KMUW commentary on you, if you post hateful anonymous comments somewhere

Now that our Kansas Legislature has passed a law protecting us all from the scourge of voter fraud, I believe it’s time for another law addressing another fraud issue. Seems to me that our culture has become awash with anonymous internet comments of the snarkiest sort.

Under the cloak of anonymity, people say all sorts of vile, nasty things in the comments sections after news, opinion and even sports pieces. These nameless, faceless attacks are aimed at the folks who actually had the courage to attach their names to what they wrote. But invariably in the comments they are ripped to shreds in a snarky feeding frenzy by what we who worked for newspapers used to call anonymous gutless wonders. They name-call. They accuse. They insult and they cower in anonymity.

So I got to thinking. 76% of Americans call themselves Christians. I suspect the percentage here in the Great State of Kansas is even higher. Yet the anonymous comments on our Kansas websites are full of as much vitriol as anywhere else.

With all of the good Christian folks hereabouts, I have to conclude that most of those who are posting anonymous hate-filled comments must surely be doing so fraudulently. They can’t be real Kansans. They must be guilty of commenter fraud. So get on it, legislators. Force commenters to show IDs before they post those nasty anonymous, almost certainly illegitimate, internet rants. The scanned images of every spittle-slinging, hate-spewing commenter, taken from their photo IDs, must be visible with each posting they contribute on the internet.

Or else look for the glow of computer screens in their windows and shoot ‘em from helicoptors like feral hogs. After all, Kansas is a Christian state.

For KMUW I’m Richard Crowson.

And I use the term "thinker" loosely...

Ode to Ode to a Daffodil

KMUW commentary back on April 18:

Are you as happy as I am to see those daffodils popping up? Man, it seems like it’s been a long winter. And I’m not just talking about the weather. The news itself has brought us dark cloud after dark cloud as of late. I’ve found myself transfixed to an unhealthy degree by images of Northern Japan’s tsunami misery.

I thought we had it bad what with the looming deep budget cuts here in Kansas that are sending divisive cracks along our landscape. Those cracks spider outward from Topeka and we get our schools divided from arts divided from the disabled divided from teachers’ pensions divided from, well, you get the idea. If “to every thing there is a season” we are apparently in the season of civil division.

All of this is against a backdrop of our national political divisions. Storm after blustery storm of partisanship has whipped itself into a windy fury of uncivil public discourse, often ending in torrents of childish name-calling and deeply wounding mutual distrust.

And then upon this bleak and barren landscape, right in the middle of this seemingly unending recession’s chill, daffodils have the audacity to raise their little yellow trumpets toward the roiling gray clouds.

It’s enough to make one get up off the couch of self pity and open a book of poetry. Maybe to a poem by William Wordsworth. Maybe to these lines in which Wordsworth recalls having seen a stand of those impertinent floral fellows in his “Ode to a Daffodil:”

“For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.”

For KMUW I’m Richard Crowson.

Could we round up and deport Kansas legislators???

It's not very far from sulphur to sugarcane

This song really grows on me. Elvis with killer band including Jerry Douglas and Stuart Duncan (the world's most underrated fiddler) and Mike Compton. At Merlefest last year.

Ralph and Carter with Reno and Smiley!

Here's a great old clip of the Stanley Brothers singing and playing with Reno and Smiley!

Two of my favorite banjo players doing a punchy double-banjo break. What's not to like?

Why I play music

So I can make posters, of course. I really enjoy making music posters. It gives me a chance to experiment with different techniques and try new stuff. Sometimes it works pretty well as in the first one below. And sometimes not so well as in the one below that. It came out kind of Hallmarky. I think it's partly that font I used. Plus the washed-out colors. I was trying for a light, springtime sort of effect. Oh, well. There's always next month.

Oliphant on PBS

I'll be going in to KMUW at 4:00 today to record my commentary for this week. I'm going to look around while I'm there for one of those unicycle-generator thing-ies like Oliphant drew in this toon.

All us cartooners really miss Jesse Helms...

Oliphant on Europe

Luckovich on the Newtster

Everybody talks about how brilliant the Newtist is. Sometimes even people who are opposed to him talk about what a great mind he has. He's supposed to be so smart? Then why does he have a history of thinking with his d*#@???

Just can't tie us down!

I love, no make that loooooooooooooooooooooove Richard Thompson's work. Here's one of his Cul de Sac toons that sort of hits home, since I sometimes play the banjo in classrooms. The way the kids can just run with an idea and take over is so true to life. You never know what they're going to say. That's part of what makes it fun.

Faux voter fraud

Al

Yeah. That'll revive 'em.

Al

Phred Phelps

Today's commentary on KMUW is here or read it below.

Whenever I feel a little bit down about this old world of ours, about the direction things seem to be going in, I turn my thoughts to Fred Phelps and, by golly, I see the beautiful side of life again. His skeletal facial features are hardened by decades of wallowing in the odious, putrid mud of hate and self-loathing. Yet that face always serves as a reminder to me of our society’s amazing ability to resist the pull to meet violence with violence. The emotional and psychological violence inflicted by the Phelps clan has not been successful in eliciting a physically violent response from us. Remarkably he and the other members of Westboro Baptist Church are all able to walk around physically unscathed.

Considering how frequently and how long these people have been thrusting themselves at the rest of us, the fact that they are all apparently unbruised and physically healthy is nothing short of a miracle. To the Phelps family Americans have demonstrated nothing less than Christ-like behavior. We have turned the other cheek time and time again against the battering of Phelps’ fetishistic signage. Just this week the United States Supreme Court found yet another cheek to turn toward the Westboro-ites’ tightly fisted picket signs. The spirits of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Patriot Guard and others who will not be moved to violence against these hate-fueled people who try so hard to chide and goad us down to their level.

So whenever you find yourself thinking we’re all going to hell in a handcart, consider that this handcart may also have u-turning capabilities. We choose not to sink into Fred Phelps’ hell with its’ lake of fiery hatred, brimstone violence and flaming prejudice.

Thanks, Fred. For showing us how not to behave!

For KMUW I’m Richard Crowson.

Keeper of the Planes

Pothole