Republican candidate for Senate Steve Welch think so, and writes a piece in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer saying flat out:

Facebook is not only responsible for creating unwarranted expectations, it is killing the Republican Party. Facebook pushes combative tones, extreme views, and single-issue agendas to the forefront, while even-tempered discussions about comprehensive reforms are buried and rarely seen at all.

Welch is wrong, and the argument is absurd.

While Facebook is the face of the internet to many people, it  is just one piece of a giant online jigsaw puzzle that includes innumerable blogs, sites, discussion forums, Twitter and so much more.

And that’s only the web-based portion of things: Let’s not forget about what’s happening in cable news and talk radio, not to mention the dynamics of the various factions inside the GOP.

Blaming Facebook for the crumbling GOP is like blaming a single town’s road repair crew for the crumbling national infrastructure. Facebook may be a convenient scapegoat, but someone who blames Facebook for the crumbling GOP needs to step back and look at the larger picture.

There is less than nothing I can add to what’s being said about the utterly horrific tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. My brother and nephew and their families live one town over. My sister-in-law is a teacher near there. My nephew’s son is of the age of many of the children who were slaughtered. The sadness in Newtown is impossible to measure and will last for a long, long time.

I’ve read some absurd things in the last 24 hours. The worst of them blamed President Obama for staging the shooting as a way to restrict gun rights. I wish that opinion were a crazed outlier; sadly, it’s more prevalent than any reasonable person can stomach.

Here are the two best pieces I’ve read in the last day or so. There will be many more to come. Let’s hope that words lead to actions this time. Frankly, though, we’ve been here before — too many times — and nothing was done. I’m not optimistic.

Newtown and the Madness of Guns

Twelve Facts About Guns and Mass Shooting in the United States

“Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.”
—Robert Kennedy

My RSS feeds are lousy with links to stories and posts with headlines that begin: “57 Ways To…” and “86 Resources You Need For …” and other such things. Information overload takes on a whole new meaning when one item in that overload is, in itself, an impossible-to-absorb litany of ideas, links, programs, applications, strategies, tactics and more.

Which is why it was so refreshing to see this headline pop up from the good folks at Social Times: Two Ways to Improve Your Google Search Rankings. Appropriately, it should take you about two minutes (well spent, I might add) to read it.

Sure, there’s all this 12-12-12 stuff going on today, but December 12 is Frank Sinatra’s birthday. So let’s listen to one of his greatest.