Because nothing says Happy Holidays like thinly veiled hostility and aggression:

Yesterday, at around 6:12 p.m. EST, Twitter user Shellie Ross (@Military_Mom) posted an ominous tweet:

Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool

Several hours later, she posted a link to a picture “remembering [her] million dollar baby,” indicating that her beautiful son, Bryson Drago Ross, had drowned. An immediate outpouring of sympathy went out on Twitter, with some relating stories of their own tragic loss. It was a tremendous display of how online social networks can be used for expressing grief and to receive virtual emotional support.

But then it got ugly. People started questioning the veracity of the story. They wanted “proof.” They lectured everyone to cast a cynical eye and hold off on donating, like we’re all a bunch of mindless rubes ready to have our pockets picked by the first con artist to come along. Others questioned Ross’ parenting skills, even going so far as to say maybe she was too busy with Twitter and ignoring her child, and wondered why she would be on Twitter while her son was being rushed to the hospital (even though it was only one short tweet asking for prayers, not a “play by play” as it was described). Some thought that the timeline of Ross’ tweets were off.

The most vocal skeptic was Madison McGraw, who even went so far as to make phone calls to the police station and local newspapers near the Ross home. She eventually found her verification of the accident (although she’s quick to point out that “no identities were revealed”). McGraw thinks that Ross’ choice to tweet about the event says something about what humankind has become:

And if we’ve become a society that responds to death in this manner: Have to call 911, have to call husband, have to call mother, have to call funeral home, have to Twitter this- then we are seriously failing as a society.

Now, being a pretty cynical guy myself, the part of people questioning a virtually anonymous person’s writing on the internet doesn’t shock me at all — you might want to reflect on how you got such a cold, jaded heart once in a while, but we certainly have a right to our opinion no matter how heinous some might think it may be. The real gall comes from expressing your opinion in public — and even worse directly to the grieving mother (I don’t care if you’re using the qualifier “possibly” or not), that’s just beyond rude, it’s downright sick. That people have the audacity to say “PROVE IT!” to a mom who said she just lost her toddler and is undoubtedly feeling more grief and guilt than any of us who have not gone through the experience could ever imagine, well that, Ms. McGraw, speaks infinitely more about our failure as a society than someone in their darkest moment typing 140 characters ever could.

You know what’s more annoying than the Annoying Orange? Having your kids play the Annoying Orange on their computer in a continuous loop! If you’ve never seen this before, be sure they’re out of the room before watching so you don’t find yourself in the same predicament.

Aaron Traister at Salon.com argues for the former:

After 14 uninterrupted hours of childcare, making the transition from Diego and diaper cream to Jim Lehrer and Paul Krugman is an exhausting prospect. If I ever muster the energy to investigate what is going on in the world outside the baby bunker, I find it impossible not to see that world through the deceptively warped lens of how my children fit into it.

I would love nothing more than to write an insightful article about healthcare reform, but I’m dumb now. Anything I write relating to healthcare would end up as a screed about why my children have to take a back seat on getting their flu shots to a bunch of kids with “respiratory disorders.” Why are kids who can’t breathe right so much more important than my own kids? My kids love to breathe, and they’re good at it, and they should be rewarded for their aptitude in breathing.

The E! show The Soup revealed a promo for a new show coming up on TLC, a.k.a the Trainwreck Lives Channel, that combines all your favorite elements from their other popular shows. Take a look: