Troll the Trolls. Do It Now!

Or,

Counterinsurgency Online.

Let us not praise the trolls. They are horrible human beings, and deserve every inch of that cesspool where they spend their lives. No matter how dreadful the circumstances. They’ll get what’s coming to them, in this life, and the next.

You can hasten their fate, though.

Make no mistake: Trolls, those pro-Russian anti-Semites are scum, plain and simple.

That said, them Neon pink Nazi worms have succeeded in one thing.

Having a rational discussion online is absolutely impossible these days. You know what I’m talking about, right? If not, consider yourself blessed, like Harvey Keitel the Bad Lieutenant—bullets won’t hit you! Or maybe they will. Remember what happened to poor Harvey in the movie?

Right… wrong. If in doubt, check out the comments on any piece of news, anywhere. Gotcha. Now:

There’s a cure for it. And you can bring it about!

All you have to do is this.

1.        Pick up a name.

2.       Obtain an e-mail address for that name.

3.       Obtain a Facebook account for said name.

And presto: you’re good to go! Start trolling the trolls immediately!

Believe me, it’s fun. Compared to bitching about the way of the world to your hand-picked circle of… um… friends? It is a fucking riot!

And besides, you’ll win every argument you get into... eyes closed, in handcuffs. Remember, facts are on your side.

In his unique book on depression and recovery, Hello to All That, John Falk recounts how he met the anti-sniper. For a fellow who later became the subject of a HBO movie, Shot through the Heart, he was a quiet, likable guy… and completely devoted to his job.

His job was to shoot the snipers. His targets were the notorious cowardly Serbs killing the civilians, one by one, in  the streets of Sarajevo.

Forget Mark Wahlberg. Forget Ryan Philippe. Forget even Brandon Cooper.

You can be that guy, in your own style.

It beats going to bed every night blinded by an impotent rage.

You can make a difference.

Happy hunting!

P.S. Check out the next post for guidance, inspiration (or not) et cetera.

Die, American Girl? Please don't!

How Sarajevo Saved Me

The mailwoman brought me a book, and made me shut up, for a while at least.

PUTTING EVERYBODY DOWN, VERBALLY OR OTHERWISE, IS JUST ANOTHER SAD SYMPTOM OF DEPRESSION - WORSE THAN SAD. IT'S PATHETIC.

If I'd stumbled upon this book a little bit earlier, maybe things wouldn't have turned out the way they did. Then again, maybe they would.

John Falk tells a true and touching story about a battle with a beast that appears in different forms in different worlds. Depression plays havoc usually in countries with a relatively high standard of living, while war rips apart everyone in its path, especially the poor.

A single memoir, Hello to All That, manages to produce firsthand testimony from both frontiers, witnessed by the same guy.

One morning at the age of 12, Falk woke up with only one desire left in his body: to go back to sleep. And the feeling - of nothing, which enfolds him so that he very nearly becomes nothing - won't go away.

His family gets worried, of course, and does everything in its power to help. To no avail. The boy sees no point in doing anything. For a while Falk grinds his teeth and goes through the motions, pretending everything is dandy. Finally, he really is incapable of doing anything. He spends most of his hours in a supine position, reading at night, sleeping the day away.

Enter doctors, enter shrinks, enter antidepressants, which, after many attempts, seem to take effect.

But the damage is done. The boy has lost over a decade of his life. "There had been a point in my life when my biggest ambition was simply to make it to the next minute", Falk writes.

He needs to live. He needs to reconnect with the world, with people. So he packs his bags, cooks up a story about being a correspondent for NBC Radio and boards a plane to Sarajevo.

It is August 1993.

___


Somehow, today, unable to bear one more piece of news about the financial crisis, I appreciate Falk's move even more. Also, there's the story of Anthony Shadid, which I stumbled upon yesterday.



Hello to All That: A Memoir of Zoloft, War, and Peace
By John Falk
Picador, 2005



http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hello-All-That-Memoir-Zoloft/dp/0805072187/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327005405&sr=8-1