Acting Citizen: What about those who know better?

By James Knudsen

While much of the nation was breathing a sigh of relief on January 20, 2021, I was enduring self-inflicted turmoil from the Facebook universe. In fairness, I fired the first shot. Immediately after Joe Biden took the oath of office, I sent a two-word statement via Facebook Messenger. The message was, “It’s OVER.” The recipient was a former classmate who has persisted with his belief in “The Big Lie.” Make no mistake, he’s through the looking glass. Up is down, down is up, Biden lost, Trump won, IN A LANDSLIDE!!!

Goines On: Goines speaks to G

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Goines’ heart sped up the morning he realized that he knew almost as much about his creator as his creator knew about him! Goines, a character in his creator’s fictional portrait, on a par with his creator!…So why had Goines been content to let the author lay out Goines’ thoughts and doings without Goines ever raising his hand to speak out to him?

Acting Citizen: Sheep and Fish

Facebook is to blame for this

By James Knudsen

“A horse, a saddle, and land.” Those are the three things my maternal grandfather suggested I ask my father for when it came time for me to start making my way in life. My grandfather was born in the village of Doze Ribeiras on the island of Terceira, one of the major islands of the Azores archipelago. Born Laurentino Domingoes Cota on February 9, 1900, he came with his family to the United States at the age of seven. First by ship across the Atlantic and then by train crossing the American continent. One of earliest stories of his life is of him losing his hat when he stuck his head out the window of a train. He pleaded with the conductor to stop the train, but I suspect his lack of English and being only seven did little to advance his cause. The family settled in the San Joaquin Valley and joined the growing community of Portuguese immigrants whose families remain a significant part of the Central Valley today.

A Technological Assault on the Human Brain

By Dr. Ely Lazar & Dr. Adele Thomas

[Republished here by permission of the authors from their “Lifestyle Tips for Over 50s,” affiliated with their website “Passionate Retirees,” January 2, 2019.]

Five decades ago I read a book with the title As A Man Thinketh. The phrase that stood out for me was, “As a man (woman) thinketh in his (her) heart so is he (she)”. The concept in the statement is that your dominant thoughts tend to reveal where your life is going. What you focus on will demonstrate your purpose in life. There is a lot of truth to this principle. Today our focus is so inextricably linked to technology that there are disturbing new developments in what is happening to our brains.

The Loneliest Liberal: Standing up for the right to silently kneel

By James Knudsen

Look, I get it, Facebook is a part of our world now; it links people from around the globe and helps bring people closer together. That is, when it doesn’t resemble a bathroom wall filled with scrawled screeds from people who really haven’t considered all the sides of an issue – or, at a bare minimum, two.

I’m being targeted

Pro & con

By Jim Rix

I recently viewed an episode of Adam Ruins Everything (truTV)^* in which comedian Adam Conover exposes internet services like Facebook and Google for eavesdropping on your e-mail and activity and then providing your profile to prospective advertisers.

Break-up

By Moristotle

A couple of days ago, I lost it. The anger and upset I have felt over the U.S. Presidential election surged up in a wave that broke on the rock of a Facebook-Messenger interchange I was having with someone (whom I have “met” only electronically) who had posted that he was “sick and tired of the whining of Hillary supporters.” The crash dashed me into my summarily blocking and “unfriending” him – a curious term, given that we could hardly have been thought friends, although he is local to me and had even approached me via Messenger and offered to pay me for some editing – hence our being “friends” on Facebook.