly Steppin’ Out tabloid.
Wheeler is a gentle soul, but apparently struck a nerve.
A record 29 responses — 31 if ya count mine.
I’ve never seen that many responses to a Facebook post. Usually it’s two or three; at most five or six.
And they all sounded like my family’s web-site, where all my siblings are tub-thumping born-again Christian zealots, and since I’m not, I’m of-the-Devil.
The torrent sounded like Rush Limbaugh in highest dudgeon railing against liberals.
Strident accusations of “indoctrination” into “Obamaganda;” and on the other side, suggestions of veiled racism.
And there was poor David trying to be diplomatic — the typical mistaken response of being reasonable.
There’s no being reasonable with these people. When they say something outrageous, ya just lob it right back.
At which point they make screaming fools of themselves — just like the healthcare town meetings; and thereby lose support.
Of interest to me was a lady in Oregon saying she home-schooled her kids, because public schools were so horrible.
How this firestorm divulged into that topic is questionable. But as David said, it was a typical Internet discussion.
I don’t know as public schools are any better or worse than when I was in school in the ‘50s — perhaps worse.
But I come from an age where if I flunked something (e.g. math), it was MY fault, not the school-system.
My fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Marlin, was an ogre; so multiplication and division were learned with flashcards made by my father.
To this day I still know by rote that nine times nine equals eighty-one. I don’t need no calculator, and I can hardly imagine my father excoriating Mrs. Marlin, no less taking me out of the public school system.
My comment on Wheeler’s Facebook was that no one is listening to Conservatives any more, so the Conservatives have gone ballistic.
Rush Limbaugh bouncing up-and-down in a catatonic OxyContin® rage.
Wheeler, my friend, you inadvertently opened a hornets’ nest.
Just recently kindly Wheeler was refusing to join a noisy pillory-fest against another ex-Messenger reporter who worked long ago in the Sports Department.
“Not here to defend himself,” he said.
I once attended a party where a Conservative family-member loudly declared “All liberals should be lined up and shot!”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “That includes me.”
On Wheeler’s Facebook, I predicted a return to the Dark Ages.

• RE: “Mighty MAC......” —All my siblings use Windows PCs, but I use an Apple MacIntosh (“MAC”), so I am therefore stupid and of-the-Devil.