Facebook follies

During a ritual cruise of Facebook this morning I came across a few posts that had me shaking my head. The first was an image crediting liberal political ideology with the creation of weekends -- seriously.

"In 1886," the graphic claims, "7 union members in Wisconsin died fighting for the 5-day work week and the 8-hour work day."

In 1886 my great-grandfather was a young man, mining coal to feed his family, working as many hours as the company would give him. One of his sons, my grandfather, became a farmer, raising dairy cattle and coaxing crops from 240 acres behind teams of draft horses.

After my father left military service, he became the first member of his family to graduate from college. He returned to his hometown and worked over four decades as a veterinarian -- out the door at 4am every day for his farm clients and in the clinic 'til 10pm (or later) every night treating housepets and performing surgery.

As for me, I can't imagine being proud of insisting on working a 5-day, 40-hour week. I guess it's not in my blood.

The second Facebook puzzler, not unexpected in this political climate, also displayed breathtaking ignorance of work and business.

Reacting to Pres. Barack Obama's "You didn't build that" speech, Georgia business owner Ray Gaster added a panel to the sign outside each of his three Gaster Lumber and Hardware locations:

I built this business without gov't help.

Obama can Kiss my ass.

I'm Ray Gaster & I approve this message.

One of my Facebook friends, a committed statist, posted an annotated photo of Ray Gaster and his sign. The altered image features 18 callouts, each presuming to show how the owner couldn't possibly have succeeded without the government's help.

My friend was hoist by his own petard -- the unintended result was a fairly comprehensive illustration of how our federal government meddles where it doesn't belong, how it takes credit for what it doesn't do, how it plunders and squanders and wastes and overspends the citizens' money.

The Annotated Gaster doesn't deserve even a participant ribbon, much less a gold star.

Finally, it's been entertaining to watch left-wingers' heads explode over Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan. The disinformation, the tortured talking points...let's just say that I may run out of popcorn well before Election Day.

Perhaps the most sideways reaction I've seen, however, came to me from New York City by way of a Facebook thread:

"I am personally embarrassed that Paul Ryan was a graduate of Miami of Ohio. Yes, there were many conservatives that attended in my days at the University. However, I developed my liberal and ethical leanings from Miami. He obviously had a different 'Miami experience.' So sad."

Sad? Really? How arrogant is that?

Looks like Paul Ryan didn't read the chapter in the student handbook requiring all Miami grads to ply the waters of the world listing to port.