For the first time ever last week, Facebook sent me a warning. Granted, I wasn’t suspended, only put in detention with a “restriction.” Why?
Because I posted a WAPO article about police stopping cars in a TX county if they think women are going to cross borders to obtain an abortion. You read that right. Passing an ordinance legislators call “abortion trafficking” is the latest ploy of religious zealots designed to frighten women into submission. Here’s what I said with the link:
“If this sounds like a dystopian novel, it’s not. It’s real. Pro or anti-choice this is not what democracy looks like.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/01/texas-abortion-highways/
And Facebook didn’t like it: “Some of your content in the last year didn’t follow our Community Standards.”
Maybe I should feel honored? I wonder exactly what word triggered their algorithm – dystopian? Because watching TN legislators pass laws about decorum in front of Covenant families asking for a modicum of gun safety legislation, while celebrating the Love Bug’s birthday with a gaggle of tweens at a Barbie movie felt pretty Orwellian!
Republicans aside, Bob is in the middle of tearing up our house. Staining a fence wasn’t enough in his ongoing quest to upgrade this old cottage core house. We had wanted to save the original pine floors in my snug and the main living/dining area, only to find out later they weren’t really salvageable. We all know if someone were to drop dead on the street in front of him, Bob could save a life. He can also sew up a laceration like a plastic surgeon. What I pleaded with him NOT to do was lay the new engineered hardwood himself.
But thanks to the wonders of YouTube, my husband has turned into a floor guy; along with the fence guy and fine woodworking guy, and the all around Mr Fixit guy. On the one hand, he’s happy learning to do something new. On the other hand, my house is almost always a construction zone. In the past, like 30 years ago, he laid tile in our kitchen. But that was fun, sort of, and we were young, definitely. Now, he’s busy introducing his grandson, the Pumpkin, to power tools.
I find myself lost in memories of wood burning stoves and diapers hanging on a clothesline. Milestones included buying our first house and bringing the newborn Bride home. Her first tooth was miraculous. She started walking on our orange shag carpet. My first published essay was about black ice in the Berkshire Eagle. Then the Rocker was born and he lit up our house like a perpetual motion machine. How could I know that sometime in the future I’d be censored by a large, strange social media corporation?
I read last night that the First Lady has Covid. I wish her well and hope that Joe is staying isolated. After all, if his polls are still running even with a twice impeached, ex-president facing a charge of insurrection who is too afraid to even debate his challengers, well then the next milestone may be just as incomprehensible.
MountainMornings 