Have We Brought Back the Freak Show?

I have some questions for Christian and/ or socially conservative friends on social media. It's not my intent to rebuke anyone, but to raise an issue for reflection. This is probably too heavy a topic for the middle of Easter Week, but it's on my mind because as we try to get a handle on how to oppose the "transing" of America's youth, all my social media feeds have become visually very disturbing, as everyone seems to feel the need to document the deranged people caught up in this movement. It strikes me that every time I have seen a deeply disturbing picture or video of an obviously disturbed individual in the past several years -- the kind of image for which I try to practice old-fashioned custody of the eyes out of protection of my own heart and the other person's dignity-- it has been in the feed not of my progressive friends flaunting sexual transgression and imposing their libertine ways on me (I say that tongue in cheek) but in the feed of "pro-family" or Christian authors tut-tutting the latest outrage. Yes, I am telling you my lefty friends' posts are in a certain respect more wholesome and PG-rated than many of my Christian and pro-family friends.

Here are my questions, in no particular order.

1) I understand the need to educate people about threats or potential threats to civil society and family life. Does every troubled person doing something weird rise to the level of cultural threat? Is it possible that some practices are so isolated and bizarre that they will never catch on as a trend, and it would be better to pass over them in silence than to publicize them? 2) What was wrong with the old-fashioned circus freak shows? Anything? Aren't many of the photos and videos that accompany weird practices of merely prurient interest? What good is served by thrusting those photos in the faces of those who see your posts? 3) Is it possible that that certain notorious transgressive accounts have been exposed enough and don't require further documentation -- we now get what these people are about? Is there a point at which we cross the line from reporting to marketing for the transgressive? 4) When we invite people to gawk at disturbing behavior, often behavior we know or reasonably assume is associated with serious mental illness, isn't that use of a person, betraying his or her human dignity? 5) Similarly, if we illustrate our stories and posts about trends we think are harmful with (possibly) prurient pictures, aren't we guilty of using people?

6) When we easily pass along images that are deliberately intended to shock and disturb, do we have any responsibility to shield our audience in some way so they have an option not to see them? (Twitter, for example, allows you to tag your own photo as possibly disturbing). (Tangentially related: not so long ago a certain sector of Christian twitter got into a discussion about the prudence of the use of foul language if you're an influential evangelical or Catholic writer. Interestingly, some of the folks most adamant that the F-bomb does not befit a professing Christian's social media page are pretty blithe in passing along images that cannot be unseen and I would argue probably shouldn't be seen. Isn't it possible sick images are more powerful and therefore more potentially soul-damaging than an F-bomb?

In Which The Drinking Age Takes Its Toll

An old mentor of mine, once a professor at Georgetown, sent around this piece about how Georgetown Pride is sponsoring a "self-care night" on campus, inviting people to recover from Trump's inauguration in a safe space with juice boxes, legos and coloring books.

A Georgetown grad responded that when he was in school, his safe space was a bar on M St.

See what our uncivilized drinking age has wrought? Grown men who turn to juice boxes in a crisis, instead of a nice scotch like proper people.

Two Press Conferences

Why Not to Be a Socialist

Here's an anti-Bernie Sanders campaign ad for you. The narrator of this video, shot somewhere in Venezuela, tells us that it's Saturday, August 8, 6:00 am, two hours before the store opens, and this is the line for milk. You cannot even see how far down the street the line goes.

The embed code seems to be working only fitfully, so click here if you don't see video on this post.

Momento histórico en venezuela

Posted by Cesar Rodriguez on Sunday, 9 August 2015

Everyone Is Insane

I don't know why I even read this story, but what is wrong with us?  A gossip site posts an 8-year-old sex tape of a celebrity with his friend's ex-wife and the celebrity loses his career --and has to apologize--because he used a bad word (I'm sure it was a very bad word) on said tape? Next time, when you are pornifying your acts of adultery and we are stealing the film a decade later, watching the porn and gleefully spreading it, please use better language?