Mary Novaria

The vitriol that is spread under the cover of social media anonymity is quickly infecting the rest of society. March 7, 2017  by  Mary Novaria   Featured on The Good Men Project Getty Images I’ve heard it said that folks who spew malicious attacks and toxic name-calling on Twitter are hiding behind relative anonymity—that they would never look someone in the eye and repeat face-to-face the same nasty, ugly venom, they type out to the world in 140 characters or less. Whether that theory is true, and I’m not convinced it is, doesn’t matter. Words are currency. Whether delivered via social media, a phone call, email or text, or in the presence of others, the words we choose and way we use them speaks volumes about who we are, both individually and as a society. ◊♦◊ So when I see the headline,  Longtime Trump Adviser Calls Critic a “Stupid Ignorant Ugly B—–, ” it gets my hackles up. Although some of his most profane and poisonous tweets wer...

As seen on Huffington Post This was supposed to be about Mary Tyler Moore. As a young broadcast journalist, living by myself in a studio apartment, I couldn’t help but liken myself to Moore’s iconic character, Mary Richards, associate producer of the news at WJM-TV. Besides sharing the name Mary, we both produced the news—she in television and I in radio at the local NPR station. Mary modeled for us independence, encouragement, integrity and, that plucky quality her boss Lou Grant hated—spunk. I wanted to be just like her. Truth be told, though, I was a Rhoda, more bohemian and sarcastic than the well coifed, tailored and graceful Mary Richards. Still, to this day, when I think of that studio apartment—the first place I ever lived all by myself—or any young woman living alone in a studio, it always conjures up visions of Mary.   What was it about that apartment in Minneapolis? It encapsulated the freedom we had achieved through the women’s movement: to have career ambi...