Shorts in March

Yesterday was the second time this month I pulled them out.  Definitely odd, but not going to complain too much since I got to ride my pony outside!  Though it is a little worrying since the poor ponies still have are their winter fur and need a lot more time to get used to this weather.  So I'm quite thankful it's cooling off soon!  (So long as it doesn't cool off too much... haha!)

I've gotten back into the habit of reading a lot of articles.  I tend to drift in and out of interest in keeping up with the world, but lately enough of the headlines have been catching my interest.  So much so I'm tempted to subscribe to the ottawa citizen!  But I like the non paper using method of reading it from my phone.

Anywhoo, earlier this week (goodness is it only wednesday?  Feels later for some reason!)  I read an article about how a women in... Ohio I believe, got a visit from a sherriff because she jokingly posted on facebook that she was going to murder her husband.  Obviously joking, but I did find it interesting that they check up on these things when people report them.

Now, earlier today one of the boarders where I worked was talking about the auto correct on her phone... And then I started giggling.

iPhones can connect to facebook, and they have auto correct.  I remembered an e-mail my dad had sent me ages ago with a (rather hilarious) list of auto corrected messages.  One of them was a guy saying how his date was so great he "killed her in the woods behind her house" when he in fact meant to say kissed.

Now the woman in the article had meant to write what she did and was shocked when someone took her seriously.  But then, what if it's sometimes just a fluke of technology?

Has society become way too paranoid lately?  I do remember when I was younger, it was much more socially acceptable to joke about hijacking and bombings without freaking someone out.  Now we have to deal with extra security (not necessarily a bad thing) and being more careful with our words.  What happened to being able to take a joke?

Not all jokes are appropriate, but that's also how we learn to interact with others isn't it?  Sometimes we might hurt someone's feelings, or freak someone out, but a lot of the times, maybe it's the laugh someone needed.

It also makes me concerned about all this political correctness and adding more laws and blah blah blah, just ugh man.  Laws won't force people to be moral human beings.  If anything it will just speed the downward spiral even more.  Teaching correct principals from an early age (parents, teachers, church leaders, etc) will.  Remember back in the day when marriages lasted and people actually worked out their problems, themselves?  (And no, I don't think it was the fact that divorce wasn't allowed.  Partly sure, but it made people realize that they'd have to work on things for them to get better didn't it?)

I feel like I'm rambling.

But so many people complain about taxes (myself included), but our society is becoming more and more dependant on police and laweyers to solve problems instead of just preventing the problems in the first place.  Like realizing that perhaps someone posting on facebook that they're going to kill someone is just joking.  And being more willing to forgive others and not be offended (though I also struggle with that too).

We have so many tools given to us, that we carry around with us that if society would just back off and let people develop them, then maybe the world would be a better place.  At least one with lower taxes anyways.