Email has been a terrific boon to communication. It has made it exceptionally easy to keep in touch with people around the world. I use it constantly for business and pleasure and would really miss it were it gone.
It has also become a source of irritation. I warrant that almost every computer user is familiar with the term spam and has a basic understanding of what it is. However I suspect that many people have not yet realized that they too are spammers.
These are the people who forward every email they receive, be it a joke, an urban legend or political diatribe. During the past few years I have had a number of discussions with family members about this because I am not interested in seeing everything that comes into their inbox.
I hate chain email letters in which I am promised good fortune for keeping the chain or misfortune for breaking it. I don't like to receive urban legends about how much Bill Gates is going to pay me for emailing others or notes about how little men are trapped inside fortune cookies.
My biggest irritation lies in the political garbage that is sent to me. I consider myself to be an independent. I don't like either party very much and my voting pattern belies that. I cross party lines without hesitation as I vote on things issue by issue.
But it irritates me to no end to receive notes from people who are certain that we must have similar politics because we are friends or share common genes. You should be aware that if you send me these kinds of note I will share my irritation with others, especially if you send me something that I disagree with.
I recently caused a bit of a row because I received an email containing a stupid letter written by Michael Moore. I despise the man. I think that he is of low character and has little to no integrity. The man makes a living off of the sorrow of others and he does so by playing fast and loose with facts, which is the very thing he accuses others of doing. The corpulent conman is a hypocrite.
When I received this unwanted and unsolicited email I replied to everyone on the distribution list. They all got to read my 500 word response about why I think that he is a buffoon and that a lot of sheep agree with him. That garnered a nasty response from the person who initiated the problem by sending an unwanted and unsolicited email to me.
All it would have taken is a moment of thought and things could have been different. I won't apologize for responding to something that was sent to me. People should think about their actions prior to engaging in them.
9 comments:
See, many Jews who support him don't really have a strong sense of identity, and that's why those things may not matter for them.
Sorry Irina, I would totally disagree with you, in fact I think what you just wrote is quite insulting.
Jack, you may have your reasons for hating him so much and of course that's your perogative. I am unfamilar with his views towards Israel, and I am not sure if I would stop listening to what he has to say if they were not supportive of Israel. When I watch his movies or tv shows, I find myself agreeing with almost everything he is exposing. I especially loved his short run series...T.V. Nation.
Jaime,
I don't dislike him because of his views on Israel, I dislike him because he is a shallow, self-centered hypocrite.
I dislike him because he engages in shoddy scholarship and uses half-truths to try and make a point.
I dislike him because he makes a living off of the suffering of others.
If I was content to use soundbites and to twist and distort things I could do the same work.
Moore makes me wonder if he has any principles because he shows no character or integrity.
He calls Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft the "real axis of evil." He blamed 9-11 attacks on too many White people and not enough Black men on the planes.
And in his Oscar Night diatribe, film-maker Michael Moore used his win of an Academy Award to rant against a "fictitious" President Bush, "fictitious election results," and the War on Iraq, which he claimed was for "fictitious reasons."
"We live in fictitious times," he said when picking up the award for best documentary for his anti-gun film "Bowling for Columbine."
And Michael Moore should know. Because everything from his "working-class Joe" persona to his so-called documentary, for which he won the award, is largely fictitious.
Michael Moore is the master of the truly fictitious.
His public persona is that of an anti-corporate crusader from working-class Flint, Michigan, who wears a constant uniform of slouchy jeans, a plaid shirt and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. But the real Michael Moore rides in limos and lives in a swanky $1.2 million Manhattan apartment. Moore’s "blue collar bonhomie" is bunk.
According to Detroit Free Press film critic Terry Lawson, Moore’s first documentary, "Roger and Me" featured manipulated facts and the breaking of established documentary rules.
Then there’s his "documentary," "Bowling for Columbine."
Documentary might not be the best word for this manipulative piece of cinematic celluloid. "Fictitious," Moore’s current term of choice, would be more accurate.
That includes the title. Moore says he chose "Bowling for Columbine" because Columbine High mass murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attended a bowling class the morning of the massacre. Reality check: Jefferson County Sheriffs, who investigated the killings, say they skipped the class that day, and have the attendance sheets and blank bowling scoring sheets to prove it. Had Moore bothered to check the official report of the police investigation, he’d have known that. But why bother with the facts when you’re the fictitious Michael Moore?
Moore’s vehement anti-war ideology gets the best of his fact-checking capabilities. His film implies Harris and Klebold had violent tendencies because of "weapons of mass destruction" produced by a Lockheed Martin assembly plant in their hometown of Littleton. "Bowling" actually features footage of giant rocket assembly to make the point. But, according to Daniel Lyons in Forbes Magazine, Lockheed Martin’s Littleton plant makes space launch vehicles for TV satellites, not weapons.
And Moore’s anti-gun fervor also trumps the facts. He stages an event at North Country Bank and Trust in Michigan’s Traverse City, claiming that opening an account would entitle one to walk out of the bank with a gun in hand. The film shows him doing just that. But the key word is "staged." In reality, the bank does not provide guns for opening accounts, and you can’t walk in or out of the bank with one—unless you’re a security guard employed by the bank. The gun is one of several "giveaways" that can be chosen by customers in exchange for opening a CD account. In order to qualify for the gun, customers must open a 3-year CD with at least $5,000 and then must pass a background check for the gun, which can only be picked up at a licensed gun dealer.
Arguably, the worst fiction in Moore’s documentary is visited upon Hollywood Producer Dick Clark. Moore confronts Clark, trying to ask him question and accusing him of responsibility for the 2000 fatal shooting of 6-year-old Kayla Rowland of Mount Morris Township, Michigan, by her classmate, at Buell Elementary School.
Moore blames the shooting on Michigan’s work-to-welfare program, which he claims prevented the shooter’s mother, Tamarla Owens, from spending time with him. And he blames Clark, because Owens work-to-welfare job was at his "American Bandstand" restaurant at an area mall.
But Clark and the work-to-welfare program had nothing to do with it. Owens, who had three children with three different fathers and was once charged as a drug dealer, married a convicted drug dealer. Before the shooting. abandoned her son, turning him over to her brother, who lived in a flop house rife with stolen guns and ammunition, where drug deals went on at all hours. Michigan’s Family Independence Agency reported that she was a poor mother, and she later lost custody of all three children, two of them permanently.
Blaming the shooting of a classmate by Owen’s son on Dick Clark is nothing short of outrageous.
But that’s Michael Moore. A fictitious man living in a fictitious time. With a fictitious, Academy Award winning "documentary." As Brian Rohrbough, whose son Daniel died at Columbine, said, "This is just a guy trying to capitalize on the tragedy of others."
Moore’s latest best-selling book is "Stupid White Men. . . and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation," As they say, it takes one to know one. But the stupidest and sorriest are not Moore and those he writes about, but those who fall for his propaganda.
http://www.politicalusa.com/columnists/schlussel/schlussel_014.htm
Jaime, let me clarify:
By identity, I mean "identity as Jews".
And by that, I mean a little more than just calling oneself a Jew and celebrating the holidays.
Having a strong cultural identity also means a sense of responsibility for that cultural. Condoning someone who makes irrational anti-Israeli remarks (as opposed to legitimate criticism, of course), for instance, would not be very responsible.
Jack are you saying that anyone who is willing to expose corporate welfare and greed for what it is, is charlatan. Are you saying that you need to stay poor in order to fight social injustices or otherwise you have become one of them in disguise. One of my greatest pet peeves is using corporate money to support a campaign or a non-profit, especially corporations that are contributing or are responsible for the problems. The money is blood money or hush money. But I have heard the opposite justifications as well. Does that make them a sell out. In some eyes, it does. I guess you could argue the same thing with well off individuals who advocate against big business.
Irina..still...you can support the Michael Moores in the World and still be a good Jew and have a strong Jewish Identity. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
Jaime,
I am saying that the man is a liar and has been proven to be so. I am saying that he distorts the truth carelessly and frivolously and tries to present himself as a hero. The article I posted above provides a very basic rundown of some of his misdeeds.
I think that it is great that people fight for justice and fight for the rights of others, but I do not suffer liars well and he is a liar. You don't have to be poor to fight, but you have to have integrity and he has none.
The bottom line is that I have no respect for a person like him. The lies and hypocrisy bother me. Unfortunately far too many people accept whatever they are fed because they are unwilling, unable or too lazy to check the facts. That has enabled Moore to take advantage of many people. He is guilty of the offenses he charges others.
Jaime, if Michael Moore was simply concerned with the issues he's directly involved in... then yes, I wouldn't see any problem at all with being Jewish and supporting him.
However, his position towards Israel is unacceptable. Should Jews living elsewhere agree with every decision of Israel's government? Of course not. However, to call oneself a good Jew and be completely unsupportive of the Jewish State or supporting someone who display virulent anti-Israeli views, in my opinion, is a conflict of interests.
Wow. Thanks for this post & thanks for "replying all" to that email you first received. I canNOT stand to be on so many friends' mass forward list.... drives me BONKERS!
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