Naya Rivera’s body is recovered. They’ve confirmed it’s her. Confirmed she drowned.
This’ll put an end to the shit storm, rampant conspiracy theories on Twitter — I thought.
Halt the bloody battles about her disappearance — I thought.
Bring people back to earth. Restore their common sense. Enable them to accept fact and move along — I thought.
Like when a teacher enters a chaotic madhouse kindergarten and order is returned.
I was wrong. Very wrong.
Her body could be laid upon silk upon an open bed, wheeled through town square, accompanied by an archbishop from the Vatican on one side waving blessed prayers and the coroner waving an official certificate of death on the other — and STILL townsfolk would push and shove and shout dissent vociferously and violently!
“It’s not her!”
“It’s her but she didn’t drown! She’d never leave her son on the boat!”
“She was murdered! Why aren’t you out looking for the killer!”
“She didn’t drown! She hit her head on the boat! Did you even CHECK her head?!? Stupid inept coroner!”
“Cabins in the hills nearby were searched. And the next day suddenly she turns up floating in the water?! Who placed her there?!”
Not even a tip of the iceberg in challenges to and attacks on two simple and certain facts: It is Naya Rivera. She drowned.
I truly thought that these inarguable facts would quiet the mad hyenas.
Evidently I don’t peruse Twitter in context of Celebrity Anything enough. But hey! I’ve acknowledged such in preceding posts! I’m learning! Indeed, it’s that curiosity and willingness to learn that fueled this first foray into Public Response in a Celebrity Category.
Broader intellectual issues — cultural, sociopolitical, national and such — are my passions and raison d’ etre.
Another observation.
The public has all but beatified Naya Rivera.
Pending Vatican approval, Saint Rivera shall walk amongst us — albeit not soon enough. Saint Rivera has already been inducted into our national lexicon. Informal and what the Vatican won’t do in annointing her to saintly status, we the public shall attend to — ardently and with adoration.
See, in this my first foray into Twitter Celebrity that I consciously and willingly took for educational purposes, I discovered some things.
Namely, I live in reality.
My common sense and reasoning are highly-developed and solid.
My IQ is no piddly number but that only complicates social-media dialogue so I’ll “set that aside” and celebrate common sense and reasoning.
I can connect dots with extraordinary ease.
I can separate fact from fiction — as well as lies, convoluted thought, fantastical conspiracies, insanities and any other tidbit of nonsense and garbage tossed onto Twitter.
Separating wheat from chaff is a star of brilliance in my nature, I reveal humbly.
Not a one of these finer qualities has a place or serves me on Twitter.
Indeed, they work against me.
Here’s my blunt take on Naya Rivera’s drowning.
She didn’t wear the life vest provided.
Her son, 4, did.
They swam in the lake.
The lake’s known for its deceptively calm surface and strong undercurrents, shifting winds and drownings. Rivera was also a frequent visitor.
All irrelevant.
Relevant is that she did not wear the vest. This was irresponsible — for her and, most importantly, in the presence of a child. Any child. That it was her own further highlights her error and poor decision.
Had Rivera worn a vest, she’d be alive. And she would’ve spared her son the trauma of seeing his mother slip under the water.
Solid reality. Simple facts.
Dare to state them on Twitter and it’s OFF WITH HER HEAD! shouts the Queen of Hearts! Viciously.
A pack of rabid starved hyenas after a boar are tame and loving in contrast.
Circling home, I believed that reason and acceptance of basic fact would be restored on Twitter with confirmation of Rivera’s recovery, identify and cause of death. That madnesses, conspiracy theories and all that would naturally come to rest.
They have not. So I’m learning.
Do I expect too much from people on Tweeter?
Am I barking up the wrong tree?
Looking for signs of intelligent life on a cold barren landscape?
Am I casting pearls before swine?
I stand firmly in excursions into Twitter pools for positive, reasoned, educational and illuminating purposes.
So why do I feel not uplifted by the journey but depleted? Troubled. Distressed. Frustrated. Frustrated to my core.
As if the sojourn were to a distant planet of aliens who I was told are my fellows and brethren, only to discover the truth is quite otherwise.
Been asking myself many times: “What would Mark Twain think of this — Twitter? What would he comment in his irrepressible wit and spot-on observations about people?”
Oh, Guru Twain, speak! Speak to me!
Oh I long endeavored mightily and fervently, with tremendous focus and dedication, to bring a morsel of mind, reason, common sense, intelligence in its stripped-down simplest form to tweeters.
Yet I failed.
Not only failed. I received in return insults and bashings galore! Shouts of “moron!” — more in 5 days than I’d received in 63 years!
What gives!?
Where DOES a mind at work go to play, and be, on social media?
Oh beloved Guru, do tell!
So thick and weighty is this mud on these rubber waders that I can traipse no farther.
Kindly lend this girl a hand! A scraper at least! Words to raise me from the (social media) muck and cleanse my mind. Sorbet for the soul.
Eternally obliged and grateful for you, dearest sir. {hat tipped}
Yours affectionately,
Me
Allelujah, Arizona! 