Suffer the little children

Fragile Flickr members stampeded the Flickr message boards in their thousands as news of a possible Microsoft takeover of Flickr parent company Yahoo was announced, and authorities warned that the continuing entreaties of Microsoft would crush the hopes of many people desperate to cling on to the illusion that they are somehow operating independent of corporate America.

Heartbreaking video from places such as Mountain View, CA and Brooklyn, NY showed crowds of people -- many of them holders of advanced degrees --screaming, elbowing each other, in some cases sobbing and collapsing in the rush to post a disparaging comment against Microsoft, often in the form of a cleverly doctored photo.

Message board moderators battled to keep order in chaotic virtual scenes in the offices of the Mountain View based company. One moderator lifted a small child above the crowd as the child's mother clutched the moderator’s coat. What a small child was doing inside the offices of an internet company is unclear.

In other news, people in faraway lands deal with actual problems.