Thursday, November 12, 2015

The 140 Carat Diamond

I'm not a fan of Twitter. Never have been.

Pandering to America's collective ADHD mentality seems just a step or two removed from Wall Street traders dabbling in prescription drugs. As destructive to our brittle literacy as mobile texting devices are to vehicular safety.

A one-hundred and forty character limit? Really?

Why not demand that oil paintings be done on 5” x 5” canvases? Or that symphonies be no more than two minutes long? How about limiting writers to just one-third of their native tongue's vocabulary?

Ceilings on expression never appealed to me. Especially when they concern the written word. It's censorship made seductive because it carries the new car smell of freshly-hatched technology.

So it was with some surprise that I found myself fist-pumping the air after reading a tweet shared by Eric Zorn, he of the Chicago Tribune and the highly worthwhile Change of Subject column. Zorn uncovered a gentleman by the name of Andrew Bradley, who tweets as Betty Bowers.

With a concision and articulation that rivals great poetry, Bradley crystallized the Republican dichotomy found in their confusing and contradictory stands on religion, abortion and gay marriage with the following:

Religious freedom means no American can be forced to deliver a wedding cake—just a rapist's baby.”

Okay. So maybe I was wrong. Some folks can say a lot with a few words. 

But not me. I need a picture. Or a thousand words.

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