But I can't imagine in a million years that you would ever see the tragedies that are being shown today via Facebook. Just last week I wrote a blog post about the outrageous murder-suicide committed in San Bernardino involving Carl Anderson and his estranged wife, Karen. He walked into her classroom and shot her to death before killing himself. He didn't post his actions on Facebook but he gave everyone the appearance, via his Facebook videos, that he was the happiest and luckiest man in the world and his wife was everything to him. A FLAT OUT LIE! But he has his Facebook followers fooled.
Now we have another senseless murder tied to a woman named Joy Lane in Cleveland, Ohio. Her estranged boyfriend, identified as Steve Stephens, gunned down a complete stranger, identified as 74-year-old Robert Godwin, on the street because he was upset over her lack of attention/affection for him anymore. This happened on Easter Sunday, shortly after Godwin left his family's home after having dinner. Stephens, like Anderson, used Facebook as a platform----although he made it a point to upload the crime after he did it. The murder stayed on the site until being removed by a Facebook official.
What makes this story, and the one last week, so tragic is that these so-called men used social media as a platform in such a devious and disturbing way. I don't know what has happened to make so many people lose sight of their values, morals, dignity and character. For all the good social media can do, we then get to see the evil it can project and I fear there is no end in sight.
Back in 1964, Bob Dylan wrote a song called, The Times, They Are a Changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
Cause the times they are a-changing
Yes they have!
