I was a little taken aback when I looked at the date of the last post. It's been more than a month and half since I last posted and, well, I feel a bit bad about that. But not so bad that I'm going to beg forgiveness.
There are still many things I want to write about - elections anyone? - and just like a fine writer in my neighborhood, I'm just going to have to make the time.
How's this for a topic: Social media has made us less social. I say this not in the way everyone thinks - that Facebook and Twitter and such allow people to cut themselves off from actual human interaction - but in that it forces us to restrain ourselves and our opinions.
I succumbed to Facebook's Siren song a little more than a month ago, probably right about the time I should have been updating The Foggy Dew. I've reached out and reconnected with people I haven't seen or heard from in years and, truthfully, I got some friend requests I had to think long and hard about. What is the social media definition of a "friend"? Does this person sending me a "friend" request really count as a friend anymore? Why hasn't that person responded to my "friend" request? Oh, God, Why!
Except for a very small number of people I work with - who I actually count as real-world friends - I haven't sent, and received only one (from my boss, which I ignored) "friend" request from co-workers.Strangely, I do have two "friends" I've never actually met, but with whom I've corresponded electronically over the past year or so (both of you read this, so you know who you are). I find this almost old fashion. Long ago people would correspond with people they didn't know through these things called "letters" which they sent through the "mail." I'm speaking of people like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. They had correspondence with a wide array of people, shared their thoughts, ideas and dreams, and built a network of friends that spanned the Atlantic.
The hard one's to decide about are the college and high school friends. Except for the two guys I count as my best friends, I've not accepted any of the three friend requests from people I knew in high school. If I'd wanted to stay in touch, I'da done it before now. College friends? Do I need to be Facebook friends with the girl who broke my heart, but who I (now) have nothing but fond memories about? (FYI, I did.) Also, my how some of them have changed.
The world of social media is a minefield my friends. A single misstep can have lasting consequences. I've seen it, you've seen it. A misconstrued comment or status update can cause drama that continues long after the real-world friendship gasps its last.
[On a completely unrelated note, I just realized the clock in my office was still on Daylight Savings Time and lunch is still an hour a way. Doh!]
To avoid those kinds of situations, I've adopted the "Primum non nocere" Facebook doctrine. First, do no harm. I will do my best to avoid mean snark (as opposed to the funny kind), ridicule and passive aggression in any status update or comment. The effort involved in being nasty is just not worth the calories burned. But, also, because I know that many of my posts are only important to me and someone, somewhere is annoyed to see them pop up in their feed. Yeah, sorry 'bout that.
Finally, for those of you who like irony, did you see the videos I posted on Facebook last night? If not, here's a link to my Flickr page where they're posted. My first attempts at time-lapse photography. Sorry for the jerkiness. They'll get better.
Showing posts with label mini-rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mini-rant. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Things that make you go WTF?!?!?...
As I was driving home from work yesterday along the tree-lined streets of my hood, this car in front of me caught my eye.
While a Prius is not by any means a terribly unusual sight in Alexandria - Hell, there's three or four on my block alone - this one was different. Oh so very, very different.
What? You can't see it in this picture? Let me blow it up for you...(it's clickable if you want a really good view)
Do you see what I see? Yeah, that's a Prius with a Palin bumper sticker. Isn't that like matter and anti-matter? Good and evil? Intelligence and American Idol? Chocolate and peanut butter? (Oh, wait, strike that last one, I got carried away).
While a Prius is not by any means a terribly unusual sight in Alexandria - Hell, there's three or four on my block alone - this one was different. Oh so very, very different.What? You can't see it in this picture? Let me blow it up for you...(it's clickable if you want a really good view)
Do you see what I see? Yeah, that's a Prius with a Palin bumper sticker. Isn't that like matter and anti-matter? Good and evil? Intelligence and American Idol? Chocolate and peanut butter? (Oh, wait, strike that last one, I got carried away).Shouldn't this combination cause some kind of massive conflagration as one obliterates the other? A microscopic supernova (femtonova??) in Del Ray?
Seriously? As crunchy as owning a hybrid is, and as smug and pretentious as their owners can be (some, not all), it's still a good choice for a car when it comes to lowering the carbon footprint. But then you go and ruin all that good karma by supporting a deluded, vacuous demagogue like Sarah Palin?
I weep for the future.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Stupid things written in today’s NYT
Some days I don’t know why I read the NYT. More often than I’d like something America’s paper of record prints just annoys the crap out of me. Today is no exception. But I keep reading mainly because, for the most part, I learn something interesting in each article.
Today’s big news? The federal court injunction against Arizona’s immigration enforcement law. I’m not going to get into the right or wrong of the law except to say that, at the federal level, it needs to be changed and changed soon (like now). While I’m know I’m not in favor of an amnesty/citizenship program, I definitely think a massively expanded guest worker/rigorous enforcement program is needed.
Getting back to the point, the NYT had a fascinating article today about a little known aspect of how the immigration issue impacts the border counties in Arizona (and, I'm guessing, Texas, New Mexico and California).Because enforcement has been stepped up along much of the border – the more easily crossed sections – it turns out illegal immigrants are now forced to traverse the less hospitable (read scorching desert) sections of the U.S.-Mexico border. This has led to many, many more illegal immigrants dropping dead on their journey to America. Their bodies are now filling the morgues in the border counties up to overflowing.
Like I said, an interesting article. The problem I have with it is the following section:
Human rights groups say it is the government’s sustained crackdown on human smuggling that has led to more deaths.
“The more that you militarize the border, the more you push the migrant flows into more isolated and desolate areas, and people hurt or injured are just left behind,” said Kat Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Coalición de Derechos Humanos in Tucson.
Yes, of course. It’s the government’s fault for enforcing the law that these people are dying while they break the law. I can see the logic in that. This is the kind of crap that pisses me off. Why is the United States (and other industrialized nations) not allowed to protect its borders and keep illegal immigrants out?
No one has a right to just come here. And, if you’re not trying to break our laws by illegally entering our country, well, then you don’t have to worry about risking a horrible death from exposure by walking across the Sonoran or Chihuahuan desert.
Truthfully through, I can respect the effort. I am the grandson of immigrants who descendants have, in two generations gone from the desperation of the Irish potato famines and civil war, to masters degrees and upper-middle class living.
That’s why we need to fix our broken immigration system. Anyone willing to walk across a burning desert for a shot at a better life is someone who will put in a hard day’s work to better themselves and their children (unless they're a terrorist trying to sneak in and I hope you die screaming in pain under a scorching sun). And that’s the kind of spirit America was built upon.
That's the spirit that makes and keeps America great.
,
Today’s big news? The federal court injunction against Arizona’s immigration enforcement law. I’m not going to get into the right or wrong of the law except to say that, at the federal level, it needs to be changed and changed soon (like now). While I’m know I’m not in favor of an amnesty/citizenship program, I definitely think a massively expanded guest worker/rigorous enforcement program is needed.
Getting back to the point, the NYT had a fascinating article today about a little known aspect of how the immigration issue impacts the border counties in Arizona (and, I'm guessing, Texas, New Mexico and California).Because enforcement has been stepped up along much of the border – the more easily crossed sections – it turns out illegal immigrants are now forced to traverse the less hospitable (read scorching desert) sections of the U.S.-Mexico border. This has led to many, many more illegal immigrants dropping dead on their journey to America. Their bodies are now filling the morgues in the border counties up to overflowing.
Like I said, an interesting article. The problem I have with it is the following section:
Human rights groups say it is the government’s sustained crackdown on human smuggling that has led to more deaths.
“The more that you militarize the border, the more you push the migrant flows into more isolated and desolate areas, and people hurt or injured are just left behind,” said Kat Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Coalición de Derechos Humanos in Tucson.
Yes, of course. It’s the government’s fault for enforcing the law that these people are dying while they break the law. I can see the logic in that. This is the kind of crap that pisses me off. Why is the United States (and other industrialized nations) not allowed to protect its borders and keep illegal immigrants out?
No one has a right to just come here. And, if you’re not trying to break our laws by illegally entering our country, well, then you don’t have to worry about risking a horrible death from exposure by walking across the Sonoran or Chihuahuan desert.
Truthfully through, I can respect the effort. I am the grandson of immigrants who descendants have, in two generations gone from the desperation of the Irish potato famines and civil war, to masters degrees and upper-middle class living.
That’s why we need to fix our broken immigration system. Anyone willing to walk across a burning desert for a shot at a better life is someone who will put in a hard day’s work to better themselves and their children (unless they're a terrorist trying to sneak in and I hope you die screaming in pain under a scorching sun). And that’s the kind of spirit America was built upon.
That's the spirit that makes and keeps America great.
,
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
A year in, Jan. 20, 2010
President Andrew Shepherd: Good. My nervousness exists on... several levels. Number one, and this is in no particular order, I haven't done this in a pretty long time. Number two, uh, any expectations that you might have, given the fact that I'm... you know...
.
Sydney Ellen Wade: [approaching seductively] The most powerful man in the world?
.
President Andrew Shepherd: Exactly, thank you. I think it's important you remember that's a political distinction that comes with the office. I mean, if, uh, Eisenhower were here instead of me, he'd be dead by now... and number three...
.
– The American President
A year ago today, as I write this, my butt was planted on my couch watching several hundred thousand people freeze their collective asses off on the Mall while the president was inaugurated. I’d thought about going down – I only live in Arlington and it’s not that far (as I tell all my District-bound friends) – but damn, it was cold that day. Seriously cold. So cold I think the Shoebox Dweller even may have felt a bit of a chill while she was here.
But I digress. In fact, I feel like I've digressed for more than a year now.
I started writing The Foggy Dew back in July 2008, right in the thick of the campaign season. It was one of the first campaigns since the ’98 mid-terms elections in North Carolina where I wasn’t working for a newspaper and I guess I felt…well, a little unfulfilled. Especially after spending the six years in one of the last blue counties in Texas where the politics is meaner than a skillet full of rattlesnakes.
As the man said this day last year, it’s time for a change. Change I can believe in. Now I’m not gonna turn this space into some kind of political blog, I enjoy writing about some of the silly/stupid stuff I come across, posting my pictures and telling the occasional rude or lewd joke. But these are important times for America and there are issues swirling about us we need to talk about so we can find answers we can agree on.
Some questions, like abortion, I’m not going to touch. The sides are so polarized and so hateful toward each other I don’t feel there can ever be a single answer that will satisfy either side even a little.
Others, though, deserve a discussion – health care, for a start, but also government spending and the friggin’ national debt those assholes downtown have run up, gay rights, international relations and trade, energy policy…the list while not endless, is long enough for our purposes (that’s what she said).
What I’d really like is to hear from people about what they’d like to talk about. You know, a little give-and-take, a bit of back-and-forth if you know what I mean. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more eh? It’d be kind of like giving me an assignment, like my editors used to. I enjoyed that because, with almost every story I wrote, I learned something.
Whadda ya say? Anyone feel like a chat?
.
Sydney Ellen Wade: [approaching seductively] The most powerful man in the world?
.
President Andrew Shepherd: Exactly, thank you. I think it's important you remember that's a political distinction that comes with the office. I mean, if, uh, Eisenhower were here instead of me, he'd be dead by now... and number three...
.
– The American President
A year ago today, as I write this, my butt was planted on my couch watching several hundred thousand people freeze their collective asses off on the Mall while the president was inaugurated. I’d thought about going down – I only live in Arlington and it’s not that far (as I tell all my District-bound friends) – but damn, it was cold that day. Seriously cold. So cold I think the Shoebox Dweller even may have felt a bit of a chill while she was here.
But I digress. In fact, I feel like I've digressed for more than a year now.
I started writing The Foggy Dew back in July 2008, right in the thick of the campaign season. It was one of the first campaigns since the ’98 mid-terms elections in North Carolina where I wasn’t working for a newspaper and I guess I felt…well, a little unfulfilled. Especially after spending the six years in one of the last blue counties in Texas where the politics is meaner than a skillet full of rattlesnakes.
As the man said this day last year, it’s time for a change. Change I can believe in. Now I’m not gonna turn this space into some kind of political blog, I enjoy writing about some of the silly/stupid stuff I come across, posting my pictures and telling the occasional rude or lewd joke. But these are important times for America and there are issues swirling about us we need to talk about so we can find answers we can agree on.
Some questions, like abortion, I’m not going to touch. The sides are so polarized and so hateful toward each other I don’t feel there can ever be a single answer that will satisfy either side even a little.
Others, though, deserve a discussion – health care, for a start, but also government spending and the friggin’ national debt those assholes downtown have run up, gay rights, international relations and trade, energy policy…the list while not endless, is long enough for our purposes (that’s what she said).
What I’d really like is to hear from people about what they’d like to talk about. You know, a little give-and-take, a bit of back-and-forth if you know what I mean. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more eh? It’d be kind of like giving me an assignment, like my editors used to. I enjoyed that because, with almost every story I wrote, I learned something.
Whadda ya say? Anyone feel like a chat?
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