To all the haters

I think there is a sickness spreading in the world to be against something simply for the sake of being against it. I don't know where it stems from, but I'm noticing a trend of behavior in people to get bent out of shape over the most innocuous of subjects. I see it on message boards and blogs all the time where it's referred to as "flaming."  People seem to get drunk on the power of their own aggression.  Often armed with online anonymity, they'll spout off their vitriol about, well, pretty much anything. 

The latest aim of these hater's ire is the pregnancy time lapse video, like the  video Dave made of me during my pregnancy.  A Canadian website found our video and contacted Dave last week to get his insight into why we made the video and posted it on youtube.  Seems innocent enough right? We are mentioned in this article (although if I was her editor, I would have cut this part out entirely, as it has nothing to do with her overall theme.  Kind of like this little aside of mine.  Ahem.)  What I find interesting  is not so much the article itself, but some of the comments it is generating.  I can fathom the comments that call the creators of these videos navel gazers. Haha, because you know, that's precisely what it is watching the expanding belly grow.  Some people are not so kind though and refer to anyone that would make a pregnancy video as an  "exhibitionist" and "egocentric".  Mmm okay, a bit strongly worded, but I'll take that.  Then there are a couple of haters calling the time-lapse videos "vulgar" and "disgusting".  Huh?  Are we on the same planet?  

Our motivation for making the video was for documentation purposes.  We wanted to make it accessible to our friends and family that live far away.  Moreover, I want our child to be able to see this video and know that the expanding belly he sees in the video is the start of his life.  Any pregnancy is a blessing and a miracle.  How do those naysayers think they were brought into the world? Anyone that cannot find beauty in these videos must be in a sad state indeed.  I truly pity them.

I pity them in the same way that I felt sorry for the conservative zealots that contacted their child's school and demanded Obama's back to school speech be boycotted.  They were outraged that Obama was attempting to "indoctrinate students with his socialist agenda".  The speech, given this morning,  stresses the importance of hard work, staying in school,  personal responsibility and accountability.  (For a full transcript of the speech, here's a link to Fox News's coverage and some scary comments from quite a few zealots that have overdosed on some right wing flavored hate kool aid.)  Of course,  I defend any one's right to say and believe what they want to believe no matter how self defeating or ignorant I find their opinions to be.  But it still makes me sad.  

Even when you try to do good, some one's panties are going to get wadded up over it. What a pitiful state of affairs.