The accompanying tune: I don’t usually write publicly about stuff that happens outside of tech, after the events in San Berdoo however I felt compelled to do so. Here goes

It’s funny the flip-flopping that people do when it suits them. Sometimes, people often times public figures will swear words don’t have meaning, and other times, they fall over themselves declaring how words can hurt.

I have watched over the course of the last 20 or 30 years, how our discourse has become increasingly less civil; the acceptance of intolerance when speaking of others who hold different beliefs and values. SO much so that I doubt we can even parse rhetorical nuance anymore. It’s very black and white these days, you are either good or evil.For or against us, not shades of grade. Worse still, you’re not supposed to evolve and rethink positions you may have in previous years

I had hoped upon hope that the shooters in San Bernadino had no connection whatsoever to any “terrorist” orgs in any capacity. Don’t get me wrong, what they did was horrific, but seeing the rhetorical trajectory of all things related to the practitioners of Islam I knew any connections found would not help. Alas, my hopes were dashed.

What irks me though, is that while there was a short search for a connection in this case. There was no need of any similar search regarding the beliefs of the planned parenthood shooter. It was pretty clear, and worse tolerated that the shootings at Planned Parenthood were to be viewed as stimulating a national discourse around abortion rights.I even heard as such on an NPR show of all places while at the same time taking the recent shooting NOT as a catalyst for discussion. Instead, a dictum for more intolerant “they’re not one of us, they don’t have OUR values” acton

Words do in fact matter, what people,whether they are prominent nationally, or just a friend next door, say has an affect on someone somewhere, for good or for bad. I wish folks would remember that and at least take responsibility for it when the “collateral” damage as a result of their words occurs