Thoughts from the Mountain Top

The internet can be a brutal place.  More and more I see it as a reflection of what's wrong with our society as a whole, as many people feel like posting on the internet gives them a license to exhibit behavior they wouldn't exhibit in person.  A lack of compassion is pretty high up there on the list of behaviors that is at an epidemic both in our society and on the internet. Many years ago, when I still lived in New York, I was in a Yahoo Group for a fan of a particular actor on a soap.  That was the real beginning of social media, between Yahoo Groups and groups on AOL.  This actor was having a meet & greet at a mall in Pennsylvania and a good number of the people in the group made plans to see him.  For most of us, we would meet each other for the first time.  About a week or so before the appearance, one of the women in the group posted that her husband had been in a bad car accident and was in a coma, asking for our thoughts and prayers.  A ...

I've said for some time that empathy is sorely lacking in this country (and the world at large).  People no longer try to look at things from anyone else's perspective and tend to denigrate anyone who doesn't respond to a situation the same way they do. I just spent 9 nights crossing the North Atlantic on the inaugural voyage of the Norwegian Encore.  For the most part, it was a great trip.  There was a major bump at the end of it for a lot of people, though. Several days before we were due to arrive in New York City, rumors began floating that we would have to disembark the ship Sunday night, despite all of the cruise information before this stating that disembarkation was Monday morning.  Many people in the Facebook group for the cruise had contacted Norwegian Cruise Line prior to the sailing asking if we would be allowed off the ship into NYC on Sunday night with no clear answer.  Some were told yes, some were told no.  At no time was having to go throug...