Commentary on Commentary

This week at school has primarily been one of administrative type nonsense and other mundane activity, so there has been a lot of time for people of little responsibility, such as myself, to wander about the depths of the internets and familiarize oneself with the happenings of current times.
On a quest to kill some spare time and learn a little in the process, I've been spending a lot of time on the websites CNN.com and mylifeisaverage.com. Although these seem like rather unrelated websites, they are some of my favorites for some light reading, and they both allow commentary by regular people on the postings of the respective sites.
When I say "normal people" I must admit that I find myself wanting to cringe and hope against hope that these people aren't the standard by which normal is measured.

Yesterday, I found myself reading MLIA, and I realized that most of the more entertaining postings have a long tirade of comments sometimes related to the material of the post. One particular entry had a long following of comments that ranged from someone handing out mangos to everyone involved, so someone exercising cyber domination with whips and chains. Others, somewhat oblivious to the ambient bondage and citrus continued making statements somewhat related to the actual post. The end state was a slew of bitter, discontented and cynical ranting about how awful everyone is. Interjected amid the cynicism were grammar nazis who are morally obligated to point out every grammatical error they can find.
I couldn't help but read on as the commentary continued in a very negative direction. Like a train wreck you can't help but being enthralled in, the comments still go on.

CNN.com is what kept me busy after breakfast this morning. An article about air marshals and the things they are doing to protect civilian air traffic is actually the article that prompted this little rant. Again, a long list of agitated commentary followed the article like a pack of junkyard dogs hoping for something edible to fall from the garbage truck.
I must pause here to mention that I haven't encountered any junkyard dogs, but that is the kind of behavior I would expect them to display.
Back to the bitter people, I can at least say that I was pleased to find that there was no discussion including whips, submission, or comments like "*hands everyone some of my delicious mango.*" The comments were still very entertaining, if nothing else. Many people were mad because of the statistics they had pulled from... somewhere. Since hijackings have never occurred on a plane with an air marshal aboard, they are obviously not doing their jobs, one great political mind explained. Another provided their vast knowledge about the real way to prevent terrorism: dogs that sniff people in the "crotch area."
From there, the commentary drifted farther and farther away from the actual topic of the article. It wasn't long before the article about air marshals had become a place to complain about everything negative related to airports.
Some people are mad because they have to wait in lines. Obviously airport security isn't necessary because no big terrorist attacks have taken place since all of the security was beefed up, another wise individual proclaimed.
My favorite commentator seems to have some affinity for the Soviet bloc, because they went on a verbal rampage about how awful it is that people can have their luggage searched. They went on to explain that the United States is no longer a world power because of this inconvenience, citing of course the most famous of the amendments to the constitution: the right to not be inconvenienced because your time is worth more than anyone else's life.

I would just like to close this morning's rant with my thought of the week: the best typos are Taliban typos.
As someone interested in the affairs of the world, I like to get as many perspectives as possible, and the Taliban has their own news, and it is very interesting to read about all of the things they say they are doing. Best quote ever... while ranting about how awful all of us are, they mentioned the "pro-war generals at the pentagram." It made me laugh, at least.