Sherrod Shame

The ubrupt, outgrageous firing of Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Dept. official who was taken out by a libelous Tea Party blogger, is a wake-up all for all of us. On one side, you have a blogger with an insidious political agenda who doctored the speech Sherrod gave to the NAACP earlier this year. On the other side, you have her boss and the Obama Administration who were so frightened by what they heard (that she made racist remarks) that they shunned all propriety and probably all Human Resources legal boundaries and just let her go without giving her any chance to rebuke the accusations. This is all so wrong on so many fronts that it scares me as it should you. We know what terrible people the Tea Partiers are and how they will say anything without any foundation of truth to make their case. They are both racist and anti-American in their methods of using the First Amendment and just say whatever they want as loud and as repetitively as they can in order to get rid of those people who may threaten them. Is there any question that the Tea Party (dont get me started on how they mis-adopted one of America's greatest protest movements to give their cause some credence) are so anti-Democrat, so anti-Obama and so obviously anti-American in their drive to limit the diversity of power that they will break all laws of ethics? Their fear-mongering has to be stopped and it can only be so if we all are aware of what they are doing. In that way, we need to take up the mantle of the internet and fight back. I hope to God that Shirley sues that blogger (I wont mention his name) who is just another gossip with no journalistic crdibility, just a keyboard and a nasty agenda. But, she could just as easily sue her bosses for they took away her civil rights just as readily as the blogger-that-will-not-be-named. It is they who should leave their jobs immediately. One of the first rule of hiring and firing is to give the accused a chance to respond. Everyone was so scared by what was said and by whom? What credibility does this guy have? Why wouldnt the administration's backhairs go up when they heard the blogger's account and the screaming and yelling by other right wing fearmongers like that O'Reilly guy and his mean and obstructive Mafia. Why would anyone in their right (left?) mind ever listen to these guys? Why would anyone believe a blogger who works for the Tea Party? Must I yell McCarthyism? We have to slow down. We have to think first and act later. The irony is that Shirley Sherrod's personal history is now coming to the fore and we can all re-learn the harsh lessons of racism and her fight for Civil Rights. This is but another wake-up call for the Obama Administration as well. They should never have bought into this and I, for one, expect more. In the meantime, I love that Shirley is mulling over her next job. She should use as much media time as possible to make her case and shout down the newest and most demonic group of racists known as the Tea Party.

Social What?

Yesterday, I had dinner with a blogger-friend and we talked social networking among other things. What is better, Facebook or Linkedin? Does Foursquare destroy your privacy, allowing people who shouldn't know, know that you are not at home? And, Twitter? What the heck does it really do for you? I won't go into all of those issues as they are all fairly large and still waiting to be decided, but the question about Linkedin vs. Facebook does fascinate me. I prefer Linkedin in for professional-only communication while Facebook is my more personal outlet for info. Still, I am finding that more and more of my professional contacts are searching out my Facebook over my Linkedin pages. That kind of makes sense since Facebook is a billion times larger than anything on the planet when it comes to profiles and internet communications, but do I really want my business associates to know about my family, vacations, funny faces I may have made, personal interests, etc? This a wacky world where communications are as instant as thought. While at dinner, I Foursquared my location and it went to Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin so my "world" knew I was having chili with Shoshana at Hugo's. Bizarre as hell and what is the point? Well, I work with Hugo's so it got the name out and that was my personal and professional reason for doing it. Most people who use FourSquare are probably just "sharing" and bored so they go through the exercise of telling people where they are constantly. I gotta admit as a bonified gossip and Yenta, I love these forms of instant communication and know that this all has a movement and power that is far-reaching and probably never-ending. Will it all be saturated and then fade away? Very doubtful as it mutates faster than any virus on the planet. For now, I am blogging my ideas and will send across the internet so that you can see what is on my mind...for now.