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My 10 Best Posts of 2024

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As we wrap up the year, it’s time to go back and look at what I consider my best posts of 2024. At the very least, they might be worth reading if you missed them the first time around.

How do I decide which of the more-than-200 posts I write each year are the “best”? Well, it’s subjective, of course. I find very often that the posts I think are my best aren’t the ones that get the most views. I also find that sometimes, the most-read are posts that leave me wondering, Why did that one do so well? But let’s pretend that someone actually asked me to list my best posts of 2024.

With that theoretical question in mind, I came up with this list of 10 posts. They’re not restricted to a single topic and I don’t list them in any particular order.

Here goes.

1. ‘The Civil War and the Persistent Silence on Slavery’

I was born after the abolition of Jim Crow laws of the South. (At least out in the open.) But racism still existed then and it still exists now. I have loved ones who have attitudes that are difficult at times to attribute to anything else. It doesn’t take being a person of color to see that racism still exists.

A good example is when you ask someone in power about something like the Civil War. Then-GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley was an example. Haley, an Indian American, is a former governor of South Carolina, my home state. She was in office in 2015 when a white gunman opened fire in a historically Black church, killing nine people. She is the same leader who secured the Confederate Battle Flag’s removal from the South Carolina State House grounds in the massacre’s aftermath.

But given the chance to say what led to the start of the Civil War, she skipped over the “obvious” answer of slavery.

A lot of people, particularly white people, like to pretend it wasn’t about slavery at all. They embrace a “states’ rights” excuse, claiming that states fought to ensure their own autonomy over federal rule. That’s true. But the primary issue that prompted states to leave the Union was slavery. South Carolina’s Articles of Secession, the document that justified the state’s decision to break away, mentions slavery by name.

It wasn’t until later that she stated the obvious.

“Of course the Civil War was about slavery,” she said the following day during a radio interview. She even called slavery “a stain on America.”

“The first thing I should have said was slavery,” Haley said on Fox News‘ Cavuto Live. “I completely agree with that. When you grow up in the South, slavery is a given. Like when you think of the Civil War, you know it was about slavery. That’s never been in question.”

Slavery is a given…but it wasn’t enough of a given that it was the first thing that came to mind?

2. ‘Hate Social Media’s Negative Posts? Don’t Interact With Them!’

Far be it from me to agree with Elon Musk, the owner of X, on much of anything. But on the subject of social media posts that feel too negative, I found something we agree on.

Musk made it clear that on social media — at least on some social platforms — it’s all about the algorithm. The algorithm sees you interacting with content and tries its best to find more content like it to show you. Gone are the days where everyone could go on social media and just see the latest content.

On one hand, that algorithm shows you content you might find valuable. But on the other, it’s going to show you more of the very content you can’t resist smarting off about. The algorithm isn’t smart enough to know if you respond to a negative post because you’re angry or because you love it.

But it can tell which posts you’re likely to respond to — negatively or positively — and show you more of that.

So Musk’s simple advice becomes far more applicable these days.

3. ‘Facebookers Show ‘Sending Prayers’ is More About Them’

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which did significant damage to several states, members of a Facebook group made a simple request. They asked people not to post “thoughts and prayers” comments when one asked for word on a loved one. With storm damage cutting off communications, people posted about their loved ones whom they had not heard from.

But people posting those “thoughts and prayers” comments prompted notifications on those posts, leading people worried about their loved ones to think there was word on where they were.

It was a perfectly reasonable request. But since everyone has to find a way to take offend to something, some very self-righteous, very self-centered “Christians” decided to respond with a vengeance.

4. ‘Should Restaurants Ban Non-Tipping Customers?’

A Facebook post included a screenshot of a message a restaurant apparently sent to a non-tipping customer. If you believe the screengrab, the restaurant’s manager told the customer that he and his wife were no longer allowed to eat at the restaurant because they left no tip.

Servers like to say that anyone who can’t afford to tip has no right to eat at a restaurant that employs servers. I understand their perspective, of course. Restaurants have been underpaying their workers for generations. That means that workers rely on tips.

However tips, by definition, are optional. If a restaurant manager wants to ban customers who don’t tip their staff sufficiently, maybe those managers should first make sure they’re paying a liveable wage.

5. ‘Ironic: As X Checkmarks Return, Some No Longer Want Them’

I’ve had a lot to say about the ridiculous changes X has made to its former verification feature. In an attempt to make money, the social media platform turned something that was useful into something absolutely useless.

The little verification checkmarks originally gave the platform an air of authenticity. Users could see that accounts purporting to be “official” had been vetted. But then it changed to a subscription model where anyone who subscribed to the service received the checkmark. That meant spammers could subscribe and look “official.”

Eventually, X tried to implement some degree of verification that actually involved verification.

And a funny thing happened: After all of the backlash for the “paid” checkmarks, some users who suddenly found they had earned one — with good reason or not — took advantage of a new option: hiding the very mark some worked so hard to get!

Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up!

6. ‘Christians Could Take a Page from the Jewish Holiday Purim’

Every October, when Halloween rolls around, some Christian churches go into mild panics about it. Over the years, many have started holding events called “Trunk or Treat” designed to do Halloween without calling it Halloween. As I’ve said before, I don’t think things like that fool God. (I’ve certainly talked about that before.)

But the Jewish faith celebrates Purim in October and it also involves wearing masks and costumes. The philosophy behind concealing their identities is to remind them about God’s hidden presence among us.

It seems to me that if Christians are so desperate to take part in a secular celebration, they could at least put a religious spin on it.

7. ‘Facebookers Applaud Store’s Ban of Emotional Support Animals’

When a grocery store went public with what should be common sense, we quickly saw two factions. The first was on the side of common sense. But the second was on the side of wanting to take Fido or Fluffy everywhere with them, no matter what the law might say.

It was a bit surprising how bitter the reaction became.

8. ‘When a Good Worker Leaves, You Can’t Always Blame Managers’

If you spend a little time on LinkedIn, you’ll quickly find yourself swamped by post after post blaming all the world’s problems on managers. The employees, these posts might suggest, are perfect. They never do anything wrong. But those evil managers are always after the innocent little worker bees.

Look, we’ve all worked in environments where you might think that’s true. But it’s not universal.

One of those posts on LinkedIn inspired this post about what should be obvious. Sometimes, it’s not the manager’s fault.

9. ‘Here’s the Problem With All of the X Alternatives’

One of the big questions in the world of social media is which social platform — if any — will overtake X as the preferred short-post option. I stress that “if any” part. The former Twitter still has the numbers.

But it seems to me that there’s one thing most everyone says about the platform they hope you’ll join them on.

“Well, it’s like Twitter, but it’s better,” you might say. That seems to be what a lot of platforms are unofficially saying in trying to get people to make a switch (or at least join) their platform.

But is that enough to do it? Apparently not, one expert says, particularly when it comes to the platform Threads.

Insert the name of any “X alternative” in place of Threads and I think you’ll get a clearer picture.

10. ‘When the Election’s Over, is the Political Rhetoric Worth It?’

Every election cycle, it seems, politics become more personal, more bitter and more divisive. Many like to blame the media for this, since they like to blame the media for an endless number of problems.

But it’s not the media that benefits from that kind of polarization: It’s the political parties themselves. They have a vested interest in forcing people to embrace an “either them or us” mentality. To do otherwise, to minister to those “in the middle,” would be to help build a potential third party that might actually have a shot at beating the red or blue sides.

They definitely don’t want to do that.

But after yet another election when people go for each others’ throats again and again, we have to pause for a minute and look at the damage done. Family and friend relationships get damaged over politics.

Is that really worth it? Unfortunately, given the venomous enthusiasm with which the political enthusiasts operate, they apparently think it is.


Well, those are the 10 posts I think might represent some of my best of 2024. I did have a few second guesses on some of the posts, and I started with 20 posts to choose from. (As I wrote, I changed a couple of “finalists” more than once, so I’ll take that as a good thing.)

Thanks for reading and thanks for staying on this journey for two decades!

I hope you’ll be back in 2025!

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.
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