Dilemnas of the Social Media Era

Let me start by saying that I find Facebook to be a useful and enjoyable thing. I have a modest-sized list of friends, some of them folks I met through blogs like Sadly, No! and who I think are quite possibly the brightest people running loose on the Innert00bz. On my list are old friends, some going way back to skool daze in Ottumwa, Iowa, some veterans of the rock bar days of the 80s and 90s, a few met at work, and so on and so forth.

Having spent a lot of time around the lefty political blogosphere, I tend to use my Facebook page as a blog. I post a lot of political, anti-woo, pro-rational thinking kinds of things, and various bits of political humor. What usually results is that I get a lot of brilliant, funny, well-informed comments and an enjoyable discussion. Of course, we don't all walk in lockstep, some of us are argumentative as hell, and occasionally an argument breaks out, even among people who generally have the same or similar ideals but differing ideas about how to get there. As on the blogs generally, there are hot button issues, and things occasionally get heated. This is the way I was raised, though, so it's not a big deal to me. As a child, I used to sometimes wait until all the adults were yelling at each other about some political matter on which they mostly agreed, and then slink down under the table, very gradually, then crawl under the table and out the back door, the carrots or Swiss chard having been successfully avoided.

But FB is not a blog. Most commenters are using their real names, as am I. Some of my old friends wouldn't know Crooks and Liars from Faux Noise or Max Blumenthal from Netanyahu. Some of them, may teh Flying Spaghetti Monster help us, have political views more in common with Glenn Beck than with me. As a result, all hell can break loose, frequently when I'm least expecting it.

Then there's the issue of not wanting to get in a huge-ass free-for-all fight on one of my friend's comment threads, for fear of causing a family rift that will bring trauma for my friend for many a holiday to come, or an unfriending rippling throughout a large group of friends. It can be a balancing act, and it's not necessarily good for the blood pressure.

At least I can retreat to my little Farmville paradise, or swim with the fishies, or dig for treasure. There's that.

I Get Mail!

Since A's dad, known affectionately as The Old Man, passed away a year and a half ago, his mail has been coming to my address. Much of it is junk of the sort that would make Orac grind his teeth with frustration. Yesterday I received what looks like a magazine, albeit skinny, bearing this headline: "DON'T Suffer with Incontinence Anymore!!" Further investigation reveals that a certain Dr. Kenneth Woliner, M.D., guarantees that his "new formula fights the hidden causes of bladder problems and wins!" For the wee price of $27.95, you get one (1) bottle of capsules, and each of those little mothers is packed with vitamin E, marshmallow root, ginger, parsley extract, vitamin C, white oak,juniper berry, and more, hard to believe though it may be that one little capsule could contain enough of this multiplicity of ingredients to have any effect whatsoever. Now $27.95 may seem like kind of a stiff price, but if you buy the six-bottle pack it drops to $21.65! Yes! You can have SIX bottles of this Guaranteed-Or-Your-Money-Back! magic for the low low price of $129.90!

The poor old man died because he was trying to treat extremely deadly penile cancer with aloe vera and some sort of mushroom powder. I blame every single one of these lying charlatans for this. He grew up on a reservation, or rather lived on one with his grandma and aunt until he was fourteen, and was basically on his own after that. He was a smart old guy, but woefully uneducated, although somehow he managed to learn to read and write both Spanish and English and learn basic arithmetic, something many people who attend school until graduation don't master, and he was a brilliant mechanic. Still, he could be forgiven for falling for this stuff; it's easy to do that, when it's what you want to hear, when you know next to nothing about medical science, and someone in a spiffy white coat calling himself a doctor is selling you on it. But what about the growing numbers of well-educated folks who are falling for herbal remedies and fer chrissakes homeopathy - a form of woo even The Old Man found suspect! - and are refusing to vaccinate their kids or give them fluoridated water? Some sort of regulation needs to be imposed on this nonsense. It's a serious public health crisis, and growing every day.

Looks around, everything the same

Since teh Evil Facebook stole my soul, I haven't done anything with this blog in a long time. This is about to change.

Stay tuned . . .

Betty Bowers Explains Biblical Marriage

Pretty spot on, if you ask me:



h/t World O'Crap

On organization, beaurocracy, and a need to go Galt

Seriously, after the day I spent today, I feel the need to retreat to a cabin in the woods and write a manifesto.

Took my son, J, out to the license place which, thanks to the rewarding of contracts to a politically connected rich guy who happened to own land out by bedroom community Ankeny, is now located far, far away from our house - and from the homes of impoverished Des Moines residents as well - to get his driver's permit, or, failing that, his official ID. As instructed on the web site, we took his birth certificate and his social security card with us. Well, this copy of his birth certificate, which we've been using since his birth, was not good enough for the woman behind the counter at the DOT. We'd stood in line for about fifteen minutes with the not-so-great and very genuinely unwashed. To add insult to injury, this was our second drive out there because my son forgot both social security card and eyeglasses and didn't discover it until we'd pulled into the parking lot, so we had to return home to retrieve the items. Also, we'd had to take the backroads route, because I got a flat tire last night and we were driving on the donut.

On the plus side, it's been an absolutely gorgeous day, so the drive wasn't as hideous as it could have been. We got home and left again with A to get J's work clothes for his new job and to get a new shoe for the car. We wound up having to replace both of our extremely worn front tires because they were both toast. We went to a very dinerish maid-rite where I had a not-so-good fish sammich - I've again quit eating meat excepting fish - and then wandered around Valley Junction window shopping. Saw a great pink spiral Hocking cereal bowl at an antique store (junk shop) and when I have a buck or two I shall return and purchase it, if it's still there. (No green spiral Hocking, sadly.)

So, Monday I have to take the kid to be drug tested for his new job, and we'll also have to get him a proper birth cert at the county recorder's office. This will not be fun, most probably. The drug testing place is way out in Urbandale. We can't get the driver's permit on Monday, because they are closed, so we'll be taking another trip to Ankeny on Tuesday, I guess. Wheeeee! In the meantime, I've got to somehow replace my social security card which I've managed to lose and make some serious attempts at job hunting.

At least the kid is employed. He's working for the devil, it's true - not Mall*Wart, though, I'd shoot him in the foot first - but a place that drives local record companies out of business by undercutting them on price. He's thrilled, and as a serious computer geek will be enjoying his employee discount to the max.

Anyway, I'm going to have to do some serious time organizing and agendaing and just thinking about it all makes me tired.

Almost There

Well, it's been a month since I last posted anything, and I really don't have much to say as of yet. I took my art final today, and have my math final on Monday, and then I am done. It doesn't seem possible that I'm actually graduating. Now to find a job. Oh how I need a job.

It is an almost impossibly beautiful day here today. Sixty-six degrees, sunny, light breeze, and all the flowering trees are abloom. The forsythia is done, but the crab apple, plum, and lilac are all in flower. The daffodils are ending but the tulips are now blazing away. The lawns are full of golden dandelions and violets, and there are bluebells in the trashy lot behind our apartment house, making the area almost lovely. Soon there will be peonies and iris, and the bridal wreath is gracing many a path already.

I love this time of year, almost as much as I love October in Iowa, the most beautiful month in my opinion. It's glorious. On days like these, I wonder how anyone could forsake the glory of the returning spring for a seasonless climate. In fairness, I even wonder this in January, when the snow lies deep and there is just the tiny splash of red that is our resident cardinal to mark the grey, black and white plane. The only time I really don't like is when it's 90+ degrees with matching humidity. That I do hate.

But it's good for the corn. Or so they say.

Edumacation Finishing Hiatus

I probably won't be around much for the next four - five weeks. I'm going to need to double down on the final school work, as I'd like to pull out at least a B+ in math. Graduation is May 7th! I've also got to polish up the resume, collect my references, and hit the job hunting hard. As much as I'd like to take a couple of weeks off after graduating and finishing my internship, I'm going to need to get life on a paying basis sooner rather than later.

After the 7th of May I shouldn't have anything to do with my evenings but screw around on Teh Intert00bz! I can't wait.

Best Description Ever!

Gavin M. at Sadly,No! on Instaputz Glenn Reynolds:

which is as a shifty and vain provincial lawyer orbited by a growingly despised resource of fools, one indeed that seems to be purifying through self-attrition into an n-dimensional hyperturd of elemental Duh.

My cap is doffed. Well done, sir! I say, well done.

Update: In the same thread, one of the best comments I have seen in a while:

James K. Polk, Esq. said,

March 25, 2009 at 5:25

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.

The other, of course, involves orcs.

On Working

I've come to the conclusion that working for a living is not ideal. Now that I approach graduation, I very much want to stay in the warm if unremunerated cocoon of academia.

The fact is, as good ol' Gary would say, I just don't like the hurly burly of daily commerce. I'm happiest in a library, researching and reading or just dreamily looking out the window. I would be pleased to spend the rest of my life doing case law research. With Westlaw and Lexus, I would never really need to leave my house, but I actually wouldn't mind going to work if work was located in a library, especially a library minus rugrats.

Well, I doubt I shall be able to arrange this, at least not right away. I just hope I can get my foot in the door at a civil rights, immigration, or defense firm. I really, really don't want to work for Teh Man.

Waitin' Around to Die/Heartworn Highways

Some more great country folk, and bonus horse shoeing tips. Warning: This might make you cry.





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Saturday in the park

I'm not a country fan, but I do like random stuff, mostly really old school country by people like Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams Sr., Hank Snow, Patsy Cline. I can do without the Toby Keiths and the Hank Jr.s but what I like I really really like.

My first experience of Steve Earle was a short story he wrote about a funeral and the country music drug culture, I think it was called A Eulogy of Sorts. I got interested in him from that story, and read up about him. Great politics. Then I gave the music a shot. I like quite a lot of it, although some of it is a little too country for me. But the following song is always gonna be on my short list for favorite songs ever:




I 'spect he was still sort of junked out when he did this show. He sure was fine looking when he was younger. At any rate, enjoy!

DST

I hate daylight savings time.

That is all.

Godless

I'm always surprised at how shocked many people are when you tell them you don't believe in a god or gods. "You don't?" they ask, eyes wide like those of a child hearing a really spooky story. Frequently, they ask you why you're "mad at God," as if god was kind of a pissy authoritarian dad who'd handed down some extra-heavy punishment for forgetting to put your bike away for the night.

So you explain to them that you can't be "mad at God" because you don't believe there's a god at whom to be mad. Then they think you must be really sad. "Don't you feel empty inside?" they ask. "No," I say truthfully, adding, "Actually, going from agnostic to atheist was the most freeing moment of my life. Going from wanna-be believer to agnostic was the second most freeing moment."

The simple truth is that my mind was not at peace when I was trying to make myself swallow some mythology or believe that there was some great force moving behind the scenes of our day-to-day existence, looking down on us and noting every naughty thing we do as well as every good or holy thing we do so as to jot it down in some sort of cosmic ledger. My brain was able to clearly recognize that this was stupid, not to put too fine a point on it. To try to force one's mind to believe things that are clearly against reason is painful.

Of course, there was never any chance that I could believe in any of the actual mythology of any religion. Anyone who can actually swallow the Noah myth, for example, is either nuts or a total moron. Anybody who thinks the earth is only 6000 years old is either stone ignorant where science is concerned or is afflicted with a critical case of denial. I knew this when I was a young child. How anyone swallows this silliness is impossible for me to understand. I don't mean to pick on Christians alone, mind you. All creation myths are silly, although some are much prettier than others.

I liked the aesthetics of Catholicism when I tried to be one during my teens. I loved the candles, the incense, the flowers, the liturgy. Loved the responses from the pews to the priest's "peace be with you," all those voices replying "and also with you." I never had a negative experience in the church. But I never believed in it. Not even a little bit. Could not. Later, when I tried to embrace Wicca, I had somewhat better luck. It makes much more sense to honor nature and accord holiness to the earth that nurtures and bears. The sun, the sky, the moon and the rain are, after all, real things which can be observed and tested, and they hold an obvious power. If you grant the first absurdity, that these things are sentient and aware of us individually, the idea that you might be able, through some sort of worship or incantation, to harness or direct that power for your own ends seems a fairly reasonable one.

But it's granting the first absurdity that trips me up. I'm unable to swallow it, and ultimately I really believe that is a good thing. Voltaire said, "As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities." This is true. If one can convince people that some invisible force exists that holds the keys to paradise, then those people can be convinced that this force wants them to kill people who hold a different belief in another invisible force. That few people see what a dangerous and terrible thing this has been for humankind is, to me, frankly terrifying.

Friday

Awards, Pomp, & Circumstance

I love the Awards. I love the beautiful dresses, and the pageantry, and the happiness of the people who win. I love movies. I love everything from silents to stupid comedies like Super Bad to tear-jerkers like Benjamin Button. Maybe it's because some of my happiest childhood memories involve going to movies with my mom and grandma, I don't know. I remember seeing Doctor Zhivago, Gone With the Wind, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, Rocky, Jaws, all at the now long-defunct pleasure domes the Capri and Capitol Theaters in Ottumwa, Iowa. So, so much fun.

At any rate, I devour movies, watching at least two a week. I’m a movie junkie. If I like something, i’ll watch it over and over. (Just lately, it’s been Memoirs of a Geisha.) I almost never dislike a movie. I have the ability to suspend disbelief and enter into the spirit of the thing, something I can also do with literature but can't do at all in real life. I almost always like the actors, too. Actually, I suspect all the hate-on for Cruise and Pitt is largely the ol’ green-eyed monster. Cruise is at least underrated and Pitt is excellent.

Really, I don’t understand this need for everything to be Le Plus Bon Grande High Fucking Holy Hoity Toity Beaux Artes all the time. What’s wrong with just letting go and getting into a story?

There are people who would have you believe that all they ever read is Tolstoy and Pynchon. We know you’re secretly reading that Dean Koontz novel. You stayed up all night just last week to finish that Jennifer Cruisie story, too, didn’t you? S’okay, we understand.

Farewell to Socks

Socks Clinton has passed away at the age of 20. Socks was a fine kitty and never engaged in slash and claw politics. Socks never bit any reporters, and endured with dignity the many indignities of White House life, before retiring to live with his favorite person, Betty. RIP Socks. - This post made by Teh Kitty Cheese and Jackie, cats of the household of Candy.

Exhausted, lazy, or both?

I knew that I'd get crazy busy this semester, but I misunderestimated just how bad it would be. Now that I'm doing my internship, it seems I'm in motion from dawn to dusk. I'd become very spoiled, what with reading and watching movies only interrupted by the occasional test or paper.

Now I'm trying to get a reasonably good grade at the dreaded math and work my internship. My other two classes are easy - legal ethics is only an hour a week in class and I have an art class which is more of a treat than an obligation - so it's just the math and the stress of the new internship wearing me out. Not that the internship is stressful in a bad way, I've really enjoyed it so far and it's an amazing opportunity. If only I got paid for doing it!

But I've been busy and have become even more neglectful of this blog than I anticipated I would be. I'm going to try to post more. I think it will be good for me, discipline and all that. It's much easier to go read Sadly,No! than to actually do something myself.

I've kind of been in the doldrums since the election, with the excitement of victory having peaked and the cold reality of the horrendous wreck this country is right now settling in. As we knew they would, the Republicans are fighting Obama every step of the way on everything he's trying to do. I had a nice little burst of the old thrill earlier, though. I had my eye half on the T.V. and saw Air Force One on the tarmac, stairs extended. I automatically cringed, so used am I to seeing the Chimperor swaggering down those stepss, and it was a moment before I thought, no, not the Chimp, not now or ever again! Such a relief to see Obama exiting that plane! I should spend more time appreciating that.

There is another good piece of political news, and I'll try to make a post about it sometime this weekend. Iowa's horrible Congresscritter Steve King, he of the Border Fence to the Moon, is planning to take a run for governor. His evisceration will be a joy to watch, an absolute gift of opportunities to snark and point and laugh until the tears stream down my cheeks. Once he's outside his hick ass district he won't get more than one vote in a hundred. Joy, joy, joy! I await with great anticipation.

Mocking Birds

I'm drunk. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I drank a bottle of Malbec, 2007 Los Alamos, good stuff, deep purple and 11.00 a bottle. From Argentina. Like Ernesto Guevaro de la Serna. Faithful and true. Then I returned to my roots. I've been drinking Jimmy Beam straight since I finished the wine.

This isn't fashionable. I remember a time when drinking heavily was kewl. Well, ya know, I've done my time with fucking fashion. I did a lot of coke back in the days when coke was all the rage. I did a bit of meth too, if it was clean and the fount wasn't tainted too much with white trash. But you know, there is this whole ethic now that demands that you feel somewhat ashamed if you allow yourself to become drunk, or overcome by any mind altering thing. Screw that.

These things come and go. There's nothing wrong with getting fucked up, and I don't really give a rat's ass anyway. As long as you don't die - and even if you do - whose fucking business is it anyway?

Anyhow. I've been doing some thinking tonight. I've been wondering if there is any truth to the idea that our attitudes toward politics is inbred. I'm Irish. I've never lived in Ireland, and my founding ancestor left Ireland to get the fuck away from the faith and the violence. But let me watch a movie, say the Devil's Own, and I'm rooting for the IRA guys to kill the loyalist fucks to the last man. Me, Ms.Pacifist, screaming out to KILL HIM, SHOOT HIM! I swear I can feel my blood start heating up. What the fuck? Let me watch a non-violent Irish movie, for example The Secret of Roan Inish, and before the goddamned thing is over, tears will be running down my cheeks.

El Che was part Irish. He was a Lynch, from County Galway on his dad's side. He also had Basque blood. Sounds like a genetic prescription for a refusal to accept the status quo, if nothing else. Was his revolutionary streak inherited? Or was it just handed down from generation to generation by family tradition? It's interesting to speculate. Hard to prove.

Maybe we Irish are really all crazy. Maybe it's genetic. I'm listening to my beloved Mark Lanegan tonight. Talk about crazy Irish people. I love that man. There's a strain of self-destruction in his music and lyrics that speaks to me. I don't believe in woo, and I don't believe in ethnic predisposition per se, but

Aw fuck it. Judge for yerselfffff.

French Freedom Revolution

There was a time when I would have been totally down with a full-scale, French-type revolution. There was also a time, not so very long ago, when I was very schadenfreudiciously happy to see the economy tanking. I’m poor. Hell, I’m damned near destitute right now, but at least in my case it’s - hopefully - temporary. I don't have any retirement funds to lose. I don't own a single stock. The extent of my banking is a checking and savings account, the entire balance of both under $50.00 at the moment. I have one maxed out credit card. What do I have to lose? But rather quickly I realized that many good people had been and were going to be hurt by the financial meltdown. At first, the pleasure of watching Citi, for example, go down the tubes was most gratifying; but then I thought of the actual human beings I’d worked with who were being laid off. I thought of all the people who’d received terrible mortgages from Citi who were losing their homes. It made me ashamed.

Now shit like this from Larry Kudlow, Asshole Capitalist Porker Extraordinaire, makes me yearn for bloody revolution, for the people’s justice, for a new Ernesto Guevara de la Serna to rise up and depose those monsters of selfishness. And yet, I’m pretty sure that if that were to happen, there’d be a lot of horrific collateral damage. I also think things would have to get way, WAY worse for the violence and damage of overthrow to be truly justified, not to mention the un-plumbed depths of just how much worse things would have to become in order to stir the American people out of their couch-bound apathy. I have no wish to see people fleeing burning cities on foot with a few tattered belongings strapped to their backs. I don’t want my son starting out on his life-path with no real hope for a decent future.

I do think that we’re going to have to rethink what a decent future entails. The way of life we’ve been maintaining at the expense of the rest of the planet was unsustainable, in more ways than one. I think that this is mostly a good thing. It's not going to be easy, though. I'm willing to give the Obama administration a chance to straighten things out. If the other guy had been elected, I might be singing a different tune about what we need to do in order to clean house. But Obama seems to have some ideas; I'm willing to bet he knows more about how to fix things than I do.

One thing I really think they ought to do - also something they'll never do because it isn't politically expedient - is pump a LOT of money into welfare. Return to the days of decent monthly cash grants and stop forcing parents to work before the kids are in school full time. Every dime of that money, every last red cent, will go for goods and services, much of it local.

And while I'm dreaming, maybe we should nationalize Mall-Wart. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh ..............

Extended Hands & Unclenched Fists

What a day it's been. I had a couple of pieces of personal good news, the sun came out and shed its benificence on the proceedings, and then there was the inauguration. It just doesn't get much better than this. It feels as though a long, dark slog through a boggy wood has ended, and I've come out into a bright, sunny meadow where deer frolic and bunnies play.

I've been trying not to get my hopes up for so long that it feels like the safe way to live. I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to let myself off the leash and live a little. Sure, there will be disappointments down the road, but what the hell ya gonna do? Let the sun shine down.

And how about this? Like liquid gold: