Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo

"It's all over for us folks...there's noth­ing more to say." That was the ex­pres­sion of my learned friend, for whom I have the ut­most re­spect, a Face­book post fol­low­ing the week­end news of the mur­der at Movi­eTowne.

Just be­fore that I had been the re­cip­i­ent of a very vi­cious re­minder about my moth­er's pri­va­cies (bless her soul).

It seems to me that our roads are now pro­pri­etary and I have no deed, no li­cense or per­mis­sion, no need-for-speed ve­hi­cle; I am a hin­drance to PH hus­tlers, maxi taxis et al.

I am a cau­tious and gra­cious dri­ver, hard­ly one to com­mit an of­fence but I usu­al­ly get cussed out for that very cau­tious­ness.

Last Sun­day's abuse was be­cause one dri­ver al­lowed me to cross one lane and the oth­er thought my egress in­to "his" lane was of some nui­sance val­ue.

He need­ed to ei­ther slow down or stop. In­stead, he hits gas and shout­ed sundry ob­scen­i­ties about my moth­er. He looked no old­er than my son.

Not to cast as­per­sions on youth, let me re­mind you that I have had such a cussing from a man who could have been my dad, which left me cry­ing in a tight bun­dle on the shoul­der of the road.

That time I made an il­le­gal turn un­know­ing­ly, fol­low­ing a dri­ver who I as­sumed knew the route due main­ly to the con­fi­dence with which he made the turn.

The hurt of the abuse on the week­end was still sharp in my mind when the news broke of the vi­cious­ness at Movi­eTowne. Some­how, in the for­mer road-rage abuse I saw the metaphor for the lat­er vi­o­lence.

I lament­ed the dis­re­spect we show each oth­er.

I longed for the self-dis­ci­pline that is a thing of the past for many. A time when we showed re­spect to adults and knew the con­se­quences to not do so, con­se­quences that al­to­geth­er worked to keep a more sober so­ci­ety. We had re­spect. We had self-re­straint. We were a dis­ci­plined so­ci­ety.

As I scrolled through my ac­count there were many ex­pres­sions about the Movi­eTowne in­ci­dent.

And while I was fol­low­ing a thread, some­one post­ed the blood­ied body of the de­ceased right in the mid­dle of the con­ver­sa­tion.

That start­ed an­oth­er firestorm. An­gry ex­pres­sions went back and forth be­tween those who felt it was an­oth­er lev­el of abuse to post the woman's body, es­pe­cial­ly cru­el to her rel­a­tive and friends.

Oth­ers felt that peo­ple want­ed/need­ed to see.

"NOT ON MY TIME­LINE. ANY­ONE WHO CRAZY ENOUGH TO POST THAT WOMAN PIC­TURE ON MY TIME­LINE WOULD BE IM­ME­DI­ATE­LY UN­FRIEND­ED. TRY MIH!"

That was the scream­ing threat that came from one side of the de­bate. And you could feel the ve­he­mence com­ing off the mo­bile phone's screen with un­can­ny life.

I put down my phone and went through the evening try­ing to re­mem­ber when last I felt safe. I won­dered how much im­pact the re­al time of so­cial me­dia was hav­ing on me.

I tried to think what some peo­ple de­rive from post­ing the dai­ly crime count (not the "rate" as we com­mon­ly say), from en­gag­ing in con­stant ban­ter on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, throw­ing words, call­ing names, con­demn­ing peo­ple, crit­i­cis­ing in­ac­tion, cussing "in­tel­li­gence", and cast­ing blame on this or that par­ty.

It was/is dis­turb­ing. And in this world of "al­ter­na­tive facts," I do not imag­ine that the land­scape is go­ing to im­prove for most of us who hold dear­ly to val­ues and virtues. The in­ci­dence and preva­lence of crime are cru­el re­al­i­ties.

The man­ner in which the in­for­ma­tion is de­liv­ered and the de­sire to be first with the in­for­ma­tion, to my mind is pro­duc­ing an­oth­er syn­drome that can im­pact, in­vade even, the thoughts and ac­tion of those who use or overuse the me­dia. So just how do we main­tain pos­i­tiv­i­ty in view of our cur­rent sce­nario?

Chris­t­ian D Lar­son wrote these re­solves that have proven very use­ful (www.yourlifey­our­way.net).

Lar­son is a renowned pro­lif­ic writer of new-thought books who be­lieved that peo­ple have tremen­dous la­tent pow­ers, which could be har­nessed for suc­cess with the prop­er at­ti­tude.

�2 Promise your­self to be so strong that noth­ing can dis­turb your peace of mind.

�2 To talk health, hap­pi­ness, and pros­per­i­ty to every per­son you meet.

�2 To make all your friends feel that there is some­thing in them.

�2 To look at the sun­ny side of every­thing and make your op­ti­mism come true.

�2 To think on­ly of the best, to work on­ly for the best and ex­pect on­ly the best.

�2 To be en­thu­si­as­tic about the suc­cess of oth­ers as you are about your own.

�2 To for­get the mis­takes of the past and press on to greater achieve­ments of the fu­ture.

�2 To wear a cheer­ful coun­te­nance at all times and give every liv­ing crea­ture you meet a smile.

�2 To give so much time to the im­prove­ment of your­self that you have no time to crit­i­cise oth­ers.

�2 To be too large for wor­ry, too no­ble for anger, too strong for fear, and too hap­py to per­mit the pres­ence of trou­ble.

Bless­ings.

Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo