Soapbox soliloquys: Stay off the Levitt statue, learn to use the computer and move it from the Kroger s fire lane

By: Donna Darovich, recovering journalist -- 08/22/2012

Today, anybody can write anything about anybody in their blog for the world to read – and, unfortunately, believe. We used to say “Why, they couldn’t print  it in the newspaper if it wasn’t true” if challenged  with a “No way!” about something we quoted from the newspaper  (at this point, I could say “Way!” but that is another soapbox topic – people who respond to “No way” with “Way!”) And this trust in the media was long before the “Weekly World News” and stories about the FBI capturing a bat baby. Do our observation skills become sharper as we age or do we just finally start noticing the small stuff? Did I say “notice” the small stuff? I meant “complain about.” Is it because the small stuff isn’t so small to us anymore or is there just a lot more small stuff out there? I just know I now have more soapboxes than Irish Spring. That’s a soap (see how I pick right up on the small things?)  Not that I’m getting old. And not that there’s anything wrong with that if I am. Tina Seelig of Stanford University writes in her blog, “As we get older, many of us shut down our natural curiosity and observation skills,” but if she could see my row of soapboxes about things I complain about she would know that’s just not true. Some will respond to that with “But she couldn’t put that in her blog if it isn’t true.” Some would be wrong. And there’s one of my soap boxes. Blogs Today, anybody can write anything about anybody in their blog for the world to read – and, unfortunately, believe. We used to say “Why, they couldn’t print  it in the newspaper if it wasn’t true” if challenged  with a “No way!” about something we quoted from the newspaper  (at this point, I could say “Way!” but that is another soapbox topic – people who respond to “No way” with “Way!”) And this trust in the media was long before the “Weekly World News” and stories about the FBI capturing a bat baby. Mass emails not checked out by the sender also make me jump on a soapbox because they are obviously intended to scare people my age into -- or out of -- voting for a specific issue or person.  You are messing with the wrong Baby Boomer. We don’t scare that easily. We have lived through 9-11, Vietnam and Janis Joplin. This might be a good time to point out what “getting on a soapbox means.”  Soap was once delivered to homes in wooden crates and of course politicians and actors soon discovered they also were good impromptu stages on which to make a speech or perform in public. I am not old enough to know this, but I do depend on Wikipedia a lot, although trusting Wikipedia is another soapbox, yet another topic for another time. Just know it is not the same as Wikileaks, which comments on leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct.  Okay, Wikipedia and Wikileaks do overlap a bit.  I got that information from Wikileaks.org and here is the link to prove it. And I just lost half the readers who are older than 60 with that last paragraph and would lose the other half  if I had referred to hash tags (It’s a Twitter, social networking thing…don’t worry about it). And that’s another soapbox: senior citizens, stop whining about stuff you didn’t know or weren’t invited to and learn to use your computer! Because www.arlingtonnewsnetwork.com is “all Arlington, all the time” I must localize the rest of my soapboxes: Cars parked in the fire lane of the 5330 S. Cooper St. at Kroger’s. May your driver’s and passenger’s side window be broken so the fire hose can get through them  and into the store to save our  lives and may your insurance refuse to pay for it.  Click here to write this store and urge them to stop it. Young men at any Arlington high school, UTA or TCC whose pants’ crotch impedes their mobility at the knee – or angle. I think/desperately hope I can be gender-specific on this. If this becomes a problem among young women, I can’t look. Smoking anywhere in Arlington although I prefer it be banned anywhere on the planet earth. And now that we have a presence on Mars I am including the solar system. Parents who let their kids trample the flower beds around the beautiful statue at the Levitt Pavilion and crawl all over said statue. It is more dangerous for the children if they fall off than it is for the statue and flowers. I feel much better. Donna Darovich is a recovering journalist (whatever that means), a former city editor of the Arlington Citizen-Journal, a retired publicist for both UTA and TCC, book author, song parodist and muti-award winning humor columnist.