Hello ladies and gentlemen. I find it amusing that a group of people, who know extremely little about me, have “Officially Ostracized” me in chat. All they know is a name on a screen and a voice over a speaker and they think they know a person totally and completely. The internet has brought people together in some respects, but it has also gotten us away from getting to know a person before we can draw a conclusion. It is like that with a persons appearance and how people view that person. I, myself, am not immune to this type of snap judgment, but I am trying to get beyond that. I think a person should get to know another person before they are allowed to make any kind of judgment on what that person is like. For some reason though on the internet is has gotten even worse in the fact that a person is judged by their ethnicity, where they are from, their sex, their voice and other things and then made to feel like they are less than a human being. It is almost like we have taken a step backwards with this thing we call the internet. But one thing I have found is very true and I think will always be true; people will believe a lie before they believe the truth. The truth is always playing a game of catch-up with a lie and it always will. I think this world is going to have to do some growing up in more ways than one before we truly become a human race. I still see the hatred, bigotry, sexism and many other terrible traits we as humans have in ourselves. For some reason when a person gets on the internet they feel it gives them the right to be as stupid and as cruel as they can be to other people for no reason other than they can be. We have all heard about the cyber bullying of children and teens, but there is one thing I think we don’t realize is that it can, and probably does, happen to adults, too. The thing is that they do not talk about it, but that is just speculation on my part. As I have written in previous blogs there is what I call group think in chat rooms. One dominant personality either bullies, bribes or entices others to follow their way of thinking about people. When that happens, those who will think for themselves are often singled out and, eventually, driven out of the room, because they are harassed so much by the others. I, unfortunately, have seen it happen more than I care to and I have had it happen to me, but I did not wait for the harassment. I got out at the first signs of the turning. I probably knew, in my heart, that it would eventually happen. All it takes is one misstep and they pounce on you like a pack of wild dogs or sharks in a feeding frenzy. The problem is that people who are in the rooms don’t see it when things like this happen. It is so subtle that they are seduced by the lure of false “power”. If you want to get down to it, in a elliptical sense, it is like a cult with a leader and followers who will do whatever and believe whatever that leader says. Now that ladies and gentlemen is a scary thing. God help us all.