My son and I spent the weekend on an Ontario farm where he got to escape the final throes of college and I got to escape suburban life. The weekend was a weird and wonderful mix of calm and excitement; work and relaxation–just as you might expect farm life to be:

* We worked around the place, repairing fences and cleaning up after winter, ate hearty meals and played with four dogs: an aging-but-lovable Labrador Retriever, a Golden Retriever, a young, irrepressible Royal Poodle, and a pregnant Standard Poodle. We hoped she’d deliver while we were there. She didn’t disappoint us.

* We watched a rafter of more than 20 Wild Turkeys forage on a nearby hillside, lead by an enormous displaying tom (a younger tom would occasionally fluff himself up then, when the older one noticed him, would quickly and comically “defluff.”

* We helped care for nine goats–four of which are pregnant.

* We watched the late-night birth of six puppies (well, I only saw two of them. The rest were born after I went to bed at 3 a.m.) Interested in a Golden Doodle? (It’s a mix of Golden Retriever and Poodle) Click here to see them.

On the drive home I recalled a story I had read about an organization committed to getting us all to slow down and recapture the art of savoring life.

It’s an idea I want to try to keep in front of me. Visiting that farm sure helps.

Dear personal shareholders,

With Q1 09 nearly gone now is a good time to report progress on New Year’s Resolutions:

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1) Check out weird noise car brakes are making.

2) Lose 10 pounds. (Dropped lazy cat off at pound).

3) Dump Lehman stock.

4) Clean golf clubs.

5) Deal with all those ‘outstanding’ warrants.

6) Water dying fig tree in family room.

7) Go bowling for Obama.

8) Design ‘perfect’ grilled cheese sandwich. Stole one off Food Network.

9) Find ‘meaningful’ work.

10) Rake leaves.

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In short, things are progressing nicely.

Right on the heels of Jon Stewart’s spectacular evisceration of CNBC’s Jim Cramer, CBS’ 60 Minutes scores an incredible “get”–an interview with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

This should be good, right? Um, no. CBS Correspondent Scott Pelley makes Jon Stewart look like Lowell Bergman. Half of Pelley’s interview consists of sophomoric questions like: When will it end? Will unemployment get into double digits? Are we out of the woods yet?

You know. The sort of questions only an idiotic Fed Chairman would try to answer.

The other half of the interview (incredibly!) consists of gosh-and-golly commentary on the Fed’s fancy meeting room and B-roll footage of pallets of cash robotically scooting around in its vaults.

If Stewart had been conducting the interview, I can’t help but believe it would have been a lot more entertaining (e.g., “so, who decided to skip the place cards, and go with bronze nameplates embedded in the backs of chairs? Why not put the names on individual Jumbotrons? The room seems big enough…”), AND would have included questions like:

What are we to make of the market’s schizophrenic activity? Which regulatory changes are needed most? What advice do you have for Americans whose retirement 401k plans have been vaporized?

So, in the year 2009, we’re getting our best corporate journalism from Comedy Central? This just in from national correspondent Amy Poehler: “Really? Really?”

Join the chant: Support PBS! Join NPR! Support PBS! Join NPR!

The trolls delighted in The (Allentown, PA) Morning Call newspaper story about the local United Way falling short of its fundraising goal. Moments after the on-line version of the story was posted, their comments poured in. From them we learned that United Way is a hopelessly corrupt system staffed by loafers and supported by idiots.

At one point in the commentary it was somewhat gleefully noted that not one of the dozens of comments were sympathetic to United Way.

Being a former United Way employee I had first-hand experience with the organization, so I entered my own comment: “I used to work for the valley’s United Way and found it to be an excellent organization staffed by dedicated, hardworking people,” it began.

Most of the next 20 or so posts in reply were seething rants accusing me of being either an unwitting shill or a liar. One definitively announced that the only reason I was defending United Way was because it had paid for my drug rehabilitation treatment.

Well, that certainly shut me up. Not because the claim was true–it was not. I backed out of the conversation because, like most of the public commentary on the newspaper’s news forums, it was being dominated by trolls.

They are more than a nuisance. They are crippling what could be a boon to social and political discourse.

What many describe as the death of the newspaper is also the beginning of the bravest of new worlds—one that promises to connect people as they have never been connected before; one that holds the possibility of providing an unparalleled platform for community discussion. The new media organizations that are replacing traditional newspapers have the ability to not only make news reporting immediately available, but truly interactive. Consumers can add to the quality of reporting and develop it into community discussions.

Such a platform is already in place at The Morning Call. All that is keeping us from it are the trolls.

* * *

There is a virtual sign planted at the entrance of National Public Radio’s on-line community:

“Don’t Feed the Trolls.”

In an explanatory post, Eyder Peralta, an editor at NPR.org, describes trolls as “people who say just about anything to get a rise out of others. Trolls … turn perfectly interesting threads into festering cesspools of resentment.”

The community at NPR.org is encouraged to not “feed” the trolls by simply ignoring their posts. It’s an imperfect response. For one, it does nothing to address the substantial time that is wasted slogging through the hateful, pointless drivel that trolls create. But other remedies, such as filters that enable readers to view only editor-approved or highly rated entries, look promising.

But snarks are another matter altogether.

“Snark: It’s Mean, It’s Personal, and It’s Ruining Our Conversation” a recent book by New Yorker magazine film critic David Denby, ably identifies the rampaging nature of snarkiness and the toll it is extracting from the quality of on-line public discourse.

But Denby’s book misses the greater point about Snarks, whose name comes from combining the two-word product of their “work:” Snide Remarks.

Frankly, in a world of micro-managed brand images and billion-dollar public relations spin, a little razor-edged sarcasm that surgically reveals the heart of a matter isn’t an altogether bad thing.

It can take some getting used to–especially if it’s your pet ox being gored by it–but at a time when we are being inundated with manipulative messages, it can be nice to have someone get to the point quickly and clearly.

Yes, sarcasm can get tiresome, but the real enemies of excellent electronic public discourse are trolls that pose as snarks. Their angry, factless diatribes are pitiful attempts to appear smart and in-the-know, but add nothing of substance to the debate.

Trolls are typically easy to ignore except for that one unforgivable sin: the time they waste for people interested in grown-up conversation. With trolls on the loose, no one will be willing to invest their time and insight into the conversation. That is a loss of profound dimensions.

They are unlikely to change on their own. The only solution to the trolls is to filter them out. Do that, and the community benefits of this new world of American journalism will begin.