Humiliation

can be an immensely valuable tool in knocking the high and mighty, the arrogant and the foolish, down a few notches. It can be used to give people a pinching reality check. If you possess the talent of biting rhetoric, you can transform humiliation into something much more sly and concealed, there by bringing about someone's demise in a much more controlled, skilful manner. However, if you are not the brightest bulb in the box, or generally just downright spiteful, humiliation can be a clumsy tool, and wielding it may bring about your down fall instead of the person you were attempting to use it against.

Reading a post today by a well-known blogger - who I refuse to name, in a vain attempt to oh so slightly sap his fame, or at least to not indirectly send people to his website - filled me with such fury and bile that I emailed them immediately, something I have yet to do before today, in spite of his previous blinding insults and mockery of purely innocent people. Marcia Cross, the Desperate Housewives actress, was pictured leaving a supermarket holding a carrier bag. A common, everyday activity. However, this particularly poisonous blogger had zoomed in on the contents of the translucent carrier bag and identified its contents. After naming 'prune juice' and an 'enema kit' as some of the items Cross had purchased, he then proceeded to assume the items were for her husband, who recently announced he was suffering from cancer. Said blogger then informed his readers of a common side effect of cancer/cancer treatment, constipation.

Marcia Cross had taken a journey to a supermarket to produce items to presumably aid her dying husband's comfort. This man has cancer. His wife, who is just as innocent as he is, and I'm sure is quite devestated by the news of her husband's illness, is being subjected to this disgusting embarassment on a website which recieves millions of hits a day. The tenor of the piece was possibly as disturbing as it's aim; it's Dolores Umbridge-like patronising manner was revolting to read. Was it possible that this blogger was actually trying to display warmth towards this woman and her dying husband? If he genuinely had any courtesy towards them, would he surely display this seemingly-insignificant but actually quite degrading event on his website? Relievingly, the post has been commented by hundrends of impassioned readers just as disgusted as I am, but I still feel a sense of injustice. The post is still online, people can still read it, and if they choose to do so, revel in someone else's inconvenience, discomfort, embarassment.

Shiny & New may willingly paste toilet bowls on top of particularly irritating celebrities' faces, but we draw a line at illness and death. We may 'lol' at a hilarious choice of attire, we may sneer at a new hairstyle. We may mock a change of image, or downright dreadful music. But we can guarantee that you will never, ever find the humiliation of an innocent human-being attempting to go about their everyday life, happening to be caught by the lenses of some insepid, greasy paparazzo. Apologies if this seems a little too sentimental in comparison to some of the stuff you would usually find, but as Daffyd Thomas would reply to his beloved Myfanwy, this is my only outlet.