‘Civilized Dialog’ Record Broken

Guinness World Records has reported that after thousands of years, the world record for dialogue amongst humanity has been officially broken.

Friday, July 24th 2020 marks the end of the centuries old streak of being able to communicate, sometimes even oppositionally, with fellow mankind.

At precisely 6:02 p.m. a tweet was released seemingly innocent in its claims that skunks will not stink in heaven. After a few retweets and “lol‘s” a discussion began on Facebook. The core response being that God made skunks “and all of their skunkiness” and to remove the smell post-life would indicate a mistake.

This response was not received well and a flurry of escalating tweets, memes, gifs, and posts were made that clearly established a battle line over the conflicting views.

Pouring into Youtube, Parler, Instagram, and even mainstream news outlets, the protesting is believed to have begun when CNN launched a headline titled, “This Stinks!”.

Celebrities have taken sides in the debate with former voice actor of Pepe Le Pew, Eric Bauza, taking offense at the rhetoric being hurled by so many who don’t know or understand the soul’s of the potent creatures. Meanwhile animators have created newer renditions of some of the classic cartoons where he does not smell at all, claiming that they never meant to offend anyone or anything having scent glands.

Now that the lengthy record has been put in the books and all rational dialogue has come to an end, it is speculated whether anyone will have the nerve to attempt a new record at some point in the future.

An opinion piece in the Times later pondered, “We all knew it was coming, the end of civilized dialog certainly has its place in our history, but we never knew which issue would be our last. Now knowing what we know, should we have picked a different hill to die on?”

Answering an anonymous survey, below are some of the responses to the question, ‘do you think we will begin an attempt to break the newly acquired record?’:

“If there is another opinion out there, It’s wrong! So why bother?”

“Sure, I’m open to discussion… as soon as they change their views!”

“This was the final straw, if we can tell God what He can and can’t do with stinky critters, we have no hope”.

As that record fell, a new era has begun. We aren’t sure what the record is for refusal to logically debate, engage in ignorant hate, severe intolerance, and division by opinion… but we think we can beat it.

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Image by Vicki Roberts from Pixabay

Speaking Challenge: Gossip, Political, Religious, Slander, etc.

If you have not shared a meal with someone, don’t share an opinion about them.

Dear random stranger on the internet. We have not met. I know nothing about you. Therefore you can pass along without judgement.

Hello sports star or celebrity. You haven’t been in my house. I don’t have any inside or personal first hand information from you. To ponder any further beyond my lack of knowledge and experience concerning you would be very silly.

Greetings politician. I’m not on your staff. I wasn’t with you in college. I haven’t see you on dates with your loved one, how you treat your children, or how you drive in traffic. I don’t know what pain goes into your decisions or how much effort you exert to make things right. I may have seen you in a suite… but I’ve never touched your heart. I will not claim to know your motives or feelings.

Teenagers, classmates, and colleagues… You look different than I do. You act different. You eat different foods, listen to different music, dress differently… Instead of pointing out how different YOU look, I’ll agree that I don’t look like you either. We both look different. And isn’t it a good thing that in a world this big we all can work together to cover all the hobbies, careers, and necessities of so many people?

Sorry coach. I may have made a different decision than you… maybe. With that pressure, those circumstances, those players, your bosses, your home life, and all the unknown things that happened on the sideline and in the locker room and shared from other scouts and coaching staff that the world wasn’t privy to… I might have made a different choice then… but I would have blown it somewhere else. Because I’m not claiming to be perfect and I don’t expect you to be either.

Lets set the bar low. I’m not asking you to stop gossiping, complaining, or even armchair quarterbacking… I’m asking you to attempt one simple rule over your speech. If you haven’t shared a meal with someone… don’t share your opinion about them. Teach your brain to remember what it already knows… We make exceptions for ourselves everyday for one simple reason: We know all the details and surrounding circumstances and internal factors that made our reasoning acceptable.

If we are going to put the spotlight on others and demand perfection from them… they should at least get the chance to share with us, personally, what their exception was based in. This information does not come from biased media, slanted hearsay, or third party reports… it only comes from getting to know an individual as the human they are.

You can still vote with your wallet, check your conscience on the ballet, and boo from the stands… but do not “let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29.