Author: Larry Nocella

Here’s a bit of philosophy from 28 January 2008. It’s a blog titled, in a most un-SEO-friendly way: “When is it okay to cheer or laugh that someone died? Or, are The Darwin Awards funny?” This first question re-appeared recently, following footage of stalwart opponent of the working class, Senator Mitch McConnell, freezing mid-sentence at a press conference. The questions arose again. Is it okay to wish someone dead? What if that person is a known oppressor?

---

So, I ask you, when is it okay to cheer or laugh that someone is dead or has died? Is it ever okay?

The question occurred to me while browsing the internet. Death-wishing is a tradition that spans the spectrum of political belief. A convenient way to eliminate someone annoying is to have death come calling, a liability-free assassination, if you will.

Regardless of my politics, the act of death-wishing makes me nervous. When I hear that someone has died, I don’t consider it an opportunity to make a joke. Especially if they are some kind of entertainer and nothing more.

Test of Righteousness

Now that I’m riding my high horse, let’s test it: what if a terrible person died? What if a sponsor of mass murder like George W. Bush died? Would that be something worth cheering or mocking?

That’s a tough question for me. Let’s review facts. George W. Bush caused the occupation of Iraq. All the death, sorrow and suffering that follows — and is ongoing — is due to in large part to him. Could his passing be a good thing?

Maybe. Even so, it’s not something I would cheer about. It’s too sobering. The guy led the destruction of an entire nation, got lots of Americans and Iraqis killed.

At such a time, it might be time it’s time to breathe easier. It’s a hope that one death might put an end to the war or speed its end. Still, I’m left wondering: how did we get here? How did things get so bad that a clown like George W. Bush became president and caused all this destruction? How did it come to pass that I would feel relief that someone died?

It all reminds me of a guy I once heard interviewed who watched the execution of his daughter’s killer. Did it make him feel better? “I thought it would,” he said, “But I still feel awful. Nothing is going to bring her back. Nothing is going to make me feel better.”

Still, we’re talking about nasty people dying. That’s a gray area.

A time when it is without question immoral to wish another’s death is when the deceased is just an entertainer or someone non-famous.

Death as Entertainment?

Which brings me to the Darwin Awards. They’re “awards” given out to people who die because of their stupid actions. The idea that their death helps the gene pool. I’ve never been a fan of the Darwin Awards. Stupid as the award-winners may be, they had loved ones who grieve their absence. That’s not fodder for a chuckle.

Some may think I’m being uptight, but I’ll parry and counter that. The Darwin Awards are for lame-asses who think they’re superior. Every great story in your life involves you as a potential contender for a Darwin Award. If you haven’t done something crazy and reckless, then you haven’t lived!

Any “I was so drunk and/or stoned” story is only improved if it involves a brush with death. It’s a great story if it comes terrifyingly close to making you a Darwin Award winner.

Then it’s something to share the next time you’re drunk and/or stoned. Cheating death makes a good story.

When death wins, that’s another day at the office, and who wants to laugh at that?

---

Rewind Review

My opinion hasn’t changed much here, but it has become more articulate. We’re not evil for hoping someone dies or falls ill – if our goal is simply to get them to stop hurting us. If we’re wishing death on someone for no reason, that’s psychotic. If we’re wishing death on them because we don’t like their opinions then maybe we don’t like freedom as much as we claim to.

But in the case of Senator Mitch McConnell and his recent health scare, we are reacting to his repeated, conscious, chosen actions over a decades-long career of making life harder for most Americans. The one most recently sticks out in my mind is when he dithered on paltry subsistence payments to the American people at the height of COVID lock-down.

Summarized: I don’t want to wish ill on anyone, but I also wish they’d stop being dicks.

We ill-wishers are desperately seeking a way for the pain McConnell causes to stop. I fear our mistake is blaming an individual and not a system. We incorrectly think if he were to leave the Senate, that Congress might stop being useless. That’s probably wrong. Another morality-free scumbag would replace him.

I don’t claim to know what the fix for Congress is, but I do claim to know the obvious: they are not serving the American people. They are serving the rich. Until there is a fix, I do hope the immoral clowns running it step down. How that happens I leave to fate.

Photo by Lina White on Unsplash

I’m Done Reading Get-Rich-Quick “I Made X Dollars Writing About Y” Articles

Blog Rewind: This one was published a while back in 2022, when I got sick of these types of articles. Nothing has changed except I’m no longer disappointed because I avoid them.

Before the internet, before “hustle culture,” there were print and classified ads. These ads were a mix of anything. Some read simply, “Send me a dollar and I’ll tell you how to make $100.”

When you sent in your dollar, the reply you got — the secret to making money — was to repeat the process. Do what the person who placed the ad did. The advice? “Put an ad in the classifieds that reads, ‘Send me a dollar and I’ll tell you how to make $100.’”

Cute, right? Very neat, very circular.

Now, let’s come back to the present. If that trick sounds familiar, it’s because a lot — and I mean A LOT — of hustle culture articles remind me of that.

I guarantee you’ve seen them. Like me, you probably clicked a few. These blog posts hint that you too can make money writing for the internet. If you just write articles about writing on the internet.

I don’t have a problem with people wringing every last penny out of SEO trickery. If a website is going to be lazy and pay people to write the same old stuff, fine. Maybe they’ll even have AI compose the article for you. It can’t be hard for predictive text to assemble marketing articles that tell you how to write marketing articles. Fine, make that cash. Exploit that algorithm. Work the system.

Just don’t expect me to read it. Ever again. That’s why I’m done.

Here forward if an article’s title is something like “I Made X Dollars Doing Y” or “I Made X Dollars Writing for Website Z and You Can Too” or some variation, I’m avoiding it. Maybe I’ll block the person sharing it, maybe I’ll even avoid the site it’s on.

Just for kicks I went on a bender and read dozens of hustle culture articles. I can’t remember one that gave me an insight beyond, “Write a lot and publish a lot. When you have between one hundred and one thousand articles, you’ll make money.”

It’s likely true. If you have one thousand articles, and they each pay a penny a day just from random clicks, that’s $10 a day. Ten bucks a day for a month is not bad at all. Again, if that’s your gig, do it.

I would advise everyone I know not to bother reading it, but hey, you do you.

Now that we’ve come to the end of this rant, I regret to say I sound a bit like those annoying social media posts where people make a point to announce they are un-following an account or leaving a group.

As if their absence (or in this case, mine) will be cause for alarm. Let me say I realize it’s not. I’m just sharing why I dislike internet filler.

And I will be careful not to let the door hit my ass on the way out. Thank you.

Over the years, I’ve posted several blogs all across the net on now defunct websites. Blog Rewind revisits these old posts, touched up for modern times. This one, originally published April 2010.

I’ve always distrusted pretty-sounding quotations. Too many people think that just because a statement is said concisely, or a famous person said it, or it has a poetic ring, that it’s true. Context doesn’t matter. It’s “set it and forget it” for the mind. More like “just repeat and your thinking’s complete.”

This happens all the time when people quote America’s “Founding Fathers,” but just because the founding fathers said something doesn’t mean the thought was codified into U.S. law. Or worth listening to.

Tangent: Notice there are no “Founding Mothers.” I guess we can only conclude the USA had two daddies. (At least.)

Anyway, one quotation I’ve found to be true as often as not is, “The path to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Tangent: So Jesus himself is in Hell?

What especially interested me about that quotation was flipping it around. Since it’s often true, that would imply the precise opposite is also often true. But how can the path to heaven be paved with evil intentions? Hold that question, we’ll come back to it.

You may have heard of this horrible news story (link.) Here’s a summary: a man’s son was killed in Iraq. At the funeral, the Westboro Baptist Church showed up with their obnoxious signs, claiming that God was turning away from the USA because our nation tolerates homosexuals, and soldiers can expect to die due to God’s wrath.

This is something the WBC does often. Sick, right? No matter what you think of America’s endless war(s) anyone with a shred of decency can empathize with a grieving parent burying a child and searching for some measure of peace.

So as the story goes, the father sues the Westboro people, and wins. Awesome! But the Westboro jerks appeal the verdict, and then they win. So now, this poor man is required to pay their court costs, but he refuses, which I believe means he could go to jail.

Now here’s a twist that supports the “truth is stranger than fiction.” Professional blowhard Bill O’Reilly offers to pay the court costs. (Link.) That right there should be a warning to the Westboro cult: when Bill O’Reilly makes you look like a douche bag, your douche-baggery is off the charts.

Yet even as I bust on Billo, I have to say I’m not entirely surprised at his kindness. No matter how much I disagree with him or anyone else, I am sure of one thing: most would never sink low enough to turn someone’s funeral into a circus for an agenda unrelated to the deceased or their family. Most would never dream of turning someone’s funeral into a circus, period.

To do so is disrespectful, foul and the lowest of the low. Just as free speech has some common sense limits (the “no shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” clause) funerals should be off limits to demonstration. I say that as a lover and frequent user of the First Amendment. I promise you that small restriction on free speech will not cause the U.S. Constitution to spontaneously combust.

While I wouldn’t know what goes on in the Westboro cult’s theoretically existent minds, and they clearly have no hearts or souls to speculate about, it’s obvious they want to divide. They want people to turn against gays, kick off an orientation-ocide, if you will.

However, Westboro’s attempts at division have the reverse effect because they serve as a common ground. Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans, Democrats, Straight, Gay, Black, White, I’m confident we ALL realize that the Westboro Baptist Church’s habit of disrupting funerals make them the most vile creatures on earth.

So in the most oblique way, the Westboro Baptist Church, by being so hateful, gives me hope. They bring Americans together under one big tent of disgust. Their hate brings us l, shows us that despite our differences we share a common bond, and maybe even paves the way to heaven with evil intentions.

Retro Review: this blog sounds a little naive in retrospect. It turns out there are people even more vile than the Westboro Baptist Church. I’m referring to Alex Jones, and other psychos harassing the parents of children who died in shootings. (Link.) Hopefully such cruelty still unites most of us under disgust.