Note: This “Moore to the Point” commentary aired on NewsTalkSTL on Thursday, April 28th. Audio included below.

Have you ever had an earworm — where a song gets stuck in your head and plays on auto-loop? My current one is Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

I was only five years old when it was first released, but I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t part of my consciousness.

It’s a classic song – iconic. It immediately calls to mind that “dazed and confused” era which, ironically, seems simpler and more comfortable than our current times.

It’s also tremendously fitting in light of recent developments surrounding Twitter – including Elon Musk’s soon-to-be acquisition of it and the reaction to that. I’ve seen several different memes flitting about, with the Twitter bird symbolically being freed from and flying out of its cage.

MUSK ACQUIRES TWITTER 2.0https://t.co/4slOilZYGy
Twitter: https://t.co/2Mkng731nt
Like @ Facebook:https://t.co/WeX1G9jwDl
BOOK:https://t.co/eqyzRdz8nShttps://t.co/IFoDRww4GO pic.twitter.com/WsatRhKiJw

— Michael Ramirez (@Ramireztoons) April 26, 2022

No, Twitter isn’t the real world – and plenty of life happens completely independent of it. Yet, there’s no denying it plays a significant – and some would say outsized – role in our culture and discourse these days.

Call me an optimist, but after the gloom and doom of the past couple years, the idea that speech might, in fact, become a bit freer as a result of all this gives me a glimmer of hope that we could just be entering into the “Soaring Twenties.”

Many thanks to my colleague Jim Thompson for letting me borrow his apt ‘toon for this one!