Had some time to spare and a good mood to kill, so I roamed the Web reading comments about the Fargo flood. Oy. There are many helpful, kind-hearted people posting encouragement and prayers, but there's also a raw gang of knaves and know-it-alls who have hearts of anthracite coal.
The more you read comments, the more you realize some people must inject two things into every discussion: Their preexisting assumptions about the way the world really works, despite what the rest of your sheeple think, and the fact that they are braying asses when the lights are off.
Of course, it's like this for any subject; people can work up vein-popping typing fits over a 37-year-old Peanuts cartoon. But when you have a personal stake in the event, it magnifies your awareness of the large clod factor at work in the world. It's not as if we have more idiots; once upon a time these anonymous fools would sit slumped in a newsreel theater, grinning into their hand. Now the management sends ushers down to hand out megaphones.
I know people who aren't in the flood plain who are bringing up furniture and mementoes from the basement, because the scenic creek out back -- a mile from the Red River -- is overflowing. So when you read the constant barrage of smug dismissals, and you read "4 out of 9 people found this comment helpful," you wish there was another option. "5 out of 5 people forcibly conscripted the writer of this comment to fill sandbags in water up to his shins in 20-degree temps" would be a start.
So let's give the folks in Fargo some ammunition for the next time something bad happens to the Twin Cities.
• A TORNADO HITS CITY IN PRARIEY -- BIG SURPRISE! YOU LIVE IN THE MIDWEST. MOVE! LOL
• While it is sad that St. Paul was wipped out by a meeteor it could have been avoided if Carter hadnt canceled plans to build lasers on the moon. WORST PRESIDENT EVER
• Bridge falls -- again! What do you expect people you built a city by the river? It's called gravity, DEAL WITH IT
