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Dunkirk Spirit

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on April 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »

You remember the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk. Most Americans had never heard about the WWII evacuation of British, French and Belgian troops off the coast of northern France in 1940, on the heels of German advancement. Technically a military defeat, the Brits have enshrined this event as a testament to courage and perseverance through dangerous waters. Fishermen and yacht men alike sailed to the rescue.

“…the tugs, drifters, trawlers, barges and motor launches, and rowing boats. Yes, and there was even a canoe.
This strange assortment was got together in record time by the Small Vessel Pool, an organisation which scoured the seaside places and rivers of Britain for every conceivable type of craft.
The response of owners of vessels everywhere was magnificent. There was no grousing at having to give up boats, indeed their only desire was to give their boats and a little more. In effect it represented the spirit of Dunkirk.“

https://wordhistories.net/2019/04/16/dunkirk-spirit-origin/

Her Majesty the Queen of England just referenced the Dunkirk Spirit on a Zoom call with the builders and hospital staff of the new 155 bed Covid unit at the Royal London Hospital. The construction should have taken five months but was completed in five weeks. She recalled how Covid left her exhausted and then said:

“It is very interesting, isn’t it, when there is some very vital thing, how everybody works together and pulls together – marvelous isn’t it? …the “Dunkirk spirit. “Thank goodness it still exists.”

But does it exist here? Our response to 9/11 may be as close as we’ve come – people gave blood, knit booties for cadaver dogs, pulled together. Congress – Republicans and Democrats – sang the national anthem on the steps of the Capitol. The high school Rocker’s band played a concert in support of the rescue effort in Red Bank, NJ, not knowing that later he’d be scoring the Dunkirk trailer in Hollywood.

Maybe at the start of this pandemic, when people were singing on balconies and banging pots and pans, we approximated the Dunkirk Spirit. We were making masks for strangers, delivering pizzas to ERs, and felt compelled to care for our elderly and the immunocompromised. But how long can such altruism sustain itself?

Covid hasn’t gone away. We haven’t really defeated the microbe, in fact Nancy Pelosi just tested positive for the bug. You can be immunized and boosted as much as you like, but if you happen to be of a certain age, or have a chronic condition, it would be best to keep masking and avoiding indoor crowds whenever possible. It’s just that now, people would rather forget the pandemic. They are ready to get on with their lives.

Bob and I had a taste of the Dunkirk Spirit this past weekend. Our new Nashville neighborhood has a well established “Buy Nothing” Facebook group. The Bride has lured me back to Facebook because she noticed an elliptical machine that was up for grabs, and she knew we were in the market for one. I wrote to the owner that we’d stopped going to the gym in 2020, and that our “bodies and souls” could use her Nordic Track. Then the Bride wrote that we need to keep in shape for the wee grandchildren.

And Voila! Bob, the Groom and a friend hopped into a pick-up and delivered the elliptical to our family room. It appeared like magic, no shopping, no buying. Bob and I had posted the original kitchen appliances from our new/old house to Buy Nothing if you recall. We helped neighbors hoist and haul a perfectly good oven and a washer/dryer. I love this circle of giving. I just hope it’s not too late for my knees.

Ms Bean is delighted

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What’s In a Word?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on October 29, 2021| 6 Comments »

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Shakespeare

Some third or fourth cousin five times removed on Ancestry sent me a message, “Were you baby Rose?” And I had to admit, I was; I was actually called “Posie” when I was little. That was my nickname.

No one has called me that in decades, even though I’ve come to like it. To me, a posey is a small group of wildflowers, colorful and sweet, all tied together in a bow. But when I looked it up, most dictionaries say that posey is an adjective that means pretentious, someone looking for admiration, a poser!

“…characteristic of or being a poser, especially in being trendy or fashionable in a superficial way.”

You might wonder about its etymology. In French, posey means exactly what I thought it meant, a petit bouquet of flowers: “A small bunch of flowers typically given as a gift and often held together by a string around the flower stems.” And not surprisingly, if you spell it P O S Y in English, it means a small floral bouquet, like a tussie-mussie?!

The meaning of many words can be lost in translation, but the funniest news today is what Mark Zuckerberg decided to rename his company’s brand – “Meta.” Young people on Twitter were saying their elders would never figure out its meaning, and maybe they’re right. To me, meta always meant thinking about thinking. It was an academic word, used in academic circles, to get at the underlying currents of concepts. So I looked it up too, according to Merriam Webster, meta means:

 “…showing or suggesting an explicit awareness of itself or oneself as a member of its category : cleverly self-referential…. concerning or providing information about members of its own category.”

Like say, writing news about the news? I guess the Facebook genius forgot to hire a proofreader, because the word meta, in Hebrew, means DEAD!

“Facebook’s announcement that it is changing its name to Meta has caused quite the stir in Israel where the word sounds like the Hebrew word for “dead”.

To be precise, Meta is pronounced like the feminine form of the Hebrew word.

A number of people have taken to Twitter to share their take on the name under the hashtag #FacebookDead.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-59090067

Well, Facebook is dead to me. It’s been a few weeks and I’m doing just fine without it, although the Bride told me she signed me up for a Facebook neighborhood group that basically does some old-fashioned bartering. You need a baby humidifier, and someone nearby has one to give you! They need a dog gate, and you’ve got one for them. The idea is to consume less, and meet and connect with your neighbors. Huh, these younguns’!

So, even though I was feeling sick and achy from my Moderna booster shot this week, I packed up some old clothes and brought a box to the Bride’s house to add to the group. She was busy trimming hedges. I told her she could borrow her Dad’s electric trimmer, but she said it was a good workout. Like raking leaves instead of blowing them into your neighbor’s yard.

Her beautiful yard is peppered with skeletons and plastic grave stones for Halloween. I even added a French Bulldog skellie to the mix. This year the Grands will be Dracula and a Storm Trooper, and they’ll actually get to go Trick or Treating. Which means we’ll be giving out the candy again.

Maybe I should dress up as Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, with a posey nosegay of flowers on my dress? Happy Halloween Y’all!

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Commodified Attention

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on October 7, 2021| 1 Comment »

I’ve been thinking a lot about Facebook.

I had just posted my last essay “That’s HOT” when it went down this week. Only one “like” and no comments? I kept trying to refresh, and wondered for a second, “Could I have said something that violated their rules and regs?” What rules and regulations? So I posted a plea on Twitter – “Was Facebook HACKED?”

A woman I wasn’t following answered with some information about a guy who could help me get back into Facebook. I didn’t go there, because I don’t click on stuff like that from someone I don’t know; luckily, because Twitter took her Tweet down later.

Now I started to wonder if it really was all about ME?! We humans are so self-centered. I had to reread my post. Then phew, it wasn’t just me because Lo and Behold this popped up on Twitter:

“Not only #Facebook ‘s 3 Social Media platforms are down.. Even #Facebook Inc ‘s internal company servers are down.”

I have to confess I didn’t miss Facebook. Not one iota. So I asked myself why do I even check in and start scrolling down its pages?

  • To see and respond to comments on this WordPress blog
  • To read a lovely plethora of best birthday wishes
  • To like pictures of friends’ and relatives’ children
  • To love pictures of friends’ and relatives’ animals
  • To occasionally watch a cute Corgi video
  • To post increasingly sad and sardonic political news

I remember the Rocker telling me almost 15 years ago that Facebook was so over; he immediately captured my image in a straw hat and signed me up for Instagram. But over the past few years I’ve grown tired of shouting into my own echo chamber. I’ve unfriended bullying right wing people. I never click on a Facebook ad, although I’ve been known to regularly do this on Instagram… a platform now owned by Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook.

And I’ve been listening to smart people talk about algorithms. How each thumbs up “Like” we click on helps Facebook computers funnel more of the same content into our news feed, amplifying our own thoughts and desires. I began to understand how misinformation breeds and grows into division.

I always thought the Facebook platform was a solipsistic waste of time, but now I’ve come to believe it is much worse. And the phrase that knocked me over the edge, that stayed lodged in my brain like an ear worm was that these algorithms are, “commodifying our attention.” In other words, Marky Mark Z is selling our information and our time to the highest bidder.

And let’s face it, we Boomers don’t have a helluva a lotta time left! Yes, Facebook helped connect the Arab Spring but it also helped connect the Proud Boys. It helps you plan a high school reunion, but it also reminds you of recent memories when we weren’t all wearing masks. It hits the highs and lows of this human experience on its screen, but I’ve decided I want more highs and lows “In Real Life.”

I don’t need any extra aggravation, thank you very much. A temporary fix for your Facebook news feed can be found here:

“Facebook is now making these “Favorites” and “Recent” filters much more prominent, putting them right at the top of the News Feed as separate tabs that users can switch between.” 

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/31/22359782/facebook-news-feed-turn-off-algorithmic-ranking-favorites-most-recent-filter-bar

Finally, I’m about to break up with Facebook. I’ve grown tired of looking at myself in its mirror. Please don’t hate me.

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The Tragedy of the Commons

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Public Policy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I started off in 1966 at a college in Beacon Hill. Our children were born in the Berkshires. We spent every Spring on Martha’s Vineyard. I’ve always loved the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I remember fondly strolling around the Boston Commons watching the gorgeous swan boats in the pond. So I was a tad surprised when Bob mentioned, “the tragedy of the commons” while we were listening to President Cuomo. Our lives in New England were the opposite of tragic!

Turns out this is the perfect term to describe where we find ourselves today – starting to reopen the country amid a cultural war over masks.

“The tragedy of the commons is an economic problem in which every individual has an incentive to consume a resource at the expense of every other individual with no way to exclude anyone from consuming. It results in overconsumption, under investment, and ultimately depletion of the resource. As the demand for the resource overwhelms the supply, every individual who consumes an additional unit directly harms others who can no longer enjoy the benefits. Generally, the resource of interest is easily available to all individuals; the tragedy of the commons occurs when individuals neglect the well-being of society in the pursuit of personal gain.”  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tragedy-of-the-commons.asp

Bob usually has no luck trying to interest me in economics, but this was different, it’s behavioral economics. The tragedy (sometimes called “paradox”) of the commons refers to selfish individuals going after a “common” resource, like toilet paper, only to undermine its infrastructure causing the total collapse of the resource. And supposedly its origin is from the Old English – 18th Century settlers who would let their animals out to graze in the park at the center of town, the commons. This would result in very little park left for the people, or the animals for that matter.

Remember, in Europe only the wealthiest landowners had beautiful parks and gardens behind high, closed walls to enjoy. Designing parks in the center of our colonial cities represented America’s wish to avoid another class/caste system. And so we had a paradox. Over time, the “tragedy of the commons” came to represent not just landscape destruction, but road and bridge decay as well. It became a metaphor for power and authority trampling over the common good.

Whenever the ME became more important than the WE.

Last night I tuned into Netflix to watch The Great Hack. It is a stunning documentary that helps to explain how we actually got here in the first place! I’ve become accustomed to seeing ads for something I was looking up on one site appear on another, but I had no idea how incredibly my data, and yours, have been harvested, tracked and targeted – in particular by governments and political parties. The film delves into Cambridge Analytica, and how they weaponized our data to influence our 2016 election.

Maybe you’re not one to watch horror movies during a pandemic, but this shows you how, without a drop of blood, Mr T the first ME president, was elected by 0.23% in Michigan!

“…this data trail is being leveraged against us, every day: to sell us things, get us to vote or to stay home from the polls, to divide or unite us according to the whims of whoever has paid enough to take our digital threads and weave them into a web of their own desires….

It uses the scandal as a framework to illustrate the data mining structures and algorithms that are undermining individual liberty and democratic society, one Facebook like and meme at a time.”  https://www.wired.com/story/the-great-hack-documentary/

It’s strange isn’t it? The Boston Tea Party of 1773 kicked off our liberation from colonialism, and Mark Zuckerberg turned a dating site for Harvard’s elite students into a data capturing monolith. From his dorm room, long after I was walking through the Commons to Filene’s Basement. Could it be that this great technological connection we are all needing more and more, isn’t at all about the WE?

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The Dragon Has Insomnia

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

How else can one explain what is happening in China over the last few years? Mr T Tweets at 3am, and now he’s calling the Taiwanese Prez, which is like snubbing your nose at your big (or little depending on your POV) brother or sister. Only this sibling doesn’t sleep, and could suffocate you with his or her pillow all while continuing to pollute our environment.

Remember back in February when I recommended a compelling non-fiction book about China? “Age of Ambition – Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the new China” by Evan Osnos. https://mountainmornings.net/2016/02/27/mj-fever/

If you’re not one for the long read, how about a couple of articles in this month’s Atlantic, “China’s Great Leap Backward?” Kisssinger explains China 101 and tells us how to avoid a trade war, among other things. And James Fallows tells us that freedom is even harder to find in the new China; “It has become repressive in a way that it has not been since the Cultural Revolution.”

We Americans have been asleep. We don’t want to wake to the nightmare of last month’s election, and why should we? We would rather come home from work, open a craft beer, and watch Netflix. Only the latest sci-fi series I told you about, Black Mirror, is actually coming true in China! https://mountainmornings.net/2016/10/25/feeling-twitchy/

If you need a respite from politics, and all the mud-slinging of this election, I have a Netflix show to recommend from England. “Black Mirror” (a trope to our attachment to the smart screen) is about how technology is changing the course of human history in a very scary, sinister and smart way. I’ve only seen the first few episodes of Season 1, created by Charlie Brooker, but if you are wondering where our dystopian obsession with devices is going, tune into the future.

So that’s what I said in October…and now China is creating a nightmare for its citizens with their tacit consent.

It is collecting “Social Credit Scores,” in other words, the dragon has a highly developed Big Brother with a big pillow under his head. All electronic purchasing data, social media networks, and algorithmic sorting devices are being collected to give each citizen a score between 350 and 950. This system not only monitors whether or not you could pay for your apartment. but how compliant you are politically, and what kind of spouse you might make! If you hit a score of 700+ you are allowed to travel to Singapore…

Black Mirror is no longer science fiction, it is becoming fact. The Regime can now keep a tally of any message with a mention of Tienanmen Square for example, which would not only lower your score, but those of your friends and family! All of the scores are available to everybody in China online, and strangely enough like salmon swimming furiously upstream, citizens have embraced this system.

And just like the American 12 year old I overheard bragging about how many Instagram followers she had, I am finding this brave new world frightening. After all, we have Google and Amazon and Facebook et al collecting our data, but our government isn’t quite yet in cahoots with them, is it? http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186

It’s enough to make me want to crawl right back under the covers and hibernate the winter away. But first a prayer for what it’s worth, please God, let Mr T pick Romney over Giuliani for Secretary of State. We don’t need any more bulls roaming free in a China shop. Let me know when it’s time to wake up and get off the grid. From an exhibition in LA at the Broad Museum – this is Jenny Holzer 1979 – it’s strangely prescient

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Vulgar Vice Mayor?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on December 1, 2016| 4 Comments »

Beware what you put out there on social media. Through my jet lag fog I witnessed a battle royal last night on Facebook, one my sweet LA niece had no reason to be embroiled in, and I thought how a Shakespearian tragedy can unfold in real time with absolutely no effort. This semantic sparring had something to do, well everything really, with our President Elect (who shall forever be named Mr T to me). Just as our local political news is indirectly related to a newly discovered free/for/all/climate of intimidation and fear in the wake of last month’s election.

A young Black man, an activist who moved to Cville about the same time we did, is being vilified in the local press over some Twitter comments he made years ago. Wes Bellamy was a high school history teacher and the Vice Mayor of the Cville City Council – two positions I just learned he either voluntarily left or was asked to leave yesterday. I first met him at the Paramount when he was introducing a petition to remove General Robert E Lee’s statue from Lee Park. It was before the Confederate Flag issue had raised its ugly head in parts of the South. He struck me as sincere, and fired up about social justice.

But because a local blogger found a few 8 year old Tweets where Bellamy said some repugnant things, statements others have concluded were racist and sexist including, wait for it, “…beanpole body white women in these sundresses”…thank you for that sir since my beanpole days are far behind me, Bellamy issued this apology on Facebook:

“In the course of trying to mature and find my way I came to some false conclusions about the world around me and made them known,” Bellamy wrote. “Since then, I’ve furthered my education and gotten married. I’m raising daughters. I have and continue to strive to be a better man, community leader, educator, public servant and overall person. I work every day to become a better version of myself.” 

What surprises me is that Mr T has gotten away with saying and Twittering much worse. But I guess this is what male White privilege is all about. Cville Weekly calls our attention to an Albemarle County Supervisor, Chris Dumler, who was accused of raping a woman and continued to do his job while in jail and he had no intention of leaving his position! I was always loathe to use the term ” high tech lynching for uppity Blacks,” a la Clarence Thomas for you young’uns, but in this case it would actually seem to fit the bill. http://www.c-ville.com/tweetstorm-bellamy-apologizes-inappropriate-posts/#.WEBfjRRaHlI

So in the spirit of the season let me call your attention to an article my friend’s son ironically posted on Facebook from the NY Times, an essay on why social media may not just be an uncivilized wasteland and vortex of your precious time, but may also be detrimental to your overall health and career:  “There are many issues with social media, from its corrosion of civic life to its cultural shallowness, but the argument I want to make here is more pragmatic: You should quit social media because it can hurt your career.” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/jobs/quit-social-media-your-career-may-depend-on-it.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=0

As my dear late Sister-in-Law Anita would say, this is all “STUPID!” She had a way of seeing through the fog of problems, and getting directly to a point. She would tell our lovely niece to cut all ties with people who hate people and spread nasty comments all over her Facebook feed. I’ve lost a few friends and family myself this past year, and I’m honored to be in her company.

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man” or woman.  the Bard   This is the long view from our LA AirBnB. img_5664

 

 

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It’s About the Guns Stupid

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on August 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »

This will be a short post. Here is today’s news in guns: Today the man who took a bullet for Ronald Reagan died. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/us/politics/james-s-brady-symbol-of-fight-for-gun-control-dies-at-73.html?_r=0  I’m glad Bob didn’t work last night. This is what happened in his hospital’s community http://www.nbc29.com/story/26189153/5-dead-after-murder-suicide-in-culpeper

Every comment about this in the paper and on Facebook is all about praying for the family; but believe me, I don’t think praying at this point will do much good. It might help you to pray. But the grandmother who found her daughter and her grand daughters lying in pools of their own blood, blood that her son-in-law shed because he decided to pick up a gun, will never be the same again. The coward even shot himself, so this grandmother is deprived of a trial, of swift judgement, or even forgiveness if she were so inclined. I just don’t get it.

If you haven’t joined Everytown for Gun Safety yet, please think about it. I know there are more of us out there, more moms and grandmothers who know it’s about the guns. This happened in Maine a week ago http://www.pressherald.com/2014/07/28/deaths-of-5-in-saco-could-rank-among-maines-deadliest-crimes/ Another family of 5 dead.

We need to keep guns out of the hands of abusers, stalkers and the mentally ill…it’s as simple as that. It’s about the guns.

 

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For the Love of Animals

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2014| 6 Comments »

Shouldn’t Animal Rights be a bi-partisan thing? We all know the EPA is a left-wing agency and that gun owners and hunting enthusiasts are pretty much right-sided. Yet shouldn’t they all want to protect the animals they love/eat/hunt equally? I posted an innocuous sentence on Facebook about one Canadian Goose and started a mini-firestorm.

Animal Rights. It’s a relatively new movement that gained steam with the publication of a book, Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer in 1975. Before we knew it, chimps were being freed from laboratory cages and walking in a fur coat down Madison Avenue could be considered dangerous. For me, I drew the line somewhere in the broad/general/middle. I grew up with dogs, I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t have a dog and though I never really dressed them up (except for that one Xmas picture), I considered each and every one a part of the family.

But my anthropomorphism stopped there. If we needed our medical students to learn something of a child’s vein and practicing on a cat was necessary, so be it. Today the dog and cat labs at most medical schools have been replaced by virtual learning devices. Sacrificing a rabbit to see if a woman was pregnant was common in the last century, but experimenting on a rabbit’s eye to test mascara seemed senseless. Even today, scientists will use pigs and not just crash test dummies, to determine the best, safest design in car seats for children. Maybe you can see where I’m heading?

If an animal’s life could serve a greater good – save a child’s life for instance – then I would be alright with that, within of course some pre-required ethical limits.

What’s troubling me lately is so many small, but extremely vocal groups have emerged that would like to see pretty much all animals exist only in their natural environments; even as we humans dig, damage and develop their natural habitat. Let’s get rid of the horse drawn carriages in NYC! What about Charleston, they are a big industry in SC. And though I do feel that Orcas should probably not be swimming around in a tiny Sea World pool, I’m surprised by the latest rally that will be taking place this weekend in front of the John Paul Jones Arena. You see the circus is coming to town!

A group called Voices for Animals says “…circus animals spend about 11 months a year traveling, chained up and isolated.” They are distributing a video that shows an elephant being abused to further their cause. “The tools of the training include bull hooks, which are similar to fireplace pokers and electric prods. Animals are beaten, they are isolated. Highly social animals are isolated,” said Wendy Harper, a member of Voices for Animals.       http://www.nbc29.com/story/25323589/animal-rights-group-protests-circus-coming-to-jpj

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus of course have denied any abusive treatment and say their trainers have absolutely lovely relationships with their animals. The truth I’m sure is somewhere in the middle, depending on the trainer and the size of the circus. But my kids grew up going to the Big Apple Circus every year, and it was a wonderful experience all around. And for the Love Bug, going to the zoo with friends is a favorite outing. Where else would we see a giraffe in the US? I remember bringing the Rocker to see a brand new baby Rhinoceros born at the Bronx Zoo, I’m sure I was more thrilled than he was.

Should we send our Giant Pandas back to China from the National Zoo? Send all the horses pulling tourists off to a farm in Montana and the elephants in the circus back to India? Let’s send all those geese back to Canada! I believe the Big Apple doesn’t have an elephant act anymore, partially because there are not a lot of them left, and maybe also because of the protesters. But our species doesn’t get to lay waste to animal habitats, pull more and more fossil fuels from the ground and continue to make trillions of dollars with disastrous consequences for our planet AND tell us where and when we can see wild animals. Sorry folks, it doesn’t work like that.

Dogs in the Wild while surrounded by an Invisible Fence

Dogs in the Wild while surrounded by an Invisible Fence

My Facebook sentence? “And in breaking Cville news, a lone Canadian Goose walked across Rt 29 N this afternoon and all 5 lanes stopped for him #whyiloveva”

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Pretty Woman

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 12, 2013| 2 Comments »

1993 A farm in PA

1993 A farm in PA

When I first joined Facebook, I thought it was a bunch of solipsistic nonsense, and I said so, all the while encouraging my friends to join. Why? Because for me, the youngest of 6 children to be raised as an only child, it seemed prudent. My foster mother didn’t know how to drive and she was old enough to be my grandmother – which in those days was really old! I was marooned, on top of a hill in Victory Gardens after the war, and to top it off I was sent to Catholic school.

Facebook was a way for me to reconnect; to see all the new baby cousins, to catch up with old friends, to stay in touch with our French summer student. Plus, it could interface with my blog!

Yet something was amiss. My friends noticed it too. And it’s not just people accounting for every minute of their day, or all the targeted ads popping up. It was all this preening in front of a camera, young people changing their profile pictures like you would change your clothes. The nuns would not have approved. And yet, here we are at the end of 2013, and President Obama is taking a “selfie” with David Cameron and Denmark’s Prime Minister, Helle Thorning Schmidt: http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/12/10/250027162/to-thy-own-selfie-be-true-but-not-in-all-places-at-all-times

Now who am I to say where one should take a selfie? After all, even our Person of the Year, the dear Pope Francis himself, allowed his selfie to be taken with a trio of Italian teenagers. He said he wanted to meet with them “…for selfish reasons … because you have in your heart a promise of hope.You are bearers of hope. You, in fact, live in the present, but are looking at the future. You are the protagonists of the future, artisans of the future,” the pope told the pilgrims.

“Make the future with beauty, with goodness and truth…Have courage. Go forward. Make noise.”

Well I certainly think it takes courage to attempt to take a selfie and post it anywhere on social media! Once I learned to actually push that little circular button to turn the lens around in my iPhone, I had to practice . Before, I might have snapped a picture in a mirror. Now I must hold the phone at arm’s length and attempt to push the button with the same hand – all the while getting into the “right” light and avoiding a double chin! Still a nearly impossible task.

As we are about to close 2013 and perhaps leave the word “selfie” on the scrap heap of history, I hope we can all laugh at my family selfies – a tasteful tutorial from the kids, and my feeble attempts at last weekend’s hospital party. OH, and at the top of this post is the latest profile picture for Facebook, which brings us into the 1990s with my Pretty Woman polka dot dress.

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The Flip Side

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 7, 2013| 6 Comments »

Something psychedelic has been happening lately on Facebook. A friend from my high school’s Class of ’66 issued a challenge to her classmates to change our profile picture to our teenage self, preferably sporting that iconic hairstyle, the flip. Our generation bridged the gap between the long, straight hair type and the teased within an inch of your life Peggy Sue Got Married type. And nestled right there inbetween the greatest social changes imaginable, lots of us wore the flip with impunity.   CLR High School Web 20131107

Once your virtual self looks sixteen again, memories start floating back. I entered a public high school fresh out of Catholic school. My hair was the least of my worries. I had a severe case of poison ivy on my face Freshman year, and I only knew a few people. The bulk of Sacred Heart grads went on to a Catholic high school; I put my foot down. I was tired of memorizing Catechism. A girl named Margie introduced me to a boy named Bob and from that moment on my fate was sealed.

We sat together at the ‘nerd’ lunch table, which at that prehistoric, precomputer time meant the outliers. Those kids who didn’t play a sport, didn’t wear black leather, didn’t fit in. What we did like to do was drama club, so we would try out for all the plays and look dramatic over tuna fish sandwiches. Our town was salt of the earth blue collar, but most of this lunch table was headed for college. My counselor put me on track for secretarial school, so even though I wasn’t in many of their classes, they accepted me. We were brothers and sisters in Terpsichore.

Some of us became the Big Chill Thanksgiving troupe, gathering again year after year over turkey and cranberry sauce. Too bad my eyes are closed.12156_101119189911809_6561742_n

And it may be hard to believe, but we had a student at our school who suffered from polio. Before the ADA, this girl had to be home-schooled because she was in a wheelchair. I knew she lived in Victory Gardens, and that was all I knew about her. I remembered being lined up at Sacred Heart in the hallway, having to swallow some pink liquid. This was the first polio vaccine, and so I guess our generation bridged that gap as well.

Bob was just telling me how polio is making a comeback mostly because of war-torn Syria. How health officials can’t cross borders to get the vaccine to millions of children. He said it was nearly eradicated world-wide, a gem in the WHO world, and now this creeping viral outbreak.

Following reports of a cluster of 22 acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases on 17 October 2013 in the Syrian Arab Republic, wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) – See more at: http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek.aspx#sthash.FoP4dKlo.dpuf

Polio doesn’t need a mosquito as a vector, it is passed from person to person which makes it imminently treatable, and even more deadly. On this #ThrowbackThursday, let’s flip this disease around. Consider giving a charitable gift to Unicef this holiday season to help refugee children, to help contain this epidemic. http://www.unicef.org.au/charity-gifts/polio-preventers.aspx

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