One reason I do not tweet, text, or use Facebook or Instagram, and only wield a mobile when a landline is unavailable, is because all of the above gadgets are free of anything resembling a credible spoken word emanating from a disease-free brain. The mind-numbing gobbledygook that billions send back and forth constitutes a sort of 10th circle of Dante’s Inferno, oxygen-deprived brains with their imaginations up their backsides, strung out on their own solipsism, benighted, boring, and brain-jolting in their braggadocio. Whew, I finally got that off my chest.
When I founded The American Conservative in 2002, and after that when I began Takimag, I realized there’s a vast sea of envious, discontented shitheads who spend their waking hours (about three to four) spouting hate against anyone and everyone they disagree with, be it in politics, sport, or even favorite movies or cartoons. The first editor ran comments that claimed I murdered babies in their cribs, had obviously killed my mother and father, and was an illegitimate son of a one-night stand between Stalin and Hitler. “It’s the sacrosanct right of reply,” said the idiot when I handed him his walking papers. Ditto the second one. I finally had to resort to my own daughter, who filters some of the really bad ones.
What is it that makes nerds the world over go apeshit online, accuse their betters (which they invariably are) of unspeakable crimes and perversions, and use language that would embarrass a lavatory attendant in a gay underground New York nightclub of the ’70s? Well, recently the good guys had a win, and for once I will not be magnanimous in victory but pray that the Harvard nerd who got caught will pay through the nose and then some. Here’s the scoop:
Actor James Woods is someone I know slightly, having lunched with him a couple of times and having quite a few close friends in common. He is a very intelligent and cultured man, with a wonderful sense of humor, and is as likely to be on drugs as I am to be on Diet Coke. An anonymous tweet, however, claimed that Jimmy Woods was a cocaine addict, a charge that had absolutely no basis except that Abe List, a pseudonym, said so. James Woods, however, is a public person and a very popular and respected actor, hence a charge like this one can have consequences. Studios are not anxious to hire coke freaks, something I know Woods is not because drugs have been discussed in his presence and he was adamant in his abhorrence of them.
