Rant #3,989: Shower Me With Your Love

I told you the other day about the hate I received from a few people on Facebook, hate that was actually racist and anti-Jewish.

And the moderator, who really should know better, allowed it to fester, gave his thumb's up to it--

And banned me, not the perpetrators.

I Facebook messaged him, and he still has not responded, and probably never will, because he knows that I was the victim here--

But in order to placate his comrades in arms, he had to get rid of me.

What a fool he is.

And just when things were simmering down, I received another rebuke from someone on a completely different subject.

A subject that is so insipid that I really have to wonder about people and how they fill their days with such joy.

I belong to many groups on Facebook, some of them related to the old, classic "Leave it To Beaver" TV show.

A respondent on one of these sites posted something about the "Larry Mondello" character--you remember, the chubby, apple-eating counterpart of "The Beaver" that was played by kid actor Rusty Stevens--that was so ridiculous, so vulgar, and so out of left field that I had to respond.

To summarize, he felt that the reason that Mondello's mom--played by Madge Blake--was so old was that she was not, in fact, his mother, but his grandmother, and that Mondello's sister was actually the mother, having the child out of wedlock as a teen.

And this wasn't just a two- or three-sentence harangue, as it went on for probably a few hundred words.

Well, you can overanalyze a TV show all you want, and some people question why this and that happened ...

And others can say that this is a 70-year old TV show--operative phrase, TV show--and that to compare it with the mores of 2026 are ridiculous.

That is the tack I took when I read this malarkey, and I simply said that the writer should get a hobby, or something, for posting such trash.

That was a few days ago, and I received a Facebook message from someone who took me to task for what I said.

"I find it quite sad that you would take the time to be so negative. Stop and think about how your comment might effect someone. Is it worth it? You don't like it, scroll on. Why be so mean?"

First off, I had absolutely no idea what post or site this message was referring to, so I wrote the person--who had a name that was not clearly a man or a woman.

"What message are you referring to?"

Then on Tuesday, I received back this message from the person.

"I'm sorry, it was remarks to xxxx in "The Leave It To Beaver" group. I shouldn't have messaged you, I apologize, everyone has a right to say and type as they please. XXXX is my husband and the reactions ... well, bothered him."

So I wrote back to this person, now that I knew what she was referring to.

"The original message [from your husband] bothered me. Apology accepted."

I mean, what was I going to say to this person?

I have noticed that people are very, very thin-skinned on Facebook, yet they are quick to be on the attack if something riles them, as happened with the banishment that I told you about.

But this latest one ...

I mean c'mon now!

This has nothing to do with anything important, and I get attacked for it as if I am chiding someone for their thoughts on world peace!

I guess that it is clearly open season on me, or something like that.

However, I think that with social media such a major part of many of our lives, people have forgotten how to have a discussion, a real give-and-take about things that are on their mind.

I certainly saw it in my banishment, and I saw it to this lesser rake-over-the-coals, too.

Discussions have no place on social media.

Apparently, you are either on "my" side or you don't have the right to respond in any way, shape or form.

Balderdash, I say, and I will keep speaking my mind, whether anyone likes it or not, and whether the subject is an important one or the subject is "Leave It To Beaver."

As was said on the show--

"Give someone the brush off and make it sound like you're doing 'em a favor."