BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change at TCBMag.com

Talking last week with a client about social media, she commented, “Facebook posts really provide me with a lot of thought-provoking information I otherwise would never find myself.” I mostly agree. It’s like having 500 peers on the lookout for interesting perspectives and thoughtful insights from the collective conscious. I have found that Twitter provides very much the same kind of access, though it’s mostly up to me to find it. I rarely find re-tweets of much value. Somehow FB is more substantive. I particularly am a fan of apps like Flipboard that aggregate information.

That said, there are volumes of crap on FB. From privacy-invading ads to schmaltzy Stuart Smalley bromides and games like Dr. Zoo Little to inane updates on trivial daily activities, it’s astonishing how some people burn up their precious time.

Then there are times when a post is important and enlightening.

One such post was of a column in the Washington Post’s Guest Voices section, written by Thomas Day, an Iraq War veteran, Penn State graduate, Catholic, product of Jerry Sandusky’s infamous Second Mile foundation, and a current graduate student at the University of Chicago.

The line in his column that really jolted me was: “I have fully lost faith in the leadership of my parents’ generation.” Given that he was referring to me, I decided to respond. Continue reading →