R-E-S-P-E-C-T ..........

Monday afternoon I took Mom to one of her regular doctor’s appointments, and while I was held captive in the waiting room, I decided to enjoy some rare downtime by looking at the latest Architectural Digest …. being a designer, it is one of my all time favorites. However, much to my chagrin, the smallish flat screen television hoisted in a corner overhead kept bearing down on me like a less than pleased supervisor watching my current activity. My sub-conscious mind tried its best to ward off the invasion, but words of ridicule like liar, cheat and abomination managed to get the best of me.

I looked up to discover the train wreck that was broadcasting across the television waves was none other than Fox News ….. oh the humanity! If there are laws supporting truth in advertising, then there ought to be laws which uphold truth in reporting, or at least penalties for those who choose to manipulate and mold the truth to the point it is unrecognizable. It’s bad enough they claim to be a news organization versus a Right Wing commentary, but the poison and venom they spew is enough to make me seriously question the wisdom in Freedom of Speech. It’s true that freedom often comes at the expense of a high price, but should that cost have to include moral decency?

Those of us who have raised children began teaching them early on to respect their elders by saying things like “Yes Sir” and “No Sir” as well as “please and thank you”. What would we think of those same children if they were to approach any man or woman who held a respectable position and started calling them names and hurling insults designed to disgrace and humiliate? If it were on the school yard it would be called bullying, and there are substantial penalties for such behavior which can result in the expulsion from school.

It seems to me with the advent of technology and so many ways and manners to communicate without actually having to face someone has created a kind of false bravado enshrouded in anonymity. Whether it’s Twitter or Facebook or through the use of one’s personal email account, people have found it easy, sometimes even fun and desirable to turn themselves into attack dogs who feel duty bound to share their opinions on just about anything. I used to take such pride in being a Southerner, because there appeared to be a kind of gentility in our manners not always present in other regions of the country, but I’m finding more and more that kind of admirable behavior is being relegated to an ideal that only exists on the pages of books and novels once held so dear by the readers of Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner and Harper Lee. Would Atticus Finch, caught within the struggles of moral disobedience, dare to call his opponent a liar or a cheat? He never did, because he sought to teach by setting a good example, and thus his children were made better for it.

I don't know who any of these television personalities were on the screen, as none were familiar to me personally, but whether one agrees with their opinions or not the way their arguments were presented were nothing short of bad taste. I know I'm not the only individual who is tired of mean-spiritedness, but until a sufficient number of us stand together and say, "Enough!" We can be certain we will see more. If we are to expect honor amongst politicians, shouldn’t we at least ask the same of those who choose to report their movements?

Anyway, as I tried to ignore the audio insult by getting back to my magazine, I prayed for mom to be released from the exam room so that we could make a speedy exit when I was confronted by the reality that God doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way we might choose, but often they do none-the-less receive an answer as was evidenced by the fact the screen suddenly went blank except for a black bar which read in white letters NO SIGNAL. Ahhhhhh sweet relief allowed me to get back to the pages on Cindy Crawford and George Clooney’s shared Mexican villas on the Baha Peninsula ….. and with the newfound quiet I could almost hear the pounding of the waves against the surf.